See this interesting discussion, showing the consequences that errors in Wikipedia can have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vil...info_from_WP.3F

I can't understand the quote "I've always taken "verifiability, not truth" to be a rule regarding the inclusion of data, not regarding its inclusion."

Hmm, based on the context, I'd say it's a typo/brain-fart sort of thing:

IOW, it should say:


...Which is still kind of a pointless statement, under the circumstances. Essentially, someone comes along and inserts a lie about a prominent figure into Wikipedia, and it's allowed to stand because it's plausible-sounding (Sacha Baron Cohen does look sort of like his mom might be from Iran, even though she's probably from Pittsburgh or Swindon or someplace like that). Lazy journalists repeat the lie, and now the lie is considered true because it comes from a "reliable source" - namely, lazy journalists.

And when someone points it out on WP, nobody wants to deal with the actual specific problem, they just want to discuss the philosophical implications of how this "might negatively affect the project."

That's what Wikipedia is all about, folks!

The Verifiability policy is basically an honor system. It is intended to bring well sourced material for balance and NPOV. The down side is, when an editor knowingly uses false information that is verifiable, and perpetuates the myth. WP:ATTFAQ: obsolete and deprecated sources hopefully will make inroads to curb this abuse.

The issue in question is: is Sacha Baron-Cohen's mother Iranian. In fact, I'm reliably told by someone who knows her that she isn't, but I can scarcely say that or I'll have WP:V and WP:RS thrown at me. Of course, people on Wikipedia say that what is needed is a reliable source that she isn't. But who goes round making statements that people aren't Iranian? How could I prove that I'm not?

This seems like a fairly obvious case to me. What they're really trying to do is claim that Cohen is "of Persian origin" because his mother's parents were, they claim, born somewhere in Iran (nobody seems to know where in Iran, of course, or when).

The Guardian article they cite as their earliest source is dated Sept. 29, 2006; the edit in question was dated Sept. 19, 2006. This was by User:Shamir1, an rather anti-Muslim editor who almost certainly lives in the United States, and who's been very active on WP for quite a while now. He has several thousand edits, mostly on Middle-East-related topics, and regularly adds ethnicity and national origin categories to BLP articles - often unsourced, at least until recently.

Soooo, Shamir1's edit was reverted 90 minutes later by User:Jack_O'Lantern, who (in the edit summary) claimed that this still needed a source. Two days later, User:Nkz83 re-added the false and unsourced info after posting this talk page entry in which he openly admits that he cannot find a source for this claim.

What this tells us, IMO, is that while the new BLP rules may have arguably improved the amount of source-citing that goes on now when writing biographical articles, it hasn't sufficiently improved the correction of poorly-cited articles from the years prior to implementation of the new rules, particularly when lazy (i.e., non-fact-checking) journalists have come along and used Wikipedia as a source on their own websites.

This is irrespective of any assertion that the new BLP citing rules are largely worthless without an opt-out policy to back them up, but I have to at least mention that, or I'd be accused of being "inconsistent."

Why doesn't Wikipedia simply acknowledge that at the end of the WP:NOR diktat should be a section called "honest guessing, with a side order of 'I heard it from a bloke down the pub'"?

All of this back-and-forth over ethnicity of people is just disguised racism. Is SBC better or worse as a satirist because of the ethnicity of his mother? Does any of this matter?

I wouldn't think so, but I always figured it was some sort of cultural thing. People like me who are average everyday white middle-class Americans don't usually concern ourselves with national/ethnic heritage so much, particularly when you start getting into grandparents or great-grandparents... but I can sort of see how people in Middle-Eastern or European countries might, since those countries are smaller, have been around far longer, and there's a bit more identification by nationality going on in general. But what do I know?

Of course, this sort of thing doesn't exactly promote internationalism, does it? Whether that's good or not is debatable I suppose, but either way, this is always going to be a problem for them - the people doing this aren't going to stop being ethnicity- and nationality-obsessed just because of some vaguely-worded "policy."

OK. So the question is, Who (or what) is defined as 'Iranian'? An excerpt from timely Congressional testimony 1/23/07:
Interpretation: "condemning all others to illiteracy in their mother tongues" suppresses WP:Verifiablity, making a "written record" in short supply, catering to objectives and policy of the Iranian regime.

His mother is presumably Jewish since he is. There have of course been Jews in Iran since Biblical times so that proves nothing.

Yes, a peculiar American thing...my source says more about ethnic and family loyalties, and "Internationalism" as you call it. (I guess we can throw the left-right spectrum theory out the window as the cause of Iraqi violence...), (Note: identity of my source is unnamed cause he/she will be slandered as soon as I cite him/her).

Who cares what the Iranians do or don't have record of? Or for that matter, what the Israelis or the British do or don't have record of? Sacha Baron Cohen's family shouldn't have to produce jack shit for those references to be removed from Wikipedia. Lack of documentation to prove an assertion does not mean that the opposite of that assertion is true - any second-grader could tell you that.

If there's some rule preventing them from removing the stuff, then just ignore the rule, right? This is Wikipedia we're talking about, not the Magna Carta. Is it really that important that they continue to make this assertion?

Let me put it this way: If Sacha Baron Cohen's grandparents were born in Iran, then nobody needs to know that. If they weren't, then nobody needs to know that either. (Least of all them!)

Amen to all of that. It's Systemic bias. And again, what is a nation-state? When we say "Iranian", are we speaking to ethnicity, Farsi speakers, or persons born under the Iranian regime?