[WikiEN-l] Requiring sources

Sun Dec 25 21:58:04 UTC 2005

On 12/25/05, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> The proposed decision says that if you are just using a request for
> sources as a tactic in POV edit warring it will not necessarily be
> taken at face value.

The difficulty is that we can never be sure that a request for sources
is being used as a tactic. And even if it is, either there's a good
source or there isn't, and if there isn't, the material shouldn't be
in the article.

I've had editors ask me for sources for things that were obviously
true (to me) and it was pretty clear they did it just to be
irritating, but going off to find the sources was nevertheless
instructive, and on one occasion I couldn't find a source that said
exactly what I had added. So the wrong intention can lead to the right
result.

But in the case being discussed, I see no evidence of bad intentions.
When you're up against an editor like Xed, requesting sources for
every edit is about the only way to deal with him, and it's what the
policy recommends.

Sarah