Is there any reason why we dont introduce immediately a rule that says all new
information added to an article must be sourced or referenced or the edit will
automatically be reverted? And any new articles must be sourced or referenced within two
hours, say, of their creation, or will be speedily deleted?
Unsourced information has no place on the encyclopaedia, and the person introducing the
information is best placed to know where he got it from. OK, this idea is not a panacea -
it doesnt help reference up information already in the encyclopaedia, but itd stop
making the problem worse. Nor would it address the issue of editors making up false
sources - but any regular editor doing that will soon be rumbled, and this issue is
already around anyway.
Editors would soon get used to the new requirement - and itd have the benefit of making
all those RC and New Pages patrollers who currently do not improve the encyclopaedia one
jot (they merely prevent it from degrading) actually help improve the project by enforcing
proper standards.
Ideally [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]] and [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]] would undergo a quick
re-write to explain better how sources can be given, but that can easily be done.
This idea would start to improve our quality immediately, and make a Siegenthaler repeat
far less likely. Why not go for it?
Jon (jguk)
---------------------------------
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security
Centre.