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As it stands, this proposal does little beyond the already existing Verifiability policy that articles should rely on credible, third-party sources.
I would go one step further, by making it say "Any article on a topic is required to cite at least two reliable sources, independent ..." This seems to be a modest expectation of minimum encyclopedic standards. -- SteveMcCluskey 22:50, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Independence means much more than this. The sources must be independent of each other, not just the subject. If a journalist publishes an investigative report on some scandal, the several other newspapers that report on the issue but do not independently investigate and verify the issue themselves do not count as independent sources. It all rests on one investigation, one newspaper and is not sufficient for Wikipedia. Also, isn't this redundant with Verifiability? — Centrx→ talk • 22:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
This essay seems to use topic as a synonym for source. It seems to only concern itself with cases where the topic is a publication, such as a book or movie. Suppose the topic is not a publication, though. If the topic were algebra, how would I find a source that describes algebra "from the outside"? -- Gerry Ashton 17:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
(unindent)Ok, lets start again. I decide to write a Wikipedia article about the topic algebra. Just the general mathematical ideas that together form the topic of algebra. I should be able to go into your essay and substitute algebra for topic and the guideline should still make sense. So I take the statement
Any article on a topic is required to cite a reliable source independent of the topic itself...
I substitute algebra for topic and I get
Any article on algebra is required to cite a reliable source independent of algebra itself...
So what does it mean for a source to be independent of algebra? -- User:Gerry Ashton 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest clarifying along these lines:
I would also either change the title of the essay to something like "Independence from subject" or add a section to address the meaning "independence of sources from each other" which is the common meaning covered on our actual article on independent sources. -- Beland 07:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I have seen this AFD debate where the link to this essay has been written up, and I think some thoughts on the value of independent sources is in order. Since the debate I linked to was about airlines, I will continue with using that as a case study:
My point is: Non-independent sources should be used with some caution. If there is a reasonable cause to believe that the source might be biased or inaccurate, we should either abstain from using it or make it explicit that this is a claim from a non-independent source. But in many cases such a source would have no real motivation for saying something directly false, and in such cases it is a source as reliable and as valid as any other independent source, in fact sometimes more reliable. I would expect an airline to know more about its own company than a random journalist writing in an independent newspaper. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
For a non-profit organization, what would be an acceptable source? Would a newspaper article describing the work it has done in a community be acceptable? Thanks for any help! Julieatrci 15:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
we already have {{ primarysources}}, which is pretty much exactly the template this article asks for. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 10:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Does this article really need to tell us we can discuss the article on the talk page? Does this imply that I'm not supposed to be discussing other essays on their respective talk pages? - Verdatum ( talk) 09:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I really think this essay should become a guideline. Why? Because, especially in the more contentious articles where much criticism can be found, biased, though possibly reliable, sources can create a laundry list of contentions which can unnecessarily bloat an article. It would be a good idea to temper that phenomenon by strengthening the weight of this essay. MrMurph101 ( talk) 21:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
(undent) Having said that, there are a lot of links to this essay. But I get the sense that many of links are there because of the issue that independent sources are needed for controversial facts, something not mentioned at all in the essay. So, for example, a website can be used for the basis (say) of when a company was founded, unless that fact is disputed. Or an autobiography or a company history authorized by a company should not be treated as a fully reliable source, though still usable. Or that a journal published by an association does not prove, in itself, notability. In fact, perhaps the best way to (re)build this into a useful guideline would be to look very closely at when the essay was cited, and figure out the points being made. That would include:
(a) a lack of independent sources indicates a potential notability problem, as well as a potential NPOV problem (b) independent sources should be preferred for controversial facts, and any disagreement regarding these must be made clear when the facts are discussed. (c) independent sources must be used for judgmental aspects of a subject (for example, an organization is a "leader in the field of X", or "has demonstrated that Y can do Z"); to do otherwise is an NPOV problem. Use of non-independent sources as support for such statements is wrong and should be deleted by editors.
Such a guideline needs to begin with a clear definition of what are and aren't independent sources; that in itself would be very helpful (and examples would be good, too).
In summary, guidelines normally use the word "should" (or similar) a lot - their purpose is to tell editors what to do (and not to do). Again, the links to the essay are where people were citing the essay as support; that means that it should be possible to figure out the points of disagreement between editors, and actually take sides - word the guideline so that one editor is clearly right and the other is clearly wrong (where "right" and "wrong" mean following or not following the new guideline). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
One of these pages is redundant, it makes sense to merge them and work out what the best title is. Hiding T 16:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
I just added some healthy skepticism into a new section I have created. I hope this does not come across as overly paranoid. This may not be relevant to most topics, but:
(a) I see the press-release issue come up very frequently in AfD discussions, esp. those about corporations.
(b) The issue of conflicts-of-interest is subtle but is of the utmost importance in highly controversial topics in which there is often a lack of scientific/academic consensus, or appearance thereof--for example, controversy over health effects of herbicides, or the effects of various economic policies. It is also important when there is a scientific consensus with a vocal dissenting minority, such as with Global Warming or Health effects of tobacco. In these cases identifying the interests behind sources is of the utmost importance--including a COI source as an independent one greatly skews the article--whereas identifying the COI and citing the potential COI in as WP:NPOV a way as possible, such as "A study funded by X found Y" enriches the article. Cazort ( talk) 15:30, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
I notice a meger proposal above. I assume the proposal was to merge with WP:IS. I would like to add my support to this call for the following reasons:
Yaris678 ( talk) 00:26, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
A few days ago, SlimVirgin went around a number of essays, changing them to say that a third-party source is always a secondary source. If you're interested in that discussion, it's been centralized at Wikipedia talk:Party and person. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:23, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
An issue I keep running into with this policy is the vague scope of the "independence". If you take a very specific concern, such as, say, a particular model of a transistor, then there are multiple layers of association, and the significance of these associations are highly interpretable. For example, suppose that there is are sources from a manufacturer, a retailer, an electronics hobbyist author, an independent peer-reviewed electronics journal, or a general science writer, all of whom have so-called "significant" coverage. From my perspective, the last three do not have a significant dependence on the part.— RJH ( talk) 16:21, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
In the lead is, "A third-party source is independent of the subject being covered."
Does the use of the word "subject" work here? For example, if a paper is written on Einstein's theory of relativity by someone other than Einstein, how can the paper be independent of the subject originally covered by Einstein? Bob K31416 ( talk) 18:02, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
This paragraph has it wrong. A third-party source is properly contrasted to a first-party sources, which is not independent. It has nothing to do with the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, all of which could be produced independently or not. Will Beback talk 21:50, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
How are these reputations established? Who decides what is and is not a valid reputation? Ranze ( talk) 03:48, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
Paraphrased from policy page:
Would there be such a thing as a primary second-party source? What would it be? Ranze ( talk) 03:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
First party | Third party | |
---|---|---|
Primary | Involved and reporting your own original material | Not involved but still reporting your own original material |
Secondary | Involved and giving an analysis of previous material | Not involved and giving an analysis of previous material |
All four of these combinations are possible. It's not just 'my material, therefore I'm involved'. The eyewitness reporter is independent (aka third party) and primary. Because this eyewitness journalist's article is both a third-party source and a primary source, it is not possible for third party to be the same thing as secondary.
Because of this, we can't say things like "A third-party or secondary source is one that is independent of the subject being covered", like you wrote yesterday.
WhatamIdoing ( talk) 14:52, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
"For example, a newspaper that depends on advertising revenue might not be truly independent in their coverage of the local businesses that advertise in the paper."
There are many pages which use hobby magazines as sources, magazines which run articles (pretty much always positive) about companies or products that are advertised in their pages. Am I right that those wouldn't be considered independent? -- LBiller39 ( talk) 20:31, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
This is a discussion of whether it is appropriate to cite a published, peer-reviewed review article that was funded by a party interested in the study's conclusions. While the ultimate answer I assume is "it depends", is there anything like a presumption that we could use to center the discussion around? Appreciate your insights. Thanks! Lfstevens ( talk) 21:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
I really don't know what to make of the phrase, in the current guideline, "primary does not mean non-independent or affiliated with the subject." Perhaps this is due to the inherent problem involved in trying to define a word by what it is not rather than what it is.— — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.145.189.43 ( talk) 17:59, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
For many scholarly subjects, review articles can be found. These appear in on-line encyclopedias like The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, in traditional encyclopedias like The Encyclopedia Britannica, in specialized collections like The Oxford Companion to ‘xyz’, in online resources like Philosophical Papers, and in review articles in scholarly journals like Reviews of Modern Physics, Reviews of Geophysics and so on. These articles are primarily written by one author, only occasionally more, and these authors are selected by the publication's editors for their expertise or the contributions are subject to some peer review process. Whatever the winnowing criteria, these authors are ipso facto active in the field and so hardly what one would call 'independent' observers. (In fact, a critique by a non-involved party is tantamount to a non-expert opinion, and not usually sought after.)
Such articles are the only type of general overview of a scholarly topic that is available. In my opinion, this guideline WP:THIRDPARTY is open to interpretation as excluding material reported in such scholarly reviews from WP. It says: "A third-party source is not affiliated with the event, not paid by the people who are involved, and not otherwise likely to have a conflict of interest or significant bias related to the material."
Wording should be added to this guideline explicitly indicating acceptance of scholarly review articles as being substantial and valid, and a reasonable alternative to non-existent "third-party" sources. If there is uncertainty about objectivity, for instance conflicting review articles, then WP:NPOV should govern the presentation by requiring expression of all scholarly opinions. However, exclusion of such articles on the basis of WP:THIRDPARTY is simply unrealistic. Brews ohare ( talk) 14:48, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
I have added a version of these comments to the sub-section Articles without third-party sources. Of course, modifications are invited. Brews ohare ( talk) 17:22, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Snowded, reading your changes, after you removed all examples and the quote from WP:SECONDARY, you added:
The removed material already pretty much covers this point; it says:
This is more specific guidance than "using care", and indicates what policy to follow. You also removed the quote from WP:SECONDARY:
which is helpful in telling a reader the proposed role for secondary sources as something WP "usually relies upon".
An interesting point is "What is a secondary source, which the policy WP:SECONDARY sees as the backbone of WP?" The WP policy WP:SECONDARY puts the matter like this:
Reading your Edit Summary, you say:
You removed all the examples, which are:
Now, on other Talk pages you have suggested that The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a doubtful choice, although you have not said why. I suppose that some of the items listed in The Oxford Companion to ‘xyz’ might also not meet your (so-far unspecified) criteria. Maybe The Oxford Handbook of 'xyz' would have better examples? Otherwise, I doubt you have any objections.
Obviously, examples can be helpful in clarifying for a reader what is thought of as a suitable secondary source. So it might be useful to go into this subject in more detail. What do you think? Brews ohare ( talk) 22:03, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
For all the above reasons, I find that the original subsection is more informative and helpful to the reader than the emasculated version you have left behind, and I have restored it to the Project pages. Brews ohare ( talk) 22:08, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
There is no hope of creating a useful definition for "third-party source" because it is fundamentally a term from contract law, and has no legitimate application in Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Jc3s5h ( talk) 21:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. How true. I had not quite realized how casual the guidelines of Wikipedia were until breaching this topic. I would suggest that, if Wikipedia wishes to maintain a robust model, far more energy is needed in mapping the details of what "reliable sources" means.
With more accuracy and proper differentiation of soure types, and with an understanding in place that different subject matter involves very different source types and means of verification, contributors have a sound basis to create and evolve mechanisms of checks and balances.
Inevitably, if Wikipedia is not to become the world's most relied-upon source of disinformation, a much more meaningful hierarchy of source-type will have to be implemented. Wikibearwithme ( talk) 04:24, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
This essay says that "An independent source is a source that has no vested interest in a written topic and therefore it is commonly expected to describe the topic from a disinterested perspective.
" This is, however, a better description of an unbiased source. A source may be completely independent, but definitely biased. This distinction is made in the 4th paragraph, but I think it needs to be clearer if the essay is to be relied upon in editing debates or deletion discussions, or in helping new editors to understand our policies and practices.
DES
(talk) 16:32, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
We've talked off and on about merging
WP:Third-party sources over here. I've started a draft, modeled after
WP:USINGPRIMARY in my sandbox at
User:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox_3. If anyone has any comments (other than "it's too long"
), please post them here. Thanks,
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 00:19, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
This is an actual request for your comments. There's no dispute and no proposal. I am just requesting that you share your own ideas about what it means for a reliable source to be independent (or not). Please make a ===subsection=== and tell me what you think. Feel free to tell stories and share examples about disputes, interesting cases, confusions you've encountered, considerations for subject areas that you're interested in – whatever is on your mind. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:39, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
So, like press releases and the like would be not be independent sources. Any source which the subject doesn't have any reasonable control over, so for instance an article on the editor of a major newspaper; sources from that newspaper wouldn't be considered independent sources. Tom29739 [ talk 16:11, 21 April 2016 (UTC).
A source which is either not related to the subject, or has a tangential relationship- one which is too insignificant to influence- the subject: e.g. an unaffiliated ice hockey magazine talking about an ice hockey team could be said to be connected, as both involve ice hockey. Rubbish computer ( HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 12:06, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
IMHO independence isn't a property of the source material. The exact same text can be found at dependent and independent sources. For instance, a press release, once published by a (third-party) newspaper, yields an independent source for that press release. If no third party publishes it, there is only a self-source. Lyrda ( talk) 21:21, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Adrian816 ( talk) 19:46, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
The following arises from the nearly-finished deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greg J. Marchand. While it is still around, see Greg J. Marchand.
The AfD was about an article about a surgeon who has a PR agent
And puts out lots of press releases - here are some:
The page was terrible and terribly sourced, but what I want to focus on are the syndicated news stories. The original article (which I saved offline if anybody wants it) cited the following:
At the AfD one of the socks
wrote: There's no way this can fail WP:GNG. If you read WP:GNG it plainly says:""Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it. For example, advertising, press releases, autobiographies, and the subject's website are not considered independent." Individual ABC, NBC and CBS stations all over the nation ran the story. Are we suggesting they were paid? This is how syndicated stories work in the US. If you want to delete the article, go ahead, but these sources meet the very definition of WP:GNG....Unless the subject owns or paid these stations, (which is impossible,) you've got a story airing all over TV in the USA. WP:GNG by definition. Anyone looking back at this deletion log is instantly going to realize he meets WP:GNG, (despite churnalism being a fancy word.) the only issue is promotionalism.
And listed these additional iterations, and noted Same words from the reporter tell you the story is nationally syndicated
:
Another sock wrote
this comment which included because YOU KNOW FOR A FACT these 14 news stories did not come from a press release, they came from national reporter. The original story was produced by Wendy Chioji of Ivanhoe Media (they do a lot of the medical interest national stories for CBS, NBC, ABC. Her
original story is easy to find so I suspect you already knew this. It's a real national story shared with many legitimate CBS, NBC, and ABC affiliate stations.
Nobody is buying this, bit it seems worth saying to head off this kind of silly argument in the future. Jytdog ( talk) 17:43, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
The bold edit is here. Thoughts? Jytdog ( talk) 17:44, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
(General GNG remark): IMO our whole WP:GNG based on a simplistic criterion of counting "multiple ... sources" suffers from the "searching the lost wallet under the lantern at night" fallacy. In fact, encyclopedic notability criteria must pay more attention to the lasting impact of the topic, rather than the amount of noise generated. Try to look from this perspective at Paul Politician, Rob Robber, or Eddy Egghead, and you will have a clearer idea about notability. Staszek Lem ( talk) 19:44, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
(Counting independent sources): I was mulling about the concept of "overlapping sources". If two sources list the same bunch of facts only in different verbiage, then this may be a good reason to count them as one. On the other hand, if in addition to identical facts there are, e.g., opinions of independent experts, then the sources my be treated as truly different. Is this worth elaborating? Staszek Lem ( talk) 19:44, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Syndicated stories, and stories based on other stories, are not independent of each other. This is even more true when the news outlets re-publishing the work share ownership or are otherwise strongly affiliated with the original news outlet. A new agency "recycling" or making slight or non-substantial rewrites to another "wiki-acceptable" source and publishing it under your own banner should not "automatically count" as a new source in Wikipedia. I say "automatically" because sometimes the decision to print a syndicated story or not really is based on the editiorial judgement of the "copying source" that the item really is notable, and they are using syndicated material because it's more efficient than doing their own research or doing their own research is not feasible, NOT because "we don't care about this topic, but it might generate some ad revenue so we'll put it in." Bottom line: handling syndicated stories and whether they "count" for notability will always be a case-by-case issue, but we probably can come up with some "rules of thumb" to help editors decide "is the fact that this story got published in 500 major reliable news outlets" an indication of the topic's notability or perhaps it was just an indication of a slow news day or a "firehose/we publish everything that comes across the wire" policy by those news outlets. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs) 19:11, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
The new paragraph on syndication seems useful, I support keeping it. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:33, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Regarding this edit: instead of continuing to re-insert the images in question, can the interested parties please discuss whether or not there is consensus to include these images on the page? isaacl ( talk) 02:29, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
indicating they either don't think it's fun or that they don't think the fun is a net benefit– No, actually. One explicitly said he thought it was fun (but seemed to mistakenly think that fun isn't allowed) [5] and two others didn't say anything substantive at all [6] [7].
I think it is unduly confusing for readers to see the three duplicate photos on the page– Well, they're not our readers but rather our fellow editors, who are a distinct cut above. Whether or not it gives you the ol' LOL it's hard to take seriously the contention that a series of images of hamburger patties and a bottle of Worcestershire Sauce, captioned "First patty ... second patty ... third patty ... third patty reliable sauce" – embedded in a discussion of third-party reliable sources – could be in any way "confusing".
I'm pretty sure continually re-inserting content wouldn't be an approach you would recommend– Actually, continually removing content that had been there for some time isn't the approach I'd recommend. Why is removal the default?
unless "third patty reliable sauce" is a takeoff on some kind of slogan I'm not aware of– Jesus, it's immediately adjacent to the paragraph containing the bold text
third-party reliable sources. Do you need to be hit over the head? E Eng 18:47, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
The effect ... on those who aren't as enamoured– What effect is that? The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be getting a chuckle? Since many obviously do enjoy this kind of thing (and I've got the literally thousands of thanks notifications to prove it) can't you just let it pass – on an essay page, for crying out loud? That's the question. E Eng 18:55, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Our policy pages are hard to read already. A frustrated reader trying to find an enlightening advice sees hamburgers and would tiredly think "WTF this smartassness is supposed to mean now?" People read policy pages not for lulz but for info. Jokes create an extra distraction. You may write an essay on the subject and put 5 hamburgers into it, nobody will say a word. Staszek Lem ( talk) 19:42, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
WP:DEADHORSE. Staszek Lem ( talk) 19:42, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
There is a discussion on the independence of two sources with the same owner on the reliable sources noticeboard. If you're interested, please participate at WP:RSN § Sources from the same organisation. — Newslinger talk 07:26, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
Just noting that, as seen here and here, Newslinger changed the page to a supplement page. I suppose it is better designated as one than as an essay. And, really, there isn't much difference between an essay and supplement page. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 03:25, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
interprets
parameter, and the result was "This is an explanatory supplement to the multiple policies and guidelines."I think we have to name at least one specific page, or simply say
"This is an explanatory supplement to the policies and guidelines."— Newslinger talk 17:21, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
There is a discussion at WP:V § Freedom of press about the impact of low press freedom on the independence of a source. The discussion concerns the content added in Special:Diff/931590746. — Newslinger talk 19:40, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
![]() | It was proposed in this section that
Wikipedia:Identifying and using independent sources be
renamed and moved to
Wikipedia:Independent sources.
result: Links:
current log •
target log
This is template {{
subst:Requested move/end}} |
Wikipedia:Identifying and using independent sources → Wikipedia:Independent sources – The title is more concise. Interstellarity ( talk) 21:01, 29 February 2020 (UTC)—Relisting. © Tbhotch ™ ( en-3). 18:52, 23 March 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. BD2412 T 17:57, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
I support the current title. Otr500 ( talk) 09:32, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
This page states (emphasis mine):
Wikipedia's guideline on Reliable sources states that "Wikipedia articles should rely primarily on reliable, third-party, published sources".
Curiously, WP:RS makes no such statement. I'm proposing to edit this page to reflect that. Murtaza.aliakbar ( talk) 19:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
There is a request for comment on whether certain sources ("articles by any media group that [...] discredits its competitors") are considered to have a conflict of interest. If you are interested, please participate at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability § Does Footnote 9 still have consensus? — Newslinger talk 06:41, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
Hi,
Request for comment discussion has been initiated @
Talk:List of former Muslims#Rfc: Soft censoring of Ex-Muslim Articles and has reference to this article there in.
Those interested can express their views there in.
Thanks
Bookku ( talk) 09:11, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
There is no requirement that every article currently contain citations to such sources, although it is highly desirable."Every" could just as well be replaced with "any". A problem is that although there may not be exact wording Wikipedia:Verifiability states
verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source.I would be baffled at an argument that "verifiability" did not mean verifying what is on the article and not that it merely exists. WP:BURDEN states
The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.
All material in Wikipedia articles must be attributable to a reliable published source. This means a reliable published source must exist for it, whether or not it is cited in the article.This is actually confusing because the word "attributable" usually (unless it has changed) means "(of a work or remark) able to be ascribed to a particular author, artist, or speaker." The wording "whether or not it is cited in the article" negates the first part because if it isn't there then there can be no attribution.
Sources must support the material clearly and directly: drawing inferences from multiple sources to advance a novel position is prohibited by the NOR policy.The wording "support the material clearly and directly" can not be accomplished if there is not source.
the evidence must show the topic has gained significant independent coverage or recognition. While wikilawyers can give their best arguments the above mentioned last sentence wording supports that our sourcing requirements are actually only "highly desirable" when that is not actually supported by policies and guidelines. I would be equally baffled at any argument that the wording "evidence must show" would mean anything less than the sourcing on an article. A newer editor (or any editor) may read the literal wording to be indicative that sourcing on an article is not really necessary.
However, once an article's notability has been challenged, merely asserting that unspecified sources exist is seldom persuasive, especially if time passes and actual proof does not surface.which leads back to WP:BURDEN.
All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material.which certainly indicates that contentious or controversial material (challenged or likely to be challenged) surely would need a source and specifically an inline citation. I am just trying to make sense of the wording I pointed out. WP:AFD is where a "challenge" is certainly made and many times that sources are non-independent to establish notability.
All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.This does not remotely indicate that an editor must bear any cost, "unless", an otherwise RS (surely referring to one provided on an article) has restrictions like time, location, cost associated with some source not available on the internet, or technical or personal. I do agree that we are "not to judge notability based on what's in the current version of an article" which is why we are directed to perform a WP:BEFORE prior to any nomination at AFD. This requires a "minimum search" (D) for "adequate sources". I also agree that "adding reliable sources is one of those unfinished tasks."
Thank you, Otr500 ( talk) 02:01, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
Pretty sure that video games and computer games fit under the fourth category under the "Examples" section. I am almost certain that these topics are quite common in human society, and therefore deserve mentioning in this Wikipedia page. Qwertyxp2000 ( talk | contribs) 10:02, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This page 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. |
As it stands, this proposal does little beyond the already existing Verifiability policy that articles should rely on credible, third-party sources.
I would go one step further, by making it say "Any article on a topic is required to cite at least two reliable sources, independent ..." This seems to be a modest expectation of minimum encyclopedic standards. -- SteveMcCluskey 22:50, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Independence means much more than this. The sources must be independent of each other, not just the subject. If a journalist publishes an investigative report on some scandal, the several other newspapers that report on the issue but do not independently investigate and verify the issue themselves do not count as independent sources. It all rests on one investigation, one newspaper and is not sufficient for Wikipedia. Also, isn't this redundant with Verifiability? — Centrx→ talk • 22:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
This essay seems to use topic as a synonym for source. It seems to only concern itself with cases where the topic is a publication, such as a book or movie. Suppose the topic is not a publication, though. If the topic were algebra, how would I find a source that describes algebra "from the outside"? -- Gerry Ashton 17:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
(unindent)Ok, lets start again. I decide to write a Wikipedia article about the topic algebra. Just the general mathematical ideas that together form the topic of algebra. I should be able to go into your essay and substitute algebra for topic and the guideline should still make sense. So I take the statement
Any article on a topic is required to cite a reliable source independent of the topic itself...
I substitute algebra for topic and I get
Any article on algebra is required to cite a reliable source independent of algebra itself...
So what does it mean for a source to be independent of algebra? -- User:Gerry Ashton 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest clarifying along these lines:
I would also either change the title of the essay to something like "Independence from subject" or add a section to address the meaning "independence of sources from each other" which is the common meaning covered on our actual article on independent sources. -- Beland 07:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I have seen this AFD debate where the link to this essay has been written up, and I think some thoughts on the value of independent sources is in order. Since the debate I linked to was about airlines, I will continue with using that as a case study:
My point is: Non-independent sources should be used with some caution. If there is a reasonable cause to believe that the source might be biased or inaccurate, we should either abstain from using it or make it explicit that this is a claim from a non-independent source. But in many cases such a source would have no real motivation for saying something directly false, and in such cases it is a source as reliable and as valid as any other independent source, in fact sometimes more reliable. I would expect an airline to know more about its own company than a random journalist writing in an independent newspaper. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
For a non-profit organization, what would be an acceptable source? Would a newspaper article describing the work it has done in a community be acceptable? Thanks for any help! Julieatrci 15:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
we already have {{ primarysources}}, which is pretty much exactly the template this article asks for. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 10:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Does this article really need to tell us we can discuss the article on the talk page? Does this imply that I'm not supposed to be discussing other essays on their respective talk pages? - Verdatum ( talk) 09:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I really think this essay should become a guideline. Why? Because, especially in the more contentious articles where much criticism can be found, biased, though possibly reliable, sources can create a laundry list of contentions which can unnecessarily bloat an article. It would be a good idea to temper that phenomenon by strengthening the weight of this essay. MrMurph101 ( talk) 21:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
(undent) Having said that, there are a lot of links to this essay. But I get the sense that many of links are there because of the issue that independent sources are needed for controversial facts, something not mentioned at all in the essay. So, for example, a website can be used for the basis (say) of when a company was founded, unless that fact is disputed. Or an autobiography or a company history authorized by a company should not be treated as a fully reliable source, though still usable. Or that a journal published by an association does not prove, in itself, notability. In fact, perhaps the best way to (re)build this into a useful guideline would be to look very closely at when the essay was cited, and figure out the points being made. That would include:
(a) a lack of independent sources indicates a potential notability problem, as well as a potential NPOV problem (b) independent sources should be preferred for controversial facts, and any disagreement regarding these must be made clear when the facts are discussed. (c) independent sources must be used for judgmental aspects of a subject (for example, an organization is a "leader in the field of X", or "has demonstrated that Y can do Z"); to do otherwise is an NPOV problem. Use of non-independent sources as support for such statements is wrong and should be deleted by editors.
Such a guideline needs to begin with a clear definition of what are and aren't independent sources; that in itself would be very helpful (and examples would be good, too).
In summary, guidelines normally use the word "should" (or similar) a lot - their purpose is to tell editors what to do (and not to do). Again, the links to the essay are where people were citing the essay as support; that means that it should be possible to figure out the points of disagreement between editors, and actually take sides - word the guideline so that one editor is clearly right and the other is clearly wrong (where "right" and "wrong" mean following or not following the new guideline). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
One of these pages is redundant, it makes sense to merge them and work out what the best title is. Hiding T 16:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
I just added some healthy skepticism into a new section I have created. I hope this does not come across as overly paranoid. This may not be relevant to most topics, but:
(a) I see the press-release issue come up very frequently in AfD discussions, esp. those about corporations.
(b) The issue of conflicts-of-interest is subtle but is of the utmost importance in highly controversial topics in which there is often a lack of scientific/academic consensus, or appearance thereof--for example, controversy over health effects of herbicides, or the effects of various economic policies. It is also important when there is a scientific consensus with a vocal dissenting minority, such as with Global Warming or Health effects of tobacco. In these cases identifying the interests behind sources is of the utmost importance--including a COI source as an independent one greatly skews the article--whereas identifying the COI and citing the potential COI in as WP:NPOV a way as possible, such as "A study funded by X found Y" enriches the article. Cazort ( talk) 15:30, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
I notice a meger proposal above. I assume the proposal was to merge with WP:IS. I would like to add my support to this call for the following reasons:
Yaris678 ( talk) 00:26, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
A few days ago, SlimVirgin went around a number of essays, changing them to say that a third-party source is always a secondary source. If you're interested in that discussion, it's been centralized at Wikipedia talk:Party and person. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:23, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
An issue I keep running into with this policy is the vague scope of the "independence". If you take a very specific concern, such as, say, a particular model of a transistor, then there are multiple layers of association, and the significance of these associations are highly interpretable. For example, suppose that there is are sources from a manufacturer, a retailer, an electronics hobbyist author, an independent peer-reviewed electronics journal, or a general science writer, all of whom have so-called "significant" coverage. From my perspective, the last three do not have a significant dependence on the part.— RJH ( talk) 16:21, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
In the lead is, "A third-party source is independent of the subject being covered."
Does the use of the word "subject" work here? For example, if a paper is written on Einstein's theory of relativity by someone other than Einstein, how can the paper be independent of the subject originally covered by Einstein? Bob K31416 ( talk) 18:02, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
This paragraph has it wrong. A third-party source is properly contrasted to a first-party sources, which is not independent. It has nothing to do with the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, all of which could be produced independently or not. Will Beback talk 21:50, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
How are these reputations established? Who decides what is and is not a valid reputation? Ranze ( talk) 03:48, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
Paraphrased from policy page:
Would there be such a thing as a primary second-party source? What would it be? Ranze ( talk) 03:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
First party | Third party | |
---|---|---|
Primary | Involved and reporting your own original material | Not involved but still reporting your own original material |
Secondary | Involved and giving an analysis of previous material | Not involved and giving an analysis of previous material |
All four of these combinations are possible. It's not just 'my material, therefore I'm involved'. The eyewitness reporter is independent (aka third party) and primary. Because this eyewitness journalist's article is both a third-party source and a primary source, it is not possible for third party to be the same thing as secondary.
Because of this, we can't say things like "A third-party or secondary source is one that is independent of the subject being covered", like you wrote yesterday.
WhatamIdoing ( talk) 14:52, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
"For example, a newspaper that depends on advertising revenue might not be truly independent in their coverage of the local businesses that advertise in the paper."
There are many pages which use hobby magazines as sources, magazines which run articles (pretty much always positive) about companies or products that are advertised in their pages. Am I right that those wouldn't be considered independent? -- LBiller39 ( talk) 20:31, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
This is a discussion of whether it is appropriate to cite a published, peer-reviewed review article that was funded by a party interested in the study's conclusions. While the ultimate answer I assume is "it depends", is there anything like a presumption that we could use to center the discussion around? Appreciate your insights. Thanks! Lfstevens ( talk) 21:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
I really don't know what to make of the phrase, in the current guideline, "primary does not mean non-independent or affiliated with the subject." Perhaps this is due to the inherent problem involved in trying to define a word by what it is not rather than what it is.— — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.145.189.43 ( talk) 17:59, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
For many scholarly subjects, review articles can be found. These appear in on-line encyclopedias like The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, in traditional encyclopedias like The Encyclopedia Britannica, in specialized collections like The Oxford Companion to ‘xyz’, in online resources like Philosophical Papers, and in review articles in scholarly journals like Reviews of Modern Physics, Reviews of Geophysics and so on. These articles are primarily written by one author, only occasionally more, and these authors are selected by the publication's editors for their expertise or the contributions are subject to some peer review process. Whatever the winnowing criteria, these authors are ipso facto active in the field and so hardly what one would call 'independent' observers. (In fact, a critique by a non-involved party is tantamount to a non-expert opinion, and not usually sought after.)
Such articles are the only type of general overview of a scholarly topic that is available. In my opinion, this guideline WP:THIRDPARTY is open to interpretation as excluding material reported in such scholarly reviews from WP. It says: "A third-party source is not affiliated with the event, not paid by the people who are involved, and not otherwise likely to have a conflict of interest or significant bias related to the material."
Wording should be added to this guideline explicitly indicating acceptance of scholarly review articles as being substantial and valid, and a reasonable alternative to non-existent "third-party" sources. If there is uncertainty about objectivity, for instance conflicting review articles, then WP:NPOV should govern the presentation by requiring expression of all scholarly opinions. However, exclusion of such articles on the basis of WP:THIRDPARTY is simply unrealistic. Brews ohare ( talk) 14:48, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
I have added a version of these comments to the sub-section Articles without third-party sources. Of course, modifications are invited. Brews ohare ( talk) 17:22, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Snowded, reading your changes, after you removed all examples and the quote from WP:SECONDARY, you added:
The removed material already pretty much covers this point; it says:
This is more specific guidance than "using care", and indicates what policy to follow. You also removed the quote from WP:SECONDARY:
which is helpful in telling a reader the proposed role for secondary sources as something WP "usually relies upon".
An interesting point is "What is a secondary source, which the policy WP:SECONDARY sees as the backbone of WP?" The WP policy WP:SECONDARY puts the matter like this:
Reading your Edit Summary, you say:
You removed all the examples, which are:
Now, on other Talk pages you have suggested that The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a doubtful choice, although you have not said why. I suppose that some of the items listed in The Oxford Companion to ‘xyz’ might also not meet your (so-far unspecified) criteria. Maybe The Oxford Handbook of 'xyz' would have better examples? Otherwise, I doubt you have any objections.
Obviously, examples can be helpful in clarifying for a reader what is thought of as a suitable secondary source. So it might be useful to go into this subject in more detail. What do you think? Brews ohare ( talk) 22:03, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
For all the above reasons, I find that the original subsection is more informative and helpful to the reader than the emasculated version you have left behind, and I have restored it to the Project pages. Brews ohare ( talk) 22:08, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
There is no hope of creating a useful definition for "third-party source" because it is fundamentally a term from contract law, and has no legitimate application in Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Jc3s5h ( talk) 21:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. How true. I had not quite realized how casual the guidelines of Wikipedia were until breaching this topic. I would suggest that, if Wikipedia wishes to maintain a robust model, far more energy is needed in mapping the details of what "reliable sources" means.
With more accuracy and proper differentiation of soure types, and with an understanding in place that different subject matter involves very different source types and means of verification, contributors have a sound basis to create and evolve mechanisms of checks and balances.
Inevitably, if Wikipedia is not to become the world's most relied-upon source of disinformation, a much more meaningful hierarchy of source-type will have to be implemented. Wikibearwithme ( talk) 04:24, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
This essay says that "An independent source is a source that has no vested interest in a written topic and therefore it is commonly expected to describe the topic from a disinterested perspective.
" This is, however, a better description of an unbiased source. A source may be completely independent, but definitely biased. This distinction is made in the 4th paragraph, but I think it needs to be clearer if the essay is to be relied upon in editing debates or deletion discussions, or in helping new editors to understand our policies and practices.
DES
(talk) 16:32, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
We've talked off and on about merging
WP:Third-party sources over here. I've started a draft, modeled after
WP:USINGPRIMARY in my sandbox at
User:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox_3. If anyone has any comments (other than "it's too long"
), please post them here. Thanks,
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 00:19, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
This is an actual request for your comments. There's no dispute and no proposal. I am just requesting that you share your own ideas about what it means for a reliable source to be independent (or not). Please make a ===subsection=== and tell me what you think. Feel free to tell stories and share examples about disputes, interesting cases, confusions you've encountered, considerations for subject areas that you're interested in – whatever is on your mind. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:39, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
So, like press releases and the like would be not be independent sources. Any source which the subject doesn't have any reasonable control over, so for instance an article on the editor of a major newspaper; sources from that newspaper wouldn't be considered independent sources. Tom29739 [ talk 16:11, 21 April 2016 (UTC).
A source which is either not related to the subject, or has a tangential relationship- one which is too insignificant to influence- the subject: e.g. an unaffiliated ice hockey magazine talking about an ice hockey team could be said to be connected, as both involve ice hockey. Rubbish computer ( HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 12:06, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
IMHO independence isn't a property of the source material. The exact same text can be found at dependent and independent sources. For instance, a press release, once published by a (third-party) newspaper, yields an independent source for that press release. If no third party publishes it, there is only a self-source. Lyrda ( talk) 21:21, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Adrian816 ( talk) 19:46, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
The following arises from the nearly-finished deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greg J. Marchand. While it is still around, see Greg J. Marchand.
The AfD was about an article about a surgeon who has a PR agent
And puts out lots of press releases - here are some:
The page was terrible and terribly sourced, but what I want to focus on are the syndicated news stories. The original article (which I saved offline if anybody wants it) cited the following:
At the AfD one of the socks
wrote: There's no way this can fail WP:GNG. If you read WP:GNG it plainly says:""Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it. For example, advertising, press releases, autobiographies, and the subject's website are not considered independent." Individual ABC, NBC and CBS stations all over the nation ran the story. Are we suggesting they were paid? This is how syndicated stories work in the US. If you want to delete the article, go ahead, but these sources meet the very definition of WP:GNG....Unless the subject owns or paid these stations, (which is impossible,) you've got a story airing all over TV in the USA. WP:GNG by definition. Anyone looking back at this deletion log is instantly going to realize he meets WP:GNG, (despite churnalism being a fancy word.) the only issue is promotionalism.
And listed these additional iterations, and noted Same words from the reporter tell you the story is nationally syndicated
:
Another sock wrote
this comment which included because YOU KNOW FOR A FACT these 14 news stories did not come from a press release, they came from national reporter. The original story was produced by Wendy Chioji of Ivanhoe Media (they do a lot of the medical interest national stories for CBS, NBC, ABC. Her
original story is easy to find so I suspect you already knew this. It's a real national story shared with many legitimate CBS, NBC, and ABC affiliate stations.
Nobody is buying this, bit it seems worth saying to head off this kind of silly argument in the future. Jytdog ( talk) 17:43, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
The bold edit is here. Thoughts? Jytdog ( talk) 17:44, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
(General GNG remark): IMO our whole WP:GNG based on a simplistic criterion of counting "multiple ... sources" suffers from the "searching the lost wallet under the lantern at night" fallacy. In fact, encyclopedic notability criteria must pay more attention to the lasting impact of the topic, rather than the amount of noise generated. Try to look from this perspective at Paul Politician, Rob Robber, or Eddy Egghead, and you will have a clearer idea about notability. Staszek Lem ( talk) 19:44, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
(Counting independent sources): I was mulling about the concept of "overlapping sources". If two sources list the same bunch of facts only in different verbiage, then this may be a good reason to count them as one. On the other hand, if in addition to identical facts there are, e.g., opinions of independent experts, then the sources my be treated as truly different. Is this worth elaborating? Staszek Lem ( talk) 19:44, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Syndicated stories, and stories based on other stories, are not independent of each other. This is even more true when the news outlets re-publishing the work share ownership or are otherwise strongly affiliated with the original news outlet. A new agency "recycling" or making slight or non-substantial rewrites to another "wiki-acceptable" source and publishing it under your own banner should not "automatically count" as a new source in Wikipedia. I say "automatically" because sometimes the decision to print a syndicated story or not really is based on the editiorial judgement of the "copying source" that the item really is notable, and they are using syndicated material because it's more efficient than doing their own research or doing their own research is not feasible, NOT because "we don't care about this topic, but it might generate some ad revenue so we'll put it in." Bottom line: handling syndicated stories and whether they "count" for notability will always be a case-by-case issue, but we probably can come up with some "rules of thumb" to help editors decide "is the fact that this story got published in 500 major reliable news outlets" an indication of the topic's notability or perhaps it was just an indication of a slow news day or a "firehose/we publish everything that comes across the wire" policy by those news outlets. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs) 19:11, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
The new paragraph on syndication seems useful, I support keeping it. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:33, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Regarding this edit: instead of continuing to re-insert the images in question, can the interested parties please discuss whether or not there is consensus to include these images on the page? isaacl ( talk) 02:29, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
indicating they either don't think it's fun or that they don't think the fun is a net benefit– No, actually. One explicitly said he thought it was fun (but seemed to mistakenly think that fun isn't allowed) [5] and two others didn't say anything substantive at all [6] [7].
I think it is unduly confusing for readers to see the three duplicate photos on the page– Well, they're not our readers but rather our fellow editors, who are a distinct cut above. Whether or not it gives you the ol' LOL it's hard to take seriously the contention that a series of images of hamburger patties and a bottle of Worcestershire Sauce, captioned "First patty ... second patty ... third patty ... third patty reliable sauce" – embedded in a discussion of third-party reliable sources – could be in any way "confusing".
I'm pretty sure continually re-inserting content wouldn't be an approach you would recommend– Actually, continually removing content that had been there for some time isn't the approach I'd recommend. Why is removal the default?
unless "third patty reliable sauce" is a takeoff on some kind of slogan I'm not aware of– Jesus, it's immediately adjacent to the paragraph containing the bold text
third-party reliable sources. Do you need to be hit over the head? E Eng 18:47, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
The effect ... on those who aren't as enamoured– What effect is that? The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be getting a chuckle? Since many obviously do enjoy this kind of thing (and I've got the literally thousands of thanks notifications to prove it) can't you just let it pass – on an essay page, for crying out loud? That's the question. E Eng 18:55, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Our policy pages are hard to read already. A frustrated reader trying to find an enlightening advice sees hamburgers and would tiredly think "WTF this smartassness is supposed to mean now?" People read policy pages not for lulz but for info. Jokes create an extra distraction. You may write an essay on the subject and put 5 hamburgers into it, nobody will say a word. Staszek Lem ( talk) 19:42, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
WP:DEADHORSE. Staszek Lem ( talk) 19:42, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
There is a discussion on the independence of two sources with the same owner on the reliable sources noticeboard. If you're interested, please participate at WP:RSN § Sources from the same organisation. — Newslinger talk 07:26, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
Just noting that, as seen here and here, Newslinger changed the page to a supplement page. I suppose it is better designated as one than as an essay. And, really, there isn't much difference between an essay and supplement page. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 03:25, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
interprets
parameter, and the result was "This is an explanatory supplement to the multiple policies and guidelines."I think we have to name at least one specific page, or simply say
"This is an explanatory supplement to the policies and guidelines."— Newslinger talk 17:21, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
There is a discussion at WP:V § Freedom of press about the impact of low press freedom on the independence of a source. The discussion concerns the content added in Special:Diff/931590746. — Newslinger talk 19:40, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
![]() | It was proposed in this section that
Wikipedia:Identifying and using independent sources be
renamed and moved to
Wikipedia:Independent sources.
result: Links:
current log •
target log
This is template {{
subst:Requested move/end}} |
Wikipedia:Identifying and using independent sources → Wikipedia:Independent sources – The title is more concise. Interstellarity ( talk) 21:01, 29 February 2020 (UTC)—Relisting. © Tbhotch ™ ( en-3). 18:52, 23 March 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. BD2412 T 17:57, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
I support the current title. Otr500 ( talk) 09:32, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
This page states (emphasis mine):
Wikipedia's guideline on Reliable sources states that "Wikipedia articles should rely primarily on reliable, third-party, published sources".
Curiously, WP:RS makes no such statement. I'm proposing to edit this page to reflect that. Murtaza.aliakbar ( talk) 19:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
There is a request for comment on whether certain sources ("articles by any media group that [...] discredits its competitors") are considered to have a conflict of interest. If you are interested, please participate at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability § Does Footnote 9 still have consensus? — Newslinger talk 06:41, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
Hi,
Request for comment discussion has been initiated @
Talk:List of former Muslims#Rfc: Soft censoring of Ex-Muslim Articles and has reference to this article there in.
Those interested can express their views there in.
Thanks
Bookku ( talk) 09:11, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
There is no requirement that every article currently contain citations to such sources, although it is highly desirable."Every" could just as well be replaced with "any". A problem is that although there may not be exact wording Wikipedia:Verifiability states
verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source.I would be baffled at an argument that "verifiability" did not mean verifying what is on the article and not that it merely exists. WP:BURDEN states
The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.
All material in Wikipedia articles must be attributable to a reliable published source. This means a reliable published source must exist for it, whether or not it is cited in the article.This is actually confusing because the word "attributable" usually (unless it has changed) means "(of a work or remark) able to be ascribed to a particular author, artist, or speaker." The wording "whether or not it is cited in the article" negates the first part because if it isn't there then there can be no attribution.
Sources must support the material clearly and directly: drawing inferences from multiple sources to advance a novel position is prohibited by the NOR policy.The wording "support the material clearly and directly" can not be accomplished if there is not source.
the evidence must show the topic has gained significant independent coverage or recognition. While wikilawyers can give their best arguments the above mentioned last sentence wording supports that our sourcing requirements are actually only "highly desirable" when that is not actually supported by policies and guidelines. I would be equally baffled at any argument that the wording "evidence must show" would mean anything less than the sourcing on an article. A newer editor (or any editor) may read the literal wording to be indicative that sourcing on an article is not really necessary.
However, once an article's notability has been challenged, merely asserting that unspecified sources exist is seldom persuasive, especially if time passes and actual proof does not surface.which leads back to WP:BURDEN.
All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material.which certainly indicates that contentious or controversial material (challenged or likely to be challenged) surely would need a source and specifically an inline citation. I am just trying to make sense of the wording I pointed out. WP:AFD is where a "challenge" is certainly made and many times that sources are non-independent to establish notability.
All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.This does not remotely indicate that an editor must bear any cost, "unless", an otherwise RS (surely referring to one provided on an article) has restrictions like time, location, cost associated with some source not available on the internet, or technical or personal. I do agree that we are "not to judge notability based on what's in the current version of an article" which is why we are directed to perform a WP:BEFORE prior to any nomination at AFD. This requires a "minimum search" (D) for "adequate sources". I also agree that "adding reliable sources is one of those unfinished tasks."
Thank you, Otr500 ( talk) 02:01, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
Pretty sure that video games and computer games fit under the fourth category under the "Examples" section. I am almost certain that these topics are quite common in human society, and therefore deserve mentioning in this Wikipedia page. Qwertyxp2000 ( talk | contribs) 10:02, 4 April 2021 (UTC)