[WikiEN-l] Playing zap (Was the bad BLP)

Kwan Ting Chan ktc at ktchan.info
Fri May 2 04:58:32 UTC 2008


On Fri, 2008-05-02 at 00:10 -0400, Philip Sandifer wrote:

> Yet another reason why our fetishistic obsession with sources needs to  
> be toned down. By treating them as the be-all and end-all of content  
> we make it far too easy to get utter lies through by citing them to a  
> source. The worst are book sources - I know Danny, at one point,  
> created a hoax article cited to a non-existent book with the ISBN of a  
> Dr. Seuss book. This, of course, attracted no notice while we  
> zealously remove entire accurate articles on important subjects for a  
> lack of sources.

The problem is not our obsession with sourcing. The problem is the
attitude of editors who see something is sourced, and immediately assume
the source actually stated the fact/claim.

> Wish I could remember what the article he created was so I could go  
> delete it. He did it under a sock. It was on an African politician. I  
> probably should have deleted it at the time, but I didn't feel like  
> starting a fight with Danny.

[[Edward Mipongwa]]. It was deleted end of February when he mentioned it
on his blog.

KTC

-- 
Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
  - Heinrich Heine
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