"Daniel P.B.Smith" wrote
I think "citing sources" can be used as a selective way to attack
articles.
I'm sure that's right.
When it is used in this way it is dishonestly raising the bar
for purposes of attack.
Could be. What is weird is the kind of 'inversion', where in a contentious area (contentious in the real world, that is) attacking opinions and cites becomes an attempt to settle matters here on WP. One can see why this happens; but if it is pushed it really does become trying to win a debate by proving one set of sources is better than another. Which is as near as dammit to 'let's have the show right here', in other words original research by another name. The oddity being that citing sources is supposed to stop that.
Anyway, I think NPOV continues to trump 'you haven't cited your sources'. An editor who can't state _both sides_, approximately fairly and touching on representative reasons why opinions are held, is not going to produce good WP articles, however dense the footnotes. Plenty of examples in the academic world where the proprieties are observed and the result is partisan.
Charles