Wikipedia talk:Verifiability

No specific objection to "current status" of research

Slim continues to delete without any specific objection. Linking to MEDRS is appropriate while editors should seek to resolve any discrepancy. Using the current research is appropriate. QuackGuru (talk) 21:38, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

These attempts to force scientific point of view into the policy are not appropriate. They've been rejected for years on multiple pages. Edit warring to try to force it in is out of order, and follows my asking you yesterday in the interests of dispute resolution to stop this kind of thing. This is hardly a response that's in your interests. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:47, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Specific enough for me. Blueboar (talk) 21:50, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

My argument is specific enough for Blueboar. Blueboar agrees that MEDRS should be given context.

Slim still have not made a specific objection to the text. For example, Slim has not given a specific reason to delete links to MEDRS. QuackGuru (talk) 21:56, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't understand how or why anyone would object to this edit. It says that where scholarly research exists, we should accurately summarize it. That's a fundamental part of the mission of any serious, respectable reference work, and the fact that it's met with suspicion and accusations when raised here is a continuing source of disappointment to me. MastCell ^Talk 21:58, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

We've been through this a thousand times, MC, including recently on this page, and there has never been consensus for this kind of addition. The issue is not as simple as you're portraying it, because editors use those words to keep out points of view they don't like, including points of view from other academics. If everyone were editing intelligently and in good faith, those words would be fine, but then if everyone were doing those things we wouldn't need the policies in the first place. When writing policy you have to look at how the words will be misused, as well as used. You also have to think about the effect on articles you don't care about, as well as the ones you do, because there can be inadvertent effects. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:12, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Just to add a point: there is absolutely nothing in the current policy to prevent editors from summarizing the current scholarly state of affairs in any article. Indeed, the policy recommends using scholarly sources. So the only benefit of QG's addition would be to exclude views that some editors don't like, to shift the POV emphasis. The edit is not about inclusion, it is about exclusion. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:15, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't mind linking to MEDRS in the right context... but I am not at all sure this was the right context. Blueboar (talk) 22:01, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

The edit I cited doesn't link to WP:MEDRS. I don't think it's essential to link to MEDRS here. MastCell ^Talk 22:07, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Blueboar agreed to having MEDRS with some context. Slim's argument on the talk page makes no sense. A link to MEDRS with context did improve the page. I don't see any valid reason for the deletion. I understand why an editor would object to this edit. It is because of the editor's background conflicts with scientific research. QuackGuru (talk) 22:21, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

You don't need to add to policy that articles should accurately reflect academic research, because no one has ever suggested otherwise. What you are trying to sneak in is that articles should only reflect that, and that's what is not acceptable, either in terms of this policy or the NPOV policy. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:25, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Your background is confusing your judgement. The text does not say what you claim and you have not suggested a better proposal becuase there is no problem with the text. You have no specifc objection to MEDRS either. QuackGuru (talk) 22:36, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what my "background" is. The text does not say that it will exclude other material, but that is how certain people would use it. Otherwise there is no point in adding it, because we already say academic sources are good. There's therefore no need to add that they should be reflected accurately, as opposed to inaccurately. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:40, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I do know what is your background which is causing your confusion. We should accurately reflect the "current status" of research. Slim, you inaccurately reflected the proposal. QuackGuru (talk) 22:47, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what QG is referring to here, but in his edit summary he wrote: "I hope I can get your written permission to reveal all of your COI background." [1] I have no COI background, and the threatening, personalizing tone isn't appreciated. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:54, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Does that mean you won't give me permission to reveal your severe COI background by filing a COI report with your continued abnormal behaviour. You cannot explain why we should not accurately reflect the "current status" of research. QuackGuru (talk) 00:35, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

• Where a topic is subject to a significant amount of academic research – whether it be hard science, social science or the humanities – Wikipedia articles should accurately reflect the current status of research

This seems like it's already covered by WP:NPOV:

• Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint.

Since significant academic research would have considerable weight, POVs represented in that material should be included. I don't see how this is relevant to WP:V, though. This policy focuses on the issue of making sure that what is included is verifiable, a different issue.   Will Beback  talk  22:18, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

This seems a little odd. Does anyone here actually favor of misrepresenting the current status of academic research? How about presenting last century's academic beliefs as if they were this century's?

I didn't think so. So if, as SlimVirgin asserts above, there's really "never been consensus" on this point, where's the Loyal Opposition that actually opposes the substance of this statement? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

If you're addressing my comment, I think that a) this is the wrong policy page, and b) it's already covered by the right policy, WP:NPOV.   Will Beback  talk  22:54, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd have to agree, it's the wrong policy page, and it's already covered. The constant temptation to "beef up" or modify policies by adding narrow and specific regulations intended to assist in winning edit wars in specific topical areas is understandable but unhelpful. Please review m:instruction creep. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:23, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not already covered and this is the correct page for this text. If it's the wrong policy page then where is the correct policy page for this text. It is unhelpful to claim it is already covered. What is the problem to accurately reflect the current status of research for Wikipedia articles. QuackGuru (talk) 03:35, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We last had this discussion in September (Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 41#Academic and media_sources). SlimVirgin is wrong, but is hardly alone in being wrong on this point. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 22:56, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

It started in September but continued until October 21, and QG was involved in it as I recall, so for him to arrive a month later to try to force it into the policy is very disruptive. I see he's also making objections to the NPOV policy along similar lines on another page. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:05, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

It is abnormal you continue to object without any logical reason to using the "current status" of research and giving MEDRS some context. Your objection is becuase of your background. Your personal background is confusing your judgement. QuackGuru (talk) 00:35, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Personal remarks aren't helpful. If there's a personal issue please take it to another page.   Will Beback  talk  00:42, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

QG, please stop making personal remarks about other editors. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:23, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I personally think is abnormal to continue to object without any logical reason to using the "current status" of research and giving MEDRS some context. QuackGuru (talk) 03:35, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I have a COI because I'm abnormal? :) SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:28, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

If true, you might have a COI at the abnormal psychology article, but not here. :) Jayjg ^(talk) 02:59, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Nobody objects to using the current status, just to using only that. It shouldn't be our policy to exclusively use recent or current academic sources. Historic context counts too. LeadSongDog come howl! 06:18, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with LeadSongDog here... We already make it clear that when writing an article, different types of sources are appropriate in different contexts. Of course current academic sources are best for supporting statements as to what the current academic thinking is... and historical sources are best for statements as to historical thinking... and when an article discusses non-academic thinking (which we need to do for NPOV), non-academic sources are best. In other words... no matter what the topic may be, we use the best, most reliable sources that support for the statement being made. Blueboar (talk) 14:32, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I concur as well. --Nuujinn (talk) 16:02, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I concur as well. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:59, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Will Beback's comment at 22:18, 24 November 2010; I don't see why WP:V has to ask for the "current status of research"; it seems WP:CREEP. In truly controversial cases, it may not even be possible to ascertain what that is. See for instance the paragraph about 5-HTTLPR in Major depressive disorder#Monoamine hypothesis or the current status of string theory. Dealing with multiple (wp:secondary) sources that don't necessarily agree may be a necessity for determining "current status of research", so the issue is much better suited for discussion at WP:NPOV. Tijfo098 (talk) 21:50, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:59, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree with what? You prefer no instructions? QuackGuru (talk) 03:14, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Tijfo098's comment. WP:V has the right amount of "instructions". Please don't make straw man arguments on behalf of others. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:09, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Editors should try to improve the wording rather than reject what will improve V policy unless editors prefer very little policy. Since there was no suggestion for a rewrite I will rewrite it. QuackGuru (talk) 03:14, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

There's no indication that the wording needs "improving", and the changes you are trying to impose have the opposite effect. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:09, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

No specific suggestion to rewrite "current status" of research

• (Original proposal) Where a topic is subject to a significant amount of academic research – whether it be hard science, social science or the humanities – Wikipedia articles should accurately reflect the current status of research.

• (Rewrite) Where a topic is subject to academic research – whether it be hard science, social science or the humanities – Wikipedia articles should include the current status of research.

I think this rewrite may work. If you don't like the rewrite then you could suggest a proposal. It is not assumed that Wikipedia articles will accurately cover "current research" in any topic when this issue is not covered adequately in any policy page. QuackGuru (talk) 03:14, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good idea. Wikipedia articles not only "can", but "should", and possibly even "must", reflect the current state of academic/expert views. Including the (reasonably) current state of expert/academic knowledge is necessary, not merely permitted. It doesn't really matter what the subject is: You should not write articles on "Heart disease" or "African-Americans" or "Art hoaxes" or "Chaucer" or "World War One" without accurately presenting the (reasonably) current state of expert/academic knowledge. An article based on last century's expert/academic views, or this decade's blogger's views, is unacceptable.

What "can" be optionally included (and often "should") is information about significant views at different points in history. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:51, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I changed it to "should". QuackGuru (talk) 06:10, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I added the proposal to the page. There was no specific objection to the rewrite. I changed "can" to "should" as suggested. QuackGuru (talk) 05:09, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

No specific objection to MEDRS guideline

There was really no specific objection to adding MEDRS to V. The objections were vague. QuackGuru (talk) 03:14, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

The objections were not vague, QG. I will list them here for clarity:

1. It is assumed that wikipedia articles will accurately reflect significant scholarship on topic. this is an NPOV (UNDUE) issue that is covered adequately there.
2. 'Significance' is not really a factor of verifiability. Verifiability only asks whether we can demonstrate that the given source exists and that it says what wikipedia claims it has said. One can verify that (say) Aleister Crowley said many things about the use of magick without concerning oneself over the quality or reputation of those sources.
3. The wording as given is sometimes abused on certain articles (such as - just for random examples - Chiropractic and QuackWatch), where it is used as an excuse to suppress otherwise potentially usable sources, generally for no particularly good reason.

Since the wording in not strictly appropriate to this policy, is already covered in other policy, and lends itself to abuse, why would we want to add it here? --Ludwigs2 03:46, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

The objections were vague to MEDRS, Ludwigs2. Your comment is irrelevant to the MEDRS discussion. QuackGuru (talk) 03:55, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, Heavens to Betsy! do I have to spell it out letter by letter for you? fine - if you actually need me to think this through for you, I will. same points as above, specific to MEDRS

1. MEDRS is a content guideline designed to ensure that wikipedia articles accurately reflect significant scholarship on specifically medical topics. This is (again) a matter of NPOV (UNDUE), not a matter of verifiability. MEDRS (ignoring its flaws for the discussion) is subordinate to core policy, and adequately covers the extension of core policy to the specialized areas of medicine. there is no need to link to or toimport anything from MEDRS here.
2. Items published in high-class medical journals are no more and no less verifiable than items published in Alternative Medicine forums or the popular press. There may be separate concerns about the accuracy or trustworthiness of sources from these different venues, but anyone with eyes (and most people without) can verify whether or not what wikipedia says in articles is an accurate reflection of what those medical journals, altmed forums, or popular press material say.
3. You yourself (if I remember correctly), along with others I could name, consistently use MEDRS (and verifiability, and NPOV) to try to remove non-medical-journal sources from CAM articles in order to shift such articles from being descriptive to being critical (and conversely, I've seen you myself use these tactics to whitewash all criticism from the Stephen Barrett and QuackWatch articles, in an effort to produce a nauseatingly glowing image of the man and the site). You do not use these materials to more accurately reflect significant scholarship; instead you use them to less accurately portray minority viewpoints, and that's just wrong-headed. Wikipedia does not need to take the Tonya Harding approach to advancing science.

Do I need to spell this out for you in moredetail? because you know I can; just say the word. --Ludwigs2 04:52, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

There no reason to delete the link to MEDRS. You are making no sense. There is a link to IRS which is also a guideline. QuackGuru (talk) 06:08, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

QG, you've had half a dozen people on this page explain the same thing to you, and you have told each one of them that they are making no sense. I think it's time that you recognized that the entire rest of wikipedia is too crazy to understand you, and you will never get us to see your point. You best give it up; you can't fight collective insanity on that scale. --Ludwigs2 06:50, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

You have explained you don't like MEDRS and you don't want to follow it. That is not a reason for deleting it when MEDRS has consensus to be a guideline. There are links to other guidelines including WP:IRS. QuackGuru (talk) 06:57, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

No, that's not what I explained at all. care to try again? --Ludwigs2 21:13, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

MEDRS has broad consensus to be a guideline. You don't delete links to a guideline with some context just because you think it is flawed when the community supports MEDRS. There is no valid reason to hide MEDRS because you don't seem to care to follow MEDRS. QuackGuru (talk) 23:51, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Again, that's not what I said. I said the link to MEDRS doesn't belong in this policy, since it's not a verifiability issue. Now, are you going to respond to that point, or are you going to continue making personal comments about me? --Ludwigs2 00:36, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Again, you are making no sense. The page says "To discuss the reliability of a specific source for a particular statement,...". The page says "For a guideline discussing the reliability of particular types of sources,...". So it belongs in this page as much as WP:IRS belongs in this page. There no consensus to delete the entire paragraph that does discuss the reliability of a specific source. See WP:CON. QuackGuru (talk) 00:43, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

the fact that you don't understand does not mean that I'm not making sense. WP:V is a general policy that should deal with broad, cross-project concepts; WP:IRS is a general content guideline dealing with broad cross-project concepts; MEDRS is a specific guideline dealing strictly with medical issues. I'd personally debate having WP:IRS dealt with on this page, and I certainly see no need to include information about area-specific issues. there is a link to MEDRS at the bottom of the page. that is sufficient. --Ludwigs2 02:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I do understand that you are not making sense when there is context for another similar guideline. You'd personally debate having WP:IRS dealt with on this page, but the consensus is to include it. You have not made a specific argument against having a link to WP:IRS with some context. You see no need to include context about a specific MEDRS guidelines when you argue MEDRS is flawed. It is not sufficient to exclude MEDRS because you don't like it. You see no benefit for MEDRS because you think editors misuse it. You should get used to it that MEDRS has the approval of the community. See WP:CON. QuackGuru (talk) 02:43, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

well, as I see it, you're the only one who wants to include it, and there are at least 6 people who object to including it. If you don't want to listen to the reasons I give, then you should at least listen to the numbers. I'd rather we discussed the reasons, but if you're trying to rely solely on numeric consensus you haven't got a leg to stand on. --Ludwigs2 06:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

There are not 6 people who specifically object to including MEDRS. If you don't want to give a valid reason for excluding it, then you should stop claiming there is a problem to including it. You haven't got a leg to stand on when your objections are bordering on wikilawyering. I'd rather we include it and move on. You have not given any good reason for continuing to argue against MEDRS when you read there are links with context to another similar guideline. It was inappropriate for you to consider deleting WP:IRS too. QuackGuru (talk) 06:40, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

There are at least six people who oppose - go back and count. So, by consensus, it's excluded; by weight of reason, it's excluded. why are you still arguing this? If you have an argument as to why we should include it, go ahead and make it; if it's a good argument, I might consider it. But as it stands it's simply your personal desire to include it (for whatever reason you may have) against my reasoned arguments to exclude it and the opposition of several others. As I said, you haven't really got a leg to stand on.

QG, you can keep hammering the same defunct line over and over, but you're not likely to get anywhere with it, and sooner or later I'm going to start getting irritated by the obvious tendentiousness. make a decent argument for inclusion or give it up, and do so before I start considering RFC/U. --Ludwigs2 08:30, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

(outdent)

I'm not particularly interested in this tedious argument, that has descended into personal abuse, but I must counter one point Ludwigs made. Point 2 that "Items published in high-class medical journals are no more and no less verifiable than items published in Alternative Medicine forums or the popular press." Ludwigs is confusing "verifiable" with "can be shown that someone, somewhere, no matter how unqualified or biased, has published this". The thing we "verify" against isn't any old rubbish (if it was it would be an utterly meaningless requirement and easily worked-around). It must be verifiable to a "reliable source", which later on is defined as "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". It is this aspect that MEDRS addresses wrt medical articles. I agree that MEDRS also builds on WP:WEIGHT as that requires establishing "a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources", or "reflect significant scholarship on topic" as you put it. So MEDRS builds on both WP:V and WP:NPOV. Colin°^Talk 12:44, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

@ Colin: You've made an error in reasoning - basically the same error that amateur scientists make when they confuse reliability with validity. You say I've bollixed the term 'verifiable with "can be shown that someone, somewhere, no matter how unqualified or biased, has published this", but if you remove your ad hominem that's precisely what it means to verify something. You are confusing editorial fact-checking with scientific fact checking, and messing things up royally in the process. let's parse out the difference here.

• Scholars, scientists, and people in the real world fact-check to defend or advance particular theories. Scholarly/scientific argument boils down to the statement "this theory is better than that theory because this theory explains the observed facts better than that theory does".
• Encyclopedia editors fact-check to prevent misrepresentation of ideas. it's not a question of defending or advancing ideas, merely of representing them accurately.

In other words, we at wikipedia are not trying to show that an idea is accurate, we are trying to accurately show what the idea is. I understand that you personally think some ideas are 'rubbish', and I personally might even be inclined to agree with you. but if there are enough people talking about that 'rubbish' to make it notable, then it's your job and mine to accurately show what the rubbish is, not to show that whatever-it-is is accurately described as rubbish. If you can't make that distinction, you will end up as a POV-pusher, sooner or later. You can't help but do so, because there will be topics where you will always think that an accurate portrayal (encyclopedia-wise) is an inaccurate portrayal (science/scholarship-wise terms), and the paradox guarantees edit wars.

It's a silly philosophical language trap, on the same order as "I lie, even when I say I'm lying". Climb out of it.

MEDRS is a worst-case example of of this kind of silliness. given that there are useful elements in MEDRS, much of the guideline is an effort to convince wikipedia editors to give up accurate encyclopedic description in favor of advancing western medical theories as more accurate than other perspective - basically trying to warp verifiability into a truth-assertion. while I don't disagree with the attitude in general (If I get an infection I'll go for the penicillin, thank-you-very-much), it's not a particularly encyclopedic attitude. Editors who want to do that should really be writing for WebMD, not Wikipedia. Do you see what I'm saying? --Ludwigs2 16:28, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I think Colin is correct here. When we talk about "verifiability", we're not simply asking "did X say Y?" We're asking, "do any reliable sources say Y?" The policy repeatedly contextualizes verifiability as dependent upon reliable sources, not simply upon demonstrating that someone, somewhere said something. I also disagree with you about MEDRS, but that's a separate topic. MastCell ^Talk 17:23, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

MC: there are two issues here. Both of them are important, but they cannot both be handled under a single rubric without queering things. the issues:

descriptive accuracy

we want to make sure that when wikipedia says 'something' that 'something' is accurately framed. For instance, if a wikipedia article were to discuss claims that President Obama is a socialist, we would want readers to be able to trace the various various statements made in that article back to the original sources who made them, so that the reader know (a) the statement was not taken out of context, and (b) the statement is not Wikipedia editorializing, but rather a statement that Wikipedia is reporting.

factual accuracy

We want to make sure that Wikipedia says things that are truer rather than falser (to best of our ability within the current state of knowledge). For instance, we want to present the currently favored theory of gravitation as more prominent than old discredited theories or new innovative theories. This is so that readers are given the best understanding possible of the material.

Much of the time these two issues correlate nicely - Either there's a very broad consensus about factual accuracy such that accurate description captures it (as with gravity), or the issue is clearly a matter of opinion and no one pretends to factual accuracy (as with Obama's socialism). But where there are contentious articles, these issues need to be separated and dealt with individually. This mostly happens on fringe-ish pages. For example, a description of orgone is something like a proto-living energy that permeates the universe: advocates will try to say that's 'true', skeptics will try to say it's 'false', but true or false, that's the kind of description that needs to be given. Factual accuracy has to take a back seat to descriptive accuracy here, because the theory of orgone is factually bereft. if it doesn't, we become advocates against orgone rather than just editors describing orgone, and that's not what wikipedia is for.

You and I both know that this issue keeps invading verifiability because a lot of editors want to use it as an anti-fringe tool. basically, if one can use verifiability to rope factual accuracy and descriptive accuracy together (through reliability), one can instantly cut the legs out from under every off-beat topic. Even something like Alternative Medicine (as broad and pervasive as that topic is) can be trashed simply by labeling anyone who writes about alternative medicine as a 'fringe author' and tossing them as unverifiable. you're left with 'verifiable' authors, meaning authors who criticize altmed from a scientific perspective (which is a bit like restricting sources on Obama's article to Fox news pundits). I've seen this happen dozens of times.

Verifiability should only be about descriptive accuracy - factual accuracy should be covered in different policies, and a very clear line should be drawn between the two. --Ludwigs2 21:30, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

If this were a courtroom, verifiability is 'supported by testimony' whereas RS involves the 'credibility' of the testimony (and MEDRS involves 'expert' testimony). On the other hand, RS is spread around patchwork throughout NPOV, V, and NOR, so no guideline can wholly claim it: NPOV has the 'significance' part; NOR stipulates 'not already published in reliable sources'; and V mentions 'verifiable in reliable sources' while patchily covering sources in general. MEDRS, should be linked to from IRS, from FRINGE, and from MEDMOS, but not really from this very general sourcing guideline, at least not as either WP:SOURCES or MEDRS are currently written. Ocaasi (talk) 11:54, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Still no specific objection to MEDRS. There was really no specific objection to adding MEDRS to V. The objections to adding Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) (WP:MEDRS) were vague. QuackGuru (talk) 03:55, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, how about this... in some cases it directly contradicts WP:V (and other core policies) especially in its dismissal of news reports as reliable sources. We should not link to something that contradicts the policy. Blueboar (talk) 23:18, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Or how about this... MEDRS is a relatively young guideline that some editors use to push a scientific point of view over the long established neutral point of view, particularly for topics which are considered Alternative Medicine. AltMed articles are a complex fusion of history, sociology, psychology, mythology, practice, pseudoscience, health claims, counterculture, allopathic rejection, aspirational technologies, spiritual claims, cultural traditions, and current research. MEDRS seeks to present only the current research as the correct view of these subjects, and to cast a constant dismissive shadow of on all of the others. While that MEDRS/AltMed conflict is being sorted out, it makes sense to keep the useful but not fully matured MEDRS out of the established and fully understood V. Since you may be apt to say this is vague and that I just hate MEDRS, you may be preemptively incorrect on both accounts. Ocaasi (talk) 06:34, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Are we reading the same guideline? The one on my screen says things like "the high-quality popular press can be a good source for social, biographical, current-affairs and historical information in a medical article." How do you get from "the popular press is a good source for social and historical information" to "MEDRS doesn't allow newspapers as a source on history, sociology, etc."? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:21, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

And again

The context should be shorter like WP:IRS. QuackGuru (talk) 05:09, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The guideline MEDRS has the broad consensus of the Wikipedia community. Any old reference is not reliable. MEDRS explains which refs are reliable for biomedical assertions. QuackGuru (talk) 05:09, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that it is necessary for MEDRS to be linked in this document, and I think it is inappropriate for you to keep adding things to this policy when you know that more than one editor objects to what you are adding. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:23, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I think these edits are beginning to get disruptive. After all the debate on this page, I don't think asserting the special important of MEDRS and weakening the statement that V takes priority of "other guidelines" can be said to have any consensus. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 22:23, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I concur, having reviewed the discussion. --Nuujinn (talk) 22:26, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

If we let QuackGuru have his/her way, Wikipedia will be "the encyclopedia anyone who lives near a major university library can edit". Lack of access to the latest research journal would not be grounds, for example, to delete an article. Of course, if an editor has access to the latest reseach and either there is a lack of controversy, or good review article sort out the different current views, such material should be included. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:09, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes—I agree with what you mean, and what I previously assumed QG was trying to accomplish with that sentence. But his messages at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Recent_2009_study make me believe that I have misunderstood the proposed sentence, which appears to mean (to QG) something more like "WP:RECENTISM is good, so long as it's a scholarly source that says something negative about Chiropractic". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:27, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Can something "not true" be verifiable?

re: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth"

I have an editor claiming that it doesn't have to be true as long as it is verifiable.  He is using this position to defend an urban legend.  Should the Project Page point out that if something is "not true", it is by definition "not verifiable"?

For reference, one of the footnotes for the article reads:
Wales, Jimmy, "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information." "I can NOT emphasize this enough."
RB  66.217.117.125 (talk) 18:10, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Could you point us to the particular issue? It's difficult to make a call on this kind of question without seeing the context. But, yes, according to the policy, something that is verified in a reliable source yet not true according to our own knowledge can remain in place. One example I have at hand is the bell in the St. James Railway Station article. One source claims the bell was in place in the 1960s, and another that it was put in place as part of an art project in 1992. I was curious, so I contacted the artist and verified the latter. But to use that information to remove the first source would be original research. Although I think I am correct, I cannot be sure, and we follow what the sources say. So both sources remain. --Nuujinn (talk) 18:42, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

We do make a distinction between verifiability and truth. In most cases the argument is focused more the other way, with someone arguing that something should be included because it is True, even when not verifiable. Religious belief being the prime example: the blunt statement "Jesus is the Son of God" may or may not be True (depending on whether you are a Christian), but it isn't verifiable. However, the argument can go the other way as well (That "Frodo Baggins destroyed the One Ring" is verifiable... it isn't "true"). Blueboar (talk) 18:54, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that parallel will strike some as slightly odd. I think this is a better way to say it: That Jesus is the son of God is claimed to be true, but we can not confirm that it is true in an uncontroversial way, or in other words we can not verify it. That Frodo destroyed the ring is not claimed to be true by anyone at all, but it is truly part of a real story, and we can confirm that the claim that it is truly in that story in an uncontroversial way. Verification is a concept which makes no sense without a claim of truth also being implied, but it is that extra step of claims or descriptions which can be confirmed uncontroversially which make something verifiable.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:43, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

It would be easier to advise if we could see the example, 66.217. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:31, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Where there is a dispute the statements should be attributed, like according to Christians Jesus is the Son of God, or in the book Lord of the Rings Frodo Baggins destroyed the One Ring. Truth really doesn't come into it. Dmcq (talk) 23:20, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Just logically, claims about the truth are always lurking in the background whenever something is called verifiable. That does not mean they are the same. However when we say something is verifiable we are saying that it is true, and we know it is true, that it is verifiable, which in turn means that 1, we know that it is true that 2, reliable people have been recorded as stating it is true 3, in ways which other people will generally find to be convincingly true. This is just me pointing out a side issue of logic, and not disagreeing with the principle of distinguishing truth and verifiability as criteria for inclusion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:13, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Here are three links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sentence_spacing#Some_comments

it's irrelevant if that statement you mentioned wasn't "true". Wikipedia represents verifiability, not truth.
...
I disagree strongly about the relevance of whether a statement in Wikipedia is true
...

According to one of Wikipedia's core policies, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sentence_spacing#Does_webword.com_qualify_as_an_.22External_Link.22.3F

WP:ELNO states that "Links normally to be avoided" include:

2. Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research...
...
In the days of typewriter manuscripts the extra space was necessary to separate the ends and beginnings of sentences.

No, we know from the "Sentence Spacing" article that people today submit single-sentence-spaced monospaced drafts to editors, so the extra space was a choice, never "necessary."
...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sentence_spacing#.22Untitled_Document.22_is_not_a_reliable_source_WP:SOURCES_WP:QS
...
The abstract itself contains information known to be factually incorrect, such as, "Two spaces were necessary to visually break up the space and reinforce the end of a sentence."
...
5. "Information known to be factually incorrect." We've discussed the irrelevancy of this assertion before (truth vs. verifiability).

RB  66.217.118.166 (talk) 02:04, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Can we agree that there is an ambiguity on the Project Page?
RB  66.217.118.166 (talk) 04:06, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

This is definitely all verifiable in a conference abstract. If there is debate as to the accuracy of what is stated in the abstract, it should be attributed to the author (the main presenter of the talk). Blueboar (talk) 14:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Let's just go for the obvious example, an entire and quite verifiable article about something we all know is false:: The Moon is made of green cheese. --Ludwigs2 04:58, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

The common working definition "Verifiable" in Wikipedia is that it meets wp:ver. And that definition is that it is cited by what WP calls a "reliable source", which overweights certain criteria and completely skips others (such as objectivity and expertise). As so it would be quite easy for even an objectively false statement to meet the letter of WP:verifiability criteria.

But once it gets into further discussion / noticeboards, common sense and the oft-ignored higher level wording of wp:ver usually come into play including selecting those "Reliable Sources" which are actually reliable. North8000 (talk) 13:15, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Appeals to "common sense" on noticeboards may be less necessary with some rewording. Consider the following restatement of the sentence "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."

Wikipedia purposes to be a compendium of truth. However, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.
RB  66.217.118.17 (talk) 17:48, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

No, Wikipedia is not a "compendium of truth". It is a compendium of verifiable information. It strives to present that information accurately... but "truth" has nothing to do with it. People can disagree as to what is "true"... they can not disagree as to whether something is verifiable. Blueboar (talk) 18:02, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Clearly people can disagree about what is verifiable. Seems to happen a lot. The difference is relative. Verifiable statements are relatively uncontroversial statements about what is asserted to be true or not. Just using a Latin word for truth (VERI-tas) and putting a fancy abstracting ending on the end does not hide that. Verifiability instead of truth is a good way of aiming in a practical way at having truth in the encyclopedia, sorry I meant "correct information" or "high quality encyclopedic material" which of course have nothing to do with truth. :D --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

We seem to go through this argument at regular intervals. I'm going to continue to take the very hardnosed viewpoint that we are not obligated to repeat the errors made by our sources. Reliability is not absolute and any specific statement is subject to refutation. In the case of the bell referred to above I personally would accept that someone checked with the artist in order to discern between conflicting sources. If a source says something that seems to be unreasonable I do not think we need a great deal of process to exclude the questionable statement; on the contrary, I would be disposed to exclude it lacking corroboration.

In terms of the purpose of an encyclopedia, I think it is as a rule better to say nothing at all than to repeat questionable claims. Mangoe (talk) 18:24, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone here see the ambiguity?  I've added to one of my posts above to draw attention to a statement from an editor that he feels strongly about the misreading of WP:V. "I disagree strongly about the relevance of whether a statement in Wikipedia is true"
RB  66.217.118.17 (talk) 18:38, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I think our goal is to have everything to be "true," but it is impossible to agree on what that is - especially if someone is purposefully trying to include dubious material. We have chosen to go with "verifiable." An editor can (and should) avoid including verifiable information they know is not true, but using "that's not true" cannot be used as the only reason to remove verifiable information that has another editor's good faith support. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 18:54, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

IMHO, the high level mission statement of the Wikimedia Foundation requires truth, in those cases where objective truth exists ("truth" being better described as CORRECT (vs. wrong) INFORMATION where such objectively exists) The statement out of policies (verifiability vs. truth) that people keep quoting is to emphasize that Wikipedia's means to the end of correct information is verifiability rather than debates about truth. IMHO the people who keep trying to reverse engineer a mission statement out of policy wording have it backwards. IMHO the higher level mission statement requires CORRECT information, and verifiability is (merely) a means to that end. North8000 (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean by "reverse engineering?" I do not see what you mean. i have been around a pretty long time and I do not think that Blueboar's 18:02 statement is in any way anachronistic or backwards. That Wikipedia provides verifiable information, including verifiable views of information (including interpretations, arguments) has been Wikipedia policy for as long as I can remember. My understanding of NPOV as it was originally formulated (and which used to include "V" before it became its own policy) was, when I first joined the project, the same as it is now (and as many people here quite patiently but repeatedly explain) is that under conditions where people do not agree about what the truth is, or how to assess the truth, it is better for an encyclopedia edited by "everyone" to sidestep the problem - and what is really a metaphysical or epistemological question - of "what is the truth?" entirely and claim to do something else.

The "something else" that we do goes hand in hand with our being a wiki project that anyone can edit, and it is that we provide verifiable views. What makes the view verifiable is nothing at all like what it would mean to make it "true" - talk about reverse engineering! What makes it verifiable is that the source of the view can be identified, and if necessary relevant contextual information about the view can be provided. In practice, if a view is uncontroversial (Mussolini was a fascist would be my example) then it can simply be added to the encyclopdia without a source or attribution. If a view is controversial (fascism is socialism) then editors will say so and demand verification which usually involves providing a source; if the view is highly controversial then the source is often attributed in the articl. This is also the case when editors acknowldge that there are multiple views. If there are multiple views about whether Pluto is a planet, we put that. If there are multiple views physicists hold about the measurement problm, or the structure of an atom, we provide that.

All of this fits together and makes perfect sense to me and to the best of my recollection this was the position Sanger and ales and most early Wikipedians accepted. The whole point was to avoid silly arguments over what is true and how do you know. If you think I am being silly by calling these arguments silly, well,I can only answer that people interested in such debates should bcome philosophers or find a philosophy chat room, this is just not what Wikipedia is about.

The Jimbo quote at the start of this thread does not mean Wikipedia is about the truth. If Nazis think Jews are subhuman, we do not explude that from the encyclopedia because the claim is false, we include it because it is a verifiable view. Jimbo's quote is clearly just a call to caution, that we should not add stuff to articles just because we thing articles are too short. We add material as is apporpriate. If most historians agree that the view I just provided is what Nazis think, but not informative about Jews, we put it in the Nazi article, not the Jew article. These questions - multiple views or one, majority view or minority, what kind of view belongs in which article, reliable or unreliable source - are the questions that naturally follow from V and are the ones we should be discussing in writing articles, not "truth." Slrubenstein | Talk 19:39, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

SLR do you truly think the following sentences mean different things? Or would that assertion be not true in your opinion?

• If Nazis think Jews are subhuman, we do not explude (sic) that from the encyclopedia because the claim is false, we include it because it is a verifiable view.
• If Nazis think Jews are subhuman, we do not exclude that from the encyclopedia because the claim is false, we include it because it is true that it is a verifiable view.
• If it is true that Nazis think Jews are subhuman, we do not exclude that from the encyclopedia because the claim is false, we include it because we can verify that it was truly their view.
• If it is true that Nazis think Jews are subhuman, we do not exclude that from the encyclopedia because the claim is false, we include it because actually it is true, and we can verify the fact, that it was their view.
• If it is true that Nazis thought it true that Jews are subhuman, we do not exclude that from the encyclopedia because the claim is false, we include it because actually it is true, and we can verify the fact, that it was their view.

etc. Just to make it clear, I fully support the truth/verifiability distinction in Wikipedia. There is a workable distinction, and it works well most often. But I just find it worthwhile to point out that the way some people explain the distinction is illogical and could lead to over-simplification and misunderstanding.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Heavens, this debate is interminable. The way I see it, this is very simple if you get away from the trees and look at the forest. start from general principles:

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and as such it aims to give a well-rounded descriptive overview of the current understanding of topics it covers.
   • let me highlight that phrase: A well-rounded descriptive overview of the current understanding of topics.
2. The 'current understanding' of a topic includes past understandings (the way that a current understanding of you might include your previous occupations or the school you graduated from), and it includes critical, alternate, and competitive understandings (the way a current understanding of you might include the opinions of your boss, your ex-wife, or a co-worker who's competing for the same promotion), at least where such are significant enough to be mentioned.
3. Well-rounded means that all these aspects should be included and balanced so that none are minimized or exploited. this is art more than science (or at least, those people who try to make rigid rules about it are almost always people with major axe-grinding issues).
4. Descriptive is not proscriptive: an encyclopedia gives people information and leaves them to draw conclusions on their own. if you find yourself trying trying to proscribe the way a reader should think about an issue then you are not writing encyclopedically. This is subtle: people can impose proscriptive elements on an article through phrasing and word-choice, article structure, and all sorts of other non-obvious means.
5. overview means that we do not try to get down into the down-and-dirty details of a topic, but aim to give a solid understanding that people can use to look further on their own. excessive detail is almost always POV, though not necessarily in an obnoxious way.

'Truth' is not a concern here at all except to the extent that the 'current understanding' of the topic reflects some greater truth. yes, In the sciences and scholarship more generally authors put a lot of effort into validating what they write, and good journalistic do a lot of fact-checking. but when we use these sources we are not offering these sources as though they represent validity or truth; from wikipedia's perspective they are merely the current understanding of the topic.

the point of verifiability is that it is supposed to stabilize articles. without verification, an article just becomes a an opinion piece written by whatever wikipedia editors happen to edit it. sometimes that works out fine - with a knowledgable editor or two you can get a well-rounded descriptive overview even if the sourcing is crappy. but with difficult topics, or contentious ones, or polemical ones, sourcing is a stanchion that keeps the whole article from blowing over. Verifiability works like so: Editor Q wants to add a comment X into an article; editor P complains, editor Q shows source B where X is outlined; editor P verifies (i.e. reads) to make sure that X is being used in the source in the way that it is being presented in the article. verifiability binds statements made in wikipedia to statements made in the real world, so that (regardless of the truth of those statements), it is clear at least that the wikipedia editors in question aren't misrepresenting a concept or making material up out of whole cloth. If you try to turn verifiability into something more than a reality check (as people often do, when they confound verifiability with "reliability"), you just end up with a mess. --Ludwigs2 21:11, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

A new example

In the article Euclid's Elements there appears the statement that "Perhaps no book other than the Bible can boast so many editions". This is sourced to an otherwise reputable book, and so is verifiable. It isn't difficult to demonstrate that it isn't true, the works of Homer being an obvious competitor, but that argument would count as WP:OR. As there is in general no obligation to include information just because it's there, it seems better to require both verifiability and truth. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 19:21, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I think I understand what North8000 means about "reverse engineering", he means that my text proposal to insert "Wikipedia purposes to be a compendium of truth." is not correctly factored, a statement of what Wikipedia is is to be found elsewhere.  This proposal is withdrawn by the author.
RB  66.217.118.17 (talk) 20:23, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

You can always say - according to xyz that is true. A worse example I had a rather protracted discussion about was where someone read a widely respected maths textbook that had a wrong statement in it and wanted to include that in Wikipedia. Showing them examples where it was wrong and bringing in outside review saying it was wrong had little effect and they wanted to insert their own proof' where the original had just had it as a remark. This is the sort of reason common sense is supposed to be used with all the policies - but then of course it isn't that common unfortunately. Dmcq (talk) 20:29, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I think in effect we refer to what we think is true in a negative way when we discuss/consider due weight, and whether to include something at all, or whatever. In the case of the example given I would say that there is no policy obliging us to include a statement that is clearly questionable. I would say that anyone arguing that it has to be included just because properly sourced has no policy to back them up on that (unless the quote were very famous and therefore notable) and it is purely a matter of editors needing to convince each other and try to reach a consensus. WP:V and WP:RS do not tell us that all verifiable and reliable materials must be included. Am I wrong?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

"Pluto is a planet"... this blunt statement is verifiable (I can cite reliable sources that say it)... but is this blunt statement true? Blueboar (talk) 20:49, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

(added later)This seems like not a good example, but I would argue that this is a case where objective/truth/accuracy does not exist. It is a question of "does humanity apply the noun "planet" to that thing out there beyond Neptune. (of course the most widely recognized body's opinion recently changed on this). North8000 (talk) 22:02, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

That's not really a good example of the problem (at least as I am addressing it), especially since the changing status of Pluto is something that the article must address. When we have a selection of sources which testify to changing views about a topic, one can insist on the documentation of the shift. The biggest problem cases are where a "reliable" source says something that is just incorrect by any standard, as in the case Dmcq mentions. I had a case where a prominent person was stated in the course of an interview to have attended a particular school in Maryland. The interviewer simply made a mistake: the school in question had the same name as a different school in Delaware which the person in question had actually attended. It was physically impossible for her to have attended the school named in the interview. Yet I had people doggedly insisting that this falsehood had to be included in the article because the source was "reliable". To prevent us from repeating this false statement, I had to track down this person's high school yearbook and cite it. This struck me as extreme; the mere demonstration that the statement could not have been true should have been sufficient to exclude it from the article. Reliability is not a guarantee of accuracy, and we do have an obligation not to repeat material which we can tell is false even when it comes from "reliable" sources. Mangoe (talk) 21:38, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Mangoe is a diligent researcher, of the sort WP needs a LOT more of. I think she brings up a good point. But I think the issue here is the triviality of the matter. Editors working on an article need to be able to discuss how trivial or untrivial a point is. The less trivial, the more important it is to research it carefully. I think the challenge for WP is as WP is established as THE first choice encyclopedia on the web (and may even one day surpass EB as a resource people rely on), it becomes more and ore important that even trivial claims are verified. Mangoe is pointing out - quite correctly - that verifiaction involves more than finding a source. I would say that the more trivial or less controversial a point is, the more often finding one source is an acceptable surrogate for verification. As mangoe's case illustrates however,verification involves checking one source against others and a more careful consideration of the reliability of the source. What mangoe did begs comparison to what fact-checkers at The New Yorker and other major publications do. It is tedious and often descends into the trivial but it is necessary for the standards of the publication. My point: we will increasingly have to hold P to this standard. Mangoe, would you agree that the criteria required in your case include (1) consistency with other sources and (2) a criticl assessment of the authority of the source? If so perhaps these should be written into the policy. I do think this kind of issue will become more and more important. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:38, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the case Mangoe mentions is not uncommon, and it sounds like the kind of case where WP:IAR, e.g. WP:UCS can be relevant. Very often of course editors on a page do not even bother arguing about it and just make a judgment call. (And whether we use the word "true" or not, such use of common sense can not be described without using reference to what believes to be true or false. Also, as in the case described, some basic level "synthesis" is also unavoidable for any normal editor.) In cases where WP:IAR actually needs to be invoked however, and then people notice common seen being used out in the open, there is a definite under-current of fundamentalism around which in effect treats WP:IAR as controversial. There are understandable reasons why of course. The fear is that everyone might start invoking common sense for whatever their favorite fringe theory is, and the world will come to an end etc. But according to WP:IAR, which still exists, such fear is a justifiable excuse to hurt the quality of articles.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:30, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I can come up with a principle that isn't going founder on the unspeakable need to have editors who are capable of making these kinds of judgement. I do think we should put more emphasis on respecting objections made against questionable statements. In the case I mentioned, the subject of the article would have had to commute 120-odd miles each way to get to school, because the Maryland school is on the opposite side of the bay from where she lived, and it doesn't have boarding students. It's "research" in some sense, I suppose, to work out that such a trip is impossibly impractical, but I guess I am less concerned about excluding statements from articles on this basis than I am in including something that's untrue. OTOH I recognize the likelihood that this will be used as a tactic in articles about atrocities to suppress evidence, but I think that those partisans can generally only be controlled by banning them.

It seems to me that we need two things here. First we need to find a better way to express that we want verifiable facts rather than reporting what we know than "verifiability, not truth". Second, we need to emphasize that fact-checking is necessary and important. I'm not sure how to word it but that's where it is. Mangoe (talk) 16:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The current wordingis prone to misunderstanding and misquoting. North8000 (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I am more inclined to oppose the change than to support it. It seems that the problem with verifiable but untrue statements is handled by WP:NPOV and its associated guidelines, like WP:BURDEN and WP:FRINGE. It looks like you are trying to turn Verifiability into a content policy that can be read in isolation of the other pillars. I think the "verifiability, not truth" language is essential in combating people who want something in the encyclopedia because the know it is true. To say the least, much of what people know is true represents a partial point of view, and is oftentimes downright false. Any problems caused by this wording can be addressed by pointing editors to the other policies and guidelines. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 20:13, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

What that phrase really means is that verifiability is an absolute requirement for inclusion in Wikipedia. Nothing else (such as claims of truth) removes that requirement. WP:truth says the same thing. If something meets that criteria, it will still need to meet other criteria to be included. The "other criteria" might be WP policies or guidelines (e.g. NPOV, MOS ) or it might be other non-policy criteria that get applied by consensus or common sense (such as true/false, stupid/smart sounding, germane / not-germane to the article).

Both this phrase in wp:ver and also wp:truth overall are continuously misquoted, misapplied and misconstrued by even experienced editors to say that true/false, accurate/inaccurate doesn't matter in Wikipedia. This leaves the impression that a statement is objectively false can't be used as grounds for excluding it as being a statement of fact. WP:VER merely says that being "true" is not grounds for waiving the requirement for verifabilty. IMHO the fact that the "verifiability is absolutely required" statement pollutes itself by including ONE PARTICULAR example of something (Truth) that does not waive the requirement is a mistake that has led to such frequent mis-interpretations and confusion. This is the reason for my support for some type of rewording. North8000 (talk) 20:47, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that's a misuse at all. An objectively erroneous statement whose fallaciousness cannot be verified should not be removed because an editor knows in their heart or from long experience (which the community cannot verify) that it is just wrong. The whole point is to remind editors that what they think is irrelevant. We don't get to act on objective truth and falsehood, but only upon our opinions about objective truth and falsehood. Meanwhile, if we can verify that reliable sources claim that something is false, then we get into issues of WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, and WP:FRINGE in deciding whether to include it. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 21:00, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Exactly my thoughts. No matter how much this all gets turned over and over and over, the fundamental question is what happens when there is a disagreement about the accuracy of a statement. The answer is we look to reliable sources. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:16, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Just looking at reliable sources may or may not clear up the problem. In reality good discussion seems to be the most important thing in many real cases. We can all wish that the world were simpler, but discussion is indefensible on WP. A lot of problems WP has to handle can not be handled any other way. I think the biggest concern I have about how policies are written is when they seem to be trying to legislate decisions which really require discussion between good faith editors. The bias should be towards anything which pushes people towards proper discussions.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and arguing that something is true, and therefore should be included even though there is not support by verification in reliable sources does not move us toward good discussions, in my opinion, since those discussion will be marred by appeals to authority and expertise, what someone told me, what I heard or read somewhere, etc. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:43, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

That's a mis-statement of the discussion, I don't think that anybody is advocating waiving the verifiability requirement under any conditions. North8000 (talk) 23:07, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Responding to RJC above, so you are saying that by consensus, editors can remove a statement for being POV, for violating MOS, for going against specialized guidelines of the various subject groups, for being non-germane, or for being just badly badly written, for being non-encyclopedic style, but NOT for being objectively false ? ! North8000 (talk) 23:14, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

WP does not have to include everything which can be sourced, so of course deletions can be proposed for various reasons. One kind of case where deletions are not easy to defend is where something is well-known of notable, and therefore a part of what is said about a subject in the relevant field or fields. In such cases mention of a source is in my opinion necessary, but this can be done using attribution etc.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:22, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The answer you give, Nuujinn, begs the question. Reliability is not a guarantee of utter accuracy, and there are other tests of accuracy besides the authority of sources. A statement that is incorrect should not appear in this encyclopedia; judging between conflicting sources should not be done merely by majority vote. There is a requirement for personal judgement in these cases. That is also the problem, RJC, with your your analysis. I can determine that some statements are erroneous without have to to refer to a conflicting witness. In the case I mentioned, I didn't need a conflicting source to know that the interviewer's statement was wrong; I could simply work out that it was physically impossible for her to have attended that school. And other editors should have walked through the same reasoning and agreed that the statement was incorrect, instead of defending it with the dogma that the source as reliable even though it has been proven that in this case it was not.

I want to be clear that this isn't about including unverified information; it is strictly about excluding statements which can be shown, by whatever means, to be inaccurate. Mangoe (talk) 03:08, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Mangoe, nothing is a guarantee of utter accuracy. I have been pulled into discussion on both sides of the type of argument you are discussing. My own way of drawing a line is by looking at WP:NEUTRAL and WP:NOTE. If material which appears wrong but properly sourced is well-known and part of what really gets discussed about a subject then it is difficult to justify deleting all mention of it, and it becomes a question of working out how to describe it in a fair and realistic way. Attribution often helps, by notifying any alert reader that there might be more to the question. But removing well-known information can make Wikipedia take a position different from the mainstream and it will also make it difficult for users of Wikipedia to find information they might have heard elsewhere. If it is not notable, then there is no reason to include dubious materials just because they can be sourced, and then it becomes a content discussion for editors of the article. I think in both the types of cases I describe there will always be judgement and discussion required, and there is no possibility to write a standardized rule that will work in all cases?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:22, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

My exchange above was on structural wording issue; I was essentially saying that wp:ver provide a requirement, not a mandate for inclusion. And that a common misreading of wp:ver and wp:truth is to say that they say that accuracy doesn't matter in WP.North8000 (talk) 12:15, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

It is not surprising or even rare that something objectively false can be "reliably sourced" in accordance with the basic WP definition of RS'ing. One pervasive example is when a RS covers false or baseless assertions made by somebody else. Those false or baseless assertions then become "reliably sourced" per WP criteria. Another is when a WP:RS makes a mistake....nobody is perfect. Another is old sources with info which was correct then and wrong now. North8000 (talk) 12:15, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

So you are saying that the wording of WP:V should make clear that the rule is not a self-contained rule about what must be included but should be used in conjunction with other rules? I have nothing against the idea but such cross referencing reminders need to be short and sweet or otherwise the text can become encumbered and hard to get the gist of. Do you have a concrete proposal though?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:05, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

It's even simpler than that. It just needs cleanup of wp:ver wording so that it doesn't confuse people about what it is about. For example, the ambiguous "threshold" word, and confusion of the core policy statement by inclusion of an example (truth) in it's core of core wording. For example (quickie, needs refining)

Replace:

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."

with:

A requirement for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability - whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Nothing else (such as whether or not editors think it is true)is a substitute for fulfillment of this requirement. North8000 (talk) 00:55, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

At first sight that seems more clear. It also helps me see what you wanted to clarify.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:14, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

How to discuss "truth"

I think that the phrase, "verifiability, not truth," should be preserved. While "truth" is technically one example of the justifications that do not satisfy the minimum threshold for inclusion, it is the most important. I think the policy should be worded in such a way that editors on the right side of a dispute can point to it and have it be immediately comprehensible to a new user. Having "verifiability, not truth" in big bold letters in the first sentence gets the point across. The proposed wording that pushes "truth" into a parenthetical remark says the same thing in a technical sense, but it is less forceful and hence less effective in communicating the policy. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 18:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree the longstanding text does not need changing, as a defender in previous battles. Objections usually arise from misunderstanding the categories involved. If "A" is a disputed proposition, whether it's "true" or not, we don't include it: we refer editors to say instead, "B says A". The fact is that in these cases "B says A" is a "true" and verifiable statement, and since it is undisputed it is a different category of "truth" (undisputed) than the category of disputed "truths" (like "A"). The occasional dispute over "B says A" does arise, and we do sometimes use a form of "C says B says A", but usually the dispute doesn't go much further back unless it is an entrenched community-discussion issue and other standards are invoked. WP's disdain for "truth" is that people so often use it to refer to disputed statements; the fact that it's also used for undisputed statements does not vitiate the validity of our formulation. When Jimbo objects to including "false" information, the criterion is exactly the same: we should not include disputed "falsities" any more than disputed "truths" (undisputed "falsities" are, of course, a different category and are unverifiable by definition because no reliable sources say them). JJB 20:55, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

This is too simple. A problem arises when generally reliable sources make mistakes, as they do. Those mistakes may never be publicly identified as such, because other experts just tacitly dismiss them and have little motivation to point them out. If the mistake then gets incorporated into Wikipedia, those who recognise the mistake should be able to delete it (not say the opposite, just pass over the matter in silence). Occasionally other editors insist on unconditionally retaining such mistakes even when it's clear that that's what they are. There are a few examples mentioned on this page. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 00:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Under these circumstances, there would usually be contradicting source that would be required to remove the "false" material, wouldn't there?

Also, an advantage of the "Verifiability, not truth" phrasing is that it is rhetorically shocking and flags the policy as not what one might initially expect it to be: that attention must be paid. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 00:59, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe there would "usually" be a contradicting source, but often there isn't. The more arbitrary the original statement, the less likely it is that someone made a reverse one, except when explicitly reviewing the orginal one. The problem tends to arise over issues that aren't in fact seen as terribly important, where someone makes an idle ill-informed statement and nobody takes much notice. Nevertheless such statements get repeated into wikipedia and editors insist on retaining them. Look again at some of the examples quote above:

• search for "school in Maryland"
• search for "Euclid's Elements"
• search for "widely respected maths textbook"

It isn't wikipedia policy to require sourcing for deletion, not should it become so.

And policy statements don't want to be "rhetorically shocking" - they want to be clear. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 12:54, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Not workable, because what is true must somehow be determined, and determining that is harder than determining what can be verified in reliable sources.

• A)So there a bit that's wrong and cited. You know it's wrong, and delete it. At that point either the change isn't noticed, in which case nothing happens, or someone spots it. But let's say I'm hunting vandals and spot your deletion. I revert you and am hopefully polite, and discussion ensures. I will require sources, and we either do or not not come to consensus, and if not, move up the chain until the matter is settled.
• B)So there a bit that's wrong and cited. I'm a vandal and delete it. At that point either the change isn't noticed, in which case nothing happens, or someone spots it. But let's say you're hunting vandals and spot my deletion. You revert me and are certainly polite. I argue it's wrong, and at that point you requires sources, and we either do or not not come to consensus, and if not, move up the chain until the matter is settled.

The two case are parallel. We must turn to discussion of reliable sources to resolve either scenario. And yes, mistakes can and are made, but no policy can preclude mistakes, precisely because they must be interpreted. If a reliable source makes a mistake that is represented here, the only way to deal with that problem is to find more (in quantity or quality) sources and then evaluate the whole lot of them. What is clear to me on one day is a brick wall to you on others, and sometime mud to me on another day, and anyone can delete anything they want at any time. The question is not what can we alter, but what can we alter and have stick, and the way things stick is by being accepted by consensus. --Nuujinn (talk) 01:02, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I've had to work on some controversial genetics related articles where the science changes quickly, is not frequently criticized in print, and also gets peoples passions up (because of supposed possibilities to link genetics to the study of ethnicity). While we can never aim to get rid of all debate by making the perfect policies, I have to say that policies such as WP:NEUTRAL as they are currently written are a very good help in such cases. I agree that while it is true that it can be a problem on Wikipedia when an old source becomes obviously out-dated, I also see nothing stopping us from giving more weight to newer sources. If the out dated sources are still notable we tend to need to still cite them, perhaps (if editors agree it is necessary) adding context such as "In 1990, Smith proposed X. Mainstream thinking since article Z of 2005 is Y." If Smith is not even notable any more then we do not even really need to mention Smith.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:34, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with all of that, and that's the kind of issue that gets resolved not with WP:V, but with WP:RS, under which editors reach consensus as to which sources are more reliable than others. Note that there are subsections and guidelines and essays which contend that different subject areas use different criteria for weighing the reliability of sources. If you feel that in the areas of scientific research, current policy allows for inappropriate weight for outdated sources, we could work on that, but not, I think, here. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:43, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

In my experience WP:NOTE and WP:NEUTRAL are very helpful for discussions about such cases.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:15, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree... the WP:UNDUE section of WP:NEUTRAL is very helpful in these types of discussions (we don't wnat to give outdated sources undue weight). Blueboar (talk) 16:06, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Nuujinn, here's what actually happened in the school case: there was a tremendous flurry about a (in my opinion dumb) controversy in the midst of which someone else changed the school. People noticed and the issue was discussed. The problem was that we had contradictory flat statements from the (incorrect) interview and from a (correct) fansite, the latter of which we all agreed wasn't good enough. We also found a number of passing remarks, none of which flatly stated that she went to the Delaware school, but all of which had some inconsistency with the Maryland one. We discussed this and there was definitely consensus that the Maryland school couldn't be correct. I was willing to remove any reference to where she went to school, because the one (correct) statement couldn't be properly sourced, and the one flatly stated "reliable" source was clearly wrong, being inconsistent with other solid statements we had. But someone absolutely resisted removing the wrong statement, solely because it was flatly stated in a "reliable" source. They would only accept a flat statement from another "reliable" source. (And even at that I got resistance to using her school yearbook as a source, though I'm somewhat surprised that nobody attacked it for being a primary source.)

It's easy to see how this could come out as a bigger problem with a WP:BLP: in this case the error was somewhat innocent, but that was a matter of luck. We could get into a fight (and probably have) where a "reliable" source says something negative that's also wrong, but we have trouble getting the statement removed because the sourcing we find, while circumstantially showing that the statement is incorrect, doesn't flatly state that it is wrong. This overstatement is consistently producing the interpretation that erroneous statements trump evidence that they are wrong if the evidence requires any interpretation. My dogma is that if there is a consensus that a statement is erroneous, it should be not be included in the text, even if that consensus is based on analysis of other sources rather than upon flatly opposing statements. Mangoe (talk) 11:47, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Just my two cents on the example. I think looking over the wording and spirit of policies would suggest the school should not have been mentioned. A possible fudge which might have been acceptable would be to name the school, but deliberately leave ambiguity in about which school of that name it was?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:22, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

In general with sources in apparent error, it's usually a very simple matter, not worth arguing about, to write a formulation that leaves the reader with the full appreciation of the facts on the ground but does not create an original synthesis. E.g., "X School (in Delaware according to its yearbook[1], but placed by Y in Maryland[2])". This is even better if you can wikilink to two "X School" articles. Or, "considered by W to have the most editions of any book besides the Bible (see List of books by number of editions)." (There are other solutions than going to the work of populating the redlink, of course.) The only reason a discussion gets heated is if editors get confused about WP's mission, which is emphatically not to determine "correctness" or "truth" of sources, but to collect what they say for readers to judge. JJB 22:44, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Exactly my thinking. In the St. James Railway article I've mentioned, I decided that I could not use the email I obtained from the artist since that would be OR, so I linked each assertion about the origin of the bell to each of the sources I had, and left it to the reader to research the matter further. There's nothing wrong with that approach. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I tend to lose hope in these discussions as people repeatedly lose grip of the specifics of the cases in question. When it came to "which school", the school's own publications are manifestly better sources than a mere interviewer, so there is really no serious question as to which source is to be given priority, especially since there were also other sources whose testimony favored Delaware. And once other people actually looked at the yearbook the issue ceased to be seriously contested (modulo an irrelevant quibble about the school website). And that is the way it should remain; not all sources are created equal, and we are empowered to judge one against another.

But the problem situation came prior to that: the circumstantial evidence surrounding the interviewer's assertion indicated that it most likely wasn't accurate. I was willing then to exclude reference to her schooling, but it did not seem reasonable to include a statement which appeared to be false. The issue from the direction I'm approaching it is that people are saying that we should or even must include such dubious material. Mangoe (talk) 03:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The point here is that you acted in good faith... You didn't just say "this is not true" and summarily remove sourced information. Instead, you discussed your concerns with other editors and reached a consensus. But, if a consensus had not been reached... if the other editors had disagreed with you and your arguments for questioning the source, then yes... both WP:V and WP:NPOV indicate that we would have had to leave the material you found "dubious" in the article. Blueboar (talk) 04:24, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, my point is that people invoke "verifiability, not truth" as a means to constrain how that consensus may be obtained. And that's OK in the abstract, because that's really what our policies and guidelines are supposed to do. The trump-card argument that "V not T" is being used to support is that discussion of the merits of a source are to be disregarded because they are about "Truth". In My Real World (tm) fact-checking is part of verification, but a lot of people hold that in Wikipedia fact-checking is limited to collecting a set of sources and avoiding reconciling their contradictions. Mangoe (talk) 05:43, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

There are many ways to reconcile a contradiction. In this specific case, did you seek additional input at one of the various noticeboards? Are you still concerned about this particular issue (since, if you are, we could go take a look at it)? --Nuujinn (talk) 12:33, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

@Nuujinn and JJB I guess your proposals are also policy-acceptable, but I did not mention them because just according to my opinion they would decrease the quality of the article, so other solutions which are also within policy but make the article higher quality are to be preferred. See WP:IAR.

@Mangoe just in case it is not clear I think you approach is the best, and is within policy, and at least the way you explain it, it is a shame that others did not accept your reasoning about the prefer-ability of the school itself as a source, which sounds perfectly reasonable. It is a reasonable application of common sense to say that other more indirect sources may have mixed things up. See WP:UCS. Of course UCS and IAR should not be invoked too lightly, but I think this sounds like it should have been a straightforward case. I agree with you that too many people MAKE problems which are ONLY coming from literal interpretation of rules. If an article is made worse ONLY because of over-literal interpretation of a rule then that is a case where invoking WP:IAR should be appropriate. People on discussion pages like this seem to think that IAR is cited all over the place by trouble makers, but it is not, because actually invoking it does not get you very far in wikilawyering. It is not written in a legalistic way which is easy to abuse.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:00, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Trying to reconcile contradicting sources can verge on OR, and we have to just take a firm stance against that. But I do think that one thing that Wikipedia requires - which may often help reconcile contrdictions, is to provide more context about the sources and the viewpoints they represent or contain. I think this is implicit in mangoe's arguments concerning the preferability of the school as a source. But regardless of which sources are used (and following NPOV, if different sources present diferent views, we provide multiple views and thus multiple sources), contextual information is very important. I know that regarding some things e.g. what is the first day of summer, it might be impossible to see how context might explain why one source says June 21 and another source says July 21. In other cases e.g. when is person x's birthday, context can be very informative for understanding why what the person said in an interview when they were in their twenties, versus an interview when they were in their fifties (or is that their forties?), and why their birth certificate, and church records provide conflicting information can be very useful (and unless any secondary sources do so, we can leave it to readers to make their own interpretations - the point is, the more contextual information provided, the better off the reader is). The importance of "context" for complying with NPOF (representing a view accurately) is something I have long thought could and should be more clearly or elaborately explained; this might be an important place to emphasize it as well.Slrubenstein | Talk 16:17, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

"Verging on OR" would not be OR, and so no one should be taking a firm stance against cases which are not OR, as if they were? Obviously the example you give are designed to be different from Mangoe's in the direction of being more clearly OR. How does that help?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

There are several ways to handle these difficulties, and there are several ways to create original statements. In general my bias is in the direction of not including questionable material, because as a rule the things that we don't say are not "facts" which can be held against us. Room has to be made for being excessively fastidious but for instance in BLPs we generally would prefer to be fastidious. The OR opportunity which I think we've missed so far is the creation of false controversies or uncertainties by reporting conflicting material at face value when it's really the case that one or the other simply has to be mistaken. Another example: Watts Island Light is variously reported to have been built in 1833 or 1867, by John Donahoo or by someone left unnamed. Everyone is working from the same data here, and it's simply not possible that Donahoo built anything in 1867, having been dead at the time. The 1833 date and the form of the tower are however quite consistent with Donahoo having built it then, and we have from at least one source that in 1867 the name of the light was changed. Rather than invent a controversy over the construction it made more sense to go with the most consistent account. The purer alternative, if you believe in that sort of purity, is not to list out the possibilities, but simply leave out the data, which is really hard to enforce for a lighthouse. Mangoe (talk) 16:28, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Mangoe, what do you mean by "questionable"? There is a big difference between questionable as a normal English word and questionable as in WP "questionable source". I also tend to avoid anything that seems controversial for whatever reason, including common sense reasons like an obvious typo. Of course this can sometimes also raise questions of WP:NEUTRALity if you are removing something BOTH notable and verifiable, so it is not always the best way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The meta-point here is that our notion of "questionable" needs to subsume the general sense of the word: we can be pickier, but we should not put ourselves in the position of repeating material which a reasonable person (and here "reasonable" implies "knowing enough about the subject to hold a credible opinion") would question if not outright reject. Or to take it another meta-level, behind verifiability as a principle lies credibility, of which verifiability is one of the vehicles. Mangoe (talk) 20:01, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Motion is made that WP:V is ambiguous

I move that WP:V is ambiguous with the two meanings:

1. The first sentence of WP:V protects against insertions of material that are alleged to be "true" but not verifiable.
2. The first sentence of WP:V protects against exclusions of material that are alleged to be "not true" but verifiable.

Do I hear a second?
RB  66.217.118.17 (talk) 21:01, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

For reference, the first sentence of WP:V is, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."
RB  66.217.118.17 (talk) 21:52, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

The second paragraph is even more egregious. It states, "All material in Wikipedia articles must be attributable to a reliable published source...but in practice not everything need actually be attributed". This standard is not merely ambiguous, but outright contradictory. Wikipedia's so-called standards are so arbitrary and convoluted, that they are routinely twisted to justify whatever POV and whim an admin. desires. Wasp14 (talk) 21:47, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

preliminary discussion about the motion

It does both, except that in cases where something is clearly false, in the sense of being a clear error, and there's no contention about it, editors would agree to leave it out. But material can't be excluded simply because it's a POV that others regard as wrong-headed, so long as the source is reliable—though in the case of a contentious issue, it would have to be a high-quality reliable one (or multiple reliable ones). SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 05:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I do not see a problem. Yes, V does both. But many of our policies have a range of implications and applications. This is not the same thing as "ambiguous." This would be a problem only if it were unclear to readers how to apply V. In my experience the only people who have every ound V "ambiguous" (or wrong or troubling or incomprehensible) are those editors swho come here insisting that they know what the truth is. These are people who may have read our policies but systematically ignore those sentences that tell them that Wp is not about "truth." Then they complain that our policies are self-contradictory. The obvious solution: just read the entire policy, and abandon your own convinction that you are an arbiter of truth. Leave your assumptions at the door and all ambiguities and contradictions and so on disappear. I see no point in writing more about this, when the problem is some users who ignore what has already been written. It is reasonable for us to assume that users will read and accept our policies. It is unreasonable for users to think they can read policies selectively and then make arguments against them. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:29, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the cited sentence has been written in a careful and deliberate way to avoid the types of ambiguity which are contained in some interpretations of it. So I agree with others here in not seeing the problem. It distinguishes between what editors think is true, and what can be verified. Obviously by the way verifiability has to be considered along with notability and reliability. These three qualities together might be argued to help Wikipedian texts themselves contain truth, BUT it is not the truth according to individuals editors which individual editors should use as their rationale for inclusion of non obvious material. No one would want to read Wikipedia if it was full of false information. But ironically it would be full of false information if individuals editors took their orientation from their individuals ideas about what is true. Does that help?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:41, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Help?  No, I can't tell that you are seeing the two different definitions.  When you talk about "their rationale for inclusion" that is definition 1.  Definition 2 involves exclusion. When you talk about "what editors think is true," that is definition 1.  I think that SlimVirgin was on point when he talked about the "exception" that results while applying definition 2.
RB  66.217.117.184 (talk) 09:00, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but perhaps AL doesn't agree that there are two interpretations there. I don't see one, myself. The first sentence directs us to focus on what can be verified by reliable sources, not what we know as true. It is not perfect, but it works well because it guides us away from discussions about what we believe and towards discussions of what we can prove, and because, generally speaking, reliable sources try to accurately reflect the world. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:04, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Straining to find the right metaphor I see two inter-locking pieces, that are not in direct conflict. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:49, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The goal is accuracy, where objective accuracy exists. And wp:ver is a very good means to that end. As long as you keep it in its place (rather than trying to reverse engineer a WP mission statement out of it as many do) I think that the fact that the first sentence does two different things does not mean that it is ambiguous. OK, maybe the use of the word "truth" vs "accuracy" is as sort of straw dog tactic against those who argue otherwise, because in actual use, the word "truth" often refers to opinions, while the word "accuracy" seldom does. But either way, it says that the final arbiter is verifiability, including for the two situations that you discuss. North8000 (talk) 11:07, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the word "threshold" is the source of the trouble. If the wording was "A necessary condition for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, rather than truth" that would make clear that WP:V never mandates inclusion. After all, editors regularly omit verifiable information which is not notable, or felt to be trivial or boring. Being not true is an equally good reason for omission. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 12:34, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that that would be a good change. They are both correct, but yours is written in a way that would reduce "mis-launches" from this sentence. North8000 (talk) 13:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think a change is needed on that point, since WP:V does not trump WP:N, where the question of whether something is worth having is dealt with. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Verifiability is not the only content guideline. WP:BURDEN presumes that some things will be verifiable yet not be appropriate for a given article; the same with WP:N. The threshold language says precisely what it should. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 15:58, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the two definitions are "two inter-locking pieces, that are not in direct conflict."  But consider the two definitions as an abstract mathematical entity, generating force on Wikipedia.  Definition (1) is a force opposed to things that "could be true", while Definition (2) is a force to include things that "could be not true".  From m-w.com ambiguity 1b "A word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways."  As long as we don't agree that there are two different forces (an ambiguity), it is harder to discuss any new operational definition for definition (2).  RB  66.217.117.95 (talk) 16:59, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:N has to do with whether or not a topic has sufficient notability to warrant a WP article, not with whether or not a point has sufficient weight to be mentioned in a WP article—that's WP:DUE (part of WP:NPOV). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 66.220.134.197, 3 December 2010

Please edit this entry to reflect a middle name or middle initial for the deceased British composer. There is a best selling Christian fiction American author also named Beth Wiseman, (1962-present). Website: www.bethwiseman.com Thank you. 66.220.134.197 (talk) 21:29, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

This page is not really the proper forum for your request, however, I have performed a brief search and am unable to find a middle name or initial for the composer Beth Wiseman. Until there is another Beth Wiseman article, there really is no need for any sort of disambiguation anyway. Location (talk) 21:45, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree... no need for disambiguation until an article on the author is written (assuming notability can be established). That article can be entitled Beth Wiseman (author) to distinguish the subject from Beth Wiseman (composer). Blueboar (talk) 15:44, 4 December 2010 (UTC)