[Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE

[Walter van Kalken]

>>>
>> And who is going to have time to check all the sources. Also most of 
>> the material that I write comes from books as I hate the external 
>> link festivity some articles become. So who is going to check the 
>> books I use. Hint you can find my library I have at my disposal in 
>> Thailand here: 
>> http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebruiker:Waerth/Mijn_bronnen (it is in 
>> Dutch but you get my drift).
>>
> Creating a "References" section or using a template to make a proper 
> book citation will be just as detectable as using an external link. We 
> are currently only talking about citing sources, not about verifying 
> them. Articles need to be referenced before their contents can be 
> verified.

Yes I agree with the referencing point. But in some articles on en: all 
sentences receive external links. Which is overdoing it imho. An article 
should have general references in the reference section. Like Books 
x,y,z, etc, websites a,b,c, etc. But not a reference for every sentence. 
That is overdoing it.

>> Also I think it is wrong to play panick over one criticism. Yes 
>> things need to be done. We knew that for years already. To now start 
>> panicking and coming with emergency reactions we might not help the 
>> situation.
>>
> This isn't panicking. This is doing what we should have been doing all 
> along, and treating our article content with the same importance that 
> we treat our image content. This is a step in the right direction. 

It is panicking if I watch the deletion list on en: On which a perfectly 
legit article by a highly regarded nl: contributor was put up dor 
deletion by someone who doesn't know anything about the subject but 
Quotes CITE and some other policies. The user wasn't even explained on 
his own page why it was put up for deletion.

(URL: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/North_Slavic_languages 
)

The real answer to this whole mess is (again imho) . Start becoming more 
aggressive on sources when articles are editted by anons. It was an anon 
that wrote the article that wasn't checked by anyone and made USA today. 
But what is happening now is that users with a good trackrecord are 
harassed more (this is happening on nl.wikipedia) while changes by anons 
are given the benefit off the doubt because we do not want to scare the 
anons (this is happening on nl.wikipedia). Sounds like something gone 
awry there. I personally still assume good faith with people who 
bothered to register. As 95% in my experience are serious and do not put 
garbage on there. The problems are mostly coming from anons. Or Vandals 
that seem to do it out of profession. Both of these groups should be 
scrutinised more. And not the regular contributors who will normally 
handle in good faith.

Waerth/Walter