[WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)

[Delirium]

On 5/13/11 11:40 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
> That reminds me of the celebrated occasion when editors insisted that
> Gloria Gaynor was a "former Scientologist", based solely on the fact that
> the Guardian had once published a piece called "Listed Scientologists".
> The piece was on page G2, "Diversions", next to the crossword puzzle and
> the TV programme.
>
> The piece was just a list of names, and it had an uncanny resemblance to
> Wikipedia's List of Scientologists at the time of publication (which also
> included Gaynor as a former member, based on a poor and misrepresented
> web source).
>
> [...]
> That's exactly the kind of discrimination and judgment that needs to be
> applied. But editors were unwilling to give up on their "scoop", and
> barricaded themselves behind "The Guardian is a reliable source",
> "verifiability, not truth", and "not whether editors think it is true".

Isn't this just a failure to actually think through what verifying 
information with a reliable source means, rather than a problem with the 
principle? It's quite possible for the Guardian to be a good newspaper 
in general, but for a random list in the "Diversions" section, with no 
apparent investigative reporting involved, to *not* constitute reliable 
verification of that point.

I guess I see that kind of critical source analysis as completely in 
line with the idea of "verifiable information cited to reliable 
sources", though. At least as I read it, the WP:V/WP:RS combination 
asks: is this given citation sufficient to verify the fact it claims to 
verify? So I wholeheartedly agree that bright-line rules like 
"everything in The Guardian is reliable" are wrong, but I don't think 
that ought to require abandoning the WP:V/WP:RS view, at least as I've 
understood it. Isn't there even some text on WP:RS (there used to be, 
anyway) about how reliable sources may be context-specific, e.g. a 
newspaper may be a reliable source for some claims but not for others?

-Mark