[WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)

[Andreas Kolbe]

--- On Fri, 13/5/11, Carl (CBM) <cbm.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > "Verification not truth" must not be a suicide pact
> and certainly not an
> > excuse for sloppy publishing of gossip on BLPS.
> 
> The idea that someone cannot challenge a source fact simply
> because
> they doubt its truth is very useful, though. It reduces
> many arguments
> where editors "know" they are right, when they are really
> wrong.  

Yes, it's useful, and I suspect that is why there is such resistance to 
changing even the "not whether editors think it is true" at WT:V right now,
let alone "verifiability, not truth".

But as useful as it may be in shutting novice editors up: this is not the 
job of WP:V policy; it's the job of WP:NPOV and W:OR. 

If all mainstream science says that water boils at 100°, and one editor says
he knows it's 98° because he measured it in his kettle, WP:OR and WP:NPOV is 
the proper way to address that. Not WP:V. 

The job of WP:V is to make sure that assertions in Wikipedia are verifiable;
it's not to ensure that verifiable stuff cannot be deleted.

Scott's argument is that many press reports publish shite, and that as a
result we have lots of shite in our BLPs. My argument is that much of that 
shite is defended by editors saying, "A reliable source wrote about it, and
you wanting to delete it violates WP:V, because you see, policy says it does 
not matter whether editors believe it is true or not."


> If we can't use sources to judge truth, and we can't use
> expert knowledge
> without sources, what third option remains?


Editorial judgment -- we have to be allowed to judge the reliability of 
sources, and the quality of their research. Otherwise we're just 
indiscriminate parrots, regurgitating a random mix of knowledge and crap.

A.