At 09:43 AM 1/5/04 -0500, Ed Poor wrote:
Daniel Mayer declared that:
...Wikipedia is not a primary source. Once and
/if/
that person is able to get a real publisher to publish
their autobiography, then and /only/ then do we use
their autobiography as a source. We need some sort of
filter.
How can you say that Wikipedia is not a primary source?
I thought our original aim was to have articles written by contributors
who actually know something about what they're writing. People are
always encouraging me to spend less time editing other contributors'
work or rewriting factoids I discover on-line on in books -- and more
time contributing my unique knowledge of my two areas of expertise: the
Unification Church and software development.
When we say that Wikipedia is not a primary source, we mean that
information about the Unification Church--its organization, beliefs,
and so on--should not be *first* or *only* available in Wikipedia. You
as a member of that church know enough to write about it, which is
good; it would not be appropriate for the Reverend Moon to use Wikipedia
to publish sermons or proclaim doctrine. Similarly, if you have a new
and better method of software development, Wikipedia is not the place
to proclaim it.
I think in addition, this must be verifiable in other sources, which is
why we say Wikipedia is a secondary source. If Ed is writing stuff
about the Unification Church that is not available elsewhere, then I
don't think that'd be appropriate. If the stuff he's writing is
verifiable (perhaps in Church literature, or in books about the Church,
etc.), then it's perfectly fine.
-Mark