Cheney Shill wrote:
--- Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
In practice, yes, if:
- The information looks likely to be correct; and
Problem is that's subjective. How does one determine what is or is not likely?
Subjectivity is not inherently a problem, and for a project like this it's bound to happen at some point. In this case one determines whether it's likely based on whether anyone actually challenges it. If nobody challenges a bit of information then either everyone thinks it's likely to be correct (that's good) or nobody has noticed it (not so good, but also makes the issue not terribly urgent). Or perhaps nobody who's read it feels qualified to judge it, but a citation probably wouldn't help in that sort of situation.
- Even if it isn't, it doesn't matter all that much (not
potentially libelous, etc.); and
So, now we have the same subjectivity as 1) along with a test: If it causes legal problems, delete.
If nobody has a problem with it then there's no problem with leaving it in. Subjective but still quite useful.
- It looks likely that a source can be procured in the
future.
Back to subjectivity. How does one determine whether a source is likely?
One just thinks it when one reads the information. eg., "The article says Mr. Foo died in 1975. I don't have access to a library to check right now but he was pretty famous so there's probably obituaries in the newspapers if nothing else." That's all that's needed, one doesn't have to actually look it up.
If someone comes along who _doesn't_ think a source can be procured then he can go ahead and challenge it, and others can then dig up a source or otherwise try to convince him that one exists. Just like with the first point, above.
Sometimes an article that's lingered for months with an unreferenced banner will be proposed for deletion, since that's taken as evidence against #3. But there are plenty of things that linger unreferenced, even though everyone knows they're basically correct---and you can even roughly verify them by doing some google searches---because nobody's taken the time to edit them into a properly referenced article. A bunch of stubs of locations and figures of classical antiquity fit this
So then it is no problem to put a warning that it will be deleted in x days if no sources are added.
You're very good at reaching conclusions based on comments that don't seem to remotely support them, I have no idea how you got this from what Delirium wrote. :)
The problem I see with this sort of hard-and-fast deadline is that there's no pressing need for it but a very real chance that it's going to remove stuff that could well have been improved instead if it had been allowed to sit around longer. The sorts of stubs Delirium mentioned as an example probably aren't on many watchlists or the focus of many people's academic interests, so even if the sources are out there it's going to be hard to force people to dig them up in only X days. It's hard to "force" anyone to do anything on Wikipedia, it's a volunteer effort after all.
At this point, there seem to be 2 reasonable alternatives:
- Create a time limited deletion warning permitting
deletion upon expiration without reliable sources. 2) Create an indefinite banner that clearly states that the article/section is in a highly unreliable state should not regarded as accurate.
I've got no problem with the banner approach, though I think "highly" might be overstating the issue.