[WikiEN-l] insist on sources

[jayjg]

On 7/19/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/19/06, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > There is no such thing as over-referencing. There is no such thing as
> > "common knowledge" regarding encyclopedic content. If it feels "common
> > knowledge", it may be lacking relevancy at least in a certain context.
>
>
> Actually there are times when leaving something as "common knowledge" is
> better than providing a source.  Recently there was a discussion at
> [[Evolution]] about a statement to the effect that evolution was considered
> to be responsible for the vast diversity of living things and whether to
> source that statement.  It's very easy to find someone who has said that,
> but to source it to anyone in particular could be misleading because it
> implies that there is some special relationship between the idea and the
> source.  If something is common knowledge it should only be sourced if the
> sourcing helps to establist the origin or development of the idea.  Just
> sticking in a source at random can be misleading.

I think a better idea might be to make the general statement, but
source it to multiple sources. If it's common knowledge then there
will be plenty of sources saying the same thing; once you have enough
reliable sources repeating a claim, you can simply state it generally.

Jay.