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> “The point is, basically, that Wikiepdia is not bad,” Evans added, “But it needs to meet its own standard for verifiability.” But published books and journal

> “The point is, basically, that Wikiepdia is not bad,” Evans added, “But it needs to meet its own standard for verifiability.” But published books and journal articles do meet the Wikipedia verifiability criterion, even if they are not accessible online at no cost. To make those books get a low "verifiability score" seems like a bad idea to me. For quite a a few topics, it is still the case that the information you can find by just googling a topic is a lot worse than what is published on paper. (I know this from trying to track down online sources for various things I read about on Wikipedia...)

chris_wot 11y ago
There's a difference between verifiability and reliability. A bad actor could claim a reliable source that is hard to access says something it does not. That doesn't make the source any less reliable, only it does make it hard to verify that what is written is indeed what the source actually says.
- vilhelm_s 11y ago
  Sure, I'm just saying that this is considered in the existing wikipedia standards. For a claim to be "verifiable" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability) it must be supported by a citation to a source which is "reliable", which includes being "accessible" enough that someone can check it. But print and paywalled sources are still considered to meet the accessibility criterion. ("Do not reject sources just because they are hard or costly to access. If you have trouble accessing a source, others may be able to do so on your behalf.", "The costs or difficulties of verifying a source do not impact its reliability, so long as it is possible for someone to verify it within a reasonable time.")
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Maybe that needs clarifying then. A source that comes up with information that can't be verified isn't terribly reliable, and thus not really verifiable. Every single anti-vaccination site does this. Here's an example: http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/02/18/the-deadly-impossibility-of-herd-immunity-through-vaccination-by-dr-russell-blaylock/ http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/02/18/the-deadly-impo... "The Deadly Impossibility of Herd Immunity". There are claims in there such as "as the literature shows" with no reference to the literature itself. It makes a lot of claims and refers to some sort of group that it doesn't even identify to characterise claims by vaccination specialists, and gets a lot of facts wrong about herd immunity. Thus, as a source it is unreliable in that it doesn't clearly state its own sources, so I'd have to call it unverifiable.

chris_wot 11y ago

There's a difference between verifiability and reliability. A bad actor could claim a reliable source that is hard to access says something it does not. That doesn't make the source any less reliable, only it does make it hard to verify that what is written is indeed what the source actually says.

vilhelm_s 11y ago
Sure, I'm just saying that this is considered in the existing wikipedia standards. For a claim to be "verifiable" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability) it must be supported by a citation to a source which is "reliable", which includes being "accessible" enough that someone can check it. But print and paywalled sources are still considered to meet the accessibility criterion. ("Do not reject sources just because they are hard or costly to access. If you have trouble accessing a source, others may be able to do so on your behalf.", "The costs or difficulties of verifying a source do not impact its reliability, so long as it is possible for someone to verify it within a reasonable time.")
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Maybe that needs clarifying then. A source that comes up with information that can't be verified isn't terribly reliable, and thus not really verifiable. Every single anti-vaccination site does this. Here's an example: http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/02/18/the-deadly-impossibility-of-herd-immunity-through-vaccination-by-dr-russell-blaylock/ http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/02/18/the-deadly-impo... "The Deadly Impossibility of Herd Immunity". There are claims in there such as "as the literature shows" with no reference to the literature itself. It makes a lot of claims and refers to some sort of group that it doesn't even identify to characterise claims by vaccination specialists, and gets a lot of facts wrong about herd immunity. Thus, as a source it is unreliable in that it doesn't clearly state its own sources, so I'd have to call it unverifiable.