[WikiEN-l] Improve quality by reviewing all new articles

Fri Dec 16 17:13:05 UTC 2005

Hi,

> Anthony, I'm not normally one to state harsh opinions.  But 
> frankly, if you don't find those errors to be blindingly 
> obvious, you need to find another hobby.  Writing an 
> encyclopedia is quite frankly beyond you.

Are you perhaps discussing different meanings of "obvious"?  I, like
most people, had never heard of Seigenthaler before this issue arose.
For starters, I'm not American. Nothing in the style of writing or the
facts being claimed leaps out at me as being "this could not possibly be
true for any living journalist", although the phrase "nothing was ever
proven" is...unusual.  It's perfectly conceivable (to me) that a
journalist could have been suspected of being involved in an
assassination, but not be tried or convicted.  

However, had I known anything *whatsoever* about Seigenthaler, it's
quite likely that those errors would have been "obvious". Similarly,
anyone reasonably familiar with the Kennedy family would spot the error.
I don't even know if Bobby Kennedy is dead, and if so, whether he was
murdered etc.

So is the problem here that no one should correct/verify any new article
unless they're fairly familiar with the subject?

Steve