Talk:Brazilian astronomers propose new model of our galaxy

Review of revision 1113440 [Passed]

Revision 1113440 of this article has been reviewed by Pi zero (talk · contribs) and has passed its review at 15:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC). Copyright: Passed Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Passed NPOV: Passed Style: Passed Comments by reviewer: I had trouble with the single-source question on this. The CSR article contains a bunch of background material not in TR, but it also lifts basic material from TR, with a certain... carelessness that suggests a lesser degree of vetting than one might ideally hope for from multiple independent sources. Both articles contain the typo "Jaques". Both refer to the Pinwheel Galaxy "above", even though that only makes sense in TR where there actually is a picture of the Pinwheel above. One wonders about the CSR line about "hip to be square" that also appears in a reader comment at TR. However, the additional CSR material seems to imply something considerably more than mere parroting, hence some nontrivial degree of redundant vetting of the material; so I've decided to call it as "not single-source". The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.

Revision 1113440 of this article has been reviewed by Pi zero (talk · contribs) and has passed its review at 15:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC). Copyright: Passed Newsworthiness: Passed Verifiability: Passed NPOV: Passed Style: Passed Comments by reviewer: I had trouble with the single-source question on this. The CSR article contains a bunch of background material not in TR, but it also lifts basic material from TR, with a certain... carelessness that suggests a lesser degree of vetting than one might ideally hope for from multiple independent sources. Both articles contain the typo "Jaques". Both refer to the Pinwheel Galaxy "above", even though that only makes sense in TR where there actually is a picture of the Pinwheel above. One wonders about the CSR line about "hip to be square" that also appears in a reader comment at TR. However, the additional CSR material seems to imply something considerably more than mere parroting, hence some nontrivial degree of redundant vetting of the material; so I've decided to call it as "not single-source". The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.

Removal and notice

I have three remarks concerning these measures.

• I approve of removal of the material. The fact in question is attribution of the quoted words, and there is actual evidence that that fact was incorrect (as opposed to mere lack of extant support from the sources, which in the absence of contradiction would be a very different circumstance). The contradictory evidence is not limited to the current state of the CSM article: I'm confident that the other source did not contain any quotes from the team, I'm pretty sure that all quotes from the team in the CSM article were from the paper, and the attributed words aren't in the paper. It isn't just a question of "it should have been attributed to someone else" because in my judgment a quote in a news story is only justifiable when its presentation as a quote is part of the news (which I believe justifies quoting from the paper, in this article), and it's very rare for this to justify quoting one of the sources — I've seen it happen once, but it doesn't apply here. Without that justification, the "quote" is essentially a copyvio, and so removal is the correct permanent remedy (as well as the correct immediate action in response to the discovery, of course).
• With one small reservation, I approve of the wording of the notice. We have good reason to believe that the attribution was in fact incorrect. However, the quote was not attributed to Lepine alone, but to Lepine and his team.
• It is an interesting question how the removal of material relates to the past policy discussion on issuance of correction notices. The recommendation in that discussion was that correction notices should not be issued without first consulting the community, the intent being that people shouldn't feel free to unilaterally slap a retraction notice on any article they disagree with — but I think common sense dictates a different approach to a late action taken on an emergency basis. It would seem that such an action is always a removal of material, and that a late removal material is always on an emergency basis. Because the removal actually changes what is seen, surely some notice acknowledging that something has been removed should be added as soon as possible (simultaneously if that is feasible). The community should definitely be consulted subsequently, as was done in this case. It might be good to recommend restraint in initial wording of such an immediate notice of removal, so as to minimize the chance of having to pull back from the initial position — but I don't think it would be profitable to try to prescribe some sort of "temporary notice" wording, because that seems like instruction creep.

--Pi zero (talk) 13:21, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

For completeness, these are the measures upon which Pi zero passes comment.

Group authorship is usually a convenient fiction, so purely for reason of brevity I omitted "and his team" from the correction notice. Prompted by your comment, I revised it to say "the research team".

I don't recall that discussion (maybe it was tl;dr). For correction notices, unless what I am proposing will significantly harm a Wikinewsie and the evidence is arguable, I like to take the wiki way of "shoot first and ask questions later" hoping that the community will agree with my action (though it is kind of polite to mention such action at the water cooler, rather than rely on watchlists/recent changes, so apols for waiting 12 hours.) An error, such as a suspected unfair taking, however unintentional, is an emergency in my opinion. If there is good reason to start a debate I am quite happy with the occasional notice: "Text has been deleted/amended pending community discussion" but I don't want that to be the norm, as community discussions often lie dormant for weeks. I think my view somewhat harmonises with Pi zero's comment.

--InfantGorilla (talk) 15:22, 20 October 2010 (UTC)