[WikiEN-l] Unreliable sources, or no sources at all?

[Matthew Brown]

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 2:23 PM, bobolozo <bobolozo at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  As far as I can tell, this statement that one should
>  never remove a source without replacing it or removing
>  the text it supports, this is not contained in any of
>  our policies or guidelines.

Perhaps it isn't, perhaps it is.  It is, however, the /spirit/ of what
we should be doing on Wikipedia.  Policy and guideline pages are
constantly modified by people with vested interests in having them say
things that support their positions; I would not trust them.

Removing sources is contrary to the spirit of the encyclopedia and the
point of our sourcing policies.  Obviously you can contrive a
situation when one would do it; however, no Wikipedia policy is set in
stone, deliberately.

Having information in Wikipedia that is wholly lacking in sources is
poorer information to information that is properly sourced to a
second-rate source.  That information has provenance.  You can go and
look up the source.  You can try to find out where that source in turn
got its information.

-Matt