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

[Steve Bennett]

On 5/19/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> If you see an unsourced statement that would be libel if false, and it
> makes you feel suspicious enough to want to tag it as {{citation
> needed}}, please do not do that!  Please just remove the statement and
> ask a question on the talk page.


Agree with this. Is it added to the relevant policy pages?


Here is an example from an article I deleted:
> "The most recent disaster that <name omitted> claims his organization
> has responded to is the 2004 South Asia Tsunami, although there is no
> convincing evidence that he or any of his team has been there.[citation
> needed]"
>
> That is really really really awful.


It's also just stupid, bad writing. "Nobel peace prize winner Jim Smith said
all people should donate money to charities. Ironically, Smith has never
given money to the [insert name of charity picked at random here."

IMHO this kind of writing breaches NPOV and almost NOR - we start to make
claims about the person by connecting unrelated facts together. We should
never attempt to expose hypocrisy in our subjects - if it exists, we should
find reliable sources that have already done that. This was the problem with
[[Safe Speed]] - editors had tried to debunk claims made by the group,
whereas what they should have been doing was citing others who had debunked
them, not just general research that apparently contradicts their claims.

Selective juxtaposition of facts to imply something is definitely out. You
either say it and cite a source, or you don't say it at all.

Steve