Message: 8 Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 23:42:08 -0700 From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Archives as sources proposal To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Message-ID: 444095C0.1040106@telus.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Sean Barrett wrote:
Oskar Sigvardsson stated for the record:
Honestly, the verifiability argument doesn't fly at all with me. If you pick information out of an archive, it's most certainly verifiable, someone else can check it out as well. I realise that
that
is a hassle, but that doesn't change the fact that it is verfiable.
I have a specific example: the Wikipedia article on a notable
historical
figure, like all other sources I have checked, states that he had
two
wives (in series, not parallel). However, an official
government-issued
marriage certificate on file in a county clerk's office proves that
he
had another wife between those two. What will I be permitted to add
to
this person's article?
It would make no sense not to include the mid-wife. If you saw the marriage certificate, and it is available for anyone who goes to that clerk's office to see it is verifiable. Is it ethical to maintain something which you know to be false just to be in complance with technical regulations?
You can mention your dilemma on the talk page with a request that everyone look out for a citable source for this information. I think that would cover the ethics of it without opening the verifiability floodgates, and might eventually lead to the information being inserted within the rules.
Zero.
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