On 5/17/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote:
There seems to
be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of
random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be
tagged with a "needs a cite" tag. Wrong. It should be removed,
aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all
information, but it is particularly true of negative information about
living persons.
I seriously doubt you've edited enough with sockpuppets to understand
what this is all about. Either that or you've abandoned your previous
notion that edit warring is bad.
I agree that Jimbo's ideal is a very, very long way from being current
accepted practice. Indeed, I did think that random speculative info
was better than none. I'm happy to be corrected, but I was under the
impression that as long as we can convey that the information is not
guaranteed accurate (by the use of cite tags), then "speculative"
information is better than none.
As a reader, often you approach a topic knowing nothing at all. If
Wikipedia can at least give you a broad outline of the topic with some
clues as to where it fits with respect to other topics, then it's
doing well. Whether or not it's a neutral, balanced and totally
factually accurate article is a secondary concern to me, as a reader.
Here's an example: [[Solo climbing]], as I found it a few months ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Solo_climbing&oldid=27480122
No sources, no guarantee of accuracy. However, I found my way onto
this page when someone told me that the crazy video I'd just seen was
representative of "free soloing". Wikipedia certainly explained what
the concept was and gave me some background. Would a blank article
have been preferable? I would say no.
If we are implementing a hard line "all unsourced information must be
removed immediately" policy, then, that's ok - but it's going to a be
a major shock to a lot of people, and is a significant departure from
current practice.
Steve