[WikiEN-l] The vexed issue of sources

Fri Dec 8 21:54:10 UTC 2006

We talk about both verifiability and reliability.

You are not the end authority on Wikipedia.

On 12/8/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
wrote:
>
> "Thomas Dalton" wrote
>
> > > But Cunc dealt with this. 'Verifiable' is an in-principle thing. It is
> distinct from saying everyone can do homebrew fact-checking on anything
> mentioned. Verifiability on Wikipedia can't simply be a sceptics' charter:
> that really would be a problem.
>
> > Verifiable means we can actually verify it to be true. Not in
> > principle, but in practise. The whole point of verifiable sources is
> > that we can be sure we don't have things stated on Wikipedia that
> > aren't true - some vague kind of hypothetical verifiability doesn't
> > help that.
>
> No, that's not what we mean, and has never been what we mean. And you seem
> to be conflating things. We don't talk (much) about "verifiable sources": we
> base everything on "reliable sources". We talk about verifiable edits,
> really: we want to constrain editors into only adding material that is
> verifiable, from reliable sources, accessible to them. Some of the most
> reliable sources, in the scholarly sense, are some of the least accessible
> to the general public. (And, frankly, reliability of newspaper reports can
> vary inversely with circulation. And scholarly monographs with the best
> information on particular matters are apparently now printed in runs as low
> as 300.)
>
> So when you say "Verifiable means we can actually verify it to be true",
> that is not the kind of statement on which so much can be built.
>
> Charles
>
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