[WikiEN-l] Are phone books reliable sources?

[SPUI]

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>>The surname "Ng" is one of the most common in Melbourne, spanning 47
>>pages of the 2006 phone book...

 > That's a great example of a non sequitur.  It's usefulness won't be
 > established by choosing one of the most common names as a straw man.
 > Once you've established that a person lived at a particular address his
 > continuing appearance in the phone books for a 15 year period is
 > evidence that he may have lived there for that 15 years.  Whether any
 > information source will be useful depends on what we are trying to do
 > with it.  Why dismiss it prematurely?

You misinterpreted his statement. He's saying that "The surname "Ng" is 
one of the most common in Melbourne, spanning 47 pages of the 2006 phone 
book" can use the phone book as a source.