[WikiEN-l] The vexed issue of sources

[charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com]

 "Thomas Dalton" wrote

> For an edit to be verifiable it has to be verifiable by someone other
> than the person that made the edit. We're not talking about
> reliability of sources - it's obvious that a TV show is a perfectly
> reliable primary source - we're talking about whether someone else can
> come along and check that what the original editor said is true
> (assuming the source is right - a wikipedia article can never be more
> reliable than the sources it uses). It's not necessary that everyone
> be able to verify it, but a reasonable number of reasonably
> unconnected people should be able to, otherwise we're open to any
> number of hoaxes.

The _actual policy_ is based on the concept of a reliable published source. Now, there is a big quibble over 'reliable' and a smaller quibble over 'published'. One of the quibbles over 'published' would be to address the point about tiny numbers of hard copies, or other such issues. 

Charles

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