[WikiEN-l] Personal communications as references

[Daniel P. B. Smith]

> From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
>
> --- slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
>> On 3/26/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> Personal communications are valid to cite. All one needs to do to  
>>> check is call the guy and
>> ask the same question.
>>
>> All our sources have to be published, Daniel, i.e. in the public
>> domain, so a personal communication can't be cited.
>
> That is absurd since not all knowledge has been written. What  
> matters is if you can trust the
> source and if it is verifiable. The method of communication is not  
> that important.
>
> -- mav

Citing a personal communication is much better than citing nothing at  
all. I have used an email from a representative of Babson College,  
for example, on the Babson College Talk page, as a reference for  
whether or not their giant world globe rotates. (It was built to  
rotated and once rotated but it doesn't now).

But these aren't _good_ references and do _not_ meet Wikipedia's  
guidelines, which I believe are longstanding.

The reason why publication is important is that by definition a  
published source is widely available and easily checked. As I have  
personally found, it is not always easy to "call the guy and ask the  
same question."

Among other things, you may not have his contact information. (It  
would be a serious breach of etiquette and privacy to include that in  
the reference). And you are basically requiring every reader who  
wants to verify the information to establish a personal contact with  
the source. That's just not reasonable.

Finally, the requirement of publication puts a very rough-and-ready  
filter in place. In order to publish something, the author  _usually_  
has to convince at least _one_ other person that it is worth  
publishing... and spending money on. That's not an absolute test of  
truth, but it is at least a filter. Over the phone, someone can say  
anything to me that they like. Thus, a personal communication is a  
poor reference for the same reason that a personal website is a poor  
reference: anyone can say anything they like, without even the  
slightest necessity of passing any kind of vetting process. Actually,  
a phone call is worse: a personal website is, at least, out in the  
open and subject to inspection.