[WikiEN-l] Policies, notability et al, was Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary

[wjhonson at aol.com]

I just want to address this one quote.

<<You also don't have an article if you have a lot of primary
and tertiary sources, but very few secondary sources.>>

I think this is a false reading of our intent.
The entire structuring of the "rely primarily on secondary sources" and 
other discussion that primary sources can be included *when* the 
material was already introduced by a secondary source in some way and 
especially in those cases where it conflicts, etc etc.

Doesn't really address and wasn't meant to address a situation where 
all you have is a teritary source (an expression I hate by the way).  
But let's play ball with it anyway.

Let's say that you have the "tertiary" (shudder) source EB 1911, 
"Cleopatra".  You are aware that an enormous number of our articles 
were created *solely* from the 1911 EB are you not?

You might say that makes them stubby but not in the normal sense of the 
WP:Jargon.  We might say "they rely on a single source" but really the 
EB sort of sits above most uses of that condition.  I would say that 
most of us consider is fairly authoritative on a summary view of any 
subject.

So in conclusion, I don't think we have any policy language that would 
say that tertiary sources without secondary ones would make an article 
subject to attack, except possibly a "make this better please" tag.

Will Johnson