Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 2

Archive 1

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Archive 3

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Archive 5

Missing link

Under "When adding information" we have this text:

Eliza Twisk of Amnesty International said: "This is all part of a growing trend in Europe of violent protest and equally violent response". (Channel 4 News interview, July 8, 2000)

I can't get the link to work. Does anyone know where to find it or have an alternative text? Ironically, it's more an example of a bad source at present - one that's not really there! :) jguk 10:50, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I couldn't get the link to work or find the text anywhere, so I replaced it with an example from the Guardian about the Bali bombing. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:18, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Inline links discouraged in favor of more complete sources

Comments requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Inline links discouraged in favor of more complete sources. (SEWilco 08:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC))

References title misread as non-web External links

I think a contributory factor in the lack of good references is that many people seem to interpret:

• See also as see also in Wikipedia;
• External links as see also on the rest of the "web";
• References as see also in documents that are not on the web or are on the web as PDF or Word documents (i.e. not HTML or images).

From this point of view, I think Sources would be a better title.

In some cases, I think people also treat References and External links as being sub-headings of the hypothetical Sources section, so you get a mix of see also and source material.

--David Woolley 12:23, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes. I agree that these sections are used fuzzily and inconsistently. People (and I admit to doing this myself) often divide the stuff at the end according to the location/form of the citation, rather than by function, in the manner you describe above. Perhaps we could divide the end matter first into "Sources" and any other "Further reading". Those two major sections could then be further divided by type into external/internal links or non-HTML published material (books/papers). — Matt Crypto 12:46, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

In my experience, References is most commonly to list sources that were consulted; I think there is no need to change the name of such a section to 'Sources' - we just need to make people aware of the fact that they should cite their sources under 'References'. — mark ✎ 15:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I think it's the title of the External links section that's the problem because people think all external links should be there, and by implication that none should be listed under References. And then where do you list a book that's of interest but which wasn't used as a source, because it looks odd under External links.

Wikipedia:Cite sources makes it clear that sources go under References and other articles/books of possible interest go under External links, which should then be called Further reading. But I wouldn't mind getting rid of the External links header completely, and I also think changing References to Sources might be a good idea. So we'd have Sources and Further reading, which is much clearer. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I like that idea. It passes the KISS test. Though I suspect that getting the community to accept the change from "External links" to "Further reading" may take a good bit of salescraft. older≠wiser 01:37, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I may have several relevant observations, although no integrated campaign:

• Emphasis upon sources rather than their format discourages the format-sensitive term "External links". Sources is sources.
• One of the reasons for a small number of citations may be related to the popularity of "External links": Many people have been linking to online material, both for related reading and as links to supporting material.
• As visible at WP:CITET, the citation templates are being consolidated and becoming easier to use. The templates encourage reasonable display of more detailed information than people might otherwise use (as demonstrated by use of URL-only inline links).

(SEWilco 03:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC))

Slrubenstein has also told me he agrees with this proposal, and will probably post his confirmation here. As this is a policy page, I'm going to leave a note on the Village Pump about it before changing it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:32, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. I don't totally like the word "sources" since I think that a "reference" should still be provided even if it wasn't the actual source for the information. I can't come up with a better word myself though (even checking in thesaurus.com); I worry that "citations" sounds a bit artificial; so I guess that that can just be clarified in policy pages. Mozzerati 22:33, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Mozzerati, the idea is to use Sources and Further reading, so any text that's related to the subject but wasn't actually used as a source can be listed under Further reading. Was that what you meant? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:57, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

With that bit I agree and am clear. The point is that our citations should include "sources" used for verification. E.g. one editor considers it completely obvious that a hybrid number is defined in E.214. The other reader has to check that and, finding a source, includes it. They should be encouraged to add the place where they checked as a source, not further reading. Something like

• a "source" is the place where a specific fact has been checked from
  • accurate and precise
  • authoritative (but possibly in one specific area. e.g. Neo-Nazi's are authoritative web sites are authoritative about what Neo-nazis put on their web sites, but not much else).
• "further reading" is a recommended place to start reading about the topic in general
  • readable and understandable
  • reasonably general coverage
  • reasonably reliable overall

In many articles, some texts should be in both. In the sources section a specific paragraph is likely to be given. The sources section could use footnotes.

Yes, I think having two categories: "Sources" and "Further reading" makes good sense. I vote "yea" Slrubenstein | [[User talk:Slrubenstein|Talk]] 23:16, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I am sympathetic to the aims of this proposal, but I think that there is a fair bit more discussion needed first. I recently objected to Bluemoose (talk · contribs)'s use of his bot Bluebot (talk · contribs) to reposition the Template:1911 template directly under References, because I felt that the Britannica wasn't a source that you would go to check the facts, because it was the source of the words in the first place: corroboration is guaranteed, even where Britannica was wrong.

This points up the confusion that you are trying to clear up, I think. 1911 is almost further reading, but I wouldn't choose to direct someone there to check the facts: it's not a primary source, for one thing.

I also think that we need to idenitify which policy pages need to be changed to reflect anything that is agreed here. Each of those articles need to carry an announcement bringing interested parties to this discussion. User:Noisy | Talk 12:58, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Pages that would need to be changed in line with this policy

• Wikipedia:1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Wikipedia:Cite sources
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Other sections
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)

References/external links name-change proposal

Regarding the above, I've posted it on the Village Pump and on a few policy or guideline talk pages to get more feedback before changing it. To recap, the proposal is to change References to Sources and External links to Further reading.

The reason for the proposal is that using "References" and "External links" is confusing. Sources are supposed to be listed under References, and any further reading is listed under Further reading or External links. But many editors think that any external links, whether used as sources or not, should go under External links, so then they list any material that isn't online, like books, under References, even if not used as a source. To cut through all this confusion, the proposal is to change the headers to Sources and Further reading, which are self-explanatory, and don't make the online/offline distinction. Comments would be welcomed. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:02, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Note: I'm not advocating that existing articles be changed, only that future ones would use Sources/Further reading, and of course editors could change existing articles as they come across them if they want to. So the only real work involved in making the change would be changing WP:CITE, WP:MOS, and so on. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:52, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Agree to change

1. Slrubenstein | [[User talk:Slrubenstein|Talk]] 23:19, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
2. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:24, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
3. Agree Excellent idea. It makes a lot of sense. ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t • @ 00:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
4. (copied from Wikipedia talk:No original research) Sources and Further reading: Good idea! -- I was also confused by References and External links... Harald88 22:48, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
5. Sounds good to me. --Carnildo 05:19, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
6. On the pages I edit this is already in effect, with "sources" referring to cited references and "references" to uncited ones. Hyacinth 09:02, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
7. Support, on second thought. We need unambiguous terms for this, and these terms are. — mark ✎ 09:18, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
8. smaines 18:37, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
9. Good idea. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
10. Makes sense. FeloniousMonk 05:43, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
11. As I wrote above, I think this simplifies things (only two, slightly more amorphous and more inclusive headings, versus several headings which are interpreted very differently across various articles). older≠wiser 14:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
12. Fredrik | tc 14:12, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
13. WAS 4.250 19:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

With reservations

1. Half agree. I don't see any reason to change "References" to "Sources" (and I certainly don't see anything that would justify the amount of work involved in changing it), but I could agree to replacing "External links" by "Further Reading". One question, even on the latter: can we make it very clear in policy that things like the official sites of the subjects of articles are to be included even if they are not exactly "reading"? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:58, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

   Good idea about including official sites, Jmabel. On the References/Sources thing, the reasoning is that people use the word References differently, whereas everyone understands what's meant by Sources. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 07:23, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

2. I agree with the basic premise that the current distinction between offline and online sources is not a useful one. However, I also agree with Physchim62 that the term sources is ambiguous. - SimonP 15:53, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

   What else could "sources" mean, Simon? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

   See for instance the Caffeine, Constitution of the United Kingdom, Vitamin C, and Journalism articles. - SimonP 17:35, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Disagree

1. User:Noisy | Talk 12:34, 26 November 2005 (UTC) I'm going to put myself in this category for the time being, because I don't think there has been a wide enough discussion yet. I don't think I'll end up agreeing with the proposal as stated, but I certainly feel there is room for a change.
2. Physchim62 (talk) 13:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC). Instruction creep. I don't think it would add to the verifiability of articles (the main problem is that people just don't both to list anything), it would be time-consuming to apply to the hundreds of thousands of articles affected, it would be ambigous for certain articles (e.g. Sources of water, ethanol etc), it removes a distinction for certain other articles between numbered References and unnumbered Sources (those used in many different places in the article).

   I think that in context it is very clear that the word refers only to sources for the article. If you have any doubts I am sure that we can come up with very clear wording (e.g.: a list of all sources relied on in researching and writing the article would be listed alphabetically under the heading, "Sources" — or something like that. Slrubenstein | [[User talk:Slrubenstein|Talk]] 06:57, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

3. Zordrac 14:41, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
4. Disagree for the moment because although I agree that change may be is necessary, but I want further discussion over the change to be made. --Philip Baird Shearer
5. Francis Schonken 18:57, 27 November 2005 (UTC) Would this proposed instruction improve the Tacitus article? No, IMHO; Would it improve Sinfonia? No, IMHO; Would it improve De Bello Gallico? No, IMHO - Neither would it improve Plato, Igor Stravinsky, Histoire du soldat, Karl Popper, Philip Glass, The Scream, Blackadder, Stephen Hawking, The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, BBC, Tsunami, Jaws (film), etc..., etc... In sum, I think many articles would rather deteriorate than improve by such instruction!
6. Whilst I'd like to see "Sources" as the section title, in order to bring Wikipedia into line with Wikinews (which uses "Sources" and which has a sourcing policy and practice that Wikipedia should aspire to), there are good reasons, already given by others, why that will cause confusion. And whilst many "External links" really belong in "Further reading", many don't. Whilst removing "External links" and only having "Further reading" may indeed discourage the practice of adding baldly promotional hyperlinks to articles, by emphasising that external links have to be relevant to the aim of an encyclopaedia, there are certain classes of external links that do not constitute further reading. An external hyperlink from an article about an open source software package to the on-line public repository of its source code is not "further reading". (See FreeBSD.) An external hyperlink from an article about a government public service agency to that agency's on-line services is not "further reading". (See Federal Bureau of Investigation.) Uncle G 16:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
7. It is my view that there should be at least three sections: "References", "Further Reading", and "External links". "References" should include places actually consulted in preparing the article, including but not limited to places used to source facts. "Furhter Reading" should include most print sources not included in References, and auch online sources as are sufficniently comprehensive and general as to be comperable with a print survey work. "External links" should include other relvant online sources. inparticualr the "official site" of the subjet of an article about a person or organization should go here. Online, but not print, sources might apper more than once in these sections, that is in both references and external links. DES ^(talk) 22:39, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Further discussion

I neither agree or disagree with his proposal because I think if a change is necessary it needs changing to something else that that which is suggested. Also there is the question of is this "Instruction creep" trying to prescribe the wording of headings such as "Sources" or "References" etc. Personally of the two I prefer "References" to "Sources" but I would not like to insist that either was better and because I like footnotes I am not sure that either is desirable.

• See also

  Just for internal links

• Bibliography

  For books, official sites and any sites used as a general reference, or more than once in the article.

• References

  Not sure there is need for this if there is a Bibliographyand notes. But I do not think it should be changed to "sources" if it is called References or vice versa.

• Notes (wikipedia:Footnote3)

  for all notes used in the article. This allows for the format "author Bibliography" page xx

• External links

  For any blog sites which people think are of interest but are not used as refrences. The big advantage of this is that it allows one to keep the rif-raf out of the other sections without starting a revert war. Also I often find that in reading the external sites they can be moved up into notes as the often cover specific points in the article. As Wikipedia is a work in progress this is a useful mechanism for gathering informaion. Perhapse this section could be renamed "Further reading" ... not sure. The problem with "Further reading" is that it implies that the sites listed under it are in some ways more detailed or better than the Wikipedia article, which is not implied by External links.

--Philip Baird Shearer 12:39, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

• That won't fly. Bibliography is already used in articles about authors as the list of books that they have written (paralleling Discography sections in articles about musicians). Uncle G 15:54, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
• The word "bibliography" conflates "works cited" with "suggested (or further) reading." I believe our articles ought not conflate the two. I think external links should be presented under "References" or "Further reading" as the case may be. I think we should keep "see also" for internal links. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • As I pointed out above, there are classes of external links that do not constitute either references or further reading. Uncle G 16:43, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
• In my view, the footnote mechanism doesn't work well enough yet to be used for citations. By all accounts its a hack. It needs to support multiple uses of the same note before it will work well. I also think that it will not help with the real problem that contributors do not understand the verifiability concept. By mixing up information needed for verifiability with additional information, people are not going to be forced to think about the verifiability aspects; they will consider it optional like the other notes. --David Woolley 12:39, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Alternative solutions

I largely agree with the idea of clarifying what the "References", "External links", and other headings are meant to be used as. I also don't mind changing "References" -> "Sources" or something. Though, I disagree with just changing the policy on the Wikipedia:Cite sources and other guideline/policy pages, and not changing in all the articles.

1. It would be a massive task to change all the "References" headings to "Sources", or whatever changes we agree upon. Is it possible to use a Bot to implement this change in articles?
2. If not possible/desired to change all the headings, (bot or no bot), how about a template to put commented out notes/instructions with the reference heading, which editors would see when they go to edit and add references/links. Such as:

<!-- Please put all website links, books, and other sources used as citations in this References section //--> - sure we can state something better, but this is just to demonstrate the idea. We could at least use the template in problematic articles.

---Aude 22:22, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

further query about foreign language sources (copied from a user talk pâge)

I have some queries about how the current policies operates and what it means, which are of particular concern to me most of all because I live in a country where almost all the academic books available are either in French or in Arabic.

As I understand the policy, if I reference a book in English, I am not obliged to provide a verbatim quote of what it says. The policy doesn't seem to me to imply that more stringent requirements apply when a foreign-language source is referenced. The two examples you give are both of direct quotes, and I got that bit all right. In any case, Wikipedia is full of foreign language speakers, many categorised or listed as available, so the citation of a foreign-language source (particularly in a language such as French) may make the verifiability a little more complicated, but hardly makes it impossible.

To make my concerns a bit clearer, this is an example of an article I created based entirely on one foreign language source (by a respected academic) (here here is another example, which also would have been impossible - for me, that is - without using a foreign language source). I made two direct quotes, which I now understand I should also give in Arabic. But the rest is summarised or simply based on the Arabic source, as one normally does when using sources for any work. Should I have cited in Arabic every element of the book that I actually used? This would make the process of creating the article almost impossibly burdensome.

Also, there may well be sources available in English, but I don't have them. Does this mean I should have refrained from writing the article? I'm not claiming it's a particularly good article (in fact, looking back over it now it strikes me as pretty poor in many respects), but it gives Wikipedia some level of coverage of a notable figure in the intellectual, and to a degree political, history of the modern Middle East.Palmiro | Talk 11:24, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't require foreign language citations to be directly quoted. In general it can't do that, as it would be copyright violation. What it says is that, if and only if there is a direct quote:

1. the original foreign language text must also be directly quoted;
2. if possible, the English version should be from a recognized translation, which should also be cited as a source, not a direct translation from the foreign language source.

--David Woolley 12:17, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks David. Palmiro | Talk 14:42, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Are URL-only links an acceptable citation style?

A straw poll is being taken based on whether using only URLs in an article is an acceptable style for citing sources instead of having more detailed citations. See Talk:Global cooling#SEWilco.2C disruptive reverts.2C and citations. (SEWilco 23:47, 24 November 2005 (UTC))

SEWilco is presenting a misleading view of the debate. The real debate, which he has escalated into a revert war on both Global cooling and Kyoto protocol, is over his pushing of his cumbersome footnotes style into these articles with no regard to the consensus of the editors working on these articles. He has been advised against this [1]. Please carefully consider the debate history on those articles if you plan to comment. Vsmith 01:39, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

He's been pushing the same at WP:CITE and WP:MOS for ages, trying to insert his own opinion in place of the agreed guideline. He recently made a comment about WP:V sometimes requiring a change of citation style, so I'm half expecting him to add something here soon, though perhaps the RfC opened against him today will dampen his enthusiasm for a while. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 07:33, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

SEWilco is violating our guidelines, which specify that editors should favor the original citation system or reach a consensus on a new one. This is a serious offecne. Slrubenstein | [[User talk:Slrubenstein|Talk]] 14:17, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Both sides seem to be at fault here. In my view URL only links are undesirable, but arbitrarily changing the way that inline citations are marked is also undesirable, as is using a non-standard section heading for, what is currently called, References. SEWilco should not have changed from direct numeric links to footnotes without consensus, but the opposing side should not have removed the proper citation, but should have only removed the footnote mechanism, and put them under the References heading.

My personal view is that the direct link format is a bad idea, because it is too easy to forget to create the full citation (most newbies wouldn't even think of creating one), it is easy to overllook one or all of them if a link has to be repaired and it is difficult for a reader to quickly take a view of the likely credibility of the source of a claim. The footnote mechanism is not mature enough, and I believe is achieved using a hack, and it doesn't seem to be able to cope with multiple citations from the same source without duplicating the citation. My personal conclusion, when adding the first reference, is that Harvard style is best, but that means foregoing links to the full citation (or doing them manually, with the expectation that susbequent editors won't understand).

--David Woolley 10:42, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Misuse of WP:V to steamroll Vfds

I have noted on a few occasions that WP:V has been used as a reason why an article should be deleted. However, on a number of occasions, this has been misused. Someone has stated that an article does not conform to WP:V, for example stating that "personal homepages do not count as verifiability" when in fact they were official business pages, of the business which is the focus of the article, which in fact do pass WP:V checks. This was used to manipulate the Vfd for the planes of existence (chat site) Vfd, and a number of voters then agreed with it without checking facts. Whilst many people vote with only 5 seconds of thought, it seems dishonest for people to misuse an official policy like this to steamroll a Vfd. Zordrac 20:05, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Zodrac, if a business page is the only source, and there are no third-party sources (if that's what you meant), then having an article on it would violate this policy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:13, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

No, it has about 50 third party sources. They are all being disputed. Zordrac 14:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

(ec) I'm not sure what the problem is. People are certainly encouraged to explain why they think a thing should or should not be deleted. If some editors want to delete for lack of verifiability, they'll make their reasoning known (hopefully) in the Afd. One editor's "misuse of policy" is another editor's sound reasoning. People disagree about what's verifiable, what's neutral, and what's original research all the time. Friday (talk) 20:13, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

So what is the answer? If someone says something that is not true in order to influence votes, mis-quoting wikipedia policy, is this permissible? Should the voters be asked to re-vote with the evidence that they voted under false assumptions? Zordrac 14:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

The article doesn't list any credible third-party sources that I can see. A third-party source would be, for example, if a newspaper had written an article about the website. It seems to list as sources only itself and other personal websites. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:23, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Guilt by association

I have added the following to the policy:

Sources which rely on guilt by association, the Association fallacy are not considered verifiable. Only a source which specifically identifies a person or organization as having engaged in a behavior can be considered adequate. This is especially true of membership in an organization and associated activities.

This phenomenon is clearly illustrated by Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Nobs01 and others

Fred Bauder 02:56, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

That's pretty incoherent. I've attempted to reword based on what I think you are saying. If I misunderstood you, I assure you it is not willful, and feel free to reword anything I got wrong. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry fellows, but I do not understand the meaning of this sentence. Care to explain/clarify? thanks. ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t • @ 04:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Claims that are attested only by a source or sources which rely on guilt by association are not considered verifiable. Only a source which specifically identifies a person or organization as having engaged in a behavior can be considered adequate. This is especially true of claims that extrapolate from membership in organizations and from activities of others associated with that organization.

Wow, and I thought I was clarifying! Can someone else please take a shot at this? Maybe moving entirely away from Fred's words (of which I had tried to preserve as much as possible). -- Jmabel | Talk 07:15, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

"Extrapolate" is a BIG word. Fred Bauder 14:22, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Fred for the example. It clarifies it for me ... nothing beats a good example. ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t • @

Question: The wording is very clear. Now, the question is, is a judgement made only about the specific reference in source material, or to the reliability of the author of such guilt by association tactics, which then would apply to other works by the same source. nobs 21:06, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Only to those using smear tactics Fred Bauder 21:50, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

How about Charles Burgess Fry as an example. His reputation as a sportsman has never recovered because of his political sympathies in the 1930s. Maybe the two should not be associated, but they are, and any explanation of his relative sporting obscurity today is in part at least explained by his political associations the 1930s. --Philip Baird Shearer 21:21, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Bauder: I direct you attention to this material with its qualified source,

• "One cannot but reflect on the many articles by [redacted] “linking and tying” individuals to various right-wing causes based on “someone being quoted alleging a connection...” p. 120

• "Whatever the nature of the relationship between [redacted] and Political Research Associates and Leonard Zeskind and the Center For Democratic Renewal and Guardian, it’s significant that both parties regularly attempt to “link and tie” opposing individuals and groups with the publications they have written for or were favorably reported in. If one uses the standards suggested by their own writings, their “links” with Guardian bear looking into. If, on the other hand, these “links and ties” with the Guardian are tangential and unimportant, then so might be the alleged “links and ties” of their enemies on the right.” p. 130

Source: Laird Wilcox, Political Research Associates, A Study in "Links and ties", Editorial Research Service, 1999, p. 114-131. ISBN 0-993592-96-5

Wilcox is the founder of the Wilcox Collection on Contemporary Political Movements at the University of Kansas, one of the largest of its kind in the world, which contains hundreds of thousands of documents on all political movements. He is also editor and publisher of annual guides on extremism. Quoted in Racial Extremism in the Army, MAJ Walter M. Hudson, The Military Law Review, Vol 159 (Mar 99), fn 31, Department of the Army, Washington, DC. Pamphlet No 27-100-159 [2] nobs 21:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Verifiability abuse

Moving comment by User:209.182.174.100 to Talk page Jkelly 03:43, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia editor often abuse verifiability claiming that things are not verifiable when they have not made any effort to check them out. Anyone can and does make claims that an article they don't like is unverifiable. Verifiability is often used in bad faith. -- Anonymous

The article should not leave us wondering whether it's verifiable. It's up to the authors of an article to cite their sources, rather than being up to the reader to go off and track down sources. If someone falsely said an article was unverifiable, I expect the truth would generally come out- all that's required is producing reputable sources to back up whatever claims are being made. Friday (talk) 03:56, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree that people should cite their sources, but an awful lot of times I've seen people use lack of citation as an excuse to remove material that is not to their political liking, even when the facts are not in question. Then when the shoe is on the other foot, they turn into defenders of uncited "common knowledge". I've seen it dozens of times.

Plenty of Wikipedia is under-cited, and that should be fixed, but it doesn't mean we go removing sentences at random from a basically good article like Género chico just because it lacks citations. -- Jmabel | Talk 10:00, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Wiki openess is a good way to attract contributions but the quality is not so good in verifiability. You can avoid wasting efforts by concentrating verification towards Wikipedia:Stable versions. -- Zondor 10:15, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I hope Zondor's remark here will not function as a conversation-stopper. Stable versions are a fine idea, but they are not a universal solution for this problem, which potentially exists for all articles. We are not going to have 800,000 articles with stable versions any time in the foreseeable future. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I am a trouble maker aren't I. I have noticed A9 integrates Wikipedia well using Answers.com, the information is useful but is it reliable?. Stable versions would be part of the total solution. Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikicite has a project idea that dedicates a datasource of full citation information for every citation in the article integrated into the wiki syntax. People should be able to easily know the level of trust with the article by some sort of disclaimer whether they have been cited, reviewed or not (Wikipedia:Trust model). -- Zondor 09:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Zondor, as far as I can tell, you are changing the subject, and effectively ending the discussion I was tring to start. I would appreciate if you let me take this section back to the topic I was trying to introduce; you are welcome to ride your favorite hobby horse in another section. Back on topic:

I agree with the anonymous contributor above that there is such a thing as "verifiability abuse". I do not think it is a good-faith action to use lack of citation as a reason remove material that you think is almost certainly true. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

If materiel is not verified wheher it is in therory verifiable or not, that is if reliabel sources have not been cited to support it, and if a request for sourcs has been amde and none have been forthcomming i bleinve it is within policy to delete the unsupported content until and unless proper sources are provied. I do not think that is abuse, althouhg if an editor in fact has a proepr source at hand s/he should add it rahter than deleting content. DES ^(talk) 22:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Over time, standards at Wikipedia have changed. Some policies are now clearer and more specific than they were before. I agree that it is a good thing that people provide sources for their information. I believe this very strongly, and am in fact in a conflict with RJII on the Capitalism and Talk:Capitalism pages, because he makes claims about communism without providing sources, and deletes my edits even when I provide sources. That said, I think it is also important to remember that this is a collaborative project. To my way of thinking, this means that ideally we each make up for other people's weaknesses, as they do for us. Sometimes someone knows something although they do not have a source at hand. All I can tell you is what I have done under these circumstances — what I do represents my attempt to balance between our verifiability policy and our assume good faith guideline. Clearly, the policy is more important than the guideline, but the guideline is important to keeping this a collaborative work. What I do is this: if I have strong reason to believe that a claim is false and unverifiable, I delete it and explain why. However, if I have doubts about a claim but am not certain that it is wrong, I remove it to the talk section and ask others if they know what sources support the claim. My point is, we have an alternative to keep/delete. Bringing questionable material to the talk page invites discussion, gives someone a chance to defend or improve the claim, and is often taken to be a sign of respect to the other editor. Sometimes, this is worthwhile. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Archive material

Is archive material which is accessable in one place an acceptable reference in a Wikipedia article if it has not been published or referenced in another published source.

EG This is a footnote reference on the Chindits page:

British National Archives HS1/2 - Most Secret & personal from head of SOE India to 'P' Division SEAC & GHQ India March 10, 1944 - Military Operations in the Dilwyn Area B/B.100 to head of SOE India March 11, 1944. For the Chindit side see the Operational Report of Dah Force (Imperial War Museum)

--Philip Baird Shearer 13:24, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe that in principle that should be verifiable. If you don't happen to be sitting in London, you'd have to write to the Imperial War Museum with your query, but in my experience, museums are very good about answering scholarly queries. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Important RfC

An RfC has been opened recently concerning an editor who has spread fringe theories and original research over a wide array of articles making clever use of cross- and self-referencing, thus making his contributions looking sufficiently sourced and verifiable to editors who assume good faith. Finding a solution to this problem is of eminent importance to Wikipedia's future reliability and verifiability. Please weigh in at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Roylee. — mark ✎ 13:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

tabloid newspaper example

I have removed the following text from the project page:

"Beware of including material published by unreliable sources in articles about those sources. For example, a Wikipedia article about a tabloid newspaper should not repeat any arguably defamatory claims the newspaper has made, on the grounds of needing to give examples of their published stories, unless the claims have also been made elsewhere, or the tabloid's stories have been written about elsewhere, in which case these third-party sources may be quoted, so long as they themselves are credible."

I have done so for two reasons

1. Most importantly, this is not a valid argument. The statement "tabloid X published arguably defamatory statement Y" is perfectly and obviously verifiable. There may be other reasons not to include such a statement in WP, but such reasons don't belong on the Verifiability page
2. The editor who inserted this statement, Slimvirgin, has been involved in several edit wars with myself and other editors after claiming that a Russian english-language newspaper called the eXile, against which she seems to have some personal POV agenda, should not be cited in its own article. Whether "tabloid" is a good word to describe the eXile is debatable, but I certainly think there's no verifiability issue in citing it, though there may be other issues. For those interested, see that article's talk page.

Dsol 14:16, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I have reverted that deletion. Dsol appears to be involved with the eXile in some way. It is an English-language satirical freesheet published twice-weekly in Moscow by an American. It publishes scandal, black humor, and some arguably pornographic material. Dsol and one other editor have been trying for weeks to insert possibly defamatory material about certain individuals into the Wikipedia article, on the grounds that the eXile has published it: therefore, Wikipedia must publish it too, is their argument, because the article should say in detail what the eXile has published. This is an attempt to turn the Wikipedia page into an extension of the eXile. There has already been one complaint about this to the Wikimedia Foundation.

WP:NOR and WP:RS say of sources that are not reliable that they may be used only as sources about themselves (and even then with caution), but should not be used as sources of information regarding third parties. That is the position I'm taking with the eXile: that if they want to use themselves as sources for saying they have a circulation of 25,000, that's fine; but they may not say: "The eXile has published that John Doe sleeps with underage girls." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:26, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the eXile, I won't do what Slimvirgin has done and argue about that here, beyond saying that the claim that I am "somehow involved" with it beyond editing its WP article is unsupportable and not true, nor is her assessment of the newspaper remotely accurate or NPOV. Aside from this, her post here merely proves my point: there may be arguments against citing a claim such as "paper X has published that John Doe sleeps with underage girls," but these arguments pertain to notability and perhaps to other policies such as NOR, and RS. They are not relevant to verifiability, as long as WP doesn't insert the claim about John Doe into the article in a way so as to make it seems like an undisputed fact. Dsol 14:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Dsol, you're editing a policy page to allow yourself to publish material from the eXile in Wikipedia. Everything on this page has to be internally consistent and consistent with other policies. Please don't just turn up and add sections willy nilly. Say here what you intend with your addition, please. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:45, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

• I didn't add any sections.
• Of course it should be consistent, but it should also be relevant to verifiability. The example I removed and later maodified is not relevant to verifiability, since in that example no statement is made which is not verifiable. Please explain your second reversion.

Dsol 14:48, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean by this exactly? "One possible exception is when these claims have also been made elsewhere. Another possible exception is when one of the tabloid's stories is notable regardless of whether it is true, in which case the unveriable claims should be included as allegations or claims, but never as facts. It is also desirable to cite discussions of these claims in credible third-party sources." And who is to decide what is notable if not a third-party publication? That is, by definition, something is regarded as notable if published fairly widely, in which case there is no problem. But if something appears only in the eXile or in the student newspapers its editor gives interviews to, it is by definition not notable. You also may have misunderstood what "verifiability" means here. You keep making the fact/claim distinction you make elsewhere. As I keep explaining, the only distinction that counts in Wikipedia is good/bad sources. We repeat what good sources say (attributing the claims/facts), and we don't repeat what bad sources say. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, notability requirements might be relevant to this issue, but they're not relevant to a verifiability policy page. I won't discuss them here.

So according to your view on verifiability, once a source is qualified as "bad" it cannot be cited, even when its allegations are notable? Consider for example the case of The Daily Mirror and the Al Jazeera bombing memo. As noted on the article about the paper (which might or might not be called a "tabloid," which as POV term anyway), the paper has serious fact-checking and peer review problems, including publishing doctored photos of prisoner abuse. Yet their allegations about the Bush's plans to bomb AJ in Qatar are included: "The Daily Mirror published a story on its front page on 22 November 2005 claiming that the memo quotes Bush speculating about a US bombing raid on Al Jazeera world headquarters in the Qatari capital Doha and other locations. The story claims that Blair persuaded Bush to take no action." So tell me, is the Mirror a "good" or "bad" source? Dsol 15:06, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Of course notability requirements are relevant to verifiability. They are the same thing! If something is notable, there will be good, third-party sources on it. If it isn't, there won't be. As I said above, you have misunderstood this policy and NOR. There is no "notability" criterion for Wikipedia over and above the existence of credible sources.

The Daily Mirror is a credible source. If no other newspaper is the world even mentioned a story it had published, then of course we'd have to wonder. But as practically every newspaper in the world mentioned the memo, there you have your answer. The problem with the eXile stories is that no one, other than the eXile publishes them; that is why they can't go into Wikipedia, and that is why you want them to. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

First of all, this is not about the eXile, but about the verifiability policy. Second, there is a notability requirement over and above verifiability: there are many easily verifiable facts (such as the thousands of births and deaths that happen every day) which can be checked in reliable sources and yet are excluded from WP on notability grounds. Also, there are many notable facts (such as goings-on in wars and intelligence agencies) which are excluded because they are unverifiable. Third, how can you say the Mirror is a credible source after the fake abuse photos? Is a source "bad" only because not many other sources say the same thing, or is there something else that can make a source "bad," and if so, do fake prisoner abuse photos not count? Dsol 15:23, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Please show me the notability criterion. It does not exist. If there are credible third-party sources for something, it may go into WP. If not, then not. You should hang out more on AfD.

Look, I have spent a good portion of the last two weeks explaining policy to you. You just keep saying the same thing over and over, showing that you've misunderstood it, and unable to produce any policy pages that back you up. You've now had to start changing them to fit your view of the way we ought to operate. I can't take any more time to discuss this with you. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:27, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

There is no official policy on notability, but rather ongoing consensus debates everywhere. I am referring to when someone says on an AfD "Delete, not notable," or makes a similar argument for exclusion of info from an article, as you yourself have done at Mark Ames without citing any policy. This is fine, but not directly related to the issue of verifiability.

You still have not answered why publishing fake prisoner abuse photos doesn't make the Mirror a "bad" source. Dsol 15:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

'You just keep repeating yourself. I have told you that verifiability IS notability, in that a topic has independent credible sources it is regarded as notable. You keep saying it isn't, but you are wrong.

You are not in a position to judge a newspaper by one bad story, or even by dozens. It's a mainstream newspaper. It's not the best source, and if they publish a story that no one else picks up, it's unlikely we'd use them as a sole source, though someone might. But as I said, why do you think I have all the time in the world to devote myself to explaining policy to you? Please read it. This is my last response on this issue. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that reading of the Mirror's case is fine, though obviously at variance with what you've said above and on talk:the eXile. My original point, and one you've not adressed here, is that the statement "paper X published Y" is no more verifiable when repeated by papers Z. What more verification could ever be provided than a link or reference to paper X? Of course, the statement "Y, published by paper X, is true" is another matter.

I never asked you to explain policy to me, but to defend your reversions here. You can talk down to me as you seem to be so fond of doing, but that doesn't excuse you from having to explain your edits. Dsol 16:25, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems to me that it is perfectly OK to give examples of dubious reporting, as long as they are used as such (that is, as examples). Obviously, we wouldn't cite the Weekly World News as a factual source, but it is perfectly legitimate in the article on the Weekly World News to give examples of the outrageous content:

Semi-regular stories follow the progress of Bat Boy, the half-bat, half-boy superhero; and P'lod, an extraterrestrial who became involved in Earth politics and had an affair with Hillary Clinton. … Likewise, throughout 2003, just prior to the capture of Saddam Hussein, and persisting after his capture, WWN ran a series of articles on an alleged (and obviously made-up) homosexual romance between Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Jmabel | Talk 01:12, 5 December 2005 (UTC)