On 3/3/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
A couple of combative columnists, [[Johann Hari]] and [[Mark Steyn]].
I'll take Johann Hari first, since the issues are entry-level.
User:81.157.14.152 thought that his secondary schooling was not verifiable, and cut it out (20 February); no edit summary, let alone discussion. One of the schools in question is [[John Lyon School]]. The information that Hari went there was added on 17 February by User:Epitome1, who had the same day edited the page, [[John Lyon School]]. And then immediately gone on to add the fat that Hari was an alumnus.
Reasonable presumption would take it that User:Epitome1 has a close enough connection to John Lyon School; perhaps even was a pupil there with Hari, or teaches there. Nothing to raise the slightest suspicion, anyway.
So User:81.157.14.152 cuts out this and another school. Objections from User:Felix-felix, who puts it back in. Talk page discussion: User:81.157.14.152 emails Hari to check, and comes back satisfied on the John Lyon School, at least.
But under [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons]], of course, we cannot accept this information, on the basis of a supposed email exchange.
Correct. Wikipedia editors are not journalists and have no access to the kind of fact-checking process that reporters have. This is why we publish only what reliable sources have already published.
However, even though the e-mail exchange is not acceptable as a source, there is likely to be some other way of obtaining the information e.g. from a school magazine or local newspaper. It'll just require a bit of extra digging.
Sarah