Wikipedia talk:Scientific citation guidelines/Archive 1

message: I agree with the reasoning expressed in this page. However, I find the suggestions less helpful than they might be.
The natural sciences have their own citation conventions. They work for the natural sciences; I don't want to criticize them, or the way journals may require their use.
But whatever else it may be, WP isn't a journal in the natural sciences. There's no requirement for a single list of endnotes-cum-references, let alone for the endnotes, references, or combination to be as terse as is entirely suitable within a journal. As the proposal now stands, the only description I can see within the references is "(Review)". I can guess that this means it is a review of research by others rather than a presentation of original research, but I don't even know that -- and even if my guess is correct, I don't know if the research is very recent or if these are reconsiderations of a decade's worth of work.
At what is now the end of a slightly heated exchange here, I suggest a way to meet the requirements for "verifiability" and also to suggest further reading for what is widely (or even universally) accepted within mainstream physics but is sadly little known (and legitimately questioned) elsewhere. I'm candid about my appalling level of understanding of physics (well, I did manage to get my physics A-level at the second attempt) but I think I'm polite and coherent. Autoplagiarism time: If the content of an article can be verified in any of a great number of sound, contemporary physics books:
:you do either or conceivably both of two things: (i) have a single discursive note near the top of the article (perhaps at the end of the first paragraph) saying that the ideas summarized in the article are argued for in one, two or three books; (ii) list these two or three books in "References" together with brief descriptions of their relationships to the article. 
I elaborate on this using a non-physics analogy. Of course this can and perhaps should be supplemented by specific citations for certain specific points.
Nobody has responded to my suggestion. Maybe it's just too stupid, maybe what I wrote is just too boring. 
For an example of an article in which notes are discursive and are separated from references, see Pierre Rossier. Meanwhile, Hiroh Kikai adds descriptive notes to the references.
(Yes, these two have considerable similarities to each other, have much more notes than I imagine are needed for physics articles, and are about matters that are stunningly irrelevant to physics. I'm sure there are much more helpful examples; when I think of them, I'll add them.) -- Hoary 03:54, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I support (ii) over (i). In addition, cite requests should not be used by people who'd like a second opinion because they distrust wikipedia - they should be used when one has an informed cause to disagree with something that wikipedia says. –MT 05:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact is that articles get delisted as Good Articles or are denied as Featured Articles not only because they are considered not well-referenced, but also specifically because they do not have "sufficient" inline cites, where "sufficient" is not defined. Based on articles like Lancaster County, Pennsylvania it may be feared to get inflated to several per sentence. Apparently you are not a member of the inline-citation squad. Still, it should not be required to cite things that are common knowledge in a field. It should not be necessary, each time something is said of the nature that fish live in the water, that Helium is a gas, or that Carbon has atomic mass 12, to give a reference for that. Part of what makes some reasonable people so upset, next to the intransigent stance of the verification police, is that it is illusory to think that citations create verifiability for people who do not understand the basic concepts of a field. If you do not understand the basics, you are not in a position to judge whether the presentation in an article corresponds to the sources, and also not whether the selection of sources is reasonable. Most people just cannot distinguish pseudoscience from science. The requirement to provide citations that serve no reasonable function does not increase the quality of Wikipedia. It makes articles look unprofessional if not ridiculous, and is further only annoying.  --LambiamTalk 05:35, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently you are not a member of the inline-citation squad. No, I'm not a member of the squad. I've submitted three or four articles for GA, of which a couple have passed. I've passed at least one to which I'd made no significant contribution, I've expressed doubts about two or three others. GA seems a good idea severely damaged by factors independent of inline citations, and perhaps also by a demand for inline citations. I'm not so interested in "Good Article" status; I'm much more interested in the quality (accuracy, informativeness, helpfulness) of articles. ¶ If you do not understand the basics, you are not in a position to judge whether the presentation in an article corresponds to the sources, and also not whether the selection of sources is reasonable. Very true. And I doubt that anyone will be able to grasp the basics even from excellently written encyclopedia articles. People rarely acquire a knowledge of new (to them) and difficult subject areas from encyclopedias or other reference works; rather, they learn from coursebooks or introductory works. And that's one reason why I suggest pointing toward one or two of these books. ¶ Most people just cannot distinguish pseudoscience from science. I think this assertion conflates two things that can and should be distinguished. The smattering of theoretical physics that percolates through the broadsheet press, etc., to the ignorant (I'm one) looks so screwy and counterintuitive that no, we indeed can't distinguish between it and the occasionally pseudointuititive concepts of pseudophysics. However, the moderately well educated and moderately intelligent (I like to think I'm one of these, too) can distinguish between a pseudoscientific and a scientific approach. We know that there's a world of difference between, say, Newtonian physics and "creation science". (Elsewhere, we may know little about efficacious psychotherapy, but we're appalled by the chameleon claims made for quack psychotherapies, etc.) ¶ Yes, it's unreasonable for us physics ignoramuses to demand (easily digestible!) "verification" for everything. But it's not unreasonable if we refuse simply to take the article editors' word for everything. Tell us where we may get a fuller understanding of (and perhaps also a certain degree of verification of) the claims that are made in the article. -- Hoary 06:56, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

text: But hopefully you agree that not everything has to be cited from sources, such as the factoids that fish are water-dwellers and come in different sizes. The inline citation squad would require our Fish article to go like "A fish is a water-dwelling vertebrate with gills, that remains so throughout its life.[1]." Do you feel (whether inline or not) that there should be a source referenced in the article where the reader can actually find this information on page so-and-so? Note that even this is not good enough for the verification police. They require explicit pointers to the location within the source, such as page numbers. Further, it is one thing if this is sourced in the main article on fish, but should we have a separate citation for each and every time a statement in some article implies that fish live in water? What about the roughly one thousand times the atomic weight of some element is mentioned? I think we all agree that some things must be cited. Hopefully we also agree that not everything must be cited everywhere, and that, in fact, such a practice would be a disservice to the readers and editors alike. So the question is: can we draw up guidelines that say when to cite and when not to cite -- with a grey area in between that is left to the editor's discretion? For academic subjects such guidelines are best developed in consensus between the editors knowledgeable regarding that subject, and should reflect de facto standards and good practice for the field. The present proposal is an attempt at that. If there is a reasonable guideline, people may actually follow it. If the bar is unreasonably high editors will ignore it, or, if forced to follow it, just drop out.  --LambiamTalk 12:17, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But hopefully you agree that not everything has to be cited from sources, such as the factoids that fish are water-dwellers and come in different sizes. Yes of course I agree. ¶ The inline citation squad would require.... [abridged]. I'm not part of any such squad; I'm not much interested in any such squad. ¶ I think we all agree that some things must be cited. Hopefully we also agree that not everything must be cited everywhere, and that, in fact, such a practice would be a disservice to the readers and editors alike. Yes, fine. ¶ So the question is: can we draw up guidelines that say when to cite and when not to cite -- with a grey area in between that is left to the editor's discretion? For academic subjects such guidelines are best developed in consensus between the editors knowledgeable regarding that subject, and should reflect de facto standards and good practice for the field. The present proposal is an attempt at that. Then I think it's a little misguided. The most useful citation practice within a good general-purpose encyclopedia (whose readers aren't limited to students and scholars on academic subject X) for articles on X is very likely to differ from conventional and convenient practice within X. ¶ If there is a reasonable guideline, people may actually follow it. If the bar is unreasonably high editors will ignore it, or, if forced to follow it, just drop out. Or jump to the gruesomely named but yet intermittently promising Citizendium. ¶ The first couple of footnote-reference hybrids on the project page are interesting: they're to what look as if they might be accessible books. But this forced hybrid of note and reference (which I think is normal within the natural sciences, where it may be very useful) seems to prevent useful elaboration, such as (imagined example) "An accessible account of carbon-carbon bonds in general, suitable for those with a good grasp of introductory chemistry" or (again) "A technical account, for advanced undergraduate students of chemistry and above". -- Hoary 13:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, the references in physical cosmology look very helpful indeed. (A minor tip, though: take a quick look at what's now the very first "external link".) The obvious question (from certain factions) is: "All right then: there's a lot of stuff in this article and you're listing a lot of books and links; so just what comes from where?" And I'd agree that this question would be a rather stupid one. Still, there's a nugget of reasonableness in it. One or two prefatory sentences might help. Imagined example: "All or virtually all of the content of this article is explained in greater depth in any of the following works, all of which are rather technical and assume considerable ability in mathematics." ¶ Another point: Though I'm coming more from the humanities and have appeared to criticize the terseness of citations in the natural sciences, temperamentally I'm all for terseness and I find it ridiculous that otherwise sane adults expect each other to have rainforests hacked down in order to provide space for such horrors as "Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press" (as if there were other, confusible Princeton UPs in Queenston, N.M., Pusan, S. Korea, etc.). -- Hoary 23:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why must the "references" be so terse? 

message: Beyond eponymous theories and laws and numerical data, any discovery or breakthrough in general that can be credited to an individual or group should be cited as such. --ScienceApologist 20:43, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. (Although in some cases, it might be very hard to find.) –Joke 01:48, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The draft includes However, articles that link to these may choose not to cite the original papers, depending on the context. In this case, a reader looking for the reference may easily click the article link to find it..  This could be clarified to point out that a wikilink to the article should be included if the reference is not. I think that some editors will want to link to both the wiki article and the original paper.CMummert 12:29, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well said. Sorry for my carelessless. -- Hoary 12:38, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Referencing discoveries and breakthroughs 

message: What is the status of the proposal right now? I noticed it has been archived from the physics project talk page.  Assuming the text here is stable, maybe now is a good time to put reminders on the appropriate project talk pages, and see if there is consensus to adopt this as a project policy in physics and/or math (and/or other science projects). CMummert 22:29, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think so. Maybe as a direct link from WP:CITE. --ScienceApologist 15:49, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought a link from the per-project guidelines would be good for the time being.  The only reason to change WP:CITE is for GA review, but I don't think the GA reviewers will care about a per-project guideline. CMummert 16:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

text: For the longer term the more prudent thing to do is to follow process and aim for a status as "sub" guideline having community support, even if only targeting science articles. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to "beta test" it first amongst ourselves.  --LambiamTalk 23:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, this would be a subguideline in the sense that all the wikipedia policies still apply, and probably take precedence. The point of it is to give more specific guidance than the general policies give.  I spent a while discussing WP:CITE on its talk page, and found no willingness there to include any specific citation guidelines on that page.  But I think there is a long-term need to have some standards about what should be cited and what does not need to be cited.  If there is evidence that several scientific projects agree with a specific set of citation guidelines, that would give us a stronger argument when arguing for a more rational policy for wikipedia overall. CMummert 01:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I bet if we included a link from WP:CITE that nearly no one would object. --ScienceApologist 01:22, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  status 2006-10-13 

message: After reviewing the edit history, which reveals only a handful of editors reviewing this proposal, I switched it from guideline to proposal.  The title "scientific" is too broad, since it appears so far to encompass only a few members of the math and physics projects.  Sandy (Talk) 14:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The title is not too broad. It has been submitted on the main pages of both WikiProjects, has the consensus of those projects, and I have stated that I would now like to ask the members of other related projects if they endorse the guidelines. I should note that many proposals have quite broad names, see :Category:Wikipedia proposals. I reverted your change, but I accept that something other than the standard guideline check mark is more appropriate in the banner, so I used the proposal question mark. –Joke 14:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sandy has alerted me to this discussion. I'm inclined to agree that it should be treated as a proposal at this stage. Tinkering with WP's referencing requirements should be done only with the utmost caution, since the authority of the project is at issue. Tony 14:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

text: (edit conflict) The guidelines clearly represent a consensus in the maths and physics projects. It was proposed some time ago and nobody spoke out against it, as far as I know. The text makes it clear that it only applies to physics and maths at the moment. I don't know how the edit history tells how many have reviewed the article. Of course, I'm very interested in opinions on the contents of the guidelines / proposed guidelines. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the "proposal" represents math and physics, but has not yet included consultation with broader scientific projects, it is labeled too broadly, and should not be considered a "scientific" "guideline".  If it applies, so far, to math and physics, that is a relatively small part of all "scientific" articles. Sandy (Talk) 15:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So your problem is the title, you want it moved to, say, Wikipedia:Citation guidelines for physics and mathematics, and move it back if it is accepted for scientific articles? I guess you have a point. I'm not sure it's worth the effort, but I won't oppose it. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 16:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Either something like that, or just label it a proposal in the interim (that would be easier than a move, no?).  I have no specific preference:  just that both "science" and "guideline" are currently too broad.  Sandy (Talk) 16:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal or guideline? 

message: On this section, it might be beneficial to state that these are articles that by their very nature will always be that short. Otherwise, it would be prudent to add notations so that future growth of the article is managed better. --plange 15:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *bump* --plange 00:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  When not to use in-line references 

message: The following need discussion:
#The proposal is labeled as "Scientific" without input from the majority of the science projects:  Math and physics are only one part of Wikipedia.
#It is labeled a guideline without broader consensus from all areas of science.
#The proposal doesn't make clear that, in Wiki, if another editor (within reason) requests a cite, the text needs to be cited.  Uncited articles might not make FA or GA.  As an example, WP:MEDMOS adds to Wiki guidelines, making stronger requirements than general Wiki policies for medical articles - this is not doing that, so it's redundant, and in some places as currently worded, appears to go against the grain of current Wiki guidelines.
#"Some statements are uncontroversial and widely known among people familiar with a discipline." Wiki isn't a textbook, and isn't only for people familiar with a discipline.  It's an encyclopedia, accessed by intelligent, knwledgeable people who may just need to be pointed to a source.
#"Such facts may be taught in university courses, found in textbooks, or contained in multiple references in the research literature, most importantly in review articles." Wikipedia has to point someone who hasn't had the university courses towards where to find the information, in perhaps a textbook.  Not doing so decreases Wikipedia's reliability and reputation, since unlike textbooks and journals, anyone can edit Wikipedia.
#Ditto for this phrase: Wiki is an encyclopedia, not a graduate text.  We need to point readers to the resources.  "These statements are not common knowledge, but the first should be known to anyone with an undergraduate background in physics, the second to anyone knowledgeable about condensed matter physics, and the third to anyone knowledgeable about string theory."
#This passage appears to specifically exempt Math and Physics from inline citation:  Proper citation is not cumbersome, does not detract from readability, and if this were true, we could eliminate most of the inline citations from medical and biology articles, and just claim that we cite several general review articles early on, and tell the readers to go look through entire review articles.  It also makes it easier for us to misinterpret or stretch facts.  It is quite common for every line in a journal-published medical or biology article to contain multiple citations, and Wikipedia should be no different.
#:"The verifiability criteria require that such statements be sourced so that in principle anyone can verify them. However, in many articles it is cumbersome to provide an in-line reference for every statement. In addition, such dense referencing can obscure the logical interdependence of statements. Therefore, in sections or articles that present well-known and uncontroversial information – information that is readily available in most common and obvious books on the subject – it is acceptable to cite one or two authoritative sources at the start (and possibly a more accessible source, if one is available) in such a way as to indicate that these sources can be checked to verify statements for which no in-line citation is provided."
#:::Your phrasing "exempt...from inline citation" implies that there is a requirement of inline citation somewhere. Please provide a citation for this assertion. I see no statement in WP:CITE requiring cites to be inline or per-sentence, only that they should be provided and formatted appropriately for the standards of the area. —David Eppstein 21:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This document doesn't override WP:CITE, so most of your concerns are unfounded.  If someone outside wishes to evaluate an article, they should use WP:CITE to do so; there is no reason that the GA or FA reviewers must pay any attention to this document.  And the document links to WP:CITE and WP:V early on.  The purpose of this document is to give a commonsense explanation of how most editors inside the math and physics community interpret WP:CITE. The word "Scientific" is a red herring; the title of the article is not important. CMummert 17:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The title is important:  other scientific areas will assume, as they should, that it applies to them, and will quote it.  And, since it doesn't override WP:CITE, how is it not redundant or worse, even of little use?  Yes, WP:CITE overrides this proposal, so I am not understanding it's usefulness, or why it was added to WP:CITE as a guideline?  Sandy (Talk) 17:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The disclaimer at the top of the document makes it clear this is the opinion of editors in math and physics; there is little chance a biologist (for example) would think it applies to the.  Moreover, it doesn't need to be linked from WP:CITE and I wouldn't mind if you removed all references to this document from WP:CITE. We both agree it is not a wikipedia-wide policy.  It's use is for internal evaluation of articles by the math and physics projects. CMummert 17:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was already added to WP:CITE as a guideline;  I already removed it.  If you are insistent that it only applies to math and physics, and aware that WP:CITE overrides this proposal, then changing the title to a math/physics project guideline would be logical, recognizing that following this proposal may preclude GA and FA status.  Sandy (Talk) 17:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see how following these guidelines might preclude GA status, since the GA arbiters have come up with unreasonable criteria demanding inline citations, which, in my opinion, lead to worse articles. But how would it be a problem for FA status?  --LambiamTalk 18:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Only by minimally following these guidelines and then refusing to add more references during GA review would "following these guidelines preclude GA status".  But no matter what, refusing to do what the GA reviewers ask will preclude GA status, so it's not an issue of whether you follow these guidelines or not. The claim has been made that the "actual" FA review standards are more strict than the written guidelines for FA review at WP:FA?; that might be where the reference to FA came in.  Certainly the published criteria for FA review are not as burdensome as the published ones for GA review. To be honest, after just now comparing WP:FA? and WP:WIAGA, I can't see how it is worth the trouble to nominate any article for GA. Since meeting the GA standards would qualify the article for FA status as well,you might as well aim high from the beginning. CMummert 18:34, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further discussion needed 

message: Three issues with "A related issue of attribution is eponyms...if Wikipedia has an article about the topic...then these articles must cite the original papers" - first, sometimes things are given names of people who actually did little or no work on the subject such as Pell's equation. We should make clear that in those cases a citation to the named author is not required. Second, it should make clear that if the eponym was not used by the original author (for example Euler's constant) then a citation should be given it its use by that name. Third, it must be emphasized that this requirement in no way requires Wikipedia to rely on that paper for any
information about the topic (I don't want this to become a loophole for getting  cranks to use out of date papers and such). Other than that it looks good to me. JoshuaZ 00:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I more-or-less agree with all these points, and indeed had been thinking about the first one myself. I think it is important to cite the works of the people named in the eponyms, even if they are not principally responsible, to show where the name came from. (Two interesting examples are that Kaluza-Klein theory originated with Gunnar Nordström and the FLRW metric, for which it seems it is acceptable to use any subset of those four letters.) But we should be clear that it is even more important to cite the work of the people historically acknowledged to have made the discovery. In the second case, I think that finding the first use of a name could be very hard in some cases (not many people name things after themselves, or even use the name  once it is so-named). Third point, I agree completely. I haven't read half of the papers I've cited on Wikipedia as the acknowledged historical origin of an idea. –Joke 01:00, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor issues about eponyms 

message: One suggestion to come out of a message I left for the Chemistry WikiProject is that this guideline should suggest the use of DOI numbers .  Apparently they're widely-used in Chemistry; as far as I know, they are not commonly used in physics.  Perhaps we could add a suggestion that citations include some numerical identifier for ease of looking the article up on the internet—this would be DOI number for Chem, but probably arXiv number for Physics.  Any thoughts? -- SCZenz 14:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to me that those are like ISBN numbers for books and should be treated in the same way. There is a template Doi-inline to make magic links out of DOI numbers, and it should be possible to make a template for arXiv links. CMummert 14:35, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A template for arXiv links already exists; it is called :Template:Arxiv (surprise!). A possible problem is that the version in the arXiv is not always the same as the published version. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:06, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

text:  Somewhat related, for math articles do we maybe want to recommend inclusion of MR numbers? JoshuaZ 15:09, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I've been adding both doi's and arxiv id's when I find them for the math articles I've been editing, using  and . Both create links to the paper though the doi links usually require a university ip address to be able to do anything useful with the link. If we had a similar MR template I'd probably use that too. But (edited to add): as far as I know, MR searches also require a university ip, so asking most editors to supply them may be unreasonable. —David Eppstein 15:35, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The current wording calls the use of MR's "helpful" but doesn't require it. JoshuaZ 15:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course it cannot be required, since not all articles have an MR number.  --LambiamTalk 20:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

text: It also is a pain to look up MR numbers, especially for the people who don't have access to mathscinet.  These guidelines should encourage citation, not discourage it by "requiring" that editors do extra work. Also see my post on should versus must below. CMummert 20:49, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a pain, I agree, and I doubt I'll be doing it unless I have the MR number handy. However, MR numbers can be helpful. It is of course an issue that they're useless unless you have access. I'm not sure though that the current wording can be improved; I cancelled my attempt because it got too wordy. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 04:00, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

text: In medicine, the most widely used database is PubMed, and we use the magic word PMID (PubMed ID).--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  DOI numbers? 

message: I changed the word must to should in the last edit by Joke137. In general, the word must should be avoided in guidelines.   The previous version said
:If an editor requests that a particular statement be sourced, that request must be fulfilled. 
That is stronger than WP:V, which uses the word should, and moreover isn't true. The fact could already be sourced higher in the paragraph, in which case the request was misguided.  Or the statement could be removed from the article or reworded so that it becomes covered by a source higher in the paragraph.  In any case, no one editor can force any other editor to do anything; this is a voluntary system.  
The real difficulty is separating unneeded citation requests (see American football) from good-faith requests for facts that require citation.  CMummert 15:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair 'nuff. –Joke 15:23, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have quoted an example of this at Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Another_footnote; in-line footnotes are sometimes simply redundant. Septentrionalis 03:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  must versus should 

message: I'm a biochemist among other things, and the current version of the general guidelines on the page would be non-controversial in both chemistry and in biology. The advice about what not to cite is reasonable;  the advice about using full journal names--or, at the least, unambiguous self-expanding abbreviations-- is good advice, considering WP articles are not written for specialists, and will be used by the general public to obtain copies of articles. The advice about standard identifiers is particularly important, and most people here who know their subject are already following it. The beginners will need to be instructed and reminded. Biomedicine is fortunate in that most of the articles do have freely available abstracts and metadata. Those of us with access to research libraries should be prepared to help out the ones who do not, rather than blaming them for the inadequacies of the publishing system. 
(The details of reference style & their placement  is another matter--there is no standard. Every journal does it differently, especially in biology where they is no one single major society. Authors and those advising them on style know to just copy whatever style the proposed journal uses & not make a fuss about it. In a medium such as this, I see no particular reason for consistency except within an article or a group of related articles, but I know that's not the generally accepted view. )DGG 06:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The more science areas can subscribe to these guidelines, the better. For maths and physics we had a poll on the projects' talk pages to check that we had consensus: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Citation guidelines proposal and  Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics#Citation guidelines proposal. If you think consensus can be had for chemistry and biology too, assuming they have active projects, why don't you start a similar poll on those projects' talk pages (directing discussion beyond simple comments to here)?  --LambiamTalk 13:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While the general info may be supported, I think the examples need some work. While there is nothing specifically wrong with having only physics related issue + one chemistry, it may be confusing to editors so it would be best if examples could be from other sciences like biology as well Nil Einne 13:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  not just math and physics 

message: I now started editing based on this guideline: I find it particularly helpful as it not only encourages inline citation, which is essential for verification but at the same time it distinguishes between such footnotes and general references. That answered my question on how one can refer to sources that are only reliable for the purpose that they are cited for (necessary in case of doubts about factual accuracy, as often occurs with controversial subjects), but not generally reliable or useful as reference for the general topic of the article. 
I would suggest to add to this guideline a remark about the use of the reference section for general references about the topic of the article. Harald88 10:45, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thanks, this is helpful 

message: I'm not sure if the term has been used, but in some articles in various sections of WP I have seen a trend to very long annotation s, often a long paragraph, summarizing the reference in the style of an abstract (see open access for the most extreme I know of--or can imagine). Circumstances will vary, but the annotations probably should be like disambiguation items--normally one line, sometimes two, not more.
:Some editors seem to like to write long annotations, either in footnotes or inside the list of references. I find that these long annotations often contain interesting information that can be merged into the main article. I think it's better to have the information added in a suboptimal place than to not have it added at all.  Later, someone else can go through the article and move information from the annotations to the article itself. I'll add a sentence the guideline about this. CMummert 11:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the Textbook reference section of  Physical cosmology for an example of useful annotations. But I agree with the above commenter that the annotations in :Open access seem like paragraphs that wandered off from the main article. EdJohnston 04:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  annotations creep 

message: Discussion seems to have settled down, and I suspect there is consensus among math and physics editors (at least) for these guidelines. I have placed a notice on the math and physics project pages asking for comments.  CMummert 01:54, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My general reaction is that it's an improvement, for the purposes of mathematical and scientific articles, over the general guidelines on citations, but -- still overly detailed and overly bossy.  By quite a lot, really. --Trovatore 02:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure that your opinion about these guidelines will be widely respected.  Could you explain which parts (if any) are particularly bossy? The tone can be edited, if it would help.  The overall goal is to give some more specific guidance than WP:CITE, so the detailed nature may be hard to avoid. CMummert 02:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

text: If Wikipedia has an article about the topic – as in Michelson-Morley experiment, Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, Green-Schwarz mechanism, Alpher-Bethe-Gamow paper and Kaluza-Klein theory – then these articles must cite the original papers, even if they were not used as sources in writing the article. (It is often the case that the name established by usage does not credit the people who actually discovered something. In this case, this should be noted, with appropriate citations.)
I see a bunch of problems with this. First, not in every case in which something is named after someone, will there be an original paper by that person. If there is, it may not be a very useful paper, or it may not be clear that it's about the topic being discussed in the contemporary sense. The bit about "the people who actually discovered something" is also seriously problematic, as it's not always clear just what the "something" is. (As an extreme example, for a while a certain editor was claiming at the transfinite number page that transfinite numbers were originally considered by certain ancient Jain mathematicians. He could give citations for it, too. It was nonsense; the Jains had apparently had the notion that there were distinct infinite quantities, rather than only one, but that's the principal thing that their writings seemed to have in common with the modern notion.) --Trovatore 03:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree that these are guidelines, not requirements, and so they should not be phrased using mandatory language.  That section was too strong, so I rephrased it to emphasize that, in the end, it is the discretion of the editors whether the original sources are included.  There don't seem to be any more specific  "must" or "require" phrases. CMummert 03:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not scan this guideline carefully for "musts". Squinting so that these all go away, the current guidelines seem reasonable, and in line with my expectations. I'll echo Trovatore's concerns in a different way: I don't want this guideline to be used as a stick to prevent forward progress on reasonable and uncontroversial topics. Sometimes, one simply does not have the references one might like to have; this should not prevent the creation or continued maintenance of an article. At any rate, the current guidelines seem reasonable (unlike the original, preposterous suggestions), so many thanks to all who put this into this form.  linas 22:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consensus among math and physics editors 

message: I already mentioned this on WT:WPM but it probably bears repeating here: I created a new template, . I added some text to the guidelines mentioning it and the related arxiv one. —David Eppstein 18:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New MathSciNet template 

message: I am come from the MCB project to declare our endorsement of these guidelines... what's next in the process of endorsement? --Username132 (talk) 23:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know of a written procedure anywhere (someone else can correct me if there is one). The process that was followed in the math project was: Post prominent notices at the talk pages for the project, and wait for discussion to die down (a few days with no posts).  Repeat as necessary.  If consensus seems to favor the guidelines after discussion, make another prominent announcement message saying so, and asking if there is consensus.  Wait to see if anyone objects.  If there are no objections in a week or so, then add the project to the list at the top of the guideline. This seemed like a fair test of consensus to me. CMummert 02:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Endorsement From The MCB Project 

message: On the more general question of articles on scientific journals, there are 6000 or so scientific journals in Web of Science, all of which can appropriately have articles.  It will be a while until we can get them done.  Although we can indicate on such an article whether the journal as a whole is open access, it is not practical to say this about individual articles. I would however, be glad to help organize a project for this. The idea would be to provide for a standard set of information, and for maintaining the articles.  Anyone interested in working on such as project, please tell me on my talk page. If any response at all, we can start.  DGG 00:51, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  articles about journals 

message: I've started a discussion on Wikipedia talk:What is a good article? about whether these guidelines now hold and whether they should be applied to the the Good Articles criteria. These been a small response so far, and one editor who wants an official okeydoke from trusted members of the relevant WikiProject. Further the Talk:Space weathering article is now a GA candidate and the question is wether these criteria should apply there. --Salix alba (talk) 11:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good articles - [[Space weathering]] 

message: The Chemistry Project has endorsed these proposals at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry#Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines. Looks as if they now have pretty broad support. --Bduke 01:42, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added Chemistry to the projects listed in the header box of the Guidelines.  --LambiamTalk 08:43, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Endorsement from [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry]] 

message: Doesn't this contradict WP:OR?--Sefringle 22:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That section of this document is just a restatement of what already appears at WP:SS, not any sort of new policy.  I think that WP:SS does not contradict WP:ATT in that if the material is sourced in the subarticle as WP:SS requests then it is certainly attributable and so meets the requests of WP:ATT.  Of course there are issues where a citation ought to be included - for example BLP issues - but common sense says that if the reader is interested in the summarized material then she/he will go to the main article. CMummert · talk 22:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary Style 

message: Can we change the location of the sources so that they are at the end of the paragraph instead of at the beginning, since that is how most of the featured scientific articles cite their sources?--Sefringle 23:38, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not morally opposed to having a policy that condones both practices; as long as the information is there and prominently displayed, the reader will find it. Which featured articles are you looking at? Maybe we can find a good wording that explains when it is reasonable to put the references at the end. CMummert · talk 00:30, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See DNA for example--Sefringle 10:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. It seems there are two conventions: either attach the footnotes to the initial sentence (especially when it is the thesis sentence) or put them at the very end regardless of paragraph structure.   It seems reasonable for this guideline to accept both conventions.  The ordinary advice is to follow the practice of the first contributor who adds footnotes to the article. Does that seem reasonable? I would like to wait a day or two before making any changes to give others a chance to comment. CMummert · talk 12:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is reasonable.--Sefringle 17:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Makes sense to me.  There's not always a good place to put one at the start where it will be clearly a general ref for the paragraph.  — Laura Scudder ☎ 15:26, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed it some just now; please feel free to change it further if its not clear yet. CMummert · talk 18:04, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uncontroversial knowledge 

message: There's an ongoing discussion relevant to these guidelines at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#DOI bot blocked for policy reconsideration. Partly it's about whether the bot is sufficiently unbuggy to be allowed to run as a bot, but some people over there seem to feel that DOIs are an evil to be eradicated altogether from Wikipedia. (I disagree, but let's not have the same discussion here.) —David Eppstein (talk) 03:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion over on [[WP:AN]] regarding DOIs in citations 

message: The term Primary source has different meanings in Wikipedia, the humanities, and the sciences.  The scientific usage was spelled out in the Newsletter of the Council of Biology Editors (now the Council of Science Editors), "Proposed definition of a primary publication", 1968:
:"An acceptable primary scientific publication must be the first disclosure containing sufficient information to enable peers to assess observation, to report experiments, and to evaluate intellectual processes; moreover, it must be susceptible to sensory perception, essentially permanent, available to the scientific community without restriction, and available for regular screening by one or more of major recognized secondary services...."
First disclosure of an idea is not the Wikipedia meaning, so to avoid confusion I am changing Primary Source to Primary Publication in the article, which seems to be the intended meaning here. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primary Source → Primary Publication 

message: There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 21:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  MoS naming style 

message: I have just copyedited the lead, largely because the previous version "quoted" material that doesn't exist (any longer) in the named page.  Please feel free to improve, but please do not restore the non-existent quotation.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:22, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyediting the lead 

message: Is there any policy in Wikipedia strictly makes exception for scientific article of fact which isn't or is unlikely to be challenged in its scientific field/profession? Considering that topic is relatively less-known outside of that profession. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 07:34, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No, there is no exception, but this page gives some advice about how to handle these uncontroversial things. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:06, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exception for not providing any citation 

message: Should a mention of ,  and  be made in the "citation format" section? They're very useful when writing science articles, but few people tend to know about them. SmartSE (talk) 19:53, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation format