--- On Tue, 10/5/11, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Tuesday, 10 May, 2011, 17:11
On 10 May 2011 17:04, Scott MacDonald
<doc.wikipedia(a)ntlworld.com>
wrote:
I've written a little essay which I think
serves to
illustrate the dangers
of Wikipedia's tendency to create articles
(and
particularly BLPs) from a
pastiche of newspaper articles.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Otto_Middleton_%28or_why_newspapers_a
re_dubious_sources%29
It may amuse (or it may not)
Yep. Anyone who calls a newspaper a "reliable source" in
terms other
than comparison to even worse sources has clearly never
been written
about by one.
Suggestion: move the explanatory box to the top.
A while ago there was a discussion at WP:V talk whether we should
recast the policy's opening sentence:
"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—
whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been
published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."
(As usual, the discussion came to nought.) That sentence -- whose
provocative formulation has served Wikipedia well in keeping out original
research -- is a big part of the problem.
A.