slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/5/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
And that's fine, Mark. But we can't name the people.
Why not? We name a lot of people on Wikipedia. Basically, anyone who has achieved any sort of notability, whether good or bad.
Usenet can be used as primary-source material i.e. as a source of information about itself. But as soon as we name John Smith (real name) who has been called X in a Usenet post, that counts as using Usenet as a secondary source. Our policy states that our secondary sources must be credible, reputable, and in some way authoritative: see, for example, WP:NOR. It's admittedly hard to define these terms, but Usenet doesn't count as any of those by any standard, not least because the posts are largely anonymous. So even if we think that John Smith really is an X, we can't repeat it in Wikipedia until, for example, a newspaper repeats the claim. Then we can use it.
No, this isn't using a secondary source. If we are stating the fact "[X] has been named 'Kook of the Year' by the UseNet newsgroup alt.usenet.kooks", then we're using alt.usenet.kooks as a primary source for the award. If we were saying "[X] *is* a UseNet kook", then we would be using it as a secondary source to back up that fact. But we aren't saying anyone is a kook---merely reporting that someone else has said so. In short, the article is about the group and what they've said, using their words as a primary source for what they've said.
-Mark