![]() | 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 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
Why is this in both the official policy and guidelines categories, and have the guidelines header? Surely it's either one, or the other? This is at least confusing, if not out-and-out contradictory. Alai 06:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
It's important to note that "verifiability" in this context does not mean that editors are expected to verify whether, for example, the contents of a New York Times article are true. In fact, editors are strongly discouraged from conducting this kind of research, because original research may not be published in Wikipedia. Surely OR would not include checking a seconday sources' primary sources ? Rich Farmbrough 16:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
No you just say "According to X, Kiko Martinze blew himself up in 1970." As for Friday's comment: of course you personally can choose not to use a source you consider unsuitable. The real question is, what happens in someone else uses a source I consider unsuitable? We need policies and guidelines that can provide a common ground for me and the other person to discuss the appropriateness of the source, but ultimately, it is myself and the other person who have to seek some sort of compromise or accommodation. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
What is important is not that you are making a claim about Kiko Martinez; you are making a claim about a verifiable source that makes a claim about Kiko Martinez. That is all we Wikipedians can do. Now, if Fred tells you "Hey, I talk to Kiko all the time" you should inform him that Kiko would do well to write to the New York Times or whatever paper reported the incident and ask them to retract it. If Kiko being blown up was worth reporting, then either (1) the fact that he is alive or (2) the fact that the source that reported his explosion is unreliable is also worth reporting. Ergo, you would be able to find a source that in one way or the other says that the first source was false. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:54, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Nobs01 might check the Alamosa, CO phone book or DexOnline [1]. Fred Bauder 22:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I can't even find a WP article on Kiko Martinez - but it seems like a case of "are you talking about the same thing"? After all, there are at least two John Siegenthalers apparently of repute, and no doubt a handful more of no repute going by the same name. You need to be precise. For example, legal cases come with references - eg "941 P.2d 282, 283 (Colo. 1997)", and editions of books come with ISDN numbers - allowing this precision. Things can be confusing when you potentially have lots of things by the same or similar name, jguk 22:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm really not sure what's going on here, but I'll go back to the question of verifiability and Fred's comment on his ArbCom candidacy page that reads:
The answer from a WP:Verifiability perspective is "no". You should question how reliable your source is, and you should ask Fred to provide a published source (we, like other encyclopaedias, do not allow telephone numbers as references). There is also the question as to whether everyone is talking about the same Francisco Kiko Martinez (ie yourself, your source and Fred).
From a personal perspective, Fred may be right. You leave yourself open to being sued by libel for repeating and republishing an untruth, even though you have sourced it. The libelled doesn't have to restrict himself to going for your source.
From a Wikipedia perspective, Fred is the most influential member of the ArbCom and how he wishes WP:Verifiability to be interpreted is very relevant to Wikipedia. Ultimately what he says has loads more importance than what you say, regardless of the precise wording of the policy. Fred is one of those people who decides cases not on their precise merits, but rather on what side he wants to win, and he then picks an argument from the facts to get him there. There are loads of real-life judges who do exactly the same thing - I specialise in UK tax, and it wouldn't take too long to put together a list of UK tax cases that were decided more on whether the judges or Commissioners wanted the Revenue or wanted the taxpayer to pay. Personally, and I am a technically minded person, I prefer judges (and Arbitrators) who rule strictly on the merits of the case alone, without looking at wider issues - but unfortunately, in this world, we have to accept we don't always get them, jguk 23:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
<- Thank you. WP:RS#Reliability says, "exceptions may be when a well-known professional person or acknowledged expert in a relevant field has set up a personal website using his or her real name [5]. Even then, we should proceed with caution, because the information has been self-published, which means it has not been subject to any independent form of fact-checking;" which I read to say, it is not necessarily rejected out of hand, given the qualifiers; but this is exactly the sort of "fact-checking" necessary to determine if Kiko still has a pulse, etc. nobs 19:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Nobs is neglecting to disclose that the personal attack involved was on Talk:Chip Berlet, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others/Proposed_decision#Disruption_by_Nobs01 (you will have to look in the history as the personal attacks have been removed). The problem is that there is only the most minimal nexus between Kiko Martinez and Chip Berlet. In the time frame that they were both in Denver Kiko was accused of a crime. Chip, a private investigator may have worked on the case. But Nobs contention is that since both were members of the National Lawyers Guild that Chip Berlet is somehow responsible for the alleged crimes of Kiko Martinez. That sort of stuff is why a one month (or one year) ban is proposed at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others/Proposed_decision#Nobs01_banned_for_one_month Fred Bauder 20:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Neither Chip Berlet nor I are sure we met, but we might have. Kiko Martinez and I both practiced law in Alamosa Fred Bauder 20:16, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
But what about a blunder made by The New York Times in a subject that I know a lot about? I and others wrote numerous letters to the New York Times in vain. Can't we remove the NYT as an example of a reputable source? Why should I trust the NYT in other subjects that I do not know much about? I find it hard to trust the NYT (and as a consequence Wikipedia) because of this incident. See Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba#Reputable_sources Andries 22:55, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
This is already covered in the sentence
Nevertheless.
I would like to have specific language that makes it clear that "potentially verifiable" information is not good enough.
Specifically: "verifiability" requires information to be
and is not met by
In other words:
satisfies the verifiability policy (even if you do not have a copy of MacShane's book in front of you and even though what MacShane says is clearly opinion; the verifiable fact is that MacShane said so).
On the other hand:
does not satisfy the verifiability policy, even though one could potentially verify it by consulting an online Yellow Pages. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Another example:
does not satisfy the verifiability policy, even if the editor saw and heard him talking about it on television. If the editor saw him on television, then it is potentially verifiable because there is almost certainly a recording of that program somewhere, and it may even have been described, but it does not satisfy the verifiability policy until the source citation is actually found. (To end the suspense: [10]).
Dpbsmith (talk) 19:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I value verifiability as much as anyone at Wikipedia. But I tend to agree with older≠ wiser. "Potentially verifiable" is at best redundent, possibly just meaningless. Rather than say something like "You can't add information unless you could back it up in the future," I think it makes much more sense to say something like "If any editor feels that information in the article may be incorrect, they have the right to challenge the person who added that information to provide a source." I don't like the way I phrased either of these choices, but you get the idea. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree Slrubenstein | Talk 05:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I would like to see the policy made more explicit. I see too many editors in deletion discussions saying an article should be kept because it is "potentially verifiable", even after other editors have complained about not being able to find sources to verify the information in the article. I think it is the responsibility of every editor to cite sources for everything of substance they add to an article. This does not mean footnoting everything, it does means citing your sources. -- Dalbury( Talk) 23:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
This is not the time to start trying to force editors to use footnotes. The Siegenthaler incident has highlighted Wikipedia's poor use of sources, and there's more interest than ever now in encouraging editors to provide sources for their edits, or at least for any that are even slightly contentious. What we have to concentrate on is persuading editors to provide any sources at all, rather than fussing about the precise form they have to come in, and especially not one as complicated as SEWilco's.
In any event, he is just wrong about embedded links providing less information than sources. When using a footnote system, you're meant to add the number after the sentence, then go to the Notes section to add the full citation information. When using embedded links, you add a numbered URL after the sentence, then go to the References section to add the full citation information. Therefore, both styles, when used correctly, provide exactly the same amount of information.
I find his edit warring about this very tiresome. It has been going on for months over multiples articles, policy pages, guidelines, the Village Pump, at least one RfC, and now RfAr. We are not going to stop editors from using embedded links. We're going to encourage their use, because we want to encourage any source citation at all. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
/originally by SlimVirgin (talk) 16:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC) / comment edited for new location Mozzerati 20:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to try to add something about the importance of using good sources when it comes to biographical material about living people, following the Siegenthaler incident. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Lets say I created an article on Zeliard, a video game from 1990. Under common WP conventions, video games that were developed, published and sold, usually are considered notalbe enough for an article.
During the description of the game, I say, "the top boss in the game is called Jashiin".
Now, this statement is:
A. True.
B. Verifiable. Anyone who owns and had played the game can verify the truth of the statement.
However, no notable newspaper has ever published an article about Zeliard, so there is NO WAY to get "solid references".
So we have a notable article, with a true and verifiable statement, which, however, was never referenced.
About 90% of the article's length (pretty much anything except the infobox containing data that probably can be verified somewhere, such as corporate press-releases), covers in-game plot, theme, and characters, which were never described in press.
Does that mean the article on Zeliard should be thrown out alltogether?
This question is critically important to the Verifiability policy. Its not just about Zeliard, its pretty much about ANY article statement which is true and verifiable, but is not documented in press. Elvarg 21:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Two meanings for "verifiable" are being confused. A source is verifiable if it is easy to check the source and make sure that it really says what the person citing it says it says. If someone quotes "The New York Times" that's a verifiable citation. If someone quotes a personal communication, or something they saw themselves, that's not verifiable.
The essential point is that, unlike scientific papers and traditional encyclopedias, the accuracy of Wikipedia's material does not and cannot rest on the authority of its contributors. Therefore, it has to rest on someone else's authority. Therefore, in principle, everything in Wikipedia needs to be referenced to a source.
It is the source that needs to be verifiable, not the fact.
Due to the existence of public libraries, print materials are verifiable. Also, unlike web references, they are durable--the same book is likely to be available from libraries five years from now--and the expense of publishing in print constitutes some kind of mild sanity check. Due to the ease of checking web references, web references are verifiable.
Personal observation of the contents of a video game might be verifiable if one could show that there were many public libraries that had copies of that game available for circulation. But it is much better to find a description in a game magazine, because that is more verifiable than the game itself.
An unreliable source can be verifiable. What's important is to state the source. The reader can judge its reliability. Furthermore, in cases where a source is obviously non-neutral, it is not inappropriate to make a comment to that effect, provided of course that the comment is neutral and, if necessary, sourced.
For example, in a discussion of whether chocolate is healthy, it would be perfectly reasonable to cite Harvard researcher Norman Hollenberg to the effect that it contains flavanoids which may reduce high blood pressure, and equally reasonable to note in the citation that Hollenberg's studies have been funded by the American Cocoa Institute and by Mars, Inc. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:54, 16 December 2005 (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 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
Why is this in both the official policy and guidelines categories, and have the guidelines header? Surely it's either one, or the other? This is at least confusing, if not out-and-out contradictory. Alai 06:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
It's important to note that "verifiability" in this context does not mean that editors are expected to verify whether, for example, the contents of a New York Times article are true. In fact, editors are strongly discouraged from conducting this kind of research, because original research may not be published in Wikipedia. Surely OR would not include checking a seconday sources' primary sources ? Rich Farmbrough 16:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
No you just say "According to X, Kiko Martinze blew himself up in 1970." As for Friday's comment: of course you personally can choose not to use a source you consider unsuitable. The real question is, what happens in someone else uses a source I consider unsuitable? We need policies and guidelines that can provide a common ground for me and the other person to discuss the appropriateness of the source, but ultimately, it is myself and the other person who have to seek some sort of compromise or accommodation. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
What is important is not that you are making a claim about Kiko Martinez; you are making a claim about a verifiable source that makes a claim about Kiko Martinez. That is all we Wikipedians can do. Now, if Fred tells you "Hey, I talk to Kiko all the time" you should inform him that Kiko would do well to write to the New York Times or whatever paper reported the incident and ask them to retract it. If Kiko being blown up was worth reporting, then either (1) the fact that he is alive or (2) the fact that the source that reported his explosion is unreliable is also worth reporting. Ergo, you would be able to find a source that in one way or the other says that the first source was false. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:54, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Nobs01 might check the Alamosa, CO phone book or DexOnline [1]. Fred Bauder 22:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I can't even find a WP article on Kiko Martinez - but it seems like a case of "are you talking about the same thing"? After all, there are at least two John Siegenthalers apparently of repute, and no doubt a handful more of no repute going by the same name. You need to be precise. For example, legal cases come with references - eg "941 P.2d 282, 283 (Colo. 1997)", and editions of books come with ISDN numbers - allowing this precision. Things can be confusing when you potentially have lots of things by the same or similar name, jguk 22:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm really not sure what's going on here, but I'll go back to the question of verifiability and Fred's comment on his ArbCom candidacy page that reads:
The answer from a WP:Verifiability perspective is "no". You should question how reliable your source is, and you should ask Fred to provide a published source (we, like other encyclopaedias, do not allow telephone numbers as references). There is also the question as to whether everyone is talking about the same Francisco Kiko Martinez (ie yourself, your source and Fred).
From a personal perspective, Fred may be right. You leave yourself open to being sued by libel for repeating and republishing an untruth, even though you have sourced it. The libelled doesn't have to restrict himself to going for your source.
From a Wikipedia perspective, Fred is the most influential member of the ArbCom and how he wishes WP:Verifiability to be interpreted is very relevant to Wikipedia. Ultimately what he says has loads more importance than what you say, regardless of the precise wording of the policy. Fred is one of those people who decides cases not on their precise merits, but rather on what side he wants to win, and he then picks an argument from the facts to get him there. There are loads of real-life judges who do exactly the same thing - I specialise in UK tax, and it wouldn't take too long to put together a list of UK tax cases that were decided more on whether the judges or Commissioners wanted the Revenue or wanted the taxpayer to pay. Personally, and I am a technically minded person, I prefer judges (and Arbitrators) who rule strictly on the merits of the case alone, without looking at wider issues - but unfortunately, in this world, we have to accept we don't always get them, jguk 23:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
<- Thank you. WP:RS#Reliability says, "exceptions may be when a well-known professional person or acknowledged expert in a relevant field has set up a personal website using his or her real name [5]. Even then, we should proceed with caution, because the information has been self-published, which means it has not been subject to any independent form of fact-checking;" which I read to say, it is not necessarily rejected out of hand, given the qualifiers; but this is exactly the sort of "fact-checking" necessary to determine if Kiko still has a pulse, etc. nobs 19:33, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Nobs is neglecting to disclose that the personal attack involved was on Talk:Chip Berlet, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others/Proposed_decision#Disruption_by_Nobs01 (you will have to look in the history as the personal attacks have been removed). The problem is that there is only the most minimal nexus between Kiko Martinez and Chip Berlet. In the time frame that they were both in Denver Kiko was accused of a crime. Chip, a private investigator may have worked on the case. But Nobs contention is that since both were members of the National Lawyers Guild that Chip Berlet is somehow responsible for the alleged crimes of Kiko Martinez. That sort of stuff is why a one month (or one year) ban is proposed at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Nobs01_and_others/Proposed_decision#Nobs01_banned_for_one_month Fred Bauder 20:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Neither Chip Berlet nor I are sure we met, but we might have. Kiko Martinez and I both practiced law in Alamosa Fred Bauder 20:16, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
But what about a blunder made by The New York Times in a subject that I know a lot about? I and others wrote numerous letters to the New York Times in vain. Can't we remove the NYT as an example of a reputable source? Why should I trust the NYT in other subjects that I do not know much about? I find it hard to trust the NYT (and as a consequence Wikipedia) because of this incident. See Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba#Reputable_sources Andries 22:55, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
This is already covered in the sentence
Nevertheless.
I would like to have specific language that makes it clear that "potentially verifiable" information is not good enough.
Specifically: "verifiability" requires information to be
and is not met by
In other words:
satisfies the verifiability policy (even if you do not have a copy of MacShane's book in front of you and even though what MacShane says is clearly opinion; the verifiable fact is that MacShane said so).
On the other hand:
does not satisfy the verifiability policy, even though one could potentially verify it by consulting an online Yellow Pages. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Another example:
does not satisfy the verifiability policy, even if the editor saw and heard him talking about it on television. If the editor saw him on television, then it is potentially verifiable because there is almost certainly a recording of that program somewhere, and it may even have been described, but it does not satisfy the verifiability policy until the source citation is actually found. (To end the suspense: [10]).
Dpbsmith (talk) 19:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I value verifiability as much as anyone at Wikipedia. But I tend to agree with older≠ wiser. "Potentially verifiable" is at best redundent, possibly just meaningless. Rather than say something like "You can't add information unless you could back it up in the future," I think it makes much more sense to say something like "If any editor feels that information in the article may be incorrect, they have the right to challenge the person who added that information to provide a source." I don't like the way I phrased either of these choices, but you get the idea. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree Slrubenstein | Talk 05:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I would like to see the policy made more explicit. I see too many editors in deletion discussions saying an article should be kept because it is "potentially verifiable", even after other editors have complained about not being able to find sources to verify the information in the article. I think it is the responsibility of every editor to cite sources for everything of substance they add to an article. This does not mean footnoting everything, it does means citing your sources. -- Dalbury( Talk) 23:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
This is not the time to start trying to force editors to use footnotes. The Siegenthaler incident has highlighted Wikipedia's poor use of sources, and there's more interest than ever now in encouraging editors to provide sources for their edits, or at least for any that are even slightly contentious. What we have to concentrate on is persuading editors to provide any sources at all, rather than fussing about the precise form they have to come in, and especially not one as complicated as SEWilco's.
In any event, he is just wrong about embedded links providing less information than sources. When using a footnote system, you're meant to add the number after the sentence, then go to the Notes section to add the full citation information. When using embedded links, you add a numbered URL after the sentence, then go to the References section to add the full citation information. Therefore, both styles, when used correctly, provide exactly the same amount of information.
I find his edit warring about this very tiresome. It has been going on for months over multiples articles, policy pages, guidelines, the Village Pump, at least one RfC, and now RfAr. We are not going to stop editors from using embedded links. We're going to encourage their use, because we want to encourage any source citation at all. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
/originally by SlimVirgin (talk) 16:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC) / comment edited for new location Mozzerati 20:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to try to add something about the importance of using good sources when it comes to biographical material about living people, following the Siegenthaler incident. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Lets say I created an article on Zeliard, a video game from 1990. Under common WP conventions, video games that were developed, published and sold, usually are considered notalbe enough for an article.
During the description of the game, I say, "the top boss in the game is called Jashiin".
Now, this statement is:
A. True.
B. Verifiable. Anyone who owns and had played the game can verify the truth of the statement.
However, no notable newspaper has ever published an article about Zeliard, so there is NO WAY to get "solid references".
So we have a notable article, with a true and verifiable statement, which, however, was never referenced.
About 90% of the article's length (pretty much anything except the infobox containing data that probably can be verified somewhere, such as corporate press-releases), covers in-game plot, theme, and characters, which were never described in press.
Does that mean the article on Zeliard should be thrown out alltogether?
This question is critically important to the Verifiability policy. Its not just about Zeliard, its pretty much about ANY article statement which is true and verifiable, but is not documented in press. Elvarg 21:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Two meanings for "verifiable" are being confused. A source is verifiable if it is easy to check the source and make sure that it really says what the person citing it says it says. If someone quotes "The New York Times" that's a verifiable citation. If someone quotes a personal communication, or something they saw themselves, that's not verifiable.
The essential point is that, unlike scientific papers and traditional encyclopedias, the accuracy of Wikipedia's material does not and cannot rest on the authority of its contributors. Therefore, it has to rest on someone else's authority. Therefore, in principle, everything in Wikipedia needs to be referenced to a source.
It is the source that needs to be verifiable, not the fact.
Due to the existence of public libraries, print materials are verifiable. Also, unlike web references, they are durable--the same book is likely to be available from libraries five years from now--and the expense of publishing in print constitutes some kind of mild sanity check. Due to the ease of checking web references, web references are verifiable.
Personal observation of the contents of a video game might be verifiable if one could show that there were many public libraries that had copies of that game available for circulation. But it is much better to find a description in a game magazine, because that is more verifiable than the game itself.
An unreliable source can be verifiable. What's important is to state the source. The reader can judge its reliability. Furthermore, in cases where a source is obviously non-neutral, it is not inappropriate to make a comment to that effect, provided of course that the comment is neutral and, if necessary, sourced.
For example, in a discussion of whether chocolate is healthy, it would be perfectly reasonable to cite Harvard researcher Norman Hollenberg to the effect that it contains flavanoids which may reduce high blood pressure, and equally reasonable to note in the citation that Hollenberg's studies have been funded by the American Cocoa Institute and by Mars, Inc. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:54, 16 December 2005 (UTC)