[WikiEN-l] History of "Verifiability, not truth"

[Ray Saintonge]

Todd Allen wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 1:43 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>   
>> Phil Sandifer wrote:
>>  > On 4/7/08, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  >
>>  >> When the issue of Wikipedia's "unreliability" comes up, I like to
>>  >>  point out that we can't, don't and have never promised "reliability" -
>>  >>  what we are, in fact, is *useful*. (I make such a bold claim based on
>>  >>  our horrendous mainstream popularity. Hands up all the old hand
>>  >>  encyclopedia nerds here who thought it would get this far this quickly
>>  >>  ...)
>>  >>
>>  > Indeed. We are useful. And I am hard pressed to believe that if you
>>  > asked a random, non-wonk user if our usefulness to them was based on
>>  > the fact that we are generally accurate, the answer would be "yes"
>>  > almost all of the time.
>>  >
>>  > To dismiss accuracy as some philosophical technicality is to deny the
>>  > reality of why people look things up in encyclopedias.
>>  Naturally we strive to be accurate, but the judgements of accuracy and
>>  usefulness are for outsiders to make. The obsessive-compulsives need to
>>  abandon the notion that they are the guardians of accuracy.
>>
>>  Ec
> I think you have an excellent point here, and this brings us back to
> the previous point: Which one of us decides what is accurate? Why
> should any of us be doing that? In the absence of a different source
> offering a counterargument, what you are left with is "This is wrong
> because I say so," and allowing that is simply not sustainable,
> especially for contentious areas. Rather, we simply say "Source X says
> Statement Y", cite Source X, and leave it to the reader to research
> and decide what to believe about Statement Y. Citation and attribution
> are the keys. -Regardless of the truth of Statement Y itself-, so long
> as Source X really did say Statement Y, that line is both accurate and
> verifiable. We are not and should not be making judgments as to the
> validity of the claim, simply reporting that it was made.
>   
More problematic are the situations where Source X making Statement Y 
justifies Claim Z by our editor.  I'll grant that editor the good faith 
that he actually believes this, but that is not enough to support his 
peculiar logic.  A similar kind of argument comes up when an editor 
treats any criticism as a personal attack.

> Or to put it more simply, if the New York Times reports that the moon
> is a large pink beach ball, it is both accurate and verifiable to say
> "According to the New York Times, the moon is a large pink beach
> ball." The Times' hypothetical claim is ludicrous, but our statement
> that they said so is simple fact. And it is left to the reader to
> believe or not believe the claim, we are simply and accurately
> reporting that it was said and who said so.
>
>   

I agree there too.  The determination that a source is "reliable" just 
adds another level of uncertainty.  Where is the meta-reliable source 
that establishes the chosen source as reliable.  I'm well aware, for 
example, that we have many editors who believe that parapsychology is 
pseudoscience. But when somebody cites "The Journal of Parapsychology" 
it should be enough for the claim to speak for itself without going 
through the whole argument again about why parapsychology is 
pseudoscience.  We still preserve the fault line, but make it clear that 
the fault line is not a product of our judgement.

Ec