[WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

[Rich Holton]

darthvader1219 at gmail.com wrote:
> On 3/21/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> 
>> With regards to Carmen's age I'm assuming that the question of her
>> editing her own article is not a factor, and that here _claim_ to be 19
>> is properly documented to be a claim.  I'm also assuming that there is
>> no direct statement that she lied about her age, and all that is really
>> said is that her birth certificate establishes her age as 26.
>>
>> It strikes me as unethical to retain information which we know to be
>> wrong simply because the document which establishes the correct
>> information is not in an acceptable format.  If we are to remove the
>> information about her correct age we must also remove the information
>> about the age which we know to be false.
>>
> 
> Would the information really be wrong though? We're stating that she claims
> she's 19. Our having direct knowledge of the fact that she's 26 does not
> alter the fact that she claims that she is 19, so I don't see how the
> inclusion of the statement is any more unethical than it was before it was
> verified false, so long as it is phrased "Carmen is 19 according to <insert
> link to interview or some other source>" and not "Carmen is 19". People lie
> all the time; if we quote anyone what we're quoting is only as reliable as
> the you would consider the person to be.
> 

Hmmm....

If the article read "Carmen claims to be 19 years old.", that would seem 
to be more or less stating that there is at least some question as to 
her age.

If her (false) birth date were listed (as is typical), with a reference 
to some statement she herself made, quoted from a "reliable source", but 
we know it to be false, how reliable is that source?

If her (false) birth date were listed without a source, and we have a 
source (primary) that shows it to be false, then it seems we must at 
least remove the incorrect and unsourced birth date.

Am, I missing a significant scenario?

-Rich