[WikiEN-l] Deterioration: losing references

[Steve Bennett]

On 4/10/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Some editors seem to be unaware of a corollary of WP:CITE and WP:V;
> references should never be removed if the material that relies on that
> reference remains, unless a better reference can be found that
> completely supercedes the earlier one.

I go further. I almost *never* remove references, because they're such
a bitch to find and format in the first place. If I absolutely have to
remove them (like, I really can't make any kind of case for relevance
of the material) then I either just comment them out or move them to
the talk page.

To me, it's kind of like a gardener who's been told to mow the lawn,
only this beautiful rose has growing just inside the line of the lawn.
Most people would try and leave it as long as possible. Some people
would take pleasure in mowing it straight away, because "it has to be
done some time".

Steve