Talk:Alor Incident

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[edit] Prod

While the styling of this entry is poor and it needs to be converted out of an essay format, the claims that it is unverifiable and a WP:OR violation are both redundant. The entry is clearly sourced to 2 Indonesian publications making it a verifiable account of a claimed encounter. While there is what could be WP:OR within the entry (stress, "could be"), the inclusion of sources means that the entry itself is not a WP:OR violation (WP:OR refers exclusively to the editor of the entry, not to the editor of the sources).

Format alone has never been a deletion category, neither has cleanup. Thus, this entry has been detagged. - perfectblue 15:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm a little bit confused here. Your edit summary when removing the PROD states, "but everything is clearly sourced to indonesia publications", but there was no direct sourcing until your next edit, where you simply added citations to both publications for every paragraph to the sources mentioned at the end of the article. However, your username does not appear in any previous edits, you do not appear to have written the article, yet you confidently added footnotes to cite every paragraph of the existing text to two extremely obscure publications (which I cannot even confirm the existence of, and am extremely dubious that they are reliable sources). Do you have those publications in front of you, in order to confirm that what the article asserts is actually confirmed by the sources as written? --MCB 06:02, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Please read WP:AFG. I'd also ask you to please read the relevant treaties on the international nature of Wikipedia. Just because a publication is not widely available in the US does not mean that it is not a valid source for Wikipedia. - perfectblue 17:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

"am extremely dubious that they are reliable sources"

Reliable, for a UFO sighting? Are you serious? We're talking about little space men here, not about anything even approaching Redflag. The same rules apply here as for urban myths. As per the recent arb com, you frame correctly (eg, calling a myth a myth, and not trying to pass it off as anything else), and you find a third party source that accurately describes the myth. You don't need to get a signed affidavit from your local Senator, you just need to demonstrate that you are not making it up or misquoting something. - perfectblue 17:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid you missed my point on both counts. First, of course I am aware that non-US (or even non-English language) sources are acceptable. What I was asking was whether you, personally, have read these sources, and can attest to their content, and whether that content is accurately reflected in the article. In essence, that's what you're doing when you add footnotes like that. I am assuming good faith by asking you about it, rather than immediately putting the article up on AfD as unverifiable. Because the sources are so obscure, are not available online, or to my knowledge, in the English-speaking world, it seems to be very fortuitous that you were able to find them in order to cite them directly in footnotes, after their existence was asserted by a previous author. Please don't be insulted; this is the type of due diligence that we need to do on sources.

Secondly, the requirements of WP:V and WP:RS apply to every article, including those about myth, folklore, or little green men. When I said I was dubious about the sources meeting WP:RS, I'm not arguing that they don't reliably prove the existence of UFOs or similar phenomena, but that they don't meet the criteria we expect for reputable, reliable sources with an editorial vetting and fact-checking process, etc., as to accurately reporting the observations of those who claim to have seen this phenomenon. In order words, for Wikipedia purposes, we do not have sufficient proof that the whole thing is not just made up. --MCB 04:48, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Er, but most urban myths are made up, that's the whole point. They are fictional or distorted account which are none-the-less circulated, and it is the circulation that is the important thing. As per the arb com, this page is clearly framed as being about an a UFO incident, therefore the burden of proof (WP:V) is to demonstrate that the event exists as a third party myth that was not made up by whoever wrote the entry.

perfectblue 18:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that completely, and am trying not to lose my patience here. What I am asking you, for the third time, is whether you, personally, have read these sources, and can attest to their content, and whether that content is accurately reflected in the article. In other words, all we have that says that this is not completely made up by the author are references to two very obscure sources, which I cannot verify the existence and content of. You used those sources as footnotes to cite specific assertions in the article to. In other words, the verifiability of the article is wholly based on your personal attestation to the existence and reliability (in terms of accurate reporting of purported witnesses' statement) of those sources. Basically, I am bending over backwards here to not accuse you of intellectual dishonesty, by asking this question in good faith. If you do not have actual access to, or copies of, those sources, it was improper to use them as footnotes references in the article merely based on a previous editor's listing them as references, and the footnotes must be removed. As for whether the sources meet WP:RS, that's a separate issue. --MCB 22:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)