[Wikipedia-l] Cite your sources?

[Poor, Edmund W]

>Reacting on Stephen Gilbert's "possible bug
>report", I went through searching for other pages
>that also contain w: links. As such I got to
>[[Wikipedia:Cite your sources]]. And from the page
>talk it seems that everyone but 24 agreed with it
>at the time. Nowadays I see _no one_ citing sources
>on a regular basis (or even an irregular basis).
>Would it not be time to remove this 'Rule to
>consider', or else at least change the 'Talk' page
>such that it is clear that it is not a majority
>opinion nowadays?
>
>Andre Engels

I cite sources frequently, although I don't think that "cite your sources" needs to be a general rule. If an expert like Axelboldt tells us something abouthis area of expertise, I don't need to double-check him in his area of expertise.

But for controversial subjects -- particularly matters which are the object of historical revisionism (medieval Poland) or political controversy (Palestine); or scientific theories which have widespread but not unanimous support (evolution, global warming) -- citing sources makes it much easier for readers to evaluate claims made in the article.

Often I have been able to end (or at least ameliorate) edit wars by suggesting to the contending parties that they cite their sources. Usually they do so, leading to properly attributed POV (X said Y, althogh P said Q) and the dust settles.

Ed Poor

-----Original Message-----
From: Andre Engels [mailto:engels at uni-koblenz.de]
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 2:54 AM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Cite your sources?


Reacting on Stephen Gilbert's "possible bug report", I went through searching
for other pages that also contain w: links. As such I got to
[[Wikipedia:Cite your sources]]. And from the page talk it seems that everyone
but 24 agreed with it at the time. Nowadays I see _noone_ citing sources on a
regular basis (or even an irregular basis). Would it not be time to remove
this 'Rule to consider', or else at least change the 'Talk' page such that
it is clear that it is not a majority opinion nowadays?

Andre Engels
[Wikipedia-l]
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