On 12/18/06, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Sarah wrote:
The problem is that material we use as sources must be available to the general public,...
Which I understand to include such things as legal databases. In theory at least, anyone in the general public can do what is necessary to acquire access to such a database. We certainly don't require that sources are immediately available to anyone.
Any member of the public must be able to access the source and also see what the source says. So Zero's search would have to be very straightforward, one that no one could argue with or interpret differently, and it would have to be a search of a database that a member of the public could reasonably be expected to gain access to. And arguably his conclusion, that no legal scholar holds a different opinion (or whatever words he used), would have to be notable and relevant in a way that didn't invoke OR, otherwise it would be like saying no mathematician believes 2 plus 2 equals 5.
The NOR policy is clear that "anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source."
Sarah