[WikiEN-l] Refusing to cite sources

Mon Mar 7 22:13:32 UTC 2005

--- Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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?

I would certainly support enforcement of the no-original research and cite
sources guidelines are strict policies. But that brings me to this very
important point: We need to to readjust our focus very, *very* clearly back to
this basic premise, which I will call our prime directive (which I'm astonished
some newer users don’t get); 

We are here to create the biggest, best, and most respected encyclopedia on the
planet and provide those contents to as many people as possible. 
*Wiki is a means to *that* end. 
*Our openness is a means to *that* end. 
*The community itself is a means to *that* end. 

Everything else can be compromised but our prime directive cannot. That said,
wiki, our openness and the community certainly *has* brought us far toward
attaining our prime directive. So we must not do anything that would negatively
affect the positive aspects of wiki, openness, and the community (meaning those
aspects that help us get closer to attaining our prime directive). 

Therefore we must not be hasty and instead move cautiously and deliberatively
by using the systems that are already in place (at first), and only scraping or
augmenting those systems (such as adding more bureaucracy in the form of
yet-another-committee) if they cannot be modified enough to get the desired
effect. 

The ArbCom is already moving in the direction of stronger enforcement of the
content policies. This momentum only needs a push in the form of developing
well-reasoned ways to maximize the positive aspects of doing this and
minimizing the negative. 

-- mav

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