From: "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com
On 12/8/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
From: "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com
If someone says that in Episode X of Show Y this happened, I can't imagine why I wouldn't believe it.
And I can imagine any number of ways by which if I *had* to I could verify such claim, including going to the production company or the Museum of Television and Radio or asking on craigslist to view such episode.
If someone (e.g. 68.80.254.34) says:
"Third floor of College Hall at Penn has an Episcopalian Chapel. On the wall states that Penn was founded by the Anglican Church of England. Go there and read it," would you say that "I can't imagine why I wouldn't believe it?"
Anyone _could_ travel to Philadelphia and visit College Hall. Does that make the fact verifiable?
Yes.
It seems to me, then, that
--you have a different definition of "verifiable" than Wikipedia currently has;
--you do not accept the current verifiability policy;
--you believe that information based solely on the personal testimony of an individual Wikipedian is acceptable content.
In order for information not to be original research, it has to be published. That's why visiting the college and finding out for yourself unfortunately constitutes original research.
On 12/9/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
From: "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com
On 12/8/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
From: "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com
If someone says that in Episode X of Show Y this happened, I can't imagine why I wouldn't believe it.
And I can imagine any number of ways by which if I *had* to I could verify such claim, including going to the production company or the Museum of Television and Radio or asking on craigslist to view such episode.
If someone (e.g. 68.80.254.34) says:
"Third floor of College Hall at Penn has an Episcopalian Chapel. On the wall states that Penn was founded by the Anglican Church of England. Go there and read it," would you say that "I can't imagine why I wouldn't believe it?"
Anyone _could_ travel to Philadelphia and visit College Hall. Does that make the fact verifiable?
Yes.
It seems to me, then, that
--you have a different definition of "verifiable" than Wikipedia currently has;
--you do not accept the current verifiability policy;
--you believe that information based solely on the personal testimony of an individual Wikipedian is acceptable content. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I think that this takes the original research ban a little too far. We are talking here about a place and a directly observable fact about the place. The original research here was done by the people who put the information own the wall. Any Wikipedian who cares to (I'm sure we have plenty of Wikipedians in or near Philadelphia.) can go there and take a photo of the wall for verification. It fits in fine with a policy of having people go out and take their own photos of whatever to replace fair use photos. IOW when should original research be used as grounds for rejecting a photo?
Ec
James Hare wrote:
In order for information not to be original research, it has to be published. That's why visiting the college and finding out for yourself unfortunately constitutes original research.
On 12/9/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
From: "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com
On 12/8/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
If someone (e.g. 68.80.254.34) says:
"Third floor of College Hall at Penn has an Episcopalian Chapel. On the wall states that Penn was founded by the Anglican Church of England. Go there and read it," would you say that "I can't imagine why I wouldn't believe it?"
Anyone _could_ travel to Philadelphia and visit College Hall. Does that make the fact verifiable?
Yes.
It seems to me, then, that
--you believe that information based solely on the personal testimony of an individual Wikipedian is acceptable content.
I think that this takes the original research ban a little too far. We are talking here about a place and a directly observable fact about the place. The original research here was done by the people who put the information own the wall. Any Wikipedian who cares to (I'm sure we have plenty of Wikipedians in or near Philadelphia.) can go there and take a photo of the wall for verification. It fits in fine with a policy of having people go out and take their own photos of whatever to replace fair use photos. IOW when should original research be used as grounds for rejecting a photo?
I think it's best to stop talking in terms of original research and talk about reliability of sources (which is the main reason the OR rule exists, it's a special case of WP:RS).
The source being used in the article is not the writing on the wall. The source is the few Wikipedians that have seen the writing. While the writing is probably reliable, the few Wikipedians are not. If someone took a picture, then we could use that picture as the source, and that picture *is* reliable, so everything is ok.
I think a lot of the disagreements in this thread boil down to people not understanding what the source in a particular situation is. If we only know something because a Wikipedian found it out from somewhere, then the source is the Wikipedian, not the somewhere they found it out from. A piece a information is only as reliable as the least reliable connection from the primary source to the article. If a source is published in such a way that anyone can verify it then the last connection (the author of the article) becomes reliable, as we can repeat their work (as it's a completely reliably connection, we usually ignore it and just reference the source directly).
Thomas Dalton wrote:
I think that this takes the original research ban a little too far. We are talking here about a place and a directly observable fact about the place. The original research here was done by the people who put the information own the wall. Any Wikipedian who cares to (I'm sure we have plenty of Wikipedians in or near Philadelphia.) can go there and take a photo of the wall for verification. It fits in fine with a policy of having people go out and take their own photos of whatever to replace fair use photos. IOW when should original research be used as grounds for rejecting a photo?
I think it's best to stop talking in terms of original research and talk about reliability of sources (which is the main reason the OR rule exists, it's a special case of WP:RS).
The source being used in the article is not the writing on the wall. The source is the few Wikipedians that have seen the writing. While the writing is probably reliable, the few Wikipedians are not. If someone took a picture, then we could use that picture as the source, and that picture *is* reliable, so everything is ok.
Some kinds of information are inherently more reliable. Compare 1. I saw the inscription on the wall, and 2. The image of Jesus appeared on that wall and remained for an hour.
Unlike the image the inscription is easily more verifiable, and will remain so for an extended amount of time. Eventually, many things deteriorate beyond use. Much 19th century material crumbles on sight because it was produced on acidic paper.
I think a lot of the disagreements in this thread boil down to people not understanding what the source in a particular situation is. If we only know something because a Wikipedian found it out from somewhere, then the source is the Wikipedian, not the somewhere they found it out from. A piece a information is only as reliable as the least reliable connection from the primary source to the article. If a source is published in such a way that anyone can verify it then the last connection (the author of the article) becomes reliable, as we can repeat their work (as it's a completely reliably connection, we usually ignore it and just reference the source directly).
Let's not be simplistic here. I completely agree that information is only as reliable as the weakest link in the information chain, but that does not imply that the weakest link is necessarily the most recent one. The fact that I read what I claim in the "Da Vinci Code" is immediately verifiable.
Ec
Let's not be simplistic here. I completely agree that information is only as reliable as the weakest link in the information chain, but that does not imply that the weakest link is necessarily the most recent one. The fact that I read what I claim in the "Da Vinci Code" is immediately verifiable.
Of course, but the most recent is the only one we have any control over. When determining the reliability of a source, we should certainly consider the reliability of the sources that source used, but we can't control what those sources were.
On Sat, 9 Dec 2006, Thomas Dalton wrote:
The source being used in the article is not the writing on the wall. The source is the few Wikipedians that have seen the writing. While the writing is probably reliable, the few Wikipedians are not.
By this reasoning, a source isn't a book, it's the few Wikipedians who have read the book.
How exactly is the writing on the wall different from a book? (Sure, not every Wikipedian can go read the writing, but not every Wikipedian has access to a particular book either.)
On 12/11/06, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
On Sat, 9 Dec 2006, Thomas Dalton wrote:
The source being used in the article is not the writing on the wall. The source is the few Wikipedians that have seen the writing. While the writing is probably reliable, the few Wikipedians are not.
By this reasoning, a source isn't a book, it's the few Wikipedians who have read the book.
How exactly is the writing on the wall different from a book? (Sure, not every Wikipedian can go read the writing, but not every Wikipedian has access to a particular book either.)
A wall carving is more likely to last longer.
A wall carving is more likely to last longer.
A carving in a cave, maybe. A carving on the wall of a building, probably not. All it takes is for that building to be knocked down, and the information is lost. With a book, every single copy ever made would need to be destroyed to lose the information.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
A wall carving is more likely to last longer.
A carving in a cave, maybe. A carving on the wall of a building, probably not. All it takes is for that building to be knocked down, and the information is lost. With a book, every single copy ever made would need to be destroyed to lose the information.
Not to mention the effect of acid rain. The paintings at the Lescaux caves have been there a long time, but they have been affected by those visitors who insist on breathing while they look at the pictures. We can believe something if enough Wikipedians have seen it, but it would be nicer if one of them had the presence of mind to bring a camera.
Ec
The source being used in the article is not the writing on the wall. The source is the few Wikipedians that have seen the writing. While the writing is probably reliable, the few Wikipedians are not.
By this reasoning, a source isn't a book, it's the few Wikipedians who have read the book.
Technically, yes, by my reasoning the source is always the author of the Wikipedia article, however in the case of that Wikipedian reading a published source that a significant number of readers can verify, the fact that the information reached the article via a Wikipedian becomes trivial, so we ignore it. If we can verify the source, then the Wikipedian is just as reliable as the source itself - the important thing in all of this is reliability.
How exactly is the writing on the wall different from a book? (Sure, not every Wikipedian can go read the writing, but not every Wikipedian has access to a particular book either.)
The difference is simply the number of people that have access to the source. I'm not going to try and give an exact definition of how many people is enough, because there are bound to be exceptions to any definition I could come up with. A book with copies in any large library is clearly accessible enough, some writing on a wall in one place is not. The line is drawn somewhere inbetween, but I'm not going to try and say where.
On Saturday 09 December 2006 08:17, James Hare wrote:
In order for information not to be original research, it has to be published. That's why visiting the college and finding out for yourself unfortunately constitutes original research.
It IS published...on the wall.
Just like Ketchikan, Alaska's "liquid sunshine" gauge.
On 12/9/06, Kurt Maxwell Weber kmw@armory.com wrote:
On Saturday 09 December 2006 08:17, James Hare wrote:
In order for information not to be original research, it has to be published. That's why visiting the college and finding out for yourself unfortunately constitutes original research.
It IS published...on the wall.
Kurt Weber kmw@armory.com
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 12/9/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
From: "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com
On 12/8/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
From: "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com
If someone says that in Episode X of Show Y this happened, I can't imagine why I wouldn't believe it.
And I can imagine any number of ways by which if I *had* to I could verify such claim, including going to the production company or the Museum of Television and Radio or asking on craigslist to view such episode.
If someone (e.g. 68.80.254.34) says:
"Third floor of College Hall at Penn has an Episcopalian Chapel. On the wall states that Penn was founded by the Anglican Church of England. Go there and read it," would you say that "I can't imagine why I wouldn't believe it?"
Anyone _could_ travel to Philadelphia and visit College Hall. Does that make the fact verifiable?
Yes.
It seems to me, then, that
--you have a different definition of "verifiable" than Wikipedia currently has;
How so?
--you do not accept the current verifiability policy;
Probably not. But then I'm a pretty disagreeable fellow.
--you believe that information based solely on the personal testimony of an individual Wikipedian is acceptable content.
Huh?