Walter van Kalken wrote: Britannica has to defend every letter of it before they can get published. The same is true for all other major encyclopedias. Why wouldn't it be true for us? Aren't we trying to make an encyclopedia here?

On 12/3/05, Walter van Kalken <walter(a)vankalken.net> wrote: I'm jumping in the train. There is a limit to what can be sourced, and what cannot. Not *every* word can be. But every fact *should* be sourced, in an ideal world, yes. I agree. Quoting you : "Wikipedia is based on trust" Yes, and no. Yes, there are certain editors I trust, as we do all, and others I distrust. I will trust you on the Soi article, because *I* know you live there. In that, in my eyes, *you* are a known source. But where I trust you, there could (and should) be 20 editors who distrust you. Not because of you, because in fact, they don't know you, but because then they would go and look for opposing sources, or verifying sources to support the facts you put in your articles. And I think that is good. No, Wikipedia *should* not be solely based on trust. I think we, editors, are too often forgetting that *we* know to trust some people, but that readers, who never ever get to hit the "history" button, should not take us for granted,a nd that we should give them every possible means to verify that what is stated in an article is indeed verifiable. I remember when I did my first presentation of Wikipedia. The same question that comes up all the time came up that time also. "If anyone can edit, how can you trust". I was new to the whole thing, so I gave what I thought was the best answer at the time "Well, if *you* find a mistake, correct it, and there are xxx contributors who look at articles and do rc patrolling, etc." At that point a woman in the assistance got up and said "Well, I have an answer to this. I believe that the fact that Wikipedia *can* be distrusted is a good thing. In this world where so much information is given to us with no background, no distanciation, the fact that Wikipedia keeps people wondering is good, because it obliges them to go and find other sources, to diversify their views on one subject". That opened a whole different view on the projects to me. Mind you, I am not saying that we *should* have mistakes in the articles, on the contrary. But sourcing, which in my view is crucial, as Danny,Sj and Michael pointed out, should not be seen as having for sole role that of making Wikipedia look "better", (ie. we are right, that guy said it) but as our due to the readers. See for yourself. We are striving to write an encyclopedia, but by definition, we don't have it all. You, reader, can trust us, because we can direct you to other sources where we got our information, but at the same time, you should see for yourself, and here is how you can do it, follow the link. And also, please, if you disagree, if we've got something wrong, by all means, add your source, and their point of view. Without sources, we pretend *we* are the source, and I believe that is wrong. We should be *one source* not *the source* Best, Delphine -- ~notafish

Brian wrote: No, we're trying to be better. :-P It's not a question of defence. It's a question of mindsets and attitudes. It's a question of drawing people in and having them want to belong. It's not about adversarial structures that alienate people. We are on the same side when it comes to identifying the fundamental problem that we want to solve. Ec