Talk:Accountability

(The following removed from "History" section: 1. Section modified with sources related to ancient use of account-giving, but word itself first appears in English in early 13th century -- see source. 2. No source for material below on Hammurabi Code, although source is added that refers to it directly. No support for "perhaps first written statement" -- and in fact the word accountability was not used before 13th century Norman England. 3. Too limited in view of accountability as related to money lending. Financial bookkeeping in formal sense is ancient, although accounting is modern invention. Also downplays use in ancient regimes. 4. Use of 1848 Bartlett is dated -- OED dates usage back to 1200s, and first use in US to colonial times....)Mjdubnick (talk) 20:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

One would borrow money from a money lender, be that a local Temple or Merchant, and would then be held responsible to their account with that party. Responsibility is also a close synonym.

Perhaps the first written statement of accountability is in the Code of Hammurabi, where Hammurabi describes certain undesirable actions and their consequences. One example:

"If a man uses violence on another man's wife to sleep with her, the man shall be killed, but the wife shall be blameless."

Other early examples can be found in the Bible.

The word "accountability" itself was listed in John Russell Bartlett's 1848 work Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States. Bartlett notes that "This word, so much used by our divines, is not to be found in any English Dictionary except the recent one of Mr. Knowles."^[1] Being held responsible for one's own actions.

The section "Accountability in education" raises some interesting points, but is done in a way that resembles an advertisement for Sudbury Schools.

Anyone responsible for adding this section want to make it a bit more generic? By all means quote SS as an example, but what's there at the moment doesn't look like what I'd expect in an encyclopaedia covering this heading and covers no other aspects of this theme than the differences between SS and other schools. InelegantSolution (talk) 13:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I've had a crack at at it. Further attention from someone with more experience of both the Sudbury Schools and the "traditional" approach would probably be useful. InelegantSolution (talk) 15:47, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:SEMI because of large random vandlising today. L3X1 (talk) 17:10, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

 Not done requests for page protection must be made at WP:Requests for page protection - Arjayay (talk) 17:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

But with only one vandal edit in the last 7 weeks, such a request will almost certainly be refused - Arjayay (talk) 17:17, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

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Much as justice can be achieved without punishment (e.g., restorative justice), so can accountability for inappropriate behavior be handled without punishment. However, in many places in this article the existing language excludes this possibility. In addition to fixing these overstepping parts, does anyone have a good reference to maintaining accountability via alternatives to punishment that is strong enough for a sentence in the article lede? —Quantling (talk | contribs) 20:25, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

This article had a use of "which" within a restrictive clause, in British English this is correct, per New Hart's Rules: The Oxford Style Guide, p74. As far as I can tell this is the first region-specific edit on this page, and would set its variety as British English. A good faith edit replaced "which" with "that", possibly unaware of the British convention, so I have restored the version with "which". Boynamedsue (talk) 06:05, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I speak American English and was taught to use "that" for something that directly specifies the noun, or to use a comma followed by "which" when it is additional information about the noun. "The car that was here yesterday is blue." is key to understanding which car is being discussed. "My car, which was here yesterday, is blue." specifies something about my car but is not key to knowing which car (assuming that the listener knows that I have only one car). Also, "which" is sometimes used in a situation that "that" would have been used because the sentence already has a "that". —Quantling (talk | contribs) 15:45, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that's fair enough. I looked into it after your edit and saw that most American style guides advise against "which" in this context, so I assumed this was the case and there was no malice in it. It's just that this probably shouldn't be changed on sight in future, as it is considered correct in a large part of the English-speaking world.--Boynamedsue (talk) 16:02, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@ErnestKrause et al. ... starting a discussion. I undid edits that removed the {{clarify}} request with reason how is providing public goods a means of accountability? and that removed the {{vague}} markup with reason conditional in what way? provision to whom by whom? who attributes the outcomes?. These two markups seem reasonable to me; I hope that the article text will be updated to provide some more detail directly answering these questions. Although there are references provided, which are good because it is good to have verifiable sources, the requests are that something also be added to the article. My aspiration is that an average reader, not necessarily well versed in this particular topic, will understand the article without having to check the references. Thoughts? —Quantling (talk | contribs) 16:02, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

From your two cite requests, the first one is a reference to the situation where a politician fails to provide expected goods and services during a term of office; the absence of providing such goods and services often leads to accusations of inactivity and/or incompetence. The apposite comment, which is the one made in the article, is therefore that if goods and services are provided, then there is a basic for attributing positive attributes to the politician who provides them. This is an optional rewrite, and the original version as modified could be restored as offered already without cite tags added. The second instance is that of attributing credit where credit is due; often a politician will claim credit for everything done within his/her administration, whether deserving or not. The point being made in the article is that credit can be more accurately attributed if projects are divided into subprojects, in order that the subprojects might be more accurately attributed to the specific departments or persons who made the contributions in question. The edit which I added seems attuned to the text and doesn't seem to need a cite tag. You can expand the text in that section if you feel it makes the article better, though I'm not sure your cite tags should be re-added into the article. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:20, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, I am not the original submitter of the {{clarify}} and {{vague}} tags. FWIW, these tags are requests for inline article modifications, not for cites.

Yes, if you want to remove the tags then please do add a sentence or few to address the questions they ask. The language you are providing here on the talk page could be a good start. If you make an attempt to address the questions in the article text, I may boldly try to improve it further, but I won't revert. My revert was only because the tags were removed without the associated attempt. I should add that I am assuming WP:GOODFAITH on your part and I apologize to the extent that my approach does not reflect that. I think you are onto something here, and I am hopeful that we'll get to a good result in short order. Thank you —Quantling (talk | contribs) 16:44, 23 October 2025 (UTC)