[WikiEN-l] Let us not attack sources as unreliable without reason

Mon Jan 24 17:00:44 UTC 2005

Concern arises in the cases of secondary sources which take particular
points of view. Such sources marshall evidence which supports that point of
view. Being "unwilling or unable to check the primary references" applies
when those references are relatively easy to locate, not the case here.

Fred

> From: "JAY JG" <jayjg at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 11:28:51 -0500
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Let us not attack sources as unreliable without reason
> 
> Indeed.  And the way *not* to handle them is to put caveats beside them
> stating (in so many words)  that "we have not been able to verify these as
> truthful" (which, of course, we don't do).  Doing so, of course, would be
> highly POV, since it would naturally create the impression that the sources
> were suspect and untrustworthy, rather than the actual case that certain
> editors are unwilling or unable to check the primary references.  The fact
> that only a tiny number of seconday sources seem to even be candidates for
> this kind of treatment is interesting.
> 
> Jay.