[WikiEN-l] The new verifiability policy

[jayjg]

On 2/28/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/28/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> > I think where people get (sometimes justifiably) paranoid is that
> > the writing does have to be careful not to introduce new statements
> > inadvertantly. For instance, "B, A, and therefore C" is not just
> > a rhetorical improvement on "B, A, and C". It's an interesting
> > exercise, for instance, to update the carefully-chosen words of an
> > old 1911EB entry without changing the original author's meaning.
> >
> I agree with you, Stan, except for your use of the word "paranoia,"
> because edits like "A, B, and therefore C," where the sources in fact
> only say "A, B, C" are commonplace, and that's precisely what NOR and
> V are there to guard against. Any editor can request a source for the
> "therefore," and if it's not forthcoming, "therefore" is removed. It
> isn't removed only where it's "controversial," as The Cunctator was
> trying to add to V, and which is anyway a subjective judgment. It can
> be removed, whether controversial or not, if no reliable source can be
> found to support it.
>
> What The Cunctator may be worried about is that people will use this
> as an excuse to remove statements like "The sun rose on Monday. The
> sun rose today. Therefore, the sun will rise tomorrow," where being
> asked to track down a source would be WP:POINT. This is where
> commonsense kicks in. Anyone removing obvious and undisputed facts is
> engaged in a form of vandalism and we all know it when we see it. But
> just because we can't produce a complete list of undisputed facts that
> don't need a source doesn't mean we have to worry about making our
> policies are tight as possible. Every policy contains the invisible
> sentence "Use your commonsense."
>
> In any event, I've yet to see an example of an undisputed fact for
> which no reliable source could be found, or an example of an editor
> going around removing undisputed facts because they lack sources.


Exactly.  The "slippery slope" argument fails in this case because what
people fear *might* happen if these policies are actually enforced, in
practice never actually *does* happen.

Jay.