Weird, WP:OR (No original research) and WP:V (Verifiability) have been merged into WP:ATT (Attribution). When exactly did this happen? I'm surprised there wasn't any discussion on this list.
Steve
On 2/28/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Weird, WP:OR (No original research) and WP:V (Verifiability) have been merged into WP:ATT (Attribution). When exactly did this happen? I'm surprised there wasn't any discussion on this list.
Hi Steve, the merge process started about four months ago. It was a simple merge with no changes, and the list was informed. The aim was to get the two policies on one page, tighten the writing a little, and get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
Sarah
There wasn't a lot of publicity, even on-wiki, though.
On 01/03/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/28/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Weird, WP:OR (No original research) and WP:V (Verifiability) have been merged into WP:ATT (Attribution). When exactly did this happen? I'm surprised there wasn't any discussion on this list.
Hi Steve, the merge process started about four months ago. It was a simple merge with no changes, and the list was informed. The aim was to get the two policies on one page, tighten the writing a little, and get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
Sarah
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On 2/28/07, NSLE (Wikipedia) nsle.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
There wasn't a lot of publicity, even on-wiki, though.
There was quite a bit of publicity in the usual places, with 1,003 edits made by 115 editors to the new page, and 3,506 posts from 207 editors on the talk page.
Sarah
On 2/28/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/28/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Weird, WP:OR (No original research) and WP:V (Verifiability) have been merged into WP:ATT (Attribution). When exactly did this happen? I'm surprised there wasn't any discussion on this list.
Hi Steve, the merge process started about four months ago. It was a simple merge with no changes, and the list was informed. The aim was to get the two policies on one page, tighten the writing a little, and get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
Sarah
This is good news; and it's nice to see something in there about obsolete and deprecated sources, finally.
On 3/1/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Steve, the merge process started about four months ago. It was a simple merge with no changes, and the list was informed. The aim was to get the two policies on one page, tighten the writing a little, and get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't complaining about not being notified :)
I do like the change. "Verifiability" was always terribly ambiguous and misleading. It never meant you had to verify the facts. It meant that if someone else wanted to verify them, they had a starting point. But it didn't really mean that either. "Attributability" is much cleaner.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/1/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Steve, the merge process started about four months ago. It was a simple merge with no changes, and the list was informed. The aim was to get the two policies on one page, tighten the writing a little, and get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't complaining about not being notified :)
I do like the change. "Verifiability" was always terribly ambiguous and misleading. It never meant you had to verify the facts. It meant that if someone else wanted to verify them, they had a starting point.
Exactly. Nothing more, nothing less.
But it didn't really mean that either.
Why not?
"Attributability" is much cleaner.
It looks like some kind of semantic game. Capable of being attributed? It suggests that we don't need to make an attribution, only assert that it is possible. Actually attributed statements (or attributions) are then verifiable.
Ec
On 3/1/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Steve Bennett wrote:
I do like the change. "Verifiability" was always terribly ambiguous and misleading. It never meant you had to verify the facts. It meant that if someone else wanted to verify them, they had a starting point.
Exactly. Nothing more, nothing less.
But it didn't really mean that either.
Why not?
"Attributability" is much cleaner.
It looks like some kind of semantic game. Capable of being attributed? It suggests that we don't need to make an attribution, only assert that it is possible. Actually attributed statements (or attributions) are then verifiable.
Ec
"Verify" in the old sense meant patently false material was to be given equal weight with provable facts; this allowed for "obsolete and depracated" sources were abused to give '"equal weight"
On 3/1/07, Rob Smith nobs03@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/1/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Steve Bennett wrote:
"Attributability" is much cleaner.
It looks like some kind of semantic game. Capable of being attributed? It suggests that we don't need to make an attribution, only assert that it is possible. Actually attributed statements (or attributions) are then verifiable.
The concept is simple and clean. All material published by Wikipedia must be attributable -- that is, it must be possible to attribute the material to a reliable source, which tells us it's not a Wikipedian's original research. But not all material must actually be attributed. It needs a source only if it's challenged, or if it's the kind of thing that's likely to be challenged (including contentious material in BLPs where sourcing is particularly important), and if it's a quotation.
This way of formulating policy helps to clarify that not every single sentence in Wikipedia ("the sky is blue") needs a source. Editors have to use their common sense to ask themselves "is this something that's likely to be challenged?" and if the answer's yes, they should add a source.
Forget the issue of "verifying" whether material is true. That's entirely unconnected to checking whether it has already been published, which is the only thing the policy's concerned about.
Sarah
On 3/1/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The concept is simple and clean. All material published by Wikipedia must be attributable -- that is, it must be possible to attribute the material to a reliable source, which tells us it's not a Wikipedian's original research. But not all material must actually be attributed. It needs a source only if it's challenged, or if it's the kind of thing that's likely to be challenged (including contentious material in BLPs where sourcing is particularly important), and if it's a quotation.
This way of formulating policy helps to clarify that not every single sentence in Wikipedia ("the sky is blue") needs a source. Editors have to use their common sense to ask themselves "is this something that's likely to be challenged?" and if the answer's yes, they should add a source.
Forget the issue of "verifying" whether material is true. That's entirely unconnected to checking whether it has already been published, which is the only thing the policy's concerned about.
Sarah
Thank you Slim. Now, how do we actually define an "obsolete or deprecated" source? Does the original author have to deprecate themself, or by what standard can it be considered deprecated? Secondly, one man's obsolete is another man's current news. When current scholarship renders a half century of reputable, WP:ATT, etc citations obsolete, although some material from the older literate *still* has value, how do we mark as obsolete and deprecated older citations that are errantly being used to refute newer scholarship?
Thank you.
Rob Smith wrote:
Now, how do we actually define an "obsolete or deprecated" source? Does the original author have to deprecate themself, or by what standard can it be considered deprecated? Secondly, one man's obsolete is another man's current news. When current scholarship renders a half century of reputable, WP:ATT, etc citations obsolete, although some material from the older literate *still* has value, how do we mark as obsolete and deprecated older citations that are errantly being used to refute newer scholarship?
It's not up to us to do this. If there is someplace that says that the idea has become obsolete or deprecated, Just site the source in the same way that you would anything else. If someone is claiming that an old source refutes a new one the citations for the two will still show dates of pubblication.
Ec
Slim Virgin wrote:
On 3/1/07, Rob Smith wrote:
On 3/1/07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Steve Bennett wrote:
"Attributability" is much cleaner.
It looks like some kind of semantic game. Capable of being attributed? It suggests that we don't need to make an attribution, only assert that it is possible. Actually attributed statements (or attributions) are then verifiable.
The concept is simple and clean. All material published by Wikipedia must be attributable -- that is, it must be possible to attribute the material to a reliable source, which tells us it's not a Wikipedian's original research. But not all material must actually be attributed. It needs a source only if it's challenged, or if it's the kind of thing that's likely to be challenged (including contentious material in BLPs where sourcing is particularly important), and if it's a quotation.
This way of formulating policy helps to clarify that not every single sentence in Wikipedia ("the sky is blue") needs a source. Editors have to use their common sense to ask themselves "is this something that's likely to be challenged?" and if the answer's yes, they should add a source.
Forget the issue of "verifying" whether material is true. That's entirely unconnected to checking whether it has already been published, which is the only thing the policy's concerned about.
I don't think that we disagree on the principle objective. As I see it "verify" and "attribute" both accomplish this.
Ec
Rob Smith wrote:
On 3/1/07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Steve Bennett wrote:
I do like the change. "Verifiability" was always terribly ambiguous and misleading. It never meant you had to verify the facts. It meant that if someone else wanted to verify them, they had a starting point.
Exactly. Nothing more, nothing less.
But it didn't really mean that either.
Why not?
"Attributability" is much cleaner.
It looks like some kind of semantic game. Capable of being attributed? It suggests that we don't need to make an attribution, only assert that it is possible. Actually attributed statements (or attributions) are then verifiable.
"Verify" in the old sense meant patently false material was to be given equal weight with provable facts; this allowed for "obsolete and depracated" sources were abused to give '"equal weight"
I would never have read that into it. As to obsolte data, it should be a simple matter of shouwing a source where the claim that it was deprecated was made
Ec
On 3/1/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
It looks like some kind of semantic game. Capable of being attributed? It suggests that we don't need to make an attribution, only assert that it is possible. Actually attributed statements (or attributions) are then verifiable.
This has been current practice for a long time. Anyone claiming (as Jimbo periodically does) that every statement actually has to be directly or indirectly referenced is not being realistic.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/1/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
It looks like some kind of semantic game. Capable of being attributed? It suggests that we don't need to make an attribution, only assert that it is possible. Actually attributed statements (or attributions) are then verifiable.
This has been current practice for a long time. Anyone claiming (as Jimbo periodically does) that every statement actually has to be directly or indirectly referenced is not being realistic.
True enough.
Ec
On 2/28/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The aim was to get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
Sarah
Hmm. The Latin root of verify means "true"; amazing the policy read "verifiable, not true". Like in the English language, just what the hell did that ever mean, anyway?
Rob Smith wrote:
On 2/28/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The aim was to get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
Hmm. The Latin root of verify means "true"; amazing the policy read "verifiable, not true". Like in the English language, just what the hell did that ever mean, anyway?
What is verifiable is what was actually said; that implies nothing about the substantive truth of the statement. It allows us to maintain NPOV by including verifiable but contradictory statements on both sides of an issue. Only rarely are they both true.
Ec
How did that happen without me knowing about it? Anyway, the "key step of superceding WP:RS" as someone called it can only be done if it's included in the page. You don't want people to cite any random website.
Mgm
On 3/1/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Rob Smith wrote:
On 2/28/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The aim was to get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
Hmm. The Latin root of verify means "true"; amazing the policy read "verifiable, not true". Like in the English language, just what the hell did that ever mean, anyway?
What is verifiable is what was actually said; that implies nothing about the substantive truth of the statement. It allows us to maintain NPOV by including verifiable but contradictory statements on both sides of an issue. Only rarely are they both true.
Ec
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MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
How did that happen without me knowing about it? Anyway, the "key step of superceding WP:RS" as someone called it can only be done if it's included in the page. You don't want people to cite any random website.
Mgm
On 3/1/07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Rob Smith wrote:
On 2/28/07, Slim Virgin wrote:
The aim was to get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
Hmm. The Latin root of verify means "true"; amazing the policy read "verifiable, not true". Like in the English language, just what the hell did that ever mean, anyway?
What is verifiable is what was actually said; that implies nothing about the substantive truth of the statement. It allows us to maintain NPOV by including verifiable but contradictory statements on both sides of an issue. Only rarely are they both true.
I certainly didn't intend to suggest that we were talking about anyone who making only random citations. In the case of an article about a war. Each party sincerely makes the claim that the other side was responsible for beginning the conflict, and believes it to be true. We can verify what each side says, but we should not be trying to evaluate who really did start it.
Ec
On 3/1/07, Rob Smith nobs03@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/28/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The aim was to get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
Sarah
Hmm. The Latin root of verify means "true"; amazing the policy read "verifiable, not true". Like in the English language, just what the hell did that ever mean, anyway?
I think the meaning of "verifiable" is "can be verified", i.e. "can be shown to be true by referring to a secondary source". For me, there was never a problem about what "verifiability" meant...but then, I can see the rationale for the change. There's still potential for confusion.
Johnleemk
On 3/1/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/1/07, Rob Smith nobs03@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/28/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The aim was to get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
Sarah
Hmm. The Latin root of verify means "true"; amazing the policy read "verifiable, not true". Like in the English language, just what the
hell
did that ever mean, anyway?
I think the meaning of "verifiable" is "can be verified", i.e. "can be shown to be true by referring to a secondary source". For me, there was never a problem about what "verifiability" meant...but then, I can see the rationale for the change. There's still potential for confusion.
Johnleemk
I always understood it to mean give equal weight to the lie if ( a ) were
deliberately engaged in intellectual dishonesty, or ( b ) too lazy to investigate or just in the habit of sloppy research methods.
Rob Smith wrote:
I always understood it to mean give equal weight to the lie if ( a ) were
deliberately engaged in intellectual dishonesty, or ( b ) too lazy to investigate or just in the habit of sloppy research methods.
One begins with good faith, and most policies should work in a good faith environment first, before starting to set things up to cope with lies.
Ec
On 3/2/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Rob Smith wrote:
I always understood it to mean give equal weight to the lie if ( a )
were
deliberately engaged in intellectual dishonesty, or ( b ) too lazy to investigate or just in the habit of sloppy research methods.
One begins with good faith, and most policies should work in a good faith environment first, before starting to set things up to cope with lies.
Ec
Too often we've seen "balancing material" with unbalanced material, i.e. deliberate and dishonest distortions. WP:V allowed for this, provided you could prove somebody said it somewhere sometime. Didn't matter if it was obsolete or deprecated. Under WP:V newer scholarship was cited to displace old ideas, yet the obsolete citations *still* could be used for "balance". Now we have a policy or definition. To what extent does an editor, acting in good faith, have to prove newer scholarship (for example based upon recent declassified documents), have to prove obsolete and deprecated material does not serve the purpose of NPOV?
Slim Virgin wrote:
On 2/28/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Weird, WP:OR (No original research) and WP:V (Verifiability) have been merged into WP:ATT (Attribution). When exactly did this happen? I'm surprised there wasn't any discussion on this list.
Hi Steve, the merge process started about four months ago. It was a simple merge with no changes, and the list was informed. The aim was to get the two policies on one page, tighten the writing a little, and get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
I don't see why they should get so confused about that. "Verified" and "verifiable" are clearly distinct concepts. The latter only means "capable of being verified". It does not imply that anyone has in fact gone there to make that verification.
Ec
On 3/1/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I don't see why they should get so confused about that. "Verified" and "verifiable" are clearly distinct concepts. The latter only means "capable of being verified". It does not imply that anyone has in fact gone there to make that verification.
But strangely enough, "verifiable" wasn't actually a policy at the day to day level. For something to be "verifiable", it would have to be referenced. But we didn't have a firm requirement that everything had to be referenced.
Take an (unreferenced) statement like "Wànsuìtōngtiān was emperor of China from 696 to 697 AD." Is it verifable? No - there is no immediate way of determining its veracity, short of researching from scratch. Is it attributable? Yes - we could certainly find someone else who had said that.
So it sounds like we are making clearer the distinction between: * the absolute necessity that everything we say be already said by someone else first * the preference (and in libel situations, necessity) that we cite those someone elses.
Steve
On 3/1/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
So it sounds like we are making clearer the distinction between:
- the absolute necessity that everything we say be already said by
someone else first
- the preference (and in libel situations, necessity) that we cite
those someone elses.
That's exactly right.
The new acronym makes me think of [[Mars Attacks!]].
Which is perhaps fitting...
On 2/28/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Steve, the merge process started about four months ago. It was a simple merge with no changes, and the list was informed. The aim was to get the two policies on one page, tighten the writing a little, and get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
The fewer pages new users need to read to get involved, the better, I think. Spreading it out over so many pages allows for an unfortunate amount of confusion and ambiguity (which isn't to say we can't leave room for judgement calls, but keeping the general guidelines and rationales of those judgement calls in one place seems like a net plus).
If there's one change I might bring up, has anybody discussed changing the page name? Possibly something a bit more intuitively descriptive, like [[Wikipedia:Attribute your sources]]? "Attribution" doesn't, in and of itself, imply what the page is about. Dunno. Minor thing, hopefully new users will figure it out quickly enough. Quick look didn't show if this had been discussed, but I didn't look everywhere.
Interesting to see a change in policy, regardless. Kudos to those who effected the revolution. I hope this works out well.
-Luna
On Wed, 28 Feb 2007, Slim Virgin wrote:
Hi Steve, the merge process started about four months ago. It was a simple merge with no changes, and the list was informed. The aim was to get the two policies on one page, tighten the writing a little, and get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
This is wrong.
For much of the time the policy was being written the point was not only to merge the two policies, but to do cleanup and to add defacto policies which were currently not codified.
That's why there's a whole subdiscussion about popular culture sources.
It later got changed, much more recently, to be an attempt to simply merge the policies. This was *not* the intent for most of the time.
On Feb 28, 2007, at 11:19 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
Weird, WP:OR (No original research) and WP:V (Verifiability) have been merged into WP:ATT (Attribution). When exactly did this happen? I'm surprised there wasn't any discussion on this list.
Steve
I'm glad to see this merge finally happen, though more than a bit bummed that it didn't manage the key step of superceding [[WP:RS]].
-Phil