[WikiEN-l] Removing unsourced information

[Ken Arromdee]

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010, William Pietri wrote:
>> The problem is that even if you're only supposed to remove contentious
>> unsourced material, there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to you if you
>> remove noncontentious material.
> I think it's reasonable to ask the remover if they're actually
> contending the quality of the material, or otherwise believe it to be
> contentious.

1) They just have to say "I think that since there's no source it may not be
true"--doubting it *because* it has no source.  Of course the need for being
unsourced *and* contentious is redundant if unsourced automatically
implies contentious, but nobody cares about that.
2) This usually happens when someone wants to delete the opposing side
for a controversial subject.  For a controversial subject, doubting a
statement is always plausible--everything is contentious.
3) We so strongly stress the need for sources that saying "it's okay, because
it's not contentious" will simply fall on deaf ears.  It's a problem
Wikipedia has in other places--so strongly emphasizing some point, and so
strongly deemphasizing the exceptions, that the exceptions become impractical
because nobody will let you use one.