Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 17:51, 4 December 2007

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RS merger specifics

There is discussion at WT:RS regarding merging the guideline back in here. Currently, seven people have commented and it's 7-0 in favour. I think it should be a step-by-step go through. For instance, this policy doesn't actually mention plagiarism and copyvio but it probably should. I'd like to collapse this RS section into a couple of sentences and add it here:

"Misplaced Pages insists on reliable sources both to substantiate material within articles and to give credit to authors and publishers in order to avoid plagiarism and copyright violations. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in articles."

Any objections? Marskell (talk) 10:00, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Given the current bold climate, I think I'll just go ahead and do this. Clearly, copyvio is a matter of policy and not just a guideline advisement. Marskell (talk) 10:25, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I would strongly object. If you did it It will mean such a major change in many of the sections that it would be better first to try to work out a proposed merge on a subpage. For one thing, is it to be a Policy--then most of RS is over-specific. or is it to be a Guideline, then it downgrades the policy nature of this page. In this case, it eliminates all the other RS information on plagiarism and copyvio. (Unless you simply suggest we have such a paragraph here in addition to whatever might be merged or not merged. DGG (talk) 19:42, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

As it stands, most of RS is gone. There wasn't much to it, even before we started going through the sections. WRT copyvio, it's already a matter of policy that we cite sources to avoid plagiarism, isn't it? Nothing particularly groundbreaking about saying so on our main policy page. Marskell (talk) 20:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

DGG, there is nothing in this page that is not already covered in WP:V. Rather that speaking about merging we should be speaking of redirecting. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:19, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I think there will always be a place for more specific guidelines--where do you suggest they should go? DGG (talk) 22:51, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/examples can be refocused. It was forked out when RS was bloated last year and has been in limbo. I think it should be cut down and only mention the sources that come up most often: the file-sharing and social network sites, IMBD, blogs etc. Marskell (talk) 12:16, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

In practice, most people cite to WP:RS, WP:N, and the many (many) off shoots of WP:N. It would be nice to attempt to give more focus on WP:V since it is a policy. -- Jreferee t/c 01:04, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Discussion is still ongoing at Misplaced Pages talk:Reliable sources. The concept of reliable sources is of utmost importance, that surely we should have a guideline page. It use to have information to help users determine reliability of source types (e.g. YouTube, wikis, ...) I think some of that could come back (from the examples page, but a lot of the examples page is poorly written and not that helpful). I have some suggestions on how to make the guideline page work well, rather than doing away with it or making it a disambiguation page. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Guideline_page_-_proposal. --Aude (talk) 16:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

A proposal to condense “Exceptional claims require exceptional sources”

I don’t claim to be the best wordsmith, but I think I have all the elements included without making the wording unwieldy.

Exceptional claims should be supported by multiple high quality reliable sources, especially regarding scientific or medical topics, historical events, politically charged issues, and in material about living people. Exceptional claims include statements likely to surprise the reader; claims not supported or that are contradicted by the prevailing view in the relevant academic community; or, that if true would significantly alter mainstream assumptions. Such claims should only be included when there is a general consensus amongst editors that the sources cited are reliable for the claims made.

Thanks, Brimba (talk) 04:33, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Brimba, I think it is a good idea to condense, but I think that some of the original concepts in the forumlation have been lost. I have added the original formulation back, which you can wordsmith into a condensed version. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Self-published sources (online and paper)

This section of the policy now says:

Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.

Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.

I wonder if this statement is sufficiently nuanced. For a well-covered topic like George W. Bush or lung cancer, I seriously doubt if any fact or opinion worth noting would have appeared in a blog or self-published book, that has not also appeared in a mainstream source. For topics like these, I think it's safe to say that self-published sources are practically never acceptable.

But because Misplaced Pages is not paper, the encyclopedia now covers many below-the-radar subjects for which the best sources may indeed be self-published. I occasionally find editors aggressively removing citations from self-published sources, because they believed (per this policy) that such sources are considered categorically unreliable in almost all circumstances. The focus of the section should be on indicia of reliability, rather than blanket (or near-blanket) statements that put a patina of grave doubt on an entire category of sources.

The section has a footnote that is similarly flat-footed:

Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control. Where a news organization publishes the opinions of a professional but claims no responsibility for the opinions, the writer of the cited piece should be phrasally attributed (e.g. "Jane Smith has suggested..."). Posts left by readers may never be used as sources.

Newspapers' interactive columns aren't just called blogs; generally, they are blogs. This well founded exception ought to be integrated into the text, instead of being relegated to a footnote. (I do agree that "reader comments" are practically never reliable.) Marc Shepherd (talk) 17:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree entirely with your thrust Marc! Go ahead and propose a change more directly. N.b.: The (only?) exception on reader comments is when the blogger writes one directly, clearly distinguishable as an admin comment. John J. Bulten 16:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Verifiability, not truth?? Say what???

This is quoted like a mantra, but Misplaced Pages DEFINES "verifiable" in terms that have no reference except to objective truth. For example: it DEFINES verifiable as "reliable" and from "established experts" and from sources "with a reputation for accuracy". Well, the words "reliable" and "expert" and "accurate" have no meaning unless we're talking about truth-relatedness. Truthiness, as Colbert would say. So what's with the "verifiable, NOT true" crap? Is somebody just trying to confuse things? There's no room for a NOT in that sentence, if the said definition of verifiable is to be used. Would somebody like to explain what point is trying to be made in this statement, at such labor? Cause I'm obviously not getting it.

Getting no response on NOR, so have decided to post here also.SBHarris 21:10, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

"Truth" is a subjective concept. What one editor might think is "true" may not be "true" for another. Thus, we require "verifiability" instead. In other words, you can't put something you "know to be true" into wikipedia. You can only put statements that are based on what a reliable source says is true. Alternatively, you can not delete something that is cited to a reliable source just because you think it isn't "true". Hope that helps explain what is meant. Blueboar (talk) 21:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The very definition of a "reliable source" is one that tends to report the truth. Are you trying to say you can't put in things you "know" to be true, but only things from a source which you "know" to report the truth? What's the difference? The epistemological problem remains. It's just covered up a step. SBHarris 21:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Many editors want to add unreliable (and often unpublished) statements they claim to know are true. This policy is important to prevent that and justify deletion of such statements when they have been added anyway. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

You might get further by substituting "prominent" or "well-established" for "reliable" in thinking about the problem. For example there are many prominent sources for things like creationism that get discussed in articles, even though by most objective standards some of their claims are simply untrue. Really though, verifiability is about maintaining a reasonable working environment. Ultimately, we do want to create an accurate and factual encyclopedia. But rather than trying to decide individually what the truth is (a task most Wikipedians are unqualified for on most topics), the founders made a compromise. Rather than seeking to discover truth for ourselves, we would work to report on the truth as currently represented by prominent and mainstream sources. That way editors only have to worry about the verifiability of ideas (a much easier task than determining objective truth). Unfortunately, this doesn't completely work in practice, and principles of truth-judging ended up embedded back into RS and NPOV. As for the mantra, well I suspect that some people just like silly mantras, but the underlying principle is that Misplaced Pages editors are (primarily) charged with reporting on opinions rather than forming our own. Dragons flight (talk) 21:51, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

You can think of it a bit like an approximation to Google's page rank except for points of view rather than web links; there's no infinite regress in page rank. We want the points of view, written by people that many other points of view hold to have reliably good points of view, particularly if they in turn are said to have reliably good points of view. The page rank algorithm decays the weight of the links, so there's no infinite regress, and the wikipedia follows that approximate process also.WolfKeeper (talk) 23:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I view this as being a pragmatic policy rather than an epistemological one. We can spend all day navel-gazing and questioning the Nature of Truth but it doesn't help write an encyclopedia. What does help write the encyclopedia is to frame content disagreements in terms of what is supported by which sources, rather than what is "true". Friday (talk) 21:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The point, quite simply, is to shift editors' focus from what they think is true to what they can verify. You are right that an unscrupulous or self-absorbed editor could cloak articles with the "aura" of verifiability by selectively citing sources that support the editor's viewpoint. But in a collectively-edited encyclopedia, that type of bias tends to get weeded out fairly quickly. It's not perfect, but the emphasis on verifiability at least has the benefit of taking personal beliefs out of the equation. We can't stop people from editing based on beliefs rather than sources, but they usually can't get away with it for very long. Marc Shepherd (talk) 21:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Yawn. We really, really need an FAQ if only to answer this concern. Wikipedians are not in a position to determine the truth value of material; we can only find that a reliable, third-party source has declared something a fact (or has not). That's it. Is the third party reporting true statements? That's not our concern. We verify what has been said about what is, not what is. (You think that's confusing?—It's not.) Marskell (talk) 21:57, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I like to say that NPOV stands for notable POVs, and I believe that this is essentially where the thrust of the wikipedias core values are coming from; and the verifiability constraints are to do with checking that the POVs we collect have verifiably been noted by people or organisations that are themselves noted.WolfKeeper (talk) 22:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The 'not truth' bit isn't saying we don't want truth, it's saying that we prefer verifiability as a sufficient and necessary condition, not truth as a sufficient and necessary condition, because of the practical issues that brings (how can you prove you've got truth- you can't unless you can verify it, in which case verifiability is more fundamental).WolfKeeper (talk) 22:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The concept is very simple: Just because something may happen to be true does not automatically mean that you can jam it into an article. You have to back it up with a citation to a reliable source that verifies the fact. In practice, this really does not apply to simple truths, like "the Earth is a spherical planet". No one is going to challenge such a fact, but it IS a verifiable fact that CAN be sourced if challenged. - Crockspot (talk) 04:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, it SHOULD be sourced, if challenged with no argument. — BQZip01 —  04:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

The very definition of a "reliable source" is one that tends to report the truth., not really... A reliable source is one we can tell our readers it has a fact checking process that is acceptable for inclusion in an encyclopedic article. It has nothing to do with the concept of "truth". ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

A novel interpretation of the English word "rely," there. Or are you suggesting that the important thing, is that we can rely that it has been through a 'fact-checking process," rather than rely upon a better probability that it actually contains facts, and not falsehoods, thereby? But why should we care if the one action does not produce a higher likelihood of the other state? If we do not believe that fact-checking is more likely to produce factual statements? If you do believe this, it is the product you care about (the truth), not the process as such, for itself. If you don't believe this, then this worship of the process itself is a waste of time, and really has no defense. For I can think of many other better ways to waste time, if you're going to assert that this is what fact-checking is. SBHarris 20:16, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

And just how do you calculate the probability that a source contains facts and not falsehoods? We cannot rely on anyone's gut feelings about what is true and what isn't. We can't rely on testimony from anonymous posters (and we are all more or less anonymous in here). We can't rely on appeals to higher authority, either. What we can rely on is that a source we cite has a reputation of exercising due care in gathering, checking and publishing 'facts'. It is my firm belief that we will produce a more usable encyclopedia by citing reliable sources then we ever could by trying to decide what is 'true'. -- Donald Albury 20:44, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm stuck in several struggles with an editor who supports his church's take on the truth against the verifiable judgments of experts. We can agree on what's verifiable even if we can't agree on what's true. The "not truth but verifiability" statement allows people with different ideas about the truth to agree on what goes into WP: that which is verifiable. In theory. Leadwind 01:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

"The very definition of a 'reliable source' is one that tends to report the truth" (Sbharris). Not quite. I think reliability here is more about acceptance, being relied upon by many people. Reliable sources are sources that are accepted by many people as being reliable, authoritative, etc. The published opinion of a university professor on a subject that he specializezs in, for example, is reliable because he is respected among the specialists of the subject (being a professor and having published in some academic journals), and the academic society of the subject is respected in the greater society. To use philosophical jargon, it's intersubjective recognition rather than objective truth. --Saintjust 02:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I think of it like this: verifiable information isn't going to get you laughed out of a university classroom. It might be wrong, but it's accepted as true. Thirty-five years ago, you could find a reliable source that said that a child's self-identified gender is determined by social cues, not X and Y chromosomes. Or that living things are divided into 5 kingdoms (currently 3 domains). Maybe Moses really really did write the Books of Moses, but no one's going to take you seriously as a nonsectarian Bible student if you say he did. Leadwind 02:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

SBHarris: 'The very definition of a "reliable source" is one that tends to report the truth.' You're right. The statement that WP isn't about the truth is an exaggeration meant to be shocking and edifying. WP uses RSs precisely because, as you say, they tend to report the truth. Sometimes they get things wrong, especially in the details. The fact that they're imperfect doesn't mean that we stop using them. It means that we acknowledge that we're not finally sure of the truth, just of the current version accepted by the experts. When an editor says that the experts are wrong about, say, purgatory or the redaction of the Torah, the WP answer is "so be it." Leadwind 02:38, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Leadwind: When an editor says that the experts are wrong about something, he is engaging in original research and/or injecting his own point of view. Both are deprecated in Misplaced Pages. -- Boracay Bill 02:52, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi SBH! Have thought carefully on this to date, and the epistemology you raise is indeed valid and well-established in many expert philosophical texts, and might be well suitable first for insertion in the general articles on epistemology, truth, etc., as a start. The Abolition of Man comes to mind as a source. I've intended to assist in this sort of edit when I get more time. Significant numbers of experts conclude there simply is no standard for knowledge that does not ultimately rely on a concept of objective truth or objective good.

There are weaknesses to the implementation here. A PageRank system can be gamed (and escalating such a fight, better protection vs. better hacking, is unwise): in our case that means that when our community judges some view the more dominant or "majority" one, it may well be an untrue view. (Not to mention our judgment of its majority status may independently be untrue.) Further, Jimbo stated specifically in 2003 that "If your viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, then whether it's true or not, whether you can prove it or not, it doesn't belong in Misplaced Pages, except perhaps in some ancillary article." I read that as: all the significant viewpoints may well be untrue (i.e., by mistake, not by censorship), but we don't have the scope to originate otherwise insignificant truth claims here-- we must wait for them to become significant.

In this apparent dilemma I take consolation in this: if any particular real truth is significant, by definition we will be able to source it significantly, even as a minority view. If a particular real truth is "extremely small minority", then there are many and much better ways to propagate that truth besides WP. As you seem familiar with the nature of Truth, you will recognize its capacity for propagating dependably in both cases. Someday the debate between "Absolute truth exists" and "it absolutely doesn't", silly as it is, may be better understood here and we can agree on a better mantra. These particular flaws I mention-- aiming, as they do, for those with distaste for epistemology-- ultimately resolve themselves in favor of NPOV being an acceptable statement of purpose for WP, and NOR and V being acceptable guardrails on that purpose.

The earth is not spherical, it's oblate spheroidal with fractal irregularity, and Bereshith was not written by Moses, he compiled much older texts. Am I a sect? John J. Bulten 17:24, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Unreliable source reprints reliable source

There is a good bit of discussion going on at Mediation Cabal, RFC, and Mediation request regarding using an unreliable web source that reprinted a Saturday Evening Post article. The Saturday Evening Post article is fine as a reference for the material and a proper cite journal tag has been created for it (acceptable for Verifiability). However the dispute is to use the web link to an unreliable web site in the reference (url=). The option of adding "format=reprint" was brought up in the Mediation, but we're entering into a gray area on policy. Please comment. Should this link be included in the reference? Should we link to an unreliable source that reprints a reliable source, making it easier for a reader to verify the information or should we stick with a direct reference to the reliable source, which may be more difficult to verify (purchase, library, or web search)? Morphh 20:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

On a brief scan of the arguments, I think the link to the reprint ought to be provided, along with some mechanism (e.g., "format=reprint") to make clear that this isn't the original. No one seems to have suggested that the reprint is inaccurate, and providing a link is better than suppressing it.

After all, the editor who originally added the citation could have just stated that it came from the Saturday Evening Post, without a link. I doubt that anyone would have known or questioned where he found the article. Instead, he helpfully provided a link to a source, and while any reprint could be erroneous, there's no reason to believe that this one is. Marc Shepherd (talk) 01:48, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Certainly one should always add the link for where one actually found it--doing otherwise isnt really being straightforward. A convenient source for possibly difficult to access material is always helpful, though of course the original is what is authoritative. The true original sources is always necessary-- due to the possibility of selective quotation , in BLPs, for example.DGG (talk) 04:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, the source that is used should be the one that the information came from. If you didn't pull it from the Saturday Evening Post, then it isn't from the Saturday Evening Post, it is from whatever source you got it from. If you have seen both and the reprint is accurate (remember WP:AGF), then the link is fine with a note explaining it. An alteration to the template is beside the point. A source is only as reliable as the ACTUAL source, not the purported source. — BQZip01 —  05:51, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Good point, we do not have any evidence that this is an actual reprint. We're assuming that this dubious site is reprinting the real article. Morphh 14:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

This is a classic conflict between immediatism and eventualism. The immediatist says that the source needs to be perfect, and if it's not perfect then we must not use it. The eventualist says that any source (as long as it's not clearly wrong) is better than none, and eventually another editor will come along and replace it with a better one.

Well, I'm an eventualist. You'd be surprised how many citations are indirect, and no one yet has said that this source is inaccurate. Misplaced Pages doesn't have a "reprints not allowed" policy. Go ahead and use it, as long as it's accurately cited as a reprint. Marc Shepherd (talk) 20:14, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, you have got to be kidding. This flies directly in the face of specific guidance on the subject.

Jimbo Wales: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."

From WP:CITE#HOW "It is improper to copy a citation from an intermediate source without making it clear that you saw only that intermediate source. For example, you might find information on a web page which says it comes from a certain book. Unless you look at the book yourself to check that the information is there, your reference is really the web page, which is what you must cite. The credibility of the article rests on the credibility of the web page, as well as the book, and the article itself must make that clear."

In short, your opinion does not coincide with WP policy or guidelines. I am not saying that you are wrong for having such an opinion. It is as valid as mine, but only as an opinion. It does not coincide with the consensus of the editors on this website. — BQZip01 —  06:55, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with the source. The whole debate arises from a misunderstanding of what a source is. A source is a particular published work. Sometimes people use the word more broadly to mean the publication, or the forum, the author, etc., but the verifiability policy is all about source material, not who publishes it. The source here is a Saturday Evening Post article, which would generally be reliable (but sometimes you have to be careful with material that old). I would cite the actual article, and as a courtesy use a link to the most accessible legitimate place on the Web where it appears. Being at Google books doesn't make it any more or less reliable than being on the web somewhere else. If someone wants to challenge that the version linked to is an inaccurate reprint they may, but that has nothing to do with verifiability and sourcing. The Jimbo quote has nothing at all to do with this issue. The CITE example seems to be on a different subject as well. It goes to the question of what happens when author X "In book A, author B says C". It says you can cite this for the proposition that author B said C in book A, but not a citation for C, which would suffer from hearsay-like problems. That's different than a simple reprint of book B. Everything we look at on the web, and in print for the most part, is a reprint of something. Wikidemo 09:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

How about WP:CITE#Say_where_you_got_it?

It is improper to copy a citation from an intermediate source without making it clear that you saw only that intermediate source. For example, you might find information on a web page which says it comes from a certain book. Unless you look at the book yourself to check that the information is there, your reference is really the web page, which is what you must cite. The credibility of the article rests on the credibility of the web page, as well as the book, and the article itself must make that clear.

-- Boracay Bill 09:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, I think that guideline is about a very different issue.Wikidemo 09:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Is it really? You say above: "The source here is a Saturday Evening Post article", but has the person citing the Saturday Evening Post article actually seen the Saturday Evening Post article, or has he seen only an online web page purporting to host a reproduction of the article? If he has seen only an online reproduction, his source is the website on which he saw the online reproduction, not the Saturday Evening Post. He could cite his source as something link "unreliable.com, quoting the Saturday Evening Post", but it would be improper to cite his source as "The Saturday Evening Post". -- Boracay Bill 13:09, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, clearly. If he has read the reprint he has seen the article. You're just looking at a computer screen either way. The source is the article. The link is to one instance and format of that article. It's not a quote or summary, it's an online version. We get this all the time with findarticles, google books, AP stories, etc., not to mention interview transcripts. If anyone doubts the authenticity of the online copy they're free to check it out. The guideline is not about online versions, it's about one source making claims about what another source says. Wikidemo 14:09, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

No, he has seen what purports to be a reprint of the article. That is what he must cite, i.e., "article so-an-so" in such-and-such magazine, as found at ". If I have seen the source in a hard copy as well as on-line, I make it clear with "article so-an-so" in such-and-such magazine, also on-line at ". We may need to be clarify how to distinguish between when an on-line link is offered as a courtesy, and when the on-line link is the only version of the source that the editor has seen. that's just being honest with the readers. -- Donald Albury 14:26, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

It's the same as any online viewing. In general, nearly all citations on Misplaced Pages collapse this information into a single citation and simply state the article details. We have a series of citation templates that are more than adequate to the task, and that more people ought to use. The url link makes clear where it was found. There's no dishonesty. It's all there in the citation link. And again, any question of authenticity of reprints is a completely separate question than the reliability of sources, which goes to things like bias, fact checking, authoritativeness of the author, and editorial oversight.Wikidemo 14:32, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

No, it isn't the same. Some web sites are known to misquote material from otherwise reliable sources; tax protester web sites, in general come to mind. (I'm not saying the specific Saturday Evening Post quote is necessarily wrong, even though it is on a tax protester web site; it's just that many of them confabulate quotes from USSC decisions, or quote from a minority opinion as if it were the court's decision, etc.) Most of the citation templates have a format tag, and the documentations suggests format = reprint. I think the appropriate tag would be format = disputed reprint, or in extreme cases, format = reprint {{dubious}}, and let it go at that.

In other words, I agree with Donald Albury; but we need to have information in the citation templates to distinguish the cases. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

<<<< I would argue that using a convenience link to an unreliable website, is bad practice and should not be allowed. These unreliable websites in some cases not only misquote the original sources, but are often accompanied with commentary and critique of the source in a manner that renders in doubt the usability of the quoted source. I would say "no". Do not add a convenient link to a website that otherwise would never be used to in support of encyclopedic material, that does not comply with NPOV, etc. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see it. We're talking about convenience links? The issue causes some confusion because people confuse convenience links, a rather obscure and not-often-considered subject, with external links on the one hand and reliablen sources on the other. As I understand it a convenience link is a helpful link to a free, online, publicly available copy of the original location where an article may be found where the original is unavailable. Well, what makes a convenience link trustworthy or not for republishing an article in its entirety is a somewhat different set of issues from what makes a source reliable or not for standing for a proposition. I'm pretty sure the CITE link addresses the second, not the first. The only guidance on convenience links is an essay that has had very little use or traffic of late. Ideally it would be a direct link to a major site that publishes the entire article, with attributions, full sourcing information, and no commentary. Wikidemo 23:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

We're talking about reliability, for the most part, I believe. I should have been clear that when I use a convenience web-link, it is to a site run by the publisher of the newspaper, magazine, etc. that I am citing from a printed issue, or perhaps the university one of the authors is affiliated with (and this does not extend to blogs created by professors on university sites). It would not be a good idea to provide a web-link to a 'reprint' on an unreliable web-site. Giving the impression that a web-site is reliable because it 'reprints' an article from a reliable source is misleading. -- Donald Albury 01:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Concerning the situation here, has anyone paid the $25 to buy the Saturday Evening Post article, or otherwise have access to the actual article from them? or is the reprint the only source consulted, and no one has looked at the actual article? If the latter, the cite is not based on a reliable source. If the former is the case, then the citation is okay. But, I agree with Jossi and Arthur, that we do not need the convenience link to a non-reliable, highly partisan source such as the example here. People are perfectly capable of using Google, if they want. Or finding the article through the library, or paying the fee to get it from the Saturday Evening Post. --Aude (talk) 01:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Hypothetically speaking, what if someone does spend the $25 or goes to the library, or otherwise finds a more believable reprint. Would it be okay to provide the convenience link after verifying that the online version is correct? If so how would an editor vouch for it, with a comment in the markup code? What about sources that are in-between for reliability. For example, legitimate, solid companies often put reprints of news articles on their "in the news" page, or as press releases. I would be very surprised if a company would alter the article contents given how much trouble they would get it if caught. Blogs may do the same, and assuming they're not copyright infringements I don't see the problem there. The copying of the article from an original digital source to a blog is probably a stronger link in the information chain than the accuracy of reporting in the first place, or the accuracy of the use of the source by the Misplaced Pages editor. There's content control on a blog too, in that a solid blog gets critiqued, and one that misprints articles will get trashed. That's very different than a personal website or some kind of fringe advocacy site. Wikidemo 03:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. In my experience most bloggers do not understand how to obtain articles from reliable databases like InfoTrac, LexisNexis or ProQuest, even though such databases are available at practically every university campus and at most public libraries. Even fewer have basic library skills, i.e. the ability to look up a journal on WorldCat and then actually track down the hard copy (this is necessary for the huge number of old publications that have not yet been scanned in).

Thus, the chance that a blogger will catch another republishing an altered version of an article is small. Furthermore, the republication of the entire article on a blog would be a copyright violation (and hence illegal) unless the article is in public domain (published before 1923) or the blogger has obtained an express license from the publisher or author of the article. It sounds like you're unfamiliar with New York Times Co. v. Tasini. Copyright applies just as well to electronic documents as it does to paper. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I mentioned the copyright concern. What I'm thinking of for intermediate reliability are, say, the articles accessible from the self-published blog-like "in the news" section of OpenTable's corporate website. Most are still available from the original publisher, in which case that link should be used. But here and there you'll probably find some articles that are not available for free or without subscription. I really doubt that a Benchmark Capital company, would misquote a news story. Many or most companies, PR firms, etc., have similar pages. Historical societies and museums republish old articles. Product companies reprint old articles to explain the history of the food they're selling (say, where pasta shape X came from). When you start looking into it this is pretty common. It's good to keep records where things come from. But in terms of allowing the source or not, otherwise respectable people reprinting articles that aren't available on the net is very low on the list of where errors in Misplaced Pages come from. Wikidemo 06:26, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Can newspapers/magazines be self-published sources?

In WP:SELFPUB#Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves it says to use self-published sources it must be releveant to their notability and must not be unduly self-serving.

Daniel Pipes, the founder of Campus Watch, is a journalist, among other occupations. Pipes has written two articles, one glorifying and praising Campus Watch’s intentions, and another refuting a criticism about Campus Watch. One of the articles was a opt-ed opinion article published in the The Jerusalem Post and the other was published in FrontPage Magazine. A user keeps adding these two articles as citations on the Campus Watch article. When I state this is a WP:SELFPUB violation, he says the sources are not self-published because the newspaper and magazine are not published by Pipes. Are these articles self-published sources or are they not considered self-published because Pipes wrote them, but didn't publish them? Thanks. —Christopher Mann McKay 06:32, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

An editorial written in a third-party newspaper isn't self-published. But it is unreliable. Most op-eds are unreliable for most purposes, other than to simply establish that a particular person held or voiced a particular opinion.Wikidemo (talk) 18:16, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Getting to the article itself, if you cut out the intermediate layers the first quote in question is a self-serving statement by an organization of its own methods. It is cited correctly in a way that makes that clear. However, the encyclopedic value is extremely low, and has no place in the lead. It would be better just to say what the organization does. It's also an unremarkable quote, and utter balderdash. Academics certainly do get critiqued and Campus Watch is hardly the first "think tank" advocacy group to do so. The second quote is equally empty, but correctly cited. It's basically a simple denial. I believe it is okay to point to a place where an organization denies an accusation, and use that to support the claim that they denied the accusation. That's using the op-ed as a primary source per WP:PSTS I think, but that's an acceptable thing if you can't find a secondary source to say that Campus Watch denies that particular allegation. As usual, my opinion only. Your mileage may vary.Wikidemo (talk) 18:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Such an op-ed is clearly WP:SPS, and FrontPage was recently held as questionable (I may disagree). But I think the proposal below for resolving this situation has merit. John J. Bulten 17:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed amendment to prevent overdeletion

Reference User:Kazvorpal#Truth, not Silence. WP:V as stated permits wholesale reversion of good-faith edits, by the process of an editor simply calling them unreliable (i.e., questionable) and refusing to discuss reliability, which is an unintentionally one-sided application of the policy. And since reliability is a spectrum ("the greater the degree of scrutiny involved"), there is not a clear line between reliability and questionability, which should also be emphasized. This would be remedied by insertions in the policy.

1. At WP:V#Burden of evidence, after "to find the text that supports the article content in question.", add the sentence: " When an editor provides a source and reasonably claims indicates good faith in its reliability, the burden of evidence shifts to the editor who challenges the insertion; to discuss the reliability of specific sources, continue at the talk page or consult the reliable sources noticeboard."
2. At WP:V#Reliable sources,
   1. Combine the paragraphs beginning "In general" and "Academic and peer-reviewed";
   2. Move the sentence beginning "As a rule of thumb" from that combined paragraph to a new paragraph immediately following;
   3. After the sentence beginning "As a rule of thumb", add the sentences: " If there is reasonable disagreement about whether Misplaced Pages should or should not use a certain source to support a certain fact due to reliability, deletion should be accompanied by invocation of a consensus-building method such as the bold, revert, discuss cycle or the reliable sources noticeboard. In the case of living persons, special care must be taken to weigh the reliability of the source against the exceptional or contentious nature of the insertion."; and
   4. Delete the last sentence, " To discuss the reliability of specific sources, consult the Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard.", as subsumed twice above.

(I am also making the minor change of correcting "living people" to "living persons" twice, and linking WP:BLP on first reference.) Please indicate consensus on this proposal below. Thank you for your consideration. John J. Bulten 19:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Not needed now. Marskell 14:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Support

• Support as the proposer. John J. Bulten 19:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support in principle. I agree that some editors take the "delete-on-sight" principle too far, even where sources are cited that have not been demonstrated to be unreliable. We can work on the exact wording later. Marc Shepherd 19:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

Comment

• Full disclosure: As you can guess, I am involved in what I believe to be an edit war, details of which are readily available in my history. This change in policy may affect the results of that discussion. I would request review of the proposal on its merits, irregardless of any existing controversy. John J. Bulten 19:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
• "reasonably claims reliability" is a little vague. It invites edit warring over whether or not the the source is reasonably reliable, before the actual subject of reliability is even addressed. Burzmali 19:58, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Deliberately vague in deference to the disagreement described. Unsourced edits are clear-cut. But the current policy invites edit warring more, for this reason. When User 1 cites a believed RS, and User 2 deletes it as a believed QS (questionable source), there is insufficient direct guidance on how to prevent repeating the cycle. Since User 1 provided a cite, User 2 should at least know to reply in kind by citing a reason for it being questionable, or invoking a consensus method of resolution. A first deletion would be proper in most cases; but without a rationale, User 1 would feel justified in reinserting and restoring the exact same position in the cycle, and User 2 would feel justified in deleting again without further explanation. (Official rules of chess call this situation a draw upon third cycle.) A rationale or direct invocation would divert the cycle into BRD or other consensus, and redirect repeated reverts into the RS discussion, reducing edit wars. I've been on both sides; when I'm considering reversion I hardly revert even the first time if there is a source and a possibility of good faith because of the risk of this cycle. When it's unsourced and apparently against BLP, I can grit my teeth and cycle indefinitely. Anyway, since so far I have only one other "support in principle" vote, I'll convert your suggestion into a quick friendly strikthrough amendment to the amendment. John J. Bulten 14:38, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

This may not be the best way to achieve consensus

Misplaced Pages policies are reflections of consensus, and usually not reflections of the results of polling. I strongly recommend that instead of asking people simply support or oppose this proposal, you instead simply encourage an open discussion that does not have the appearance of a vote. On another note, your suggestion would be a lot easier to understand if you make a userfied version of WP:V, edit it how you see fit, and then point to the diff of your edit! - Chardish 19:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree. Polling can be user after a discussion on the subject and not as a substitute. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Polling is not a substitute for discussion is a relevant guideline. -- Donald Albury 01:13, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Which is why I asked to "indicate consensus". Pardon me if my attempt to suggest comment groupings might have been misunderstood by those not familiar with the nonvote rule. I consider this approach to be a form of BRD in talkspace. Also, I have a personal preference for describing the amendment rather than creating and later destroying a temporary page, but anyone can userfy this page as easily as they can read a userfied page, if they like temps. John J. Bulten 14:38, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

You straight out asked users to 'support' or 'oppose' your proposal. That is a poll, and such polls are strongly discouraged unless sufficient discussion has occurred to give some hope that a consensus is forming. Polls should only be used to clarify a consensus after thorough discussion of a proposal. -- Donald Albury 18:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

The issue raised can be easily resolved by WP:CONSENSUS and if that is not achievable, the users involved in the dispute about the reliability of a source can engage in dispute resolution. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Jossi, I'm not sure if by "the issue raised" you mean my proposal or the reliability issues it describes. But either way I agree. I think guidance about burden of proof is essential. See above. John J. Bulten 14:38, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

At the risk of being imperious, I have shut down the poll. It's unhealthy to move to polling so rapidly on a policy. Also John, you're rolling a lot of suggested changes into one; it's a little hard to follow. Marskell 14:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Because I care about passing it, I have created a diff here which conforms to the strikethrough version above. So can we return to the merits now? John J. Bulten 15:16, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

We can talk about the merits when the agenda's fully on the table. This appears to be a bad faith attempt at wikilawyering to change WP:V in favour of including material posted by User:John J. Bulten at Moneybomb - material that there was consensus to delete because of unreliable sources. See also WP:COI/N#Moneybomb. Gordonofcartoon 16:02, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the details of the particular case. While John did disclose the COI, expecting to change policy in order to win an argument is, by long-established practice on Misplaced Pages, not allowed. Marskell 19:04, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, Marskell, that makes sense, so please point me to evidence of the long-established practice for my edification. There was not "consensus" to delete, as WP:CON describes it, but a severe disagreement which a third opinion is attempting to resolve. There was no "expecting" to change policy on my part, but a good-faith request to see if there is consensus to address this policy deficiency; so far no one has spoken against its merits. That aside, even if the change passed, it would not favor my material or "win an argument", it would only create an explicit burden of proving that a source is unreliable, rather than permitting an editor to claim unreliability baldly and unsupportedly, as has happened for several days. I would be happy, without pressure, just to collect comments on the merits and demerits of my suggestion while we are awaiting resolution on my case, which I am doing everything I can imagine to resolve by consensus. Tips are appreciated. John J. Bulten 23:45, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

“When an editor provides a source and indicates good faith in its reliability, the burden of evidence shifts to the editor who challenges the insertion.”

This would turn WP:V on its head, as few people add sources that they personal regard as unreliable. So ANY source that is added is de-facto reliable by the standards of the editor adding the material. Fallowing your logic, ALL material added to Misplaced Pages must be proven unreliable before it could be removed, unless the editor adding that material openly states that he himself/herself regards the source as unreliable. The burden must, and is, upon the person wishing to add or retain the material, and not to those removing the material.

“There was not consensus to delete.” I might point out that you have inverted consensus here, there is no such thing as consensus to remove questionable material, simply a lack of consensus to retain it. Anyone restoring questionable material on the claim that there is “a lack of consensus to remove” is being disingenuous. Brimba 01:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Aye. Well argued. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 03:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Brimba and Jossi. It looks like John Bulten is trying to insert original research in violation of Misplaced Pages:No original research, and then attempted an improper modification to Misplaced Pages:Verifiability to support his position. As one of Misplaced Pages's oldest policies, NOR is a core policy of the project and is untouchable; people who persist long enough in violating NOR eventually are kicked off by Jimbo Wales himself, if ArbCom or the admins don't do it first. See User:Ericsaindon2 for what happened to the last user I ran into who consistently refused to stop violating WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOT (I took Eric to ArbCom with the support of WillBeback). --Coolcaesar 06:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me for not replying, I was sick. Brimba, I will accept your statement of "inverted consensus" as applying to Gordonofcartoon, who spoke of it first; in fact your statement agrees with mine, in that the repeated deletions should not have been justified as "consensus to delete".

Further, you are misreading my proposal, which may indicate it needs more editing. I did not say "unless the editor ... openly states ... unreliable"; I said "when an editor ... indicates good faith in its reliability". That is, I am requiring a good-faith statement of reliability, not the absence of a statement of unreliability. I agree the burden must begin with the inserter: but at some point that burden is met and it shifts to the deleter. The scope of this amendment is not for unsourced text, nor for obvious misuse of self-published and questionable sources; it is for clarifying dispute resolution when there is disagreement about reliability of sources. As it stands the policy, considered alone, permits the reverter to feel justified re-reverting multiple sources indefinitely without responding to inserter's good-faith proof of reliability; as amended it fosters consensus by indicating how to bring the parties together.

Also, I did not forbid removal of any sourced material: I continue to leave it up to the disputants. The deleter may invite talk via edit summary, or initiate talk. Or the inserter may decline to reinsert under WP:BRD. Or if unaware of BRD, the inserter may try again and the deleter may find the change to be good-faith enough to stand during discussion. Just as before, in fact. The key here is not that removal is forbidden, but that a pretty-well necessary duty of the deleter (discussion) has been underweighted.

One could argue that the dispute resolution procedures already solve this, because the deleter would already be expected to be open to discussion and to direct discussion of reliability to talk or other pages. Well, if so, all the more reason for that to be repeated here! In short, my "agenda" (if you will) is simply to request the community's consensus about cases (including the self-disclosed) of apparent unwillingness on the part of the deleter to discuss toward consensus. In addition to seeking specific mediation, I have also properly requested this consensus at the talk page of an appropriate policy where there seemed undue weight and which appears (see Kaz's essay) to have permitted misuse repeatedly. The responses first turned on my neophyte presentation and then relied on (apparently) misrepresenting the proposal, but no response has yet admitted the problem I cited in my first sentence, nor dealt with the merits as requested in my last original sentence-- except Marc Shepherd, who agrees with the problem and the line of solution. (I suppose I could game the system by claiming consensus of 2-0 on the merits; but in good faith I think you should have another chance to argue the merits of the proposal, as proposed, not as reinterpreted.)

Coolcaesar, I would appreciate knowing which edit of mine constituted OR and why. So far after numerous requests for this info I have been presented with two trivial clauses which happened to be sourced to the wrong footnote. I hope you're relying on your own eyewitnessing of OR rather than the allegations of others on this topic currently still in informal mediation. John J. Bulten 15:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me for not replying, I was sick.

You forgot blocked. Gordonofcartoon 17:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Citizen Journalism/MeriNews

Apologies if this has been raised before, but is citizen journalism acceptable as a reliable source? MeriNews is an India-oriented news site that may function as a source for news not covered (or adequately covered) by major news channels. To be honest there isn't much professionalism with mainstream Indian news sites which presents a problem for India-related articles on Misplaced Pages. The MeriNews site itself seems fairly professional in terms of reportage and writing style, although I have spotted one or two articles that fall below what I would consider an acceptable standard.

So my question is: Would MeriNews be an acceptable source to cite in Wiki articles if they are used judiciously accounting for an NPOV style of writing? Thanks, Ekantik 01:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

MeriNews, IndyMedia and such sites are not reliable sources for Misplaced Pages articles. The concept of RS refers to publications with reputable fact checking that these sites do not have. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:45, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Peainful

Hello. Currently, the Naruto (a popular Japanese manga and anime series) task force is having a discussion about whether to call a certain character Pein (a direct translation) or Pain (a slightly altered translation based on pronounciation) on the Talk:Akatsuki (Naruto) page. As the majority (or rather, all but two or three) are fanboys and fangirls of the series and follow anything that websites that translate the series say (they say Pain for pronounciation), most believe Pain is the official translation. Unless the Japanese producers or VIZ Media, which translates the series to English, give an ifficial word, there isn't an official translation. As such, most of the members are split apart on this. As this discussion revolves largely upon this policy, I ask if someone here could give their opinion on whether or not there is a verified official translation for the character or not. You don't have to do this, however, but it was nice to take the time to read this anyway. Artist Formerly Known As Whocares 18:52, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Dispute resolution is a better avenue to taking care of this situation than this talk page. - Chardish 19:07, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Really?

As I wander the ether world that is the Misplaced Pages I find numerous articles that are well-referenced and complete with citations and yet some editor has tagged it as unworthy for lack of sources. I visit other niches in the ether to find long texts without a single citation and not a line of criticism. I read one article about a particular church denomination which was full of bias, and noted in the discussion for the page that no one wanted to correct or edit the copy since the church was known to be litigious. Another less threatening church had their entry deleted after a month or so due to lack of sourcing. Say, where does an entry for a new church get sources? And, no it wasn't my church, I'm an Episcopalian, we have 400 years of sources.

As I read comments from "editors" I find that in a goodly number of edits, the editor is simply ignorant of the field being edited and so is demanding sources for what should be common knowledge in a particular field.

It is one thing to require sources but it is quite another to apply the policy haphazardly, and absurdly. LAWinans 19:51, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

The purpose of Misplaced Pages is not to satisfy the experts in a field, it is to present information that is verifiable to all readers, no matter how little they currently known about a subject. Now, Misplaced Pages is not perfect, it is after all a collaborative effort by volunteer, and the quality of the encyclopedia varies from article to article, and within any given article from day to day. Nevertheless, verifiability is an official policy of Misplaced Pages, and it states a goal to which we all should be striving every time we edit Misplaced Pages. As for "common knowledge", please see the essay at Misplaced Pages:Common knowledge. -- Donald Albury 20:40, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

...The point of this was for it to be made clear whether illegal fan translations (yes, they are illegal, only VIZ translations are legal) are official or not, not whether Misplaced Pages is the most perfectly-perfect site on the internet. -_- Because about 1/2 of the series isn't in English yet, fans in English speaking nations rely on translations on the Internet (such as www.saiyanisland.com ) to know what's going on. The question is simply whether they are official or not. Artist Formerly Known As Whocares 16:44, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

altering cited information

An editor altered a cited sentence, making it no longer match the cited source. The new sentence more closely matched his POV. (See "doctrines" and "foms" ) Surely there's got to be a policy against altering cited information. Can someone point me to it? Leadwind 14:48, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Not sure if there is a Policy statement on this, but it is certainly not the right thing to do. As I see it, you have two options... revert the statement back to a version that matches the citation, or request a citation for the new version. In either case, you should raise the issue on the talk page and discuss it. Blueboar 15:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Believe me, Lima has no intention of discussing this with me on the talk page. He's been mucking with my work for a long time, and I'm familiar with his MO. Leadwind 00:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Vandalism says, "Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Misplaced Pages." So I would say that deliberately altering a cited sentence to change its meaning can be construed as vandalism. However, I do believe that these changes are often made out of ignorance of our policy rather than malice. Revert the changes and leave a notice on the user's talk page ({{uw-unsor1}} is appropriate for a first offense}. If you are convinced that the change is being made maliciously, revert and warn for vandalism. -- Donald Albury 19:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Lima is not deliberately compromising WP. He thinks he's protecting WP, and the truth, from me. I wouldn't call it vandalism. Leadwind 00:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

If there's no stated policy against altering cited statements, is there some sort of conduct cop that could give him a warning? He won't listen to me.

Also, shouldn't there be a policy against altering cited statements? If I had missed his edit, then other readers would have been misled into thinking that his wording had RS backing. Leadwind 00:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves

Proposed change

Material from self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources in articles about themselves, so long as: it is relevant to their notability; it is not contentious; it is not unduly self-serving; if contentious or unduly self-serving, it is indicated to be a self-published statement; it does not involve claims about third parties; it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it; the article is not based primarily on such sources.

Rationale
1. Missions statements are technically disallowed by the current policy, but they are obviously relevant and important. Here is an example from Misplaced Pages:

• • Amnesty International "defines its mission as 'to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights.'"<ref>"About Amnesty International". Amnesty International. Retrieved 2007-08-08.</ref>

2. Self-published statements should not only be allowable, they are essential, especially for controversial topics. Here are two valid statements from Misplaced Pages that under the current policy are disallowed:

• • "According to Campus Watch, the organization 'reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them.' The organization further states, 'it fully respects the freedom of speech of those it debates while insisting on its own freedom to comment on their words and deeds.'<ref>CampusWatch.org. Retrieved on 2007-10-20.</ref>" Note that later in the article it is stated that "Opponents of Campus Watch describe it as an attempt to stifle any criticism of Israel in American academia."
  • "According to Kevin Trudeau, book contains the names of actual brand name products that will cure a myriad of illnesses." ... "In some cases Trudeau has told his supporters, via his newsletters, that he has been “attacked” on a particular program or by a particular interviewer." Note that Kevin Trudeau is an oft-criticised man.

3. By insisting that the material be indicated to be a self-published statement, we avoid sentences such as "Kevin Trudeau's books offer cures for a myriad of illnesses."
— DavidMack 21:50, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

This makes sense to me. I don't think it will open the door to abuse and misuse (and if it does, we can always go back to the current wording)... so with a modicum of hesitation, I agree with the proposal. Blueboar 22:54, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks OK to me, too. Leadwind 00:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for that; though the section includes also questionable sources, the clause excludes them. Just happened to notice this because I proposed a change to this page also, which (without being too subtle) you might want to review above. John J. Bulten 16:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Missions statements are technically disallowed by the current policy. That is an incorrect assessment. Mission statements are indeed allowed and featured in many articles. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Adding numbers

I'm pretty sure I'm correct here, but can I please have a third opinion at the bottom of Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (exit lists)#Why do we include distance? The gist is that the bridge log includes the total mileage in each county, and the distance from each bridge to the previous county line (ignoring the occasional milepost equations, which are listed). Therefore, you can easily calculate the distance from the start of the route to each bridge (and therefore each interchange that includes a bridge). This is perfectly verifiable, right? Thank you. --NE2 02:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Discussion about image use and WP:NOR

Please come participate in the discussion here. It involves image use policy issues far beyond the template itself. Thanks. ···日本穣 06:56, 4 December 2007 (UTC)