[WikiEN-l] When Unsourced Isn't That Bad

[Philip Sandifer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen¹³ is a more or less totally  
unsourced article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cadmus is also a more or less  
totally unsourced article.

It is my sense, and I suspect that others who read the articles will  
agree, that [[Gen13]] is a toe-curling atrocity that should be hacked  
to ribbons, whereas [[Project Cadmus]] is an OK start.

There are many reasons for this - [[Gen13]] is a sputtering mess of  
subtle POV-pushing, making lots of claims about the social  
circumstance the comics were coming out in. [[Project Cadmus]] sticks  
basically to the question of what this thing is, where it's appeared,  
and what it was doing there. [[Gen13]] has the tone of a fan essay,  
[[Project Cadmus]] of something from a DC-Universe encyclopedia.

What's further interesting here is that [[Gen13]] is trying to be the  
better article - lots of sections on real-world stuff, less in- 
universe focus. [[Project Cadmus]] is much more in-universe. But it's  
also the better article in practice.

Curiously, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Juggernaut_Bitch%21%21 is  
sourced and worse than both of them - written in a totally  
inappropriate style, ridiculous captions, and, despite being well- 
sourced to things that might answer the question, totally lacking in  
any answer to "who cares?"

Moral of the story: differing quality and style of articles have  
different sourcing needs - not just in terms of what makes a good  
source, but in terms of what sources are needed. At some points in an  
article's development what it needs most are sources. At others what  
it needs are clean-ups, or additions of whole new sections and facets  
of the article, or other things. There is no one-size-fits all  
solution, and sometimes complaining about the wrong thing is just  
ridiculous - of the three articles, only [[Gen13]] really needs  
sourcing right now. Only [[Project Cadmus]] needs heavy refocusing on  
an out-of-universe perspective. And only [[The Juggernaut Bitch!!]]  
needs the tender, loving care offered to articles on AfD.

We need to stop trying to craft general solutions to all articles and  
start realizing that articles develop in different orders and on  
different paths. Solutions that fix a problem we're seeing in one  
area of the encyclopedia should not be crafted with the intention  
that they will expand to encompass other areas. With nearly two  
million articles, top-down editorial control just isn't plausible. We  
need to abandon - immediately - the quest for broadly reaching  
editorial mandates like "source everything" or "remove all X" and  
start figuring out what areas of the encyclopedia are having what  
problems and figuring out what solutions we can craft for those  
problems and those problems specifically. The questions we need to  
ask aren't "how do we fix BLPs" but "How do we fix the articles on  
actors from Star Trek up?" (Because those articles likely share a  
pool of editors, and thus also likely share a pool of strengths and  
weaknesses)

This is an ENTIRELY new dynamic for how to think about editorial  
problems on Wikipedia. It means something is going to have to happen  
that, previously, hasn't happened - the sorts of editors who  
subscribe to and post to the mailing list (editors who tend to be  
interested in the big picture of Wikipedia) are going to have to  
learn to talk to the sorts of editors who only do work on articles  
related to DC comics.

They're a very different bunch - full of local concerns that most of  
us don't care about, and generally mistrustful of the logic "Well, I  
can't let you do X because then some unknown group of people over  
here might do X and that would be bad." They're often ambivalent or  
hostile towards bits of policy - go ahead and try explaining in- 
universe perspective to a rabid editor of My Little Pony articles (to  
pick something I've never even looked at). But they're also well- 
meaning, dedicated, and write most of our articles.

We need, very badly, to start thinking about how to implement  
projects of repairing Wikipedia on local levels. This isn't going to  
be done by policy either - it's going to be done by figuring out ways  
of going into the various trenches and working well with people who,  
in some cases, seem to be on a different planet. A very well-meaning  
planet, mind you, but a different one.

So what can we do? What can we put into place that facilitates this  
sort of local engagement?

-Phil