[WikiEN-l] Proposal: limited extension of semi-protection

[Delirium]

Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 5/26/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> On 26/05/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>     
>>> On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Precisely my point.  It is an editorial judgment.  We can't say "just
>>>> because it is true and verifiable we should post it in wikipedia".
>>>>         
>>> So you believe that ranting criticisms on blogs constitute
>>> "verifiable" information?
>>>       
>> Ranting criticisms on blogs certainly constitute verification for
>> writing "It has been claimed he eats babies". They do not constitute
>> verification for "He eats babies".
>>
>>     
> Not according to [[wp:V]] they don't.  "Anyone can create a website or
> pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a
> certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal
> websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources."
>
> I've always taken "verifiability" to mean verifiable *in a reputable
> source*.  Some people disagree, of course (apparently you're one of
> them), but I wasn't aware that Jimmy Wales was one of them.
>   

I would assume this means they're not acceptable as sources for facts 
that they claim; it seems hard to argue that they aren't credible 
sourcees for the statement that they made said claims.  The main purpose 
of putting this policy in was to avoid people adding weird things like 
"Mint cures cancer [source: some random website claiming so]".

For example, I would see nothing wrong with our article on [[Richard M. 
Stallman]] citing something he wrote on his personal website and 
attributing it to him.  His personal website saying "[x]" is not a 
reliable source for the statement "[x] is true", but it *is* a reliable 
source for the statement "Richard Stallman has said [x]", much as a 
company's official website is not necessarily a reliable source for what 
a company actually does, but *is* a reliable source for what the company 
describes itself as doing.

With the personal websites of people less famous than RMS, I don't think 
the verifiability issue changes; what changes is that the statement 
"Some Guy has said [x]" becomes insufficiently interesting to merit 
inclusion in any article.

-Mark