That wording seems to change from day to day. I'm not sure where the discussion about its wording is held. For a while it insisted on copyright violations. Sometimes it mentions nonsense, sometimes it does. Sometimes it says "may be deleted", other times it's "will". We have similar messages when you attempt to create a new article, when you save one, at WP:AFC and probably numerous other places. We should really standardise this stuff. Steve On 11/28/06, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I see no reason why we should be flexible about sources. If it hasn't got sources it can be deleted, regardless whether this is a policy or a guideline. It may be kept if someone bothers to find the sources the author should have included, but that might not happen. The only way to make people use sources is hammering it in, because no matter how many times it is said, people will ignore it. Perhaps deletion will get some backsides into gear. Mgm On 11/28/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 11/29/06, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Sure, and that's a reason to question whether a page that's so disputed/unstable should be linked to from a major part of the interface. But I think his point was something in the interface saying that completely unsourced articles are likely to be deleted is prudent, since everyone agrees that having no sources at all is bad. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain(a)gmail.com

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:02:07 -0600 (CST), "Jeff Raymond" <jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote: In most of the cases flagged for speedy deletion, though, that would be a titanic waste of time and effort. Most of them have already consumed more community time than they deserve simply through the effort of tagging for deletion. I think the aggregate work that goes into deleting a day's CSD workload almost certainly exceeds the work that goes into creating it. What I would like to see is the ability of a good-faith editor to place an AfD on hold for five days while it is fixed. Unsourced articles need to go; those which can be sourced need to be sourced and kept. If some sources genuinely can be found then there is absolutely no problem waiting for that, and then weighing up whether that makes the article a keeper. The problem, of course, is preventing abuse by the POV-pushers and other assorted ne'er-do-wells who seem to think that a Wikipedia article on their company, band or New Great Thing is a God-given right. Prod should (should) be kind of like this, in that a prod tag can be removed if an article is fixed up. Trouble is, we are so weighed down with absolute junk that some good ones are inevitably going to be swept up with the crap. That's why I wanted you to have the sysop bit, so you could check deleted histories and maybe help to rescue some of the better ones. You can always ask me for a history undeletion for a review, of course. As long as it's not a reality show contestant, of course... ;-) Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:04:16 -0700, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote: Indeed. Absence of any claim to validity is what is at issue, and the absence of any sources is one of the diagnostic factors. very few sourced articles are flagged for A7. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote: But even then it's still not not a remotely _reliable_ diagnostic factor. For example, if there were an article whose text consisted of: "Marty McFoo was a German actor who won several national awards for his portrayal of Julius Caesar on TV." This article would be completely unreferenced, but nevertheless it asserts the subject's notability just fine. It is therefore not speedyable. If you're considering whether to speedy-delete something on the basis of whether it contains an assertion of notability why not simply look for whether there's an _assertion of notability_? It should be easy to spot.

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 19:04:27 -0700, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote: This is arse about face though. Marty McFoo is an actor who has played in some things[reliable source] which have been popular[reliable source] is unlikely to be tagged, whereas with no reliable sources it might well be (we have any number of deletion candidates which make vague unsubstantiated assertions, after all). Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On 01/12/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote: Of course we now get so far into wiki-lawyering that we have to explicitly say that things are "popular" enough to get into the "popularity" based wikipedia. Peter Ansell

On 12/4/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote: ...local TV station rather. Steve

On 11/29/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic(a)gmail.com> wrote: If we come up with a workable policy, people might follow it. Our policies basically state the undesirable and infeasible goal of "every statement must be backed up by a reliable, verifiable source". What we actually *want* is far less than that though. Something like: * Any statement that if false would be harmful, must be traceable to a source. * Any statement that could never be backed up by a reliable source should not be included. * Where possible, provide sources to help readers determine the accuracy of statements. The corollaries of these three rules are that non-trivial, non-harmful statements don't *have* to be cited, but *should* be. This is what most people *do*, but is not what our policies *say*. Anyone agree? Steve

You know, it's not that damn critical to have people include sources when they add something to Wikipedia. In my experience, 99% of the time a quick google finds a source for info (that isn't just obvious opinion). It's not that big a deal. On 11/28/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 10:36:39 +0000, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Just so. I think I untag maybe a quarter of speedies I come to when I visit the category, of which some are userfied as userpages created in mainspace by mistake (FSVO mistake); some are taken to AfD as problematic but not unambiguous; and some I fix in some way. Having said which, I bet it's less than a quarter if I reviewed it dispassionately. I am a bit of a deletionist. I tried to get an inclusionist sysopped, to balance out all us heartless deletionists, but was slapped down. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On 28/11/06, Rob Smith <nobs03(a)gmail.com> wrote: How... entirely irrelevant. Because, when you look at the *other* edits made at the same time... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frank_Coe&diff=34387074&o… ...you find that the material to which the source referred was taken out, and the editor simply took six edits to do it all. Leaving the source in, if the information to which it refers is gone, would be, er, somewhat pointless and misleading. ...the same situation again. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On Nov 28, 2006, at 10:32 AM, Rob Smith wrote: Not just one acorn.... Fred

On Nov 28, 2006, at 1:57 PM, Rob Smith wrote: For a subtle guy like you.... Fred