User:Zenwhat/Googlefiability

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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it.

WP:Verifiability is good in principle. Scholars themselves must verify their references in order to publish articles in academic journals.

However, in practice, on Wikipedia, "verifiability" tends to mean:

If it can be found on Google, it must be true.
If it cannot be found on Google, it does not exist.

Scholar.google.com is not an accurate summary of scholarly research, because it aggregates sources through a particular algorithm. There are no editors involved. Articles linked on scholar.google.com are not peer-reviewed and so frequently they contain material that, if posted on WIkipedia, would violate WP:FRINGE while also not containing a lot of relevant information necessary to determine the scientific consensus.

Relying on Google alone for WP:Verifiability is lazy and poor editing. Good editors should regularly go to the library and seek out expert opinions and not simply assume that "search engine hits" correlate with "verifiability".

Simply because something is Googlefiable does not mean it is verifiable. The reverse is also true: Simply because something is not Googlefiable does not mean it is unverifiable.

[edit] Corrollary

Simply because a viewpoint is more Googlefiable than another, does not mean it is an accurate opinion. Simply because a viewpoint is not Googlefiable does not mean it is an inaccurate opinion.