Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:51, 26 June 2007

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages policy.It describes a widely accepted standard that editors should normally follow, though exceptions may apply. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

Shortcuts WP:V WP:VERIFY

This page in a nutshell: Articles should only contain material that has been published by reliable sources. Editors adding or restoring material that has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, or quotations, must provide a reliable source, or the material will be removed.

The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed.

Misplaced Pages:Verifiability is one of Misplaced Pages's core content policies. The others include Misplaced Pages:No original research and Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Misplaced Pages articles. They should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three.

Burden of evidence

For how to write citations, see Misplaced Pages:Citing sources

The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article. Quotations should also be attributed. If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Misplaced Pages should not have an article on it.

Any edit lacking a source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them a chance to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider moving it to the talk page. Alternatively, you may tag the sentence by adding the {{fact}} template, or tag the article by adding {{Not verified}} or {{Unreferenced}}. Leave an invisible HTML comment, a note on the talk page, or an edit summary explaining what you have done.

Be careful not to go too far on the side of not upsetting editors by leaving unsourced information in articles for too long, or at all in the case of information about living people. Jimmy Wales, founder of Misplaced Pages, has said of this: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."

Sources

• WP:SOURCE

See also: Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources and Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons

Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require exceptional sources.

Sources of questionable reliability

In general, sources of questionable reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight. Sources of questionable reliability should only be used in articles about themselves. (See below.) Articles about such sources should not repeat any potentially libelous claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources.

Self-published sources (online and paper)

• WP:SPS

Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.

Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by a well-known, professional researcher (scholarly or non-scholarly) in a relevant field. These may be acceptable so long as their work has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, exercise caution: if this information is really worth including, it will probably be reported elsewhere.

Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see WP:BLP.

Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves

Material from self-published sources and sources of questionable reliability may be used in articles about themselves, so long as:

• it is relevant to their notability;
• it is not contentious;
• it is not unduly self-serving;
• it does not involve claims about third parties;
• it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
• there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it.

Sources in languages other than English

Because this is the English Misplaced Pages, for the convenience of our readers, English-language sources should be used in preference to foreign-language sources, assuming the availability of an English-language source of equal quality, so that readers can easily verify that the source material has been used correctly.

Keep in mind that translators can make mistakes, whether Misplaced Pages editors or professional translators. In principle, readers should have the opportunity to verify for themselves what the original material actually said, that it was published by a credible source, and that it was translated correctly.

Therefore, when the original material is in a language other than English:

• Where sources are directly quoted, published translations are generally preferred over editors performing their own translations directly.
• Where editors use their own English translation of a non-English source as a quote in an article, there should be clear citation of the foreign-language original, so that readers can check what the original source said and the accuracy of the translation.

See also

• WikiProject Fact and Reference Check
• Forum for Encyclopedic Standards
• WikiProject Resource Exchange

2. Part 2

Notes and references

1. See Help:Editing#Basic text formatting: "Invisible comments to editors only appear while editing the page. If you wish to make comments to the public, you should usually go on the talk page."
2. Jimmy Wales (2006-05-16). ""Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information"". WikiEN-l electronic mailing list archive. Retrieved 2006-06-11.
3. "Blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. See e.g., Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/The_Game_(game)_(6th_nomination) for an often-cited example deletion discussion covering this matter. Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control; that is, when it isn't really a blog. Posts left on these columns by readers may never be used as sources.

Further reading

• Jimmy Wales. "WikiEN-l insist on sources", WikiEN-l mailing list, July 19, 2006.

• Misplaced Pages policies