[WikiEN-l] Getting hammered in a tv interview is not fun

[Bryan Derksen]

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 09:36:39 -0600, Bryan Derksen
> <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> 
>> In this case the reference is a primary source that says "these people
>> go to this university." A perfectly good reference to cite when saying
>> "this person goes to this university." That's hardly a creative act of
>> information synthesis.
> 
> *Provided* there is only one person in the world with that name, and
> provided that the source actually does say they go to that university
> rather than being, say, a bare list of names.  Oh, hey!  It's a bare
> list of names that doesn't actually say they are studying there.
> Helloooo novel synthesis :o)

I assume you're also one of the folks who supports removing Angela
Beesley's birthdate from her article because although the birth register
for her hometown's hospital listed an Angela Beesley born on the same
date she claimed was her birthdate, there could have been _another_
Angela Beesley born on the same day and in the same hospital as her?
This level of synthesis is not a novel creative act, IMO.

Besides, the basis of this particular subthread is that the source
didn't actually support the statement, so whether it's original research
is moot. We don't need more stringent policies on sources to deal with
it, just people who actually click the links and _check_ them.