JAY JG wrote:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
If I see a reference in an encyclopedia I expect it to have been verified by the author of the article, or else the author should state if he has attempted to verify it and been unsuccessful. This is important information about the quality of the citation and must not be omitted.
Your expectations are not in line with reality. Encyclopedia articles use secondary references all the time, and do not insist that the author of the article check every primary reference. Historians, scientists, etc. are quoted all the time.
I'm not too familiar with standard practice in encyclopedias, but in journal and conferences papers, it's considered fairly standard to cite the secondary source if that's where the quote or other information came from, even if the secondary source itself cites a primary source---citing the primary source is taken to be an assertion that you've personally gotten the information from the primary source, or at least verified that it's there. If it were discussed in running text (as something particularly murky or controversial often would be), it would be with phrasing along the lines of "Smith (1997) places the population of Moscow during this period at 2,321, citing a census of 1854 consistent with various other reports." If the census of 1854 is completely undisputed, then it could be simply mentioned directly, but the citation would still be something like "The census of 1854 placed the population of Moscow at 2,321 (Smith 1997)"---citing the census itself would be inappropriate unless you've personally looked it up.
Quotations seem often to be unattributed, but IMO this is also a somewhat undesirable practice, especially given how many quotations are actually improperly attributed by hearsay.
-Mark