User talk:Frisianham

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[edit] Re: Maltese nobility articles

By way of explanation, I'll quote myself from one of the recent AfDs:

First off, almost all the non-self-published sources Tancarville cites are unavailable for review to Wikipedia editors, which debars them from qualifying as reliable sources. For the non-English language texts, WP:V holds the following: "Where editors use non-English sources, they should ensure that readers can verify for themselves the content of the original material and the reliability of its author/publisher ... Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations made by Wikipedia editors."

Secondly, while Tancarville holds himself out as a renowned geneaologist on his own and a number of websites, no reliable sources say so. A G-search for "Charles Said-Vassallo" turns up only 83 unique hits, all of them various webpages. There are zero hits on Google Scholar for him, something of an ominous sign. WP:V further holds:

"Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so." (emphasis in the original)

So far, and in violation of WP:V, we have taken Tancarville's unsupported word for the existence of the sources he claims and for the accuracy of the information he gives on his website ... and startlingly, we did so for over four years. No one on Wikipedia is supposed to get a free ride, and he's had more than enough chances to provide verifiable, reliable sources.  RGTraynor  09:13, 1 June 2008 (UTC)