Wikipedia talk:Verifiability

"Warning" signs on bio. pages and nomination for deletion

Have added a large number of {{Unreferenced|date=August 2008}} and {{BLPsources|date=August 2008}} to a large groupe of players in the swedish top league, aka Allsvenskan, i myself is a major fan of Halmstads BK, also a team in Allsvenskan, and have made major contributions to that teams and players articles, i am trying to improve all articles regarding to Swedish top fotball, Allsvenskan and Superettan mainly, and was hopping that some user and IP numbers would help if i added this tags, this however havent happend and i feel that i know to little about some players to writte theire bios on my own. I also added this signs to the articles since i dont feel like they reach the demands on Wikipedia regarding bios. So now i wonder how long i should wait before i put up a bio. page for deletion or if there is something else i should do instead? --> Halmstad, Talk to me 21:17, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Conflicting sources

If there are several websites, all of equitable reputation, which have conflicting information, how should this be handled? For example: A video game is going to be released in the near future. The developer's website has a release date of "Early 2009", while many reputable gaming website state "March 2009", "Q1 2009" (fiscal quarter, which begins in March), or "1 March 2009". Should all viewpoints be expressed in the article or should one source be considered superior to all others? Thanks! (EhJJ)^TALK 21:48, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Um... Isn't "March 2009" and "Early 2009", essentially saying the same thing? I don't see that these sources actually are conflicting. But to answer your question... if you have several sources of equal reliability that state conflicting things, you should mention them all, as per WP:NPOV. Blueboar (talk) 15:31, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

patents and patent applications

Regardless of what their standing may be legally, issued patents are acceptable sources. In the sciences, they zare cited just as published papers are cited, and abstracted and indexed in all the major disciplinary indexes,such as Chemical abstracts. (In fact, CA lists preliminary patents also, as the first & sometimes only published form, and chemists normally cite these also.) I am therefor reverting the addition of patents from the list of questionable sources; to ensure the widest consensus, I have not howeveryet added them to the list of reliable sources. DGG (talk) 04:28, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Alas, not all patents are created equal.. take for instance, this PCT Patent Application, which is 100% Spam.. or any one of the patents found here.. Indeed, patents can be easily misused to explain wild fringe theories. Patents can really only be considered as reliable sources that patents of that nature exist.. not of whether or not the content/subject of the patent is legitimate. --Versageek 05:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

This is all I'm going to say.(At the moment) Someguy1221 (talk) 08:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

As usual, I agree with DGG. The fact that we must concoct some standards for reliable sources on wikipedia does not change the fact that in the real world there are no such things. Everybody makes mistakes, and no source, no journal is without them. One can equally impeach any source by finding errors which could be misused by diabolical fringepushing editors. Not all university press books, not all articles in the best journals, etc are created equal. Most patents aren't science fiction, there's some checking, so they should not be called questionable sources. Not always the best, not able to defeat better sources if they're one of these crazy patents, but not unacceptable in general. We should try to emulate standard academic / real world practice as DGG described, not throw the baby out with the bath-water.John Z (talk) 09:43, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

The difference between patents and journals is that these few examples are nothing like the bad journal articles you might find. A bad article in a good journal is something that slipped through the cracks. A crazy patent is something that fell through a giant hole, since being based on good science is no requirement for getting one. And isn't that the very essence of a self-published source: there is no form of revew for it. A patent is certainly reviewed, but not for compliance with mainstream scientific thought. Like any blog, they should held in question, by default, without some good reason to do otherwise. I don't think the fact that some scientists cite them is any real reason to allow us to broadly cite them. News sources often quote blogs, but that does not evict the entire blogosphere from the realm of questionable sources. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:52, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

The standard of review for journal articles is frustratingly high: patents less so. The U.S. government does not test the claims made by everyone who files a patent. As such, patents should be considered self-published in terms of WP:RS. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 14:15, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

While a patent doesn't get the same level of scrutiny as a major journal, that's not the point. There are many newspapers and books less vetted than patents that we accept. RS isn't an absolute standard but a relative one and should be used that way. A patent verifies the idea existed at a certain date and that the applicant was aware of the idea, even if has not been realized as they call it. It does not verify the idea (or the theory behind it) works. We should use them with caution in the understanding of that character.LeadSongDog (talk) 14:42, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

John Z (09:43, 11 December 2008) and LeadSongDog (14:42, 11 December 2008) have got it right - there is no a such thing as a 100% reliable source, not even in peer-reviewed science journals (I won't bore you with details, but can easily do so). Patents and patent applications have weaknesses, but as a coarse filter they require applicants to put their money where their mouth is. So I'd accept one provisionally, unless / until a better source refutes it. --Philcha (talk) 15:02, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

DGG, a published patent that asserts that Silver cures AIDS. (Do an internet search on "tetrasilver tetroxide".) Shall we re-write AIDS on the basis of this supposedly non-questionable and non-self-published source?

Can you, in fact, think of any fact in a patent that you cannot find published elsewhere and that you would accept as being (1) a proper secondary source for the supported scientific/engineering fact and (2) something your professional conscience would allow you to describe as a responsible choice for the supported scientific/engineering fact? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

100% reliability isn't the issue: basic reliability is. The applications aren't vetted at all for what we're looking for, and the argument that they filter some claims out by forcing the applicant to put their money where their mouth is does not get around the problem that they are still self-published: vanity presses do the same thing, but don't count as a third-party appraisal of the work. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 18:16, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Philcha, you seem to be focusing on the claims, whereas I usually see people citing the specification instead. The specification does not get changed during the patent review process. (Note that the small entity filing fee in the US is $165, so it's cheaper to file a patent than it is to print books on the vanity press.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Implying, I take it, that patents are no more and no less reliable than vanity-press self-published books, and that patents should be required to meet WP:V#Self-published sources criteria. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:27, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

First are we talking a patent application or a patent that has been granted? They are not the same thing. I would agree that a patent application is similar to a self published source... a patent that has been approved is an official government document, and thus not self published. Blueboar (talk) 15:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Blueboar, if by "published" you mean "willing to take any sort of responsibility for the contents", then you are mistaken. The fact that the patent on curing AIDS with tetrasilver tetraoxide is available through the USPTO does not mean that the United States government makes any sort of claim about the accuracy of the contents, from whether or not the inventor actually fed silver to people in Honduras, whether or not those people actually had AIDS (something the inventor did not bother to test for), to whether or not the claimed invention actually worked. They have no choice but to assume that the inventor has met his statutory requirement to tell the truth about his investigations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

That was not really what I meant by "published"... what I mean is that there is an official notice of the existance of the patent, placed in the government archives, that we can look up. In other words, we can verify that the patent existed and we can verify the fact that the patent makes certain claims. What a patent does not verify is whether the claims made are valid or not... a patent does not tell you that the thing being patented actually worked. This is why I would treat it in a similar manner to a self-published source... they are of limited reliability, but not outright unreliable. Blueboar (talk) 04:10, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and... it's as reliable as its author - no more and no less - a self-published primary source. If the author is a notable published expert, then the patent could be treated as reliable in similar fashion as a blog post of a noted expert. But no added reliability of the content is conveyed by the acceptance of the patent application, other than to verify the fact that the patent was filed and granted, and to verify that the text of the patent is not a fake. The patent is published by its author; it just happens to be mirrored by the government's hosting of the document in their system. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 04:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

When something can't be cited

I'm currently having an issue in I Will Follow You into the Dark and its GAN. This policy says the threshold is verifiability, not truth. A section on the article isn't cited and pretty much can't be cited because of lack of third-party reliable sources. In this case, what should be done? DiverseMentality 19:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

To clarify for DM, the section in question is "Release", which I feel completely consists of non-controversial information that I don't feel policy requires me to cite and is tricky to cite if I had to (it takes five semi-unreliable source citations to do so).--Remurmur (talk) 02:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the material in question can be verified... by looking at the item being discribed (ie the primary source). The section simply contains a discription of each release (that there were two releases in 7" colored vinyl, and a CD single, with differing songs on the on the "B side" of each). This is all information that can be verified by anyone just by looking at the items themselves. If someone is silly enough to challenge the information and demands that you cite a source for it, just cite the item as if it were a primary source (I assume you have already looked to see if you could verify the information on a distributor's website, such as Amazon.uk?)Blueboar (talk) 03:51, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

What if ?

If verifiability is the criterion, and not "truth", what happens when you can find RS that say contrary things? This happens all the time in contentious areas. Do you count the references on each "side" or attempt to determine (ie by a consensus of sources) factual accuracy (ie verifiability ?) in this way, or does one attempt to determine which RS are the most/least reliable? Or are all RS sources counted equal to one another? Thanks Tundrabuggy (talk) 02:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

When the sources are contradictory, pretend you are a journalist and present both sides. When the subject is less controversial, and you have some knowledge in the field, you can try to weigh the sources to give each one due weight in the article. The more controversial a subject is, the more difficult that can be. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Read WP:Neutral point of view, which will give you more details on dealing with this. Blueboar (talk) 04:00, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Lists

Are lists exempt from the verifiability policy?--John (talk) 05:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

No. They must be sourced as well. --MASEM 05:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The list inclusion criteria are particularly important as relates to the verifiability of the listed items. Here are a couple pages that may be helpful: Wikipedia:Lists & Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists . --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 06:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

If you're talking about List of Irish people, one thing to consider is whether the articles for the people in the list state that the person is Irish and have a source. --Pixelface (talk) 06:54, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. Such as Jim Morrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon.... --John (talk) 07:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I had a similar difficult which resulted in much backlash when I requested references for the disambiguation page at MS. As I click to view the MS disambiguation page I reallise that this is an ongoing problem. For example, there is a link to Mats Sundin (at the top) but at no point does that article mention that his name is abreviated as MS, perhaps it's M.S., (which would make more sense), but even so, there are no references within the main article to support the dissambiguation page. Which is why I will/have removed it. (Depending on the circumstances (such as this example) people will most like be contentious towards any removal!) Keep up the good work. --CyclePat (talk) 18:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

p.s.: Just look at all the edits I did to clean up MS. Good luck! --CyclePat (talk) 19:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is clear community consensus on citing lists. Some feel that as long as the information is sourced in one article, it is verifiable in any other article that links to the one with the source (ie it is verifiable by going to another page, even if it isn't actually verified on the one you are looking at). Others think that information should be both verifiable and verified directly in any article the information appears in (including lists). My feeling is something of a compromise... When it comes to lists, the determination as to whether to require citations (or not) should be left to the consensus of the editors working on the list... with the strong recommendation that if inclusion in the list has a reasonable potential for controversy, then the inclusion criteria should require references in the list. Blueboar (talk) 19:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That makes sense. It seems to me that an article which includes living people and deals with ethnicity definitely needs citations per WP:BLP. The problem is that we have a long list which contains much that is probably true and much that is false. I have no interest in cleaning the article up; I have better things to do and this article duplicates a category in any case. I therefore posted a request for citations on the article talk a month ago. When none were forthcoming I made the article a redirect but this was undone. We thus have an article on Wikipedia which currently (or at least the last time I checked) asserts that Jim Morrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon (among many other spurious entries) are or were Irish. I am not sufficiently uninvolved to take administrative action on this matter but maybe somebody could back me up, or else do the work to trim out the crap from the article and cite the rest? At the moment it is a disgrace to Wikipedia and the sort of thing that gets us (rightly) laughed at by some. --John (talk) 19:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

It's fine if a list duplicates a category. Some people prefer using categories, some people prefer using lists. Lists and categories complement each other. List of Irish people states that it's a "list of famous Irish people" and that it's not just about ethnicity. It says it covers "People who were born on the island of Ireland and/or who have lived there for most of their lives" and people who "have been raised as Irish, and/or have adopted Irish citizenship." If some names don't meet the criteria for inclusion in the list, you can remove them. Jim Morrison is in Category:Irish-Americans and Category:Irish-American musicians. The Jim Morrison article says "He was of Scottish and Irish ethnic heritage" and cites The Biography Channel. So that citation can be added to the list if someone disputes Jim Morrison's inclusion on the list. If there's still a dispute, talk it out on the list's talk page. Jim Morrison is dead, so BLP doesn't apply, but I suppose if you wanted to be really strict you could remove every name that's in Category:Living people. --Pixelface (talk) 05:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

There's a clear community consensus that all articles (or "encyclopedic content") in main namespace are (is) subject to WP:V. There's a clear community consensus that stand-alone lists in main namespace (except disambiguation pages: "Disambiguation pages ... are non-article pages, in the article namespace,...") are a type of articles or "encyclopedic content".

This resolves to: there's a clear community consensus that all lists in main namespace except for disambiguation pages are subject to WP:V.

CyclePat's example (of a disambiguation page) is off-topic (or: an example of the accepted exception) regarding the general question.

Blueboar's comment is equally missing the point: there is a clear community consensus (etc).

See WP:lists#Listed items

Verifiability-by-main-article-of-the-listed-item applies, for example, for categories (but we're no longer in main namespace then, but in category namespace). Similar example: lists in Portal namespace. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all, that was really helpful. Unless there is a volunteer to sift through and remove the unverified and verify the rest I will redirect again tomorrow per WP:BLP. There are a whole bunch of ethnic lists like this one so it may be a bigger issue. --John (talk) 04:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

How to handle an uncited statement. Delete or citation-needed template?

Are there any guidelines on what to do if a statement has not been supplied with a verifiable source. What is the preferred approach: query the claim with a template like {{cite}} or delete the text? WP:VER mentions using a template but doesn't seem to recommend either way.

In my particular case, I started an article and before getting it off the ground have repeatedly had chunks of text deleted. It's been quite a frustrating experience. Personally I think it would have been more constructive to add a citation-needed template rather than delete. This would have given editors the opportunity to find sources. Advice and opinions please. pgr94 (talk) 09:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I would place a "cite needed" tag on it (unless it is obvious "vandalistic" nonsense). Deletion is justified if there already is a "cite needed" tag on it and the tag has been there for a long time without anyone responding to it. Depending on the nature of the article it could take up to a few months for someone to come up with a good cite - so give it time. Roger (talk) 10:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

It really depends on how "damaging" the unsourced statement is, and what type of article you are dealing with. If the article is a Biography of a Living Person (BLP), then we take a hard line on unsourced information. WP:BLP tells us to delete imediately. In other types of articles, it is more of a judgement call. If you think it likely that the information might be accurate, but is simply unsourced, then the first step is to see if you can find a source. If you can't, just leave a {{fact}} tag and hope that sooner or later someone else will find a source. If you think the information is questionable, tag it and explain what is wrong on the talk page. Then wait a while, and if no one provides a citation after a reasonable time, you may remove the uncited information. If the information seems to be really off the wall, and you are positive that it is incorrect, you are allowed to remove it as a first step (but if someone returns it, don't edit war over it... slap a tag on it, and discuss the issue on the talk page). In other words, use some common sense and courtesy. Blueboar (talk) 14:34, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I completely agree with both of you Dodger69 & Blueboar. pgr94 (talk) 16:54, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I feel your pain, Pgr94, but there's a simple solution. Put the citation in first and the statement after. Then you never have unref'd statements to delete.LeadSongDog (talk) 16:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok. I see your point. Nonetheless, if we were to delete everything that is not cited Wikipedia would be much smaller and it might cause quite a stir. Shouldn't WP:V provide a clear position on how unreferenced material be handled? A position along the lines of that described Dodger/Blueboar above seem a good starting point. pgr94 (talk) 16:54, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The point is that WP:V can't (and shouldn't) provide a clear position... whether to delete or tag is (and needs to be) determined on an article by article, and even statement by statement basis. Sometimes it is better to delete, sometimes it is better to tag. The important thing in your case (being the author of the material being deleted) is that you need to find a source for the information you want to add. Blueboar (talk) 18:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreeing with (most of?) the above. Today I replaced a CitationNeeded which had been sitting there doing no harm since September 2007. So what? The fact looked reasonable, so it had remained. Perhaps the press release I added as a ref isn't good enough; in that case someone will be along to replace or supplement it some day. The project is a work-in-progress, and unless an article is totally peppered with such tags, I think they generally are a good thing. - Hordaland (talk) 19:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I see that I oversimplified my response above. Proactive citation-before-the-fact will help prevent your edits suffering deletion. Other's edits you can only address after-the-fact. As others have said, there are judgement calls to make. If harmful, delete. If probable, tag {{cn}} or (better) find and cite a source. If improbable, tag {{dubious}} or {{cn}}. If the article is rife with omitted citations, tag {{refimprove}} at the top. The main thing is to try and ensure an innocent reader doesn't mistakenly trust an unsupported assertion.LeadSongDog (talk) 06:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all for your suggestions. I am still left wondering why the above advice doesn't belong in the guidelines, but I'll defer to you on this one. pgr94 (talk) 09:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

This new "#7" under WP:V#SELF

I had reason to look at WP:SPS today, and I was surprised that a major new restriction was made to the policy in the addition of this point #7: "the source in question has been mentioned specifically in relation to the article's subject by an independent, reliable source." Looking at the archives of this talk page, that addition seems to have been made by only two editors, with some discussion on another aspect of the change by a few others. It seems to me the process was about like this:

1. It was decided to finally change WP:SPS from "SPS may only be used in articles about the author" to "SPS may only be used to support statements about themselves/their authors". IMO, this is a good change and reflects current practice where this is useful.
2. Someone grew concerned that J. Random Crackpot could self-publish his views on a subject, and then insist on including those views in the article on the topic because his SPS is now an allowable source for the statement that he holds that view.
3. Instead of realizing that this sort of thing is covered by WP:NPOV, WP:WEIGHT, WP:FRINGE, and so on, the reaction was to add this additional criterion. Oddly, the criterion is applied to the source being specifically connected to the subject rather than the author, which makes it far more restrictive.

I'm not sure how many SPS this additional criterion actually leaves usable; I suspect it eliminates the majority of them completely. I propose that the statement in question be removed, and replaced with a note such as the following: "Just because a source exists for a fact does not mean the fact must or even should be included in an article; WP:NPOV, WP:WEIGHT, WP:FRINGE, and other content policies and guidelines still apply. For example, the opinion of an individual on a particular topic is unlikely to be worth mentioning in the article on that topic, unless reliable, third-party sources specifically connect the individual with the topic." This should have the same effect of closing J. Random Crackpot's loophole without being overly restrictive on legitimate uses, and it keeps content inclusion decisions where they belong. (For a parallel example, we could source the birth weight and length of many people by looking for the birth announcement in their hometown newspaper. We don't usually bother to include that information because such minutia is normally unimportant to an encyclopedic biography. But we also don't add a policy that birth announcements are somehow "not acceptable" as sources to prevent someone from doing that, we just point out that such trivia is not worth including.) Anomie⚔ 06:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I too saw the problematic wording, was puzzled by this addition and spent some time trying to understand it. As for #3 above, "source" must be read as "author" (as it often enough is) because otherwise it would create a new and bizarre restriction on SPS's in articles about themselves, clearly not the intent. Your proposed new wording is reasonable, and not terribly different from the present #7 with the necessary "author" for "source." John Z (talk) 09:07, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I think point 7 is overly restrictive. For example, if an author or artist has an official website including biographical details, such as where they were born, where they grew up, went to school, etc., I think we should be allowed to use that as a source in their BLP, subject to conditions 1 to 6 and the WP:BLP section on using self-published sources, even if the bio sketch on his site has not been mentioned in the media (why would anyone mention it?). Jayen466 12:47, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

We should have a section with precedents

We should have a section that deals with decisions from the community but most importantly the arbitration commity. --CyclePat (talk) 07:30, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Podcasts etc.

I think the change undone here made sense. Just an extension of SPS principles to other media. Any views? Jayen466 12:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

As the first person to remove this change (here), I am actually coming around to supporting it. This change in opinion is based upon discussions at WT:RS, and Jossi's edit summary reverting my initial removal. What is important is the intent... In adding podcasts, Jossi does not seem to be saying that we should apply the restrictions of SPS to all podcasts... those would be applied only to those podcasts that are self-published. This makes sense. A self-published podcast is no different than a self-published website, self-published book, or any other SPS. So (for example) a podcast created by Joe Blow would be treated as an SPS (with all the limitations thereof), while a podcast created by a major news outlet would be treated as a fully reliable source.

In other words... We can use podcasts to verify information, but self-published podcasts are limited. Blueboar (talk) 14:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, these issues are all covered by existing policies, and it is not a change but a clarification. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I have asked this at WT:RS... but I will ask it here as well... When someone is interviewed on a podcast, who is the "publisher"? Blueboar (talk) 17:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It might make sense to consider it "self"-published with respect to both the interviewer and the interviewee. A similar situation obtains if I have my own private website and a friend writes a text and allows me to put this (otherwise unpublished) text up on my website. Neither I nor my friend can claim that the hosted text is anything other than self-published. Jayen466 17:42, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The existing text is already extensively qualified: it says that because self-published stuff is not acceptable, a bunch of things (including blogs and patents) are largely not acceptable, and then there's a big footnote discussing different cases of "blogs". There isn't even any implication that the things listed are the only things that are likely to be unacceptable due to self-publication, and the footnote is likewise not absolute. Making the list of examples structurally more complicated in order to redundantly qualify it is not only unnecessary, but IMO would actually be confusing. Consequently, I am (so far) opposed to this change.

I could see adding some things to the list, changing "largely" to "usually", and perhaps even changing the ordering of the entire sentence so that the list goes after the statement that these things are only usually unacceptable rather than always unacceptable. Pi zero (talk) 18:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

How about this alternative phrasing of the sentence, which simply reorders it, changes "largely" to "usually", and adds podcasts and vcasts?

For this reason, it is usually not acceptable in Wikipedia to cite self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, knols, podcasts, vcasts, patents, patent applications, forum postings, and similar sources.

Pi zero (talk) 19:02, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

We should include something to the effect that, like self-published sources, audio and video interviews are reliable primary sources for the views of the interviewees. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:41, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

No way, unless the caveat established in WP:SPS is addressed. I really do not understand the need to dilute that portion of the policy which has well establishged. Interviews, are primary sources, sure. But the issue of prior publication on a reputable source stands. Who cares is if it an interview, an essay, a blog post, or a speech. No secondary sources referring to it, no deal: we don't use it without considerable caution and within the caveats expressed at WP:SPS ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:10, 21 December 2008 (UTC)