[WikiEN-l] Verifiability and Africa

[The Cunctator]

On 3/2/06, Geoffrey Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> The problem I'm facing at the moment with Ethiopian articles is that last
> November Meles Zenawi closed down the media in his country, following riots
> over the election results. (There's some disagreement over who started these
> riots: whether it the opposition parties who called for demonstrations
> or the police who were told to "keep order".) As a result, I'm finding that
> if I want to write adequately detailed articles, I'm faced with using
> unacceptible sources -- namely Weblogs & web forums. For every event that
> a reputable source like the BBC publishes, there are about 5 more that
> I end up learning about in other ways.

Just so you know, I'm an editor that thinks taht weblogs and web
forums are acceptable sources.

I think providing a source is a lot more important than trying to
ensure its reliability--let the reader provide their own determination
of the weight to give to the source.

I trust readers more than I trust journalists, frankly.