[WikiEN-l] Stupidity toward experts

[MacGyverMagic/Mgm]

It should be made clear that the reliability of a source depends not on the
medium it was written in, but more on the author who wrote it. The idea is,
blogs are unreliable because any nutcase can start one. But say Queen
Elisabeth of the United Kingdom started a blog and the fact it was her was
communicated on the official website for the British Royal House, I'd
consider it pretty reliable on topics of British politics or British Royals.
It all depends on context and if the author was actually verified somehow.
If the blog is attached to the official site of a famous person, you can
assume they've written it.

On the other hand, it also depends on what you want to cite. If we have an
article on person X, person X's weblog would be a perfectly reliable source
for trivial stuff like their current place of residence. To determine
they're notable, you need to rely on some source other than the subject
themselves, because they have a conflict of interest when it comes to that.

The moral: It's not black and white, it all depends on the context the
source is used in.

Mgm


On 5/17/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 17/05/07, Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/17/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I suspect the latter is why someone came up with the idea that "Usenet
> > > is not a source"; unfortunately, they failed to understand that an
> > > unreliable source can be a reliaiblity-neutral (as it were) medium.
> > > I've been arguing this one for a year and not getting very far...
>
> > Would it be worth it for a line or three to clarify the differences
> between
> > sources and mediums on the relevant policy pages?
>
>
> Good luck! Expect to be reverted immediately. [[WP:RS]] remains a
> wasteland.
>
>
> - d.
>
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