"Steve Bennett" wrote
I am somewhat staggered that with the number of times
that
terms like "verifiability" and "no original research" are bandied
about, we can not as a community agree on two simple matters:
1. Should we remove material which would be perfectly acceptable in
Wikipedia if only the (presumed existing) source was actually cited?
2. Should we remove material which presents verifiable facts simply
because those facts have not been published by another source?
In the first case, I'm talking about removing common knowledge or
non-contentious material which no one is actually disputing.
Such cuts can even descend into vandalism.
In the
second, I'm talking about removing information like content of
computer games, movies, or websites, where sufficient information can
be given to make it verifiable, but for which no secondary source
exists.
There is an issue here about 'ephemera', certainly. Without splitting hairs
too much, it is clear that websites are ephemeral (updates are out of our
control), and even films are released in different cuts, making assertions a
bit harder than might seem.
These are pretty fundamental questions, but I've
only seen a small
amount of discusson on them (and lots of disagreement about other
issues which arises from unstated differences of opinion on these
issues).
Bear in mind that there are the versions we want to present to those who
have been editing for three days; and the versions that will make more sense
to those who have been editing at least three months and seen some
contentious matters come up. It is highly desirable that no one has to
unlearn anything, in passing from the first to the second. So it is fine to
say 'don't include your own slant in the article': that doesn't change.
It
is not 'upwardly compatible' to say 'you may cut unsourced claims', while
it
is OK to say 'please back up your edits with good sources'.
Charles