Please pardon me if any of this is redundant as I've just recently joined in here. I'm here absorbing the discussions as well as continuing to study elements of the site, freshly after enduring some measure of frustration due to the atmosphere I've discovered exists on the site.
One observation I've made is that for a good part, the editors who regularly review content seem to look down upon many different types of sources online -- and while there are "real world" sources that aren't online, they don't seem happy unless they can easily click on something. They are dismissive of the IMDb, of YouTube, even smaller newspapers they haven't heard of, they'll question "reliability" of the source -- and of course anyone blogging information would be a big no-no as well. But the thing is -- the popular internet is largely comprised of these types of sources! When most of it is "citizen media," and when there are many "reliable sources" whose content stands behind a paywall -- it seems that there ought to be at least some relaxing of standards as much as can be done within fair reason.
Actually the site seems to profess an element of relaxation -- however as there are many who only relate to "rules," then much room for argument exists. And they seem to happen all too often, leading to much frustration. I'll then invite you to review one very interesting argument in progress, relating to the article "List of Apple Inc. slogans":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Apple_I...
It really gets my hackles up to read through this -- one person actually said that EVERY item mentioned ought to be sourced! One fellow who valiantly struggles there to get them to consider "the wiki way" (if one might call it that), seems to face major oppression there from these deletionist completionists.
Part of the damage here could be, if left unchecked -- fault could be found with virtually ANY article if one wishes to find it. This shouldn't be the point! To me, this is the perfect type of article I'd like to find on Wikipedia. Yet it faces being deleted because of this particular attitude which seems to be growing there. Further, let's suppose that Apple is either a contributor or even just a well-wisher of the site -- if they were aware of their work being discussed as "non-notable" in any regard -- what could the repurcussions be? Maybe that is not for consideration in these arguments -- but establishing goodwill all around is certainly relevant. The more little articles that people worked hard to create that are deleted within this environment -- the more likely you have people proferring complaints about the site all around.
I've also noticed that these "articles for deletion" are posted in one place, and there also seems to be a nice batch of people who make it their business to weigh in on each one -- usually those with the deletionist perspective. And if "consensus" is weighed by votes -- even if it shouldn't be but no doubt IS -- then most articles presented for deletion won't stand a good chance. And at least some of this goes back to "sourcing" again, as so many possible sources just "aren't good enough" for the perfectionists batting away at these.
Jon
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:08:04 +0100 From: FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Another sourcing problem To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: AANLkTim1l3wDbbD8e3TDb4NM7x45rC1tMyGRqkeOcKuf@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
This is a point comon to all codification.
For those who have clue about wiki, yes. For the many who don't, are learning, do not want to be bitten, might be over-aggressive in adding/criticising/removing, or want clearer guidance, we have detailed policies that capture key points.
So while ideally IAR does the trick in practice for mass editing it could help. Especially where it interacts with our core content policies (and RS -> Verifiability -> core to encyclopedic quality) the guidance may help a lot in the cases it comes up.
Expanding SELFPUB from an anomalous exception to a principle will help.
The wider principle is that if the originator of an online post is able to be confirmed (author is not spoofed, publication on own website or one controlled by him/her, etc), and has some kind of position to speak to the point (salience, significant to article or NPOV), then we have enough to say "X says Y" and the fact that X chose to say Y on a blog or self pub website is not really an impediment.
FT2