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This article is an absolute mess. It provides no coherent well sourced definition of a Black person and just rambles on and on about various people who were labled Black in different times, places, and languages, and tries to merge them all together as a coherent ethnic group. It would be like trying to merge Native Americans and people from India into a coherent article called Indian people. It makes no sense. We had requested mediation and the mediator said we should use the census as our source. Here's what the U.S. census says:
A Black is “ a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro,"or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian.”
Black Africa is a synonym of sub-Saharan Africa and all of the non-African groups mentioned (i.e. African-Americans, Haitains) are descendents of the recent African diasporas. And yet we still have editors insisting that South Asians be given equal weight in the article and be considered Black. These people provide no cited definitions or census classifications to defend their assertions, instead they cherry pick from different sources in different countries for examples of South Asians being labeled Black, often in different languages. But by the same logic, I could argue that the Black Irish are Black. The point is the people editing that article need to be forced to adheare to a coherent sourced authoritative definition of a Black person, or the entire article should just be deleted as POV and unencyclopedic.
Dictionary.com[ [1]], the free dictionary online[ [2]]., the U.S. census[ [3]], and the British census[ [4]] all emphasize the idea that Blacks are of African origin-in fact it is against the law for a dark-skinned person of South Asian or Australian origin to claim to be black in the census. An article by the BBC makes a clear distinction between Blacks and the dark skinned people of South Asian ancestry[ [5]]. This article about race in biomedicines says “The entities we call ‘racial groups’ essentially represent individuals united by a common descent — a huge extended family, as evolutionary biologists like to say. Blacks, for example, are a racial group defined by their possessing some degree of recent African ancestry (recent because, after all, everyone of us is out of Africa, the origin of Homo sapiens)."[ [6]]. I really need help getting the editors of that article to stick to a coherent definition, instead of just pushing their own POV. Editingoprah 06:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This page in a nutshell: Information on Wikipedia must be reliable and verifiable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed. |
Here is version of the nutshell that david gerard added to the policy. It is out of sync with the actual policy and actually contains more information than the policy box, which defeats the purpose of the nutshell. The policy box is as follows: The policy
|
Obviously the nutshell needs be a concise version of this policy. My suggestion, was:
Articles should contain only material that has been published by reputable sources. Editors adding new material to an article should cite a cite these sources, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor.
This has been reverted so I am moving this disputed section here until we can work out a consensus wording.-- Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 17:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Wait a minute... I don't see how it's "information" until it is verifiable. It is at best "raw material" or something of the sort. Let's see:
Birgitte, could you leave the nutshell thing alone, please? There has been too much back and forth on this page of late and it's a policy so it needs to remain stable. There's nothing wrong with the current version, and changing "and" to "or," which appears minor makes it virtually meaningless, because of course all unsourced edits may be challenged. The point of the sentence is to stress they may also be removed. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
which still stands in the version of the policy you are preferring. I think it was simply oversight that this change was only made in the policy box and not also the introduction. I personally think it is a more stable policy when such things are consistent. I like Robert A. West's wording as well on this point, as that also keeps the policy consistent. But apparently jossi has some problem with it, he doesn't specify.-- Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 22:54, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
To Slimvirgin and Jossi Please take a moment and read the policy, just read it. I would really appreciate if you would correct what has obviously an oversight on your parts. I cannot believe you actually intend the policy to read as it currently does. I would also appreciate it if you would contact me on my talk page whenever I am welcome to again collaborate at this project. I will let dryguy or someone else who has been paying more attention to this policy than the two of you correct your notions about the "and"/"or" issue (hint:read the policy box), as I will be at Wikimedia projects which are still operating by the process of collaboration. I suppose Wikipedia may still be using such a process, but I am obviously not on the invite list.-- Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 23:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think there is any serious dispute that some unsourced material should be challenged, and some should be simply deleted. I also don't think that there is a serious dispute that an editor who identifies unsourced material should do what he or she thinks appropriate, up to the limit of WP:POINT. It seems to me that the and/or argument arises because the sentence is in the passive voice, so I rephrased to the active voice. I hope I have expressed consensus. Robert A.West ( Talk) 23:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I've protected this page because of the edit war that was going on. I have no particular opinion on the wording, but I will say that I don't see the point in repeating the exact same text twice (once inside the nutshell, once directly below it). >Radiant< 08:10, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I have to say I'm suffering from a slight mental lock-up right now. Wikipedia's policies are really putting a big twist to my mind.
You see, I'm seeing a lot of stuff getting deleted, or proposed for deletion, due to lack of verifiability. And these motions seem to pass! I suppose I should go grab an {{ afd}} bazooka, a machine gun that fires {{ fact}}s, and the {{ original research}}-armed railgun - but I would probably get immediately accused of violating WP:POINT, even if I don't intend it as such.
I'm slowly experiencing a little bit of a wikistress thanks to these seriously conflicting messages I'm getting about the increased inviolability of WP:V.
So, people, apologies for the coarse language in advance, but what the heck am I supposed to do with Expansion pack article?
Obviously, I should AfD it for it containing original research, weasel wording, and above all, absolutely no verifiable content. Where's the reliable source for the definition for the word "expansion pack"? ({{ fact}} after the first sentence of the article. Not good.) Where's the study claiming the typical content of the expansion packs? (another fact slappery after the second sentence too!) Where's the historical article that describes the history of expansion packs, so we can sort out the wording "One of the first expansions (if not the first)..."? The article claims "The price of an expansion pack is usually much less than that of the original game", which is a fact that is obvious to everyone who's buying games, but stating truth alone isn't verifiable, for crying out loud! "As additions, most expansion packs require the original game in order to play." Correlation doesn't mean causality, and if you're demonstrating correlation, you have to add tons of examples! The paragraph goes on and on by providing a couple of examples of the phenomenons - we can't trust this based on just a couple of examples, we need real studies, claiming correlation is - guess what - the vile, condemned original research!
And so on.
I know this article is correct. I'm just not sure where the heck I can find a source for all these claims. For that matter, heck, I'm not sure if there even are such things, and even if they are, can we trust them?
You see, here's a big problem with articles that define fundamental issues of one field: it's hard to find references for issues that are obvious and trivial.
My personal view is that it used to be that you could say "the sky is blue" without providing a source, but if you claimed "the sky is blue because of the scattering of the sunlight in atmosphere", you needed a source. Nowadays, people are nominating articles on deletion because "the sky is blue" has no source. That's why I'm confused.
So what the heck am I supposed to do in cases like this? Is it that extremely fundamental issues that are obvious to anyone skilled in the field also need sources?
Is writing about fundamental facts without sourcing entirely condemnable?
I think I'm really losing my mind here. I'm not kidding when I say I feel slightly mentally unstable when I'm thinking about this issue. It makes me doubt everything I read that doesn't have a source tag. Yet I can't touch the articles to add such claims because that would be silly and bad.
Please help me. -- wwwwolf ( barks/ growls) 13:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
(outdent) Concentrate on writing the best article you can, source it as well as you can, and trust the wiki. Deletion for unverifiabilty means that there is consensus that no sources exist, not merely that the article is not-yet-sourced. Whenever I have nominated for deletion as unverifiable, I have been able to point either to a good-faith effort to find sources, or to a fairly -self-evident case that is probably also "not notable" and/or "unencyclopedic".
I'll add my $0.02 that nothing in verifiability requires a particular method of citation. While many editors are pushing for in-line citations galore, there are articles where they would be just silly, and a good bibliography would be fine. In fact, if we could get to the point where every non-stub has a good bibliography, Wikipedia would be much improved. Robert A.West ( Talk) 18:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
...and we proudly present: more lupine whimpering (hopefully a bit more rational this time)
Apologies for these long, tiresome rants. I just need to get this out of myself before I snap.
Anyway...
I purposely picked "the sky is blue" as an example because it supposedly illustrated the point. I know full well that there are sources that could back either assertion. But the fact is, at the moment, the sky article doesn't have those specific references. "During daylight the sky has the appearance of a deep blue surface,..." Eep! No source. No source! Why is this assertion without a source, if such comments are so trivial to source, I ask? (Okay, I know the answer: The article has another source, which asserts how colour of the sky is determined; Inferring that is syllogistic. "Sky is blue if light is scattered; this source asserts light scatters, therefore sky is blue.")
I picked that as an easily understandable rhetorical example. Please don't try to take that as a "real" example: atmospheric physics and optics are sciences with long and glorious history, one might say that they've discovered all there is to discover. Now try ludology, which has existed as serious a branch of science since about the turn of the millennium, according to the article. I went to Google Scholar, and yep, found a few papers that talk about expansion packs, but most seemed to take the term for granted. Anyone know of a paper that discusses what expansion packs are, their meaning to game business, their meaning from the consumer point of view. Good luck finding that. You can't exactly go deleting the article; the expansion packs have been in the stores for a heck of a long time, you can't dispute the fact that they exist. "The exact origins of the expansion packs are not scholarly catalogued citation needed and some suggest there have been expansion packs in 1991 citation needed, but there are scholarly mentions of expansion packs that have been published as early as 1999 [3]" which, again, is a particularly crappy source for this statement, because it only shows a single example and not the full picture; just one example of particular expansion packs for particular game, and it's not talking about them generally, making it essentially worthless, off-topic, and skewering the truth.
Taking WP:V as an "ideal" is extremely fine with me. I don't disagree with the policy in general terms. But what, exactly, am I supposed to do when faced with editors who don't consider WP:V an "ideal", but a reason to delete stuff? Not everyone is "merciful". I hate it when people use WP:V as sole reason for deletion, for crying out loud; AfD is supposed to be about whether we need an article about some topic or not, not to claw with the content. WP:V only plays role if there's no source of any kind to explain notability. (There. I said that. Now hit me.) But that's just my interpretation.
What I'm fearing is that WP:V is turning into an useful for stacking additional charges to make sure the article stays dead. A weapon-grade policy. A tool for splitting hairs. A tool for meanness. A tool that could be turned against Wikipedia itself by sufficiently mean-motivated people, if you catch my drift. WP:V is a terrifying weapon for justice. It's also a terrifying weapon for nitpicking.
Expansion pack stands unchallenged only because people aren't following WP:V. Most people would say that in this particular case, that's not a problem. The problem is that one day, someone who wants to enforce WP:V will come around and go ballistic. And we can't really go any way with it. The policy-fan will go for deletion and just say "if you want it kept, it has to be sourced".
And the only thing that protects us from that is that Wikipedia editors don't tend to be mean.
WP:V is, however - if you allow me to describe the character of the policy itself - mean-spirited, strict, and properly jackbooted. Why can't WP:V encourage people be constructive? Why the policy has to encourage people to "hey, if it isn't sourced, rip it down! Now!" ... Why doesn't the policy encourage people to "hey, if it isn't sourced, slap those {{ fact}}s around, spend six hours looking for sources yourself, and if those unsourced bits are still there after 6 months, then remove them?"
Likewise for deletion policy: It really would help if people would explain that no, they didn't think there was any source that would support the article's notability. Sorry to sidetrack again, but I'm particularly against use of WP:V as an argument that "the person/group/company/etc itself isn't trustworthy at all when claiming things". (Consider the implications: If we're discussing the number of users in a particular online game, what should we believe, the company that runs the game, or a "reliable third-party source" that basically parrots the numbers the company feeds them, because there's no other way to verify the number anyway?)
Everything else in Wikipedia says "We'll have a great encyclopedia, some time tomorrow." WP:V's implied tone is "We have a bunch of beep added all the time, and if you do that, we'll beepng kill you." This is the most severely attitude-damaged part of policy, but it wouldn't need that much to change it better. Only a little bit of encouragement for proactivity. (There, I said that. Now hit me again. I've deserved it.)
And once again, apologies for this stuff. I kind of started writing this here and it was meant to go to my LiveJournal but I somehow, in a fit of insane convulsion, decided to bring it here. Because, you know, it probably helps if people thought about these things. -- wwwwolf ( barks/ growls) 19:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
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Question posed by: Signpostmarv 13:27, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
1: Yes, anything published on a domain that is owned by the subject of an article should be considered self-published for the purposes of writing that article. 2: The sources relied upon by the 3rd-party source is not really relevant to determining whether or not that source can be used. If they are a reliable source they will be assumed to have performed fact checking to ensure that the source they relied upon was reliable in & of itself. So, yes. But: a 3rd-party article that also quotes additional, non self-published sources may be preferable if one is avaiable. Hope this helps. JulesH 14:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
A proposal that WP:NOR and WP:V be combined, and WP:RS ditched. All views welcome. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I gather there's some sort of dispute about linking to the page Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Offhand it looks like some folks don't think much of that page. I would have thought that the obvious solution to that problem would be to improve the page.
Regardless, there is no way that linking to reliable and sources is a sensible alternative. The former is an article about "reliability" in the field of statistics and scientific experimentation, and has no relevance of any kind to the subject at hand. The latter also doesn't seem to contain any information that would be of help to anyone trying to figure out what a "reliable source" was. At best, this alternative is useless. At worst, it obscures the fact that the link to Wikipedia:Reliable sources has been removed and suppresses a process of improvement that should clearly be happening.
So, shall we reason together? -- Stellmach 13:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Keep the links to Wikipedia:Reliable sources. I'm getting tired of people coming up with their cure-all proposal somewhere else, and then sneaking in the back door to accomplish their desires when they don't have consensus for their changes. Like Stellmach says, if you have problems with the reliable sources page, the obvious thing to try to do is to improve it. Gene Nygaard 21:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
For those who have expressed a view that the link should remain, unless they join in the discussion on Wikipedia Talk:Reliable sources#Consensus (and address some of the concerns of SlimVirgin and others) then there is little point in the link remaining. -- Philip Baird Shearer
Why is "reliable" linked to [[[Reliability (statistics)]]? Is that really the relevant meaning of the term? - Jmabel | Talk 20:24, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
???? How the heck can an official policy leave one of its core concepts completely undefined?
If it's impossible to define what a "reliable source" is then the verifiability policy needs to be rewritten completely so that it does not use the words "reliable source" or "reputable source.
To say "you must use only reliable (or reputable) sources, and this is an absolutely fundamental policy which you really must follow, but we aren't going to give you a clue as to what we mean by a reliable source" is to reduce the policy to total nonsense. make the policy much less useful to newcomers and inexperienced Wikipedians.
Dpbsmith
(talk)
13:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I asked on the talk page for Seabreeze Amusement Park, and was told to ask here, how verifiable the signs posted around the park (mostly in the carousel I believe) about the history of the park are? While I'm sure they're reliable, (as in the information isn't made up and false) I'm not sure how to cite them, or if the article would just be reverted 'cause of original research.. -- Zalethon ( Talk) 23:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
We have a 57 word long policy, and an "in a nutshell" summary of the policy in 42 words. Not much saving, and yet the policy itself is much, much easier to follow than the "in a nutshell" bit. I reckon we should remove the "in a nutshell" bit, and move the 57-word policy box bit to where the "in a nutshell" box is located. It would make the page easier to read and, as far as I can tell, nothing would be lost, jguk 18:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
We are once again reverting each other about Verifiability, not truth. The concept of Verifiability is central and critically important, we can't create Wikipedia with out it. For clarification, I wish to point out that an encyclopedia persents information to a reader. The Holy Bible present The TRUTHtm to the reader. Do you see a difference? The American Heritage Dictionary presents information to the reader. The Technical Dictionary of Dianetics and Scientology presents The TRUTHtm to the reader. Do you see a difference ? Please, let us not jarringly juxtapose The TRUTHtm up against our most central policy. If verifiability absolutely must be compared against The TRUTHtm can we please do it in paragraphs later in the policy, where the two terms can be discussed and compared to each other and examples given ? Terryeo 20:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, why mention "truth" at all? The policy is about verifiability - why confuse matters by referring to something else? jguk 11:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
How? (As with other issues, I do believe that those wishing to include the words should justify their inclusion in some way. I'm happy to listen to alternative views, but me saying it is not helpful and you saying it is helpful won't get us anywhere.) jguk 16:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
In the spirit of trying to address my concerns that the emphasis should be on verifiability rather than anything else, as well as accommodating concerns about maintaining an explicit reference to verifiability not being the same as truth, I have made this edit. The aim is to preserve the wording on the page, but to change the emphasis ever so slightly. In order to maintain a proper emphasis on the wording that was being reordered, I have tidied up the discussion about biographies on living people, thereby removing some duplication of ideas. I hope this is an amenable compromise, jguk 20:47, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I am extremely disappointed that you did not care to read my promised comment on the talk page before eliminating my attempts to resolve the matter within seconds. That is far from constructive, and taking an attitude that the current page is beyond improvement is not in the wiki spirit. I have noted my concerns, and I have attempted to address yours constructively. I note that maintaining a reference to verifiability not being the same as truth has widespread support, but I do not interpret that as meaning the current way of putting it cannot be altered. It would have been useful if you had allowed others to comment on my suggestion before, somewhat rudely and abruptly, reverting me within seconds. Is it too much to ask for a suggestion made constructively in good faith to be considered by others before you take umbrage? jguk 20:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
It's hardly the bowels. Indeed, I have long argued that this project page needs to remain short so that it is easily read in its entirety and does not contain extraneous discussion. So I strongly suggest that nothing on the page is deprecated. I merely argue that the emphasis should be firmly on verifiability, as it is this that this policy covers. This should be supplemented by a short discussion on what that means in practice (which I accept can include a paragraph explaining that it is not the same as truth), jguk 21:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm genuinely puzzled by SV's approach. WP:ATTRIBUTE, which is fast becoming a long, discursive text that most won't care to read, has been proposed by her as a replacement for the WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:RS, and yet does not include a single reference to "truth". I also think SV removed a paragraph discussing the selfsame point from WP:V. I fail to see why it is a big issue when I suggest some reordering of text, and yet the concept is readily rejected elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, I much prefer WP:V to WP:ATTRIBUTE: WP:V is concise and to the point. People may actually read it all (which is rare for a WP policy unless someone's looking for a loophole). I just don't understand why there is such vehement opposition to my mild suggestion, whereas SV's complete removal of all discussion on verifiability (and truth) attracts no comment (which is one reason why I did not feel my mild suggestion would attract much opposition), jguk 21:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I think the phrase is very important, but I agree that it needs to be explained. When Whales and Sanger set this project up they had a clear idea of (1) how popular the idea of "truth" is when people argue and (2) just how much it can get in the way of the project. In this I have no problem saying they were visionaries. At least once a month, usually more, someone contributing at least to the talk page of one of my watchlist articles makes some claim "but it's true!!" The phrase "verifiability, not truth" is for these people. They need it, and if they get it, they can end up becoming great contributors. I can't see how anyone can object to the extra two words (i mean, including the words does no damage), so I just don't see the fuss. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Truth may at times not be able to be determined, but sometimes falsehood is. For example, if source A says that source B makes claim C, and we have source B, and it doesn't make claim C, then source A should not be cited. This is part of basic intellectual honesty. This isn't about some mystical TRUTH. This is about LIES (or at least errors). This is true even if source A has published in a magazine that we would usually consider citable. - Jmabel | Talk 04:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
With reference to this edit [10] one user has suggested that hardcopy" publications which are unverifiable I would like to place my reservations over this statement. Is it a policy on Wikipedia that only Online Sources are Verifiable. I am afraid that we are perpetuating Systemic Bias with such opinions. I would like to know the opinion of the community over this and we need some concrete policies in this regard. Doctor Bruno 08:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I know that as per the policy Hard Copies are verifiable. But many editors (from American and European countries) immediately say "delete" in AFD discussion when they cannot find something in Internet. Most editors immediately dismiss Offline (as well as Non-English) sources as if they don't exist. Recently I encountered the following words few offline non-English books whose existence cannot be verified at [11] I pointed out that to him and he immediately agreed. When a lot of people have this opinion, I think it is time to highlight that there exists books and articles other than Internet that can be regarded as valid sources for Wikipedia. Another problem I face is the lack of ISBN numbers for most (not all) of the books published in India. You will find it hard to believe that 95 % of Indian Books don't have ISBN. Indian Books have ISBN, but 95 % of English Books published in India and 99% of Non-English Books published in India do not have ISBN. Please see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mariano_Anto_Bruno_Mascarenhas#ISBN for comments from other users as well. That was an old discussion I have brought to the talk page for you to see Please note that I am not arguing for one particular article or regarding one particular instance. Where ever I go (in Wikipedia) I encounter a lot of people who cannot believe that a newspaper here does not have an online edition or that 95% of books in India do not have ISBN. Doctor Bruno 09:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
(Copied from user talk pages: DB, it's best to discuss this in one place):
Thanks for your comments. I know that as per the policy Hard Copies are verifiable. But many editors (from American and European countries) immediately say "delete" in AFD discussion when they cannot find something in Internet. Most editors immediately dismiss Offline (as well as Non-English) sources as if they don't exist. Recently I encountered the following words few offline non-English books whose existence cannot be verified at [12] I pointed out that to him and he immediately agreed. When a lot of people have this opinion, I think it is time to highlight that there exists books and articles other than Internet that can be regarded as valid sourced for Wikipedia Doctor Bruno 09:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Another problem I face is the lack of ISBN numbers for most (not all) of the books published in India. You will find it hard to believe that 95 % of Indian Books don't have ISBN. Indian Books have ISBN, but 95 % of English Books published in India and 99% of Non-English Books published in India do not have ISBN. Please see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mariano_Anto_Bruno_Mascarenhas#ISBN for comments from other users as well. That was an old discussion I have brought to the talk page for you to see Please note that I am not arguing for one particular article or regarding one particular instance. Where ever I go (in Wikipedia) I encounter a lot of people who cannot believe that a newspaper here does not have an online edition or that 95% of books in India do not have ISBN. Doctor Bruno 09:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Should there not be a central page for Wikipedians to raise issues about whether a disputed claim in an article is properly supported by reputable sources? Currently some people post such queries on the talk pages of WP:V, others on the talk page of WP:RS, and no doubt there are other queries elsewhere. Such a central page would give a proper avenue to raise such points (in much the same way as WP:AN is a proper avenue to discuss points needing admin attention). Comments from others would then have persuasive value in helping resolve such disputes. Thoughts? jguk 21:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I certainly have neither the time nor the patience to offer a view on every dispute of this nature. Do you? Maybe we could use your talk page instead? jguk 21:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi.
I noticed this in the intro: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.". But it seems the actual threshold is often higher than this due to notability, which seems to provide additional criteria, as verifiable articles on "non-notable" subjects have been (and are being) deleted. Should this be changed? 70.101.144.160 02:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
A reliable source is one that stands up to academic scrutiny. It's not a difficult issue when approached in that way. Just ask yourself, is there really enough evidence to justify the assertion you are making?
Golly, that was short. And to think WP:RS takes four and a half thousand words to come to no conclusions on the point. Maybe we should add a brief sentence on what a reliable source is using the terms I suggest above, and get rid of WP:RS. Maybe if we then add a brief sentence or two on original research, we can unite WP:RS, WP:V and WP:NOR on this page in under 1,000 words! jguk 12:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, this is a point we very much need to address. I'd already inserted it into the text of the policy, but it was removed on the grounds that such a change should be discussed first. So, okay. Here it is.
We absolutely positively have to explicitly say that "articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources" does NOT mean "articles should contain material that is copied-and-pasted from somewhere else".
We shouldn't have to, but we do. If something can be misunderstood, then it will be, and "material" can be interpreted not just as "information", but as "text".
This should be an addition to rule #1. And it can't be too lengthy or verbose, or people won't grasp it instantly.
Comments? DS 14:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.: I find this basically saying "the topic must be notable or else it does not deserve an article". Now, notability is a guideline and not a policy. I feel that this section forces the WP:NN guideline into a policy. -- Zeno McDohl (talk) 22:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I took that part out. Reliable goes to the material, fact checked/peer reviewed...not the author. pK, its Good to be the King 23:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC) Plus, the "well known" status of the author or past reliability of an author is not a defense to defamation.
Not in general, but there are exceptions to this rule. Teaching material that can be found on webpages of professors is also self published. Suppose I use some very clever trick to solve some classical mechanics problem and put it on my teaching website meant for university students. Suppose some wike-editor wants to put that in a wiki article. He then gives a ref. to my website. That would not be an unriliable source. You can't say in this case that it should first be published in peer reviewed journals, because elementary stuff like classical mechanics not what physicists work on nowadays for research (except for a few topics like chaos theory). Even if you make an original discovery you still won't publish it in a peer reviewed journal. It's simply not done. Count Iblis 23:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I think this point is important because we want to make scientific articles on wikipedia accessible to laypeople as much as possible. We should be able to refer to this website if it's needed. That shouldn't be an obstacle to get FA status. I don't see why deleting such refs and giving a ref. to, say, a peer reviewed paper by Lorentz published in 1882 would be better. :) Count Iblis 23:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, classical mechanics is used especially in computational chemistry (docking & scoring functions, protein folding, conformational analysis) and drug design. People are definitely publishing in this area. Hookes law is alive and well. I think its the information that most important. So, how could we be assured the self publishing professor's solution plausible without independent evaluation. I surely wouldn't copy some guys unpublished/untested physics solution off the internet and try to use it for my homework. If we don't scrutinize information, are we really contributing to general knowledge? Why would anyone read an encyclopedia that was full of misinformation? Plus, what about this.....I think an education journal would publish the solution. pk its
Good to be the King
00:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi Count Iblis....why would you go there when you could cite Feynman? Plus, don't you think you'd be doing the laypeople a disservice if the quality of information is poor?...Plus, I forgot about this...if you are in a quandry over this issue, check out the wiki entry on Ammonium Cerrium Nitrate (CAN)...the editors found a website that cited the relavent publications.....what about that? pK...out til tomorrow...its Good to be the King 00:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi, A fact check has been requested on a statement made in an article I watch. I provided a citation for the statement using the OED online, as this is an authoritative source for entomology in a way that no other page could really be. However this does not appear to satisfy this editor as the OED online is a pay service, costing a fairly large amount to use. The editor has requested I find a non-pay source, but I consider this to be unreasonable as i) there is unlikely to be a reputable non-pay source, and ii) citations to pay sources are not prefered, but are not at all unprecendented. Is it reasonable for me to remove the ciation request as there is a citation that can be checked and verified by a large number of people (many libraries and universities offer access to the OED), although not by this editor? -- Neo 11:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I presume that "entomology" above means to say "etymology", since the OED is not particularly authoritative on the former. Is material only at the OED online and not in the print version of the OED? If it is also in the print OED, then that would be good to cite. - Jmabel | Talk 04:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
![]() | 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. |
Archive 10 | ← | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | → | Archive 20 |
This article is an absolute mess. It provides no coherent well sourced definition of a Black person and just rambles on and on about various people who were labled Black in different times, places, and languages, and tries to merge them all together as a coherent ethnic group. It would be like trying to merge Native Americans and people from India into a coherent article called Indian people. It makes no sense. We had requested mediation and the mediator said we should use the census as our source. Here's what the U.S. census says:
A Black is “ a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro,"or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian.”
Black Africa is a synonym of sub-Saharan Africa and all of the non-African groups mentioned (i.e. African-Americans, Haitains) are descendents of the recent African diasporas. And yet we still have editors insisting that South Asians be given equal weight in the article and be considered Black. These people provide no cited definitions or census classifications to defend their assertions, instead they cherry pick from different sources in different countries for examples of South Asians being labeled Black, often in different languages. But by the same logic, I could argue that the Black Irish are Black. The point is the people editing that article need to be forced to adheare to a coherent sourced authoritative definition of a Black person, or the entire article should just be deleted as POV and unencyclopedic.
Dictionary.com[ [1]], the free dictionary online[ [2]]., the U.S. census[ [3]], and the British census[ [4]] all emphasize the idea that Blacks are of African origin-in fact it is against the law for a dark-skinned person of South Asian or Australian origin to claim to be black in the census. An article by the BBC makes a clear distinction between Blacks and the dark skinned people of South Asian ancestry[ [5]]. This article about race in biomedicines says “The entities we call ‘racial groups’ essentially represent individuals united by a common descent — a huge extended family, as evolutionary biologists like to say. Blacks, for example, are a racial group defined by their possessing some degree of recent African ancestry (recent because, after all, everyone of us is out of Africa, the origin of Homo sapiens)."[ [6]]. I really need help getting the editors of that article to stick to a coherent definition, instead of just pushing their own POV. Editingoprah 06:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This page in a nutshell: Information on Wikipedia must be reliable and verifiable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed. |
Here is version of the nutshell that david gerard added to the policy. It is out of sync with the actual policy and actually contains more information than the policy box, which defeats the purpose of the nutshell. The policy box is as follows: The policy
|
Obviously the nutshell needs be a concise version of this policy. My suggestion, was:
Articles should contain only material that has been published by reputable sources. Editors adding new material to an article should cite a cite these sources, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor.
This has been reverted so I am moving this disputed section here until we can work out a consensus wording.-- Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 17:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Wait a minute... I don't see how it's "information" until it is verifiable. It is at best "raw material" or something of the sort. Let's see:
Birgitte, could you leave the nutshell thing alone, please? There has been too much back and forth on this page of late and it's a policy so it needs to remain stable. There's nothing wrong with the current version, and changing "and" to "or," which appears minor makes it virtually meaningless, because of course all unsourced edits may be challenged. The point of the sentence is to stress they may also be removed. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
which still stands in the version of the policy you are preferring. I think it was simply oversight that this change was only made in the policy box and not also the introduction. I personally think it is a more stable policy when such things are consistent. I like Robert A. West's wording as well on this point, as that also keeps the policy consistent. But apparently jossi has some problem with it, he doesn't specify.-- Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 22:54, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
To Slimvirgin and Jossi Please take a moment and read the policy, just read it. I would really appreciate if you would correct what has obviously an oversight on your parts. I cannot believe you actually intend the policy to read as it currently does. I would also appreciate it if you would contact me on my talk page whenever I am welcome to again collaborate at this project. I will let dryguy or someone else who has been paying more attention to this policy than the two of you correct your notions about the "and"/"or" issue (hint:read the policy box), as I will be at Wikimedia projects which are still operating by the process of collaboration. I suppose Wikipedia may still be using such a process, but I am obviously not on the invite list.-- Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 23:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think there is any serious dispute that some unsourced material should be challenged, and some should be simply deleted. I also don't think that there is a serious dispute that an editor who identifies unsourced material should do what he or she thinks appropriate, up to the limit of WP:POINT. It seems to me that the and/or argument arises because the sentence is in the passive voice, so I rephrased to the active voice. I hope I have expressed consensus. Robert A.West ( Talk) 23:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I've protected this page because of the edit war that was going on. I have no particular opinion on the wording, but I will say that I don't see the point in repeating the exact same text twice (once inside the nutshell, once directly below it). >Radiant< 08:10, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I have to say I'm suffering from a slight mental lock-up right now. Wikipedia's policies are really putting a big twist to my mind.
You see, I'm seeing a lot of stuff getting deleted, or proposed for deletion, due to lack of verifiability. And these motions seem to pass! I suppose I should go grab an {{ afd}} bazooka, a machine gun that fires {{ fact}}s, and the {{ original research}}-armed railgun - but I would probably get immediately accused of violating WP:POINT, even if I don't intend it as such.
I'm slowly experiencing a little bit of a wikistress thanks to these seriously conflicting messages I'm getting about the increased inviolability of WP:V.
So, people, apologies for the coarse language in advance, but what the heck am I supposed to do with Expansion pack article?
Obviously, I should AfD it for it containing original research, weasel wording, and above all, absolutely no verifiable content. Where's the reliable source for the definition for the word "expansion pack"? ({{ fact}} after the first sentence of the article. Not good.) Where's the study claiming the typical content of the expansion packs? (another fact slappery after the second sentence too!) Where's the historical article that describes the history of expansion packs, so we can sort out the wording "One of the first expansions (if not the first)..."? The article claims "The price of an expansion pack is usually much less than that of the original game", which is a fact that is obvious to everyone who's buying games, but stating truth alone isn't verifiable, for crying out loud! "As additions, most expansion packs require the original game in order to play." Correlation doesn't mean causality, and if you're demonstrating correlation, you have to add tons of examples! The paragraph goes on and on by providing a couple of examples of the phenomenons - we can't trust this based on just a couple of examples, we need real studies, claiming correlation is - guess what - the vile, condemned original research!
And so on.
I know this article is correct. I'm just not sure where the heck I can find a source for all these claims. For that matter, heck, I'm not sure if there even are such things, and even if they are, can we trust them?
You see, here's a big problem with articles that define fundamental issues of one field: it's hard to find references for issues that are obvious and trivial.
My personal view is that it used to be that you could say "the sky is blue" without providing a source, but if you claimed "the sky is blue because of the scattering of the sunlight in atmosphere", you needed a source. Nowadays, people are nominating articles on deletion because "the sky is blue" has no source. That's why I'm confused.
So what the heck am I supposed to do in cases like this? Is it that extremely fundamental issues that are obvious to anyone skilled in the field also need sources?
Is writing about fundamental facts without sourcing entirely condemnable?
I think I'm really losing my mind here. I'm not kidding when I say I feel slightly mentally unstable when I'm thinking about this issue. It makes me doubt everything I read that doesn't have a source tag. Yet I can't touch the articles to add such claims because that would be silly and bad.
Please help me. -- wwwwolf ( barks/ growls) 13:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
(outdent) Concentrate on writing the best article you can, source it as well as you can, and trust the wiki. Deletion for unverifiabilty means that there is consensus that no sources exist, not merely that the article is not-yet-sourced. Whenever I have nominated for deletion as unverifiable, I have been able to point either to a good-faith effort to find sources, or to a fairly -self-evident case that is probably also "not notable" and/or "unencyclopedic".
I'll add my $0.02 that nothing in verifiability requires a particular method of citation. While many editors are pushing for in-line citations galore, there are articles where they would be just silly, and a good bibliography would be fine. In fact, if we could get to the point where every non-stub has a good bibliography, Wikipedia would be much improved. Robert A.West ( Talk) 18:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
...and we proudly present: more lupine whimpering (hopefully a bit more rational this time)
Apologies for these long, tiresome rants. I just need to get this out of myself before I snap.
Anyway...
I purposely picked "the sky is blue" as an example because it supposedly illustrated the point. I know full well that there are sources that could back either assertion. But the fact is, at the moment, the sky article doesn't have those specific references. "During daylight the sky has the appearance of a deep blue surface,..." Eep! No source. No source! Why is this assertion without a source, if such comments are so trivial to source, I ask? (Okay, I know the answer: The article has another source, which asserts how colour of the sky is determined; Inferring that is syllogistic. "Sky is blue if light is scattered; this source asserts light scatters, therefore sky is blue.")
I picked that as an easily understandable rhetorical example. Please don't try to take that as a "real" example: atmospheric physics and optics are sciences with long and glorious history, one might say that they've discovered all there is to discover. Now try ludology, which has existed as serious a branch of science since about the turn of the millennium, according to the article. I went to Google Scholar, and yep, found a few papers that talk about expansion packs, but most seemed to take the term for granted. Anyone know of a paper that discusses what expansion packs are, their meaning to game business, their meaning from the consumer point of view. Good luck finding that. You can't exactly go deleting the article; the expansion packs have been in the stores for a heck of a long time, you can't dispute the fact that they exist. "The exact origins of the expansion packs are not scholarly catalogued citation needed and some suggest there have been expansion packs in 1991 citation needed, but there are scholarly mentions of expansion packs that have been published as early as 1999 [3]" which, again, is a particularly crappy source for this statement, because it only shows a single example and not the full picture; just one example of particular expansion packs for particular game, and it's not talking about them generally, making it essentially worthless, off-topic, and skewering the truth.
Taking WP:V as an "ideal" is extremely fine with me. I don't disagree with the policy in general terms. But what, exactly, am I supposed to do when faced with editors who don't consider WP:V an "ideal", but a reason to delete stuff? Not everyone is "merciful". I hate it when people use WP:V as sole reason for deletion, for crying out loud; AfD is supposed to be about whether we need an article about some topic or not, not to claw with the content. WP:V only plays role if there's no source of any kind to explain notability. (There. I said that. Now hit me.) But that's just my interpretation.
What I'm fearing is that WP:V is turning into an useful for stacking additional charges to make sure the article stays dead. A weapon-grade policy. A tool for splitting hairs. A tool for meanness. A tool that could be turned against Wikipedia itself by sufficiently mean-motivated people, if you catch my drift. WP:V is a terrifying weapon for justice. It's also a terrifying weapon for nitpicking.
Expansion pack stands unchallenged only because people aren't following WP:V. Most people would say that in this particular case, that's not a problem. The problem is that one day, someone who wants to enforce WP:V will come around and go ballistic. And we can't really go any way with it. The policy-fan will go for deletion and just say "if you want it kept, it has to be sourced".
And the only thing that protects us from that is that Wikipedia editors don't tend to be mean.
WP:V is, however - if you allow me to describe the character of the policy itself - mean-spirited, strict, and properly jackbooted. Why can't WP:V encourage people be constructive? Why the policy has to encourage people to "hey, if it isn't sourced, rip it down! Now!" ... Why doesn't the policy encourage people to "hey, if it isn't sourced, slap those {{ fact}}s around, spend six hours looking for sources yourself, and if those unsourced bits are still there after 6 months, then remove them?"
Likewise for deletion policy: It really would help if people would explain that no, they didn't think there was any source that would support the article's notability. Sorry to sidetrack again, but I'm particularly against use of WP:V as an argument that "the person/group/company/etc itself isn't trustworthy at all when claiming things". (Consider the implications: If we're discussing the number of users in a particular online game, what should we believe, the company that runs the game, or a "reliable third-party source" that basically parrots the numbers the company feeds them, because there's no other way to verify the number anyway?)
Everything else in Wikipedia says "We'll have a great encyclopedia, some time tomorrow." WP:V's implied tone is "We have a bunch of beep added all the time, and if you do that, we'll beepng kill you." This is the most severely attitude-damaged part of policy, but it wouldn't need that much to change it better. Only a little bit of encouragement for proactivity. (There, I said that. Now hit me again. I've deserved it.)
And once again, apologies for this stuff. I kind of started writing this here and it was meant to go to my LiveJournal but I somehow, in a fit of insane convulsion, decided to bring it here. Because, you know, it probably helps if people thought about these things. -- wwwwolf ( barks/ growls) 19:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
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Question posed by: Signpostmarv 13:27, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
1: Yes, anything published on a domain that is owned by the subject of an article should be considered self-published for the purposes of writing that article. 2: The sources relied upon by the 3rd-party source is not really relevant to determining whether or not that source can be used. If they are a reliable source they will be assumed to have performed fact checking to ensure that the source they relied upon was reliable in & of itself. So, yes. But: a 3rd-party article that also quotes additional, non self-published sources may be preferable if one is avaiable. Hope this helps. JulesH 14:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
A proposal that WP:NOR and WP:V be combined, and WP:RS ditched. All views welcome. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I gather there's some sort of dispute about linking to the page Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Offhand it looks like some folks don't think much of that page. I would have thought that the obvious solution to that problem would be to improve the page.
Regardless, there is no way that linking to reliable and sources is a sensible alternative. The former is an article about "reliability" in the field of statistics and scientific experimentation, and has no relevance of any kind to the subject at hand. The latter also doesn't seem to contain any information that would be of help to anyone trying to figure out what a "reliable source" was. At best, this alternative is useless. At worst, it obscures the fact that the link to Wikipedia:Reliable sources has been removed and suppresses a process of improvement that should clearly be happening.
So, shall we reason together? -- Stellmach 13:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Keep the links to Wikipedia:Reliable sources. I'm getting tired of people coming up with their cure-all proposal somewhere else, and then sneaking in the back door to accomplish their desires when they don't have consensus for their changes. Like Stellmach says, if you have problems with the reliable sources page, the obvious thing to try to do is to improve it. Gene Nygaard 21:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
For those who have expressed a view that the link should remain, unless they join in the discussion on Wikipedia Talk:Reliable sources#Consensus (and address some of the concerns of SlimVirgin and others) then there is little point in the link remaining. -- Philip Baird Shearer
Why is "reliable" linked to [[[Reliability (statistics)]]? Is that really the relevant meaning of the term? - Jmabel | Talk 20:24, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
???? How the heck can an official policy leave one of its core concepts completely undefined?
If it's impossible to define what a "reliable source" is then the verifiability policy needs to be rewritten completely so that it does not use the words "reliable source" or "reputable source.
To say "you must use only reliable (or reputable) sources, and this is an absolutely fundamental policy which you really must follow, but we aren't going to give you a clue as to what we mean by a reliable source" is to reduce the policy to total nonsense. make the policy much less useful to newcomers and inexperienced Wikipedians.
Dpbsmith
(talk)
13:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I asked on the talk page for Seabreeze Amusement Park, and was told to ask here, how verifiable the signs posted around the park (mostly in the carousel I believe) about the history of the park are? While I'm sure they're reliable, (as in the information isn't made up and false) I'm not sure how to cite them, or if the article would just be reverted 'cause of original research.. -- Zalethon ( Talk) 23:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
We have a 57 word long policy, and an "in a nutshell" summary of the policy in 42 words. Not much saving, and yet the policy itself is much, much easier to follow than the "in a nutshell" bit. I reckon we should remove the "in a nutshell" bit, and move the 57-word policy box bit to where the "in a nutshell" box is located. It would make the page easier to read and, as far as I can tell, nothing would be lost, jguk 18:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
We are once again reverting each other about Verifiability, not truth. The concept of Verifiability is central and critically important, we can't create Wikipedia with out it. For clarification, I wish to point out that an encyclopedia persents information to a reader. The Holy Bible present The TRUTHtm to the reader. Do you see a difference? The American Heritage Dictionary presents information to the reader. The Technical Dictionary of Dianetics and Scientology presents The TRUTHtm to the reader. Do you see a difference ? Please, let us not jarringly juxtapose The TRUTHtm up against our most central policy. If verifiability absolutely must be compared against The TRUTHtm can we please do it in paragraphs later in the policy, where the two terms can be discussed and compared to each other and examples given ? Terryeo 20:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, why mention "truth" at all? The policy is about verifiability - why confuse matters by referring to something else? jguk 11:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
How? (As with other issues, I do believe that those wishing to include the words should justify their inclusion in some way. I'm happy to listen to alternative views, but me saying it is not helpful and you saying it is helpful won't get us anywhere.) jguk 16:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
In the spirit of trying to address my concerns that the emphasis should be on verifiability rather than anything else, as well as accommodating concerns about maintaining an explicit reference to verifiability not being the same as truth, I have made this edit. The aim is to preserve the wording on the page, but to change the emphasis ever so slightly. In order to maintain a proper emphasis on the wording that was being reordered, I have tidied up the discussion about biographies on living people, thereby removing some duplication of ideas. I hope this is an amenable compromise, jguk 20:47, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I am extremely disappointed that you did not care to read my promised comment on the talk page before eliminating my attempts to resolve the matter within seconds. That is far from constructive, and taking an attitude that the current page is beyond improvement is not in the wiki spirit. I have noted my concerns, and I have attempted to address yours constructively. I note that maintaining a reference to verifiability not being the same as truth has widespread support, but I do not interpret that as meaning the current way of putting it cannot be altered. It would have been useful if you had allowed others to comment on my suggestion before, somewhat rudely and abruptly, reverting me within seconds. Is it too much to ask for a suggestion made constructively in good faith to be considered by others before you take umbrage? jguk 20:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
It's hardly the bowels. Indeed, I have long argued that this project page needs to remain short so that it is easily read in its entirety and does not contain extraneous discussion. So I strongly suggest that nothing on the page is deprecated. I merely argue that the emphasis should be firmly on verifiability, as it is this that this policy covers. This should be supplemented by a short discussion on what that means in practice (which I accept can include a paragraph explaining that it is not the same as truth), jguk 21:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm genuinely puzzled by SV's approach. WP:ATTRIBUTE, which is fast becoming a long, discursive text that most won't care to read, has been proposed by her as a replacement for the WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:RS, and yet does not include a single reference to "truth". I also think SV removed a paragraph discussing the selfsame point from WP:V. I fail to see why it is a big issue when I suggest some reordering of text, and yet the concept is readily rejected elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, I much prefer WP:V to WP:ATTRIBUTE: WP:V is concise and to the point. People may actually read it all (which is rare for a WP policy unless someone's looking for a loophole). I just don't understand why there is such vehement opposition to my mild suggestion, whereas SV's complete removal of all discussion on verifiability (and truth) attracts no comment (which is one reason why I did not feel my mild suggestion would attract much opposition), jguk 21:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I think the phrase is very important, but I agree that it needs to be explained. When Whales and Sanger set this project up they had a clear idea of (1) how popular the idea of "truth" is when people argue and (2) just how much it can get in the way of the project. In this I have no problem saying they were visionaries. At least once a month, usually more, someone contributing at least to the talk page of one of my watchlist articles makes some claim "but it's true!!" The phrase "verifiability, not truth" is for these people. They need it, and if they get it, they can end up becoming great contributors. I can't see how anyone can object to the extra two words (i mean, including the words does no damage), so I just don't see the fuss. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Truth may at times not be able to be determined, but sometimes falsehood is. For example, if source A says that source B makes claim C, and we have source B, and it doesn't make claim C, then source A should not be cited. This is part of basic intellectual honesty. This isn't about some mystical TRUTH. This is about LIES (or at least errors). This is true even if source A has published in a magazine that we would usually consider citable. - Jmabel | Talk 04:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
With reference to this edit [10] one user has suggested that hardcopy" publications which are unverifiable I would like to place my reservations over this statement. Is it a policy on Wikipedia that only Online Sources are Verifiable. I am afraid that we are perpetuating Systemic Bias with such opinions. I would like to know the opinion of the community over this and we need some concrete policies in this regard. Doctor Bruno 08:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I know that as per the policy Hard Copies are verifiable. But many editors (from American and European countries) immediately say "delete" in AFD discussion when they cannot find something in Internet. Most editors immediately dismiss Offline (as well as Non-English) sources as if they don't exist. Recently I encountered the following words few offline non-English books whose existence cannot be verified at [11] I pointed out that to him and he immediately agreed. When a lot of people have this opinion, I think it is time to highlight that there exists books and articles other than Internet that can be regarded as valid sources for Wikipedia. Another problem I face is the lack of ISBN numbers for most (not all) of the books published in India. You will find it hard to believe that 95 % of Indian Books don't have ISBN. Indian Books have ISBN, but 95 % of English Books published in India and 99% of Non-English Books published in India do not have ISBN. Please see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mariano_Anto_Bruno_Mascarenhas#ISBN for comments from other users as well. That was an old discussion I have brought to the talk page for you to see Please note that I am not arguing for one particular article or regarding one particular instance. Where ever I go (in Wikipedia) I encounter a lot of people who cannot believe that a newspaper here does not have an online edition or that 95% of books in India do not have ISBN. Doctor Bruno 09:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
(Copied from user talk pages: DB, it's best to discuss this in one place):
Thanks for your comments. I know that as per the policy Hard Copies are verifiable. But many editors (from American and European countries) immediately say "delete" in AFD discussion when they cannot find something in Internet. Most editors immediately dismiss Offline (as well as Non-English) sources as if they don't exist. Recently I encountered the following words few offline non-English books whose existence cannot be verified at [12] I pointed out that to him and he immediately agreed. When a lot of people have this opinion, I think it is time to highlight that there exists books and articles other than Internet that can be regarded as valid sourced for Wikipedia Doctor Bruno 09:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Another problem I face is the lack of ISBN numbers for most (not all) of the books published in India. You will find it hard to believe that 95 % of Indian Books don't have ISBN. Indian Books have ISBN, but 95 % of English Books published in India and 99% of Non-English Books published in India do not have ISBN. Please see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mariano_Anto_Bruno_Mascarenhas#ISBN for comments from other users as well. That was an old discussion I have brought to the talk page for you to see Please note that I am not arguing for one particular article or regarding one particular instance. Where ever I go (in Wikipedia) I encounter a lot of people who cannot believe that a newspaper here does not have an online edition or that 95% of books in India do not have ISBN. Doctor Bruno 09:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Should there not be a central page for Wikipedians to raise issues about whether a disputed claim in an article is properly supported by reputable sources? Currently some people post such queries on the talk pages of WP:V, others on the talk page of WP:RS, and no doubt there are other queries elsewhere. Such a central page would give a proper avenue to raise such points (in much the same way as WP:AN is a proper avenue to discuss points needing admin attention). Comments from others would then have persuasive value in helping resolve such disputes. Thoughts? jguk 21:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I certainly have neither the time nor the patience to offer a view on every dispute of this nature. Do you? Maybe we could use your talk page instead? jguk 21:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi.
I noticed this in the intro: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.". But it seems the actual threshold is often higher than this due to notability, which seems to provide additional criteria, as verifiable articles on "non-notable" subjects have been (and are being) deleted. Should this be changed? 70.101.144.160 02:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
A reliable source is one that stands up to academic scrutiny. It's not a difficult issue when approached in that way. Just ask yourself, is there really enough evidence to justify the assertion you are making?
Golly, that was short. And to think WP:RS takes four and a half thousand words to come to no conclusions on the point. Maybe we should add a brief sentence on what a reliable source is using the terms I suggest above, and get rid of WP:RS. Maybe if we then add a brief sentence or two on original research, we can unite WP:RS, WP:V and WP:NOR on this page in under 1,000 words! jguk 12:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, this is a point we very much need to address. I'd already inserted it into the text of the policy, but it was removed on the grounds that such a change should be discussed first. So, okay. Here it is.
We absolutely positively have to explicitly say that "articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources" does NOT mean "articles should contain material that is copied-and-pasted from somewhere else".
We shouldn't have to, but we do. If something can be misunderstood, then it will be, and "material" can be interpreted not just as "information", but as "text".
This should be an addition to rule #1. And it can't be too lengthy or verbose, or people won't grasp it instantly.
Comments? DS 14:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.: I find this basically saying "the topic must be notable or else it does not deserve an article". Now, notability is a guideline and not a policy. I feel that this section forces the WP:NN guideline into a policy. -- Zeno McDohl (talk) 22:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I took that part out. Reliable goes to the material, fact checked/peer reviewed...not the author. pK, its Good to be the King 23:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC) Plus, the "well known" status of the author or past reliability of an author is not a defense to defamation.
Not in general, but there are exceptions to this rule. Teaching material that can be found on webpages of professors is also self published. Suppose I use some very clever trick to solve some classical mechanics problem and put it on my teaching website meant for university students. Suppose some wike-editor wants to put that in a wiki article. He then gives a ref. to my website. That would not be an unriliable source. You can't say in this case that it should first be published in peer reviewed journals, because elementary stuff like classical mechanics not what physicists work on nowadays for research (except for a few topics like chaos theory). Even if you make an original discovery you still won't publish it in a peer reviewed journal. It's simply not done. Count Iblis 23:33, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I think this point is important because we want to make scientific articles on wikipedia accessible to laypeople as much as possible. We should be able to refer to this website if it's needed. That shouldn't be an obstacle to get FA status. I don't see why deleting such refs and giving a ref. to, say, a peer reviewed paper by Lorentz published in 1882 would be better. :) Count Iblis 23:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, classical mechanics is used especially in computational chemistry (docking & scoring functions, protein folding, conformational analysis) and drug design. People are definitely publishing in this area. Hookes law is alive and well. I think its the information that most important. So, how could we be assured the self publishing professor's solution plausible without independent evaluation. I surely wouldn't copy some guys unpublished/untested physics solution off the internet and try to use it for my homework. If we don't scrutinize information, are we really contributing to general knowledge? Why would anyone read an encyclopedia that was full of misinformation? Plus, what about this.....I think an education journal would publish the solution. pk its
Good to be the King
00:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi Count Iblis....why would you go there when you could cite Feynman? Plus, don't you think you'd be doing the laypeople a disservice if the quality of information is poor?...Plus, I forgot about this...if you are in a quandry over this issue, check out the wiki entry on Ammonium Cerrium Nitrate (CAN)...the editors found a website that cited the relavent publications.....what about that? pK...out til tomorrow...its Good to be the King 00:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi, A fact check has been requested on a statement made in an article I watch. I provided a citation for the statement using the OED online, as this is an authoritative source for entomology in a way that no other page could really be. However this does not appear to satisfy this editor as the OED online is a pay service, costing a fairly large amount to use. The editor has requested I find a non-pay source, but I consider this to be unreasonable as i) there is unlikely to be a reputable non-pay source, and ii) citations to pay sources are not prefered, but are not at all unprecendented. Is it reasonable for me to remove the ciation request as there is a citation that can be checked and verified by a large number of people (many libraries and universities offer access to the OED), although not by this editor? -- Neo 11:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I presume that "entomology" above means to say "etymology", since the OED is not particularly authoritative on the former. Is material only at the OED online and not in the print version of the OED? If it is also in the print OED, then that would be good to cite. - Jmabel | Talk 04:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)