[Foundation-l] Re: Sources and sourceability

Sun Dec 4 23:18:42 UTC 2005

Hi,

I can just provide my personal history here. I appear in the credits of  
several popular reference works as everything from contributor to assistant  
editor-in-chief (a horrible title, I might add, but then again, so was the  book). 
I have worked on these books for Simon and Shuster, Facts on File,  Macmillan 
(before it was gobbled up by Simon and Shuster), Reader's Digest,  Henry Holt, 
and Continuum. In each book, the facts were checked as Brian  describes. In 
fact, I remember one senior editor at Simon and Shuster boasting  about how 
they would pay grad students a certain amount of money for every  mistake they 
found. They were eager to find errors. I now have a manuscript of a  book that I 
wrote for Marshall Cavendish sitting on my desk. Every sentence was  numbered 
and checked. I have been asked to help source the material. I will be  happy 
to provide the email exchange. 

Mind you, I am not suggesting that we go to these extremes. I do think it  is 
important, however, that people understand the lengths that publishers  of 
reference works go to in order to ensure the quality of their products. Of  
course, some publishers are more meticulous than others. And despite all the  
efforts, mistakes always managed to slip in anyway.

I am not about to say that because they do it, so should we. On the  other 
hand, I will state my personal belief that with 850,000 articles already  in the 
English Wikipedia, we should pay even more attention to quality than  usual.

Danny

In a message dated 12/4/2005 12:40:47 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
lars at aronsson.se writes:

You are  right now arguing that it is necessary to source every 
fact, and then you  are doing sweeping generalizations like this?! 
I'm not trusting your  insight into the editorial principles of 
Encyclopaedia Britannica or  indeed any other (printed) 
encyclopedia and thus I'm asking you to provide  some sources.