What's troubling is that, for ten months, Wikipedia not only asserted that an island exists, but had an article documenting 'facts' about it.
That can't have a positive impact on our credibility. (Actually, it may be that nobody knows, but the fact that they *could* is a problem that, in my humble opinion, we need to take seriously.)
In keeping with tradition, I'd like to propose a technical solution that everyone can ignore. ;-)
Suggestion: Automatically insert a suitable template into new/unsourced text. I'd propose something similar to {{not verified}}.
Model 1: Have the Wiki automatically insert this template into text of a new article in the main namespace.
Model 2: Have the Wiki automatically subst this template into the beginning of all articles in the main namespace *unless* the article contains at least one ISBN/external link/<ref>/etc.
There are pros and cons to each. Model 1 is easy for a determined hoaxer to circumvent. Model 2 is trickier to implement, requiring either two passes or a flag to maintain, but more robust. It would also have the benefit (some might say drawback) of drawing attention to a lot of *currently* unsourced articles.
Food for thought, anyway.
Jake
On Tue, 2006-10-03 at 08:43 -0400, Carl Peterson wrote:
On 10/2/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
The population statistics, making it Lebanon's third largest city, and the claim that the population almost tripled since 1982 makes me wonder how much of that population can be attributed to elephants. :-)
Wikiality in action, I tell you. Because Wikipedia (or at least one Wikipedian) says it exists, it must exist. We can thank Colbert for giving us the power to create whole islands (and a population of 300,000) just because one of us wants it to exist. Now, by deleting the article, we have doomed all these 300,000 people to death as the island resubmerges. :-) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l