Wikipedia:WikiProject Timeline Tracer/Guidelines

Welcome to the WikiProject Timeline Tracer Guidelines

This is a sub/page of WikiProject Timeline Tracer

Reference information

The ways to find or to decide which article to evaluate and help or where to find it are outlined at the Timeline Tracer Strategy page.
The page below deals directly with how to work with an article that you have already found.

Main Guidelines

Our purpose:

Where dates or periods are mentioned that are important to the article's subject, those must be clear, accurate and must have citations to reliable sources
When an article's subject should have its origins and development described, the article must have a history section and this must be accurate and have reliable sources.

If you see an article needing corrections or missing information, the best thing to do is, of course, to be bold and fix it. Barring that, you have several options:

First and most important is to place inline calls tagging the problem lines. Enter {{Timefact}} in the body of an article as a request for other editors to find sources for verifying the chronology, timeline and dates provided as reference in the content. It will display: ^{[chronology citation needed]}.

Usage

Use {{Timefact}} to label a statement which lacks a source confirming or providing its chronology or timeline as per Wikipedia:Citing sources

Examples

In the sentence "it was started by Lord Champs in 2001 and enhanced two years later ..."

You will place {{fact}} if you are simply requesting a source that says that it was started by Lord Champs in 2001
You will insert {{Timefact}} if what you are requesting is a source that confirms when it was started and its development after that.

In the sentence "that organization was founded in 1978 when the natural disasters had increased..."

You will place {{fact}} if you are simply requesting a source that says that the organization was founded in 1978
You will insert {{Timefact}} if what you are requesting is a source that says when the disasters increased in relation with the year of foundation

In the sentence "those celtic tribes survived more than one invasion...":

You will place {{fact}} if you are simply requesting a source that says that those tribes survived many invasions
You will insert {{Timefact}} if what you are requesting is a source that says when that happened

If you want to alert the authors of the article that there may be need for some more work, add the template {{histref}} at the article's talk page.

If you have specific ideas about what the article is missing, you can add them as a parameter:

An alternative is to place {{histrefm}}.

Placing any of these tags will add the article to the category Articles lacking chronology/history sources

Edit summary

When adding the {{histref}} template, you can use the following edit summary: This article needs sources for chronology/history verification. See [[WP:TIMETRACE]].
When actually adding sources, you can use: Adding chronology/history sources. [[WP:TIMETRACE|You can help!]]

Talk Page

Usually it is a good idea, even if not a must, to go to the article's talk page and leave a brief explanation as well as some suggestions in a helping tone.

You should also add {{WikiProject Timeline Tracerl}} to the top of the talk page, under other already existing scope banners.

If the banners are more than one, you can place {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} and nest all the scope banners and ours in that shell, see {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} for knowing how to do that.

Reporting

If you will not assume the task of verifying and helping an article but just want to mark and add the article to the category Articles waiting for chronology/history evaluation, just add at the article's talk page {{histrefeval}}.

Some guidelines about what to look after

To read about how to deal with sources can be found at WP:TIMETRS

Articles in general

Chronology and history of a subject are sometimes disregarded or lacking sources. Chronologies, history and references to these are often interrupted or inaccurate. Movements, religions, groups and organizations are many times named or linked to the subject of the article with incorrect or inaccurate links of lineage.

Movements, modern religions, philosophies, traditions groups, martial arts

Many of these claim historical or cultural heritage, but lack sources verification. Many articles may reference self-produced online or offline references. WP:OR

Peoples and languages

Roots and relationships are many times obscured or manipulated to satisfy specific interests.

Literary traditions

Literary traditions are sometimes liberally attributed.

Concepts (including scientific discoveries and schools of philosophy)

May have parallel origins in more than one historical or geographical point.

Organizations, large groups, nations

Many stubs need to be verified and cleaned in history references.

Older books, works of art, musical pieces, etc.

Sometimes appropriated because they have been orphaned by societies no longer existing.

Working with an article

During evaluation and help of a given article

You must keep the tag in the article's page while it is undergoing edition.
To exchange opinions with other WikiProject Timeline Tracer editors, enter the article and comments at the Assignments Board

When the article has been improved sufficiently

When the article has been improved in a satisfactory manner, you must remove the tags and leave instead, at the article's talk page {{histrefverif|the date goes here}}, which will add the to the category Articles evaluated by WP Timeline Tracer.

Shortcut to this page is WP:TIMETGD