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

[Steve Bennett]

On 11/30/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > From: "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp at gmail.com>
>
> > I don't think deleting accurate, high-quality, unreferenced material
> > is in Wikipedia's best interests. Asking for a source, yes. Adding
> > sources, yes. But *deleting* good material? No.
>
> Unsourced material is not high-quality material.

I'll interpret that as "Uncited material can by definition never be
considered 'high-quality material'."

And then I'll strongly disagree. Newspapers, encyclopaedias and many
other sources of high-quality information regularly do not cite their
sources. If we take one of our best featured articles and remove the
references section, it is still much better than a shorter article
that does cite its sources. And streets ahead of an article which
false cites its sources...

Don't get me wrong, citing sources is good - but for us, its primary
use is a defence against nonsense and worse. The sources are a means
to quality, not a form of quality themselves.

Steve