Ensuring high quality sources where needed, especially science/academic topics (narrow focus)

If I may, I'd like to shortly address the problem of "citing from anything" again. Slrubenstein has given an interesting and long comment on my essay about the definition of quality at my talkpage at meta. His central point was that he misses "accuracy" in my definition. I didn't reply yet, but I think it's not really absent. The two of us mean the same but use different words.

Accuracy is partly included in what I call "verifiability". We should not just use (the right) sources for content, we also use them for the structure, balance and even titles of our articles. For general subjects such secondary sources can include traditional encyclopaedia; more specialized subjects need secondary scientific sources. Most battleground subjects like global warming, the history of Israel, evolution, etc. are actually fields of scientific research too. There are often good secondary scientific sources for these subjects, even if the "true believers" on both sides will often not accept them. However, a wiki-community should not reinvent the wheel. No original research, no citation needed in every second sentence. The community should study the secondary sources, their titles, chapter subdivisions and the balance in attention given to different views. This should be the normal approach, yet it is taken rarely.

Woodwalker10:56, 15 December 2009