Age fabrication and original research

[Rob-24]

This may have come up before so if there's a previous discussion on en
or here, please direct me to it.

Do we have an official stance on using primary sources like the US
census and the Social Security Death Index to prove a case of [[age
fabrication]]?  My take on it is that it is prohibited original
research, using primary sources to disprove secondary ones, compounded
by the fact that we could easily confuse the subject of the article
with another person of the same or similar name.

If you want to be specific, here it is:  Every published source has a
birthdate of 1918 for the late psychic Jeane Dixon.  However the SSDI
has her birthdate as 1904 and the brother-in-law of her nephew swears
on the talk page that the 1904 date is the correct one.  I think the
1904 is correct, and it's frustrating because likely no journalist or
historian is going to bother publishing something about such a minor
matter, but my opinion is irrelevant and we should defer to published
sources.  Verifiability not truth and all that.  Or should we IAR in
cases like this and go with the "correct" date?

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[James Hare]

You could phrase it like this:

"The SSDI says 1904[source] while all these other publications say
1918[source]." Or you could discredit the reliability of the sources (which
would be the right thing to do, since the SSDI is not likely to get birth
dates wrong) and just say "Dixon was born in 1904.[source]"

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Rob <gamaliel8@...> wrote:

> This may have come up before so if there's a previous discussion on en
> or here, please direct me to it.
>
> Do we have an official stance on using primary sources like the US
> census and the Social Security Death Index to prove a case of [[age
> fabrication]]?  My take on it is that it is prohibited original
> research, using primary sources to disprove secondary ones, compounded
> by the fact that we could easily confuse the subject of the article
> with another person of the same or similar name.
>
> If you want to be specific, here it is:  Every published source has a
> birthdate of 1918 for the late psychic Jeane Dixon.  However the SSDI
> has her birthdate as 1904 and the brother-in-law of her nephew swears
> on the talk page that the 1904 date is the correct one.  I think the
> 1904 is correct, and it's frustrating because likely no journalist or
> historian is going to bother publishing something about such a minor
> matter, but my opinion is irrelevant and we should defer to published
> sources.  Verifiability not truth and all that.  Or should we IAR in
> cases like this and go with the "correct" date?
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l@...
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Rob <gamaliel8@...> wrote:
[snip]
> matter, but my opinion is irrelevant and we should defer to published
> sources.  Verifiability not truth and all that.  Or should we IAR in
> cases like this and go with the "correct" date?

You can usually punt and say "This primary source says X; these other
references say Y" (with the implied: If this matters to you, go figure
it out for yourself).

We should avoid false certainty, the world is a complicated and
confusing case. When a question of fact is hard NPOV instructs us to
take a step back and address the meta-fact instead.

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[FT2]

We're an encyclopedia. Often sources conflict. If so, mention what both
sources say. An example where this has happened in another article is here:

<
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_expenses_scandal#Source_of_information
>

See last para of that section. May help you. Another is here, where there is
some genuine historical uncertainty to whether the matter existed or not:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin's_speech_on_August_19,_1939>

Between those two, you should get some good ideas.

FT2



On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:43 AM, Rob <gamaliel8@...> wrote:

> This may have come up before so if there's a previous discussion on en
> or here, please direct me to it.
>
> Do we have an official stance on using primary sources like the US
> census and the Social Security Death Index to prove a case of [[age
> fabrication]]?  My take on it is that it is prohibited original
> research, using primary sources to disprove secondary ones, compounded
> by the fact that we could easily confuse the subject of the article
> with another person of the same or similar name.
>
> If you want to be specific, here it is:  Every published source has a
> birthdate of 1918 for the late psychic Jeane Dixon.  However the SSDI
> has her birthdate as 1904 and the brother-in-law of her nephew swears
> on the talk page that the 1904 date is the correct one.  I think the
> 1904 is correct, and it's frustrating because likely no journalist or
> historian is going to bother publishing something about such a minor
> matter, but my opinion is irrelevant and we should defer to published
> sources.  Verifiability not truth and all that.  Or should we IAR in
> cases like this and go with the "correct" date?
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l@...
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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[FT2]

Adding to that:

From a Wikipedia editorial stance, stating that "date of birth" has multiple
reliable sources that conflict, is fine. Books state X, official government
records state Y, both are "RS" enough to be worth citing and the difference
is probably worth noting in the context of her article as well.

So state the facts. It's fine to say "source X states Y and source P states
Q" or the like.

Where it becomes OR is if you then start to draw your own conclusions from
it, which one is "right", etc, if you don't have a good basis to do so.

FT2



On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 2:22 AM, FT2 <ft2.wiki@...> wrote:

> We're an encyclopedia. Often sources conflict. If so, mention what both
> sources say. An example where this has happened in another article is here:
>
> <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_expenses_scandal#Source_of_information
> >
>
> See last para of that section. May help you. Another is here, where there
> is some genuine historical uncertainty to whether the matter existed or not:
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin's_speech_on_August_19,_1939>
>
> Between those two, you should get some good ideas.
>
> FT2
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:43 AM, Rob <gamaliel8@...> wrote:
>
>> This may have come up before so if there's a previous discussion on en
>> or here, please direct me to it.
>>
>> Do we have an official stance on using primary sources like the US
>> census and the Social Security Death Index to prove a case of [[age
>> fabrication]]?  My take on it is that it is prohibited original
>> research, using primary sources to disprove secondary ones, compounded
>> by the fact that we could easily confuse the subject of the article
>> with another person of the same or similar name.
>>
>> If you want to be specific, here it is:  Every published source has a
>> birthdate of 1918 for the late psychic Jeane Dixon.  However the SSDI
>> has her birthdate as 1904 and the brother-in-law of her nephew swears
>> on the talk page that the 1904 date is the correct one.  I think the
>> 1904 is correct, and it's frustrating because likely no journalist or
>> historian is going to bother publishing something about such a minor
>> matter, but my opinion is irrelevant and we should defer to published
>> sources.  Verifiability not truth and all that.  Or should we IAR in
>> cases like this and go with the "correct" date?
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l@...
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
>

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[Steve Bennett-8]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 11:32 AM, FT2 <ft2.wiki@...> wrote:
> From a Wikipedia editorial stance, stating that "date of birth" has multiple
> reliable sources that conflict, is fine. Books state X, official government
> records state Y, both are "RS" enough to be worth citing and the difference
> is probably worth noting in the context of her article as well.

Yep. I'd probably list the most commonly published one in the lede,
with a footnote explaining the issue.

One place I did something slightly similar was
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_McTell - see the "Note".

Steve

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[Ken Arromdee]

"Verifiability, not truth" means that sometimes we'll put in something that's
verifiable but isn't true.

If you use IAR now, you'll have a hard time justifying not using it every
time something's verifable-but-false.  And if you do use it every time, why
not just fix the rule?  (Aside from "it's so easy to filibuster a rule
change and people are so attached to the existing rules that it's impossible
to fix them".)


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[George Herbert]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:27 PM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee@...> 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@...

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[FT2]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 3:27 AM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee@...> wrote:

> "Verifiability, not truth" means that sometimes we'll put in something
> that's
> verifiable but isn't true.
>
> If you use IAR now, you'll have a hard time justifying not using it every
> time something's verifable-but-false.  And if you do use it every time, why
> not just fix the rule?  (Aside from "it's so easy to filibuster a rule
> change and people are so attached to the existing rules that it's
> impossible
>  to fix them".)

Verifiability not truth is probably one of the most poorly understood
expressions on the wiki.

It roughly means that we document what can be factually checked, in
preference to what we "believe". Most of the time the two coincide - I
believe people have lungs, and it's a fact that a wide range of very
credible sources on human anatomy say they do as well. Pure unsupported (or
poorly supported) belief is not, by itself, a good basis to tell the rest of
the world "this is what's so". As a reference source, the mandate we have is
to document information, that means not introducing our own beliefs about
"whats true" too much into it.

"Write about what is verifiable, rather than what you or someone happens to
believe is true" is a soundbite, a way to express that approach. We don't
know 100.000% about reality, or history, or culture, or any area. We do know
what credible students of reality, history and culture have concluded and
without dipping into philosophy, that is what we document.

It's not fireworks and adventure. It's documenting what credible sources
state, and the fact that credible sources do state those things.

IAR is the other main "poorly understood" policy ;)

FT2
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[Liam Wyatt]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 1:13 PM, FT2 <ft2.wiki@...> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 3:27 AM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee@...> wrote:
>
> "Write about what is verifiable, rather than what you or someone happens to
> believe is true" is a soundbite, a way to express that approach. We don't
> know 100.000% about reality, or history, or culture, or any area. We do
> know
> what credible students of reality, history and culture have concluded and
> without dipping into philosophy, that is what we document.
>

The soundbite I use is that "Wikipedia outsources truth". The debate about
what is or isn't true is not ours but is played out amongst the various
sources that we can draw upon as references.

-Liam [[witty lama]]

wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata


>
>
> FT2
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[Kat Walsh-4]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt@...> wrote:

> The soundbite I use is that "Wikipedia outsources truth". The debate about
> what is or isn't true is not ours but is played out amongst the various
> sources that we can draw upon as references.

Good soundbite. :-)

-Kat

--
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Wikimedia, Press: kat@... * Personal: kat@...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage
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[Durova]

Suppose for discussion's sake we can fully trust that the brother-in-law of
Jeane Dixon's nephew has indeed commented upon the matter.  Relatives have
been known to get their facts wrong.  The more distant, the more likely a
mistake.

My own cousins and I debate the spelling of a grandmother's name.  And
certain records are unverifiable because of warehouse fires.  In a few
instances I know the later records are wrong because I was present when the
later data was recorded and the person who answered the questions, who was
choked with grief, simply misspoke.  Others who were present were jet lagged
from sudden arrangements to attend the funeral and too slow to react.
There's a family member who ought to have a military honor on his burial
marker but doesn't, because of that.  I wish I'd had the presence of mind to
correct the omission when the opportunity came.

Let's go with the secondary sources here.  No disrespect intended.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 9:08 PM, Kat Walsh <kat@...> wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt@...> wrote:
>
> > The soundbite I use is that "Wikipedia outsources truth". The debate
> about
> > what is or isn't true is not ours but is played out amongst the various
> > sources that we can draw upon as references.
>
> Good soundbite. :-)
>
> -Kat
>
> --
> Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en
> Wikimedia, Press: kat@... * Personal: kat@...
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage
> mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone
>
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[Gregory Maxwell]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:53 AM, Durova <nadezhda.durova@...> wrote:
> Suppose for discussion's sake we can fully trust that the brother-in-law of
> Jeane Dixon's nephew has indeed commented upon the matter.  Relatives have
> been known to get their facts wrong.  The more distant, the more likely a
> mistake.

But thats not the case here: The SSDI supports the claim. True— it
could just be the kind of clerical error that you find in a primary
source from time to time, but it's a verifiable record.

We do our readers a service to point to the diversity of possibly
credible answers and to avoid presenting false confidence.

(My position would be different if it were clear that one of the
secondaries had examined the SSDI and concluded that the information
was incorrect, I'm assuming that isn't the case here)

In the case of living people I think that their own sourcable claims
about themselves are automatically notable and reasonable for
inclusion, placed against what the external sources say.  "Jim has
stated that he is X[], however sources A[], B[] and C[] cite records
X, Y and, Z and state he is Q" ...  Some version of this position
might also reasonably apply to the heirs of the deceased:  That it
might be interesting and notable that the children of someone all
insist one thing although every reasonable source is quite confident
that the truth is something else.

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[Carcharoth]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:58 AM, James Hare <messedrocker@...> wrote:
> You could phrase it like this:
>
> "The SSDI says 1904[source] while all these other publications say
> 1918[source]." Or you could discredit the reliability of the sources (which
> would be the right thing to do, since the SSDI is not likely to get birth
> dates wrong) and just say "Dixon was born in 1904.[source]"

<snip>

Is it common to get birth years wrong by 14 years?

Carcharoth

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[FT2]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:05 PM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp@...>wrote:

> Is it common to get birth years wrong by 14 years?
>


Yes. Ask any work colleague over 60 how  old they are - "Oh, I'm 40 next
birthday"!

More to the point claims of older age than one has (or younger youth) may be
strongly upheld all of one's life, due to credibility or advantage it
brings.

Paul.
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[Charles Matthews]

Kat Walsh wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt@...> wrote:
>
>  
>> The soundbite I use is that "Wikipedia outsources truth". The debate about
>> what is or isn't true is not ours but is played out amongst the various
>> sources that we can draw upon as references.
>>    
Does have the slightly unfortunate implication that anyone on the site
who actually knows facts could find themselved "downsized". And, of
course, that we have a perfectly transparent notion of "reliable
source", which would be a lie.

Charles


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[Ken Arromdee]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009, George Herbert wrote:
> > "Verifiability, not truth" means that sometimes we'll put in something that's
> > verifiable but isn't true.
> "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 problem is that the data may actually be better quality (by non-
Wikipedian standards) but not verifiable by Wikipedia standards.  (Like the
case of the bridge which was said in a source to have no traffic, and
someone visited it and saw it has traffic.  You could make up far-fetched
scenarios of why the reliable source could still be correct, but it's far
more likely that none of those scenarios are and that the source is simply
wrong.)

> "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.

Same problem: You're assuming that "acceptable citable Wikipedia source" is
equivalent to "good source of information" and that if the source cannot be
cited, it's equivalent to "because I say so".  Wikipedia's standards for
sources do not allow some things that common sense tells us are at least as
reliable as using Wikipedia-acceptable sources, like visiting a bridge
yourself or using a primary source for a birthdate which contradicts a
secondary source.

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

The only reason BLP is an exception that Argumentum ad Jimbonium is strong
enough that we can ignore all the broken rules that would otherwise prevent
us from doing it.


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[Ken Arromdee]

On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, FT2 wrote:
> Verifiability not truth is probably one of the most poorly understood
> expressions on the wiki.
>
> It roughly means that we document what can be factually checked, in
> preference to what we "believe".

Unfortunately, "roughly" isn't "precisely".

This argument started with a verifiable-but-false claim which was factually
checked, but where we're not allowed to use the result of the fact-checking
(since it was a primary source and secondary sources take preference).
The covered bridge example was also one ("I fact-checked the source by looking
at the bridge.  The source was wrong." is not acceptable.)


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[Ken Arromdee]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009, Durova wrote:
> Suppose for discussion's sake we can fully trust that the brother-in-law of
> Jeane Dixon's nephew has indeed commented upon the matter.  Relatives have
> been known to get their facts wrong.  The more distant, the more likely a
> mistake.

But that argument applies to anything.  Even the kind of sources we accept
have been known to get their facts wrong.  "We shouldn't listen to the
relatives because they might be wrong" is not just an argument for ignoring
the relatives, it's one for not having Wikipedia at all.

What you have to argue is "it's far more likely that the relatives got it
wrong than the reliable sources", and that's a lot harder to justify.


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[FT2]

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee@...> wrote:

> Unfortunately, "roughly" isn't "precisely".
>
> This argument started with a verifiable-but-false claim which was factually
> checked, but where we're not allowed to use the result of the fact-checking
> (since it was a primary source and secondary sources take preference).
> The covered bridge example was also one ("I fact-checked the source by
> looking
>  at the bridge.  The source was wrong." is not acceptable.)


You're mistaken about sourcing, I think. I'll try for a simple
lay-description of a complex subject needing judgment:

Information comes in a variety of forms. Some information anyone can verify
for themselves (in principle). It's factual, it's presented to the senses,
it requires no interpretation or analysis, it is what it is.

A photocopy of my passport is a piece of paper that appears to be a
photocopy of a passport and contains a picture, and anyone can agree on
that. The Declaration of Independence in the National Archives contains the
words "We hold these truths to be self-evident". The Golden Gate bridge
crosses water. My birth certificate states a given date. Dickens' book
"Bleak House" focuses on a legal dispute and its consequences and is
narrated in part by character Esther Summerson. There are 13 stripes and 50
stars on the American flag.

These are primary sources (in Wikipedia terms), they are what they are, and
any reasonable person with access can verify and agree.

Other sources are opinions, analysis, research and conclusions. We don't get
into this area, we defer to what we conclude or believe to be experts and
credible sources, and document the main opinions/views/beliefs that exist in
the world.

So the resolution of your question above is, if anyone could in principle
check it without analysis, just by witnessing the object or document and
attesting it says what it says (or is what it is, or has certain obvious
qualities), then that's verifiable. If it would need analysis,
interpretation or deduction to form the view, so that some views might be
credible/expert and some might not, then we don't try to "play the expert"
here, we look at what credible sources/experts say instead.

So yes, you can look at the bridge. Anyone can. That would in principle
suffice for something that anyone could check and anyone agree upon --
obvious, clear, blatant, unambiguous, verifiable. Because reliable sources
are expected to be correct, if it's contradicted by sources, then other
editors will require some kind of evidence that the bridge does truly have
those obvious attributes, that any visitor could clearly see, not just "some
Wikipedian says so".

FT2
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