On 12/6/05, Magnus Manske magnus.manske@web.de wrote:
Gerrit Holl wrote:
Magnus Manske wrote:
- this can be gamed (mark it as a minor edit, or write "google" under
sources, or give some non-existing or out-of print book, or a book in an obscure language, or set up your own fake page and then give it as source, or...)
What's wrong with using an out-of-print book as a source? It might be the only source for this 18-people remote saami village in the Kiruna municipality of Lapland?
Nothing's wrong with that. But if I were a subtle vandal and had to cite my sources, I might cite some out-of-print book, hoping noone will get a hold of a copy soon. Thus, using "cite your sources" to prevent subtle vandalism doesn't work.
I'd raise the standard for anonymous contributors even higher, though, especially for potentially controversial facts. Just citing an out-of-print book that no one can get a hold of isn't enough (of course, the number of these books is decreasing thanks to projects like Google Print).
Wikipedia can do without the really obscure facts for a few months. Put 'em in the talk page and/or list them on [[Wikipedia:alleged facts that need to be researched]].
Anthony