On 4/23/09, Andrew Turvey andrewrturvey@googlemail.com wrote:
What do we do about well-sourced information which turns out to be incorrect? I don't think policies cover this area particularly well, but the commonsense view is to word it something along the lines of:
"A national newspaper in 2007 reported that celebrity x had been arrested for taking drugs<ref> </ref>; however this was later shown to be untrue <ref> </ref>"
If it's not that important you can always include the details in a footnote:
"Joe Blow (b. 15.1.74) <ref>Note the New York Times stated he was born on January 14 - (ref). However, this source shows the actual date to be 14 Jan
</ref>
The added advantage is it means editors don't add the incorrect information in again at a later date.
This is what I've done on a few occasions when it's obvious that one source has got it wrong - see the footnote relating to the birthdate of Emlyn Garner Evans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emlyn_Garner_Evans. However there are always some where it is impossible to tell which of the conflicting sources has got it right; see Edward Doran for an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Doran.