Apologies if no-one's covered this before. Slashdot covered the Sacha Baron Cohen referencing 'issue', and someone mentioned a link to the mailing list, where, of all people, Phil Sandifer, goes digging into the histories of WP:V and WP:NOR and finds that - gasp! - far from being community consensus, the concept of "Verifiability, Not Truth" was added by one person alone and just, somehow, stuck (WP:OWN, anyone?).



(From WikiEN)

Todd Allen defends:



And SV pops her head in, all innocent, or playing such:



Gives it a bit of a ego boost for WP:



Hoping that this will be sufficient to distract people from the fact that, according to Phil:



Uh oh. He didn't buy the hand-waving "These are not the droids" move. Prevaricate with vagaries!



A bit of pedantry, a bit of misdirection, point the finger in another direction, but never actually specify who this mysterious person was that suggested it. Claim that there was consensus though the entire point of Phil's claim was that there was none.

Carl weighs in:



And Slim tries to misdirect with a clearly ludicrous over-the-top dismissal:



But Carl isn't interested in her ideas and isn't subscribing to her newsletter:



And the fun continues. More exploration of this is left as an exercise for you, dear critical reader.

Hrafn asserted to me when I edit warred with him over "accuracy vs. verifiability" that "truth" is not an objective. And the cabal which booted me off WP upheld his view, and rejected my view that accuracy was an essential criterion for a responsible encyclopedia. So it was at least a consensus among those editors.

Setting truth and verifiability in opposition to one another is one of the central tools of those seeking to use Wikipedia to promote a personal agenda. In SlimVirgin's case, the agenda includes her "animal rights" activities, for other cabalists there are other agendas.

This works because there are far more verifiable opinions than there are facts. Wikipedia is littered with citations to the worst kind of partisan web gossip you can imagine, serving as citations for all sorts of half-truths, distortions, and outright lies. It starts with the inability of most editors to tell the news pages of the New York Times from the op-ed pages, and then rapidly slides into claims that (e.g.) CAMERA is a reliable source on contentious Palestinian issues or that the PETA website has something useful to say on the subject of Zoos.

A more reasonable publication would enforce a standard that might (weakly) be called "Verifiable truth" -- the idea that things need not only be true, but also sourced by citations that assert both the existence of the fact but the basis for its truth. This standard would cleanse Wikipedia of probably 98% of its content, so you can see why it isn't used.

Never mistake SlimVirgin's high-minded rhetoric for anything other than a careful and long-running battle to protect her agenda and denigrate any that she doesn't like. When it's a WP:RS argument, the cabal always wins and you always lose.

I'm not clear how this works. Say the Dictionary of National Biography (a massively authoritative work) says something. It gives a footnote. You dig out the obscure paper in the footnote; it confirms the statement but gives no basis. Or it does, but that source gives no basis. Is that good enough? Can't we rely on the reputation of the Dictionary?

It's remarkably hard to get to the ground truth without doing independent research.

And that's the dichotomy...

I wouldn't trust half that lot to put their clothes on the right way, let alone conduct unbiased, independent, credible research.

I agree that the "verifiability, not truth" argument is to allow POV-pushing by some of its proponents, including SV. I'm encouraged by the discussion about this that's taking place, I hope that SV's ownership of this policy, and others, is finally coming to its inevitable end.

Ah noble Cla68 has finally joined us, welcome the Review!

You are of course completely correct. Leaving out the issue of reputation does over-simplify things. But an encyclopedic work like the Dictionary of National Biography has a unitary editorial reputation, whereas (e.g.) the New York Times has different editorial policies for news and op-ed, and within op-ed has as many "reputations" as there are authors. Other publications have different editorial policies and resulting reputations, either by design or by observation, and of course different scholarly domains have different standards for and sources of reputation.

But the overall question of editorial reputation and how it aligns (or fails to) with author reputation (where the two are distinct) is a topic that I feel goes far beyond this discussion.

Hi, Cla68. I've been watching your AN/I evidence page for the SV problem slowly taking shape like seige machines on the horizon. I hope it gets on the proper people's nerves.

Wikipedia, alas for it, does use the word "reliability" in WP:RS and it's pretty clear that what they mean by a "reliable source" is "one that is likely to be saying something that is true." There's no other way to interpret it. So whenever you must, just haul this out and stick it in their one remaining beady eye.

If I may be so bold, I hope it gets on the proper people's conscience.

I don't want people to feel guilty, as that tends to make them defensive (since guilt implies punishment). I'd prefer that people feel remorseful, as that very useful emotion precedes the adoption of better practices, going forward.