On 8/21/06, zero 0000 nought_0000@yahoo.com wrote: [snip]
Now someone comes along and slaps a "citation required" tag on it. Someone else takes off the tag on the grounds that the WP article on Babe Ruth is linked right there and has copious citations that covers this fact.
Who is right? We aren't supposed to use Wikipedia as a source, but I always took that to mean that Wikipedia is not an -ultimate- source for anything, not that a wikilink can never be an adequate way to show where the source for something can be found.
If someone came around and slapped the tag on it I see two possibilities: 1) They didn't know that the information was right there. 2) They know something we don't, considered it insufficient.
So why not try something somewhat novel on Wikipedia... Have a chat with them rather than revert warring.
If they after being shown the other article the still find the citation insufficient... go ahead and humor them and copy the reference over. It won't hurt.
Our citation policy needs to be aggressively worded, and in undefined cases default to 'cite it', because it is our best 'policy hammer' against kooks adding original research. At the same time that makes it useful for the disruption of Wikipedia.
As a result we must be aggressive in preventing people from misusing the policy to disrupt... but one case does not demonstrate a pattern of disruption.
If someone makes a practice of going around and {{fact}}ing obvious things, then they are due an RFC, and if that fails, I'd hope arbcom would be quite willing to censure them.