WilmottWiki:Verifiability
From WilmottWiki
This policy in a nutshell: Information on WilmottWiki must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible. Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Of course, finance research being what it is we do expect to see conflicting theories and models described here.
The threshold for inclusion in WilmottWiki is verifiability, not truth. This means that we only publish material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources.
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The policy
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Verifiability, not truth
One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they should refer only to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have already been published by reputable publishers. The goal of WilmottWiki is to become a complete and reliable Quantitative Finance reference, so editors should cite reliable sources so that their edits may be verified by readers and other editors.
"Verifiability" in this context does not mean that editors are expected to verify whether, for example, the contents of a New York Times article are true. A good way to look at the distinction between verifiability and truth is with the following example. Suppose you are writing an WilmottWiki entry on a famous person's Theory X, which has been published in peer-reviewed journals and is therefore an appropriate subject for an WilmottWiki article. However, in the course of writing the article, you contact this person and he tells you: "Actually, I now believe Theory X to be completely false." Even though you have this from the author himself, you cannot include the fact that he said it in your WilmottWiki entry.
Why not? Because it is not verifiable in a way that would satisfy the WilmottWiki readership or other editors. The readers don't know who you are. You can't include your telephone number so that every reader in the world can call you for confirmation. And even if they could, why should they believe you?
For the information to be acceptable to WilmottWiki you would have to persuade a reputable news organization to publish your story first, which would then go through a process similar to peer review. It would be checked by a reporter, an editor, perhaps by a fact-checker, and if the story were problematic, it might be checked further by the lawyers and the editor-in-chief. These checks and balances exist to ensure that accurate and fair stories appear in the newspaper.
It is this fact-checking process that WilmottWiki is not in a position to provide, which is why the verifiability policy is so important.
If the newspaper published the story, you could then include the information in your WilmottWiki entry, citing the newspaper article as your source.
Sources
Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. For academic subjects, the sources should preferably be peer-reviewed. Sources should also be appropriate to the claims made: outlandish claims beg strong sources.
English-language sources should be given whenever possible, and should always be used in preference to foreign-language sources, so that readers can easily verify that the source material has been used correctly.
Burden of evidence
The burden of evidence lies with the editors who have made an edit or wish an edit to remain. Editors should therefore provide references. If an article topic has no reputable sources, WilmottWiki should not have an article on that topic.
Any edit lacking a source may be removed, but some editors may object if you remove material without giving people a chance to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, a good idea is to move it to the talk page.
If the article or information is about a living person, remove the unsourced information immediately. When removing information be careful to observe civility.
Sources of dubious reliability
In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking, or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight.
Sometimes a statement can only be found in a publication of dubious reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is relatively unimportant, remove it. If it is important enough to keep, attribute it to the source in question. For example: "According to the British tabloid newspaper The Sun..."
Self-published sources
Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources. Exceptions may be when a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field, or a well-known professional journalist, has produced self-published material. In some cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has been previously published by credible, third-party publications.
Other comments
Just because some information is verifiable, it doesn't mean that WilmottWiki is the right place to publish it. See what WilmottWiki is not. And just because information is true, that doesn't mean that it meets our verifiability requirements — information has to be sourced if it is to have a place in WilmottWiki (although, of course, if information is true, you should be able to find a ready reputable source for it).
