On 9/17/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Pardon my subject - it is only slightly exaggerated.
Obviously [[WP:V]] and (to a lesser extent) [[WP:RS]] are absolutely vital policies that cannot be discarded. On the other hand, in their current form they are abominations that fundamentally undermine key aspects of Wikipedia's mission.
The problems with the pages are threefold.
- They actively encourage removal of material that is accurate.
- Their definitions of acceptable material were written with an eye
towards only a handful of Wikipedia's articles, and render large portions of the site functionally un-editable. 3) They increase the burden of responsibility far beyond that which can reasonably be asked of the casual editor who does most of the heavy lifting for Wikipedia.
In order.
- They actively encourage removal of material that is accurate
Admittedly, our standard for inclusion is "verifiability, not truth." We ought not, however, fall into the trap of deciding that we are therefore against truth. Our goal is to offer the sum total of human knowledge. If information is true and significant, we ought be trying to find a way to get it in.
Both policies direly need a basic common sense check - don't challenge material you don't actually doubt the accuracy of. Editors should read skeptically and critically, but they should not go removing things for the sake of removing them.
You realise process says exactly that?
Every other policy we have on Wikipedia explicitly gives editors a wide berth to interpret it on a case-by-case basis. This is, for instance, the whole reason [[WP:NPOV]] works. But increasingly, [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]] are written to be applied by machine. We need to return to trusting that editors will be able to work out what a reliable source is on a topic by topic basis, given a set of general guidelines on the matter. I have in the past recommended basing these guidelines on _The Craft of Research_, a book published by UChicago Press. This has long been one of the standard academic research manuals. It's flexible, sensible, and respected - exactly what we want and need.
You want book length policy pages? No thankyou.