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

[Brian Salter-Duke]

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 02:57:01 -0600, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 1:43 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> 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
>>
>>
>>
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>
> 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.
>
> 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.

You are "right", but that would not stop that inclusion being removed as
complete bollocks and rightly so. We only need your rigorous robot like
approach if stuff is challenged. As someone else has replied, we can
generally sort it out between editors on the talk page.


-- 
          Brian Salter-Duke            b_duke at bigpond.net.au  
               [[User:Bduke]]  mainly on en:Wikipedia.
           Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity