On 4/11/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Most of them *are* idiots. See [[WP:AFC]].
Then we're screwed. Period.
I think 'idiots' was a harsher term than I meant. They're a combination of clueless and not that smart. Fortunately, only the smarter ones tend to actually stick around and work on the project. I mean, it is an encyclopaedia after all...
I figure we can tell a newbie maybe (maybe) three things. Because, well, we don't want to overwhelm them or try to Taylorize them.
#1 has to be NPOV. Period. End of discussion. #2 should be to use talk pages, as they remain somewhat non-obvious. #3 could then be "cite sources," but I think verifiability is vastly more important for this.
What does "cite sources" mean? Is it "cite all the sources you used"? People do that anyway. What we should tell them would be something like: 1) If it hasn't been published, don't say it 2) If you don't tell us where it has been published, we probably won't believe you.
Steve