72.73.198.156

Warning about insults

On the talk page for L. Neil Smith, you attack an editor for having moved unsourced quotes to the talk page, telling him that he should have done the work of sourcing. If you had checked out this editor's contribution history, you would have seen just how very useful and hardworking he has been. It is not the job of an editor, especially one who keeps track of the Recent Changes page, to take care at once of everything that might be done. There aren't very many of us here on Wikiquote doing the daily work of editing, patrolling, etc. We all do as much as we can at any one time; what we can't do we arrange so that it can be done, by ourselves or others, later on. Consider this your first warning about insults. The useful work you've done is no excuse for attacking others, especially ones who have contributed so much and so well. - InvisibleSun 22:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

To the devil with you. While I am not a registered member of the Wikipedia apparatchiki (not having felt it necessary to become such), I have made contributions to the factual accuracy and textural enrichment of this Web resource over the years on a continuing basis, chiefly because I value the utility of the Wikipedia program despite its arbitrators' blatant political biases. I have done this largely en passant, when investigation on a subject has taken me to a pertinent Wikipedia page and I have discovered something that warrants correction or (more commonly) amplification. Usually, it's nothing more than the correction of a fiddlin' proofing error.
Wherever and whenever I have made a substantive change in any Wikipedia page, I have done so on the basis of reliably branded information to which I have secured either online or in-print access, and which I have cited explicitly. As I noted in my comment about Antiquary, this is not terribly difficult.
Moreover, I have not assaulted the work of prior posters on the basis of their arguable inability (or simple failure) to cite support for their own contributions, conscious of the fact that even anecdotal — and therefore not totally reliable — information can still be of value in guiding study of a subject.
If one arrogates unto himself — as did Antiquary in his mauling of L. Neil Smith's Wikiquote page — the authority of an editor, such an action carries with it the responsibility of an editor, which Antiquary clearly failed to shoulder. Therefore, zweimal, to the devil with you.

I'm indifferent to insults directed at me and will not block anyone for the same; but nothing of what you have said in your reply will dissuade me from temporarily blocking you if you continue to insult anyone else. It's now policy here at Wikiquote to accept only sourced quotes; it's the equivalent to factuality in Wikipedia edits. Rather than simply delete the existing unsourced quotes, they are transferred to the talk page for anyone who wishes to work on them. This is what you refer to as "mauling." Antiquary did what it is our policy to do; see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations. - InvisibleSun 01:08, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Dreimal to the devil with you. Insofar as is immediately discernable, the application of this policy "here at Wikiquote" is notorious for its unevenness. This aside, the "policy" itself smacks of censorship rather than the imposition of lucid or purposeful editorial standards, inasmuch as the institution on Wikiquotes pages of headings specifically describing certain quotations as unsourced is more than adequate for the purpose of advising readers of these materials' relative reliability.
Why else would there have been such a differentiation between "Sourced" and "Unsourced" or "Attibuted" quotations here on Wikiquote or anywhere else in the various gatherings of quotations, from Bartlett's on down?
"Unsourced" provides a clear caveat emptor marking for such content. Moving such "unsourced" quotations to an individual's Wikiquote "Discussion" page is therefore unnecessary, and thus the policy of which you speak is without real value, silly in its execution, and suspicious in its intent. Just who came up with this "policy," and why?