[WikiEN-l] Getting hammered in a tv interview is not fun

[Jimmy Wales]

Bryan Derksen wrote:
> But even you, even now in this very instance you're using as an example
> of what you think should be done, _didn't_ ruthlessly remove the
> unsourced information. If you really believe that we have to be
> absolutely ruthless about removing all unsourced information why did you
> deliberately leave the married-with-two-young-sons thing in?

I asked her personally and she said it was true, and at that moment I 
assumed we can find a source quickly enough and and I know that bringing 
the section in question to the attention of good editors will bring 
about quick positive change.

I am not advocating some kind of weird radical knee jerk attempt to take 
out every single thing in Wikipedia TODAY that does not have a source.

I am advocating that we give stronger support to people who are fighting 
the good fight on quality issues.

> I think the reason is that our one truly fundamental goal is to write a
> good, free encyclopedia, and that while attempting to source everything
> is a good means to that goal if we were to take it to the extreme it
> would actually start to move us farther away from it. If we were to
> actually follow through with the absolute full extent of the
> only-sourced-statements ideal it would devastate Wikipedia's current
> contents and IMO raise such a barrier to editing that new work would
> slow to a crawl. We have to consider these costs and find a compromise
> position that tries to minimize them.

Well, yes, of course I agree with that.

--Jimbo