Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Nil Einne (talk | contribs) at 13:41, 5 November 2006 (→Why is this site so Anal about citations?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Archives

Youtube

Where can I get up to speed on Youtube as a source? I've never actually watched a Youtube clip, don't understand all the excitement, don't know what it's about, but I'm cleaning up a lot of references in election articles and need to understand:

1. Is it a WP:RS?
2. If an upload violates copyright, how can it be a WP:RS?
3. If it is a WP:RS, how is it cited in a footnote?
4. Do we have a page, guideline, description anywhere?

Thanks, Sandy 22:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Sandy, Youtube should not be used as a source, except in the sense that there might be clips of documentaries or other films that counted as reliable sources. But in cases like that, the source is the documentary, not Youtube, and providing a Youtube link would only be done as a matter of courtesy to the reader (so long as there's no copyright violation, I suppose). It would be like finding a blog that hosted a copy of a NYT article that was no longer available on the NYT site. So long as we had no reason to believe the article might have been tampered with, it's fine to link to the blog. But the source is the NYT, not the blog, and the full citation should be for the NYT article. SlimVirgin 02:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, SV. See other conversation at the talk page of WP:BLP: more feedback there. Sandy 02:36, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

refactoring

This page has grown into a sprawling mess. It needs some serious reorganization and refactoring. I don't have time to do it myself at the moment, but I would encourage someone to be bold and edit this page down to the essential information. A lot of the stuff on this page is old and not especially relevent any more. Also, we should be pushing the use of cite.php more, as it has become a de facto requirement for featured articles. The way we word things here is very non-commital and ambiguous, i.e. "You may want to do this or you may want to do that" rather than giving some definite recommendations. Kaldari 21:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Subscription sites

What do we do about links to cited articles where there is an online version, but only on a paid subscription site. For example, Paris Commune cites

• Benedict Anderson (July–August 2004). "In the World-Shadow of Bismarck and Nobel". New Left Review.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)

Nothing about that citation indicates that you have to pay to see anything past the first paragraph of the online version. That seems wrong to me. Any suggestions? - Jmabel | Talk 04:36, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

For the particular citation you mention, going to the home page indicates that the publication is both in print and online, so you could go to a library that keeps back issues. In any case, I see no problem with subscription sites. Books, magazines, and newspapers have to be paid for, so why not web sites? --Gerry Ashton 05:32, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess what I don't like is that it provides a URL without saying that all it's going to take you to is a teaser. We should have some way to distinguish that, on more or less the same principle that we don't link a book title to the Amazon page selling the book. - Jmabel | Talk 06:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

We often link to articles in journals where the full text is only available for a fee. Probably the vast majority of "doi" links only offer free abstracts. What characteristics define when summary information is insufficient for confirming a source? (SEWilco 02:26, 18 October 2006 (UTC))

Occasionally, the information in the article may be taken from the abstract, but usually access to the full text is needed to confirm the article. And of course, learning more than is in the article will usually need the full text. I wouldn't be opposed to coming up with some keyword to let people know it is a subscription site. --Gerry Ashton 02:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

What I often do (see Circumcision) is to put “Abstract” in the format tag of the {{cite journal}} entry, which informs the reader that the statement being corroborated comes from the abstract and that the full-text is often not available. For the few times that abstract does not corroborate the statement, I will leave an editors note (see reference #92 in Circumcision for an example). -- Avi 03:53, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

advice needed

Although I have confirmed it from many users I just want to make sure that- If quoting from a different language source, an English translation should be given with the original-language quote beside it. means u should only translate the part of the non-english source which u intend to use in the article (and not the whole source).Plz confirm this on my talk page as I am not sure I will be able to locate this page again! Mahawiki 13:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

"Quoting" is the operative word. If you are quoting in English from a non-English source, then inherently the English is there. The issue is to reproduce the corresponding portion of the original, in the original language. - Jmabel | Talk 06:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Convenience links essay

I've written an essay on "convenience links" that cites this page heavily and would love to hear any thoughts. Thanks, TheronJ 21:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Here is a convenient link to the essay: Misplaced Pages:Convenience links (SEWilco 02:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC))

Proving I have read the book

I have cited a book, and my honesty about having possession of it was questioned. I went so far as to scan the page I was quoting. My honesty is still being questioned. It's not a rare book; am I required to verify myself before I'm allowed to verify facts in articles? Are there any guidelines that talk about this? --Masamage 05:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Umm, no, you're not; as you're an editor in good standing, your word is sufficient. (It should be fairly easy for anyone who actually cares to check; I'm assuming this isn't some rare manuscript we're talking about.) Kirill Lokshin 05:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Nope, just a normal book. ^^; Thanks for your reply; sometimes one just needs to hear these things from an outside party. It looks like the discussion is dying down anyway without any intervention, but for the future, maybe there should be some reference to this meta-verification thing? Something official stating that when "you're an editor in good standing, your word is sufficient" might have been handy... --Masamage 05:59, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Even if it's a somewhat rare book, questioning someone who's provided a scan of the relevant page(s) seems to violate WP:AGF in a pretty big way to me. --- The Bethling 06:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

And anyway, the proper question here was "what does the book say?", not "What was Massmage's connection to it?" If the source actually bolds, or does not bold, whether Massmage got his image by e-mail is irrelevant to the article. (Meat-puppetry, which seems to be implied here, is another question; but I don;t see this as one of the limited number of cases where it matters.) Septentrionalis 19:59, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

"Further reading" goes after "References"? I'm not sure that's a good idea.

I see the rationale - the references are really a part of the article, and things like external links, books on related topics, etc. should appear at the end of the article.

But many of the articles I've worked on have really large numbers of references: Condom, for example, has 59 cited sources, and even in small font the references section takes up 2.5 screens on my monitor. Is it really reasonable to expect readers to scroll through that much text they are not interested in to see the "Further reading" and related sections?

In my view, the Footnotes/References section is integrally tied into the article through the footnote system - where the reader can go back and forth between the text of the article and cites for specific material at the click of a mouse. Because of this hypertext connection, I do not see any benefit to articles of having the cites immediately following the text.

In contrast, "Further reading" type sections benefit from immediately following the text. Readers learn about a topic, and then they learn where they can find even more information. Is there any support to making this change to the Further reading/external links guidelines? Or at least saying the best order of these sections may be different in different articles? Lyrl _Contribs 18:29, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I would expect that most useful works will be listed in the references, because the editors will have consulted them in writing the article. The further reading section is much less related to the article, as it may not, in fact, be where we want to send the reader; quite often, it's a grab bag of related works that, for one reason or another, were not suitable for use as references.

(To give a concrete example: on Battle of Ceresole, the actual works to consult for more information are in the "References" section, while the "Further reading" section contains non-English works and obscure primary sources that really aren't going to be helpful to the average reader.) Kirill Lokshin 19:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I think a distinction needs to be made between major sources for the article, and citations for one or just a handful of sentences. Some articles seperate these two types of sources, for example IntraUterine System has both a "References" section (for major sources) and "Footnotes" section (for minor sources, and different page numbers of the references). Major sources for the article, I agree should be located above "Further reading" type sections. In my experience, however, many articles have Footnote sections composed almost entirely of a grab bag of unrelated works that support a single statement or minor discussion, but are not particularly relevent to the article as a whole. In the Diaphragm (contraceptive) article, for example, the "External links" section would be more helpful to curious readers than the "Footnotes" section.

Note also that the Battle of Ceresole article has only eight references, which even at normal font size take up less than half a screen. I think listings of major sources are going to tend to be relatively short like this. But listings of minor sources are going to be very long. The longer the reference/footnote section, in other words, the less likely it is going to contain information interesting to readers, and the more of a pain it is to scroll past it to get to any following sections. Lyrl _Contribs 22:23, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, the references are further reading, right? Any of them can give you additional information. The actual Further Reading section just expands on that with things that weren't necessarily used within the article itself. So if you miss it because of a 60-citation References section, you might miss out on four or five good sources, but you'll still have 60 at your disposal. --Masamage 22:28, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

for smooth reading, I suggest the references or end-notes should come after the Further Reading/Bibliography. The reference notes are NOT an integral unit because they are not meant to be read consecutively (they are linked to sentences), but the Bibliography is an integral unit of the article in its own right. Rjensen 22:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, the list of references isn't really meant to be read consecutively either. ;-)

Really, the full order can be either "Notes, References, Further reading" or "References, Notes, Further reading" when a "References" section separate from the notes (and offering a condensed bibliography of works used as sources for the article) is present. The such cases, the further reading is basically icing on the cake, and not really needed for the average reader.

The hard case is where (usually because of the cite-many-sources-once issue) the "References" and "Notes" sections are combined)—in other words, where there isn't a bibliography-style alphabetical listing of sources in addition to the actual endnotes. I'm not sure what the most sensible order would be, in this case, but I suspect that it will vary according to the needs of the article and the value of whatever is listed as "further reading". Kirill Lokshin 22:37, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The order of sections in an article is covered by WP:LAYOUT and I suggest that part of the Manual of Style be discussed and possibly modified, rather than bringing it up here. --Gerry Ashton 22:42, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The bibliography should include all the books a user should know about, even if it means duplication from reference section. The reason is that users print out the bibliography and use it as a check list against the local library catalog. Unless the user has access to a big research library, only a few of the titels will be available. Rjensen 22:46, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

There are two possible sections of "bibliography" here: the "References" section (in its alphabetical listing of sources form, when there's a separate section of endnotes), and the "Further reading" section, which is always in such a form. The two need to be kept separate, however, as the first includes only those sources that were actually consulted by editors, while the second can include any source, even if no editor of the article has actually read it. To combine the two would generally be inappropriate, as it would make it impossible to determine which sources were actually used to produce the material in the article. Kirill Lokshin 23:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The solution to the Lokshin problem is to duplicate titles. That is make the Further Reading complete in itself--these are the recommended books to use. Rjensen 23:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

As opposed to simply realizing that people will happily print off both the "References" and the "Further reading" if they're looking to do more research? All we need to do is to make both sections available in a sensible place; we shouldn't take reader hand-holding to the point where it's causing us trouble. Duplicating material is a mess, and conflating the references and the further reading (which is often not used as a reference because it's not a suitable source for some reason, a point that is most likely something of which the reader would like to be made aware) is even more of one. Kirill Lokshin 23:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

References are not always further reading. A "References and notes" section can be completely filled with pages of citations that have no content other than the one sentence they support. While further reading and external links type sections may, depending on the article, have books or large webpages full of content relevant to the article. In such cases, it makes more sense to put those sections first, and the references and notes sections at the very end of the article.

WP:LAYOUT says that "Further reading" may go either above or below References/Footnotes sections. Which contradicts this guideline (Misplaced Pages:Citing sources#Further reading/external links). Although both locations say that external links have to go at the end, which I do not understand - external links are further reading in online form, why would a section titled "External links" be treated differently than a section titled "Further reading"? I will post on the WP:LAYOUT talk page also, but I think the discussion should continue here since the two guideline pages are not currently consistent with each other. Lyrl _Contribs 01:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

So we have a standard section to edit for interwiki links and cats. Septentrionalis 20:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

That would mean that all articles should be required to have an External Links section. To me, that is not a convincing rationale either. Lyrl _Contribs 22:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Lyrl, I'm not sure of the wisdom of the para you added, so I'm moving it here. We would just end up with POV pushers endlessly emphasizing their preferred texts. SlimVirgin 22:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

"Normally, only items that have not been used as sources for the article are placed in these sections. All sources must be listed in the "References" or "Notes" sections. However, if there are a large number of items used as sources, but only a few would be useful to readers seeking a broad discussion of the topic, emphasizing the utility of the source by listing it also in an "External links" or "Further reading" section is acceptable."

How to cite...

When writing a new article or adding references to an existing article that has none, follow the established practice for the appropriate profession or discipline that the article is concerning (if available and unquestioned).

Now, the traditional, unquestioned method of citing papers/books in meteorology articles is to use (Author Year) inline notation. While this method is almost universal for printed media on the subject, it just doesn't seem to make sense in a wikipedia setting where clickable footnotes are available. My main concerns are that

1. (Author Year) notation may disrupt the flow of the article to a non-technical reader, and
2. (Author Year) might not pass if an article is nominated at WP:GAN.

So which convention do we follow here? Misplaced Pages's or AMS's? -Runningonbrains 16:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

An article which contains both, just in case you were looking for an example.-Runningonbrains 16:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Runningonbrains, that article needs cleanup :-) Either method is acceptable, but mixing ref styles is a no-no at WP:FAC; I fixed the footnote punctuation to agree with WP:FN (footnotes after ref). Sandy (Talk) 20:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the fixes....the reason it's still mixed that is we were in the middle of a major reorganization, and we stopped until this question got answered. -Runningonbrains 12:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know the current answer to your question, but there seems to be a fairly high demand for modifications to the Cite.php programming to allow clickable (Author Year) notes, automatically formatted in much the way the superscripts currently are. Lyrl _Contribs 22:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Definitely use the standard method for the discipline. See Misplaced Pages:Harvard citation template examples for templates that turn Harvard citations into links to the reference information. I can't speak for WP:GAN but they should not fail any article on that basis; Harvard referencing is one of Misplaced Pages's standard referencing systems. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Need Help

I got one of those notes on the top of my page Cedar Hill Area to site the refernce I did make a note one the bottom where is info is from but I am unsure how to taqg it so that the not verifyed thing comes off my page.??? --Happypixie 22:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

At a minimum, the reference list should give the author, date, title, publisher, and the city & state of the publisher. Idealy, each paragraph or so would be marked to show which reference and which page(s) the information came from. Once the information is there, it can be properly formatted. --Gerry Ashton 04:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Pixie, I found your article at Cedar Hill (neighborhood), and intended to help you set up references, but there are no references there I can help you with. Maybe if you go to WP:FA, scroll down to the Geography section, and look through some of the cities there, you'll see what is needed. Sandy (Talk) 20:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Duplication of refs in the "Further Reading" section?

This page specifically forbids duplication of references #: "An ==External links== or ==Further reading== section is placed near the end of an article and offers... that might be of interest to the reader, but which have not been used as sources for the article."

But over at WP:LAYOUT, references are allowed to be listed a second time in the "Further reading" section #: "When there are more than five references about the article, you may want to include them here so that there is a complete bibliography for users in one place."

I don't really have an opinion either way, but two policy pages should be consistent with each other. Which way should it be - duplication prohibited or allowed? Lyrl _Contribs 00:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: I've also asked this question over on the WP:LAYOUT page Misplaced Pages talk:Guide to layout#This can't be right... Lyrl _Contribs 00:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I would say that the "Further reading" section should contain links to works that continue beyond the article, preferably in a review-style way, whether or not they have been used as references. The sections serve different purposes - the references back up what's in the article, while the further reading point to stuff that's not in the article and is of interest. I wouldn't say that all references want to be duplicated in it - just those that have a usefulness beyond verification of the article. Mike Peel 08:28, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Scientific citation guidelines

I have added a link in see also to Misplaced Pages:Scientific citation guidelines, a (modest) proposal which has the support of editors from the mathematics and physics WikiProjects. If you have any comments on the guidelines, we would appreciate hearing them. –Joke 03:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I made a section for these guidelines as I think they deserve mention in the body of the text. If I was wrong, just revert. --ScienceApologist 12:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

That page has had extremely limited exposure (as far as I can tell), consensus appears based on very few participants, and the title is excessively broad (scientific) considering it appears to be the work of a few members of Physics and Math projects: please correct me if you exposed it to *all* scientific projects, and I missed that. I question the guideline status, considering the limited participation. Sandy (Talk) 14:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have mentioned it on here before and elsewhere, but I agree. It has clearly not established the consensus of all Misplaced Pages editors, and not even all the scientific WikiProjects. My next step is to ask participants in the other projects what they think. That is why we adopted the broad title.

I think I made it clear at the top of the page that the guideline was established by members of WikiProjects Physics and Mathematics and that it has not yet obtained the consensus of all of Misplaced Pages. –Joke 14:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I should note that although the exposure has been limited, quite a number of editors from outside the two projects, including a number who were involved in the recent fracas at WP:CITE and WP:GA, have been quite encouraging about the guidelines. –Joke 14:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Is it not premature for it to be labled as a guideline, then? I suggest a proposal tag. At minimum, if some version of it is to be accepted, its scope needs to be better defined: "scientific" is too broad. Sandy (Talk) 14:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

After reviewing the handful of editors who have participated in the discussion and in editing the article, I switched it to a proposal rather than a guideline. Sandy (Talk) 14:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the citation issue for scientific articles was first discussed some time ago on the wiki physics project. Joke started the page and most of what is written there was already broadly agreed to by almost everyone there. If you only look at the page you only see the few people who have invested a lot of their time to work out the "small print". Count Iblis 14:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

And I reinstated the previous text, which clearly stated the status of the page, unlike the generic proposal banner. Scientific is not too broad, and the scope is clearly defined. It is for writing articles about scientific and mathematical subjects, and it currently has the consensus of editors in physics and mathematics. –Joke 14:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I do believe it is too broad, and that consultation with all "scientific" areas should be included, if the title is to include "Scientific", rather than just math and physics. Sandy (Talk) 15:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that the other projects should be consulted, and they will be. I suppose, if, for example, the geologists are vehemently opposed to the guidelines, then the page will have to find a new name. Until then, I think it is reasonable to leave it at the present name and clearly indicate that it only has the support of these Projects. This doesn't seem too unusual for proposed Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines. The reason it was the math and physics editors who have been initially involved in this proposal is that it was principally they who were involved in the discussions at WP:CITE and WP:V. I thought that it was clear that we would never be able to change WP:CITE – because there was more to say about the issue than could reasonably be added to the page, and the red herring "every sentence needs an inline cite: yes or no?" kept rearing its ugly head – so it seemed to make sense to write a complementary proposal. –Joke 15:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I do think it should be labeled and tagged as a proposal until broader consensus across all scientific areas is achieved. For example, WP:MEDMOS has had broad consensus in the Medical project for many months (previously under a different article name), clearly states it only applies to medicine articles, no one that I'm aware of has disagreed with it, yet it is still not labeled a guideline. The "scientific" and "guideline" labels are premature, until this proposal receives broader consensus. All I'm saying is, first things first, no need to hurry a broad guideline. Sandy (Talk) 16:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Move all discussion to article talk page?

Would it be more helpful to keep all discussion in one place, at Misplaced Pages talk:Scientific citation guidelines ? Sandy (Talk) 16:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of whether the science/math citation guideline should be mentioned in the Citing sources guideline should remain here. --Gerry Ashton 17:56, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

As being discussed on the article talk page, WP:CITE overrides this proposal, thus, I don't believe it belongs here. At any rate, since it is now linked here, I've put a disputed tag on the "science" "guideline", as it does not have consensus across all science areas, and as such, is currently mistitled at least. Sandy (Talk) 18:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Any time you want to stop the rules lawyering and discuss the content, it would be helpful. -- SCZenz 20:47, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Should we really have footnotes after these facts?

Someone has tagged the following sentences in the American football article with "fact" tags:

"Super Bowl Sunday, the day of the game, has become an unofficial February holiday in the U.S.

It has ???? Since when? Sandy (Talk) 01:09, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

"College football is also extremely popular throughout North America. Four college football stadiums seat more than 100,000 fans, which regularly sell out. Even high school football games can attract more than 10,000 people in some areas. The weekly autumn ritual of college and high-school football—which includes marching bands, cheerleaders and parties (including the ubiquitous tailgate party)—is an important part of the culture in much of smalltown America. It is a long-standing tradition in the United States (though not universally observed) that high school football games are played on Friday, college games on Saturday, and professional games on Sunday (with an additional professional game on Monday nights)."

The facts tagged here are common knowledge in the U.S., not challengable assertions. Putting footnotes after them wouldn't look professional -- it would look like something done by amateurs trying to look professional.

Anyway, what would you cite for "proof" here? Friday Night Lights?

That 1987 would be a good source to cite.

64.40.60.88 01:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Advice would be appreciated. Thanks -- Mwalcoff 00:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Umm, what about readers who happen to be from some other part of the world? As a general rule, assertions about how important or widespread something is should always be cited, for the benefit of readers to whom the topic may be an entirely foreign one. Kirill Lokshin 01:05, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm a football watcher, from the USA, and I don't know this "holiday" fact. Sandy (Talk) 01:09, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if there were published references to it in that context; but there are probably undue weight issues tangled up in our presenting it that way. Kirill Lokshin 01:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The fact tags were added by User talk:Djdickmutt. Perhaps you should ask that user why they were added. I agree that citations for this sort of thing are sophomoric. CMummert 01:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, the holiday "fact" should be removed then. But when it comes to something like "high-school football is an important part of the culture in much of small-town America," what can you cite for that? That's not something that comes from a study in The New England Journal of Medicine. That's just something that's obvious from living in the country. -- Mwalcoff 01:19, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure the point has been mentioned somewhere; presumably there have been newspaper or magazine articles that have commented on football's cultural impact. (I wouldn't be surprised if there were some sociology papers available as well, actually.) Kirill Lokshin 01:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but the fact that a columnist at a newspaper somewhere says something does prove anything. The columnist wouldn't be using any footnotes or anything, either. She would be doing the same thing we were doing -- stating what she thinks is obvious. There's no point in citing a "fact" that can't be traced back to a primary source. -- Mwalcoff 01:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with secondary sources? (Indeed, they tend to be better than primary sources, in most cases.) And remember that we're not trying to prove the claim is true, merely that we aren't the ones who came up with it. Kirill Lokshin 01:42, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with secondary sources. It's fine to cite, say, a history book that consists of facts gleaned from primary sources and analyses of them. But there's no point in citing a "fact" that is just what some person's saying (unless you're quoting that person by name as an expert on the subject). In other words, if our policy is that we shouldn't allow uncited "statements of the obvious," why would we cite someone else's uncited statement of the obvious? -- Mwalcoff 01:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Because the key point is that a newspaper article isn't the same thing as a virtually anonymous wiki. Even if the newspaper is not considered to have any particular expertise, it is presumed to have some rudimentary fact-checking process, something that Misplaced Pages itself has no particular claim to.

(Obviously, a newspaper isn't the best possible source for this; something like an actual research paper would be much better. But I think it's better to have some source than to have none at all.) Kirill Lokshin 01:58, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I would disagree. I think that footnoting the obvious -- like the days of the week most football games are played -- would look pedantic and amateurish. Even in scholarly publications, where careers rest upon proper citations, they don't put a footnote after every single sentence. -- Mwalcoff 02:05, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

It's worth noting that footnoting and citing are not the same. There are numerous ways to provide specific citations for facts that are totally invisible to the reader, which can be useful in situations like this. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

In the spirit of "I think it's better to have some source than to have none at all" (an interpretation of policy I disagree with), here are two hyperlinks that you can use as sources for the "disputed" facts, so you can get on with your regular editing. The irony that these count as sources is not lost on me.

Super Bowl Sunday is the Biggest Unofficial Holiday

"In Texas, football is king"

While I appreciate your search for sources, I think the Super Bowl article you mention is an example of a case where a citation would actually be bad. The article is on an unknown site, by an unknown author, with no citations of its own. I'm sure most writers would say it's better to say something on your own authority rather than to give yourself a false aura of authenticity by footnoting your statement with an improper citation. -- Mwalcoff 02:10, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

There has been copious discussion of issues like this recently, and no consensus came out of it. CMummert 02:03, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we should say that you shouldn't, or at least don't have to, footnote anything that the writer of a scholarly article wouldn't footnote? -- Mwalcoff 02:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

A proposal very similar to that was vigorously debated for about a week last month, and no consensus was reached. CMummert 02:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Only if by no consensus you mean some didn't want to include such a statement in the policy (despite the same folks refusing to disagree with the substance of the argument). I haven't seen anyone put forward a serious argument that uncontroversial, trivial facts always require inline citation. dryguy 12:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

In this very thread, both Kirill and Sandy implied that Mwalcoff should look up references for some uncontroversial, trivial facts about American football. They do not affirm (or even mention) the option of not including inline citations for the facts. A reasonable person reading their comments might think that the policy states every fact requires an inline citation, which is doesn't. The question which did not reach consensus is whether this policy should explicitly say that some facts do not require inline citation (when they are trivial and uncontroversial, presumably). CMummert 13:34, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Umm, if they are contesting it, that's pretty much the definition of a controversy. If I recall correctly, those are some of the same folks objecting to modification of the policy, but when pressed, they would not come out and say that all trivial uncontested statements should have inline citations. I think there is consensus that not all trivial statements need inline citations. For some inexplicable reason, we can't seem to get consensus to make WP:CITE reflect the consensus. WP:Catch 22. dryguy 18:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Haven't we had this discussion before? ;-) Somehow I doubt it will go anywhere, because I think people have contradictory goals; but, for what it's worth, I would support putting something like "Not all facts require inline citation; but any good-faith request for a specific source for a statement must be satisfied." into the guideline.

(More to the point, though: the issue here isn't that the statements aren't cited—although they obviously aren't—but rather that they're not sourced at all. "Everybody knows that" is pretty meaningless.) Kirill Lokshin 18:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The first sentence is problematic not just because it is uncited but because its meaning is rather unclear. The current presentation in the Super Bowl article is even worse -- calling it a "de facto national holiday" makes little sense when national holidays are by definition de jure. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

How much ignorance is to be assumed

The issue raised here is "How much ignorance shall we attribute to readers of the article?" If you lived in a small town in the US, it would be self-evident that Friday Night is High school Football night. I've seen the "citation needed" tag slapped on numerous statements that are either equally self-evident, or found in a level 099 textbook on ths subject. At least when the "citation needed" tag is slapped on a statement, an editor has an idea what is being challenged.

When a Misplaced Pages article has ten or more references, and the "citation needed" header is applied to an entire section, or article heading, people who know the field don't know what needs citations/is being challenged. Even worse, asking in the talk pages of the article what needs citating gets zero response. Personally, I am about ready to call every use of those tags wilful vandalism of Misplaced Pages, unless there is a note in the talk page stating why the tag is added.

64.40.60.88 01:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely right. Here's a related example: On en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Harvard_referencing&oldid=84181580, a superseded page, look for the word "obvious". Those statements (as a group, not -- as you point out -- individually) were challenged by two people who wanted citations for the obvious!

I would like to point out that there are three issues here:

common knowledge (e.g. Friday night is Football night -- CITATION NEEDED!)

easy logic ("for example, the name Deane will be recognized by someone who knows Deane to be an authority in the field" -- CITATION NEEDED!)

wholesale tagging (CITATION NEEDED!)

TH 02:33, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You were being asked for references for your edits about the advantages and disadvantages, and that Harvard referencing in mostly used in certain subjects, and the term mostly used in Commonwealth countries. Not obvious at all and you didn't supply a reference. SlimVirgin 03:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Another footnote

In John Dee, there occured the following paragraph:

About ten years after Dee's death, the antiquarian Robert Cotton purchased land around Dee's house and began digging in search of papers and artifacts. He discovered several manuscripts, mainly records of Dee's angelic communications. Cotton's son gave these manuscripts to the scholar Méric Casaubon, who published them in 1659, together with a long introduction critical of their author, as A True & Faithful Relation of What passed for many Yeers between Dr. John Dee (A Mathematician of Great Fame in Q. Eliz. and King James their Reignes) and some spirits. As the first public revelation of Dee's spiritual conferences, the book was extremely popular and sold quickly. Casaubon, who believed in the reality of spirits, argued in his introduction that Dee was acting as the unwitting tool of evil spirits when he believed he was communicating with angels.{{cn}} This book is largely responsible for the image, prevalent for the following two and a half centuries, of Dee as a dupe and deluded fanatic.

I have added a tag at the point challenged. Now, is there any reasonable doubt which book of Casaubon is meant, and where the assertion about evil spirits is to be found? Yet the result of this complaint is that some Wikipedian has spent bits adding the following footnote:

Meric Casaubon (1659 Republished by Magickal Childe (1992)). A True & Faithful Relation of What passed for many Yeers between Dr. John Dee (A Mathematician of Great Fame in Q. Eliz. and King James their Reignes) and some spirits. ISBN 0-939708-01-9.

Does this add anything to the full name and title of the book, already in the text? This is only one of the several reprints in modern times; the earliest being from 1974. The publisher does not appear to be a mainstream scholarly press; others are. Yet some Wikipedian's time has been wasted on this. Septentrionalis 02:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Publishing information is generally a useful thing to have, particularly for a book of that age; another missing point is the page numbers (as I'm assuming the book is of a decent length?). More to the point, though, there's a second, implicit claim in that sentence ("Casaubon... believed in the reality of spirits") for which the provenance is unclear; it's not a statement that one would expect to be made on the basis of the book in question, in any case. Kirill Lokshin 03:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

That is a legitimate concern, although I suspect that Casaubon's book does indicate his position on the subject. If the footnote included the page number, that at least would be a gain, although its significance might be questioned (especially in one edition of a book with several, of which this is perhaps the least accessible: the original 1659 edition has even been scanned onto the web in several places). Septentrionalis 15:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

My revert

Toohoo, I've reverted your edits because I don't see the point to them, and because I'm concerned about the edits you're making to various guidelines, which are not always consistent with WP style, and yet you revert continually in the face of objections. Can you please say succinctly what your aim is? Cheers, SlimVirgin 05:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Mmm, I'm not sure what exactly he's doing, but the general idea of making the "Footnotes" section more closely resemble those of the other styles in structure isn't necessarily a bad one. In particular, the "Technical issues with footnotes" section, aside from being given rather undue prominence, currently contains a non-sequitur (1), a note on a historical issue that's no longer relevant (3), a general warning not to switch styles (4), and a single halfway-relevant (but rather biased) point (2). Kirill Lokshin 05:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree about the technical thing being out of date. The warning not to switch from one system to another is still current; there are editors who object to people changing from Harvard referencing to footnotes. Or at least they did when I last checked. Perhaps not anymore. SlimVirgin 06:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I removed the whole subsection. Some of it can go back but it should be reworded. Feel free to revert me if you think it should be there. SlimVirgin 06:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the warning not to switch without discussion is important. I also think that the section above shows that we need a statement that the purpose of citation is to show what came from where; insofar as the text achieves this, other forms of citation are unnecessary. (There's a example at Albert Einstein where the book is fully cited in the text, and the note is the page number; one clueless FAC reviewer objected.) Septentrionalis 15:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

In any case, the first point in the section isn't a technical issue, nor an issue at all. I have no idea why anyone thought it worth mentioning, particularly in a negative context. Kirill Lokshin 16:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it is an attempt to identify the sorts of citation possible. Since it is redundant with the list above, I don't miss it. Septentrionalis 18:08, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Septen, the advice not to switch citation systems is already in the text twice elsewhere. SlimVirgin 18:48, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Positioning

This document could use a short sub section on positioning in-line citations after the relevant punctuation mark. This is mentioned in the sub articles on the various styles of reference, but since it's common, it belongs here. I'm not feeling bold enough to do add the section, since I find I've been doing it wrong for months. Now back to fix all those edits. :( --J Clear 18:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I added something about it. :-) SlimVirgin 21:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Apparently the Harvard system puts the in-line reference portion before the punctuation, while embedded HTML and ref/footnote go after the punctuation. Don't you just love consistent inconsistencies? Or is that inconsistent consistencies? --J Clear 00:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the difference falls out from the fact that author-date does not use a special font, but foonotes use supserscripts. If the period comes after the superscript, it tends to get lost or look out of place. Meanwhile, author-date users are so used to writing

Smith (1998, 29) says such-and-such.

that they naturally fall into writing

X is not Y (Smith 1998, 53), but Fong claims X could easily be Z (2001, xvii).

In general, it seems to me that author-date folks rarely put the citation in the same place that documentary-note folks do (meaning that J Clear may not only have to shift notes re punctuation but also move them halfway to the other end of the sentence?).

TH 00:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

According to the Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.), footnotes come after punctuation (16.30), while in-line (Harvard/author-date style) come before (16.112). -- Avi 03:42, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Errors and redundancy

Folks,

I changed one paragraph in Citing sources to read this way:

First, here's the original paragraph, with my markup:

The Harvard referencing MISLEADING NAME system places a partial citation WRONG TERM — the author's name and year of publication SERIOUSLY INCOMPLETE within parentheses — usually WRONG at the end of the sentence, within the text before the punctuation, and a complete citation WRONG TERM at the end WRONG of the text in an alphabetized list of "References" WRONG PUNCTUATION. According to The Oxford Style Manual MISLEADING EXAMPLE, the Harvard system MISLEADING NAME is the "most commonly used reference method in the physical and social sciences" (Ritter 2002 INCOMPLETE CITATION) MISLEADING EXAMPLE.

No discredit to the last editor here -- Avraham is NOT responsible for any of the flaws in the paragraph above.

But the errors flagged above are not the worst problem we have here. A worse problem is redundancy -- we have "similar" explanations in at least two other places in WP. So even if that paragraph gets fixed, there are two other pages that may have to be fixed. And notice that I said that redundancy is "a worse problem", because we haven't gotten to the worst problem yet.

The worst problem is that SlimVirgin will defend to the death the existence of these redundant explanations -- making maintenance a nightmare. A "maintenance nightmare"? I didn't say thas. Ling.Nut said it. Trödel said it. 29 Sep 2006, "Harvard referencing" Talk. See the maintenance nightmare that SlimVirgin has defended -- perhaps created -- by comparing Harvard_referencing with Misplaced Pages:Harvard referencing with this article.

Here's how the paragraph should read:

The author date system places a citation — the authors' names, the year of publication, and the page number or range, all within parentheses — often near the authors' names and often at end of the sentence or phrase before any punctuation; and a corresponding reference in an alphabetized list of References near the end of the text. According to Ritter (2002, NEED PAGE NUMBER), the Harvard system is the "most commonly used reference method in the physical and social sciences". An example: "Metz and Ankney (1991) documented increased hunter-caused mortality of male ducks with brightly colored plumage compared to dull individuals". Another example: "In mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), Omland (1996a, b) found that females strongly prefer males with brightly colored bills and that females also show a preference for overall plumage condition (Holmberg et al., 1989; Weidmann, 1990)".

TH 16:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

You're likely to be blocked if you vandalize a page like that again. SlimVirgin 19:09, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

If there really is a need to give the same citation instructions in several places, a template could be created. The format might not be as attractive as regular text, but it would be easier to maintain. --Gerry Ashton 20:01, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

NONSENSE

This does not make sense. They do not need to be cited. RRRGH—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Noahwoo (talk • contribs) 19:40, October 31, 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. If citations are needed for commonly known facts, you will invite weasel words to creep in, in the attempt to make those known facts appear limited in scope.The attempt to eliminate valuing language is praiseworthy in a reference article but taken to extremes just invites staid and pointlessly overworked writing —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.80.105.24 (talk • contribs) 10:08, 1 November 2006 UTC.

Zotero Firefox extension for citations

I'm trying to figure out if we could use this. I'm not sure if it can output things in the way we would want. http://www.zotero.org — Omegatron 17:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

footnotes and referenes poorly adviced

Maintaining a separate "References" section in addition to "Notes" is certainly useful, but its main use is IMO to distinguish between general references and accurate sourcing of statements. However, that is not clearly suggested in this guideline, if I see it well. See also my comment on http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia_talk:Scientific_citation_guidelines#Thanks.2C_this_is_helpful .

Harald88 10:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Including both a "References" and a "Notes" section is useful when different page in the same work are used in many places in an article. The footnotes can include a shortened name for the work and the page number; the full publication information can placed in the "References" section. This allows the length of the combined "References" and "Notes" section to be shorter than just a "Notes" section would have been.

Paper media can use tricks such as only giving the full publication information in the first footnote, or using words like ibid, but that is not suitable for Misplaced Pages because articles are constantly being changed, so the order of notes is also constantly changing. --Gerry Ashton 18:54, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Why is this site so Anal about citations?

I have noticed that 9 times out of 10 any citations that are put into any of the articles are merely credits to having attained the information from a web page, and typically these web pages have the same odds of providing incorrect information as anything else (for example, reviews, fan-sites, etc.)

Misplaced Pages is far to anal about citations! Mrlopez2681 18:03, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the real problem there is that we need to cite better sources, not fewer. --Masamage 18:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

9 times out of 10? Have you measured this, or how do you come up with the figure? Maybe we shouldn't take it too literally. Nonetheless it sounds like an unfounded generalization designed to obscure WP's need for references. Read the history articles and you'll find a much higher score for print references. By contrast pop culture articles tend to cite webpages as references.

A glance at User talk:Mrlopez2681 shows what kind of user he is. This is not a personal attack, just a pointer to add context to Mr Lopez's opinion.

Arbo talk 01:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

You can examine the collective psyche of wikipedians. We are worried about insertions of original research and pov's. We are also worried about the reputation of wikipedia form the outside and whether it is considered a trustworthy source. Citations can be seen as a partial solutions to both problems. A citation can help eliminate OR as there has to be some source somewhere to verify a statement. Citations also give an air of academic respectability. In someways citations are a cheep solution to the problem, to really obtain a balanced POV on an issue you would need to examine a vast literature on a subject, synthesise the material giving appropriate weight to different views. This differs from the collection of atributable statements which can be found in some articles. Citations can be a step on the way to NPOV but do not guarantee it. --Salix alba (talk) 02:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not just about making wikipedia a trustworthy source. In many cases, wikipedia itself may not be a suitable citation for whatever your doing but high quality citations from wikipedia may very well be... Nil Einne 13:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)