[WikiEN-l] WP:ATT

[Rob Smith]

On 3/1/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> The concept is simple and clean. All material published by Wikipedia
> must be attributable -- that is, it must be possible to attribute the
> material to a reliable source, which tells us it's not a Wikipedian's
> original research. But not all material must actually be attributed.
> It needs a source only if it's challenged, or if it's the kind of
> thing that's likely to be challenged (including contentious material
> in BLPs where sourcing is particularly important), and if it's a
> quotation.
>
> This way of formulating policy helps to clarify that not every single
> sentence in Wikipedia ("the sky is blue") needs a source. Editors have
> to use their common sense to ask themselves "is this something that's
> likely to be challenged?" and if the answer's yes, they should add a
> source.
>
> Forget the issue of "verifying" whether material is true. That's
> entirely unconnected to checking whether it has already been
> published, which is the only thing the policy's concerned about.
>
> Sarah


Thank you Slim.  Now, how do we actually define an "obsolete or deprecated"
source?  Does the original author have to deprecate themself, or by what
standard can it be considered deprecated?  Secondly, one man's obsolete is
another man's current news.  When current scholarship renders a half century
of reputable, WP:ATT, etc citations obsolete, although some material from
the older literate *still* has value, how do we mark as obsolete and
deprecated older citations that are errantly being used to refute newer
scholarship?

Thank you.