steven l. rubenstein said:
I fear that the way this contrast is set up, we could never reach agreement on a good policy. Of course no cite is better than a bad cite, because we do not want to give credibility to unreliable sources, or even direct people there way. The problem is there are many citations where people will vociferously argue whether they are good or bad.
I think the only way to proceed is to instead distinguish between "controversial cites" and "uncontroversial cites." Both can be provided; if a cite is controversial we simply explain what the nature of the controversy is (something we are all well-practiced in doing already, to comply with the NPOV policy in writing articles.
I don't think this is a good idea. If I cite a British National Party website as support for a statement about BNP official policy, I'm quoting a source that has generated controversy, but this does not in any way affect the fact that my citation is the most reliable way of citing BNP official policy. If there is some controversy over a citation it should not be included in a NPOV article. A form of citation must be found that is perceived as factual by all (reasonable) parties. --~~~~