[WikiEN-l] Abuse of your services

Tue May 10 02:05:36 UTC 2005

"Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> I have never used Usenet as a source of information, and, given the 
> controversy that it engenders, I would only do so with extreme caution.  I 
> would make no absolute rule against using it, but a critical reader needs 
> to be aware that its use as a reference will taint the credibility of the 
> material.  The value of an article depends on the combined credibility of 
> its sources and integrity of its contributors.

Yes, I agree. In general, Usenet is close to the bottom of the barrel in 
terms of reliability. However, there is still some valuable information to 
be found on Usenet in between the volumes of drek and I think it is 
misguided to pre-emptively bar it as a source. It should certainly be 
deprecated, and wherevery possible other sources should be substituted. But 
much of the better quality material to be found on Usenet is really more a 
sort of a tertiary reference, summarizing and often listing other 
references. As a hypothetical example, if Joe Blow comes along and sees that 
there isn't any topic about some old bridge over the river backwater, but he 
knows of a Usenet FAQ in alt.obscure.bridges.moderated describing the bridge 
and decides to write an article about the bridge based on the FAQ, then I 
think he should encouraged to do so and to cite the FAQ as a source. The FAQ 
might well mention arcane some print sources that are unavailable to Joe (or 
maybe he's not interested in looking them up himself or maybe he's clueless 
about how to incorporate citations from another source into his writing). If 
using Usenet as a source is summarily barred, then the other sources for 
that information would not be very easily available for future editors who 
might be interested in improving the article. And if the Usenet FAQ turns 
out to be a work of fiction, then having it identified as a source for the 
article will also make it easier for future editors to weed out the garbage.

Bkonrad