I tracked down the book wikipedia cites for that self-cleaning claim (it's on Library Genesis).
Wikipedia presently says:
> However, the rifle was initially delivered without adequate cleaning kits[43] or instructions because advertising from Colt asserted that the M16's materials made the weapon require little maintenance, and was capable of self-cleaning.[67]
The book, The M16 by Gordon L. Rottman, says on page 20:
> Most Marine units began receiving the XM16E1 in April 1967 and immediately experienced problems arising from several factors. Most units received little if any cleaning gear beyond some cleaning rods and bore brushes. Some units had never heard of chamber brushes. Colt is said to have hyped the weapon as futuristic, requiring little maintenance owing to new materials. This was interpreted to mean the black rifle was “self-cleaning.”
So Colt supposedly saying the rifle requiring "little maintenance" was then subsequently interpreted (by the Marines I think) to mean the rifle was "self-cleaning". The book doesn't say Colt made the "self-cleaning" claim, but whoever wrote that part on wikipedia is attributing the claim to Colt.
Hard to say if even the book's claim is right.. "Colt is said to have..." said by who? The book doesn't actually cite any Colt marketing material or anything like that.
See what I mean? Book just repeats the myth in my mind, though as you say I guess a tweak of the myth. But you're Exactly right. Said by who? According to what? It's just a claim, and in my opinion contradicted by every single public document and contemporary marketing or Colt related material I could find from the time period. Same thing with military, of course that would be contradicted by any/every military related service rifle training program or materials ever.
Still on wikipedia though. Because writing bullshit without any source is fine as long as it's in print, I guess?
Well at some point, Wikipedia became less about writing an encyclopedia and more about creating and enforcing a set of rules that (hopefully) would eventually lead to a "high-quality" encyclopedia. So if you want to fix Wikipedia, you can't just edit Wikipedia (it'll be reverted), you have to justify your edits according to Wikipedia's core policies (Verifiability, no original research, and neutral point of view). Probably you could also explain why those policies are wrong and need to be changed, but that would be a longer discussion and wouldn't necessarily take place in the context of a specific article. Just guessing, but probably in this case the issue is a lack of secondary/tertiary sources - there is material from that period, but nobody has analyzed it and come to a conclusion on this sub-subject besides this author. So because (per verifiability) secondary trumps primary, the secondary is what is in the article. I think all you could do is get those claims removed, because synthesizing a different conclusion than the book would be original research.
Seems to me it'd be a lot more high quality if you could simply have points about truth or things being opinions, or speculation, or rumors, or myth, stuff like that. Or simply noting there's disagreement or things about truth. Maybe you can but I ain't about to spend my whole year learning a bureaucratic jargon just to "sneak in" what should be effortless to put there. Get my frustration?
I can kind of get Wikipedia's stance here. They're really not supposed to be litigators of "what actually happened," which may not be knowable. They have defined rules for what counts as an authoritative source and nonfiction books that are generally taken seriously are in that set. So if a book says it, it's good enough to be on a Wikipedia page.
Does that means it's true? I highly doubt it. I wasn't alive in the 60s, but I've known a lot of Marines in my life. I was in the Army myself. I've known people who were Marines in Vietnam. I've never known anyone who ever operated a rifle who would interpret a claim this way or belief a self-cleaning rifle was a possible thing.
But unfortunately, even if you are personally an expert, Wikipedia doesn't let you come in and tell a page it's wrong. You have to publish your knowledge in an authoritative archival source and then it can be cited. I get that it can be frustrating as a subject-matter expert, but I don't know what better sourcing and citation rules an encyclopedia can have. They don't internally litigate the validity of a claim. They define what outside sources count as citable and then trust those sources.
Hell, I experiened a fairly stupid version of this a few months ago. I edited the page for Slayer's Reign in Blood in the section for pop culture references, adding a mention that Angel of Death was used in the Leftovers when Nora pays a prostitute to shoot her and uses the song to cover the gunshot sound. I linked to an episode summary on another wiki and that got deleted because apparently Wikipedia doesn't allow other wikis to be cited as sources. Fair enough as a general rule, though I think it doesn't make sense in this context because Wikipedia has episode summaries of television shows that don't cite sources at all. So I just removed the cite and linked to HBO's home page for the episode and that stuck, even though it doesn't have a description and you'd have to actually watch the episode to confirm I'm not lying.
But hey, whatever, rules are rules. No rules are perfect. Courts get it wrong sometimes, too.
> They're really not supposed to be litigators of "what actually happened," which may not be knowable
seems like best thing would be to be able to say "this is not verifiable" or similar. seems to me these issues people have could be solved or improved a lot by having more and more nuanced info not less. Like if people are just so damn insistent the myth stay up there it should also be fine to point out "though there seems to be no evidence supporting this claim or claimed notion" when the books or stuff cited have nothing but more claims. More info, more context, not less
Wikipedia presently says:
> However, the rifle was initially delivered without adequate cleaning kits[43] or instructions because advertising from Colt asserted that the M16's materials made the weapon require little maintenance, and was capable of self-cleaning.[67]
The book, The M16 by Gordon L. Rottman, says on page 20:
> Most Marine units began receiving the XM16E1 in April 1967 and immediately experienced problems arising from several factors. Most units received little if any cleaning gear beyond some cleaning rods and bore brushes. Some units had never heard of chamber brushes. Colt is said to have hyped the weapon as futuristic, requiring little maintenance owing to new materials. This was interpreted to mean the black rifle was “self-cleaning.”
So Colt supposedly saying the rifle requiring "little maintenance" was then subsequently interpreted (by the Marines I think) to mean the rifle was "self-cleaning". The book doesn't say Colt made the "self-cleaning" claim, but whoever wrote that part on wikipedia is attributing the claim to Colt.
Hard to say if even the book's claim is right.. "Colt is said to have..." said by who? The book doesn't actually cite any Colt marketing material or anything like that.