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At the moment this page is in the "Wikipedia style guidelines" and "Wikipedia how-to" categories, should there be a Category:Wikipedia referencing or similar to aid in finding relevant pages?
Incidentally I am looking for a page that lists people who have access to magazine subscriptions or a page that emails sources to Wikipedia editors, any ideas?-- Commander Keane ( talk) 09:43, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
OMG, now I see the structural problems. My first thought is "why is this page not merged with WP:V?" Perhaps because V is policy and this one is not. But can't the information here be cast as policy and merged into V? I certainly don't want to see the "When to cite sources" section here as guideline and over there as policy. THis is a recipe for chaos.
On second thought, why not clearly define V as the "when", and CITE as the "how". This would involve:
Starting with "When to cite sources" here in CITE, it seems nicely set out and easy to follow, and not so in V. Should V be recast to include this text?
On the matter of rewriting the lead here at CITE: I'd wait until we decide on this relationship. Tony (talk) 02:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
←Thanks very much for that list, Christopher; I'll survey now. What I'm concerned about is whether they're all properly coordinated and sing from the same songsheet (Sandy seems to be very concerned that they're not), and whether it's the most intuitively organised and accessible way of setting out the guidelines/policy, especially for newcomers. Tony (talk) 08:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Christopher says, WP:Citing sources "is the central page discussing the mechanics that support verifiability; it provides details on when to cite sources, offers links to and summarizes some of the most popular citation methods, and gives the basic relevant MOS principle (consistency within articles)." and also that WP:Verifiability "should be kept pretty brief to avoid weighing it down with more technical material which is best offloaded onto subpages".
However, I don't feel this really clarifies. As I see it, "When to cite" isn't really part of the technical mechanics of citing sources and hence shouldn't really be covered in detail in the pages of such a "how to" guideline. When to cite is more widely contextual and would better suit being covered on the policy page WP:Verifiability.
I think the balance of the argument is in favour of moving "When to cite" to WP:Verifiability.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 15:04, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
---
OK. It looks like there's an objection to moving "When to cite" content to WP:Verifiability from WP:Cite on the grounds of there being a present division into policy (which cannot be ignored) and guideline (which needs to be treated with common sense and the occasional exception).
In that case bear in mind the pre-existence of the distinct page WP:When to cite and the possibility of moving content there. Its status is currently a "proposed" guideline, but any issues around its status could and should be addressed of course. If there are disputed parts they ought be identified and dealt with accordingly, but article splitting generally ( WP:Splitting) is otherwise a well-established approach to resolving overall size issues such as we have here.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 09:50, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I have a blog called Saito Network, since it's a blog I can't post on your website wikipedia. I want to though some how prove that my site is an authority site and that it can be posted on wikipedia even though it's a blog. I am web renown for my work and have spent countless hours working away at Saito Network putting forth old and new information on Mega Man game titles...I have wanted to advertise on Wikipedia for a very long time and hope that you will allow Saito Network to be apart of Wikipedia as it is just to spread more information and not spam. Please view my blog and tell me what you think : http://saitonetwork.wordpress.com/ I list media, video's, music and information when I find it and when there are updates on latest Mega Man games. I appreciate you looking into this :). Blazinglight ( talk) 02:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Most of the information comes from Capcom and is freely distributable. The other sites referenced either get their information from Capcom, or from a Magazine called "CoroCoro Magazine". You have mentioned several conditions that need to be met, and I believe I can meet these conditions provided the infringments are clearly (giving a few examples) so as to show a true effort on the part of Wikipedia to help other authors comply to its standards. Since the rules seem subject to the discretion of the moderators, then perhaps the moderators can show the examples of what is considered a violation of copyrights and of verifiability, especially since they are making a legal precedence by stating there is a violation (Wikipedia acting as an internet authority). Internet copyright laws have been re-defined as of late and are a great deal more lax than at the writing of Wikipedia's policies. I would only think it fair to give an accurate appraisal so Saitonetwork can attempt to conform to the regulations, by placing realistic conditions on doubts you may have. Thank you Jacklee for your prompt reply, its greatly appreciated, our efforts are only to conform to Wikipedia's policy; providing that blogs are not discriminated against. Blazinglight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blazinglight ( talk • contribs) 05:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
I moved this discussion to the suggested place : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#My_blog.2C_following_Wikipedia.27s_rules —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blazinglight ( talk • contribs) 23:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
I believe there's an issue with this guideline using the terms "citation" and "reference" quite so interchangeably (as it suggests currently in the use of terms section).
I think they only happen to be one and the same thing with the standard footnotes method. With the shortened footnotes method it becomes clearer that citations and references can be distinct (though currently the guideline advice for the shortened notes method is to name the section containing the short citations "notes", which may be not so clear).
A good example to consider is when explanatory notes are also included with the shortened notes method, because in this case there's a requirement for three distinct section headings. There doesn't seem to be any guideline advice on what to call these sections, even though such a three section approach would be good practice. - There's merit in using shortened notes and separating explanatory notes and no reason why wanting to do both should be mutually exclusive.
Take for instance the former featured article " Sophie Blanchard". - Here you can see three sections. "Notes" - for explanatory notes, "Citations" - for the short citations, and "References" for the full references.
As this approach would seem to be good practice shouldn't we consider the implications in terms of the guideline's advice?
I can see how wanting to use the terms citation and reference interchangeably may be well intended for the sake of simplicity, however I do feel that, other than for the bog standard footnotes method, it may be better to elucidate the difference for the benefit of other approaches.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 19:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I'd be up for moving it. I'll put toward the bottom, just ahead of the "Tools" section if that's okay. -- SallyScot ( talk) 17:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
In July and August, substantial changes were made to this guide and even more substantial changes are planned. I thought it would useful to list the open issues and provide links to the relevant discussions.
I hope this list helps. Please discuss these issues in their respective sections (just follow the link). As these issues get settled, I will update this list. ---- CharlesGillingham ( talk) 19:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
This should be a readable document. I want to learn something and be about my business. This should also have a very wide audience.
I recommend splitting the article into two articles:
Citing sources - HOWTO
Citing sources - Why, what if, and FAQ —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Full Decent (
talk •
contribs) 19:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
On Portland Terminal Company there are way too many citations. Is there a template to tag this with? -- NE2 23:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
In line with WP:LEAD, I think this guide could use a succinct description of the elementary ideas, something like this:
This page in a nutshell: This page describes how to write citations in articles. Verifiability is a core content policy of Wikipedia. An article, paragraph or statement is verifiable if it is connected by a citation to a reliable source, so that reader can use the citation to find the source and verify that it supports the material. A citation is a line of text that tells the reader exactly how to find a source. For example, this is a citation:
- Turing, Alan (October 1950), "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", Mind, LIX (236): 433–460, doi: 10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433, ISSN 0026-4423
The source may be a book, website, scientific paper, newspaper article, et cetera. Material in the body of the article is usually connected to the citation in one of three ways:
- Footnotes. The citation may appear in a footnote. The footnote can appear directly after the statement, allowing the reader to click on the footnote, read the citation and find the source. For example, this sentence is followed by a citation in a footnote. [1] This is the most common way to connecting statements to citations.
- General references. The citation may appear in a References section at the end of the article. The reader may assume that these citations can be used to verify many different aspects of the article.
- Author-date references. An author-date reference looks like this: ( Turing 1950, p. 451). It may appear directly after the statement or (more often) in a footnote, such as the one at the end of this sentence. [2] The full citation appears in an alphabetized References section at the end of article. The reader can use the name of the author and the date of publication to find the citation.
These are the most common methods of making articles verifiable. A Wikipedia editor is free to use any of these methods or to develop new methods; no method is preferred. Each article should use the same method throughout. If an article already has some citations, an editor should study the method already in use and seek consensus before changing it. If you do not know how to format a citation, provide enough information to identify the source and others will improve the citation.
I've cut a lot of corners here, but I don't think anything I'm saying is false and it manages to introduce most of the critical material in this guide. Any objections? Comments? ---- CharlesGillingham ( talk) 07:32, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
After thinking about this over night, I feel very strongly that this page needs a lead along the lines I am suggesting. I would like to know if there are other editors who think that this lead would be useful, or at least, harmless.
Here is a better draft.
This page in a nutshell: This page describes how to write citations in articles. A citation is used to connect material in Wikipedia with a reliable source. It makes the material verifiable, since a reader may use the citation to find the source and verify that it supports the material. Verifiability is among the core content policies of WIkipedia. Citations are required for quotes, most images, material about living persons and anything that is likely to be challenged.
A citation is a line of text that identifies a source uniquely. For example, this is a citation:
- Turing, Alan (October 1950), "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", Mind, LIX (236): 433–460, doi: 10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433, ISSN 0026-4423
An article, paragraph or sentence is usually connected to the citation in one of four ways:
- General reference: By placing the citation in a References section at the end of an article.
- Footnote: By placing it in a footnote following the sentence or paragraph it verifies (such as the following footnote). [3]
- Shortened note: By placing the citation in a References section and naming just author and year in a footnote. [4]
- Parenthetical referencing: By placing the citation in a References section and naming author and year in parenthesis. ( Turing 1950, p. 451)
These are the most common methods of making articles verifiable. A Wikipedia editor is free to use any of these methods or to develop new methods; no method is preferred. Each article should use the same method throughout. If an article already has some citations, an editor should study the method already in use and seek consensus before changing it. If you do not know how to format a citation, provide enough information to identify the source and others will improve the citation.
This draft defines "citation", summarizes in three paragraphs the three main sections of the article and briefly explains (what I think are) the most important policies for a new editor to see. ---- CharlesGillingham ( talk) 22:57, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
Still needs tweaking, somewhat unnecessary additional prose and also misleading (by the way, I corrected the MoS breach in the citation; when adding text to guideline pages, we should be careful to respect WP:MOS). I agree that we don't need more meta-prose, and there's also no need to appear to favor one citation method over another. This example uses {{ citation}}, which will lead many readers to believe that's the preferred citation method on Wiki. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
I hope the page won't mention things like "general refs are discouraged"; that's often the only way novice editors know how to add references, and something is better than nothing. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
This page in a nutshell: This page describes how to write citations in articles. A citation is a line of text that uniquely identifies a source. For example, this is a citation:
- Ritter, R. (2002). The Oxford Style Manual. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860564-1.
It allows a reader to find the source and verify that it supports material in Wikipedia. Citations are required for quotes, most images, information about living persons and anything that is likely to be challenged.
An article, paragraph or sentence is usually connected to the citation in one of four ways:
- General reference: By placing the citation in a "References" section at the end of an article.
- Footnote: By placing it in a footnote following the sentence or paragraph it verifies (such as the following footnote). [5]
- Shortened footnote: By placing the citation in a "References" section and naming only the author, year and page number in a footnote. [6]
- Parenthetical reference: By placing the citation in a "References" section and naming the author, year and page number in parenthesis ( Ritter 2002, p. 45) harv error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRitter2002 ( help).
These are the most common methods of making articles verifiable. A Wikipedia editor is free to use any of these methods or to develop new methods; no method is preferred. Each article should use the same method throughout—if an article already has some citations, an editor should adopt the method already in use or seek consensus before changing it.
If you do not know how to format a citation, provide enough information to identify the source and others will improve the citation.
Well, I cut the the only sentences that I could sensibly cut and I used a less complicated example. Any remaining objections? As I said above, I feel strongly that this guide should have a real WP:LEAD. ---- CharlesGillingham ( talk) 09:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
In the lead, the term "footnote" is used to refer to the inline citation text or the numbered superscript link it creates. In the Quick summary, it is used to refer to where the citation text actually appears at the end of the article. I think the latter is technically correct?
More generally, I'm not sure it's really coming across (anywhere in the article) that there exists on Wikipedia this "automated" listing system, which is activated in some articles but not others. Yet this seems to be the main way in which Wikipedia differs from regular citation practices that newcomers might be more used to. EverSince ( talk) 05:34, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
What do you think about, now that there is also the Quick summary section, moving the citation method bullet points to the top of that section? That would presumably allay the concern regarding that section appearing to only promote one method, while the additional basic how-to for the footnotes method would still be there.
And would it be OK to expand those bullet points slightly to clarify that the two footnotes methods are sort of "automated" so that where you insert the citation (or shortened citation) isn't where it actually appears in the article? (I'd like to try to clarify that within the main footnotes sections too...).
Also would it be OK to add to the lead some additional indications as to the scope of the article e.g. that it outlines when to source, how to fix sourcing problems, using citation tools etc? EverSince ( talk) 03:01, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
My father was a city commissioner for Pontiac and my mother is currently going through his stuff for a Historic project she is working on. There are several letters from other politicians, dinner programs, memos and so forth that she is finding. How do I cite that? I can provide copies of the letter or what-not to prove it's authenticity, but I have no idea how to cite it.
Also, she is finding several newspaper articles. Unfortunately they are just the article, the upper corner is missing so I can't establish the paper or date. How do I deal with this? Can I site the stand-alone article? What's a guy to do? padillaH ( review me)( help me) 19:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
There is the issue you asked about, and the issue of where you might be headed.
You asked if something can be cited if it isn't in a book. Items that are available in an archive that is open to the public can be cited. Items that are not available to the public cannot be cited. The 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style in paragraph 15.284 gives this example of a manuscript citation:
As for where you might be headed, if you weave together a bunch of details from primary sources to support a new idea that has not been published before, that is original research. Wikipedia is not the place to publish original research. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 19:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm having some second thoughts about the Croatian national football team article. Because of specific regulations and availability issues, a few Croatian sources have been used in the article. To increase the readers research ability I have translated the most relevant parts of the foreign articles to sufficiently back up the statements, as you will see on the page. However, I think the current style is a little diminishing and out-of-place. I remember somebody saying that it could be an alternative to move all the translations on the talk page, and simply leave a note in the 'References' section which leads the readers to the translations. Would this be a better idea? Or, what other alternatives do I have? I would really appreciate opinions on such. Thanks! Domiy ( talk) 08:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Šimić – the terrain was unpleasant. Šimunić's biggest bother was the exclusion of Thompson at Maksimir. 'Some strange things are happening. I don't understand why they didn't allow Thompson's music before the game or even at half time when they know it lifts our spirits. I'm speechless.' [Translated into English by Domiy.]
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (
link)In the article Zazacatla, there is a quote (correctly) attributed to an Associated Press news story about discoveries at the site. But the article has been taken off line. Now what?
Should I remove the quote? That seems extreme. Do I try to find another URL for the story? What if I can't?? This is an issue I run across on a regular basis?? Any insight appreciated, Madman ( talk) 03:43, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I have raised this kind of problem at the Village pump and suggested some solutions. Ty 01:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Advise needs to be given on this page about not using Ibid as it is a common practice in other publications, but often leads to errors in Wikipedia pages. It is in Wikipedia:Footnotes#Style recommendations but it is true for all citation styles so it should be mentioned here. -- Philip Baird Shearer ( talk) 22:03, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I've been experimenting with including the relevant passage (i.e. relevant sentence/s from the sources) in which I am citing my sources to try to improve verifiability on Game Boy, using either the {{ citation}} template or, for my multiple references from a video game history book, including it direct from the reference. I find it easier to have the quote from the relevant passage (if applicable and provided it doesn't cause WP:SIZE problems) included in the reference; it seems easier to verify right there in the article as compared to placing it on the article's talk page. I also think this makes an article more sustainable and maintainable. Is this a good idea to do? MuZemike ( talk) 00:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
How do I cite something that was was written by the editor of a book by someone else? For instance, Robert Southey's whole biography of William Cowper was part of his edition of Cowper's poems; Cowper is listed as the author on the title page, and Southey as the editor. You can see how I cited that at Striking and Picturesque Delineations..., ref 10. I tried a different method for Brian Boyd's footnotes in his edition of novels by Vladimir Nabokov (using the "author" field in the "cite book" template for the editor and the "editor" field for the author)—see Pale Fire, note 36. Or some years ago, I used yet another method at Carmen (novella) (which doesn't have in-line references). Does any of these work? Do I need to abandon citation templates and use something like MLA, which would mean changing all the references in the first two of those articles?
And if this isn't the right place for me to ask, where should I ask? — JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
{{
citation}}
: |editor=
has generic name (
help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (
link)Where do you put the punctuation in a reference?
C Teng [talk] 16:57, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
The Sun shut down, should source links to The Sun be pre-emptively archived? Google finds about a couple of hundred links. -- SEWilco ( talk) 02:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
If I were to give a reference a "reference name", how would I use it again? 60.242.127.62 ( talk) 07:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
emo does not stand for emotional hardcore. it stands for EMOTIVE hardcore. just thought that i should state that clearly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.136.150.63 ( talk) 22:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I am using questia.com to provide me with some books electronically. Questia is a commercial service, and it publishes the book via html but with the original pagination (from its edition). This does not seem to me the same as a true 'indirect cite', where you say that book X says something because web page Y says Book X said something. Neither does it seem like a true 'web cite'.
I am leaning towards citing these books as books. I can't even give a URL, as of course, the service is commercial. So. What do you think? GPa Hill ( talk) 03:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
{{
citation}}
: |author=
has generic name (
help). — Cheers,
JackLee –
talk– 06:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)I disagree with some of the above. You must state that it's republished documents. That what you are dealing with. There is an actual format to follow according to MLA and other formats, but I do a mix of them. If you take a look at User:CyclePat/Currently Working On/template/reference/Telecommunications Act you'll find an example reference where I've used the term "republished". See also Steam tricycle#Bibliography where I accesed a printed book via History e-book project ACLS Humanities E-book. -- CyclePat ( talk) 23:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Is this ok? I believe page numbers should be provided, or tags left until this is done...? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I dissagree with the idea that we can't cite letters that are not published, previously discussed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_14#Citing_letters_.2F_correspondence. There was also another discussion regarding this matter and how the editor had a letter from a renown politician or government official. I think, if you can access the letter through access to information (ie.: Archives Canada, or Access to information) then it should be okay. Hence, if anyone gets a letter that they want to cite... simple ensure it`s from a politician... and if you`re from Canada, send it to Archives Canada. -- CyclePat ( talk) 00:49, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
A broadcast is a little different, Nevertheless, during our elections campaign here in Ottawa, I actually got a phone call from Stephen Harper. It was a voice recording (automatic system), but similarly... the conservative party in fact published this message to my answering machine. (and most likely many other peoples). He was campaigning for my vote. I would like to include this information. I think it's worthy of inclusion. With this example though, I'm even more confused as to whether our current rules make sense or concure with this philosophy? -- CyclePat ( talk) 02:59, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
At Mozzarella di Bufala (buffalo mozzarrella) there are several points that are claimed to be substantiated by the website http://www.mozzarelladop.it/ but since the entire website is in flash, there doesn't seem to be a way to point to a particular part of the website. Is there a way to cite this source? — Chris Capoccia T⁄ C 07:42, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <title>Mozzarella di bufala campana D.O.P. - Consorzio Tutela</title> </head> <body background="images/bgr.jpg" leftmargin="0" topmargin="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0"> <table width="900" border="0" align="center"> <tr> <td><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/ flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0" width="900" height="550"> <param name="movie" value="index.swf"> <param name=quality value=high> <embed src="index.swf" quality=high pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version= ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="900" height="550"></embed> </object></td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>
Sorry, they were more clever than I thought. There are files with names like www.mozzarelladop.it/storia.swf (as I found by guessing), but you can't see them. I should have checked before I made the suggestion. — JerryFriedman (Talk) 18:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
Say I have a book that, on page 126, says "The sky is blue." I add the text and cite it in my article: "The sky is blue.<ref>Jones, 1956, p. 126.</ref>" Then someone comes along later and changes it to "The sky is red.<ref>Jones, 1956, p. 126.</ref>"
Do we have a name for this practice or a particular policy on it? Cheers. Haus Talk 13:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
This article covers two separate topics. First, how to format individual citations. Second, how to present citations in articles. (Currently the second topic is covered in the middle of the article - surrounded by discussions of the first topic.) Is there some reason why the two separate topics are not in two separate articles? Butwhatdoiknow ( talk) 02:48, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
In MS Word (or any decent program), it is possible to make a link for endnotes. This allows me to use the minimal intrusive citation format (numbered endnotes), while still re-using them when the same source at the beginning of an article needs to be cited later for a different fact. How do I do this in Wiki? TCO ( talk) 11:01, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Most times, "Citation Needed" is a good thing. (citation needed) However lots of Wiki editors (Wikipolice) OVERUSE "citation needed" (citation needed) particularly when observation is fact(citation needed), such as when salt is used as a preservative "citation needed" (citation (who?) and Mayans and Incas and every tribe of man that ever encountered salt knew it. (citation needed) They didnt need a citation. (citation needed) They used it and it worked. (citation needed) Salt dries out bacteria and viruses, killing them, by the way. (citation needed) I havent been to Salt in a while, i trust annoying counterproductive overuses of "citation needed" can be avoided in the future. (Citation needed) I hope my overuse of "citation needed" drives home a point. It can ruin a great read of a good article. (Citation needed) and usually the citations never get cited. (citation needed) I recommend that wikipolice that want to "citation needed" take it upon themselves to research and properly cite the article in question rather than leave it to someone else who really isnt that interested. (citation needed) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.179.22.132 ( talk) 07:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
--While it is understandable that Wikipedia is working extremely hard to demonstrate its rigor-du-jour with regards to citations, the overuse/abuse of citations, particularly in the social sciences is a discredit to academic discourse. Sadly it has been fueled in the last half-century by contemporary systems of peer-review and promotion that encourage name-dropping, as it were, for the sake of multiple listings in the citation indexes. One would indeed think that professionals, especially those educated within a discipline, would share some core of knowledge to which too-oft repeated references were not necessary. How much longer will we have to read the same basic literature reviews, for example, in every similarly themed article written within a five year period (at least). Is this contribution to knowledge, or contribution to self-promotion, faulty academic systems, and wasted paper or cyber space? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.118.168 ( talk) 18:15, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Johnbod ( talk) 15:01, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't know how common, or acceptable, YouTube is as a reference, but apparently it now features the capability of jumping to a specific point in a video, by adding a timestamp to the URL. For example: http://youtube.com/watch?v=qie-N8idatc#t=1m54s Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 09:43, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
I remember reading somewhere in the guidelines that it's preferable not to abbreviate author names and journal titles in citations, but I can't pinpoint where exactly I read it. Any idea where it is, or was it removed? Thanks. Phenylalanine ( talk) 02:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
How would one properly site information recieved from an official source via an email correspondence? -- Criticalthinker ( talk) 03:42, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
How would you contsruct a reference to a database? --neon white talk 14:12, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
20-Nov-2008: In case you were wondering, "Who is the fool that will fix/italicize all those book and magazine titles in the examples?" ...that would be me. I also revised the guideline example for using Template:Rp appending page numbers:
All examples are now precisely punctuated, so users can copy/paste them for use in articles. - Wikid77 ( talk) 11:48, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
In order to help facilitate easier location of potential sources of offline information to help verify the notability of article subjects and contents, I have created Category:WikiProject reference libraries and placed into it all of the reference library pages of which I am aware. Please add more project reference libraries to this category if you know of more. Additionally, feel free to create new reference library pages for any particular project as well. They can be very useful. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:08, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Please review the discussion here
and comment on whether the page should be moved back to article space. Thanks. - Ac44ck ( talk) 21:54, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I've started a discussion at MOS here regarding a new citation template I've created. Your feedback would be appreciated. // roux 11:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
It was suggested over at WT:Layout to move the material in footnote 5 (the long footnote) into the text. I don't feel strongly about it, but I generally think of footnotes as "offhand" comments, and a long footnote doesn't feel "offhand" to me. Any objections? - Dan Dank55 ( send/receive) 01:04, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Nofootnotes links to this page via
inline citations
Inline citations is no longer mentioned anywhere on the page. It never was specifically defined. Censors, prove you aren't sloppier and lazier than contributors.
Anarchangel (
talk) 17:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
I've checked here and some of the other links and can't seem to find any info on how often to cite from the same source. Specifically I'm talking about when multiple paragraphs can be cited or when multiple parts of a paragraph can, but not all (like the beginning and end, but not the middle), or where part of the paragraph can be cited by 2 sources and 1 of the same sources can be used to cite more of the paragraph. Do I put 1/ref of each type per paragraph, section (for the former), or what? じん ない 23:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
With all the great work that's been done here over the past few months, I'm inclined to throw WP:CITE into the pile of style guidelines at WP:Update that gets updated (usually by me, but volunteers are welcome) every month. If anyone disagrees, stop me now. Technically, this involves adding it to CAT:GEN. - Dan Dank55 ( send/receive) 14:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
I left a comment at the subpage, Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Further considerations; here is is, reproduced for your convenience:
It seems that a lot of edits Citation bot ( talk · contribs) is making relate to the number of pages in a book, not a specific page. I think these numbers are generated when importing data via Zotero. For example, that's how I added books to Keith Vinicombe. You can recognise such data by the presence of double colons. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Are there any official guidelines on how to format a reference to a television programme, or a film? This article seems to deal exclusively with written sources, rather than visual ones. - • The Giant Puffin • 00:03, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello! What is the current procedure when including an IPA pronunciation in an article? I'm currently adding the citation of where I found the pronunciation whenever possible.-- el Aprel ( facta- facienda) 20:31, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I think item 2 near the top of the Citing_sources#How_to_present_citations section should be changed to "2. Footnote: By placing it in a footnote, with a link following the assertion (whether a clause, sentence, paragraph, etc.) that it supports.[3]". At the moment it sort of implies that links cannot be inside a sentence. I think that sometimes [2] links need to be, but not always. The footnote section's example ("the sun is pretty big,[1] ..." seems to agree. Open4D ( talk) 14:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
In the introduction to an article, I have included one or two bits of information which are taken from subtopics later in the article. This repetition of information includes three references. It is inelegant to have three duplicate references in the footnotes, albeit separated by others. I have searched the citation article and further material referenced at the end of that article but cannot find anything explaining how to achieve a single footnote preceded by superscript instances a, b, c, etc. Would I need to use templates like cite book and citation - which I would prefer to avoid? Would be grateful for some advice.-- AlotToLearn ( talk) 01:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
WP may want to add to its citation policy a passage which justifies removal of cites and information which is taken from third party sites which mirror older versions of WP articles. Foofighter20x ( talk) 03:21, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to discuss this change, which promotes the use of ==Bibliography==, which has been widely deprecated as potentially confusing (is that the "books [and other stuff] I used when writing this article" or "books written by this particular author"?) for -- well, years, as far as I can make out.
A quick search shows almost three times as many articles (mainspace) containing "footnotes" as "bibliography" -- and almost none that actually use ==Citations==, which this guideline recommends. There are ten times as many "footnotes" articles as "citations" articles, and of the first 500 "citations" articles in my search, exactly three ( Ecosystem Management Decision Support, Alpha Phi Alpha, and Michel Coiffard) used that term as a section heading for short footnotes. Most of the rest contain the word "citations" in reference to a military honor or are talking about it as a scholarly term, in an article like Citations.
Compare these numbers:
Quoted search term | # in mainspace | % of first 500 used for section name |
Extrapolated use (all 2.5M Wikipedia articles) |
---|---|---|---|
Footnotes | 160,750 | 281/500 = 56.2% | 90,000+ |
Bibliography | 49,185 | 77/500 = 15.4% | 7,500* |
Citations | 16,890 | 3/500 = 0.06% | 100 |
(*Note that this search for "Bibliography" as a section heading includes all instances of "Bibliography" being used in the "Books written by this subject" sense as well as in the "References" sense.)
So as a practical matter of documenting normal, accepted practice (that is, meeting the basic goal of every guideline on Wikipedia), this particular recommendation is a complete failure. We have promoted the use of a section heading that is probably used in a whopping one hundred articles. We have completely ignored a section heading that is probably used in ninety thousand articles.
I would like to change the text to reflect the most widely used practice, like this:
This would replace the existing second bullet point, which recommends using Notes-References-Bibliography or Notes-Citations-Bibliography. Does anyone have any objection to this change? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:40, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I am against using Bibliography as a section name for anything other than works published by the subject of a biography article. -- PBS ( talk) 09:17, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Agree with WAID concerning Citations, and thanks for the research; it isn't used enough to justify the recommendation. Qp, my feeling is that slightly more Wikipedians use the word "Bibliography" as the others are saying here. I have a slight preference to use a different word or phrase for the concept you're describing, but if we do say that some people use Bibliography in your sense, we should also mention that it might be confused with the other meaning of the word (and if we mention it both here and at Layout, then we should probably mention the possible confusion over there, too). - Dan Dank55 ( send/receive) 04:01, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm looking for advice on a relatively common problem with complex references. Consider the problem with the organization of references in James Strang. The article contains a divided list of books that were used in building the article (full citations and short citations). It also contains a list of non-book sources used to support specific statements. These are strangely merged with the short citations, even though they are not short citations.
How do you list these? Do you:
I'm open to all ideas. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:59, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Can anyone tell me is it neccessary to translate foreign references into English in the References section? It seems that it is unmentioned in the Wiki guideline. Thanks for helping!-- Clithering ( talk) 14:22, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
We don't need a specific, Wikipedia-wide guideline for this. Each article gets to choose its own appropriate and rational style of presenting references. If you think that option 1 or option 2 is better/more appropriate/more understandable/etc, then go with that. Ref styles must be consistent within a single article, but they do not have to exactly match every other article in the entire encyclopedia. In short: format the English text however you want. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 22:51, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to know what fellow editors think about the following. Suppose I want to submit an edit like this...
The Sun is pretty big,<ref>Miller, E. (2005), ''The Sun'', Academic Press, p. 23</ref>
but the Moon is not so big.<ref>Brown, R. (2006). "Size of the Moon". ''Scientific American'' '''51''' (78): 46.</ref>
==Notes==
<references/>
Which would render like this...
The Sun is pretty big, [1] but the Moon is not so big. [2]
Notes
My question would be - would anyone see a problem with this? If so, what specifically?
And what advice does the Citing sources project page give?
Thanks, -- SallyScot ( talk) 15:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I think it looks okay too. But I feel the guideline (in effect) makes unwarranted fuss and could be simplified. If nobody sees serious issue with it I think that would rather support my point, so I'm inviting comment on this basis, in particular from anyone who might have issues with the format. -- SallyScot ( talk) 17:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
--
Okay, both citations could end with a full stop, and let's say we are talking about an alphabetical reference list...
References
- Brown, R. (2006). "Size of the Moon". Scientific American 51 (78): 46.
- Miller, E. (2005), The Sun, Academic Press, p. 23.
Under the Citation templates and tools section it says: "the {{Cite xxx}} family separates elements with a full stop (period), while the {{ Citation}} template separates elements with a comma. Thus, these two families should not be mixed in the same article." [original emphasis]
Now, if the matter of separation with commas versus fullstops is really worthy of such note, then it should equally apply to references written freehand (as in my example), shouldn't it? Yet I would agree, even amongst the minority that would spot such a thing, most rightly wouldn't debate such a minor issue. I don't think the Citing sources guideline needs to refer to formatting minutiae to this extent. If it does, then it would have to do so with equal regard to freehand references, not just to specific families of citation templates.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 22:15, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
--
Hmm. I'm still wondering how many people would really notice such comma full stop difference, but as my opening gambit may have been interpreted as a trick question, and I've since clarified, it's hard to know really. - The difference is of course easier to spot after it's been pointed out.
I think inconsistencies of format are sometimes undeservedly attributed to template usage. JackLee says: "If a reader sees "p. 23" and correctly interprets this as "page 23", then she might think that "46" refers to something else since it doesn't have "p." in front of it." - Yet this has no bearing on the advice not to mix usage of citation template families. With the Brown "Size of the Moon" reference for example, Citation and Cite journal templates render like this...
Personally, I don't see this as significant enough to warrant such bold emphasis admonishment against mixing citation template families and I'd be happy to drop the wording. If you disagree, then, in order to be self-consistent, you'd also have to concede that the same standard of scrutiny should equally apply to references written freehand, implying an onus for some rewrite and perhaps repositioning of the guideline advice I'd say.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 13:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
As the Citing sources guideline already says that the reference style must be consistent within an article I think detail about Citation template usage belongs more properly in Wikipedia:Citation templates. In the interests of simplicity the Citing sources guideline itself need only make the reader aware that Citation templates exist, and point them in right direction for further information should they wish to learn more. -- SallyScot ( talk) 19:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
A recurrent question on the Help desk and elsewhere is how to deal with multiple references to the same source in an article. Granted, the requisite information is available at WP:FN#Naming a ref tag so it can be used more than once, but apparently people aren't finding it. I wonder whether it shouldn't also be included here, at the main page visited by folks who want to add proper references to articles, perhaps under "How to format citations." Anyone have ideas on this? Deor ( talk) 03:02, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
How do you take care of a citation that dosen't back up the statement?-- Ipatrol ( talk) 23:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
The first example at WP:CITE#Footnote_system has been interpreted as requiring full cites for each and every line unless the short cites are placed in a separate section from the full cites.
That is, you could have:
or you could have:
but you could not have:
This mixed style is common in many style guides, and when you cite different pages of the same book several dozen times, then repeating the full ref for each any every one of them is just silly. I'm not sure that this problem is trivially solvable, or if it would be better to invoke WP:COMMONSENSE. Any thoughts? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
When citing multiple pages from a single long work, like a book, Template:Rp can be used. The page number (here "[number]") is placed after the footnote ref-tag, like so: <ref>[ref information]</ref>{{rp|[number]}}.
This is an example. [1]:230
Notes
- ^ Large book....
Above removed from the end of Footnote system subsection. There are a number of concerns with this method of handling multiple pages from a single work.
Re points 1 & 2, readers are likely to be confused by the format, which anyway looks clunky...
This is an example.[1]:234 [2]:456 Further text with further example.[1]:278
It's not as neat as using Shortened footnotes.
Re point 3, there's little point in having a template that does nothing more than add a colon and superscript its content. Superscript can simply be achieved using <sup> tags. These tags are already available from the edit box toolbar (x2).
-- SallyScot ( talk) 16:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
This paragraph was added very recently.
It seems to me more like an essay than a guideline. Please discuss if it belongs here. Gimmetrow 13:36, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm doing some copyediting on Kuril Islands dispute. I want to clean up the hodgepodge of citation styles in the References section. Unfortunately, the first complete citation (in this revision, ref #2) was inconsistent with prior formatting, and later citations added even more inconsistencies. Am I expected to honor the style of the first author of each individual element of the citations? If so, I'm not sure it will match any of the present styles. Or can I just format everything in the style I personally prefer, given that it's a mess right now? - Unconventional ( talk) 18:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I forgot to add: The current References section contains some pretty extensive excerpts from the cited sources, in the manner of footnotes. Are these appropriate in a References section? If not, what's the best thing to do with them? - Unconventional ( talk) 18:56, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I Its mukta nath . i wana know about active D ... Can u help me / My Email Addresh is <REMOVED FOR PRIVACY REASONS> . Plz .help me about this matter . im very cragy for it . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.115.100 ( talk) 07:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I take issue with the seperation of notes and rerences, as defined by this policy. IMO, they are both being used to cite the source of information in Wikipedia, and the tag used to make a list of "notes" is: {{reflist}}. In addition, articles that have only one major "reference", but multiple "notes" could be tagged with {{refimprove}}, even though there is a decent amount of actual references. I believe it makes more sense to use one style of citing, namely, the <ref></ref> stlye. Thoughts? Sephiroth storm ( talk) 02:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
One of the reasons I like this approach is because it avoids making some reliable sources appear to be "more reliable" than others. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:47, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Is this reasonable? I added some content that I thought was obvious (it should have already been in the article), someone complained about no source, I asked them to tag what they were doubtful about and they did so (thank you), a third party reverted both the tags and my content, and now a fourth party scolds me on my talk page. -- Una Smith ( talk) 07:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Am I the only on who thinks this formatting is getting a bit convoluted? I mean, new users who try to edit a Wikipedia article for the first time aren't going to be able to make heads or tails of the Byzantine code. I think we need to simplify and move to a completely transparent WYSIWYG system. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin ( talk) 13:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm contemplating an addition to Wikipedia:CITE#How_to_present_citations. After the 'common ways of listing notes/footnotes/refs' bullets, I'm thinking about adding a sentence along these lines:
Many editors prefer to reserve the section heading Bibliography for complete lists of published works in authors' biographies. The section heading Citations is often similarly reserved for military citations and government proclamations. Sources is often reserved for sections about source code, geological sources, anatomical and biological sources, and the locations where materials are procured.
This is the actual practice on Wikipedia, and using a 'potentially confusing section heading' can result in edit wars and confusion for an editor that accidentally transgressed the unwritten convention. Does anyone object to adding this descriptive/explanatory statement? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Regarding these reverts ( 1, 2) after re-reading everything a couple of times I realize that I misunderstood the meaning of the term "numbered" in the first bullet - being a technical guy I was at first supposing that it was referring to the numbering of the HTML anchors (the "#cite_note-1", "#cite_note-2", etc. that appears in the browser bar after you click on a link.) But now I can see that I was being a bit obtuse and that "numbered" has the much more straightforward meaning of referring to the visible numbers that appear in the article content. Perhaps ImperfectlyInformed had the same misunderstanding.
So anyways, I agree with SallyScott that the point about naming the references, for the purpose of re-usability or for determining the HTML anchor text, does not belong in that section of this guideline, and so I agree with her reverts of my edit and ImperfectlyInformed's. -- ❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 06:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I expected to find a guidance here that only notable sources should be cited. I'm convinced I saw it somewhere. If it exists, would somebody add it to the See also, please? (If it is relevant, see talk:Gold as an investment for backgrounder). -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 00:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
"The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." ( WP:BURDEN)
Wikipedia:Citing sources#How to present citations
It seems that most people would not see a ==References== section as a citation style and coupled with the "inappropriate" sentence it is a recipe for conflict. Better to remove general reference as a way of presenting citations. -- PBS ( talk) 20:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
In most professional, scholarly publications, so-called "general references", supposedly supporting the "entire article", are not used. They might be used in a couple of professional magazine articles, but when this is the case, they are not combined with inline (directly cited) sources, as I see from time to time popping up in Wikipedia articles. I think if Wikipedia wants to use inline citations, we need to support that, and discourage "general" references, but using both together (a) looks bad and (b) is confusing to the reader. Dr. Cash ( talk) 21:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
<-- Suppose a person wishes to add a paragraph to an article and would like to use an inline citation for that paragraph. Usually that would be considered to be a good thing to do. With the current wording, if only general references exist, someone can remove the citation and move the source down to the references section stating that that this guideline says "Once a style is selected for an article it is inappropriate to change an article to another unless there is a reason that goes beyond mere choice of style", so changing to inline citations from a general reference section is a style choice. The style issue was introduced to stop the change from one method of inline citation to another it was not introduced to discourage changing from general references to a citation method. General references are not a method of "How to present citations" -- It is a way to include a list of references in an article. PBS (talk) 18:34, 30 January 2009 (UCT)
I never said it was a conflict of polices. You have not addressed my issue that a general reference section is not a citation style and that it was never the intention that the prohibition of changing styles was anything to do with moving from using a general reference to inline citation. It should not be necessary to even answer your last question, as changing from general references to inline citations was never an issue in the past. See for example the page as it was when I last edited it on 12 August 2008. When was it discussed that general references were a citation style? I see that it had started to morph by 11 September 2008 but AFAICT, The prohibition was for different inline citation styles and this prohibition from moving from general references to inline citations was never agreed. -- PBS ( talk) 12:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Links_and_ID_numbers reads: If your source is not findable online, etc. However, there are sources that only can be read for a fee which an editor might have in hard copy or whatever making it more difficult for other editors to check. (As opposed to mere need for a logon which is free.) So could the policy/text be changed to read: If your source is not findable online, or requires a fee to access, etc. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 15:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
CarolMooreDC's sentence "If a citation without an external link is challenged as unfindable, any of the following is sufficient to show the material to be reasonably findable (though not necessarily reliable): providing an ISBN or OCLC number; linking to an established Wikipedia article about the source (the work, its author, or its publisher); or directly quoting the material on the talk page, briefly and in context." requires that an editor who adds material from an old book (pre-ISBN) to monitor the article eternally. If the person who added the material dies, or for some other reason stops monitoring the article, the material could then be removed because the person who had access to the book fails to answer a challenge. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 06:08, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
how come the english wiki
need way more ref s than any other language article??
corrolation retencion capacity??
one word
one sentence
Wdl1961 (
talk) 05:44, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
The templates seem to to only have tags that support first and last names. I notice middle initials being sometimes simply appended under the "first" tag. However what about titles and degree letters, for example "Dr John Doe, M.D.?" "Prof Jane Doe" "Richard Roe, D.D.M."? Are these to simply be omitted?-- Ericjs ( talk) 20:06, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
What is the "authorlink" tag intended for? In the examples it seems to be used to show the author name in the more "normal" format, for example "Jane T. Doe" as opposed to the "Doe, Jane T." format displayed in the citation from the "last" and "first" tags. The word "link" certainly does not suggest this usage, and instead suggests that it might be used for an actual link, perhaps to the author's bio or such, but none of the examples support this idea. Further, it does not seem to be used in the display of the actual citation; if it currently has no practical effect this increases the importance that its purpose be documented since no one will see the effect of its misuse (or it should simply be eliminated).
This raises the general question / criticism: Why are not each of these fields' meanings and purposes explicitly defined instead of simply given by example? Some may be obvious enough to be "self-documenting" but the fact that there are cases like this where this is not so, makes reliance on them being self-evident inappropriate. -- Ericjs ( talk) 20:44, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
About a month ago User:SallyScot removed the mention of the above template [3]. She justified this by saying that it isn't used outside of Wikipedia. That's not true quite true. It's not common, but I don't even read a ton of scholarly literature and I've seen it a few separate times in peer-reviewed medical research ( example, see footnote 6). The rp template is an elegant way to cite specific page numbers in long works without using shortened footnotes (which are awkward and much more difficult to maintain) or parenthetical referencing, also awkward. The rp template is an elegant compromise between parenthetical and standard academic footnote referencing (which does not use shortened footnotes), and we need a way to use large works separate times without converting articles to shortened footnotes. In academic literature, shortened footnotes are fairly common in large works, but not common in the short peer-reviewed articles that Wikipedia are more similar to. I'm open to hearing other people's comments before I restore. II | ( t - c) 23:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
---
I've restored the archived original discussion entry that relates to this below for ease of reference with a further (new) post below that.
Template:Rp
When citing multiple pages from a single long work, like a book, Template:Rp can be used. The page number (here "[number]") is placed after the footnote ref-tag, like so: <ref>[ref information]</ref>{{rp|[number]}}.
This is an example. [1]:230
Notes
- ^ Large book....
Above removed from the end of Footnote system subsection. There are a number of concerns with this method of handling multiple pages from a single work.
Re points 1 & 2, readers are likely to be confused by the format, which anyway looks clunky...
This is an example.[1]:234 [2]:456 Further text with further example.[1]:278
It's not as neat as using Shortened footnotes.
Re point 3, there's little point in having a template that does nothing more than add a colon and superscript its content. Superscript can simply be achieved using <sup> tags. These tags are already available from the edit box toolbar (x2).
-- SallyScot ( talk) 16:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
---
I should stress that my reservations about Template:Rp don't pivot entirely on point number one. In any case, User:ImperfectlyInformed( II)'s given real world example, has numbered references like so...
which isn't really the same as what's proposed with Template:Rp. The inclusion of bracketed numbers prefixed p. or pp. is a little more intuitive perhaps (though quite why and how p. and pp. are used in that same example isn't particularly clear).
Anyway, the way to progress any such adoption within Wikipedia is via discussion and reaching consensus, not by the design of a wee template, implemented here and there, then quietly slipped it into an unsuspecting project page.
Even if I did agree that this sort of reference[1]:234 [2]:456 was a good idea (which I don't), I would still maintain that the Rp template itself is a waste of space; as I say, it does nothing more than add a colon and superscript its content. Superscript can already be achieved quite simply e.g. using the edit box toolbar (x2).
-- SallyScot ( talk) 21:54, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
---
This may seem like a minor point, but under the auspices of attention to detail I think it worth noting. User:Imperfectly informed suggests that the style used in real-world example is like this.[1](p1) It's not. Actually it's like this.1(p1) The point being that square brackets around the footnote number are a feature of Wikipedia. The square brackets have the effect of acting as delimiter. Wikipedia doesn't use commas to delimit multiple citations. Compare this to the given AMA style guide, where they use commas to delimit multiple citations, like this.3,4 The effect of trying to include page references outside Wikipedia's obligatory square footnote brackets is hence more visually confusing and counter-intuitive.
Also, I must come back to the point about the template just introducing unnecessary syntax. As <sup> tags are standard html, also available from the edit box toolbar (x2), they're going to be of much greater utility to the overwhelming majority of editors. Asking other editors to follow your coding {{Rp|page=101}} or {{Rp|pages=101-102}} to achieve this,(p. 101) or this,(pp. 101-102) just because you don't like the <sup> tags seems, in my opinion, something of an indulgence.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 20:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
User:Imperfectly informed described <sup> tags as "a pain"; it's in that context in which my remarks about not liking them were made. And, regardless of whether using a template is or isn't an implicit request for other users to employ the same (i.e. adopt its use for themselves), such usage does imply a measure of expectation that others ought to follow the meaning of the syntax. Either that or one must assume there's otherwise disregard for others following it. -- SallyScot ( talk) 11:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Next time you need a reference for a fact, please try the WRS project's search engine. It is based on Google but only shows results from a few hundreds "reliable websites", making it faster to find a good reference. Open the search page and enter a fact (for instance: Obama born in 1961). Your feedback is most welcome :-) Thanks Nicolas1981 ( talk) 14:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
In the "When quoting someone" section, it explicitly states sources must directly follow the quote. Now, I'm curious as to what's organizations style guideline this page is using to justify that statement (i.e. Harvard rule, APA, etc.), as I have generally always been taught that sources come either just before the nearest punctuation (if you're using the parenthetical format that identifies author and year), or directly after the nearest punctuation (if you're using the Wiki in-line text style of a number to represent the source that is listed elsewhere). In other words, I've always been taught not to break up the flow of the sentence by placing a source in mid-statement (even when you're quoting), but wait till a punctuation (like a comma or period). Where is the statement from this page coming from? BIGNOLE (Contact me) 21:37, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
If a page is about a word or a concept, it should contain a definition. Should we get the definition from a source? Or use a common-sense, intuitive definition?
This came to my mind when editing reason. 87.95.67.216 ( talk) 01:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Is there no policy on the the problems of over-referencing? If you look at this article, for example: [5] you see how a long string of inline citations can be a problem for the ease of reading. Surely there should be some kind of guidelines against this as well, but I haven't been able to find any. Lampman ( talk) 02:58, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
If it seems necessary to put a passage in "Citing sources" that it is usually sufficient to just list the best source, fine. However it shouldn't be a hard and fast rule. For example, if one source is the most reliable, but difficult to access, and another isn't quite so reliable, but available online, it might be wise to list both. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 18:05, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
IMO there's nothing wrong with having many, many sources for any given fact in an article. It's perfectly all right if an article cites every single source in existence for a fact. Sourcing material should not be removed from an article for merely aesthetic concerns.
If a proliferation of superscript numbers indicating the presence of refs interferes with the readability of an article then the solution is to do something that hides or groups together the reference numbers, such as the above suggestion to group multiple sources as a list of bullets within a single ref, not to remove sourcing material for the article simply to get rid of the little numbers.
(So in summary, IMO if indeed there is such a thing as over-referencing it doesn't have anything to do with aesthetics - you'd need a much more substantial reason to claim that an article or fact was too well-referenced.) -- ❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 01:08, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 20 | ← | Archive 23 | Archive 24 | Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 | → | Archive 30 |
At the moment this page is in the "Wikipedia style guidelines" and "Wikipedia how-to" categories, should there be a Category:Wikipedia referencing or similar to aid in finding relevant pages?
Incidentally I am looking for a page that lists people who have access to magazine subscriptions or a page that emails sources to Wikipedia editors, any ideas?-- Commander Keane ( talk) 09:43, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
OMG, now I see the structural problems. My first thought is "why is this page not merged with WP:V?" Perhaps because V is policy and this one is not. But can't the information here be cast as policy and merged into V? I certainly don't want to see the "When to cite sources" section here as guideline and over there as policy. THis is a recipe for chaos.
On second thought, why not clearly define V as the "when", and CITE as the "how". This would involve:
Starting with "When to cite sources" here in CITE, it seems nicely set out and easy to follow, and not so in V. Should V be recast to include this text?
On the matter of rewriting the lead here at CITE: I'd wait until we decide on this relationship. Tony (talk) 02:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
←Thanks very much for that list, Christopher; I'll survey now. What I'm concerned about is whether they're all properly coordinated and sing from the same songsheet (Sandy seems to be very concerned that they're not), and whether it's the most intuitively organised and accessible way of setting out the guidelines/policy, especially for newcomers. Tony (talk) 08:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Christopher says, WP:Citing sources "is the central page discussing the mechanics that support verifiability; it provides details on when to cite sources, offers links to and summarizes some of the most popular citation methods, and gives the basic relevant MOS principle (consistency within articles)." and also that WP:Verifiability "should be kept pretty brief to avoid weighing it down with more technical material which is best offloaded onto subpages".
However, I don't feel this really clarifies. As I see it, "When to cite" isn't really part of the technical mechanics of citing sources and hence shouldn't really be covered in detail in the pages of such a "how to" guideline. When to cite is more widely contextual and would better suit being covered on the policy page WP:Verifiability.
I think the balance of the argument is in favour of moving "When to cite" to WP:Verifiability.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 15:04, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
---
OK. It looks like there's an objection to moving "When to cite" content to WP:Verifiability from WP:Cite on the grounds of there being a present division into policy (which cannot be ignored) and guideline (which needs to be treated with common sense and the occasional exception).
In that case bear in mind the pre-existence of the distinct page WP:When to cite and the possibility of moving content there. Its status is currently a "proposed" guideline, but any issues around its status could and should be addressed of course. If there are disputed parts they ought be identified and dealt with accordingly, but article splitting generally ( WP:Splitting) is otherwise a well-established approach to resolving overall size issues such as we have here.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 09:50, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I have a blog called Saito Network, since it's a blog I can't post on your website wikipedia. I want to though some how prove that my site is an authority site and that it can be posted on wikipedia even though it's a blog. I am web renown for my work and have spent countless hours working away at Saito Network putting forth old and new information on Mega Man game titles...I have wanted to advertise on Wikipedia for a very long time and hope that you will allow Saito Network to be apart of Wikipedia as it is just to spread more information and not spam. Please view my blog and tell me what you think : http://saitonetwork.wordpress.com/ I list media, video's, music and information when I find it and when there are updates on latest Mega Man games. I appreciate you looking into this :). Blazinglight ( talk) 02:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Most of the information comes from Capcom and is freely distributable. The other sites referenced either get their information from Capcom, or from a Magazine called "CoroCoro Magazine". You have mentioned several conditions that need to be met, and I believe I can meet these conditions provided the infringments are clearly (giving a few examples) so as to show a true effort on the part of Wikipedia to help other authors comply to its standards. Since the rules seem subject to the discretion of the moderators, then perhaps the moderators can show the examples of what is considered a violation of copyrights and of verifiability, especially since they are making a legal precedence by stating there is a violation (Wikipedia acting as an internet authority). Internet copyright laws have been re-defined as of late and are a great deal more lax than at the writing of Wikipedia's policies. I would only think it fair to give an accurate appraisal so Saitonetwork can attempt to conform to the regulations, by placing realistic conditions on doubts you may have. Thank you Jacklee for your prompt reply, its greatly appreciated, our efforts are only to conform to Wikipedia's policy; providing that blogs are not discriminated against. Blazinglight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blazinglight ( talk • contribs) 05:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
I moved this discussion to the suggested place : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#My_blog.2C_following_Wikipedia.27s_rules —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blazinglight ( talk • contribs) 23:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
I believe there's an issue with this guideline using the terms "citation" and "reference" quite so interchangeably (as it suggests currently in the use of terms section).
I think they only happen to be one and the same thing with the standard footnotes method. With the shortened footnotes method it becomes clearer that citations and references can be distinct (though currently the guideline advice for the shortened notes method is to name the section containing the short citations "notes", which may be not so clear).
A good example to consider is when explanatory notes are also included with the shortened notes method, because in this case there's a requirement for three distinct section headings. There doesn't seem to be any guideline advice on what to call these sections, even though such a three section approach would be good practice. - There's merit in using shortened notes and separating explanatory notes and no reason why wanting to do both should be mutually exclusive.
Take for instance the former featured article " Sophie Blanchard". - Here you can see three sections. "Notes" - for explanatory notes, "Citations" - for the short citations, and "References" for the full references.
As this approach would seem to be good practice shouldn't we consider the implications in terms of the guideline's advice?
I can see how wanting to use the terms citation and reference interchangeably may be well intended for the sake of simplicity, however I do feel that, other than for the bog standard footnotes method, it may be better to elucidate the difference for the benefit of other approaches.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 19:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I'd be up for moving it. I'll put toward the bottom, just ahead of the "Tools" section if that's okay. -- SallyScot ( talk) 17:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
In July and August, substantial changes were made to this guide and even more substantial changes are planned. I thought it would useful to list the open issues and provide links to the relevant discussions.
I hope this list helps. Please discuss these issues in their respective sections (just follow the link). As these issues get settled, I will update this list. ---- CharlesGillingham ( talk) 19:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
This should be a readable document. I want to learn something and be about my business. This should also have a very wide audience.
I recommend splitting the article into two articles:
Citing sources - HOWTO
Citing sources - Why, what if, and FAQ —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Full Decent (
talk •
contribs) 19:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
On Portland Terminal Company there are way too many citations. Is there a template to tag this with? -- NE2 23:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
In line with WP:LEAD, I think this guide could use a succinct description of the elementary ideas, something like this:
This page in a nutshell: This page describes how to write citations in articles. Verifiability is a core content policy of Wikipedia. An article, paragraph or statement is verifiable if it is connected by a citation to a reliable source, so that reader can use the citation to find the source and verify that it supports the material. A citation is a line of text that tells the reader exactly how to find a source. For example, this is a citation:
- Turing, Alan (October 1950), "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", Mind, LIX (236): 433–460, doi: 10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433, ISSN 0026-4423
The source may be a book, website, scientific paper, newspaper article, et cetera. Material in the body of the article is usually connected to the citation in one of three ways:
- Footnotes. The citation may appear in a footnote. The footnote can appear directly after the statement, allowing the reader to click on the footnote, read the citation and find the source. For example, this sentence is followed by a citation in a footnote. [1] This is the most common way to connecting statements to citations.
- General references. The citation may appear in a References section at the end of the article. The reader may assume that these citations can be used to verify many different aspects of the article.
- Author-date references. An author-date reference looks like this: ( Turing 1950, p. 451). It may appear directly after the statement or (more often) in a footnote, such as the one at the end of this sentence. [2] The full citation appears in an alphabetized References section at the end of article. The reader can use the name of the author and the date of publication to find the citation.
These are the most common methods of making articles verifiable. A Wikipedia editor is free to use any of these methods or to develop new methods; no method is preferred. Each article should use the same method throughout. If an article already has some citations, an editor should study the method already in use and seek consensus before changing it. If you do not know how to format a citation, provide enough information to identify the source and others will improve the citation.
I've cut a lot of corners here, but I don't think anything I'm saying is false and it manages to introduce most of the critical material in this guide. Any objections? Comments? ---- CharlesGillingham ( talk) 07:32, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
After thinking about this over night, I feel very strongly that this page needs a lead along the lines I am suggesting. I would like to know if there are other editors who think that this lead would be useful, or at least, harmless.
Here is a better draft.
This page in a nutshell: This page describes how to write citations in articles. A citation is used to connect material in Wikipedia with a reliable source. It makes the material verifiable, since a reader may use the citation to find the source and verify that it supports the material. Verifiability is among the core content policies of WIkipedia. Citations are required for quotes, most images, material about living persons and anything that is likely to be challenged.
A citation is a line of text that identifies a source uniquely. For example, this is a citation:
- Turing, Alan (October 1950), "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", Mind, LIX (236): 433–460, doi: 10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433, ISSN 0026-4423
An article, paragraph or sentence is usually connected to the citation in one of four ways:
- General reference: By placing the citation in a References section at the end of an article.
- Footnote: By placing it in a footnote following the sentence or paragraph it verifies (such as the following footnote). [3]
- Shortened note: By placing the citation in a References section and naming just author and year in a footnote. [4]
- Parenthetical referencing: By placing the citation in a References section and naming author and year in parenthesis. ( Turing 1950, p. 451)
These are the most common methods of making articles verifiable. A Wikipedia editor is free to use any of these methods or to develop new methods; no method is preferred. Each article should use the same method throughout. If an article already has some citations, an editor should study the method already in use and seek consensus before changing it. If you do not know how to format a citation, provide enough information to identify the source and others will improve the citation.
This draft defines "citation", summarizes in three paragraphs the three main sections of the article and briefly explains (what I think are) the most important policies for a new editor to see. ---- CharlesGillingham ( talk) 22:57, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
Still needs tweaking, somewhat unnecessary additional prose and also misleading (by the way, I corrected the MoS breach in the citation; when adding text to guideline pages, we should be careful to respect WP:MOS). I agree that we don't need more meta-prose, and there's also no need to appear to favor one citation method over another. This example uses {{ citation}}, which will lead many readers to believe that's the preferred citation method on Wiki. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
I hope the page won't mention things like "general refs are discouraged"; that's often the only way novice editors know how to add references, and something is better than nothing. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
This page in a nutshell: This page describes how to write citations in articles. A citation is a line of text that uniquely identifies a source. For example, this is a citation:
- Ritter, R. (2002). The Oxford Style Manual. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860564-1.
It allows a reader to find the source and verify that it supports material in Wikipedia. Citations are required for quotes, most images, information about living persons and anything that is likely to be challenged.
An article, paragraph or sentence is usually connected to the citation in one of four ways:
- General reference: By placing the citation in a "References" section at the end of an article.
- Footnote: By placing it in a footnote following the sentence or paragraph it verifies (such as the following footnote). [5]
- Shortened footnote: By placing the citation in a "References" section and naming only the author, year and page number in a footnote. [6]
- Parenthetical reference: By placing the citation in a "References" section and naming the author, year and page number in parenthesis ( Ritter 2002, p. 45) harv error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFRitter2002 ( help).
These are the most common methods of making articles verifiable. A Wikipedia editor is free to use any of these methods or to develop new methods; no method is preferred. Each article should use the same method throughout—if an article already has some citations, an editor should adopt the method already in use or seek consensus before changing it.
If you do not know how to format a citation, provide enough information to identify the source and others will improve the citation.
Well, I cut the the only sentences that I could sensibly cut and I used a less complicated example. Any remaining objections? As I said above, I feel strongly that this guide should have a real WP:LEAD. ---- CharlesGillingham ( talk) 09:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
In the lead, the term "footnote" is used to refer to the inline citation text or the numbered superscript link it creates. In the Quick summary, it is used to refer to where the citation text actually appears at the end of the article. I think the latter is technically correct?
More generally, I'm not sure it's really coming across (anywhere in the article) that there exists on Wikipedia this "automated" listing system, which is activated in some articles but not others. Yet this seems to be the main way in which Wikipedia differs from regular citation practices that newcomers might be more used to. EverSince ( talk) 05:34, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
What do you think about, now that there is also the Quick summary section, moving the citation method bullet points to the top of that section? That would presumably allay the concern regarding that section appearing to only promote one method, while the additional basic how-to for the footnotes method would still be there.
And would it be OK to expand those bullet points slightly to clarify that the two footnotes methods are sort of "automated" so that where you insert the citation (or shortened citation) isn't where it actually appears in the article? (I'd like to try to clarify that within the main footnotes sections too...).
Also would it be OK to add to the lead some additional indications as to the scope of the article e.g. that it outlines when to source, how to fix sourcing problems, using citation tools etc? EverSince ( talk) 03:01, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
My father was a city commissioner for Pontiac and my mother is currently going through his stuff for a Historic project she is working on. There are several letters from other politicians, dinner programs, memos and so forth that she is finding. How do I cite that? I can provide copies of the letter or what-not to prove it's authenticity, but I have no idea how to cite it.
Also, she is finding several newspaper articles. Unfortunately they are just the article, the upper corner is missing so I can't establish the paper or date. How do I deal with this? Can I site the stand-alone article? What's a guy to do? padillaH ( review me)( help me) 19:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
There is the issue you asked about, and the issue of where you might be headed.
You asked if something can be cited if it isn't in a book. Items that are available in an archive that is open to the public can be cited. Items that are not available to the public cannot be cited. The 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style in paragraph 15.284 gives this example of a manuscript citation:
As for where you might be headed, if you weave together a bunch of details from primary sources to support a new idea that has not been published before, that is original research. Wikipedia is not the place to publish original research. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 19:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm having some second thoughts about the Croatian national football team article. Because of specific regulations and availability issues, a few Croatian sources have been used in the article. To increase the readers research ability I have translated the most relevant parts of the foreign articles to sufficiently back up the statements, as you will see on the page. However, I think the current style is a little diminishing and out-of-place. I remember somebody saying that it could be an alternative to move all the translations on the talk page, and simply leave a note in the 'References' section which leads the readers to the translations. Would this be a better idea? Or, what other alternatives do I have? I would really appreciate opinions on such. Thanks! Domiy ( talk) 08:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Šimić – the terrain was unpleasant. Šimunić's biggest bother was the exclusion of Thompson at Maksimir. 'Some strange things are happening. I don't understand why they didn't allow Thompson's music before the game or even at half time when they know it lifts our spirits. I'm speechless.' [Translated into English by Domiy.]
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (
link)In the article Zazacatla, there is a quote (correctly) attributed to an Associated Press news story about discoveries at the site. But the article has been taken off line. Now what?
Should I remove the quote? That seems extreme. Do I try to find another URL for the story? What if I can't?? This is an issue I run across on a regular basis?? Any insight appreciated, Madman ( talk) 03:43, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I have raised this kind of problem at the Village pump and suggested some solutions. Ty 01:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Advise needs to be given on this page about not using Ibid as it is a common practice in other publications, but often leads to errors in Wikipedia pages. It is in Wikipedia:Footnotes#Style recommendations but it is true for all citation styles so it should be mentioned here. -- Philip Baird Shearer ( talk) 22:03, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I've been experimenting with including the relevant passage (i.e. relevant sentence/s from the sources) in which I am citing my sources to try to improve verifiability on Game Boy, using either the {{ citation}} template or, for my multiple references from a video game history book, including it direct from the reference. I find it easier to have the quote from the relevant passage (if applicable and provided it doesn't cause WP:SIZE problems) included in the reference; it seems easier to verify right there in the article as compared to placing it on the article's talk page. I also think this makes an article more sustainable and maintainable. Is this a good idea to do? MuZemike ( talk) 00:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
How do I cite something that was was written by the editor of a book by someone else? For instance, Robert Southey's whole biography of William Cowper was part of his edition of Cowper's poems; Cowper is listed as the author on the title page, and Southey as the editor. You can see how I cited that at Striking and Picturesque Delineations..., ref 10. I tried a different method for Brian Boyd's footnotes in his edition of novels by Vladimir Nabokov (using the "author" field in the "cite book" template for the editor and the "editor" field for the author)—see Pale Fire, note 36. Or some years ago, I used yet another method at Carmen (novella) (which doesn't have in-line references). Does any of these work? Do I need to abandon citation templates and use something like MLA, which would mean changing all the references in the first two of those articles?
And if this isn't the right place for me to ask, where should I ask? — JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
{{
citation}}
: |editor=
has generic name (
help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (
link)Where do you put the punctuation in a reference?
C Teng [talk] 16:57, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
The Sun shut down, should source links to The Sun be pre-emptively archived? Google finds about a couple of hundred links. -- SEWilco ( talk) 02:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
If I were to give a reference a "reference name", how would I use it again? 60.242.127.62 ( talk) 07:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
emo does not stand for emotional hardcore. it stands for EMOTIVE hardcore. just thought that i should state that clearly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.136.150.63 ( talk) 22:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I am using questia.com to provide me with some books electronically. Questia is a commercial service, and it publishes the book via html but with the original pagination (from its edition). This does not seem to me the same as a true 'indirect cite', where you say that book X says something because web page Y says Book X said something. Neither does it seem like a true 'web cite'.
I am leaning towards citing these books as books. I can't even give a URL, as of course, the service is commercial. So. What do you think? GPa Hill ( talk) 03:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
{{
citation}}
: |author=
has generic name (
help). — Cheers,
JackLee –
talk– 06:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)I disagree with some of the above. You must state that it's republished documents. That what you are dealing with. There is an actual format to follow according to MLA and other formats, but I do a mix of them. If you take a look at User:CyclePat/Currently Working On/template/reference/Telecommunications Act you'll find an example reference where I've used the term "republished". See also Steam tricycle#Bibliography where I accesed a printed book via History e-book project ACLS Humanities E-book. -- CyclePat ( talk) 23:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Is this ok? I believe page numbers should be provided, or tags left until this is done...? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I dissagree with the idea that we can't cite letters that are not published, previously discussed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_14#Citing_letters_.2F_correspondence. There was also another discussion regarding this matter and how the editor had a letter from a renown politician or government official. I think, if you can access the letter through access to information (ie.: Archives Canada, or Access to information) then it should be okay. Hence, if anyone gets a letter that they want to cite... simple ensure it`s from a politician... and if you`re from Canada, send it to Archives Canada. -- CyclePat ( talk) 00:49, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
A broadcast is a little different, Nevertheless, during our elections campaign here in Ottawa, I actually got a phone call from Stephen Harper. It was a voice recording (automatic system), but similarly... the conservative party in fact published this message to my answering machine. (and most likely many other peoples). He was campaigning for my vote. I would like to include this information. I think it's worthy of inclusion. With this example though, I'm even more confused as to whether our current rules make sense or concure with this philosophy? -- CyclePat ( talk) 02:59, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
At Mozzarella di Bufala (buffalo mozzarrella) there are several points that are claimed to be substantiated by the website http://www.mozzarelladop.it/ but since the entire website is in flash, there doesn't seem to be a way to point to a particular part of the website. Is there a way to cite this source? — Chris Capoccia T⁄ C 07:42, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <title>Mozzarella di bufala campana D.O.P. - Consorzio Tutela</title> </head> <body background="images/bgr.jpg" leftmargin="0" topmargin="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0"> <table width="900" border="0" align="center"> <tr> <td><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/ flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0" width="900" height="550"> <param name="movie" value="index.swf"> <param name=quality value=high> <embed src="index.swf" quality=high pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version= ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="900" height="550"></embed> </object></td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>
Sorry, they were more clever than I thought. There are files with names like www.mozzarelladop.it/storia.swf (as I found by guessing), but you can't see them. I should have checked before I made the suggestion. — JerryFriedman (Talk) 18:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
Say I have a book that, on page 126, says "The sky is blue." I add the text and cite it in my article: "The sky is blue.<ref>Jones, 1956, p. 126.</ref>" Then someone comes along later and changes it to "The sky is red.<ref>Jones, 1956, p. 126.</ref>"
Do we have a name for this practice or a particular policy on it? Cheers. Haus Talk 13:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
This article covers two separate topics. First, how to format individual citations. Second, how to present citations in articles. (Currently the second topic is covered in the middle of the article - surrounded by discussions of the first topic.) Is there some reason why the two separate topics are not in two separate articles? Butwhatdoiknow ( talk) 02:48, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
In MS Word (or any decent program), it is possible to make a link for endnotes. This allows me to use the minimal intrusive citation format (numbered endnotes), while still re-using them when the same source at the beginning of an article needs to be cited later for a different fact. How do I do this in Wiki? TCO ( talk) 11:01, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
Most times, "Citation Needed" is a good thing. (citation needed) However lots of Wiki editors (Wikipolice) OVERUSE "citation needed" (citation needed) particularly when observation is fact(citation needed), such as when salt is used as a preservative "citation needed" (citation (who?) and Mayans and Incas and every tribe of man that ever encountered salt knew it. (citation needed) They didnt need a citation. (citation needed) They used it and it worked. (citation needed) Salt dries out bacteria and viruses, killing them, by the way. (citation needed) I havent been to Salt in a while, i trust annoying counterproductive overuses of "citation needed" can be avoided in the future. (Citation needed) I hope my overuse of "citation needed" drives home a point. It can ruin a great read of a good article. (Citation needed) and usually the citations never get cited. (citation needed) I recommend that wikipolice that want to "citation needed" take it upon themselves to research and properly cite the article in question rather than leave it to someone else who really isnt that interested. (citation needed) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.179.22.132 ( talk) 07:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
--While it is understandable that Wikipedia is working extremely hard to demonstrate its rigor-du-jour with regards to citations, the overuse/abuse of citations, particularly in the social sciences is a discredit to academic discourse. Sadly it has been fueled in the last half-century by contemporary systems of peer-review and promotion that encourage name-dropping, as it were, for the sake of multiple listings in the citation indexes. One would indeed think that professionals, especially those educated within a discipline, would share some core of knowledge to which too-oft repeated references were not necessary. How much longer will we have to read the same basic literature reviews, for example, in every similarly themed article written within a five year period (at least). Is this contribution to knowledge, or contribution to self-promotion, faulty academic systems, and wasted paper or cyber space? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.118.168 ( talk) 18:15, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Johnbod ( talk) 15:01, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't know how common, or acceptable, YouTube is as a reference, but apparently it now features the capability of jumping to a specific point in a video, by adding a timestamp to the URL. For example: http://youtube.com/watch?v=qie-N8idatc#t=1m54s Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 09:43, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
I remember reading somewhere in the guidelines that it's preferable not to abbreviate author names and journal titles in citations, but I can't pinpoint where exactly I read it. Any idea where it is, or was it removed? Thanks. Phenylalanine ( talk) 02:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
How would one properly site information recieved from an official source via an email correspondence? -- Criticalthinker ( talk) 03:42, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
How would you contsruct a reference to a database? --neon white talk 14:12, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
20-Nov-2008: In case you were wondering, "Who is the fool that will fix/italicize all those book and magazine titles in the examples?" ...that would be me. I also revised the guideline example for using Template:Rp appending page numbers:
All examples are now precisely punctuated, so users can copy/paste them for use in articles. - Wikid77 ( talk) 11:48, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
In order to help facilitate easier location of potential sources of offline information to help verify the notability of article subjects and contents, I have created Category:WikiProject reference libraries and placed into it all of the reference library pages of which I am aware. Please add more project reference libraries to this category if you know of more. Additionally, feel free to create new reference library pages for any particular project as well. They can be very useful. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:08, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Please review the discussion here
and comment on whether the page should be moved back to article space. Thanks. - Ac44ck ( talk) 21:54, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I've started a discussion at MOS here regarding a new citation template I've created. Your feedback would be appreciated. // roux 11:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
It was suggested over at WT:Layout to move the material in footnote 5 (the long footnote) into the text. I don't feel strongly about it, but I generally think of footnotes as "offhand" comments, and a long footnote doesn't feel "offhand" to me. Any objections? - Dan Dank55 ( send/receive) 01:04, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Nofootnotes links to this page via
inline citations
Inline citations is no longer mentioned anywhere on the page. It never was specifically defined. Censors, prove you aren't sloppier and lazier than contributors.
Anarchangel (
talk) 17:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
I've checked here and some of the other links and can't seem to find any info on how often to cite from the same source. Specifically I'm talking about when multiple paragraphs can be cited or when multiple parts of a paragraph can, but not all (like the beginning and end, but not the middle), or where part of the paragraph can be cited by 2 sources and 1 of the same sources can be used to cite more of the paragraph. Do I put 1/ref of each type per paragraph, section (for the former), or what? じん ない 23:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
With all the great work that's been done here over the past few months, I'm inclined to throw WP:CITE into the pile of style guidelines at WP:Update that gets updated (usually by me, but volunteers are welcome) every month. If anyone disagrees, stop me now. Technically, this involves adding it to CAT:GEN. - Dan Dank55 ( send/receive) 14:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
I left a comment at the subpage, Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Further considerations; here is is, reproduced for your convenience:
It seems that a lot of edits Citation bot ( talk · contribs) is making relate to the number of pages in a book, not a specific page. I think these numbers are generated when importing data via Zotero. For example, that's how I added books to Keith Vinicombe. You can recognise such data by the presence of double colons. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Are there any official guidelines on how to format a reference to a television programme, or a film? This article seems to deal exclusively with written sources, rather than visual ones. - • The Giant Puffin • 00:03, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello! What is the current procedure when including an IPA pronunciation in an article? I'm currently adding the citation of where I found the pronunciation whenever possible.-- el Aprel ( facta- facienda) 20:31, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I think item 2 near the top of the Citing_sources#How_to_present_citations section should be changed to "2. Footnote: By placing it in a footnote, with a link following the assertion (whether a clause, sentence, paragraph, etc.) that it supports.[3]". At the moment it sort of implies that links cannot be inside a sentence. I think that sometimes [2] links need to be, but not always. The footnote section's example ("the sun is pretty big,[1] ..." seems to agree. Open4D ( talk) 14:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
In the introduction to an article, I have included one or two bits of information which are taken from subtopics later in the article. This repetition of information includes three references. It is inelegant to have three duplicate references in the footnotes, albeit separated by others. I have searched the citation article and further material referenced at the end of that article but cannot find anything explaining how to achieve a single footnote preceded by superscript instances a, b, c, etc. Would I need to use templates like cite book and citation - which I would prefer to avoid? Would be grateful for some advice.-- AlotToLearn ( talk) 01:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
WP may want to add to its citation policy a passage which justifies removal of cites and information which is taken from third party sites which mirror older versions of WP articles. Foofighter20x ( talk) 03:21, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to discuss this change, which promotes the use of ==Bibliography==, which has been widely deprecated as potentially confusing (is that the "books [and other stuff] I used when writing this article" or "books written by this particular author"?) for -- well, years, as far as I can make out.
A quick search shows almost three times as many articles (mainspace) containing "footnotes" as "bibliography" -- and almost none that actually use ==Citations==, which this guideline recommends. There are ten times as many "footnotes" articles as "citations" articles, and of the first 500 "citations" articles in my search, exactly three ( Ecosystem Management Decision Support, Alpha Phi Alpha, and Michel Coiffard) used that term as a section heading for short footnotes. Most of the rest contain the word "citations" in reference to a military honor or are talking about it as a scholarly term, in an article like Citations.
Compare these numbers:
Quoted search term | # in mainspace | % of first 500 used for section name |
Extrapolated use (all 2.5M Wikipedia articles) |
---|---|---|---|
Footnotes | 160,750 | 281/500 = 56.2% | 90,000+ |
Bibliography | 49,185 | 77/500 = 15.4% | 7,500* |
Citations | 16,890 | 3/500 = 0.06% | 100 |
(*Note that this search for "Bibliography" as a section heading includes all instances of "Bibliography" being used in the "Books written by this subject" sense as well as in the "References" sense.)
So as a practical matter of documenting normal, accepted practice (that is, meeting the basic goal of every guideline on Wikipedia), this particular recommendation is a complete failure. We have promoted the use of a section heading that is probably used in a whopping one hundred articles. We have completely ignored a section heading that is probably used in ninety thousand articles.
I would like to change the text to reflect the most widely used practice, like this:
This would replace the existing second bullet point, which recommends using Notes-References-Bibliography or Notes-Citations-Bibliography. Does anyone have any objection to this change? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:40, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I am against using Bibliography as a section name for anything other than works published by the subject of a biography article. -- PBS ( talk) 09:17, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Agree with WAID concerning Citations, and thanks for the research; it isn't used enough to justify the recommendation. Qp, my feeling is that slightly more Wikipedians use the word "Bibliography" as the others are saying here. I have a slight preference to use a different word or phrase for the concept you're describing, but if we do say that some people use Bibliography in your sense, we should also mention that it might be confused with the other meaning of the word (and if we mention it both here and at Layout, then we should probably mention the possible confusion over there, too). - Dan Dank55 ( send/receive) 04:01, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm looking for advice on a relatively common problem with complex references. Consider the problem with the organization of references in James Strang. The article contains a divided list of books that were used in building the article (full citations and short citations). It also contains a list of non-book sources used to support specific statements. These are strangely merged with the short citations, even though they are not short citations.
How do you list these? Do you:
I'm open to all ideas. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:59, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Can anyone tell me is it neccessary to translate foreign references into English in the References section? It seems that it is unmentioned in the Wiki guideline. Thanks for helping!-- Clithering ( talk) 14:22, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
We don't need a specific, Wikipedia-wide guideline for this. Each article gets to choose its own appropriate and rational style of presenting references. If you think that option 1 or option 2 is better/more appropriate/more understandable/etc, then go with that. Ref styles must be consistent within a single article, but they do not have to exactly match every other article in the entire encyclopedia. In short: format the English text however you want. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 22:51, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to know what fellow editors think about the following. Suppose I want to submit an edit like this...
The Sun is pretty big,<ref>Miller, E. (2005), ''The Sun'', Academic Press, p. 23</ref>
but the Moon is not so big.<ref>Brown, R. (2006). "Size of the Moon". ''Scientific American'' '''51''' (78): 46.</ref>
==Notes==
<references/>
Which would render like this...
The Sun is pretty big, [1] but the Moon is not so big. [2]
Notes
My question would be - would anyone see a problem with this? If so, what specifically?
And what advice does the Citing sources project page give?
Thanks, -- SallyScot ( talk) 15:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I think it looks okay too. But I feel the guideline (in effect) makes unwarranted fuss and could be simplified. If nobody sees serious issue with it I think that would rather support my point, so I'm inviting comment on this basis, in particular from anyone who might have issues with the format. -- SallyScot ( talk) 17:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
--
Okay, both citations could end with a full stop, and let's say we are talking about an alphabetical reference list...
References
- Brown, R. (2006). "Size of the Moon". Scientific American 51 (78): 46.
- Miller, E. (2005), The Sun, Academic Press, p. 23.
Under the Citation templates and tools section it says: "the {{Cite xxx}} family separates elements with a full stop (period), while the {{ Citation}} template separates elements with a comma. Thus, these two families should not be mixed in the same article." [original emphasis]
Now, if the matter of separation with commas versus fullstops is really worthy of such note, then it should equally apply to references written freehand (as in my example), shouldn't it? Yet I would agree, even amongst the minority that would spot such a thing, most rightly wouldn't debate such a minor issue. I don't think the Citing sources guideline needs to refer to formatting minutiae to this extent. If it does, then it would have to do so with equal regard to freehand references, not just to specific families of citation templates.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 22:15, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
--
Hmm. I'm still wondering how many people would really notice such comma full stop difference, but as my opening gambit may have been interpreted as a trick question, and I've since clarified, it's hard to know really. - The difference is of course easier to spot after it's been pointed out.
I think inconsistencies of format are sometimes undeservedly attributed to template usage. JackLee says: "If a reader sees "p. 23" and correctly interprets this as "page 23", then she might think that "46" refers to something else since it doesn't have "p." in front of it." - Yet this has no bearing on the advice not to mix usage of citation template families. With the Brown "Size of the Moon" reference for example, Citation and Cite journal templates render like this...
Personally, I don't see this as significant enough to warrant such bold emphasis admonishment against mixing citation template families and I'd be happy to drop the wording. If you disagree, then, in order to be self-consistent, you'd also have to concede that the same standard of scrutiny should equally apply to references written freehand, implying an onus for some rewrite and perhaps repositioning of the guideline advice I'd say.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 13:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
As the Citing sources guideline already says that the reference style must be consistent within an article I think detail about Citation template usage belongs more properly in Wikipedia:Citation templates. In the interests of simplicity the Citing sources guideline itself need only make the reader aware that Citation templates exist, and point them in right direction for further information should they wish to learn more. -- SallyScot ( talk) 19:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
A recurrent question on the Help desk and elsewhere is how to deal with multiple references to the same source in an article. Granted, the requisite information is available at WP:FN#Naming a ref tag so it can be used more than once, but apparently people aren't finding it. I wonder whether it shouldn't also be included here, at the main page visited by folks who want to add proper references to articles, perhaps under "How to format citations." Anyone have ideas on this? Deor ( talk) 03:02, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
How do you take care of a citation that dosen't back up the statement?-- Ipatrol ( talk) 23:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
The first example at WP:CITE#Footnote_system has been interpreted as requiring full cites for each and every line unless the short cites are placed in a separate section from the full cites.
That is, you could have:
or you could have:
but you could not have:
This mixed style is common in many style guides, and when you cite different pages of the same book several dozen times, then repeating the full ref for each any every one of them is just silly. I'm not sure that this problem is trivially solvable, or if it would be better to invoke WP:COMMONSENSE. Any thoughts? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
When citing multiple pages from a single long work, like a book, Template:Rp can be used. The page number (here "[number]") is placed after the footnote ref-tag, like so: <ref>[ref information]</ref>{{rp|[number]}}.
This is an example. [1]:230
Notes
- ^ Large book....
Above removed from the end of Footnote system subsection. There are a number of concerns with this method of handling multiple pages from a single work.
Re points 1 & 2, readers are likely to be confused by the format, which anyway looks clunky...
This is an example.[1]:234 [2]:456 Further text with further example.[1]:278
It's not as neat as using Shortened footnotes.
Re point 3, there's little point in having a template that does nothing more than add a colon and superscript its content. Superscript can simply be achieved using <sup> tags. These tags are already available from the edit box toolbar (x2).
-- SallyScot ( talk) 16:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
This paragraph was added very recently.
It seems to me more like an essay than a guideline. Please discuss if it belongs here. Gimmetrow 13:36, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm doing some copyediting on Kuril Islands dispute. I want to clean up the hodgepodge of citation styles in the References section. Unfortunately, the first complete citation (in this revision, ref #2) was inconsistent with prior formatting, and later citations added even more inconsistencies. Am I expected to honor the style of the first author of each individual element of the citations? If so, I'm not sure it will match any of the present styles. Or can I just format everything in the style I personally prefer, given that it's a mess right now? - Unconventional ( talk) 18:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I forgot to add: The current References section contains some pretty extensive excerpts from the cited sources, in the manner of footnotes. Are these appropriate in a References section? If not, what's the best thing to do with them? - Unconventional ( talk) 18:56, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I Its mukta nath . i wana know about active D ... Can u help me / My Email Addresh is <REMOVED FOR PRIVACY REASONS> . Plz .help me about this matter . im very cragy for it . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.115.100 ( talk) 07:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I take issue with the seperation of notes and rerences, as defined by this policy. IMO, they are both being used to cite the source of information in Wikipedia, and the tag used to make a list of "notes" is: {{reflist}}. In addition, articles that have only one major "reference", but multiple "notes" could be tagged with {{refimprove}}, even though there is a decent amount of actual references. I believe it makes more sense to use one style of citing, namely, the <ref></ref> stlye. Thoughts? Sephiroth storm ( talk) 02:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
One of the reasons I like this approach is because it avoids making some reliable sources appear to be "more reliable" than others. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:47, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Is this reasonable? I added some content that I thought was obvious (it should have already been in the article), someone complained about no source, I asked them to tag what they were doubtful about and they did so (thank you), a third party reverted both the tags and my content, and now a fourth party scolds me on my talk page. -- Una Smith ( talk) 07:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Am I the only on who thinks this formatting is getting a bit convoluted? I mean, new users who try to edit a Wikipedia article for the first time aren't going to be able to make heads or tails of the Byzantine code. I think we need to simplify and move to a completely transparent WYSIWYG system. Nathan McKnight -- Aelffin ( talk) 13:31, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm contemplating an addition to Wikipedia:CITE#How_to_present_citations. After the 'common ways of listing notes/footnotes/refs' bullets, I'm thinking about adding a sentence along these lines:
Many editors prefer to reserve the section heading Bibliography for complete lists of published works in authors' biographies. The section heading Citations is often similarly reserved for military citations and government proclamations. Sources is often reserved for sections about source code, geological sources, anatomical and biological sources, and the locations where materials are procured.
This is the actual practice on Wikipedia, and using a 'potentially confusing section heading' can result in edit wars and confusion for an editor that accidentally transgressed the unwritten convention. Does anyone object to adding this descriptive/explanatory statement? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Regarding these reverts ( 1, 2) after re-reading everything a couple of times I realize that I misunderstood the meaning of the term "numbered" in the first bullet - being a technical guy I was at first supposing that it was referring to the numbering of the HTML anchors (the "#cite_note-1", "#cite_note-2", etc. that appears in the browser bar after you click on a link.) But now I can see that I was being a bit obtuse and that "numbered" has the much more straightforward meaning of referring to the visible numbers that appear in the article content. Perhaps ImperfectlyInformed had the same misunderstanding.
So anyways, I agree with SallyScott that the point about naming the references, for the purpose of re-usability or for determining the HTML anchor text, does not belong in that section of this guideline, and so I agree with her reverts of my edit and ImperfectlyInformed's. -- ❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 06:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I expected to find a guidance here that only notable sources should be cited. I'm convinced I saw it somewhere. If it exists, would somebody add it to the See also, please? (If it is relevant, see talk:Gold as an investment for backgrounder). -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 00:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
"The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." ( WP:BURDEN)
Wikipedia:Citing sources#How to present citations
It seems that most people would not see a ==References== section as a citation style and coupled with the "inappropriate" sentence it is a recipe for conflict. Better to remove general reference as a way of presenting citations. -- PBS ( talk) 20:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
In most professional, scholarly publications, so-called "general references", supposedly supporting the "entire article", are not used. They might be used in a couple of professional magazine articles, but when this is the case, they are not combined with inline (directly cited) sources, as I see from time to time popping up in Wikipedia articles. I think if Wikipedia wants to use inline citations, we need to support that, and discourage "general" references, but using both together (a) looks bad and (b) is confusing to the reader. Dr. Cash ( talk) 21:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
<-- Suppose a person wishes to add a paragraph to an article and would like to use an inline citation for that paragraph. Usually that would be considered to be a good thing to do. With the current wording, if only general references exist, someone can remove the citation and move the source down to the references section stating that that this guideline says "Once a style is selected for an article it is inappropriate to change an article to another unless there is a reason that goes beyond mere choice of style", so changing to inline citations from a general reference section is a style choice. The style issue was introduced to stop the change from one method of inline citation to another it was not introduced to discourage changing from general references to a citation method. General references are not a method of "How to present citations" -- It is a way to include a list of references in an article. PBS (talk) 18:34, 30 January 2009 (UCT)
I never said it was a conflict of polices. You have not addressed my issue that a general reference section is not a citation style and that it was never the intention that the prohibition of changing styles was anything to do with moving from using a general reference to inline citation. It should not be necessary to even answer your last question, as changing from general references to inline citations was never an issue in the past. See for example the page as it was when I last edited it on 12 August 2008. When was it discussed that general references were a citation style? I see that it had started to morph by 11 September 2008 but AFAICT, The prohibition was for different inline citation styles and this prohibition from moving from general references to inline citations was never agreed. -- PBS ( talk) 12:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Links_and_ID_numbers reads: If your source is not findable online, etc. However, there are sources that only can be read for a fee which an editor might have in hard copy or whatever making it more difficult for other editors to check. (As opposed to mere need for a logon which is free.) So could the policy/text be changed to read: If your source is not findable online, or requires a fee to access, etc. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 15:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
CarolMooreDC's sentence "If a citation without an external link is challenged as unfindable, any of the following is sufficient to show the material to be reasonably findable (though not necessarily reliable): providing an ISBN or OCLC number; linking to an established Wikipedia article about the source (the work, its author, or its publisher); or directly quoting the material on the talk page, briefly and in context." requires that an editor who adds material from an old book (pre-ISBN) to monitor the article eternally. If the person who added the material dies, or for some other reason stops monitoring the article, the material could then be removed because the person who had access to the book fails to answer a challenge. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 06:08, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
how come the english wiki
need way more ref s than any other language article??
corrolation retencion capacity??
one word
one sentence
Wdl1961 (
talk) 05:44, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
The templates seem to to only have tags that support first and last names. I notice middle initials being sometimes simply appended under the "first" tag. However what about titles and degree letters, for example "Dr John Doe, M.D.?" "Prof Jane Doe" "Richard Roe, D.D.M."? Are these to simply be omitted?-- Ericjs ( talk) 20:06, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
What is the "authorlink" tag intended for? In the examples it seems to be used to show the author name in the more "normal" format, for example "Jane T. Doe" as opposed to the "Doe, Jane T." format displayed in the citation from the "last" and "first" tags. The word "link" certainly does not suggest this usage, and instead suggests that it might be used for an actual link, perhaps to the author's bio or such, but none of the examples support this idea. Further, it does not seem to be used in the display of the actual citation; if it currently has no practical effect this increases the importance that its purpose be documented since no one will see the effect of its misuse (or it should simply be eliminated).
This raises the general question / criticism: Why are not each of these fields' meanings and purposes explicitly defined instead of simply given by example? Some may be obvious enough to be "self-documenting" but the fact that there are cases like this where this is not so, makes reliance on them being self-evident inappropriate. -- Ericjs ( talk) 20:44, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
About a month ago User:SallyScot removed the mention of the above template [3]. She justified this by saying that it isn't used outside of Wikipedia. That's not true quite true. It's not common, but I don't even read a ton of scholarly literature and I've seen it a few separate times in peer-reviewed medical research ( example, see footnote 6). The rp template is an elegant way to cite specific page numbers in long works without using shortened footnotes (which are awkward and much more difficult to maintain) or parenthetical referencing, also awkward. The rp template is an elegant compromise between parenthetical and standard academic footnote referencing (which does not use shortened footnotes), and we need a way to use large works separate times without converting articles to shortened footnotes. In academic literature, shortened footnotes are fairly common in large works, but not common in the short peer-reviewed articles that Wikipedia are more similar to. I'm open to hearing other people's comments before I restore. II | ( t - c) 23:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
---
I've restored the archived original discussion entry that relates to this below for ease of reference with a further (new) post below that.
Template:Rp
When citing multiple pages from a single long work, like a book, Template:Rp can be used. The page number (here "[number]") is placed after the footnote ref-tag, like so: <ref>[ref information]</ref>{{rp|[number]}}.
This is an example. [1]:230
Notes
- ^ Large book....
Above removed from the end of Footnote system subsection. There are a number of concerns with this method of handling multiple pages from a single work.
Re points 1 & 2, readers are likely to be confused by the format, which anyway looks clunky...
This is an example.[1]:234 [2]:456 Further text with further example.[1]:278
It's not as neat as using Shortened footnotes.
Re point 3, there's little point in having a template that does nothing more than add a colon and superscript its content. Superscript can simply be achieved using <sup> tags. These tags are already available from the edit box toolbar (x2).
-- SallyScot ( talk) 16:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
---
I should stress that my reservations about Template:Rp don't pivot entirely on point number one. In any case, User:ImperfectlyInformed( II)'s given real world example, has numbered references like so...
which isn't really the same as what's proposed with Template:Rp. The inclusion of bracketed numbers prefixed p. or pp. is a little more intuitive perhaps (though quite why and how p. and pp. are used in that same example isn't particularly clear).
Anyway, the way to progress any such adoption within Wikipedia is via discussion and reaching consensus, not by the design of a wee template, implemented here and there, then quietly slipped it into an unsuspecting project page.
Even if I did agree that this sort of reference[1]:234 [2]:456 was a good idea (which I don't), I would still maintain that the Rp template itself is a waste of space; as I say, it does nothing more than add a colon and superscript its content. Superscript can already be achieved quite simply e.g. using the edit box toolbar (x2).
-- SallyScot ( talk) 21:54, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
---
This may seem like a minor point, but under the auspices of attention to detail I think it worth noting. User:Imperfectly informed suggests that the style used in real-world example is like this.[1](p1) It's not. Actually it's like this.1(p1) The point being that square brackets around the footnote number are a feature of Wikipedia. The square brackets have the effect of acting as delimiter. Wikipedia doesn't use commas to delimit multiple citations. Compare this to the given AMA style guide, where they use commas to delimit multiple citations, like this.3,4 The effect of trying to include page references outside Wikipedia's obligatory square footnote brackets is hence more visually confusing and counter-intuitive.
Also, I must come back to the point about the template just introducing unnecessary syntax. As <sup> tags are standard html, also available from the edit box toolbar (x2), they're going to be of much greater utility to the overwhelming majority of editors. Asking other editors to follow your coding {{Rp|page=101}} or {{Rp|pages=101-102}} to achieve this,(p. 101) or this,(pp. 101-102) just because you don't like the <sup> tags seems, in my opinion, something of an indulgence.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 20:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
User:Imperfectly informed described <sup> tags as "a pain"; it's in that context in which my remarks about not liking them were made. And, regardless of whether using a template is or isn't an implicit request for other users to employ the same (i.e. adopt its use for themselves), such usage does imply a measure of expectation that others ought to follow the meaning of the syntax. Either that or one must assume there's otherwise disregard for others following it. -- SallyScot ( talk) 11:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Next time you need a reference for a fact, please try the WRS project's search engine. It is based on Google but only shows results from a few hundreds "reliable websites", making it faster to find a good reference. Open the search page and enter a fact (for instance: Obama born in 1961). Your feedback is most welcome :-) Thanks Nicolas1981 ( talk) 14:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
In the "When quoting someone" section, it explicitly states sources must directly follow the quote. Now, I'm curious as to what's organizations style guideline this page is using to justify that statement (i.e. Harvard rule, APA, etc.), as I have generally always been taught that sources come either just before the nearest punctuation (if you're using the parenthetical format that identifies author and year), or directly after the nearest punctuation (if you're using the Wiki in-line text style of a number to represent the source that is listed elsewhere). In other words, I've always been taught not to break up the flow of the sentence by placing a source in mid-statement (even when you're quoting), but wait till a punctuation (like a comma or period). Where is the statement from this page coming from? BIGNOLE (Contact me) 21:37, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
If a page is about a word or a concept, it should contain a definition. Should we get the definition from a source? Or use a common-sense, intuitive definition?
This came to my mind when editing reason. 87.95.67.216 ( talk) 01:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Is there no policy on the the problems of over-referencing? If you look at this article, for example: [5] you see how a long string of inline citations can be a problem for the ease of reading. Surely there should be some kind of guidelines against this as well, but I haven't been able to find any. Lampman ( talk) 02:58, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
If it seems necessary to put a passage in "Citing sources" that it is usually sufficient to just list the best source, fine. However it shouldn't be a hard and fast rule. For example, if one source is the most reliable, but difficult to access, and another isn't quite so reliable, but available online, it might be wise to list both. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 18:05, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
IMO there's nothing wrong with having many, many sources for any given fact in an article. It's perfectly all right if an article cites every single source in existence for a fact. Sourcing material should not be removed from an article for merely aesthetic concerns.
If a proliferation of superscript numbers indicating the presence of refs interferes with the readability of an article then the solution is to do something that hides or groups together the reference numbers, such as the above suggestion to group multiple sources as a list of bullets within a single ref, not to remove sourcing material for the article simply to get rid of the little numbers.
(So in summary, IMO if indeed there is such a thing as over-referencing it doesn't have anything to do with aesthetics - you'd need a much more substantial reason to claim that an article or fact was too well-referenced.) -- ❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 01:08, 25 February 2009 (UTC)