[WikiEN-l] Handling unreferenced but likely-valid material

[Steve Bennett]

On 12/1/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> Well, according to the verifiability policy, content is _not supposed
> to go into Wikipedia at all_ unless it's sourced.
>
> I'd say that content that isn't supposed to be in Wikipedia at all
> can hardly be considered to be "high quality" _for Wikipedia_.
>
> That's going to be my last reply, as it seems to me that basically
> you do not agree with the verifiability policy.

I don't think anyone actually follows the policy (in its strict
interpretation), so I'm not alone. I do believe we should have a
workable policy, and what I'm advocating comes pretty close to what is
actually followed in practice: harmful material must be verifiable,
otherwise warn readers about unverifiable material.

Jimmy Wales has repeatedly insisted that we should enforce the
verifiability policy more strictly. However, he generally does that in
response to "harmful" type material, and his calls haven't had much
effect so far. I would just like us to get to a situation where we
have a workable, sensible policy that everyone follows.

Steve