On 8 Dec 2006 at 09:09, Luna <lunasantin(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Assuming your summary of events is accurate, it seems
that the source isn't
neutral. That being the case, I'm of the opinion that it might be reliable
in some cases, but not in others. For example, I doubt you'd find many
objections to using a company's own information page, when looking for the
date a company was founded; for more complex or potentially controversial
information, however, getting information from third party, neutral sources
is probably preferred.
Even such simple things as founding dates could in some cases be
subject to spin, manipulation, and debate. A company or organization
with a complex history (with mergers, splits, acquisitions,
reorganizations, buying the rights to a name from a completely
different entity and renaming the parent company accordingly, etc.)
can have several different dates that can with some logic be claimed
as their "founding date", and an official corporate site will use the
one that their marketing flacks think fits their current desired
image; if they want to emphasize that they've been around a while
they use the earlier of the possible dates, while if they want to
claim to be all new and different they use the newer one. However,
Wikipedia should never be beholden to the current corporate image as
opposed to the true facts.
--
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