On 3/2/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/2/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
G'day Steve, It's prolly important to include something to the effect of if you *do* remove an unsourced edit because it's unsourced, then you're not going to get in trouble. That's something that policy's actually useful for, actually --- as is [[WP:IAR]] ...
Well, you almost never "get in trouble" on Wikipedia. But to suggest that you no one would raise an eyebrow if you removed an uncontested, but unsourced sentence from the first paragraph of a major article is probably going a little far...
How about pointing out that instead of removing unsourced material, people can tag it with {{citation needed}} and move on?
That's brilliant.
I think, as a guideline (rather than Official Policy), we should indicate what recommended options are for editors:
1. When making contributions, provide a reference. 2. If you see information that you believe needs a reference, your options include: a) Finding one (best) b) Failing that, either: 1) Tagging with {{citation needed}} 2) Moving unreferenced material to talk page with note asking for reference 3) Asking editor who contributed material to provide a reference 4) Removing the information
Depending on the circumstances, any of the options of b) may be best.