If the intial treshhold for keeping bios is low and deletion is suspended for a significant amount of time, we're going in the right direction without being too drastic.
I'd like to see some study done that checks how many people would actually participate in a massive spring-like cleanup that would involve sourcing lacking articles.
I know I want to help out with such a project, but I have limited time, limited access to sources, limited language skills (foreign sources are not preferred but acceptable) and a limited article subject interest. To effectively source all the articles (in this case bios) that run the risk of deletion we need to attract the right audience to fix them.
Mgm
On 3/31/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
Not every article is a biography of a living person. I am therefore unwilling to delete large amounts of EXISTING WORK simply because biographical articles are problematic.
I am quite happy with a process whereby all articles on living people MUST be sourced by a certain date, or within X days of being tagged. Perhaps we should identify other categories of article that need to be sourced to a deadline as well.
I am also happy with a process that says that all new articles after a specified date must be sourced within X days - although I fear that the process-happy will turn that into 'all new articles must be sourced FA-style with inline references for every three words'.
I'm also happy with turning on some kind of stable versions feature that makes all unsourced articles default-invisible to browsing readers - but even then, I would wish a 'We have no stable article on this topic, but we do have an unchecked work-in-progress. Do you want to see it?' thing for those articles. Remember, the vast majority are not libellous or harmful, just incomplete or unsourced. In fact, the attack article many times WILL be sourced.
I am not happy with any process that sends OK articles on non-contentious subjects to the trash without a conscientious attempt to find sources.
-Matt
OK, so let's go simply with biographies of living people, and see how it pans out.
What about:
"any biography of a living person, which altogether lacks sources (other than webpages directly connected with subject), may be tagged us such. If no sources are added within seven days, the article may be deleted. However, such a deletion shall be without prejudice to a sourced re-creation at a later time [i.e. G4 will not apply, unless the re-creation is still unsourced]"
We could initially start tagging articles, but suspend deletions for, say, a month - that would allow time for cleaning up of the current stock. The tagging would create a large category of 'unsourced BLPs' which people could start sourcing to minimise deletions.
Bear in mind this policy is simply asking for a source - any source - so it is a very low threshhold. But it would perhaps start to change how we think about quality and inclusion.
Doc
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l