User:Until(1 == 2)/Removal of uncited content

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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it.

Note: When adding information from policies try to use direct quotes and avoid adding your own interpretation. When adding information about others opinions, please provide a footnote of a diff(just a regular one will do, no need to match the style I use) demonstrating that person expressing that opinion. Please try to maintain a NPOV in this essay.

Policy and community behavior do not always match. Sometimes it is the behavior that needs changing, other times it is the policy that needs changing. While the two will always differ some, in the interests of new members to the community it is important to keep this disparity at a minimum.

In that spirit I am writing this essay to describe the disparity between the policies, and actual community behavior, related to removing uncited content.

1 Policy
- 1.1 Wikipedia:Verifiability
2 Opinions
3 References

[edit] Policy

These are direct quotes from policy, please do not add your own interpretation or opinion. The opinion section below can hold documented opinions.

[edit] Wikipedia:Verifiability

Emphasis added.

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.

"Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source.

Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed.
The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article.
Any edit lacking a source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them a chance to provide references.
If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider moving it to the talk page
You may tag the sentence by adding the {{fact}} template, or tag the article by adding {{Not verified}} or {{Unreferenced}}. Leave an invisible HTML comment, a note on the talk page, or an edit summary explaining what you have done
Be careful not to go too far on the side of not upsetting editors by leaving unsourced information in articles for too long, or at all in the case of information about living people.
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has said of this: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."

[edit] Opinions

Note: This section is in progress, meaning that it does not yet have enough information to draw a neutral conclusion from. In time I hope this will reflect the opinions of all interested parties.

This section contains opinions of Wikipedians, these are not necessarily policy, but people's opinions. You can see the source by checking the footnotes. Each section should have a neutral(lets keep each other honest here) summary of the policy, preferable built from direct quotations with relevant context intact. Below that a bulleted list of documented opinions on the matter can be laid out.

[edit] General

"...there is no standard for ease of verification. A long standing trusted editor may reference a published book only available in one library's special collections divion while a new editor pushing a position may have an edit deleted that cites a web site that requires payment to read. We are volunteers with limited time and reputation plays a big part in managing the place." ^[1]
"...note that articles written years ago should not have claims deleted merely for lacking cites as they were created before the sourcing requirements and are slowly being properly sourced. These things take time. Make wikipedia better, don't delete things unless you have good reasons to doubt them."^[2]
"Claims made about living persons or claims that seem to be unsourced libel or copyright violations or OTRS issues are important exceptions to our "eventualism" method of writing this encyclopedia."^[3]^[4]

[edit] Wikilinks as citations

Policy states that a citation that is "a reliable source"..."cited in the article" is what is needed to meet the burden of evidence.

Articles do not need a valid citation if they have wikilinks.^[5]^[6]
Wikilinks are not a citation and do not replace the need for citations.^[7]^[8]^[9]

[edit] Lists and verifiability

Policy does not make any explicit exception for lists. The policy applies to all articles.

Lists do not need citations like other articles do.^[10]^[11]
Lists do need citations like any other article does^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16]

[edit] Returning uncited material after it has been challenged

Policy states ""Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source."..."The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article."

"...if you are new to wikipedia, don't upset long established editors by redeleting content they restore and quoting policy to them when they indicate that their considered judgement is that the material needs to stay and be sourced as it likely is valid yet just not sourced. Good faith, editorial judgement, and reputation all play a part. Policy is not everything.(sic)"^[17]
Material can be re-added without citation if the material is verifiable in nature^[18]
Material should not be re-added until a citation has been provided^[19]^[20]