Well, I found some statements in the English Wikipedia-version, but no undoubted source above it. The English-speaking Wikipedia is normatively on the same hierarchical level as the German-speaking version.
Where is the universal principle of verifiability codified and defined?
Christopher
On 15/09/06, Christoph Seydl Christoph.Seydl@students.jku.at wrote:
Where is the universal principle of verifiability codified and defined?
It *should* be on Meta at [[m:Foundation issues]]. I'm not clear on why it isn't.
I suggest to you that if you try doing it otherwise on German Wikipedia, you will likely soon be informed of the error of your ways.
- d.
Where is the universal principle of verifiability codified and defined?
unfortunate, it is absent.
Even "5 pillars" are not the conventional rule (for example, in the Russian project the fifth item has not been accepted/approved)
On Meta there is only a policy against original researches
See my post about failure of verifiability policy in Russian Wikipedia in wikipedia maillist.
-- Amike kaj kunlabore, Alexander Sigachov http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/user:ajvol
Christoph Seydl wrote:
Well, I found some statements in the English Wikipedia-version, but no undoubted source above it. The English-speaking Wikipedia is normatively on the same hierarchical level as the German-speaking version.
Where is the universal principle of verifiability codified and defined?
Saying that we follow the principle of verifiability should be enough. When you get too specific, we unfortunately have many people who are determined to take it to extremes at either end of the scale. Some will accept the most ephemeral of data as verification, while others will insist that even the most broadly observed information must '''always''' show references.
The urgency of verifiability also depends on the nature of the subject matter. It is broadly accepted that the biographies of living persons require documentation, especially if what is said about the person can have negative overtones. Verifying details about fictitious characters is much less urgent. Another important factor about good verification is can I go to the source that is mentioned, now or at any time in the future, and confirm that it says exactly what it is supposed to say. This need not need to mean that I should be able to find the image directly on the Net. I may need to travel to look at the book, or perhaps it is available by interlibrary loan.
Ec
Contrary: If the principle of verifiability is not defined in basic principles, there is always discordance:
* There are people who say that it is just a recommendation to verify facts. They don't source any fact because they think that footnotes are ugly. And why checking something if one knows a fact? They say that footnotes are counterproductive because they suggest an academic standard which Wikipedia cannot provide; every quote can be faked. They believe in the self-cleaning process of 100-eye-checks.
* On the other side, there are is the encyclopedia fraction. They say that every material must be sourced. If there is no published source, it is not a matter of an encyclopedia. And if something is important, there is a source. An encyclopedia is about verifiability, not truth. Being forced to check facts in reliable sourced before adding the material, improves the quality of Wikipedia because it puts the kibosh on smattering.
* Between these two extremes, there are people who think that sourcing is important, if is about disputed issues.
Actually, just stating "verifiability is a pillar" is not enough. It can mean everything and nothing. In reality, not defining verifiability, supports the "sources-are-only-a-recommendation-I-do-not-like-anyway" attitude.
Jimbo Wales says: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons. I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy writers. (This is not a policy statement, just a statement of attitude and frustration.)" (http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046433.html)
You see that there is a lot of discordance among Wikipedians. If there is no policy, there is always dispute how to deal with verifiability. The question is: Which information has to be sourced? I think that the verifiability issue should be outlined, if it is a pillar.
/Chris
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Saying that we follow the principle of verifiability should be enough. When you get too specific, we unfortunately have many people who are determined to take it to extremes at either end of the scale. Some will accept the most ephemeral of data as verification, while others will insist that even the most broadly observed information must '''always''' show references.
The urgency of verifiability also depends on the nature of the subject matter. It is broadly accepted that the biographies of living persons require documentation, especially if what is said about the person can have negative overtones. Verifying details about fictitious characters is much less urgent. Another important factor about good verification is can I go to the source that is mentioned, now or at any time in the future, and confirm that it says exactly what it is supposed to say. This need not need to mean that I should be able to find the image directly on the Net. I may need to travel to look at the book, or perhaps it is available by interlibrary loan.
Ec
2006/9/17, Christoph Seydl Christoph.Seydl@students.jku.at:
Jimbo Wales says: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons. I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy writers. (This is not a policy statement, just a statement of attitude and frustration.)" (http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046433.html)
But how do you define 'can be sourced'? The only way that you can show that something can be sourced is by sourcing it. Does this mean that we should remove all unsourced statements from all articles? If so, there will be little Wikipedia left. If not, then what do we accept without source and what not?
Andre Engels wrote:
2006/9/17, Christoph Seydl Christoph.Seydl@students.jku.at:
Jimbo Wales says: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons. I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy writers. (This is not a policy statement, just a statement of attitude and frustration.)" (http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046433.html)
Dear Jimbo:
I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi 7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi
Not everything can be referenced, or a reference is almost impossible to provide. But what stands there is the truth, so should we delete this just because it is unreferenced?
With kind regards, from a wikipedia that if this is put through rigouresly will shrink with 90%, Waerth
On 9/17/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Dear Jimbo:
I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi 7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi
Probably somethinbg published by the local post office or city planners would be the logical aproach.
Walter van Kalken wrote:
Dear Jimbo:
I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi 7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi
Not everything can be referenced, or a reference is almost impossible to provide. But what stands there is the truth, so should we delete this just because it is unreferenced?
In theory, there is probably a reference and legal basis for this kind of thing in Bangkok city hall, but unless we are challenging the way that the Bangkok city fathers are numbering streets it would be an incredible waste of time to track it down. I am willing, on a provisional basis, to accept the observations of someone who has lived in that city. If I doubted the facts I could always go to Bangkok to verify the facts by walking the streets. The information is right there for everybody to see.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Walter van Kalken wrote:
Dear Jimbo:
I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi 7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi
Not everything can be referenced, or a reference is almost impossible to provide. But what stands there is the truth, so should we delete this just because it is unreferenced?
In theory, there is probably a reference and legal basis for this kind of thing in Bangkok city hall, but unless we are challenging the way that the Bangkok city fathers are numbering streets it would be an incredible waste of time to track it down. I am willing, on a provisional basis, to accept the observations of someone who has lived in that city. If I doubted the facts I could always go to Bangkok to verify the facts by walking the streets. The information is right there for everybody to see.
Thank you EC that is exactly how I feel about this and these kind of things. Unfortunately the tendency seems to be to rigouresly edit out these kind of unverified statements. At least that is the impression I get from statements like the one Jimbo made.
Waerth
On 18/09/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Thank you EC that is exactly how I feel about this and these kind of things. Unfortunately the tendency seems to be to rigouresly edit out these kind of unverified statements. At least that is the impression I get from statements like the one Jimbo made.
On en:wp, the guideline is "don't put a {{fact}} tag on something unless you actually think it's likely to be wrong." The only case where we need to really be hard-arsed about citations is on living biographies.
- d.
Hoi, There is a difference between a need for being hard-arsed and being hard-arsed. As there are many people considering the lack of sources as a reason for immediate deletion, I would say we are way over the top already. I also am of the opinion that it will do little good but to drive away many people who have something to add. Thanks, GerardM
On 9/18/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 18/09/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Thank you EC that is exactly how I feel about this and these kind of things. Unfortunately the tendency seems to be to rigouresly edit out these kind of unverified statements. At least that is the impression I get from statements like the one Jimbo made.
On en:wp, the guideline is "don't put a {{fact}} tag on something unless you actually think it's likely to be wrong." The only case where we need to really be hard-arsed about citations is on living biographies.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 18/09/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
There is a difference between a need for being hard-arsed and being hard-arsed. As there are many people considering the lack of sources as a reason for immediate deletion, I would say we are way over the top already.
If there are NO sources for an article, that tends to be a sign of deletability on en:wp. But that is mostly applied to popular culture things, where evidence of third-party verifiability may be needed to establish that anyone even cares.
In the case of the street layouts ... it's possible Wikipedia isn't the place for this unless and until there's a third-party source to verify it. And, you know, there are websites other than Wikipedia in the world to write up this stuff in the *first* instance.
I also am of the opinion that it will do little good but to drive away many people who have something to add.
It's a balancing act between not discouraging the newbies and dealing with the firehose of complete crap that hits en:wp every day. (The numbers as of Nov 2005 were around 4000 new articles/day, over 2000 of which were killed within 24 hours; we've become really stupidly popular since then, I don't know what the current numbers are.)
But deletion policy on en: has been problematic and deeply antisocial in its construction for a long time.
- d.
2006/9/18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
If there are NO sources for an article, that tends to be a sign of deletability on en:wp. But that is mostly applied to popular culture things, where evidence of third-party verifiability may be needed to establish that anyone even cares.
Then you have a lot of deletable articles... I picked random article 20 times. 15 of them did not have references, 4 did (the one skipped did not have references, but did have a 'bibliography' section, so I was not sure where to put it).
On 18/09/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2006/9/18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
If there are NO sources for an article, that tends to be a sign of deletability on en:wp. But that is mostly applied to popular culture things, where evidence of third-party verifiability may be needed to establish that anyone even cares.
Then you have a lot of deletable articles... I picked random article 20 times. 15 of them did not have references, 4 did (the one skipped did not have references, but did have a 'bibliography' section, so I was not sure where to put it).
It's usually applied to new ones. I save the {{unreferenced}} tag for articles with no sources, bibliography, links etc whatsoever.
Your assumption is that anything to do with verifiability *must* be applied pathologically or not at all.
- d.
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 18/09/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2006/9/18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
If there are NO sources for an article, that
tends to be a sign of
deletability on en:wp. But that is mostly
applied to popular culture
things, where evidence of third-party
verifiability may be needed to
establish that anyone even cares.
Then you have a lot of deletable articles... I
picked random article
20 times. 15 of them did not have references, 4
did (the one skipped
did not have references, but did have a
'bibliography' section, so I
was not sure where to put it).
It's usually applied to new ones. I save the {{unreferenced}} tag for articles with no sources, bibliography, links etc whatsoever.
Your assumption is that anything to do with verifiability *must* be applied pathologically or not at all.
- d.
The problem is that a growing number of people *are* applying this pathologicaly. I don't know the answer to this but it is a real problem. Many people have given up working on articles where these sort of people (who really are well meaning and gracious but also unreasonable) show up and make demands for exacting citations of all asssertions equally.
I have seen the argument that a citation is not a citation per WP:CITE unless it contains page numbers and if no page numbers are given after some amount of time the assertions will be removed per WP:V. Now in this case the assertions (from what I can gather) are not actually believed untrue and have been in the article for over six months (which is why page numbers are hard to come by). In the end I have found a local copy of the book. But I can only find it in the original french so it is not a small effort for me to sastisfy these demands (french is not my best language, not to mention I can not check this book out).
Two of the original people seem to have left the article (one declared they were, the other may have left the project entirely). These demands have forced people to scramble for any sort of citation they can turn up on the internet. I personally believe this article is of worse quality since the citations have begun being adding, because many of the footnotes are misleading or are an incorrect use of primary sources (which are easier to find on the web in this case). I feel I can straighten this case out, now that I have found the book that the information oringinally came from. But how many more places is this happening? I am very alarmed this might become a widespread trend. I have not been sucessful at countering a pathological application of these ideas, and I really did try.
Birgitte SB
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
2006/9/18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
On 18/09/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2006/9/18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
If there are NO sources for an article, that tends to be a sign of deletability on en:wp. But that is mostly applied to popular culture things, where evidence of third-party verifiability may be needed to establish that anyone even cares.
Then you have a lot of deletable articles... I picked random article 20 times. 15 of them did not have references, 4 did (the one skipped did not have references, but did have a 'bibliography' section, so I was not sure where to put it).
It's usually applied to new ones. I save the {{unreferenced}} tag for articles with no sources, bibliography, links etc whatsoever.
Your assumption is that anything to do with verifiability *must* be applied pathologically or not at all.
Well, YOU are the one who said it was 'a sign of deletability', not me. And if you want to apply it different from pathologically or not at all, it is you who are to come with a different approach. Either you apply it or you don't. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Sure, you can make rules as to when to apply it and when not. But then you have to state the rules.
On 18/09/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
Well, YOU are the one who said it was 'a sign of deletability', not me. And if you want to apply it different from pathologically or not at all, it is you who are to come with a different approach. Either you apply it or you don't. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Sure, you can make rules as to when to apply it and when not. But then you have to state the rules.
I suppose the problem is I'm assuming editors who are not insane robots.
- d.
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I agree with Andre. The rules [[w:en:Verifiability]] are very strict. Who is deviant (better word than pathological)? The people who try to enforce the established rules or the people who ignore them? In a big community, it doesn't work to refer just to common sense because common sense is POV. Everyone defines common sense differently.
If you are not satisfied with the rules, try to change them. If there are no rules how to deal with the daily conflicts, try to establish legitimate rules.
/Chris
Andre Engels wrote:
Well, YOU are the one who said it was 'a sign of deletability', not me. And if you want to apply it different from pathologically or not at all, it is you who are to come with a different approach. Either you apply it or you don't. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Sure, you can make rules as to when to apply it and when not. But then you have to state the rules.
Am Montag, 18. September 2006 15:19 schrieb Christoph Seydl:
I agree with Andre. The rules [[w:en:Verifiability]] are very strict.
Quite some people already have highlighted that Verifiability and "no original research" are two sides of the same medal.
This means in especially: "Look outside not inside if you write articles." [Jimbo said something like this somewhere TM]. This means an article about Wikipedia necessarily primarily needs to be based on external views. Raw data like size, transfer data and such are something different.
Interestingly the question of Verifiability and "no original research" is strictly correlated with the flame proof eternal debate on "relevance criterias". There's an easy answer to it: * If an article with serious flaws is that much important for the authors that they need to write long complains defending its serious flaws they probably better invest the time improving the article. * If they're unable improving it, the article is obviously not really important enough for its authors and thatfor lacks general relevance and thus does not fit into Wikipedia.
You will quickly notice that topics like "politics", "physics", "religion" are important enough that you can draw from a large body of publications and that there will be at any given time people that can and do improve such articles if there is a serious flaw with them. The more narrow the topic is the harder is it for the author writing something useful about it. For example an article about "Joshi" is way harder but there were people that managed it writing something really encylopedic about it.
Another metric is: * If a discussion thread about an article is more than 10 times longer than the article itself then there is something wrong with the style of that particular debate.
Who is deviant (better word than pathological)? The people who try to enforce the established rules or the people who ignore them? In a big community, it doesn't work to refer just to common sense because common sense is POV. Everyone defines common sense differently.
Well enforcing of policies in a bureaucracy way like: "There is something wrong but I don't say what" does help nobody. I suppose everyone can sign that. Constructive critics is the key but if someone does not listen to constructive critics, well then we don't need further patience like a buddha and should just execute what we consider necessary in that case without any further debate.
If you are not satisfied with the rules, try to change them. If there are no rules how to deal with the daily conflicts, try to establish legitimate rules.
Well the best rules are rules nobody needs to write down. Do we need a detailed written down policy on separating article and discussion? No. Our interface inherits that policy already. Just look at other wikis and you see that this key policy is not for granted.
So please let us not write tons of detailed policies down; just the key principles and brainstorm what we want to achieve in detail (synonym to policy) and then how to make certain policies an obvious corollary of the user interface structure so that you don't need to remind people about it again and again.
Cheers, Arnomane
Hoi, When some people have highlighted that in their opinion veriability and no original research are two sides to the same coin, it does not equate that everyone agrees with that. Not everyone does. When people make the effort to write an article for Wikipedia, it does not make them POV warriors; constantly on the lookout what is happening to their article. This invalidates your argument that they will "defend" their article in the first place. There are many people who have been disgusted by the policies about (in their opinion) nitwits who claim that an article is not "good" but do not argue WHY it is not good. The notion that something is not good because there are no sources provided is in and of itself not a conceptual argument, it is a formalistic argument.
On the topic of politics, the Hungarians know all too well that politicians lie. What proof is in the fact that something was said publicly. It is public knowledge that the voting machines are not reliable and politicians are still elected this way. The same is true with religion, every religion believes in their truth and consequently what an other religion says is an affront. The points that prove any point of view in this have sources, it is just what you want to believe.. in a similar vain, research has indicated that commercial healthcare result in a higher death rate but as this is not a fact that is acceptable this fact is ignored.
When the talk page is long, the facts and probably the sources are biased.
Constructive criticism.. I would love a definition for that.. is that not the criticism that says "you are on the right track but see the way of your errors" .. basically replacing one POV with another ..
When you think that things are self evident, think again.. The only point you may have is that there are loads of crackpots posting their ideas. The overwhelming mass of them is why you come up with these rationalisations.. They help you sometimes, but they are as likely to prove you wrong.
Thanks, GerardM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5354972.stm
Daniel Arnold wrote:
Am Montag, 18. September 2006 15:19 schrieb Christoph Seydl:
I agree with Andre. The rules [[w:en:Verifiability]] are very strict.
Quite some people already have highlighted that Verifiability and "no original research" are two sides of the same medal.
This means in especially: "Look outside not inside if you write articles." [Jimbo said something like this somewhere TM]. This means an article about Wikipedia necessarily primarily needs to be based on external views. Raw data like size, transfer data and such are something different.
Interestingly the question of Verifiability and "no original research" is strictly correlated with the flame proof eternal debate on "relevance criterias". There's an easy answer to it:
- If an article with serious flaws is that much important for the authors that
they need to write long complains defending its serious flaws they probably better invest the time improving the article.
- If they're unable improving it, the article is obviously not really
important enough for its authors and thatfor lacks general relevance and thus does not fit into Wikipedia.
You will quickly notice that topics like "politics", "physics", "religion" are important enough that you can draw from a large body of publications and that there will be at any given time people that can and do improve such articles if there is a serious flaw with them. The more narrow the topic is the harder is it for the author writing something useful about it. For example an article about "Joshi" is way harder but there were people that managed it writing something really encylopedic about it.
Another metric is:
- If a discussion thread about an article is more than 10 times longer than
the article itself then there is something wrong with the style of that particular debate.
Who is deviant (better word than pathological)? The people who try to enforce the established rules or the people who ignore them? In a big community, it doesn't work to refer just to common sense because common sense is POV. Everyone defines common sense differently.
Well enforcing of policies in a bureaucracy way like: "There is something wrong but I don't say what" does help nobody. I suppose everyone can sign that. Constructive critics is the key but if someone does not listen to constructive critics, well then we don't need further patience like a buddha and should just execute what we consider necessary in that case without any further debate.
If you are not satisfied with the rules, try to change them. If there are no rules how to deal with the daily conflicts, try to establish legitimate rules.
Well the best rules are rules nobody needs to write down. Do we need a detailed written down policy on separating article and discussion? No. Our interface inherits that policy already. Just look at other wikis and you see that this key policy is not for granted.
So please let us not write tons of detailed policies down; just the key principles and brainstorm what we want to achieve in detail (synonym to policy) and then how to make certain policies an obvious corollary of the user interface structure so that you don't need to remind people about it again and again.
Cheers, Arnomane _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, When some people have highlighted that in their opinion veriability and no original research are two sides to the same coin, it does not equate that everyone agrees with that. Not everyone does. When people make the effort to write an article for Wikipedia, it does not make them POV warriors; constantly on the lookout what is happening to their article. This invalidates your argument that they will "defend" their article in the first place. There are many people who have been disgusted by the policies about (in their opinion) nitwits who claim that an article is not "good" but do not argue WHY it is not good. The notion that something is not good because there are no sources provided is in and of itself not a conceptual argument, it is a formalistic argument.
Defending an article is not inherently wrong. How and to what extent one defends the article is far more important. The same thing can be said about how and to what extent one opposes an article. The problem arises when the author's personal investment in an article is more important than the article itself.
On the topic of politics, the Hungarians know all too well that politicians lie.
Hungarian politicians do not have a monopoly on this skill.
What proof is in the fact that something was said publicly.
It proves that whoever said it said it publicly
It is public knowledge that the voting machines are not reliable and politicians are still elected this way.
Many would say that "public knowledge" is a weasel phrase, although in this instance I am sure that enough people have made that assertion that it should be easy to track down a quotation from somebody who should know.
The same is true with religion, every religion believes in their truth and consequently what an other religion says is an affront. The points that prove any point of view in this have sources, it is just what you want to believe.
Religious belief is a problem by itself because it does not adapt very well to compromise solutions.
in a similar vain, research has indicated that commercial healthcare result in a higher death rate but as this is not a fact that is acceptable this fact is ignored.
The death rate everywhere is neither more nor less than 100%. :-)
When the talk page is long, the facts and probably the sources are biased.
When the talk page is too long people stop reading it. It will naturally contain multiple biases. At one time it was considered a positive contribution to condense the contents of a talk page, but I have heard very little about that recently. Preparing a fair summary is a tough job.
Constructive criticism.. I would love a definition for that.. is that not the criticism that says "you are on the right track but see the way of your errors" .. basically replacing one POV with another ..
Not really. It presents alternative points of view. It recognizes what is right in the article, and suggests alternatives that might improve the article. Insisting that the original writer has erred is not constructive.
Ec
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Avete!
Ray Saintonge wrote:
in a similar vain, research has indicated that commercial healthcare result in a higher death rate but as this is not a fact that is acceptable this fact is ignored.
The death rate everywhere is neither more nor less than 100%. :-)
That depends on how you define death rate. If it's about death per treatment, 100% is quite a lot. In this case, I would suggest a reference to solve this imperfect assertion. ;-)
Constructive criticism.. I would love a definition for that.. is that not the criticism that says "you are on the right track but see the way of your errors" .. basically replacing one POV with another ..
Not really. It presents alternative points of view. It recognizes what is right in the article, and suggests alternatives that might improve the article. Insisting that the original writer has erred is not constructive.
There are different ideological beliefs in Wikipedia. We have inclusionists, delusionists, exclusionists, eventualists, immediatists,... Hence, constructive criticism is often hard without any general guideline. There are good reasons for eventualism, but also for immediatism. Such discussions are usually time-consuming and the arguments are always the same.
Valete! Chris
Am Montag, 18. September 2006 20:39 schrieb Gerard Meijssen:
There are many people who have been disgusted by the policies about (in their opinion) nitwits who claim that an article is not "good" but do not argue WHY it is not good. The notion that something is not good because there are no sources provided is in and of itself not a conceptual argument, it is a formalistic argument.
Well, as I have said it:
Well enforcing of policies in a bureaucracy way like: "There is something wrong but I don't say what" does help nobody.
This includes that you are a bit patient with a newbie and go into detail what you think a proper source could be because he probably has not a real clue what a proper source could be like. But general patience does not mean that you need to be overly patient and wait for enternity for validation of information.
Constructive criticism.. I would love a definition for that.. is that not the criticism that says "you are on the right track but see the way of your errors" .. basically replacing one POV with another ..
Ray Saintonge did define it nice: "Not really. It presents alternative points of view. It recognizes what is right in the article, and suggests alternatives that might improve the article. Insisting that the original writer has erred is not constructive."
So I don't see how constructive criticism can introduce more POV.
When you think that things are self evident, think again.. The only point you may have is that there are loads of crackpots posting their ideas. The overwhelming mass of them is why you come up with these rationalisations.. They help you sometimes, but they are as likely to prove you wrong.
True I love rationalisation but I don't mean dumb rationalisation blindly ignoring everything else. Rationalisation does not mean applying a robot like style. Rationalisation of certain things will also give you a lot of time and creativity back you can use for for example for helping newbies making good edits.
Cheers, Arnomane
David Gerard wrote:
In the case of the street layouts ... it's possible Wikipedia isn't the place for this unless and until there's a third-party source to verify it. And, you know, there are websites other than Wikipedia in the world to write up this stuff in the *first* instance.
I also am of the opinion that it will do little good but to drive away many people who have something to add.
I wouldn't go so far as to draw that conclusion. For most things verifiability brings us to a website or some dead-tree sourece. These shouldn't be treated as exclusive means. Something is verifiable if it is stable enough that another person can go there and see the same thing.
Ec
David Gerard wrote:
On 18/09/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Thank you EC that is exactly how I feel about this and these kind of things. Unfortunately the tendency seems to be to rigouresly edit out these kind of unverified statements. At least that is the impression I get from statements like the one Jimbo made.
On en:wp, the guideline is "don't put a {{fact}} tag on something unless you actually think it's likely to be wrong." The only case where we need to really be hard-arsed about citations is on living biographies.
- d.
And again a statement that makes sense. Unforunately most wikipedians just see a rule, or a statement by jimbo and will be hard arsed about it in unfortunately. We will see where this ship ends up ......
Waerth
On 18/09/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
And again a statement that makes sense. Unforunately most wikipedians just see a rule, or a statement by jimbo and will be hard arsed about it in unfortunately. We will see where this ship ends up ......
People will sometimes take a reasonable guideline entirely too far.
The trouble is that by its nature, Wikipedia attracts obsessives who see things only in black-and-white, and if they can't get their personal obsession on the wiki just as they want it, they scream loudly about it.
- d.
On 9/17/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Andre Engels wrote:
2006/9/17, Christoph Seydl Christoph.Seydl@students.jku.at:
Jimbo Wales says: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons. I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy writers. (This is not a policy statement, just a statement of attitude and frustration.)" (http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046433.html)
Dear Jimbo:
I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi 7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi
Is this sufficient? http://www.frommers.com/destinations/bangkok/0071024195.html
Not everything can be referenced, or a reference is almost impossible to provide. But what stands there is the truth, so should we delete this just because it is unreferenced?
I agree that over-referenceing can be a problem. This case of Soi numbering might fall right between "needs" and "doesn't need it."
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
Andrew Lih wrote:
On 9/17/06, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Andre Engels wrote:
2006/9/17, Christoph Seydl Christoph.Seydl@students.jku.at:
Jimbo Wales says: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons. I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy writers. (This is not a policy statement, just a statement of attitude and frustration.)" (http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046433.html)
Dear Jimbo:
I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi 7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi
Is this sufficient? http://www.frommers.com/destinations/bangkok/0071024195.html
Interesting thanks.
Waerth
I assume that Jimbo means that only material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources should be used. And if we remove all unsourced statements, Wikipedia will shrink and grow less fast. However, there are reliable sources even for the most simple objects. According to Norstedts svenska ordbok och uppslagsbok, a bucket is a "cylindrical vessel with a carrying handle for the transport of liquids sand or the like".
As Jimbo said, several editors will stop contributing, if all material has to be sourced. At the same time, the motivation to provide sources will increase, whereas there is almost no motivation to source statements, if they will not be removed.
No matter how a codification of verifiability will look like, there should be at least a statement on verifiability at Foundation Issues in my opinion. There are several options how verifiability can be defined: - Everything must be sourced, what Jimbo seems to prefer. - Only critical material (e. g. negative information about living persons, disputed issues, hard facts, quotes,...) must be sourced. Statements on everyday objects (cf. bucket example) may not be sourced. - Source what you like. - Abolish sourcing at all.
Chris
Andre Engels wrote:
2006/9/17, Christoph Seydl <Christoph.Seydl at students.jku.at>:
Jimbo Wales says: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons. I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy writers. (This is not a policy statement, just a statement of attitude and frustration.)" (http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046433.html)
But how do you define 'can be sourced'? The only way that you can show that something can be sourced is by sourcing it. Does this mean that we should remove all unsourced statements from all articles? If so, there will be little Wikipedia left. If not, then what do we accept without source and what not?
2006/9/17, Christoph Seydl Christoph.Seydl@students.jku.at:
I assume that Jimbo means that only material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources should be used. And if we remove all unsourced statements, Wikipedia will shrink and grow less fast. However, there are reliable sources even for the most simple objects. According to Norstedts svenska ordbok och uppslagsbok, a bucket is a "cylindrical vessel with a carrying handle for the transport of liquids sand or the like".
Can you provide such a reference too for all the other parts of the definition of 'bucket'? And if not, should we delete that? And if you can, should we delete it nevertheless until you have done so?
As Jimbo said, several editors will stop contributing, if all material has to be sourced. At the same time, the motivation to provide sources will increase, whereas there is almost no motivation to source statements, if they will not be removed.
The motivation will certainly increase, yes. Nobody wants to add material to Wikipedia that will be removed again. But it also means that we are going to delete more if the rule is added than in the whole of Wikipedia until now. Use [[Special:Randompage]]. The chance that it's sourced is small. The change that if it is sourced, it is specified what comes from which source is even smaller. You might as well go and delete pages at random.
No matter how a codification of verifiability will look like, there should be at least a statement on verifiability at Foundation Issues in my opinion. There are several options how verifiability can be defined:
- Everything must be sourced, what Jimbo seems to prefer.
- Only critical material (e. g. negative information about living persons, disputed issues, hard facts, quotes,...) must be sourced. Statements on everyday objects (cf. bucket example) may not be sourced.
How do you define critical material?
- Source what you like.
- Abolish sourcing at all.
Why? Can't this rule be left to the separate projects?
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Andre Engels wrote:
Can you provide such a reference too for all the other parts of the definition of 'bucket'? And if not, should we delete that? And if you can, should we delete it nevertheless until you have done so?
Historian did quite a lot of research on buckets back to ancient times. There are probably industrial norms on buckets. If the policy says it should be deleted, it should. If the policy says it must not deleted, don't delete it.
The motivation will certainly increase, yes. Nobody wants to add material to Wikipedia that will be removed again. But it also means that we are going to delete more if the rule is added than in the whole of Wikipedia until now. Use [[Special:Randompage]]. The chance that it's sourced is small. The change that if it is sourced, it is specified what comes from which source is even smaller. You might as well go and delete pages at random.
True. This fact supports my assumption that the pillar verifiability. And if it is a pillar, a strong enforcement of verifiability is obviously not wanted by most editors.
How do you define critical material?
It's a question of stipulation. Example: If the collective opinion is that hard facts (e.g. numbers, percentages) may not be sourced, unless they are disputed, as a rule, it's not critical.
Why? Can't this rule be left to the separate projects?
Yes, but then it is not pillar anymore, if verifiability can mean anything between restrictive and laissez-faire. Then an official statement at meta that verifiability is optional to any project would be appropriate.
/Chris
On 9/17/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
But how do you define 'can be sourced'? The only way that you can show that something can be sourced is by sourcing it. Does this mean that we should remove all unsourced statements from all articles? If so, there will be little Wikipedia left. If not, then what do we accept without source and what not?
There is currently a poll on the German Wikipedia whether new articles that cite no sources should be deleted: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Quellenpflicht_f%C3%BC...
The proposal, translated literally: "New articles may only be created if they cite sources.These citations should be listed in the edit summary [*] and/or in the article itself. To cite the main sources for an article, the sections 'Literature' or 'Weblinks' should be used. (...) New articles without sources can be deleted without further discussion through a speedy deletion request."
[*] The German Wikipedia calls the standard edit summary field "Zusammenfassung und Quellen," i.e. "Summary and Sources".
The poll is currently 2:1 against. In this discussion, [[m:Verifiability]] has been cited to argue that verifiability is, in fact, not negotiable and that the poll result itself should be ignored; articles without sources should be deleted anyway. In fact, one administrator added it to the criteria for speedy deletion already while the poll was running. I reverted that change, and oppose this notion of verifiability.
While citing sources is crucial, so is NPOV, and so is the consistency of the flow of argument within an article. Articles are gradually improved, and problems are pointed out and identified, to fix them systematically later. The idea that articles can magically appear as perfect, feature quality texts is anathema to the wiki principle of working and contributing in small chunks. I strongly oppose any foundation-level verifiability policy that would make it impossible to contribute small pieces of work. I would also suggest reading Anthere's comments when the French Wikipedia reached 50,000 articles:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikifr-l/2004-August/001911.html
Verifiability, "no original research", and so on, exist as policies to help us create high quality encyclopedia articles. They are not and should never be unquestionable dogma. When policy flies in the face of reason and common sense, policy needs to be questioned, and quite often, revised. I am frankly disappointed whenever people want to support their arguments by asking for the help of Jimmy Wales or the Wikimedia Board. This suggests to me that their arguments are either wrong, or that they have not spent the effort to make them clear and understandable.
Actually, the proposal is a little bit longer. Maybe, some non-German speakers are interested in the whole proposal:
"- New articles may only be created if they state sources. These references should be listed in the edit summary and/or in the article itself. To cite the main sources*) for an article, the sections 'Literature' or 'Weblinks' should be used. (...)**) New articles without sources can be deleted without further discussion through a speedy deletion request.
- Right of continuance for existing articles. Articles which were created before the introduction of compulsory sourcing may not be deleted just because of missing references. The long-term goal is, however, to make to make the sources of all articles traceable.
Definition of the term 'Source/Reference': For the time being, it is primarily about to state whereupon an article rests; even knowledge from school or own experience are considered as source in this respect. Of course, such diffuse declarations bring about that the article is challenged. but that is a absolutely wanted effect. Hence, the obligation for sources should not stop anybody to continue writing article just on the basis 'I just know it', how is done often, but they are clearly labelled."
*) Main source (Hauptquelle): A concept in the German Wikipedia that the literature the article is stated once and every information that draws to this material may not have any explicit reference to this material. **) Just a cross-reference to [[w:de:Wikipedia:Quellenangaben]] ([[w:de:Wikipedia:Reference]]).
/Chris
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 9/17/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
There is currently a poll on the German Wikipedia whether new articles that cite no sources should be deleted: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Quellenpflicht_f%C3%BC...
The proposal, translated literally: "New articles may only be created if they cite sources.These citations should be listed in the edit summary [*] and/or in the article itself. To cite the main sources for an article, the sections 'Literature' or 'Weblinks' should be used. (...) New articles without sources can be deleted without further discussion through a speedy deletion request."
[*] The German Wikipedia calls the standard edit summary field "Zusammenfassung und Quellen," i.e. "Summary and Sources".
Christoph Seydl wrote:
Actually, the proposal is a little bit longer. Maybe, some non-German speakers are interested in the whole proposal:
I guess many who read these summaries in English will get the impression that fascism is a part of German lifestyle that didn't end in 1945, that every German wants to be as nasty as possible to their neighbors, with or without a Fuhrer. Those who put forward such proposals should perhaps bear that in mind. That this proposal came from a German-speaking Swiss doesn't change the impression of a Prussian attitude. The knee-jerk reaction to propose new and harder rules is one that must actively be fought against, and this didn't happen in this case. Identifying fake (or harmful or pointless) rule proposals is just as important as identifying fake articles.
Now, the German voting page actually begins with a problem description. It describes a real problem and tries to find a solution for it. However, the problem is never quantified and the overly broad proposed solution is jumped to without considering its possible harmful effects. Even I cannot completely escape the suspicion that somebody is out to create (and enforce) rules, rather than writing a useful encyclopedia.
The problem description goes like this (my translation):
: Wikipedia contains ever more narrowly specialized articles, : whose correctness without source citations can be verified only : with much difficulty. Over and over again, this leads to false : informations and completely made-up articles remaining in the : encyclopedia for months or years. As an illustration of the : latter we have User:Gestumblindi/Fakemuseum . Falsified : articles can, as seen from this, be dressed in full seriousness. : And still such total falsifications without external citations : are often speedily deleted, as soon as somebody sees them (which : can take some time, if the nonsense is prepared in a : Wikipedia-conformant manner). It is all the more difficult to : detect partial fakes, that is when untruthful information is : embedded in existing subjects. The usefulness of Wikipedia as a : citable and reliable source suffers because of the often missing : source citations. "Then everybody can just write what fits him" : is an often heard prejudice. Articles that are created with : source citations can help to counter this rumour of : unseriousity.
The next section of the German page provides statistics about how many new articles cite sources, but the page doesn't quantify the *problem*. How many new articles were created and how many were really of the fake kind? How "often" is this accusation heard, from whom, and what kinds of articles are part of the problem? Did the accusations come from commercial publishers, teachers and librarians with a self-interest in the old authoritarian encyclopedias, and is there any evidence that these accusations would stop if Wikipedia adjusts its policies? The introduction of the problem description mentions narrowly specializied topics, so why not find a solution that is limited to that kind of articles? If somebody wants to write a fake article, isn't it just as easy to invent fake sources? Enforcing the proposed policy would require citations to be in the article, but who is going to the library to check that these sources exist and are in agreement with what the article says?
I find no trace of empirical evidence that such a policy would help the rumour of Wikipedia as a reliable source. What I do find is a proposed rule of the fascist kind that makes it a lot harder to contribute to Wikipedia. So the easy conclusion is that this proposal is pushed by somebody with fascist tendencies. Now *there* is a rumour that the German Wikipedia has to deal with.
Did I just accuse user:Gestumblindi of walking around in a brown shirt with a swastika on his arm? No, of course not. Before putting forward this proposal, he has been collecting a nice "museum" of fake articles found in the German Wikipedia. He's ambitious and takes fact control seriously, which is a general trend on the German Wikipedia. It's just that the solution he proposes is to introduce a draconian rule that (1) can't really solve the problem anyway, because the serious vandals will conform and invent sources, and (2) threatens to stop all serious contributions to Wikipedia. And jumping to stricter rules is indeed a trend on the German Wikipedia. Instead, I think he should turn his promising "fake museum" into a WikiProject where more volunteers are encouraged to help in tracing down fake articles. That's the way to build something rather than introducing harmful rules.
Erik Moeller wrote:
I am frankly disappointed whenever people want to support their arguments by asking for the help of Jimmy Wales or the Wikimedia Board. This suggests to me that their arguments are either wrong, or that they have not spent the effort to make them clear and understandable.
I too am disappointed by those requests, but I would draw a more sinister conclusion. It may have more to do with people being unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions. In the [[Milgram experiment]] the subjects would often turn to the experimenter for confirmation that they were doing the right thing when the voltage administered to the "learner" for wrong answers seemed too high. If the experimenter indicated that he would take responsibility for anything that might go wrong with the experiment, the subject became willing to administer potentially fatal voltages in response to wrong answers.
Authority, even benign authority, is antithetical to freedom of thought, and without free thought there can be neither free speech or free action. When Jimbo's opinion is sought an appeal to authority is made. When he answers it diminishes the freedom of the project. It doesn't matter if his answer is perfectly sensible and logical; it is enough that it builds a pattern of authority and diminishes the questioner's acceptance of responsibility.
Ec
Christoph Seydl wrote:
Contrary: If the principle of verifiability is not defined in basic principles, there is always discordance:
What makes you think that elaborating will eliminate the discord? There will still be endless argument about what the rules mean.
- There are people who say that it is just a recommendation to verify
facts.
In *some* subject areas that is adequate. In other areas fact-checking should be very strict.
They don't source any fact because they think that footnotes are ugly. And why checking something if one knows a fact? They say that footnotes are counterproductive because they suggest an academic standard which Wikipedia cannot provide; every quote can be faked. They believe in the self-cleaning process of 100-eye-checks.
I'm not arguing against this. I even agree with you that every quote can be faked; this only strenghthens the view that when quotes are given a different person should track the quote to make sure that it is as claimed. Academic standards are built over an extended period of time, and none of them can ever reach perfection. Clearly we need more references than none, but there is also the other extreme where people are challenging fundamental concepts that betray their own lack of familiarity with the topic. In an article on the basic concepts of a science it should be enough to show a broad sampling of common textbooks in the bibliography. The implication is that they all say basically the same thing, and specific footnotes should only be needed when there is a difference in the way that each treats the subject. In an article on climate change a link to a Wikipedia article on the chemistry of combustion should be enough to establish that burning carbon based fuels produces carbon dioxide.
- On the other side, there are is the encyclopedia fraction. They say
that every material must be sourced. If there is no published source, it is not a matter of an encyclopedia. And if something is important, there is a source. An encyclopedia is about verifiability, not truth.
This is not disputed. There will continue to be disputes about what constitutes a valid source, and just what people mean by "published"
Being forced to check facts in reliable sourced before adding the material, improves the quality of Wikipedia because it puts the kibosh on smattering.
"Smattering"? The original contributor can only add sources, which he hopefully does honestly. He cannot be the one checking them; that is the responsibility of others. Put in terms of the scientific method, the experiment must be repeatable to the point where any student can verify the results. When I write about a familar subject I bring a lot of received wisdom to the table. Some of it may have just seemed obvious from the way it was explained by a university lecturer; certainly nobody else that was sitting in the class that day challenged it.
The learner cannot succeed without accepting some responsibility for the process. When references are so detailed that the reader can absolve himself of any responsibility for the material then maybe there are too many.
- Between these two extremes, there are people who think that sourcing
is important, if is about disputed issues.
True enough. There is a greater urgency when the matter is disputed, and disputed issues are plentiful enough to keep many people very busy, but that is not enough to excuse totally ignoring undisputed material.
Actually, just stating "verifiability is a pillar" is not enough. It can mean everything and nothing.
That is precisely where a pillar draws its strength. Flexible foundations survive earthquakes better than rigid pillars.
In reality, not defining verifiability, supports the "sources-are-only-a-recommendation-I-do-not-like-anyway" attitude.
Not at all. Detailed definitions are a backdoor for imposing Points of View about verifiability.
Jimbo Wales says: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons. I think a fair number of people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy writers. (This is not a policy statement, just a statement of attitude and frustration.)" (http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046433.html)
The parenthetical portion is especially important. Much of this is a statement from the heart rather than from the head. Jimbo's pronouncementscan have strange effects on discussions because they tend to be extrapolative. Some of them need to be taken with a grain of salt.
There are obvious reasons for taking a hard line about the biographies of living people. A liberal interpretation of "random speculative ... pseudo information" as applying to "all information" would paralyse the entire project. No contributor should be viewed as perfect, but some latitude needs to be given to those who have long experience in the subject they are writing about; there is little that is random about writings.
You see that there is a lot of discordance among Wikipedians. If there is no policy, there is always dispute how to deal with verifiability. The question is: Which information has to be sourced? I think that the verifiability issue should be outlined, if it is a pillar.
There is indeed a lot of discord about this, but no amount of policy is going to change that. The first tool for applying a pillar should be common sense. Without that no other tools will be effective. The level of verifiability can vary with the subject matter. There should always be room for the reader to accept his share of the responsibility.
Ec
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