[WikiEN-l] Unsourced biographies

[daniwo59 at aol.com]

The change has to be cultural. If there is a fact about a prime minister of  
Senegal, it obviously came from somewhere, unless the author made it up. Where 
 is that somewhere? People have to learn to cite their sources, and not just 
add  information.
 
Perhaps it would be good to start off with a policy that all new  information 
about BLPs should be sourced. Then we can begin looking things up to  find 
where the unsourced materials come from. 
 
As for high importance and low participation, yes--this is hard work. Let's  
face it, most of the low-hanging fruit is gone. Now is the time to roll up our 
 sleeves and get to work on making this the most reliable source on the net, 
not  just the biggest.
 
Danny
 
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 4/29/2007 11:46:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time,  
charlottethewebb at gmail.com writes:

On  4/27/07,  Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Now,  yes, we obviously can find sources for articles on all the prime   
> ministers of Senegal. That's not the issue. The issue is that  there  
> are very few editors working in this area - often not  enough to  
> handle a wave of PRODs on their articles. It's an  area of high  
> importance to the project and low participation.  To add a rule that  
> allows for deletion in this area makes it  far too easy to overwhelm  
> these vital areas with deletions and  gut our coverage with no  
> attention to whether or not the  articles are actually erroneous.

I share concerns with Phil here, a  form of systemic bias I think. If (an
estimated 16,000?) articles are  marked for deletion at the same time, yes we
we will probably end up with a  several hundred impeccably referenced
articles about Foo-Idol contestants,  state senators, professional sports
people, porn stars, even  webcartoonists... all of whose biographies would
otherwise be in poorer  shape.

That's all groovy, but not at the price of total loss of  biographical
coverage outside the English-speaking world, even for a few  weeks.
Realistically it will probably be much longer than that, with a  limited
number of people who would have the time and energy help facilitate  the
reconstruction.

And a limited number of admins willing to act as  a liaison between the
deleted content and the editors who care to improve  it.

And a limited number of people who know where to find Senegal on a  map or
care what goes on there.

And a limited amount of time before  these people quit the project in
disgust.

> BLPs and sourcing are  a problem, but they need a far more subtle
> solution than  this.

Userfy? Perhaps move to a designated area of project space  specifically not
indexed by Google? I've got some more ideas if this  doesn't sound too
outlandish  yet.

Charlotte







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