Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 27

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Contents

Question

Does this edit require references ? - [1] Thanks -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 18:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Crum375 (talk) 18:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, it's not really adding new information... the issue there isn't one of references, I don't think. (Which is not to say the edit is good - it's just not bad because of references.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming no orginal research means "Personal Correspondence with author" is not allowed. Why not? I think it would be great to be able to go and ask a live authoritative person and be able to quote them here. And I mean something in writing, not just "I was talking to Joe and he said" kind of reference. I didn't know Wikipedia was becoming a url repeater. Printed encyclopedias don't end all their articles with "I read it in this book." Kristinwt (talk) 05:19, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Correction. I think I don't have original research. What I have is Primary sourcing. How do I provide proof of email correspondence? Where do I put it? I didn't realize WP was called Tertiary sourcing.Kristinwt (talk) 05:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Unless someone else has published it, it would be considered original research. Source typing is not really a consideration in this case, because the information is unpublished. If it were a published collection of correspondence, it could be considered for use as a primary source. If you're simply interested in doing original reporting, WikiNews would could always use some extra help and content. Vassyana (talk) 22:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Let me remove the sugar coating. Like all Wikipedia editors, I am a liar. When I purport to quote personal correspondence from an author, I am lying; either the author never corresponded with me, or I have misquoted him, or I have distorted his correspondence. My lies are original research. My false assertion that I'm quoting the author is worthless. Only published sources can be relied on. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Isn't this really about verifiable sources? As they say, "you are not a reliable source'.Doug Weller (talk) 22:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

May object?

There's still a problem in WP:V#Burden of evidence. editors may object is ambiguous; does it mean might or can? There's a contradiction if the section parses this way: "You can remove anything at any time, and who knows what happens after that .... the exception is BLP material, which may be removed at any time." That's not an exception ... that's the same thing. So editors may object seems to me to mean editors can object, and I'll change the wording unless someone objects, on the general principle that ambiguous words in core content policies are a bad thing.

I always took it as "might," i.e. "You can do this if you want, but you'll probably make people angry." That said, clarifying that such objections are reasonable and accepted would not be a bad thing. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:19, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
You're right. Now I'm liking editors may reasonably object, because the word reasonable seems to have wide acceptance in this role. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
(And, see, this is why I'm over on NOR objecting to the idea that we can transparently describe primary sources. We can't even transparently describe our own policy.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Phil, at least once a minute, someone new comes along and makes a post somewhere along the lines of "I have found the truth! It turns out everyone was doing this wrong all along! What a crapfest!" (I don't know if any of this applies to you; that's your call.) Bad people do bad things and good people do good things, and there are a huge number of competent, hard-working people around here. Lawyers know that national constitutions and laws tend to be "bad" in a variety of ways, but "legal opinions" based only on reading of the laws and not on actual practice are uniformly bad. It's the same on Wikipedia. There are good people who do good work, and the quality of their work is not significantly impacted by month-to-month changes on policy and guidelines pages. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
P.S. Let me summarize that: yes, Phil, please keeping pointing out flaws where you see flaws, but don't take a flaw in the statement of a policy to mean the system is broken. Good Wikipedians do the same thing that all good lawyers do: they make reasonable interpretations and follow common practice, which is usually good enough for day-to-day work. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Another edit; I just realized that after adding the first reasonably, part of the second sentence became redundant; the second sentence was designed to reinforce the "reasonable time" idea, but it's just better to reinforce it in the first sentence and delete the redundant part from the second. (As always, correct me if I'm wrong.) Btw, you can argue that reasonably and reasonable in back-to-back sentences is bad stylistically, but this is a trick that lawyers use: the fewer words you use that can be interpreted broadly, the faster common practice will nail down the interpretation. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

←PBS's reversions to Phil's stuff also reverted this edit of "may" to "may reasonably". I don't know whether that was intended or not; no one had any objection to the idea that "may" is ambiguous and should be nailed down. May I (reasonably!) reinsert? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:46, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

commenting on the first paragraph in this section, I do not see that may "object" means "can object", and commenting on the paragraph immediately before this one, I do not see why it is necessary to include reasonable as it is subjective word and might not be understood by all Wikipedians to have the legal connotations that I suspect you (Dank55) are attributing to it. (A look at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia might give you a clue as to reasonableness on more contentions issues in the Wikipedia community). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:35, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay. Do you believe that actual practice on Wikipedia supports "might" or "can"/"are permitted to"/"may reasonably" (I'm not picky)? "May" is bad since it could mean either one. - Dan (talk) 18:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
"Can" and "might" is what I understand "may" to mean in this context. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 22:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
No problem here with "can", anyone opposed? - Dan (talk) 23:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes because I think "may" is a better word in this context than "can". --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Words that can mean two completely different things are not a good choice. "may" can mean "might" or "can". I don't think "might" is the sense we want; you could say that on any policy page. "Do this, but something might happen if you do." Well, of course ... there's no telling what will happen on Wikipedia; that's not useful information. "Do this, but editors can object..." is probably what it was intended to mean, and how most people read it. That probably also reflects actual practice. - Dan - Dan (talk) 03:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not saying that may in this context is either "can" or "might", but "can and might" so I do not see changing "may" to "can" is what is needed. However I have been rummaging in the OED (Draft revision March 2008 ) and it might be that this is a dialect problem, so we probably need more people to come into this conversation. "Can" and "may" have many meanings in the OED, some of the subtle and some of them are colloquial or used mainly in Be. or Ae. For the meaning that I think you mean it says "[Can v.6.b.] To be allowed to, to be given permission to; = MAY v.1 4a. colloq." "May.v.1.4a" does not exist in the draft version instead "May.v.1.4" says "{dag}4. Expressing ability or power; be able, can. Obs.". However my understanding of this clause "Editors may object if you remove material without giving them sufficient time to provide references." is similar to "He may go to the park today and if he does I'll let you know" or in other words "He can go to the park today and he might do so, and if he does I'll let you know". If indeed your change can be seen as presenting a suggesting that an automatic mechanism exists for editors to demand that time be given for finding sources before information is deleted, then I think that undermines the first clause of the sentence. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

←Okay, you read it as "might", but again, ambiguous words in core content policies are a bad thing. May can certainly mean "is permitted to", and "can" is usually heard the same way in this context, so we should change "may" so that people know what we mean. Does the sentence mean that editors can object if they aren't allowed sufficient time to provide references? That does happen, all the time, so that's probably what it means. You seem to be reading this to mean, "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed, but it might happen that editors object if you remove material without giving them sufficient time to provide references; but of course, if they do, they're out of luck, because as we just said, any material lacking a reliable source may be removed." If we weaken "may" to "might", then we can't stop there, we would have to say what happens when they object ... which would be fine with me, I just have a preference for policy to be as stable as possible, except for removing clear ambiguity. - Dan (talk) 16:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

"Can" is also an ambiguous word in this context because you have not said which version of "can" you mean. Besides in practice editors who wish to keep information that is not sourced in an article can do so if there is a local consensus to do so, in which case the consensus compromise that usually emerges is to keep the information for a time but flag it with a {{fact}} template and only remove it if it can not be sourced. I do not think we should be altering WP:PROVEIT to give a right to an editor to keep information (without a citation) in an article when it has been challenged by wording this clause so that it can be interpreted that way. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, I'm disappointed we haven't had more discussion in this thread. Changing the wording would require consensus, and there's no participation at all. - Dan (talk) 22:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Monthly summaries

WP:MoS editors (the current volunteers are Tony and me) have started creating monthly or quarterly short summaries of changes to style guidelines, because the high-volume article reviewers don't have time to wade through every discussion themselves and figure out what it all means. This requires good faith and editorial judgment as to which monthly changes are actually likely to affect the outcomes in article reviews (FAC, GAN, etc), and what the practical effects of guidelines changes are. Could we do something similar on this page? Would it work to have a box at the top of the talk page that adds a few short comments at the end of the month covering recent changes? I'm torn, because WT:V arguments tend to go on for a while (not that that's a bad thing), and I'm concerned that trying to post a summary would simply mean a rehash of the previous arguments, serving no purpose; this would suggest that it's better for any users who want to participate in the summary project to simply post their own opinions in their own userspaces of what changed and what it meant, and then article reviewers can come to their own conclusions about which users are providing information that helps them do what they do. On the other hand, the Wikipedian in me wants to trust the mob, and we the mob are a lot fairer and more dispassionate when we're summarizing old discussions than when we're talking about whatever is "hot" and "now". Thoughts? Would a monthly summary be useful, or would it waste a lot of time? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:46, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I strongly, strongly approve of this idea. I don't watch these pages because so much argumentation takes place that my watchlist is overwhelmed, yet when I turn up and see some massive change people say things like "well, if you were interested, you'd have watchlisted it." So yes, a good idea. --Relata refero (disp.) 17:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Can we start by summarizing the changes made to the first section? Because I have a feeling something major just happened, but the discussion since April 1 is too convoluted to follow. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Not a bad idea, although core policies do not change as much as style guidelines... ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:56, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the support. I wouldn't want to do a summary on a conversation until it gets archived so that everyone is likely to have said everything they wanted to say; I'd also like to see how it gets used "in the trenches". I also want to take advantage of the fact that people on Wikipedia tend to get very enthusiastic about things for a while, and then wander off; better to attempt a summary two or three weeks after the conversation is over. My current take is that several sentences were wrong, and not followed by anyone, and they got fixed. No one thinks that all unsourced material should be removed from mainspace, BLP or not. We have 95000 disambiguation pages, and off the top of my head, I can't think of a single cite in any of them. (And btw, I explored some of the reasons that this custom makes sense in the last half of the WT:WHEN#Citation in lists thread.) Also, although 99 times out of 100, we're using WP:V as support to insist on a cite, WP:V had completely lost its power in the other 1 out of 100 cases. People were sometimes asserting that WP:V gave them authority to insist on immediate inline citations, or to remove the material without warning, in cases where the clear community standard was not to insist on an inline citation, such as when the material was really very basic and perfectly well covered by a reference to a basic textbook. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
P.S. If it turns out to work to rely on the mob rather than individual commentaries, then logically, the summary of archived material should appear at the top of the archived material, so that people can check for consistency. I would guess we're going to need a bot that maintains a page with links to the summary boxes, something like the RfC bot, so that people don't have to hunt for the summary material or watchlist it separately. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 22:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
P.P.S. Would anyone mind if, just as an experiment, I create a summary box at the top of the current archive page? Would anyone mind if I insert a few subheadings called Summary1, Summary2, etc, so that, in some cases, I could just say "there was a change in the policy on X; see Summary1 for one viewpoint on the change and Summary2 for another"? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 22:42, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

←Update: summaries and the general idea of making keywords easier to find in archives are being discussed at various places in WT:MoS, including WT:MoS#Proposal to index. Might be safer to try it there and get some experience with it before trying to apply the ideas to policy pages. - Dan (talk) 17:06, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but...

If the sentence "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" doesn't pretty much demote this whole project to a lark, I don't know what else would. Any day of the week you can read a factual untruth from a "reputable" source. When, and why, did this idea of something being "published" become the single most important factor in the area of credibility? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.241.14.56 (talk) 21:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

It's been in the policy nearly as long as the policy has existed, in one wording or another. And it's there because debating "The Truth" is generally unproductive and inappropriate when we could be discussing what content can be cited to a reliable source. Allowing editors to disregard a source simply because they don't like what it says is precisely what we don't want. Someguy1221 (talk) 21:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

That's (vaguely) interesting - but also conveniently ignores my primary point, which was - editors that DO regard a source, even if it's wrong, merely because it was "published", serves what positive purpose, exactly? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.241.14.56 (talk) 21:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Merely being published is insufficient. As I often have to state, publishing something makes verifiable only that the document/video/whatnot says what it says. That is, John says X is made verifiable if John says X on his blog. In no way does this imply that X is itself verifiable. That is why we have the reliable sources guideline and the reliable sources noticeboard to determine whether we can make that leap in judgement, that what a source claims should be presented as a fact. If there is reason to suspect the source is unreliable, you're free to stop at John says X (direct attribution). If multiple sources contradict one another, we have an obligation to present their viewpoints in a neutral manner, although we are permitted to claim one or more viewpoints on a subject to be completely insignificant and discard them entirely (from that subject's own article) if there is consensus to do so. And on extremely rare occasion, if it can be demonstrated that a source made an actual mistake, you can seek consensus to discard that source as well (although if the error itself was widely reported and disected by reliable sources, we're back to the neutral business). Someguy1221 (talk) 21:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
We are not publishers of original researchers, it is our job to present the existing body of knowledge in encyclopedia form. (1 == 2)Until 21:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree. However, the existing body of knowledge and the body of knowledge put in printed forms by reputable mainstream publishers does not come close to being identical sets. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:12, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

And this "existing body of knowledge" was probably originally arrived it by....what? Magic? Or perhaps - "original research"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.241.14.56 (talk) 22:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

To reiterate a point I made above. The issue of truth and verifiability has to be in context to the process of a page maturing. It is alright for someone to start a page without any citations. Later as a page gets looked at and things are questioned, citations become an issue. At that point the more perspectives that can be brought to the page the better. A says X and B says Y, but C says Z. The next step is that editors discuss all the citations to determine which are relevant and which are not. This takes reasoned discussion by caring editors. All through this discussion there will probably be other parts of the article that will remain uncited and unquestioned. As long as they remain unquestioned, there is really no problem with them being uncited, though it would be more transparent if they were tagged as being uncited. I really think the important criteria for wikipedia is transparency. It should be clear where the information comes from, even if we don't know where it comes from. That is the beauty of tagging something as uncited. Someone can read a page, see that the information is uncited and wonder about its veracity. I can't empahsize enough how important it is for us to spread the idea that everything you read (especially on the internet) should be read with an analytic skeptical and thoughtful mind. This is one of the foundations of scholarship. When I tell people that I am an administrator on Wikipedia, I often get the comment, "I hear that that there are many errors in Wikipedia". My retort is that "Yes, there are. There are errors in EVERYTHING you read. Wikipedia has less errors than many venerated reference works. You should question the veracity of everything you read." -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:41, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

To respond to the comment that opened this thread: "Verifiability not truth" is like any slogan a highly compressed term. The opposite - let's just imagine it - would be no different ... if we said, "Truth, not verifiability," the slogan would have to be followed by a discussion of what we mean by truth. We certainly wouldn't just stop with the slogan. Same for our actual slogan, it is just that the term that needs to be explained is not "truth" but "verifiability." What do we mean by verifiable? It comes from a source ... what kind of source? It expresses a known point of view, can it be any point of view or are there other conditions? The slogan is not a substitute for the answers to these questions, it is shorthand for a much longer discussion of what we mean by verifiability which is in fact pretty specific. Let us not confuse two very different debates: (1) should truth or any concept that is comparable to truth be a criteria for inclusion (our policy says no, and I strongly believe that is a very good idea), and (2) what exactly do we mean by verifiability, and what additional conditions do we place on "verifiable knowledge." The first debate would change the slogan. The second debate would change all the text that follows the sloagan, but not the slogan itself. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Nobody seems to me to be suggesting "Truth, not verifiability," or changing the concept of verifiability substantially (though there are, as I've indicated, some large problems downstream from the slogan). Which leaves us with the first debate. Can anyone point me to an actual example of text that we would currently exclude or include under "not truth, but verifiability" as actually practiced that would be done differently under "not just accuracy, but verifiability," or under a statement to the effect of "Wikipedia strives to be a complete and accurate encyclopedia. To that end, the threshhold for inclusion is truth, not verifiability." i.e. can anybody come up with a specific problem that either of these rephrasings would cause? Because the only thing worse than writing policy for 2,500,000 articles by looking at a few pathological ones is writing policy for 2,500,000 articles by looking at a hypothetical slippery slope. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, numerous specific problems have already been pointed out to you, by a variety of editors. Dlabtot (talk) 15:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I must have missed them in the length of the talk page. Would you be so kind as to point me to one? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Many more than just one; just read the comments by Jayjg, Crum375, Relato refero, Until, Someguy1221, Shirahadasha and Slrubenstein. Dlabtot (talk) 16:08, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I have just re-read every single comment by all of the users listed. None of them have, anywhere, provided an actual article with text that would be treated differently under our current policy and actual practice than it would be under the proposed language. Actually, with the exception of JayJG making an oblique reference to the Unification Church, none of them have talked about specific topics at all. I thus repeat my request - would somebody be so kind as to show one of our two and a half million articles that would be harmed by a change in wording to this policy? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Talk:Kannada literature is currently undergoing a fractious RfC in which the lead turns on this point. Thanks to all this, I also had to avoid using the phrase in the past 24 hours at Talk:Armia Krajowa. In each case it would affect a fairly important part of the lead of visible articles one of which was an FA. I think you really should move on now. --Relata refero (disp.) 22:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I may be misreading the dspute on Kannada literature, but it does not look to me like a change in the wording would be relevant here - the issue seems to be insertion of unverified information and perspectives. The change to the wording does not remove the requirement of verifiability that would prohibit this. I confess, I don't see the relevance of the slogan to Armia Krajowa - that looks like a question of interpretation of a source - i.e. the dispute hinges on what is verifiable as much, if not moreso, as on what is true. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
No, Phil. The latter is about the truth that some people hold that since the Polish Home Army did not in fact commit large-scale atrocities against the forest Jews and others, it does not figure in the lead, versus the verifiable fact that large numbers of sources discuss the possibility of such atrocities. Is that clearer now? --Relata refero (disp.) 18:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
They all have the potential to be harmed, since this change would represent a complete repudiation of the way Wikipedia works and and a radical change to a new, and totally wrong-headed paradigm. So, specifically, anything from Aardvark to Zyzzyva, but Charles Webster Leadbeater is one that recently has been the victim of editors who want it to reflect the 'truth'. Dlabtot (talk) 23:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
You're being very silly. And the Leadbeater example does not seem to me to play out any differently under "not just accuracy, but verifiability." What inaccurate but verifiable information, exactly, is under question there? Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
According to some, the truth is that he was intructed by the Masters, avatars of long-dead enlightened spirits. And that is, according to those editors, not only true, but verifiable - just read his books! But most important, it is TRUE. Dlabtot (talk) 23:53, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. There is also, I am assuming, a substantial body of literature of people calling him a fraud. This is not a WP:V problem - it's an NPOV problem. The correct solution is to note, attributed, his claims, and then note, attributed,the claims of his detractors. A solution that is verifiable, accurate, and NPOV. And, to boot, it's already the correct solution under policy, suggesting that a change to the wording here would not affect the article a bit. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
If you know of any reliable sources declaring him to be a fraud, I'd encourage you to add them to the article. I'll just note that you are a distinct minority in your viewpoint, that the consensus is clearly and overwhelmingly against you, and let you have the last word. Dlabtot (talk) 00:29, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I've never even heard of him, so I'm not the one to ask here. Is it, in fact, undisputed that he was clairvoyant? If that is so (and it would be quite remarkable if it were and if he were notable) then I suppose that should go in. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:36, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Phil, your suggestion of "not just accuracy, but verifiability" would cause editors to go around removing reliably sourced material that they believed was inaccurate. A recent example from an animal protection-related article was a scholarly source arguing that animals might not be conscious, and that the modern philosophical literature isn't clear on that point. The first claim is false by any standard definition of "conscious," and the second claim is a misreading of the literature. But that opinion of mine, although almost certainly correct, does not allow me to remove that material from the article.
I could claim that this scholar's view is idiosyncratic and should be removed for that reason. But to do that, I will need to do a lot more research and produce other sources. I can't remove it just because it's almost certainly false in my view. Allowing editors to do that would lead to intractable disputes, whereas the point of this policy is to resolve disputes, even if imperfectly. SlimVirgin talk|edits 01:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
If the claim in the article was attributed clearly (i.e. Scholar X claims...) then I doubt that you doubted the accuracy of the claim in the article. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
(←) Re SlimVirgin: Editors can indeed remove material that they think is incorrect, if there is consensus to remove it. Part of writing anything is exercising editorial judgment about what to include and what not to include; just because material has a reference does not mean that we are in any way obligated to leave it in the article. WP:V only says that things that are unverifiable shouldn't be included. WP:V doesn't require that anything must or even should be included, verifiable or not (although of course WP:NPOV does require all significant viewpoints be included). — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:29, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

"If the claim in the article was attributed clearly (i.e. Scholar X claims...) then I doubt that you doubted the accuracy of the claim in the article." mdash; thank you, Phil, for finally admitting that this whole repetitive discussion about "not just accuracy" was a waste of time, because the addition of the phrase is at best irrelevant - verifiability is the issue. As for the "at worst" scenario, I mentioned a good one to you twice, Jesus article, which would get mired down in a POV war, or would produce two articles neither of which would be NPOV compliant. It seems like you just do not understand our NPOV policy. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:50, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The reason that we go with "According to X, Y" sentences is that regardless of what people think about Y, they can agree that the attributed sentence is accurate. Indeed, the argument in favor of that sort of sentence is, "even if you don't think Y is true, we aren't saying it is, we are only saying that X said it". In short, we are replacing a claim that people cannot agree is accurate with a claim that they can agree is accurate. If the consensus of editors believed Y to be the mainstream view, we wouldn't add the attribution specifically to X. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:10, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
The addition of the phrase is an important step towards moving the page away from ridiculously dogmatic advice that cannot and should not be followed to one that actually explains our goals and thought instead of narcissistically focusing on slogans and impossible prohibitions. As for the Jesus article, I do not see how, were the article NPOV (and thus by extension all of its claims clearly attributed to the people who are saying them, the article would change. Can you give me an example of the sort of statement in the article that you feel would have to change? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:05, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Phil, several examples have been given. How about you give us an example of where an article would be made less encyclopaedic by the judicious, non-disruptive application of verifiability, not truth, to contentious material? --Relata refero (disp.) 18:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Sure. Johan Helsingius. When the Church of Scientology was trying to shut down his anonymizer server they made the claim that 90% of child pornography on the Internet went across his server. The claim was repeated in The Observer - a reliable newspaper. The claim is transparently ludicrous (the server had file size limits that would have prevented its use for any child pornography), as numerous people wrote into the Observer pointing out, but The Observer never retracted the story - they merely noted that Helsingius denied the allegations. Thus we easily have a reliable source for the claim that Helsingius trafficked child pornography. It is, however, ludicrous to include that information in the article - it is transparently a lie to any remotely sane observer, and a desperately harmful one at that. Given our policy of great caution on BLPs it is clearly not acceptable to include this information, and, indeed, we do not. But as long as the threshhold is not accuracy, but rather verifiability, we would have little defense against a pro-Scientology troll who wanted to insert the information.
And, as a note, the issue here is not one of attribution - that is, the problem would not be solved by saying "The Observer alleged X, other people alleged Y and Z." The issue is that one has to go to the outside-of-the-sources knowledge that the entire flap was the result of poor decisions on the part of the Observer, and that the flap is not a notable aspect of Helsingius's life despite its appearance in high-profile reliable sources. (It might be notable to mention the Scientologist attacks on him, but it's a matter of presentation - what is notable is not that he was accused of trafficking child pornography, but rather that he was attacked by the Scientologists who used this as an attack) The correct presentation of the information, in this case, does not come clearly from the sources, but rather from a careful and sympathetic reading of the sort that arises only when we commit ourselves to getting it right, as opposed to just making sure we're not the only ones who get it wrong. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I saw that example on the mailing list. Before I answer it, I'd like you to tell me first, Phil, whether you genuinely believe that policy should be stiched around such an absurd outlier that would get IAR status in a minute if brought up at WP:BLPN. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:50, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the Helsingius case is not as much of an outlier as you think - it's just one where the issues are transparently obvious. The issue is not that the current policy as worded would lead to a bad call in that article - it wouldn't, because no sane editor would follow the current policy on that article. What I think is telling about it, though, is that it shows that we don't treat verifiability as an end in itself. We do also look at articles with the intention of making sure they get it right (where right is defined as "a complete and accurate NPOV account of major perspectives on the subject," not as "the absolute truth about the subject"). Which is where my objection to the phrasing comes from - because "we must include verifiable information, period" is as flawed as "we must include the truth, period." We try to get articles right. Verifiability is the best tool we have for doing so, but it's still a tool in pursuit of getting it right, not the goal in and of itself. Helsingius is interesting not because it's an exception, but because it's a case where you can clearly see that, even once verifiability is satisfied, there are more hurdles to clear. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:02, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Possibly, Phil, but then its not a very good example for policy purposes, is it? Because if the hurdles are obvious, no reasonable person would object to ignoring them in this specific case. Which is why I was asking for a normal example where judicious application to VnT would cause a result to be suboptimal. In other words, a case where several people, all looking at VnT, discussing civilly, and applying it judiciously, would cause a suboptimal result. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:43, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
This sounds to like a catch-22. If a "normal example" is one where people would legitimately argue for the policy, then it seems impossible for an example to be normal and clear-cut at the same time. By definition, any "normal example" is one where you could argue that the policy is working, and any example where no sane person could consider the policy to be working, is not a "normal example". Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
If "truth" or "accuracy" were criteria for inclusion, some people would delete all reference to the "historical" Jesus who was a faith healer, probably born in Nazareth, and executed by the Romans for sedition. And other people would delete all reference to Jesus being the only son of God or God the som, resurrected three days after he was crucified. There would be editors on either side claiming that any such views are untruthful or inaccurate. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:08, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
If those views were presented in terms of their sources (i.e. "Person X says Y") as they should be under NPOV, no sane person would engage in the dispute you suggest, as nobody, I don't think, seriously doubts the existence of the viewpoints - they merely doubt the truth of them. Thus a statement that is about the viewpoint as opposed to a statement that is the viewpoint should pass everyone's muster. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I want to make sure I am following you, Phil. Are you saying that if a notable view can be linked to a verifiable source, we should include it even if it is untrue? Slrubenstein | Talk 18:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I am saying we should, in most such cases, include the existence of the view. That is, "Person X says Y," as opposed to simply "Y." There are exceptions - I outlined one above regarding someone who was the target of a particularly vile piece of slander from the Scientologists that got play in some reliable sources that never retracted it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I want to repeat myself, just to make my point. The reason we would say "Person X says Y" is because, although we may not be able to find agreement whether Y is true/accurate, we can usually get consensus that "Person X said Y" is true/accurate. There's no rejection of truth implicit there. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:43, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay Phil, I still want to make sure i understand you. Now, we here have this BLP policy, which I abide by myself. So let's leave out the case of slanderous comments, as covered by BLP. Are you saying that in all other cases we should include notable views thta come from verifiable sources, even if I think the view is untrue or inaccurate? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
We should describe those viewpoints, yes. Note that describing may be different from "including" depending on exactly what you mean. If Person X says Y, and you think Y is untrue, we should include the statement "Person X says Y." We should not include the statement "Y." Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:51, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, you are still being unclear. Are you saying that if a verifiable source says something that i believe is true, I can just say "x" without providing the source? Or, if I just believe x, can I add that to the article without providing a source if i believe x is true (say, Moses received the 10 commandments from God at Mt. Sinai about 3400 years ago)? You're saying if I believe this to be true, I can add it to the appropriate article without providing a verifiable source? Slrubenstein | Talk 22:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
If the consensus of editors is that statement Y is correct, the article will usually simply contain statement Y. There may or may not be any inline citation or attribution, and that's fine. You seem to be mistaking individual preference with consensus. Look at an article like Pi - we don't say, "According to Johnson, π is approximately equal to 3.14159". Most articles don't have the issue that there are extreme disagreements about point of view. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
So? You are confusing verifiable for verified. The value of pi need not be traced to a verifiable source because everyone agrees on the value - but it is, it really is, verifiable meaning, it is capable of verification. Indeed, the reason it is not actually verified is that it is soooo easily verifiable. Thus, it conforms with the policy as it currently stands. And there is still no need to change this policy to include the words "truth" or "accuracy." Sorry, but your comment has nothing to do with my question to Phil. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I am saying: If a verifiable source says something that a consensus of editors agrees is true, the article can just say "x" without providing the source. That seems to relate somehow to what you asked. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:36, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
No doubt. But that is not what this argumnt is about. This is an argument over what the policy should be (specifically, should it be changed). You are making a point about how the policy is applied (and suggesting an application that is allowed under the policy in its current form and does not require that the policy be changed). So, I am not arguing with your point, it is simply irrelevant to this argument over changing the policy. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm saying that the current practice is entirely concerned about accuracy; we remove or tone down claims (possibly by explicitly attributing them to particular sources) until there is a consensus they are accurate as well as verifiable. The written policy document is very confused on this issue, and out of step with practice. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:52, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Now what you write confuses me. Are you saying that if I believe something is accurate, even if it is not possible for me or anyone to verify it, I can add it to the article? Or are you saying that even if something has been linked to a verifiable source, if I think it is inaccurate, I can delete it? Slrubenstein | Talk 00:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Of course you should remove or rephrase things you find inaccurate. If other people disagree, you need to discuss it on the talk page until you find a consensus wording. "Verifiability" is a necessary but not sufficient condition for inclusion. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, you are just rejecting this policy. To each his own, but there is enough deep-seated support for this policy that you won't get very far if you disregard it. Simply put, if you think a claim I make is inaccurate, but I have a verifiable source attributing it to a notable POV, it goes in the encyclopedia. You would have no right to delete it. Period. Slrubenstein | Talk 01:34, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not rejecting this policy at all. This policy only says that unverifiable material should not be put in articles. It doesn't say that any content must or should be included in articles. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
In my statement above I was refering to our NPOV policy; NPOV and V go together; I should have said you are rejecting the package, I thought it was clear, albeit implicit. Slrubenstein | Talk 02:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I misread your sentence "Well, you are just rejecting this policy." The NPOV doesn't say that we unconcerned with accuracy, either, however, unless "accuracy" is read in a particularly solipsistic way. The NPOV policy explains the manner in which we try to accurately present significant, documentable disagreements. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
To be fair to you, I was not expressing myself clearly. Now, you are right that NPOV explains "the manner" in which we try to present disagreements (and of course we should present all views accurately, that goes without saying). But that is only half the picture. It also demands that we present views because they are notable even if we are convinced they are untrue. That is my main point. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:26, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Not sure where to insert this, but I'm again trying to answer Slrubenstein's question, though I'm not quite sure what's unclear about my previous statements. So I will try again. Let us assume claim X, which you believe to be true. If claim X is in fact uncontested in mainstream sources (i.e. there is no opposing point of view that we are obliged to report under NPOV) then an article can read "X." For example, the area of a circle is pi r squared. This is less out of a willingness on our part to assert X than out of a desire on our part to have our articles read smoothly. Depending on the obviousness of X, it may or may not also require a source. (pi r squared doesn't. The number of books Isaac Asimov wrote might). If there is any disagreement about X, then the article cannot read "X." Instead it must read "Y said X," clearly tying X to the people who believe it. In both cases we have acheived our essential goal of accuracy by what is generally accepted as the best measure of accuracy - nobody who isn't crazy is going to disagree with us. (i.e. we may fall afoul of certain people who believe that irrational numbers don't exist, that Isaac Asimov had a wealth of secret publications under the pen name of Ray Bradbury, or that the New York Times is involved in a vast conspiracy to misrepresent Y's positions and record. In all such cases, we, along with the vast majority of hte world, don't really give a damn.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Phil, the way to answer my question is simply to answer my question. Actually, two questions, and you can answer with a simple yes or know though I wouldn't begrudge you an explanation I am anticipating that no explanation would be needed. (1) If I (just me, not me, you and everyone else; please answer the question I am asking) believe a view to be true, even though I cannot attribute it to a verifiable source, may I add it to an article? (2) If I believe a view to be false, but it is notable and I can attribute it to a verifiable source, may I add it to an article? If you answer with any combination of yes and or no, I will no longer be confused and will cease adding more questions to you. If, as has been the case several times now, you propose a question I did not ask you and answer it, well, no offense, but i am likely to continue to be confused and will probably ask the question again. I sincerely hope you are willing to answer my questions. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't see how my answers do not address your questions, but here we go. 1) No. It fails to meet the two criteria - accuracy and verifiability. 2) If the view is sufficiently controversial that you do not believe it to be true, you should probably add it in an "X says Y" form instead of just a "Y" form. If, however, your viewpoints are well outside the mainstream on this issue and you know it then you could simply say "Y" on the grounds that it would be seen as accurate by most reasonable readers. I'm deeply skeptical of such a case ever arising in practice, though. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
"Jesus is the Son of God."... as a Christian, I know this statement is absolutely, 100%, "Truth". However, I do know that there are others who do not share my view. So in an article, I need to shift from "Truth" to "Accuracy". The accurate statement is "Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God." Am I wrong in making this distinction? Blueboar (talk) 02:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I think you're less shifting from truth to accuracy and more shifting the nature of the claims you make. The statement "Jesus is the Son of God" would not be seen by every imaginable reasonable reader as accurate. The statement "Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God" would be. Ergo that is the one we make. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
So he's not putting in truth then. He's putting in truth that others can verify. In fact, given the second part of the clause, the first part of the clause becomes irrelevant. --Relata refero (disp.) 08:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, it is now clear to me based on Phil's answers that "Verifiability, not truth," stands, and there is no need to add anything about truth. Same with accuracy - if I believe something is completely accurate, even if I have no verifiable sources, I am sure Phil would still say that it cannot go in. There is no need for an accuracy criteria when the verifiability criteria is both necessary and sufficient. As to "every imaginable reasonable reader," this is not the basis of our policies nor should it be. Wikipedia is open for everyone to edit, whether I can "imagine" them or not, whether I think they are "reasonable" or not. Questions of what is a notable view, and what is a reliable source, and whether the notable view from a reliable source is being explained well, are negotiated on talk pages by real people, and not in Phil's mind by people he imagines. The real people editing talk pages need policies that can guide them especially when editors come into conflict. And guess what, it is when editoras come into conflict that an editor is likely to say "I cannot even imagine why you think that" or "You are being unreasonable." This is precisely why we have our NPOV policy, and the dictum that follows from it, "not truth but verifiability" - POV warriors will always argue over who knows the truth, or whose view is accurate. Our policies side-step all those arguments by saying that such arguments do not matter. Is it a notable view? Is it verifiable? Is the source reliable? These are the questions we do and should continue to concern ourselves with when there are conflicts, not what someone imagines to be true. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

And this, of course, is what I get for answering questions in a hurry and while tired. Because, of course, now I think of the numerous examples for your second question that I wasn't thinking of because I was too hung up on how strange it was. Examples like the lighthouse example, where an editor - Mangoe, I think - corrected information about the locations of light houses, ignoring an erroneous source. Or the Helsingius case. And my answer to the question was, in that regard, totally wrong. One should not add information one believes to be false to Wikipedia. Period. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:47, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Did Mangoe have a different source? Phil, I think I can better explain my problem with your reasoning, it is in your statement, "One should not add information one believes to be false to Wikipedia. Period." My problem has to do with the word, "information." Our NOR policy allows people to use primary sources as long as editors "make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source." In this case, one could appropriately characterize the content added to the article as "information" and in this case as in any case the source should be "reliable" which I suspect in your mind translates into "accurate" and you won't get any argument from me. But in all other cases, which is an awful lot of Wikipedia, editorts add notinformation but views and this is my point, NPOV insists that as long as they are notable we add views even if we think they are false. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:06, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Right. I understand. I see there as being two categories of such cases - that is, where I believe statement X to be false. If I believe statement X to be false, but also recognize it as a notable viewpoint in a discussion (i.e. "The Jews are God's chosen people") I would be correct to add it in a form like "Y says X." Note that even though I do not believe personally that the Jews are God's chosen people, I do believe that there are people who believe that. Thus the statement "Y says X" is accurate, to my mind. If I believe the viewpoint to be false and there are not opposing viewpoints then I probably shouldn't add the viewpoint at all. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Question

If, in fact, it is wrong to say that the goal of Wikipedia is to be accurate, then why do we have Template:Disputed on over a thousand articles, and why has the template been in use since December of 2003 - almost as long as we've had a template disputing neutrality? We've always been invested in accuracy. This policy, in fact, was originally formulated explicitly to be about ensuring our own accuracy. It's ridiculous to claim otherwise. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course, no one is claiming otherwise. No one is arguing that Wikipedia should not be accurate. Dlabtot (talk) 19:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Excellent. So there would be no problem with enshrining the fact that Wikipedia strives towards accuracy in our policy? Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:26, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
You're confusing the goals of the encyclopaedia with how we want individual editors to behave. Please take a moment to think about that. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
... We want individual editors to behave in a way that promotes and considers the goals of the encyclopedia, surely. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:50, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but the goals of the pedia and how we instruct individuals to behave need not be identical. --Relata refero (disp.) 20:04, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
No, but we should probably avoid having them be contradictory. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Nowhere have you argued they're contradictory, merely not perfectly in line. --Relata refero (disp.) 08:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


These issues are separate from this policy. They would however be appropriaely handled in the "What Wikipedia is ... Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" page. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:22, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, except that this page seems to actively contradict that goal. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:48, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Phil, correct me if I am wrong... but it seems as if you feel that 'Accurate' = 'True'. I disagree. Blueboar (talk) 00:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I think that, in common usage, they are considered synonyms. Or, to put it another way, I think that if a politician tried to distinguish between the two they would be accused of twisting and spinning words and not speaking honestly. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:35, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
So we are lowering the debate to the level of cable-tv news, where accusations equal proof? Dlabtot (talk) 02:17, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
You're the one suggesting that the people you're arguing with are brainless, mate. I'm just pointing out that, in common usage, the distinction between the two words is far from straightforward. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
The point of the distinction is rather simple--we want to do the best job we can of assembling good sources in a careful manner, but we are not trying to actually resolve disputed questions beyond what our sources justify. DGG (talk) 23:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Jim's sentiment

I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.

–Jimmy Wales

I believe the above should be qualified that if someone is going to go to the length to police wikipedia, they are doing so under the pretense that they are bettering an encyclopedia, and not removed information blindly; they should check online for references related to the quote themselves first, google it or etc. To see if sources do infact exist. Otherwise there shouldn't any initiative to better the encyclopedia to be worth wasting ones energy policing it. Too many I have found take this quote with zealotry, when many contributors to Wikipedia don't know how to source and are infact adding useful information. There are many casual users remember, and the more experienced should take the care needed to enhanced wikipedia rightly. The tone and approach Jim Wales is making here violates WP:Assume good faith, and to make this rule mesh with the other Wikipedia rules, it is on the burden of the more savy Wikipedia user to seek out anything before they strike it out. 67.5.156.61 (talk) 04:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem is not with Jimbo's statement... but with people who misunderstand it. Jimbo included a very important phrase... "unless it can be sourced." Unfortunately, many people think Jimbo said: "unless it is sourced". There is a difference. Blueboar (talk) 23:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I regard it as one of the general overstated dicta the project accumulated in the earlier stages. We've gotten a much closer understanding of the problems now. It isn't scripture. It had its place at an earlier point in the process of upgrading WP, when it wa necessaryto get people to accept the idea thatthere did in fact need to be sourcing. DGG (talk) 23:54, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
No... it goes beyond that. While I agree that it is over-quoted (and often misunderstood), it still has a place. Especially in BLPs where unsourced info could be potential grounds for a law suit. Blueboar (talk) 02:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Jimbo's quote is still in WP:BLP, I just checked; would it be better to have it both places, or is once enough? - Dan - Dan (talk) 03:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
One is enough. The essay WP:WHEN, written by FAC caretaker Raul654 and originally linked from the MOS, indicates some eminently reasonable moderation of Jimbo's statements as (slightly) "overstated dicta". The statements are subsumed by their summary intro and by the statement "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed", which appears to be a stronger anchor for the zealotry described. Perhaps it too should be moderated, as "Any material not expected to have a reliable source" or "Any material which cannot be reliably sourced", and/or with my proposal in the section above. JJB 15:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I believe the sentence already deals with "may be removed" in the way that these issues are commonly handled on WP, by saying that editors may object if not given enough time to hunt up sources. The problem is that "may" is ambiguous. Maybe I'm misunderstanding him, but PBS seems to be arguing above under #May object? that that means that they "might" object (but that it won't do them any good).

Conflicting sources Sport event records

I didn't see, in this article, any orientation about how to deal with conflicting sources. For example, there is a sport competition own by an organization. That organization says that competition replaced another one that was not own by them. They also clearly say that the records of the previous competition are NOT part of the records of the new one. But, some third part sources, consider the previous competition's records as part of the new competition's records. So, how we suppose to deal in this situation. Use the records by the owner of the competition (with or without a comment that some sources say different)? Or use the records by third parts? Thanks. --ClaudioMB (talk) 01:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
It's a bit complicated, I'm going to reformulate. There is 2 sport competitions: A and B. Competition B replaces competition A. Competition B is own by Owner B that doesn't own competition A. Owner B say clearly that records of Competition B does NOT include records from competition A. Differently, some other sources consider records of competition A as part of records of competition B. So, should Wikipedia use records from Owner B or from other sources? My, PoV is that since that is a formal competition, with formal regulations and records, Wikipedia should use the source from the owner of the competition. If the other sources are considered by a large number of people, it could be mention that "sources A, B and C consider as one record". Maybe, this article could have a section explain such situations. Thanks. --ClaudioMB (talk) 03:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

In general, we should present all sides fairly and without bias when there are differing and/or conflicting views on a topic. That is largely what is meant by "neutral point of view". Cheers! Vassyana (talk) 03:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Not just all sides ... the keyword is significant viewpoints. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I understand that Wikipedia should present significant viewpoints on a subject. But, Wikipedia cannot change the subject. I mean, I consider that a sport event owned by an organization has only one record, the record defined by the owner. There is no "neutral point of view" on this. This is not something abstract like "who is better". This is just a fact defined by someone. If the owner of a tournament says that "A" is champion and "B" is not, that's it. Anyone could disagree with it, but no one could redefine it. So, Wikipedia must present the official records, but could mention that some sources disagree with them. Also, I still believe this subject should be mention in this article in order to guide editors and avoid long disputes. Regards. --ClaudioMB (talk) 04:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
The issue here is whether the two competitions are connected or not. The owner says no, but another source says yes. Thus, we have two viewpoints. If both viewpoints are significant, both should be discussed in accordance with WP:NPOV. Blueboar (talk) 14:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you. Both significant viewpoints should be presented. But, how should they be presented? When Wikipedia presents the records, it should use only the owner's source. Any other significant viewpoint should be present to readers to know that there are some people that believe differently. Could we work in this way?--ClaudioMB (talk) 22:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not sure it is correct to present only the owner's records. Perhaps a chart with different collumns for different record sources would work? Blueboar (talk) 01:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Initially, I thought do exactly that, 2 columns. But, I realize that, on our society, the ownership gives all the power to the owner. Below, I'll explain better.--ClaudioMB (talk) 02:06, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I've changed the title of this discussion because the former title was not correct to the problem. Now, I realize this is not a conflicting source problem, this is a source reliability problem on sport event records. What I mean is that any organized sport event has an organization behind it, like IOC or NBA. Those organizations own the rights of their sport events. They have all the powers an ownership gives to them to dictate everything about it: who was the winner, when the competition start to happen, anything. Anyone could disagree with them, but no one can change what they define.
For example: when, for any reason, IOC disqualify an athlete after he/she won an Olympic gold medal, anyone could disagree with the disqualification, but no one can keep saying that he/she own that gold medal. IOC cannot deny that that athlete was the winner at the end of the competition, but they can deny to him/her what belongs to IOC, an Olympic medal and the title of Olympic gold medalist. In the end, IOC owns the records.
So, my point is very simple, when Wikipedia presents sport event records, it must use only the owner's records (official records). Any other significant viewpoint that disagree with that (unofficial records), should not be consider as records, but mention in order to show readers that some people disagree with the official one.
I'm sorry for the initial confusion, but, sometimes, that's the way discussions and ideas develop. --ClaudioMB (talk) 02:06, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia as source

I have changed the 'permissive not':

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

to the imperative form:

"Articles and posts on Wikipedia must not and shall not be used as sources."

If anyone objects, please feel free to change it and explain your rationale User:Pedant (talk) 07:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

←I reverted Pedant because of the second sentence in the first infobox, which says "Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus." A few relevant points that have come up in the past:

  • There is some confusion over what the words "source" and "cite" mean. Sometimes they mean "used as a wikilink", sometimes they mean "mentioned by someone somewhere other than Wikipedia", and sometimes they mean "formally cited in an academic or policy paper".
  • Don't forget the general principle behind WP:UNDUE. Is that sentence really the most important thing in all of WP:V? If not, then the proposed language was too dramatic.
  • See the 5 pages listed in WT:Verifiability/Archive 26#Academics and journalists, which show that Wikipedia is increasingly being used as a valid source by journalists and academics. One of the articles at WP:GAN, 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, was recently cited both by academics and by the National Climatic Data Center.

On another point, Relata reverted Pedant to "cannot" rather than the original "may not". (Was that in response to my "may vs. can" thread above? If so, thanks for listening :) But the case is weaker for "may not" than for "may"; what does everyone think? - Dan (talk) 12:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

"may not" is not permissive, anyway, at least in terms of how it usually used in such contexts. "You may not steal cars" is not the same thing as "you might not steal cars"; "you may" is a grant of permission, "you may not" is the negation of this, and indication of the lack of permission. SamBC(talk) 12:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
On the other point, this page only governs what may be used as source on wikipedia, for purposes of verifiability; it can't limit any use of wikipedia elsewhere. Further, the idea that it would prevent wikilinking is contradicted simply by common sense, and anyone trying to claim that it prevents that is probably trolling. SamBC(talk) 12:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I think "may not" is fine. "Cannot" is incorrect if read literally. "Must not and shall not" is overly polemical. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. "You may not do such-and-such" is not going to be misread in the way that "editors may" might be misread (discussed above). - Dan (talk) 12:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, You shall not is the future, not the imperative; you may not is the imperative. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I did indeed replace cannot in response to the thread; while it is incorrect if read literally, I doubt anyone would actually read it like that. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Why not ditch the passive voice? "Do not use articles and posts on Wikipedia as sources." (Though I never understood why we wouldn't allow them as primary sources when relevant... if Jimbo had posted a detailed comment on the Essjay controversy on a talk page I am hard pressed to see why we would not treat that as a notable part of a notable figure's response to the issue. But that's a separate matter - in terms of this phrasing, ditch the passive voice and lose the ambiguity.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Phil, we certainly could use Wikipedia as a primary source when appropriate... But there are very limited situations where that would be the case. About the only situation I can think of would be if a particular Wikipedia article became a source of controversy and comment in the real world, and we were to write another article about that controversy... In that limited situation it would be appropriate to cite the controvercial article (using an archived version to show what the article looked like at the time of the controversy) to back statements of fact about what that article said. However, I don't think we need to spell out this very limited exception. In any case... for once I agree with your rephrasing :>) ... active voice is clear and better wording. Blueboar (talk) 18:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
"I did indeed replace cannot in response to the thread"...oh the irony, the one person who's giving me support in the "may vs. can" debate, and I revert you :) I was really reverting Pedant, you were just collateral damage. After reading the last 2000 or so messages, it seems to me that edits in policy and guidelines pages without consensus do seem to fan the flames; whoever put "don't edit without consensus" at the top of every policy and guidelines page had exactly the right idea, I think. I don't know why it has become so common not to revert undiscussed changes on sight on policy and style pages; can anyone tell me how that developed? Is it a good thing? Should we remove the top infobox, or should we start reverting undiscussed changes on sight? - Dan (talk) 18:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

A revert is also an edit. A revert of a good faith edit *never* has consensus. The rule is actually "Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus.". O:-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC) Ps. the person who wrote that was me. O:-)

Okay, that makes sense. Suppose that, every time I see a recent (like, in the last 24 hours) edit on a policy or guidelines page where I have seen no discussion on that or similar pages, I immediately make a boilerplate post on the talk page saying something like "there was an undiscussed edit; I plan to revert per the instructions in the top infobox; editors are requested to respond within x hours (you pick the x) if you're aware that there was consensus for that change". (And obviously, I would encourage everyone else to do the same, but I can only speak for myself.) I'm saying "boilerplate" because I don't want it to look like I was targeting any edit in particular, only that it's standard operating procedure to revert edits for which there was no consensus. Might even use some small "warning"-type graphic just so people know I'm not picking on them. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? - Dan (talk) 19:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
(ec) P.S. Don't get me wrong ... I'm not saying that what we've been doing is wrong, per se, or that it has to happen this way. I'm suggesting that keeping up with style guidelines pages (where I usually hang out) and other guidelines and policy pages has become difficult, and instability creates FUD, and perhaps it would be better to get a little more routinized in the way we respond to edits that do not reflect consensus, so that we don't all wind up passing the buck and letting bad things stay in place. Obviously, this would need discussion at WP:VPP, at the least. - Dan (talk) 19:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I think an undiscussed reversion is appropriate if you are confident that the new version doesn't reflect consensus, or you at least have significant doubt. It's a sliding scale, really... just use judgement. SamBC(talk) 19:16, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
The top infobox does not instruct you to revert. It is not standard operating procedure to "revert edits that do not have consensus" (As reverts never have consensus, this used to lead to infinite revert wars, hence WP:3RR. )
An undiscussed reversion is never ever appropriate in the case of good faith changes.
If you want to "revert an edit because it does not reflect consensus", then consider that perhaps consensus isn't what you thought it was. After all, at least one person disagreed enough to make an edit (as per consensus can change, and documentation on how silence and consensus are related). While people certainly mean well, reverting such edits is actually borderline disruptive, because they disrupt the normal consensus process.
It is true that more people have started reverting with that particular rationale in recent months. It is not a good practice, so I've started explaining that to people everywhere I can.
The template actually states that people should feel free to document consensus (but that they must be sure that it *is* the current community consensus). As per WP:BRD, one way to find out for sure that something has consensus is to make the edit, and then see if someone reverts. If you revert on the basis of "I didn't see the discussion anywhere", as opposed to "I disagree"; then that method doesn't work anymore, and it becomes impossible to discover actual consensus, or who is a "most interested party" in that consensus--Kim Bruning (talk) 19:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
That sounds reasonable. I still get a sense that, on style guidelines pages, in practice, it has sometimes tipped the scales in favor of some people feeling a lack of responsibility to take action, with the result that bad edits flourish and bad people feel rewarded. I'm pretty sure that the way it plays out in practice on style guidelines pages is quite different than on, say, policy pages, because ... despite the last 1000 edits on this talk page ... policy is straightforward compared with style. Not that policy is easy, but it's incredibly easy to ask a question on a style guidelines page that no one knows the "right" answer to. It's often easy to spit out "quick" answers, but coming up with an answer that correctly respects variations in culture, writing style, etc, and balances the goals of looking nice to professional and "persuasive" writers vs. being sufficiently tolerant of diversity so that we don't lose any editors as a result of meddling ... well, it's really hard. I guess the more I write, the more I think that some kind of different community standards would be appropriate and not hard to get approved on style guidelines pages. We've got a lot of open questions at WT:MoS at the moment, but for the benefit of people reading this who want the link, I'll go ahead and create it now: WT:MoS#Future discussion on reverting edits to style guidelines. - Dan (talk) 21:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, people on Wikipedia talk:Consensus have been having a surprising amount of trouble thinking up any kind of discuss first or revert-if-not-discussed kind of workflow, to the point where they simply gave up. Each time, they ended up with potential situations where people simply got stuck, and new consensus could never be found anymore. So while your proposed change *sounds* simple, it turns out to be very hard in practice. (or worse, it might seem to work for a while, and then fail with lots of wikidrama involved). I guess tweaking the actual wiki-model for editing and gaining consensus is very tricky, it's no wonder it's one of the foundation issues. :-)
I understand that you may want a bit of stability in MoS, for diverse reasons? Just be careful that it doesn't get entirely stuck, alright?
--Kim Bruning (talk) 22:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC) Initially I thought that "discuss first before using the wiki" would turn out to be merely inefficient, but it kept coming up as unworkable in almost every analysis. That did spook me a little.
Absolutely, and you'll get an engraved invitation at the trial-and-error stage. - Dan (talk) 22:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Kim, I disagree with your statement "A revert of a good faith edit *never* has consensus." and hence your understanding of what a Wikipedia consensus is (No surprise in that for you ;-) ). A Wikipedia consensus is not the same as Cabinet Government consensus, just because one person does not agree does not mean that there is not a Wikipedia consensus on a particular issue. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

That's a persistent meme, and it's true in certain time-limited situations where we have no choice (several oft visited pages/systems), but it just doesn't work that way in none-time-limited situations (which is the entire rest of the wiki).
Page content is determined by WP:SILENCE, whether we want it to or not, and you can see it in action every day.
Exactly there is a sentence in an article someone comes along and changes it. It gets reverted, the first editor reverts, a third editor reverts to the consensus version ... . It takes more than one swallow to make a summer and more than one edit to indicate that a consensus no longer exists. Equally if no one objects to an edit then the edit has a consensus (even if it is a consensus of one). But I dont agree with your statement that "A revert of a good faith edit *never* has consensus." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, as long as you don't actually try to revert back to the mythical "consensus version", as the only definition for that is at WP:WRONG ;-) . Reverting a good faith edit could yet gain consensus, but you're going to have to talk with the editor. Not doing so would be rather rude (not to mention you would be assuming that the author was acting against consensus, which is not a good idea). As you can see, a lot of policies and guidelines and essays all intersect at this point, and all explain the same thing over and over from different angles; so that hopefully people get it, one way or the other. --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
With "Reverting a good faith edit could yet gain consensus", you have just made a very similar statement to your previous one (and repeating it does not make it true) "A Wikipedia consensus is not the same as Cabinet Government consensus, just because one person does not agree does not mean that there is not a Wikipedia consensus on a particular issue." :-) --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:55, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I have provided a large number of references that all imply or explicitly state that what is so is so. I have provided multiple different reasonings (either directly or per link) that all come to the same conclusion. Even if those references did not exist, I can even reason from scratch. If you start with 3 people in a discussion, you might get a different consensus than if you start with 4. And it might differ somewhat yet again if you start with 5. (Hopefully, 5 people know more than 3, so the consensus among 5 people is "superior"). Optimally, if people come along at a later date, the result will be the same as if you started with x number of people in the first place. And that's some of the basis behind WP:CCC in its current form.
Note that so far you've been repeated a bald (and opposite of bold ;-)) position twice, but have provided neither references nor reasoning to support that position. Would you care to do so now? --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I do not that that anything you have written in this thread give credence to the initial statement that you made: "A revert of a good faith edit *never* has consensus." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh well. Since you do not present an argument, I guess this conversation is over? --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC) a revert not having consensus is a trivial consequence of the above. A revert is an edit, but the edit you revert already shows that the version you are reverting to does not have consensus. (Example: v1: "Peter pier picked a peck of pickled peppers"-> v2. "Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." v3 {rv to r1}. Which version has consensus, or is most likely to gain it: v1, v2, or v3?)
Conversely, in a recent example at WP:NFCC, a group of 7 people thought they'd gained rough consensus on a policy. However, when they tried to implement their agreement, they simply got reverted, the situation got escalated, and they completely failed to get their preferred change pushed through.
--Kim Bruning (talk) 00:14, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

RfC: Should WP:SELFPUB be reorganized?

I attempted to reorganize SELFPUB, but was reverted here. I explained above why I feel there is a categorical difference between restrictions #1-5, #6, and #7, and why not making that distinction is potentially misleading. To sum it up, [what are now] #1-5 would seem to apply to statements specifically referenced in wikipedia which originate from "questionable" sources, whereas #6 would exclude an entire source from being used at all, while #7 limits how questionable sources can be used in an article overall. I don't feel this is a substantive change, simply a reorganization. PSWG1920 (talk) 01:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not think that a re-organization of self-publication is what is needed. The position of the deck chairs is not why the Titanic is sinking. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Rumors that the Titanic is sinking are greatly exaggerated. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
If the deck chairs were positioned differently, then maybe trouble could be seen more clearly. In other words, reorganizing this could help illuminate other problems. PSWG1920 (talk) 05:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Huh, I don't even see a ship. (1 == 2)Until 05:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
  • WP:SELFPUB needs tightening more than it needs loosening, so of course I oppose this change. This re-write is an attempt to make websites promoting Perfect Sight Without Glasses more palatable as sources. Dlabtot (talk) 02:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
At this point, I am not suggesting that SELFPUB be loosened, simply reorganized. Other issues can be discussed later. PSWG1920 (talk) 03:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Can we more clearly define what does it mean "self-published"? Then discussions like in the next section below (books by Tregubova) would not occur.Biophys (talk) 16:13, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree, Dlabtot, SELFPUB does need to be tightened, or at least the full extent of the restrictions should be emphasized. This edit seems very reasonable. Or perhaps questionable sources should be excluded completely, so these issues wouldn't come up. 88.164.4.15 (talk) 20:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Support because the two versions have the same logical content, but PSWG believes that the old version can be misunderstood, and there is no downside to the new version. If of course some misunderstanding can be possibly predicated upon the new version, what it might be has not been made clear by the objectors to the new version. 67.191.48.90 (talk) 02:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Another burden of proof proposal

See diff, which I immediately self-reverted. I proposed something similar some months ago as a newbie here, but was drowned out because I improvidentially made the suggestion hot on the heels of a real case (now long stale), which you can read about there.

The problem I outlined, which others have now brought up independently above, is the extant possibility of thoughtless challenging or reversion of good-faith edits as "unreliably sourced". My solution is that the claim that source X is reliable or not is a verifiable claim like any claim in mainspace (it just happens to be a metaclaim), and the editor who first makes such a claim should carry the burden of proof. Either the one who challenges a good-faith source as unreliable, or the one who preemptively inserts a source with simultaneous claim of reliability, should be the first to provide the goods; and both editors should be encouraged to discussion of reliability as a verifiable fact like any other.

Because there is the now-ever-so-tenuous linkage between my proposal and a potential conflict of interest, I urge you to read the whole prior discussion at this talk and ask any questions. While my interest in the policy arose from a particular case, I hope it is clear by now that I still believe in good faith this is a policy gap that needs addressing and would like to discuss the merits of the proposed change. JJB 04:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

We don't require other sources to "verify" that a source is reliable or not. We decide that by discussion on the talk page. I suppose if you wanted the article itself to claim the source X was unreliable you would need a source for that, but editorial discussion on the talk page does not require sources (although they may be beneficial in making your arguments of course). — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, granted that the verification process for metaclaims is not exactly "like any other", but the need for verification of reliability through discussion is still underweighted. Some editors have a practice of deleting sourced material by claiming unreliability and relying on the current WP:V to leave the burden of evidence on the inserter as to whether the source is reliable. When a source appears reliable prima facie, the initial burden should be carried by the one who claims unreliability. Otherwise new content can be held hostage through "show me a rock" arguments where each new insertion is challenged reflexively; my edit here would discourage this problem, an admitted concern in other discussions above. JJB 14:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC) The essay WP:WHEN provides an excellent example of this concern as well in the topic "Challenges should not be frivolous" in relation to mere tags on unsourced material; how much more so with deletions of sourced material. JJB 14:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Nobody else? Looks like I'm primed to try a more permanent version of this edit taking Carl and WP:WHEN into account. Any issues? JJB 14:16, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Normally, when two editors disagree on whether a piece of information is cited to a reliable source, the information is removed at least once and a discussion takes place on the talk page as to the reliability of the source with WP:RSN called upon if an outside voice is needed. Your proposed change would shift the conversation from reliability to whether or not the source is reliable on its face, which just adds unneeded drama and calls to WP:ANI for "failure to AGF". Burzmali (talk) 16:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Huh? Shifting from reliability to whether it's reliable? If you mean shifting from "reliable for the proposed edit" to "reliable in general", I don't intend that. The purpose of my proposal is to emphasize the responsibility to back up claims that the source is (un)reliable to support the edit sourced. But perhaps you mean "An editor who reasonably disagrees with another about level of source reliability should invoke a consensus-building method such as the bold, revert, discuss cycle or the reliable sources noticeboard."? JJB 16:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Prima facie meaning on its face in English. You are proposing that if a source is reliable on its face, it must be challenged before it can be deleted. However, what I think is reliable on its face and what you think is reliable on its face are clearly different, so when I remove your source, we start fighting over whether or not the source is reliable on its face and whether or not I acted in good faith without even considering if the source is actually reliable. For example, let's say someone is sued by the government, and the government asks for summary judgment. If the respondent can't show that he has a Prima facie case, the government wins without even considering a trial. The last thing I want to see is Wikipedia become more like a government bureaucracy. Burzmali (talk) 18:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps my summary should add what was implied: "When a source appears reliable prima facie to the inserter, the initial burden should be carried by the one who claims actual unreliability." If the reverter thinks the edit is not even prima facie reliable, why wouldn't that reverter go and win the argument by arguing from the stronger ground of "not actually reliable"? Also, doesn't a good-faith revert of a sourced insert always need to state a good-faith challenge before (i.e., while) deleting? Also, how can I be preventing the challenger from reverting, if I'm inviting BRD? Are you afraid something in my text (as proposed at the diff) encourages an inserter to sit on a prima facie source rather than "invoke a consensus-building method" to resolve the actual disagreement? JJB 20:14, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

←That pretty much reduces the change to "All sources should be considered reliable unless proven otherwise", since I should assume good faith on the behalf of the editor who inserted the source. The model we have now basically assumes that some sources are almost always reliable (NyT, WSJ, peer-reviewed journal), some are reliable within a reasonable scope (local newspaper, trade journals) and some are reliable in only specific cases (blogs, self-pub). If you want to add a source to support something outside its scope, you should either mention on the talk page or not be offended when someone remove it with a cite to WP:RS. You change suggests that all sources should be handled like the NYT until proven otherwise, and I contest that such a system is a open license to add and defend poor sources to push a WP:FRINGE agenda. Burzmali (talk) 15:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

You're getting warm. You describe the current model correctly, but my proposal is upholding that model, not creating a model where all sources become like the NYT (often unreliable BTW). The problem is not that I want anyone "to add a source to support something outside its scope"-- it's that people don't know, and disagree on, when something is outside the scope in the first place! If you imagine anyone (in good faith) would willingly intend to add outside the source's scope, you have prejudged the reliability question. If one suspects the add might be considered outside the scope, yes, one should proceed at talk or with say WP:BRD. And if someone does unwittingly add obvious fringe sources, by the definition of "fringe" the clear consensus will be against the add. But my proposal is dealing instead with the issue where there is not consensus about reliability, in which case the deletionists should not have the upper hand automatically. I am talking about what happens after the inserter has met the initial burden of proof as to sourceability-- I think that then anyone opposed to the add should meet an initial burden of proving unreliability, rather than just stating it and demanding that the inserter also meet the burden of proving reliability. JJB 20:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Where are the teeth?

In the past the nutshell stated clarly "or [unreferenced claims] can be removed by any editor". It's gone now... why? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

It is still in the main body of the Policy: "Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed." Blueboar (talk) 12:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Personal Web Pages

NOT BLOGS which tend to fall into the rant category. No the web sites created by individuals where they disseminate their knowledge on their interests. I consider such sites to be as reliable as those officially sanctioned by wikipedia.

Only when my contribution [Retr0 Retr0] was bounced did I really find out about this. Why? Because included in the references is my own site siltec which has been up and running since early 1991.

As 'reliable' sources includes newspapers I had to question the rest. Surely it comes down to the researchers equivalent of caveat emptor - let the researcher beware - of any source.

If the source looks reasonable, seems reasonable and does not break rules of good taste then why should a personal web page, or even blogs, be considered no more reliable than the so called verifiable sources.

An academic paper might only ever have been read by two or three people. Web pages by hundreds, if not thousands.

It seems to me that this approach is going against the open common sense concept of wikipedia. OK, it might be a site for the self promotion of an original concept. But is NOT within wikipedia so wikipedia should be able to reference that site. It might just be that it is the information that someone is seeking.

As wikipedia itself is not regarded as a reliable source by many within academia, and for the very good reason that it is open to change by anyone, to condem sites with information harder to change than on wikipedia seems a bit daft.

After initially condemning wikipedia is academia now trying to hi-jack it into the traditional ways of an academic elite under attack from an open world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wahiba (talk • contribs)

Personal webpages are definitely not reliable sources. The reason is simple: we have no way to know how accurate and reliable the material on any given personal webpage is... It might be full of well researched, scholarly material, etc. Or it might be someone's ill informed speculation. Your personal web page might be an example of the first type... but what about the personal web page of someone who disagrees with you? How are we to judge? The fact is, we can't. The best we could do is state that the website reflects the website owner's opinion... but then we would have to ask if that opinion is notable. If website owner were an acknowledged experts in a given field, writing about that field, an exception could be made... but otherwise, no. Blueboar (talk) 12:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Verifiability of fiction

Don't you think, that when it comes to fiction verifiability shouldn't be taken so seriously? Strong, independen sources are something that fiction often just doesn't have. Where it hurts when Hermione Granger's article contains some not 100% accurate information? Pseudohuman (talk) 18:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The entire purpose of a reference work is to present accurate information.... Articles on works of fiction can include content that is cited to primary sources but information in articles should always be accurate and verifiable, regardless of the topic. Black Falcon (Talk) 19:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I was just confused by some discussions, and thought that primary sources are not good enough even in case of fictitious subject. Now i'm wiser. Pseudohuman (talk) 20:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
They are good enough for basic statements. If you are going to include something larger, such an an analysis of the freudian psychology of the character, you need to have a secondary source that discusses it. Blueboar (talk) 20:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be a common habit on wikipedia of people insisting on secondary sources for everything; they are not required. They are better for most things, worse for a few things. We also generally require independent (third party) sources for a lot of things, but not for the things that primary sources are okay for. I've also known some people to not understand the difference between the primary/secondary distinction and the first-party/third-party distinction, which tends to confuse things more. SamBC(talk) 20:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Needed clarification

I believe this addition is advisable, because WP:SELFPUB is so often misapplied in an attempt to include questionable material which it actually excludes. And this doesn't really change the policy, it only emphasizes what is already there. 202.109.116.3 (talk) 19:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Need: "Widely acknowledged as extremist by reliable sources"

We're having this discussions in Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#extremist_sources. This article says: Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking. Such sources include websites and publications that express views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, are promotional in nature, or rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions. We are discussing that this should be revised to say either widely acknowledged as extremist by reliable sources or widely acknowledged as extremist by a number of reliable sources or even widely acknowledged as extremist by a preponderance of reliable sources. This is because since the definition of who or what views are extremist can be so subjective and politicized. I think I'd like to put in the middle one - "number of reliable sources" - so if you object, pony up in next few days. :-) Carol Moore 23:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

People must agree cause haven't commented, but i'll give it another day before put in the article. Carol Moore 15:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}
Didn't see this. Strong agree with "number of". But "preponderance of" can be defended, because if it's truly extreme then a majority would consider it to be so. If it appears a minority of "reliable" sources describing an "extreme" source X, it might also be the case that it's a minority of extreme sources describing a reliable source. Majority does not decide reliability, but it does decide center/edge concepts relatively well, while minority doesn't even do that very certainly. I like how this edit is making much more clear that claims of "questionable source" also arise from sources that, thereby, might possibly be somewhat questionable themselves. Remember when Drudge listed how he heard every allegation of source unreliability from another source, in a long chain of allegation? JJB 15:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Exceptional claims and conspiracies.

The present text includes among exceptional claims:

  • claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or which would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and BLPs. Be particularly careful when proponents of such claims say there is a conspiracy to silence them.

When I first encountered it I was puzzled by the intended meaning of "be particularly careful"; did it mean be especially cautious about triggering the editor's sense of persecution or be particularly alert since belief in conspiracy is a sign of an exceptional claim?

I checked the phrase back to it's origins in WP:RS and found that it originally said:

  • Claims which are not supported, or which are contradicted, by the prevailing view in the scientific community. This is especially true of claims whose proponents consider that there is a conspiracy of "official science" to silence them.

Although the phrase "be particularly careful" has been around since 2006 and reflects well-established consensus, I think a change to "be particularly alert" would be somewhat less ambiguous and better reflects the original sense. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:52, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree it is clearer. DGG (talk) 15:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree. JJB 15:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Verifiability not truth in the press

Found via this digg discussion: "Wikipedia's zealots"

Looks like public opinion so far is that this makes wikipedia less reliable?

So we either need to explain what's going on, or think harder. :-)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 15:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC) any obscure references to Feynman entirely intentional

Will Bulten's edit adding the language from WP:ATT help? ("whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether we think it is true") My guess is it will probably help, and certainly won't hurt, and it leaves the "verifiability, not truth" slogan that a lot of people like. I'm really busy with wikistuff at the moment but I'll check back in a few days; I hope this survives. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
The last line of the "news"paper story reveals the reality is based in a WP:COI. The editor is a staffer for a lobbying organization, misusing WP. LeadSongDog (talk) 12:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Should WP:ATT be marked as historical?

We are (once again) debating whether WP:Attribution should be marked as "historical". The page states that it is not a policy itself, but is a summary of two policy pages (WP:NOR and WP:V). The question has been raised as to whether it accurately does this. Please pop over to WT:ATT and share your thoughts. Blueboar (talk) 11:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Specifying Measures of Advocacy Group Reliability

One of the most frequent debates here is whether actual or defacto advocacy groups and publications and web pages are reliable sources. For example currnet (and often repeated discussions on Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard: Antiwar.com;Political Research Associates (and often Chip Berlet); CAMERA; the Nation; CounterPunch; Monthly Review; as well as FrontPage Magazine; Daniel Pipes; ADL; LewRockwell.com; Jewish Virtual Library, etc.

Is it possible to set up some objective measures by which to judge their reliability to avoid constand debates on talk pages, noticeboards, PRAs, etc? Carol Moore 15:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

I really don't think we can set up objective measures beyond what we now have. The reliability of advocacy group publications often depends on the specific group and publication in question. Some have a reputation for factual (if biased) accuracy, others for playing fast and loose with the facts. I can certainly agree that anything cited to an advocacy group should be attributed so that readers know who is stating what. Beyond that, I think we simply have to hash it out at an article by article and citation by citation level. Even the worst of them are going to be OK as an SPS in articles about the group. Blueboar (talk) 16:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Such groups are going to be judged by academics and other assessors. In general it's a problem to use them as authorities to back up controversial claims; however, if they are the origin of statements the truth of which is accepted/conceded by all parties, then they are acceptable as a source for that. For example the research of the Alan Guttmacher Institute is generally accepted even though they are an arm of the blatantly political Planned Parenthood. If such a group is used as a secondary source, their citation should be checked; and if they don't have a citation, the claim shouldn't be used. Mangoe (talk) 13:44, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I suppose this comes down to whether we are using a given advocacy source as a primary source for a statement about the advocacy group's claims (ie a statement of their opinion - as in: "The position of X Advocacy Group on Y issue is that 'Y is bad' <cite to advocacy group publication>") or whether we are using the source as a secondary source to back a statement of fact (as in: "it has been shown that Y is bad "). The first is probably OK under this policy (although it might have NPOV issues)... the second is not. Blueboar (talk) 15:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
But I presume it would be fine to say "It has been shown that Y causes warts in a dozen clinical trials ", if there are no reliable objections to X's research? If there is a reliable objection, of course, that takes priority over X Advocacy Group and it must be framed as "Study by X says" with the reliable source mentioned separately. JJB 15:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I would recommend against that, the information is only semi-reliable because of the source, not because it is refuted. If LewRockwell.com claims that Ron Paul is winning 50% of the vote among left-handed Hindus it should still be attributed as no one is likely to bother refuting it. Burzmali (talk) 16:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Right, thanks, meaning-- "if there are no reliable objections and the research is significant enough that the nonadvocacy community can be expected to have commented if it were objectionable". Actually, WhoWouldTheWorldElect.com puts him at only 37% in India. JJB 18:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
No, the nonadvocacy community may choose not to comment because they often ignore fringe claims. Silence isn't agreement. It's the same as sending your credit card company a letter saying "If you don't respond to this letter in 10 days, you must forgive my debt", you are creating a false dilemma. Burzmali (talk) 18:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for responding. Is there some way to put that all into two or three sentence paragraph in this article? (I'll try myself in couple days after recover from head cold.)
Also, this reinforces idea of how useful it would be to have a List of previously discussed sources -- which I have proposed with sample list at the link. Carol Moore 00:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}
Someone (other than Burzmali or me) should probably add the graf to WP:RS instead: easier entry. (He and I disagree in that he thinks we disagree and I think we don't.) JJB 04:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I look forward to returning to this subject after some form of WP:Flagged revisions comes in. Any data-mining that helps identify vandals could also, in theory, help identify sources that are often reverted; thus we would bypass the argument over whether a source "is reliable" and go straight to whether it's accepted by Wikipedians, with big piles of data either way. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Frieda Harris

The article is a direct, verbaitim copy of this webpage. This is apparently not a copyvio as the talk page states that permission was granted to copy it. But I am still bothered by having an article that is simply a cut and paste copy of another webpage. There is only one source listed for this article (the webpage that is copied)... and that source does not list its sources. This makes me wonder if it is reliable (I have raised that issue at RSN). The question for this page is: Does this article really meet our Verifiability standards? Blueboar (talk) 12:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I read "© Supertarot 2008" at the bottom of that web page. Unless there is a verifiable release and free-use license, the article should be stubified. I see an OTRS ticket with the release. So, what is the problem? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
It looks to me as if the deprecated {{confirmation}} template was incorrectly added to this article without the required but unsupplied an OTRS ticket number in this edit. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I assume good faith, and thus will assume that the material has been released and that the ticket info is simply incorrectly formatted. It simply bothers me to see an article on Wikipedia that is essentially just a cut and paste job from another website, and I am wondering how to deal with situations like this. I don't think it is appropriate for any article to take so much of its text from another source (quotes are perfectly OK... even large quotes... but not an entire article). I raise the issue here simply because I can't think of another talk page/noticeboard that might apply. Blueboar (talk) 16:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I've left a note at User_talk:Splash#OTRS ticket number needed (he placed the {{confirmation}} template). I see that he has been only moderately active lately, so I guess that it may be a few days before he reacts. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:11, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure it matters--like many copies of material from websites with a nonencyclopedic purpose, the article is essentially unverified and untenable in its present form.DGG (talk) 03:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Note that I placed that tag 2½ years ago, when the tag had a different set of instructions and indeed, had only just been created and was neither deprecated nor used incorrectly. In particular, the procedure at the time was to obtain permission, forward the permission-granting email to permissionsatwikimediadotorg and then simply place the tag oneself. (OTRS was brand-new at the time). I dealt with several in this way at the time, but I no longer have access to the email facility where I did so from. I presume that OTRS has archives and that a request to an appropriate person will turn up the magic number that is required (I note that Jossi above says he see an OTRS ticket, but it's not clear whether he might mean 'tag' instead). I should say that it is also possible that I viewed the email copy on the talk page as sufficient in its own right, and tagged it on that basis; I have absolutely no recall of this article so long after the fact. Splash - tk 22:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
So how should we proceed? Take the article back to a stub?... leave it as it is?... add citation requests on questionable statements? Blueboar (talk) 23:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
As I said, a request to an appropriate OTRS person (ie not me) will establish if there is indeed a email giving permission in the archive, either forwarded from me, or direct from whoever. If there is, it's a content issue. If there's not, it's a deletion issue. Even if there is, it might be a deletion issue as DGG says. (Though I don't even know if permissions from that far back were stored in OTRS's archives or somewhere else). Splash - tk 00:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Example of acceptable use of questionable sources

It would be helpful to include an example of when and where questionable sources can and can't be cited. This seems like a good one. Thoughts? 88.112.32.5 (talk) 19:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Not particularly. Its fairly obvious to most readers without examples, and whatever example you choose is likely to be: based on a particular point of view, and attract lots more examples. The one you chose is a particularly extreme point of view and gives undue weight to that POV. Gwernol 19:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, that is a good example of how use of questionable sources are is not acceptable. (1 == 2)Until 19:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Verifing technical details in software

"Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" is fine statement for verifying some articles, but I suggest it is not applicable across the board. How do you apply this standard to Technical details of software languages or Encryption algorithms for example. You are never going to find a mainstream source like a magazine covering this level of technical detail. If they did, who would pay to read it when a vast resource of technical information is available freely on the internet.

I notice on this page many people advocating "Not just truth, Verifiability". It is clear that consensus is that truth is important. The hurdle for minor products like the basic compiler powerbasic and many other software compilers, is the requirement of a "published source".

As the internet continues to replace so much print media, and the abundance of significant products increases, It is less and less likely that a product will get any coverage in print at all, let alone the specifics of its performance. These details are very important for someone selecting a product. Wikipedia currently has many articles with a great deal of useful technical information that would be stripped to a stub if the "published source" requirement were strictly enforced.

I submit that while this requirement works for the majority of articles on wikipedia, it does not work for some and instead of removing this level of detail, an amendment could be made as follows.

Articles that deal with the intrinsic technical features of a product like a software compiler, can use computer code (rather than opinions) to verify the technical features. Computer code could be referenced online or quoted directly. I would argue that there is no better verification.

This kind of verification is not possible when adding content on say troop deployments in Iraq. For that we rely on mainstream media which is probably picking and choosing what it reports as much as "official" sources are massaging the numbers. Computer code does not lie. It either produces the same result on everyones computer or it doesn't.

I believe there are many articles that fall in the Grey area of verifiability all the way up to mainstream Microsoft products. The current situation is, at some point, going to present a Wikipedia with the choice of embracing this or removing a significant amount of valuable technical detail.

Doesn't that count as WikiLawyering which states:

  1. Abiding by the letter of a policy or guideline while violating its spirit;
  2. Asserting that the technical interpretation of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines should override the principles they express;
  3. Misinterpreting policy or relying on technicalities to justify inappropriate actions.

Wikipedia policy also suggests: "Follow the spirit, not the letter, of any rules, policies and guidelines if you feel they conflict. If the rules prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, you should ignore them. Disagreements should be resolved through consensus-based discussion, rather than through tightly sticking to rules and procedures."

I would also like clarification on whether this problem meets the criteria for ignoring the rules: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." I have argued this on the reliable sources talk page, and a specific example. RealWorldExperience (talk) 19:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Contentious + third-party: AND or OR?

FYI, I have reverted two IP edits which (logically) appear to loosen the restriction against self-pub and questionable sources. The edits effectively prohibit only contentious AND third-party info, where the prior consensus (which I restored) prohibited contentious OR third-party material. Both IPs claim this is redundant with the earlier QS section, which clearly (separately) prohibits contentious AND third-party material. However, since the prior consensus had the tighter ("OR") prohibition, I consider it unwise to replace the tighter with the looser prohibition by claiming redundancy, without discussion. I will leave any future reversion of this issue to others, as I do not have a strong opinion on the and/or question, but am merely upholding a consensus that could easily be lost by the IPs' edits implying (apparently mistakenly) that the edits do not logically change the policy. If my logic is off, apologies! JJB 21:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Are able vs. attributable, an unintended change in policy

Under the new/current wording the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia has been changed from “readers should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source.” to “readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source”. I suspect that this is simply an oversight.

The current wording “readers are able to check” requires that statements of fact be backed by sources. The former standard required that everything be attributable to a reliable source, not that it must have direct attribution. See WP:ATT: “Although everything in Wikipedia must be attributable, in practice not all material is attributed.” If you don’t say where you got your information, it’s often not realistic to expect that a reader could verify that the material has published by a reliable source. For non-controversial material “readers are able to check” places a heaver burdened upon the editor adding the material then the prior standard (the standard for controversial material has been “readers are able to check” for a long time.)

This problem could be remedied by replacing the word “are” with “should be” or better still, we could use the wording from WP:Attribution:

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. In other words, whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether we think it is true.

Vs.

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—meaning, in this context, whether readers should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true.

The wording is not only simpler, but also I think balances with why we do not make “truth” our first principal, something that I have concerns about in regards to the current wording. Brimba (talk) 02:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your input, and I considered language very close to your proposals while making my change, but ArbCom member Thebainer reverted your proposal within 3 minutes: "if it can't be checked it's not verifiable. checking doesn't have to be immediate, just possible". I agree. And since a policy is a "should" by definition, "the threshold is that readers are able" is equal to "readers should be able"; and "should" is affirmed in the next sentence. I understand you have concerns but I think they're slightly misstated. You believe my wording permits the inference of required backing by sources; I don't think it does, in the context of WP:ATT, WP:WHEN, and the nutshell's limitation of explicit necessity only to likely challenges and quotations. You also note, "It's often not realistic to expect that a reader could verify that the material has published by a reliable source"; perhaps so, if you mean that the reader must immediately know what the cite is. But in the separate section below that presumption is argued against as well. I would add that if the material is not a likely challenge or quotation, that implies that it is (supposed to be) common enough knowledge in its field that the reader would not need an explicit cite to find any of the (presumably widely found and unanimous) reliable sources with a simple search. As material becomes less common-sense and at-hand, it enters the realm of "likely challenge" and gets progressively more needy of cites.
To your two proposals: (1) The concern of wordiness has already been addressed by my latest edit; but "readers are (or should be) able to check" was omitted and has long been held necessary on all material, most recently by Thebainer. (2) The concern that "are" increases expectations on reader ability instead of "should be" is addressed by the other policies I mention (such as the nutshell); but "should be" does not work in a "whether" clause, which I found necessary for parallelism, and in the context of "threshold", the "are" does import a "should be". I hope this clarifies for readers. JJB 19:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I believe that policy should state what it means, and mean what it states. Under your above argument, I could remove almost anything from Wikipedia that lacks an inline citation by selectively quoting V. The burden is then left to any editor who opposed my removal to do two things; First he/she must explain how and why I have erred, and secondly, show that his/her interruption is in line with the general consensus concerning what the policy does or does not require. Am I wrong? Brimba (talk) 01:50, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
The threshold is that readers are able to check, not that you are able to check. For construction, "readers are able" means "a hypothetical reasonable reader would succeed with a reasonable search". (And by your principle, one could argue it should say that.) The discussion about risk of people removing all unsourced comments haplessly appears in the recent talk archives: I recall the conclusion being that most unsourced comments are (or should be), again, not likely to be challenged and not quotations. If you remove something unsourced, wikiquette indicates you should provide a reason, and that reason will almost always state some contention with the insertion. Well, if the inserter believes it's contentious too, you're within policy and the inserter has the burden of sourcing. If the inserter believes it isn't contentious, there is a well-defined dispute and a dozen ways to resolve it, some of which make use of reinserting. Your first point is fair because wikiquette also encourages the reinserter to explain any difference with the deleter; but I don't know what you mean by a requirement to show that the insertion (interruption?) is in line with WP:V consensus. The reinserter either sources it or claims that it isn't contentious, and proceeds accordingly. There is not, and has not been, any requirement to source common-sense noncontentious statements. JJB 02:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

This article is misnamed -- should be Credibility

The name of this article is a misnomer, which really bugs me. We want reliable sources -- implicit in that is that we want sources that can be verified, because an inaccessible source cannot be reliable! What types of sources cannot be verified? Only fictitious or basically unpublished sources! And, actually, blog posts are the most easily verified types of sources. So I think we should name this article "Credibility" and perhaps merge the other reliable sources article into it. Verifiability is a secondary, or even tertiary concern to credibility and reliability. Also, we might consider merging some of WP:RELY into this article, to reduce overlap. Wikipedia needs to consolidate some of its rules pages to become more approachable. Also, note that credibility doesn't really imply that the source is stating the truth, only that the source is not completely making things up. ImperfectlyInformed | {talk - contribs} 23:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. "Verifiable" means, in this context, that [some] readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source (quoting from the lead sentence, with minor changes). I qualify this with [some] because some readers are only able to check online sources (me, for example—I live on a tiny island in the Philippines and have no library access). You say that an inaccessible source cannot be reliable — well, most sources not published online are inaccessible to me, but they are accessible to other WP readers and editors. Readers who, like me, who are unable to verify assertions which seem questionable either must assume good faith or need to seek out verifiable sources which would support the assertions or bring them into question.
You say that bblog posts are the most easily verified types of sources. Blog posts are easily verified in that it is easy to verify that a particular blog post asserts that (e.g.) the moon is made from green cheese. Such verification is meaningless in that blogs, having a general reputation for little or no editorial oversight, or for WP:POV-biased editorial oversight, are not considered to be reliable sources. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Interesting viewpoint from ImperfectlyInformed! The community has generally found separation of reliable and verifiable to be helpful, and has preferred to keep reliability below the policy level (presumably due to more volatility). But I am all for the attempt to import WP:RS into this article sentence by sentence, reasonably and watching responses, and who knows, someday there might not be anything of WP:RS left and we can consider a name change. Ditto for WP:ATT (in either direction)! (BTW, an inaccessible source, like (say) the first edition of the encyclopedic Webster's New International Dictionary, can most certainly be reliable.) JJB 02:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Just reverted an edit which claimed that the person sourcing an article should get a "freely available source". Whether you like it or not, there is a legitimate misunderstanding of the verifiability rule, and that misunderstanding will persist as long as verifiability is defined the way it is. ImperfectlyInformed | {talk - contribs} 11:32, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
If you look at the thread above this one... we are attemting to deal with the misunderstanding about "freely available" sources. I don't think there is a problem with the title, only an omission in fully explaining what constitutes verifiability. Blueboar (talk) 14:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
A couple sentences of text is the least efficient way of dealing with this. The fact is that this article on Verifiability doesn't even have a small section on verifiability:

The state or property of being capable of being verified; confirmability.

Verifiability is implicit in reliable sources, and this article is not talking about verifiability. It's talking about reliable sources and credibility. Naming your major policy article something confusing and missing the correct definition of a word is a problem -- and it also says something strange about Wikipedia that it confuses a simple definition. ImperfectlyInformed | {talk - contribs} 20:13, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Published Software, CDs & DVDs

I've recently run into a little problem which has its roots in evolving technology of this ever changing world of ours. On the one hand Wiki discourages original research. On the other, it encourages substantiation of claims by respected published sources. Here's the problem: I need to confirm a claim made from looking at a published piece of software. However, like much of the digital industry, there is nothing written in a respected source that discusses the valid observation I have made myself. Then I realized, like a URL, Book, periodical or paper, anyone could acquire the software in question and verify this claim themselves. In other words, the software IS a published source with authors and copyright dates. The closest analogy I can make is if I were writing an article about a book. No credible source available to me has commented on the quote I want to take from the book. Therefore, the book itself is the source. I would credit the particular issue in the reference notes, but otherwise it is completely verifiable because it is the thing itself. I think any digital media falls into this category, without necessarily being original research. I think it is obvious that DVD & CD liner notes qualify, though I am not sure how they would be cited. Moreover, if my book analogy to software is acceptable, then content of an actual DVD and CD would be acceptable as well. But, back to my original issue: software – in particular information from the software company's website has been quoted in the article (an otherwise obvious verifiable source). However, anyone who actually looks at the published software will see that the "official" company publication is incorrect. How then to correct an inaccuracy if a so-called respected source has not actually stated the correct information somewhere. Many personal websites, discounted as not being reliable, maintained by those actually working in the field, but unpublished or otherwise subject to critical review do reference the corrections. In some sense critical mass of so-called unreliable sources should account for one credible. In any event, I have not found a clear-cut answer in current Wiki proceedures and thought it should be formally addressed somewhere.--Mac128 (talk) 16:42, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I generally agree that you can cite digitally published sources, but your statement "anyone who actually looks at the published software will see that the "official" company publication is incorrect." suggests that you may be getting into tricky ground. Let me give a hypothetical example. Assume the claim you're referring to is that the Company's publication says Software X files are freely convertible to the format of Software Y. We have two different ways in which the software might show the publication to be incorrect.
  • The Instructions that came on the software disk might list the formats to which you can convert, and not include the formats listed in the Company's publication, then I think you could cite that omission/inconsistency.
  • Alternatively, the Instructions may say you can do the conversion, but when you tried, it doesn't work. In this case, you're into the grounds of original research and I don't think you could cite it.
In sum, you probably could cite what the software disk says, but I don't think you could cite how the software on the disk works when you run it. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:09, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
And the disk and manual have the limits of self-published sources as well, and the blogs have the limits of questionable sources. But if it's something that can be quoted from the software internal docs, or is obvious upon consulting a screenshot (which you upload, properly tagged), that would be a good start. If it's contentious, as your narrative may suggest, then careful compromise nuaning, or even "no information", might be preferable. JJB 22:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Excellent thoughts. Thanks. Let me make a clarification, in most cases I am speaking of an omission or conflict between the "official" online support doc from the software company and the published software, e.g. the version number reported in the actual software is either missing from the support doc, or incorrectly listed. Either way, the actual publication must be considered whether the official company doc confirms it or not. Short of a reliable source, like the mention of it in a respected trade magazine, the actual item itself should be admissible as proof of it's own validity.--Mac128 (talk) 17:16, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

RfC: Should the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia be changed from verifiability, not truth to not just truth, but verifiability?


This is the change being discussed. Should the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia be changed from verifiability, not truth to not just truth, but verifiability? I must ask: Whose truth? I'm totally opposed to this drastic change, which would amount to a repudiation of our core principles. Dlabtot (talk) 19:04, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

  • PLEASE do not change the wording of this RfC, or any of my other talk page comments. If you wish to file a different RfC after this one closes, fine. Dlabtot (talk) 20:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I ASK AGAIN do not change the wording of this RfC, or any of my other talk page comments. If you wish to add commentary, fine. Do not delete mine. Dlabtot (talk) 20:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
A note - a third option, "not just accuracy, but verifiability" has also been proposed, and actually has, at this point, seemingly won over everybody who advocated "not just truth, but verifiability." Helpful comments will address both phrasings. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

RfC Responses

  • I do not think that an average reader will look at that sentence and see a debate about Platonic truth and the absolute nature of truth. Rather, I think most people will read "truth" there as meaning "accuracy." Anybody who disputes that we want to include only accurate information in an encyclopedia should probably find another project to contribute to. Accuracy is a core principle of any encyclopedia. Note that the new wording does not promote or allow the "But it's true!" argument to insert unverifiable information - it merely requires that we strive for both. Doing otherwise is obviously unacceptable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Significant viewpoints about notable topics, that are published in reliable sources, deserve inclusion, even if in the opinion of some, those significant, published views are "not true". Dlabtot (talk) 19:22, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Sure. But a claim in a reliable source that is not true should not be reported as a fact. Significant but untrue (or questionably true) claims can be reported with careful attribution so as to preserve both truth and verifiability. To utterly demote truth, as the old language did, invites sloppy work. The challenge - and it is at times a hard one - is to preserve both truth and verifiability. In cases where the truth is contested we use NPOV to present everybody's claims. But no article should ever contain inaccurate information. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • "Verifiability, not truth" has been a core principle of WP for a long time, and has a wide consensus. Diluting this crucial point, on which much of WP's edits hinge, would require a very wide consensus also. Crum375 (talk) 19:26, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
    • This isn't really an objection, to my mind. If there's something wrong with the new phrasing then I agree, it shouldn't be changed, but the argument "I oppose the change because it doesn't have consensus" doesn't seem to me to have a place in a discussion about the change's merits. It is also worth noting, it is inaccurate to say this weakens the phrase. Verifiability is still a threshold for inclusion. It just eliminates the idea that we should also ignore truth - in other words, it raises the bar. Describing it as a weakening is unfair. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:34, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
      • It may seem to "raise the bar", but its effect is to lower it. See my reply to Steve McCluskey just below. The bar will be lowered if we aim for truth — we are not credentialed professionals, and we can only be trusted to correctly convey what published sources say about a topic. This can be verified (hence "verifiability") by any reader. If we assign to ourselves truth finding, we'll then produce material of dubious quality, that is unverifiable by our readers, with no author credentials. That is a drastic lowering of the quality bar. Crum375 (talk) 19:47, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
        • Again, though, you're treating the statement as putting truth above verifiability - it's not. The statement still clearly says verifiability is a must. (And indeed still stresses it above truth... well, accuracy now, as I think that sidesteps the big-T truth issue - verifiability is the one in boldface, clearly the emphasized point.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I strongly agree with this change and feel it should be kept. The quotation "verifiability not truth" is one of those silly catchphrases that can be so easily misinterpreted and satirized. The substance of the change is really minor -- little more than an editorial tweak; I do not see it at all as diluting a core principle of Wikipedia. We are, after all, writing an encyclopedia that is meant to be reliable and trustworthy. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:31, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I've come around to the view that "verifiability not truth", although paradoxical, is right on target. Since writing the above I've used the phrase to answer two different advocates of fringe points of view who believed that they were advancing the truth and that the works cited in opposition to it were wrong. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
An encyclopedia is a tertiary source, not a textbook. Our goal is to present to our audience, just like a good librarian at a library, only what reliable sources have to say about a topic. We should ensure the sources we use are of good quality and present them neutrally, but we should not strive to find an "ultimate truth" (which rarely if ever exists anyway), only to do a good job presenting the published sources. This is the essence of our mission here. Crum375 (talk) 19:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I think that the use of the word "truth" to refer to "ultimate truth" is limited to specialized philosophical settings of which this policy is not a part. Few readers, if any, will look at the slogan and realize that we mean Platonic big-T truth. That said, what if we changed it to the original language of the page - not just accuracy, but verifiability? Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
The word "truth" is a philosophical concept, strongly related to "ultimate truth", and does not belong here. Our starting point is verifiability, which means everything we write must be attributable to a reliable published source, that readers should be able to verify on their own. Accuracy is important to ensure that what we say has in fact been published exactly that way, but the accuracy is secondary to verifiability and is part of the overall quality, just like good writing. Crum375 (talk) 19:55, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Though the word "truth" is a philosophical concept, I do not think that, in common usage, its philosophical meaning is the primary one. Regardless, I think "accuracy" does sidestep this problem. I have to say, however, I think you are wrong to suggest that it is secondary to verifiability - have a look at the "history of the term" section below. The statement that Wikipedia should be accurate is absolutely a core principle, and a longer-standing demand than the current phrasing. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:03, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • It's obviously the case that accuracy is a core principle of, uh, writing an encyclopedia, and that verifiability is useful as a way of getting to the accuracy of a given statement of a viewpoint. "Truth" as used in "verifiability, not truth" is directed at people who want certain POVs marked "right" or "wrong" rather than "widely held" or "not widely held" or "scientific consensus" or whatever. "Accuracy, but verify" also states the actual point perfectly well - David Gerard (talk) 20:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Just registering a generalized discontent with both options being debated here, with a grudging preference for the former iteration "verifiability, not truth," as it seems to me to convey the idea that verifiability is or may be a characteristic of "truth," but that the "truth" of a matter is not something WP is necessarily trying to convey, beyond reported facts and evidence, as it were. The phrase, "not only truth, but verifiability" seems to me to subordinate the concept of truth to the function or action of "verifiability," or capacity to be verified. "Accuracy" in this case can only mean conformity to facts established elsewhere, a characteristic best ascribed to "verifiability," although if something is accurate (to something else) it is often taken to be "true" of whatever that thing is. Ameriquedialectics 21:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I liked the original wording; it was useful. In my experience, the people who say "but its true, why are you removing it?" are precisely the people who need this policy to keep them in line. Plus, it means my Wikimania t-shirt of a lisping Ronald Reagan saying "truth but verify" won't sell. --Relata refero (disp.) 10:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Are there really, you think, contributors who say "but it's true, why are you removing it" who would not also understand a policy that says "not just truth, but verifiability?" In both cases the statement is clear that truth is not in and of itself sufficient. It's just that one statement makes the ridiculous claim that we are truth-neutral, whereas the other makes the (quite accurate) claim that we ensure our accuracy through verification. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:24, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
      • I don't think its ridiculous to imply that we should be "truth-neutral". I do think we shouldn't be here to put the truth on Wikipedia, but represent what other people think is the truth. (Hence my username.) Here for example is the sort of person who is drawn to Wikipedia who needs to be reminded that what's true doesn't really matter, because tertiary sources don't tell the truth about the world, only about secondary sources. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:33, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I strongly support the change. I worry that there are editors -- I believe that I have met some -- who justify the inclusion of some highly dubious material on the grounds that it has been published, and is therefore ipso facto "reliable" by virtue of being verifiable. I think that is is a particularly dangerous trend in BLP articles. I also question the inclusion of "mainstream newspapers" in the category of "most reliable" sources for the purposes of this policy statement. After seeing the "mainstream newspapers" in the U.S. and U.K. act as a megaphone for clearly bogus claims used to justify the Iraq war, I think that their claim to be "reliable sources" should be treated with some skepticism. --Terrawatt (talk) 06:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I support "not just truth, but verifiability." Philosophical arguments about the nature of "truth" are outside the scope of the proposal -- the proposed change is simply an attempt to bring our language into alignment with our intent. The proposed change is not about the nature of "truth", it's about correcting our current words, which say we want "not truth". Thirdbeach (talk) 18:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
  • ...on second thought I'm still in favor of getting rid of "not truth" but favor the "accuracy" and "threshold" alternatives suggested elsewhere. Those alternate wordings get us past the whole set of concerns about the nature of truth. Thirdbeach (talk) 18:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I think it is fine just the way it is and has been since 2003, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." (1 == 2)Until 18:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Which 2003 version of the policy that says "not truth," exactly? (Clue - it wasn't any of the ones that said "Wikipedia strives to be accurate.") Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
      • Sorry, good catch. I was mislead by a comment lower on the page. It seem that it was indeed this edit in 2005 that introduced the concept of verifiability, not truth. My position remains the same. (1 == 2)Until 20:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Original source of VNT: Thanks to Phil Sandifer and Until(1 == 2) I can add detail to Phil's observation (buried below) that the original coiner of "verifiability, not truth" (and the text inserted in 2005) was SlimVirgin on 8 Dec 2004 with this edit to a draft of NOR ("Wikipedia is about what is verifiable, not what is true"). The edit is explained here ("I may have labored the verifiability/truth distinction with my long example, but I did this because, time and again, editors don't seem to understand that their firm belief in something being true is not a reason to have it in Wikipedia") and again here ("They don't get that they're not allowed to insert something just because they personally know it to be true"). Slim's coinage based directly on Jimmy Wales's statement of 3 Dec which currently appears at footnote 1 of Wikipedia:NPOV, V and OR. JJB 14:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I support the change, or the weaker phrasing "not just accuracy, but verifiability". — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The proposal is to change from something we can legitimately promise -- that our product reflects the major opinions of reliable sources -- to something that we cannot promise -- that our product reflects the truth. Honest doctors and honest stockbrokers have the humility not to promise health or wealth. They promise only to do what is possible for doctors and stockbrokers to perform, and know that actual results depend on factors beyond their capacity to control and cannot be guaranteed. If we are willing to be similarly honest and similarly humble, we will recognize that while verification lies within our capacity to guarantee, truth does not. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose "Not just truth ..." is a complete reversal of the actual policy. If anything, it should be, "Not truth, nor accuracy, nor facts, nor correctness, but verifiability." To propose anything other than verifiability of notable points of view from reliable sources as a criteria for inclusion (e.g. that it is true, or accurate, or factually correct) defeats the whole purpose of this policy and NPOV which is that different editors have different views of what is true (or factually correct, or accurate, etc.). If "truth" or "accuracy" or "Correctness" were the criteria, we would have at least two articles on Jesus, and both of them would violate NPOV. "Verifiability, not truth" is the principle that givs NPOV its force. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
We have even more than that.. Besides Jesus, we have: Biblical Jesus, Religious perspectives on Jesus, encompassing separate subarticles on Christian views of Jesus, Jesus in Islam etc. etc. ; Historical Jesus, Nontrinitariansism, Jesus myth hypothesis, Jesus and comparative mythology ; not to mention Cultural depictions of Jesus . Genealogy of Jesus and about 30 other special topics and aspects. We do similar in other subjects, usually using slightly different titles to disguise the fact that we actually are accommodating a POV split. Personally, I feel that we ought to make it explicitly permitted. As now, each article would still be required to be fair and to at least refer to disagreements--but the full exposition of the other sides could be in other articles,if there is enough material. We already have an article Positions on Jerusalem with sections on Israeli Position, etc. No reason why those sections shouldn't be separate cross referenced articles. DGG (talk) 01:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong support for either new version "not just {truth|accuracy}, but verifiability". Other terms that would work are "source accuracy" or "faithfulness to source". Have felt for many moons that the "accepted" version was mangled and stunted, even after wrapping my mind around its accompanying rationalizations. Have skimmed Phil and am empathetic to most of what he says. One clear reason is that it breaks WP:LEAD: "truth" is not mentioned in the policy (except by Jimbo!), but "accuracy" is! The ease of satire is another negative. And no matter what people think truth is, it is not hard to define accuracy or verifiability; better to not even raise the issue. Precluding the "But it's true!" inclusionist objection happens in both versions, but the old is a poor compromise, while the new is sufficient but does not have the weaknesses of the old. JJB 23:08, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
  • If the point is that verifiable sources should be accurately represented, I don't think anyone would disagree - but this demand is entirely consistent with "Not truth, but verifiability" Slrubenstein | Talk 23:21, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Thank you, but even in your view, the language should still be changed (due to ambiguity) to something like "not all that is true, but all that is verifiable", which also resolves some of the wording problems-- though I favor the proposal version. I was going to add, philosophically I see this particular debate as a battle between camps called perhaps "mainstream" and "alternative", or less charitably the "guild" and the "fringe", each of which fears the undue influence of the other. The socks object to the cabal and vice versa. This debate, like its close relative deletionism vs. inclusionism, is not likely to be solved easily by consensus between the two. The present language favors the mainstream too much, and definitely needs change; the proposed change counterweights toward the alternative stream (but perhaps too much), and is open to variations; but at any rate the language should not favor either camp. Both camps should rally around the fact that if all assume good faith, pursue improvement, and do not cheat, the project will ultimately succeed, whichever version is favored here. That is where to address the fears that either side will abuse verifiability for their own POV ends. In this kind of wording debate we can only hope not to throw licenses for anyone to abuse either inclusion or deletion. JJB 00:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
  • In my view, there are two kinds of encyclopedias, and people are free to work on which ever one suits their fancy. One kind is the conventional encyclopedia with a editorial board that establishes and enforces certain criteria for quality and, to the point, veracity; if you care about truth, work for an enecylopedia that cares about truth and submit yourself to their editorial control. The other Kind is wikipedia, in which anyone can edit at ay time and there is no editorial control and no standards for veracity or quality established or enforced by an editorial board. Every editor has their own ideas about truth, veracity, accuracy. NPOV is the sine qua non that enables all these people to work together. It is because we reject truth as a criteria that we need the NPOV policy, and it is really the NPOV policy that enables us to dispense with truth as a criteria. Since NPOV goes along with dispensing with "truth" as a criteria, we need some other minimum standard for inclusion. One is included in the NPOV policy - the POV must be notable. The other is enshrined in this policy, that the view is verifiable. I have no problem with people rejecting this framework - indeed, virtually all other encyclopedias do not use it. And like I said, people are free to try to work for them if they wish. I think we are the only encyclopedia that has this alternate framework ... out of so many others ... and yet there are people that wish to get rid of this framework, which makes us distinctive? That would be a real loss. Might as well just go back to EB. Not that it is a bad encyclopedia. I just think it is good that out of the hundreds of encyclopedias that do exist, there be one, just one, based on the NPOV/V framework and not the "truth" criteria of all the others. Slrubenstein | Talk 01:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm afraid you have been misinformed about this project. We are striving to make an encyclopedia - that means we want our content to be equally accurate (or true, if you prefer) as that in other encyclopedias. NPOV and verifiability are methods we use to help reach the goal of accuracy; they aren't a rejection of it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:18, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I am afraid it is you who are misinformed. You just do not seem to get it. Perhaps the idea is too coplex or subtle for you. Too bad. Slrubenstein | Talk 01:35, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Rubenstein, your POV is fascinating but contains a flawed argument. The short version is that you make WP ripe for hoaxers. With a little work, creating a reliable-looking, independent-seeming website farm and publishing otherwise noncontroversial articles with occasional completely false statements, any small group could manufacture a verifiable notability for, say, a nonexistent rock band or church. Separating verifiability from accuracy is a very messy divorce. The potential (meaning probable) inclusion of "verifiable" and "notable" false information is not encyclopedic and I must politely disagree with your view that it should be a WP distinctive. But would you agree with the above suggestion that your inclusion standard is fairly described as "not all that is true, but all that is verifiable"? JJB 13:47, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
No, I still adhere to "Verifiability, not truth." The cases you mention are already handled by other provisions of our NPOV policy, that we include all notable views, and do not give undue weight. See also our policy on fringe views. NPOV and its various adjunct policies covers this concern. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:58, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, the philosophical flaw remains. Your implication that WP does not care about truth is fundamentally contrary to WP:AGF. I do not wish to give the long version of the argument now. Do you believe "verifiability, not truth" is equivalent to WP:ATT: "whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether we think it is true"? I do not think they are equivalent. If you think they are not equivalent, you should comment on how to fix the problem that the long WP:ATT version is presented as a summary of the short WP:V version. If you think they are equivalent, you have no reason not to accommodate my view that the longer statement is better here. JJB 16:56, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
  • "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." The statement is a contradiction, for the process of verifying information by reference is itself a guarantee about what the reference actually said/did(in truth to the best of our knowledge). The two are not mutually exclusive, also for the reason that referencing a "reliable" source is to get closer to the truth of any particular scenario. --Jweston2 (talk) 08:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong, strong oppose. The revised wording makes verifiability seem secondary to truth. Verifiability comes first. Otherwise the Wiki process becomes a game of my word vs. yours. - Chardish (talk) 06:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Conditional support The problem with truth is that it's hard to define or measure. In articles on physical sciences the "truth" is usually clear enough, but in social sciences "truth" is often a matter of opinion because the systems they describe are too complex, models are to inaccurate, and empirical data is too unreliable. So I suggest the following: "the threshold for inclusion is verifiability and falsifiability, not truth". This still would prevent Wikipedia from presenting falsifiable theories (such as Young Earth Creationism) from notable, yet flawed, sources as "knowledge". Falsifiability is easier to establish than "truth". Cambrasa confab 21:36, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Starting off with the premise that "Creationism" is "falsifiable" is itself an absolute statement about the truth, and so is subject to its own criticism.--Jweston2 (talk) 13:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

←Are we done with the RfC? I don't have any strong feelings about it, but after seeing the last 2000 or so talk messages, I think we might be doing a disservice to invite people in for discussion when it's pretty clear that not much is going to happen unless a lot of people are working on it all at once. There have been a few positive incremental changes, and that's probably good enough for now. Is anyone interested in trying to generate another large discussion soon? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps (IMHO) my bringing in text from WP:ATT has finessed the problem? Perhaps those in favor of the RFC proposed change (like myself) might be amenable to stopping for now with that compromise clarification, which distances itself from any assault on "the truth" by stating that the standard rejected is instead "what we think is true"? JJB 15:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd urge that we not close this discussion. The current text reads, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth, that is, not whether we think it is true." I think I might understand the intent but the current verbiage (with apologies to JJB) doesn't clearly communicate the intent. I'd recommend something like, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not any one individual's perception of truth." Thirdbeach (talk) 17:27, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't have any problem with that viewpoint, I just don't want anyone to waste Wiki-time that could be used more productively. We've had something like 2000 messages so far recently on this and similar topics; a few people discussing it will be defeated, and any significant language change will be defeated, most likely. There's a lot of debate fatigue, and pushing on would probably generate some anger. Let's give it 6 months. Besides, what's really important is the relevant data, and we're slowly collecting that for the next go-round. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Support slight reword: "Verifiability, not just truth". Is it really so difficult to insert a single word that clarifies the situation? I think most people would agree that in order to be included in an encyclopedia, a statement must be true. But in addition to it merely being true, it also has to be verified - if someone doubts that a particular statement is true, they should be able to access a source that backs up the statement. The original wording of "Verifiability, not truth" takes a fair amount of thinking, and it seems to slip people up. As someone else said in this (massive) discussion, that wording seems to imply that "truth" and "verifiability" are somehow exclusive. By incorporating "not just truth", the two are now more obviously inclusive, with verifiability taking the lead. (I would also heartily support replacing "truth" with "accuracy", to get around potential problems with people arguing on the nature of truth.) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 04:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Accuracy, checked by verifying

  • Accuracy is the goal. Verifiability is the tool we've adopted to get us there. We want to accurately reflect secondary sources. We therefore provide cites to our sources so that other editors can verify that we have accurately summarised or represented them. That's my understanding, and should be how the policy reads. So no mention of the word truth at all, but rather mention of the word accurately. Whether the accurate summary belongs in an article is down to WP:NPOV. Hiding T 11:09, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Yup, agree that "accuracy" better reflects Wikipedia's goals than "truth". My suggested amendment above tries to work with "truth", but replacing "truth" with "accuracy" in the written policy would be a better outcome. Thirdbeach (talk) 17:33, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Side discussion initiated by JJB's edit
Try now. You'll note that the policies generally focus on accuracy instead of truth already; however, I think one mention of truth (which emphasizes that our POVs about truth should not be our inclusion threshold) is well-rooted in consensus. JJB 22:05, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Guys, please skim the last month or so's talk page edits if you want to fiddle around with the lead section. A lot has been said. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:40, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I've been reading them. Let's invoke WP:BRD as two interested editors. The sequence here is: long RFC for changing lead, without any proposal gaining new consensus; I import text from WP:ATT as having prior consensus which can be promoted (recognizing a slight redundancy); it stands scrutiny for a week or so; it gets trimmed back to a less redundant but less readable version; then I copyedit the clause minimally. That is, my latest edit is IMHO the least change possible to maintain both my (presumably consensus-building) proposal and the readability concerns. I would think that my latest edit is so "minor" as not to need immediate reversion when my earlier bold edit stood for so long, and I would think that by any consideration it's an improvement over the immediately prior version you reverted to. So I don't see any immediate value in your reversion, which also negated my improvement in footnote style. Would you mind (if you don't opt to self-revert) explaining why you consider this latest edit to be fiddling (as opposed to the other edits), or what version would address the concerns expressed by Thirdbeach and my copyedit? Thank you. JJB 23:47, 30 April 2008 (UTC) And you restored half my first edit, so why not the same thing expressed in better phrasing? Also, which of the 3000 comments contravenes either of my edits? I'm not thinking of any offhand. Thanks. JJB 23:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
All of them. Every time we tried to make any significant change, even much simpler ones than the one you just made, they were reverted. If you change the text to something people can't parse or don't recognize, they are not going to run through the last 3000 messages and give you a nuanced reply, they're going to pick a date, roll it back, and we will have lost the little progress we've made. It's important to build data to support the few changes that were made, so that we have a strong case if someone tries to roll us back, and it's important that we not bait people into coming back at a time when they're debate-fatigued and likely to be short-tempered. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:59, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Umm. I see that the only other changes to withstand time, besides mine, were "verifiable" -> "verifiability" and "familiarize" -> "try to familiarize". Is there no difference between my edit standing for a week and the various former compromise attempts? Which comment specifically says either of my edits really or hypothetically was unhelpful? (Not something saying "any edit would be unhelpful".) How was either of my edits not parseable or recognizable? What progress have we made? How would it be undone if someone rolled back and you reverted claiming new consensus (which in fact you did with Brando)? How do you think I might be liable to baiting others and why do you suspect others might be fatigued or short-tempered? I apologize for failing to understand. I also asked a couple questions at my talk. I ask lots of questions when I get confused. JJB 00:20, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

←Oh god not again, please. Here's the diff since the last edit on Apr 3:

  • "Verifiable" in... -> that is, not whether we think it is true. "Verifiability" in...
  • Any edit lacking -> Any material lacking
  • without giving them a chance -> without giving them sufficient time
  • consider moving it to the talk page. Alternatively, you may tag... -> consider tagging a sentence by adding the {{fact}} template, a section with {{unreferencedsection}}, or the article with {{refimprove}} or {{unreferenced}}. Alternatively, you may move...
  • Do not leave unsourced information in articles for too long, or at all in the case of information about living persons. -> Do not leave unsourced information that may damage the reputation of living persons or organizations in articles (See Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons for details of this policy).
  • {{shortcut}} ->{{policy shortcut}}
  • A couple of See also's were added.

See how much we got done? And other than the shortcut fix, every edit was a Sisyphean effort, with the boulder rolling downhill as often as it rolled uphill. If we can keep that much for a few months, then we can demonstrate that it didn't do any of the harm that the opposition feared, and that it does help to make the policy clearer, and reduce arguments in the long run (although it sure as heck didn't in the short run). If you didn't see any arguments against inserting extra words in the lead section, then you haven't read much of the discussion. If you go against consensus, you risk losing what we gained. What you added recently, "not whether we think it is true", is fine with me, but not with some others; although if we got consensus for anything, it was that. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, that clarifies that by ground gained you mean in the other sections; so that narrows where I'm at a loss. You presumably fear that I might go against consensus and "risk losing" these other sections. Since you wish to work on a different critical debate, why don't we do the short version, instead of me asking lots more questions: you self-revert, and let me suffer the fate of my relatively minor text rearrangement on its own merits? I promise I'll undo any thoughtless rollbacks of these other "Sisyphean" victories—as if anyone reputable would actually be so careless! And I see no significant difference between the meaning of your and my edits as compared in this diff. Thank you. JJB 02:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
"as if anyone reputable would actually be so careless"...that's not what I meant. I meant that if you change the text in a way that lots of other people have just indicated they don't like, then their reaction might not be patient, they may simply revert to an earlier time. That's how we would lose our progress. If we waited a few months before any big changes, we'd have a track record to show that the changes don't hurt anything, and the danger would probably be gone. I have no problem with reverting the words I just added in the first sentence; they were your words, of course. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Nor is that what I meant, Dan. I thought the number of words above was sufficient to request reversion of your last undo of me, not your undo of Brando. Nor do your actions today accord with your actions last week, nor am I making sense of them at this hour. I am disappointed. But per BRD, I will wait a bit and make a different bold change. JJB 03:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I misunderstood what you wanted me to revert. I participated fully in April's discussions, and it would be very bad faith for me to wait until only a few of the 50 or so people who participated are watching, and then try to sneak in words that just got rejected, so my hands are tied, even though I think the lead would benefit from clarification. Maybe things will go better for you. Best of luck. If you read the discussions, you'll see that the battle over the lead section was a close call. I'm sorry, I don't have time to watchlist here any more, I'm working on style guidelines and various projects for WP:Good articles. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, thanks for explaining the misunderstanding in good faith. Just for the record, I edited 23 Apr while discussion was ongoing and in its full view, and with strong trust in consensus here and at WP:ATT. This stood until Brando130 on 29 Apr, who appears not to have otherwise contributed here recently. I don't see the edit history as showing that these words were rejected by you or Thirdbeach or anyone but Brando130 (whose minor redundancy concern was appropriate to mention), and I don't regard them as sneaking in. I will treat our interim miscommunication after Brando130 as a temporary hiatus, and present a new bold edit as representing a delayed revert of Brando130. I think in addition to continuing to reflect the consensus of 6.5 days (and the suddenly quieted discussion), it will also address the late concerns of Brando130 and Thirdbeach. However, of course, the edit will be open to invocation of BRD by others. Best of providence, and thank you for humoring me! JJB 14:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with your summary of recent events, and I'm glad you wrote that, since it shows that you aren't doing anything wrong. Like I say, I believe it would be bad faith for me to insert text at this time (given the appearance of losing that argument earlier in April), and I'm a little worried about someone else doing it, but give it your best shot ... just be gentle, and remember that WP:BRD requires gradual change, so that there is time to investigate any unintended consequences. My position was always that a few extra words of some kind were necessary so that everyone read the lead section the same way. As far as I can tell, the position of the opposition was that no fix was needed because there was no ambiguity and everyone read it the same way, and then proceeded to prove just the opposite when no one could agree on what the words meant over the course of 2000 messages. So, as I say, best of luck. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Good changes, JJB. I think your new phrasing ("The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—meaning, in this context, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true.") is a big improvement. Effectively articulates the intent. Thirdbeach (talk) 20:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

History of the term

The earliest phrasings of the policy had the following language: "The goal of Wikipedia is to become a complete and accurate encyclopedia." Indeed, the earliest form, from 2003, explicitly linked accuracy to verifiability: [2]. The change away from that was made by SlimVirgin in 2005, in this edit: [3]. There, accuracy was changed to "reliability." This is a subtle change, but I do not see it as one that moves us away from truth - the assumption is still that one relies on an encyclopedia to be true. In fact,t he purpose of the change seems to be one of parallelism - because we want to be reliable, we use reliable sources.

The "Verifiability, not truth" statement was imported a few days later from NOR in the following edit: [4]. The larger context of the statement makes the usage of the word "truth" clear - it's one about the absolute nature of truth - what I earlier referred to as big-T Truth. The statement used in the example, about a theory of Hawking's, would be stated as an attributed theory if it was being done right - that is, "In Article X, Hawking said...". Thus nothing that would fail the truth test, in this example, would be included - it's just that the unverifiable but true information of Hawking's later denunciation of the theory would not be included.

The overly long example, however, was rightly trimmed out, and we were left with the slogan, which, coupled with the (in hindsight regrettable) removal of the word "accurate" took us to the current position where we appear to be truth neutral. However, I see no evidence that the truth-neutral position was ever intended, and, if we are talking about core principles, it is clear that truth-neutrality is not a core principle - the original core principle did demand that Wikipedia be accurate. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

How many times are you going to reply to this RfC? The point is not to provide you with a forum for a filibuster, but to get comments from a wide variety of editors. Dlabtot (talk) 20:00, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Oddly enough, he does this for a living and counts as an actual, no foolin', expert on the subject; you don't. But I'm sure you're not letting that stop you either - David Gerard (talk) 20:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
What are you talking about? Dlabtot (talk) 20:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
That "LOL UR TALKIN 2 MCH" contravenes long-established practice on Wikipedia talk pages, and doesn't make you look too good either - David Gerard (talk) 20:17, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I guess somehow that explains "he does this for a living and counts as an actual, no foolin', expert on the subject". Then again, maybe not. Dlabtot (talk) 20:21, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I assume he's referring to the fact that I teach college composition and research skills. Which is less germane to this particular debate (as I don't teach "fundamental nature of an encyclopedia"), but does still heavily inform my perspective. Certainly I am disinclined to give my students a good grade when they cite a source and then totally screw up the whole "getting it right" thing. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:21, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Right, what we are talking about here, is writing an open source encyclopedia, which is not something you do for a living. As to whether you are an expert on the subject, I'll leave that for consensus to decide. Dlabtot (talk) 20:24, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Fight the power! - David Gerard (talk) 20:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the open source nature of the project changes the fact that it ought be a reputable and acceptable presentation of researched information. There seems to be a general consensus on the part of the states of Florida and Illinois that I am a sufficient expert on the presentation of researched information to be allowed to teach it to college students. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:27, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
As I noted above, "accuracy" is part of the overall quality of the article, similar to good writing. Verifiability, OTOH, is a key concept, which underpins our effort as a tertiary source. Crum375 (talk) 20:02, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I think accuracy is the point of verifiability - it should be possible to verify our articles, yes. But verify what? The answer, at least in the original policy, is clearly that one should be able to verify our accuracy. And I see no evidence that anybody ever intended the meaning to drift from this - the word "accuracy" was removed in favor of reliability, but that does not seem to me to have been intended as a seismic shift in our goals. (Though, SlimVirgin - can you explain your thoughts on that change?) Accuracy has always been the fundamental goal underlying our demand for verifiability. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:06, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Accuracy is not the point of verifiability — verifiability is our ultimate goal. We'd like our readers to be able to verify that our writing is properly sourced. "Accuracy" is not well defined: it could mean accuracy relative to some hypothetical "truth", or relative to the sources (i.e. that we correctly copied or paraphrased them). Since we can't address ultimate truths (as we lack credentials and it would violate WP:NOR), we can only strive for the second kind of accuracy, which is similar to ensuring proper spelling and overall good writing quality, and is secondary to verifiability as a key concept. Crum375 (talk) 20:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Accuracy in this context - on any topic, we want to show the various significant viewpoints that have been cited in reliable sources. Enterprising readers or prospective editors need to be able to verify that those citations are accurate and additionally are provided the ability to judge our characterizations of those sources, and the overall topic, for themselves. Truth doesn't really enter into it. Dlabtot (talk) 20:36, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
For the most part, truth and accuracy are treated by people as synonyms. But you're right - "truth" does have philosophical connotations that, while secondary to its everyday usage, could be confusing in their own right. "Not just accuracy, but verifiability" captures the point perfectly without making the ludicrous (and embarrassing) statement that we don't care if we get it right, we just care that we're not the only ones who are wrong. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
"Don't just be accurate - be verifiably accurate." Indeed. "Verifiability not truth" is a phrase that only makes sense as Wikipedia jargon. In terms of relations with the outside world, it's nearly as problematic in my experience as the Wikipedia jargon usage of "notable" - David Gerard (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
With all due respect, that's nuts. Accuracy is clearly our ultimate goal. It always has been. It was in the original policy, and no consensus for the sort of radical subjectivism you're proposing has ever, as far as I can tell, been garnered - the idea of it came from a general drift of the language as documented above. The idea that Wikipedia should not pursue accuracy has no consensus. Which is unsurprising - the idea that an encyclopedia would be indifferent to its own accuracy is anathema to any sort of reputability, and aims towards a standard that is wholly unacceptable by any generally regarded method of assessing the presentation of information. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Accuracy is not unimportant — of course it is. But it is a derivative of verifiability. If we demand that a statement X be verifiable to source Y, every reader must be able to verify that Y said X (directly or paraphrased). If there is inaccuracy there, e.g. Y really said Z, and X != Z, then we have violated verifiability. Thus accuracy, as a measure of adherence to the source material, is not an independent parameter. Crum375 (talk) 20:55, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly - accuracy and verifiability should pretty much never come into conflict, and when they do it's usually a quick phrasing change to explicitly attribute claims that fixes it. The statement really is, in practice, deeply uncontroversial and trivial, serving mainly to close up a silly-sounding slogan that is too easily read as something we don't mean. (That is, we really, really do not mean "We don't care if our information is true," we mean "We're uninterested in discussions of TEH SEKRIT TRUTH TEH GOVERNEMNT DOESNT WANT U TO HEAR." And while those of us who are prone to getting into lengthy discussions of the policy understand that we don't mean "we don't care about small-t truth," we can probably avoid the appearance of visible idiocy with a slightly tighter phrasing. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:01, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I would support the change back to accuracy, as it makes the whole issue about neutrality preventing us from the determining "the truth" irrelevant and simply returns us to "please keep the encyclopedia accurate", as we should strive to do whether it's policy or not. Verifiability is a key concept, to be sure, but it's just a way to ensure that we're as accurate as possible. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 20:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
The change to "reliability" appears to be part of the push to canonised "reliable sources" for all uses (not where they make sense - canonicalisation of authority, rather than reliability per fact). This too is something we're needing to pull back from as the attempt to mechanise the process of thought produces blithering absurdities - David Gerard (talk) 20:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The apparent trouble with "verifiability, not truth" is that it presents the two as if they are in tension with one another, whereas people would normally consider the set of all verifiable claims to be a subset of all true claims. But in fact there are claims that are verifiable but untrue: if (for instance) today the scientific consensus is that there's a black hole at the center of the galaxy but next year it's discovered to be a (say) superdense wibblecluster instead, the previously verifiable claim will be found to have been untrue all along. But when writing today we would say that it is a black hole. --FOo (talk) 22:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, no, the Milky Way article does not say that it is a black hole. What it actually says, which is much more proper, is: The galactic center harbors a compact object of very large mass (named Sagittarius A*), strongly suspected to be a supermassive black hole. Most galaxies are believed to have a supermassive black hole at their center. Dlabtot (talk) 23:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Beg to differ. the Milky Way article (I am assuming good faith here) accurately and verifiably reports that that assertion is made by Blandford, R.D. (1999). "Origin and evolution of massive black holes in galactic nuclei". Galaxy Dynamics, proceedings of a conference held at Rutgers University, 8–12 Aug 1998,ASP Conference Series vol. 182.  In another article (e.g., Young Earth creationism) that assertion and the cited supporting source might not be as readily accepted as it is in the Milky Way article. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:48, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't know how you arrived at your misunderstanding of my comment. I quoted verbatim from the article. It does not say that there is a black hole at the center of our galaxy. It says it is strongly suspected. And uses the citation you've reproduced here in support. Dlabtot (talk) 15:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Again, you're hitting on big-T vs small-t truth. Yes, we cannot hope to aspire to absolute universal truth, and aspirations to that have no place in the project. But for the most part, when we say that there is a black hole in the center of the galaxy, we are not implicitly appending the statement "and this is ontologically and absolutely true" to the end of it. Instead, we implicitly append "to the best of our scientific knowledge" to the end of it. Big-T Truth is a philosophical concept. But when we tell people "Wikipedia does not care about truth," anyone who is not a policy wonk will assume we mean small-t truth, which amounts to "what, to the best of current human knowledge, is known to be accurate." And that's a problem. But as I've advocated, what about "accuracy," which seems to sidestep the philosophical implications of "truth?" Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:42, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Why not just eliminate the unnecessary mention of "truth" in the first place, and open with "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability"? This would save us the problem of trying to develop an overly complicated or simplistic explanation of what WP's relationship to, or stance on, "truth" is, and then we could keep this page focused on discussions of verifiability in terms of accuracy. Ameriquedialectics 00:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Boo-yah. It seems to me that Amerique nailed it precisely (and note: it didn't take a lot of words!) But I'd like to give people a chance to say if the "not truth" phrase has somehow made their job easier. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
That is a good question. I think the reason for this specific wording is to make it crystal clear that we don't strive to find "correct" information, by anyone's standard, but we instead only try to find what the published sources say about the subject. Many editors are unfortunately confused about this issue, and see WP as a big textbook written by the Internet community, which it isn't. Saying right up front that we don't aim for "truth", whatever that may mean, but to simply present reliably published information that is verifiable, hits that nail on the head. Removing it would cause this crucial point to be shoved lower down the page, and make it less clear than it is today. Crum375 (talk) 01:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, but that seems to me an over-correction. Which is why I'm inclined to demand both explicitly. Verifiability does not replace accuracy - it was always conceived as the way we ensure accuracy. I mean, that is, factually and historically, what the core principle was. "Verifiability, not truth" is a catchy slogan, but it is misleading - in its drive to boldly state the importance of verifiability, it makes a transparently silly statement. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

More history. The term, as I said, was imported from WP:NOR. The original phrasing of WP:NOR was straight-up Jimbomancy: [5]. The key phrase here is "If your viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, then whether it is true or not, whether you can prove it or not, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia." The key thing here is that *this is a restatement of NPOV*. In other words, what's being said here is that instead of making true statements about science, we make true statements about what important people say about science. i.e. not "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction," but "Newton said that for every action..." Thus the initial rejection of truth is, in fact, a restatement of the fringe theories clause of NPOV.

The term "verifiability, not truth" came from a drafted revision to NOR from late 2004/early 2005. It was added by SlimVirgin in this edit: [6]. The Stephen Hawking example discussed above is present in the earliest version. I can find no discussion of that phrasing in the discussion around the draft, nor anywhere else. As far as I can tell, in fact, there has never been a serious discussion about either the removal of the word "accuracy" or the statement "verifiability, not truth" (which, as I discussed earlier, was not originally phrased in opposition to small-t truth). I see no evidence that there is or ever has been a consensus against the statement "Wikipedia strives to be accurate." Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

A problem if you are suggesting "Wikipedia strives to be accurate" for the lead sentence is that the policy itself is called "verifiability," not "accuracy." I would support the inclusion of a statement on accuracy but I don't see how it becomes an "either/or" proposition with "v≠t". I agree with you that the latter statement would seem like a silly contradiction to people not accustomed to philosophic subtleties, i.e. most of the general reading public, but I think it could be solved by eliminating the extraneous suggestion of a binary opposition or dichotomy that the policy doesn't try to clarify anyway. Making reference to any kind of "truth" is a bad thing, I think, if the policy does not explain what WP means by that, and trying to do so, I think, would create more problems than it would solve. Leaving "truth" in gets us in needless debates about what the referent of that concept is, which is a distraction, I think, from what this policy is trying to do, which is explain sourcing practices. Otherwise, I see no issue with including a specific, well-worded statement on accuracy in the lead section, but don't immediately see how the core ideas of either of these propositions negate each other. (While the latter one does negate itself, as is.) Ameriquedialectics 17:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think, in practice, that it's either-or - quite the contrary, I think that, if we are limiting ourselves to NPOV statements, there will be no verifiable statements that are inaccurate. The problem is largely one of self-presentation - saying flat out that we are not interested in truth appears to set a tone that is simply wrong for an encyclopedia, is not a principle that this page (or any other) was ever founded on, and that flies in the face of what people expect from an encyclopedia. Nobody, I don't think, seriously believes that anybody loads up Wikipedia and looks up information without the expectation that there it is put there because it is supposed to be accurate. Thus the phrase "not truth" becomes deeply misleading in a way that, I think, puts the whole page off on the wrong foot, because it makes the whole page seem like something that is presenting an alternative to truth. It's not - it's presenting a way of guaranteeing our accuracy. "See, we're accurate. Check for yourself." Even if we make no comment on accuracy - simply saying the threshhold is verifiability, that is preferable to the "not truth" phrase, which is actively wrong (as many people here have pointed out). Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Mmmm... Accuracy is not the term either. The only accuracy we can assert is that what you find in Wikipedia is accurate as it relates to the verifiability of the sources we use. That is, we strive to describe accurately what reputable sources say about a subject, without asserting that the claims and viewpoints made in these sources are necessarily accurate. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:28, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
That's just NPOV, though. I mean, in essence, the three content policies fit together thusly. V notes that we ensure accuracy by having information be checkable in sources. NPOV notes that we restrict the sorts of things we say to statements about what other people say - that is, not "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction," but "Newton's third law of motion is..." NOR notes that we further restrict the people whose perspectives we offer to those who have mainstream, reputable views. Together we get the overall picture - Wikipedia provides an accurate and verifiable collection of what the major viewpoints ona given topic are. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Phil, the reason the current wording ("verifiability, not truth") is important is that Wikipedia (and Wikipedians) aren't really equipped to discover with "the Truth" is; I doubt anyone really is, and we shouldn't focus our efforts on that. All we can do is report what reliable sources have to say, so we need to guide editors to do exactly that, rather than trying to figure out what the "real truth" is about a matter, and writing an article to suit that view. Unless we strongly discourage people who are attempting to write "The TRUTH", we will end up with articles that start "Sun Myung Moon is the Second Coming of Christ, the "Savior", "returning Lord", and "True Parent"." After all, according to hundreds of thousands of people, that is "The TRUTH". Jayjg (talk) 04:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Oops, Jay, I didn't see this comment before I deleted "not truth" just now. My sense was that we had consensus, although the discussion has died down so I'm really not sure. I felt two arguments were persuasive: everything that Amerique said, and also my point, which is: it's perfectly okay to say "truth", but don't do it on a core content page. If something on a core content page is unclear, it will cause arguments, and arguments will lead to changes, and lack of stability in a core content page leads to FUD. Let's let people argue what "truth" is somewhere else, and follow Amerique's advice not to distract the reader from a discussion of what verifiability is and isn't. However, I concede that, if my deletion of "not truth" survives, and now that we've taken Jimbo's big quote out of Burden of evidence, there's a legitimate criticism that the page may not do a good enough job of making our position perfectly clear to new editors. Can you think of language that doesn't have "truth" in it that could get the job done? -Dan Dank55 (talk) 09:46, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I didn't see this comment before I posted above in unknowing agreement. I think Jay is quite right. --Relata refero (disp.) 10:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
First, none of the proposed wordings remove verifiability as a requirement - that is, there is nothing that is currently forbidden that is now allowed under the new wording. Second, this idea that people will read "verifiability, not truth," "not just truth but verifiability" or "not just accuracy but verifiability" as meaning, as JayJG so elegantly puts it, The TRUTH seems to me unfounded. Most people, I think, do not take the word to mean the sort of Platonic TRUTH you mean - the term, I think, is well-understood among Wikipedia policy wonks, but to someone who is not a policy wonk the term sounds like we don't care about accuracy. Which is not at all something we want to present. I mean, there are other ways we could fix it - we could reintroduce the long-standing sentence "Wikipedia strives for accuracy," then note that the threshhold for inclusion remains verifiability. But it is manifestly silly of us to have a policy page that openly and in boldface suggests that Wikipedia is unconcerned with accuracy. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Jayjg is right. Obviously. This is a pointless discussion. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I think that the number of people who have expressed skepticism about the formulation, the fact that this wording *never* got serious discussion when it was proposed, and the fact that when it was proposed a lengthy explanation accompanied it which is long since gone suggests that, actually, there is nothing obvious about the statement that "verifiability, not truth" in its current form has or ever had consensus. Furthermore, there seem to be sensible objections being raised, not the least of which is that it is profoundly silly for an encyclopedia to openly declare itself uninterested in whether information within it is true. None of which is to say that we ought change our policy on requiring verifiability. But to declare the discussion pointless is utterly unhelpful to it. The discussion is, actually, pretty good. Please consider contributing to it with more substantive statements. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
hmmm... I have always read the "Verifiability not Truth" phrase a bit differently than most of you seem to be doing. I have always understood it to mean that you can not include something just because you know/think it is true... you have to show that someone (a reliable source) other than you has reached that conclusion. In other words, the phrase in question is really a restatement of WP:NOR at its most basic level. Blueboar (talk) 14:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Would the phrase "not just truth, but verifiability" thus seem equivalent to it in your mind? Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
To me, the phrase "not just truth, but verifiablity" implies that the editor knows the truth, and is avoiding claims that can't be verified because the editor realizes that readers don't trust editors. But the reality is the editor may not know the truth, is aware of his ignorance, and just puts in a balanced set of verifiable claims so the readers can draw their own conclusions. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 15:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Either way seems to say the same thing to me. I think the real problem is that we don't fully explain what the phrase means (thus the confusion, and potential for abuse by wikilawyers). A brief sentence or two needs to be added. something like:
  • "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. While Wikipedia strives to provide accurate information on every topic it covers, editors should not add material simply because they know or think it is "true". The information also needs to be verifiable. "Verifiability" in this context means that readers should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. ...." Blueboar (talk) 15:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflicts) The problem as I see it is, the first line of this policy is being intended for widely different audiences: POV pushers who might need such an admonition re: "truth," and everyone else, I would say the vast majority of users, of varying degrees of sophistication, who will read "v≠t" and either think "smart" or "what BS!" To take care of one problem caused by some users, "v≠t," while appeasing some, offends others who basically see it as a logical contradiction, as evidenced by numerous debates over it located here:
I could not read more past archive#11, but the point that the line "v≠t" has been a constant cause of controversy from its inception has been made. By not explaining what WP means by truth, the policy leaves an opening for these debates to continue. Removing "not truth" removes this source of controversy. The "not truth" concept can perhaps be more effectively pursued at WP:NOT. Ameriquedialectics 16:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

←Thanks for the research, Amerique. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have re-read every statement about the word truth, and I think we could get very wide consensus around keeping it in, but as the word of the people we're talking to, not as our word. So we couldn't keep it in the first sentence, but we could put it in the lead. Many suitable formulations, it seems to me, have already been proposed in this discussion. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:15, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I like most of Blueboar's words just above, but I think Amerique's research demonstrates what happens when we even imply that we know what "not truth" means. I also agree with many others that, even though "not truth" has served a useful purpose on Wikipedia, it is a major turn-off for academics, policymakers, professionals and journalists. There's also a general principle here that we should keep hard-to-define and contentious words such as "truth" out of core content policies, no matter how useful they are. But I have no problem with Blueboar's "truth" in quotation marks. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:32, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
As before, it's a rather important point for editors to understand that although millions think they know "the truth" (and these truths are often diametrically opposed), neither we, nor really anyone else, is qualified to decide what "the truth" is. Jayjg (talk) 01:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
So you've said. And I, as well as others, have responded with concerns that the phrasing is misleading, that many people will not and do not distinguish between the sort of big-T philosophical truth you're discussing, and that the sentence looks like we're saying we don't care about accuracy. The "verifiability, not truth" phrasing does not seem to have consensus now, nor am I convinced that it ever has. Please propose an alternative. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Is there any reason why 'accuracy' is not open to identical problems of dual significance? --Relata refero (disp.) 14:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
It is, at least, not used in philosophical discussions about epistemology very much. So it's harder to bring that meaning into it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:42, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposed logjam break

I will take the liberty of WP:BOLDly importing the following clause from WP:ATT, after an em dash: "whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether we think it is true". This represents ongoing consensus on that page, which is a summary of this page. The only opposition might come from any who wish to baldly state that unelucidated "VNT" is superior to all other formulations, but per my argument above, either VNT is identical to the longer version and the question is moot, or there is a problem with ATT's "summary", which can be solved by an edit like this one. JJB 03:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Having read the final I will note that the first time I read this phrase was when someone defended a speculative negative opinion about what two people might think about a third person at a RS blog. Does there need to be a clear distinction between fact and opinion?? Carol Moore 16:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}
Thanks Carol! So VNT has overlapped into personal attacks being defensible because truth is not our threshold? That's a consequence foreseen in this little essay I just wrote: JJB 17:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Please reference Original source of VNT subhead above. In Jimbo's statement at Wikipedia:NPOV, V and OR he wisely finesses the sometimes hard question "Is X true (credible)?" by answering two easier questions instead: "Who says X is true (credible)?" and "Is that source reliable (reputable)?" But note that, while changing the question, he retains the individual editor's responsibility to use good judgment (determination) while answering. For Jimbo, the standard is still that edits (even attributions) must be true: untruths of the form "Y says Z" can be reverted immediately on either ground, either that Y does not say Z, or that Y is not reliable. In short, this seems strongly to support versions like "verifiability, not just truth".

I believe an unintentional slippage from Jimbo's statement has occurred. He refers only to when it's "quite difficult for us to make any valid judgment", but that implicitly omits easy valid judgments, such as "1 + 1 = 2" (tagged as "refimprove" in 1 (number)). Millions of unsourced, noncontentious statements are retained where "Is X true?" is easy. In fact, it's somewhat harder to judge "Is there some source which reliably says 1 + 1 = 2 in the right context?" than it is to judge "Does 1 + 1 = 2?" (Insert random speculative 'I heard it somewhere from notorious paradoxer Bertrand Russell' pseudo information here.) The same omission is also implied in the current WP:OR as the material not "likely to be challenged" or not "open to interpretation".

This implication seems to slip away gradually and unconsciously in the comments I quoted above (not to pick on Slim, as the same slippage happens psychologically to us all at times, and is evident in several others' comments, but Slim's are handy right now). I repeat them in order, supplying qualifiers in italics where necessary to preserve Jimbo's implication: "what is verifiable, not only what is true"; "firm belief in something being true is not by itself a reason to have it in Wikipedia"; "not allowed to insert something contentious or not obvious just because they personally know it to be true". We slip into thinking that the reason we include "1 + 1 = 2" is not at all because we judge it independently obvious, but only because we judge it obvious that some reliable source must've said it by now. When we fail to allow for Jimbo's implication, we mistakenly think we must never judge statements of the form "X is true", but only those of the form "Y says Z" and "Y is reliable". The philosophical error is to forget that "Y says Z" and "Y is reliable" are also statements in the form "X is true". If we are presumably capable of judging reliability, it is only because we are capable of (often) judging truth itself. The converse philosophical error is to forget that if we are presumably incapable of judging truth itself, we are (always) incapable of judging reliability.

Now, every dispute on WP comes down to a matter of editors asserting X and not-X, and very often in cases other than attribution and reliability. But strict "VNT" would be compelled to say: WP cannot judge X, so it is inappropriate to take any action toward resolving a dispute over X. "VNJT" would say: WP can judge X, so it is appropriate to take action toward resolving those cases where I can best contribute-- and in fact that's how most people behave, even though they profess VNT over VNJT. Strict VNT is in conflict with our duty (IAR) that our behavior improves WP, because strict VNT encourages inaction in unresolved disputes, which worsens WP. On the other hand, the way most people actually behave in dispute resolution presumes that DR is fruitful, we can actually make independent truth-based judgments, and therefore the effective policy really is "not just truth". (Arguments like "we can judge truth in talk but not in mainspace" fail to split the difference, because truth claims have the same nature on both sides.)

In sum, I have demonstrated that we actually have slipped from VNJT to VNT; that this slippage leads to erratic claims about our ability to judge the validity of ordinary statements; and that this error in judgment, logically followed, contradicts the goal of improving WP. Having finally taken the time to write this out for you, I will be happy to answer questions and criticisms. JJB 17:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a good change - just on readability ground. The text now repeats itself. Just read it. "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether we think it is true. "Verifiability" in this context means that readers should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source" -- Why the redundancy? No good. Brando130 (talk) 15:55, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm fine with that, but you went too far, and deleted material without explaining why ... "not whether we think it is true". That part is most definitely not redundant, as can be seen in the last 2000 or so messages posted on this talk page. It might be wrong...although I have never seen someone actually make that argument...but it's certainly not redundant. I'll put it back, and if you want to take it out, please make a case. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:34, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Dan! To Brando's mildly redundant comment, my edit was intended as the minimum change necessary to move the debate forward, and I considered it nonredundant enough. Dan is right that continuing the nuancing on "truth" will greatly assuage one side's concerns. JJB 18:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Can we let go of the TRUTH for a minute?

We've had several remarks from the above putting "verifiability" as a first principle beyond practically everything else; even above accuracy. Well, OK: why?

The only reason for verifiability is to make visible where our information is coming from. This is important, yes. But it's only important in support of accuracy. Period. It has no other value. We only need to know where our information comes from if we care where our information comes from, which takes us directly to WP:RS as a more fundamental policy.

If we really were sufficiently hard-nosed, the policy wouldn't be "verifiability"; it would be "verification". We wouldn't just insist that people be able to check up on references; we would check them ourselves. And that checking wouldn't just consist of seeing whether the source was reliable under the current document-type-based standards, but would also include real fact-checking. As a user rather than an editor, I consider the assertion that we "[do not assert] that the claims and viewpoints made in these sources are necessarily accurate" to be legalistic to the point of uselessness if not absurdity. Nobody can make utterly unqualified claims, but we are in fact claiming our sources to be reliable, and reliability requires accuracy-- not perfect accuracy in every respect, but a reasonable confidence that in the matter at hand, the material is accurate. Mangoe (talk) 17:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I concur, but some people are used to sending POV warriors to this page, and believe the "not truth" phrasing helps them to understand that WP is "not 'their POV' site." Personally, I think the reason any POV warriors sent here back off is because it becomes impossible to take WP seriously after reading the logical contradiction that starts off this page... but it's useful for that purpose, so the "not truth" is here to stay, apparently. Ameriquedialectics 02:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Self-published sources

I have a bit of a problem with the current policy on self-published sources. Hypothetical situation: A new kind of automobile engine is invented. The new engine gets a lot of attention via reputable news outlets, such that the technology becomes quite notable as per WP:N. A Wikipedia article is written to cover the engine. However, at the time of writing the article, the only source that accurately describes significant details about the engine (information at more than just a summary level found in a news article) is a website or printed publication by the inventor him/herself. This site contains all of the information that would be needed to write a very well-referenced, well-cited article - without that info, the article would just be a stub that mirrors the news reports. Also, this is the first thing this inventor has done that satisfies WP:N.

The problem I see in this situation is that, because the site is self-published, it can't be used as a source, since the inventor wrote the content himself. It's true that eventually other people will copy or summarize the information, but it seems that the person who was responsible for inventing the technology would be possibly the BEST source, especially when trying to answer questions like "Why was it invented?". It seems like this policy is a little too restrictive in this regard.

In a more real-world scenario: An editor (who recently got himself indefinitely blocked for mostly unrelated reasons) was pushing the use of the Spore Team's self-published information as a source of info on Spore (video game). I wasn't following this article at the time, but he did make one good point in his arguments that it seemed to make little sense that we'd rely solely on third-party websites to establish basic facts about the game, such as what kind of game it is or details about its announced gameplay. By this policy, we could not use information from the Spore Team unless it was quoted in a different source, such as Gamespot or IGN, or a more general news agency. By then, the information being used may have been reworded, summarized and/or modified beyond the control of the original author of that information.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't use secondary sources, but that I believe our policy on not using primary, self-published sources is too restrictive at times. Thoughts? — KieferSkunk (talk) — 04:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't honestly see a connection between your points and the existing policy; there is no blanket ban on the use of self-published sources in articles about themselves. And the only recent block I noticed for disruption on the article you mention was for violating the fair use policy. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I probably shouldn't have mentioned the block - didn't want to cause confusion. The person I'm referring to was being grossly uncivil and abusive, and got blocked for that reason. He also happened to be using a website that he was a writer for as a source for articles, thus violating SPS. I'm not calling that particular incident into question. I'm just saying that the current policy appears to discourage (if not specifically prevent) people from contributing to articles when they are experts on the subject matter. This and related policies seem to say that, if you're a developer for a specific game or piece of software, you shouldn't contribute to the article on that software because of WP:COI, and we can't use your website or publications as a valid source on that software because of the SPS policy, even if the reference was added by a third party.
If this is not actually how the policy works, perhaps we should reword it so it's clearer? Because that's how I'm reading it, and that's how I see other people interpreting it. Thanks. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 16:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Verifiability and reliability of images

There is some discussion of images going on at WT:NOR, specifically how to deal with images that are based upon unreliable sources. This has generated some though in my mind... and I think we talk about the verifiability of images. While we want to allow editors to take original photographs, and to create original charts, graphs, etc. to illustrate articles ... I hope we would all agree that self created images should be based upon reliable, verifiable information, and should illustrate things stated in the text of the article.

Other thoughts that occured to me: Images (including photographs) are primary sources, and as such should not be used as a source on Wikipedia, except for a statement about that particular image itself. In fact, ideally, an image should never be used as a source at all ... but instead should be used as an illustration of statements that are cited to reliable sources.

Do people agree and, if so, should we include something along these lines in this Policy? Blueboar (talk) 21:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

A recent image added to a couple of articles with a speculative version of the Sukhoi PAK FA, a plane that, as of May 2008, does not publicly exist. The image is credited as self-made (and the planform of it is suspiciously unoriginal). My .02 is that if the image is self-created, it should have some external reference to an image that can't be included for copyright reasons or other be directly comparable to a description in the text.Somedumbyankee (talk) 01:46, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Interesting. I see that the image is clearly marked "(c) Josef Gatial 2005". It was submitted by User:Asen y2k on March 7, 2008, declaring that he was the copyright holder at that time. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Legal

Is it unverifiable if the only means of verifying the information is through an illegal method. Like for instance, say an episode of a television series is released prematurely and illegally. Would information that can only be found in the episode be against policy? Or is it up to consensus? Rau's Speak Page 18:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for ignoring this issue and focusing on the ones that you feel like. I find this an important issue in regards to fictional content articles. Rau's Speak Page 02:43, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I would consider referencing illegally obtained material directly should be out of bounds, but it would be fair game to reference third party coverage of that material. An analogous situation, albeit a far more serious one, is the coverage of classified government documents. On a direct basis such material is generally unverifiable, but sometimes things like the Pentagon Papers are nonetheless reported in the press, at which point they become fair game. So, I would say that if material has already been exposed through whatever channels qualify as mainstream reporting on televison content then it is fair game on Wikipedia even if that information hasn't been officially released by the producers. Dragons flight (talk) 02:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. Rau's Speak Page 03:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
In general, we don't count "leaks" as publication. This came up with the last Harry Potter book, which was available illegally for a while before it was officially released. What we did was to avoid using the book as a reference until the official moment of publication. However, if a newspaper or other reliable source were to publish the information, we could use that as a source and make sure we explicitly say we are taking the info from there. But that is unlikely ot happen for the plot of an unreleased TV show or book. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, thank you. The information from both of you is greatly appreciated. Rau's Speak Page 02:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Verifiability when you have hard-to-access sources

There's no mention in the article of the fundamental claim to verifiability: the ability to actually "verify" the information. Some of the best information lies in books or journal articles which must be purchased or loaned. Now, I realize that libraries have a lot of this stuff, but not all of it, and it's darn inconvenient to access some of it. Nevertheless, what's our position on using these types of sources? There are misconceptions, even among admins. I just noticed this comment from admin Hu12:

## ”Verifiability”???? these are subscrition links..

The subscription links in question are, I believe, from NYT. ImperfectlyInformed | {talk - contribs} 10:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Subscription sources are fine as such (I constantly cite material found via NewsBank and the online ODNB, services that access print publications via a subscription or library-only interface). The question in context - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Landmark Partners - appears to concern corporate subscription newsletters where there's the chance that they're promotional. That would come down to an assessment of their level of reliability. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 10:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I was pretty sure subscription sources were fine. Nevertheless, I think this confusion persists, and we should make a note in this article stating that verifiability does not mean that you can simply verify the source immediately. The title verifiability is actually highly misleading because verifiability does not actually imply reliability, which is actually what this article is about. ImperfectlyInformed | {talk - contribs} 11:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Verifiability does not mean that you can simply verify the source immediately
Just so. That requirement would invalidate a whole load of perfectly good sources, such as historical newspapers only findable in subscription databases or specific library collections, obscure and/or out-of-print books, etc etc. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 12:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
However, this is hardly the first time this question has been raised... perhaps we do need to clarify and expand. Blueboar (talk) 14:21, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Sounds worthwhile. What about amending the ending of the first para of WP:V#Burden of evidence to:
The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question. It is not necessary that the source be findable instantly by any reader, merely that it be demonstrably findable (for instance, by library or archive request).
or the like. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 17:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I like the proposed text, particularly it's inclusion of library or archive request. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a strong feeling for phrasing (though "demonstrably findable" is decent); it should be common sense. It can be resolved by a meta-argument similar to my own proposal for "burden of evidence" (now archived, but coming back). Say an article claims "X" and attributes it to Y; there is no question of Y's reliability; but Y is an unavailable source (dead link, rare book, or even available online text but not in my language, etc.). Well, in other words, article claims both "X" and "Y said X". Treat the second claim (that "Y said X") the same way as the first, and determine it based on how likely it is to be challenged (and whether it's given as an exact quotation). So if there is old talk about a fully cited dead link as if live, it obviously was formerly live and thus verified by the former editors, and thus I have (common-sense) verified the claim "Y said X" (and, since Y is reliable, also verified "X"). If another editor quotes the rare book or translates the unknown language in talk, assuming good faith also verifies "Y said X". It's only when the allegation "Y said X" is likely to be challenged (e.g. with WP:SPA's) that we need another verification ("accessible reliable source Z says 'Y said X'"). Sometimes Z is the Wayback Machine or another source accepted routinely as a proxy of Y. But all of this equates to verification of X, because on WP, the proposition "X" is taken as fungible with "Y says X, and Y is reliable". JJB 19:36, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
archive request needs some qualification because we've previously held that unique documents in archives are not valid secondary sources for our purposes. DGG (talk) 22:50, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
That's interesting; I've had disputes, which I didn't push because I had no real ammunition, over the inlcusion of sources like these, which didn't feel right. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 11:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

This raises another issue. Can the publisher of an expensive subscription journal sue wikipedia for violating the copyright? Count Iblis (talk) 21:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand where the concern/question is coming from. Why should they have any reason to sue Wikipedia? If we're using the source properly, it should simply be cited or only use a small excerpt/quote from the source. Vassyana (talk) 21:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Count Iblis: only if the copyright was violated by lifting the actual wording. Unless the document is legally confidential, paraphrasing the information contained would be fine. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 11:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I like the proposed wording. I'm lucky, I subscribe for instance to Antiquity and have access to all their old stuff. Ditto Jstor, and I'd hate to be told that I can't use academic journals! --Doug Weller (talk) 13:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Now reading it as inserted, it sounds a hair different and I think a caveat needs to be added to "demonstrably" (at least in talk) for when the source itself is not online. I would take "demonstrably" to include that the source is listed at OCLC, or that the journal has its own WP article, or in short just about any other ordinary online link that might be put in the WP source citation. If an unlinked cite is challenged, and one cannot prove the source exists, that seems to leave the realm of "demonstrably". If it's an obscure newspaper never mentioned as a paper elsewhere on WP or OCLC or some other discussed means of verifying its existence demonstrably (let alone what it says, once found), it seems to fail this test. If it is demonstrably findable, "Y says X" can be taken in good faith once supported in talk ("Y is reliable" is still open of course). JJB 21:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I've just run across an example of a couple of 19th century sources being used to discuss the possibility that the Ancient Egyptians used electricity. In the article Dendera light a recent editor added "As far back as 1894, J. N. Lockyer mentioned in passing the possibilities of lamps.[4" and the footnote is "J. Norman Lockyer, "Dawn of Astronomy". Kessinger Publishing, 1992. 448 pages. ISBN 1564591123 (c.f., "[...] possibility that the electric light was known to the Ancient Egyptians.)" I looked this up. What I found on page 180 of P. 180 [46] Dawn of Astronomy By J. Norman Lockyer was Lockyer suggesting that mirrors were used to illuminate areas where no direct light reached, writing that "in all freshly opened tombs there are no traces whatever of any kind of combusion having taken place, even in the innermost recesses. So strikingly evident is this that my friend M Bouriant, laughingly suggested the possibility that the electric light was known to the ancient Egyptians." If Google books hadn't had the whole text, I wouldn't have discovered what the author had actually written. Editor Reddi also added " Bruno Kolbe, Francis ed Legge, Joseph Skellon, tr., "An Introduction to Electricity". Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1908. 429 pages. Page 391. (cf., "[...] high poles covered with copper plates and with gilded tops were erected 'to break the stones coming from on high'. J. Dümichen, Baugeschichte des Dendera-Tempels, Strassburg, 1877")" -- now I can not access that source, and I doubt that the editor has read it himself because in fact it comes from another editor's user page at [7] (which I suspect often happens, sources get copied with the editor doing the copying having not read the source). What can I legitimately do about it if anything? Thanks.--Doug Weller (talk) 07:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
What makes you think the editor who added it has never read the book and took it from another editor's user page? (I'm not saying they did or didn't... just asking what makes you think they didn't). Blueboar (talk) 13:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
(ec) Wonderful example. (1) Because we have a recent ISBN for Lockyer the average editor can assume good faith in the first citation: it can be verified. (2) When you check Google books, you find that the source was (technically) accurately quoted and (with the language "in passing") a summation attempt was made; so it has been verified, per se. (3) Whether the quote was taken out of context is another matter, but not one which is within the scope of this guideline; it should be presented at talk as "should this source be better contextualized?" (or "is this source relevant to this topic?"), since what the source says has been verified. (4) An editor who is not able to access the second source, Kolbe, notes that it has a reasonable link and assumes good faith in the source being quoted correctly (it can be verified). (5) Without accessing the second quote, an editor can still question whether the possibility of the first quote being out of context might lead one to question whether the second one was also, while maintaining good faith in the quote being technically accurate. (6) But following the Kolbe link to get the second source in context on Google books here means the second source has been verified, which then turns discussion to whether the second source is in or out of context on its own merits. (7) (If for any reason you are not able to access the link I just provided, you just ask me for the text in context and I post it to talk.) (8) But then the second source happens to quote a third source, Dümichen, without a link. But here the editor is not a Wikipedian but published authors (Kolbe et al.), so we automatically assume good faith that Dümichen was represented in context and correctly cited. Dümichen is verified on the word of Kolbe, while Kolbe is verified on his own word. (9) Questions about the reliability of any of these authors would need to be based on observable (verifiable) errors or faults of their presentation, at which point their statements might be demoted from bald statements to attributed statements ("Dümichen says"). Very, very clear-cut. I would add that I have no knowledge of the topic, but I have known le Grand Roi to be a skillful sourcer. JJB 14:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
And Dümichen is correctly cited. He doesn't say anything about electricity though, and another German Egyptologist has written on this specific issue (copper topped poles), pointing out that there is no evidence the copper attached to anything, that the poles are lower than associated pylons, that there is no evidence (this is late 19th century still) for the AE's using electricity, and that this was a magical, not a technical installation. With le Grand Roi's permission I've amplified the footnote in question. Tricky. --Doug Weller (talk) 15:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)On a related issue, I have asked for clarification about an issue of interpretation that has cropped up (I've placed in the section WT:V#Demonstrably findable.  DDStretch  (talk) 12:52, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

What does "relevant to their notability" mean?

What does WP:SELFPUB mean when it says that material used from questionable sources should be "relevant to their notability"? Does it mean that if a questionable source is being used to discuss a subtopic, that subtopic should be specifically mentioned by an independent source as well? If so, could that be made more clear? PSWG1920 (talk) 19:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

“relevant to their notability” means what the individual, organization. etc. is notable for. As an example, Stephen Hawking is notable for his scientific views; in particular, astrophysics. Martin Scorsese is a notable movie director. Under “relevant to their notability” Hawking’s self-published views on black holes would meet the threshold, while his views concerning movies would not. Likewise, Scorsese’s self-published views on how the universe was created would not. Hawking may have strong views on movies, and Scorsese may be passionate about some scientific subject, but those would be outside of their areas of notability. Following the same line, NRA is a notable source on itself and and its view of the second amendment and an article about the NRA could use the NRA itself to establish that originations view point; or an article about Greenpeace could cover its views concerning the environment. The idea is to allow the use of material that would not otherwise be allowed, so long as the material originated from the subject that that particular article covers. The key phasing is “used as sources in articles about themselves”; i.e. there is no need to find a third party source if the material meets those seven points. Brimba (talk) 02:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Although, a third party source on any of these topic is also appreciated. Blueboar (talk) 03:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Reverted Fyslee's change

I reverted Fyslee's change from the normal wording to this:

Exceptional and/or controversial claims in Wikipedia require very high-quality reliable sources;[1]This principle is based on the concepts voiced by Marcello Truzzi and are a cornerstone in the thinking of scientific skeptics: "And when such claims are extraordinary, that is, revolutionary in their implications for established scientific generalizations already accumulated and verified, we must demand extraordinary proof." (This statement is often abbreviated to "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.")

In English I was told to cut or remove 'very', and avoid using synonyms or words that mean the same thing (I'm doing this on purpose). I think exceptional covers controversial claims, especially with the quote in there, and high-quality sources are high-quality sources. ImperfectlyInformed | {talk - contribs} 17:07, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Since you're trimming, I'll pile on and remove further unnecessary words. JJB 17:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the reversion. controversial claims require only the fair coverage of sources according to NPOV. I've returned the wording to where we've started with, which was and remains the consensus. DGG (talk) 20:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)