Talk:Bruce Herschensohn

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Superfluous 'cite sources' banner?

The two pages referenced by the banner, Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Citing_sources, talk about referencing sources for "direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged."

There are no quotes nor challenged/likely-to-be-challenged facts in this article. That makes the banner superfluous and distracting. Or is there some other unlinked policy that demands it? Gojomo (talk) 05:24, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

all unsourced information on wikipedia is challengeable. there are no citations in the article to establish the source of the information in it. i could easily add a line such as "Herschensohn is an avid collector of Dresden China". how would anyone know that it's not true, if it's not sourced? sourcing is crucial, as it prevents vandals from slipping stuff like the above into articles. Anastrophe (talk) 05:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

But the policy doesn't state 'challengeable'. It's 'challenged or likely to be challenged'. Are you challenging any of the content, or asserting that it is likely to be challenged? Are there any other encyclopedias that source every bit of minutiae? Gojomo (talk) 06:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

for purposes of this discussion, yes, i'm challenging it. your last question makes no sense to me. is there any other encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, at any time, for any reason, with any agenda? Anastrophe (talk) 06:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that by reflexively challenging neutral, non-controversial information that you have no specific reason to doubt, you are failing to assume good faith, and wasting your time littering articles that contain true, useful and verifiable information with unthinking boilerplate when there are many more valuable contributions that could be made. Gojomo (talk) 03:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

thanks for sharing. Anastrophe (talk) 03:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)