[Foundation-l] Oral Citations project: People are Knowledge

[Thomas Morton]

> Here's essays from Tom Morris (another philosopher):
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tom_Morris/The_Reliability_Delusion
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tom_Morris/The_Definition_Delusion
>
>
While some editors do tend to argue binary options over sources, in general
this is not the case (and if you are observing it as so, it's probably one
of the battlefield areas where such things do occur).

WP:RS has always struck me as being quite carefully worded to suggest
factors of a source that editors should critically consider in
determining reliability (publisher, author, content).

Take for example the Daily Mail, which we quite often discuss in relation to
BLP articles. This is treated as potentially reliable media source as it is
published and edited, on the other hand it has a reputation for tabloid
sensationalism so naturally it's not the best of sources to use in
biographical articles on its own.

There are other examples too. For example Torrent Freak is considered fairly
unreliable as a source, but specifically for factual information about the
Torrent community (and associated) it is explicitly considered
acceptable. TechCrunch is considered fairly reliable for technology news -
but has a recognised tendency for sensationalism which requires caution.

In the "Context sensitivity" portion of that essay Morris makes some good
suggestions - but I see that approach taken literally all the time... sure
in some areas (and for some editors) the idea of a reliable source is very
absolute. But largely this is not the case. In contentious areas it is
applied much more uncritically, of course, as all policies are - which is
why you will see much more binary classification in those areas.

:)

Tom