Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
On 13/05/2011, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote: The job of WP:V is to make sure that assertions in Wikipedia are verifiable; it's not to ensure that verifiable stuff cannot be deleted. Editorial judgment -- we have to be allowed to judge the reliability of sources, and the quality of their research. That is a major source of bias though, particularly in relatively stubby articles. People regularly roll up to an article and declare that some part of it is somehow not neutral and they delete it out of hand, references and all. They often do this when the article is a fraction of the size it ought to be, and if the article was allowed to grow, that material would not have been removed, because it would have been proportional. There doesn't seem to be any protection against this in the policies at all. I think that needs to be fixed, or at least, addressed. A. -- -Ian Woollard ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
On 5/13/11 7:57 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: The job of WP:V is to make sure that assertions in Wikipedia are verifiable; it's not to ensure that verifiable stuff cannot be deleted. Hmm, I suppose I disagree, but then I'm a fairly strong inclusionist; if it's verifiable, it belongs in Wikipedia, cited to the source that verifies it. But I don't think that's incompatible with adopting a stronger line on WP:RS. The main problem here imo is that a certain class of sources (newspapers writing about celebrity rumors) does *not* actually reliably verify anything, therefore we shouldn't treat them as a reliable source that does. Are there any cases where editors should have discretion to delete *actually* solidly verifiable information, like some piece of physics information sourced to multiple well-respected physics review articles? -Mark ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
-Original Message- From: wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andreas Kolbe Sent: 13 May 2011 06:58 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale) Scott's argument is that many press reports publish shite, and that as a result we have lots of shite in our BLPs. My argument is that much of that shite is defended by editors saying, A reliable source wrote about it, and you wanting to delete it violates WP:V, because you see, policy says it does not matter whether editors believe it is true or not. If we can't use sources to judge truth, and we can't use expert knowledge without sources, what third option remains? Editorial judgment -- we have to be allowed to judge the reliability of sources, and the quality of their research. Otherwise we're just indiscriminate parrots, regurgitating a random mix of knowledge and crap. A. Bingo. The problem is that Wikipedians like to make the complex world simple, in order to create nice rules and pretend that what we do is objective and editorial judgement and POV can be excluded. This is a myth and a dangerous one. We end up with people saying well, is the NYT a reliable source or not? Is the News of the World?. And then the argument goes if you exclude them, you can't report Michael Jackson's death until a book gets written (see earlier post) Bollocks. You just need to use a little common sense. If the NOTW or the Sun runs a headline saying Michael Jackson is dead - it is highly unlikely to be wrong. And even if it is wrong, the error will soon be news itself, and the Wikipedia article gets corrected. This is verification enough. However, if the NYT celebrity watch page on p37 mentions in passing that David Hasselhoff is known to have dated a host of celebrities including a, b, c, d, and e. And on that basis someone adds to the biography of (fairly minor) actress d that she once dated Hasselhoff, there is fair chance the story is wrong, or that known to amounts to some internet rumour - or tabloid crap story - or they were seen together once, there is also a fair chance that even if bogus it will never be corrected, or no one will notice the correction. All fine, as page 37 of the NYT is soon lining a drawer - except now it is immortalised in Wikipedia, always verifiable, never disputable. And that she dated Hasselhoff is certainly a notable part of d's otherwise uneventful career. Newspapers print celebrity hearsay - they do it regularly and on a sustained basis, and where the hearsay is trivial it will rarely be corrected and seldom be fact checked - and the same bit of crap will often be repeated in various papers. We need editors to be wise to this. Another (current example) some adult film company has recently offered Kate Middleton's sister $5milion to do porn. It is, naturally, a publicity stunt. Someone wanted to include it as a verifiable fact on her BLP. Easily excluded as trivia. However, now the Chicago Sun-Times and other sources is reporting that according to a friend she is livid and seeking advice on her future career from Buckingham Palace. Now, this is clearly hearsay - and quite probably crap - but I've got people actually arguing that we now meet [[WP:V]], because Chicago's second biggest paper is generally regarded as a Reliable Source. Maybe, but since when did it become an authoritative source on British socialites? The is this a reliable source? yes/no binary is simply an abrogation of common sense. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
--- On Fri, 13/5/11, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: From: Mark delir...@hackish.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale) To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Friday, 13 May, 2011, 8:28 On 5/13/11 7:57 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: The job of WP:V is to make sure that assertions in Wikipedia are verifiable; it's not to ensure that verifiable stuff cannot be deleted. Hmm, I suppose I disagree, but then I'm a fairly strong inclusionist; if it's verifiable, it belongs in Wikipedia, cited to the source that verifies it. But I don't think that's incompatible with adopting a stronger line on WP:RS. The main problem here imo is that a certain class of sources (newspapers writing about celebrity rumors) does *not* actually reliably verify anything, therefore we shouldn't treat them as a reliable source that does. Are there any cases where editors should have discretion to delete *actually* solidly verifiable information, like some piece of physics information sourced to multiple well-respected physics review articles? I've certainly seen credible arguments made that specific articles would benefit from trimming. Again, this is partly a reflection of where Wikipedia is today, as opposed to 5 or 7 years ago. Where there was an almost blank canvas then, Wikipedia today has many articles that have attracted flotsam and jetsam, while still missing the essential stuff that an encyclopedia should have. It made sense then to safeguard every bit of sourced information, but not necessarily today, when you already have a 12,000-word article on a minor topic. Examples: There is a thread on Jimbo's talk page right now, about [[Jacques Derrida]]: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Walesoldid=428878178#Derrida_and_Wikipedia_.28reprinted_from_the_Jacques_Derrida_talk_page.29 One of the problems seems to be undue weight on trivia, while the essential stuff is missing. Here is what a scholar wrote to me some while ago about the Jehovah's Witnesses article: ---o0o--- To take an example of a topic with which I'm familiar - Jehovah's Witnesses - I would really need to start all over again, and I don't know whether it's OK to delete an entire article and rewrite another one, even if I had the time. It's a bit like the joke about the motorist who asked for directions, only to be told, 'If I were you, I wouldn't be starting from here!' The JW article begins with an assortment of unrelated bits of information, it fails to locate the Witnesses within their historical religious origins, it says it was updated in December 2010 yet ignores important recent academic material. The citations may look impressive, but they are patchy, and sometimes the sources state the exact opposite of what the text conveys. So what does one do? ---o0o--- If you include everything that is verifiable, you may end up with 100,000 words, and a poorly structured article that nobody will ever read. Coatrack articles are another example where removing sourced information may be necessary. They're also the type of article where undue content is typically defended using a WP:V or WP:RS argument. I've seen BLPs of notable people that discussed at length whether the person was gay/Jewish or not, and no one had much interest in writing about what made the person notable in the first place. A. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
--- On Fri, 13/5/11, Scott MacDonald doc.wikipe...@ntlworld.com wrote: The problem is that Wikipedians like to make the complex world simple, in order to create nice rules and pretend that what we do is objective and editorial judgement and POV can be excluded. This is a myth and a dangerous one. We end up with people saying well, is the NYT a reliable source or not? That reminds me of the celebrated occasion when editors insisted that Gloria Gaynor was a former Scientologist, based solely on the fact that the Guardian had once published a piece called Listed Scientologists. The piece was on page G2, Diversions, next to the crossword puzzle and the TV programme. The piece was just a list of names, and it had an uncanny resemblance to Wikipedia's List of Scientologists at the time of publication (which also included Gaynor as a former member, based on a poor and misrepresented web source). Nevertheless, editors insisted that this was good sourcing, even though sources discussing her life in depth said nothing about that - except that she had at one time in her life looked at about a dozen different religions, including Scientology, to see if any would suit her. Jimbo said*, Do we imagine that the reporter interviewed a few dozen people to establish facts? No, the list obviously came from a quick look at something... could be Wikipedia, could be earlier news reports. If it's valid, then there should be some actual source to prove it (and so far no one has come up with one). That's exactly the kind of discrimination and judgment that needs to be applied. But editors were unwilling to give up on their scoop, and barricaded themselves behind The Guardian is a reliable source, verifiability, not truth, and not whether editors think it is true. What's worse is that any editor who loses an argument based on it's verifiable in a reliable source and not whether you think it's true learns that this is how you win arguments in Wikipedia, and will use the same method themselves next time round, creating new converts in those they defeat. A. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive89#List_of_Scientologists_--_Gloria_Gaynor ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
On 5/13/11 11:40 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: That reminds me of the celebrated occasion when editors insisted that Gloria Gaynor was a former Scientologist, based solely on the fact that the Guardian had once published a piece called Listed Scientologists. The piece was on page G2, Diversions, next to the crossword puzzle and the TV programme. The piece was just a list of names, and it had an uncanny resemblance to Wikipedia's List of Scientologists at the time of publication (which also included Gaynor as a former member, based on a poor and misrepresented web source). [...] That's exactly the kind of discrimination and judgment that needs to be applied. But editors were unwilling to give up on their scoop, and barricaded themselves behind The Guardian is a reliable source, verifiability, not truth, and not whether editors think it is true. Isn't this just a failure to actually think through what verifying information with a reliable source means, rather than a problem with the principle? It's quite possible for the Guardian to be a good newspaper in general, but for a random list in the Diversions section, with no apparent investigative reporting involved, to *not* constitute reliable verification of that point. I guess I see that kind of critical source analysis as completely in line with the idea of verifiable information cited to reliable sources, though. At least as I read it, the WP:V/WP:RS combination asks: is this given citation sufficient to verify the fact it claims to verify? So I wholeheartedly agree that bright-line rules like everything in The Guardian is reliable are wrong, but I don't think that ought to require abandoning the WP:V/WP:RS view, at least as I've understood it. Isn't there even some text on WP:RS (there used to be, anyway) about how reliable sources may be context-specific, e.g. a newspaper may be a reliable source for some claims but not for others? -Mark ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
Case in point. The Daily Telegraph would generally be regarded as one of the UK better newspapers in terms of accuracy. [[James William Middleton]] is one of those terrible articles written by as pastiche of passing media stories. To that article was added the seemingly interesting fact that he memorised the Scripture lesson for his sister Kate Middleton's wedding, because he couldn't read it due to dyslexia. Despite being somewhat unflattering, it seems OK, because it is sourced from the Telegraph. However, if you look at the source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/8505562/uKate-Middleto ns-brother-triumphs-over-his-dyslexia.html What it says is Belatedly, one learns the reason: James, is dyslexic. He knew that if, on the day, he looked down at the words on the page, they would be of scant help, I am told. ***I am told***! I am told- that means the paper is repeating hearsay, it isn't technically saying this is true only someone has said. Who? We don't know? Could be someone who really knows - or not. If you look at my essay [[WP:OTTO]] it demonstrates explicitly that the Telegraph (at least on that occasion) was quite happy to parrot a story from the Daily Mail -dependent on an anonymous source - that the Telegraph itself probably didn't even know. Now, the story about James is quite possibly true (who knows)- and is certainly sourced. However, if we were actually serious about verifiability we would have to say this is insufficient for verification. The problem isn't so much that we take verification over truth, but that we take the fact that something is mentioned in a source as being adequate verification, without examining carefully what the source is actually claiming, or the reliability of its information. And actually, if you were to apply a proper level of verification scepticism to all the information on articles such as [[James William Middleton]], you'd have very little of the article left. That may well be a good thing. Scott ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
--- On Fri, 13/5/11, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: From: Delirium delir...@hackish.org Isn't this just a failure to actually think through what verifying information with a reliable source means, rather than a problem with the principle? It's quite possible for the Guardian to be a good newspaper in general, but for a random list in the Diversions section, with no apparent investigative reporting involved, to *not* constitute reliable verification of that point. I actually think it's malice, rather than a failure to think through what verification means. And it's malice in most cases where editors insist that some tabloid claim should stay in a biography, based on verifiability, not truth. They don't like the subject, and enjoy taking pot shots at them. I guess I see that kind of critical source analysis as completely in line with the idea of verifiable information cited to reliable sources, though. At least as I read it, the WP:V/WP:RS combination asks: is this given citation sufficient to verify the fact it claims to verify? So I wholeheartedly agree that bright-line rules like everything in The Guardian is reliable are wrong, but I don't think that ought to require abandoning the WP:V/WP:RS view, at least as I've understood it. Isn't there even some text on WP:RS (there used to be, anyway) about how reliable sources may be context-specific, e.g. a newspaper may be a reliable source for some claims but not for others? Yes, those sections are still there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NEWSORG I don't see editors quoting them much. A. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
On 13 May 2011 19:08, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote: --- On Fri, 13/5/11, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: From: Delirium delir...@hackish.org Isn't this just a failure to actually think through what verifying information with a reliable source means, rather than a problem with the principle? It's quite possible for the Guardian to be a good newspaper in general, but for a random list in the Diversions section, with no apparent investigative reporting involved, to *not* constitute reliable verification of that point. I actually think it's malice, rather than a failure to think through what verification means. And it's malice in most cases where editors insist that some tabloid claim should stay in a biography, based on verifiability, not truth. They don't like the subject, and enjoy taking pot shots at them. Not consistent with actual use http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearchtarget=*.dailymail.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearchtarget=*.thesun.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearchtarget=*.newsoftheworld.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearchtarget=*.dailystar.co.uk -- geni ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
--- On Fri, 13/5/11, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: From: geni geni...@gmail.com I actually think it's malice, rather than a failure to think through what verification means. And it's malice in most cases where editors insist that some tabloid claim should stay in a biography, based on verifiability, not truth. They don't like the subject, and enjoy taking pot shots at them. Not consistent with actual use You don't seem to have followed the discussion. We are not talking about the whole universe of tabloid references in Wikipedia. They do report news as well, and are sometimes cited for that. We are talking about poorly sourced gossip in BLPs that's in some way embarrassing to the subject. Like someone having -- allegedly -- cheated on his wife, allegedly not being able to read properly, allegedly having been a Scientologist, etc. If you believe that people's sympathies or antipathies vis-a-vis the subject and their activities do not play any role in their decision to add such content, you have led a sheltered life in Wikipedia. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
Meh, if I start a thread saying black, Geni will say white. Some things in Wikipedia need to be consistent. Scott -Original Message- From: wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andreas Kolbe Sent: 13 May 2011 21:28 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale) --- On Fri, 13/5/11, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: From: geni geni...@gmail.com I actually think it's malice, rather than a failure to think through what verification means. And it's malice in most cases where editors insist that some tabloid claim should stay in a biography, based on verifiability, not truth. They don't like the subject, and enjoy taking pot shots at them. Not consistent with actual use You don't seem to have followed the discussion. We are not talking about the whole universe of tabloid references in Wikipedia. They do report news as well, and are sometimes cited for that. We are talking about poorly sourced gossip in BLPs that's in some way embarrassing to the subject. Like someone having -- allegedly -- cheated on his wife, allegedly not being able to read properly, allegedly having been a Scientologist, etc. If you believe that people's sympathies or antipathies vis-a-vis the subject and their activities do not play any role in their decision to add such content, you have led a sheltered life in Wikipedia. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
On 5/11/11 2:40 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: A while ago there was a discussion at WP:V talk whether we should recast the policy's opening sentence: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth— whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. (As usual, the discussion came to nought.) That sentence -- whose provocative formulation has served Wikipedia well in keeping out original research -- is a big part of the problem. I think that sentence serves a good purpose in the *opposite* direction, though. An opposite common source of Wikipedia-angst is people who have good first-hand knowledge that something is both true and notable, but sadly, lack any good sources to back that up. So it's worth emphasizing up front that our criterion is verifiability as a descriptive matter, not truth and notability in some sense of absolute truth. So, some legitimately interesting and important stuff may be excluded, at least for now, because it hasn't been properly covered in any source we can cite. We just aren't the right place to do original research on a person, music group, or historical event that the existing literature has somehow missed, *even if* it's a grave oversight on the part of the existing literature. I wrote a bit more about this elsewhere: http://www.kmjn.org/notes/wikipedia_notability_verifiability.html But it does get more problematic in the opposite direction, as you say. I see the motivation there too: there is a sense in which, if something is being discussed a lot, it becomes something we have to cover just by virtue of that fact. Meta-notability is also notability, so it would be absurd imo to claim that [[Natalee Holloway]] shouldn't be covered. Regardless of your opinion on the merits of her media coverage, she received such a large amount of it that her disappearance is an important event in early-21st-century popular culture. Heck, if we wanted *absolute* and philosophical rather than descriptive notability standards, I would delete almost every article on a 21st-century noble family as irrelevant nostalgic garbage (should anybody care who's the pretender to the French throne?). As one of the replies to your post notes (sorry, I seem to have misplaced who it was by), one of the problems is more pragmatic. Perhaps we *should* cover some such figures, but only in a limited sense. But once we have an article, there's a slippery slope where everything tangentially related now can flood in. Perhaps that's what we should tackle, though. Is it possible to improve our methods of keeping marginal junk out of an article, while stopping short of entirely deleting and salting the article? -Mark ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
Mark, I agree that verifiability, not truth has done a good job in keeping out original research of the kind you describe. I just think that the situation with regard to OR is no longer what it was five years ago -- there has long been a critical mass of editors who know that Wikipedia is not the right place to add interesting bits of personal, but unpublished, knowledge. When I started editing Wikipedia, I had to think long and hard about that sentence, verifiability not truth, and I appreciated the insight. I just think its time has come and gone, and that it does more harm than good now. A. --- On Thu, 12/5/11, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: From: Mark delir...@hackish.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale) To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Thursday, 12 May, 2011, 22:15 On 5/11/11 2:40 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: A while ago there was a discussion at WP:V talk whether we should recast the policy's opening sentence: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth— whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. (As usual, the discussion came to nought.) That sentence -- whose provocative formulation has served Wikipedia well in keeping out original research -- is a big part of the problem. I think that sentence serves a good purpose in the *opposite* direction, though. An opposite common source of Wikipedia-angst is people who have good first-hand knowledge that something is both true and notable, but sadly, lack any good sources to back that up. So it's worth emphasizing up front that our criterion is verifiability as a descriptive matter, not truth and notability in some sense of absolute truth. So, some legitimately interesting and important stuff may be excluded, at least for now, because it hasn't been properly covered in any source we can cite. We just aren't the right place to do original research on a person, music group, or historical event that the existing literature has somehow missed, *even if* it's a grave oversight on the part of the existing literature. I wrote a bit more about this elsewhere: http://www.kmjn.org/notes/wikipedia_notability_verifiability.html But it does get more problematic in the opposite direction, as you say. I see the motivation there too: there is a sense in which, if something is being discussed a lot, it becomes something we have to cover just by virtue of that fact. Meta-notability is also notability, so it would be absurd imo to claim that [[Natalee Holloway]] shouldn't be covered. Regardless of your opinion on the merits of her media coverage, she received such a large amount of it that her disappearance is an important event in early-21st-century popular culture. Heck, if we wanted *absolute* and philosophical rather than descriptive notability standards, I would delete almost every article on a 21st-century noble family as irrelevant nostalgic garbage (should anybody care who's the pretender to the French throne?). As one of the replies to your post notes (sorry, I seem to have misplaced who it was by), one of the problems is more pragmatic. Perhaps we *should* cover some such figures, but only in a limited sense. But once we have an article, there's a slippery slope where everything tangentially related now can flood in. Perhaps that's what we should tackle, though. Is it possible to improve our methods of keeping marginal junk out of an article, while stopping short of entirely deleting and salting the article? -Mark ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
On 12/05/2011, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote: Mark, I agree that verifiability, not truth has done a good job in keeping out original research of the kind you describe. I just think that the situation with regard to OR is no longer what it was five years ago -- there has long been a critical mass of editors who know that Wikipedia is not the right place to add interesting bits of personal, but unpublished, knowledge. When I started editing Wikipedia, I had to think long and hard about that sentence, verifiability not truth, and I appreciated the insight. I just think its time has come and gone, and that it does more harm than good now. You see I would argue precisely the opposite; I think we *should* have an Otto Middleton article where we explain that there was once a belief that this dog existed, but it has since been disproven, and link to the various sources. That way if somebody believed in the dog, and searches for it later, the Wikipedia article would pop up and set the record straight; even if the various newspapers had deleted it from their sites out of embarassment or whatever. And I think this is part and parcel of verifiability, not truth thing. It's a *good* idea to include things that are actually *wrong* like Otto Middleton as it gives us a place to point this out. A. -- -Ian Woollard ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
-Original Message- From: wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ian Woollard Sent: 12 May 2011 23:56 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale) You see I would argue precisely the opposite; I think we *should* have an Otto Middleton article where we explain that there was once a belief that this dog existed, but it has since been disproven, and link to the various sources. That way if somebody believed in the dog, and searches for it later, the Wikipedia article would pop up and set the record straight; even if the various newspapers had deleted it from their sites out of embarassment or whatever. And I think this is part and parcel of verifiability, not truth thing. It's a *good* idea to include things that are actually *wrong* like Otto Middleton as it gives us a place to point this out.-Ian Woollard Ian, you've slightly missed the point of the essay. Of course an article could be written on Otto Middleton (the hoax). Because the story of the hoax is true and verifiable from multiple reliable sources. Indeed, I argued to keep it as such. The point is that the story of Otto the true earring-eating Dog of Kate Middleton was also verifiable from multiple reliable sources, despite being a crock of shit. (Indeed you can find articles published as late as last week referring to Kate's dog Otto - despite the hoax being identified a year ago). The points are: *stories verified from multiple newspaper sources are not always true *More importantly, the existence of quality newspapers reporting a story means little. Quality newspaper are often simply repeating tabloid claims under it is reported weasel. *The fact that an article has apparently many sources, does not preclude it being untrue in substance. *Many sources != independently reported in many sources We tend to associate reliable source with the quality of the publication. So the NYT has it, it must be reliable. We need also to look at the genre of the story within the publication itself: *an interview with the subject, even in a tabloid, is likely to be reliable and even journalistic commentary associated with such is liable to be reliable, if story have the subject's cooperation. *statements by an expert commentator, with a reputation, in a newspaper are most likely to be reliable *gossip columns and celebrity stories on page 27 are not. Even if they are in quality papers - they are likely to be written by people filling column inches with little time for fact checking. Quality papers are so often going to be using material they've found elsewhere - tabloids, internet, or even Wikipedia. Watch out for it is being said according to some reports I have been told - or really anything written by a general journalist who is not citing a source. Scott ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
Yup. But my point is celebrity stories in newspapers, if they use unnamed or unattributable sources, are not reliable and should never amount to verification. We might as well source things from random internet blogs and claim: but this is verification (it may be true or not, but we don't care about truth). Verification not truth must not be a suicide pact and certainly not an excuse for sloppy publishing of gossip on BLPS. Scott -Original Message- From: wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ian Woollard Sent: 13 May 2011 01:30 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale) On 13/05/2011, Scott MacDonald doc.wikipe...@ntlworld.com wrote: The point is that the story of Otto the true earring-eating Dog of Kate Middleton was also verifiable from multiple reliable sources, despite being a crock of shit. (Indeed you can find articles published as late as last week referring to Kate's dog Otto - despite the hoax being identified a year ago). We're never going to avoid untrue things being in the Wikipedia. Sometimes, the sources make mistakes. (And yes, it's much more likely to be a mistake with The Daily Mail). But I don't in any way agree that that impacts on verifiability over truth. We have no way to know the real truth about anything for certain, but verifiability of sources is at least possible. That's one part of the Wikipedia that has to remain as bedrock. We have to build the Wikipedia on rock. Scott -- -Ian Woollard ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 8:38 PM, Scott MacDonald doc.wikipe...@ntlworld.com wrote: But my point is celebrity stories in newspapers, if they use unnamed or unattributable sources, are not reliable and should never amount to verification. Unfortunately, the current language of WP:V not only declares that professional newspapers are unilaterally reliable, they are even decreed to be secondary sources, which removes some slight limitations on how the material in newspaper stories could be used. It seems that some editors of WP:V actually believe this is the appropriate way to handle newspaper stories; in any case it is unlikely to change. We might as well source things from random internet blogs and claim: but this is verification (it may be true or not, but we don't care about truth). This is essentially what we already do. Moreover, many editors like the fact that we cover stories quickly using primary sources (e.g. the death of Michael Jackson) rather than waiting (for years?) for a definitive account to be published in secondary sources. Verification not truth must not be a suicide pact and certainly not an excuse for sloppy publishing of gossip on BLPS. The idea that someone cannot challenge a source fact simply because they doubt its truth is very useful, though. It reduces many arguments where editors know they are right, when they are really wrong. If we can't use sources to judge truth, and we can't use expert knowledge without sources, what third option remains? - Carl ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
--- On Fri, 13/5/11, Carl (CBM) cbm.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote: Verification not truth must not be a suicide pact and certainly not an excuse for sloppy publishing of gossip on BLPS. The idea that someone cannot challenge a source fact simply because they doubt its truth is very useful, though. It reduces many arguments where editors know they are right, when they are really wrong. Yes, it's useful, and I suspect that is why there is such resistance to changing even the not whether editors think it is true at WT:V right now, let alone verifiability, not truth. But as useful as it may be in shutting novice editors up: this is not the job of WP:V policy; it's the job of WP:NPOV and W:OR. If all mainstream science says that water boils at 100°, and one editor says he knows it's 98° because he measured it in his kettle, WP:OR and WP:NPOV is the proper way to address that. Not WP:V. The job of WP:V is to make sure that assertions in Wikipedia are verifiable; it's not to ensure that verifiable stuff cannot be deleted. Scott's argument is that many press reports publish shite, and that as a result we have lots of shite in our BLPs. My argument is that much of that shite is defended by editors saying, A reliable source wrote about it, and you wanting to delete it violates WP:V, because you see, policy says it does not matter whether editors believe it is true or not. If we can't use sources to judge truth, and we can't use expert knowledge without sources, what third option remains? Editorial judgment -- we have to be allowed to judge the reliability of sources, and the quality of their research. Otherwise we're just indiscriminate parrots, regurgitating a random mix of knowledge and crap. A. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
--- On Wed, 11/5/11, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote: A while ago there was a discussion at WP:V talk whether we should recast the policy's opening sentence: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth— whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. (As usual, the discussion came to nought.) That sentence -- whose provocative formulation has served Wikipedia well in keeping out original research -- is a big part of the problem. A. Here is how this can play out in practice. This case has been discussed for the past few days on Jimbo's talk page. A tabloid accused a minor TV personality of cheating on his wife: http://mail-on-sunday.vlex.co.uk/vid/romeo-strolling-aficionado-bewitching-68703787#ixzz1LbDAtzox Two years later, the Telegraph states that the report was the result of poison penmanship, and that the originator, who first posted the false claim on Wikipedia, has since apologised. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/8498981/Mayfair-art-dealer-Mark-Weiss-in-disgrace-after-admitting-poison-pen-campaign-against-rival-Philip-Mould.html For two years the subject fought to save his reputation, and his marriage, as false allegations of infidelity and financial problems were planted in newspapers and on the internet by an unidentified enemy. ... It began with alterations to his online Wikipedia entry ... After one Sunday newspaper ran the story, Mr Mould’s wife Catherine temporarily left him. What happened in Wikipedia was that the editor trying to remove the spurious material was accused of conflict of interest, and of removing referenced material in contravention of WP:COI and WP:V policy. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philip_Moulddiff=prevoldid=319397169 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Emmahenderson What should have happened in Wikipedia is that the fact that the subject's alleged infidelity was only reported in the Daily Mail, well known for its tabloid journalism and frequent inaccuracies, should have set off an alarm bell. Rather than being defended on the basis of WP:V, the material should never have been admitted. Our much-quoted verifiability, not truth mantra is partly to blame here. As long as we instruct editors, in policy, that -- The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is *verifiability, not truth*— whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. we are teaching them a lazy and irresponsible mindset where they no longer have to think about the merits and real-life consequences of adding a particular bit of content. They can switch their minds off and simply respond mechanically: It's been published, therefore having the content is good. Anyone deleting it is a bad person. Even if it's untrue, it doesn't matter, because my job is simply to ensure that Wikipedia repeats whatever has been published. Life requires a bit more intelligence. Given that Wikipedia will come up as a person's first Google hit, and has a huge echo chamber effect, it's irresponsible to tell editors that truth does not matter. The point about OR can be made without denigrating truth, and absolving ourselves of any editorial responsibility, especially when it comes to salacious stories about living people's private lives. A. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
I've written a little essay which I think serves to illustrate the dangers of Wikipedia's tendency to create articles (and particularly BLPs) from a pastiche of newspaper articles. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Otto_Middleton_%28or_why_newspapers_a re_dubious_sources%29 It may amuse (or it may not) ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
On 10 May 2011 17:04, Scott MacDonald doc.wikipe...@ntlworld.com wrote: I've written a little essay which I think serves to illustrate the dangers of Wikipedia's tendency to create articles (and particularly BLPs) from a pastiche of newspaper articles. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Otto_Middleton_%28or_why_newspapers_a re_dubious_sources%29 It may amuse (or it may not) Yep. Anyone who calls a newspaper a reliable source in terms other than comparison to even worse sources has clearly never been written about by one. Suggestion: move the explanatory box to the top. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
