We're an encyclopedia. Often sources conflict. If so, mention what both sources say. An example where this has happened in another article is here:
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_expenses_scandal#Source_of_information > See last para of that section. May help you. Another is here, where there is some genuine historical uncertainty to whether the matter existed or not: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin's_speech_on_August_19,_1939> Between those two, you should get some good ideas. FT2 On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 12:43 AM, Rob <gamali...@gmail.com> wrote: > This may have come up before so if there's a previous discussion on en > or here, please direct me to it. > > Do we have an official stance on using primary sources like the US > census and the Social Security Death Index to prove a case of [[age > fabrication]]? My take on it is that it is prohibited original > research, using primary sources to disprove secondary ones, compounded > by the fact that we could easily confuse the subject of the article > with another person of the same or similar name. > > If you want to be specific, here it is: Every published source has a > birthdate of 1918 for the late psychic Jeane Dixon. However the SSDI > has her birthdate as 1904 and the brother-in-law of her nephew swears > on the talk page that the 1904 date is the correct one. I think the > 1904 is correct, and it's frustrating because likely no journalist or > historian is going to bother publishing something about such a minor > matter, but my opinion is irrelevant and we should defer to published > sources. Verifiability not truth and all that. Or should we IAR in > cases like this and go with the "correct" date? > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l