On 8/18/06, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
The requirement not to move potentially defamatory material to talk pages is because they're cached by Google (and even if they weren't, they're read by a lot of people), and the point is to stop the spread of the defamation. [snip]
There are lots of ways material can be discussed with directly referring to it, and people can ask for a reliable source for all edits without specifying the particular edit that's caused the problem. We don't need to say: "Do you have a source for the claim that Professor Sir John Doe was seen with a woman not his wife in a nightclub last night?"
I'm sorry, but I don't see how that question is "potentially defamatory", assuming that someone actually did make such a claim.
Anthony