| Revision as of 14:32, 6 March 2014 editTransporterMan (talk | contribs)Event coordinators, Extended confirmed users, Mass message senders, Pending changes reviewers23,031 edits →SPS's themselves: cm← Previous edit | Revision as of 19:25, 6 March 2014 edit undoHughD (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users19,133 edits →SPS's themselvesNext edit → | ||
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| *Though I'm ordinarily a lover of statute-like drafting in policy, I think this is unnecessary. This language, almost in its current form, has been around since ] added it in February, 2006. While there have always been questions about how to apply it, that's also true about just about every other section of ]. While I understand the issues being raised by HughD and S Marshall, I simply don't see them being problems in practice. In some ways, this rule is really more about what SPS ''can'' be used for than what it ''cannot.'' Though it can be, and frequently is, raised as an objection to a source, the real root objection underlying SPS's aren't that they are self-published ''per se'' but that they don't meet the definition of a "third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" because either (a) they're not third-party or (b) don't have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy or, more often than not, both. If there's some doubt about whether or not a source is a SPS, you can simply avoid any argument over that point by falling back on the root definition of reliable source. To change the language of this rule would set off a whole new round of unnecessary debate over its applicability. Regards, ] (]) 14:32, 6 March 2014 (UTC) | *Though I'm ordinarily a lover of statute-like drafting in policy, I think this is unnecessary. This language, almost in its current form, has been around since ] added it in February, 2006. While there have always been questions about how to apply it, that's also true about just about every other section of ]. While I understand the issues being raised by HughD and S Marshall, I simply don't see them being problems in practice. In some ways, this rule is really more about what SPS ''can'' be used for than what it ''cannot.'' Though it can be, and frequently is, raised as an objection to a source, the real root objection underlying SPS's aren't that they are self-published ''per se'' but that they don't meet the definition of a "third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" because either (a) they're not third-party or (b) don't have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy or, more often than not, both. If there's some doubt about whether or not a source is a SPS, you can simply avoid any argument over that point by falling back on the root definition of reliable source. To change the language of this rule would set off a whole new round of unnecessary debate over its applicability. Regards, ] (]) 14:32, 6 March 2014 (UTC) | ||
| ::I understand is it now time for me to quietly go away, like the January incursion into the status quo. Unparsable sentences are par for the course in WP policy. WP policy has always been this way. I'm not a member of this project. I get it. | |||
| ::"statute-like drafting in policy" Here i think we have a situation where informality has lead to incomprehensibility. Consider the heterogeneous set {ham sandwich, George Washington, giraffes (all giraffes currently alive)} Now try writing a coherent sentence of which this set is the subject. | |||
| ::" I simply don't see them being problems in practice." A unparsable sentence in policy is a problem. It's not a problem in practice for you, but it was definitely a problem for me. I read policy and couldn’t understand it. I gotta think there's others. You know what this section is trying to say, I didn't, respectfully, perhaps you are too close to this topic to appreciate what a god-forsaken sentence we are talking about here. | |||
| ::In any case, granted, the current definition of "self-published works", and the ''de facto'' definition of "self-published sources", is there any defensible reason not to include an explicit definition of "self-published sources" somewhere in WP policy space or is advocating such lawyering? Are we bound to define things only in such a way that a cascade of text tweaks is avoided? ] (]) 19:25, 6 March 2014 (UTC) | |||
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Conforming to similar language between different policies
OK... User:A Quest For Knowledge recently edited the third paragraph of the lede to conform it to the standardized language used in our other core policies (see this diff). This edit has been reverted by User:S Marshall (see: this diff). Personally, I don't have a strong opinion on either version... as both versions do say essentially the same thing. However, I lean towards AQFK's version, because I think using standardized language in all these policies helps to avoid the potential for confusion and misunderstanding. Please discuss. Blueboar (talk) 18:36, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
- Like you, I don't have a strong opinion. Either is okay. Is the matchy-matchy version slightly better? Maybe. Better enough to matter? Maybe not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
- I suggest we standardise on the concise version rather than the verbose one.—S Marshall T/C 19:55, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
- I don't have any specific preference of which version is better. I was simply attempting to standardize the wording. The other two policies followed a standard wording and WP:V was the odd man out. Whichever version we go with, let's make it standard across all three policies. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:20, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
- That would work for me as well... Perhaps a centralized discussion is in order? Blueboar (talk) 16:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
- I think that a substantive discussion here would be the best start. Clarity on the proposed changes is important because right now everyone is just essentially pointing to a series of edits on a bundle of changes. North8000 (talk) 12:04, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- That would work for me as well... Perhaps a centralized discussion is in order? Blueboar (talk) 16:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
- I don't have any specific preference of which version is better. I was simply attempting to standardize the wording. The other two policies followed a standard wording and WP:V was the odd man out. Whichever version we go with, let's make it standard across all three policies. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:20, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
How strong is the verifiability rule?
Is it safe to tell everyone that all information in Misplaced Pages ought to have a citation, even if it does not?
I have been thinking about the practice of citing Misplaced Pages itself as a reference. If one goes to any article and looks at the menu on the right, there is a link called "Cite this page". That link (Special:Cite and for example "an article") is populated with text from MediaWiki:Cite text, which is hardly touched or discussed. Right now it says, "Most educators and professionals do not consider it appropriate to use tertiary sources such as encyclopedias as a sole source for any information—citing an encyclopedia as an important reference in footnotes or bibliographies may result in censure or a failing grade. Misplaced Pages articles should be used for background information, as a reference for correct terminology and search terms, and as a starting point for further research. As with any community-built reference, there is a possibility for error in Misplaced Pages's content—please check your facts against multiple sources and read our disclaimers for more information."
I was thinking of changing this to reflect that all information in Misplaced Pages should have a citation, and that instead of citing Misplaced Pages it is ideal to cite the sources which Misplaced Pages itself is citing. Right now, this recommendation is not part of this.
What are others' thoughts? Should visitors to Misplaced Pages be directed to cite what Misplaced Pages cites rather than Misplaced Pages itself? Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:00, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- It is not required to provide citations for all information. Only direct quotations and information that has been challenged, or is likely to be challenged, requires a citation to support it. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:16, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, reinforcing, that is the answer. North8000 (talk) 03:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- I view that as a bad practice useful only for tolerating content retained from our earlier days. At some point, we need to switch to a mandate that all additions be cited, and, some time after that, purge ourselves of all uncited information. It is, however, not really relevant to the original question. Certainly, people should be advised to consult and cite the source used in Misplaced Pages, not Misplaced Pages itself, and not to rely on any uncited information in a Misplaced Pages article. We are not a reliable source of information.—Kww(talk) 13:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Oh God. So we all spend ten years providing citations for "Berlin is a city in Germany".—S Marshall T/C 15:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Certainly obvious facts need not be cited, as per WP:BLUE. But moreover, if we choose to insist that all additions be cited, we will probably significantly reduce editor retention much further, which we do NOT need. Would we then require all or most new articles to go through wp:AFC or a some similar process? DES 17:20, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Certainly all facts should be cited, including ones that you find obvious, DES, per WP:NOTBLUE, an essay well-grounded in policy as opposed to WP:BLUE's shaky basis.—Kww(talk) 18:38, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- I'd characterise this as the view of someone who spends most of their time editing in fringe or contentious areas and has a great deal of experience of untruthful editors. Verifiability is a very positive thing for the encyclopaedia, but taken to extremes like this, it will (a) become utterly impractical and (b) cross the line into copyright violation. If we have to put a citation after every single fact, then not only will our ever-decreasing number of productive editors find it ever-increasingly hard to expand articles, but our entire encyclopaedia will come to consist of close paraphrases of copyrighted sources.—S Marshall T/C 18:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- We disagree there, Kww. I point out that few if any academic works cite/footnote every fact mentioned, even those that seem obvious. Certainly no print encyclopedia does. Indeed I would be interested to hear of any academic work that cites a statement such as "Paris is the capital of France." Moreover, it is my view that citing at the level of density you seem to suggest would make Misplaced Pages articles quite awkward to use, much less to edit, and would hide the significant source citations among a forest of unneeded and pointless cites. I do not think such an approach has or is every likely to get consensus. I hope it doesn't. DES 18:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Apples and oranges. Misplaced Pages cannot be compared to academic works because, first, it's written by non-experts and, second, academic works get vetted by professional editors whereas WP is vetted by no one other than other non-experts. V, supported by the citation of information, is the only bulwark Misplaced Pages has against living up to the charges of unreliability with which we're being constantly, but incorrectly, tagged. Live up to those charges and see what it does to editor retention. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:35, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Certainly all facts should be cited, including ones that you find obvious, DES, per WP:NOTBLUE, an essay well-grounded in policy as opposed to WP:BLUE's shaky basis.—Kww(talk) 18:38, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Certainly obvious facts need not be cited, as per WP:BLUE. But moreover, if we choose to insist that all additions be cited, we will probably significantly reduce editor retention much further, which we do NOT need. Would we then require all or most new articles to go through wp:AFC or a some similar process? DES 17:20, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- My problem with this is that you are following the idiotic "may be deleted" policy for unreferenced documents. For the most part, these documents are obvious to people in the field. The ones that are not, because they are incorrect or biased, (whether or not they are referenced!) are the ones that will be deleted. The problem with unreferenced documents isn't that they are unverifiable, it's that they don't supply additional reading for genuinely interesting readers. It would be nice to see this mentioned in the verification reference. Don't be scolding; be encouraging! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.100.124.159 (talk) 00:50, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
- Oh God. So we all spend ten years providing citations for "Berlin is a city in Germany".—S Marshall T/C 15:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- I view that as a bad practice useful only for tolerating content retained from our earlier days. At some point, we need to switch to a mandate that all additions be cited, and, some time after that, purge ourselves of all uncited information. It is, however, not really relevant to the original question. Certainly, people should be advised to consult and cite the source used in Misplaced Pages, not Misplaced Pages itself, and not to rely on any uncited information in a Misplaced Pages article. We are not a reliable source of information.—Kww(talk) 13:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, reinforcing, that is the answer. North8000 (talk) 03:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- MediaWiki:Cite text also says: "For more detailed advice, see Citing Misplaced Pages."
- I think this is sufficient. The latter includes: "However, much of the content on Misplaced Pages is itself referenced, so an alternative is to cite the reliable source rather than the article itself." PrimeHunter (talk) 03:31, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- What we require is that everything be verifiable, we don't require that everything actually be verified. What this means is that it should be possible to cite everything in Misplaced Pages... it does not mean everything in Misplaced Pages needs to be cited. Some things (the usual example is the statement: "Paris is the capital of France") have so many sources that could be cited (and are thus so obviously "verifiable") that it is silly to actually provide a citation for it.
- That said... it is never "wrong" to give a citation... so... when in doubt, provide a citation. And, if someone requests a citation for something you don't think really needs one... it is almost always much quicker, and a lot less of a hassle, to simply provide one than it is to spend days arguing about why one isn't needed. Blueboar (talk) 13:45, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Indeed. While it may not exactly be assuming good faith, the more an editor insists that a source isn't required, the more dubious I tend to become that one actually exists. I kind of wish we could include in policy something to the effect of, "Consider that providing a source is generally a more productive and simpler resolution to verifiability disputes than arguing that a source is not required." DonIago (talk) 14:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
I think we already, in effect, have the requirement as a practical matter. To focus on the "challenged or likely to be challenged rule" without considering what it means or why it's there is myopic. The purpose of V is to make sure that ordinary users can prove to themselves that what Misplaced Pages says is reliable. With a paper encyclopedia they can rely on the judgment of the professional editors (and, ultimately, the marketplace: unreliable encyclopedias fail), but we don't have that. What we have is V. So, in that context, "likely to be challenged" means anything the accuracy of which a prudent reader is likely to, or should be likely to, question. And that's pretty much everything except the most innocuous and universally-accepted information. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- PrimeHunter - You are more concise than me and using existing language is best. Just doing what you proposed and nothing else would satisfy me, but if people want to go further then that would be cool too.
- Kww I do not want to disrupt the existing community but yes, after some amount of time passes, I would like for all information in Misplaced Pages to be verified and for people to feel that the standard practice is to use citations. Right now that is not a standard practice, but just something that people do for other reasons.
- Jc3s5h North8000 I do not want to change current practices, but I think already citations are being used much more than is required and community customs are more strict than the rules actually say.
- Doniago I agree with you that the policy should say something like that and seems not to do so.
- Blueboar I agree with you but I do not want to discourage anyone who fails to use a citation. If you have ideas for doing this with a light touch then share. Regarding your Paris example - people at Wikidata have plans to host obvious factual references and propagate these out to Wikipedias because many of these things are not obvious cross-culturally. For example, how many English speakers know all the capital cities in Africa? There could be central verification of these things propagated out at once with citations to 200+ language Wikipedias.
- TransporterMan It certainly seems like a cultural requirement to me and your description is apt.
Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:17, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- The reason we don't require citation for something like "Paris is the capital of France" isn't that the information itself is obvious... the reason is that there are so many highly reliable sources that can be used to verify the statement that the statement's ability to be verified is obvious. The average reader may not personally know all the capitals in Africa... but the average reader already knows of multiple sources where he/she can verify that information (atlases, other encyclopedias, travel guidebooks, newspapers, etc. etc. etc.)... we don't need to tell them where to look. Blueboar (talk) 13:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- I just wanted to say as an aside that I don't think I've ever heard this articulated quite so well before. It's been my experience that when arguments against citations are invoked they tend to fall somewhat flat, but this one not only makes sense but is worded in a civil manner, though I suppose it opens the door to a potential discussion of what constitutes "many" reliable sources. Even so...well-said, though I'm not sure I agree with it at the most technical of levels...but then, I'm not going to be the one arguing for such a statement needing a citation. DonIago (talk) 15:24, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
- The reason we don't require citation for something like "Paris is the capital of France" isn't that the information itself is obvious... the reason is that there are so many highly reliable sources that can be used to verify the statement that the statement's ability to be verified is obvious. The average reader may not personally know all the capitals in Africa... but the average reader already knows of multiple sources where he/she can verify that information (atlases, other encyclopedias, travel guidebooks, newspapers, etc. etc. etc.)... we don't need to tell them where to look. Blueboar (talk) 13:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- Citations make it more difficult to read or edit an article. Thus citations should not be provided for obvious information like Paris being the capital of France. If a particular reader does not happen to know that Paris is the capital of France, she can look it up very easily. Remember, the whole point of providing citations is so readers can look at sources themselves to see if the information in Misplaced Pages is true. A reader unable to look up the capital of France would also be incapable of looking up the sources provided in our citations, so the citations would do no good. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:29, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Regarding "
Citations make it more difficult to read or edit an article
": not necessarily. I presume you refer to the difficulty of reading text (in edit mode) encumbered by a lot of bibliographic detail. But that is entirely a matter of technique. That problem goes away if full citations are collected in a separate section (e.g., "References") and only short cites used in the text (or in "in-line" notes). It is not a problem of "citation" per se. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Regarding "
- I am not referring just to the difficulty of reading the source code. The article as presented to the reader is more difficult to read if there are a large number of numeric superscripts to distract the reader. Also, there is an implication that if there is a footnote, there is a good reason for a footnote, and that expectation of a worthwhile footnote is a needless distraction of the footnote is superfluous. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
- Well, some people might consider any interpolated characters to be distraction. But I suspect you refer to the instances of a long string of numeric superscripts. (E.g.: . The note-links, to coin a term.) And I agree that it is distracting. But same answer as before: entirely a matter of technique. In my experience this results solely from editors trying to re-use notes (e.g., the stuff between
<ref>...</ref>tags), because they have buried individual citations into each note. I do not see any reason to have a string of note-links. If the full-citations are collected in a single location, multiple references to a source are handled with multiple short-cites. Each sentence/phrase/quotation needs only one note, which can contain ALL of the short cites and explanatory text needed at that point. Again, this is not a problem of "citation" per se. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk)
- Well, some people might consider any interpolated characters to be distraction. But I suspect you refer to the instances of a long string of numeric superscripts. (E.g.: . The note-links, to coin a term.) And I agree that it is distracting. But same answer as before: entirely a matter of technique. In my experience this results solely from editors trying to re-use notes (e.g., the stuff between
- I am not referring just to the difficulty of reading the source code. The article as presented to the reader is more difficult to read if there are a large number of numeric superscripts to distract the reader. Also, there is an implication that if there is a footnote, there is a good reason for a footnote, and that expectation of a worthwhile footnote is a needless distraction of the footnote is superfluous. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
- Oh? I thought that Vichy was the capital of France. Personally, I think that Paris' status as the capital of France is exactly the kind of information which ought to be cited: it's a situation created by human action which could change. I grant you that on a continuum between that information which most needs to be cited — "Justin Bieber is the best singer who ever lived." — to that which needs it the least (but which still needs it) — "Objects dropped from above a surface fall towards the Earth." — that it's closer to the latter than the former. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- "Objects dropped from above a surface fall towards the Earth" is not necessarily true. Objects dropped from above a surface on Jupiter probably don't fall towards the Earth, and one might want to add that they fall towards the center of the Earth, rather than towards any old piece of dirt (e.g., sides of a mineshaft). But that statement wants clarification (if the rest of the paragraph doesn't provide the Earth-centric concept), not necessarily a little blue number after it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Oh? I thought that Vichy was the capital of France. Personally, I think that Paris' status as the capital of France is exactly the kind of information which ought to be cited: it's a situation created by human action which could change. I grant you that on a continuum between that information which most needs to be cited — "Justin Bieber is the best singer who ever lived." — to that which needs it the least (but which still needs it) — "Objects dropped from above a surface fall towards the Earth." — that it's closer to the latter than the former. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Proposal to tell people to cite Misplaced Pages's sources, not Misplaced Pages
I am not sure about the language of this proposal, but how do others here feel about suggesting the following:
- Readers should expect to see citations on Misplaced Pages sometimes
- Students and researchers should cite Misplaced Pages's sources that they find through Misplaced Pages's citations
- Contributors are always encouraged to use citations, even though they are not currently mandated to do so
One proposal for change -
All information in Misplaced Pages should come from existing published sources which are supposed to be followed with citations. Since anyone can modify Misplaced Pages, readers should verify information in Misplaced Pages before using it. The Misplaced Pages community advises that students and researchers not cite Misplaced Pages articles when using information found here, but rather, it is best to follow Misplaced Pages's citations to the original source, verify the information there, then cite that source.
There are uncommon circumstances when making a citation to Misplaced Pages is appropriate. These circumstances are described at WP:Citing Misplaced Pages.
I think that in the comments above, everyone is in agreement that it is okay to have unverified information on Misplaced Pages if that information is unchallenged and seems verifiable. I think this has always been the policy. What is less clear is whether there is consensus that ideally, all information on Misplaced Pages should someday be verified. It is my opinion that Misplaced Pages would be better if this could somehow happen without provoking a purge of all the good unverified information which sits here, because I agree that this information is crucial and do not wish to disrupt existing practices.
Even though unverified information can be on Misplaced Pages, what are people's thoughts on saying that all information on Misplaced Pages ought to be verified? I am imagining that things proceed as they always have, except that a statement is made that given enough time, any unverified statement on Misplaced Pages should eventually be verified with a source.
The reason why I think this is important is because I talk to a lot of non-Wikipedian students and researchers, and I have been giving them the advice they can use Misplaced Pages to find sources to cite. When I actually read our citation policy, it seems that the community never actually adopted that advice as a good practice. It is my belief that already, many Wikipedians already say this, but as best I can tell there has not been a discussion about this idea in the current citation policy, and that policy is mostly unchanged since 2005 and hardly discussed.
Most instructors and professionals do not consider it appropriate to use tertiary sources such as encyclopedias as a sole source for any information. Misplaced Pages articles should be used for background information, and as a starting point for further research.
As with any community-built reference, there is a possibility for error in Misplaced Pages's content — please check your facts against multiple sources and read our disclaimers for more information.
Most educators and professionals do not consider it appropriate to use tertiary sources such as encyclopedias as a sole source for any information—citing an encyclopedia as an important reference in footnotes or bibliographies may result in censure or a failing grade. Misplaced Pages articles should be used for background information, as a reference for correct terminology and search terms, and as a starting point for further research.
As with any community-built reference, there is a possibility for error in Misplaced Pages's content—please check your facts against multiple sources and read our disclaimers for more information.
I think that it would increase the public standing of Misplaced Pages if the community took a stand to say that one goal of Misplaced Pages as a project is to connect people to sources which they can use to verify Misplaced Pages's information and cite if they find information on Misplaced Pages. As part of taking this stand, we update the citation note to advise people to cite the sources which Misplaced Pages cites.
The reason why I am here on WP:V is because telling people to expect to find citations on Misplaced Pages puts a new kind of pressure on the application of V and I do not know what implications this could have. Also, most Wikipedias (the other languages) do not have V at all, so if citations meet an ideal, I expect that making a policy in English will affect international Misplaced Pages communities eventually.
Thanks everyone.
Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:17, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- You probably know all this already, but you are aware of this section of the About Misplaced Pages page linked at the bottom of every page and the two articles linked at the top of that section, are you not? I understand why you're starting here at V, but I'm guessing one of those three places is where you'll eventually need to end up. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:27, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- I have not yet found all the places which give advice on this topic, so thanks for finding three places. The three pages
- all lead users to instructions for citing Misplaced Pages itself and none of them suggest citing the sources which Misplaced Pages itself cites. If this board seems supportive of proposing that researchers should use Misplaced Pages's citations, then I will solicit comments there and elsewhere.
- This page does suggest using Misplaced Pages's citations. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:19, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Earlier I quoted Misplaced Pages:Citing Misplaced Pages: "However, much of the content on Misplaced Pages is itself referenced, so an alternative is to cite the reliable source rather than the article itself." I didn't suggest we add anything. I merely repeated what we already say, and stated that it was sufficient to say it there. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Lists of links
Should a list of links to Misplaced Pages pages have sources? This has come up at Sports in Alaska where at talk:Sports in Alaska we are discussing if this list needs sources, or if it should be something else other than a list article. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 01:32, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- I've offered my two cents. DonIago (talk) 15:19, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Discussion at WT:BLP that is related to the Burden of evidence section of WP:V
Editors are invited to comment at a discussion in progress at WT:Biographies of living persons#Adding "about living people". It is related to the section Burden of evidence of this policy WP:Verifiability. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:48, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
- Two cents provided. :) DonIago (talk) 13:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
Verifiability and Talk pages
Does this policy Verifiability apply to Talk pages? --Bob K31416 (talk) 10:13, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
- Clearly not. All material in Misplaced Pages mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable.—S Marshall T/C 18:30, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
SPS's themselves
@HughD: Re this edit followed by my reversion and suggestion to discuss and then this edit tagging it with {{clarify}}. Is your objection just to the clunky grammar in the abstract or do you see some ambiguity which is being created by the current language? If it's the former, I fear that the cure here may be worse than the disease. This is one of those situations where these clunky words would have to be replaced with a lot more lawyerish words to make the grammar better without losing the now well-established current meaning. If, on the other hand, you've detected an ambiguity perhaps it needs to be addressed. Could you <ahem> clarify for us? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:56, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
- I think I see what HughD is concerned about. Sometimes "sources" refers to articles and sometimes "sources" refers to the authors of the articles. Please consider the following as a possible improvement. "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves or their authors, usually when the sources are about the authors themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that the authors be published experts in the field,..." --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:40, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks for starting this talk. Clunky, good word. I find this sentence confusing: "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as..." Is this subject of this sentence, "WP articles about self-published and questionable sources" as in "WP articles whose subject is a self-published an questionable source"? If so, how do WP articles have "activities"? Is this subsection an exceptional, special case of the previous subsection? If so, might it better be folded into the previous subsection? I think the choice of pronoun "themselves" and the possessive "their" makes it read like there is agency in here somewhere. Is there? "They" refers to editors who need not be experts? "Their" and "they" in the same long sentence with different referents? I get there is something I should know about self-published sources but I have no idea what. I don't understand the intent well enough to improve this. Hugh (talk) 02:12, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
- Comment: I agree that there is ambiguity - at best. I too have found the definition of SPS to be too vague. As a result, different editors have different views of what a SPS is - even beyond the fact that it could refer to (1) the author or (2) the publisher. (What something "refers to" is only a small part of "what it means".) Not surprisingly, even the same Misplaced Pages editor will push the meaning of SPS when it is convenient to him in achieving a certain version of an article. ...Such position violates NPOV and WP:V in my opinion. IMO, the definition could be improved considerably if several examples were added to the (non-existent) definition of SPS. Thus, neither THIS edit nor THIS edit is wrong; the problem is in the phrase self-published sources which they are both using. That phrase ("self-published source") is not properly defined and, in fact, it is never defined. See HERE for a recent discussion on this. Mercy11 (talk) 14:26, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
- Illustrating through examples would be progress, thanks for the suggestion. WP right now must include some articles whose subject is a "self-published or questionable source", and that uses "self-published or questionable sources" as sources, and was edited by non-expert wikipedians, illustrating the exception. Can we agree that "self published sources" are, sources? Can we agree to call "articles about self published sources" "articles about self published sources"? Can we agree to call "authors of self published sources" "authors of self published sources" and "authors of articles about self published sources" "authors of articles about self published sources"? Can we take "self-published sources" and "questionable sources" as separate cases? Those of you who patrol this page presumably understand the intent of this subsection. I don't. I'm lost. I would like to please hear from someone who could please take stab at restating the point here. May I make a suggestion? That one sentence, can someone re-write it, here on the talk page, with no pronouns, no possessives, that is, unravelled, with all referents explicit? It will be clunky too but at least we can look at it together. Thanks for the link to the archive from two months ago. It's discouraging to realize the January talk apparently was for nought. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 04:26, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
Two quick comments:
- You might want to read Misplaced Pages:Identifying and using self-published sources.
- Thanks for the link, that is helpful to me. The above link defines "self-published works" yet it is titled "Identifying and using self-published sources" and the subheadings mention "self-published sources," yet conspicuously does not offer a definition of "self-published sources." I understand now that "author" and "publisher" of self-published works are identical by definition. I can see how under this definition the phrase "self-published sources" might be used interchangeably to refer to the author or the publisher. I think the distinction between "self-published sources" (agents) and "self-published works" (documents) is useful. For example, agents can have activities, works cannot. I see from WP:RS that "source" is defined generically as author/publisher/work. I think this is unfortunate, to borrow a common English word and redefine it in WP context as a broad, heterogeneous category. I took "source" to mean document, something you might include in a ref. This redefinition of "source" is going to lead to a lot of clunky sentences, clunky sentences that are a barrier to entry.
- Can anyone direct me to a similar canonical definition of "self-published sources"? If not, can we add it there, right after the def of "self-published works"? Borrowing from the def of "source", how about "Self-published sources refers generically to the related concepts of self published works, their authors and publishers." Hugh (talk) 13:57, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
- There can't be any serious question about whether SPS refers to "the author" or "the publisher", because by definition those are the same person (or other entity, e.g., The Coca-Cola Company both writes and publishes its own corporate website). "Self-published" means "the author and the publisher are the same". So the answer is "yes": SPS permits you to use a source written by Joe and published by Joe to support a claim that Joe said something about Joe (but not that Joe said something about Alice). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:36, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
- I think there can be a serious question about whether SPS refers to "the author" or "the publisher". It would happen in the (increasingly common) situation where Person A (the author) is one of the partners in Publisher P. For example, this talk page is published by Misplaced Pages, but this comment was written by me. Clearly I'm not Misplaced Pages and Misplaced Pages isn't me... but this comment is self-published, isn't it?—S Marshall T/C 01:57, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
- Though I'm ordinarily a lover of statute-like drafting in policy, I think this is unnecessary. This language, almost in its current form, has been around since SlimVirgin added it in this edit in February, 2006. While there have always been questions about how to apply it, that's also true about just about every other section of V. While I understand the issues being raised by HughD and S Marshall, I simply don't see them being problems in practice. In some ways, this rule is really more about what SPS can be used for than what it cannot. Though it can be, and frequently is, raised as an objection to a source, the real root objection underlying SPS's aren't that they are self-published per se but that they don't meet the definition of a "third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" because either (a) they're not third-party or (b) don't have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy or, more often than not, both. If there's some doubt about whether or not a source is a SPS, you can simply avoid any argument over that point by falling back on the root definition of reliable source. To change the language of this rule would set off a whole new round of unnecessary debate over its applicability. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:32, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
- I understand is it now time for me to quietly go away, like the January incursion into the status quo. Unparsable sentences are par for the course in WP policy. WP policy has always been this way. I'm not a member of this project. I get it.
- "statute-like drafting in policy" Here i think we have a situation where informality has lead to incomprehensibility. Consider the heterogeneous set {ham sandwich, George Washington, giraffes (all giraffes currently alive)} Now try writing a coherent sentence of which this set is the subject.
- " I simply don't see them being problems in practice." A unparsable sentence in policy is a problem. It's not a problem in practice for you, but it was definitely a problem for me. I read policy and couldn’t understand it. I gotta think there's others. You know what this section is trying to say, I didn't, respectfully, perhaps you are too close to this topic to appreciate what a god-forsaken sentence we are talking about here.
- In any case, granted, the current definition of "self-published works", and the de facto definition of "self-published sources", is there any defensible reason not to include an explicit definition of "self-published sources" somewhere in WP policy space or is advocating such lawyering? Are we bound to define things only in such a way that a cascade of text tweaks is avoided? Hugh (talk) 19:25, 6 March 2014 (UTC)