User talk:RoyGoldsmith/Synthesis and Citations

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Citations: Old School, new School

I don't think there's a lot pushback from current contributors that where citations are available that newly written or newly expanded articles should have citations. The problem comes in old articles which were written when there was less concern about WP:V. Here are a few cases:

Material which is manifestly correct is deleted on the basis it is uncited. Bad.
Material which just might be correct is retained, even though a diligent effort to find a citation by a motivated editor fails to find one. Maybe good. Maybe bad.
Material which is dubious and uncited is retained because the person doubting it has failed to convince a consensus of editors it is false, dubious, etc. Bad.

This third case poses interesting challenges since a purported "source" may actually be a Wikipedia echo if the article is old enough. patsw (talk) 21:41, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]