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

[charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com]

"Steve Bennett" wrote

> 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.

I'm not sure this is quite accurate. 

Strict referencing basically arose out of edit warring in the most contentious articles. 'Hard cases make bad law', so there has always been some resistance to sourcing everything _in advance_. (Certainly from me. As far as I can see, hardline verificationism is adjacent to ultra-scepticism, which is adjacent to crankiness of the 'is quantum mechanics really proved?' type.)

In an essay I mentioned that I thought core policy on content had seen three basic phases:

(i) working out the implications of NPOV
(ii) working out the implications of sourcing and original research policies; followed by
(iii) current concerns on conflict of interest.

Now, people don't have to accept this analysis of mine. But I do think (ii), the verificationist package, is now pretty much in consensus territory. The timescale is measured in years, for the big shifts here. 

There is not of course any consensus that anyone should be able to verify anything on enWP, with an online source written in English, in five minutes. But that has never been policy or anything like it (I'm glad to say). 

Charles

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