[WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 27, Issue 10

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 10/3/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 10/3/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have the phone number of my local library.
> >
>
> So supose I claim that "heterocycles can have many nitrogens but only
> one sulfur or oxygen in any ring" and cite page 1176 Organic chemistry
> Clayden, Greeves, Warren and Wothers ISBN 0-19-850346-6. Now the book
> exists but your local libary may not have a copy so it takes time for
> you to get it. That is quite a lot of effort (fortunetly in this case
> the book is a fairly standard text book so there should be at least
> one other person who has a copy). This gets really fun when someone
> decides to reference something that can only be aquired from the
> public records office.


There's a difference between making sources necessary and making them
sufficient. Just because something has a listed source doesn't mean it can't
be removed. In the case of obscure sources we have to use our best
judgement, including considering the user who has cited the source and the
reasonableness of the statement being claimed. But something without a
listed source, for which no source can be found, should definitely be
removed from the article.

Anthony

P.S., I'm sorry for so many replies to this thread, but I consider citing
sources to be one of the most important things for an encyclopedia article.