Wikipedia:FCDW/June 23, 2008

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Dispatches: Key skills for Wikipedians: citing and verifying claims

By Ealdgyth, June 23, 2008

One of the features of Wikipedia's articles that sets it apart from much of the Internet is the skill with which they are verified (WP:V) and reliably sourced (WP:RS); these two processes are policy and guidelines, respectively. Like all of Wikipedia's content, featured article candidates (FACs), featured list candidates (FLCs) and good article nominees (GANs) are scrutinized by reviewers for their grounding in sources our readers can rely on. This is explicitly reinforced in FA Criterion 1c, in the lead of the FL criteria, in Good Article Criterion 2 and at peer review.

Determining what makes a source reliable and how to make sure text is verifiable is often not a straightforward task, and often involves decision-making that is not a black-and-white issue. From WP:V:

In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is.

Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science. Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications. The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context. Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text.

And from WP:RS:

Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. How reliable a source is depends on context. As a rule of thumb, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication.

Here are some thoughts on how to evaluate sources and what may lead to questions about sources.

General background

When evaluating sources, look at how the source is being used; contentious statements or anyting related to a living person requires a high quality source. Fantastic claims, even if they aren't about living people, will probably draw scrutiny.

Verifiability

If content could be challenged, or is a quotation, an inline citation must show where you got the information and show it in such a way that others can go back and find it. Sources from books, magazines, newspapers, and other published sources need to give at a minimum, title, publisher, and date of publication and location within the work when available. Usually the location means a page number, but for some small works or articles, that's not necessary. Ideally, you'd give the usual bibliographical information, which includes author, co-authors if any, translator if it is translated, where it was published, an ISBN/ISSN number or Library of Congress number and any other information. What edition the work is, if it has been revised, is also needed, as revising the work can change it substantially. For web pages, the needs are the same: publisher, title, and date of last access are the bare minimum, and author and publication date should be given when available.

Make sure that all citations give the minimum information (publisher information can be checked against Google Books).

If a citation is missing publisher information or page numbers, verifiability is not met and reliability is difficult to evaluate; before approaching FAC, make sure all of your sources are complete and consistently cited per criteria 2c (GAN does not have a requirement for consistently formatted citations).

Reliable sources

WP:RS says "This page in a nutshell: Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."

Websites may receive more scrutiny than books, magazines or newspapers; while printed sources are also checked, it can be harder to judge reliability on websites, and thus they often warrant extra attention.

Printed sources

For books or other printed sources (including albums and dvds that relate directly to the subject of the article), the following warrant closer scrutiny of the source:

  • An unrecognized publisher or a publisher that isn't in a "usual" location.
  • An article that uses mostly printed sources, but a lot of information is missing from the citations.

Books published by a well known university press are less likely to be questioned.

Websites

The following are some things to check in citations sourced to websites:

  • Run your cursor over the links and double check that ones that do have publisher information from trusted sources (such as BBC, USA Today, International Herald Tribune, etc.) actually go to that site. (Also spot check to see that title, author and publication date information is correct.)
  • Click through to articles that lacks publisher information.
  • Check all websites you don't recognize:
  • If a site is backed by a large media company or is a newspaper, tv station, radio station or an official organization, it may be reliable, depending on the text being cited.
  • If a site has an "about us" page, "contact us" or FAQ page, check those to look for informatio about how the site gathers their information. This may indicate that the site is backed by a big media company, etc. and may be reliable.
  • If a site is written by a noted expert independently published by reliable sources in the field, or is hosted by a college or university institute concerned with the field, it may be reliable, depending on the text cited or whether there should be other, more reliable (for example, peer-reviewed) sources available.
  • Government sites generally connected to the field may be reliable.
  • Paid sites that rely on the accuracy of their information for their living, such as Equibase or the like, are usually reliable, although they may be questioned.
  • Some sites have proven reliable for some purposes: examples include (but are not limited to) IGN, CNET, Cricinfo, and others.
  • If the site gives its sources, but still seems like a personal site, it should be questioned. Depending on the text that is being sourced, it could be reliable, but all self-published sources must meet WP:SPS.

Websites with the following should be questioned:

  • Lack of an "about us" page
  • Looks like a personal webpage (including but not limited to tripod.com, geocities.com, members.aol.com and anything that is written by an individual or fans)
  • Plants five annoying popups on your screen before you can even find the "about us" page
  • About.com
  • IMDb for anything beyond the very basics of a film's cast or awards. Even then, you're better off just referencing the film or the awards site.
  • Anything that says it gets some or all of its information from Wikipedia or a Wikipedia mirror
  • Anything that looks like a usenet posting or an archive of usenet postings
  • Anything that is a blog
  • Anything that looks like a forum post

Self-published sources

Add blurb here about WP:SPS

Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable.

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.

Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see WP:BLP#Reliable sources.

Articles and posts on Wikipedia may not be used as sources.

Responding to queries about reliable sources

Reviewers need to know what sort of fact checking the source does. You can establish this by showing

  • articles published by reliable sources that say the site is reliable or noteworthy
  • a page on the site that gives their rules for submissions
  • they are backed by a media company, university, institute
  • that the website gives its sources and methods
  • that the author is a noted expert in their field, published by independent reliable sources
  • that the author is actually a member of the press with a reputation for reliabilty.

Meeting these criteria doesn't necessarily mean a source is reliable (depending on the text cited) or that you've used the best sources, but they do set a minimum threshold you should be prepared to meet.

Things that won't help:

  • Saying "It's reliable"; reviewers need to know why it is considered reliable.
  • Saying "It has an article on Wikipedia"; Wikipedia is not a reliable source.
  • Saying "So-and-so Wikiproject says its reliable": the Project needs to demonstrate reliability, not just provide a list, and reliability depends on the text being cited.
  • Saying "It's used in 15 other featured articles"; just like at AfD or the like, saying that Otherstuffexists isn't a valid argument.

Sidepoint about printed sources

Sometimes it feels like editors have a bias against printed sources. I see this especially in the popular culture articles, where the suggestion that printed sources might be consulted is sometimes met with puzzlement. For some things, printed sources are still much better than online sources, and there is no reason not to use them.