Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/2/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
A better wording would be:
"New material added to an article that lacks a reputable source is likely to be removed without warning. It is courteous for the editor who removes this material to re-insert it on the talk page of the article, along with a note about why it was removed."
Why do we keep coming back to this strange policy? It doesn't make much sense (95% of Wikipedia is "likely to be removed without warning"?), and it certainly doesn't reflect current practice.
With any luck it's keeping the original research out.
This situation is starting to remind me of police who tell the public "if you do X or Y, you WILL be caught", when the actual apprehension rate is vanishingly small.
Don't forget that we're working towards 1.0 and a million featured articles...
Is it not silly to have the most fundamental policy we have be so far removed from a) current practice, and b) what we actually want? We want sources, but we also want material to be added - we don't actually remove material except as a last resort. Maybe we need something like:
"When considering removing unsourced material, take into account the likely factual accuracy of the material, the possible harm that could be done by leaving it, and the chance that a subsequent editor could find a source for it. Libellous material or copyright violations aside, it is polite to move the material to the talk page with an explanation for your removal."
Good, much better than my version. But we also need to encourage people to cite their sources (where possible) and remind them that anything which doesn't seem quite right *is likely to be removed*.