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

[Daniel P. B. Smith]

> charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:
>> What is bad, to look at what WP:RS itself, is having material 'likely
>>  I don't agree that a page of
>> college-level calculus, known and uncontroversial for two centuries,
>> should be deleted for the pedantic reason that it isn't referenced.

Obviously, what's needed is a middle course.

a) Most of the unreferenced material in Wikipedia is accurate. What  
do I mean by "most?" 90%? 95%? 99%? Something like that.

b) Most of the accurate-but-unreferenced material in Wikipedia  
_could_ be referenced. What do I mean by "most" here? A somewhat  
smaller percentage, but still "most." And the amount depends on the  
topic area. Yes, there is a substantial amount of material in  
Wikipedia that is "original research" or original observation or  
direct personal experience, backed only by the testimony of the  
editor that inserted it. But most of Wikipedia's content is  
verifiable. The editor read it somewhere, even if it was in a  
classroom years ago or even if he or she doesn't remember exactly where.

c) Everything in Wikipedia should eventually be referenced or  
removed. And by "eventually" I mean in a time frame shorter than the  
"eventualists." Not like "Possible-Probable, my black hen/She lays  
eggs in the relative When/She doesn't lay eggs in the positive Now/ 
Because she's unable to postulate how." But its taken years to put  
the material into Wikipedia, and it will take a long time to get it  
referenced.

d) So, the unreferenced material should be tagged. That calls the  
reader's attention to the fact that the material is untraceable, and  
its accuracy is hard to judge. Equally important, it also calls  
everyone's attention to the fact that verifiability is policy, and  
that it is taken seriously.

e) Once tagged, there should be no big rush about deleting the  
material, but it should not remain indefinitely, either. How long?  
Assuming that there's no specific reason to doubt the material,  
months and months.

The _only_ objections to this I can think of is that that the tags  
are ugly--which is true but susceptible to a technical fix--or that  
we are not serious about verifiability and don't truly want to  
restrict Wikipedia content to things that are supported by published  
material.

It should also be noted that deleted material is not lost or  
suppressed or destroyed or gone. It's in the history and can be  
restored at any time if someone finds a reference. And in most cases  
courtesy suggests copying the unsourced material to the Talk page to  
call attention to the deletion and to facilitate others in finding  
references if they want to.