On 3/31/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 3/31/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
I wonder if we could start this by simply saying "Any article that remains unsourced after being marked as such for 7 days is deleted". It sounds draconian, but we now do it for images, why not articles? No, it will not solve all out problems, but it would be a workable step
towards
saying that it may be better to have no article for the moment than a crap one.
"No sources" != "crap". I disagree with speedy deletion. However, making the text of the various "no references" tags a bit more stern and adding a warning sign might be a good idea. For example, instead of:
"This article or section does not adequately cite its references or
sources."
It could say:
"(!) This article lacks citations. This is is an article written by volunteers, and you should not rely on it unless and until sources are provided for all key statements. Please improve this article by adding references and removing questionable statements."
For obvious crap, we have existing deletion procedures.
Utterly inadequate. We've got real quality problems and just stiffening tags without any teeth, isn't going to make any difference.
No unsourced != crap. But if it isn't crap, it should at least be able to be given a rudimentary source.
There are excellent articles that lack sources, and utter crap with hundreds of sources. If you say "this will be deleted if not sourced in 7 days" people will google the topic and add a few random sources. This will create a sourced article...whose sources don't actually support the content. Since a sourced article looks more authoritative than an unsourced one, sticking in sources for the sake of sticking in sources can actually make an article look more misleading. Sources need to support the statements made in the article, not simply show that a topic exists.