On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 1:41 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Todd Allen wrote:
On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 9:04 AM, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Examine Tony's statement earlier in the thread:
"I agree 100% If I can't convince anybody that something belongs in Wikipedia, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia." He doesnt say "convince everybody" Read literally, if any unbiased editor will support something, it should stay in, just as we don't ban a user if any one administrator is willing to unblock him.
More practically, it would require the consent of the community to remove material. The only other way of reading it, is that it means, convince everybody--but there wont be any content at all left on controversial subjects if we do that. So I suppose he means consensus. I agree with him that the removal of good-faith material should require prior consensus.
You are correct if, and only if, it is sourced. Our core policies already have clear consensus that -unsourced- information may be removed by anyone at any time, and that such information may not be put back until and unless a credible source is located.
Sourcing is a means, not an end. Having the expression "by anyone at any time" in policy would be an invitation to chaos. The word "may" carries an unfortunate ambiguity. In that contest it should be viewed as a risk factor for anyone supplying information. It would be totally irresponsible to read it as a permissive "may" allowing anyone to blindly follow the letter of the rules.
Ec
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Sourcing is both a means and an end. Since we prohibit use of personal interpretations (see No Original Research), requesting a source cite is a means of asking "Show me that this isn't just something you researched yourself and came up with. Who says so?" It is also an end. Since the whole purpose of an encyclopedia is to be a starting point, not an endpoint, for research, providing sources shows a reader where to look for more in-depth information. In that sense, source cites are an essential, indispensable part of an article. They show fellow editors where you got your information, and readers where to look for more information. Sourcing is not a nicety. It is -required-, every time you make an edit (or at least if such is ever challenged, and hopefully someone would eventually challenge an unsourced claim), and damn well it should be. It's just too bad we don't have better enforcement for it.