On 12/1/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
The verifiability policy has never been a hardline policy, but a guideline and something to aim towards. When it was first adopted, nobody thought it meant that we should summarily delete the 80%+ of the encyclopedia that at the time was unsourced. Instead what it meant was that we should begin going through and adding sources to it.
In general some amount of common sense is required. Claims that are almost certainly true but uncited should be left in and have a citation supplied---this is what the {{fact}} tag is for. Claims that are surprising or unlikely should be removed or moved to the talk page, pending some verification that they actually are true. Claims that are negative claims about a living individual should be treated in the second manner by default. We wouldn't have a living-persons policy, a {{fact}} template, or any number of other such things if our verifiability policy were that all unsourced statements should be summarily deleted.
What is the advantage of having a policy that says "You must do X", then interpreting it as "Actually you only have to do X in some situations"? Wouldn't it be more helpful for everyone, especially including newcomes, to have a policy that says "Do X in the following situations"?
A policy that no one really follows is bad news.
Steve