--- Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 12:32 PM, bobolozo bobolozo@yahoo.com wrote:
My question is, is it a good idea to simply go
through
and remove large numbers of these? Are we better
off
with no sources at all for portions of text,
rather
than have references which consist of message
board
postings and personal websites and such?
Absolutely not, under any circumstances. Never remove a reference unless you either (a) remove the information referenced (placing it on the talk page unless it is libellous), or (b) add another reference to a better source that completely covers everything the previous reference did.
David is correct that removing references like this will lead to swift sanction.
-Matt
As far as I can tell, this statement that one should never remove a source without replacing it or removing the text it supports, this is not contained in any of our policies or guidelines.
It would make sense if everything in Wikipedia were sourced and if no unsourced content were allowed. However, since probably 90+% of the text in Wikipedia has no sources, I don't see why your statement makes sense. Unsourced content is allowed, and can sit there for years in an article, but as soon as a reference is ever added, even if the reference is totally inappropriate, the unsourced content now must be removed?
An extreme example of this, but... suppose some spammer goes through and adds references to 1000 articles in random unsourced paragraphs, with the source given being mortgage-refinance-online-low-prices.biz, totally off topic from any of the articles. We're now not allowed to remove this spam without gutting all of these articles or spending hundreds of hours digging up sources?
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