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

[David Gerard]

On 25/03/2008, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.


One point that bobolozo is missing, in his enthusiasm to get
mass-deleting, is that [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is itself ...
not a reliable source. It's a guideline, and one with truck-sized
holes in it. Applying it robotically is a recipe for bureaucratic
stupidity. Thinking it can be applied bureaucratically suggests a lack
of the level of judgement one should have before performing such a
drastic mass action. Precis: if you think WP:RS justifies such a
course of action ... you shouldn't even be considering the action in
question, and need to go back and think more first.


- d.