[WikiEN-l] Verifiability - Case Study I

[charles matthews]

Slim Virgin wrote

> I'm not sure I see the point of this, Charles, because each situation
> is different, depending on whether the editors know each other, how
> potentially harmful the unsourced edit is, and so on.

Well, I thought that's what the case study method is about.  Get down to a 
concrete case.  People on this list were asking for examples, were they not?

>But in this
> case, I would look for a source myself online.

Well, I would ask the editor who added it three days before, first.

> If I couldn't find one,
> I'd request one on talk. For a harmless edit like this, I'd probably
> wait for a couple of weeks,  then go back and delete it.

Yes, asking on talk is good.  In fact it is basic.  Because if you don't, 
others can't help on the issue, and if this turns out to be something more 
major, there has been no alert, no documentation.  If there _is_ a problem, 
then how can you keep something off  the page, permanently?

> If I cared
> about the subject, I'd try to track down an offline source myself. If
> the edit was potentially more damaging that where someone went to
> school, I'd add the {{fact}} template. If it was more damaging than
> that, I'd remove it (moving damaging edits to talk is not a good idea,
> because they're still cached by Google).

Yes.  But it is unlikely to defame someone, to suggest they went to a fairly 
good school.  So I say this edit was close to vandalism.

> But WP:V can't give endless examples like this. We have to assume,
> even if flying in the face of all the evidence, that most editors have
> a degree of common sense.

Indeed.  But then that is the drawback of the policy documents, 
collectively.

Charles