Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 30

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"Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons"

"even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer." So says the policy, which describes "blogs" as examples of "self-published sources".

Yet an LA Times editor reportedly wrote to "bloggers" "asking you all not to blog about [John Edwards and his alleged affair] until further notified." This guy is their supervisor, such that presumably they could be fired if they didn't obey.

There are plenty of non-blog sources that don't have this "degree of scrutiny" exhibited over what they say. It accordingly seems to me that this "never" prohibition on citing blogs in a BLP should be reconsidered. I should think that it's the messenger, not the medium, that is reliable or unreliable.Bdell555 (talk) 14:20, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Self-published sources can only be considered reliable for the opinion or belief of the author... not for statements of fact. Thus, a self published blog is only reliable for statements about the subject's opinions or beliefs. And even then its use may be limited if it does not comply with the other restrictions that are listed (such as being unduly self serving). A blog written by some other person can never be used, as their opinion of the subject is not reliable. Blueboar (talk) 14:54, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that's what the policy is, I'm just wondering what's the argument justifying this policy. If the argument is that bloggers aren't subject to editorial control, for example, we see here that that isn't true for all blogs. The policy doesn't just say, "don't cite a blogger's opinion" (which I fully agree with), it says that in this area "don't cite a blogger". Ever. Perhaps we could use a case-by-case approach instead?Bdell555 (talk) 17:35, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, first, we need to distinguish between a "blog" and an "online Op-Ed piece" posted to the website of a mainstream media outlet. A Blog is self-published. An online Op-Ed piece is not... it is published by the media outlet that owns the website.

A blog is purely under the editorial control of the blogger. There is no way to know if any fact checking took place. A blog can only reflect the opinion of the blogger, and that opinion is, in most cases, not notable. Yes, there are a few exceptions... there are bloggers who have gained a reputation for accuracy and journalism, who have crossed the line from being 'bloggers' to being respected news outlets in their own right. In those few cases, their opinion is notable. These are, however, few and far between. The majority of blogs are not reliable and not notable.

An on line Op-Ed piece, on the other hand, may look like a blog (ie be in blog format), but it is not quite the same thing. An Op-Ed piece is at least reviewed by the editorial staff of the media outlet. The editors will question and probably correct obvious errors of fact. While the piece also only reflects the opinion of the columnist, the fact that it is published by the media outlet gives the columnist and his/her opinion a degree of notability ... How notable will depend on how respected the outlet is, how many outlets carry the column, and the reputation of the columnist.

Now... In the case you raise (concerning the LA Times), we are really talking about online Op-Ed pieces. The announcement is directed to columnists working for, or at the behest of, the paper. Thus, they are not really what we mean when discuss the reliability of blogs. They are not self-published. Blueboar (talk) 18:28, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Exceptions are already made for blogs hosted by newspapers. See Wikipedia:BLP#Reliable_sources. II | (t - c) 18:41, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

SELFPUB rewrite

I reverted this significant rewrite of SELFPUB, as I don't see a discussion here about it. What's the issue and intent? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

There's actually no content change except a brief summary sentence at the top. Here is the section on it. The intent is to eliminate the logical inconsistency of redirecting WP:SELFPUB to "Self-published and questionable sources", which has left people confused, and force people to recognize that the policy towards SELFPUB is nuanced. II | (t - c) 23:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

No comment? Can I restore the format change? II | (t - c) 19:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection to the reorganization, ... but I do think it is overkill. Blueboar (talk) 22:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The current policy on self-published sources is:

Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.

You created a new section and a new lead. Your restatement of the above policy is:

“Self-published sources may be used if the source is an expert on the topic, as indicated by previous publications” with the added warning “but should never be used for personal information on living persons.”

Contradictions include:

1)“in some circumstances, be acceptable when” has been reduced “to may be used”

2)“produced by an established expert on the topic of the article” is rendered “is an expert on the topic”

3)“whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications.” is now “as indicated by previous publications”.

In short “Self-published sources may be used if the source is an expert on the topic, as indicated by previous publications” allows the use of a wide range of material as a source that would be excluded under the current wording. One clear statement is sufficient. We do not need two that differ on important points.

Also, the wording “Self-published sources from non-experts may be used to discuss their views in certain circumstances” is incorrect, as they may only be used as sources about themselves. Brimba (talk) 01:50, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

ImperfectlyInformed either split off self-published experts from self-published sources, or self-published sources from self-published experts, depending upon how you wish to frame it. Acceptable self-published sources are those that originate from experts, so the two sections cover the exact same issue. What is the point of doing this split? I don’t see anyone in support of doing this except for ImperfectlyInformed. Are there any others? Having two sections within the same policy that cover the same issue, is an open invitation to edit warring. Each side can simply quote the section that is more favorable to their side or pov. The only way around this is to have the wording of both sections so close as to be duplicates of one another. The idea is to make policy more use friendly, and that generally means simpler. Having two competing sections is not simpler; having two duplicate sections is not simpler. Having one section that gets to the point quickly and clearly is the most user friendly approach. Brimba (talk) 10:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean? Currently when people use the SELFPUB shortcut, they bizarrely get redirected to the section on "self-published and questionable sources", and they get confused (see the top of this section). This way, if people want to point people directly to a certain section, they do that. The summary sentence that I added summarizes it well, unless you can point out problems with it? It says the exact same thing that the entire section does in paragraphs in a two sentences. II | (t - c) 17:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I am not seeing your point. The statement “Self-published and questionable sources may only be used as sources about themselves” is accurate and SELFPUB has been widely used. I don’t get the “they bizarrely get redirected to the section on "self-published and questionable sources"” that’s where they should get sent, why is it bizarre? Why would we have two sections that cover the same point? Why say in duplicate what we can say once. I don’t see the upside. People get confused about a lot of things. Many different editors work on policy from many different angles, this leads to policy that may not be perfect in its presentation, but that does not make it anywhere near being indecipherable either. Now maybe your point is completely valid and I am just missing it. Brimba (talk) 01:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Use of questionable sources

Let's say someone has written an article claiming that anarcho-communism is not a form of anarchism. Specifically, an anarchist Benjamin Tucker wrote "Yes, genuine Anarchism is consistent Manchesterism, and Communistic or pseudo-Anarchism is inconsistent Manchesterism." That would be a questionable source, correct? Would it be a questionable source because he's an anarchist and anarchists are extremists? Or is it because it is an opinion piece? Why exactly would it be a questionable source? Is it a questionable source? If so, then does that mean this could not be said in the anarcho-communism article "Benjamin Tucker claimed that anarcho-communism is not a geniune form of anarchism"? The policy appears not even to allow that because it says questionable sources cannot be used as sources about themselves if it is "contentious" and "involves claims about third parties," correct? Richard Blatant (talk) 16:28, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Let me see if I can word this better. If Benajimin Tucker writes an essay that says "Anarcho-communism is not a form of anarchism," then it could not even be mentioned that Benjamin Tucker said this because what he has said is "contentious." Is that correct? Richard Blatant (talk) 15:42, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Questionable sources should never be used to reference any novel and contentious ideas on articles outside those on the sources themselves (and even then, with restrictions). But if this idea is not novel, but is actually promoted or at least discussed/mentioned/dismissed by a reliable source, then questionable sources can be used to illustrate the idea further, in certain circumstances. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:24, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense. Is this stated anywhere in the policy? Richard Blatant (talk) 22:41, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Use of questionable sources

I changed "Self-published and questionable sources may only be used as sources about themselves, and then only if...it is not contentious"

to "Self-published and questionable sources may only be used as sources about themselves, and then only if...it is not contentions that the information about themselves is true".

Some changed it back. What was wrong with it? What is meant by "it is not contentious?" Is it saying we can't note an opinion that a questionable source has if the opinion is contentious or is it saying we can't note information about the source if the truthhood of the information about the source itself/himself is contentious? Which one is it, and why does it have to be cryptic? Richard Blatant (talk) 19:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I would support simply removing this restriction, or merging it with #4 and/or #5 to make it more specific. If something is relevant to a topic already being discussed, and stated only as an opinion in wikipedia, why should it matter if the source material is "contentious"? In stating that such sources "may only be used as sources about themselves", the first line already shows that wikipedia can only cite such material for opinions. PSWG1920 (talk) 20:14, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I think I agree. For example, if a politician writes an op-ed piece claiming that the Iraq War is unjustified, the policy seems like it might be saying that we can't point out that this is his opinion, with the reason being it's a contentious opinion. If that's not what the policy is saying, then it needs to be reworded. Richard Blatant (talk) 20:22, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Also another criterion in there is "it does not involve claims about third parties." That doesn't make much sense either. If Bob Barr says in his op-ed that Bush is a bad president, why can't his opinion be noted? There seems to be a lot wrong with that section. Richard Blatant (talk) 20:26, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

The third party limitation is included due to restrictions set forth at WP:BLP. I think what it is really aimed at is using a self-published source in support of statements of fact about the third person... ("Bush is a bad president <cite Bob Barr>") as opposed to a statement of opinion ("It is Bob Barr's opinion that 'Bush is a bad president'<cite Bob Barr>"). While there are still limitations to the latter (such as: is the opinion notable, does discussing it give undue weight to a POV, etc.) it is far more acceptable. Blueboar (talk) 20:57, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Your good explanation there could easily be edited in: "it does not involve claims of fact about third parties." Then it would allow (careful) cites to opinions about third parties. --Hordaland (talk) 21:43, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Self-published and questionable sources are not considered on par with reliable sources. If you accept that “Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process” then self-published and questionable sources would fall outside of that scope. They are useful, but not to the point of being used to support contentious material; regardless of whether the point of contention involves themselves, third-parties, statements of fact in general, or anything else that is considered contentious. Brimba (talk) 01:02, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Well? Is it ok to rewrite it so it makes more sense? Richard Blatant (talk) 17:40, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The original reason for this piece of text is so that if somebody makes a contentious claim about themselves (e.g., if I were to self-publish a document claiming I were the best cook in England) then that self-published claim is not an acceptable source. Any rephrasing needs to retain this meaning. JulesH (talk) 21:13, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I've changed it to "the material is not used to make contentious claims about, or contentious representations of, the source." I think this was the intended meaning, but was badly written. The rest needs work too. Richard Blatant (talk) 22:06, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The next problem is this statement "it does not involve claims about third parties." If a politician someone writes an editorial calling another politician a "liar," for example, I don't think the policy intends to forbid it being mentioned that that is his position, but that's what it does if you read it literally. I think it's trying to forbid it from being used as a source for us, the editors, to state in an article that that politician is a liar. So I propose it be reworded as well, to something like, "the material is not used for the article's editorial to make claims about third parties." Richard Blatant (talk) 22:13, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree in principle with your edits, though I think there has to be a simpler way to spell out all of this. Not sure what it is though. I've previously gotten in over my head suggesting whole-sale rewrites of this section, so I'm hesitant now to get involved. But I do support what you're doing. PSWG1920 (talk) 01:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe if we do it one step at a time like this, we can fix it up. I don't understand how a policy so central to Wikipedia can be so unclear and badly written. Richard Blatant (talk) 01:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Next is this: "the material used is relevant to the notability of the subject being discussed." What does this even mean? Can someone explain what is meant by this, so we can reword it to say what is meant in a way that is readily understandable? Richard Blatant (talk) 01:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure on this, but I think that means the material has to relate in a fairly direct manner to what is discussed by independent sources. You couldn't normally introduce a new subtopic to an article without referencing an independent source which touches on it. I'm not certain that's what this restriction refers to, however. PSWG1920 (talk) 01:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 27#What does "relevant to their notability" mean? Brimba (talk) 01:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, now I see. So "notability of the subject being discussed" needs to be replaced with something like "notability of the source in regard to the subject being discussed." Richard Blatant (talk) 01:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The wording of that line has subsequently changed since that discussion, and I'm not sure if Brimba's explanation was entirely accurate anyway. But I definitely second your above statement that "I don't understand how a policy so central to Wikipedia can be so unclear and badly written." Policies should be written so that someone reading them for the first time can pretty much understand. PSWG1920 (talk) 01:55, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. I think I have it. Here is what I've come up with: "the material used is of a nature that the source is notable for writing or speaking about." How's that? Richard Blatant (talk) 02:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Or simpler, "the material used is something which the source is notable for having knowledge of or commenting upon." Richard Blatant (talk) 02:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"the material used is something which the source is notable for having knowledge of or commenting upon." That’s a good ballpark, probably better than the current wording. Brimba (talk) 02:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I was able to refine that even more to "the material used is relevant to a subject in which the source has notability." I think we got it. Those three lines are now pretty understandable. Hopefully they don't reverted. Richard Blatant (talk) 02:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, the last line i see a problem with "the material cited does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject." What is "the subject?" Is it talking about the subject of the article? Richard Blatant (talk) 02:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Is it talking about the subject of the article? Yes, and or the source; theoretically they should be one and the same. Brimba (talk) 03:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that this: “the material is not used to make contentious claims about the source;” should likely be trimmed to “the material is not used to make contentious claims”. At the very least that would avoid coatracking; i.e. so and so believes XYZ to be true. You could introduce contentious material on the grounds that’s its simply what the subject believes to be true; not that it is verifiably true. The “not used to make claims about third parties;” covers a lot of ground, but not everything. What’s left out can still be introduced through a statement of beliefs or some other mechanism. Brimba (talk) 03:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess it's not needed, now that it says "is not used to make." It's clear now that it's talking about an editor using a source to assert a claim is true that a source claims is true about onself. For example, a source could be lying, or be mistaken, about something about himself (something which others have disputed, making it "contentious"). Richard Blatant (talk) 03:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed something that the policy doesn't seem to allow. Let's say if an ex-president writes an op-ed in a newspaper, and happens to say his favorite ice cream is chocolate. It's not relevant to the subject in which he is notable, so therefore it can't be noted in his own article what his favorite ice cream flavor is. That seems a bit strange. Any comments on this? Richard Blatant (talk) 03:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe "Notable" would be a misnomer here, the relevant concept is "significance." Notability is absolute, anyone can be notable if covered by a couple of third-party sources. But whether ones opinion on a subject is significant or not depends on what other opinions and sources there are. I'd suggest requiring a significant opinion with the rules something like the following (improvement would be welcome)

• Nobody is a reliable source on their own notability or significance.
• In subjects where only a few sources have opinions, all opinion-makers are signficant (a source's opinion's significance is relative to the quantity and quality of other opinions and sources on the subject)
• In subjects where a large number of opinion-makers exist, a significant opinion requires one of:
  • A reliable third-party source indicating that the source is an important opinion-maker on the subject, or
  • Coverage by sufficient third-party sourcing relative to other opinion-makers to establish that the opinion-maker is a significant opinion-maker

It's common in articles on politics, religion, etc. for people to quote sources without evidence establishing that their opinions are significant. To permit quoting a source's opinion on a general subject, it needs to be established, as a matter of WP:WEIGHT, that the opinion is significant relative to other sources. I realize this area involves overlap between WP:V and WP:NPOV. However, if rules are to be listed here, I think they should be consistent with WP:NPOV's requirements. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 03:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

“It's not relevant to the subject in which he is notable, so therefore it can't be noted in his own article what his favorite ice cream flavor is. That seems a bit strange.” If no one challenges it, it is not necessary that it be cited. If someone did challenge it, it is more likely due to a lack encyclopedic value not the source. Brimba (talk) 04:05, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

In reply to Shirahadasha, I think the point here is that these only relate to articles in which the subject of the article is used as a source; for example an article about a particular NGO in which material from that NGO is cited within that article. So the context is quite limited. What we are saying is that if you’re notable as a chest player, the finite details of your political views are not relevant to your article. Brimba (talk) 04:31, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Reverted to Brimba's August 10 version; the changes made in the last few days introduced redundant text to every line, and introduced a lot of weasly-ness to long-standing and important policy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:43, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Just to pick one example, this was a particularly interesting weasle:

• # the material cited is about something that the source is notable for having an opinion on;

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:45, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Sandy beat me to it. The line “the material cited is about something that the source is notable for having an opinion on” if retained failed to distinguish between cranks and establish experts. Well intended, but flawed. Brimba (talk) 13:51, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

From WP:SPS

"the material used is relevant to a subject in which the source has notability;" What?!! Can this be made clear. --neon white talk 21:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You should have seen it before I reworded it to that. It was incoherent. I think it's pretty clear now. I had to work within the constraints of using the word "notability," because that was in the original wording, and I guess it's supposed to stay in there. I' not really sure though. Do you have a clearer way to say it? If you can't, I'll think about it and see if I can make it clearer still. Richard Blatant (talk) 01:40, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

How about this: "as long as what is being cited is about something that the source is notable for having an opinion on." ? Richard Blatant (talk) 02:02, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Ack... This just gets worse and worse... please put it back as it originally was... at least most people understood that. Blueboar (talk) 02:57, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

This is what it originally was: "the material used is relevant to the notability of the subject being discussed." Try to figure that one out. Richard Blatant (talk) 03:04, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

If a person is notable for being an actor, a book or website by the actor about religion is not relevant to his notability as an actor. It should not be used as a source in the article about the actor. (While it can be mentioned that he wrote the book, as essentially a point of trivia, his views on religion have nothing to do with his notability.) Blueboar (talk) 12:58, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Interpretations of WP:PROVEIT

Well, in the last few days, Fasach Nua (talk · contribs) has been removing information from articles about national football teams (example), citing WP:PROVEIT as reason. Naturally people reverted it and he reverted them and so on, we all know how it works.
I think he interprets WP:PROVEIT the way that every article needs to have the sources directly in the article, even if it's just a list pointing to other articles.
Others, like myself, think it is enough for WP:PROVEIT that the articles that are linked to provide the sources in question. But as I completely accept that he might be right, I wanted to get some input here, how to deal with this situation. I stopped reverting him but I doubt others will and I'd like to see the situation cleared up before people start really edit warring.
So please, tell me which interpretation of WP:PROVEIT you think to be correct or if removing information like in aforementioned example can be done citing it. Please forgive me, if I posted this at the wrong place. SoWhy ^{review me!} 08:14, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

What you are dealing with is the difference between "verifiable" and "verified". From what you tell us, the information is easily verifiable. It thus meets our minimum requirements. The next question is... does information need to be verified in every article that discusses it? My feeling is that every article should be able to stand on its own... thus it should provide it's own sources. So Fasach Nua has a point.

However, both Fasach Nua and those reverting him/her are taking the wrong approach to fixing the problem. Since the information is apparently able to be sourced (and, if I understand you correctly, actually is sourced in another article), the proper way to resolve the issue is not to remove the information, but to source it. Blueboar (talk) 13:35, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The Apple of Discord are lists of notable players, which have been included in those articles for years. Those defending them think (that's my interpretation) that the articles about the players usually source the notability already and thus more sources in the list are unnecessary and would just move information around. Fasach Nua thinks that sources for notability of people have to be in the list, as far as I can tell. He has so far refused to discuss it with the corresponding WikiProject WP:FOOTY and as you can see from his talk page, people have warned him for vandalism for those removals. But I do not want to talk about this editor because while he could technically be blocked, it would not serve a purpose. I want input on how to handle these sections and if WP:PROVEIT is a reasonable justification to remove them. Regards SoWhy ^{review me!} 13:47, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah.. thanks for clarifying. Yes, it would be overkill to source the notability of each player in an article about the team. WP:PROVEIT is not justification for removal. Blueboar (talk) 14:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:SELFPUB tag

Changing the WP:SELFPUB tag may seem to create immediate logical consistency, however it has disrupted all the previous links to the specific policy, now known as WP:SELFQUEST. I suggest restoring the previous WP:SELFPUB and also implementing the WP:SELFQUEST. Point taken but the redirect isn't helpful. Zulu Papa 5 (talk) 18:11, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

When you go to the "Self-published sources" section, under which "Self-published and questionable" should actually be a subheader, "Self-published and questionable" is clearly visible. Forcing people to read through the entire policy on self-published sources, or flick their eyes down to the self-published and questionable section, is not the end of the world. It should be immediately apparent to the person following the link which section is relevant, should it not? I noted here that a lot of people were being redirected to "Self-published and questionable sources" when, in fact, they should have been redirected to "Self-published sources". This was creating unnecessary confusion. II | (t - c) 18:36, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why it is necessary to "force" people here to make your point (see WP:POINT). Leaving the tag where it is, and creating a tag that is specific seems like a reasonable solution to create logical consistency. Otherwise, I see it as a disruptive change to move WP:SELFPUB. Zulu Papa 5 (talk)

Did you read the wikilink to the archives? I'm not forcing people to see my point. I'm trying to reduce the confusion around here. When a newbie comes onto Wikipedia and hears about "self-published sources", and finds out about shortcuts, they're likely to hit WP:SELFPUB. Then, there's a decent chance they won't scroll up and see the actual self-published policy. Plus, the simplest shortcut to "self-published sources" would seemingly be SELFPUB. Unfortunately, it doesn't go to the self-published sources section. So even veterans will be accidentally redirecting people to the wrong section.

This is a not a point issue on my part. Your bad faith assumptions and lack of engaging arguments leave you with, unfortunately, no point. There is no logical consistency with redirecting the WP:SELFPUB shortcut to a subsection on the self-published sources policy. How could there be? You're redirecting the main SELFPUB shortcut to a subsection on the self-published policy. II | (t - c) 19:36, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but it's a disruptive change, the logic being not to cause a disruption. It appeared like a force to me. Some folks may have incorrectly referenced it, but it's safe to assume most have not. The change will disrupt the many refs to benefit the few. I see no greater benefit to address the lowest common denominator by moving the tag. Zulu Papa 5 (talk) 20:05, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Is there really a problem with those existing links directing people to the main policy on self-published sources rather than the subsection? You need to point out how that is a problem. II | (t - c) 20:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

However this dispute comes out, could someone please re-edit Wikipedia:SELFPUB to make it redirect to whatever WP:V section ends up having the policy shortcut WP:SELFPUB associated with it or, alternatively, re-edit WP:V to move the policy shortcut WP:SELFPUB to associate it with the section targeted by the redirect? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:31, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with II's comment here... I don't think the various subsection need their own shortcut tags. This seems to be a case of micro-management... almost a form of instruction creep. Blueboar (talk) 13:13, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

This page currently has 14 listed shortcuts: WP:V, WP:VERIFY, WP:SOURCE, WP:BURDEN, WP:PROVEIT, WP:SOURCES, WP:QS, WP:SPS, WP:SELFQUEST, WP:SELFPUB, WP:RSUE, WP:VUE, WP:NONENG, WP:REDFLAG. Its easy to reach an agreement that 14 is too many, and we could maybe all agree in principle that 7 is a good number to shoot for; we could even cite The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two as a semi-logical reason for doing so. The problems arise when you attempt to actually eliminate a particular shortcut. There is always someone who will object. In May this page had 25 shortcuts listed; by the end of June that had been pared down to 10, and now we are back up to 14.

IMO, if the shortcut has been fewer then 500 times its not in common usage; that would be 6 of the 14. Further any shortcut that violates the WP:SHORT section on readability, should be a potential candidate for delisting. If you take those two qualifiers together you come up with at a minimum 4 shortcuts that could be removed. Of course that’s my system, and everyone has their own way of doing things.

“Self-published and questionable sources about themselves” is NOT a subsection of “Self-published sources” any more or less than it’s a subsection of “Questionable sources”, all three are subsections of “Sources”. Having said that, I would not object to delisting all shortcuts associated with “Questionable sources”, and all shortcuts associated with “Self-published and questionable sources about themselves” and leave only one shortcut listed for “Self-published sources”. I think this would function as well as the current system, and have the advantage of editors only being expected to recognize one shortcut, not four. Do I think that will happen, not likely, but I would support it. Brimba (talk) 16:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I have a question that may relate.... can anyone think of an example of a "questionable" source that would not also qualify as being self-published? If not, then perhaps we can simplify things by saying that questionable sources are essentially a sub-set of self-published. Blueboar (talk) 17:15, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

There's no categorical way to identify questionable sources, but I'm sure that some non-self-published ones count. Personally I consider Fox News a questionable source. They've done a terrible job of fact-checking too many times for it not to be chalked down against them. That's now what the policy has in mind, I suppose, and honestly CNN is probably not all that much better. I can't really think of any others at the moment. II | (t - c) 19:02, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Brimba, stating that SPQS is "NOT a subsection of 'self-published sources'" is easy. Arguing the point is more difficult. Logically, I suppose you may be right; there may be a few sources which are not self-published but are questionable, and thus technically "SPS" is a not a superset of SPQS. I like your suggested changes. I think we could possibly merge the QS section into the SPQS section at the top and remove the shortcut. It appears that jumping to SPS, after that, would still leave the full SPQS guideline clearly visible from the SPS section. I still want SELFPUB to be attached to SPS, because that is the most recognizable shortcut, and people who go are redirected to the below section will be confused. I've witnessed two groups of people confused in the past couple weeks. Incidentally, I don't understand why you're so set on getting rid of shortcuts. More doesn't bother me much; with more, there's a better chance of one sticking. I think one easily recognizable one, and one shorter one, should be the way to go. SPS/SELFPUB, SPQS SELFQUEST, ect. II | (t - c) 19:02, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

One reason to limit the short cuts is that in many cases, policy statements need to be read in context to fully understand what they are saying and how they should be applied. Short-cutting to a particular sub-section (often little more than a paragraph) of a larger discussion can result in editors missing the context of what is being discussed. They focus on the narrow "legalisms" of our policy and guidelines and miss the broader principals. Blueboar (talk) 19:47, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I certainly agree. I was actually referring more to Brimba's push to have only 1 shortcut per section. The reason I want to move SELFPUB to the SPS section is that people do miss the context and instead are redirected to a terse list. II | (t - c) 19:53, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip too look at Wikipedia:SHORT#Changing_shortcuts. This discussion seem to be going off topic from the original WP:SELFPUB tag change. The policy indicates it would be a disruption to change. Zulu Papa 5 (talk) 18:00, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be possible to merge Questionable sources into Self-published sources. It would be best though to give things a few days to cool down, and when everyone has relaxed a little, come back and sort things out. We need to use the talk page rather than making live edits that have not been discussed before hand. There is a time to be bold, but that has now come and gone on this subject.

Concerning one short cut versus two or more: anything that improves usability is an improvement. The difference between one shortcut and two, when multiplied by every policy page and every guideline is the difference of maybe 100 vs 200 short cuts that everyone is expected to at least have a clue as to what they mean (I am not sure of the number, but its rather high). I think I have enough things in my life already with worrying about what WP:VUE refers to, or WP:NPF, or WP:BLP1E. And it goes beyond simply information overload; we do not need our best intentions to inadvertently create a “high-priest class” of semi-professional editors who understand the lingo and how things work, while the casual editors get sidelined.

SELFPUB; The guidelines would seem to indicate that any change in where it points should be worked out at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion as its obviously controversial. Brimba (talk) 04:45, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, you make a good point about shortcuts. I'll try to get around to listing SELFPUB at redirects for discussion. Also, just a note -- I'm not saying merge SPS and QS, but rather SELFQUEST and QS. I do think a quick shorthand should be complemented with a more readable version -- ie SPS/SELFPUB, SPQS/SELFQUEST, ect. The more readable ones tend to be used much more often, ie you see people using SELFPUB way more often than SPS. What do you think? II | (t - c) 05:16, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

If a merge where to take place, I would merge “Questionable sources” into “Self-published sources”, as both lay out the general principals, and are already somewhat interwoven already, while “Self-published and questionable sources about themselves” covers the details of how to implement those two policies. As far as shortcuts, weather it’s a 3 letter acronym, or a more readable shortcut, I would prefer a single shortcut to any other option. A well thought out readable shortcut is best, something where if you see it standing there by itself, you inherently understand where it will lead. Those unfortunately are few and far between. As this and other policy statement have reached a certain level of maturity, whatever has gained the most traction (been the most widely used) will suffice. Brimba (talk) 01:45, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

The WP:SELFPUB is a cross ref from Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Using_the_subject_as_a_self-published_source As is now the recently proposed changes are not matching. Further merging could be disruptive. What's great about the WP:SELFPUB list now, is it provides a listed guideline to apply. Why folks are having trouble as to the difference in who published the material (ie. between WP:SPS and WP:SELFPUB really seems to be an issue with the tag name (hence the addition of WP:SELFQUEST and editors not being specific in the application as to who published. Merging will mix up the cross refs toWikipedia:BLP#Sources Zulu Papa 5 (talk) 21:00, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Extreme interpretations of WP:PROVEIT and WP:V - standard practice or rampant deletionism?

I have observed an exchange between two users (and myself) , User talk:Madman2001 and User talk:Hrafn. Apparently Hrafn deletes the main body of articles because they have been tagged as containing unsourced statements for two-three months. When the content is restored Hrafn cites WP:PROVEIT. What worries me that he does not adress any of the facts tagged with missing sources in the article and indeed it is uncertain whether s/he reads the articles or know anything about the topic - since s/he doesn't contribute any evaluation of the claims verifiability but seems to automatically delete paragraphs with an unsourced tag. As far as my understanding of policy goes this is a fairly extreme interpretation of the rules, and an interpretation that I believe will lead to the demise of wikipedia if it is carried to its extreme. In the past, the sourcing question was much less strict and many articles that were not obviously erroneous could be allowed to stand without sources, untill such a time that specific facts in them were challenged. In my early days on wikipedia I wrote many articles only citing sources for claims that I knew were likely to be challenged. My question then is whether it is a community decision to now strictly delete any unsourced claims in wikipedia? Or whether such an interpretation would be too extreme? ·Maunus·ƛ· 15:12, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

It looks like Hrafn is looking through lots of BLP articles with real issues, and happened to run into Wallace Wattles at the same time. Manus, you're right that, in general, unsourced material should only be removed from articles if there is a specific reason to challenge it - not simply because it is not explicitly sourced. But when I looked through Hrafn's recent edits, the vast majority of his removals (on other biography articles) are perfectly reasonable. For the Wallace Wattles article, perhaps there is a published biography (I assume there is one) that can be used to source the bulk of the information. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:48, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I did a small internet survey and most of the info comes from a letter which appears in many places on the internet but never with a specific source and never on what I would call a reliable site. Either the letter is published somewhere or the info about wattle is an elaborate internet myth. ·Maunus·ƛ· 15:57, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Since the letter itself would be a valid primary source, you can still cite it, provided that you also say where you got a copy of the letter from. Just take care to treat the letter very carefully, as a primary source. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:05, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Standards have indeed tightened since the early days of Wikipedia... especially when it comes to BLPs. That said, I do agree that Hrafn should have at least left a message on the article talk page, so that other editors know what the problem is. Blueboar (talk) 16:10, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

As an FYI, this is a biography of a long-dead person (BLDP?). In any case, Hrafn has now begun fixing the article as have I. The letter is now properly cited as well. Thanks, all. Madman (talk) 15:22, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

<unindent>This "fixing the article" has involved elimination of a large amount of cruft that was explicitly attributed to the letter, but which proved (once a copy of the letter was found) not to be mentioned in it. I think this proves the danger of allowing unverifiable information to remain, unchallenged, in an article. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 17:01, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

If the article was incorrect about what the letter said, adding a reference to the letter to the bottom of the article would hardly have helped. So the issue wasn't verifiability of lack thereof, it was just that someone did a bad job writing the article originally. Sourcing will never be able to cure that sort of problem. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:55, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

The trouble being that, lacking a source for verification, you can't tell a 'good job writing' from a 'bad' (at least in terms of accuracy). Sourcing at least allows the ability to differentiate, and thus the possibility for correction. Sourcing doesn't provide the "cure", but at least it provides a basis for diagnosis. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:12, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

When I looked through the removed material a couple days ago, it looked to me like most of it was sourced to the letter. I take it that, after you guys looked at the letter, you realized the claims weren't correct. I'm glad the article was fixed.

What I don't understand is: suppose that the person who wrote the bad text in the article had also listed the letter at the bottom of the article as a reference. How would that have made it easier to diagnose the problems without actually looking at letter? Especially with a letter, I wouldn't expect anyone to use page numbers in citations, I would only expect information about where the letter was published. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:17, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the "without actually looking at letter" part makes this the wrong question. When Maunus·ƛ mentioned here that the actual letter was available online (even if unreliably sourced), it was my first intimation that the actual text of the letter itself was available for verification (as opposed to it being in some half-forgotten hardcopy archive, and/or having been simply referred to second or third hand), this gave me reason to track it down which in turn allowed me to find a reliable source. Knowing where to look is the vital first step in verification. Failing that you're left with three unpalatable options, either: (i) hope that you luck out and find RS information that just happens to directly confirm or contradict the information (the needle in the haystack approach), (ii) prove that the information doesn't exist anywhere (which is an impossibility), or (iii) remove the information as unverifiable (not unreasonable -- if the source is not formally cited, there is a reasonable chance that this is because it is not immediately to hand, which in turn means that there is a reasonable chance that either the the contents of the information, or where it came from, is misremembered). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 19:24, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

But just putting the letter in the references section at the bottom in the references section would have been enough of a "formal citation" for WP:V (footnotes aren't required in any way). In that case, it would have been less feasible to remove the information as "unsourced". — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:39, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

It would, and I strongly disapprove of simply dumping a large number of (often inaccessible) sources into a 'Reference' section without any specifics (not uncommonly, long after the material was written) -- as this makes verification virtually impossible. However, in this case, we had a considerable amount of information attributed to the letter, but not formally sourced to it -- so knowledge that the full text of this letter had been published was a sufficient starting point to allow verification (admittedly with some work). I think what I am arguing for is some form of 'feasible verifiability' as a minimum standard. Lack of specifics (e.g. no referenced sources, large number of referenced sources with little or no indication which material came from which source, voluminous sources without page numbering, material that is vague and/or can easily be rephrased in a large number of ways so that it lacks obvious key-phrases to search for, etc) quickly renders verification infeasible. Where this occurs, I don't think it is unreasonable to demand that the author/defender of the material raise the specificity of sourcing to a level that verification does become feasible in order for the material to be retained. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:51, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Query about self-published sources

A very notable author (has a Wikipedia article) publishes a blog. On the author's blog, the author reviews a book. The book isn't very well-known, and while there is enough on it for a Wikipedia article, it's not a great article, and could use some more information. Is it appropriate to say in the book's article that "Author X reviewed Book in her blog, and called it 'fascinating reading'", giving the blog as a reference? Is this a violation of WP:SELFPUB, or is a self published source okay when giving the views of the (notable) self-publisher? Thanks. Neıl ☄ 12:15, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

SELFPUB is quite clear about it: Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. So, the question is: Has this author been published in reputable sources on the relevant field, or not? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:07, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Meh. As I point out there, is literary criticism a relevant field to evaluating "interestingness" or not? Personally, I think litcrit is not relevant to anything, but tragically most of the rest of the world disagrees with me, so I think Jossi's criterion is met. --Relata refero (disp.) 06:36, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Jossi, although I agree with Relata about the irrelevance of the statement made by the literary critic, it should be noted that the source is not being used to verify the fact of interestingness, only the attributed opinion of the self-publisher. The guideline you cite relates to using a self-published source in the same manner as a source that is not self-published. That is not how this is being used. The self published source is not being used to verify a statement of fact about a third party or event, but about the self published party themselves. I've made this point on RS/N as well, and perhaps to some it sounds nitpicky and to others like some kind of sophistry, but its really not. It simply seeks to uphold the essential aspect of what we are claiming, and what sources are appropriate to verify the claims we make--the only claim we are making is that this author holds said opinion (which may be utterly irrelevant and down right fluffy, and removable on several other grounds, but I just don't see the reliability and verifiability issue here). Regards.PelleSmith (talk) 12:40, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

"Reliable" self-published sources

User:Cazort made an edit that, I think, made a legitimate albeit minor point. A tiny number of sources that can reasonably be termed self-published are actually well-regarded in their field. This is an unusual-enough case that I felt that a full paragraph was unwarranted, and reduced it to a sentence that I hope meets with approbation. If reliable sources cite a source as authoritative, then Wikipedia shouldn't argue with that determination.

The few instances I can think of involve researchers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from wealthy families, whose works of genuine scholarship were published by respectable institutions that had been heavily endowed by their families. It would be reasonable to ask whether such works should be treated as self-published. It would also be reasonable to cite them as reliable sources, subject to the usual concerns about century-old works. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

This misses part of Cazort's point (which may be strictly redundant with the rest of the paragraph, but is probably worth saying): A source should be trusted in those fields for which it is cited by reliable sources. For example, there is a professional expert on bin Laden, quite properly cited for that subject by works on the Middle East, who also says that "Israel is a theocracy" and that Protestantism is the only religion compatible with the Constitution of the United States - and that the Founding Fathers agreed on that. He is a reliable source on one, and not on the other. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:40, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Best sources

The wording

In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers.

is being used to argue, as here, that newspapers are equally as reliable as academic books. I do not believe that this is the intent, and have inserted a stop-gap in this sentence to the effect that newspapers are most reliable where there aren't journals and books. The following sentence:

As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is.

made clear, even without this edit, that the more checking is done on the source, the more reliable it is, but editors tend to quote sentences in isolation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:01, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I have made this into

In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; then, university-level textbooks; then, magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; mainstream newspapers are frequently the most reliable sources on subjects which have not been treated in journals and books. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is.

This is in no sense intended as a change in policy, but a clarification of what has always been policy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:11, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Your edits would directly contradict NPOV. “All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources.” I would completely disagree with the statement “clarification of what has always been policy.” That is not policy. Preference has been given to the academic view within scientific, historical, social sciences, etc. We do not however rule out the use of other reliable sources once a peer-reviewed source exists; nor do once reliable sources become unreliable in the light of an academic source or peer-reviewed source. We use the best sources, and if they differ, we give both sides, we don’t automatically default to either side. Brimba (talk) 04:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

• Precisely. We use the best sources. We do not rate all probably reliable sources equally. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:34, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Brimba, just because one source is "more reliable" doesn't mean we use it, then exclude all "less reliable" sources. Creating a set hierarchy isn't a good idea. Magazines and newspapers with new issues published daily or weekly may be much more up to date than a textbook where new editions may only be released annually. Mr.Z-man 04:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

This change is in reference to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Cold War. Lets say the term comes into common usage. How long would it take the academic community to officially verify that? How far behind the times would WP be if we waited for their blessings? How long did it take them to catch up with “dot.com” and other now accepted terms? If multiple newspapers make use of a term, we should have an article on it, we should not have to wait for word to come down from on high that it is now acceptable. Brimba (talk) 04:45, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Straw man, unrelated, current wording doesn't preclude that scenario. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:32, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Brimba, please explain this edit summary; it's not new wording. It's been here for ages, and the tweak PMA made to the wording was minor and didn't change the meaning. Can you explain what you're talking about with "new wording"? This is long-standing consensus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:29, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I also disagree with an express, universally-applicable hierarchy of reliability written into policy. We shouldn't attempt to write a one-size-fits-all judgment into policy in situations where common sense and good judgment will frequently be needed and where the judgment will often be out of place. I believe that there is a real danger, particularly on subjects which essentially involve opinions, values, etc., that the result will be to privelege university professors' opinions over other people's opinions. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 16:30, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

• This paragraph deals with the most reliable sources. We do not rule out other sources; neither do we give them equal weight - unless there is some unusual reason to do so. The second sentence quoted, which I did not in any way alter, already says that; is there anyone here who thinks we should give a daily newspaper article equal weight with a peer-reviewed article? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:23, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
• Please note that the paragraph also says in general. I will strengthen that to include a reminder that special cases do arise. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:25, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
• In brief, these objections seem very strange, since I agree with the positions being held (short of overruling WP:FRINGE) and, on considering the proposed text, I cannot see that it contravenes them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:30, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

When writing policy we should be on guard for anything that would intentionally or unintentionally allow for the censorship of information. The main problem with the recent changes is that they lend themselves to the censorship of information, specifically from non-academic sources. WP:V has a list that gives a very good overview as to what is widely considered reliable, that until these changes gave a clear preference to “peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses” but not at the expense of other sources that also are widely viewed as being reliable. Introducing a hierarchy means explicitly that once an academic source exits, it trumps all else; I don’t see how else it can be read. NPOV says “(we represent) fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources.” This means that not only are we free to present views beyond those of the academic community, when they differ from the academic we are actually expected to present both, or in the case of multiple views, all. If we are using "reliable" as a threshold for what is allowable to use, then nearly all mainstream newspapers are clearly reliable sources and it clouds the issue to say otherwise.

Policy should not be written in manner that it either trumps sound editorial judgment, or would lead someone acting in a good faith to conclude that it does. Brimba (talk) 02:51, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

You are completely and utterly wrong. By definition, WP:V and WP:UNDUE "censor" information, the way you are attempting to misuse that word. Academic sources do indeed, by and large, trump other sources. If the "wider world" differs from peer-reviewed academic work, the "wider world" is probably wrong. See Evolution. --Relata refero (disp.) 06:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

And representing positions "fairly" means, among other things, giving the published, reviewed work of qualified professional researchers (within their field, of course) more weight than those of the general media. The professional has the time, resources and training to do a thorough job and the peer-reviewers take a through look at the methodology, data and conclusions. The reporter has less of all three and editors don't review at that level of intensity. Robert A.West (Talk) 17:28, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. Did Brimba read the version he reverted? editors should be careful not to exclude a point of view merely because it lacks academic credentials. was included specifically to prevent this being used for censorship; some might think it goes too far. (I have tweaked to further avoid any assertion that mainstream newspapers are unreliable - rather than not as much.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:35, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the key is that because newspapers are based on a fast pace of reporting, sometimes at the expense of rigor and fact-checking, the possibility of error, especially minor errors, in even the most rigorous of mainstream newspapers can be quite high. I'm a little worried that the current wording (Aug. 24, 2008) would give some people the impression that mainstream newspapers are reliable. Since a few paragraphs are dedicated to self-published sources, I think it might be prudent to at least add a sentence outlining the ways in which mainstream newspapers tend to be less reliable than the earlier mentioned source types. Also, what about fringe newspapers, local newspapers, etc.? Where do they fall on the reliability scale? Cazort (talk) 22:03, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Did you mean, "Give some people the impression that mainstream newspapers are unreliable?" Making this more detailed strikes me as the proper function of WP:RS. The case-by-case nature of deciding which source is more reliable for which statement is more appropriate to guideline than policy. My opinion, of course. Robert A.West (Talk) 22:33, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course I read it. I don’t see it a being helpful as it reinforces the tone of the proceeding edits. At best its window dressing, at worst it reinforce the one size fits all mentality of academic is good, mainstream media is questionable until proven otherwise (by an academic source).

Wikipedia has a very bold vision statement:

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment.

That’s where we should be headed. Knowledge is knowledge, where the knowledge comes from is irrelevant. Anointing one source of knowledge as being superior to another source of knowledge is stupid on multiple levels. It also supposes that the anointed source of knowledge (be it academic, religious, mainstream, whatever) is benevolent enough to share the stage with other sources once it is anointed and others are categorized to a lesser statues. Once we have an anointed source, the supporters of that source are unlikely to be generous enough to allow a lot of competition. Hand them the keys to the city and being human beings, they are far more likely to seek purity, and then to define purity in ever narrower terms. Purity is the death knoll of Wikipedia. Wikipedia can survive a lot of things, but it can not survive a self-defeating behavior of that scale. It can not survive human pride. It can not survive a transition from allowing the free flow of information and knowledge to giving a preference to one source of information and knowledge over another. What serves Wikipedia well is having reliable sources, having an imposed hierarchy is counter productive, because whoever is on the top will place greater importance upon protecting their special status then they will place upon the importance of improving Wikipedia. Improving Wikipedia will simply equate with the elimination of impure or questionable alternatives, meaning anything that does not originate from the anointed source. You can not have an anointed source and have Wikipedia survive long term. The edits made here, regardless of the intent, are a clear step towards anointing academic sources. We need reliable sources; if a source is reliable Wikipedia needs it and is ill served by propping up one reliable source over another. Brimba (talk) 02:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow! What an incredible misunderstanding of a noble sentiment! Sharing in the sum of knowledge presupposes the existence of knowledge, which is distinct from falsehood and error. A reporter is good at discovering and explicating certain types of knowledge. A physicist is good at other types, and an historian at still other types. All are "reliable sources" within the Wikipedian meaning of that term -- a meaning developed to meet Wikipedia's particular needs. Do you actually propose that we throw away all common sense and accept each as equally valuable on all topics? Whether you mean it or no, that is the plain import of your words, and that way lies not knowledge, but ignorance. Robert A.West (Talk) 03:30, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it would make Wikipedia a literally indiscriminate collection of information; which it is not. We are expected to discriminate; occasionally we will prefer newspaper accounts to crank papers in obscure journals. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:56, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

there is a difference between "sum of information" and "sum of knowledge." Not all information contributes to knowledge. I prefer the formulation that we provide a filter on the internet and other sources, to yield something that can be used as a better starting point to provide knowledge.17:18, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Is an unpublished Festschrift a verifiable source?

A Festschrift ("a book honouring a respected academic and presented during his or her lifetime") is almost certainly scholarly and thus a WP:RS. But if it is unpublished, it is likely to be almost completely inaccessible, with only a few copies produced. This inaccessibility makes verifiability almost impossible. What level of accessibility is necessary for a source to be verifiable? This question would be fairly rare for secondary sources, but quite common for primary sources (which quite frequently are unpublished and exist only as a single copy in a single archive). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:58, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

It also is likely to mean that the Festschift was never professionally edited, and any slips of the pen remain. (What article, and what point, are you concerned with, btw? If it is the existence of the Festschrift, a library catalog entry might well be enough.)

The article is Irving Hexham, and the Festschrift is the main source cited for it. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:07, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Primary sources almost always require interpretation; we call that Original Research and Synthesis. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:32, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Not everything written by a scholar is scholarly. Festschriften are effectually self-published (by the group honoring), are not peer-reviewed and tend to be biassed in favor of the subject. See the limitations on the use of self-published sources. Robert A.West (Talk) 17:56, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

In that case, the contents of the Festschrift (as opposed to its simple existence) could not be used in an article about the honoree (who by definition, is not its author). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:07, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion a festschritf and its contents are a reliable source at least if it has a isbn number and is proffesionally published. They are not self-published since they tend to be published secretly from the person honored - and the reviewing process is a kind of peer review although not a formal one (contributors and fs-editors tend to be peers of the festschriftee). ·Maunus·ƛ· 22:57, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

How does keeping it a secret from the honoree make it not a self publication of the contributors. What you describe as a type of peer review isn't one at all: the entire project is a beneficent conspiracy, not a dispassionate piece of scholarship. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

The book in question is not unpublished, and not self-published. The editors are two academics at Humboldt University of Berlin. It is clearly a reliable source for what it treats, and is a reliable source for details of Hexham's life. Festschriften published by serious publishers are very strong evidence of notability of an academic, as his university's website says, it is a rare honor accorded to an academic.[1] The one in question likely shows up as available in only a few libraries because it was very recently published, apparently 3 months ago. John Z (talk) 03:44, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

If it is "not unpublished, and not self-published" (the latter by those honouring the recipient, not by the recipient himself) then what is its ISBN number? What bookstores is it available from and what libraries is it in? My original contention in raising this issue was not that it was unreliable, but that it might be sufficiently inaccessible as to be unverifiable. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 06:17, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

It is available from the publisher, Franz Steiner Verlag here. The ISBN-13 is 978-3-515-09145-9. There were some libraries listed on the article talk page. Usually if someone can find one accessible copy that is enough; there was such a case of a genuinely rare book on esoterica of some new religion that came up at RS/N recently. Regards,John Z (talk) 07:21, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I think an important question to ask here is: What is being sourced to the Festschrift? I would certainly think that is would be reliable for basic facts about the honoree (such as biographical info). I would be much less certain if it were being used to support something more complex. Blueboar (talk) 13:10, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

So the book has actually been published by a reputable academic publisher and is generally avaliable for purchase. In that case it meets our criteria for a reliable source, so can be used like any other source. The proper use and finding other sources seems to be for the article's talk page, not here. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'd sometimes be a little hesitant in some respects. This class of work is not characteristically known for publishing strong critical comment against the views of the person being honored, nor for emphasisng material that might tend to show a limited influence, nor are all the possibly embarrassing biographic details always included. But that of course is rtue at times for other academic works as well. And for the history of much of the academic world, they are the best available sources. DGG (talk) 06:28, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Just a comment, without talking about the article that was brought up as an example: In Germany, Festschriften are used to honour people, true. Those published in the field of legal study though, as I have experienced myself, are not biased towards the person receiving it but he or she rather serves as a muse for the writers, i.e. they will write about a topic that he/she has worked on for many years and for which he/she is known for. The text itself will only represent the writer's viewpoint though and not the one of the person honoured. It's still a scientific legal essay as it would have been if it was published in a magazine or book. As for being unpublished, I think if it's avaibable in specific libraries it can be treated as a reliable source. Like a dissertation for example, which are not published in most cases but are readily available in university libraries (at least in my university they are). SoWhy 07:50, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

BURDEN - Once met, should burden be on deleter?

I've seen material cited to peer review journal articles deleted in it's entiriety because of POV disputes. Shouldn't policy provide that once the citation is given, the burden is on those objecting to the material to demonstrate that it is wrong or inaccurate? (The current paragraph suggesting more explanation and evidence is great, but many just ignore it and delete.)

Moreover, if there is an inaccuracy or dispute about what a source really says about a topic, policy, or at least guidelines, should suggest that to avoid edit warring the solution is not to delete the cited material but to correct or clarify any inaccuracies by expanding the discussed source. This would help to prevent "censorship by dispute" approach used by some editors who appear to be on guard against sources which disagree with their POV.

I'd suggest something along the lines of the following (first paragraph is as is, to show flow) with my suggeted paragraph italicized:

Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them sufficient time to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider tagging a sentence by adding the fact template, a section with {{unreferencedsection}}, or the article with {{refimprove}} or {{unreferenced}}. Alternatively, you may leave a note on the talk page requesting a source, or you may move the material to the talk page.

Once the burden of producing the reliable source has been provided, the burden of proving that the source does not exist or does not support the content falls on the editor wishing to delete the content. If the content is supported by the source, but other editors believe the content is misrepresentative of other material also provided in ths source, the solution is to add clarifying information from the source rather than deleting the source or content. Respect for the sources and content provided by others, even if it must be edited or clarified, avoids edit warring and encourages inclusion of more comprehensive content.

Okay, it may be a bit too long, but this is just a draft to start the discussion.SaraNoon (talk) 21:07, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

This has almost nothing to do with verifiability. The vast majority of such removals are based on what is inappropriate for Wikipedia, undue weight and tying together sources inappropriately. Your proposed additions would serve to hamstring those policies. Vassyana (talk) 23:28, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

What sort of "clarifying information" would be added? While adding more content from a disputed source to clarify things if the verifiability is the only thing in question would be okay (as long as it doesn't misrepresent the source even more), doing that in a POV dispute is likely to make things worse, not better. The solution is to come to an agreement on whether or not the source is being used improperly, not going out of the way to retain a source that may not be acceptable. Mr.Z-man 23:35, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I can see both points of this issue. The "proving that the source does not exist" is definitely a problem as how do you prove a negative? How would you prove an editor has had the same idea Michael Crichton had for Andromeda Strain and generated a non-existent reference or worse generated a whole slew of them especially if they involve publication for which finding anything (like an index of articles) is hard? On the other matter using full direct quotes should not be an issue unless the editor is trying to force a view on the article not supported by the direct quote. Now if the author can show that the quote has been taken out of context and doesn't say what it appears to say then that would be a good challenge.--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

New rule needed

As I explained here we need a rule that allows for unsourced arguments/derivations. I suggested this formulation:

• Detailed arguments/derivations don't have to be sourced if included to make statements verifiable. In that case they are not included as encyclopedic content whose veracity should be verifiable to non-experts who are not able to understand the derivation/argumentation.

Count Iblis (talk) 13:50, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I think this issue is more appropriate to Wikipedia:No original research than to here, but I see no need to change. An original sketch-proof of a generally-accepted theorem would probably be accepted under current policy as a tool to explain the concept to non-specialists who cannot be expected to follow the rigorous argument, provided that the theorem is verifiable. An original rigorous proof would, IMO, step over the line into original research, since new proofs often bring new insights. An original proof of an original theorem would vault over the line. The dicussion at Wikipedia:These are not original research may be helpful. Robert A.West (Talk) 14:04, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I read at Wikipedia:These are not original research that:

Any simple mathematical calculation that reasonably educated readers can be expected to quickly and easily reproduce. For example, if given the population and the size of a specific area, then the population density of that area may be included. More complex calculations (for instance, those involving statistics, advanced algebra, or complex calculus) should not be included, because they require skills that common educated readers do not possess, or involve a large number of steps that may not be obvious, making it difficult to detect errors.

Which is exactly what we don't want. Because you do need a lot of algebra and calculus to explain science and this cannot be directly sourced, because you need to adapt your explanations so that it fits in the way the wiki article explains things. And such explanations are really needed, as I pointed out here.

Anyway, I'll move this discussion to Wikipedia:These are not original research Count Iblis (talk) 15:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

OIC. I don't know how much traffic the essay page gets -- you might want to cross-post to WT:NOR as well. Robert A.West (Talk) 21:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

College Newspapers

Is there any sort of consensus as to whether college newspapers are reliable thirdy party sources? I'm specifically looking at online papers hosted by "College Publisher network". Beside the banner at the top labeling as belonging to said network they seem to be more or less self-published and several of these have been used as sources to backup opinions on music related articles.

http://cpsite.collegepublisher.com/thecpnetwork/index.cfm

S. Luke 20:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

• I have always regarded student newspapers as reliable sources. They have the same editing and fact-checking practices as commercial newspapers. Besides, some student newspapers are more than 100 years old. --Eastmain (talk) 17:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I would say collegiate newspapers are reliable for reporting on facts... but am not sure if they are reliable for opinions. When it comes to statements of opinion, the forum (TV programe, newspaper, blog) is not really what we should be basing reliability on, but rather the reputation and expertize of the person giving the opinion. The opinion of some college kid about a band is not remotely as reliable as the opinion of a noted music critic in most cases. Blueboar (talk) 20:33, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Need clarification on the use of "should" in this policy

Hi, maybe this is a weakness on my command of english, but I'm a bit in doubt about how should is to be understood in the contect of a policy. I understand that wikipedia policies are mandatory, however my understanding is that the word should does not indicate that something is mandatory but recommended (eg: a guideline); and that must is to indicate that a request needs to be fulfilled (eg: a policy). Can any experienced editor or administrator please clarify?
Thanks & regards, DPdH (talk) 04:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

You are taking too legal an approach to our policies. Things are not as simple as that. There are always exceptions to any rule, which using "must" would not allow for. "Should" indicates that 99.99 times out of 100 the policy holds, but that we recognize that there might be exceptions in specific situations. You may want to read WP:The rules are principles, an excellent essay that discusses the philosophy behind Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Blueboar (talk) 13:38, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

"Self-published and questionable sources"

I just realized another vague aspect of WP:SELFQUEST. When it refers to "Self-published and questionable sources", does that mean "questionable sources which are self-published", or does it mean "self-published or otherwise questionable sources", which would be more encompassing? Either way it could be stated more clearly. PSWG1920 (talk) 08:35, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Niether... I take it to mean exaactly what it says: both self published sources and questionable sources. Blueboar (talk) 12:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed that there is no unclarity. The ordinary reading of the sentence in English is "Self-published [sources] and questionable sources." If one wanted to talk about sources that are both, one would say either, "Self-published, questionable sources," or more precisely "Sources that are [both] self-published and questionable." The word "both" would strictly be a pleonasm, but might be included for further clarity. Robert A.West (Talk) 14:59, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

That said, re-reading this pointed out what I believe is a genuine problem. The section entitled "Self-published sources" reads,

Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article...

That sentence is directly contradicted by the sentence under discussion, probably because the second section was once upon a time the only exception to using self-published material. I assume that what we actually now mean is:

Self-published source may also, and questionable sources may only, be used as sources about themselves, and then only if:

Comments, before I make the edit?Robert A.West (Talk) 15:10, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I see no need to change. It seems clear to me. Both self-published sources and questionable sources are usually considered reliable for statements as to the opinion of the author (for example, the statement that "The Nazis believed that Jews are inferior to Arians" can be cited to a Nazi document that says this) but not for statements of fact (the statement "Jews are inferiour to Arians" can not be cited to a Nazi document) ... except under very specific circumstances. In the case of self-published sources, one circumstance is when the author is an established expert. Blueboar (talk) 16:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

"for example, the statement that "The Nazis believed that Jews are inferior to Arians" can be cited to a Nazi document that says this". Actually I don't think it can under the current policy, because the source would be highly contentious. Though in that case it should be easy to find an independent source. PSWG1920 (talk) 17:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

What would be contentious is a statement that the Nazis had an opinion on Arianism. Unless it was some sort of Teutonic national mysticism centred around Theodoric the Great? --Relata refero (disp.) 20:19, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

In response to Robert, what if we just change it to "questionable sources" here, and explain in the above section that most self-published sources are questionable? PSWG1920 (talk) 17:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

PSWG, I think you misunderstand the policy here. Assuming that it is appropriate for an article to discuss the Nazi's views on Jews in the first place (which I would agree would be a limited selection of articles), it is not at all contentious to state what those views were, nor is it contentious to cite a Nazi document to support that statement of opinion. It would be contentious to use the document to support a statement of fact. It really all depends on the article and the exact statement being made.

As to your reply to Robert, I think you have it backwards... while most questionable sources are self-published... it is completely incorrect to say that most self-published sources are questionable (we define the word "questionable" with a very specific meaning that does not apply to most self-published sources.) Blueboar (talk) 19:32, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Then perhaps we should just change it to "self-published or questionable sources" to make clear the scope of the restriction.

As for your first point, if that were the case, we could just say that any potentially controversial claims referenced from such sources could only be stated as opinions in wikipedia. That would encompass #2, #3, and #4 at least. Unless, of course, the restriction really is on the material referenced and not on how it's stated here. PSWG1920 (talk) 20:02, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Changing "and" to "or" would make matters worse, not better. The sentence would then read, "Self-published or questionable sources may only be used as sources about themselves." That would leave the logical contradiction intact, but muddle the language. Robert A.West (Talk) 21:43, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

On many topics, the best sources available are questionable in various ways, but can still be used with caution for many things, and one could make a case that all sources are at least potenially questionable to a certain extent--the best authorities make errors-- so the or wording gets this confused with other even more difficult issues.DGG (talk) 06:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the confusion comes from the fact that we are talking about two seperate, but overlaping concepts. At one end of the spectrum we have self-published sources that are not questionable; In the middle we have self-published sources that are questionable as well as questionable sources that are self-published; At the other end we have questionable sources that are not self-published. The point the policy is trying to make is that all of these (ie the entire spectrum) should be treated similarly on Wikipedia. They all can be used, but only with caution and in specific circumstances. Blueboar (talk) 13:32, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Is this an example of a 'self published and questionable source'?

There was some previous discussion in the abstract on this edit [2], which made its appearance last week or before in Wikipedia Review. I think it would be useful to hash out here whether this undeniably self published comment is permissible even though it does not pertain to the blogger providing information about herself (other than her opinion of Wikipedia Review).

Essentially, some are arguing that it is acceptable for self published opinions to be included because the wording of WP:V can be interpreted to permit it. Is there such a loophole and, if so, should be policy be changed to close it?--Janeyryan (talk) 00:09, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

There is no such loophole. That edit is indeed in violation of this policy. Cramer's blog is indeed a self-published source, she is not an expert in the field, etc. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:28, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Can I ask this once again. Will someone please point out where a claim about a third party is being verified through as self published source. The self-published material is only being used to verify a claim about the self-publisher herself and this is permitted with certain exceptions. Here is what the disputed text actually states:

• Science fiction writer Kathryn Cramer used the site to gain a better insight into Wikipedia editors, and described topics on Wikipedia Review as "fascinating reading".

No claims are being made about Wikipedia Review. A claim is being made about Kathryn Cramer, as someone who has stated an opinion. She is the self-publisher. By using a source in this context we only contend to verify information about the source itself. Please show me how we are verifying information about a party other than Cramer in this instance, and through her self-published source. That is what Janeyryan and others keep on implying but it simply is not true. By the way, what kind of "expertise" is required to call WR "fascinating"? The description of something as "fascinating" is de facto a subjective statement, and no one has expertise on the "interstingness" of WR, to borrow Relata's term--this is why Cramer's statement is the opinion of a self-publisher and not a "claim about a third party." Delete the sentence, by all means, its mostly fluff. But it is simply inaccurate to claim that this clearly violates our policies on verifiability vis-a-vis disallowed usages of self-published material.PelleSmith (talk) 02:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that using a self-published source in the article on Wikipedia Review is only allowable under policy if (a) it is the opinion of an established expert on WR whose work has been published in multiple reliable sources, or (b) it is published by Wikipedia Review. Manifestly, neither is the case. Personally, I think the bigger problem is whether the fact that Cramer used WR to form ideas about Wikipedians actually merits mention. What impact has that fact had on her writing, and how influential is that writing? These are the things that an actual reliable source would tell us. Robert A.West (Talk) 02:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and I think that this is the only reasonable interpretation of the policy. However, we keep coming back to the 'claim about a third party' language that PelleSmith and one or two others keep citing multiple times. When I remove this language on SELFPUB grounds I've been reverted each and every time on the grounds that there is no 'claim about a third party.' Either PelleSmith is right and there is a loophole that needs to be closed, or it is clear and the policy needs to be enforced. My position is the latter, but I keep being told that I am wrong on this.--Janeyryan (talk) 03:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

There is no loophole. In order for a self-published work to be acceptable in an article about the publisher/author, there are seven additional criteria that it must satisfy. Avoiding claims about third parties is #4. But even satisfying all of them doesn't matter if the source is not written and/or published by the subject of the article. Citing parts of a policy out of context is not a good argument. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:16, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Nowhere in the language of WP:V does it state that self-published sources may only be used in an entry about themselves, or that they may only be used to verify factual claims about the subject matter of an entry that is not about themselves. The latter use is exactly what the language about self-published sources needing established expertise in the subject matter of the entry is written to address. The problem I have with Robert A West's reading is that it artificially eliminates several legitimate uses of self-published sources that have expertise in a field that is not directly related to the main subject matter of the entry, but is directly related to the specific claim being made in any given entry. This is always the case with personal opinions, which from our perspective as writers of an encyclopedia, always amount to claims about the opinionated individuals themselves--clearly they are reliable for their own opinions. If there is any use of self-published sources that we should accept, in terms of reliability, it should be to verify opinions. In my view, such opinions should be kept out of entries as much as possible for various other reasons. However claiming a violation of WP:V under the reading presented above establishes a precedent to never accept any self-published sourcing within an entry that is not about the self-publisher as long as the self-publisher isn't an established expert on the overarching subject matter of the entry itself. Our sourcing standards should be applied to the sourcing of specific claims, and other guidelines like UNDUE, NPOV and notability should govern what claims are relevant to various entries. If I'm the only person who thinks this is a problem then so be it. I'm done. Cheers.PelleSmith (talk) 11:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with PelleSmith here. There are a host of reasons not to include the Cramer stuff... but WP:SPS is not one of them. The idea that you can only use a self-published source in an article about the author/publisher is rediculous. Blueboar (talk) 12:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I will also add this. The reading of WP:V above that I don't agree with conflates the verification of fact and opinion in a way that is unhelpful. Our sourcing standards are in place to ensure that factual claims are as reliable as possible, and not to make qualitative judgments about opinions--in this case I've asserted already that the factual statement in question is that Cramer holds the opinion. According to what I'm seeing here, if Cramer had published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal about WR and included her opinion about it being "fascinating reading" this would be deemed more reliable than her mention of said opinion in a blog. Does that mean that peer reviewers are vetting her opinions? Alternatively, if someone else quoted her blog in a peer reviewed publication, writing that Cramer has stated that WR review makes for "fascinating reading", the only thing that could possibly merit fact checking in review process is whether or not she has made this claim. Again is it useful to state her opinion? Probably not. The idea that Cramer is "making a claim" about a third party takes the fact/opinion conflation deeper and onto a level of abstraction, and this is even more problematic. We need to keep "factual claims" that can be verified through third party sourcing seperate from subjective statements that can only be verified through the claims of the subject themselves. If John Doe claims that the Acme Widget Corporation is funneling money to terrorists, this is a very different type of claim than, for instance, John Doe stating that the Acme Widget Corporation is a fascinating company. In the fist instance he is making a factual claim about a third party and in the second stating an opinion.PelleSmith (talk) 12:59, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Unindenting to comment here. I completely agree: there is no reason not to use a self-published source as a reference for the opinions of its author. The important thing is whether those opinions are notable, and whether or not they could be considered undue weight. Neither is a verifiability issue. With regards to the specific situation, I can't see any reason to consider that Ms Cramer's opinion on the site in question is in fact notable. Particularly, it certainly isn't notable enough to be included in the lead paragraph, given that it is less notable than many of the other comments quoted lower down in the article from notable news sources like The Guardian and The Independent. JulesH (talk) 13:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Point conceded jointly to Blueboar and JulesH. I was using a too-restrictive reading. I still wouldn't use the opinion, because I don't think it makes Wikipedia better, but the vital issues of reliability, relevance and importance are better arguments than dry policy. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:50, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, folks can be prejudice when it comes to self-published sources, both in the actual source opinions and in excluding them. The reasoning to exclude always has to do with the editorial controls that are established by the source to prevent error. Good luck in working on this, it won't be easy to move forward. In my case, I have folks wanting to exclude "self published" material in a biography about the self-publisher. The folks aim to exclude all the self-published material when wiki policy says it can be included on a case-by-case basis when considering a list of criteria WP:SELFPUB. So even if you achieve a case-by-case exception criteria for "opinion". Folks will still want to point blank exclude. But really, opinion belongs in editorial pages and appropriate biography references, not in NPOV articles. Zulu Papa 5 (talk) 21:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you, this has been an educational discussion. I think the bottom line of this discussion is that while SELFPUB does not necessarily apply, it is fairly obvious that the Cramer quote does not belong there on multiple ground. Yet this quote remains in the article and is put back in when I revert, most recently here [3]--Janeyryan (talk) 11:42, 27 August 2008 (UTC).

Janey, you need to establish consensus on the talk page. I've been saying this all along. Not a self-pub issue, not a reliability issue ... establish consensus on the talk page.PelleSmith (talk) 12:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The talk page is a Wikipedia Review fan club only to happy to include this absurd fluff, and includes active participation by Kathryn Cramer. I came to this page and to RSN as a means of dispute resolution. Despite the fact that there seems to be clear agreement in this discussion that the Cramer blog quote is unacceptable for multiple issues, this discussion is being used as justification for its inclusion in a total misreading of this discussion.--Janeyryan (talk) 16:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Request comment then and/or seek comments where applicable issues are discussed. This discussion is not applicable since it is clear that you don't have a reliability issue, but several other issues. After you set up an RfC feel free to suggest to those who have already commented on these "other" issues to comment on them at the talk page, which is where consensus should be established. You can also seek proper dispute resolution, but this isn't the venue for that either.PelleSmith (talk) 17:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

While that is a good and sound suggestion, perhaps some of the editors who have commented here could simply go to the page in question and comment on the quote. It has been moved out of the lead, but remains in the article even though it is objectionable for several reasons. The person pushing this issue is an administrator and I am feeling somewhat out-pistoled here.--Janeyryan (talk) 20:28, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure this was brought up above. We have one newspaper blog where neither the identity of the author nor his literary merit is in question. But I still have two problems with the use of his blog: 1) Why didn't the paper publish it under its own byline? Hardcopy is limited by newsprint available for that issue. Web space has some limitations but can presumably squeeze in a legitimate article. Why hasn't the paper done so? It seems to me that this represents a WP:OR problem here. The paper did not consider it "news" but we do? Isn't that one of the ideas about finding it in a legitimate publication to start with? (I think this was approached above with the concept of "peer review") 2) Publications online or off have a copy editor that is supposed to verify facts. This is missing in a blog. While the quality of writing may not be an issue but not everyone remembers things perfectly. Or hears them perfectly or having done both, records them perfectly, even "credible" authors! The function of a copy editor is missing in a blog. There is no "second opinion." Oversight is missing. And don't think that because it is in a blog for a few days that the publication feels any more responsible for it. Quite the opposite, in fact they may be thinking "Thank God we aren't responsible for that"! Student7 (talk) 20:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Science Sources

I have been working on the WP:Scientific standards article which is a potential policy. I'm here because I expressed frustration over the limits of this policy and another editor suggest I address them here. My question to those who work on this page is: How difficult would it be to get a section on scientific sourcing into WP:V? Right now major issues with sourcing science include the need for editors to understand: A) The only acceptable primary source for primary scientific evidence in modern science is a peer-reviewed journal. B) Primary peer-reviewed journals are not good sources for evidence of consensus in science. C) Patents are not a valid sources of scientific evidence. Actually (C) is probably the most important because at no point does WP policy address patents; and patents come up over and over in science articles. Just wondering if these points could be engineered into this policy a bit more explicitly or do folks here support the idea of Wikipedia:Scientific_standards. Just looking for input.--OMCV (talk) 02:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Specificness and vagueness

What do you all think about adding a section on specificness versus vagueness? To give you an idea of what I have in mind, I came across the following sentence in the introduction to the article on the Victorian Certificate of Education:

The VCE is considered to be one of the more rigorous secondary education programs in the world ....

No reference was cited. My immediate question was: considered by whom? By a majority of university admissions officers worldwide? By a couple dozen teachers in Melbourne? By the person who wrote the sentence?

In its vague state, the sentence goes beyond unverifiable—it's useless in the context of an encyclopedia article. If a reference exists that can confirm an established opinion as described by that sentence, then the reference will indicate who holds that opinion ("by 85% of a worldwide sampling of university admissions officers"), and in that case it is incumbent upon the editor to provide that information, along with the citation ("A poll shows that a majority ...."). Therefore, even with a citation, there is no reason to assert the existence of an opinion without indicating whose opinion it is. Without the citation, the sentence shouldn't be there at all.

Truly, when I see a sentence like this in an article, I quickly suspect that what's really going on is that the writer holds that opinion himself or just thinks it's a prevalent opinion, and wanted to mention it without making it look like a WP:NPOV violation, rationalizing that the sentence is technically true, while ignoring the fact that it fails tests for notability and verifiability.

This is a single example. I'm sure the idea could be expanded on, and make a valuable addition to this policy. Comments? —Largo Plazo (talk) 16:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh. That works. Thanks. —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

When to cite

Note discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources which proposes moving detail currently under Wikipedia:Citing sources#When to cite sources to this project page. You're encouraged to discuss it there (under the subject heading "Let's get the relationship with WP:V right") if you want to put forward an argument one way or other. --SallyScot (talk) 11:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Applicability to non-articles

I'm sorry to bother you with this, but we have a professional journalist at WT:MEDRS that's apparently mad because the guideline for medicine-related articles prefers getting scientific facts straight from good scientific sources, instead of assuming that he and his colleagues in the mass media industry never make a mistake and never introduce accidental biases and never fail to communicate important information. (I'm sure I mangle his position substantially, but you can go read his endless comments for yourself, e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here.)

For several days now, he has been repeatedly demanding -- politely but tendentiously -- that the WP:MEDRS guideline provide citations to independent, third-party reliable sources to prove that the advice of Wikipedia editors on this point is verifiable. His excuse for this demand is that WP:V's nutshell says that "Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source" instead of saying "Material in the article namespace that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source." It is apparently not good enough for the policy to specify in the lead (as it does) that the policy applies to articles, because he prefers to apply an expansive definition of the term article.

Can we update this policy to say "Attention: This policy does not apply to the Wikipedia: namespace, such as Wikipedia's internal policies and guidelines"? Is there a better way to address this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand. Where, other than in articles, are citations provided at all, except voluntarily by people to make their case in discussions? —Largo Plazo (talk) 21:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any such practice, either. But we have an editor that is demanding that citations be provided simply because this policy does not explicitly authorize normal practice (well, that and because all the other editors have firmly disagreed with him, so he's on the losing end of the consensus-driven discussion. Presumably he wouldn't demand citations if he were winning). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

There's no need to obey V on that page because doing so would be rediculous. Ignore all rules is all the caution we need to not flagrantly apply policies on pages they were never intended for. And it is especially unecessary on a policy or guideline, since as the editors of Wikipedia, we get to decide exactly what they say, exactly how to define words on them, and damnit if the outside world doesn't agree with it. ...Someguy1221 (talk) 06:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

You still haven't said what kind of pages you're talking about. Can you give us some examples of non-article pages where he is engaging in editing to enforce non-existent rules, or where he proposes to enforce them? —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I have already provided that information. Please go click all the links in the first paragraph in this section, starting with "we have a professional journalist at WT:MEDRS that's apparently mad...". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I have looked there and while the answer to my question may be buried I don't intend to read every word. What leaps out at me is that it's all about what sources are valid, and I came across nothing about which non-article pages you're saying the discussion is in respect to. I'm surprised at your response. You're the one asking for help; your request was unclear; but when asked a simple question for clarification, you act like you're being inconvenienced. —Largo Plazo (talk) 18:22, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

(undent) OK, I think the problem is this. apparently there is an ongoing discussion about whether newspaper articles can represent valid source on medical issues. one editor claimed that "most news articles fail to discuss important issues such as evidence quality, costs, and risks versus benefits", the journalist (Nbauman)) asked for a source for the claim, the source was given, and then Nbauman asked that the source be cited in the RSMRA guideline itself to support the claim. this devolved into a debate about whether the wp:RS policy applied to policies and guidelines themselves (if and when those guidelines have to refer to facts). about which I have two things to say:

1. if you have to cite a fact in a guideline or policy, then it really ought to have the same sourcing restrictions as regular article space, otherwise it would be too easy to introduce opinions into policy under the guise of facts.
2. if you have to cite a fact in a guideline or policy, then something has gone horribly wrong. In this case, I think Nbauman is concerned (and I think it might be justified) that an implicit bias against journalism - or maybe an implicit pro-scientism bias - is creeping into the guideline with these edits. judging by his tone, he expected his original call for a reference to expose the implicit bias, and when the reference appeared he got a bit flustered.

I'm going to leave a note over there reminding everyone that newspapers ought to be considered (barring evidence to the contrary) reliable secondary sources suitable for use in wikipedia. don't know if that will help, but... --Ludwigs2 00:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

What, pray, is this scientism? Do you mean normal medical practice, as against fringe medicine? As for journalistic sources, it very much depends on which journalist and which publication or newspaper – reporting of the MMR vaccine issue springs to mind. On the other hand, some journalists are fully qualified and are uncommonly reliable.[4] As for the original question, WP:POINTy seems appopriate and that was mentioned to the journalist in the discussions. . . dave souza, talk 21:48, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

best Reliable sources is a journal?

The text currently reads

In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; usually followed by university-level textbooks; then by magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; then by mainstream newspapers. Special cases may arise; and editors should be careful not to exclude a point of view merely because it lacks academic credentials. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is.

I would argue that there is the omission of consensus documents like committee reports from the National Academies of Science, United National security council scientific bodies (think IAEA reports), and official standards published by standards bodies (i.e. IEEE's standard on firewire or CAT-5 cabling is the authoritative document on the topic). Pdbailey (talk) 22:26, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Some of this is IAR, I think. These four classes are relevant to most articles; how many articles are standards documents going to be cited in? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:33, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the specific documents you mention: would't they be primary sources, and wouldn't we prefer secondary source interpretation of them? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:35, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Depends on the subject; IAEA reports often would be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:40, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Foreign language sources

The passage, twice amended and twice reverted today, states two things, and does so reasonably clearly IMO. Extra steps are required when citing a non-english source on a potentially-contentious point. As I read it, these steps are not required if the assertion is routine. Thus, a plot summary of a German short story might be sourced to the original text without reproduction, but an assertion that this same short story was influential in some way probably should have the relevant text cited. This is, I believe, a deliberate choice, and a reasonable one. It should not, IMO, be changed without consensus. Robert A.West (Talk) 22:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It was changed earlier this year[5] I don't think that was a good change at all. It's not at all clear to me what points are likely to be challenged - I feel I get asked for citations for the oddest things. If I were to follow this in practice I'd slow to a crawl, quoting (under fair use) my sources and translating them as I go. I don't see why I would have to quote, say, German sources and not English sources. It seems to me that a much more important issue than the language is the obscurity of the source. Why would I have to quote an easily available German source and not an obscure 19th century English work? I've never run into a problem dealing with a source in a language I don't understand. I frequently run into problems obtaining sources to begin with. Haukur (talk) 22:20, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Ooops, I just changed that text a little for clarity, without first looking at the talk page. I hope I'm not making an ongoing discussion more difficult. Probably not, as the discussion above seems to revolve around defining "likely to be challenged", which is difficult to define, and perhaps some confusion about what is a quote and what is a citation. --Hordaland (talk) 00:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I just read the relevant section again, and have a better understanding of where Haukur is coming from, I think (maybe). There are only 3 sentences. The first is long and looks OK to me. The last seems a bit unnecessary; should a translation exist, an editor would most often use that as a source instead of the foreign language original.

Middle sentence is at present: Where editors use a non-English source to support material which is likely to be challenged, or translate any direct quote, they need to quote the relevant portion of the original text in a footnote or in the article, so readers can check that it agrees with the article content.

As I read this, I can't see that any translations are necessary, except, of course, the English-language direct quote used the article. If a fact is stated in an article and cited to a foreign language text, the relevant portion of the source must be quoted, but not translated, in the footnote/citation. --Hordaland (talk) 01:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I remember an extended discussion on this and related topics back in the days of [[WP:ATT]. I did not make the edit in question, and assumed it was older than what Haukur says. Nevertheless, it makes sense. There were several related issues: Can we accept hard-to-find sources? Subscription-only sites? Should we prefer on-line sources? Can we accept non-English-language sources? The idea, as I recall it, was that we can accept hard-to-find sources and paid-subscription sites if they are in English, and non-English sources if the text is readily available, but a hard-to-find non-English source is beyond the pale. There was also some history, as I recall, with people claiming obscure non-English sources for surprising claims that no one could find in any English-language source.

The requirement for an original-language version of a translated quotation certainly goes back a ways. While I understand that strict adherence to the requirement is burdensome, I do think that transcribing the non-English text is a helpful measure. I would think that a permalink to an on-line source that is not likely to go away would meet the intent of the section.

As for "likely to be challenged," that phrasing is used in the main policy section. If a reasonable editor might challenge the assertion, it should be obvious what the source of that assertion is. Where that line is drawn is a matter of judgement. I've had people put {{fact}} tags in the middle of a sentence that ended with a footnote that adequately covered the point. I removed such tags with a respectful admonition to use some due diligence before tagging. Robert A.West (Talk) 03:50, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I do think that transcribing the non-English text is a helpful measure Yes, it is helpful! But it's exactly as helpful to transcribe English text. In fact, it's more helpful since the person this is meant to benefit would understand the English text and not the other text. This just looks to me like the solution to a problem that doesn't exist. When a citation is challenged, especially when the source is obscure, it's often helpful to quote the most important lines from it. But that has nothing to do with the language of the source and there's no need to require a pre-emptive defense for non-English sources.

I'm all for using English sources. I've bought English-language works especially for use on Wikipedia. But for the things I'm interested in there often aren't English language-sources that have the information I need so I'll have to use a source in German or a Scandinavian language. For example there is no way I could have written Hrafnagaldr Óðins without relying on sources in Icelandic and Danish. Now, tell me, are there any claims in that article which are likely to be challenged? Where does the policy text require me to add Icelandic and Danish text (for the supposed benefit of someone who doesn't understand those languages)? Or take S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 - no chance that one could have been written with English sources only. Where do you feel it would be appropriate to insist on quotations in Swedish? What if I doubt, say, the claim that Fridtjof Nansen lived on polar bear meat for 15 months? Am I entitled to remove that claim because the source is in Swedish and no quotation is given? That's what the current wording of this policy seems to imply and I don't think that's at all reasonable. Haukur (talk) 07:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Before any of these things, you should check if an English source exists; you will find that July 1895 to May 1896 is just over nine months. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:52, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I strongly disagree with this approach (and I agree with Haukur). This idea about non-English sources doesn't make sense at all. This approach would, for instance, disqualify the German Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon (AKL) as a source! It's in German, it's a print publication (though I think there's an electronic subscription version) and has never been translated. Yet it is one of the greatest reliable (very reliable, in fact!) resources about artists (not only German artists!). It would also disqualify a large number of reliable publications from other languages, especially those spoken by not so many people. (Iceandic, Norwegian, Swedish: all perfect examples. Or I might also mention some Swiss artist's dictionaries: they're written in German or French, never translated into English, and largely unknown and thus extremely hard to get at outside of Switzerland, but they certainly are reliable resources.)

Asking for an on-wiki transcription is no good at all; it improves neither the validity nor the accessibility nor the reliability of the foreign-language reference one jota. Consider: if a foreign language source is used, it is used to back some fact in the (English) article. Hence there already is a paraphrase. If the editor lied and the foreign-language source does in fact not back the statement in the article, then a transcription doesn't help either, because it would be equally fabricated in this "assume bad faith" scenario. In fact, the same problem also exists for little-known, yet deemed reliable English-language print publications: ultimately, one would have to dig up the resource and read it to verify that it indeed says what the article claims it says. This is rarely done. (I did it once, and it directly led to an article being de-featured, as I discovered such a fabrication.)

My personal approach to sourcing is quite simple: if good sources in English exist, use them. If good online sources exist, use them (in addition to, or in place of, print resources), simply because they may make it easier for others to check the veracity of the claim. (Persistence of online-content is not really a problem; the Internet archive mitigates many concerns about online sources disappearing.) If there are no English-language resources, use the foreign-language resources, and don't bother about translating or directly quoting them. Either people trust that I am truthful about that source, or they can read the language and check the original. If they can't read the language, they're bust anyway: if they don't trust my sourcing, why should they trust any translation/quote/transcription I'd provide?

Besides, if the translation was more than just a short snippet, it might become a copyright problem. I cannot just translate a whole entry from the AKL into English and post it here: I might be violating Saur's copyright on the AKL. For the same reason I cannot post a German-language extract from the AKL. Lupo 07:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a very good reason why a short quote from the original non-english text should be provided when citing a non-english source... most languages contain words and idioms that do not have a direct english equivalent. When translating such words and idioms, a translator must come up with something in english that is close to, but not quite the same as what is meant by the original author. In determining what english words to use, it is possible to inadvertantly change the meaning of the passage... and end up with a translation that in subtle ways says something different from what was intended in the original text. In most cases, this isn't something that is done on purpose... it is simply a by-product of tha act of translation.

By providing a foot note with the original non-english text, other editors (who understand the language of the original source) can easily double check that your choice of wording accurately reflects the meaning of the original... and, if needed, challenge your translation. They can offer an alternative translation that they feel more accurately reflects the meaning of the original. Blueboar (talk) 14:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

That's got nothing to do with foreign languages. The case about de-featuring above concerned an English source that was so poorly paraphrased that the meaning was inverted. Whether that was done on purpose I don't know. If that is the concern here, let's require putting a quote from any print (or subscription only, or otherwise not readily accessibly to at least one editor) source, whether English or Tagalog. :-) It won't accomplish anything, of course: checkers would just have to check two things instead of one: first, is the quote reproduced accurately? Second, does it say what the paraphrase in the article says? So, someone who wants to check still has to go to the original source. And if you use one source for several statements, the sum of the quotations may well reproduce a substantial part of the source, and thus be a copyright violation. Thanks, but no. Lupo 15:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Blueboar; provide the quote so those who do understand the language can more easily see for themselves. And, there are three aspects of translations that need much closer attention: translations on BLPs, online translators, and copyright violations. We also need for the policy to address things like Google translations, which are becoming an issue across many articles, affecting DYK, GAN and FAC. Policy on this should be tightened, not loosened. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:48, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

"provide the quote so those who do understand the language can more easily see for themselves" Then why not provide English quotes too? Haukur (talk) 16:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Because there is an additional step in using foreign-language sources. I've seen Haukur hesitate over idiom (and, once in a while, trip) when representing an Icelandic source in English. If there is doubt (and do remember this clause only applies to citations for exact quotes and controversial matters) providing the original lets the reader straighten out such confusions for himself without tracking down the original. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't say controversial matters - it says "material that is likely to be challenged". In practice this would mean that anything backed up by a foreign language source could be removed because once someone challenges it it's hard to argue that it is not material that is likely to be challenged. As for me making mistakes when representing an Icelandic source (examples welcome) I certainly also make mistakes when paraphrasing English sources. Just earlier today I got called, correctly, on some loose wording. Haukur (talk) 17:30, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

But it's much easier to call you on English wording: to call you on Icelandic I must both locate your source and read it. Many editors can do one or the other but not both. (And I see we are touching on how restrictive likely to challenged is. I have always held it to be a real limitation.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:08, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

To call me on English language sources you must also locate my source and read it. The difference is that your English is a lot better than your Icelandic. You could still, I'm sure, verify whether an Icelandic source said something took 9 months or 15 months. And I don't think you'd have much trouble getting someone to help you translate a short section. And anyway, if understanding Icelandic was the hard part then quoting the Icelandic text certainly wouldn't be much help. In other news, Bishonen kindly replied about Nansen. Haukur (talk) 22:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Precisely. I must find someone to help me - and if, as Bishonen suggests, there is some question of which dates are meant, they must understand the Icelandic well enough to be sure what event is matched with what date. (If I ask for your help, btw, I must transcribe the Icelandic, so no work is saved.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:40, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Lupo. It's just as easy to miss a subtle point when using an English source as it is when using a non-English source. But, even following this logic, wouldn't I be more likely to miss a subtle point in English than a subtle point in my own language? Perhaps I should be given a pass on Icelandic sources but be required to quote when using English sources? Haukur (talk) 16:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with Haukurth's assertion that it is as easy to miss a subtlety in one's primary language as in a secondary one. On a daily basis, I see well-educated non-native speakers misunderstand English in ways that would be impossible for someone who learned English "from the cradle." As for the second assertion, remember that verifiability is the requirement that readers be able to verify that the writer has accurately reported what the sources say. Robert A.West (Talk) 01:03, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Ehm... I think Haukur's point was that English is a second language for him. :-) As to the second point: if readers want to "verify that the writer has accurately reported what the sources say", they have to check these original sources anyway and mustn't rely on an on-wiki quote, since that might already be wrong. Lupo 06:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

If Wikipedia knew who was fluent in a foreign language, who was a reputable physicist, who was a mathematician, etc., then we wouldn't need to be as vigilant about verifiability and might even relax the NOR rule a tad. That is Citizendium's methodology, not Wikipedia's. Robert A.West (Talk) 17:26, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

<undent> In my opinion there's some validity in loosening the requirement to provide the foreign language text being used as a source. The relevant section is "they need to quote the relevant portion of the original text in a footnote or in the article, so readers can check that it agrees with the article content. Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations made by Wikipedia editors." and my suggestion would be "they should, as far as possible, provide a link to the original text online, or quote relevant portions of the original text in a footnote or in the article, so readers can check that it agrees with the article content. Translations published by reliable sources are regarded as a source in English, and are preferred over translations made by Wikipedia editors." Hope that clarifies the ways in which I think it should be loosened to meet the concerns expressed above. Note that quoting sections would allow ellipses to avoid copyright issues with providing the whole text. . dave souza, talk 21:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

No-one's yet given anything like a concrete example. Above I asked about S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 - it's a featured article which relies for the most part on Swedish sources. Nowhere does it quote the Swedish in a footnote. Do you fear that the sources contained "words and idioms that do not have a direct English equivalent"? Do you think maybe poor confused Bishonen got it all wrong? Do you feel it would be reasonable to remove material which is only backed up by Swedish sources? Haukur (talk) 17:22, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

• If every editor were Bishonen, we could probably manage with fewer policies; but let's not make that case against WP:CIVIL just yet.
• Most of these facts are available from sources in English - the English translations of the Swedish sources mentioned in the bibliography. Some time before our publication deadline, some gnome should go through and indicate the relevant page numbers in the translations.
• The Greek source cited does have the relevant text in Demotic.
• One of the Swedish sources cited is [a website], from the Swedish Balloon Federation. Its claims should be found in better sources anyway, but there's no rush. The requirement for including the original is no more urgent. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:48, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I am talking myself into a stance of "supply foreign language texts cited on demand". In an ideal world, I would support that as policy; but we can't. Editors abandon articles and leave Wikipedia altogether. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:32, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Important additions to WP:REDFLAG

• When it is reasonable to expect to see the availability of a significant amount of sources for an exceptional claim, but much less than was expected can be found, check the context and background of those sources that are available. For example, a Cambridge publication might ostensibly seem a high quality source, but the text itself could be polemical. Remember to debate your findings in discussion. It is always best to quote controversial statements, rather than appropriate them as fact into the article's text. Sources do not always equal fact, especially with exceptional claims.

I feel all these points seriously need to be stressed uner REDFLAG, as many people win the argument of having "verified sources of high quality" for an exceptional claim, when they might have an Oxford-produced polemic, and something similar, and a big hole where all the other righfully expected refs would be. The university presses actually roll throughout the night printing texts - the name itself does not trump them over less prestigious outlets (ie 1 Oxford Press does not = 10 local newspapers!). The 'verification is all that matters' argument can get a lot of mileage, and too few people know about WP:REDFLAG, which is an excellent and extrememly important part of Wikipedia. For exceptional claims, people surely need to look at the context and background of the available source(s) too. Debate could be encouraged at that point. --Matt Lewis (talk) 13:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• I would prefer to make the simpler and more general point that even university press books can be polemical, or simply wrong. Most journal articles are polemical; that's why they're written. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:37, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I would not say that "most journal articles are polemical" but I will say there is the risk in all of them of the theory driving the data rather than the data supporting or refuting the theory. The best example of this was Miner's "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" which used the then popular magic using cultures are 'primitive' and applied it to the 1950s US. The final two paragraphs hammer it home to anyone reading the article: "Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has certainly shown them to be a magic-ridden people. It is hard to understand how they have managed to exist so long under the burdens which they have imposed upon themselves. But even such exotic customs as these take on real meaning when they are viewed with the insight provided by Malinowski when he wrote (1948: 70) "Looking from far and above, from our high places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of magic. But without its power and guidance early man could not have mastered his practical difficulties as he has done, nor could man have advanced to the higher stages of civilization."" In short, Miner was showing how a theory could drive the data and reduce even the supposed developed civilization of 1950s US to a bunch of magic happy savages via the converse of Clarke's Law (also known as Niven's Law).

Much the same thing has been argued regarding the African Kinship system for over 20 years now--it may be more in the anthropologist's minds than real. On the opposite extreme is the very term 'culture' which has degenerated into a kind of Through the Looking Glass Humpty Dumpty it means what the scholar says it means mess rendering the term without any meaning outside of context.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:44, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Sources that engage in Ad hominem statements

One of the things that has bothered me in Wikipedia is the use of quotes from sources that engage in Ad hominem attacks bordering on violations of Wikipedia:Libel such as 'no reputable, honest, or serious scholar, scientist, doctor, etc supports position x'. I dislike the use of such quotes because they basically say that any professional that holds position x is not reputable, honest, or serious regardless of their credentials because they hold position x (ie it is totally circular logic) and because such claims are essentially defamatory in nature regarding any person that holds position x and have no place in an encyclopedia. I do make a distinction between these types of sources and ones that say 'most scholars, scientists, doctors, etc regard position x as having no validity' because the second shows there is some debate on the issue and more in keeping with NPOV. I think it would be a good idea to have Verifiability expressly state that quotes that engage in Ad hominem arguments cannot be used regardless of who made them or in what publication they appeared as they clearly break the NPOV provisions.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Do you have an actual instance, or is this just a hypothetical? Some ideas are so outlandish, or so thoroughly obsolete and discredited, that any scientist who propounded them would indeed be risking his or her reputation. This is probably unavoidable: at some point practicality requires that one consider a matter resolved so that progress is possible. This proposal strikes me as more likely to prevent reasonable identification of fringe theories than to avoid anything unreasonable.Robert A.West (Talk) 17:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes I have an actual instance: Charlesworth wrote "No reputable scholar today questions that a Jew named Jesus son of Joseph lived; most readily admit that we now know a considerable amount about his actions and basic teaching..." in a book he himself was editing that was published by Eerdmans whose own meta tag used by google show their strong religious leanings ("Religious Book Publisher, Academic, Ministry Resources, Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, Childrens, News, Authors, Art, Bible Study, Biblical Studies, Biography, Catholic, Christian Living, Church, Preaching, Worship, Devotional, Inspirational, Economics, Ecumenism, Education, Ethics, History, Jesus, Jewish, Literature, Mission, Evangelism, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Reference, Regional, Religion, Society, Spirituality, Theology, Erdmans",) which was used in the Jesus Myth page, has been removed, and keeps being put back in with no real debate (other that the claim her is a "expert in biblical archaeology" which per his own page at Princeton Theological Seminary there is no support for. Not only does this say that people who challenge the existence of a historical Jesus are not reputable (effectively libeling Robert M. Price (a Professor of Theology and Scriptural Studies), Alvar Ellegard (former Dean of the Faculty of Art University of Goteborg, Sweden), Frank R. Zindler (a professor though admittedly of biology and geology), Thomas "Tom" Harpur (former New Testament professor of University of Toronto) and any other scholar who holds this position) but also says that people who challenge that Jesus was Jewish or his father was Joseph are also not reputable; this would include every scholar who voted no on either of those issues in the Jesus Seminar was as not reputable as those who voted for Jesus not being a historical person effectively throwing out those pro Historical Jesus people who don't hold to Jesus being both a Jew and the son of Joseph. You don't see things like 'no reputable scholar today' regarding the Fomenko-Nosovsky New Chronology even though it requires more jumps of logic and conspiratorial goings on than the Jesus Myth does. A similar thing happened in the Jesus Myth page regarding a quote ("To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary.") supposedly from Grant that was actually mostly him quoting Otto Betz What do We Know about Jesus? which was published by S.C.M. Press--a religious book publisher (per their own meta info), and Rodney Dunkerley Beyond the Gospels which was published by Pelican Book in 1957 and Penguin in 1961. It took way too long to remove that in favor of more NPOV quotes. If there was a locked door on Ad hominem quotes to begin with then editors could spend time improving articles not playing find that expert who support my POV, waste time trying to get questionable material removed, or debating if the expert in question has proper credentials. Quotes in an encyclopedia should always regarding the merits of the argument, not if the person making them has stripped a few gears or what not. If there are good arguments against the theory then cite those; there is no reason to resort to Ad hominem statements.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The solution to this seems to be to attribute the statement. (As in: 'According to Charlesworth "No reputable scholar today questions that a Jew named Jesus son of Joseph lived; most readily admit that we now know a considerable amount about his actions and basic teaching..."' with a citation to where he says it.) Blueboar (talk) 16:12, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

This doesn't sort out the issue that libelous statements can be smuggled under the cover of "x says that y is committing fraud". JASpencer (talk) 18:32, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Ugh, if that sort of thing is happening then its all the more reason to outright ban ad hominem quotes.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:08, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem there isn't that the statement is ad hominem, that's clearly going to be the case because of the nature of the statement - you can't report on the views of experts in the field without it people about the people. There is an issue of bias, which can be addressed by correctly attributing the statement and giving the other side of the story. I don't see how it's libellous - whether or not someone is reputable is a matter of opinion and opinion is not covered be libel law. --Tango (talk) 18:49, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I have actually seen this before - people using the ability to quote someone as an excuse to include a personal attack that seems to skirt past NPOV, OR and every other policy under the sun. Personally, I cannot envision a policy-based filter for such quotes, as it may well be the case that some are actually extremely relevant. So like many issues, this may be best handled by editorial discretion and dispute resolution. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:53, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Several points. First, Libel is covered under defamation and the defenses against it vary from place to place but presenting opinion as fact (as Charlesworth does) is not something we really want as a reference in an encyclopedia article. I should point out that opinion is not enough to keep you out of court regarding libel as the cape cod case, James Randi comment about the quality of Uri Geller's performances (an opinion), and Rindos v Hardwick cases demonstrate. Also, while I don't know how reliable it is ExpertLaw states "Some jurisdictions have eliminated the distinction between fact and opinion, and instead hold that any statement that suggests a factual basis can support a cause of action for defamation." So, claiming opinion may not be enough to avoid defamation (aka libel) depending on location. If true than it is one more reason to ban ad hominem quotes.

Second, compare this quote by Graham N. Stanton ("Today nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first- or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher.") to those by Charlesworth or Grant. Notice how the Stanton quote is totally neutral and makes no judgments regarding the historians who don't hold with either the idea that Jesus existed or that the Gospels have 'plenty of valuable evidence'; Stanton is the kind of expert quote that should be in wikipedia not the ad hominem stuff you see with Grant or Charlesworth. The later break the NPOV guidlines anyhow.

Third, editorial discretion and dispute resolution are only good if they are followed fairly. I mean these quotes "There is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived, to give an example, and Christianity is based on narrative fiction of high literary and cathartic quality. On the other hand Christianity is concerned with the narration of things that actually take place in human life." (abstract) "It is not possible to compare the above with what we have, namely, that there is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived."(body of text) Fischer, Roland (1994) "On The Story-Telling Imperative That We Have In Mind" Anthropology of Consciousness. Dec 1994, Vol. 5, No. 4: 16 have been removed based on totally OR POV reasons rather than any quote out of the article in question that support the claim that the quotes don't say what they seem to say. So a self published book by an 'expert' who is also an ordained minster and published via a publisher with strong religious leanings (COI out the wazoo) is held as a higher authority than somebody who published in a peer reviewed Journal published by the AAA (American Anthropological Association). The system has broken down somewhere when this type of stuff happens and continues to happen.

Finally, as I pointed out above, I can never see when ad hominem claims would be "actually extremely relevant"; they are in a gray area of libel that wikipedia should avoid per the NPOV guidelines and foster a pick that authority mentality that is also detrimental to NPOV. Any topic that has an scholarly debate should have neutral statements about it. There are so many points in wikipedia policy and guidelines (Neutral point of view, Reliable sources which if there is a conflict is superseded by Verifiability, WP:PRIMARY, and Citing sources). that point against ad hominem statements that I can not think of a place where there would have real merit. I mean if we as editors are forbidden from engaging in the things outlined on those pages then logically we shouldn't be able to use sources that 'break the rules' either. Otherwise it becomes a game of 'pick that authority' and violates Neutral point of view up one side and down the other. Nailing the door shut on ad hominem quotes would force people to look for better quotes rather than use the first thing they come across.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:05, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Another thing that needs to be addressed are partial quotes consisting of two to four words; such short quotes are useless. If the source says something really relevant to the article then use a more complete quote and if the author can't gett to the point then perhaps it is time to look for a better source.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:29, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

This is not universally true. Single words are often quoted to show that this exact word was the choice of the source. Consider, for example, this statement in J. Michael Bailey:

According to Dreger, the allegations of misconduct could accurately be described as "harassment", and an "anti-Bailey campaign".

Bailey is a sexologist that has many enemies in the transgender community. Every single word in the articles related to him has been fought over five or six times, including whether or not Alice Dreger really used the exact word "harrassment" in describing the concerted efforts of some transwomen to have him fired/taken to court for practicing medicine without a license/putting school pictures of his kids on the web with inappropriate sexual remarks/etc. In these instances, quoting a single word is better than leaving the reader with the impression that the choice of terms was an editorial judgment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:31, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I really don't see this as a good counter argument. According to Alice Dreger, "What happened to Bailey is important, because the harassment was so extraordinarily bad and because it could happen to any researcher in the field."' would be a far better way to do the first quote. The second quote shows exactly what I am talking about: "Vasey was calling to ask me whether I knew I was listed as a supporter of Conway’s anti-Bailey campaign on her University of Michigan Website (http://www.ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway), and whether I knew what was happening to Bailey and his family." Read in context is is clear that the "anti-Bailey campaign" quote is actually Dreger summing up a conversion with Vasey; quoting just the three words out of context leaves out a lot of relevant information.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:37, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Small furry creatures

I see one of the last things in the talk archives was someone pointing to WEASEL. It's inevitable that, when people are deciding whether to keep material or not, they'll often choose the reason that requires the least thought, like the presence of a word mentioned at WP:WEASEL or WP:Words to avoid or WP:PEACOCK. But inevitability isn't a reason to encourage it. If material fails the WP:BURDEN test here at WP:V, that should be the preferred reason to talk about it, tag it, and/or remove it. A quick dismissal based on the presence of "bad" words is the least persuasive kind of argument, and edit summaries that just say "per WEASEL" raise an WP:AGF issue, I think.

In fact, I think the current wording, "... but editors may object if you remove material without giving them sufficient time to provide references", is actually pushing people in the direction of the "quick fix" per WEASEL or WORDS, and this is a bad thing (which kills me, since I supported a version of the current wording vigorously in April). Without "breaking the wiki", is there some phrase we could insert that would allow people to remove material quickly without painting a picture of a looming objection, if they believe the material can never be sourced, due to being non-supportable and/or non-falsifiable? I know that WEASEL and WORDS attempt to do this, but I'd prefer to focus people on core content policy whenever something is being done for what is essentially a core content policy reason. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I guess I'm also looking for something else here, which is a recommendation, at least at WEASEL and WORDS if not also here, that when someone removes material because it wasn't sourced, they say that it's per WP:V or WP:BURDEN in the edit summary and/or the talk page, rather than saying it's per WEASEL or WORDS; those might have been reasons too, but let's focus on the core content policy. If someone then restores the material, saying that BURDEN requires you to give them more time, it would be nice if it's clear from BURDEN that if the statement is non-supportable or non-falsifiable, that's there's no implication in WP:V of a "minimum waiting period". - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:44, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Usually people jump all over recommendations like that, so I'm going to assume that was difficult to follow and try to break it down:

• When you're trying to win an argument, on- or off-wiki, the least helpful approach is to tell someone they used the wrong words. It's best to point to what the goal is (in our case, faithfully representing the sources), and show them that what they've got either doesn't or can't meet that goal, as stated. That's more likely to lead to a productive dialogue.
• We have WP:V, and we have WP:Words to avoid and WP:Avoid weasel words. WP:V is important, but it takes a while to learn how to apply it; the other two suggest that people should remove things if they see certain words and phrases. People prefer "simple" to "hard", so a lot of people remove material based on WORDS and WEASEL, even when the best reason would be WP:V. We can't stop people from preferring the simple route, but it would be a good idea to be clear that WP:V is the better reason.
• We're actually causing part of the problem here, by specifically saying in WP:BURDEN that you may have to wait a while if you want to remove material, whereas WORDS and WEASEL seem to promise instant gratification. We should fix that, and I don't have a preference how. We could add a sentence, but big changes to WP:V sometimes get over-discussed, so my instinct would be to go with something small and inoffensive, such as adding "that appears to be sourceable" (or "verifiable") to this clause: "but editors may object if you remove material that appears to be sourceable without giving them sufficient time to provide references." That doesn't change anything; it just makes it clear that there's not a "minimum waiting period" if you've got a solid argument that, no matter how hard they try, the nature of the material is such that it can't be sourced. This is a fairly simple concept when you get the hang of it, but we could point people to the examples at WEASEL or WORDS to walk people through it; it basically amounts to sticking to declarative, falsifiable, not-impossibly-vague statements. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:28, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Executive summary: 9 times out of 10, when people are giving WEASEL or WORDS as their reason for removing material, the outcome would probably be better if they said instead "per BURDEN", and explained why they don't think the material as stated could be supported by any source. That will focus attention on the logic rather than the words. The small change I suggested might help a little bit, by keeping people from replying, "But BURDEN says you have to wait!" (Alternatively, it would be fine with me to rename WEASEL to something like "Avoid unsourceable language" or "Verifiable language", and tighten it up, a lot, so that the focus on WP:BURDEN is not lost.) - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:41, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Hm, I thought people might jump on this one. Okay, the tightest change would be changing "if you remove material" to "if you remove clear language", with a link to the page now called WP:Avoid weasel words. No one over at that talk page is happy with its current contents; this would give us an excuse to get busy over there, and a good way to frame the issue. If we can get things fixed up over there, I'll come back here and ask for the change again. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 13:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Meaning of "third-party"

In regards to this revert, if you self-published a book about someone else, who would be the second party in that case? I thought I finally understood the meaning of "third-party source", but maybe I don't. PSWG1920 (talk) 20:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Good question, it's a confusing word. Maybe I'm the one who's got it wrong. Haukur (talk) 20:50, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

In many cases there is no "second party"... but if I understand things correctly we can define "parties" as follows:

• A policy statement written by Barrak Obama's campaign manager about Obama's political views would be a first-party source, as the campaign manager has a direct connection to Obama.
• A statement by John McCain about Barrak Obama's views would be a second-party source, as McCain has an indirect connection to Obama.
• A political analyst writing about Barrak Obama's political views would be a third-party source, as there is no connection to Obama.

Does that help? Blueboar (talk) 21:36, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

This won't necessarily help but the dictionaries say that third party can mean literally a third party, or can also mean[6]: "a person other than the principals <a third party to a divorce proceeding> <insurance against injury to third parties>". That sense is the sense that it has seemed to me to fit on Wikipedia: someone or something that it's reasonable to assume won't have a bias because they're not involved as a party. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:52, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

In that case, why don't we just stick to "secondary source"? That would be more clear. Unless, of course, my understanding is correct. PSWG1920 (talk) 22:07, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

That is a different axis in regards to article sourcing. First/third-party describe the relationship with the topic being described, while primary/secondary/tertiary describe the treatment of the facts given by the source. Third-party and secondary are two different things, though for sourcing on WP, often overlap, but not all the time. --MASEM 21:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I actually prefer the distinction "third party"... in the example I give above, John McCain's statement would be a secondary source on Barrak Obama... but I think we would all agree that it would be inappropriate to use his statement as a source for a factual statement about Obama (On the other hand, his statement would be an appropriate primary source for a statement about McCain's opinion on Obama). Blueboar (talk) 22:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I support the inclusion of "third-party" language. For one thing, it's a more accessible concept for some editors. It is not necessary for every issue to have a second party. Alternatively, you can have a multi-way dispute; the judge at a six-way lawsuit is still considered a "third party". WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:22, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, this is not parallel to primary secondary tertiary sources, but rather, to a lawsuit or a debate between two parties. The third party is anyone outside that. In a divorce, it typically is the co-respondent. But more usually it's some evaluating a dispute, or writing about it. That's the relevant WP meaning. The very clsely related concept is "independent". That's why something written by the Obama campaign is not a RS for disputed questions about Obama. DGG (talk) 21:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Refined Proposal for New Advocacy Group Section

This topic certainly has come up on WP:RS a lot over the years, and I assume here. Proposals usually are shot down with the excuse that “it all depends - it has to be done on a case by case basis.” Having done a pretty good study of Reliable Sources Noticeboard Discussions, I can see a lot of the repeated questions and answers involve advocacy group and publications sources that are reliable in some respects and less so in others. These range from Southern Poverty Law Center to LewRockwell.com to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting to FrontPage Magazine. (See page for whole list.)

I think to clarify this for our many many confused and frustrated editors, we need to include between “Reliable sources” and “Self-published sources” something like the Draft below, either in this article or in WP:RS - or even both:

Advocacy Groups and Publications

The reliability of facts put forth by advocacy groups and publications which exercise editorial control will vary. Articles reprinted with permission from reliable sources are reliable. Articles and blog entries produced for the source by independent academics, private and governmental experts, journalists, reputable authors, etc. generally are reliable. Advocacy articles and blog entries commissioned by the organization should be treated as reliable only if the information is meticulously sourced, especially in relation to biographies of living persons.

Carol Moore 22:42, 24 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Of course, one man's advocacy group is another man's reliable source. The SPLC is certainly an example. It advocates programs to teach tolerance and combat racism, but it is also accepted by both academics and journalists as a reliable, factual source -- this meets the existing requirement in the article that states, "Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications." Its own writers are forming a journalist function and should be held to no higher or lower standard than any other person performing the same function for a legitimate organization. In their area of expertise they certainly, in the opinion of the numerous newspapers that quote them, fall into your category of "private and governmental experts."

A group can advocate for causes as part of a series of functions that it performs -- the SPLC provides education, training for law enforcement, research, and legal services. Absent a clear, detailed definition of what an "advocacy group" is, the proposed language creates more problems than it solves. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 23:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

This is about wikipedia principles, not defending one particular source. After all those guidelines might hurt some sources I like to use :-) Carol Moore 00:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

That doesn't adress the problem of defining "advocacy group" in an objective fashion. Virtually every writer and journalist in some way advocates for something (if only the "truth"). Think tanks advocate policies, scholars advocate their theories, the USDA advocates drinking milk. I think that the existing language already covers how to decide which sources are reliable in sufficient detail and, as Tom suggests, this would make the determination more complicated. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

First, this proposal was prompted by a week of dealing with a couple people in a gender-related article who just didn't get WP:V or WP:RS, esp related to their favorite advocacy groups. One of most frustrating articles I've worked on - but I did an RfC and got in a few other people who also explained it over and over til the two people got it and stopped reverting each other. Then I had a run in with an advocacy group I don't like that really got me going.

But just to speak in general terms of helping people more quickly understand whether or not any source is reliable, the other possibility is to put together a chart or grid where the rules are listed and variables like whether reprints, or experts or blogs are WP:RS are somehow integrated. I'm a charts and lists person. Can't help it :-) It's very difficult to edit when you run into people who don't get it and something to increase the learning curve would help - it would have saved me a lot of frustration when I first started too... Carol Moore 03:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

the land of micro-managers who care more about process than content - rules than substance

Wikipedia as an institution appears to be a draw for people who care more about rules than substance. There's a certain personality type that operates this way, but people who go about their lives doing this sort of thing tend to exclude actual thought & meaning.

But wikipedia isn't about that, it's an encyclopedia, right? But then again it tends to discriminate against blogs & new media & online forum content which may be simultaneously cataloged in blog indexes.

If you have the personality type that matches up with what I've described all this will be completely over your head and meaningless most likely. To you the process is more important than the content of a given submission. You as a rules & process person actually have no perception about the social weight of a given submission. And if the process hurts content, that doesn't matter to you: you're a process person and nothing else. You're a robot or an automaton.

This discussion relates to an attempted addition to meetin.org. Z2401 (talk) 05:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's core policies (WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOT) are actually quite self-explanatory and the need for them is self-evident to intellectuals who have graduated from a research university with a degree in a social sciences or humanities major, which implies that you are not in that category. Try following the Arbitration Committee's proceedings for a few weeks and you will see how these policies are applied in practice. Unfortunately, I don't have the time, energy, or interest to tutor you myself in basic critical thinking or epistemology. You should consider attending a community college class on those subjects if one is available in your area. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that you can't see where all those "process minded people" are coming from. We have seen (collectively) thousands of editors come and go trying to push criticism or praise that has no reliable sourcing, and they always have some reasoned argument why we should ignore the process just for them. The adherence to any rule is not out of blind faith in the process (although, each of us can have his moments), but out of a true inability to distinguish what is worth space in an article from what is not. Indeed, that is why Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Notability, Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Undue weight exist. Their purpose is to remove from editors the extremely subjective choice of what should belong. The process instead becomes a more objective one of what content passes muster under the policies that have received consensus from the community. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Content over process has the sound of a good idea. But I think that's a simplistic way at looking at the current actuality of Wikipedia dynamics. In a small group where everyone knows each other, process is very informal and doesn't get in the way of productive work. However, in a project as massive as Wikipedia, process is the only way we can collaborate meaningfully and productively to produce the quality content that is the purpose of this project. With the size of Wikipedia, it's impossible to even recognize all the editors, never mind know them, or know of them. A small town doesn't need traffic lights, but a large city would have never ending gridlock without them. Just look at some of the contentious article with multiple edit wars, drive by vandalism, and groups of editors that can't seem to agree on anything. That would be the norm throughout much more of Wikipedia without policy and guidelines on what is, and what isn't, permissible here, and processes that encourage collaboration and consensus building over non constructive activity. — Becksguy (talk) 08:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

WP mirror sites are not reliable sources

I've added a note that other sites mirroring WP content are not any more qualified as reliable sources than the original WP page they copy ([7]). Otherwise people who would like to circumvent the restriction against citing WP articles just cite one of the mirror sites, and we get circular references. Example: [8] Jayen466 14:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

What does ‘the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability’ actually mean?

I recently found an article, Meganekko that was unreferenced and judging by the history and talk page unlikely to attract any references ever. So because I thought this page says that such material needs to be deleted, I listed it for deletion. But the discussion closed with no consensus. Quite apart from nonsensical replies such as that the material in the article isn't challenged, even though I obviously did, one editor stated that this page does not say that unverifiable material should be deleted. So what do I do now? I'm reluctant to touch the matter again, but I also can't let it go like that because that would turn this policy page into a dead letter. Something has to be done, but what? Should I stub the article? But then there is already a problem: I have my doubts with even the correctness of the shortest possible description of the article's subject. Should I wait and relist? But how long will be long enough to establish that no sources will come? Maybe someone could add a tutorial on this page about what to do when confronted with an article that violates the policy. Shinobu (talk) 10:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Interesting topic. I wonder if Kasuga could be persuaded to do a meganekko Wikipe-tan. Haukur (talk) 11:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

While this example may seem trivial to some, this is a serious topic since partisans can create -- and then staunchly defend -- articles about subjects which are widely discussed only by non-reliable sources, including ones that are WP:neologisms which are only supposed to be discussed by reliable resources. Neolibertarian is one such example which avoided one deletion when it was first started and whose partisans have jumped up to defend it in subsequent deletion discussions.

A counter example is Jewish Lobby which is hardly a neologism but was labeled one by partisan editors making it a long hard struggle to make the article NPOV so we could mention there actually were non-antisemitic uses of the term.

Overall, does it make wikipedia better to have articles on obviously real and/or widely discussed topics even if there aren't any reliable sources talking about it? In the end it's an editorial judgment and highly political so keeping wikipedia neutral and verifiable is a constant struggle. Carol Moore 17:23, 25 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

From a bit of googling, and visiting the links given in the article, I've just verified to my satisfaction that the term Meganekko does exist, and that it is commonly used among anime fans. Even a website of an anime distributor or an anime reviewer can be considered a third party source. Also, remember that self published sources are acceptable sources about themselves and can be used to verify what they themselves say. lk (talk) 07:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

About plot summaries.

It should point out that, when giving a plot summary or fictional character biography, this rule generally is reversed (it should have first-party sources). If my point here isn't clear enough, tell me. [[User:Tutthoth-Ankhre|Tutthoth-Ankhre~ The Pharaoh of the Universe]] (talk) 00:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

this applies only to straightforward plot description. Discussion of the underlying motives of a character, if not blindingly obvious, or the parallelism of events, or similar matters of interpretation, is better sourced from criticism if available. All too many of our plot articles do not make the distinction--which is part of the reason they keep being nominated for deletion. DGG (talk) 01:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Sources must directly support

Added this line: "The source cited must directly support the information as it is presented in the article." I believe it's uncontroversial. lk (talk) 07:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually there is some controversy. Look at my unsuccessful attempt to get "There is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived, to give an example, and Christianity is based on narrative fiction of high literary and cathartic quality. On the other hand Christianity is concerned with the narration of things that actually take place in human life." (abstract) "It is not possible to compare the above with what we have, namely, that there is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived."(body of text) Fischer, Roland (1994) "On The Story-Telling Imperative That We Have In Mind" Anthropology of Consciousness. Dec 1994, Vol. 5, No. 4: 16 into the Jesus myth article. Those quotes were removed on the ground the article as a whole didn't say that. In my view this will cause as many problems as it solves.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:23, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

If you think this will cause problems, then those problems have already been caused by Wikipedia:No original research. Someguy1221 (talk) 16:28, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem is it is easy to use Wikipedia:No original research to claim that a quote is being taken out of context (how one can claim that about a quote that is practically a paragraph I have no idea) and then use OR by taking another quote out of context to claim the source as a whole doesn't say what the direct quote says.

On the flip side I am trying to remove this quote "No reputable scholar today questions that a Jew named Jesus son of Joseph lived; most readily admit that we now know a considerable amount about his actions and basic teachings ..." (Charlesworth, James H. (ed.) (2006). Jesus and Archaeology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.) on several issues: possible Wikipedia:Libel as it basically states that anyone that questions the idea "Jew named Jesus son of Joseph lived" is not reputable scholar (even among the Historical Jesus group there are those who dispute the 'son of Joseph' part so are they somehow unreliable scholar?), Wikipedia:Neutral point of view issues as the statement is an Ad hominem attack and doesn't really add anything to an encyclopedia article, WP:V issues as Charlesworth is the editor of the very book in which his comment appears and Eerdmans presents themselves as "Publisher of religious books, from academic works in theology, biblical studies, religious history and reference to popular titles in spirituality, social and cultural criticism, and literature." creating COI concerns. The quote has been put back in with claims that Charlesworth is an "expert in biblical archaeology" failing to explain that only thing to imply this is his E.T. (Eleve Titulaire) from the Ecole Biblique de Jerusalem (Princeton Theological Seminary) but if you have no idea what Eleve Titulaire equates to then you are left wondering especially when it is not mentioned what he got his B.D. from Duke Divinity School, a Ph.D. from Duke University Graduate School in and later that Eerdmans is "reputable academic publisher" something not even claimed at Eerdmans' own web site. This is supposed to have more merit than an quote from an article published in a peer reviewed published by the American Anthropological Association?! Something wrong here.

Personally I would yank any Ad hominem quote regardless of subject matter as I can not see on reasonable use for one in any article. The fact you don't see such quotes in articles on other fringe theories like Flat Earth, Creationism, or New Chronology (Fomenko-Nosovsky) raises the question of why are Ad hominem quotes in the Jesus myth article and why editors are fighting to keep them in when better quotes exist.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Sources that are not Reliable, but are also not Extremist or Fringe

The guideline right now clearly describes high quality reliable sources, and describes how to treat fringe and extremist material. However, this leaves out a whole swath of sources that don't easily fall into either category. How are we supposed to treat things like a new minor magazine, a small town newspaper, a congressional testimony, a white paper issued by a major organization, Krugman's blog on NYT, a magazine published by the Catholic Church? I would like the page to spell out clearly that some 'questionable sources' are not 'fringe' or 'extremist', ie. an article from a new magazine is not the same as an article from a newspaper published by the Communist Party of America; and also describe how such questionable but not fringe sources may be used. lk (talk) 10:19, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

You should read the essay Wikipedia:The rules are principles. Reliability is not a binary, black and white, on or off thing. It is really a sliding scale. No source is ever "always reliable" or "always unreliable". Some sources are more reliable than others... but few sources are completely unreliable. Heck, even extremist souces are considered reliable for statements about as to what is contained within the extemist source (Mein Kampf is reliable for statements as to what is written in Mein Kampf).

The ultimate answer is that every source must be judged on its own merits, on a case by case basis. What is the source being used in support of? Is it likely that the source is accurate for this information?... does it have a known bias that might skew how it presents the facts? Is a given Wikipedia article using the source to support a statement of fact, or is it using the source to support a statement of opinion?.

We want wikipedia to present the best possible information, supported by the best possible sources. At some point, the "best possible" crosses a line into "not good enough", but where that line lies is often a difficult thing to determine. My advice... if you are wondering if a source is over the line, it is time to look for a better source. Blueboar (talk) 15:04, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that "Reliability is not a binary, black and white, on or off thing" - one example is chess, where current / retired top players are good at assessing the quality of others' play (when not emotionally involved), but are often unreliable on chess history. However I know from experience that it's very hard to persuade people that reliability is variable and situational. It may partly be because reviewers can easily apply what they see as simple rules, and often don't have enough knowledge of articles' subjects to judge reliability on a sliding scale or according to the situation - and there's a shortage of reviewers, so reviewers don't want to spent time debating the reliability of sources during reviews.

The best work-round I can think of is a reliability panel that assess claims about whether a particular source is more or less reliable in particular cases than the standard WP:RS rules would suggest. If such a panel existed, I'd argue to have chess player-writers down-graded on chess history (I can cite chess historians on this) and some "self-published" sources for video games upgraded because their content is more knowledgeable and objective than the average "big name" games mag.-- Philcha (talk) 16:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

The sliding scale metaphor is excellent and should be incorporated in both WP:V and WP:RS. As I've said elsewhere, many of the questions on WP:RS noticeboard are from people who don't get that and a clearer statement in policy pages would make it easier to remember that, even if they only ran across it the FIRST time they post to WP:RS noticeboard. Carol Moore 16:53, 2 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

My point is that we have guidelines for how to treat solid reliable sources, and guidelines for how to treat obvious fringe sources. But we don't have guidelines for how to treat many sources, that lie somewhere in between.

• Should sources that are not prima facie unreliable be used in essentially the same way as we would peer-reviewed articles?
• Should they be used but only if the information can also be backed up by other multiple sources? (How many?)
• Should they be used only if the source is uninvolved with the topic, and can be seen as a true third party?
• Should biased sources be used, but only if the bias of that particular source is noted inline (eg. According to left-liberal Mother Jones magazine ...)
• Should they be used, but only if the source of the information is attributed inline?
• Should they be used only for non-controversial statements?
• Should they be used only to note the existence of various viewpoints?

I've seen adhoc solutions, but it would be nice if it were written out somewhere. lk (talk) 16:56, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

The real problem is that the only really good sources are peer-reviewed academic journals. The peer review filters out obvious rubbish (it's only a first-cut filter), but the real driver for reliability there is the Darwinian competition between ideas, and sometimes between academics, so that dubios / controversial ideas attract counter-articles pretty quickly.

Books by even the top academics in their fields are quite a long way down from peer-viewed journals, for a variety of reasons, e.g.: the authors will usually favour their own pet theories; they may be writing a wide-scope book, a large part of which is outside their specialism; they may be writing for less expert audiences, which includes undergraduates.

After that it's a jungle. That's why I suggested a panel to assess the reliability of sources. -- Philcha (talk) 17:37, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

We have such a panel. It's the reliable sources noticeboard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Is a publication from a fringe group a Questionable Source?

I'm being reverted on this edit where I add the word 'fringe' to the section on Questionable sources. I believe it's uncontroversial, but Vision thing (who apparently thinks some Fringe sources are reliable sources) insists that I get consensus first. So, I would like to ask, 'is it ok to describe Fringe sources as Questionable sources'? By 'Fringe', I mean as defined by WP:Fringe and WP:PSCI. lk (talk) 15:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be better to refer to this as pseudoscientific instead of fringe. Count Iblis (talk) 15:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I think lk's edit was well within both the spirit and the intent of the Questionable Sources section. Fringe sources are questionable sources... as such they can be reliable, in certain limited circumstances... and the limitations are the same as for any other questionable source. Blueboar (talk) 23:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Citing WP:Fringe on this doesn't seem entirely applicable here, as that page is about fringe theories, not "fringe sources." --Hordaland (talk) 08:57, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

You are correct to a point... WP:Fringe is not completely applicable, but it isn't completely unapplicable either... Fringe theories are often citable to Fringe sources. I think lk's point is that a Fringe source (say a publication by a fringe religious sect) would fall into the "questionable" category. Such sources can be reliable in certain limited situations, but generally they are not reliable. Blueboar (talk) 13:12, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the point about theory vs source, I remember being a bit surprised when reading the sources section here. Because it starts off defining reliability in terms of (reputation for) fact-checking, scrutiny etc. Fine. Then in the questionable sources subsection it's talking about sources that rely instead on rumors and personal opinions, promotional etc. Ok. But then: "or express views that are widely acknowledged as extremist". I was surprised because it switches from the issue of the editorial quality of the source, to the issue of the 'viewpoint being expressed therein. In other words, it seems to be implying that extremist viewpoints in sources means there can't have been fact-checking etc... EverSince (talk) 17:13, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it's justified to characterize organizations that espouse fringe, pseudoscience or extremist views as Questionable Sources. Since by espousing such views, these organizations have given prima facie evidence that they do not care much for fact checking or the factual accuracy of their views. LK (talk) 05:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I took that subsection to be talking about sources in the sense of documents rather than organizations/authors. And about how much scrutiny/fact-checking there's been of the document (and it's explictly not talking about self-publishing). I think "pseudoscience" is different, being more inherently about the nature of the facts. EverSince (talk) 20:24, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The phrase "verifiability, not truth"

The first paragraph says: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true."

This worries me greatly. I mean if Wikipedia is supposed to be the "sum of all human knowledge" then how can we only allow verifiability?

There must be some give-and-take involved here. I'm sure that this is an age old question, but please humour me. I've seen many maths additions be removed because of lack of verifiability, even though the things written are quite clearly true!

If I were to have enough money I could self-publish a book full of a whole range of falsehoods and then come onto Wikipedia and post the stuff because it's verifiable by the definition of these guidelines. (I had previously argued against self-published work but found myself against a more vocal minority.) For example: I could cite many verifiable sources that say that NASA never went to the moon, and (disgustingly) that the Nazi holocaust never happened.

If I'm talking a load of rubbish then please let me know nicely!

 Δεκλαν Δαφισ   (talk)  19:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't despair. Although the debate about what "verifiability v. truth" means has gone on and on, our fundamental goal is to write an encyclopedia, and that carries with it the obligation that our content is "correct" in a certain sense. You can read "verifiability, not truth" as "verifiably in agreement with the published literature on the topic"; then the extent to which the articles are "correct" will reflect the extent to which the published literature is "correct". The word "true" is too loaded with meaning, and there are too many armchair postmodernists, for discussions on Wikipedia about "truth" to get very far. The moral, though, is that we do try to make our articles correct in the sense that the average reader would expect. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The reason for it is the fact that there is no such thing as 'the truth', it's all subjective, every editor has an idea of the what is truth so we rely on sources that have a reputation. Any other way would be impossible. Also note that common sense always applies and obvious things do not necessarily need sourcing and vanity press releases are not usually acceptable as reliable sources. Also the examples you cite are usually considered fringe theories and are represented as a opinions and views not as truth. --neon white talk 20:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

"Verifiable, not True™" is usually invoked when an editor wants to include something that s/he "knows" is "true", because -- oh, my mother told me that's how it is. Or because I'm pretty sure that I saw a magazine article about that a while ago. Or maybe it was someone's blog somewhere. Anyway, I'm sure I remember it correctly, and I sincerely believe it, so that's good enough, right?

This rule does not excuse the addition of false information; it merely limits the information to that which is verifiable in a reliable source. The contents of the encyclopedia would ideally be both verifiable and accurate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Declan Davis, your example about being able to cite "many verifiable sources that say that NASA never went to the moon, and (disgustingly) that the Nazi holocaust never happened." is exactly why we set the threshold at verifiability and not truth. We would not be able to write serious article about the Apollo moon landing hoax accusations or Holocaust denial without this statement. To do justice to any topic, you have to be able to discuss what different people say about a subject... even if we think what they are saying is not true. We have all sorts of policies and guidelines that limit how we discuss differing views. The key for me is to attribute the views to those who holds them... in other words express views as statements of opinion, and not as statements of fact. Blueboar (talk) 15:21, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Self-fulfilling verifiability

I've jut been reading my latest copy of Private Eye in which it suggests that the Daily Mirror used an (essentially vandalised) copy of a page on a Cypriot football team called Omonia Nicosia with a joke supporters group inserted into it. Private Eye's assertion is that our verifiability policy is essentially daft, given that it requires simply attribution in a third-party reliable source, such as a mainstream newspaper, which would allow this "joke" to be included as factual. I'm uncertain on this specific case, but I've seen similar point brought up before. Whilst I'm happy that in general we may catch these problems, do we have any procedures in place to prevent this, or specific guidance? This is an issue, since it impinges on our reputation and the quality of the encyclopeadia as a whole. Any thoughts? Fritzpoll (talk) 10:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

If we're using either Private Eye or the Daily Mirror to support article claims, the joke's on us. Regardless, reputable publications with established reputations for accuracy and editorial oversight are quite unlikely to be regurgitating vandalized and/or inaccurate information from Wikipedia. The neutral point of view policy is a further safeguard, since it indicates we shouldn't be presenting claims only present in one or very few sources. Vassyana (talk) 10:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll dig around in my archives, but I'm pretty certain that several reputable newspapers (The Times, Telegraph) have been regurgitating portions of our pages. Maybe this is only a problem with newspapers, and as such isn't going to affect quality on a wide scale. I'm not sure - I just felt it was worth discussing. Fritzpoll (talk) 10:42, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I think a deference to higher quality sources and ensuring that our articles reflect the body fo reputable sources is the best systematic way to counter the concern. In other words, sticking to the principles we have in place. I believe that at worst this highlights concerns periodically raised about the news media, particularly those outlets with less than a sterling reputations. Vassyana (talk) 11:23, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

"Verifiability, not truth" doesn't mean we should include what we know to be untrue. --NE2 10:34, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely, but I think I was thinking more along the lines of how we try to prevent this from happening, if indeed it is possible. For instance, in this example, someone could unwittingly read the Mirror article, and update the article with a valid source. The edit is in good faith, and it could be very diffcult to catch. I was wondering if some sort of additional criterion, such as the date of the verifying source having to precede the first inclusion of the information in an article would prevent this? I'm certain that someone else can come up with ways in which this wouldn't work though... Fritzpoll (talk) 10:39, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

If the Daily Mirror is using Wikipedia as a source, we should not consider it reliable in any case. Powers ^T 10:42, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but isn't that difficult to enforce in practise? The Daily Mirror crops up as a source in several pages, and we can't be sure that we're not being used as a source for info by various publications, even if it is less obvious. I'm just a bit concerned about the possibility of us verifying our own information via a proxy third-party source, and that maybe the date of the source needs to be used to assert it usefulness in verification. Fritzpoll (talk) 10:46, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I've encountered this a bit recently - when trying to reference long-standing articles, we may need to be careful that the source didn't rely on Wikipedia. I've taken your approach, and prefer to rely on sources that either predate the entry here, or which are clearly reliable (although "clearly" is tricky to judge). Not perfect, but it makes me feel more comfortable. - Bilby (talk) 14:06, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I was mostly wondering if we should make an expicit note/suggestion to that effect on one of the policy or guideline pages. Just to make people more aware of it? Fritzpoll (talk) 14:08, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this issue a lot, lately. :) Yes, I think it is probably a good idea to mention the issue, although I have no idea how. Perhaps in terms of what consititues a reliable source? - Bilby (talk) 14:44, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I think I'll move this off this page and over to WP:RS, where I'll propose adding a bulletpoint to Wikipedia:Rs#News_organizations - Join me there? Fritzpoll (talk) 14:53, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I think if a publication sources it's articles from Wikipedia, and doesn't fact check, then it wouldn't be a 'Reliable Source', and so the supposed fact cannot be supported by an article from such a publication. lk (talk) 10:42, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

But how do you know the publication is sourcing in this way? I only saw this one because someone else happened to be checking it out. Fritzpoll (talk) 10:49, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not just tabloids like the Daily Mirror - a dubious "fact" from Wikipedia found its way into Ronnie Hazlehurst's obituries in several far more reputable newspapers, including The Times (see Talk:Ronnie_Hazlehurst#The_SClub_7_Hoax). The Times retracted it fairly quickly, but similar instances could easily have fallen through the net. Since otherwise good sources may well do this from time to time, I don't see a way to exclude the possibility of this sort of feedback loop completely, though it might well help to suggest that for unlikely facts, sources which pre-date the Wikipedia article are preferred. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 14:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd suspected as much. I guess, given Wikipedia's prominence, this was bound to happen - we'll catch some of the problems with people noticing similarities. In the meantime, I would like to propose an addition to either WP:V or WP:RS to make a note of this possibility. Any suggestions as to which or if this is even a good idea? Fritzpoll (talk) 14:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

By chance I just posted about a specific example of exactly this issue today at at the noticeboard! Times are hard in the news rooms! Carol Moore 16:07, 2 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Any organsation that makes extensive use of Wikipedia as a source is not a credible source to be use by Wikipedia. I.e., if one-in-100 articles in newspaper x can be seen to have used Wikipedia-originated material, then maybe no articles from newspaper x should ever be considered citable as sources within Wikipedia articles. Meowy 17:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's as easy as that. What if the copying is non-obvious? I think an advisement of caution within the guidelines might be better than trying to organise overview of statistical information gathering on the use of Wikipedia articles by the press. I've proposed a wording addition of sorts at WT:RS, and I hope people can gather to comment there on whether the change is needed, and to help with the wording, since I am not an eloquent chap Fritzpoll (talk) 17:07, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree especially if the information is actually coming from one of the many unofficial mirrors of Wikipedia some of which don't update as often as Wikipedia does. So you have the risk of someone using an old version of a Wikipedia article that may not match the current one and therefor be missed as actually originating from Wikipedia. This is an issue if when the mirror was created a piece of information was wrong or misstated and that article is then used to reinstate the old inaccurate information. Also even the best papers may use wikipedia; in the link Carolmooredc provides it was stated that "The New York Times has links to wikipedia all the time, that isn't a reason to remove their blog posts or news articles." Remember that mainstream newspapers is last in the hierarchy of reliable sources which implies that greater care must be used than with sources higher up the hierarchy.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:51, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• A bullet point has been added to WP:RS to help with this issue Fritzpoll (talk) 10:35, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Burden of evidence

The source cited must directly support the information as it is presented in the article (When there is dispute about whether the article text is fully supported by the given source, direct quotes from the source and any other details requested should be provided as a courtesy to substantiate the reference.).

The current wording could be misunderstood if a reliable sources cites another (reliable) source to support the information as it is presented in the article. This practice is very common in peer reviewed publications. We have a section in the citation guideline to cover this (see WP:CITE#SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT). I would suggest removing the word "directly" from the sentence.--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:32, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Or the word 'directly' in that first line could be replaced with 'fully', if that is what is meant. --Hordaland (talk) 12:54, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... perhaps we do need to think of a way to rephrase this, because similar wording is being questioned at WP:NOR as well. The reason for the words "directly support" was to stop editors from misusing sources... taking something a source says out of context and using it to support a statement that the source does not actually agree with. I think we would all agree that this is something we do not want... but perhaps the wording needs to be rethought. Blueboar (talk) 23:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

How about saying that the "source cited must clearly support the information..." That deals with the indirection of someone citing someone else's work and also the NOR problem of taking statements out of context (e.g., to quote a relatively famous example, the assertion that "Psalm 14 says, 'there is no God'", without noting that the entire sentence reads, The fool hath said in his heart, "There is no God.") WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

My favorite "out of context" line is: "Congress shall pass no law"! (First Amendment to the US Constitution. (sometimes I wish it did end there...) Blueboar (talk) 13:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I think "must clearly support the information as it is presented" is good. lk (talk) 05:29, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

As no one has done so, I'm going to be bold and change it myself. LK (talk) 09:18, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I prefer "unambiguously" to "clearly". Is that a dealbreaker for you? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the new text, I'd like to suggest a further change to prune and tighten up:

• from: "the source cited must clearly support the information as it is presented in the article"
• to: "the source cited must support unambiguously the information presented in the article"

Any objections? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what unambiguously means in this situation, and how it would mean anything different from clearly. May be you could explain why the change? LK (talk) 14:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure :) The "source cited must clearly support the information" puts the onus on the source to be clear. The source statement may not be particularly clearly written but otherwise be accurate, hence, "unambiguously". Now I think about it more, the whole emphasis can be placed on the article content by inverting the sentence structure and recasting, thus:

• "the information presented must be (unambiguously) confirmed by the source cited".

Does this help? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:06, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I've been thinking unambiguously since clearly was suggested, but I couldn't (clearly) explain why. --Hordaland (talk) 12:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

A little help?

I've been writing aviation-related articles for about a decade now. During that time I've come to rely on Joe Baugher's extensive list of American Military Aircraft. This list consists mostly of articles created by scraping other sources, essentially identical to the process used to create articles for the Wikipedia. They tend to be much longer than suitable for a Wikipedia article, but the creation process is similar, and the results excellent.

On several occasions I have been able to check his references after the fact. I have yet to find a single error that isn't in the original source. The simple fact that he includes his references in the articles is a good indicator of their quality, IMHO.

So now with that out of the way, I would like to gather some opinions on whether or not this is a suitable reference source. It is claimed that it is not, because it is a self-published source. However, the criterion right above SPS, "Reliable sources", states "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.", a label that his works fit to a T.

Soooo, which is it? In my opinion, Reliable trumps SPS. Further, IMHO, that SPS's primary concern is weeding out low-quality sources like moon-hoax conspiracy sites, which are generally SPS, and not to weed out high-quality sources just because they are SPS.

Am I interpreting this correctly?

Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

It's worth observing that Joe Baugher is notable in his own right as an established author on the topic in mainstream press. That's one criterion used to establish such a reputation. But the discussion should really be at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources, not here.LeadSongDog (talk) 21:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'd take it to WP:RSN, the reliable sources noticeboard, which exists for the sole purpose of dealing with these kinds of questions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Done! Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:53, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Order of words in "Questionable sources" Section

[Note: This section used to the part of the section above, '... fringe group a questionable source?']

Having heard one of the editors involved in these changes misquote WP:V and WP:RS essentially to assert that a certain political/economic class of widely quoted sources are basically all fringe wackos who aren't reliable at wikipedia, you'll have to pardon me if I grow a bit suspicious when the editor makes/supports changes that make pages with "opinons" be the first most questionable category!! The relevant changes are in the second sentence.

Original Sept 30 version: Questionable sources include websites and publications that express views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, are promotional in nature, or rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions.

New October 10th Version: Questionable sources include websites and publications that rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions, are promotional in nature, or express views that are widely acknowledged as extremist or pseudoscience.

Because sites that rely "heavily on rumors and personal opinions" has been moved up first it casts suspicion on many sites (left, right and libertarian) that offer opinions promoting allegedly minority views, often from both lay people and experts, and infers that even if a renowned academic expert published there with footnotes, it's too "questionable" a source to use the article! I think it is best to go back to the original so the emphasis starts with extremist and promotional. Also "personal opinions" might be modified to "lay person personal opinions" just be 100% clear. Carol Moore 15:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

The sources are listed in order from most reliable to least reliable – which makes sense, as the WP:SOURCES section also presents reliable sources in order from most to least reliable. Publications that rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions can be reliable in certain circumstances, promotional sources are highly suspect (I wouldn't usually source from an advertisement). And extremist sources are prima facie unreliable. This ordering makes sense to me. LK (talk) 15:49, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

First this section header doesn't really address the change that was made; and better late than never there is a relevant explanation for the change that was made.

As I've said before, and today replying to Blueboar on WP:RS/talk spectrum language needs to be in there and there needs to be a way to make it clear that a notable person who footnotes his material can be quoted for fact but a layperson even with footnotes cannot. And where does, for example, a Nobel winning economist publishing an article on economics in a large conservative paper fit? Only useable for opinion? Or useable for fact?? Or do people have to keep running to WP:RS/noticeboard to clear up something that better guidelines might make clearer?? Carol Moore 17:02, 10 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

I don't appreciate the personal attacks, so let me address your concerns one at a time. 1) This section isn't for discussing the reordering of the sentence, it is discussing the insertion of the word fringe into the paragraph. 2) A reordering of the examples of questionable sources does does not change the meaning of the sentence and is trivial. Your comment that my explanation of why this ordering reads better is "better late than never", is petty. If you had checked at WP:RS you'll find that this is also the ordering used there. 3) WP:RS addresses to some extent the differences between most questionable sources and extremist sources – that are prima facie unreliable. LK (talk) 08:59, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't take common colloquial expressions personally. Thought provoking alternative language to deal with my concerns was posted on WP:RS and I'll quote it here:

I think part of the issue here is that the word 'source' is used interchangeably to refer to venues and people (thus Carol's objection that a reliable person can publish something in an unreliable venue, and less commonly vice-versa. maybe expanding the description like so (rough draft): "Questionable sources include websites and publications that rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions or are promotional in nature, or organization or individuals who express views that are widely acknowledged as extremist or pseudoscientific. It may be necessary to evaluate the venue and the author independently." does that move in the right direction? --Ludwigs2

What do people think? Any problem with that or a similar change?

Also note that I have these concerns not just because of specific current and past problems in editing articles, but because I know these issues come up over and over on WP:RS/noticeboard because I put together this selection of most of the discussions of important general and political oriented sources in WP:RS/noticeboard archives. Carol Moore 14:29, 11 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

When is an 'English verifiable' source available?

I read the complete section on foreign languages and discussion on it. The question I have is that if there is an English source on an issue that says, for example, value of X is 7, and there's a non-English source that says, no in fact X is 17, since a source in English is available that has the 'value of X', does non-English source become inadmissible? Or since the viewpoint is different, both are admissible as contradicting point of views?

I tend to believe latter, but I want to get some expert advice before going back on the article and pushing for the updates. Thanks. Omer (talk) 08:57, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Assuming that the two sources are of equal reliability, you would be correct to mention both views. All that the foreign language section indicates is that if there are multiple sources for the same information, some in English and some in another language, the ones in English are preferred, as they are more easily verifiable by readers of this version of Wikipedia. This section is not intended to "over-rule" WP:NPOV. Blueboar (talk) 16:22, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

In this case, the English source saying "X is 7" is significantly more reliable than the non-English source. This isn't a matter of whether non-English sources can be used; its a matter of the reliability of the sources.--Cúchullain ^t/c 23:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

How exactly are foreign language sources verifiable?

I've recently been into heavy discussions at FAC's etc about the use of foreign sources. I am not against them in any way, but I like to enforce the fact that as per the guidelines, they should only be used if there is no alternative in English. Very recently, this article passed FAC even though it uses German sources predominantly. I have bought this up with the reviewers and the actual mod who decides upon promoting or failing FA's, and he told me to bring this discussion here. Now long story short, I myself have been working on an article that uses a fair bit of foreign language sources. this alternative article uses a few Croatian sources here and there, but notice how I have included relevant translations of the source. I think all/most articles should do such, deepening on how often they use references in languages other than English. At FAC, the nominator refused to commit to such, pulling out insufficient cop-outs as to why his German sources shouldn't need to be translated. Basically, I asked the predominant question; "How can this be a Featured Article when it cannot even be verified in English". Rightfully so. The German sources are constant, and without translations cannot be verified. I don't see why an article should put the reader through further trouble by making them use online translators etc (which are usually difficult and inaccurate). Furthermore, its a Featured Article, which needs to "exemplify Wikipedia's best work".

I think the guidelines as to using foreign-language sources should be changed strictly. Unless in some extreme circumstances where exceptions can be made, most sources should be translated into English so readers can easily verify the information. For all we know, the majority of the German sources have nothing related to what they are supposed to backup in the article. Domiy (talk) 03:14, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

You're using so many direct quotes from your sources there that you may be stretching fair use to the point of a copyright problem. There's nothing wrong with using Croation sources. Haukur (talk) 21:13, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

The policies regarding foreign-language sources should be more lenient, not more strict. When writing about topics pertaining to countries outside the Anglosphere, editors must often rely on non-English sources. Stricter guidelines would worsen systemic bias on Wikipedia. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 12:58, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

What systemic bias? The bias towards verifiablity and reliable sources? When readers can't read the language, how are they to know if the source is being reported accurately and is a reliable source? Doug Weller (talk) 13:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you suggesting Wikipedia should only have articles about American pop culture and not Chinese cities, because most of the sources for information about Chinese cities (such as mainstram Chinese newspapers) are naturally in Chinese? --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 13:36, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

There's also the question of verifying translations. Translations by editors would be frowned on, I'm sure there's a WP:rule against it somewhere. And who's going to pay for a certified professional translation? Do we have any pro translators who are editors / admins / whatever?

OTOH I agree that we should not worsen systemic bias on Wikipedia.-- Philcha (talk) 13:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Read carefully what I said. It is indeed acceptable to use foreign language sources by all means, as long as it becomes a guideline for them to be translated into English for verifiability. If an editor has used a German source heavily throughout an article as he is very reliant on it, then he has every right to; as long as he provides a translation into English so others can verify it except him. Domiy (talk) 13:08, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The policy currently requires to quote the source, in its original language, in the footnotes. Native speakers of the foreign language can thus check the accuracy of the translation. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 13:36, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes but what about those who read the article but don't understand the foreign language? Why should they be doomed to not being able to verify the information? Everybody should have the same ability to verify facts. If an editor has used a foreign source then I don't see why they can't go through the trouble to merely include their own translation of the source. The fact that numerous editors refuse to do this is a heavy ground for suspicion. Perhaps they have said something in the article and backed it up with a foreign source so most people (including reviewers) will not be able to suspect anything. Well I do, and it is very suspicious that so many editors are against this. Domiy (talk) 22:09, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

A choice has to be made between allowing only content in published translations or alternately sourcing the original and providing a rough translation which polyglots can verify. The latter frequently would be a copyvio, creating something of a double-bind. An English precis of a fair-use quotation from the original (provided in the citation) is often the best available option.LeadSongDog (talk) 22:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

<Shrug> I can read German. For me it's verifiable.

I can't read Croatian. But I can ask someone from the Croatian wikipedia to help me. :-) So once again, I have no problem there either. I'm not seeing it? --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:50, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

This is not the first time this has come up... so perhaps we need to make it clearer... people often mistake being able to verify information with being able to verify it right now. Wikipeida requires that information be verifiable... it does not require that it be verifiable right this instant. Blueboar (talk) 23:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

*nod* --Kim Bruning (talk) 23:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Well I don't see what the process of waiting will offer. If it's not verifiable "right now" then why would it be verifiable later in a few days/weeks time? What I'm trying to say is that Wikipedia, at its best, should be a primary tool of research on a subject (hence the purpose of the Featured Article process). Making the reader go through all the trouble, navigating them away from this website etc really defeats the entire purpose of such. You say, for example, you cannot read Croatian. Personally I will tell you that you will have an equal amount of trouble trying to ask for help on the Croatian Wikipedia. And I don't see how providing translations yourself can be a copyright violation (?) I think it is actually more accurate as the editor who used the source for the information can translate it into what he has interpreted the information as saying. This would be much clearer to the reader or anyone else who tries to verify the source. At the very least, there has to be something that can distinguish a normal translation to a translation that has been accurately checked and verified, hence is a reliable source. Domiy (talk) 01:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with J.L.W.S. that "The policies regarding foreign-language sources should be more lenient, not more strict."

And I disagree with Domiy's comments: "Everybody should have the same ability to verify facts" and "Well I don't see what the process of waiting will offer", both for the same reasons. That makes it sounds as though any and all books should be forbidden, just because all readers don't happen to have them at home. We do, and we should do, allow papers and books which are not online, or which require a subscription, to be used as sources. Checking them out can require some digging, whether they are in English or not.

I was recently involved in a BLP AfD, not to !vote one way or the other, but because someone asked my opinion of several sources in a language I know. I evaluated the publications and articles, but did not do any translating. That required perhaps an hour of my time, while full translations would have required more than a day or two.

In most cases, AssumingGoodFaith (as Domiy's bolded comment above does not do) is sufficient. In a few cases, more digging and 2nd opinions may be necessary. --Hordaland (talk) 08:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

(((The preceding comment redacted with sincere apologies to LeadSongDog for having put words in her/his mouth! An honest but nasty mistake on my part.))) --Hordaland (talk) 17:12, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I see where you are coming from. However, I still think something has to be done. Perhaps the foreign sources should require, instead of a relevant quote, a relevant part/paragraph/line of the source which identifies where the source is backed up. For example, if a German source is used to back up a statement which can be found in the 1st paragraph, 3rd line of the source, then this should be specifically and directly stated so readers may know what exactly needs to be translated/verified. Domiy (talk) 10:06, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that a very simple statement of fact can be quoted and/or translated in the ref itself. That's easier than paragraph#, line#, and should be fair use. One problem is, we're often referencing statements, opinions, debates and facts which cannot be stated in 5 words or fewer. Another is that we may need to establish the reliability of the author or publication. 'Tweren't meant to be easy. --Hordaland (talk) 13:46, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

A different scenario: Lets say there is a German Feature Article. That means it has passed all the FA criteria, including having reliable sources, in German. Now someone comes along and translates the entire article as it stands into English. Surely the only reason such an article could be denied a high rating is if the translation is shown to be incorrect? Roger (talk) 16:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The reasoning here is faulty on numerous counts. First, that an article is featured on the German wiki means: Nothing. We don't know that each source was checked in their review process. Wiki is not a reliable source, and we don't rely on non-reliable sources; editors are supposed to say where they got the material, and if you say you got material from a Wiki, well, you shouldn't be adding it at all. Second, Wiki articles are dynamic and can change after gaining featured status. Third, the editor entering text into en.Wiki is responsible for verifying the original source, not a Wiki, which is not a reliable source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:34, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Forgive me, but I think this whole question is ridiculous. Suppose someone sources from an obscure scholarly work, one that you can only find in the libraries of major universities. Are we going to argue that because 99% of us don't have access to the library of a major university, that source is invalid? Are we going to limit sources to only those articles that exist on the internet? Just because 99% of us don't read Chinese, or German or whatever, doesn't mean that a source is not verifiable. LK (talk) 17:54, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes - and this has been discussed already, with the same conclusion (a translation may be a problem for accessability, but is not an obstacle as long as verifiability is concerned). Michelet-密是力-Me laisser un message 18:24, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

And similarly, the sources to articles like C-minimal theory are completely incomprehensible to at least 99% even of mathematicians. Nevertheless it is established consensus among the scientists who edit Wikipedia that articles on such specialised topics are notable if enough has been published about them (which is the case here).

Typically, when there are only non-English sources the topic of the article is actually most interesting for the native speakers of the language in which sources exist, and typically there will be enough of them around at the article. E.g. the initial example of German language sources for an article on German football seems completely pointless to me. The purpose of the verifiability policy is to ensure that people can rely on the correctness of what is reported here. It is most definitely not to protect the speakers of English from information that is only available (yet) in another language. --Hans Adler (talk) 18:26, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

You know, I begin to think that the reason that this is even mentioned is not about supporting facts, but about supporting direct quotations.

Think about it: if you quote something by, say, Martin Luther or Adolf Hitler from their own writings, it's going to be in German. But we don't want a block of German text in the middle of an English article. So you put up a translation, and put the original in the footnote so that others can check your translation work. This is a pretty reasonable approach.

Compare that to quoting, "Sports team ______ won the game," which seems unnecesssary to the point of being stupid. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

That is certainly part of it... but not the entire reason. The other half of the equation does have to do with supporting facts...or at least the interpretation of facts. Often, the English words you use translate something written in a foreign source can effect its meaning in English. If a foreign source says "ABC", does it correctly translate as "XYZ" or as "something close to XYZ, but with a subtle difference"? We require both the original language and a translation so that people who know the language can see the original context... so that they can judge whether the original material is being translated in a way that is both a clear translation, and accurately conveys the contextural meaning of the original. Blueboar (talk) 20:04, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

On 9 October 2008, Margaret Atwood was interviewed on CBC Radio One about her upcoming Massey Lecture and her new book "Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth". In the course of the discussion, she revealed that, as a child, she was intrigued by the fact that different versions of the Lord's Prayer use the words "debts" and "trespasses" in the same place. This lead her to an adult exploration of the topic and the ultimate conclusion that both English words have the same Aramaic source-word because in that society the concepts were interchangable. Two teams of accomplished translators arrived at different, widely published translations. An eminently notable author comments on the translations in a verifiable medium. Even so, a footnote explaining the source text and not just listing the authoritative translations would still contribute to the quality of the discussion.LeadSongDog (talk) 21:11, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, how do we view this as a source (and as a reference):

• Д. M. Проэктор, "Агрессия и катастрофа. Высшее военное руководство фашистской Германии во второй мировой войне", Глава восьмая. "Катастрофа", М.: Наука, 1972.

Note: No English at all is used. Not even a transliteration of the author's name. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 04:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

See fr:Wikipédia:Prise de décision/Utilisation de texte dans une langue autre que le français for a rule about foreign quotations (verifiable, but in french... ;o)

"Il est possible d'inclure du texte dans une autre langue que le français, mais la traduction est obligatoire. Celle-ci doit se situer dans le corps du texte, et la source de la référence doit être donnée." = It is possible to embed text in a language other than English, but translation is required. It must be in the text, and source of reference must be given.

Actually, the translation can be given through an external source, or can be made by a wikipedian. If the translation is problematic, the NPOV policy means that the problem must be explained as such, and Wikipedia can't choose for the reader, that's all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michelet (talk • contribs) 06:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Roger, do equally good, or better, English-language sources this subject (the German government) exist? If so, we use them. Otherwise, this is fine. Non-English sources are permitted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. With that though comes an assumption that any source is reliable. In this case, not even the title (roughly, Aggression and catastrophe: The Nazi High Command in World War II) is accessible to the average editor so it's difficult to judge. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Concerning the reference above entirely in Cyrillic. If someone used a ref like that in an article I edit, I would do what I always do when someone added a reference I'm not familiar with: I would ask myself whether the added content makes sense in the context of the other sources I am familiar with, and whether it seems to give the appropriate weight to broadly held/narrowly held opinions. If the edit seems uncontroversial to me, the fact that the reference is in Cyrillic doesn't make much difference. If the edit does seem controversial, I would either ask about it or move it to the talk page and ask about it, depending on how troubling I found it.

Personally, for foreign-language sources, I prefer to have the author's name transliterated, and the title presented both in its original language and in English translation (like this section). But that's just my preference. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:02, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I do much the same. Perhaps WP:UE should require foreign language sources, using non-Roman orthography, to be transliterated in order to facilitate a degree of scrutiny? It is not necessary to speak the foreign language to make enquiries about the source: for instance, a translation of the title will guide as to relevance and a transliteration of the author's name will enable editors to establish whether the author has other works translated into and published in English. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 04:24, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with putting both in, but I don't like leaving out the original spelling (with foreign characters) of an author's name. After all, that is her/his name. And with some languages, there are alternate possibilities with our alphabet. --Hordaland (talk) 15:34, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't suggested the transliteration and translation alone (though I can see how you might have thought I was). Down that route lies madness. Imagine an editor mixing them up and عبد الله بن داود (Abdullah bin Daud) ending up cited as "Davis, Dominic" :)

Is there support for this though? The original plus transliteration of author name and original plus DIY translation of title seems to go some way towards piercing the veil. Currently, policy on this seems a little too laissez-faire. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 20:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It seems to make sense in many contexts, but not always. E.g. in articles on 17th century French writers whose works are not normally read in English it would make no sense to translate the titles of French secondary literature. Of course, if we replace "French" by "Tibetan" we get a very different situation. --Hans Adler (talk) 21:57, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

arXiv papers, self-published?

Are research papers posted on the arXiv archive considered self-published? Thank you. --Phenylalanine (talk) 00:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they are self-published. There's no editorial control or peer review apart from minimal checks to make sure papers are on topic. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Although there is a moderation process, so that sheer nonsense is excluded, the papers should probably be styled as self-published. However many of the papers also appear as working papers published by the author's university or other affiliated institution. These working papers should generally not be considered self-published. LK (talk) 07:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I also agree. The quality is generally very good, and most are formally published later. But initially everybody with an email account at a university could get an account. This led to a small amount of fringe stuff being put on the server, and they have subsequently tightened the requirements, but only a bit. An arXiv article is generally as reliable as an article available from the author's home page. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The arXiv model of retrospective open peer review (as opposed to the traditional preemptive or prospective peer review shouldn't be itself be an issue except perhaps for recent papers. Possible problems:

1. If an article hasn't been trashed in a year after publication, can we accept that it has had a de facto open review?
2. Are there any concerns that the papers now published on arXiv are not correctly attributed to their real authors, or are they adequately attributable for purposes of copyright? Does their system provide non-repudiation?

LeadSongDog (talk) 14:10, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course we can't take a lack of negative reviews as an indication of quality. I agree with Hans - arxiv papers should be treated the same as papers on the person's personal website. There's no reason to think that arxiv papers are more or less accurate than any other preprint. Being put on arxiv doesn't give them any extra credibility. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps an examination of these withdrawals, "The arXiv moderation system" and "The arXiv endorsement system" will help clarify the discussion.LeadSongDog (talk) 16:46, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I am somewhat familiar with the arXiv processes: [9]. The arXiv is a sophisticated preprint server that guarantees that papers remain citable in the foreseeable future. It tries to keep the amount of crap (crackpot papers and non-scientific stuff) low to save resources and keep its reputation intact. This requires a very small amount of checking, some of which is automated. My educated guess is that they phrase everything as if they were a bit stricter than the really are, to reduce the amount of arguing they have to do with the crackpot authors. But I know one former Wikipedia author who still has 12 papers on arXiv (some of which he tried to push onto Wikipedia). I have evaluated one of them, and it was incredibly stupid and would never pass a serious peer review in the appropriate field. He actually managed to get some of them published (in journals such as "Speculations in Science and Technology"), but that's another story.

The withdrawals that you cited were a widely reported (e.g. in Nature (journal)), and hopefully singular, event. They had nothing to do with accuracy (which would not be an issue, as far as arXiv is concerned), but were because of "excessive reuse of text from articles by other authors".

Scientists don't usually put random crap on their academic homepage, because it would be very bad for their career. This self-control is also expedient when publishing with arXiv. Even more so, because you can't let a paper disappear if you find out later how embarrassing it is. But all of this is already provided for by "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." --Hans Adler (talk) 22:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to all! I am working on this article, where I cite this arXiv paper (mentioned here and here), and this arXiv paper (mentioned here), which concludes that the previous paper is bunk. Both papers are cited here and here. Am I allowed to cite the first arXiv paper? (the author subsequently updated his paper with a reply to the critics in the Appendix)? Cheers, Phenylalanine (talk) 23:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You can definitely cite them for purely descriptive claims ("This person claims that X might happen. This other person disagrees.") If you go out of your way to explicitly attribute the claims to the authors of the articles, and and cite as many things to second-party sources as possible, you'll probably be OK. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

That provides an excellent case in point. Note that the first paper's abstract is followed by "Comments: Now contains a reply to a comment on this paper (0808.4087) as appendix. Comments and criticism are still highly welcome". If the arXiv process makes these comment linkages independent of the preferences of the original paper's authors, then it greatly enhances the objectivity of the process and reduces the likelyhood of crap remaining uncriticised. LeadSongDog (talk) 16:52, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure if you are reading something into this that isn't there. What happened is that someone criticised the original paper, so the author uploaded a new version with an appendix that replies to the criticism. Of course he was under no obligation to do this, and most crackpot authors would not do it. This is exactly the same situation as with self-publishing on one's homepage.

What is potentially interesting, though, are the two trackback links from the abstract page of the paper. Unfortunately it turns out that they are not useful in this case, and we can't rely on enough scientists using blogs for criticising papers anyway. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:50, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I did say "If the arXiv process..." precisely because I didn't know what that process does. If we compare the traditional journal publishers, they provide a commentary process, whether it be "letters", "comment in" or whatever. It would be very disappointing to learn that arxiv doesn't do this.LeadSongDog (talk) 05:22, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it does. Its purpose is to make sure everything remains easily citable, and nothing gets lost. Quality control of the content is only an afterthought (to prevent some of the misuse for non-scientific purposes including publication of pseudoscience), and done very sparingly. --Hans Adler (talk) 14:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)