On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 4:40 PM, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 02:57:01 -0600, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 1:43 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Phil Sandifer wrote:
On 4/7/08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
When the issue of Wikipedia's "unreliability" comes up, I like to point out that we can't, don't and have never promised "reliability" - what we are, in fact, is *useful*. (I make such a bold claim based on our horrendous mainstream popularity. Hands up all the old hand encyclopedia nerds here who thought it would get this far this quickly ...)
Indeed. We are useful. And I am hard pressed to believe that if you asked a random, non-wonk user if our usefulness to them was based on the fact that we are generally accurate, the answer would be "yes" almost all of the time.
To dismiss accuracy as some philosophical technicality is to deny the reality of why people look things up in encyclopedias.
Naturally we strive to be accurate, but the judgements of accuracy and usefulness are for outsiders to make. The obsessive-compulsives need to abandon the notion that they are the guardians of accuracy.
Ec
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I think you have an excellent point here, and this brings us back to the previous point: Which one of us decides what is accurate? Why should any of us be doing that? In the absence of a different source offering a counterargument, what you are left with is "This is wrong because I say so," and allowing that is simply not sustainable, especially for contentious areas. Rather, we simply say "Source X says Statement Y", cite Source X, and leave it to the reader to research and decide what to believe about Statement Y. Citation and attribution are the keys. -Regardless of the truth of Statement Y itself-, so long as Source X really did say Statement Y, that line is both accurate and verifiable. We are not and should not be making judgments as to the validity of the claim, simply reporting that it was made.
Or to put it more simply, if the New York Times reports that the moon is a large pink beach ball, it is both accurate and verifiable to say "According to the New York Times, the moon is a large pink beach ball." The Times' hypothetical claim is ludicrous, but our statement that they said so is simple fact. And it is left to the reader to believe or not believe the claim, we are simply and accurately reporting that it was said and who said so.
You are "right", but that would not stop that inclusion being removed as complete bollocks and rightly so. We only need your rigorous robot like approach if stuff is challenged. As someone else has replied, we can generally sort it out between editors on the talk page.
-- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
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You are, of course, quite correct, and my extreme hypothetical example rightly should be treated exactly that way if it ever were to happen. (Though it would make a fine source for [[New York Times pink beach ball report]].) It certainly should be removed as an extreme fringe viewpoint in [[Moon]]. But in this case, there are no problems showing that other credible sources overwhelmingly do not agree.
In real-life cases, examples are often murkier, where credible sources may legitimately disagree. In this case, we present verifiable opinion by stating who says what, without attempting to "take a side" in any way. If one view is minority or less reliable, we certainly should reflect this (and NPOV requires this). But V does not affect that requirement.
We still mirror sources, we don't second-guess them. If the overwhelming majority of sources say something, NPOV indicates we must present that as the majority view. That's nothing new, that's always been there. But if the sources say something, nothing reliable disagrees, and you say "Well, but I -know- that's not correct...", then you are not a reliable source. Write your own source or ask them to correct.