Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 8

message: I added this a couple of minutes ago for the simple reason that it's a likely search term for anyone looking for this page, and it's possible that newer users might not immediately think of V (which could be vandalism or viewpoint). ProhibitOnions 13:45, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: WP:VERIFY shortcut

message: : Even New York Times articles are false sometimes. Flawed reporting by New York Times reporter Judith Miller helped to promote the misleading belief that Iraq possessed large  stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. One of Miller's prime sources was Ahmed Chalabi, who is currently the interim oil minister of US occupied Iraq. This shows that it is strongly recommended to verify by multiple independent sources.
I would change it to:
:  Some material can be controversial.  Outlandish claims beg strong sources.  In such a case  In some cases, even the New York Times might not qualify as a reputable source. For example, flawed reporting by New York Times reporter Judith Miller helped to promote the misleading belief that Iraq possessed large  stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. One of Miller's prime sources was Ahmed Chalabi, who is currently the interim oil minister of US occupied Iraq. In such a case, when no single publication qualifies as a reputable source, it is necessary to verify by multiple independent sources. In all cases, it is preferable to provide multiple independent sources.
and I would put it as a new subsection in the section about sources under the header  ===Multiple independent sources===. It does not contradict the policy. I want to know if other editors feel that it is in opposition with the spirit of this policy. I think it is not. 
-Lumière 17:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I support your change. Raphael1 16:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed improvements

message: I added this a couple of minutes ago for the simple reason that it's a likely search term for anyone looking for this page, and it's possible that newer users might not immediately think of V (which could be vandalism or viewpoint). ProhibitOnions 13:45, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: WP:VERIFY shortcut

message: : Even New York Times articles are false sometimes. Flawed reporting by New York Times reporter Judith Miller helped to promote the misleading belief that Iraq possessed large  stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. One of Miller's prime sources was Ahmed Chalabi, who is currently the interim oil minister of US occupied Iraq. This shows that it is strongly recommended to verify by multiple independent sources.
I would change it to:
:  Some material can be controversial.  Outlandish claims beg strong sources.  In such a case  In some cases, even the New York Times might not qualify as a reputable source. For example, flawed reporting by New York Times reporter Judith Miller helped to promote the misleading belief that Iraq possessed large  stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. One of Miller's prime sources was Ahmed Chalabi, who is currently the interim oil minister of US occupied Iraq. In such a case, when no single publication qualifies as a reputable source, it is necessary to verify by multiple independent sources. In all cases, it is preferable to provide multiple independent sources.
and I would put it as a new subsection in the section about sources under the header  ===Multiple independent sources===. It does not contradict the policy. I want to know if other editors feel that it is in opposition with the spirit of this policy. I think it is not. 
-Lumière 17:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I support your change. Raphael1 16:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed improvements

message: Clearly, it's bad form to include unsourced and uncorroborated rumors in a Wikipedia article. Is this also the policy concerning discussion pages? Or is gossip, speculation and innuendo allowable on an article's talk page?
Anlala 05:38:47, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's allowed Anlala, but discouraged, unless it's for the purpose of deciding whether to include the material in the article. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Etiquette question

message: A discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Archival materials is attempting to make an exception to WP:V and WP:NOR for material held in an institutional archive. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 01:49, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said on your talk page, I was in fact doing nothing of the sort. First off, RFC has absolutely no power currently to change anything, I was merely trying to get some community thoughts, so the suggestion that it is an attempt to bypass these pages is insulting to me (please see WP:CIVIL). Second, I already did note the discussion on the policy talk page, I simply did it on WP:RS because that was the policy discussed in the RFA that spawned the discussion in the first place. Please do not assume something sinister from a simple discussion in the future. I would also ask that any and all readers of this talk page contribute however they see fit to the public discussion as it is just that. Staxringold 02:31, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attempt to bypass WP:V and WP:NOR 

message: Following a discussion in a FAC then an RFC the following proposal has been organized. Obviously if you have an alternative proposal, please voice it, and vote no matter what if you have an opinion. Basically the proposal includes 3 slight alterations to allow archives to be used as source on Wikipedia provided that additional information is included in the citation to prove the archives existence, public accessibility, and reliability. Staxringold 00:36, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:ARCHIVES]]

message: "A Wikipedia article about an unreliable newspaper should not — on the grounds of needing to give examples of their published stories — repeat any claims the newspaper has made about third parties, unless the stories have been repeated by credible third-party sources."
:I'm not sure I understand the above.  It seems to say that using X, one could not say that X claims Y about third party Z.  What is the reason for that?  Is it that X is not a reliable source for Y, or is it that Y is not important to the article unless others have also reported that X claims Y?  Шизомби 01:57, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It means that if the Weekly World News, for example, claims that Lindsay Lohan is dating Bat Boy, it should not be sourced unless the New York Times has also sourced it.  The assumption is that NYT has fact-checked the story before publishing it, which cannot be assumed of WWN.  Coyoty 16:30, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What it seems to say is that an article about the WWN could not say that the WWN claims LL is dating BB unless the NYT also reports that the WWN claimed LL is dating BB.  That's what I think doesn't make sense.  It would make sense for an article about LL or BB not to say that the one actually is dating the other on the basis of the WWN claiming it. Шизомби 17:41, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Self-published sources in articles about themselves

message: WP:V has a flaw. Wikipedia is not allowed to be the first source to report on a fact; we have to wait until some other source that is deemed a verification source has already reported on it. We should not have to wait until there is a single "good enough" source. Having some number of Google hits should be good enough to say "yes, this is verifiable", even if none of those hits are good enough on their own to merit verifiability. What that "some number of hits" should be may need to be left up to interpretation. (See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#The_Game_(game)_and_its_AFD.) - UtherSRG (talk) 14:02, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No it doesn't. At least, not that one. How does a number of dodgey hits on Google make something verifiable? A number of unreliable sources do not add up to reliability. Rumors, bad information and deliberate disinformation spreads fairly rapidly on the Internet, and getting a bunch of hits on something that isn't true doesn't make it true. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 15:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the purpose of verifiability? Is it "this data is verified, you can trust us, don't bother with the man behind the curtain", or is it to say "this data is verifiable, you can prove it yourself". I posit that it's the latter; we don't verify, we provide access to verification. Journalistic and academic write ups are certainly and will remain the dominant vehicle for verification, but any legitimate level of multi-source data should be a sufficient vehicle for the reader to judge whether the article provides the right information, or if the article needs to be editted or removed. If this were a paper-based or otherwise static encyclopedia, then using only the sources a paper-based and static encyclopedia normally uses would make sense. However, we're a collaborative, electronic, dynamic encyclopedia, we should be able to have a somewhat broader(?) verification scheme than a peper-based, static encyclopedia. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:27, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, somewhere between the two.  The idea of Wikipedia is not for every reader to verify the information, but for our editors to verify the information and allow any reader to do so if he/she wants.  A reader with a casual inquiry, or one who is looking for peripheral information (perhaps to help understand a term in a scholarly article) shouldn't have to go through the work of deciding for themselves -- they should be able to trust Wikipedia because by and large we do what we claim. That is the volunteer service that Wikipedia editors provide.  A reader who is doing scholarship is a different matter, but even there we want to be a quality starting point and provide a quality bibliography. Robert A.West (Talk) 19:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flaw 

message: Given that the page states Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources, would people care to look at Wikipedia:Notability/Proposal?  I've attempted to build a guideline which will equate notability with credible, third party sourcing. Improvement attempts, discussion and comments welcome.  Hiding The wikipedian meme 23:03, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Third party sourcing as a notability definition

message: On April 22, SlimVirgin changed the 2nd sentence of the top-of-page notice from this :
:Feel free to edit the page as needed, but please make sure that changes you make to this policy really do reflect consensus before you make them.
to this:
:Please make sure that any changes you make to this policy really do reflect consensus before you make them.
Since I preferred to old version, I reverted it back.  I'm posting this notice here (and on WP:NOR and WP:NPOV), because it seems like a better place to discuss it than the template page. Ragout 04:29, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Top-of-Page Notice 

message: IMHO It's much more important that a fact be sourced than that the source be reliable. To rank-order some hypothetical situations:
*Worst: No sources.
*Next: The article has some implicit sources, in the form of book citations or external links, which probably served as sources for whomever was writing the article at the time those citations or links were added to the article... but you can't trace any particular assertion in the article to a source, and you can't tell which things in the article came from the sources and which were added later by other editors.
*Next: The article's source is a single website from a party that is not disinterested. For example: articles about products where the only reference is an external link to the vendor's own website, articles about historic house museums where the only reference is a link to the museum's own website, articles about companies where the only reference is a link to the corporate website, etc. Such a reference proves that a fact is not made up, but in a surprising number of cases will contain at least an element of "spin." (E.g. Princeton's website gives Princeton's founding date as 1740 without mentioning that this is a famous disputed question, the Garibaldi-Meucci museum is likely reliable as to when the house was built, but is not the place to look for an unbiased review of Meucci's role as inventor of the telephone.
*Next: The unsourced facts in the article are marked with the [citation needed] tag, and the unsourced sections with . This gives the reader fair warning, shows clearly that Wikipedia is a work in progress. The presence of such tags on a page may inhibit editors from adding more unsourced items, may motivate them to source them, and so forth.
*Next: Facts in the article are sourced to sources that don't come close to meeting WP:RS. Blogs, forums, personal websites. Any reader can judge whether they trust the sources. These sources at least show that the editor is (probably) not spouting off an original personal view, and that the fact being supported is, at least, believed by a small group of people.
*Next: Facts in the article are sourced to what I'll call a "labor-of-love" source. This would be, say, a website with no obvious axe to grind, that has an identifiable author or authors, and appears to have had enough work put into it that you get the clear impression that the site's author is trying to be "encyclopedic." Some fan sites belong in this category. The point here is that the material in the article is not something that one person tossed off casually, like an email or USENET posting. Would you trust the Spindrift Island website's description of "The Whispering Box Mystery"? I would. How about "Chahda" (a character's name) meaning 14 in Hindi? Well, if I were putting that in an article I'd qualify it, "According to a fan site," but I'd think it could go in.
*Next: Facts in the article are sourced to a source meeting WP:RS.
*Gold standard: Facts in the article are sourced both to a print source and to a version of the print source that is available online.
Where in this hierarchy do you say "the unsourced information really should be removed?" I say... it depends, and in Wikipedia's current state, I'd be lenient. As long as there's a source, and as long as the reader's in a position to judge its reliability, that's... well, better than 99% of the factual items in Wikipedia today.
I'm not talking here about POV wars, where a highly disputable item is claimed to be a fact and referenced to a biassed source... or where WP:RS is used in a dishonest way as a pretext for removing material when the real motive is to suppress a point of view. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:14, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not sure I would totally agree with your ranking.  For example, the articles on Mathematics are kept pretty clean by a group of knowledgable Wikipedians who often don't bother citing their sources because, in a peer-reviewed journal article, you state that an Hermitian matrix can be diagonalized, you don't give a citation.  I would rate such articles above the article on, say, The Fray (band) which is really just a listing and tells us nothing that couldn't be found on the band's website, but contains citations, and I would rate both of those above a crank article with numerous dubious citations. Robert A.West (Talk) 15:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but that's a product of there being no doubt within the community of matematicians that that is true. Where there is any doubt, or controversy, you will see references or proofs. In pop music, the more obscure the band, the more sources would be useful. To say that Kurt Cobain was an influencial grunge musician who killed himself would not need a source citation, whereas something about The Fray would need it. It's about the Consensus reality of the community maintaining the article. For great justice. 18:06, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actually the Kurt Cobain example proves the need for sourcing everything, as there could be people who question his influence (albeit unlikely), and there definately are people who question his suicide. --Rob 05:52, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

text:  Of course, by policy all the examples should have sources.  Unsourced consensus-reality articles are a lesser evil, but still an evil. Robert A.West (Talk) 03:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, fair enough on the CK example, but do you agree with the point that the less well known and agreed on a fact is within the interested community, the less urgent sourcing the claim is? In practice an unsourced claim gets sourced if and when someone disptes it. For great justice. 19:03, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I can't say I agree with the whole ranking either, especially you include in #2 good sources that were used right, just not cited explicitly as worse than a few layers of crappy sources. But also that it's not that hard to tell where to remove unsourced statements or those with worthless sources. It's not like someone can't find a better source and put it back or if there is none, it should stay out. - Taxman Talk 05:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A bad source is much better than no source

message: Is this sidebar  appropriate in a policy page? ≈ jossi ≈  t • @ 15:23, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sidebar: 

message: A question? Is nowiki tagged content visible on the HTML output? Or does ot get omitted from the output? ≈ jossi ≈  t • @ 21:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume you mean things in comments, like .  Based on extensive research involving putting a comment on my user page and viewing the source, they do not show up in the source.  When you edit the page, you still see them.  Friday (talk) 21:27, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added to the page that this is an additional option to tagging or removing unsourced material. Feel free to revert if you disagree. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using nowiki tags to hide unverified content 

message: Following banned user Zephram Stark's attempt to rewrite WP:SOCK using two sockpuppet accounts, there is a proposal to limit the editing of policy pages either to admins, or to editors with six months editing experience and 1,000 edits to articles. Please vote and comment at Wikipedia:Editing policy pages. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:13, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't agree with this. It is the content that is decided upon by its own merits, not HOW it got there on the page. Also, such a proposal can lead easily to the abuse of an elitist bureaucracy having control of policy. (Diligens 13:31, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to restrict who can edit policies 

message: After the debacle on this talk page a few months ago where certain editors got blocked by virtue of their interfering in WHEEL WARS, and other editors comments were sidelined by their contributions being deleted or otherwise hidden away by ADMINs, I think ADMINS are the LAST people to be making policy decisions! --Light current 01:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Policy makers 

message: I can see what the aim of the self-publish limitation is, but some self published books are authoritative in their field, for example in the field of Anglo-Saxon pennies the vade mecum was printed and published by the leading collector, with the help of (I think) the Ipswich Numismatic club.  Similarly "Report on Iron Mountain" et al, have been published by relativly mainstream publishers.  Rich  Farmbrough 15:51 23  May 2006 (UTC).
:With self-published material, there is no one standing between the writer and the act of publication: no editorial oversight, no fact-checking, and so on. That's why the policy limits how it can be used. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course, if the subject matter is autobiographical, it is acceptable as a reliable source. Such as what a person believes and what are the facts of his own life. --Diligens 16:35, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: With some limitations. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:52, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Does the guideline or policy explain those limitations? --Diligens 10:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you commenting here on something you haven't read? :-) SlimVirgin (talk) 13:48, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently you are too, otherwise you would have answered me with a Yes or No. --Diligens 13:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

text: There's no throwing the baby out.  Where such self published sources are recognised by other sources which meet the guidance at WP:RS, they are citable through that source. Hiding Talk 14:04, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The answer is yes, the policy does explain the limitations. See here. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:10, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

text: WP:V#Self-published_sources says it well, I think. Dr Zak 22:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Self published - baby - bathwater

message: There has been some (strange to my mind) resistance to having the Did you know on the main page only allow referenced facts. For reasons I expanded on in that talk page I think highlighting unreferenced facts and articles on the main page is not what we should be promoting and violates the verifiability anyway. Please go there and comment so we can move to ecouraging the type of referenced work we need. Thanks - Taxman Talk 18:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've left a comment. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia talk:Did you know]] unreferenced problem 

message: Regarding Talk:Scholars for 9/11 Truth: Is an organization's website considered to be a verifiable source for information about who belongs to that organization, or does members' membership have to be independently verified?  I think under Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources in articles about themselves it would be permissable, and would not need another source.  If someone disputed their membership in the group, that would be another thing. Шизомби 19:30, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Technically,  the relevant section of WP:V doesn't permit use of self-published sources that "involve claims about third parties" and states that "[s]elf-published sources may never be used as sources of information about another person or topic."  I read that to say that the widely accepted wiki consensus means you can't use an organization's website as support for statements about who the members of that organization are.  I tend to agree that you should be able to, however, and would be interested to see a discussion of whether it's possible to make a manageable change to WP:V.TheronJ 14:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't call members of an organization third parties. Unless the organization has some reason to lie about who is a member, they would seem to be a better source regarding their membership than a source outside the group. Шизомби 18:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I could see political or religious groups claiming people to be members who aren't.  At the same time, I'm not sure when scrutiny is really called for.  If a 9/11 conspiracy group claims a 9/11 conspiracist as a member, where's the controversy?  If they claimed George Pataki or William Clay Ford, Jr. as members, then I would question it.  Then again, if a group falsely claimed someone to be a member, I would expect that it would be easy to find a denial of membership by that person or their spokesperson. Шизомби 19:24, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Membership in organizations based on org's website?

message: I think if a book is used cited and used as a source then the page number in the book should be given. Without this it would be very time consuming to verify if the source is correct and also easy to make a mistake. I had assumed that this would be clearly documented in Verifiability or one of the support guidelines. It may be there, but it is not at all clear to me. I can only find page numbers mentioned in WP:CITE#Harvard referencing as an option, but in the  more general section Complete citations in a "References" section, it is mentioned in passing that "This can raise serious problems for citations, because different editions may be paginated differently" but it does not explicity mention that page numbers should be give in an example. It is left to Wikipedia:Footnotes#Example to show what I mean.
# Is it specified in any of the guidlines (other than the FN example)?
# Does anyone disagree that for a full citation taken from a book, that there ought to be a page number given?
# If you agree, where should this be explicitly mentioned in the Verifiability policy and accompanying guidelines?
--Philip Baird Shearer 16:58, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is tricky. Page numbers refer to a physical book, not to the organization of the information in it. After all we use page numbers for articles to find the article in question. I would prefer chapter numbers for consistency and convenience of the reader. Dr Zak 17:03, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

text: The best way is if the book exists in Google Print. In that case we can link the ref directly to the page online. Eventually all books will be in GP, I hope. Articles are a bit trickier as Google Scholar has no scans and just directs user to various databases, many of them non-free. Here's hoping for a change in copyright law that will make our life easier. For now I recommend using books in Google Print as often as possible, they are the best combination of reliablity and verifiability we have at this time and place.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: References without page numbers are almost useless because editors who are unfamiliar with the book will have to do a lot of reading to verify the reference. Verification is further complicated if an editor inserts a summary of material discussed over many pages. It is thus for a good reason that WP:CITE requires editors to provide the exact edition of the book, including year and publisher; if all this information is given in a reference, verifying it should not be a big deal. Pecher Talk 13:00, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What I meant to say is that chapter numbers are useful in case a book got re-paginated when a new edition was issued. Amen, brother, what you say about edition, year and publisher. Dr Zak 01:51, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Books and page numbers

message: There's an ongoing discussion between myself and an anonymous IP at Talk:Paris Bennett right now. (S)he removed "Category:African-American Singers" from the page, saying it needed a source. I reverted it, saying "Don't be stupid." (S)He changed it back, saying "Don't be racist." His/Her position is that since Paris Bennett might (a) have a genetic defect, (b) be "very tanned", (c) have had surgery to look that way (etc., etc., etc.,), we need a source that she is, in fact, African-American. Does this fall under the "obvious" category (grass is green, London is in England, people who look black are generally black), or do we need a source on the ethnicity of every person on Wikipedia? I compared it to trying to find a source for gender. Do we have any proof that she's a woman? How do we know she isn't a robot? Should we assume all of these things until proven otherwise? The Disco King 13:00, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have reason to believe the challenge is not legitimately motivated, then ignore it. If it is a topic that is really important, others (with less of an agenda) will challenge it properly. I believe the answer to "How important is it to verify this?" trumps "How much effort should we put into providing ways for people to actually verify this?". In your case it's not much of a risk that you'd need to do that, but other types of personal identity are a little bit touchier - there are a lot of Wikipedians out there who are eager to slap the words "gay" or "Jewish" onto biographical articles, for example, and in those situations, challenges and the need to cite sources, as well as weighing the importance of making those claims at all, become much more of an issue.—mjb 12:19, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Race

message: Further to my comment above, I made a small edit to self-published sources in articles about themselves to render it consistent with self-published sources.  Does anyone have any thoughts?  Thanks, TheronJ 22:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks reasonable. I made another edit to make it clear that professionals shouldn't stray from their speciality. Dr Zak 22:46, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Self-published sources

message: The article states "The burden of evidence lies with the editors who have made an edit or wish an edit to remain."  If one editor places a referenced information in an article, but reference is hard to obtain, is it reasonable to expect the editor to post the original passage the information was taken from.
Whatever the answer, I think this section mighe be made more clear.--Dr.Worm 22:53, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The burden of evidence" 

message: Following a debate at the talk on [Socialist Party of Great Britain] article, a question arose over what constitutes publication.  the article in question deals with a subject where most sources are going to be gry literature at best - and some sources are matter that is available to the public via contacting the organisation - i.e. as sole publisher.  So, do reports within organisations that are available to the public count as published?  And do internal documents of organisations count towards the verifiability requirement (they are official and vetted but not strictly third party, unless you count members as being theird parties to corporate bodies)?--Red Deathy 10:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What is publication?

message: As I mentioned (perhaps not phrased very well) in other comments, this policy article is getting a bit deep into explaining the topic of reliability of sources. I've grouped all of that discussion under a single section heading (it was misfiled under "burden of evidence") and added an introduction to say what relationship reliability has to verifiability on Wikipedia, and to state that the reliability criteria given here are (at the very least) summarizing the WP:RS guidelines.
However, some of the material here is going beyond just summarizing the WP:RS guidelines for the benefit of understanding verifiability; it's actually elevating those guidelines to policy status (which may be deliberate), and perhaps also subverting the guideline consensus process. For example, the recently added implication that all blogs are inherently unreliable seems to have been added here out of momentum, not consensus over on WP:RS. If there is consensus that some WP:RS guidelines are to be canonized as policy with respect to verifiability, then it should be clearly stated in this policy that that is what is going on. If that's not what's going on, then I feel this section needs to be trimmed down a bit so that it's clearly a summary, and more emphasis placed on referring the reader to WP:RS, which in turn would need to rely less on WP:V.—mjb 21:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some (most?) of Section 3 "Reliability of sources" has probably a more suitable home in WP:RS IMO. We'll have to re-align what WP:V and WP:RS say about self-published material, too, currently WP:V has the more lenient view. Dr Zak 22:06, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's more or less what I'm thinking. Relating RS guidelines to verifiability is deliberate and necessary, but if specific guidelines are going to be mentioned, they should be a summarized, representative sample of the more solid guidelines from WP:RS, no?—mjb 22:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Is the RS content a summary of WP:RS, or policy?

message: Naming no names here, but please do not support any trolling that may be occuring.  I, for one, have not been participating in much of the previous discussion for this reason.  Thanks for your time! JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:14, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Please do not feed the trolls

message: There is nothing wrong with my knowledge of English. Its your lack of view! I didnt know whether you were an admin or not, so the phrasing was appropriate. Anyway who are you to tell me about my use of English when you dont even know what 'verifiable' means? Humpty Dumpty?--Light current 02:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please don't take offense.  Given your points as raised and defended, I have two choices.  The WP:AGF option is that you are well-meaning, but have several wrong ideas about Standard English.  I regret having to be blunt, but I saw no reasonable choice.  Your semantic games are neither well-done nor constructive.  Robert A.West (Talk) 03:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alice in Wonderland 

message: I would like to propose that we replace the word 'verifiable' by 'referencable' and the word 'verifiability' by 'referencability'. I would be pleased to hear peoples comments on this proposal.--Light current 01:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems to me to restrict the meaning of verifiable to a form of positivism.  Also, I think the word would be referenceable, but I can't verify it.  :)  Gimmetrow 02:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Verifiability is the right word.  Strictly speaking, what is being verified is that the article faithfully reports what its sources say and that the sources are considered reliable.  If one insists on mathematical terminology where it does not belong, a Wikipedia article is a meta-claim: a claim about claims, not a claim about the truth. We leave those to professional scholars.  Robert A.West (Talk) 03:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This type of repetitive unhelpful argumentation is exactly the type of thing that brought about Wikipedia:Requests for comment/-Lumière. Light current has a remarkably similar pattern of argumentation. Light current appears to enjoy painting that as silencing, but it's more about stopping behavior that grinds useful discussion to a halt. - Taxman Talk 13:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

text: You're way off on all of that. And oh, you mean the taking out of context and misrepresentation on your user page? Yes I saw that. There aren't many people that can't see through that, but I suppose you could find some. With that I'm done here, there's an encyclopedia to write. - Taxman Talk 17:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Policy wording 

message: A sentence in the section "Self-published sources in articles about themselves" says: "Self-published sources may never be used as sources of information about another person or topic." Looks like this sentence contradicts the section above, which says that self-published material by experts in the relevant field are sometimes acceptable. Due to this contradiction, I'd propose to remove the sentence that self-published sources are never acceptable; "sometimes" is just fine. Pecher Talk
: You're right, this was pointed out  above  My apologies if the deletion I reverted was supposed to fix that issue.  Gimmetrow 21:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I'm removing this sentence. Pecher Talk 21:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I've been looking through the history pages.  This point was addressed and fixed on May 30, but  the fix was lost on May 31 when the page was reverted to an earlier version.  I intend to reinsert the corrected sentence, which said "Self-published sources may never be used as sources of information about another person or topic, subject to the limited exceptions discussed above."  Gimmetrow 21:28, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Self-published sources 

message: WIkipedia needs a better way to stop page vandalism. Why not restrict changes so that changes to pages must be suggested and then approved by at least two other members? This might make it slightly harder to change pages, but it would cut down on incidences of somebody editing a page just for the sake of putting up something stupid that they think is funny. Yes, a dedicated vandalist could get around it with sockpuppet accounts, but just by making it harder we will stop most casual vandalism.
24.91.251.108 22:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This idea might have merit for vandalism-prone articles, but would be a major burden for new pages, which tend to have many improvements made early in the life of the article. Also, in the case of arcane artices, it might be difficult to recruit a second editor to endorse a change. Gerry Ashton 02:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested Policy 

message: I dont really understand why a page of 89 k in length should not be partly archived. I thought the WP policy was not to have pages greater than 32k in length. Is this still the policy? Could someone explain the policy to me?--Light current 00:10, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The page is currently 42k, which is fine. The recommendation of 32k is for articles, and was based on old versions of web browsers, I think mainly IE, that used to have difficulty with anything over that. It's now used just as a suggestion. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving 

message: State in circular "(" brackets or curly "{" brackets () {} verification pending, then do fact 
checking if you are able; one can not just asume on a wim, that something is wrong, innaccurate 
or a lie; oddly enough I have even seen faults in news about me, misquotes and so on, misquotes 
that weren't even corrected in future issues after mentioned.
However, fact checkers exist, but even the correction or deletion needs a source.
--G-Spot 17:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to solve the verification.... 

message: *Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
:Could be changed to:
*Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Previously published to the public statements, facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may be included in articles if they have been published to the public by reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
:Does this make the meaning a little more clear? Terryeo 05:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, not really.  It needlessly repeats the word "published".   "Published" implies something is made available to the "public" already, and is therefore, redundant.  The original wording uses the word "only" which is critical.   --Rob 06:15, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Okay.  My suggestion does repeat the word quite a bit.  If "only" remains, don't you think it would be better to move it so it reads, ..and arguments may be included in articles only if ... because as "only" is placed now it could be understood to mean, "only facts, viewpoints, theories and arguments may be included in articles".  I am submitting that "Previously published to the public" is a smoother way to say that than ". . have already been published . ." Terryeo 06:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  proposed re-statement 

message: If anyone is going to follow this 'advice' please note the following:
Invoking the principle of "Ignore all rules" on its own will not convince anyone that you were right, so you will need to persuade the rest of the community that your actions improved the encyclopedia. A skilled application of this policy should ideally fly under the radar, and not be noticed at all.
My bolding --Light current 01:34, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And how do YOU know how many of my activities here have flown under the radar? It's just that I seem to have trodden on the toes of a sacred cow here, just as if I'd suddenly decided to take up the cause of (say) fetal rights or the medical dangers of circumcision (to pick two topics which twist the knobs of different groups). I can write about the Old West and the properties of gallium all I like, and nobody really cares. Pick a topic that some group cares about however, and suddenly WP gets very legalistic.Sbharris 01:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP:IAR 

message: Yeah!. Do you think editing of policy pages should be restricted to those who have been here a year or more with at least 10k edits?--Light current 21:16, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is that a rhetorical question? WP policy is that editors should be on equal footing from the get-go, and everything should be done to promote that, and discourage breakdown in the "oldhand" and "newbie" groups.Sbharris 22:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protection from evil 

message: If you look in Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/archive1 you will find 7 posts posted in 2004. Is this what you are looking for? Maybe some stuff was deleted by unscrupulous editors- but you can check the page history for that!. Is this any help to you!--Light current 00:46, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's helpful in illustrating the point that this information is not readily available, and that's not only because I'm a dolt at looking for it. You seem to be having problems also. Much more of this history is available than what's in archive1 (for example see 2003 entries in , but it's tricky to find. See my own talk page where another editor with unusually good search skills managed it, and showed me the tricks. But it's just not obvious to the uninitiated. Which is why it needs to be simply referenced in the articles themselves. Sbharris 00:15, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I can find stuff! 

message: JA: I will be developing this topic later today.  Jon Awbrey 13:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exit Interviews Re: [[WP:Verifiability]] 

message: In trying to bend over backwards to please Roberts view (tho I dont know why I should) I suggest a modified version of his proposal Ie:
This means that we only publish material that can be checked by referring to reliable, published sources
''
You wlli notice I have removed the word 'fact' becasue this assumes that what is printed in the ref is fact. We cannot know that when quoting any ref!. However, because we are stating relible sources, the materila is more likely to be true than not! How does this sound?--Light current 17:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another suggestion 

message: The policy-in-a-nutshell says that, "Articles should cite these sources whenever possible."  When is citation not possible?  Is this intended to allude to some substrate of knowledge that so basic as to require no source, or to avoid stupid arguments over solid inferences?  (If John is older than James, and James older than Mary, then John is older than Mary and the article may say so.)  What useful purpose is served by the qualification? Robert A.West (Talk) 22:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It may not be possible if what you are putting in is plain common sense, or logic that will not have a reference. Or when you are inserting is plainly and obviously correct (like your example above) but you cant find a ref. (Who says that John is older than Mary? Whers your ref?) --Light current 22:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I dont think you can deduce that from the inequalities!--Light current 23:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is Mr.West's point: both cases require an axiom of transitivity, which happens to be true for "older than", and false for "not the same age as". (Largely true, at least; consider the Pirates of Penzance) Septentrionalis 23:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  When is it not possible to cite souces? 

message: :Are you trying to help or just shit stirring?--Light current 23:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry Septentrionalis I thought you were referring to the verifiability problem not to Roberts example.
Apologies!--Light current 00:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Accepted. (But that's why longer responses are good; the misunderstanding would have been clear.) Septentrionalis 00:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your comments are too short to be clear; so I am trying to answer the best understanding I can reach of their meaning. Septentrionalis 23:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

text: My comments are concise and succinct. Please put a sapce between posts. Thanks! 8-|--Light current 23:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why the accusation of shit-stirring?  I gave a textbook example of the sort of naive assumption that is, lamentably, all too common.  You seemed to somehow think I approved of the fallacy.  Septentrionalis tried to clarify.  If you meant something else, then please explain, since at least two people have misunderstood you. Robert A.West (Talk) 23:55, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I was not accusing- I was asking a question. Thats why I put a question mark at the end! 8-)--Light current 00:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's disingenuous: questions like that are not neutral. Robert A.West (Talk) 00:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Civility, please, both of you. Also, please refrain from making substantive changes to policy without consensus, or any changes that are objected to without wide agreement. Robert A.West (Talk) 00:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Im always civil. So only admins can make changes to policy pages?--Light current 00:38, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The template says it all: "When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page."  Nothing about admins, just consensus.  Robert A.West (Talk) 00:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A minor skirmish 

message: Robert, since you have told me what is wrong with all the alternative phrasings I have suggested or inserted (only to have them reverted of course) and since we know that in the sense of this page to 'verify' maens only to find a reference or two, why dont you come up with a word that means: 
* 'a reference exists for this statement- but the reference may not tell the truth and may be unreliable'
8-(
--Light current 13:56, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What part of "reliable" do you not understand? Robert A.West (Talk) 00:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I am also sorry that you don't understand that statement -- it means that you do not understand this policy.  Wikipedia requires reliable sources, not just any old source.  Robert A.West (Talk) 00:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternative phrasings of policy 

message: Can you please stop changing the lead? It is starting to feel as disruption. ≈ jossi ≈  t • @ 01:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  To {{user|Light current}} 

message: Aha! Why are you getting involved in the argument? Is this the start of more admin bullying with future threats of blocking? Why dont you just leave it? Please refer to my user page for the likely outcome of this skirmish!--Light current 01:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This has absolutely nothing to do with being an admin or not. Repeatedly changing the policy lead without consensus is disruptive and a waste of time. ≈ jossi ≈  t • @ 02:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

text: And BTW, you can be blocked for WP:3RR. ≈ jossi ≈  t • @ 02:40, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

text: YYSW. ≈ jossi ≈  t • @ 18:58, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Not grudging, sarcastic, and therefore not agreement.  Robert A.West (Talk) 19:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Admin bullying? 

message: What does 'verifiably published' mean? THis is even worse than the original wording!--Light current 18:40, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Would, "Verifiably has been published," be better, according to your lights? Robert A.West (Talk) 19:48, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Light current, perhaps it's best if you don't make any edits at all to the page, and instead just suggest them on the Talk: page, as your continual suggested changes to policy are clearly not meeting with any agreement. Jayjg (talk) 20:30, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: LC, you've been through this before. The policy doesn't say anything about truth. We use reliable sources and hope they're not talking nonsense. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:36, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest edits 

message: Well Jayjg, if you were to look at this very talk page, you would find that I have been making numerous suggestions to counter the objections of one or more editors to previous wordings. I would disagree that my suggested changes are not meeting with ANY agreement. Robert A West and I do seem to be talking in the same ball park as far as I can tell and I have some ideas in common with few other editors. Its just that we are having trouble understanding each other! My suggestions dont seem to be having much sucess as other editors dont seem to understand the English language.
However, whilst I and the othe editors of similar opinions are trying to work things out, other editors are rearranging the deck chairs while the ship is sinking and there is no admonishment of their actions.
 
Thats why I find these warnings to me (usually by admins) so hypocritical.  ie other editors can play about to thier hearts content with the page, but when I try to improve things, Im accused of disruption, trolling, causing trouble etc etc. This gives me a feeling of persecution by Admins as has happened to me before. If admins are going to apply rules, they should be applied fairly to EVERYONE!!! But better still, why dont you just leave things to us non admins- we can sort it as we do with every other page on WP. 8-((--Light current 20:48, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Light current, the issue here is that changing the policies so that they mean something quite different from their intent is not really "improving" things, but rather, "making them worse".  In addition, you seem to understand and use English in a way that differs from the norms of most native speakers of the language, which compounds the problem. Jayjg (talk) 20:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reply to Jayjg 

message: LC, you've been through this before. The policy doesn't say anything about truth. We use reliable sources and hope they're not talking nonsense. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:36, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what I meant. "Truth" is not required. "Verifiability" is. They are not the same thing. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reply to Slim 

message: What follows is my opinion, offered FWIW, about why it is good to talk about verification rather than truth.  
Verification, in ordinary English usage, does not mean establishing truth to a metaphysical certainty.  It never has, it does not now, and it is not likely to in our joint lifetime.  
Look at the first definition in Merriam-Webster: 
*To establish as legally true by oath.  
Many false things are sworn to daily.
  
Look at the definition used in Formal verification: 
*to certify that a thing satisfies specifications, irrespective of whether those specifications meet requirements.  (The latter process is called validation.)  This is very close to how Wikipedia uses the term, which may not be a coincidence.  In this sense, the specification is that articles must contain information from reliable sources.
What our users would like and need (the actual requirement in systems-lingo) is that the information should be true, for cases where that term has meaning.  From a systems-engineering vantagepoint, we verify, we do not validate.
Reliable sources tend to contain true information: there is no guarantee that any particular piece of information is true.  Truth is hard to measure: is the density of gold to three decimal places less true than the density to five?  Is the Copenhagen interpretation more or less true than the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics?  What can be measured is how faithful our articles are to sources, and how widely those sources are regarded as reliable.  Reliability of source serves as an imperfect, but practical proxy for truth.  
Does that at least make sense as a position? Robert A.West (Talk) 20:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see! I thought it may have been something else! Like making fun of my user name! 8-|--Light current 21:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Robert, would you mind if I altered your post so that your (very important) points stand out more clearly?. I promise I will not alter your text or meaning etc!--Light current 21:19, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for asking.  No problem. Robert A.West (Talk) 20:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Robert's opinion