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Er, can anyone think of an article that doesn't contain unsourced statements? Perhaps that would be a more useful category...
This category is deeply irksome - since pretty much every article has unsourced statements, pretty much every article could be in this category (except maybe some featured articles, although I would guess that even many of these contain unsourced statements). Also, coming across this category on the main article page seems unnecessarily negative to me - it singles out articles in this category as "bad articles" to readers, when in fact they're just articles where someone bothered to put a category up. I think categories that are not legitimately part of the article itself, but notes designed to get editors to work on them, should generally go on the talk page. But that's obviously not general practice. john k 19:09, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I really like Bsd987's suggestion. If we break these down into categories, it'd seem a lot easier to tackle, not to mention that it'd allow specialists to find articles they'd be of use in. 24.126.199.129 04:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The deletion review page quite clearly does not cover categories, and therefore the decision that was taken to restore it there is clearly invalid and meaningless. People who understand categories won't have seen the discussion, so the outcome was determined by people who don't appreciate the damage that there were doing because categories are not their focus. This category really needs to be deleted as it does nothing except to get in the way of easy use of the category system. Brammen 10:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I like this category because, having a half hour or so to spare, I can pull up a story, search for "Citation needed," hunt for one or two or more source or sources and, having found it or them, add it or them quickly to the article. Of course, sometimes it takes a LOT searching on Google or elsewhere, but upon doing so, I am always struck with how omnipresent the poorly sourced WikiP articles are in the Internet. And so those unsourced sentences and statements just multiply like bunnies.
I have no compunction about removing them either, hoping that they will soon vanish from the 'Net.
Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 02:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
This category certainly has its uses, but at present we lack the infrastructure to control its abuse, and I suspect it may do more harm than good as a result. I invite comment (naturally, that's what talk pages are for).
I've just removed a {{cite needed}} tag from an otherwise excellent article on the Emperor Penguin, see Talk:Emperor Penguin#Removed cite needed. It's a good example of one of several ways in which this category is regularly abused. The factoid in question is not particularly contentious, and is supported by one of the references already provided in the Further reading section. The reference sections of this article are short, not like the overly comprehensive bibliographies of some articles, so the information was and is easily verifiable.
There are several problems here. One is that the tag didn't add anything to the article. The detailed citation that was presumably requested by it would be a different style to the existing (excellent) article, which would contravene the MOS, see Wikipedia:Citing sources. Another is why it was added. I'd guess it was added by someone looking for information. The way to do that is to use the reference desk, or the talk page, not to edit the article with an implicit question. At the very least, the person adding the tag should put their question explicitly into the talk page.
Or, worse, it may have been added in order to challenge the information. I'd guess not in this case, but that's a common ploy in more controversial articles. And again, it adds nothing to the articles in question.
Food for thought? I'm not saying delete this category. I am saying that if we keep it, we need to put some effort into the infrastructure to support its use. Some guidelines need to be written, publicised and agreed (that's the hard part). Andrewa 03:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Is there any way of finding out just how many articles are currently in the category? The category has a backlog note, and there are about 1,000 articles starting with Aa-Am, so I guess that means there are about 2,000 starting with A. That's a lot of articles. I wonder how many of these tags are useful? Andrewa 06:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
This category has been deleted at least once, undeleted following deletion review, and subsequently proposed for deletion, which was closed as a speedy keep, I guess because there was no chance of consensus (although that's not what the person closing the debate said). Andrewa 04:07, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm working my way backwards through these pages, starting with the bottom of the "Z" page. I have already got rid of some 10 or 12 of them and am learning a lot about the Balkans, Turkey, Iran, Iceland and other countries that use those odd semi-Latin letters which you will find at http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Category:Articles_with_unsourced_statements&from=Z
Only 128 pages to go!
(If you want, you can grab Zen and the Årt of Motorcycle Maintenance — not one of my favorite books.)
Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 02:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
This article has the references restored. Can someone remove the article from the category?
Thanks,
Raj2004 03:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Is it just me or is this category redundant, given the existence of Category:All articles lacking sources?-- Vercalos 00:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
We should perhaps do this, the same way as the other major cleanup categories. Comments? Rich Farmbrough, 11:38 1 January 2007 (GMT).
I like many others of you when I have some spare time take a wander through this page and have a look at the articles on it and more often find the link and am able to untag it. My Question some articles that are otherwise excellent have one or two citation tags on very minor points or are of a speculative or POV nature, How long is a reasonable time before a small text adjustment and hence remove the tag is reasonable either in months or perhaps editorial frequency? -- Matt 01:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Back in July 2006, [[Category:Articles lacking sources]] and [[Category:Articles with unsourced statements]] were both deleted in two separate AfD nominations. In August 2006, a review of deletion was conducted for [[Category:Articles lacking sources]] and it was reinstated. Then, in September, User:Dragons flight appears to have reinstated this category (Articles with unsourced statements, here) based on the review of deletion for the other more basic category [[Category:Articles lacking sources]]. It appears the Dragons flight may have confused (or otherwise conflated) the two cats in August, when he applied the review of deletion to [[Category:Articles with unsourced statements]]. AFAICS, only one review appears ever to have been actually discussed, which was for [[Category:Articles lacking sources]] (those with an “unreferenced” template). If I'm looking at the history correctly, this category (Articles with unsourced statements) shouldn't even be here. ... Kenosis 04:15, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
It is quite clear the last review of this category in September was never allowed to be brought to a proper completion, being short-circuited with a "speedy keep" after two days. I'm not an admin of course, but I already stated my position, and I'd certainly support an administrative action as FeloniousMonk mentions to go back to the last valid community action (a successful CfD), allowing anyone to initiate a new DRV if they feel compelled to do so. If such a DRV occurs, I would hope that the various admins would allow discussion of the issues to go the expected full course and be brought to a proper completion (is it 7 days minimum?). ... Kenosis 20:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Fine, if none of you are willing to actually start a deletion discussion, I will. See Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 February 20#Category:Articles with unsourced statements. Dragons flight 06:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I find this category VERY useful. It serves to hold the articles by month subcategories in a clear, concise way. Makes it much easier to deal with by date. BTW, how are empty subcats dealt with? Feb 2005 and Jan 2006 are both empty and could probably be deleted. CovenantD 08:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I should also say, however, that what I'm reading above reflects a serious misapprehension of how articles are written. Who the heck is finding these sources? And who the heck is finding sources for the tens of millions of actual unsourced statements that've been sitting around forever that don't happen to have "fact" tags attached? Many of these statements are verifiable per WP:VER, quite within policy and agreed by the editors of a given article to be thusly in keeping with WP policy. No, it is not cleanup when one has absolutely no familiarity with the subject or the history of the article, and merely has an agenda to remove statements that someone else at some point in time decided to attach a "fact" tag to for whatever reason,. WP policy allows these tags to sit there forever by consensus of the editors who actually are involved in the writing of the article, if those editors want it to. I'm sorry, but this is not cleanup; it's cruising with a single-minded mission to clean up old fact tags without taking into consideration the other factors involved. The statements initially removed by CovenantD in this instance were incorrectly and inappropriately removed. Which brings me back to that the central problem is this category and automatic dating, with a single minded policy by a few WP users on a mission that was never dicussed by the wider community as to what would be its various side effects and as to whether the WP community as a whole wished to implement a de-facto policy to remove statements that happen to have fact tags attached to them, without requiring that the user removing the statements with older fact tags become familiar with the subject matter and article history and actually participate in the article in some meaningful way related to its content. ... Kenosis 23:50, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
(random unindent) Apology accepted - I understand how these pages can change when you're not looking. However, I think we have a difference of opinion as to the interpretation of WP:VER. From the "in a nutshell" box:
That said, I am perfectly content to leave the relevant material in place on Truth, with the appropriately dated tags, knowing that editors are aware and working on it. Of all the articles I dealt with in this round, only this one has been contested - that's a pretty good record. If there is consensus on the talk page that the tag is inappropriate, then remove it. At the very least, my actions have brought highlighted attention to a bit of the article that needs work.
Too many <citation needed> tags just get forgotten or can never be cited - it's those that I'm trying to clean up. Others may get caught up in that, but if their removal is contested I'm not going to fight it too much. It's all about building a better encyclopedia. CovenantD 00:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
This is probably the stupidest category on wikipedia. What's the point of a category that will probably contain just about any non-FA article that anybody cares to look at and tag. Furthermore, why should the category space of such a huge number of articles be mucked up with these categories that ought to be there for the use of editors, not readers. If this category is going to exist, it should be a talk page category. Categories in articles should, I still assert, be about the subject of the article, not about the state of the article itself. It is pretty clearly a violation of Wikipedia:Avoid self reference, among other things. john k 21:25, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi. Will someone remove Tushar Gandhi from this categories as I've made sure this article has been referenced? Worc63 20:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Hey Friends! I have substantially documented Verbal Behavior and feel that it no longer has almost any statements that are not unsourced (maybe less than 1-2%?). Does it have to be 100% to be removed? -- florkle 20:16, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Articles with unsourced statements since 2008-12 is a much better format on the monthly Categories, since the categories then automatically will be sorted correctly. Can we do this instead of using the unsorted month year? Nsaa ( talk) 11:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Just cross posting a suggestion from Template_talk:Citation_needed#New_Category. Please hold any discussion there -- Selket Talk 22:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a cross-wiki discussion in progress as to whether c:
should be enabled globally as an
interwiki prefix for links to the
Wikimedia Commons. If the proposal gains consensus this will require the deletion or renaming of
several pages on the English WIkipedia whose titles begin with "C:", including one or more redirects to this page. Please take a moment to participate in
the discussion.
There is also a related discussion on the English Wikipedia at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 February 16#C:ATT to which you are invited to contribute.
Thank you.
Thryduulf (
talk)
15:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/?title=Category_talk:Articles_with_unsourced_statements&action=edit§ion=new 84.231.187.251 ( talk) 08:32, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This category was nominated for
deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:
|
Er, can anyone think of an article that doesn't contain unsourced statements? Perhaps that would be a more useful category...
This category is deeply irksome - since pretty much every article has unsourced statements, pretty much every article could be in this category (except maybe some featured articles, although I would guess that even many of these contain unsourced statements). Also, coming across this category on the main article page seems unnecessarily negative to me - it singles out articles in this category as "bad articles" to readers, when in fact they're just articles where someone bothered to put a category up. I think categories that are not legitimately part of the article itself, but notes designed to get editors to work on them, should generally go on the talk page. But that's obviously not general practice. john k 19:09, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I really like Bsd987's suggestion. If we break these down into categories, it'd seem a lot easier to tackle, not to mention that it'd allow specialists to find articles they'd be of use in. 24.126.199.129 04:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The deletion review page quite clearly does not cover categories, and therefore the decision that was taken to restore it there is clearly invalid and meaningless. People who understand categories won't have seen the discussion, so the outcome was determined by people who don't appreciate the damage that there were doing because categories are not their focus. This category really needs to be deleted as it does nothing except to get in the way of easy use of the category system. Brammen 10:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I like this category because, having a half hour or so to spare, I can pull up a story, search for "Citation needed," hunt for one or two or more source or sources and, having found it or them, add it or them quickly to the article. Of course, sometimes it takes a LOT searching on Google or elsewhere, but upon doing so, I am always struck with how omnipresent the poorly sourced WikiP articles are in the Internet. And so those unsourced sentences and statements just multiply like bunnies.
I have no compunction about removing them either, hoping that they will soon vanish from the 'Net.
Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 02:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
This category certainly has its uses, but at present we lack the infrastructure to control its abuse, and I suspect it may do more harm than good as a result. I invite comment (naturally, that's what talk pages are for).
I've just removed a {{cite needed}} tag from an otherwise excellent article on the Emperor Penguin, see Talk:Emperor Penguin#Removed cite needed. It's a good example of one of several ways in which this category is regularly abused. The factoid in question is not particularly contentious, and is supported by one of the references already provided in the Further reading section. The reference sections of this article are short, not like the overly comprehensive bibliographies of some articles, so the information was and is easily verifiable.
There are several problems here. One is that the tag didn't add anything to the article. The detailed citation that was presumably requested by it would be a different style to the existing (excellent) article, which would contravene the MOS, see Wikipedia:Citing sources. Another is why it was added. I'd guess it was added by someone looking for information. The way to do that is to use the reference desk, or the talk page, not to edit the article with an implicit question. At the very least, the person adding the tag should put their question explicitly into the talk page.
Or, worse, it may have been added in order to challenge the information. I'd guess not in this case, but that's a common ploy in more controversial articles. And again, it adds nothing to the articles in question.
Food for thought? I'm not saying delete this category. I am saying that if we keep it, we need to put some effort into the infrastructure to support its use. Some guidelines need to be written, publicised and agreed (that's the hard part). Andrewa 03:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Is there any way of finding out just how many articles are currently in the category? The category has a backlog note, and there are about 1,000 articles starting with Aa-Am, so I guess that means there are about 2,000 starting with A. That's a lot of articles. I wonder how many of these tags are useful? Andrewa 06:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
This category has been deleted at least once, undeleted following deletion review, and subsequently proposed for deletion, which was closed as a speedy keep, I guess because there was no chance of consensus (although that's not what the person closing the debate said). Andrewa 04:07, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm working my way backwards through these pages, starting with the bottom of the "Z" page. I have already got rid of some 10 or 12 of them and am learning a lot about the Balkans, Turkey, Iran, Iceland and other countries that use those odd semi-Latin letters which you will find at http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Category:Articles_with_unsourced_statements&from=Z
Only 128 pages to go!
(If you want, you can grab Zen and the Årt of Motorcycle Maintenance — not one of my favorite books.)
Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 02:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
This article has the references restored. Can someone remove the article from the category?
Thanks,
Raj2004 03:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Is it just me or is this category redundant, given the existence of Category:All articles lacking sources?-- Vercalos 00:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
We should perhaps do this, the same way as the other major cleanup categories. Comments? Rich Farmbrough, 11:38 1 January 2007 (GMT).
I like many others of you when I have some spare time take a wander through this page and have a look at the articles on it and more often find the link and am able to untag it. My Question some articles that are otherwise excellent have one or two citation tags on very minor points or are of a speculative or POV nature, How long is a reasonable time before a small text adjustment and hence remove the tag is reasonable either in months or perhaps editorial frequency? -- Matt 01:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Back in July 2006, [[Category:Articles lacking sources]] and [[Category:Articles with unsourced statements]] were both deleted in two separate AfD nominations. In August 2006, a review of deletion was conducted for [[Category:Articles lacking sources]] and it was reinstated. Then, in September, User:Dragons flight appears to have reinstated this category (Articles with unsourced statements, here) based on the review of deletion for the other more basic category [[Category:Articles lacking sources]]. It appears the Dragons flight may have confused (or otherwise conflated) the two cats in August, when he applied the review of deletion to [[Category:Articles with unsourced statements]]. AFAICS, only one review appears ever to have been actually discussed, which was for [[Category:Articles lacking sources]] (those with an “unreferenced” template). If I'm looking at the history correctly, this category (Articles with unsourced statements) shouldn't even be here. ... Kenosis 04:15, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
It is quite clear the last review of this category in September was never allowed to be brought to a proper completion, being short-circuited with a "speedy keep" after two days. I'm not an admin of course, but I already stated my position, and I'd certainly support an administrative action as FeloniousMonk mentions to go back to the last valid community action (a successful CfD), allowing anyone to initiate a new DRV if they feel compelled to do so. If such a DRV occurs, I would hope that the various admins would allow discussion of the issues to go the expected full course and be brought to a proper completion (is it 7 days minimum?). ... Kenosis 20:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Fine, if none of you are willing to actually start a deletion discussion, I will. See Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 February 20#Category:Articles with unsourced statements. Dragons flight 06:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I find this category VERY useful. It serves to hold the articles by month subcategories in a clear, concise way. Makes it much easier to deal with by date. BTW, how are empty subcats dealt with? Feb 2005 and Jan 2006 are both empty and could probably be deleted. CovenantD 08:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I should also say, however, that what I'm reading above reflects a serious misapprehension of how articles are written. Who the heck is finding these sources? And who the heck is finding sources for the tens of millions of actual unsourced statements that've been sitting around forever that don't happen to have "fact" tags attached? Many of these statements are verifiable per WP:VER, quite within policy and agreed by the editors of a given article to be thusly in keeping with WP policy. No, it is not cleanup when one has absolutely no familiarity with the subject or the history of the article, and merely has an agenda to remove statements that someone else at some point in time decided to attach a "fact" tag to for whatever reason,. WP policy allows these tags to sit there forever by consensus of the editors who actually are involved in the writing of the article, if those editors want it to. I'm sorry, but this is not cleanup; it's cruising with a single-minded mission to clean up old fact tags without taking into consideration the other factors involved. The statements initially removed by CovenantD in this instance were incorrectly and inappropriately removed. Which brings me back to that the central problem is this category and automatic dating, with a single minded policy by a few WP users on a mission that was never dicussed by the wider community as to what would be its various side effects and as to whether the WP community as a whole wished to implement a de-facto policy to remove statements that happen to have fact tags attached to them, without requiring that the user removing the statements with older fact tags become familiar with the subject matter and article history and actually participate in the article in some meaningful way related to its content. ... Kenosis 23:50, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
(random unindent) Apology accepted - I understand how these pages can change when you're not looking. However, I think we have a difference of opinion as to the interpretation of WP:VER. From the "in a nutshell" box:
That said, I am perfectly content to leave the relevant material in place on Truth, with the appropriately dated tags, knowing that editors are aware and working on it. Of all the articles I dealt with in this round, only this one has been contested - that's a pretty good record. If there is consensus on the talk page that the tag is inappropriate, then remove it. At the very least, my actions have brought highlighted attention to a bit of the article that needs work.
Too many <citation needed> tags just get forgotten or can never be cited - it's those that I'm trying to clean up. Others may get caught up in that, but if their removal is contested I'm not going to fight it too much. It's all about building a better encyclopedia. CovenantD 00:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
This is probably the stupidest category on wikipedia. What's the point of a category that will probably contain just about any non-FA article that anybody cares to look at and tag. Furthermore, why should the category space of such a huge number of articles be mucked up with these categories that ought to be there for the use of editors, not readers. If this category is going to exist, it should be a talk page category. Categories in articles should, I still assert, be about the subject of the article, not about the state of the article itself. It is pretty clearly a violation of Wikipedia:Avoid self reference, among other things. john k 21:25, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi. Will someone remove Tushar Gandhi from this categories as I've made sure this article has been referenced? Worc63 20:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Hey Friends! I have substantially documented Verbal Behavior and feel that it no longer has almost any statements that are not unsourced (maybe less than 1-2%?). Does it have to be 100% to be removed? -- florkle 20:16, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Category:Articles with unsourced statements since 2008-12 is a much better format on the monthly Categories, since the categories then automatically will be sorted correctly. Can we do this instead of using the unsorted month year? Nsaa ( talk) 11:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Just cross posting a suggestion from Template_talk:Citation_needed#New_Category. Please hold any discussion there -- Selket Talk 22:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
There is a cross-wiki discussion in progress as to whether c:
should be enabled globally as an
interwiki prefix for links to the
Wikimedia Commons. If the proposal gains consensus this will require the deletion or renaming of
several pages on the English WIkipedia whose titles begin with "C:", including one or more redirects to this page. Please take a moment to participate in
the discussion.
There is also a related discussion on the English Wikipedia at
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 February 16#C:ATT to which you are invited to contribute.
Thank you.
Thryduulf (
talk)
15:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/?title=Category_talk:Articles_with_unsourced_statements&action=edit§ion=new 84.231.187.251 ( talk) 08:32, 9 September 2023 (UTC)