[WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

Sat Dec 24 17:03:27 UTC 2005

I've just seen a couple of proposed decisions by the ArbCom that are very worrying from the point of view of making sure Wikipedia has reliable, sourced information.

  They are on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Xed_2/Proposed_decision

  The proposals I have difficulty with are as follows:-

    3.2.2 Sources demanded  2) After Xed restored, Jayjg demanded sources [6] [7] despite the fact that a simple Google search [8] gives 80,000 hits. He also removed any reference to occupation.

  and
    3.3.3 Viriditas and Jayjg reminded regarding NPOV  3) Viriditas (talk • contribs) and Jayjg (talk • contribs) are reminded that Wikipedia is a cooperative enterprise which operates by consensus. Masking of POV editing under the guise of citing NPOV and demanding sources is inappropriate

  Regarding the first one, I think it is fundamentally important that the onus is on the editor inserting information into an article to provide a source. It's easy to add information - but time-consuming to check it's veracity (particularly if you don't know where it's come from). 

  Regarding the second one, I don't believe it can ever be wrong to ask for sources for unreference information. Indeed, one good way of NPOV'ing articles is to make sure everything in them is properly sourced.

  Taken together these rulings, if passed (and they are in the balance now), could create serious difficulty when dealing with trolls and other disruptive users. User:Troll adds a "fact" in a controversial article. User:Troll then refuses to remove it because other readers can't cite a source disproving it or says it is for others to find the source, but the "fact" should remain, whilst dismissing editors who are even asking him for sources for his edits as being POV warriors and warning them that ArbCom has already found against their position.

  Yours concernedly

  Jon

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