A couple of combative columnists, [[Johann Hari]] and [[Mark Steyn]].
I'll take Johann Hari first, since the issues are entry-level.
User:81.157.14.152 thought that his secondary schooling was not verifiable, and cut it out (20 February); no edit summary, let alone discussion. One of the schools in question is [[John Lyon School]]. The information that Hari went there was added on 17 February by User:Epitome1, who had the same day edited the page, [[John Lyon School]]. And then immediately gone on to add the fat that Hari was an alumnus.
Reasonable presumption would take it that User:Epitome1 has a close enough connection to John Lyon School; perhaps even was a pupil there with Hari, or teaches there. Nothing to raise the slightest suspicion, anyway.
So User:81.157.14.152 cuts out this and another school. Objections from User:Felix-felix, who puts it back in. Talk page discussion: User:81.157.14.152 emails Hari to check, and comes back satisfied on the John Lyon School, at least.
But under [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons]], of course, we cannot accept this information, on the basis of a supposed email exchange.
Further, if someone actually was at school with Hari, we cannot accept that testimony, at least until they point to a published school list (which in effect displaces them as witness).
The article can get by, without the school information. But it is not without interest: Hari went to Cambridge, and has had a spectacular career while still young, from a background which was probably too poor to be considered very middle class.
Charles
On 3/3/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
A couple of combative columnists, [[Johann Hari]] and [[Mark Steyn]].
I'll take Johann Hari first, since the issues are entry-level.
User:81.157.14.152 thought that his secondary schooling was not verifiable, and cut it out (20 February); no edit summary, let alone discussion. One of the schools in question is [[John Lyon School]]. The information that Hari went there was added on 17 February by User:Epitome1, who had the same day edited the page, [[John Lyon School]]. And then immediately gone on to add the fat that Hari was an alumnus.
Reasonable presumption would take it that User:Epitome1 has a close enough connection to John Lyon School; perhaps even was a pupil there with Hari, or teaches there. Nothing to raise the slightest suspicion, anyway.
So User:81.157.14.152 cuts out this and another school. Objections from User:Felix-felix, who puts it back in. Talk page discussion: User:81.157.14.152 emails Hari to check, and comes back satisfied on the John Lyon School, at least.
But under [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons]], of course, we cannot accept this information, on the basis of a supposed email exchange.
Correct. Wikipedia editors are not journalists and have no access to the kind of fact-checking process that reporters have. This is why we publish only what reliable sources have already published.
However, even though the e-mail exchange is not acceptable as a source, there is likely to be some other way of obtaining the information e.g. from a school magazine or local newspaper. It'll just require a bit of extra digging.
Sarah
Slim Virgin wrote
Correct. Wikipedia editors are not journalists and have no access to the kind of fact-checking process that reporters have. This is why we publish only what reliable sources have already published.
However, even though the e-mail exchange is not acceptable as a source, there is likely to be some other way of obtaining the information e.g. from a school magazine or local newspaper. It'll just require a bit of extra digging.
Well, you're assuming here that the problem is actual _verification_.
No one seriously believes that schooling information in London would not be verifiable.
My interest here is rather in people's behaviour. The user who cut the information has, in my view, made numerous mistakes. Since the Verifiability policy will not in any case prevent the making of mistakes, here's the question to the class.
User:81.157.14.152 didn't follow best practice here. Enumerate the ways in which best practice was not followed.
Charles
On 3/3/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
My interest here is rather in people's behaviour. The user who cut the information has, in my view, made numerous mistakes. Since the Verifiability policy will not in any case prevent the making of mistakes, here's the question to the class.
User:81.157.14.152 didn't follow best practice here. Enumerate the ways in which best practice was not followed.
I'm not sure I see the point of this, Charles, because each situation is different, depending on whether the editors know each other, how potentially harmful the unsourced edit is, and so on. But in this case, I would look for a source myself online. If I couldn't find one, I'd request one on talk. For a harmless edit like this, I'd probably wait for a couple of weeks, then go back and delete it. If I cared about the subject, I'd try to track down an offline source myself. If the edit was potentially more damaging that where someone went to school, I'd add the {{fact}} template. If it was more damaging than that, I'd remove it (moving damaging edits to talk is not a good idea, because they're still cached by Google).
But WP:V can't give endless examples like this. We have to assume, even if flying in the face of all the evidence, that most editors have a degree of common sense.
Sarah
Slim Virgin wrote
I'm not sure I see the point of this, Charles, because each situation is different, depending on whether the editors know each other, how potentially harmful the unsourced edit is, and so on.
Well, I thought that's what the case study method is about. Get down to a concrete case. People on this list were asking for examples, were they not?
But in this case, I would look for a source myself online.
Well, I would ask the editor who added it three days before, first.
If I couldn't find one, I'd request one on talk. For a harmless edit like this, I'd probably wait for a couple of weeks, then go back and delete it.
Yes, asking on talk is good. In fact it is basic. Because if you don't, others can't help on the issue, and if this turns out to be something more major, there has been no alert, no documentation. If there _is_ a problem, then how can you keep something off the page, permanently?
If I cared about the subject, I'd try to track down an offline source myself. If the edit was potentially more damaging that where someone went to school, I'd add the {{fact}} template. If it was more damaging than that, I'd remove it (moving damaging edits to talk is not a good idea, because they're still cached by Google).
Yes. But it is unlikely to defame someone, to suggest they went to a fairly good school. So I say this edit was close to vandalism.
But WP:V can't give endless examples like this. We have to assume, even if flying in the face of all the evidence, that most editors have a degree of common sense.
Indeed. But then that is the drawback of the policy documents, collectively.
Charles
On 3/3/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
If I couldn't find one, I'd request one on talk. For a harmless edit like this, I'd probably wait for a couple of weeks, then go back and delete it.
...
But WP:V can't give endless examples like this. We have to assume, even if flying in the face of all the evidence, that most editors have a degree of common sense.
Indeed. But then that is the drawback of the policy documents, collectively.
Trouble is, my common sense, combined with policy, leads to a different result. We've assumed the factoid is true. We've assumed it is verifiable. As the policy stands, I would argue for leaving it in the article, regardless of whether we can actually track down a source or not. The policy doesn't say all info must have sources - it simply says all info must be verifiable, and there is enough information there to determine whether it's true or not (unlike the case of unattributed quotations, for example).
Common sense does not support removing true, verifiable, harmless information.
Steve
"Steve Bennett"
As the policy stands, I would argue for leaving it in the article, regardless of whether we can actually track down a source or not.
Well, I'm arguing that _asking the editor who inserted it_ is a kind of due diligence here. Like, go to User Talk, write 'Hi, interested to know how you researched Hari's schooling'. Before editing it out, after all of 72 hours. How much effort is that? Well, you have to look at the Page History.
My list of mistakes:
-Not assuming good faith (i.e. leaping to conclusions about a possible fabrication of a banal fact) -Not doing the collective things one does, to edit as a team on an article of common interest -Being too reactive, and lack of sense of proportion -No edit summaries -No use of article Talk -No use of User Talk -Probable ignorance of the use of the Page History, leading to a narrow view of one's responsibilities in editing -Misapprehension of Verifiability policy and its modalities -Ignorance of policy on biographies, leading to a wild goose chase.
Now, some of these are _newbie mistakes_, and the User has not been bitten (perhaps a bit scratched - see interchanges on Talk:Johann Hari, with cattiness from Felix^2). I would argue that just this isolation of 'thou may cut the unsourced' is a newbie-ism. It's the 'other things being equal' context that lacks.
I hope our newbies actually move up the learning curve from there. But it is much better to take WP:V as applying to one's own edits, to begin with. That could be said.
Charles
On 3/3/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Yes. But it is unlikely to defame someone, to suggest they went to a fairly good school. So I say this edit was close to vandalism.
How do we know it is a good school? Maybe he went to a school that was actually a traditional rival of this school, and someone is having a bit of fun at his expense? And how damaging is it really not to list the school they went to?
Jay.
"jayjg" wrote
How do we know it is a good school?
Well, reading the page, it's a good school, even 'exclusive'.
How do we verify that? Whoa, infinite regress ahead. Let's say that having a school page that is misleading would call for more immediate editing?
Maybe he went to a school that was actually a traditional rival of this school, and someone is having a bit of fun at his expense? And how damaging is it really not to list the school they went to?
As I pointed out, he got to Cambridge. This is not easy: one in 200 of his cohort manage it, at most.
I wouldn't go to the trouble of having an edit war over this, myself. Better ways to spend my time.
But shifting the issue onto the result, which is microscopic at the margin, is a way of not addressing what is going on. (This was the warm-up example, too.)
Charles
On 3/3/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
But shifting the issue onto the result, which is microscopic at the margin, is a way of not addressing what is going on. (This was the warm-up example, too.)
Sorry, Charles, your examples are going to have to get hotter than that one. :-) An anon IP making a drive-by deletion isn't going to be affected by the contents of V. We need a concrete example of where V or NOR are causing the deletion of unsourced edits that are otherwise known to be accurate.
The other thing I've many times asked for an example of is one of these well-known, undisputed facts that apparently no-one can find a source for.
Sarah
Slim Virgiin wrote
Sorry, Charles, your examples are going to have to get hotter than that one. :-) An anon IP making a drive-by deletion isn't going to be affected by the contents of V. We need a concrete example of where V or NOR are causing the deletion of unsourced edits that are otherwise known to be accurate.
Talk:Johann Hari is worth reading (how do we know that Hari claims that the Dalai Lama called him 'fat'?).
This is said justification:
"The reason I deleted the schools list is because I couldn't see any proof for it; I have now e-mailed Hari and he has given me a list of his schools, so hopefully we now have consensus on that."
This is at least 50% wrong, as we know. What I say is that the lack of the basic 'due diligence' taken on 'proof' makes it in the region of 80% wrong.
I will make an effort to send something more confusing, next, as this is so trite to the experts. My years in academia did suggest starting at the beginning.
Charles
On 3/3/06, slimvirgin@gmail.com slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/3/06, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
But shifting the issue onto the result, which is microscopic at the margin, is a way of not addressing what is going on. (This was the warm-up example, too.)
Sorry, Charles, your examples are going to have to get hotter than that one. :-) An anon IP making a drive-by deletion isn't going to be affected by the contents of V. We need a concrete example of where V or NOR are causing the deletion of unsourced edits that are otherwise known to be accurate.
Here ya go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Internet_Gambling_Prohibition_Act&...
On 3/3/06, slimvirgin@gmail.com slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Correct. Wikipedia editors are not journalists and have no access to the kind of fact-checking process that reporters have. This is why we publish only what reliable sources have already published.
Sorry to keep picking on you, but according to the policy, we can include the information if, as you say, it's already been published. We don't actually have to find
However, even though the e-mail exchange is not acceptable as a source, there is likely to be some other way of obtaining the information e.g. from a school magazine or local newspaper. It'll just require a bit of extra digging.
Sarah _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Crap, I actually sent this? My apologies, I meant to discard it. :)
Steve
On 3/3/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/3/06, slimvirgin@gmail.com slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Correct. Wikipedia editors are not journalists and have no access to the kind of fact-checking process that reporters have. This is why we publish only what reliable sources have already published.
Sorry to keep picking on you, but according to the policy, we can include the information if, as you say, it's already been published. We don't actually have to find
However, even though the e-mail exchange is not acceptable as a source, there is likely to be some other way of obtaining the information e.g. from a school magazine or local newspaper. It'll just require a bit of extra digging.
Sarah _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l