[WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

[Oliver Pereira]

On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Tom Parmenter (Ortolan88) wrote:

> Look at what he she or it has contributed to [[Talk:Isaac Asimov]],
> dragging people into debates over pointless subjects, subtly shifting
> ground from one tiny truism to another while everyone else fumes,
> engaging in look-at-me-I'm-horrible ploys, and generally poisoning the
> well.  So I don't want to drink from it.

I don't want to get involved in any discussion right now about the merits
or otherwise of Vera Cruz's edits, but here is one of my conclusions from
the Isaac Asimov argument.

As a general matter of principle, I think that any Wikipedian should be
prepared to back up any of their additions - if specifically asked to by
another Wikipedian - by pointing to some reference source. I do not think
that saying that "everybody except you agrees", which some people (not
Ortolan88, I hasten to add) were doing, is at all acceptable as a
response. Of course, people will not always have their references to hand,
but they can always just say on the Talk page that they will check. Then,
once they have a reference, they can put their addition back in, with the
reference. Just reverting things back and forth doesn't help anyone. If
someone is not able (or simply refuses) to back up an addition to an
article, then they should not complain about it being removed. Otherwise,
the Wikipedia will never be a reliable reference source, as it will always
contain unsubstantiated statements.

I also think that removed sections should always be placed on the relevant
Talk page, with a note saying why it was removed. It's quite tiresome
having to look through an article's history to find out what people have
removed, and since there are often no comments explaining the removal, I
never know whether I should just put the sections back in or not.

As I say, I don't want to get into an argument about Vera Cruz's edits,
but do let me know if you disagree with my general principle!

Oliver

+-------------------------------------------+
| Oliver Pereira                            |
| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |
| University of Southampton                 |
| omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk                    |
+-------------------------------------------+