Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 4

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Reputable and authoritative sources

Possibly we should extented the discussion of dubious sources to recognise that certain sources can be authoritative for certain claims: here, we would not allow that the video game counts is generally reputable as a source, but the game provides an authoritative basis for claims about for the name of anotagonists encountered in it. Similarly, we may not trust the government of Zimbabwe to be generally truthful, but it is nonetheless, the ultimate authority for what the law of Zimbabwe is. --- Charles Stewart 19:07, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

• Exactly. The source has to be evaluated based on the information you are citing to it; any publication is likely to be a reliable source in some cases, and not reliable in other cases. The government of Zimbabwe might not be a reliable source for an assessment of the fairness of elections in Zimbabwe, but for other data, e.g. weather information for Zimbabwe's airports, it might be the most reliable source of all. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

another question

How does Verifiability work in this instance:

Russ Bellant of Political Research Associates writes an report. David Lee Preston of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes about the report. Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates quotes the Philadelphia Inquirer article about the Political Research Associates report. Mr. Berlet states,

"The Philadelphia Inquirer runs an article by David Lee Preston ... cites the Bellant report which describes how the Republican Party has been recruiting ethnic facists, racists and anti-Semites for over 20 years, through its Heritage Groups Council.

Is this considered "verifiable"? [1] nobs 23:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

yes Borisblue 01:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

That's how it works. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:22, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

The short answer is "Yes". A longer answer is that it is a perfectly valid citation, though if one doubted either Berlet's or the Inquirer's word, it would be natural to seek out the original report, and if it contradicted the report there are several ways to go depending on the topic at hand. One could just ignore Berlet and the Inquirer and cite Bellant, or one could overtly discuss where in the chain someone misquoted their source. Also, typically, in academia at least, if one got the information via Berlet and later went to the primary source, one would normally still acknowledge Berlet. Because our purpose is a bit different than an academic's—we are not specifically trying to show the originality of our research—some might argue that once the primary source has been checked, we could drop mention of the (in this case) tertiary source. I'd be more inclined to keep it and cite both: I think it is useful to indicate whose pathway we are following through an article. This is a lot like when we translate an article from a non-English Wikipedia, we overtly acknowledge that article as a source, as well as citing its sources. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:56, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

There are two questions here, (a) a self-publishing source (b) quoting a secondary source that is quoting the same self publishing source (may not even qualify as a tertiary source). Plus the axiom "exceptional claims require exceptional sources". The same paragraph even states,

"most major media drop the story. The charges in Bellant's report are not covered in the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, or United Press International."

This may be a text book example of how defamatory information is manufactured and spread with phraseology like "linked in published accounts " [2], and how these "published accounts" proliferate. This deliberate abuse may not even be apparent to users acting in good faith.

My only suggestion is that the series of tests beginning with Authenticity and Provenance, and continuing through the rest of that article, be incorporated into WP:RS & WP:V to eliminate fraud like this. nobs 18:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Tools to assist verifiability

I would like to propose that the MediaWiki interface be improved somehow to make it easier to cite the source of edits, and that the requirements of sources be relaxed to encourage people to give whatever source information they have. Information with shaky source information is better than no information, or information with no source at all. At least if there is a shaky source, someone can make the informed decision to remove it, or source it properly. So, I propose that when an edit is made, there be a mechanism to state the source, as one of: (from most valuable to least valuable)

1. Article or website with full citation
2. Article or website with just URL or name of work
3. Vague idea of source (eg, NY Times article in February, somewhere on Slashdot)
4. Presumed common knowledge backed up by direct observation
5. Presumed common knowledge
6. Believe to be true

Currently we ask people to cite their sources, and provide no assistance in doing so. Footnoting is *hard* for a beginner. The least we can do is give them a multiple choice question to work from.

Comments please! Stevage 17:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to second this. It would be excellent if under the "submit" text window there was a form (just a few titled text entry boxes) asking for the title of the - book, authour, website, etc - and that way WikCodei could take care of the formatting depending on the info and even start a "References" section if there isn't one yet. Referencing as it stands is a pain and the guidlines are far from clear. I had to flip through three sections to find how to correctly cite web pages, for example. ThePromenader 09:57, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

The reason for the complexity is that there are different ways of citing sources, and editors can't agree on which is best, so all three styles have to be described. But the page also makes clear that formatting is less important than providing some information about where you found the material. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Previous books now refuted by their own authors on their homepages

I noticed that this policy is quite dismissive of homepages, but what about homepages of authors that refute their earlier works? It would be strange if Wikipedia could use the published books by these authors as a reference, but not the homepages on which the very same authors under their real names refute their own books. See Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba#Abuse_of_referenced_links Andries 11:19, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the author would be a 'well-known person' or 'expert' in my reading of such. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 22:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I have also asked the question at Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources which seems a more suitable place for it. Andries 22:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Surely this is not a question that arises often enough to need special policy to deal with it? The way to deal with this special case seems clear enough. The purpose of the verifiability policy is: 1) allow readers to trace statements to their sources, 2) judge for themselves the reliability of the source.

Take a case like this. An article says "Galileo supported the Copernican theory in 'Dialogues on the Two Chief World Systems,' University of California Press, ISBN 0520004507." There is a Wikipedia user named GalileoGalilei, who says he is Galileo, sounds like Galileo, and whom most Wikipedians believe to be Galileo. He says on his home page "I was terribly mistaken in that book. As a loyal Catholic, I now say there's nothing at all to it. I now think Copernicus is bunk. I would think so even if I weren't under house arrest" Well. One wouldn't normally reference a home page, but in this case one certainly could. In the article, I'd add a second sentence "It appears that he now disowns this book." I'd a footnote. And write the footnote this way: Link to the disclaimer on Galileo's home page and add a phrase such as "Wikipedia home page of User:GalileoGalilei, believed to be Galileo." Tweak the wording as needed to make it clear that the reference is to a home page and the user's identity can't be established.

That carries out the spirit of the verifiability policy and is highly defensible, and if an edit war occurred Wikipedians would probably side with the inclusion of the highly relevant statement, that is easily verifiable by looking at Galileo's user page. The fact being attested to is Galileo's opinion, and a personal statement from Galileo is a good source for his own opinions. The only bone of contention ought to be the wording of the disclaimers to alert the reader to the fact that the user's identity isn't known. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:24, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The line of actions that is proposed above seems reasonable, I have no strong opinion against it, but one of the supporting arguments is not in accord with the spirit of the verifiability policy. It is possible to have an incorrect argument for a correct conclusion. The argument that is incorrect is the idea that the Wikipedia verifiability policy is only: 1) allow readers to trace statements to their sources, 2) judge for themselves the reliability of the source. This purpose is certainly the basic purpose of the policy, but it is not its only purpose. In the last three paragraphs of the section WP:V#Verifiability, not truth, beginning with "For the information to be acceptable ...", it is said that the purpose of WP:V is also to check that we have not only accurate but also "fair stories". It is clear that the purpose is to benefit from the fact that a reputable publisher does more than just checking the authenticity of the authors, but also filters stories that can be problematic. Also, consider point 10 in WP:V#Checking content. This point says that one must consider whether or not the publisher (the source) has the expertize to evaluate the content that is being sourced. See also the guidelines WP:RS#Evaluating sources. There are many other paragraphs in the WP policies and guidelines that indicate that a source is expected to do more than only authentifying the authors, and that the editors should evaluate the source before using it. Lumiere 16:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

However, there are also many indications in the Wikipedia policies and guidelines that we should not censor information in Wikipedia. It is because of this fact, I guess, that Dpbsmith suggests to still accept the unreliable source, but then add a footnote that indicates in some way that it is not reliable. However, I see a problem with this approach in general, especialy in the case of defamatory statements. A difamatory statement about an organization or a person can be used to discredit the view of this organization or person. The damage is real even if the article explicitly attributes the statement to a given person and explain in a footnote that the source is not reputable. In such a case I will follow the verifiability policy that requires that the source is reputable in the subject area of the sourced statement. If a statement appears defematory but is actually a fair statement as checked in a reputable source that has the expertise to evaluate the statement, which is much more than only providing an evidence that the author actually said it, there is no problem. Lumiere 16:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Religioustolerance.org

Please see the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org and Wikipedia:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org as to whether Wikipedia should cite the religioustolerance.org website, jguk 13:57, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Now what are we going to do, following this example? Are we going to create Wikipedia:Verifiability/University_of_Virginia_religious_movements_homepage too? [3] This seems like a good reference but is somewhat dubious because its entries on indivual movements were mainly written by students and as a result have strongly varying degrees of quality. The website is used in several articles in Wikipedia. We could create some more of these subpages. (I do not oppose them). Andries

An invitation to edit warring

"Any edit lacking a source may be removed"? I think this is an invitation to edit warring. I also think it's a terrible policy, just in general. For example, United States strikes me as fundamentally accurate, but largely unreferenced. Are we really saying that it would be appropriate to delete nearly all of the text of the article?

This strikes me as a wild overreaction to certain recent problems we have had. It is one thing to demand sources when one is genuinely in doubt. It is another to remove material that is known or believed by you to be true, merely because it is uncited. People are very likely to do this because they find particular material politically inconvenient. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:38, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I was going to agree with you, until your last sentence; "because they find particular material politically inconvenient." - Isn't this a form of being "genuinely in doubt"(remembering WP:AGF)? It's a bad thing to remove material that you believe is accurate, just becuase it's unsourced, but it doesn't seem like a bad thing to remove material you don't believe, since it's unsourced. If a fact is controversial (i.e. someone wants to remove it), it particularly needs a source. This is basic. I look forward to your response. JesseW, the juggling janitor 19:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel, if a new "fact" is added by an edit and that fact is not referenced, it strikes me as entirely appropriate to remove it straightaway with a request to reference that fact if it is to be re-added. That isn't really an invite to an edit war - either the editor finds a reference and re-adds in the information, or doesn't find a reference, in which case the information is not added.

With information that's already there, it's probably best to ask for sources on the talk page before removing information, unless that information is so outrageous, or is potentialy libellous, in which case remove it first and then ask for justification. For a long article needing references, it's best to take things slowly.

JesseW is, of course, quite correct when he says "if a fact is controversial...it particularly needs a source". Indeed, continual failure to provide a source for something that is controversial makes people believe more strongly that the "fact" is false, jguk 20:18, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Just as a note, I've started detailed referencing of the "obvious" things in United States in a subpage, United States/References; any comments, corrections, or even better, help, would be appreciated. JesseW, the juggling janitor 21:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. In the medium-term, once almost everything is referenced, it can be merged with the article with the references becoming footnotes. Incidentally, I recommend referencing every fact - both "obvious" and "not obvious". I may pop along, if I'm not too busy fighting another cause or referencing up History of the West Indian cricket team so that I can make it a featured article, jguk 22:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

"Politically inconvenient"

Rather than intersperse into the exchange above, I figured it was cleaner for me to start a subsection.

WP:AGF doesn't mean that, in fact, all edits are made in good faith. It means that we should try to give each edit the benefit of the doubt.

I have absolutely no problem at all when people fight, and fight hard, to remove uncited material that they believe is false, or even possibly false. What I am objecting to is to is when people remove material that they know or believe to be true, claiming as a grounds that it is uncited, but they only do this to material they find politically inconvenient, while accepting equally uncited material that they find politically convenient. That is not a form of being "genuinely in doubt". It is a form of being "genuinely in bad faith". -- Jmabel | Talk 02:27, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with that, but surely the benefit to be derived from allowing instant zapping of misinformation, that anyone visiting WP to inform themselves could come across and innocently accept as true, is greater than the risk of politically motivated bad faith deletions which could in any case be solved by providing attribution for the edit? I say this conscious of a certain hypocrisy as someone who has once or twice (but only in order to replace tendentious nonsense) made unsourced edits I knew to be accurate... Palmiro | Talk 02:41, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel, I think we're talking at cross-purposes here, and actually agree... I am (trying) to say that removing material (onto the talk page, of course) as unsourced, thereby provoking other editors to find sources for it, is a good thing. You seem (to me) to be saying that people will use the excuse of "unsourced" to remove material they know is true but find politically objectionable. I agree that this would, and will (and does) happen. However, I don't see how it is harmful - if the material is easily verified, then a source can be easily found, the material re-inserted, and the 'pedia is better for it. If the material is difficult to verify, and is controversial(i.e. someone finds it politically objectionable) then isn't it wrong to have it in the article without a source - controversial claims are likely to be viewed suspiously by many readers, who would greatly value a source, and likely not trust the fact without one - so isn't it to the benefit of the 'pedia for such material to be put onto the talk page until a source is found? Do you really want controversial, un-sourced material in the articles? Is it really so critical that controversial material for which a source cannot be easily found be repeated by Wikipedia? Is this really our goal? Thanks for your thoughts. JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:00, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Let me give an example, one that, I guess, would more likely be motivated by trolling or WP:POINT-type behavior rather than politics. In our article Mexican Revolution, the following has no citation:

The armed conflict began over alleged electoral fraud perpetrated by General Porfirio Díaz in 1910; Díaz had been president virtually uninterruptedly since 1876. While his presidency was characterized by promotion of industry and the pacification of the country, it came at the expense of the working and farmer/peasant classes, which generally suffered extreme exploitation. As a result, wealth, political power, and access to education was concentrated in just a handful of families with large estates as well as some companies of foreign origin (mostly from the United Kingdom, France, and the United States).

There are a lot of facts there, and even a few interpretations. None of it is cited. It's not an area where I'm expert, but I'm certainly reasonably knowledgable. To the best of my knowledge, the material is entirely accurate. Would someone really be doing Wikipedia a favor by cutting that paragraph to talk and leaving a gaping hole in an article until someone could cite for each of the following:

• Porfirio Díaz was president of Mexico virtually uninterruptedly from 1876 to 1910. (My own feeling is that things like that are so easy to verify that explicit citation is a waste of resources. I know that's not a popular view on this talk page, but it is how 90%+ of our contributors work.)
• Electoral fraud was alleged in 1910.
• Porfirio Díaz was the party accused of being the intellectual author of that electoral fraud.
• This was the issue over which armed conflict began.
• Díaz's presidency was characterized by promotion of industry and the pacification of the country.
• This came at the expense of the working and farmer/peasant classes, which generally suffered extreme exploitation. (Proper citation for this would have to be an historian who says so: technically, this statement is POV, though I have never heard of any mainstream historian who disagrees.)
• In Mexico under Porfirio Díaz wealth, political power, and access to education was concentrated in just a handful of families as some companies of foreign origin.
• These falilies were the same ones who held the large estates (almost self-evident, but probably very difficult to actually cite)
• The dominant companies in Mexico at this time were under United Kingdom, France, and the United States ownership.
• Porfirio Díaz's policies, specifically those of promotion of industry and the pacification of the country were causal to this. (Again, proper citation for this would have to be an historian who says so: technically, this statement is POV, though I have never heard of any mainstream historian who disagrees.)

Of course, they probably wouldn't take the time to enumerate the separate points, so anyone assuming good faith probably wouldn't bother to find a citation for every one of these points, and when a good-faith contributor came back with citations for most of it but not all of it, our Machiavellian colleague could comb the paragraph again for what is still not cited, and begin the game over.

It is a lot quicker to challenge such things than to answer such challenges, so a few trolls with a little time on their hands apparently would have a license to gnaw holes in the middle of articles, almost at will, claim that they were merely following policy, and require enormous effort from other editors to get things roughly back where they were. I believe that if a group of a dozen people with about 2 hours a day wished to effectively destroy the English-language Wikipedia, they could devote their efforts to applying this rule arbitrarily and would either tie up or drive away several hundred contributors, or force those contributors to be the ones violating policy by restoring uncited material to articles. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds hypothetical to me. No doubt abuses occur, but this is the sort of reasoning that says newspaper vending machines cannot work because there is no way to stop someone from paying for one newspaper and removing many.

RIght now, there are a lot more problems with material being unsourced than with bad-faith application of Wikipedia:verifiability.

I realize that right now Wikipedia consists mostly of unsourced placeholders based on "common knowledge" and personal knowledge of contributors, and that's OK for now, but we need to get serious about fixing that.

All scientific publications do this, although traditional encyclopedias do not. Many popular, even bestselling books—a good example is Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit: An American Legend—have nearly a fifth of their page count devoted to references and source citations. While the text itself is literate and entertaining. That's the sort of example we should be emulating.

When do we start doing it right? Dpbsmith (talk) 03:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't like belaboring a point, but I don't think you are seeing mine. If we (well, you: I'm certainly not going to try to enforce this) require a contributor who wants to write a paragraph like the one above to provide an explicit citation for each of these facts and for every statement that expresses an opinion, no matter how uncontroversial, probably one of three things is going to happen:

1. People will obey, and creation of articles is going to grind to a halt. (I consider this the least likely scenario.)
2. People will simply ignore this and life will go on as before.
3. Most people will try simply to ignore this, while some go around getting all self-righteous about a policy change determined, in fact, by a handful of people. Either the credibility of policy pages will be greatly reduced in the eyes of most Wikipedians, or a lot of people will flood in here to change it.

As a rule, a relatively small number of Wikipedians are actively involved in policy pages, and I think that is entirely healthy: most are here to work on articles. This works, as long as those of us who work on policy pages try to keep policies workable and to accurately represent the loose consensus of the community on what the policies should be. It will fail if we try to dictate.

The nub of the matter: I think there is a strong consensus that it is appropriate to challenge a statement and cut it to the talk page if you believe it is false or significantly uncertain. I do not believe there is anything approaching consensus that it is appropriate to challenge a statement and cut it to the talk page merely because it is uncited, and despite being certain that it is correct. I don't see how to prove my point without going out and violating WP:POINT. Rarely have I been so tempted to do so. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

OK. I think I was confused. I agree with the nub as you expressed it above. We should cite material, but there is neither a need nor a cause to remove it if we believe it to be true (there is a need to cite it, but removing it is not the way to do this). Right. Sorry for making you explain yourself repeatedly, but I do understand it now, and agree. Thanks. JesseW, the juggling janitor 08:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

If we believe it to be true: I would have hoped that common sense would cover that. Obviously it is theoretically possible that someone could engage in what I might call filibustering type behaviour of this kind. But if you take a look at an article like Bat Ye'or or Jewish-Arab conflict, how can we hope to proceed without the right to immediately remove or at least comment out tendentious and misleading material? Discussing things on talk is fine, but is it really necessary to leave unsourced material we know or are fairly sure is inaccurate and misleading on an article pending a discussion? Palmiro | Talk 13:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I think pretty much I agree with you, though I might stretch "significantly uncertain" farther than you'd like. Let me take a specific example. This is a general problem with lists, but the one I'm watching particularly is List of people believed to have been affected by bipolar disorder. People are constantly adding names with no citations whatsoever. Many of them are plausible. If I can find a citation instantly via Google, I'll add it. But if I can't, I move it to the talk page. I intend to continue to do this, even with names for which I think a source can likely be found. It's up to the person adding the name to provide a source. It doesn't have to be a good source, just a source. (It can't be just someone saying "it's been widely reported in the press" or "he said on TV..." In practice, probably more than half of the names I've snipped have, in fact, been reinserted with what I consider to be perfectly good sources.

People take lists as a challenge, and if they think they know a name that isn't on a list, they'll just add it. Lists have a tendency to become utter garbage, lists of "sure-I've-reads" and "thought-I've-heards." But if every name has a source, and an explanation that allows the reader to see why the name is on the list (whether they would personally agree with the categorization or not), the list becomes reasonable.

Also, while I think it is acceptable to allow plausible, not-seriously-disputed assertions to remain for a long time as placeholders, it should be a non-lip-service goal to cite them... with the same level of density and quality as Lauren Hildebrandt's book on Seabiscuit.

An alternative is to allow contributors to cite their real-world name, credentials, and contact information in lieu of a reference... but I wouldn't like that and I don't think other Wikipedians would.

All the information in Wikipedia needs to be traceable to sources. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I think we are all pretty much in agreement on the substantive matter, then. "Any edit lacking a source may be removed," is an oversimplication. The following is not well worded, and I'm on my way out the door, but something like, "Material lacking an appropriate source may be removed, as described below in the section on Checking content; this is not a license to arbitrarily remove material that is clearly accurate, merely because it is uncited. Of course it is good to seek citation for such material, but such material should be left in the article while you look." Jmabel | Talk 04:00, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

That makes sense, but don't wait for ever. I would say that if there is no response within 5 days to a request for references, the material in question can be removed, and that re-introducing the material into the article without providing sources could be regarded as vandalism (i.e., subject to immediate removal again). Also, I feel under no obligation to spend my time searching for possible citable sources for material someone else has added to an article. I'll challenge and give time for someone with more of an interest in the article to do something. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 11:28, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, something along those lines seems reasonable, particularly if the action at the end of the five days or so is to copy the material onto the Talk page where it can easily be retrieved (we really need a feature for searching histories!). I can imagine some good-faith contributors who don't necessarily check Wikipedia as often as once a week, so it's not always easy to "engage." However, regardless of why the contributor doesn't respond, if they don't respond the material should eventually be removed.

I'd prefer to see some vague wording that recommends common sense and etiquette, rather than an exact set of rules (instruction creep). "Any edit lacking a source may be removed eventually. Before removing an edit, the contributor of that edit should be invited to supply a source and given a reasonable length of time to respond." Dpbsmith (talk) 13:36, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd prefer JMabel's version, as I think it's important that an editor who sees an uncited statement that is patently false should feel free to remove it on the spot. Palmiro | Talk 14:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be stronger, so that an uncited statement that is *probably* false, should also be removed, preferably to the talk page? Stevage 14:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Whatever. The challenge is to find some wording that endorses the responsible removal of dubious material without sanctioning the abuse that JMabel is concerned about. I don't see the strength of Palmiro's objection. The issue is not patently false material, but dubious material. Anyone can remove patently false material at any time, not because it's unsourced, but because it's patently false. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:58, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the material on checking content reasonably covers this problem. It essentially says you have to have a good reason to believe the material is problematic before you remove it. If you remove uncited material and can't justify why you feel it is incorrect, then you are violating this policy as I understand from what's written right now. We could make that point explicit in the checking content just to fully close the loophole if you think it needs it. The checking content section could use a little reworking, but I think the basic point is sound. - Taxman ^Talk 16:21, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

"Reasonably believed to be incorrect"

Taxman, I don't agree with the language you added:

Any edit lacking a source and reasonably believed to be incorrect may be removed.

Saying that the edit is "reasonably believed to be incorrect" is once again putting the onus on the person removing the material. It's too strong. I've been using the word "dubious," which means "in doubt."

Let's take a hypothetical example. Suppose someone adds a sentence to the article on Arnold Bennett saying "Arnold Bennett owned a Borzoi named Caesar who was trained to fetch Bennett's slippers," with no sources. This isn't common knowledge, and it's not easily checked.

It's not by any means "reasonably believed to be incorrect." If I saw a sentence like that, I'd figure there's about a 20% chance it was just made up, and about an 80% chance that the contributor had read this in some obscure biography of Bennett or some article, but didn't remember which one... or didn't bother to cite it... or remembered a professor saying so... or saw it in some article in a dog magazine about famous writers' dogs... or something. Whatever. It doesn't Google, even in books.google.com.

One could go a to a library and spend half a day researching Bennett, but even so, it's hard to prove a negative. If one came up with a book that mentioned Bennett's Borzoi Caesar, you'd have reasonable belief that it was correct. But if you failed to find it, you would have no reason to believe it was incorrect.

This is not "a statement that is reasonably believed to be incorrect."

It is a statement that is a) unsourced and b) dubious. It's dubious because it's not a well-known fact and you have no reason to believe that it is correct.

In this case I think it would be eminently proper to ask the contributor for the source and remove it after a few days if no source were provided. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, you have a point, I've reverted myself for now. But we need some language to avoid supporting a troublemaker that just wants to rip out material they don't agree with. Then again maybe it really is the time to focus more on accuracy than just any content and if it can't be verified and put back in so be it. The thing is, for information that you reasonably believe is incorrect, you should be able to yank it out immediately and challenge the editor to provide a source. For material that is plausible, but not verified, that wouldn't necessarily be the best path, and instead your method of pointing it out and waiting a couple days is better. So the timing of the allowed solution should be different in different cases perhaps. The problem there is instruction creep, so I'm a bit at a loss I guess. - Taxman ^Talk 19:29, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Remember, we are not supposed to be figuring out whether information in an article is accurate; doing so would be "original research". All we are supposed to be doing is making sure that the information in articles is properly sourced. Therefore, I will request sources be referenced for an article or any substantive points in an article, and if verifiable references are not supplied in a reasonable time, I will remove the unsourced material, or nominate the article for deletion, depending on circumstances. If I think information in an article is wrong, but does have a reliable, verifiable source, I will not remove that information, but will find another source for what I think is correct, and add it to the article. It's that simple, in my opinion. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 21:57, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe it is that simple. Any serious contributor to Wikipedia is continually evaluating sources. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

There are a lot of not-so-serious contributors. By requesting references for an article, I'm assuming that any serious editors interested in the article will do something. If nothing happens within a week or so, I think I can assume that it is unlikely any editor will provide references. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 10:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Another example

Economic spectrum has now survived AfD, but I don't see a single cited (or at all obviously citable) statement in the article. But I doubt it would be acceptable to cut the entire content of an entire article that just survived AfD. Or am I still missing something? Or is it just that the people who voted on AfD implicitly violated policy? - Jmabel | Talk 07:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I can't speak to the specifics of the vote on Economic spectrum, but far too many editors who participate in deletion dicussions seem to not care what the policies say, or have (to my mind) very strange interpretations of policy. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 11:17, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Remember that AfD is primarily a vote on whether the article title should exist, i.e. is it a valid topic. IMHO too many AfD voters take a rather "Wiki first, -pedia second" attitude and vote keep as long as the article text vaguely roughs out something that could potentially become an article someday.

I think this is an attitude that has way outlived its usefulness. Once upon a time, a low-quality stub on Beethoven would have been better than nothing on Beethoven, and the assumption that it would be improved was more realistic than it is for the average bad article today. But that's just my opinion.

But in any case, an AfD is not necessarily a vote on the merits of the actual article text as it exists at the time of the AfD. Thus, as things stand at present, it is not a violation of policy to vote "keep" on an article full of unsourced material. However, I believe it is a violation of current policy to allow the article to remain in that state for more than a short period of time. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:47, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Taxman's edit

Taxman, I don't want to nitpick, but I foresee some problems with your edit (in bold): "Any edit lacking a source and reasonably believed to be incorrect may be removed."

Suppose someone adds: "American Marines's dress uniforms have silver, not gold, buttons." I do not believe this to be incorrect, reasonably or otherwise. But I have no reason to believe it is correct either. Requesting a source is entirely reasonable, as is moving it to talk or deleting it until a source is provided. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:36, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Yup, check above, I already reverted myself. The problem is in finding a way to avoid abuse for ex. from POV pushing that could come from selectively removing material. Then again, I'm torn because maybe allowing people to remove any unsourced material would be the thing that finally works to get people to reallize they need to do actual research from reliable references. - Taxman ^Talk 20:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree that people should be allowed to remove any unsourced material, as the current version says. I know it could be abused, but realistically any qualification of it will be more prone to abuse. I've only seen the current version abused once: an editor was being asked for sources a lot, so he went to another page of interest to his accuser, which contained no sources, and blanked the whole thing with the edit summary "removing unsourced material." ;-D SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:55, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Lots of things work well when only a few people know about them. It remains to be seen if this will work when it becomes a commonly known policy, but it's worth trying. - Taxman ^Talk 21:10, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think you were wrong to tweak the wording, I just don't think you got quite the right tweak yet. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• What about: Any edit lacking a source that the editor reasonably believes to be incorrect, or correctness of which the editor reasonably doubts, may be removed. Also, any statement lacking a source for which a source is requested on the talk page, may be removed if no source is provided within a reasoanble time. This handles the removal of unsourced but plainly correct content for PoV reasons, making it clar that such edits are not within the policy and are in bad faith, while preserving the principle that unsourced content cannot remain if challanged, and that dubious unsourced content may go at once. DES ^(talk) 21:58, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely not. This is an invitation for POV axe-grinders to "dispute" any source they don't like. Firebug 22:57, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Nothing in the above says that a souce may be "disputed" it says that statemets with no cited sources at all may be removed under some circumstances. DES ^(talk) 22:04, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think editors are obliged to respond to requests - many people pass through here once and never come back. Why not keep it simple: "If you doubt the truthfulness of an unsourced statement, remove it to the talk page. Otherwise, just request a source." Stevage 22:06, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Editors are not, of course, obliged to respond to any request. But anyone who fails to source a statemetn and fails to chaek back runs the risk of the statement being deleted, or removed to teh talk page. Ideally an editor will source all significant statements without being asked, but we are a long way from that. And of course a request for a source should always be aimed (at least in part) at the entire community, as well as at the editor who made the edit. Your wording is not bad, but soemwhere it should be made clear that if soemone does "just request a source" and none s forthcomming, then the statement can and should be removed even if it is thought to be accurate. Also i do think that "doubt" should be "reasonably doubt", and I would prefer "accuracy" or "correctness" to "truthfulness" -- "doubting truthfulness" sounds like accusing another editor of lying, and while I'm sure you didn't intend it in that way, we don't want anyoen to read such implications into a policy or guideline text. DES ^(talk) 22:17, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

DES, you're talking about a culture change here - to encourage everyone to source statements that they add. I have a number of points:

• (1) I think nowadays the problem is not as bad as you'd imagine - the quality of sourcing has improved considerably in Wikipedia in the last few months.
• (2) Good editors don't mind quoting sources when they forget them. If you revert someone with the comment that you're only reverting it because it is unreferenced and they should only re-add it if they reference it, and link to Wikipedia:Verifiability - you'll find that in 80% or so of cases it works. Either the information is not re-added or it is re-added but with references also being added.
• (3) Come the end of the day, the precise wording of Wikipedia:Verifiability doesn't matter - either editors source their statements, or they don't. Good editors who source their statements should encourage those who don't source their statements: (i) by example; and (ii) by telling them to source their statements.
• (4) In short - to make things better, leave the guideline alone and (i) make sure you source every new fact you add (and we all make mistakes on this from time to time); and (ii) encourage others to source every new fact they add. And yes, this can be by politely reverting new edits with a request for references.

Remember, we can't legislate for commonsense, but we can encourage good practice by our actions. This is more important than the minutiae of a policy, which quite frankly will rarely be read, jguk 22:47, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Jguk. SlimVirgin ^(talk)

Me too. And I like Stevage's proposed wording. - Jmabel | Talk 06:16, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Joe, I reverted your edit because it throws up too many problems. If I have no idea whether something is true or false, it should still be removed if unsourced. What is wrong with what the page currently says? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 06:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Gosh, I thought I'd already written far too much about what is wrong with it. The short version is that it provides too easy a cover for trolls and POV warriors. Have a look at my comments on this page over the last few days; I don't think I'd be doing you or anyone else a favor by rehashing them. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I want to see JMabel's concerns addressed. I also want to see WP:V strengthened in practice. It's been policy in theory forever. People need to learn not to be offended by legitimate, civil, valid requests for sources. Dpbsmith (talk) 11:03, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Plus, it was not compatible with this line from the second paragraph: "Articles should contain only material that has been published by reputable or credible sources, regardless of whether individual editors view that material as true or false. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." -- Dalbury^(Talk) 11:07, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I also like Stevage's wording. And SlimVirgin, would you stop reverting everything jsut because you feel like it? There were already a few people agreeing with the wording, and in any case, reverts are considered harmful. Don't do it unless the edit is really damaging. - Taxman ^Talk 13:25, 22 December 2005 (UTC)