[WikiEN-l] Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information

[slimvirgin at gmail.com]

On 5/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's because WP:V is very vague on this one basic point. It defines what
> should be the case. It is conspicuously tacit on what to do if it's not.
> Delete? Remove temporarily? Hide? {{fact}}? Allow for a while? Hence my
> suggestion to designate classes of articles with different rules for
> unsourced material. FA's should not tolerate any unsourced material, for
> instance.

WP:V is deliberately vague on this point and editors have to use
common sense. If an article says "John Smith is a killer" and there's
no source, remove it immediately. But an edit saying "Skiiing is
Switzerland's top sport" can be tagged (but please remember to go back
at some point to see if a source has turned up), or better still, the
editor who's questioning it could look for a source himself. There are
so many gradations of unsourced material between these two examples
that we couldn't possibly be algorithmic about it, so editors have to
be sensible: the more harmful or the sillier an unsourced edit looks,
the faster it should be removed.

Sarah