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

[Daniel P. B. Smith]

On Dec 5, 2006, at 1:20 AM, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:
> From: Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net>
>
>> On 12/1/06, Delirium <delirium at 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.
>
> What if a person picks a random article from the 80% of the  
> encyclopedia
> that isn't sourced and says "I'm going to delete this unless  
> someone else
> sources it"?

If "ifs" and "ans" were pots and pans we'd have no need of tinkers.

If it happened to an article I cared about and was knowledgeable  
about, I'd add some sources.

If someone did it rapidly and wholesale to articles in what appeared  
to be a biased way, I'd call WP:POINT on them.

I don't think 80% of our articles are _utterly_ unsourced, by the  
way. Let's do a quick reality check. I'm going to hit the "random  
article" button ten times:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_asynchronous_receiver/transmitter
    Good example of an utterly unsourced article that shouldn't be  
deleted
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Moss
    Good external link to a bio. Badly sourced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer% 
27s_Dictionary_of_Irish_Phrase_and_Fable
    Stub article. Does an ISBN number count as a source? I think so,  
because it can be used to
    locate further information. Badly sourced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_Dead_and_Dynamite
    Pop culture article. Three OK external links. Badly sourced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Markov
    An athlete. Good external link to "IAAF profile for Dmitri  
Markov." Badly sourced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Ferragamo
    Seven-or-eight-paragraph article on an athlete. Utterly unsourced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_McClen
    An athlete. Are you sure the random article button works? Two  
good external links. Badly sourced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusky_Thrush
    Good print source. Good external link. No inline sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokémon_Dash
    Three OK web "references." One OK external link (Nintendo's  
official Pokémon Dash game profile).
    One fansite external link. One inadequately-cited print reference  
("Instruction manual for Pokémon Dash").
    Weakly sourced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tiller
    Controversial abortion doctor. Eleven inline citations to  
reasonably good news sources.

So, there you have it.

Nothing like "80%" of our articles are unsourced. The vast majority  
of them might be called feebly sourced (no inline citations, what  
citations there are are mostly web links.

So, in answer to the hypothetical, if anyone tried to delete the  
entire article on the basis of its being "unsourced," I'd strongly  
object in the case of nine of the ten. In the case of the UART  
article, I believe I could scare up a couple of sources in about ten  
minutes and that's probably what I'd do.