On 6/11/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sat, 9 Jun 2007 21:52:39 +0800, "John Lee" johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
As I anticipated, the only reason the article was deleted was a lack of sources. That's perfectly fine.
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have
sources
readily available on Google
There is nothing that says anyone is compelled to go and look for sources if the original author can't be bothered to do it themselves. Tagging with {{fact}} or {{unreferenced}} is reasonable, the person tagging may be completely unfamiliar with the subject and the authors of the article will be in a much better position to provide not just any old reference but a good, authoritative one.
Some editors - Uncle G springs to mind - specialise in rescuing crap articles on good subjects. Some specialise in identifying the crap articles. Some specialise in Wikignoming. There is room for all sorts.
This being a volunteer project, that's to be expected. I was criticising the attitude of volunteers who could contribute a lot more if they only took a couple of seconds to Google something. I'm not talking about obscure things; I have personally found sources for a variety of quotations from Google, and all reliable ones - often the first hit for a quote is something like a New York Times article (let's say) carrying the quote. While perhaps not the most desirable source, it's better than nothing, and the marginal effort required is minimal. I'm just saying that volunteers should spend some time doing a minimum of due diligence before tagging. Obviously they shouldn't be required to, but the returns are huge, and the costs are small, so why not?
Johnleemk