mike brockington (1/20/2010)
To be fair, WikiPedia itself warns on almost every page that some of the information provides no sources, and therefore is liable to removal.
To be fair, but not on the page referenced, it has no such warning, and as already noted, had multiple sources.
As to the allegation that "almost every" page contains such a warning, What percentage would that be? what's your source for the statistics of how many pages bear that warning? or is this just personal observation of the 'works for me' variety?
Assuming that there _is_ a verified source, then just link to that, then there can be no suggestion that the page has been altered merely to win the argument.
and when there's 12 sources? or 100? I should just link to all of them instead of a reasonable summary? The point of the link was actually to provide a good explination for those that wanted to learn more about the subject at hand. It wasn't a basis for winning an argument, it was education. I think most who review the page would agree it provides a good introduction and explination of the topic. Furthermore if we were to actually NEED get into 'has the page been altered to win an argument', then the record of page edits is going to tell the truth of that.
If no source is given, then the information is no more reliable than saying "it worked for me" or whatever.
Basically, quoting Wikipedia is a sub-clause of Godwins rule, or should be.
Quoting any reference or aggregator of data, where there's no sources (Wikipedia or anyone else) is generally very poor way to prove a point. However, in this case, there were sources so I fail to see the relevance of that comment to this discussion.
If you need a subclause of Godwin's law, it ought to be the act of being a 'source nazi' and making ad hominem attacks which amount to 'your argument is invalid because wikipedia is your source' when there is no indication of any inaccuracy on the page (or pages) that were referenced.