[WikiEN-l] Interesting debate over reliable sources

[George Herbert]

On 7/9/06, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> The policy is based on common sense, not dogma. When you send a letter
> to a newspaper for publication, you're expected to supply your name,
> address, and telephone number so that someone from the newspaper can
> check that you really did send it. Nothing like that exists for
> Usenet. It's all very well to say that if X didn't write the post, and
> we quote from it, X will tell us soon enough. But what happens if X
> claims that, in purporting to quote him, and in leaving that unchecked
> quote on Wikipedia for months until he spotted it, we have damaged him
> in some way? Newspapers have processes in place to avoid this
> scenario, and they have libel insurance for when things go wrong. We
> have none of those things, which is why we piggy-back on other
> people's, by using only material that has already been checked.

With groups.google.com (or previously to that, access to Dejanews, or
previously to that being a close enough friend of Henry's to for him
to be able to dig up the tapes)  it is possible to (semi-reliably) go
back and say "A person with this email account posted the following
article at this time in history: [...]"

That is not to say that forgeries and frauds are unknown in Usenet.
However, such were relatively rare, and are not unknown in other media
which are taken generally to be acceptably accurate sources.

Wikipedia has not set the bar at unquestioned verifyable accuracy for
every source.  When someone adds in or uses a reference, there's no
independent fact checking necessarily performed to see if the source
really exists, or says what it is purported to say, or is not part of
some sort of elaborate forgery project.  And I do not doubt that
within the million-odd articles, we have sources cited which don't
exist, we have sources cited which say something else, and that we
have sources cited which exist and say those things, but are forgeries
or fraudulent.

Usenet posts, in verifyable archives, documenting Usenet activities,
are as reliable as we need them to be.  The existence and contents of
such posts is easily and reliably validated.  As a primary source for
"the contents of Usenet", they're fine.  Articles on Usenet and early
Internet phenomena citing Usenet discussions on the topics (or
contemporary mailing lists) should feel free to use those contents.
If it turns out that a particuar cite was a forged article, we deal
with that the usual way as with any other discredited source.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com