Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Anthony]

On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Daniel R. Tobias  wrote:
> I had
> actually had other bank accounts going back to the 1960s with no SS#,
> so I think the requirement of having one for every bank account was
> later than my earliest accounts.

:) Much later.  October 1, 2003.
http://www.ago.state.co.us/idtheft/ssn.cfm.html

Even then, there is some dispute over whether or not this federal
regulation is in compliance with the actual law (that wonderful
PATRIOT Act).

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On Tue, 6 Oct 2009 13:31:28 -0400, Anthony wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:59 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
> 
> > The requirement that Social Security Numbers of newborn children appear
> > on a tax return is relatively recent.  Before 1989 the person applied
> > himself.
> 
> I thought your parents could still apply for you back then, but maybe I'm
> wrong.

Mine did in the 1970s when opening a bank account in my name.  
Actually, I think it was my grandparents opening an account in my 
name, but I think my parents had to submit the application.  I had 
actually had other bank accounts going back to the 1960s with no SS#, 
so I think the requirement of having one for every bank account was 
later than my earliest accounts.


-- 
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/



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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[stevertigo]

 wrote:
>> The soundbite I use is that "Wikipedia outsources truth". The debate about
>> what is or isn't true is not ours but is played out amongst the various
>> sources that we can draw upon as references.

Kat Walsh  wrote:
> Good soundbite. :-)

Very good in fact. But there is a sort of paradox that exists between
the free culture we export and the proprietary culture our exports are
actually based on. There is a nice balance there, but still, think now
of all those "truth-based" jobs that are getting
"outsourced" to other entities -- particularly the ethnic, commercial,
and political ones.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Anthony]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:59 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:

> Anthony wrote:
> > And it's not a primary source.  "In historiography, a primary source
> (also
> > called original source) is a document, recording, artifact, or other
> source
> > of information that was created at the time under study, usually by a
> source
> > with direct personal knowledge of the events being described." Social
> > security didn't even exist in 1904, so clearly this information was not
> > created in 1904.
> >
>
> The requirement that Social Security Numbers of newborn children appear
> on a tax return is relatively recent.  Before 1989 the person applied
> himself.
>

I thought your parents could still apply for you back then, but maybe I'm
wrong.  Nowadays they don't quite force you to get them but you can't claim
any tax deductions/credits/etc without them.  But even today I'm not sure
it's a primary source.  It's generally a secondary source, which is based on
your birth certificate, which is the primary source.  (And there are plenty
of exceptions to that - not everyone has a birth certificate, after all.)
It's just a bad secondary source, because it presents conclusions without
backing those conclusions up with explanations.

Still, probably worthy of a mention if it contradicts others sources which
are presented in the article, and isn't proven to be incorrect by any of
those other sources.  (But how do you come up with a hard and fast rule
about that?  I don't think you can.)

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 1:11 PM, Rob  wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Anthony  wrote:
> > If they're available.  But what if they're not?  Is it okay to mention
> that
> > the contradictory information exists?
> >
> > I doubt you're going to come up with a hard and fast rule which doesn't
> have
> > any unintended consequences.  Ultimately, the fact that "everyone can
> edit"
> > ensures a system of "verifiability, not truth".
> >
>
> You're absolutely right, availability is an issue.  But if we have a
> hard and fast rule the other way and say sources like the SSDI are
> okay, then there's no incentive to look for that secondary source
> which does explain the issue.  We might, in rare cases, settle for the
> SSDI if absolutely necessary, but not without a reasonable search,
> which in this particular case clearly hadn't been done.
>

Right, the problem cuts both ways.  The best source, it seems, would be a
reliable secondary source which details the primary sources it relies upon
and explains why it has come to the conclusions it has come to about them.
But that's not always available.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Anthony]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:31 PM, Rob  wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:
> > On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Rob wrote:
> > In this context, the secondary source is "I found a reference to a
> newspaper
> > article which quotes the date".  It's not going to discuss the conflict
> the
> > way you describe--it's just more acceptable because it better fits the
> rule.
>
> I got the newspaper article today and it turns out it discusses the
> birth date discrepancy in detail, with references to interviews with
> family, a number of documents, and court testimony.  This is exactly
> the reason we should be using these kinds of sources as opposed to our
> own amateur database lookups, not the strawman of a rules fetish.
>

If they're available.  But what if they're not?  Is it okay to mention that
the contradictory information exists?

I doubt you're going to come up with a hard and fast rule which doesn't have
any unintended consequences.  Ultimately, the fact that "everyone can edit"
ensures a system of "verifiability, not truth".
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[David Goodman]

Quite apart from  the incredible range available from a research
library, the great majority of Wikipedians, even experienced ones, do
not use even those sources which are made available free from local
public libraries to residents. Many seem not to even think about using
anything free on the internet except that reachable through the
Googles.  if Google News reports a newspaper or magazine behind a pay
wall, they do not even think of looking for it in other databases or
web sites  that they may have available.   (I'm judging from
experience at AfD and other rescues. Many of the relatively few
dedicated article writers, non-academic as well as academic, are of
course very competent at research in their areas, and I frequently
learn about   resources new to me when they join in a discussion. )

None of this surprises me -- I've seen it in other settings.  it's the
challenge of the library profession that we have not found a way to
get people to use any resources they are not thoroughly familiar with.


David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>> On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Ken Arromdee wrote:
>>
>>> The idea that a newspaper article that quotes the date from the primary
>>> source is going to do any more sanity checking than you would...  isn't 
>>> true.
>>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>> In this context, the secondary source is "I found a reference to a newspaper
>>> article which quotes the date".  It's not going to discuss the conflict the
>>> way you describe--it's just more acceptable because it better fits the rule.
>>>
>> So I went to some effort in a previous message to slam newsmedia as a
>> secondary source.  It usually isn't in any meningful way.  But the
>> problem there is the misguided belief that it is, not the preference
>> for secondary sources.
>>
>> I don't know how it is outside of the US, but primary education in the
>> US places news media (and encyclopaedias!) as high quality sources of
>> digested information. When I first got access to a university library
>> (along with journals, and specialist reference works) it was a
>> incredibly eye opening experience for me. I expect that as more
>> references works become accessible online along with open access
>> journals people will recognize that newspapers are not usually good
>> secondary sources and the norms on Wikipedia will change... but that
>> will take time.
>
> That's an interesting observation.  News media and encyclopedias are
> easily accessible sources, but the people who depend on them don't even
> take the next step of going to popular weeklies like "Time" which at
> least goes beyond the immediacy of the daily newspaper.  Those who have
> used a university library know what you mean, but one can't escape the
> fact that the majority does not go to university, and that a significant
> proportion of those who do attend a post-secondary institution do their
> best to avoid going to the library, and only attend there under severe
> duress.  Having open access to journals is only a part of the battle;
> grokking there importance also needs too be better communicated.
>
> Ec
>
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ray Saintonge]

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Ken Arromdee wrote:
>   
>> The idea that a newspaper article that quotes the date from the primary
>> source is going to do any more sanity checking than you would...  isn't true.
>> 
> [snip]
>   
>> In this context, the secondary source is "I found a reference to a newspaper
>> article which quotes the date".  It's not going to discuss the conflict the
>> way you describe--it's just more acceptable because it better fits the rule.
>> 
> So I went to some effort in a previous message to slam newsmedia as a
> secondary source.  It usually isn't in any meningful way.  But the
> problem there is the misguided belief that it is, not the preference
> for secondary sources.
>
> I don't know how it is outside of the US, but primary education in the
> US places news media (and encyclopaedias!) as high quality sources of
> digested information. When I first got access to a university library
> (along with journals, and specialist reference works) it was a
> incredibly eye opening experience for me. I expect that as more
> references works become accessible online along with open access
> journals people will recognize that newspapers are not usually good
> secondary sources and the norms on Wikipedia will change... but that
> will take time.

That's an interesting observation.  News media and encyclopedias are 
easily accessible sources, but the people who depend on them don't even 
take the next step of going to popular weeklies like "Time" which at 
least goes beyond the immediacy of the daily newspaper.  Those who have 
used a university library know what you mean, but one can't escape the 
fact that the majority does not go to university, and that a significant 
proportion of those who do attend a post-secondary institution do their 
best to avoid going to the library, and only attend there under severe 
duress.  Having open access to journals is only a part of the battle; 
grokking there importance also needs too be better communicated.

Ec

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ray Saintonge]

Ken Arromdee wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Rob wrote:
>   
>> The fact that original secondary sources were wrong in this case is
>> immaterial.  Errors in secondary sources should be a reason to dig up
>> more secondary sources, not to make a point using primary ones.
>> 
> Wikipedia is already full of places where people are required to jump through
> hoops merely because that's what the rules require, even if it doesn't 
> actually
> help.  This is another one.
>
> Searching far and wide to find a secondary source that quoted the primary
> source gains you *nothing* except compliance with Wikipedia rules.  The
> secondary source isn't going to do any better fact-checking than you did when
> you just looked at the primary source directly--it just fills a rules
> requirement.


Perhaps the rule should be rephrased to require the use of the most 
reliable fallacy? ;-)

Ec

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Rob]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Anthony  wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:31 PM, Rob  wrote:

>
> If they're available.  But what if they're not?  Is it okay to mention that
> the contradictory information exists?
>
> I doubt you're going to come up with a hard and fast rule which doesn't have
> any unintended consequences.  Ultimately, the fact that "everyone can edit"
> ensures a system of "verifiability, not truth".
>

You're absolutely right, availability is an issue.  But if we have a
hard and fast rule the other way and say sources like the SSDI are
okay, then there's no incentive to look for that secondary source
which does explain the issue.  We might, in rare cases, settle for the
SSDI if absolutely necessary, but not without a reasonable search,
which in this particular case clearly hadn't been done.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ray Saintonge]

Anthony wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:58 PM, James Hare wrote
>> You could phrase it like this:
>>
>> "The SSDI says 1904[source] while all these other publications say
>> 1918[source]." Or you could discredit the reliability of the sources (which
>> would be the right thing to do, since the SSDI is not likely to get birth
>> dates wrong) and just say "Dixon was born in 1904.[source]"
>> 
> SSDI might very well be wrong.  It's worth mentioning, but shouldn't be
> taken as definitive.
>   

*Any* source may be wrong, including ones with a high reputation for 
accuracy.  Nevertheless, we have no measure of reliability for any 
source.  Has anyone ever taken a statistically significant random sample 
of SSDI records and tried to determine what percentage of those records 
are erroneous? If that study determines that no record in a sample 
(greater than 100) is in error I may be able to safely hypothesize that 
the error rate is less than 1%.  That is still not enough to say that 
the SSDI is error free.

> And it's not a primary source.  "In historiography, a primary source (also
> called original source) is a document, recording, artifact, or other source
> of information that was created at the time under study, usually by a source
> with direct personal knowledge of the events being described." Social
> security didn't even exist in 1904, so clearly this information was not
> created in 1904.
>   

The requirement that Social Security Numbers of newborn children appear 
on a tax return is relatively recent.  Before 1989 the person applied 
himself.

Ec

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Rob]

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Rob wrote:
> In this context, the secondary source is "I found a reference to a newspaper
> article which quotes the date".  It's not going to discuss the conflict the
> way you describe--it's just more acceptable because it better fits the rule.

I got the newspaper article today and it turns out it discusses the
birth date discrepancy in detail, with references to interviews with
family, a number of documents, and court testimony.  This is exactly
the reason we should be using these kinds of sources as opposed to our
own amateur database lookups, not the strawman of a rules fetish.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>>No it's not. If the you've understood a rule as some formality that
>>you must comply with when it clearly does not help you've
>>misunderstood something.
>
> That's how rules actually work in Wikipedia.  Ignoring a rule--especially a
> rule about sourcing--is going to get you pounced upon by rule mongers.  And
> in a dispute, the rule mongers are always right.  It doesn't matter if the
> rule actually does any good.
>
> You're talking about an ideal Wikipedia and I'm talking about the one we're
> stuck with.

Funny— It's worked for me many many times. I think you're
overemphasizing the corner cases where it fails.  It's only natural,
999 out of 1000 times something works fine, people are going to
remember the one time where it blew up in their face.  Most edits
don't provide source data, most aren't reverted... Doesn't mean that
the system doesn't need to be improved, but it's not helpful to
characterize it as always failing to do the right thing.

(or perhaps you should try editing in a less contentious area, or stop
pushing a fringe viewpoint…  if either of those things apply to you,
your experience would be understandably different from average)

>>A decent secondary source, written by people familiar
>>with the limitations of the primary material and with consideration of
>>the available data and scholarship, is that sanity checking.
>
> In that case, it's not a (decent) secondary source at all, and the initial
> idea--that there are no secondary sources--was correct.
>
> The idea that a newspaper article that quotes the date from the primary
> source is going to do any more sanity checking than you would...  isn't true.
[snip]
> In this context, the secondary source is "I found a reference to a newspaper
> article which quotes the date".  It's not going to discuss the conflict the
> way you describe--it's just more acceptable because it better fits the rule.

So I went to some effort in a previous message to slam newsmedia as a
secondary source.  It usually isn't in any meningful way.  But the
problem there is the misguided belief that it is, not the preference
for secondary sources.

I don't know how it is outside of the US, but primary education in the
US places news media (and encyclopaedias!) as high quality sources of
digested information. When I first got access to a university library
(along with journals, and specialist reference works) it was a
incredibly eye opening experience for me. I expect that as more
references works become accessible online along with open access
journals people will recognize that newspapers are not usually good
secondary sources and the norms on Wikipedia will change... but that
will take time.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Rob wrote:
> > Searching far and wide to find a secondary source that quoted the primary
> > source gains you *nothing* except compliance with Wikipedia rules.  The
> > secondary source isn't going to do any better fact-checking than you did 
> > when
> > you just looked at the primary source directly--it just fills a rules
> > requirement.
> The secondary sources (presumably, ideally) will discuss why there is
> a discrepancy between the birth records and the obituaries and
> encyclopedias and dig into the issue a lot further than just merely
> announcing "the obituaries are wrong".

In this context, the secondary source is "I found a reference to a newspaper
article which quotes the date".  It's not going to discuss the conflict the
way you describe--it's just more acceptable because it better fits the rule.


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>No it's not. If the you've understood a rule as some formality that
>you must comply with when it clearly does not help you've
>misunderstood something.

That's how rules actually work in Wikipedia.  Ignoring a rule--especially a
rule about sourcing--is going to get you pounced upon by rule mongers.  And
in a dispute, the rule mongers are always right.  It doesn't matter if the
rule actually does any good.

You're talking about an ideal Wikipedia and I'm talking about the one we're
stuck with.

>A decent secondary source, written by people familiar
>with the limitations of the primary material and with consideration of
>the available data and scholarship, is that sanity checking.

In that case, it's not a (decent) secondary source at all, and the initial
idea--that there are no secondary sources--was correct.

The idea that a newspaper article that quotes the date from the primary
source is going to do any more sanity checking than you would...  isn't true.
It's a legal fiction, or we might say, a rules fiction.  We pretend that the
source will do more checking...  but we're just pretending, because we have
a rule which says "secondary sources are better because they check things",
and the rule has to be true.


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Anthony]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:

> If the you've understood a rule as some formality that
> you must comply with when it clearly does not help you've
> misunderstood something. (Either the rule, the applicability of the
> rule, or that it helps; Even a poorly drafted rule can't bind you to
> pointless mechanisations: thats part of the core purpose of WP:IAR)
>

I'm not sure about that.  The rule against original research is a good
example of a rule to which IAR can't really apply - at least not in all
situations.  The rule is there to protect the encyclopedia from crackpots.
 But no one thinks they're a crackpot.  So if you have an exception for
original research which improves the encyclopedia, you might as well not
have the rule in the first place.

If a secondary source isn't a synthesis and analysis of primary source
> material, then it's not really a secondary source.
>

[snip]

Part of your confusion probably stems from that fact that wikipedians
> often treat news reports like secondary sources.  Good reporting is a
> kind of scolarship, but good reporting is rare. More often news
> reporting is just a lossy regurgitation of primary source material (or
> wikipedia!) or even just barely informed speculation.  But thats a
> problem with Wikipedia's misunderstanding the general worthlessness of
> news-media, not a problem with preferring secondary sources over
> primary sources.  The whole notion of distinct classes of "primary
> source" and "secondary source" doesn't map especially well.


Right on.  Very well put.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Rob]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:

>
> Searching far and wide to find a secondary source that quoted the primary
> source gains you *nothing* except compliance with Wikipedia rules.  The
> secondary source isn't going to do any better fact-checking than you did when
> you just looked at the primary source directly--it just fills a rules
> requirement.

The secondary sources (presumably, ideally) will discuss why there is
a discrepancy between the birth records and the obituaries and
encyclopedias and dig into the issue a lot further than just merely
announcing "the obituaries are wrong".  Searching far and wide may be
too much to ask, and I realize that not every editor has the research
mojo of a librarian, but all I did was track down a newspaper article
and a biography.  Perhaps digging up the former is too much, but is it
really too much to ask that editors working on a biographical article
crack open a biography of the subject?

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Rob wrote:
>> The fact that original secondary sources were wrong in this case is
>> immaterial.  Errors in secondary sources should be a reason to dig up
>> more secondary sources, not to make a point using primary ones.
>
> Wikipedia is already full of places where people are required to jump through
> hoops merely because that's what the rules require, even if it doesn't 
> actually
> help.  This is another one.

No it's not. If the you've understood a rule as some formality that
you must comply with when it clearly does not help you've
misunderstood something. (Either the rule, the applicability of the
rule, or that it helps; Even a poorly drafted rule can't bind you to
pointless mechanisations: thats part of the core purpose of WP:IAR)

> Searching far and wide to find a secondary source that quoted the primary
> source gains you *nothing* except compliance with Wikipedia rules.  The
> secondary source isn't going to do any better fact-checking than you did when
> you just looked at the primary source directly--it just fills a rules
> requirement.

If a secondary source isn't a synthesis and analysis of primary source
material, then it's not really a secondary source.

There is a lot of primary source material which is simply data: Stuff
that has almost no sanity checking. "Number of votes cast.  District
413: -32768". A decent secondary source, written by people familiar
with the limitations of the primary material and with consideration of
the available data and scholarship, is that sanity checking.

Part of your confusion probably stems from that fact that wikipedians
often treat news reports like secondary sources.  Good reporting is a
kind of scolarship, but good reporting is rare. More often news
reporting is just a lossy regurgitation of primary source material (or
wikipedia!) or even just barely informed speculation.  But thats a
problem with Wikipedia's misunderstanding the general worthlessness of
news-media, not a problem with preferring secondary sources over
primary sources.  The whole notion of distinct classes of "primary
source" and "secondary source" doesn't map especially well. To the
extent that something is raw or unreviewed and otherwise single
sourced it should be less preferred to references which are a
synthesis from multiple sources, reviewed, and generally consisting of
digested knowledge rather than raw facts.


It's great to provide people with maximal access to primary source
material, but the obvious conclusions drawn from it can be wrong this
is why we need to reference scholarship rather than just tables of
facts.  An example I like of an uninformed analysis of the primary
source material being misleading is
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/187/4175/398

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Rob wrote:
> The fact that original secondary sources were wrong in this case is
> immaterial.  Errors in secondary sources should be a reason to dig up
> more secondary sources, not to make a point using primary ones.

Wikipedia is already full of places where people are required to jump through
hoops merely because that's what the rules require, even if it doesn't actually
help.  This is another one.

Searching far and wide to find a secondary source that quoted the primary
source gains you *nothing* except compliance with Wikipedia rules.  The
secondary source isn't going to do any better fact-checking than you did when
you just looked at the primary source directly--it just fills a rules
requirement.


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Anthony]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:58 PM, James Hare  wrote:

> You could phrase it like this:
>
> "The SSDI says 1904[source] while all these other publications say
> 1918[source]." Or you could discredit the reliability of the sources (which
> would be the right thing to do, since the SSDI is not likely to get birth
> dates wrong) and just say "Dixon was born in 1904.[source]"


SSDI might very well be wrong.  It's worth mentioning, but shouldn't be
taken as definitive.

And it's not a primary source.  "In historiography, a primary source (also
called original source) is a document, recording, artifact, or other source
of information that was created at the time under study, usually by a source
with direct personal knowledge of the events being described." Social
security didn't even exist in 1904, so clearly this information was not
created in 1904.

And primary sources aren't banned under OR.  "Primary sources that have been
reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream
newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy
to misuse them."  There's nothing interpretive about this use.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 1:21 AM, Rob  wrote:
> The reason I balk at using the SSDI or the census is I don't think we
> should be using primary sources in this manner.  There are numerous
> pitfalls, including many errors of spelling and fact, to using these
> sources. Historians and journalists should be evaluating these
> sources, not us.  In this particular case, editors are using a primary
> source to disprove reliable secondary sources, which are plentiful and
> unanimous (until now, see below) when it comes to the birthdate.
> Isn't this the kind of primary source research that we always
> discourage Wikipedians from doing?

It's worth drawing the distinction between a secondary source which
explains its disagreement with a notable primary source from one which
doesn't.

If the secondary sources provide uncontroversial cause for believing
the SSDI (a notable and relevant primary source) to be incorrect in
this case, then it may well be best to not even mention the SSDI data.
 But if no reliable source gives us an objective reason for the
primary data to be considered incorrect, beyond mere inconsistency, it
would only be reasonable for the article to disclose the disagreement
without taking a position ('however, the SSDI states X').

Stated generally, in a form suitable for a policy page:

Although we believe secondary sources (Works which relate or discuss
information originally presented elsewhere) to be more reliable than
primary sources, they are still often incorrect. One cause for errors
in a secondary source is that its author was unaware of an important
primary source. A secondary source which fails to explain its
disagreement with an obvious primary source was either created without
considering that source or fails to be thorough scholarship, and mere
disagreement with such a secondary source cannot be sufficient reason
to believe the primary source is incorrect.

Where no source can be found stating that a particular primary source
is incorrect, we can not know (in any source-tractable manner) whether
that primary source is correct. Since we do not know, we should not
take any position on its correctness. Presuming that the primary
source in question is uncontroversially relevant and sufficiently
notable, using it in the form of a mere statement of fact is the more
neutral action. An intentional omission of a relevant and notable
primary source would be a value judgment which, in the absence of a
sourceable cause, NPOV philosophically prohibits us from making.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Rob]

The reason I balk at using the SSDI or the census is I don't think we
should be using primary sources in this manner.  There are numerous
pitfalls, including many errors of spelling and fact, to using these
sources. Historians and journalists should be evaluating these
sources, not us.  In this particular case, editors are using a primary
source to disprove reliable secondary sources, which are plentiful and
unanimous (until now, see below) when it comes to the birthdate.
Isn't this the kind of primary source research that we always
discourage Wikipedians from doing?

The fact that original secondary sources were wrong in this case is
immaterial.  Errors in secondary sources should be a reason to dig up
more secondary sources, not to make a point using primary ones.  In my
initial message I expressed doubt that a historian or journalist would
ever write about such a minor point.  I was wrong; the relative posted
a link to a Fortean Times article which cited as sources for the real
birthdate a newspaper article from the 70s and a biography of Dixon.
When I get my hands on those through the magic of interlibrary loan,
I'll update the article accordingly.  This has convinced me that we
shouldn't be using those primary sources.  It's tempting, certainly.
An editor can just type a name into the SSDI webpage or a census
database and say "I've done research!".  That's easy, but tracking
down decades-old articles and biographies requires going to the
library or having a familiarity with databases you can only find in a
library.  But that's the kind of hard work we should be doing.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Steve Bennett]

On 10/2/09, David Goodman  wrote:
> I depends on what one  does. One cannot ignore the basic rules of BLP
>  any more than you can copyright, because they're requirements from the
>  WMF. And you can't ignore basic considerations about privacy, because
>  that's just as fundamental. But you can sometimes ignore a detail or
>  procedure connected with them if you are absolutely certain it will
>  help Wikipedia and not harm anything else.   How we interpret the

Ken is saying the opposite: you need to sometimes ignore rules even if
the benefit of your doing so goes to a person outside Wikipedia. Ie,
currently the rule says you can ignore a Wikipedia rule to improve
Wikipedia. He's saying it should allow you to ignore a Wikipedia rule
to help someone else (or more commonly, avoid harming them).

Steve

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[David Goodman]

I depends on what one  does. One cannot ignore the basic rules of BLP
any more than you can copyright, because they're requirements from the
WMF. And you can't ignore basic considerations about privacy, because
that's just as fundamental. But you can sometimes ignore a detail or
procedure connected with them if you are absolutely certain it will
help Wikipedia and not harm anything else.   How we interpret the
rules is under the control of the community, but we need to be
responsible about it, and these are areas where we need to be
particularly cautious.


David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 7:29 PM, Steve Bennett  wrote:
> On 10/2/09, Ken Arromdee  wrote:
>> Well, the last time I ran into this was the way IAR is worded.  For such a
>>  short rule it has a huge flaw: it says you can only ignore rules for the
>>  purpose of improving or maintaining the encyclopedia.  The result is people
>>  constantly claiming that you can't ignore rules for BLP or privacy concerns,
>>  since helping the BLP subject is not a form of improving the encyclopedia.
>
> That's an interesting point. Perhaps its scope should be widened.
>
> Steve
>
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Steve Bennett]

On 10/2/09, Ken Arromdee  wrote:
> Well, the last time I ran into this was the way IAR is worded.  For such a
>  short rule it has a huge flaw: it says you can only ignore rules for the
>  purpose of improving or maintaining the encyclopedia.  The result is people
>  constantly claiming that you can't ignore rules for BLP or privacy concerns,
>  since helping the BLP subject is not a form of improving the encyclopedia.

That's an interesting point. Perhaps its scope should be widened.

Steve

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[David Gerard]

2009/10/1 Ken Arromdee :

> Well, the last time I ran into this was the way IAR is worded.  For such a
> short rule it has a huge flaw: it says you can only ignore rules for the
> purpose of improving or maintaining the encyclopedia.  The result is people
> constantly claiming that you can't ignore rules for BLP or privacy concerns,
> since helping the BLP subject is not a form of improving the encyclopedia.
> Obviously it would be overkill to edit IAR itself, but nobody was even
> interested on the talk page of WIARM, except one person who said that it's
> okay that's badly worded because our rules don't literally mean what they say.


Handy guide to IAR:

If the reactions to your actions when you try to apply IAR are "you're
clueless", then perhaps you don't understand IAR.

But, by all means, do please keep posting to wikien-l about IAR.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Thu, 1 Oct 2009, FT2 wrote:
> The problem is there comes a point where you can't improve them in terms of
> definitiveness without them being so long as to defeat easy readability
> ("tl;dr"). At that point we rely on the reader to figure it out. if you can
> spot improvements that others haven't, and they reflect the spirit better
> than the present wording, then Be Bold and see if others agree they are an
> improvement, and fix them!

Well, the last time I ran into this was the way IAR is worded.  For such a
short rule it has a huge flaw: it says you can only ignore rules for the
purpose of improving or maintaining the encyclopedia.  The result is people
constantly claiming that you can't ignore rules for BLP or privacy concerns,
since helping the BLP subject is not a form of improving the encyclopedia.
Obviously it would be overkill to edit IAR itself, but nobody was even
interested on the talk page of WIARM, except one person who said that it's
okay that's badly worded because our rules don't literally mean what they say.


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[David Gerard]

2009/10/1 FT2 :

> The problem is there comes a point where you can't improve them in terms of
> definitiveness without them being so long as to defeat easy readability
> ("tl;dr"). At that point we rely on the reader to figure it out. if you can
> spot improvements that others haven't, and they reflect the spirit better
> than the present wording, then Be Bold and see if others agree they are an
> improvement, and fix them!


Yes. The key problem is that no rules can stop stupidity or bad faith.
Particularly not stupidity. Ken, you appear to be demanding wording
that will  be so good that people can't apply it stupidly. There is no
such possible quality of wording where human judgement can possibly be
involved; and removing human judgement makes it stupider.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 7:24 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:

> And back to literal words... I'm really tired of the attitude "since the
> rules aren't meant to be taken literally, we won't fix them so that they
>  make more sense if someone does try to read them literally".



Not really so. For example, I spend a huge amount of
timetrying
to make things make more sense, be more balanced and representative
of "how it really is intended to be taken". Just today and yesterday I spent
reviewing the interface wordings for RevDelete and Flagged Revisions to try
and improve their commonsense-ness -- see my
contribshere
and on the flagged
rev's test 
wikifor
this weeks work.

The problem is there comes a point where you can't improve them in terms of
definitiveness without them being so long as to defeat easy readability
("tl;dr"). At that point we rely on the reader to figure it out. if you can
spot improvements that others haven't, and they reflect the spirit better
than the present wording, then Be Bold and see if others agree they are an
improvement, and fix them!

FT2
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Thu, 1 Oct 2009, David Gerard wrote:
> > This is logical, but only proves that our rules contradict ourselves every
> > which way.
> Yes. The rules are not a consistent legal framework, they're a series
> of quick hacks.

The literal words aren't the only problem, though.  Usually our rules are
written so as to emphasize that the user should or should not do some specific
thing.  But if you emphasize something strongly in the rules, that *affects
how the spirit of the rules is interpreted*.

It's not just that people are too literal about primary sources--it's that
even if they go by the spirit of the rules, the lopsided emphasis makes it
seem like the spirit of the rules is as restrictive as the literal rules.

And back to literal words... I'm really tired of the attitude "since the
rules aren't meant to be taken literally, we won't fix them so that they
make more sense if someone does try to read them literally".


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[David Gerard]

2009/10/1 Ken Arromdee :

> This is logical, but only proves that our rules contradict ourselves every
> which way.


Yes. The rules are not a consistent legal framework, they're a series
of quick hacks.

If you regard them as an immaculate stainless steel construction of
flawless design every component of which is intended to mesh perfectly
with every other component ... then you have badly misunderstood how
Wikipedia works and will be continually frustrated (much as you are
now).

That a lot of people seem to assume this doesn't make it any truer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Practical_process - does this
help explain how we got here?

I'm not saying it's desirable, I'm saying this is how it is.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ray Saintonge]

Carcharoth wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Surreptitiousness wrote:
>   
>> FT2 wrote:
>> 
>>> The issue for fiction can be summed up within with one question, almost.
>>> Here is a nice simple book. Obviously any /analysis/ will be from good
>>> quality sources. But what kind of sourcing is appropriate to its plot
>>> summary? Many well-read books don't have plot summaries in reliable sources,
>>> and yet "anyone reading the book can see what its basic plot is", and we
>>> have hundreds of editors to reach consensus on what it says.
>>>
>>> (Key issue: any book is a primary source on its own contents.)
>>>   
>> You've misread me.  The key question is, why should we summarise this
>> plot. That's what's causing the problems with fiction on Wikipedia at
>> the minute. Although having said that, the drama does seem to have died
>> off a bit lately. Which kind of suggests a consensus of sorts exists.
>> 
> I think plot summaries are OK, as long as there is some real-world
> context and analysis. Just a description of what the book is about is
> not enough. Links to reviews and criticism is a must, in my view. Some
> examples would help here, from stubs, to "only" plot summary (more
> like a directory of books), to "mixtures" to "featured articles about
> books" (we have a few of those).
Why shouldn't a plot summary or book description be enough?  It's a 
fundamental building block for any article.  While it would be nice to 
have reviews and criticisms a simple tag that we would like these added 
should suffice to alert someone else to add them.  The people who write 
a good summary are often not the same people who condense reviews and 
criticisms well.

Ec

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:

> This is logical, but only proves that our rules contradict ourselves every
> which way.
>

Indeed. And we are broadly fine with that, to an extent. A number of policy
and project pages explicitly point out that not everything will be 100%
consistent.



> This implies that you *can't* use an object as a source, since it would be
>  your personal eyewitness account of the bridge or whatever.



But that affects all sources. How do we know that report X in peer-reviewed
journal Y is fairly summed up as described? All we have is one or more
editors who read it, and wrote about what they think it says. To be
unsubtle, take the most highly regarded authoritative book on a topic, and
cite it in a topic as a source for some point or other. What enters
Wikipedia will be "your personal eyewitness account" of what
ultra-widely-acknowledged expert X wrote or ultra-authoritatively-regarded
journal Y says.

A bridge is presented to the senses of eyewitness no more nor less than a
paper, a rock, or any artifact. It's editor interpretation, opinion and
judgment that we avoid, not reporting faithfully what any reasonable witness
exposed to that same item would agree is obvious to the five senses.

FT2
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Thu, 1 Oct 2009, FT2 wrote:
> To add to this, note that "primary sources" are stated to include
> "...archeological artifacts; photographs.."
> 
> NOR, a core policy in this area, doesn't say that the "writings about an
> artifact" are the source. It says clearly that artifacts themselves are
> categorized as primary sources.
> 
> The only way an "artifact" or photograph could ever be a "source" is that by
> its very existence, it has a number of obvious descriptive qualities and the
> like that any reasonable person witnessing it would agree upon, and that
> anyone with access to the artifact could verify.

This is logical, but only proves that our rules contradict ourselves every
which way.

If you read NOR and RS, the general impression is that a source is written
or otherwise published material about something.  Those words you quoted are
pretty much the only references to a source being an object, rather than
what someone writes about the object.  It's a matter of emphasis--everything
else pretty much implies (regardless of whether it says so outright) that
this kind of source isn't good.  This is, in fact, one of the problems with
a lot of Wikipedia rules: we so strongly emphasize a rule that nobody will
believe in any exceptions, even if we didn't literally say the rule needed
to be followed 100% of the time.

Also, there are phrases which seem to directly contradict it.  For instance,
NOR contains this:

Unsourced material obtained from a Wikipedian's personal experience,
such as an unpublished eyewitness account, should not be added to
articles. It would violate both this policy and Verifiability, and would
cause Wikipedia to become a primary source for that material.

This implies that you *can't* use an object as a source, since it would be
your personal eyewitness account of the bridge or whatever.


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Carcharoth]

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Surreptitiousness
 wrote:
> FT2 wrote:
>> The issue for fiction can be summed up within with one question, almost.
>> Here is a nice simple book. Obviously any /analysis/ will be from good
>> quality sources. But what kind of sourcing is appropriate to its plot
>> summary? Many well-read books don't have plot summaries in reliable sources,
>> and yet "anyone reading the book can see what its basic plot is", and we
>> have hundreds of editors to reach consensus on what it says.
>>
>> (Key issue: any book is a primary source on its own contents.)
>>
> You've misread me.  The key question is, why should we summarise this
> plot. That's what's causing the problems with fiction on Wikipedia at
> the minute. Although having said that, the drama does seem to have died
> off a bit lately. Which kind of suggests a consensus of sorts exists.

I think plot summaries are OK, as long as there is some real-world
context and analysis. Just a description of what the book is about is
not enough. Links to reviews and criticism is a must, in my view. Some
examples would help here, from stubs, to "only" plot summary (more
like a directory of books), to "mixtures" to "featured articles about
books" (we have a few of those).

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[David Gerard]

2009/10/1 Surreptitiousness :

> You've misread me.  The key question is, why should we summarise this
> plot. That's what's causing the problems with fiction on Wikipedia at
> the minute. Although having said that, the drama does seem to have died
> off a bit lately. Which kind of suggests a consensus of sorts exists.


Yeah. Don't prod it with sticks too hard for the moment ;-p Though
grossly excessive plot summaries are getting tagged as such, and many
are being greatly improved as individuals get around to them.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Surreptitiousness]

FT2 wrote:
> The issue for fiction can be summed up within with one question, almost.
> Here is a nice simple book. Obviously any /analysis/ will be from good
> quality sources. But what kind of sourcing is appropriate to its plot
> summary? Many well-read books don't have plot summaries in reliable sources,
> and yet "anyone reading the book can see what its basic plot is", and we
> have hundreds of editors to reach consensus on what it says.
>
> (Key issue: any book is a primary source on its own contents.)
>
>   
You've misread me.  The key question is, why should we summarise this 
plot. That's what's causing the problems with fiction on Wikipedia at 
the minute. Although having said that, the drama does seem to have died 
off a bit lately. Which kind of suggests a consensus of sorts exists.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 10:47 AM, Surreptitiousness <
surreptitious.wikiped...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> And of course, it is this portion of policy that causes us issues with
> regards fiction. Since the work itself is a primary source.
>  We haven't yet worked out to what extent a article on a fictional
> subject should rely on secondary sources.  Or at least reached a
> consensus.  It's easier to tackle fiction articles by removing
> speculation and interpretation. Generally, I think that should be the
> better approach, and I'd like to see a similar policy, in terms of scope
> rather than content, created for articles on fictional subjects.  I
> think Phul Sandifer had a draft somewhere, but it's real hard to
>  organise a consensus in this area, there's real division running deep.



The issue for fiction can be summed up within with one question, almost.
Here is a nice simple book. Obviously any /analysis/ will be from good
quality sources. But what kind of sourcing is appropriate to its plot
summary? Many well-read books don't have plot summaries in reliable sources,
and yet "anyone reading the book can see what its basic plot is", and we
have hundreds of editors to reach consensus on what it says.

(Key issue: any book is a primary source on its own contents.)

FT2
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Surreptitiousness]

FT2 wrote:
> To add to this, note that "primary sources" are stated to include
> "...archeological artifacts; photographs.."
>
> NOR, a core policy in this area, doesn't say that the "writings about an
> artifact" are the source. It says clearly that artifacts themselves are
> categorized as primary sources.
>
> The only way an "artifact" or photograph could ever be a "source" is that by
> its very existence, it has a number of obvious descriptive qualities and the
> like that any reasonable person witnessing it would agree upon, and that
> anyone with access to the artifact could verify.

And of course, it is this portion of policy that causes us issues with 
regards fiction. Since the work itself is a primary source.
 We haven't yet worked out to what extent a article on a fictional 
subject should rely on secondary sources.  Or at least reached a 
consensus.  It's easier to tackle fiction articles by removing 
speculation and interpretation. Generally, I think that should be the 
better approach, and I'd like to see a similar policy, in terms of scope 
rather than content, created for articles on fictional subjects.  I 
think Phul Sandifer had a draft somewhere, but it's real hard to 
organise a consensus in this area, there's real division running deep.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Surreptitiousness]

Ian Woollard wrote:
> On 30/09/2009, FT2  wrote:
>   
>> Policies and rules don't work that way, exactly. They're a bit "zen", they
>> point to the moon, but they aren't the moon themselves. if you want a formal
>> policy that everyone /must/ follow, then 5 pillars, or WP:CLUE are in some
>> ways more speaking to the spirit of things, rather than the detail of it.
>>
>> No written page can capture the full precise black and white version,
>> because there isn't such a thing. We fix it to get fairly close on big
>> stuff, and hope people figure out the small stuff on their own, or by seeing
>> how others react to their trying things out.
>>
>> If you try and run Wikipedia literally "by the policies" (including IAR) but
>> not the spirit, you'll get close but there will regularly be areas you'll
>> miss the point, the "what a clueful person might intuit" (which will surely
>> be divergent with others!)
>> 
>
> In my experience the problems are usually more to do with people not
> following policies. It's precisely the people that *think* they
> understand the wikipedia that usually become deletionists or
> inclusionists.
>   
I don't know, I tend to find deletionists and inclusionists are the ones 
who tend to follow policy to the "very" letter.  "But you're forgetting 
the editing policy says we should preserve information", usually 
countered by deletionists stating that "Wikipedia is not the place for 
indiscriminate information".  Most everyone else knows the truth is 
actually found in the debate, which focuses on the merits of the 
content. Anyone not interested in being an extremist will almost always 
reach a consensus. The trouble is, we've gotten so used to cramming our 
arguments with [[WP:THIS]] that we've made it hard to separate the good, 
the bad and the ugly.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Surreptitiousness <
surreptitious.wikiped...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Ken Arromdee wrote:
> > On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, FT2 wrote:
> >
> >> So the resolution of your question above is, if anyone could in
> principle
> >> check it without analysis, just by witnessing the object or document and
> >> attesting it says what it says (or is what it is, or has certain obvious
> >> qualities), then that's verifiable. If it would need analysis,
> >> interpretation or deduction to form the view, so that some views might
> be
> >> credible/expert and some might not, then we don't try to "play the
> expert"
> >> here, we look at what credible sources/experts say instead.
> >>
> >
> > 1) That doesn't seem to be actual Wikipedia policy.
> >
>
> Sure it is.  Have a look at the section on dealing with primary
>  sources.  That's almost a perfect summary of it.



To add to this, note that "primary sources" are stated to include
"...archeological artifacts; photographs.."

NOR, a core policy in this area, doesn't say that the "writings about an
artifact" are the source. It says clearly that artifacts themselves are
categorized as primary sources.

The only way an "artifact" or photograph could ever be a "source" is that by
its very existence, it has a number of obvious descriptive qualities and the
like that any reasonable person witnessing it would agree upon, and that
anyone with access to the artifact could verify.

FT2
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 3:04 AM, Ian Woollard  wrote:

> It's precisely the people that *think* they
> understand the wikipedia that usually become deletionists or
>  inclusionists.



Read carefully:

"...WP:CLUE in some ways more speak[s] to the spirit of things..."

Same point. And agreed that it is infuriatingly vague in a way, to some
people, because something not written can matter more than the words on the
page.

FT2
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Surreptitiousness]

Ken Arromdee wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, FT2 wrote:
>   
>> So the resolution of your question above is, if anyone could in principle
>> check it without analysis, just by witnessing the object or document and
>> attesting it says what it says (or is what it is, or has certain obvious
>> qualities), then that's verifiable. If it would need analysis,
>> interpretation or deduction to form the view, so that some views might be
>> credible/expert and some might not, then we don't try to "play the expert"
>> here, we look at what credible sources/experts say instead.
>> 
>
> 1) That doesn't seem to be actual Wikipedia policy.
>   

Sure it is.  Have a look at the section on dealing with primary 
sources.  That's almost a perfect summary of it.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ian Woollard]

On 30/09/2009, FT2  wrote:
> Policies and rules don't work that way, exactly. They're a bit "zen", they
> point to the moon, but they aren't the moon themselves. if you want a formal
> policy that everyone /must/ follow, then 5 pillars, or WP:CLUE are in some
> ways more speaking to the spirit of things, rather than the detail of it.
>
> No written page can capture the full precise black and white version,
> because there isn't such a thing. We fix it to get fairly close on big
> stuff, and hope people figure out the small stuff on their own, or by seeing
> how others react to their trying things out.
>
> If you try and run Wikipedia literally "by the policies" (including IAR) but
> not the spirit, you'll get close but there will regularly be areas you'll
> miss the point, the "what a clueful person might intuit" (which will surely
> be divergent with others!)

In my experience the problems are usually more to do with people not
following policies. It's precisely the people that *think* they
understand the wikipedia that usually become deletionists or
inclusionists.

> FT2

-- 
-Ian Woollard

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Sarah Ewart]

Getting back Dixon, I've found an article about "offbeat attractions" in
Virginia which was published in the "Roanoke Times and World News" that
says:

Displays lead you from Dixon's birth in Wisconsin in 1904** (she liked to
say it was 1918), through her short singing career, her marriage and her
meetings with presidents and celebrities. You can hear an audio clip of
Dixon making a prediction, view her notes on Nostradamus' forecasts and see
her ornate, gold-crowned bed that once belonged to French Empress Eugenie.

-Sarah
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

Policies and rules don't work that way, exactly. They're a bit "zen", they
point to the moon, but they aren't the moon themselves. if you want a formal
policy that everyone /must/ follow, then 5 pillars, or WP:CLUE are in some
ways more speaking to the spirit of things, rather than the detail of it.

No written page can capture the full precise black and white version,
because there isn't such a thing. We fix it to get fairly close on big
stuff, and hope people figure out the small stuff on their own, or by seeing
how others react to their trying things out.

If you try and run Wikipedia literally "by the policies" (including IAR) but
not the spirit, you'll get close but there will regularly be areas you'll
miss the point, the "what a clueful person might intuit" (which will surely
be divergent with others!)

FT2





On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 11:20 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> > > 1) That doesn't seem to be actual Wikipedia policy.
> > One of the functions of IAR is to protect us from becoming slaves to
> > policy that leads us to information which defies common sense or which
> > leads us into absurdities.
>
> IAR is only useful when everyone agrees that what you want to do is common
> sense.  If there's any conflict about it, IAR is pretty much
> worthless--that
> is, it's worthless exactly when you need it.  And Wikipedia is peppered
> with
> conflicts where rule wonks always want you to follow rules, and quoting IAR
> to them means you lose.
>
> And as I pointed out, if you need IAR to make a rule not totally break
> things
> in the cases where the rule matters--that's really a sign that you should
> just fix the rule, rather than quoting IAR.  Of course, rules are nearly
> impossible to fix (except by abusing other rules).
>
>
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> > 1) That doesn't seem to be actual Wikipedia policy.
> One of the functions of IAR is to protect us from becoming slaves to 
> policy that leads us to information which defies common sense or which 
> leads us into absurdities.

IAR is only useful when everyone agrees that what you want to do is common
sense.  If there's any conflict about it, IAR is pretty much worthless--that
is, it's worthless exactly when you need it.  And Wikipedia is peppered with
conflicts where rule wonks always want you to follow rules, and quoting IAR
to them means you lose.

And as I pointed out, if you need IAR to make a rule not totally break things
in the cases where the rule matters--that's really a sign that you should
just fix the rule, rather than quoting IAR.  Of course, rules are nearly
impossible to fix (except by abusing other rules).


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Durova]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:

> Durova wrote:
> > Suppose for discussion's sake we can fully trust that the brother-in-law
> of
> > Jeane Dixon's nephew has indeed commented upon the matter.  Relatives
> have
> > been known to get their facts wrong.  The more distant, the more likely a
> > mistake.
> >
>
> Your presumption here is that the information came from "the
> brother-in-law of Jeane Dixon's nephew". That may very well have some
> weight in evaluating the information on a death certificate.  The birth
> information in the SSDI could reasonably be from a different source: her
> own application for a social security number.  Other official sources exist
>
> Not a presumption but a direct reference to the opening thread post.  No
secondary source and no other primary confirms his assertion, according to
the opening post.  That's subnotable.


> > My own cousins and I debate the spelling of a grandmother's name.  And
> > certain records are unverifiable because of warehouse fires.  In a few
> > instances I know the later records are wrong because I was present when
> the
> > later data was recorded and the person who answered the questions, who
> was
> > choked with grief, simply misspoke.  Others who were present were jet
> lagged
> > from sudden arrangements to attend the funeral and too slow to react.
> > There's a family member who ought to have a military honor on his burial
> > marker but doesn't, because of that.  I wish I'd had the presence of mind
> to
> > correct the omission when the opportunity came.
> >
>
> Spelling gives rise to a broad range of different errors.  My own father
> misspelled my middle name on my birth record as "Micheal" even though
> his own first name was "Michael".
>
> I may be the only person alive who knows the original spelling of my
father's middle name (hint: if you started kindergarten in 1945 it was
slightly uncool to have a name that was recognizably German).

On census records spelling errors abound.  When census takers went out
> to gather information in a less literate era they were left to their own
> devices when they had to record the name of an illiterate, particularly
> in the case of an immigrant whose name was in a strange tongue. Priests
> who performed marriages often "fixed" names to make them more consistent
> with community norms.
>
> But does any census record, ever, give the 1904 birthdate?  Has any
secondary source determined it was worth repeating?  That would change the
discussion substantially.  What we're discussing is near unanimity.  A
single primary source from the close of her life and a putative distant
relative are all that contest it.  A fourteen year gap would be substantial;
[[WP:UNDUE]] that isn't enough to merit coverage.  Plenty of reliable small
presses would run the story if the nephew's brother-in-law cares enough and
has a good case to make for it.

-- 
http://durova.blogspot.com/
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ray Saintonge]

Cary Bass wrote:
> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>   
>> One secondary source that uses 1904 for Jeane Dixon's birth is
>> IMDB, but they err in their link to her husband James Dixon. He
>> was an acquaintance of Hal Roach, and the Dixons were married in
>> 1939, but the linked James Dixon was *born* in 1939.
>> 
> In my experience, IMDB is hugely unreliable as a secondary source,
> notably because the material can be edited by you and me (provided you
> have an account); and while it is all subject to editorial review, a
> good portion of the data is accepted without question.

So they suffer from the same crowd sourcing problems as Wikipedia? ;-)

If we are aware of its problems we are warned to proceed with caution.  
That's not entirely a knockout blow to it as a source.

Ec

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ray Saintonge]

Ken Arromdee wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, FT2 wrote:
>   
>> So the resolution of your question above is, if anyone could in principle
>> check it without analysis, just by witnessing the object or document and
>> attesting it says what it says (or is what it is, or has certain obvious
>> qualities), then that's verifiable. If it would need analysis,
>> interpretation or deduction to form the view, so that some views might be
>> credible/expert and some might not, then we don't try to "play the expert"
>> here, we look at what credible sources/experts say instead.
>> 
>
> 1) That doesn't seem to be actual Wikipedia policy.
>
>   
One of the functions of IAR is to protect us from becoming slaves to 
policy that leads us to information which defies common sense or which 
leads us into absurdities.

Ec


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[David Gerard]

2009/9/30 Ray Saintonge :
> George Herbert wrote:

>> "Verifyable, but untrue" - where there's evidence to disprove but it's
>> not compellingly better quality data than the untrue data - is the
>> hard case.  Either walk the narrow line and present both or pick one
>> and defend using it, staying aware that more info may clarify the
>> situation into the first case above.

> The advantage of raising doubts by presenting both is that some yet
> unknown person with access to better sources may become aware of the
> uncertainty. Honestly admitting uncertainties improves reliability.


Yeah. NPOV is akin to a survey from 20,000 feet of the landscape.
Mentioning all important sources is useful.

Tangentially - one example that I edited in passing is [[Thomas
Crapper]] - one source, "Flushed With Pride", is a satirical biography
in the style of scholarship, i.e. complete lies for the lulz - but
it's such a famous source that the article actually had to address the
claims in it, even though they're all fiction. It helps that Adam
Hart-Davis had done much better, and that the revived Thomas Crapper
company has lots of archival material.

But yeah, famous but bad sources. Gosh they're fun.

The answer to Ken's questions in this thread - don't do what's bloody
stupid, even if people think you're required to by the rules. That's
just silly.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ray Saintonge]

George Herbert wrote:
> "Verifyable, but untrue" - where there's evidence to disprove but it's
> not compellingly better quality data than the untrue data - is the
> hard case.  Either walk the narrow line and present both or pick one
> and defend using it, staying aware that more info may clarify the
> situation into the first case above.
>
>   
The advantage of raising doubts by presenting both is that some yet 
unknown person with access to better sources may become aware of the 
uncertainty. Honestly admitting uncertainties improves reliability.

Ec

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Charles Matthews]

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> An example of the kinds of problems you bump into when depending on
> primary sources:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Swampyank&diff=prev&oldid=312682486
>
>
> But there should be no problem under policy for pointing out BOTH what
> a respectable primary source says along with disagreeing secondary
> sources.  If any policy says otherwise it should be fixed.
>
>   
Is there a _primary_ source for a date of birth beyond a birth 
certificate or other official registration? Seems to me that dragging 
"thou shalt not quote primary sources" into arguments is more likely a 
source of confusion than of clarification. Just because we don't want 
people doing original research of a tendentious sort from primary 
sources that need interpretative care and publishing it on Wikipedia, it 
doesn't mean that we have always to wait for a secondary source to copy 
across straight data.

Charles


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Cary Bass]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Durova wrote:
>> Suppose for discussion's sake we can fully trust that the
>> brother-in-law of Jeane Dixon's nephew has indeed commented upon
>> the matter. Relatives have been known to get their facts wrong.
>> The more distant, the more likely a mistake.
>>
>
> Your presumption here is that the information came from "the
> brother-in-law of Jeane Dixon's nephew". That may very well have
> some weight in evaluating the information on a death certificate.
> The birth information in the SSDI could reasonably be from a
> different source: her own application for a social security number.
> Other official sources exist
>
>> My own cousins and I debate the spelling of a grandmother's name.
>> And certain records are unverifiable because of warehouse fires.
>> In a few instances I know the later records are wrong because I
>> was present when the later data was recorded and the person who
>> answered the questions, who was choked with grief, simply
>> misspoke. Others who were present were jet lagged from sudden
>> arrangements to attend the funeral and too slow to react. There's
>> a family member who ought to have a military honor on his burial
>> marker but doesn't, because of that. I wish I'd had the presence
>> of mind to correct the omission when the opportunity came.
>>
>
> Spelling gives rise to a broad range of different errors. My own
> father misspelled my middle name on my birth record as "Micheal"
> even though his own first name was "Michael".
>
> On census records spelling errors abound. When census takers went
> out to gather information in a less literate era they were left to
> their own devices when they had to record the name of an
> illiterate, particularly in the case of an immigrant whose name was
> in a strange tongue. Priests who performed marriages often "fixed"
> names to make them more consistent with community norms.
>
>> Let's go with the secondary sources here. No disrespect
>> intended.
>>
>>
> Leaving data from a secondary source untouched when it is in
> reasonable doubt is more obtuse than disrespectful. If we continue
> in this way we perpetuate errors, and only add fuel for those who
> consider Wikipedia unreliable
>
> One secondary source that uses 1904 for Jeane Dixon's birth is
> IMDB, but they err in their link to her husband James Dixon. He
> was an acquaintance of Hal Roach, and the Dixons were married in
> 1939, but the linked James Dixon was *born* in 1939.
In my experience, IMDB is hugely unreliable as a secondary source,
notably because the material can be edited by you and me (provided you
have an account); and while it is all subject to editorial review, a
good portion of the data is accepted without question.

- --
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ray Saintonge]

Durova wrote:
> Suppose for discussion's sake we can fully trust that the brother-in-law of
> Jeane Dixon's nephew has indeed commented upon the matter.  Relatives have
> been known to get their facts wrong.  The more distant, the more likely a
> mistake.
>   

Your presumption here is that the information came from "the 
brother-in-law of Jeane Dixon's nephew". That may very well have some 
weight in evaluating the information on a death certificate.  The birth 
information in the SSDI could reasonably be from a different source: her 
own application for a social security number.  Other official sources exist

> My own cousins and I debate the spelling of a grandmother's name.  And
> certain records are unverifiable because of warehouse fires.  In a few
> instances I know the later records are wrong because I was present when the
> later data was recorded and the person who answered the questions, who was
> choked with grief, simply misspoke.  Others who were present were jet lagged
> from sudden arrangements to attend the funeral and too slow to react.
> There's a family member who ought to have a military honor on his burial
> marker but doesn't, because of that.  I wish I'd had the presence of mind to
> correct the omission when the opportunity came.
>   

Spelling gives rise to a broad range of different errors.  My own father 
misspelled my middle name on my birth record as "Micheal" even though 
his own first name was "Michael". 

On census records spelling errors abound.  When census takers went out 
to gather information in a less literate era they were left to their own 
devices when they had to record the name of an illiterate, particularly 
in the case of an immigrant whose name was in a strange tongue. Priests 
who performed marriages often "fixed" names to make them more consistent 
with community norms.

> Let's go with the secondary sources here.  No disrespect intended.
>
>   
Leaving data from a secondary source untouched when it is in reasonable 
doubt is more obtuse than disrespectful.  If we continue in this way we 
perpetuate errors, and only add fuel for those who consider Wikipedia 
unreliable

One secondary source that uses 1904 for Jeane Dixon's birth is IMDB, but 
they err in their link to her husband James Dixon.  He was an 
acquaintance of Hal Roach, and the Dixons were married in 1939, but the 
linked James Dixon was *born* in 1939.

Ec

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[George Herbert]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 6:36 AM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Sep 2009, George Herbert wrote:
>> > "Verifiability, not truth" means that sometimes we'll put in something 
>> > that's
>> > verifiable but isn't true.
>> "Verifyable, but untrue" - where there's evidence to disprove but it's
>> not compellingly better quality data than the untrue data - is the
>> hard case.  Either walk the narrow line and present both or pick one
>> and defend using it, staying aware that more info may clarify the
>> situation into the first case above.
>
> The problem is that the data may actually be better quality (by non-
> Wikipedian standards) but not verifiable by Wikipedia standards.  (Like the
> case of the bridge which was said in a source to have no traffic, and
> someone visited it and saw it has traffic.  You could make up far-fetched
> scenarios of why the reliable source could still be correct, but it's far
> more likely that none of those scenarios are and that the source is simply
> wrong.)

I believe that primary source evidence, including Wikipedian fact
checking (that they then publish somewhere, i.e. a video on YouTube
etc) would count for impugning the reliability of a source where the
source is demonstrated wrong.

Sources which appear reliable - written by people who should know what
they're doing, published with fact checking by reputable publishers,
etc. - have a presumption of reliability and accuracy.  But that's
rebuttable.

Once a valid concern about its accuracy is raised, if you can
demonstrate it's not reliable, it's out.  Presumption rebutted.

On the bridge example, at the very least it can demonstrate that the
statement in the book of no traffic was not currently true, though it
might have been at the time of the book's publication.

Some people object to such rebuttals and feel that Wikipedians should
not make judgement calls on whether the sources are reliable.  Those
people are wrong.  There is plenty of crap information out there in
apparently reliable sources.

WP:RS is not a suicide pact - appearances are sometimes deceiving, and
we have a complete freedom to investigate and throw out sources.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, FT2 wrote:
>> So the resolution of your question above is, if anyone could in principle
>> check it without analysis, just by witnessing the object or document and
>> attesting it says what it says (or is what it is, or has certain obvious
>> qualities), then that's verifiable. If it would need analysis,
>> interpretation or deduction to form the view, so that some views might be
>> credible/expert and some might not, then we don't try to "play the expert"
>> here, we look at what credible sources/experts say instead.
>
> 1) That doesn't seem to be actual Wikipedia policy.
>
> 2) It's always possible to come up with some farfetched scenario where the
> direct observation is wrong, "proving" that you need analysis,
> interpretation, or deduction every single time.  "Maybe the bridge was
> opened one day for a special festival and it's usually closed to traffic."
> "Maybe the document states a false date for some legal reason that you, not
> being an expert, wouldn't know about".  Heck, this happened right now;
> someone basically suggested "maybe the family members recall the date
> incorrectly" (even though it wasn't just family members).

An example of the kinds of problems you bump into when depending on
primary sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Swampyank&diff=prev&oldid=312682486


But there should be no problem under policy for pointing out BOTH what
a respectable primary source says along with disagreeing secondary
sources.  If any policy says otherwise it should be fixed.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, FT2 wrote:
> So the resolution of your question above is, if anyone could in principle
> check it without analysis, just by witnessing the object or document and
> attesting it says what it says (or is what it is, or has certain obvious
> qualities), then that's verifiable. If it would need analysis,
> interpretation or deduction to form the view, so that some views might be
> credible/expert and some might not, then we don't try to "play the expert"
> here, we look at what credible sources/experts say instead.

1) That doesn't seem to be actual Wikipedia policy.

2) It's always possible to come up with some farfetched scenario where the
direct observation is wrong, "proving" that you need analysis,
interpretation, or deduction every single time.  "Maybe the bridge was
opened one day for a special festival and it's usually closed to traffic."
"Maybe the document states a false date for some legal reason that you, not
being an expert, wouldn't know about".  Heck, this happened right now;
someone basically suggested "maybe the family members recall the date
incorrectly" (even though it wasn't just family members).


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:

> Unfortunately, "roughly" isn't "precisely".
>
> This argument started with a verifiable-but-false claim which was factually
> checked, but where we're not allowed to use the result of the fact-checking
> (since it was a primary source and secondary sources take preference).
> The covered bridge example was also one ("I fact-checked the source by
> looking
>  at the bridge.  The source was wrong." is not acceptable.)


You're mistaken about sourcing, I think. I'll try for a simple
lay-description of a complex subject needing judgment:

Information comes in a variety of forms. Some information anyone can verify
for themselves (in principle). It's factual, it's presented to the senses,
it requires no interpretation or analysis, it is what it is.

A photocopy of my passport is a piece of paper that appears to be a
photocopy of a passport and contains a picture, and anyone can agree on
that. The Declaration of Independence in the National Archives contains the
words "We hold these truths to be self-evident". The Golden Gate bridge
crosses water. My birth certificate states a given date. Dickens' book
"Bleak House" focuses on a legal dispute and its consequences and is
narrated in part by character Esther Summerson. There are 13 stripes and 50
stars on the American flag.

These are primary sources (in Wikipedia terms), they are what they are, and
any reasonable person with access can verify and agree.

Other sources are opinions, analysis, research and conclusions. We don't get
into this area, we defer to what we conclude or believe to be experts and
credible sources, and document the main opinions/views/beliefs that exist in
the world.

So the resolution of your question above is, if anyone could in principle
check it without analysis, just by witnessing the object or document and
attesting it says what it says (or is what it is, or has certain obvious
qualities), then that's verifiable. If it would need analysis,
interpretation or deduction to form the view, so that some views might be
credible/expert and some might not, then we don't try to "play the expert"
here, we look at what credible sources/experts say instead.

So yes, you can look at the bridge. Anyone can. That would in principle
suffice for something that anyone could check and anyone agree upon --
obvious, clear, blatant, unambiguous, verifiable. Because reliable sources
are expected to be correct, if it's contradicted by sources, then other
editors will require some kind of evidence that the bridge does truly have
those obvious attributes, that any visitor could clearly see, not just "some
Wikipedian says so".

FT2
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009, Durova wrote:
> Suppose for discussion's sake we can fully trust that the brother-in-law of
> Jeane Dixon's nephew has indeed commented upon the matter.  Relatives have
> been known to get their facts wrong.  The more distant, the more likely a
> mistake.

But that argument applies to anything.  Even the kind of sources we accept
have been known to get their facts wrong.  "We shouldn't listen to the
relatives because they might be wrong" is not just an argument for ignoring
the relatives, it's one for not having Wikipedia at all.

What you have to argue is "it's far more likely that the relatives got it
wrong than the reliable sources", and that's a lot harder to justify.


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, FT2 wrote:
> Verifiability not truth is probably one of the most poorly understood
> expressions on the wiki.
> 
> It roughly means that we document what can be factually checked, in
> preference to what we "believe".

Unfortunately, "roughly" isn't "precisely".

This argument started with a verifiable-but-false claim which was factually
checked, but where we're not allowed to use the result of the fact-checking
(since it was a primary source and secondary sources take preference).
The covered bridge example was also one ("I fact-checked the source by looking
at the bridge.  The source was wrong." is not acceptable.)


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009, George Herbert wrote:
> > "Verifiability, not truth" means that sometimes we'll put in something 
> > that's
> > verifiable but isn't true.
> "Verifyable, but untrue" - where there's evidence to disprove but it's
> not compellingly better quality data than the untrue data - is the
> hard case.  Either walk the narrow line and present both or pick one
> and defend using it, staying aware that more info may clarify the
> situation into the first case above.

The problem is that the data may actually be better quality (by non-
Wikipedian standards) but not verifiable by Wikipedia standards.  (Like the
case of the bridge which was said in a source to have no traffic, and
someone visited it and saw it has traffic.  You could make up far-fetched
scenarios of why the reliable source could still be correct, but it's far
more likely that none of those scenarios are and that the source is simply
wrong.)

> "Verifyable, but I assert it's untrue" is a variation on "Because I
> said so".  This is what the statement is meant for.  If you assert
> it's untrue and you're right, you have a reason for knowing that it's
> untrue - you can cite what informed you.  If you assert it's untrue
> and you have an opinion but not actual factual knowledge, your opinion
> is trumped by a verifyable statement, even if you legitimately think
> it's an untrue statement.

Same problem: You're assuming that "acceptable citable Wikipedia source" is
equivalent to "good source of information" and that if the source cannot be
cited, it's equivalent to "because I say so".  Wikipedia's standards for
sources do not allow some things that common sense tells us are at least as
reliable as using Wikipedia-acceptable sources, like visiting a bridge
yourself or using a primary source for a birthdate which contradicts a
secondary source.

> Exceptions include BLP, where "I'm person Z, and that never happened
> to me..." does hold some weight...

The only reason BLP is an exception that Argumentum ad Jimbonium is strong
enough that we can ignore all the broken rules that would otherwise prevent
us from doing it.


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Charles Matthews]

Kat Walsh wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Liam Wyatt  wrote:
>
>   
>> The soundbite I use is that "Wikipedia outsources truth". The debate about
>> what is or isn't true is not ours but is played out amongst the various
>> sources that we can draw upon as references.
>> 
Does have the slightly unfortunate implication that anyone on the site 
who actually knows facts could find themselved "downsized". And, of 
course, that we have a perfectly transparent notion of "reliable 
source", which would be a lie.

Charles


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:05 PM, Carcharoth wrote:

> Is it common to get birth years wrong by 14 years?
>


Yes. Ask any work colleague over 60 how  old they are - "Oh, I'm 40 next
birthday"!

More to the point claims of older age than one has (or younger youth) may be
strongly upheld all of one's life, due to credibility or advantage it
brings.

Paul.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Carcharoth]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:58 AM, James Hare  wrote:
> You could phrase it like this:
>
> "The SSDI says 1904[source] while all these other publications say
> 1918[source]." Or you could discredit the reliability of the sources (which
> would be the right thing to do, since the SSDI is not likely to get birth
> dates wrong) and just say "Dixon was born in 1904.[source]"



Is it common to get birth years wrong by 14 years?

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[James Hare]

You could phrase it like this:

"The SSDI says 1904[source] while all these other publications say
1918[source]." Or you could discredit the reliability of the sources (which
would be the right thing to do, since the SSDI is not likely to get birth
dates wrong) and just say "Dixon was born in 1904.[source]"

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Rob  wrote:

> This may have come up before so if there's a previous discussion on en
> or here, please direct me to it.
>
> Do we have an official stance on using primary sources like the US
> census and the Social Security Death Index to prove a case of [[age
> fabrication]]?  My take on it is that it is prohibited original
> research, using primary sources to disprove secondary ones, compounded
> by the fact that we could easily confuse the subject of the article
> with another person of the same or similar name.
>
> If you want to be specific, here it is:  Every published source has a
> birthdate of 1918 for the late psychic Jeane Dixon.  However the SSDI
> has her birthdate as 1904 and the brother-in-law of her nephew swears
> on the talk page that the 1904 date is the correct one.  I think the
> 1904 is correct, and it's frustrating because likely no journalist or
> historian is going to bother publishing something about such a minor
> matter, but my opinion is irrelevant and we should defer to published
> sources.  Verifiability not truth and all that.  Or should we IAR in
> cases like this and go with the "correct" date?
>
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:53 AM, Durova  wrote:
> Suppose for discussion's sake we can fully trust that the brother-in-law of
> Jeane Dixon's nephew has indeed commented upon the matter.  Relatives have
> been known to get their facts wrong.  The more distant, the more likely a
> mistake.

But thats not the case here: The SSDI supports the claim. True— it
could just be the kind of clerical error that you find in a primary
source from time to time, but it's a verifiable record.

We do our readers a service to point to the diversity of possibly
credible answers and to avoid presenting false confidence.

(My position would be different if it were clear that one of the
secondaries had examined the SSDI and concluded that the information
was incorrect, I'm assuming that isn't the case here)

In the case of living people I think that their own sourcable claims
about themselves are automatically notable and reasonable for
inclusion, placed against what the external sources say.  "Jim has
stated that he is X[], however sources A[], B[] and C[] cite records
X, Y and, Z and state he is Q" ...  Some version of this position
might also reasonably apply to the heirs of the deceased:  That it
might be interesting and notable that the children of someone all
insist one thing although every reasonable source is quite confident
that the truth is something else.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Durova]

Suppose for discussion's sake we can fully trust that the brother-in-law of
Jeane Dixon's nephew has indeed commented upon the matter.  Relatives have
been known to get their facts wrong.  The more distant, the more likely a
mistake.

My own cousins and I debate the spelling of a grandmother's name.  And
certain records are unverifiable because of warehouse fires.  In a few
instances I know the later records are wrong because I was present when the
later data was recorded and the person who answered the questions, who was
choked with grief, simply misspoke.  Others who were present were jet lagged
from sudden arrangements to attend the funeral and too slow to react.
There's a family member who ought to have a military honor on his burial
marker but doesn't, because of that.  I wish I'd had the presence of mind to
correct the omission when the opportunity came.

Let's go with the secondary sources here.  No disrespect intended.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 9:08 PM, Kat Walsh  wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Liam Wyatt  wrote:
>
> > The soundbite I use is that "Wikipedia outsources truth". The debate
> about
> > what is or isn't true is not ours but is played out amongst the various
> > sources that we can draw upon as references.
>
> Good soundbite. :-)
>
> -Kat
>
> --
> Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en
> Wikimedia, Press: k...@wikimedia.org * Personal: k...@mindspillage.org
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage
> mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Kat Walsh]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Liam Wyatt  wrote:

> The soundbite I use is that "Wikipedia outsources truth". The debate about
> what is or isn't true is not ours but is played out amongst the various
> sources that we can draw upon as references.

Good soundbite. :-)

-Kat

-- 
Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en
Wikimedia, Press: k...@wikimedia.org * Personal: k...@mindspillage.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Liam Wyatt]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 1:13 PM, FT2  wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 3:27 AM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:
>
> "Write about what is verifiable, rather than what you or someone happens to
> believe is true" is a soundbite, a way to express that approach. We don't
> know 100.000% about reality, or history, or culture, or any area. We do
> know
> what credible students of reality, history and culture have concluded and
> without dipping into philosophy, that is what we document.
>

The soundbite I use is that "Wikipedia outsources truth". The debate about
what is or isn't true is not ours but is played out amongst the various
sources that we can draw upon as references.

-Liam [[witty lama]]

wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata


>
>
> FT2
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 3:27 AM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:

> "Verifiability, not truth" means that sometimes we'll put in something
> that's
> verifiable but isn't true.
>
> If you use IAR now, you'll have a hard time justifying not using it every
> time something's verifable-but-false.  And if you do use it every time, why
> not just fix the rule?  (Aside from "it's so easy to filibuster a rule
> change and people are so attached to the existing rules that it's
> impossible
>  to fix them".)



Verifiability not truth is probably one of the most poorly understood
expressions on the wiki.

It roughly means that we document what can be factually checked, in
preference to what we "believe". Most of the time the two coincide - I
believe people have lungs, and it's a fact that a wide range of very
credible sources on human anatomy say they do as well. Pure unsupported (or
poorly supported) belief is not, by itself, a good basis to tell the rest of
the world "this is what's so". As a reference source, the mandate we have is
to document information, that means not introducing our own beliefs about
"whats true" too much into it.

"Write about what is verifiable, rather than what you or someone happens to
believe is true" is a soundbite, a way to express that approach. We don't
know 100.000% about reality, or history, or culture, or any area. We do know
what credible students of reality, history and culture have concluded and
without dipping into philosophy, that is what we document.

It's not fireworks and adventure. It's documenting what credible sources
state, and the fact that credible sources do state those things.

IAR is the other main "poorly understood" policy ;)

FT2
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[George Herbert]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:27 PM, Ken Arromdee  wrote:
> "Verifiability, not truth" means that sometimes we'll put in something that's
> verifiable but isn't true.

That statement gets abused.  The prime exception is the "Verifyable,
but untrue" case.

If it's "Verifyable, but verifyably untrue" it's easy - "Commonly used
source A says X, but source B and others indicate that source A is
incorrect on this point and the correct value is Y."

"Verifyable, but untrue" - where there's evidence to disprove but it's
not compellingly better quality data than the untrue data - is the
hard case.  Either walk the narrow line and present both or pick one
and defend using it, staying aware that more info may clarify the
situation into the first case above.

"Verifyable, but I assert it's untrue" is a variation on "Because I
said so".  This is what the statement is meant for.  If you assert
it's untrue and you're right, you have a reason for knowing that it's
untrue - you can cite what informed you.  If you assert it's untrue
and you have an opinion but not actual factual knowledge, your opinion
is trumped by a verifyable statement, even if you legitimately think
it's an untrue statement.

If you AGF about someone who thinks they might be able to find a
reference to back up their opinion or memory, the best thing to do is
help them do a search for reference materials to back them up.
Encouraging people to dig up info and cite it solidly is good practice
anyways.

Exceptions include BLP, where "I'm person Z, and that never happened
to me..." does hold some weight...


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

"Verifiability, not truth" means that sometimes we'll put in something that's
verifiable but isn't true.

If you use IAR now, you'll have a hard time justifying not using it every
time something's verifable-but-false.  And if you do use it every time, why
not just fix the rule?  (Aside from "it's so easy to filibuster a rule
change and people are so attached to the existing rules that it's impossible
to fix them".)


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Steve Bennett]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 11:32 AM, FT2  wrote:
> From a Wikipedia editorial stance, stating that "date of birth" has multiple
> reliable sources that conflict, is fine. Books state X, official government
> records state Y, both are "RS" enough to be worth citing and the difference
> is probably worth noting in the context of her article as well.

Yep. I'd probably list the most commonly published one in the lede,
with a footnote explaining the issue.

One place I did something slightly similar was
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_McTell - see the "Note".

Steve

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

Adding to that:

>From a Wikipedia editorial stance, stating that "date of birth" has multiple
reliable sources that conflict, is fine. Books state X, official government
records state Y, both are "RS" enough to be worth citing and the difference
is probably worth noting in the context of her article as well.

So state the facts. It's fine to say "source X states Y and source P states
Q" or the like.

Where it becomes OR is if you then start to draw your own conclusions from
it, which one is "right", etc, if you don't have a good basis to do so.

FT2



On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 2:22 AM, FT2  wrote:

> We're an encyclopedia. Often sources conflict. If so, mention what both
> sources say. An example where this has happened in another article is here:
>
> <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_expenses_scandal#Source_of_information
> >
>
> See last para of that section. May help you. Another is here, where there
> is some genuine historical uncertainty to whether the matter existed or not:
>
> 
>
> Between those two, you should get some good ideas.
>
> FT2
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:43 AM, Rob  wrote:
>
>> This may have come up before so if there's a previous discussion on en
>> or here, please direct me to it.
>>
>> Do we have an official stance on using primary sources like the US
>> census and the Social Security Death Index to prove a case of [[age
>> fabrication]]?  My take on it is that it is prohibited original
>> research, using primary sources to disprove secondary ones, compounded
>> by the fact that we could easily confuse the subject of the article
>> with another person of the same or similar name.
>>
>> If you want to be specific, here it is:  Every published source has a
>> birthdate of 1918 for the late psychic Jeane Dixon.  However the SSDI
>> has her birthdate as 1904 and the brother-in-law of her nephew swears
>> on the talk page that the 1904 date is the correct one.  I think the
>> 1904 is correct, and it's frustrating because likely no journalist or
>> historian is going to bother publishing something about such a minor
>> matter, but my opinion is irrelevant and we should defer to published
>> sources.  Verifiability not truth and all that.  Or should we IAR in
>> cases like this and go with the "correct" date?
>>
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

We're an encyclopedia. Often sources conflict. If so, mention what both
sources say. An example where this has happened in another article is here:

<
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_expenses_scandal#Source_of_information
>

See last para of that section. May help you. Another is here, where there is
some genuine historical uncertainty to whether the matter existed or not:



Between those two, you should get some good ideas.

FT2



On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:43 AM, Rob  wrote:

> This may have come up before so if there's a previous discussion on en
> or here, please direct me to it.
>
> Do we have an official stance on using primary sources like the US
> census and the Social Security Death Index to prove a case of [[age
> fabrication]]?  My take on it is that it is prohibited original
> research, using primary sources to disprove secondary ones, compounded
> by the fact that we could easily confuse the subject of the article
> with another person of the same or similar name.
>
> If you want to be specific, here it is:  Every published source has a
> birthdate of 1918 for the late psychic Jeane Dixon.  However the SSDI
> has her birthdate as 1904 and the brother-in-law of her nephew swears
> on the talk page that the 1904 date is the correct one.  I think the
> 1904 is correct, and it's frustrating because likely no journalist or
> historian is going to bother publishing something about such a minor
> matter, but my opinion is irrelevant and we should defer to published
> sources.  Verifiability not truth and all that.  Or should we IAR in
> cases like this and go with the "correct" date?
>
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Rob  wrote:
[snip]
> matter, but my opinion is irrelevant and we should defer to published
> sources.  Verifiability not truth and all that.  Or should we IAR in
> cases like this and go with the "correct" date?

You can usually punt and say "This primary source says X; these other
references say Y" (with the implied: If this matters to you, go figure
it out for yourself).

We should avoid false certainty, the world is a complicated and
confusing case. When a question of fact is hard NPOV instructs us to
take a step back and address the meta-fact instead.

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