stevertigo wrote:
Im not exactly the most citatious Wikipedian, but nor do I have any tendency to make claims which arent easily verifiable. Over the years though Ive encountered a number of Wikipedians (I wont name names) who abuse or violate a clean interpretation of CIVIL by referring to CITE or V as a basis for what is essentially ownership of an article; in the form of a revert, rather than a constructive edit, correction, or (gasp!) a collaborative and helpful attempt to find a source.
Im not sure on the stats, but it is my impression that this demand for verifiability is 1) deletionistic 2) one sided, and not applied to one's own person and 3) comes with some attached notion of "reliable sources" by which material from any deemed "unreliable" sources can be deleted.
Thats the topic. Discuss.
Wikilove, -Stevertigo
There has already been considerable response on this thread, but I want to give my first impressions before being influenced by other POVs. I fundamentally agree. There needs to be some priority between any two parts of the rules, and in most cases civility should have the highest priority. There would be some exceptions such as clear instances of libel against a living person, but few other violations of rules have such immediate consequences that their correction can't wait a week. When adherence to rules becomes obsessively impatient it causes as much or more damage than the original rule violation. We kill the patient with our medicine, thankful that he did not die from his original disease.
I agree with your three impressions, but I'm afraid that the second may be more of a truism since none of us likes to have his work deleted. The distinction between reliable and unreliable sources does nothing more than add a new level of subjectivity. Either may be linked to an article about the publication where the reasons for its (un)reliability can be discussed. Beyond that it's up to the reader to decide if he accepts the authority of that publication.
Ec