Wikipedia talk:Verifiability

Notability section

Notability section, tweaking

[subsection inserted above] Unscintillating (talk) 03:04, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone mind if I tweak the writing of the part in bold? Or do we even need it? I had difficulty understanding it when I first read it.

"Wikipedia's General Notability Guideline says that the subject's notability is established by the publication of independent, reliable sources, regardless of whether the names of any such sources have yet been typed into the article.

I assume it means notability depends on whether published sources exist, not whether they've been added to the article. But that's what the first part of the sentence says already. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 17:00, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I also believe that's what it means. Considering this is a summary of another policy, if it is to be an actual convenience to readers, it should include the critical points from the other policy. It is a critical point that articles should not be nominated for deletion if nearly everyone knows the topic is notable, even though the independent sources are not cited. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:20, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

In the recent edit history of the page, it went from this to this. What would the "tweak" consist of? It might be best to put the proposed wording here, in talk, first. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:58, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I was going to tweak it, but then realized it doesn't need to be there in the first place. The first part of the sentence says: "the subject's notability is established by the publication of independent, reliable sources." The bolded second clause just repeats that, but in an odd way. No one would assume that, if I created a stub that said only, "Queen Elizabeth II is the queen of England," that the lack of sources on the page at that moment in time would mean Queen Elizabeth wasn't notable. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 19:07, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to hear from the editor(s) who made the change about why they wanted to add that wording, before making a decision. I agree that it sounds odd, as written, but I have a feeling (ie, guess) that the idea was to point out that sources can exist even if they haven't been added to a page, so a page shouldn't be deleted without checking for sources first – as though these editors have had experiences where your hypothetical Elizabeth II stub was nominated for deletion (and stranger things do happen). --Tryptofish (talk) 19:16, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it's redundant, but AFD has significant and persistent difficulties with people who do not (choose to) understand this relatively simple point. Repeating it seems to get the point across more effectively than stating it once. The point that needs to be made is that {{unref}} and {{nonnotable}} are completely separate issues. If you want more formal language (which I've been finding less effective recently), then something like "Notability requires only that suitable independent, reliable sources have been published; it does not require the citation of any sources at all in the article" would probably suit.

There was discussion earlier about removing the entire section, since there's no particular reason to for WP:V to say anything about all about WP:N. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:42, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I would prefer to go back to the previous text, which simply said: "If no reliable secondary source can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." That's the only part of the issue that concerns V. It was expanded on August 7, [1] and again on August 8. [2]

If we can't have the old version, I'd like to tweak the new sentence to say: "Wikipedia's Notability guideline says that a subject's notability is established by the publication of independent, reliable sources, not by whether such sources have actually been added to the article." SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 20:20, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Two thoughts... 1) Does not the existence of a tertiary source on the topic (such as an article on the topic in some other encyclopedia or almanac) go towards notability? (if so, we should avoid the word "secondary"). 2) There is a difference between "I can't find any sources" and "No sources exists".

I think the point of this section is to tell editors: "Don't create an article if you (the creating editor) can not find any sources that discuss it"... but it is being misunderstood as saying "I should nominate an article for deletion if I can't find any sources about it". The first is correct... the second isn't. Blueboar (talk) 21:03, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, first of all, the original is one diff earlier, and it says not one word about secondary sources. It refers to WP:Third-party sources (aka independent sources), not WP:SECONDARY sources, and as you know, WP:Secondary does not mean independent. A first-party secondary source (and there are many in the hard sciences) does not demonstrate notability.

"Can be found" has unfortunately been interpreted as "can be found by lazy deletionists who refuse to look any further than a section named ==References== in the current version of the article". I suggested "have been WP:Published" last month, and the discussion was de-railed by a long digression by one editor who wanted to ban unref'd articles entirely, and the distraction of the endless not-truth discussion.

Similarly, I'm concerned that "whether such sources have actually been added to the article" may be more susceptible to misunderstanding than "whether someone has typed the names of such sources into the current version of the article". I had a long and discouraging conversation last month with an experienced editor who seemed to have trouble distinguishing between adding content from a published book (e.g., typing "Only 5% of women die from breast cancer" into an article) and actually WP:Citing the book (=typing the author's name, the title, and the date into the article), so my belief in the average editor's ability to understand plain English is at an all-time low. Someone might well think that "adding sources to the article" referred to including the full text of primary sources rather than to typing up the author, title, date, and publisher for any source that you used. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

For years it said "third party sources," and that would be my preference. But someone recently changed it to secondary sources, and I don't mind that either. The only concern I have is extending it to say things covered by the guideline. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 21:22, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

The long-standing version was "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it" (e.g. here). I also wouldn't mind: "If no reliable secondary or tertiary sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." But I don't see the need to say more than that here. The details are dealt with in the Notability guideline. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 21:25, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I think these comments by both Blueboar and WhatamIdoing are very helpful to me in understanding the issue. Perhaps the key issue, then, is the wording about whether WP "should" have an article on a subject. That does, indeed, sound like an invitation to lazy AfD. Instead, maybe the wording should be about whether "content" (as opposed to article) should be "added" (as opposed to exist), with the "added" part what is most important. What I mean is to frame it in terms of adding material, as opposed to responding to material previously added. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:25, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I think we should go back to third party sources, as the issue of the independent coverage is pretty essential. And I concur with Tryptofish's last observation. --Nuujinn (talk) 15:11, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

How about: What matters is whether such sources exist, not whether the article presently cites them.? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:45, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

So, delete the bolded part above, and add that sentence in its place? I like that. I think it's a good idea. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:54, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Notability section, WP:V is content policy

WP:V is content policy, see WP:N#NNC.  If the purpose of the notability section in WP:V is to repeat parts of the WP:N guideline, the section can be deleted.  Blueboar has mentioned that "the language...originally...was meant to relate to how the concept of WP:Verifiability could be applied at the article level (as opposed to a sentence or paragraph level)."  Given the burden of deletion at Wikipedia, I think we need to be moving in the direction of encouraging more sourcing by article creators, which in the absence of new proposals is best done by leaving the current language.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:04, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Its a guideline not a policy. Lets not mix the two up. I say eliminate that section altogether. Its also misleading because it only covers the GNG, when if you click on that link it says an article is notable if it meets the GNG OR one of the secondary guidelines listed on the right. Dream Focus 03:43, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Two points: first, the policy now says that the GNG says something that I can't find it saying. Does anyone have a link to where the guideline says this: "that the subject's notability is established by the publication of independent, reliable sources (regardless of whether the names of any such sources have yet been typed into the article)"?

Secondly, a bit of historical context. This policy contained the sentence about "no third-party/secondary/reliable sources = no article" in some form since at least Feb 2006, six months before the Notability guideline was created. So this sentence of ours—"If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it"—[3] is a verifiability issue, entirely independent of whatever the Notability guideline might say. We therefore shouldn't say anything here that implies this policy follows that guideline. That's why I think we ought to return to that one stand-alone sentence without elaborating. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 18:11, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I was wondering where that sentence got to - that's a very critical sentence that outlines fundamental verification policy. That needs to be put back in. --MASEM (t) 21:07, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

That a notability issue was described here when no other suitable page existed does not mean that "we should not have an article" is actually a matter of verifiability rather than notability. It could merely be a legacy of what seemed convenient at the time.

I do not believe that this sentence deals with verifiability. Material can be 100% verifiable without coming from a third-party source—exactly as this policy has said for years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:14, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The point of the sentence is the can be found part. It's find to use first-party, dependent sources as long as they are reliable (SPS comes into play here, for example), as long as we know there also exist third-party sources that discuss the topic; the first party source may be the best source to use in that case (such as using the award organization's list of winners on their webpage than a newsreport reporting the same - the key is that the newsreport has shown interest in it. Without any third-party sources in existence, a topic has no relevance to anyone but those directly involved with the topic, and thus there's appropriateness for an article on that topic. That's a key aspect of verifyability, that someone else has at least considered the first party source as factually correct. --MASEM (t) 21:58, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I am beginning to think that we made a mistake in trying to tie the sentence in question directly to the WP:Notability guideline. I think the original intent of the sentence was to say:

• If no Verifiable information exists on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic.

While that idea is similar to the concept of notability, it isn't quite the same. Blueboar (talk) 13:44, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Yea, I have no idea why the idea was tied to notability. "Third party" source is one, by definition, would have had to do some research to validate the facts since they were not privy to the first-hand details; the more reliable that source is, the more fact-checking they have likely done. Requiring that some third-party sources exist is a basic metric for verification of a topic, and has little to do with notability which is more about how deeply that topic is covered in sources as to make for a good encyclopedic article. --MASEM (t) 14:00, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

That sentence was never meant to be tied directly to the Notability guideline. It spent a lot of its life under Burden of evidence. I moved it not long ago to a subsection called Notability under the "Verifiability and other principles" header, but the intention was not that it derived from the Notability guideline. Perhaps we should simply move it back to Burden of evidence to break that connection. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 18:49, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Notability section, proposal to put sentence back under "Burden of evidence"

The proposal is to delete the notability section and move the sentence back to the "Burden of evidence" section.  The sentence is:

“ If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. ”

• Support  Unscintillating (talk) 22:49, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support retaining that sentence and not elaborating further about notability; and I have no objection if it's moved back to the "Burden of evidence" section, and the Notability subsection is deleted. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 22:54, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• Aye.—S Marshall T/C 22:56, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• Moving it works for me. I still strongly prefer that "can be found" be replaced by "have been WP:Published", to alleviate the problems that AFD is reporting with a small number of editors who apparently want to believe that "can be found" means "can be found without me needing to look any further than the ==References== on the current version of the article". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. The only interpretation of "topic" for which this statement is correct (never mind which policy it belongs in) is the article as a whole. But it would be too easy for people to interpret as the topic of a specific addition, or a topic that is broader than the article. Also, the statement only belongs in the notability policy, or a summary of notability in this policy. It is not a statement about verifiability. I could give a perfectly verifiable statement about the location of a state highway culvert, from a first-party source (the state highway department). The reason for not having such an article is that nobody cares, not a lack of verifiability. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:16, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
  • It has nothing to do with notability, that's the thing. A lack of third-party sources means we have no assurance on the reliability and verification of the information on the topic, and thus should limit its coverage from "none" to "part of a larger article". --MASEM (t) 23:20, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

• A Supreme Court decision is a first-party source, but is absolute proof of the decision. It is certainly verifiable, although there are many reasons, which fall outside this policy, why reporting just the decision would make for a bad article. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:02, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• But at the same time, a SC decision will be covered by third-party sources as well, even though we'd likely to use the actual decision for sourcing statements about that decision. The issue is when only first-party or second-party sourcing is available. --MASEM (t) 00:30, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
• A SCOTUS decision is not a first-party source for everything. It is a first-party/affiliated source for the new decision it contains, but it is is a third-party source for (e.g.) any prior court case the decision describes, laws it mentions, facts relevant to the specific case, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:33, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• No, SCOTUS is a part of the US government, so is a first party source for its own decision, and any federal court decisions, quotes from federal prosecutors, federal legislation, etc.

• No, that's not enough to make them first-party. SCOTUS is a first-party, primary source for what SCOTUS says; it is a third-party/independent source for what some independent branch of the federal government, i.e., the Executive or Legislative branches, says. And it's certainly not "affiliated" or first-party with respect to the claims put forward by the opposing sides in the case. When they wrote in Brown v Board that "This segregation was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment", SCOTUS was not a first-party source for that material. (Primary, yes. Affiliated, no.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• I would say an appellate court is a secondary source when describing the evidence placed before a lower court, and it's a primary source when discussing the arguments made before it, and its own decisions. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 02:14, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• If it merely repeats what was said by someone else, then it is not a secondary source. It's not merely a matter of counting up chains in the link. If I quote Masem, and you cite me, then that's still primary material, even thought your step is third-hand. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:47, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Strong support - the removal of this line drastically changes how WP:V is to be applied. --MASEM (t) 23:21, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

• That sentence is about notability, not verifiability, so it does not belong in WP:V. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:35, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
  • The sentence is not about notability, it is about the existence of third-party sources to provide an unbiased and reviewed facts about a topic, needed for WP:V. --MASEM (t) 03:04, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Here is what the first paragraph WP:Notability says about the sentence.

"... if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. Wikipedia's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics."

Bob K31416 (talk) 15:32, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• • • Third-party sources are only needed to show notability. An article written using entirely first-party sources (e.g. a biographical article using only a published autobiography by the subject of the article, or an article about a scientific experiment sourced only to a reliable, peer-reviewed paper where the experiment was published) could meet WP:V without meeting WP:N. There are many reliable first-party sources (and unreliable third-party sources). — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:53, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Such an article would violate V, because of the lack of at least one reliable third-party source. The point of requiring this is to make sure someone other than the primary sources (the authors) deem the material worthy of comment; the requirement is also in place to avoid OR. The requirement has been in this policy (a core content policy) for years, since before the Notability guideline existed, and was regularly acted on. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 19:17, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
  • No, WP:V has nothing to do with "third-party" sources, that is purely the domain of WP:N. It may be that this policy had language about notability before WP:N existed, but that is years in the past and no longer relevant. Now that WP:N does exist, we have a distinction in policy between verifiability and notability: it is possible to have a verifiable article on a non-notable topic, and an unverifiable article on a notable topic. These independent considerations are covered by separate policies, and language about notability doesn't belong here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:46, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• N is a guideline. V is a core content policy. It has been the case for as long as I remember that articles had to be based on reliable secondary sources. We are meant to offer an overview of the literature, and to do that a literature has to exist, at least in the minimal sense that a third-party source—someone other than the primary source and the Wikipedian who created the article about it—has deemed the issue worthy of mention. That's not just an N issue. It is a V and NOR issue, which is why this policy has included mention of it since at least 2006.

  You can't (by definition) have an unverifiable article on a notable topic, and I can't think what a verifiable article on a non-notable topic would be. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 20:57, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Mostly, I agree with SV's analysis, but it is certainly possible to have a verifiable article about a topic which is non-notable for encyclopedic purposes. Millions of newspaper pages of "society events" and such drivel have been published, rendering the parties described verifiable. Some of these were even written by reliable journalists. But the parties would not on their own merit be notable topics for WP, would they? There needs to be a little more to it if we don't want Emma Smith's 1875 cotillion in New York City. LeadSongDog come howl! 22:17, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:N is only a guideline, not a policy, because if a separate article is created on something that is non-notable but verifiable, no great harm is done (provided other policies, such as NPOV, are followed). Another way of saying this is that if a few facts that really belong as a heading in a broader article are instead a separate article, this is merely a guideline non-compliance rather than a policy violation. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:27, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Apart from society events (like LeadSongDog mentions) another way to get a verifiable article on a non-notable topic is to take a paper in some academic journal, on a topic that has only ever been studied in that one paper, and write an article that directly summarizes the results of the paper. We often delete or merge articles like that for lack of notability, but nobody argues that they are unverifiable if every claim they make is literally present in the paper being used as a source. Regarding "You can't (by definition) have an unverifiable article on a notable topic, ...", that brings out the fundamental difference between WP:V and WP:N. N is about the article topic, independent of its actual content, while V is about the actual content, independent of the worthiness of the topic. These should be treated separately, which is why we have separate pages for them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:10, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

There's no point in tying ourselves in knots, because this isn't rocket science. If someone creates an article on "John Smith's fishing technques," it needs a source that isn't My Fishing Techniques by John Smith, or Smith's wife's blog. That is, we need a reliable, published third party—not John Smith and friends, and not the Wikipedian who created the article—to tell us (a) that this issue is worth mentioning, and (b) what kind of thing we should saying about it to avoid OR. That's the only issue that V has ever commented on. All the details belong in N. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 00:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

We both agree that article needs another source besides that one. But I am saying that fact belongs in WP:N, not here, because it is not related to whether the material that is included in the article is verifiable. Knowing whether "the issue is worth mentioning" (that is, whether we should have the article) is entirely a WP:N issue. The other thing you mentioned seems like an NPOV issue. If Smith's book is the only source in existence, then (essentially by our wiki definitions) its viewpoint is the NPOV viewpoint on the matter, and descriptive claims taken from it are verifiable and not original research. My response to the RFC is that this policy should stick to verifiability, not repeat things that belong in other policies. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:35, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I do not agree, actually. Per WP:SELFPUB, a primary source is a perfectly good source to V itself and the basic facts about itself. I have a dictionary here. I don't need a third party source to tell me that it exists, nor what year it was published. I can cite the primary source itself. That's neither enough to 1) comment on specific controversies, awards, etc. or 2) demonstrate notability. But the "we need secondary sources to meet V!" mantra is just not correct. No matter what the particular wording of V is changed to, it doesn't make sense to say that a published work is not an authoritative source on its own existence and publication date. Jclemens (talk) 01:39, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I just meant that article needs more sources to meet WP:N. I agree with what you said. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:48, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

To take the example of "John Smith's Fishing Techniques", if the only sources are the book and the blog, we have way to consider if this source is even close to reliable, working on the assumption that John Smith here-to-date was a unknown person. Ergo, without any third-party addressing the book, we cannot even assure it meets the basic "verifiability, not truth" aspect. Maybe the entire book is a work of fiction published as a non-fiction title, maybe it plagiarizes Joe Jones's Fishing Techniques, we don't know. We'd not be able to verify that what John Smith has written actually took place; we'd only have John Smith's word on it, which is not sufficient. A reliable third-party source that would at least consider the work, determining if the account is legit or not but without otherwise introducing additional analysis (eg a primary third-party source) would at least provide something towards verifiability. Furthermore, a third-party source would still show the work existed even if only ten copies were made and destroyed without the original text surviving; without a third-party, in such a case, even if you can remember the general ideas of the text in your head, there's no way for any other user to validate it, ergo, it would fail. However, even for a published book, there is nearly always an ISBN number, and therefore some record of the book's existence in a third-party catalog (maybe LOC) even if that is just a primary source.

Note that this is nothing about secondary, transformative sources. Third-party != secondary. WP:N asks for secondary sources as a basis to build a good encyclopedic article. WP:V asks for third-party so that we know we're putting in facts that the reader can check themselves. --MASEM (t) 13:11, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Masem commented, "WP:V asks for third-party so that we know we're putting in facts that the reader can check themselves."
• The subject sentence is, "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."
• And here is the subject sentence in the first paragraph of WP:Notability, "... if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. Wikipedia's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics."

Bob K31416 (talk) 14:31, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

An ISBN catalog is not a third party source, nor is a library catalog. Those help Wikipedians locate the primary source, but that's essentially it. I could probably get an ISBN for my cat (if I had one, which I don't), and then get it cat-aloged (ha ha) somewhere, but those entries wouldn't prove the existence of a work: the ability to look up, purchase, check out, or otherwise acquire the primary source for verification is what's really happening, and catalogs and listings are merely aides to that end in this context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jclemens (talk • contribs) 02:00, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. This seems to have consensus, so I'm assuming we can go ahead and do it. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:38, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
  • So long as "this" still refers to the proposal at the top of this sub-section ("to delete the notability section and move the sentence back to the "Burden of evidence" section"), then I think you're right about the consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Time to centralize discussion

STOP... it seems that there is a debate at GNG that is centered on what this policy says about notability.... and a debate here that is pointing to what that guideline says. I suspect that both pages are being improperly edited in order to skew the debate at the other page. Please, do not edit one policy or guideline in order to win a debate at some other policy or guideline page. Instead, we need to create a centralized discussion so editors on both pages can reach a consensus as to what should be said on both pages. Given this confusion... I am going to revert both pages back to their last stable versions while we centralize the discussion and reach such a consensus... I suggest that WT:Notability is the better venue for that discussion. Once we figure out what the notability guideline should say, then we can come back and make any edits to this page that are needed. Blueboar (talk) 20:07, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Assume good faith! First off, different people are editing these articles. The debates for each page should be on that article's talk page, not mixed together. Dream Focus 20:29, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

OK... I suppose it is possible that it is not a deliberate thing... but the problem remains... both discussions are pointing to similar bits of language that exist in the other policy/guideline page. Neither page can have a meaningful discussion or resolution when both sections are being edit warred over. Blueboar (talk) 20:56, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Let's end the "Verifiability, not truth" topic

• Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:V/First sentence. Please continue there.

Long-term sourcing/removal policy

I find a contradiction between different aspects of policy, and between policy and the real world:

WP:PRESERVE says not to remove material unless it's more than merely unsourced. WP:V says "Anything that requires but lacks a source may be removed... You may remove any material lacking a reliable source that directly supports it. How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references."

Have any of you read this or similar article?

Wikipedia has many, many articles filled with unsourced material, which are almost certain to never be sourced. The community needs to decide what's more important: having a lot of unreliable content, or letting people remove unsourced material which has been appropriately tagged for a (long) period of time.

I'm of the opinion that if material has been tagged as unsourced for a long time (say a year) it should be removed, and that the Encyclopedia is too large to require the editor who removes material to try to source it (per WP:BURDEN). But I was recently informed that such removal is a major issue for some people. Can you help with this, and can we clarify policy on it so I and others like me will know where Wikipedia as a whole stands? B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 23:59, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I think we would deal with such issues on a case by case manner. We're all volunteers so dictating actions can be problematic. Can you point us to the problematic discussion? We may be able to make some concrete suggestions. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:03, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I'm a bit embarrassed really... see, I had been just editing according to the principle above: if it was tagged for a year or more, I removed it. I did that on a whole bunch of articles, and was reverted maybe once last time I looked. But when someone thought I was an admin I said I wished I was, and later they said they wouldn't vote for me because I'd been deleting that text. See my edit history. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 00:12, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, this isn't really the forum for this kind of discussion, but I don't see much wrong with deleting unsourced material, esp. if an article or section has been tagged for a year or more. But I would say that if you balance the deletions with efforts to find sources and improve articles, too, that's better for the project in the long run. I wouldn't worry about becoming an admin, just focus on being a good editor. Just my two cents, worth less every day. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:26, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks (; You're right it would be better to source things given time. I'd really like to know if policy can be made clear on this, so is there another place I should post this? B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 00:40, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, that part of the policy means only that we should ask for sources, ideally help to find them ourselves, and wait a decent period before removing unsourced material (not counting BLP and other pressing issues). But I would say a week or few days, definitely not a year. That's assuming it's something that really needs a source. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:43, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi SV, OMG, the opinions are really all over the place on this issue. Any suggestions for how to go about consensus building for policy change? But I'm not sure what you mean by "really needs a source." For example, does a history section on an article about a high school need a source? B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 13:42, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

A lot depends on what you mean by "need a source". all information in Wikipedia must be verifiable... but not all information needs to be actually verified ... in other words, a source has to exist, but the article does not necessarily need to contain a citation to that source. That depends on the specifics of what is said in the article and whether the material is "challenged or likely to be challenged".

In other words... we allow removal of unsourced information, but we don't require it. Whether to remove or not depends on the specifics of the article, and the nature of the information in question. Blueboar (talk) 15:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

If you have a bunch of facts stated, and those facts are not common knowledge that any reader will have, doesn't it require a citation? I know you don't have to cite that the sky is blue. I see a problem with the following text: "To show that it is not original research, all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable, published source," because without a citation, how do you know it's "attributable?" I have been interpreting that to mean "To show that it is not original research, all material added to articles which is not common knowledge must be attributed to a reliable, published source or it may eventually be removed." B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 17:01, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I think it's largely a matter of personal judgement, to be applied in good faith and a good dose of common sense. Vast quantities of very useful (and perfectly sourceable) information has been sitting around uncited in Wikipedia for a very long time - by removing that type of information, you'd be making the encyclopedia worse, not better. But if it's not cited because it's wrong (or even if it is cited and it's wrong, which is also very possible) then by removing it you're doing a service. The more you know of the matter, and the more you've made the effort to look for sources yourself, the more capable you're likely to be of judging whether it's case A or case B (though often anyone with common sense will have a pretty good idea).--Kotniski (talk) 17:14, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Okay, that's good common sense. I went and looked at one of the articles whose unsourced text I removed. What I see there is that the information is outdated, might have been original research or copyvio to begin with (see the very first edit), and includes so many facts that full sourcing would be a pain. On the other hand, it's fairly detailed information. It might be of use to someone... if it's accurate. I also notice that if it wasn't original research to begin with, it would have been extremely easy to cite (as in one cite per section). What do you guys think of it?

Kotniski, what about the good-faith argument that non-subject-matter-experts need to be able to determine the reliability of Wikipedia material, and that the lack of such citation is a basic problem that needs to be dealt with, so that WP can become a reliable encyclopedia, and not just another site? B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 18:47, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Just an aside regarding your example article Salmon High School: The source of the verifiability problems was lack of notability and I added a template. Bob K31416 (talk) 19:51, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

OMG, well in that case there are just hundreds and hundreds [4]. I've always had a problem with NOTABILITY, in that it sets the standard way too low: so low that a subject that meets the criteria doesn't have enough sources for a well-rounded article. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 20:29, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, OMG. I wonder how many of the high schools in that list are not notable. Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 21:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Kotniski, but "even if it is cited and it's wrong" is exactly what wp:NOTTRUTH is about. Unless we have reliable sources to show that the cited one is wrong, simple removal is purest wp:OR. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:06, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't think he was questioning NOTTRUTH, just saying that text has to be in accord with citations. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 19:19, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I had in mind the case where a citation was given but didn't support the text; but there are many other reasons for removing text besides that one: not relevant; undue weight; source not sufficiently reliable - and yes, source got it wrong (though in the last case it might be necessary to contrive some other reason, if confronted with some wikilawyering goon who thinks we have to include information in Wikipedia even if we know it's wrong).--Kotniski (talk) 10:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Most frequently, one need contrive not "some other reason", but "a better source". The way we know that (for example) "most women die from breast cancer" is wrong is because we can easily provide dozens of high-quality sources that say only 5% of women die from breast cancer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

And as a further response to Kotniski, those of us who hang around and edit a lot of different articles are the ones responsible for the overall health of the information on WP. We can't be responsible for citing information that might or might not be reliable. That's the responsibility of the person who added the text. Why is it that we wouldn't remove information after at time simply because it hasn't passed the basic criteria for inclusion, which I would say is proof that it is not original research? In other words, it seems to me that it's an impossible task to try and source the contributions of others, because of the volume of text to be sourced and the fact that there are fewer and fewer editors. Isn't that why we have WP:BURDEN? Perhaps we need to slightly strengthen BURDEN:

"You may remove any material lacking a reliable source that directly supports it. How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to try to find and cite supporting sources yourself, but it is better to remove text which is uncited than to let it remain indefinitely." B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 21:09, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's reasonable to expect an editor to go searching for sources for someone else's text - I commend anyone who does. The other options mentioned above are good: 1) tag unsourced material (if questionable); 2) wait a reasonable amount of time (1 year?) for the original editor to provide a source; 3) revise (if possible) or remove the tagged text. Sometimes, because the text was interesting even though unsourced, I've moved it to the talk page with an explanatory note. I strongly disapprove of any removal of properly sourced text, even if it's "wrong". WCCasey (talk) 21:38, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

One thing to remember is that WIkipedia in the past was not as strict about sourcing as it is now, and in-line citations were even unusual. Many good articles written in those years do not meet today's sourcing standards. Gutting such articles on that basis is not to the general benefit of Wikipedia. The correct approach is to fix them, bring them to the attention of some project, tag them, or leave them alone for someone else to do one of those things. Zero^talk 09:45, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, some of the above comments about "responsibility" rather miss the point. This is a cooperative project where we're all trying to make the "encyclopedia" better. You can in practice do pretty much anything you like around here until someone objects, but I think humanity would be grateful if people's edits were directed towards improving that encyclopedia, not enforcing some half-baked rules. The fact that no citation has been given for something for a very long time is not in itself conclusive evidence that it is not good (i.e. potentially sourceable) information. It's quite destructive to the encyclopedia just to remove information at random due to the lack of citations - you ought also to have some reason to expect, based on your own knowledge, research, common sense or something, that it really is wrong or unsourceable. Particularly since once information's gone, it's gone - whereas if it's left (say with a citation-needed tag) it remains visible to other editors who might know what ought to be done with it.--Kotniski (talk) 10:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I essetially agree with Zero0000 and Kotniski. There is no point in deleting unsourced content just because it is unsourced alone, as this is not is spirit of an collaborative project and it leads to a waste of good content and work of others. If you come across content that it is unsourced but looks ok otherwise, you should simply tag it. But if there are is an additional reason such as the content looks fishy, content contradicts your context knowledge, you have reason to distrust the author, the content is controversial, etc. then should delete it, but only then.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:46, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I think we are all saying the same thing... Sometimes it is best to remove unsourced information, and sometimes it isn't. We each draw the line between when we remove and when we retain in slightly different places. That's OK too... The line between Removal vs Retention really is a matter of editorial judgment, based on the specific situation in a specific article. I don't think we can (or should) try to draw that line as a matter of policy. Blueboar (talk) 12:12, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

That's fine with me and I agree that doesn't need to be codified in the policy. However the policy should make clear that formalistic (mindless) removal of unsourced content is not wanted nor any crusades in that manner.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:32, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I think we make it clear enough. And remember, going through a bunch of articles and assessing whether to remove material that has sat unsourced for a long time is not necessarily "mindless"... or a "crusade". I go into "clean up" mode from time to time... going to random articles and seeing if there are problems. As long as each individual removal/retention decision is made on a case by case basis (remaining open to the idea that sometimes it is best to leave the material in the article with the tag, and asking whether it would be better to remove or retain this specific material in this specific article), doing such "clean up" sweeps isn't wrong. Blueboar (talk) 12:51, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I was talking about going through articles and systematically removing any unsourced content on the sole reason that it is unsourced and not about any systematic (fesired) cleanup. The discussion here is relatively clear, but it also shows that we have editors misreading the policy in the sense that is described above.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:54, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, as I have observed before, this policy (and many others) seem to be written so as to be almost deliberately unclear. (And SOFIXIT doesn't apply, since there's a group of editors here who have no intention of allowing anyone to FIXIT.)--Kotniski (talk) 14:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

And yet how is the policy as you-all describe it to be reconciled with the oft-spoken-of goal of being reliable? What I'm getting from the above could be summarized as "remove only what you have reason to doubt." In such a system, it's guaranteed that vast amounts of original research of dubious reliability will remain (and could be vandalized by anyone smart enough to insert false info in a convincing way, thus raising BLP issues). It seems to me like WP is basically conflicted between the need to retain useful information and the need for reliability. But I'm not really convinced that removing only overtly suspicious material is an adequate compromise (and sourcing it one's self isn't practical).

I also think that there is a possible technical solution: have a  Removed template or marker of some sort. Then one of two things happens: 1) When an editor tries to edit the page, they are presented with a message saying that large amounts of text were removed for [reason], and they might want to review that before editing, or 2) The template simply says that text has been removed for [reason] and gives a link to the page prior to when the template first appeared.

When I get time I think I'll canvass around a little bit. This is a long-term kind of thing, and brought to a head, for me, because of statistics which say our editorship is at best probably not going to expand. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 14:55, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

If people ask themselves whether the material is likely to face a reasonable challenge, it's usually clear whether something needs a source, and how long to wait for it. The problem with trying to generalize is that everything will depend on the particular case. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 15:11, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Exactly, but that way of doing things overall means that WP has vast amounts of unreliable information. So it's a choice: do you prune the branches which have fruit on them to make the tree strong, or leave the fruit and have a tree that is less sturdy overall. WP is set up on the principle that information is guilty until proven innocent, but doesn't seem to follow through on that. It places the burden on the person who wants to remove text, and what I'm saying is: that might have been a bearable burden in the past, but it's not any more. To improve, WP needs to prune as well as refine and expand. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 16:36, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Most of the time, as a reader, I'd rather see something than nothing, so long as it's not harmful or very silly. As editors we might cringe, but as readers we might be grateful for it. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 16:38, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Well as far as the pruning analogy goes, "mindless" pruning is not yielding a healthier tree or a better harvest, it just kills the tree.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:49, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you need to set the bar at "information we doubt"... I may not have any reason to doubt the unsourced information, and still remove it... if I think the information constitutes Original Research. Of course that isn't "mindless" either. Blueboar (talk) 20:11, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

well you can formulate it in a positive manner, one should not delete unsourced content one assumes to be correct.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:37, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Isn't "assuming information to be correct" exactly what we're not supposed to be doing? And how can anyone know what is original research minus a source? You can't tell from the level of detail. Why do we have to have a positive opinion that something is OR, why not just insufficient reason to think it isn't? And given that each editor is informed of our sourcing policy, can't we pretty much assume that anything which is blatantly lacking in sources is OR? As far as SlimVirgin saying she likes something rather than nothing, of course that's true, but is it encyclopedic? Isn't all this "benefit of the doubt" stuff actually, when it comes right down to it, basing Wikipedia content on what we like or agree with? B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 23:56, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

You write as if policy requires everything to be sourced, but that is not and has never been the policy. It only requires sources for content "challenged or likely to be challenged" (emphasis in the original). So, no, you don't have policy support for assuming anything unsourced is OR. Zero^talk 00:22, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Common knowledge doesn't need to be sourced, and I'm only talking about removal of material which has been challenged by way of a request for sources. Material which is not common knowledge does need to be sourced: "a source must exist even for material that is never challenged." Posted a question/request on Jimbo's talk page [5]. It seems like people here are putting the burden on the person who wants to remove text, whereas the overall gist of policy is that it's the person wanting to include text who has the burden to prove that it should remain. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 00:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

It says "must exist", not "must be given". I believe that is deliberate, otherwise it obsoletes the first part of the sentence. My main concern is that the hard work of editors who wrote articles years ago when there was no culture of sourcing everything should be accorded some respect. The culture has changed now, but we should update those articles in preference to gutting them. Only material unlikely to survive a sourcing attempt should be automatically deleted. Zero^talk 00:42, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes that's a valid concern, however, I'm not aware that the culture has changed for at least 5 years, and I'm not talking about older material- my example was started in 2008 [6]. This is from an essay, but I think its statement is worth quoting here: "Responses must be forthcoming: Editors who wish to respond to the challenge [such as a tag] should do so in a timely manner. If no response is forthcoming, the challenger may tag or remove the statement in question... the challenger should await a timely response prior to removing material.[7]" And WP:OR says "The only way you can show your edit is not original research is to cite a reliable published source that contains the same material." [8] Again, I'm only talking about material which has been tagged or otherwise challenged for a good long time. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 01:04, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Another break

I have noticed that you are now stating that you are "only talking about material which has been tagged or otherwise challenged for a good long time"; however, your proposal is still that "You may remove any material lacking a reliable source that directly supports it." Which view do you really take, because there is a big difference. Ryan Vesey Review me! 03:07, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

There is also something to be said regarding the reliability as a motivation for "direct sourcing". There is big danger here confuse one tool (direct sourcing/footnotes) with the goal (reliability). Having a lot of of footnotes doesn't make an article more reliable per se. For that we would need reliable editors to check/confirm the sources themselves, i.e. actually reading the the sources rather than just checking whether a source is given. And top of that we need a revision control (flagged versions) to manage which article versions have been proof read.--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:32, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I sometimes wonder if it would help to expand this policy and indicate its relationship to PRESERVE with a statement like:

WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:41, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

It's a good suggestion. We would also have to change all the templates, and other parts of policy which say "unsourced text may be removed." And also WP:BURDEN etc. WP should not be saying two things at once. Some editors think that policy is actually saying only one thing, but the discussion at Jimbo's page, where Jimbo and others agreed with me that unsourced text should eventually be removed shows that there is genuine difference of opinion on this. This difference shows in the slightly ambiguous policy, even though there is more support for removal than for perpetual preservance. So, I think it's a bad idea, but I support you trying to have it changed, as that might be a consensus-building and clarifying exercise. What I'm totally against is putting text like that in without making the other changes I mentioned. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 19:07, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Response to Ryan Vesey: sorry I didn't see your post above. My position is one should only remove material which has been tagged or otherwise challenged for a good long time, unless one knows it to be inappropriate. So, one may remove any material lacking a reliable source that directly supports it after it has been challenged for a long time. How long varies with the judgment of the editor: I was using a year, Jimbo would use 6 months. What changed was that I had to make clear that I wasn't advocating just removing material before it had been challenged. If you go over my edit history you'll see it in action. Kmhkmh, you're right sourcing is only a step in the right direction, and I would say it's a minimum requirement to keep text. But as you say, reliability requires checking/reading sources, and that supports my position: we can't expect anyone but the original author to thoroughly go over the sources. If the original author didn't even bother to name a source, we should be able to assume the text is original research or otherwise flawed enough to remove. We can't be obligated to read/view the sources ourselves (on say an article on a local high school or Barbie character), it's too much of a burden. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 01:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Well from my perspective this is simply not how WP (currently) works and probably not even how it should work in the future. Several points here:

• Why should we remove any correct material at all just because it is unsourced? From my perspective that is just a waste of resources.
• The notion that we can only expect the original author to go thoroughly over the sources (and maybe the correctness of the content as such) is imho exactly the opposite of reliability. It is exactly how we cannot work in an open system such as WP. The reliability of articles rests on being proofread by others (the community) over time.
• I can't really see why it would be too much of burden to check sources. Of course since all work here is voluntary nobody is obligated to do that. However I see no reason why we should have less expectation of those who voluntary perform quality control than of those who contribute content. In other words if somebody is seriously reviewing articles then yes we should expect them to check sources or at least corroborate the correctness of the content by alternative sources. If quality control doesn't do this (admittingly cumbersome) job then it essentially reduced to window dressing (spell checking, layout, "formal sourcing"). But frankly in my eyes that's no encyclopedic quality control at all, from the encyclopedic perspective the primary quality control needs to be the correctness of content and citations.
• As far as "if original author didn't even bother to name a source" is concerned I essentially agree but with a caveat. Yes, if an author is unwilling to provide sources, we should delete his contribution. However there's a time window here that matters. As this approach only works if you catch such an author in time (not too long after his contribution and when he is still active in WP). Because only then you can really determine whether he is unwilling to provide sources or not. But that doesn't really work if you catch him late and he is not active anymore, then there is no way of telling ,whether he was actually unwilling to provide sources or whether he was simply not aware of our guidelines. This applies in particular to our legacy material but also to new contribution which have been caught late. Most authors contribute before reading all our guidelines or they might not even read them all. In such cases we should simply judge the content, if it is correct and good material we keep it, tag it and source it over time and if it isn't then we delete it. And yes we can and should approach this rather conservatively, i.e. in doubt always delete it, but there is no reason for are "mindless" automatic deletion independent the correctness and quality of the content in question.

--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:36, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I hear you. Ideally, that is how we would deal with everything. So how would we balance those concerns against the goal of becoming a real encyclopedia which is reliable, while acknowledging that most of the the peripheral articles are never going to be improved from the state they're in now? Are they better than nothing? That's a judgment call and I don't think so. They often just aren't content that really belongs in an encyclopedia (but there's currently no way to get them deleted). They should ideally be reduced to redirects, as Ryan says in his essay. My whole thing is future-oriented: how to deal with content long-term when there are few new editors and the old ones aren't going to be sourcing the peripheral articles.

• "Why should we remove any correct material at all just because it is unsourced? From my perspective that is just a waste of resources." Because we value reliability over simply having content. If it's not common knowledge, we should either source it or remove it. If we don't have time to source it, remove it (but let future editors know where to find it: that's very important).
• "The notion that we can only expect the original author to go thoroughly over the sources (and maybe the correctness of the content as such) is imho exactly the opposite of reliability. It is exactly how we cannot work in an open system such as WP." But in articles like some local high school or a Barbie character, that's all we're going to get... we have to be real about our resources.
• "I can't really see why it would be too much of burden to check sources..." It's not on the more important articles.
• "However there's a time window here that matters..." Yes that's a problem. In the current state of the encyclopedia, though, we have to choose between unsourced text forever and deleting it. From now on, we should have a bot that automatically gives new users a heads-up on how to source and edit. Such a bot already exists and is used on other wikis. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 22:55, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Becritical, do you understand the difference between "may" and "should"? You may go out on the sidewalk and scream if your Internet connection fails, but you should not irritate your neighbors this way. Similarly, you may remove unsourced material, but you should not remove material that you know or believe to be accurate, sourceable, and appropriate.

Imagine, for example, that I edit Common cold to say that "Very few people die from the common cold each year". For whatever reason—perhaps I think it too obvious to bother, or perhaps I'm new and haven't figured out how to cite a source, or perhaps I've run out of time, or perhaps the source I have in mind is at my desk and I can't remember the title of the source—I do not follow that material with a citation.

Would Wikipedia actually be improved by removing this sentence? You may remove it, but should you? Does your rule about deleting apparently good, but currently unsourced, material really help you improve Wikipedia? Or does it only allow you to enforce your "right" to remove perfectly good information, regardless of the consequences for the overall project?

Does it really matter if that kind of sentence, whose accuracy should be obvious to anyone over the age of seven, remains unsourced for more than a year? For more than ten years? Forever?

I suspect that Jimbo would leave such a sentence in the article, just like he'd leave the unsourced sentence about how many fingers are normally found on the human hand (which, yes, was tagged as "citation needed" several years ago). Jimbo uses good judgment in articles. He does not mindlessly remove perfectly good information merely because some arbitrary date has passed.

There is no contradiction between these policies and my proposal. One tells you what you are permitted to do. The other tells you what you should do, if you want to be a good editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:54, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

As a general answer, most of the responses I've been getting don't take into account the basic factors that we're losing or not gaining editors; and that no one is ever going to improve most of these articles. No one has an answer for that, no one wants to address it.

"Does your rule about deleting apparently good, but currently unsourced, material really help you improve Wikipedia?" Oh, very much so: the only way to create a reliable encyclopedia is to prune out the cruft. I think this is a noble project, thus to me, "may" is "should." But it's interesting to me that you admit that I "may."

"whose accuracy should be obvious to anyone over the age of seven..." NO, absolutely not, it doesn't need a source and should be left in. I'm talking about stuff that's only obvious to an "expert" or someone familiar with the sources.

We're getting to the point in this discussion where it's too complex and I'm repeating stuff cause editors TLDR. The stuff I was taking out was about local affairs/conditions, and leaving it in means the encyclopedia is not just unsourced, it's out-dated. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 01:29, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

You seem to mainly look at the aspect of too many users contributing questionable (unsourced) content ("cutting the cruft", problematic content contributors). Whereas I'm mainly looking at the aspect of a bureaucratic (often mindless) quality control obsessed with formal aspects and window dressing rather than content or real content improvement ("removing correct content over formalistic arguments", problematic qualiy control). Both are real problems in WP and various methods to address them might be conflicting and the issue is to find an appropriate balance that works in practice.

Moreover I think we also have fundamentally different views and how WP works (and in which time frames), how and why it is used and how to achieve reliability or even what constitutes reliability. From my perspective your approach is simply not offering a (real) solution, it just deprives readers of correct but yet unsourced content. Which seen from my perspective is even deterioration.

Where we agree however that we should attempt to catch (new) unsourced content contributions and contact the authors immediately. A (smart) bots might be helpful here indeed. Any larger text contribution or new article without sources could trigger an automatic notification to the author.

--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:17, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Kmhkmh. WP:There is no deadline, not even for providing inline citations to apparently good information. Don't worry about the number of editors; now that so much vandalism fighting and other routine actions have been automated, we actually need fewer editors per article than we used to.

But what you're describing in your latest comment is not removing material solely because it has been unsourced for over a year, which is what my proposed addition addresses. You're talking now about removing unsourced content primarily because it is outdated or inappropriate to the article, which is a completely different issue.

When you are dealing with outdated or inappropriate information, WP:PRESERVE tells us to fix it if possible, and to remove it if not possible. People add stuff all the time that is impossible to fix: you should remove that, even if the unfixable stuff is provided with a source. If it seems like it probably could be fixed—just not by you—then you ought to leave it for someone who can fix it (or, if you're not sure, then move it to the talk page). If you can fix it, whether by asking your favorite web search engine if there are any easily located sources, then you should fix it yourself rather than removing it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:41, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Interjection by another editor

This thread has become so hard to follow and there are many issues that need to be addressed so I am just going to do that in this section. First, there are some notability issues about high schools. While slightly disputed, it has been accepted that while all schools (elementary and middle schools) are not notable, all high schools are. To address some questions on removing unsourced information. I think this is a ridiculous idea. Information should not be removed for the sole reason that it is unsourced. Information should only be removed if there is a valid reason to challenge the information. If a citation needed tag has been added it has been challenged. The key assumption to take when viewing unsourced information is WP:AGF. Assume that all information that was added was added in good faith. Deleting this information hints at an assumption of bad faith. If there is reasonable belief that the information is false, or if it is an unverified statistic it can be deleted. It is also important to remember that the citation needed tag helps encourage editors to cite unverified information. Before removing the information, it is often useful to add the citation needed tag instead. Ryan Vesey Review me! 02:02, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I have commented on the notability of high schools at Talk:Salmon High School. Ryan Vesey Review me! 03:04, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I was fairly sure this was all covered by Wikipedia:Verifiability#Other_issues. Removing material without tagging first, leaving a reason=, or a talk page note should only be done under limited circumstances: obvious errors, such as "the Sun is a green gas giant"; vandalism; blp claims that may be libellous or otherwise defamatory; flammable material that might cause a volatile page to descend into chaos, "this country attacked first and committed genocides, the other country was simply defending itself when it invaded them back"; etc.

It seems that fewer and fewer people are reading MoS before starting on campaigns to "clean up Wiki" - I found one instance where an article was tagged with a citation needed and within two days the editor had removed both paragraphs, even though most of the material was fairly innocuous and easy to ref. A reasonable period of time is really related to the amount of editing the page receives - if the last edit was over a month ago and the last talk page post was three months ago, a reasonable period might well be six months. Page views need to be considered also, if such an article is getting 10 views a month it is less necessary to change it than if it is getting 1000 views a day. I also think that editors should try and source before even tagging with a cn, and least put a reason= into the template. Drive-by-tagging is becoming an issue and will only increase as Wiki approaches the point where less and less articles can be created and maintenance becomes the only way for new editors to measure their worth. In the old days it was possible to create a hundred articles in a month and do that for several months, nowadays new topics that are not already covered are much less frequent. Chaosdruid (talk) 04:55, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

it has been accepted that while all schools (elementary and middle schools) are not notable, all high schools are'. Perhaps it has been accepted, but that doesn't make it policy or a guideline--is there a policy or guideline supporting that notion. I think it is safe to say one can generally assume that most all high schools meet GNG, but if notability is challenged, sources would need to be produced to show that the school in question has some significant coverage in reliable sources. Failing that fails GNG, I think. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

That's true, but if someone challenges the info and no one is around to respond to it (for a myriad of reasons), that doesn't mean that that person can then redirect or try to delete the article without bothering to check for sources themselves. I personally feel that WP:BURDEN goes both ways. People should only be challenging something if they have proof that it is wrong, via a source, or can't find any sources for it after checking. If they're challenging something with no backing, then they should be thoroughly trouted. Silverseren^C 10:55, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Silverseren. Unsourced material is fair game for anyone to challenge - but it should still be up to someone to challenge it. They should have some iota of suspicion that the information is actually wrong, and not just take it out solely due to the lack of a recognizable inline citation.

This is also important because when people are free to take out unsourced information with no further examination, it's very likely that they're going to start taking out information with a citation in the next or previous paragraph... or the next or previous sentence... those old articles with a bibliography at the end are right out. The only way to ensure your information will stay in (at least for this one reason) will be to cite the end of every sentence, even if they're all from the same source. Wnt (talk) 14:05, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Notability is about article topics... Verifiability is about article content. While both are established by citing reliable sources, they are quite different concepts. Blueboar (talk) 13:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Wnt, that's a very good objection. How do you differentiate between sourced and unsourced, when sources exist for some of the text (what I did was to remove entirely unsourced content)? I think that if there are sources given at the end of a section, it's usually incumbent on the person removing text to know that the source offered doesn't have the info. And I think that's a reasonably easy principle to put into policy. But, I don't think that one should have to have reason to believe information wrong before taking it out: that requires, for example, that before I took out any unsourced information on a local high school, I should basically live near or be a student there. Requiring that level of expertise isn't practical. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 20:40, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say you need to have proof something is wrong; merely an "iota of suspicion". Maybe an unsourced section offers information you can't really picture having proof of, maybe it sounds like someone might have had a partisan perspective; maybe you found something else in the article that was wrong and now you're ticked; maybe the account that added it had a record of Wikitroubles; maybe you think it's wrong. But the point is, whatever reason you choose to challenge a fact, it is a reason. Siccing a bot on the task, or acting like a bot, goes beyond that, and that's a bad thing. Wnt (talk) 02:31, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

And why would anyone take out any information if they didn't think it was wrong? This gets more bizarre by the day. If there is a suspicion that the info is wrong, do aquick google search, no hits, mark it with a citation needed. Date it and give a reason-, come back in a fortnight or three weeks and if no-one has added anything, put a note on the talk page, find a frequent editor and inform them, come back in two weeks and move it to the talk page...really, removing things today just because there is not ref today is a bit extreme. Chaosdruid (talk) 21:50, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Re "And why would anyone take out any information if they didn't think it was wrong?" - I recall an experience where an editor did that because he said he was a "purist". Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 22:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

That would be a nice way of doing things, but utterly impractical given the limited number of editors and the thousands of articles. We can't/won't be doing that, so we have to choose between a streamlined way of eliminating questioned/questionable information, and doing nothing. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 22:24, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, to me it sounds like either laziness or POV removal. Chaosdruid (talk) 23:02, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure it does. But engage the argument, and tell me this unreliable text is not going to be sitting there in 5 years, 10, 20... We have to decide between reliability and permanent unreliability. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 19:07, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Except that you're not talking about "unreliable text". You're talking about "uncited text". That's not the same. Text becomes unreliable only if no reliable source has ever published that information. It is not unreliable merely because no editor has (yet) bothered to type up the bibliographic citation for a published source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:58, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth, an essay

Bob K31416 (talk · contribs) has twice now reverted the addition of Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth, an essay, to WP:V.

This is not a controversial slogan, it is a respectable, informative, well written essay. It is directly relevant to explaining and understanding the opening sentence. The opening sentence, while subject to long standing challenge, is in no danger of being substantially altered. A recent proposal to alter it was overwhelmingly rejected. Proponents for change have agreed to not attempt a new proposal for change until a future date, and this is in effect demonstrates a very strong consensus for the current wording for the current time.

Given that that the opening sentence is a source of controversy and ongoing debate, it is nothing but good that an explanatory essay be included. To do otherwise is to deny the readers easy access to the explanation. If, as alleged, the sentence is misleading, then the hiding of explanation only worsens the situation.

I propose that the essay be listed, alphabetically, in the "See also" section, because it is relevant and needed advice for readers, and because it provides information on a surprising, and possibly-for-some confusing statement. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:51, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree; while I am firmly on the side that believes "verifiability not truth" is a stupid slogan and should be abandoned in favour of something that says what we really mean, as long as we are forced to have this stupid slogan in bold in the lead, it's right that we should link people to an essay that does a pretty good job of explaining what that slogan is intended to mean.--Kotniski (talk) 08:09, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there's no reason I can see to not link to it. --Nuujinn (talk) 08:47, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Me too - no reason at all not to link to an essay which explains it better, and every reason to link to it. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 09:49, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Removing the first "not truth" from the first sentence is an uphill battle. The links in the first sentence and see also will make the hill steeper. In all fairness, couldn't you wait until the present discussion is over? Also, I don't think it is a good idea to try to patch up bad writing with links. I think that is part of the convolution problem that Wales was referring to. Also, I noticed that the essay makes a special Wikipedia definition for the word "truth" for use in that essay. More jargon to add to Wikipedia's special definitions of "original research", "verifiability", "verifiability not truth", and probably others that I can't think of for the moment. Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 13:20, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

"The links in the first sentence and see also will make the hill steeper"... I see that as a good thing! Blueboar (talk) 13:44, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Blueboar. BTW the discussion I was referring to is in the section The phrases "not truth" and "not whether editors think it is true" which is on the sub page Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/First sentence. Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 15:32, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

There is no current consensus to change.  I suggest that this proposal should be placed on the WP:V/First sentence/Drafts page for consideration after September 15.  Thanks, Unscintillating (talk) 12:26, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Don't revert due solely to "no consensus". What is your reasoning for not providing a direct link to that essay? It is not a proposal to change or not change anything. Its supports (as in "explains") the meaning behind the current wording. Your page, Wikipedia:Verifiability/First sentence/Drafts, shows little promise at this stage of a developing new consensus. As the first sentence is allegedly capable of confusing some people, the essay is needed now. If the wording changes on some future date, update the relevant essays as required then. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:58, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, Although I agree that a more specific reason should be given for all reverts here, which I had done in the edit summary of my revert, please see the second sentence in your Essay link for the relevant exception, "Except possibly on pages that describe long-standing Wikipedia policy" and also note that your link is to an essay, not guideline or policy. Anyhow, for now I don't feel strongly either way regarding having it in the See also section. I'll be taking a break. Good luck and best regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 13:27, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

(ec)What is the purpose of this discussion when there are people that want to take a break?  Are you ok with waiting until September 15 to continue?  Thanks, Unscintillating (talk) 13:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Is all discussion supposed to wait until this arbitrarily defined date of September 15? Why? This is not about changing the first sentence; it's about adding a link to what appears to be a perfectly good explanatory essay - if no-one's got any substantial arguments against doing so, can we just do it? (You can add a link to my WP:Truth, not verifiability as well, if you want to give some indication that the wording of that first sentence is not universally loved, though I think that might be unnecessary clutter.)--Kotniski (talk) 19:22, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

There is agreement above that the addition will make the deprecation of "not truth" more difficult, this can be fully understood because proposals that move the "not truth" phrase to a footnote will then also need to note the essay as moving with it.  On the other hand, if we build a consensus to keep the "not truth" phrase in the main body of the article, then I sense that the essay is appropriate.  Right now, there is no consensus to keep the "not truth" phrase in the body of the main article, and I think the next two and 1/2 weeks is not a good time to work on this issue.  Additionally, making this change now would be contrary to the sense of those that want to take a break from this topic.  Regards, Unscintillating (talk) 22:17, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I see no harm (and possible good) from linking to the essay under ==See also==. I have no firm opinion about linking to it in the first sentence. We link to other essays, like WP:When to cite; why not this one? Also, if the phrase is actually as confusing as opponents claim (without any proof, despite months of requests), then we should be linking to it, to relieve this alleged confusion while discussions are going on. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:18, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see that the two questions are necessarily related. We can still link to the essay whether or not the phrase is included in the first sentence. If it is included, then the essay helps to explain it; if it is not included, the essay (appropriately modified) would help explain (to people who remember it as being there) what it was intended to mean and what happened to it.--Kotniski (talk) 09:24, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I, too, see no harm in having a see also link to the essay. A link isn't an endorsement, and an essay is not policy. No big deal, we should link to it. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:42, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we should link to this in See also. We link to other essays there. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 22:04, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/First sentence

Discussion of the first sentence is at WT:Verifiability/First sentence. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:41, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

"A lot of editorial guidelines… are impenetrable to new users." -- Jimbo Wales

"A lot of editorial guidelines… are impenetrable to new users." -- Jimbo Wales, (Aug 4, 2011) from the article Wikipedia Is Losing Contributors

Would anyone care to comment about how this quote relates to WP:Verifiability? Thank you. Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 15:23, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Not? It's not an editorial guideline, but a fundamental policy, and the basics are pretty easy to grasp for most new users in my experience. Doesn't mean that it can't be improved of course. Fram (talk) 15:29, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Since Jimbo was speaking to the Associated Press, I think he used common language, rather than the specialized jargon of Wikipedia. So "editorial guidelines" meant policies and guidelines IMO. Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 15:43, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Starting editing Wikipedia is jumping down the rabbit hole into whole new universe. An immense amount of this byzantine alternate universe needs learning. North8000 (talk) 15:48, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Yep, rabbit hole. I can just picture the hooka-smoking caterpillar sitting on the giant mushroom saying to Alice, "verifiability, not truth!" Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 16:00, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

And I can hear our new theme song "White Rabbit"  :-) North8000 (talk) 17:00, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I mean, fundamental policy or not, it's quite badly written, if it's supposed to serve to explain anything. Like most Wikipedia policies, in fact. There are indeed things you need to learn when becoming a Wikipedian (and other things you might wish to learn as time goes on); but there's no reason why we should make it harder for people to learn those things by concealing the explanations under pseudo-legalistic constructions and unnecessary weird jargon.--Kotniski (talk) 19:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

If the problem is having too many guidelines (said in plain language), then the way to fix it would be to reduce the number. Rather than using the same forking system we use for articles, we should aim to have long but few policies/guidelines, rather than many short ones. Many ones should be merged elsewhere or demoted to essays; but as a core concept this one should be one of the few that would grow Cambalachero (talk) 19:44, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) To be honest, I wouldn't consider the core policies to be confusingly written, other than a few infamous phrases. Probably the worst problems with them for new comers are that, if taken literally, they are detached from the reality of how wikipedia actually works. That disparity also enables bullies and wikilawyers to easily beat up on newbies. One of the things that takes forever to learn is all of the compensating fuzziness (e.g. enforce and interpret by consensus) that has been put in place to make them work despite such issues. North8000 (talk) 19:49, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I take it more of a problem of today's "instant gratification" than the way the net was before the Endless September, where the mantra was "lurk and learn". WP's policies are easier to understand in practice than as written, and seeing how they are applied before making one's own edits go a long way. While we want to encourage editors to participate, we need to be clear that random nonsense is not the type of info we seek. --MASEM (t) 19:59, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Do we really want to encourage people to lurk before they start editing? If we do, we could give them advice on how to do that (which is far from obvious), but I fear that if people were actually to find out what went on around here, they might be put off for ever. Better to give them some brief and clear advice about what the idea is, and let them get stuck in - then hopefully by the time unpleasant things start happening to them, they might be too addicted to let it cause them to give up.--Kotniski (talk) 20:12, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The idea of starting slowly is fine, but not trying to use that as a cop out in lieu of fixing that it is unnecessarily byzantine, confusing and hard-to-learn.North8000 (talk) 20:33, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not saying that we can ask people to lurk with an anonymous contribution system, only advise towards it. It's more the problem that the average internet user today wants instant gratification, which works against any system that has some type of formal procedure or the like. It is not something we can correct as long as we have formal processes in place - chaos vs order, effectively. --MASEM (t) 20:46, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Relevant and well-taken point. But it shouldn't take an immense amount of time as it currently does. And many of the causes of that problem are the causes of numerous other problems, so fixing them would be a win-win situation. For example, things that lead to "experts" commonly misstating policies to newbies, and the newbies then having to take a long time to learn that they were wrong? North8000 (talk) 20:58, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I do think that the sheer volume of policy is daunting and confusing, and sometimes very badly stated such as "Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia." Maybe one way of effectively rewriting policy in an easier-to-understand form would be to write a very simple general guide for new users. The thing is to make it simple enough. How about something like this?:

What is the basic logic behind Wikipedia policy?

Wikipedia strives to be reliable encyclopedia. This goal leads to all the other aspects of our content policy:

When writing an article, Wikipedia editors should:

• Find the best sources of information.

• Accurately represent those sources.

To accurately represent our sources, editors have to do two things:

• Refrain from adding any of their own thinking to articles, beyond that necessary to describe what the sources already say.

• Edit from a neutral point of view. This means that editors do not present the sources with any type of bias. A person who reads a Wikipedia article should come away with the same general impression as a person who read the original sources.

In order to prove both to readers and other editors that we have been doing our job, all information added to Wikipedia should state where it came from. If you do not tell readers and other editors where you got the information that you put in Wikipedia, it may eventually be removed unless it is common knowledge.

Thus the goal of being a reliable encyclopedia naturally leads us to embrace our policies on reliable sources (RS), no original research (NOR), and the neutral point of view (NPOV), and to cite our sources.

B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 21:17, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

That covers a lot of ground, (and scope beyond just wp:ver) so would need work, but good idea to start in one place, which includes what to DO, not just what not to do. North8000 (talk) 22:24, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

A new editor has a subject they want to get going on, and we just want to give the most basic info to help them do it right, along with point them to more info. Something like this would be the 5 min version of policy. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 22:53, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

What you've written there is pretty good and might well fit into the scheme of things somewhere, but we already have various simplified and introductory pages for beginners - that doesn't change the fact that we still have lots and lots and lots of other policy and guidance pages that those beginners are going to quickly come across (for example, by clicking the links in what you've written there, or on the WP:XYZ shortcuts that many editors use in disputes as a substitute for arguments) and be made to feel are important. All that stuff needs to be put in order and made into a reasonably clear and concise description of wiki-reality. @Masem: I don't know what you mean by "formal processes" (by and large we don't have formal processes, do we?), nor do I see how anonymous contribution would count as lurking (it would still be active contribution, just with the absence of various standard conveniences like watchlists).--Kotniski (talk) 05:58, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

@BeCritical - I really like that, up above.

I'm all for anything which makes our policies, guidelines, and etc. clearer to all. I'm darned sure that, if we really tried, we could actually cut down the length of a load of that stuff by removing repetitions and (sorry!) waffle from the pages, so that they don't appear as a TLDR wall of text. These guidelines / policies really shouldn't take that amount of verbosity to explain, and we also don't need to use college-level language to explain them. We can do it better than that. I think in many cases the concepts are simple - but they way we've explained them makes them look daunting. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:10, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

BeCritical, Good work. You might want to put that in an essay as collateral reading with respect to policies, for those wanting to learn about editing. Unfortunately, if it gets attention, it may get edited by the same consensus that led to the present policies that are impenetrable to new users. Catch 22. Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 12:46, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Pesky's remark is consistent with Jimbo Wales' assessment of Wikipedia editorial guidelines in general: they're impenetrable to new users. Writing guidelines by consensus has failed to make them clear. I think that Wales needs to hire a professional technical writer, who has a reputation for clarity, to clean up the mess. Regards, Bob K31416 (talk) 11:28, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Those of us who think they need a rewrite might just go ahead and do it. It would have helped me if someone had explained the logical structure, rather than just present them as a bunch of rules. Wikiproject:Simple policy. Want to create it? B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 15:16, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The trouble with "just going ahead and doing it" is that there are a lot of people who have come to regard the policies in their present form almost as a kind of immutable scripture, and will revert and block any significant attempts to improve them, out of a fear that we're somehow "changing the rules" by writing them in different words.--Kotniski (talk) 17:39, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Should have left in the fun stuff about the "shadow government in waiting." Took it out because you know how words can get misinterpreted around here or used wrong. I'm not talking about rewriting policy pages, but making a new, parallel complex of policy pages re-written to be simpler and to show the logic of the structure. They'd be designated as essays or whatever at first. The only thing that should draw flack from other editors would be if we linked them to current policy pages. Getting the new pages certified as policy would be way in the future. Probably someone has already done this, but I don't know where to look. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 18:00, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I have been seriously considering writing a parallel "here are the rules in simple format" user essay for quite some time now! I may just go ahead and work on it ... when I have some spare time and energy! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 09:36, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you familiar with Wikipedia:Five pillars and Wikipedia:Trifecta? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that it's a great idea but to make it really useful you need to figure out what things are really difficult for newer folks to learn and address those. North8000 (talk) 11:27, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, obviously "you have to cite your sources" is one that is hard to learn. NOTABILITY is another. MAINSTREAM is another horribly phrased part of policy. NOTTRUTH, obviously. Someone who works more with the contentious articles might have a list for us here? And BTW, is IAR ever relevant anymore? Even a couple or three years ago it might have been, but really.... when is it ever usable? B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 23:06, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure the data supports that. That might be what bugs you about newbies, but I don't think that's what bugs the newbies.

Moonriddengirl (Mdennis) posted a link to comments from newbies at one of the Village Pumps a while ago. Most of the complaints indicated confusion with basic editing/formatting or unhappiness that the pages they tried to create were deleted within minutes, without an opportunity to explain or fix the problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:23, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

So when not protected by some rule like "all high schools are notable," they basically get bitten instead of cultivated. Sad. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 00:31, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

If they get that far. The link is here. The first three comments are "too much code", "i don\'t know how to edit the picture", and "I haven\'t been able to get on to create the page since I registered and now I don\'t know how to start again." It's not clear that any of those people got far enough to get bitten. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:09, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

If there is an interest, I'd be happy to try to list key things that newbies have a hard time learning. But here wou;ld be a few items:

• Bigger letters on "Don't bite the newcomers" The worst problems I've seen are royally beating up newbies when they make a mistake instead of helping them.
• Extra overview in key areas where wp is different than the real world. hat takes a while to really sink in. wp:notabilioty is not about rw:notability. Sourcing is everything. would be a few.
• The basic "how to" is missing / obscure / indirect in large amounts of our "instructive" pages.
• Clean up policy wording so that mis-quotes by the "experts" are less common. North8000 (talk) 16:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Verifiability as currently defined would eliminate large chunks of wikipedia

Applying the verifiability principle as it is written, which is strictly about being able to source a statement from a reliable source, would eliminate large portions of good articles in Wikipedia. For example take a random physics article, Stress (mechanics). The entire section Stress (mechanics)#Equilibrium equations and symmetry of the stress tensor does not cite a source, yet, it my mind the truth of the section is verifiable by checking the provided proof. Yet, it is not Wikipedia verifiable, because Wikipedia Verifiability is strictly about reliable sources. Dig around the science and math articles and many more examples will be found. I believe that the Wikipedia principle of verifiability as currently written is frequently ignored. For mathematical sections and many science articles, providing the proof in terms of first principles is far more verifiable for another mathematician or scientist than citing a journal article since verifying by the journal article requires looking up the journal article, and then the proof in the journal article needs to be checked, which adds a step to the process. The first non-stub version of the page [9] included the sentence "Therefore, include nothing that you cannot verify." and recommended citing sources as an easy way to do that. I think that the verifiability policy should support the very common pattern in mathematics pages of using a proof as sufficient verifiability. Jrincayc (talk) 22:46, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

If the proof of the concept is being published first on Wikipedia, that is strictly against WP:OR. Instead, and more likely, I would suspect that you can eventually find textbooks and papers that have first (or at least, prior to WP) published these proofs. Remember, verifyability is about the ability to verify the information, so pointing to a journal or textbook is completely within lines. --MASEM (t) 22:54, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Does the section Stress (mechanics)#Equilibrium equations and symmetry of the stress tensor need to find a reliable source for satisfying verifiability, or is it sufficient as is? Jrincayc (talk) 23:11, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

If anyone challenges the material in that section for being unsourced, yes, one would need to find a reliable source for the statements therein. If the material is solely dependent on the proof provided by editors here, it's OR. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:29, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Mind you, in a situation like that, a general catchall reference (eg defined outside the numbered reflist) for standard textbooks, reference guides, or the like, would satisfy WP:V. Remember, we're a tertiary source - we want to be able to point readers to where they can learn more. --MASEM (t) 23:39, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good point--the information must be verifiable, but that bar can be met a number of ways. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:19, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

It should be also noted that straight forward "calculations"/derivations being obviously true for anybody with "reasonable domain knowledge" are not really WP:OR and are essentially covered by WP:CALC (though that's subject to debate).--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Though, and importantly, if the end line of a proof is a novel statement made purposely to support a topic, even if drawn from these core calculations, that treads dangerously on OR. --MASEM (t) 02:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes though "novel" is to be understood in a scholarly/scientific sense and not as in it has not been literally written in that way before.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:47, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

"If anyone challenges the material in that section for being unsourced" is not correct; "If anyone challenges the accuracy of the material in that section" is. Until and unless someone says that a particular unsourced tidbit is incorrect, it is OK to continue to exist as unsourced. It can be tagged, and should be improved, but it only need be removed if someone disputes its accuracy. Jclemens (talk) 00:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

For a while, but not indefinitely if we are to continue the project of making WP a reliable encyclopedia. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 01:03, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Reliability of (correct) statement does really change or improve by sourcing. The reliability you seem to have in mind is achieved by proof reading by domain experts (and/or reliable editors) and for we need flagged revisions. Sourcing arguably becomes even less important in that context.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Jclemens, I sooooo wish that you were right, but you are wrong. They can challenge it saying absolutely nothing except that is unsourced. North8000 (talk) 01:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Around the loop again, we wouldn't be able to determine if it were accurate without a source.... --Nuujinn (talk) 01:23, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Again: verifyability is minimally satisfied by knowing a source exists. I borrow a math proof from my HS calc book and replicate it here for some reason, WP:V is not broken, just bad sourcing (which is fixable). --MASEM (t) 02:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

"Until and unless someone says that a particular unsourced tidbit is incorrect" - I would prefer "is suspect". It takes far less effort for a bad-faith editor to make up rubbish than it does for a good-faith editor to determine that it's untrue. If I know an editor has a history of making dodgy claims that don't hold up, I shouldn't feel obliged to check all their claims - even cursorily - before requiring a source for the ones that smell fishy. In an extreme case, if I assert that the Axiom of Choice is untrue... well, nobody can ever prove me incorrect, but I think they'd still be entitled to a "cite needed". --GenericBob (talk) 03:19, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that "is suspect" is a better principle. Good faith editors often just do original research. It's often obvious that this has happened, but you can't point to anything specific. Or you may just be at a loss when you see a lot of text but no citations. At any rate, at some point the lack of citation itself becomes a reason to think that it's suspect. The only way to determine the reliability of the encyclopedia is to actually cite sources. In fact, a large part of reliability is knowing that something is reliable, and the only way to know is to see that it's sourced. So it's not true that "Reliability of (correct) statement does really change or improve by sourcing." Actually, it does, because it allows you to rely upon it. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 03:32, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes and no - the fact that it's sourced is in itself neither here not there - it certainly helps the reader to research it, and gives some assurance that it wasn't just a made-up statement added by a one-off vandal (although in some subject areas I would actually place less reliance on a sourced statement than an unsourced one, but that's another story) - but to be sure that the information is reliable, the reader would have to check (a) that it's really what the source says, (b) that that source really is reliable in that reader's world view, and (c) that there do not exist other "reliable" sources that contradict it. --Kotniski (talk) 06:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

That's true, it's not a guarantee. But much of the time such verification only takes a glance, especially on non-controversial subjects: "okay, it's a textbook and it sounds right" actually helps a lot. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 13:21, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The last few comments are stating the intent of wp:ver, not its actual wording. And they deal only with the specific case (where there is an actual concern/question about the material) where the two work together. After years of thinking I've decided that the most high impact change-for the good in core policies would be adding the following two sentences which would bring the two together: "When challenging a statement for sourcing, indicate your concern with the material in addition to noting that it is unsourced. This is just to assure that there is a good faith concern; after that, any discussion about the concern has no effect on the requirement for sourcing." This would keep wp:ver at 100% full strength while eliminating the 100,000's (probably millions) of misuses of it. North8000 (talk) 10:15, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

We don't need to reference that "the sky is blue", and we have a guideline that forbids disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point. The article Cylinder (geometry) does not reference that the volume of a cylinder is πr²h, but that's trivial knowledge, as trivial and undisputable as the colour of the sky, so many attempt to remove it in referencing grounds would be swiftly undone Cambalachero (talk) 12:33, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

If I challenged you on the "Sky is blue" statement, the policy wp:ver would trump that guideline and force you to source it. My proposed change would force me to sound silly by saying "I question the sky is blue statement" to challenge it, which most of the time would prevent me from doing so. The more real world example of mis-use is to knock out material in a POV war. The clever warrior-wikilawyer knows that this not only invokes basic sourcing, it invokes the more difficult gauntlet of very high bullet-proof grade sourcing. North8000 (talk) 13:53, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

See WP:NOTBLUE. As an aside, I don't feel silly saying that the sky is not blue--today, it's grey. Each time this comes up, it strikes me that sourcing trivial knowledge is, well, trivial. I still just don't see a problem here. POV pushers are going to be disruptive, that's their nature. If I'm challenged on the assertion that Paris is the capital of France, it's trivial to source it and put an end to the discussion that way, rather than arguing about what's true and what's not, or what's common knowledge or what's not. When I taught intro to Lit, we did a segment on Magical Realism, in which a mostly realistic novel contains non-realistic elements. One interesting thing is that none of the students questioned the classification, but when we were discussion specifics, they disagreed with one another about which plot elements were realistic and which weren't. Common knowledge is not homogenous. But I agree it's good form to indicate why challenges a statement for sourcing, but I think we need to keep that as a suggestion, not a rule. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:04, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that adding that even as a suggestion would be a great move. Sincerely North8000 (talk) 17:02, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I gave it a shot. Likely be reverted. Such is life. ;) --Nuujinn (talk) 20:24, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I think you need to read WP:MINREF. This policy says only that it must be possible to find a published reliable source that contains the material. This policy does not require that unchallenged material be supported by an inline citation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:32, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind seeing words to that effect in that section. People are too quick to tag. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 22:53, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

What do you think about tweaking the second paragraph along these lines?

"To show that it is not original research, it must be possible to attribute all material added to articles to a reliable, published source appropriate for the content in question. In practice you do not need to attribute name your sources for everything. This policy requires that all quotations and anything that has already been challenged or seems likely to be challenged be attributed in the form of followed by an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material."

(The strikeouts and underlining are not exact, but I think it gives the general feel.) Or would it be better to address that in BURDEN (or both)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you guys seriously considering lessening, rather than increasing, the sourcing requirements? I would suggest: "To show that it is not original research, it must be possible to attribute all material added to articles to a reliable, published source appropriate for the content in question. In practice you do not need to name your sources for common knowledge. However, all material which is not common knowledge, or which has been challenged or seems likely to be challenged, must be attributed in the form of an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material." That would eliminate the loophole which allows people to come write whatever they want, even if it's OR, just because they don't think the article is likely to come under challenge. Wikipedia has a problem with unreliability, not a problem with people who are sticklers for reliable sourcing. In controversial articles, you have to source every little thing. That's frustrating, but it works to make the articles more reliable and NPOV. Without a strong sourcing policy, many "obvious" statements such as "the sky is blue" (when it isn't always), cannot be challenged. The difficulties above with "common knowledge," only serve to illustrate that nearly everything needs to be sourced. Really, what we need is the following: "Although not every statement needs to be directly attributed to a source in the form of an inline citation, such attribution must be possible, and the sources of all statements in each article section must be given within that section." B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 01:15, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Large scale edit warring and borderline vandalism on this talk page.

Cerejota, please self revert this controversial unilateral attempt to close four discussions and splash dead horse pictures all over the talk page. This is edit warring and bordering on vandalism. There was NO consensus to exclude this from this talk page. North8000 (talk) 19:28, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

There is consensus that all discussions regarding the "First Sentence" belong in the sub-talk page. It is you who is unwilling to accept this consensus. Enforcing consensus is not vandalism, it is protecting the project from disruptive editors who play deaf.--Cerejota (talk) 19:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I just went through it. I count TWO people who said move it, plus a third (me) who said have the main discussion there but explicitly NOT exclude it from this page. Where is this alleged consensus that you are speaking for this huge and extreme action? Please self-revert. North8000 (talk) 19:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

As I responded in your talkpage, strawpolls are not votes, they gauge consensus. There was no strong opposition compared to the broad participation in the sub-talk page, which spans years. As I said, this is being deaf and beating dead horses. The sub-pages exist, have existed for a long time, and recently been re-confirmed. Consensus can change, but it hasn't. --Cerejota (talk) 20:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, if TWO people counts as a consensus for such a huge thing as to shut down 4 discussions here and scatter dead horses all over this talk page, that would make for quite a mess here in the future. North8000 (talk) 20:09, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

• Who appointed you as the talk page police here, Cerejota? Your actions are obstructive, arrogant and unilateral.—S Marshall T/C 20:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
  • There, fixed. You may move the discussion to the subpage if you insist. You may not take it upon yourself to close the discussion. Capisce?—S Marshall T/C 20:17, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

And who appointed you Talk page police? I am not edit warring over this, but you are completely wrong, capito?--Cerejota (talk) 20:22, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Now that we're past the strong-arm stuff, I'm open to the idea of incubating this elsewhere for a few weeks if that's what folk's prefer, including freezing my proposal to implement Jimbo's suggestion. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

You keep saying this, North, but then you open another straw poll. You're now the third highest poster on this talk page, though you've only been posting here for a year—a post on this page every 11.24 hours for one year!—and most of them have been in the last few months on this single issue, despite multiple people pleading with you to stop. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 20:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anybody asked me to stop (or move), or that thee has been much asking around here period. Lots of insulting, villainizing, name calling, throwing dead horses around, mocking of people who donate their time here trying to make things better, but no asking. (I'm not referring to you specifically.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by North8000 (talk • contribs)

No one has asked you to stop?? North, multiple editors have been begging you to stop for weeks. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 21:14, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't really care whether we hold discussions on the sub-page or here... but can we please choose one or the other and stick with it. Blueboar (talk) 20:41, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Thats pretty much the point. Some people just don't get the point of WP:Centralized discussion and want to re-invent the wheel.--Cerejota (talk) 20:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, how 'bout voluntarily moving it there for a while, but without forbidding it from here. I'll move the section I started over. If Blueboar or anybody else who posted there objects, I'll move it back. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:09, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Please move all discussions about the first sentence to Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/First sentence, as agreed. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 21:12, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

 Done, although with a raised eyebrow about the "as agreed" part of that. More accurately, it's been done and nobody's chosen to object.—S Marshall T/C 21:31, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I strongly object, and I don't feel you've given any time for a discussion on this, since just this morning the discussions were fine, and you had a few vandals pop by and mess things up. I don't think consensus is found in just a few minutes of asking. -- Avanu (talk) 21:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC) (restoring my comment after SlimVirgin removed it, presumably by accident)