Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/RJII

message: *Reject. We don't deal with content disputes. Ambi 23:50, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments and Votes by Arbitrators (6/2/0/0)

message: Jguk states that "cite sources" is not a policy.  Well, you can reach it through the community portal, to policies and conventions, to overview of policies, to content guidelines.  So is "cite sources" a "policy" or a "guideline?"  As far as my complaint is concerned, I do not think it matters.  The policy -- and we can all agree that this is a central policy -- with which I am concerned is, Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia.  This means it must provide at the very least accurate information.  And to provide accurate information, we must do research.  My complaint against RJII is that he insists on including an inacurate statement -- this is a factual claim, because there is an objective record of his having added "private ownership of capital" as "the marxist definition," and it is wrong (or at best, an incomplete distortion of the marxist definition).  I further believe he has done no research, and I consider that an insult to the project.  (I understand that there are many articles where an informed editor does not have to do research, and that what counts as apporpriate research varies from topic to topic.  In this case thought I think it is obvious: if you want to add to an article the "marxist definition of capital" you need to read books by and about marxists)  I admit I cannot marshal objective evidence as to whether he has or has not done research.  But this is where I see the "cite sources" policy (or guideline, or whatever you want to call it) as useful.  I have asked him to provide a source.  Now, if he has done research, he should easily be able to provide a source.  But he has not only refused to provide a source, he has done it through torturous rhetoric (I did provide a source/I don't have to provide a source because I never said this/there is no marxist definition of capitalism) that only wastes time.  In other words, asking for the source is just a means to an end -- it is a means to my finding out what kind of research supports the claim, and it is a means for any editor to ensure that what they add is verifiable.  I do not see how anyone can argue with the importance of these principles to an encyclopedia.  
I am not fetishizing "cite sources," it is only a means to an end.  For Tony Sideaway to bring up London taxicabs suggests contempt for this process. Rambling on about cases where sources may be unnecessary or even distracting, rather than confronting the specifics of this case, serves no purpose.  The purpose of this complaint is not to establish a precedent that every sentence in Wikiedia must be a quote or have a source, and to construe my complaint this way is only to divert attention from what is really at stake: the quality of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, and in this case, the quality of the Capitalism article.
How anyone can dispute the fact that editors who refuse to do research while insisting on adding inaccurate content are doing something destructive to our project is beyond me.  And I am not asking the ArbCom to sanction any particular definition of capitalism either.  You do not need to know anything about capitalism or economics or even Marx to rule on this case.  All you need to do is be able to distinguish between assertions made with evidence or support (i.e., verifiable), versus assertions made with no evidence or support.  Surely, if an editor backs up a "Marxist" definition with a quote from Marx, or if an editor refuses to provide any support for their claim, you can make a decision.  Slrubenstein   |  Talk  22:52, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, after consideration, I'd like this to be brought to arbitration if it's not too much trouble. Anything to get that guy off my back with his ridiculous accusations. RJII 03:11, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Slrubenstein responds to previous comments