[WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[David Gerard]

2009/9/30 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>:
> George Herbert wrote:

>> "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.

> The advantage of raising doubts by presenting both is that some yet
> unknown person with access to better sources may become aware of the
> uncertainty. Honestly admitting uncertainties improves reliability.


Yeah. NPOV is akin to a survey from 20,000 feet of the landscape.
Mentioning all important sources is useful.

Tangentially - one example that I edited in passing is [[Thomas
Crapper]] - one source, "Flushed With Pride", is a satirical biography
in the style of scholarship, i.e. complete lies for the lulz - but
it's such a famous source that the article actually had to address the
claims in it, even though they're all fiction. It helps that Adam
Hart-Davis had done much better, and that the revived Thomas Crapper
company has lots of archival material.

But yeah, famous but bad sources. Gosh they're fun.

The answer to Ken's questions in this thread - don't do what's bloody
stupid, even if people think you're required to by the rules. That's
just silly.


- d.