Cheney Shill wrote:
Eugene van der Pijll wrote:
Cheney Shill schreef:
Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@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