[WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[FT2]

We're an encyclopedia. Often sources conflict. If so, mention what both
sources say. An example where this has happened in another article is here:

<
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_expenses_scandal#Source_of_information
>

See last para of that section. May help you. Another is here, where there is
some genuine historical uncertainty to whether the matter existed or not:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin's_speech_on_August_19,_1939>

Between those two, you should get some good ideas.

FT2



On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:43 AM, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:

> This may have come up before so if there's a previous discussion on en
> or here, please direct me to it.
>
> Do we have an official stance on using primary sources like the US
> census and the Social Security Death Index to prove a case of [[age
> fabrication]]?  My take on it is that it is prohibited original
> research, using primary sources to disprove secondary ones, compounded
> by the fact that we could easily confuse the subject of the article
> with another person of the same or similar name.
>
> If you want to be specific, here it is:  Every published source has a
> birthdate of 1918 for the late psychic Jeane Dixon.  However the SSDI
> has her birthdate as 1904 and the brother-in-law of her nephew swears
> on the talk page that the 1904 date is the correct one.  I think the
> 1904 is correct, and it's frustrating because likely no journalist or
> historian is going to bother publishing something about such a minor
> matter, but my opinion is irrelevant and we should defer to published
> sources.  Verifiability not truth and all that.  Or should we IAR in
> cases like this and go with the "correct" date?
>
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