On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 4:39 AM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 4/22/2009 5:27:47 PM Pacific Daylight Time, andrewrturvey@googlemail.com writes:
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. >>
I agree completely with the above.
Will Johnson
In effect, this is suggesting an amendment a bit like this:
"Corrections to published information presented by the subject and not found in third party sources may be incorporated in the article or its footnotes to improve the quality of the article, subject to 1/ the correction must be carefully checked and confirmed to be from the subject or their appointed representative, 2/ such a statement corrects but does not replace the published information; it must be clear that this is a correction of cited and otherwise verified information as stated by the subject, and 3/ this does not override NPOV or the requirement to avoid undue weight, advocacy or use as a battleground."
Ft2