[WikiEN-l] GNAA Deleted!

Thu Nov 30 20:33:37 UTC 2006

> You're reading a bit more into my words than I ever intended, but I'll lay
> off on the idealistic "we".  I don't think Wikipedia is healthier without
> sourcing, but I'll allow for disagreement there.  What we're dealing with 
> is
> a conflict of visions of what Wikipedia ought to be.  Do we strive for
> completeness and inclusiveness or for better sourcing and higher quality
> coverage?  I identify more with the drive for quality, and I'm comfortable
> looking elsewhere for certain topics, which can't be covered in the way I
> think Wikipedia should.

I think a half-loaf is, for most purposes, better than no loaf at all. If an 
article is sourceable, then it should be. It may be that there are no 
"reliable" sources on an article, despite honest efforts. There are some 
topics that are just not covered by the subset of sources that have been 
defined as universally reliable. If Wikipedians are able to look for 
themselves from the "unreliable" sources and judge without too much trouble 
that, for the purpose of this particular article, those sources are 
sufficient, then I think they should do that rather than delete it. The 
historic argument against that is that Wikipedians are not experts on the 
quality of sources in a particular topic area and cannot make that kind of a 
call - but, really, I think this is getting less and less true all the time.

I disagree with your strong linking of "quality" and "better sourcing". For 
most users of Wikipedia, quality is going to mean accuracy, combined with 
actually covering the topic at all. Using only information from reliable 
sources is one way to achieve this, but I feel strongly that is not the 
_only_ way, and if Wikipedia's rules are such that it is, then they should 
be changed. It is stupid when we have to delete articles that nobody 
believes to be inaccurate on the basis of rules set up to ensure accuracy.

None of the above should be construed to imply that I support badly written, 
inaccurate articles that don't help users. I just think that there are 
plenty of topics out there that can't be "officially" sourced, but which we 
could nevertheless be covering, and well. Apply all the warnings you want to 
such articles, but give the users their half-loaf.

---
Laurence "GreenReaper" Parry
http://greenreaper.co.uk/ - http://wikifur.com/ 