Sidgwick

Please do not add content without citing reliable sources, as you did to Martha Nussbaum. Before making potentially controversial edits, it is recommended that you discuss them first on the article's talk page. Thank you. Buddhipriya 17:35, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Please do not add unsourced or original content, as you did to Martha Nussbaum. Doing so violates Wikipedia's verifiability policy. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Buddhipriya 21:09, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear Buddhipriya--I did cite reliable sources. Please note the following, from Martha Nussbaum: Dear Wikipedia, I asked Prof. Schultz to help rewrite the entry on me because the existing one was so horrible and riddled with errors, and I was getting tired of people preparing press releases about me based on it. Schultz had written an excellent encyclopedia article about me, which is why I turned to him. His version has my enthusiastic support. It has no errors, and it corrects the most significant errors in the other version.

Yours sincerely, Martha Nussbaum

Verifiability

There seems to be a misunderstanding about what what a reliable source is in Wikipedia. Within Wikipedia, a reliable source is a high quality source that is verifiable, in other words material that is available to other editors. This is enshrined in Wikipedia:Verifiability. It is nearly an absolute rule. Wikipedia also does not publish original research; the policy document for this is Wikipedia:No original research. These are 2 of the 3 major pillars of Wikipedia policy, the 3rd being Wikipedia:Neutral point of view (or NPOV, as commonly abbreviated). Under these rules, information that you have received privately on any topic is not suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. It must be published somewhere else, accessible to other editors; then that source may be cited when material from it is included in Wikipedia.

There is one other very important policy in Wikipedia that is relevant here: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. It reinforces the rule about verifiability. However, it also says:

We must get the article right.[1] Be very firm about high quality references, particularly about details of personal lives. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles,[2] talk pages, user pages, and project space.

If there are unsourced injurious inaccuracies in a biography, you (or anyone) is free to remove them. Discussion is not necessary, but in practice it helps keep such material from returning without sources.

The above policy documents also contains a sub-section, WP:SELFPUB, that explains how a biography's subject may produce something that can be a basis for material included in the Wikipedia.

Other than passing on the policy references, I'm going to stay out of this discussion. Studerby 04:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

In response to the above, I would like to add that I did cite reliable sources, including Nussbaum's own works, and that the original, unrevised entry is far weaker in this respect and includes various factual errors. If the above standards are indeed in place, then the original entry should be removed--indeed, it should never have been approved in the first place.

All I know is what I see on this page: Buddhipriya making a claim about lack of reliable sources and you saying Please note the following, from Martha Nussbaum. As I explained above, that doesn't constitute a reliable source, for purposes of Wikipedia, so I tried to make sure you understood that aspect of Wikipedia policy. Perhaps I misunderstood.

If the edits you make that the other editor is removing do in fact have reliable sources, as Wikipedia uses the term, then you might want to avail yourself of the various Wikipedia dispute resolution mechanisms, see Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. I don't do dispute resolution, and I'm unable to assess the quality of your contributions, or that of the original page.

Also, it is helpful if you would include 4 tildes, "~" characters, at the end of each comment on a talk or help forum page. This "signs" the page, including your user name so that others can tell who wrote what. Studerby 15:54, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Your identity

First of all, I want to apologize for your difficulties in improving the Martha Nussbaum article. Assuming you are in fact Professor R. Barton Schultz, and baring any specific substantive objections to what you wrote, I'm honored you took the time to fix up the article, and would certainly support your version over the previous one. And I do assume that you are Professor Schultz; however, anyone can make a Wikipedia account, and there have been plenty of impostors claiming to be people they are not, so I'd be grateful if you could verify that you are who you say you are.

The process to verify your identity is pretty simple (I hope): As a professor at the University of Chicago, you have access to web space at http://home.uchicago.edu/~rschultz (instructions for setting it up are here); simply put the statement "My English Wikipedia username is User:Sidgwick" on that page, and that's it. As you are the only one who can make a page at http://home.uchicago.edu/~rschultz , if that page says this is your Wikipedia account, then I can be sure that you are who you say you are. It would be nice (and would help prevent further confusion) if you also added a link to http://home.uchicago.edu/~rschultz from your Wikipedia user page User:Sidgwick, but it's not necessary.

Just for background, the issue with lacking sources that various people have mentioned refers to specific (page, and maybe even quote) references for specific changes of fact; this is nice to have because it facilitates laymen review of the statements in the article. It's also a lot of work; in my opinion, while one unknown person's un-sourced statement is not better than another, if the author is known and clearly knowledgeable about the subject (as in your case) I'd certainly prefer their un-sourced statement.

I was referred to this particular article by its mention in Brian Leiter's blog. I hope we can successfully resolve this. Let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks again for trying to improve the Martha Nussbaum article. JesseW, the juggling janitor 05:25, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

(Above message also sent by email to the address found on the uchicago site). JesseW, the juggling janitor 05:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)