[WikiEN-l] Next experiment: switch off AFD for a month. (was Guardian in defense of Wikipedia)

Thu Dec 15 09:03:31 UTC 2005

David Gerard wrote:

>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>  
>
>>I find the unreferenced tag to be useless.  Either it says that the
>>article contains some unreferenced facts, in which case we'd be better
>>off tagging those few articles which don't contain unreferenced facts
>>with the opposite tag,
>>    
>>
>Then it shouldn't be used to tag the article. That's not what it's for.
>  
>
>>or it says that the article contains zero
>>references, which is already evident to anyone scanning the article
>>anyway.
>>    
>>
>The tag puts the article in the category. It also looks like a big ugly
>box telling the editor "PLEASE DO BETTER KTHX."
>  
>
>>If you want to put the tag on the talk page or use a category, in the
>>case of articles with absolutely no references, I wouldn't object. 
>>But I don't think that is a solution for what I'm saying, which is
>>that we shouldn't be creating such articles in the first place.
>>    
>>
>I suggest that we can only lead by example and peer pressure, and the
>template does IMO help there.
>
The crux of the problem is in what the endgame should be for an 
unreferenced article.  Is it deletion or improvement?  I would easily 
support improvement.  If an article is unreferenced that does not imply 
that it is wrong; we just don't know if it's right.

Actions based on a deletion endgame consistently attract bitter disputes 
and needless stress.  In planning new strategies this should be 
considered from the beginning. in the hope of avoiding the stress.  
Without that this will be no different from AfD.

Ec