[Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE - reacting and overreacting

Wed Nov 30 23:53:27 UTC 2005

In a message dated 11/30/2005 1:07:07 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
chris at starglade.org writes:

I've now  started removing any additions to pages I have on my watchlist 
which I do  not think are common knowledge and have no source for the 
claims, and I  have asked contributors to cite where they are getting 
this information  from.

I didnt want to get into this debate, but this kind of reaction worries me  
no less than the problematic article itself. 

Yes, the article was problematic, but it was one in 850,000. Yes, there may  
be other problematic articles out there (in fact, I am convinced that there  
are), but their number is miniscule as compared to most articles. 

The problem article, and the ensuing press coverage, should be an  eye-opener 
to everyone. Rather than just worry about quantity (the number of  articles, 
or the number of edits), we should be worrying to the same degree, if  not 
more, about quality (how comprehensive, how accurate). Of course, this is  much 
more difficult to measure, but that is what will ensure that Wikipedia is a  
high quality reference work. Deleting material because it is not yet sourced  
will not ensure that. 

Let's take advantage of this challenge to really improve our quality. Let's  
not use it to take apart the efforts of many thousands of well-intentioned  
volunteers who added what they knew. If we do that, the vandals have won.

Danny