On 9/17/06, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)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.
1) They actively encourage removal of material that is accurate.
2) 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.
1) 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.
--
geni