[WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

Mon May 9 06:21:26 UTC 2005

On 5/8/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> As a person who is a manic book collector I am not lacking in obscure
> sources.  I could correctly cite an issue of the "Strand Magazine" to
> say that Queen Victoria enjoyed mountain climbing and reached the top of
> several of the highest peaks in Scotland, but I would be wrong to cite
> the same reference to say that she broke her leg during one of these
> climbs?  Good scholarship would require that these facts be checked, but
> who is going to do that kind of checking even when I make it easy by
> giving the date and page number for the information.  If people do that
> checking, and find that I am consistently adding fraudulent information
> my reputation will suffer.  In the absence of checking the wrong
> information could remain there for years.

You don't have to go even that far. Most people don't have easy access
to checking something as mainstream as a New York Times article from
ten years ago. Most wouldn't even bother checking.

...UNLESS it was incommensurate with another network of facts. I know
next to nothing about Queen Victoria, but if you posted some obscure
reference about one of the characters I knew about, I'd probably try
to track it down if it didn't harmonize with my previous knowledge.

References can be faked for academic papers, too. But as a network of
eyes, they become less problematic. Not every reference will be
checked, but not every reference warrants checking (as a somewhat
related humorous note: I read a very poor book today where the author
had cited FOUR separate sources to back up the claim that "Charles
Darwin was born to a wealthy family.").

In the end, attribution of sources works in all cases. Sometimes a
disclaimer is necesary. But I don't see why Usenet is any worse than
any other source, assuming the attribution is done correctly. I
wouldn't cite Usenet for information about the speed of light. But I
would cite it for information about how a well-known Usenet figure is
portrayed on Usenet. Which seems to be what this is all about. This
seems fairly obvious to me.

FF