[WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)

Fri Dec 22 16:43:07 UTC 2006

On 12/22/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam at vyznev.net> wrote:
> jayjg wrote:
> > On 12/21/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>You can't prove a negative, but you can certainly say "his book is
> >>not in the Cornell University Library" or whatever, and cite a link
> >>to the search or a description of how to do the search. This doesn't
> >>seem very different to me from a citation.
> >
> > No, you absolutely cannot do that, for reasons eloquently stated
> > elsewhere. The claim that it is not in the Cornell University Library
> > is a novel conclusion based on your own original research;
>
> I would disagree, and say that it is a claim made by the library
> catalogue, and thus properly sourced to them.  The claim may be one made
> by omission, but, insofar as the catalogue claims to be comprehensive,
> it is nonetheless an unambiguous claim.

But that catalog has made *no* claims; it can't, it simply exists.
Rather, some Wikipedia editor has made a claim *on behalf of the
catalog*.

>
> If the catalogue does not claim to be comprehensive, or if there is
> doubt about its accuracy, it may be better to phrase the statement
> explicitly as "his book is not listed in the Cornell University Library
> catalogue."

And who do we source that claim to? Zero0000? Daniel Smith? What does
the footnote say: "Wikipedia editor Daniel Smith ran this specific
search on the catalog on December 11, 2006, and it did not return any
results"? Ridiculous.

> None of the problems previously mentioned with legal databases apply to
> library catalogues, which I would rather compare to other common
> catalogue works such as phone books and dictionaries.  In fact, ten or
> twenty years ago, one could even have pointed to the filing cabinets
> full of index cards and said "here's your printed source".  :-)

Assuming you'd searched through the cards properly, one card hadn't
stuck to the back of another, or been temporarily removed for some
reason, or...

> Or would you also consider the statement "IttyBittySoft was not listed
> in the Fortune 500 list for 2006" to be OR?

Why on earth would one ever want to put such a statement into an
article? It's clear that the only reason would be to make some sort of
argument, push some sort of POV regarding IttyBittySoft. Why not just
stated the obvious facts, and leave it at that? "IttyBittySoft
reported annual revenues of $36 million in 2006". That's all we need
to say; let's not beat our readers over the head with our agenda.

Jay.