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Wikipedia:Avoid negative claims - Wikipedia
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class="vector-body" aria-labelledby="firstHeading" data-mw-ve-target-container> <div class="vector-body-before-content"> <div class="mw-indicators"> </div> <div id="siteSub" class="noprint">From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</div> </div> <div id="contentSub"><div id="mw-content-subtitle"></div></div> <div id="mw-content-text" class="mw-body-content"><div class="mw-content-ltr mw-parser-output" lang="en" dir="ltr"><div class="shortdescription nomobile noexcerpt noprint searchaux" style="display:none">Essay on editing Wikipedia</div><style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1238436933">.mw-parser-output .ombox{margin:4px 0;border-collapse:collapse;border:1px solid #a2a9b1;background-color:var(--background-color-neutral-subtle,#f8f9fa);box-sizing:border-box;color:var(--color-base,#202122)}.mw-parser-output .ombox.mbox-small{font-size:88%;line-height:1.25em}.mw-parser-output .ombox-speedy{border:2px solid #b32424;background-color:#fee7e6}.mw-parser-output .ombox-delete{border:2px 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screen and (prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .ombox-speedy{background-color:#310402}}</style><table class="plainlinks ombox ombox-notice" role="presentation"><tbody><tr><td class="mbox-image"><span typeof="mw:File"><span><img alt="" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Essay.svg/30px-Essay.svg.png" decoding="async" width="30" height="36" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Essay.svg/45px-Essay.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Essay.svg/60px-Essay.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="35" data-file-height="42"/></span></span></td><td class="mbox-text"><div style="padding-top: 6px; padding-bottom: 5px;"><b>This is an <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Essays" title="Wikipedia:Essays">essay</a>.</b><br/><div style="font-size: 90%;">It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines" title="Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines">Wikipedia's policies or guidelines</a>, as it has not been <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus#Levels_of_consensus" title="Wikipedia:Consensus">thoroughly vetted by the community</a>. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.</div></div></td></tr></tbody></table> <p><b>Negative claims</b> are statements that assert the non-existence or exclusion of something. Negative claims are assumed to be true so long as no evidence is presented to prove the claim false. Negative claims may have a positive counterpoint that asserts the existence or inclusion of something and which requires evidence to verify that the claim is true. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2 ext-discussiontools-init-section"><h2 id="Negative_claims,_verifiability,_and_the_burden_of_proof" data-mw-thread-id="h-Negative_claims,_verifiability,_and_the_burden_of_proof"><span id="Negative_claims.2C_verifiability.2C_and_the_burden_of_proof"></span><span data-mw-comment-start="" id="h-Negative_claims,_verifiability,_and_the_burden_of_proof"></span>Negative claims, verifiability, and the burden of proof<span data-mw-comment-end="h-Negative_claims,_verifiability,_and_the_burden_of_proof"></span></h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Avoid_negative_claims&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Negative claims, verifiability, and the burden of proof"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span><!--__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"headingLevel":2,"name":"h-","type":"heading","level":0,"id":"h-Negative_claims,_verifiability,_and_the_burden_of_proof","replies":[]}}--></div> <p>Wikipedia's policies requires that <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability" title="Wikipedia:Verifiability">all content must be verifiable</a> and places the <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Responsibility_for_providing_citations" title="Wikipedia:Verifiability">burden</a> on the editor adding the content to demonstrate its verifiability. However, certain negative claims depend on the absence of <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources" class="mw-redirect" title="Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources">reliable sources</a> to assert their validity, these claims shift the burden from the editor adding the claim to the editor challenging the claim. Negative claims that can be attributed to a reliable source does. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2 ext-discussiontools-init-section"><h2 id="Examples_of_negative_claims_to_avoid" data-mw-thread-id="h-Examples_of_negative_claims_to_avoid"><span data-mw-comment-start="" id="h-Examples_of_negative_claims_to_avoid"></span>Examples of negative claims to avoid<span data-mw-comment-end="h-Examples_of_negative_claims_to_avoid"></span></h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Avoid_negative_claims&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: Examples of negative claims to avoid"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span><!--__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"headingLevel":2,"name":"h-","type":"heading","level":0,"id":"h-Examples_of_negative_claims_to_avoid","replies":[]}}--></div> <ul><li>"It is unknown if ..."<a class="external autonumber" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dragon_Ball_Super&diff=742114848&oldid=742102384">[1]</a></li> <li>"<i>X</i> has not been (fully) released in <i>Y</i> language"<a class="external autonumber" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tamagotchi!_(anime)&diff=731382872&oldid=731381939">[2]</a></li> <li>"No announcement has been made ..."</li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2 ext-discussiontools-init-section"><h2 id="See_also" data-mw-thread-id="h-See_also"><span data-mw-comment-start="" id="h-See_also"></span>See also<span data-mw-comment-end="h-See_also"></span></h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Avoid_negative_claims&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: See also"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span><!--__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"headingLevel":2,"name":"h-","type":"heading","level":0,"id":"h-See_also","replies":[]}}--></div> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Philosophic_burden_of_proof" class="mw-redirect" title="Philosophic burden of proof">Philosophic burden of proof</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance" title="Argument from ignorance">Argument from ignorance</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot" title="Russell's teapot">Russell's teapot</a></li></ul> <!-- NewPP limit report Parsed by mw‐web.eqiad.main‐7c479b968‐k6p2p Cached time: 20241115092814 Cache expiry: 2592000 Reduced expiry: false Complications: [vary‐revision‐sha1] DiscussionTools time usage: 0.006 seconds CPU time usage: 0.084 seconds Real time usage: 0.120 seconds Preprocessor visited node count: 213/1000000 Post‐expand include size: 5100/2097152 bytes Template argument size: 311/2097152 bytes Highest expansion depth: 14/100 Expensive parser function count: 0/500 Unstrip recursion depth: 0/20 Unstrip post‐expand size: 1628/5000000 bytes Lua time usage: 0.037/10.000 seconds Lua memory usage: 1118551/52428800 bytes Number of Wikibase entities loaded: 0/400 --> <!-- Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template) 100.00% 99.103 1 Template:Essay 100.00% 99.103 1 -total 47.51% 47.084 1 Template:Project_other 44.93% 44.528 1 Template:Short_description 27.63% 27.382 1 Template:Ombox 23.85% 23.638 1 Template:Pagetype 4.43% 4.392 1 Template:Short_description/lowercasecheck 1.84% 1.828 2 Template:Main_other --> <!-- Saved in parser cache with key enwiki:pcache:idhash:51218679-0!canonical and timestamp 20241115092814 and revision id 1081620698. 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