[WikiEN-l] The vexed issue of sources

[Ken Arromdee]

On Sat, 9 Dec 2006, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> The source being used in the article is not the writing on the wall.
> The source is the few Wikipedians that have seen the writing. While
> the writing is probably reliable, the few Wikipedians are not.

By this reasoning, a source isn't a book, it's the few Wikipedians who have
read the book.

How exactly is the writing on the wall different from a book?  (Sure, not
every Wikipedian can go read the writing, but not every Wikipedian has access
to a particular book either.)