[WikiEN-l] [[WP:V]] and [[WP:RS]] are destroying Wikipedia

[charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com]

"David Mestel" wrote

> I think that our problem may be that,
> because we place such a great demand on our sources, people don't
> bother to source articles at all.  Perhaps we need to demand less in
> order to achieve more...

The policy on sources is satisfactory: we are against mistakes and nonsense, and requiring a source is one of those 80 for 20 moves that zaps much of the nonsense and errors. It is entirely possible to lie through your teeth, from the point of view of NPOV, while selectively using adequate sources, but that's not an issue.

What I have not found satisfactory about the sources policy is the discussions it brings. As if one has wandered into a meeting of unreconstructed 1930s logical positivists, in fact. As if there was a known 'protocol' for verifying an article, by requiring sources and checking that nothing has squeezed into the article that was not so sourced.

I think this can have an impact, particularly, on history. It reminds me of the discussion on 'Namierism', in fact also from the 1930s really. A question: would reading through the very many biographies of US politicians we have (and there are many thousands) really allow one to discuss US politics? The point being that biographical facts are verifiable, deals in smoke-filled rooms not, and the underlying being dynamic far from something naively to be sourced (the point made against Lewis Namier).

I see I'm on #499 of my technical articles on mathematics. A high proportion of those were actually written straight out of my head, as I saw the need. I do have books to hand, Google at need, and so on. Of course it all used to be more free-wheeling.

Charles

 

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