Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 3

message: Every day it seems, brand new pages get created without any sources. I've been watching them the last 24 hours and the best thing I can think of to do is add this template, but the problem is it just goes in the pile, and not get much done.
Consider if we enhanced it by putting the third line ("Any material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed at any time.") in BOLD RED. It should be sterner in encouraging people to rush to find sources for things they've just added, in fear of it being deleted. Would the advantage of sources/reliability enhancement be worth the possible aesthetic nuisance? Anakin101 19:47, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no need to make the template shout. The better solution is to either add sources yourself or contact the users individually and discuss with them the importance of sourcing. Canned templates are not a universal solution to the problem. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:41, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Enhance the template's visibility 

message: Adding every article in this template to utterly useless categories is entirely annoying, and makes the category field for the articles ridiculous.  In general, I think categories that relate to the quality of the article, rather than to its subject matter, ought to go in talk space.  Is anybody with me? john k 17:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Response at Category talk:Articles lacking sources Jeepday (talk) 23:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category 

message: Is it possible to have the date (well, month, year anyway) automatically be generated instead of having to enter it in manually all the time? I know some of the user talk page vandalism templates do it... ∞ΣɛÞ² (τ|c) 09:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which vandalism templates are you thinking of? User templates are usually substituted, which mkes it possible to substitute the current date. This template is not supposed to be substituted, which makes it much more difficult to automatically enter a date that doesn't change once the template is placed. But SmackBot watches and adds dates to maintenance templates such as this, so you don't have to do it yourself.  — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  auto date? 

message: Please change the word "adequate" in the template back to "any", to reflect long term consensus about what this template is for as opposed to templates such as . GDallimore (Talk) 09:26, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed, and "editprotected" request accordingly removed -- thanks for the note, didn't realise there had been a discussion on that one. FT2 (Talk | email) 09:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for fixing it.   can be used where the references are not adequate for the article or section.  FYI  redirects to  Jeepday (talk) 12:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I think italicizing or otherwise emphasizing the "any" would probably discourage users from using this template inappropriately.  — The Storm Surfer 03:50, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

text: The point of this template is to mark articles with zero references. Articles with some references can have other templates put on them. Regardless of what template is used, if there aren't enough sources there aren't enough sources. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adequate to Any 

message: The discusion is continued at Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification
A discussion is underway at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Age of unreferenced that in part suggests the use of the Wikitionary tag  to be used on new unreferenced articles (newer then January 1, 2007)  which reads 
This page has been listed on the requests for verification list.  [ (Add entry to list.)]It has been suggested that this entry might not meet Wiktionary's criteria for inclusion.  If evidence is not provided within a month, the disputed information will be removed.	
The rationale being at some point Wikipedia needs to start enforcing WP:V and WP:OR currently the rebuttal's center on encouraging use of references without actually removing unreferenced material.  Jeepday (talk) 03:47, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Age of unreferenced

message: I have removed the icon Bdesham added. It served no purpose and made the template quite large. Picaroon (t) 22:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Garion96 (talk) 22:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've reinstated the image, but with formatting so that the template is exactly the same size as before.  Sorry for screwing it up before! :-/ --bdesham ★ 06:37, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Even so it still draws unnecessary attention, even more so that its getting already. Do we really want to draw attention to the fact that most of this encyclopedia is unreferenced? T Rex | talk 11:09, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed it. It really is not necessary. See also this talk page for many times an image has been proposed. Garion96 (talk) 11:18, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Given that nearly all of the other cleanup templates at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup have icons, I just feel that we should add an icon to this template in the name of consistency.  All of those templates are also drawing "unnecessary attention", but if cleanup templates were unobtrusive then their purpose would be defeated.  Finally, usability studies have shown again and again that icons are important visual cues, and we want our editors to be able to identify one template from another as easily as possible, in the interest of having the problems fixed as quickly as possible. --bdesham ★ 16:38, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  As the use of icons has been extensively discussed at on this template and has not had discussion or consensuses at most (if not all) of the other reference related clean up tags, in the name of consistency maybe they should all be removed.  If you want users to be able to tell one template from another then the icons would need to be different, ideally you would also seek consensuses in the community.  Here we have clear consensuses that reference related templates do not need icons as the text of the template must be read to define the intent.  As bdesham as pointed out all other templates in Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup have icons so we have consistency in that only reference related templates do not.  Summary we have consistency and consensus that reference related templates do not have icons. Jeepday (talk) 17:28, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Icon 

message: In the doc page it is written
:This template is a self-reference.
what does this mean? -- AnyFile 09:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A while back, someone confused about the "avoid self-references" guideline misguidedly added that statement to numerous templates.  We really should have a bot remove it.  —David Levy 16:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It means that it is text on Wikipedia that talks about Wikipedia. If we ever print a copy of Wikipedia, such templates should be silently removed. --Alvestrand 22:44, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This template is a self-reference. 

message: Please add  to the template. Genokutos 20:19, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. — Malcolm (talk) 22:30, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit 

message: :This article does not cite any references or sources.
We need to change this template's use of "any references" to "sufficient references".  The template is automatically made a lie once a single source is added.  It is wishful thinking that the template will only be used on articles that have no references.  The use of the term "sufficient" will fix the problem.  It begs the question, "What is 'sufficient'?", but this is a lesser problem than the problem of factual accuracy that the current template has.  Tempshill 04:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also note #Adequate to Any Jidanni 04:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are other templates for insufficient sources. When a source is added, this one can be swapped for one of those. GDallimore (Talk) 07:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My point is that this is not happening.  Here's an idea - how about if someone were to write a bot to scan all the articles with this template, and if a single single-bracket link exists, then we convert the Unreferenced template to one of the others?  If this can't be done then IMO we need to modify this template.  Tempshill 17:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do write that bot.  It won't cover every instance, because the article could have sources listed but no external links, but I would be interested in just a count of the articles that are marked unreferenced but have an external link. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, I lack the skill to write that bot.  I'll place a plea on Village Pump's Technical post.  That would resolve my (at least) problem with this template.  Tempshill 21:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  We need to change "any" to "sufficient"