[WikiEN-l] Playing zap (Was the bad BLP)

[Philip Sandifer]

On May 1, 2008, at 11:11 PM, Risker wrote:

> Funny...for completely different reasons, I ran across a block that  
> probably
> resulted from exactly this "game" - relatively inexperienced user  
> trying to
> remove "sourced content", warned by 3 different users, blocked by  
> another.
> The only catch was - the now-blocked editor, as sloppy as his edits  
> were,
> was actually correct.  The information he was removing was being  
> attributed
> to references that said no such thing.  After a few similarly  
> unpleasant
> encounters, the rarely posting editor flamed out and was indef  
> blocked.
> Subsequent evidence suggests he was probably the subject of the BLP  
> for
> which he was blocked.
>
> Speed isn't quite everything.

Yet another reason why our fetishistic obsession with sources needs to  
be toned down. By treating them as the be-all and end-all of content  
we make it far too easy to get utter lies through by citing them to a  
source. The worst are book sources - I know Danny, at one point,  
created a hoax article cited to a non-existent book with the ISBN of a  
Dr. Seuss book. This, of course, attracted no notice while we  
zealously remove entire accurate articles on important subjects for a  
lack of sources.

Wish I could remember what the article he created was so I could go  
delete it. He did it under a sock. It was on an African politician. I  
probably should have deleted it at the time, but I didn't feel like  
starting a fight with Danny.

/sigh

In any case, the point is, our sourcing policies have a tangental  
relationship at best to quality.

-Phil