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This page was nominated for deletion on 1 Feb 2010. The result of the discussion was speedy keep.

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Clarifying PRESERVE

WP:PRESERVE currently states: As long as any of the facts or ideas added to the article would belong in a "finished" article, they should be retained if they meet the requirements of the three core content policies: Neutral point of view (which doesn't mean No point of view), Verifiability and No original research.

I note that WP:Verifiability says that verifiability does not guarantee inclusion... and that "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content". Yet PRESERVE clearly implies the opposite... that verifiablity does guarantee inclusion, and that there is an onus on those who wish to remove the content to achieve consensus for the removal.

This sets up a potential for conflict. I am sure that there is a reasonable middle ground... a balance between the two policy provisions... we just need to find a way to express it. Blueboar (talk) 15:44, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree. At root, I think a big part of the problem is essentially one of laziness. It's easier to tear down than to build up. When a contributing editor provides new content and a new source that another editor dislikes for any reason, a revert claiming some provision of WP:V is easy to throw out there, reverting within a minute of reading a contribution.

Fixing a contribution using the steps recommended for WP:Preserve takes much more effort. So often, lazy or POV-inclined editors skip past Preserve and move immediately toward revert, justifying their revert on the grounds that the ONUS is on the contributing editor to convince the reverting editor why he or she should not be an obstacle to the edit. That's not a collaborative attitude, but it's an easy one.

Except in extreme cases, such as citations to the satirical the Onion, as an obvious example, I think the guidelines should emphasize that the the best first step approach is always to seek first to practice the steps recommended in WP:Preserve for correcting and salvaging a contribution. When Preserve methods are practiced, that will also show more respect for other editor's good faith efforts. A secondary goal should be to at least salvage the reference to the new source, even if the sentence(s) describing the source material need to be completely reworked.

This bring us to the WP:V issue. What if a source should not be kept?

Here, in my experience, we run into editor's differences of opinion regarding the whether the new source is WP:NOTRELIABLE or the facts and views in the source give WP:UNDUE weight to a minority view.

Often reliability issues can be fixed by adding an inline attribution to the source identifying that such is the opinion of so and so. If that won't work, I think the second best option is to tag the source (rather than delete it) in order to invite additional editors' comments and/or the first editor's defense of verifiability. This avoids the appearance (and often the reality, especially on pages relating to anything remotely controversial where there are one or more people who engage in tendencies, that a very hasty deletion, within just hours of the original posting, is POV motivated. As anyone who edits long on WP knows, such hasty reverts feel like a lack of respect for good faith contributions. While the onus on the contributor makes sense, I think it is good practice to tag before deleting and to give 24 to 48 hours for other editors to get involved and for the original editor to respond to concerns being raised.

In short, I suggest any modification in these guidelines encourage WP:Preserve as the first, and preferred option, followed by tagging of questioned sources then . . . after a bit of time, deletion per WP:V . . . if the onus is not met within that time frame. I think this approach is also in better keeping with WP:GOODFAITH –GodBlessYou2 (talk) 02:07, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, WP:V is considered a core policy... it definitely has extremely strong community consensus (much stronger than the consensus for PRESERVE). I don't think the community would approve making PRESERVE the first option in all cases. So perhaps what we need is clearer guidance on when to preserve... and when not to. Blueboar (talk) 15:20, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

• I don't see any conflict. PRESERVE says to keep "appropriate" content. It doesn't say to keep everything that can be sourced. Is there any evidence that this is causing confusion in practice? WP:V is critically important but I'm not sure it overrides our editing policy. Both pages are old and strong and it's for us to make sure they don't contradict each other.—S Marshall T/C 18:50, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

This whole "Try to fix problems" aka WP:PRESERVE section is pretty clearly advisory/best practices, not mandatory, by its own terms. Even if you read it a different way, however, "Problems that may justify removal" aka WP:CANTFIX is a subsection of PRESERVE and makes it clear that other policies, including WP:V, may trump the first part of PRESERVE. (Though by italicizing the word might in its opening sentence, CANTFIX tries to dodge the question altogether.) Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:13, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I think this has to do with some edits by User:GodBlessYou2 that were reverted. Perhaps that editor would like to provide the examples. Dougweller (talk) 21:29, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I didn't start this thread. Also, I think it can be discussed in the abstract without trying to link it to specific examples. That said, my experience is that a lot of editors don't pay much heed to PRESERVE. Clearly, other editors have the same complaint. Facing fast reverts is discouraging, and that may be one of the intents of such reverts . . . to discourage editors from "encroaching" on owned articles.

I favor the view that if there were a flow chart of options for responding to another editor's contributions, reverting should be the last option considered (precisely when there is no other option, such as vandalism) rather than the first tool employed. Way too often, editors spending considerable effort to research and draft a contribution even a slightly controversial issue are confronted with a rapid series of reverts and zero effort to improve or even correct their contributions.

I'm not recommending a reversal of WP:V, but I do think that policies regarding GoodFaith and Preserve give good framework for eventually including in WP:V some strengthening of the recommendation to apply Preserve techniques in preference to reverting. It may be useful to continue developing essays like WP:Revert_only_when_necessary with the goal of developing some consensus around recommendations which can eventually be incorporated various guidelines, including PRESERVE and GOODFAITH and VERIFY.

If you really want an example, my most recent experience with a revert that totally ignores PRESERVE recommendations is discussed here. The irony of that revert is extremely funny, given that the article was precisely about reducing reverts! –GodBlessYou2 (talk) 22:39, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see the described conflict in the quoted text, since it clearly states only that policy-conforming text that would belong in a "finished" article (i.e. subject to verifiability requirements and subject to editorial judgement) should be retained. I do see it as implying that WP:UNDUE should be interpreted in the context of the finished article; in other words a correct and not overly long description of one point of view should not be removed just because no-one has (yet) added a presentation of an opposing view; i.e. due weight should be achieved by adding the missing content, not by removing existing content. Since this page is policy, this may mean, for instance, that the closer of an RfC should discount arguments for the removal of content merely on the grounds that an opposing point of view is not (yet) presented in the existing article. Apparently, WP:UNDUE does not explicitly mention this restriction on its interpretation, so this should perhaps be remedied. If this is not the intended consequence of the two complementary policy descriptions, then this page should be amended. --Boson (talk) 22:32, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Boson that UNDUE should be judged by where the article can or should go when "finished." In my view, if an editor adds material regarding a minority view, other editors, rather than delete it as giving too much weight to the minority view, should expand the material related to the majority view. That's how to restore balance in a collaborative way. If it really the majority view, there will be plenty of additional sources to add. That said, if the contribution with the minority view is overly long and wordy, it should be cut to an appropriate length, but deleting a reliable sources supporting the minority view should not be done unless there are already numerous citations to other sources describing the same material. Readers, I think, appreciate the bibliography of cited sources most of all. In short, the balance of weight is best kept, in my opinion, by adding more sources, not deleting sources. The exception is if over three or four sources making the same claims of opinion or fact. That's just too duplicative. In these cases, editors, especially those favoring those sources, should be asked to trim the list down to those which they believe provide readers with the best source for additional information. –GodBlessYou2 (talk) 22:52, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

The place to discuss changes to the definition and/or interpretation of WP:UNDUE is at WT:NPOV. The point here in this policy is simply to note that the UNDUE policy exists, and is one of the policies that can limit what we preserve.

I suppose what I was really asking with this thread is this: Do we need to re-write the PRESERVE section of this policy to better reflect what is said in other policies (especially the core policies)... to make it clearer when not to preserve material. Blueboar (talk) 15:59, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

• WP:PRESERVE describes a best practice, and it assumes ideal conditions. If an editor is working in good faith to contribute encyclopedic material, then our first response should be to help craft the material rather than revert it. For instance, if an editor adds appropriate content but mangles the supporting citation syntax, then we should help fix the citation rather than deleting the material. Likewise, if material is otherwise unobjectionable but lacks a source, then the best practice would be to make at least some effort to find a source before deleting it.

  On the other hand, if an editor adds poorly sourced or unsourced material, or unencyclopedic material, or tendentious material, then there is nothing in WP:PRESERVE which prohibits removing it. If an editor routinely makes such edits, despite coaching on our content policies, and cites WP:PRESERVE to shift their editorial responsibilities onto others, that is inappropriate.

  I also want to challenge the idea that the "right" way to respond to undue weight on a minoritarian viewpoint is to bulk up the mainstream viewpoint. That's just not always true. Some minoritarian viewpoints are so obscure or so poorly supported by reliable sources that they simply don't warrant mention in our articles. When confronted with such a viewpoint, the proper policy-based response is to remove mention of it, not to inflate the mainstream viewpoint in compensation. It has been my experience that when editors lean heavily on WP:PRESERVE and downplay our content policies, they are often engaged in tendentious or agenda-driven editing and are trying to circumvent the resistance they're encountering. MastCell  17:15, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

• WP:PRESERVE describes keeping encyclopedic information in the encyclopedia. WP:ONUS is about keeping information in a particular article. Or at least last I checked; I can remember when it was just an essay it linked to WP:PRESERVE so there hasn't been a long running conflict here. As WP:5P says the project is to be the sum of all human knowledge; hopefully we can agree on that and see this quibble is merely about how to organize that information. -- Kendrick7 15:25, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Updated WP:PRESERVE to match the times

Given recent complaints that, while WP:PRESERVE is one of our oldest and, to a few of us old timers, most cherished policies, it has nevertheless become quite (irony noted) sclerotic, I have endeavoured to give it a complete rewrite/facelift to reflect modern times. Someone had to do it, and this policy has had no more faithful servant (I am at least tied with someone working another shift) than me. I don't hope to see anyone as an act of bad faith revert me just because they never really liked the policy in the first place (you know who you are, he says to imaginary people in his head).

I appreciate constructive criticism. But, please, if you're deconstructive, consider copying whatever parts you are gutting to the talk page so we know what we are discussing, per WP:PRESERVE. :) -- Kendrick7 08:09, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

• I think if we're going to rewrite WP:PRESERVE, we should explicitly apply it to sources as well as information. In other words, if a source is reliable and appropriate, then editors need to be careful not to accidentally cut it out of the encyclopaedia even if they rewrite or remove the particular sentence the source is being used to support. It's always seemed to me that this is what the "copy it to the talk page" bit is actually talking about: hanging onto appropriate citations, rather than necessarily clinging limpet-like to a legacy phrase from a long-vanished editor.

  I also wonder whether "facts" is the right word. Echoes of "truth" there...—S Marshall T/C 12:58, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

That's a good point re: sources. I don't think good sources should be removed when editors simply disagree with how they've been glossed; I'd rather see them turned into external links if all else fails. As far as "facts" meh that's been in the language here for a while, I've only kicked it up a notch. I don't think we're ablating WP:TRUTH to simply concede that encyclopedias generally contain factual information. I'm open to suggestions on both counts. -- Kendrick7 05:03, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• @ Kendrick... I would have to put your revision side by side with the old text to see if anything was cut or added that I might object to... but at first glance it looks good.

@ S Marshall... I would definitely oppose the idea that we must preserve specific sources. Just to give an example of a situation where we wouldn't... suppose some bit of information is currently supported by a source that (although reliable) is on the lower end of the quality scale. Now suppose an editor knows of a better (more reliable) higher quality source. Not only is the editor allowed to replace one source with the other, but he should actually be encouraged to do so (as the new citation improves the article). There is no reason to preserve the weaker source. Blueboar (talk) 13:28, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

• Well, I said "if a source is reliable and appropriate". If a higher-quality source is available then normally I'd suggest it was used as well as (not instead of) the original source. If we're in the happy situation of having several higher-quality sources to choose from then I'd say the lower-quality one was no longer appropriate and could be removed. I can't help wondering if you feel this is something that a lot of editors would get hung up on?—S Marshall T/C 16:43, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

• I generally like the rewrite as well, thanks Kendrick. I've made a slight tweak to the part about leaving a comment on the talk page after a substantial rewrite so we don't see reverts simply because the rewriting editor fails to explain themselves on the talk page, citing this policy as justification for same. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:31, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Good call! -- Kendrick7 05:03, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Acceptable to me. Blueboar (talk) 13:11, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• One issue, it's pretty easy to read the "Libel, nonsense, hoaxes, and vandalism" part to indicate we shouldn't cover notable hoaxes. I think it's a minor point, but if someone can find a clean way to fix the issue, that would be great (I couldn't find one...) Hobit (talk) 01:31, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

A minor point? Pfft! It is an excellent point! As this policy is more concerned with article content rather than article existence (to which the term "hoax" more readily applies) the term "hoax" in this context is indistinguishable from the preceding mention of "nonsense". (It could be argued that "falsehoods" might be a better word for something which falls in between "nonsense" and "vandalism" but WP:TRUTH has that covered already.) Good call! -- Kendrick7 07:29, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 October 2015

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Noor Safia (talk) 05:16, 21 October 2015 (UTC) Noor Safia

 Not done Blank request. Please add what you would like done in "Change XXX to YYY" format. Thank you. Inomyabcs (talk) 11:22, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Proposed edit

Please see here

Two main changes per below. Jytdog (talk) 06:13, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

1st change: "information" >> "content">_"content"-Proposed_edit-2016-03-31T06:13:00.000Z">

• 1) replace the word "information" with "content". The reason for that is that it is not uncommon that edits to Misplaced Pages are not "information" at all, but rather noise. That includes vandalism like "hi", unsourced content it is blatantly inappropriate, unsourced content that ~could~ be actual information but who knows, and on the sourced side, sourced accurately from a terrible source like the Daily Mail or inaccurately reflecting a good source. In short, "content" is way, way more apt than "information".

* 2) This policy mis-states the mission of[REDACTED] which per WP:NOT is as follows: "An encyclopedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject" from here. It currently says "Misplaced Pages is here to provide information to people; generally speaking, the more information it can provide (subject to certain defined limitations on its scope), the better it is." This is extremely misleading. I had changed it to read: "Misplaced Pages is here to provide summaries of accepted knowledge to the public, as described in WP:NOT; generally speaking, the more accepted knowledge it can provide (subject to certain defined limitations on its scope), the better it is." (note -- striking this to deal with in a separate subsection; foolish of me to present both at once Jytdog (talk) 23:57, 2 April 2016 (UTC))>_"content""> >_"content"">

Happy to discuss. Jytdog (talk) 06:13, 31 March 2016 (UTC)>_"content""> >_"content"">

Interesting proposal @Jytdog:, and it's a little too late in the day for me to think too deeply about it. But who decides what knowledge is "accepted" or not? Per WP:YESPOV I'd argue our goal is to provide our readers with encyclopedic information (not to be confused with the "indiscriminate information" condemned by WP:NOT) and let them figure things out for themselves. The word "content" in the Internet age has many of the same negative connotations about which you are complaining: q.v. content provider, which describes entities which exactly deliver indiscriminate info. Blogs, Buzzfeed, and, yes, the Daily Mail (don't get me started!) churn out "content" on a daily basis simply to butter their bread. An off the cuff thought though: maybe "knowledge" is a superior term to both "information" and "content", but I'd worry it would make this policy a little too ivory tower, i.e. you can lead a horse to information, but maybe you can't make it knowledge, per se? I'm a little busy IRL these days, but I'll give this more thought come daylight. -- Kendrick7 02:06, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

"accepted knowledge" is what we do here. It is what encyclopedias provide. We get it from reliable sources in the relevant fields. The community decides what is accepted knowledge based on policy/guideline-based consensus. And I am absolutely using "content" in the full spectrum of its meaning, and including words, charts/graphs/tables, images, and videos, including the negative aspects of the word "content" that you mention. Misplaced Pages is very good in spots - many spots - and you can find lots of well sourced content summarizing accepted knowledge in it; you also find content that pretends to be "information" but is just garbage (dead wrong ideas, advertising, opinions, hoaxes, vandalism, etc). Calling all existing content "information" is misleading. Jytdog (talk) 02:24, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Per Jimbo, human knowledge is what we do here. After some digging around, the original version of this policy, as written by one of the founders, (diff) did use the phrase "useful content". But that was over 14 years ago! These days, I would argue, "information" informs people, while, as the word has rapidly evolved since then, "content" entertains people. Not that we shouldn't strive to do both, of course. But informing people is job one.

I really do prefer "appropriate" (current language) or "useful" (original language) over "accepted" as it's too much of a personification (by whom??). "Acceptable" might even be okay, but at some point we're just quibbling over the nature of Latin root words. -- Kendrick7 19:15, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Without taking a stance on the dispute, I will just object to the WP:RECENTISM that "content" no longer means wikt:content just because some corporations have been using the word to refer to copyrighted media mainly used for entertainment. Content is more generic than information, and wikt:information is a type of content, in general, and these words have had meanings for a very long time that are unlikely to just change completely in a few years. LjL (talk) 22:55, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Kendrick7 you are ignoring my point that a lot of the words in Misplaced Pages are not "information" but rather are "noise". Misplaced Pages is full of noise, as well as actual information that summarizes accepted knowledge (or as you prefer "knowledge"; that is a separate discussion) That is why I prefer "content" to "information" - the broader term also includes noise. The editing policy must deal with the reality that there is lots of noise. Please respond on point. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 23:50, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, yes, noise is a problem, but consider the current wording of Signal-to-noise ratio:

Signal-to-noise ratio is sometimes used informally to refer to the ratio of useful information to false or irrelevant data in a conversation or exchange.

Information is by that regard commonly understood as the opposite of noise. I believe "content" currently is the broader term. -- Kendrick7 00:59, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes so please read the proposed change. There are a bunch of instances of "information" that mean "stuff in a Misplaced Pages article". Those instances should say "content" not "information." and so I fixed them. Jytdog (talk) 01:06, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Fine, I relent, give up, and surrender. At least about the content vs information matter; I'm not sure about all of it but I'll self-revert for now. -- Kendrick7 01:30, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

2nd change: mission is "summarizing accepted knowledge" instead of "providing information"

2) This policy mis-states the mission of[REDACTED] which per WP:NOT is as follows: "An encyclopedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject" from here. It currently says "Misplaced Pages is here to provide information to people; generally speaking, the more information it can provide (subject to certain defined limitations on its scope), the better it is." This is extremely misleading. I had changed it to read: "Misplaced Pages is here to provide summaries of accepted knowledge to the public, as described in WP:NOT; generally speaking, the more accepted knowledge it can provide (subject to certain defined limitations on its scope), the better it is." That change is visible here

Some discussion of this occurred above. Moved it here to more clearly separate, as they are distinct. My apologies again for presenting them together Jytdog (talk) 23:57, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

The wording that has cropped up on WP:NOT is wrong; thanks for pointing this out. -- Kendrick7 01:18, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

"Dodge Tomahawk"

A new article has replaced the edit history at Dodge Tomahawk (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (created December 2015) whose old history is now at Talk:Dodge Tomahawk/old version (edit | article | history | links | watch | logs) (created August 2005). Does making a new draft mean the old article's history is no longer relevant, and should be moved away, with a new history taking its place, or should MERGE and ATTRIBUTION be used to place the new content atop the old history? For the discussion, see talk:Dodge Tomahawk -- 70.51.45.100 (talk) 04:01, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Interaction of PRESERVE and BURDEN

If you're interested in the intersection of WP:PRESERVE and WP:BURDEN, then you may want to look at Misplaced Pages talk:Verifiability#Preserving a burden. The end result may be a clarification in this policy to explicitly state that the editor who preserves material that has been WP:CHALLENGEd and is unsourced may be required to promptly cite sources (i.e., if you are reverting the removal of unsourced encyclopedic material, PRESERVE does not authorize you to shirk the BURDEN of sourcing it). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:26, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

S Marshall and Alanscottwalker, since you have expressed views similar to mine in that discussion on the interaction between these two policies and how editors interpret them as conflicting, any opinions on the above or on the current wording in the WP:Preserve policy? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:20, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I have made a WP:PGBOLD effort to clarify this by adding this text to WP:CANTFIX:

If you are restoring unsourced information that was removed because of concerns that the material might be original research or unverifiable in any published reliable source, then you are required to provide one reliable source to support the information when you restore it.

You can see how it fits with the other content in that paragraph. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

And you were reverted by S Marshall. And given what has been stated in the aforementioned discussion, I agree with that revert. I cannot agree with that addition. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:53, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

For some cases, restoring the information right then and sourcing the content afterward is best for the article. I'd rather not enable reckless blankers any more than we have with wording in the WP:Burden policy. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:57, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

• I don't think it's impossible to come to an agreement here. I broadly agree with WAID's intention. I would like to qualify it with "reasonable" or some similar phrasing. Generally, people restoring material that's removed under BURDEN should provide an inline citation to a reliable source when they do. The only point we're disagreeing on is whether this should be a one-size-fits-all, Thou Shalt, type of thing, or whether there should be scope for exceptions when dealing with bad faith editors, griefers, and/or perfectly good faith editors who're just being incompetent or stupid.—S Marshall T/C 07:40, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Who decides whether a challenge (tag or removal) is "reasonable"? The challenger? The one who first added the unsourced info? Someone else? By hedging the BURDEN requirement you simply invite Wikilawyering... encouraging editors to engage in unnecessary arguments over whether the challenge was reasonable or not. WAID's change resolves the conflict between Burden and Preserve. We want good info preserved... however, in order to preserve, you need to fix the problem and provide a source. Blueboar (talk) 10:27, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

• Talk page consensus would decide what's reasonable, as it always does. The key symmetry on Misplaced Pages --- in fact the only reason Misplaced Pages can ever work! --- is because poorly thought out or unreasonable edits can be reverted as easily as they're made. I would be opposed to anything that breaks this symmetry.—S Marshall T/C 16:38, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Technically, BURDEN doesn't require a verification CHALLENGE to be "reasonable". It only requires the challenge to happen. If you want to ignore a challenge on grounds of unreasonableness, then you have to invoke WP:IAR (which any editor may do under suitable circumstances).
    As with all such cross-policy references, it's better to accurately describe the other policy. That principle alone militates against adding any "reasonable" language. If we want to restrict BURDEN to "reasonable" challenges, then we need to get BURDEN itself changed, not the mere link to BURDEN here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:14, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

WP:Preserve is not just about providing a source. It lists different ways to preserve content. And if restoring unsourced content to the article during a revert is what is best for the article (meaning better than the article not having that content), as I've seen many times over, I do not feel that the WP:Burden policy should get in the way of that. I do not see how "WAID's change resolves the conflict between Burden and Preserve." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:03, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

I wonder whether we could sidestep the "reasonable" problem by omitting any reference to "when you restore it". What do you two think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:07, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I fwiw I think the bold change you offered above was very good. Jytdog (talk) 03:09, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

• Not a big fan of removing "when you restore it" because then it doesn't resolve the conflict between BURDEN and PRESERVE. I'd prefer a qualifier, I think. It's not unreasonable to say that edits should be reasonable.  :)—S Marshall T/C 05:07, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

S Marshall, 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." The above proposal sates, "If you are restoring unsourced information that was removed because of concerns that the material might be original research or unverifiable in any published reliable source, then you must provide an inline citation to a reliable source to support the information when you restore it." From what I see, WP:Burden casts a wider net because it states "any material." The proposal is more reasonable (no pun intended) than WP:Burden's wording because it focuses on "original research or unverifiable in any published reliable source." Really, we should be changing WP:Burden to be more in line with such wording, especially if we add the wording to this policy. Either way, I agree with you that a qualifier should be included since cases like the careless editing noted in the "Preserving a burden" case is unacceptable. But I would go one step further with the wording exactly because of your point about "whether this should be a one-size-fits-all, Thou Shalt, type of thing, or whether there should be scope for exceptions when dealing with bad faith editors, griefers, and/or perfectly good faith editors who're just being incompetent or stupid." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:49, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Also, I don't see how the addition fits in the "Problems that may justify removal" section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:53, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

• Well. I've always quite liked BURDEN. It's simple to use in practice and it's an effective knife for cutting through bullshit. I've also always quite liked PRESERVE, and I've never minded that there was a tension between the two; it's part of the Zen of Misplaced Pages, and if you put them together the S Marshall way, they mean that (1) finding sources is everyone's job, (2) you can remove idiocy where you find it and you can make that stick, and (3) you can revert idiots who remove good content and make that stick. The big red flag to watch for is if some genius changes BURDEN from "should not be restored" to "must not be restored", because that's when you lose (3).

  My personal feeling is that BURDEN really applies with full force in the most controversial areas of the encyclopaedia, India-Pakistani wars and Irish independence and pseudoscience and such, which appear a lot at AN/I, which are frequented by editors who have community- or Arbcom-mandated behavioural restrictions on them, and which therefore need extreme rigour in sourcing. I also feel that PRESERVE really applies with full force on old articles with long-established, stable content that have had a lot of eyes on them over the years, and were composed before we reached our current sourcing standards. Of course, I don't think it's a good idea to say that in the policies. Leave editors wiggle-room.

  I was interested to read the tangle between KWW and The Rambling Man on WT:V. I feel compassion for KWW because I can absolutely understand that TRM gets people's backs up, but TRM was right, and Arbcom rightly backed him. The conclusion from that episode is yes, Arbcom on behalf of the Misplaced Pages community agree that yes, you can restore unsourced content removed under WP:BURDEN, and yes, you can do so without sourcing it at the time.

  But this doesn't make WAID wrong. Even though you appeared in both the examples she gave on WT:V, she's not doing this in order to create a stick to beat Flyer22 with. She's trying to clarify the policy so that in sourcing disputes, the heavy artillery is on the side of the skeptics, and I think that's a good thing to do. I just want a little room for editorial judgment through which you can fit TRM's reverts, and your reverts on Child grooming which WAID concedes were objectively correct.—S Marshall T/C 06:54, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Just a word on talk page consensus. It doesn't work where there are only 2 editors involved. Or where like some fringe articles on my watch list, I'm the only regular editor and the article is occasionally visted by SPAs, IPs or probable socks. Doug Weller talk 10:59, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

So true, Doug Weller.

S Marshall, sorry for the late reply; I took some time to think over what you stated. Many people already read "should not be restored" as "must not be restored." You've seen how overzealous editors are with the WP:Burden policy. It has been misused a lot. But then again, so have other Misplaced Pages policies. As for WhatamIdoing's intentions, given our up-and-down history with each other (mostly of the "I know better than you" variety), I'd rather not definitively conclude one way or the other on that matter. But I certainly see where you are coming from. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:08, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

I think that your interest in specifying "reasonable" edits is principled in its way, but it's poor policy writing. BURDEN contains no such limitation, so we'd be misrepresenting it here, which is simply unacceptable. Also, it won't work in actual practice. As User:Blueboar already said, the net result will only be people saying that BURDEN doesn't apply to me because, unlike all the times when BURDEN applies, when I reverted you, it was because your edits weren't "reasonable". (Of course, if I remove your unsourced content, then my edits are always reasonable, so the converse is never true.)

If you believe that you've got a good case to make for IAR, then you should make that case directly (and if it's a good case, then you should ping me, so that I have the opportunity to join the conversation and agree with you). But you shouldn't be yelling on the talk page about how you shouldn't have to supply a single source for the material that you restored. A talk page mess about "your edits are unreasonable, so BURDEN doesn't apply to me" is not an improvement over a talk page mess about "your edits removed factually accurate information, so BURDEN doesn't apply to me". My goal is to stop the talk page messes, not just change a couple of keywords in them. IMO the way to stop those messes is to make it clear that BURDEN really does apply to you, even if it seems a bit unreasonable (or inconvenient, which I suspect is the more typical case), and even if BURDEN makes it more work to PRESERVE content in the article (as contrasted with, e.g., preserving it on the talk page). Faced with such a situation, I want editors to know that their policy-based options are to supply a source (BURDEN), to move the material to the talk page (PRESERVE), or to make a case for IAR – but not to say that PRESERVE allows them to ignore BURDEN and restore unsourced, CHALLENGEd material back into the article without also supplying a source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:27, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

As made clear in the discussion you started at the WP:Burden talk page, those messes will continue because of irresponsible editors who remove content that should be there and/or replace accurate content with inaccurate content. Sorry, I can't agree with enabling such piss poor behavior. But feel free to continue ignoring me in this discussion. I will continue to ignore rules that enable piss poor behavior. And I will certainly continue to fuss about that behavior when it happens. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:40, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

• How about:-

If you restore unsourced information that was removed because of concerns that the material might be original research or unverifiable in any published reliable source, then normally you should provide an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the information being restored shortly afterwards.

Note "should" instead of "are required to" (BURDEN does not say "are required to" or "must", it says "should"), and the "normally" hedge.—S Marshall T/C 12:45, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

• Actually this probably wants a footnote next to "normally" which specifies some of the things that wouldn't be "normally". Off the top of my head I would include editors with a COI, editors with a history of using BURDEN vexatiously or to target the contributions of a particular person, editors who are under Arbcom- or community-mandated behavioural restrictions, and vandals as people who could be reverted under PRESERVE without supplying a source.

  My concern is the counterpart to yours: to make editors accountable for their removals under BURDEN. Someone who often removes inappropriate content under BURDEN is an asset to the encyclopaedia and deserves the community's respect, but someone who often removes appropriate content under BURDEN shows a need for support and direction, followed by disciplinary measures if necessary. I would like to make changes that would have had a chilling effect on a certain irresponsible edit to Child grooming.—S Marshall T/C 13:01, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

The thing to remember is this: a "removal" under BURDEN is usually temporary. The quickest and easiest way to preserve information temporarily removed per BURDEN is to simply return it with a citation to a reliable source. Doing this not only preserves the information... It preserves it in an improved state. Blueboar (talk) 14:30, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

• That would be true if all articles were watchlisted by active editors with plenty of spare time to deal with Randy in Boise. Since they aren't, I think it's often false.—S Marshall T/C 14:54, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

  Exactly. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:40, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

That works for me. If we need to change it later, we can talk about it then. (Any necessary footnotes that reduce the applicability of BURDEN should be proposed at the actual BURDEN policy.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:54, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

I object to the change in that it misstates BURDEN. In short, I'm okay with "normally" but "should" does not work in this context; it must be "must." I fully agree with S Marshall that should ordinarily means that something is not required, but in the context of BURDEN which starts with an absolute "Attribute all quotatios is taking it out of context and causing it to mean something it does not mean in BURDEN. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:38, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Do you think we could compromise on language that avoids the must/should thing? For example, could we say "you need to" cite your sources? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:07, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that compromise language is needed... it's already in the policy. Let me explain why I think PRESERVE and BURDEN are not actually in conflict. The key is to read WP:DON'T PRESERVE, the section of this policy that follows PRESERVE. It states:

• "Several of our core policies discuss situations when it might be more appropriate to remove information from an article rather than preserve it. Misplaced Pages:Verifiability discusses handling unsourced and contentious material; Misplaced Pages:No original research discusses the need to remove original research.."

This section establishes several situations when we shouldn't preserve information. One of them is when there is an issue with WP:V ... In other words, this policy explicitly defers to WP:V... and since BURDEN is part of WP:V, PRESERVE defers to BURDEN.

Now... BURDEN is clear: It is up to the challenger to determine whether unsourced information should be allowed to stand, or whether it should be tagged or removed. Others might disagree with that determination, but the decision is that of the challenger. Now... BURDEN goes on to state that once information has been challenged and removed for lack of citation, it is possible to restore it (ie preserve it) - However, providing a source is a pre-condition for that restoration. Furthermore, it is up to those who wish to restore to provide that required source. There is no ambiguity in that. WP:V favors the challenger in such situations... thus WP:DON'T PRESERVE also favors the challenger.

Where WP:V does have some ambiguity is with what happens after that... in explaining what happens when the restorer (ie the editor trying to preserve the information) provides a source, but the challenger is not satisfied with that source. This is where PRESERVE comes into play. Now the burden (as opposed to "BURDEN") shifts to the challenger, who must to go to the talk page and explain why the source is not good enough. Thus, once a source has been provided, WP:V favors the restorer (ie those trying to preserve the information). The information should be maintained (ie preserved) until there is a consensus that the source is (in fact) flawed. Blueboar (talk) 13:32, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

• This idea that PRESERVE comes into play after BURDEN has been invoked is exactly the wrong way around. PRESERVE comes first. It says "Preserve appropriate content", in other words, if material would belong in a finished encyclopaedia then removing it is a violation of the editing policy. Focus on that for a second. Removing appropriate content from the encyclopaedia is, and has always been, a breach of the editing policy. There is no exception for BURDEN. If it's appropriate for the encyclopaedia, then it should not be removed. Simples.

  If the content is inappropriate, then that's when BURDEN comes into play. Inappropriate content can and should be removed. BURDEN defines how to deal with content that an editor reasonably believes is inappropriate. The recent discussions on WT:V were largely about cases where an editor mistakenly invoked WP:BURDEN on appropriate content, so there were genuine breaches of the editing policy taking place.—S Marshall T/C 16:34, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

That's dead wrong and the policy already says as much: "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." If. BURDEN is part of Verifiability. Even if the material would belong in the "finished" article it should be retained only if it satisfies BURDEN. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:36, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

TransporteMan is correct... Remember that WP:PRESERVE does not exist in a vacuum... It is balanced by the section that follows it: WP:DON'T PRESERVE. Blueboar (talk) 21:17, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

The notion that "Even if the material would belong in the 'finished' article it should be retained only if it satisfies BURDEN." is not how Misplaced Pages generally works. This is clear by just looking around Misplaced Pages and seeing WP:Citation needed tags. Our responsible editors add those tags because they recognize that the content is likely important to the article, or because they know that the content is important to the article. Why the editor doesn't source the content instead of adding the "citation needed" tag could be due to any number of reasons, but at least the editor is preserving appropriate content. We commonly keep unsourced content in our articles because that content improves the article. Removing content that belongs in an article simply because the content is unsourced has proven detrimental and disruptive times over. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:18, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Listen to Flyer22 because this is the key point. The starting point for both Flyer22 and me is that only verifiable material belongs in the encyclopaedia. If it isn't verifiable, then it can't possibly be "appropriate content" within the meaning of WP:PRESERVE. Can it?

If TransporterMan and Blueboar will agree with that, then we can see that the only conflict between PRESERVE and BURDEN arises when we have verifiable material that isn't actually verified at the moment. It follows that this discussion is only about editors who foolishly or recklessly remove appropriate content that they could verify themselves if they took the trouble to hunt for sources themselves.—S Marshall T/C 09:28, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps I have the wrong impression (and if so I apologize), but given your comments so far, I do have the impression that your actual starting point is closer to: "Any and all verifiable material belongs in the encyclopaedia"... and would I disagree with that - since Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion.

But for now, I am willing to narrow the discussion to "only" cases where editors "foolishly and recklessly" remove "appropriate" content. Let me start by asking: Who gets to determine whether the removal is "foolish and reckless" and whether the content is "appropriate" or not? (I suspect we will disagree on this). Blueboar (talk) 17:08, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

• If you'll check my contribution history you'll see my most recent content edits consisted of proposing, discussing and carrying out removals of reliably-sourced material for being UNDUE. I do hope you'll re-evaluate your low opinion of me. But yes, I do think there's a place somewhere in the encyclopaedia for most reliably-sourced content, and that if there's verifiable material in the article then talk page consensus should be sought before removing it. As for "who gets to determine"... in accordance with normal conduct, if both editors insist on their position, then you have to go to dispute resolution and get third parties involved. I know "judgment" is a problematic concept on Misplaced Pages, because this is the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit, including (plenty of) people with very poor judgment who aren't natural encyclopaedia editors. And it's accepted that people who have poor judgment don't know they have it. When two editors both think they have it, you get a situation like KWW -v- The Rambling Man, where third parties need to step in and restore order. But note the eventual outcome of that once the flames had died down: the verifiable material was restored and the removing editor was desysopped. That was Arbcom's decision, made after careful consideration and in accordance with the consensus. And it was the right call. People who insist on removing verifiable content without a talk page consensus in favour of the removal can be, have been, and rightly should be subject to disciplinary measures if they persist.—S Marshall T/C 17:38, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I won't concede the "foolish or reckless" notion. If material is unsourced, it can be removed, period, regardless of whether or not the material is appropriate. (More precisely because such a removal is a challenge to the material and we don't set any standards here or at V for why unsourced material can be challenged because the burden is on the editor adding the material to provide a source. We suggest at V that it ought to be because the removing editor is "concerned" — not "believes" but is "concerned" — that the material may not be verifiable.) Once that challenge/removal is made, the material no longer satisfies V and the exception here in the Editing policy kicks in, regardless of of the importance, appropriateness, or other quality of the material. A bunch of "shoulds" — best practices — apply to both processes, but they're not mandatory. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:49, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

No, appropriate material cannot be removed, because the editing policy has always said Preserve appropriate content. BURDEN applies to inappropriate material, which would include something that an editor reasonably believes is unverifiable.—S Marshall T/C 20:05, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Taking that out of context and reading it in such an absolute manner means that sourcing is never required for appropriate material, which would utterly destroy the reliability of the encyclopedia by preventing ordinary readers from verifying what is asserted here. It has to be read in context with the following sentence which makes V predominant. — TransporterMan (TALK) 20:56, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

It certainly doesn't mean sourcing is never required. Per WP:V, sourcing is needed for anything that's challenged or likely to be challenged, and if someone's considering removing the material then yes, it certainly does need sourcing.

The edit which started this discussion was one in which an editor recklessly, or negligently, removed easily-sourceable content. They misused WP:BURDEN. What they should have done was check the sources before they make content edits in the mainspace. You don't have to check the sources if you're vandal-fighting or category-maintaining or typo-fixing or doing MOS stuff, but if it's a content edit, then you shouldn't touch the mainspace without reading the damn sources. It's totally irresponsible not to do that.

When this editor found the unsourced but easily-sourceable paragraph, what they should have done was source it themselves, not waste competent editor time edit-warring to remove easily verifiable content based on a sense of entitlement from BURDEN.—S Marshall T/C 21:20, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

There's no absolute requirement for everything in Misplaced Pages to be sourced. 2+2=4. <-- would be silly. I removed an 8 year old unreferenced tag from the article on Oboe d'amore just earlier today. Why? Because I assume that such a musical instrument exists, and that in general, it looks like it's been edited over the past decade by people who know what they are talking about. WP:Assume Good Faith and WP:Preserve to some extent go hand in hand. -- Kendrick7 21:24, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Yep. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:57, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

RE: "Per WP:V, sourcing is needed for anything that's challenged or likely to be challenged, and if someone's considering removing the material then yes, it certainly does need sourcing." Yup... WP:V makes no exemption for "easily-sourceable content." It does not even contain an exception for challenges that you think are "reckless or neglegent". If someone is considering removing "easily-sourceable content" then "yes, it certainly does need sourcing". The question is: who is responsible for providing that sourcing. BURDEN answers that question clearly... those who want to return the material are responsible for sourcing it (not the person who issued the challenge and removed it). You or I may think the challenger is an idiot (or even an asshole) for challenging the content in the first place, but... if we want to return the material, its up to us to source it. I always find it ironic when people complain that complying with BURDEN "is a waste of everyone's time"... what wastes time is complaining about it. Complaining about BURDEN always takes far more time than simply slapping in a citation. Blueboar (talk) 13:18, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

• This again? I've answered this several times already.

  1) Who do you think is watchlisting all these articles? Who is going to provide these citations that you say someone should provide on demand? Why can't it be the person who finds the problem in the first place? They are the only person who we know is watching.

  2) Why should it be okay to make content edits without checking the sources? Why is it good for the encyclopaedia to make people feel entitled to remove content without reading the sources first? Why are you defending these edits that make the article read less like the sources do?

  3) Why do you feel that BURDEN outweighs the editing policy? Where is the consensus for that?

  I would certainly agree that discussing BURDEN is always time-consuming, but I think that's because of the editors who quite mistakenly feel it should take priority over everything else.—S Marshall T/C 13:44, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

• If someone is complaining about a challenge and having to comply with BURDEN... Then the challenger obviously isn't the only one watching the article. And if the challenger is the only person who iswatching the article, then the removal will be uncontested and thus isn't a problem. As for why WP:V "outweighs" WP:EP... WP:V is a core policy, and EP isn't. More importantly, WP:EP explicitly defers to WP:V (see WP:DON'T PRESERVE)... In other words, EP itself says V should be given more weight than PRESERVE. Blueboar (talk) 14:19, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

• I disagree with this in every way. If someone removes good content from an article then that is a problem even if nobody notices at the time. The fact that nobody has seen them harm the encyclopaedia does not mean that they haven't harmed it.

  WP:V is a core content policy. WP:EP is the editing behavioural policy, roughly equivalent in force to WP:CON and WP:BRD, in that it describes how editors should behave when they're editing in the mainspace. They should not remove appropriate content. Still less should they edit-war to keep it out. BURDEN itself says it should not be the default way of dealing with content that may not be verifiable. It lists other things editors should consider doing, such as tagging if they're not sure. In other words, BURDEN explicitly defers to WP:EP.

  Removing content is what you should do if you think the content is unverifiable after you've taken reasonable steps to check. You should not do it recklessly, negligently or on some kind of whim.—S Marshall T/C 14:56, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

And so we keep returning to the question... Was the removal "reckless, negligent, or done on a whim"? And who gets to decide that question. Obviously the challenger does not think so (or they would not remove). And WP:V leaves the decision to the challenger. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

• If the removed content could easily be verifed, by reference to the first page of a simple google search, then clearly yes: the removal must have been reckless or negligent. Wouldn't you agree?—S Marshall T/C 19:16, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Nope... Because the challenger might be of the opinion that none of those Google hits is reliable. (There is a lot of incorrect crap that gets repeated on the Internet after all). Blueboar (talk) 21:03, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Then the challenger should be competent enough to know what a WP:Reliable source is and check the sources. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:31, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

I deal with conflicted editors or advocates all the time who make the kind of arguments you are making, S Marshall. This place would become even more of a slagheap contentwise and even more of a Mad Max world if editors can insist on their own authority that material that has been challenged must remain, unsourced. Vandalism is vandalism but outside that there is a longstanding and very deep consensus that unsourced material can be challenged/removed and the person restoring it needs to bring a source.

In my view you and Flyer consider are BLUDGEONing the hell out of this Talk page and the other one. You obviously feel strongly about this and you should launch an RfC and let the community rip it to shreds. But enough of this. Jytdog (talk) 20:15, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Why would I go to RfC? It's not me who's trying to change (sorry, excuse me, "clarify") this policy. I agreed to a compromise, but then TransporterMan reverted, so we're back at the version I preferred all along. And Arbcom have already ruled that an editor can be sanctioned for removing verifiable content. If you really think I'm an advocate or I have a conflict of interest, then there are appropriate places where you can make that allegation and I believe I'd rather welcome the opportunity to answer that. Knock yourself out. But yes, I obviously do feel strongly about this. What Misplaced Pages really needs is a competence noticeboard that deals with people who make content edits without checking the sources first.—S Marshall T/C 21:44, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

You have been told "no" about ten zillion times. See WP:BLUDGEON. really. read it. Jytdog (talk) 22:00, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

• I don't think you've read the discussion you're intervening in. It consists of four editors (WhatamIdoing, Blueboar, TransporterMan, and now you) on one side and three (me, Flyer22 and Kendrick7) on the other. Flyer22, Kendrick7 and I are resisting changes to the longstanding and well-established wording of this policy. You are contending that my position is editors can insist on their own authority that material that has been challenged must remain, unsourced. What I'm actually saying bears very little resemblance to what you say I'm saying. This is not the first time you've misrepresented me, Jytdog, but once again I'll choose to ascribe that to inattention rather than malice. In future, perhaps you could read, understand, think, and then post?—S Marshall T/C 07:36, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

You are saying that content can be restored without providing a source on the basis of a claim by the restoring editor that some putative source exists - the only basis for that claim is the (non-existent) authority of the restoring editor. Which is a recipe for disaster and runs against everything we do here. This is why BURDEN says you must bring a source if you are restoring - you can't do it on your own authority that it is verifiable. It seems that you haven't through the basis on which someone would be restoring content without bringing a source. Jytdog (talk) 08:05, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

To be fair to SM... that's not what he is saying. He is talking about the difference between information being verifiable and it being cited. Information can be verifiable without being cited. Something like "Paris is the Capital of France" is so easily (and obviously) verifiable, that it is extremely unlikely that anyone will ever challenge it. It can be freely added to articles without a citation. On this, I think we all agree (I certainly do).

Where we seem to disagree is what to do when the unlikely does happen... When someone comes along and actually challenges such easily verifiable statements. They will correct me if I am wrong here, but my understanding of SM's position (and that of Flyer and Kendrick) is that they think the challenge should be deemed disruptive, and thus should be exempt from BURDEN. I tend to agree with the first part (such challenges are often disruptive)... but I disagree on the second part (making the challenge exempt from BURDEN)

My take is that it does not matter whether the removal was disruptive or not... because arguing about it will cause even more disruption. Combating disruption with more is never the right thing to do. Blueboar (talk) 14:28, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

• This S Marshall who Jytdog keeps arguing with sounds like a very ignorant person. I'm glad I'm not like him.

  Blueboar, I did say I think removing easily-sourced content was disruptive. That was in the context of a specific edit, where an editor removed a paragraph from child grooming about the motives of a child sexual predator, and Flyer22 quite correctly reverted him. That particular edit wasn't just wrong and knuckleheaded: it was a potential child protection issue. Vulnerable children do turn to Misplaced Pages for information and they tend to trust it more than they should. The information was also easily verifiable using any reliable source on the subject, from any social work textbook published in the last thirty years to the very first reliable source that shows up on a google search, and if the editor had made any effort at all to understand the topic they were editing, they'd have seen it. So it was very extreme, and blatantly reckless. If I'd been the first person to see it I would have considered treating it as vandalism, but Flyer22 happened to be the person and she took it seriously. Policy shouldn't be written for that kind of situation. Hard cases make bad law.

  In less extreme cases, I wouldn't generally characterise a single content removal as disruptive. To be disruptive the content removals would need to be repeated often enough to make a pattern, and the pattern would need to be of POV advocacy (we've all met the kind of editor who'll remove unsourced content that's critical of Israel but leave it in when it criticises the PLO), or target a particular editor who's in good standing (griefing), or else be so egregious and make so much work for competent editors that they're a net negative for the encyclopaedia.

  Blueboar, what's your view on the Kww -v- The Rambling Man case? Because I think that's a useful example of how the wider community views disruptive content removal.—S Marshall T/C 17:40, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Don't really care about it one way or the other. I am a firm believer in saying that one single arbcom case should never determine Policy. Arbcom is focused on specific situations... Policy, on the other hand, focuses on generalities not specifics. An arbcom ruling may mean that we should make a one-time exception to an otherwise sound policy, not a change to the policy itself. Now... If there were a bunch of arbcom rulings, all saying the same thing... Then we can make generalizations that we can incorporate into policy. The idea that the BURDEN to source challenged material rests with those who return the info (and not with those who issue the challenge) has an extremely strong consensus. One single arbcom case is not enough to overturn that consensus. Blueboar (talk) 22:01, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Blueboar, no, I wasn't making an "exempt from BURDEN" argument. I was clear about this in the aforementioned extensive discussion at the WP:Burden talk page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:11, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

OK, let me just ask you then. If the basis for the claim of "verifiability" is not provided by actually bringing a source when content is restored, then what is the basis for the claim? Jytdog (talk) 17:47, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

If it gets as far as a "claim"----if verifiability is reasonably in doubt----then I have no problem at all with people using BURDEN. The bar for BURDEN needs to be set very low. If someone can honestly say, "I've made a perfunctory effort to check this bit and I can't see that it's verifiable" then they should be free to remove the content. I'm not talking about those cases. I'm talking about the people who edit the mainspace without checking the sources at all.—S Marshall T/C 18:41, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Well that is where it got, on the content that everybody is all worked up about. That is not "The capital of France is Paris" content - it is a whole description of a set of behaviors, any element of which could be wrong. And please don't bring the "urgency" argument. There is WP:NODEADLINE here except for actual BLP issues. I can't tell you how many editors I have had scream at me that THIS CONTENT IS ABSOLUTELY URGENT AND MUST STAY HERE. So many bad things happen in Misplaced Pages over false urgencies. You all have spent a shitload of time, for example, over this issue driven by false urgency, when it could be have been solved in a snap with a reference (making WP better in the process) and all the time arguing here could have been spent, oh... editing an article about a disease or improving the content about child molesters. And enshrining this in policy is just going to lead to many, many, many more arguments where editors are locked into battles based (ahem) on their personal authority, with one yelling "IT"S VERIFIABLE" and the other one "NO ITS NOT" and oceans of more time wasted. It is just horrible policy. Jytdog (talk) 19:01, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

I do understand what you mean, Jytdog. Despite all the things you've learned dealing with COI editors and POV pushers on articles about GMOs or within the scope of WikiProject Medicine, somehow this "just horrible policy" has been around since 18 October 2001. Oh, sure, it's evolved. From "whatever you do, preserve information" we've reached "preserve appropriate content". But the basic idea is still the same. If you cut content that's appropriate, then you're breaching one of Misplaced Pages's oldest and strongest policies. If you want to edit Misplaced Pages, then you do need to accept responsibility for your edits, and that's one of the things you're responsible for. I hope that doesn't make you too unhappy.—S Marshall T/C 20:21, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

I've explained what's wrong with what you are saying. If content is challenged it needs to be sourced, and you cannot just re-instate it on your own authority. As I wrote elsewhere, ~maybe~ Flyer could have won an argument at ANI on the specific content/behavior dispute that kicked all this off, had it come to that, given her characterization of the person on the other side. Maybe. But it is not something that should become policy-ified. I won't be responding further. Jytdog (talk) 20:37, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

KWW vs Rambling Man was about edit warring over removing unsourced material, not about removing unsourced material itself. Removing it is fine, edit warring over it is not. As I said at V talk:

If you think that case is about something else, quote the text you're relying upon from ArbCom's findings. I don't think that you can find it. — TransporterMan (TALK) 20:55, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, I think that's right. Effectively, Arbcom are finding that if you remove uncited but uncontroversial material under BURDEN, and I revert you, then you're not allowed to edit-war with me about it. But you're allowed to take me to that bottomless fountain of wisdom that we call AN/I and try to get me sanctioned.—S Marshall T/C 21:04, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Actually, what I took from it was that if I'd immediately blocked TRM instead of giving him a chance to stop being disruptive, I probably would have been upheld.—Kww(talk) 21:34, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

And, on a less snarky side, every time I take the time to doublecheck a completely unsourced article in the "List of Awards and Nominations ..." series, I find inaccuracies. That's enough research to challenge completely unsourced awards tables under any reasonable reading of PRESERVE and BURDEN: the burden is not on the doubting party to demonstrate that the information is inaccurate.—Kww(talk) 21:50, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

You obviously know the details a lot better than I do, but as I understand it, you were finding one or two individual inaccuracies and removing whole sections?—S Marshall T/C 22:49, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

No: after spot-checking many dozens of articles and finding that none of them were accurate, I would occasionally remove all unsourced claims from examples of such articles, taking care to do it slowly enough over a wide enough range of topics that it would present no unreasonable obstacle to people that cared about the material, and inserted filters that blocked edits that added tables of awards without adding citations. I added the filter only after the Arbcom enforcement notice board had come to the consensus that such an edit constituted a BLP violation when the subject was alive (by far, these are the vast majority of the "Awards and Nominations" articles, as the fans of dead people tend not to be as prolific). The primary reason that I think it is essential that the people that want to insert the material source it (and not send other editors on research expeditions) is that the ultimate goal is to train the contributors to source it when it is originally inserted. That training problem is what your approach fails to address. With this class of article, we aren't talking "sky is blue" or "people normally have five fingers" kinds of claims: we are talking about very specific claims being made about fairly obscure things, and, due to the size and contents of such articles, frequently hundreds and sometimes thousands of such claims in an individual article. Your approach winds up with the editors that try to take care of the problem being overwhelmed by the sheer mass of editors that insert these unsourced claims in the first place. My approach (removing them slowly, and installing filters to prevent unsourced tables from being inserted or reinserted into these articles) was on its way towards actually fixing the problem.—Kww(talk) 00:51, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Actually, it's editors being overwhelmed that I think is the problem. As the number of active editors declines, and the number of articles continues to increase, we have to make it possible for a shrinking contingent of competent editors to manage larger and larger watchlists. Managing vandalism is relatively simple, because it can simply be reverted. BURDEN is different because of its inherent asymmetry. BURDEN is at heart a way of making someone else do work. The workload asymmetry is at its worst if some genius complicates things for you by using BURDEN on several separate bits of content in one edit and then insisting that the sourcing has to precede the restoration; if you're dealing with one of those people, then your best bet is probably to print out the pre-BURDENised article so you can go through it line-by-line.

This is obviously attractive to griefers and POV-pushers but Misplaced Pages has ways of dealing with them. The other problem is editors who recklessly or negligently remove material they haven't bothered to check, and we've seen some examples of this lately. My position is that nobody should be making content edits in mainspace without checking the sources because we have fewer and fewer editors and we need each one to manage larger and larger watchlists. If you remove good content without checking the sources, it's possible that nobody is watching and nobody will correct you. PRESERVE is the policy that makes you, the person who removes content, accountable for your removals: it gives you a basic duty not to screw up the encyclopaedia by removing content that belongs. I would be opposed to any change to our editing policy that removes this feature of PRESERVE.—S Marshall T/C 21:48, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Well I guess this is where the philosophical issues reach their crux. I hear what you are saying (I do) but the tangible quick check that an editor who has added content even understands or cares about what we are up to here, is that they actually provided a citation. With this being the encyclopedia that anyone can edit and with the encyclopedia constantly growing (regardless of the number of named accounts), unsourced garbage ranging from good-faith-maybe-kinda-true to vandalism-for-kicks to raw-advocacy-for-commercial-or-emotional-or-ideological-gain is added to Misplaced Pages every day, and it is hard to keep up with, and often goes unchallenged for long periods of time. No citation is a redflag that somebody added garbage to Misplaced Pages and nobody noticed. Your stance doesn't acknowledge that reality. Would you please acknowledge that? Jytdog (talk) 22:26, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

BURDEN is not a way of making someone else do work: it's a way of pointing out that someone else inserted material and expected someone else to do the actual work of verifying the data and tracing it ot a reliable source. Unsourced assertions are not valuable content.—Kww(talk) 01:09, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

The statement that "nsourced assertions are not valuable content" is one of the most inaccurate comments I've ever read. And the WP:Preserve policy wholeheartedly disagrees with it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:06, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

You want to demonstrate that an assertion has value? Provide a source.—Kww(talk) 17:51, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

I will happily acknowledge that a lot of un-cited content is garbage that should be removed. If WP:PRESERVE said "You must retain all claims no matter how dubious or stupid", then it would be a problem. But WP:PRESERVE says Preserve appropriate content. It doesn't stop you removing garbage. It does make you responsible for ensuring you don't remove good content.—S Marshall T/C 17:08, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Yay. Thanks. So one person's pig's ear is another person's purse. That is the conflict that BURDEN resolves. There is no other way to resolve that in Misplaced Pages other than for the restoring editor to bring a source. Your way leaves two people screaming at each other, each based only on their own authority. That is my definition of hell. I do agree that if somebody seems to have a pattern of overly aggressive removals that is something to deal with under the behavioral part of WP:DR - talk to them, then try to get further input elsewhere (say a relevant WikiProject, and if all else fails, there is ANI. Jytdog (talk) 17:32, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There have always been several ways for Wikipedians to resolve problems. Let's say you remove content that I think should be restored. I could supply the source you demand. Or I could revert you, and take the matter to the talk page, or AN/I, or Arbcom. Kww will be able to tell you that these venues do not necessarily support the editor who removes content. Because the Misplaced Pages community does not believe that BURDEN is the One True Way that prevails over PRESERVE. That kind of absolutism is a weird and horrible abrogation of the need for editorial judgment. We could resolve most of this by starting a competence noticeboard, you know.—S Marshall T/C 18:07, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

(od)To rephrase the options SM just gave us... When responding to a WP:Challenge you have a choice: You can a) decrease any disruption caused by the challenge - by simply returning the material with a source... Or b) increase the amount of disruption by wasting everyone's time contesting the removal, and taking the matter to AN/I and Arbcom, etc. I'm still going to support the second first option... Every time. Blueboar (talk) 21:03, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

User:Blueboar I believe you meant first....and SMarshall the community won't accept the drama over one such removal. Like I said if someone has a pattern of doing that, that is arguably a behavior issue under the notion you have been advocating that could legitimately be handled through standard behavior DR (this is part of why I have said Flyer could potentially have had a good argument had her issue reached ANI - I believe she was claiming a pattern by the person she was edit warring with and she has a history of prevailing in such cases) Jytdog (talk) 23:40, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Kww said, "You want to demonstrate that an assertion has value? Provide a source." I say, "Check for that value yourself." After all, that's what the WP:Preserve policy tells you to do. And 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. If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it." We generally do not tolerate blanking entire articles simply because those articles are unsourced. As has been made clear countless times, content is verifiable even without a source. If all of the content in the Cancer article was unsourced, that would not make that content any less valuable. And any editor who would remove all or most of that content simply because it's unsourced should not be editing our articles.

As for the case I was involved in, I'm not sure about a pattern...yet, but my goal was more so to inform the editor of what he should have done. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:54, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

One more thing: I realize that Misplaced Pages takes its medical and WP:BLP articles far more seriously than a lot of other content it includes, and rightfully so. And I know that if someone adds a bunch of unsourced medical information, it is something to consider removing because many readers look to Misplaced Pages for medical information and the content could be wrong. In cases like those, I think it's best to move the content to the talk page in anticipation of it being sourced and re-added. Removal of content needs to be tempered with competence and good sense. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:35, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Why is making several hundred unsourced assertions about a living person on a talk page acceptable? Why do you think any editor that would have contributed the contents of the cancer article without having bothered to provide a single source for it deserves any consideration?—Kww(talk) 01:15, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Read Misplaced Pages talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 36#Rephrase "Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material" subheading. As a number of editors in that discussion (and in past discussions) agree, unsourced content about a living person does not automatically mean that it needs to be removed. Template:Citation needed is added to WP:BLP articles as well. And if it can be acceptable to have unsourced material about a living person in a Misplaced Pages article, which it can be, it is even more acceptable to have the unsourced information on the talk page.

As for your cancer argument, it makes no sense to me since you are claiming that unsourced material is automatically invaluable and/or that an editor who adds unsourced material is invaluable, despite the fact that the contrary has been shown time and time again. For example, we get scholars who don't know how to use Misplaced Pages adding valuable content to Misplaced Pages. Yes, a number of scholars, who might cite their sources elsewhere, don't know how to cite sources here. WP:Citing sources is not just for those who have never cited sources for their content. And if a scholar, or anyone, adds valuable content that significantly improves a Misplaced Pages article, that content should be retained. Needless to state, I won't be subscribing to your extreme view of WP:Verifiability. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:18, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Perfection

In the spirit of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, is there anything that we can agree on?

For example, can we agree on "If you are restoring unsourced material that was WP:CHALLENGEd, then the WP:BURDEN to provide an inline citation for that material is on you"? Does anyone disagree with the facts in this sentence? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

i am good with that. Jytdog (talk) 22:12, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

By this stage maybe it is best to just say Yes or No to this specific proposal and give a very brief reason, eh? Jytdog (talk) 12:11, 11 June 2016 (UTC)}}

What does that have to do with this policy? WP:Restore doesn't even link to this page. -- Kendrick7 07:31, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Kendrick7, WP:RESTORE isn't the only type of "restoring" that happens on wiki. This statement refers to the kind of restoration that is indicated in the linked policy, i.e., "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material". To put it in the context of this page: if the method you choose for PRESERVEing appropriate but CHALLENGEd and unsourced material is to restore that material to the article space, then you need to provide an inline citation to a reliable source, just liked WP:V demands. (If you choose some other method, e.g., moving it to the talk page, then no such citation is required.)

Here is the problem that I want to solve:

Bob: To the best of my understanding, this unsourced material is unverifiable and original research. I'm removing it.

Alice: I'm an expert, and I say that this material is easily verifiable. I'm reverting you and restoring it without a source.

Bob: Hey! I CHALLENGEd that material! I think at least some of that is wrong! If you revert my removal, then you have to provide a source because you restored it, and BURDEN says "the editor who restores material" has to provide a source!

Alice: No, I don't have to provide a source, because PRESERVE says I can restore anything I think is appropriate! You go find a source. It's easy, and I'm too busy!

Bob: No, you go find the source! WP:V says so!

Alice: No, you go find the source! PRESERVE says so!

Bob: No, my policy's bigger than your policy! You go find the source!

Alice: No way! My policy wins! You go find the source!

I want these conversations to stop. I think that having this page mention that BURDEN still applies, whenever you choose the PRESERVEation method of "restoring" challenged and unsourced material to the mainspace, would stop these conversations. (I'm open to other wording, including adding a sentence that says, "So if you're not providing that inline citation today, then try one of the other ways to PRESERVE it, y'hear now?") I want material preserved, but I do not want any more confusion about whether PRESERVE amounts to an exemption from BURDEN's sourcing requirements for the individual editor who chooses to restore material to the mainspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:29, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

• If Bob's read the sources then Alice is in the wrong. If Bob's making content edits without checking the sources then Alice is, undoubtedly, right.—S Marshall T/C 07:39, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
  • But the only way to prove that is for Alice to pony up the source. That's the problem, and the reason that Alice's behaviour is wholly inexcusable. If she has the damn source and refuses to provide it, she's being intentionally disruptive. If she hasn't got the source and that's the reason she isn't providing it, she's intentionally violating WP:V. In any battle of of "who's the worse evil", Alice loses, hands down. In an exchange like this, blocking Alice until she provides the source is a very reasonable response, if only for the very pragmatic reason that we can't require Bob to prove a negative. It's easy to force Alice to back up her assertion that "it's easy".—Kww(talk) 14:35, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
    • Misplaced Pages can't actually demonstrate whether either Alice or Bob has read or knows anything, so we can't realistically enforce any requirement along the lines of "if Bob's read the sources". Also, I disagree that Alice is "right": after all, we don't know that Alice has read the sources, either, and Misplaced Pages has some important history of self-proclaimed experts turning out to be fakes. What if Alice is wrong? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
      • OK, and the second time Bob pulls this stunt? The fourth time? The twentieth time? At what point do we decide this person isn't researching his challenges, he's just wasting competent editor time, and block him? The answer can't be "never".—S Marshall T/C 21:07, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
        • Why can't the answer be "never"? Blueboar (talk) 21:22, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
          • Because I would resist and revert any attempt to nullify PRESERVE, or make it purely advisory, in this way unless it had followed a sitewide RfC.—S Marshall T/C 21:36, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

• Per this policy, we recommend, without putting too fine a point on it, that the first thing Bob should be doing is adding the {{fact}} tag and waiting around a few months, or perhaps even years, before removing anything. That would give Alice plenty of time to cough up a source. Others policies only kick in after that fails to happen. -- Kendrick7 15:21, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
  • We only require that he consider doing so, not that he actually do it. On the other hand, BURDEN requires a specific, verifiable action: placing an inline citation next to any and all material that has been challenged.—Kww(talk) 15:45, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
    • Kendrick is also assuming that the material in question isn't contentious matter about BLPs. I agree that PRESERVE only requires that Bob consider tagging the material. But I point out that in one of these cases that has been discussed extensively here, the unsourced material had, in fact, been fact-tagged for months, and the restoring editor restored it without a source, including restoring the months-old fact tag. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
      • I have made no such BLP assumption; WP:CANTFIX covers this. If there was some editor acting in bad faith, slap them with a WP:TROUT; there's no need to upend policy on account of one editor. Clearly y'all are arguing about incorrect wording in WP:BURDEN, so take your arguments there. -- Kendrick7 16:51, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
        • If that was clear, we wouldn't be arguing: the incorrect wording seems to be in PRESERVE, which some people think entitles them to restore challenged information without satisfying WP:BURDEN first.—Kww(talk) 19:44, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
        • I do not believe that this is a bad-faith problem. I think that editors who are sincerely trying to do what's best for the article (perhaps with the least amount of work to themselves at this particular moment, but we're all busy, right?) have read both of these policies and concluded that their actions are fully justified and that the other editor is unquestionably violating one of the policies. The recent disputes aren't the first time this has happened. We need to clarify, on this page, whether it's okay to PRESERVE UNSOURCED material that has been CHALLENGEd in good faith, through the specific method of (a) restoring the article and (b) not providing an inline citation to support the challenged material. Kendrick7 and Kww, I'm very interested in knowing whether you believe there are any errors in the proposed sentence above. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:47, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
          • Yes, I object to it: it would imply that it's permissible to restore first, cite later. Even that Arbcom decision that I'm so famous for wouldn't go that far: the motion that tried to claim that doing so in a BLP wasn't a BLP violation failed to pass.—Kww(talk) 01:23, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

It is permissible to restore first, cite later. You know, WP:BURO and WP:Ignore all rules. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:21, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Also, the Bob and Alice example that WhatamIdoing provided above is clearly supposed to be a reflection of the Child grooming incident. And it's a completely inaccurate reflection for reasons I and others made very clear. Yes, I "restored without a source, including restoring the months-old fact tag." I then tweaked the material, and took the matter to the talk page to address the reckless removal; I was clear that I would be sourcing the content. Later, I did just that. There was no withholding the source; so, in this case, Alice was not "refus to provide it." I reiterate that 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." There is no deadline, and there shouldn't be one. There is no reason that the editor could not have checked up on the material he was removing, or updated the citation needed tag, after I informed him (after reverting him) that the content he was removing is easily verifiable. It's not like he had to take my word for it. He could have done a simple Google search and looked to the reliable sources. Instead, he chose to be stubborn. If someone removes easily verifiable content from an article, and especially simply because, to them, it looks like WP:Original research, you better believe that I am going to address the editor about that reckless removal. That edit was incompetence, pure and simple, and we shouldn't be tolerating it. It doesn't take an expert to know that. Any, by the way, despite the fact that I am well known for my knowledge on child sexual abuse topics (and other sexual/psychological topics), never did I state on Misplaced Pages that I am an expert. I do not talk about my profession(s) on Misplaced Pages. I let my edits speak for themselves, and, given the level of respect I've gotten over the years for my knowledge on such topics (including from experts like User:James Cantor), they clearly do speak for themselves. The Essjay comparisons are better left elsewhere.

And since the WP:Preserve policy indicates that editors should be doing a check on the material they are removing before they remove it, I disagree that we "can't realistically enforce any requirement along the lines of 'if Bob's read the sources'." Editors should not be allowed to remove and any everything they want based on faulty reasoning. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:12, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

In other words, you took the time to do everything but satisfy WP:BURDEN, did so repeatedly, and then wonder why others think you did it solely to make a point.—Kww(talk) 12:03, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

In other words, you still don't understand how Misplaced Pages article editing is supposed to work and should stay far away from our articles. On top of that, you don't understand "repeatedly" or WP:POINT either. Never the matter, you are the only editor claiming that I acted in a WP:POINT manner anyway. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:29, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Weak support: I'm okay with the proposed change, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary because I don't believe that the policies are actually ambiguous. KWW is right and Flyer22 Reborn is mostly wrong. I'd like to say "absolutely wrong" but when he says "should be doing a check" he could be referring to best, but non-mandatory, practices. The best practice is to (a) look for and add a source and only remove the material if you can't find one on a quick check or (b) fact-tag it and wait (not months or years, but a month or so at most) and then remove the material, but simply removing the material while stating that you have a concern that it is unverifiable is acceptable. Preserving the material on the article talk page is also an optional best practice. We "should be" ordinarily following best practices, but in this case we can do something else. There's no such thing, period, as a "reckless" removal of a single instance of unsourced material if you have a concern that it may be unverifiable. Doing it as a routine, repeated activity and, maybe, doing it over a large body of material in a single article are different stories, for reasons I have repeatedly explained at V. — TransporterMan (TALK) 21:07, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Well stated. Blueboar (talk) 22:39, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

KWW is commonly wrong on WP:Burden issues; this has been proven times over. And there was no "mostly wrong" or even "absolutely wrong" when it comes to my having restored appropriate content to the Child grooming article, addressed the reckless removal on the talk page, and sourced the material. Simply removing material while stating that you have a concern is not acceptable when your concern is baseless. The editor in question had no valid concern that the material was unverifiable or original research. If an editor thinks that material is unverifiable or original research, that editor should be checking up on that. We commonly do not tolerate editors going to articles and removing huge chunks of material based on guesses about the content or on incorrect application of our rules, no matter if the content is unsourced. As S Marshall, myself and others have stated more than once of the Child grooming case and similar cases, such behavior, if a pattern, has been reprimanded or sanctioned. And if it's a one-time thing, the editor needs to learn what he or she did wrong, not thumb their nose at WP:Preserve and the fact that the article could have lost important content all because he or she didn't do a simple Google search. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:02, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

And another thing: WP:Preserve is a policy. We need to stop treating it like a guideline. If we are going to take this "non-mandatory" approach to this policy, which is detrimental, given the important content that could be lost, then downgrade it to a guideline. Otherwise, treat it like the policy that it is. WP:Policies and guidelines states, "Although Misplaced Pages does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Misplaced Pages 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."

And I'm a she, by the way. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:21, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Not quite... WP:PRESERVE is not a policy... it is part of a policy. I know that sounds like a nit-pick, but it is important... because there are other parts of the policy that say things that give PRESERVE context. For example: the first section of the policy states:

• Please boldly add content summarizing accepted knowledge to Misplaced Pages, either by creating new articles or adding to existing articles, and exercise particular caution when considering removing sourced content. However, it is Misplaced Pages policy that information in Misplaced Pages should be verifiable and must not be original research. You are invited to show that content is verifiable by referencing reliable sources. Unsourced content may be challenged and removed, because on Misplaced Pages a lack of content is better than misleading or false content—Misplaced Pages's reputation as an encyclopedia depends on the content in articles being verifiable and reliable. To avoid such challenges, the best practice is to provide an "inline citation" at the time the content is added

Note the part I have highlighted in BOLD. Ths is a repetition of what is stated at WP:V. Unsourced information may be challenged and removed. The interaction between PRESERVE and BURDEN is further explained by the section of the policy that follows PRESERVE - WP:DON'T PRESERVE, which states:

• Several of our core policies discuss situations when it might be more appropriate to remove information from an article rather than preserve it. Misplaced Pages:Verifiability discusses handling unsourced and contentious material

Once again, note the part I have highlighted. This same policy that contains PRESERVE again supports WP:V. And WP:V contains WP:BURDEN. BURDEN is also part of a policy... and happens to be the only policy statement that says what has to happen once material has been removed. Blueboar (talk) 11:35, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Blueboar, yes, it is extremely nitpicky to state that WP:Preserve is a part of policy instead of is a policy, and it's a faulty way of looking things as well. It's hardly any different than stating WP:Burden is not policy but rather a part of policy. The vast majority of our rules are sections on a page. If the section is a part of a guideline page, it's a guideline. If the section is a part of a policy, it's a policy. Misplaced Pages has never worked in any other way. As for your interpretation of the WP:Burden and WP:Preserve rules, we've indeed already been over this, as S Marshall addressed below. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:39, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• You've already been given the counterarguments to that. Was there anything about them that you didn't feel you understood?—S Marshall T/C 18:31, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

SM - If I have been given counter-arguments, I can't find them (not saying you didn't give them... just that I don't see them). Since the discussion is quite long... would you mind either pointing me to where these counter-arguments are... or (better yet) repeat them here. thanks. Blueboar (talk) 18:43, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

• They are:-

  (1) WP:PRESERVE far pre-dates BURDEN, and it also pre-dates WP:V. The basic instruction to preserve information dates back to this page's first revision from 18 October 2001. There have been a number of attempts to diminish it over the years, or to make BURDEN stand above it. These edits have never been allowed to stick, and the recent Arbcom case only serves to confirm that consensus is not on your side in this.

  (2) PRESERVE describes what an editor should do before removing information. It says "Preserve appropriate content". Therefore, before removing anything under WP:BURDEN, an editor has a basic duty to check whether the content they are removing is appropriate.

  (Note) Per policy, only verifiable content is appropriate for Misplaced Pages. Any editor can remove unverifiable content at will under WP:BURDEN. WP:PRESERVE is no obstacle to this at all.

  (3) The only conflict between BURDEN and PRESERVE comes when an editor removes verifiable content under BURDEN. This means we're dealing with someone who makes mainspace edits without knowing the sources and without checking the sources. It can only mean this kind of person: Randy in Boise.

  (4) If the content is verifiable, removing it under BURDEN harms the encyclopaedia. This harm can be rectified if someone who knows the sources and can cite them is watching. If not, then the harm will remain, and it's acknowledged by others on your side of the argument (if not by you) that not every article is watched.

  BURDEN is not a trump card that excuses you from checking the sources before you edit the mainspace. One or two removals of good content under BURDEN should probably lead to nothing more serious a talk page discussion about the importance of PRESERVE, but repeatedly doing it, or edit-warring to keep verifiable content out of the encyclopaedia, is a policy violation that should lead to sanctions.—S Marshall T/C 23:10, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to recap all that. While it does not change my opinion, reading it here does help me to understand why you have the opinion you have. I think we will just have to "agree to disagree". Our interpretations of how the two policies work together are just too far apart. Blueboar (talk) 00:24, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Polite question for S Marshall: do you agree that the goal is to not only have all information not only be verifiable, but verified in the form of citations being actually present?—Kww(talk) 02:57, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• "All information"? If this means that every sentence in Misplaced Pages should have an inline citation, then no, I don't even think that's realistic. If it means that every article should contain some citations then I would say eventually yes; but I could spend the rest of my life adding citations to articles about individual species of beetle or places called Where the Hick, Nebraska (pop. 93), and still leave plenty of unsourced articles in Misplaced Pages. More achievably, I'd like to try to get to at least one citation per paragraph in BLPs (but of course, the proposed edit to PRESERVE would massively hinder this).—S Marshall T/C 17:01, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• Our goals are dramatically different. I don't care much about "citation per sentence" vs. "citation per paragraph" vs. "citation per article", but firmly believe that every thing presented as fact in Misplaced Pages should have a citation supporting the statement in the same article.—Kww(talk) 17:29, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Flyer, please stop making this about your interaction on the child protection content. Jytdog (talk) 18:28, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

• Give us a different example to discuss, then.—S Marshall T/C 18:31, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog, when WhatamIdoing stops making it about that, directly or indirectly, I will. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:39, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

We don't drive policy based on single, very tenuous examples. Jytdog (talk) 20:24, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

• Oh, I agree that we shouldn't edit this policy as a result of this discussion. The example you describe as "very tenuous" was in fact the one that inspired WAID to propose any changes in the first place.—S Marshall T/C 23:10, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm having trouble figuring out why it is productive to continue this discussion, either here or at V. Neither "side" is proposing any changes to either policy (except for those proposed by WhatamIdoing which are not - no insult to her intended - getting much response and have no consensus one way or the other) and both sides believe that they have the correct interpretation of the current policies, which they believe to be unambiguous in their support for their interpretation. All we're doing, on both sides is repeating ourselves endlessly without any sign, except on very minor points (if that) of convincing the other side that they're wrong. One will prove to be right and the other wrong in practice. So be it. I've been replying only so that newcomers to either talk page will not be left with the impression that the other side have achieved acknowledgment of correctness by acquiescence or silence. Unless someone wants to propose something to explicitly clarify that the policies conform to their interpretation this is a waste of everyone's time. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:50, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, I am not responding here anymore and I suggest that other people just stop as well. This is beyond BLUDGEON. Jytdog (talk) 20:24, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

This is doubtless excellent advice, which I'm not taking, on the grounds that doing nothing is guaranteed to not solve my problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

User:Kww, can you tell me what it is about this sentence:

"If you are restoring unsourced material that was WP:CHALLENGEd, then the WP:BURDEN to provide an inline citation for that material is on you"

that implies anything at all about whether "it's permissible to restore first, cite later"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Not Kww... But I would like to offer my take on "restore first, cite later": It is certainly permissible to request it. (example: "I can easily provide a source for this... But it is exam week here at my University, and I am swamped. Are you willing to let me restore now, on the promise that I will cite it as soon as I have time"). This sort of request acknowledges the challenge, and works to lessen any tensions. If I were the challenger, I would normally grant such a polite request (on the theory that we should assume good faith... at least until proven otherwise). Blueboar (talk) 01:37, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Much happier if you tweaked it to

"If you are restoring unsourced material that was WP:CHALLENGEd, then the WP:BURDEN to simultaneously provide an inline citation for that material is on you"

Any legitimate concerns about invalid challenges can always be addressed by getting a consensus that the challenge was invalid prior to restoration.—Kww(talk) 02:30, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Kww, insisting upon "simultaneously" (as opposed to, e.g., back-to-back edits separated by a few minutes, or even within the hour) means either that we are creating a new rule here (which is unwise; all of BURDEN's rules and regulations should be contained in BURDEN itself) or that we would be knowingly misrepresenting the lack of any such specification in BURDEN here (which falls in the general category of "telling lies").

I've got nothing against having a separate conversation at WT:V about whether BURDEN should specify "simultaneously", and, if an explicit time limit were to be adopted, I would have nothing against reflecting that time limit here. However, I firmly believe that we shouldn't add that new specification here, when it is not present in the original. The point here is to alert PRESERVEing editors that BURDEN exists and is relevant to their noble preservation efforts; the point is not to make up for any perceived failings in BURDEN.

Given that, I wonder whether you think adding the proposed sentence would be better than the current situation, whcih make no reference to BURDEN's existence in PRESERVE itself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:07, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

But it's not a new rule: WP:V states that any information that has been challenged requires an inline citation, not a tag, general reference, or any of the various kinds of verification that are normally acceptable. That's not actually a part of BURDEN at all: just plain-vanilla WP:V. WP:V states the acceptable condition (challenged material not there or challenged material plus inline citation there), BURDEN states who has to do it.—Kww(talk) 04:46, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

It actually would be a new rule, because nothing in WP:V specifies that the citation must be supplied in exactly the same edit ("simultaneously"). The inline citation has to be there, but WP:V doesn't (currently) care whether you take one edit or ten edits to get it there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:31, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

WAID, That is an extremely Wikilawyerish analysis of the policy. WP:V may not spell it out.... but I think there is a clear implication that the source should be provided at the same time that material is restored. Otherwise, it looks like the restorer is simply edit warring, and not accepting the burden.

At minimum, the restorer should leave some sort of acknowledgement of the challenge, and an indication that the burden to provide a source has been accepted (such as an edit summary saying "will provide source shortly"). Blueboar (talk) 11:03, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't think "wikilawyering" is an appropriate description. It simply goes against any plain reading of "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." There's some wiggle room and eventuality arguments around "likely to be challenged", but not around "has been challenged". At the time the edit is made restoring it, the material has been challenged and must include an inline citation.—Kww(talk) 14:00, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

If you want "simultaneously provide an inline citation" added to this policy page, then I suggest you first go try and get it incorporated into the WP:Burden page, since it sets no deadline whatsoever and is clear that "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." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:46, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• In most cases, content removed under WP:BURDEN shouldn't be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. There should be some wiggle room for when dealing with the kind of editor who'll remove all the unsourced sentences that are unfavourable to their (nationality/religion/political party/favourite conspiracy theory/preferred brand of snake oil, delete as appropriate) but leave all the favourable ones alone. There should also be some wiggle room with the kind of editor who'll remove 38 sentences in the same edit and insist that you cite them individually before they can be restored, because when dealing with large challenges it's much more practical and efficient to restore and then source. Even in those cases I think you should source promptly ---- if it's going to take more than a few hours then the restoring editor should drop an explanatory note on the talk page.—S Marshall T/C 17:10, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• I've never understood that "efficiency" argument: no one forces anyone to hit the "save" button before all the sources are provided. That's what the preview buffer is for.—Kww(talk) 17:29, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• I'd imagine you're familiar with it, though? I can't be the first person to have said this to you.—S Marshall T/C 17:41, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• Repetition doesn't improve its accuracy: if the goal is to completely restore the information without intentionally violating policy, the preview buffer works. Hitting the "save" button violates policy without improving efficiency.—Kww(talk) 20:03, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Can I remind everyone that we had a RFC on the immediacy issue only last July (Proposal 2)? I agree with Blueboar that immediacy is required by the current policy, but I weakly opposed making it explicit for reasons I stated there. - TransporterMan (TALK) 18:13, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

• There was one idea that came out of that RFC that I think is worth pursuing... Creating a "citation pending" tag.

As I understand the idea... this tag would be added by those who wish to preserve (i.e. Return) the challenged material... By adding it, they are acknowledging that they have accepted the burden to provide a source, but request a reasonable amount of time to supply it. Would something like that be acceptable? Blueboar (talk) 21:30, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

I think that would resolve a lot of the problems when it comes to the interaction between these two policies. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:36, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

The question will, of course, be begged: what constitutes a "reasonable amount of time"? In a vacuum I would suggest a week, which means the tag probably needs a datestamp. I would also suggest that placing such a tag and then failing to provide a source should be considered disruptive behavior, and ideally that appropriate user warning templates be developed. DonIago (talk) 03:10, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Why is it ever reasonable to override a challenge and restore the material if you don't already have a source? After all, you took the challenge seriously and actually verified the material before restoring the material, right? You didn't just override the challenge based on things like personal opinion?—Kww(talk) 03:29, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Kww and oppose a citation-pending template. "Citation pending" implies that there definitely is a reliable source but that someone just needs to do something clerkish — look up the date or page number or other details of the citation, or the like — to add it. It, thus, vouches for the verifiability of the material in exactly the way that Misplaced Pages is built around not doing, saying in effect "It's correct because we say so." We might as well create a "No citation, correct because we say so" tag. Frankly, after thinking this through more, if I could go back and change my !vote in the RFC to supporting the footnote making simultaneous citing explicitly mandatory ("explicitly" because it's already mandatory). — TransporterMan (TALK) 11:43, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

As this discussion and a number of past discussions similar to it show, many editors do not agree that simultaneous citing is mandatory. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:19, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Adding a "citation pending" tag would not "overturn" the challenge... I see it as an explicit acceptance and acknowledgement of it. My concept would be that template would only be used in situations where there is a source... and the restorer simply needs some "clerk" time to compile it. For example... The restorer knows that the challenged information can be verified by a print book, and knows his local library has a copy of this book... I think it reasonable to give him/her a day or two to go to the library, get the book and compile the information in order to format a proper citation (publisher, page number, etc). The "citation pending" tag would not be a be a "get out of citation free" card. It would be a very temporary placeholder for the citation. Restrictions on using the tag, the time limits applied to it, and what happens if the citation is not supplied within that time limit can be spelled out in the instructions on the tag's template page. Blueboar (talk) 12:54, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

And that's why I think the tag would work. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:19, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

But why the rush to restore it before the editor has managed to actually verify it? You are supporting the idea of restoring challenged information based on a potentially incorrect memory of what the editor has seen in the past, rather than waiting for proper verification. Why rush to do things incorrectly? The problem this citation solves is oxmoronic: the disruptive removal of information that is widely known and easily verifiable, yet no one can come up with a reliable source that supports it.—Kww(talk) 14:31, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't believe that a {{citation pending}} tag will solve any problems. If you'd accept a tag for material that you CHALLENGEd, then you'd accept an edit summary or a note on the talk page, too.

I can think of some good reasons to add a citation in a separate edit, including:

• to differentiate between what you're doing what what someone else previously wrote, so that it's clear what you changed when you improved the text (especially appropriate for text that was removed many edits ago, which makes diffs difficult).
• because your internet connection is flaky, and you need to save frequently. Loss of session errors aren't unusual, and not everyone has a high-speed internet connection and modern computer that recovers gracefully from them.
• because you want to add the citation via the mw:citoid service, but UNDO puts you in the wikitext editor, and you can't remember how to switch without saving in between (or you're worried that something might break if you switch).
• because you're on a Mobile device that handles multiple windows badly, or you're on the app and worry that if you move to a web browser, the app will discard your edits, and you have to go save the page so you can go copy the URL that you need.

As you can see, there are some purely practical reasons why some editors might occasionally want to use multiple edits (one after another, not separated by days or weeks) to restore and add citations (and fix any text that doesn't match the citation well enough), even when you "already have a source". I agree that most editors, in most circumstances, won't encounter these issues, but some of them will, and, in these situations, their practical solution of saving once and citing a few minutes later seems very reasonable to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:46, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

• You're contemplating a clarification of BURDEN, so I would tend to think the discussion belongs on WT:V rather than here. I think it's a worthwhile clarification but PRESERVE should not be affected.—S Marshall T/C 16:36, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I was contemplating something entirely new... Which would have an impact on both policies. Blueboar (talk) 18:31, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Back to square one

Let's approach this from a different direction ... Currently the policy describes quite a few options one should consider doing before he/she challenges and removes information. The policy, however, says nothing about how to preserve information when someone else has considered and rejected all those options.
So... I have to ask... What is best practice to follow when someone else thinks something should not be preserved... But you disagree, and think it should be preserved? Obviously, engaging in an edit war over it is not best practice... But what is? Blueboar (talk) 20:10, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

• Assess the edit in context to determine how to react:-

  1) Check the justification given, and clarify with the removing editor if necessary. It would be appropriate to remove verifiable content if, for example, it was a known copyvio and the removing editor didn't have time to rewrite. If there's any ambiguity, ensure that we're actually dealing with BURDEN.

  2) Could this be interpreted as a good faith edit? If it could be a good faith edit, assume it is; but in my experience removing verifiable content is quite often part of a pattern of suspect behaviour, so check before reacting. Look for red flags such as whether the editor has, or appears to have, a COI or history of advancing a position, and if so whether this edit appears to advance that position. Or whether the editor is behaving vexatiously or in a retaliatory manner following a conflict with another editor active on the page. If this appears not a good faith edit, revert and proceed directly to an appropriate venue such as COIN.

  3) If it is, or must be assumed to be, a good faith edit, then the first time source and then restore, or if necessary, restore and then source. Then begin a polite conversation with the editor educating them about the reasons for PRESERVE.

  4) If the behaviour is repeated, and particularly if the editor is removing substantial amounts of verifiable content and costing large quantities of competent editor time, refer to the drama boards to get them reined in.—S Marshall T/C 21:06, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

• Best practice? Remember that actually being verified is the goal, and that being verifiable is best demonstrated by being verified. Once one has actually verified the removed content and correctly formatted a citation that relies on a WP:RS, restore the material complete with the citation. The only time when S. Marshall's suggestions above apply is if the material actually had a citation and that citation appears to be to a reliable source: it's inapplicable to unsourced and uncited material.—Kww(talk) 23:47, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
• I don't believe that there is one single "best" practice. I think there are several practices that are potentially appropriate:
  1. Restore and source – simplest, quickest, solves most problems instantly, and plays well in dispute resolution.
  2. Fix and source – sometimes the seemingly POINTy or POV-pushing edit identifies a real problem.
  3. Start a discussion to find consensus before trying to restore it – sometimes you need more information about what the perceived problem is.
• On S Marshall's comments, I think it's partly the wrong approach. Editors shouldn't worry about whether the CHALLENGE is due to COI or POV pushing (which, after all, are sometimes subjective and frequently mistaken labels). If you restore it with a good source, and it's left alone, then the two of you have jointly improved the article. If you restore it with a good source, and it's not left alone, then you'll discover the further behavioral problems without any extra effort on your part. Since step #1 at any dispute resolution board is likely to be a request that you demonstrate that the material is truly verifiable, then you'll have to do this anyway, so you might as well do it now. And why should an editor be limited to removing unsourced and probably wrong information only "the first time"? What are you going to do if I come back next week and say "these strange statistics are unsourced and probably not verifiable, either"? Take me to the drama boards so that you can get hit by a BOOMERANG? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:02, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
• "The first time" is because I think removing verifiable material from Misplaced Pages articles is weird. I mean, stipulating for a moment that the policies even allow it (and for the avoidance of doubt, my position has always been that the policies positively require you to preserve appropriate content) ---- what kind of editor has nothing better to do with their volunteering time than find an article they don't know about, and without bothering to research it, remove some plausible but unsourced content under BURDEN? I have some difficulty assuming good faith about an editor who does this. You, WAID, would not behave in this way. Blueboar would not behave in this way. It's an odd, bizarre thing to do. You'd check whether you're dealing with a partisan or a crusader. If at first glance it seems like you're not, then okay, source the content and tell them they shouldn't be making mainspace edits on any topic they don't know about without checking the sources and doing a bit of research. But if their response is do it again? At this point, they've gone from "a bit odd" to "pretty freaking suspicious", haven't they? Have you ever done anything like this? Would you ever do anything like this?—S Marshall T/C 19:55, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
  • On articles and topics where the frequent contributors show no apparent interest in providing sources? Certainly I have, because my goal is to get the people that build articles to add sources: I have no particular interest in following bad editors around and correcting their contributions, I want them to contribute correctly in the first place.—Kww(talk) 22:40, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Of course I remove plausible-but-unsourced information from articles: BLP and COPYVIO demand that editors do this, and SPLITs really can't be done any other way.  ;-) I even remove plausible-and-sourced information on occasion, e.g., when it is UNDUE or redundant.
    But as you specify removing the content "under BURDEN" rather than because of the myriad other reasons, I want to back up to your assumption: "what kind of editor has nothing better to do with their volunteering time than find an article they don't know about, and without bothering to research it, remove some plausible but unsourced content"? That's a negative assumption about editors acting out of ignorance, and a strange assumption that what seems plausible to me will seem plausible to everyone.
    So how about we ask instead, "What kind of editor finds an article that he does believe that he knows something about, and removes unsourced information that does not seem plausible to him?" For example, to use the recent dispute about anatomical homology, the unsourced material that was removed was partly wrong, and the editor who removed it provided a reliable source that he believed supported his changes. It happens that his (sourced) version was completely wrong, but I think that all reasonable editors would agree that he believed that he knew something verifiable about the subject and that he was sincerely trying to correct what he believed was a factual error – complete with the research step that you seem to assume the blanking editors aren't doing.
    And if you're specifically thinking of the Child grooming case, then I remind you that the unsourced material in question said, "Child grooming is an activity done to gain...the trust of those responsible for the child's well-being", which did not survive to the current version because it proved to not be verifiable, even though it sounded plausible to people who weren't paying close attention to exactly what the text said (e.g., me). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:45, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
    • Well, Kww just told us he does just rock up to articles he knows nothing about and remove chunks of text without knowing whether they're accurate. I'm amazed. Sounds incredibly high-handed and arrogant to me. I think finding sources is everyone's job. Self-appointed managers who hand out assignments for other people to bring article sourcing up to their personal standards? People who think it's their job to decide what other people should do? Nope: that attitude's unacceptable and it needs purging from the encyclopaedia. BURDEN is for removing content that you reasonably believe to be inappropriate, i.e., before you press that big red button, you should either know, or have checked. Editing the mainspace without checking the sources to make sure your edit improves the encyclopaedia is thoroughly irresponsible, and it's one of the reasons why I keep saying we need a competence noticeboard. Allowing editors to use BURDEN indiscriminately, giving no weight to PRESERVE, is like handing out axes to blind men.

      Jytdog doesn't want us to make this about the child grooming case, but since you mention that edit specifically ---- child grooming is verifiably about trust and removing that paragraph was not good editorial judgment. I don't think it's appropriate for you to hold it up as a triumph for BURDEN. If the editor was behaving responsibly or showing good editorial judgment, he would have restricted his challenge to that part of the subject paragraph which isn't always true. (It usually is true.)

      I did mention in my "best practice" bit about copyvios, and I did specifically say it's right to check that the edit really does involve BURDEN if there's ambiguity. I've removed UNDUE content myself on more than one occasion...—S Marshall T/C 00:11, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

    • Actually, I need to accept that you're not going to give up. We should probably just draft an RfC here.  ;-)—S Marshall T/C 00:23, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
      • Well, you've certainly demonstrated that you don't actually read what people say before responding. I've always been upfront that I think it is legitimate to remove material simply because it is unsourced, regardless of whether I believe it is possible to source it. At what point did I discuss editing articles that I "knew nothing about"?—Kww(talk) 02:22, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
        • Sure, you've said you think that. Policy says otherwise. Policy says you should preserve appropriate content; and in the context of removing content from the mainspace, that means it's your job to check the sources first. If you're not willing to research the subject, read the sources, check what they say and add inline citations where appropriate, then you simply shouldn't be editing the article.—S Marshall T/C 16:26, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
          • No, policy says it was the responsibility of the person that added the material to ensure it was verifiable. When confronted with never-ending piles of unsourced additions, it isn't my responsiblity to wade through the heaps and verify each one individually: that burden falls on the people that add the material in the first place. Have fun: go check a few completely unsourced articles in the "List of awards and achievements ..." group for accuracy. I'm willing to bet you'll find that most you examine aren't completely verifiable. You want to shift the burden onto other editors and have them prove that each and every item in an unsourced article isn't verifiable, which is exactly what BURDEN says isn't the case.—Kww(talk) 17:09, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
            • Yes: if you want to edit Misplaced Pages then adding sources to articles absolutely is your responsibility. The last thing we need is "editors" who think it isn't their job to source content.—S Marshall T/C 18:03, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

              Please provide a link to a policy that stipulates that. DonIago (talk) 18:07, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Verifiability and the editing policy combine to say this. Verifiability says that everything challenged or likely to be challenged has to have a source, and things that do not have sources can be removed. The editing policy says preserve appropriate content. Policy does not say, but I think everyone here would agree, that only verifiable content is appropriate for Misplaced Pages. Therefore the behaviour expected of editors coming across unsourced content is that they should assess whether it's appropriate, remove it if it isn't, and source it if it is.—S Marshall T/C 18:24, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

All editors are not equally suited to the task of sourcing all content they will encounter. When I see stable content that I believe may be appropriate, but which is unsourced, I tag it as a way of notifying editors who are better suited to the task of sourcing the particular content that sourcing should be provided. If months later no editor has stepped forward to provide a source, I then consider it reasonable to assume that the content is not in fact appropriate and I will either delete it or relocate it to the article's Talk page. DonIago (talk) 19:08, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

• Don, please don't remove content unless you know, or have checked, that that's an appropriate thing to do. It's irresponsible to edit the mainspace without checking the sources.—S Marshall T/C 19:47, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

It is at least as irresponsible to add content of dubious verifiability without providing a source. DonIago (talk) 19:59, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

I never said (nor would a look through my edit history support, especially considering the efforts of User:Chartbot), that I am above adding citations. I will also say that specific sales claims and awards come under the umbrella of "likely to be challenged".—Kww(talk) 19:21, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

• Then you two should consider posting in support of the blanking editor in this AN/I. This is the kind of behaviour we're discussing.—S Marshall T/C 20:52, 16 June 2016 (UTC)