[WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Anthony]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:31 PM, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> > On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Rob wrote:
> > In this context, the secondary source is "I found a reference to a
> newspaper
> > article which quotes the date".  It's not going to discuss the conflict
> the
> > way you describe--it's just more acceptable because it better fits the
> rule.
>
> I got the newspaper article today and it turns out it discusses the
> birth date discrepancy in detail, with references to interviews with
> family, a number of documents, and court testimony.  This is exactly
> the reason we should be using these kinds of sources as opposed to our
> own amateur database lookups, not the strawman of a rules fetish.
>

If they're available.  But what if they're not?  Is it okay to mention that
the contradictory information exists?

I doubt you're going to come up with a hard and fast rule which doesn't have
any unintended consequences.  Ultimately, the fact that "everyone can edit"
ensures a system of "verifiability, not truth".