"sydney poore" wrote
To add unpublished details to a biography is an example of original research. (100% disagreement. A person’s date of birth is not original research. DOB is a basic fact of society. It is verified daily by a wide spectrum of organizations.)
I have felt for a long time that OR _can_ be abused, as a stick to beat additions to articles. The principle does seem to be well established, though. This particular issue suggests to me that we haven't yet got the policy quite into focus.
We do want to stop people asserting they have important private sources, putting 2 and 2 together to make 5, and putting that on WP. Which is a recipe for conspiracy theorists running amok. It could be a real difficulty in some areas (e.g. coverage of espionage). To say that simple fact-checking is out makes, however, for an unpleasant dilemma: keep something you know is wrong on the site, or take down a wrong fact like DoB and simply leave a gap.
Charles