Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 10:58, 2 October 2005

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.

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Misplaced Pages should only publish material that is verifiable and is not original research.

The goal of Misplaced Pages is to become a complete and reliable encyclopedia. Verifiability is the key to becoming a reliable resource, so editors should cite credible sources so that their edits can be easily verified by readers and other editors.

One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they should refer only to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have already been published by a reputable publisher.

It's important to note that "verifiability" in this context does not mean that editors are expected to verify whether, for example, the contents of a New York Times article are true. In fact, editors are strongly discouraged from conducting this kind of research, because original research may not be published in Misplaced Pages. Articles should contain only material that has been published by reputable or credible sources, regardless of whether individual editors regard that material to be true or false. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth. For that reason, it is vital that editors rely on good sources.

Misplaced Pages:Verifiability is one of three of Misplaced Pages's content-guiding policy pages. The other two are Misplaced Pages:No original research and Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view. Jointly, these three policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. The three policies are complementary. They should therefore not be interpreted in isolation from one other, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three.

When adding information

Fact checking is time consuming. It is unreasonable to expect other editors to dig for sources to check your work, particularly when the initial content is questionable. The burden of evidence lies with the editor who has made the edit. Editors should therefore be specific, avoid weasel words, and provide references. For example:

A human rights spokesman said that the incident was part of a wider pattern of violence in the region.

This is difficult to verify. Many spokesmen may have commented on the incident, and it's unreasonable to expect someone to check all these statements looking for the one that matches. Consider instead:

Eliza Twisk of Amnesty International said: "This is all part of a growing trend in Europe of violent protest and equally violent response". (Channel 4 News interview, July 8, 2000)

This is easy to verify. A link to a transcript is provided, readers and editors could contact Channel 4 if they wanted to, and as the exact quote is given, it can be fed into a search engine.

If you clearly understand them well, original documents in a foreign language are better than translations into English since translators are not the original source and can also make mistakes. It is best, however, in English Misplaced Pages, to reference both the original and its translation where available since the original provides the credibility whilst the translation will be easier for others to verify.

Checking content

There are several reasons you might want to check the accuracy of an edit:

• The author has a record of contributing inaccurate or misleading information.
• The author has a conflict of interest.
• There are other errors in the article, and the entire text needs to be checked.
• The article is the subject of an accuracy dispute.
• The article is about a contentious subject.
• The subject area is one where errors are frequent.
• The statement is implausible on its surface.
• The statement is key to the entry as a whole.
• The statement is overly vague.

Here's a suggested procedure for verifying content.

1. If you find a recent change and are not sure whether or not an edit is accurate, add the page and the diff to Misplaced Pages:RC patrol
2. If you feel the urge to remove a statement from an article, first check the bottom of the article for references.
3. If there are any, check the sources. If the sources are reputable or credible, and you can confirm the statement with reference to them, leave it in; otherwise, continue.
4. If there is a talk page, check that. The statement may already have been checked, so there's no need to repeat the procedure. However, if a reference or citation was only given on the talk page, move it to the article to help people who might want to check it in the future.
5. Use your common sense to work out what other resources would help, and check them. If you can find credible sources that support the statement using these resources, leave it in; otherwise, continue.
6. Move or copy the statement to the talk page, explaining that you have not been able to find a source for the statement, and stating what sources you have checked.
7. Optionally, check the article history for who added the statement in the first place, and leave a note on their talk page telling them that their statement is disputed, and directing them to the appropriate talk page.
8. Anyone may now feel free to try to find a source to support the statement and produce a citation or link on the talk page.
9. If you only copied the statement, wait for a period (probably at least one day), and if no-one has found a reference in that time, remove it from the article altogether.
10. If someone does find a reference, the statement should be put back into the article, with the newly found reference. To make it clear which statement used which reference, it might be worth numbering the references and then referring to them in the article like this or like this. Alternatively, use Harvard referencing, which involves adding a brief citation in brackets after the sentence or paragraph — if it's a book by John Smith that was published in 2005, write (Smith 2005) — then adding a full citation for Smith 2005 in the References section at the end of the article (Smith, J. My story, Random House, 2005). If no-one finds a reference, the statement can remain on the talk page indefinitely.
11. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Strong substantive evidence is required to support wilder claims. For example, a newspaper report may be sufficient evidence to support a sports result, but not to support a new detailed mathematical theory.

Dubious sources

For an encyclopedia, sources should be unimpeachable. An encyclopedia is not primary source material. Its authors do not conduct interviews or perform original research. Therefore, anything we include should have been published in the records, reportage, research, or studies of other reputable sources. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: outlandish claims beg strong sources.

Sometimes a particular statement can only be found in a publication of dubious reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is relatively unimportant, then just remove it — don't waste words on statements of limited interest and dubious truth. However, if you must keep it, then attribute it to the source in question. For example:

According to the British tabloid newspaper The Sun, the average American has 3.8 cousins and 7.4 nephews and nieces.

Personal websites and blogs are not acceptable as sources, except on the rare occasion that a well-known person, or a known professional journalist or researcher in a relevant field, has set up such a website. Remember that it is easy for anybody to create a website and to claim to be an expert in a certain field, or to start an "expert group", "human rights group", church, or other type of association. Several million people have created their own blogs in the last few years. They are not regarded as acceptable sources for Misplaced Pages. See Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources for more information.

Sources should be in English

Because this is the English Misplaced Pages, English-language sources should be given whenever possible, though if the best sources are in another language, these should always be provided. The over-riding requirement is proof of accuracy. If a non-English-language source is translated into English by an editor in order to be quoted in an article, the original-language quote should be given alongside it, so that readers and other editors can check the accuracy of your translation.

Verifiability, not truth

Articles in Misplaced Pages should refer to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have been published by a reputable or credible publisher. The threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not truth.

A good way to look at the distinction between verifiability and truth is with the following example. Suppose you are writing a Misplaced Pages entry on a famous physicist's Theory X. Theory X has been published in peer-reviewed journals and is therefore an appropriate subject for a Misplaced Pages article. However, in the course of writing the article, you meet the physicist, and over a beer, he tells you: "Actually, I think Theory X is a load of rubbish." Even though you have this from the author himself, you cannot include the fact that he said it in your Misplaced Pages entry. Why not? The answer is that it is not verifiable in a way that would satisfy the Misplaced Pages readership or other editors. The readers don't know who you are. You can't include your telephone number so that every reader in the world can call you directly for confirmation. And even if they could do this, why should they believe you?

Suppose you were firmly convinced that this new information should be published in Misplaced Pages, and that to fail to do so would be intellectually dishonest. How would you go about getting it into Misplaced Pages? For the information to be acceptable to Misplaced Pages, you would have to contact a reputable news organization – The Times of London, for example – and explain to them what the physicist told you. You might have a tape recording of the conversation that you could let them hear; or perhaps they would interview you. Whatever they chose to do with the information, the story would go through a process similar to peer review before being published. It would be checked by a reporter, then by at least one editor, perhaps by a fact-checker, and if the story were problematic, it would be checked further by the lawyers and the editor-in-chief. The physicist would be offered an opportunity to respond, as would his publisher and lawyer, and other members of the academic community would be approached for comment.

These checks and balances exist to ensure that only accurate and fair stories appear in the newspaper. It is this fact-checking process that Misplaced Pages is not in a position to provide, which is why the policy of no original research is an important one.

If The Times published the story, you could then include the information in your Misplaced Pages entry. However, if you were unable to find anyone to publish it, or if you could only secure publication in a news outlet that did not have a good reputation, then the material would have no place in Misplaced Pages even if you knew it to be true.

Obscure topics

Subjects which have never been written about in published sources, or which have only been written about in sources of doubtful credibility should not be included in Misplaced Pages. One of the reasons for this policy is the difficulty of verifying the information. As there are no reputable sources available, it would require original research, and Misplaced Pages is not a place to publish original research. Insistence on verifiability is often sufficient to exclude such articles.

Conclusion

However, just because some information is verifiable, doesn't mean that Misplaced Pages is the right place to publish it. See what Misplaced Pages is not.

See criteria for inclusion of biographies and auto-biography for some suggested criteria for inclusion of biographical articles.

"Doveriai no proveriai" — Russian proverb (Trust but verify)

See also

• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check
• Misplaced Pages:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards

• Misplaced Pages policies
• Misplaced Pages official policy