"sydney poore" wrote
To add unpublished details to a biography is an
example of original
research.
(100% disagreement. A person’s date of birth is not original research. DOB
is a basic fact of society. It is verified daily by a wide spectrum of
organizations.)
I have felt for a long time that OR _can_ be abused, as a stick to beat
additions to articles. The principle does seem to be well established,
though. This particular issue suggests to me that we haven't yet got the
policy quite into focus.
We do want to stop people asserting they have important private sources,
putting 2 and 2 together to make 5, and putting that on WP. Which is a
recipe for conspiracy theorists running amok. It could be a real difficulty
in some areas (e.g. coverage of espionage). To say that simple
fact-checking is out makes, however, for an unpleasant dilemma: keep
something you know is wrong on the site, or take down a wrong fact like DoB
and simply leave a gap.
Charles