[WikiEN-l] Verifiability

Thu Dec 15 14:42:07 UTC 2005

A better approach is for all of us in our regular editing start  
gradually asking more often for a reference and do more deleting when  
it is not provided.

When I do serious editing I am usually working from a book or  
newspaper article and I have the reference at hand. It would often be  
very hard for someone else to find that passage just going from  
whatever I put into a Wikipedia article. So it is easy to put in  
exact references.

That does not end the matter, but it is a start.

Fred

On Dec 13, 2005, at 12:39 PM, Jon wrote:

>   Is there any reason why we don’t introduce immediately a rule  
> that says all new information added to an article must be sourced  
> or referenced or the edit will automatically be reverted? And any  
> new articles must be sourced or referenced within two hours, say,  
> of their creation, or will be speedily deleted?
>
>
>   Unsourced information has no place on the encyclopaedia, and the  
> person introducing the information is best placed to know where he  
> got it from. OK, this idea is not a panacea - it doesn’t help  
> reference up information already in the encyclopaedia, but it’d  
> stop making the problem worse. Nor would it address the issue of  
> editors making up false sources - but any regular editor doing that  
> will soon be rumbled, and this issue is already around anyway.
>
>
>   Editors would soon get used to the new requirement - and it’d  
> have the benefit of making all those RC and New Pages patrollers  
> who currently do not improve the encyclopaedia one jot (they merely  
> prevent it from degrading) actually help improve the project by  
> enforcing proper standards.
>
>
>   Ideally [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]] and [[Wikipedia:Cite  
> sources]] would undergo a quick re-write to explain better how  
> sources can be given, but that can easily be done.
>   This idea would start to improve our quality immediately, and  
> make a Siegenthaler repeat far less likely. Why not go for it?
>
>
>   Jon (jguk)
>
>
>
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