[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Board statement regarding biographies of l...

[Sam Blacketer]

On 4/23/09, Andrew Turvey <andrewrturvey at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> What do we do about well-sourced information which turns out to be
> incorrect? I don't think policies cover this area particularly well, but the
> commonsense view is to word it something along the lines of:
>
> "A national newspaper in 2007 reported that celebrity x had been arrested
> for taking drugs<ref> </ref>; however this was later shown to be untrue
> <ref> </ref>"
>
> If it's not that important you can always include the details in a
> footnote:
>
> "Joe Blow (b. 15.1.74) <ref>Note the New York Times stated he was born on
> January 14 - (ref). However, this source shows the actual date to be 14 Jan
> </ref>
>
> The added advantage is it means editors don't add the incorrect information
> in again at a later date.


This is what I've done on a few occasions when it's obvious that one source
has got it wrong - see the footnote relating to the birthdate of Emlyn
Garner Evans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emlyn_Garner_Evans. However there
are always some where it is impossible to tell which of the conflicting
sources has got it right; see Edward Doran for an example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Doran.