[WikiEN-l] The Curious Incident of the Fans in the Night

[Ken Arromdee]

The problem is that Wikipedia policies pretty much encourage editors to
filibuster changes they don't like by demanding sources and questioning the
sources.  This is useful when there's a serious question about whether the
information is accurate, but it's also abused when there's no serious question
about the information's accuracy and the request for sources is used to block
something they want to exclude for other reasons.  If someone then provides a
valid source anyway, the source just gets repeatedly questioned regardles of
whether it follows Wikipedia's sourcing rules.

It looks like that's what happened here.  I find particularly absurd the
argument that the source shouldn't count because the information isn't found
elsewhere.  Our rules generally don't say we can't use information unless
it has *two* sources; and in this case it's obvious that the reason the
information is hard to find is that Neil Gaiman is trying to keep it quiet,
not that it isn't true.

(I wonder if the New Yorker article now counts as a second source.)