[WikiEN-l] deleting unsourced articles ..... gradually

[Matthew Brown]

On 3/31/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> You hit the nail on the head. Everyone is so worried that if we change
> things we may end up deleting some things that *could* be sourced or
> otherwise fixed.
>
> The fact is, with regard to biographies at very least, we are now tfar
> too high profile for the eventualism that says we must keep awful, pov,
> unsourced stuff, because in theory we could fix most of it. That's now
> simply unacceptable.

Not every article is a biography of a living person.  I am therefore
unwilling to delete large amounts of EXISTING WORK simply because
biographical articles are problematic.

I am quite happy with a process whereby all articles on living people
MUST be sourced by a certain date, or within X days of being tagged.
Perhaps we should identify other categories of article that need to be
sourced to a deadline as well.

I am also happy with a process that says that all new articles after a
specified date must be sourced within X days - although I fear that
the process-happy will turn that into 'all new articles must be
sourced FA-style with inline references for every three words'.

I'm also happy with turning on some kind of stable versions feature
that makes all unsourced articles default-invisible to browsing
readers - but even then, I would wish a 'We have no stable article on
this topic, but we do have an unchecked work-in-progress.  Do you want
to see it?' thing for those articles.  Remember, the vast majority are
not libellous or harmful, just incomplete or unsourced.  In fact, the
attack article many times WILL be sourced.

I am not happy with any process that sends OK articles on
non-contentious subjects to the trash without a conscientious attempt
to find sources.

-Matt