Talk:Hearsay society

That's not how it works

When I ask myself what's the population of Paris - perhaps triggered by reading a book - I'll take a look at Paris or Paris (wikipedia) and I get one (or two answers) : over 2.1 million in the city of Paris itself at Conservapedia and The city of Paris, within its administrative limits [..] has an estimated population of 2,211,297 at wikipedia. That sounds plausible, and I'm satisfied. So, I won't look up the sources given.

But when I'm disputing the question which the second biggest city of France is, I won't take the entries on a wiki at their face value. The wiki can only be a starting point, which states the number and gives me a source for it. Now I won't consider that the the statements are [..] true regardless of whether the reference consists of unreliable hearsay., but follow the given links for myself. Then I can find out whether they are relevant, up-to-date, etc. If they links don't work out, I have to look somewhere else - and ideally improve the articles with the source I will get.

The same is true if the question arises in a homework: I won't state the wiki as my source, but the wiki's sources. Unfortunately, that doesn't work for Lyon and Marseille here at Conservapedia: While I read in the article on Lyon

After Paris and Marseille, it is the third largest city, however with its suburbs, it is the second largest city. It lies between the two cities, and is only 2 hours from Paris by the TGV.

I can't find the number of inhabitants, nor the source for this claim. The article on Marseille states

Marseille, (English alt. Marseilles) is the second-largest city of France and forms the third-largest metropolitan area, with 1,516,340 inhabitants at the 1999 census (Paris and Lyon are larger).

again, without a source.

Obviously you can say that Conservapedia is the trustworthy encyclopedia, and that therefore I should be able to accept the statement without further ado (other than a statement in wikipedia). There is only one little problem. While the article on Marseille is much more informative and of higher quality than the one on Lyon, it is basically unchanged from its first version from June 8, 2007. And this first version is only an excerpt of wikipedia's revision from May 2007: its quite literally the introduction and the section on history.

AugustO 08:18, 24 April 2012 (EDT)

August, if you bother to follow up the references on Wikipedia articles then you are in a regrettably small minority - one that does not include millions of school students, university students, professors, ordinary people and even journalists working for supposedly reputable newspapers and other news sources. Well done to you on not being part of the hearsay society, but that doesn't mean that the problem doesn't exist.

Your last paragraph might be better off on the talk page for the Marseilles article.--CPalmer 09:15, 24 April 2012 (EDT)

• Every student who failed a grade because of an intellectual lazy approach to wikis will join our regrettably small minority :-)
• journalists (including especially science journalists) and politicians are something different: they tend to read any text until they find something agreeable and won't bother with the rest - whether there are sources or not. Sadly, this is something I find here in discussion on the talk-page all too often, too.
• I'll add the part on Marseille to the talk-page. It's just here as it shows that sometimes Conservapedia is just a bad copy of wikipedia - and even those parts are sometimes better as the more original articles (like Lyon)

AugustO 12:58, 24 April 2012 (EDT)

An additional point is that Wikipedia does not distinguish between citation to speculation or hearsay in references, which would be inadmissible in court, as opposed to citations to legitimate factual content which might be admissible in court. Wikipedia hopelessly mixes the two categories, while Conservapedia does not.--Andy Schlafly 11:10, 24 April 2012 (EDT)

• Wikipedia does not distinguish between citation to speculation or hearsay in references Could you give some examples? Wikipedia has a politic on sources which should prevent such a thing to happen.
• Wikipedia hopelessly mixes the two categories, while Conservapedia does not How does Conservapedia achieve this goal? Is there something in the guidelines which I have overlooked? Surely, omitting sources can't help herewith.

AugustO 12:58, 24 April 2012 (EDT)

What's so bad about requiring references?

The point of references is that anyone can look up the original information to see if the arguments/ conclusions being made in the argument make sense. It is not that references automatically mean that what is being referenced is true. How is this a bad thing?Gabe

If the reference consists of hearsay or speculation for the point made, then the citation is misleading because there isn't really meaningful support for the statement.--Andy Schlafly 23:53, 30 April 2012 (EDT)

How is that any worse that your claims about gray hair, which are backed up with nothing more than you talking about Jesus? Sylvain 00:03, 1 May 2012 (EDT)