slimvirgin(a)gmail.com stated for the record:
On 5/6/05, Sean Barrett <sean(a)epoptic.org>
wrote:
Just for the record, where is the policy stating
that Usenet /cannot/ be
used? I'm not being sarcastic; I genuinely don't know.
The relevant policies state that Wikipedia sources must be published
sources, and that the publishers must be, in some sense, reputable,
authoritative, and credible. These terms are impossible to define, but
they boil down to relying on publishing houses that have some form of
fact-checking procedure, or peer-review if it's an academic subject.
Sometimes the degree of fact-checking will be minimal, but there
should be some infrastructure within which information is checked,
complaints are responded to, and obviously authors are usually not
anonymous.
None of these things applies to Usenet. It is pretty much the
definition of a source that should not be used (except in very limited
circumstances as primary-source material). See [[Wikipedia:No original
research]] for more details.
So, to summarize, there is no policy stating that Usenet is forbidden as
a source. Some people (you, for instance) do not consider it to be
reputable source, but nothing forbids some other people (me, for
instance) from disagreeing. And, most importantly, there is no policy
permitting anti-Usenetters to delete Usenet-based material /just
because/ it originated on Usenet.
Certainly, Usenet contains a mindboggling level of garbage. It also
contains real facts. Material from a group like
alt.politics.usa.constitution should be scrutinized much more strictly
than that from a group like sci.space.moderated, but in the end, Usenet
is just as usable as a source as any Web site, popular magazine, or book
from a library.
--
Sean Barrett | When you smell an odorless gas,
sean(a)epoptic.com | it is probably carbon monoxide.