On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 3:00 AM, <WJhonson(a)aol.com> wrote: Sorry, no, you must have misunderstood me. I have never said that all additions must be "proper". The burden is on those making a change or adding material. That is always how we have operated. No. But necessary as long as we prize accuracy above beauty. RR

At 05:30 PM 5/24/2008, WJhonson(a)aol.com wrote: Wait a minute! If you hired me as a copy editor, paid by the word, and then expected me to edit something without access to the sources, it would be an abusive situation. But nobody has an obligation to edit anything here. "Copyeditors" don't get an assignment to rewrite this or that, they can pick and choose what they edit. Rewriting sourced material can easily distort the material. And I'll give an example from current conflict. In the article on "Instant-runoff voting," there used to be a claim that "Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised" recommends "IRV" in such and such a situation. This claim, with exact wording, has been repeated all over the net, and not just on Wikipedia mirrors. It has shown up on the web sites of election clerks explaining proposals to the public. Is it true? Turns out that what the source actually says is ... different. It takes, not only synthesis to turn what RRONR actually says into a recommendation, but omission of details from the source. Now, the article is under continual pressure from advocates, including COI editors. I've taken the claim in the article and rewritten it, using exact quotations (because any summary, if it stated the necessary details to get it right, would be reverted quickly with a claim that it was POV and OR); then comes another editor who helpfully rewrites it to make it more compact. And, of course, removes the necessary detail, turning what is actually critical of IRV, and which describes a method different in a critical respect from IRV, for possible use (*not* recommended use, but better than some other alternatives), back into the original defective claim that distorts the source. Now, in this case, there is a copy of the particular section of RRONR that is most relevant on the web. But without a background in the principles of parliamentary procedure, it is really easy to read it as it has been framed a few years now in the political arena. When the source is *not* available, the problem can be even worse. The specific problem I've just described takes patience to address, it is the typical problem of an article where there are editors with an outside agenda to promote, which can create long-term POV pushing, and, when it is skilfully done, nothing too outrageous, slowly, if nobody is watching long-term and willing to keep pushing the boulder back up the hill, the boulder rolls down. POV pressure is indeed like gravity; if there are real-world interests maintaining the pressure, it will have its effect. Unless we get stable versions. What we need is to develop mechanisms that help us develop content. Behind any article should be a wealth of resources. I've seen articles where text is added, sources are added, then someone takes it out because, perhaps, they say it is unbalanced, then something else comes in and out. Over time, many editors looked at sources, *but no resource is built*. I'd say that with any article should be a sources page, where *all* sources considered by editors are placed, with a description of the source and, where relevant, exact quotations or URLs to copies of the source. So an editor puts in a source on this page. Another editor looks at it, and, yes, the source has been fairly represented. Or the other editor claims that the source was misrepresented, so the second editor adds quotation or evidence on that, etc. The sources page would be NPOV. And it might get quite large, with some subjects. Editorial consensus could build on what sources are reliable, etc. As it is now, the tide comes in and washes out, over and over, leaving only a little behind. There is somewhere a recommendation that Talk be refactored. Right now, what I see, everywhere I've looked, is that Talk pages are simply archived. And then the same debates occur over and over, with new participants who have not read the old debate, so more time is wasted explaining everything over and over. It is *incredibly* inefficient, and inefficiency is not fatal when new editors keep pouring in. But it burns editors out, in the end, and that stream of new users will dry up. I've called it a pyramid scheme. It works as long as new blood keeps appearing.