Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 16

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Book citations

Like journals, essays and reports, can articles be referenced with e.g. (Sugar, 1937)? Simply south 17:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Assuming the article uses Harvard-style inline citation, the answer is yes. Just put the full info in the references section at the end. CMummert · talk 18:10, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Citations in the lead

I am sure I've seen somewhere a statement to the effect that lead paragraphs do not need to have embedded footnotes if the information is repeated in the body of the article and is properly referenced there. However, I can't find any such statement and it may have been in an FAC discussion, rather than in a guideline. If such as statement does exist in guideline, I'd appreciate a reference. I've seen a couple of "unreferenced" tags go on articles recently, just referring to the lead, and I don't feel that's appropriate but I'd like to find a policy statement (if one exists) to back me up. See James McCune Smith for an example; the editor who added the note used the edit summary "Intro needs them". Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 02:49, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a policy or guideline on this, but notes are a practical necessity if the introduction contradicts any widely-held misconception; otherwise the misconception will be reintroduced almost daily. --Gerry Ashton 16:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Generally, unless the claim is outstanding as Gerry says then you won't need cites in the lead, so long as the info appears in the body of the text and is cited there, no need to be redundant. IvoShandor 14:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, that clears it up. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 15:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
If you poke around enough, you'll find out that, in general, there is simply no total agreement whatsoever on this particular issue, although in specific cases, it's generally possible to work/hack out a consensus. Circeus 20:33, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Interviews

What if I want to cite an interview that I conducted, but do not have a transcript or recording, just a report on my findings? --thedemonhog talk contributions 05:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

No good. Is original research. It cannot be used in a Wikipedia entry. IvoShandor 09:48, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I too would like to cite an interviewee. The person I interviewed was the creator of the subject and provided facts that contradicted the wiki article that referenced incorrect infromation on the web.--KnowBoundaries 18:27, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Is the interview published? There is a citation template Template:Cite interview that may help you format the citation (or give you some ideas how to do it without using the template). And if you conducted the interview yourself, you should read the guidelines on citing yourself found at both WP:COI and WP:OR. Hope this helps.-Andrew c 18:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Also remember: an interview is a Primary source, even if published, and WP depends on secondary sources. UnitedStatesian 18:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

interviews are considered common knowledge, not requiring citing in MLA format because you could get it from anybody that even lives in the same city as the person. usually a person propagates information about himself, so therefore you could get the information from multiple people.

Regardless of MLA format, interviews must be cited. There is no room to argue this. Someguy1221 23:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The use of citation templates

In WP:CITE#Citation templates it says "editors should not add templates without consensus", but what about the removal of templates? // Liftarn

If the templates were added without consensus, then it's fine to remove them. SlimVirgin (talk) 09:58, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Advice wanted about Deva Victrix and large amounts of unsourced and unreferenced material

A user without a userpage: User:Chestertouristcom, but with a talk page: User talk:Chestertouristcom, and who seems to have a very strong link with an external site: Chester Tourist External Site has added a lot, probably the bulk, of the material to Deva Victrix, which was originally under a different name, and before that, was a part of another article. This material is almost entirely unsourced and unreferenced. I tagged the article as being in need of references back in January 2007. Nothing was done, and the user continued to add a lot of unsourced and unreferenced material. I left a message on the user's talk page on 25th February 2007, asking for citations and references to be added, and this was followed up by an email to the user, but no response was received and new unreferenced material continued to be added up to the middle of March when it stopped.

The problem is, what to do? We are supposed to require entries to be adequately sourced and referenced, and yet hardly any of the material for Deva Victrix is. It will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to attempt to produce references for this material retrospectively when one isn't even the original author, especially so if one does not have a specialised knowledge of this topic. I have asked for assistance on the other wikiproject that has a template on the talk page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Archaeology but as yet received no response.

My feeling is that one could simply delete all the material, but I imagine this would cause some consternation in certain quarters (the removal of an external site whose inclusion had not been justified has already caused some negative comment about my action by another user.) The article would then probably be almost just a stub article with a lot of photos. Could I ask for some comments on what to do here? Many thanks.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to add that I am an active member of the Cheshire WikiProject, which explains my particular interest in this problem.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
  • This isn't the right place to discuss this (this page is about improving WP:CITE, so I've responded more helpfully on your User talk:ddstretch. (don't delete your comments, if the page gets too large, it will be archived) --Lexein 18:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Page numbers

Those editors using the book template seem to be routinely leaving out the page numbers in their footnotes. Also, if the citation is referred to numerous times, it would become difficult to follow the page numbers if they actually included it (imagine: 14; 20; 198; 30; 67; 90; 378). I suggest that either wikipedia discontinue the use of the book template since it encourages users to simply cite an entire book, not a specific page, or demand that they include a separate footnote for each citation that includes a page number. Such a policy should be made explicitly clear on [[WP:ATT] or WP:CITE. Awadewit 23:44, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer the option that editors be required to include a separate footnote for each citation. It would completely fulfil the need for full citations, be consistent with what I have experienced and thought of as "best practice", and be of maximum use to anyone wanting to follow up any references.  DDStretch  (talk) 12:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
There is no requirement that a citation must include page numbers (actually, there is no requirement that articles have footnotes, either). In the case of direct quotes or controversial facts, they are probably warranted. In the case of an article whose title is also a title of a chapter in the book, there is no obvious reason why page numbers must be included in every case. There is a great deal of variation in the norms of citation from one article to another and especially from one field of study to another, so no universal rule is going to fit every situation. CMummert · talk 13:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but don't you think that page numbers should be encouraged whenever they can be given (which is most of the time, even for a chapter)? I'm shocked that it is not a requirement. It goes against all of the referencing styles, by the way, that wikipedia supposedly says it adheres it. Awadewit 17:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree. In fact, I would tend to think that if the addition of page numbers where they can be given is not a requirement, then it should be, for the reasons given by Awadewit.  DDStretch  (talk) 20:11, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Another advantage to page numbers is that if you're local library does not have the book, a library that does have it will copy a few pages for you for a modest fee, but you have to know which pages to ask for. --Gerry Ashton 20:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Resp. to Awadewit. Wikipedia makes no claim to adhere to any citation style. Any reasonable form of citation is acceptable. This guideline does not impose any requirements, it only suggests some recommended practices.
Editors should use common sense with citations - if there is a particular reason that the page number is needed, then by all means it should be included. For more general references, such as general references in an article about the French revolution, less precise references often suffice for noncontroversial facts. CMummert · talk 03:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
But all citation styles recommended by wikipedia demand page numbers. Also, I don't think it is a good idea to just reference a whole article about the French Revolution for "noncontroversial facts" (I'm afraid you've picked a poor example there). There is very little about the French Revolution that is noncontroversial, I'm afraid. There are whole schools of revisionist (in a good way) history that interpret the beginning of the revolution at a different time, etc. Why should a reader have to wade through a whole article to find what the editors were referring to? It is a courtesy to give the reader the clearest, most precise information that enables them to find the editors' source. Also "common sense" is not a universal - when Thomas Paine wrote his pamphlet arguing that Americans should revolt against the British in 1776 he entitled it Common Sense, thereby making the argument with the title alone that his position was obvious. Clearly, not everyone agreed with him - historians estimate that over half of the country was Loyalist. Just because we might want something to be "common sense" doesn't make it so - the phrase is a rhetorical flourish. Awadewit 04:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
It simply isn't true that all the citation styles recommended on this guideline "demand page numbers"; consider the examples on this page of inline citations without page numbers. I don't have the desire to continue debating this issue; maybe someone else will comment. The summary of my position is that page numbers are important in some situations and less important in others, with the need for page numbers varying with field of study and with the information being cited. Wikipedia policy documents have traditionally been written broadly to reflect this diversity. If you feel that page numbers are important in the articles you write, you should by all means add them, but we should not try to force them into situations where they are not common or particularly necessary. CMummert · talk 11:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Are you thinking of {{cite web}} when you say that? While it's true that it's often unnecessary to use the page parameter, it's there for a reason: some online sources have multiple pages and some of those are also large enough to make not specifying the page number very unfair to other editors.--165.173.136.251 15:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
MLA, Chicago and Harvard all demand page numbers. Also, the reason that I brought up this problem in the first place is precisely because editors do not seem to be able to make the nuanced distinction between when to cite page numbers and when not to. Too often, I just see them using the book template without any attempt to cite pages. That is why I started by saying we should either discontinue use of the book template or require that editors put in page numbers. (I am not thinking of the cite web template - as I said when I started this thread, I am concerned about how the cite book template is being used.) Awadewit 16:29, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Any serious research demands that facts be fully cited. I agree that there is no requirement to add them but, as ddstretch opined, there should be. We often complain that some academics look down on WikiPedia - this is a way to improve our image. The routine use of full footnotes should, at the very least be encouraged. More work? You bet, but it makes for a better resource. JodyB 21:48, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

It is worth remembering that page numbers can depend on edition, and although citation demands edition data, readers trying to follow up in any much-reissued book may find only a different edition and quite altered pagination. Thus page numbers are not always a complete answer to finding cited text. Iph 18:55, 22 May 2007 (UTC)iph

Harvard/author-date

This issue has been discussed before, and it was decided that there is no need to change the titles to author-date. Google seems to show no or little preference, and the ArbCom has ruled that, in the absense of pressing reasons, there is no need to change terms more common in the UK than in the U.S., and vice versa.

The last time I checked this on Google, the searches returned:

  • "Harvard referencing": 61,000 (774 unique hits);
  • "Harvard reference": 32,600 (529 unique);
  • "Harvard system": 110,000 (200 unique);
  • "author-date" without the word "Harvard": 68,700 (757 unique)
  • "Harvard referencing" without the phrase "author-date": 56,000 (769 unique)

SlimVirgin (talk) 01:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess if they have ruled, they have ruled. I just pointed out in my edit summary that the top google hits are almost all in the UK and Australia. (Also, on a personal note, I had never heard of this style which I thought was odd, since I teach referencing to freshmen; but I have now put that down to my US-bias.) I think the author-date description would be clearer - when I first saw the name "Harvard," I thought to myself, "what is that? wikipedia is making up its own reference style?" quickly followed by "wikipedia is following some obscure reference style I've never heard of? Great." Awadewit 05:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
For reference, the only discussion I could find in the 14 archives was here: Wikipedia_talk:Cite_sources/archive7#Harvard_referencing??. Author Date is undeniably clearer to the layman, and would seem a better choice if acceptable. However, without much personal background in this field, I cannot say whether it is an acceptable alternative title for this technique. ∴ here…♠ 02:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
People who want to can request a page move to author-date. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Query

I'm not sure what this section means, so I've moved it here in the meantime. Can someone explain? SlimVirgin (talk) 01:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

"Wikipedia, in the spirit of the GFDL, encourages referencing of freely available sources, when information is available from both credible free/open access sources (FOASs) and sources which require registration and/or payment (non-FOASs).
"* In cases where either a FOAS or non-FOAS source provides sufficient information to attribute a point in an article, consider citing both if they will help the reader to explore further in different ways.
"* Use of reliable FOASs available on the web is encouraged, as it enhances the credibility of Wikipedia if the reader can speedily verify the veracity of a given fact by use of an outside source with a simple click of the mouse."
  • Personally, while I agree with the sentiment, I think this section is a distraction from the main point of the page. This page primarily explains how to add references and citations; the reader who is coming here for guidance likely has a source in hand already and wants to know what to do next. We should answer that question rather than deviating on an unrelated point. Secondly, reliability is so much more important than free accessibility that the second is rarely going to be the decisive concern in choosing between sources. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I still can't see what's being said. If we have a reliable source, I don't see what difference it makes that it's GFDL or not. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Sources that are free to access, especially if they are online, are easier for readers to consult than sources which are subscription only or not online. It seems reasonable to me that they would thus be preferable. This might come into play occasionally, say where the same AP news article is available at a subscription-only newspaper site and a free newspaper site -- all in all linking to the free site is probably easier on the reader and thus more useful. But as I said this is a comparatively minor concern and introducing it likely distracts from the main concern when choosing sources. Since choosing sources isn't even the main topic of this page, the value of these paragraphs is very low. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I see now. Thank you. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm sick of going to a million different places to find help on anything. The intent of the passage is 'when citing a source use the easily accessible source if of equal or better quality'. Improve the wording but why delete? Please consider people who are after help and make it easy for them rather than make them trawl through talk pages and archives to find what is best. thanks - Ctbolt 01:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
What is meant by "the easily accessible source"? SlimVirgin (talk) 02:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I realise you're doing a fine job here, Slim, but you've answered your question below - so why ask it?? - Ctbolt 02:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted the archiving of this talk page, otherwise what comes next looks untidy. If SlimVirgin now sees what the section on free sources was trying to achieve (possibly needing better phrasing, I agree), then to remove the section seems to have been premature. Likewise archiving off above recent threads is unhelpful to understanding the overall discussion on this (see section above Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Free_sources vs Wikipedia_talk:Cite_sources/archive15#Free_sources) - a thread with last posting just 1 week ago is too fresh to be archived off surely, especially when a whole article section is deleted 3 days prior ? David Ruben Talk 21:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Could you please undo your unarchiving, as the page is now rather long, and simply copy and paste in the section you want to refer me to? Or just give me a link to it in the archive? SlimVirgin (talk) 02:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I see it now, thanks. You wrote: "In essence reliable sources and the discussion held would seem to clearly indicate that the best source (whatever that might be) should be used, and if this is a hardcopy of an article that is not available on the web and only by subscription or a trip to a library, then so be it. The points Nephron discussed and added are only where two otherwise equally reliable sources are available, in which case the free access may be safely preferred to the not-free access, and likewise if all else is equal a web-accessible source over one that is not so readily accessible."
It doesn't make much sense, with respect, and to have a whole (and unclear) section on one point, which seems to boil down to "quality is the most important thing, but ease of access is helpful too" is overkill. Use both sources if one is hard to find. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
So why not put it on the page? Unless we assume that people will always choose the easily accessible source - Ctbolt 02:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Because it's a distraction from the more important content of the page -- it applies only rarely and in those cases, it is relatively unimportant. Also, this material would make more sense at WP:RS (which is about choosing sources) than here, a page which is mainly a style guide concerning how to cite sources once they are in hand. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Quotations in citations

Is there a convention on whether or not to include the relevant quotation from a source in the citation? ShadowHalo 04:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Not that I know of. A short (one or two sentence) quote is occasionally useful, especially if there is some ambiguity, but probably it's not appropriate for every citation. CMummert · talk 04:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
It's a good idea to do it if it's a contentious issue, especially if the source isn't online. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, my question stems from the Love. Angel. Music. Baby. article. The statement in the article is "Love. Angel. Music. Baby. also introduced the Harajuku Girls, an entourage of four Japanese women who Stefani treats as a figment of her imagination." The source (which is online and requires no subscription) states, "The [Harajuku] Girls silently accompanied her on photo shoots and to public appearances, and subsequently appeared on her tour. Stefani regarded the Girls, all of whom looked as if they had come straight off the streets of the capital city's hip Harajuku district, as a figment of her imagination brought to life in a culturally positive manner." It seems really easy to find, so it seems unnecessary to quote (and probably preferable not to since I thought the idea of using a reference was to transform copyrighted text into free text using it as a reference) but I didn't want to undo someone else's edit without asking here first. ShadowHalo 14:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Copyright

Am I right to suppose that Wikipedia must not contain references to illegal material (in terms of copyright)? There is a discussion whether the tv documentary posted on youtube could be a valid ref . Alaexis 11:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The TV show is not the youtube clip. You can cite the TV show itself, whether or not a youtube clip exists. According to WP:EL#Restrictions_on_linking, don't link to clips that violate copyright. Gimmetrow 12:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Alaexis 12:25, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Gimmetrow, but remember that the editor should cite where the editor obtained the information, so if the only place the editor saw the information was a site that obviously violates copyright, the editor should not cite the material at all. --Gerry Ashton 20:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
It should still be cited, just not linked to. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Location of citation template information.

The current how to cite section describes 3 possible techniques, (embedded, harvard, footnotes), and then immediately describes the citation templates, a topic not required for any of these methods. The how to cite section should get new editors inserting some form of citation as quickly and painlessly as possible. Often editors seeking citation help have no idea how to use a template, and a lesson on templates should not divert their efforts to add citations. The correct location for citation template information is as a sub-heading under 'full citations', where they can be used in conjunction with any of the 3 methods. Editors capable of using the templates will find the citation templates after selecting embedded/harvard/footnotes as an option for full citations. My attempted move was reverted ( diff ), so I bring it up here for discussion. ∴ here…♠ 06:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The templates aren't required for anything, Here. The point of the section is to make that clear to editors, and it needs to be fairly prominent and not buried. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Tools and techniques which are not necessary in this process, such as the citation templates, have no business at the top of the section. Even stranger, they are sandwiched between an introduction to 3 specific techniques and the explanations of those 3 specific techniques. The citation templates are an intermediate citation topic, and should be placed after the basic instructions and principles of the three primary options. They are optional, and not immediately important to the primary target audience of this section.  : shrug : ∴ here…♠ 17:17, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Show/hide references

Apologies if this has been discussed previously: Is there a view that we must always make references visible? Articles with long references sections sometimes look ugly and a reader may be uninterested in browsing the references. I was imagining references and notes being placed inside a collapsible table with a hide/show button (defaulting to hide). Is there a view on this idea? —Moondyne 16:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

At the moment, as I understand it, there is no way to do this without breaking the references; if the references section is hidden by default, then when you click to go to a footnote it will do nothing. Last time that hiding references was brought up, I recall this being the most serious objection. Unless the technical issues have been fixed there is unlikely to be much movement on this issue. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
That makes sense. Thanks anyway. —Moondyne 01:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Citing myself...

On the page that I have recently been maintaining titled "Pine Creek High School", many "(citation needed)" links have popped up. I am a student at Pine Creek, and I know for a fact that the things I say about my school are true. For example, the choirs that I have listed are from my own knowledge of the choirs that I am enrolled in, and I have verified these facts with the choral instructor. How do I get rid of these links? Why do I have to cite information that is my own? (12 April 2007) Live your life 17 01:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:No original research. In order for information to be included in Wikipedia, it does need to be verifiable through a reliable source. Jkelly 01:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Theoretically, you could ask the choral instructor if you can name him as a source. That may not be a pleasant thing for such a minor issue on a Web site that is frequently browsed by the spam mafia ;-), but I don't see no real reason why such a person should be unreliable. In such cases, people use terms like "According to < insert position here > < insert name here >, this-and-this is such-and-such. A disclaimer such as "as of < date >" is often useful.
OTOH, the information might be on the school's Web page. In such cases - when it is a source of major significance for the article -, it should generally go under "References" instead of "External links" to denote this fact.

"Needs more in-line citations" label

Once I came across an article with not a {{references}} or {{fact}} tag but a label saying an article with a list of general references needs more in-line citations. It wasn't aimed at specific information but a good general statement. This is good for long articles for which we have no idea how or which part of the general references (often books with no page no.s) were used. Does anyone know this label? Kind regards --Merbabu 14:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

There's no actual benefit to adding templates like that. Look at {{references}} - there are tens of thousands of tagged pages, and no sign that the backlog will ever be cleared. If there is a particular fact you dispute, you should discuss it on the talk page. There is no policy requiring that everything must have an inline citations - only that articles are verifiable in a theoretical sense. CMummert · talk 14:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
hmmmm - i tend to disagree with the benefit of them. And my point was not about disputing any particular facts. There are a number of large articles that have several, even many, general references. But not one inline citation. THere may not be a policy, but there are some who would like to see each piece of information backed up, or at least detailed references provided. Simply providing a list of books, etc, doesn't do the trick. It's the standard in academia. Why aim low here? Merbabu 14:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
It's standard in some areas of academia and not standard in others. That's why we generally avoid one-size-fits-all policies on WP. If you would like to see inline references, why not add them yourself? There is no evidence that tagging articles in general leads to them being improved - look at {{unreferenced}}. CMummert · talk 15:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't know, I think it depends, if an active WikiProject uses the tags then they can lead to articles being improved. IvoShandor 15:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
They are presently being used in an uncritical manner. I propose to inser the following paragraph:
  • While articles about many subject do need specific links, especially in possibly controversial facts are included, articles about many subjects do not, and there is no policy requiring them. Often the background for an article will be adequately covered in a sufficiently up-to-date manner in a book or magazine article, and this can be sufficient. There is, in particular, no requirement that all (or any) sources be online, or be free. Any reliable source can be used, though it should be available to the public in some form. Naturally, it is desirable to provide free sources or equivalents when they do exist, but these are considered as convenience links, not essential links. DGG 23:06, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Use of <small>

In the past the ue of <small> has always been discouraged; aside from anything else, it can cause problems for people with visual impairments as well as for those using small monitors. The main MoS on citations doesn't mention its use, but it's crept in to a great many articles, is part of citation templates, and appears on some MoS sub pages. Where would be the bext place to have its use discussed? --Mel Etitis (Talk) 15:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Possibly somewhere on the MoS, but I have no idea where. The thing about it is that it's introduced under a number of different categories — templates and such like, and they all have their own reasons for wanting it. You might have to set up a central discussion yourself. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Visually impaired users typically will have their ducks(tools) in a row for accessibility issues. However, when using someone else's browser, this can be a problem.
  1. Fully portably, Wikipedia offers per-user customization. <small> can be overridden as a matter of personal preference in one's own Wikipedia style sheet Special:Mypage/monobook.css(if you're using the Monobook skin). See Help:User_style. This requires some setup.
  2. Per browser: <small>In a browser's local CSS or preferences. Also requires setup.
  3. Ad hoc: With a browser which supports text zooming. Internet Explorer, (View menu, Font size, Smaller/Larger), Mozilla:(ctrl +), (ctrl -). Opera:(+),(-).
    Opera also has a View | Style menu which allows disabling (parts of) CSS on the fly. --Lexein 22:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
All the solutions mentioned by Lexein are a pain in the ass. What is the benefit of <small> that would make all this trouble worthwhile? --Gerry Ashton 23:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Delete this template!

Sorry if this is in the wrong discussion section, if it is let me know where this needs to go.

Anyway: I know that this was already up for deletion, but I'm going to dedicate to myself to this one issue (look at how boring and single minded my profile is!):

The citation needed tags are useless. I can't say this enough. As an editor, there's something in an article you doubt, look it up. If you find something, cite the link, if you can't in good faith find anything to verify another user's claim, then delete it, obviously it doesn't belong there. People who are using them are essentially shrugging off work they're fully capable of doing. I feel strongly about wikipedia citing it's sources but a citation needed tag is just lazy.

Let's put this back up for deletion. --Friendship hurricane 07:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree mostly, but they can be useful when you can't find a source for something, but you're not certain it's false. It gives other editors time to look, and it's faster than leaving a note on talk. Deleting things immediately is often seen as too aggressive, unless it's a BLP. SlimVirgin (talk) 11:37, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I strongly disagree. I consider {{fact}} tags to be requests for assistance, when placed by an editor who has contributed to an article. I have both (researched and) cited them when found, and placed them as needed. I tagged Idiocracy's unsourced statement that "Early working titles included The United States of Uhh-merica ", because I looked and couldn't find it in a non-blog, and lo-and-behold someone else found the cite. The system works.
  1. {{fact}} tags update the [[Category:Articles with Unsourced Statements]] database, making browsing for such tags easy for those editors who relish that research. Deleting this template is simply a non-starter. However:
  2. To improve the experience for everyone, perhaps the superscript[citation needed] should be replaced with the superscript[?] or[cite].
  3. Deletion is not the next step. I tend to comment out an unsupported sentence, with a note in the comment and in Talk. This permits trivial in-place repair when finally cited.
  4. Deletion of uncited (yet) but plausible assertions is also lazy - only the omniscient can guarantee that no usable supporting evidence exists.[Google not sole source of truth.] Aggressive deletions induce revert wars, or haven't you noticed?
  5. Yes, some lazy editors are performing tag hit and run. Damn you punks (shakes fist)! --Lexein 20:52, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Citation date consistency

Notice the current discussion about citation date consistency in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Date formats in cite templates. (SEWilco 02:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC))

Citing the same source multiple times

How do you cite the same source multiple times without creating a duplicate footnote? Sr13 (T|C) 08:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

You could use named <ref name="multiple">...</ref> footnotes as described at Wikipedia:Footnotes#Citing_a_footnote_more_than_once, or also more than one (Author 2007) style Harvard reference ( Wikipedia:Harvard referencing ) which refer to a full citation. ∴ here…♠ 09:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Allow users to switch off citation and other article quality messages

Would it be possible to modify the Mediawiki software to allow users to switch off article quality messages? I'm increasingly finding that my use of Wikipedia is being distracted by the citation needed messages and banners at the top of articles declaring they are disputed, not of neutral tone or of poor quality. While these notes are important for the editors and some readers, for much of my casual rather than formal use of Wikipedia, I don't need to know about disputes, any more than I need to read the talk pages, and their agressive nature is offputting Jrbray 13:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

If you are editing articles, rather than just reading them, this might not be a great idea. But it can be done with no software changes using CSS, assuming that the templates are set up properly. For example, to turn off the fact tags you could use
sup.Template-Fact { display: none; }
in your monobook.css file because {{fact}} is set up correctly. Any template that doesn't have an associated CSS class will have one added as soon as you raise the issue on its talk page. CMummert · talk 13:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

It's interesting to see this point-of-view expressed. I wonder how many other casual readers are being put off my what some may see as an overabundance of "butt-covering"? 23skidoo 16:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it that, but it does tend to air dirty linen in public. What is most offputting is the blaring 'this article is poor quality, you must improve it' tone. The CSS suggestion works well, but I suspect there are too many tags, especially stub ones, for it to be truly effective. Wikipedians do need t be less strident to retain their popular support. Jrbray 04:00, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:CITE#How_to_cite_sources - propose changing order of citation styles

I propose changing the order of listed citation styles in Wikipedia:Citing_sources#How_to_cite_sources to:

1. Footnotes (most often using <ref> and <references/> elements)
2. Harvard referencing
3. Embedded HTML links (deprecate or ban from body of articles).
  1. New users who see this revised order will think footnotes or Harvard style are preferred. This is preferred.
  2. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, see WP:5. Embedded links are Wiki-ish and web-ish, not encyclopedic. Encyclopedias use either footnote or Harvard style, so should WP.
  3. All citation details should be visible (without having to click or hover), and if the article is printed out. Embedded links hide URLs. Simple footnotes reveal URLs in <references /> or {{reflist}}. Well formed footnotes or Harvard references may obscure a URL, but reveal the publisher, author, date, title, etc.
  4. Even though WP:CITE#Embedded HTML links "require" a full citation at the page bottom, it's extra work, for which no automation support is provided. As a result, it's rarely done, and when done, there's no connection between that link and the full citation.
  5. Footnote cites and references can be formatted automatically with <ref>{{cite ...}}</ref> and require entering information only once in the article, and provide bidirectional "where used" links. Harvard-type cites can unidirectionally link to Harvard-type refs.
  6. The use of templates should be encouraged in the WP:CITE article.

Secondarily, I prefer a superscripted numeral[1] or a (Harvard, 278) reference over a blue arrow used as a textual elephant element. To sum up:

  • List embedded HTML links last in WP:CITE#HOW, and everywhere else citation styles are mention as guidelines
  • Strongly deprecate embedded links, except in specific circumstances: (and what would those be?)

Please discuss, or point me to prior discussion. --Lexein 17:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Good reasoning, I agree. Would you care to comment my recent open question regarding Location_of_citation_template_information, as you would also like to see them emphasized. ∴ here…♠ 18:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
The use of templates (assuming you mean citation templates) should not be encouraged, since there is no consensus to do so. Many people feel they should be discouraged. The current position is to do neither, due to the lack of a general consensus. As to the other points, we shouldn't deprecate any type of citation. Embedded links, used correctly, are fine, and even if used incorrectly are far better than nothing. On the whole, however, I agree that presenting our two main "ideal" methods first makes sense. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:20, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Entirely agree with original argument, also with last point. Circumstances being "if nothing better is available". Many Web sources can be mined for proper details (author, version date, publisher etc). Dysmorodrepanis 21:57, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Where are discussions/voting on citation template usage? Is there a Project where such discussions usually take place? I've struck some text above, agreeing with encouragement of citations in general. --Lexein 21:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I would also be interested in knowing where the discussions take place about citations templates, since I cannot understand why they should be discouraged. I also think more examples need to be provided, such as how to cite a book or article more than once, with different page numbers in each citation, because I don't know how to do this without duplicating the citation apart from the page-number field.  DDStretch  (talk) 06:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
The archives of this page discuss the issue in various places, but check towards the end of the first archive for the earliest discussion. The main reasons for disliking citation templates are thus: (1) in combination with cite.php, they make it so that any article with significant referencing is unreadable in edit mode; (2) by increasing the barrier to "correct" referencing they worsen our biggest problem regarding referencing (that people don't do it); (3) at the time they were introduced, and indeed now, they have no apparent usefulness. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I'll check. re: (1) unreadable in edit mode; - agreed, but so does any verbose interjection, including <ref>[with long link] text</ref>. Harvard citation templates coupled with Harvard reference templates (WP:CITET) neaten this up, as do the old Wikipedia:Footnote3({{ref}} and {{note}}) system. But those both complicate editing, requiring either a full-article edit, or separate editing of an section and references -for lots of references, that's a separate problem.
re: (2) increasing the barrier - this is because template insertion is not assisted by automation (say, popup) which presents the full blank template to be filled in. We're using powerful computers (servers and personal), but they are not being used to assist editors, who are forced to cope. To wit: an editor has to first learn the arcane details of WP footnoting methods (absurd), when an automation tool could exist to assist in the process.
re: (3) no apparent usefulness - other than conformed formatting: relatively free-form input results in consistently formed output, usually not requiring further edits. To be actively useful, template insertion should have some automation assistance. --Lexein 16:04, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Citation tools?

1. Can I make persistent private modifications to the Wiki Markup panel below the Edit window?

2. Is there an existing tool or bot which automates conversion of embedded links into cite web or cite news footnote stubs?

3. Where should I have posted these questions? --Lexein 05:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Require some formatting and encourage templates in adding new content.

"The use of citation templates is not required" is being quoted back to me as justification for adding a simple <ref> around a bare url as a substitution for the inline cite in new content. It looks like a mess in the References section.

I would change this text to: "Citations must be formatted to include relevant information such as title, author, date, publisher where relevant. The use of citation templates is a good practice to achieve a uniform appearance, but not required". patsw 13:58, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a guideline. Like all wikipedia guidelines and policies, it recommends, but it cannot require anything. If you see a citation that you wish had more information, why not just add the information yourself? If the other editor is putting in any sort of inline citation, that's already a step forward. CMummert · talk 14:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
This is a guideline. Like all Wikipedia guidelines and policies, it should promote best practices and discourage incomplete, poorly formatted editing. The other editor is quite capable of adding the information himself but believes that he is not being guided by this guideline to add anything but the bare url. I believe the guideline should be changed to encourage the practice of including relevant information such as title, author, date, and publisher where relevant. patsw 15:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Point him at the section Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Full_citations. CMummert · talk 17:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I take that as support for the clarification edit I propose above. patsw 18:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Citation templates may be used to achieve a consistent appearance, but I don't think consensus exists to call citation templates a "good practice". They have both advantages and disadvantages compared to other means. As for URLs, if someone adds a "bare URL" the guideline says to add an entry with appropriate bibliographic information in the References section. Is it not OK to have the formatting there? Gimmetrow 18:54, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
This page already establishes that all citation methods require "full citations" containing date, author, and other publication to exist somewhere in the article, either in the inline citation or in a separate references section. So your suggested addition would appear to be redundant. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:06, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
My point is that some now read "The use of citation templates is not required" as the guideline requiring nothing but the url. I would agree with Christopher, if it were rare new content lacked full citations, but bare url's are all too common. I may have been mistaken is assuming that the fact that (1) new content written very often includes bare urls as citations, and that (2) this guideline ought to discourage that, has some consensus here.
The guideline requiring full citations needs a reminder here. I see it as clarity and not redundancy. Suggest your own replacement wording which you believe ought to discourage bare urls as citations. patsw 20:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Is it possibly misleading to have the "How to cite sources" section immediately followed by "citation templates are not required"? Would putting "Citation templates" after "Full citations" sufficiently clarify the issue, Patsw? See also above. Gimmetrow 21:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I do not concur that citation templates are good practice. One of my objections is that they can only be used in situations anticipated by the temlate authors, and there are many situations not covered by citation tempaltes. --Gerry Ashton 23:47, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Totally agree. Try citing doi:10.1126/science.1114103 in a way that fulfuls academic standards with the available templates. Note that "academic standards" require listing all authors in the full citation, and note also that there is a fulltext available on the Web, as well as electronic supplementary material, which both should to be included in the citation (or is WP now a paper encyclopedia?) Dysmorodrepanis 10:08, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I've edited the wording on WP:FOOT to bring it into harmony with the wording on this page WP:CITE. patsw 23:09, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's appropriate. When WP:CITE talks about cite templates, it means in reference to citation as a whole, but when WP:FOOT talks about cite templates, it talks about them specifically located between the ref tags. Citation templates are optional in the citation as a whole, but more so between the ref tags because footnotes don't need to be bibliographic at all, and you certainly don't need a template to write "Smith, p.5". Likewise, it's acceptable under WP:CITE to have <ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page</ref> as a "bare URL" if the bibliographic information is given elsewhere in the article. Gimmetrow 01:48, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the edit Gimmetrow made to WP:FOOT to address my concerns. patsw 12:05, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Request for consensus: External Links => Incline Citation Bot

Moved to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Request_for_consensus:_External_Links_.3D.3E_Incline_Citation_Bot per user CMummert. --Paracit 21:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Citing the same source multiple times in the same paragraph

If I have a paragraph consisting of three consecutive sentences backed by the same source, should I put the reference at the end of every sentence? This seems like a good idea, since further editing could lead to the addition of facts not supported by my source but which may appear to be, if the source is cited only on the first or last sentence. I think this should be addressed on the project page. -Seans Potato Business 17:42, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

People can add facts in the middle of sentences as well...it's a given with our current technology that any syntax for sourcing can and will be disrupted. (Fortunately the sources offered by the person who originally added a fact can always be recovered from the edit history.) Given that, I think we should just write normally, and putting the same citation on sentence after sentence is not normal. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:26, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

citing the same source in different places

If I want to cite something with the ref /ref tags and I want use the citation in two different places in the text for example


Statement 1.[1] Statement 2[2]. Statement 3. [1]

1. reference 1
2. reference 2


how would I do that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.111.47.238 (talk) 11:29, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

You would enter it like this:
Statement 1.<ref name=ArbitraryNameForSource1>citation of source 1></ref> Statement 2.<ref>citation of source 2</ref> Source3.<ref name=ArbitraryNameForSource1/> :--Gerry Ashton 16:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Citation templates

I tried to read this talk page but I am getting a headache so I'll just put my remarks here. The section Citation templates does say that some templates make articles "harder to edit" What it does not to say is that it also raises the bar on who can edit articles. How many would be editors give up when, after clicking on "edit this page" can not even find the text they want to edit? The first time I ran into it (tet offensive) I thought it might be deliberate to prevent editors with a different POV from editing. I am still not sure that is untrue. KAM 14:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I add Jimbo Wales Statement of principles #3 "You can edit this page right now" is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred. KAM 17:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Same goes for < ref > tags, only more so. Consider the following:

Long in a private collection, the '''Thermopolis Specimen''' (WDC CSG 100) was discovered in Germany and described in 2005 by Mayr, Pohl, and Peters. Donated to the [[Wyoming Dinosaur Center]] in [[Thermopolis, Wyoming]], it has the best-preserved head and feet; most of the neck and the lower jaw have not been preserved. The "Thermopolis" specimen was described in the December 2, 2005 ''Science'' journal article as "A well-preserved ''Archaeopteryx'' specimen with theropod features", shows that the ''Archaeopteryx'' lacked a reversed toe—a universal feature of birds—limiting its ability to perch on branches and implying a terrestrial or trunk-climbing lifestyle.<ref>Mayr G, Pohl B & Peters DS. (2005). ''A well-preserved Archaeopteryx specimen with theropod features''. [[Science (journal)|Science]]. '''310'''(5753): 1483–1486. {{doi|10.1126/science.1120331}} [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;310/5753/1483/DC1 See commentary on article]</ref> This has been interpreted as evidence of [[Theropoda|theropod]] ancestry. The specimen also has a hyperextendible second toe. "Until now, the feature was thought to belong only to the species' close relatives, the [[Deinonychosauria|deinonychosaurs]]."<ref name ="Natgeo2">[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1201_051201_archaeopteryx_2.html National Geographic News- ''Earliest Bird Had Feet Like Dinosaur, Fossil Shows''] - Nicholas Bakalar, December 1, 2005, Page 2. Retreived 2006-10-18.</ref> This tenth and latest specimen was assigned to ''Archaeopteryx siemensii'' in 2007.<ref name ="10thfind">Mayr, G., Phol, B., Hartman, S. & Peters, D.S. (2007). ''The tenth skeletal specimen of Archaeopteryx''. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 149, 97–116.</ref> The specimen itself, currently on loan to the [[Senckenberg Museum|Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg]] in [[Frankfurt]], is considered the most complete and well preserved ''Archaeopteryx'' remains yet.<ref name ="10thfind">Mayr, G., Phol, B., Hartman, S. & Peters, D.S. (2007). ''The tenth skeletal specimen of Archaeopteryx''. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 149, 97–116.</ref>

A novice user will hardly be able to edit this without breaking it. Half of this paragraph consists of stuff that does not really belong here. And such reftag-obfuscation is rapidly becoming WP standard. Frankly, I find it disgusting, especially since the ref section thus created is a pain to use for serious research, as the refs are not ordered (alphabetically as per academic standard) but are one big and ugly humble-jumble mess. Not to mention that they're excruciatingly hard to read for anyone w/o 20/20 vision. Dysmorodrepanis 10:15, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
At least the citations exist and can be edited when Wikipedia technology improves. WP:V can be most obviously met by every fact being cited, and although such could be presented to readers in various pleasing ways, the editing technology does not yet make every edit as easy as it could be. m:Wikicite is one approach to improvements. I think WP:FOOT still has a link to my Bugzilla suggestion for a second edit window for References (whether the citations are stored in References text or <ref> blocks is not relevant to the user interface). The <ref> does make citation editing somewhat easier than some other Wikipedia ref/citation technology. We don't have "best" yet but we do have "better" (for some values of "better"). (SEWilco 13:05, 21 May 2007 (UTC))
I don't see any movement in the various attempts to address this problem. Wikicite has had 1 discussion item in the last 6 months. There are several disorganized and uncoordinated individual attempts to blow up the Cite template (which is almost universally despised, for good reasons) even more. The referencing (not: sourcing) situation is the one major point where WP's quality continues to go down, down, down. For sourcing issues, simply providing the refs is enough. But proper referencing will also provide them in a format that makes the references themselves useful as a research resource. With tagged refs, it is a tradeoff: the better sourced an article is, the less is the value of the references as a whole. This is neither good, nor does it have to be like that.
Also, as sourcing improves, sourcing vandalism will inevitably increase (i.e. miscitations or bogus sources). With tagged refs, this is not at all easy to fix. Dysmorodrepanis 20:42, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Someone says that Wikicite is being tested, although that won't help here until it becomes available here. #Multiple_cites_in_one_work (SEWilco 01:00, 23 May 2007 (UTC))

Help citing text in a template

Hello. what is the preferred way to cite the content of a template? I read nesting the cite template inside another template is probably over my head so I am looking for a simple solution. I see three options for Template:MinneapolisPeople. We can do 1) references in 'noinclude' on the template page, or 2) references on the template talk page (to save some page load time/server load), or 3) write out the references and include them in the article itself. There might be other ways. #1 and #3 seem equivalent so just moving them to the article in a set of group 'ref's might be simplest. (This template text is off the article Minneapolis, Minnesota to discourage random additions to the list.) Thank you. -Susanlesch 20:41, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

This template seems like a bad idea to begin with. The purpose you envision this template serving (inhibiting editing by making it more difficult) is rather contrary to the general principles of the project. Is nobody watching this article who can revert undesirable changes? Christopher Parham (talk) 20:59, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Have you ever maintained a similar list? (I would guess not.) Never mind the question above, we'll figure something out. Best wishes. -Susanlesch 23:12, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I've certainly maintained pages that attracted large numbers of unhelpful edits, and I found aggressive reversion of such edits fairly effective. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:24, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Would you like another page to maintain? Only kidding but I am quite tempted to try again sans the template. Also, thanks to your note and thinking about it, I did figure out how to cite from a template. Just make 'ref's without the inner 'cite whatever'. So thank you very much. -Susanlesch 08:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikilinks as cites

I have noticed that assertions similar to this: "The Olympic Council of Asia has announced that Boracay will host the 2014 Asian Beach Games." are often tagged as needing supporting cites. It seems to me that there is an implied citation of the wikilinked pages is assertions similar to this example, but I see no guidance regarding this in this article. -- Boracay Bill 00:12, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia pages can't be cited on other Wikipedia pages, for issues of circular logic. So it actually does need a citation. -Amarkov moo! 00:14, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Logic circles can be detected and broken. The opposite approach of not being able to cite wikipedia pages on other wikipedia pages, if driven to the limit, leads to an undesirable normalization of all pages, where all pages contain the sum of all the references ever made. Even if you only just start interpreting the rule in that way, you end up making pages top-heavy and unmanageable, and it is a lot of make-work. So don't do that. As stated below for reasons of attaining even marginal efficiency, defer references to the furthest page away from yours (as counted by number of links) --Kim Bruning 13:28, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The example above is from the Boracay article. You say that mentioning the wikilinked 2014 Asian Beach Games page in asserting that those games will be held on Boracay is insufficient, and that the guideline on this from WP:CITE (considered a standard that all users should follow) is that the outside source which supports that assertion being cited on the wikilinked 2014 Asian Beach Games page isn't sufficient to support the repetition of that assertion on the Boracay page without duplicating the supprting cite of an outside source as well.

It seems to me that this has profound implications throughout wikipedia. For just one example, think of all the pages which mention that the SCOTUS case Brown v. Board of Education resulted in the landmark ruling that the establishment of separate public schools for black and white students inherently unequal, while wikilinking to that article but without duplicating in the Reference section of each of those articles the cite to the outside source supporting that assertion which is present in the Reference section of the Brown v. Board of Education article.

Another example.. take an article like Status of religious freedom by country. That article lists (presently) 33 individual countries, and summarizes info relating to the subject of the article about each. In many cases, the article references a main article about a particular country, wikilinking that main article, and restates or summarizes info from that article without duplicate the supporting cites for each assertion repeated from those articles -- doing that would make for a very large References section.

There are lots and lots of articles out there which repeat assertions from other articles, mentioning and wikilinking the articles from which the repeated assertions are sourced without duplicating the supporting citations from the wikilinked articles from which the assertions are repeated. -- Boracay Bill 07:00, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I have seen people apply this kind of reasoning on pages which are practically blue (like Internet).

The only solution for a page like that would be to recurse through the web of links and coalesce all the links on one page, eliminating duplicates. However, you would find that strict interpretation of this rule (which is both theoretically possible and is theoretically codable in a bot)... well, strict interpretation would leave every single reference ever made attached to that page (and to every other wiki-page).

That is obviously absurd, so that interpretation of the rule cannot be considered correct.

If you're not sure what I just said. Try to add references to Internet, by getting all the references from the subpages. No wait, don't actually do that... just think about what that would mean? The entire list of references would be longer than the article itself. This is a weaker argument than above, but still, you can see that can't quite be right, right?

A third approach is even simpler. If you need all the references on all the pages... then what was the entire point of wikilinks and different wikipages in the first place? They're there to keep blocks of information (and their associated references) separate and manageable.

Finally, as part of a good divide and conquer algorithm, people should defer references to the furthest-away (as counted by number of links to follow) linked page wherever possible. Refactor as appropriate!

--Kim Bruning 13:24, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Kim Bruning and I seem to be on the same page, if perhaps having arrived there by different routes. I think that I'm leaning towards regarding wikilinked pages as implied cites -- with the assertions implicitly attributed to those pages being implicitly expected to be supported by cites on those wikilinked pages. I don't think this can be a hard&fast rule or even a soft&slow guideline but, AFAICS, it is a useful rule of thumb. Would I be causing a problem by adopting that rule of thumb in editing pages? -- Boracay Bill 13:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Ouw, on rereading I'm using really formal language here though. I typically try to sound more silly :-P Lemme scratch my head and translate to english sometime... or is it clear enough to most? --Kim Bruning 12:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This is fine unless the linked articles are unreferenced, which is the case a lot of times. Someone shouldn't have to dig through 400 wikilinks to verify something. IvoShandor 13:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) A rule of thumb I've seen some people advocate is to provide references, not wikilinks, for all quotations, and facts that are likely to be challenged, unless the section indicates there is a main article on the topic (by using Template: Main. Within a section with a Main template, facts need only be wikilinked, not cited, if they are cited in the Main article, but quotations should be cited. This approach seems reasonable to me. --Gerry Ashton 17:22, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable to me as well -- As a rule of thumb, do not provide cites for assertions taken from a wikilinked Main Article; also, do not provide cites for assertions taken from a wikilinked article which is implied by the context to be the source of the assertion taken from it; however, do provide cites if the assertions are/contain quotations or are considered likely to be challenged. In any case, if/when items are challenged, provide supporting cites. I think there should be some guidance about this in this Citing sources article, though. -- Boracay Bill 22:57, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Maybe Internet is an extreme example, but would that actually work there? If you tell folks that internet is about
Main article: [[TCP|TCP]]
/
Main article: [[IP|IP]]
, a common service is the
Main article: World Wide Web
, the most traffic is caused by
Main article: Bittorrent
, and that it started out as
Main article: arpanet
. Is that practical?
Eek, that looks awful. I guess not huh? <scratches head>. How would you solve the paragraph above? --Kim Bruning 01:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC) possibly you need to edit/view source to view it as something readable at all

3rd opinion, page numbers and citations

I am in a small dispute over at Talk:Gospel of John. One editor added a sentence that an author held a specific position and cited a book that the author wrote. I asked the editor to please supply a page number with the citation, and my citation request tag has been repeated removed from the article. We have discussed things on talk, and the editor believes that because this page says page numbers are only required when quoting text, that there is no need for a page number. I say, if the author makes the claim that we say he makes in the article, there has to be a page (or pages) where the author makes the same claim in the book. How does it hurt the article or verifiability to simply add the pages numbers to the citations, right? However, the editors have still refused to supply a simply page number. So, is it unreasonable for me to request that they cite the page when the cite a book?-Andrew c 14:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Based on the comments on that talk page, it looks like this is a content dispute (does the source actually say what is claimed?) rather than a style dispute (given that the source does say something, is a page number necessary?). You are always free to move the disputed content to the talk page if you feel it is likely to be incorrect. It is up to the person who wants to insert material to satisfy reasonable requests for precise citation of doubtful material. CMummert · talk 17:59, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Add "dubious" to WP:CITE#Tagging_unsourced_material

I think the {{dubious}} tag (see Template_messages) should be mentioned in WP:CITE#Tagging_unsourced_material, as an "in between" action for unverified facts where the editor isn't sure if the statement is harmful, or for cases where the editor believes the statement is harmful if untrue but is not sure if the statement is true or not. The reason being you do not want to delete a statement that turns out to be true or one that turns out to be harmless. Davidwr 12:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I think mentioning more templates that serve basically the same purpose will only confuse, and that just presenting {{fact}} should do for now. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Primary or Secondary Source?

I am editing National Anthem of Manchukuo. I got hold of the government registers for the defunct WWII-era country that is related to this article, and next to the document proclaiming the second anthem there is also an official interpretation of the anthem. Given that anthem was entirely new at that time that there would be no "folklore interpretation", should the official interpretation be considered primary or secondary source? --Samuel CurtisShinichian-Hirokian-- TALK·CONTRIBS 15:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I would say it is a primary source, but consult with an expert on this. Your local public or university librarian would be a good person to ask. BTW, you need to cite the source material. If the government registers are publicly accessible, then cite them as you would any other defunct-country public government document. If they are not publicly accessible, consult with an expert on the proper citation. Speaking of citations, the whole article needs to be better cited. Davidwr 16:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I know I have cleanup to do, but I would have the citations ready when I go to the library again tomorrow. These registers are publicly accessible.--Samuel CurtisShinichian-Hirokian-- TALK·CONTRIBS 16:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd say primary source if there ain't a direct record by the person(s) that ultimately "invented" the interpretation. I.e., closer to the decision-making process. Government files can usually be cited very well, but IONO if you can use the tags for something as non-US as this. Dysmorodrepanis 21:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

IMDb Profiles

I've been having some disputes regarding IMDb profiles for movie articles. Some editors use them as references, but do not fully cite them. An editor has stated that there is no need to add a full citation, since there are no clear authors for the profiles. Is the editor correct? Or should I place refimprove tags on the articles and request that editors include full citations? BoricuaeddieTalk • Contribs • Spread the love! 23:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

As you will see here. Just linking the page at the bottom is adequate. --Djsasso 00:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Please note that "External links" are not references, but pointers to further reading. If a source is used as a reference it should be clearly identified as such either with a footnote or with a listing in the references section. IMDb should be used with caution as a references, as many editors do not consider IMDb a reliable source (except for Writers Guild of America credits, which the WGA provides directly to IMDb). Gimmetrow 15:57, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Section: Maintaining a separate "References" section in addition to "Notes"

I don't think this section belongs on this page. I think that the content of this section ought to be integrated with WP:GTL, and the info presented there, not here. It would probably be useful, though, to point up on this page that the WP:GTL page should be consulted for information about organizing and maintaining these sections.

I think that both the info now presented in this section and the info in the WP:GTL#Standard_appendices_and_descriptions section have problems. I don't have time to expand on that right now as I'm leaving on a trip within the hour. I will try to get back to that when I have more time to expand on it. One illustration of what I'm talking about, though, might be the recent edit to this section which added (in part) "A References section, which lists citations in alphabetical order, helps readers to see at a glance the quality of the references used." One problem I have with this is that the References section of most articles I've seen has been populated by the cite.php <ref>, </ref> and <References/> tags -- and this forces items into order-of-occurrence order. -- Boracay Bill 02:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The suggestion is that the cite.php stuff be under "Notes" (these could just be short form citations) and that the full citations be organized alphabetically under "References". Christopher Parham (talk) 02:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
The intro to this WP:CITE page begins: "This page is a style guide, describing how to write citations in articles."
The WP:GTL page intro begins: "The Wikipedia Guide to Layout is an annotated, working example of some of the basics of laying out an article. It is a summary of what some articles look like.".
WP:GTL#Notes says: "A footnote is a note placed at the bottom of a page of a document that comments on, and may cite a reference for, a part of the main text. The connection between the relevant text and its footnote is often indicated with a number or symbol which is used both after the text fragment and before the footnote. "
WP:GTL#References says: "Put under this header, again in a bulleted list, any books, articles, web pages, et cetera that you used in constructing the article and have referenced (cited) in the article."
Contrary to the Bulleted list guidence about References above, common practice is to use the cite.php <ref>, </ref>, and <References> markups to populate the References section with numbered references sorted by the cite.php mechanism into order by order-of-occurrance.
I believe that guidelines about how sections of an article should be organized, how items within sections be numbered, etc. should appear in WP:MOS and/or WP:GTL and/or more detailed pages regarding specific article sections, and that discussions regarding such matters should take place in WP:VPP or, possibly, WP:MOS and/or WP:GTL talk pages. I believe that discussions regarding how sections of articles should be organized are outside of the scope of this article, that this section should be removed from this article, and that discussion about those topics should take place in a more appropriate venue. Please excuse my brusqueness -- I am still traveling and am posting this in haste from an internet cafe. -- Boracay Bill 03:10, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
This guide should explain the mechanisms of creating a notes section, a references section, or both. If we are not going to explain how to do it, this guideline serves no purpose and shoud be deleted. --Gerry Ashton 03:58, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. I think this info should not be presented in several likely-conflicting forms in several separate articles. I think this info should be presented in one article only, and other articles which need to mention this info should point readers to the single article where this is explained fully. AFAICT, this info is presently most comprehensively explained in WP:GTL#Standard_appendices_and_descriptions. Also, I think that this WP:CITE article serves the useful purpose of (as its intro says) describing how to write citations in articles -- and that this purpose is useful in itself without also attempting to explain how article sections containing these cites should be named and organized. It is useful in this article to explain the use of the cite.php tags, citation templates, the ref/note family of templates, a bit about harvard referencing (with a wikilink to the article on that), A bit about relibility of sources (with a wikilink to WP:RS), etc. -- Boracay Bill 03:50, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
The information is useful here. It wouldn't be good for the guidance on this page to be subsumed under the MoS, which is widely ignored, because it gets edited so much.