Todd Allen wrote:
And, to paraphrase yours, your sarcasm and "good old days" reference (combined even!) gives me plenty of confidence in my position, as generally such shows an inability to actually show how someone is wrong and why.
How important is it to show that someone is wrong?
Yes, sometimes I have been able to find a source for something. Yes, I do generally look before nominating for deletion (unless the claim made in the article is beyond preposterous, invention of a perpetual motion machine or something.)
Part of the problem seemsto be in the compulsion to find sources. Sourcing then becomes an end in itself. A search for sources because the article is threatened by bureaucratic demands is not going to yield the same results as one based on a reflective understanding of the subject. If the process happens under pressure people are going to add whatever comes to hand quickly, and are more likely to add questionable sources. We sometimes need to give our readers credit for seeing when an article is unsourced, and what that implies. Dealing with that on his own context should be a part of the reader's homework. This doesn't mean that we blindly accept all unsourced material; we still need, among other things, to be concerned with libel against living person.
But that doesn't mean I can always -find- it. If you got your information off of the first page of Google results, chances are I'll find it too. If you got your information out of a 1924 book available at only five libraries in the world, chances are, I probably won't. No one knows where you got it better than, well, you!
This has more to do with verifying sources and their validity than having them in the first place. It would be intellectually dishones to reject a source for the sole reason that it known to exist in only five libraries in the entire world. Presumably we know which five libraries, and we can list them. None of those libraries may be convenient for you, but they may be for someone else, at that person's convenience. I have a fair amount of century old material in my personal library that I would not hesitate to use in relevant circumstances. I would cite the source, of course, but I would have no idea of whether other copies of the source are extant.
And I wonder if anyone knows what the term "editor" means? Part of editing is appraising, criticizing, and often, cutting. Those who cut are your "brother editors", too! Not lazy dicks, not ignorant slobs. Of course, if you feel that a particular section -shouldn't- be cut, you can and should disagree with them. But do so politely, just as you would with any editor who's making good-faith edits you nonetheless don't agree with.
It's not the same as dealing with edits with which I disagree. It may be months or years before I even discover them. The threat of deletion in a very short time creates a scramble that keeps otherwise good editors from working where they feel they can make the best contribution. Most of us do not spend our time looking for deletion proposals to rescue. When we discover the AfD the article is already long gone.
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