Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 27

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 This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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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 Source typing is not really a consideration in this case, because the information is unpublished.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)