[WikiEN-l] Nuke [[WP:CITE]] and [[WP:RS]]

[Phil Sandifer]

Consider this another entry in that time-tested genre of "obviously  
futile suggestions to nuke things that nobody is ever going to nuke,  
but probably should anyway" posts. (The classic, of course, being  
Nuke AfD. Which we should still do.)

We should nuke [[WP:CITE]] and [[WP:RS]]. They are not working. They  
have never worked. It is not a feasible project to go and add sources  
to everything, and new contributors who are editing casually are  
never going to be willing to do the extra work of having sources. The  
result is a rule where we are always going to be playing catch-up.

Nor do the pages prevent incidents like Siegenthaler, which was a  
problem with exactly one cause, which is that nobody had ever  
actually looked at that page after it was created. No policy in the  
world will fix a page that nobody is editing.

Yes, we need to ensure that people do not add crap information. This  
can be covered easily with "Information that people doubt the  
validity of should be sourced." And we can then leave the community  
to deal with issues on a case by case basis with the direction that  
they should be careful to make sure that information is accurate. And  
we should shoot people who continue to add dubious information over  
the objections of other editors. Which is basically how we wrote an  
encyclopedia that has proven pretty trustworthy, and, more to the  
point, is how we actually operate now on the vast majority of our  
articles, since [[WP:CITE]] and [[WP:RS]] are not actually useful pages.

But to have a pair of policies that cannot be honestly implemented  
serves only one purpose: causing debates among editors that waste  
time and good faith.

Nuke them.

-Phil