That Wikipedia editor who told me to "cite your sources like you're proving it in court"

I got banned from a history forum a few months back for posting about local folklore around a supposed ghost town in Kansas. The mod said I was pushing "unverified claims" and gave me a warning. But I had a specific conversation with a Wikipedia editor last year (through their talk page) who told me to back up every single sentence with a published source, even stuff that seems common sense. I followed his advice after the warning and dug up a 1930s county record and a newspaper clipping from the Wichita Eagle. The mod still banned me after three days because one of my sources was a self-published memoir from a local historian. The editor would've said that counts as a valid source if it's the best available, but the mod didn't care. Has anyone else run into this where the same rule gets applied differently depending on who's enforcing it?

1 comments

1 Comment

charles_coleman1mo ago

Man, I got tossed off a local hiking board for citing a 1970s oral history project the exact same way.