User:Herostratus/Masada myth, oy gevalt!
This is my userpage, not a discussion, please don't edit it thanks.
Academic sources
[edit]I wrote Wikipedia:Ref vetting checklist, so I have thought some about that. Not any real depth and It's not my profession or anything. But some., OK? I'm not a tyro. So....
Our basic rules are fine for quick-and-dirty vetting of sources in most cases. But not always, as when for instance the material is contentious or contested. So, our gold standard is Wikipedia:Reliable sources. It is technically only a guideline, not a policy. In real life it is treated with the respect of policy, and that is well and good. But still, it does say "Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply" and "In the event of a contradiction between this guideline and our policies regarding sourcing and attribution, the policies take priority" (Wikipedia:No original research for instance is a policy). Also "Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process". There's a little section about that called WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, it starts off "The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article". Emphasis added, cos it's an important point. Different writings by the same author, different articles within a journal, different parts. A single sentence may even state two facts, one of which we may rely on and one not, depending on... well, a number of circumstances, such as the writers expertise and standing regarding the statement.
Bottom line, its complicated if you want to go beyond "Academic journal? Everything in it is true (to a sufficient level of confidence for our purposes."
I don't know what level of accuracy we are expected to achieve for statements of fact, but 99% seems too low and 99.9% not humanly possible. So lets say 99.3%. So, if there's a statement of fact and you, as an informed intelligent sane and disinterested person (or any like reader), are not 99.3% confident that it is true and that the sources demonstrate this... your sources for that fact are probably not reliable enough. Get better ones.
I know, I get it, we are busy volunteers, and what we want to know is is "Can I use this article in Slavic and East European Journal as a source?" right away, you can look up the rule, look up if the source is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, and be assured that you can, and hey we're busy and that's enough, and that's fine. For most purposes. But. If you are willing and able to vet a source more thorougghly that's even better. There's no such thing as "Yeah it's scholarly journal, but I found out that the writer was fired later for making stuff like this up" replied to with "Makes no difference, that journal is reliable, end of story."
Well I mean there shouldn't be. It's the Wikipedia, so you do get that. Particularly if the material is contentious (often on some ideological ground) or contested. Drive you nuts. But far from excellent, and we want to be excellent.
OK? Established some points. Now lets drill down a little.
First of all, most of our sources are not as reliable as we would like to think; here is a case where Nature found 186 peer-reviewed journal articles repeating a "fact" that was just plain made-up.
Second of all, you have to try to understand what the motives are, for any writer. Motives matter a lot, for all humans. For a academic historians, their job is to formulate, advance, and defend novel theses. (And a good thing too, thank goodness for that, because that is how historography advances.) If you're an expert on Abraham Lincoln and write a book about him, if you just write the same old stuff that's been published before, that's not going to advance your career. If you dig deep into facts, look at them and connect them in a new way, and come to the conclusion that (say) he had ADHD, it is. Will get attemtion! That is your job, to do that. And it's worth doing. But it doesn't mean that Lincoln actually had ADHD. Maybe he did,
In fact, popular historians are better sources in several ways.
But, you know, most any statement that is not provable or falsifiable or sky-is-blue obvious, is sketchy for us to say in our own voice. If the person has standing (
But you know, you can say "Expert X says such-and-so" and leave out "Expert Y says such-and-so is not true". You can say "Expert X says such-and-so" and leave out "In the same paper, she says that to be fair it is speculation" and so forth. It is called cherry-picking, and it is very tempting if you wanting to subtly advance a point. God knows I've done it (I am human!). You can defend it with "Expert X says such-and-so and it's true that she did, we can publish things at are true so we can publish that".
And everyone is human, even academic historians, and they may have various motives. Professional probity and career advancement the most important ones, yes (usually). But others too. We are all complicated and imperfect.
I have a case here, short article, where the central thesis given for the reason [the thing happened] is just obvious arrant nonsense. Why? Because an eminent Ivy League history professor (he said he was, and I believe him) insisted that it was true, and I didn't want to fight with and gainsay an eminent Ivy League history professor (could have by our rules, but not up to it). But why was an an eminent Ivy League history professor insisting on arrant nonsense? To impress a girl. I'm not kidding. The thesis was advanced in a book by a female colleague from a C-level university in flyover country. Her big book, her big new idea. He was supporting her. I think it's because, you know, younger woman, totally thrilled by the attention and support... you know how it goes. Plus, advancing (in this case supporting the advancement of) novel theses... see above.
This is my interpretation of the situation. I could be wrong, but its a reasonable interpretation and I'm standing by it. I'm not suggesting any misfeasance, just humanness. Did the eminent Ivy League history professor know that was his motive? Probably not is my guess, cos otherwise he would likely have cognitive dissonance and perhaps think of himself as base, and that hurts, and the mind will twist itself up a bit to avoid hurt, and who can really see ourselves as others see us?
Motives can be ideological too. Marx is a towering intellect and promulgated a big new idea, some of which is largely accepted, but he did get some things wrong, and he was not going to be like "Hmmm,
In medical papers, physics papers, not political motives so much probably.
WP:SCHOLARSHIP addresses academic sources. It's long, but the most key sentence is probably
Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.
Alright. That sentence (ant
So,
If the Colorado Review says "WithArgon Redux, Crollins was more concerned with producing a best-seller than a great work of art"... how reliable is that? Did Crollins tell the writer privately? Or say it publicly? (Even if so, people are not nearly as good sources for stuff about themselves as you might think.) Or did somebody else infer it and say it? If so, who? Or is the writer herself inferring it? If so, does she provide indicator that it is seems self-evidently true, or not? And who is she anyway? Here is where you've got to start researching the writer. Sometimes that is not so easy.
You want t ==Hefalumps== Allright. Elephant in the room. Due in large part to the current situation in Gaza (and now Lebanon), many people have strong emotions, and many of these people are very much down on Israel. (Many people had strong emotions about the Isreal/Palestine situation before this, but the Current Unpleasantness had brought in people who previously weren't all that involved with the issues.) And that's fine, and perfectly understandable. It is good to follow international politics IMO, and functional (admirable even) to have strong feelings about those you believe to be bad actors. Being very much down on Israel is certainly reasonable and quite defensible, and in no way makes you a bad person. But you have to leave any feelings and opinions at the door when you edit Wikipedia... or at least try as hard as you can.
That is really hard, and it's natural to not do this. Even I slip up sometimes. And it's understandable and natural to have such strong emotions that one might feel that alerting the public to bad actors supersedes one's requirement to put these above a core rule of Wikipedia, which is WP:NPOV. Understandable, but unacceptable here.
It is very common, and just human, for editors to not leave their feelings at the door. Does not make then a person, at all. But, a bad editor.
User xxxx, I don't think Xe has succeeded in doing this for articles relating to Israel generally. Thus, editor xxxx
My opinion is based in large part on Xir userpage. Now, our userpages are supposed to say "this is me, at least for the purposes of this project". Describe how long they have been editing, what projects they are part of, their languages, what they are interested in here or in meatspace, ones meatspace biography, some pithy quotes or fun pictures... that sort of thing. My userpage has a link to a subpage which is entirely for fun/humor. And all that is fine.
So, xxxx userpage, Xir "this is me, at least for the purposes of this project"... it is entirely about Israel, and it is very down on Israel. It says that Israel has no right to exist... which in my country (America) at least is quite fringe attitude. Maybe not in but Dearborn or Ann Arbor, but generally. Our political parties are at each other's throat to the point of civil war almost, but they both support Israel generally.