On Jan 25, 2007, at 11:53 AM, Francis Tyers wrote:
While all policies can be abused, some are easier
to abuse than
others.
Some are even attractive nuisances.
The only people who think that having to cite and verify articles with
reliable sources is "abuse" are the kind of people who think "oh no my
pokemans character studies are at risk again!"
This comment (which I will note is offensive, wrongheaded, and
appalling) is emblematic of the exact problem with [[WP:RS]] and
[[WP:CITE]]. Nobody sane ever thought that the problem with Pokecruft
was that it wasn't verifiable. We only started using [[WP:RS]] and
[[WP:CITE]] to deal with that problem because we were desperate to
come up with something that seemed sturdy that we could use to tell
people to go away.
But this was fundamentally an act of desperation, and it shows,
because the justifications for using [[WP:RS]] and [[WP:CITE]] in
this way are so obviously flimsy. The deletions still go through
because we have a well-sized cult of people who will faithfully vote
delete, but anybody with an ounce of sense and knowledge about the
subject knows full well that this is a flimsy justification and that
the sources are reliable.
Deleting cruft articles with [[WP:RS]] and [[WP:CITE]] is an ugly
kludge. If it's so vitally important that we do it, we need to come
up with a justification that isn't a joke.
-Phil