Wikipedia talk:Citing sources: Difference between revisions

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Guideline versus policy

I just learned yesterday that Cite sources is a guideline, not a policy. I'm like to suggest that it becomes policy. Does anyone have views on this? SlimVirgin 08:22, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Well, considering that most of this article is presented as a "how to" cite sources, it seems appropriate that it is part of the style guide rather than official policy. By my understanding of the terms, "policy" is a relatively high-level directive concerning what is and is not acceptable and why. "Guidelines" are more concerned with the details of how to do something. The details presented in guidelines should support policies, but the level of detail and the consequences of violation for each is different. In general, although most wikiepedians would likely agree that it is a good thing for editors to cite sources, I think there would be considerable disagreement about imposing penalties on editors for failing to cite sources. That's my take on it anyhow. older≠wiser 15:59, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

The fact is, no matter what we do, the majority of articles will not have good citations, but it's certainly not a reason to delete them. If we called this "policy", that's effectively what we'd be calling for. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:45, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Articles that aren't NPOV aren't deleted (unless inherently so); articles containing original research aren't deleted. The point of making it policy to cite sources (regardless of the format) is that it would force editors to concentrate on fact-checking, and would strengthen the hand of editors who ask for references. As I see it, if no original research is policy, then cite sources ought to be too, because the two are closely linked, in that the only way I can prove my edit isn't original research is to cite my source. I suppose in that case it could be argued that, as it's linked to no original research, which is policy, cite sources doesn't need to be. I suppose I'd just like to see something that would encourage editors to use source material properly. SlimVirgin 19:37, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Cite Sources is a how-to guideline that supports the No Original Research policy (and perhaps others as well). It is a generally accepted guideline, and as such it has community support. I don't see how making this policy would make that much of a difference. While articles may not be deleted, I would not want to give any possible rationalization for people to revert edits simply on the basis that they did not cite sources--that would be nightmarish if trolls were able to take advantage of such a policy. It is simply not possible to require people to cite sources (or at least without fundamentally changing Wikipedia). I think the article is clear as is in emphasizing the importance of citing sources and provides suficient ammunition in a dispute over original research. older≠wiser 21:35, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Editors are supposed to cite a source if challenged, and edits that can't be backed up are meant to be removed, because an an inability to cite a source may indicate original research. The OR policy says editors have the right to remove OR, so in effect the cite sources requirement is in place; it's just that people don't see it's the same thing. Stevenj has just reverted the edits I made yesterday. I have changed them back and would ask that my changes be discussed here, rather than just being thrown out. There were aspects of the old version that were misleading. For example, it suggested that editors could add references after the fact, in order to help the reader to learn (or words to that effect: I'm paraphrasing from memory). But references or citations refer to material used by editors in the creation of the page. Anything additional to help readers would come under a "further reading" section or some such. It has been noticed how few articles are properly referenced when they apply for featured-article status, and often editors feel justified in adding references after the fact (whether or not they actually used them). I wonder whether that's because this page has caused some confusion. Also, Stevenj complained that some of the material I had added belonged on the "no original research" page, and that's true, but I feel some mention of original research and what that is belongs here too, because it's another issue that many editors find confusing, and "no original research" and "cite sources" are inextricably linked. The only way you can prove your edit isn't OR is to cite your source. However, if people feel I've said too much about it, or it needs to be written differently to differentiate it more from the OR page, that can be done without ditching it entirely. Could we please discuss the individual changes I made instead of reverting them wholesale?

Older wiser, how do you feel it would fundamentally change Wikipedia if editors were required to cite sources? SlimVirgin 02:18, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

There is a difference between requiring editors to produce references in a dispute over original research and a blanket requirement that all editors should always cite sources for everything. Wikipedia invited EVERYONE to become an editor and contribute what they know. The way I see your proposal, this would become instead only those people willing to pedantically cite sources will be allowed to edit. I see no contradiction between having POLICIES such as No Original Research and How-to guidelines such as Cite sources which support the NOR. older≠wiser 13:27, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Because of the importance of this guideline, it is good etiquette to discuss any major changes on the Talk page before making them to the article. I think the reversion was, therefore, reasonable. I agree that a lot of the material you added belongs more properly on Wikipedia:No original research, and in addition I find some of it questionable on practical and political grounds. I believe it is best for this guideline to avoid making judgements about the credibility of specific sources. In addition, I think there is little reason to issue a blanket condemnation of small and independent news and information sources, and the new text appears to countenance political litmus-testing of sources as a reason for deleting putatively factual citations. All of this is questionable enough that it's best discussed before, not after, it is introduced into a central Wikipedia guideline page. I have therefore reverted the page again. -- Rbellin|Talk 04:16, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Could editors then go through their objections, please, and I will address them? SlimVirgin 04:19, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

For one thing, I don't agree with copy-and-paste insertion of material from Wikipedia:No original research (draft rewrite). It should either go here or there. —Steven G. Johnson 04:27, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Does it have to be either or, and not both? The NOR section can be reworded if you think it shouldn't be identical. My central point is this: there are two essential policies at Wikipedia that have been variously described as fundamental and non-negotiable: NOPV and NOR. Cite sources is very closely linked to both of them, but we don't make that linkage clear.

• Cites sources is linked to NOR because the only way you can show your edit is not OR is to cite your source.
• Cite sources is linked to NPOV because NPOV is states that tiny minority points of view are not to be represented on Wikipedia as though they are significant minority views, and sometimes they are not to be represented at all. The only way you can tell whether a view is held by a majority, a significant minority, or a tiny minority is by looking at the authoriative sources on the matter, and citing them.

Someone said above that we should not judge between sources, but we must. We can't treat The Times of London as though it has no more authority than my friend's weblog. The idea of a "reputable" source is impossible to define, but as I tried to make clear in my Cite sources edit (and I wrote the same passage for the NOR draft), we can develop intuitions about what it means, and they will be right most of the time.

Here's what Jimbo Wales said about tiny minority views (September 2003, on the mailing list):

• If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
• If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
• If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.

So my argument is that the issues of NPOV, NOR, and Cite sources are linked so closely, in an epistemological sense (by which I mean: you can't understand any of them correctly unless you've understood them all), that an attempt to keep them entirely separate, with no linkage, and no overlap in vocabulary, is to miss how inter-dependent they are.

Does that make sense? SlimVirgin 05:42, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

There is a difference between requiring editors to produce references in a dispute over original research and a blanket requirement that all editors should always cite sources for everything. Wikipedia invited EVERYONE to become an editor and contribute what they know. The way I see your proposal, this would become instead only those people willing to pedantically cite sources will be allowed to edit. I see no contradiction between having POLICIES such as No Original Research and How-to guidelines such as Cite sources which support the NOR. older≠wiser 13:27, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

No one is saying that every single claim has to be sourced. It's a question of commonsense. Anything that might be challenged should be sourced, and anything that is challenged would also have to be sourced or removed. The problem with editors randomly contributing what they know, is that it might end up being what they think they know, but are actually wrong about; or simply have an opinion about, without being able to back it up. There's an interesting discussion taking place on the mailing list about citing sources, and it indicates that there's a lot of confusion about this, and that this page is perhaps not as clear as it ought to be. Does anyone have further objections, because if not, I feel I should be allowed to edit the page without my edit being reverted. So please let me know if there are further objections before I do that. SlimVirgin 22:26, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Slim, how can we know in advance if we will object to an edit you are going to make? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:35, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Because I've already made the edit and it's been reverted twice. :-) I would like to edit it more or less the way I did before, except that I'll take into account the objections made above, namely: (1) that nothing on the no original research page should be repeated word for word here; and (2) that there shouldn't be too long a description of original research. But I'd still like to include one, for the reasons I outlined above, viz. that the two issues are closely linked. Do you have any specific concerns yourself? SlimVirgin 22:46, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

I've just archived some of this page as it was 179 k long. See Wikipedia talk:Cite sources/archive1. SlimVirgin 22:53, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Slim, if there is concern that your changes may be objectionable, how about posting them on the talk page for discussion first. What you see as "commonsense" may not be so obvious to others. What you see as a "problem", editors randomly contributing what they know, is pretty much precisely what Wikipedia is about. If you want to change this, I expect that there will need to be a fairly wide-ranging discussion beyond only this page. Yes, I agree completely that if there is a reasonable doubt about information for which a source cannot be provided, then it should be removed. Yes, we should encourage editors to cite sources and show them how. But the phrasing should not imply that any editor who does not cite sources is somehow remiss nor should it suggest that such edits are inherently dubious. I think that you are well-intentioned and perhaps I am misunderstanding your intents, but tenor of your argument so far suggests a path leading towards transforming Wikipedia into a Cathedral rather than a Bazaar. older≠wiser 23:07, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Older/wiser, if you look at my edits that were reverted, you'll see what changes I want to make. In brief, the page needs a general copy edit. It also needs to have the relationship between "no original research" and "cite sources" tightened. It further needs to make clear that references are sources used in the creation of the article, and not further reading to help the reader learn more, which is what the page currently says. What you say about Wikipedia being about editors randomly inserting what they (think) they know may be "original research" and is exactly what the cite sources policy is there to avoid. I am not allowed to edit something into the Wikipedia just because I have personal knowledge of it, or believe I have personal knowledge of it. Even if I witness something with my own eyes, and know it to be true, I am not allowed to edit that into the Wikipedia unless it has been published somewhere else already. That is the point of the "no original research" policy; that is why citing sources is so important; and that is why I want to make the link between the two clear on this page.

Look, the bottom line is that editors are currently applying for FAS with no references. When they face objections, they hurry off and return with what they call "references," but which were not used in the creation of the text and so are not references at all. When they're referred to Wikipedia:Cite sources, they return none the wiser, because this page is not clear. This page, which is supposed to clarify, is causing confusion. All I am asking is that you give my edit a chance to sit, and that we invite others who have expressed concerns in this area to chime in; and that you not revert the edit on sight before others have had a chance to say what they think. SlimVirgin 23:31, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Once more: because this is such a central policy guideline page, please discuss edits here before making them. If you want feedback on a proposed change, it is often best to post the proposed text here on the Talk page so that others can respond. My concern about the new text -- which I don't think you've addressed -- is that it appears to create a brand-new Wikipedia policy about approval of "reliable" sources and disapproval of "unreliable" ones. This is a big change with very broad implications. It has not been discussed anywhere, much less come to consensus. I disagree with the principle, and with the language it's couched in, and with the specific hypothetical examples used to illustrate it. This needs to be discussed about the draft rewrite of Wikipedia:No original research, where the text was copied from, as well. My suggestion is this: since it's clear (to me, anyway) that "use reliable sources" is a separate issue from "cite sources" and "no original research," introduce it as a separate page in Category:Wikipedia policy thinktank, so there can be a separate discussion and a separate attempt for consensus. The trouble with big changes to broad policies is that it's difficult to separate the issues; this one admits easily of separate discussion and doesn't need to clutter this page. (As a side note, you should look at User:Stevenj's arguments about the unusefulness of the "references"/"further reading" split; I agree with him and find the complaint about sources "not used in the creation of the text" irrelevant. In my opinion, if a source can be used for information on an article's topic, it is always a good reference.) -- Rbellin|Talk 00:00, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Rbellin, this isn't a policy page. I feel it ought to be, but currently it isn't. The "authorititative sources" thing is not the introduction of a new policy or guideline. Editors are currently expected to use reliable, authoritative, reputable sources. The issue is freqently discussed: see the mailing list, for example. Using good sources doesn't mean that minority views are dismissed. It means that, for example, my Uncle Tom's website shouldn't be used as a source, except for an article about my Uncle Tom. It means that the views of Stormfront should not be cited in an article about Martin Luther King. Even though a clear definition of "authoritative" is impossible to come up with, a range of examples can be offered which will allow editors to develop an intuition about what counts as a good source and what doesn't. Instead of posting my changes here, I'll create a subpage, so that you can see what I'd like to write, and we can discuss it here. Finally, to confuse citations of material used in the creation of the text with "further reading" would be to go against standard publishing policy. Most academic or serious non-fiction texts use footnotes, listed simply as "Notes" at the end of each section/chapter, or at the end of the book or paper. We don't do that because we'd then have numbered lists of Notes clashing with numbered lists of external links, so instead we have a References section. But whether you call that section Notes or References, there does need to be a list of the author's sources somewhere so the reader can check their quality, and thereby judge the quality of the article. SlimVirgin 00:18, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

First, sorry, I was using the word "policy" too loosely. If the "reputable source" litmus-testing discussed in the original-research draft rewrite and in your edits here has been previously discussed and agreed upon, I am not aware of it; please provide a location for the previous discussions and consensus support. Ideally, if you want to generate support for this idea, you should introduce it as a separate proposed guideline for discussion. In my opinion, the wikien-l mailing list is certainly not the place to try to generate a broad Wikipedia community consensus in support of a proposed guideline; I, and the vast majority of other Wikipedians, do not read it.

On the issue of References vs. Further Reading, I think you are confusing two different concerns. I agree with you, emphatically, that Wikipedia needs more in-text citations -- but this is a wholly separate issue from whether there should be one reference list or two. How does having only one reference list make it harder to cite sources in article text? -- Rbellin|Talk 00:45, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your last question first: it doesn't. But if you randomly look through Wikipedia articles, you'll find a number of different styles. Editors will often place a link at the end of a sentence, implying that it's a source citation, so you click on it, spend ages reading the article, do a "search/find" for keywords in their sentence, trying to find out why they cited it, then you leave a note on the Talk page asking them, and eventually comes the response: "Oh, that wasn't a source for the sentence; just more information about the subject"! That's the kind of thing we need to try to stop because it wastes the readers' time.

Therefore, I feel we should explain what it means to cite a source. Here is my claim: "The philosopher Bertrand Russell argued that the revolution that took place in 1950s England was more profound than anything France had achieved." [1] The link takes the reader to my source. Under a References section, I then give the full citation so readers can glance at the quality of my sources without having to click on every link: "Bertrand Russell, "The next 80 years", The Guardian, May 18, 1952. Then under "Further reading," I might want to list books and articles about Bertrand Russell or about the 1950s revolution in case the readers wants to learn more. The important point is to have a References list (call it "Sources" if you prefer) where readers can, at a glance, evaluate the quality of sources you have used. If you confuse this with "Further reading," you are forcing readers to plough through your text and click on all your links to check out how good your sources are. Why create this confusion when you can have two lists?

As for the "litmus test" (and it's not meant to be that: just a guide), go to the original research draft rewrite page: you'll see the discussion there. That has been on the page for several weeks and in fact some of the people who took part in this discussion also took part in that one, so I'm confused as to why this is being objected to here. Look through the mailing list archives: you don't need to be a member, and it's useful to do that, because it's where Jimbo Wales explains how he sees the issues, and he often expresses things with great clarity simply because he's been working on these issues longer than most of us, at least with reference to Wikipedia. If you check out the "original research" threads, you'll see some of the discussions. I'll look to see whether there are specifically any "cite sources" threads too. SlimVirgin 01:32, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

Slim, I certainly believe I generally meet (or at least come close to) this standard in my own work. Still, it's my impression that I'm in about the 2%, maybe 5%, who do so. Can we really make something a standard that so few people do? I certainly wouldn't scream if people make it one, but I don't think I'll change anything about either my own level of citation or how strenuously I demand citations from others (the latter already being sufficiently so that I've pretty much given up on the Spanish-language Wikipedia, because so many people there seem to consider a request for sources as an insult). -- Jmabel | Talk 20:03, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

I totally agree with you. My argument is simply that, whenever a discussion about sources comes up, or on pages about "how to write the perfect article" or whatever, Wikipedia:Cite sources is always the reference. Yet when editors come here, they don't find clear guidelines with good examples, or excellent arguments for sticking to those guidelines. They don't find an explanation about the different types of sources that exist, or an explanation of how Wikipedia: Cite sources hangs together with Wikipedia:No Original Research, and how both of these support Wikipedia:NPOV. In other words, there's no systematic underpinning of the "cite sources" philosophy. I'd like to see this page be persuasive in its support of citing sources, and I'd like to see it express a standard that is clear and consistent, and one which, if every Wikipedia editor were to stick to it, would make this a great encyclopedia. Whether they do stick to it or not is another matter. We can take the horse to the water but . . .  :-) SlimVirgin 00:58, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel thinks I archived or deleted most of the contents and when I checked the page history, I saw why. All I can say is -- it is a computer glitch. I added my own comments and hit "save" and for some reason it deleted what I wrote, as well as what others wrote. I do not understand how this happened, I can only say it was not what I was trying to do. My comments:

I think the question of two lists, sources and extra-reading, is a relatively trivial issue and I am not sure we need a strict policy on it -- that said, I think that SlimVirgin's suggestion of two lists makes a tremendous amount of sense; it will invole at most a little bit more work for editors, but will be so much more useful for readers.

On the issue of reputable sources ... well, I think this is something we cannot compromise on. From the very start Jimbo made it clear that the open content/anyone can edit policy in no way signifies that there are low or no standards for quality. And this is something that the community has made clear it supports over the year. Indeed, I'd say that the whole point of open editing is the faith we have that the result will be a progressive increase in quality. For this to work, we have to agree that we want to use reputable sources appropriately.

Can we all agree on what a reputable source, used appropriately, is? Of this I am very sceptical. I do not think I could come up with one standard that would work for every article. The reason is, I think different topics often require different kinds of standards (equally high -- but in very different forms). Moreover, I suspect that if I could, it is likely that others would come up with different standards.

But I do not see this as aproblem with a policy of "reputable sources used appropriately." Again, this has to do with the whole point of the "anyone can edit" policy. The point is, dozens or hundreds of people collaborating on an article will try out things, see others evaluate them, discuss it on the talk pages, and together sort out what for any given page constitues the best sources used the best way. Isn't this the whole point -- to write good articles? +

Maybe the problem is, some people are thinking of these policies as rigid rules. I cannot see how they can be. But just because they cannot be does not mean that we abandon standards altogether. I see policies as statements of our ideals, and enough explanation and examples to help educate newbies, and to help guide people in resolving conflicts.

Remember, it is not for anyone person to write the perfect article. It is not for any one person to provide all the citations, or to draw on all the sources. Today we write an article using the best sources we know of. Tomorrow someone new joinsa wikipedia, and they have access to or are familiar with better sources. By all means, they should go ahead and change the article! BUT They must be prepared to explain what their sources are, why they think their sources are reputable, and appropriate. This to me is the very condition of "collaboration." If people cannot or will not do this, then why do we have talk pages? It's a rhetorical question. We have talk pages for precisely such discussions as this. Slrubenstein 23:22, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Slim, I say take a shot and prepare to be "edited mercilessly".

I've tried to uphold the distinction between "sources" and "further reading" only to find people keep wanting to combine the too after the fact into one list. But maybe that is partly through lack of understanding on the part of people with less of an academic background. We seem to be on the same page as to goals here. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:09, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Um, some of us with an academic background would argue that the distinction between "sources" and "further reading" is usually artificial and is rarely made in practice—which is why academic articles normally just have a single "references" list. And the artificiality is even greater for something like Wikipedia with numerous anonymous authors. —Steven G. Johnson 05:01, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

I'm in agreement. While I don't cite sources as well or as often as I should - although I'm sure I'm pretty good compared to many - I see SlimVirgin's point that Wikipedia:Cite sources should show a high spandard to live up to, even if the average article will not meet that standard. It should be a goal.

The encouragement should be also to put up one's best sources even if they aren't very good. If one is working from poor sources, documenting those is better than documenting none. At least then future editors will know where you got those facts. I think sometimes people are embarassed about their sources; they shouldn't be. —Morven 04:50, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure where this discussion is going. However, I don't think it's a good idea to try to define "reputable source" in this article. People can argue about that elsewhere; the priority here is just to get them to cite things in the first place. —Steven G. Johnson 05:01, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. -- Rbellin|Talk 05:29, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Steven's point about academic practice, academics use footnotes and have a "Notes" section at the end of the paper (or chapter or book), so that their references can be checked. Wikipedia doesn't do this, so we need some way to distinguish between material used in the creation of the article, and material offered up as suggestions for further reading, in my view. Also Steven and Rbellin, if you don't like the word "reputable," other words can be used, but shouldn't there be some discussion on the page about good and appropriate sources? How would you prefer to see this phrased (if at all)? SlimVirgin 05:38, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

As this discussion was also taking place on Wikipedia talk:No original research (draft rewrite), but there are more editors joining in here, I've copied Rbellin's comment about source quality (below) from there. SlimVirgin 06:28, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think "any source is acceptable" -- in fact, anything (short of egregious antisociality) is acceptable -- is the greatest strength of Wikipedia; peer-editor review can correct many problems, and any citation at all is always, always better than none. I'm leaving the specific Israel example aside, as I think it's not quite to the point and don't want to get into a long side discussion.

The very most I'd be comfortable agreeing with as a general rule for all of Wikipedia would be something like: "Try to cite sources that are as widely available, relevant, and credible as possible." I have been thinking about this concern for a while, since I believe it's not a matter that a general rule can help with very much. I think "reputable" is a distraction from the issue: the most general question is is the source credible? -- and the guideline should never discourage citation. Instead, it should encourage citations that are as relevant and credible as possible; this means that we encourage citations from authors or publishers with (a) direct knowledge, (b) field expertise, or (c) stringent fact-checking policies, when such sources are available.

It is still my opinion that the best way to get a strong guideline on what kinds of sources are preferred over others would be to create a separate proposed guideline page and open it up for discussion. Lumping it in with the two very central pages on original research and citation means that the question gets jumbled up with many, many others. I have said enough by now; so feel free to take or discard my opinion on this, and I invite others to contribute theirs. -- Rbellin|Talk 05:44, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Reputable" vs. "Appropriate" sources

The tricky thing about a requirement of "reputable" sources is that the appropriateness of a source really depends on what the source is being used for, and in some cases a very un-reputable source may be entirely appropriate. For example, you would never cite a transcript of a Hitler speech for any purpose other than to indicate what Hitler said, but for that purpose it would be the most appropriate source. To take a less extreme example, I would not quote an arts review in a minor newspaper to sum up the work of a major figure, but I would not hesitate to quote it to show critical opinion from a particular place and time. We went through an interesting round of this at Republican/Democrat In Name Only, having to come up with a standard for what would count as appropriate citation of someone being called a RINO or DINO. Maybe "appropriate" is a more operative word than "reputable"? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:48, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with this. Might it be appropriate to explain the difference between using a source as a primary source, and as a secondary one? To quote Stormfront in an article about them is to use them as a primary source, and is entirely appropriate. To use them to discuss Martin Luther King in an article about him, is to use them as a secondary source, and is entirely inappropriate. Also, just thinking out loud here, could we adapt the term "good enough" that is used in psychoanalysis to describe the "good-enough" parent? Not perfect, but appropriate, adequate, and fulfulling basic requirements? We'd still have to come up with a description of "good enough," however. I have no problem with the word "appropriate." Whatever term we choose, we can define it using ostensive definition i.e. by giving examples, rather than trying to pin down a hard-and-fast definition. SlimVirgin 06:58, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Types of sources

I like Rbellin's suggestion: "Try to cite sources that are widely available, relevant, and as credible as possible." Maurreen 07:17, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I also like Rbellin's phrasing. While "credibility" may still be somewhat debatable--it narrows the debate somewhat and strikes me as considerably less subjective and POV-laden than either "reputable" or "appropriate". older≠wiser 16:28, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Rbellin's phrasing is fine with me, too. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:13, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

I have no problem with using "credibility". I'd like to create a subpage and start doing an edit of the current version, then show it to you, but I'm tied up today and won't be able to start it straightaway, just in case anyone's wondering why I mentioned it earlier but then didn't press on. There's an interesting discussion going on on the mailing list about the authority of sources, and the importance of distinguishing between primary and secondary, and when to use one or the other. Check out the archives here. [2]. There were quite a few threads and the headers kept changing so you may have to scout around a bit, but most posts were in the last three to five days. SlimVirgin 19:58, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Uh, I am not sure these terms are being used here appropriately. I don't think there ever is such a thing as an ""appropriate" source as such, because it is appropriate only in relation to the context in which it is used. Indeed, ratehr than having a guideline that says "use appropriate sources" we should say "use sources appropriately" -- then the guideline is for the editor, not the source. In contrast, I do think there are sources that are reputable or disreputable. I think this is based in part on how transparent the author of the source (or, in the case of primary sources, the creator of the source) is about his or her methods and biases. It is also based on public opinion. Both of these can be hard to ascertain, but I think in fact most people in any given field have a pretty good idea of what is reputable in their field. In any case, the measure of a works reputation has something to do with the quality of the work itself; whether it is being used appropriately or not is entirely dependent on the specific situation in which it is being used. Slrubenstein 22:35, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, fine, whatever, I think you are quibbling. Obviously "appropriate" means "appropriate to the siutation". My problem was with the word "reputable" which would be an inherent property of the sources. Appropriateness always involves a context. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:21, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

In choosing our vocabulary, it might be helpful to list the things we're trying to achieve. As I see it, the consensus on this page and on the mailing list is:

• (1) we don't want to discourage new or inexperienced editors from contributing;
• (2) we don't want to erect a scholarly standard so intimidating that editors without an academic background will feel unable to contribute;
• (3) we want to discourage (strongly discourage or prohibit?) editors using dodgy websites with strong POVs as secondary sources, but not as primary sources; that is, the Stormfront website may be used for an article about Stormfront, but it may not be used as a secondary source on Martin Luther King. Question: how to define "dodgy?" Answer: ostensive definition - give examples - we all know what we mean, more or less, and so will other editors;
• (4) we want to create a non-intimidating research culture, in which, as editors become more experienced, they will learn how to use reputable sources in an appropriate manner, how to cite accurately, when to spot that there's something wrong with a source, where to find good sources;
• (5) we want to create a great encyclopedia that will earn the trust of people all over the world, so we want editors to use sources compatible with that goal.

Probably the best way to achieve this is to describe what we're trying to achieve on the page, using all the words we've talked about: reputable, authoritative, credible, appropriate, qualifying each word as we use it, and giving examples of what we mean.

By the way, Zero posted something to the mailing list on sources today that we might want to incorporate in some form onto the page. See here. [3] SlimVirgin 00:00, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Zero's stuff is good, with maybe one reservation: sometimes "just a random web page" is obviously well researched even if it lacks citation apparatus. I wouldn't consider something like that a good reference, but it's often better than nothing. I'm not sure what our citation policy should be on those. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:00, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

I think any guidelines about evaluating sources, or which sources to use, should probably go on a different page. Maurreen 07:05, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As I posted on the mailing list earlier today, there are two different things being talked about here, I think: quality of citations, and quality of sources. Quality of citation is about accurately documenting a source; identifying it, identifying how to find the referenced information, and characterising the source's content accurately. Quality of sources is about how accurate and reliable the source is for that particular use. It might work better to talk about the first here (how to cite sources correctly) and leave the other one for another page.

One sometimes has to use bad sources (sometimes there are no good sources, or one hasn't been found yet) but one should always do good cites, even of bad sources. —Morven 07:24, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Excellent point Morven. I mean seriously, people can spend years in graduate school and still struggle with evaluating the quality of source material, so I don't think it is realistic to expect a short Wikipedia article to even begin to address the problems involved. Of course we must still attempt to address it, but we need to be realistic with our expectations. I agree that the first step is encouaging and facilitating people to provide a citation for sources used in an article. Evaluating the credibility (or appropriateness) of sources can then get thrashed out as needed. older≠wiser 13:00, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

I agree to with Morven. I think it was in the same spirit that I made the point about appropriate verus reputable -- I don't think I am quibbling, Maureen -- I think we do not want to confuse newbies. I want to add one point to SlimVirgin's comments, all of which I agree with. I think the single biggest turn-off to newbies is not complex policy pages (and yes, I still agree that policy pages should not be too complex); the biggest turn off is when they soon find themselves in edit wars they do not understand. So my main criteria for developing policy pages is, we want to help them avoid getting into edit conflicts early on that would turn them off. Since a new editor can be criticized byothers for using non-reputable sources or for failing to use sources appropriately, we need to distinguish between the two (as Morven distinguishes between quality of sources and quality of citations) and explain them as simply and clearly as we can. But "reputable sources" is crucial, because many edit-wars are triggered over what constitutes a reputable sourc. Slrubenstein 17:28, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just for clarification, Slrubenstein, I think you have me confused with someone else. I haven't said anything about quibbling. Maurreen 17:44, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Damn -- I am very sorry, Maurreen. I meant Jmabel. Slrubenstein 19:05, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No problem, not to worry. Maurreen 05:04, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Some musings about citing sources

I haven't been following discussion, my apologies, but I posted some random musings about citing sources on the mailing list and got a couple of flatteringly positive responses. Steven L. Rubenstein called it... well, I don't want to blush... and said "I think incorporating into the policy at least some of what he wrote would be an important improvement." Since what I wrote was long and might be a bit tangential, and I'm don't want to spend time right now figuring out how it bears on our policy, I've put it up on my user page here. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:18, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A question about APA style

I'm somewhat puzzled by the example given. Specifically, what does "Gettysburg: Printing Press" signify? The location of the publisher? What about "Printing Press"? —Simetrical (talk) 02:07, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Authoritativeness and Relevance of sources

Every text in Wikipedia that is not a direct quote is a interpretation of another text. Even a summary is an interpretation of the original text. Furthermore, deciding which arguments to present for and against a theory in an article is interpretation and original research. So all articles in Wikipedia contain some degree of interpretation and original research. Therefore the guidelines cannot just decide which information to allow or not to allow. It must also be guidelines for this discussion and interpretation. In the more controversial topics in Wikipedia informal rules for this discussion is already in place by itself. Look for example at capitalism or race and intelligence.

A rough draft might be that all facts should be supported from outside sources, if demanded. The only theories in Wikipedia should be those held by "many" people or an authority.

Regarding sources in the discussion of a theory, one important factor is the authoritativeness of the source. One guideline might be to avoid arguing against more authoritative arguments with less authoritative. For example, to avoid arguing against peer-reviewed studies by referring to common opinion. Although common opinion could certainly be mentioned, especially in areas where there are no academic research as in many conspiracy theories. An example of the hierarchy of authoritativeness might be:

1. Peer-reviewed studies or government statistics 2. Academic press 3. Opinion held by an authority. That might be a person who has previously done academic research in discussed area. Or dead persons considered authorities by authorities today. 4. Opinion held by many people who are not authorities (5. Opinion held by only one or a few people who are not authorities).

Another factor is the relevance of the source for the theory. A source with very little relevance for the theory should be avoided. An example of the hierarchy of relevance might be:

1. Discusses the theory directly. 2. Discusses general principle important for the theory. For example, a page about peak oil might reference an article that discusses solar power in general without mentioning peak oil. 3. Statistic that if generalized affects the theory. For example, a page about capitalism or Marxism might reference US government statistics about growing differences in income. (4. Anecdotal evidence for the theory. For example, a page about poverty in the third world might reference the income of a particular person.) Ultramarine

I mostly agree; one demurral: the priority of peer-reviewed studies varies with subject matter. For example, a peer reviewed academic paper on punk rock would probably be authoritative on dates and names, but wouldn't necessarily carry any more weight than a review in Maximum Rock'n'Roll for its judgement of a band. There are simply fields where the real experts aren't in academia. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:53, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

I think we need to be careful about this heirarchy of relevance as it could be used by some to introduce their own synthesis of published material i.e. their own arguments. While others have made the point that we don't want to stifle creativity, and I agree with that, we also don't want people using Wikipedia as a platform to publish their own essays. Dipping into a variety of sources for a paragraph here and there that supports an argument is personal essay-writing. Ultramarine's example about a page about Marxism referencing U.S. government statistics about differences in income is an example of what editors ought not to do, in my view. Perhaps that's what you meant too, Ultramarine. I'm all for giving examples within a "heirarchy of relevance," but I'd like to see a cut-off point where we say: "And these examples would count as original research." SlimVirgin 22:39, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

Abbreviating journal titles

It is a common practice to abbreviate journal titles in references. Although these abbreviations are clear to people familiar with the field, they are often hard to decypher for general readers. For example, Math. Scand. means Mathematica Scandinavica.

I intend to add some text to the project page to the effect of "Write out journal titles completely; don't use abbreviations." in the Journal articles section, unless someone objects here. dbenbenn | talk 20:02, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree that journal titles must be fully spelled out. The reason for abbreviations is either that the author (of a book) provides a key to the abbreviations, or that the author (of an article) assumes that his or her audience knows the full titles. We can't make this assumption here; the range of our articles is too broad to follow the first example, and our audience is too large and heterogeneous to follow the second.

PS isn't Math. Scand. the magazine about scandals involving mathematicians? Slrubenstein 22:23, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Same in other realms: Talmudic literature, for example: Sanhedrin is a lot clearer than Sanh. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:52, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, done. Thanks for the reply. dbenbenn | talk 21:43, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Citing secondhand

Is there a proper method for citing something that is cited in another work? For example, I have a source that says Charlie Gillett has said (the first rock and roll record) was Bill Haley's "Crazy Man" in 1963. Nick Tosches has argued for "Sixty Minute Man", which was recorded by the Dominoes in 1951. (there are citations for Gillett and Tosches). Tuf-Kat 19:08, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

In academic journals and books I have seen two different practices:

• one is simply to lift the quote and provide its original citation.
• The other is to say "blah blah blah," quoted by x (x 2005: 87).

I think people favor the first approach when the original source is easily available. Sometimes, though, this source is from an out of print book or a magazine or journal so minor that most university libraries don't have it -- in that case, people favor the second approach. Another consideration is the context in which you are using the original quote. If you are doing it in the context of a discussion of the secondary source, you should follow the second approach. Slrubenstein 19:14, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If you haven't seen the original work, you should generally make that clear. You can cite "FOO cited in BAR". -- Jmabel | Talk 19:56, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Article titles in quotes

This is the example for an article currently used in "Cite sources""

Brandybuck, Meriadoc. (1955). Herb-lore of the Shire. Journal of the Royal Institute of Chemistry

Shouldnt the article title be in quotes? Shouldnt the name of the journal be italic? Like so:

Brandybuck, Meriadoc. (1955). "Herb-lore of the Shire", Journal of the Royal Institute of Chemistry

--Stbalbach 21:56, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Yes. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:32, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
• Template:Journal reference needs attention, then. Uncle G 23:20, 2005 Feb 5 (UTC)
  • Done. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:28, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Quoted article titles is one common style, and no one will complain if you use them for your citations (I do so myself), but it's not what APA style does. —Steven G. Johnson 23:30, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

If I am going to now be adding quotation marks, since I discovered the project page model changed this year to reflect the above after I had already started articles without using them per the old page examples, I do not plan to put the comma after the article title outside the quotation marks unless that is the way I am supposed to punctuate in every other context. In American punctuation style, we don't place commas and periods outside quotation marks (but we do with semicolons). Is there a statement somewhere that says Wikipedia uses British style punctuation across the board? If so, then I have tons of articles to change. Also, previously we didn't put a period after both the author and date, just after the date. My intended method for Music bio article's source reference list:

Smith, Joe (1955). "Example Article Title." Scientific American.

— Emerman 15:42, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I beg to differ. While the most common U.S. style puts punctuation inside quotation marks when they represent an actual quotation, this in not the case when quotation marks are used to set off titles. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:16, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that statement or a particular style guide link demonstrating it that you can point me to? I have not seen one, and I have bookmarked several citation style guides online. To me, the style I have used in the Music bio article's source reference list I did looks right; what do you think? It did not look right to me when I briefly had it the other way. When I put the comma or period outside the quotation mark, it also pushes a big space between the quote mark and the punctuation if it's a linked article title, and it generally just looks awkward. I previously looked at several style guides before I even started writing my articles. If I saw that your statement is supported by several style guides, I'd be glad to adopt it. I have my own book copies of The Chicago Manual of Style, AP Styleguide, and a couple of others I could hunt for in my house if you are using a book reference for this statement. — Emerman 01:19, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Referencing a CD

I want to reference a music CD. I came here looking for an example of what style to use, but it isn't addressed. Anyone care to add that info? Thanks, dbenbenn | talk 23:33, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've been using a format of my own creation. For example Alvin Curran. Hyacinth 00:48, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Concern over some text

"If there are few references and the material is uncontroversial, in-text citations are often unnecessary." - I disagree! If we are going to have inline references in the form [1] then I really must say that this is not correct. For instance, the Sydney Morning Herald has online versions of newspaper articles, but when they get archived it's impossible to get access to the article. All methods of verification of the time, the title of the article and the author are then lost to us. Having a link that doesn't describe the info is NOT good. In fact, it's worse that useless! We really still need to add the inline references to the references section. I would like to scrap this particular statement. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:03, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree. There are no references without in-text citations. A list of references at the end of an article without citations is at best Further reading. Hyacinth 02:23, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

So what we have here is: a references section that doesn't reference anything, and inline references that are almost next to useless when the site takes down/archives/moves their pages. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:26, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

First, Ta bu shi da yu is confused — you always should have the complete reference information at the end. What the comment in question is saying is that you don't necessarily have to sprinkle the text with (Foo, 1995) pointers in addition...this is only necessary in cases where it is difficult to figure out which reference contains information on which topic in the article. (Often, the references should be to broad review articles and textbooks relevant to the entire article, not just to specific statements.) The comment is not referring to [1]-style autonumbered URLs, which are deprecated here for a variety of reasons (albeit are still better than nothing).

Second, Hyacinth is still beating the drum that references are somehow distinct from "further reading", which is not how references are used in most publications and is even less relevant to Wikipedia (where the question of which things were "used" to write a work is blurred by multiple authors). —Steven G. Johnson 23:26, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

I too think that the distinction between further reading and works cited is useful. It is true you don't find this distinction in academic books and journals -- but that is because they are not written primarily as educational material. Many textbooks, on the other hand, make this distinction. That any article has many editors shouldn't be a problem. I am sure any editor will figure out where to put the works they cite, and where to put others that they do not cite but nevertheless recommend to people. Slrubenstein 16:01, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Slrubenstein. References are entirely distinct from further reading. The former are those actually used to contribute material to an article or to factually confirm what is there. The latter is simply a source available for the interested reader to find more. Yes various uses outside Wikipedia confuse the distinction at times, but that doesn't make the difference any less important. The question of which were properly used simply needs to be confirmed by each author using a given resource. That is not an issue. Confirming they did actually use them is potentially a little more difficult, but if someone says they did, we should assume good faith, unless evidence is provided they are wrong. Eventually referenced articles could be put through a formal peer review process that does validate the facts against the cited sources and perhaps additional ones if needed. - Taxman 18:16, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Hyacinth, Slrubenstein and Taxman, in that, there is a useful distinction between the recommended works listed in a "Further reading" section and referenced (and perhaps cited) works listed in a "References" section. Of course works listed as references can also be used for further reading. Paul August ☎ 18:40, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

You are all entitled to your opinions, but please realize that you are all absolutely at odds with mainstream scholarly practice. (Not just in journals. The textbooks that I have do not make this distinction. By and large, they either have a "further reading" section or a "references" section in each chapter, not both, plus a bibliography chapter at the end that typically summarizes all the works cited. Although I think a single "review" article is a better analogy for a single Wikipedia article than a whole textbook, anyway.) The essential problem is that the distinction you want to make is completely artificial: very often, a good source for writing about something, or for checking a fact, is also a good source for further reading, and vice versa. (Moreover, an expert will often write from her own knowledge and then add a reference to help a general reader.) Wikipedia exacerbates the problem because, while one editor used a source to look up a fact and recommends another for further reading, the case might be the opposite for another editor who comes along and wants to check an article...should the citation heading fluctuate with time? —Steven G. Johnson 04:47, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

For one, the distinction is not artificial in the least. The source was either used properly or it wasn't. For another, those listed as correctly used references are no less available to the reader then any other source listed as further reading, they just instead have the additional distinction that they were properly used as a reference. Your question is spurious. If one editor used one source as a proper reference it should be listed as such. Another editor later comes along and uses a source that is listed as further reading to do the same, then it too should be listed as a proper reference. Thus it is still very simple, and no conflict is had: those sources that were correctly used are listed as such and those that were not are not. - Taxman 20:05, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Steven G that this distinction, while there is some logic to it, is relatively uncommon (at least in my experience) and I don't think it is particularly helpful for a general readership where such a subtle distinction is likely to either go unnoticed or cause confusion. older≠wiser 12:43, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

If the policy/explanation pages explain the distinction, there is very likely to be no major confusion. And then just like any other distinction, if someone misses it, just point them to the correct policy page. Besides, the distinction is not remotely subtle. The source was either used by the editor or it was not. Amalgamating them is innaccurate at best and dishonest at worst. Again, the only argument you guys repeatedly make is that other people don't do it correctly, so there is no need for us to. Well other people don't release under a free license either, so there is no need for us to either. Both of those things are entirely irrelevant to what we should do. It's like saying John doesn't avoid beating his wife so why should I? Wtf does that have to do with the price of tea in China? So basically I'll even concede that you are correct that it is not a common practice to make the distinction correctly, even if that is not in fact true, I don't know. But it is thoroughly irrelevant in any case. And finally, whether it is immediately helpful to the general readership is also beside the point. What is helpful to the general reader is to read an article from a resource that has a system in place to make sure the information is reliable. Proper referencing, including making the distinction between resources properly used as references and those not, is a key part of that system. - Taxman 20:05, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

It is absolutely irrelevant whether this is at odds with mainstream scholarly practice or not. As we all know, many things about Wikipedia are absolutely at odds with mainstream scholarly practice. The question is, are these differences merely matters of convention, or are they substantive? What is our goal, regardless of the goal of scholarly publications? How do we best achieve it? It is on these grounds that I think that having Works Cited and Further Readings is important. These two together fill the function of a "bibliography." By the way, most academic publications have moved away from a bibliography (which would list all the relevant works that were consulted in writing the article or book) to Works Cited (which lists only those books or articles actually cited in the study). I think there is value to Works Cited, because it is a quick and easy way for someone to get bibliographic information on something cited in the article. But this leaves out other books and articles that we know might be of interest to readers -- this is why "further reading" is for. Frankly, if some reader (as Steven G. implies) sees the category "further reading" and infers that they should not read any of the books or articles under works cited, well, what can I say -- thy have more serious problems than wikipedia confusion. Slrubenstein 15:34, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I was not specifically referring to scholarly publications in mentioning the relative uncommonness of having multiple sections containing bibliographic details. Although I still have occasion to consult academic pubs now and again, I am more familiar with practices of trade and general publications. I honestly do not see how having separate sections for "Works cited" (or "References") and "Further reading" (or "Bibliography") is helpful to anyone other than specialized readers and in so far as Wikipedia editors are having difficulty in coming to a clear understanding of what the purpose of each section is, is it really so farfetched to think that a general reader might be a little confused? And beyond those sections, there are "Sources" and "External links", which also overlap somewhat with the others. In many of the articles I write, I simply list the sources I used to create the article rather than provide any specific citations for discrete details. Of course for quoted material I'd give a more specific citation, but in general the articles I tend to develop are an amalgam of facts drawn from a variety of sources--it would be extraordinary and rather unfriendly to readers to reference specific citations for most details in the narrative. It is desirable to have specific citations for novel or disputed details and quoted materials, but I'm not sure why footnotes are not sufficient for that purpose. older≠wiser 16:37, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Whether it is helpful to every single wiki reader is again, entirely irrelevant to whether it should be done or not. If its value exceeds its cost it should most certainly be done. The cost is very low, and the value of the accuracy and reliability (and verification of that reliability) is very high. That makes it a simple decision. The cost is low because basically if anyone is confused, and that will happen, simply point them to the relevant policy/explanation just like it is done hundreds of times a day right now for other issues. Finally, it is not unfriendly at all to readers to properly cite individual facts directly to their source. Wiki is not paper, and the citation marks can in a relatively short amount of time, be set to be invisible to the average reader by default. I think the programming time to implement that would be less than a week of focused work including the time to implement the citations system in the first place!. You are right though that it is especially important for important or disputed facts. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think footnotes would be just fine for that. I think the specific implementation of how the citation is made is not important as long as it is clear what source or sources the fact comes from or is verified by and that all the relevant information on the source is made available. So its clear we agree on something at least! :) - Taxman 20:23, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Finally, it is not unfriendly at all to readers to properly cite individual facts directly to their source What may or may not be unfreindly is precisely how the citations are presented. There is little that is more off-putting to non-academic readers than long (and possibly multiple) lists of bibligographic materials, especially so if used for citations of otherwise commonplace facts. I think discussing this in the abstract is difficult--especially as it is very likely that different types of articles may require very different levels of citation. I'd actually be quite happy with a citation system that has some sort of dual interface, so the nitty-gritty details are available, but only if readers really want to see them. older≠wiser 21:04, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Well I can agree with that. A system that lets the user select the level of citation they want to see would be ideal. I'd even be fine with having it almost off by default as long as it was there. Now there is no perfect system like that yet, but I certainly don't think it is worth it to avoid promoting better citations just because a couple people will get annoyed by them now. Even if every reader were somewhat annoyed by them the value of good citations is well worth the cost. It would just be that much more motivation for someone to develop the system we agree would be great. For now it could be as simple as having a third namespace with a tab next to the "discussion" tab that holds the citations and referencing. This is not the place to discuss the system implementation, but it certainly would not be relatively difficult. - Taxman 22:41, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Citing stuff in press

(William M. Connolley 12:49, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)) I'm not sure this is truly the right place for this question but... what is the position with regard to citing articles in press? My understanding is that for the science articles, wiki presents... well, not quite sure how to describe it, but "established science" (with contrary views were necessary). Do theories only supported by in press articles count? I would argue not. See the most recent addition to ice age.

I would argue that articles which have been accepted for publication and have been made publically available in some form prior to formal publication (e.g. preprint servers, author's website, etc.) should be given as much credibility as formal publication itself. Of course, obviously I am a biased since I made the changes to ice age article and am a personal fan of Peter Huybers' work.

Dragons flight 18:34, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

I think the editor should just be patient and wait until the item is published -- that way, readers will know that if they want to track the item down, they can, as soon as they want. I think this is important both as a convenience to readers, and to comply fully with the verifiability policy, Slrubenstein 15:48, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

To be clear, I provided a link to the preprint of the article appearing on the author's website. It's not like it isn't publicly available. Dragons flight 16:00, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Good. But I think our discussion has to focus on general rules or guidelines, not specific cases. Slrubenstein 16:11, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well fine. In the general case, I would think that the publicly available work of any reputable scientist, once slated for publication, should be reasonable for citation. There is certainly no problem with citing "in press" papers in the research I do. It is probably also worth noting that nearly all important physics and astronomy papers appear as preprints prior to formal publication and many other sciences are moving in that direction. If you disagree with some part of this as being a reasonable general policy, I would appreciate it if you could be specific about why. Dragons flight 16:40, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Just a note: something published in a peer-reviewed journal is not necessarily "accepted science". It is something that was judged to be sufficiently of interest, and sounded sufficiently serious, to be accepted for publication. Before going to the status of "accepted science", it is in general necessary that other authors publish results going in the same direction. (This of course depends on the particular area – natural sciences may need a number convergent experiments, while in mathematics, it is sufficient that a proof is judged to be sound for a theorem to be established.) David.Monniaux 17:24, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 22:04, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)) Just to be clear... I'm not attacking Dragons Flight (and apologies to him if it looked like I was), and indeed he did provide a link to the paper. My point was partly what I said and partly what DM has just said: the difference between published and accepted science. OTOH "published" is easy to judge and "accepted" might be subject to dispute. As I understand it (but can't find, so perahps I'm wrong) wiki does have some kind of policy that only accepted stuff is suitable.

Quoting of unknown pressure groups

Lately, I have come across a number of edits which included quotations (sometimes unattributed) from various groups which had a very specific point of view on a question. Of course, articles must represent all points of views, and I do not dispute that.

However, it appears to me that the value of a reference should be assessed on four aspects:

1. Quality of the analysis: are there any glaring factual errors? (e.g. a study placing Italy in Africa should probably not be cited as reference)
2. Expertise: is the author a recognizable institution working in the field? (e.g. a study by an obscure self-employed physicist, not published in a peer-reviewed journal, does not have the same value as a study by researcher in an internationally known institution publishing in a first-class scientific journal, even though the latter may contain mistakes)
3. Identifiability: is the source traced to a clearly identifiable person, institution, publication, or group? Nowadays, anybody can start a "group" or "institute" and have Web pages, so an "institute" may actually be a handful of persons. That is why I much prefer it when the source has its own well-documented page on Wikipedia. Surely, it matters a lot, when reading the opinion of a source, to know whether the source is a reputed human rights organization, a personal project, or an institute affiliated with or funded by a political party or religious organization.
4. Representativity: does the group represent a sizeable part of public opinion? To me, it seems that quotes from mostly unknown pressure groups are a subtle workaround of the policy on weasel words, the policy of citing sources, and the policy against citing one's personal opinion.

It seems to me that these aspects are too often ignored, and that some contributors push too much irrelevant opinion quotes in the guise of NPOV. To draw a parallel, the article on George W. Bush does not, and should not, contain opinion pieces from every left-wing group on Earth saying that Bush is stupid and that his policies are a disaster; I do not see why this should be different for other articles.

In addition, I think that, all too often, sources are improperly attributed. For instance, the opinion of a single judge in a lower court in a country is not the opinion of the government of that country. The opinion of some people invited at a conference organized by institution X is not the official point of view of association X. Etc.

I think that all this should be reflected in official Wikipedia policy. David.Monniaux 11:14, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You make very good points and I agree with substantially all of it. But I welcome this kind of debate as being on an entirely higher level of argument than arguing whether we should have sources and properly cited facts at all. I think your criteria above for deciding on the quality of a source is very good, and one that meets more of those criteria should be preferred over one that meets less. Maybe others will have some idea on improving the criteria, and maybe we can even create a separate page for references criteria, start with the above and build a consensus for ways to distinguish between more respected sources and less. It will of course nevr be perfect, but you have made a great start. - Taxman 13:55, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

See #"Reputable" vs. "Appropriate" sources above. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:23, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Disagreement with policy

Sorry, Phils, but you are wrong:

I most violently disagree with some suggestions on the Wikipedia:Cite sources page. Consider the following:

Writing from own knowledge

If you consult an external source while writing an article, citing it is basic intellectual honesty. More than that, you should actively search for authoritative references to cite. If you are writing from your own knowledge, then you should know enough to identify good references that the reader can consult on the subject—you won't be around forever to answer questions.

In my opinion, actively searching for authoritative references is intellectual dishonesty. Such finds belong in Further reading sections, as they are technically not sources, because they weren't used in writing the article. If one writes from their own knowledge, they are the source: anything else is further reading. We might as well turn Wikipedia in a link list if this policy is to be applied.

You are in effect suggesting that readers violate the "no original research policy." Editors simply cannot be the source for articles. I think you misunderstand the policy and also how people come to know things. What the policy means by "writing from their own knowledge" is not that people are writing from their own unmediated experience, but rather that people somewhere along the line learned something, and are not putting it into an article. The point of the policy is that such editors should go back and find the sources that their knowledge comes from, and provide them in the article. There is nothing at all dishonest about this. slrubenstein|talk 17:25, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think I see what you mean, if an author does not use a reference, but writes from personal knowledge and then adds a book they know about. Is that what you meant? Yes that is not proper, and does seem to be condoned in the above quoted text. How about instead saying If you could write from your own knowledge, you should know.... I am very concerned though when you say "actively searching for authoritative references is intellectual dishonesty". Doing that and writing facts and citing them from that source is ideal referencing, so I don't get how you can say that. I assume you did not mean that quote literally, so what did you mean? - Taxman 17:52, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Learn more about the topic

This applies even when the information is currently undisputed — even if there's no dispute right now, someone might come along in five years and want to dispute, verify, or learn more about a topic.

Emphasis on learn more about the topic. Thus, "Further reading", not a source. Besides, take a look at some of our featured articles about influential people. Now picture the size of the reference sections if this directive were to be religiously applied for every qualitative statement about the subject of the article. Wikipedia, as stated before, would become a link list.

All sources are "further reading" as well. To specifically say something is "further reading" means it was not a direct source. To say something is a "Work Cited" means it was a direct source and could be consulted for further reading. What kind of person would see a citation for a source and conclude that the source is not worth reading if they want to learn more? slrubenstein|talk 17:25, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Adding citations by non-authors

Adding citations to external sources, especially for information in articles not already backed by citations, is also a good way to enhance even articles you didn't write.

Now this is just horrid. This policy is likely to lead to misunderstandings and is dishonest (how can a reference added by someone who is not even the author of the article be a source). It is only applicable in the limited eventuality of an unsourced, questionable statement that needs an inline citation. There's no way a third person can just add a book they feel covers the subject as a source to an article they haven't written. Phils 00:21, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How is this dishonest? If I read an article and see no need to change it because the article already includes stuff I think is important, I shouldn't edit it. But if I know of more sources to support the article, I most definitely should add them. Frankly, Phils, it seems to me that you fundamentally misunderstand Wikipedia. None of our articles have "authors" -- the author is the entire wiki community. We hope all editors will make many contributions, based on what they have to contribute, Every article is thus the product of an ongoing collaboration, including a collaboration with anonymous users. It is natural that some people will add sources for things they themselves didn't write -- because it simply does not matter who writes what. If you disagree with this policy, then just go away because not only will this policy never change, it is at the heart of wikipedia. But if you accept this policy, I just do not understand your objection to the text you quote. It doesn't make sense. slrubenstein|talk 17:25, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I understand that no one should be given credit for writing an article. I don't see how you derive the of adding so-called sources to article when they weren't even used to write a document from the collaborative editing spirit/policy central to Wikipedia. A source is by definition a document that information was taken from and then incorporated into a new one, not a document readers should refer to if they want additional information. Phils 18:04, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You still do not understand Wikipedia, and it sounds like you do not understand sources. Sources are not as you define them only those works originally consulted in writing an article. It is very, very common that as scholars write an article -- say for publication in a peer-reviewed journal -- they go through many drafts. During this time, a colleague may direct them to a source, or they may discover one. These sources are regularly included in scholarly articles and for a number of reasons: the more sources, the more authoritative the claim; scholars want to give credit to others who have had the same idea (even if two people came up with that idea independently); journal articles do not distinguish between works cited and further reading, so an author wants to cite as many sources as are directly relevant as an aid to readers. This is common practice in writing scholarly articles. If this is true for scholarly articles, where one author may revise an article ten times before submitting it for publication, it is even more true of Wikipedia, where thousands of people revise any given article thousands of times. Every revision is an opportunity to provide another source. All that is important is that the source be directly relevant and confirm the claim made in the article. I'll give just one example of where this is not only allowable, but necessary. Say someone writes an article and uses a college textbook as a source. Okay, this is an acceptable source, but not the ideal source. Someone comes along later, sees the textbook source, but knows the journal article where the information or interpretation or explanation originally came from. Editor two, for the sake of improving the article, should definitely add (or jsut change) the source. This is in no way intellectually dishonest -- as a matter of fact it is very honest because it honestly represents the way articles are written. If you think it is dishonest it can only be because you do not know how articles are written (here at Wikipedia, or for scholarly journals). Take a look at any major journal -- Semiotica, Diacritics, Critical Inquiry, whatever -- and I assure you, in any given article you can bet that many of the citations and references were added after the first draft of the article was written, and were not consulted while the author was writing the first draft. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:35, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, I appreciate your comments, but find your constant attempts at passing me off as an ignorant unable to understand Wikipedia (whatever that means) rather insulting. I read an average several journal articles per week, and in every article I know, when a specific claim is made, a reference indicating the source for said claim is inserted (e.g.: Richardson[Ri17] demonstrates). I don't know what kind of journals you read, but I consider it rather bad form to simply add a document you know contains proof/evidence of your claim to your documents to cover your back in case someone questions your claims if it wasn't actually used in the making of the document. I believe a distinction should be made between actual references that were used in the making of a document and reading aids for potential readers/reviewers ("Further reading"). Phils 19:06, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I can understand/judge you only based on what you write here. My remarks address what you have written. You write "in every article I know, when a specific claim is made, a reference indicating the" but you do not know when in the process of writing the article that citations was put in. I never claimed that you do not read journal articles. It doesn't matter to me whether you read one or one hundred journal articles a week. My point only has to do with how journal articles are written -- and based on what you have written here, I really think you do not understand how they are written. Whether you know/admit it or not, many citations (such as your example, or hypothetical) are discovered and put in after the text was written. You are the one insulting the scholars who do this, following standard, accepted practice. You may not like it, but this is how things are done. And if you want, you can argue all you want about Wikipedia policy. I suspect that most people, like I, will either not understand or simply not accept your argument. And if you start off saying that you "most violently disagree" -- if you want to bring "violence" (even symbolically) into your own comments, you should be prepared to take what you dish out. If you want to violently disagree, expect those who disagree with you to respond bluntly, or even harshly. Your words invite it. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:25, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I find it exquisitely ironic that your attitude suggesting a rather strong belief that you have profound understanding of the workings of both Wikipedia and scholarly discussion is in such drastic contrast with your obvious inability to distinguish opinions from the person behind them. If I disagree with some wording, it does not invite you to suggest I am a simple minded idiot. As far as I know, there is no Wikipedia policy that is not open for discussion. I wanted to express my disagreement with the way practices that were perceived by the editor of the Wikipedia:Cite sources as being standard or self-evident were worded. Ridiculing my words by inferring that I think I can single-handedly change established policy is a grotesque ad hominem. Your comparison with the scholarly world is invalid, because, as you pointed out yourself, Wikipedia is unique: we have little professional copy-editors, and I maintain that encouraging people to add sources could lead to misunderstanding. The example I gave is an exception: it is a very specific reference to a certain document: a reviewer can be certain that Richardson proved the Slrubenstein conjecture in his paper On Slrubenstein singularities. This is not the case for most references in Wikipedia, which are not inline, but are simply added to a list at the end of the article. Phils 19:56, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I never called you a simple-minded idiot. Perhaps if you read my comments in the spirit in which they were written -- a serious attempt to explain to you not so much that I disagree with your criticism, but rather that I see no foundation for the assumptions your criticism is based on. I never said that the policy is not open for discussion, nor that you should not join the discussion. But discussions go in both directions, and if you want to raise a potential problem, you had better be prepared for the possibility that others will disagree with you. Moreover, I was not just rejecting your critique; I was explaining why I disagree. The comparison to scholarly articles is an analogy to illustrate my point. Even if journal articles were not written the way they are, I would still stand by my criticism of your view. That journal articles are written the way they are, however, certainly illustrates that my point is not idiosyncratic. Whether sources are cited inline (as they are in some Wikipedia articles) or not, there is nothing dishonest about someone adding sources to an existing article. You seem to think that people look at the list of sources as a list of texts that were consulted before writing the article. You claim that you understand that Wikipedia articles do not have just one author, but my point was that the notion of an "original" article doesn't make sense at Wikipedia, so the notion of sources as being only those that were consulted before the wrticle was written makes no sense. Sources are lists of texts added "as" an article is being written, and since Wikipedia articles are always works in progress, anytime someone adds a source it is "as" the article is being written. Now, I never suggested that I thought you believed you could singly- handed change Wikipedia policy -- for you to think I claimed this only means you did not understand what I wrote. I share responsibility for this, and hope that in this comment I am being clearer. In any event, I have made no ad hominem remarks. The only words of yours that I ridicule -- openly and proudly -- is your desire to be violent. For me to point out your own words does not mean I am veing violent in return, it just means I am being honest. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:53, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Indicating fact sources

I'm (mostly) with Slrubenstein here, with the caveat that we still need a great deal of improvement in how we indicate what facts are sourced from where. Also, I'm not sure that current scholarly practice for papers with traditional authorship can be anything more than suggestive of how Wikipedia should work. Wikipedia is something new, and I think we are still feeling our way around to the correct way to handle this issue. 18 months ago, there were almost no citations in the English-language Wikipedia (the German Wikipedia was definitely way ahead of us in this respect, and probably still is). My suspicion is that we will never get to the point where the majority of our articles are really well-sourced, but I think Slrubenstein is roughly correct about how we can head that way, and I'd hope that the articles on what would generally be thought of as scholarly topics can reach a standard comparable to what is expected in academia. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:07, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Later updates and cumulative referencing

OK everybody try to remain calm ;-)

Regarding Phils concern about the intellectual dishonesty of adding references after-the-fact, consider the following. Suppose I see an article and I agree with everything that is written, but I see that the article is badly in need of references, (since none are given). Now I happen to know several references which support all the facts and assertions made in the article. What should I do?

Suppose I decide to entirely rewrite the article, using these references, and adding them to a references section at the end. It turns out, however, that I'm a terrible writer. And a subsequent editor (or editors) comes along and decides that although everything I've written is perfectly correct and very well referenced, the original editor or editors were really better writers (and just as correct) and gradually change my turgid prose into the elegant bit of writing that was there, before I laid my grubby little paws on it — except that they decide to keep my wonderfully appropriate and authoritative references. Now is there anything dishonest or inappropriate about any of the above? Were the references used in the writing of the article?

Keep in mind that this process is entirely public and complete histories of all edits are available for all to view, so that many other editors, including perhaps the original ones, may have been watching over this process, and silently consenting to all that has gone on.

Now consider an alternative scenario. Suppose instead of completely rewriting the article I decide simply to create a references section and add the references to it. Is this situation any different? I think Phils is saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that this is dishonest because the references weren't used in writing the article. But I think one could argue that they were used, namely by me, in the last rewrite of the article. One could argue that I have "rewritten" the article (albeit in a modest way) and I used the references in this rewriting. Or that I have "used" the references to fact-check the article.

I see nothing particularly wrong with any of the above hypothetical edits. The alternative view would seem to imply that no one (including the original author) could ever add references after the fact.

Paul August ☎ 21:37, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes write first, cite later

Yeah, yeah, but the key (I think) is that all Wikipedia articles are works in progress, collective works in progress, at that, and that there is nothing at all dishonest about writing a sentence first and coming up with a citation for it afterwards. This is absolutely normal. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:56, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I agree with Jmabel, Paul August and Slrubestein over this issue, and (with respect) disagree with Phils over his thoughts on referencing. I'm not going to go into the whole "violently disagree" issue, as that's just a figure of speech, IMO. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:56, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Meaning of a reference

A running theme in this talk page seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what "references" mean. In actual professional publications, they are often added after the the paper was written (sometimes suggested by referees), often indicate further reading rather than sources used to write an article (and, in fact, the two "categories" are largely indistinguishable...a good source is often good further reading, and vice versa). The only thing professional scholars regard as dishonest is not citing something you used; citing something you didn't "use" but believe is related and helpful for readers is not only acceptable but is actively encouraged. Don't base your understanding of referencing on high-school homework assignments. —Steven G. Johnson 20:31, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Professional scholars are also expected to know what sources state contradict what they are stating. Sometimes they are writing something which contradicts something previous and will specifically mention the issue in the text. Sometimes they may include a contradictory reference to show they are aware of the topic even if they don't deal with that issue (or it may be peripheral to the present work). ...and sometimes a reference might not be removed although the text which used the reference is removed during editing before publication. (SEWilco 22:30, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC))

In Wikipedia, sometimes references have a life of their own. I just saw one article with "See also" containing links to a wide assortment of related WP articles. They are all related to the article in various ways. What I've seen happen is such baskets of references accumulate until they contain subgroups and they can be rearranged to make more sense. Some changes will be done by editors and some by experts. However, it is helpful for there to be supporting material of various types both for readers and WP editors. (SEWilco 22:30, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC))

Update what you know

Considering how often "what everyone knows" is not true, it is a good idea to check what you know. References should at least include enough for an equal to confirm information. As Wikipedia is intended for a wide range of readers, some references to introductory materials on the topic is a courtesy to less experienced readers. In Wikipedia, references to general information might be provided by Wikilinks to articles. However, often an expert forgets that not everyone knows the background material; readers which have to dig to find information to understand something can help others by adding needed info. For that matter, I had to wade through the above discussion to figure out the issues -- and added subheadings to help future readers. (SEWilco 22:30, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC))

It's not there if it isn't sourced

There's a simple answer about this. The primary wikipedia "process" isn't writing, it's editing. Whilst a source may not have been used in writing, it will have been used in fact checking which is done by looking for a good source for each fact. If no source can be found then the fact should, according to policy, be deleted. This means that it's the fact checker (the one who provides the source) rather than the author who can take responsibility for the fact and who used the source. The original writing should rather, even if used unchanged, be seen as a "useful hint" for the final editor about what to look for in the different sources. That may not be intuitive to everybody, but it is intellectually clear and honest once you understand it... Mozzerati 14:45, 2005 Feb 26 (UTC)

Digital Object Identifiers

Should digital object identifier (DOI) be mentioned?

Template is at Template:Doi

{{doi|10.1016/j.coi.2004.08.001}} produces: doi:10.1016/j.coi.2004.08.001 (SEWilco 00:45, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC))

Question 1: Removing citations

What about edits that remove citations? Especially citations to government admission of actions which the editor disputed took place. and which become part of edit war.

Usually the edit war is not over the citation per se as the content; resolve the problem concerning content, and the citation problem will get solved too. Also, I think in most cases the conflict might involve whether the citation is being used appropriately. Anyway, I think the thing to do is settle on the content of the page, then put in the correct citations. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:13, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• And when the "solution" one side of the edit war has, is to rename the article to a different subject? Or to remove the content they do not like and later re-insert a twisted version of the content to give a negative and false impression of the original subject?--Daeron 00:36, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Question 2: Plagiarism

When multiple sentences or entire paragraphs have been copied verbatim from other works without credit, should a notice be added until it is either credited or re-worded. Also, when a source is in the public domain with a well displayed request that any copy be credited; what is the Wikipedia opinion; credit, or no credit of the source?--Daeron 14:30, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You should always credit your sources, even if 1) you don't copy verbatim, or 2) the source is public domain. Plagiarism is orthogonal to copyright issues. dbenbenn | talk 15:48, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Anyone brave enough to comment on this talk page Talk:Demographics_of_Lebanon or attempt an edit on the article itself? I can not, OneGuy seems to be convinced that I am the son of Satan or something or that I'm hoelessly pro-black human rights and anti-Islam or something and that I'm therefore not entitled to edit Wikipedia articles.--Daeron 00:26, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Footnotes

I'd like to make a move to start recommending footnotes more strongly and to select one (probably not more than one?) footnote system from the candidate systems in existence. I've made a proposal at Wikipedia:Footnote3 for a fully automatically numbered footnote system. I think this is good enough.

At the same time, I actually want to put a strong support for footnotes as a form of source citing. We are not writing academic papers; our audience is more or less "the man on the street". This should include those who are not expert readers for many reasons (e.g. didn't learn till recently; don't get much chance to practice not having access to books; are non native speakers; have learning difficulties). Numbered footnotes are used in "normal" books (if anything) for the simple reason that they do not interrupt reading. If we want to allow easy checking of who said what, then later we can allow the link title to be altered with a change to mediawiki. In my footnote system (which uses names to link from reference to note) that will be possible automatically just by altering the template. Mozzerati 08:33, 2005 Feb 20 (UTC)

And more to the point, the suggestion in the article that foot/endnotes are discouraged in scientific writing is far from universally true. Nearly all Computer Science papers that I have ever seen use either numbered or symbolic ("[LMKQ89]") endnote references, and very rarely cite specific page numbers for individual quotations (perhaps because most of the work in this field is in the form of papers rather than monstergraphs). The deprecation of footnotes in some branches of academe seems, from the proffered reasons, to mainly be a hundred-year-delayed reaction to the difficulty of doing some things on a typewriter; we have long understood that, well, "that's what we have computers for". Moving reference information to footnotes or endnotes (in WP they are effectively indistinguishable) is just good common sense; we should not discourage it on the grounds that some academic style guides haven't yet escaped from the 1970s. (How recently was it that APA said it was acceptable to use italics for book titles instead of underlining?)

I should mention, by the way, that in Computer Science papers it is also standard practice to place notes in bibliographic, rather than citation, order, so the first citation in a paper might well be "[17]". 18.26.0.18 23:03, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Web Ctiation Template considered harmful

I wonder about whether the web citation template isn't actively harmful. Web references shouldn't be treated much differently from others and, given the dynamic nature of the web and when they are available, it's important to include: Author, Date of last modification (very important since the referenced text may have been edited after archive.org took a copy and before the retrieval for the reference). The web citatation templte misses out too much of this. Mozzerati 16:45, 2005 Feb 26 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand - the template merely implements the recommendation for citing a web page that is given further the page. Are you saying that that recommendation is wrong? If so, isn't the first step to change that rather than the template? Pcb21| Pete 17:02, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Is there a technical problem in a template having a field, such as Author, for which there may be no information and thus may be omitted? --SEWilco 19:26, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Agreed that the recommendation should be fixed, but a recommendation doesn't actually stop people including extra information which the current template seems to (at least to me). SEWilco's proposal for optional parameters would be great, but, according to the m:Help:Template template help page) the only think it seems possible to do is to have parameters and set them to blank. That might not be a bad thing ("cut and paste this and fill in what you know") since it would encourage others to help later. Mozzerati 15:05, 2005 Feb 27 (UTC)

Hmm.. I just looked carefully at the recommendation and found it agrees with me. It says that specific web pages should be treated like "books" and then gives an example with author and date included. In this case, I think fixing the template is needed, but there are many pages to fix. Maybe we can do a template with defaults that ask for more to be filled in... Mozzerati 21:30, 2005 Feb 27 (UTC)

Citations in the text

Shouldn't we be, and when did we stop, encouraging in-text citations for the reasons listed on this project page? Hyacinth 18:50, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well clearly it is more effort to properly cite an article inline than to not bother. That seems to be the biggest reason it doesn't happen more often. The only argument I have seen against inline citations is that Wikipedia doesn't need them. We don't need lots of things but that doesn't mean we wouldn't be better of if we had them. The other I suppose is that some people think things like (McKusick, 2004 pp 22-25) in the text is irritating and distracting. I guess I can agree with that since some people don't care about the citations. The system being worked on at Wikipedia:Footnotes looks like it works really well. The next step is to have a user preference or skin setting that would allow hiding that stuff entirely for those that would want to. As I see it that would eliminate any downside of inline citations. If you look at the last several months of articles written about Wikipedia almost all of them focus on Wikipedia's percieved lack of reliability or claim it is not reliable. There really are no other valid criticisms left. Not to be too much of a broken record, but the only way to counter that is to follow the ideas at Wikipedia:Verifiability, primary of which is inline citations. I guess the reason it stopped being encouraged as much is that enough people are negative about the whole thing (read above for examples) that those trying to promote it lost steam. - Taxman 20:24, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

I believe strongly in, and think we should encourage in the strongest way, extensive source citation (see Attalus I for an example). I also think that footnoted citation is better than inline citation (less distracting), but inline citation is much better than no citation at all. Taxman is correct that the charge of "unreliability" is the single most important criticism Wikipedia faces. Some like, Larry Sanger believe that the way to deal with this is for Wikipedia to become a more accommodating place for experts. I think however, extensive source citation is the best way for Wikipedia to respond to this problem. Paul August ☎ 21:45, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Paul, no one is arguing against citation of sources. The only question is, given that one has put the complete reference info at the end of the article, when does one also need to insert an inline citation? The answer, I think, is when it is not clear which reference one would go to for more information on a particular fact, or which reference is the basis for a particular statement.

Since Wikipedia is not for original research, many articles should cite a few major secondary sources (e.g. textbooks), and thus it should be fairly clear which reference to go to. If you find yourself making arguments whose details need to be extensively referenced, my immediate concern would be that you might be performing original research by creating a "novel synthesis" of primary sources rather than summarizing well-established secondary/tertiary sources. —Steven G. Johnson 22:00, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Inline citations or footnotes, are helpful not only to make it clear in which reference, but also where, in a given reference (which may, for example, be many hundreds of pages long), the reader should look. By the way, as Taxman says above, thinking in terms of when, or if, source citations are "needed" is a bit of a red herring. Rather we should be thinking in terms of when, or if, they make the article better. In my opinion they almost always do. Paul August ☎ 23:21, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Used judiciously, inline citations are often helpful, but overused they can become a distraction. As for specific page/section numbers, they are helpful even less often than inline citations, and I rarely see them even in professional scholarly works with heavy citations; most textbooks have a table of contents and index that are sufficient to quickly find a topic. —Steven G. Johnson 02:52, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

(Anyway, it's a bit of a moot point, since the main difficulty is in getting people to cite sources in the first place. —Steven G. Johnson)

Looking for some help here

Recently, at Bovo-Bukh, User:Doops systematically removed my precise citations with the comment "all those paragraph-ending credits were getting out of hand". I have been bending over backwards to be as precise as possible in my citations. In this case the article as it stands all comes essentially from one book, but presumably it will grow and other sources will be cited. In my experience, if sources are not cited when the material is entered, they never will be.

Right now, I'm fuming, and I know I should not engage directly with the person who did this. If someone else agrees with me, I would greatly appreciate if they would (1) revert Doops's edit at Bovo-Bukh; (2) leave a note on his talk page, or the talk page of the article, explaining why the edit is reverted. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:41, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

• Looks like we reached an OK compromise there. ~~ Jmabel | Talk 01:03, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

Again I could use some help, this time at Tibetan people (see Talk:Tibetan people#Explanation). I'm guessing that Mr Tan is completely unfamiliar with academic citation; see also User_talk:Mr_Tan#.22Borrowed_content.22 (which came up, in part, because he removed the 1911 from the article). I'm sure his intentions are good, but I'm getting frustrated trying to educate someone about the basics of citation as he keeps editing out the citations from the article and I keep having to restore them. To be honest, I'm tired of putting in so much time defending an article from simple ignorance (not of its topic, which he may well know better than I, but of the nature of citation). I only have so much time for Wikipedia these days, and it seems a waste to spending it all preventing (probably well-intentioned) damage instead of writing articles. This is not a topic close to my heart; I'm getting to the point of saying, in effect, "fine, screw up the article". -- Jmabel | Talk 07:39, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

I understand your frustration above, though I have not experience such persistent removal of sources. As another user who is likely to be criticized for "getting out of hand" with citations, I would assist efforts to support citation. Hyacinth 22:16, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Looks like this particular one got worked through. Very annoying, though... -- Jmabel | Talk 22:47, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

Articles in books

How should articles found in books be cited and listed? Hyacinth 22:13, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we have a clear standard yet, but I would use something like:

• Drummond, Henry, "The People and Forests of Eastern Africa", in Morris, Charles and Leigh, Oliver H.G. (eds.), With the World's Greatest Travellers, Union Book Company, Chicago (1901), VIII:92-102.

That last is volume and page numbers. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:05, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I had been doing:

• Morris, Charles and Leigh, Oliver H.G. (eds.), With the World's Greatest Travellers, Union Book Company, Chicago (1901), VIII:92-102.
  • Drummond, Henry, "The People and Forests of Eastern Africa"

But this is not clear, and has also been my format for books cited in books. Hyacinth 23:45, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

---

The guidelines currently suggest using the APA "Last, First" style for author names. I'd like to suggest that this is a very bad idea, for the following reasons:

1. "We have computers to do that": using one of the standard footnote templates, someone looking for a reference will be taken directly to it, so there is no need to reorder names just to make it faster to search the list.
2. As well-documented elsewhere, this is only useful for European names, and the appropriate way to write an author's name in this style is not necessarily obvious from the way it is written on the book or in the article, unless one has another citation of the same author for comparison.
3. Most importantly, WP policy for article titles is natural order, not "Last, First", so putting author names in natural order simplifies linking those authors who have WP articles.

18.26.0.18 23:15, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Deleted material

Stevenj deleted the following, and does not seem to have added any equivalent. Since (unlike some people who will remain nameless) I don't want to edit an important policy page without consensus, I thought I would bring this here and make sure that others agree with me that this should be restored:

When citing the publisher, omit "company," "books," "press," and similar words, except when referring to university presses. For example: "Penguin" instead of "Penguin Company," "McGraw-Hill" instead of "McGraw-Hill Book Company" (but: "University of Chicago Press," not "University of Chicago."

By the way, our example with "Wol Press" violates this rule. On the whole, I like the slightly cute examples given, but I think this one is awfully obscure for people who really need an example. It may not be obvious that "Hundred Acre Wood: Wol Press" is supposed to be place of publication and publisher. I suggest something less obscure.

This too:

Italicize the title of the book. If there is a subtitle, write it after the title of the book and a colon.

Italicizing titles is normal practice in English. No, not every standard calls for it, but it almost always makes it clearer what portion is the book title. Similarly, everyone in the English-speaking world recognizes a colon as separating a title from a subtitle. German practice, for example, is different (they use a period) but is seems to me that we should encourage consistency on this point in the English Wikipedia.

(Rewording very slightly in this next one, because it was not completely in line with current section-naming practice...)

Alphabetize the sources in a "References" or "Further reading" section by last name. For entries without an author or with an anonymous or unnamed author, alphabetize by the title of the work (omitting conjunctions and propositions).

Does anyone have a problem with restoring these to the project page? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:34, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

Completely agreed on the first two. I'm not sure there was a consensus decision taken on alphabetizing reference lists -- if I recall there was some contention that other orders, like importance of source or order of recommended reading, could be useful. I don't mind alphabetization myself, but let's be wary of instruction creep. (Also, I have to say that I think the addition of MLA style examples is completely reasonable, and their deletion, while it doesn't bother me hugely, strikes me as a bit hasty. If we offer one "example" style without consensus to use it, others surely can make the same claim.) -- Rbellin|Talk 06:56, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As for the multiple styles of citation: they each deserve an article in the main space, we can link here. And yes, alphabetization is the least important of these three, I don't really care about it either, just pointing out that it was longstanding content removed without consensus or even a clear comment. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:04, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

I have no specific objection to adding back the bits about the publisher and the italicization; I would leave out the bit about alphabetizing references because there is no consensus on it. However, I generally am concerned about adding in zillions of picky instructions — they make the page as a whole less readable and more off-putting. Keep in mind that our main priority is to get people to cite sources in the first place — I could care less whether someone puts "Press" in the publisher name or italicizes the title (the latter should be clear from the examples anyway). Trying to turn this into something resembling a comprehensive citation style guide, or worse, a guide to several styles (APA, MLA, IEEE, APS, etc. etc.) works against that goal. The only purpose of the examples — remember, there is no consensus on a precise style anyway — is to give people who aren't used to citation a template to follow to make sure they include all the information. —Steven G. Johnson 01:32, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

Not everyone shares your feelings on this specific topic, or your worldview. I valued every detail given on this project page when I first started citing sources because that knowledge gave me the confidence to do it. Rather than seeing all the little stylistic details as horrible rules that I didn't want to bother with I was glad to have something explain it to me and help me understand the bigger picture through the details. Hyacinth 20:52, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Merge

Wikipedia:References has not been updated for almost a year and is mostly forgotten - it should be merged here and made into a redirect, would you agree? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:23, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

it's completely obsolete having been superceeded by Wikipedia:Footnotes Wikipedia:Footnote2 and Wikipedia:Footnote3. Although none of these has become policy, it's clear to me that direct external links are a bad idea since it's impossible to tell what they are supposed to refer to if the content at the other end of the link gets changed. I think that little of the material should be moved elsewhere. Probably it should just be marked as obsolete. Mozzerati 20:17, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)

Wikipedia:References makes sense to me. Having read through the first and skimmed the second two, I still have no idea what those three things are, and why there are three. Hyacinth 20:59, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good point. The Footnote* articles are based around new technologies and are intended to replace some References material. The Footnote* tools have not been completed, and the discussion has been focused on techniques and usage, so the pages are describing trees without giving an overview of forest for casual readers. (SEWilco 03:50, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC))

Importance

---

From Wikipedia:Importance#Sources.

What are the standards of importance for sources? (prompted by recent dispute on Talk:Myth) Sure, we have to Wikipedia:Cite sources, but who and what kind? Does the source need to be a professor of the article's topic? Do they have to be an "expert"? A professional? A friend or relative? Should creationist sources be allowed? Hyacinth 03:19, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

For example: mythology.

May no discipline other than mythology comment on myths, or just not on Wikipedia? Why? What about when other fields studies include myths, such as music with texts or tone painting depicting myths. Would a source simple need to be respected in both fields? Actually all three: mythology, poetry, and musicology? (four including history?) Freud may not be an expert in the history of myth, but that does not mean he may not have insight. Also, he was an example, and possibly a poor one, so don't waste your words tearing him apart. Hyacinth 06:13, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if there is an easily defined standard, but if the purpose is quoting someone on the definition of the term, that individual ought to be highly respected and sourced by other scholarly published references in the field. To use your example, Freud, although he may be entertaining, certainly would not count as notable for defining a field other than psychoanalysis and its offshoots (say, dream analysis or something along those lines). DreamGuy 03:32, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC) (from Talk:Myth#substance)

Shouldn't this be part of Wikipedia:Cite sources or a related policy? It's really a different issue to the importance of different subjects. ··gracefool |☺ 01:39, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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There's some discussion of this above: see especially #"Reputable" vs. "Appropriate" sources and #Types of sources. If someone wants to summarize some of this and add a short section to the project page (or discuss it at more length in a separate page and link to it from the project page) I think that would be good. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:48, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Citing other Encyclopedias

What's about citing other encyclopedias? (Britannica, Columbia, Encarta, etc.) I find other encyclopedias to be great for checking content and style (after all the ultimate goal is to make the article as good as what they have or better). Should they be listed as sources? - Pioneer-12 01:42, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I would say that if you've significantly used them, yes. But I'd also say to be cautious about making significant use of any currently copyrighted encyclopedia: the potential for problematic plagiarism is probably larger there than anywhere else. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:55, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

Speaking of this, I recently started a List of encyclopedias in Google Print with over 20 preformatted references. --Alterego 15:18, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

Also there are issues of accuracy, verifiability and distance from original source. Encyclopedias are, like Wikipedia tertiary sources, written as a summary of other sources. Furthermore, most encylopedias fail to follow our cite sources policy most of the time. This means that when something is wrong, there's no way to know why or where it came from. There are a number of examples of this, for example, since encyclopedias state David Irving's made up numbers for casualties in the Bombing of Dresden without attribution, many people end up with the same error, but it's difficult to trace why. Better to always find a secondary source and back it up by checking some of the primary sources. Once you've done that the encyclopedia will probably only qualify for external links. Mozzerati 06:51, 2005 Apr 20 (UTC)

There may be issues of verifiability and distance from the original source, but there aren't any issues of accuracy. An up to date version of a major encyclopedia is one of the most accurate sources on the planet. Far more accurate then your average secondary source (which may be written by a poor researcher or someone with a political agenda). Of course you can find a number of examples of errors (in a work of over thirty thousand pages, there are bound to be some), but that doesn't change the fact that they are accurate well over 99% of the time. This doesn't mean that you should blindly follow what's in the Britannica or Columbia; it means that, if you say something contrary, you better have a very good reason.

Of course I don't think we should be copying other encyclopedias wholesale. In fact, it seems kind of silly for an encyclopedia to be listing other encyclopedias as references at all. (Seems rather derivative, don't you think?) However, I do think that they should be checked and compared often. It's amazing how many articles here can be improved in style and organization just by comparing what other encyclopedias have to say on the subject.

I like the idea of putting them as external links. That helps out both the readers and writers of wikipedia. Hmmm, maybe that should be mentioned in the style guide, or even supported in the software... - Pioneer-12 09:05, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pioneer-12 writes, "In fact, it seems kind of silly for an encyclopedia to be listing other encyclopedias as references at all." I agree 100%. Of course it makes sense that we compare our articles to those in other encyclopedias, because it maight give us ideas. But I think it is absurd for one encyclopedia to use another one as a source. We might as well just tell people not to look at us but to look at another encyclopedia. I guarantee that the authors of articles in other well-established encyclopedias do not use encyclopedias as sources, they go out and do real research, looking at primary and secondary sources. We should do the same. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:24, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)'

It's not absurd, it's a great idea. Most encyclopedias are specialized and strive to go to great detail in their subject matter. They are not your atypical Encarta or Britannica which aim to give a general overview. If we were citing those, I agree it would be absurd. But citing a specialized encyclopedia for an important yet arcane factoid is an awesome use of resources. For example, there was recently an unsolved debate as to what Alferd Packer was charged for. I did a little bit of Google Printing and came across the Encyclopedia of Western Lawmen & Outlaws, which mentioned he was tried for murder and convicted for manslaughter. Since the information was at best ambiguous on internet sources, this was the best way out. If, in the future, overwhelming evidence contradicts the statement in that encyclopedia, we know exactly what statement to replace, where it came from, and what the reasoning was at the time --Alterego 21:05, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Right. Citing specialized encyclopedias is good. Citing general-purpose encyclopedias is silly. Checking and comparing general-purpose encyclopedias is a very good heuristic. - Pioneer-12

Automating citations and references

Suggestion: It would be nice if we could partially automate citations and references for books and other materials with an ISBN by providing a template something like {cite:<isbn number>} and {ref:<isbn number>}, that would be expanded at page-request time. Ignoring for the moment how the data would be stored, such a citation or reference would fetch the data and insert it into the HTML whenever a page containing it is requested.

The reason I suggest this partly for ease of providing good citations, but also so that corrections to a book's bibliographic info could be made in a centralized place, and we could start getting away from the incorrect/incomplete references scattered all over Wikipedia that are very labor-intensive to track down and fix. (We want good citations for our articles, right?)

Some thought needs to go into the mechanism, but here are some conversation-starter thoughts. Clearly the links can't be autogenerated if no one has entered the data, so presumably the data would reside on a special class of page containing the bib info for that ISBN. Ideally the citations and references would contain not only the text extracted from that page, but also link to it as an article about the book, so that interested parties could find out more about the source as a book, if there is anything to say about it beyond its publication data.

However, that simple scheme is complicated by the fact that some books have multiple editions with different ISBNs. That should be addressable in a straightforward manner if we had the ISBN citation repository, because then an article about a book could just {ref:<isbn number>} in a "Known editions" section. What we would need for going in the other direction is an article name somewhere in the ISBN citation repository, so that you can find the article about the book (if one exists) from the ISBN.

Of course, the automagically generated reference could still include the ISBN as an anchor for a link to the book-search stuff we have now; presumably it would be the title of the book within the reference that would link to the article (if any) about the book. Also, it would be nice if the {cite:blah} and {ref:blah} in an article simply didn't show up if the necessary data hadn't been entered; that might encourage people to cite sources that they wouldn't bother with if they had to do more than flip the book over and look at the ISBN.

At any rate, don't let the implementation issues distract from the basic desirability of having the publication data about a book stored only in a single place so that it is easy to maintain, plus an automated system for fetching that data into other articles as formal citations and references. — B.Bryant 01:06, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Just a remark: ISBN only works for books, and only for those published in about the last 40 years. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:32, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Content moved

I moved the discussion on the appropriateness and quality of sources to Wikipedia talk:Cite sources/Appropriate sources (well, I hope I moved all of it). David.Monniaux 06:29, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Neat. It seems you are planning on distilling from that talk page a Cite sources/Appropriate sources page. That would be nice to have.

- Pioneer-12 06:45, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Question added

Please see my comment/question above in 10 Article titles in quotes. — Emerman 15:45, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Alternate citation style?

I know that the APA and MLA styles are the most famous and preferred in most academic circles, but I'm not too fond of them. I've always found the ordering of infomation to be awkward. I prefer listing the title first. Is there an official, notable style that uses this format? I don't want to cite sources with the title first only for my style to be considered "irregular" and changed to APA style later. I would rather just use a notable "regular" (if perhaps uncommon) citation style to begin with. If there is no viable alternative, then I will use AMA--but surely there must be an alternative.... - Pioneer-12 13:12, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think everyone has a preferred citation style of their own; it's likely to be difficult to come to any sort of global WP consensus because disciplines vary as to preferred styles, and many parts of WP aren't really the subject of formal study. There looks to be talk about providing a BibTeX-like citation system, where this could be made a matter of user preference. (I generally prefer "plain.btx" style myself.) Being flexible in this regard also makes contributing much less daunting to non-mavens; there are far too many policies and unofficial conventions as it is. So long as all the necessary information is there, people should not complain about citation style (and should only change the citation style if it is inconsistent or incomplete, not because it doesn't conform to the style guide they used in school). 18.26.0.18 23:27, 2 May 2005 (UTC)