[WikiEN-l] Removing unsourced information

[quiddity]

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 6:56 AM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Apoc 2400 wrote:
>> It is commonly said that anyone can remove unsourced information, and that
>> the burden lies on the editor who wants to include information to provide a
>> source. I have always taken this to mean that if I think something is wrong
>> or otherwise does not belong in the article, then I can remove it at will if
>> there is no source.
> You may removed unsourced information. There is no "must" about it, of
> course. This action of an editor is an example of using a permission
> that comes along with Wikipedia being a wiki.

>> I did not take it to mean that I could go from article
>> to article and remove any sentence without a source, for no other reason
>> than being unsourced. The exception of course if contentious material about
>> living people, which should be removed right away if unsourced. Am I correct
>> here? Has the interpretation changed recently?
>>
>>
> Coming from the end that a wiki is a "system of permisssions", while
> Wikipedia seems to be conceptualised as a collection of "policies" by
> many, we can see the problem (or absence of one). Using permissions on a
> wiki in a way that is a nuisance is not what the site is there for. I
> don't know how many policies there are on Wikipedia that forbid mucking
> around in this way, but the defence that you are allowed to do it is
> mere wikilawyering. Slap with fish, and I don't care whether frozen or not.
>
> Yah, so what I'm saying is that someone who tries to read policy
> legalistically and calls that "interpretation" can be accused of losing
> the plot. BLP is different, we know that, same policy framework but with
> the obligation to apply it with care.
>
> Charles

What to do about someone who has "lost the plot"?
For example, this editor seems to be going from article to article,
deleting every prose paragraph that doesn't have a ref tag (usually
everything except the intro sentence).
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&offset=20100125214401&target=JBsupreme
Some of the content being removed is obviously not good (selfpromoting
peacockery etc), but much is perfectly fine, and this seems to be one
of the worst (most indiscriminate) ways to handle the hypothetical
problem.

I'm at least grateful that he is consistent with edit summaries. Is
the edit summary "removing section which is not specifically
attributed to a reliable third party source WP:BLP" being recommended
somewhere? Is this modus operandi widespread?

Quiddity