Wikiversity talk:Verifiability

Votes

 * see commments Oliver 20:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * -- sebmol ? 12:15, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Mirwin 13:34, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments

 * It might be worth combining Verifiability and the Reliable Sources policy into one document to ensure the reader does not miss the link off to another page. The second point is we should have a way of citing published sources – i.e. books and citing research papers separately to ensure the reader knows that this might not be absolute fact. Oliver 20:45, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * We need to develop our content first, create our own precedents and derive best practices from that. This policy is highly premature. -- sebmol ? 12:15, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oliver makes good points, I would like to associate myself with his remarks. Further, this policy is a good first cut tailoring policy that works well for Wikipedia to Wikiversities unique requirements.  Yes, I agree we need to derive our own best practices and they should be rolled back into existing policy.  Which means we need existing policy. Mirwin 13:34, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Limits?
I think it is important that this policy include limits—there are certainly contexts in which verifiability is not critical in Wikiversity. In particular I'm thinking of contexts in which new studies are ongoing at Wikiversity. The only way to "verify" such a thing may be to undertake the same experiment, or to have access to the same materials (such as the famous Psychologist in the example given). In certain contexts, this should not be discouraged at Wikiversity, though in other contexts (where something is being taught as absolute fact as to what is or what happened), it may be very important that everything be verifiable. I must say I feel somewhat like Sebmol that this policy is premature, though I do think that something along these lines would be important. I just think it needs to be qualified more. The Jade Knight 04:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Addition by Abd
I removed an addition by Abd (copied here for easy reference):
 * "It is routine in peer-reviewed publications that alleged fact is cited to "conversations with So-and-so." The fact reported is the conversation, not truth. And the author of the paper is the witness. Hence such alleged facts require attribution, not only to the alleged source (the physicist above) but also to the witness.
 * "It is not generally true that "private conversation" is unverifiable. One may write to the "famous physicist" and ask, if he or she is still alive. Otherwise, the basic common-law principle is that testimony is presumed true unless controverted. Wikiversity allows original research, and this is an aspect of it. Original research must be, and certainly if challenged, attributed to the researcher. While page history will show who added original research, this should be explicit in the text or context. On top-level mainspace pages, these rules may be relatively strict. In subpages, subpages may be, in toto, attributed to author or other user, in which case they should normally not be edited by others without permission.

--Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 07:20, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for patrolling undiscussed changes. I generally agree that research content should not be edited by others (except technical maintenance, I sometimes add categories to WikiJournals etc.). At WikiJournals, edits by others may affect the result of peer review. MediaWiki:Protect-dropdown has "Teacher request". In a similar manner we may have "Research author request" to prevent concerned edits. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 13:38, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I also support that "It is not generally true that "private conversation" is unverifiable." The most accurate way to verify conversations would be recordings. Even without them, if the same thing was said before by the author(s) in a different recorded environment, then the conversation would be semi-verifiable. Some authors may include their conversations in upcoming publications, this would also be better than unverifiable. I don't think all private conversations can be labeled as unverifiable. MathXplore (discuss • contribs) 13:52, 1 February 2024 (UTC)