User:WeatherWriter/Verifiability, not truth in action

Per the verifiability, not truth mentality and process on Wikipedia, some things that are known to be factually inaccurate may remain in articles. One way this can occur is when reliable sources become outdated with new primary information. Unless an update for an event is large or significant enough to be covered by a reliable secondary source, outdated information will remain in the article as the new information would not have a secondary reliable source to back it up.

Real example

For tornadoes in the United States, the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) has the legal authority of writing finalized information for tornadoes. This finalized information includes how many people were killed or injured, its intensity, and importantly, an estimated damage total for the tornado. Finalized information from NCEI takes approximately three months, meaning only information through September of a given year would be finalized by the end of the year.

During 2022, over a thousand tornadoes touched down in the United States. On December 22, 2022, KCRA-TV published an article titled Hurricanes, floods and tornadoes: The year in weather 2022. In the article, it was stated that the 2022 Winterset EF4 tornado was the costliest tornado of the year. This would remain truth throughout all the finalized tornado reports from NCEI.

However, on January 9, 2023, Meteorologist Jake Reynolds published an article titled 2022 in Tornadoes – A Look at the “Worst”, in which the top five costliest tornadoes were ranked. In the article, Reynolds also published that the Winterset tornado was the costliest tornado of the year, causing $220 million in damage. This aligned with NCEI’s finalized information at the time. The “second” costliest tornado ranked by Reynolds was the 2022 Gaylord, Michigan EF3 tornado, which caused $50 million in damage. Once again, at the time of Reynolds article (January 2023), that information aligned accurately with NCEI’s finalized information. In March 2023, NCEI published the finalized information about tornadoes in December 2022. In the finalized information, it was said that the December 14, 2022 New Orleans metropolis EF2 tornado caused $150 million in damage.

On the Tornadoes of 2022 article, there is a section for the Costliest United States tornadoes during the year.[1] Sources now conflicted with each other. Reynolds published an article saying the Gaylord, Michigan tornado was the second costliest tornado of 2022, while information from NCEI said it would be the December 14, 2022 New Orleans metropolis tornado. A Request for Comment (RFC) discussion then took place to determine how the information should be sourced and cited in the table. The conclusion of that discussion stated that using the official information from the National Centers for Environmental Information falls more along the lines of original research as it is a primary source and not a secondary reliable source. Information in the chart must have a secondary reliable source. With that discussion’s outcome, the costliest U.S. tornadoes of 2022 chart became factually inaccurate, but verifiable. It is important to note that had NCEI stated a tornado was caused more damaged than the Winterset tornado in the finalized October—December 2022 tornado information, the Winterset tornado would still remain, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, the costliest tornado of 2022.

This is a real example of how the ideology of “verifiability, not truth” works on Wikipedia. The information in that chart is verifiable, however, due to outdated secondary sources, new information makes it factually inaccurate.

See also

• Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth