[WikiEN-l] Why the article warning templates should go on the *article*, not the talk page

[David Gerard]

Article warning templates should go on the *article*, not the talk page:

  http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-jul23-06.html#wikipedia

"The fact that Wikipedia encourages us to use these notices give us
confidence that Wikipedia is putting our interests over its own.

"So, why is it that you don't see such frank notices in traditional
sources such as newspapers and encyclopedias? Is it because their
articles don't ever suffer from any of these human weaknesses? Oh,
sure, newspapers issue corrections after the fact, and "This is
non-neutral opinion" is implicit on the Op-Ed page. But why isn't
there any finer grain framing of the reliability and nature of what's
presented to us in their pages? Can we come to any conclusion except
that traditional authorities are more interested in maintaining
authority than in helping us reach the truth?"

That second para is important: newspapers are not Reliable Sources.
Anyone who's been following the Wikiasari media-vaporware non-story
may be surprised to know there *is no story* - Wikiasari was the name
of an older project, search.wikia.com was a ghost site they've had to
reactivate in the wake of this story ... the whole thing came from an
idle Jimbo quote about Google and a journalist spotting
search.wikia.com, and adding 2+2 and getting 2237943297729432.

My arse newspapers are a "reliable" source. Not if accuracy is your
interest. Easily checkable is not the same thing.


- d.