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

[Robth]

On 1/25/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Jan 25, 2007, at 8:16 AM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
> > If people cited their sources in the first place, there wouldn't be
> > any
> > abuse by people using that fact to get it deleted. Any abuse with
> > these
> > policies can be prevented if people just made the effort. I think
> > I'm going
> > to reread those pages and think about rewriting them.
>
> But this is one of the problems. The burden of citing everything is
> larger than our editors, especially our casual editors, are willing
> to undertake. We will never reach a point where people will cite
> their sources in the first place. Hence the prospect of eternally
> playing catch-up.

I disagree.  Citing is not as difficult as you seem to think it is; if
you're in the middle of writing an article based on sources that are
sitting in front of you, it really isn't that hard to note down where
the facts came from as you write them down (lately I've become a fan
of the <ref>Unless otherwise noted, all details regarding [Subtopic X]
are drawn from [Source Y], pp. A-Z.</ref> style for citing basic facts
with relative ease).  It's true that casual editors tend not to cite
their contributions, but nobody does at first, and I think that the
reason for this has less to do with unwillingness to do so than with
the idea simply not occuring to people.  Obviously, any statements
about this are going to be speculative, but I can say that in my case
I started out just writing stuff down from memory and then, after
someone told me to cite sources, moved to doing that.  It will be very
difficult to get Wikipedia into a condition where passerby editors
feel that citing one's sources is an integral part of adding
information to an article, but I don't think that's a reason to give
up the fight.

I think that what tends to get lost in these discussions is the
incredibly good effect that citing as you go has on the accuracy of
writing.  I don't know how many times I've flipped open a book to find
a quick confirmation of some (seemingly very obvious) fact that I was
about to add to an article, only to find the opposite in print and
then, after checking a couple more books, to realize that my memory
had deceived me.  No matter how well people know their subjects, they
will make mistakes, and a writing practice that asks you to flip open
a book and check what you're saying before you write it down is a good
one.

-- 
Robth
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robth)