Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 47

Does never really mean never?
The last sentence of WP:SPS, is "Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer. I have started a few discussions recently regarding the Line of succession to the British throne article, (e.g. here), but this sentence in WP:SPS is particularly worrying. (Almost) all of the names in the line of succession article are of living people, and the Wikipedia article is primarily based off of this self-published website. Several editors who regularly edit the line of succession article, believe that the author of this website is an established expert, and that in this case we should be making an exception. But the wording of WP:SPS uses the word "never" is a way that appears to make this impossible.

I'll also point out that it's more than simply genealogical information - the website also excludes illegitimate children from the line of succession. In other words, this self-published source is what the Wikipedia article uses to conclude someone's children are illegitimate. For me this raises alarm bells, but it seems impossible to change anything to do with this article, due to others' determination to preserve the list (by the way, Wikipedia is the only place anywhere that maintains this detailed list in an up to date form). Any help, or advice, would be appreciated. Mlm42 (talk) 18:03, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * We definitely shouldn't be using this website as a source for living people, particularly not for anything contentious. There must be lots of secondary sources for an issue like this. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 18:07, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * One of the main problems with this list is the lack of good sources. There basically aren't any; especially once you get past the first thirty or forty names (since beyond that, there is no chance they'll be king or queen anyway). Mlm42 (talk) 18:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds as though it may amount to original research on our part -- relying on a self-published primary source and/or stretching the sources beyond what they can support. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 18:28, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, looking at it it's absurd. I just looked to see whether there was a decent version that could be reverted to, but I didn't find one. The best bet might be to AfD it. Or if you're willing to put in the work, request an inline citation to a secondary source for everything, and start removing material not so cited within a couple of weeks. Perhaps you could start an article RfC in advance of doing that, and make that your question ("Should every entry in this article be supported by an inline citation to a reliable secondary source, per V, NOR, and BLP?") to make sure you have consensus. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 18:34, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * At first I laughed at your suggestion to AfD it, but you may have a point.. I made this RfC about a month ago; My RfC inexperience showed, because it didn't resolve anything, so I'm hesitant to make another one. Mlm42 (talk) 18:58, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've never seen a poll where people voted "Impossible" or "Possible". A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Haha, I know, it wasn't a wise question; there were, nevertheless, some "Impossible" responses. :) Mlm42 (talk) 19:23, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I'd have voted impossible too. :) SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 20:11, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * (Extremely tangential comment) - The word "never" is absent from nothing. (I had been looking for RS on this a few weeks back, and never found nothing. Can anyone who sees this section header and comes for its titillating title, as I did, help on this? If so, post response on that talk page, not here.) PPdd (talk) 18:39, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * On the general question, the usual dodge is to declare that 'self-published' doesn't mean what the dictionary says it means, but instead you get to exempt any source that you claim has hired lawyers and/or bought libel insurance and/or has assets to lose in a libel campaign. So 'Alice says Bob has blond hair' is out if Alice wrote it on her home website, but if the same person put the same statement on the website of her multi-million-dollar business, then it's magically okay, because you do some hand-waving and claim lawyers approved.
 * You will find this approach very convenient whenever you want to cite businesses, political campaigns, sports teams, NGOs, and other organizations about their customers, opponents, competitors, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:59, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

By the way, I've started this RfC, at SlimVirgin's suggestion above. Mlm42 (talk) 21:53, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Jargon in the first sentence. How about some standard English instead?
Over the years Wikipedia, like any culture, has acumulated its share of jargon. Some of it is natural, and some is unnecessary and legalistically obstructive to understanding. Nowhere is this problem demonstrated than the first sentence in the WP:V policy, where two standard English words are used in a way that is nonstandard, and which tends to invite wiki-wars among people who assume unconsciously that the words they have heard over and over, are meant in their normal senses. Here is the first sentence of WP:V:

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth; that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."

This statement is quite deceptive, for it is full of jargon. In failing to define its terms completely and immediately, it sets up an odd dichotomy between "verfiability" (as we usually understand the word) and "truth." (as we usually understand the word). Iin the real world, where verifiable simply means provably-true, and provable is a loaded word, such a dichotomy exists between that which is true and provably true. In the real world, standards of provability are not those acceptable to Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean Wikipedia isn't trying. "Verifiability" is defined by Wikipedia in this opening sentence as consisting of two distinct parts: [1] Whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been "published" [at that point the "material" could be a flat-out mistake, lunatic idea, or a deliberate lie], and [2] That the publication occurs in a "reliable source." A "reliable source" is (in turn) defined lower down within the same policy, in the WP:V section on sources WP:SOURCES: "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."

Now, "fact-checking" has to do with checking facts, which in turn are defined (see any dictionary) as statements that are TRUE. Likewise "reputation for accuracy" means "reputation for being true or close to true." Fact and accuracy are synonyms for truth and "truth-hood." (opposite of falsehood). Calling the idea of "truth" by another name (as well as putting synonyms like "fact" and "accuracy" farther down the policy page) unnecessarily obscures a simple meaning, and a simple goal. Wikipedia's goal is indeed truth. However, the very idea of that it is not, causes Wikipedia editors to go around cudgeling each other with the idea that "verifiablity," trumps "truth," as though they were using these words in their normal meanings, instead of their special "wiki-meanings."

So now, we require an exegesis. Let us find out what the first sentence of WP:V means in standard English, by getting rid of all jargon and wiki-meanings. We will unpack and rewrite the first sentence of WP:V in standard English, using the policy's own definitions for the wiki-words, as necessary. Ready? First, we replace "reliable" by "published, with reputation for fact-checking and accuracy," and then, we replace "fact-checking and accuracy" with "truth-checking and truthfullness." Here's what we get:

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth: that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by reliable third-party sources with a reputation for truth-checking and truthfulness, and NOT whether the editors think the material is true."

That fixes puncutation and gets rid of the wiki-words and wiki-meanings in the last part. We are now in a position to get rid of the wiki-meanings in the first part, so that now ALL of the words are used in their normal standard English definitions:

"The threshold for inclusion of material in Wikipedia is published-source truthfulness, not the editor's idea of truth: that is, whether Wikipedia's readers can check that material in Wikipedia has been published by reliable third-party sources who have a reputation for truth-checking and truth-telling, and NOT whether Wikipedia's editors merely personally think that the material is true."

At this point, we have de-obscured the text, and with it, some of the problems. Wikipedia's own policies are actually all about "truth"- TRUTH is what reliability and fact-checking are about. When the policy says it is about verifiability and NOT truth, this is an obscurantist, for neither word is being used here as in standard English. In standard English, "verifiability" can mean many things, including what the reader can prove it to him or herself by checking by his/her own math, or by going to see for him or herself. Verification also has many possible meanings in the sciences and law, and standards differ from one discipline to another. The statement doesn't actually mean that Wikipedia is about "verifiability" as we all understand the word— it's about a particular documentary version of reality used by Wikipedia, which is narrower, not perfectly well-defined, and very much media-driven. For example, I might be a celebrity with a mole on my right hand. If the New York Times states it is on my left hand, then Wikipedia's use of the word "verifiability" departs from the standards of the English language. For here, Wikipedia doesn't mean the word in any way that has contact with either reality, or standard English usage. In such cases, I can't prove a thing to anybody who reads otherwise in their newspaper.

Likewise, when the WP:V policy states that the standard of Wikipedia inclusion is NOT "truth," it also does not use the term as it is usually understood. In this case, Wikipedia IS actually interested in truth as we normally understand the word "truth" when we speak of public truth, demonstrable truth, scientific truth, legal truth, or even journalistic truth. It simply isn't about personal truth or any other type of truth one could NOT use in a legal or science debate. It's not about your truth and my truth, unless some other "reputable" person or source has published it, and one can cite it, as in a debate or courtroom. Worse, the question of "reputation" of a publisher, is in the eyes of the beholder.

What this policy actually means to say, is that the threshold for Wikipedia inclusion is NOT what its writers think is true, but rather what some OTHER published writers, who have a "reputation" for telling truth, think is true, and have gotten somebody else to "publish" (whatever "publish" means these days). That seems to be a more narrow statement, but at least it is closer to what Wikipedia's policy actually means to say.

Alas, the problem of how a Wikipedia writer, independent of his or her own sense of "truthiness," is to identify these published truth-telling authors, and their truthy works and truthy reputations, is the rub. Some published writers are wrong, some ignorant, some are shills, and others are less than sane. This is the source of many an edit war, as an editor's personal idea of what is true, will naturally have heavy effects on their judgement of the truthfulness of available published sources. Must one include the writings of the confused, the ill-informed, the hacks and the crazies? But at least we're a bit closer to the root of the epistemological problem. First, one must lay out the policy in plain standard English.

(The above was written after a recent encounter with a few other editors of an article who had no idea what WP:V means, but it wasn't their fault. It was the WP:V policy's fault). S B Harris 01:23, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * For those interested in the mad scribblings of the editors who do not understand WP:V, the discussion in question is on Talk:Max Gerson. - SummerPhD (talk) 01:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * And there, you will find a mighty lame argument, in which one editor (not me) removes material about an alternative clinic's views on a conspiracy to poison its guru, under the guise that they are not "verifiable" (though they come from a film made by the woman who runs the program, the daughter of the guru, and this statement was sourced and cited). And then you will find the editor above, adding back material from literature from the very same quacks, on the idea that quacks indeed are a reliable source about what quacks think about their own quackery. Neither of these editors are me. However, everybody on that TALK page seems to be convinced that they know WP policy in this area, and have quoted WP:V to me several times, now, as though I needed some teaching. Okay. Yes, it prompted me to come here to find out if everybody who thinks they understand this policy, really understands this policy. What did I miss, please? I put my essay up above, regarding the first line of it. Now it's your turn, Wikipedians. Impress me. S  B Harris 06:36, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I agree that this policy (and its cousins) are very poorly written in places, and from a logical point of view very poorly constructed. It's as if the people writing them didn't really want them to be understood. But try to improve them in the normal wiki way, and you come up against a kind of religious cult which practically worships the current wording of these pages as scripture, and will ensure that even the most reasoned changes (even those resulting from lengthy talk page discussion) get blindly reverted without rational explanation. Hence these most important parts of Wikipedia's documentation, which ought to be among the most clearly written, in fact end up among the most confusing (since the normal healthy processes by which we improve pages are not allowed to operate here).--Kotniski (talk) 10:07, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * We don't require third party sources for verifiability; we prefer them, and we need some of them for notability, but for verifiability, information may be taken from primary sources as well, with some caveats (not contentious, not unduly self-serving, ...). The rest of your changes don't really make the meaning of the nutshell any clearer, in my opinion, e.g. "published-source truthfulness" is much harder to decipher than "verifiability". We may of course improve the current text, but your proposal is a step in the wrong direction. Something like

"The threshold for inclusion of material in Wikipedia is that it has been published by reliable sources, not that it is the truth that is, whether Wikipedia's readers can check that material in Wikipedia has been published by sources where fact-checking and accuracy is generally expected, and not whether Wikipedia's editors personally think that the material is true."
 * may be better, perhaps. Fram (talk) 10:28, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

If we're talking about this sentence, then: (a) not "the threshold" (there are various reasons we might or might not decide to include some statement in some article; this is just one of them); (b) not "that it has been published by" but "that it is supported by" or words to that effect; (c) not "not truth" or anything like that - we don't want sourced information that we know to be false. I would start something like this: "It is a core principle of Wikipedia that information added to it must be verifiable from reliable sources. This policy describes what kind of sources are considered reliable for which purposes, and how they can be used to support the inclusion of information in Wikipedia articles." --Kotniski (talk) 10:43, 22 March 2011 (UTC) I've placed the three versions under discussion above for easier comparison. My own first comment about SBHarris' proposals is that I believe the aim of using normal English is a good one, and I agree that this policy is not always well understood, but (a) trying to avoid all internal jargon ("un packing") makes sentences longer, which obviously does not mean easier to understand. (b) the attempt at reducing jargon also does not really work for me. Is "published-source truthfulness" normal English? I do not think so. Fact is that Wikipedia has developed some new concepts which are useful for discussion about Wikipedia and hard to discuss without using terms for those concepts. This is the type of situation in which neologisms and jargons are sometimes justified. (And wikilinking does make our jargon a little easier to learn.) That does not mean we should not be constantly careful of jargon, and constantly looking for policy areas where people are misunderstanding things often.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:49, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I don't think SBH's proposals achieve the stated aim (they look even more jargony than the original, and are not fully accurate in all situations). Can you add Fram's proposal - which is better (though still not as good as mine, of course ;) ) - to the table?--Kotniski (talk) 10:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Kotniski, one thing I do not like about your proposal is that you remove one of the most "normal English" bits about "not whether [individual] editors think it is true". BTW, the word individual should logically be there because a consensus of editors is good enough also. I'll add Fram.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:04, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


 * How about simply removing the 'not truth' from the current version but leaving in everything else to produce
 * "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability; that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."
 * This expresses it well enough for me whilst upping verifiability and not confusing people by having not immediately preceding truth. Dmcq (talk) 11:09, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It's an improvement, but still has the problems mentioned (and some others): this isn't the threshold (there are other factors too); it's not essential that all readers are able in practice to check something (so those words are a bit misleading); the material itself needn't have been published (in the way that many people will understand that phrase); and frankly, if editors don't think something's true, it shouldn't be going in. I would be happier if we stuck with Andrew's suggestion of saying individual editors.--Kotniski (talk) 11:29, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * And let's remember this isn't the whole policy, just the first sentence - it's not essential that we say everything here, just that we introduce the subject, say what the page is going to be about, and avoid saying anything contentious or misleading. (Which is what I've tried to do with my version - the contentious bit of course is what counts as "reliable", so I say straight away that this issue is going to be dealt with in detail.) --Kotniski (talk) 11:34, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps "published-source truthfulness" isn't very good, and "publication in a reliable source" is better. I just don't like the word "verifiability," as it means something different to Wikipedians than it does to everybody else, and it's especially bad to use a privately-defined term, up front in a policy. Define it specially much later, if you MUST use it. The resistance to using other words is that we'd have to rename this policy page- but so what? Somebody has noted that not everything in WP really must be proven (by cite) to have been published in a reliable source, so long as the editors all agree with the material, and there is no contention. So it's theoretically provable-by-cite (if you could find a cite for an obvious thing). But trying to cram that whole concept into "wiki-verifiability" is also a bad idea. Better to just qualify the idea of "needed publication" right at the beginning. Jimmy Wales is wrong that obvious facts are easy to find cites for. Example: you can't find me any published source that says Charles Dickens' novel The Pickwick Papers was originally written by Dickens in English. However, we all believe it since it's obvious to any thinking adult who knows anything about Dickens, and you could add it to an article without a . Wikipedia takes "judicial notice" of certain non-controversial facts.  S  B Harris 19:00, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * But that kind of fact is verifiable (in the normal English sense of the word) just by looking at the original text of the novel and observing that it's written in English. I don't think the WP use of the term "verifiability" really differs all that much from the normal English use of the term - especially if we write "from reliable sources" after it, as I propose. I see several problems with the first sentence of this policy (as enumerated above), and would be happy to hear anyone's response to those, but I don't honestly think that a jargonny use of "verifiability" is one of them.--Kotniski (talk) 07:20, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Kotniski, to me it seems that your concern with the logic of the word "threshold" could also be addressed by saying that maybe verifiability should not be equated quite so simply to being able to be verified in the one way specific way of looking up published sources. If you do not make this over-simple equation of V and RS then cases like the one SBHarris mentions are resolved. For example a consensus that something is commonly known is a kind of verification which does not involve citing reliable publications, and then you can logically say that verification, in this broader sense, is the threshold. Maybe my comment helps explain how others are seeing the problem you point to. This is for example the reason I find the wording about it not just being an editor's personal opinion so important.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:57, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes but then you end up with a sentence that says nothing, except that the standard for inclusion in Wikipedia articles is something that we have decided to call "verifiability".--Kotniski (talk) 09:06, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually there are loads of sources saying Dickens wrote the Pickwick Papers. The only exclusions are for absolutely obvious common sense things like the sky is blue and straightforward conversions and suchlike as in WP:CALC, and every day some POV pusher tries to drive a horse and cart through even those. I find a lot more difficulty with finding reliable sources for things like how wooden floors should normally be treated, there's loads of how to sites but precious little in the way of reliable sources even though cleaning floors is one of the largest occupations in the world. I still wouldn't want to change those requirements though. Dmcq (talk) 09:45, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Dmcq, I think you are misunderstanding the example of SBHarris, which was indeed interesting in my opinion. He was talking about sourcing which language Dickens wrote it in. I am sure many of us have had someone tag something like this.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:57, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly. And I picked The Pickwick Papers for a reason, as the origial written manuscript is lost, so you can't "look it up." By induction it's obvious that Dickins wrote it in English the way he did his other works, but at the same time it's SO obvious that nobody really bothers to say it in print. Thus, I cannot find a cite for it (can any of you?). Another different kind of problem occurs when a popular concept in (say) science is wrong, but so widely believed that even lower division college texts are more likely to have the wrong thing than graduate level texts and journal articles, which have the correct thing. One example I once fought through is the notion that mass can be "converted" to energy, so that the mass dissappears entirely, and leaves just the energy (this is true for matter, but is not true for mass-- they aren't the same). So "verification" in this case requires Wikipedia editors not only to know their physics, but to be able to sort out the graduate level texts and texts by relativity experts, from all the other physics texts- a thankless task. When it comes to definitions, it's even worse. In the article on weight (for example) editor consensus has forced me to live with an article that defines weight in a way that differs from the ISO definition, just because most college undergrad physics texts define it another way that isn't as good (by the opening definition, orbiting space station astronauts aren't weightless, they are only "apparently weightless"!). And so on. The judgement of sources is not a job that can be fobbed off, but WP attempts to do it all the time. We are interested only in sources mostly likely to be TRUE, but that in turn cannot be determined without knowing yourself how truth is arrived at, in that area. That's a tricky and knowledge-area dependent process. S  B Harris 21:04, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

So how about we combine my first sentence above with something about it not being about editors' opinion, e.g. "It is a core principle of Wikipedia that information added to it must be verifiable from reliable sources. What matters is not editors' personal opinions as to whether something is true, but whether it can be supported through the proper use of sources. But I still feel a need to say straight away, either in the same paragraph or just after it, that the concepts of "reliable" and "proper use" (or whatever words we end up choosing to express those ideas) are not trivial or (necessarily) intuitive, and indeed the main purpose of the policy we're introducing is to explain what we at Wikipedia consider to be reliable sources and proper use of sources in various situations. (Oh, and I don't find it at all obvious that the sky is blue.) --Kotniski (talk) 10:51, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You seem to me to be going along with almost equating WP:V and WP:RS. What is the difference between these two policies?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:57, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, to me IRS is just one aspect of V in more detail. V says "everything should be supportable by reliable sources", while IRS adds some more detail about what we mean by "reliable", leaving V to address mainly the question of what we mean by "supportable". (Wikilawyers will also point out that IRS is a guideline rather than a policy, whatever they may think the difference signifies.) Are you proposing that we acknowledge any other kind of verifiability which isn't based on sources? It seems generally accepted that we can't ask people to verify something by, say, doing an experiment or even following the steps in a non-trivial logical deduction. --Kotniski (talk) 11:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the key aspect of WP:V is already slightly different from WP:RS. The most important thing is to make sure information can be confirmed not just to be some individual or group's non-notable opinion. So one way to understand why we are not meant to demand proof of widely known things is to say that we should not ask people to verify what is already known to be verifiable. This would make no sense if WP:V just meant the same as WP:RS?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:43, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not entirely sure I understand you - are you saying that there's some other kind of verifiability that we accept, other than the possibility of verifying based on reliable sources? Can you give examples? (I know that not everything has to be verified explicitly from RS; that's why we say verifiability rather than verification.)--Kotniski (talk) 13:18, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Right, the -able makes the word different, and means we do not really have to verify everything. So this makes common knowledge things verifiable, but possibly not able to be sourced from a reliable source, as per the example of Dickens having written in English.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The WP:V policy page actually has an RS section which is pretty good, in part because it is vague. It says: "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should directly support the material presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made. The appropriateness of any source depends on the context. In general, the best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments; as a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source."That ends up leaving the standards in each field up to the experts in that field. The only problem for Wikipedia is that it takes some expertise to know who the experts are. The idea of "wiki-verifiability" is "you could in theory go look it up and verify that it's true" but the question then is "where do you go to look it up to be most confident?" The rest of the RS section in WP:V attempts to say more on this question, and says some questionable things. What is a "mainsteam newspaper"? Does that mean obituaries in the New York Times are reliable? And how do you tell that you have a "respected publishing house"? I pulled at random from my large shelf of quack health books and found Fit for Life, which was published by Warner Books, owned by Time Warner. It'a hilarious bunch of food combining nonsense, but it sold well (3 million copies already in 1985, which is when my edition was printed in paperback). So is it "reliable"? Reliable for what purpose? The article WP:RS (now WP:IRS) attempts to expand on this theme, and succeeds in some areas and fails in others. If you want to know how complex this can be, look at WP:RSMED, which looks at the problem just in medical material. This is one of WP's better guidelines (no, I didn't write any of it; I do agree with most of it). However, there is no corresponding RS section for the physical sciences. When it comes to journalism, the section in WP:IRS mentions churnalism (please read this), and that alone should either make you nod grimly or your hair stand on end, depending on your prior view of newspapers. But knowing that, NOW what do you do? You're stuck. There's really no way you can see what's going on behind the scenes at a newspaper, the way you can a science journal. Peer-reviewed journals or book publishers like Springer require many credentials from editors, and have many cycles of fact-checking that go on between author and outside degreed editors, before they publish. A newspaper journalist by contrast often will not read the entire article over the phone to the person it's about, or who supplied its expert-information, before print. And so on. Verifiability needs reliable sources, and WP:IRS can't walk people through all the problems with finding them, if they have no knowledge themselves. S B Harris 22:24, 23 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't see any need to change this policy: most people can, and do, figure out what we mean.  If people are really concerned about the phrase being widely misunderstood, then they might consider writing an essay to provide a jargon-free explanation of it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually most people do NOT have any idea what the policy means, and there is endless arguing about it. You could indeed write a jargon-free essay about it. And then replace the policy with the jargon-free essay! Two problems solved in one blow. Of course, you're still stuck with the IRS problem, but at least all you now have is one problem. S  B Harris 00:35, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, it seems a bit strange to propose that the way to deal with a potentially misunderstood passage is to write an essay explaining it elsewhere; the thing to do is to rephrase it so as not to admit of the misunderstanding in the first place (or at least, reduce the likelihood of it). We can do that; that's what we would do on any other page; why not do it here? Just say as far as possible, in ordinary language free of euphemism and hyperbole, what this policy is about. --Kotniski (talk) 11:23, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

When a reliable source is required
I also think that we should discuss putting the two sections ("Anything challenged or likely to be challenged" and "Burden of evidence") back into one, as small sections have a tendency towards bloat. -- PBS (talk) 14:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree with combining the two sections (and also reducing the number of advertised shortcuts for this and other sections, down to the normal maximum of two).--Kotniski (talk) 15:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Small sections might have a tendency to bloat, but is that happening here? I guess the more important question is whether the two sub-sections are substantially about one point or not.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:27, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The whole page is about one point; we don't need a new subsection heading every sentence or two.--Kotniski (talk) 11:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * These are two points: (a) what needs a source; (b) whose responsibility is that. The two headers are good, because it means people see the key points when scanning. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 21:56, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I think I agree with SV on this. It is basically a formatting judgement about how things will be picked up by the eye, and which things are most important to be picked up by the eye - a bit like the nutshells question.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Let's use the active voice
Please can we rephrase this policy into the active? I'm thinking of using imperatives, e.g.:-

Current: This policy is strictly applied to all material in the mainspace—articles, lists, sections of articles, and captions—without exception, and in particular to material about living persons. Anything that requires but lacks a source may be removed, and unsourced contentious material about living persons must be removed immediately.

Proposed: Apply this policy strictly to all articles, lists and captions without exception, and particularly to material about living people. Consider removing anything that requires but lacks a source. Please remove unsourced contentious material about living people immediately.

Current: Be mindful of copyright: do not copy text from copyrighted sources except when directly quoting the material, or paraphrase too closely; when paraphrasing or using direct quotes, in-text attribution is required. Editors are encouraged to read the sources, understand them, internalize them, then give a balanced summary of what the sources say, in the editor's own words.

Proposed: Be mindful of copyright: do not copy text from copyrighted sources except when directly quoting the material, or paraphrase too closely; when paraphrasing or using direct quotes, use in-text attribution. Please read the sources, understand them, internalize them, then give a balanced summary of what the sources say, in your own words.

Current: This policy requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation. The source should be cited clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate.

Proposed: Attribute all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable published source using an inline citation. Cite the source clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate.

... and so on. I don't see a need to change the meanings, just to use simpler and less stilted constructions.— S Marshall T/C 23:05, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I find this style an improvement.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not completely, as the imperative differs from conditional forms used in the text and alters the meaning. In particular an imperative to remove all unsourced material is a imho no go. We do not want editors to remove (obviously) correct material because it currently lacks a source or even "just" an inline citation. We want editors to remove challenged material without sources (but even there might be a further lee way) and be in particular strict in the BLP case. The last thing we need is (frankly speaking bone headed) editors combing through articles and arbitrarily removing anything without an inline citation.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point, which should be addressed.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:35, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've inserted replaced "You may remove" with "Consider removing" to address this concern. Any others?— S Marshall  T/C 11:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Your copyright sentence: "or paraphrase too closely" maybe now hangs a bit loose and has perhaps come too look a bit more strong and clear than it is? Would it not be easier to say "do not copy text or paraphrase too closely from copyrighted sources, except when directly quoting the material." Surely this was the original intention? "do not copy text from copyrighted sources except when directly quoting the material, or paraphrase too closely" is a very stretched out sentence trying to do a lot of jobs at once isn't it?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * But if you're paraphrasing, by definition you're not directly quoting? In fact this is yet another place where the writing has got a bit confused, effectively saying "don't quote directly except when quoting directly" - what we mean is something more complex: don't copy or too closely paraphrase too much text, and if you're copying or closely paraphrasing quite a lot of text, say that you're doing so. Where someone (presumably it's somewhere in the copyright policy and the mass of related pages) needs to tell us what we mean by "too closely", "too much" and "quite a lot". Trying to oversimplify these issues means we end up talking rubbish.--Kotniski (talk) 13:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess the confusion you are pointing to is one I did not notice: "directly quote" can mean a straightforward clear and open quote, with citation, or it can mean "use the same words", implying the citation might not be mentioned. I guess this can be avoided.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Current: Be mindful of copyright: do not copy text from copyrighted sources except when directly quoting the material, or paraphrase too closely; when paraphrasing or using direct quotes, in-text attribution is required. Editors are encouraged to read the sources, understand them, internalize them, then give a balanced summary of what the sources say, in the editor's own words.

Proposed: Be mindful of copyright: do not copy text from copyrighted sources except when directly quoting the material, or paraphrase too closely; when paraphrasing or using direct quotes, use in-text attribution. Please read the sources, understand them, internalize them, then give a balanced summary of what the sources say, in your own words.

Andrew Lancaster attempt: Be mindful of copyright: do not copy text from copyrighted sources or paraphrase too closely unless you use in-text attribution. Please read the sources, understand them, familiarize yourself with them, and then give a balanced summary of what the sources say, in your own words.

Current: This policy requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation. The source should be cited clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate.

Proposed: Attribute all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable published source using an inline citation. Cite the source clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate.

Andrew Lancaster attempt: Name a reliable source for all quotations or paraphrases, and for any material challenged or likely to be challenged. Cite the source clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate.

The aim of the above wording proposals is not to change the meaning at all.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as the copyright bit is concerned, I think the whole passage is so problematic as it stands, that the best solution is that made by PBS, in the above thread, to simply delete the section. It's off topic for this policy, and unnecessary now we have a reference to copyright in the lead. (Though if someone could write a similar section but which made sense and was accurate, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing to include it here.)--Kotniski (talk) 15:16, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Have therefore continued discussion above at the discussion which I think is the one you mean.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:47, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Public domain
Note: this was a subsection of the previous thread; changing it so it doesn't come in the edit window every time

On a related point, this policy appears to require both inline citation and in-text attribution whenever public domain sentences are incorporated into an article, which is definitely not consistent with community practice. I think that the section might benefit from a somewhat less refined writing style:


 * Do not copy text from copyrighted sources except when directly quoting the material. Do not paraphrase copyrighted material too closely.  If you use a direct quotation from copyrighted material, in-text attribution is required.

If this requirement actually applied to public domain sources, then we would need to repeatedly add the phrase "According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica..." to some 14,000 articles—and that's just for the one source.

On a related point, I'm not sure that we're hitting the right note with our strong statement on in-text attribution. In-text attribution is not always appropriate. Consider the case of a single negative-sounding word, e.g., "controversial". You might put it in quotations to indicate to the reader that it's not your editorial judgment (or to appease editors who would like to whitewash a situation). But if it appears in multiple sources, you don't want to say, "According to Alice and Bob and Chris and David and Emily, Frank's artwork is 'controversial'." It's a direct quotation, and you shouldn't have to resort directly to IAR to leave off the silly string of sources that use the word—and you definitely shouldn't name only one, because that leaves the reader with the inaccurate impression that only Alice says the artwork is controversial.

I think that the solution here is to say that direct quotations should normally be supplied with an in-text attribution.

As for "close paraphrasing" requiring in-text attribution: if it's "too close paraphrasing", you oughtn't be doing it at all, and if it's "permitted paraphrasing", I don't think that in-text attribution is normally appropriate. Consider this:


 * Copyrighted source says, "An adult probably has a fever when the temperature is above 99 - 99.5 °F (37.2 - 37.5 °C), depending on the time of day."
 * One possible paraphrase says, "Although it varies by time of day, an adult is typically judged to have a fever if his or her temperature exceeds 99–99.5 F.".

Is this a paraphrase? Certainly. Is it close enough to violate the copyright? No. (There are only so many ways to present this simple fact, after all.) Do you really want to require that editors start that sentence with "According to Medline Plus..."? No. Does the community, in fact, actually provide in-text attribution for paraphrases like this? No.

But that's what the policy currently says we must do: It makes no distinction between paraphrasing that violates a copyright and paraphrasing that is completely legal. According to the policy, both must be treated identically in terms of in-text attribution. I think this needs to be fixed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, definitely. I think this is (partly?) what PBS was getting at when he suggested removing that section altogether. It really has no need to be here - this isn't the copyright policy. Can SlimVirgin (or anyone else who sees a need to retain this section in this policy) reply to Philip's point, which got rather obscured by subsequent postings (my fault), about there being no need to retain this badly worded section here now we mention copyright in the lead?--Kotniski (talk) 17:42, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I think Wikipedia's policy pages, when they discuss avoiding copyright issues, generally aim to give advice which will avoid all issues, rather than seeking to give definitive and authoritative legal advice?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:45, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Concerning the original point of this thread, I think WhatamIdoing has a point. The flow of our present wording seems to say first that all citations must be inline, and then later talks about a requirement for in-text citations. I think this must surely be a simple error that has crept into the wording, apparently coming from the usual problem of trying to fit too much into one sentence. In this case I believe the one needing tweaking is this one in the lead:"In practice you do not need to attribute everything; only quotations and material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed, through an inline citation which directly supports the material in question.[1] For how to write citations, see Citing sources." Obviously inline citations are the normal way to cite, and someone has wanted to imply this in a rushed way by putting it in the sentence just quoted. But as the next sentence already says, there is actually a whole page, WP:CITE which describes the different ways of citing in different situations. (The same logical error occurs in WP:CITE's opening line, which is based on this policy page.


 * Proposal.In practice you do not need to attribute everything; only quotations and material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed, through an inline or in-text citation which directly supports the material in question.[1] For how to write citations, see Citing sources.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:37, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * My idea of an inline citation is any citation which is present in running text near the statement supported, or a mark of some kind, such as a superscript number, in running text which indicates where the citation may be found. So I consider in-text citations to be a subset of inline citations. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah! OK. I thought others were using the terms differently. What do others say?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:42, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I also believe that an in-text attribution is an (incomplete) form of inline citation (incomplete because it usually says "According to Alice Jones in her book The Sun is Really Big" rather than giving a full bibliographic citation). The problem here is that we are demanding both, even for public domain text, even for perfectly legal non-quotations of boring, non-distinctive statements of basic facts, which the community simply does not do.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The minimalist proposal above would fix it?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:37, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * In-text attribution is simply "John Smith said that ...". But we never have that alone; it must always be followed by an inline citation, to tell us where John Smith said it (which book or article). The point of in-text attribution is that it sometimes matters in the text who said what; when quoting, for example. It's very important to make clear to editors that it's needed when closely paraphrasing, because there have been cases of editors being accused of plagiarism for failing to do that. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 08:50, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That does in fact make sense to me. WhatamIdoing, when you say Alice Jones, you must surely somewhere (either nearby and perhaps using a harvtxt template or footnote or whatever) also explain who Alice Jones is? Maybe what you saying is that this is not necessary when you already put ALL bibiographic information in the running text. I guess that is so, but generally we do not do that do we?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The idea of in-text attribution and inline citation can get confused when thinking about using Harvard refs (parenthetical references) instead of footnotes, because there your citation (or a short version of it) is embedded inside the sentence. For example, "Smith 2011 (p. 1) said" or Smith (2011, p. 1) said"—or something like that—with a full citation listed in the References section.


 * But most editors don't use Harvard refs, so we're thinking here about the majority who use footnotes. They have to be warned that a citation in a footnote isn't always enough, because if you copy, or almost copy, someone's words, you must credit them clearly in the text itself so you're not accused of plagiarism. And plagiarism aside, you sometimes want to do it for NPOV reasons, to signal who is the owner, as it were, of the view you're expressing. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 09:19, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * OK. Just on a side point: Harvard references are very useful in some types of article, and they work in a similar way to footnotes. I see no big reason to treat them as a second class or non preferred type of in-line reference?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:47, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * No one's suggesting they be treated as second class, but the fact is they're not used much on WP anymore. We have to write the advice about in-text attribution with the majority of editors in mind. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 07:50, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Only the majority? That's my concern. There is no reason to only write for the majority in this case, and also not concerning most issues. Such an approach will inevitably lead to artificial homogenization and rule creep when it is not needed. Anyway, Harvard citations might be less common than footnotes, also in articles I work on, but they are not really uncommon in my opinion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:18, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Two points:
 * 1) "Alice Jones said that..." is not enough:  It should be followed by a full bibliographic citation.  (The material is not [generally] technically "uncited" in such a case—you could probably figure out what the source was, if you worked at it—but it is definitely not correctly cited.)
 * 2) "Alice Jones said that..." is sometimes too much:  It should normally be omitted entirely when whatever Alice Jones said is the same as what all the other reliable sources say.  If all astronomers say that the Sun is really big, then we shouldn't present that claim as if Alice Jones were the only person who held that position.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:49, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced on talk pages
I don't understand this revert - surely it's the wording as it stands that would (if read in a particularly literal way) ban all unsourced material on talk pages. The aim of my change was indeed to make it clearer that it's only potentially defamatory unsourced material that's not allowed on talk pages, this being the obvious intended meaning of the sentence (but it should be worded in such a way that it's clear that the conditional "if" clause applies to the whole sentence, including the bit about talk pages).--Kotniski (talk) 17:23, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Talk pages are for discussion! Why would you want to ban when someone says "I have heard about person X that..." or "I have heard about person X that ... but don't know whether it is true or not." There is a difference when it comes to defamatory statements, which would fall under vandalism and do get reverted. No reason for adding this. Nageh (talk) 17:46, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Or the same about organizations. North8000 (talk) 18:17, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The point of that sentence is that BLP-problematic material shouldn't be moved from the article to the talk page—which is why it said that. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 22:55, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes (or at least it attempted to say that; I tried to make it clearer that that was what it was saying). The point is that, with most problematic material that's removed from articles, it's sometimes a good idea to move it to the talk page to allow the removal and possible reinsertion to be discussed. However, unsourced defamatory material is different in two ways - (a) it shouldn't be allowed to remain on the article even temporarily; (b) it shouldn't be moved to the talk page either (the talk page is still a public forum and defamation is equally wrong there). So can someone come up with a neat way of saying all that in just one sentence? The problem with the current sentence, "Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, and do not move it to the talk page", is that it's not clear on casual reading that the second part of the sentence is included within the scope of the conditional; i.e. some people will naturally read this as saying that "do not move it to the talk page" applies to all "unsourced or poorly sourced material". We have to get used (I think this is another general problem with these policy pages) to ensuring that what we write makes sense even to people who don't know in advance what it's trying to say. --Kotniski (talk) 08:02, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

If you don't like my previous effort (or perhaps you do, now it's been explained), how about "In the case of unsourced or poorly sourced material that might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, do not leave it in the article (and do not move it to the talk page either)." --Kotniski (talk) 08:08, 6 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Hm, I do not see why the current text needs rewording. If a statement is not potentially defamatory it may be left in the article according to the current wording, so why wouldn't you be allowed to move it to the talk page for discussion? Nageh (talk) 08:45, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No reason at all, of course; but the current sentence (if read in a particular, quite reasonable, way) implies that there is some reason. In other words, someone reading that sentence on its own might reasonably conclude that moving unsourced material (defamatory or otherwise) to the talk page is something we don't do, full stop, which is certainly not what we actually mean.--Kotniski (talk) 08:58, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * In fact, further down the policy, I see exactly the same point made in these words: Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons should be removed immediately and not tagged or moved to the talk page. This seems an entirely problem-free and neater way of saying it - can we use exactly that phrasing in the Burden of Evidence section too?--Kotniski (talk) 09:03, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Unsourced or poorly sourced material that might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations must be removed immediately, and not be tagged or moved to the talk page either. Adds mention of organizations and avoids the ambiguity of the word "should". Nageh (talk) 09:50, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good; any objections? And should we add mention of "organizations" the second time the sentence appears, as well? (That's in the WP:V section.) Actually, is this concern for the reputations of organizations actually engrained in our practice? And if so, is it only extant organizations (like it's only living persons)? I see there's a passage at WP:BLP which is more equivocal on the issue than we are here.--Kotniski (talk) 11:23, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have a very strong objection to this. As was said above, talk pages are for discussion, and this proposed change will make it more difficult to use them responsibly for that purpose. Talk pages are not "publications" in the sense our articles are, they're discussions, and as long as no one is being libeled, we absolutely have to have the right to talk freely about a subject. For example, your changes would preclude posts like,


 * "I recall seeing a report some time ago that politician A" or "political party B" had been accused by "political party C" of "favoring the reinstatement of military conscription". ( Or fill in the blank with some very unpopular policy or action. ) I haven't been able to find that report, or other similar ones. Can anyone help me find sources that speak to this, to either prove or disprove it?"


 * Anything added to a talk page in bad faith, or that's just malicious gossip already gets removed from talk pages pretty quickly, and that's as it should be. But trying to put a gag on the free, good-faith exchange of ideas and information due to BLP concerns ( and especially trying to extend BLP protections to corporations or organizations or political parties ) is just a huge overreaction, in my opinion.
 * What next, are people going to try to prohibit discussion of controversial or poorly sourced allegations at AN/I, too? I'm aware of at least one major discussion that took place there, concerning a billionaire that a news organization alleged had committed incest with his adult daughter. That discussion couldn't have taken place under this new proposal because the allegations came almost exclusively from a single news organization. ( Some of that admittedly very unpleasant discussion took place on the target article's talk page, too, and it was perfectly proper, imo, for that to occur there. )
 * If you read on in the linked section, you'll see, btw, that I argued very strongly against having an article about the person at all, but it was a discussion we absolutely needed to have. Editorial process is not the same thing as editorial presentation, and while we owe it to our subjects, whether people or organizations, to responsibly exercise good judgment in what we present, we should not try to put a muzzle on our fellow editors as they work with one another in the editorial process. At some point you just need to stop trying to act as policeman-before-the-fact, and trust to the aggregate responsibility and judgment of the people who created and are creating this encyclopedia. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 13:47, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we must be at cross-purposes here. I'm not proposing that the policy be changed, just clarified. The sentence as it stands currently already says that [unsourced defamatory] material must not be moved to the talk page. It seems that you don't like that idea - but I don't see how that leads you to oppose the change of wording, which is supposed just to clarify that the prohibition applies to defamatory material and not all unsourced material. If you want to argue for the removal or loosening of this prohibition, then go ahead, but I don't see how the proposed rewording can be accused of introducing any such prohibition. Or are you just talking about the question of whether to include "or organizations"? (On that last point, I'm far from sure myself.)--Kotniski (talk) 14:37, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * You're right that I didn't read carefully enough; sorry for that. You're also right in your speculation that most of my negative reaction has to do with Nageh's wish to add "organizations"; I sort of took that and ran with it. I realize that the previously-existing version of the policy included organizations, in contravention of the policy you ( Kotniski ) cited, viz. WP:BLP. I don't think this verifiability issue on talk pages rightly applies to organizations or corporations at all.
 * To think of just the first example that comes to mind, I've seen editors in the never-ending battle over Israel/Palestine issues here insist that an allegation of one side against the other is improperly sourced because the reports come only from "Palestinian/Arab sources" or only "Israeli/Jewish sources", as the case may be. Whether such an allegation is rightly allowable in an article is certainly debatable, but to exclude discussion of an allegation that's so sourced from talk pages? That would be a really bad idea, imo.
 * I actually think we'd do better to distinguish much more clearly between individuals and organizations, and to take our cue re organizations from the WP:BLP policy cited by Kotniski, above. Or perhaps we should just not mention organizations at all, and let the balance of the policy address any issues that come up with respect to them, to organizations? –  OhioStandard  (talk) 16:53, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Hey, what about this, that puts the "If" up front?


 * It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources yourself that support such material, and cite them. If unsourced or poorly-sourced material that damages the reputation of a living person occurs in an article, however, it should be removed from the article, to comply with our policy on biographies of living persons, rather than being tagged or being moved to the talk page.


 * Any better? But don't let's leave off discussion re organizations either, okay? –  OhioStandard  (talk) 17:12, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * About the phrasing, I ever so slightly prefer Nageh's, but not enough to argue long about it. But about the "organizations", yes, on reflection it's probably better to leave it out, or perhaps put in brackets "(and sometimes organizations, as discussed at...)" with a link to that section of the BLP policy. And do the same at the other place in this policy where the same exhortation appears. --Kotniski (talk) 17:34, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * @OhioStandard: It was not my wish to add organizations; I was merely trying to match what the currently policy is saying.
 * In fact, I am far from certain that prohibiting statements that might possibly damage the reputation of either individuals or organizations on talk pages is a good idea at all. The reason is that there may be always someone who comes up saying that some unsourced statement might be damaging. Maybe this is an improvement: "Unsourced or poorly sourced material that might damage the reputation of living persons must be removed immediately and not be tagged. Unsourced and potentially defamatory statements should not be moved to the talk page either."
 * Nageh (talk) 18:15, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks fine to me - though "and not be tagged" is probably redundant, and we probably should add a link to WP:BLP somewhere and somehow.--Kotniski (talk) 10:44, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the clarification, Nageh; sorry I misunderstood your motive. I agree with you that there will always be editors who'll try to use policy to prohibit any negative information from appearing either in articles or on talk pages: Editors who will say, "That might damage the reputation of ..." my favorite politician, or whoever. That's why I proposed "material that damages the reputation", as being a somewhat higher hurdle to clear than "that might damage the reputation".
 * I doubt there are many editors who would be quicker to remove inappropriately-sourced material that injures someone's reputation than I would, but I also don't want to provide ammunition for the editors who try to use BLP and other policies (like this one) as support to remove negative information when the candid basis of their objection is simply WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I'm sorry to say that we do have more than a few editors who will do that, exactly, whenever they possibly can, re their favorite public figures.
 * I suspect we probably all want pretty much the same things (1) No unsourced or poorly-sourced statements in any article that could damage a living person's reputation, (2) Considerable freedom to discuss content and possible content as part of the editorial process on talk pages, while likewise being as responsible as possible re BLP concerns, and, perhaps more controversially (?), (3) To avoid gratuitously extending BLP policy to cover organizations. Can we get more input from other editors on this, too, please? –  OhioStandard  (talk) 16:07, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I basically agree with the sentiments being expressed. And I agree with the three goals Ohio just listed (although, personally I do think we currently give a bit too much allowance to defamatory statements against organizations, and I would like to see that curtailed somewhat ... yet, I fully understand the other side of the coin.  A line needs to be drawn, but it is very difficult to decide where to draw the line). Blueboar (talk) 16:47, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It may also help to consider the context within a defamatory statement might arise on discussion pages. For instance does it arises in a ongoing discussion potentially heated or was it just was it just drop on otherwise inactive discussion page by somebody passing by. In the former case I'd rather wait for the discussion to settle and archive the complete discussion afterwards, but in the latter case I wouldn't mind if the next editors simply removed it, when he considered it to be pointless slander.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:29, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

So as to resolving this, is the wording "Unsourced or poorly sourced material that might damage the reputation of living persons must be removed immediately, and not tagged. Unsourced and potentially defamatory statements should not be moved to the talk page either." OK with everyone? )(This is in the "burden of evidence" section, in place of "Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, and do not move it to the talk page.")--Kotniski (talk) 12:57, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It's better the way it is, and consistent with BLP, which is important: "Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, and do not move it to the talk page." SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 13:00, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I'm not seeing anything to that effect at WP:BLP - in fact BLP is explicitly very restrained in giving protection to organizations.--Kotniski (talk) 13:16, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * This is restrained too, but it mentions them. As you saw from the comments above, your proposal didn't gain consensus. It's okay to try to engage people again, to try to persuade them again, but I wish you'd stop simply ignoring objections. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 13:22, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Which objections am I ignoring? This is not my proposal, but Nageh's (modulo a very minor tweak of wording), and as far as I can see everyone was perfectly happy with it, and indeed considered it a clear improvement. Once we've got agreement on something, it seems silly not to implement it. But if there are actual objections, then please make them - that's why I re-opened the discussion. Perhaps we can work in some mention of organizations if you think it's important? But the current wording puts organizations on a level with persons, which BLP explicitly doesn't (and which this very policy, when it raises the matter further down, fails to do).--Kotniski (talk) 14:34, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think that organizations should be included in the talk-page ban. If someone writes, "The CIA sold cocaine to Americans to get money to buy weapons for foreign dictators", then we ought to be able to put that on the talk page with an explanation about the need for a decent source.  I'm not sure how else you would handle it.  "Some organization, which I'm not allowed to name, was accused in the article of doing something nefarious, so we need a source, which none of you will supply, because none of you know what I'm talking about, unless you want to crawl through the article history"?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, that seems to be the unanimous view so far (it also seems to accord with BLP and with the other instance of this instruction in this policy). Is anyone actually saying we should mention organizations here?--Kotniski (talk) 11:08, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes? No? Can we do this change now?--Kotniski (talk) 10:48, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The discussion is too long to find the exact text of the proposed change. The original change is not acceptable because, among other reasons, while discussing the quality of sources on the talk page, one would not be able to make any negative comments about the quality of a source if the author is alive or the publisher is still in business (unless the negative comment is taken from a published review in a reliable source). Jc3s5h (talk) 10:58, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) That's perhaps a good point, but I don't see what it has to do with this change. The change being proposed is from to: The effect is to remove the mention of organizations, and avoid the ambiguous grammatical construction ("X if Y, and Z"). Objections? --Kotniski (talk) 11:24, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * "Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, and do not move it to the talk page."
 * "Unsourced or poorly sourced material that might damage the reputation of living persons must be removed immediately, and not tagged. Unsourced and potentially defamatory statements should not be moved to the talk page either."


 * I would not object to (change underlined):
 * "Unsourced or poorly sourced material, in an article, that might damage the reputation of living persons must be removed immediately, and not tagged. Unsourced and potentially defamatory statements should not be moved to the talk page either."
 * I realize the Verifiability policy only applies to article space, but policy statements are often taken out of context so I would like to re-emphasize it doesn't apply to talk pages. Jc3s5h (talk) 11:49, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That's fine by me.--Kotniski (talk) 12:17, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Though perhaps it would read better if it said "Unsourced or poorly sourced material that might damage the reputation of living persons must be removed from articles immediately, and not tagged. Unsourced and potentially defamatory statements should not be moved to the talk page either." (Note also the link to BLP.) Acceptable?--Kotniski (talk) 12:55, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems not, so I'm going to put this in.--Kotniski (talk) 09:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Still this is being reverted with no explanation - well, it's being claimed that it would be implying that it's OK to defame organizations, but consensus above (and the BLP policy) imply clearly that we don't consider defamation of organizations to be an issue - at least, not on a par with defamation of living persons. Also where this same advice appears in this policy further down, organizations are not mentioned - so it's quite bizarre to insist on giving different advice here. Slim (or anyone else who objects to this change), please can you join in the discussion and say what you actually think we should be saying and why, instead of unilaterally reverting a change that everyone else seems to support? --Kotniski (talk) 07:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)


 * There were objections in this section, so it's not true that "everyone else" supports it. It isn't reasonable to keep asking people to repeat their posts, then making the edit anyway if they don't.


 * First, it makes no sense to change the active to passive voice, and add more words that have no function. And removing "organizations" is best done via an RfC for fresh eyes. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 01:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * But everyone so far agrees that we should remove "organizations" - are you now saying it should be kept in? If so, why? And why here and not in the other place? We don't need an RfC over a fairly minor matter if there are no dissenting arguments. (And which words do you think have no function? I don't care whether we use active or passive voice, but can you propose a wording using the active voice that avoids the "X if Y, and Z" ambiguity?)--Kotniski (talk) 11:14, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

No further response, so I've tried again with "Special considerations apply to unsourced or poorly sourced material that contravenes our policy on biographies of living persons – please remove such material immediately, and do not move defamatory material to the talk page either. This uses the active voice, avoids the ambiguous conditional, and defers to BLP on what material is actually involved (so we don't have to say here to what extent it includes organizations).--Kotniski (talk) 12:02, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Please don't keep removing this. It's not only defamatory material that's the problem, and "organizations" was added three years ago after discussion, so you'll need a stronger consensus to remove it.  SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 09:51, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Much nonsense has been lying around these pages for years - that doesn't make it true. I don't think we can have a stronger consensus than we've got here. It's ridiculous that you keep undoing a change that everyone else agrees with and even you don't seem to be arguing against. Can you not see why this is perceived as pure page-owning behaviour?--Kotniski (talk) 09:59, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Whether it's nonsense in the view of some people, it has consensus if it's been in the policy for years. And I recall it was added after discussions in multiple places over a long period, with people often turning up to complain that organizations weren't being handled fairly. There's no consensus at all in this thread to remove it—please read it from the top to see the objections—so why not open an RfC to bring in fresh eyes?


 * My own view is that we should simply add a sentence linking to the BLP policy on groups so people can go there to read that more nuanced section. Nothing we do here can change the BLP policy anyway, so this is a bit of a pointless discussion. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 00:52, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well exactly, which is why I put in place a wording that explicitly deferred to BLP. What you've done instead is to give people an Easter-egg link to that section of BLP, while still retaining the phrasing that misrepresents what BLP has to say on the matter. And you've restored the misleading conditional phrasing that was my original objection to this sentence. (And "it has consensus if it's been in the policy for years" is a patently nonsensical statement - we can see above that it doesn't have consensus, and moreover it contradicts BLP which has also been policy for years - indeed, it also contradicts another section of this policy - so your thesis can't possibly be true.)--Kotniski (talk) 07:24, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been looking for the discussion in 2008 where it was decided to add organizations, but I can't find it. I can remember it, but it may have taken place beforehand or on multiple pages. It was Philip Baird Shearer who added it, so perhaps you could ask him if he remembers where to find the discussion. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 07:25, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * All right, Philip Baird Shearer, do you remember where to find the discussion? (Though I find all this rather irrelevant, and a waste of time discussing - we both agree that BLP is the policy on this, and BLP makes it clear that organizations are not covered to the same extent as living persons, so we should just defer to BLP and be done with it.)--Kotniski (talk) 07:49, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Part of the problem here is that you have no institutional memory. The policies evolved as they did in response to people repeatedly asking for the same things on multiple pages over time. If you remove the results of that several-years-long process, we'll be back to rinse and repeat. That's why we have to take a conservative approach to changing the core policies, and seek wide consensus when we want to do it. Evolution, not revolution. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 08:12, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * If policies say different things, and there's consensus as to which one has it right, then we bring the contradictory ones into line. There's no "revolution" taking place there, it's just a normal part of the evolutionary process. We've wasted enough time discussing this minor matter; if you're claiming that organizations really do deserve the same protection as living persons, then please make your case (that really would be a revolution, since it would turn BLP upside-down); if not (and clearly no-one else is) then let's defer to BLP and be done with it.--Kotniski (talk) 08:20, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't know what's going on here, but a lot of your edits aren't improvements—sometimes all you're doing is adding extra words that say the same thing—yet you keep restoring them multiple times over objections. It's like pissing on a lamp post just because someone asked you not to, to be honest. I'm not talking about the organizations thing, but generally. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 08:23, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know what you're talking about now. If you have some specific objection to something, please say what it is (in the appropriate thread) and we can look at the pros and cons.--Kotniski (talk) 08:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I believe you do know. The way you've been approaching this for the last few weeks feels like pointless male aggression—aggression for the sake of it, just because someone is opposing you. If I'm wrong about that, I apologize, but I hope you'll consider it in case there's some truth in it. All I can tell you is that it feels very unpleasant, and not at all constructive. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 08:30, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I really have absolutely no idea what inspires these accusations. I've been working cooperatively with others to try to improve these pages a bit; just as you usually do very well and effectively on other pages. --Kotniski (talk) 08:39, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * With all due respect SV I also find your tendency to insinuations like this a little remarkable. For better or worse, your posts on this talk page and your impact on the policy page itself are by far the most striking. I see no evidence for bad faith just because people are trying to improve Wikipedia. Look at all the discussion on this talk page by Kotniski, which appears to leave no room for hidden agendas. I realize you see yourself as protecting an important part of Wikipedia, but I think normally on a wiki the aim is to find a way to work with all others who have clear rationales aimed at constant improvement. You appear to think that this does not apply to policy pages, and that anyone who thinks otherwise must be bad or just wrong?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:38, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * SlimVirgin, To be productive you should comply with Kotniski's request, "If you have some specific objection to something, please say what it is (in the appropriate thread) and we can look at the pros and cons." Also, if you have some personal criticism of a specific editor, you should make it on that editor's talk page since making it on a policy talk page is disruptive. 75.47.156.100 (talk) 12:16, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've opened a section at WP:ANI. 75.47.156.100 (talk) 12:57, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we can all agree that changes to this policy should only be made with an abundance of caution, and avoided entirely unless there's significant consensus for change. Jayjg (talk) 00:13, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think there is pretty broad agreement with that aim. Obviously this discussion was about whether this end justifies all means to that end. Your post, read in context, almost looks like you are saying that strategically attributing bad faith to editors making proposals here is justifiable because of the good cause (that was the concern being raised). I am sure you did not intend to take this position so clearly, but it is I think instructive that this is the logical effect for someone reading this through.
 * Anyway cautious editing is an odd justification for anything, because as has been pointed out SV actively edits WP:V probably more than anyone (and does not get reverted as often).
 * I would propose that "we can all agree" that cautiousness about change on this page should not lead to behavior which is clearly in breach of other norms, policies, pillars, etc. If anyone disagrees with this principle, I would like to know what the rationale is.
 * PS, just to get my own connection to previous posts in order I should point out that my post is NOT meant to indicate agreement with this having gone to ANI.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:34, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

recent edits
I'd like to remind everybody that this is a central policy, so please get an editorial consensus on the talk page before you edit.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * And I'd like to remind everybody that this is a wiki, where we fix problems (and by God does this page have problems) by editing them.--Kotniski (talk) 11:16, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Core policies are handled different from articles &other stuff, where you might fix perceived errors directly. Btw it says more or less so directly on the top of this page.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:27, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * What someone may have written here is not necessarily true - but the point is that we shouldn't change the "meaning" of the policy (unless it's obviously wrong, given our knowledge of WP's actual norms) - however the way we present and explain it is pefectly accessible to improvement. It's probably the fact that some people think these policies need to be treated in some special way that, paradoxically, has led to their actually being in a far worse state than they ought to be - the normal processes of improvement and counter-improvement have not been allowed to operate, meaning that clearly wrong or misleading statements are allowed to remain on the page unchanged purely by virtue of their being old.--Kotniski (talk) 11:41, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem is what you've written might not be necessarily true either and "bad" state of some policies is exactly the result of it constantly being quickly edited and reverted leading to a garbled and inconsistent state.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That's true - but it's true of articles and all other pages as well, and the solution is not to allow the errors to be fossilized in, but to keep working - intelligently and cooperatively - on eliminating them, while watching out that we don't introduce new ones.--Kotniski (talk) 17:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it is not true in the sense that degree is quite different. Policy pages are a special case and contrary to articles (which are mainly source driven) policy pages are (only) driven by views/opinions of the community. Being bold and fixing an factual error in article is rather different from being bold and changing policy pages without consent. For factual corrections and sourced based extension in articles you usually can assume that they represent the consensus anyway (outside highly contested articles), whereas for policy pages you can't do that. There is a reason why this policy's talk page has this consensus template on the top and normal articles' talk pages do not not. You personally might feel, that there is not much of a difference to articles in general, but the community clearly does and you should kindly consider that.--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:12, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * We probably don't disagree about much - I agree that changes of substance of policy should not be made ad hoc; it's only the presentational things (how we express the substance) that are most efficiently fixed by normal wiki editing. --Kotniski (talk) 12:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Kotniski, many people have asked you over the last few weeks to stop being BOLD here and on NOR, because they're core content policies, so please do stop. The editors who rely on them don't hang around these talk pages, so we need clear consensus (including beyond these pages) for substantive changes. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 17:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * "Many people" seems to mean you, over and over again (while several people have suggested that you might like to start acting less as if you personally own these pages). There really is no reason for these pages to be treated any differently from any others in terms of boldness - as long as we're just making improvements in presentation, not changing the substance. (Which is all that's been happening - of course I agree that if we actually want to change the substance of the policy, we need to be sure we have the community's agreement.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * You know it's not just me. Lots of editors have been asking that the frequent changes stop. Editors rely on these words to resolve content disputes, as has been pointed out to you probably 50 times in the last few weeks on various policy talk pages. You seem to be arguing that you know best, and that it's okay for people to rely on words one week that no longer exist the next, then get used to the new words for a few days before you decide to remove them again. With respect, it's just not reasonable. We may as well not bother having policies if they're going to be so ephemeral. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 17:57, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * If people are relying on the exact wording of policies to resolve disputes, then they badly need a wake-up call. As we've seen in recent discussions, these policies are chock full of misworded or potentially misleading statements - the quality is not even close to being good enough for them to be used as authoritative. But if people are indeed basing decisions on exact wordings, then that makes it even more essential that the mistakes we know about be ironed out quickly.--Kotniski (talk) 12:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I assume from that that you don't edit much, or haven't used the policies to resolve a dispute, because there are very few disputes that they can't resolve successfully, and in a way that's consistent with common sense. It would help if you would try to have just a little respect for the years of thought that have gone into them. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 02:27, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I again ignore the ridiculous personal attacks, but perhaps you should have respect for the thought that is continuing to go into them now, to make them (even) better. The process didn't stop at some point when perfection was reached - you can surely see clearly that we're still a long way off.--Kotniski (talk) 06:20, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * This is an odd request to be coming from historically the single most prolific maker of changes and additions to the text of this "policy," which is yourself. You have made 3 times more changes to WP:V than the next editor, Crum375 (you're #1), and you and Crum375 have made more changes than the next 10 prolific editors combined. What you and Crum have done goes far beyond restoration of vandalism (I can expand on that, if you want). It's exactly the same story over at WP:RS (now IRS) where you and Jossi have controlled the article.  To boil it down, policies don't appear on WP, having written themselves, or as a consensus script contributed evenly by hundreds or even dozens of people. What happens is this: they get written by a very small core of admins, who then suppress other viewpoints. And the old firebrands and revolutionaries become the new conservatives, at some point, as we see. You might consider stepping back and letting some other folks have a shot. I know it feels like your own carefully-crafted work is being demolished by know-nothings, but that's the ESSENTIAL and perhaps the primal Wikipedia experience, after all. S  B Harris 19:13, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * You're a few years out of date. I've made very few edits to IRS recently, and most of my edits here are to stop the policy being changed against or without consensus, or the writing deteriorating. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 19:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Which translates to having the policy change from the way you like it; in as much as you, more than any simple person on WP, are responsible for its content (and the same at WP:RS). Yes, you may have to watch your own writing "deteriorate" as seen from your eyes: welcome to Wikipedia. It's hard to even answer the assertion that this state is the product of "consensus", since the word has been tortured so much at Wikipedia. It's about as much "consensus" as what happens in any non-democratic country. There's not a regime of any Arabic-speaking country in 2010 that didn't claim to rule by "consensus" (but nevermind that voting thing). S  B Harris 19:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It is clear enough that SV is the main person arguing against all proposals right now, not in the past.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * SV, I think you're guilty as the next guy/girl of using this page as a whiteboard. One day you "gave the copyright paragraph its own section", then the next you decided it was "better where it was before". Sheesh. Location (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I moved it because someone else suggested it, but you're right, I should have left it alone. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 22:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I liked having it in its own section. Location (talk) 22:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * :) My thinking is that it's very short for its own section. And there's a logic to having it in the other section, where it explains when you need to supply a source, but then adds to watch out for copyright. It seems to flow well. What's your thinking about the benefits of it being a stand-alone section?  SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 22:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The stand-alone section is something I proposed on February 16th. I think the stand-alone section stresses the importance of WP:COPY and it's no shorter than the current "Reliable sources and notability" section. Location (talk) 22:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * SV please see and reply there. -- PBS (talk) 22:29, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The removed sub-section made logical sense being there, and was not the shortest one amongst the others still there. That change to this page would be something worth discussing concerning copyright is not so surprising as it has been a subject which changed in priority for WP overall over the years.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:37, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem with the subsection is not so much that it existed, but that it was full of mistakes. What we have now is a sentence or two about copyright coming out of nowhere in a section that isn't about that at all; but at least what it says isn't manifestly wrong. If we want a separate section on copyright/plagiarism (which seems a perfectly good idea), then someone with genuine knowledge of the subject (and the ability to summarize clearly without loss of accuracy) needs to write it. --Kotniski (talk) 12:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. Discussion about the wording is still going on above. Let's try to identify mistakes and see if we can fix them.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:46, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

over-simplification concerning secondary/primary
I have reverted an edit by Slim Virgin, defended by OrangeMarlin in second edit, which, although the edit was just described as "tightening some writing" actually changed the wording so that mention of the useability of primary sources was removed, and the preference for secondary sources has been made absolute. Some comments:
 * This point refers to another page of course, and should be consistent with it. Summarising should not involve changing the substance.
 * Primary sources can be used on Wikipedia, and indeed good sourcing is very context dependent. We do not help WP by saying otherwise.
 * I know from RSN participation that this point is frequently way to over-simplified, with many editors having been told that primary sources should never be used - a rule, which if it existed, would cause a lot of problems. It certainly is not a rule or a consensus.
 * Primary sources are often the preferred type of source, for example for quotes of what some person or organization really says or writes about something.
 * The most common of all rule-making "creeps" in bureaucracies is to equate over-simplification of rules, even if it actually changes the meaning, must be improvement. I do not agree that ignoring very real nuances, pretending they do not exist, is "strengthening".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I just noticed this. My quibble is that having "usually" and "largely" in the same sentence is tautology. All other things aside, we can drop one adverb here (?) Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Done.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:39, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I only removed repetition, Andrew. The advice on primary sources is in NOR, not here, and the sentence I edited linked to that section in NOR. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 16:56, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I humbly disagree.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't know what there is to disagree with. It's a matter of fact that the primary source section is in NOR. And the section I edited says that. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 21:54, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I disagree that you only removed repetition. I do of course agree there is a link.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * One of the problems this policy has had over the years is some editors believing everything has to be said several times. If you say "base articles largely on secondary sources," you're saying "but not always." You don't then have to add "but not always," or add "usually" to largely. It suffices to add a link to the primary source section of NOR.  SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 22:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * What I am clearly saying, and obviously others agree with me, is that the change made did not just remove repetition, but changed the meaning as it would be read by someone coming to this policy page for clarity.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Primary sources are not often the preferred type of source, but there are (a few) cases in which they might be preferred.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:27, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Depends what type of article you are working on. Any subject which requires a lot of citation of what some notable person or organization said can have issues with any too strict version of this rule.
 * I have seen someone who considered themselves to be defending the rules, and was not aggressively trying to push a point, tag a direct quotation of Thomas Hobbes, which was in a listing of opinions of key philosophers on a particular point, because Thomas Hobbes is not a recent secondary source on what Thomas Hobbes said. For those who've never confronted this type of thing, this is not a case where you can follow the over-zealous interpretation and go get a handy uncontroversial secondary source just to avoid a disagreement, because secondary sources for philosophy are often much less clear and much more controversial, than the primary sources. And after all you are talking about what someone said, so why would you do this?
 * A similar problem arises when we are writing about fast moving subjects where secondary sources, if they exist, are likely to be wrong, and to give a very distorted picture if they are the main focus. An example would be the articles we have about Y DNA haplogroups, that are the subject of relatively bland peer-reviewed studies, but not much secondary material which is ever up to date. Indeed, some of the "secondary material" is highly speculative and controversial, not only out of date, and so if WP would force these articles to rely mainly on the very small number of books containing synthesized overviews, we would knowingly be spreading fringe material which is not in agreement with mainstream publications on the subject.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:48, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree with using primary sources in the case you've outlined, I disagree with your use of "often" as it might be read as the (most) common case, whereas the outlined cases imho are a small percentage of the overall citations.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:54, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I have done no statistical study on how many articles involve the two issues I just mentioned (needing to say what someone said, needing to put in up-to-date material), or similar ones, but I would think it is a very high percentage. If you watch RSN you will frequently see disputing parties arrive who have gotten into trouble because of the idea being spread that such cases are rare exceptions. Observing that this is relatively frequent gives me some confidence that it is not just something in the articles I write. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well the point is, that WP compiles the established knowledge and primary sources (alone) are not a good indication for that. In the science domain there is usually nothing wrong with relying on primary sources after they have been vetted and somewhat agreed upon within the scientific community but to asses that you normally need secondary sources. Also the bulk of our articles is not about (very) recent developments in science or fast changing issues and for that bulk the preferred sources (aside from quotes) are usually secondary or even tertiary.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think, as I said, that the two types of examples I named are very common, and that for this reason treating them as uncommon leads to misunderstandings. You can go out and check if they are really common if you are just questioning my observation. But you seem be saying between the lines that even if this is true it would be a bad thing by definition. That does not seem correct to me at all, but perhaps it explains how we are seeing it differently: Perhaps it needs to be pointed out that it would be problematic if articles were made up only of primary sources, but that is not the subject under discussion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:19, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed they are common not unusual situations. I see secondary or tertiary sources basing their terse conclusions on poorly explained and possibly flawed primary sources enforced while perfectly sound detailed primary sources expressing opposing findings are summarily and uncritically removed.  A more absolutist stand on this policy will lead to more conflict with WP:NPOV and the often overlooked WP:EDIT which is itself a policy on the same level as WP:VERIFY.  Wikipedia is a stronger source than conventional sources precisely because it is not as restricted and is more nimble.  Chaining it to the dictates of preferred institutions and having it hang on their words is an effective way to make Wikipedia irrelevant.  One can believe Wikipedia is a better source than others because of the multiplicity of views it is willing to consider or that it is inferior because it cannot validate them all as effectively as other sources. There is only so much compromise one can apply to this dichotomy.  I believe the former and think that Wikipedia may actually be drifting too far in the direction of regulation.  I would actually move to reverse wording that says primary sources are unwelcome.  There are situations where a clear primary source is to be preferred over a vague secondary source or where that vague secondary source can only be challenged by examining the primary sources.  Such determinations should be made case-to-case on a talk page not by reference to possibly poorly applicable policy.  I strongly oppose this instruction creep and anyone who values Wikipedia as a vibrant source of information and not some ossified mouthpiece for preferred authority figures should too. I would also note changes like the one contemplated tend to favor self-appointed truth guardians with a penchant for removal over those who may actually be trying to build content; opposing for that alone is a good reason. Lambanog (talk) 12:48, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd echo those sentiments in their entirety.--Kotniski (talk) 12:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, in doubt whether (primary, secondary or tertiary) is appropriate depends on the (entirely) on the particular context. It also helps to keep in mind why we have such a policy (and some emphasis on secondary sources) in the first place, it is meant to keep fringe and private theory spam out (they usually rely on primary and not reputable sources). It is not meant to be formalistically applied to regular articles, which were essentially fine to begin with.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Another reason to not rule out, or seem to rule out, primary sources is that the definition of "primary" and "secondary" is rather loose and varies from field to field, so an inexperienced editor might forgo the use of a fine source because in the editor's mind it is a primary source. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * No one has suggested ruling out, or seeming to rule out, primary sources. Andrew has simply misunderstood an edit. Our advice on primary sources is in WP:PSTS in the NOR policy, not here. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 16:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Which incidentally, for those who haven't been following the discussion over there, is entirely the wrong place for it. PSTS turns out (on logical reflection) not to have much to do with OR at all, and it's surely time to move that section to either this policy or to WP:IRS, or a combination of the two, where it would be in context. --Kotniski (talk) 17:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * SV if the argument for your edit is that it was good in intention but there is just the small problem that an experienced editor could misunderstand it as being a change in policy then that is still not a strong argument.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:54, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The policy that deals with primary sources is NOR, and no one has changed it. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 22:07, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Our discussion is continuing above, within this same thread, and my explanation of what I meant is there.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It seems to me that PSTS belongs in NOR because the most egregious case of primary source abuse is SYNTH of primaries to contradict secondaries.
 * And, if you'll excuse the soapbox, it's good for people mucking about with such sections to carefully remember that secondary does not mean third-party, and primary does not mean first-party. We had a real problem a while ago with people saying "secondary sources" when they meant WP:Third-party sources.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:56, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * But SYNTH of secondaries is just as bad as SYNTH of primaries. It may be your experience that people do it more often with primaries (my experience is the reverse, but perhaps yours is wider), but still - the distinction between primaries and secondaries is irrelevant to understanding SYNTH. It's like writing an explanation of "thou shalt not kill" and going into detail about distinguishing different kinds of murder weapon, just because killers use some kinds of weapon more often than others. Meanwhile the distinction between primary and secondary sources is very relevant to other things - largely the same things as the (fuzzy) distinction between  "reliable" and "unreliable" sources is relevant to. Hence PSTS belongs together with that information - here at V and/or at IRS.--Kotniski (talk) 10:08, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it is just as bad, but SYNTH of primaries is rampant, whereas SYNTH of secondaries is not. Jayjg (talk) 23:58, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe so, but the distinction is still irrelevant to the topic. I'm sure murders using knives are far more common than murders using forks, but that doesn't mean we have to go into the difference between knives and forks when we're explaining the law against murder.--Kotniski (talk) 08:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * the SYNTH of secondary sources is quite common, but what is really rampant is the selective use of the material, in choosing what material to use, in accurately summarizing it, and especially and often outrageously in selective quotation.    DGG ( talk ) 18:32, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Copy-edits
I did some rephrasing to the Lead, particularly including a reference to reliable sources and what that means, in the first two paragraphs. Maybe it is a bit clearer? I agree that a sentence explaining the common misunderstanding and what it means could also be useful.

Some other things I'd like to see in the lead:
 * Explanation of what V means in practice: This means that individual editors may disagree that a source is accurate, but we still don't dispute the truth of the claim itself, only whether or not the source meets our standards to make such a claim.
 * Burden of proof: The burden of evidence is on those who want to keep material not those who want to remove it, although it is okay that Wikipedia if claims are unsourced but neither challenged nor controversial; they can improve over time.
 * Substantive reference to NPOV: Through properly summarizing all relevant reliable sources, Wikipedia approaches the best version of the truth that can be trusted.  It might turn out to be false, but we wait for reliable sources to cover that change. Ocaasic 02:08, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually I think we do sometimes dispute the truth of a claim without necessarily throwing the entire source out as unreliable - even reliable sources make errors, and we don't have to parrot them where we have good reason to suppose they've got it wrong. But generally, yes, it would be more useful if the lead contained more practical information. Another absurd thing is that when we propose merging WP:V with WP:NOR on the grounds that they're the same thing, people claim "oh no, not the same thing at all" - but now you have, in the second paragraph here, this policy being summarized in terms of original research - effectively defining original research to be exactly the same thing as what this policy forbids! Can you all make up your minds - if original research is a separate subject, then let's not say that this policy is about it - and if it's not a separate subject, then let's simplify and merge the two pages into one. --Kotniski (talk) 11:30, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I've tried with this sequence of edits to remove some of the most obvious and hopefully uncontroversial problems with the lead (as explained in the edit summaries and in the above posts) - I hope (perhaps too optimistically) they won't be reverted blindly, but (if at all) then for good reasons that will be presented to us.--Kotniski (talk) 11:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Maybe Kotniski's work at on end of the boldness spectrum will help pull the evolution situation here more towards the middle ground from the other extreme which it is at now which is Wp:ownership through application of a double standard......an incredibly high bar set for any changes that are not made by an owner. North8000 (talk) 12:12, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Kotniski, I haven't had time to look closely at your changes, but I do think that a description of what OR and NPOV in the lead is important as long as the policies are separate. There's way too much interpretation and application of them in isolation.  People forget that V means no Syn and V doesn't mean automatically to include unless Weight and Fringe are met, and NPOV doesn't mean you can include OR opinions which haven't been published and OR doesn't meant individuals are or are not RS for claims, and V always depends on the claim being made, in the context it is being made, which is also about NPOV presentation.... these things all intertwine.  Not to even mention Copyright and BLP.  Maybe the policies should be physically separate or maybe not.  But they must be explained in a way that lets readers see how they are not isolated.  Maybe each core policy should have an explicit section on:  what this means in practice; what this means for OR; what this means for NPOV (respectively).


 * You also mentioned that there are times we do challenge the accuracy of a claim (such as in an obvious journalistic error?). If so, I don't see anything in policy that gives literal license to do such a thing, aside from IAR and editorial discretion, and maybe Weight (if it's clearly disputed by other sources and not worth including by itself).  Do you think this should be couched more directly? Ocaasic 14:56, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps not, at least, not as a priority in the lead; but I think it's a good reason not to place so much emphasis on the "we don't care about truth" meme, as I think we do care. And I wasn't objecting to mentioning OR and NPOV in the lead - what I objected to was telling people "in order to avoid original research" and then effectively summarizing this policy - that makes no sense at all (unless we agree that this policy is just a fork of NOR, in which case they should certainly be merged). If we can achieve a sensible logical division between the three policies (which we certainly do not have at the moment - the whole thing's a jumbled mess) then certainly we should be summarizing the relevant points of the other two in this one - but surely after we've explained the key points of this one? I also notice that the old nutshell has been restored - can anyone explained why? I personally find nutshells a redundant and fairly silly gimmick - the policy should be summarized in the lead, not in a special box - but if we're going to have one, it should surely summarize the policy in as much generality as possible, not just pick one sentence from it.--Kotniski (talk) 15:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually I can perhaps see a glimmer of sense in this nutshell, since I suppose this is the most important practical everyday consequence of the policy; but even so, it seems misleading to present it as the summary, and it just causes unnecessary clutter at the top when exactly the same thing is repeated two paragraphs down. Also we seem to have reverted to saying "readers can check whether material has been published..." - I find this misleading in two ways (as said before): firstly because it's not absolutely essential that the sources we use be practically available for all readers to check (I suppose they should be in theory, but this makes it sound like everything should be a click away on the Web); and secondly because the material we create has not been published before - it only needs to be based on published sources (we know what we mean, but the uninitiated reader will be left guessing).--Kotniski (talk) 16:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The threshold
Threshold. The word "threshold" implies movement and the beginning of a process. The valuation term "most important" suggests neither movement nor process. I have added the previous wording as a note because the word "threshold" is essential in the editing disputes which I have encountered -- see here; and such disputes are likely to continue to arise in articles about something to do with East Asia. --Tenmei (talk) 21:56, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that "most important condition for inclusion" was not a good change. The writing isn't as good; it's three words instead of one; and it doesn't conjure up the imagery that "threshold" does. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 22:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Please allow me to emphasize the arguable utility of this word, the prospective usefulness of a "threshold" concept which was restored here. --Tenmei (talk) 23:22, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * My problem is not so much with the word "threshold", it's with the word "The". This could imply that the "verifiability" condition is a sufficient one (rather than a necessary one) for inclusion, which is certainly not the case. I don't like "most important condition" either, but I was trying not to change the wording too much. I would prefer, :as I said before, to phrase it simply and unambiguously: "All information must be verifiable from reliable sources..." If you insist on "threshold", then it should be qualified in some way, like "the first threshold", to show that there are other factors besides this. --Kotniski (talk) 11:12, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Not sure if this helps, but anyway. Obviously this point of logic is the same discussion that has been going on for some time, and I have recently started trying to understand your concern, and why others don't agree. I think that others are saying that in a sense they agree with your logic, and that this is only one threshold, the threshold concerning "material". That your logic is not obviously wrong suggests to me that this point should not be considered a closed case. But perhaps more importantly in a practical way they are scared to try to define that it is only for "material" because it would seem to weaken the policy somehow? So to some extent the resolution would seem to require a satisfactory wording being that says something like "Concerning X (e.g. "material"), the threshold for...." ??--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think we are on the same wavelength... "material" is a very vague word that I would sooner replace with "information" or "statements" or something, but that's another topic; what I'm saying here is that material (or information or whatever) doesn't automatically have the right to be included just because it meets the condition of verifiability. That's the first condition it must meet (at least, once we've managed to word the condition correctly), but then there are other conditions - it must be relevant, notable, not undue weight, etc. There's no reason to assume readers will interpret "threshold" as meaning necessary condition; they're just as likely to read it as meaning sufficient, or necessary and sufficient.--Kotniski (talk) 11:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understand your point that way. I think your logic is correct. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition, and a threshold only with respect to one type of issue. I am just trying to work out how to explain it to others.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Here is an idea. If I look at the opposed opinions, others do not see the word "threshold" as a logical breakpoint in a simple way, but the beginning of a process. Or maybe another way to word it is that they see it as the necessary and sufficient condition for words to be good enough for potential inclusion. Obviously people love the word threshold and they also want to avoid a big logical construction like "necessary but not sufficient condition for inclusion" or "necessary and sufficient conclusion for potential use given other conditions are met" so I am wondering if this observation about how people seem to be reading it can lead to a small tweak that covers all valid concerns. For example:
 * A threshold for potential 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.

Does this make any sense to others?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Certainly an improvement. --Kotniski (talk) 12:05, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello, any further comments? Is this change acceptable? Why not?--Kotniski (talk) 10:29, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Readers can check...
...readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source...: I think this should be changed to something like "material in Wikipedia can be supported by reliable, published sources", for reasons I've already given - readers' actual ability to check is not as fundamental a requirement as this makes it seem to be; and the material in Wikipedia need not (indeed usually should not) itself have been published before - what we mean is that it ought to be based on, supported by, published sources. Does anyone disagree, or was this revert collateral damage?--Kotniski (talk) 11:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Any comments? Objections?--Kotniski (talk) 10:30, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It sounds correct to me.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:10, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry - which version sounds correct?--Kotniski (talk) 13:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If you switch from "readers can" to "wikipedia material can", you alter the meaning completely. The latter essentially says sourcing is optional which is a no-go.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:18, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean - the context of these words is that of a requirement, so it's being required that material be able to be sourced. Sourcing is "optional" in the sense that not everything has to be explicitly sourced; but the proposed wording still makes it clear that sourceability is not optional.--Kotniski (talk) 13:24, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * for the WP material (contrary to readers) it is not a question of "can" but "must"/"should".--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:43, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually i just look at your quote here in solation not where it actually appeared in the policy. If it is meant to refer to the introduction line, it is ok in that context.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:47, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The only issue I have with "material in Wikipedia can be supported by reliable, published sources" does not emphasize that the source must already be published; articles that have been submitted but not printed yet, movies that are not yet in theaters, etc. are not acceptable. Perhaps ""material in Wikipedia can be supported by reliable, previously published sources" (new word underlined). Jc3s5h (talk) 13:18, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The word "published" in the past tense means exactly that. Roger (talk) 10:28, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Nutshell
Do we in fact want a nutshell? Do we want the current one? As I said above, though I can now sort of see why this one was chosen, it still seems to be misleading (by implying that this sentence sums up the whole policy, when what it actually does is state the most important practical consequence of it), and to provide clutter by simply repeating what's stated in the second paragraph of the lead.--Kotniski (talk) 11:32, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The main aim of policy writing must surely be informative, and that means informative to people who are clicking around on the internet and do not all have perfect attention spans. I think that nutshells help a lot in this task?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Can't our attentionally challenged readers just as easily read the first paragraph or two of the policy (which should sum up the content) rather than having it duplicated in a nutshell? We don't put nutshells on our articles, after all. (What it would look like: Italy is a country with lots of art where they eat pasta; Adolf Hitler was a German who did some pretty bad things; etc.) But more to the point, does this particular nutshell serve any useful purpose?--Kotniski (talk) 11:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I am sure some of them can. :) The nutshell is even shorter.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

"Threshold" in a nutshell? This is a practical issue, not an abstract one. IMO, this thread wanders too far afield from lessons learned the hard way and the school of hard knocks. Yes, we can all acknowledge and agree that parsing distinctions between "necessary" and "sufficient" are valid concerns, but the "rubber meets the road" at a far more gritty level: When "fact" (supported by WP:V + WP:RS) is defined as indistinguishable from "factoid" (supported by nothing), what next? This becomes an irreducible question, a shared "threshold knowledge" inquiry. The words "threshold" and "verifiability, not truth" are married; and these words offer perhaps the only arguably constructive step forward. Have you not seen this for yourselves? --Tenmei (talk) 00:02, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The distinction between any sourced statement and a dispute informed by zero cited sources is a recurring problem across a range of articles.
 * There is only evidence that these kinds of disputes are likely to increase in the future.


 * Can you re-state your point please? I do not see how it contrasts with any other position. Or is it just an observation?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry Tenmei, I don't see what point (if any) you're actually making about the wording of the policy.--Kotniski (talk) 12:07, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have a point; and yes, my point is amplified by a counter-intuitive observation. I oppose any re-wording of which does not include these words:
 * (a) "threshold" and
 * (b) "verifiability, not truth". This is a practical issue which affects day-to-day editing "where the rubber meets the road". This is a recurring problem and it is likely to get worse in the near future.  The pointed clarity of words on this page will only become more important as our project continues to grow. In the alternative, I support any arguable effort to enhance the effectiveness of WP:V as long as these few words are unaffected by editing changes. At Nutshell, our policy can be summarized succinctly: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.  Maybe the simple act of repeating the same thing over and over again is always necessary and never sufficient? --Tenmei (talk) 21:31, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * So you're saying the nutshell (i.e. the bit in the box that says "this page in a nutshell") should actually be the same as the first sentence of the policy? That seems to me slightly more logical (though just as redundant) - however as pointed out above, the actual wording of the statement is not quite right - firstly it's not "the threshold" (it's not the one and only condition), and secondly that in actual fact we do care about the truth of statements and don't mindlessly copy apparent errors from sources (as "not truth" implies).--Kotniski (talk) 09:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Kotniski -- Redundant? Yes, absolutely.  Your editing experience is different than mine; but that in no way diminishes the fact that redundant repetition for pedagogical emphasis is needed in contexts I encounter.  You seem unwilling to take in this point, but some things are significant regardless of belief. As for your second point, no.  Do not try to "spin" my words to contrive a straw man.  Again, no matter how many different ways I re-write using different words, you seem unwilling to take in this point, but some things are both valid and significant despite your belief or disbelief. The WP:V threshold focuses irreducible attention on the pivotal distinction between fact (which supported by WP:V + WP:RS) and "factoid" (which is associated with zero cited support).  Your "re-framing" addresses follow-up issues. Perhaps this can be explained by our edit histories.  Although my 50,000+ edits are more than yours, I see that the range of unique pages you have edited is a little more than twice mine. I do not want to impede anyone's attempt to enhance the effectiveness of WP:V; but four words only must remain unaffected by changes: "threshold" + "verifiability, not truth". --Tenmei (talk) 13:49, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not entirely sure what you mean with this "spin" and "straw man" stuff - but you presumably agree that "verifiability" (as defined in this policy) is not the only condition for inclusion in WP? And that we don't want to reproduce statements from reliable sources if we know those statements to be untrue?--Kotniski (talk) 13:57, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Organization, Headers
While we're on this, some basic re-ordering might be helpful. For one, we refer to reliable sources in relation to 'other principles' before the section where we define reliable sources. So current section 1 should come after 2 and 3, if not at the very end. Also, WP:MOSHEAD suggests we not repeat phrases like 'reliable sources and...' if it's implied by the parent header/title.


 * Current outline
 * 1 Reliable sources and other principles
 * 1.1 Reliable sources and notability
 * 1.2 Reliable sources and neutrality
 * 1.3 Reliable sources and original research
 * 2 When a reliable source is required
 * 2.1 Anything challenged or likely to be challenged
 * 2.2 Burden of evidence
 * 3 Reliable sources
 * 3.1 What counts as a reliable source
 * 3.2 Newspaper and magazine blogs
 * 3.3 Reliable sources noticeboard and WP:IRS
 * 4 Sources that are usually not reliable
 * 4.1 Questionable sources
 * 4.2 Self-published sources
 * 4.3 Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves
 * 5 Accessibility
 * 5.1 Access to sources
 * 5.2 Non-English sources
 * 6 Other issues
 * 6.1 Tagging a sentence, section, or article
 * 6.2 Exceptional claims require exceptional sources
 * 6.3 Wikipedia and sources that mirror or use it


 * Suggested
 * 2 When a reliable source is required
 * 2.1 Anything challenged or likely to be challenged
 * 2.2 Burden of evidence
 * 3 Reliable sources
 * 3.1 What counts as a reliable source
 * 3.2 Newspaper and magazine blogs
 * 3.3 Reliable sources noticeboard and WP:IRS
 * 4 Sources that are usually not reliable
 * 4.1 Questionable sources
 * 4.2 Self-published sources
 * 4.3 Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves
 * 5 Accessibility
 * 5.1 Access to sources
 * 5.2 Non-English sources
 * 6 Other issues
 * 6.1 Tagging a sentence, section, or article
 * 6.2 Exceptional claims require exceptional sources
 * 6.3 Wikipedia and sources that mirror or use it
 * 1 Reliable sources and other principles
 * 1.1 Notability
 * 1.2 Neutrality
 * 1.3 Original research

The changes are: 1) section 1 is moved to after section 6. Section 1 headers are shortened to not repeat "reliable sources". Ocaasic 15:02, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems to be an improvement. Though in talking about the structure, we ought to finally address the question of how information is to be divided between this page and WP:NOR - it's an illogical jumble at the moment. If we want two pages (maybe we don't - I'd be for merging them), we have to get it clear in our minds what their basic division of scope is to be, then we can get the structure of each one right, and hopefully eliminate duplication and contradiction. --Kotniski (talk) 17:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll move it. Putting the relations to other policies is confusing, although it keeps the core policies central, is really confusing for new readers and basically a sign of poor policy design (not a shocker).  I can't really touch the NOR issue, but I've had the notion that on some userpage we should jam all three core content policies and then see what it looks like if you take out all of the overlap.  At least 20% of the policies is sheer repetition, if not more.  Anyway, easier to do major changes once the organization and text are spruced up, even though it's a bit time-consuming. Ocaasic 20:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Just a suggestion, if anyone is thinking of major policy change, including a merger, open up a user page, as Ocaasi suggests, not just another subpage. That was the mistake we made with ATT, we opened it up for general editing too soon. If you keep it on a user page, you can invite a very small number of people that you know are good writers, then slowly increase the number of invitations before going live with a proposal -- a process that should take several months. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 00:16, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Let me know if anyone decides to do this - I'd like to help with the redrafting. Or better yet, why don't we just decide on a place now and get to work on it.  I'm happy to start the process, unless someone else wants to host it in their user space.  -- Ludwigs 2  02:36, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well first we should decide whether we want one page or two. When I raised it recently there seemed to be voices in support of retaining two separate pages (V and OR) - but if we're going to have two pages, we should try and find a common position on what the division of material between them should be. Can someone who supports having two pages perhaps suggest such a division?--Kotniski (talk) 10:08, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * NOR should be about not putting one's own unpublished ideas and information into Wikipedia, and V should be about supporting material with sources. 75.47.129.31 (talk) 12:53, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The way I look at the two polices... NOR is focused on what we say... V is focused on what the sources say. Blueboar (talk) 13:29, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * V is about the claim being made being published in a reliable source; OR is a claim not explicitly published in a reliable source. One immediate relates to the other.  They are almost the same thing, just different facets of one principle.  Or a close corollary.  Or a mirror image.  They overlap significantly.  The main difference is WP:SYN, which could just be added to V.  It's simple; if it's not explicitly stated, and you have to combine parts or sources to advance a point, it's not verifiable, because it's not in the parts or the sources.  I think Kotniski is onto something with combining these two.  NPOV is a pillar, one of the trifecta, it's very detailed and substantial in itself; V and NOR are not that distinct.  They are obviously both important, but it's a question of whether they can be gainfully merged. Ocaasic 13:36, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, Kotniski's comments are certainly worth considering. I think Blueboar is not far off describing the difference, which is not enormous. By Blueboar's logic, V is "under" NOR. (NOR is about what we say, as per Blueboar, and what it says means that sources are important, which, according to Blueboar's formulation, is what V is about.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:05, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As I understand it the original (first-blush) ideal here was that wikipedia was supposed to be a 'serious' encyclopedia, which meant that it had to avoid the kinds of random thought-streams and opinion-mongering that people are naturally prone to when left to their own devices. Thus, anything that someone wants to enter into the encyclopedia as a 'point of information' should be traceable back to well-established knowledge that can be found outside of wikipedia (and/or the heads of its editors).  NOR and V are just different sides of this coin - NOR is aimed at editors who tend to confabulate from sources (making an argument of their own by building off of unrelated claims in the literature), while V is aimed at editors who tend to shoot from the hip in wildly unconsidered ways (making an argument of their own by...  well, blathering, mostly).  I could make an argument for two policies or one policy - I tend to lean towards one policy page because (a) I like the simplicity of it, and (b) it prevents weird forms of policy drift (for instance, in the current case the two policies are edited by different editors, meaning that the policies start to contradict each other at points where these editors don't see eye to eye). -- Ludwigs 2  18:12, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) Since no two editors, even if they support the split, ever seem to have the same view on what the split should be, it does certainly seem as though we have two policies which (whatever their original motivation may have been) have crept onto each other's territory so much that they have ended up largely as duplicates (with really only the SYN section being exclusive to WP:NOR). The potential two sides of the coin that I see are the aspirations and the practice - the actual content policy, the ideal we aim for (everything should be supportable by sources) on the one hand; and the practices we have for attempting to achieve that ideal (the informal "challenge - provide a source, or delete" procedure and its variants) on the other hand. But still, I wouldn't see a need for splitting those two things between two pages (I just think we should be more clear of the distinction when structuring our page(s)).--Kotniski (talk) 07:42, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Let's not forget that one reason for splitting up any pages is simply keeping presentation neat and avoiding long articles. This does not remove the implied need to make sure that two pages should not largely overlap each other of course. So logically, I guess the question arises as to whether the two sections were always intended to overlap as much as they do or has this situation somehow come into being by "creep". I can imagine that for an identifiable faction on Wikipedia who want logical simplicity and more complete rules on everything, and who do not like such concept as "common knowledge" and WP:IAR, it is always going to be logical and simple to imply that Verifiability simply means using reliable sources. Implying such simplified rules seems to be a major drive on WP sometimes. You frequently see discussions reach a point where someone gets close to saying that our policies demand every part of every sentence deserves a footnote, and then someone will say that even though our policies might look like they imply this, it is not the intention. Which makes you wonder why we allow so much use of the writing style whereby what we write always seems to be aimed at implying something different than it intends. Certainly these "loopholes" in the wording are the cause of problems. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:44, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * "complete rules on everything" are no-go for such a diverse and voluntary project like WP. If WP gives up on a measured approach and some form of common sense, it is a sure way to drive authors away and we will largely end up being a bureacracy/administration without production, i.e. the project will pretty much dead.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:17, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * In case it was not clear, I agree. I am thinking there is a tendency to write policy so that it is more and more logically simple in theory but less and less corresponding to practice. Describing RS and V policies as basically the same thing, like we have now, seems to be something that has evolved over time.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:49, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Look, the following points are what need to be covered:
 * Verification: Any 'points of information' added to wikipedia have to be traceable back to positions offered in sources. (this is necessary but not sufficient for including that information)
 * Original research: Any 'points of information' that are verifiable should be limited to the sense and context in which they are used in sources. This includes the following:
 * Extrapolation: Extrapolating from ideas presented in a source to present ideas that are out of the scope and context of the source.
 * Synthesis: Combining ideas from different sources to present ideas that are out of the scope and context of any of the given sources.
 * Quote mining: Using quotes from a source in a way that is inconsistent with the scope, context, or intent of the source, to present ideas that are out of the scope and context of the source.
 * Reliability: Sources used for verification should be of reasonable quality in order to prevent dubious or suspect information from being added to the encyclopedia.  This is context dependent:
 * Secondary sources are preferred, as objective overviews; primary sources are allowable for descriptions of particular points of view; tertiary sources are allowable for statements about general knowledge.
 * Blogs, web forums, and other easily editable are not usually reliable since the information they contain may change whimsically and usually reflects the momentary opinions of individuals.
 * Self-published sources may be reliable for descriptions of particular points of view, but should not be considered reliable sources of mainstream perspectives.
 * Newspapers and magazines should usually be considered reliable, so long as they have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
 * Scholarly sources (either peer-reviewed articles or books from reputable scholarly publishers) should be considered authoritative on issue in their particular field, though care should be taken: many scholarly sources are primary sources, and scholarly sources are not authoritative outside their particular area of scholarship.
 * Accessibility: Sources should be easily accessible, so that anyone can verify them. Sources that are not easily accessible, as a general rule, will either represent minor positions that likely fail UNDUE or will be primary sources that have not yet entered into mainstream thought:
 * Non-English sources should be avoided unless translations are easily available
 * Journal articles that are sufficiently new or obscure to require university-level access are most likely primary research which should be used with caution
 * Web search results are useful for finding sources, but should not be considered sources in and of themselves unless each and every entry in the result has been independently verified (this is because search results are keyword searches that produce results which may or may not be apropos to the topic in question)
 * This covers 95% of the material in wp:V, wp:NOR and wp:RS, and (IMO) could be easily handled within one page. -- Ludwigs 2  17:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I don't think that's what V, NOR and RS actually say. "Points of information" don't have to be traced back to sources unless they're challenged or likely to be challenged.  Sources don't have to be easily accessible so that anyone can verify them, they just have to be reliable; being behind a paywall, or only available from a university library, doesn't make them unreliable. Non-English sources don't have to have translations easily available, they just have to be reliable.  The fact that a source is in French or German doesn't make it unreliable.— S Marshall  T/C 19:30, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ludwigs I think if you want to work on a large scale like then SV (I believe it was) is probably right that this requires you to set up a user page, because this needs more room? I think this talk page here is for marginal improvements to the existing article. Concerning what you've written. Anyway, here are a few remarks, but overall I see a lot of rule creep danger. I suggest you should not make this merge proposal a way to slip in some hidden policy changes without real discussion because people will notice it and that will simply kill the whole proposal. These remarks are about points where you are clearly moving away from current consensus and policy:-
 * My first point would be that concerning "points of information" (a) good on you for trying to find a word better than material and (b) you need to make clear that the policy is only about non-obvious information. Indeed maybe "non obvious information" is better than "points of information".
 * The term non-obvious is also logically necessary in understanding what you have above under "idea" in the bullets named "Extrapolation" and "Synthesis".
 * For reasons discussed recently I advise against over-simplifying the preference for secondary sources. They are not always preferred only most often. I do not believe you'll get consensus for creating a rule we do not need against primary sources, which are very often best.
 * I think you are trying to change the Accessibility section quite a bit away from any likely consensus we are going to have, as shown the last time this came up for RfC.
 * It would be easy to keep going, but as I say, I think this is not the right forum?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:34, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * @S. Marshall & Andrew: don't miss the forest for the trees, please. I could argue with you both that this is what the policies actually do say, or at least that this is what they should say to be consistent with their intent, but my only purpose here is to show that these are the basic topics that need to be covered, and the can all be covered in a simple and straightforward fashion on a single page.  I'm all for opening up a user page, but I'm waiting for some kind of focus or consensus on the issue here.  -- Ludwigs 2  19:40, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I might also contest some of the detail, but as to the general idea I fully agree with Ludwigs - all this material would fit neatly and logically onto one page. With it split (often fairly randomly) between several pages, we end up with massive duplication, and contradictions inevitably creep in (as we've been seeing in many of the detailed discussion above).--Kotniski (talk) 10:13, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Ludwigs, this is not the place to discuss merging the two policies. We've been through this before, and it was rejected, so you'll need clear wiki-wide consensus. The way to proceed is to set up a subpage with a proposed text (which I suggest you do on a user subpage so you can invite specific people to comment in the first instance), then once you have a solid draft ready, move it to a project subpage as a proposal, then begin the long process of open editing and an attempt to gain consensus for it. It's a process that will take several months. My guess is that people will still say no at the end of it, because there's an understandable conservatism when it comes to the core content policies, but if your version is demonstrably superior with no drawbacks, you might succeed. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 02:23, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Nevertheless, some kind of drastic shortening of WP:V is needed, since really all it adds to policy is that you should be able to "look up" all contentious information points, if you like, in order to verify for yourself that some "reliable source" says the same as WP. End. Everything else is WP:IRS, which is the (much, much longer) argument about which sources are "reliable" (likely to be other than clear error, lies, stupidity, and so on). Most of the outline that Kotniski produces at the head of this section above is about RS; it can go in the ISR article. If there are accessability issues, THEY should go into a discussion of "practical verifiability," as discussed above. But that's about it for what really could or should be in WP:V per se. Wikipedia isn't about "absolute truth" any more than science or academia are; all we'd like is the nearest approximation to it that is available, and whenever we find clear error, we remove it, and "best approximation to truth" is whatever survives that process. But as in science, history, engineering, and so on, we can be concerned with approaching truth usefully, without being convinced that we have finally gotten there. At the same time, giving up the idea of absolute truth does not mean that all is relative and we don't care if the sources are true, but only that they exist. We do care, and if we don't, we should! For those of you seeking amusement, I have posted a study attacking the reliability of metropolitan newspaper articles, over at WT:IRS. Primary news articles are full of error, only 2% of which is ever acknowledged by them, later, in error sections. The first response I've had, is somebody saying that that is why Wikipedia is "about verifiability, not truth"! Honest-- go read it! Thus, once again suggesting what damage is done every day by having people come HERE to WP:V to get the impression that having a citation matters far more than truth, and then going to IRS and finding people saying that absolute reliablity of sources doesn't matter that much since the truth of the cite and source isn't really a basic WP issue, per WP:V. Ouch! S B Harris 04:35, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Newspaper error is a bigger and more subtle problem than many realize. But we need a way to phrase it which doesn't allow any old article to be called into question.  If factual information from a newspaper or blog which otherwise meets reliable source criteria is contradicted by several other sources and appears by consensus of editors to be obviously wrong, the source may be omitted, provided editors use a footnote to explain the decision. Could it work? Ocaasic 14:52, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Something like that. Will Rogers' statement that "All I know is what I read in the papers" was meant as humor. Newspapers are a "first draft of history" and are as full of errror as you'd expect from the way they are produced. They can can be used as cites for what people and media thought at the time an event was happening, and for facts of historical events during the (hopefully short) period in which there has been no review, but later should be replaced by better sources as they come out. The latter use should to limited on WP, since WP is WP:NOTNEWS (even though it tries to be-- in our shinking world WP is influenced by recentism, which is error-ridden). In a few historical cases where no other sources are ever located (this happens a lot in the 19th century), we have to use what we have, as a semi-reliable source is better than no information at all. Historians must deal all the time with what to do with century-old news stories that come out a day after the event, but sometimes are not fully checked with their primary sources and witnesses (a story about something a journalists personally saw is not the same as a story about something a journalist reports on a deadline secondhand); and how to compare these with coroner or trial transcripts of what people say about the same event weeks or months later, vs. what people remember years later. In any case, all these are WP:IRS issues, and probably shouldn't even be mentioned in WP:V. WP:V might speak to the usability of blogs, but only because they are evanescent. In these days of self-publication and small and smaller publishing houses (sometimes only 3 people only work for small imprint) the only reason to deprecate blogs is that you can't be sure they won't change, not because they are "self-published." Most organizations have publications these days, and they're all self-published. "Self-published" is hard to define, and in any case, the WP:V faults for it that we mention doesn't apply to print, nor to things reliably archived and available. Those things only have RS problems due to bias and relative lack of review by others, not V problems. And by the way, the evanscense problems apply to many on-line sources that are due to become deadlinked when somebody stops hosting them. YET that usually doesn't cause them to run afoul of WP:V even BEFORE they disappear, as appears to be the case for "self-published" works. S  B Harris 16:49, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Re Ocaasi's suggestion, I don't think we even need the bit about footnotes. We aren't even obliged to include every bit of true sourceable information in an article, so we oughtn't to have any qualms about completely omitting pieces of false sourceable information.--Kotniski (talk) 18:37, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

some disagreements
I disagree with the accuracy of : The current rule, and the correct one, is that English sources are preferred if of equal quality. (I would rpefer to reword it as that the best sources should be used regardless of language, and also the best available English sources)This is the English Wikipedia in the sense that the articles are written in English, and in no other sense. It covers the world on equal terms, and for many or even most of the topics--when seen on a world wide basis-- there will not be English sources.
 * Non-English sources should be avoided unless translations are easily available

I also disagree that : Such articles in most fields are not just good sources, but the best sources. All such material is available to un-university people also, through interlibrary loan as a last resort. They are not necessarily primary research, and even primary research articles in scientific journals invariably contain a synthesis of the state of knowledge. Yes, they have to be used with caution to make sure they are representative of the actual state of the field, but that is true of all sources whatsoever. A rule such as this limits our coverage of the science to the state of knowledge 5 years ago, which is the approximate amount such sources as textbooks  are out of date, and to much further in many of the humanities. It would not even be appropriate for popular culture! The best available reliable discussions of popular culture are in professional-level paid sources.  DGG ( talk ) 18:29, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Journal articles that are sufficiently new or obscure to require university-level access are most likely primary research which should be used with caution
 * I'll second your objections:-) in particular for pointing out that "This is the English Wikipedia in the sense that the articles are written in English, and in no other sense.  It covers the world on equal terms, and for many or even most of the topics--when seen on a world wide basis-- there will not be English sources"--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:45, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Third! This bit about the age of the journal determining its contents is absurd, and folks who need help with foreign languages or access to sources can ask for help.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:57, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Agree with the language bit. Anybody who doesn't read the language where the primary sources are, probably should leave the topic to others, save for copy-editing. Of course, WP editors hate to do that, since it would involve admitting that expertise is sometimes necessary to edit, something they cannot abide (it's just as true in symbolic mathematics/logic, BTW, which count as second "languages" for this purpose). I made the same point about all primary scientific papers containing targetted mini-reviews, as part of the discussion, at WT:IRS. People who want to pigeon-hole these things haven't read many of them. S  B Harris 19:14, 31 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, just so we're all clear on what I meant, I was mostly thinking about a couple of cases where someone was trying to support a fairly strong claim by reference to a single article that I could not access/read. I'm not averse to such things as a rule, but the point of V is to make sure that editors are not putting their own made up material into the encyclopedia, and if an editor wants to add something and points to a passage that says "awer fafsert df fast faer asasdfg, asdfa asd, gfrgt sdfgssdf asdfa!" - how do I know that passage means what the editor says it means in the context of the greater article?  Likewise, if an editor is adding something and using a source that I need special access to read, how can I verify?  Verification can't really happen if I have to take the word of the editor that the source says what s/he says it says.


 * Besides, most any idea that's prominent enough to be included in the encyclopedia will have some accessible, English-languae representation. If you have to go to foreign language pubs or obscure scientific journals to make a case for an idea, the idea probably fails UNDUE.  -- Ludwigs 2  02:00, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Verifiability does not mean that you (or any reader/editor) can verify any article but that some/many editors/readers can verify it. The former would be a nonsensical requirement to begin with, because verification requires not only access but understanding as well and that might requires some (advanced) domain knowledge.
 * If you have reasonable doubts about some content, the sources of which are not accessible to you get some other editor to look at it. For that you can tag with a template, post a notice in associated portals/projects/noticeboards or just the article's discussion page. If you can't read the language you might also request a translation.
 * Also note what was posted above: "This is the English Wikipedia in the sense that the articles are written in English, and in no other sense.  It covers the world on equal terms, and for many or even most of the topics--when seen on a world wide basis-- there will not be English sources". And yes there many notable things in this world for which we want to have an encyclopedic article, but for which hardly any (quality) resources exist in English. If you write articles on various items in other cultures that, you often will have to resort to non english sources (think of some arbitrary small town in Russia and its local history and culture, some Hungarian writer from 19th century, a czech politician, etc.)--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:02, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * And where's the note on my talk page saying that you need help getting at a source? Where's the note you left for the nearest WikiProject?  How about a note on DGG's talk page?  I refuse to put what amounts to "sources must be convenient, free and instantly available for Ludwigs2 to read online" into this policy.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:03, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Ludwigs2, we're talking about organization here. To move forward, please keep any proposals grounded in current policy. Regardless of how you feel about an issue, this discussion is not the proper place to try to change basic policy. LK (talk) 06:14, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Just to point it out if it is not obvious, the theme of posters in this sub-section is the same theme as my initial comment on the proposals. I think large changes in policy have been slipped into the proposal which happen to be proposals which we all know have no consensus, because they get discussed frequently. If the response is that we should ignore those details and consider the bigger picture, then this really does imply that the proposal is not really for this talk page, because not yet "fully formed" and directly relevant to detailed proposals for change on the policy page yet, which is what this talk page is for.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:40, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps we've gone off into a side-issue here, but do I take it from the above posts that people generally agree that the emphasis on "readers can check whether..." in the lead sentence of the current policy is inappropriate, as argued in the thread above? --Kotniski (talk) 10:18, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think "readers can check" is fine... we do make it fairly clear that "checking" can often entail a lot of time, effort and and expense... and that when we say "readers can check", we do not mean "readers are able to easily check". Blueboar (talk) 14:38, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, we do make it clear, but a long way down the policy - I'm talking about the very first sentence, where we don't make it very clear at all, and in fact imply something quite different by placing such relatively huge emphasis on readers' "ability to check".--Kotniski (talk) 17:45, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Quarterly policy update
Any suggestions on how to put together a more concise version of this quarter's policy update for next week's Signpost? - Dank (push to talk) 19:18, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of any major changes. There have been a few minor wording tweaks, that judging by the amount of discussion on these pages represent momentous revolutions, but actually just make sentences a little more successful in saying what we all know they are supposed to say.--Kotniski (talk) 07:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. My preference would be not to be the one who decides which changes are important. Does anyone want to pick a sentence or two that changed, where the change is probably permanent and it seems to make a difference, or this or other policy pages? - Dank (push to talk) 12:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe this "quarterly diff" helps. I am thinking that most of the changes are fairly easy to interpret and maybe it is actually better to have a non involved person describe what changes have been made. Obviously what Kotniski is saying is that the focus has been wording tweaks, and is may well be right, but certainly discussion on the talk page has often gone beyond that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Definition of "promotional" sources
There is a section of this policy which is a bit confusing, even after searching the talkpace archives. Namely, frequently editors invoke the principle that anything can be a source on it's own opinions. However, reading this policy we see that if a source is "promotional" then it can't be used as a source on it's own (promotional) opinion since it becomes self-serving and that's one of the exceptions listed. On the other hand, it's accepted that sources don't need to be neutral. Now then, how do we tell the difference between a source that's not neutral but OK, and a source that's promotional and thus not OK? Could we add a bit of colour to the policy to describe what's meant by promotional? I agree with the idea behind this restriction but it should be more clearly defined, IMO. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 20:16, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Good luck. See the discussion immediately above. The idea that WP should not use as a source anybody or any publisher who stands to benefit from the information being republished in Wikipedia, would wipe out most of the encyclopedia. It's possible, but only if "secondary sources" were carefully defined in this highly unusual way (i.e., as printed by somebody who doesn't give a fig if WP picks it up or not). That will never happen. See WP:SNOWBALL chance in Hell. S  B Harris 20:51, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * CI have to say that my first impression is the opposite of Sbharris and I am wondering what an example would look like where it is not clear what is promotional. Dailycare do you have any example?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * One example may be organizations founded to promote a certain agenda, such as the Science & Environmental Policy Project that disputes man-made climate change or the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs which says that it has developed and implemented an array of cutting-edge programs to present Israel's case to the world. Now if the SEPP says that research on climate change is wrong or the JCPA says that people who criticise Israel are anti-semitic, would they be normal non-neutral sources or promotional sources presenting self-serving claims concerning third parties? And more importantly, why would they be so and should the policy be clarified a bit to make making the distinction easier? Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 15:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not sure that these types of problems become controversial because of difficulty in defining "self promotion". These types of examples are controversial in the real world and we have other guidelines about how to handle notable publications which take a non-mainstream or controversial position. One easy compromise which often does wonders is simply making sure that you attribute any opinions from advocacy groups, and instead of arguing to get them deleted make sure that there are other sources cited which give balance and neutrality. Advocacy groups like these are not what we normally call self promoting. They are promoting a cause or "POV", and so that is how we can discuss them. Self promotion might be if an oil company says oil drilling is good for the environment or something like that, which is normally pretty easy to spot. I guess the only grey area would be if, say, a political advocacy group were thought to be basically a front for oil companies, but in such cases I think what we would tend to do is, once again trying to be neutral, look at how the outside world treats them (as an oil company front, or as a group worth citing in its own right).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:18, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * This is why we should rely predominantly on secondary sources, and especially for controversial or contentious material. And in the rare cases where you do cite a promotional source, use in-text attribution.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:26, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't mind adding something to the policy about avoiding primary sources for controversial or contentious material. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:30, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Sure, that fixes the problem. We don't know if a white house press release will be promotional of the president's agenda. Could be objective. Could happen. Is it reliable? However, we can fix that problem by simply quoting the secondary source news agencies that attend the "white house press briefing" and regurgitate the press release documents which they reprint as newspapers-of-record. All fixed! BTW, on another note has anybody noticed how many WP articles are totally controlled by manufacturers and businesses? Korg, Tropical Islands, and Caesar's Palace are not where you go to get non-COI info. S B Harris 17:10, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with the notion that using in-text attribution is a good idea when non-neutral sources are used. However, as the policy now stands, that's against policy when claims concerning third parties are involved (assuming there is no secondary source republishing the material). An example is the SEPP saying that a piece of research is wrong. Even with attribution, it's a promotional source making a claim about a third party. Changing the policy to refer to "self-promotional" instead of "promotional" could be solve this? Maybe also mention that advocacy should be accompanied by attribution. A drawback would be that use of questionable sources overall would be encouraged a bit. --Dailycare (talk) 19:46, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that for notable sources, like the president's office or an important lobby group, people frequently quoted because of who they are, we should attribute and give balancing sources, but err on the side of inclusion. OTOH I also want to remark a potential problem with rule making here in that the problems of contemporary primary sources are quite different to what is need when we consider "classic" primary sources like Tolstoy who was mentioned above. I've recently given my anecdote on this talkpage about being told once I should not quote Thomas Hobbes for his own opinion because he is both an old source and a primary source. That should not be how the rules are read, but if you watch RSN for a while you'll see that kind of thing come up often. "Classic" people are not a problem for BLPs and not likely to be self promoting in any relevant sense.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:23, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * We're mixing three different things together here. 1. Primary source talking about itself. The web site of the Flat Earth Society is a good source for the statement "The Flat Earth Society says that the earth is flat" but not for the statement "the earth is flat".  2. Promotional sources   3.  Biased sources.    For #2 and #3, a fundamental flaw with wp:ver and wp:nor is that it that its source criteria gives no weight to the objectivity of the source (with respect to the statement that cited it).  The kinds of discussion here, or trying to address special cases (e.g. promotional, advocacy groups) are just tap dancing around that gaping hole in those two policies. Such objectivity should be given weight, but not become a categorical stand-alone criteria. Sincerely,   North8000 (talk) 20:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have ideas how the situation might be improved, North8000? Would it make sense e.g. to restrict the use of primary sources for claims that appear to be clearly in their interest? Somehow that would seem to already be present in the notion that a source has to be reliable for a specific claim. --Dailycare (talk) 19:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

What counts as a reliable source?
This edit introduced the following paragraph: "First and foremost, for a source to be considered reliable it must be published - ie distributed to the public (whether in printed, visual or audio format). Unpublished materials are not considered reliable."

I have no problem with emphasizing the point at the beginning of the section, but the paragraph mixes different ideas. Printed material is visual, and it can be even more visual if it contains photographs and drawings. There are two points that could be made: I'm not sure which point this paragraph is trying to make. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:05, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Published material may consist of text, sound, pictures, and drawings.
 * Material may be published in many media, including print, World Wide Web, DVD, CD, and microfilm.

Newbie Question Regarding Twitter
Am I understanding WP:TWITTER correctly...?

A may cite a quote by B about A provided that the Twitter account of B is a reliable source (i.e. verified or linked to official web page etc.). No other use of Twitter as a source is permitted at all. (W090584 (talk) 16:21, 7 April 2011 (UTC))


 * Example and question : At present, there is no other or better source than this cited at 2011 G-20 Cannes summit:
 * Twitter, official page of the 2011 G20 summit, G20#G20 #Sarkozy: "Thanks to #France, the ILO is now a permanent guest invited to #G20 meetings." Tue Jan 25 2011 13:30:07 EST via web
 * Would I be expected to bundle another source citation when one becomes available? Is this something like a tentative or preliminary verifiability? --Tenmei (talk) 16:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * No, because it involves claims about a third-party. However, maybe this is a good situation to invoke Ignore All Rules.  If you do decide to keep this in the article, yes, I would add a secondary reliable source as soon as one comes available (possibly even removing the Twitter source).  No, there is no such thing as tentative or preliminary verifiability.  BTW, another school of thought is that Wikipedia is not news and that we should just wait until a secondary source picks up the information. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * A Quest For Knowledge -- Thank you for your comments. I will move this from the article to the talk page pending something from a reliable source. --Tenmei (talk) 20:15, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Copy-edit
SV, re this, look at the paragraph directly above where it says "published in a reliable source". Using "reliable published source" immediately afterward is redundant and missing an opportunity to start introducing readers to what our jargon actually means. Why don't we wikilink the first reference and replace the second with 'reputation for fact checking and accuracy' (or reputation for fact checking and accuracy that is appropriate for the claim being made...)? Ocaasi c 19:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That makes sense to me (we can still include the word "published", if desired, along with the bit about the reputation).--Kotniski (talk) 10:54, 8 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, Ocaasi, I've just noticed this. I'm fine with your version, but I'd prefer to link to WP:SOURCES (part of V), rather than to IRS, the guideline, so the policy doesn't look as though it's deferring to a guideline for a definition of "reliable source".  SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 00:48, 9 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, I'll add it back if you haven't already. Linking to WP:Sources makes sense.  Ocaasi c 01:31, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Social Networking Sites
Nightscream added this to the policy: "Note that social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook can only be used to support personal information about subjects if the page in question can be authenticated as the official page of the subject with a secondary source." I fail to see what property a reliable secondary source has that makes it more suitable for this purpose than a reliable primary source. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:48, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I was repeating sentiments voiced on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard here, but in looking more closely at what was said in that discussion, I see that User:Jack-A-Roe was talking about information on a band's tour, and not personal or biographical information. Sorry about that. I should've just said "primary or secondary source", or even better, "official source". This is what I did when verifying season material on Pawn Stars with the show's Facebook page: There was a link on that show's official site on History.com. Would rewriting it thus be better? Nightscream (talk) 02:50, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The new version is better, thanks. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:02, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I disagree that MySpace and Facebook should be used as sources for anything at all. I think it would need a lot more discussion, and if consensus for it does emerge it would have to be worded differently. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 12:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I see no problems from a reliable sources point of view with using social networking sites (SNSs) if it can be proven that the account really belongs to a source which is reliable for the statement being supported. Many official agencies have Facebook pages, for example. I thing the issue lies more in the type of access that the SNS offers. The material in question should be visible to any internet user without having to get an account at the SNS, because one often has to agree to terms and conditions, and/or provide personal information, that one would not usually have to provide when accessing material that is truly published, such as buying a book or borrowing a book from a library. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:17, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree. It feeds into the notability issue too. If someone is notable, and details about her are notable enough for inclusion in WP, they won't only have been published in MySpace. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 14:25, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * (ec) This has come up on RSN a few times, and I think that while SlimVirgin is right that there is not yet a clear consensus, it seems we eventually will need to put something on a policy page, because it will come up increasingly won't it? It seems unlikely we can say this type of media can never be useable, because indeed it is now a major type media used for making announcements etc. I do not therefore believe that we can say that announcements made on this media will always be made elsewhere. Concerning ease of access, I think that as usual we can't really make difficult a reason not to use a source. Will be interested to see what others say.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:30, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * This kind of source strikes me as problematic. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; it doesn't do news, gossip, or other ephemera.  Any announcement significant enough to be included on the encyclopedia will be available on non-volotile sources other than SNS; any announcements that are only available on SNS are not particularly reliable.  The only time I can really see SNS statements as being usable on project is when other (secondary) sources have picked up on the SNS - e.g. when some political figure makes a problematic facebook post that gets picked up by mainstream media, or when a tech journal reports on a corporate tweet as though it were solid information - and in those cases the SNS itself is not really needed unless there's some reason  to believe the secondary source is misquoting it.  -- Ludwigs 2  15:55, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Ludwigs, the thing is that we on Wikipedia do not decide what media are better or worse. That is decided outside Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * We do decide that. That's the point of this policy, and we don't allow SPS except in the limited circumstances described here. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 16:15, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * No, clearly we do not decide that. The top of the page says that "Material must be attributable to a source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, which is appropriate for the claim being made." The reputations we decide upon are not the reputations amongst Wikipedia editors or else Wikipedians would be free to create wikitruth.
 * Some people seem to use "self published source" to describe almost anything "not standard" which, as we have discussed, is clearly not how WP:SPS is written. WP:SPS is one part of the section about dubious sources, and the expert exemption is one possible exemption within it. You yourself recently wrote that other exemptions can and should be decided on a case by case basis, arguing, if I understood you correctly, that not only is WP:SPS not intended to be a comprehensive description of all questionable types of sources, but also that you do not think it should be.
 * Lastly, please remember that even ignoring the principle that WP:V is not comprehensive, there is also WP:SELFPUB, which clearly adds to what WP:SPS says in a way which is relevant to this question, and obviously this is the main likely use anyone is going to use such a source for given the way this type of publication is currently used. No point ignoring that then.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:28, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I can only repeat that we do, of course, decide which sources are acceptable; that's the point of having sourcing policies. And I do believe SPS is a comprehensive description, but like all policies it should be applied with common sense. That doesn't mean people should go around looking for exceptions, because the real exceptions will be very rare. I don't understand your other points, I'm afraid. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 16:35, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Andrew - allow me to point out he following:
 * Per your own first bullet point, SNS are never a source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. SNS are sites for quick interpersonal communication; there is no reason to assume (and many reasons not to assume) that anyone on a SNS fact-checks anything, ever.
 * There is a significant difference between a 'self-published source' and a 'personal communication'. A SPS is intended to communicate information to the general public in a broad way, and we can assume that the author is at least trying to present meaningful information (an SPS author may have bats in his belfry, but is usually earnestly trying to educate).  A personal communication is not intended for the general public, and as often as not represents a narrow statement that is not aimed at educating or informing, but rather at some social goal (calming or encouraging clients or investors, making promises that might not be carried out, offering advice that hasn't been verified, etc.). These are not the same things.
 * As I said, there is rarely if ever a case in which a SNS post will meet the requirements of the encyclopedia. If it's not reported by more established sources, it will usually fail UNDUE; if it is reported elsewhere, it's usually better to use the more established source.  -- Ludwigs 2  17:53, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * This last point is the key one. If something only appears on Facebook and similar, we wouldn't want to use it for that reason. But if it also appears in better sources, we would use the latter. So this is a discussion that makes little sense. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 17:58, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing what this is actually about, but I don't see any difference between X's Facebook page and X's official website, if we know that X maintains their Facebook page in much the same way they would maintain their official website if they had one. --Kotniski (talk) 18:04, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * SPS applies to all self-published material; no one has argued that there's a difference between a personal website and a Facebook page that's known to be an official one. The only point being made here is that SPS does apply. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 18:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You and Ludwigs seem to be making a stronger point, which implies you think there is a difference - you seem to be saying that SNS cannot be used as sources (while other SPS occasionally can).--Kotniski (talk) 18:16, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen anyone argue that. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 18:21, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Above, you said "I disagree that MySpace and Facebook should be used as sources for anything at all." Also in your edit summary you wrote (apparently re SNS) "I"ve never seen consensus that they can be used as sources." Also Ludwigs (above) is apparently claiming that SNS's are solely for personal communication rather than being true SPS's.--Kotniski (talk) 18:30, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I meant outside SPS. There was an attempt to add some kind of exception for them. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 18:51, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think it was an exception - what was added was actually an attempt to tighten the requirements relating to SNS sources, rather than loosen them. --Kotniski (talk) 18:55, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * We don't have requirements about SNS sources apart from WP:SPS. We already say there has to be no reasonable doubt as to authenticity. If that's all that was being said, there's no need to say it twice. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 19:01, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think that's what Nightscream was trying to say. However, I'm not sure our policy actually states that there should be no reasonable doubt as to authenticity.  If so, where is it? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:50, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * WP:SELFPUB, condition 4: "there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity ..." SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 19:53, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Doh! Thanks. Nightscream: I believe that your concerns are addressed per SV's comment above.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:07, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * (And my point in reply to these claims is that whatever sites like Facebook may originally have been conceived as being for, people are now using them in various different ways - including, in some cases, effectively using their Facebook page as an official website - and if that happens, there's no reason for us at WP to treat that page any differently than we would treat an official website.)--Kotniski (talk) 18:41, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec)That discussion also seems odd to me. I can understand very well why we will "rarely" allow such a source, but there is clearly a stronger point being made if we are going to make the jump from there to a complete ban, whether that ban between implied or stated. Furthermore, if we come back to the original point about there being no strong consensus on how to use such sources on WP yet, there is also no strong consensus on saying they should be forbidden. Organizations and individuals are now using this sort of media as a publication, and old fashioned publications like newspapers already cite such things. I am sure no one is arguing against the idea that such third party reports will normally be better to cite by the way, but it is occasionally useful to cite a company or organizational release directly, and I guess that is what this type of thing comes under?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:43, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 *  This is just the same old wikipedia problem - an effort to take what could easily be handled as a matter of simple common sense and turn it into a rigidulous bureaucratic mess. To which there is only one appropriate response (to be shared equally among all of us):


 * Let's all go do something more interesting, shall we?   -- Ludwigs 2  22:47, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Lol after 4 years in WP this is the first time I#ve witnessed a trout slapping, reminds me of ircing in the 90s :-)--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:04, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I get why the fish has been subjected to violence with regard to this thread, though - it seems to be one of the more constructive conversations on this page, with misunderstandings cleared up and the issue apparently resolved without anyone shouting at anyone else. However I now have another problem with the wording of this section which I shall raise below...--Kotniski (talk) 07:30, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Can we agree that the passage can be restored on the policy page that a subject's SNS page can be used, as long as a reliable source establishes it to be the official one? If given info is on the subject's SNS page, but not on their official site, I can't see any reason not to be able to cite the former. Nightscream (talk) 08:48, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * But as noted above, the policy already allows such sources "if there is no reasonable doubt as to their authenticity". Is that not sufficient?--Kotniski (talk) 08:51, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Given the number of times I revert additions of material sourced to unverified SNS pages, I would say no, which is why I thought adding that bit of elaboration would make it clearer, particularly to newbies. Can we restore it? Nightscream (talk) 08:56, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It's clear that we must have no reasonable doubt about the authenticity. Maybe you could just refer people to the current wording? SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 15:16, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Nightscream: Are you sure that the SNS are unverified? Can you give some examples so we can take a look at the problem? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:26, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, the article in question was the AJ Lee article. Here I removed a Facebook page that someone else had added to the article in support of her birth name. Nightscream (talk) 04:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Wording of SPS
SPS says "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities..." Now I know the word "source" can mean either the document or the author, but it shouldn't be changing its meaning in the middle of a sentence, and it seems to me that in the phrase "self-published and questionable sources" it has to mean the document, but "themselves" has to refer to the author - or perhaps not even the author, but the "owner" (in the case of corporate/entertainers' websites etc.) If anyone knows what this is supposed to mean, can they clarify? --Kotniski (talk) 07:30, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Why does "themselves" have to refer to authors/owners? Is that a grammar based argument as themselves can't refer to things/neutral gender?
 * Essentially I'd read that formulaton as they can be used as primary sources in an article or content about them (?) or their authors.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:35, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * "Themselves" can refer to things, but the context here implies (like you say) that the intended meaning is the producers of those sources, not the sources themselves (or perhaps both one and the other).--Kotniski (talk) 10:02, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that it can and should also refer to the sources themselves. For example, using the book War and Peace as a cite for the text "The first sentence of the book War and Peace reads ......" There are myriad examples of this (laws, official documents, statements of policy etc.) North8000 (talk) 11:17, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I suspect "War and Peace" would be called a primary source rather than a self-published source, though. Although the section in question is also apparently about "questionable" sources as well as self-published sources, so maybe this is within its scope. Having the section about primary/secondary sources in a completely different policy (which I keep complaining about) is again helping to make things unclear here.--Kotniski (talk) 11:22, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Guys, can we please keep in mind that 'self-published' refers to a mode of book production, not to a kind of content. The problem with SPSs is that someone is paying to have them published out of his/her/its own pocket, which opens two unpleasant worries: (i) that the source might be advertising or promotion, and (2) that the author may be entirely unqualified to write on the topic.  "War and Peace" is not self-published (it is published by reputable houses who assumedly pay the estate for the privilege). The import of this passage is that if a person/group is notable and self-publishes certain materials, that material is usable for talking about whatever it is that person/group is/does, but that material is might not be usable for talking about the larger world.  In other words, if a radical zionist organization publishes a treatise on a middle east crisis, that treatise can be used to describe the group's position and ideals, may be usable to present the group's POV in a broader discussion (if the group's POV passes UNDUE), but cannot be used as an unbiased perspective on the crisis even if it looks like it is and presents itself as such (because it was bought and paid for by a group with a distinct bias).


 * Note that some very well-regarded sources are technically SPSs (e.g. the Christian Science Monitor). again, common sense is more helpful here than formulaic rules.  -- Ludwigs 2  16:02, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm amused that anybody thinks that having a book published by a "reputable publisher" makes it somehow more reliable that if it were from a self-publication house. The threshhold there has nothing to do with reliability, and everything to do with how likely the book is to sell and make money. For example, I have half a bookshelf of JFK assassination conspiracy theory books. Here's a David Lifton book Best Evidence, a book-of-the-month club book in 1981 when it was published in hardcover by Macmillan (later softcovers by Carroll & Graf Publishers). This howler suggests that JFK's body, between the time it left Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas and arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital for autopsy 5 hours later, was switched with a duplicate coffin and subjected to a secret surgery in Bethesda, in the hour between when the coffin was offloaded from Air Force One and when it arrived at the naval hospital. JFK's personal physician Dr. Burkley who had chain-of-evidence responsiblity wouldn't talk to Lifton and the president's widow wouldn't either, and Lifton never considers that watches still set to CST Texas time might vary by an hour from Bethesda watches and reports that are EST. From this, a best-seller. My personal favorite in this collection is one called Mortal Error. which posits that a secret serviceman in the backseat of the secret service chase-car in Dallas immediately after the assassination, managed to accidently shoot JFK in the head with his AR-15 rifle, right past the driver of his own vehicle's ear, and nobody noticed. Publisher of this little fairy tale is St. Martin's Press. Need I go on? S B Harris 19:06, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The main difference, here is that someone other than the author thought the book would sell. That is at least an indication that the author or the subject matter is notable.  Being 'reliable' doesn't mean that the source is right, it just means that it can be trusted to give a good representation of an established viewpoint.  -- Ludwigs 2  20:00, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You are arguing in circles. WP:NOTABLE (WP:N) is a guideline, like WP:IRS. It is not a policy. The actual WP:V policy requires that sources be intrinsically reliable, which means having a reputation for being truthful. However, both IRS and WP:N expand includability to include material of which wide public notice has been taken, whether the materal is true or not.  So if you don't care if the claim is true, what's the point of requiring a reliable source for it?? The only possible answer to THAT, that we must re-define "reliablity" as talking NOT about objective truth about reality, but rather people's beliefs about objective truth. (Yes, WP policy inevitably involves us in the old philosophical argument between idealists and realists-- sorry). However, if we give up that much ground, there's no particular reason to worry about SELFPUB anymore, and nobody particularly believes that self-publishers lie about their own beliefs, and if that is the only reliability that WP:N requires, then we should be cool with all selfpub. I don't particularly think too many people believe that JFK's body was stolen before Lifton laid that idea on the public as his personal thesis, and I'm not even sure too many believe THAT, even now. But the book sold well and titilated a lot of fantasies, just like fad diet and health books do. Since there is a lot of notable nonsense, some of which is believed by some fraction of the hoi poloi, Wikipedia is now doomed to simply repeat it without making any judgements-- creationism must be given equal space with atheistic theories of the origin of the Earth and humans, for example, simply because more people believe in creationism, so it's more notable. And we're stuck with the fact that wide publication feeds on itself until a piece of pure error (as you saw in the magic bullet sequence in Oliver Stone's film JFK) becomes widely believed by people who see it on the Silver Screen as explained by Kevin Coster, but don't bother to check out some source like-- Wikipedia (which has an article that does NOT mirror public perception, but DOES mirror expert-perception). So, in summary, sort this out: is WP:N going to sometimes totally disregard WP:IRS? And if so, what's the point of arguing WP:IRS at all? And are we to remove all reference to RS in the WP:V policy, since (after all) RS is really NOT essential? S  B Harris 20:30, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm arguing in circles? Your initial premise is deeply misguided. 'Reliability' does not mean 'having a reputation for being truthful'; at best it means the source has a reputation for presenting material in a reasoned, well-considered, and relatively balanced way.  We do not adjudicate truth on wikipedia.  we simply try to evaluate where particular sources stand in relation to the body of knowledge about a topic.


 * This is not a problem in the idealism/realism vein (which is expressly a dispute over ontological concerns). This is a problem of scholarship - an epistemological problem - over how we come to have the knowledge we present in the encyclopedia.  When we place a claim about a topic in an article on wikipedia, it does not matter whether that claim is ontologically true or false; what matters is that the claim can be located properly in the discourse about the topic.  Yes, the mass public is obviously going to be impressed by Kevin Costner; but no one can reasonably assert that Oliver Stone was trying to present 'reasoned, well-considered, and relatively balanced' perspective on the topic (or if they do there are plenty of reliable sources contradicting that assertion). That is going to severely limit the impact that Stone's movie has on the article.


 * The key here is NPOV - one must trust that articles will be properly informative when a decent balance between differing viewpoints is established. Trying to use 'reliability' as a backdoor entry into 'Truth' is just going to bollox things up.  -- Ludwigs 2  22:13, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

No. In English "reliable" means "dependable, trustworthy," or (in regarding to information): '''3. reliable - conforming to fact and therefore worthy of belief; "an authentic account by an eyewitness"; "reliable information."'''

You are attempting to use a nonstandard meaning in English, making "reliable" mean "fair and balanced" (like Fox News, don't you know). If you want to say "reasoned, well-considered, and relatively balanced way," then use those words. Use "NPOV" if you like. But don't use the word "reliable," which normally in such circumstances, means something else. The present policy says about reliability: "Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Fact-checking and accuracy have to do with truth, not with fairness, balance, or nonpartisanship. "Accuracy" is partisan-- anything else is error, and should be discounted as such if mentioned, or else not mentioned at all!

The idea that the problems of WP boil down to "mere scholarship" and could be done as well by a machine with no human experience (or perhaps the mythical scholar who was born in a library basement and never left it) is cute. However, it is impractical. It is related to the problem of artificial intelligence, wherein you wish the ideal editor of WP to lay aside all personal experience and pretend he or she is IBM's WATSON machine and database. None of us can. All that such a policy is going to do, is result in a lot of self-deluded editors who are convinced that their biased points of view are not really personal bias at all, but can be defended objectively in the literature (and if you disagree, then the bias is YOURS). And thus do we see Wiki-wars in which neither side is willing to admit any bias due to personal experience in the world. That's much like listening to Randroid Objectivists argue between themselves, and sometimes I think I know exactly where WP picked up these very bad philosophical ideas: Ayn Rand. Via Jimbo Wales.

There is not enough material in libraries to reduce the world and all that's in it, to mere scholarship. Yes, we are stuck with ontology. If you refuse to engage with ontology then you are left in the position Bertrand Russell talks of, regarding the lunatic who believes that he is a poached egg: all one can do is comment that he holds a minority opinion. Or perhaps (in the absense of democracy) that he disagrees with the government. The latter being closer to the WP case, since WP is not a democracy, so the same sentiment boils down to disagreeing with today's editorial power-clique. S B Harris 23:33, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * No, I'm attempting to talk about wikipedia policy in a meaningful way. If you want to insist that 'reliable' means 'true', then reliability has no place on project whatsoever.  Period.  Is that where you want to go with this?


 * As to the rest of your post... I have no idea what the f%ck that means.  Seriously dude, if you want to rant about artificial intelligence, Ayn Rand being spirit-channeled by Jimbo, and Some Very Peculiar Notions about Proper Scholarship, could you at least have the decency to try to work it into the discussion in a meaningful way?  -- Ludwigs 2  23:47, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Seriously, dude, unless you understand what I'm talking about so far as a need for truth in an encyclopedia, you never will get it. And if you don't understand the need for truth in academia and scholarship, then you must have come from some part of academia where "truth" is all relative, and not the natural sciences part, where you can't make the bridges and the airplanes stay up by employing better citations and a more persuasive and higher quality argument. S  B Harris 02:26, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Would people mind my attempting to drag them back to the original question? We are tolde that self-published ... sources can be used as sources of information about "themselves". Does themselves mean the actual sources, and/or the people who wrote the sources, and/or the parties whose agents control the sources (like, say, the pop group of which a website is the official site)? And if (as I suspect) we mean principally the third category, can someone phrase it in a more satisfactory way than "parties whose agents control the sources"? --Kotniski (talk) 07:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Between all the other things between discussed, this basic idea of adding the words something like "or their agents" now makes some sense to me for the first time in this thread. Would indeed be interested to see what constructive comments people can make about that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that "themselves" is pretty clear as it stands so long as one resists the urge to split hairs. Company web sites and press releases are useful for non-controversial information about the company, personal web pages and autobiographies the same for people, etc. If a web site is set up for a pop band by their promoters, that would be self published since that pop group is not just the band, but a business enterprise. I also note that promotional material of any kind is verboten, per WP:SPAM, regardless of the source, and we have a variety of policies, guidelines and projects to help clarify what are held by consensus to be appropriate sources for certain areas. A good example is WP:BLP.
 * We cannot cover every aspect of WP in a single policy. And Ludwigs2 make a good point in that we are making judgements here--we can make an infinite number of rules, but there can be no rule that tells us which rule applies to any given case. If others think that adding the phrase "or their agents" to this policy, I have no strong objection, but I think the outcome will be to push the argument to how do we define agent, and how do we determine the relationship between the subject and agent (given the practice of astroturfing such determinations are difficult). --Nuujinn (talk) 11:48, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is pretty much also how I see it. I am not against making rules clear, but in the end rules can never replace judgement and consensus seeking, only define what areas they should work within.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's true; but the current wording of this "rule" isn't clear at all, as it implies (literally) that SPS's can only be used as sources of information about themselves, i.e. about the sources (e.g. the websites). In the same way that War and Peace can be used as a source of information about itself, i.e. about War and Peace. What we mean about the self-published sources (I assume) is that they can be used as sources for information about their "owners", which is nothing like what the sentence currently says. --Kotniski (talk) 12:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, firstly I think the question of whether it is meant to imply only one possible use for all possible SPS's is dubious, at least if you look at the discussions on this talk page. It seems very clear that everyone, both critics and defenders of the current wording, agree that it should be interpreted as allowing use with care, except for controversial BLP information. One specific exemption made is the published expert exemption, but it also seems clear that other exemptions are possible. The second exemption which I think is pretty clear is currently mentioned in the next sub-section, WP:SELFPUB, and that is presumably the bit you are saying is not clear?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's the words "about themselves" which aren't clear. I agree it's probably not meant to mean just one exemption - with some "questionable" (e.g. primary, like "War and Peace") sources the intended meaning probably really is "themselves", but with the SPS's, the intended meaning is something else, like the writers or "owners" of the source. --Kotniski (talk) 12:24, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Can you point to any actual examples where this particular bit of policy is contended in discussion? I think it's perfectly clear, since SPS do not write themselves. By your line of reasoning, one could equally argue that a web site cannot be considered a SPS about itself since it didn't write the prose contained therein. Splitting hairs to this degree is not helpful. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:33, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Do I have a line of reasoning? I'm just trying to make this sentence actually say what it is meant to say. The fact that SPS's don't write themselves is not relevant - the policy might well be that a website can only be used as a source for statements about itself (i.e. for statements about that website) - someone coming to this page looking for information would be perfectly entitled to draw that conclusion from the sentence as written. (We don't have to have an actual example of someone being misled before we correct something that is obviously misleading.) --Kotniski (talk) 11:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we have a problem here. See WP:SOURCES, "The word "source" in Wikipedia has three meanings: the piece of work itself (a document, article, paper, or book), the creator of the work (for example, the writer), and the publisher of the work (for example, The New York Times). All three can affect reliability."

"The creator of the work" is certainly capable of writing about himself or herself. That—the creator, not the document—is the relevant definition of "source" for this particular sentence: Creators may be used as sources of information about themselves. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:28, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree. And I do not think the policy passage is unclear, and absent any real problems stemming from confusion about the phrasing, I'm curious as to what we're talking about, really. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, the creator is not necessarily the perceived controller (I think one of the things we have in mind is that a pop group's official website can be used as a source of information about that pop group, even if we know that the group don't write it themselves). I also don't think it makes sense to use the phrase "self-published sources" if the sense of "source" we have in mind is that of creator, or still less if it's that of publisher. --Kotniski (talk) 11:25, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Kotniski: There is a long-standing problem that wp:V does not make proper distinctions between different usages of the word 'source'; this is not specific to SPS. It seems obvious to me that 'reliability' means different things if you're talking about an author or a journal or a publisher or an organization, and blurring them all into one lump causes endless confusion on project.  However, people are resistant to such revisions, for reasons I'm not entirely clear on.  IMO, you'd do better focusing on this fairly major problem directly, rather than trying to chip away at it through small revisions in odd corners of the policy. -- Ludwigs 2

Problem with WP:Blogs
I have encountered what seems to me to be a general problem with this policy. The policy is generally sound, but I am finding a problem with it because of a possibly unforeseen situation: the developing news story.

The article that has highlighted this is the Jordan Lead Codices story. A couple of weeks ago a press release went out saying "manuscripts found in Jordan! More important than Dead Sea scrolls!" and the news media went with it. Academic bloggers were quickly on the scene. Some of these hold professorships. Others are scholarly, even if not so equipped. The people concerned all reference each other. These bloggers started to research the story, to write to the experts quoted in support by the original press release. It quickly became clear that the experts didn't actually hold the views attributed to them, and that the find was bogus. However the mainstream media did not pick up on this until a week later, because they preferred sensation to dull academic fact. The mainstream media is "reliable sources", to most editors.

BUT ... I was adding material as the story developed. People who wanted to believe the story used WP:BLOGS as an excuse to keep deleting material from them. The letters from the experts were published on one blog which, although scholarly, was not by a professor (although the academics all endorsed it). The editors kept removing it as not a reliable source! (And it isn't in there now). This means the wiki article is actually unreliable, in that it suppresses part of the story.

Nor am I blaming the editors -- under WP:BLOGS that is precisely what is supposed to happen.

The problem, I think, is that the policy doesn't recognise that, in a developing news story where new media like blogs are involved and developing the story, the blogs do need to be referenced. They may not be reliable, in the long term. But to rely on the mainstream media, with its love of sensation, is to distort the story.

Quite how to fix the policy I don't know. The basic principle -- that any old schoolboy could call himself an expert and write a blog -- is sound. But some blogs are more reliable than others, particularly in giving transcriptions of sources of information (I don't think their *opinions* are necessarily reliable). When they give scholarly data, that is available nowhere else, we have real problems if we ignore it.

So I think the policy is being too tightly drawn, and this is creating difficulties for editors. Yes, a blog is not an authority, unless produced by a professional scholar on his area of expertise. But it may be a source.

I encountered the same problem on another article, where online primary sources were being deleted under pretext "oh it's on a blog". So I suspect there is a general problem. Roger Pearse (talk) 19:17, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You have outlined the issue well—it would be difficult to relax a requirement about blogs while continuing to reject unclear cases (for example, someone could claim to be a biology professor and blog about how evolution is nonsense; an investigation to show which blogs are worthy of exception would be hard). I would add WP:NOTNEWS and WP:REDFLAG: the first says we do not try to follow breaking stories, but should wait until it is covered in secondary sources; the second says that if something is so interesting that it should be added to an article now while being sourced to a blog, perhaps REDFLAG is violated in that exceptional claims require exceptional sources. Johnuniq (talk) 04:40, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well no matter how you formulate the policy, there will be always individual editors who get it wrong and who will try to apply it in a literal manner no matter what, i. e. without thinking. This can be very annoying/frustrating in an individual case but there is no way to avoid that, no matter what you write in the policy. The only way to address such cases is to get other experienced editors involved to assess whether the literal application of a policy is a problem here and whether it might be a case for ignore all rules.--Kmhkmh (talk) 07:52, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * First, Per WP:NOTNEWS, we should probably not be writing articles based on recent and developing news stories (that's what WIKINEWS is for). Second, While Blogs are usually not acceptable, We included the "expert exemption" to WP:SPS to cover exactly the situation presented here. Blueboar (talk) 00:21, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Roger, WP:SPS does allow the use of self-published sources—which includes blogs—where the writer is an expert who has been previously published in the field, so long as he's not writing about living persons. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 00:17, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Paraphrase in challenged

 * See previous Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability/Archive_44

With the edit made by Kotniski and given that the text was introduced into the section by SV and SV said on this talk page "I wasn't keen on its inclusion, but at least it's not in the lead, and it's not being added to a sentence in a way that would make the sentence false. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 19:53, 14 March 2011 (UTC)" and now that we have a mention of copyright in the lead, I am removing the phrase completely as is it an imprecise summation of the legal copyright requirements and the guidance given in guidelines such as WP:PLAGARISM. -- PBS (talk) 14:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * SV I am confused. Above you said that you were not keen on the inclusion of the sentence that you have now reinstated in its own section. If you were not keen on it why have you reinstated it? Also did you read the comments in Archive 44#paraphrase? If for example I copy text from another Wikipedia page the wording that you have placed into this policy that states "do not copy text from copyrighted sources except when directly quoting the material" means that such a copy would need to be placed in quotes. I am sure this is not what is the intent of this sentence. I suggest that the section is removed as this is better covered in the copyright policy and related policies and guidelines. At the very least the section should be removed temporarily until we can agree on a form of words that do not contradict the copyright polices and guidelines. -- PBS (talk) 11:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Certainly seems that this section has a lot of problems and isn't really serving any purpose by being here. But can I at least ask people not to keep reinserting the ridiculous assertion that when you paraphrase, you have to use intext attribution - given that every statement in Wikipedia is supposed to be a paraphrase of a statement made by a source, this would imply that every sentence requires intext attribution (i.e. not just a cite, but a "John says..." in the text itself), which is clearly absurd.--Kotniski (talk) 12:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think there is an element of a bigger problem with WP itself here, and concerning how to make its core aims fit with taking copyright and plagiarism seriously. But putting that aside:-
 * WP policy does not demand every sentence to be footnoted. Sentences which state obvious things, or piece together things in an obvious way, are possible. Furthermore you can put a citation on a whole paragraph.
 * Paraphrasing is following a text very closely, almost like quoting, except tweaking the words. According to all norms of plagiarism and copyright outside WP, which WP nevertheless tries to take seriously, just tweaking words and taking away the quotes does not mean you've avoided plagiarism and/or copyright infringement.
 * (Here is the messy bit.) In practice, much material in WP is neither of the two above categories. For example material might be influenced by someone's reading over a lifetime, and it might be quite difficult to work out the best way of sourcing it because it does not come from one source. (Which does not mean it can not be verified.) WP could not exist without this type of material, but WP policy pages are written as if this were not true. Perhaps the only way to explain it is to say that such material is assumed to be either verifiable or else obvious/common knowledge, until challenged. The way WP traditionally handles this is to say that if someone questions something, then reality suddenly changes, and we need to find a way of sourcing it, even if we find a source completely different from what the original editor read. (That has of course developed into a situation where the easiest way to push a POV is now definitely to question sources selectively and strategically.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This goes off topic a bit; the original problem with your edit is that you're saying that whenever we paraphrase (not just paraphrase closely), we need to use intext attribution (not a footnote cite, but a "John says..." type phrase in the text). So if I have a source (say the NYT) that says "Smith's death occurred in 1981", I'm not allowed to paraphrase it and say "Smith died in 1981" (giving the cite in a footnote), but would have to say "According to the NYT, Smith died in 1981" (implying that we have some doubt about it), which is just not what we do.--Kotniski (talk) 12:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think what I and others are thinking is that "parphrasing" is a word mostly used when the paraphrasing is close. Perhaps therefore others might accept the mere tweak of adding the word closely?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, to bring it into line with the previous sentence... that would be OK. (Though I suspect what we really mean is quoting or closely paraphrasing passages of some significant length - with a short sentence like "Smith died in 1981" even copying it word for word is hardly going to constitute a breach of copyright or ethics.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes isolated words or small groups of words are not normally covered.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

(And encouraging people to "internalize" the sources, whatever that means - incorporate them into your own belief system? presumably not, it just means understand, but we already say understand - also looks pretty silly.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:14, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think "internalise" might need a footnote. It's shorthand for something quite convoluted to explain, and I'm worried that Kotniski might not be the only editor who fails to grok it. Basically, "internalise" is what you do when you're genuinely acquiring knowledge.  For example:  Two different editors are writing articles on an obscure topic.  Editor A has a degree in the subject.  Her major reference work for learning was Book B.  Editor A has learned what Book B says.  Later she summarizes its contents for Wikipedia.  Meanwhile, Editor R writes an article on a slightly different topic that's also covered by Book B, but Editor R has not actually learned it.  He simply goes through Book B trimming it and paraphrasing in order to avoid any obvious copyright infringement. Editor A is not infringing copyright.  But Editor R is infringing copyright, even though he's using exactly the same source as Editor A.  The difference is that Editor A has "internalised" the knowledge and then expressed it in her own words, whereas Editor R's edits went from the book to the article without passing through his brain in any meaningful sense. If you can think of a better word than "internalise" for the process, then that would be great!— S Marshall  T/C 01:03, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It might not have been easy to spot, but I have included a proposal in a post within your active voice sub-section below. I believe, in other words, that the normal English term is to "familiarize oneself".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:42, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, there have been various requests to concentrate discussion on the copyright section to here? (If not then please move this post to the right place.) Anyway, in this spirit I place a copy here of my proposal for the wording which I have mentioned elsewhere: I also believe that the recent situation where copyright was handled as one among several other policies which need to be kept in mind, was the logically most correct one.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:53, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Current: Be mindful of copyright. Read the sources, understand them, internalize them, then summarize what they say in your own words. When paraphrasing closely or quoting, use in-text attribution.
 * Proposed: Be mindful of copyright: do not copy text from copyrighted sources or paraphrase too closely unless you use in-text attribution. Please read the sources, understand them, familiarize yourself with them, and then give a balanced summary of what the sources say, in your own words.

Can anyone cite a law or legal commentary where this concept of "internalizing" is shown to be relevant to avoiding breach of copyright? I rather suspect not, but I'm willing to be enlightened.--Kotniski (talk) 12:12, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * No, because no one is claiming such a link. I think the reason people like the word is because it helps give a mental image of what they consider a good safe method of editing in a balanced way. Perhaps more importantly, this then helps you imagine bad ways of editing. This is my interpretation of the intention. I do not think people see as part of any legal concept. I am not sure I agree that a policy page needs to try to define such a method, but it is there now, and I don't see an enormous problem with that. (OTOH, the draft proposal you are responding to does not include the word. Can you comment on it?)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems to be going in the right direction, though "familiarize yourself with them" (while better than "internalize" in that people might actually understand it) still seems redundant. And I don't believe that using intext attribution is an automatic get-out clause (just like using "allegedly" won't get you off libel) - I'm sure it all depends on the quantity of text involved, and someone who actually knows the law ought to be informing this discussion.--Kotniski (talk) 12:54, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You're right; attribution does not substitute for permission, whether you're using direct quotes or closely paraphrasing. Per US Gov circular on Fair Use: "Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission." All of the fair use factors are considered in determining if infringement has occurred, and amount & substantiality of the content is one of those. That said, attribution is an important factor in plagiarism. In terms of copyright, where people encourage quotations or close paraphrase, I think it always wise to note that we are limited to brief excerpts. Maybe "When paraphrasing closely or quoting, which must be kept brief, use in-text attribution"? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks (you're just the sort of person I had in mind ;) ). It seems to be that copyright and plagiarism are often confused (WP:Plagiarism seems to confirm that they're not the same thing), and that we're actually confusing them here, the way we've been wording the sentences in this policy. Perhaps we should make it clear that there are two issues we need to be mindful of, and briefly summarize how to avoid both one and the other?--Kotniski (talk) 13:54, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, but these remarks seem to be suggesting we add more to the policy as it currently exists while I was only aiming to work in practical steps, i.e. to make the current text say what it intends, but more clearly. Perhaps after such steps are taken more substantive questions can also be discussed more clearly? In any case, it seems to me that questions of detail about how to cite must be handled with wikilinks, for the simple reason that you can not put everything in one sentence. I think that is often the source of problems in this writing process. Anyway though, here is an attempt to tweak in order to cover these concerns:"*Proposed (2): Be mindful of copyright and plagiarism. For example, use in-text attribution when quoting copyrighted sources or closely paraphrasing them. And do not paraphrase too closely or reproduce direct quotes which are too extensive. Please read the sources, familiarize yourself with them, and then give a balanced summary of what the sources say, in your own words, saying where you got it." Some may prefer the proposal above, because arguably this is starting to try to explain something from another policy. Comments please.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:01, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Proposal #425 - Just add: Be mindful of copyright and plagiarism
 * Leave further explanations to the linked pages. Blueboar (talk) 14:22, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * That works for me, fwiw. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:22, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Best suggestion we've had so far. (I still think it's possible to add a short explanatory sentence, but until someone successfully comes up with one, let's leave it to the dedicated policies to do the explaining.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:09, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * So what are we agreeing upon? One of the these I think:-
 * Current plus additional of Blueboar. This policy requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation. Cite the source clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate. Be mindful of copyright and plagiarism. Read the sources, understand them, internalize them, then summarize what they say in your own words. When paraphrasing closely or quoting, use in-text attribution.
 * Same as above with language tweaks. This policy requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation. Cite the source clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate. Be mindful of copyright and plagiarism. Please read the sources, understand them, familiarize yourself with them, and then give a balanced summary of what the sources say, in your own words.
 * Minimalist. This policy requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation. Cite the source clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate. Be mindful of copyright and plagiarism.
 * I am thinking Kotniski prefers the last?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify, my suggestion was to use the minimalist approach. I see no need to explain copyright and plagiarism in this policy... especially when we can simply point editors to other policy/guideline pages that explain the issues in detail. Blueboar (talk) 17:58, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Much better to go with minimalist. I suggest moving it up into the lead -- as mention of copyright is already there -- and not placing it in the body of this policy.

Phrases such as "When paraphrasing closely or quoting, use in-text attribution." Is not correct because it does not have the necessary exceptions to cover things like internal copies from other Wikipedia pages, etc. -- PBS (talk) 18:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * If Moonriddengirl is happy with a proposal concerning copyright, then you can take it as read that I'm also happy with it. Experience has taught me that she knows what she's talking about.  :)  For the avoidance of doubt this means that I don't object to her proposed trim.— S Marshall  T/C 19:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm also happy with it (as I say, not because the minimalist approach is necessarily the best possible, but because no-one has yet come up with any other wording that sheds more light than darkness on the issue).--Kotniski (talk) 10:12, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not seeing objections to implementing this, yet it is being claimed in edit summaries that there are some. Can we have them please? Or if there aren't any, let's do this and move on.--Kotniski (talk) 07:52, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * This is becoming absurd, K. People object. You continue reverting as though they haven't. Then you return here to say there are no objections.


 * Once again, we have to make clear to people that in-text attribution is needed for quotations and close-paraphrasing, in case they inadvertently plagiarize, as has happened. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 07:57, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You seem to misread the situation - you reverted, not me; you claimed there were objections when there weren't (not me that there weren't when there were). But thanks for providing the objection at least now - however you didn't need to revert the whole thing - indeed, since your concern is plagiarism, it seems a bit strange that you remove the link to plagiarism, and restore the discredited wording that mixes up plagiarism with copyright.--Kotniski (talk) 08:11, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * SV text on Wikiedpia is copyrighted. If text is copied from one page on Wikipedia to another it has to be acknowledged by the mechanisms laid out in Copying within Wikipedia in-text attribution is not required. The same applies if instead of copying the text of another Wikipedia page is closely paraphrased. There are other similar exceptions to the rule that you have reinstated, this is why a simple sentence proposed by Blueboar agreed by everyone else in this section was implemented by me today. You had been notified of this conversation see blow ("SV please see and reply there"), but had not added an opinion to this section. (1) Why should we not implement the BB sentence until there is agreement on a more expansive version. (2) How do you propose that the sentences that you wish to keep can be altered to meet the objections that have been raised to them? -- PBS (talk) 08:41, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * You want to write this policy with reference to public-domain texts, which perhaps you use a lot, or copying from one WP article to another. But these are special cases. This policy is aimed at content contributors adding material based on external sources, which is most of what Wikipedians do. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 08:43, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Still there are multiple specific problems with the sentences that you've restored (not just the nonsense about "internalizing", but also the misleading implication - though slighly improved when the link to WP:Plagiarism is included - that adding intext citations is a way of avoiding copyvios). Can you write this sentence in a way that says accurately what it's trying to say, and clearly enough that it becomes more useful than just the links to WP:Copyright and Plagiarism? Until someone can do that, I don't think we have a better alternative than the minimalist approach we all agreed on yesterday.--Kotniski (talk) 08:54, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I can't see what's wrong with what's there. When quoting and closely paraphrasing use in-text attribution. Be mindful of copyright and plagiarism. Where is the problem with it? Yes, I know that copyright and plagiarism are complicated, but people can look at those pages for more detailed information. This policy is for regular content contributors, who aren't copying large tracts of text, aren't adding PD material, aren't copying from other WP articles, but who nevertheless need advice about when in-text attribution is needed. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 09:07, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I do not understand this approach of trying to define what the most common types of editing are, and then trying to write policy pages so that they are only clear for people making those types of edits (as also in the below discussion where you insist on treating Harvard references as irrelevant, because not the "majority"). Why not just make sure we choose words which cover as many cases as possible?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:46, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * This is not just an issue of internal copying but also with all sorts of copyleft and US federal sources as well as public domain. Further as you may remember from previous conversations on this issue there is also questions about whether in-line attribution is a style issue rather than a verification issue and whether very close paraphrasing of sources should be discouraged in favour of quotes. But lets not look at the style issue until after we have agreed on wording that covers all the classes of copyrighted types used as reliable sources in articles.

Policy contradiction?

 * SV one can not write policy in such a way that one policy contradicts another. If we do that we cause no end of problems for editors on article talk pages. At the moment you are suggesting that this policy by omission contradicts copyright policy and the plagiarism guideline, while the minimalist approach suggested by Blueboar complements the copyright policy and the plagiarism guideline. -- PBS (talk) 09:13, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Which policy is contradicted by "use in-text attribution when quoting and closely paraphrasing"? SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 05:47, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Whichever policy requires editors not to be so stupid as to mindlessly repeat "According to the text I copied and/or from {another Wikipedia article|a US federal website|one of thousands of public domain sources}..." into tens of thousands of articles, if not hundreds of thousands of articles.
 * Editors do not, and do not need to, provide in-text attribution for absolutely every single quotation or paraphrase. It's more complicated than that.  We should not provide an overly simplistic absolute rule for a complex issue.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:13, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * And which policy is that? We can't write a core content policy for the small number of editors who still copy and paste public domain texts. But if you want, we can add "see X for exceptions" (whichever policy or guideline X is). SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 06:49, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * To answer SV's question "And which policy is that?"


 * It's policy zero, SlimVirgin. You'll find part of it at WP:IAR. You'll find another part at WP:NOTBURO.  And you'll find more of it at WP:POLICY, which says that policies need to be supported by the community's consensus, as demonstrated by actual practice, not by the repeated assertions of a single editor.


 * And it's the existence of support by (apparently) a single editor that I would like to focus this conversation on: Does anyone except SlimVirgin actually support the current wording about every single quotation and paraphrasing—including, in the current language, all public domain and re-used text from other Wikipedia pages—requiring in-text attribution?


 * If not, I propose that we follow the directions in another major policy, WP:CONSENSUS, and fix the text to say what we agree on, rather than what a single editor says she wants. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:24, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Public domain text is not the issue as it is not under copyright. As for the exceptions BB's text ("Cite the source clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate. Be mindful of copyright and plagiarism.") does that. -- PBS (talk) 07:25, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * No, Philip, it shouldn't, but as actually written, it does include public domain text. The current words are "When paraphrasing closely or quoting, use in-text attribution."  It does not say "When paraphrasing closely or quoting copyrighted material, use in-text attribution."  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:24, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Philip, can you tell me, please, which policy is contradicted by "use in-text attribution when quoting and closely paraphrasing"? SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 07:32, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It contradicts actual accepted practice, which is far more serious than contradicting another policy - but if we want to get lawyerish, I think it contradicts NPOV, which says "Avoid presenting uncontested assertions as mere opinion. Uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertions made by reliable sources should normally be directly stated in Wikipedia's voice. Unless a topic specifically deals with a disagreement over otherwise uncontested information, there is no need for specific attribution for the assertion." So excessive in-text attribution is problematic from a policy point of view, as it can lead to false implications of doubt.--Kotniski (talk) 09:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * SV it is not that it contradicts policy but that it is creating a policy to which there are known exceptions for which it tenders no exception. For example if an editor copies and then edits from one Wikipdia page to another, the text is closely paraphrasing the original, we do not "use in-text attribution" for such paraphrasing. But the wording you are suggesting would make such copies and edits a breach of this policy unless in-text attribution is included. If an editor copies text from a suitable licensed copyleft source such as Citizendium, then they do not need to quote it. This wording seems to imply that once copied, if it is edited in the normal Wikipedia way so that it is no longer a copy but a paraphrased version then it should suddenly obtain a Citizendium attribution in-line. Rather than go into these complications in this policy (which is about verification) a simple statement proposed by BB of "Be mindful of copyright and plagiarism" covers this area, and the copyright policy and its guidelines do not prohibit the use of in-line citations which is the primary remit for this policy. -- PBS (talk) 18:42, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Philip, you wrote above: "SV one can not write policy in such a way that one policy contradicts another." So my question is—which policy were you referring to. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 01:13, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * As I understand it, the issue here is when random quotations show up in Wikipedia articles. I often find (and sadly sometimes even write) things like:
 * "The Beatles were the 'most popular rock band' of the 1960s and 1970s. The four members of the group were 'known for their comedic personas', and later for their 'attraction to Eastern religions'."
 * If nothing else, that's bad writing. Who is saying these things? If the source is notable, he/she should be attributed in-text - that's why we're quoting him/her in the first place. If not, then we should probably be paraphrasing him/her instead. Jayjg (talk) 00:07, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It's very poor writing suddenly "to add quotation marks" to a sentence, without "telling your reader" why you're "adding" them, or who the words are being "attributed to," if anyone. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 01:16, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * SV, Jayjg, I agree these types of quotes would be a problem, but I would question Jayjg's understanding that this is what PBS is discussing. This appears to be talking past the real point. He gives quite a different type of example above, for example copying between Wikipedia articles. I find his question interesting and worth addressing. I think he is correct that no one cites Wikipedia when doing this, right?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:40, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * But copying text from one WP article to another has nothing to do with sourcing. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 07:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Well obviously this is not clear to everyone, including fairly experienced editors. Personally I can not follow the logic of this remark. Can you explain how people, including newbies, can see this from the specific existing wording which was originally under discussion (or any other wording anywhere)? And if not, how can people understand wording which uses an unwritten definition of sourcing that excludes some types of sourcing as "not sourcing"? Thank you for coming back to the point which was raised. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:01, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't follow what you're saying, or what this thread is about. The point is that in-text attribution is needed for quotations and close paraphrasing. It always has been, because we don't want editors writing sentences "like this" where they just "randomly add" quotation marks "without explaining" why, or who originally wrote those words. That's why it's in this policy and in the MoS. Best practice apart, editors have in the past been accused of plagiarism for closely paraphrasing without in-text attribution, so making clear that this is needed keeps people safe.


 * Everywhere else in the publishing world if you quote or closely paraphase someone's words it's normal to attribute them in the text. It's only on WP that someone would argue against doing this, for reasons that remain unclear. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 08:14, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * If you do not understand the point being made then why are you making such negative responses about it? Anyway, the question which has been raised is whether the words "use in-text attribution when quoting and closely paraphrasing" really apply to, for example, cases of copying from one Wikipedia article to another (i.e. where sourcing is done within wikipedia)? What do you think about that clear and specific question?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:51, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm "making such negative responses about it" because the page is full of posts that are hard to understand−even hard to parse−and that have nothing to do with reliable sourcing. I can only repeat: this page is about sourcing: when to cite and attribute, and what kinds of sources count as reliable. Copying words between Wikipedia articles has nothing to do with any of that, and I don't know why it's even being mentioned. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 09:07, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It is a very strange argument you are making. A group of people is having a discussion, and a person enters repeatedly and aggressively, and accusing them of all kinds of things. When asked how they justify this, this person says, over and over, that they do not actually understand the discussions. So the question of WHY you think you should make strong interventions, accusations of bad faith etc, is still open. Why not stay out of discussions you do not understand, or at least limit yourself to questions about what people mean rather than writing half the time as if you do know what is intended (and that it is something bad), and half the time as if you do not?
 * Back to the subject: paraphrasing or copying "material" (i.e. words) from anywhere is sourcing by any normal sense of the verb "source", and it is a type of sourcing done frequently on Wikipedia. There is even a rule about the fact that we should link to the source article when we do this. To repeat a principle that needs to be repeated more often: simply declaring a new internal Wikipedia meaning to words which exist already simply can not be a good way to write policy pages. It is a foundation policy that anyone can edit, and esoteric rule-writing would obviously be against this principle.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:47, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) It seems we're getting sidetracked here by an issue that isn't really part of the scope of this policy - it's just a caveat that needs to be mentioned in passing. "Copying pages between WP articles" and the other things are being mentioned not because they have anything to do with the topic of this policy, but because they have something to do with the topic of the caveat - they provide example situations which demonstrate that the caveat as currently worded is not right. If you say something in a policy, it isn't enough that it be applicable just in the cases you happen to have in mind, it must be applicable in (pretty much) all cases, unless you make the exceptions explicitly.--Kotniski (talk) 10:27, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes that was clearly the point being made, and it has been deflected into a sidetrack.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)


 * To reiterate WhatamIdoing's question "Does anyone except SlimVirgin actually support the current wording...?" -- PBS (talk) 10:11, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do. Jayjg (talk) 00:37, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What about the exceptions that have been raised such as paraphrasing internal copies of another Wikipedia page? -- PBS (talk) 01:59, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Jayjg, for speaking up. Let me give you an example from the article Bride.  There's a sentence that says, The cake-eating went out of fashion, but the wheat ears survived.  I eventually discovered that it's from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (and as a result, it now sports an in-line citation, because I didn't want to have to re-re-re-discover that).  This sentence is a direct quotation of public-domain material; actually, rather a lot of the article was either direct quotations from 1911EB or a (very) close paraphrase of it.
 * The policy as currently written demands an WP:INTEXT attribution for this public-domain sentence, e.g., According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, the cake-eating went out of fashion, but the wheat ears survived.
 * Do you think the article would be improved by adding the phrase "According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica" throughout it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:50, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It should be attributed to the author of the article, the person who wrote the words.


 * Please stop trying to make this policy reflect the lowest common denoninator to accommodate people who copy material word for word from PD texts. I hope it isn't still happening; if it is, this policy isn't written for them. This policy is for people writing articles in their own words using reliable sources, and if they don't add in-text attribution when quoting or closely paraphrasing they risk looking silly and getting into trouble. We're not going to expose people to that because of you and Philip Baird Shearer. There's no reason Wikipedians should adopt lower writing and research standards than exist anywhere else in the publishing world. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 11:30, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * But it keeps being explained that it's more complicated than that. We closely paraphrase all the time, but don't use intext attribution all the time - it depends on the amount of text involved and so on. The problems don't only concern people who copy material from PD texts (but the policy is of course written for them just as much as anyone else - if we don't make exceptions, the implication is that what we say applies to everyone).--Kotniski (talk) 11:43, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Can anyone with any further objections to removing this wording, please speak up? We can't not do something just because there were objections - are there any objections now? If so, what? (Just saying "I support it" doesn't mean anything - we need answers to the multiple reasons that have been supplied for removing it.) --Kotniski (talk) 11:18, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It has been explained multiple times, Kotniski. It isn't fair to make people keep repeating themselves, and when they don't want to, pretend there are no objections. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 11:21, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * What is decidedly unfair (and extremely disruptive) is to keep reverting consensus decisions without even being able to explain why your preferred wording is better. That "there were objections" is no argument at all, if any objections that there were have been answered, and everyone in the discussion except one person agrees on the right course of action. All this has also been explained multiple times by multiple people - to put in bold capitals in case it helps: YOU, SLIMVIRGIN, DO NOT OWN THIS PAGE. --Kotniski (talk) 11:29, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * And this is what I meant earlier by your pointless male aggression. No native English speaker would say that that sentence contradicts itself or any other policy. It's absurd that we have to explain the ordinary use of ordinary words to people wanting to edit a core content policy of an encyclopaedia. You couldn't make it up. :) SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 11:33, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I've already shown you how it contradicts NPOV. Several people have shown you how it contradicts actual practice on Wikipedia and actual publishing standards, and complained about you trying unilaterally to block change. As far as I know, we are all native English speakers, and not all of us are male. And even if there was nothing wrong with the sentence (in fact two sentences), they still constitute an excessive off-topic digression for the section where they appear.--Kotniski (talk) 11:39, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * You haven't shown that it contradicts NPOV, or anything else. No one has shown that it contradicts actual practice on WP (it doesn't contradict best practice), or publishing standards.


 * If you copy someone's words, or almost copy them, you give them credit in the sentence. Every professional writer does this. Please explain why WP has to be an exception. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 12:09, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * No, you don't, not if it's just one sentence. It's much more complicated than you seem to think. And please read the arguments above for how this advice contradicts various things. --Kotniski (talk) 12:33, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you a professional writer, or do you have specific examples from professional writers in mind? If you're making an extraordinary claim like this -- that it's standard for professional writers to steal words without attribution, or to "place" certain words "within quotation marks" without explaining "why," or who the author "is" -- please give examples.


 * You've been asked this before, so please do offer examples this time, to show that it's not only three people on this talk page who believe it's okay to do this. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 12:38, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * This debate is not over giving adequate attrition. There is no question of not giving attribution for the text taken from PD or copyleft, how to do it is covered in WP:PLAGARISM -- and is handled using footnotes and explicit attribution (but not necessarily in line attribution) -- so no one is advocating "stealing". Your "professional" comments are in my opinion not relevant because you are not comparing like with like. The closet I can think of is when a professional copies something they have written before in which case they may not cite themselves. -- PBS (talk) 10:14, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, look at (totally random example) La Toya Jackson, the sentence supported by footnote 56. Bread-and-butter Wikipedia sentence, millions other such examples exist - a short sentence with words taken almost exactly from the source. In-text attribution? Of course not - that would look silly, and breach NPOV by implying we have some doubt about the fact being reported. Plagiarism? Copyright breach? Again, of course not - the copied text is far too short to constitute either of those things.--Kotniski (talk) 12:48, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm requesting examples or sources from outside WP, showing that professional writers use other people's words (quotations or very close paraphrasing) without attribution, and that this is an accepted practice.  SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 14:58, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, of course they do, in just the same way as WP does in the situations typified by the example I just gave. I don't have any specific non-WP examples to hand, but in any case, our job here is to document Wikipedia's practices (in fact this matter is outside the scope of this page anyway). --Kotniski (talk) 15:07, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I've never seen it or heard of it, or seen any of WP's professional writers, editors, or researchers do it or recommend it. So you'll have to provide some examples or sources if you want to say it's accepted practice. You've been asked this several times.


 * There's no reason to ask Wikipedians to do something not done anywhere else, unless there's a specific reason to; no reason to request bad writing and poor research standards, and pretend they're normal. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 15:14, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I've just provided one example (short sentence); others have provided examples from the other extreme (articles based largely on a PD source, where we don't do in-text attribution in every sentence). Are you saying that omitting in-text attribution in these examples is not accepted Wikipedia practice? Surely you know as well as I do that we could find hundreds and thousands of such examples if we wanted to spend time looking; what are you trying to achieve by claiming practice is different from what we both know it to be?--Kotniski (talk) 15:33, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * As you know, I asked for an example of a professional writer doing it, or a professional source indicating that it was standard, or a style guide recommending it -- or any reliable source talking about it, apart from three people on this page saying it's okay. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 15:38, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * So can you provide a source that says it's not OK? If you can, Wikipedia is going to have to be turned upside down.--Kotniski (talk) 15:51, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * That's like requesting a source confirming that 2 and 2 doesn't equal 5. No professional writer does this; it's silly writing, bad writing, and there's never a need for it. The onus is on you to provide a source showing that someone other than three people on this page recommends it. And I mean someone who knows what they're talking about.


 * K, you're displaying the worst case of IDHT ever seen on this page. I don't just mean with this issue, but going on now for months with every issue you raise. I can't keep responding to it, but don't assume that failure to respond in the same way 50 times equals silence, and that silence equals consent. I know, you'll call this another ridiculous personal attack. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 15:59, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well yes, particularly since this issue isn't even one that I originally raised, and that it seems to be you who refuse to listen to other people's arguments. You're the one saying that entirely standard Wikipedia practice is wrong; you want to include the instruction, you find a source for it. Everyone else wants to omit it; you don't need a source to say nothing (particularly when it's not within the scope of the page).--Kotniski (talk) 16:14, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Why the policy-mandated solution is unworkable
 * About SlimVirgin's assertion at 11:30 4 April, "It should be attributed to the author of the article, the person who wrote the words."
 * Nobody knows the name of the author. All we actually know is that it was published in the 1911 EB (see 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bride).  So we can't say "According to ".  The only way to attribute this public-domain sentence is to say "According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica".  I, and apparently everyone who has responded so far, except for SlimVirgin and probably Jayjg, think that would be unnecessary and undesirable—in short, that spamming the phrase "According to the 1911 EB" into half a dozen paragraphs would harm Wikipedia.


 * How we know that this contradicts actual practice
 * There are tens of thousands of instances of this in the English Wikipedia. There are at least fourteen thousand Wikipedia articles that are tagged as incorporating text just from the 1911EB.  So far as I can tell, exactly three of them include the words "According to Encyclopedia Britannica" (leading into huge block quotations), but my search might be incomplete; perhaps the number rises to ten or twenty.  That's about one out of all 250 Wikipedia articles is currently in violation of SV's policy requirement just over the one source, and only one out of every five thousand that drew from this source complies with it.
 * We have literally thousands of articles with similar situations involving US federal sources and other non-copyrighted sources. I've seen whole pages that are almost nothing except US federal sources, and I've never seen even one that leads into each paragraph or section with "According the US federal government..."
 * This is not an unusual situation that the policy should ignore on the grounds that it affects so few articles. We're talking about tens of thousands of articles here.  The community practice has been firmly established as not supplying INTEXT attribution for non-copyrighted sources since the very earliest days.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:10, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree intext attributions are for the most part up to the discretion of the author and nothing to be mandated by policy. If the author thinks it is of importance who stated it then he may use an intext attribution. However if he thinks just the (reliable) statement/content is important and it doesn't matter who said it then he may ommit an intext attribution. So in the Britannica example if the author thinks only the (reliable) information matters for readers and not that it stems from britannica, then there is no reason for him to use an intext attribution. We don't have to take our readers for idiots! They are capable of reading footnotes, i.e. if the attribution matters to a particular reader he can always get it from the footnotes anyway. Please note that this policy should stick to the bare minimum that's required for writing (decent) encyclopedic (and verifiable) articles. Personal preferences (in particular those not making much difference in practice) do not belong in (core) policies.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:43, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Then open a neutrally worded RfC, and provide sources showing what you want to do is standard practice. And stop the personal attacks in edit summaries. SlimVirgin  TALK| CONTRIBS 16:11, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't see any personal attack. The two points that I make are that we cannot do what you want done in this instance, and that we do not do what you want done in this situation.  None of that is insulting, so far as I can tell.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:14, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * There's no need to refer to this as "what SV wants" in edit summaries, is there? Especially when it's not SV that's trying to change the policy. As for the claim that we cannot do what policy states we should do, your argument is essentially that because thousands of articles violate policy, therefore we cannot follow policy. Well, Wikipedia has 3.5 million articles, of which only a few thousand are FAs. I have no doubt that at least 3.4 million of those articles violate policy in some way. In fact, I have no doubt that at least 3 million of them violate WP:V in at least one instance. So, is the solution to weaken or remove WP:V because "the community practice has been firmly established as not attributing all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source using an inline citation"? The solution to articles that violate policy is to fix the articles, not dumb down the policy. The goal is to have a high quality, well-written, trusted source of information, not "bunch of webpages no better or worse than any other random bunch of webpages". Jayjg (talk) 03:30, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You seem to miss the point - we are not talking here about the main idea of WP:V - that we aim to cite stuff - we are talking about a side issue that has worked its way into WP:V, but is really (or is claimed to be) one of the aspects of avoiding plagiarism, namely that of INTEXT (not inline) attribution. It is being claimed (I don't know on what basis, since SV seems to think in this case it's the side that wants to remove the information that has to supply a source that disproves it, which is fairly nonsensical) that whenever we quote or closely paraphrase a source, we have to give an INTEXT attribution for it - "the 1911 Britannica says..." etc. ACTUALLY IN THE TEXT (not in a footnote). Which might be quite good advice in a lot of situations, but as we've demonstrated ad nauseam, it isn't a universal rule. We could of course modify the wording to show that the advice is not without exception - but previous discussion led to the conclusion that it would be better just to leave the advice out - it isn't on topic for this policy, and even as it is (i.e. even without the extra words that would be necessary to make the wording satisfactory) takes up more than half of the text of the policy section into which it has been randomly and off-topicly inserted. If people think that it's important for this piece of advice to be here (assuming it can be worded in a satisfactory way), can we at least agree that it should be in a different section or separate section from the one it's currently in?--Kotniski (talk) 07:34, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Nothing is a "universal rule" on Wikipedia, though; all policy can really do is attempt to mandate best practice under most circumstances. Jayjg (talk) 03:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Jayjg the sentences we are talking about were put into the policy late last year. The removal of the addition has been under discussion since it was added (see Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 44). So to suggest that the pages of text that have been incorporated into Wikipedia are breach of policy is not credible as policy is meant to reflect consensus -- which it clearly does not, and in this case we have one editor revering to keep the lines in the text, and it is text that she herself has stated "I wasn't keen on its inclusion, but at least it's not in the lead, and it's not being added to a sentence in a way that would make the sentence false. (SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 19:53, 14 March 2011 (UTC))". It is not up to those who wish to remove it that need to show consensus but those who wish to keep the wording that need to do so. Although others have raised the issue of PD sources -- how to attribute them is covered in WP:Plagiarism, and does not include in-text attribution. I have raised the issue of copying within Wikiepdia (because it is a test example of how we handle compatible copyleft text). The wording under dispute demands that in-text attribution is given for text copied from one Wikipedia page to another with small changes to the text to fit the new page making it close paraphrasing. Do you think that in-text attribution should be done for text copied from one Wikipeida page to another? -- PBS (talk) 09:02, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I really don't think the wording in question demands that material copied from one WP article to another be attributed in-text. I don't think many other people would interpret it that way either, even if a small group on this Talk: page have convinced themselves that it could possibly mandate that. Jayjg (talk) 03:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Jayjg, do you agree that the sentence as currently written requires an in-text attribution along the lines of "According to the Encyclopedia Britannica" in the example I give from Bride? And (separately) do you think that adding that phrase half a dozen times to that article would improve the article?
 * NB that we're talking about a real sentence in a real article. This is not hypothetical, and I'm not looking for hair-splitting.  In your opinion, should this specific sentence (and others like it) contain both an in-text attribution and an inline citation to the source, or is an inline citation good enough?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:58, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Separate section on copyright/plagiarism
I hope this will have been resolved by my making this into a separate section (so that it appears in an appropriate place in the policy, and can thus be addressed using more words to clarify what we mean and why we're saying it here).--Kotniski (talk) 11:25, 8 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I have edited the section and removed what I think is an extension on the copyright policy and plagiarism guideline.


 * --PBS (talk) 12:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought that by using "usual" and "normally" we would avoid the false implication that policy requires these things to be done in every case, while still giving people these pieces of useful practical advice. But I don't insist.--Kotniski (talk) 12:10, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * (Edit clash) It is debatable if "your own words" are best, for example it implies that quotes are not desirable. With biographies on minor characters that have a paucity of sources, the wording of the DNB is difficult to improve upon (as is seen by the ODNB copying some biographies rather than rewriting them). In-text attribution is being recommended SV primarily for style reasons (and so in my opinion should be in a guideline not a policy page), it is the citation that fulfils the verification requirement whether or not there is in-text attribution. So the phrase "ensure that the source is clearly cited (normally by using in-text attribution)" is clearly wrong, as it is an in-line citation that clearly cites source not the in-text attribution. -- PBS (talk) 12:18, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I would say that "usually use your own words" is good practical advice for a Wikipedian ("usually" implies not always). I'm not sure about this in-text thing - WP:Plagiarism also puts a lot of emphasis on it, though I'm not sure where it comes from, or if it's really of key importance for avoiding plagiarism.--Kotniski (talk) 12:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Predomantly like here from SV at about the same time as she introduced it here. The difference is that WP:Plagiarism covers more than just copyrighted text and is agreed that if a PD or compatible copyleft source can be adequately attributed in other ways which no longer makes it plagiarised text. (See WP:Plagiarism and also Category:Attribution templates) -- PBS (talk) 13:23, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * In some cases, for example definitions of technical terms, all the major sources agree on the exact wording of the definition, or use definitions that are functionally identical. In these cases it would be appropriate to quote one of the sources and provide an inline citation, but it would be better to not use in-text attribution, because that would imply that the definition used by the cited source differed from the definition used by others in the field. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:58, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a good example. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The current version, which leaves the stylistic benefits of in-text attribution to some other advice page, works for me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

random break
For one thing, the side issue about copyright and plagiarism now takes up more than half the text in a subsection which is actually supposed to be about a different and very essential issue for this policy. Perhaps someone with the knowledge and skills can write a separate section on copyright/plagiarism, perhaps down towards the end of the page, then this section could link to that one. (It has to be admitted that WP:COPY and WP:Plagiarism are themselves far from clear expositions of their subject matter, so it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing to summarize them here; but we shouldn't do so in a way that gets in the way of communicating this policy's subject matter, or in a way that risks misleading editors, even if only a minority of them.)--Kotniski (talk) 09:22, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, it does now look odd. I think the logical place for such a separate section was the place where it was recently removed from? But I think there is a fair level of support for the idea that even then it mainly just needs to give clear links to other appropriate policy or guideline pages?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:46, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Could we satisfy both sides by placing the "internalize" sentence that Kotniski hates so much in a footnote rather than in the main body of the policy? I'd also be happy with a clarification of "internalize" in the footnote.— S Marshall  T/C 11:04, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I have no big problem with internalize, but if this word keeps getting in the way of discussion I have proposed several times that it can be swapped with "familiarize yourself with". Seems justifiable because indeed no one can argue that internalize is clear and standard English. On the other hand, it is true that logically this whole sentence is misplaced within a sub-section entitled "Anything challenged or likely to be challenged".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec, replying to SM) That's not the only issue (and it's only the "and internalize them" bit that I hate; the rest of the sentence I just mildly dislike ;) ). As regards Andrew's comment, since the place it was recently removed from was the "reliable sources and other principles" part, and that part has now been moved to the end of the policy, putting it there would be quite compatible with my suggestion to put it near the end. But more to the point, someone has to write it - and since these are serious issues, that someone has to have that rare quality of actually knowing what they're talking about.--Kotniski (talk) 11:21, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As long as there's a clear mention of copyright in the lead, personally I can stomach moving the section under discussion to the end. As for "knowing what they're talking about"--well, I'm not a copyright lawyer and I don't know anything about US law, which is about as relevant to me as the law of Timbuktoo, but equally, I'm semi-professionally interested in copyright and frankly, it isn't rocket science. Copyright's in the expression of an idea. If you learn something, know it, and then explain it to someone else in your own words then you're not violating copyright.  You're not even violating the copyright of the textbooks you learned it from, because the knowledge you're imparting is yours.  It's the expression that counts. If you don't know something, but you explain it anyway by copy/pasting it from a textbook, then you've violated copyright.  This counts even if you change the order of the clauses, or use alternative phrasing, or other disguising methods, because in this event your expression of the idea is "derivative" (legal term) of someone else's. This means that the optimal way to avoid breaching copyright is to learn your subject matter properly and thoroughly, and then explain it in your own words. I find that Andrew Lancaster's suggestion of "Familiarise yourself with" doesn't quite encapsulate what I was trying to express with that sentence because it doesn't seem as strong to me as words like "learn" or "internalise".  It seems like watering down what's actually a clear distinction: imparting your own knowledge in your own words -vs- imparting someone else's knowledge in phrasing that, if you don't personally have the knowledge you're sharing, must necessarily be derivative of theirs. Make sense?  And does anyone have a better wording suggestion?— S Marshall  T/C 12:55, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Better than what? Do you have a concrete proposal? But I'm sure it's not necessary to learn (or "internalize") something in order to be able to express it without breach of copyright. I don't even need to understand it, come to that. All that matters is that I change it "enough", or use "not too much" of it all at once. And that's how Wikipedia works, a lot of the time - in fact people are encouraged to add specific facts that they can back up with specific statements in a source, rather than read up on a subject and then reproduce the resulting knowledge from their heads (which is almost certain to involve a certain degree of original research, since the brain will have organized the knowledge in new ways). I'm not saying it's a bad thing for people to write from their own knowledge, but we shouldn't imply it's the only way of doing things (and avoidance of copyright is not the main benefit).--Kotniski (talk) 13:48, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * S Marshall I see two problems with your response which need to be separated:-
 * word choice. I kind of like the word too, but let's admit that "internalize" is not a word most people have a clear definition of in their mind. It will conjure up different pictures for different people. That seems a bad thing for such a policy wording regarding a point touching on legal issues. It does not seem worth defending too hard?
 * what is the aim? I think this is the bigger issue. What you describe is kind of how I also understood what the aim must be of these sentences: you are trying to define one possible "best practice". But (a) it is not a best practice which has been defined as far as I can see based on any detailed analyses of copyright law or plagiarism norms, (it just seems to be an idea about hot to try to avoid copyright problems most of the time, maybe) and (b) nor is it really the only way to work on Wikipedia, which is what it currently seems to be claiming to be.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:47, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I am still having difficulty seeing how all these issues fit within the scope of WP:V. I agree that copyright and plagiarism are important issues... but discussing them on this page (ie in the WP:V policy) seems like instruction creep. Blueboar (talk) 14:23, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it's because we're telling people on this page "follow the sources, follow the sources", so it's appropriate to add the caveat that they can sometimes get into trouble by "following the sources". (But I agree it's not essential to spell out any of the details here.) --Kotniski (talk) 14:31, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * um.... I don't think this policy keeps telling people to "follow the sources". WP:V tells people "If you want to say something, you must cite it".  "Follow the sources" is more within the scope of WP:NOR. Blueboar (talk) 15:49, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think Kotniski is correct. OR and V overlap and taken together they tell us one big thing, which is, to put it another way, to avoid being original. (I think this is what Kotniski means by following the sources.) And my feeling is that there is a movement which is going to make sure they get more and more simple and extreme about this. To avoid being original is the first commandment, and if an editor can not understand anything else then at least an editor needs to understand that they are here to summarize stuff from published sources. Obviously this continuous push, does have to raise concerns about the fact that already WP does not really handle the subjects of copyright and plagiarism in any very clear and correct way. (Not making these things the highest priority is perhaps defensible in itself, but that is another question. WP says copyright is "serious" policy.) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:40, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * NOR contains this standalone paragraph in the lede:

Despite the need to attribute content to reliable sources, you must not plagiarize them. Articles should be written in your own words while substantially retaining the meaning of the source material.

How about if we use this wording for the time being? It has the advantages of brevity, simplicity and consistency with other policies.— S Marshall T/C 16:36, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It would imply we can't make direct use of public domain or fair use material at all, even if we attribute it.--Kotniski (talk) 16:44, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I think this is an example of the problem WP is riddled with, which is that it seems to have developed a traditional and internal definitions plagiarism and copyright which do not correspond with reality. Neither plagiarism nor copyright can always be avoided by "internalizing" and using "your own words". That would only be advice to someone trying not to get caught! What's more, using the exact words of a source is often perfectly OK in terms of copyright and plagiarism, as long as it is attributed and used in the correct way. Such things need to be explained better, and wrong information needs to start being removed from WP policy pages where it is leading to the development of wrong ideas.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:46, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, now I think some more, let's clarify and slightly modify that proposal.

Notice the omission of the contentious "internalise" phrase for the moment. ("Understand" and "familiarise yourself with" is redundant.) How's this?— S Marshall T/C 16:54, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I still don't think it addresses all the issues. Good to move the "read the sources..." sentence to a footnote, but it would now be redundant altogether (the only essential point of the sentence, "in your own words", is now covered elsewhere). But we are again mixing up plagiarism and copyright, making copyright an Easter-egg link in one place, failing to say that to some extent we can use the same words as sources do.--Kotniski (talk) 17:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Plagiarism and copyright are actually two different things.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:36, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * While they're distinct, I think it makes sense to mention them together on this page.— S Marshall T/C 23:14, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree - but explicitly, not by hiding one of them under an Easter-egg link so as to make it look like you're talking about one when you're actually talking about the other.--Kotniski (talk) 09:59, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Reflects the MoS, CITE, PLAGIARISM
SlimVirgin recently made an edit here (Revision as of 19:39, 10 April 2011) in which she wrote: "pls open RfC if you want to remove this; it reflects the MoS, CITE, PLAGIARISM, and best practice; we can't contradict those here".

SV to the best of my recollection you introduced the wording about inline text-attribution for Cite and Plagarism, and I assume to the MOS. Is my recollection incorrect? If so, did you open a RfC to introduce any of the wording?

I ask because you justification on the talk page of Plagiarism for addition of in-text attribution into Plagiarism for close attribution was given in the section Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism/Archive 6. In that you started the section with the comment "Hi Moonriddengirl, what's your objection to this? It's standard practice per V to use in-text attribution without quotation marks. SlimVirgin 15:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)"


 * So it seem that thanks to its introduction into multiple pages all at about the same time with justification to use it based on its usage on other pages (It reminds me of the song old WWI song "We're here because we're here, because we're here, because we're here ...). The full implication of the wording not been fully considered in any one place and there is no broad consensus for in-text attribution being used to allow close paraphrasing, and if it is to be alloed whether it should be mandated for quotes, and for inclusion of exceptions to cover copyleft and PD texts. -- PBS (talk) 11:07, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Yet at that time what V said was "Where there is disagreement between sources, their views should be clearly attributed in the text: 'John Smith argues that X, while Paul Jones maintains that Y,' followed by an inline citation." and "Where a news organization publishes an opinion piece, the writer should be attributed (e.g. 'Jane Smith has suggested...'). Posts left by readers may never be used as sources." This is very different from a general usage that you are currently proposing should be in the policy. As far as I can tell the wording you are currently supporting has its seed in this edit made on 20 December 2010. To the best of my knowledge (as the edit shows), before that date there was a prohibition in V to close paraphrasing (instead of quoting).


 * BTW it is not at all clear that there is a consensus for the use of close paraphrasing in Wikipedia articles see this comment by "I don't believe quotes are the only way to distinguish copied material, but your comment 'how is a reader to know if what I have just written is a summary of what you said or a direct quote unless quotes are marked as such?' is, for me, the key point. EyeSerenetalk 11:41, 14 January 2011 (UTC)" (Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism).

As a number of exceptions have been demonstrated here to using in-text attribution for all material used in Wikipedia artices, it would seem to me to be time to qualify the wording in the guidelines to incorporate those exceptions (although the wording in MOS#Attribution seems to be less detailed than in the other two and in its current form I don't think it needs qualifying). I would suggest the place to start in in the Plagiarism guideline, as the exceptions are already in that guideline and fixing it mainly involved moving the text currently in the lead into a section to do with standard copyright. In that -- PBS (talk) 10:49, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It certainly seems to me these matters need to be cleared up, and that this page is not the place for the detailed discussion. If there is to be some kind of ban on close paraphrasing, it would need to be very carefully worded, since the practice of paraphrasing (with varying degrees of closeness) is pretty much Wikipedia's bread-and-butter. --Kotniski (talk) 12:49, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is the place to discuss. it either I think that the place to discuss it is in Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism as clearly close paraphrasing from copyleft sources and PD sources have to be handled differently from copyright sources. The sentence that as it was [changed back on 20 December 2010: "when quoting someone else's words or closely paraphrasing them, be sure that copyright is not violated, and that the source is clearly cited." which seems to me to cover the issue adequately for this policy. Whether that involves using in-text attribution or some other method or combination of methods, can be delegated to guidelines. -- [[User:Philip Baird Shearer|PBS]] (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:21, 11 April 2011 (UTC).