Wikipedia talk:Verifiability

Televised interviews from established network news sources

Perhaps there should be a warning in the guideline as to not use video (or transcripts from broadcasts) from network news sources for establishing quotes and facts. Most network news source now edit interviews to the point that it is impossible to determine what the subject of the interview actually said. Some are even chopping up statements in mid-sentence and rearranging the order of phrases. Many times the edits are so skillfully executed as to be impossible to detect, even when examining the video frame by frame. For example, they will syncronize the edit to match the movement of the subject's mouth or change camera angles to make it difficult or impossible to tell that an edit was made. Even content which is labeled as "live" is often edited. I think a general warning should be included not to use television network news as a reliable source. Sparkie82 (t•c) 20:11, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any material difference between editing a video recording to make an on-topic "quotation" and editing an e-mail message to make an on-topic "quotation". The latter is done every day in print journalism. Journalistic ethics are supposed to prevent you from misrepresenting the person's words, but not to prevent you from removing "um, uh, well" or irrelevant tangents. You can look for corrections in which the allegedly quoted person claims to have been misrepresented. Reputable news agencies promptly publish all such claims from people they quote. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

The difference is that in the written form, an ethical journalist will include an elipsis, whereas many (most?) edited videos don't provide adequate indication that an edit has been made. When the video is subsequently transcribed — either directly by a WP editor or by an intermediate source — the indication of the edit is lost. I think some warning should be included in the guide about the potential for inaccuracy. Also, because of the proliferation of the technique and the historically ephemeral nature of video, many subjects don't bother to correct them (often for fear of drawing additional attention to whatever issue was being reported), so relying on interview subjects to initiate correction is not reliable. Sparkie82 (t•c) 10:12, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Self-reference

I sometimes run across an editor who wants a citation for a detail about a published book, like year published or the like. Once I updated an author's bibliography, noticed that the formerly forthcoming book—fact referenced to the author's website—was in print, so I deleted the citation and someone put the citation back. In each case I point out that the book itself contains the information—that is, the "reference" is actually in-lined—and they accept that. Can the policy wording be modified to clearly accommodate this? Choor monster (talk) 19:00, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Linking to the Preservation policy

Kendrick7 and I bumped heads when I deleted unsourced content he had added to article. He reverted, saying that per WP:PRESERVE I should have copied it to the Talk page. In reply, I cited this policy (which is referenced in WP:WONTWORK - specifically, "Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed". I didn't say, that WP:PRESERVE says nothing about copying unsourced content to the Talk page. Anyway, to correct his perceived conflict between the two policies, Kendrick edited this policy as follows and left a nice note on my Talk page telling me he did so:

Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed, but should be preserved on the talk page. Please completely remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced immediately.

I reverted, asking for discussion for a change to policy; Kendrick unreverted (and left a not-so-nice note on my Talk page) and Flyer22 deleted it again. So here we are. Does anybody want this change? I don't. There is too much crappy unsourced content in WP as it is, and I already spend more time than I like maintaining articles that I watch than I do building new (well-sourced) content: the burden should not be on me to copy some lazy editor's content to the Talk page. Which, i will re-iterate, is not even described in WP:PRESERVE. Jytdog (talk) 04:13, 19 January 2015 (UTC) (self-trout -- copying to the Talk page is in WP:PRESERVE. oy. Jytdog (talk) 04:25, 19 January 2015 (UTC))

I don't want the proposed addition, which is why I reverted it, and I agree with you on the matter. I noted in the edit summary, "WP:PRESERVE lists different options; we don't have to preserve the content on the talk page." There was also this and this matter involving Kendrick at the WP:PRESERVE policy, and this other matter at the WP:PRESERVE talk page. Flyer22 (talk) 04:22, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Fair points. This wasn't meant to be a change in policy; WP:PRESERVE is already policy after all. I was simply attempting to bring greater awareness to this section of the WP:EP. As such, a link without changing the underlying language will do just as well. -- Kendrick7^talk 02:49, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

This is probably the most deceptive edit I have seen in Wikipedia. Ever. And to a policy page nonetheless. Jytdog (talk) 03:11, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand how a link exchange between two WP:POLICY's is either controversial or deceptive. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:14, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

piping a wikilink to WP:PRESERVE at the word "remove"? If you cannot see the tension there, I don't know what to tell you. Jytdog (talk) 03:17, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose linking WP:PRESERVE to the word "remove". Reyk _YO! 07:20, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
• Suggestion... I think the Other issues section would be a better place to include a link to PRESERVE.
• Oppose per Reyk. Doing that implies that the obligation to copy to the talk page trumps BURDEN while WONTWORK makes it clear that if anything it's the other way around. Just because unsourced material was removed without copying it to the talk page doesn't mean that the editor who restores it doesn't still have the obligation to not do that without providing sources; if he does not want to do that then the remedy is for him to copy it to the talk page, not restore it, or to report the other editor to an administrator or to ANI. Moreover, there's not an obligation, per PRESERVE, to copy it in every case, but only in those cases in which the page is "rewritten or changed substantially" (emphasis added) and that, too, makes it a bad idea to link it to BURDEN with those implications. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:00, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
• We ought to link WP:PRESERVE from somewhere in the policy, I think, although I tend to agree with Reyk and TransporterMan that the suggested place is less than ideal. Some editors wrongly feel that there's a tension between WP:PRESERVE and WP:BURDEN. There is no tension. WP:PRESERVE says to preserve appropriate content. Content that fails WP:BURDEN is inappropriate and thus is not shielded by WP:PRESERVE. Perhaps we could find some way to make this clear without bloating the policy too much?—S Marshall T/C 15:23, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Before this edit by Chillum last year, there was tension between WP:PRESERVE and WP:BURDEN, and, with this WP:Dummy edit, I pointed Chillum to the very discussion showing that to be the case. Flyer22 (talk) 02:43, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I have been BOLD and added it at the end of WP:V#Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion... I think the link works very well there - but feel free to revert if you disagree, or even if you agree but think it simply needs more discussion. :>) Blueboar (talk) 02:29, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

With this edit, I see that you also tweaked the WP:PRESERVE policy. Flyer22 (talk) 02:43, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

That change to the WP:PRESERVE policy is certainly an improvement. The previous version did not accord with actual practice, and it was completely unrealistic to suggest that every time an article is substantially changed we preserve all removed content on its talk page. That would make talk pages completely unworkable. Goodness knows what the person who put that in the policy had going through their head. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:32, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see what's so tough about having a "Deletions" section with a list of difflinks, but the behaviour is more concerning. Editors changing policy and guidance should be familiar with wp:TALKFIRST and the rest of wp:PGCHANGE. Multiple reverts amount to disruptive behaviour. Just don't do it. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:42, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Sources that borrow minor details from Wikipedia

I made this edit just now and was reverted. Per my edit summary, I had already posted on what I thought was the relevant talk page, and got no opposition. I hadn't noticed that this page already included a similar warning. My proposal is in the above edit: any problems with it being re-added? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:13, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Could you give us an example of a source that uses minor stylistic elements of Wikipedia please?—S Marshall T/C 11:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

1. Anime News Network: Akira Toriyama is best-known for his manga, Dragon Ball. In January 2012, someone altered the Wikipedia article on Toriyama to say that he was best-known for "Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball". Up until January 2012, ANN described him as being known for Dragon Ball, and after January 2012 they started describing him as being known for Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball.[1][2] Last month I attempted to remove the reference to Dr. Slump (I eventually found a workaround that satisfied all parties) and was opposed partly on the basis that ANN described him as being known for Dr. Slump.[3]
2. The Austerity Delusion by Mark Blyth, Professor of International Political Economy at Brown University: Mimics Wikipedia's current style guidelines for the formatting of Japanese personal names, as "Takahashi Korekiyo" was born pre-1868 but "Osachi Hamaguchi" and "Junnosuke Inoue" both just happened to be born very shortly after 1868. This means that Blyth follows Wikipedia in somewhat clumsily (and uniquely) mixing two naming conventions based on an arbitrary criterion that no one ever used before a small group of Wikipedia editors developed it roughly a decade ago. One can imagine the reason a Brown professor would be consulting Wikipedia for this kind of thing would be that Japanese nomenclature is not his area of expertise and is peripheral to the main subject of his article. Which brings me to...
3. Sources that barely mention a subject but are being used to justify maintaining the status quo on the Wikipedia article on that subject: Some of the comments on the RMs on Talk:Empress Jingū and Talk:Emperor Jimmu are exemplary.

I gave a few more in the post I linked to in my edit summary in the diff above. I imagine virtually every idiosyncrasy on Wikipedia has been duplicated somewhere else.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:06, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I am still not sure what the concern is... It seems you are in a content dispute, not a dispute related to style. Could you clarify... because it does not seem that you are using it with the same meaning as WP:Manual of style? Blueboar (talk) 19:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

You are mixing together factual issues (such as what Akira Toriyama is best known for) and stylistic issues (for example, rendering Japanese in an English-language article). I don't think a useful discussion is possible before this confusion is resolved. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Blueboar: Sorry not to be clear -- I'm not involved in any dispute, content or otherwise. There was a content dispute on the Toriyama article, and another user cited a source that, on examination, was clearly copying Wikipedia. The reason for this was that an otherwise reliable source had, in the very minor issue that was under discussion, seen it as appropriate to refer to the subject the same way Wikipedia did at the time, presumably because when one Googles "Akira Toriyama" the first thing that comes up is our article. Minor issues such as how many items to put in the parentheses after his name are something people are often free to use Wikipedia for. (I consider "how many items to put in the parentheses" a "style" issue, and this problem applies to it in the same way as Japanese naming order and how to write Japanese names in the roman alphabet.) Given this (and the other problems I refer to above) I think we should encourage more caution when using otherwise reliable sources to prop up the Wikipedia status quo in particular.

@Jc3s5h: Okay, I think I should clarify -- no one (even in the big fustercluck last month on the talk page) thinks Toriyama's best-known work is something other than Dragon Ball. The problem was whether we should put his second best-known manga on the same level, and (to a lesser extent) whether he is better known for Dr. Slump or Dragon Quest. Japanese mainstream media usually describe him as being known "for Dragon Ball" or (less commonly) "for Dragon Ball and Dragon Quest". The inclusion of two items specifically, and Dr. Slump as one of those, was a unique Wikipedia format. "How many items to but between the parentheses" is what I meant when I said a "minor style issue"; like "which order should I write this person's name" and "should I spell this person's name with an m or an n", it's a minor formatting concern that, a lot of the time, writers are free to just do what feels right, and sometimes that means they'll copy Wikipedia. It's either because they don't have any particular incentive to find out why Wikipedia is the way it is and make an educated decision on whether to copy Wikipedia (this is presumably the case with ANN and Blyth), or because they do have a particular incentive to use the most recognizable formatting, and since such-and-such is most readily searchable on Wikipedia (most small coastal municipalities in Iwate Prefecture are not widely known outside Japan...) they went with the Wikipedia formatting.

One might wonder why this matters if it's only about minor formatting differences, but the fact is that this page already discourages use of circular sourcing where a source explicitly consulted Wikipedia, but when an otherwise reliable source (deliberately or otherwise) got certain points from Wikipedia and didn't make this explicit it means we also can't cite those otherwise reliable sources when specifically addressing those point, and use of Wikipedia for minor formatting points and stuff only peripherally related to one's particular topic seems to be pretty prevalent.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

in my view the analysis that Hijiri88 is doing is too fine and becomes a sort of peer review that we as editors cannot do. The analysis that either source uses WP at all, much less deliberately or "otherwise", on fine points like this, is something that I do not think can be verified. (btw I do not know what we are intended to see here), In this kind of situation the best thing would be to report conflict between sources (if it exists) or simply report what the source says, without editorializing/OR. We should not introduce this into a policy page. This set of issues is quite different from what is described in WP:CIRCULAR. Jytdog (talk) 14:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

"Reputation for Fact Checking"

It is my view that there is a prima facia presumption that any mainstream news source that has a professional staff of trained journalists and editors (i.e. "meaningful editorial oversight") is a reliable source. Yet some editors will claim, without any evidence, that this or that publication does not have a "reputation for fact checking," a phrase used twice on this policy page.

So where is one to identify and verify which publications have a "reputation for fact checking?" It may be easier to identify publications that have a history of failure in fact checking, and a source identifying such publications would be very helpful. But how are we to address claims that a source that employs professionally trained journalists and editors is not a reliable source based on an unsourced assertion that the source lacks a "reputation for fact checking," at least with the editor raising the objection to that source?–GodBlessYou2 (talk) 16:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This appears to arise from a discussion at Talk:Abortion_debate#Pro-abortion_violence_section where some editors are arguing for using (for example) breitbart as a source for content about pro-abortion violence. MastCell is stating that some of these sources are not reliable because they don't check facts, among other reasons. And generally it is a good idea if you notify editors of postings relevant to discussions, GodBlessYou2. I have done that on the Talk page. btw, to the extent you are asking a real question above, this posting is a good thing. The issue also arose in a now-closed RfC here: Talk:Creation–evolution_controversy#RfC:_Claims_of_discrimination_against_Darwin_sceptics where GodBlessYou2 argued to keep sources that other editors said failed this test. I do think the question is interesting. Jytdog (talk) 16:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Please note that GodBlessYou2 is now topic-banned from the latter subject. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I think it is a good general question, which is why I raised it here in a general way without tying it to a particular ongoing discussion or specific source. I had hoped to see it addressed as a general question of principles. Now, because you have posted an invite to this thread at the abortion debate page [4], I'm afraid the discussion will sink too quickly into particulars (especially conservative vs liberal conflicts regarding "trust" and "distrust" toward various media outlets) rather than remain at the highest level of general principles...which is what this policy page is supposed to be about. Oh well. You can't unring a bell. (I also appreciate how so many editors track my contributions page just to chime in and cast disparagement on everything I write. Is that stalking or flattering? And they are fast, too!)–GodBlessYou2 (talk) 16:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

sigh. No I am not stalking you. I watch this page and saw your posting. Questions like this never arise from a vaccum, and it is good practice to notify other editors of related discussions you open. You are too aggressive for a new editor, GodBlessYou2. Jytdog (talk) 16:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Turning back to the original question. The question should really be asked at the guideline level - WP:RS most generally, and WP:MEDRS for anything health-related. Those guidelines flesh out issues touched on briefly here, about what reliable sources actually are. The relevant section of RS is WP:NEWSORG (which gives some good bullet points).

I also want to say, that if you are working on a controversial subject, it is a very good idea to raise source quality. Always, but especially in controversial articles, the best practice is to bring sources that no one - not even your "opponents" - would question, and to strive to write really NPOV content that stays true to what is the source. There should never be a doubt about the reliability of any source you bring. I generally find that disagreements over sourcing tend to happen when someone advocating for some particular POV (in other words, someone who comes into the article with pre-determined ideas) finds some source that expresses their point very well, and pushes to include the content and source into the article. That is the opposite of how we are meant to work, which is that you read a bunch of mainstream, as-recent-as-possible sources on the topic, and craft content based on them. The search for sources should go right down the middle of the plate - really unimpeachable stuff (for news, the NY Times, the LA Times, the Times of London, etc) and for health stuff (as described in MEDRS) statements of major medical and scientific bodies and reviews published in mainstream biomedical journals.

And if you have have questions about specific content and whether its source is reliable for the content, you should first check the archives at RSN (for breitbart, you will see that it has been discussed a zillion times). If you are not sure after that, you can present the content and source(s) (not just the source, but the content you want to support with it) in a new thread at RSN. And even after that, there may be subsequent questions about WP:WEIGHT which RSN cannot answer.

But I do recommend that you "close" this and ask the question at WT:RS.Jytdog (talk) 17:41, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This isn't for RSN because I'm not looking for input on any particular source or any particular article. I'm not familiar with breitbart nor advocating for it as a reliable source. While I agree it would be great to find sources that no one would dispute, the reality is that even the most reliable sources do not cover all issues much less in full detail. That's why multiple sources are needed.

The importance of the general question remains, so I see no reason to close the conversation. What bothers me is that rather than address the general question and attempt is made to pigeon hole me and my question by "framing" it within other articles . . . and it is not you, but Andy who has been following me about.

So the question remains, how is a "reputation for fact checking" identified and established? Conversely, how is a poor reputation for fact checking identified and established?--GodBlessYou2 (talk) 17:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)