[WikiEN-l] CSD A7 and software programs

[Bryan Derksen]

K P wrote:
> At some point, though, Wikipedia has to decide what it is, a reliable source
> of information on the Internet, or a place for its editors.  At one of the
> top 10 sites, it should be leaning towards the former, with, eventually, all
> information reliable and sourced.

I think that misses the whole point of Wikipedia. We're here primarily
to create the content for reuse by other people, it's why we use a free
license rather than something site-specific.

Mirrors who publish Wikipedia's content already cull out stuff like talk
pages and old versions of articles, they can cull out the uncited stuff
too if it's really a problem for them. I'm hoping version flagging will
help with this as well once it's implemented.

> Right now there is a place for some unsourced information, namely in
> articles tagged that they're unsourced, or "let the reader beware."

According to the disclaimer linked to on every Wikipedia article the
reader should beware of _everything_ in Wikipedia to some degree or
another. The site is a work in progress, not a finished product. If
being one of the top 10 sites is hindering that then perhaps "being a
top 10 site" is the problem in need of fixing.

> A lot of the obvious solutions (all information has to be sourced) detract
> from what I see as the primary Wikipedia force that will eventually make it
> THE most useful site on the Internet: anyone can edit.

Indeed. Sourced information is an improvement over unsourced
information, but unsourced information is still usually an improvement
over a blank space.