[WikiEN-l] Kris Straub PWNZed Wikipedia

Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman at spamcop.net
Fri Feb 16 11:27:22 UTC 2007


On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 11:34:00 +0200, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com>
wrote:

>Exactly. Reliable sources suck! For web content, we should have less
>strict standards and allow regular blogs and forum/usenet posts as
>sources!

Nope.  What we should do is assess sources according to - well, their
reliability.  A random blogger is not reliable.  A politically
opinionated blog is often not reliable.  Some blogs are reliable for
some things and not for others.  Blogs are ephemeral, and often
someone will post an error then correct it in a subsequent posting.

If the sole sources for an article are blogs, I would say that is
prima facie evidence that the subject is not encyclopaedic.  I have
little problem with a blog traceable to an identified authority being
used as a source for individual facts.

However, if there are no substantial independent secondary sources -
meaning profiles of the subject in the news media and the like - then
we can't have an article because without sources of independent
critical review we can't verify neutrality.  Plus it's likely
ephemera, take it to Cruftpedia :-)

Guy (JzG)
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG




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