User:Jayron32/References are not a weapon

References are not a weapon you can use to win a battle at Wikipedia. Many times, people will try to win an argument over the inclusion of some piece of information in an article by claiming that the information has references, or that someone is misbehaving by removing "referenced information", as though the existence of references somehow makes the information impossible to remove. Being verifiable is a necessary but not sufficient condition for including some fact or bit of information in an article. What this means is that in order to be considered for inclusion, some bit of information needs to be found in a reference. However, merely appearing in a reference does not mean that the information must be included in an article. This sort of problem plays itself out in several ways. This list of problems is not comprehensive, merely representative of common problems. There are any number of reasons why some verifiable piece of information may not be appropriate for a particular Wikipedia article, and it is impossible to comprehensively list them all here.

Trivial facts

Let's say, hypothetically, that we have verifiable proof that George Washington ate pork chops for dinner on May 17, 1765. Let's say we have two or three independent references, all which are highly reliable and trustworthy, that report this fact. George Washington is an very notable figure, which is why there is a Wikipedia article about him. Lots of facts about his life are very relevent to the article, such as his ancestry, his early life, his family, his work life, his political life, etc. However, in no reasonable world, under normal circumstances, are the details of an unremarkable meal on an unremarkable day relevent information in the article about him, even if that information is referenced to a reliable fact. Knowing what he ate for dinner every night of his life isn't all that important, so there is no need to include it. This does not mean that I am argueing that the details of a person's dinner is ALWAYS irrelevent, just that the relevency of facts needs to be established before they are included, even if reliable sources exist.

Wikipedia articles are filled with this problem. People find some nugget of trivia. They find a reference. They dump the trivia in the article without regard for how that nugget of trivia fits into the overall narative of the article. Articles are supposed to be well written, and they are supposed to tell a story about the subject. They are not merely random strings of otherwise unrelated facts, all of which are in the article solely for being true and verifiable.

Relevent policies and guidelines

• WP:TRIVIA
• WP:IINFO
• WP:NOTNEWS

Criticism and/or praise

Many times, people will add opinions to articles in an attempt to provide "balance" to an article. Wikipedia articles are supposed to have a neutral point of view, but that does not mean they are supposed to have competing points of view. This kind of problem is especially widespread at Wikipedia for multiple reasons:

• People (or organizations, or concepts, or whatever) who are controversial exist. Because they are controversial, people do not like them. When they read a Wikipedia article about the person which does not criticize the person, they feel that the article presents too "positive" an outlook. Even if the article were just a dry presentation of facts about a person, this neutral presentation is colored by the opinion of the opponent to make it feel overly "positive" or "sunny" or a "whitewash". In order to provide "balance", they feel the need to dump criticism about the person into the article, though in most cases there is no "praise" to be counterbalanced. So the criticsm is actually throwing what had been a fairly neutral article out of whack, and making it worse.
• Bad people exist as well. There aren't a lot of positive things to say about some people. If their primary reason for notability is that they have committed horrific crimes, then the Wikipedia article about them will be heavily focused on the crimes they have committed. An article can present such facts neutrally, but still make the person "look bad". This, in many cases, is well deserved. The rule of the Khmer Rouge was not a particularly pleasant time for many Cambodians, so the article about them contains many gruesome facts. People will see these articles, especially if they are supporters of the people involved, and try to "balance" the article by including praise for the subject, as though the horrific nature of their crimes can be ameliorated by including some praise as well. This also throws the neutrality of the article off.

Wikipedia articles should not normally be a place to collect opinions. Wikipedia articles should be a place to write engaging, well written, and comprehensive articles about things, not tell the reader how they should feel about them. Even if the opinion is well sourced to a reliable publication, this can create many problems:

• Newspapers which are reliable sources of journalism also publish opinions and editorials (Op/Ed). Information which appears in a piece of journalism may be well referenced and relevent to an article. But someone's opinion isn't journalism, even if it appears in a reliable newspaper.
• There is a wide range of published opinions about a subject. If I want to get my own personal views into an article, it is trivial to find a published source which shares my views. If I hate David Cameron, I can find a published source which also hates him. If I love David Cameron, I can also find published sources that shower him with praise. Selectively choosing sources which express opinions that I also hold is far too easy to do, and shouldn't be how Wikipedia articles are built.