[WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[George Herbert]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:27 PM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> "Verifiability, not truth" means that sometimes we'll put in something that's
> verifiable but isn't true.

That statement gets abused.  The prime exception is the "Verifyable,
but untrue" case.

If it's "Verifyable, but verifyably untrue" it's easy - "Commonly used
source A says X, but source B and others indicate that source A is
incorrect on this point and the correct value is Y."

"Verifyable, but untrue" - where there's evidence to disprove but it's
not compellingly better quality data than the untrue data - is the
hard case.  Either walk the narrow line and present both or pick one
and defend using it, staying aware that more info may clarify the
situation into the first case above.

"Verifyable, but I assert it's untrue" is a variation on "Because I
said so".  This is what the statement is meant for.  If you assert
it's untrue and you're right, you have a reason for knowing that it's
untrue - you can cite what informed you.  If you assert it's untrue
and you have an opinion but not actual factual knowledge, your opinion
is trumped by a verifyable statement, even if you legitimately think
it's an untrue statement.

If you AGF about someone who thinks they might be able to find a
reference to back up their opinion or memory, the best thing to do is
help them do a search for reference materials to back them up.
Encouraging people to dig up info and cite it solidly is good practice
anyways.

Exceptions include BLP, where "I'm person Z, and that never happened
to me..." does hold some weight...


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com