Wikipedia talk:Verifiability

Poll: Misleading opening statement

• For whatever reason, this statement, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth: whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." is problematic and needs to be rewritten:

Support

1. . Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
2. For too long, this wording has been used to justify the deliberate inclusion of information known to be incorrect. It needs rethinking. User:Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:06, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
3. Yes, there are multiple problems with it, as noted in previous discussions - it's only acceptable if you happen to know what it's trying to say, and it is intended (obviously) to be read and understood by people who don't know beforehand what it's trying to say.--Kotniski (talk) 14:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
4. The only reason for keeping this misleading sentence would be if there were no good alternatives. However, it is very easy to think of alternative formulations that do an even better job of making clear that we're after the truth as can be distilled from reliable sources, here on Wikipedia. Count Iblis (talk) 14:50, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
5. Verifiability requirements can be strongly stated without double-dissing the concept of accuracy. The first diss is using the straw-man problematic word "truth" instead of "accuracy" and second by inserting the "not" statement in the lead sentence. North8000 (talk) 15:06, 18 April 2011 (UTC) (moved from below Unscintillating's comment) The lead states with emphasis that what we want is "not truth", and so that is what we are getting. (Unscintillating said it well) Time for a change! North8000 (talk) 00:28, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
6. Weak support as I am not sure that rewriting it is the only way of solving the problem. Actually we have two problems: (1) Editors who really and honestly believe that we should make Wikipedia say something that we know is not true. Just because reliable sources agree it is true and we want to be consistent. (2) Editors who pretend to be of type (1) when it fits their agenda. It saves them from agreeing with a consensus that they cannot plausibly disagree with.
   Both problems are relatively rare but should be addressed. I don't care whether this is done by changing the text or by adding a clear explanation that (1) is not the intended meaning. Maybe neither is needed, but just a strong consensus in this discussion, to which we can then point whenever the matter comes up again. Hans Adler 16:21, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
7. Support. "Verifiability" to this point hasn't even been defined in terms of whether a reliable source has actually been cited, or whether a reliable source could easily be found and cited ("Abraham Lincoln was an important figure in the American Civil War."). Moreover, the world "truth" in the phrase not truth has been perverted: it apparently refers to NOT an editor's idea of truth if it cannot (even in theory) be supported by a reliable source. Which is an extremely odd use of the word "truth," and a very bad way to use it. The concept invoked is something like "a personal controversial version of truth in the WP editors' mind, that could not be supported with a reliable source." THAT is what WP deprecates, but calling that thing "truth" is an abomination, and an insult to truth. WP does seek truth (what good is an encyclopedia that does not?) It just doesn't seek "personal truth." Editors are asked to keep that to themselves.SBHarris 18:58, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
8. Suggest shortening to "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth: whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source," dropping the words "not whether editors think it is true", because I've seen them misused to dismiss demonstrably well-founded concerns about source accuracy. See #Proposal 2, below. --JN466 16:21, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
9. The lead states with emphasis that what we want is "not truth".  This is what we are getting in the encyclopedia, "not truth".  Unscintillating (talk) 00:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
10. Support - The problem isn't with truth being in Wikipedia, everyone wants that. The problem is with what some editors think is true, which may in fact be FALSE. The phrase "verifiability, not truth" is misleading. Remove the "not truth" part. The phrase "not whether editors think it is true" at the end of the sentence is correct and right on the mark. Also, "The threshold" is ambiguous and may mean it's enough to just to be verifiable in order to be included in Wikipedia, which is definitely not correct and everyone here agrees that verifiability alone is not enough to be included in Wikipedia. There's NPOV, etc. This can be fixed by changing "The threshold" to "A requirement" or "A minimum requirement". Please see Proposal 4 below. 75.47.143.156 (talk) 14:13, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
11. Support—Truth is too subjective anyways, and has been used by the fringers to their benefit. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 00:02, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
12. The word "threshold" is problematic, at least.—S Marshall T/C 23:07, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

1. . It's neccesary to mention that debates for inclusion don't depend on whether something is true or not. Truth is highly subjective, and endlessly arguable. Verifiabilty can be easily checked. If we imply that truth is a matter of consideration in our decision making process, we will encourage original research, endless arguments, and walls of text. We'll never reach consensus on anything. LK (talk) 13:09, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
2. I fear that changing this wording opens the door to unwarranted promotion of fringe theories which is still a major problem here at Wikipedia. In fact, the latest Quarterly Newsletter of the Association for Skeptical Enquiry[1] discusses the problem and actually recommends people stay away from Wikipedia because of the difficulty in dealing with fringe theories. Let's face it. There's a good reason why we don't care about The Truth©: people can argue endlessly over what's true but checking to see if a source says something is a much easier debate to settle. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:48, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
3. I don't think the statement itself is problematic, and I don't think it should be removed or changed... However, I think the explanation of it may be incomplete. As written, it correctly excludes unverifiable information, even if it is "true". What it is missing is a follow up statement on what to do about clearly untrue (or inaccurate) information that happens to be verifiable. Blueboar (talk) 13:48, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
4. Nothing's broken as far as I can see. --Nuujinn (talk) 16:07, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
5. I expect to need the words "threshold" + "verifiability, not truth" in the foreseeable future. My evolving intensity of preference is informed by lessons learned the hard way. --Tenmei (talk) 17:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
6. There's nothing wrong with the current wording, and changing it will open the floodgates to every crank who thinks they know the TRUTH™. Even now we are inundated with them, but this wording at least helps mitigate the worst of it. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:54, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
7. The idea that "verifiability, not truth" is the threshold for inclusion is widely used and well-understood on Wikipedia. Some people here are saying there have been attempts to insert material known to be false because of it, but I've personally never seen an example of that in over six years of regular editing; and if such examples do exist, they are rare. For the most part, the idea makes clear to editors that what we do on Wikipedia is supply a survey of the relevant literature, regardless of our personal views. That's not just a means to an end (where what we're really doing is aiming for "truth"), as others have argued. Offering a good summary of the appropriate literature is an end-in-itself. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 01:24, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
8. Wording is fine. Like I've said before, Wikipedia's policies don't currently allow individual editors to assert personal authority over what is true or not. We're only allowed to declare something as true if it says so in a reliable, verifiable source. Therefore, verifiability trumps whatever we personally feel to be true. Cla68 (talk) 02:08, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
9. It's fine, and we understand what it means. (Those who don't can be pointed at Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth.) And if you need to see the problems with demanding that articles present "the Truth™", then I recommend that you spend a while hanging out at articles about mental illness, where people occasionally name "personal experience" as a "citation" for claims about (for example) the laws for involuntary commitment in their home countries. There's an ongoing dispute in articles related to saturated fat about whether the mainstream view (eating a lot of saturated fat is bad for the heart) has been completely wrong for decades. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
10. The statement is fine because "the truth" can only be proven via verifiable reliable sources. Anyone can go and claim that something is not "true" and remove it from an article even if it's well sourced, that's why wikipedia is not about truth. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:37, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
11. As has been said above, surely better than I can say it, the present wording is fine. As "truth" so often depends on the viewpoint of the speaker, we have to use the standard of whether or not something can be verified from a "reliable source", and "threshold" is a succinct way of saying that verifiability is a condition that must be met for inclusion in Wikipedia, but doesn't guarantee inclusion. -- Donald Albury 09:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

• As above, my beef is that it creates an artificial dichotomy of truth and verifiability as distinct endpoints (which they are), but what needs to be emphasised is verifiability is a means to an end. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment: Amplifying Casliber's opinion, please consider these factors. --Tenmei (talk) 17:56, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• WP:V "frames" each of our edits by providing generally practical, flexible templates which were crafted to help me and others find ways (a) to escape conflict and (b) to move towards areas of identified agreement.
• WP:V communicates in a way that logic alone cannot, especially when people are talking past each other at cross purposes and when a mismatch develops like a "chicken talking to a duck" (鸡同鸭讲 or 雞同鴨講) or when a white horse is not a horse (白馬非馬).
• WP:V is most needed because " ... the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already".

• Some people above seem to be under the impression that "verifiability" (or "whether a source says something") is an objective matter. It isn't, of course - determining whether a source is "reliable" in a given instance is no less a subjective process than determining whether a given statement is "true" (in fact it quite often comes down to the same thing - we conclude that a source is unreliable if the statements it's making appear not to be true). And pushers of fringe theories can exploit verifiability too - by insisting that the sources that support their viewpoints are just as reliable as those that oppose them (or even making WP reproduce claims from fringe sources as the truth, just because no-one happens to have found a mainstream source that specifically contradicts the claims in question).--Kotniski (talk) 14:46, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment: Responding to the above and answering Kotniski's question here: Yes, we can not improve the wording of a significant sentence by deleting the key words "threshold" + "verifiability, not truth". The word "threshold" implies movement and the beginning of a process. This conceptual "threshold" emphasizes the pivotal distinction between (a) a fact which supported by WP:V + WP:RS and (b) a mere factoid which is associated with zero cited confirming support. Adopting Kotniski's words from an archived thread: yes, "in actual fact we do care about the truth of statements and don't mindlessly copy apparent errors from sources"; but this concern only addresses one of a series of plausible follow-up questions. This survey is about averting consequences which attend throwing out the baby with the bath water. --Tenmei (talk) 17:03, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Couldn't "threshold" just as likely imply the end of a process? Passing a literal threshold means you've entered the house - you're home, dry, and can finally relax in front of the snooker. (And of course something doesn't become a "fact" by virtue of being supported by "reliable sources", or a "factoid" by not being so supported - I don't really know what you're trying to say with that.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:48, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Q.E.D. -- compare what Blueboar wrote here. --Tenmei (talk) 19:08, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• What about "Verifiability: The only practical way to approximate the objective truth"? Count Iblis (talk) 14:59, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• Poll Results: After a week, it seems clear that the poll on this proposal is coming down to "no consensus", with roughly equal support and oppose views expressed. This usually means we default to "Keep as is". Do we need to continue, or shall we accept that the proposal is not going to be adopted? Blueboar (talk) 14:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
  • I'd be happy if people could see that they've lost when they plainly have... but I know that my own optimism and faith in my fellow editors sometimes prevents me from seeing such things myself when I'm on the other side. Consequently, I think we can reasonably expect another week of time-wasting arguments here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:39, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Indeed. As previous proposals have been retrieved from the archives and restored to the page, I'm restoring this poll too. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 11:33, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Re-writing BURDEN

Here's the current text:

Burden of evidence

The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. 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 make reasonable efforts to find supporting sources yourself and cite them. Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living people; see here for how the BLP policy applies to groups.

This advice has always required editors to use their best judgment, and I don't think that we can get away from that. However, we seem to have a handful of major complaints going on—I've seen complete bans mooted at ANI for two high-volume delete-everything-without-a-citation editors in the last few days—and I think that we need to re-write this to provide more explicit guidance about the necessary common sense.

Here's what I think the points ought to be:

• If your material is challenged, you don't get to demand that the challenging editor find the sources for you. The burden is on the person who wants to keep the material.
• The fact that no inline citation is currently listed in the article is not (on its own) a sufficient excuse for deleting material.
  • If the person adding the material believed that the material was not WP:Likely to be challenged, not a direct quotation, and not contentious matter about a living person, then the adding editor was not required to supply an inline citation when the material was originally added. (A link to WP:MINREF might be appropriate here.)
  • Deleting plausible material without giving others time to name its sources is often considered pointy, disruptive, destructive, and a violation of the editing policy (specifically, WP:PRESERVE). Preserving and improving verifiable, neutral, encyclopedic material is not an "optional mercy"; it is required by the editing policy.
  • WP:There is no deadline for providing citations of non-contentious material. For typical material, most people wait at least one month after tagging uncited material before proposing its removal.
• If no citation is named (and the material is not a direct quotation or contentious matter about a living person), then:
  • Source probably exists: If you are reasonably confident that the material could be supported by a reliable source, then you may supply a source yourself, or you may tag the material as needing an inline citation, but you should not remove material that you believe is verifiable merely because it has not already been supplied with an inline citation.
  • You just don't know: If you are uncertain whether a reliable source has published the material, then you should normally tag the material or discuss it on the talk page.
  • Source probably doesn't exist: If you are reasonably confident that no reliable source has ever published the material, then you should normally remove the material. (That is, "no source currently named + no realistic hope of a source" is a sufficient reason to delete material, whereas "no source currently named" is not. I don't think it's necessary to add here that material can be removed for other reasons, e.g., undue emphasis, being off-topic, or not being encyclopedic.)
• Special BLP warning (IMO in a separate paragraph, to give it greater prominence).

I think this fairly represents the community's usual practice, and I believe that the greater level of explicitness would tend to promote collaborative editing and reduce some of these disputes. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:01, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Instruction creep... the vast majority of editors already operate in good faith in ways that are similar to this, and spelling it out will not stop the few who don't. The best way to deal with unsourced material depends on the situation at each individual article, and each individual editor. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

What's on my mind is editors who do this to dozens of articles at a time, and honestly believe that the existing text authorizes their destructiveness. Isolated instances (e.g., individual articles) are much easier to deal with. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:23, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• The issue here is that the exact wording of WP:BURDEN is a free gift to tendentious editors. It's possible to use WP:BURDEN to target one particular editor, or a small group of editors, or one particular subject, in a tendentious and destructive way, so of course there are pointy people who do it. I don't think the answer is to rewrite WP:BURDEN because no matter what you write in that space, bad faith editors will find a way to abuse it. You might be better advised to suggest linking from WP:BURDEN to a behavioural guideline.—S Marshall T/C 00:14, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, since we have policies to deal with bad faith and tendentious editors, and to be honest, dealing with such editors with those policies makes more sense to me. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:42, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Writing policy for people who intend to abuse it is one thing - it's something else when good faith editors are being mistaken for bad faith editors because they believed what the policy told them. --Anentiresleeve (talk) 18:08, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

It might be WP:CREEPy, but does anyone think that I've actually got it wrong here? Are there any errors? Any critical corner cases I haven't covered?

Perhaps the thing to do is to put it into an essay or guideline. I've been mulling a guideline on tagging articles for a long time anyway, and this could fit in. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:48, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

From my point of view, it's not about right or wrong, but rather about what is needed and what is broken and what is actually fine. I don't mean to offend anyone, but lately this talk page has been soaking up great deal of resources and time discussing policies which, at least to me, do not seem broken. Various editors refer to tendentious/bad faith/argumentative editors, but I do not think anything we do here in terms of tweaking BURDEN will alleviate those problems, since those problems are do to problematic editors in general. If there are good examples of destructive behavior of editors or groups of editors targeting dozens of articles, I would love to see see some diffs so we can talk about the specific problems you are trying to address. In the abstract, I just don't see a problem with the policy. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:51, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, perhaps, but changing the wording here would stop one problem: The problem of an editor deleting enormous swathes of clearly verifiABLE material (that doesn't happen to be followed by an inline citation in the current version of an article) and then saying, effectively, that such destructiveness is 100% approved by the community, because this policy says he "may remove" any sentence in any article that isn't followed by an inline citation.

Now you might say that only immature people, or perhaps people with an autism-spectrum disorder, would ever do such a thing, but I've seen several such instances recently. We have a lot of editors who believe that any person adding material, no matter if it's as non-contentious as the color of the sky, is immediately required to add an inline citation. I've seen editors reverting good-faith additions of verifiable-but-uncited material solely on the bureaucratic ground that the first editor didn't supply a citation in the same edit.

Spending some resources on tweaking this might keep these disputes from soaking up a lot of time in dispute resolution. Small changes may be adequate, e.g., "If you believe the material is unverifiable, you may remove it...", as opposed to the current phrase, which is being badly misinterpreted as "You should remove any sentence not currently associated with an inline citation." WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, any good-faith editor should be able to challenge any uncited material for any reason. I see it as necessary to protect the quality of the encyclopdia. If editors become obnoxious about it, there are other policies and procedures to deal with that. I'm worried that watering down WP:BURDEN will allow other tendentious editors to defend unsourceable crap with endless quibbling. Since that kind of tendentious editing is harder to spot and harder to deal with than a mad deletion spree, we should take steps to prevent it. Reyk _YO! 23:31, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

So you think demands for justification like this are just dandy? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:33, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

It appears to be a little bit on the frivolous side, I agree. But I don't see anything wrong with it. The material is easily sourceable and now has an inline citation, so as a result the article is better than it was. And the fact that you had to go back four years to find an example of a ridiculous challenge seems to prove that it's not a major problem. Reyk _YO! 23:46, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. In regard to "...an editor deleting enormous swathes of clearly verifiABLE material...", I haven't seen that myself, perhaps WhatamIdoing can provide some diffs of that happening in such a way that the proposed changes would have made dealing with same easier? My experience has been otherwise. And in regard to the essay WP:BLUE, I suggest perusal of the counter essay WP:NOTBLUE. Neither is policy, regardless, but the juxtaposition is useful. I'm afraid my position on these issues is pretty straightforward--if anyone challenges a statement that is not sourced, it can be removed unless a source is provided. There should be no rushing about this, we have no deadline, but the only way to demonstrate conclusively that a statement is verifiable is to provide a source verifying the statement. If someone challenges a statement that is unsourced, and you think it should remain, provide a source. On a side note, in regard to the question of what is the "normal" number of fingers, I would suggest that "typical" is a better word, as normal is POV. But that's just my opinion. --Nuujinn (talk) 01:20, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Sure, I can give you recent examples, although I'm concerned the discussion will get sidetracked by them, since any concrete example can always be written off as "just that one editor" rather than a pattern. Try this series of deletions, which removed a quarter of a low-quality but verifiABLE article. Notice how happy the editor wasn't when sources (trivially available) were added. At the risk of focusing too much on one user, you might like to take a look at the discussions archived from his talk page. It won't take you long to find a dozen complaints about tag bombing articles and deletion of verifiable material. You'll also find repeated assertions that even when he personally knows the material is verifiable, he believes that he should simply remove uncited material.

My point, though, isn't about this one editor (despite the multiple blocks per year, regular complaints at noticeboards, etc.), but that we're systematically creating this problem by not being clear about what we actually want people to do. When the material is verifiABLE, we want editors to improve the content and to add sources, not to destroy it. (When it's not verifiable, we want them to kill it.) We always want editors to WP:PRESERVE verifiable (and otherwise appropriate) information.

PRESERVE is a policy absolutely equal in status to BURDEN. It would be helpful to the community if these policies did not appear (in the minds of some editors) to directly contradict each other, so that they can pick and choose which policy they want to follow, regardless of common sense or the negative effects on the encyclopedia. It's not helpful to us, and it's not fair to them, to come back later and say, "Well, you were following the letter of the law at BURDEN, so now we're going to ban you for breaking PRESERVE while doing what you thought—in good, if stubborn, faith—to be what the policy required." We need to be clearer at BURDEN about how we want problems solved. Clarity now is preferable to playing gotcha when the community loses patience with the destructiveness. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:44, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm dreadfully sorry. I can see that the editor you bring up does seem to be embroiled in a number of issues, but that is true for many editors, unfortunately. That article seems troubled by POV to me--even if sources are readily available it has clearly been written based on individual editors knowledge or beliefs. The term "western culture" is vague, and I do not regard Miss Manners as a reliable source for what customs are practiced in most western cultures, whatever that means. It also seems to be a case of WP:BIAS. If it were me, I would have looked for or asked for better sources, such as sociological or anthropological sources by authors in a position to know what actual practices are, rather than relying on someone who tells people how they should act in "polite society". The last wedding reception I went to was held in a strip mall church and bore no resemblance to what is described in the article, so I sense there is greater variability in customs even within the USA than the article suggests.

But all of that aside What troubles me is that it appears that neither of you brought up the issue at the article's [talk page]. How is this an example of someone using BURDEN as it stands to assert that they '... "may remove" any sentence in any article that isn't followed by an inline citation' or 'reverting good-faith additions of verifiable-but-uncited material solely on the bureaucratic ground that the first editor didn't supply a citation in the same edit.'? If you don't refer to BURDEN in a discussion about whether a deletion or addition is appropriate, how is changing the wording of BURDEN supposed to help? --Nuujinn (talk) 11:18, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The discussion in this instance happened at the editor's talk page, and there frankly wasn't much to discuss: He deleted unsourced, untagged, clearly verifiABLE material; I told him that tagging it or looking for sources was a more appropriate, more WP:Editing policy-compliant response, and he was very upset—perhaps about being told for the hundredth time that he was cherry-picking his favorite sentence out of this policy, or perhaps because I was able to quickly add a source. If you read his user talk page, you'll know that both BURDEN and PRESERVE were directly and repeatedly discussed in complaints about his rigid and destructive behavior. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:07, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that WAID's proposed idea for clarification is a good way to go. This is a very important practical issue that shouldn't be dismissed in a few glib sentences. Perhaps the details belong more at WP:Editing policy than on this page, though - it's not so much part of "content policy" in the sense of what we aspire for our content to be, rather a procedural issue about how we expect editors to behave.--Kotniski (talk) 11:35, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Whether material is "likely to be challenged", "contentious" or "plausible" is subjective, and is open to circular reasoning--that is, anything can be challenged. Ditto for WP:MINREF, since everything outside of extremely widely-known and completely unambiguous knowledge like "Christmas is on December 25" should be supported by an inline cite. Where a BLP grew up, for example, may not be controversial or implausiable; does that mean that that info should not be verifiable for readers who come across it?

Almost everything should be sourced with an inline, otherwise, you're giving carte blanche for newbies, one-time editors and whoever else to dump material into an article, without any regard for it. It's not fair for more committed editors who come across it to be charged with cleaning up after others; having each person responsible for sourcing material that they add or otherwise favor is fair and reasonable. Nightscream (talk) 22:03, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Strengthening the sentence that links to PRESERVE, so that complying with the editing policy can't be passed off as a mere "optional mercy", might be useful.

Nightscream, your "cleaning up after others" is my "collaborative editing". "Cleaning up after others" is what built Wikipedia. If you want to work in a place where only "more committed editors" are permitted, and one-time editors are strongly discouraged, then you might like to look into Citizendium. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:07, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, very much agreed. This is why (or maybe not why, but I'll say it anyway) I suggested dealing with this topic in detail (BURDEN and PRESERVE together) on the WP:editing policy page, and just summarizing it here. This page (a "core content policy", though as I keep saying, there's no need for this and NOR to be separate) should describe what makes content acceptable; the other page should describe how editors are encouraged to behave in working for the (sometimes conflicting) aims of maximizing the amount of acceptable content and minimizing the amount of unacceptable.--Kotniski (talk) 10:10, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Sourcing/Verifiability

Should information in the Infobox be sourced if it merely repeats material in the article body in which a source appears? Should it be like the Lead in that editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for material if it is controversial and likely to be challenged? I tried asking this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes, but got no response. Nightscream (talk) 21:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Material that is repeated multiple times in an article does not require an inline citation for every single mention. If you have occasion to mention the fact that an elephant is a mammal in six different places, you would do well to provide a citation at some reasonable point, but you need not follow each and every occurence of the word mammal with another copy of the citation. We assume that our readers are smart enough to read the whole article and find the citation.

This is what you definitely don't want:

Elephants are large^{[they're large]} land^{[they're land based]} mammals^{[they're mammals]}... Elephants' teeth^{[they have teeth]} are very different^{[different teeth]} from those of most other mammals^{[they're mammals]}. Unlike most mammals^{[they're still mammals]}, which grow baby teeth and then replace them with a permanent set of adult teeth^{[normal mammalian dental pattern]}, elephants have cycles of tooth rotation throughout their entire lives.^{[elephant dental pattern]}

It's okay to leave out redundant citations; you don't want WP:Citation overkill. OTOH, if the editors at an article think it helpful, they are certainly permitted to include more citations that absolutely required. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Nightscream, if it's an issue that's contentious, or an issue you think your readers would like to see the source for, it's best to cite it each time. This is easy to do with "ref name=". Personally, I add citations to infoboxes only when I can see the issue has been questioned, or if it's an article where just about everything is questioned. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 22:52, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed; though I also quite often feel there's too much contentious information in infoboxes - people try to squeeze everything into it, just because the infobox happens to have a parameter for something; whereas some information becomes misleading when presented as a bare fact, and is best left out when there's something contentious about it.--Kotniski (talk) 10:14, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:V Policy need to be discussed here not elsewhere

Any consensus regading this guideline needs to reached here. What FAC editors might consider appropriate for FAs is not criteria for this policy, which is designed as a policy for all articles not just FAs.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:39, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• Could you state the debate more fully, so that people who haven't been following the debate so far may discuss it appropriately here? Fifelfoo (talk) 02:27, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Well that was my main reason for the revert. Whatever the discussion at FA might as far as this policy< is concerned it needs to be discussed here.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:08, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The issue is that we must add in-text attribution (e.g. "according to John Smith") when quoting or closely paraphrasing. This is common sense, it's normal writing, it's standard practice. For some reason, some editors here—Philip Baird Shearer, Kotniski—don't want the policy to say this. They removed it in March, and substituted a diluted version saying in-text attribution was optional. When I restored it on May 29, NuclearWarfare and Kotniski reverted; here are the versions.

But of course it isn't optional in these circumstances. To use someone's words without saying who wrote them is plagiarism. Ignoring that, it's also bad writing. I'm puzzled as to why anyone would object to this. It's depressing to have to keep arguing about it. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 02:35, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Plagarism is the presenting of another's unique or innovative opinions or hypothesis as one's own, it actually has nothing to do with "closely paraphrasing". I think that is why some are opposing of this strong wording because the strong wording is mistaken on what plagarism actually is. If SlimVirgin says "the Earth is round" I too can say "the Earth is round", even if Slim writes it in a book and publishes it, thereby copyright the sentences, I can write that to my hearts content. And length is not a matter either. Plagarism is not about words in a certain order or sentences, it is about abstract ideas. If Slim writes a book about a president who goes and kills his VP and uses his blood in a Masonic ritual to raise chluthu from hell to defeat the Chinese in WWIII, I can not write a similar book using completely different words, and it is not a copyright issue, it is a plagarism issue. Copyright issues are ones involving actually lifted text word for word.Camelbinky (talk) 02:46, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

No. Plagiarism is copying what I wrote and pretending that you wrote it. Or in the wikipedia context, copying what the author of a 1911 Britannica article wrote and pretending that you wrote it. It's morally indefensible. Malleus Fatuorum 03:02, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Agree completely with Malleus Fatuorum. Lifting text from a PD or copyright free work, verbatim or through "close paraphrase," without specific attribution of the manner of expressing the idea to the originator is plagiarism. It is a morally indefensible practice. However, there is one portion of plagiarism which also applies: lifting someone else's concept, and presenting it as your own, is also plagiarism. This does not apply to Wikipedia, as we do not present our own conceptions (that would be original research). Fifelfoo (talk) 03:09, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec x 2)Perhaps the first place to start is to define the difference between plagiarism and copyvio. From an academic point-of-view, plagiarism is to copy verbatim, to cheat. Copyvio seems to be a legal term - to violate copyright. Plagiarism is very much about words in an certain order. If SlimVirgin should think of a particularly poetic way to convey "the Earth is round" she owns the words she uses. To recreate them would be to plagiarise from her and to violate her copyright. Moreover, if ideas are presented in a specific order, using specific language, and those ideas are paraphrased, if the order is recreated, or any of the language used in the paraphrase, that would be a violation of copyright. The way around this is to attribute to the person who created the order and thought of the words, by in-text attribution. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

What a perfectly useless section heading-- I hope the level of discourse is better. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:54, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The section heading has a reason, which can be understood by looking at the policy's version history.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I read this article today about a teacher addressing the 2011 Congress of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. She says her students work better when they know their work will appear on Wikipedia, because "despite its faults, [Wikipedia] does promote solid values for its writers, including precise citations, accurate research, editing and revision." Editing Wikipedia is therefore seen as part of acquiring a useful set of transferable skills.

I felt a small surge of pride when I read that, something I don't often experience when editing WP these days. We're not only here to present material to readers; we're here to learn skills from each other too, and from the writing process.

So why are there editors on this page who want to keep these skills hidden, who don't want to be part of the teaching and learning process? We're constantly forced to defend practices on this talk page that are perfectly standard in professional writing, and that young people will have to learn if they want to be writers of any kind, inside or outside academia. But this policy is supposed to pretend that these practices are optional, which—if people follow the advice—will lead to poor writing at best, and plagiarism at worst. That makes no sense. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 03:03, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

What has any of this got to with intext attribution?--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Students learning to do the right thing, unlike you. Malleus Fatuorum 03:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Kmh, if you read the article, it says: "A student writing an essay for their teacher may be tempted to plagiarize or leave facts unchecked. A new study shows that if you ask that same student to write something that will be posted on Wikipedia, he or she suddenly becomes determined to make the work as accurate as possible, and may actually do better research." But here we are stopping the sourcing policy from explaining how they can avoid plagiarism. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:15, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

We have a guideline on plagiarism to do that job (and we can link them there). Also the plagiarism topic as such is much more controversial than verfiability. There's a reason why one is core policy while the other is "merely" a guideline.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I found that rather motivating as well. Malleus Fatuorum 03:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

As it happens, this is very much true. Will leave it at that. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: Because it is not correct per se but depends on the context. Moreover it has nothing to do with verifiability. The inline citation for some content ensures verifibiality, whereas the intext attribution is question of the writing style. Whether it is bad writing (or good writing) not to use an intext attribution, depends entirely on the context or rather the intention of the author. If I quote somebody or want to point out which person has stated a particular content (being closely paraphrased in the article) then I would use an intext atrribution indeed. However if I closely paraphrase some facts from a source, where the author of that source is of no particular interest for the article, then I would not use an intext attribution. Some examples:

• In Mean value theorem:

More precisely, if a function f(x) is continuous on the closed interval [a, b] and differentiable on the open interval (a, b), then there exists a point c in (a, b) such that

$f'(c)={\frac {f(b)-f(a)}{b-a}}\,.$

rather than

Eric Weisstein states, that if a function f(x) is continuous on the closed interval [a, b] and differentiable on the open interval (a, b), then there exists a point c in (a, b) such that

$f'(c)={\frac {f(b)-f(a)}{b-a}}\,.$

• in George Washington:

After the Battles of Lexington and Concord near Boston in April 1775, the colonies went to war. Washington appeared at the Second Continental Congress in a military uniform, signaling that he was prepared for war.

rather than

After the Battles of Lexington and Concord near Boston in April 1775, the colonies went to war. Accoding to Stilton & Rassmussen ' Washington appeared at the Second Continental Congress in a military uniform, signaling that he was prepared for war. --Kmhkmh (talk) 03:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

You're commenting from within a bubble, with completely the wrong idea. There are many, many, articles on wikipedia that have been copied word for word from PD sources without attribution, and that's not right. Malleus Fatuorum 03:10, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite see what this has with "copying from PD sources without attribution". Nor do I I suggest such a thing, I was talking about when an intext attribution is needed and when not.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

There are clearly many things you don't quite see, so let me spell it out for you. Copying what someone else has written and passing it off as your own prose is theft. Malleus Fatuorum 03:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

(to Kmhkmh) The reason PD text has been mentioned is that was the reason a couple of editors removed the in-text attribution requirement from the policy in March. They argued it would prevent them from adding PD text to articles, or copying words from one WP article to another. But yes, you're right, it's a red herring. You're arguing something different—that in-text is never needed because an inline citation is enough. As Malleus says below, this is like arguing it's okay to steal something so long as you say in a footnote where you stole it from. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 03:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec to Kmhkmh) It's plagiarism if you have copied someone else's words (unless the sentence structure is so common there's no point in changing it. e.g. "Paris is in France"). What do you think plagiarism in writing is, if not copying someone else's words? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 03:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about plagiarism but about the difference between intext atrribution and inline ciatation/footnotes. But as far as plagiarism is concerned, plagiarism is not defined having or not having an intext attribution, but having no attribution. Note that an inline citation/footnote does provide an attribution as well, it is just not intext.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:22, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

You are so wrong that Mr Wrong couldn't be more wrong. Malleus Fatuorum 03:25, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The reason teachers are using Wikipedia as a teaching tool (as SlimVirgin mentioned above) is that students believe as long as something is cited, intext or however, it's not plagiarism. Even if the text is copied verbatim. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:29, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Both of your historical examples are loose paraphrase of the source, you significantly alter the meaning of "wanted the job" to "prepared for war", you also contextualise it differently, and the paraphrased element is "a [military] uniform …, signalling [that he was prepared for war]." Three words, with major different clauses removed and added is not close paraphrase over a single sentence. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:18, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

A close paraphrase is copyvio in that the author's word order and specific vocabulary is recreated without attribution. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:24, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

yes but intext atrribution is not the only form of attribution, which is precisely the point here. Imho people are confusing the requirement for attribution (to vaoid copyvio or plagiarism) with a (non existing) requirement for an intext attribution.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:30, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Professional and other kinds of serious writers don't copy other people's words, then add a link in a footnote to that person's text, as though that gets them off the hook. If you believe writers do this, please provide an example. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 03:35, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

SlimVirgin is right. This is depressing because, from what I can tell, there is real confusion about what constitutes plagiarism. Until editors can wrap their heads around that concept, the rest will fail. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:37, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Why is this so hard for so many here to understand? If I copy the words you've written and then pretend or give the impression that they're my own then I'm a dishonest twat. Malleus Fatuorum 03:40, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

American high school students believe that as long as something is cited it's not plagiarized. They come to college with that belief and are sometimes quickly disabused. We live in a cut and paste world. The current culture is "oh it's fine - I cited it." That's why it's so hard. This, btw, is the reason teachers are bringing students to Wikipedia, and Google changed result ranking algrorithms to include original content. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:43, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

So as long as you say where you stole it from then everything's cool even though you don't actually admit that you stole it, by attributing it? Things have to change. Malleus Fatuorum 03:47, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Yep. That's it in a nutshell. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:56, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

And since when is admitting a theft making it less of a theft? I really can't follow that argument.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:53, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you for real? What about the obvious option: let's not steal. Malleus Fatuorum 04:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Exactly! So let's not commit copyvios rather than allegedly "fixing" them by (intext) attribution. However the PD content, you were talking about further up, can't really be stolen in the first place.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

It's sometimes appropriate to quote or closely paraphrase—so long as we don't use too much of a text, but that's a separate issue. The point is that, when we do quote and closely paraphrase, we have to name the source in the text to signal clearly that these are not our words. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:17, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

As I was writing above. If you are quoting somebody or it is of interest to the reader, who stated a particular content, then you use intext attribution. However if you are not quoting somebody and you have a very few "closely paraphrased" lines about some facts (staying short of copyvio), where the author is of no interest for the reader you might not use intext attribution, but just attribution with a footnote to insure verifiability in particular. Similarly if we use PD content (such as Britannica) we use a general disclaimer and/or footnote rather than intext attributions. In other words we use different ways to indicate, whether some content might not be completely due our own words and it depends on the context which one is the best to use.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:43, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

But you reverted to a version of the policy that says even when quoting in-text attribution might not be needed. [2] So the next time a Wikipedian gets into trouble over this because the policy is unclear, I hope you'll be there to bale him out.

Can you show me an example of a professional writer that you've seen do this—copy or closely paraphrase other people's words without in-text attribution? I've been requesting this for months, just one example. The only examples I know of are writers who got caught plagiarizing, and who ended up being sacked. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 05:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

It is a common technique in (good) journalistic articles, where journalists often rewrite/extend/combine content of which their publisher owns the legal rights. In such cases those additional contributors are usually mentioned in a disclaimer (or a footnote if you will) at the end of the article. If you haven't come across that yourself, you can find it described in Media Law and ethicS (point 3). As far as encyclopedic publishing is concerned, I'd assume that various publishers in doubt combine various sources they own the copyright for rather freely. After all content reuse is one reason for acquiring copyrights.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:40, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Do you understand what plagiarism is Kmhkhm? Malleus Fatuorum 04:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I guess so.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:46, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Kmhkmh, FAC opinions are indeed "your problem", because policy is not decided only by the three or four editors who regularly hang out at the WP:V page. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

You got that half right. WP policy is indeed not decided by a few editors only, but even more so it is definitely not decided by those hanging out at FAC. The appropriate place to discuss this policy is here (or some other project page for dicussing core policies) and not the FAC project and that was precisely why I reverted your edit.--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:08, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem we've had on this page, particularly with this issue, is that we end up recommending the worst kind of writing, rather than the best. That's not to say that we want to recommend impossibly high standards, but adding "Smith argued that ..." is hardly a mountain to climb. We have a responsibility to editors—particularly new ones—to recommend best practice, rather than shoddiness. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 05:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

How about someone propose what wording to add on this to the policy and we'll have a straight-up vote on it? Cla68 (talk) 05:46, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposed wording re in-text attribution

I'm not wedded to particular words, but I'd like to make clear in-text attribution is needed when quoting and closely paraphrasing, not optional. And to make sure it's under the "Anything challenged or likely to be challenged" section, not buried at the end of the policy under copyright. So I propose something like this, which would make that section look like this:

"When quoting or closely paraphrasing a source's words, add in-text attribution—as well as an inline citation—unless the source of the material is already clear from the context."

• Support. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 06:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I haven't always followed this myself, but I don't have a problem with making it a rule. Cla68 (talk) 06:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. This would mean those articles based on the PD version of Encyclopaedia Britannica would have to have inline citations to whatever statements from the original remained rather than a general attribution at the end. We'd have to do the same when copying a section from one part of Wikipedia to another even rather than just depending on a decent edit comment. Dmcq (talk) 08:05, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

That gets several issues mixed up. This policy is about how to source articles Wikipedians have written. It isn't concerned with creating articles by copying PD texts (which would really be best left to Wikisource) or copying material from one WP article to another (a licensing issue). And anyway, following your argument, the requirement in this policy for inline citations would already affect those things. You're presumably not asking that we remove the need for inline citations, so there's no reason to ask that we not require in-text attribution when it's needed. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 08:17, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Dmcq has a point: We still have a number of articles with a template saying that part of the article is based on Britannica 1911, and even a tiny number of articles based in the same way on other public domain sources. Such articles generally started with a version that was copied, and then got edited to some extent. But this is a rare special case that can easily be addressed by a footnote saying that using such a template is also OK until we have a proper article of our own. Hans Adler 08:45, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. The issue that DMCq mentions for the Britannica, holds not only for the Britannica case but for any text donation we might receive and other PD sources. That is the whole article or large parts of it are originally written by some external source (being used legally) and then get modified/extended/augmented by WP authors later on. It also applies to text cooperation and exchange projects that WP has, such as the one with Planetmath. More importantly from my perspective WP:V is a core policy for defining our mandatory requirements to ensure verifiability and as such imho it has no business of stating style requirements.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:38, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
• That wording is better than what was there before, since it at least makes one exception ("clear from the context" presumably includes the case an overall template saying that the whole article is largely taken from a particular PD source), but if we're voting already I would still oppose - it doesn't distinguish the common case of short paraphrasing of simple sentences, doesn't say how "close" is "close", and most importantly is quite off-topic for this policy and that section of it. This complex subject should be dealt with in detail at the relevant page (WP:Plagiarism), and people should be referred neatly from here to there, as they are at the moment.--Kotniski (talk) 10:23, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
• (Please note the current wording of the section to which it is proposed that the above sentence be added. "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation. Cite the source clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate." And that's all. Adding the above sentence would mean that almost 50% of the wording of one of Wikipedia's crispest and corest policy sections would be taken up by an issue which is only incidental to this policy, and has virtually nothing to do with that particular section. If something like this needs to be mentioned, and it needs to be made prominent, get it over with by putting it in the lead alongside the reference to copyright.--Kotniski (talk) 10:30, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
• Support - it's good practice in writing and we are supposed to be writing an encyclopedia. If you use someone else's exact (or close to exact) words, its important to make it very clear (through in text attribution) that the wording is not yours. This doesn't prevent the use of PD sources, just means you treat them like any other source that isn't PD, you must not copy their wording and pass it off as someone else's. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:53, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Talking about good practices in writing, it's hardly good practice to take a section which is supposed to be about one thing ("Anything challenged or likely to be challenged") and then go off on a stream of consciousness and start writing about something else entirely. Do none of you self-professed experts on writing have any idea about scope and structure? --Kotniski (talk) 14:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Kotniski has a point... I think it would be helpful to have a policy statement on plagiarism and attribution ... but I am not at all sure that WP:Verifiability is the right place to put it (and if so, is this the right section to mention it). I think it is important to keep a relatively narrow focus in our core policies... and not wander off into wider/related concepts. WP:V needs to stay focused on the necessity for "Verifiability". Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Exactly WP:V is for verifiability issues and not for plagiarism issues. Furthermore intext attribution versus other forms of attribution is a style question and not even a question of plagiarism (which would be attribution versus no attrubution). WP:V is a core policy about (manadatory) requirements to ensure verifiability, it's neither guideline for plagiarism issues nor a style guide for "good writing".--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:37, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Does not describe actual community practice. We can literally name tens of thousands of examples of the community failing to do this. I believe that Wikipedia would be substantially harmed by adding a hundred thousand instances of the phrase "According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica...". We also occasionally use direct quotations of single words, like "controversial" to indicate that the word comes from reliable sources rather than from Wikipedians. "____ is 'controversial', according to Alice Expert" is highly misleading when Alice Expert's statement could legitimately be attributed to a solid majority of sources. We always need attribution; we do not always need in-text attribution.
  Also, although I expect this comment to result in a good deal of 'asking the other parent' (trying to add this requirement to as many other pages as necessary, until is successfully added to some underwatched guideline), I think that this particular policy would the wrong place to enshrine any such requirement. Even a direct quotation is still verifiABLE without knowing putting "Alice Expert said..." in the reader's face. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:52, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
• Support. This critical part of policy should not be removed or watered down simply to make it easier for editors to avoid clearly indicating a source that has been copied verbatim. And I can provide tens of thousands of examples of articles violating every other part of WP:V (or the other core content policies), but that doesn't mean we dismiss the whole policy as "does not describe actual community practice". Jayjg ^(talk) 03:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

It is not about dismissing a core policy, because many articles might not adhere to it, but it is about dismissing a style requirement that has no place in a core policy for verifibaility to begin with.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:47, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe he was referring to WhatamIdoing's statement "Does not describe actual community practice. We can literally name tens of thousands of examples of the community failing to do this." ... That said, I agree that this is a stylistic preference that has no place at all in WP:V. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:38, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Yes, but a quote within quote marks, followed by a footnote to the source of the quote, does not 'require' further attribution. It may be given, but should not be mandatory--the quote marks alert the reader to the enature of the content, and the footnote takes the reader to its source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.255.0.102 (talk) 02:20, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

• Comment Several things here. First, it's unhelpful to overdramatise. Contrary to Malleus, plagiarism is not theft. Plagiarism is a matter of good practice and academic courtesy, punishable by complaint, disapproval and ostracism. Theft is a felony punishable by criminal sanctions. Second, it's important to distinguish between plagiarism and copyright violation. For example, incorporating material from the 1911 Britannica is not a copyright violation, but it may be plagiarism.

  I have no idea at all why it was like pulling teeth to get a mention of copyright in this policy, but adding text to deal with plagiarism seems to be a shoo-in. It's as if Wikipedians believe academic courtesy is more important than legal duty, and I sometimes despair of the inconsistency.

  Personally, I agree that Wikipedians should avoid plagiarism and that policy should say so. I do not agree that it's necessary to mention plagiarism in this policy, which is about the principle that things should be verifiable, and is far too long already. My position is that the phrase about in-text attribution belongs in Wikipedia:Editing policy, or any reasonable alternative policy that deals with how to edit, rather than here.—S Marshall T/C 09:07, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose For the reasons I stated immediately above, I oppose altering the current wording of this policy.—S Marshall T/C 09:07, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Since my revert caused much more a stir than I expected and some might be have offended by the section title, I changed the title to less polemic one and feel the need list a few different points that got mixed up above and might lead to bad policy writing:

• The scope of this (core) policy versus the scope of other policies/guidelines/essays. This is in particular problematic if instead of just pointing to other guidelines, this policy explicitly restates part of their content here and hence effectively elavating guideline content to a core policy level. This scope of this guideline is to describe our requirements to ensure verifiability, it has no business in formulating style requirements.
• Confusing or mixing plagiarism and copyright violation.
• Confusing or mixing no intext attribution with no attribution.
• Confusing or mixing mandatory minimal requirements for articles in general (basically adherence to core policies) with criteria considered appropriate for good or fearured articles.
• Confusing or mixing the lack of a style requirement in a core policies with encouraging bad writing.
• Confusing or mixing problems of academia or education with those of WP. WP primary goal is to provide correct encyclopedic knowledge for free ("compile the world knowledge") and this policy deals te verifiabilty requiremrents needed to assure that goal. But it is not WP's goal to teach students proper writing skills/styles or attribution techniques.
• Slightly different notions of when something is considered closely paraphrased and when such a close paraphrasing constitutes plagiarism (or even a copyvio).

--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Unnecessary clutter for a reader to wade through, and contrary to use in tens of thousands of articles here. Also, our informal usage here has been to only provide this kind of inline attribution when the source or topic is extremely contentious. Also oppose per Kmhmh's bullet points, above.  – OhioStandard (talk) 21:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose -- In some cases, it will make sense to require attribution. In others, it will unnecessarily clutter articles with redundant information. The only times that I see it being useful to add in-text citation for a paraphrased/quoted factual assertion is when knowing who made a statement somehow improves readers' understanding of the idea expressed -- that is, cases where the reader would have to jump down to look at a citation in order to understand the statement. If the 1911 Encylopedia Britannica says Cervus canadensis possess a remarkable set of large, snazzy-looking antlers and we closely paraphrase this as Elk have "large, snazzy-looking antlers"(citation), I think "(citation)" is totally sufficient, and that rewriting it as According to the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, elk have "large, snazzy-looking antlers"(citation) simply clutters the article, reducing its utility, with no real benefit. If there is a citation, we know exactly who the idea came from (the author in the citation), and I have yet to hear a good reason for repeating the information (all I've heard is "That's theft!" or "That's bad writing!", both of which are absurd). Because there are a wide range of situations where in-text attribution is totally useless, I don't think that a policy rigidly requiring it in all cases is a good idea. I do however think that it would be a good idea to include some guidelines on when it is and is not necessary, perhaps in the MoS and/or other writing style guidelines. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:13, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia as source

The policy section WP:CIRCULAR states:

Do not use articles from Wikipedia or from websites that mirror its content as sources, because this would amount to self-reference.

While this makes good sense, I sometimes find myself in a situation where I at some point in article A want to give an ultra brief summary of something that is stated in full and properly sourced in article B, which is also linked at the relevant point in A. (Sometimes B is referenced as a "Main article", but that is not always appropriate.) Sometimes, other editors come by and flag the summary in article A for missing sources, which makes little sense to me, as any reader can follow the link from A to get the full story in B. Am I right? Am I wrong - i.e., must the sources be cited i A as well as in B (or alternatively, the summary be left out in A)? Is there another policy somewhere relevant to this situation - or a good way of handling it? Could there be a link to such a policy from WP:CIRCULAR to clarify this point?--Nø (talk) 12:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I like to think that when something is not particularly contentious and is sourced in (what readers would reasonably assume to be) the main article on the topic, there's no need to keep sourcing it again in other articles that provide the same information. But not everyone agrees; some people apparently can't take any piece of text seriously if it doesn't have a little [94], [95], [96]... next to every second word.--Kotniski (talk) 14:00, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is that when someone thinks statement X is not contentious, they are necessarily limited to their own experience and point of view. Another problem is that WP is dynamic, so no one can anticipate when a given article might be deleted, changed, moved, renamed, merged etc, and we're not an inherently reliable source since we do not have centralized editorial control mechanism. It is perfectly fine to refer to the other article, but statements should not be sourced to WP articles. --Nuujinn (talk) 20:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there is a huge difference between linking to another article and using that article as a source for information. When summarizing information that is more complete in another article, we definitely want to link... but we still need to do basic due diligence in providing sources for our summary. That shouldn't be too difficult... the more complete article should have all the sources we need for our summary. Blueboar (talk) 22:22, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

It's usually just a matter of copying a few citations out of the text that you're summarizing, which isn't too complicated. Since there's always a chance that the other article will get deleted/screwed up/massively re-written, it's useful to duplicate the most important sources in the article that is receiving your {{Main}} summary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:27, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

So, what should we now say about the relation between cell phone use and brain cancer?

I think this issue points out a big problem with how this policy is currently formulated. You have the WHO who has made a statement today, and that will all of a sudden add a lot more weight to the fringe view that there could be a link. However, nothing has changed as far as the research results are concerned. So, the fringe view is just as fringe as it always has been. Count Iblis (talk) 22:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Report both sides proportionately, in the context of the findings. Scientific findings are different from government positions, but they both should be mentioned. Ocaasi ^c 22:46, 31 May 2011 (UTC) MEDRS addresses that medical claims must be backed up by secondary sources and high quality studies and literature reviews. But also that social and political aspects follow normal RS guidelines. Either this is a noteworthy finding in itself, or it's a noteworthy sociopolitical aspect. With context, it should be mentioned. Ocaasi ^c 22:54, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

It should of course be mentioned - the IARC is a major scientific body. On the other hand, I guess in an ideal world we would cover it responsibly, with attention to what this classification (as a "possible carcinogen") actually means. It places cell phones in Group 2B. That means they're nowhere near as bad as, say, beer, salted fish, tanning beds, or sawdust (all Class I carcinogens). The act of frying food is a Class 2A carcinogenic exposure, as is night-shift work. Of course, these classifications do not reflect the magnitude of risk, but rather the degree of certainty with which exposure is linked to development of cancer. MastCell ^Talk 23:32, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I use mine on "speaker" which annoys the hell out of everbody at work...Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:35, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

You would think that psychiatrists would have learned to cope with small things like that by now :) NW (Talk) 15:39, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

WHO's statement is very mild, and there are some good sources out there explaining just how minor the change is. The popular press is, of course, using this for churning, but we need not rely on them. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:37, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I already commented on the non-newsness of this, but since it's come up here I'll rephrase. Once the Lancet Oncology article is available, we'll have something to discuss seriously, but for now we should refrain from guessing what it will say. We should, however, verify that we have clear and accurate descriptions ready for each of the IARC Groups. By and large the popular press have (predictably) made a mess of reporting this story. Even CNN's Gupta, who should know better, vaulted to a recommendation for wired headsets (ignoring that they also carry hazards which are not just "possible" but actual) and comparing it to lead or gasoline fumes (which are in the same IARC Group, but which present far larger hazards of other consequences than carcinogenesis. Perspective needs time, but I'm confident that the eventual perspective on this pronouncement will amount to "meh". LeadSongDog come howl! 16:16, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, Boing Boing has some nice articles and pointers to reasonable scientific discussions on this topic. --Nuujinn (talk) 20:38, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Discussion of relevance

Interested editors may want to check the Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Density_of_citations_-_do_we_need_to_stress_that_most_sentences_need_refs.3F discussion. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:11, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Please clarify what is meant by a "third party"

WP:SELFPUB says that a self-published source can be used 'so long as ... it does not involve claims about third parties (such as people, organizations, or other entities);'. Currently, I have been introduced to some very novel definitions of third and first party in a discussion at Talk:The Dating Guy. I would like to know the exact definition here of "third party" and whether Kyphis (talk · contribs) is correct in his assertion that "the entities Blind Ferret Entertainment, Ryan Sohmer, and Teletoons are all First Party in this instance"? Elizium23 (talk) 07:52, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Answered on the article talk page. But in the future please post questions like this at WP:RS/N. LK (talk) 09:48, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

This page is for discussions about the Verifiability policy. For questions about the reliability of specific sources, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard.

I propose to clarify the wording here by changing "claims about third parties" to "claims about second or third parties", based on the fact that it has been claimed that people involved in a business transaction with the first party may be considered "second party" rather than "third party" in relation to the source. Elizium23 (talk) 16:59, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I've been on Wikipedia for two years now (I know, I'm still a nub to a lot of long-time editors) but this is the first time I've seen this issue come up. I don't think a change is warranted other than maybe a footnote. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:46, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

You might like to read a dictionary definition, since we're (unexpectedly, I know) using the plain-English sense of the word here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Non-English sources policy

The current "Non-English sources" section states that "when citing such a source without quoting it, the original and its translation should be provided if requested by other editors". However is it reasonable to expect any foreign language source to be translated simply because someone requests it? If that's true, then we may as well forbid foreign sources because nobody is going to translate lengthy documents for free. In much the same way, we authorize sources even when they are not easily accessible (rare books, news website with paid access, etc.), so I think we should authorize non-translated sources, as long as there are at least a few users that can verify them. What do you think? Laurent (talk) 15:41, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Then those users can provide the translation. Alternatively, you can ask for help at WP:Translators available. We are trying to provide exactly the same level of assistance for all sources.

Imagine that I read and cite an offline, deadtree book. You don't happen to have a copy of the book, so you ask me to tell you what the book says. The goal is for me to provide you with what the book says, in English (subject to copyright limitations, of course).

If the book is in English, then I type up a few relevant sentences (or tell you that you really will need to read the whole book, or a whole chapter, if there are copyright issues with the volume of material). If the book is not in English, then I could (ideally) type up a few relevant sentences, and translate them for you. If neither of us understand the language well enough to do this, then we can find someone else who can. The material is not deemed unverifiable because of our inability to read the source's language, just like material is not deemed unverifiable because I don't happen to own a copy of the source that supports it.

If you can think of a better way to explain this, then please feel free to suggest improvements. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:20, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

You say "Then those users can provide the translation". Yes we can always ask. However, what if the source is a 5 pages article? It's unlikely we'll find someone to translate a document like that. So in the end a ref could end up being deleted simply because of a lack of translator. For instance, Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case uses 7 French sources. If an editor asks for all these sources to be translated, and seeing that nobody wants to do it, he could delete all the ref, and he would be following policy. So that's why I think we should slightly change the policy, and make it clear that translations of entire documents is desirable but not compulsory (translation of quotes is not a problem):

When citing such a source without quoting it, the original and its translation should be provided as a courtesy if requested by other editors. This is however not compulsory, and the lack of a translation should not be a motive to remove the reference. This can be added to a footnote or the talk page. When posting original source material, be careful not to violate copyright; see the fair-use guideline.

Laurent (talk) 02:47, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

This appears to be related to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foxmail, which some experienced editors might want to take a look at. We seem to have something of a collection of proud monoglots there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

@laurent: I understand your concern but I think any sane interpretation of the current formulation already covers that:

When citing such a source without quoting it, the original and its translation should be provided as a courtesy if requested by other editors: this can be added to a footnote or the talk page.

This is clearly not saying that translations are mandatory if requested. If some authors deletes foreign sources only on the grounds that he did not receive translations, he's simply out of line.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:35, 3 June 2011 (UTC)