Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 4

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

message: I would like to propose that the MediaWiki interface be improved somehow to make it easier to cite the source of edits, and that the requirements of sources be relaxed to encourage people to give whatever source information they have. Information with shaky source information is better than no information, or information with no source at all. At least if there is a shaky source, someone can make the informed decision to remove it, or source it properly. So, I propose that when an edit is made, there be a mechanism to state the source, as one of: (from most valuable to least valuable)
#Article or website with full citation
#Article or website with just URL or name of work
#Vague idea of source (eg, NY Times article in February, somewhere on Slashdot)
#Presumed common knowledge backed up by direct observation
#Presumed common knowledge
#Believe to be true
Currently we ask people to cite their sources, and provide no assistance in doing so. Footnoting is *hard* for a beginner. The least we can do is give them a multiple choice question to work from.
Comments please! Stevage 17:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to second this. It would be excellent if under the "submit" text window there was a form (just a few titled text entry boxes) asking for the title of the - book, authour, website, etc -  and that way WikCodei could take care of the formatting depending on the info and even start a "References" section if there isn't one yet. Referencing as it stands is a pain and the guidlines are far from clear. I had to flip through three sections to find how to correctly cite web pages, for example. ThePromenader 09:57, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason for the complexity is that there are different ways of citing sources, and editors can't agree on which is best, so all three styles have to be described. But the page also makes clear that formatting is less important than providing some information about where you found the material. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Tools to assist verifiability

message: Taxman, I don't agree with the language you added:
:Any edit lacking a source and reasonably believed to be incorrect may be removed.
Saying that the edit is "reasonably believed to be incorrect" is once again putting the onus on the person removing the material. It's too strong. I've been using the word "dubious," which means "in doubt." 
Let's take a hypothetical example. Suppose someone adds a sentence to the article on Arnold Bennett saying "Arnold Bennett owned a Borzoi named Caesar who was trained to fetch Bennett's slippers," with no sources. This isn't common knowledge, and it's not easily checked. 
It's not by any means "reasonably believed to be incorrect." If I saw a sentence like that, I'd figure there's about a 20% chance it was just made up, and about an 80% chance that the contributor had read this in some obscure biography of Bennett or some article, but didn't remember which one... or didn't bother to cite it... or remembered a professor saying so... or saw it in some article in a dog magazine about famous writers' dogs... or something. Whatever. It doesn't Google, even in books.google.com. 
One could go a to a library and spend half a day researching Bennett, but even so, it's hard to prove a negative. If one came up with a book that mentioned Bennett's Borzoi Caesar, you'd have reasonable belief that it was correct. But if you failed to find it, you would have no reason to believe it was incorrect.
This is not "a statement that is reasonably believed to be incorrect."
It is a statement that is a) unsourced and b) dubious. It's dubious because it's not a well-known fact and you have no reason to believe that it is correct.
In this case I think it would be eminently proper to ask the contributor for the source and remove it after a few days if no source were provided. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, you have a point, I've reverted myself for now. But we need some language to avoid supporting a troublemaker that just wants to rip out material they don't agree with. Then again maybe it really is the time to focus more on accuracy than just any content and if it can't be verified and put back in so be it. The thing is, for information that you reasonably believe is incorrect, you should be able to yank it out immediately and challenge the editor to provide a source. For material that is plausible, but not verified, that wouldn't necessarily be the best path, and instead your method of pointing it out and waiting a couple days is better. So the timing of the allowed solution should be different in different cases perhaps. The problem there is instruction creep, so I'm a bit at a loss I guess. - Taxman Talk 19:29, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't believe it is that simple. Any serious contributor to Wikipedia is continually evaluating sources. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There are a lot of not-so-serious contributors. By requesting references for an article, I'm assuming that any serious editors interested in the article will do something. If nothing happens within a week or so, I think I can assume that it is unlikely any editor will provide references. -- Dalbury(Talk) 10:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "Reasonably believed to be incorrect"