Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check/Archive 5

message: If this project is active, then would someone please give us a run-down of the collaborative works in progress?  Editors come to this page expecting to find some activity, some list of task they can join in to help the encyclopedia. To be confronted with the "Current work" section, listing pages on which work has long since ceased, and the massive unsourced article categories is very unhelpful. This project page is a waste of editor's time, effort, and goodwill; they arrive here wanting to do some work in a very critical area for Wikipedia, and most likely leave very disappointed with what they find.EricR 21:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear EricR — No, this page does not look like it is active. ShaunMacPherson began it on 1 Sept. 2004, but Shaun has not been here since 26 Feb. 2005. Of course you could suggest a project and see how many people here take you up on it, but, as I read the history through the comments above you may not find many people willing to cooperate. I suppose we could submit this page to an administrator for possible extinction, but I am not sure how to do that. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 01:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Some of Eric's suggestions above seem very reasonable, and I agree that it is too broad at the moment to take on all of the above.  It seems to me that, as with the ill-fated Article assessment, what is needed is a Wikipedia-wide system (in this case for fact checking). Fact-checking one article might take a week for a dedicated team of subject experts, but (a) we have over one million articles to get through (one more created while I wrote this) and (b) we have a handful of people who are not knowledgable about every area - nuclear physics, ontology, Zoroastroanism.  It would also be easy for us to put in lots of work to get one article up to snuff, then see someone new come in and add a bunch of new unsourced content, and the integrity of the entire article had once again been compromised.  I think once m:Wikicite becomes available, we might be able to set up a system for Wikipedia:Pushing to validation, and at THAT time this project might evolve into a major hub on Wikipedia.  Till then, I think checking the odd random article for factual accuracy is not very useful. 
What could be done for now is to work with the Core topics Collaboration of the Fortnight, we are short-staffed there as it is.  Having some people work on references and fact-checking in this would achieve the goals of #4 and #5 (above) in a coordinated way.  Walkerma 15:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Eh, if you're gonna organize things, count me in too. I'm busy working on eleventy-eleven papers right now, but can be active off and on and think this is a useful project. --Ling.Nut 00:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Active? 

message: In the academic world there seems to be a consensus on what a "source" is, but this concept seems to be completely unknown in the WP world. Am I missing something or should I start a "Source" article?
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fourtildas (talk • contribs) .
: HI Fourtildas, you forgot your four tildas  (just kidding...). Also, there's already an article on Reliable sources, but if you think it is insufficient, you may consider adding to it. However, since it's a guideline page, I wouldn't change anything without discussing it on Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources first. Cheers --Ling.Nut 06:02, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source 

message: Hey, just to let you know, there's a Article Referencing Drive now. —this is messedrocker (talk) 15:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for bringing this to my attention.  I'm planning on using their choices for our biweekly special articles. -Frazzydee|✍ 13:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Referencing Drive 

message: The goal of the biweekly special article with the article referencing drive seems identical, and having them seperate hurts more than it helps, in my opinion.  Unless there are major disagreements, I'll be copying the ARD article here starting with the next one.
For now, we will use the articles chosen at WP:ARD on a biweekly basis (i.e. we will take every other article).  My rationale for this is that we have historically favoured referencing as much as possible.  Although we have enough members to handle one article per week, it seems to me that this project has been fairly inactive for the past while, so it may take time for old members to realize that we're back in action (get the word out!).  We can always change to one article per week later on.
This also addresses some previous complaints that we don't have a system in place for picking biweekly special articles.  When the project just started out, I picked articles pretty much at random, and it seems like that's the way it's being done now.  WP:ARD, on the other hand, has a voting system in place.  I encourage you all to check that out and vote for the next one there. -Frazzydee|✍ 04:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging biweekly special article with [[Wikipedia:Article Referencing Drive]] 

message: In Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Timeline of peptic ulcer disease and Helicobacter pylori, I've raised a problem that I believe there is with the use of references in that article. The key events in the timeline often have references that are the key papers associated with the event. However, the actual references used by the editor are books and review papers, not those historical papers. As such, I don't think they belong in the references section. Can someone on this project help. Are my concerns valid? Any ideas on how to modify things? I appreciate that it is useful to mention those key papers as a historical point of fact so I am keen that they be maintained in the article somehow. Thanks. Colin°Talk 16:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Secondary sources and citing journals 

message: Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory.  This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you.   B2T2 13:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project directory 

message: I have created a new layout for the WikiProject, located temporarily at Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check/new.  Please give any comments.  If there are no objections, I will copy this over when the next article for WP:ARD comes up. -Frazzydee|✍ 01:31, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Layout updated, as well as new Biweekly Special Article chosen by WP:ARD. -Frazzydee|✍ 14:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New layout 

message: I'm curious as to what article we have encountered has the most in-line references.  What is the most in-line references that anyone has seen in any one article? Johntex\talk 23:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Most inline references

message: A little backstory: There's a proposal at Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles to remove (new) articles that lack sources after a certain period of time, like the  tag does for images. Despite my opposition to that idea, I think a better system of encouraging references to be added to articles would be beneficial to the project. What do you think of subdividing :Category:Articles lacking sources into :Category:Unreferenced as of October 2006, :Category:Unreferenced as of November 2006, etc? This would be similar to how :Category: Orphaned articles or :Category: Articles that need to be wikified are broken out, allowing us to marshall our efforts toward the longest-standing problems first, when needed. Thoughts, criticisms, tomatoes? I'm not tied to the subcat naming structure, but it made the most sense after looking at the way other maintenance subcategories are named. -- nae'blis 23:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done; please see :Category:Articles lacking sources by month to help out. -- nae'blis 20:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreferenced articles by month 

message: "If this project succeeds, then people on the lookout for vandalism only need to compare current information with the references listed."
This is only partly correct. Frequently articles need to make it clear what type of reference is being provided, and this must also be verified. References to Encyclopedia Britannica are not usually a problem. References to Scientology literature are a big problem unless they are clearly labelled as claims or opinions, as the case may be, and not as facts. This will particularly be the case for articles where bias is a problem.
Ed Cherlin 01:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References to Unreliable or Biased Sources 

message: Hi all. Is there a good way to tag or sort articles that need fact-checking by a particular subject area, e.g. articles in electrical engineering that need to be fact-checked? That is, is there a way to do a search across categories? The best (clunky) solution I can come up with is using google to search the template language plus the keywords from the category, e.g. this search for unreferenced articles in :category:Aerospace engineering, which doesn't entirely work. Other ideas? Figuring out a way to sort unreferenced by topic would perhaps help encourage outside professionals to work on these topics. --phoebe 18:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We could imaginably do something bot-based (maybe running once a week?) that would make a report of articles marked as unreferenced, by category. I'm sure there are refinements of this idea that would improve it. - Jmabel | Talk 20:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Facts by topic 

message: Out of curiousity, do we have any processes/awards/whatever to reward editors who properly source the articles they write?  JYolkowski // talk 00:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewarding people who reference their articles