[WikiEN-l] Let us not attack sources as unreliable without reason

[Tony Sidaway]

JAY JG said:
>>From: "Tony Sidaway" <minorityreport at bluebottle.com>
>> > SlimVirgin wrote:
>> > I agree that citing the original document is better than citing a
>> > secondary source, though others might argue that makes it hard for
>> > the reader and other editors to check that Wikipedia is quoting
>> > accurately.
>> >
>>I do hope that nobody would make such an argument.  We should always
>>cite primary sources where at all possible, and this instance shows the
>>importance of correctly handling secondary sources.
>
> Indeed.  And the way *not* to handle them is to put caveats beside them
>  stating (in so many words)  that "we have not been able to verify
> these as  truthful" (which, of course, we don't do).

But we must.  If a secondary source cannot be verified it is useless.  And
to make it absolutely plain, I advocate that *all* secondary sources
should be handled with care.   The extremely loose wording of the citation
was what caused the problems--it was attributed to a primary source with
the appendage "cited by", while it was plain to all of us there we were
not in a position to attribute the figure to the primary source as a
matter of fact.
That is how *not* to cite a secondary source--to give it the appearance of
a citation of a primary source.
Using a secondary source, we must take care to attribute the opinion (or
estimate, or whatever) *to the secondary source*, appending any claimed
primary sources to aid the user in his own research.  We can state as a
matter of fact that the secondary source says such-and-such and claims
that this is sourced from so-and-so.  Unless we know for a fact that
so-and-so also says such-and-such (in which case we wouldn't neet the
secondary source) we cannot say "so-and-so says such-and-such, as cited by
Sec & Ary  Sauce."