[WikiEN-l] Refusing to cite sources

Mon Mar 7 20:37:34 UTC 2005

Steve writes:
> This may sound like a little thing, but I think it is
> vitally needed.  When I was in conflict with CheeseDreams
> about the Cultural and Historical background of Jesus,
> one of my major problems was that she seemed not to 
> have done any research whatsoever.

I too have come across this. It is frustrating to read over
a dozen technical papers on science, philosophy or global
warming, many published in peer-reviewed journals...yet
find that my edits being reverted by someone who knows
little about the topic.

Sadly, anarchy-loving Wikipedians value nice words and
avoidance of three reverts in a day, but it places little
value on sourced facts.  We are doomed to fail in our
effort to build a reliable, referenced and accurate
encyclopedia unless the people contributing to articles can
source their contributions.

Some claims, obviously, need no sourcing. "Most Christians
do not worship Satan, and most Christians do not believe
that the Sun orbits the Earth."  When making statements of
obvious and well-known fact, one does not need a source.
But when someone claims "Most Christians today believe that
Jesus has already arrived on Earth..." one must provide
proper sources!

Yet as long as one behaves "nicely" people continue to
shove nonsense into articles, even when they are unable and
unwilling to back up their own claim, and even when their
own position is refuted by articles published by well-known
scholars.

The position of ten physicists with peer-reviewed
publications falls away when confronted with one person who
says "Nope, these papers don't claim what you say they
claim. Physicists don't really believe that gravity exists
on the moon."  Well, the papers do make clear that
physicists hold this view, but how do we counter someone
who just replies "No, they don't"...and offers no sources.

In such a situation the person who offers quotes from
published, and ofter peer-reviewed sources, should be
allowed to make the edit, and the person who offers no
sources should not be able to delete it.  Is this not
sensible?

Yet this is not happening, and we have no enforcement
procedures in place.  Larry Sanger's recent comments are
thus well deserved.

> But what if there is a user who strictly adheres to all 
> behavior policies, but who nevertheless thinks of an
> article as if it were his/her own blog?...

> The thing is, CD never answered my simple question, what 
> was her source -- and I could not compel her to answer,
> and there was no sanction for her not answering.
>
> Here is one place where I see the value of a committee
> that is empowered to ask "what are your sources" or 
> "what kind of research did you do" and, if the answer is
> silence or something that just doesn't hold up, can
> impose a sanction.

Sounds reasonable.

Robert

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