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The main issue with the current wording of the sentence and the better wording of this proposal, with the use of the word "assertions", is that the "iconic" statement seems to be saying that Wikipedia is fine with publishing lies, just so long as they are lies obtained from other people. I would hope that this is certainly not true. There is a reason why the term '''Wikiality''' was ever created in the first place, even if it was meant as a joke. We need to have an explanatory first sentence that explains what we mean by verifiability. We don't need a catchy little statement that is often abused and mocked for its ridiculousness. The question is, sure the statement Verifiability, not truth may be iconic, but do we really want to be iconic for a badly worded, mocked statement? <font color="silver">[[User:Silver seren|Silver]]</font><font color="blue">[[User talk:Silver seren|seren]]</font><sup>[[Special:Contributions/Silver seren|C]]</sup> 21:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC) |
The main issue with the current wording of the sentence and the better wording of this proposal, with the use of the word "assertions", is that the "iconic" statement seems to be saying that Wikipedia is fine with publishing lies, just so long as they are lies obtained from other people. I would hope that this is certainly not true. There is a reason why the term '''Wikiality''' was ever created in the first place, even if it was meant as a joke. We need to have an explanatory first sentence that explains what we mean by verifiability. We don't need a catchy little statement that is often abused and mocked for its ridiculousness. The question is, sure the statement Verifiability, not truth may be iconic, but do we really want to be iconic for a badly worded, mocked statement? <font color="silver">[[User:Silver seren|Silver]]</font><font color="blue">[[User talk:Silver seren|seren]]</font><sup>[[Special:Contributions/Silver seren|C]]</sup> 21:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC) |
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:Policy by mockery? We shouldn't make policy based on whether mockery exists, but we should consider whether the mockery is based on a valid criticism. --[[User:Tryptofish|Tryptofish]] ([[User talk:Tryptofish|talk]]) 21:54, 12 June 2011 (UTC) |
:Policy by mockery? We shouldn't make policy based on whether mockery exists, but we should consider whether the mockery is based on a valid criticism. --[[User:Tryptofish|Tryptofish]] ([[User talk:Tryptofish|talk]]) 21:54, 12 June 2011 (UTC) |
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::FWIW, I love that catchy little statement, both in terms of the rhetoric and for the bulwark it provides against those who know the Truth. It's like WP's little black dress. I suppose I have read too much pragmatism. <span style="text-shadow: 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em #DDDDDD">--[[User:Nuujinn|Nuujinn]] ([[User_talk:Nuujinn|talk]])</span> 22:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC) |
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== A fork of this policy: "Verifiability in practice" ? == |
== A fork of this policy: "Verifiability in practice" ? == |
Revision as of 22:03, 12 June 2011
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Poll: Misleading opening statement
- For whatever reason, this statement, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth: whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." is problematic and needs to be rewritten:
Support
- . Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- For too long, this wording has been used to justify the deliberate inclusion of information known to be incorrect. It needs rethinking. User:Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:06, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, there are multiple problems with it, as noted in previous discussions - it's only acceptable if you happen to know what it's trying to say, and it is intended (obviously) to be read and understood by people who don't know beforehand what it's trying to say.--Kotniski (talk) 14:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- The only reason for keeping this misleading sentence would be if there were no good alternatives. However, it is very easy to think of alternative formulations that do an even better job of making clear that we're after the truth as can be distilled from reliable sources, here on Wikipedia. Count Iblis (talk) 14:50, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Verifiability requirements can be strongly stated without double-dissing the concept of accuracy. The first diss is using the straw-man problematic word "truth" instead of "accuracy" and second by inserting the "not" statement in the lead sentence. North8000 (talk) 15:06, 18 April 2011 (UTC) (moved from below Unscintillating's comment) The lead states with emphasis that what we want is "not truth", and so that is what we are getting. (Unscintillating said it well) Time for a change! North8000 (talk) 00:28, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
- Weak support as I am not sure that rewriting it is the only way of solving the problem. Actually we have two problems: (1) Editors who really and honestly believe that we should make Wikipedia say something that we know is not true. Just because reliable sources agree it is true and we want to be consistent. (2) Editors who pretend to be of type (1) when it fits their agenda. It saves them from agreeing with a consensus that they cannot plausibly disagree with.
Both problems are relatively rare but should be addressed. I don't care whether this is done by changing the text or by adding a clear explanation that (1) is not the intended meaning. Maybe neither is needed, but just a strong consensus in this discussion, to which we can then point whenever the matter comes up again. Hans Adler 16:21, 18 April 2011 (UTC) - Support. "Verifiability" to this point hasn't even been defined in terms of whether a reliable source has actually been cited, or whether a reliable source could easily be found and cited ("Abraham Lincoln was an important figure in the American Civil War."). Moreover, the world "truth" in the phrase not truth has been perverted: it apparently refers to NOT an editor's idea of truth if it cannot (even in theory) be supported by a reliable source. Which is an extremely odd use of the word "truth," and a very bad way to use it. The concept invoked is something like "a personal controversial version of truth in the WP editors' mind, that could not be supported with a reliable source." THAT is what WP deprecates, but calling that thing "truth" is an abomination, and an insult to truth. WP does seek truth (what good is an encyclopedia that does not?) It just doesn't seek "personal truth." Editors are asked to keep that to themselves.SBHarris 18:58, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Suggest shortening to "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth: whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source," dropping the words "not whether editors think it is true", because I've seen them misused to dismiss demonstrably well-founded concerns about source accuracy. See #Proposal 2, below. --JN466 16:21, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
- The lead states with emphasis that what we want is "not truth". This is what we are getting in the encyclopedia, "not truth". Unscintillating (talk) 00:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
- Support - The problem isn't with truth being in Wikipedia, everyone wants that. The problem is with what some editors think is true, which may in fact be FALSE. The phrase "verifiability, not truth" is misleading. Remove the "not truth" part. The phrase "not whether editors think it is true" at the end of the sentence is correct and right on the mark. Also, "The threshold" is ambiguous and may mean it's enough to just to be verifiable in order to be included in Wikipedia, which is definitely not correct and everyone here agrees that verifiability alone is not enough to be included in Wikipedia. There's NPOV, etc. This can be fixed by changing "The threshold" to "A requirement" or "A minimum requirement". Please see Proposal 4 below. 75.47.143.156 (talk) 14:13, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
- Support—Truth is too subjective anyways, and has been used by the fringers to their benefit. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 00:02, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
- The word "threshold" is problematic, at least.—S Marshall T/C 23:07, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Oppose
- . It's neccesary to mention that debates for inclusion don't depend on whether something is true or not. Truth is highly subjective, and endlessly arguable. Verifiabilty can be easily checked. If we imply that truth is a matter of consideration in our decision making process, we will encourage original research, endless arguments, and walls of text. We'll never reach consensus on anything. LK (talk) 13:09, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- I fear that changing this wording opens the door to unwarranted promotion of fringe theories which is still a major problem here at Wikipedia. In fact, the latest Quarterly Newsletter of the Association for Skeptical Enquiry[1] discusses the problem and actually recommends people stay away from Wikipedia because of the difficulty in dealing with fringe theories. Let's face it. There's a good reason why we don't care about The Truth©: people can argue endlessly over what's true but checking to see if a source says something is a much easier debate to settle. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:48, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- I don't think the statement itself is problematic, and I don't think it should be removed or changed... However, I think the explanation of it may be incomplete. As written, it correctly excludes unverifiable information, even if it is "true". What it is missing is a follow up statement on what to do about clearly untrue (or inaccurate) information that happens to be verifiable. Blueboar (talk) 13:48, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Nothing's broken as far as I can see. --Nuujinn (talk) 16:07, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- I expect to need the words "threshold" + "verifiability, not truth" in the foreseeable future. My evolving intensity of preference is informed by lessons learned the hard way. --Tenmei (talk) 17:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- There's nothing wrong with the current wording, and changing it will open the floodgates to every crank who thinks they know the TRUTH™. Even now we are inundated with them, but this wording at least helps mitigate the worst of it. Jayjg (talk) 22:54, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- The idea that "verifiability, not truth" is the threshold for inclusion is widely used and well-understood on Wikipedia. Some people here are saying there have been attempts to insert material known to be false because of it, but I've personally never seen an example of that in over six years of regular editing; and if such examples do exist, they are rare. For the most part, the idea makes clear to editors that what we do on Wikipedia is supply a survey of the relevant literature, regardless of our personal views. That's not just a means to an end (where what we're really doing is aiming for "truth"), as others have argued. Offering a good summary of the appropriate literature is an end-in-itself. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 01:24, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
- Wording is fine. Like I've said before, Wikipedia's policies don't currently allow individual editors to assert personal authority over what is true or not. We're only allowed to declare something as true if it says so in a reliable, verifiable source. Therefore, verifiability trumps whatever we personally feel to be true. Cla68 (talk) 02:08, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
- It's fine, and we understand what it means. (Those who don't can be pointed at Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth.) And if you need to see the problems with demanding that articles present "the Truth™", then I recommend that you spend a while hanging out at articles about mental illness, where people occasionally name "personal experience" as a "citation" for claims about (for example) the laws for involuntary commitment in their home countries. There's an ongoing dispute in articles related to saturated fat about whether the mainstream view (eating a lot of saturated fat is bad for the heart) has been completely wrong for decades. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
- The statement is fine because "the truth" can only be proven via verifiable reliable sources. Anyone can go and claim that something is not "true" and remove it from an article even if it's well sourced, that's why wikipedia is not about truth. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:37, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
- As has been said above, surely better than I can say it, the present wording is fine. As "truth" so often depends on the viewpoint of the speaker, we have to use the standard of whether or not something can be verified from a "reliable source", and "threshold" is a succinct way of saying that verifiability is a condition that must be met for inclusion in Wikipedia, but doesn't guarantee inclusion. -- Donald Albury 09:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
Discussion
- As above, my beef is that it creates an artificial dichotomy of truth and verifiability as distinct endpoints (which they are), but what needs to be emphasised is verifiability is a means to an end. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Comment: Amplifying Casliber's opinion, please consider these factors. --Tenmei (talk) 17:56, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- WP:V "frames" each of our edits by providing generally practical, flexible templates which were crafted to help me and others find ways (a) to escape conflict and (b) to move towards areas of identified agreement.
- WP:V communicates in a way that logic alone cannot, especially when people are talking past each other at cross purposes and when a mismatch develops like a "chicken talking to a duck" (鸡同鸭讲 or 雞同鴨講) or when a white horse is not a horse (白馬非馬).
- WP:V is most needed because " ... the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already".
- Comment: Amplifying Casliber's opinion, please consider these factors. --Tenmei (talk) 17:56, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Some people above seem to be under the impression that "verifiability" (or "whether a source says something") is an objective matter. It isn't, of course - determining whether a source is "reliable" in a given instance is no less a subjective process than determining whether a given statement is "true" (in fact it quite often comes down to the same thing - we conclude that a source is unreliable if the statements it's making appear not to be true). And pushers of fringe theories can exploit verifiability too - by insisting that the sources that support their viewpoints are just as reliable as those that oppose them (or even making WP reproduce claims from fringe sources as the truth, just because no-one happens to have found a mainstream source that specifically contradicts the claims in question).--Kotniski (talk) 14:46, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Comment: Responding to the above and answering Kotniski's question here: Yes, we can not improve the wording of a significant sentence by deleting the key words "threshold" + "verifiability, not truth". The word "threshold" implies movement and the beginning of a process. This conceptual "threshold" emphasizes the pivotal distinction between (a) a fact which supported by WP:V + WP:RS and (b) a mere factoid which is associated with zero cited confirming support. Adopting Kotniski's words from an archived thread: yes, "in actual fact we do care about the truth of statements and don't mindlessly copy apparent errors from sources"; but this concern only addresses one of a series of plausible follow-up questions. This survey is about averting consequences which attend throwing out the baby with the bath water. --Tenmei (talk) 17:03, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Couldn't "threshold" just as likely imply the end of a process? Passing a literal threshold means you've entered the house - you're home, dry, and can finally relax in front of the snooker. (And of course something doesn't become a "fact" by virtue of being supported by "reliable sources", or a "factoid" by not being so supported - I don't really know what you're trying to say with that.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:48, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Comment: Responding to the above and answering Kotniski's question here: Yes, we can not improve the wording of a significant sentence by deleting the key words "threshold" + "verifiability, not truth". The word "threshold" implies movement and the beginning of a process. This conceptual "threshold" emphasizes the pivotal distinction between (a) a fact which supported by WP:V + WP:RS and (b) a mere factoid which is associated with zero cited confirming support. Adopting Kotniski's words from an archived thread: yes, "in actual fact we do care about the truth of statements and don't mindlessly copy apparent errors from sources"; but this concern only addresses one of a series of plausible follow-up questions. This survey is about averting consequences which attend throwing out the baby with the bath water. --Tenmei (talk) 17:03, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- What about "Verifiability: The only practical way to approximate the objective truth"? Count Iblis (talk) 14:59, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Poll Results: After a week, it seems clear that the poll on this proposal is coming down to "no consensus", with roughly equal support and oppose views expressed. This usually means we default to "Keep as is". Do we need to continue, or shall we accept that the proposal is not going to be adopted? Blueboar (talk) 14:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
- I'd be happy if people could see that they've lost when they plainly have... but I know that my own optimism and faith in my fellow editors sometimes prevents me from seeing such things myself when I'm on the other side. Consequently, I think we can reasonably expect another week of time-wasting arguments here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:39, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
- Indeed. As previous proposals have been retrieved from the archives and restored to the page, I'm restoring this poll too. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 11:33, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
- I'd be happy if people could see that they've lost when they plainly have... but I know that my own optimism and faith in my fellow editors sometimes prevents me from seeing such things myself when I'm on the other side. Consequently, I think we can reasonably expect another week of time-wasting arguments here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:39, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
WP:V Policy need to be discussed here not elsewhere
Any consensus regading this guideline needs to reached here. What FAC editors might consider appropriate for FAs is not criteria for this policy, which is designed as a policy for all articles not just FAs.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:39, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Could you state the debate more fully, so that people who haven't been following the debate so far may discuss it appropriately here? Fifelfoo (talk) 02:27, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- The issue is that we must add in-text attribution (e.g. "according to John Smith") when quoting or closely paraphrasing. This is common sense, it's normal writing, it's standard practice. For some reason, some editors here—Philip Baird Shearer, Kotniski—don't want the policy to say this. They removed it in March, and substituted a diluted version saying in-text attribution was optional. When I restored it on May 29, NuclearWarfare and Kotniski reverted; here are the versions.
- But of course it isn't optional in these circumstances. To use someone's words without saying who wrote them is plagiarism. Ignoring that, it's also bad writing. I'm puzzled as to why anyone would object to this. It's depressing to have to keep arguing about it. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 02:35, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Plagarism is the presenting of another's unique or innovative opinions or hypothesis as one's own, it actually has nothing to do with "closely paraphrasing". I think that is why some are opposing of this strong wording because the strong wording is mistaken on what plagarism actually is. If SlimVirgin says "the Earth is round" I too can say "the Earth is round", even if Slim writes it in a book and publishes it, thereby copyright the sentences, I can write that to my hearts content. And length is not a matter either. Plagarism is not about words in a certain order or sentences, it is about abstract ideas. If Slim writes a book about a president who goes and kills his VP and uses his blood in a Masonic ritual to raise chluthu from hell to defeat the Chinese in WWIII, I can not write a similar book using completely different words, and it is not a copyright issue, it is a plagarism issue. Copyright issues are ones involving actually lifted text word for word.Camelbinky (talk) 02:46, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- No. Plagiarism is copying what I wrote and pretending that you wrote it. Or in the wikipedia context, copying what the author of a 1911 Britannica article wrote and pretending that you wrote it. It's morally indefensible. Malleus Fatuorum 03:02, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Agree completely with Malleus Fatuorum. Lifting text from a PD or copyright free work, verbatim or through "close paraphrase," without specific attribution of the manner of expressing the idea to the originator is plagiarism. It is a morally indefensible practice. However, there is one portion of plagiarism which also applies: lifting someone else's concept, and presenting it as your own, is also plagiarism. This does not apply to Wikipedia, as we do not present our own conceptions (that would be original research). Fifelfoo (talk) 03:09, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- (ec x 2)Perhaps the first place to start is to define the difference between plagiarism and copyvio. From an academic point-of-view, plagiarism is to copy verbatim, to cheat. Copyvio seems to be a legal term - to violate copyright. Plagiarism is very much about words in an certain order. If SlimVirgin should think of a particularly poetic way to convey "the Earth is round" she owns the words she uses. To recreate them would be to plagiarise from her and to violate her copyright. Moreover, if ideas are presented in a specific order, using specific language, and those ideas are paraphrased, if the order is recreated, or any of the language used in the paraphrase, that would be a violation of copyright. The way around this is to attribute to the person who created the order and thought of the words, by in-text attribution. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
What a perfectly useless section heading-- I hope the level of discourse is better. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:54, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- I read this article today about a teacher addressing the 2011 Congress of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. She says her students work better when they know their work will appear on Wikipedia, because "despite its faults, [Wikipedia] does promote solid values for its writers, including precise citations, accurate research, editing and revision." Editing Wikipedia is therefore seen as part of acquiring a useful set of transferable skills.
- I felt a small surge of pride when I read that, something I don't often experience when editing WP these days. We're not only here to present material to readers; we're here to learn skills from each other too, and from the writing process.
- So why are there editors on this page who want to keep these skills hidden, who don't want to be part of the teaching and learning process? We're constantly forced to defend practices on this talk page that are perfectly standard in professional writing, and that young people will have to learn if they want to be writers of any kind, inside or outside academia. But this policy is supposed to pretend that these practices are optional, which—if people follow the advice—will lead to poor writing at best, and plagiarism at worst. That makes no sense. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 03:03, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- What has any of this got to with intext attribution?--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Students learning to do the right thing, unlike you. Malleus Fatuorum 03:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Kmh, if you read the article, it says: "A student writing an essay for their teacher may be tempted to plagiarize or leave facts unchecked. A new study shows that if you ask that same student to write something that will be posted on Wikipedia, he or she suddenly becomes determined to make the work as accurate as possible, and may actually do better research." But here we are stopping the sourcing policy from explaining how they can avoid plagiarism. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 04:15, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Students learning to do the right thing, unlike you. Malleus Fatuorum 03:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- What has any of this got to with intext attribution?--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- I found that rather motivating as well. Malleus Fatuorum 03:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- As it happens, this is very much true. Will leave it at that. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
@SlimVirgin: Because it is not correct per se but depends on the context. Moreover it has nothing to do with verifiability. The inline citation for some content ensures verifibiality, whereas the intext attribution is question of the writing style. Whether it is bad writing (or good writing) not to use an intext attribution, depends entirely on the context or rather the intention of the author. If I quote somebody or want to point out which person has stated a particular content (being closely paraphrased in the article) then I would use an intext atrribution indeed. However if I closely paraphrase some facts from a source, where the author of that source is of no particular interest for the article, then I would not use an intext attribution. Some examples:
More precisely, if a function f(x) is continuous on the closed interval [a, b] and differentiable on the open interval (a, b), then there exists a point c in (a, b) such that
rather than
Eric Weisstein states, that if a function f(x) is continuous on the closed interval [a, b] and differentiable on the open interval (a, b), then there exists a point c in (a, b) such that
After the Battles of Lexington and Concord near Boston in April 1775, the colonies went to war. Washington appeared at the Second Continental Congress in a military uniform, signaling that he was prepared for war.[2]
rather than
After the Battles of Lexington and Concord near Boston in April 1775, the colonies went to war. Accoding to Stilton & Rassmussen ' Washington appeared at the Second Continental Congress in a military uniform, signaling that he was prepared for war.[3] --Kmhkmh (talk) 03:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- You're commenting from within a bubble, with completely the wrong idea. There are many, many, articles on wikipedia that have been copied word for word from PD sources without attribution, and that's not right. Malleus Fatuorum 03:10, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- (to Kmhkmh) The reason PD text has been mentioned is that was the reason a couple of editors removed the in-text attribution requirement from the policy in March. They argued it would prevent them from adding PD text to articles, or copying words from one WP article to another. But yes, you're right, it's a red herring. You're arguing something different—that in-text is never needed because an inline citation is enough. As Malleus says below, this is like arguing it's okay to steal something so long as you say in a footnote where you stole it from. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 03:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- (ec to Kmhkmh) It's plagiarism if you have copied someone else's words (unless the sentence structure is so common there's no point in changing it. e.g. "Paris is in France"). What do you think plagiarism in writing is, if not copying someone else's words? SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 03:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- I wasn't talking about plagiarism but about the difference between intext atrribution and inline ciatation/footnotes. But as far as plagiarism is concerned, plagiarism is not defined having or not having an intext attribution, but having no attribution. Note that an inline citation/footnote does provide an attribution as well, it is just not intext.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:22, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- You are so wrong that Mr Wrong couldn't be more wrong. Malleus Fatuorum 03:25, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- The reason teachers are using Wikipedia as a teaching tool (as SlimVirgin mentioned above) is that students believe as long as something is cited, intext or however, it's not plagiarism. Even if the text is copied verbatim. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:29, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- I wasn't talking about plagiarism but about the difference between intext atrribution and inline ciatation/footnotes. But as far as plagiarism is concerned, plagiarism is not defined having or not having an intext attribution, but having no attribution. Note that an inline citation/footnote does provide an attribution as well, it is just not intext.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:22, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Both of your historical examples are loose paraphrase of the source, you significantly alter the meaning of "wanted the job" to "prepared for war", you also contextualise it differently, and the paraphrased element is "a [military] uniform …, signalling [that he was prepared for war]." Three words, with major different clauses removed and added is not close paraphrase over a single sentence. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:18, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- A close paraphrase is copyvio in that the author's word order and specific vocabulary is recreated without attribution. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:24, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- yes but intext atrribution is not the only form of attribution, which is precisely the point here. Imho people are confusing the requirement for attribution (to vaoid copyvio or plagiarism) with a (non existing) requirement for an intext attribution.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:30, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Professional and other kinds of serious writers don't copy other people's words, then add a link in a footnote to that person's text, as though that gets them off the hook. If you believe writers do this, please provide an example. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 03:35, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- SlimVirgin is right. This is depressing because, from what I can tell, there is real confusion about what constitutes plagiarism. Until editors can wrap their heads around that concept, the rest will fail. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:37, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Why is this so hard for so many here to understand? If I copy the words you've written and then pretend or give the impression that they're my own then I'm a dishonest twat. Malleus Fatuorum 03:40, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- American high school students believe that as long as something is cited it's not plagiarized. They come to college with that belief and are sometimes quickly disabused. We live in a cut and paste world. The current culture is "oh it's fine - I cited it." That's why it's so hard. This, btw, is the reason teachers are bringing students to Wikipedia, and Google changed result ranking algrorithms to include original content. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:43, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- So as long as you say where you stole it from then everything's cool even though you don't actually admit that you stole it, by attributing it? Things have to change. Malleus Fatuorum 03:47, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Yep. That's it in a nutshell. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:56, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- And since when is admitting a theft making it less of a theft? I really can't follow that argument.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:53, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- So as long as you say where you stole it from then everything's cool even though you don't actually admit that you stole it, by attributing it? Things have to change. Malleus Fatuorum 03:47, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- American high school students believe that as long as something is cited it's not plagiarized. They come to college with that belief and are sometimes quickly disabused. We live in a cut and paste world. The current culture is "oh it's fine - I cited it." That's why it's so hard. This, btw, is the reason teachers are bringing students to Wikipedia, and Google changed result ranking algrorithms to include original content. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 03:43, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Why is this so hard for so many here to understand? If I copy the words you've written and then pretend or give the impression that they're my own then I'm a dishonest twat. Malleus Fatuorum 03:40, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- yes but intext atrribution is not the only form of attribution, which is precisely the point here. Imho people are confusing the requirement for attribution (to vaoid copyvio or plagiarism) with a (non existing) requirement for an intext attribution.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:30, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- It's sometimes appropriate to quote or closely paraphrase—so long as we don't use too much of a text, but that's a separate issue. The point is that, when we do quote and closely paraphrase, we have to name the source in the text to signal clearly that these are not our words. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 04:17, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- As I was writing above. If you are quoting somebody or it is of interest to the reader, who stated a particular content, then you use intext attribution. However if you are not quoting somebody and you have a very few "closely paraphrased" lines about some facts (staying short of copyvio), where the author is of no interest for the reader you might not use intext attribution, but just attribution with a footnote to insure verifiability in particular. Similarly if we use PD content (such as Britannica) we use a general disclaimer and/or footnote rather than intext attributions. In other words we use different ways to indicate, whether some content might not be completely due our own words and it depends on the context which one is the best to use.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:43, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- But you reverted to a version of the policy that says even when quoting in-text attribution might not be needed. [2] So the next time a Wikipedian gets into trouble over this because the policy is unclear, I hope you'll be there to bale him out.
- As I was writing above. If you are quoting somebody or it is of interest to the reader, who stated a particular content, then you use intext attribution. However if you are not quoting somebody and you have a very few "closely paraphrased" lines about some facts (staying short of copyvio), where the author is of no interest for the reader you might not use intext attribution, but just attribution with a footnote to insure verifiability in particular. Similarly if we use PD content (such as Britannica) we use a general disclaimer and/or footnote rather than intext attributions. In other words we use different ways to indicate, whether some content might not be completely due our own words and it depends on the context which one is the best to use.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:43, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- It's sometimes appropriate to quote or closely paraphrase—so long as we don't use too much of a text, but that's a separate issue. The point is that, when we do quote and closely paraphrase, we have to name the source in the text to signal clearly that these are not our words. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 04:17, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Can you show me an example of a professional writer that you've seen do this—copy or closely paraphrase other people's words without in-text attribution? I've been requesting this for months, just one example. The only examples I know of are writers who got caught plagiarizing, and who ended up being sacked. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 05:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- It is a common technique in (good) journalistic articles, where journalists often rewrite/extend/combine content of which their publisher owns the legal rights. In such cases those additional contributors are usually mentioned in a disclaimer (or a footnote if you will) at the end of the article. If you haven't come across that yourself, you can find it described in Media Law and ethicS (point 3). As far as encyclopedic publishing is concerned, I'd assume that various publishers in doubt combine various sources they own the copyright for rather freely. After all content reuse is one reason for acquiring copyrights.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:40, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Can you show me an example of a professional writer that you've seen do this—copy or closely paraphrase other people's words without in-text attribution? I've been requesting this for months, just one example. The only examples I know of are writers who got caught plagiarizing, and who ended up being sacked. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 05:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Do you understand what plagiarism is Kmhkhm? Malleus Fatuorum 04:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Kmhkmh, FAC opinions are indeed "your problem", because policy is not decided only by the three or four editors who regularly hang out at the WP:V page. Jayjg (talk) 05:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- You got that half right. WP policy is indeed not decided by a few editors only, but even more so it is definitely not decided by those hanging out at FAC. The appropriate place to discuss this policy is here (or some other project page for dicussing core policies) and not the FAC project and that was precisely why I reverted your edit.--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:08, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- The problem we've had on this page, particularly with this issue, is that we end up recommending the worst kind of writing, rather than the best. That's not to say that we want to recommend impossibly high standards, but adding "Smith argued that ..." is hardly a mountain to climb. We have a responsibility to editors—particularly new ones—to recommend best practice, rather than shoddiness. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 05:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Proposed wording re in-text attribution
I'm not wedded to particular words, but I'd like to make clear in-text attribution is needed when quoting and closely paraphrasing, not optional. And to make sure it's under the "Anything challenged or likely to be challenged" section, not buried at the end of the policy under copyright. So I propose something like this, which would make that section look like this:
- "When quoting or closely paraphrasing a source's words, add in-text attribution—as well as an inline citation—unless the source of the material is already clear from the context."
- Support. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 06:36, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Support. I haven't always followed this myself, but I don't have a problem with making it a rule. Cla68 (talk) 06:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose. This would mean those articles based on the PD version of Encyclopaedia Britannica would have to have inline citations to whatever statements from the original remained rather than a general attribution at the end. We'd have to do the same when copying a section from one part of Wikipedia to another even rather than just depending on a decent edit comment. Dmcq (talk) 08:05, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- That gets several issues mixed up. This policy is about how to source articles Wikipedians have written. It isn't concerned with creating articles by copying PD texts (which would really be best left to Wikisource) or copying material from one WP article to another (a licensing issue). And anyway, following your argument, the requirement in this policy for inline citations would already affect those things. You're presumably not asking that we remove the need for inline citations, so there's no reason to ask that we not require in-text attribution when it's needed. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 08:17, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Support. Dmcq has a point: We still have a number of articles with a template saying that part of the article is based on Britannica 1911, and even a tiny number of articles based in the same way on other public domain sources. Such articles generally started with a version that was copied, and then got edited to some extent. But this is a rare special case that can easily be addressed by a footnote saying that using such a template is also OK until we have a proper article of our own. Hans Adler 08:45, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose. The issue that DMCq mentions for the Britannica, holds not only for the Britannica case but for any text donation we might receive and other PD sources. That is the whole article or large parts of it are originally written by some external source (being used legally) and then get modified/extended/augmented by WP authors later on. It also applies to text cooperation and exchange projects that WP has, such as the one with Planetmath. More importantly from my perspective WP:V is a core policy for defining our mandatory requirements to ensure verifiability and as such imho it has no business of stating style requirements.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:38, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- That wording is better than what was there before, since it at least makes one exception ("clear from the context" presumably includes the case an overall template saying that the whole article is largely taken from a particular PD source), but if we're voting already I would still oppose - it doesn't distinguish the common case of short paraphrasing of simple sentences, doesn't say how "close" is "close", and most importantly is quite off-topic for this policy and that section of it. This complex subject should be dealt with in detail at the relevant page (WP:Plagiarism), and people should be referred neatly from here to there, as they are at the moment.--Kotniski (talk) 10:23, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- (Please note the current wording of the section to which it is proposed that the above sentence be added. "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation. Cite the source clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate." And that's all. Adding the above sentence would mean that almost 50% of the wording of one of Wikipedia's crispest and corest policy sections would be taken up by an issue which is only incidental to this policy, and has virtually nothing to do with that particular section. If something like this needs to be mentioned, and it needs to be made prominent, get it over with by putting it in the lead alongside the reference to copyright.--Kotniski (talk) 10:30, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Support - it's good practice in writing and we are supposed to be writing an encyclopedia. If you use someone else's exact (or close to exact) words, its important to make it very clear (through in text attribution) that the wording is not yours. This doesn't prevent the use of PD sources, just means you treat them like any other source that isn't PD, you must not copy their wording and pass it off as someone else's. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:53, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Talking about good practices in writing, it's hardly good practice to take a section which is supposed to be about one thing ("Anything challenged or likely to be challenged") and then go off on a stream of consciousness and start writing about something else entirely. Do none of you self-professed experts on writing have any idea about scope and structure? --Kotniski (talk) 14:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Kotniski has a point... I think it would be helpful to have a policy statement on plagiarism and attribution ... but I am not at all sure that WP:Verifiability is the right place to put it (and if so, is this the right section to mention it). I think it is important to keep a relatively narrow focus in our core policies... and not wander off into wider/related concepts. WP:V needs to stay focused on the necessity for "Verifiability". Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Exactly WP:V is for verifiability issues and not for plagiarism issues. Furthermore intext attribution versus other forms of attribution is a style question and not even a question of plagiarism (which would be attribution versus no attrubution). WP:V is a core policy about (manadatory) requirements to ensure verifiability, it's neither guideline for plagiarism issues nor a style guide for "good writing".--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:37, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Kotniski has a point... I think it would be helpful to have a policy statement on plagiarism and attribution ... but I am not at all sure that WP:Verifiability is the right place to put it (and if so, is this the right section to mention it). I think it is important to keep a relatively narrow focus in our core policies... and not wander off into wider/related concepts. WP:V needs to stay focused on the necessity for "Verifiability". Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Talking about good practices in writing, it's hardly good practice to take a section which is supposed to be about one thing ("Anything challenged or likely to be challenged") and then go off on a stream of consciousness and start writing about something else entirely. Do none of you self-professed experts on writing have any idea about scope and structure? --Kotniski (talk) 14:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose Does not describe actual community practice. We can literally name tens of thousands of examples of the community failing to do this. I believe that Wikipedia would be substantially harmed by adding a hundred thousand instances of the phrase "According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica...". We also occasionally use direct quotations of single words, like "controversial" to indicate that the word comes from reliable sources rather than from Wikipedians. "____ is 'controversial', according to Alice Expert" is highly misleading when Alice Expert's statement could legitimately be attributed to a solid majority of sources. We always need attribution; we do not always need in-text attribution.
Also, although I expect this comment to result in a good deal of 'asking the other parent' (trying to add this requirement to as many other pages as necessary, until is successfully added to some underwatched guideline), I think that this particular policy would the wrong place to enshrine any such requirement. Even a direct quotation is still verifiABLE without knowing putting "Alice Expert said..." in the reader's face. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:52, 31 May 2011 (UTC) - Support. This critical part of policy should not be removed or watered down simply to make it easier for editors to avoid clearly indicating a source that has been copied verbatim. And I can provide tens of thousands of examples of articles violating every other part of WP:V (or the other core content policies), but that doesn't mean we dismiss the whole policy as "does not describe actual community practice". Jayjg (talk) 03:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- It is not about dismissing a core policy, because many articles might not adhere to it, but it is about dismissing a style requirement that has no place in a core policy for verifibaility to begin with.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:47, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- I believe he was referring to WhatamIdoing's statement "Does not describe actual community practice. We can literally name tens of thousands of examples of the community failing to do this." ... That said, I agree that this is a stylistic preference that has no place at all in WP:V. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:38, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- It is not about dismissing a core policy, because many articles might not adhere to it, but it is about dismissing a style requirement that has no place in a core policy for verifibaility to begin with.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:47, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose. Yes, but a quote within quote marks, followed by a footnote to the source of the quote, does not 'require' further attribution. It may be given, but should not be mandatory--the quote marks alert the reader to the enature of the content, and the footnote takes the reader to its source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.255.0.102 (talk) 02:20, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- Comment Several things here. First, it's unhelpful to overdramatise. Contrary to Malleus, plagiarism is not theft. Plagiarism is a matter of good practice and academic courtesy, punishable by complaint, disapproval and ostracism. Theft is a felony punishable by criminal sanctions. Second, it's important to distinguish between plagiarism and copyright violation. For example, incorporating material from the 1911 Britannica is not a copyright violation, but it may be plagiarism.
I have no idea at all why it was like pulling teeth to get a mention of copyright in this policy, but adding text to deal with plagiarism seems to be a shoo-in. It's as if Wikipedians believe academic courtesy is more important than legal duty, and I sometimes despair of the inconsistency.
Personally, I agree that Wikipedians should avoid plagiarism and that policy should say so. I do not agree that it's necessary to mention plagiarism in this policy, which is about the principle that things should be verifiable, and is far too long already. My position is that the phrase about in-text attribution belongs in Wikipedia:Editing policy, or any reasonable alternative policy that deals with how to edit, rather than here.—S Marshall T/C 09:07, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose For the reasons I stated immediately above, I oppose altering the current wording of this policy.—S Marshall T/C 09:07, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
- Comment. Since my revert caused much more a stir than I expected and some might be have offended by the section title, I changed the title to less polemic one and feel the need list a few different points that got mixed up above and might lead to bad policy writing:
- The scope of this (core) policy versus the scope of other policies/guidelines/essays. This is in particular problematic if instead of just pointing to other guidelines, this policy explicitly restates part of their content here and hence effectively elevating guideline content to a core policy level. This scope of this guideline is to describe our requirements to ensure verifiability, it has no business in formulating style requirements.
- Confusing or mixing plagiarism and copyright violation.
- Confusing or mixing no intext attribution with no attribution.
- Confusing or mixing mandatory minimal requirements for articles in general (basically adherence to core policies) with criteria considered appropriate for good or featured articles.
- Confusing or mixing the lack of a style requirement in a core policies with encouraging bad writing.
- Confusing or mixing problems of academia or education with those of WP. WP primary goal is to provide correct encyclopedic knowledge for free ("compile the world knowledge") and this policy deals with the verifiability requiremrents needed to assure that goal. But it is not WP's goal to teach students proper writing skills/styles or attribution techniques.
- Slightly different notions of when something is considered closely paraphrased and when such a close paraphrasing constitutes plagiarism (or even a copyvio).
- Oppose. Unnecessary clutter for a reader to wade through, and contrary to use in tens of thousands of articles here. Also, our informal usage here has been to only provide this kind of inline attribution when the source or topic is extremely contentious. Also oppose per Kmhmh's bullet points, above. – OhioStandard (talk) 21:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose -- In some cases, it will make sense to require attribution. In others, it will unnecessarily clutter articles with redundant information. The only times that I see it being useful to add in-text citation for a paraphrased/quoted factual assertion is when knowing who made a statement somehow improves readers' understanding of the idea expressed -- that is, cases where the reader would have to jump down to look at a citation in order to understand the statement. If the 1911 Encylopedia Britannica says Cervus canadensis possess a remarkable set of large, snazzy-looking antlers and we closely paraphrase this as Elk have "large, snazzy-looking antlers"(citation), I think "(citation)" is totally sufficient, and that rewriting it as According to the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, elk have "large, snazzy-looking antlers"(citation) simply clutters the article, reducing its utility, with no real benefit. If there is a citation, we know exactly who the idea came from (the author in the citation), and I have yet to hear a good reason for repeating the information (all I've heard is "That's theft!" or "That's bad writing!", both of which are absurd). Because there are a wide range of situations where in-text attribution is totally useless, I don't think that a policy rigidly requiring it in all cases is a good idea. I do however think that it would be a good idea to include some guidelines on when it is and is not necessary, perhaps in the MoS and/or other writing style guidelines. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:13, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
- Strong Oppose - As stated in detail above by several users, this will hinder the use of other free content in Wikipedia. Simply add an appropriate attribution template per our plagiarism guideline. I'm open to requiring inline attribution via ref tags (allowing either the use of attribution templates, free form short messages, or by adding an attribution parameter to cite templates), but that has more to do with WP:MOS and WP:PLAG than with the Verifiability policy. --mav (reviews needed) 14:09, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- Further, even the 'use in-text attribution where appropriate' clause is too open to interpretation and should be removed or modified to make it clear that in-text attribution should not be used solely or even mainly to avoid plagiarism; that less obtrusive steps need to be taken to avoid plagiarism per our relevant guidelines on that issue. Again, this isn't the best place to discuss this issue. --mav (reviews needed) 14:19, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- This was archived by the bot before a decision was reached, so I'm unarchiving for now. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 19:41, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
- Strong Oppose because a requirement for in-text attribution belongs in NPOV or MOS, not in this policy. Further, in-text attribution implies the statement does not reflect the mainstream view of the matter, and is inappropriate when the statement does reflect the mainstream view of the matter. In-text attribution is appropriate only when stating a minority view, or when no mainstream view has been established. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:18, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- Support We need in-line attribution for quotes, obfuscation with just a citation is a problem. Somehow I thought this had already been decided as current policy, it is a good habit. Unscintillating (talk) 02:33, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, it had been decided, but Philip Baird Shearer and Kotniski removed it, so here we are again. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 05:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Well it had no place in a verifiability policy to begin with. This policy is about ensuring verification/attribution as such and not what exact style has to be used for it. Also using inline attribution for quotes by individuals hasn't really been the subject of dispute, but primarily having the same for "closely paraphrased" statements and the incoroporation of PD texts and text donations. In such cases it isn't even clear whether an intext attribution is a good style at all (see various comments above) aside from this policy being the wrong place for handling this (style) issue.--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:48, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- It's your opinion that it has no place, but it was because the policy didn't make this clear that several people got into trouble plagiarizing, by closely paraphrasing without in-text attribution. As for it not being clear whether it's a good style, find me a professional writer who quotes or closely paraphrases without making clear in the text whose words she's using. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 16:36, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Summing up
I'm thinking it would make sense to ask an uninvolved editor to close this discussion, but in the meantime this is a summary of opinion from both the subsections, in the order it appeared.
- In favour of requiring in-text attribution (this version): SlimVirgin, Malleus Fatuorum, Truthkeeper88, Cla68, Hans Adler, Ealdgyth, Jayjg,
- Against: Kmhkmh, Camelbinky, Dmcq, Kotniski, WhatamIdoing, 174.255.0.102, S Marshall, OhioStandard, Jrtayloriv.
SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 19:52, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
- My position was that I have no problem with the text in question but that it doesn't belong in WP:V. It should go into some alternative policy or guideline.—S Marshall T/C 20:26, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
Assert facts, including facts about opinions--but don't assert opinions themselves. What does this mean?
What we mean is that when it is a fact, for NPOV policy, (a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute) it can be asserted without prefixing it with "(Source) says that ...", and when it is an opinion (a matter which is subject to dispute) it can be attributed using this sort of inline-text attribution. Undisputed findings of reliable sources can be asserted without in-text attribution. In-text attribution is recommeded where sources strongerly disagree, not where editors disagree.
Most facts, except the most obvious ones - like “Mars is a planet” and “Plato was a philosopher” - must be verified through a reliable source regardless of whether it is a truthful statement. However, for WP:ASF, it is how we present the verified text from reliable sources.
Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts and only facts, in this sense. Where we might want to state opinions, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. When asserting a fact about an opinion, it is important also to assert facts about competing opinions, and to do so without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. It's also generally important to give the facts about the reasons behind the views, and to make it clear who holds them.
Requiring an inline qualifier for widespread consensus of reliable sources on the grounds that it is "opinion" would allow a contrarian reader to insist on an inline qualifier for material about which there is no serious dispute, using the argument that the material is an "opinion". This would mean, in the end, that all material in Wikipedia would require an inline qualifier, even if only one Wikipedia editor insisted on it, which is not the goal of ASF. Presenting a "fact" as an "opinion" is needlessly attributing uncontroversial statements, and so creating the appearance of doubt or disagreement where there is none.
Requiring in-text attribution implies a serious dispute and is against core NPOV policy. SlimVirgin, are you trying to drastically change Wikipedia policy. QuackGuru (talk) 20:25, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
- Indeed and this caused by pushing a style requirement (which at best in the case of a consensus belongs into a MOS guideline) into a core policy about verifiability.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:25, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
- I disagree with SV and agree with Kmhkmh in most respects. It is false that that " in-text attribution (e.g. "according to John Smith") when quoting or closely paraphrasing. ... is standard practice." It's standard practice only when it's a matter of opinion, or a contentious statement, or the exposition of that particular author's theory, or from an unusual source. Otherwise, footnotes are the standard practice in formal writing, and the mere authority of the author in informal writing; as we don't have the second alternative since nobody here has authority, we use footnotes.
- But with regard to one particular point I agree with SV. Citing the 1911 Brittanica (or similar sources) requires an in-text attribution, because using a century-old source for any topic is not standard practice at any level for any subject. In some academic writing, citing the author's name in text is suffice, e.g., as Gibbon said, -- because everyone reading academic history will know Edward Gibbon wrote in the 2nd half of the 18th century. But if it were for a popular source such as ours, the date may be equally or more important than the author and must must be highlighted. There are no subjects where the EB can be used for except for historical opinion, or even if for facts, for a review of the facts as they were known & understood in 1911 by upper-class Englishmen. DGG ( talk ) 21:49, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Non-English sources policy
The current "Non-English sources" section states that "when citing such a source without quoting it, the original and its translation should be provided if requested by other editors". However is it reasonable to expect any foreign language source to be translated simply because someone requests it? If that's true, then we may as well forbid foreign sources because nobody is going to translate lengthy documents for free. In much the same way, we authorize sources even when they are not easily accessible (rare books, news website with paid access, etc.), so I think we should authorize non-translated sources, as long as there are at least a few users that can verify them. What do you think? Laurent (talk) 15:41, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
- Then those users can provide the translation. Alternatively, you can ask for help at WP:Translators available. We are trying to provide exactly the same level of assistance for all sources.
- Imagine that I read and cite an offline, deadtree book. You don't happen to have a copy of the book, so you ask me to tell you what the book says. The goal is for me to provide you with what the book says, in English (subject to copyright limitations, of course).
- If the book is in English, then I type up a few relevant sentences (or tell you that you really will need to read the whole book, or a whole chapter, if there are copyright issues with the volume of material). If the book is not in English, then I could (ideally) type up a few relevant sentences, and translate them for you. If neither of us understand the language well enough to do this, then we can find someone else who can. The material is not deemed unverifiable because of our inability to read the source's language, just like material is not deemed unverifiable because I don't happen to own a copy of the source that supports it.
- If you can think of a better way to explain this, then please feel free to suggest improvements. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:20, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
- You say "Then those users can provide the translation". Yes we can always ask. However, what if the source is a 5 pages article? It's unlikely we'll find someone to translate a document like that. So in the end a ref could end up being deleted simply because of a lack of translator. For instance, Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case uses 7 French sources. If an editor asks for all these sources to be translated, and seeing that nobody wants to do it, he could delete all the ref, and he would be following policy. So that's why I think we should slightly change the policy, and make it clear that translations of entire documents is desirable but not compulsory (translation of quotes is not a problem):
When citing such a source without quoting it, the original and its translation should be provided as a courtesy if requested by other editors. This is however not compulsory, and the lack of a translation should not be a motive to remove the reference. This can be added to a footnote or the talk page. When posting original source material, be careful not to violate copyright; see the fair-use guideline. |
- This appears to be related to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foxmail, which some experienced editors might want to take a look at. We seem to have something of a collection of proud monoglots there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
@laurent: I understand your concern but I think any sane interpretation of the current formulation already covers that:
- When citing such a source without quoting it, the original and its translation should be provided as a courtesy if requested by other editors: this can be added to a footnote or the talk page.
This is clearly not saying that translations are mandatory if requested. If some editor deletes foreign sources only on the grounds that he did not receive translations, he's simply out of line.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:35, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
- I certainly don't want to loosen the policy, as I have seen a tendency on some articles to simply ignore requests for translations. We do need to strike a balance--I would not expect an editor to provide a translation of five pages of source material, but I think we should make some kind of translation of non-english sources mandatory upon request. I haven't looked at it, but if, for example, the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case had only french sources, and translations were requested and not provided, deletion might be the appropriate course of action, as it's a BLP. If I'm editing an article using a foreign language source, taking some notes as I go so as to be able to provide a rough translation is not onerous (and I speak from experience here). In regard to wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foxmail, reading through it is unclear to me whether or not any of the editors participating in that discussion and editing the article have any skill in Chinese. I sincerely hope that we are not in that instance relying solely on Google for translation. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:57, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
- Well the point is , that translation is courtesy rather than mandatory. The original editor is not the only one being capable of providing a translation, there are other editors that can be asked and there's google and other automated translations. As far as the concrete article disput above is concerned just forget the current editors and the article history and ask a different chinese speaker for a translation/verification.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:03, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
- With all due respect, it is IMO totally inappropriate for an editor with no experience with Chinese languages to rely solely on Google translate or other automated translations for translation of Chinese sources or sources in any language. Automatic translation services do not do a good enough job to rely upon them, especially with idiomatic expressions. I do not know that that is the case here, but I sincerely hope it is not. You are correct that it is not required by policy that translations be provided, but perhaps we should explore that option if people are relying on automated translation services for sources for articles. And I have to ask out of curiousity, having tried myself, have you tried to use Google translate with the chinese sources for the Foxmail article? --Nuujinn (talk) 23:17, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
- I think you are misunderstanding me somewhat. I'm not suggesting Google translation are an appropriate tool to rely on for translations per se. I'm saying, if you have reasonable doubts regarding the correctness of a citation then instead of insisting to get translation from a particular editor, you simply could request a translation or help on various project pages which are China related and do have Chinese speakers. In addition it might be worth to check whether the result of an automatic translation seems to confirm the citation or not. If it does, it reasonable to assume that the citation is correct and to lay your original doubts to rest. So far that's more or less general recommendation of how to deal with foreign or highly technical sources, that you may not be able to read yourself (i.e. get other editors with the needed skill set to take a look at it, use alternative means and tools to assess the correctness of the citation). Now regading the foxmail example the chinese source is used to source foxmail's market share in China and a superficial check without getting help from a chinese speaker seems to indicate that the citation is correct. First of you can see. that the 32% figure together with the names of the other email client appears in the original chinese text (without translation) and second if you try a google translation (According to Sina Technology Online Survey data show that the proportion of users using Foxmail reached 32.92%, far more than Netscape Mail, Becky, The Bat, Eudora and other well-known mail clients, the country has more than 300 million users, user groups Distributed in 20 countries.), it seems to confirm the citations as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:20, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
- With all due respect, it is IMO totally inappropriate for an editor with no experience with Chinese languages to rely solely on Google translate or other automated translations for translation of Chinese sources or sources in any language. Automatic translation services do not do a good enough job to rely upon them, especially with idiomatic expressions. I do not know that that is the case here, but I sincerely hope it is not. You are correct that it is not required by policy that translations be provided, but perhaps we should explore that option if people are relying on automated translation services for sources for articles. And I have to ask out of curiousity, having tried myself, have you tried to use Google translate with the chinese sources for the Foxmail article? --Nuujinn (talk) 23:17, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
- Well the point is , that translation is courtesy rather than mandatory. The original editor is not the only one being capable of providing a translation, there are other editors that can be asked and there's google and other automated translations. As far as the concrete article disput above is concerned just forget the current editors and the article history and ask a different chinese speaker for a translation/verification.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:03, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
- I certainly don't want to loosen the policy, as I have seen a tendency on some articles to simply ignore requests for translations. We do need to strike a balance--I would not expect an editor to provide a translation of five pages of source material, but I think we should make some kind of translation of non-english sources mandatory upon request. I haven't looked at it, but if, for example, the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case had only french sources, and translations were requested and not provided, deletion might be the appropriate course of action, as it's a BLP. If I'm editing an article using a foreign language source, taking some notes as I go so as to be able to provide a rough translation is not onerous (and I speak from experience here). In regard to wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foxmail, reading through it is unclear to me whether or not any of the editors participating in that discussion and editing the article have any skill in Chinese. I sincerely hope that we are not in that instance relying solely on Google for translation. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:57, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
- I've often thought that it's not a good use of editor time to be translating foreign-language sources for the benefit of monoglots. I've been asked to do it on occasion, and I've found that in the time it takes me to translate a longish paragraph, I could have translated a short biography of a Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz prizewinner, or a European national-level politician, from a foreign-language Wikipedia. I understand why there are people who want to challenge sources that are in a language they don't speak, but there ought to be a way for an editor in good standing who actually speaks the language to close down such a challenge quickly and authoritatively without retyping a source—an action that could violate copyright in any case!—S Marshall T/C 23:34, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
- I see your point, and it's a good one, but the one I'm addressing is somewhat different. I agree that translating well is time consuming and difficult, which is rather my point when I say that it is an extremely dubious notion that one could rely solely on computer translations in sourcing an article. I think it is perfectly acceptable to ask an editor who is adding fresh material from foreign language sources to an article to provide some kind of translation. I personally would accept a rough summary, for example, rather than a word by word translation. We should require that editors have a minimal understanding of the material they are sourcing, and I simply do not believe such understanding is possible via translation services such as google provide. And in the case of fresh material, providing a rough summary translation should be easy, since the material is fresh in the mind of the editor who added it. It is not the case that we should not use translation services, as they are a boon. Using myself as an example, with English, German, French and some Spanish, I'm comfortable using Google for basic facts from Dutch and Portuguese, but when doing so, I also need to consult a dictionary and take my time to make sure to accurately represent the sources. I sense some middle path in here, perhaps we can refine the problem a bit to find it. --Nuujinn (talk) 02:19, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
- There is some confusion here. Nobody suggested articles should be based Google translations and that such translations are particularly reliable and yes bviously editors should understand the sources they use.
- Howver the argument above was, that if you come across an already existing foreign language citation by another editor, which you distrust for some reason, then you can use google translations to get a first idea whether the citation is correct or not.
- The bottom line of my original argument further up is that you do not need to rely on a translation of a source by the original editor because there are other means you can use. Moreover if you have reason to distrust a citation of some edit, you possibly may not trust the translation of that editor either anyhow.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:35, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
- I think that nails it. Ultimately we place our trust in the editor who adds the material. For print-only or foreign-language sources, or anything you can't access while sitting on the living room sofa, you have to decide whether to trust the editor or get off your butt and do the work of verification yourself (perhaps by asking others). It seems rather rude to insist that another editor simply must do extra work for your own satisfaction, unless it's a controversial point (and no, it's not "controversial" just because I decide to raise a controversy, I need a basis to work from). Of course if you find even one instance where an editor hsa misrepresented or falsified a not-easily-accessible source, history shows that Wikipedians react quite negatively to that sort of thing, dozens of people start applying scrutiny and the exit door is held wide open. Franamax (talk) 05:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
- I've had problems in this area. I recall raising it in talk page discussion in at least one case (a long document in Chinese cited in support of a point which I would have challenged if unsupported, as I recall), and not getting a response. In that case, I think I prioritized my time elsewhere and moved on without pursuing the matter further. As a practical matter, it's a problem. Look at this scenario:
- An editor with Chinese language skills places such a supporting cite, then moves on.
- An editor without Chinese language asks for a translation. He's not after a translation of a five-page document -- he's after an English-language rendering of the bit in the document which supports the specific assertion it's attached to.
- WP:NONENG says that such a translation "should be provided as a courtesy if requested" by the editor originally placing the cite, but he's no longer around.
- WP:AGF says, "When doubt is cast on good faith, continue to assume good faith yourself where you can." (A non-English source I cannot read is cited in support of an assertion I would challenge if unsupported and for which I cannot find support in English sources available to me; I have doubts about the support cited; I am unable to resolve those doubts; the AGF behavioral guideline says that I should assume good faith.)
- Perhaps the original cited a source which he misread, citing in good faith, but mistakenly. I've done that sort of thing myself with English sources, been called on my mistakes, and taken appropriate action (e.g., find a better source, conform article assertion to what the cited source supports, or whatever else is appropriate case-by-case)
- A translator to help out might be findable via Wikipedia:Translators available (Wikipedians who have volunteered to aid the translation of articles on other language Wikipedias into English), but we're not talking about tranlation of an article here.
- To me, this looks like a hole in our guidelines. A suggestion above would add "... the lack of a translation should not be a motive to remove the reference."); that seems counterproductive in the situation I've postulated above, and it seems to me that going in the other direction (e.g., add "If such a requested translation is not forthcoming in a reasonable timeframe, the reference may be removed.") is more useful. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:09, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
- Why? The problem with your scenario is imho a lack of a proper reason for the removal. Why should a citation be removed without a justified suspicion that it might be incorrect? There's a big difference between removing content because I (personally) cannot read the citation and removing content because I (personally) cannot read the citation because I have good reason to believe its incorrect (because the content is contradicting other sources or my context knowledge, the editor is known to be unreliable or has history of questionable edits, etc.). If I do not have such an additional reason like ones in the bracket, I can't really see why I may remove content and citation. Sanctioning such behaviour in a guideline will result in editors feeling eligibled to remove any content the sources of which they cannot understand and which they don't get explained by the original editor - imho that's a recipe for disaster. Polemically speaking that would mean we let our dumbest editor decide, what content we or rather WP can cover.--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:38, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- I've had problems in this area. I recall raising it in talk page discussion in at least one case (a long document in Chinese cited in support of a point which I would have challenged if unsupported, as I recall), and not getting a response. In that case, I think I prioritized my time elsewhere and moved on without pursuing the matter further. As a practical matter, it's a problem. Look at this scenario:
- I think that nails it. Ultimately we place our trust in the editor who adds the material. For print-only or foreign-language sources, or anything you can't access while sitting on the living room sofa, you have to decide whether to trust the editor or get off your butt and do the work of verification yourself (perhaps by asking others). It seems rather rude to insist that another editor simply must do extra work for your own satisfaction, unless it's a controversial point (and no, it's not "controversial" just because I decide to raise a controversy, I need a basis to work from). Of course if you find even one instance where an editor hsa misrepresented or falsified a not-easily-accessible source, history shows that Wikipedians react quite negatively to that sort of thing, dozens of people start applying scrutiny and the exit door is held wide open. Franamax (talk) 05:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
- I see your point, and it's a good one, but the one I'm addressing is somewhat different. I agree that translating well is time consuming and difficult, which is rather my point when I say that it is an extremely dubious notion that one could rely solely on computer translations in sourcing an article. I think it is perfectly acceptable to ask an editor who is adding fresh material from foreign language sources to an article to provide some kind of translation. I personally would accept a rough summary, for example, rather than a word by word translation. We should require that editors have a minimal understanding of the material they are sourcing, and I simply do not believe such understanding is possible via translation services such as google provide. And in the case of fresh material, providing a rough summary translation should be easy, since the material is fresh in the mind of the editor who added it. It is not the case that we should not use translation services, as they are a boon. Using myself as an example, with English, German, French and some Spanish, I'm comfortable using Google for basic facts from Dutch and Portuguese, but when doing so, I also need to consult a dictionary and take my time to make sure to accurately represent the sources. I sense some middle path in here, perhaps we can refine the problem a bit to find it. --Nuujinn (talk) 02:19, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
- Why should my inability to translate a source be treated differently from any other of my source-related inabilities? Shall we gut PAYWALL, on the grounds that I'm not willing to spend $30 to buy a paper from Elsevier, and if nobody with 'free' access happens to notice my request for verification and look up the source for me "in a reasonable timeframe", then we should delete it? For those same $30, I could very buy a professional translation of a 400-word source. Shall we require online-only sources? For the same $30, I could buy most typical hardback books. Why does anyone want to handle translation differently? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- Do we really have to do this question over every six months because someone wasnt here for the last time we talked about this? Come on, policy is still as clear as it was the last 10 times over the 4 or so years I've been on Wikipedia- YOU do not have to verify every single statement in Wikipedia with every source, a source must simply be able to be verified by SOMEONE. You cant find a translator and you cant learn Chinese? Tough luck. SOMEONE can read that source and it will be up to them to verify if it is legit. You can move on to something else and you have NO RIGHT to remove any source due to language barrier. Similarly a book that only exists in one museum in Texas is perfectly able to be cited as a source, we dont have to give YOU an opportunity to travel to Texas to read it personally. Verifiability means it can be verified by SOMEONE, not by EVERYONE. Why do we have these drawn out discussions instead of simply stating that one fact everytime someone brings this up? It is plainly stated in policy, we put that very saying there in policy explicitly after one of these past discussions at the WP:RS/N discussions in order to eliminate these discussions. Classic example of a waste of time on a perennial discussion.Camelbinky (talk) 01:05, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- I guess someone could make a list of all these unnecessary discussions and create an essay that gives some basic information and links to all of them. Hans Adler 13:13, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- Camelbinky, to me as an irregular observer here, your highly dismissive tone seems to obscure or override legitimate concerns where questionable additions are made based on "non-accessible" sources where I have lost the ability to AGF, let's say when multiple anonymous editors are using the same source with no explanation for their curious edits. Although I agree you shouldn't be forced to provide a translation just for my own satisfaction, surely it's not so cut-and-dried that you can express it in CAPITAL LETTERS. Franamax (talk) 08:43, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
It should be taken into account that working only with English sources generate a systemic bias. There are many important topics at non-english countries, where the English coverage does not exist or is basically trivial. Using English sources, such articles may stay short and unclear, and only someone managing both languages and capable to check the non-English sources could really make a difference to FA level. Cambalachero (talk) 15:58, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
Non-English sources for new material
I thought I would break this out so as to reduce the muddle above. Does anyone else see any benefit to saying something to the effect that if an editor is adding material to an article using foreign language sources, they are [obligated or expected or something similar] upon request to provide a brief summary translation or description of those sources, if the request is presented in a timely fashion? The idea would be that if, hypothetically, editor A is adding material about Eelmail from an article in a Urdu language source, editor B could ask for a summary translation and get something like "the Urdu language source is a review of Eelmail in a software magazine similar to PC World, and compares Eelmail to Squirrelmail" with a brief overview of the article (and I do mean brief). Since editor A has, in this scenario, recently handled the material, providing such would seem to be little work and a reasonable request to honor. This would not affect any current content, only new material. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:27, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- If dealing with good faith editors, that strikes me as creepy, and if dealing with bad faith ones, overly gameable.—S Marshall T/C 13:55, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- @Nuujinn: reading the discussion above, the answer to your question seems a clear no.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:39, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- Not so much to me, since the issue of removing existing content because a translation is not provided is the primary concern there. I'm curious about how this could be gamed, and the nature of your objection to the specific notion I'm suggesting, assuming that you have one and are not just summing up the discussion above. Is providing some kind of summary or clarification really that much work in comparison to the research, reading, citing and writing of the content? I can see objections to actual full translations as that is a lot of work, but that's not what I'm proposing here. --Nuujinn (talk) 16:12, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- various postings above clearly state neither a "mandatory" translation by the original editor editor nor a removal of the content (if the former is not provided) is wanted. To md that looks like a clear no as an answer to your question.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:50, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- I don't know whether anyone but me sees a need for some change in this area, but honestly, neither of those issues is, as far as I can see, directly related to the question I'm posing, since I'm neither suggesting content be deleted nor that translations of sources be mandatory. It is simply this: to my way of thinking, if asked politely and in a timely fashion, one should always provide some characterization as to the content of a source that is not readily accessible to other editors, whether that is due to a paywall, or limited availability of a paper source, or a language barrier, and failure to do so approaches bad faith. --Nuujinn (talk) 19:56, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- That an editor "should" provide a translation out of courtesy is already in the current version of the policy. So I don't quite get what kind of change you are asking for now and the (stronger) reformulations you seem to suggest or aiming for have been declined by various people above.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:20, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- Why must some people constantly think the burden should be placed on those adding material? Again- Policy is quite clear that to add sourced material it is only required that the source be verifiable by SOMEONE, not EVERYONE, and not necessarily easy for someone. This is dumbing down Wikipedia for the sake of the few who think THEY must be able to verify anything from their comfy computer chair in three seconds or less. It is not the burden of those doing the hard work of researching, getting the sources, and putting them into articles to make it "easy" for those who simply troll around wanting to verify everything themselves. If you cant read Chinese, perhaps you shouldnt worry yourself about the verifiability of sources in an article that has a plethora of Chinese language sources.Camelbinky (talk) 17:00, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
- That an editor "should" provide a translation out of courtesy is already in the current version of the policy. So I don't quite get what kind of change you are asking for now and the (stronger) reformulations you seem to suggest or aiming for have been declined by various people above.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:20, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- I don't know whether anyone but me sees a need for some change in this area, but honestly, neither of those issues is, as far as I can see, directly related to the question I'm posing, since I'm neither suggesting content be deleted nor that translations of sources be mandatory. It is simply this: to my way of thinking, if asked politely and in a timely fashion, one should always provide some characterization as to the content of a source that is not readily accessible to other editors, whether that is due to a paywall, or limited availability of a paper source, or a language barrier, and failure to do so approaches bad faith. --Nuujinn (talk) 19:56, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- The original intent of the "provide the original non-english text and a translation" statement was to allow for verification of an editor's self translated material. Citing a non-english source is fine... but when there is no reliable translation available, we are faced with the question of whether the editor who added the material has (whether intentionally or unintentionally) mis-stated what the source says... whether the editor conducting the translation has accurately translated the source. In some ways, this could go under WP:NOR (it is one of those areas where WP:V intersects with WP:NOR - the argument being that a user translation is a form of original research). By requesting that the editor adding the material provide both the non-english text and his translation of it, we can call in fellow editors who understand the non-english language, to verify that the adding editor is accurately translating the non-english text and presenting what that text says appropriately. Blueboar (talk) 17:19, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with the last part ("we can call in fellow editors who understand the non-english language, to verify that the adding editor is accurately translating the non-english text and presenting what that text says appropriately."), but the point there is, that you can do all that without a the self translation by the original editors. The fellow editors understanding the language can check the citation and/or the original quote directly, they don't need the personal translation of the original editor for anything.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
- We can always call in other editors, and as someone who has a lot of experience with translation, I can tell you it's much easier when the material's fresh in your mind. But I think I'm really nibbling on a bigger issue, which is how do we verify that something is verifiable, and how open we expect or require editors to be with the source materials at their disposal, so I think I'll go off and think about this within a larger scheme. Honestly, though, I do not understand why it is considered so onerous to provide a brief summary or characterization of a source in a language you can read well enough to be able to use the source properly upon request. If the material is fresh we're talking about a couple of minutes of work. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- The issue is here is between desirable and mandatory behaviour. We probably all agree that editors should be forthcoming with their sources and help cleaning up potential issues, but that is different from requiring it, i.e. making it mandatory for editing at all. And as far as problem editors or edits are concerned, the summary is not solving anything. If I come across an editor or edit that looks questionable to me, why would a summary make it any less questionable?. If I have reasons to distrust some editor, most likely I have reason to distrust his summary or translation as well, hence quite often they achieve or solve nothing.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:45, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- Please note that I have never used the word "mandatory", as I am sensitive to that issue. Obligated is the strongest word I used, and an obligation is not mandatory. I feel like you have been fighting against something I'm not proposing. As for the summary not solving anything, I disagree, as it helps open a door to others who may have some skills with a foreign language but who are not fluent. It's not about distrust of editors, it's about enlarging access to the sources. And you didn't answer my last question--even if it were a requirement, what would be so onerous about providing a summary upon request? Perhaps it is my academic background, but it just does not seem like a big deal to me, and I'm honestly curious why it seems such a burden to honor a good faith request such as this. --Nuujinn (talk) 15:36, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- The issue is here is between desirable and mandatory behaviour. We probably all agree that editors should be forthcoming with their sources and help cleaning up potential issues, but that is different from requiring it, i.e. making it mandatory for editing at all. And as far as problem editors or edits are concerned, the summary is not solving anything. If I come across an editor or edit that looks questionable to me, why would a summary make it any less questionable?. If I have reasons to distrust some editor, most likely I have reason to distrust his summary or translation as well, hence quite often they achieve or solve nothing.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:45, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- We can always call in other editors, and as someone who has a lot of experience with translation, I can tell you it's much easier when the material's fresh in your mind. But I think I'm really nibbling on a bigger issue, which is how do we verify that something is verifiable, and how open we expect or require editors to be with the source materials at their disposal, so I think I'll go off and think about this within a larger scheme. Honestly, though, I do not understand why it is considered so onerous to provide a brief summary or characterization of a source in a language you can read well enough to be able to use the source properly upon request. If the material is fresh we're talking about a couple of minutes of work. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with the last part ("we can call in fellow editors who understand the non-english language, to verify that the adding editor is accurately translating the non-english text and presenting what that text says appropriately."), but the point there is, that you can do all that without a the self translation by the original editors. The fellow editors understanding the language can check the citation and/or the original quote directly, they don't need the personal translation of the original editor for anything.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
- various postings above clearly state neither a "mandatory" translation by the original editor editor nor a removal of the content (if the former is not provided) is wanted. To md that looks like a clear no as an answer to your question.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:50, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- Not so much to me, since the issue of removing existing content because a translation is not provided is the primary concern there. I'm curious about how this could be gamed, and the nature of your objection to the specific notion I'm suggesting, assuming that you have one and are not just summing up the discussion above. Is providing some kind of summary or clarification really that much work in comparison to the research, reading, citing and writing of the content? I can see objections to actual full translations as that is a lot of work, but that's not what I'm proposing here. --Nuujinn (talk) 16:12, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- @Nuujinn: reading the discussion above, the answer to your question seems a clear no.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:39, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
- For one thing, because a significant minority of these requests aren't good-faith requests. If you're in a dispute with WP:Randy from Boise, you shouldn't be stuck typing up what may be dozens of sources and dozens of translations, on pain of Randy getting to delete whatever he personally disagrees with. NB that this discussion was started because of someone at an AFD, whose response to discovering this policy was "consider this my request for the translations per WP:NOENG."—all the sources not in English, and solely because the sources are not in English. That's three-quarters of the sources in the article, with more than one non-English language represented. There is no reason to believe that there are any problems in the article.
- Additionally, we're not talking about providing a summary. We're talking about providing word-for-word direct quotations plus the translation. Your summary of the source's material is exactly what's being disputed here, so another summary isn't going to prove that your first summary was accurate. I'm honestly thinking that we might do well to drop the translation requirement. Non-English sources really ought to be treated exactly like English sources. There are a couple of languages that I can decode well enough to determine certain kinds of technical facts and often to determine that the material added by someone else is likely correct, but that doesn't mean that I could necessarily provide a proper translation, even though I'd be capable of telling you which sentence or paragraph is the relevant one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:12, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- I completely agree and it safes me from typing a lengthy to Nuujinn myself. In addition to your comment I'd also like to reiterate a point already made by Camelbinky further up. We should avoid placing additional not really necessary burden on our reliable editors. WP thrives of making by contribution easy and unbureaucratic (at least for reliable editors).--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:53, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
RFC notice
There is an ongoing RFC at Talk:Santorum (neologism)#Proposal to rename.2C redirect.2C and merge content that may be of interest to editors here. Dreadstar ☥ 20:56, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
Proposal for a change in the first sentence
Template:Rfcid Shall we remove the words "not truth" from the first sentence of Wikipedia:Verifiability? 20:32, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
I've been gone and it got archived under the 5 day setting, but below is the lead proposal that emerged from the process here over the last few months. So now it is time to propose the change, with the alternative being "no change" We discussed the desirability of casting a wider net for input (which also means a longer time period for input) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:01, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
Proposal
Replace the entire first (one sentence) paragraph of wp:ver with:
- 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. No other consideration, such as assertions of truth, is a substitute for verifiability.1
- ...
- Notes
- 1.^ For continuity, the previous version of this text read, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."
The footnote would go in the notes section at the end of the policy and remain longer term.
Support
- Support This change strengthens wp:verifiability by providing a clearer statement. At same time it corrects the problem that the current wording disparages the concept of striving for accuracy, and the negative impacts that such has had. The disparagement is indirect here, but much worse when that portion is taken out of context and used as a chant, as it often is. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:01, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Support I think it's much clearer than the the current version. Laurent (talk) 14:08, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Support as a move in the right direction (though there are still things wrong with it, as I have pointed out many times).--Kotniski (talk) 14:14, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Support. My position is that this change is necessary but not sufficient, and I would prefer to see the word "threshold" changed as well.—S Marshall T/C 20:56, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Support - an improvement - as I have said on this page before, the construction of a false dichotomy between "truth" and "verifiability" is misleading. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:52, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Support; many people here seem to fundamentally misunderstand what "verifiability, not truth" means, and it causes far more problems than it should. The proposed wording will eliminate that problem, and it won't enable the "truth warriors" because it says the exact same thing (that information must be verifiable) without allowing for the opposite extreme (people with a severe case of literal thinking who believe "verifiability" means we must source everything to secondary sources, when sometimes a primary source is more reliable, and that we have no respect for the truth and blindly follow the sources even when they're obviously wrong) to impose their standards. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:35, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Support. In general, we do care that our articles are accurate, not just verifiable. The "not truth" language causes more confusion than it solves. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:15, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- Support (1) The lede states with emphasis that what we want in Wikipedia is "not truth". It appears that some editors really believe that "not truth" is acceptable for the content of articles. (2) The current text is not useful to explain to a reasonable editor why he/she can't just fix an article to say what a consensus of editors agree is true. These are both unintended consequences of using a figure of speech in technical writing. The solution is to remove "not truth" from what verifiability is about, and let WP:Editing policy bear the weight where it says, "on Wikipedia a lack of information is better than misleading or false information". Unscintillating (talk) 00:59, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Support. It is my opinion that this is wording has been responsible for much of the argumentation and downright silliness on en:wp. John lilburne (talk) 16:32, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- support. heaven forbid wp be accused of truth. Darkstar1st (talk) 16:52, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Support This version says the same thing as the prior did, just in a more explanatory fashion than the often confused and misused "Verifiability, not truth" statement. Might I also note that, looking through the first five archives of this page, I saw no consensus or discussion at all about the addition of the statement or the section, which was added by Slimvirgin back in 2005. SilverserenC 19:42, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Support It's an improvement. The place for iconic crap is T-shirts and tourist traps. SBHarris 22:02, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Oppose
- Oppose. There is already a straw poll at the top of this page that gained no consensus for change. This may seem like a small tweak, but it's a significant change in emphasis from the current first sentence. The current version has had consensus for years and reads: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." The phrase "Verifiability, not truth" is iconic as a representation of Wikipedia's sourcing and neutrality standards, and there would have to be strong and wide consensus to change it. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 15:41, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose -- as things stand Wikipedia gets warriors who are sure they know what the truth is; WP:V is an essential tool for ensuring that articles are written in ways that reflect sources rather than editors' beliefs about truths. As SV says, the proposed change seems small but is enormously consequential and should not be adopted lightly; it might seem like a way to solve some problems, but unintended consequences loom large here. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:42, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose, this needs to stand as-is, as Slim and Nomoskedasticity point out, this is a very consequential change for the policy that will do nothing but enable the truth-warriors. Verifiability, not truth is an important touchstone for the inclusion of material in Wikipedia and shouldn't be diminished by this major change in wording. Dreadstar ☥ 21:02, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose. I feel very strongly that the phrase "verifiability, not truth" is one of the most powerful ideas behind the success of Wikipedia. It's counter-intuitive to new editors, and the ability to explain it to them—as clearly as possible—has been invaluable countless times in avoiding needless disputes. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose. It's not broke, so don't fix it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:26, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose, "Verifiability, not truth" is a good touchstone, I see no gain from the change proposed. --Nuujinn (talk) 22:36, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose because the principle that "just because it's true doesn't make it fit for Wikipedia" is rather important and oft-quoted. ╟─TreasuryTag►Regent─╢ 22:40, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose—the policy has long been "verifiability, not truth" and that's an important distinction that's been enshrined in our culture around here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Imzadi1979 (talk • contribs) 23:02, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose - Prefer the current language. This is a vital phrase in combating POV warriors and fringe theory pushers. Blueboar (talk) 00:18, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose Not broke, don't fix. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:22, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose nothing wrong with the current wording. --Six words (talk) 23:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose for reasons informed by lessons learned the hard way --Tenmei (talk) 01:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose - the phrase has been a policy since 2005 (originally in WP:NOR).[3] I don't see a strong enough reason to delete this very stable part of a core policy. Will Beback talk 03:00, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose. Current wording is an essential part of policy, removing it will open the floodgates to endless wars among different individuals each possessing their own personal TRUTH™. Jayjg (talk) 04:25, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose - I think the current statement is essential to WP. -- Donald Albury 20:49, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose the present wording has done us very good service, and built up a large body of explanations and interpretation, which we should not lose. DGG ( talk ) 21:12, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Additional comments and discussions
Slim, that straw poll was farther reaching. A "yes" meant agreeing with two declarations, one that the (overall) first sentence is problematic, and second that it needs to be rewritten. And even then half of everybody said yes. And, at the time, without any specific proposal; this is a very mild one. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:16, 10 June 2011 (UTC) Italic text
- The poll asked whether the first sentence ought to be changed. It gained no consensus, and that's only on this page. You would need a strong consensus (significantly above two thirds) to remove "verifiability, not truth," which is a central idea in WP's policies, and you would need consensus far beyond this page. Lots of people have making that point for a few months, North. :) SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS
- Surely if it really is a central Wikipedia idea, it should be drawing in more than one-third support? Or to put it another way, if it only has the grudging support of about a half (or fewer) of the people who comment, it ought to be relegated from its position at the top of what is advertised as a key policy page?--Kotniski (talk) 17:30, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- The problem, as you know, is that a tiny number of you have been going on about this for months, and it wears most people down, who either don't bother to comment or comment once then wander off. That's why wide input is needed for fundamental changes to core policy, as a safeguard against the kind of thing that's been happening here. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 17:36, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- It's hardly a fundamental change to policy - we all know what it's supposed to say (more or less), it would just be preferable to say it more clearly and accurately. Anyway, you seem to be voting oppose without any reason except that you expect people not to support it or you don't expect wide input, which seems rather premature (these are points to be made when the discussion comes to be closed). Do you have any argument for preferring the present wording - which tells people that we fundamentally don't care about the truth of what we write?--Kotniski (talk) 17:45, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- The problem, as you know, is that a tiny number of you have been going on about this for months, and it wears most people down, who either don't bother to comment or comment once then wander off. That's why wide input is needed for fundamental changes to core policy, as a safeguard against the kind of thing that's been happening here. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 17:36, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Slim, that's not what the straw poll question said if you read it closely. Second, I agree with Kotniski that this is not a change in policy, it's just a change in wording. If every change in wp:ver counts as change in policy, then you have changed the policy 5 times in the last 10 days. Third, you are bringing up that double standard again, but this even goes along with that, saying to cast a wide net for feedback and give time for lots of feedback. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:02, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- You don't have to read the poll question closely, North. It asked whether the first sentence needed to be rewritten. It isn't reasonable to keep on ignoring people when they say no. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 18:08, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- Well, it's written for all to see, and we are describing the questions and result very differently. I say that a "yes" also required agreeing that the current wording is problematic, you say not. I guess we need to agree to disagree and let folks read it for themselves. Second, I resent your characterization of this as "ignoring people when they say no" and feel that there is no basis for such a strong and nasty statement, or even a milder version of it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:55, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- You don't have to read the poll question closely, North. It asked whether the first sentence needed to be rewritten. It isn't reasonable to keep on ignoring people when they say no. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 18:08, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- SV we have a prime example of this nonsense festering its way though the santorum pages. One side has a bevy of sources using the the word and describing it as a neologism, whilst the expert opinion on the subject Partridge says it is NOT a neologism as it has not gained widespread usage. Which prevails RS or truth? NOT-TRUTH is fine for including articles on the paranormal and rejecting hearsay, it is not so good when it is being used to push an agenda. John lilburne (talk) 19:37, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Doesn't go far enough for me. A corrected first sentence should replace the word "threshold".—S Marshall T/C 19:36, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- So this is a baby step in that direction. :-) North8000 (talk) 20:02, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- I'm glad you've confirmed that you're trying to change things significantly bit by bit, so the lobster doesn't notice he's being boiled. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 20:09, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- I meant that as a way for S Marshall to potentially view this with respect to their comment. Further changes on this part would not be on my radar screen. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:38, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- I'm glad you've confirmed that you're trying to change things significantly bit by bit, so the lobster doesn't notice he's being boiled. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 20:09, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- It's the third time in the last few weeks I've seen you use the term "baby steps" to try to persuade people to support your changes to the policy. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 20:42, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- I consider taking a small safe step to be a good concept. I had a proposal in the list but this one was somebody else's. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- However, this is a huge, unsafe step. Jayjg (talk) 04:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Where's Crum? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:34, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- However, this is a huge, unsafe step. Jayjg (talk) 04:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- I consider taking a small safe step to be a good concept. I had a proposal in the list but this one was somebody else's. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
- It's the third time in the last few weeks I've seen you use the term "baby steps" to try to persuade people to support your changes to the policy. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 20:42, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
Can someone point to evidence that the current wording is actually causing confusion? I'm not really convinced there's a problem that needs to be solved. Mlm42 (talk) 19:56, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- IMHO it's pervasive in WP that once a situation starts getting contentious and moves into wikilawyer warfare, the idea of striving for accuracy becomes totally rejectable. And people keep pushing and mistakenly getting the impression that the Wikipedia/Wikimedia mission rejects the idea of striving for accuracy. This is NOT true, that impression comes from the faulty concept of trying to reverse engineer a mission statement out of imperfectly worded policies, which is backwards, because policies are supposed to implement the mission on objectives, not define them. And this sentence which for some inexplicable reason feels the need to put a "not" statement into a statement of what IS required has contributed to that. And so IMHO every one of the zillions of statements when someone discounts the idea / goal of striving for accuracy is an example of a problem that this sentence contributes to. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- Well. Ok, but in terms of the wording, many of us simply do not see the problem you see, and these discussions have been going on for quite a while now. There's nothing wrong with the position that if there's no problem to fix, leave it alone. I just don't see any consensus developing here. --Nuujinn (talk) 20:41, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- So... you don't have any evidence it's actually causing confusion? Jayjg (talk) 04:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- To me, the proposed rewording has an identical meaning to the current version. The main difference between the two is that the current version has more emphasis placed on the contrast between verifiability and truth.. and I think it's important to emphasize that "verifiability" and "truth" are distinct concepts. The current wording does that well, as soon as possible. Mlm42 (talk) 01:35, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- On another point, I'm a little concerned that the line "whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published" is going to be misinterpreted as requiring free, online sources, or as requiring inline citations for everything (you know, because none of our readers know how to ask Mr Google whether a source exists). I'm not actually convinced that the primary purpose of citing our sources is to let the readers check anything. I think it's primary purpose is to help editors check the material. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- That's not a change; that exact wording is in the current first sentence of the policy. North8000 (talk) 11:05, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- True, but it still worries me. We've recently seen people fussing about non-English sources because they can't check the sources, and the demands for free, online sources have been so persistent that it's enshrined on the list. IMO "users" would be more appropriate than "readers", if we're going to have this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- That's not a change; that exact wording is in the current first sentence of the policy. North8000 (talk) 11:05, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Reading the comments of those who support the proposal, and trying to see where they are coming from, I think part of the disagreement comes from the very reasonable concern that Wikipedia should not be implying that "not truth" is actually something we want. We want the truth as reliable sources see it, but not as Wikipedia editors see it. Consequently, what Wikipedia editors are tasked with doing is to find "verifiability, not truth", but this is done in search for what will be true. As many of us who oppose the proposal have said, if we ditch the "not truth" wording, we will open a floodgate of editors who want to push their versions of The Truth. Instead, would some sort of clarifying sentence, added after, be the way to make clear that we do not mean that we want "not truth"? I haven't thought through how to word it, but I think clarification may be helpful here. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:44, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
The main issue with the current wording of the sentence and the better wording of this proposal, with the use of the word "assertions", is that the "iconic" statement seems to be saying that Wikipedia is fine with publishing lies, just so long as they are lies obtained from other people. I would hope that this is certainly not true. There is a reason why the term Wikiality was ever created in the first place, even if it was meant as a joke. We need to have an explanatory first sentence that explains what we mean by verifiability. We don't need a catchy little statement that is often abused and mocked for its ridiculousness. The question is, sure the statement Verifiability, not truth may be iconic, but do we really want to be iconic for a badly worded, mocked statement? SilverserenC 21:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- Policy by mockery? We shouldn't make policy based on whether mockery exists, but we should consider whether the mockery is based on a valid criticism. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:54, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
A fork of this policy: "Verifiability in practice" ?
Since gradual reform of this policy is not going to work, it's better for those who want to change this policy to work together on a completely new draft which will then focus on how verifiability is implemented in practice. This doesn't have to replace the current policy page, it can exist in parallel to this one. So, while this policy page can say hat things should be done in this or that way, the other page can say that in practice Wikipedia editors don't take that prescription serious and explain how things are done done here in practice.
So, this policy page can be like the Bible, the content/interpretation of which may be defended religiously, the other page will be more like sociological text which explains how people actually behave. Count Iblis (talk) 16:27, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
- ^ a b Weisstein, Eric. "Mean-Value Theorem". MathWorld. Wolfram Research. Retrieved 24 March 2011.
- ^ Rasmussen, William Meade Stith (1999). George Washington--the man behind the myths. University of Virginia Press. p. 294. ISBN 9780813919003. Retrieved October 8, 2010.
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