[WikiEN-l] Another sourcing problem

[Ken Arromdee]

On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, Carcharoth wrote:
> But really, if something is obscure enough that it doesn't get
> published in reliable sources, you are stuck. What I would support in
> such cases is an external link to a page documenting this. Kind of
> like further reading.

The *character* is in a reliable source, it's just that the fact that it was
based off a fandom joke or that the character's "creator" thought it was
preexisting are not in reliable sources.

And for the Marion Zimmer Bradley example, the *dispute* is present in
reliable sources, it's just that *both sides* of the dispute are not (since
only the side who is a professional author gets to publish her side 
professionally).

And the real point is that our reliable source concept is utterly broken when
it comes to using blogs and other modern sources.  Saying "if it's not in a
reliable source, there's nothing you can do" misses the point.  Sure there's
something you can do: fix the definition of reliable source.