Sourcing and reliable sourcing seems to be the topic of the day, so it is
worth taking a look at some examples of "sourcing" to see how practical they
are. In the English Wikipedia, at least, there seems to be a culture of adding
{{fact}} templates to articles, and while these are often valid, at other
times, the source can be found in the very next sentence. In many instances, a
source can be found simply by going to Google or Google Books, so that I wonder
whether the person putting in the {{fact}} tags actually bothered to check
if any information was readily available.
More disconcerting, however, is the idea of sourcing with Wikipedia
articles. This morning I went through the article on [[Italy]]. In the reference
section, there are six citations of other Wikipedia articles, which is
interesting because the facts there are unsourced too. See footnotes 14-17 and 23, 24
for examples. Note that I am not saying the information is wrong--simply that
it would be nice to see it validated and confirmed, and if it is validated,
to see it validated properly.
Danny
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