G'day Chris,
On 5/6/07, Nick Wilkins <nlwilkins(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Just went through and whacked a bunch of
unsourced statements
from that last
category. 100 fewer BLP articles with the
{{fact}} tag on now.
Are there
81.82 other editors out there who will step up
and do the same?
Your idea of a 'solution' is to delete anything some random idiot put
a {{fact}} tag on. Your actions are indistinguishable from those
of a
rogue bot, but unlike a bot no administrator can press your stop
button without getting desysoped Let me pick one of your
'contributions'(Read: Attempts at deletionist brown nosing) at random:
Paul Laxalt
<snip example/>
I can only hope there are no other editors are willing
to follow in
your foot steps.
That's a tad harsh. Well, not just a "tad". I mean, it's *really*
harsh. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it is such a harsh post that you've
crossed the line from being a concerned fellow editor to being a big meanie poopy pants,
and that's a terrible sight to behold. However, the intent of what you have to say
--- seen in the parts where the big meanie hasn't quite taken over --- is quite
reasonable, and by "reasonable" I mean, of course, only that I agree with you.
One removes a {{fact}} tag either by finding a source, or by deciding that the {{fact}}ed
portion is spurious --- of course, as you haven't said you know, but Nick presumably
understands, the bar for removing {{fact}}ed statements is far lower in biographies of
living persons than it is in other articles. There does seem to be plenty of support for
the notion that the press nicknamed Paul Laxalt the "First Friend", and it's
not what I'd call an example of a sentence that should be deleted if unsourced
(compare with: "thought to be involved in the assassination of Robert Kennedy",
which should be removed, not {{fact}}ed).
The simple fact of the matter ({{fact}} of the matter) is that just removing, unread,
sentences tagged with {{fact}} is not an acceptable solution to the problem of too many
articles tagged with {{fact}}. I mean, it's better than removing the tags and keeping
the sentences there, but There Is A Better Way. If all we wanted to do was delete
sentences tagged with {{fact}}, we could get one CVUer looking for some variety, equipped
with a semi-automated wossname, to do the whole thing and save the time of 81.82 more
valuable editors.
The reason we get backlogs in the first place is because this sort of stuff is difficult
(sometimes), painstaking (always) work. If anyone could spend five minutes and get rid of
a hundred {{fact}} tags, we wouldn't have eight thousand of the buggers running around
wild. It's great to see someone extending a bit of effort to reduce one of our more
concerning backlogs, but a bit of common sense never goes astray.
Now, Chris, why the wikihate towards Nick?
--
[[User:MarkGallagher]]