Talk:Thomas Howarth

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Bobo (or anyone who knows the answer), would you mind explaining why you think cricketarchive.com is reliable despite appearances to the contrary? Please see my edit summary.[1] Pan Dan 15:55, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

What appearances to the contrary are you referring to? What do you mean by user-submitted content and no fact-checking? In what way is this source in any way unreliable or untrustworthy? Bobo. 16:02, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, first look at Thomas Howarth's page itself[2]: It informs us that "This page was created by the CricketArchive Oracles." Who are the CricketArchive Oracles and where did they get the information? How do we know it's accurate?

Then, from [3] it appears that users (i.e. anybody) are invited to submit content--"If you feel that you could do this research, please contact us." How do we know what content on the site comes from users and whether that content is checked for accuracy?

Finally, Peter Griffiths and Philip Bailey are identified as the "General editors" of the site.[4]. No further identification is provided. Who are they and what are their credentials? Do they have a reputation for fact-checking the information they provide? Otherwise how do we know that the information on their site is accurate? Clicking on their names only gets one an email form. Trying to view a "complete list" of "our partners" gets one an error page [5]. Pan Dan 16:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I realise I'm very late on the ball here but you have the wrong address. It is here. --BlackJack | ^{talk page} 21:49, 26 October 2007 (UTC) significant modern reference work in cricket and by general opinion of peers, the best among the living statisticians. While Cricinfo has the largest volume of data on cricket available, it suffers from the handicaps of being a huge, news organisation - the existing errors rarely get fixed, most of the articles are written on the fly etc. Tintin 19:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Following a quick Google check, this seems more trustworthy because it's "part of ESPN," a well-known news organization that must defend a reputation for accuracy and is held accountable for any mistakes it makes. Pan Dan 16:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

...and it appears to contain more information than the other site, which can't be a bad thing :) Pan Dan 16:33, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

To answer a couple of questions, the Cricket Archive Oracles is simply the internal software the Cricket Archive site uses for generating its pages. The site itself is a partner of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS), a highly respected body which is consulted by the sport's governing body (the International Cricket Council) when decisions are made on the status of various matches. The two individuals mentioned as being general editors of the site are both members of the ACS. The site is generally considered to be more reliable than Cricinfo when it comes to statistics, due to the link with the only major group of cricket statisticians. The site is only a stats site, with a small news section, whilst Cricinfo is primarily a news site. Andrew nixon 16:45, 30 June 2007 (UTC) Cricket Archive is the best source for cricket statistics on the web, it's accepted by everyone. It's notablility simply isn't in question. With such a huge subject the odd discrepancy is bound to arise, usually against Cricinfo which is generally not quite so up to date, but this is no reason to question is notability overall. Nick mallory 03:23, 2 July 2007 (UTC)