Cheney Shill wrote:
Eugene van der Pijll wrote:
Cheney Shill schreef:
Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca>
wrote:
And the very next sentence after that is
"Editors should
provide a
reliable source for material that is challenged or likely
to be
challenged, or it may be removed." This reduces the scope
of the policy's impact rather significantly.
How does that reduce the scope of the policy?
Because it says there is only a problem if the material
is doubtful. An
unsourced statement that is not challenged and not likely
to be
challenged -- and that is not libelous if untrue, I
should add -- is not to be removed, according to WP:V.
That makes it highly subjective. What determines if it is
doubtful or or likely to be challenged? To interpret WP:V
this way is basically to say its not policy. There's no
point for it, not to mention it violates NPOV, so now we
have a pointless policy that violates NPOV. Submit
whatever you like without sources. It gets to stay if not
challenged. And if the challenge gets to stay if it's not
challeneged. So Wikipedia is a collection of unsourced
opinions and unsourced counter challenges. Long live the
edit wars.
I subscribe to the notion that _every_ first draft article follows
NPOV. It is the product of one editor, and none of its information has
been challenged. It's all downhill from there. The half life of this
NPOV could be measured as the time between the original and second
edit. The NPOV of a particularly contentious subject will have a very
short half-life. We all, at least in theory, strive to follow NPOV, but
we may not have all the information to put the opposing view correctly,
if we even know it exists. It is perfecly reasonable to wait until
proponents of an alternative view can put that forward; they can do it
so much better. With good faith on both sides, a consensus can be
achieved. It only becomes a series of challenges and counter-challenges
when the opposing viewholders consider being right more important than
finding common ground.
Ec