Wikipedia talk:Verifiability

Preserving a burden

I've been watching an editor claim that the BURDEN to source removed and CHALLENGED material is not solely on the editor who restores it, because if providing a source is solely the reverting/restoring editor's burden, then WP:PRESERVE is meaningless and toothless.

Far more time has been spent arguing about who ought to spend 60 seconds finding sources (the suspected OR is all trivially verifiable – but, of course, not every editor would know that) than doing a quick search and spamming in a few. I want to not see this type of discussion again. So I wonder: should we change BURDEN to include the word "solely", just for clarity? I'm a little concerned that this would discourage "bystanders" from helping out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:05, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: WhatamIdoing is referring to this discussion I had with Spacecowboy420; that discussion is now over, but I will leave a note there that the discussion has been continued here. What I stated in that discussion is due to what I have seen stated here at this talk page for years and at other parts of Wikipedia. When it comes to this talk page, see, for example, Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 56#If WP:PRESERVE is "best practice" should it be mentioned somewhere?, Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 61#The "provide an inline citation yourself" wording should be changed back to the original wording and Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 62#More Burden stuff. And my point in the latest dispute with regard to the interpretations of WP:Burden is that WP:Preserve is indeed best practice, WP:Preserve makes it clear that editors should do their research on what they are removing before removing it (in other words, make sure that it is not important to the article...unless it clearly should be removed), and WP:Preserve is endorsed by WP:Burden. WP:Preserve is ignored often enough, and the fact that it is so commonly ignored has been detrimental to Wikipedia. Editors do not pay attention to the fact that WP:Burden endorses WP:Preserve; all they pay attention to is "Ooh, you can freely remove any unsourced material that you challenge." This is despite the fact that unsourced material is often ridiculously challenged and then ridiculously removed. Do read those above linked archived discussions for exactly what I mean (assuming you don't already know exactly what I mean). WhatamIdoing doesn't want to see this type of discussion again; neither do I. But these type of discussions happen all the time on Wikipedia, in some form or another. And by that, I mean the discussions involving editors removing easily verifiable content that belongs in the article and others strongly and rightfully objecting. Editors should not be allowed to come in and recklessly remove content, especially by citing WP:OR if the content is not WP:OR. And on that note, too many of our editors think that WP:OR means "unsourced." That is not what it means. And my exact words to WhatamIdoing about WP:Preserve being meaningless and toothless was the following: "If we want editors to follow the highly ignored WP:Preserve policy, we should be taking the time to explain to them why it is important. Otherwise, that policy should be scrapped." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:48, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

And do take notice how my view has changed over the years. See, for example, Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 62#More Burden stuff, which shows that I was quite annoyed by the idea of sourcing others' material because I challenged it. Experience changed me. But even then I acknowledged that it is "best not to remove material that you think or know is verifiable." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:12, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Note that WP:Preserve itself says that unverifiable information should not be preserved... and WP:V is clear on who is responsible for demonstrating that information is actually verifiable ... Once unsourced information has been challenged, the burden to supply a source to support it does indeed rest on those who wish to preserve the information... and not on those who challenge it. Blueboar (talk) 11:53, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Blueboar, and, as made clear lower by S Marshall, what was removed is not unverifiable information in the least. In cases like these, WP:Preserve and WP:Burden butt heads because we have editors who cite WP:Preserve when content is recklessly removed or otherwise carelessly removed from an article, and editors defending such reckless removals because they think WP:Burden gives them a license to be so reckless and careless. If WP:Preserve states that editors should check and see that what they are removing belongs in an article before they remove it, then that is a policy placing a form of burden on that editor; it's the policy stating, "Do your homework first." And that editor should be adhering to that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:40, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

• I've long argued that the tension between PRESERVE and BURDEN is a positive thing because when you put them together, the combination reads: finding sources is everyone's job. Whether it's PRESERVE or BURDEN that's being argued, putting the onus on other people to source easily-verified material is usually a characteristic of a Wikipedian who is in need of support and direction, and in my opinion we have far too many editors who are happy to send other people off chasing sources but get all huffy when they're asked to do so themselves. There are literally millions of {{cn}} templates on Wikipedia that are totally needless because the templating editor could easily have done it themselves. In my view editors who don't like searching for sources should find another hobby. But with that said BURDEN is the one that makes me more uneasy because as currently worded, it puts the heavy artillery in the hands of griefers. I personally have had the experience of seeing my whole watchlist light up when an editor with whom I had come into conflict went through everything I'd ever written systematically tagging it, adding several tags per minute.—S Marshall T/C 12:26, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

It comes down to this: Which is more reasonable, asking those who wish to preserve the information to spend five minutes finding a source, and placing it in the article (thus ending the challenge and improving the article)... Or asking those who challenge the information to spend hours trying to "prove the negative" (that a source does not exist)? The community has repeatedly come down in favor of the first ... That asking those who want to keep the information to supply a source more far more reasonable than asking those who challenge to "prove" there isn't one. This is one of the strongest and oldest consensuses of the project. Blueboar (talk) 12:58, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• • In the case of the discussion we're actually reviewing here, it took me literally seconds to source the disputed sentence. It was literally at the top of the first page of the search results.—S Marshall T/C 13:54, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Blueboar has this right, but let me be a little more express. PRESERVE says, "Likewise, as long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the "finished" article, they should be retained if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean No point of view), Verifiability and No original research." (Emphasis added.) PRESERVE, therefore, always yields to satisfaction of BURDEN. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:16, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• Let me be a little more express in response. In this case, the discussion is about a user who went to Child grooming and removed a paragraph which said: "Child grooming is an activity done to gain the child's trust as well as the trust of those responsible for the child's well-being. Additionally, a trusting relationship with the family means the child's parents are less likely to believe potential accusations." He used the edit summary "Seems like a lot of original research". Now, when I google "Child grooming" the very first page on the search results ---- above even the Wikipedia result ---- is the NSPCC, a long-established, highly respected organisation that's closely involved in child protection in the UK. Click that link and one (1) link to drill down, and you get this page which fully supports the removed paragraph. He and another editor then spent hours wrangling backwards and forwards about whose job it was to source the paragraph.

  This was, obviously, a failure of judgment in a number of ways, but the WP:BURDEN absolutism that you and Blueboar are espousing is condoning and empowering editors who'll edit-war to remove easily-sourceable content from articles about child sexual exploitation. I urge you to read the discussion that gave rise to this.—S Marshall T/C 20:43, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

BURDEN is what burden is, but there's no 3RR or EW edit war exception for enforcing BURDEN. If someone violates 3RR or engages in a slow-motion edit war, they should be reported for that, regardless of which side of the issue they're editing on. If they're restoring unsourced material still unsourced, they can also be reported for that, especially if they do it after being warned. There's no reason to argue over it. If we make exceptions because of hard or sympathetic cases, they'll soon overrule the general rule. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:00, 16 April 2016 (UTC) PS: And this is just a cavil: I'm not sure that the NSPCC page is a reliable source, as it looks like a SPS on first blush. However, I don't doubt the general point that you're illustrating, namely that the material could be easily sourced. — TM 21:08, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• I agree with TransporterMan here. There is lots to more I could say but this nails it. I strongly disagree with S Marshall's take. People come to Wikipedia for all kinds of reasons -- people who come here in good faith to realize the mission of presenting the public with summaries of accepted knowledge, and people who are ignorant of the mission and our policies but are really trying in their view to improve WP, to vandals of various kinds, including people who add hoax material just to make fun of us, and then crow about it. Every member of the community (meaning people who understand the mission and policies and have been around a while) has content we want to build and content we maintain. The demand in S Marshall's conception that I would PRESERVE every bit of content, no matter how UNDUE or blatantly wrong, is not a Wikipedia I want to live in (nor one that I imagine you actually live in, S Marshall). Removing unsourced content with a note "feel free to re-introduce with a reliable source" or moving it to Talk with the same note is completely, 100% OK. I do see the value, if some unsourced bit content seems potentially useful - -to collaborate and find sources and FIXIT it, and I do that sometimes. But saying that I have an obligation to do that, and even further that this obligation overrides BURDEN, makes no sense to me. Jytdog (talk) 21:13, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• Who is this absolutist S Marshall who demanded that you PRESERVE every bit of content no matter how UNDUE or blatantly wrong? I want him caught and shot as an imposter. What I said was that there's a tension between PRESERVE and BURDEN, and that finding sources is everyone's job.—S Marshall T/C 21:38, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Laughing. That is how I read your stance. If you agree with what I wrote above, that's great.  :) Jytdog (talk) 22:16, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• Well, to the extent that your post supports removing easily-verified content, I'm afraid I don't. I think that any editor who's considering removing a reasonably plausible paragraph from an article about child protection ought to have the nous to google it first, and that if our policies don't require that then our policies are defective.—S Marshall T/C 23:30, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree with some points from everyone here, but I especially agree with S Marshall. The thing about WP:Burden that I take issue with in cases like this is the following: It is so often misused to remove easily verifiable content that belongs in our articles, and that is a major problem. To Jytdog's point, I'm not talking about preserving content that does not belong in our articles; S Marshall wasn't arguing that either. We're talking about what WP:Preserve states, which is that "as long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the 'finished' article, they should be retained if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean No point of view), Verifiability and No original research." WP:Preserve is a policy, just like WP:Burden is, and it tells us to make sure that what we are removing should be removed. Unsourced content can still be good content. And if an editor is removing unsourced but good content all because the content is unsourced, that is not helping Wikipedia at all...unless the content is removed because of some other guideline or policy (like formatting issues or WP:Undue weight). But even then, the editor should consider preserving the content on the talk page. Jytdog commonly preserves text he removes; he does this by moving it to the talk page and explaining why he removed it and/or his concerns about it. Like I noted at the Child grooming talk page, if I had not been there to revert and source the content, valuable information would have been lost...which is a detriment to Wikipedia. Above, Blueboar stated, "It comes down to this: Which is more reasonable, asking those who wish to preserve the information to spend five minutes finding a source, and placing it in the article (thus ending the challenge and improving the article)... Or asking those who challenge the information to spend hours trying to "prove the negative" (that a source does not exist)?" But what about those who are not there to revert or otherwise challenge the editors who removed the content? What about easily verifiable content, which will only take a few minutes to source? What about adhering to the WP:Preserve policy? The community has repeatedly challenged reckless removals of content, including large-scale, disruptive blanking of content, no matter the good-faith nature behind it. And if we are not going to expect, or encourage, editors to do their homework on the content they are removing before they remove it (except, of course, for the content that should obviously be discarded), I really don't see the point of the WP:Preserve policy, especially if editors can just ignore it and hold up the WP:Burden sign in response. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:40, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

As I see it, PRESERVE addresses best practice for what should (ideally) happen prior to a challenge, while BURDEN addressed what must happen after a challenge. Blueboar (talk) 12:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

• No, PRESERVE is not optional. It's a very old and longstanding part of the editing policy which enjoys widespread consensus. If you're editing in the mainspace then you have a basic responsibility to check that your edit improves the encyclopaedia before you click "save". Please don't misinterpret this as some kind of optional best practice step because it is not and has never been optional.—S Marshall T/C 13:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Of course PRESERVE is optional. It repeatedly says "consider" doing X, Y or Z... Which implies that you have the option not to do X, Y or Z. Blueboar (talk) 16:30, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

• Yes: sometimes you come across something in the encyclopaedia which is stupid, or obvious vandalism, and needs to be removed at once. If you find "George W. Bush is a chimpanzee" in an article, then there's no ambiguity there and forcing editors to google it achieves nothing. But removing verifiable content from an article about child protection is quite a different matter, isn't it? WP:PRESERVE applies to content that's plausible. But when it does apply, I think it's absolute. If you do go around removing verifiable content from articles about child protection, then you probably should be blocked on grounds of WP:COMPETENCE and WP:NOTHERE.—S Marshall T/C 16:55, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. I fail to see how WP:Preserve is optional simply because it states "consider" in a few parts; it states "consider" because it gives a variety of ways to preserve the content. There is no one way. It clearly states, "Fix problems if you can, flag or remove them if you can't. Preserve appropriate content. As long as any facts or ideas would belong in an encyclopedia, they should be retained in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. [...] As long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the 'finished' article, they should be retained if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean No point of view), Verifiability and No original research." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:26, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I struggle with so strongly challenging this removal. The most insidiously wrong content in Wikipedia is the kind that has "truthiness". We are not about "truthiness" here. And this topic in particular is one where i would imagine there are a lot of myths flying around and the importance of content being well sourced to high-quality sources, is all the more important. I often agree with Flyer22 but in this case I don't; the right thing to do in the face of that challenge would be to find sources, add them, and really importantly - copyedit based on what the sources actually say. That said, it would have been better for Spacecowboy420 to move that to the Talk page to highlight the need for sourcing rather than removing it. There is a public health/child safety issue there. Jytdog (talk) 19:28, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog, in this case, we had an editor not only remove easily verifiable content that he did not take the time to do a quick search on, but an editor who removed the content as possible WP:OR. In other words, he removed important, easily verifiable content on an illogical basis. That is reckless editing. As made clear, I sourced the content and tweaked the wording, but it was very important to make it clear how careless and detrimental that edit was. Furthermore, once content is removed from our articles, it commonly stays removed. Editors (especially newbies or other less experienced editors) don't usually go into the edit history to see how how the article looked a few days or weeks ago (unless suspecting vandalism or other disruptive editing), or in a certain year; that's usually an occasional thing. This is why it's often good to preserve content on the talk page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:26, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Generally, well said Flyer22 reborn, it's usually a problem when any rule is fetishsized (See, WP:IAR). The one that bothers me, is when someone removes content from an (non-BLP) article, when it is sourced, just not where they think the citation needs to be, and because they have not bothered to even look at the sources already in the article. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:27, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Alan, when something like that occurs, simply return the information with an edit summary saying "already sourced - see reference number X." This quietly lets the challenger know that WP: BURDEN has, in fact, been complied with... And almost always ends the challenge without it escalating into a huge drama. Blueboar (talk) 20:05, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

I will make my contribution short and sweet, as I'm more involved with articles, than policies.

I don't really want to be specific about the article in question (even though, I was the editor removing content) - however, I will try to explain why feelings that apply equally to all articles.

If you have added content, then you should be knowledgeable about the content. That seems like common sense. You either have experience with the subject, or you have a reliable source in front of you. If you are in that position, then it should be a very simple procedure to cite that content. If you don't want to add a source (for whatever reason) you should be prepared to explain why it isn't required, or at least add it when requested.

I would suggest that all of the above applies equally to any editor who wishes to restore content that has been removed due to a lack of sources. You deem the content to be essential to the article? Then either explain why it doesn't need a source, or cite it yourself.

As has been stated already, it's far easier to cite something, than to prove that there are no reliable sources for a citation.

Losing content is the lesser of two evils, when compared to have POV/fringe/incorrect content. If content is removed due to the lack of a source, it can always be restored when a source is located.

Also, consider it a lesson learned. When people start losing content they they think is essential to "their" article, because they were too lazy to follow the general norm and provide a citation, perhaps they will take the time to cite the next content they add to an article. If the lack of sources is ignored and accepted, people will not bother looking for sources in the future. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 07:29, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Since I already made myself very clear about how you acted in this case, and that I can never accept such an action, I will reiterate that my responses are at the Child grooming talk page and that I stand by them. And like I just stated above to Jytdog: "Editors (especially newbies or other less experienced editors) don't usually go into the edit history to see how how the article looked a few days or weeks ago (unless suspecting vandalism or other disruptive editing), or in a certain year; that's usually an occasional thing. This is why it's often good to preserve content on the talk page." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:26, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Seeing as there is no consensus supporting your opinions about how I acted in this case, and no consensus regarding any change in policy, you might just have to accept such an action from me, and whoever else edits in the same manner. One additional note: My comments regarding your high and mighty attitude having a counterproductive effect still stands. Arrogance and demands from someone without a position of power, don't usually work. Try being nice instead of bossy, and editors (such as myself) might be a little more inclined to see things your way - it's human nature. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 07:07, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Seeing as there is consensus in this very discussion that carelessly removing material in the way that you did is a no-no, and considering that the Wikipedia community has repeatedly come down hard on such actions, especially after the editor in question has been warned about doing so, you can bet that if you continue to remove material in such a careless way, I will seek to have you sanctioned for it. And you can bet that you will be sanctioned for it. And you can call that a high and mighty attitude, if you want; I couldn't care less. That you felt that I wasn't being nice at the Child grooming talk page when making it clear that you acted wrongly is your opinion, and is irrelevant unless I violated the WP:Civil policy. I do not see that that I violated that policy. You started with the snide remarks because you couldn't handle the fact that you were wrong and I was not willing to let up on that fact. An editor can be stern with another editor as much as that editor wants to here at Wikipedia (usually anyway). No one here has to be an administrator to be stern with another editor or to give another editor a warning. And many editors here have power without being an administrator. When I make a case at WP:ANI with valid evidence showing why an action was detrimental to Wikipedia and/or to editors, people listen. There will be no support for you going around removing things with faulty "WP:OR" justifications, I assure you that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:25, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

If you're reading comments like mine and assume it has anything to do with the source of this dispute at child grooming, you're wrong. My only opposition is with regard to the change in this policy. But, WP:PRESERVE does instruct you to try googling a source and you shouldn't make a habit of not following it. Nor should WP:PRESERVE's weak language in any way justify removing easily sourced content.--v/r - TP 07:14, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Nope, my comments were not based on yours, I just didn't really feel it was the place to respond to other editors who were commenting on the edits made on the article that prompted this discussion. I agree that editors should not ignore WP:PRESERVE at all times, however if they do disregard it in favor of other policies, then it certainly isn't worthy of sanctions (as has been suggested) and neither does it require a change of policy wording. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 08:46, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

There is no support for your asinine removal. You were wrong; accept it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:25, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

May I suggest that you chill out a little regarding this? Getting stressed and making demands that people agree with you, when they obviously don't share your opinions, isn't a great way to have fun on Wikipedia. I edit, in between typing reports at work, to have fun. While I do certainly enjoy a spirited debate, I'm not here for drama and temper tantrums. The best thing that we can accept, is that we don't agree. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 06:27, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

• The reason we're stressed is because you made an edit to child grooming which we found irresponsible and a bit creepy. I have to admit that when I saw that edit I did not immediately AGF about your motives. Your subsequent air of surprised nonchalance suggests that I was mistaken and it's all quite innocent, so I apologise for that, but an edit of that kind could potentially have unfortunate real world consequences, because children don't understand Wikipedia and might well turn to it for information. If you're going to edit for fun from work and remove random chunks of text for being unsourced without checking them out first, then I really hope that you steer clear of articles related to child protection in future.—S Marshall T/C 07:10, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

May I suggest you actually listen and stop trying to divert attention away from your inappropriate behavior, especially when the attempted diversions are mischaracterizations or outright false? Never mind, since it's not really a suggestion I need permission to suggest. And you've been fairly warned. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:27, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry S Marshall, but I'm here to make an easily understood, neutral and verifiable encyclopedia, not a "how to" guide or blog for child protection or any other topic. Put a link to some child protection agency at the bottom of the article, rather than trying to turn an article (and wikipedia) into something that it is not. While I'm sure that your intentions are admirable, they are also misguided. It is also misguided to imagine that wikipedia can ever remain neutral, while addressing social issues. That's how you and I differ - I don't care if I'm editing an article on MLK, KKK, NAMBLA or Child grooming, I will act in the same neutral manner in all of those articles, no matter what my personal opinions are on the subject. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 08:04, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Flyer. I. don't. accept. that. I. was. wrong.

Seriously, do we have to keep on going round in circles over this issue? You can reword your complaints about my actions a million times, but unless you add something new and awesome, I'm highly unlikely to change my mind. Really, stop getting stressed about it, the article is fixed, the discussion is over. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 08:09, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

• In the light of those responses, how could it possibly be any clearer that we need to amend WP:BURDEN to make editors accept some kind of responsibility if they remove easily-verified content from important articles?—S Marshall T/C 16:21, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

And I don't care much that you don't accept that you were wrong. WP:ANI will do all the talking for me...should you continue to inappropriately remove content. We wouldn't be talking in circles if you would stop trying to get the last word by defending your mess of an edit. Seems to me the one stressed out about this is you. When you have to defend your edit like you have been doing, it's plain as day that you were wrong. Move on and edit the way you are supposed to edit. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:34, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

I will move on. Unfortunately, based on the previous discussion, I don't see my editing style changing much. I guess the biggest change, is that I might be a little quicker to totally ignore comments from editors who waste my time with drama. If ANI seems like a good option, then go ahead and file the report. But then again, if I remember correctly, you previously stated how you were convinced that I was a sock-puppet, you knew the identity of the master account and that you would be filing a report, if you didn't like my edits. (which of course is all bullshit, because this is my one and only account, and you filed nothing). Probably the best thing for you to do, is to change the arrogant, moody and aggressive attitude of your comments, be a little nicer, learn to ask, rather than demand or threaten, and I'm sure I can be far more flexible the next time our paths cross. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 06:35, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Like I stated, keep on editing disruptively, and you will see what happens. As for you being a sockpuppet, you can keep playing the game, but we both know the truth. After what I stated to you on your talk page about it, I also later made it clear that I would not be bothering to report you. As seen at User talk:Flyer22 Reborn/Archive 19#Oooohhh..., if I feel like reporting an editor as a sock, I will; if I don't, oh well. I have good reasons not to in some cases, such as wanting to build up more evidence (including using the editor's own responses about whether or not they are a sock), which I've excelled at time and time again. I do not bluff. But thanks for following me to the WP:Sock page to deliver input on my sock catching tactics. Much appreciated. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:08, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

And my response is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:29, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

WP:ASPERSIONS.--v/r - TP 06:32, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Moving forward

Forget it then. Apparently you can remove whatever you like, and you don't have to take any responsibility for it at all.—S Marshall T/C 22:23, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Proposed addition to WP:BURDEN: If the content you are thinking about removing is not vandalism or obviously wrong, then WP:PRESERVE applies. Please take a few moments to check that your edit improves the encyclopaedia before clicking "save".—S Marshall T/C 07:49, 18 April 2016 (UTC) Re: your comment above "No, PRESERVE is not optional". Perserve is optional, do you know what's not? WP:V. WP:PRESERVE says we "should" do something. WP:V says we "must" do something. Clear as day.--v/r - TP 08:15, 18 April 2016 (UTC) No, no, no. It is not the editor removing content's responsibility to find a source. They dispute the existence of the source. They don't have a responsibility to prove a negative. That would take an infinite amount of time. It's on the editor who adds or restores content to prove the source exists, because proving it exists shouldn't take an infinite amount of time. WP:V is a core content policy. All content must be verifiable. If it's not verifiable, it must be removed. If I doubt a piece of content is verifiable, I have no obligation but to remove it. Period, dot.--v/r - TP 08:13, 18 April 2016 (UTC) No addition required. We are not talking about the removal of blatantly correct content that most laymen would be familiar and in agreement with. Keep it as it is, and point it out to editors adding content, that they should also be adding sources if there is any realistic chance of it being challenged. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 10:56, 18 April 2016 (UTC) That was blatantly correct content, easily verified by anyone with a one-minute internet search. Anyone editing in the mainspace ought to have performed the search before clicking save. I'm puzzled by your total refusal to accept any responsibility at all for that edit, and I'm worried by TParis' attitude which I think is unbecoming of a sysop.—S Marshall T/C 17:18, 18 April 2016 (UTC) I don't agree S Marshall. I agree it expressed commonly held notions about what child molesters do, but I am not at all sure that this is what they actually do. This kind of content is particularly important to actually VERIFY. Jytdog (talk) 19:23, 18 April 2016 (UTC) It's a simple reading of the policy. Wikipedia is a reference for millions of people worldwide and it's important that our content is verifiable. If you want to say that an editor should spend the 30 seconds to google something before removing it - then fair enough. But what I'm not prepared to accept is that an editor must search indefinitely for a source. The editor removing content does not have that level of responsibility.--v/r - TP 19:01, 18 April 2016 (UTC) The proposed edit says "Please take a few moments." It doesn't say "You are absolutely obliged to perform a philosophically impossible task before you're permitted to remove any content."—S Marshall T/C 19:17, 18 April 2016 (UTC) But it's not required. WP:Preserve says "should". For this change to WP:V to match the "should" language of WP:PRESERVE, it should say "...or obviously wrong, then consider WP:PRESERVE beforehand." Because, despite what you and Flyer22 Reborn have said, WP:Preserve is optional. You'll need to change that policy to make it a requirement. This is not the right policy to try to force that change through.--v/r - TP 20:44, 18 April 2016 (UTC) Support. I agree that WP:Preserve is not optional. There are various ways to preserve content; it is not simply about having an editor source the content. And I think that an editor should spend at least 30 seconds to Google something before removing it...unless it obviously should be removed or is best temporarily removed. For example, there can be formatting issues, WP:Due weight issues, or even WP:Consensus issues. Either way, it is high time that we put an end to the reckless removals of content in our Wikipedia articles based on WP:Burden reasoning. I also suggest that S Marshall turn this matter into a WP:RfC and advertise it at the appropriate forums, such as WP:Village pump (policy). I would help advertise it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:26, 18 April 2016 (UTC) Opposed - The proposed addition will simply result in more arguments and needless Wikilawyering... If we adopt it, editors will argue endlessly over whether the challenger performed a diligent enough search to preserve... Instead of taking the far faster (and ultimately less frustrating) path of least resistance... by simply returning the information with a source (if possible). The beauty of BURDEN is that it cuts through all the Wikilawyering bullshit. Blueboar (talk) 21:04, 18 April 2016 (UTC) S Marshall I won't address your comments regarding that specific article here. I will however address issues regarding the policy in general. If you have any outstanding issues on the specific article, go to the article talk page, or my user talk page. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 06:58, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

• Our policies and guidelines are not absolute and rigid – see WP:NOTLAW and WP:IAR. It therefore follows that WP:BURDEN is not an iron rule and so should be considered in context. For an example of WP:BURDEN being pushed too far, please see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kww and The Rambling Man. Andrew D. (talk) 07:51, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

As I pointed out above, there's no right to violate 3RR or to otherwise edit war over the removal or restoration of uncited material and the findings of fact in that case clearly state that the outcome was the result of the parties edit warring over it, not merely over the removal or restoration of the material. The case is not on point. Indeed, editors can and have been blocked for systematically or routinely removing unsourced material (especially, if the removals reflect a POV motive, but — very rarely — without one as well) but that's because of their generalized behavior, not because of any one or two removals. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 22:11, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

The discussion continued at S Marshall's talk page, and I like the points he made there as well. I want to point out that WP:Policies and guidelines states, "Although Wikipedia does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Wikipedia policy and guideline pages describe its principles and best-agreed practices. Policies explain and describe standards that all users should normally follow, while guidelines are meant to outline best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense."

That's how I edit Wikipedia. I do not view our policies as optional unless there is a valid WP:Ignore all rules factor. And, to me, the word should in our policies reflects things we are supposed to do unless there is a valid WP:Ignore all rules factor. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:25, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: If you view "should" so strongly, then you should obviously regard "must" in such high regards. As in "All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material." (emphasis mine)--v/r - TP 06:24, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Flyer has not been objecting to the idea of sources being added. She has only been objecting to the idea that she personally is required to find and add the sources to any PRESERVE-worthy material that is CHALLENGEd by editors whose CHALLENGE is based upon factual errors (as far as she can tell). Based upon several of these conversations, I believe that what she would prefer for the process is more like this: You remove unsourced material because you sincerely, although mistakenly, believe it's wrong. She reverts you and tells you that the material was correct, and you go find sources to prove that she's correct (and, to be fair, she almost always is correct). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:33, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

No, that is not what I have been stating, as should be clear to anyone who has read my comments in this discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:21, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

New example

I didn't want to personalize this or lean too heavily on the Child grooming example (which is complicated), but let me give you one in which Flyer's edit is indisputably factually correct, so that we can avoid that unnecessary complication:

Someone recently made a change to Human penis. That change was wrong. Specifically, the source he relied upon directly says, on page 14, that what the editor believed to be a 'fact' was the prevailing belief only until the end of the 17th century, i.e., that it is no longer believed. It's an honest mistake, but it's a mistake. Flyer reverted to the accurate, but still unsourced statement.

A short edit war ensued, in which the other editor cited a source (which he slightly misread), and Flyer reverted again without adding any sources ...and went to the talk page to talk about how she's right, and spammed WPMED about the edit war, but never adding a single source to verify it. Some time later, someone else added the sources that AFAICT WP:BURDEN says Flyer should have added during or shortly after her very first reversion.

My question amounts to this: Does the ideal of PRESERVE exempt an editor from meeting the BURDEN when reverting an honest mistake? What do you think an editor in this (non-extraordinary) situation should have done? And is requiring this editor to provide a source (promptly) actually in conflict with PRESERVE at all?

Maybe what we need is to expand PRESERVE to explicitly say that if you restore CHALLENGEd material, then part of your duty under PRESERVE is to meet the BURDEN by providing one (1) plausibly reliable source to support it. Requiring you to demonstrate that the material is actually verifiable does not IMO seem to conflict with the idea that the material should be preserved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:25, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

I would strongly support that last suggestion. Blueboar (talk) 14:15, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. And frankly adding a source is by far the most effective means of settling these kinds of disputes. DonIago (talk) 15:14, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Once again, this rule would have made things easier for the editor who was damaging the article, and harder for the editor who was protecting it, so I think it's pretty obviously not an appropriate response to the edits we're discussing here.—S Marshall T/C 17:36, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm thinking that this would have made no difference at all for the editor who was accidentally damaging the article, and that spending two minutes spamming in a pair of sources might have prevented an edit war, a thousand-word-long discussion on the talk page (including rather insulting comments about how the only editor who actually tried to provide a source wouldn't care what the sources say), another distress call to the WikiProject, the involvement of at least five other editors in resolving the dispute, and this discussion. So maybe it's "bad for editors who don't want to cite articles", if we assume that "refusing to provide citations" and "protecting the article" have a substantial overlap, but I'm thinking it's "pretty good for the overall project" to stop this kind of "I'll revert you but I won't back up my assertions with sources" thing, and "really great for the article", especially in the long run, to get those sources added. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

• My position is that a large "substantial overlap" is between people who remove accurate paragraphs from the encyclopaedia and people we don't want editing the encyclopaedia. In other words, I feel that irrespective of whether someone's a vandal or a well-meaning idiot, reverting their damaging edits should be as easy as possible... at the end of the day Flyer is in the right and it behoves us to back her. No?—S Marshall T/C 19:31, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

What's clearly accurate to one person may be highly questionable to another person. Hence the need for sourcing. DonIago (talk) 19:49, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

If something's contested in good faith by one editor (do you really mean to call the editors in these disputes "idiots"?), then behooves us to get a source in the article so that we don't have to go through again in the future. Personally, I'd rather support citing a decent source than supporting the assertions of any editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:17, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

• Apparently I've been much grumpier on-wiki lately than I usually am. Nevertheless, yes, the word was meant: I've read the recent edits to that article and... err, respecting your wish not to name names or point fingers, I would characterise the content that Flyer22 removed as idiotic. In fact, there's a new policy for you! Let's have a Wikipedia version of the Idiots Act 1886. We could simplify all our other policies enormously.—S Marshall T/C 21:19, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

The human penis dispute had nothing to do with BURDEN v PRESERVE. The content was never sourced in the body nor in lead. An edit request with a citation to a book was made here to change "The penis is homologous to the clitoris" in the lead, to "The penis is homologous to the vagina" and it was implemented only in the lead here by someone who did it quickly (and apologized in the midst of the talk page hullaballoo). The citation given was ISBN 978-0071840064 p. 568. which I have uploaded to my google drive here for this discussion. That is not the clearest. If you dig into this; yes the glans of the penis and the glans of the clitoris are homologous (they both develop from the "genital tubercle"), but the original "genital fold" develops into the inner vaginal lips (labia minora) in women and into the "shaft" of the penis in men (kind of; tissues inside there come from somewhere else). (shown much more clearly here). So... neither editor was completely correct, content-wise; both were wrong. Flyer was more correct content-wise but not completely. This is just an example of two people, equally very sure of themselves, asserting things instead of working carefully from high quality sources <>altogether outside of VERIFY. No amount of policy will fix that. And it has nothing to do with BURDEN or PRESERVE. The Human penis article is still not correct even as I write this. I will go fix it now. Jytdog (talk) 21:15, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Flyer claimed that PRESERVE justified her restoration of the original despite not adding a source; BURDEN says that whenever someone "restores" material that was removed for being (as far as one editor believes) factually wrong, that that person need to cite at least one source. Therefore, both of those policies have quite a lot to do with the behavioral aspects of the dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

i agree that they have been cited. people mis-cite things all the time. Both sides failed WP:VERIFY and if you outside VERIFY you are in Mad Max land where nobody is acting appropriately. shoulda made that more clear above.Jytdog (talk) 00:55, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

There must be exceptions. A lot of text removal is purely vandalism that should be reverted, blocked and ignored, not encouraged by a scurry to find sources. You mustn't hogtie our vandal-fighters with any kind of absolutist language. Vandalism shades into ignorance and stupidity, and it should also be possible to revert an edit which is too stupid to stand. I shouldn't be obliged to leave obvious error in a key article just because I have to go out to work.—S Marshall T/C 08:59, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Vandalism is not a CHALLENGE. We've already got that covered. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Where does it say that? I searched for "vandal" and "vandalism" in the page text and found only the hatnote. And how's "vandalism" defined for this purpose? Would it include people who're using BURDEN in a vexatious or retaliatory way, or to target the contributions of one particular editor?

I'm also concerned about editors who will use BURDEN to remove material that disfavours their (nationality/ethnicity/religion/sincerely held conviction/preferred brand of snake oil, delete as appropriate). I see from footnote #4 that this has been thought of and there's an instruction not to target one particular point of view in this way but if we're going to start strengthening BURDEN then I would also prefer that to be beefed up.

As you can see I'm very leery of this. We've had a number of recent incidents of editors employing BURDEN when (a) they're editing in topic areas they know nothing about and (b) they couldn't be bothered to google. I'm concerned that we're creating a tyranny of ignorance here, where editors who have useful knowledge to contribute are hindered because they're at the constant beck and call of Randy from Boise. I do realise how important BURDEN is to edits in the most contentious topic areas of the encyclopaedia but I'm quite worried about the impact of beefing it up in the rest of the encyclopaedia.

One answer might be to have various different versions of it. If we're talking about BURDEN used in an area subject to discretionary sanctions, then yes, strengthening it could be appropriate. What about if we're talking about BURDEN used by a school IP address on a featured article created by a Wikipedian who no longer edits? There's far too much potential for "I don't like this content you've written so I'm going to keep removing chunks of it until you go away"-type behaviour.

I've always been of the view that finding sources is everyone's job and I still encourage you to consider putting this language into the policy. Recent discussions here have brought me to the view that any editor who edit-wars to keep out something they could have verified with a thirty second google search should be held responsible for their behaviour and is in need of support and direction from our admin corps.—S Marshall T/C 09:26, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

What constitutes "a challenge" isn't defined at all in this policy. However, the concept is fairly well-understood after community norms and many discussions. "A challenge" requires a good-faith claim that it is impossible to verify the material, e.g., that it is factually wrong or original research. Material removed for other reasons, e.g., that it is non-neutral or a copyvio, is not "a challenge". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:13, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog is correct that "The human penis dispute had nothing to do with BURDEN v PRESERVE." As for me not being completely right about the homologous factor, that is not correct. Like I just stated here of Jytdog's edits, "I'm not sure about going with the 'Most of the penis' wording since sources simply state that they are homologous, and since the labia minora is an aspect of the clitoris." I know this because I have extensively researched the clitoris and wrote most of the Clitoris article. Sources don't usually state that "most of the penis is homologous to the clitoris"; they usually state that "the clitoris and penis are homologous."

WhatamIdoing's characterization of what happened at the Human penis article is completely off; nowhere in that discussion did I claim or imply that "PRESERVE justified [my] restoration of the original despite not adding a source in this case." I told WhatamIdoing the following: "The editor was vehement that he could source the content. If I had sourced my reversion, I felt that my addition would still be contested by this editor. After all, sources can conflict. But WP:Due weight is something we must also consider. And the due weight is with the clitoris and penis being homologous. [...] While I am a big believer in WP:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue, I recognize that this is not a 'sky is blue' case. I wasn't stating that I was exempt from providing a source, but when something as detrimental as this is added to the lead of an article and the editor vehemently defends it, I will revert (once or twice) and bring the matter to the talk page for clarification. I am stating that simply adding a source for the information is not what was needed in this case. Discussing it here on the talk page is what was needed since the editor was, or is still is, convinced that he is right. I do not see that my adding a single source, or even two, to the statement in the lead would have resolved this dispute. When I bring a matter to the talk page, I am fully prepared to defend my reversion with WP:Reliable sources, as seen in this, this and this case."

In other words, I fully intended to provide sources for the material. There is nothing in WP:Burden that states that a source has to be immediately added; in fact, it's clear that time for providing a source is dependent upon the situation (it's a case-by-case basis). I was explicitly clear that I felt that the matter needed discussion and why. And, indeed, the other editor came back with a source, which he no doubt would have used to challenge any source I would have added. Taking the time to discuss matters, including educating editors while I'm at it, and providing sources there on the talk page, is what I do. WhatamIdoing doesn't like my approach, but I can't, and won't try to, do a thing about that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:21, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

And this and this clearly is not spamming. It's neutrally alerting the relevant WikiProjects to a relevant dispute, as is common. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:04, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

In the section titled "WP:Preserve is policy" by you, you say things like "The WP:Burden is not solely on me" to provide sources for material that was CHALLENGEd in good faith (i.e., by removing the content while citing a policy that an experienced editor sincerely believed had been violated). You said that by restoring it without adding any sources, "I acted in accordance with both WP:Burden and WP:Preserve" because you believe that "that the burden was on [the other editor] to do your homework and preserve the appropriate content", despite the actual policy saying that the BURDEN is on "the editor who adds or restores material", which means you.

What was the result there? Five thousand words on the talk page – much of which is editors asking you to cite sources, and you claiming that someone else ought to do the boring bits – and five days later, you finally added the sources that you had previously claimed to be exempt from adding, by saying things like "I did my part by cleaning up [the other editor's] mess. He should have done his part by researching what he was removing."

BURDEN does not have a specific timeline, but we could fix that: We could update it to say The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies solely with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. In the event of an editor restoring material whose verifiability has been challenged in good faith, the reverting editor should normally cite a source within one hour of restoring the material to the article." Since an editor is nearly always offline within 30 minutes after the last edit was saved, I think that providing twice that amount of time is likely to be sufficient.

I don't actually care whether you "felt that my addition would still be contested" or even that you have such excellent mind-reading skills that you can reliably determine that "simply adding a source for the information is not what was needed". (Funny, but the edit war at that article stopped when someone – someone who not apparently laboring under the mistaken belief that a source-free "trust me, I know about this subject" talk-page chat would solve anything – spammed in a couple of sources, didn't it?)

I care whether you're citing sources when you are required to cite them. You need to stop "reverting (once or twice) and bringing it to the talk page for discussion", and start "reverting (once or twice), citing sources, and bringing it to the talk page – minus the foot-dragging and week-long delays. If you are having trouble believing that this policy requires you personally to promptly cite sources for explicitly challenged material when you personally hit the undo button, then I'm fully prepared to change both BURDEN and PRESERVE to make it absolutely, unmistakably clear that you must change your behavior and start citing sources when you revert the blanking of CHALLENGEd material. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

And the way you view these matters is flawed, per everything I and others (especially S Marshall) have stated on this situation. Since I've already made myself explicitly clear why what I did in the case of the Child grooming article was completely appropriate and that it's not a matter of an editor doing the homework for me, but rather a matter of the editor doing his homework in general and behaving competently so that his edits are not detrimental to Wikipedia, I am not going to extensively repeat myself. The WP:Preserve policy is clear that he should have done his homework and preserved the appropriate content. That policy is clear that it was his responsibility to do that, which is why I noted that the burden was also on him. Like others have stated on this talk page, locating sources is not solely the responsibility of the editor who objects to the removed material. You seem to be pitting WP:Burden against WP:Preserve, and that is not what we are supposed to be doing; they are supposed to be in harmony. The editor in question didn't view the policies as being in harmony either, but rather as contradicting each other, and that is a problem.

You stated, "Five thousand words on the talk page – much of which is editors asking you to cite sources, and you claiming that someone else ought to do the boring bits – and five days later, you finally added the sources that you had previously claimed to be exempt from adding, by saying things like 'I did my part by cleaning up [the other editor's] mess. He should have done his part by researching what he was removing.'" And that is yet another mischaracterization by you of what happened in a case of me reverting detrimental edits to important content that happened to be unsourced. What actually happened is that an editor carelessly removed easily verifiable, important content. I reverted a day later, stating, "Revert per WP:Preserve, and per what WP:Burden states about preserving. Blanking is not the solution. And 'unsourced' is not what is meant by the WP:Original research policy." I then made this edit, where I removed some redundancy and unencyclopedic wording. I intended to source the material, but, again, nowhere does WP:Burden state that an editor has to immediately source the material; it is clear that such matters are a case-by-case basis. Furthermore, some of us (including me) are extremely busy. You very well know that I am extremely busy. The editor showed back up two days later and made this edit, stating, "A notice that a citation was required has been there for four months. Feel free to add that content again, when there is a source supporting it." He didn't fully revert me, but he still removed easily verifiable content. So that was twice that he removed easily verifiable, important content without trying to preserve it. I took the matter to the talk page, where I made it very clear that I would be sourcing the material, but that it was important to address why the editor had acted inappropriately. For any editor who is open to constructive criticism and actually following this site's rules with common sense, that discussion would not have been a waste of time. I've had many such discussions with editors who took my words to heart and listened; they went on to become better editors. This case involving Thelonggoneblues is one such case. I did not revert a second time at the Child grooming article until I had sourced the material days later.

From what I see, the so-called edit war at the Human penis article stopped because the editor saw that he read the source wrong, in a hugely embarrassing way. He further saw that he was wrong by comments on the talk page. The so-called edit war stopped before Zad68 made that edit.

So what we have here is you criticizing my methods and presenting yourself as the more experienced and/or better editor, like you usually do, no matter that my methods get the job done and have worked well for years, and I am just as experienced as you are. You are a big believer in reverting once (despite the fact that you do not always revert only once); I am not...when reverting the second time is very helpful or needed. And it has not caused me much grief. What we have here is you making it seem like I felt I didn't have to source anything or refused to source anything, when, in the Child grooming article case, I was clear that I would be sourcing the material and eventually did source it, and certainly would have sourced the human penis content as well. My track record shows that I provide sources, either in the article or on the talk page, or both. It is my decision and right to go about the matter immediately or days later, and it is very understandable for the editor to source something days later when the editor is very busy. You commonly change our policies and guidelines, often without discussion, to suit your views. But if you think that adding "the reverting editor should normally cite a source within one hour of restoring the material to the article" is going to stick, I must state that you are mistaken. Do revisit Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 63#Restoration of challenged material. In the case of these two policies (WP:Burden and WP:Preserve), I will not simply sit back and let editors shape it willy-nilly. Any future substantial changes to them will be via consensus, as should be the case for any of our policies.

And to see you of all people, someone who has vehemently advocated for the WP:Preserve policy, be so nonchalant about the aforementioned detrimental edits to the Child grooming article, is quite the change. For example, at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 36#Rephrase "Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material" subheading (your "17:10, 12 February 2014 (UTC)" and "21:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)" posts), you sound very much like S Marshall and I sound now. You stated, "'Instead, whenever you encounter plausible but unsourced material, you personally should try to PRESERVE it. If the material actually is contentious/dubious/unverifiable/etc., then someone who knows that it's problematic will deal with it. We don't blank apparently acceptable material based on unsupported speculation that it might possibly be contentious. Let me give you a real example: a BLP contained a birthdate. In this instance, the birthdate was especially relevant (a 'youngest person' world record, since broken several times), and slightly wrong. The subject of the BLP corrected it. The correction was promptly reverted to the erroneous date because the accurate date wasn't sourced. Is that good? No. Does that actually comply with our policies? No. Is it appropriate to blank that highly relevant information? No. What should have been done? Someone should have stopped reverting and blanking and spent ten minutes finding an adequate source. That is, somebody should have followed our policy to PRESERVE good information about BLPs instead of taking the lazy, destructive, blank-em-all approach. [...] The community does not want you to destroy good content merely because someone didn't jump through a hoop labeled 'inline citation' before you saw the sentence." But, as seen in past WP:Burden discussions I've linked to above (you know, back when you wanted me on the "it's your job to source the information too" side), I've changed as well. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:17, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

You will notice that I didn't blank any of this material. But saying that editors should not blank "plausible but unsourced material" – which is not what you were dealing with, since the other editors stated that the material was, to the best of their limited knowledge, better described as "wrong and unsourced material" – is not the same thing as saying "and if someone blanks material that you believe is plausible, then you can just restore it and skip all that stuff in BURDEN about "if you restore it, then you have to cite it".

"Don't blank stuff unnecessarily" is fully compatible with "Even if someone else blanked good material, then you have to cite it when you restore it." WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:08, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

In the Child grooming article case, I was indeed dealing with an editor who removed "plausible but unsourced material"; there was not a thing implausible about what he removed. And as repeatedly stated, he did not even check to see if the material was plausible, which was a WP:Preserve violation. He removed the material because, to him, it seemed like WP:Original research, which was clearly his way of stating "unsourced and probably made up"...like so many other editors who misuse the WP:Original research policy. In the case of the Human penis article, it was not a WP:Burden vs. WP:Preserve matter at all, and the editor at least researched the topic after reverting me. And as for the rest, I've already been over it; I'm not going to repeat myself, especially since I am insanely busy these days. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:16, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

1. He did not believe the unsourced material was plausible.
2. Two wrongs don't make anything right. Other editors' alleged failures are no justification for you failing to respect BURDEN's very explicit requirement that you provide the sources whenever you restore unsourced material that was CHALLENGEd and removed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

It is your opinion that he "did not believe the unsourced material was plausible." I see no valid indication whatsoever that anyone could reasonably infer that the material was implausible. My opinion? Yes, but it is the rational one. Furthermore, neither WP:Burden nor WP:Preserve state or imply that it's okay to remove material simply because one thinks it's implausible. For example, no one should be going to our science articles and removing unsourced material simply because, with their limited knowledge, they think the material is implausible. And you know that. If it was okay to remove material simply because one thinks it's implausible, our articles would be worse off now and the WP:Preserve policy would not exist. Something being challenged does not mean that it was validly challenged. We commonly do not tolerate nonsense.

Two wrongs... There was no two wrongs since I did not act wrongly. No matter how many times you state or imply or that I did not "respect BURDEN's very explicit requirement that [I] provide the sources whenever [I] restore unsourced material that was CHALLENGEd and removed," the article's edit history shows that statement or implication to be false. With my "07:17, 1 May 2016 (UTC)" post above, I recounted very clearly what happened. You are free to ignore it as much you wish to, but your mischaracterizations of what happened are easily dispelled. The only wrong here is you defending this editor's disruptive and misguided behavior, you acting like I behaved wrongly by not immediately sourcing the content, as if there is some wording in the policy page stating that the sourcing must be prompt, and you complaining about the fact that I complained about the editor's disruptive behavior. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:50, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

I'll just say that this may be the first time I've ever heard anyone involved in a BURDEN-related discussion suggest that material could be re-added and remain unsourced indefinitely(?) with the apparent intention for it to be sourced "eventually". I don't think that's how the majority of editors would interpret it, and to me it sounds a bit like rules-lawyering. Now, I have found myself in a situation where someone claimed that they had sources available but needed some time to get things sorted, and we discussed the matter amiably. Two weeks later they hadn't touched the article and I removed the unsourced material, left them a note, and haven't heard from them since. Call it cynicism, but my feeling is that the majority of editors who successfully add information to an article without providing sources at the time will not ultimately provide them later unless the issue is forced. I would also point out that for the PRESERVE-minded editor, moving the information to the article's Talk page until such time as it can be reintegrated with sources seems like a satisfactory compromise to me, and is a technique I have engaged in on multiple occasions. DonIago (talk) 04:55, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

I did not state or imply that "material could be re-added and remain unsourced indefinitely." Just replied to WhatamIdoing above. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:17, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

People keep missing the point... BURDEN isn't about what has to happen before a removal - it's about what has to happen before a restoration. What is required in order to remove information is often subject to interpretation (and the decision as to whether to remove, tag, or ignore unsourced information often involves making a judgement call). The requirements for restoring information, however, are not subject to interpretation or judgement. Whether you agree with the removal or not, if you want to restore it... you have to supply a source. It really is that basic. Blueboar (talk) 15:27, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Sigh. All this absolutism in the emphatic declarative. If you, Blueboar, or WhatamIdoing, or Flyer22, removed content then I would understand that I was required to add a source before restoring it. That understanding would be because I know you're not vandals or editing vexatiously, and because I trust you not to remove factual content unless you had reason to be sure (either you knew, or else you'd checked, that it was inaccurate). But if an IP address or brand new account removed content without explanation? Nope, not buying that I can't revert.—S Marshall T/C 16:14, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

But if any editor has removed information without explanation you're allowed to restore it and ask them to provide one. In fact, there are warning templates for editors who are removing information without providing an edit summary. DonIago (talk) 21:07, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I think that has to be correct but I don't think Blueboar agrees. I feel that if it is correct the policy should say so unambiguously. I also think there's more to this than edit summaries.—S Marshall T/C 21:45, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Based upon previous conversations, I'm prepared to guarantee that Blueboar does agree that an unexplained blanking is not necessarily a CHALLENGE. If it's not a CHALLENGE, then BURDEN does not necessarily apply.

However, when someone uses an edit summary such as "seems like a lot of original research" or "That was correct, i will add the source!", to give two examples from these disputes, then I don't think that any reasonable person can claim that these are unexplained removals or reversions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:55, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

As much as one would like it to be "simple", it's not (encyclopedia writing for the unthinking?): by removing correct information that belongs in an article - belonging, generally a judgment concerning other policies, not this one -- makes an article worse, and even possibly misleading by removal of context or mistaken in other ways. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:30, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

And again, none of that has anything to do with BURDEN. Burden is about restoring information, not about removing it.

If someone removes an accurate, but unsourced statement, it isn't a big deal... Because you can easily return it with a source. Returning the statement with a source doubly improves the article.

On the other hand... Arguing about whether the removal was justified or not is a waste of everyone's time (especially your own time). Don't do it. You can spend days in unnecessary argument... Or... You can spend two minutes finding a source, and returning the statement. I am going to favor the short path every time.

To quote from Star Wars... "Let the Wookie win". Blueboar (talk) 19:49, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

It is a 'big deal' to make articles worse, misleading and so on. Whether anyone will be there to correct it, is an unproven wish. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:25, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. And it's not a waste of time to inform editors that carelessly removing material is highly problematic and WP:Preserve should be taken into account. If an editor carelessly removes material from an article, I am very likely to note the matter in an edit summary while fixing the matter, or on the article talk page before very likely fixing the matter, or on the editor's talk page before very likely fixing the matter. Doing so has often improved Wikipedia because the editor saw how careless he or she was and now knew of the WP:Preserve policy. Like I've noted more than once, the WP:Preserve policy is not as widely known as the WP:Burden policy, and, enough editors who do know about it, ignore it. Also, I strongly support the view that inaccurate or otherwise problematic information should not stay in our articles, no matter if the correct or otherwise better version is unsourced. It's obviously better to go with the correct, unsourced version than the detrimental version. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:10, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Actually I would say it's better to go with no text at all than either allegedly correct but unsourced information or information that is sourced but known to be incorrect. Who is to say that the information is correct if it has been challenged and nobody can provide a source? DonIago (talk) 07:39, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

If nobody can provide a source then of course the content should be removed. With all due respect, nobody has said otherwise. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the interaction between WP:PRESERVE and WP:BURDEN, so by definition the content we're talking about meets both.

This bears some emphasis in case it wasn't apparent. WP:PRESERVE says "Preserve appropriate content". Only verifiable material is appropriate for Wikipedia. Therefore nobody is talking about unverifiable material.

The subject we are discussing is material that is fully verifiable, but has been challenged anyway. WhatamIdoing has posted examples involving good faith editors who are employing WP:BURDEN because, apparently, they can't be bothered to google. I do not think these people are helping us to build an encyclopaedia, and I am disinclined to pander to them, but I think WhatamIdoing is more sympathetic. I have also been discussing cases where editors employing WP:BURDEN might not be in good faith. But, if you'll excuse the increasingly Blueboar-like levels of text emphasis I'm finding myself using in this discussion: nobody is saying we should PRESERVE unverifiable content.—S Marshall T/C 13:24, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Assuming I'm reading you right...and my apologies if I'm not...what you seem to be saying is that editors should have the right to claim that material is verifiable without providing a source, perhaps by claiming "a quick Google search will turn up sources". If that's the case, then I'm still left feeling that the most expeditious resolution is to simply re-add the information with the source itself. Why argue about whether sources can or cannot be easily found when you'll spend more time engaged in that argument than you will by spending (probably) less time simply adding a source? I hope the intention isn't to prove a point. Maybe editors shouldn't need to do that (I imagine feelings on that depend on who you talk to), and yeah, it sucks to be told that one's allegations of verifiability aren't good enough, but the sky isn't always blue either.

Speaking again to my cynical nature, when editors start to claim that material shouldn't need to be sourced because it's "common sense" or can "easily be sourced", it tends to just increase my skepticism...because if it can be done so easily, why are those editors not doing so? To assume bad faith for a moment, it often seems they are more invested in the argument than in any preservation of material, because the fastest, strongest way to preserve material is to source it. DonIago (talk) 17:11, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

• Surely the fastest, strongest way to preserve material is to do the basic checks before you remove it in the first place. Surely this is why PRESERVE is policy. Any editor who's removing material recklessly or stupidly is making needless work for the rest of us and should be summarily reverted, and receive administrative intervention if they persist. Wiktionary's rule about this is an admirable summary of my thinking, so I'll quote it:- Actions that appear destructive are usually either a result of someone not caring, not understanding, or not thinking. Those who don't care should be blocked lest they cause damage, those who don't understand should have things explained to them, and accidental damage should be undone. Once the removing editor has done their minimum due diligence under PRESERVE and decided to remove the material anyway, at that point we have a valid challenge under BURDEN and yes, you should need to provide a source before you restore. The effect of PRESERVE is really to define what legitimately counts as a challenge and what's just asshattery.—S Marshall T/C 17:39, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Yep. And as for common sense stuff, I don't believe that common sense stuff should be cited...but I will cite it if the editor is silly enough to persist in challenging the information, or if I'm beyond annoyed by the matter. WP:Verifiability is more so about material that is likely to be challenged anyway. Otherwise, a lot of our encyclopedic but unsourced articles would simply be blanked in their entirety. Wikipedia generally does not encourage such blanking...just like it does not encourage deleting an article without doing a WP:Before job. WP:Preserve is like WP:Before. If one should check to see if an article meets the WP:Notability requirement and/or other requirements to be a standalone piece before seeking to have the article deleted, one should check to see if information in an article is verifiable and important before deleting it. If there are other reasons for deleting the information (such as WP:Due weight issues or WP:Consensus issues), that's different. As for editors complaining about others recklessly removing easily verifiable content, they, as I noted above, should complain about it. And, as I noted above, a lot of us are too busy to immediately source the easily verifiable content we restored. There's also the fact that sourcing some content can take an hour or more. In the Child grooming article case, not only was I busy, it was not a quick sourcing matter when it came to sourcing all of that. I took the matter to the talk page and was clear that I would be sourcing it. As previously noted, I sourced it days later. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:15, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Or, "nope". The fastest way to preserve material is to be omniscient, and for every other editor to respect your omniscience. However, the policy-compliant way is for you to source CHALLENGEd material that you choose to restore. If you don't choose to add the source promptly, or you feel that you can't because you're "too busy", then leave the decision about whether to source it and restore it for someone else. (You can always copy it to the talk page, as recommended by PRESERVE, if you're worried that it will get lost in the page history.)

The English Wikipedia does encourage the blanking of unsourced material that any editor believes is wrong. The suggested timescale runs from absolutely immediately for contentious claims about living people to some months after tagging for minor things, but if you honestly believe that something is wrong, then we want that material either to be verifiED correct or killed. Blanking unsourced material that an editor suspects of being wrong, even if it would belong in the article if correct, has been explicitly encouraged for years:

"I really want to encourage a much stronger culture which says: it is better to have no information, than to have information like this, with no sources. Any editor who removes such things, and refuses to allow it back without an actual and appropriate source, should be the recipient of a barnstar."

— Jimmy Wales, 19 July 2006

WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:55, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Letting important information stay out of our articles because an editor did not due his or her duty of checking to see that the material is important is not a solution; it's detrimental. Leaving inaccurate information in our articles is not the solution; it's detrimental, and, above, I quoted you from years ago making that clear. WP:BURO, which is also policy, is very clear that our policies and guidelines should not be used so strictly that they are detrimental to our articles; they should be used with care and common sense. And that's how I edit. Blanking unsourced material that an editor suspects of being wrong, even if it would belong in the article if correct, has never been explicitly encouraged when it is solely based on suspicion because the editor did not research what he or she was removing; WP:Preserve is intended to stop silly removals like that. The only way I would remove material based on suspicion is if my researching the topic did not bring back any results for support of the material and/or if it's WP:Non-English. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:16, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

"Blanking unsourced material that an editor suspects of being wrong" is absolutely mandatory for contentious material about BLPs, and it is to be done "immediately", e.g., without waiting to do research. Therefore, I conclude that your assertion that this "has never been explicitly encouraged" is false. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

You can conclude that, but Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 63#Restoration of challenged material and various other discussions show that Wikipedians often do not tolerate editors removing any ole unsourced material that they want to from our BLPs. Like I just stated to you above, "Something being challenged does not mean that it was validly challenged. We commonly do not tolerate nonsense." In my "22:16, 5 May 2016 (UTC)" post, I wasn't focusing on WP:BLPs anyway, which everyone knows are a stricter matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:50, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Convenience break

I'd totally agree with WhatamIdoing that any editor can and should blank material they believe is wrong. I think the only bone of contention here is at what point it's reasonable to "believe it's wrong". My position is that there are two alternatives: (1) You have a basic knowledge of the topic area and you reasonably believe the information is wrong; or (2) You are ignorant of the topic area but you have performed a basic internet search, glanced for up to sixty seconds at the first page of results, followed any of the links that might be to reliable sources, checked, and you then reasonably believe the information is wrong. My position is that if you haven't done these things then you might well believe it's wrong, but you have no reasonable basis for your belief, and it's irresponsible of you to remove the content. It's also a violation of the editing policy as enshrined at PRESERVE. If Flyer22 then reverts you she may be in breach of BURDEN, but you the removing editor breached PRESERVE first.—S Marshall T/C 12:59, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

And how do we know which category another editor is in? Typically, the person who removes the information honestly believes that he/she is knowledgeable, and that the removal is reasonable. And typically those who object believe that the remover is ignorant, and that the removal is unreasonable. We are supposed to assume good faith... even when it comes to removals. Blueboar (talk) 13:37, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

• How do we know which category? We use our judgment. This discussion was triggered by two groups of edits. Firstly, this, followed by edit-warring to keep the content out (here and here). I'm completely confident that neither you, Blueboar, nor WhatamIdoing, would ever have removed this content with this edit summary. The removing editor lacked a basic knowledge of the topic area and had not performed a thirty-second google search. Both Flyer22 and I sourced the content but this was fractious, difficult and wasteful of competent editor time. My position is that if repeated, this kind of behaviour should be grounds for administrator intervention on the basis that the removing editor was in breach of the editing policy. I feel it would be better if WP:BURDEN did not enable and encourage removing key paragraphs from articles you know nothing about and have not researched. The other example seems more complicated to me.—S Marshall T/C 14:46, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Also... there is a third alternative... (3) You are an intelligent person who knows a little bit about a topic area... enough to question some bit of unsourced information... but not enough to know which sources are reliable, and which are not reliable (there is a lot of unreliable crap on the internet, after all... so doing a quick google search may not actually answer the question). My opinion is that it is quite reasonable to challenge the information in such situations, in the hopes that those who know the topic better than you do (those who might be able to determine which sources are reliable, and which are not) will supply a reliable source for it. Blueboar (talk) 14:15, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

• In that case I would say that you were not behaving recklessly or stupidly, and I would feel that your CHALLENGE was reasonable. I would urge you to employ a tag before removing the text, but if your decision was to remove the text, then I think it would be inappropriate to revert you summarily. I would not be willing to replace the challenged content without an inline citation to a reliable source. I only really differ from your position in the case of editors who recklessly or stupidly remove content that is verifiable but not verified.—S Marshall T/C 15:10, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

  In which case, you must agree that the editor at Human penis took a reasonable action, based upon his (or her) knowledge of the subject (however limited that knowledge may have been). The edit summaries there indicate that the editor recognized that the text was didn't match what he'd read before – and even cited a reliable source to support the change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

• Generally I find that example more complicated. The editor had researched and come to conclusions which, ah, do not accord with what I was taught in developmental biology. They also apologised, and were less confrontational and less prone to edit-war. Yes, I do find their behaviour in general more reasonable. I think the child grooming example is much clearer, and I think it strips the issue we're discussing down to the bare essentials, because the content that was removed was indisputably accurate, the removing editor was factually wrong. In that case "reckless" is not too strong a word.—S Marshall T/C 09:50, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

• In general i am struggling with this whole debate. VERIFY is fundamental to what we do here and citing sources is really basic scholarship. Basic. I have >60K edits and I don't think I have ever written something in Wikipedia (outside of content in a LEAD) that wasn't derived from a source and cited to that source. The mission is to provide the public with articles that reliably summarize accepted knowledge. I struggle with people who edit emphasizing PRESERVE but will not provide sources per VERIFY; they are never on solid ground as they are always at least half-wrong. This whole thing, arguing fiercely over unsourced content, is just so wrong-headed and .... lost. Jytdog (talk) 17:01, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

• (Written in response to the first version of Jytdog's comment): This discussion was triggered by this edit, followed by edit-warring to keep that paragraph out of the article. It's pretty clearly intended to invoke WP:BURDEN, and it was pretty clearly a reckless and/or negligent edit in contravention of the editing policy. You're not exactly my favourite editor, Jytdog, but you're capable of paying attention and thinking before you click "save". You probably wouldn't have made that edit, and if you had made it and been reverted, you would have checked and then apologised. You certainly wouldn't have edit-warred to keep the paragraph out. Why are you defending behaviour that I'm quite sure falls far below your own standards?—S Marshall T/C 17:50, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

See what I wrote here, to you. That content should not be in WP without a high quality source. That is the issue here, to me. There is all kinds of nonsense that people believe about really important things. Whether this is nonsense, half-nonsense, or is actually a summary of what we know about molesters, I don't know. That nobody brought a source is bad on both sides; nobody was applying basic scholarship. Jytdog (talk) 17:54, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, everyone is saying that the content shouldn't be in Wikipedia without a high-quality source. There are plenty of high-quality sources for it, and in fact when I was pinged, I provided one with my next edit. (If you don't know who the NSPCC are or why they're a reliable source, please don't edit articles about child protection on Wikipedia.) I've repeatedly said that finding sources is everyone's job. What would you have done in Spacecowboy420's position? Would you have removed the content and edit-warred to keep it out, or would you have looked it up?—S Marshall T/C 19:26, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Or perhaps both? Flyer originally claimed that it would be easy to source it (and so the editor, if he'd done next to no searching at all, should have kept it), but then says that it took quite a long time to find reliable sources to support it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
    • It was easy to source, though. You can very easily test that for yourself. My experience of you is that you're a thoughtful and reasonable editor who cares about getting articles right, and I think we want policy to encourage editors to behave roughly as you would. And I keep saying that you would not have behaved like that. You would not have edit-warred to keep that content out. Would you? Will you look me in the eye and tell me the removing editor wasn't behaving recklessly?—S Marshall T/C 09:50, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
      • Sure: I believe that we could identify multiple other satisfactory explanations for that edit, ranging at least from worrisome POV pushing through a POINTY-headed CHALLENGE to an honest misunderstanding based upon the editor's knowledge. However, I do not believe that recklessness – which means being indifferent to what happens to the article – is a reasonable explanation. It seems to me that the editor cared very much what happened to that content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
        • Hm. Okay, I admire your ability to see the best in people. I think if that editor cared about the content he would have checked the sources. All I see is an editor objecting to being reverted and creating a content dispute where none was necessary.—S Marshall T/C 22:34, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Word. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:50, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Edit warring is reckless, no doubt about it. Removal of unsourced material or removal of unsourced material which has been restored without a source is not, regardless of how easy it might be to provide a source, unless, perhaps, the removal is so quick as to not provide the restorer the chance to provide a source in a second edit within a few minutes or, at most, an hour or two. While removing unsourced material without first seeking a source or {{cn}}-tagging may be a reason for sanctioning someone if done routinely and as a practice (especially, and perhaps only, if in pursuit of a POV), the remedy is not to restore the unsourced material unilaterally but to file a complaint at ANI. The problem in that case is not the removal of the material per se (regardless of subject matter or deemed importance) but the fact that an editor is consistently not following best practices and, by doing so, demonstrating that s/he is NOTHERE. Prior to showing that about themself, however, AGF is also a policy and on any individual edit or short or intermittent series of edits (interspersed, in the latter case, with quality edits) cannot be presumed to be reckless merely because they remove without looking for a source which is clearly permitted by policy. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 11:23, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

I would like to pick out and address this idea that WP:AGF protects editors who remove content. Obviously AGF applies to everyone, but the true case is that Wikipedians can, do, and must, form judgments about the intent behind an edit. This is what makes it possible to deal with editors who are socking, have undisclosed agendas, or otherwise behave in ways detrimental to the encyclopaedia. We look at the edits and we judge the person behind them: it's routine, normal. In the specific case we're discussing any fool can see that we weren't dealing with a bad-faith editor. We were dealing with Randy in Boise.

There's an apposite quote from WP:COMPETENCE: Insufficient technical knowledge is not usually a problem, unless when adding, deleting, or changing technical content. Not everyone needs the same skill set—and as long as people operate only where they're capable, differences in skill sets are not a problem. This was technical content, and the truth is that Wikipedia is full of un-cited technical content. I could spend my whole life going through articles within the scope of, say, WikiProject Mathematics adding citations to paragraphs that are perfectly accurate and have no inline citations whatsoever. And when I'd finished Randy from Boise would still be able to remove random paragraphs under WP:BURDEN to the material detriment of the encyclopaedia. We're at the stage now where not every key article is on anyone's watchlist. People like Flyer22, who're willing to watch this stuff and guard its accuracy, need our support. We can lose valuable editors this way. Please feel free to pop over to her talk page and add a thank-you or the barnstar of your choice because if she hadn't intervened, the article would probably still look like it did when Spacecowboy420 left it.—S Marshall T/C 13:22, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Not convinced. It is still not a matter of intent, it's a matter of effect. Someone whether they are clueless or malicious does something that makes an article worse. (True we perhaps err on the side of assuming cluelessness but then again, we want to communicate in a non-drama fashion, clarify, remember we are not infallible, etc.). But sure, extended cluelessness becomes an incompetence problem. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:47, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, S Marshall. I want to point out that I do follow the WP:AGF guideline (it's not a policy), but I am not as strict with it as some editors are. I've already noted that I follow our rules with care and common sense. But just as there are times when I probably should have assumed good faith, there are times where assuming good faith was inaccurate. As seen in this and this section from my talk page, Bishonen rightly questioned me for reverting a couple of edits as WP:AGF. I told Bishonen the following: "There was a time when I would have been quick to revert that as vandalism. These days, I am more likely to assume that maybe the editor heard it somewhere, including by the subject himself, was joking because they honestly don't know how Wikipedia is supposed to work, or something else. I glanced at the edit quickly and wanted it gone, and I did not want to analyze it any further than that. I usually revert vandalism or other disruptive edits as vandalism or disruption; other times I might not. And I'm stating that as someone who despises how much the WP:Good faith guideline is used without reason. Goodness knows it's my enemy in sockpuppet cases where I know what I'm talking about and sometimes have to put up with the 'assume good faith' people."

Bishonen pointed to WP:Don't link to WP:AGF, which is an excellent essay about people pointing/linking to the WP:AGF guideline in unhelpful or inaccurate ways. None of the cases being discussed here now at this talk page was a WP:AGF matter. Pointing out reckless behavior is not a violation of WP:AGF. We all make mistakes. And, in this case, Spacecowboy420 made a mistake. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:34, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Convenience break

• What a wall of text over what could be a nonissue. Article content is supposed to be referenced so that anyone reading the article knows where it's from. Otherwise, the likely answer is "Off the top of the editor's head" (or a somewhat less polite expression meaning the same thing). That might be right, it might not. If someone challenges it (a real challenge, such as a removal with the edit summary "Remove, this needs a reference", not some drive-by blanking vandal, and yes we can all tell the difference), the burden is now on any editor who wants to restore the material to go find that reference. If it's something dead obvious and well known, great! Finding the reference will be very easy. Cite it, restore the material, everyone goes on about their day. But I know I've had more than one experience where I thought I knew something, only to find out I was wrong to some degree when I actually went and looked. And that's why the requirement actually is that article material should be referenced in the first place. If someone notices it's not and challenges it, an editor wishing to restore it must find and cite a reliable source. Period. If that can't be easily done, well then, the material should stay gone until we can find a good reference and get good facts from it. Challenging unreferenced material is not "damaging" or "vandalizing" an article; indeed, I'd say it's more damaging to an article to have massive chunks of unreferenced text hanging around indefinitely. To not worry about it with your own edits, every time you add article material, cite a reference. You were doing that anyway, right? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:22, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

• Seraphimblade, could you just confirm that you've followed the diffs and you know the context?—S Marshall T/C 19:30, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Nope, Seraphimblade nailed it. Most of the above is drama that misses the fundamentals. Jytdog (talk) 19:52, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Wow, that's a lot of talk about the blindingly obvious. Really, either remove or tag it if you're too busy to source it. If you're the one adding it back in under some urgent compulsion to PRESERVE, then either source it or at least tag it yourself as {{cn}}. We do need to stiffen our resolve on this: why not ask for cites up front, before the content. Even if they're badly formed cites, it should clarify to other editors just whence the wild idea came. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:18, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

S Marshall, I think that all Seraphimblade really needs to know about the diffs is this: At Human penis, neither the sourced change nor the unsourced version that Flyer was reverting to were actually correct. One was certainly more wrong than the other, but it's not until these edits by Jytdog that the article gets the facts straight. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

And as made clear above and at the Human penis talk page, "[S]ources don't usually state that 'most of the penis is homologous to the clitoris'; they usually state that 'the clitoris and penis are homologous.' [...] The clitoris and penis develop from the genital tubercle and are very much the same organ, except manifested in different ways due to sexual differentiation. This is why they are called homologous rather than 'mostly homologous.' " So, given the abundance of sources that state that "the clitoris and penis are homologous," including those that do so without any need of stating that "the shaft is homologous to the labia minora" (you know, the same labia minora that is an aspect of the clitoris), feel free to explain how the article stating "The penis is homologous to the clitoris." was wrong. I've been meaning to expand on this at the Human penis talk page discussion, but I'll go ahead briefly note it here as well: Sources are not always consistent in how they address the genital tubercle and urogenital folds matter with regard to the development of the clitoris and penis. This is likely because the urogenital folds aid the formation of the urethral groove on the ventral portion of the genital tubercle. Some sources simply state that the genital tubercle forms the glans clitoris and glans penis, while other sources state the genital tubercle elongates and forms the shaft and glans of the penis, and that the genital tubercle forms the glans and shaft of the clitoris. In other words, sources do not only state that the genital tubercle only forms the glans of both organs. Nor do they usually state that genital tubercle only forms the glans of both organs. This 2003 Diagnostic Imaging of Fetal Anomalies source, from Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, page 606, is one example of that. This 2011 Lecture Notes: Biomedical Science source, from John Wiley & Sons, page 245, is another. And this 2009 Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility source, from BI Publications Pvt Ltd, shows where both Jytdog and I were coming from; it has the following layout:

• Labioscrotal swellings -- Scrotum/Labia majora

• Urogenital folds -- Ventral aspect of the penis/labia minora

• Genital tubercle -- Penis/Clitoris

• Urogenital sinus -- Urinary parts

Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:50, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Eh, I really don't have much more to state on this matter. I'd be repeating myself if I did. But I will state the following: If I find any editor consistently carelessly removing unsourced material from our articles (which means that they are consistently ignoring the WP:Preserve policy), I am likely to report it at WP:ANI. And given the cases I've seen at WP:ANI about such reckless removals (I don't mean the vandals, obviously), and given matters seen at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 63#Restoration of challenged material, I'd have more than enough support on the issue. Challenging unreferenced material is damaging our articles when the content belongs in our articles and the editor(s) recklessly removed it instead of following one of the protocols listed in the WP:Preserve policy. And it's not unnecessary drama to point out or bitch about this reckless behavior. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:27, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

You seem to be unusually certain of your ability to determine whether another person is behaving recklessly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

It's called having eyes and common sense. You seem to be unusually certain that defending reckless behavior, and criticizing those for pointing out the reckless behavior, is beneficial to this project. It isn't. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:50, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

To determine that an action is "reckless", you must make a judgment about the actor's state of mind (to quote Wiktionary: "reckless, adjective: Careless or heedless; headstrong or rash. Indifferent to danger or the consequences.") I don't usually think that editors who spend multiple days asking you to please provide a source to support the material, or one who very promptly provides a source himself, are actually "careless". That sounds like "caring quite a bit" rather than "not caring at all". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Determining reckless behavior is not rocket science. Editors at this site are usually correct about what is and is not reckless behavior, which is why the WP:Vandalism policy and WP:Disruptive editing guideline exist, and why the WP:Competence essay exists. The removal of the content at the Child grooming article was reckless behavior, plain and simple. And why has been thoroughly explained in this discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:25, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Seraphimblade is only a little off. It's just the way of the wiki and demonstrably true in the real world that as WP:V recognizes, it is possible (and regularly done on and off wiki) to write good encyclopedia content without in-line citation. So, according V policy, ab initio 'all' that is generally required is for RS to exist not that it be cited. For those who lack clue in editing about a topic, it needs to be continually stressed, so they get clue, that the purpose of policy is not to follow policy but to have good encyclopedia articles. (Thus also, V policy actively encourages editors to become educated about the topic they are editing.)Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:31, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Well said; this is why I pointed to the WP:BURO policy above. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:34, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Not quite... Because information that is "likely to be challenged" does have to be cited ab initio. And ... Even when something might not have to be cited ab initio , a citation becomes required should it actually be challenged. Blueboar (talk) 17:18, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Not quite. Because to state a challenge you need to upon actual consideration, be able to say in good faith (assumed), that you do not think an RS exists (can be found). Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:43, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Which was, in fact, done in both of these examples. One said (I paraphrase very liberally from edit summaries) "This is wrong, I'm correcting it and citing a source that supports my correction rather than the old text", and the other said "This is original research", the very definition of which is "material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist."

So, yes, while it's helpful to be explicit (so that other editors know that you're definitely issuing a CHALLENGE), in these two cases, there can be no reasonable doubt about whether the existence of reliable sources to support the removed content was the main question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

"Which was, in fact, done in both of these examples."? No, it wasn't. In the Child grooming case, the editor simply stated that the content seems like original research; he was not sure and did not check to see if the content was correct. In no way did he indicate "I don't think reliable sources exist at all for this content." He was simply lazy, reckless and standoffish. In the Human penis case, the editor simply believed he was correct; he did not indicate that he believed that reliable sources could not be found for what I was restoring. He then went on a search; I have no doubt that he came across sources supporting the content he was removing, but it seems he still wanted to find a source to support his text. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:25, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

WAID, it's not about empty formalism, including in the challenge. Where someone misrepresents something is true (eg. an RS does not exist, eg., NOR exists) when it is false, they are at best mistaken, and should review their method. Otherwise, if it continues, where they repeatedly maintain such false assertions about sources and thus subjects, they put their competence and good faith in issue. Occasional mistakes fine, but work to reduce them (the easiest and best way is by learning about the subject you edit). If their concern is another content policy, they should learn how to express and discuss that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:51, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Wow the level of credulity there... Well there is one born every minute, as they say. Jytdog (talk) 21:00, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Your comment makes no sense, if you are responding to my comment. Or are you just trying to make an off-topic personal attack? Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:30, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

There is no policy that says "check your common sense at the login page". The radical (!) claim you are made that people accept that every word of some bit of content accurately summarizes accepted knowledge was rather surprising to read. Jytdog (talk) 22:40, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Well, your statement about my supposed "radical" claim makes no sense. Central to my comment was 'learn about the topic you edit.' That's not radical, and not requiring anyone's acceptance, it is about making informed judgements in your editing. Do you have something against people knowing the topic they edit. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:49, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

This conversation has become completely "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin". Look the mission is to provide the public with articles that summarize accepted knowledge. The content of articles must be actually derived from published, reliable sources and if challenged a source must be provided. You completely flipped common sense on its head when you wrote "Where someone misrepresents something is true (eg. an RS does not exist, eg., NOR exists) when it is false..." The baseline in Wikipedia (and in the real world) is not "assume everything you read is true". Jytdog (talk) 23:05, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

There is no common sense in not knowing the subject you are editing. If you don't know the subject, you don't know the subject, and are prone to misrepresent knowledge about the topic, including its sources. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:13, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

of course one has to know the subject matter. that is not the part of your radical statement i am reacting to. Jytdog (talk) 23:16, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

You're not making much sense because practically the entire comment is about knowing your subject, including what sources exist in the world. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:21, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

I will reply a last time and then am done here b/c I don't have time to debate angels on pins. You made a very broad statement above. In my experience (both watching and doing), when people who know the subject matter challenge unsourced content, it is a win for encyclopedia most of the time, because most unsourced content is in whole or part OR or unverifiable. I cannot think of the last time I came across unsourced content, wanted to source it, and left the content unchanged after finding a high quality source and citing it. I work in pretty technical areas so maybe others' experience is different. But this whole thing about "Where someone misrepresents something is true (eg. an RS does not exist, eg., NOR exists) when it is false, they are at best mistaken" is just upside down. You are putting all this emphasis on the very rare set of cases where it turns out that that every bit of the unsourced content was actually very high quality, and was just lacking a source. Jytdog (talk) 23:41, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

I made a so-called "broad statement" that you failed to read in context, so you seized upon it out of context. As for your practice, good, that's exactly what I suggested, as for people who don't do that, they should learn, which is also what I suggested. People actually do need to take responsibility for their claims about sources. (and to just put a coda on the rest, you do keep the good stuff, you don't keep the bad but that is not done in wholesale removal). Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:49, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

• We should probably define what constitutes a valid challenge, because that's what this whole argument is really about.—S Marshall T/C 17:23, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, but no... I doubt we will ever reach consensus on what constitutes "a valid challenge". The best we might be able to achieve is a consensus on a few very limited situations that constitute an invalid challenge ... And even those will be difficult to reach consensus on. Personally, I would call any challenge "valid", as long as the editor who is doing the challenging is acting in good faith... ie he or she believes the challenge is valid. Blueboar (talk) 19:00, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

The policy already says what a valid challenge is, and it pretty closely follows with what the policy expressly says it wants, for there to be an RS (whether cited or not). Thus, a valid challenge is when after due consideration the challenger has real (ie., good faith) reason to think that that an RS does not exist/cannot be found. Perhaps, we could be clearer but really the point and principle is 'make articles better: know/study the topic you edit.' Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:16, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

• No, Alan, I'm afraid it doesn't say what a valid challenge is.—S Marshall T/C 20:22, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes it does: When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable . . . communicate clearly that you have a considered reason to believe that the material in question cannot be verified . . .

If you want it more hard edge than that fine, but it specifically says what the mental and communicative process is. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:53, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

With my "06:50, 8 May 2016 (UTC)" post above, I stated, "no one should be going to our science articles and removing unsourced material simply because, with their limited knowledge, they think the material is implausible. [...] If it was okay to remove material simply because one thinks it's implausible, our articles would be worse off now and the WP:Preserve policy would not exist. Something being challenged does not mean that it was validly challenged. We commonly do not tolerate nonsense." And with his "13:22, 8 May 2016 (UTC)" post above, S Marshall stated, "I could spend my whole life going through articles within the scope of, say, WikiProject Mathematics adding citations to paragraphs that are perfectly accurate and have no inline citations whatsoever. And when I'd finished Randy from Boise would still be able to remove random paragraphs under WP:BURDEN to the material detriment of the encyclopaedia."

Those statements are in harmony and yet conflict at the same time. This is because, if other editors chime in, I don't think that "Randy from Boise would still be able to remove random paragraphs under WP:BURDEN to the material detriment of the encyclopaedia." I've seen enough cases where editors blank material because it's unsourced and then get criticized for it, warned for it, or sanctioned for it. Not simply because they removed unsourced material, of course, but rather because they carelessly removed it. They did not take the time to see if the content was correct and/or try to preserve it. This is usually in the case of important content that was removed. Time and again this site has objected to editors going in and downsizing an article with good content to a stub simply because the article was unsourced. Sure, the editor can cite WP:Burden, but another can cite WP:Preserve and ask that the other editor restore the material, or agree to restore the material, because it will soon be cited. WP:Preserve is clear that there is no set time limit; it's something to be worked out between the editors. So, yes, I think that Wikipedia already recognized what a valid challenge is; I see it all the time in WP:Disruptive editing cases, including those of the WP:POINT variety. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:52, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_Citizen_Action

Hello - I have updated the entry for Ohio Citizen Action and added inline citations. Do more citations need to be made before the error message on the page can be removed?

"This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2014)"

Thanks, Princeps2016 (talk) 17:00, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

If you think that everything that this policy requires to be cited — that is, everything which has been challenged or is likely to be challenged — has a citation to a reliable source as defined by this policy, then you can remove it. The best practice is that everything in the article should be cited to a reliable source, but what I just said above is the minimum. If someone else disagrees and restores the tag, don't revert them. Discuss the matter on the article talk page and try to come to consensus on whether or not the tag should be there. Remember that tags are not badges of shame, merely an indicator that the article may need more work. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:18, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

VERIFY and lists of names or works

Does each entry in a list of alum etc of a university need to have in-line citations to meet VERIFY?

Related, does each entry in a list of works by a composer need to have an inline citation to meet VERIFY?

I'll give my opinion after others have weighed in, to keep this neutral. Jytdog (talk) 09:40, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed many times before. Short answer: yes. Longer answer: it depends on how controversial the topic is (and, thus, how likely it is that inclusion on the list will be challenged). Note: it may not be necessary for every entry to have its own separate citation. If there is a single citation that covers the entire group, citing that single source at the end of the list would satisfy WP:V. (For example, if a school maintains a list of notable alumni on its website, and every entry listed in the Wikipedia article is on that website's list... we can cite the website once for the entire list.) Blueboar (talk) 10:22, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Content does not need a in-line citation to be WP:Verifiable, but yes if it's challenged or likely to be (see, "When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable."), a citation should be added (but see, WP:BLP for living people, which is stricter) 'taking into account the state of the article', if it's all blue-linked then it's likely an RS has already been found, which can be used. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:37, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

It is very unusual to see a non-WP:POINTY, good-faith WP:CHALLENGE of material in simpler lists, especially if those lists do not include information about living people. So we have "technically, according to the strictest wikilawyer" rules (cite each line separately) and "reality" rules (most bluelinks don't get cited, and WP:General references are commonly used for other entries), and you will have to figure out which type of editor you're dealing with. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:00, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

I am unsure how to react to what you write here, WAID. In both of these cases I have moved big unsourced lists to the Talk page. There is an additional element here and that is promotionalism; if you want to call that POINTY, so be it. In any case the list of works by the composer was added to the article by the composer; it is promotional and an effort to use WP as his webhost/CV. If we are going to have it, it needs to be cited, in my view. On the New School list of "famous alum" the promotionalism is both ways - people who are listed there get a de-orphaning link and are listed as grads of a great school, and the school gets the boost of being associated with a famous person. One of the great functions of VERIFY with strong sourcing is that it eliminates a lot of promotional content that people want to add to WP. So yes my stance is that asking other editors to click through to blue-linked article and hope to find a citation there is not reasonable and it completely unreasonable to have a non-linked, unsourced item in any list. Jytdog (talk) 14:40, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Do you have any reason to believe that this allegedly promotional material is factually wrong? Do you have any reason to believe that the information could not be supported by a source (including self-published, non-independent, and other lower-quality reliable sources, e.g., the subject's own website) if you spent enough time searching for sources? If the answer to these questions is "no", then the material is already verifiable and you shouldn't have blanked it on grounds of verifiability. (Remember that the policy is that material must be possible to verify through some means, including the means of "doing your own search for sources"; the policy does not require that all material already be cited. Material only truly fails verifiability when sources cannot be found).

Promotionalism is NPOV's problem, because promotional material followed by an inline citation is still promotional. I very strongly doubt that you will get any support for removing such information on grounds of promotionalism/non-neutrality. I doubt this because if a list of compositions or alumni is promotional for this composer or this school, then it's promotional for all of them, and including this type of material is absolutely typical for such articles. But you could try to get support for that idea at WP:NPOVN, if you wanted to. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:05, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with a lot of you wrote. VERIFY keeps unsourced promotional content out of Wikipedia. Good policies have more than one positive effect on the encyclopedia. Generally If something is unsourced and "sky is blue" I of course leave it. I generally move plausible/truthy unsourced stuff to the Talk page. I remove implausible unsourced content. That is entirely consistent with VERIFY and the editing policy. A big laundrylist that is unsourced is not OK in my view - it fails VERIFY. yes there are piles of garbage everywhere in WP - this place is shot through with bad content just like it has great content in places. I'll add here that there are plenty of times where i go to find sources about some topic that has unsourced content. You know how often I just tack a citation on and don't change the content? Almost never. That is because unsourced content that is not sky-is-blue is pretty much always "truthy" - it doesn't actually summarize accepted knowledge as expressed in reliable sources. About your question -- the question I ask is "Do i have a reason to assume this unsourced content accurately summarizes accepted knowledge?" In these kind of contexts that are highly prone to padding/spamming - like lists of compositions for emerging composers or "famous alum" in a university article, things should be sourced. Jytdog (talk) 16:04, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

I know that WP:V gets abused as a way of removing inappropriate information, just like MEDRS gets used that way (perhaps largely because we've not yet written MEDDUE). The fact that it's easier to say "unsourced and challenged, so it's gone" than "let's have a long argument about my subjective impression that this is promotional" affects the stated excuses that people give, but promotional material does not belong, regardless of whether it's sourced.

The fact that this policy is abused that way does not mean that an uncited statement like "Shimon Peres graduated from this college" or "Joe wrote a piece called 'Whatever'" is actually unverifiable. Or – exactly which sentence in this policy do you believe is "violated" by such sentences? The non-existent one that says "It's not possible for anyone to verify any claim in an article unless said claim is followed by a little blue clicky number, so if it's not already cited, then it's not verifiable"? There's no such rule – and there is a rule that says sourcing the list of compositions or famous alums to the subject's own self-published, non-independent websites would be 100% acceptable. WP:V is not the best strategy for attacking promotional material (assuming that we agreed upon what constitutes promotionalism, and in both of these cases, I suspect that your POV is not the overall community's). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:20, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Nope it is not abuse. In any context, good policies and practices have many good effects. I am not happy about your claims about my approach and actions here and it is not clear to me how to take this discussion forward productively in a way that doesn't damage our relationship. Jytdog (talk) 15:22, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Well, WAID is correct. WP:V could hardly be more specific that it is problematic to tag or remove material because you don't like its POV, under WP:V policy - that's another policy discussion. Please re-read WP:V policy especially the paragraph with note 4 (where removing large chunks of material is frowned upon, and it is practice to state, after consideration, no source can be found). Again, WP:Verfiability does not mean there is an in-line citation. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:36, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

You too are missing the point here. What I am saying has nothing to do with POV, at all. Jytdog (talk) 15:45, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I thought you said you were removing things because they are promotional, which is most certainly a POV issue, and in some cases a COI issue. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:49, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

No. What I said was that I moved these to the Talk page because they were unsourced. People have argued that it is fine if nothing in the list is sourced, especially with regard to items in the list that are wikilinke (where I guess they assume that people wanting to verify will find a reliable source with which to verify). I don't agree with any of that. I also noted' that these two particular lists were ones that served promotional purposes. That is a secondary issue. Jytdog (talk) 16:04, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

What don't you agree with? It just is a fact that V policy says: "Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. . . . When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable. . . When tagging or removing such material, please keep in mind that such edits can be easily misunderstood. Some editors object to others making chronic, frequent, and large-scale deletions of unsourced information, especially if unaccompanied by other efforts to improve the material. Do not concentrate only on material of a particular POV, as that may result in accusations that you are in violation of WP:NPOV. Also check to see whether the material is sourced to a citation elsewhere on the page. For all of these reasons, it is advisable to communicate clearly that you have a considered reason to believe that the material in question cannot be verified. . . .If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it."

That there are bluelinks is a "material and state of the article" fact suggesting that there is a "considered reason to believe" that material can be WP:Verifiable. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:26, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Then again, sky is more often black, and frequently grey, so attribution for blue has some merit too. LeadSongDog come howl! 03:03, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog, what you do to resolve this is you read the whole policy, and see whether you can find a specific sentence that you believe is "violated" by the inclusion of unsourced, promotional material – and not equally violated by unsourced, non-promotional material. If no such sentence exists, then you might consider taking on board the idea that the purpose of this policy does not happen to include fighting promotionalism. Anti-promotionalism is a good fight to fight, and I do appreciate, but this isn't really the tool for it. It's sort of like trying to keep drunk drivers off the road: there are many ways to do it under some circumstances, from calling taxis to stealing their cars to putting them in jail, but only some of the methods are really designed for that purpose and likely to be effective in the long term. Fortunately, we have a different tool that is extraordinarily well suited to that fight. I encourage you to use that one when you're fighting promotionalism. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:13, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Again what you are writing here is based on almost willful mis-hearing of what I am saying. Why you are persisting, I don't know. Jytdog (talk) 01:03, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

• Everyone so far pretty much agrees with WAID. If that's because we're misunderstanding you, then I suggest that you re-state your position more clearly.—S Marshall T/C 21:39, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Blueboar above and Francis Schonken below understood the question and responded to it. Jytdog (talk) 22:40, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Dead composer examples:

• Example of a list of compositions in table format that has separate references for every row: List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach#Works in Bach's catalogues and collections (not necessarily footnoted references: see prior discussion at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 202#Lists need individual sources to avoid list-copyright for how that works).
• Example of a list of compositions with one single reference in the lead section: List of cantatas by Christoph Graupner.

Both of the previous work for me.

Unreferenced problem for a dead composer: see for instance List of compositions by Franz Schubert#Not in the Deutsch catalogue which has an "unreferenced" tag for some time now (I put it there). I can imagine if it were a living composer and someone added The Stoned Guest to the list of compositions, yeah it would be best to have some sort of reference for that (and in that case: rather move to talk page than add a {{cn}} tag).

Further, I agree with Jytdog that the commercial aspect is secondary, but please don't think this doesn't apply for dead composers: there's always some fancy new score rediscovered, or a new critical edition that obviously outranks scores of the same piece published before (e.g. prepare to buy two new full score editions of the St John Passion). And that is still only a very, very small fraction compared to the money that circulates for recordings (indeed I sometimes wonder how "commercial" we are by listing "selected" recordings when the Wikipedia editor's "selection" is nothing more than copying a list of recordings from a single, commercial, source). --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:39, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

WP:NEWSBLOG clarification request

A number of news organizations, such as Forbes and CNN, support columnist blogs, but exercise little, if any, editorial control. I specifically like taxgirl's blog at Forbes. She's a tax expert, but her column should not be considered BLP-reliable. I think this is common enough to justify clarification. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:46, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

From personal experience, I sportsblogged for Newsweek for a short time, I know that blog submissions are rarely scrutinized. My writing was copy edited but the content was never verified....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 11:48, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Arthur, I'm not necessarily disagreeing (or agreeing) with you, but I'd like to hear what exactly that you think needs clarification. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:31, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

The example in which (IMO) a source has been improperly considered reliable is "taxgirl"s blog in forbes.com being used to support information about the IRS / Tea Party controversy. She's an expert on taxes, not necessarily on internal IRS procedures, and almost certainly not on politics. My recollection is it's been called "reliable" because of WP:NEWSBLOG, even though it doesn't appear to be under Forbes' editorial control. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:00, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

@Arthur Rubin: Sorry about the slow response. I'm traveling and only have a little time to be online each day and some days not at all. Is taxgirl an expert when judged by the definition of expert in WP:SPS? Since a newspaper blog is, in that case, a self-published source, that's the definition of expert which would apply. Whether WP:BLPPRIMARY should apply if she's talking about living persons is a bit trickier. It would seem to me that any source which is self-published is also primary, but that's just off the top of my head. WP:BLPN would be a good place to ask about that. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:14, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Self-published sources are not necessarily primary sources. (For example, if a scientist posted a meta analysis of scientific reports on Facebook, then the source would be "secondary" but "self-published". Also, probably WP:NOTGOODSOURCE.)

However, when it comes to controversial statements about BLPs, the English Wikipedia frequently imposes nearly identical rules on both, so determining the exact classification may not matter much in practice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:27, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Alter wording of footnote on BURDEN?

The footnote that says "Once an editor has provided any source that he or she believes, in good faith, to be sufficient" seems to turn WP:BURDEN on its head. We are always supposed to assume good faith. This means that every time anyone claims that they "believe" a source verifies the material they must be taken at their word and the burden is then suddenly on the party wishing to remove the unsourced material.

Shouldn't the footnote read "Once an editor has provided any source that sufficiently verifies the material"?

Another option would of course be to change "(e.g., undue emphasis on a minor point, unencyclopedic content, etc.)" to read "(e.g., the cited source failing to fully verify the material, undue emphasis on a minor point, unencyclopedic content, etc.)"

I know it probably seems like I'm being nitpicky, but this is such a massive problem for the project that clarifying it here, or at least not muddying the water here by using wishy-washy wording, is critical.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:21, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I would think if there is disagreement about the quality of the source then the outcome should be determined by consensus at the talk page. Your version seems to depend on people agreeing on what is sufficient. Can you give an example of this causing a problem? I would imagine that the outcomes are a mix of the source ending up being good enough and the source not being good enough. HighInBC 13:25, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

It's not about the quality of the source. The source is fine. It just doesn't say what one or more Wikipedians claim it does. And I don't assume people agree -- my version says that the source must actually be sufficient, rather than simply assuming that if one user says it is sufficient then it must automatically be sufficient. See the recent Wikicology affair for a user with a disastrous tendency to cite "sources" that almost never directly support the claims being made. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:20, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Setting the standard to actual sufficiency is meaningless if two people can't agree on what is sufficient. If someone is using sources in a deceptive manner then we have other policies to deal with them.

Existing policy also allows us to remove content not supported by the citation, even if a citation exists that does not support it. "...any editor who later removes the material has an obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia". You would justify the exclusion by saying "The source does not support what is being said". If someone believes in good faith that the source supports something, then I think it is reasonable that the person removing it articulate why they disagree.

If there is a genuine disagreement about the sources then I think it should fall back to discussion at the talk page. HighInBC 14:26, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Per AGF, neither party's interpretation of the source (that it supports the claim or that it doesn't) can be placed above the other. This means that if there is disagreement (between an equal or roughly equal number of editors) over whether a source actually verifies a claim, the burden must remain on the editor wishing to add or maintain the claim. If an editor was asked to find a source for a claim that didn't have any inline citation attached to it and came back with a source that other editors didn't think fully verified the claim, this is actually reason to believe that the claim can't be sourced, as someone who was trying to verify it failed to do so, and this means the burden should if anything be placed even more on the editor wishing to re-add the claim. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:11, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Or it could mean that the person who rejected the profered source was engaged in POV pushing, or misread or misunderstood the source, or doesn't know what a reliable source is (see: any number of claims that blogs/corporate websites/etc. are never, ever reliable for any claim whatsoever) or any number of other things. WP:BURDEN explicitly says that you have to provide exactly one (1) source that you (=not the other editors) believe is reliable for the claim in question. After that, it's everyone's job to figure out what the sources say. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:37, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

But for the record, of course I agree that the talk page should be used if there is disagreement. I just also think that the burden of verifiability was very intentionally placed where it is, and I think it should stay there pending a consensus. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:16, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Hijiri 88, the footnote says what is meant. The BURDEN is met (not everything, but specifically and exclusively the burden imposed upon the one editor in the WP:BURDEN section) by providing a single source that the one editor sincerely believes to be reliable. After that, normal consensus processes apply.

The point of the footnote is to stop the "bring me a rock" game, in which an editor provides source after source after source, with no end. The BURDEN ends when you supply exactly one (1) source that you personally believe to be appropriate. We specify that you must have a good-faith belief that the source is reliable for the claim because we needed to get past the stupid "but what if you just cite http://example.com for everything?" objections.

Let's pretend that you and I are in a dispute. I blank something (unsourced, and IMO quite possibly wrong). You restore it, and add a source – a source that you (=not I) believe to be reliable for the claim in question. You have fully met your WP:BURDEN. My remaining options are:

1. accept your edit,
2. discuss your edit (e.g., on the talk page or at WP:RSN), and/or
3. counter with a source that I prefer (e.g., a better source that says the same thing, or a reliable source that says something different).

The only option that's not available to me is: Blank it again and demand that you bring me yet another source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:45, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree ... if WAID does not accept the source you provide, she should go to the talk page and discuss her continued concerns. Blanking again is a form of edit warring. Blueboar (talk) 20:27, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm. I'm not sure I entirely agree. The entire footnote reads, "Once an editor has provided any source that he or she believes, in good faith, to be sufficient, then any editor who later removes the material has an obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia (e.g., undue emphasis on a minor point, unencyclopedic content, etc.). All editors are then expected to help achieve consensus, and any problems with the text or sourcing should be fixed before the material is added back." (Emphasis added.) The "e.g." means "for example," thus there can be other reasons than those specifically mentioned and one of those unmentioned reasons can be that the source provided is not adequate (ordinarily, not reliable). Material which is not reliable sourced is unsourced and can be removed. Whether a source is or is not reliable is, of course, a matter over which editors can disagree and talk page discussion or BRD is needed, but there are also many cases in which a source simply is not, by any light, reliable and the source and the material which it supports can be removed. (Which is not, of course, the best practice, but is an acceptable practice.) That such could be the case is made plain by the "or sourcing" and the "before ... added back" in the second sentence. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:59, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: But none of those three options should be a requirement if the source provided does not actually support the wording in the article. Whether the user who added the source has a "good faith" belief that it does should be irrelevant. The user could be incompetent, and drawing that conclusion is not a violation of AGF. A claim that has a source attached to it that doesn't actually support the claim is an unsourced claim, and AGF cannot trump this fact. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:22, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

If the source truly doesn't support the statement (e.g., it is a claim about the price of pizza and I have provided you with a copy of Einstein's Annus Mirabilis papers), then you should have no difficulty getting other editors to articulate a consensus that my source is inadequate, ideally by providing sources that show the opposite (or even by providing sources that show the claim is correct, no matter how inadequate my suggested source was). However, simply "blank it again and demand that I bring you another source" is no longer an option. Once I've met the burden, you have to do a little more work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:37, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm, WhatamIdoing. In the Arbcom case that has been mentioned here, that was precisely what happened. Getting the consensus that sources which didn't even mention the material didn't support the material proved impossible in the discussions that followed, and a surprisingly large cadre of editors (including arbitrators) supported the proposition that it was legitimate to restore challenged material and source it at one's leisure, so it didn't matter that the sources didn't support the material. Not permitting immediate re-removal leaves us open to bald-face lying and intentional disruption.—Kww(talk) 03:57, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

@Blueboar: You are right to say that blanking again (after a source, any source, has been provided) is a form of edit-warring. But you would also be right to say that blanking again after no source is provided is a form of edit-warring. This policy is supposed to assume that editors use their brains and prefer the talk page to edit-warring, and bringing (obvious) fact that "it's technically a form of edit-warring to remove an unsourced claim over and over again" into the wording of BURDEN is severely problematic. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:28, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

No, "blanking again if no source is provided" is not edit warring... Because the removed material should not have been restored without a source. Restoring without a source can be equated to vandalism, and may be freely re-removed until a source is provided That is the whole point of BURDEN... Don't restore without a source. Blueboar (talk) 21:48, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

The entire #Preserving a burden discussion above (meaning including its subsections) and various other discussion similar to it show that removed material can be validly restored without a source. That's a strong point of WP:Preserve. If the content should be in the article because it is important to the article and can be sourced, it is not vandalism in any way to restore it. WP:Vandalism is very clear what is and is not vandalism. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:16, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

no, no... And again no. If you want to preserve information that has been removed for not being sourced, the way to do so is to provide a source for it. Blueboar (talk) 02:31, 20 May 2016 (UTC)‎

No, no. And again no. It's not that black and white, and editors have been explicitly clear about this in the Preserving a burden discussion above, and in past matters on this very talk page, including Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 63#Restoration of challenged material, which led to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kww and The Rambling Man. WP:Burden currently states, "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." But it is very often that Wikipedia does not work like that. When an editor goes and removes unsourced material, especially if carelessly removed (meaning without doing their WP:Preserve responsibility), they might be reverted. And it's common for the editors to discuss the matter on the talk page afterward, usually resulting in the unsourced content being sourced. There is no deadline, after all. What this policy's current wording of "should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source" does is commonly enable editors to recklessly remove content and then go about their business, as if blanking almost an entire article of easily verifiable content is helping Wikipedia. And, like I noted in the Preserving a burden discussion, it's cases like these that have seen such editors reprimanded and/or sanctioned for that behavior.

As for Hijiri88's proposal, I'm not convinced that the wording should be changed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:38, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with your interpretation, and I believe that you violate this policy every time you do that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:37, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

And your interpretation is detrimental, since you support disruptive editing every time you argue the way that you argued in the #Preserving a burden discussion. And I reiterate that this line of thinking from you is quite a recent development. Seems to have come on only because of my involvement. And let's be very clear about supposedly violating policies: If going by WP:BURO and WP:Ignore all rules, which are also policies, I violated nothing. We could argue over what cancels what out policy-wise. But to anyone with a shred of common sense, I did the right things in the cases you find so egregious. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:27, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Flyer22 you know I love the work you do here, but I am really at a loss as to what is driving this. The Wikipedia you are advocating for here would be a nightmare to me that would fill up with so much garbage. Think about that horrible student content about women having estrus that we moved to the talk page instead of PRESERVING. Think about the argument that student could have made had she taken your position here. Yikes. Please let it go. Jytdog (talk) 06:01, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog, I've been clear that I'm not stating that all information should be retained; I was very clear about what information should be retained, and that information should not be carelessly removed. WP:Preserve is policy and it doesn't support retaining everything either. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:18, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi. The thing I am struggling with, is that you are making the argument that if content is verifiable on any editor's personal authority, it needs to stay (the only authority available, since we are talking about unsourced content) That is the nightmare part of this; that is the Pandora's box you are opening with this line of policy argument. (I am not talking now about your behavior at the child grooming article. you could ~maybe~ have won an argument about that at ANI.) I am struggling with you elevating this to general policy. It is horrible to consider how this would be deployed. Just yikes. .Jytdog (talk) 06:21, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I haven't been making a personal authority argument, or suggesting any proposals here, Jytdog. I am always about looking at what the sources state and following them with WP:Due weight. Also, moving the content to the talk page is a form of PRESERVING. That's why I credited you for preserving content in such cases. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:31, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

This discussion is veering off course. Anyway, the current wording says we should "assume good faith" on the part of a user who has added some kind of source that "they honestly believe" supports the material. I didn't bring it up before because I didn't think it was necessary, but this is also turning AGF on its head, as both editors should be expected to assume good faith on the part of the other editor. If you add a source that I genuinely believe, in good faith, doesn't verify the claim made in the article, the burden is still on you to find a new source that actually verifies the content. When I say "unsourced" I don't meant "there is no inline citation attached to it"; I mean "there is no inline citation attached to it that actually verifies its content". If I remove some material that doesn't have any citation attached to it, and you re-add it with a citation that doesn't directly support it, that is a reason to remove it again, as it means someone was actively trying, and failing, to find a source for it.

Flyer22 Reborn's interpretation of this wording, that it enables users who recklessly remove unsourced material, is a radical interpretation, and (I'd be willing to bet) a very rare (among long-time, reputable editors) view of how this policy is supposed to work.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:03, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

"If you add a source that I genuinely believe, in good faith, doesn't verify the claim made in the article, the burden is still on you to find a new source that actually verifies the content."

No. The main point of this provision is that once you add a source that someone genuinely believes to be unreliable for that claim (e.g., that it {{failed verification}}), then finding a good source (and/or otherwise figuring out how to improve the article) is everyone's problem, not just the original editor's. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:37, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

• We seem to be talking about two different things here... 1) what happens when someone challenges completely unsourced information; and 2) what happens when someone challenges a cited source that does not actually support the statement. Both are valid challenges, but the manner in which the challenge is conducted changes. WP:BURDEN explains what happens in the first situation. It does not explain what happens in the second situation. In the second situation, the challenger has to explain why the source isn't good enough... So a lot more discussion is required. Blueboar (talk) 13:08, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

@Blueboar: I have a lot of experience being misunderstood, so I specified exactly what change(s) I wanted to make to the wording of the policy page in my opening comment (I would be happy with either of the two changes, but would ideally prefer both). Currently, the page misinterprets AGF and directly asserts that if someone re-adds removed material (that had previously not been attributed to any source) with a source (any source) that they claim is sufficient, the burden is then suddenly on the editor wishing to remove the material. It's right there in the footnote, so what you say about WP:BURDEN explains what happens in the first situation. It does not explain what happens in the second situation. is not entirely accurate. This is a misinterpretation of AGF, as AGF is supposed to be a two-way street. I am saying that the burden should still be on the party wishing to re-add the material to convince other Wikipedians that the source is good enough. My assertion (of course!) assumes that the other Wikipedians have outlined "why" they think the source isn't good enough. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:21, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Hijiri88, my statement about the policy's wording "commonly enabl[ing] editors to recklessly remove content and then go about their business" was clearly in reference to the "should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source" wording. I pointed to the #Preserving a burden discussion addressing this and to an AbrCom case addressing it. Such behavior is not a rare occurrence in the least. I also pointed to the Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 62#More Burden stuff example for more documentation on the matter. Really, the "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed" part combined with the "and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." part has repeatedly caused problems, in addition to being helpful in other cases. But, as noted, your proposal is not about such behavior. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:48, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

The ArbCom case to which you are referring has no bearing on this discussion, as the only content policy it cited was BLP. BLP obviously cannot apply to my concerns about the current wording of BURDEN, as under BLP contentious material must be sourced and sourced well (i.e., it cannot be a point of disagreement whether a source directly and fully backs up all the contentious material). This discussion is about (1) whether the burden remains on the party wishing to add the content after they have added a source but the source has been challenged as not directly and fully verifying the content, and (2) whether the current wording accurately reflects the current community consensus on this point. The answer to (1) is always automatically "yes" when BLP applies, so this discussion is only applicable to non-BLP subjects. I actually don't think anyone here is disagreeing with me on (1), but it's difficult to tell when nebulous and peripherally related concepts like the general reliability of this or that source (as opposed to whether a source whose general reliability is not in question verifies the content) and the responsibility to preserve appropriate content (even though BURDEN assumes that the appropriateness of the content, which may not be objectively verifiable in external reliable sources, is already in dispute) keep getting brought up.

ArbCom actually did recently comment on (1) here (they SBANned someone at least partly for adding and/or preserving content and citing sources whose verification of the content was disputed) and I doubt anyone here would disagree with the Arbs on this point. So I can only assume that those of you who haven't supported my proposed wording are disagreeing on (2). So can you let me try to convince you of my view of (2)?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:38, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

And as I've pointed out, the KWW ArbCom case was about edit warring over BURDEN, not removal of the material per se. Here's the exact findings:

Wikipedia:Edit warring#Exceptions notes "The following actions are not counted as reverts for the purposes of the three-revert rule: [...] Removal of libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced contentious material that violates the policy on biographies of living persons (BLP). What counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Consider reporting to the BLP noticeboard instead of relying on this exemption."

Kww (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) edit warred to remove uncited, but uncontroversial, material from List of awards and nominations received by Philip Seymour Hoffman (timeline) and List of awards and nominations received by Hugh Jackman (timeline)

(Emphasis added.) Just like there's no absolute EW exception for BLP violations, there's no edit warring exception — absolute or partial — for enforcing BURDEN, but that doesn't mean that such removals are prohibited in any circumstance, it just means that you can't EW over them. The proper remedy is to report the unsourced restorer to ANI or to seek page protection. — TransporterMan (TALK) 21:24, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, TransporterMan. Yes, I was confused by Flyer22 Reborn's citing of the Kww ArbCom case, as the general ban on edit-warring is not a content policy but a user conduct one, and so should not be taken as having any baring on how we should and should not encourage removal of unsourced or poorly sourced content. I do think that somewhere on this page, perhaps even in BURDEN, we should specify that reverting back and forth is never encouraged, even when one of the reverters has both BURDEN and BRD on their side and the other reverter is the one refusing to use the talk page. But it is not directly relevant to where the burden lies at any particular point. Indeed, the current wording implicitly encourages edit-warring by making it unnecessarily ambivalent on whom the burden lies. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:15, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

It should be noted that in the Arbcom case mentioned above, TRM was making no effort whatsoever to satisfy WP:BURDEN before restoring the material. He was restoring dozens of tables at a time, providing no inline citations at all, and those citations that he was providing supported only sporadic line items in single tables. He clearly stated that he believed it was correct behaviour to restore the material and then search for the sources later, an action which contradicts any reading of WP:BURDEN. The only excuse offered for his misbehaviour was that he was insufficiently competent to format tables or to edit out of article history, neither of which seems plausible. My primary mistake was to not block him for intentional disruption on his second edit: by trying to give him some rope, I wound up with people being under the impression that I was in a content dispute instead of an admin dealing with intentionally disruptive editing. Flyer22's suggested change gives such disruption. There's some case for it when the citation being provided as least mentions the material it purports to source and there's a reasonable dispute over the material's reliability, but any effort to provide some lenience there shouldn't shield editors that restore the material without any sourcing at all.

One way or another, that wasn't a good test case for WP:BURDEN: it's more an extension of the Eric Corbett kind of issue, where an editor becomes sufficiently popular that those that attempt to make him obey the same rules as more lowly editors are punished for doing so.—Kww(talk) 05:54, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

You stated that The Rambling Man "was making no effort whatsoever to satisfy WP:BURDEN before restoring the material. [...] He clearly stated that he believed it was correct behaviour to restore the material and then search for the sources later, an action which contradicts any reading of WP:BURDEN." If he intended to add sources for the information, that is an effort to satisfy WP:Burden. What is the problem if the information was not contentious? We've had enough "What counts as contentious information in our BLPs?" discussions at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons, including the Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 36#Rephrase "Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material" subheading matter I linked to above. I do think it's reckless to go around blanking material from articles just because it's unsourced and using the WP:Burden policy as justification for that behavior...unless the content is wrong, original research, shows no signs of verification or is a WP:BLP violation. WP:Burden states, "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." It does not state that the source has to be added to the article. Sure it states "inline citation," but an inline citation can be added to the talk page. If I see that someone has removed easily verifiable, encyclopedic content that belongs in one of our Wikipedia articles, that the article is worse off without it, I will revert without providing a source right then and there; I can source the matter afterward, including on the talk page when noting why the removal was wrong, and I see nothing wrong with that, especially in the aforementioned cases involving me noted at the #Preserving a burden discussion above. WP:Burden states, "Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step." Exactly. My objection will be that revert.

You stated, "Flyer22's suggested change gives such disruption." I made no suggested change. Also, linking my old username doesn't result in a ping for me. I don't need to be pinged to this talk page anyway...since it's on my watchlist. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:27, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

@Kww: Flyer is right insofar as that the proposed change is mine. Flyer has been somewhat counterproductively claiming that my proposed change goes the wrong way and suggesting that if anything it should be altered in the opposite direction, but has not made a concrete proposal. I have to say I don't know quite how to proceed when a solid proposal for an amendment to a policy page recieves no serious opposition but is hijacked with discussion of a largely unrelated dispute. Can I assume you support my proposed amendment, anyway? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:01, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Your claim that I have been "somewhat counterproductively claiming that [your] proposed change goes the wrong way and suggesting that if anything it should be altered in the opposite direction" is incorrect. The only thing I stated about your proposal is that "I'm not convinced that the wording should be changed." And when someone makes a comment that I disagree with, I am likely to respond to it. Blueboar made a comment I disagreed with here in this section; I responded here in this section, regardless of that aspect not being about your proposal. Things like that happen on talk pages. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:12, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I support your change, and find Flyer22 Reborn's contributions to the discussion hilarious. An "inline citation" cannot be added to a talk page, as such a citation could not possibly be considered "inline", and an "intention" to add a source "later" does not in any way, shape or form satisfy a policy that states that the material has to be cited before being restored, as "before" and "after" are distinct concepts.—Kww(talk) 08:18, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Kww, I couldn't care less that you are now angry with me per my above commentary and are now trying to get a rise out of me. Not angry or annoyed? I don't believe you. You may find my comments about carelessly blanking hilarious, but, as you well know, many others do not. I knew that someone would nitpick my "inline citation" comment. By "but an inline citation can be added to the talk page," I was referring to Template:Reflist-talk. I do not define "inline" as strictly as you do, obviously. Either way, many do not agree with your interpretation of WP:Burden. You have always been overzealous when it comes to citing WP:Burden, and that caught up with you. Keep WP:BURO in mind in the future. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:51, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

And to be clearer on taking matters to the talk page, when I add text and sources (via Template:Reflist-talk) to the talk page, I consider those inline citations there on the talk page; they are inline citations for that content, and it is how the content will appear in the article. To me, it is hardly any different than using a WP:Sandbox. I see no strict "only articles have inline citations" interpretation at WP:Inline citation either. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:07, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Flyer, don't misquote yourself; that,s almost as bad and misquoting someone else. Your exact words were What this policy's current wording of "should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source" does is commonly enable editors to recklessly remove content and then go about their business, as if blanking almost an entire article of easily verifiable content is helping Wikipedia. That is saying that you think my proposal goes in the wrong direction and that you think in fact an even greater burden of proof should be placed on the party wishing to remove the unsourced or poorly sourced material. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:32, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

I didn't misquote myself; my excellent memory doesn't allow for that. My "02:38, 20 May 2016 (UTC)" post above shows that I indeed stated the following: "As for Hijiri88's proposal, I'm not convinced that the wording should be changed." So no misquote. As for your interpretation of what I meant by my "commonly enable editors to recklessly remove content" wording, you are wrong. Plain and simple. My "02:16, 20 May 2016 (UTC)" and "02:38, 20 May 2016 (UTC)" posts show that I did not address your proposal until after my replies to Blueboar. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:51, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I was wrong. You didn't "misquote yourself"; you quoted yourself out of context and misrepresented the rest of what you said. My mistake. But now that you have admitted that the majority of what you wrote in this thread was off-topic commentary not directly about my proposal but about how the current wording encourages users such as Kww to recklessly remove content I am satisfied. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:11, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Nah, you were wrong about all of it; your "09:11, 22 May 2016 (UTC)" comment is a part of your incorrect commentary. Like I implied below, the way you misinterpret and take things out of context is something I cannot be bothered with. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:22, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

It's not a matter of "getting a rise out of you", Flyer22 Reborn: I consider the addition of unsourced material to be something we tolerate from new and inexperienced editors, and that the waffle room we leave in our policies is to allow them to grow into the job: it's why we tolerate the original insertion of unsourced material. An experienced editor that restores unsourced material without providing an inline citation that supports the material is simply being disruptive. WP:BURDEN doesn't have exception cases, and trying to make up new definitions of words in order to justify the misbehaviour is also disruptive.—Kww(talk) 15:41, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

And I've already pointed to a past discussion where I thought like you did (Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 61#The "provide an inline citation yourself" wording should be changed back to the original wording), but never in the extreme way that you did. My opinion on the WP:Burden policy has changed precisely because of cases like those noted in the #Preserving a burden discussion. Your claim that "An experienced editor that restores unsourced material without providing an inline citation that supports the material is simply being disruptive." is proven wrong by the initial case noted in the #Preserving a burden discussion. I restored vital information in that case, and the article was not harmed whatsoever by that restoration; it was harmed by the careless removal of vital information, information that was removed simply because it was unsourced and suspected of being original research. I reverted first, and sourced later. Not a thing wrong with that. I'm not going to repeat what is wrong with the kind of behavior that the editor who removed the content displayed since I and others made our points in that above discussion, and very clearly, but any kind of support for that behavior is severely misguided. Our experienced and well-meaning editors usually know that it is not a good thing to go around removing content solely because it is unsourced. Restoring unsourced content that belongs in a Wikipedia article is not being disruptive. Vital information should be retained, and the WP:Preserve policy is explicitly clear about that. There is nothing in the least disruptive about restoring vital information to an article. WP:BURDEN is not as strict as you interpret it to be, and when it gets in the way of the right thing to do for our articles, the WP:BURO and WP:Ignore all rules policies apply. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:11, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Knock it off
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Also, I've been clear that there is no need to ping me to this talk page. Those are wasted pings, and annoying to boot. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:17, 23 May 2016 (UTC)` Actually, your example simply proves my point. You decided that your personal opinion about the criticality of the information trumped the need for sourcing, and did so without taking any effort to justify your position beyond "this material belongs in this article because I say so". It also demonstrated the absolute futility of those moronic "citation needed" tags: if a citation is needed, the material shouldn't be in the article until that citation is provided. That's the crux of WP:BURDEN, and weakening it enables editors that we would be far better off without. It's far better to treat it more akin to 3RR, with blocks being the normal consequence of intentional violations.—Kww(talk) 05:30, 23 May 2016 (UTC) Your reply to me on that incident proves my point: You are so caught up in your idea of WP:Burden that you would support careless editing like that. There was no personal opinion when it comes to the vital nature of the information I restored. Why is it not a personal opinion, you ask? Because the vital nature of that information is reflected in the literature. WP:Due weight and all that. There isn't a scholar in that field who would state that the information that was removed is not vital to that topic. And I was very clear in the above discussion that I fully intended to source the information. I was also clear on the article page that I would be sourcing it. I clearly did source it, after addressing the matter on the talk page and noting how careless that removal was. Removals like that should be highlighted and criticized. Your "if a citation is needed, the material shouldn't be in the article until that citation is provided" take is not realistic for any number of our articles. Do feel free to go blank them, or vital portions of them, and see what happens. Yes, we differ on how fast I should have sourced the content in the Child grooming case, and we will continue to differ on such matters. I am going to protect an article first and foremost, and if that means not blindly following a rule that causes harm to an article, so be it. I highly doubt that you would find consensus that Wikipedia is better off without me because of how I acted in the Child grooming and Human penis cases. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:11, 23 May 2016 (UTC) What I support is booting people that force unsourced material into articles off the project. It's a shame that you have sufficient support that eliminating you is unlikely to occur.—Kww(talk) 13:43, 23 May 2016 (UTC) Sadly, you've become a bit of a running joke. You get all uppity and abuse your position over some obscure unsourced awards, but when directed to some unsourced text claiming someone to be a child molester, you couldn't care less and do nothing. Try to focus. Your hypocrisy is sadly visible for all of us to see, probably best to take your leave from this kind of discussion. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:19, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

The edits we're actually discussing here are this removal of unsourced, but easily-sourceable, content, followed by Flyer22's revert, followed by edit warring over whether it was appropriate to restore the content without an immediate source. Note please: (1) Flyer22 was objectively correct and her edits are widely agreed to have improved the encyclopaedia in this case; and (2) Nobody was called a child-molester.—S Marshall T/C 19:39, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Knock it off
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Sorry, you missed the point. In reference to the case where Kww was disgraced and desysopped for the abject abuse of his position, I had already directed Kww to an article in which someone was called a child molester and a rapist. Without referencing. As an example of something to which he could more usefully (for all of us) apply his vigour. He was content to let it stay on Wikipedia while getting all hot under the collar about a few award articles. Enough said. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:35, 23 May 2016 (UTC) As memory serves, you were simply using the old "why are you bothering with me when there are real criminals to worry about?" argument, and the issue you were attempting to distract me with was already on the way to resolution. As I explained to you then, problems with other articles and other editors did not excuse your misbehaviour.—Kww(talk) 23:17, 23 May 2016 (UTC) Your "13:43, 23 May 2016 (UTC)" response to me shows exactly why you shouldn't be editing our articles and why it's a good thing you were desysopped. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:24, 24 May 2016 (UTC) As memory serves, you were rightly desysoped for flagrant abuse of your position. Your delusional and poorly focused crusade on sourcing award articles led to your downfall, and despite being directed to other, far more important and significant verification issues, you decided to destroy anything you had ever achieved by edit warring and abusing your tools. And you still haven't got over it. The shame. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:12, 24 May 2016 (UTC) When you're done ripping on each other, I'd like to close this talk page discussion topic. I see no further benefit for the WP:V policy (which strictly speaking should be the only topic of this talk page), with the current walls of text on other topics. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:22, 24 May 2016 (UTC) Please do so. I will be pleased to see the end of yet another pathetic chapter of Kww and his inability to get over things and accept his flagrant abuse of his position led to a justifiable desysop and shaming. In future he should learn to talk to people, not about them. Cheers Francis! The Rambling Man (talk) 06:29, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

I think this is relevant stuff, though. We're discussing the interaction between PRESERVE and BURDEN. In the Flyer22 case on Child grooming, she was factually correct and her edits improved the encyclopaedia, and nobody has contended otherwise. It triggered this whole wall of text because editors felt that she was procedurally wrong. I've tried to defend her actions. The TRM/Kww case went a whole lot higher and got a whole lot more complicated, involving as it did a pissing contest between two of Wikipedia's sysops who had... well, let's say my experience of both is that they have a great deal of faith in their own judgment and aren't afraid to express their opinions at length. Not surprised it went to Arbcom. I've found Kww helpful in the past and I recall some good calls he made as a sysop, but my view is that the restorations of text involved in the runup to the Arbcom case were probably justified. I don't see removing accurate but unsourced text as improving the encyclopaedia. And that point is central to this discussion.—S Marshall T/C 07:33, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Actually, some of the material was demonstrably false, and other parts of it couldn't be verified one way or the other by people that put considerable effort into it. Somewhere around 80% accurate overall, which is fairly typical for these unsourced "list of awards and nominations" articles: not a total crapshoot, but well shy of what a reference work should aim for. The whole point was that verification and correction was mandated by WP:V prior to restoration, not after.—Kww(talk) 23:35, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

I take it that you are referring to "The TRM/Kww case" when you stated that "some of the material was demonstrably false" and "other parts of it couldn't be verified one way or the other by people that put considerable effort into it."

S Marshall, the only editors, other than Kww, who explicitly made it clear that they felt that I was procedurally wrong are WhatamIdoing and the editor I reverted in the Child grooming case. No other editor stated that I was at all wrong in the Child grooming and Human penis cases. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:54, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: Given that he explicitly stated in the following sentence that such a situation was "fairly typical for ... list[s] of awards and nominations", it seems kind of disingenuous to say you take it as him talking about the grooming and penis questions. I haven't looked at those prior disputes (they are at best two of about a thousand potentially relevant precedent cases, if they are even relevant precedents) so I don't know if what you are saying about no one but Kww and WhatamIdoing (and S Marshall[?] -- sorry, the grammar of what you wrote is confusing) being the only ones who disagreed with you, but if it is true then this looks like you trying to "prove" you were right in one dispute by claiming others agreed with you in a completely separate dispute. This is, at the very best, a fallacious argument. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:53, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Please leave me out of this discussion. It is typical of Kww that he has failed to get over being desysopped for abusing his tools, it is typical of his behavioural deficiencies that he would talk about me rather than to me. Now, back to your regular program. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:43, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) And now even someone on Flyer's side has called Flyer out for continuously derailing this discussion. We are not, to quote Flyer, talking about TRM, or Kww, or ArbCom and desysopping. We are talking about whether the BURDEN remains on the party wishing to add material after they add a source whose verifiabity has been challenged. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:01, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Also incorrect. The Rambling Man made no such statement or implication, and seemingly appreciated the ping. It's better not to talk about people behind their backs. A ping is commonly a courtesy in such cases. I was done with your proposal when I stated "But, as noted, your proposal is not about such behavior." That others chose to talk about the ArbCom case is their decision; I will take no such blame for the actions of others in this matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:12, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

No, you brought an ArbCom case from last summer that had absolutely nothing to do with my proposal up completely out of the blue, needlessly badmouthing one of the parties to said case in the process, and then when said user came along and posted an opposing opinion to your own you pinged the other party to that case and claimed that you were doing so because people were talking about him. If Kww had posted on a noticeboard or an admin's talk page explicitly or even implicitly requesting that TRM be blocked, informing him would have been justified and I would have applauded you for it; in this case, you just clouded a discussion you had already hijacked enough with your off-topic ArbCom commentary by claiming this was a discussion "about" TRM. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:32, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

I brought up the ArbCom case, and that is the only thing you are correct about with regard to me. I did not badmouth Kww. Yes, I pinged The Rambling Man, and I noted why. And that ping was not a WP:CANVASS violation in any way; if you cannot understand that about one of our guidelines, I don't have much confidence that you understand the WP:Burden policy. The Rambling Man was indeed appreciative of the ping. You decided to go on about what you consider off-topic. Others decided to comment on it. Like I stated, "That others chose to talk about the ArbCom case is their decision; I will take no such blame for the actions of others in this matter." Furthermore, you are continuing to derail your own proposal discussion by debating me on all of this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:51, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

If it wasn't Kww you were badmouthing, who were you accusing of being "commonly enable[d] ... to recklessly remove content and then go about their business" "without doing their WP:Preserve responsibility"? Were you badmouthing a whole bunch of people? Whom else should we ping to allow them to respond to you talking about them? Kww was the only one you explicitly named. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:11, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Wow, you misinterpret a lot of things, don't you? I cannot have a discussion with people who do that. I stated, "What this policy's current wording of 'should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source' does is commonly enable editors to recklessly remove content and then go about their business, as if blanking almost an entire article of easily verifiable content is helping Wikipedia. And, like I noted in the Preserving a burden discussion, it's cases like these that have seen such editors reprimanded and/or sanctioned for that behavior." That was a comment about anyone recklessly removing content and using the WP:Burden policy to justify it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:22, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• We're talking about this footnote, right:

  Once an editor has provided any source that he or she believes, in good faith, to be sufficient, then any editor who later removes the material has an obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia (e.g., undue emphasis on a minor point, unencyclopedic content, etc.). All editors are then expected to help achieve consensus, and any problems with the text or sourcing should be fixed before the material is added back.

  This seems quite reasonable. It's obviously the person with objections that has to articulate them by starting discussion. This seems quite sensible and the current wording says it well enough. Andrew D. (talk) 07:28, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

@Andrew Davidson: An objection as simple as That source doesn't verify the content can be articulated in an edit summary, and in many cases is a perfectly reasonable objection and not at all a failure to assume good faith. The current wording discourages such objections as though they were AGF-violations, implicitly placing it below ‘‘undue emphasis on a minor point, unencyclopedic content’’, and places the BURDEN on the party wishing to remove the potentially unsourced material. Do we really need to ask ArbCom to SBAN a user who misquotes sources before we allowed say those sources are being misquoted without this objection being shouted down as an AGF-violation? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:15, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

AFAICS you systematically quote the footnote wrong. It is only a detail, the word "the", I'll bold it to show where you render the content and intent of the foortnote wrong, IMHO: "... and places the BURDEN ...". No, it is not the WP:BURDEN that is shifted from one party to the other. There's another, definitely smaller, burden after a good-faith reference is given: if you want to revert it while you think it is not a sufficient/correct/appropriate/... reference: EXPLAIN YOURSELF. That's all. No burden to find another source or whatever (as has been implied above). Of course all this in good faith on both sides, that's why it is often safer to use the talk page than just revert with a quirky explanation. So, please don't quote that footnote again with only half a sentence, always include at least the second half of the sentence "...has an obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia". That part of the sentence can not be abbreviated to "BURDEN", while it is not WP:BURDEN. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:28, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

@Francis Schonken: The footnote implicitly rejects the rationale that "the source provided still doesn't verify the material", as it says any editor who later removes the material has an obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia (e.g., undue emphasis on a minor point, unencyclopedic content, etc.). Under the current wording, their must be a content-based problem with the material, and we can't reject the source on verifiability grounds because an editor has provided any source that he or she believes, in good faith, to be sufficient (my emphasis); this also turns WP:AGF on its head, because under AGF we should also be assuming that the editor removing the material believes "in good faith" that the source is insufficient.

As I stated in my OP comment, I would be content with just clarifying in parentheses that a sourcing-based rationale for removal is valid, i.e. replacing "(e.g., undue emphasis on a minor point, unencyclopedic content, etc.)" with "(e.g., the cited source failing to fully verify the material, undue emphasis on a minor point, unencyclopedic content, etc.)".

Anyone who is seriously opposing this proposal would appear to believe that "the cited source failing to fully verify the material" is not a valid rationale. The only other reason I can think of is that this is too much clarification on an already byte-heavy page, which is pretty ridiculous. Can someone explain to me what I am missing if indeed I am missing something?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:52, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

You're reading things that aren't there. Has been explained to you many times above. "...articulate specific problem(s)...", that's all, there's no limitation on what kind of problems you can articulate. In good faith. There's also no turning AGF on its head. Both editors need to do their edits in good faith (obviously). Both should start with AGF on each other. Obviously. If you can't assume good faith because of obvious intent to disrupt, I suppose the WP:AGF guidance will tell you wat to do (WP:ANI, or whatever I checked: the link in Wikipedia:Assume good faith#Dealing with bad faith goes to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, which offers several possibilities of what to do next). --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:20, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

The current wording assumes good faith on the part of User A but assumes bad faith on the part of User B. A traditional interpretation of AGF demands that we assume both that User A sincerely believes that their source is adequate and that User B sincerely believes the opposite. Discussion should then take place on the talk page, and the user who can convince others of their sincerely held belief would usually get consensus on their side. During this discussion, the contested material should stay out, as the burden is on User A to get consensus for their view. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:56, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Re. "The current wording assumes good faith on the part of User A but assumes bad faith on the part of User B": no it doesn't. Has been explained above. An obvious newbie can assume in good faith that a blog is a sufficient source. A more experienced editor can in good faith know that that is not the case. And explain that on the newbie's talk page. So, please stop reading things that aren't there. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:05, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

So if you don't disagree with me on the substance, why can't we add the text " the cited source failing to fully verify the material" to the parenthetical list of good rationales? And (like I told HighInBC at the top of the thread) this isn't about the objective reliability of such-and-such source -- it's about the muddier problem of Wikipedians misinterpreting/misrepresenting/misquoting apparently reliable sources. So bringing up "newbies" and "blogs" out of nowhere is not helpful. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:41, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with you as almost anyone else before. No, the addition is unnecessary IMHO (my main rationale: WP:BEANS). The formulation is clear as it stands, and doesn't need further cluttering with examples. If my examples weren't helpful (as you contend), then we don't agree. Obviously. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:01, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

We could add that example, although I recommend against it on grounds of WP:CREEP and the experience of past abuse. We have had some editors (and especially some POV pushers) who have taken the stance that if it's not plagiarism, then it {{failed verification}}. While it is true that an edit summary that says "not in the cited source" is an articulation of a specific problem, offering that as an example might tend to inflame disputes rather than resolving them. (Specifically endorsing communication by edit summaries has its own problems.)

Also, the choice of non-verification examples was deliberate; I wanted to make sure that editors remembered that verification does not guarantee inclusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:49, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: I'm not pushing this any more (more because of the grief Francis was giving me than because of anyone actually convincing me that my proposal was a bad idea), but I should clarify that I agree communication via edit summaries is a bad idea, and my proposal would not have promoted doing so any more than the current wording already does. If 'an edit summary that says "not in the cited source" is an articulation of a specific problem' 'might tend to inflame disputes rather than resolving them', the same is probably true of an edit summary that says "unencyclopedic", and adding one to a list that already includes the other suggests they be used in the same manner, rather than suddenly endorsing the use of edit summaries to communicate. As for your CREEP concern, if I hadn't already dropped the proposal I would have responded by saying we could remove the "unencyclopedic" example and replace it with my proposal. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:58, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• Per WP:REVTALK, "Avoid using edit summaries to carry on debates or negotiation over the content or to express opinions of the other users involved. This creates an atmosphere where the only way to carry on discussion is to revert other editors!" Editors should be engaging in discussion to avoid edit-warring. The onus is on the person with the objections to start such discussion on the talk page. Andrew D. (talk) 09:30, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You are right, of course, and when I am in a content dispute I usually try to be the first to open a talk page discussion as I hate to edit war, even when BURDEN is on my side. But this is about whether it is my responsibility to open such a discussion even when I am trying to remove unsourced material. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:56, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

• The "onus" discussion doesn't help very much. If you're sure the other party will understand I can imagine that an edit summary in this sense might suffise to clear the air: "That source is based on Wikipedia and is not sufficient per WP:CIRCULAR" (or whatever applicable that articulates the issues without unduly aggravating the other party). But as said above "...it is often safer to use the talk page than just revert with a quirky explanation", yes, that would most often work best to clear the air. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:45, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

• It may help to explore the issue from a different angle - one that does not involve BURDEN.... Suppose editor A adds material to an article - and includes a citation at that time. In this situation, BURDEN is not an issue, since the material has never been unsourced. Now... suppose editor B comes along and contends that the citation does not actually support the material. What should B do? A) remove both the material and the flawed source? B) keep the material, but remove the source? C) raise the issue on the talk page and request a new source? D) something else? Blueboar (talk) 10:59, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
  • None of these as a fixed rule. The WP:V policy doesn't oblige to choose one and only one of these options, applicable for every case. So we shouldn't be steering it towards a fixed rule. I think I have applied all of these, depending on case, trying to use as much of my common sense as possible. For example, if the contention is a WP:REDFLAG, I'd remove both contention and inadequate source. If nonetheless in doubt whether it might be true I'd ask on talk. Sometimes my curiosity was tickled enough by the unlikely contention, that I went on a search for a source myself, sometimes finding one that I thought in good faith to be sufficient. If the contention is "Mozart was a composer" referenced to a blog, I'd remove the blog source without further thinking, etc. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:11, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

I would agree. What to do really depends on the nature of the specific material and why the specific source is flawed. Now... Whatever you end up doing, would you say that you have an obligation to go to the talk page and explain what the problem is? Blueboar (talk) 11:28, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

That's an interesting discussion to have, but I would say it depends entirely on the material whether we do (A), (B), (C) or (D). In my case if I'm reading an article and I see a claim with a citation attached, and the claim isn't intrinsically dubious to my eyes, nine times out of ten I will gloss over it without checking the source. A claim is intrinsically dubious if it appears to be contradicted by a source I have already consulted. If I happened across a claim with a source that didn't verify it I would do (A) if I found the claim intrinsically dubious, and probably leave a note on the talk page; I would do (B) if the claim was not intrinsically dubious, and usually try to find and add a more appropriate source. If I found an entire article filled with such problems I would post on the talk page, and probably on a relevant WikiProject or noticeboard, and maybe if the article was irredeemable and there were, for example, GNG concerns, I might start an AFD.

(Obviously with the Wikicology problem it's a bit cloudier as the community has been explicitly mandated to systematically hunt down and source-check claims that we already know probably have sourcing problems. The community already knew about these problems before the ArbCom decision -- would we have encouraged systematically fixing the problem before ArbCom explicitly did so? Most such cases never come before ArbCom, and many users of Wikicology's disposition never get blocked.)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:33, 22 May 2016 (UTC)n

OK... so would you agree that there are at least some cases where you (as the person challenging the source) have an obligation to go to the talk page and explain what the problem is (ie that the source does not support the information)? Blueboar (talk) 13:14, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm quite convinced there's no obligation in that sense, as I said above. So let's not invent more rules. WP:V is very strict, but that's not in it. The only situation where I can imagine that it is really as good as unavoidable to go to the talk page is when the "A" editor's edit summary reads "see talk page", then if you are "B" and want to challenge the edit nonetheless I can't see how you can proceed with a revert without writing something in the talk page section where the edit and/or source is discussed. Most of the rest follows from WP:CIVIL I suppose: if an edit summary would be rudely short or filled with acronyms to get explained why you remove content and/or ref, then too a talk page comment would be more or less unavoidable I suppose. Or when the situation is getting tense, with a risk to go off in an edit war, then too. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:38, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's kind of an aside, but what about if User B is right on the substance (that User A's cited source does not verify the material, nor it seems does any other source) and users C, D and E all agree, but User A continues to argue and refuses to recognize 4-1 as a consensus? "Dispute resolution" is all very well and good but that would seem to be either TE or CIR issues at play and ANI would be the better venue. Then what if it is 3-1? The whole thing is very murky, and my attitude is that anything that makes it clearer (and we are seemingly all in agreement here that "the cited source failing to fully verify the material" is a valid reason for removing a claim that has been re-added) should be implemented. Then when User A says "but I added a source, and WP:V says any source I add is automatically good enough", users B, C, D and E can simply respond "no, it doesn't -- read the footnote more closely"; at present it is more likely to be B, C, D or E saying "your source isn't good enough, as it clearly doesn't verify the claim" and A responding "but WP:V says that if I added any source that is good enough -- read the footnote more closely". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:52, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Content dispute, so WP:DR would be a first option I suppose. TE and CIR are essays. When the policy says it is a content dispute that's the first route to explore. So now. I don't like to discuss on the basis of hypothetical problems. Either you have a problem/situation you would like to get help with, or I think you've gotten sizeable portions of clarification on the policy so that you know how to handle almost any situation where it would be involved. If you're just waiting for the quote to fall that you could use elsewhere, please tell us where that elsewhere is. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:10, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

First, no where does WP:V say "any source added is good enough"... you can always challenge a source. However, you often need to explain why a source isn't good enough. That's where the talk page comes in.

And this is why I support the footnote. The footnote does not require us to accept "any source added"... it simply requires us to open a talk page discussion should an added source be flawed - to explain why it is unacceptable. This is especially important to do when someone has attempted to comply with BURDEN and failed. Opening a talk page discussion helps everyone shift gears... and move from dealing with a no source situation to dealing with a flawed source situation. That shift of gears is important to highlight. The editor who added the flawed source has attempted to comply with BURDEN... and we need to acknowledge that attempt. Now we need to explain why that attempt was (unfortunately) not good enough.

We seem to agree that how we deal with a flawed source is somewhat different from how we deal with no source. Both are problems, but they are different problems. Requiring the challenger to open a talk page discussion helps to separate these two problems and keep them distinct - a talk page discussion helps everyone shift mental gears. It tells the person who added the source: "Thank you for providing a source... but, now we have a different problem to deal with: the source you provided does not support the information. Let's talk about that." Blueboar (talk) 14:56, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

@Blueboar: I wish you were right in saying that ‘no where does WP:V say "any source added is good enough"’, but at present I don’t think you are. At present it says that if a user believes their source (the exact words are ‘any source’) to be good enough ‘in good faith’ then the party wishing to remove the claim needs a different reason, and it gives a list of good but pretty obscure, nebulous and usually difficult-to-prove reasons. Since we are always supposed to assume good faith, this places a pretty heavy burden of proof on the party wishing to remove the claim. Unless we explicitly state that ‘the source doesn't verify the claim -- it says something else’ is a valid reason. This is what my proposal does. By excluding this reason we implicitly place down the list, below nebulous concepts like ‘unencyclopedic’ and leave it open to good-faith but incompetent users like Wikicology to indefinitely place the burden on others. Of course I agree with you that such reasons should be elaborated on the talk page, but once this has been done the claim can be removed and should not be re-added unless consensus is established to do so. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:35, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Example

Diff

Didn't go to talk page on that one. I see very little fuss, nothing of the heaviness Hijiri88 implies for someone applying the footnote reasoning in practical editing. If things aren't clear for the other editor of course the next step would be to give a broader explanation on talk, but until anything happens the issue seems solved. For clarity: didn't check who the user was; also didn't open the proposed source on this one (just knowing what should be in the source, or if not: it would probably be an unreliable source). Again, if any unclarity remains after this revert, the next step would be talk page. But I didn't go to talk page in advance for such a routine-like revert. If not using the burden-footnote reasoning in the edit summary of this revert, I'd have to have said something like "reverting good faith error" or something like that, but I assume that would have been less clear (and less to the point) for the other editor. Also using the word "error" in the edit summary may have come accross harsher to the other editor, than pointing out it is probably not said thus in the source. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:27, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 5

Hijiri 88, I think that you are misunderstanding the overall meaning of the words and to an extent wiki-lawering over the details. If I see what I see as something that I believe PROVEIT is applicable, then if it is old text I will in the first instance slap on a {{citation needed}}, if the citation needed has been there for a reasonable time or if it is new uncited text added to what is otherwise a fully cited article, I will remove the text under PROVEIT (usually including one of the links to the section in WP:V in the edit history. If an editor restores it with what I think is an inappropriate citation, or it is to a source that I do not have access, then I will start a discussion on the talk page (a may also add a relevant tag from {{Inline cleanup tags}} to the new inline citation). The problem is that if the citation has been added in good faith then not unreasonably an editor, particularly an inexperienced one, who believes that they have met the criteria for the request will probably feel aggrieved if it is promptly removed without a discussion as to why. That is not the way to build a consensus -- I have not infrequently had to explain to editors why popular geological websites are not reliable sources. Usually a good faith discussion over these things on the talk page resolves them. If not then just like other content disputes it is time to escalate it and involved others. However just deleting text after it has been restored with what one believes to be a poor citation is a tactic likely to turn a content dispute into a behavioural dispute, with the PROVIT/delete editor superficially looking the more aggressive party. -- PBS (talk) 14:23, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree with PBS's analysis, especially the behavioral aspects. There is simply nothing about the two items listed as non-exclusive examples that means "if the claim failed verification in the cited source, and nobody can find a reliable source that actually does verify this, then there is no valid reason to remove the content". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:56, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree with PBS as well, particularly when it comes to using {{citation needed}} on old text rather than removing it.—S Marshall T/C 05:30, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

It's not so much that I am "misunderstanding" the overall meaning or wiki-lawyering over the details. I know that the wording doesn't actually mean what I am saying it could be interpreted as meaning, and I know the two examples are not meant to be exhaustive. I also know that, since the list is not exhaustive, the two examples were probably not chosen because of any sinister "We should assume that any source is good enough as long as someone says it is" agenda and there is no particular reason other than brevity that "the source is not good enough" was left out of the non-exhaustive list of arguments.

I know everyone here agrees with me that the wording is not meant to be interpreted the way I am interpreting it. But users will interpret it this way, presumably in good faith; they already have been interpreting it this way.

I not only agree with PBS's analysis, especially the last sentence, but I think it should probably be inscribed in the policy itself.

My argument, though, has assumed throughout that it is not "what one [my emphasis] believes to be a poor citation"; the removal was made, a note was left on the talk page, the "add" party disagreed and re-added the material, and two or three other users all agreed with the "delete" party, but the lone "add" user doesn't recognize 3-1 as a "consensus to delete" and considers the current wording of V to be on their side (that a "consensus to delete" is what is required, rather than a "consensus to add"). Obviously this is not quite as common a problem as a newbie editor adding a citation that doesn't verify the material in general, but it does happen quite a bit. In such cases AGF can only reasonably be taken so far, but with only a slight tweak to the wording of this policy page, to make it say more directly what we all agree it actually means, we might be able to avoid it from the start.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:28, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: could you now please give the link(s)/diff(s) to the casus you describe? I don't think we should continue discussing this as a hypothetical example. Doesn't help us one step in any direction.

Also your assumptions on how much problem would be remedied by your proposed addition is tenuous. I don't think it would. "Source doesn't cover mainspace addition" would in most cases be handled without any reference to WP:V, leave alone the footnote: "Source doesn't cover mainspace addition" is understandable easy enough by experienced and non-experienced editors alike. So if we have one editor trying to make a case out of it, I'd like to see that example (not just your summary of it). Yes some editors are Wikilawyering away against common sense, while applicable guidance is clear enough. Adding more detail to the highest level of content policies is, however, something that would rather be adding another point to wikilawyer about, so there's no remedy in that direction to be expected of your proposal. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:08, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

...

Per an email I just received from Hijiri88, the only example they appear to be able to produce of an editor wikilawyering about this point appears to be skirting the edges of their topic ban. Where to go from here? A few options:

1. Close the thread, which to me seems most sensible: we're being taken on a wild goose chase here with no demonstrable abuse of the WP:V footnote apart from something already settled elsewhere. There seems to be not enough indication in the wider scale of things that a modification of the WP:V footnote would be a meaningful improvement of the policy.
2. Hijiri88 or someone else produces another example that can be freely discussed here. Failing such example, see previous point (and what I said above about more guidance = more fodder for wikilawyering).
3. Hijiri88 withdraws from the discussion: I suppose, reading comments by others, that the issue raised in this section would soon be settled as "no addition to the policy necessary", which also brings us back to point 1 above.
4. ... (other ideas on how to proceed from here?)

Please let us know which of the above courses of action can be taken (or propose other ones if you can think of more useful steps). --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:28, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I emailed you a bunch of examples. If you want to copy-paste my email in here feel free to do so, but I don't frankly see the value of using this page to discuss specific instances of disruption caused by dubious interpretations of the current wording of the policy. That's what the noticeboards are for. The mere fact that it has been interpreted thus is evidence enough that it can be interpreted thus, which would justify my proposed (very small) amendment. Heck, you don't even need to read my email -- you need look no further than this very thread to see someone actually try to argue that if a single user thinks any source is good enough, or even thinks a source can be located, that is enough to ‘preserve’ the material. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:45, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

You sent me one link, which is not "a bunch of examples". I ask you to give us examples that would illustrate the merits of a potential change to a top level content policy. Or link us to whatever discussion elsewhere where we can read some sort of conclusion in the sense of such policy update being recommended or "wrongdoing could have been avoided if the policy had been clearer", or whatever. Too me this all much seems like you trying to get a side-entrance to your prior trouble. Please stop it. Either provide an example that can be discussed freely, or let others decide whether there are significant examples of this or not. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:23, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Hijiri... I think most of us are agreeing that the addition of a source (yes, even a flawed source) is enough to temporarily "preserve" the material - pending further discussion... I don't think anyone is arguing that the addition of a flawed source is enough to permanently "preserve" the material. It is looking to me like there is a consensus on this. Can you accept this as being consensus (even if you don't agree with it)? Blueboar (talk) 10:31, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Fine, but only because I don't consider this to be that big a deal, and therefore not worth the amount of grief it has caused me over the last coupla days. There clearly is not a consensus that if three users on the talk page agree that the cited source does not support the material and one user thinks it does and after days of discussion has failed to convince anyone then the material should stay in indefinitely, until some arbitrary "consensus" threshold can be met to remove it, so if it's okay with everyone else I will go on interpreting the ambiguous wording as I always have. This section can be closed, I guess. My apologies to Kww and WhatAmIDoing, who did appear to support not only my interpretation of the policy but also my proposal to amend the wording to reflect this interpretation, where the rest of you only appear to be taking my side on the former. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:05, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Thus, the actual topic was in fact "consensus" (and how to find it), not a difficulty with the "verifiability" policy. See WP:CONSENSUS. Next time, as one among many possible suggestions: launch an RfC, and list at WP:ANRFC a few weeks later. It may take some time (more than a month), but in the end you'll have a consensus determined, not by the disagreeing parties, but by an outsider. And enough rules to make sure everyone lives by the thus determined outcome. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:09, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) (NB saying pretty much the same thing!) Hijiri88 that is the situation that drove all this, I have two things to say. The first is that this sounds awful. The second is that is sounds all four editors failed to use WP:DR to resolve the issue. There are all kinds of ways that a dogged opposition of one can be overcome but you have to use DR cluefully to do it. A different policy statement would not have helped that situation. Jytdog (talk) 13:11, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

A note, mostly for anyone reading this later: if we have problems with people adding irrelevant sources and claiming that they can keep the content forever under BURDEN, and these problems aren't getting resolved fairly quickly through usual channels (WP:RSN should be your first stop if a quick chat on the talk page doesn't work), then we need to consider changes. Fixing real problems and stopping disputes is never WP:CREEP, even if editors "shouldn't" need to be told something (or told the same thing multiple times on the same page, which has been necessary in for at least one guideline). Links to examples are very helpful when we're trying to fix real problems, so that we can tailor the guidance to reality. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:47, 25 May 2016 (UTC)