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Revision as of 00:11, 20 January 2015

This page is not a forum for general discussion about "verifiability" as a concept. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this page. You may wish to ask factual questions about "verifiability" as a concept at the Reference desk.

view · edit Frequently asked questions Questions Where should I ask whether this source supports this statement in an article? At Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Don't forget to tell the editors the full name of the source and the exact sentence it is supposed to support. Do sources have to be free, online and/or conveniently available to me? No. Sources can be expensive, print-only, or available only in certain places. A source does not stop being reliable simply because you personally aren't able to obtain a copy. See Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/cost. If you need help verifying that a source supports the material in the article, ask for help at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Resource Exchange or a relevant WikiProject. Do sources have to be in English? No. Sources can be written in any language. However, if equally good sources in English exist, they will be more useful to our readers. If you need help verifying that a non-English source supports the material in the article, ask for help at Misplaced Pages:Translators available. I personally know that this information is true. Isn't that good enough to include it? No. Misplaced Pages includes only what is verifiable, not what someone believes is true. It must be possible to provide a bibliographic citation to a published reliable source that says this. Your personal knowledge or belief is not enough. I personally know that this information is false. Isn't that good enough to remove it? Your personal belief or knowledge that the information is false is not sufficient for removal of verifiable and well-sourced material. Is personal communication from an expert a reliable source? No. It is not good enough for you to talk to an expert in person or by telephone, or to have a written letter, e-mail message, or text message from a source. Reliable sources must be published. Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"? No. The reliability of a source is entirely dependent on the context of the situation, and the statement it is being used to support. Some sources are generally better than others, but reliability is always contextual. What if the source is biased? Sources are allowed to be biased or non-neutral; sometimes these are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a controversial subject. However, the resulting Misplaced Pages articles must maintain a neutral point of view. Does every single sentence need to be followed by an inline citation? No. Only four broad categories of material need to be supported by inline citations. Editors need not supply citations for perfectly obvious material. However, it must be possible to provide a bibliographic citation to a published reliable source for all material. Are sources required in all articles? Adding sources is the best practice, but prior efforts to officially require at least one source have been rejected by the community. See, e.g., discussions in January 2024 and March 2024. Are reliable sources required to name the author? No. Many reliable sources, such as government and corporate websites, do not name their authors or say only that it was written by staff writers. Although many high-quality sources do name the author, this is not a requirement. Are reliable sources required to provide a list of references? No. Misplaced Pages editors should list any required sources in a references or notes section. However, the sources you are using to write the Misplaced Pages article do not need to provide a bibliography. Most reliable sources, such as newspaper and magazine articles, do not provide a bibliography. Does anyone read the sources? Readers do not use the reference list extensively. This research indicates that readers click somewhere in the list of references approximately three times out of every 1,000 page views.

The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Misplaced Pages. Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered a standard for all users to follow. Please review policy editing recommendations before making any substantive change to this page. Always remember to keep cool when editing, and don't panic.

See WP:PROPOSAL for Misplaced Pages's procedural policy on the creation of new guidelines and policies. See how to contribute to Misplaced Pages guidance for recommendations regarding the creation and updating of policy and guideline pages.

The Verifiability page is frequently reverted in good faith. Don't be offended if your edit is reverted: try it out on the Workshop page, then offer it for consensus here, before editing the actual project page.

There has been a great deal of discussion about the lead section of the verifiability policy over the years. If you want to discuss changing its wording, please first read the 2012 request for comments and the previous discussion about the first sentence. Thank you for your cooperation.

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Televised interviews from established network news sources

Perhaps there should be a warning in the guideline as to not use video (or transcripts from broadcasts) from network news sources for establishing quotes and facts. Most network news source now edit interviews to the point that it is impossible to determine what the subject of the interview actually said. Some are even chopping up statements in mid-sentence and rearranging the order of phrases. Many times the edits are so skillfully executed as to be impossible to detect, even when examining the video frame by frame. For example, they will syncronize the edit to match the movement of the subject's mouth or change camera angles to make it difficult or impossible to tell that an edit was made. Even content which is labeled as "live" is often edited. I think a general warning should be included not to use television network news as a reliable source. Sparkie82 (t•c) 20:11, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any material difference between editing a video recording to make an on-topic "quotation" and editing an e-mail message to make an on-topic "quotation". The latter is done every day in print journalism. Journalistic ethics are supposed to prevent you from misrepresenting the person's words, but not to prevent you from removing "um, uh, well" or irrelevant tangents. You can look for corrections in which the allegedly quoted person claims to have been misrepresented. Reputable news agencies promptly publish all such claims from people they quote. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

The difference is that in the written form, an ethical journalist will include an elipsis, whereas many (most?) edited videos don't provide adequate indication that an edit has been made. When the video is subsequently transcribed — either directly by a WP editor or by an intermediate source — the indication of the edit is lost. I think some warning should be included in the guide about the potential for inaccuracy. Also, because of the proliferation of the technique and the historically ephemeral nature of video, many subjects don't bother to correct them (often for fear of drawing additional attention to whatever issue was being reported), so relying on interview subjects to initiate correction is not reliable. Sparkie82 (t•c) 10:12, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Assistance requested

I am requesting assistance at Synchronous motor. The article has been tagged for needing citations since January 2014, was tagged previously, and beyond the article tag, sections of the article have themselves been tagged.

Yesterday I tried to clean up some of the unsourced material, but I have now been reverted twice, the second time after noting that WP:BURDEN was applicable.

This article was already the subject of an extensive RFC relating to the appropriateness of removing unsourced material.

Any and all assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. DonIago (talk) 19:29, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLUE seems to apply to your problem. You are removing material merely because it is uncited, even though the content is quite uncontroversial to anyone with at least an intermediate knowledge of the subject. From a pragmatic perspective rather than as a purist, my judgement is that uncited material should only be removed if you know it to be false or have genuine reason to doubt it. Doing as you are doing undoubtedly creates a purer artefact for academic appreciation by those who are totally familiar with the subject. Unfortunately, on my sample viewing of your edits, you are removing insights which may be of benefit to those who are less familiar with the topic - ie you are devaluing the material to the audience who will benefit most from it 78.32.68.244 (talk) 23:25, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages articles are not written with the assumption that those reading them will have pre-existing familiarity with the subject matter, nor should they be. My reasons for doubting the unsourced material is that it has remained uncited for months. If in fact references are available, why are none being provided? In addition, on the article's Talk page I have specifically asked that editors provide options beyond leaving the material in the article or deleting it, and have not been provided with any alternatives.

In any event, WP:BLUE is merely an essay, and as such carries as much weight as WP:NOTBLUE. In this particular case I would argue that the latter should be more of a guiding principle as this article discusses material which you yourself suggested requires a baseline knowledge of the subject to make any determination as to its validity. DonIago (talk) 16:42, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Being uncited is not coterminous with being wrong.

If your rationale for doubting it is that it is uncited, then your logic is damaging to the article. To remove the material, you really should know that it is wrong or have a basis in fact rather than citation to doubt the material. The most you should do otherwise is ensure that the material is flagged as 'citation needed'. This is not about you as an editor, Misplaced Pages is for the readers and you should empower them to make their own decisions on evaluation and acceptance of the material.78.32.68.244 (talk) 22:30, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Our standard is not "validity"... its verifiablility. The BLUE SKY exemption for something like "Paris is the capital of France" is not based on the fact that the information is "obviously true" (much less that someone familiar with the topic will know it is "valid") ... the exemption is based on the fact that such statements are so easily and obviously verifiable that no one (even those not familiar with the topic) will question it (or to put it another way... since there are literally thousands of sources that can be used to verify such statements... it is highly unlikely that anyone will invoke BURDEN and challenge it). Even then.... if someone does question a statement like "Paris is the capital of France", and demands a citation... our policy errs on the side of saying: "OK... here it is". After all, a real BLUE SKY statement should be really EASY to cite. It will take two seconds to find one of those thousands of sources and slap it into the article (and before you complain about the "hassle" of having to do so... compare this with the hours you will spend trying to convince someone that a citation is silly. It's much less of a time waster to simply give a citation).

Furthermore... If it will take you more time than a few seconds to provide a source... then the information is probably not actually BLUE SKY level information.

Finally, don't get upset because someone removes information... The removal is not permanent... the information can be returned... it just needs to be returned with a citation. Blueboar (talk) 23:19, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Plainly Misplaced Pages is for the producer-editors not the consumer-readers. As a consumer-reader, I am well able to cope with 'citation needed' and evaluate for myself. I am not above removing stuff myself if it is wrong. But I respect and value all the effort which goes in, even for the uncited stuff and I would not countenance removing anything because it was uncited. Given that people are evidently keen to remove stuff flagged as 'citation needed', I now have severe misgivings about flagging anything as 'citation needed'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.32.68.244 (talk) 23:34, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Unfortuately, not all of us consumer-readers are as smart or capable as you are. I'm definitely not... so when I am reading an article on a topic I know little or nothing about, I appreciate having the information supported by citations to reliable sources... That way, I know I can trust the information in the article... and can follow up by reading the cited sources, and thus learn more. Blueboar (talk) 02:20, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate citations in the same way as you. And the 'citation needed' flag is valuable in discerning the quality of the information. But from where I sit as a reader-consumer, I think that 'verifiability' is getting confused with 'verified'. I see good verifiable material - for which citations could be found - being removed by people on the grounds that it is not actually at that point verified. And when those people confess to not being experts, I do not see heroes who are improving wikipedia. I see personal crusaders striving for an editor's perfection but doing damage. I could use their techniques with malice to destroy a lot of work in areas I know nothing about, simply by flagging material as citation needed and coming back 6 months later to remove it because no one had provided a citation - not that I would ever do such a thing. As far as I am concerned, editors who do not know enough about the subject domain - eg Synchronous Motors - have nothing to contribute if their contribution is to delete material flagged 'citation needed' without any sense of whether the material is valid. If 'policy' is on their side, then 'policy' is wrong. Now I can see a place for such policy in soft subjects such as history or biography where all the 'facts' are really matters of interpretation which need sources, because ultimately, there is precious little validity - at base it is all verified from sources and you can be certain that things are verified even if they are not valid. But for hard subjects such as synchronous motors, I see no need to delete valid material as long as it is clear what the verification status is.78.32.68.244 (talk) 22:53, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

But the concern here isn't that the material has not been verified. The concern, which seems reasonable after no citations have been provided despite a months-long request, is that the information can not be verified. I made an effort to verify it and could not, and you've already indicated that you're not going to look for references yourself. If the only editors expressing any interest in the material cannot or will not provide sources, then in my opinion there's ample reason to doubt that references in fact exist for the material. You claim the information is "valid", but how do you know that? If you know it because you read it somewhere, then the best thing you could do is provide your sources. If you will not provide sources, then it is inappropriate for you to fault others for wanting something more substantive than your word. You are not a reliable source. DonIago (talk) 13:44, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Excuse me! I never claimed to be a reliable source, and I am not claiming the material to be valid . My gripe is that you are just going round on a mindless crusade deleting material because no one has got around to citing it. Fair enough, if you have grounds to believe it is dross, then state an argument and delete. But the fact that it is uncited does not mean that it is dross. Your argument that because no one will cite, the material cannot be verified is false. And even if it is Misplaced Pages policy schmolicy, it is not even a figleaf of justification for a mindless crusade.

On topics like Synchronous motors, or indeed a lot of engineering, most people live on past undergrad lectures and could probably prove many of the contentions you are deleting because their working knowledge is from first principles. Because it can be proved from first principles, there are no divergent sources and as a consequence most people conversant with such topics do not have - or need - a grasp of the sources in anything like the way in which historians for example would have such a grasp. But Misplaced Pages is not tolerant of this approach, although proof from first principles is actually more rigorous for validity than verifiability by citation.

DonIago I can appreciate your position as applied to softer subjects. I am beginning to accept that in the world of Misplaced Pages, your take on matters would prevail. But ultimately, I am quite concerned that when your view does prevail, it will devalue Misplaced Pages for Engineering in particular because it does not take account of the fact that the knowledge base is not vested in sources, it is vested in an understanding from first principles. None of the academic practitioners I have encountered has ever shown that they give a damn about sources, all they care about is the ability to prove from first principles. So you will find that practitioners would be quick to remove material which is wrong and provide an argument based in validity, but you might need to wait an inordinate time to get a citation.

Ultimately, if Misplaced Pages and its editors cannot be sensitive to differences in the nature of the knowledge base between different domains, then Misplaced Pages may not be the right repository for certain subject domains.78.32.68.244 (talk) 22:30, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate your concerns, but Misplaced Pages articles, regardless of domain, are generally governed by the principle that information should be verifiable, and in instances where that verifiability has been challenged, sources should be provided as a means of proving that the information is verifiable. I don't feel it's appropriate that a technical article should contain information that has been challenged and for which nobody can and/or has been able to provide references, and Misplaced Pages policy supports my right to remove it. I've asked editors to present alternatives to outright removal, and for all that you've spoken both here and at the article's Talk page, you have failed to provide any, and in fact have refused to do any work to provide citations yourself. If the best option you're willing to provide me with is "leave the unsourced information in the article forever", I don't consider that acceptable, and I'm not going to change my editing approach based on the policy-unsupported opinion of one editor, especially when it seems clear from this discussion that your view is not consistent with consensus. If you won't provide other options and won't do any work to improve the article beyond saying it should be left as is, then I fear there's little else to say on the matter, though you may want to consider dispute resolution if you really do feel strongly that the unsourced information should be retained. DonIago (talk) 02:53, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Now we are getting to the core of it. It is about your 'rights' under Misplaced Pages policies, which I am not going to dispute. In terms of Misplaced Pages editorial perfection, you are undoubtedly improving the article in your own sight and in the sight of others who share your outlook. But in terms of usefulness to reader - consumers your 'mindless crusade' is rendering the article less useful. Pragmatically, if material remains there for ever, but flagged as citation needed, then I find that beneficial. I would also find it beneficial if it were removed due to being wrong or there being good reason to doubt it . And I would rather see the material flagged and make up my own mind than have some zealot on a mindless crusade prevent me from seeing it.

Undoubtedly you have won the argument, but as far as I am concerned, you have won it by convincing me that the Misplaced Pages policy is deficient here and my heart and mind is completely untouched by your argument.78.32.68.244 (talk) 09:02, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

DonIago, did you try to find sources for any of that material?

I don't think that an 11-month delay in adding even more citations to an article is usually very urgent. We've got articles that are ten years old and still have zero. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:45, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually I did, as noted at the article's Talk page. If nobody else has been able to find sources in 11 months, and I wasn't able to, I think it's reasonable to doubt that sources are available.

I also made a point of asking other editors for options short of either leaving the material in the article as-is or removing it/moving it to the Talk page. Thus far I haven't received any. DonIago (talk) 00:55, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

It's good that Don has some actual basis for his doubt about sourcing, but there's absolutely no requirement that an editor look for or add sources before deleting unsourced material so long as he has any good faith doubt about the verifiability of the material (and good faith is to be presumed). That's especially true for material which has been tagged for more than a few days, much less months. The problem isn't with removal of recently-tagged unsourced material, it's with the retention of long-unsourced material, especially, but not only, long-tagged material. Yes, the best-practices response is to look for and add sources, but it has been established time and again on this talk page that it is acceptable to simply delete it, with perhaps (this has never been established very well, but I believe there's weak consensus for it) an exception for editors who make a routine practice of doing little more than just going around and deleting unsourced material. That's not Don. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:40, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Self-reference

I sometimes run across an editor who wants a citation for a detail about a published book, like year published or the like. Once I updated an author's bibliography, noticed that the formerly forthcoming book—fact referenced to the author's website—was in print, so I deleted the citation and someone put the citation back. In each case I point out that the book itself contains the information—that is, the "reference" is actually in-lined—and they accept that. Can the policy wording be modified to clearly accommodate this? Choor monster (talk) 19:00, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to amend

Kendrick7 and I bumped heads when I deleted unsourced content he had added to article. He reverted, saying that per WP:PRESERVE I should have copied it to the Talk page. In reply, I cited this policy (which is referenced in WP:WONTWORK - specifically, "Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed". I didn't say, that WP:PRESERVE says nothing about copying unsourced content to the Talk page. Anyway, to correct his perceived conflict between the two policies, Kendrick edited this policy as follows and left a nice note on my Talk page telling me he did so:

Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed, but should be preserved on the talk page. Please completely remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced immediately.

I reverted, asking for discussion for a change to policy; Kendrick unreverted (and left a not-so-nice note on my Talk page) and Flyer22 deleted it again. So here we are. Does anybody want this change? I don't. There is too much crappy unsourced content in WP as it is, and I already spend more time than I like maintaining articles that I watch than I do building new (well-sourced) content: the burden should not be on me to copy some lazy editor's content to the Talk page. Which, i will re-iterate, is not even described in WP:PRESERVE. Jytdog (talk) 04:13, 19 January 2015 (UTC) (self-trout -- copying to the Talk page is in WP:PRESERVE. oy. Jytdog (talk) 04:25, 19 January 2015 (UTC))

I don't want the proposed addition, which is why I reverted it, and I agree with you on the matter. I noted in the edit summary, "WP:PRESERVE lists different options; we don't have to preserve the content on the talk page." There was also this and this matter involving Kendrick at the WP:PRESERVE policy, and this other matter at the WP:PRESERVE talk page. Flyer22 (talk) 04:22, 19 January 2015 (UTC)