Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 2

message: Under "When adding information" we have this text:
Eliza Twisk of Amnesty International said: "This is all part of a growing trend in Europe of violent protest and equally violent response". (Channel 4 News interview, July 8, 2000) 
I can't get the link to work. Does anyone know where to find it or have an alternative text? Ironically, it's more an example of a bad source at present - one that's not really there! :) jguk 10:50, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I couldn't get the link to work or find the text anywhere, so I replaced it with an example from the Guardian about the Bali bombing. SlimVirgin (talk) 09:18, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing link 

message: Comments requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Inline links discouraged in favor of more complete sources. (SEWilco 08:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inline links discouraged in favor of more complete sources 

message: Regarding the above, I've posted it on the Village Pump and on a few policy or guideline talk pages to get more feedback before changing it. To recap, the proposal is to change References to Sources and External links to Further reading.
The reason for the proposal is that using "References" and "External links" is confusing. Sources are supposed to be listed under References, and any further reading is listed under Further reading or External links. But many editors think that any external links, whether used as sources or not, should go under External links, so then they list any material that isn't online, like books, under References, even if not used as a source. To cut through all this confusion, the proposal is to change the headers to Sources and Further reading, which are self-explanatory, and don't make the online/offline distinction. Comments would be welcomed. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:02, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Note: I'm not advocating that existing articles be changed, only that future ones would use Sources/Further reading, and of course editors could change existing articles as they come across them if they want to. So the only real work involved in making the change would be changing WP:CITE, WP:MOS, and so on. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:52, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: # Slrubenstein   |  Talk 23:19, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

text: # SlimVirgin (talk) 23:24, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

text: # Agree Excellent idea. It makes a lot of sense. ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t • @ 00:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #(copied from Wikipedia talk:No original research) Sources and Further reading: Good idea! -- I was also confused by References and External links... Harald88 22:48, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #Sounds good to me. --Carnildo 05:19, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #On the pages I edit this is already in effect, with "sources" referring to cited references and "references" to uncited ones. Hyacinth 09:02, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #Support, on second thought. We need unambiguous terms for this, and these terms are. — mark ✎ 09:18, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #smaines 18:37, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #Good idea. Jayjg (talk) 04:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #Makes sense. FeloniousMonk 05:43, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #As I wrote above, I think this simplifies things (only two, slightly more amorphous and more inclusive headings, versus several headings which are interpreted very differently across various articles).  older≠wiser 14:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #Fredrik | tc 14:12, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #WAS 4.250 19:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

text: #Half agree. I don't see any reason to change "References" to "Sources" (and I certainly don't see anything that would justify the amount of work involved in changing it), but I could agree to replacing "External links" by "Further Reading". One question, even on the latter: can we make it very clear in policy that things like the official sites of the subjects of articles are to be included even if they are not exactly "reading"? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:58, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #:Good idea about including official sites, Jmabel. On the References/Sources thing, the reasoning is that people use the word References differently, whereas everyone understands what's meant by Sources. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:23, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #I agree with the basic premise that the current distinction between offline and online sources is not a useful one. However, I also agree with Physchim62 that the term sources is ambiguous. - SimonP 15:53, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #:What else could "sources" mean, Simon? SlimVirgin (talk) 04:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #::See for instance the Caffeine, Constitution of the United Kingdom, Vitamin C, and Journalism articles. - SimonP 17:35, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  References/external links name-change proposal 

message: :# Slrubenstein   |  Talk 23:19, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: # SlimVirgin (talk) 23:24, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

text: # Agree Excellent idea. It makes a lot of sense. ≈ jossi fresco ≈ t • @ 00:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #(copied from Wikipedia talk:No original research) Sources and Further reading: Good idea! -- I was also confused by References and External links... Harald88 22:48, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #Sounds good to me. --Carnildo 05:19, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #On the pages I edit this is already in effect, with "sources" referring to cited references and "references" to uncited ones. Hyacinth 09:02, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #Support, on second thought. We need unambiguous terms for this, and these terms are. — mark ✎ 09:18, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #smaines 18:37, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #Good idea. Jayjg (talk) 04:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #Makes sense. FeloniousMonk 05:43, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #As I wrote above, I think this simplifies things (only two, slightly more amorphous and more inclusive headings, versus several headings which are interpreted very differently across various articles).  older≠wiser 14:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #Fredrik | tc 14:12, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #WAS 4.250 19:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Agree to change

message: :#Half agree. I don't see any reason to change "References" to "Sources" (and I certainly don't see anything that would justify the amount of work involved in changing it), but I could agree to replacing "External links" by "Further Reading". One question, even on the latter: can we make it very clear in policy that things like the official sites of the subjects of articles are to be included even if they are not exactly "reading"? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:58, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: #:Good idea about including official sites, Jmabel. On the References/Sources thing, the reasoning is that people use the word References differently, whereas everyone understands what's meant by Sources. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:23, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #I agree with the basic premise that the current distinction between offline and online sources is not a useful one. However, I also agree with Physchim62 that the term sources is ambiguous. - SimonP 15:53, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #:What else could "sources" mean, Simon? SlimVirgin (talk) 04:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: #::See for instance the Caffeine, Constitution of the United Kingdom, Vitamin C, and Journalism articles. - SimonP 17:35, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: With reservations

message: #User:Noisy | Talk 12:34, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Disagree

message: I neither agree or disagree with his proposal because I think if a change is necessary it needs changing to something else that that which is suggested. Also there is the question of is this "Instruction creep" trying to prescribe the wording of headings such as "Sources" or "References" etc. Personally of the two I prefer "References" to "Sources" but I would not like to insist that either was better and because I like footnotes I am not sure that either is desirable.
* See also
*: Just for internal links
* Bibliography
*: For books, official sites and any sites used as a general reference, or more than once in the article. 
* References
*: Not sure there is need for this if there is a Bibliographyand notes. But I do not think it should be changed to "sources" if it is called References or vice versa.
* Notes (wikipedia:Footnote3)
*: for all notes used in the article. This allows for the format "author Bibliography" page xx
* External links
*: For any blog sites which people think are of interest but are not used as refrences. The big advantage of this is that it allows one to keep the rif-raf out of the other sections without starting a revert war. Also I often find that in reading the external sites they can be moved up into notes as the often cover specific points in the article. As Wikipedia is a work in progress this is a useful mechanism for gathering informaion. Perhapse this section could be renamed "Further reading" ... not sure. The problem with "Further reading" is that it implies that the sites listed under it are in some ways more detailed or better than the Wikipedia article, which is not implied by External links.
--Philip Baird Shearer 12:39, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Further discussion

message: I largely agree with the idea of clarifying what the "References", "External links", and other headings are meant to be used as.  I also don't mind changing "References" -> "Sources" or something.  Though, I disagree with just changing the policy on the Wikipedia:Cite sources and other guideline/policy pages, and not changing in all the articles.
#It would be a massive task to change all the "References" headings to "Sources", or whatever changes we agree upon.  Is it possible to use a Bot to implement this change in articles?
#If not possible/desired to change all the headings, (bot or no bot), how about a template to put commented out notes/instructions with the reference heading, which editors would see when they go to edit and add references/links.  Such as:
:: - sure we can state something better, but this is just to demonstrate the idea.  We could at least use the template in problematic articles.
---Aude 22:22, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternative solutions

message: I have noted on a few occasions that WP:V has been used as a reason why an article should be deleted.  However, on a number of occasions, this has been misused.  Someone has stated that an article does not conform to WP:V, for example stating that "personal homepages do not count as verifiability" when in fact they were official business pages, of the business which is the focus of the article, which in fact do pass WP:V checks.  This was used to manipulate the Vfd for the planes of existence (chat site) Vfd, and a number of voters then agreed with it without checking facts.  Whilst many people vote with only 5 seconds of thought, it seems dishonest for people to misuse an official policy like this to steamroll a Vfd. Zordrac 20:05, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Zodrac, if a business page is the only source, and there are no third-party sources (if that's what you meant), then having an article on it would violate this policy. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:13, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it has about 50 third party sources. They are all being disputed. Zordrac 14:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

text: (ec) I'm not sure what the problem is.  People are certainly encouraged to explain why they think a thing should or should not be deleted.  If some editors want to delete for lack of verifiability, they'll make their reasoning known (hopefully) in the Afd.  One editor's "misuse of policy" is another editor's sound reasoning.  People disagree about what's verifiable, what's neutral, and what's original research all the time.  Friday (talk) 20:13, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: So what is the answer?  If someone says something that is not true in order to influence votes, mis-quoting wikipedia policy, is this permissible?  Should the voters be asked to re-vote with the evidence that they voted under false assumptions? Zordrac 14:27, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The article doesn't list any credible third-party sources that I can see. A third-party source would be, for example, if a newspaper had written an article about the website. It seems to list as sources only itself and other personal websites. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:23, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misuse of WP:V to steamroll Vfds 

message: Is archive material which is accessable in one place an acceptable reference in a Wikipedia article if it has not been published or referenced in another published source.
EG This is a footnote reference on the Chindits page:
:British National Archives HS1/2 - Most Secret & personal from head of SOE India to 'P' Division SEAC & GHQ India March 10, 1944 - Military Operations in the Dilwyn Area B/B.100 to head of SOE India March 11, 1944. For the Chindit side see the Operational Report of Dah Force (Imperial War Museum)
--Philip Baird Shearer 13:24, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that in principle that should be verifiable. If you don't happen to be sitting in London, you'd have to write to the Imperial War Museum with your query, but in my experience, museums are very good about answering scholarly queries. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Archive material

message: An RfC has been opened recently concerning an editor who has spread fringe theories and original research over a wide array of articles making clever use of cross- and self-referencing, thus making his contributions looking sufficiently sourced and verifiable to editors who assume good faith. Finding a solution to this problem is of eminent importance to Wikipedia's future reliability and verifiability. Please weigh in at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Roylee. — mark ✎ 13:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Important RfC