On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 16:17:47 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
Slim writes:
One of the problems with 3RR-policy enforcement is that admins are supposed to treat equally the editor who is inserting an unreferenced, unsubstantiated claim, and the editor who is trying to get rid of that claim. One is violating [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]] policy, while the other is trying to enforce it.
Bad example. [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]] is a content guideline, not a policy.
Tony, [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]] may only be a guideline, but it's inextricably linked to [[Wikipedia:No original research]], which is policy, because the only way you can show that an edit isn't original research is to produce a reputable source.
Some of the editors writing in this thread seem to believe there are teams of editors willing to delete original research wherever they find it, so that no editor is ever left isolated dealing with a POV pusher who's inserting nonsense. That just isn't true, and while I agree with that 24 hours is not a long time for one error to exist on Wikipedia, we're not talking about one error, or one 24-hour period, but multiples of both.
Maybe it would be a good idea to form a team of "no original research" checkers who have the right to violate 3RR, and on whom any editor could call for help in the case of a revert war triggered by an editor adding unreferenced claims. The job of this team would be to ask for a reference and then to determine whether the reference offered was a reputable one. If not, the team would have the right to keep reverting until the POV pusher got fed up.
Slim