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This page has archives. Sections older than 1 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 2 sections are present.

A great idea that can't be missed!!!

Dear Mr Wales,

I was wondering if you would like to include WikiBates into part of the Wiki organisation. WikiBates is a debating part of the Wiki organisation, where once or twice a month you come up with a topic and allow to teams to battle it out to win that certain argument.

I believe this is a great idea and I have 2 people to back me up so far.

yours Sincerely, MYGAMEUPLAY (talk) 12:16, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

We already have that as part of Misplaced Pages and it happens a lot more then once or twice a month. Just check out WP:ANI or the talk page of any contentious article :) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:23, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the smile - even if what you say is probably sadly true. ;-) ROBERTMFROMLI | /_CN 20:29, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Don't you mean "accurate"? :) --Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:42, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

No, he means "verifiable". We don't deal in truth here on Misplaced Pages.--v/r - TP 18:13, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Happy Halloween!

Sp33dyphil has given you some caramel and a candy apple! Caramel and candy-coated apples are fun Halloween treats, and promote WikiLove on Halloween. Hopefully these have made your Halloween (and the proceeding days) much sweeter. Happy Halloween! If Trick-or-treaters come your way, add {{subst:Halloween apples}} to their talkpage with a spoooooky message!

Treat or I'll tear this site down! Mwahahaha! :D --Sp33dyphil © • © 05:45, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

"Verifiability and truth"

This may provide an interesting case study on why I think "verifiability, not truth" is a poisonous formulation. Here we had a fairly unimportant claim in an article that Justine Thornton attended Nottingham High School for Girls. The claim was not backed up by the source, but actually sources do exist to back it up. By normal standards, this would be considered legitimate to enter into Misplaced Pages.

But as it turns out, it isn't true. (She told me it isn't true.) There are no sources that I can find of her publicly denying it - it's a silly small error typical of tabloid newspapers, so I doubt if she ever made a big deal out of it.

If you accept the "verifiability, not truth" formulation, you are likely to think that unless we find a source debunking the claim, then merely knowing with some confidence that it is false is not good enough. I don't agree. I think that truth matters too much to be silly about it. Yes, verifiability is a good thing. It is not the only thing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

That's not what "V not T" means. When editors see that a given citation is wrong, it fails the threshold of WP:RS and that's the end of it. Verifiability means sources cited in article text can be checked by readers (and editors). It's not a licence to knowingly (bad faith) or otherwise (mistaken) dump wrong factoids into an article. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:22, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

It may not be what it is supposed to mean, but that's literally what it says. And we have plenty of evidence of people misunderstanding the phrase - people say things like "Misplaced Pages doesn't care about the truth" - they are wrong, and this phrase is wrong. It's just false to say that the standard for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is "verifiability, not truth".

Notice too, the circularity in what you are saying. If the source says something that we know to be false, then that source fails WP:RS. But that's just another way of saying that the truth trumps a source in some cases. We seek verifiability and truth.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:31, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Reliable sources trump unreliable sources. Published secondary sources, even those which are taken as mostly reliable, are awash in mistakes and en.WP content echoes this, as does any tertiary source, sometimes in ways akin to Mercury in fish. We do what we can. The pith comes down to verifiability, not someone's OR notion of truth. 14:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)Gwen Gale (talk)

While I agree with the general thrust of what you are saying, I think that's what makes this particular example interesting. Are you saying that we should reinsert the falsehood into Misplaced Pages? Or are you agreeing with me that a big part of "we do what we can" is editorial judgment about the actual facts of reality?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:47, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

You forget that the policy is here to help us when editing is not a no-brainer issue, like whether to rely on a tabloid's statement on a minor detail or not. In those cases if there is a consensus that the source is likely to be wrong it doesn't matter if they base that on OR or not. Policy is here exactly to help us take decisions when there is disagreement about what is true. In those cases it is imperative that all editors recognize that they can not simply make statements about what is true in their own experience but have to back those up with evidence. Editors arguing in favor of the change keep using banal situations like this but they ignore the effects that the change is going to have on the really controversial areas of wikipedia. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:51, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not ignoring anything of the sort, actually. I think this change will be helpful both in these kinds of situations (in which it is made glaringly obvious that the current wording is wrong) and in more controversial situations (which are the ones that tempt people to use a made up rule that's actually not true). In all situations, the phase 'verifiability, not truth' is not as good as proposed alternatives.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:14, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

What is that "made up rule that's not true" exactly? And can you be more explicit about how it will beneficial in those controversial situations, to be rid of the not truth criterion.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:21, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

It is not true to say that Misplaced Pages's standards are "verifiability, not truth" - no one is actually (as far as I know) defending the claim that it is. Read through the proposed formulation at the RfC - it's much clearer and will help new editors understand policy correctly from the start.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:27, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I have read the proposal, thank you. I guess you can't be more explicit about how you think this policy change will help me argue against those who would use their own Original Research to override statements by published experts.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Because it is clearer and states our actual policy more accurately, it will help new editors to become better editors more quickly. It is uncompromising. It does lack the false thrill of a zinger that shocks people though it isn't true - and I think that's a good thing. Provoking people with nonsense doesn't make them better editors, it makes them dig in their heels.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:43, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The purpose of WP:V is to define what may be included in an article, it is not to define what must remain in an article. If you find yourself in an argument with an editor wishing to delete statements by published experts because they disagree with them, then it is the WP:NPOV policy that is designed to deal with that, not WP:V. (Also note that "verifiability not truth" is often used to argue for the retention of poorly researched newspaper material; so if you want to strengthen the position of published experts, "verifiability, not truth" is not necessarily a help.) --JN466 17:05, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Just to play devil's advocate, how do we know that she was telling you the truth? Maybe she has some motive to have correct information removed from Misplaced Pages? How do we know that you are telling the truth? If someone else removed well-sourced information from an article while claiming "She told me it isn't true", should we allow that edit to stand? Peacock (talk) 14:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

We can and should exercise editorial judgment. We should take into account all the facts of reality at our disposal in a strong effort to present the truth always. Upon request I can go into a lot more detail about this point.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:31, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Can you explain how that statement does not create conflicts with WP:OR and WP:SYNTH?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:34, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Editorial judgment is precisely about thoughtfully balancing various factors. We are not transcription monkeys. In this example case, what I'm telling you is that I engaged in original research. I found out that the source is wrong. I trust, for good reasons, what I was told on this issue more than I trust the Daily Mail on this issue. Nothing can remove the need for thoughtful judgment, and a particularly bad way to try to do so is to have a phrase that suggests strongly to many people that having a source is more important than what is actually true.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like me that you are saying that personal, but unverifiable, knowledge of what is true trumps the policies about OR and Synth? I do not see how you can hope to build an encyclopedia that anyone can edit on that principle. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:43, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

"It sounds.... that you are saying" - I didn't say that, nor anything like it. Editorial judgment can properly take into account the full context, all the known facts, not just published sources. In general, yes, verifiability in reliable sources is absolutely critical. But elevating that to a religion which rejects truth is a huge mistake.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:49, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I said "it sounds" because you did not answer my question clearly about the relation between "truth" and the policies of OR and SYNTH. And you explicitly say that you believe that the information uncovered by your own original research should be accepted by other editors as a valid argument in the case you mention. I think that in the case you give I would probably accept that since it is a piece of trivial and irrelevant information. I deal however on a daily basis with editors who claim to know the truth about how the world works on the topics of Cults, Race and Intelligence, extremist politics, terrorism, climate change, genocide, and much more of that sort, and who claim that their view of "truth" trumps the published sources in the area. How am I going to explain to them that their views of "the truth" cannot dictate what to include or exclude in the articles, and that it cannot override the published opinions of trained professionals on those isues? ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:20, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I think I did answer your question clearly. Editorial judgment is a complex matter about which we have written many volumes over the years. What I recommend in the kind of cases you are talking about is that you send editors to the improved WP:V that is being proposed. This version, which removes the confusing and false formulation of "verifiability, not truth" and explains the real situation accurately and clearly, will be quite beneficial in helping new editors to become better editors. Saying something transparently absurd and obviously false to them is only likely to encourage them further in bad behavior. For example, by encouraging people to think that Misplaced Pages doesn't care about the truth, you encourage them to engage in further battleground behavior.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

If the mistake is so widely published that it's hard to overcome with published sources, as to BLPs like this, that's what WP:OTRS and WP:Office are for. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:41, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

No, this is not an OTRS or OFFICE issue at all! This is an example (they are all around us!) of a minor error in Misplaced Pages that we know is wrong, even though there are sources for it. We can and should use editorial judgment to decide what to do.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

It is indeed, if she cares about it enough to get in touch with OTRS or Office. Otherwise, any editor can in good faith go to an article talk page and put forth why they think the sourcing on something is wrong. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I still haven't seen a single example of an editor knowingly insisting on adding material to an article based on the fact that it's verifiable. Nor have I seen any evidence that it happens so often, it requires a change of this magnitude. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:28, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Recent contributions (10-27—28) to Alec Baldwin, maybe? It was a case of I-have-one-ref-that-says-what-I-want-so-all-the-rest-of-the-refs-must-be-wrong.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:32, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

SarekOfVulcan: I asked for an example where an editor knowingly insisted on including incorrect information. I took a look at that article and the talk page, and that doesn't appear to be the case. When sources disagree, off the top of my head, we have at least 3 ways to handle it:

1. Judge the quality of the sources and use the highest quality ones (as SandyGeorgia suggests in that talk).
2. Use our own editorial discretion and decide which source to use.
3. When sources disagree, document the disagreement.

I don't see how changing the policy would have helped in that discussion. If this is the type of problem that this change is trying to address, I suggest a better solution is that you discuss the issues in plain English. That "snorfle" comment was not helpful and seems to have confused the other editor. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:50, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Here's your example: not one where an editor "knowingly insisted on including", rather one where the editor "knowingly" did not remove information after it was pointed out it was most likely false and unsupported by more reliable sources-- it provides an example of including false info via attribution, because it's verifiable even if dubious:

• Article: Female genital manipulation
• Text: Momoh writes that around 10 percent of subjects die immediately from haemorrhage and hypovolemic shock. (Source: Momoh 2005, p. 7.)
• The over attribution in that article as a means of including dubious facts (a laysource opinion) was pointed out on the article's FAC (and it's talk page), also that this data is not supported by any peer-reviewed medical sources I can find (and there are numerous very good sources on this topic), it is attributed to a laysource (book, not a peer-reviewed medical journal secondary review) from someone who is an FGM advocate, Comfort Momoh, it is unsourced in the book written by her, and it is improbable (if 10% of women are dying from this, why isn't that reported in the numerous reliable peer-reviewed secondary sourced medical articles?). Attributing text to an advocate, when the duck test tells us the data is likely wrong, the data isn't found in reliable medical sources, and is likely there to promote outrage, is an example of the misuse of "verifiability, not truth" via attribution in an article mostly authored by SlimVirgin. FGM may be awful, but we can let the medical facts speak for themselves without resorting to sensationalist data promoted by advocates against the practice. If this data is true, why do none of the medical reliable sources I could access include it? And why is it still in the article after this was pointed out? I'd like to see a WP:MEDRS source that backs this laysource advocate's claim, and there are plenty of those to be found. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:41, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

It is not a change of any magnitude. It's the removal of a false statement that a majority of people have voted to remove, for the main reason that it is misleading and wrong.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:32, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

en.WP isn't a democracy that works by majority vote, it works mostly through consensus. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:36, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I'll just note the folly though of the recent view that changing policy pages requires massive degrees of support. This enshrines old bad practices and privileges the past over the future. What is really important is that people understand that voting is never formal in Misplaced Pages, and things can and should change without getting 80% support for every change. That radically conservative attitude conflicts with WP:BOLD and WP:IAR. Saying that we don't work by majority vote is valid - but so is saying that we don't work by supermajority vote. We work by assuming good faith, open dialogue and debate, and compromise. In a case where a small faction is not engaged in good faith debate and the majority of the community is against them, it's not right to ram something down the minority's throat - but it is also not right to allow them to prevail indefinitely against opposition. Something has to give.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:42, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I dare say it will (whatever you or I think the outcome should helpfully be). Gwen Gale (talk) 14:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit conflict: I wonder if a better word, or the word we are actually referring to is not truth but accuracy. Misplaced Pages's articles must be accurate per the topic/subject of the article. Truth might better be defined as subjective and refers to what each believes to be an ultimate. One of the problems on Misplaced Pages is that some editors believe that despite evidence that something is inaccurate, if a source which passes some of the RS threshold, for example, the publication test-reputable publisher- or reputable newspaper, then that information can be used on Misplaced Pages. Gwen your definition of RS seems more complete to me than what I've seen in multiple situations, but honestly I know its not adhered to on some articles. Seems we have three words to contend with. Verifiable, accuracy, and multiple meanings per individuals of what the word truth means and what "truth", the universal truth, is. On the Verifiability policy, when we use truth I think we are referring to what editors believe to be accurate although they may use the word truth. We use the word truth in common speech every day to mean accurate, but on Misplaced Pages we may ultimately have to clearly delineate the three words- truth, accuracy, and verifiable.(olive (talk) 14:55, 31 October 2011 (UTC))

--Ron Ritzman (talk) 15:59, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Accuracy is the right word we should be using here. Let me give you an example when I encountered a situation in which another editor insisted on retaining the false information that Ardoyne was located in West Belfast, just because a British Government report stated this. A quick peek, however at any ordinance map will plainly show that Ardoyne is located in North Belfast. To have retained such blatant geographical inaccuracy would have seriously undermined the credibility of Misplaced Pages.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

And what do we do when the map is wrong and the source is right? Or when it requires specialized knowledge to understand the map, that the authors of the source have but the editors using it as a basis for their arguments lack?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:23, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't really understand the question. The answer to "how do we deal with conflicting sources" is complex, but rejecting truth as a standard doesn't help at all. The best answer is that we hold a discussion in good faith, and make a thoughtful editorial judgment. What would be really wrong in this source/map example would be to say: "We are going to use the source, not the map, because Misplaced Pages doesn't care about truth but about sources." What would be really correct in this example would be to say "We have to carefully assess the evidence, including contradictory information and claims, and come to a thoughtful solution."--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:35, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Just as it happens, there are official local government areas of Belfast (as with many other UK cities). It also so happens that Ardoyne falls (though only just) into North Belfast under those divisions. But you can't tell that from an OS map. --FormerIP (talk) 15:31, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Another view of the current system:

WP:V requires only that an outsider be able to 'verify' that the source says what the editor using it says it says. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether a source is correct in any way, only that a person reading the source will find it says the same thing as what the editor using the reference claims.

The issue is thus not whether "truth" is involved at all (I seem to recall that Misplaced Pages is founded on the premise that absolute truths are rare), but whether the mere existence of a verifiable source is any longer sufficient for a claim in a Misplaced Pages article when the claim itself is disputed. Frequently one or more editors will aver that one view is clearly fringe, and thus the other view (his) must be given greater weight, and the "fringe" view should be elided or nearly elided entirely. One obvious solution would be to have a set of absolutely neutral editors who would vet any contested claims. A less obvious one would be for Misplaced Pages to decide once and for all that opinions, allegations, surmises, accusations and the like do not belong in any encyclopedia which seeks to present facts to its readers. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:32, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

That's a separate issue, I think, Collect. It's important, in the first instance, to distinguish opinion and fact. The issue of sources being "wrong plain and simple" only really arises in the latter case. --FormerIP (talk) 15:35, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

If the situation were to arise where a Belfast map did not suffice to convince a person that Ardoyne was in fact located in North Belfast, the sheer number of books and newspaper articles dealing with the Troubles would quickly remove any shadow of a doubt as to its true location, government report notwithstanding. Due to it being an interface area, Ardoyne saw more than its fair share of violence throughout the 30 years history of the Northern Ireland conflict. As a result, it attracted a considerable amount of media coverage.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:47, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

• I think that the underlying problem in the example here is a reliance on poor sources. I don't know how many more examples we need before we realize that using the Daily Mail as a source for biographical articles - or for anything, really - is a poor idea. The tabloid doesn't have what I would consider a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" - rather the opposite - and so discerning editors should reject on grounds of existing sourcing guidelines.

  "Verifiability, not truth" means that we're relying on the fact-checking of reliable sources, rather than doing our own fact-checking. That approach only works if editors are committed to using sources that actually perform decent fact-checking. Personally, I'd rather see the language disappear, because it's surplanted "ignore all rules" as the most frequently misunderstood and most harmfully misapplied policy snippet on the site. "Verifiability, not truth" has the appeal of a pithy soundbite, but also the dangers - it grossly oversimplifies a complex issue, and provides ammunition for careless editing. MastCell  16:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

  • While I don't disagree with you about the Daily Mail, in this case there is another source, namely this book, or so I am told. This book presumably got the false information from the Daily Mail.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) (to MastCell) In a perfect world, I'd agree. I'm going through "fact checking" issues on a few other articles right now. Alas, I must confess that "fact checking" is turning into "here's my facts, I found someplace that agrees, I'm removing what you found" and over a half dozen edit wars. Something of the nature you describe would require an editorial staff that was trusted to not be biased or use "facts" to push one POV at the exclusion of others. Sadly, we are neither in a perfect world, nor have such a staff. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | /_CN 17:09, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
  • One example where editors insisted on including incompetently researched and factually plain wrong – demonstrably wrong – material in Misplaced Pages, based on "verifiability, not truth", and in complete disregard for BLP policy, was the Sam Blacketer controversy. Editors knew it was wrong and still argued for its inclusion. It's exemplary of the pernicious effect a misunderstood slogan like "verifiability, not truth" can have. --JN466 17:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
    • A-ha! That's the exact issue I raised on the talkpage, but I couldn't remember what the details were. Thanks, JN.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:37, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

For those who aren't admins and can't review the talk page history, here's a choice quote: "Unless reliable sources publish that side of the argument, it's original research, no matter how correct it is (I agree the Register, Mail, and Independent have reported wrong, but one of Misplaced Pages's core principles is verifiability not truth)." A pretty much perfect example of what's wrong with the phrase.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:27, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

• True, but isn't that where weighing sources and ensuring balance, due weight, including all non-fringe POVs, and ensuring lack of bias come in to play? Like I said in an earlier conversation, most of the policies and guidelines here can't stand alone - they interoperate. Simply applying those items I noted above would have resolved the issue, regardless of the sources people wanted to use. "V not T" isn't so much the issue - it's not applying all of the other policies and guidelines when using it that becomes the issue. Best, Rob ROBERTMFROMLI | /_CN 17:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

• • • On the Daily Mail specifically, note Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_106#Time_to_axe_the_Daily_Mail. --JN466 17:22, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo: That example was from two years ago. It took me just a few seconds to find this one. "Verifiability, not truth" is one of our best tools in addressing the unwarranted promotion of fringe theories, and these types of discussions go on daily all across Misplaced Pages. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:42, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Another good example can be found at Talk:Abbey Road. Here we have a situation where there is a pretty strong consensus of the editors that the BBC got it wrong, but there is still hand wringing because the proof, which is pretty compelling, is published on someone's personal website rather than in a newspaper. Verifiability, not truth, is cited as a reason to keep an error in Misplaced Pages.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:59, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

No source is reliable if its information is incorrect or out of date. And no source should be excluded without consideration of what was reported, how significantly it was reported, and who by. Here it’s reasonable to consider the informal talk-page comment of Jimmy Wales more reliable than information reported in the Daily Mail. In another situation I corrected information about actor Rupert Hill after reading the Sunday Mercury article “Corrie star Rupert Hill corrects internet lies about Solihull upbringing” (and by ‘internet lies’ the article really meant ‘Misplaced Pages lies’). Sometimes newspapers are good sources, sometimes not. Without looking at all aspects of the information reported it’s impossible to judge. Bottom line - good editorial practice does not seek blanket exclusions for any kind of relevant information, from any kind of source (not even for fringe subjects). Encyclopedic information should aim to report verifiable information and the reliability of sources should be judged by relevancy as well as publisher reputation. When stupidity has clearly prevailed, revert to the last bastion of common sense: WP:Ignore all rules. -- Zac Δ 17:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The policy clearly uses the word threshold which is the critical context for" verifiability not truth" and should protect it from being misused, but consistently that word is ignored. I agree 100% the phrase has been misused and I've been at the misused end of that stick. The problem is not a few words its how editors use those words. Those same editors probably misuse other policies as well. The editors manipulating policy to their own agendas aren't innocent victims of misunderstanding a few words. Some of the editors standing off against each other on this issue are some of the most respected and possibly neutral editors on Misplaced Pages which convinces me the issue here is much larger than a few words, and as I said above one issue is language and how it is understood and interpreted.(olive (talk) 18:05, 31 October 2011 (UTC))

Likewise, if the source listed in a citation is wrong, it's not reliable for that citation. This doesn't clash with V not T. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:23, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the current lead sentence says, "The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." As written, that means you simply cannot argue that a source is wrong, according to Misplaced Pages policy, because Misplaced Pages simply doesn't care whether you think it's wrong or not. That's too restrictive, and the proposal is a good stab at fixing it. --JN466 01:10, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

@Jimbo: This changes the very first sentence of a Misplaced Pages pillar, the very first thing people see when they're asked to read WP:V in content disputes. You might think that this is not a change of any magnitude, but clearly other editors see it differently. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:24, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

An example of V,not T in action

Here's an example of an editor claiming personal knowledge: Talk:Ryan_McDonald#Requested_move. How could we know this was not someone playing a surreal joke? We couldn't. So we didn't agree to the move. Were we wrong not to allow the move? I don't think so. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 04:49, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you were wrong at all. I would have done the same -- you applied editorial judgment, in exactly the way that the proposal suggests. --JN466 05:00, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo's case is just the same, except that it's Jimbo. 99.99% of editors do not have his standing, or public reputation on the line if they make things up. We need VNT to deal with this.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 05:13, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I've advised the editor that he should get Ryan or his agent to e-mail OTRS. (The editor may well have been right by the way; note spelling on amazon). We don't need "verifiability, not truth" to handle such matters ("verifiability" is quite enough), nor do we need to give editors the message that we are not interested in having erroneous information on our pages corrected. At any rate what happened here is exactly what the proposed wording says should happen: a discussion on the talk page. A source should not be declared unreliable for a specific fact without good reason – and that usually involves more reputable sources giving a fuller account of the relevant facts. Cheers, --JN:466 05:58, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Wow - good find on Amazon. (Mind you, the other DVDs with him on Amazon spell it the usual way). Is OTRS the usual way to go for subjects with BLP accuracy issues that can't be cleared up by sources?

On the other point, my neutrality on the proposal (which keeps verifiability, not truth) is down to the phrasing which I do not like. I can see the argument for not having the very first sentence as "verifiability, not truth", and think moving into the first section is a nice idea. But the proposal does not do what it's supposed to do. We don't show we care about accuracy by de-emphasising the ban on unsourceable content; we show it by explaining how we achieve accuracy on an open wiki - through the interaction of RS, V and NOR (and so how V fits in). I also do not like the way that "verifiability, not truth" is not the title and sole focus of the first section. A lot of editors find recourse to "verifiability, not truth" helpful. That first section is fuzzy and unclear, and is worse than what we have now. (I suggested all this in the discussions, but it didn't gain traction.) VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 07:19, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Jimmy, you've got the scenario entirely wrong. I get that you wan't to fix an error... but you can't, at least, not without breaking other things much worse. Let's think through this a little bit, shall we?

1) Misplaced Pages can never be more accurate than the sources it uses. That's why we prefer WP:RS, which tend to be right more often than not. If they aren't... then Misplaced Pages falls where they fall, and stands where they stand. It's very likely to be no big deal if a wrong statement hasn't been corrected... but even if it WERE corrected, we wouldn't ever report only the correct fact: we'd report that source A said "1", while sources B, C, and D said "2", because we represent conflicting viewpoints in proportion to how RS'es cover them.

2) Anything that a person knows to be true but is unpublished is WP:OR, because we can't read minds. In a large collaborative environment--or even a small one--we rely on the fact that things exist elsewhere and can be looked up by anyone with the resources and inclination to do so. In your scenario, I'd have to ask the principal herself to obtain that knowledge, which is inappropriate. But that leads me to my third and final point:

3) Correcting BLP errors is straightforward. Since any person is always considered an expert on their own life, such a BLP mistake can be fixed by the subject simply putting a correction on their own website. It doesn't have to be as elaborate as this to count under WP:SELFPUB.

It's impossible to come up with a general rule other than "Because I said so" that allows for your personal knowledge to be a legitimate basis to correct an error. Misplaced Pages is not responsible for correcting errors beyond the scope of what our RS'es have themselves corrected; that way lies madness. Jclemens (talk) 06:18, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Obviously, I don't agree with you. That way lies wisdom, not madness.  :-) Madness comes when we insist that the rules of Misplaced Pages demand that Misplaced Pages report falsehoods. But let me be clear on whether or not I understand you - you think we should claim that Justine Thornton attended Nottingham School for Girls? Even though it's false?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:20, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo, you're unusual on Misplaced Pages as a named, public person with the clearest vested interest of all in not adding poor content to Misplaced Pages. What would you recommend should happen when an IP editor makes a similar, apparently baseless claim about an acquaintance's education history?VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 18:28, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

(EC) Hard cases make bad law. No, we shouldn't insist that Misplaced Pages report falsehoods, if we know something to be false we shouldn't write it, but only per Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules, because we can't codify it into a policy. You have to realize that you are pretty unique in our regard, you basically are OTRS - if you state you've spoken to Justine Thornton and she said X, we'll believe you. But imagine if someone else, say an anonymous editor who joined last week and has 10 edits were saying what you just did, that several widely published newspapers and a book all got it wrong, so we shouldn't write that in our articles. Should we be taking that person's word for it? What if they have 1000 edits? 100,000 edits? What if they're a Bureaucrat, a member of Arbcom, and a real life Professor of Theology? At what point does a Misplaced Pages editor's say so mean more than a reliable source? Should we be voting on whether it is true? Should we be doing it if it feels true or untrue to us? Surely not. That way lies not madness, but truthiness. --GRuban (talk) 18:36, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Per VK and GRuban, mostly, with nuances: No, we don't need to include a falsehood--that particular tidbit seems quite trivial, actually, and if it were disputed, it might be better not to include it at all rather than describing the conflict among sources as I posited originally. However, I believe we need reliable sources--in which I explicitly include BLP subjects' own pronouncements regarding their lives--in order to combat errors by other reliable sources. In this case, under our existing sourcing rules, you yourself could be considered an "expert" on that particular fact, on the basis of your standing and familiarity with the subject... But that solution doesn't scale well. How does a regular user go about correcting a falsehood published by at least one reliable source and neither retracted, corrected, or repudiated by that same source or any other reliable source? There is no justification at all for including the correct (unpublished) information, when the false information is all that has been published in an RS. Jclemens (talk) 19:07, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

@VsevolodKrolikov: No one in that short discussion makes any reference to "Verifiability, not truth" so I'm not sure how this example applies to this discussion. Nor am I sure how changing the policy would have made any difference. But even assuming that it does apply and changing the policy would have made a difference, that discussion seems to be about whether the letter "d" should be in upper case or lower case. I don't think we should risk turning Misplaced Pages upside down over whether a letter should be in upper or lower case. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 10:35, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

@Quest - I cited that case as a parallel one to Jimbo's at the top of this section. No one cited the policy like that, but it's clear that was the principle operating. I think you've misunderstood the point I was trying to make. I'm arguing that we shouldn't get rid of "verifiability, not truth". I think the outcome was fine - although if I'd known about OTRS, I would have suggested that to the editor. The current proposal is effectively a re-wording, not a substantive change, but it's not a rewording I can support.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 11:05, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Interesting that the word "threshold" isn't brought up once in this entire section. 'Cause that's the key, and that's what it says. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 15:36, 1 November 2011 (UTC) One can also say that in these examples Jimbo himself is a reliable source that the editors trust more than the sources. So, it is a matter of trust. And construed this way, this is something that happens quite frequently on Misplaced Pages. If some newspapers reports something about science, but they get it wrong, then usually the editors on that topic on Misplaced Pages are expert enough to see this and not include what the newspaer writes in the article. Of course, other policies can be invoked, such as WP:NOTNEWS, but what often really matters in such cases is the judgement by the editors that the news report is wrong. Also, if there is some discussion about this on the talk page, then less knowlegable editors will typically listen to what others have to say, even if that means overruling what reliable sources say. Of course, such explanations are ultimately based on knowledge that exists in the scientific literature, but that's often not readily accessible to the less knowledgable editors. So, it then again boils down to the fact that the editors trust each other. You can't always give direct citations to verify something, because being able to read and understand the literature can require several years of study. An attempt at verification on the talk page via citations to the literature would degenerate into a university level course and thus be the mother of all WP:Synths. Count Iblis (talk) 16:12, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Draft essay

I side with amending "v not t", but I think the issue here may be more about a lack of clarity as to the issue of excluding material that is wrong. I don't think things are actually unclear if you apply common sense, but it also seems clear that you can't assume people will always do that.

To that end, I've done a little essay. I don't mind if editors think this is not the right approach and its only a draft, which I will agree reads a little officiously and spoonfeedy (but maybe that's what's called for). --FormerIP (talk) 18:47, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I've left you a note on that essay's talk page. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | /_CN 19:14, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

No consensus

• Treating all "no consensus" situations equally is illogical, IMO. Factors like the number of participants, whether it is an addition or a removal proposal and other factors should be considered. Sometimes it is a choice between two or more alternatives; suppose a RFC that says "the article currently mention that x is red but some editors think x is blue" end up with 51% for the blue claim. It is silly to keep the red claim just because it was in the article before the RFC. At least, a no consensus in this situation should result a compromise or even the removal of both claims. Sole Soul (talk) 20:18, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
  

Well Mr. Wales, can't say I've enjoyed it, but at least it was free. Good luck with your encyclopedia... DS Belgium (talk) 22:09, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

OTRS policy or common practice there?

Every so often, WP:OTRS gets complaints that Misplaced Pages is "distorting" the truth on this or the other, and the appropriate reply is that we represent "verifiability, not truth". I feel that our claim that we verify facts, but don't claim to present any one "truth" is a core value and should remain in focus. It's an essential reminder both for editors and readers. Asav | Talk 00:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

As the OTRS stuff seems to all take place behind closed doors, could you please comment if the above is an accurate representation of how stuff works there? (The above was written by an OTRS member, it seems.) Thanks, ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 01:48, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

@OTRSer – And would it be any different if the response given out were, rather than "v not t", to say the Misplaced Pages policy is "objective verifiability, not subjective truth".  Most of the complaint seems to be the simple, plain reading, interpretation of "v not t", which would imply that truth was irrelevant; but really, the statement is more about the recognition that truth is often about interpretation and opinion, whereas verifiability is concrete and confirmable by anyone. — Who R you? Talk 16:27, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Keith Raniere and NXIVM

Look at the disconnect between what the citations say and what the article says. Look at the RS collection on TALK:Keith Raniere. If it weren't for negative press, he wouldn't have any. I cannot write the articles for whatever reason and want to resign completely from editing it, although I'd like to continue to maintain and improve the library of RS's on his discussion page. How do I recruit someone to do it right? I've tried everything. This is important! You want us to "get it right" with BLPs, and no one trusts me to do so, but if not me, who? Can't you ask someone to write it? With your pull, you could ask someone to author the articles properly and you might actually have success, unlike me. Chrisrus (talk) 07:03, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I recommend you ask at WP:BLPN - lots of good biographers hang out there and can surely help. I agree with others who say that you shouldn't edit the article - you've self-identified as a "hater" and people who hate people usually have a hard time writing a good biography of them.

I won't get involved in editing the article myself. While I don't have anything at all to do with Keith Raniere or NVXIUM, Sara Bronfman is a friend, and this is a difficult article due to the levels of bad press around it. Best if I not get involved.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:30, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Dutch WP pushed total to 20 million articles

I notice the Dutch Misplaced Pages had a massive upload of articles, from 768,520 on 20 October 2011 (to over 850,281 now), quickly adding over 80,000 articles (perhaps 7,400 new pages per day, while enwiki gained 930/day). That is why the total of 20 million all-language articles was reached early. As more clever people, in various areas, continue to improve automated processes, the coverage of Misplaced Pages is growing in astounding ways. This really gives hope to machine-translated basic articles (for some languages), based on clever translation software. We know it has been theoretically possible, for years, and computer experts are coming to WP to help in many ways. The Dutch nlwiki was one of the first to use town-population tables to quickly update thousands of articles, for current population counts, and now enwiki is beginning to use similar tables: all German and Austrian towns automatically shown current counts. Perhaps within a few years, almost all major town articles will automatically retrieve current-population counts, and enwiki will have relatively few town articles with out-dated populations. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:37, 1 November 2011 (UTC)