User talk:RapidlyOxidizingMaterial

Wikipedia Philosophy

My philosophy in Wikipedia mirrors that which I use in my occupation: "No data is better than garbage data." I would rather have a smaller set of useful, verifiable (and verified), clean articles than a large set of borderline trash. This does not mean I prefer to throw out the baby with the bathwater; if an article is sufficiently notable, and has room for improvement, it should be kept. Unfortunately, in my experience, I have found that to be the exception, and not the rule. For every article like Kennedy Assassination, there are a hundred others that are blatant advertisement, like Actuarial Outpost.

I am also a very strong believer in having sources in articles, and quoting them, preferably in in-line Harvard citation format. When an article is unsourced, by nature it is suspect. If it can't point to a verifiable source, it is as if it says "Go ahead, I am a made up advertisement." We need fewer articles of the latter type. There are too many unsourced, or poorly sourced articles that people may take for real research on Wikipedia.