Jump to content

Wikipedia:Citation Emergency

This page contains material which is considered humorous. It may also contain advice.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Despite the constant societal pressure to CITE YOUR SOURCES it is important to realise some sources are better left uncited. Such instances include WP:Citation overkill, sources that include confidential/classified documents, and also sources that constitute memetic hazards. In cases of such sources being cited, a Wikipedia emergency should probably (definitely) be declared and the article should be reported to the Wikipedia Citation Emergency Medical Services, the Guild of Copy Editors, and also probably the CIA, MI6, and the KGB (time travel is required). You should immediately get off the page and talk to a psychiatrist. If you created a page with a citation emergency declared on it, take the following steps:

  • Blank the article.
  • Stop being pedantic.
  • Stop using sources.
  • Stop creating new drafts and overloading Wikipedia's servers.
  • Get help.

The steps listed above should help you restore your sanity, at least partially, but may never redeem you for the terrible crimes you may or may not have committed. Do not be surprised if the entirety of the British Army suddenly appears in your yard, as this has been a noted happening to a few former Wikipedians who created citation emergencies. If you are unsure if a page is a citation emergency or not, the following are typical of citation emergencies:

  • The article is a two-paragraph stub but has over fifty sources.
  • The article has more blue than black text on it.
  • The article has over a thousand edits with edit description "added source to unsourced info" but is still a draft.
  • The article has multiple complaints on the talk page that people's computers reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit when they attempted to load the page.

If you want to destroy citation emergencies, read WP:CITE and don't spend three years finding sources for one paragraph.