The problem of lack of availability has been with us since the year 3000 BC. We can't solve every problem right away. That we can specify a citation stating that *if* you had a way to get the item, you could verify it, satisfies our policy requirement that an item is "published" (made available to the public).
Satisfaction of the guideline (or discussion) issue that an item should be widely available, would come from projects like Gutenberg and WikiSource for publication of things like books and from newspaper archives or JSTOR for publication of things like newspapers and magazines. That something is not yet available online, shouldn't be a factor in considering whether or not we should cite it. Even the library of Bora Bora *could* (theoretically at least) request a copy of an item for you, provided you have the citation and the repository location (see worldcat.org). Will Johnson -----Original Message----- From: Charles Matthews <[email protected]> To: English Wikipedia <[email protected]> Sent: Fri, Aug 7, 2009 2:49 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Online Newspapers Considering Subscription Model David Goodman wrote: > A much more serious problem is the availability of this material in > the less-developed world, which includes a great many people who rely > on the English Wikipedia--many of whom do not have practical access to > any good library. Quite. But then the traditional solution has been ... compile an encyclopedia (since the 17th century). The cream of scholarly info without all the underlying scholarship. The fact that we have extremes of scepticism, often driven by divisive or ideological or partisan starting points, should not eclipse the fact that _we_ offer a solution to the inequities of access to basic information. As they say, if not us, who? Those of us who have been around here a while have seen the ultra-verificationist perspective spread out from the most vexed areas to appear as a problem all over the 'pedia. (Not without justification.) But let's keep things the right way round: if we post the facts, and they are verifiable, and the verifying sources are behind subscription walls, the readers are still better off than without the info. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
