Todd Allen wrote:
And, to paraphrase yours, your sarcasm and "good
old days" reference
(combined even!) gives me plenty of confidence in my position, as
generally such shows an inability to actually show how someone is wrong
and why.
How important is it to show that someone is wrong?
Yes, sometimes I have been able to find a source for
something.
Yes, I do generally look before nominating for deletion (unless the
claim made in the article is beyond preposterous, invention of a
perpetual motion machine or something.)
Part of the problem seemsto be in the compulsion to find sources.
Sourcing then becomes an end in itself. A search for sources because
the article is threatened by bureaucratic demands is not going to yield
the same results as one based on a reflective understanding of the
subject. If the process happens under pressure people are going to add
whatever comes to hand quickly, and are more likely to add questionable
sources. We sometimes need to give our readers credit for seeing when
an article is unsourced, and what that implies. Dealing with that on
his own context should be a part of the reader's homework. This doesn't
mean that we blindly accept all unsourced material; we still need, among
other things, to be concerned with libel against living person.
But that doesn't mean I can always -find- it. If
you got your
information off of the first page of Google results, chances are I'll
find it too. If you got your information out of a 1924 book available at
only five libraries in the world, chances are, I probably won't. No one
knows where you got it better than, well, you!
This has more to do with verifying sources and their validity than
having them in the first place. It would be intellectually dishones to
reject a source for the sole reason that it known to exist in only five
libraries in the entire world. Presumably we know which five libraries,
and we can list them. None of those libraries may be convenient for
you, but they may be for someone else, at that person's convenience. I
have a fair amount of century old material in my personal library that I
would not hesitate to use in relevant circumstances. I would cite the
source, of course, but I would have no idea of whether other copies of
the source are extant.
And I wonder if anyone knows what the term
"editor" means? Part of
editing is appraising, criticizing, and often, cutting. Those who cut
are your "brother editors", too! Not lazy dicks, not ignorant slobs. Of
course, if you feel that a particular section -shouldn't- be cut, you
can and should disagree with them. But do so politely, just as you would
with any editor who's making good-faith edits you nonetheless don't
agree with.
It's not the same as dealing with edits with which I disagree. It may
be months or years before I even discover them. The threat of deletion
in a very short time creates a scramble that keeps otherwise good
editors from working where they feel they can make the best
contribution. Most of us do not spend our time looking for deletion
proposals to rescue. When we discover the AfD the article is already
long gone.
Ec