Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 22

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When the guideline says that we prefer links to free sites, what do we mean exactly? For example, we almost always prefer scholarly articles to non-scholarly ones, and generally you have to pay to read the former online, unless you're a member of a university library. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 22:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That leads to an interesting point. If the article/journal itself is locked behind

convenience link? -- Avi (talk

) 22:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, subject to

WP:RS constraints. -- Boracay Bill (talk

) 23:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the guideline should be that if exactly the same information is available for free, or for a fee, the free version is preferred. Also, if substantially the same information from sources of comparable reliability is available for free or for a fee, the free version should be preferred. But if substantially the same information is available from both a free and a non-free source, and the free source is less reliable than the non-free source, the more reliable source should certainly be cited, possibly with an additional citation to the free source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerry Ashton (talk • contribs) 22:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding scientific papers. I think we agreed we should always refer to the full pint (hardcopy) information as well as the DOI identifier. That will solve most of the problem. Regarding referring to less stable versions of a paper. There is a very good chance the free copy is copyright violation which will disappear as soon as the legal deparments of the copyright holder (e.g. JSTOR or Elsevier or whoever else) finds out that. Anyway I think we should be very careful linking to suspect sources; so make sure the non-official version is not actually an illegal copy. Arnoutf (talk) 22:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The danger of advocating links to free sites is that we may inadvertently encourage courtesy links to copyright violations. As I see it, the issue of whether the site is free or not is irrelevant: what counts is the quality of the source. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 22:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say whether the site is free or not is irrelevant, I would just say that reliability, absence of obvious copyright violations, and stability are more important than the site being free. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:01, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I think there's some merit to the "free" recommendation, as papers may be available from a variety of reliable sources. And with all due respect, the copyright concerns are highly overblown, and out of our purview. There's a substantial effort underway to encourage faculty to self-archive their own publications, many reputable journals now have official author-retain-copyright policies, many journals have some level of open-access policy, and there are a number of publicly available archives of scholarly material. It's worth talking about assessing reliability of sources, but we definitely ought not assume that sources violate copyright nor require that WP editors ascertain copyright status before linking to something: Ascertaining copyright status is a full-time, difficult job that can require significant legal expertise, inside information, hours of investigation, and so on. --Lquilter (talk) 23:05, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

How about this?

Where material of equal stability, interest, and reliability is available on a no-cost site, this will usually be preferred to one that charges a reading or subscription fee, but bear in mind that the quality of the source takes priority. When providing courtesy links, editors should be careful not to link to obvious copyright violations.

SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 23:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Umm, provisionally it looks okay to me as a draft, although I want to tweak in a bit, but let me just make sure I understand what we're comparing it too -- we're all talking about the section in "Convenience links", and only that section, right? It currently reads:

Convenience links

The term "convenience link" is typically used to indicate a link to a copy of a resource somewhere on the Internet, offered in addition to a formal citation to the same resource in its original format. It is important to ensure that the copy being linked is a true copy of the original, without any comments, emendations, edits or changes. When the "convenience link" is hosted by a site that is considered reliable on its own, this is relatively easy to assume. However, when such a link is hosted on a less reliable site, the linked version should be checked for accuracy against the original, or not linked at all if such verification is not possible.

Where several sites host a copy of the desired resource, the site selected as the convenience link should be the one whose general content is most in line with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Verifiability. While no-cost sites are preferred, convenience links to non-free archives such as JSTOR are permitted, provided the material is available to the public (in libraries, for example).

So, SV, is your proposed text to revise the second (last) paragraph of this section? --Lquilter (talk) 00:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

To replace the last sentence, starting "while no-cost sites ..." I'd also want to copy edit the previous sentence. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 00:33, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll agree with SlimVirgin's suggestion. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• (Outdent) I would suggest changing the final sentence to "While no-cost sites are preferred, convenience links to non-free repositories are permitted, provided the material is available in free repositories (such as libraries)". Wjhonson (talk) 00:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
• I'd suggest changing the first phrase ("Where material...") to ("Where copies of the reference...") just to be clear that we're talking about the same "material". --Lquilter (talk) 14:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

That wouldn't make any grammatical sense in that sentence. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 15:19, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Looking at this again, I can't even see what it has to do with convenience links, which is the section it's in. I think this was maybe written by someone who was just confused, so I've removed it and copy edited the rest of the section. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 15:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• I think that's fine. --Lquilter (talk) 15:40, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 16:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Looks good. -- Avi (talk) 16:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• User SandyGeorgia inserted a couple of sentences about copyright (diff). I took out the second one, which adds extra detail about whether or not the site has licensed the content. I think it goes beyond the current policy on linking to copyrighted information, and at any rate, it introduces the possibility for duplicates & ultimate inconsistency. So long as we link to the copyright policy & say linking it is in conformity with that, it should be okay. Other thoughts? --Lquilter (talk) 16:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not keen on having this guideline say anything about copyright. I took out that sentence I proposed, Lquilter, because of your previous post. It's a very complex area, and it's often used on WP as an excuse to remove links that are objected to on POV grounds, rather than out of a serious desire to respect copyright. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:00, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• If a cited source has a web page for the cited item (such as a web page for a journal article) then that URL is preferred. For many journals, that URL is to a page which only has a citation or abstract of the article (with links to access the full article). If someone finds what seems to be a legitimate copy of the same article elsewhere, I suggest a separate citation for that item (which also takes care of the problem of preprints before changes, or an article and a book having the same name). If more than one source exists (such as full PD text of Treasure Island) then a free version would be preferred over one for a fee. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I totally hear what SV is saying and, wonder of wonders, we agree! Just for the record -- I'd rather not mention it at all, as I feel it contributes to copyright paranoia more than serves a useful purpose. But, I'm not strongly opposed to mentioning it, so if others think it's important to keep it in, that's okay; however, I do feel we shouldn't unnecessarily replicate information in multiple fora. Simply referring is better than restating & explaining in another place. --Lquilter (talk) 18:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 19:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

In Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 the references state the language that the source is written in. I added the retrieval dates, but should the language be there at all? Is there a standard for internet sources?Grk1011 (talk) 00:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not necessary, but it's definitely helpful. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 00:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

In publishing references it is generally seen as a good idea to mention if a source is in a foreign language; but not if a source in the language of the publication as that can be considered standard. In the case of English Wiki; I would suggest to make a note of the language of non-english references only. An example of this is found in

Dutch general election, 2006#References where almost all refs are tagged Dutch except for the few English ones (admitted because of the heavy coverage by Dutch sources this is not very clear). Perhaps time for a guideline how to handle foreign language sources in the references? Arnoutf (talk

) 16:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

By all means have a go at drafting something, Arnout. It's a subject that people have strong feelings about. Some editors feel that sources should be predominantly in English so that readers can understand them; others feel that even hinting at this furthers systemic bias. If you feel you can pick your way through that minefield, it would be very helpful. :-) SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 19:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• I like the idea of including a (French) or whatever after non-English sources. We are definitively "English-language" WP, so I think we can distinguish non-English sources without necessarily prejudicing against them. --Lquilter (talk) 15:54, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, some first draft would be something like this, I would place it as section 4.4:
===Citing non English language sources===
When citing a source written in another language than English, report the language of the source, by placing this name between brackets in bold immediately after the title. This prepares editors to judge whether it is useful to check a source based on the language of that source.

Example:
Mulisch, H (1992): "De ontdekking van de hemel" (Dutch), De Bezige Bij, the Netherlands
please comment Arnoutf (talk) 19:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

okay that works, i was putting the language if other than english at the end tho, ill start putting it after the title i guess.Grk1011 (talk) 19:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem where it is placed, whatever works best for all. This was just a suggestion. My reason for this suggestion is that it easily works with templates, just type the whole "De ontdekking van de hemel (Dutch)" as title in the template and it will work; but other suggestions are welcome. Arnoutf (talk) 19:45, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe that most of our citation templates already have a property for language. Make sure either that any new policy we introduce is compatible with what the templates already do, or that the templates are changed accordingly. In any case, sneaking the information into the "title" property of a template is a bad idea. If there are templates that need a field added for this, we should do so. This information should remain logically separate from the title. - Jmabel | Talk 18:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

SallyScot has been making edits that have substantially changed parts of this guideline since roughly October, and repeatedly reverts when challenged. She does this even when her edits have clearly caused the writing to deteriorate.

If SallyScot is who she says she is -- a new account, not a sockpuppet -- then she arguably doesn't have the experience to be going around changing guidelines or policies. She has made only 481 edits to the encyclopedia, 273 of them to just one article. Of her other edits, 103 have been to this guideline or its talk page.

Alternatively, SallyScot is not who she says she is, and is indeed an account belonging to another user, in which case I would like to remind her that sockpuppet accounts are strongly discouraged on guideline and policies.

Either way, it would be appreciated if this kind of editing would stop. The guideline has to be reasonably stable, and material that has been in it for a long time shouldn't simply be removed on a whim. Similarly, we have to try to maintain a decent standard of writing. To call a template a "technique" is strange writing. It is a style or a format or a method, perhaps, but "technique" is just odd. And yet I am being reverted by her for correcting it. It is starting to feel as though I'm being trolled. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 15:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The style or format would be the resulting rendered HTML - a template or "raw" wikitext are techniques for getting that rendered HTML; even if you don't agree with the terminology, this is at least a reasonable distinction to make. —Random832 08:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

---

Slim, Can you back up your claims about my history of repeated reverts when challenged on this article since about October with some examples other than those which relate to your own edits? It will be helpful if you take into account and include reference to edit summary comments. - From my perspective there was no great issue with repeated reverts here until you got involved.

You are as entitled as anyone to get involved at this or any other stage of course. That applies to each and to all. But this attitude of attributing your own edits greater importance based largely on criteria such as previous Wikipedia total edit count rather than more reasonable arguments just smacks of cliquishness.

Let's go over the issue of citation style / citation format.

'citation style' was changed to 'citation method' at 12:00, 24 January 2008 with the edit summary comment: (→Citation templates - The term "style" is misleadingly suggestive or at least ambiguous with sense of style as per e.g. the Chicago Manual of Style. We are talking about a behind the scenes METHOD.) - IP edit - SallyScot accidentally logged out.

reverted 15:13, 24 January 2008 SlimVirgin (style is correct)

Also posted on my talk page 15:15, 24 January 2008 - a second query about sock-puppetry...

"Please say what your main account is. You're continuing to revert on tiny little points in what looks like an effort to stir up trouble. Either quit it, or come clean about who you are. --SlimVirgin 15:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)"

So, Slim didn't think much of 'citation method' then. What about 'citation technique'?

19:11, 24 January 2008 SallyScot (→Citation templates - the term "citation style" invites some confusion with distinct citation formatting conventions as in e.g. Chicago Style or MLA Style, "citation technique" is better)

Then it goes like this...

02:59, 25 January 2008 Jayjg (→Citation templates - techniques aren't distinctive, styles are)
03:47, 25 January 2008 Gerry Ashton (The style is the appearance seen by the reader. The technique is the markup which creates the appearance. We don't want the markup changed to or from templates; that's technique.)
12:57, 25 January 2008 SlimVirgin (technique -> format, and restored the References section, which was clearer before the copy edit)
14:40, 25 January 2008 SallyScot (→Citation templates - 'format' is synonymous with 'style' and invites similar confusion. Reasoning for use of 'technique' has already been given. Better argument for alternative is yet lacking.)
14:45, 25 January 2008 SlimVirgin (it's not a "technique" -- please don't edit in a way that causes the writing to deteriorate)
15:03, 25 January 2008 SallyScot (It IS a technique, for the reasons already given. Stubbornly saying otherwise is simply contradiction, not counterargument. You need to calm down and explain WHY you think it's not a technique.)
15:20, 25 January 2008 SlimVirgin (your changes were objected to, so please discuss on talk rather than just reverting)

With at 15:13, 25 January 2008 SlimVirgin's post above - i.e. the initial post of this 'SallyScot' section.

It looks as though a reasonable case has already been put against use of either the terms 'citation style' or 'citation format' in the Citation templates section. By comparison the arguments for continuing to use either of these terms seem to me more like stubborn contradictions "style is correct" or "it's not a "technique"" without a reasoned supporting argument.

It looks as though all SlimVirgin has to do to keep their edit in place is object in a simple "oh no it isn't" kind of way.

I'd like some clarification on the rules of engagement here.

--SallyScot (talk) 18:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

---

In the spirit of compromise and in the interests of working to a consensus I refer to the part of SlimVirgin's post above that says "a method perhaps" and propose a wording change from 'citation format' to 'citation method'.

If there are no counterarguments put forward in the interim (and no one does it before me) I'll do this in the next few days.

--SallyScot (talk) 23:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, SlimVirgin is correct; someone who has made fewer than 500 actual article edits shouldn't be attempting to re-write our guidelines. Experience is critical in understanding what works and what doesn't. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:33, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

And as someone with over 20,000 edits, I think I can say I have a fair working of wiki, and I agree with almost everything Sally had to say, Jay. -- Avi (talk) 01:07, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

My point was that people who don't have a lot of article editing experience shouldn't be trying to re-write policies or guidelines. That obviously doesn't apply to you. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Jayjg's point is a topic for wider discussion. However, in this case, it is clearly now moot. I have the support of at least one editor with over 20,000 edits. Counterarguments relevant to the proposed wording are thus called for. --SallyScot (talk) 11:45, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Citation method

So far...

SallyScot - "the term "citation style" invites some confusion with distinct citation formatting conventions as in e.g. Chicago Style or MLA Style"
Gerry Ashton - "The style is the appearance seen by the reader. The technique is the markup which creates the appearance. We don't want the markup changed to or from templates; that's technique"
SallyScot - "'format' is synonymous with 'style' and invites similar confusion"
Random832 - "the style or format would be the resulting rendered HTML - a template or "raw" wikitext are techniques for getting that rendered HTML; even if you don't agree with the terminology, this is at least a reasonable distinction to make."
Qp10qp - "I don't think [citation format] is anything to do with templates. Presumably this refers to changing footnote format to Harvard, or whatever. I don't think it matters whether editors use templates or not, since the reader will not notice"
Qp10qp - "the expression "citation format" [is] made to apply muddlingly both to what appears on the page and to what appears in the edit box: two different matters"
Avi - "I agree with almost everything Sally had to say"
SlimVirgin - "...a method, perhaps"

--SallyScot (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Citation method or technique versus style or format

You may have noticed my proposed change was reverted yesterday by User:Dreadstar with what I believe was a rather inappropriate edit summary exhortation - "Find

".

I've invited further elucidation on Dreadstar's talkpage, pointing out that if they personally disagree with the edit then the onus is really on them to explain why.

My holding back from immediate editing and inviting discussion here has been done in good faith, with project page's stability in mind, and precisely in order to avoid edit warring. If

is understood as an attempt to win a content dispute through brute force then it's those who revert without engaging in reasonable discussion who are guilty, not me.

Once again, I state my intention to post an edit that fixes the muddled use of the term 'citation format' in the Citation templates section.

If no counterarguments are forthcoming then I'll do this sometime on or after 04-Feb-2008.

Thanks, --SallyScot (talk) 17:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

First of all, this section, of arguments over a one-word change, is

AGF, and was not intended to say that you are right and she's wrong about the content itself. —Random832

18:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Agreed, it's only a one word change, but it's one that I feel is an improvement.

The terms 'citation style' and 'citation format' are confusing when applied to the issue of usage or non-usage of citation templates. If you Google search the term "citation formats" for example [1] you get pages such as academic guides from universities and other educational institutions telling you about the different formats such as MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian, AMA, etc. - e.g. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Dictionary definitions of 'technique' include - "method of performance; way of accomplishing" and the application of "procedures or methods so as to effect a desired result." So, in the context of citation templates, the connotation of 'technique' as in 'tools and techniques' is clearly a better term than either 'citation format' or 'citation style'.

I happen to think ‘citation technique’ is better than ‘citation method’. But even so, even so, I changed 'technique' to 'method' in the spirit of compromise and in the interests of working to a consensus. Slim's post had said "a method, perhaps" after all.

--SallyScot (talk) 19:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I have been learning how to add citations and references for a while now, but I still do not know exactly how to make multiple references to different pages in the same book. I could just reference a book without a page number, give the reference a name and make multiple references but I want to make my citations more precise.

I hate not backing up statements and claims without the exact page number listed. Despite checking many times, over a period of months, I find that the help pages are not clear enough for me to understand how to do this. - Shiftchange (talk) 22:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

One solution is to use {{

Philippine-American_war#Notes for an example. Click wikilinks to get from footnotes containing (possibly page-numbered) references to the associated citation or a work to which the references apply. Use the browser's Back button to get back. -- Boracay Bill (talk

) 00:55, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The inline citation method Short footnote citations with full references covers this. It's documented with examples on the project page. --SallyScot (talk) 11:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC) - This has since been removed as a consequence of 'Deterioration' edit (see section further above) --SallyScot (talk) 11:43, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the way most people do it, Shiftchange, is simply to write <ref name=Smith25>Smith, John. ''How to Write References''. Random Publisher, 2008, p. 25.</ref> Then if you reference the same page again, write <ref name=Smith25/>. This avoids the need for citation templates, which can make the text hard to edit. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 13:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

It's a good idea to actually make it <ref name="Smith25">, so that if you have spaces or other weird characters in the refname, the system doesn't bug out. --Lquilter (talk) 18:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

It's also very possible to combine these approaches: named ref element for same page + use of {{

Harvnb}} for the reference itself. Whether templates make things easier or harder is a matter of taste. - Jmabel | Talk

18:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for handling page numbers with <ref> format

There's needs to be a better way to cite the same source with a different page numbers in the same document so that someone still knows which page related to what quote/statement. For example:

You might have <ref name="NameOfSource"> Full citation</ref> and <refpage name="NameOfSource">p.30</refpage> and later in the article you might use <refpage name="NameOfSource">p.35</refpage>. You can still use <ref name="NameOfSource" /> for simple citations that don't require page numbers.

---Action potential ^{t c} 05:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Not sure I follow your question, AP. There are different ways of handling it. The way I write them is <ref name=Smith70>Smith, John. ''Name of Book'', 2008, p. 70.</ref> Or if I'm using short refs <ref name=Smith70>Smith 2008, p. 70.</ref> If I'm certain I'll only cite page 70 once, I leave out the ref name. Or have I missed your point? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:55, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

---

I think the question has been asked (and misunderstood) before. I've moved earlier section from further above to immediately above this section for comparison. I think it's asking how you refer to different pages in different citations, but from the same basic reference, such as from the same book. Like, if you have...

The Sun is pretty big,^[1] but the Moon is not so big.^[2]

References

1. ^ Miller, E: "The Sun", page 23. Academic Press, 2005.
2. ^ Brown, R: "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78):46.

...using Footnotes referencing method, then how would you add to the text "The Sun is also quite hot." referenced from another page, e.g. page 34, of Miller's same "The Sun" book?

--SallyScot (talk) 01:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for translating for me SallyScot. That's exactly what I meant. In Stanford referencing it is simple, you can use (Miller 2005:23) for the first example you gave and (Miller 2005:34) for the second. I don't know how to handle it properly in the current wikipedia referencing system. Perhaps I'm looking for something like: <ref name="Miller 2005:23">Miller, E: "The Sun". Academic Press, 2005.</ref> and <ref name="Miller 2005:34"/> . The actual page of the quote would be added to the reference list which will help in fact and reference check. ----Action potential ^{t c} 02:53, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Another whack at an explanation — In the article prose, you might have something like this for inline harvard referencing:

The Sun is pretty big,{{Harvnb|Miller|2005|pp=12,236}} but the Moon is not so big.{{Harv|Brown|2006|p=57}}. The Sun is also quite hot.{{Harvnb|Miller|2005|p=34}}

or, with the harvard refs placed to footnotes in an endmatter Notes: section:

The Sun is pretty big,<ref>{{Harvnb|Miller|2005|pp=12,236}}</ref> but the Moon is not so big.<ref>{{Harvnb|Brown|2006|p=57}} (Brown was quite an expert on the moon)</ref>. The Sun is also quite hot.<ref>{{Harvnb|Miller|2005|p=34}}</ref>

Then, in the endmatter, something like:

If footnotes are used:

== Notes ==

<references/>

and

:==References==
*{{Citation
|last=Brown
|first=R.
|title=Size of the Moon
|journal=Scientific American
|volume=78
|issue=46
|month=October
|year=2006}}
*{{Citation
|last=Miller
|first=E.
|title=The Sun
|year=2005
|publisher=Academic Press}}

See [[WP:FOOT] and the documentation for the {{tl{Harv}} {{

Harvnb}} generate forward links matching the {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) entries which have matching last= and year= values. -- Boracay Bill (talk

) 07:25, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

When other full citations are extensively in Footnotes already

I was wondering what the view is when contributing to an already well-established article. Supposing an extensive list of full citations already exist in a familiar Notes section (i.e. via <ref> tags and <references />), would the "refs placed to footnotes" approach then create a new Reference section and put the single new full reference there, and supporting multiple short citation references to it for the different page numbers via Notes (via <ref> tags).

In other words, so that the Notes section contains a mix of full citations and short citations?

--SallyScot (talk) 12:38, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It's pretty common to have a Notes section that contains full citations to things that are only cited once (or where the same note is repeatedly linked from the text, because it is a web source and page number doesn't apply) and some kind of abbreviated citation for page numbers in books (used in conjunction with a "references" section). See

John Considine (Seattle) for an example. - Jmabel | Talk

19:20, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

---

Thanks Jmabel,

John Considine (Seattle)

is exactly the kind of example I was looking for.

It makes for interesting comparison with an article such as Sophie Blanchard, where short citations with full references have been used consistently throughout (i.e. even when there's a one-to-one relationship between citation and reference).

The project-page

's approach is: Doesn't it look somewhat like a fairly arbitrary partial listing of some references, while other full citations appear in notes?

--SallyScot (talk) 13:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I was just reading today's featured article,

, and although it is immaculately referenced, I feel there are so many references that the readability of the article is impaired. This is something that I notice from time to time in many big articles. My immediate concern is not whether or which citations might be "removed" (see below) from this particular article, but that WP:CITE doesn't mention this at all, so I don't know if there has ever been a consensus sought.

The main issue with the article linked is that it has a lot of lists of drugs, each wiki-linked to their own article, and then referenced with a citation to a journal that shows that the said drug has been used to treat the said specific symptoms.

already advises against redundant references in the lead section, and I think this should also apply to topics like this where the main article on that drug/whatever should be expected to restate the fact described by the list, and have that citation there.

If people disagree on this front, then WP:CITE should include something along the lines of, "If the same contentious statement is made in more than one article, such as when the subject of a statement on a broader topic has its own article, a citation should be provided in all the concerned articles, even if the same source is repeated, as each article must be independently verifiable." However, I don't think this should be the policy. If you saw a drug listed and thought, "I don't believe that this drug is used in this way" it would be logical to follow that article's link and find the citation on that page. Alternatively, to avoid

) 15:01, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

This has come up before and is indeed an issue for debate.

I agree the

Treatment of multiple sclerosis

is very heavily referenced; and I would agree that listing 4 sources for a single sentence maybe both overdoing it, and disrupting the flow of reading.

While I agree the Lead should not have references redundant to the body text of that same article, in my opinion this is something completely different from information referenced or not somewhere in (I am overstating to make the point) another article of unknown quality. In my opinion it is simply not maintainable to keep track of all such articles, and this may mean that one of the articles is detoriating into a really bad one. This is obviously different from lead to body text as this both reflect same article. Basically my argument is a reason why I am a strong supporter of the guideline that other Wiki articles can never be used as reference. That would include this situation, each article has to verifiable from sources, not from other Wiki articles, so whereever sources are needed they have to be used. Arnoutf (talk) 15:30, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Your comment on maintainability is very insightful. I agree that from an editing perspective (always important on Wikipedia the incomplete encyclopedia) it is a pain not to be able to see what statements are sourced and which aren't. For the purposes of scrutiny, however, both for the reader and the editor, a statement isn't any more verifiable for lack of source on the broader article. Clicking the main article is a fairly minor step when looking up the said citation and deciding on what level it justifies the statement and how reliably.

I wonder whether this calls for some sort of expansion of the syntax. What immediately comes to mind is something like <ref name="p55" from="Stede Bonnet" />, which perhaps obviously would transclude the <ref name="p55"></ref> tag in the article Stede Bonnet. References such as this could be turned off by default and have the capacity to be turned on in user preferences or by a special page action. The reflist at the bottom could even include a note, "Other articles linked to by this article contain additional references which may be relevant to subjects discussed here. You can turn these references on in your preferences or show them now."

This would have the advantage of making all articles concerned more maintainable, as well as more readable for the majority. References can already be conditionally cited by putting the reference in a template, so I don't think that getting the preprocessor to transclude a relevant reference would be difficult to implement.

The issue of what is default and how to change it might be an issue, but I think my above suggestion would work nicely. Note that even if the visibility of references was permanently on, it would still make it easier to maintain citations of facts repeated across multiple articles, so if a better source is found or an update is made, the changes propagate across all the articles immediately. BigBlueFish (talk) 21:12, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this part new? I've submitted four featured science articles in the past without this being a requirement (the last in December), I've always followed the method used when writing journal articles, which is just to include the book title (or chapter title if it is a section like collected conference proceedings) and assume that people are capable of using indexes. I can see why this would be important if you're refering to an unindexed older text book or popular science book, but is it a requirement when citing an indexed monograph or handbook? I ask because it's been raised in a recent FAC (

21:43, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

No, it's been there for a while. I'm not clear what difference it would make if you were quoting from a monograph or handbook, Sabine. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:49, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Citing page numbers had been implicitly stated in the guideline before it became explicit with an edit on June 30 2006. It was still there in December 2006. The section was removed for a time, but I reintroduced it as a requirement last summer (July 1 2007). --

talk

) 17:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, any scientific text I mean. So this is a valid reason to oppose an FAC? Jeeze.... Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:56, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I would say it is, yes, because it's easy to give page numbers if you're reading the text yourself, and obviously you'd be reading it if you were citing it. So it's hard to see why we wouldn't want to. Sometimes you can give a page range, if you're citing a lot of material between, say, pp 50-70 -- you wouldn't necessarily have to cite every separate page, especially if the stuff's non-contentious. But to have no page numbers at all could be problematic at FA. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:59, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

If material could be easily located using the index, that would ordinarily suffice for the purposes of verifiability. However, the possibility for reviewers to place form over function is a well-discussed issue with the FA system. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 22:09, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of a citation is to efficiently lead the reader as close to the source as possible. The closer and more efficiently, the better.

Arguing that something could be located using an index is like arguing that only an ISBN number is sufficient. That would technically "suffice for the purposes of verifiability", but is not good citation. -- Fullstop (talk) 08:17, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I took at look at the FAC Sabine was referring to, and it did look as though the commentators were asking for too much. I think as Carl said this was a case of form over function. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 19:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Ahem. In that particular case, there is no chapter title provided in the citation either (and still isn't). A book titled "Swallows & Martins" could have a chapter titled "House Martin" of course, but commentators can hardly be expected to assume that.

I'd actually be surprised if anyone had done so: It would be more natural for an FAC reviewer to assume that a book titled "Swallows & Martins" would have info on Martins (House or otherwise) scattered throughout it (thus provoking the demand for page numbers).

Would you not demand page numbers for references to "Pretorians" in a book titled "The Romans"?

-- Fullstop (talk) 19:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally I would provide page numbers, yes, or at least a range. But there was something odd going on with that FAC -- someone was adding fact tags unnecessarily and repeating the same source over and over in the same paragraph. It looked like overkill. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 02:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't know if this has been discussed, but I find that some internet versions of sources do not provide page numbers, such as some Lexis-Nexis texts. (Personally, I find it's easy to deal with because such texts can be searched.) HG | Talk 02:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The reviewers can indeed be expected to actually look at the cited book, or have first-hand knowledge of it, before they complain that the reference isn't specific enough. I would expect that out of a referee for an article, and they're anonymous, unlike FA reviewers. The fact that reviewers may complain about references that they are not actually concerned enough to check is precisely what I meant by "form over function". — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 02:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Use of terms Reference and Citation

A Use of terms section has been added to the project page which says - This guideline uses the terms "source," "reference," and "citation" interchangeably.

I asked the question a while ago (

) - "aren't the terms "References" and "Citations" fairly synonymous?", and it was pointed out...

"Maybe there is different jargon in different fields. In the field I'm in (math), references are published works and we cite those references in the papers we write. So the article Sophie Blanchard matches our usage of the terms. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:37, 21 November 2007 (UTC)".

I was looking at the former featured article Sophie Blanchard at the time, and wondered if its two section headings, one called Citations and one called References weren't interchangeable.

Another response was...

"I don't know, that article seems fairly intuitive to me. One list contains a list of works to which the author referred in writing the piece ("References"), and the other contains instances in which the author actually cites those works in order to substantiate the content of the piece ("Citations"). Christopher Parham (talk) 00:56, 21 November 2007 (UTC)"

So, after this, I thought I understood the difference.

However, the new 'Use of terms' section seems to be leaning toward the idea of citation and reference being the same thing.

This is true enough when full citations are included within <ref> tags using the Footnotes approach and generated in a References section using <references /> tag (or {{Reflist}} template). In this case they do seem to be one and the same thing.

But with Harvard referencing (for example) I thought the citation would be like, (Miller 2005, p. 23).

And the Reference...

• Miller, E (2005). "The Sun - Our Nearest Star", Academic Press.

So, my question is, do we need to make a distinction between citations and references or not?

--SallyScot (talk) 17:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

---

You see, I think it's one thing to say at the outset that these terms are used in this guideline somewhat interchangeably, so that newbies don't overly concern themselves about the nuances, but it's another for the guideline to go on and actually use them in a way which unnecessarily confuses those nuances for those that know them.

For example, the section that says...

Provide full citations
All citation techniques require detailed full citations to be provided for each source used. Full citations must contain enough information for other editors to identify the specific published work you used. Full citations for books typically include: the name of the author, the title of the book or article, the date of publication, and page numbers. The name of the publisher, city of publication, and ISBN are optional. For journal articles, include volume number, issue number and page numbers. Citations for newspaper articles typically include the title of the article in quotes, the byline (author's name), the name of the newspaper in italics, date of publication, page number(s), and the date you retrieved it if it is online.

This could as easily be written...

Provide full details
All citation techniques require full details to be provided for each source used. References must contain enough information for other editors to identify the specific published work you used. Full references for books typically include: the name of the author, the title of the book or article, the date of publication, and page numbers. The name of the publisher, city of publication, and ISBN are optional. For journal articles, include volume number, issue number and page numbers. References for newspaper articles typically include the title of the article in quotes, the byline (author's name), the name of the newspaper in italics, date of publication, page number(s), and the date you retrieved it if it is online.

Which reads in a way that still doesn't bog the beginner down, it doesn't insist that you know the difference, but at the same time doesn't unnecessarily muddle the distinction between what technically is the citation and what is the reference (i.e. the distinction I made in the previous post which may apply e.g. for Harvard references).

--SallyScot (talk) 23:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

If a complete reference section is being supplied, then short footnotes should be used. Firstly, they cut down on the in-text clutter, which I know is a dearly held concern of yours, Slim and Jay. Secondly, there is absolutely no reason to have every citation umpteen times in the notes section, of all that is changing is a page number. Put the author-date-page number in the ref tag and the complete citation in the Reference section. Do you have any compelling arguments as to why it should be otherwise? -- Avi (talk) 01:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Avi wants to say that short footnotes must be used if a separate References section is maintained. Note -- must be used. Do we want to force editors to do that? If so, what do we mean by short footnotes exactly, because they can mean several things?

In my view, we have enough rules here, and we shouldn't be forcing people to write citations in certain ways if they don't want to. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

"Should" <> "Must", it is a strong recommendation. Is there a reason why we should not recommend it, Slim? I thought you were all in favor of reducing in-text clutter? -- Avi (talk) 01:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

For those, who want to see the issue here:

Version A:

If a reference section is included, the footnotes should be in a separate section entitled "Notes" or "Footnotes" and short footnotes should be used, giving the author(s) and the page number, and perhaps the title, but without a full citation, which should be placed in the "References" section.

Version B:

If such a section is included, the footnotes should be in a separate section entitled "Notes" or "Footnotes." Where an alphabetical list of references is provided, short footnotes may be used, giving the author(s) and the page number, and perhaps the title, but without a full citation.

Wjhonson (talk) 01:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure it should be a rule, but I think Avi's approach is a fairly good idea. This seems to be an invention for Wikipedia; the style manuals I'm familiar with don't mention this exact approach. If we are inventing something new, should we make the format clearer? Some points that have not been addressed are:

• • • What is the exact format for the short note?
    • If writing freestyle endnotes and bibliography entries, how can I create a link from the endnote to the bibliography entry? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:35, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The question is whether it should be introduced as a rule. My version says short footnotes "may" be used if there's a separate references section. His version says "should." I would like to leave it as "may," because I think we already have too many rules for writers. What matters is that we know who their sources are, and that they use a consistent style.

And people understand different things by "short footnotes" anyway. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Responding to Gerry Ashton - one way would be:

• In the article prose: <ref>a footnote with a harvard-reference to {{harvnb|Author|2008|p=123}}.</ref>, placing something like the following in the Notes section:

27. a footnote with a harvard-reference to Author 2008, p. 123

• In the Notes section: <references />
• In the References section.

• {{Citation|title=A book about something|last=Author|first=John Q.|year=2008}}

The {{

harvnb

}} supports a Ref= (uppercase 'R') parameter to specify a matching link href.

Also, you can place literal links like #Joe's book or ^[a]
, etc. in your article prose and/or in your footnotes and manually place a {{anchor}} with the matching ID at your citation for Joe's book.

Here are targets for the links above:

• Author, John Q. (2008), A book about something {{citation}}: |last= has generic name (help)
• Joe Blow wrote "A book about nothing". -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Boracay Bill, thank you for trying to respond to my post, but apparently you missed the word "freestyle" in my post. Your suggestion relies on templates. Furthermore, you suggest the use of the Citation template in the references section, but that template separates elements with commas rather than full stops, and therefore goes against what one finds in most style guides. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Gerry Ashton: OK, without formatting templates and using a dot rather than a comma after the year -- similar to my second example above regarding Joe Blow's book, but using the HTML <CITE> tag instead of {{anchor}} in order to get the styling hilite working:

Some text using an inline harvard ref to cite a book. <small>([[#CITEAuthor2008|Author 2008:123]])</small>

and

<cite id=CITEAuthor2008>* Author, John Q. (2008). ''A book about something''.</cite>

modify as needed to tweak the style but, done as shown above, producing the following:

Some text using an inline harvard ref to cite a book. (Author 2008:123)

and

* Author, John Q. (2008). A book about something.

If there's further on this, let's discuss it on my talk page as this sidebar discussion is a distraction here. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

(<-) Back to short notes, Gerry, there does not need to be a fixed format, but something along the lines of <ref name = "NameNumber">LastName, Year, pg #</ref> with the full citation (templatized or not ) in the Reference section seems much more manageable. -- Avi (talk) 16:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, and the guideline gives it as an option, but I wouldn't want this page to try to enforce it. We already have too many citation rules, and people are feeling overwhelmed by them, particularly at FAC. The tone of this guideline has always been, "Here are the options; you choose which one to follow; just be consistent within pages and don't force style changes on other people." People may use footnotes or Harvard refs, with or without a separate Refs section, and if with, then with or without short footnotes. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

On the specific issue of "should" versus "may" I'm in agreement with SlimVirgin here. Requirement-creep is we don't want, unless there are many invisible flame-wars going on (of which I'm not aware), over people trying to force style changes on others. For my own, I don't like template, and I'm blithely (sp?) unaware of standard referencing. Personally I like full-citations in footnotes, but I'm not terribly consistent. However if someone were to fix my footnote citations, and add a references or bibliography section, I would think that's super. We don't want style to be so burdensome that it causes new editors grief. I think "should" has more potential to cause biting, then "may" has to create it. Wjhonson (talk) 17:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, Slim and Wjohnson, we'll leave it at may. What about this last edit? And yes, I did restore "some editors" as opposed to "it can" as I think that as the guideline is essentially wikipedia talking, it should be as neutral as possible. -- Avi (talk) 17:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I like your latest wording better yes, I have no contention with it. One quibble, here

If short footnotes are used, the full citation, which should be placed in the "References" section.

, you have an extra "which" which — isn't grammatical. Wjhonson (talk) 17:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that was hideous. Thanks! -- Avi (talk) 18:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Avi, please stop trying to force your template change in. Four or five people have explained here on talk what the problem is. You've already tweaked and tweaked at it to the point where it doesn't make as much sense anymore, but every time you make another edit, you have to tweak it some more. Please leave it alone. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 19:00, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

You reverted the changes to the Maintenance section as well, perhaps inadvertently, when you restored the "subject to" sentence. I fixed those changes back to what was discussed here, left the sentence you feel is critical in the text, and would ask you discuss it in the section immediately below above. -- Avi (talk) 19:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's say we have a corporate website, and we're trying to source a fact. They happen to heavily use flash on their website. Which means there is no direct link to the section you want to source. How can we properly source this?--

) 04:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Setting aside the reliability issue with corporate websites, the fundamental issue is verifiability. Verifiability is needed for controversial facts, so if its not controversial, don't cite it. To be verifiable a cite should be in print, a web link is a convenience link that supports the underlying printed source. Flash doesn't seem convenient at this time.--Paleorthid (talk) 05:01, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

It's very annoying when websites do that. They do it deliberately so that people have to go into the site via the homepage, rather than being able to deep link. You can site the main page as the source, but if the issue is contentious, someone's going to click on it in future, not find the supporting material, and remove the edit, so it's better to find another source. You could also write to the company and tell them they're shooting themselves in the foot with this flash business. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The owner of the site might not be aware of the problems. Often Flash problems are due to a web artist that is unaware of usability and access issues. Several of my web browsers are unable to use Flash due to technical or corporate policy issues. If you can't find a useful way to describe how to access the info on the web then you can't use it as a Wikipedia source. You can try to contact the Flash-impaired site's staff and tell them how you can't use their site. -- SEWilco (talk) 18:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I have been writing the article Elderly Instruments and I ended up using some "cite news" and "cite journal" templates because of the different nature of my source. Can anyone look at the article, in the References section, and see that the template I used for footnote #9 places the date at the end of the source? Is that correct? It just looks weird to me since the rest of my sources place the date after the author name.--Laser brain (talk) 17:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

You have a point as per the

Template talk:Cite journal#The date in parentheses should be moved after the volume/issue.. As for newspapers, 17.188 does have the style as the template, in that it is name, title, publication, and date sans parentheses. -- Avi (talk

) 17:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Alternatively, you could just write the citation without a template, then you could put the date wherever you want it. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 22:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

This talk page is currently ~340,000 bytes long. Isn't it about time to archive some of it? My laptop, which admittedly needs more memory, is taking about 15 seconds to display the page under Windows XP / IE 7 with 512KB memory. Wdfarmer (talk) 07:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Is there a tag to use to indicate that although a reference is provided, an editor feels that it isn't a suitable reference, and should be replaced with a better one? Something like {{betterref}} which would display a message saying "A better reference is required" rather than having a ref deleted and replace with {{fact}} Mjroots (talk) 15:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Not to my knowledge. The best thing is to ask for a better reference on talk, or to find one yourself. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 22:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

It appears that as this

) 20:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you agree that the other statement in the Citaton templates section that controls changes, "editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus", means that editors should not add or remove citation templates from existing citations unless they gain consensus, or unless the format of the existing citations in an article are so mixed up that there is no discernable "distinctive citation format"? Do you reject the concept that citation templates may be added or removed at the whim of any editor, so long as the final appearance to the reader isn't changed? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with the removal of "subject to agreement." The point of it is to protect editors on existing articles from having templates imposed on them without their agreement. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 22:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Ideally for me the wording would more reflect the idea that you should find editors more relaxed, and you'll see articles happily containing both freehand and template citations. Wikipedia is meant to be a collaborative project after all. Ideally I'd like to see something that would encourage editors to be respectful, tolerant and accommodating of the different preferred approaches as long as the results render similarly well to the reader. I'd say that pre-existing citations added by other editors should not subsequently have change imposed on them. That's not to say that an editor can't "be bold". Nine times out of ten commonsense will prevail, only if subsequent agreement can't reasonably be reached then bear in mind the pre-existing citation techniques, and that it should work both ways, so don't impose change from freehand to template, or vice-versa. However, in lieu of such idealism, the proposal to simply remove the "subject to agreement" phrase gets my approval on the basis that it is somewhat redundant in light of the boldface closing part, and also somewhat unbalanced in tending to suggest only template addition is subject to approval and not template removal. --SallyScot (talk) 23:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

We don't encourage being bold when it comes to imposing style changes on articles, as more than one ArbCom case has upheld, as has already been explained. I'm confused as to why this keeps on being raised by the same people, because others have already said several times that they don't agree with the proposed change. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 23:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I think you may be confusing the issue of style changes. I'd appreciate it if you could direct me to the most relevant ArbCom cases that you are aware of in this instance. Thanks, --SallyScot (talk) 00:18, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we are going over this again. Many people object strongly to citation templates as an unwieldy group of over 80 inflexible templates, each with its own special language, and all making the article harder to edit. This entirely reasonable and valid objection was accommodated in this guideline by wording that made it clear that they should not be forced onto articles - and, in reality, it is the citation templates that are forced onto articles, never the other way. I've never seen someone go and convert a bunch of template references to the easier to use non-templated ones, but I've seen it done the other way literally hundreds of times. If someone has managed to impose these templates on another article without objection, well, they've won and Wikipedia has lost - but that shouldn't be the case where editors object to them. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:25, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Jay and Slim, you seem to be misunderstanding my point. I agree that templates should no more be forced on articles than removed. However, the operative criterion needs to be consensus, not the less-well-wiki-defined objection. There is no reason why template removal should be easier to perform than template addition, as long as the template being added is not against an existing distinctive style, which is admirably taken care of by the statement Gerry pointed out (as I did a while back) "editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus". In a nutshell, Slim and Jay, why isn't that enough to cover all bases? Your personal dislikes notwithstanding, do you have a valid reason to apply a different standard to removing templates than adding them? Once again, editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus should be sufficient to cover all cases equitably, and I have still not heard a valid counter-explanation. Thanks. -- Avi (talk) 02:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

From my perspective, it's you that keeps missing the point, Avi. It's not a question of consensus. The issue is that these templates cannot be imposed on an article if there is an objection, as with any style issue (a principle upheld by ArbCom). As Jay says, people don't turn up at articles with the sole intention of removing templates, but they do turn up with the sole intention of imposing them. Hence the wording, and there is no agreement here (or consensus) that it be removed. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Which is covered by the last sentence, so why the redundancy? Further, per ArbCom rulings, the objections can only be used to revert the change if there is a pre-existing distinctive style for which either the addition or the removal of the template comprises a "change" to the citation style. The sentence there now does not make that clear. Removing it, however, leaves the last sentence as the clear guideline that any change against consensus is not allowed. So, once again, why leave it LESS clear? -- Avi (talk) 04:39, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The "subject to agreement" wording has been in the guideline since 2004. It has served people well, because it means that the templates can't be imposed on articles over objections. This follows the approach of the ArbCom to style issues in general. To change it now could lead to pointless edit warring. Secondly, since 2004-5, the policy has said in general of citation style changes that, if there is disagreement, the style used by the first major contributor to use one should be respected. This is also in keeping with the ArbCom rulings. There is no need to change any of this wording now. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I must take issue with SlimVirgin's statement "The issue is that these templates cannot be imposed on an article if there is an objection, as with any style issue (a principle upheld by ArbCom)." [Emphasis added.] Suppose, for example, there is an article about a unit of measure that was in use in the U.S. and the U.K., but in 2011 the U.K. bans it. An editor asks on the talk page if it would be OK to change the spelling in the article to U.S. spelling, since the unit has become exclusive to the U.S., and nine editors agree, but one disagrees. According to SlimVirgin, the spelling in the article couldn't be changed. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 05:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

It would depend on the article. In the case of spellings, the MoS says that there has to be a strong reason to change from BE to AE or vice versa e.g. the article is about an American, and the ArbCom ruled that people shouldn't arrive at articles for the purpose of making these changes. You can definitely find exceptions to all these rules, but the point is that editors arriving at pages to impose their style changes over objections is strongly discouraged. We went through a period of it in 2004-5 with various style issues, and it led to a lot of trouble; hence the wording here. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I think you may be confusing the issue of style changes. I'd appreciate it if you could direct me to the most relevant ArbCom cases that you are aware of in this instance. Thanks, --SallyScot (talk) 08:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Gerry, for getting my point :) Slim, "arriving at an article to make changes" when the article already has a distinctive style is covered by the last sentence. Where in the following text does there appear any license to force templates on an article:

The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged. Some editors find them helpful, arguing that they maintain a consistent style across articles, while other editors find them distracting when used inline in the text, because they make the text harder to read in edit mode and harder to edit. Because templates are optional and can be contentious, editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus.

-- Avi (talk) 18:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, as has been pointed out, no-one goes around turning citation template references into normal references; but the opposite it unfortunately common. That's why the guideline has to specifically address it. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:05, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Re ArbCom: The repeated vague allusions to previous ArbCom rulings are quite misleading (and it's not as if I haven't asked for further specific examples). I think there’ll only be incidents relating to true changes of citation style/format - i.e. in the proper sense of those terms - i.e. something that would render to the reader. What we're talking about with citation templates is a technique - i.e. a way of accomplishing a desired result. I'm not saying that no one is entitled to disagree with template use in given contexts, e.g. forcing inline use against consensus, but I do have an issue with continued attempts to bolster a wider argument with inapplicable inferences about precedents set by ArbCom rulings which simply have no bearing.

Re -"The "subject to agreement" wording has been in the guideline since 2004. It has served people well" - Appeals to tradition can be fallacious arguments at the best of times, but in this case it I think it's especially misleading. I haven’t looked at each of the 3000+ individual edits to the article since 2004, but I did see enough to suggest that, for example, for latter part of year 2005 (August onwards) and most of year 2006 there was no such wording included. Similar wording may have been in the separate Citation templates guideline, but away in a linked document it was arguably under the radar here. In any case, I don't see the stability that Slim suggests was there before this more recent discussion. From when the wording was reintroduced in August 2006 there are enough edits to suggest ongoing issues with its overall neutrality. And Slim's repeated sock-puppet accusations in reaction to my recent contributions are also quite telling, as they further suggest (among other things) a prior history of some dispute. Others in the past may have given up out of sheer frustration.

One or two editors presiding long-term (+ full-time) here shouldn't mean that others can't reasonably contribute. In this regard, even though I don't think Avi's proposed wording is as good as it could be (e.g. such as it referring to citation format rather than technique), and while I reserve the right to argue for further improvement, I do think Avi is at least asking direct and reasonable and questions that deserve direct and reasonable answers.

--SallyScot (talk) 22:29, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Jay, I'm glad that someone is finally admitting that the guideline, as it stands, is inequitable, partial, and biased against templates. I understand that statistically speaking, at least on the articles that you and Slim edit, you may find the proportion of changes more one way than the other. Speaking as a professional statistician, have you ever considered the fact that your observations are materially biased by selection? The articles you work on predominantly do not have templates, because of your and Slims predilections, so your collective negative experiences will be in regards to additions. For someone such as myself, who predominately uses templates, my negative experiences will be with removal. Be that as it may, the guideline must address both situations imaprtialy, fairly, equitably, and in an unbiased matter. Therefore, it must either discuss the addittion and removal simultaneously and BOTH can be removed with mere "objection", or, as I would prefer, and believe is in the spirit of wiki-policy, BOTH addition and removal must be subject to consensus - either overtly in the text, or more efficiently, in the suggestion I made above, which removes the inequitable and ambiguous sentence. The guideline, as it stands, is non-equitable, and thus improper and against policy--and thus must be changed. -- Avi (talk) 13:38, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the current text being biased one way or anther - it simply says that they are neither encouraged nor discouraged, and that the style shouldn't be changed unilaterally. Can someone point out to me where the biased part is? — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 14:12, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The italicized sentence:

The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged. Templates may be used at the discretion of individual editors, subject to agreement with other editors on the article. Some editors find them helpful, arguing that they maintain a consistent style across articles, while other editors find them distracting when used inline in the text, because they make the text harder to read in edit mode and harder to edit. Because templates are optional and can be contentious, editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus.

The current wording allows one editor to come to an article, claim an "objection" and start removing templates. Why is it not subject to consensus like everything else. I prefer the following wording:

The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged. Some editors find them helpful, arguing that they maintain a consistent style across articles, while other editors find them distracting when used inline in the text, because they make the text harder to read in edit mode and harder to edit. Because templates are optional and can be contentious, editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus.

Which is exactly the same but without the unfair sentence, so EVERYTHING is subject to consensus, and ANY change against a specific existing style is covered. -- Avi (talk) 15:22, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

---

"no-one goes around turning citation template references into normal references" - Not only is this claim untrue, it is demonstrably untrue. In fact, no lesser an editor than SlimVirgin goes around and turns an article's citation template references into 'normal' references only an hour or so after Jayjg's post above - see this comparison of previous with revision as of 03:13, 8 February 2008.

Here the citation templates were not even being used inline. They were sitting in a separate References section. The article was using short footnotes.

Replacing short footnotes with longer freehand full citations in the article text, as Slim has done, clearly blows out of the water any pretence that it is templates interfering with the article text that is their real reason for removal.

So do we just have to accept that a few stubborn editors simply find citation templates annoying in any context and there'll be no reasoning with them?

--SallyScot (talk) 17:12, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I've changed it back. Thank you for pointing out specific examples of apparent hypocrisy. -- Avi (talk) 17:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Also, still objecting to the "can be contentious" wording, which is prejudicial and was added only recently. I personally dislike cite templates and rarely use them, but there is no doubt that they are used in the majority of featured articles, enjoy widespread support on Wiki, and there is no reason for this guideline to contain unwarranted and unfounded bias against them. Better would be to get them standardized. By the way, I'm also still noticing an inappropriate section heading on this page, here. Per

talk page guidelines, section headings shouldn't be personalized. Please adjust before it is archived (whether the accusations in that section even belongs on this page is another issue). SandyGeorgia (Talk

) 17:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Templates, like British spelling, can be used with the agreement of other editors. Like British spelling, once templates are established, they shouldn't be removed. If that is not the way that the sentence in question reads, the sentence in question should be removed. I'll do that, and try to improve that Sandy is concerned about ("can be contentious"). — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 19:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

PS I also copyedited the second paragraph some. I think it is still not as clear as it could be, but I would need to make more significant changes in order to clarify. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 19:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the way you have it now oldid=190015153 makes it very clear that someone should not come in and start changing everything to template form if the established article style and consensus is not to use templates, and, vice versa, someone should not come in and remove all of the templates if the established article style and consensus is to use them. -- Avi (talk) 21:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

---

But could we not have this?

The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged. Some editors find them helpful, arguing that they maintain a consistent style across articles, while other editors find them distracting when used inline in the text, arguing that they make the text harder to read in edit mode and harder to edit. Given the diversity of opinion, editors should not change citations from one method to another without establishing consensus.

What I'm thinking is that rather than saying templates "can be the subject of disagreement" the phrasing "given the diversity of opinion" is more encouraging of some notions of tolerance. Editors may be encouraged to think more along the lines of agreeing to differ, instead of just finding a subject on which they simply must always disagree.

--SallyScot (talk) 21:54, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I like that. And not to throw a monkey wrench into the works, but keep open the following idea. Someone somewhere (don't remember) once discussed writing a bot to convert templates to manual citations, since templates chunk up the article size so much. If this ever happens, I'd want to be able to establish talk page consensus to undo cite templates. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I like that wording too. Wdfarmer (talk) 02:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Slim reverted Carl's removal of the "subject to agreement" phrasing with the edit summary comment ""subject to agreement" has been here since 2004, and there's clearly no consensus to remove it" (22:06, 8 February 2008). I posted my "Given the diversity of opinion" edit (as above), but Slim reverted within 16 minutes, with edit summary comment "there's no consensus to remove this; see talk page objections" (11:18, 9 February 2008). I'm sorry, but this seems to me to be largely a dismissal of others opinions, with Slim incessantly repeating "there's clearly no consensus", while making no real effort to actually work towards one. --SallyScot (talk) 12:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

On adding and removing templates

I'd like to refocus the discussion a little, starting with the principle behind the wording here. Does everyone agree or disagree with: an article should not be converted from not using templates to using them without agreement, and should not be converted from using them to not using them without agreement? — Carl (

) 15:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

First, it has to be with the agreement of the editors on the page. This is the part SallScot and Avi seem to want to remove, because they want to be able to arrive at a page and try to drum up consensus to force change. But this policy has always upheld that the first contributor to use a particular style has to be respected in the case of disagreement (assuming that the style isn't deprecated or used improperly).

Secondly, I disagree with the attempt to create parity. The templates are widely regarded as a nuisance. No one else called an ordinary citation a nuisance. They add bulk to pages. They are completely unnecessary. They often introduce inconsistency. So I oppose any attempt to make them sound as though they're as unproblematic as writing out refs in the normal way. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 16:06, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

This page doesn't say anything about the style being deprecated or used improperly - it says that any style is acceptable. I don't think, from my reading of the proposals, that anyone is proposing that the style can be changed without approval.

Could you provide some evidence for the assertion that the templates are regarded as as nuisance? For example, is it common for featured articles to use them? The position you are taking there seems to contradict common practice, in that removing templates is equally as improper as adding them (without agreement). I doubt that a discussion on the village pump would demonstrate consensus for or against templates. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 17:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I have no intention of arriving at existing pages and forcing unwanted change. - If anyone, it's Slim who can't really say the same. The issue that I and a number of other editors have taken with the supposed 'long standing' version of the wording is with the now out in the open disagreement with the attempt to create parity. A first pass reading of the idea that templates may be used "at the discretion of individual editors, subject to agreement," might sound reasonable enough, given the closing sentence with its boldface part which could be read as a clarification about consensus. However, when editors such as myself, Avi, Carl, Boracay Bill, Random832, Wdfarmer, Sandy Georgia and Gerry Ashton have all posted comments suggesting that the wording perhaps could be improved, it becomes more apparent what the real motivation is for keeping it. The lengthy discussions here may be a pain, but they are at least flushing out that underlying bias.

Now, anyone who holds the opinion that there ought not to be parity, because they think templates are a nuisance or whatever, is quite entitled to that view, but really, if you want to "oppose any attempt to make them sound as though they're as unproblematic as writing out refs in the normal way", or however you want to put it, then you ought to make that case and get the consensus you need for that change. And let me say, if a consensus did emerge that template usage ought to be deprecated then I would abide by it. But my understanding of the current position is that their use is neither encouraged or discouraged, and therefore that's what the guideline wording should reflect.

As it stands, it looks as though a minority of stubborn editors are making very little real attempt to work toward consensus and are instead attempting to win a content dispute largely through brute force. This tactic may have had past success, but it's not how Wikipedia should work, and it sets a bad example for talk page conduct and issue resolution in general.

--SallyScot (talk) 20:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

What about the following:

The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged. Templates may be used or removed at the discretion of individual editors, subject to agreement with other editors on the article. Because templates are optional and can be contentious, editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus.

Firstly, adding "or removed" creates the parity we are looking for. Secondly, there is no reason to specify why some people like them and others do not. De gustibus non est disputandum; why I like them or Jay dislikes them is irrelevant. An article that does not have them should not be forced to have them; an article that does have them should not be forced to remove them. How can anyone argue with that? -- Avi (talk) 07:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

One nuance on which there has been edit-warring is "subject to agreement" vs. "unless against consensus", the two of which have very different meanings. I may have started (perhaps restarted) this warring with *this 04:11, January 18, 2008 revision.

• SlimVirgin quickly reverted that with here.
• That lasted until changed back by SallyScott in this 05:47, January 18, 2008 revision.
• That was quickly reverted by SlimVirgin with [here].
• That lasted until this 00:21, January 22, 2008 SallyScott edit.
• That was quickly reverted here by SlimVirgin.
• That lasted until this SallyScott edit, saying "as per discussion".
• That was quickly reverted here by SlimVirgin.

... and that "subject to agreement" wording persists in the current version. I may have missed a cross-reversion or two in the foregoing — I did it quickly.

Can we have a to-the-point discussion about this? Having (I think) started this series of reversions on this nuance, let me explain my thinking:

1. WP:CITE is a guideline, not a policy. I think that it is more than presumptuous for a guideline to be using language which dictates to editors what they may do and what they may not do.
2. Consensus
   is an inherent part of the wiki process. The concept of "Subject to the agreement" is not. I have a very hard time accepting the concept of giving any individual editor on a page the ability, by withholding agreement, to block a change by another editor. Barring a consensus against a within-policy change of this type (e.g., putting a non-templated citation on a page which mostly uses templated citations), the change should be allowed.

What say? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 12:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

There's plenty to discuss here. The motivation for the language here is the edit warring that has occurred in the post over issues like spelling, units (SI or imperial), cite styles, and other such things. Because of those, WP has developed a general principle that the level of agreement required to change stylistic things is higher than is ordinarily required. It's true that guidelines are particularly advisory, but in this case the idea the guideline needs to convey is that it should require great evidence of agreement among the editors on a page before changes are made. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 13:15, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer leaving the standard at consensus. However, I understand the issues that CBM has raised and would agree to "subject to agreement" if and only if all sides are treated equitably. We cannot have the case where templates are removed because one user "disagrees" but cannot be added because although there is agreement there is not "consensus". That is patently unfair and against the wiki spirit. -- Avi (talk) 17:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with much of what's being said, but one thing I think it's worth stressing is that the other issues, such a US v UK spelling, SI or imperial units, for which 'style' parallels are being drawn, - they're all things which render to the reader. I'd say the use of citation templates should be more properly a thought of as technique, or a method perhaps. I feel it's important that there should be parity, but also that there's no reason why freehand and template citations can't happily coexist in most articles. Wikipedia is meant to be a collaborative project after all. Maybe some editors need to get more used to the idea that different people can go about things in different ways. So, rather than flag waving template usage as necessarily contentious, I'd like to see a wording which if anything encourages the accommodation of the different approaches where possible. --SallyScot (talk) 21:15, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

If an article has well-established referencing without templates, additional references probably also should not use templates, for the sake of consistency in the article source code. I don't think there's any benefit in looking for rhyme or reason in why some people like templates and some don't; the goal is simply to minimize the amount of switching back and forth. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 00:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

SallyScott makes an important point here. I've noticed this and reflected on it previously, but don't recall having remarked on it. The point is that the brit vs. us spelling and english vs. metric units examples she mentions impact what readers of the article see, while templated vs. free-hand citations mainly impact article editors, not article readers. If impact on presentation to the reader is to be considered (and it not only should be considered but reader impact consideration should trump editor impact consideration, IMHO), templated citations have some distinct advantages:

• they allow citation presentation style regularization via presentation style regularization between templates.
• such regularization applies immediately to existing articles without the need for re-editing the articles.
• WP-wide citation presentation style guidelines (e.g. on element bolding, element italicizing, element parenthesizing, element order, element separator punctuation, etc. — should consensus on such ever emerge) could easily be applied to templated citations without article re-editing.

However, the discussion here should be about whether editors need to seek agreement before using templated vs. free-hand citations or whether it's an editor-choice item unless against consensus. I'm strongly of the opinion that it is (regardless of what this guideline may say) and should be (hence my arguing it here) a consensus matter. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:38, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe the opinion you expressed in the last paragraph is very common; there is a lot of precedent for avoiding problems with these style choices. As I keep saying, it's essentially useless to talk about the benefits or drawbacks of templates; neither is relevant to this discussion. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 03:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Books

I got a question. How exactly should look like the source of a citation in Wikipedia if it is a book? Another question: Can (if yes - how) can I cite books, that are in other languages? Thanks--Lykantrop ⁽Talk) 14:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

You can cite books in other languages the same as books in English, but be prepared to offer translations of key passages if someone asks you to -- and it's a good idea to offer translations in a footnote without being asked.

The simplest way to write a book citation is <ref>Smith, John. ''Name of Book''. London: Name of Publisher, 2008, p. 1.</ref> SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 16:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

An alternative style uses the {{cite book}} template. The citation for the same book would then be:

<ref>
{{cite book
  | last = Smith
  | first = John
  | authorlink = <!-- optional Wikilink to author's article -->
  | coauthors = 
  | title = Name of Book
  | publisher = Name of Publisher
  | date = 2008
  | location = London
  | language = <!-- the language the book is written in, if not English -->
  | pages = 1
  | url = 
  | doi = 
  | id = 
  | isbn = <!-- optional ISBN -->
 }}
</ref>

Wdfarmer (talk) 01:58, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a good illustration of the problem with templates. Compare the above with <ref>Smith, John. ''Name of Book''. London: Name of Publisher, 2008, p. 1.</ref> SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 11:27, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

--

The template usage above illustrates some optional fields, for example the inclusion of ISBN reference. If the information is not available, the parameters can be omitted. So for a like for like comparison with freehand...

<ref>{{cite book
| author    = Smith, John
| date      = 2008
| title     = Name of Book
| location  = London
| publisher = Name of Publisher
}}</ref>

--SallyScot (talk) 13:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The actual merits or faults of templates, like the merits or faults of British spelling, aren't particularly important. It's a distraction to worry about them, since the guideline simply has no preference one way or the other. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 13:32, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Multiple Sourcing

I can't find the answer to this anywhere I look. If we use the same source multiple times in the same article, how can we source it without linking to it over and over? Meaning I referenced XYZ.com 4 times throughout the page, linking to the same page, and not all in a row. Do I have to have all the refs in the page (I have a good 20 or so for a small page because of it) or is there a way to cut down and link to the same one? 137.142.181.179 (talk) 17:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, you can use the same ref multiple times by writing, the first time:

<ref name=Smith>Smith, John. ''Name of Book''. London: Name of Publisher, 2008.</ref>

and then every time thereafter:

<ref name=Smith/> SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I've made a simple bookmarklet that helps to create formatted citations. You can find it here, with a description and example usage. Much lower-rent than Zotero, but I find it frustrating when Zotero won't extract perfectly good metadata. I don't want to blow my own horn by adding it to the list of tools straight away, since I don't know if anything like this already exists (I couldn't find anything quite like this), or if anyone else would find this useful. Feel free to have a play with it, and if you think its worthwhile, add it to the page. --Bazzargh (talk) 21:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Bazzargh, thanks for that information. You might also want to post to Wikipedia talk:Citation templates. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 00:41, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

(moved from user talk)
I like the changes you've been making to WP:CITE, except the one about 3RR. That page doesn't otherwise mention 3RR at all, so it's a non sequitur to suddenly talk about something not being a 3RR violation. It seems better for the 3RR page to talk about 3RR, and the CITE page to talk about citing sources. Readers are already directed to BLP for more information, as well. — Carl (

) 23:39, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it's important to let people know that unsourced or poorly sourced contentious BLP material must be removed immediately by anyone, and are not limited by 3RR. Some people may be under the wrong impression that they are. We don't need to get into the intricacies of 3RR, except to say they don't apply in this case. Crum375 (talk) 23:47, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

If we simply say to remove the material, that seems clear. We don't want to get into the intricacies of 3RR here. I prefer to see these guidelines remain mostly independent of each other, so that there is less danger of having to interpret different people's paraphrases of the same policy. (As an example, there are far too many pages that try to paraphrase WP:V but fail to have the nuanced language of the actual policy). — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 23:51, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

If we simply say to remove the material, many people would assume that the removal is restricted by 3RR, which it is not. Our goal here is to help them, not to send them down the hall for every detail, so we tell them: this removal is not limited by 3RR. I see no harm in telling them that, it is factual, and I see lots of people reading this and benefiting by realizing this point. And if some of them end up removing improper BLP material that they wouldn't have done without this information, Wikipedia benefits. Crum375 (talk) 00:28, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Carl; when instructions are spread across different pages, the

instruction creep means more pages need to be synced. Better to just link to that as a further info template at the top of the section, which is exactly what was done here when I wanted explanation of copyright issues under Convenience links. If ya'll change your mind, then please reinstate the copyvio info under Convenience links as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk

) 00:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

This isn't "instruction creep." We just tell people that we take the citation requirement for BLP very seriously, and that if there is improperly sourced BLP material, to remove it, with no 3RR limit. I see no harm in letting them know that, with lots of potential benefits to Wikipedia. Crum375 (talk) 01:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

We also take copyright violations seriously, but that info was deleted here and included as a further template instead. Let's be consistent. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Two wrongs don't make a right, and this issue has to do with the BLP section, that already says, in bold lettering, that violations must be removed immediately, by anyone. To explain that this is not limited by 3RR is important, since a lot of people are not aware of that, and any time someone removes a BLP violation, Wikipedia wins. This is our goal here. Crum375 (talk) 01:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The guideline does already say that poorly sourced BLP edits should be removed immediately, so I see no harm in adding that 3RR doesn't apply, though it should perhaps be qualified that people need to be sure there's a BLP violation involved. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a large number of things we could get into on this page, but it isn't intended to be a summary of everything related to verification. I feel issues about policies should be left to the relevant policy pages, rather than repeatedly summarized in various guidelines. The problem with the summaries is that they tend to have a different connotation, or lack the nuance of the main policy page. It also leads to a maintainability problem; as consensus changes on BLP, there should be only one page that needs to be updated to reflect that. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 15:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: ""Removal of unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons, in compliance with the

Three-revert rule

."

This is only one sentence, it affects nothing else in the guideline, it changes nothing, and it explains what people can do if they find uncited material in BLPs, unlike in any other article. There's no different connotation, no lack of nuance. That consensus is extremely unlikely to change in BLP, which is one of the most stable of our policies. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 15:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

If it changes nothing and affects nothing else, there what's the benefit in including it here? It appears to me to be an encouragement for edit warring, without the benefit of the context provided by the full BLP document. I feel that keeping policy documents generally independent is important, both for the sake of clarity and for the sake of maintenance. Sandy pointed out a different instance where material covered in a different policy was removed from this page, and asked for consistency. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 15:50, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The copyright sentence was removed because the way Sandy wrote it suggested editors had to determine what was and wasn't a copyright violation before linking to anything. Someone else objected, so it was removed. But this 3RR sentence is very straightforward. Which parts of the context in the BLP policy do you feel are needed to understand it? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 15:55, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

(1) The page leaves unstated the general fact that repeatedly removing unsourced information in general is subject to the three revert rule. Only stating the exception, without stating the general rule, omits the context that in general editors should not be crossing the 3RR rule. (2) The BLP policy explains in some detail the type of removal that is not subject to the three revert rule; among other things, the material must be contentious. It's the role of the BLP policy to try to explain what that means (it doesn't do a good job of that right now, but eventually it will). We don't want to try to also explain what it means here. (3) We don't want to do that here because it isn't the role of this page o explain why things need source, or when they need a source, only how to source them - that's what the nutshell says. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 16:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Carl, which part of "removal of unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons, in compliance with the

Three-revert rule" is unclear or requires further context? Crum375 (talk

) 16:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

(←) See (1) and (2) in my previous comment. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 16:28, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The sentence specifically says contentious — this addresses your points in both (1) and (2). Crum375 (talk) 16:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The BLP policy gives much better explanation, however, and when it is edited to clarify what is meant by contentious this page will be out of sync. That is the maintenance issue that I have been referring to. (c.f. my point (3) above).

I don't see any maintenance required here. We already say, just before, that contentious BLP material must be removed immediately by anyone. There is no additional definition of contentious that I am aware of in BLP, and in any case, we are already using the term here. Crum375 (talk) 17:24, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Precisely - when a definition is added to BLP, it will be out of sync here. That's the maintenance issue - we don't want to have to remember all the pages to change when we are discussing changes to BLP. There are lots of policies that interact with sourcing, but we should avoid paraphrasing them all here, since the role of this guideline is only to describe how to cite sources, not when or why they should be cited. The question of when unsourced material may be removed without violating 3RR is several steps removed from the question of how to cite sources, not directly related at all. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 17:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry but I am not following. We use the term "contentious material" already in the paragraph, and tell people to remove it (when improperly sourced) immediately, on sight. Why is there any "sync" issue by adding the fact that removal is not limited by 3RR? And in any case, we say "per BLP" in the same sentence. I don't see how explaining to people that the removal we are asking them to do is unrestricted by 3RR is adding any new burden. Our goal is to explain things to people, not to hide or send them looking elsewhere, and this is an important point, that hopefully will result in more people removing improperly sourced material, a win for Wikiepdia. Crum375 (talk) 17:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

We have "Main article: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons" right at the top for users to learn the details; nothing is being hidden. On the other hand, BLP removals are a particular and special case, not something to be done lightly. I'm concerned about naive users who will start removing things "per WP:CITE". We don't want to set things up to encourage that. The language here is already stretched away from the goal of being a style guideline. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 17:50, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we can work out a compromise on this and the template usage language at the same time? — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 16:50, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure how these issues are related. Crum375 (talk) 17:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

They are related only in that they are both topics where a compromise is needed to move things forward. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 17:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Compromise is needed for virtually any edit on Wikiepdia; I fail to see how these two issues are related any more than to any other issue. Crum375 (talk) 17:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

As a suggestion toward a compromise - I would be more amenable to the 3RR language if we pointed out that although unsourced facts may be removed, it's better not to do so without discussion, to give others a chance to source them. That would give some context to the note that 3RR doesn't apply to BLP pages. — Carl (

) 17:39, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is related to the BLP issue or the BLP section. I do believe that we encourage people to find citations where possible, and if non-contentious claims appear reasonable, though improperly sourced, we also encourage them to discuss rather than remove the material. If you think that this needs bolstering in this guideline, go ahead and propose a change. Crum375 (talk) 17:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

It does seem a little obtuse to be allowed to tell people they must remove poorly sourced material from BLPs immediately, and then not be allowed to tell them they may do it more than three times. And Carl, no, the point is precisely that there should be no discussion when it comes to material like that. We can't contradict BLP here. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:49, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Of course we don't want to contradict BLP, but that doesn't mean we must repeat it, either. The downside of my proposal is that it would take this page ever farther from its purpose of being a style guideline, not a content policy. You're right that we don't really need to be as verbose in BLP section as we are - the language really belongs in WP:BLP. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 17:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Details of BLP belong in BLP, but if we tell people in the BLP section of this guideline that they must immediately remove improperly sourced contentious BLP material, we need to tell them they are not limited by 3RR, as that's a critical bit of information for them. Crum375 (talk) 17:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Since they would have to know about the 3rr policy to be worried about whether it applies here, and we don't otherwise mention the 3rr policy, they would already have had to read the 3rr policy to understand what we're saying. But they would have learned that 3rr doesn't apply to BLP removals from when they read the 3rr policy in the first place. So if we aren't explaining or even mentioning 3rr otherwise, we don't need to mention exceptions to it here. You haven't addressed my main concern - that we should leave content advice to content policies, and stylistic advice to style guidelines. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 12:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

In that case, if we take your advice, then we should not tell the user, as we do now, that BLP violations must be removed immediately by anyone, in bold lettering. Crum375 (talk) 02:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure. I'm not lobbying to remove all references to BLP entirely, but I think that text summarizing BLP should be kept brief. Somehow, over time, quite a bit of redundancy about dealing with unsourced material has slipped in here. That doesn't mean that more is needed. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 03:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It's really simple: if we tell them to immediately remove, in bold lettering, any BLP violation, then we need to explain it's not limited by 3RR. Otherwise, we'd be misleading them by providing partial information. So in a way I agree with you: either we stick to style issues only, or we give BLP advice. If it is the latter, it has to be correct. Crum375 (talk) 03:48, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I think you're being too all-or-nothing there. In any case, the language here is correct- if they literally follow the advice here without knowing about 3rr it would be fine, because as you are pointing out 3rr won't apply to the removals. Even if they had no idea about the 3rr policy, it wouldn't make a difference, because 3rr doesn't apply. That's why I don't see the text here as incorrect or misleading in a significant way. Indeed, it seems to have remained essentially unchanged since 2006-8-5 when it was added by SlimVirgin [7] and hasn't caused a problem. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 12:40, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

See the history of

) 00:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Carl, can you explain why you just went on the admins IRC channel to try to drum up support for this? That is a misuse of that channel, exactly the kind of thing that has caused a lot of trouble. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 00:49, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Strike the question. I complained to a channel op instead. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Since that is somewhat resolved, could you point out the section of this guideline that authorizes changing the citation style of an article after one is established? — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 01:20, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, but doesn't this version establish a precedent? Gimmetrow 01:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that shows footnotes as the established style, and that's what I used.

But that point aside, any style established or reverted to has to be supported by this guideline, and if it's not, then of course it can be changed. Otherwise we're saying anything goes. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The guideline goes out of its way to say that any citation style is acceptable. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 01:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The citation style shouldn't be changed over objections if one has been established, but the one you're talking about was a mish mash of styles that isn't mentioned in this guideline as an acceptable style. The style used has to make sense, and should be included in this guideline. Otherwise, anyone could add anything, and we'd never be able to change it. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:28, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

If you're replying to me, the version I linked had a single footnote. Gimmetrow 01:31, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that a single reference like that particularly "establishes" a style. The article has had references on and off since 2004 (for example, the reference you linked was present in Sep 2007 with a second reference that was removed before Feb 2008: [8]). The first edit to significantly implement references was [9]. The first edit with references at all, back in 2004, didn't have footnotes [10]. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 01:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Carl, the first inline citation style to be used was footnotes.

I find this disturbing.

WP:POINT

, because they think (wrongly) that I changed the citation style, against the position I'm arguing here. Avi reverted everything -- citation style and the copy edit -- baby and bathwater.

Then Carl goes on the admins' IRC channel to try to find more people to oppose me. But neither of them does a single thing to improve the page, or even discusses improving the page. Neither of them has ever edited it before, and almost certainly neither of them cares about it.

This is why I see this as trolling or wikistalking, or whatever you want to call it. It's incredibly childish and disruptive, and the kind of thing that would make anyone want to stop editing Wikipedia altogether. Please get a grip and quit following me around. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 01:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The first citation style was a list of references at the end; I'm not sure why you're looking to wikilawyer over it, but the title of the section is 'Citation styles' not 'Inline citation styles'. I'm sure the first inline citation style was inline external links [11], but nobody is advocating returning to that. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 01:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Why not, Carl? If you want to insist that we stick to the letter of this guideline, so that no one is ever allowed to improve an article, then why not return to embedded links? I am done discussing this with you here. This behavior is really unacceptable. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

(←) The spirit of our practice of not changing established style is precisely that, although everyone feels they are improving an article when they do it, editors shouldn't unilaterally change article styles. In this case, the case that the article improved from the changes seems to be a matter of individual preference. Regarding my behavior, I encourage you to use my talk page for personal discussions with me. This is also a response to the comments below. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 02:14, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

(moved from user talk) Remarks such as

"This is why I see this as trolling or wikistalking, or whatever you want to call it. It's incredibly childish and disruptive, and the kind of thing that would make anyone want to stop editing Wikipedia altogether. Please get a grip and quit following me around."

aren't going to move the discussion forward. If you don't wish to discuss the matter, then you shouldn't edit the article. Simply brushing off others as trolls isn't helpful, nor are terms like "childish" and "get a grip". I'm not following you around personally; I came into this because of the complaint on

) 01:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

As you know full well, I complained to a channel op, and the complaint was upheld.

Do not keep posting to people's talk pages or on IRC, please. Either here or, better still, or Talk:Citation. You've currently got discussions about this going in five places, which is just wasting everyone's time, and allowing you to claim that people aren't responding to you quickly enough. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 02:01, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

SlimVirgin wrote above "The citation style shouldn't be changed over objections if one has been established, but the one you're talking about was a mish mash of styles that isn't mentioned in this guideline as an acceptable style. The style used has to make sense, and should be included in this guideline" [emphasis added]. I really don't care who you're refers to, but I would like to know which version of Citation one refers to, because I would like to know what SlimVirgin's idea of a mish mash is. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 02:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Would people please bear in mind that this is a guideline and needs to be stable to some degree? When there are multiple strong objections to changing wording that's been there since 2004, the way to proceed is not to keep on reverting to the changes. Two of the editors engaged in this are experienced enough to know better. By all means continue to talk about it, but please don't just keep deleting those words when some of us are saying we strongly object. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 14:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

One would expect all editors involved to "know better". In particular, prompt reverts aren't going to help anything. Perhaps the page should be protected and mediation started? — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 14:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

You can start mediation if you want, but the removal of that wording despite all the objections isn't appropriate on a guideline or a policy, especially when that wording has been there for such a long time, without any problem. Why is there a rush to remove those words now, when they've been there for over three years? Has something happened somewhere that I'm not aware of? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 14:27, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The motivations are being discussed in the relevant section higher on this page, where you haven't commented since Feb. 6 and Crum hasn't commented at all. If you don't wish to discuss the issue, that's fine, but simply reverting while avoiding the discussion won't resolve the issue. The main point of mediation would be to encourage dialogue.

By the way, I don't see how your "don't change over objections" argument fits with the edit history this morning of

CBM · talk

) 14:37, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Carl, as I noted in my edit summary, this is long standing wording, and it should not be changed over objections. We strive to maintain stability in policies and guidelines, and one way of doing that is by ensuring that we reach broad consensus before changing wording that has been there for a long time. Crum375 (talk) 14:41, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Please join the conversation higher on the talk page. The discussion has progressed quite a bit since the last objections were given there. Perhaps you can suggest a different wording.

It is neither policy nor practice that consensus must be reached first on policy edits; you know this, as you made numerous changes to this policy yourself yesterday, You also reinserted text about the 3RR over objections noted higher above. Per your argument that changes should not be made over objections, would you please remove that sentence until it has broad consensus for inclusion? — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 14:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Consensus needn't be sought in advance if the changes aren't controversial, but when you know there are multiple objections and people are reverting your changes, you can't just keep on reinserting them. That wording has been there since 2004. You need strong consensus to remove it, and you don't have that. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 15:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

As I pointed out, the 3RR wording had clear objections, above, but was reinserted. Would you please remove it until it has broad consensus? Permitting that edit to remain while removing those of SallyScot gives the appearance of page ownership.

I find the strength of your argument about not repeating edits is somewhat undermined by your own edits on WP:BLP this morning. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 15:09, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Really? I removed a change that someone had made. Policies and guidelines need to be stable and consistent. Someone had changed BLP so that the text disagreed with the lead. I restored the text so that it agreed with the lead. Why would you misrepresent that, Carl? SlimVirgin ^(talk)(contribs) 15:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not trying to misrepresent your edits, and I don't think you are trying to misrepresent mine. I don't think it's a misrepresentation to say you were engaged in a revert war on WP:BLP, however. I'm going to try to refocus the discussion on the matter at hand, higher above. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 15:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Please recognize the difference between someone reverting in order to restore old wording to a policy that someone has changed to make it internally inconsistent, which is what I was doing there, and someone reverting in order to restore their changes over objections, which is what you were doing here. SlimVirgin ^(talk)(contribs) 15:53, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

It would have been simple enough to contact the other editor at WP:BLP, or use the talk page as was suggested. Desire to restore the old version is no justification for repeated, rapid reverting (and the repeated reverts of the other editor on WP:BLP were also inappropriate).

In any case, I have started a new subsection above to see whether there is general agreement on the principles, before we move on the language. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 15:58, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Crum375, thank you for removing the 3RR language while it is being discussed. — Carl (

) 15:58, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

3RR sentence

Carl is objecting to the guideline saying, in the BLP section: "Removal of unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons, in compliance with the

Three-revert rule

."

What are your objections exactly? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 15:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

See the above section

CBM · talk

) 15:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

3RR (2)

Can someone explain to me why this belongs in the page about how to write citations? I could see putting it in

17:08, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see the section

CBM · talk

) 17:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Pulling citations

I have a case where an editor removed a citation because the link was dead. I replaced the link using the wayback machine but the other editor insists on removing the reference. I thought that we always wanted to retain a reference no matter how poor the reference is. The article is Pahute Mesa Airstrip if anyone wishes to comment. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:42, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

We do accept the wayback machine as a way to overcome dead links, see this. However, the source must otherwise be a reliable source, per

WP:SOURCES. Crum375 (talk

) 23:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Looking at your specific example, it seems the source in question is a public forum, which is not a reliable source, hence the wayback aspect is academic, and its removal is clearly warranted. Crum375 (talk) 23:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought that as long as it was used we needed to retain the citation. Meeting

WP:RS was not the deciding factor. Vegaswikian (talk

) 00:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps cite an alternative source for the info. this one is already cited elsewhere in the article, and several others are mentioned. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Shortened notes

When footnotes are used, some editors find it helpful to maintain a separate "References" section, in which the sources that were used are listed in alphabetical order. With articles that have a lot of footnotes, it can become hard to see which sources have been used, particularly when the footnotes contain explanatory text. A References section may help readers to see at a glance the quality of the references used.

When a separate reference section is included, the citations are listed there in alphabetical order, with the footnotes in a separate section entitled "Notes" or "Footnotes"; short footnotes may be used, giving the author(s), year, and the page number, and perhaps the title, but without the full citation.

Example edit:

The Sun is pretty big,<ref>Miller 2005, p.23.</ref>
but the Moon is not so big.<ref>Brown 2006, p.46.</ref>
The Sun is also quite hot.<ref>Miller 2005, p.34.</ref>
== Notes ==
{{reflist|2}}
== References ==
*Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).
*Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.

Example rendered result:

The Sun is pretty big,^[1] but the Moon is not so big.^[2] The Sun is also quite hot.^[3]

Notes

---

1. ^ Miller 2005, p.23.
2. ^ Brown 2006, p.46.
3. ^ Miller 2005, p.34.

References

---

• Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).
• Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.

Note how each full reference is only listed once, but can be cross-referred to multiple times from the shortened notes, for example for different page references.

I propose changing the title of the section Maintaining a "References" section in addition to "Notes" to the snappier version, with new worked example included, as shown above.

I haven't changed the paragraph content, but the rambling old title, with its scary quote marks and all, makes it look rather as if the approach had been largely made up on the hoof.

It's like as if the current Footnotes section were instead called Putting <ref> tags around cited material in the article text so that they appear in a list at the bottom of the page.

Shortened notes are in fact a quite well-established referencing method, mentioned in the Citation article, and supported with links to university citation guides such as Yale University[12] and the University of Maryland.[13]

This guide clearly identifies the constituate elements for example.

I thought I'd post here in discussion for feedback and comment first though. Subject to any reasonable counterarguments, I'll update the project page, say, Monday 18th February perhaps.

--SallyScot (talk) 15:35, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

As a fan of shortened notes, I think this is a good idea. I only recommend that the description also mention the alternative form (common in the humanities) where the short reference is in the form Author, Short Title; rather than Author, Date. Using the alternative form, the resulting notes would read:

1. Miller "Size of the Moon", p.23.

2. Brown The Sun, , p.46.

3. Miller "Size of the Moon", p.34.

Of course, editors should follow whatever form has been established in existing articles. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:11, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

For an earlier discussion of this see the archived discussion of Short footnotes with alphabetical bibliography. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:22, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

---

Many thanks for the feedback Steve. That's a fair point about the alternative form. I will include mention of them.

I wasn't intending to change the existing paragraph wording too much at this stage. You'll see I've included a point about how each full reference is only listed once, but can be cross-referred to multiple times from the shortened notes for different page references. However, for later inclusion, I was also going to mention of course that shortened notes do not interfere with the article text anywhere near as much as does including full references in footnotes (i.e. full references within <ref> tags).

This leads me on to the observation that the vast majority of style guides out there are principally intended for printed articles. In these we are told that shortened notes appear at the bottom of each individual page of the article on which the in-text references to them are made. The bibliography of full references, alphabetised by author name, only appears at the back.

It strikes me that one of purposes of shortened notes being on individual pages in a printed paper article is so that the reader can easily see something meaningful, without having to flick pages back and forth to and from the bibliography at the end.

In a web-based article this is not a consideration, and what we have here is the Notes and References section at the bottom of the webpage sitting right next to each other.

This is just my personal view (and I agree that editors should not change established formats against consensus), but, in our web-based context, I think sometimes that shortened notes which also include the book/article titles in them can appear so similar to full references that they look slightly confusing and somewhat redundant appearing immediately next to them.

--SallyScot (talk) 21:29, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice to have a link from the shortened note to the full reference. There are ways to do this without templates, but the methods are not documented and might frighten new editors. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:40, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

---

Yes, there used to be a version including wikilinks similar to that below, but it got reverted. I suppose it might frighten new editors.

Wikilink example edit:

The Sun is pretty big,<ref>[[#refMiller2005|Miller 2005]], p.23.</ref>
but the Moon is not so big.<ref>[[#refBrown2006|Brown 2006]], p.46.</ref>
The Sun is also quite hot.<ref>[[#refMiller2005|Miller 2005]], p.34.</ref>
== Notes ==
{{reflist|2}}
== References ==
*<cite id=refBrown2006>Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).</cite>
*<cite id=refMiller2005>Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.</cite>

Example rendered result:

The Sun is pretty big,^[1] but the Moon is not so big.^[2] The Sun is also quite hot.^[3]

Notes

---

1. ^ Miller 2005, p. 23.
2. ^ Brown 2006, p. 46.
3. ^ Miller 2005, p. 34.

References

---

• Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).
• Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.

Perhaps the project page could future develop a Further considerations section for those who might want to take things a little further.

--SallyScot (talk) 23:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

You should make a separate page on the internal-link method. Gimmetrow 00:24, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Sally,

Nice example on how to make links from notes to references; it definitely belongs here somewhere. Your idea of a further considerations section sounds good (although a title Linking notes to references would be more informative). I imagine you saw it as a subsection of the planned Shortened notes section. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I would like to propose that we eliminate the section outlining "general references" from the 'how to cite sources' section. The primary reason for this is that wikipedia, as a whole, has seem to gone in the direction of directly citing sources using the inline citation method, and these so-called "general references", are really not used much (if at all), in the later stages of article development (GA, FA). I also strongly believe that the use of a reference that 'supposedly' backs up or cites an "entire article" is not very compatible with the format of our encyclopedia, that "anyone can edit." For example, while such a reference might be useful fairly early in the article's development, as it develops and more content is added by more people, the content rapidly diverges away from being cited by that one source (or a few sources), and it's impossible to determine which material came from which source (if multiple "general references" are used).

It should also be pointed out that, for the

) 23:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

You're claiming that "general refences" never, under any circumstances whatsoever, satisfy WP:V? Gimmetrow 00:24, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

General references are ideal for sources that are well-indexed, or otherwise easy to navigate, which are used as the source for background information. If one were writing a somewhat advanced article on electricity, for example, it would handy to include a general reference that can be used to verify facts such as "electrons have a negative charge". Expecting an editor to search through the source to find what page number such basic information can be found on is an unreasonable imposition on the editor.

Now some might say that such facts need not be sourced at all unless they are challenged, which is true. But we certainly shouldn't tell editors they should not provide a general reference for such material. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:41, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The current language strikes me as better than your proposal. A general reference can often be useful in areas where a single work might support most of an article, and can save editors from spending time adding low-value inline citations. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:11, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly the problem with general references! In an article with strict editorial controls, you can easily trace back information to the source(s) cited. But in a wikipedia where "anyone can edit", it's impossible to do so because it's impossible to determine the sources that every single editor used, unless you assume that everyone has the exact same library and books available to them, which is not the case. As articles are edited, their content naturally diverges away from their sources, as more and more edits are made by more and more people. So "general references" are just plain not compatible with Wikipedia, plain and simple.

It should also be pointed out that the only time you see such references professionally is generally in magazine articles where they're really just a listing of the sources used to by the author to write the article, and to provide extra resources for readers, like 'further reading'.

I also strongly object to general references because we already have two competing reference citations formats in use (e.g. there's the notes/references format, with inline cites followed by an alphabetical listing; but other articles simply just have references in inline format with no alphabetical listing after that. Adding the whole general references thing just makes wikipedia look like one big clusterfark.). Dr. Cash (talk) 07:04, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Dr. Cash wrote that general references for magazine articles are "really just a listing of the sources used to by the author to write the article." Yes, exactly. To me, a general reference is a source that one or more of the editors used for purposes such as making sure his/her memory of something unlikely to be challenged is accurate, or to see how another author presented material, to see if the same general approach might be good. Further reading is a source that would be helpful, but was not actually relied on in writing the article. A possible reason for listing a book as further reading instead of a reference is that it was published after the article was written. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 07:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

General references are very useful for readers who actually are interested in the "big picture" of the article, including many noncontroversial details. For example, many undergraduate physics texts would be good for Momentum. For topics like that, almost everything in the article will be covered by the textbook, so just reading that chapter of the textbook will verify the bulk of the material. On the other hand, quotes, facts with dates, and statements of opinions are more likely to warrant specific inline citations.

I also want to respond to Dr. Cash's comment about 'later stages of article development'. FA and GA are completely optional processes; there is no expectation that all authors are interested in participating in them, or that other guidelines should be changed because of desires of GA and FA reviewers. WP:V famously only requires inline citations for quotations and challenged facts. Uncontroversial facts are adequately cited through general references. For example, if a reader asked for a citation that

CBM · talk

) 20:42, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, "challenged or likely to be challenged" does not necessarily mean "challenged by an ignorant reader". If a non-controversial factoid can easily be found in the listed general refs, either because it's in any of them, or because it's obvious from the title which ones to look at, the general refs are sufficient. Gimmetrow 20:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I do not agree with Dr. Cash's suggestion, at this point in Wikipedia's evolution. To remove tolerance of general references would instantly require citations in thousands of articles, many of them sound ones. The move to an inline-cited Wikipedia is challenging and will take a great deal of time. Each day I read articles that are well written and informative but which rely on general references. Where I have knowledge of a topic, I can sense very quickly whether an article is based on its general references or not; I find that they usually are. By and large, a list of general refrences is a good sign in an article. qp10qp (talk) 00:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Exactly WHICH articles are you referring to?!?! Because the VAST MAJORITY of articles I see have inline citations, and no general references. Just because you claim that "Wikipedia thinks it's right" doesn't mean it is. In this case, you're totally wrong. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:01, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Heh, that "VAST MAJORITY" you see must be a pretty limited subset of articles. Take a tour through the Random article link. I just tried ten articles, only two had any inline citations at all -- actually, those were the only ones that had any explicitly identified references -- the others were either unreferenced or had only an External links section, which can charitably be seen as a form of general reference. But of course that small sample does not represent the ideal, it only gives an indication of the actual state of things. Even among articles that contain inline references, these are often used only to support a few very specific details in the article -- uncontroversial information is often sourced with a general reference. I think it is unacceptable to instruct people to not use general references. While general references may not be in vogue amongst those operating the gauntlet of arbitrariness and peccadillo-hunting known as the FA process, that doesn't mean those standards are the best set of instructions for general editors. The thing is, we need to first of all encourage contributors to provide any references or sources at all. If in the overall process of article improvement, general references are replaced with in-line citations, that is just dandy. But I don't think there is any basis for removing mention of general references from this guidance. older ≠ wiser 15:35, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I think your random article test is mainly an indication that there's a lot of work to be done in wikipedia! Most of my opinion is based on the reviews I see and the articles that pass the GA & FA processes, of which the majority of them favor inline citations, with 'general references' rarely, if ever, being used. Granted, I haven't done a very comprehensive survey on all GA/FA articles; I mostly base this on observations of participating in the processes over the last year or two. I suppose in an article's early development stages, these 'general references' could be used, so there probably not as bad as I think, but I still think that as the article develops on the road towards GA/FA, they should be mainly converted to inline citations (I have similar views on

trivia sections). Dr. Cash (talk

) 17:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd be curious to see some more precise statistics on that, actually. Inline versus general is not a black-and-white divide; it's quite reasonable for an article to have both (a) sources which are cited directly and (b) sources which were consulted, but to which there are no inline citations. This is somewhat difficult to notice in articles that use short-form footnotes and an alphabetical full reference list, as it may not be immediately apparent that some of the sources don't appear in the footnotes. Kirill 17:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I performed a small sampling of six random good article from three selected categories, and found that three of the six used general references. More details are available. Fortunately, the case of shortened endnotes and an alphabetical reference of all sources did not occur, so I didn't have the problem pointed out by Kirill. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I would like for there to be more explicit discouragement of the use of general references, as part of support for discouraging use of generic tags that an article "incorporates text from" a specified or unspecified public domain text. Such generic tags are a form of general reference. Of course I mean really that i don't like the plagiarization of material from the public domain reference. (Not to argue about it, but it is one type of plagiarization to copy any phrases without putting into quotes. Wikipedia article on plagiarization is inadequate). The plagiarizing ought to be abolished, IMO. As a step towards that, discouraging general references in this article on Citing sources would be a help. Another would be a more specific tag which could be attached to articles that identified them as using general references which should be replaced by more specific ones. I participated in the somewhat heated discussion about plagiarism etc here not long ago; that discussion has been archived already. doncram (talk) 23:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

There isn't much agreement that there is any issue with us reusing free content; describing it as plagiarism is polemical and inaccurate. But this thread is not about that, in any case; if you want to discuss free content again, another thread would be warranted. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 23:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I won't get into articles copied nearly verbatim from the public domain, that isn't the topic of this thread. It is relevant to point out that the criteria for accepting a citation technique is whether there are situations where it can be put to good use in Wikipedia. If you want to prohibit a technique just because it can be misused, go to the Wikipedia servers and pull the plug, because every writing technique can be misused. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I did not mean to restart all the other arguments about use of public domain sources that do not relate to the specific topic of general referencing, and yes, use of the word plagiarism is polemical. Please ignore that if you like. But, "general referencing" is one aspect of articles that use the PD tags and "incorporate text from" a given site. The site is a general reference. I don't like that kind or other general referencing in articles I contribute to as an editor, because I believe it makes it difficult to keep track of what material is sourced by what reference. Or whether new, unsourced, New Original Research has crept in but is obscured by the general reference(s). I believe that use of General referencing can work for a moment in time, in properly enough documenting the state of an article, when the author with access to the general reference finishes adding material supported by it. But then when other editors contribute anything further, it is messy and works no longer; they can't tell what is supported and unsupported. Articles with general references aren't "scalable", is one way to put it, in my view. doncram (talk) 01:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

General reference datum

To try to get a feel to what extent a good book would use general vs. specific references, I looked at chapter 12, "Calenders", by L. E. Doggett. It is in the book Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac, edited by P. K. Seidelman in 1992. I counted 39 entries in the reference list, excluding a personal communication and a work that was still in press. Of these, 24 were general, that is, they did not mention a chapter or page range. That's over 60 percent. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 08:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

That's a horrible example there, because in the link you provided, there were ZERO references. All it said was, "[to be added later]". Dr. Cash (talk) 17:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I own the printed book, and didn't notice that the references were omitted from the online convenience copy. The fact that a book chapter is not fully available online does not make it a horrible example. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:23, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it should be noted that once a reference is added to the article, no duplicate of it needs to be written in the article itself. For instance, in

, for the reference nr 1 is a good example:

HPV infection is a necessary factor in the development of nearly all cases of cervical 
cancer.[1]

It doesn't have to say:

According to a study by Walboomers JM, Jacobs MV and Manos MM in 1999, HPV infection is a
necessary factor in the development of nearly all cases of cervical cancer. [1]

All such redundant text should be avoided. Mikael Häggström (talk) 08:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I would use the explicit attribution for things that that have been proposed but are not yet commonly accepted; it isn't redundant in that case, since it points out that the claim should only be taken as a proposal. I don't know enough about HPV research to evaluate the example, but I can give one: "Martin Davis has argued that Burgin's work does not disprove the Church-Turing thesis, describing some of Burgin's claims as "misleading" (Davis 2006, p. 4)." from

CBM · talk

) 13:57, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I get your point. The format of the reference in the article itself depends on the type of information. I think this dependence need to be described in this article, since there's often too long descriptions in many scientific articles, and probably often too short ones in many controversial subjects. How about this:

Reference description

Apart from the part of the reference at the bottom of the article, how much description the reference should have in the article itself depends on the subject. Generally, no further description is needed, for instance:

Water is a liquid in room temperature [2]

However, if the subject is controversial, the subject may need further description in the article itself, for instance (from Super-recursive algorithm):

Martin Davis has described some of Burgin's claims as "misleading" (Davis 2006, p. 4).

Here it is particularly important to identify in the text exactly who is making the claim, since it would be inappropriate for use to simply say "Burgin's claims are misleading."

How about this piece of information, with perhaps some further revision, into this article? Mikael Häggström (talk) 14:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

By the way, this article really needs archiving, since it takes aged to upload. Anybody disagree? Mikael Häggström (talk) 15:00, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Page has had automatic archiving supposedly set up for a few weeks.[14] Gimmetrow 07:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This talkpage needs archiving, or anything to shorten it down. However, it's far too long and yet almost everything is written later than a month ago. So another solution would be to split the talkpage into sub-talkpages, in order to keep them from becoming enormous and hard to navigate. How about, for instance, the following categorization:

• What to cite
• Citation format
• Others

Does anybody have further suggestions? Mikael Häggström (talk) 06:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Anyone is free to archive as they see fit. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

As pointed out on its talk page, I would also like to know if that statement on {{Citations broken}} is accurate. Is it that if an article uses broken reference urls or outdated sources, those sources are deemed unreliable? « ₣M₣ » 21:00, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the statement ". . .uses citations that link to broken or outdated sources, and are deemed unreliable" is a good statement. First of all, outdated is not a black-or-white situation. Whether or not a source is so badly outdated that it is unreliable is a matter for a consensus of the editors to determine. Also, just because a link is broken does not mean it can't be fixed. The citation might describe a print version, which is still reliable even if an electronic verision is no longer available.

In summary, the wording of this template is terrible. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:12, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

if you're going to say that something shouldn't be used, you should probably mention what this thing is. because i certainly don't know. --dan (talk) 06:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

It is talking about boxes like that produced by Template:Scroll box. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Does an article on a topic need to cite the topic itself as a source? For example, if I write an article on Album X and include information like a track list and times, does a reference or citation for the album itself need to be explicitly included, or are we assuming users are smart enough to know that the thing itself might be worth consulting for information about the thing itself? —Torc. ^(Talk.) 08:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Ordinarily the work itself is not cited as a source, if only simple descriptive claims (like a track listing) are made. If there are complex claims (such as claims from the liner notes) then a reference might be appropriate. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 04:09, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for the reply. Would it be safe to assume that claims about personnel (assuming it was just the band lineup and there wasn't any doubt) wouldn't be considered a complex claim unless specifically challenged? I don't have a specific example in mind or any 'gotcha' situations like that; I'm just trying to get an idea where the threshold is. Basically I'm trying to figure out how much information can be given before the article has to be given a "References" section for a single entry that points back to the album itself. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 04:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Based on what I've seen, if the personnel are detailed in the liner notes and not challenged, you probably don't need to explicitly give the notes as as source. It would be the first thing anyone would look at to verify the information, anyway.

One rule of thumb for a threshold is that if an average person would find a particular fact surprising then it should be given a preemptive citation. If it is a simple matter of fact (such as the name of the producer of a typical album) then it is probably easy enough to verify without having any inline citation given. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 17:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 01:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure I read a guideline stating that one article should not use another as a formal reference. I can't seem to find it at the moment. Can someone point me in the right direction? I assume the same applies between different language versions too. ✤ JonHarder ^talk 01:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The location of that has been something of a moving target. Currently it is at

WP:V, it's a statement of policy, not a guideline. -- Boracay Bill (talk

) 02:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That's it. Thank you. ✤ JonHarder ^talk 03:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a discussion at

) 03:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it is probably the Layout page that should change, at least the one sentence that conflicts, since practical application is in line with this guideline. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

(coped to

talk

) 16:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

"A footnote is a note placed at the bottom of a printed page..." From context, it seems clear the sentence was trying to describe what a footnote is in general. Without the word "printed", it might have been misunderstood to mean that the Footnotes section, or an individual footnote, should come last on a Wikipedia page, which is not the case if there are External links. - Dan

) 16:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Gerry reverted with the comment "Revert incorrect edit. Wikipedia has redefined the word footnote. In wikipedia, footnotes are endnotes. To fix this, the revisions must be MUCH more extensive." Agreed with his main point, but people sometimes have a question in mind, search for the relevant answer in a style guideline page, and then act on what they read, without reading everything else first to make sure they're not misunderstanding something. A reasonable reaction to reading only "A footnote is a note placed at the bottom of a page" would be to put a footnote at the bottom of a page...yuck. How about changing "at the bottom" to "in the proper end section"? - Dan

talk

) 18:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Please note that my style is to try to describe exactly what I'm thinking, thus, "people sometimes have a question...". There is no implication that this is an original idea or that Gerry didn't understand this. - Dan

talk

) 18:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

My sense of the paragraph is that it is about notes in Wikipedia, not in general. I get this sense mostly because of the sentence "Footnotes are often used to add information that might be helpful to later fact-checkers, such as a quotation that supports your edit." [Emphasis added] The paragraph seems to be addressed specifically to a person who is editing Wikipedia. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but are we agreed that the sentence should not encourage people to put footnotes at the "bottom of a page"? Do you agree that "in the proper end section" is less likely to be misinterpreted? - Dan

talk

) 19:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think "in the proper end section" would be better. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Any disagreement? - Dan

talk

) 20:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Not disagreement, but a comment from an underinformed non-academic. I don't find this here or in

Standard appendices and descriptions"). My understanding is that "endmatter" is a more-or-less standard term. If I've got that right, I'd suggest "article endmatter section" instead of "artcle end section". -- Boracay Bill (talk

) 00:30, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

←"endmatter" only gets 6490 Google hits. There are many non-native-English readers of Wikipedia, so especially on style guidelines pages, we don't want to use words that are too uncommon. Is there anything else you like better than "end section"? - Dan

talk

) 00:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

If not "endmatter section", "end section" will serve. Perhaps I'm being overly pedantic but I would still prefer "endmatter"; its not a hotbutton issue with me, though.

I'm not a big fan of this project page in any case — being of the opinion that it is both overly broad and less focused than it should be on describing (quoting from the lead sentence, with emphasis intact) how to write citations in articles. That's another topic for another day, though. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:09, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello! I am wondering if there is a method of citing a password protected site, from which the information cannot be found elsewhere. The page I am aiming to use is a sub-site of the official page for a band (Dir en grey), and the page is only accessible to those who have a barcode obtained by purchasing the album. The site contains comments and notes on every song on their most recent album, The Marrow of a Bone, translated into English, which is (practically) impossible to find for any Japanese band. The article for the album could benefit from the boost in content if the page could be cited. I have already copied all of the information from the site (which is all in Adobe® Flash®) for personal reference when the sub-site is inevitably shut down. Any help would be appreciated! --Jacob ^Talk 22:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This seems fine to me; the site is reliable for the information being cited and not really any different in terms of accessibility from citing the album's liner notes, which would be a normal source for such info. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:09, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the response! I think the site may even be accesible after a direct link is placed. The site isn't very well protected (maybe intentionally, as it is promotional material). Nevertheless, it's better to be safe. Thanks again! --Jacob ^Talk 06:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there a list somewhere? I find when I am not helping out, I tend to participate in arguments, if anyone can point me in the correct direction, it should help someone else sleep better =) --N4GMiraflores (talk) 20:51, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:All articles with unsourced statements and Category:Articles lacking sources. --Bazzargh (talk) 00:17, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed that this says that citing the publisher of a book is optional. I would think the publisher of a book or article should always be included. Are there any objections to making publisher required? Karanacs (talk) 16:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I can think of two. First, I suspect that a large number of already-written citations don't include publishers, and the FA people might have issues if they were suddenly "required". Second, the publisher is often a very minor piece of information for locating the book being referenced. The ISBN is a much more useful piece of information in many cases, but it isn't required either. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 16:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Nowadays, it takes a few seconds to find out the publisher if you have identifying information about the book, so despite the rules I learned in school, it doesn't seem as important now to mention the publisher. - Dan

talk

) 17:00, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I've never heard a good explanation of why it was once standard to include the publisher and city of publication. Was it so that you could write the publisher directly to obtain a copy of the book? — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 17:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that was the reason, it was like a URL, and you could go to the publisher in that city and get the book. There was a somewhat obscure math book i once needed, published by Marcel Dekker, Inc., of New York and of Basel, which was out of print or otherwise unavailable, and I found the best way to get it was to go to New York, go up to their offices in some building on Madison Ave, and ask the receptionist. doncram (talk) 19:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know the origin of the rule, but knowing the name of the publisher sometimes helps in evaluating the reliability of the source. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:39, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Karanacs. The publisher is, at times, one of very few ways to distinguish between different editions of a cited book. ISBNs are a modern invention, essentially just keys to the actual data, and really shouldn't be considered a substitute for it; they are not even universally used by cataloguing systems. As Gerry Ashton pointed out, the publisher name is also an important clue when evaluating reliability of the source. Maralia (talk) 17:46, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with everything Maralia says, but if we start requiring publishers for all cites, would you want that to apply to all future FA's, or all future articles, or all articles past and present? That's a lot of work. I don't think I've seen "Never volunteer someone else's time" as a guideline here, but it's a guideline I follow. I think people already shoot for "Always give enough information so that any other information, such as the publisher, can be found in a few seconds with a search". Are you saying that you see a lot of cites where not enough information is given to figure out who the publisher is? Can you give examples? - Dan

talk

) 18:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Because the written version of Wikipedia,

talk

) 18:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm an FA reviewer, and we always require that the publisher be included, primarily so we can evaluate the sources properly. That's my primary reason for suggeting this. Karanacs (talk) 21:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

What about very old material whose publisher is unknown? Requiring a publisher would not allow citation of things whose publisher is unknown. Would that also forbid using only a URL as a source? There will be a lot more deletion during RC Patrol then. -- SEWilco (talk) 05:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

There are times when publisher information is useful and times when it is basically valueless. I don't think any hard rule is appropriate. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

What if we change it to, if available, the publisher should also be included? Karanacs (talk) 21:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I support having the same language for publisher and ISBN - either both "should" be included, both "may" be, etc. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 21:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Removal of Policylist template

From

talk

) 18:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Does no response mean that I can delete that template in a few days, or that people don't know what the heck I'm talking about? - Dan

talk

) 21:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The template is a legacy of the fact that this page used to be listed in the template. It also serves to indicate that the first half of this page is policy-like (and provides detail under

WP:V) while the last half is a style guide. I like the fact that this is suggested because it is an important distinction. Christopher Parham (talk)

23:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Is it really clear which sentences are policy and which are guidelines? If it's not, shouldn't it be? That's just the sort of thing that tends to lead to misunderstandings. - Dan

talk

) 23:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not a black-white distinction, so it's difficult to be 100% clear. But obviously the issues of what to cite are more important than the style issues. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice if some policy wonk would join the discussion here. I agree with Christopher, people do look at this article and think that the top part is policy, and somewhere it kind of shades into a guideline. The

talk

) 02:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

We discussed this already at

) 04:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if there is cause to concern the good people in Citing Sources again, but i guess i should respond. I presume SEWilco is refering to me, here calling me "PD isolationist" which I don't know if I mind or not, and refering in edit summaries at Bathhouse Row to me as a vandal, which I rather do mind. What SEWilco did in the three reverts he applied earlier on that page was remove carefully constructed attributions, via quote marks and block quotes, of one eloquent author's public domain text. It takes a certain amount of work to put that full referencing in. To remove the quotation marks and block quotes is, again, not causing there to be a copyright violation, but it is removing good, full referencing in favor of what I view as poor referencing. doncram (talk) 04:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The author has always been repeatedly credited. We don't isolate PD text within blocks of quotations, and the text had already been edited to better fit the article. Isolating the reused text, and removing edits to it, damaged the article and does not allow further editing of the isolated text. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It's perfectly fine for our articles to include PD text directly, without quoting it. Simply add a note to the bottom using a template from

CBM · talk

) 11:34, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Likewise, it is perfectly fine for our articles to use traditional referencing which puts copied text into quotes, to show full attribution of wording composed by another author. This particular PD material is composed by one very eloquent writer whose words nominated about 30 sets of National Park Service buildings to U.S. National Historic Landmark status. This is not generic, no-author-specified text from an anonymous encyclopedia. I understand fully that it is not copyright violation to take her words and copy them without full attribution, because she wrote then as an employee of the U.S. government. However, it is poor referencing to do so. Or to use a common English term in its most plain meaning, it would be plagiarism to copy the words without quoting them. A generic attribution template is, in my view, insufficient to identify which passages are explicit quotes from this one source, vs. willing-to-be-anonymous wikipedia editors' wordings of facts available in 2 or more sources, or vs. what might be new original research creeping into the article. doncram (talk) 13:53, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Disagree that it is "plagiarism to copy the words without quoting them". It is only plagiarism when claiming or implying original authorship. Without the intent to deceive, plagiarism loses its core meaning. -- Paleorthid (talk) 14:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Paleorthid that the intent to deceive is a critical component in evaluating the seriousness of plagiarism, but not whether intent is part of whether plagiarism is present or not. You and I can agree to disagree about whether referencing which is incomplete for lack of use of quotations to show which passages are copied is properly termed plagiarism or not.

However, my view is not unreasonable. In my view and in what I perceive to be common understanding, plagiarism is essentially copying with inadequate attribution. The wikipedia article on plagiarism to which you refer is not well written, in my view, but it does start with a definition that is sufficient right now to reflect your narrower view of what plagiarism is (as copying with inadequate attribution plus intent to deceive) and a broader view that plagiarism is copying with inadequate attribution. The definition given there is: "Plagiarism is the practice of claiming or implying original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement." A valid sub-line of that is "Plagiarism is the practice of incorporating material from someone else's written work in whole or in part into one's own without adequate acknowledgement". My view, consistent with this definition, is that a wikipedia article with long copied passages that are not set aside in quotes is plagiarized. An attribution template at the bottom provides some mitigation, but is inadequate. That degree of attribution is appropriate for pointing to a source, but is not adequate to show which passages are copied. The wikipedia article with long copied passages is in fact deceptive to the average reader, who has a reasonable expectation that unquoted passages are written by the collective wikipedia editorship, not by an external source. Effectively, while the reader goes the article, there is an implied claim by the collective wikipedia editorship: the editorship collective has claimed credit for the wording. When an attribution template is encountered at the bottom, the reader gets to do a double-take, and is given the suggestion that all is not as it seemed. The reader is left unclear as to what degree he/she should reevaluate the implied claim: should the reader assume the entire article is entirely copied, should the reader assume hardly any is copied, should the reader go investigate the original source and compare it to the wikipedia article, etc. This detracts from the reading experience, in my view, and it undermines the public perception of the general quality of wikipedia that is applied unfairly to the many articles that are well-written by the collective wikipedia editorship, in my view. doncram (talk) 15:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The author is attributed many times, and the text has been rearranged and edited so it is no longer in the original author's jumbled sequence. Well, it was that way before it was reverted so it could be isolated in uneditable blocks of text. Which rather proves the point that isolating the reusable text blocks it from further editing. -- SEWilco (talk) 14:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Minor rearrangement of passages, in lieu of complete rewriting, makes proper attribution of the original author's wording impossible, and hence, in my view, would cause the article to be plagiarized. The source is available to you. I suggest that you also collect at least one other source, then sit down and write, in your own words, new writing, then put that into the article. If it is to be viewed as new writing, I suggest that you should seek to avoid using any passage of, say, five words in a row that appear in the Harrison text. doncram (talk) 15:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a free content encyclopedia; it isn't plagiarism for us to use others' free content with attribution at the end of the article any more than it is plagiarism for them to use our GFDL content with attribution, or plagiarism for a software developer to user the Mediawiki source code without rewriting it from scratch. The fundamental goal is to encourage reuse of free content; that's why we have an entire category Category:Attribution templates.

In short, there is no support in the policy, practice, or spirit of Wikipedia for changing articles to quotes simply because the text is reused from other free sources. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 15:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

By the definition of plagiarism that I stated above, and with the judgment that an attribution template is inadequate attribution, it is plagiarism to copy long passages without use of quotes. It is consistent with the policy, practice, and spirit of Wikipedia to include passages that are put in quotes (surely you do not claim that we cannot use quotes?). It is a requirement for good articles and for featured articles to use full attribution that includes showing which passages are copied by use of explicit quotes. It is, I believe, reasonable for editors such as myself to judge that an article is improved (closer to good article / featured article status) by using full attribution, and to judge that stripping out full attribution does not improve the article. doncram (talk) 16:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I have seen no other editors advocating your position about plagiarism. There is broad consensus that attribution templates are adequate for their purpose. If you wish to change that, please start an RFC or discussion about it. In the meantime, please don't continue changing articles from the attribution-template style to the all-quotes style before actually finding consensus that it's an improvement. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 16:36, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This is the second time this has come up, and I remember the first discussion also had only doncram advocating that these articles are plagiaristic. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 16:39, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The prior discussion, archived at

Wikipedia talk:Cite sources/archive20#Style guideline for PD sourced content, included other editors advocating that copied texts could and/or should be put in quotes, as well as including your comments that are similar to your current views. That was an RFC. A clear consensus was not created. It seems we are discussing it again, here, now. doncram (talk

) 17:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

There was a lot of confusion earlier between quotations, which are intended to reflect exactly what someone had earlier said, as opposed to reuse of previously written text. Quotations are marked as such. Reusing public domain text, such as an EB 1911 article, is not marked as being a quotation. Quoted text can not be altered. Reused text should be edited as any other article text can be. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:44, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe that anyone in the prior discussion was ever confused about this. You intend to indicate by your choice to use quote marks or not, whether you consider copied text to be a quote or whether you wish to consider it "reuse". But if you leave off the quote marks, then the article is poorly referenced, and you are implicitly claiming that the wording is by wikipedia editors, in my view. If there is nothing special about the text, then you can easily rewrite it in your own words. If it is particularly well written or for any other reason you cannot find your own words, then the original author deserves credit for the wording (indicated by quote marks) as well as for the substance (indicated by footnote and/or attribution template). I think it is inappropriately subjective for you as a wikipedia editor to judge that Harrison's wording is not deserving of quotation credit. Again, if u don't want to credit her for her wording, don't use her words. doncram (talk) 22:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I was and remain so. No criteria consistent with Wikipedia practice is available to distinguish quote-worthy psuedo-plagiarism from the quote-unworthy near-verbatim, or a quote-unworthy organizational structure. The response to this concern, that its so simple to copyedit your way beyond the need for such criteria, deftly avoids the issue that such criteria is implicit. I am still stuck on that one point. Definitely confused, Paleorthid (talk) 00:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we need to make some distinctions like those, and work out some type of formatting that identifies in an article which is which. The very last word in the prior, archived discussion, was a suggestion by User:Gerry Ashton: "The one technique I have seen used when it is important to keep track of revisions is that a vertical line is placed in the margin next to lines that have changed since the previous version. I'm sure Wikipedia is neither equipped nor inclined to do that." I have been kind of stuck on the point that removing the quote marks and opening a passage up for minor rearrangements, wikilinking, and so on, puts it into a not-properly-described state. If the state was adequately described, I would be happy. For example, if there was a thin blue line next to the no-longer-quoted and somewhat morphing passage, and if that blue line ran down the side to a blue-colored template box that explained "Adapted from the public domain Dictionary of Blah article Bathhouse Row available here" then perhaps it would be all okay. Editors could have control so that the blue line would be started and stopped by something like strikeout starting and stopping, so editors could insert new sentences based on other sources, and not confuse what is blue-sourced. That might be equivalent, for the reader, to encountering indented text, which they anticipate will turn out to be explained at the end as being a long quote from a source given at the end. I just want to calibrate readers expectations about authorship of wording with the true state. doncram (talk) 01:06, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Please refer to the comments in

CBM · talk

) 19:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Nor was there a consensus not to change existing articles from one style to another. I think I am offended by

user:CBM's attempt to put a preliminary injunction on me to "please don't continue changing articles from the attribution-template style to the all-quotes style before actually finding consensus that it's an improvement". I don't exactly have exactly the right words to express it, but that seems like a personal attack somehow, and seems unjustified. What prompted this particular discussion was a big revert by SEWilco that erased the explicit quotations/full sourcing in the Bathhouse Row article, so an injunction to me to "not continue" seems unfair at the moment. If you look at the history of the Bathhouse Row article and its talk page, I think reasonable people will agree that I have tried to act constructively. Further, I think I have put forth a consistent and reasonable view that it is okay and good to put quotes in quotation marks, or to delete copied public domain text from an article, and the prior discussion and my comments here establish well enough that CBM and SEWilco do not have a consensus on the side of erasing full attribution. In fact it is fine and good to go out and put copied text into quotes. The preliminary injunction enjoinder not to change anything is unreasonable. Given the attempted injunction, i feel like i oughta go out and mark 10 articles with "refimprove" or similar tags today....  :) doncram (talk

) 22:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect. What prompted this discussion was doncram's isolation of PD text in block quotes (diff); the preceding edit show him removing edits which interfere with the isolation. -- SEWilco (talk) 01:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

There is indeed longstanding consensus that the attribution templates are adequate; on the other hand, it's clear there is no widespread support for the claim that using free content in our articles, with attribution, is plagiarism. That's why changing articles to what you call "full attribution" style isn't appropriate. We have literally thousands of articles that incorporate text from public domain or free content sources. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 23:35, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is quite such an open-and-shut case as some make it out to be; while it is our right under the law to reuse free content pretty liberally, it's often not good intellectual practice or very friendly. I think that SEWilco's version would be misleading to most readers. The attribution template significantly understates the degree to which this text is the work of someone unaffiliated with Wikipedia, and it does not even name that person. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Note that under some laws (e.g. Dutch law) simply creating something original grants you intellectual property (which is similar to copyright), and placing it in public domain, or selling it to anyone does nothing to the intellectual property right. Placing such creations in the public domain only allows people to reuse your creation for free; not to plagiarise it (i.e. it can only be used if and only if it is properly attributed to the original creator as intellectual property right is still in place). Under such conditions even PD sources require proper references. (I am not sure about non-Dutch law, but can imagine similar provisions do exist). Arnoutf (talk) 22:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Everyone here is advocating attributing the text to its original author. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 23:35, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The attribution being proposed very much misleads the reader about who produced this content. There's a matter of degree involved and the same template might not be appropriate for every case. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you look at the article? My attribution does identify who produced the content. "^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Harrison, Laura Soullière (November 1986). Bathhouse Row. Architecture in the Parks. National Park Service." -- SEWilco (talk) 01:21, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think readers will understand that in this one instance, the footnote means that you've lifted and copied their text. The implication a normal reader will naturally draw - that the text is supplied by Wikipedia authors but based on the source presented - is false. This is just a consequence of the fact that readers who encounter footnotes, quotation marks, etc. on Wikipedia are likely to assume that we are using them in the same ways as the rest of the English speaking world. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Which template is that? If it's not sufficient, it can always be made better. {{

CBM · talk

) 23:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I am talking about the template at the bottom of SEWilco's version of the article in question. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Arnoutf, you may be wrong about Dutch law regarding

Public Domain article defines such material as "a range of abstract materials [...] which are not owned or controlled by anyone." and says: "The term indicates that these materials are therefore 'public property', and available for anyone to use for any purpose." -- Boracay Bill (talk

) 01:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, not only is doncram isolating PD text in block quotes (diff), he removed improvements which interfered with the quarantine. He also intends to simply delete most of the article text: Talk:Hot Springs National Park#merger of articles. Is this improving the encyclopedia? -- SEWilco (talk) 01:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Please assume good faith; i am struggling to do that myself. SEWilco, as you and I have worked together cordially in other settings, I thought that the Talk page over at Hot Springs was a place where we could have a less prominent discussion about how to improve both articles. Indeed, I proposed a merger of the articles, and indeed, I expressed hope that in the merger the well-debated copied text would just get deleted, and that would resolve the impasse between us. Is that so bad? I have made other proposals to you to try to resolve the impasse, also, such as suggesting that we work cooperatively to write new replacement passages and then delete the "quarantined" passages. I begin to wonder what is the point of this discussion here; I trust it is not for you to prove that I am a bad person. What would resolve this discussion here for you? doncram (talk) 02:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The discussion here isn't supposed to be about that specific article, only about how PD text is used. We use it by dropping it in an article and letting editors chop it up as need be, not by putting walls around it. The link to the article provides links to the discussions for other editors. -- SEWilco (talk) 13:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way, of your 8 comments in this discussion so far, all but perhaps two refer specifically to the Bathhouse Row article. You link to the article twice. You comment on how the author of the PD text is credited in the article. You quote from the reference section of the article. You ask: "Did you look at the article?" You state "What prompted this discussion was doncram's (link to a diff from the article)". If you want this discussion not to be about that article, you have a strange way of showing it. doncram (talk) 15:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes talking about a specific case is helpful in discussing a bigger issue. I think we could talk productively "about how PD text is used" if you/we would acknowledge that there is more than one way for articles to get developed in wikipedia, and then discuss general advantages/disadvantages and criteria that would be fair to use in evaluating those ways, and talk about the application to the Bathhouse Row article. I think I have a pretty good idea of what you think is a good way to develop articles, but why don't you say it. It would help a lot if you would acknowledge that there are some drawbacks, in terms of quality of citing sources, to your way. You brought up this discussion in "Wikipedia talk:Citing sources", after all. Then depending on what you say, I could probably explain why I think yours is not a good way, at least for the circumstances of this Bathhouse Row article and the PD text by Laura Soulliere Harrison, and at least for the purpose of developing a good or featured article in wikipedia out of it. You can counter that you have a different purpose, other than developing a feature-quality article, if you like. I hope we could have an exchange of views along those lines, with civility. doncram (talk) 15:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course I had to refer to the article when the article was being discussed. Parham referred to a proposed attribution in the article, which consists of repeated citations to Harrison's work. As you've said, those will go away as text gets edited, rewritten, and more sources added, until only a few citations remain to

WP:V what she said. The monolithic blocks of text can't go away when they're trapped inside unnecessary walls — walls which were erected after the article was created. If this PD text has to be walled up inside quotes then some EB 1911, city, and ship articles also need walls. -- SEWilco (talk

) 15:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

We use PD text, despite flaws, as fodder to start new articles. If the text is perfect it might survive. Some text, such as EB 1911 or EB first edition, is known to have weak points. Even such text can be useful in new or old articles, such as info about the now obscure

WP:V citation be maintained while our editors chop up the text and we don't blame the original author for the resulting mess. -- SEWilco (talk

) 15:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

This isn't about copyright law; it's about fairness and intellectual honesty. Your versions of this article, in my view, falsely imply that you are the author of this text. A reader seeing this article would most likely believe that it is the work of Wikipedia users and look to the history to find author information. In fact the contributions made by Wikipedia users to this text are insignificant. Adding citations to the work you are are claiming as your own is in some ways a slap in the face to the author of the piece, because you are deliberately using footnotes in a way not congruent with normal practice. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Very well, "look to the history" — (first version: 'New article with public domain text from NPS site') and you'll see the author has been credited from the first. I added the NPS template when I discovered it, but the source is pretty clear. I wish y'all had found the article back then; I left some obvious improvements and easy to find additional sources so I wouldn't be the only article crafter. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

In my view, crediting the author would begin with mentioning her name. Nowhere in your versions of the article was it mentioned that Harrison wrote any of the unquoted text, let alone that effectively the entire content of the page was in her words. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:24, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I thought you said the readers would look at the history, and now you're claiming the article did not credit her? I think her name is mentioned in "^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harrison, Laura Soullière (November 1986). Bathhouse Row. Architecture in the Parks. National Park Service. Retrieved on 2007-09-21." with 14 links to her name. Somewhat more credit than {{

1911}} gives those authors. And she'll keep getting credited while we improve things, until her facts fade under the mass of the detailed analysis of Professor Winter in 2034. -- SEWilco (talk

) 04:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the source was cited, and then everyone expected to edit the public domain text "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts"[16]. Is more source citation needed, or should the discussion move to

WT:MOS? -- SEWilco (talk

) 04:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

That's not crediting her for writing the text, that's acknowledging that the facts came from her article. You use a citation method which indicates that the text is written in your words, not hers; you know this to be false; therefore it is plagiarism by any widely accepted standard. A reader who is familiar with existing standards will probably assume that we are using one of them, and be misled: since you are claiming the text, they will look in the article history to find the authorship, and mistakenly cite you as the author of these words. I do not believe that misleading our readers promotes the progress of anything. I don't think this is a style issue so it's unclear to me why we would move the discussion from here. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:01, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

This is, once again, far beyond the scope of the manual of style. If you want to discuss changing the rules on making articles based on public-domain text, that needs to be brought up at

WP:VPP. And your principle seems flawed? Why shouldn't we also enshrine the previous GFDL version in a block quote each time we make a new version? PD is meant to be less restrictive than the GFDL, why can we edit GFDL text in place but not PD? —Random832

16:21, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Just quickly on the principle: there's no need to enshrine material copied from previous versions or other wikipedia articles, because all of those are written by us. We, the collective editorship of wikipedia, have written what is not put in quotes or otherwise set aside; we do not have to quote ourselves, it is our words. This was discussed in the previous, RFC, archived version of this discussion. doncram (talk) 23:18, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

So you are saying that free content not written by a wikipedian must be quoted for us to use it? Can you point to any policy, guideline, or historical precedent for that position? I think you're not giving adequate weight to a key function of free content (free reuse), and also ignoring the fact that our own contributors are equally pseudonymous. Whether free content is taken from another project or written by a wikipedian, it's still free content, which should be judged and edited on its own merits. We don't accept copyright violations; but content that doesn't violate copyright, with proper attribution, is perfectly acceptable. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 01:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the concept that different intellectual standards apply to free content simply because they have that status is unique to Wikipedia; the copyright status is irrelevant here. While I'm completely free under the law to take Gulliver's Travels, make very minor changes, and then publish it as my work which simply "contains material by an Englishman", not attributing any of the text to its author by name, I think most people would view me as being discredited by this, because it is dishonest. Why would they not view the encyclopedia similarly? In general, I think that rejecting the normal practices of all other modern publications sets Wikipedia apart in a negative way. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

As our goal is to assemble a free content encyclopedia, it seems quite intellectually honest to assemble free content both by our own editors and others to create an encyclopedia (with attribution, of course). — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 02:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Nobody's suggesting otherwise - the question is whether our attribution should accord to the standards used by the rest of the world, or we should employ standards which the rest of the world would reject as inadequate. I don't think anyone coming from outside Wikipedia would believe there was meaningful or adequate attribution here. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

If the issue is simply attribution, finding or improving the correct template is a reasonable solution. The {{

CBM · talk

) 02:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

You raise a very hypothetical question with no specific example, project what my position is, and get mad at me for having the position that you project i have. Interesting. But okay, suppose there is a GFDL guidebook to Emacs software, that you wish to quote from in an article about historical documentation of Emacs. What would proper attribution be? No attribution at all would be legal, not a copyright violation. I am sure it would be fine to quote from it, at length. Setting a long passage aside in block quotes and footnoted as to its source might be appropriate to convey what you want to the wikipedia reader, just as for non-PD material. Because it is PD, you may quote from it further than would be appropriate for copyrighted material where you have to make a fair use argument to use even short excerpts. There, you are already getting benefit from it being free content. Is it improper attribution to take it out of quotes and mix it around, and just leave a generic template that this article includes text from an unspecified GFDL document? I don't know exactly what degree of attribution is appropriate since this is too hypothetical still, but I think it would depend in part on whether the material is idiosyncratic and eloquently written by a named author who a reasonable editor would recognize deserves credit for her eloquent words. I think it might be legal to take any pithy paragraph you want out of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", say, if that is under GFDL, but it would probably be improper, in the sense of deceiving the wikipedia reader, not to credit Eric Raymond with quote marks for writing it. If it is nothing special, and written by an anonymous collection of emacs programmers, I don't know. I "project" that you would prohibit me from using quotemarks of anything under GFDL, whether it is written by anonymous hackers or by Eric Raymond. Hmm, now i am getting mad about that. :) How dare you! :) doncram (talk) 02:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you're saying, but here's what I think. On one hand, it's acceptable to quote from a GFDL source as part of an article written by a wikipedian. On the other hand, it's fine to simply copy a GFDL source here, wholesale, so that it literally becomes our article. In both cases, we need to give appropriate attribution. But in the second case, there will be no direct quotes,because we aren't quoting the source, we're simply using it as part of our free encyclopedia. That's what the author specifically authorized via the free license, and so if it meets our goal of assembling a free encyclopedia it is perfectly reasonable (as always, with appropriate attribution). — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 03:14, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with Random that parts of the above discussion concerned policy and therefore don't belong on this page; we've been having the same problem on other talk pages recently. I'm wondering if this article page doesn't contribute a little bit to the confusion between policy and guidelines. It starts off clearly enough: this is a style guideline,

talk

) 16:53, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Not creating a new section for this comment was deliberate ... I'll give it a section of its own if it it arouses discussion. - Dan

talk

) 16:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Journal papers, both academic and technical, tend to lean in the direction of preserving quotations and giving more attribution than is strictly necessary to prove a point, whereas mature Wikipedia articles tend to lean in the opposite direction. Academic writers use attribution of their and their allies' work to get grants, attract good students, and win arguments, and there's nothing wrong with that, in theory. And to be fair, academic papers are often seen as one volley in an extended barrage, so proper attribution and exact quotations help avoid the

talk

) 17:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm....I'm thinking that this difference between attribution in journal papers and attribution in Wikipedia may be the reason why none of the several teachers I know find Wikipedia an acceptable source for student's papers. The less "reverent" the attribution, the longer it will take for them to change their minds. In my opinion, my preference would always be to know specifically what was copied directly from elsewhere.Lvklock (talk) 03:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

It's a given that more, and more specific, information is better than less information, as long as it's relevant, but some relevant information belongs on the talk page, or linked. An encyclopedia article shouldn't come close to saying "X said, word for word, the following, on this date in this place. Then Y said this. Then Z said this". An article writer has the job of reading the arguments, coming to an independent conclusion of what's important, and then quoting or paraphrasing only the bits that support the important points. And, I don't believe I've read anyone suggesting that Wikipedia should be used as a source, but then, the things I don't know about Wikipedia could fill an encyclopedia. See for instance

WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT

in this very article. If an article isn't mature enough to have sources for everything, then that's one good reason not to cite it as a source, and if it does give a source, and you're writing a paper on the subject, it's best to consult the source, in which case you should cite the original, not Wikipedia.

Also, I meant "reverent" in the sense of "revered, respected and adored", so that's a bad thing, at least here. A journal article that implies that your professor is the acknowledged world expert in something and quotes them word for word may cause their competitors to gnash their teeth, but it won't start an edit war. On Wikipedia, it probably would, so we have to be a little more careful that quotes aren't too long and don't give the impression of taking statements at face value. - Dan

talk

) 17:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Erk, another problem with contradicting guidelines, except worse, on that subject of citing Wikipedia as a source. See discussion at

talk

) 04:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Apparently the public domain quotation request has also appeared in articles about ships, where there seems to not be approval:

Wikipedia talk:SHIP#New DANFS section template available. -- SEWilco (talk

) 05:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

PD citation proposal 1

Is it agreed that there is no requirement that public domain material use any specific style? The normal

WP:V

requirements of the content do apply.

• Agree as proposer. -- SEWilco (talk) 05:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
• Agree; reuse in Wikipedia of P.D. text may, in some cases, be viewed as preparing a revised edition of an existing work, and may be formatted accordingly. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

• Comment/Question As noted above, this discussion has gone into policy and rule proposals, and it was suggested that
  WP:VPP may be the correct place for proposals, not here. I don't want to tell you how to write your own proposal to submit there, but I do not understand what you are trying to say with this proposal, and how you think it could be applied, if ratified. The proposal is vague. I would be hard pressed to explain to anyone else what its implication would be, say with regards to the editing of the Bathhouse Row article. To put it one way: Do you mean to protect an editor's right to use quotation marks and full attribution of authorship, despite a source being public domain, or do you want to legislate away that right? If the proposal would not have application to that example, which was the main subject of this discussion, then why are you bringing it up? Sorry, but I don't have the feeling this is an honest, direct proposal. doncram (talk
  ) 19:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

• • Response to comment: No guarantee that this will be helpful or relevant, but I am at least opening the door to discussing the policy-related parts of all this at
    talk
    ) 00:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
• I generally agree with this, but I'm not sure I understand the relevance here. The question is whether particular styles are acceptable, not whether a particular style is required. Nobody that I can see, on either side, is suggesting that any one particular style be mandated. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

• • Response to comment: No change to WP:CITE is being proposed, only a confirmation that this discussion agrees there is no special requirement for public domain material style. WP:VPP may get involved in a MOSQUOTE proposal, but this discussion can't change WP:MOS. -- SEWilco (talk) 03:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I have no dispute over style; the issue is more about attribution and making it clear who wrote what text. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
      • Sorry, I was trying to respond following Dank55 and put mine in the wrong place. If there are no more comments to your comment you could move mine before yours and delete the chatter between we two. It would clarify the discussion for everyone else but I don't want to delete your comment without approval. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:53, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

PD citation proposal 2

Should a request be made for

to clarify that public domain material is not required to be a quotation? This will only cause a request to be made on the Manual of Style talk page, as this discussion is not obvious over there.

• Agree as proposer. -- SEWilco (talk) 05:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
• Agree --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree; no existing style guide promotes different standards for free or unfree content, this is entirely novel. This needs to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, in general. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's just stop Parham, thank you for your principled participation and your support in this discussion and thank you for going to read the actual Bathhouse Row article, its talk page, and the Harrison text. However, I think we're simply being goaded by SEWilco who is being deliberately obtuse, see

) 08:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Doncram has not stopped (diff) requiring public domain text be walled inside quotations. -- SEWilco (talk) 19:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

That article was already being worked on. Provided the issue is only with one article at a time, it's probably better to treat it as a content dispute. If he converts additional articles unilaterally, that would be a different matter. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 19:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

No, as mentioned above he's also invoking PD quoting and attribution requirements at: (USS_Pampanito diff),

Wikipedia talk:SHIP#New DANFS section template available. And in wrapping the text in quotation walls he's also removing improvements; the original author's text needs improvement. -- SEWilco (talk

) 02:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Nothing there seems to involve changes as significant as seen at Bathhouse Row; in general I don't think this is at a level of being disruptive. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. If doncram, or anyone else, begins to make such changes to a large number of articles that incorporate free content, that would be disruptive, and would be likely to be undone very quickly. But that doesn't seem to be what is happening here. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 19:24, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Blogs / web forums

I know that blogs aren't generally held as being reliable references, but I have a problem in that I'm trying to write an article on a planned vessel, and the proposed builder of said planned vessel has posted about it on a web forum. As this has come from the horse's mouth so to speak (Assuming Good Faith that the poster is who they claim to be}, could this be held to be a reliable source? Mjroots (talk) 16:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is an instance where "assume good faith" is intended to apply. Two questions come to mind: (1) What assurance do we have that the person who is posting is actually the builder of the ship? (2) Since the builder of the ship is an interested party, is he a reliable source for the fact being cited? Christopher Parham (talk) 20:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Christopher is right on all counts, I think. The only experience I have with a similar issue is how we handle it at

talk

) 21:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

What assurance? Good question! I'd say that reading what is written it is highly likely that the person posting is who he claims to be. Have a look in my sandbox, and also Google "Atlas Hovercraft Inc." and you should be able to see what I mean. Main blog is the Hovercraft Club of America one. There is not much on the Future Giant Hovercraft on the web that is not in blogs or webgroups. Mjroots (talk) 12:02, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, after looking at the article, I'm not sure the sources can support a very article at this time. I would place pretty low value on any statements coming from the builder. As far as I can tell it has never actually built a hovercraft and is basically an empty shell hoping to get funding to build this idea; obviously they have significant incentives to exaggerate. However, best of luck with getting it off the ground. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:14, 18 March 2008 (UTC)