[WikiEN-l] Blog Entries (Bauer fork)

[Guettarda]

On 3/27/07, Cary Bass <cbass at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> Jeff Raymond wrote:
> > Cary Bass wrote:
> >
> >
> >> I'm sorry, David, you are right.  Let me rephrase that.  I've never
> seen
> >> a blog entry that was reliable enough to be used as source material.
> >> These blog entries do not meat WP:RS, and any material derived from
> them
> >> should be eliminated.
> >>
> >
> > This is the type of backwards, ten-years-ago thinking that I really wish
> > we'd be able to overcome.  I can list off a dozen blogs that are
> perfectly
> > reliable for the subject matter that they offer up in various areas of
> > culture and information.  This idea that "self-published" = "bad" is
> > antiquated thinking.
> >
> > -Jeff
> >
> >
> This sort of insulting commentary is entirely inappropriate.
>
> Cary


He could have phrased it more gently, but I agree with the underlying
opinion.  Blogging is a tool for publication more than it is a form of
publication.  It's certainly no worse (and often a lot better) than the
op-ed pieces you get in newspapers.  In addition, it can be a valuable
reporting tool - someone pointed out that bloggers covered the Scooter Libby
case far better than the mainstream media...but much in the way that
reporters did a century ago.  If the medium had existed, Mencken would have
blogged the Scopes Trial.