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Question about when citation tag is ridiculous

In eastern Ukraine, about half the population or so speaks Russian as a native language, so most articles about places in that part of Ukraine include both the Ukrainian and Russian variants of the name. An anonymous IP pushing a Ukrainian national POV started removing the Russian variants and then started placing citation tags on the Russian variants in order to try to bypass WP:3RR. (He/she was caught and blocked anyway.) My question is whether a discussion has ever been conducted here on when a citation tag is ridiculous, as with a placename. --Taivo (talk) 02:37, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion the tag is not ridiculous, although the person placing it may be. In this case for example if someone genuinely doubted the Russian variant, they would be quite legitimate in placing a tag, and the name could be easily sourced (unless, of course it was wrong). These particular tags should be removed as an abuse of process, either completely, or if someone feels like it replaced with references. As to whether similar discussions have been had, I'm sure they have, but I don't know where. I recall one editor went around tagging every occurrence of "British Isles", their particular fringe belief is, I think, that they should be called "the Western Atlantic Islands". I expect that attracted some controversy. Rich Farmbrough, 19:03, 24 October 2011 (UTC).

Thank you for your response. In this case, the tagger wasn't interested in whether or not the Russian was correct, but opposed the Russian variant being there at all. --Taivo (talk) 23:35, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

POV pushing is POV pushing, no matter how you do it. Tags should not be abused to push someone's agenda.

As a general rule, in case something like this comes up in the future, the template's own documentation (rather than a guideline) is usually the place where we document when and how to use a given template. Template:Citation needed has fairly extensive documentation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Using an amazon.com link as a book cite

See this example in User error. I think it should be strongly discouraged as a form of "stealth" linkspam. Roger (talk) 12:08, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree it isn't appropriate, since the Amazon site does not contain any reliable quote of the book that allows the claim to be verified (or if it does, it isn't apparent how to find it). I wouldn't call it spam, because there is no evidence this is a deliberate promotion of Amazon. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:48, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I think this issue should be mentioned in the guide as I've noticed quite a few examples of such "cites" in a wide range of articles since I first noticed the one above. Add something along the lines of: "Links to bookseller's or publisher's websites should not be used in the place of proper book citations." to the "Books" section. Roger (talk) 14:18, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The documentation for {{cite book}} states:

• url: URL of an online location where text of the book can be found. ... Do not use this parameter to link to any commercial booksellers (such as Amazon.com). ...

--Redrose64 (talk) 15:53, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks. Roger (talk) 15:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Whenever possible, please use the ISBN WP:Magic word for books. That allows readers to find the book in hundreds of online sources and local libraries as well as online booksellers, rather than restricting them to one single website (which, no matter what website you pick, is probably the wrong one for the reader's location). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I happen to own a copy of the book in the (non-)cite that prompted this topic, unfortunately it is currently in my father's bookshelf, about 350km from my home. Roger (talk) 17:42, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Humph! Well it might, if you use all the ISBNs for hardback & paperback editions, North American & rest of world editions, and new editions. Unless of course the book is an oldish and popular one in which case there will be dozens, even hundreds, of potential ISBNs (admittedly perhaps with different paginations). Personally if I want to find a book I just google the title & author. But links to Amazon (unless it shows the text maybe) and non-preview google books pages are pointless. Johnbod (talk) 17:50, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

How to cite article behind a paywall, when there is a free copy elsewhere

An article includes an extensive quote from an article in the New Centennial Review. The citation is properly footnoted, but without an url. I find that the article details are available online, but the article itself is behind a paywall.[1] However, there is a free copy of the same article available elsewhere online, on a site generally not regarded as reliable.[2] If I want to add an url to the citation, how should I handle this, and what information should I include? RolandR (talk) 09:33, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. I'd gladly accept links to scientists local copies of their works, or neutral repositories like university libraries, or departmental pages, or arXiv. But if a site is not reliable, how can we be sure that the courtesy copy is identical to the proper paper? Especially if, as in this case, it's plain HTML, not PDF formatted in the journal style. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

It looks to me in this particular case as if the reason why the the site where the article is freely available is "generally not regarded as reliable" may simply be that it has a particular POV when expressing its own opinions. But when it is reproducing stuff from elsewhere, that need not apply. Surely the person who cited the article on WP -- who by definition must have access to it -- or some other editor who also has access to it, can check whether the courtesy copy at campus-watch.org is in fact a full and accurate copy, and if it is, I don't think it matters much what campus-watch.org says elsewhere on its site as long as it is in general terms vaguely respectable, which at a quick glance it appears to me to be. Is this not analagous to the distinction between facts reported in a "reliable source" newspaper, which we would happily cite, and an editorial opinion in the same newspaper, which we probably wouldn't, except as an example of the newspaper's own opinion? -- Alarics (talk) 11:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Does campus-watch.org have the rights to republish this work? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:20, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The person who originally added the citation did not include any url. Since the text quoted is unfavourable to the subject of the article, and the location of the free copy is hostile to the author of the quote but sympathetic to the subject of the article, I am reluctant to rely on their version, which is the same as the text quoted. The original editor could, of course, have been using the print version of the source, we have no way of knowing. I will inform them of this discussion, and request their input. But the general question remains: when we have the url of a cited source, but it is behind a paywall, and we also have an url for what purports to be a free version of the same text, which should we cite, and how? RolandR (talk) 11:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I always argue, that if a reference is behind a paywall, that that is not a problem. There are people who do have access, or one could pay to view the original - hence the information is verifiable (also, in principle, everyone can just go to a library who has paper copies or institutional access and look at the article there, here in the Netherlands university libraries are public, one may not have access at home, but you can go to a univerity library and use computers there to access the documents) - to me verifiable is not necessarily 'everybody should personally be able to read the paper NOW and see if everything is correct'. Here, I would hence make the official link the prominent link in the citation (it is at least more official). One could add to it, that a free copy is available elsewhere, and probably someone with access should verify that the data is the same (could be noted on the talkpage, and that date should also be recorded in the citation. When the copy is used to write it, then that may end up to be the first one in the beginning, but I'd suggest then to upgrade the reference to the official documents, and again giving the copy as a convenience link. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:04, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Put a {{subscription required}} directly after the citation template but before the </ref> tag. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:01, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I would not accept a link to the free site because of WP:LINKVIO concerns. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:LINKVIO should indeed be a big concern - though blindly not accepting it on that regards is maybe a bit excessive. Do note that that is often a concern, even if the information is just behind a registration-wall - people blindly copy-and-paste that into blogs so it is easier to access. Be aware.

Still, documents can be verified, even if they are not available online - we do not need a link - if I give you a pagenumber, year, issuenumber, author and article title for an article in the journal Science, you can find and verify it (and hardly anyone has a hardcopy lying around on their desk), and thát is the only point of a reference - verifiability. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:18, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Are collections of citation templates citation styles?

Are collections of citation templates, such as those that begin with the word Cite, collectively a citation style, entitled to be treated the same way in Wikipedia articles as The Chicago Manual of Style, The MLA Style Manual, and similar works. Should only a subset of the templates beginning with Cite, those sometimes called Citation Style 1, be considered a citation style? Likewise, should the {{Citation}} template be considered a citation style?

There are many things that "style" could mean. But the main goal of CITEVAR is to explicitly remind editors that all of these are generally inappropriate:

• Changing an article that uses no citation templates to use templates, even if the output is identical.
• Changing an article that uses citation templates to use no templates, even if the output is identical.
• Changing an article that uses the {{cite journal}} family to use the {{citation}} family, or vice-versa, even if the output is identical.
• Changing from Harvard-style references to footnote-style references, or vice-versa.

So each of those options is a "citation style" for the purposes of CITEVAR. The text of CITEVAR then goes on to give our two best practices: either follow the existing style, or get positive consensus to change it. In particular, if an article uses e.g {{citation}} exclusively, later citations should also use this template, as that is the established style for the article.

There is some discussion about this at [3]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:47, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

• Template sets such as CS1 present the citation elements in a consistent order and format— that is certainly a style.

I will have to dig up the proposal at the Village Pump where I proposed naming sets of templates that used the same visual style. Current well-used template sets that form defacto styles include: Citation Style 1, Citation Style 2, Citation Style Vancouver, Harvard ({{Harvard citations}} and {{Harvrefcol}}), and Comics ({{cite comic}} and {{comic strip reference}}).

There are a myriad of other templates using the prefix 'cite'. Many of these are specific-source templates that use a CS1 or CS2 general template, thus they would fall under those styles; example: {{Cite Celtic Culture}} uses {{Cite encyclopedia}}. Other templates were developed independently and do not use the same visual style; example: {{Cite vob}}.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:28, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

What CBM writes is true enough; wholesale changes from one system to another are frowned upon unless there is consensus. However, full-fledged styles provide for a far greater range of sources than the templates, and there is usually an "escape" clause that suggests what to do about sources that are not provided for in the manual. For example, Chicago (14th ed., p. 528) says "There are many acceptable alternatives to and combinations of these basic styles. The main criteria of acceptability are clarity, consistency, and usefulness." MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (7th ed., p. 129) states "While it is tempting to think that every source has only one complete and correct format for its entry in a list of works cited, in truth there are often several options for recording key features of work. For this reason, software programs that generate entries are not likely to be useful. You may need to improvise when the type of scholary project or the publication medium of a source is not anticipated by this handbook." But citation templates do not generally give this sort of advice. Mostly they just document the parameters. So perhaps they should be given an intermediate status between a full-fledged style and an article with no citation consistency. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

• As I've noted in the thread above, the question that has arisen is not really regarding the difference between citation styles under WP:CITEVAR, but instead the difference in how to cite kinds of materials under WP:CITEHOW. Different materials, such as books, journals, newspapers, sound recordings, and legal materials such as case law, statutes and regulations, have different components for a valid citation regardless of the citation style used. AMA Style and Chicago Style, for example, both import by reference the Bluebook style for cites to legal materials, which is the dominant (though not the only) legal citation style in the U.S.
  Template:Citation is consistent in the style it uses for the kinds of materials it can accommodate, but it is, at present, incapable of handling citations to legal materials, such as case law (the opinions of courts), because it lacks the proper parameters. To then use a separate template such as Template:Cite court for case law citations, or Template:UnitedStatesCode for citations to the United States Code, is not inconsistent or contrary to WP:CITEVAR under any reasonable or constructive interpretation. That would be the tail wagging the dog, as the template is there just to make citation formatting easier. Some editors have disagreed, and so have incorrectly tried to shoehorn case law citations into the format of books just to use Template:Citation across the board, which no actual citation style does, which is contrary to all real-world usage whether by legal professionals or not, and which misrepresents the nature of the source material.
  All they have offered in support is their interpretation of CITEVAR, not any external source showing that any case law citation they can spit out of Template:Citation at present is a valid one. There are different valid citation styles for case law, but they vary only in small details (such as New York state courts using brackets to enclose the year of the decision instead of parentheses as Bluebook does); they do not vary in whether they treat case law the same as a journal or book. We cite to Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), not Supreme Court of the United States (1954) "Brown v. Board of Education" in United States Reports Vol. 347. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, p. 483, a completely made up and invalid citation format notwithstanding that you could currently derive it (but not the Bluebook form) from Template:Citation. Just as we cite to Matthew 23:24 (KJV), not to God, et al. (1990). "Matthew" in King James Bible. Indianapolis: Indiana Bible Press, p. 560.
  In sum, every kind of material should be cited to in a manner that is not only consistent within that article for that material, but is appropriate for that material and reflects how the real world cites to that kind of material, regardless of the specific citation style used. Citation templates are merely means to an end, and treating different materials differently is not an inconsistent application of style. WP:CITEVAR does not say otherwise, but if it did, then the proper outcome would be to change it. postdlf (talk) 19:46, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The question is: "Are collections of citation templates, such as those that begin with the word Cite, collectively a citation style" ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:14, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

No. postdlf (talk) 20:23, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Then WP:CS1 needs to go to MfD. As does User:Gadget850/Template/Cite legal us. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:28, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that's a bit extreme, really. Richwales (talk) 21:00, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Yep, WP:BEANS. No part of WP:CS1 covers legal citations of any kind. Complaining that we're not applying it to materials that it doesn't cover is just nonsense. Though User:Gadget850/Template/Cite legal us should never be used as it doesn't reflect any valid legal citation style, so go ahead and MFD that. postdlf (talk) 21:26, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I believe that most US legal citations should mostly conform to The Bluebook. This is the dominant model for US legal writing generally, but especially for academic writing (which, because it aims for a more general audience than briefs and opinions, is the proper model here). A rough work-in-progress of what I eventually intend to propose is here. These are much easier to format manually than by template. I'm not proposing to ban templates, but I think that users should strongly consider the benefits of a WYSIWYG model before proliferating templates for the sake of templates. Savidan 03:17, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It ain't necessarily so, as the song goes. Take a closer look at the Bluebook article...it mentions that at least four (large) states -- two of which are the most populous in the country -- have their own legal style guides that members of the bar are expected to use. And that doesn't even take Louisiana into consideration, which is unique in the US by being founded in French law, where every other state is founded in British law. So the "dominant" model is certainly not the de facto model, just as the various {{Cite}} styles aren't ubiquitous throughout Wikipedia, or the APA style guide isn't universal in academia. Get four professors together and ask which manual of style they want their students to use, and you're likely to get five different answers, with the fifth rotating between all four of them. The short answer will always be "it depends". --Alan the Roving Ambassador (User:N5iln) (talk) 13:25, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

True. The main fact that a couple people above have had a hard time accepting, however, is that case law citations, regardless of the style used, are of a different nature than citations to other materials such as books or journals, and that difference is not a mere difference in style. Within that, the differences between legal citation formats is pretty minor.
Citation in Bluebook style: Dalton v Pataki, 5 N.Y.3d 243 (2005)
Citation in New York state court official style: Dalton v Pataki, 5 NY3d 243 [2005]
Bluebook is in wider use than any other competing style for U.S. case law, it's the standard observed by many other writing styles (such as Chicago, AMA), and it's the style observed by federal courts. I personally wouldn't have any complaints if say the NY style were used in articles on NY case law, just as long as we're actually using a valid citation style for legal citations. But if we're going to choose or encourage one particular legal citation style, then Bluebook is the way to go. postdlf (talk) 14:54, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

• Citation style == whatever the editors at an article declare it to be. Editors are not required to use an "official" style—not Chicago, not Bluebook, not anything at all. You are not required to use a legal style for legal citations. You are not required to use a history style for history-related sources. You are permitted to completely invent any style you want and to wildly abuse existing styles for your own convenience.
  CITE doesn't even require you to use an intelligent or sensible style. If you decided that the citation style for a given article was properly formatted Chicago style for books and little more than "[http:example.com Page Title]" for websites, and to display citations to magazine articles in red text, and you applied those rules consistently to every single citation, then, for better or worse, that nonsensical arrangement is your citation style, and that nonsensical style fully complies with CITE's requirement for consistency. (It would violate all sorts of other things, beginning with WP:Use common sense, but it would fully comply with CITE's very minimal restrictions.)
  So the answer to Carl's question is both yes and no: Yes, that's a style if the editors at a page say it is, and, no, it's not a style if the editors at the page say it isn't.
  Also, if you declare that CS1 is "the style" for this article, there's nothing to stop someone from creating a new CS1 template that produces the specific output s/he wants, so "you can't do that because the template family hasn't grown to cover that case yet" is an incredibly weak objection. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:33, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing wrote "'you can't do that because the template family hasn't grown to cover that case yet' is an incredibly weak objection." Writing templates is a different skill than editing articles, and quite time-consuming as well. The absence of a suitable citation template must never be used as a reason to exclude a source. If that becomes a problem, the governors should be petitioned to incorporate that rule into the foundation's charter. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:30, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The bottom line is this. Is the information given within the reference sufficient for the alleged "fact" to be verified by editors other than the one who added said "fact"? If existing templates allow all necessary information to be shown, all well and good; if not, we need to determine where the limitations lie. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:39, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Jc3s5h, I agree with you that writing templates is a different skill set. But rejecting a reasonable, useful citation on the grounds that a template with a particular type of name doesn't currently exist is like playing a children's game. "You can't put Dalton v Pataki, 5 N.Y.3d 243 (2005) in the article, because that's not what a CS1 template produces!" is easily gamed by finding someone who will make a "CS1" template to produce that output. It's rather like saying, "you can't do that, because you forgot to say Mother, may I? first!"

If editors at a page don't want to include a particular citation format for legal (or other) sources, then that's fine: they are permitted to invent any style they want. However, they need to just say that, rather than setting up flimsy obstacles that can be easily knocked down by anyone with the necessary skills. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

You seem to miss my point. If there is a quotation from Dalton v Pataki that would enhance an article, an editor may add the quotation, together with a functional citation, to the article. By functional citation, I mean one that contains the information necessary to find the source, regardless of the citation format. If an editor were to remove the quote and the citation on the basis that the article uses citation templates, and there is no properly-functioning citation for legal cases, that editor would be in the wrong. One cannot demand that a content editor create a citation template suitable for a source before adding content to an article. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:35, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

And as I understood the impasse we had a few weeks ago, there were two factors: (1) A Bluebook-style court case citation template could not easily be produced using the "core" citation template code that is shared by the other templates in the CS1 family; and (2) philosophical differences arose over whether or not it was appropriate to create a court case citation template that was "part of CS1" but which would generate a Bluebook-style appearance. Richwales (talk) 18:43, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

A reliable source should not be debarred on the grounds that there is no suitable citation template. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

It is equally true that there's no rule against (ab)using one of the citation templates to cite that reliable source, even if the IMO sensible thing would be to use a different approach. {{cite book |title=Dalton v Pataki |series=5 N.Y.3d 243 (2005) |separator=,}} is (1) is a commonly used "CS1" citation template and (2) produces the Bluebook style. You have other options, though, especially citing the source like it was any other published document, e.g., with Judge Ciparick's name given as the author, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't delete any claim supported by WhatamIdoing's citation, but I consider that citation to contain incorrect metadata. The title parameter is supposed to be the title of the book, but "Dalton v Pataki" is the title of the case. The series parameter is supposed to be the title of the series, which I suppose would be N.Y.3d, but instead is set to an abbreviated title of the book. I can't really see the point of using templates if the parameters are going to be false. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• "Citation style == whatever the editors at an article declare it to be" sums it up well enough. Changing something related to citations—including how they show up in the edit box—and dismissing discussion because they're not really citation style is inappropriate. Such changes do affect the editors of the article, even if the reader is oblivious to them. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 02:35, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
• It may be that a more verbose legal citation style is appropriate for Wikipeida. We are not all "learned friends" and our citations should be informative to the reading public. If that makes a legal scholar's eyes boggle, that's fine, legal scholars will not be coming to Wikipedia for their legal material by and large, whereas mere mortals, from random places on Earth will not know what MA2d means (any more than I do). Rich Farmbrough, 18:52, 24 October 2011 (UTC).
  
• Comment There's a heap of related problems in this whole area. For starters, how is a brand new editor supposed to be able to pick on a citation style (even if they can decide what that means), when most of them aren't even capable of adding references, apparently? And if they do something wholly inadequate, although it would technically count as a citation "style" (for example, putting some bare text into the <ref></ref> tags), does this then automatically mean that every editor following them into the article, no matter how proficient they may be in using really good citation techniques themselves, has to follow that newbie, also, into a totally inadequate citation "style" (i.e. no style) simply because that was what was there before? Doesn't this strike anybody as being a bit daft? Pesky (talk …stalk!) 09:13, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
  • You may want to read WP:CITEVAR. The earlier versions may have been clearer on these points, but the example you give is still covered: if an article has (in your opinion) a poor style, you start a collegial discussion about how you'd like to improve the page, rather than unilaterally imposing your personal preferences. If it really is no style (e.g., a mishmash of multiple styles), then you may provide it with a single style. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

    Hey there, WhatamIdoing! I find the pages I work on in the NPP queue, so almost without exception they've been created by relatively new users, and only edited by that one user; also, a huge number of them (those that have any kind of references) just user bare urls, so I just use Reflinks (with maybe a bit of pre-Reflinking tweakage), to turn those into reasonable citations. One of the advantages of Reflinks is that it's consistent with what it does. If I were focussing on older articles, with more than one editor, or a few more experienced editors, I'd certainly get into discussions (if I actually felt motivated enough to go tidying older pages, as wasn't drowning in NPP!) Fing is, though, fing is ..... using bare urls is a 'kinda "citation style", but it will immediately attract linkrot tags if it's not fixed up (for very good reasons), so what I do is a quick-fix on those new pages (rather than tagging them and moving on), and drop some hints, tips, and a "how-to" about Reflinks, onto the creators' talk pages. These inexperienced new editors, whose work I mostly encounter, simply don't have enough education / training (yet!) even to know what an inline citation is, a lot of the time, let alone the experience to pick on a "style". As you know, it's something that even really experienced editors find challenges with. I hope that, once I've fixed those new pages, and left some helpful hints on new editors' talk pages, that they will then be able to apply the same style as they go along, which will result in consistent citation styles in those pages (if they ever add to those pages). So, if converting bare urls into proper citations is "imposing my personal preferences", then yes, I do. But Wikipedia prefers citations to bare urls, and Wikipedia uses (and suggests) Reflinks, so I'm not alone in preferring that citation style. Anyhoo, enough of this chat, and back to reducing the NPP backlog .... Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:30, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

    If you honestly have no reason to doubt that anyone would object, then as far as I'm concerned, you can be bold. Complying with WP:Linkrot is a valid reason for "unilaterally" changing a (sort of) "style", especially if the style was very likely chosen out of ignorance of alternatives. Boldly fixing the problem is far friendlier than tagbombing the newbie's first efforts. But if you think there's any realistic chance of an objection either to changing it at all, or to what you are changing it to, then the talk page is the place to start. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

• No. Cite templates are conveniences for those editors who don't want to format citations by hand; my sympathy for them is limited, since they are slower to fill out, and take up more memory, than doing it by hand. It would be nice if they conformed to a common style; it would be even better if they had a switch to render the same information in any of several different styles. (They cannont be mandatory; there are works which are not citable properly in their hard-wired format.) But a citation style, if there is one, exists in what the reader sees. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:25, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
  • The difficulty is that, for the purposes of WP:CITEVAR, we do consider changing from non-template references to templates references, or vice versa, to be a change of style, even if there is no visible change in the rendered page. Indeed this was one of the main motivations for that part of WP:CITE, even before it had its own name. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:44, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
    • Perhaps "style" in CITEVAR should be replaced by "style or method" or something, if there's a real danger that people might misunderstand what's meant. (It already says "system or style" in most places; maybe we could extend that to everywhere.)--Kotniski (talk) 20:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Should a key to a table precede the table, or follow it?

Should a key to a table precede the table, or follow the table. The discussion is here. Thoughts at that discussion would be appreciated. Given that--arguably, though people may have different views on this--the key serves a similar function to footnotes, I'm posting this note here. Thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:27, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Chicago isn't very clear on this. APA places general notes to a table below the table:

A general note qualifies, explains, or provides information relating to the table as a whole and ends with an explanation of any abbreviations, symbols, and the like. Included within general notes would be any acknowledgments that a table is reproduced from another source. General notes are designated by the word Note (italicized) followed by a period.

See also Purdue OWL for APA and MLA. Both styles use running text for the notes, not tabular format. If you keep it in a table, I would make it two or three columns to reduce the vertical impact. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:04, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Since you can't understand the table without knowing what "SS" and "OF" and such mean, I'd put the key first. Actually, I'd remove the cryptic codes and use the actual words, thus eliminating the need for the key entirely. There's no good reason to type "SS" when the word "Shortstop" would plainly fit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks -- I'll move both these comments to the indicated page, unless there is an objection, to keep the conversation centralized.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:46, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Mid-sentence footnotes deprecated?

See above Text-source integrity: suggestion to make it clearer

I notice that both today's FA Lester Brain and tomorrow's FA Manchester United F.C. use mid-sentence footnotes. A proposed change to this page [4] claims mid-sentence footnotes are "regarded as poor practice". I think that claim is at odds with actual practice both in the real world of scholarly publishing and on Wikipedia. The goal of this page is to describe how citations are commonly formatted on Wikipedia, not to try to change the styles that are used by unilaterally prescribing against styles such as mid-sentence footnotes that are frequently employed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:13, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Some editors do use them, but in a limited way. The sentence Philip wanted to include here had multiple refs inside the sentence, and that is really quite odd looking, and never necessary. We should recommend best practice here, not worst.

Where in scholarly publishing do writers add a footnote after each word in a sentence? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 00:35, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

We should not advocate "best practice" here, because Wikipedia does not have a house style, and so any practice that is clear is perfectly acceptable. This page needs to be agnostic about which style is used. But even if we did advocate "best practice", the practice used in FAs should count as "best practice".

In my own papers, I often write things parallel to: "There is previous work by Smith [4], Jones [2], and Johnson [1]." Or, "Although this is impossible in general [2], we now present a proof under more limited hypotheses." It would be strange to move the note in that second sentence to the end of the sentence. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:40, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree - it's quite common in scholarly publishing to see mid-sentence citations (I'll assume the "after each word" bit was hyperbolic"). This practice is advocated by university courses (example) and style guides (example), and as Carl mentions frequently appears in Wikipedia's own FAs. In fact, though I haven't searched extensively, the only place I've seen the practice discouraged is in legal writing. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:08, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

No one is arguing against a mid-sentence footnote, as the text used to say. But Philip Baird Shearer changed the text to say (or reverted to the change, I don't know which) that it's fine to have several refs in the same sentence, i.e. one after every word. I've never seen that done off-wiki, and have never seen a good article or FA written like that. It always looks very odd. Look at the example he restored (or may have originally added) to the text-source integrity section. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 02:53, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Not my changes SV I only reverted to changes that someone else had made. See above the problem with the wording you were inserting was it is criticising examples already in the text. -- PBS (talk) 03:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

For style, the "closest" citation should be at the clause level, if clauses describe separate claims. If multiple claims are made in the one sentence, then this is dangerously close to synthesis. If the relationship between a footnote and a claim needs to be explained, then the footnote ought to be explanatory. "Jones likes ducks and swans.[1][2]" [1] Simmerson 1997 accounts for the ducks. [2] Katedaughter 2010 discusses swans. Though these could be compressed into a single narrative footnote with ease. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, agree about clause level. We could add that explicitly, though the example I added to the page shows it that way, which may be enough; see here. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 03:09, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

That proposed change is baloney. Per Nikkimaria, Fifelfoo, CBM, and just about every FA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:36, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Because of the indentation I am confused. Do you mean this change as highlighted by CBM? -- PBS (talk)

SV I see you have now reverted the guideline to an older wording, but the wording of that version has been criticised as inadequate and confusing by several editors (see for example #Text-source integrity: suggestion to make it clearer), which is why it was changed. -- PBS (talk) 06:38, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Noleander suggested it recently, one person responded, and he went ahead and changed it. Then there was an objection to the change, so you shouldn't have reverted, Philip. What I've now done is restored the previous text, and added the issues that Noleander wanted, minus the ref-tag-after-every-word option, which is really not a good idea. So now we have an example of Fifelfoo's point, with more than one ref at the clause level, rather than saying it's okay to keep adding footnotes after each word. See here. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 06:45, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

SV if editors make changes and you then make changes to those changes without any discussion, then any editor is entitled to revert your changes and ask you to discuss them.

Actually Noleander is not the only person who has objected to the wording you have restored. I have also objected to the wording "The following inline citation, for example, may be unhelpful because the reader does not know whether each source supports the material ..." several times (as you probably remember but those new to the conversation may not know and to reiterate the point for them) It depends on what the footnotes contain, and they are neither better or worse at passing on such information whether separated or bundled together. Bundling citations my be desirable for aesthetic reasons and for reasons to do with alphabetic listing of sources etc, but that is a different issue from maintaining text-source integrity. -- PBS (talk) 08:17, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

+1--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:07, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems that this is an issue where we might do better to deviate from this page's normal custom of saying that every method is as good as every other method, and actually recommend that people do one thing and not another (not as an absolute "rule", of course). I suggest we definitely recommend against having more than one footnote adjacent to each other (both for reasons of text-source integrity, which apply in some situations but not others, and because it simply looks silly and confuses readers). The solution can either be to intersperse the footnotes, or to have a single bundled footnote - either solution is reasonable, depending on the situation; we could have an example of each.--Kotniski (talk) 11:37, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I would like to see an actual change against that practice before we try to change it in WP:CITE. Many articles are presently written with adjacent footnotes. These articles are not wrong in any way; we do not have a house citation style, and we do not try to standardize our citation formatting between different articles. There are many reasons for adjacent footnotes, but one strong reason is the use of named footnotes (or list-defined footnotes) which are used several times. These are somehow a completely different method than bundling. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:24, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

+1--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Imho that's mostly a fictitious discussion, for real text source integrity you need (mandatory) annotated and confirmed footnotes (flagged revisions), anything else is a mostly useless formalism that creates a superficial impression of a "text source integrity", which isn't really one.

I don't really see a from problem with several footnotes at the end of the sentence or paragraph either. If several footnotes are at the and of a paragraph or sentences, they obviously together source paragraph or sentence as a whole and it is not an overly burden to look at 2-3 footnotes instead of at one. There's a taste argument here that single footnotes look better, but for a paragraph based citation that doesn't really hold, since there the footnotes don't really interrupt the flow of the text.

Conclusion: I strongly oppose any attempt to create "pseudo solution" for text source integrity. The last things we need, is formalists messing with formal appearances of citation without actually reading the sources themselves or buggering other author with (personal) format preferences, that really don't solve anything.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree that "Text-source integrity" is a bit pretentious as a title for a section that basically just suggests that we try to make clear what citation is supposed to support what information. Perhaps we could combine that section with the "Bundling citations" section, call it something like "Multiple citations for the same sentence", and give examples of the various ways of doing it.--Kotniski (talk) 13:17, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Three thoughts:

1. I agree with the above proposal to combine the Text-Source integrity section with the Cite Bundling section ... there is a lot of commonality (but I'm not suggesting they are the same topic: there is just a lot of overlap between the two topics).
2. If they are kept separate, I suggest that the name of "Text-source integrity" be changed ... that sounds like internal jargon, too engineering-ish. Readers need a plainer statement of the concept, maybe something like "Keep citations near the material" or something like that.
3. The phrase "the following inline citation ... may be unhelpful .." is odd. "Unhelpful" is not a good word to use. CITE should have very plain, direct phrasing.

--Noleander (talk) 14:51, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Text-source integrity has been used for years as a way of discussing this issue, which matters to avoid plagiarism, etc. The phrase explains clearly what the issue is. As for "unhelpful," having four footnotes after one point is precisely that -- not helpful to readers or editors. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 00:46, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

It is extremely common in Wikipedia articles to have multiple footnotes at the end of a sentence, so many editors must find them helpful. Today's FA Manchester United F.C. has examples of the practice, including "Manchester United is one of the wealthiest and most widely supported football teams in the world.[6][7][8][9]". It isn't the role of this page to tell editors that the things they they are accustomed to doing, and which are acceptable in featured articles, are somehow inappropriate. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:05, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. As I said I see no no problem with several footnotes at the end of sentences and "text source integrity" claim against such practices is imho as I tried to explain above for the most part simply a pseudo argument. It is true annotated (not necessarily bundled) sources are generally superior (by spoonfeeding to the reader which section of a sentence is sourced by which source), but they also require more work and often provide only marginal advantages. Our readers are not braindead morons that are unable to read 2 or 3 given sources on their own and recognize which part of the sentence they source. However to people feeling the need to rewrite (original) articles extensively without consulting the sources themselves the annotated sources become important, as they allow them to rearrange stuff safely. So there is certain maintenance argument here. But I doubt that we should burden our authors with (significantly) more work (annotating all citations) to achieve maximal ease of maintenance or rearrangements later on. The page may suggest annotated citations as the optimal citation technique in WP (for the maintenance aspect) and maybe even siggest bundled citations as "visually more pleassant", but it definitely should stay away from making it mandatory or even discouraging other types of citation such as non bundling, non annotated, midsentence or multiple footnotes.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:55, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

This has nothing (necessarily) to do with bundling. It's whether "Kmhkmh is a Wikipedian" followed by four footnotes adds anything that one footnote (by which I mean one source) could not add. Multiple ref tags makes checking/reviewing articles quite a bit harder, and if we say four are fine, why not eight, why not 16? How many will you concede would be too many? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 02:19, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

There's a thing called common sense, though it might be popular to neglect in policy or guideline discussion. Reasons for using multiple footnotes might be to indicate to the readers that the content is backed by several sources rather than one. Another reason might simply be a convenient re-usage of the same source at several locations.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:28, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

How many footnotes after one sentence or clause would be too many in your view? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 03:31, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

As I said - use common sense. In your odd example of short sentence with one undisputed fact, I'd probably cite only one source to begin with. The situation for a complex sentence with multiple informations or even a paragraph however is completely different. If the number of footnotes is too big to allow a verification with a reasonable effort (nobody wants to read to 16 different sources just to verify a paragraph or some information in the paragraph), then annotated footnotes would be required or (more likely) the potential "oversourcing" should be trimmed down to amount of sources actually needed.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:58, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I also concur. My original intent when I proposed improvements to the section was simply to clarify the existing guidance, not to recommend any particular practice. I think the Text-source Integrity section is still poorly worded. I suggest that the wording be improved to clearly enumerate the choices that are available to an editor .... something like "If you've got multiple sources for a sentence, here are the various ways to do it ...." and show the reader what the choices look like, so the editor can make a decision. At the moment, it is a bit jumbled. --Noleander (talk) 02:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Curious that the practice of FAC should be mentioned here: please read the the FA candidacy of Horace François Bastien Sébastiani de La Porta, which failed largely because the article had too many footnotes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:58, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I've seen lots of FAs opposed on that point. Writing "Kmhkmh is a Wikipedian" looks bad aesthetically, and defensive or lazy editorially. If anyone has an example of another publication that does this, I'd appreciate seeing it. I accept that we don't want to insist on rigid practices here, but there's no point suggesting things that professional writers never do. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 03:15, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Slim, since you ask, I can point to numerous publications that do this. For example, look at this article: "Evidence exists that peer review improves the quality of reporting of research (Locke, 1985; Gardner and Bond, 1990; Goodman et al., 1994), but peer review is also susceptible to bias (Wood et al., 2004; Starbuck, 2003; Horton, 2002; Maddox, 1992; Horrobin, 1996; Locke, 1988; Wenneras and Wold, 1997)." In fact, the practice is so common that style guides offer instruction on how to format multiple citations - see for example here. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:50, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I'm asking specifically about footnotes, not Harvard refs (which you note are added within one set of brackets). Of course, writers might add multiple Harvard refs (e.g. "Several writers (Smith 2011, Jones 2010) argued that ..."). But when they choose to use footnotes to add citations, they do not simply keep adding another footnote to the end of a clause or sentence, or at least I have never seen it. Do you have an example of anyone doing that? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:06, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I found one very quickly (much faster than writing this post). I went to the last version of Nature that is on line, followed one link to this letter: Carlo Colantuoni (27 October 2011). "Temporal dynamics and genetic control of transcription in the human prefrontal cortex". Nature. 478: 519–523. doi:10.1038/nature10524. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help), The first sentence:

Previous investigations have combined transcriptional and genetic analyses in human cell lines^{1, 2, 3,} but few have applied these techniques to human neural tissue^{4, 5, 6, 7, 8.}

--PBS (talk) 04:38, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. And sorry, I now remember you gave Nature as a source last time you argued for this, and for placing punctuation after ref tags. Is there anyone other than Nature that does it? Or anyone in other subject areas? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:44, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

SV you are now moving the goalposts. I went and looked at a medical article on Wikipedia heart attack the third citation is to the European Heart Journal ( Erhardt L, Herlitz J, Bossaert L; et al. (2002). "Task force on the management of chest pain" (PDF). Eur. Heart J. 23 (15): 1153–76. doi:10.1053/euhj.2002.3194. PMID 12206127. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)) it contains similar citations see page 1155:

Patients with non-ischaemic chest pain also have a lower prevalence of various risk indicators, such as a history of previous acute myocardial infarction, angina pectoris, hypertension and diabetes^[23,25].

BTW they use square brackets for in-citation BEFORE the punctuation.--PBS (talk) 06:14, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean about the goalposts. What words are you proposing to add to or remove from the guideline? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 06:23, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

"Do you have an example of anyone doing that" ...[example given] ... "Is there anyone other than Nature that does it", where I come from that sort of retreat from one position to another, is called moving the goalposts. Last time I altered this section of the guideline, you kept reverting the changes (See Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 31#Text-source integrity). At the moment I am happy to follow the thundering herd. -- PBS (talk) 06:44, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

If we feel the need to write, "Many sources say Kmhkmh is a Wikipedian", then it makes sense to see "many" footnotes following the statement. Likewise, if the assertion is especially remarkable or contentious, multiple footnotes assure the reader that it is not just one source's view.   Will Beback  talk  05:04, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

External publication cite in different context and partially for different reasons, so their practices are not always a meaningful recommendation for WP. Also when I browse randomly through featured article most of them seem to use multiple footnotes anyhow (I clicked on 5 random featured articles, all 5 had multiple footnotes at the end of some sentences or paragraphs)--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:40, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

This a guideline for WP articles in general not for FA articles. If the FA process lets articles fail due "aesthetically unpleasant footnotes" then frankly imho the review process is fubar and one more reason avoid that such nonsense trickles down to general article requirements.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:33, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Citing a four-year-old FAC is even in the best of circumstances misleading, as standards have evolved so much since then. However, there were more than just aesthetic issues at play in that FAC. As your other comment points out, multiple footnotes where appropriate are quite common in FAs. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:50, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I have certainly commented at FACs requesting, where the citation style used allows it, that some footnotes get bundled - I start to get feelings about this at 4 in a row. As Johnbod's Law states: "5 refs on a line is almost always a sure sign of trouble" - usually some dire and intractable content dispute, and normally found in weaker articles. I'm not the only reviewer to feel this way. But I don't know I'd oppose an FAC just on this, & may allow for context, especially on much debated points. I also agree with you that no rule should be attempted here. I nearly always bundle, & if two or three sources say much the same thing, I'mm liable to cite all of them, as anyone looking will not find them equally easily. I am currently being taken to task for this at this DYK review Template:Did you know nominations/Stowe Missal, so you certainly can't please all of the people all of the time. Johnbod (talk) 04:41, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I've occasionally written sentences like "John Smith received a science degree in 1876 from Jones College in Smith County, Nebraska." Each of those sources may support one part of that sentence, in the order they appear in the sentence: the degree, the year, and the college's location. But folks at FA seem to insist that footnotes always appear in numerical sequence regardless the sequence in which facts appear. That means readers may need to check all four sources to verify the one detail they're interested in. To me, that seems counterproductive.   Will Beback  talk  05:04, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

Okay, I'm clearly outnumbered here. So are people suggesting we remove the "unhelpful" paragraph entirely (the cookery writer example), or reword it? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 05:27, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm with you on the aesthetic point, which is where we seem to be outnumbered, but that example seems not to be about aesthetics - it's saying that having all the footnote markers at the end of a (complex) sentence can mislead as to which footnote supports which information. Do people at least agree with that point?--Kotniski (talk) 07:18, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

The aesthetic and the editorial are getting confused, and it's hard to see how to separate them without getting bogged down. Realistically, people will add multiple refs without annotations if they want to, so the extent to which this guideline can influence that is very limited, no matter what it says. I liked the changes you made last month, by the way. They clarified things quite a bit. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 19:30, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

But this is not a question of bundled or not (i.e. one footnote versus several), but whether you use annotated footnotes or not.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:09, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there are a few independent, but related concepts involved. Here are the topics the BUNDLE and INTEGRITY sections are addressing:

1. Proximity: Where should a citation be located? Mid-sentence? End of sentence? End of paragraph? What are the pros/cons of each?
2. When should comments be supplied with the cite?
3. If comments are supplied, what are the choices on how to format them? What are the pros/cons of each?
4. When there are multiple sources for a given sentence, what are the choices of how to present them? What are the pros/cons of each?
5. Multiple sources for a given sentence: distinguish "they apply to entire sentence" vs. "apply to portions of the sentence"
6. When bundling multiple sources into one footnote: what are the choices for formatting? What are the pros/cons of each?

It would be best if these questions were articulated clearly, and addressed independently. Some of these issues straddle both WP:CITEBUNDLE and WP:INTEGRITY, that is why it has been suggested that they be combined. But that is a big pill to swallow, so assuming those two sections are left separate, at least we can try to clarify the wording some more --Noleander (talk) 15:19, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Replying to SV's question about modifying/removing the "unhelpful" paragraph: That should be addressed in item (4) in the issue list immediately above: That guidance should list the three ways of formatting such cites, and just describe the pros/cons of each approach in non-judgemental way. E.g. the guidance for item (4) could be:

Placing cites in mid-sentence can make the reading experience unpleasant, but may avoid the need for comments for each cite. Putting multiple footnotes at the end of the sentence may be aesthetically unpleasing (particularly when there are 3 or more) and requires comments for each cite. Bundling all at the end of the sentence looks cleanest, but requires that comments be supplied for each cite.

--Noleander (talk) 15:29, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't look that bad, but i don't think we can or even should mandate comments/annotation.--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Kmhkmh. Even if there are four citations after a sentence, they may or may not need extra comments - it depends on what is being cited. If the sentence only makes one claim, and the references each support that claim, I can't see why comments are needed. Similarly, sometimes the titles of the references will be enough to tell what each one is about. So I don't think this page should try to require comments when there are multiple footnotes in a sentence. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

(ec) That looks good to me, Noleander, though I agree that we can't require comments/annotations. But we could suggest them as helpful in certain cases. Also, we would need to explain what we mean by comments, or just link to annotation. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 19:16, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

By way of partially answering some of these questions (or at least, indicating that such questions arise), I added an "Additional annotation" subsection to the "What information to include" section. I hope it's not controversial (but feel free to change it or remove it if you really don't like it for some reason).--Kotniski (talk) 10:03, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

That's very clear, thanks. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 05:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Here's an example of when I think citing mid-sentence is valid. From David Wallis Reeves: "His funeral service took place at the First Baptist Church in America, where he had frequently led the American Band as part of Brown University's Commencement ceremonies,[10] and included a performance of his Immortalis by the American Band." The cite [10] only speaks to Wallis' role in the Commencement ceremonies. Having it next to the cite [5] (at the end of the next sentence) would, in my opinion, be confusing -- especially if the cite wasn't added here, because it's at the end of the paragraph. (This seems to be the same as Noleander's argument in the previous section.) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:07, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The Man Who Would Be Queen#Negative_reactions is another that seems to be widely accepted practice: each person named in the last sentence of the first paragraph has a separate footnote to his or her primary-source criticism of the book. This system requires no explanation and ensures that each living person's name is properly supported. The same material could be adequately supported by a single footnote to the Dreger paper (which summarizes the reactions to the book's publication), but that's not what the editors chose to do.

I don't think that we should be trying to discourage mid-sentence citations. I don't mind a link to WP:Citation overkill—because even if you're wrapping them up in an aesthetic-looking little bundle, you shouldn't use a dozen sources to support a single fact—but the big problem is the number of citations, not the location. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Text-source integrity wording

The text still suffers from the same problem that it did before:

Be wary of adding too many separate footnotes at the end of a sentence. The following inline citation, for example, may be unhelpful because the reader does not know whether each source supports the material; each source supports part of it; or just one source supports it with the others added as further reading:

[example]

Where you are using multiple sources for one sentence, consider bundling citations at the end of the sentence or paragraph with an explanation in the footnote regarding which source supports which point; see below for how to do that.

It still implies that to solve the problem of "because the reader does not know whether each source supports the material" can be solved by "bundling citations" but the problem is solved by annotated footnotes whether or not they are bundled together. This has been been pointed out by a number of editors above why is it still in the guidline????

It seems to me that section on Text-source integrity does not explain to a new editor what an experienced editor means by "Text-source integrity"

I suggest that we do that by using an example from further up the guideline and that the current section is replaced with:

Text-source integrity (part 1)

When using inline citations, it is important to maintain text-source integrity. The point of an inline citation is to allow readers and other editors to check that the material is sourced; that point is lost if the citation is not clearly placed. The distance between material and its source is a matter of editorial judgment, but adding text without placing its source clearly can lead to allegations of original research, violations of the sourcing policy, and even plagiarism. Editors should exercise caution when rearranging or inserting material to ensure that text-source relationships are maintained. When new text is inserted into a paragraph make sure that it is clear what facts the inline citations support. For example The sun is pretty big. The sun is also quite hot. Notes Do not add facts into a fully cited paragraph or sentence N The sun is pretty big, but the moon is not so big. The sun is also quite hot. Notes without including a source to cover the new information. Y The sun is pretty big, but the moon is not so big. The sun is also quite hot. Notes

In addition to the above some or all of the following could be added to it

Text-source integrity (part 2)

Including too many citations within a sentence of paragraph my be aesthetically unpleasant: The sun is the closest star to the planet Earth, but the moon is even closer. So consider placing them at a more aesthetically pleasant location: The sun is the closest star to the planet Earth, but the moon is even closer. or The sun is the closest star to the planet Earth, but the moon is even closer. However this solution brings its own problems: A string of independent citations can also appear aesthetically unpleasant so consider [[bundling them into one. Identifying which inline citation supports which fact can be more difficult unless additional information is added to the inline citations to explicitly note what is supported. Maintenance becomes more difficult. As when adding more information to the sentence from yet another source it may be difficult to work out precisely were to place the new citation. If the text is rearranged during a copy edited greater care needs to be taken with rearranging the citations, particularly as the inline citations will be renumbered during their repositioning. For example if the sentence The sun is the closest star to the planet Earth, but the moon is even closer. can be rearranged like this: The moon is closer to planet Earth than the nearest star which is called the sun. It will be fairly easy to check that the citations support the information in the rearranged sentence. This rearrangement is more difficult to check: The sun is the closest star to the planet Earth, but the moon is even closer. The moon is closer to planet Earth than the nearest star which is called the sun.

--PBS (talk) 04:33, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

This mostly looks quite good, at least an improvement over what we have. (Though I still don't think "Text-source integrity", which is a far broader subject than this, is a good section title.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:19, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

These new proposals are a step in the right direction: they give concrete examples showing different approaches, which is what readers need. A few comments on these proposals:

1) The proposals are missing the following guidance, which is present in the current text: When the footnotes are all placed at the end of the sentence, and they each apply to specific portions of the sentence, the footnotes should include a brief comment identifying the portion of the sentence they apply to.

2) This material is very heavily related to CITEBUNDLE, and CITEBUNDLE must immediately follow it. For the record, I repeat my assertion that these two sections (integrity and bundle) should be combined eventually.

3) The two proposals, together, are a bit large. But size is less important than clarity, so it is not a huge stumbling block. But we should take the challenge of trying to make this material pithier, if possible.

Otherwise, it looks good, and I endorse moving in this direction. --Noleander (talk) 13:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

VPP discussion on translations form other wikis and "Don't cite a source unless you've seen it for yourself." (WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT)

Link to discussion. Please comment over there to keep the discussion in one place. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 16:34, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Citation styles discouraging new editors

Discussions keep popping up on mailing lists, talk pages, and off-wiki about how the complexity of citation styles, particularly the templates, are discouraging to new editors. There seem to be three issues:

1. They find the mark-up too complex, can't find the templates, or don't know how to use them once they have found them.

2. They believe all the parameters have to be filled in, and spend time tracking down unnecessary information (e.g. a newspaper's publisher).

3. Once the citations are in place, if there are a lot of them, they can make it harder to see where one sentence ends and another begins, which discourages new editors from copy editing or fixing simple errors.

We can't address all this here, but we used to have a sentence in the lead that said: "Add your source even if you are unsure of how to properly format the citation—provide enough information to identify the source, and others will improve the formatting."

Would anyone mind if I added something like this?

"If you are a new editor and find the advice in this guideline confusing, please add your source in whatever way you can, even by adding a simple URL like this [5], and others will re-format your citation for you, if necessary."

SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:31, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I would mind very very strongly if we reverted. Most "bald" citations do not meet V, and disguise sources that do not meet V. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:34, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you in theory. I just feel there's a danger that we've taken all the fun out of editing, and if it's not fun for volunteers, it's not clear why else they would do it. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:48, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I know this is a matter of balance with newer editors. Think forward to the matter of balance as stuff gets cleaned from Start/Stub to C/B class? "If you … find … this guideline confusing, please add your source indicating the author, title of the document, and where other people can get it; even if it is as simple as <ref>Helena Smith and Tom Kington "Chaos in Greece amid battle to form a 'government of national salvation'" The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/05/greece-eurozone-crisis-papandreou]</ref>" ?

I'm happy to accept that most new editors don't know how to cite properly. (Most university graduates don't either). While we need to be the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit, we also need to be the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. Author, Title, Work, Publication allows many of us to rapidly scan material... and is a barrier against Joe's Blogs. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:57, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, how about this instead?

"If you are a new editor and find the advice in this guideline confusing, please add your source in whatever format you can, and others will re-format it for you if necessary. Information that would be helpful includes name of author, name of article/book/newspaper, date of publication, and URL if it is online."

SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 05:38, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I'd be fine with your suggestion, too, Fifelfoo:

"If you are a new editor and find the advice in this guideline confusing, please add your source indicating the author, title of the document, and where other people can get it, even if it is as simple as <ref>Helena Smith and Tom Kington "Chaos in Greece amid battle to form a 'government of national salvation'" The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/05/greece-eurozone-crisis-papandreou]</ref>"

SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 05:41, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem with "others will re-format it for you if necessary" is that it is generally not true. If we are going to allow this, there needs to be a much more systematic arrangement for tidying up and filling out references, presumably by means of bots, just as consistently as now happens with dating tags.

At the very least I would like to insist that publication date be mentioned as absolutely essential in the case of news citations. In the Guardian case quoted as an example above, the date happens to be part of the URL, but for many publications that not so. -- Alarics (talk) 17:31, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The trouble is we can't "insist" on anything, or be choosy about what we "allow". The fact is that editors are not obliged to write for us, are not obliged to add citations for anything they may write, and are not obliged to follow any guidelines when doing so. We don't want to put people off giving citations at all, or off writing at all, because they're afraid of breaking some complicated rules. I agree with Slim in principle, although we do already say in the lead "While you should try to write citations correctly, what matters most is that you provide enough information to identify the source. Others will improve the formatting if needed. So maybe we just need to tweak that a bit and make it more visible.--Kotniski (talk) 19:04, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps bolding it would be enough for now. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:39, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with SV that WP needs to do whatever it can to encourage novice editors. Standing on the shoulder of the above proposals, maybe something like:

"If you are a new editor and find the advice in this guideline confusing, one simple approach is to identify the source (particularly the author and the specific location where others can find it) using the <ref> syntax. For example: <ref>Helena Smith and Tom Kington "Chaos in Greece amid battle to form a 'government of national salvation'" The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/05/greece-eurozone-crisis-papandreou]</ref>"

Or something like that. --19:19, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The wording should indicate that if the source is large, such as a book or large PDF, a specific location within the source, such as a page number, or short quote that can be searched for using something like Adobe Reader's search function, should be provided. I am concerned that new editors might think that any URL is specific enough, without considering the quantity of material at that URL. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:38, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

"Others will improve the formatting if needed" .... This is simply a falsehood. Very often, nobody does. -- Alarics (talk) 21:25, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Agree that that is not the best guidance for this important guideline. Maybe that phrase should be deleted from WP:CITE and replaced with something more constructive, like the suggestions above. The key point to convey to novices is: "If you cannot fathom the citation requirements, don't despair, just create a <ref> after your material and cram as much detail about your source as you can. If you are really confused, post a question on the the article's Talk page." --Noleander (talk) 21:51, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with SlimVirgin, although I don't like the particular version she suggests. May I suggest the version we had a few years ago: "If you are unsure of how to properly format the citation—provide enough information to precisely identify a page in the source, and others will improve the formatting." I think this should be the last sentence of the introduction. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 02:31, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:V does not require strict formatting; in fact, it doesn't even require the source to be listed in the article as long as it has been IDed, unless the material is particularly contentious (eg a direct quote, a questionable statement in BLPs, etc.) but even then, that doesn't require a perfectly formatted inline cite; At minimum, WP:V simply requires the source to be identified even on the talk page.

More importantly, consistent inlet cite formatting is only MOS guideline requirements, not policy. It helps by far, but not required until really the articles start hitting GA or FA.

To that end, being overly discriminating about source formatting is really a bad idea. I see absolutely no reason that newer editors should be encouraged to at least attach a source to material they add, even if it is a bare formatted URL or just a book title and author. We need to assume good faith that editors are adding material with correct sources, even if they are missing a book or page number. That is fixable. It's better not to discourage such additions by the complex process of learning cite templates. --MASEM (t) 02:45, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I agree it need not be perfectly formatted, but I take issue with your argument on two points: "I see absolutely no reason that newer editors should be encouraged to at least attach a source to material they add" - I do, because otherwise we have no idea where they're getting it from, and newer editors in particular have more trouble seeing where a source is absolutely necessary. Second, if someone adds just a bare URL or just a book title, that's not really easily fixable - if the URL dies and isn't archived, we can't tell what it was; if just a book title is added, someone has to find the book and page through the entire thing to check for potential problems like misrepresentation or copyvio. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:57, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Oops, I missed a "not" there, because yes, I want to encourage editors to add a source however its formatted (in agreement with your first statement). As for the expiring URL or the copyvio; it's one thing to add it and later find it a problem; it is another thing to have it not added at all and not know that piece of information exists. I'd rather have to have the former of filtering out bad info from possible good and unique or hard-to-find info than not have that at all. --MASEM (t) 03:28, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Discussions keep popping up on mailing lists, talk pages, and off-wiki about how the complexity of citation styles, ... They find the mark-up too complex, I haven't seen this argument in eons anywhere, and I'd like to know whose these editors are that find templates so complex yet find their way to mailing lists, IRC and other off-Wiki venues. It sounds like they don't really need or want to be adding their two cents worth, or are immature enough to spend time socializing off-Wiki instead of understanding how to edit correctly, and I think our page is just fine as is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:04, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, most new users that try to contribute via WP:AFC seem to have trouble with this. There's even a bot (User:ChzzBot IV) that adds a WP:REFB pointers to their talk pages. What's worse is that some AfC reviewers reject submissions not using "ref" tags, even when those use parenthetical referencing. See recent discussion on mw:Talk:Article creation workflow. I've even seen one editor completely mess up and add two <ref> tags around refs (no closing </ref> tag!) which made his references disappear outside the edit window, so his article was promptly sent to AfD after that. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 16:44, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. There is a reason people keep mentioning this, and those talking about it on mailing lists are picking up on this for a reason, because it is a real problem. Mentions (in the post you were replying to) of IRC and off-wiki socialising are red herrings here, as are mentions of immaturity (people who act immaturely will do so regardless). To really understand how new users learn and adapt when editing Wikipedia, there is no substitute to actually sitting down with someone new to Wikipedia and guiding them through their first few edits. You soon realise what is intuitive and what is not to a range of new editors, and what a steep learning process it is to learn how to edit Wikipedia to even a moderately respectable standard. Failing that, the videos produced at some point of new editors trying to edit, demonstrated much the same things people are talking about here. Carcharoth (talk) 00:26, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with CharlesGillingham minimalist approach. The reason is that suggestions about placing inside <ref tag pair> beggars the question why? Also suppose there is no {{reflist}} on the page then the text will appear as a big red mess at the bottom. Or suppose that the rest of the page is using harvard style notation .... KISS. But I also agree with Nikkimaria and perhaps those points can be added in a footnote at the end of the sentence. --PBS (talk)

A lot here is presuming that footnotes are the only way to include references. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:19, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

If you can figure out a way to suggest to editors with no exposure to citation, a two sentence way to encourage them to cite enough that we can verify what they were citing, with parenthetical citation or any other method, I'm for it. I can't imagine a way to get the reprobate editor to conceive of the fact that citations are generalisable tags (a central, and excellent, element of parenthetical citation). Fifelfoo (talk) 02:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Disagree strongly with "If you are a new editor and find the advice in this guideline confusing, please add your source in whatever format you can, and others will re-format it for you if necessary." As one of those editors who spends a lot of time "re-formatting", I want new editors to take the time to learn how to do it right, or don't do it at all. The easiest way is usually just to copy the existing citation style in an article, which promotes consistency. We were all newbies once, so giving helpful advice to them now is a good thing, but don't tell them to just ignore the guidelines. WCCasey (talk) 20:14, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

You know, I think the last few sentences of the current lede say exactly what needs to be said. While you should try to write citations correctly, what matters most is that you provide enough information to identify the source. Others will improve the formatting if needed. This is fine. (In an earlier post, I suggested an old version, not realizing that this text was still there (basically).) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 20:23, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I couldn't disagree more. "learn how to do it right, or don't do it at all" is exactly what we (or at least I do not, in particular if "doing it right" refers to differences in citation styles.

Our primary goal is to get good, correct content, that is sourced in such a manner, that it can be checked/verified easily enough, whereas the exact method (or format) of assuring that is secondary not to say a marginal. Imho to some regard this is also a case WP:IAR, i.e. if format question keep you from providing encyclopedic content in doubt ignore them.

Of course it is preferable if editors read, understand and use the whole guideline, but i don't think we can require that from authors before contributed at all. We probably have way more than 100 pages of guidelines and policies - do you seriously expect people to read all that before contributing?. From my perspective that would more like bureaucracy from hell rather than wikipedia.--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not true that people don't tidy up after others. A recent example (of someone tidying up after me) is here. When adding citations, I sometimes use templates, sometimes not. It depends on the state of the article in question. If the article is a featured article, or an article in an advanced state of editing, I try and copy the existing citation system in use, or leave a note on the talk page if that is too complex or I don't have time to figure it out. But if an article hasn't been tidied up yet, or has only just been started and there is no established citation formatting, then I see no problem using a more relaxed approach, with no template, as long as the essential information is included. In many cases, writing out a citation by hand is easier than using a template. Carcharoth (talk) 00:11, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm also on the list of people who at least occasionally clean up citations, especially for bare URLs to good sources added by obviously new editors. Arcadian cleaned up my citations messes back in the day, and if he had landed on me with a lecture about how I needed to cite things "correctly", I probably would have quit some 55,000 edits ago.

Citation formatting should follow the Cub Scout motto: do your best. Your best almost certainly rises at least as far as a bare URL, or the author and title for an offline-only source. Someone else can almost always fix it from there.

And, I'd like to say in passing, that IMO this guideline would do well to plainly say that if someone's screwed up the citation formatting, then your job is to WP:SOFIXIT already, not to whinge about how people are imperfect, and certainly not to delete sources because you disagree with the editor's choice of formatting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd be fine with putting something like that in the lead. Maybe this:

"If you are a new editor who is having difficulty following the advice in this guideline, what matters most is that you provide enough information to identify the source. Others will improve the formatting if needed. A pointer to a reliable source should never be removed if the only issue is a formatting error."

In case it's helpful, the lead used to say:

• "If you don't know how to format a citation, provide as much information as you can, and others will help to write it correctly."
• "If you don't know how to format the citation, others will fix it for you. Simply provide any information you can."

SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:56, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good, but we should spell out what the "enough information to identify the source" consists of, may be with a link to a new section on "miniumum information" lower down. So not just title & author of a book, but page & edition/ISBN, and so on. As a part of Wikipedia:Citing_sources#What_information_to_include, which may be itself a bit intimidating for the inexperienced. Johnbod (talk) 11:38, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Take a look at WP:Verification methods#Temporary references. This, I think, is a complete description of what most of us are trying to express. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 20:09, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

It would be better if the example there of how to provide an URL wasn't Wikipedia's main page. That can mislead people into thinking they can cite other Wikipedia articles. And in general, while people often start by providing bare URLs like that, we really: (a) want those references fixed up pretty quickly (assessed for reliability and with an access date, publisher/author, and title added at minimum), and (b) want people using bare URLs to move on pretty quickly to providing more information than that. Nothing wrong with starting out that way, but staying at that level of citation for more than a few edits does no-one any favours. The Harvard-style book reference is fine for long-term use, though even there people could be nudged in the direction of the cite book template. The 'citation needed' style of adding material is something that needs follow-up and those using it need to be aware that they are creating work for others that they should (if they intend to stick around) learn to do themselves sooner rather than later. Carcharoth (talk) 05:54, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that learning to properly format citations (in the incredible variety of forms that we use) is such a high priority. For example, I'd rather that they learned not to misrepresent their sources, even if that means that I have to prevent linkrot for another 100 URLs (which, I admit, is not my favorite task). Also, it's a pretty natural process. Once you've seen enough pages, you start figuring out how and when to copy formatting.

I've changed the URL at WP:V so that it points to "example.org" rather than to Wikipedia. We'll see if the change sticks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

FAQ example of General References: find better example?

The FAQ at the top of this page gives an example of general references. The article it uses is Early life of Joseph Smith. The FAQ says "The article Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. is an example of a featured article that uses some general references." I'm not sure that is accurate. A General Reference is a book/work named at the bottom of the article that was specifically used as the source of some of the article, yet the editor chose not to use in-line citations. But many articles' References sections contain books/works that were not used as a source for the article, but instead are included as further reading (especially when the article does not have a "Further Reading" section). For the Early life of Joseph Smith article to be used in the FAQ, we'd need to know that some of the works, e.g. the Abanes book, were used as a source for the article, and not just there as further reading. Do we know that? Bottom line: shouldn't that final item in the FAQ have better example(s) to make the point more clearly, and to help the novice understand the difference between a General Reference and Further Reading? Maybe a better example would be an article with few or no in-line citations, so it was more obvious that the works listed in the References section are, truly, General References. Or, if the FAQ keeps that JS article as an example, it should at least identify which source in the Refs section it is positing is a General Ref (vs a mere Further Reading). --Noleander (talk) 03:15, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Try Centronics. Whatever we choose, we need to link to a particular version of an article, as it can and will change. See Help:Shortened footnotes#Examples for an example. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:27, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Centronics is a better example, because novices will get a clearer picture of what a General Reference is. Question: the FAQ, as written, highlights the fact that Early life of Joseph Smith (the current example) is a Featured Article, which kind of makes sense. But I don't think there are any FAs from the past few years that use General References (inline citations are more or less mandatory now). Therefore, we may not be able to find an FA example to use for this FAQ. Also, I agree that a particular version (from the history) is safer to link to, in case the example article is updated to remove Gen Refs. --Noleander (talk) 13:14, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I ran CatScan on Category:All articles lacking in-text citations and Category:Featured articles,[6] and found Riemann sphere.

Riemann sphere is indeed a good examples of Gen Refs ... but unfortunately it is only a "featured article on the math portal" ... not a genuine FA. Maybe we'll have to settle for a GA, or just ignore the FA/GA aspect. --Noleander (talk) 13:51, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Do we know that those books were used in creating the article? Yes, because we know that the FA folks aren't sloppy about these things. Also, because if you spend enough time crawling through the history—see this addition of the Bidamon source before the articles were split—then you can see instances of them being added along with the material that's taken from them.

My goal for the FAQ is to list a Featured article that uses this style, both to demonstrate that this style really is acceptable, even at FA (which has been seriously questioned before, by myself and others), and also because it's not likely to change. Centronics has been tagged for its failure to use appropriate inline citations throughout the article. Early life of Joseph Smith, specifically because it is already adequately dense in inline citations, will never deserve that tag. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

The JS article was promoted to FA status in 2005, six years ago, so it is unlikely that we can state for certainty that the Abanes book was used as a source for material in the article. I understand that an FA article would be ideal for the FAQ, but since there arent any FAs that really show a general ref, wouldn't it be better to find a GA article or some other great ariticle that is clearly using general refs? The point of the FAQ should be to provide great, clear examples to readers so they grasp the point. The JS article is not a good example. --Noleander (talk) 02:16, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "really show[ing] a general ref". Do you think that Early life of Joseph Smith is not showing general refs? If so, then what exactly do you call the Bidamon citation? It's clearly not an WP:Inline citation.

I have no objection to providing more than one example, and would be happy to have another listed that shows a different method of presenting general references (since lumping them all into the same section with full citations associated with inline short citations, as this FA does, is not actually required). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

A very nice example of why one must choose sources carefully.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/citogenesis.png

I think it sums up the continuing effort of editors to ensure reliability, especially as WP matures. Unfortunately it's licensed under cc-by-nc-sa-2.5

(20040302 (talk) 09:09, 16 November 2011 (UTC))

Yes, it would be nice to be able to include something like that in the guideline somewhere. (Of course, Wikipedia isn't the only route for new "facts" to come into circulation.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:27, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

xkcd is likely not freely licensed, otherwise I'd suggest including this somewhere here :) I'd expect we have at least an essay on this somewhere. I have often thought that many sources, including academic ones, have lower referencing standards than Wikipedia, often due to the fact that (drum...) they do not reference every sentence (ducks the flames). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 19:09, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

"This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License." The NC part sorta hurts it. --MASEM (t) 19:24, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

That said - the artist has blessed his works before through ORTS. --MASEM (t) 19:37, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

His WP A/C is User:Xkcd. I have seconded a request there. (20040302 (talk) 12:05, 18 November 2011 (UTC))

Link to Google books: specific page vs. entire books

This guideline contains talks about external links to Google books at Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Books. That guideline focuses on linking to a particular page in the book. Some WP articles contain links to the entire book, that is, without specifying a page. This is most commonly seen in the "References" section at the bottom of articles as in:

• Rampersad, Arnold, (1976), The Art and Imagination of W. E. B. Du Bois, Harvard University Press, ISBN 9780674047112.

Question: Should existing Google Books guidance in this guideline be enhanced to mention the possibility (but not mandate, of course) of linking to Google Books without specifying a particular page? Something like: "It may be useful to include an external link to the book, such as to Google Books. If the book is available in preview mode, the specific page ...". --Noleander (talk) 13:10, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Also: Note that a key issue here is Google's preview mode vs. snippet mode. That choice is already addressed in this guideline, and preview mode is more or less required for specific page external links. Snippet mode becomes, perhaps, more acceptable if the link is to the entire book, because the purpose of the link may be to just get more detail about the book as a whole, rather than to read a particular page. --Noleander (talk) 13:09, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion:

• Linking to a specific page is acceptable; the citation may be reused only if the same page is referenced again
• Linking to the entire book is acceptable, and more appropriate when different pages are referenced at different points or when Help:Shortened footnotes or WP:Parenthetical referencing is used
• Linking to snippet mode is never acceptable, as there is not enough context to verify the intent of the reference

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:41, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Debate about Snippet View at [7] "there is not enough context to verify the intent of the reference" it depends on what one is citing ... talknic (talk) 05:24, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Imho a link to the whole book makes only sense if you Google provides access to the whole book rather than a (restricted) preview or maybe in rare case where the preview allows you access to very large portion of the books (in particular those being relevant for the article). In that context linking to the whole book when only a snippet is available makes no sense to me.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:56, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

See also Google book tool Coverts bare url into {{cite book}} format.Moxy (talk) 16:32, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Question regarding snippet vs full preview: What if the book is listed in the "Further Reading" section, and it is not used to support any citation. Could there be an external link to Google Books if there is only a snippet view? (The idea being that the reader could go there to get more info on the book)? Or should that be discouraged (why favor Google Books? Why not Amazon.com?) and just use the ISBN links instead? --Noleander (talk) 17:37, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

ISBNs are preferable because they include links to many potential sources for the book without privileging one in particular; even in a further reading section, snippet views aren't really helpful. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:54, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course, this only works where a book has an ISBN. My preference is to provide both an ISBN and a courtesy direct link (going via the ISBN takes several clicks) to a location (whether that be Google Books, or some library catalogue) that helps others to verify the bibliographic information about the book and the edition in question. And just a link where there is no ISBN. Some of the standard book catalogue identifier tags work as well (though I can't remember the names of these right now). The point being that links to books are not provided just so people can buy the books, but also so readers and editors can verify the information provided (arguably the primary function of such links), and help check to make sure no errors have crept in. Carcharoth (talk) 01:33, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I believe you're referring to OCLCs? Where no preview is provided, GBooks links give little to no verification potential; my comment was specifically on that basis. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:39, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

• I'm avoiding linking to Google Books previews now because authors and publishers are claiming that Google is infringing their copyright. See Restrictions on linking. Warden (talk) 17:52, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, is there some recent discussion in WP about that? Have the Wiki foundation lawyers published an opinion on that? There must not be a prohibition, yet, because there are tons of links to Google Books (with previews) in WP articles. --Noleander (talk) 20:21, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... I found this reporting legal action by "Groups representing photographers and artists". I also found this from the Authors Guild saying, "The Authors Guild and American Association of Publishers has settled their class-action suit on behalf of authors and publishers against Google for its Book Search Library Project." Also, see the WP article titled Google Book Search Settlement Agreement. I also found this from Google which says, "Whenever you can see more than a few snippets of an in-copyright book in Google Books, it's because the author or publisher has joined our Partner Program and granted us permission to show you the Sample Pages View, which helps you learn enough about a book to know whether you want to buy it. This is something we do with a publisher's explicit permission.". Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:24, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Alright, so it looks like there has not been a proclamation by WP management that linking to Google Books (preview mode) is prohibited. In fact, it looks like preview mode may mean the author explicitly assented to their text being displayed. So, links to preview mode are okay. --Noleander (talk) 13:25, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any objection to external links to the (entire) book - where no individual page number is included in the link. A good example is when the book is listed in the References section and WP:CITESHORT are used (so the external link is in the Ref section, not in the citation itself). Therefore I propose to update the text in this guideline to include that possibility (as the guideline is written now, a reader may get the impression that external links are permitted only if a specific page in utilize). I'll go ahead and make the change. If anyone objects, just revert, and we can continue discussing. --Noleander (talk) 13:25, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I made the change. Here are the diffs. Feel free to tweak the wording if it doesn't look right --Noleander (talk) 13:46, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Speaking as a former reference librarian, I would like to caution that there is a "standard" in the outside world for how to cite reference works that does make sense. The use of multiple publication dates is resolved by citing the most recent publication date and publisher data ("tracings" in the library world) and if necessary, any additional significant editions (First edition, revised edition and so forth) and being cognizant that ISBN 10 and 13 are merely an adjunct tracing that is a pointer to a bookseller/publisher. Since 2007, ISBN 13 has largely supplanted and replaced the earlier International Standard Book Number, so, whenever the publisher indicates both, ISBN 13 should suffice. FWiW, bearing in mind, that Wikipedia does not advocate any particular method, Bzuk (talk) 15:01, 25 November 2011 (UTC).

Prohibit external links to Google Books?

Col Warden: you just added text here to the guideline suggesting that nearly all links to Google Books are prohibited. I'm not sure there is consensus on that ... could you discuss it first and then make the change? According to user wtmitchell above, they refer to: this from Google which says, "Whenever you can see more than a few snippets of an in-copyright book in Google Books, it's because the author or publisher has joined our Partner Program and granted us permission to show you the Sample Pages View, which helps you learn enough about a book to know whether you want to buy it. This is something we do with a publisher's explicit permission.". --Noleander (talk) 13:31, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Col Warden: I reverted that change. Could you get a few other editors to agree on it before re-inserting it? My sense, from reading the Talk page archives, is that most editors think that linking to Google Books (preview mode) is acceptable, and I have not yet found a prohibition from WP legal eagles. Of course, if the WP foundation did prohibit links to Google Books, by all means the guideline should reflect that. --Noleander (talk) 13:41, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

It should not certainly be reinserted without a full Rfc, as such links are indeed very widely used, and are accepted at FAC for example. Whether google provides previews depends on their agreement with the publisher - for example (from the UK anyway) Routledge books typically have previews but OUP or British Museum Press ones don't. Much of the dispute is between publishers and their authors, either those under old contracts which didn't specifically cover this, or under new ones which enforce it. Johnbod (talk) 14:12, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

As far as Google Books is concerned the is no real consensus, there are some who are strictly against Google Books for various reasons, but a lot of people (including me) who use it, since from their even if they share some of the concerns in practice the benefits simply outweigh the concerns. If I have a preview or full view link to Google Books, that in practice works at least for large number of reader/editors, it simply provides a big plus for content verification, maintenance and extension. In fact it is probably one of the most important quality assurance tools we have. As far as the legality issue is concerned, Google is "legal" mainstream company as long as they are not legally forced to change their practice I see no good not to use it.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:42, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I meant reinsertion of his now-reverted edit prohibiting them. Wasn't that clear? Yes, I think it was, but I have added to make more so. Johnbod (talk) 14:48, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

You answered faster than i could fix my posting. When I was speed brwosing through the comments I misread the context, thinking it was about removing a concrete Google Books from an article rather than an actual policy change. Hence I changed my posting above and I of course I agree with comment regarding a rfc.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:52, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

There is a difference between linking to the Google Books summary about the book (that is little different to linking to a library catalogue listing of a book), and linking deeper to the preview (if available). The former should always be OK. The latter may not always be suitable. When using such links in external links or further reading, it is better to leave readers to click the preview button themselves, rather than depositing them on the title or cover page within the preview. Carcharoth (talk) 11:00, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't follow this logic. If google has gotten permission to display the text from the publisher, why should we not link to the specific page? This seems no different to me than linking to pdfs of academic pages hosted on a uni web site. The reference is fine without the link, but we should make verification as easy as possible, no? --Nuujinn (talk) 12:02, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I was making a separate point that not all links are preview links. Some people who argue against linking to Google Books fail to make that distinction. There are at least four ways to link to Google Books: (1) Link to their 'catalogue' listing of the book with its publication details; (2) Link to a page within a book that has 'full view'; (3) Link to a page from a 'preview' view; (4) Link to a 'snippet' view. The first and second options as far as I know always work no matter what. The other options vary, so it is sometimes necessary to think about them a bit more, and consider making things clearer when using such links. I would find it helpful as a reader if such links were marked as 'preview' or 'full view', for example, similar to the 'subscription needed' tags you sometimes get on some sources. Carcharoth (talk) 12:47, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I think the publication details (as given by google) are basically already covered by the ISBN number/link, i.e. there's no reason to use Google for that. Most editors probably agree on 2.) and 3.) in particular for inline citation (at least that it should be allowed), but there might be less agreement regarding 4.).--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:58, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with both of you. I for one am very uncomfortable with use of snippet view--we should have more context for our sources. Previews I'm ok with using so long as we have an extended section of text sufficient to provide context. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:16, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

1) is no real use imo, & an unnecessary link to a commercial site. 2 & 3 are fine, & 4 should only be used for very specific factual details (I sometime find it useful for catalogue entries for works of art, for the date, size, owner, provenance etc). Remember that google links are geographically variable, and may suddenly disappear, although in fact they usually seem stable. The utility of ISBNs and library catalogue links is greatly over-rated on WP, as they are often different for hardback/paperback and North American/ROW/Australian etc editions that have the same pagination. Johnbod (talk) 13:54, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I rarely click on ISBN links to verify publication details. I use library catalogues for that. Maybe they are all using the same data, but sometimes there are differences. Where older books lack ISBNs, I find Google Books (and other online repositories) useful. I'm not sure how widely Template:OCLC is used. I often find the Australian National Library popping up in my search results as well, and I also look books up in the British Library catalogue as well. Carcharoth (talk) 13:55, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, I *always* click on ISBN links. Surely the ISBN is a key part of the bibliographical information about a book. Also, I always include Template:OCLC when there is no ISBN, and I think that ought to be standard. The OCLC number can be obtained from the relevant WorldCat page. -- Alarics (talk) 18:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I most strongly object to prohibiting Google Books links. In fact, they are very useful (with various limitations, but still), and their use should be encouraged. Frankly, I think the use of links (page links in particular) should be required, but I don't think that suggestion is going to fly well. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 18:26, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I think it would be most bizarre to prohibit Google Books links. -- Alarics (talk) 18:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

On citing every sentence

I am well aware, as reminded recently, that the a significant part of our community does not share "my hobbyhorse", which is the idea that every sentence should be cited. Yet I do not believe that the horse is dead, and I will return here, periodically, to comment on the issue in question. But don't worry, I don't intend simply to copy paste my old arguments, without seeing a good reason to resurrect the issue. Which means that I see such a reason now, one that leads me to question a claim by some that the idea of referencing every sentence (WP:BLUE exempted, of course) is truly beyond redemption.

I was quite positively surprised recently, when the "Text-source integrity" section was expanded with an important clarification, namely "Do not add facts into a fully cited paragraph or sentence without including a source to cover the new information." This is very important, and I am glad to see this stated clearly here. For similar reasons, I can only applaud the "Identifying which inline citation supports which fact can be more difficult unless additional information is added to the inline citations to explicitly identify what portion of the sentence they cover." and "Maintenance becomes more difficult. When adding more information to the sentence from yet another source it may be difficult to work out precisely were to place the new citation. If the text is rearranged during a copy edited greater care needs to be taken with rearranging the citations, particularly as the inline citations will be renumbered during their repositioning."

I would like to pose two questions:

• why is it that we now support multiple references inside a section, and suggest they have their place, when we do not support multiple references inside a paragraph?
  • I have a feeling this is because some people think that if only one source is used, multiple references in the following scenario: "sentence 1.[ref 1] sentence 2.[ref 1] sentence 3.[ref 1]" are redundant, and the following structure is preferable due to less code or being more aesthetically pleasing: "sentence 1. sentence 2. sentence 3.[ref 1]". Is that it, or am I missing something?
• in other words, could somebody try to enlighten me why, outside of WP:BLUE, we do not like referencing multiple sentences in a paragraph?

For those so inclined, I've just finished a preeliminary essay on why I believe citing every sentence is essential to the text-source integrity. It is here. I hope that a discussion here will allow me to refine it. Essay specific comments are welcome on the essay's discussion page. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 04:55, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that what you are proposing is the standard practice, almost, in top-quality articles. If you look at the articles that are Featured Article quality, they have citations on the vast majority of sentences. The WP:Verifiability requirement requires citations for statements that are "challenged or likely to be challenged", but it also permits editors to skip footnotes on trivial or obvious statements. Also, for a series of related sentences, it is acceptable to use a single, shared, footnote at the final sentence. If an entire paragraph contains closely-related material, a single footnote at the end, to me at least, means that the entire parag is supported by that one source. Articles related to Science actually have a guideline that recommends one citation at the end of the paragraph vs per sentence(!). In summary, if you are seeing articles with few per-sentence cites, they are probably older articles, or articles that have not been scrutinized closely. WP:BURDEN and WP:CHALLENGE are always available to help get cites added. --Noleander (talk) 22:39, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I understand that logic, but it fails when we are dealing with an environment where people can split such paragraphs, or insert/move content, and they do not bother to fix referencing. See my essay for specific examples. IF we had a way to always ensure that editors adding/moving text will preserve text-source integrity, we would, indeed, not need cites for every sentence. As this is not the case, I feel that citing every sentence is a necessity that limits future text-source integrity damage significantly. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 08:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

A quick comment: it is not the sentences that are supposed to be cited, but the material (quotes, facts, ideas, images, etc.) on which the sentence is based. If multiple points (etc.) are used within a paragraph, or even within a sentence, then there should be multiple cites, and preferably close to the points.

To the extent that anyone has complained of redundant citations, I believe they have invariably been general citations to a source as a whole, and lacking the specific citation of the location within the source (such as page numbers). Don't forget that citation is need to support WP:Verifiability, and incomplete or misplaced citation hinders verification. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 22:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with JJ that it's not a matter of grammar. You might want to read WP:MINREF on citation density, not only that one citation per sentence might be overkill in some instances, but also that it might be completely inadequate for other sentences.

Also, your proposed solution doesn't actually solve the biggest problem (IMO), which is that I write "ABC" and properly cite it, and someone else adds "DEF" in between my text and their addition, which makes it look like "ABC" is unsourced and "DEF" is well-sourced, or, if "DEF" is added as part of the same sentence, that "ABCDEF" is all supported by my original source. There really is nothing that I can do to prevent the next editor from screwing up with his additions. Even providing one citation per sentence does not protect the text from sloppy future work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:18, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, but that's assuming that one trusts the end of para (chain) reference to apply to the multiple preceding sentences. In a situation where we assume that any non-BLUE unreferenced sentence is just that - unreferenced - this is not a problem. That's for the DEFABC example. I am not sure I fully understood the first one. Do you mean the example of somebody inserting text just in front of a reference? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 08:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and it does happen, especially among inexperienced people. They see ABC.<ref>(long messy citation)</ref> in the text editing window and have no clue what the ref part does. But they know that they want their new sentence to go right after the sentence "ABC.", so they find "ABC." and add their new sentence immediately after it. (Others delete the citation under the impression that it must be meaningless garbage.)

There is no method of citing sources that will solve this problem, just like no method of citing sources will prevent editors from misrepresenting sources or changing the meaning in the course of copyediting. Editors must always double-check changes to articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:37, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

But it can be minimized, by putting the complex details of the citation (whether in template form or not) elsewhere (such as a "References" section), and linking to it with a much smaller, less intrusive Harv link. By reducing the clutter within the text editors – old hands as well as newbies – are a little bit less likely mess things up. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 17:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. The less code in the text, the less confusion, fear and accidental damage the newbs will experience. That said, I prefer moving the refs like this rather than harv refs, but its just a personal preference. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 19:14, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Here's an idea that probably wouldn't get anywhere (maybe in the next generation): some kind of meta element that brackets the text to which a citation applies. Not visible in display mode, though perhaps there could be some way of turning on highlighting. This would be nestable, so if additional material/citation is inserted the original relationship is preserved.

I do wonder if there might be some way to have the wikisoftware highlight citation templates in the edit box. Some technical issues, but perhaps only takes what we used to call "a small matter of programming". Though I think I'll let someone else take that on. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 18:11, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll note that something slightly similar is available through wikiED (syntax highlighting). While it does not tell us what has been referenced, it at least makes it much more easy to separate code from text. Try it out. I have my issues with wikiED, but the sh is great. Now, if only I could junk all the other parts of wikiED and keep sh only... :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 19:14, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Probably you meant WikED, right? One of these days I should check that out (but the end of my "to-do" list is somewhere on the floor). But expecting most every editor to use such a tool is unrealistic. As a small measure of mitigation I think we should encourage clearer format. E.g., vertical seperation of parameters, putting the closing "}}" at the start of a line, etc. Of course, we still have a lot of editors that don't believe in using templates. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 19:40, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Would eliminating brackets^[3] from footnotes, like this³ look cleaner?

Footnotes in books do not use bracket symbols, so they look like this,³ but in WP they include brackets like this.^[3] Back in the early days of WP it was probably no big deal, because there were few footnotes, and they tended to be at the end of paragraphs. But the WP:Verifiability policy requires a footnote in nearly every sentence, so the footnotes can be ugly and distracting. Larger articles, especially Featured Article status, routinely have 200 footnotes or more. I understand that a footnote without brackets might get confused with a mathematical operation like squaring² or cubing,³ but it is a trade-off. My question is: has the elimination of brackets been discussed before? or tried as a pilot program? --Noleander (talk) 22:33, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Have you searched the archives? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 22:36, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I did search the archives of this Talk page, but found nothing. I was thinking that perhaps a discussion had been held elsewhere, like Village pump, or WP:V, or MOS, or HELP:FOOTNOTES. I also looked in the FAQ at the top of this page, and saw nothing. In any case, even if a consensus had been reached earlier, I'd be curious to see if, now that footnotes are so common, consensus had changed. --Noleander (talk) 22:41, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

If footnotes are set without brackets they need to be set with a thin or hair or punct space where there's no punctuation immediately prior to the footnote. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me the problem with losing the brackets would be distinguishing multiple footnotes, i.e. making sure that ^[1][2] and ^[12] don't both become ¹². Theoldsparkle (talk) 22:59, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

^{1, 2, 12}? Fifelfoo (talk) 23:01, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

@Theoldsparkle: that is a good point, but Fifelfoo has a good resolution, to use commas. Can you think of any other downsides to eliminating brackets? --Noleander (talk) 23:05, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

There have been discussions on this, but I have no idea where they might be now. The brackets help visually focus when clicking on a link and separates consecutive in-text citations. The brackets are defined in MediaWiki:Cite reference link and spanned so you can change them. See Help:Reference display customization#In-text cites for some CSS you can try. Let us know how it works out. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:52, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

P.S.— You can use {{dummy ref}} to create a dummy in-text cite.

My preference would be to retain the brackets, but let readers choose, via user preferences, whether the footnotes should be displayed in the body of the article. I would choose to turn them off, because I think they are visually distracting, but if I were reading something that surprised or interested me, I would click a button to turn on he footnotes, so I could see the source. I realize this isn't exactly your question, but in a sense it is. You are trying to address the concern hat a lot of footnotes can be visually distracting. I agree. I'd go further than making them a little less distracting, I'd eliminate them, and let readers display them when desired.--SPhilbrickT 03:13, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

You can use CSS per Help:Reference display customization to not display in-text cites and/or the reference list. To enable/disable them with a button, you need to develop a script. I just don't see the fuss. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:37, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

The main difference between footnotes in books and footnotes in Wikipedia is that all paper books are static by design and you can't click on a book page using a pointer to get to the source of info. The bracket symbols make placing the pointer on your screen a lot faster, more accurate and convenient, especially considering that the text displayed on a monitor has a layout much wider than a standard printed page. — A. Kupicki (talk) 06:43, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree that in WP it is important that the reader be able to easily click on the footnote number. A tiny number by itself might be too small. A good solution would be to replace the brackets with spaces. So the footnote looks like _3_ instead of [3] (where "_" is a space). The spaces on either side of the "3" would be clickable, just like the brackets. That way, it looks cleaner, but is still has the same click-ability. If there were multiple footnotes, they'd be separated with commas, so [3][4] becomes _3_,_4_ (where "_" is a space). --Noleander (talk) 13:36, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps a special pair of characters could be developed that normally show as square brackets, but hit a switch and the appear as spaces, or some such. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 18:42, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Unless there is a widespread demand for a change, I see no reason for altering the present system of identifying a reference source in the body of the text. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:01, 25 November 2011 (UTC).

Agreed. But that doesn't prevent us from examining present practices and searching for potential improvements. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 21:58, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

@Bzuk: Personally, I think the brackets are rather ugly, and I think WP and its readers would be better served with a cleaner alternative (as long as it were equally functional). It is not a life-and-death decision, but WP will never improve if we just take a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude. The only two objections raised above are easily dealt with (use commas as separators; use spaces instead of brackets). An RfC is needed to attract more input from a wider variety of editors. I don't have time for an RfC right now, so I won't be proposing one. I may come back to it at some point in the future. --Noleander (talk) 22:44, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Have any one tried one of the suggestions I made to see if you actually like it? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:15, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I know I like the non-bracketed appearance. I've seen it in thousands of books :-) I presume that WP's use of brackets dates back to some informal decision a decade ago where some editors felt it was easier to click on a larger target (a single digit being too small). I doubt that there was much pro/con discussion of various alternatives. And, of course, once the aircraft carrier gets pointed in a certain direction, it is nigh impossible to change. --Noleander (talk) 03:37, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit request

Include redirect WP:CS in "Shortcuts" box. 71.146.20.62 (talk) 04:19, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

We've already got two shortcuts, and that's normally considered quite enough. (We don't have to advertise every shortcut that works.)--Kotniski (talk) 13:54, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Rules relating to the citing of public domain material are not mentioned in this guideline

The issue : A "required" practice related to citing sources is not mentioned in this guideline.

In the guideline Plagiarism, in the Public Domain sources section, there is guidance on what to do if an editor decides to incorporate PD material. The guidance specifically says:

• For sections or whole articles, add an attribution template; if the text taken does not form the entire article, specifically mention the section requiring attribution.

This guidance is perfectly reasonable, however, an editor interested in citing sources correctly should be able to cite sources correctly if they read Citing sources completely and followed it. Yet that guideline makes no reference to public domain material, or how to cite it, not even in the See Also section.

Possible solutions: edit the Citing Sources guideline to include instructions, or more likely, a pointer to the instructions on how to address public domain sources.

At a minimum, there should be a mention in the See Also list. However, I think a better solution is to include a section, even if just a sentence, alerting the editor that there are special considerations when it comes to PD material.

Protocol question: is this issue so non-controversial that we could write up a couple sentences, decide on a location, and just add it, or do changes to guidelines (beyond mere copy-editing) require an RfI? I think the latter is the case.

I've decided to be Bold and add an entry in the See Also section, but I'd like to discuss a more complete solution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sphilbrick (talk • contribs) 13:10, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Why should "public domain" material be cited any differently than other material? "Public domain" refers to rights to copy, distribute, sell, etc. If the copyright expires on some article from which I have taken a quote, does the citation need to be change? Not at all, as copyright status is not a "bibliographic detail" that needs to be in the citation in the first place. What one can do with the material – such as ripping a really cool drawing – changes, but not how it is cited. It still has the same author (etc.), and failing to give proper credit is just as plagiaristic for being "public domain" as not. I think the only thing we need to mention regarding the citation of public domain material is that it makes absolutely no difference. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 23:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The confusion here is arising from the difference between directly importing public domain text unchanged (with only an attribution template at the bottom to show its origin, or dumping it as a cited quote inside an existing article, i.e. using both the information and the original wording), and a Wikipedia editor using new wording to say the same thing, and citing the addition to a public domain text (i.e. using the PD text as a source for the information, but using different wording). These are two different processes. Carcharoth (talk) 23:47, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Proper citation of public domain material incorporated in copywritten work

WP clearly states that material in the public domain must be properly cited. ( WP:PD "Proper attribution to the author or source of a work, even if it is in the public domain, is still required to avoid plagiarism.")

My question: What constitutes a proper citation when public domain material is incorporated in another work?

I'd like to discuss this in the abstract, but I'm well aware that it is helpful to see the situation motivating the question. In Gettysburg's Unknown Soldier an excerpt in the public domain is included in an article in the New York Times, written in 2009.

Does a citation to the NYT constitute proper attribution?

My opinion is that this is not sufficient. A reader of the article does not know that the quoted material is from the The Philadelphia Inquirer, at least not without going to the source and reading it. I think this information should be in the reference.

I see a number of possibilities, including:

1. A reference to the NYT, which omits any reference to the author, publisher, or date of the material, is sufficient.
2. A proper attribution requires a citation containing the publication, date, author and title of the PD material
3. An acceptable attribution includes the information about the NYT, and adds the date and publication information as supplied by the NYT.

I think the third option is sufficient, and think that the second is unreasonably onerous. However, some feel that the first option is adequate.

I did a search of the archives, and found nothing specifically addressing this point, although that may be because it is not obvious to me what search terms to use.

this and this emphasize the need for proper references, but the discussions are more about whether quotes are needed, so they don't specifically address my question.

What do people think?--SPhilbrickT 03:06, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

If it is an excerpt, it is a quote and it doesn't matter whether it is public domain or not (apart from length of quoted material). If you can independently verify the source, you can cite directly to that (while still stating what organisation, such as an archive of online scanned issues, is hosting the copy etc) - this would be your option 2. If you can't independently verify the quote, then you have to cite to the publication where you got it from, and give the attribution information they give (even if that is incomplete; this is also important because what you are quoting may include errors of both attribution and transcription). This situation of reporting secondhand from source A what someone said in source B is fairly common. There should be something about it in the guidelines somewhere. You would say something like "'QUOTE' by Smith (1883) as given in Jones (1993)" - this would be your option 3. Option 1 is not sufficient. Carcharoth (talk) 08:52, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I think you may be a little confused about what "public domain" means -- that refers to material that can be copied freely, in the context of copyright. It has no bearing on attribution. As to attribution -- which is the purpose of citation -- you should always identify the originator (author) of the material (quote, or whatever). As Carcharoth says, if you can't quote someone directly, then you are quoting someone else quoting your source. Who may have gotten it wrong. And why you should always try to check with an original source, as sometimes misquotations take on a life of their own. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 19:09, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Two issues within the present string, one is that proper citing of the source should be important, and it is The New York Times not the "NYT" or "New York Times" and that with the current restrictions on the access of their data base, it has become an essentially subscription service, which sorely limit the "ready" verifiability of material from this source. FWiW, sorry to put on the pedantic hat, Bzuk (talk) 15:01, 25 November 2011 (UTC).

This is just the WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT question. Option #1 is acceptable, option #3 might be "best" when feasible, and option #2 is wrong (unless you personally found that original source and re-read the material there).

"Attribution", for Wikipedia's purposes, does not always require a citation. You can provide attribution in an edit summary. Whenever you use an edit summary like "WP:MERGEd from Example, which now redirects here", you are providing "attribution" for licensing purposes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

About option 1 being acceptable, that may technically be correct, but the point really is that this can be very misleading if poorly phrased. Just saying "I found this in the NYT" is not enough for accurate representation of the material. Wikipedia editors need to read the material and understand the layers of narrative being presented, just as there is a need to understand when author A is giving not their own opinion, but quoting someone else's opinion (though again, if author A phrases this poorly, it can be easily missed). It is the difference between saying (a) "The Philadelphia Enquirer said this" (while looking at the NYT piece) and saying (b) "The NYT says the Philadelphia Enquirer said this" and saying (c) "The NYT reported this, but I'm not sure who originally said it". Option 2, is only wrong if you only look at the NYT (what I've called [a] here). If you get hold of a copy of the Philadelphia Enquirer, you can do option 2, as you say. Though on looking at the article in question, I think the original material was from the guy who found the photo, and it was published in lots of newspapers, not just one. It's all a bit pointless, though, because the article in question (Gettysburg's Unknown Soldier - about a book) should be redirected/merged to the article on the soldier (Amos Humiston), but I just haven't got round to doing that yet (hopefully so obvious it doesn't need a lengthy proposal and discussion). Carcharoth (talk) 06:33, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

What? WhatamIdoing's comment that attribution doesn't always require a citaTion strikes me so discordantly that I wonder if we might be looking at entirely different subjects. Particularly in regard of "licensing purposes". Licensing is where someone who owns the copyrights to something allows someone else to use that thing in someway (the license), often subject to various requirements such as attribution. But on Wikipedia attribution is not a matter of copyright or licensing, because we are (in essence, see WP:COPYVIO) not allowed to use copyrighted material. Here attribution is about showing sources (per WP:Verification and WP:OR), which is the purpose of citation. Edit summaries (which pertain to the edit, not the sources of the material which may have been added) are not the place to cite sources, and, indeed, the example given above does not do so.

I suspect WhatamIdoing has in mind the attribution required by the CC-BY-SA and GFDL licenses regarding Wikipedia articles (see WP:Merge and delete). I don't believe this is relevant to the initial question raised. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 20:24, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

If the work in question is actually in the public domain or licensed by suitable terms, and being incorporated into the text (providing "sentences" rather than "information") then yes, the attribution requirements of the licensing rules are very much relevant. If those sentences amount to common knowledge, they will not require citations, but they will always require attribution for the license. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Hey, I think you have confused two very different kinds of attribution. If the "license" you are refering to (above) is the CC-BY-SA or GFDL that applies to Wikipedia pages (i.e., the article itself), then the attribution of who wrote what (in the article) is handled by the page history. (Note that WP:Merge and delete is about retaining page history when articles are merged, etc.) This is different from the attribution of sources for the external material used in an article, for which we use citations. This is what the original poster was referring to. Clear? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 22:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is confusion. WhatamIdoing is likely fully aware of the difference. As far as I can tell, WhatamIdoing was bringing that other form of attribution in as another example in order to help explain the whole concept more fully. Though as the above conversation has shown, it is best to discuss these things separately, as talking about them in the same discussion can cause confusion. It's sort of like "here is the answer, and as a bonus here is an explanation of something similar that you might come across at some point, which I'll explain now to avoid confusion". Followed by confusion. Obviously. Carcharoth (talk) 23:54, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes.

We use the same word to refer to two completely separate processes. We need attribution-for-the-license when you incorporate material you aren't creating yourself. Whether we must have attribution-for-verification depends on the content (see the list at WP:MINREF). Attribution-for-the-license can be accomplished in an edit summary. Attribution-for-verification needs an WP:Inline citation. This particular guideline only deals with attribution-for-verification, but both types of attribution need to be considered when incorporating public domain material. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:05, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

RfC: "Short cites" vs. "Shortened footnotes": need uniform terminology

There has been some great work in the past few months improving the examples and clarity of some citation guidelines. Unfortunately, the terminology for a "short cite" has gotten out-of-whack (I think I contributed to the problem), and it may be time pick one term and use it everywhere. The three guidelines that are involved are:

1) Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Short_citations - "short cites"

2) Help:Footnotes#Explanatory_notes - " shortened citations"

3) Help:Shortened footnotes - "shortened footnotes"

4) ... also: templates and shortcuts such as {{sfn}} and WP:CITESHORT

So, we now have three terms for the same concept. This is confusing to readers, especially novices trying to figure out what to do. (Veterans will read the various terms and quickly grasp that they are all identical). Which term should be used uniformly across all guidelines? Note: this question does not suggest that any change be made to any guideline, other than substituting terminology (and, the recently created Help:Shortened footnotes may get renamed). --Noleander (talk) 14:35, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - I don't have a strong feeling one way or another The word "footnote" is broader than "citation" because footnotes include explanatory footnotes (i.e. comments) that are unrelated to citing or verifiability. "Short" is probably better than "shortened" just for reasons of conciseness. So perhaps "short cite" is best? But the other terms are not bad. We just need to pick one and use it. --Noleander (talk) 14:35, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand, not all short citations are footnotes (they may be parenthetical). If we want to refer specifically to citations that are given as footnotes AND given in short form, we probably need to call them "short footnote citations" or something like that (except where the context allows us to shorten the name without reisk of confusion).--Kotniski (talk) 14:45, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

That is a good point. But "short footnote citations" is a bit verbose, and it could not be used within Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Short_citations, because that guideline addresses both footnotes and parenthetical cites. If the term "short cite" were adopted, it would probably be understood (as it is now described in WP:CITE) to include both footnote cites and parenthetical cites. Readers who saw "short cite" within a footnote guideline would just ignore the parenthetical aspect of it. --Noleander (talk) 15:00, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Chicago 16 (14.24) refers to a similar method as shortened citations and the actual format as short form. I don't see anything similar in APA 6. The method used on Wikipedia has been shortened footnotes since its inception; the name is well used and is reflected by templates such as {{sfn}}. I would rather stick to shortened footnotes, and define it where needed. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Would "shortened footnotes" work within Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Short_citations (e.g. the sentence "This is how short citations look in the edit box...")? Would you suggest that the title of that section be changed to Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Shortened footnotes ? --Noleander (talk) 15:40, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

"Shortened footnotes" is a meaningless term (even absurd), which we should avoid like the plague. Like I said before (at Help_talk:Footnotes): there is serious confusion of citation and footnote. The latter is one place where citations can be found (as well as in the text), and are not limited to citations. Whether a footnote is "shorter" or "longer" (compared to what?) is meaningless. On the other hand, a "short citation" has a specific meaning: a citation (of a source) with just enough information (typically author and date, but there are other schemes) to locate the "long" (or full) citation in a list of sources. The long citation (reference) contains as much "bibliographic detail" (as the CMOS puts it) to find and identify the source somewhere in the world, the short citation (or cite) has only enough information to find (or link to) the full citation within the article. Granted, we have past "historical" usage otherwise, but we should amend future usage. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 23:49, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I find that argument quite convincing. Though there will still be occasions where we need to make clear that we are talking specifically about short citations in footnotes, as opposed to the intext parenthetical sort. --Kotniski (talk) 09:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with J. Johnson. "Short cite" is a better term. And I also agree that the terms "references", "footnotes" and "citations" are often used interchangeably by Wikipedians when they don't really mean the same thing. The guidelines, at least, should attempt to use them consistently. (I was the one who named {{shortened footnote template}} "{{sfn}}". At the time, this was the only term used in Wikipedia for this format.) There may be as many as thirty guidelines and other documentation that will need to be changed. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 10:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I prefer "shortened cite" over "short cite" because "shortened" is a verb and indicates an action has been taken to remove information, and even implies that the full citation should appear somewhere in the article. "Short", on the other hand, is an adjective that could describe a cite that just happen to be short while providing full bibliographic information. Also, I think there will be occasions to refer specifically to parenthetical citations (which are always shortened, so no need to say so) and shortened footnote citations. An example of needing to refer to shortened footnote citations is with the sfn template, which is only suitable for shortened citations and only when used as a footnote. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:53, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe the verb form is just shorten, while shortened – describing the result – would be the adjective. While I see no effective difference between citation and cite (both considered as nouns), in respect of short or shortened I think we should follow the example of the Chicago MOS in sticking with "short" allow both.

Oops! CMOS-13 uses "shortened". See my comment below at #Reconsideration?. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:42, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Please note that "short" (in this context) does not mean "relatively few characters", but relatively few fields (or bibliographic elements). Which is most typically only two fields, typically the author's last name and date. It is quite unlikely that full citations ever are short in the sense of length, unless they are simply incomplete.

The sfn stuff is a challenge, and it is unfortunate that matters got so confused (I sympathize with Charles). But clarifying these concepts and terminology is probably the biggest step we can take towards resolving the infamous difficulties of proper citation.

~ J. Johnson (JJ) 21:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

JJ: I agree that "short(ened) footnote" can be confusing because many footnotes are explanatory notes, and have nothing to do with citations or shortening. Question: Are you saying that "short cite" may be the best all-around term? And if that term were used in the context of citations within footnotes, it would still be "short cite" - that is, rely on the surrounding text to make it clear that footnotes are involved rather than, say, parenthetical (short) cites? --Noleander (talk) 22:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "best all-around term"; I have to ask: for what? It should be firmly kept in mind that 1) citations and footnotes are completely independent things, and 2) footnotes are just places where "stuff" can go (just like stuff can go into the article text, or within parentheses in text). "Short cite" (or "short citation") is the best term for a short cite, no more, and without regard to where it occurs. Is that what you meant by "all-around" – regardless of where it is in the text, parentheses in text, or footnotes? If so, then the answer is yes.

On the otherhand, a "parenthetical cite" is just a citation, sort or full, that has been placed in parentheses, and has absolutely no significance beyond that; we ought to proscribe the use of that term. Similarly, "short" and "full" are significant only for citations, and are meaningless when applied to footnotes. Each term has a proper domain, which if not honored only creates confusion. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

When I said "best all-around term", I meant: if we had to pick one term to be used in all three guidelines listed at the top of this RfC, what one term would be optimal? Some of the guidelines are focusing on citations, and some are focusing on footnotes. The big question is: when they are discussing "shortened foo", can a single word be used for "foo" in all those guidelines? --Noleander (talk) 01:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

[edit conflict]

I'd put this on the list of unsolvable problems:

• A footnote is any text at the bottom, associated with any text above. Footnote is also the wikijargon for a citation <ref> tags.
• A shortened citation (both "short" and "cite" are grammatically incorrect) could be a shortened footnote (using the <ref> tag definition of the term "footnote"), but it might also be a shortened-non-<ref>-tag-using citation, in which case it is not a shortened footnote.

Because we use footnote to mean "citation using <ref> tags", we cannot use shortened footnote when we refer to any and all means of shortened citations. And when we're specifically and exclusively referring to shortened <ref>-tag-using footnotes, we need to be specific, i.e., to refer to shortened footnotes rather than to shortened (any kind of) citations.

As a result, there is no good solution. The best we can do is to remove the grammatically incorrect abbreviations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Au contraire, there is a good solution, a most excellent solution that goes right to the heart of the problem: stop confounding "footnotes" (as created with the unfortunately named <ref> tags) with "citations". This "wikijargon" is exactly the kind of imprecise terminology that needs to be reformed (as Noleander has proposed). As I have said before: "shortened footnote" is a rather meaningless term. Do you not understand the distinction (as applied to citations) between "short" and "full"? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:06, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course I understand the distinction; I've even helped write some of the pages in question. And I agree that there are excellent solutions, my favorite of which is to ban the use of the unadorned word footnote in every single guideline and help page, and to strictly limit is qualified use, primarily to explaining why it is that we're not going to use that word. We could have "explanatory comments", "shortened citations", "full citations", and "ref tags" instead of "footnotes", "shortened footnotes", "footnotes", and "footnotes".

It's just not a realistic solution: For better or worse (and IMO it's for worse), the community has adopted this confusing terminology, and changing it would require a dedicated effort for the next two years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:28, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we need to be so pessimistic. Right off the bat, it should be easy to pick one of "short" vs. "shortened" ... that is an easy choice, and simple to implement. As for "citations" vs "footnotes", that is more complex, but I think the glass is half full. Over 90% of all footnotes are citations, and over 90% of all citations are footnotes (that is, parenthetical cites are relatively rare across WP). Things get a lot simpler if we realize that this RfC is only addressing the term "shortented footnotes/cites" ... because all cites can get shortened (but not all footnotes can be: explanatory footnotes are not shorten-able). So, it looks like "short cite" is more useful than "short footnote". When the term is used within a Footnote-centric guideline, "short cite" should not be a problem, because "short" would only be used in the context of citation-footnotes, never explanatory-footnotes. I guess I'm starting to lean towards "short cites" as the best term, even in a footnote context. --Noleander (talk) 01:54, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't think this is a hard problem at all, we just need to think clearly. When we mean citations, we must be careful not to write a woolly "footnotes", and vice versa. When we mean specifically citations in footnotes, we must say all of that, unless part of the information is absolutely clear from the context. Personally I prefer "short" to "shortened" (though I don't think it matters very much, it's just... shorter), and I prefer "citation" to "cite" since I'm not sure "cite" is considered to be usable as a noun in good English.--Kotniski (talk) 07:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

So your suggestion is "short citation", occasionally supplemented with the word "footnote" when needed to help the reader. What about the title of the recently created Help guide Help:Shortened footnotes ... should that be renamed to Help:Short citations? or something else? or left alone? --Noleander (talk) 13:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, it seems to be restricted to the case where short citations are placed in footnotes, so I guess it should be something that includes all those three words ("short", "citation", "footnote"). Help:Short citations as footnotes? Or else expand the scope of the page to cover parenthetical ones as well.--Kotniski (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

1. "Short citations" is still grammatically wrong.
2. We don't always restrict this terminology to those shortened citations that happen to be placed inside ref tags. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Banning unadorned "footnote" is not without appeal. But I think renouncing the combination of "shortened footnote(s)" would be a strong step in the right direction. Help:Shortened footnotes should be renamed. I am inclined to replace it with a brief explanation why the term is nonsensical, giving some cushion to all those editors who are accustomed to it, and trying to wean them off of it.

Looking a little beyond the specific topic here: I think we should not have separate topics of "citations in [pick one: text, parentheses, footnotes]". Better to explain citations in a way "locationally neutral", merely noting the various locations where they can be placed. Likewise with footnotes: "Here is how you create footnotes. These generally contain citations - explained elsehwere - or other supplementary text." In other words, these separate topics are cross-linked, but not intermingled. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Whether the container (ref tags, parentheses, or several uncommon options) matters depends on the purpose of your page. A how-to page needs to deal with the container ("Type the following code:". A what-to-include page ("Usually, people list the author and page number, and sometimes the date") doesn't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Keep the word as "citation" don't use "cite". As for "short" not being grammatical correct I don't buy that one. For example there is a weapon called a "half pike" or a "short pike" they are called that because they are pikes that have been shortened. The weapon is not usually referred to as "shortened pike", (if was it was, then long ago shortened to "short pike" for ease of expression! ) -- PBS (talk) 01:58, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Not quite the same situation. I really doubt people usually built a full size pike, then removed the metal from one end, cut the handle in half, and put the metal back on. But we do start with a full citation, remove the parts we don't want for the shortened citation, and add the page number or equivalent information. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:30, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

FYI, no removing or cutting of metal is required, as the cheeks of the head only run a relatively short distance from the head. All that is needed was a cross cut saw to saw off of the bottom 8+ foot. -- PBS (talk) 12:07, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not getting how "short citations" is grammatically wrong. There may be something else (what?) wrong with it, but grammatically it's surely impeccable: "adjective + noun = noun phrase" or however Chomsky would have notated it.--Kotniski (talk) 13:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Both "short" and "shortened" sound fine to my ears, which is the real test in English grammar. "Shortened" is certainly valid, since it emphasizes that the cites could be longer. But "short" is also appropriate, since it indicates that there are two possible formats for the same data: a "long cite" and a "short cite". I don't have a preference for one or the other (although I do note that WP community tends to favor concise wordings) ... we just need to pick one and stick with it. --Noleander (talk) 13:26, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

As noted above and in the following subsection, I now favor allowing both "short" and "shortened" as synonyms. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:42, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Reconsideration?

"* * *" (Ship's warning signal that one is going in reverse.)

Not so long ago I mentioned the CMOS as using the term "short cite". Wrong! My edition (the 13th) uses "short form" (and "full citation") at section 15.46, referring to 17.6. But ch. 17 always refers to "shortened [not "short"] references".

Even worse: contrary to my statement yesterday (following subsection), "citation" is not a well-defined concept. CMOS uses it fairly often in ch. 15, but ch. 17 ("Note forms") rarely uses it, prefering "reference". Turabian follows CMOS, even exceeds it: "citation" is hardly used, and the index entry redirects to "parenthetical reference". In legal work a "citation" is the link or index to some case (such as "270 Fed. Supp. 331"), not the case itself. On the otherhand, my dictionary is ambiguous, defining "citation" as "a passage cited, quotation".

There is some solid ground. My dictionary has a fairly consistent concept of "reference":

1. a referring .... 3. the directing of attention to a person or thing; hence, 4. a mention or illusion. 5. an indication, in a book or article, of some other work or passage ... 6. the work or passage so indicated [a weakening!] 7. the mark or sign ... directing the reader to a footnote, etc.

So, I wonder if we need to back-up a step and reconsider what we mean by "citation", and if (for some uses) "reference" might be a better term. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:28, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

"Cite" = "citation"?

I think we are all good with "citation" as a proper term for one of the elements we are talking about here. Question: are we okay with "cite" as a synonym, as in "this is a short cite"? I know I use it that way fairly often, but perhaps this is a usage we should avoid? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:11, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Time for poll?

Should we take a poll? I think I'm seeing some consensus for something like 1-4, below:

1. "Citation in a footnote" (Commonly called "references" by Wikipedians)
2. "Explanatory footnote"
3. "Short citation in a footnote" (2009 name: "Shortened footnote")
4. "Short citation in parenthesis" (2009 name: "Parenthetical reference". 2007 name: "Harvard reference")
5. ??"Full citation in a list at the bottom of the page" (I.e., the target of a short citation)
6. ??"General reference" (Or "General citation"? Or just "Citation"? Also appears at the bottom of the page.)

This is the dramatis personae of the guidelines WP:CITE, WP:FOOTNOTE, and so on. We should choose names for each of these. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Sure, a poll sounds good. I like "short citation". As for the numbered items above, perhaps we could eliminate the items that are not related to short cites/footnotes ... because including additional terms in this RfC ("explanatory footnote", "general reference", etc) may cause confusion and make it difficult to achieve consensus. So maybe the poll question could be:

When referring to a shortened citation or shortened footnote, the standard term will be "short citation". The term can be qualified (by adding "in a footnote", "in parenthesis", etc) if that will help the reader's understanding.

Does that look like a good yes/no poll question? --Noleander (talk) 03:34, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you want include (what we used to call) "parenthetical references" or not? You include it when you write "in parenthesis". Did you intend to include it in "shortened citation or shortened footnote"? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 11:19, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

@Charles: This RfC is addressing all uses of the various terms "short[ened] cites/footnotes" in the guidelines. For example, WP:CITESHORT says "Short citations are used in articles which apply parenthetical referencing (see below), but they can also be used as footnote citations, as described here...", so, yes, this RfC is including parenthetical references when that term is used in conjunction with the word "short". However, I don't propose that every usage of "parenthetical reference" be changed at this point in time, because that would be objectionable to many editors, I'm sure. Maybe we could go in two phases: Phase 1: convert all "short[ened] cite/footnote" to "short citation [in foot/parenthesis]"; Phase 2: convert "parenthetical refs" (when not used in conjunction with the word "short") to "short parenthetical cites" (or whatever the community agrees to). --Noleander (talk) 12:54, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Lets not have a poll, as they are divisive. -- PBS (talk) 12:07, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right about that. How about this: is there consensus for the following proposal?:

Proposal: When referring to a short[ened] citation or short[ened] footnote, the standard term will be "short citation". The term can be qualified (by adding "in a footnote", "in parenthesis", etc) if that will help the reader's understanding.

Rationale: Today, WP guidelines use a variety of terms for "short cite". For example, the shortcut WP:CITESHORT takes the user to a section named "Short citations", which uses terminology like "shortened notes", and has a {{main}} link to Help:Shortened footnotes. Even more terms are used elsewhere. The goal of this proposal is to establish a uniform term to be used throughout the guidelines.

How does that look? --Noleander (talk) 13:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't care for the term short footnote, because it might be an explanatory footnote that happens to be short. How about this:

Proposal: When referring to a parenthetical citation or short[ened] citation footnote, the standard term will be "short citation". The term can be qualified (by adding "in a footnote", "in parenthesis", etc) if that will help the reader's understanding. "Parenthetical citation" may be used when it is important that only that type of citation is being discussed, and short citation footnotes are being excluded from the discussion.

The rationale would be the same. I consider the phrase "short citation in parenthesis" to be redundant because parenthetical citations are always shortened, but the redundant phrase could be used where the concept of parenthetical citations is being introduced. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:08, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Looks good. Some minor tweaks:

Proposal: When referring to a parenthetical citation or short[ened] citation footnote, the standard term will be "short citation". The term can be qualified (e.g. "short footnote citation", "short parenthetical citation", etc) if that will help the reader's understanding. "Parenthetical citation" may be used (in lieu of "short citation" or "short parenthetical citation") if its usage is unambiguous based on the context.

The purpose of the tweaks is: "Parenthetical citation" is used quite a bit, and we need to give clear guidance on when/where that must be changed to "short parenthetical citation". Also, "short footnote citation" seems better than "short citation in a footnote" --Noleander (talk) 14:40, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I think we are not yet ready for a poll, in that it seems we don't quite have the concepts nailed down yet. And I am concerned that without a very clear and definite formulation editors won't understand the critical distinction between citation and footnote, and the confusion will continue.

E.g., use of "parenthetical citation" (even "short parenthetical citation" – it is not redudant!) is almost as bad as "shortened footnote" because it suggests that "parenthetical" modifies "citation", reinforcing the incorrect view that the citation is different ("short") because it is "parenthetical". As we know, full citations in text – with or without the parentheses – are unwieldy, therefore the universal use of the short form, but it is not the parentheses that makes a citation "short". The description of short citations should include mention of where they are used, but specific location (text or note) should not be coupled to the form ("short" or "full") of the citation. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:21, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Terminology: inline citation

Another piece of wiki-jargon that seems to confuse the uninitiated is "inline citation", which in the real world seems to mean (if it means anything) a citation written out in the text, not a footnote. I know this is part of the "verifiability not truth" wiki-religion and so might be hard to change, but does anyone have any suggestions as to a more comprehensible name? (If not, then we should at least make it clear that it's our own term of art.)--Kotniski (talk) 07:21, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• Chicago (14.14) calls it a 'note reference'. This WP page calls it a 'citation marker'; WP:REFPUNC and Help:Footnotes calls it a 'footnote marker'.
• Chicago (15.7) uses the term 'in-text citation' for the in-text parenthetical reference used in the author-date system.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:54, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@Kotniski: That's a good question. The term has to indicate that the citation (or at least part of it) is in the prose of the article, not down in the References section. Maybe "embedded citation", or "adjacent citation". PS: I made this "inline citation" section a top-level section, so it is separate from the "short vs shortened" RfC section above. RfCs are confusing enough without introducing other issues. :-) --Noleander (talk) 13:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, a good move. I think the original usage (prior to WP) is "in-line" as in "in text", but it appears that here footnoes are deemed "in-line" by reason of the super-scripted link. This might be another terminology question to rectify, but do we want (or need?) to do so here and now? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:13, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I've seen no instances of this terminology confusing people. Can you give a specific example of someone not grasping the concept (as opposed to not knowing how to format it)?

Can't link to an example, but I'm sure I've seen queries from people who are surprised by our definition of "inline" (that's the reason I brought the subject up).--Kotniski (talk) 13:13, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:INTEXT is already being used as wikijargon for something unrelated to citations, so adopting anything along those lines will create even more confusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

'Inline citation' as used here appears to mean the element placed in the text that:

• Footnotes: Contains a link to the citation that supports the preceding content. Formatted as superscripted alphanumeric characters enclosed by brackets with a link to the citation; example: . The element is created by enclosing the citation in <ref> tags. The citation may be full or may use a name to invoke a previously defined citation.
• Parenthetical: The author-date short citation formatted in parenthesis; example: (Smith, 2011).

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:32, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

This appears to confuse the two most popular formats of inline citations with the concept. We define this term: "On Wikipedia, inline citation means any method that allows the reader to associate a given bit of material in an article with the specific reliable source(s) that support it." The supplementary page lists seven different methods that editors have used in articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:13, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

In "in the real world" Kotniski no work that only has a bibliography at the end, would ever be described as having citations. We have the term inline citations because until recently some people argued that general references were also citations, therefore we had to distinguish between inline citations (meaning citations "in the real world") and those articles which some argued carried citations because they have general references or heaven help us sections called "external links" (see {{no footnotes}}).

I think it is too soon to drop "inline" (until templates like {{no footnotes}} are up to date and have been for a year or so) and as we have a definition section, I do not see why "inline citation" usage in this guideline should be considered confusing. -- PBS (talk) 01:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

-- PBS (talk) 01:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. In might be also worthwhile noting that WP simply has requirements and problems they don't exist "in the real world" to begin with.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it does, but not in relation to citations/references, I don't think. Everything we have, real-world journal articles et al. also have. Presumably they have names for these things, and we should aim as much as possible to use such real-world names in Wikipedia's instructions, to avoid confusion and looking silly. If general references are not considered to be citations in the real world, then we should not call them so either. The sooner we change our inaccurate terminology, the less ingrained it will become, so the less painful the change will be.--Kotniski (talk) 13:13, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Well our situation is different from the real world in this context. In the real world articles are not a "collarborative work in progress" and the authors simply pick any sourcing style they see fit and/or their publisher or university requires. So we differ from the real world in 3 important points. (Anonymous large scale) cooperation, work in progress, not having a citation form mandated by one author for himself) or mandated by an external entity (publisher, university). Different or new names in WP can be confusing - yes - but so can be changing terms which have been used by the community for years.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

These differences in circumstances undoubtedly exist, but none of them seem to be relevant to the terms used to talk about citations etc., so don't provide any excuse for our deviating from the terminology that's in common use. Nor do I think any of these terms are widely used in the community - people normally just talk about "references" (presumably because of the choice - not entirely appropriate - of <ref> and <references> as the tags).--Kotniski (talk) 16:11, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

That terminology you are talking about is already common use in WP for many years and not a deviation from the real world somebody suggested out of the blue. They are widely used in the community. Also if people talk about references it is not at all clear what is mean as PBS explained further up. That is exactly why this terminology is in use for years and also why we have different templates for missing sources.--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:22, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be confusing "is" with "should be" - saying "references" is potentially ambiguous, but it's what people in the real wiki-world actually say most of the time. And as can be seen below, even on this page people don't agree what the various terms of art mean, however many years they may have theoretically been in use. So effectively we may as well start again, choose appropriate names for all these concepts (based as far as possible on what they are called in the real world), define them unequivocally, and adjust the documentation to match.--Kotniski (talk) 09:19, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "even on this page", this is exactly one of the places where people might go if they unclear about something regarding citations. And the existing description of the term (see PBS again) seems to be quite clear. However there is nothing wrong in overhauling some terms, if this is done in a larger context rather than a few editors here, in particular to get a better feedback what might be considered confusing or appropriate by other authors and what not. I.e. this needs to be discussed together with other effected project pages and there should be a consistent outcome through those various project pages and templates. So this needs some book keeping of what is affected and needs to be changed and an RFC based on that.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Inline citations also may consist of a description of the source in running text, such as "In 1989 Jones reported that..." with the full details in the reference list. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

In my experience "inline citation" is used to distinguish it from general citation/general reference. Contrary to the latter which ist just added at the bottom of the article the former is directly attached to particular place and content in the article (hence "inline").--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:43, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I think Kmhkmh is partly right; "inline citation" emphasizes a particular passage in the article is linked to a particular source, rather than the whole article being supported by some general references. Unfortunately the term "general reference" has two meanings within the Wikipedia guidelines:

1. A source that supports the article as a whole, or which supports unspecified passages.
2. In articles that use short citations, any entry in a reference list that provides full bibliographic information, whether it is referred to by short citations or not. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:15, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

No, #2 is not a general reference. It is a full, properly written (we hope) bibliographic citation that supports an inline citation. We already define this term: "A general reference is a citation to a reliable source that supports content, but is not displayed as an inline citation." The citation to any source that is not being used as an inline citation is a general reference. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:08, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

You guys are going so well I hesitate to intrude. But to respond to an earliar question: the usage of "inline citation" at WP has confused me – does that count? In particular, I think I have seen it used to include footnotes (which are arguably "in text"), whereas I believe the main authorities consider footnotes as out of text.

Regarding so-called "general" citations: there are situations where an entire work can be cited as a work ("Smith's first book on this subject ..."), but most of the instances I've seen here was editors citing the work "generally" because they couldn't be bothered to cite specific locations in the source. This should be distinguished from where an editor does not particularly cite material or passages in the article, relying on a "general" attribution to one or more sources listed at the end. I believe this is where editors get told to add "in-line citation", and the meaning has morphed to include footnotes because what is meant is to add citations in any form, not necessarily "in text" (parenthetical or otherwise). While it would be good to clarify this, I am inclined to first focus on reforming the other terms (above). ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:08, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

J. I think you need to invert your view. You seem to think at the moment that it is the content of the description of the source that makes it an inline citation or a general reference, not so.

It is not what part of a source is mentioned in a Wikipedia article that makes it a general reference but where it is placed. If the mention of the source is placed in the body of the article then it is an inline citation (even if it is to the whole 29 volumes of the 1911 Britannica encyclopaedia (not an infrequent occurrence)). If the source is only mentioned in the "references section" then it is a general reference (even if it is specific to page and paragraph). This is defined in the first section of the guideline Types of citation.

If the source placed as an inline citation is not specific enough the solution is to add the template {{page number}} to the source used in the inline citation. In the case of the source in a general reference section without a corresponding inline citation, use either {{unreferenced}} or {{no footnotes}} or similar.

J. you wrote "I am inclined to first focus on reforming the other terms (above)" the terms are defined in Types of citation before they are used in the guideline. What in those definitions needs to be focused? -- PBS (talk) 01:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I find Types of citation generally okay, except for being a bit weak regarding "general reference". What I was trying to show above was how "general reference" is used in two different ways. But I think this is not the most pressing issue at the moment, as I think we should focus on sorting out the terminological issues ("Short cites" vs. "Shortened footnotes", etc.) raised by Noleander in the discussion above, from which this discussion was split off. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:05, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Snippet Views - Using the Result Line of the search , instead of the Snippet View itself

Example: [8] gives a Snippet View which only shows partial information... however, the Result Line gives 1 page matching "Under US pressure, Israel withdrew its own forces from Lebanon by October 1978. But because it turned the border zone over to right-wing Lebanese Christian auxiliary force (later named the South Lebanon Army or SLA), Israel was seem as remaining in effective control. As a result, UNIFlL's mandate under UNSC Resolution 425 was repeatedly renewed and extended. Israel's area of occupation greatly expanded following its second invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, which pushed all the way to Beirut." in this book. .. The Result Line above the Snippet View verifies the existence of the information, which is far more informative than sources which, even though they might exist in hard copy, show readers nothing at all without laying their hands on a hard copy. e.g.,

[9] gives - Sommerville, Donald (2008). The Complete Illustrated History of World War Two: An Authoritative Account of the Deadliest Conflict in Human History with Analysis of Decisive Encounters and Landmark Engagements. Lorenz Books. p. 5. ISBN 0754818985 ... they must source a hard copy

OR

[10] gives - Biger, 2005, p. 173 - and in the bibliography we get - Biger, Gideon (1989), Geographical and other arguments in delimitation in the boundaries of British Palestine, in "International Boundaries and Boundary Conflict Resolution", IBRU Conference, ISBN 1855600005, pp. 41–61. ... Biger, Gideon (1995), The encyclopedia of international boundaries, New York: Facts on File. ... Biger, Gideon (2005), The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840-1947. London: Routledge. ISBN 0714656542 .. Again they must source a hard copy ... talknic (talk) 01:25, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

• Snippet view usually only provides a subset of the text as searchable anyway, differing by area, so this'll be broken for non US users. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:27, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - A) I'm not referring to the Snippet View. I'm referring to the line for the Snippet View search, giving the text of the search result, i.e., 1 page matching "whatever yadda yadda whatever" in this book.

B)In the instance I gave, readers clicking on the link are taken to books.google.com.au

I'm in Australia at the moment and I get the same result using books.google.com .. [11]. Readers clicking on that link will get the result from books.google.com

Can you show me an example of what you mean ....thx ... talknic (talk) 02:00, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

• Snippet view is really only useful to provide hints to find the information somewhere else, or to corroborate for yourself personally (not Wikipedia readers) what is said elsewhere. More than that and you risk errors due to not being able to see the surrounding text that provides context. Carcharoth (talk) 01:37, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Carcharoth - In the example, (and it is only an example) I ended up with the surrounding text that provided the context, exceeding the Snippet View. How I arrived at the end result is irrelevant to the fact that the whole citation is verified as being in this book ... talknic (talk) 02:00, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I realise that. But the wider context is still missing. You really need to be able to see the whole page and leaf around in the book to make sure the context is being interpreted right. Not to mention that you are not really doing proper citation or verification. Search results are a starting point, not the end point. And linking to search results is not guaranteed to be stable. If you can't cite to another source, and absolute verification is needed, then you have no real option but to find someone with a copy of the source, or get a copy yourself. Carcharoth (talk) 02:11, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Carcharoth - "the wider context is still missing" depends on what one is citing. For example in the example[12], I might be referencing the date of the 'second invasion of Lebanon' or whether Israel reached Beirut or was the border zone turned over to over to the SLA. In which case, any of those three are there, in context, within the text saying 1 page matching "yadda yadda" in this book.

"You really need to be able to see the whole page and leaf around in the book" Care to point that out in WP:VERIFY thx

"Search results are a starting point, not the end point. " Care to point that out in WP:VERIFY thx .. A verifiable citation is the end point, regardless of how one finds it.

"absolute verification is needed" If the search facility, showing only one book, says 1 page matching "whatever yadda yadda whatever" in this book, what do you think it means? I've given other references above that tell the reader NOTHING unless they get a hard copy. Are they verified? In fact they aren't, until someone gets a hard copy. Wikipedia is littered with such sources, none of which show any evidence of actually existing at all until someone gets a hard copy. The search text (accompanying the Snippet View) confirms it is in the book, despite how much the Snippet View itself shows ... talknic (talk) 05:12, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Nobody should be writing based on deep text searching at all. The minimum structural unit of context, often a chapter or extended subsection, should be the minimal unit to consult when forming an opinion to write. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:28, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. It is easy to forget that when fact-checking (something I do a lot of on and off Wikipedia). Carcharoth (talk) 02:45, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - 1) "Nobody should be writing based on deep text searching at all" Cite WP:policy thx ... and 2); why not deep text search, especially if B) "The minimum structural unit of context, often a chapter or extended subsection, should be the minimal unit to consult when forming an opinion to write" Cite WP:policy thx ... and 3); without looking at the Snippet View itself, the 1 page matching "whatever yadda yadda whatever" in this book is proof of the existence of a citation. It is not what one writes in an Article ... talknic (talk) 05:12, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - "Snippet view usually only provides a subset of the text as searchable anyway, differing by area, so this'll be broken for non US users" Again, pls show an example of what you mean .. thx ... talknic (talk) 05:28, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - Here's a few examples of 'unbroken' links referencing different countries Google Search(.in/) ... (.fr/) ... (.ae/) ... (.jo/) ... (.tw/) ... they all do the same thing ... talknic (talk) 23:14, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Talknic, it isn't the domain that makes a difference, it's your geolocation. Google determines what material is available to you based on the copyright laws of your country (among other things), so a book that is available in snippet view to you might not be available at all to me, for example. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:49, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Nikkimaria - Google only does this in snippet view or on all books? If on all books, it would seem rather useless citing any book as it might only be available to readers in the country of the editor who cites the book.

Furthermore what evidence can you present to show "Google determines what material is available to you based on the copyright laws of your country" ... Thx ... talknic (talk) 01:58, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

All books for non-US readers. Evidence: [13] [14] [15] [16]. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:39, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Nikkimaria - Thx. It applies to ALL books, so please read my preceding post "If on all books, it would seem rather useless citing any book as it might only be available to readers in the country of the editor who cites the book." ... talknic (talk) 20:20, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree; I was simply providing the evidence you requested. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:31, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Nikkimaria - OK. Again, thx ... talknic (talk) 05:05, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Harvard Citation style would read the cite as "Biger 2005, p. 173." FWiW, Bzuk (talk) 15:01, 25 November 2011 (UTC).

Bzuk - Unless the reader finds a hard copy, it proves exactly nothing and leaves the reader less informed than '1 page matching' "search text" 'in this book' ... talknic (talk) 23:01, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

It would seem simplest to link to the "summary page" for the book, and let readers/other editors do any searches for themselves. By all means give a short quote from the search results (making clear that you got the quote from the Google search results, not from a hardcopy or preview of the book itself), as that will help make it clear what you are referencing, but linking to search results themselves is just messy. Mainly because, as others have pointed out, the results of searches are personalised. Provide the data to allow people to do the search themselves, and leave it at that, is the best advice I can come up with right now. Carcharoth (talk) 10:56, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

• talknic, regarding deep text searching. Here is the wrong way: go to google books, load one of Benjamin Valentino's books on genocide, deep text search communist mass-killing, cite that page for the existence of communist mass-killing. The problem here is that Valentino uses that text string as a descriptive phrase, not as a sociological term. The right way: load the Valentino text, deep text search communist mass-killing, read the entire chapter in which it appears, realise that Valentino is using the string of text descriptively, and that this isn't a sociological category. In the first case, of pure deep text searching then citation, the editor did not actually read what they were citing. We have to read what we cite, which means at a minimum reading the lowest level coherent unit of a text. In the second case, the editor reads the text they're citing and gets it right. That's why we don't cite off deep text searching alone: we might deep text search to find what we need to read, but after searching, we read that portion of the text (and any other portions necessary for a correct citation, like terms and definitions, or occasionally methodology or theory sections). Fifelfoo (talk) 00:15, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - Show WP:policy for your notions on deep text search/ing ... thx.

The only thing I can find on "deep text search" and/or "deep text searching" are your notions

WP:VERIFY criteria is to show a cited passage exists. How one finds a source is completely irrelevant ... talknic (talk) 01:39, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:V itself, "The word "source" in Wikipedia has three meanings: the work itself (a document, article, paper, or book), … Base articles on … sources …. Source material must have been published …. Sources should directly support the material presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made." Please note the phrase, "the work itself." If you haven't consulted the work they you can't source the text to the work. The work is not a snippet, or a deep text search. Would you like to indicate the articles on which you have used deep text searching without actually reading the material you cite, so I can examine them in detail? Fifelfoo (talk) 02:02, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - The 'quote/citation' must be in the 'work' .. WP:VERIFY does not require 'quoting/citing' the whole 'work', only what one 'cites/quotes' in the article from the 'work' is required to be in the 'work'.

"If you haven't consulted the work " you wouldn't know what to cite/quote from the 'work' or what page or the title or the author or the year or publisher or the surrounding text.

"Would you like to indicate the articles on which you have used deep text searching without actually reading the material you cite, so I can examine them in detail?" I have never used your mythical 'deep text searching' method, whatever it is, to either find or quote/cite in an article

AGAIN: Policies please and some evidence of this Google copyright filtering ... thx ... talknic (talk) 05:43, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I second Fifelfoo's request for specific examples from articles. Especially on topics like the ones used in the examples starting this section. That, combined with the tendency of Talknic not to accept anything being said here unless it is part of Wikipedia policy, sets off lots of red flags for me. Practice and debate about sourcing should drive policy, not the other way around. Or to put that another way: just because something is not mentioned in Wikipedia policy doesn't mean it isn't valid. Wikipedia policy can't be an exhaustive description of every possibility, and when debating things like this, you need to be able to interpret the spirit (intent) of the policy, not the letter (literal interpretation of what it says). Carcharoth (talk) 02:19, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Carcharoth - "I second Fifelfoo's request for specific examples from articles. Especially on topics like the ones used in the examples" ... Is there something peculiar to Israel about using the search facility dialogue 1 page matching " yadda yadda " in this book.? It works the same for items not specifically involving Israel

"the tendency of Talknic not to accept anything being said here unless it is part of Wikipedia policy," = you can't cite any policies. Odd that policy reigns supreme when the shoe is on the other foot

"Practice and debate about sourcing should drive policy, not the other way around." Odd...this IS debate, Perhaps you missed that small fact ... talknic (talk) 05:43, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to cite single pages. But you should be reading more than a single page in a work before citing it. If you are citing based on deep text searching all works for a phrase you wish to support, then you are pushing a POV associated with demonstrating that phrase, rather than reflecting in an encyclopaedic way on the appropriate synthesis of highest quality sources. Deep text searching to provide specific citations would run afoul of WP:WEIGHT and WP:MEDRS for two cases. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - "But you should be reading more than a single page in a work before citing it. " WP:policy? Thx

"If you are citing based on deep text searching..." What is it? You are the ONLY person in Wikipedia using the phrase. Where is the WP:Policy. Thx

"...for a phrase you wish to support, then you are pushing a POV associated with demonstrating that phrase" the same could be said for ANY citation from ANY Reliable (or unreliable) Source.

"Deep text searching to provide specific citations would run afoul of WP:WEIGHT" Odd, WP:WEIGHT says NO THING about your "deep text searching". Nor does WP:WEIGHT say how one can or cannot find Secondary Sourced information

"... and WP:MEDRS.." says NO THING about your "deep text searching" . NIL ZIP NADA ZILCH!!! ... talknic (talk) 06:52, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

If you want to keep up IDHT behaviour, expect to be treated as if you are disrupting the encyclopaedic project. WEIGHT says, "Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views. … Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." If you cannot see the relevance of POV pushing by searching google books for "A phrase that I like" and then citing the result, then you need to develop your citation skills. Similarly, MEDRS says,

Individual primary sources should not be cited or juxtaposed so as to "debunk" or contradict the conclusions of reliable secondary sources, unless the primary source itself directly makes such a claim. Synthesis of published material that advances a position is a form of original research and should be avoided in Wikipedia articles. Controversies or areas of uncertainty in medicine should be illustrated with reliable secondary sources describing the varying viewpoints. The use and presentation of primary sources should also respect Wikipedia's policies on undue weight; that is, primary sources favoring a minority opinion should not be aggregated or presented devoid of context in such a way as to undermine proportionate representation of expert opinion in a field.

I suggest that you reflect upon how aiming to force sources to say what an editor wants them to say is fundamentally unencyclopaedic practice. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:01, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - I suggest you stick to the subject. Nothing you wrote is relevant to whether or not the Search facility text saying 1 page matching "whatever yadda yadda whatever" in this book is a viable way of showing a statement/citation/quote exists. Such a statement/citation/quote could reflect either or even both sides of an argument

As for IDHT behaviour, it is you who have made unproven assertions A) about "deep text searching", B) towards obligations to read the whole page before citing anything, C) an unsupported notion about Google filtering depending on countries' copyright laws and; D) now you're completely off topic citing WP:WEIGHT & WP:MEDRS on issues that have NOTHING to do with the actual discussion ... talknic (talk) 07:45, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The biggest problem with relying on any single, brief, de-contextualized bit of material is that you may miss important bits. Anyone with any brains will recognize the problem of the selective quotation: "The US Constitution says 'Congress shall make no law'", right? How about "The Bible says 'There is no God'"? These phrases do appear in these documents, but the context completely changes them: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" and "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God'." If you only read the snippet view, you may seriously misrepresent the source.

Even if you don't misrepresent the source as saying "X" when it actually says "not X", you won't be using the source in the most effective manner, which involves first reading the source, and second figuring out what ideas in it should be included in Wikipedia. At best, you'll be doing second-rate work of first figuring out what you want to say, and second seeing whether any reliable-sounding source could be named as support. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing - The issue is NOT using the Snippet View at all. Instead using the dialogue provided by the search facility saying 1 page matching "whatever yadda yadda whatever" in this book, specifically to show the reader that the citation/quote/statement does exist in a WP:RS Source. Many references/sources show the reader absolutely NOTHING AT ALL unless they lay hands on a hard copy

If an editor has a hard copy to hand and; has read the whole book and; has formulated a valid WP:NPOV edit citing that book and; there are only Snippet Views available on line, one can show readers that the citation does exist by using the expanded dialogue provided by the search facility, rather than a truncated Snippet View ... talknic (talk) 08:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

It appears to me that users Carcharoth and WhatamIdoing share my deep concerns about using deep text searching and failure to read sources prior to using them. I believe that I'm being trolled and baited by a user whose behaviour is IDHT. As such I do not believe that I need to interact with that user any more in this discussion, as their behaviour is disruptive due to IDHT. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - Odd.. they haven't mentioned "deep text searching". WhatamIdoing appears not to have understood the issue re using only the search facility dialogue and NOT the Snippet View

"..and failure to read sources prior to using them" Do you honestly believe one can make up a dialogue of about seventy words and have it show up in a book word perfect, then use it as a reference? Furthermore, AFAIK nothing from this discussion has been used in an article except the sources which tell the reader NOTHING unless they find a hard copy, which is completely un-informative to an online reader.

"I believe that I'm being trolled and baited by a user whose behaviour is IDHT" The record shows you're the editor who has failed to support your assertions ... talknic (talk) 09:43, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Odd, I thought I began with the words "The biggest problem with relying on any single, brief, de-contextualized bit of material..."—any, as in any, not just the particular brief, de-contextualized bits of material seen in snippet view.

Oh, wait, I did begin with those words. Perhaps you didn't read what I wrote? Or perhaps Fifelfoo is right, and you're having trouble believing that my comment means what I said. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing - Perhaps you didn't read what I wrote about context and this only being proof of existence. Not research ... talknic (talk) 22:11, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

A thought from the gallery: why I use snippet views and link to them. First, unlike English, Google is not bothering with seeking copyright agreement in other languages, so they make those book snippeted much more often than not (for example, over 99% of Polish books post-1923 are snippet or no preview). Occasionally, even tiny snippets may be useful, for example, if one wants to show a rare spelling or a simple fact ("X was born in 19XX in Y"). Still, snippet views are useful for certain facts, and with some skills and understanding of a google system, it is possible to improve a snippet into a full page view (basically, be able to get the text of an entire page). Now, I can see why we may want to ask for quotes (as searching for them can lead to verification, whereas snippet link is a dead link). That said, please note that it is going above and beyond our usual practices; we accept regular book references without a quote. Of course, snippet or no, each book reference should have a page reference, which I believe we do require. If this is provided, a link to a snippet or even a no preview book is fine, if not very informative. I really do not see what this fuss is about... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 04:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I would not want to encourage external links to any commercial website that was "not very informative". IMO this includes both snippet and no preview links to Google Books. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing - The examples I gave in the beginning [17] ... [18] give the readers no indication whatsoever that a citation/quote/statement exists unless they lay hands on a hard copy. They're not informative at all. In your opinion are they OK? Yes? No?

However, the dialogue (not the Snippet View) provided by the search facility saying 1 page matching "whatever yadda yadda whatever" in this book is informative, can be bigger than the Snippet View, can provide context depending on the point and shows readers that the citation/quote/statement exists ... talknic (talk) 08:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Look, fundamentally you are still missing the main point here, which is that both 'snippet' views and 'search dialogue' results are sloppy approaches to sourcing articles, a 'first attempt' which always needs to be followed up and consolidated. When you make an edit and put your name to some text you have added to Wikipedia, you are essentially saying to our readers "I have a copy of this source and have read the article, or this page, or the chapter or the whole book, and based on that, I am saying this about the topic covered by this article". However, if in fact, you are saying "I Googled some phrase and found this result in this book and am putting it here as a source for this statement in this article", that is something completely different. And no, please don't ask for a quote from policy. This is standard practice in source-based writing, actually having access to the sources you are citing. If you went to a publisher with a book you had written, and the editor asked you what the basis was for a statement you had made in that book, and you replied "I found it in a Google Books snippet", you would be laughed out of the building in an instant. If you want to write to the highest standards on Wikipedia, you need to have access to the sources you are using, even if that means going to a library, buying an expensive book, or asking someone in another country to go to a library. Carcharoth (talk) 23:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Carcharoth -- "I found it in a Google Books snippet" Uh? Fundamentally you are missing the point entirely, because I haven't mentioned 'finding' anything in a Google Books snippet. "If you went to a publisher " Uh? We're talking about proof of existence in Wikipedia, an ONLINE encyclopedia.

The issue is: 'proof of existence' of a passage in a book, whether found by reading a hard copy or by seeing it cited elsewhere or by a Book Search. The issue is NOT how it is found.

One could leave the reader ignorant until they go lay their hands on a hard copy a la: [19] and [20] neither of which tell the reader anything what-so-ever unless the reader lays eyes on a hard copy. Neither prove the existence of the passages they cite unless the reader lays eyes on a hard copy. This is considered OK. Yes?

An editor could treat any example, which does exist in a book, does have an ISBN, known author, Publisher, page number, is WP:RS, like the prior two examples. Make the reader go get hard copy and it would be OK. Yes?

However, wishing to take advantage of the INTERNET, one ought surely be allowed to instantly prove the passage exists by using the Search Facility results text i.e., 1 page matching "whatever yadda yadda whatever" in this book (NOT the Snippet View) ... talknic (talk) 13:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Unless it's something very simple like a birth date in a dictionary of biography, it probably isn't a good idea to give source URLs like [21], because they may lead to the unwanted impression that this is a valid way of researching sources. It's better to just give the ISBN. It's possible to have ISBNs go to the corresponding Google Books entry when clicked upon via preferences, and readers or other editors can verify the quote there. --JN466 18:05, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Jayen466 -- It is NOT about researching. It is about showing that a source does exist AFTER the research has been done, from for example, a hard copy

Furthermore if I wanted to show only how far Israel's second invasion of Lebanon went in June 1982. The text (not the Snippet View) shows it to have been "all the way to Beirut". It is completely in context, not misleading and the citation is indeed shown to be in the book [22] even though the Snippet View itself doesn't show that much

"It's better to just give the ISBN" [23] has an ISBN. After going to the ISBN page[24], the reader then has to go further to a copy of the book [25] only to find the citation is actually part of the books own publicity spiel ::::::[26] has an ISBN number. In order to find the passage referred to, the reader has to first go to the ISBN number[27], then go to the book [28] only to find page 173 isn't on line

In both instances, the reader has had to visit three pages and are not much better off than where they began ... talknic (talk)

• I share the concerns expressed by several editors here about the approach to source research. Now, I know that by using iterative searches it is often possible to establish the text for an entire book page; by changing the search string, each time you get a few more words added at the end, etc. However, unless it concerns a very simple case, like sourcing the birth date and educational history of a person in a reputable dictionary of biography, this sort of thing can go really badly wrong. I once cited something for fact, having only seen snippets, which another editor advised me (the same day, luckily) was actually meant as dry humour. That was due to my not having seen the context, not having understood that what I was citing was a book of humorous essays. I was deeply embarrassed. It was a very salutary experience! I remember another passage about Scientology I found once which asserted various things as fact that I had not been able to verify elsewhere, but something gave me pause for thought; and upon further digging and investigation, I realised that the passage I'd found was part of a four-page statement to Congress made by a Scientology celebrity. Even if I had then chosen to use the material, it would have affected the correct way of presenting it in the article (i.e. with attribution and the context identified). So I agree with Fifelfoo and others above that you need at least to have access to a chapter to be sure you are not falling prey to confirmation bias, that you are not being misled by the words you have found, and that you in turn don't end up misleading readers and other editors. Online libraries like Questia can help with doing more in-depth follow-up research and are cheaper than buying a bunch of books. Sometimes you can get lucky with a combination of Google Books preview and Amazon, which has Look Inside enabled for many books. But it can't be emphasised enough that an isolated Google Books snippet can really be worse than worthless, introducing errors that are very hard to spot and remove, because of the superficial appearance that the statement is verifiable. It's not a research method anyone should use. If in doubt, buy the book. --JN466 17:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Jayen466 - It has nothing what so ever to do with source research. It is about showing on line readers that a citation exists, without them having to lay their eyes on a hard copy.

"by changing the search string, each time you get a few more words added at the end" Er no. By reading a hard copy for example, you can type, in "quotations", an already known paragraph from that hard copy into a Book search engine, along with the title of the book.

If it comes up with only a Snippet View or even a preview or even a whole free book, one could cite it like this instance [29] and/or this instance [30], a method which is already acceptable according to WP:policy ... Alas, it gives the reader no indication whatsoever that a citation/quote/statement actually exists unless they lay their eyes on a hard copy.

OR

One could further inform the reader immediately, being online, that a passage does indeed exist even if there is only a Snippet View, not by using the Snippet View, but by using the resulting message 1 page matching "whatever yadda - whole paragraph in quotes - yadda whatever" in this book. It shows the existence of the citation in that book, WITHOUT looking at the Snippet View and WITHOUT them having to lay their eyes on a hard copy.

"I was deeply embarrassed." - Yes well you might be. Alas, it has nothing to do with this discussion, where the research has already been done with for example, a hard copy and the purpose is only to show a passage or that a whole paragraph does exist for online readers (the only kind on Wikipedia)

"I agree with Fifelfoo and others above that you need at least to have access to a chapter " - A)Under what WP:policy? B) Please read what the discussion is about. Proving the existence of a known passage in a source, not finding a passage using Snippet View.

" If in doubt, buy the book." - You haven't read the discussion before chipping in? The two examples [31] and [32] are acceptable. Yet they tell the reader LESS than the Search Engine facility which gives the message 1 page matching "whatever yadda - whole paragraph in quotes - yadda whatever" in this book

"an isolated Google Books snippet can really be worse than worthless" 1 page matching "whole paragraph in quotes" in this book is NOT the snippet. It has already been found for example, in a hard copy and the notion is to prove it does indeed exist ... talknic (talk)

OK, I think I'm understanding what you are saying. You are trying to pre-empt objections to a statement by providing a direct search-quote link (i.e. a link that searches directly for a quote). My answer there is that you simply don't need to do this. You only need to go that far when you think something is likely to be challenged. In most cases, readers and editors will accept that editors have truthfully represented the sources used. If this turns out not to be the case, then editors that misrepresent sources should be questioned about that and sanctioned if it is a deliberate deception. If you think something is likely to be challenged, include a quote with the citation. The combination of the quote and the citation means any future reader or editor will be able to find and verify the quote using the same method you did. You can provide that link for them as a courtesy (effectively hand-holding them through the searching process), but it is not necessary. All you have to do is provide sufficient citation information to enable someone to verify the statement. You don't have to provide the most convenient and quickest method of verification. And in any case, genuine verification still involves more than checking that the quote is correct. A proper verification process involves obtaining access to the entire page or chapter of the book in its proper context. Just as sourcing requires access to the context, so verification also requires that access. There are no short-cuts, I'm afraid. Links of the sort you are proposing help verify that a quote is correct, but still don't provide the context needed to judge whether the quote is being used correctly or not. Carcharoth (talk) 02:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Carcharoth -- Indeed, one does not have to provide the most convenient and quickest method of verification. But by using the 'Result Line text', one can! Both verifying existence and saving the reader finding a hard copy. "A proper verification process involves obtaining access to the entire page or chapter of the book in its proper context " Please show WP:Policy

"still don't provide the context needed to judge whether the quote is being used correctly or not" I've already give instances where it CAN be used to provide context and;

[33] shows something which is only from the preface page, nothing to support it at all, and:

[34] goes to a page that is un-available on line. NEITHER complies with your own criteria ... talknic (talk) 05:05, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Talknic, you ask, "A)Under what WP:policy [is it necessary to at least have access to a chapter]?" I am not aware that this is presently mentioned in any policy. But do you disagree with it? --JN466 11:49, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Jayen466 - A) Quite, there is no WP:policy B) Do I disagree? Yes. All one needs to have access to in order to make a valid edit to an article, is enough information from a reliable verifiable source, to put a point in context ... talknic (talk) 15:17, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

And here we come to the nub of the matter. It is not possible to generalise how much of a source's context you need to see to put the source in context. It can range from very little (for a birth date or year) to a lot (for a nuanced argument spread over several pages), to an entire book (if anyone is foolish enough to try and cite something based on a summary of an entire book). What this means is that the editor adding the original material, and later editors and readers, all need to judge for themselves how much context they need to see in order to fully verify the material added, with this verification being carried out using the source provided. Most of the time, the original editor won't see the need to provide detailed context, and will provide a reference, and will trust that the reader and other editors will, on looking up that reference, understand or read the necessary context. It is only when an addition and its source are questioned that more detail is needed. I think it is at this point that talknic is suggesting to add more detail (sometimes pre-emptively) by using the 'results dialogue' (which has talknic says can be adjusted to provide more detail than a snippet view provides). This may be useful at times, but I think this is a technique best left for article talk pages, where editors can discuss in more detail how best to present the matter under discussion. In most cases, it will be simpler to provide a quote and citation and trust the reader and other editors to realise that they need to look up the full source to get any needed context. This happens all the time on Wikipedia when people assume good faith about offline sources. In summary, talknic's proposed method of getting round the limitations of snippet view has some use, but more for talk pages than actual use in references in articles. Trying to lead readers by the hand to every last quote and text used in sources is ultimately counter-productive. You only need to do this when a source is challenged, and sometimes not even then (if the challenge is frivolous). Carcharoth (talk) 23:43, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Carcharoth - "It is not possible to generalise how much of a source's context you need to see to put the source in context. " Yes, as I've been saying. BTW this is yours is it not? ... "A proper verification process involves obtaining access to the entire page or chapter of the book in its proper context. You've now turned 180 degrees. "(if anyone is foolish enough to try and cite something based on a summary of an entire book)" Again, as I've said and; again, this is yours ... "It would seem simplest to link to the "summary page" for the book" another 180! Maintaining good faith becomes harder and harder.

"..it will be simpler to provide a quote and citation and 'trust' the reader and other editors to realise that they need to look up the full source to get any needed context" A complicated and un-necessary waste of time when, in appropriate instances, one could show them immediately via the 'Result Line Text'.

"...happens all the time on Wikipedia when people assume good faith about offline sources" Indeed it does. The two examples I've given of seemingly OK sources lead the reader NO-WHERE on-line, even if they did check. In those two instances, 1) [35] where the reference is citing the preface of the book and not actual reasoned information, is hardly valid according to your own criteria of "obtaining access to the entire page or chapter of the book in its proper context" but apparently it's OK? In the 2nd example [36], if the editor had the hard copy, they forgot to cite it. Had they actually cited something, the 'Result Line Text' of the 'Preview' (in this instance) could show readers immediately whether or not a citation actually existed even though page 137 is not available On Line. Instead, readers must source a hard copy.

"..talknic's proposed method of getting round the limitations of snippet view has some use, but more for talk pages than actual use in references in articles. " A) it's not an attempt to get around anything, it's an attempt to avail readers of information immediately rather than having them dash off a source a hard copy and; B) why limit it to Talk pages? C) "Trying to lead readers by the hand to every last quote and text used in sources is ultimately counter-productive." Uh? That is NOT what I'm suggesting. Seems you're just making it up, which stretches the notion of good faith even further.

The 'Result Line Text' is a wasted resource ... talknic (talk) 06:51, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Instead of claiming that I've switched 180 degrees, a more charitable interpretation would be that on consideration your arguments have started to persuade me that the 'Result Line Text' method has some limited use. But only where an editor has access to the hard copy and wants to demonstrate to others that don't have access to the hard copy that something exists. There are some editors out there who will not believe that another editor has access to the whole source and is cherry-picking their quotes based on deep-text searching and falling prey to confirmation bias. One way to avoid this is to quote from any part of the source when asked. If the 'Result Line Text' can be used to demonstrate that such quotes are accurate, this is good. But I'm still wary of using this method in actual references, if only because there must be a reason that snippet views are limited and this method seems to be circumventing that. In other words, my stance now is that this is a useful tool for discussions between editors, but you don't need to drag readers into that process. It is the job of the editors to produce something that readers can to a certain extent take on trust. You said "attempt to avail readers of information immediately rather than having them dash off a source a hard copy" - I think you are over-estimating what readers do. Most readers just read articles unquestioningly and it is editors who tend to go to the effort of getting a hard copy and arguing over what an article says. If you replace 'readers' with 'editors' in what you say, I would agree with you. As a reader (putting my editing hat to one side for the moment), I'm comforted that I can follow and check citations if needed, but it is impractical to follow and check every citation, so a certain amount of trust is involved. Anyway, here is a practical question that I hope you can answer: do you know the limit of the size of the text you can quote using this 'Result Line Text' method? Using the examples above (I presume you have access to the full sources) can you extend the quotes a few words either side? Carcharoth (talk) 08:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Carcharoth - A more 'charitable attitude' would be to try to understand the suggestion in the first place...

"the 'Result Line Text' method has some limited use. But only where an editor has access to the hard copy and wants to demonstrate to others that don't have access to the hard copy that something exists." Precisely.

"snippet views are limited and this method seems to be circumventing that" No. As I have said before, the Result Line Text can be also used for pages not available in Preview. The editor must have the EXACT text to get ANY result via the 'Result Line Text' in both Snippet View and Preview in order to prove a statement/passage/text/whatever does exist. The edit they make must still comply with WP:Policy, context, etc. It is not 'circumventing' anything. This Talk pages about policy. Here is where I presume one talks about having policy changed for the better.

"a certain amount of trust is involved" This Preview example[37], shows how that trust 'could' be mis-used. The citation is only part of the book's own publicity spiel. Although un-doubtable true, it has no context, no information, no data. It's just a statement in the book, about the book and; were it to be questioned does not in any way fulfill WP criteria. The 'Result Line Text' shows it does exist on page 5. But it's not available. One cannot read the whole page on line.

"Using the examples above (I presume you have access to the full sources) can you extend the quotes a few words either side? " I don't have hard copy of any of the examples and have no intention of using any of the information in them. They're examples only for demonstration. Their subject matter is irrelevant to the principal. The principal can be used for ANY POV, ANY subject. Policy covers relevance, verifiability, reliable sources, accuracy. It could come from a penciled note on a page in some library book, as long as it does exist, is relevant, in context, can be verified as being in a reliable secondary source ... talknic (talk) 07:49, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

---

Summary @ 04:31, 30 November 2011: Fifelfoo, Carcharoth, Jayen466, have insisted on focusing on editor/s researching/finding by using Snippet View. However, the issue/suggestion is not 'research or finding', but 'proof of existence' using the 'Result Line text' generated by the Google Book search facility, (not the Snippet View itself).

In respect to copyright/Google and the country/ISP of the reader: Nikkimaria has shown that copyright laws of various countries can make ANY referenced book with some form of copyright issue, unavailable to some readers depending on their location. It is not only applicable to the text of the 'Result Line' of a 'Snippet View'

Using a chunky 'Result Line' (more than the 'Snippet View' itself shows) can A) show existence B) could give either POV or both POVs C) Can give more than is required by WP:RS wherein a source can be provided, but in the end, the reader must dash off to view a hard copy to see if a citation/passage/statement/convention/ relating to what an editor writes, does in fact exist and; that the writer has accurately conveyed it's meaning and is not referring to a page such as here A)[38] where the citation is only part of the book's own publicity spiel on the preface page (Page 5) and; here [39] only to find page 173 isn't on line. In both instances they must find a hard copy to be better informed

Finally: the Result Line text 1 page matching "whole paragraph in quotes" in this book supplied by Google Book Search can be a valuable additional tool showing information beyond what is required by WP:VERIFY. When referenced properly, it can also contain any existing ISBN, Author, Publisher, Year, type of work ... talknic (talk) 05:05, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Fifelfoo, Carcharoth, and Jayen466. I would also suggest that snippet view cannot show proof of existence of a source, since a little burp of text in isolation by itself cannot serve as a reliable source--the proof is proof of the blurb. We're not required to show proof of existence in any case, but rather to provide a reference, from which a reader can gain enough information to be able to track down the source and read it. I personally believe pointing to snippet view is rather sloppy and suggest that the snippet alone might be the source. Do you see the points we are trying to make? --Nuujinn (talk) 12:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Nuujinn - you agree .. to ignore the actual suggestion, which is: NOT TO USE the Snippet View. "I would also suggest that snippet view cannot show proof of existence of a source" The example I gave does, in the 'Result Line text', which gives more than the 'Snippet View' itself

"Do you see the points we are trying to make?" Yes, you're attempting to make points by completely missing the point ... talknic (talk) 15:05, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm just not convinced, and at this point, there's no hope of you convincing me. There might rarely be limited value to such links, in IAR-worthy cases. It is not, however, anything even remotely like a best practice and IMO should not only be "not-encouraged", but actually discouraged.

I suspect the underlying problem is that you are uncomfortable with WP:PAYWALL and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Cost. I'm not. I don't care if readers have to click three times, or if they have to go to the library, or if they have to buy a book. I'd far rather that they had to go to this level of trouble than to give them convenient, but de-contextualized and potentially misleading quotations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not convinced either. Talknic, neither snippet view nor result line text provides sufficient context for one to determine if a source is accurately reflected in the article. I'm not ignoring your suggestion, I just think that pointing to either one is, in my opinion, a bad idea. Using this example you provide I see little different between the snippet and the text result, and no context in which to place the statement, and I think the context is very important. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Nuujinn -- The Snippet View is 54 words and has an incomplete sentence. The Result Line Text is 79 words and completes the sentence, and you see little different?

"and no context in which to place the statement" What article and what statement? I haven't even suggested a statement for the article. It applies to any relevant statement within any article.

For example: if the statement was to be '[???] pushed all the way to [???] in the second invasion of [???]' It's A) not shown in the Snippet View but; B) it is shown in the Result Line Text and; C) it is in context with the statement ... talknic (talk) 06:52, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing - the underlying issue is that talknic fishes google books for sentences that support his preconceived POV and tries to use the result in articles (in the very contentious topic area of the Arab-Israeli conflict, no less). It's not even a matter of a reader not being able to verify the source, talknic himself has not even read the book, a single chapter, a single page, or even a whole paragraph from the book. I tried explaining to him at length why this is unacceptable, but as you can probably see from the above discussion, that's not an easy thing to do. I'm happy to see that a group of uninvolved editors agree with what I told him.

FYI, this discussion will continue indefinitely as long as someone responds to talknic's posts, so I shall now bid you all farewell and remove this page from my watchlist. Good luck. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 03:52, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

NMMNG - The issue is in fact: informing readers with a means available online. Rather than them having to source hard copies of every book only showing a Snippet View or books with a Preview but not all pages, by using the Result Line Text accompanying a Snippet View or limited Preview. I've demonstrated, the Result Line Text can show more than the Snippet View itself. Anyone with a hard copy of a source or with knowledge of a text can use it, not as research, but to prove existence where there is only a Snippet View OR in books with a limited Preview. It can apply to ANY POV and ANY subject. False accusations are not the stuff of good faith, you're really stretching it to the max

False: "the underlying issue is that talknic fishes google books for sentences that support his preconceived POV " The notion of using the Result Line Text can apply to ANY POV and ANY subject. Never the less, it is odd the record shows your main complaint has been the use of Primary Sources. None of which are my preconceived POV. In fact you've even accused me of using Primary Sources when I haven't, which seems to indicate you've not even bothered to look on those occassions.

False: "..and tries to use the result in articles (in the very contentious topic area of the Arab-Israeli conflict, no less)." The examples are related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, however, the notion of using the Result Line Text can apply to ANY POV and ANY subject.

False: "It's not even a matter of a reader not being able to verify the source," The topic is verifying a source by using the Result Line Text accompanying a Snippet View. The example I gave verifies the source. It can apply to ANY POV and ANY subject, to prove existence.

False: "talknic himself has not even read the book, a single chapter, a single page, or even a whole paragraph from the book" Odd I was able to cite far more than the Snippet View in the example and despite what you're trying to infer, one is not required by WP:Policy to have read "the book, a single chapter, a single page" in order to make a valid edit, as long as the edit is within Wikipedia criteria for inclusion.

Gloating about uninvolved editors agreeing with you is hilarious. You've actually given no rationale here as to why you object. How can they agree with you? Nor could they, unless they knew where your 'explaining to him at length' took place and followed that discussion. In which case they're very likely to be involved?

The editors you agree with, (without you having given any rationale here what so ever), have focused on 'finding/research' rather than 'proof of existence' after having already 'found/researched', which misses the point entirely

This is tops the bizarre list "I tried explaining to him at length why this is unacceptable" This is Talk Citing sources. It's where one takes the first steps towards possible changes in policy in respect to citing sources. In this instance to better service readers through an already existing and overlooked mechanism.

A personal attack based on false accusations doesn't qualify anyone to put their hand up in respect to consensus against at a later date

Wikipedia is not the place for personal vendettas. It would behoove you to stop. Thx ... talknic (talk) 14:57, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

@talknic: What is actually the ultimate purpose of you arguments here?

• If you want to argue that authors can or should you partially write article content based on Google snippets, the answer is clearly no. That is not is not acceptable in WP as various people already told. You may personally disagree, however you won't convince anybody else of that and WP won't change its standards/requirements according to your personal preference shared by nobody else. You can consider that as given, hence there is no need for a neverending discussion on tat subject.
• As far as the citation itself is concerned. In any case the Google book link no matter whether it is full preview, restricted preview or a snippet is nothing more than a convenience link enabling readers and other editor a quick convenient way to verify/check content and citations. But the required citations is always the book itself and nothing else, in particular no Google Books link. Now if there is a dispute or concern whether a certain citation actually the supports the content it is used for, then this needs to discussed and solved on the articles talk page. Now if the distrust between authors is that great, that they do not trust the accuracy of a quote from or context summary of a source given by some editor, then in some cases a google snippet might help as everybody can read that by himself. But for that it is sufficient to provide such a snippet on the talk page in the case of an dispute.
• A convenience link for easy verification makes only sense, if it indeed does allow a (real) verification. But as pointed out to you by others already, a snippet usually does not allow a real verification (due to the lack of context) and hence it makes little sense to provide it as a convenience link. In addition not allowing Google snippets as convenience links might help to keep people from getting the idea, that you actually can compile article content based on snippets.

So in short if you think you need a snippet to convince other editors of the accuracy of a piece of content (and its citation) you can do that on the discussion page. But compiling content based on snippets is to be avoided and so are convenience links not really allowing a proper verification (hence no snippets in the article's citations).--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Kmhkmh - "So in short.." you haven't read much of what I've been advocating. The record above shows numerous instances, it has nothing to do with research or writing content. The ultimate purpose is proof of existence only, where the editor already has hard copy or access to information (maybe through an expensive subscription or in fact any means at their disposal) and the edit fulfills WP:Policy on context etc, so readers don't have to source hard copy every time there's a limited Preview or truncated Snippet View. The editor must already have the exact text in order to get the 'Result Line Text'. It's the utilization of an ignored resource the Internet offers (Wikipedia is OnLine only). It applies to ANY POV. ANY subject.

WP:VERIFY already allows content to be written without any OnLine evidence whatsoever: Example in limited Preview [40] has an ISBN number. In order to find the passage referred to, the reader has to first go to the ISBN number[41], then go to the book [42] only to find page 173 isn't on line Unless the editor has included an "exact quotation" in the article reference, the reader can only guess what exactly the original text said. It is a complete waste of time and has NOT proven anything at all.

Even though the preview page is not available, if the editor gave an "exact quotation", the 'Result Line Text' would inform 'the reader': 1 page matching "the exact quotation" in this book. Same applies for Snippet View, the 'Result Line Text' would inform them: 1 page matching "the exact quotation" in this book.

Context Example in Snippet View: (I have no intention of ever using) If an editor wanted to show how far Israel's second invasion of Lebanon went in June 1982. The 'Result Line Text' (not the Snippet View) shows it to have been "all the way to Beirut". It is completely in context, not misleading and the citation is indeed shown to be in the book [43] even though the 'Snippet View' itself doesn't show the completed sentence.

[44] has an ISBN. After going to the ISBN page[45], the reader then has to go further to a copy of the book [46] only to find the citation is actually part of the books own publicity spiel. The statement exists. It gives no context, no facts. NADA!!! Is it considered verifiable? Apparently. However, it's a complete waste of time and; hardly qualifies under current WP:Policies

"You may personally disagree, however you won't convince anybody else of that and WP won't change its standards/requirements according to your personal preference shared by nobody else." Once the earth was flat, by consensus. Wikipedia in it's early days would be a failure, by consensus. Reading back through the Talk pages on policy, consensus changed, not however through people failing to read other folk's suggestions CARE FULLY ... talknic (talk) 06:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

And before we go through this for a fourth time: it doesn't make any bloody difference whether you read half a paragraph through creative use of text search or through what Google calls "Snippet View". Kmhkmh's comments apply to any form of extracting tiny bits of a source. If you can't read the source—meaning at least a whole page in a book—then you don't actually know enough about its contents to be citing it. For all you know, some of those deep-searched sentences are introduced with words to the effect of "Here is an example of a particularly stupid idea that no serious scholar gives any credence to any longer, but was popular among the ill-informed two decades ago:" WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:01, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing - "If you can't read the source—meaning at least a whole page in a book—then you don't actually know enough about its contents to be citing it." Under what WP:Policy must one read a whole page of a book in order to make an relevant valid edit? Cite it... thx

WP:VERIFY already allows reference to sources that are only available through hard copy. WP:VERIFY already allows reference to sources that have limited Preview. Neither can be verified OnLine.

In the two examples I gave, one leads to a page which is not available in Preview. The other [47] leads to the preface spiel of a book. All they prove online is, the books exist. Were the editors to have provided exact quotes, readers could have seen, by the 'Result Line Text' that there was (or was not) 1 page matching "the exact quotation" in this book. The use of the 'Result Line Text' is applicable to both, Previews where the page is not available and to pages that only have Snippet Views. The edit itself must still fulfill WP:Policy for a valid, relevant, in context edit.

Your attitude is bizarre BTW ... talknic (talk) 06:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

We apparently haven't found it necessary yet to tell editors that they need to read the sources they're citing. We have occasionally had problems—in one instance that I'm aware of, someone was using deep-search techniques and accidentally quoted a blog reader's comments rather than the book he thought the quotation came from—but so far, editors (except apparently you) seem to accept the value of reading more than one sentence from a book as a matter of common sense. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing -- "so far, editors (except apparently you) seem to accept the value of reading more than one sentence from a book as a matter of common sense" Save your false accusations and snide comments for elsewhere. thx ... talknic (talk) 03:59, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

---

Thanks for everyones input. It's helped shape a more concise manner with which to call an RFC HERE... talknic (talk) 12:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

No page numbers in e-Books ... guidance

For the first time, I'm utilizing an e-book as a source for an article I'm working on. The ebook doesn't supply page numbers, which is a bit disconcerting, since I try to be very scrupulous about my citations. Apparently many e-books dont provide page numbers (Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc). This CITE guideline does not yet address this situation. I looked thru the archives, and there is some discussion from 2010 of this issue ... there is no magic solution, but some editors did mention the possibility of providing a quote fragment in a footnote, so other editors/readers could pinpoint the precise material that the originating editor relied upon for the material. Since e-books will become more and more prevalent in the future, we need to provide some guidance, so I've added the following into the Books section of this guideline:

If the source is an e-book that does not provide page numbers, include the chapter number and consider supplying a quote from the text in a footnote, so readers can find and validate the specific text utilized for the citation.

Feel free to revise or improve, as needed. --Noleander (talk) 03:39, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• The other option is to provide the chapter and paragraph number; or section number and paragraph number, or the initial phrase: "Dogs love Ducks" ¶4. §5¶¶4–14. §§4–5. §"Dogs love ducks…"¶¶"They ran down the hill…"–"…and so ended the life of that mean old man." Fifelfoo (talk) 04:01, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. I guess the general principle is to provide any information that would help readers pinpoint the place you got the material. Maybe this guideline should just include a few more examples, like you give. --Noleander (talk) 04:19, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

See Template talk:Cite book#Citing an e-book. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 08:39, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Neat. I added that guidance into this guideline as footnote #2. As usual, feel free to revise/improve if you see fit. --Noleander (talk) 13:24, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I would not limit this to e-books. I have several books whose publishers declined to supply page numbers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:24, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Help needed with odd footnote behavior

I am doing a peer review of the article Olympus scandal. The footnotes are laid out in an unusual way, and appear to be non-functional. I was wondering if someone could corroborate my observation, and confirm it is not just my browser that is at fault. The problem is this: let's say I want to learn more about footnote #46 " Financial Times, 8 Nov. 2011". I click on the link within the #46 footnote, and my browser jumps down to the References section, but I don't know which one of the dozens of bullets in the References section that matches #46. I believe that this article is trying to use a {{sfn}} approach, but is not using the {{sfn}} template. The sfn template (if it were used) would highlight the target reference in blue. But the cites in Olympus scandal are set up improperly and I see no highlighting. Thanks in advance for any help. --Noleander (talk) 14:42, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

It jumps to the right place, and the highlighting, while convenient, is not required. I don't really see a big problem here. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:19, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Nikkimaria: thanks for the reply. Questions: (1) Are you seeing the References displayed in 1 column or two? (2) How many total references are visible to you after the jump? (3) How did you identify which of the references was the one that corresponded to #46. FYI: In my display, the Refs are shown in 2 columns, and there are about 30 references visible, and I honestly cannot tell which of the 30 is the one that I'm supposed to be looking at. It is not either of the two topmost references. --Noleander (talk) 15:27, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Ahh, I see the problem: it is one of the topmost refs in the two columns ... but I was not able to correlate it: it requires the reader to remember the exact date (?) they read at the footnote, and then compare it with the dates in the References section. Hmmm. I still claim that is unsatisfactory: a typical reader will not (1) know that is supposed to be the topmost; or (2) want to remember and correlate dates. --Noleander (talk) 15:31, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The in-text citations use <ref> tags and link to the shortened citation and highlights them. The shortened citations use HTML links to the full citations and does not highlight them. You could fix this with {{sfn}} if desired.---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:32, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Gadget850: Okay, thanks for the tip. I'll propose that in the Peer Review. Since this approach to footnoting appears to be a very rare situation (this is the first time I've seen it), and I understand what is happening now, I don't see any reason for more analysis on this page. The blue highlighting from sfn makes all the difference in the world! --Noleander (talk) 15:34, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The shortened citations are using work-date styles, where author date is more common. The Citations list starts with author but is ordered by work, which is a bit confusing. And months should not be abbreviated per WP:MONTH. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:44, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The links are all working as designed, I think. However, it has two flaws:

1. Because it does not highlight the "full citation", it's impossible to tell which column the citation is in.
2. Because this citation style is so unusual, it's difficult for even veteran editors to figure out what it's doing or how to fix it.

You could fix both problems by converting to {{sfn}} and {{cite *}} with |ref=harv, but this may change the appearance of both the "full citations" and the short citations. If that's not acceptable for some reason (i.e., there is a local editor who feels strongly that the appearance of these citations needs to be this way) then maybe someone (Gadget?) could add the html code required to highlight the whole citation. This would solve problem (#1) but make problem (#2) worse. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 22:11, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I've just noticed one more thing. Short citations are only useful when citing multiple pages of the same source. These citations don't have page numbers; they are newspaper articles. Why does this article use short citations at all? It adds an additional unnecessary complication. I would recommend converting the article to use simple citations-in-footnotes, with WP:LDR (That is, replacing the short citations inside the {{reflist}} with the full citation they point to.) There are millions of articles with this format, so that would solve problem (#2) above nicely. Also, it would make it unnecessary to use {{cite *}}, which might save some trouble and potential arguments. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 22:25, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The page really shouldn't be converted to anything unless the principal contributor agrees. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you mean "unless there is consensus on the talk page for the change", and I agree this is absolutely necessary. The article in question is under peer review at the moment, so I am assuming that everyone who is interested will be able to comment on any proposed changes. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 04:18, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed that the reference list uses <cite>. Use like this is deprecated on Wikipedia— we will be moving to HTML5 soon where <cite> is only for the title attribute. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:48, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Citations reut20111108fuse and reut20111108fuse are defined twice. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:57, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks to everyone for their invaluable help. I think I have the problem in hand now. Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

RFC - Using the 'quoted text result' generated by Google Books for proof of existence

Often pages aren't available to readers in Preview & Snippet Views are often incomplete. Readers (& editors checking) must find a hard copy to actually verify existence & accuracy of quotes/texts/statements etc. If the editor who made the contribution already has a hard copy or knowledge of "an exact quotation/text/statement", Google books generates a 'quoted text result' thus - // 1 page matching "the exact quotation/text/statement" in this book // (for brevity, let's call it the QTR)

Using a QTR : is not about finding information in order to first make an edit, but proving the existence of an "exact quotation/text/statement". In effect putting the onus on an editor to first have "the exact quotation/text/statement" in order to get a QTR. It is applicable to any POV and any subject, affording readers easy, immediate access to verification of existence where the edit fulfills the other editorial criteria, context, RS, NPOV etc, without the reader (or an editor checking content) having to source hard copy. A QTR can prove existence of "exact quotes/texts/statements et al" on pages not available in Preview. It can also finish off incomplete sentences and 'prove existence of' more than an incomplete Snippet View.

WP:VERIFY already allows referenced sources with a Preview even where relevant pages are un-available online. If an editor has access to "the exact quotation/text/statement etc", they can use the QTR to show it does indeed exist even if the particular Page is not available in Preview, without the reader (or and editor checking) having to source a hard copy.

Example of a reference in Preview (showing the reader nothing): The reference [48] tells us only: Biger, 2005, p. 173. The reader must then go to the Bibliography, where there is an ISBN number [49]. The reader then must go to the book by the ISBN number [50] only to find page 173 isn't on line and as the editor didn't include any quotation/text/statement, the reader can only guess what exactly the original actually says. It is a complete waste of time and, online it hasn't proven anything at all except the book exists, the page isn't available and the reader (or editor checking a source) must find a hard copy to be further informed or verify. Three steps to nothing! ...... Had the editor given "an exact quotation/text/statement" in the reference, the QTR would have immediately informed a reader (or checking editor) : 1 page matching "the exact quotation/text/statement" in this book even though the preview page is not available. Same applies for Snippet View, the QTR would inform them: 1 page matching "the exact quotation/text/statement" in this book.

QTR from a Snippet View : (I have no intention of using the example anywhere BTW) The QTR completes the unfinished text of the Snippet View: [51] An edit using such an example would still need to fulfill WP:Policy in regards to relevance, context etc

Context using the QTR: To the best of my knowledge there is no WP:Policy requiring the reading of whole chapters or pages in order to make a relevant, in context edit. Context is relevant to the point being made. From the QTR in the Snippet View example, if one wanted show the UNIFlL mandate was renewed and extended or that Israel pushed as far as Beirut during the Lebanese war. It is in context, does exist in the source.

Sorry about the length, I hope the issue is understood. This is not an effort to push a POV. (previous discussion) It is an effort to utilize an already available facility to better service readers ... talknic (talk) 13:15, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• Could you rephrase this without the aggression (such as ALL CAPS and atypical punctuation "Three steps to NOTHING! ...... ", and rhetorical case pleading, "To the best of my knowledge,") and ask other editors involved in the discussion above to edit the text of the proposed RFC, before opening an RFC. Doing this is the normal practice in RFCs where the aim is to solicit wider community interest in a topic and thus solidify a broad consensus. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:32, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - Exactly [where] is one required to ask other editors involved in a discussion to edit the text of a proposed RFC? ... talknic (talk)

Wikipedia:RFC point 2. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - RFC point 2? "Before asking outside opinion here, it generally helps to simply discuss the matter on the talk page first. Whatever the disagreement, the first step in resolving a dispute is to talk to the other parties involved." It has been discussed on the Talk page You were involved. All the objectors, as here, failed completely to comprehend the simple fact that the suggestion is not research, not a method of research or even of searching for information on which to make an edit, but verification of the existence of an already researched text/statement/quote. Please address the subject ... talknic (talk) 08:23, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

You didn't discuss the content or phrasing of your proposed RFC before opening it. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:34, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo -- Please "quote" the exact guideline requiring an editor to discuss the content or phrasing of a proposed RFC before opening it .. thx ... talknic (talk) 11:10, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Asked, answered, and IDHT'd apparently. Please go back to mechanical roleplaying games where rules lawyering is tolerated. Consensus is against you. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - (Noted your removed the RFC) It was not answered. The policy you claim exists, says "Before asking outside opinion here, it generally helps to simply discuss 'the matter' on the talk page first". The record shows we discussed 'the matter' in Talk. It does not say discuss the RFC in Talk ... talknic (talk) 04:19, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I... honestly don't understand what's being asked here, either. Is this RFC saying that we should add deep-search links to Google Books, or include explicitly quoted text, for references made to books? Either one seems quite burdensome. Shimgray | talk | 22:55, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Shimgray - "Is this RFC saying that we should add deep-search links" There were no results matching the query. The proposal is: Using the 'quoted text result' generated by Google Books for proof of existence. It applies to books that have: a Preview with relative pages un-available and; books only having a Snippet View. The edit itself must still comply with WP:Policy, verifiability, context, RS, accuracy, Secondary Sources etc

"burdensome" ? See WP:CITE WP:Policy already puts the onus/burden on all editors to be able to verify a source for statements/quotes/documents ... talknic (talk) 02:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Me neither, it appears unclear and confused to me. Also there seems to be a complete misunderstanding of the role of Google books as a source. Google books is never the source, but the book, the content of which Google reproduces, is the source. And for citing that book you don't need Goggle at all (but you may provide a convenience link to the online copy at Google).--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:15, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Kmhkmh -- A) The suggestion isn't to use Google books as a source. B) "you may provide a convenience link to the online copy at Google" One could go even further than provide a convenience link to the online copy at Google by the use of the QTR, providing readers with confirmation that a quote/text/statement exists even if it's a page un-available in a book with Preview or an unfinished text in Snippet View. So readers, or editors checking sources/verification/context/accuracy don't have to go find a hard copy ... talknic (talk) 02:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Based on the lengthy prior discussions, I'd summarize the question like this:

"Talknic likes to cite sources that he's never read. Specifically, he likes to search Google Books for keywords that support his personal POV on Arab-Israeli issues, and then use text search to prove that some plausibly reliable source contains a single sentence that supports his POV. He does not want to be bothered with reading the paragraphs before and after his chosen sentence, i.e., to make sure that they aren't introducing his chosen sentence with something like 'Here is an obvious example of a stupid idea, whose many logical and factual flaws we will spend the rest of the chapter taking to pieces.'

"Over the course of multiple conversations on multiple pages, Talknic has been told by at least a half-dozen editors that this is a distinctly poor research practice that has a serious risk of introducing errors and bias, and so he should stop doing it. He has found zero editors who think his practice is a good one. So now he's hoping to find someone (anyone) who will encourage him to keep up the bad research practice, possibly under the guise of 'proving to the reader that his chosen sentence exists', i.e., his preference for the dubious merits of reader convenience over the admitted hassle of doing decent research. Do you think Talknic should keep using this style of 'research' and linking in his POV battles?"

But my version won't qualify as "neutral" under the WP:RFC rules. I'll just have to trust you to be able to understand my opinion as being my strongly held opinion, rather than as a neutral question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing - Please address the topic, which has nothing to do with 'research'. The suggestion is to utilize an already existing resource by which readers can be immediately shown that a quote/text/statement exists even if it's a page un-available in a book with Preview or an unfinished text in Snippet View. It applies to any editor, any POV, any subject.

BTW False accusations and personal vendettas have no place in Wikipedia or anywhere for that matter .. please stop ... talknic (talk) 04:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

IDHT has no place in consensus discussions. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:34, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - Refusal to carefully read the proposition doesn't validate consensus against ... talknic (talk) 10:53, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

You appear to be missing a noun. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - Please address the topic. Which BTW, is not about an editor researching via Snippet View ... talknic (talk) 13:03, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I can't understand what you're saying; Kmhkmh cannot understand what you're saying; you yourself claim that WhatamIdoing fundamentally misunderstood what you were saying; Noleander cannot understand what you're saying. The problem isn't with my reading comprehension, the problem is with your specification of the topic of conversation—we need you to improve the quality of your writing so that we can comment on your thoughts instead of on your writing quality. Try again, below, without caps, confused pleading, constant bolding, and ellipses; and before slapping the RFC tag on it, ask for other editors to edit the text of the RFC so we can all participate in drafting it. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:07, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - You're first objection in this RFC was not about comprehension, it was an objection to formatting et al. Your goal posts then appear to have | moved. In the original discussion, your goal posts also seem to be constantly moving. Having addressed all your moving goal posts, you're now you're back to formatting et al. I removed the CAPS you moaned about. Now you're waffling on about other formatting issues. Tough, I've attempted to emphasize the important phrases so folk can't possibly miss them. Instead of noticing them for what they are worth, you're complaining about them being made obvious. Formatting is not a valid objection to the content of a suggestion. Furthermore you claimed when you removed the RFC that it wasn't neutral. It applies to all POV's, any subject. It's stated in the RFC itself and it was stated in the previous discussion. It is pointed out in the RFC and the discussion, that the examples are not for use, so I'm guessing that like NMMNG & WhatamIdoing, the mention of Israel is your problem, not the actual suggestion of using the Quoted Text Result ... talknic (talk) 05:47, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Technical question: if the "exact quotation" contains a one-character typo, does Google books just say the quotation doesn't exist, or does it do the usual "do you mean..." with the correct quote? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:28, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

• RfC is confusing - I cannot figure out exactly what the RfC is asking. Could someone please re-word (and try to make it pithier, per WP:TLDR). The two questions I can glean ask (1) if online sources are required, and the answer is No, of course not ... paper sources are just fine; and (2) is quoting from Google acceptable as a source, and the answer to that is Yes, provided that the underlying source is accurately represented and that the editor actually read the source in some format (see WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT). But those are obvious, so I must be missing something. --Noleander (talk) 19:33, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Noleander - "The two questions I can glean ask (1) if online sources are required" No it doesn't. It says 2nd paragraph:"Using a QTR : is not about finding information in order to first make an edit, but proving the existence of an "exact quotation/text/statement". In effect putting the onus on an editor to first have "the exact quotation/text/statement" in order to get a QTR. It is applicable to any POV and any subject, affording readers easy, immediate access to verification of existence where the edit fulfills the other editorial criteria, context, RS, NPOV etc"

"paper sources are just fine;" That's not really a valid objection to the actual proposition. Unless one does find a hard copy, one has no way of checking and this would be more expedient for readers and checking editors alike.

"is quoting from Google acceptable as a source" No that is not the proposition. It's proof of existence by the Google Generated Text Result.  ::"provided that the underlying source is accurately represented and that the editor actually read the source in some format (see WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT)." Please read the RFC. Those points are already covered ... talknic (talk) 16:38, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

• No online sources are not required. Gerardw (talk) 20:04, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
• Re: Question 2, the answer is "no". A link such as [52] actually causes Google to lie. Notice that it says "SLAPADOODLE" shortly after the yellow cuts off in the snippet view, and then out of view of the snippet view the author claims to be a baloney sammich. Maolmhuire (talk) 23:09, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

(sarcasm) Great. Just the thing for a vandal wanting to sneak in a minor variation on what the source says. Thanks, Google! --Guy Macon (talk) 23:59, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Maolmhuire -- Interesting. However the fake quote only works when placed in the box From inside the book after having reached the book. Searching a fresh Google page (not books) gives these results [53]. The first two results [54] don't have the fake text. Which suggests Google needs to look at it's code for From inside the book ... talknic (talk) 02:57, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• Question 1: Is it necessary to provide an online source for the citation to be verifiable?

• Question 2: Is the google quote mechanism a verifiable source for a citation?

(Questions above submitted by uninvolved editor, DonaldRichardSands (talk) 17:27, 5 December 2011 (UTC))

• In relation to DonaldRichardSands's questions: an online source is not required. Google quotes do not verify claims: google quotes do not provide context. For an editor to verify a statement they need to consult the text that would need to be consulted in order to write the claim: the chapter or book itself; and note and read the context. The standard for inclusion is verifiability, not instant or easy verification, see WP:Reliable sources/cost. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:09, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo - However one can give online sources for instant verification of existence and context. Context is relative to what ever is being claimed, it might be as short as the date in the QTR in the Snippet View example. (You seem to do IDHT quite well as we have discussed the context point previously) As for "The standard for inclusion is verifiability" Uhm, that is the exact nature of the suggestion, verifying via the QTR (not the Snippet View itself) so folk don't have to go to the trouble of sourcing a hard copy to see it is verified ... talknic (talk) 04:15, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• In regard to the two questions, no and no. We do not require online sources, and short quotes in isolation do not generally provide sufficient context to use them as sources. We suggest that editors read sources to learn the material, and relying on short quotes found in google snippet or google's text representation of same is a Bad Thing™, in my opinion. --Nuujinn (talk) 01:54, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Nuujinn -- This is not about short quotes 'found' in google snippet. It's about proving existence by the QTR. Read the suggestion, first paragraph. " If the editor who made the contribution already has a hard copy or knowledge of "an exact quotation/text/statement", Google books generates a 'quoted text result' thus - // 1 page matching "the exact quotation/text/statement" in this book //"

Question for you: what about in Preview, where the particular page is not available? If you wanted to check an edit was in context or that a quote/statement/text did indeed exist, would you rather go find a hard copy of every book? OR If one could use the QTR for verification, would you rather have verification immediately? (not looking at a Snippet View itself) ... talknic (talk) 04:15, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I've read what you've written, and I really just don't agree with you--you're drawing a distinction that I do not find meaningful between snippet view and QTR. Personally, I don't think either provides sufficient context for verification of what a source actually says on a given topic, so I tend to think they are pretty useless, and I've seen them misused a number of times. We are not required to use online sources or provide any verification, our requirement is that the information be verifiable, and a good citation meets that requirement.

And when I want to check a reference, yes, I'm very much afraid that if a book is not available online (or at least a chunk big enough to provide context, which is admittedly a matter of judgement), I log into a library website and request the book, and pick it up on my way to lunch. Not three steps to nothing, rather about 80 steps, more or less, out of my way, but worth it I think. If the particular book I want to check out is not available locally, I request it through interlibrary loan, but picking those of up is a few hundred steps, and not on the way to anything else, really.

I currently have three books from the library beside me on the couch, and need to pick up a fourth today (an interlibrary loaner). Sometimes I scan chunks to save for later reference. Sometimes I buy a book. And I actually read the damn things. My significant other does tend to think it's a complete waste of time, but consoles herself by recognizing that my addiction improves the general state of the world to some small degree, as opposed to playing Halo or Farmville or Mafia Wars. I know I'm old school, but yo, I'm just keeping it real in the hood. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Nuujinn - "I don't think either provides sufficient context for verification of what a source actually says on a given topic" Context actually depends on exactly what is being conveyed by the editor. Enough for a date, a location, that [....] went as far as [....] , can be all be confirmed in the GTR [55]for the Snippet View and; as I've said before the edit itself must comply with all other WP criteria. Likewise in the Preview examples [56] where the page when you eventually reach it after numerous steps, is un-available.

"I've seen them misused a number of times" Preview example [57] where, after numerous steps, we find the statement is actually the publicity spiel about the book, no clarifying information at all, no context. I don't doubt the particular statement, but it wouldn't pass WP:policy on context if it was to be contested.

It seems rather oxymoronic for Wikipedia policy to say "..not required to provide any verification ... our requirement is that the information be verifiable" If it cannot be checked online and one must, as you have (admirable) go source a hard copy, fine. However, the suggestion is to provide a service to less diligent readers (and editors checking articles) when it can be checked online if we were allowed to use the QTR.

"a good citation meets that requirement" the notion is to see, online, if that 'good citation' is in fact 'good' or alternatively, not good.

"a distinction that I do not find meaningful between snippet view and QTR" The QTR can go beyond the information displayed by the Snippet View itself. Furthermore it also applies to Preview where certain pages are not available.

There are things we are not required to do, but we can. If an editor wants to be thorough, why stop them? We are already allowed to provide readers with online verification in order to show a citation is in actual fact 'good' (or see if it is bad). If it can be done online via the QTR without relying on the Snippet View itself or ending up at 'Preview page un-available', why stop it? ... talknic (talk) 01:35, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Confusing and Adversarial. I looked into this in good faith but I'm afraid the whole tone of the attempted discussion is counter-productive. I cannot help, as things stand. -The Gnome (talk) 09:55, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

The Gnome - I'm quite happy to clarify if you have any questions as to the purpose ... talknic (talk) 13:35, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

@Talknic: I asked for clarification above and never got a response. I concur with Hans Adler's comment below about rejecting the RfC. --Noleander (talk) 15:27, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Noleander -- Answered now. Apologies for the delay. "I concur " without having bothered to read the RFC carefully (see my replies) ... talknic (talk) 16:38, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Reject RfC Agree with Hans below, on the same basis. Advice in strictly good faith: if you care enough about it, re-start it.-The Gnome (talk) 20:11, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Reminder: this is the RfC whose first sentence is "Often pages aren't available to readers in Preview & Snippet Views are often incomplete. " I took the liberty of striking the "aren't" when I first read it, supposing that was a step in the direction of clarity, but I could not be sure. I just re-read the RfC and I still do not understand what question is being asked. --Noleander (talk) 17:46, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

• I understand the proposal, I think. It's interesting, but by tinkering with your example I've managed to get Google to give the same match on this (look at the end of the quote). This is because, as Google says '"Lebanon" (and any subsequent words) was ignored because we limit queries to 32 words'. So it looks as if it's open to manipulation, and thus not useful.  —SMALLJIM  15:19, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Smalljim - Yes, that issue has been noted. The fake quote only works when placed in the box From inside the book after having reached the book. Searching a fresh Google page (not books) gives these results [58]. The first two results [59] don't have the fake text. Which suggests Google needs to look at it's code for From inside the book. All systems have ways of being abused. This example [60], is one such case, where it eventually, after numerous steps, only leads to a spiel in the book about the book ... talknic (talk) 06:08, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Your claim that "The fake quote only works when placed in the box 'From inside the book' after having reached the book" is just not true. Using your proposed "QTR" system we can make Google appear to confirm whatever we want it to, after the first 32 words. If anyone clicks on the link I provided in my last post they'll see Google confirm that the words "which made Santa happy" appear (at the end of the quote) in the Journal of Palestine Studies. Er - could someone check that is actually the case, please?  —SMALLJIM  10:43, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Smalljim - Since making that claim I've gotten a variety of results from different Google starting points. i.e from a fresh Google web search. From a fresh Google Books search. From the box 'From inside the book' after having reached the book. It appears to be a shortcoming of the Google code. Google can be informed, the code can be changed. "we can make Google appear to confirm whatever we want it to, after the first 32 words ... could someone check that is actually the case" A double check: search for your false quote from a fresh instance of Google web (not books). The false quote only appears in Wikipedia, this discussion. The other results give the actual text, sans the fake ... talknic (talk) 08:04, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply to my query on your talk page and the above response. The only way your proposal would work is by passing a predefined string to a Google search (Books, Web, it doesn't matter). After the 32nd word that string can contain anything and Google will still confirm a match, because it simply ignores the rest. Yes, a normal Google Web search doesn't display any post-32-word fake text, as a Google Books search does, but neither does it warn of its existence - and that's fatal to the trustworthiness of your proposed system. I can be quite confident now in saying that your proposal cannot work as you claim unless Google significantly increases its 32 word search limit, or you can get consensus that 32 words provides enough context to verify a citation. Sorry.  —SMALLJIM  13:41, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Smalljim - "After the 32nd word that string can contain anything and Google will still confirm a match, because it simply ignores the rest" In the search only and if you falsify. However the QTR itself remains true to a genuine "quoted search". Going way beyond the 32 word limit or the (in this instance) Snippet View. Example [61] ... talknic (talk) 14:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Have you perhaps confused yourself? You have duplicated the entire search text in that link, despite which, by manipulating it, we can still make Google say what we want: [62]. It's time to go and do something else, I think.  —SMALLJIM  16:11, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Smalljim -- "Have you perhaps confused yourself?" Nope... "You have duplicated the entire search text in that link" Yes. Far in excess of the 32 word limit for search in Books.

"despite which, by manipulating it, we can still make Google say what we want" If you're that way inclined... Using Google search (not books) one can reveal devious manipulations. However, the errant code for Google book search wasn't written by me and as I said before, source code can be corrected.

Furthermore, WP:policy already allows sources to be cited which cannot be checked other than by hard copy. I wonder just how many statements are being falsified already under current policy? This example from the RFC [63] where we end up at the spiel about the book, no context or data. Just the book's spiel about itself. Although I don't contest it myself, it would not pass WP:policy for inclusion in an article if challenged

"It's time to go and do something else, I think." Oh Ok... I'll contact Google if and when I can find the appropriate place ... talknic (talk) 17:27, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, hard-copy only citations do "pass policy". If there's an inline citation to a hard-copy source, and you want to know whether that source actually says what it's alleged to say, then satisfying your curiosity about the source's contents is 100% your problem. There are many editors who would be willing to help you with that desire, but merely naming a source fully meets the original editor's WP:BURDEN, and removing it merely because you personally can't read the source is a violation of the policy at WP:SOURCEACCESS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing - "hard-copy only citations do "pass policy"" Uhm...Yes. Did I say otherwise? "curiosity about the source's contents is 100% your problem" Indeed. However, you seem to have (perhaps purposefully?) missed the following in the RFC "affording readers easy, immediate access to verification of existence where the edit fulfills the other editorial criteria, context, RS, NPOV etc, without the reader (or an editor checking content) having to source hard copy"

"removing it merely because you personally can't read the source is a violation of the policy at WP:SOURCEACCESS" Indeed. Did I mention removing something just because it can't be read on line? Well, no, in fact I didn't. The notion is to be able to show readers that something does exist online even if the page is un-available in a book that does have Preview, or in a limited unfinished Snippet View, not by the Snippet View itself, but by the QTR, which can bee far in excess of the limited Snippet View ... talknic (talk) 06:10, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Talknic wrote "Just the book's spiel about itself. Although I don't contest it myself, it would not pass WP:policy for inclusion in an article if challenged". I don't understand Talknic's problem with the citation. Is Talknic claiming that Sommerville's book does not actually say that WWII was the deadliest history in human history? Is Talknic making no claim about the contents of the book, but claiming the citation does not meet policy because it is not online? If the former, I don't know, because I have not read the book. If the latter, the whole RfC is based on a misinterpretation of policy. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:06, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Jc3s5h - I have no problem with the citation, try reading. "Is Talknic claiming that Sommerville's book does not actually say that WWII was the deadliest history in human history?" Uh? I provided a link to it. Showing by the QTR it exists on page 5. Try reading.

"claiming the citation does not meet policy because it is not online?" Uh? There is Preview available online. I provided a link to it. Try reading. The specific page (5), where there might be context apart from the statement itself, is not available. (actually page 5 is only the preface and is actually only the spiel about the book). According to WP:RS, it must provide context and; according to numerous objectors here, one must read a page or more...

"the whole RfC is based on a misinterpretation of policy" The RFC is about a change of policy, allowing the use of the QTR generated by Google Books for proof of existence ... talknic (talk) 06:10, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, if you agree that it is sufficient if the editor includes a link to the page in the reliable printed source, I see no change in policy. An editor can, in addition to indicating the appropriate bibliographic information for the printed source, provide a link to an on-line source that provides partial information. This is frequently done for abstracts, which might not fully support the statement in the article, but at least provide a summary of the source. Of course, it is necessary that the editor adding the information has read a substantial part of the source (perhaps an entire journal article, or a book chapter) in order to be sure the source actually supports the claim. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:40, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Jc3s5h -- " Of course, it is necessary that the editor adding the information has read a substantial part of the source (perhaps an entire journal article, or a book chapter) in order to be sure the source actually supports the claim." That is in fact not WP policy. How much needs to be read is relative to the context of the claim being made and; there is no onus on an editor to actually show that the material on which they base their edit actually does exist. One only needs to state that it exists somewhere and of course it should.

Furthermore 2nd sentence of the RFC states "Using a QTR : is not about finding information in order to first make an edit, but proving the existence of an "exact quotation/text/statement". In effect putting the onus on an editor to first have "the exact quotation/text/statement" in order to get a QTR. It is applicable to any POV and any subject, affording readers easy, immediate access to verification of existence where the edit fulfills the other editorial criteria, context, RS, NPOV etc" ... talknic (talk) 00:46, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

• Reject RfC as inappropriate. If you want to create an RfC, put some work into it so that you present a comprehensible case. If you can't do that on your own, ask others to help you. Also I am getting the impression that this is a bad idea, maybe even an exceptionally bad idea. We have had problems in the past with people relying on result snippets in a Google Books search that didn't actually come from the book but from a review, and consequently citing something to the boo that didn't appear in it and would not have made any sense there. This proposal would probably lead to similar problems. Hans Adler 15:23, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Reject RfC Agree with Hans below, on the same basis. Advice in strictly good faith: if you care enough about it, re-start it.-The Gnome (talk) 20:11, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreeing with Hans Adler - "inappropriate" pertains to subject matter. Explain how advocating a change to WP policy to allow the use of the Google Generated Text Result for proof of existence, is an inappropriate subject matter? ... Thx

"..re-start it" Might just do that :-) ... talknic (talk) 15:55, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Hans Adler - "If you want to create an RfC, put some work into it so that you present a comprehensible case. " It's only incomprehensible it seems, to folk who keep insist on talking about result snippets or Snippet View. The RFC Is about using the Google Generated Text Result in Preview, where a certain page might not be available and; in Snippet View, but not the Snippet View itself.

"We have had problems in the past with people relying on result snippets" That IS NOT the proposition. Read the RFC

"that didn't actually come from the book but from a review" Happens elsewhere too. Read the RCF [[64]] follow it through the numerous steps required to get to the book, where it refers to the book's own spiel about the book.

'"This proposal would probably lead to similar problems" As the example shows, that problem still exists. Oh, and you did read the part in the RFC where it says the edit in the article must still fulfill "the other editorial criteria, context, RS, NPOV etc"? Perhaps it's comprehension that's the problem ... talknic (talk) 16:23, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Talknic: RfCs are supposed to be very clear, and very brief. That fact that several responders above who said "this RfC is too confusing" is a big red flag. I'm sure you have a valid question that you are attempting to articulate in the RfC: I suggest that you close this RfC, and start over with a new, small one that is very focused. I'd be happy to help you with the wording, if you like. --Noleander (talk) 16:29, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Of these several responders there are those who're obviously upset by the subject matter of the examples used, not the suggestion. Never the less I'm open to valid suggestions towards re-wording. Have at it and we'll see ... talknic (talk) 05:50, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

• Reject RfC It is incomprehensible, but a perusal of the discussion suggests that the issue concerns whether the practice of coatracking quotes from Google searches into articles without reading any of the source is desirable (answer, no). Johnuniq (talk) 10:28, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Johnuniq - "a perusal of the discussion suggests that the issue concerns whether the practice of coatracking quotes from Google searches into articles without reading any of the source is desirable" It would pay to read the RFC before reading the discussion. 2nd sentence "If the editor who made the contribution already has a hard copy or knowledge of "an exact quotation/text/statement" ... 2nd Paragraph "Using a QTR : is not about finding information in order to first make an edit, but proving the existence of an "exact quotation/text/statement" ... talknic (talk) 15:55, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

There seems (to me) to be a basic misunderstanding here about why we use and cite sources. To write a Wikipedia article we read sources and summarise or paraphrase the content in the Wikipedia article. Quoting the source exactly is generally a copyright violation and is not allowed. We then provide a citation to the source we have used so others can see if our summary fairly represents the content of the source. As we are not quoting the source we therefore don't need to "prove the existence" of the quotation. I can see how a reference to a snippet provided by Google online could be a useful supplement to citations to offline sources but I don't think it can ever be a replacement; just as searching for a quote can help you find sources but can never be a substitute for reading the source document.filceolaire (talk) 20:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Filceolaire - "There seems to be a basic.." inability to carefully read the RFC. 2nd Paragraph //is not about finding information in order to first make an edit, but proving the existence of an "exact quotation/text/statement" .... affording readers easy, immediate access to verification of existence where the edit fulfills the other editorial criteria, context, RS, NPOV etc//

"..... We then provide a citation to the source we have used so others can see if our summary fairly represents the content of the source" YES! That IS what the RFC says!

"As we are not quoting the source we therefore don't need to "prove the existence" of the quotation" We don't need to, but we can, 'affording readers easy, immediate access to verification of existence where the edit fulfills the other editorial criteria, context, RS, NPOV etc'.

"I don't think it can ever be a replacement; just as searching for a quote can help you find sources but can never be a substitute for reading the source document" AGAIN 2nd Paragraph //is not about finding information in order to first make an edit, but proving the existence of an "exact quotation/text/statement" ... talknic (talk) 07:31, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggested rework of RFC per Noleander/talknic]

NB: This suggestion is being progressively edited according to this discussion section

Proposal: To enable the use of the Google 'Quoted Text Result' (QTR) as proof of existence of a quotation or statement in a book when:

• an editor has a hard copy or knowledge of an exact quotation/text/statement; and,
• an editor has made an edit fulfilling existing editorial criteria (context, RS, NPOV, etc); and,
• the editor wishes to afford readers easy access to proof of existence of the quotation or statement where it is available online.

Google books generates a Quoted Text Result for unavailable pages where there is Preview; and, a QTR can be up to 110 words. Compared to the 32 word Snippet View result, the QTR provides a far more significant context.

• Quoted Text Results take the format, "1 page matching "quotation/text/statement" in this book"

Notes: The following issues have already been discussed at length [65] & [66]

Reiterated here in brief:

1) WP:VERIFY already allows sources which are not available online and sources where some Preview pages are unavailable.

• Example [67], where the editor could have afforded immediate confirmation online had they given a quotation/text/statement in the reference. The Quoted Text Result would have immediately informed the reader: 1 page matching "quotation/text/statement" in this book. The current reference tells us only: Biger, 2005, p. 173. The reader must consult the ISBN number [68] then search the book preview [69]. After following these three steps the reader discovers, page 173 isn't on line.

2) Wikipedia's Citation Style 1 citation set does not recommend Snippet View. However, this request for comment is a suggestion for the use of the Quoted Text Result instead of the Snippet View. (Again, for proof of existence of a quotation or statement where the edit already fulfills WP criteria for context, RS, NPOV, etc.) The Quoted Text Result can complete an unfinished Snippet View in excess of the 32 word limit for books, for example: this result is 110 words, a healthy sized paragraph. (The maximum word limit for this method of confirming statements or quotations has not yet been tested.) As visible from this search, the 110 words is a more significant confirmation of the statement or quote than Snippet View's 32 word limit.

3) To gain a Quoted Text Result, and overcome the Snippet View limit follow these steps:

1. Open a fresh Google Search Page (Not Books).
2. Enter a "quotation/text/statement (up to at least 110 words)" (maximum untested)
3. On the results page under the More menu, click Books.
4. You should be taken automatically to Books.
5. On any positive result, the Quoted Text Result should contain the complete "quotation/text/statement"

4) Caution: Google's code is not perfect. Unfortunately, at present, falsification can be incorporated after 32 word limit by an editor and the QTR will alas, give the false entry in the result as a positive. For example: this result does not incorporate falsification.

Editors who check quotes can readily see if false text has been added to the end of the quotation for a Snippet View QTR and a QTR where a page in Preview is un-available. If we add false text to the previous search we get this result. Copy and paste the resulting QTR into a fresh Google Search (not Books). The resulting sources should not have the falsified text included (except in links to the Wikipedia entries on the falsification problem)

5)NB: Where an editor has included a "quotation/text/statement" in their reference OR article edit, the QTR method for checking editors can reveal falsifications in Preview where certain pages are unavailable, without the suggested change in policy ... talknic (talk) 20:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• Dear talknic, I've sub-edited your text above to increase its clarity, readability, and to introduce standard handling of the semi-colon. I believe this makes your proposed RFC easier to respond to? Please revert me if I have damaged your expression of ideas, or you feel that this damages your proposal. It was done in good faith to improve the discussion. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:49, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo -- Gracias. Muy apreciada! I presume you now understand the issue? Apologies for any previous terseness on my part.

I've also made minor changes - Added 'progressively edited' and 'falsification' et al rather than 'rubbish', added 'where Preview has pages un-available and in the Snippet View QTR' to the falsification check, added 5) ... talknic (talk) 04:06, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

No worries. I'm not sure that I'd support this, I'm not sure that I'd oppose this; but, I want the best quality proposal put in the RFC, because if we put the best quality proposal we won't need to revisit the issue for quite some time if a consensus position emerges. A high quality RFC proposal is a good one: it resolves things. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:41, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo -- Let it sit for a few days, see if there are any other ideas floating around. Maybe a response from Google re the notion of returning a nix on any falsifications within quotes, even if over the 32 word limit ... talknic (talk) 16:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. This kind of reference is easily subverted, as several editors have mentioned and is alluded to in the RfC. For example [70]. Rather than help editors, people will have to scan the very long URL to see if it's not inserting falsified information. Not only should this not be allowed, it should be banned. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 01:25, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
  • It is inappropriate to Oppose this; it isn't yet an RFC, it is an attempt by multiple parties to craft a comprehensible RFC that states the topic clearly, so that we can copy it into a new section. The point of this section is the craft the most coherent, readable, and balanced presentation of the topic, so that outside editors can understand the issue and comment meaningfully. It is adversarial and a little impolite to Oppose an idea in formation, that isn't fully prepared, and moreover, that doesn't even have an RFC tag above the proposal yet. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:52, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
    • OK. Feel free to remove my above comment. It would save some time if the glaring problem with this was discussed before spending megabytes on discussion on how to form an RfC, though. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 02:23, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
      • No worries, I agree, this proposal would be better served by responding to the critical point you raise before being put as an RFC. I've struck your oppose, but left your comment as your comment relates to improving this proposed RFC. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:44, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
        • NMMNG - Premature. This section isn't an RFC yet. BTW subversion has already been addressed in the proposal, including a method for revealing falsification where Preview has pages un-available and in the Snippet View QTR. "people will have to scan the very long URL to see if it's not inserting falsified information" Er no, they can cut and paste it from the QTR generated by the falsified link, as described in the method for checking for falsification. "Not only should this not be allowed, it should be banned." Falsification is already banned. Even without a change in policy the method described for checking is an asset to editors who wish to check for falsifications in Preview where certain pages are unavailable.( 5) added at the same time as this reply). Perhaps you should have read carefully before opposing because as it is, your premature 'opposal' could be seen as a continuation of behaviour I have asked you politely to cease ... talknic (talk) 04:06, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
        • "It would save some time if the glaring problem with this was discussed before" It was only discovered AFTER posting the first RFC, none of the editors in the prior discussion noticed it ... talknic (talk) 04:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment: Huh? Really, if you want an RfC you really need to have a clear, concise statement of what is to be discussed. But I haven't seen that here; my eyes roll trying to follow all of the discussion. This discussion has the hallmarks of someone worried about some thing (and possibly validly so), but not quite having a handle on what the problem is. Might better to state the problem or concern first, before rolling out a proposed solution. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:45, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree, I think it would be most appropriate to describe the problem that this proposal is supposed to fix. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:46, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

J. Johnson/Nuujinn - It's neither a problem or a solution. You are commenting in a section dedicated to re working the RFC for a proposal. If you're going to comment in this section, you should first read it and the proposal it caontains. Subsequent comments should be in respect to the Suggested rework of RFC thx

"if you want an RfC you really need to have a clear, concise statement of what is to be discussed. " please read the title of this section ... talknic (talk) 00:02, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

How to cite...?

...that thing mentioned here (using citation templates for consistency), not the website itself. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:21, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a book to me, so {{cite book}}. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:46, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

How to cite dvd extras

How would i cite dvd extras? D4nnyw14 (talk) 21:10, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

• Director / Producer / Production company. (Year). "Name of DVD Extra" Name of Film Disk volume in disk set (volume). Unique Disk/Disk set ID. Distributor Location: Distributor name. Time within feature that citeable content appears (ie: 0:00), OR methodology to reproduce the cited content ("Select third tree to the left, the Art Director's name appears.").
• Using Template:cite video:
  • {{cite video |people=Director / Producer / Production company |year=Year |chapter=DVD Extra title |title=Film title |url= |format= |medium=DVD (Extra) |language= |trans_title= |publisher=Distributor |location=Distributor location |archiveurl= |archivedate= |accessdate= |volume=Disk 1 of 4 |time=00:00 OR Find the left most banana in the tree, and click it for the lighting guy's favourite toothpaste. |id=Disk release ID code (ie: WIKI04042014) |isbn= |oclc= |quote= |ref= }}
• that renders as:
  • Director / Producer / Production company (Year). "DVD Extra title". Film title (DVD (Extra)). Vol. Disk 1 of 4. Distributor location: Distributor. Event occurs at 00:00 OR Find the left most banana in the tree, and click it for the lighting guy's favourite toothpaste. Disk release ID code (ie: WIKI04042014). {{cite AV media}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |trans_title= (help)
• ie:
  • Fifelfoo (Director), D4nnyw14 (Producer), Citing Sources Productions (2011). "Find the Hidden Citation". Lady Macbeth's Tragedy II: Beach Party Tragedy (DVD (Extra)). Vol. Disk 2 of 2. Wikipedia Distributions. Event occurs at 14:53. WIKI04042014. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |Location= ignored (|location= suggested) (help)
• thanks Fifelfoo (talk) 23:17, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Please don't use |date= for just a year; use |year= instead. Anything other than a full date will mangle the anchor when using Harvard or shortened citations. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:06, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Ta, updated example as of Fifelfoo (talk) 11:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you both for this, it's been really helpful :) D4nnyw14 (talk) 11:07, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Translation Help Request

We're currently translating the German language article on the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme into English. The German version features LOADS of references/citatations. We'd like to incorporate the references into the English article. Does anyone know how to do that other than going after each reference in the source code and manually adapting it to the English wikipedia's markup standards? Is there a bot for this? Or do people not migrate citations in general when they translate articles? TIA, Del Oso (talk) 16:04, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any bot to do that. But the citations, provided they are accurate, are certainly a very important thing to bring over! Not only are they important data for readers, but they justify the prose you are copying ... how else would WP:Verifiability be satisfied? Also, I'm not sure how WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT fits in with translating articles from other WPs ... I suppose an exception is made, since the understanding is that the editors in the other WP already read the sources: it would be a bit much to expect the article translator to also read all the sources. --Noleander (talk) 16:06, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

If the translation/importation is happening from one Wikipedia to another Wikipedia, then you import the citations under the same rules that you would if you were WP:SPLITting information out of another Wikipedia article (that is, you trust that the other Wikipedia editor got it right).

If you're importing or translating from some other place (say, some guy's blog that he just happens to have conveniently licensed as CC-SA), then you don't get to cite the blogger's sources just as if you'd read them yourself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:30, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Here's one of the first citations in that de.wiki article:

• Uwe M. Schneede: Exposition internationale du Surréalisme, Paris 1938. In: Bernd Klüser, Katharina Hegewisch (Hrsg.): Die Kunst der Ausstellung. Eine Dokumentation dreißig exemplarischer Kunstausstellungen dieses Jahrhunderts, S. 94

It looks to me like you need to change "Hrsg." to "Editor" and "S." to "page", and that's it. The formatting is all fine as it stands. You can optionally add translations for the titles if you want (we usually put them in [square brackets]), but that's not required. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:35, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

• cough. Editors translating interwiki have been blocked in the last month over failure to check that the sources exist. Don't just trust the Germans, check that the book / chapter exists when you translate it, and that the citation information is correct. For example, "Eine Dokumentation dreißig exemplarischer Kunstausstellungen dieses Jahrhunderts" says that the chapters in this work may be primary sources, as does the title of the chapter, "Exposition internationale du Surréalisme, Paris 1938." Use of Primary sources in this way in an art history article may be considered Original Research on en.wikipedia. I'd check that it is being appropriately used while translating. Your citation, btw:
  • Uwe M. Schneede (DATE REQUIRED HERE OR…) "Exposition internationale du Surréalisme, Paris 1938." In: Bernd Klüser, Katharina Hegewisch (Eds.) Die Kunst der Ausstellung: Eine Dokumentation dreißig exemplarischer Kunstausstellungen dieses Jahrhunderts [The art of the exhibition: Documents from thirty examples of the century's art exhibitions] LOCATION OF PUBLICATION: PUBLISHER, …OR DATE REQUIRED HERE, p. 94. Thanks, Fifelfoo (talk) 02:04, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

By "required here", we of course mean "not required at all". Editors may choose any style of citation, including one that does not include the name of the publisher, the publisher's location, or the date, and of course the information cannot be given if it does not exist (e.g., the publication itself does not choose to name a date, which is not at all unusual for some types of documents). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:39, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

UN/UNSC Resolutions/Docs citing previous resolutions/UNCharter Chapters/statements. Are they Secondary Source at that point?

• Example: For the statement "Under UNSC Resolution 662, the annexation of Kuwait by Iraq was declared illegal" could one give a reference thus Linking to UNSC res 664 where it says "Reaffirms its decision in resolution 662 (1990)" ... talknic (talk) 17:25, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

• An organization restating a previous position isn't a secondary source. I'd go so far as to say that decision by an official organization that adopts a position proposed by some other source, and in so doing, gives it legal force that it wouldn't otherwise have, is a primary source. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:30, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

• OK accepted restating/reaffirming.

• Q 2: A statement like 99. in this document [71], where the speaker is quoting a third party. Does the document[72] become a Secondary Source at that point? ... talknic (talk) 17:20, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

You might want to read Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary and secondary sources and Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent.

The short answer is that it's complicated, but it's probably a primary source (and a primary independent source for the quotation of the third party).

The more relevant response is a question: Why do you really care if it's a secondary source? You are allowed to use primary sources (carefully). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be pointed out that the problem with primary sources is that they may require specialized knowledge to properly evaluate, and that secondary sources are where someone has evaluated the primary source. A source that merely quotes some original source is not thereby "secondary", it is only an indirect quote. If you want to quote what some organization has said (distinct from any inference or interpretation of the statement), quote them directly. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:49, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Citing a media guide

I've decided to put forth my best effort and try to turn 1999 Florida State Seminoles football team into a WP:GA. I do have a question about citing a media guide... how the heck do I do it? I got the media guide in my hands, but is it good enough to say "Florida State media guide, page 67"? I've been going through WP:CITE to try and get a clear-cut answer, but either my attention span is super short or I'm just not finding something. Help :-( Aquamelli (talk) 20:38, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

If you are using Citation Style 1, then use {{cite press release}} with |type=Media guide. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:32, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

great, thank you! Aquamelli (talk) 22:23, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Quoting from citation

A question has arisen at WT:NFC regarding source text being used in the "quote" parameter for the various cite templates instead of simply paraphrasing this information into the artist while still providing the remainder of the cite. One editor believes that we actually should be filling out the "quote" parameter for every source.

Ignoring the non-free issue for the moment (as quoting every citation could be harmful), this doesn't seem to be a recommended practice. I do see the general use of "quote" for providing a foreign language statement and its translation, for fiction where a statement that is simply made in the plot is explained by providing the appropriate dialog to justify the point (without making interpretive statements, granted). But for a plainly factual statement where the only thing we as WP editors is paraphrasing it for summary inclusion (like this edit), the "quote" is unnecessary and weighs down the article. This other editor believes that filling in the "quote" parameters allows the reader to affirm easily that what is said is true, but I believe the weight of this requirement is far outweighed by the basic tenet of WP:V, that information must be verifiable, just not at that moment.

My concern from the NFC side is that if the "quote" parameter should be used, we are going to be pushing the cusp of fair use allowance for text depending on how much of a direct quote has to be pulled from the original source.

Is there an established guide to when the "quote" parameter should be used? --MASEM (t) 14:31, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

In practice, the quote field is little used, nor do major style guides recommend such a practice. I would definitely recommend using a reference quote where the source does not have a good way to reference a page or section, such as some ebooks. See WP:EBOOK. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:55, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Including quotations can be useful in contentious articles, particularly when dealing with a certain class of POV pushers who believe their inability to read and/or understand the source means that the source does not contain the material in question, e.g., "Failed verification, because my plain-text search of the JPEG scan of this old newspaper article did not find any words in the image". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:28, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Adding quotes will not fix that problem— it requires discussion. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Where to cite in an article?

Hi I'm interested to know if there is specific instructions on how to properly cite information in an article; specifically, if the reference must immediately follow the documentation. So far I have read that consistency seems to be the policy, in this case meaning, that if the rest of article has citations immediately following the documentation, then the others in the article should as well. The example I'm currently concerned with is citations for coordinates appearing in an infobox. It has been suggested to me that citations do not have to be in an infobox, but should be in the main body of text. I would think that this could cause confusion because it is not consistent and WP:Common Sense may apply. I would also think that any editor could see the coordinates at first glance and believe they are uncited, leading to unnecessary confusion and edits. Thoughts? Leitmotiv (talk) 00:04, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Prior discussion is at Template talk:Infobox cave#location ref. The wider issue is also discussed at

• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 November 22#Template:Infobox ukcave.
• Template talk:Infobox cave#Merge from Template:Infobox ukcave
• User talk:TParis#Your comments regarding the merge of cave infoboxes
• Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Coordinates for personal residences or holdings
• Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Cave coordinates
• Wikipedia talk:Village pump#Censorship Exceptions

and more. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 01:13, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

What does citing sources have to do anything I've discussed before? Are you going to wikihound me everywhere I go when trying to educate myself? And are you trying to purposefully steer people away from helping me? That's irresponsible and does not assume good faith. I will also point out that it was you who offered I go reading in this direction. So I did and it lead me here to where I now have some questions for the editors at hand. You were unable to supply those answers at the original TfD so please allow me to find them here. Leitmotiv (talk) 22:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to suggest that you start by reading WP:MINREF, which should help you discover the difference between being able to name a reliable source that supports the material and actually naming a reliable source that supports the material. The first is required for all material; the second is almost always optional for something like coordinates.

When you understand that your question sounds very much like, "What is the best location for a completely unnecessary citation?" then perhaps we can make some recommendations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:32, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok I will look it over, thank you. However, coordinates which are very precise in nature, and have the potential to be extremely accurate, might need citations especially if it was put on Wikipedia using original research: see WP:NOR. Leitmotiv (talk) 18:27, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Given that there plenty of different tools and maps determine the coordinates of an object, which is usually not subject to dispute either, I don't see any need for explicit citation in most cases, simply comment in the revision history where you've got them from.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:14, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not the tools that are the issue, it's the location of the citation. With a citation not present in the article, it's hard to say if the coordinate has one and leads to further confusion. Burying it in the comments doesn't help viewers who routinely visit sources and it doesn't help editors either. Sources aren't strictly for editors, they're for everyone. There is very little gained by burying the citation in the comments where only editors can see them. WP:NOR still applies since any source that is only limited to the comment notes consequently means that it's also not apart of the article and fails to meet the requirements of that policy. An analogy for your proposal is to have some written journal without the citations readily visible, unless you use a decoding pen, except no where on the page does it tell you that you need a decoding pen to reveal the hidden citation that may or may not be there, which means you may have used your decoding pen for nothing and marked up your page needlessly (and perhaps, 99% of your readers don't even own decoding pens). Again, doesn't consistency apply per WP:citing sources#Citation style? Leitmotiv (talk) 19:39, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

You misunderstand my point. Normally you can consider coordinates as common knowledge (and no case of WP:NOR), which requires no citation. Naming it in revision history is purely optional.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:18, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

How could coordinates be common knowledge? I can hardly think of a person that has a single coordinate memorized or can refer to one by demand. If you need a program or device to acquire coordinates then that is a far cry from common knowledge. If it's uncited material with no reliable source, then it looks to be original research. I can see what your saying being true if you already have a location on a map that is identified and needs to be converted. But if there is no source to begin with, then WP:NOR specifically applies. I believe I've seen conversations on Wikipedia demanding people go out and grab coordinates for features... but those are probably for areas that have suitable sources and are not likely to be contested. If you are the one going out on foot to collect data, how is that not original research? Leitmotiv (talk) 02:38, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

In most cases coordinates are common knowledge for the reasons I explained above, there plenty of obvious methods to look them up (maps, google, gps) that no specific citation is required (=common knowledge to use a map or google earth and normally they are not disputed). Common knowledge requires no citation - period (see also WhatamIdoing above) It is different in the (exceptional) case of an dispute or if you are actually the first to publish some measurements then a citation might be necessary and then there might be on OR issue. However if something OR than in doubt there's no need to argue about citations, then it simply doesn't belong into the article.

As far as the placing of a citation (if one is needed at all) is concerned usually people go with the first mentioning of the information requiring citation or with any established tradition in a particular subject area and its templates. For the latter you need to ask in a portal maintaining that area rather than here. Independent of that if to 2 parties are quarreling over the exact placing of citation, I'd most likely simply ask them, whether they got nothing better to do. In any case you got my thoughts, I'm not really interested to argue this further.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:05, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with your first paragraph in entirety, so I probably did misunderstand you before. As for your second paragraph... I didn't really understand your second part of your first sentence concerning tradition and portals. Could you be more elaborate? I may not be familiar with what you are referring to. Other than that... yeah some folks may not have anything better to do. I find Wikipedia and its editors (including myself) in a state of irony. It could be argued that as Wikipedeans we have no life, but the entire function of Wikipedia is to document real life and its extensions. Cheers! Leitmotiv (talk) 04:32, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Certain fields within WP may have their own recommendation/traditions regarding format question and how to organize context, which are beyond general policies or guidelines like this one and more specific. But to discuss these or to get informed about these, this is wrong place. Instead you should ask the portal or wikiproject that is "responsible" for the field in question. So let's say you have a question concerning format styles for math formulas, then the best project site to ask is the math portal or the Wikiproject mathematics. Similarly if you are wondering about any possible traditions/recommendations regarding geographic or geological topics (such as how to use geography templates, placing of citation within their infoboxes, etc.), then you should check the portals and wikiprojects for geology/geography (rather than here).--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Geographic restrictions

The link to a reference on Oregon High Desert Grotto seemingly returns a 403 response to anyone outside the USA (presumably by IP sniffing). This means that it is not working for the majority of our readers. WP:DEADREF doesn't seem to have any advice for such cases (the [http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.tsweekly.com/outside/natural-world/cave-robber-case-closed-intrepid-forest-investigator-hunts-down-missing-lava-cave-formations.html wayback.archive.org version does not show the pictures. How should this be handled? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Can you archive it with WebCite? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:37, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not a DEADREF, because the URL works (for some people). What applies is the general principle behind PAYWALL: it does not matter if you personally are able to see the material online. So long as someone can get to the page, the material is still verifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:34, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps not; but we need to account for the fact that it wont work for the majority of our readers. How can we do so, and advise them, so they're not sent to a non-functioning page? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:39, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

With WP:External links, we advise adding some sort of plain-text label that explains the situation after the link, e.g., "(in regions where licensed)" or "(for users within the US)". Perhaps that would work for this situation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:01, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Done: http://www.webcitation.org/64MfBXO4j but that also doesn't show images. Not an issue for a reference, I suppose. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:52, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Standards for handling publisher location

We need some kind of standard for how to do the |location= field of the citation templates. I would suggest, per WP:Systemic bias that the recommendations of Chicago Manual of Style, written by American editors for American writers to published in American works for American readers, and those of Oxford's Hart's Rules for the British, and so on, are not sufficient for a global encyclopedia. I would propose the following:

• Always use the common name of the city/town of publication (in English) when there is one: Munich, not München. Do not provide alternatives as we often do in article prose. Citations are metadata.
• Do not rewrite history. If the publisher does not exist any longer, use the common English name of the publisher's location as it was then (e.g. Peking, not Bejing for older books); if the publisher still exists in the same location, it's okay to update the spelling. If the publisher moved, retain the original publication data.
• Always include the country and do not abbreviate it except in the cases of the UK and the U.S. It is not safe to assume that "London", for example, always means "London, England"; to most Canadians, especially in the western provinces, "London" by itself means "London, Ontario". And Wikipedia is written for people who are not as well educated as you, too, who may not know where "the" London is anyway. Use London, UK or London, England, UK. Similarly, to New Mexicans, "Las Vegas" means Las Vegas, New Mexico; the more famous city is referred to by them as "Vegas" or Las Vegas, Nevada. You are not omniscient, and have no idea what geographical assumptions you hold may be confusing to others from different backgrounds. The country name is especially crucial when two or more locations with the same name publish a lot of books, e.g. Cambridge, England in the UK and Cambridge, Massachusetts in the US. Add the country even for well-known, uniquely-named places like Tokyo, Japan, as it is not harmful or difficult, it is consistent, and it serves as a form of metadata that could be useful. When a location has been absorbed by a larger metropolitan area, do not include both names, just use what the publisher used, unless the location name given is no longer valid, in which case use Original location name (now part of Current location name) or something similar.
• For the U.S, include the state. It is okay to use the standard state abbreviation in this case, just as we may use ISO date format for access dates. Do not assume that everyone in the world knows that Los Angeles is in California and that this is in the United States. For non-U.S. areas, it may or may not be helpful to include a regional clarifier (Canadian provinces, Australian states, British sub-Kingdom country divisions), and these may be abbreviated as well when included. Canberra, ACT, Australia, Toronto, ON, Canada. Including them tends not to be helpful for small countries or those with subdivisions few English speakers have ever heard of. It is especially important when there are two or more cities/towns in the country with the same name but in different subdivisions of the country, in which case the subdivision is required for disambiguation; "Jackson, US" is useless since it could refer to over 20 cities and towns. Do not use subdivisional names or abbreviations without also using the country name, of they can be mistaken for countries (Georgia is a U.S. state and a country and "PE" could be Prince Edward I., Canada or the ISO abbreviation of Peru).
• Do not use lower-than-subnational divisions (e.g. counties of U.S. states, administrative counties of England), unless required for disambiguation (as is actually the case for the four Jacksons in Wisconsin, as an extreme example). Editors often leave the state off of Kansas City believing it is redundant, not realizing there is a Kansas City, Missouri, too. Rather that make assumptions about what may or may not be optimal, simply follow the pattern and move on.
• If the name of a city ends with "City", retain that in the location parameter, especially if the bare city name is ambiguous with some other location (overlapping or otherwise): New York City, NY, US. But do not use "City of", "Town of", etc., constructions (City of Johannesburg), except in the unusual circumstance where this construction is universally used, e.g. with City of Industry, California, which is never referred to simply as "Industry" except by locals.
• Do not wikilink the city, sub-national division, or country. While any populated location is notable enough to have an entry in the encyclopedia, such links are distracting and help neither the reader nor an editor checking source verifiability.
• Do not wikilink or externally link to the publisher; even if it is notable and has an article, it's history is not relevant in the context of a citation to something it published the way that an author link might be.

— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:36, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree that we need any sort of standard for this issue at all. The rule is that the editors at each and every article get to use whatever citation system seems best to them for that article, including omitting locations entirely, linking to the publisher's webpage, including the county name, skipping the state name (do you really believe the average reader needs to be told the state and country for New York City?), or whatever else they want. We do not need a bunch of WP:Instruction creep like this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:45, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I do agree we shouldn't be using "town of..." FE. However we shouldn't modernize names. If something was published in Edo, we shouldn't change that to Tokyo.∞陣内Jinnai 00:15, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I partly agree with WhatamIdoing. People mostly don't follow the instructions we already have, so adding new ones is a waste of time. In particular the fairly standard custom is not to disambiguate world cities like London and Tokyo. I am sure that Canadians are perfectly aware that London (without qualification), in the context of a global encyclopaedia, will mean London England and not London Ontario. We shouldn't have a different rule for the location parameter in citations from the one we use for ordinary text. As for the special case of Cambridge, the problem is solved by not specifying the location because it is not needed when the publisher is "Cambridge University Press". -- Alarics (talk) 16:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

These are generally good points, and certainly ought to be considered, but better put as suggestions? And more appropriately in the WP:Manual of style?

I would disagree on two points: publisher's location (for books) should be as on the title page. If it is really necessary to include the modern name (or perhaps the publisher has moved?) then the new location could be put in brackets. Also, I don't see that the country should always be included; this should be left to the editor's (hopefully informed) discretion. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:54, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

On a related note, can somebody get http://reftag.appspot.com to scrape location data? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 00:36, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Text-source integrity: improve to show end-of-paragraph example?

I recently pointed an editor to WP:INTEGRITY to illustrate why per-sentence footnotes are often better than lumping all cites at the end of a paragraph. The editor replied that he read the section and thought it only supplied guidance on how to arrange footnotes within a sentence. Could someone add some guidance into WP:INTEGRITY to make it clear it applies to all ranges of "distance"? In particular, end-of-paragraph cites (supporting a fact at the start of a paragraph) are covered by the guideline? Thanks --Noleander (talk) 23:06, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually I don't really like the idea of explicitly discouraging paragraph based cites, that a decision that should be left to the author in doubt.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:35, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

It should be discouraged if they aren't citing directly after a quote or a controversial claim, such as something is better than something else. While the latter is a bit unclear, the former is pretty straight-forward.∞陣内Jinnai 19:50, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand your comment.--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:53, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

@Kmhkmh - I agree with you that end-of-paragr cites are sometimes okay. My point was simply that WP:INTEGRITY, as written, is a bit confusing and is giving some readers the impression that it is only addressing end-of-sentence cites. It is not: it is supposed to be talking about all cites, wherever they are. I think WP:INTEGRITY is not a mandate, it is just a guideline, so your concerns (about it being optional) should already be addressed. --Noleander (talk) 20:13, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

My thought on reading through that section for the first time in a long while is that we need something that says "Use the smallest possible number of citations to adequately support the material". Really: four separate citations for one sentence? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Any step encouraging end-of-sentence cites (WP:BLUE and such of course kept in mind) is a good step. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 00:34, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

No, it is not and there's as you well know there's no consent for it either. Strict end of (each) sentence citing is at best a marginal improvement (coming at a cost of ugly clutter) but mostly bureaucratic window dressing. If you really want to assure the correctness of citations, you need annotated citations and/or flagged/confirmed versions.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:44, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: What if I just change one of the existing examples to show the WP:INTEGRITY principle applied to a 2-sentence situation? That would not add any words or detail to the guideline, and it would have the benefit of clarifying the confusion that led to this discussion. --Noleander (talk) 01:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, you can give it a try. If it doesn't seem to work, someone will revert it.

On the general question, sometimes per-sentence citations are good, and sometimes they're not. There is no rule that requires them. (Actually, there is a definite rule that doesn't require them, since editors are free to choose any style they want, including dumping all the citations at the end of the paragraph.) Have you considered the example at Wikipedia:Inline citation#Citation_density? Per-sentence citations in a paragraph with that sort of content would be pretty silly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

You are preaching to the choir. I have no strong feelings one way or another regarding WP:INTEGRITY ... but it is a guideline, and at the moment it is not clearly articulating the intention of its original authors. If anyone wants to add material to it that points out that it is sometimes a good idea to bundle cites at the end of a sentence/paragr that is fine with me. My limited focus in this discussion is assisting editors such as those that I mention in my opening post. --Noleander (talk) 21:15, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

CITEVAR needs expanding

[73] In this edit, an editor claims that because WP:CITEVAR does not explicitly list the use or avoidance of named references and the use or avoidance of cite stacks among the "different citation systems, styles and methods" listed under CITEVAR, that CITEVAR says nothing "relevant" to them. I propose explicitly adding them to the list to avoid this in the future. Gimmetoo (talk) 20:34, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

This should be discussed on the talk page of the manual of style for citation templates, or the variety of citation templates used in the article in question. Oh, wait, there isn't one. Well I guess you'll just have to write it so you'll have a place to discuss this. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't get that. CITEVAR is documented here, so it should be discussed here. And it isn't tied to any particular style or set of templates.

CITEVAR could be split between visual styles and technical methods. What we really care about is if the display of citations is consistent within an article. The technical stuff that gets us there should be a minor point. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

"And it [CITEVAR] isn't tied to any particular style or set of templates." This page isn't tied to any particular style. It applies equally to articles that use templates and those that do not. Discussion of how to use templates is a narrower topic than the topic of this page. Would you consider it appropriate to argue here about whether CITEVAR applies to articles that follow the Chicago Manual of Style for citations, and prohibits the introduction of short citations, as defined in that manual, to articles that don't yet have them? Jc3s5h (talk) 20:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Jc3s5h, I don't get your response. Why should the use or non-use of named references (like <ref name=Smith />) be discussed on a page for citation templates (like {{cite book}})? And does CITEVAR really make you think changes to the citation style in any given article are entirely prohibited? I realize it's been extensively edited since I first drafted it, but I thought it was still sufficiently clear on that point (see the last sentence of the section). If it's not, then we need to fix that.

Gimmetoo, the answer is that "a citation style" is whatever the editors at the page declare it to include, and if they declare that refusing to use named refs is "their style", then it's covered by CITEVAR. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:45, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Gadget, it does apply to both. I could theoretically convert a page from templates to manual citations with no resulting change in appearance (by duplicating the formatting produced by the templates). However, that is still an inappropriate change according to CITEVAR (assuming it wasn't discussed). Nikkimaria (talk) 21:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, you're right, templates are not the issue. But named references only apply to articles that use footnote citations, not to articles that use parenthetical citations. So this page is a bit too broad, and Help:Footnotes does not have anything akin to CITEVAR, so I suppose this isn't an unreasonable place to discuss it. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposed wording on snippet and abstract links in citations

FYI

 – Just a link to a relevant discussion elsewhere.

Help talk:Citation Style 1#Proposed snippet and abstract wording is discussing something – guidance about linking to snippet views and abstracts – that would eventually need to be integrated into WP:MOS if acted upon, and probably also be mentioned at WP:V and/or WP:RS, as well as WP:CITE. The parent thread above it provides some background, but may be "TLDR" for some. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 00:39, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Malfunctioning reference

I cannot figure it out. It acts like there's an extra bracket in there but there's not. This makes the URL and title serperate.

Daniel Christensen (talk) 12:51, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

References

Newline after "Route 500". See WP:CS1PROBS. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

And {{cite map}} might be more appropriate.

Use of quote parameter in footnote - a proposal to provide better guidance

I suggest that it would be helpful to give editor more guidance in the use of the quote parameter in citation templates. While there is some guidance currently, I don't believe the guidance is complete. This task will have two challenges: even when we, as a community, know what guidance we want to give, the crafting of suitable language can be a challenge. In this instance, my sense is that we aren't all on the same page, so part of the task will be to determine what is, and is not permissible. It may be premature to discuss specific wording prior to reaching a consensus on what we want as best practices, but draft wording may help clarify the issues to be resolved.

My proposal is to discuss the following for a short period of time, then open an RfC to get broader input.

Background

This issue has two aspects:

• Fair use - ensuring that any such quote is in compliance with the WP:NONFREE guideline
• Editorial - determining what style guidance we wish to give editors regarding the use of the parameter, accepting compliance with WP:NONFREE as a minimum condition

A discussion about the Fair Use aspect began, appropriately enough, at the NONFREE talk page. However, that discussion quickly extended to editorial issues, which, as Masem pointed out, more properly belong at CITE. That discussion is here

Existing guidance

The current guidelines suggests use of the quote parameter in the following cases:

• If the source is an e-book that does not provide page numbers, the citation should include information that enables readers to locate the source material within the e-book, such as chapter number, paragraph number, or a short quote from the source itself.
• In the case of non-English sources, it may be helpful to quote from the original text and then give an English translation. If the article itself contains a translation of a quote from such a source (without the original), then the original should be included in the footnote.

However, this limited guidance does not include all examples, nor give any general guidance on the use of the parameter.

Proposed guidance

I think it would be useful to have a section on the use of the quote parameter, containing a general statement of use, followed by examples of proper usage, and examples where the use would be discouraged.

I'm not yet ready to craft an introductory sentence, but I'll make a list of examples, culled primarily from the discussions, and see if readers are willing to weigh in on whether these are all acceptable uses of the parameter. I'll try to give each a short description, and will start with the two examples in the existing guidance.

Sample supported uses

1. E-Book If the source is an e-book that does not provide page numbers, the citation should include information that enables readers to locate the source material within the e-book, such as chapter number, paragraph number, or a short quote from the source itself.
2. Non-English In the case of non-English sources, it may be helpful to quote from the original text and then give an English translation. If the article itself contains a translation of a quote from such a source (without the original), then the original should be included in the footnote.
3. Fact Support (online) Including a relevant quote helps the reader ensure that a basic fact is supported by the source. While a diligent reader can go to the source, a single sentence or two quoted may be sufficient to support the claim. In addition, while the original material may be online at the time the footnote was added, link rot occurs, and the quote will help ensure that the supporting material is easily found.
4. Fact Support (not online) Including a relevant quote helps the reader ensure that a basic fact is supported by the source. While a diligent reader can go to the source, if the source is not an online source, then tracking down the source may be difficult. While WP:V does not require "ease of access", it is a benefit to the reader to provide the relevant material in the article, as long as it complies with WP:F.
5. Controversial Fact Support It is not necessary, nor desirable, to support every cited fact with a quote. While the facts should, in general, be referenced, in case there is a question, in many cases, there is no controversy, and the reference without a supporting quote may be sufficient. For example, in most cases, a birth date or location is uncontroversial, and a simple citation is sufficient. In other cases, there may be a controversy about the date or location, and the inclusion of a relevant quote may be a service to the reader.
6. Opinion Support In many cases, an opinion about an entity is expressed, and editorial considerations support the use of a paraphrased summary, rather than the inclusion in the article of a direct quote. In these cases, the inclusion of a relevant quote in the footnote will help assure readers that the paraphrase is an appropriate summarization of the source.
7. Explanatory Decorative a source may contain an interesting anecdote that doesn't merit inclusion in the article directly, because it would interrupt the flow of the article. Including the anecdote in the footnote provides a service for the interested reader.

Caution - my inclusion of an item in this list does not mean I support it, I am attempting to cover the examples I have seen, to get a consensus on their use. It addition, it is unlikely we would include all such examples; three of the "fact" items represent broader and narrower usages, and we should determine how broad the support should be.

I'll also note that Richard Arthur Norton's argument is intriguing. I was originally supportive of a narrow list of permitted uses, but his argument for a broader usage is quite interesting.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

• I'm largely in favor of all of the above. The only thing I think really needs to be added is a notion of how long of a quote is generally acceptable. I realize that adding such guidance is hard, but something like "from non-free sources it is almost always a good idea to quote no more than 50 words or 10% of the text, whichever is smaller". And "even from free sources, best practice is to limit quotes to no more than 100 words" (Note: I'm not hugely attached to any of those values, they just sound about right). I'd also add my voice in saying that I've found quotes in the references to make the article much more interesting/complete. YMMV. Hobit (talk) 19:22, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• I find Richard's argument rather alarming from a fair use standpoint. He is arguing that we can adopt the fair use standards of a search engine, which exists specifically to direct people to the original works, whereas by contrast he argues in part that we need the quotes to help people avoid utilizing the original works. ("The New York Times stored all their abstracts at Proquest then they were moved to the New York Times website. All had to be refound and relinked. The Wall Street Journal is now behind a paywall and the quoted original material is no longer available for free. It allows the fact to be found in a long magazine article. A New York Times magazine article can be 10 pages of un-numbered text, a person verifying the fact only needs to cut and paste the quote to find it and be able to read it in situ.") With the Wall Street Journal argument specifically, we would be expressly setting out to harm the market for the original--one of the factors for assessing fair use. Brief quotes can be useful if a fact is or may be controversial, but when information is not controversial (as, say, footnote 1), we are incorporating non-free content where free content can serve just as well, which is straining the bounds of policy. In the case of that footnote, it is also going beyond supporting the fact that it references; it is not building on the content but simply appropriating it for the information. I do not support points 3 or 4 for that reason and certainly do not support point 7. We can't appropriate non-free content for decorative value. It would provide a service for interested readers if we included jpgs of popular songs, too, but our approach to non-free content just doesn't allow it. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:17, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you really think someone is going to read a sentence or two of an article in Wikipedia weeks, months or years after it was in an original Wall Street Journal article and then cancel their subscription to the Wall Street Journal? You can argue the opposite, that each reference to the WSJ in Wikipedia with a quote is a free advertisement for the WSJ encouraging people to subscribe. Remember, the headline of every article is also copyrighted, and we use them under fair use. One person's decoration is another person's vital fact verified. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:56, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

You yourself just said that "The Wall Street Journal is now behind a paywall and the quoted original material is no longer available for free". The only reason that this could justify using the quote is because people are not paying for the source. If by the headline of every article, you mean the title, titles are not copyrightable under US law. We can use them without concern. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:06, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

• • Hi, you seem to be mixing our NFC policy, NFCC policy and fair use in a few places. The NFCC doesn't apply to raw text. The NFC policy does apply to text, but the only applicable guidance in this situation is that "excessively long" quotes are not acceptable. That leaves us with fair use. Fair use, is, by its nature, not well defined. That said, NFC guidelines are generally extremely conservative so as to fit easily into fair use standards. I don't really see that any of those three issues apply here. Could you clarify? Hobit (talk) 20:46, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
    • I'm confused; what makes you think Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria doesn't apply to text? It specifically mentions it: "There is no automatic entitlement to use non-free content in an article or elsewhere on Wikipedia. Articles and other Wikipedia pages may, in accordance with the guideline, use brief verbatim textual excerpts from copyrighted media, properly attributed or cited to its original source or author, and specifically indicated as direct quotations via quotation marks, <blockquote>, or a similar method." It incorporates by references the terms of the guideline, which require that non-free text "be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea"--all transformative usages. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
      • The 10 point criteria doesn't apply to text AFAICT. After discussing text it says "Other non-free content—including all copyrighted images, audio and video clips, and other media files that lack a free content license—may be used on the English Wikipedia only where all 10 of the following criteria are met." (emphasis added). I take that to mean that those criteria don't apply to text. Your quote about "illustrating a point" seems to come from WP:NFC not WP:NFCC. Perhaps there is some other document you are looking at where both things are on the same page? And again, you jump to using the language of fair use "transformative usages", text that doesn't exist in either the NFC or NFCC. In any case, establishing context isn't a transformative use (or at least I've never seen it even claimed as such before). Can we please take the NFCC, NFC and fair use one at a time? Jumping around between the three not only isn't helpful, it's darn confusing. Hobit (talk) 21:17, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
        • No, it doesn't. I didn't say anything about the 10 point criteria. Policy says "in accordance with guideline", which incorporates the guideline explicitly by reference. Any use of non-free text that does not accord with guideline does not accord with policy. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:45, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
          • The NFCC is the 10 point criteria, yes? I mean that's what the second "C" stands for. I will admit I'm not sure what the sentence about text is trying to say. I'm not sure which guideline it's trying to refer to. Specifically not the 10 point part and there isn't anything else _there_ to refer to. Could you explain how you are reading it? Hobit (talk) 23:08, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
            • No, WP:NFCC is the shorthand title of the policy which includes the 10 point criteria. The top of the policy says, "For the full non-free content use guideline (including this policy and its criteria) see Wikipedia:Non-free content." This is how we know to which guideline that content refers when it says "Articles and other Wikipedia pages may, in accordance with the guideline...." Do you suppose others may be similarly confused as to which guideline is meant? We could always suggest wikilinking it in spite of the notice on the top. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:02, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) One of the points not listed is that a quote serves as part of the identification of the citation.  My sense is that the quote is a function of the citation, not of the article.  So if one source is used dozens of times, it is not my sense that I should try to provide dozens of quotes.  But allowing that I can add a quote, an artistic element becomes how to use it.  As Hobit mentioned, one of the benefits of the quote can be to make the article more interesting.  While a basic use would be instant WP:V verification of material in the article, another use of the quote is to bring in material not mentioned in the article.  It is also worth mentioning that there is a big difference between a quote in the article and the same quote in the citation, the quote in the citation serves more in the role as an advertisement, in that it draws attention to the original author and publisher.  This becomes a win-win-win for the author, publisher, and reader; with the editor getting the joy of knowing good work has been produced.  Further, we have a precedent from Google books.  Unscintillating (talk) 20:22, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• Google books gives us no precedent for doing this for two reasons: first, as a search engine, they have a different function than Wikipedia and so their basis for "fair use" is different than ours, under the first pillar. Second, Google books is not exactly legally cleared in its usage; see [74]. The bulk of copyrighted works displayed on Google are licensed and paid for ([75]), a luxury we don't have. Hoping that copyright owners will actually be pleased if we save people the bother of paying to read their text is not an unheard of argument, but I think it was quite rightly rejected by Commons in their precautionary principle, who list specifically as against their scope such defenses as "“The copyright owner will not mind/should be pleased that we have disseminated his/her work.”" We do not use non-free content where free content serves; our usage must be transformative and not seek to supersede the original. Utilizing a quote in a body of text offers us much more defense than utilizing it to "bring in material not mentioned in the article" and certainly decorative use should play no part in our adaptation of copyrighted content. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

A most interesting discussion. Generally I agree with much of the above. Here's my two cents but it is in the form of somewhat random musings. I agree with SPhilbrick that a better-worded guideline about the quote parameter |quote= quote goes here might be a worthwhile addition. And I agree with Richard Arthur Norton's general approach to this issue as well. And, I think people understand, correctly, that this is a tough issue with many nuances and facets since we're trying to straddle two competing principles: verifiability and protecting copyrights as per the non-free content rulings. In Wikipedia, we would like to verify facts but at the same time not verify them so much that we plagiarize or steal paid-content from writers who do this for a living. As a result of the ambiguity, I doubt that any kind of hard-and-fast rule is possible, since any particular instance of quoting depends on many variables, such as the context of the quote, the extent of quoting overall within an article, whether the quote serves to verify a fact or whether it is a rip-off of paid material. Looking over the list of "Sample supported uses" above, I am not quite sure what to make of it, in the sense of what is a fact versus what is an opinion, what are e-books versus what are not e-books (since some content may morph between both worlds), which facts are supposedly controversial versus which aren't -- I suppose it might be tough for any of us to nail down what is meant. And I am kind of thinking it boils down to judgment calls, so all I can do at this point is perhaps a few observations from my experience which might help people move this discussion along?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• Quoting brings prestige. And citing in general, as we realize, brings respect to the quoted source by implying that the source is important, correct, interesting, worthy of attention. It brings eyeballs to the source. Citations work like plumbing valves (wider pipes, greater pressure) bringing greater web traffic. (I worked on an article on Search engine optimization a while back.) It boosts a source's PageRank if the source quoted is viewable online, such as a web-readable newspaper article. I have often quoted The New York Times and Boston Globe and Washington Post in my contributions to Wikipedia articles, and what I notice is that not once -- in over three years of contributing here -- come across a message from any newspaper editor or reporter accusing me of plagiarizing their material or causing them to lose sales or complaining that I have quoted them too extensively. If there had been a complaint, I have not heard them, when it is easy for any reporter or editor from any publication to write on my talk page or even send me an email. Why no complaints? And I suspect the reason is that newspapers and sources in general, including academic publications, books, e-books, websites, YouTube videos on occasion, and more like being cited since it means greater traffic to their websites, greater prestige, perhaps more sales opportunities for them. If citations hurt for-profit media businesses, wouldn't we have got some backlash? And we should realize that many sources work hard to make themselves readily viewable on the web -- this is their decision -- they know what they're doing -- it's a two-way street, in a sense.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• They don't complain to you because they complain to the Wikimedia Foundation. And, yes, it does happen. I suspect The New York Times doesn't need our help boosting their prestige, but "making themselves readily viewable" may translate as "link me" more readily than "copy from me". This may be why the New York Times' Terms of Use, for example. says, "You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce (except as provided in Section 2.3 of these Terms of Service), create new works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the Content or the Services (including software) in whole or in part." --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:06, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

The issue of ownership of information is highly complex. Suppose a NY Times reporter interviews a person Y. The words belong to Y. Y said them. But the NY Times publishes Y's words. Does the NY Times forever own the "right" to Y's words? These are tough tough issues as I hope everybody here realizes, and the issue of copyright and ownership of information is bound up in larger legal issues which continue to evolve.- Plus can you give us an idea of how extensive are the complaints of the NY Times?-Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:14, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

While there is some complexity involved in who owns the rights to an interview, the one point that is straightforward is this: it isn't us. :) I'm under an NDA, but I think can safely say that I am unfamiliar with any complaints originating from NYT; I am familiar with complaints of overuse of quotations from the American Psychological Association and from individual authors of the ODNB. These were public, so I don't have any secrecy issues there. They predate my contract, in fact. The former was particularly messy, as it involved cleansing dozens of articles. Quotations are perfectly fine, so long as they are comfortably within fair use, but we need to be careful when we start making assumptions regarding tacit consent or approval of news agencies or other publications. If they want to license their content compatibly so that we can copy it, they can do that. Most of them have chosen to retain copyright, and we can't push it by concluding that, by publishing their own content, they are inviting us to publish it as well. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

NDA => nondisclosure agreement? It is interesting to learn about your experiences and viewpoint. I, for one, will try to minimize my using of quotations, including in the "quote parameter" within a citation. At the same time, if a particular media source such as the American Psychological Association or the ODNB (whatever that is) makes a fuss, perhaps a possible reply would be along these lines: would the APA or ODNB be willing to have all references to their organization and accompanying publications removed from Wikipedia entirely? I doubt they would want this. What I am saying (and I think others here are also saying) is that the benefits to APA/ODNB by having their organizations & publications quoted in Wikipedia far exceeds any possible downsides about copyright issues, and that if we gave them a choice -- all or nothing -- in Wikipedia -- that I believe these organizations would see the benefit of being in Wikipedia. I believe there is much hypocrisy regarding many facets of this issue.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:40, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, sorry. I didn't think to check if that was a disambig page. I'm not trying to be obscure with the ODNB; I'm afraid I just assumed that the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was widely known by those initials. I can't speak for Oxford University Press, but they may feel fairly secure in their place, with or without inclusion as a source in Wikipedia...who after all may siphon off some of their customers. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

• Making love to an old woman. And by this, what I mean, as you surely guessed, is that quoting a source is akin to making love to an old woman since it's hard to overdo it. Really. Suppose we're writing an article about Flowering plant. Too many quotes? Readers eyes will glaze over. Other contributors will find the overly extensive quoting boring, off-topic, and so there is a built-in tendency within Wikipedia to cut down the clutter for space or editing reasons. Force of reason will naturally keep quoting down to reasonable levels.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• Not only did I not guess that, but...what the hell are you talking about? Starting with "Suppose" you make some sense, but before that I'm lost, and I'm not sure I want to understand. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:17, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• What I'm getting at is this: there are forces here at Wikipedia which prevent us from over-quoting, from overdoing it, namely, that too much quoting will make articles boring and unhelpful. Quote too much? And another contributor (without any understanding of copyright issues) will chop out what's clearly irrelevant. The point being that we should not worry too much about this issue, but don't quote me on this. :) --Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:26, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• We actually need to be diligent on overquoting. It is a copyright issue, one of the few areas that the Foundation asks us to police aggressively. While the overinclusion of quotes on one article may not cause a legal issue before they are trimmed, it is still not appropriate to work this approach. --MASEM (t) 21:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• I agree on being diligent about not overquoting.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:40, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• Judgment call. I think it behooves contributors here at Wikipedia to put ourselves in the shoes of the sources we're quoting and ask: what might the source reasonably feel about our quoting them? Using discretion is important, with a possible guideline being: keeping it short and to the point. That seems reasonable. I like the practice of "one or two short sentences" and removing irrelevant material using "..." in their stead within the quote parameter.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it is silly to panic about how a source will react. If they do react negatively, we can remove every single quote with one run of a bot, once the Wikimedia Foundation gets a take down notice. Basing policy on the worst case scenario is never a good idea. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:30, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, when there are immediate legal issues at play, we do need proactivity. Copyvios and false BLPs are two of them; we taken action ideally before the person(s) affected notice; and even then, if the Foundation gets a complain, we follow through. If we simply waiting until the Foundation said there was a problem, WP would likely be in more hot water. Are we going to see the project end on over-indulgence of quotes within references? Unlikely but we do need to be aware that that's an issue we need to think about dealing with before it becomes a larger problem. --MASEM (t) 22:10, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• Quoting is advertising. Let me see if I can explain. It comes down to a general problem with the buying and selling of information which I bumped into when I used to be a management consultant, and it's this: how valuable is a specific piece of information X? We don't know X. We know that X is information. We know that we don't know X. We won't know how valuable X is until we learn X, and after we learn X, then why should we pay anything for having learned it? This is a classic problem in marketing research and consulting and it is a doozy. And, to an extent, this issue is present in for-pay media such as newspapers, content such as books, videos -- any kind of information. Newspapers confront this problem by putting their most precious information -- the headline -- in HUGE BOLD LETTERS so that any passing pedestrian might be tempted to read further. Consider movies: how will you sell a movie to the public? And the way the film industry tries to get at this problem is to show trailers -- spliced-together film clips of the movie. I have often seen a movie trailer and gotten a fairly good idea of what the movie was about from start to finish -- for free. What I am saying is that a quote in Wikipedia, even within the quote parameter in a citation or even in an article itself -- is kind of like a film clip of a trailer. A quote is a teaser, a free headline of sorts, a free-promotional giveaway, an advertisement for further information urging a viewer to learn more from the original source (and hopefully buy it there?).--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• I agree that quoting can be advertising, but it can cut both ways. One of the arguments for the inclusion of a quote is that it reduces the need to visit the original material. While I like your analogy to a trailer, not all quotes work that way, in fact, in many cases, they might be the film equivalent of a spoiler. You might reduce the audience for The Sixth Sense if you revealed certain things in the trailer, so they did not. However, our quotes are generally intended to cut to the chase, not tantalize, so I suspect that this argument works against the use of a quote in many cases.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:23, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• I think we're in agreement, essentially, that decisions about quoting are judgment calls.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:40, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• Good quotes point readers to the source. And maybe that might be the wellspring of a guideline for quoting in Wikipedia -- that we quote to the extent that it incites a reader to see more of the real newspaper article without giving them the whole content of the article. A quote "works" if it gets a reader to click on the NY Times article online; a quote is "overdone" if it is so extensive that a reader gets the full benefit without any incentive to learn more from the NY Times. Another way to put it is this: quoting is helpful when it steers people to sources; it is harmful when used so extensively that it is as if Wikipedia becomes the New York Times by trying to replace it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• More valuable content should be quoted less. Content which we might see as more valuable -- meaning more likely to generate wealth for a medium -- we should use shorter quotes AND give the source greater attention within the articles itself. Particularly: recent content; in-demand content. Less valuable content (ie older) such as dated newspaper reports (eg over 20 years old maybe) I think we can be more liberal with quoting. For example, I noticed in the article Anselm J. McLaurin that one user removed a quote from a newspaper here. Here is the quote: "United States Senator Anselm Joseph McLaurin died suddenly to-night of heart disease at his home in Brandon, Miss. The fatal attack seized Senator McLaurin while he was seated in a rocking chair in front of the fireplace in his library. He fell forward without speaking a word, and life was extinct when members of his family reached his side." I question whether removal of the quote was wise since the information is old and non-commercial. The quote was from an obituary in the NY Times dated 1909. I sincerely doubt that the NY Times cares whether we use the full quote or not. I doubt anybody would pay $3 or more to read a 100+ year old article (although it is possible I may be mistaken about this.) It is helpful for Wikipedia fact-checkers to see the quote since it helps readers verify the accuracy of the Wikipedia article. The big benefit to the NY Times is building a reputation for providing factual information, generally, and Wikipedia quoting this article helps it achieve this purpose.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

It is public domain SPhilbrik but is opposed to quotes for the sake of aesthetics, whether they are pd or fair use. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:51, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

• We should celebrate good sources. When I find a particularly instructive article by The New York Times, for example, I put both the name of the reporter and a wikilink to the publication within the article itself -- readable by people -- to acknowledge the reporter's contribution. This brings more readers to both the Wikipedia article about the medium as well as to the content on the web by that medium -- ie both the New York Times Wikipedia article and the online article itself.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• Poetry. Here is an area where I think we should tread very lightly (and quote less) since it takes a writer much longer to come up with even one line. Here, I am loathe to even quote a full line of a poem, particularly if it is a contemporary poet.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• It was my hope that we would cover the fair use rules at WT:F, and take compliance with those rules as a given here, then concentrate on editorial issues here. It is fairly well established over there that the length of an acceptable quote is a function of several things, including the length of the original material, so that a quoted segment of a short poem should be shorter than of a longer text. That applies to prose as well, as I learned when I failed to delete a quote that turned out to be the entire article.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:14, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• Public domain content. I am not up on copyright law, but there should be something equivalent to the policy on image content, such that if content was written before a certain year (1923?) then there should not be any restrictions on quoting it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• There is; see Wikipedia:Copyrights and Wikipedia:Public domain. There is no restriction on quoting public domain sources. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:09, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oh. I didn't know. Thanks.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:40, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I hope these musings are helpful, but it can get so complicated. I know a general boost to mankind is our ability to share information freely (one of the keys of the dominance of homo sapien sapiens) -- it is also a boost to authors if they can chalk off some specific words as "their own" and sell it, since the possibility of the chalking off motivates them to write some very interesting stuff. The weirdness of these two worlds colliding -- free dissemination of information and copyrights -- you can see everyday in the public library, where people can borrow a book for FREE which has the words COPYRIGHT on the third page. Clearly one of you bright people writing here will someday explain this weirdness to me while keeping a straight face.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

We have to be very selective on when we include quoted material. It doesn't have the same rigors as media use, but at the same, what we are basically doing is taking works under a variety of copyright licenses and putting them into the CC-BY-SA/GFDL. The more quoting we pull in from sources, the more unlikely we can justify distribution of the work under these licenses. There are appropriate points to use quotes, but our use in citation templates must be restricted to specific cases where the quotes can't be otherwise easily identified by our verification policy (in which the sources need only be available). We need to err on the minimum quote side to keep this a free-content work. --MASEM (t) 21:20, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

You raise an issue that is very difficult to implement in guidelines, namely, that if editors starting using the parameter more often, even if every single example complies with the guideline, the aggregate usage may create a problem.

@MRG - when Tomwsulcer noted he hadn't heard complaints form copyright holders, you noted that such complaints are likely to be directed at the Foundation. Is there a way to get a sense of how this community feels (which begs the question whether their interests all match). Are we viewed as close to the line, and need to be more rigorous? Are we viewed as doing OK, and simply need to remain vigilant? --SPhilbrick(Talk) 23:14, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean the community of people who write us? Some of them are quite reasonable people; some of them are, erm, proposing a definition of fair use that would not likely be well received in court. :) If you mean the WMF, the WMF seems overall pretty pleased (in my impression) with the community's diligent approach to copyright. I know I've heard chief counsel Geoff comment very admiringly about how knowledgeable the communities specifically of En Wiki and Commons are and how seriously it takes such questions. Of course, they understand that not all individuals adopt community standards, and they are aware of some of the major problem areas we face (like, say, WP:IEP). While of course they don't obstruct DMCA take down requests (and by law can't), they're certainly not quick to throw us under the bus when we get complaints, which can sometimes be resolved quietly to everybody's satisfaction. While there have been complaints about over-use of quotations (and there was an aggregate issue, as you mention, with quotes from one source being spread over multiple articles), I've never heard anybody at WMF complain that as a community we have slack standards. Personally (totally in my volunteer hat), I think we just need to be sure that we continue to remain thoughtful on the question and work within the deliberately narrow constraints we've been given. That said, I've used the quote parameter a time or two myself, so I'm certainly not against them in any blanket way. IMO, it's important that they remain brief and transformative and that we do not use them when we could adequately create free content instead. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:30, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the in-depth answer- my question was about people who write to us, but I am interested in hearing how the Foundation views our stance, so thanks for that as well.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

the term "decorative" as a supported use doesn't seem right. We commonly use "decorative" to describe images which don't meet NFCC-8 and on top of that I gather what we mean by "decorative" is a catch all for an appropriate quote which doesn't meet the rest of the examples. I want to carve out a space for quotations where the flow or presentation of the article would be diminished by a summary of the quote. I don't know where this is written but a common rule of thumb for quotations I have seen goes something like "if the original source makes a claim in a unique, pithy or interesting fashion such that summarizing the quote would damage the reader's understanding, then include the quote" That's a good editorial stance so perhaps it doesn't belong in our guidance on NFC, but I wouldn't want us to undercut that stance in a policy or guideline. Protonk (talk) 22:14, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting editorial stance. Seems like a good guideline for writing.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:40, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Why are none of the recommended guidelines about citations cited themselves, referencing specific citation guides? This seems hipocritical and I have found based on information mapping training the best way to document something, especially writing guidelines, is to use those same guidelines in the text documenting the guidelines.

Arbitrary break

One thing worth noting is the relative frequency of the potential uses of the quote parameter. If, we as a community, decided to support case 1 (e-books without page numbers) and case 2 (non-English) as valid uses of the quote option, this usage would comprise a fraction of one per cent of all citations. In contrast, if the community felt that Case 3 could be supported unreservedly, then we are talking about almost all citations. I'm sympathetic to the notion that adding a quote helps readers and editors in case of link rot, but that argument would justify the use of a quote in virtually every citation. Some might support that, but I predict this would meet resistance. I have a proposal so that we can eat our cake and have it, too.

Use the hidden option - If one adds a quote parameter as follows: |quote= <!--- add the quote of interest here --->, then the material, very likely subject to copyright, will not appear in the footnote, but will be available to editors in case the link rots, or is too an offline source. To anticipate a potential objection, I wouldn't suggest this give anyone license to include a long passage; I would still encourage excerpts no longer than are needed, but this would allow more common use of the parameter, without cluttering up the notes section of the article, or contributing to a sense that we are over quoting material subject to copyright.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:27, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Hidden quotes are just as legally problematic as visible ones. That's not a solution from the copyright side of the equation. --MASEM (t) 22:30, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

My suggestion is mainly motivated by editorial considerations; I don't think I would like the looks of a reference section if virtually every footnote had a quote, and the only reason they were included, was to cover the chance that the link might rot. However, I'm also surmising that while a two sentence excerpt from the New York Times in a handful of articles won't raise any hackles there, if everyone started doing this, someone might make the argument that the individual instances aren't a problem, but the aggregate usage is a problem. While I admit I am speculating. I do not think there would be the same concern if the quotes were hidden, and you had to know where to look to find them. I'd love to hear that my concern about aggregate usage is flawed, but if so, then I reiterate that I'm not suggesting the use of more material than is allowed under fair use.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:44, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the SPhilbrick hidden quotes solution is excellent and brilliant since it straddles both worlds -- it allows a fact-checker to get the original quote, but it is VERY hard for almost all readers of Wikipedia (the exception, of course, is those who know how to edit an article and choose to edit that particular article -- a very small percent of all readers). So I disagree with the idea that the hidden-quote approach is "just as legally problematic as visible ones" since the practical effect is to reduce visibility dramatically. Yes, some lawyer might raise a technicality, but in practical considerations, this is a much much better solution in my view.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:41, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Because anyone can view the source code without having to log in and regardless of the protection on an article, the inclusion of text that is hidden otherwise on delivery of the article (even if not present in the generated HTML) is still being distributed. It is for all purposes equivalent for having that text present in the article to start with. Please note that I'm not saying it's illegal or not, just that the legal weight is simply the same; hiding the text does nothing to change the situation. --MASEM (t) 23:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. While it is still technically possible for anyone to view the code, and read the quote, the actual incidence of real people really reading the quote drops down to microscopic proportions. The fact that very few, if any, people actually read the actual quote must have some kind of legal import. I can not imagine a court or judge not taking this into account. And, in my view, SPhilbrick's brilliant solution is a win-win-win for many parties -- for persons seeking to protect copyright -- for fact-checkers -- for contributors using the "quote" parameter to prevent accusations of plagiarism -- it's a win for everybody in my view.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:28, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement. :) One of the issues with hidden text is that it can actually be copied and published by our automated reusers. This is the reason why people placing {{copyvio}} are supposed to remove rather than simply blank the text. I know this because I was part of the group of people that decided that having that template automatically hide the offending text for the week of investigation would be good enough, and I was told it is not. Whether the content is visible to our readers or not, hidden or not, it's still published if it's on our current page. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:10, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

The hidden option seems fine so long as the content meets fair use. If it doesn't, though, as I've noted in response to Tomwsulcer above, it's still a problem. It seems like a good solution to me to reduce unnecessary clutter, but we would need to word any recommendation carefully to avoid giving the misimpression that hiding a comment gives one carte blanche on copying copyrighted materials. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:15, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

My revised opinion below. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:50, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - The topmost proposal incudes "Decorative" (item #7) as an example of the quote parameter. A better term is "explanatory note", because the latter term is already used in WP:FNNR and HELP:Footnotes (see, e.g. Wikipedia:FOOTNOTES#Explanatory_notes). --Noleander (talk) 22:32, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

• I'll change "decorative" to "explanatory" as WP:EXPLNOTE does cover what I meant.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:47, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose based on this. While it seemed like a workable idea on first blush, seeing it in action raises concerns in me that it will make detecting and fixing potential overusages of non-free content that much harder. None of this is intended to suggest that I think SPhilbrick is undeserving of barnstars. :) He deserves that for many reasons, if none other than putting thought into the issue. Because usage of quotes must accord with WP:NFC whether hidden or not, the need for transparency would seem to outweigh the benefit of reducing clutter. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:50, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar for Sphilbrick's hidden quote idea

Note -- an intelligent win-win-win solution to a nagging problem that I think Sphilbrick deserves commendation for.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:57, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you should give put it on Sphilbrick's talk page instead of a discussion board? As Wikipedia:Barnstars says, "To give the award to someone, just place the image on their talk page (or their awards page), and say why you have given it to them." (emphasis added) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:07, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, you did. I'm removing it from here. Enough to note that you've bestowed one, if you think that's important. You've given it to the person who merits it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:12, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but I wanted to make a point here as well -- that in my view, the hidden quote idea is a good one, and hopefully people who make a decision later about this whole issue, or revise the guidelines about the quote parameter, may take this into account?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:15, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Consensus isn't going to be based on your giving him a barnstar. :) It's based on the strength of arguments. You've made your argument above, and you're welcome to expand on it, but the barnstar is just social clutter here. Barnstars are nice; I've given out plenty myself. There's certainly nothing wrong with noting that you've given him one. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:18, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

What? I'm shocked, shocked, shocked that barnstars can't substitute for strength of arguments! (I am teasing). See, I kind of knew someone would delete the barnstar from this page, but the act of deleting it would plant in their mind the idea that the hidden quote strategy was a good one. Is this idea in your mind, possibly? At least maybe in future it may register with folks who write up the guidelines and rules for using the quote parameter, that's all. And I've started using the hidden quote thing in my contributions too until, of course, the Wikipedia community comes up with a different guideline, but based on how difficult these issues are, I do not expect anything clear which settles the issue once and for all.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:25, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe my mind is more influenced by the initial argument than the barnstar. My opinion of the "hidden quote" strategy is probably more influenced by my experiences in hiding copyrighted text with the {{copyvio}} template and learning that this still constitutes a copyright problem. Having seen now how it may be used in your recent changes to Planned shrinkage, I feel like I need to oppose this. Eliminating "see alsos", image captions, and references (including the hidden text), you have an article there that is 1,308 words. Your hidden comments include 779 words of presumably copyrighted text. (I have not checked each source to see if any are public domain.) Furthermore, some of the contents you are copying are not used to substantiate your facts, but go beyond what is needed for that purpose. You are supporting this sentence:

Yes, maybe I am overdoing it a bit here. Sometimes I work quickly. Perhaps I should have trimmed some of the quotes down further.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Planned shrinkage was mentioned as a development strategy for the South Bronx section of New York City in the 1970s, and more recently for other urban areas in the United States cities of New Orleans,[3][4] and several cities in Michigan such as Flint[5][6] and Benton Harbor.[7]

...with the following copyrighted text:

But New Orleanians resisted such ideas, just as residents of the South Bronx fought against Planned Shrinkage in the 1970s. In fact, the top-down attempt to shrink the city galvanized an enraged citizenry into a level of civic involvement that did not exist before the storms. Five years later it is paying off for New Orleans, just as it did over 30 years ago in the South Bronx. Sensing that spirit, thousands of new and returning residents have poured into the city—including me. source

Planned shrinkage became a workable concept in Michigan a few years ago, when the state changed its laws regarding properties foreclosed for delinquent taxes. Before, these buildings and land tended to become mired in legal limbo, contributing to blight. Now they quickly become the domain of county land banks, giving communities a powerful tool for change. source

The downward spiral — the absence of jobs creates a kind of permanent underclass; the permanent underclass creates a declining tax base; the declining tax base damages city services, local schools most of all, making positive change that much more difficult — is all too common in American cities now. source

I can't figure out how last quote is even supposed to substantiate the sentence. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:46, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

The "downward spiral" quote is in an article which mentions Benton Harbor, a Michigan city dealing with the issue of shrinkage (whether planned or not). The particular citation is not used in only one place in the article, but it used elsewhere to support the idea of the interplay of factors (absence of job => permanent underclass => declining tax base => school problems etc). But that quote points to an article which does mention Benton Harbor, so a diligent fact-checking Wikipedian, doubting whether or not I made up the information that Benton Harbor Michigan is dealing with issues of planned shrinkage. The citation does double duty here.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Before you settle in to opposition (if I'm not too late), I'd like to reiterate that I do not support the use of the hidden feature as a way to hide material under copyright, in the mistaken belief that this is an exemption to copyright. I believe all material hidden this way should meet the fair use criteria (or be PD). I think the inclusion of a quote in a footnote, merely to cover the possibility that the link might rot someday, is not a good editorial policy. Leaving a fair use excerpt as a hidden comment, to be reviewed in the case of link rot (which may also serve to help find the material if it has simply been moved), should qualify as a fair use, and doesn't clutter up the readers view.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:04, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Link rot is much better served using services like archive.org or webcite. Again looking to context dependency, these sites are doing the same job as Google in terms of being a search engine, and have the same semi-legalness to caching pages as Google does. We, at WP, do not. --MASEM (t) 14:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

My opposition is based only on concerns that improper implementation will be difficult to detect. We get articles at WP:CP that overuse non-free content in this way; it won't be readily apparent to those reading articles or evaluating them that there's a problem if the problem is hidden. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:25, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

What's this to do with anything, Tomwsulcer? </confused> --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:25, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

The purpose had been to experiment with the whole hidden quote idea. If you search for <!--- you'd find your quote about barnstars, from your user page, hidden within the quote parameter of my citation. The idea was to try to demonstrate that hidden quotes try to straddle multiple purposes (ie allowing fact-checking while protecting the rights of the original text-creators -- in practice, overall but not totally, since they're still visible but only to those most inclined to really dig into the information using edit mode). But I now am of the view that I am rather over my head in this whole copyright issue stuff, and when you and the others here who are up on this issue figure out some reasonable guidelines that are clear enough for moi to understand, then I'll do my best to follow them. My present understanding is to cool it on the quotes, including quotes within parameters, and even if I do use an occasional hidden quote, even then to try to keep it as short as possible and try to be mindful and respecting of copyrights.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:49, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I mean specifically, what is the link to my user space to do with anything? :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:22, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Since the reference and link appears to bother you, I will remove it. But the idea had been to demonstrate the hidden quote idea as I wrote above, and this line of reasoning does not seem to be connecting with you, but permit me one more time to try to tell you what was trying to convey. Imagine if you had been a media -- suppose you were like the NY Times or Oxford Dictionary that is -- and you had published a comment about Barnstars -- what Barnstars were, what their purpose was, etc -- a copyrighted sentence. Are you with me? I'm thinking hypothetically here. Now, suppose I was writing a Wikipedia article about barnstars, and I wanted to cite a source (you -- the medium) that barnstars were such-and-such. I could cite you in a way which a fact-checker could, conceivably, see the exact quote (hidden) and have access to it even if in the future, you erased the comment on your user page about barnstars, or moved your page, or if the page got deleted -- whatever. The fact is still there. At the same time, practically speaking, since almost nobody (in terms of readers) sees the copyrighted quote. If you were a medium -- wouldn't that be more preferable to you than if the quote was more visible? And, if you were a medium (like I argue elsewhere) wouldn't you prefer having incoming links to your website? See, what I was trying to get at was that it was a win-win-win for everybody, respecting copyright, meeting the needs of fact-checkers, motivating contributors (since their well-referenced contributions are less likely to be deleted), meeting the needs of mediums which (in my view) would prefer more incoming links. It was just a hypothetical example, no more. My plans are, at the moment, not to write any more about this subject (all typed out!). :)--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:29, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

It didn't bother me; it only confused me, particularly floating as it was kind of by itself. :) I'm afraid I didn't follow the larger point you were trying to make; I appreciate your spelling it out. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:04, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Another arbitrary break

Generally, reading the comments above, I am coming around to the view that there is much here for me to learn. I do not understand much about copyright issues except in a general way. And I have been trying to imagine myself in the shoes of other entities such as media, WMF, other contributors, and such, to try to get a handle on these issues, and what I am saying is that I am less certain about this than I was a day or so before. What I've been doing is something which I had thought was good Wikipedia practice in terms of referencing everything -- and I saw that using quotes within a reference was the best way to do this since it made the fact-checkers job easier, and helped my contributions stick. Only rarely had I come across issues where someone complained about my using quotes within the "quote parameter"; now I am rethinking my choices. But the following is kind of where I am at now in thinking:--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with SPhilbrick that the hidden feature should only be used if the "fair use" criterion is met. The "fair use" criterion being the trump consideration seems reasonable. But my concern is that, by reading some of the comments above, that too much weight is being given to the copyright issue, and other issues are being neglected which (in my view) can be very important to Wikipedia. Consider that there are numerous agendas, sometimes opposed, and let me see if I can identify some of them:--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• Wikimedia Foundation -- an agenda of not wanting to get sued for copyright violations by contributors.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• Wikipedia contributors -- an agenda of writing stuff that will "stick" (not get deleted) and therefore referencing (including using quotes at times) helps further this agenda.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• Wikipedia fact-checkers -- an agenda of matching text to a source; online sources are easier; link rot, paywalls, and the like block this. Referencing, quoting helps the fact-checker agenda.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• Almost all media sources -- an agenda of wanting to be quoted in Wikipedia. I believe sincerely this is true. Quoting sources brings media greater respect, PageRank, increased web traffic. For established media, it reinforces their presence; for up-and-coming media, it helps establish their legitimacy. The few media sources who complain about copyright issues (as far as I can tell) are a vocal sue-happy extreme minority (unless you can provide evidence to the contrary.) I believe this could be tested as follows: If Wikipedia targets one particular source such as Oxford Dictionary or the American Psychological Association and removes every mention of them (including all links) from all Wikipedia articles, this would be a much much greater loss for them than any possibly copyvio issues. It would be like pulling the rug out from under them. And I am tempted to recommend this as a policy for WMF: that if WMF gets sued by any media source, then WMF could insist that all mentions of the source be removed (or that links to the source could be blocked -- perhaps easier to do) as a response. What Oxford does, what all media do, is take material from other sources and re-package it and re-write it in a new way. Oxford takes data from professors, other dictionaries, newspapers, and such when it comes up with its idea of what a word means. It rarely pays these sources. Then it turns around and sells it as if it were the original creator. It wasn't. Wikipedia (in my view) is more honest -- we say where we are getting information from (including Oxford) so people can check that yes, we are using such-and-such a source; how will they check it? Hunting down the citation, seeing the quote.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• We can't confuse reuse of information - which is free from copyright - with reuse of text, which is not. Repackaging and rewriting content in a new way is entirely legal. Overuse of non-free content is not. That's the bottom line here; we are careful not to violate copyright law. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:32, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Think about it this way. If Wikipedia was a direct competitor to Oxford -- a dictionary writer such as Merriam-Webster -- and if Wikipedia took Oxford's definitions and used them as our own -- then in my view Oxford would have a real issue with Wikipedia. It's one competitor stealing from another. One dictionary does the work; another benefits. But Wikipedia is a different level from Oxford -- a free resource which doesn't sell anything -- which assimilates material from many different sources. Wikipedia serves a different audience, a different purpose. I wrote much of the current Wikipedia article Equal opportunity. To do this I used many different dictionaries as references, including Blackwell, Merriam-Webster. The compilation Equal opportunity Wikipedia article is entirely different from anything that Blackwell or Webster could possibly do -- it is not a competitor to them. It is a different treatment, a new animal, a creature all its own. It's as if Wikipedia is a different level in the media food chain, and being on a different level implies in a way that the copyright rules don't quite make sense. Like, a NY Times reporter interviews X. It's X's words. NYT publishes Xs words and then uses this to sell newspapers. Does it make sense to see X and the NYT as competitors? Can X sue the NYT for "copyright" issues? Does X own the words that X said? And what I am sensing is that none of this makes sense because X and the NY Times are on different levels, in the same way that Oxford Dictionary and the Wikimedia Foundation are on different levels.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

So, what I am saying is that these agendas, above, conflict. And what would be bad, overall, is if Wikimedia chose one agenda to triumph over all the others. And I guess that is the heart of my concern here -- that Wikimedia is elevating the concerns of the few sue-happy disgruntled media outlets to the detriment of contributors, fact-checkers, readers, and other media. And I had seen the hidden quote parameter as a way to straddle numerous agendas. --Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

At the same time, I admit now that I am thoroughly confused about what is right here, and I am rethinking my whole practice of using quotes at all.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2012 (UTC) And, just to note, I removed all quotes within the "quote parameter" in the article Planned shrinkage -- just noting that I planned to so shrink the article, which did happen. :) I guess my policy from now on will be not to use the quote parameter unless absolutely necessary until you fine people can iron out what the guidelines are.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:51, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

A few things to keep in mind:

• The Foundation has a primary goal of making free content, educational works. They want people to be able to take copies (with proper attribution) and reuse them for whatever goals they want. Yes, the Foundation is worried about legal issues, which is why straight up copyright violations are removed, and why we have a strong BLP policy. But there are other resolutions, specifically, their resolution on non-free content, that recognize there is a need for fair use in creating educational content but set a bar purposely to maintain the goal of being a freely distributable work. This mostly applies to media files as opposed to things like text, but it is not a far cry to assure ourselves that the Foundation would like us to restrict the use of copyrighted text under the pretense of fair use.
• US Fair Use law is purposely vague, and only can be fixed in place by the results of case laws. As MRG has stated, context is very important here, and it is difficult to guess which way it would land should WP be taken to court over that issue. The best suggestion is to keep it to minimal uses, strengthening the fair use defense. But that doesn't necessarily mean zero in this case, since there's a strong recognizition that requoting direct passages has educational value.
• I would not be rushing to remove short statements in "quote" parameters of cite templates just yet. There's a reason we're having this discussion as to determine when is an appropriate time to fill in the "quote" parameter, in considering the fair use implications. --MASEM (t) 16:13, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok. I'll wait for guidance from you fine people but in the meantime will restrict my use of quote-parameters as much as possible.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:00, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• A conflicting agenda for the foundation is to defend fair use rights. So that agenda would urge us to make maximum use of fair use without going over the line into copyright infringement. Adoption of a policy that is so far on the safe side of the boundary that the boundary can't even be seen with a telescope would run contrary to this agenda. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:28, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• Given the Foundation's statement on the use of non-free media files, they set a bar that is purposely stronger than the requirements of fair use - that is, for media we can't use the maximum amount that fair use would allow due to the Foundation's requirement (this is part of the free content mission). Now, text is not file media, and the resolution specifically doesn't mention text, but I would argue that the Foundation's resolution implies the same - we shouldn't be playing at the line of maximum fair use, but step back and use sounder judgement to keep us away from that line, particularly given the line is very grey and fuzzy. --MASEM (t) 16:36, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Even though our terms of use make no mention or allowance for fair use text at all ("If you want to import text that you have found elsewhere or that you have co-authored with others, you can only do so if it is available under terms that are compatible with the CC-BY-SA license"), I think it's pretty much given that they expect us to use quotes under fair use. But I'm not sure why you think that the Foundation's agenda urges making maximum use of fair use; on the contrary, the board licensing policy resolution on the contrary notes that the Foundation strives to "empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free content license" (emphasis in original), encouraging them to keep their exemption policies limited. Our goal here isn't to liberate content under copyright. It's to produce content under free license.

That said, I'm by no means against using quotes in articles. I do it routinely and sometimes use the quote parameter myself when I think that a fact is likely to be controversial. I just think it's essential that we make sure, though, that any recommendations we make as to the use of non-free content keeps people in the mind of the fact that they must make transformative use of non-free content and that their excerpts must remain brief and proportional. (Speaking of context dependent, a quote that is, say, 100 words out of a book isn't likely to be a problem...but it certainly may be if the article is 102 words long. :) A line out of a poem is likely to be fair use in a critical work about the poem or the poet, but almost certainly not on a coffee mug.)

I've been working copyright on Wikipedia for about four years now, so it stands to reason this is a major focus for me. I don't want to see people inadvertently led into problems. I think wherever we may offer guidance, we need to be very careful to offer clear guidance that can help them avoid some of the unfortunate drama we run into in that area. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:51, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I very much don't think the use of quotations to support controversial facts is going to work. An encyclopedia is a tertiary source. It necessarily compresses its sources - or people could just read the original. Thus, if we require (or even expect/encourage) quotations, the supporting quotations may become much longer than the article - and they can still be taken out of context. It is already the case that some editors have a strong pre-formed opinion on a topic, then type a few phrases into Google/Scholar/Books, and uncritically use small fragments of larger works they have neither read nor understood in full to "support" their version. I oppose anything that encourages that. The only way to properly use any source is to spend the time to read a sufficiently large fragment to understand the authors terminology and argument, and to read enough of the literature to understand the standing of the publication in the field. If you are already familiar with the literature and the author, that can be just a paragraph. But it can just as well be the full text, plus most of its references, plus most of the text referenced in the references, plus a few overview articles. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:21, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure I get about compression of sources, or quotations becoming longer than the article, but other ideas above I think are good referencing policy but are somewhat off the issue of how to handle copyrights vs quoting.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Automatic expiration of quote parameters. When a new factoid is added with a citation, the few days after it was added are one time when it's of great interest to the fact checkers. So if there is content within the "quote parameter" of a citation, then it could be seen then, within the first few days or perhaps week. Then, automatically, a bot would erase the material in the quote parameter. Just an idea.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Where quotes are required in citations

In concurrence to the above discussion, I think we can focus on cases that, regardless of the copyright or tertiary source issues, we want editors to include quotes. There are two specific cases that I can identify:

• Foreign language sources If there is no "official" English translation, and the editor is providing the translation themselves, the editor should include the relevant quote both in the original language and in English (their translation), so that the reader of the citation can see what language the editor used to justify the point.
• Visual/Audio sources If a source is primary visual and audio (tv show, radio show, etc.), and no official transcript is available, editors should provide the relevant quotes as they heard it within the citation. Of course, this depends on how tight the quote/transcript can be made. If a whole show dedicated to one topic can be summarized in two sentences for WP, we don't need any quotes, just the cite to the show. On the other hand, if one a single line is used to back a specific fact, then that line should be included within the cite.

There are likely other times that quotes should be used with cite templates, but I'm focusing on these as ones that I believe are obvious to have and that most here would seem to agree with based on the above discussions. --MASEM (t) 16:16, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Taquan Air as an example of an article using the quote parameter

the aggregate problem

At WP:NFC, I have mentioned Taquan Air as a model for the usage of the quote parameter.  Most of the references there have one sentence quoted, with one reference having a quote with three sentences, and one reference having a quote with a length of four sentences.  I believe that the quotes there, in addition to other considerations, serve to characterize and identify the source.  The only argument I have seen working against this model is the aggregate text problem.  So if Taquan Air quotes one sentence from an article in the Juneau Empire, and the same article is used in the mayor of Juneau's article with one sentence quoted, and another one sentence is quoted in an article about the type of airplane that the mayor christened, and another quote is used in the history of Juneau; in aggregate we could end up quoting half a dozen sentences from one article.  Is this a credible concern in the context of the quote parameter?  If it is, I feel that the concern needs to be stated in the context of the quote parameter, and in a manner that does not presuppose the solution to the problem.  Thank you for your consideration of this issue, Unscintillating (talk) 19:50, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Hyder, Alaska

Here is a recent example of the quote parameter in use and IMO improving the encyclopedia.  Yesterday an editor removed two unusual facts about Hyder, but left the unusual facts that were verified in the quote parameter.  The quoted material hadn't tried to verify everything in the book, including that Canadian Mounties are the local police for the one hundred citizens of Hyder, Alaska.  Turns out the quote was from page 97 instead of page 93.  (A look at the talk page maps out the rest of the picture regarding both the mounties and the schools.)  Unscintillating (talk) 14:53, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Spaces within citations

Spaces in various places within citations are not rendered, but make the source code easier to read. Where there are multiple citations, a space before the closing </ref> tag makes it easier for the human eye to see the end of one citation and the start of the next one. However, WP:GENFIXES currently removes it. Worse, some bots also remove spaces adjacent to pipes within citation templates such as {{cite web}}. Is this the place to discuss a change in GENFIXES (or other rules) with the goal of retaining such spaces? (An editor at WT:Manual of Style suggested that I bring this here.) – Fayenatic (talk) 22:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Can you give me a diff of this happening in an actual article? The things I've found in the list (e.g., WP:GENFIXES#FixReferenceTags_.28FixReferenceTags.29) don't seem to do what you describe. For example, you complain about this:

<ref>Here is my text. </ref>

being changed to

<ref>Here is my text.</ref>

but what I see listed is ^{[1] [2]} being changed to ^[1][2]. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

If you want to see a space between and , then see Help:Reference display customization. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:03, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

No thanks, Gadget850, that's not what I want. Yes, WhatamIdoing: here is an example of a bot removing spaces before the closing /ref tag. The bot's owner says the space is removed by general fixes. – Fayenatic (talk) 09:47, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

It is marginally useful to keep those spaces. Much more useful in my view is to keep, or indeed insert (as I often do if I am editing in that paragraph anyway), spaces adjacent to pipes within reference templates. They not only make the contents of the edit window easier to read, they also allow line breaks to appear in sensible places in the edit window. -- Alarics (talk) 10:26, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I did a bit of testing and don't see that adding a space before </ref> helps in any way. A space in citation templates before parameter pipes does help to wrap text in the edit window, especially for URLs. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Extra whitesspace (spaces, but also linebreaks) can very definitely make raw text more readable. If you don't find it so, fine, no one is required to put them in. But taking them out because someone wants to a save a very little space is more prissy than useful. I put them in for a reason, and it is rude (at the least) for bot-drivers to wipe them out without even a by-your-leave. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:18, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the diff. I don't normally leave trailing spaces, but I wouldn't bother removing them. I agree with Fayenatic's statement at the bot page that twiddling the spaces makes the diffs needlessly complex, and it provides no apparent benefit (since, as Gadget points out, the space isn't rendered). Adding it might not help anything except the editor, but removing it definitely doesn't help anyone in any way. I think this "fix" should be removed from the list of automatic changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking that collapsing multiples spaces into a single space might be okay, then realized that I have done citations with long lists of authors, and found it quite helpful (as in catching a few errors) to add multiple spaces to align names vertically. So I would say don't mess with the spaces in any way, neither adding nor removing. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:34, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the support here. In response to Gadget850, the benefit of a space before the closing </ref> arises only if there are adjacent citations. It is rightly not allowed to put a space between them, i.e. </ref> <ref> should be </ref><ref>, so the best way to make the end of the first citation more visible is to leave white space before the closing tag.

Would any of you experienced hands care to raise a bug report or two for AWB as this user did for some similar points? – Fayenatic (talk) 20:41, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Harvard references

The {{harv}} template is up for deletion: see Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 January 24#Template:Harvard citation. Please comment there. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:01, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Tool needed

I seem to recall seeing a tool that would find duplicate citations and combine them into a shared citation with a name. For instance, it would convert:

blah blah<ref>Smith, p 32</ref> more blah.<ref>Smith, p 32</ref>

into

blah blah<ref name=Smith32>Smith, p 32</ref> more blah.<ref name=Smith32/>

Was I dreaming? --Noleander (talk) 04:53, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I found it. it is

http://toolserver.org/~verisimilus/Bot/DOI_bot/doibot.php?edit=toolbar&slow=1&page=ARTICLENAMEHERE

--Noleander (talk) 18:13, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

AFAIR, {{sfn}} provides a better solution. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 19:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia link in lieu of citation

Somewhere I hope it says that linking to a Wikipedia article, in lieu of a citation, is insufficient, since each article is edited by different editors with different standards. And often, the Wikipedia article isn't cited either, or the cite is not WP:RS. Student7 (talk) 21:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:SECONDARY: "Wikipedia is a tertiary source.... Some tertiary sources are more reliable than others, and within any given tertiary source, some articles may be more reliable than others. Wikipedia articles may not be used as tertiary sources in other Wikipedia articles, but are sometimes used as primary sources in articles about Wikipedia itself." --Orange Mike | Talk 22:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Also WP:CIRCULAR. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:14, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Dead links and BLPs

The Preventing and repairing dead links subsection says "Do not delete a citation merely because the URL is not working today." What about dead links in Biographies of Living Persons?

For example, if you find a dead link on a particularly contentious assertion in a BLP, should you remove the superscripted citation itself immediately (after checking the archives; see WP:DEADREF)? Or should you wait until the 24 months have expired before eliminating the reference? Remember, this is in a BLP. (Should archived citations be valid for BLP’s at all?)

Much more important, if the dead link is the only citation for a particular assertion, should the statement that the citation references be removed as well? Even if the statement is only mildly debatable? (I’m assuming that you’ve tried to find an equivalent reference and failed.) For example, “Hitler suffered from...tinnitus.^[123]” If citation 123 is lost and we can’t find a substitute, should we entirely remove the part about tinnitus (ringing in the ear) from the Hitler article?

Remember, it's possible that the reason why the link was removed is that it was simply wrong and/or may be under threat of legal action. On the other hand, it may be due to normal link rot and the assertion is perfectly OK. Since the link is dead, we can’t say which is correct.

But, whatever we decide, I think that we should have something about dead links in BLP and something about BLP under WP:DEADREF. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 13:42, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I would specifically suggest that where there is any source suggesting that the material has been removed as a result of court action or editorial correction or retraction, that we not use such material (and yes - this sort of thing has occurred in the past where an editor has argued that if it is archived anywhere that it is still a valid cite). Collect (talk) 14:01, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

If the material is supported by a single cite and the material violates BLP if untrue, I would be inclined to remove the material. If no one can come up with a reliable source to replace the dead link, then we have no way of verifying it. If someone can state that they have a paper source to replace the online source, that would be fine, but, otherwise, I'm not willing to accept the proposition that it was legitimate when added. My view is not necessarily the majority view on this issue.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:18, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

It's also a matter of WP:WEIGHT. If only one source exists – but it seems reliable – then it would presumably be authoritative. But if material is supported by only one source, and contradicted by a dozen other sources, then it is, at best, a minority view. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:46, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear, my comments were directed at one situation - where you have only one source related to the material and that source is dead.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:58, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Absent any indication of problems, I see no reason a link that has been archived should be treated any differently than one which is offline or behind a paywall. Like most things with BLPs, once there is an indication of a problem, things change, and are probably best dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I've seen plenty of RS print corrections inserted into articles after publication and plenty of RS articles correcting inaccuracies in prior articles, but I know of none which have taken down stories merely to correct errors. As such, I think it unhelpful to presume that a no-longer-accessible article should be assumed to be no longer correct. Jclemens (talk) 17:56, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I was more worried about the 24-month rule from WP:DEADREF: "Most archives currently operate with a delay of ~18 months before a link is made public. As a result, editors should wait ~24 months after the link is first tagged as dead before declaring that no web archive exists." This says that a link must be dead for 2 years before the material it supports should be regarded as unverifiable. Does this apply to BLP's, the policy for which states "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced...should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion."?

There seems to be a conflict between the policy for BLP's and this Citing sources guideline (see WP:POLICY). Since policies normally take precedence over guidelines, I would suggest something like following sentence be added to the Preventing and repairing dead links subsection on the project page:

Contentious material about living persons for which a dead link is the only source may be removed immediately without waiting to see if the reference becomes archived.

--RoyGoldsmith (talk) 13:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The first question in my mind is whether the source is web-only. I'm sure we can all agree that it would be pretty silly to remove a citation to a story that ran on the front page of The London Times newspaper merely because they re-organized their website.

Even for web-only sources, your sentence won't work. Too many editors will interpret "a dead link is the only source" as meaning "a dead link is the only source that has already been typed into the article", rather than " a dead link is the only source that has ever been published in the real world", which is our actual standard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

But in BLPs (for contentious material), the standard is "a dead link is the only source that has already been typed into the article". The problem is that, if we don't insist on reliable, accessible sources in BLPs, then the possibility of harm to living subjects might not be considered.

For example, the article on Bashar al-Assad states (on 1/23/12 in the first paragraph of Presidency): "On 27 May 2007, Bashar was approved as president for another seven-year term, with the official result of 97.6% of the votes in a referendum without another candidate.^{[citation needed]}" The CN tag has existed since October 2011.

Let's say that the source of that statement was a front-page article in The London Times. However, due to a mix-up, it isn't accessible over the web and the editor who introduced the statement can't be contacted. Therefore, unless you have the issue of the newspaper itself, we have no knowledge of where it came from. It could be the London Times, it could be a blog associated with the Syrian opposition, it could be made up out of whole cloth. Let's further say that, although there are many sources that report Bashar's winning on 27 May 2007, we can't find any reference about the 97.6 percent of the vote. This is contentious because it implies a fixed election.

The rules of BLP say that we must enter the new citation and remove the part about the 97.6% (until we can find a reliable source): "The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia [to a BLP] rests with the person who adds or restores material." Under this rule, we really are not obligated to do any research: anyone can remove the whole sentence in its entirety.

It seems to me that the same applies to a dead link (instead of a CN tag) for this statement. If you can cite the issue, date and page number of the particular Times article, you don't need a URL; anyone who doubts you can go to a library. But if you can't, the 97.6% should disappear.

What do you say? --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 02:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Distinguishing between a dead URL that begins with www.thetimes.co.uk/ and a dead URL to someone's blog is not usually a problem for Wikipedia editors.

A statement supported by a citation whose URL is broken or dead is not an unsupported statement, and is not treated like an unsupported statement.

BLP does not require editors to use sources that are available online. If you can't be bothered to find a copy of that issue of The Times on paper (and I acknowledge that finding offline sources can be an enormous bother), then that's your own problem, not Wikipedia's. See WP:SOURCEACCESS for the official policy, and note that there is no exception for BLP-related issues. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)