Help:Disagreement

From SABR Encyclopedia

Much of baseball history, especially outside the relatively narrow confines of the Major Leagues, remains lightly researched, or not researched at all. In the process of doing research, it is not uncommon to find sources which contain contradictory factual information, where it is not clear which (if either) is reporting the truth accurately. The tools for disagreement listed below are designed to help flag articles where sources contain conflicting information. For flagging issues related primarily to formatting and mechanics of articles, see the tools listed at Help:Cleanup resources.

[edit] Disagreements about people

Articles on people comprise the majority of articles in the SABR Encyclopedia. The scope of the Encyclopedia includes every person who has played or managed at least one game in a fully professional league. Many leagues in history are poorly documented, and knowledege about the people participating in the league is provisional. It is not uncommon for sources to disagree about facts about a person's life and career.

The following templates are provided to flag articles where the factual accuracy of the article is in question. As a general rule, if you find a source which contracts the facts existing in the article, your action should be to flag the article with the appropriate template, and explain the disagreement in the talk page for that person. You should change the facts in the article only if you are sure, either from your own research or from the results of discussion with others, that the new information is in fact correct. If you do decide that the evidence is strong enough to update the article, be sure to include citations of the sources with the new information, and also, preferably, make a note on the talk page indicating your reasoning for making the change. As always, when editing the article, remember that someone may come along years from now and wonder about the justification for the change you are making; be sure the leave adequate documentation so your change is not undone without cause.

Category	Template	Description
Category:Person articles with disagreement in demographics	Template:disagree-person-demographics	Articles about people for whom there is disagreement about basic demographic information (names, places or dates of birth or death)
Category:Person articles with disagreement in career identification	Template:disagree-person-career	Articles about people for whom there is disagreement about the correct identification of the person (incorrect records in the person's career summary)