Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 15

message: 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:
#Is it a WP:RS?
#If an upload violates copyright, how can it be a WP:RS?
#If it is a WP:RS, how is it cited in a footnote?
#Do we have a page, guideline, description anywhere?
Thanks, Sandy 22:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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 (talk) 02:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, SV.  See other conversation at the talk page of WP:BLP: more feedback there.  Sandy 02:36, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Maybe you should watch a youtube video, rather than wallow in ignorance. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.69.227.7 (talk) 19:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Youtube

message: 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)
thread_title:  refactoring 

message: 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 
* 
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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Subscription sites 

message: 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)
replies: text: "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. [and I'll copy this to Mahawiki's user talk page] - Jmabel | Talk 06:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  advice needed 

message: 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)
replies: text: Here is a convenient link to the essay: Wikipedia:Convenience links (SEWilco 02:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Convenience links essay 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text:  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(Talk) 06:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Proving I have read the book 

message: 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
#(Author Year) notation may disrupt the flow of the article to a non-technical reader, and
#(Author Year) might not pass if an article is nominated at WP:GAN.
So which convention do we follow here?  Wikipedia's or AMS's? -Runningonbrains 16:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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    Talk     Contribs   22:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Definitely use the standard method for the discipline. See Wikipedia: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 Wikipedia's standard referencing systems. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to cite... 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Need  Help 

message: Would it be more helpful to keep all discussion in one place, at Wikipedia talk:Scientific citation guidelines ? Sandy (Talk) 16:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Any time you want to stop the rules lawyering and discuss the content, it would be helpful. -- SCZenz 20:47, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Move all discussion to article talk page?

message: 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. 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. .
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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Another footnote

message: 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 (talk) 05:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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 (talk) 06:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

text: 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 (talk) 06:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Septen, the advice not to switch citation systems is already in the text twice elsewhere. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:48, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: My revert

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

text: 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)
thread_title:  Errors and redundancy 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Zotero Firefox extension for citations 

message: Something that came up in during a rewrite of WP:RS might go better here, if it has consensus (title changed):
:Use of sources and inline citations
:Sources are used for one of two ways within Wikipedia.
:* To support an specific assertion made in an article.  It is good form to directly cite the source for the point that is being supported, so that other editors and readers will be able to figure out which sources go with which assertations.
:* To support the assertations represented in the article as a whole.  In this case, it may still be a good idea to cite the souce once every paragraph or section, to remind the reader where the information is from, but it is not as important.  It may also be useful to do this in case more sources are used in the future.
See link.
— Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 18:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usefulness of inline citations 

message: I've listed an article, Turkish Airlines Flight 1476, to GA list. Article is about a recent subject, and all sources that i use is from news. And a reviewer ask me to use MLA style referencing on talk page, Talk:Turkish Airlines Flight 1476. What can i do, is it better to use MLA style and if it's better how can i use MLA style. Btw, i checked all sources and 4 of them goes dead. 2 of the dead ones are from CNN, and it's difficult to find again exact information from other sources. What can i do about dead ones, replace them and rewrite these parts with what can i find. I've read What to do when a reference link "goes dead" part, and checked CNN sources on archieve.org but i couldn't find the article. Thanks in advance --Ugur Basak 11:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Use WebCite to avoid dead links in the first place.--Eysen 16:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  dead links and MLA style 

message: What's the policy on citing stuff passed down orally? - Peregrinefisher 20:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd think you'd have to find a citable reliable source that recorded the oral tradition.  It all boils down to verifiability.  It also helps if the article text states something like: "the oral tradition of <some group> is that the world is flat and sits on the back of a turtle" rather than stating "the world is flat ... turtle" in the article and "hiding" the oral tradition part in a footnote or ref.  Also if it is your own oral tradition, then you run afoul of "no original research".  If it is not your own tradition, then you should already have a source.  If you feel the source meets the reliablity standard and is verifiable, then include the information and cite the source.  --J Clear 01:47, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oral tradition 

message: Please don't add again to the project page comments that would be more appropriate on talk.  This is the third or fourth time you've done it here and elsewhere. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: T00h00

message: Some sites like http://news.yahoo.com always bring down their articles after a fairly short amount of time has passed. Could we add a warning to the policy page about which sites follow this practice, and advise to search for equivalent articles at other, nonvolatile sources? A built-in warning for editors when they add a link like that inside a <ref> tag would work, too. Phoenix-forgotten 19:21, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  blacklisting known expiring web sources 

message: Humbly requesting the follow appear near the top of the page
For more templates to assist formatting, see  the citation templates. 
Makes it easier to find them, I come here via WP:CITE
Thanks, Cheers. --Uncle Bungle 04:38, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Convenience link please 

message: An editor af Quixtar would like to use an old promotional video as a source. Youtube hosts the video, and at least two Quixtar-related websites hotlink to it - one site belongs to a supporter and the other to an opponent. There is no licensing information at any site. My view is that linking directly to Youtube is the most NPOV (if we need to use the video at all) though that doesn't address the copyright issue. The other editor is concerned that if we link directly to Youtube the link will be removed. Talk:Quixtar#Controversy. Any thoghts? -Will Beback 18:56, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Youtube: main site versus hot links 

message: Is there a way to limit references to a subpart of a page?  Say someone is proposing new text in the talk page of an article.  In their text they have references, and they add the  tag at the end.  Then someone else does the same thing with a different block of text, which will now give one reference block (twice?) with all the references, not just the ones in their newly added text.  Disregarding that said texts should have been sandboxed somewhere else, is there a way to limit these references, so I can have one set of references for the first block of text and a separate set for the second?  Obviously not a huge problem, simply wondering if it is technically possible. *Spark* 15:42, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not currently, though that is one of the upgrades suggested for the Cite.php system. Lyrl    Talk     Contribs   22:43, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scoped References 

message: How do I cite a pdf file from the internet?Wai Hong 06:51, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That depends on the style in which you are intending to cite, but you do it generally as with any other web source. The easiest and most straightforward way to cite is to simply place the URL in behind the period after the text you need to source like  which will result in a reference like this. For footnoted references, the easiest and most straightforward way is to use Wikicite. CyberAnth 10:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Use WebCite www.webcitation.org to archive the PDF and then cite the WebCite URL which is stable.--Eysen 14:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

text: It depends on what you mean by a PDF file from the internet. Remember that these have to be reliable sources. With that in mind there are several types of PDFs that you may cite. If the PDF is just a journal article, then you would cite is as with any other journal article. You can provided a link to the PDF if you want, but the main thing is the journal title, page number, article title etc Nil Einne 09:39, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How to cite PDF 

message: Citing/Referencing help pages desperately need to be simplified. 
It took me 20 minutes to uncover the fact that cite.php/inline/Harvard style is the preferred method and I am not a newbie. And I'm still not sure. New users will be baffled. A clear consensus on a cite style is needed and someone with a big stick needs to keep the discussion going until it is achieved. --Nickj69 10:27, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simplification 

message: This guideline needs to take in account WP:V and WP:RS, especially regarding online sources as references. -- Jordi·✆ 09:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs to be brought inline with WP:V and WP:RS 

message: Seems to me that the advice here for citing with "Embedded HTML links"—what I prefer to call "blind URLs"—is a liability. You end up with inline citations in the article where only by following the link off of Wikipedia can someone tell which of the refrences this cites. And, of course, it only works for Internet citations, you still need a different means to cite any print source.
Embedded HTML links are an OK temporary placeholder to let you work quickly on an article & clean up later, but in the long run they are a lousy solution to citation. - Jmabel | Talk 21:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Embedded HTML links 

message: How do I do this? HK51 12:07, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the DVD is easily available, then for verifiability you can simply quote verbatim from it, adding the timecode (hh:mm:ss) from which you took the quote. Many DVDs have ISBN numbers, so you can use the ISBN number on the reference as well. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:11, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cheers thats really helpful, thanks very much :-) HK51 17:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Citing information from DVD documentaries

message: I've discovered this article is actually plagiarism as it almost copies word for word a landscape character assessment from North Hertfordshire Council. What should be done about this? I still think the article should be kept however. Simply south 21:11, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good work. The other contributions by the same editor, , should also be reviewed. -Will Beback · † · 22:36, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Copyright violations. It could be a false alarm, for example, the author might have written the material for the North Hertfordshire Council but retained copyright for himself, and then posted it on Wikipedia. If it is a true violaton, the options are
***obtain a suitable license from the copyright holder
***rewrite the article to avoid copyright problems
***remove the article --Gerry Ashton 23:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  River Mimram 

message: I need some input about Saipan Sucks.  Is it appropriate to cite the html source of http://www.saipansucks.com/about.htm (Open page, go to View > Page Source) at line 39 which shows the page's author?  C.m.jones 22:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Special situation

message: Can we make it standard practice to put the Notes sections after the References section? To me, it seems stupid to give page numbers before even mentioning what's being cited. For example, on today's FA, Great Fire of London, if I want to scan through what was cited, I have to jump past the Notes section, check the References, then jump back to the Notes. It seems more logical to have the References come first, so that one can know what's being cited before one sees the page numbers. However, if notes and citations are seperated, I'm fine with notes coming before the references, but usually the notes section is filled with citations.--SeizureDog 05:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems like one of those points where there are stylistic preferences but little practical effect (does it really matter whether you need to scroll up or down from the notes section to get to the full bibliography, once you've jumped to it?); it seems better to just leave it up to editor preference rather than trying to force everything into the same mold. Kirill Lokshin 05:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References before Notes 

message: Currently the article Roguelike is nominated for deletion.
The article deals with a genre of games named for their similarity to Rogue.
Whilst the article includes an extensive selection of external links, User:ChrisGriswold has tagged it as being unreferenced.
My question is: this being an article about a genre of games which is developed by the open source community, to what extent are blogs, personal sites, and newsgroups, able to be cited? For example: the best source for a definition of a roguelike would probably be item 1.2 from this FAQ.
Thanks,Garrie 03:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  AfD: [[Roguelike]] 

message: At the risk of appearing dense, I found the following hard to follow at first reading:
Facts that are fully sourced in text need not be further cited; this will most often apply to sources with a well-established and traditional citation system ("Mark 16:48"; Lycidas, l. 135); but other cases are possible: "In the preamble of Magna Carta", "on the first page of the Washington Republican for February 6, 1824".
Since being sourced and being cited are not the same thing, why "further"? Also, something which is fully done can't be further done anyway.
"This will most often apply..." Imprecise and unhelpful.
"Other cases are possible". Self-evident, but in this context, water-muddying.
"Sources with a well-established citation system..." What does that mean? Well-established within that source or beyond it? What's that got to do with Wikipedia's citation system, which can be applied to sources with or without a citation system of their own?
"Sources with a traditional citation system..." How does that affect anything? CMS gives examples of many systems and recommends a few. It's how Wikipedia cites the sources that we are interested in on this page.
("Mark 16:48"; Lycidas, l. 135): Placing the Mark and Lycidas examples together between brackets made me read them at first as one citation (I thought this was the author Mark's edition of Lycidas, or something).
I presume that "Mark 16:48" is a bible reference; shouldn't it be wikilinked, then? And why has it got speech marks round it? (Forgive my non-religiosity, but I first read this one as some kind of Harvard reference—which I had assumed, before I worked out what this paragraph is getting at, would count as a "traditional citation system"—for a book written by an author called Mark—you know, Jan Mark, or someone.)
As for the Lycidas and Magna Carta examples, surely the edition should be cited. 
Is the fact that in the examples these are given lines or preamble descriptions the point? I presume from these examples that what is meant by this paragraph is that if you mention the verse number, line, or section of a source in the text, that counts as a reference and doesn't need doubling up in the footnotes if the source is referenced as a whole at the bottom of the page. That's true enough; but it's the same for any reference made explicit in the text, not just for "well-established and traditional" ones. So long as readers are somewhere given the means of checking the reference, that's fine.
Washington Republican. Why saddle ourselves with a red link here?
Finally, why is this point under "Material that is, or is likely to be, challenged", in particular? (Scratches head.)
qp10qp 02:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed this paragraph.  I agree and don't see it necessary anywhere in the article. ∴ here…♠ 06:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Unclear paragraph

message: I can't seem to find the requirements for citing locale descriptions. I specifically need to know how to make an article on a school acceptable when there aren't any published sources to cite .. Thanks in advance for any and all help.     Phentos 07:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the description is not published, then it would be original research, which is not allowed Wikipedia:No original research.  Am I missing something?  ∴ here…♠ 00:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

text: You need to be more specific with your question in order to get helpful advice.  If the "description" is that the school is red, you could just take a picture. CMummert 00:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

text: In particular, I need to - as this has become a sort of assignment - go into such depth as the school's history, which I can recieve from persona present at its founding. Without published material, and under the stringent stipulations of the original research & citation policies, I need to find a way through or around.    Phentos 05:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations when describing locations? 

message: This edit has a comment strongly implying that links to blogs are wrong.   My understanding is that a blog is like any other source, and should be evaluated in terms of its reliability.   Can some more experienced Wikipedian clarify?  Of course the edit in question may have substituted a more reliable source, which is of course a good thing, but that's beside the point for my question - Cheers, 01:46, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See WP:RS#Using_online_and_self-published_sources. CyberAnth 03:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anything inherently wrong with blogs? 

message: Would like to rename and redirect Wikipedia:Embedded Citations to Wikipedia:Embedded links.  Clarity and multiple articles already using term embedded links (Wikipedia:Harvard referencing).  Discuss if problems at Wikipedia_talk:Embedded_Citations. ∴ here…♠ 08:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  rename [[Wikipedia:Embedded Citations]] to [[Wikipedia:Embedded links]] 

message: I have just removed the following WP-centric material from the WebCite article and replaced it with a Template:Selfref hatnote with a link here.  Here is the extracted material:
--zenohockey 23:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed Eysen's edits. It's fine for the person holding the copyright for a work to use WebCite, but rarely does a Wikipedia editor hold the copyright to the sources used for a Wikipedia article, so it would be a copyright violation for the editor to copy a work to WebCite. --Gerry Ashton 22:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Copyright concerns related to recommending to archive cited material using WebCite are unfounded. Even if there would be a copyright violation (see below why it is not), it would certainly not be the editor who would be liable and would have to deal with this, but WebCite (which is a third party server). Copyright issues are discussed on the WebCite FAQ - Quote:
"Caching and archiving webpages is widely done (e.g. by Google, Internet Archive etc.), and is not considered a copyright infringement, as long as the copyright owner has the ability to remove the archived material and to opt out. WebCite® honors robot exclusion standards, as well as no-cache and no-archive tags. Please contact us if you are the copyright owner of an archived webpage which you want to have removed.
A U.S. court has recently (Jan 19th, 2006) ruled that caching does not constitute a copyright violation, because of fair use and an implied license (Field vs Google, US District Court, District of Nevada, CV-S-04-0413-RCJ-LRL, see also news article on Government Technology). Implied license refers to the industry standards mentioned above: If the copyright holder does not use any no-archive tags and robot exclusion standards to prevent caching, WebCite® can (as Google does) assume that a license to archive has been granted. Fair use is even more obvious in the case of WebCite® than for Google, as Google uses a “shotgun” approach, whereas WebCite® archives selectively only material that is relevant for scholarly work. Fair use is therefore justifiable based on the fair-use principles of purpose (caching constitutes transformative and socially valuable use for the purposes of archiving, in the case of WebCite® also specifically for academic research), the nature of the cached material (previously made available for free on the Internet, in the case of WebCite® also mainly scholarly material), amount and substantiality (in the case of WebCite® only cited webpages, rarely entire websites), and effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work (in the case of Google it was ruled that there is no economic effect, the same is true for WebCite®)."''
Eysen (talk • contribs) 19:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, that's WebCite's opinion. Even if they're right, there is still the question of whether the source web page or the WebCite copy will turn out to be more permanent; they may aim to provide a permanent copy, but whether that will be achieved or not only time will tell. Also, some sites have desireable periodic updates, and the WebCite copy will not benefit from updates. --Gerry Ashton 22:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding copyright, it's not WebCite's opinion, it is a legal / court opinion (see Field vs Google. Regarding the second point, concerns on WebCite being discontinued, WebCite is used and supported by over 200 academic journals, as well as permanent preservation partners, such as libraries - whose primary mission really is archiving and preserving material. U of T library, which backs this project, will certainly be around for the next hundreds of years. The academic journals who are members of the consortium are using WebCite to cite URLs, and they have a vested interest in keeping this service alive. Together, they act a guarantors and custodians for the service. Yes, you can wait 50 years to see if WebCite is still around, but then it is too late to preserve cited material. Besides, no harm is done in caching cited URLs prospectively beginning right now. If the format www.webcitation.org/?url=URL&date=DATE is used to link to snapshots (rather than the alternate short format www.webcitation.org/ID using the snapshot ID) then it can always be reverted to the original link should WebCite cease to exist. Thirdly, regarding the last criticism that authors sometimes want to link to the live version, it is up to the citing author to decide whether he wants to use WebCite or link to the "live" version instead. I would say in the majority of cases the author is more interested in having a stable link/snapshot. A future version of WebCite will be able to compare the cached version and the live version, displaying the changes, similar to Wiki's history feature. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Eysen (talk • contribs) 14:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

text: One more thing: since many editors may go on a "archive every citation" rampage (see recent mass removals of youtube links), we'll need to give guidance on what is appropriate to archive (based on volatility, site type, odds of the site disappearing, etc), though they'll all come down to guesses and judgement calls in the end.  —  jesup 23:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I notice that you people are discussing part of the same issue that I brought up on WP:V, see , and I commented there. Harald88 10:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree completely with the WebCite approach and think that the edits made by Eysen should never have been deleted and should be restored. The copyright argument is not valid, especially because the policy currently mentions the Internet Archive / Wayback machine, which does exactly the same as WebCite and for which the same copyright concerns apply (both systems do honor removal requests by copyright owners and no-cache tags etc.). The advantage of WebCite over IA is that it allows on-demand prospective archiving of a webpage by the citing author. A citation method/template as suggested by Jesup - asking authors to cite whenever possible both the original URL and the "webcited" (cached) version makes sense and should be included in the policy as soon as possible.  --Greg4711 02:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WebCite 

message: I changed the example to use the cite news template, as this provides consistency and is pretty common on Wikipedia. Sorry, I marked the change as "cite web" by mistake. ---Remember the dot 06:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cite news template

message: I've just made a major change (3 edits) adding a Full citations section under How to cite.  As all three listed techniques require that a full citation show up under References, it seems appropriate to address this directly, rather than inadequately under each technique.  It needs work, but I think the idea behind this structural change to this guideline is a good one.  Comments and improvements encouraged!  Done for now... ∴ here…♠ 09:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Full citations section 

message: I'm thinking that external links at the end, has dated back to the days before cite.php. WP:LINK states that the "most common" way to place external links is "at the end of an article".
Some articles now have quite extensive references sections, and it often looks better to place these after the article proper (including external links) rather thasn above the "see also" or "external links" sections. Otherwise one potentially has the following article finish:
:* Article
:* See also
:* Long section of footnotes, comments and citations
:* External links (lost between footnotes and categories)
It seems better that with extensive referencing and citations coming to be the norm, then references should generally go at the end of the article proper, that is after the (usually shorter) sections for notes, links and the like.  Would this be acceptable to others to change the MOS slightly to suggest cite.php and similar references should usually be placed after all other sections, or at least may be placed there if 'long'? FT2 (Talk | email) 19:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whatever you do, it should agree with Wikipedia:Guide to layout --Gerry Ashton 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Reposted and moved to existing discussion at:  Wikipedia_talk:Guide_to_layout#Order_of_appendices. Thanks. FT2 (Talk | email) 01:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Positioning of article references 

message: ...
I put in an article on Post Secondary Transition Planning for High School Students with Disabilities.  Admittedly I need to wikify it, but the original article was replete with references, and I believe this was noted by a reviewer.  Before I have been able to do this, someone added to/ edited the article and did not include references.  So now, the article has been 'dunned' (I believe that's the right word).  What's my recourse?
Phil Vitkus 19:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You can use the history tab to find a version before the unsourced material and restore that version. --Gerry Ashton 21:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on the history, it looks like the unreferenced notice was added after the wikify notice, which was a mistake (since the article clearly has references, and these would be more visible after wikifying).  The unreferenced tag just means there isn't a references section, not that there are specific statements that need to be referenced.  It doesn't look like more content was added since 2006-11-02. You can just wikify the article, add a references section, and then remove both tags.  CMummert 21:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What happens when someone edits and doesn't cite sources? 

message: It's proabably too late for us to get a seat in this Working Group, but I hope someone with better credentials than me will monitor what the US Library of Congress's   Working Group Established To Discuss Future of Bibliographic Control decides to do. (And maybe we can convince them to recruit one of us to assist in future Working Groups.) -- llywrch 22:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A project of interest to Wikipedians 

message: I have been trying to assertain the derivation of the place Horndean (See the talk for details) - The current (9th Dec) 'derivation' has once again changed to a popular one but not that which my source is indicating. I would like to have both the academic source I have and leave the popular answer inthe article. So my question is that I wish to cite the email source that I have (from the respected academic university answering my questions) but I am unsure how, and can't find much on citeing personal or email sources anywhere. Are there any suggestions (examples) on how to do this? Thanks  Ben 17:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Emails are not verifiable so you can't cite them. --Gerry Ashton 17:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The same is potentially true of written correspondence (see below).  However, admissibility in court would seem to belie the notion that emails are not verifiable.  The question from Wikipedia's standpoint is how to verify them so that they become admissible as citations. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:00, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The court analogy does not apply in the Wikipedia context. In court, a witness can be put under oath and state that he received an email or letter, that the email came from the address the correspondent usually uses, that the signature on the letter looks like the correspondent's usual signature, etc. In Wikipedia, the editors are anonymous, they don't take oaths, and they don't face any consequences if the information turns out to be false. If the information isn't published, we can't use it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gerry Ashton (talk • contribs) 17:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Citeing Emails and similar

message: Just wondering, is there a way to properly cite microform? I don't know if I'll need to use it or not, but in the case I do I'd like to know. It's probably a lot simpler than I think it is... --Wizardman 22:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it is any different from citing something on paper.  There will be an author, title, publisher, and (usually) a page number.  If it is an archival source there will be a reference number (but there is an issue over whether such things are "verifiable").  --Zerotalk 23:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say they're as verifiable as any hardcopy source.  The form doesn't matter much; the source and authorship does.  WP:V sources (especially non-online ones, doubly-so for unusual or rare hardcopy forms) may not be easy to verify, but that doesn't make them un-verifiable.  I've in one case referenced documents in the archives of the Smithsonian Air & Space museum.  Anyone can go there and see them - though I doubt anyone will.  — jesup 16:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Most microform that I am aware of is a photo of an original that could be cited directly (e.g., various newspapers, public court records). If there is no reason do doubt that the microform is a true copy of the original, one should simply cite the original. Careful editors of scholarly journals follow this practice, especially as more libraries discontinue storing hard copy publications in favor of more compact microform . And, of course, digital archives will replace both print and microform. Finell (Talk) 04:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Microform 

message: Decode the text to find the hidden meaning!
There are several reportsMiscellaneous, Evenimentul Zilei daily, March 24, 2005Miscellaneous, Evenimentul Zilei daily, March 14, 2005"The Lia Roberts hope", Evenimentul Zilei, January 19, 2004"Hot Art, Cold Cash", pages 177,184, by Michel van Rijn, Little Brown & Co., October 1994. Also the report "DEVASTATING ART NEWS", October 29, 2001, by the same UK police expert in art smuggling. For more on Michel van Rijn's credentials, please, see 1 and 2. that the Romanian Communist authorities obedient to Stalin presented King Michael with 42 valuable Crown-owned paintings shortly before the King's abdication, some of which"Hot Art, Cold Cash", pages 177, 184, by Michel van Rijn, Little Brown & Co., October 1994. Also the report "Devastating Art News", October 29, 2001, by the same UK police expert in art smuggling. For more on Michel van Rijn's credentials, please, see 1 and 2. were reportedly sold through the famed art dealer Daniel Wildenstein. One of the paintings belonging to the Romanian Crown which was supposedly taken out of the country by King Michael in November 1947, returned to the national patrimony in 2004 as a donation"Raibolini's Madonna at the National Museum of Art of Romania" (in Romanian), Ziua, November 20, 2004Miscellaneous, Evenimentul Zilei daily, March 24, 2005"A Prestigious Donation: Madonna with the Infant by Francesco Raibolini, named "Il Francia"" (in Romanian), Online Gallery site as of December 8, 2006 made by John Kreuger, the former husband of King Michael's daughter Princess Irina. Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, in response to a query of the parliamentarian and former Securitate officer Ilie Merce"There Are No Proofs That King Michael Took Paintings out of Romania" (in Romanian), Adevarul, April 19, 2005, stated that the accusations about Michael having taken out of Romania Crown paintings were "more than dubious" and that the Romanian government had no proofs of any such action by King Michael, claiming that, prior to 1949, the government had no official records of the artwork taken over from the former royal residences. The renowned Romanian editorialist Dan Cristian Turturica "Articles by Dan Cristian Turturica" (in Romanian), Hotnews.ro site as of December 6, 2006 claims that "the King did not steal the paintings as they had been offered to him by the communist rulers so that he would leave Romania more quickly"The Lia Roberts hope", Evenimentul Zilei, January 19, 2004."
- Francis Tyers · 09:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Moderately easier to read through. I'll try this out in the offending article. - Francis Tyers · 14:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Example of Cite.php

message: Francis is absolutely right. How about using temporarily the following manual tweak in format?
(Note: Hit [edit] to see code)
----
There are several reports
Miscellaneous, Evenimentul Zilei daily, March 24, 2005Miscellaneous, Evenimentul Zilei daily, March 14, 2005
"The Lia Roberts hope", Evenimentul Zilei, January 19, 2004
"Hot Art, Cold Cash", pages 177,184, by Michel van Rijn, Little Brown & Co., October 1994. Also the report "DEVASTATING ART NEWS", October 29, 2001, by the same UK police expert in art smuggling. For more on Michel van Rijn's credentials, please, see 1 and 2.
that the Romanian Communist authorities obedient to Stalin presented King Michael with 42 valuable Crown-owned paintings shortly before the King's abdication, some of which
"Hot Art, Cold Cash", pages 177, 184, by Michel van Rijn, Little Brown & Co., October 1994. Also the report "Devastating Art News", October 29, 2001, by the same UK police expert in art smuggling. For more on Michel van Rijn's credentials, please, see 1 and 2.
were reportedly sold through the famed art dealer Daniel Wildenstein. One of the paintings belonging to the Romanian Crown which was supposedly taken out of the country by King Michael in November 1947, returned to the national patrimony in 2004 as a donation
"Raibolini's Madonna at the National Museum of Art of Romania" (in Romanian), Ziua, November 20, 2004Miscellaneous, Evenimentul Zilei daily, March 24, 2005"A Prestigious Donation: Madonna with the Infant by Francesco Raibolini, named "Il Francia"" (in Romanian), Online Gallery site as of December 8, 2006
made by John Kreuger, the former husband of King Michael's daughter Princess Irina. Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, in response to a query of the parliamentarian and former Securitate officer Ilie Merce,
"There Are No Proofs That King Michael Took Paintings out of Romania" (in Romanian), Adevarul, April 19, 2005
stated that the accusations about Michael having taken out of Romania Crown paintings were "more than dubious" and that the Romanian government had no proofs of any such action by King Michael, claiming that, prior to 1949, the government had no official records of the artwork taken over from the former royal residences. The renowned Romanian editorialist Dan Cristian Turturica
"Articles by Dan Cristian Turturica" (in Romanian), Hotnews.ro site as of December 6, 2006
claims that "the King did not steal the paintings as they had been offered to him by the communist rulers so that he would leave Romania more quickly".
"The Lia Roberts hope", Evenimentul Zilei, January 19, 2004
----
----
I added hard returns before each block of <ref> tags and after each last  tag. The only glitch is that it leaves a space before each superscript mark, but this could easily be fixed in code. If we train our eyes, we can skip through the refs more easily by spotting the next orphan  tag. What do you think? Is the code more readable now? NikoSilver 12:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Moderately easier to read through. I'll try this out in the offending article. - Francis Tyers · 14:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Temporary manual tweak

message: Some articles have understandably large reference sections. Now I'm all for this but some have observed that it makes the articles a bit unwieldy and bottom-heavy, even with two-row formatting and tiny text. I'd rather not crop references to correct this (as has been suggested elsewhere). Would it be possible for us to impliment a "hide" function for references in the same manner as the contents sections can be shown/hidden? Sockatume 21:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is a great idea but it might be better asked over at the tech pump (WP:VPT). --*Spark* 21:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Noted, taking discussion over there. Sockatume 21:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it matters that a reference section is long any more than it matters if a book has copious end-notes or appendices—even less, really, because Wikipedia isn't paper. Perhaps I'm sad, but I love a large references section to get my teeth into, particularly if it includes notes. These sections will certainly be hideable one day, and they will then become like cupboards for readers and future editors to dig into if they wish. qp10qp 22:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Large reference sections

message: I've become interested in the Parker Brothers article (feels like a stub for a company over a century old) and wanted to have an opinion on using the PB website  history page as one source.  
I am still in the process of sorting out through outside sources but wondered what were the thoughts in regard to those corporate self-histories
Lost Kiwi(talk)01:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Verifiability and [[Parker Brothers]]

message: I recently came across a couple of articles that (to my mind) very oddly mixes the Harvard and Chicago styles of referencing (e.g. FA Saffron and soon-to-be FAC Charles Darwin) by using footnotes but then formatting the footnote text as a Harvard citation which jumps to a reference section. As this issue also pertains to WP:FAC, I've started a debate about it on WIAFA talk. Please come join the discussion there. Mikker (...) 02:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consistent references - mixing Harvard and Chicago 

message: I've read the help page on adding a citation but I can't figure out how to actually do it still. I have all the information to add and understand the format, but what button do I hit to add a citation? Do I do it on the 'edit' page? Please help as I would like to make my additions credible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ryanhupka (talk • contribs) 10:10, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, you do add it on the edit page. Try creating a subpage to your user page and practice there. If you have trouble, you can give us the name of your subpage, and we can look at it and offer suggestions. --Gerry Ashton 13:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Navigating adding a citation 

message: I have noticed that there are many articles about television and these are some of my favorite articles. Strangely, I do not see any information on citing television as a source for information in articles, and I have found articles that are filled with information that is clearly using television as it source tend to have few references. I would like to fix this problem. How should I cite television? -- Lilwik 22:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Give the episode title, series name, and date of broadcast for sure. Also useful would be the executive producer, director, and writer. If you are working from the DVD and referencing a particular moment in the episode, providing the time of that moment would be good as well. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  may also be useful. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:25, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citing Television? 

message: I think a new ISBN system comes in today, with 13-figure numbers. Should I now quote 13-figure numbers or 10s?
It seems to me that it will take some time for the 13s to become fully link/searchable, and so it would be premature to start changing all the existing 10s to 13s. On the other hand, for new references, would it be a good idea in future to cite both the 10 and the 13 ISBN? (That would be my choice, but my heart sinks at the tedious prospect of doing it.) qp10qp 19:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Automated conversion is possible: take the first 9 digits of a 10-digit ISBN, prefix with "978", and calculate checksum as described here for 13-digit barcodes. JulesH 11:29, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New ISBN system

message: Too many articles have been tagged as unreferenced.  Take for example The Bottle Imp.  It is a short story, out of copyright and at Wikisource, which is linked from the article.  The article is verifiable in the story so there is no need for further references.  --Henrygb 20:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The editor who added the tag clearly explained why they did so, and they were quite right.  A substantial part of that article is either unreferenced or in violation of Wikipedia:No original research.  You should revert yourself or properly source the "Paradox" analysis.  Jkelly 20:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Everything in the article is verifiable and none of it is original research.  And that is enough; if you want to challenge that then do so in good faith.  What is the point of Wikisource if it is not a source?  On the paradox  is neither completely reliable in general nor accurate in this particular case.  I have made my point and you should realise that there is less of a consensus on this guideline than you think; others have made similar points above.   --Henrygb 22:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Jkelly. The article does contain information which, if not properly attributed to a reliable source, constitutes original research.  But I have moved the {Unreferenced} tag down to the section in question.  -- Satori Son 22:25, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

text: New editors are often confused about how to apply policy or guidelines.  A handful of such comments shouldn't be confused with a lack of broad support -- your confusion about what violates Wikipedia:No original research, or what Wikisource is, for example, shouldn't be later used as an argument that we should get rid of either one.  I have no idea what you're trying to communicate about "challenging" in "good faith".  Jkelly 22:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And now you are being patronising.  I am not a new user, as a little unoriginal research might show. The unreferenced tag is not just ugly; its use is often also a sign of unwillingness to check information and indicates a preference for process over encyclopedic content.  --Henrygb 00:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for sounding patronising.  Wikisource is for primary source texts; it isn't a referencing system for Wikipedia.  A lengthy discussion of the game-theoretical implications of a short story cannot be referenced to that story -- that is precisely what Wikipedia:No original research is meant to avoid.  One can edit templates to make them more appealing or helpful; see Wikipedia:Templates to get started.   Jkelly 00:42, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Abuse of unreferenced tags

message: HUH?  This makes like zero sense. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 01001 (talk) 04:16, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can't cite Wikipedia as a source for another Wikipedia article, is what it means. That would be circular logic; I simply set up two pages that support each other and they are both verifiable. -Amarkov blahedits 05:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: False logic.  Further all the great works throughout history build upon themselves.  This rule along with all the others only serve to limit Wikipedia.  The rules need a rewrite.01001 01:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note: Wikipedia articles may not be cited as sources. 

message: Sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong place, but it seems logical here. I'd like to see a Wikipedia-based database of citable materials. That way, when I want to include a cite, I can go to the database and copy/paste the reference I need, already in the correct format. All I would have to do is add the page number. Like the old-fashioned card catalogs, it should be searchable by author and title, and, if possible, topic.
I have some ideas about how the data input and search dialog boxes should go, but I have no idea where to go or who to talk to. Guidance, please, anyone? --Cbdorsett 14:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See , bibtex records (and maybe also RIS, which is not implemented, yet) are the answer!  --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:47, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I think WP:FOOT has links to m:Wikicite and related info, as the present footnotes technologies have always been considered temporary. (SEWilco 16:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Database of sources? 

message: Citations are critical to Wikipedia. That said a small minority of editors use WP:CITE to game the system, in breach of WP:POINT. I have added the (hopefully) fairly non-contentious sentence:
:Gaming the cite system: - Gaming the cite system, that is, demanding blatently excessive citations or accepting citations only from an unreasonably narrow source, for the apparent purpose of making a point or gaming the system is not an appropriate use of this policy.
Three quick examples of this tactic from articles I've worked on:
# In Neuro-linguistic programming, the article came under sustained long term vandalism and deliberate degradation by a (now banned) sneaky vandal and his sock-army. One of main tactics was to use cites (however selective) to support his view, and then demand that those trying to present a balanced view cite every statement and prove every claim made on balance. needless to say this demand wore out many editors, who left rather than "prove" the views added were balanced to the unreasonable degree the vandal's socks were expecting.
# In the same article, same POV warrior, when cites were given, the further demand was made that only cites from MedLine were acceptable. Publications or articles not listed there were disparaged. This is an unreasonable demand; many publications and credible papers are excluded if a gamer insists "only papers listed on source X are good enough".
# In Canine reproduction, an editor objected to description of canine copulation as being "venial rubbish" and asserted some facts were "rubbish" and "crap". He deleted the entire section. Cites were given on the talk page for the main point raised, and he agreed his comment on that point had been mistaken. So the section, which was fairly well written, was reinstated. His response was to demand cites of every single clause in that section - and only that section - often 2 per line, and for every last clause that conveyed a fact in that section, however non-contentious, stating "CITE IT OR LOSE IT."  (Note that the claim it had been deleted in the past is misleading; the only person who had deleted it was the gamer himself.)
I'm sure these aren't the only three times this has happened.
Hopefully the above wording covers this type of situation without invoking WP:BEANS, and others will approve overall. FT2 (Talk | email) 00:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's already doubleplusungood to use sockpuppets, and there's no requirement stated here that every individual sentence or clause have a citation (a source can cover multiple sentences). In the case of NLP, this is a sufficiently controversial topic to necessitate pervasive citations, though there's also nothing stated here or elsewhere that only publications indexed in the MedLine database are reliable. Unless there are multiple examples of people who are both lockstep with WP:CITE and obviously "gaming the system," a section on this is needless instruction creep. Simões (talk/contribs) 15:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gaming the cite system 

message: Often, we get a lot of information for the article from a single website. But we get a lot of different facts, each from a different page. In this case, we could use <ref> to cite the source for each fact, but that would lead to a "crowded" article, like this: :pt:Blackbox (this is Portuguese language, but you can see that it has too many notes, almost all of them from the Blackbox website). On the other hand, if we don't add the notes, and just put the websites in the references, it will be difficult for the reader to know which facts come from which page in each website. What is the guideline?
PS: Despite the page I linked being in the Portuguese Wikipedia, I'm asking it here because I'll apply the guideline here in the English Wikipedia. 
Jorge Peixoto 16:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's much better to link to the exact page, because in a large site it could be very difficult to find where the fact came from. This is especially important if the site does not have its own search function. It is also important if you are paraphrasing rather than quoting; a quote can be searched for, a paraphrase can't. --Gerry Ashton 19:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Better to provide the citations even if much of the info is duplicated.  Making the format of the references be less crowded is a display problem, but WP:V requires the sources be provided.  Pages which are a problem when using a certain reference/citation technology could be pointed out on the Talk page of that particular technology, either for suggestions or for use as an example when changing the technology to "better" handle the situation.  I use such challenging pages to test such technologies, and you can try to bring them to the attention of those involved in the specific one being used.  (SEWilco 19:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What to do when multiple facts come from a single website? 

message: When many (in this case, about 60) citations point to different pages or chapters in a single publication, is there a style or an appropriate manner of simplifying the references to that publication?  Another user and I are attempting to figure out what's best for the article, and a standard -- or at least a suggestion for one -- would be very helpful.  For comparison, there's the original option with many separate lines or the simplified version with only one line.  The former takes up a lot of space, but clearly indicates which page contains each of the 60 or so facts; the latter is much more concise, but at the expense of clearly indicating which fact comes from which page.  Any suggestions for which direction we should aim in?  Any suggestions for a way that is both simple, concise, and clear?  Thanks!  Tafkargb 06:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would strongly suggest the first version.  The second is a nightmare to maintain—what happens when the footnotes change order?—and suggests (to someone familiar with formal citation styles) that all of those pages apply to each of the footnotes.  (Personally, I don't see any problem with having many footnotes; they're off at the bottom, so people that don't care for them probably won't even bother looking, while people that do need them will find it easy to understand what's being cited to what.) Kirill Lokshin 06:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Kirill Lokshin entirely.--HIZKIAH (User • Talk) 12:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: You are also free to use parenthetical citation, like this (Smith 1994:pp. 20–23), instead of footnotes, and then list the references one time at the end.  In some settings they look better, although they only work when you can reference print sources (with a year) rather than web pages. CMummert 12:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Parenthetical citation, also called Harvard citation, can be used for web pages. If the date is not known, you can estimate it (Smith c. 2007) or you can use n.d. which stands for no date (Smith n.d.) --Gerry Ashton 18:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Many citations, single publication?

message: One thing that needs to be fixed in this policy urgently is that this policy exclusively mentions the Wayback machine to recover broken links (implying that this is the only service out there), without even mentioning the existence of other non-profit open source caching/archiving systems such as WebCite. The Internet Archive is far from complete, and using other services like WebCite would increase the likelyhood of recovering pages that have gone 404.
Note that WebCite - in contrast to Wayback machine, which uses a shotgun-approach (random caching with a crawler) - allows editor/author-initiated prospective archiving (taking a snapshot before the website disappears, and cite the WebCite URL with WebCite caching ID in addition to the original URL), which - if this would be done consistently by authors, i.e. would be part of this Wikipedia "citing sources" policy, or handled by bots  - would avoid the problem of link rot on wikipedia in the first place.  --Greg4711 02:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a POV template in section What_to_do_when_a_reference_link_goes_dead, as the policy currently only mentions Wayback machine and Google, not other forms of recovering webpages (e.g. WebCite). See emerging consensus in earlier discussions on this talk page above. I will not engage in this discussion any further as I have a conflict of interest, but I do think that there is no justification for only mentioning Wayback and Google here. --Eysen 21:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Somebody has deleted the "neutrality disputed" template from What_to_do_when_a_reference_link_goes_dead. The section remains remarkably US-centric, referring exclusively to the Internet Archive, failing to mention other archiving services such as those collaborating in the International Internet Preservation Consortium ( of which WebCite will be a member starting Feb 2007). Respective Wikipedia policies on external links , citing sources , and dead links  all need to be updated to reflect that there is not only one Internet Archive on this planet... --Eysen 18:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other archiving systems 

message: I wrote a web-based tool to output the  format given only the ISBN for a book. This may help in formatting references (I found that to be rather time-consuming if done by hand). I would appreciate it if people would give it a try and any feedback (write below). If it is found useful, perhaps it could go into the "Tools" section in Wikipedia:Citing sources. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 07:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Pretty cool tool. However, Diberri's tool already has an ISBN feature. Also, your tool didn't seperate out the location from the publisher with the # I tested it with. However, please don't be discouraged. Keep up the good work!--Andrew c 18:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tool to format citations 

message: I've had problems using  and inline referencing with url sources. For instance in burden of proof#References you'll see that the link is not working as it should. Could anyone identify for me where the syntax is incorrect, or what may be the cause of this problem? Please let me know on my talk page if you can. Richard001 22:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You have to use "http://", or it doesn't process as a link. -Amarkov blahedits 22:51, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Problem with web citations

message: Alright, as I was about to edit some information under the topic about recycling, I realize that my sources are not from books or websites. In my case, one of my source is my environmental science professor at University of Toronto and the other is a posted information on the club notice board in the university. Undenyably, these 2 sources are  more authentic and realiable than many websites. They can withstand criticism from peers and colleagues at the university so their authenticy is much higher. One reference of such is worth more than a bunch of personal websites and blogs put together. So how would I be able to cite it? It certainly will make the information more accurately.
OhanaUnited 01:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For all I know, you do not really attend a university and are not acquainted with a single professor. You are asking us to take take your word for it that the professor and the bulletin board exist. Why should we? You are just an anonymous account on a computer (just like me). You are not a reliable source (and neither am I). --Gerry Ashton 02:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are ways... but it's not open to public. Prof's notes are posted in intranet. It's possible to take a picture of the notice board and scan the notes to be posted in my own website, but would mean I'm creating a reference for a reference. I guess I'll have to go with the Wikipedia:Assume good faith and the Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. Thanks for your suggestion though.
OhanaUnited 05:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Excluding the last 30 days, you have made less than 30 edits/postings to Wikipedia.  May I suggest that a bit more experience is a good idea before you start invoking Wikipedia:Ignore all rules?  For example, more familiarity with WP:RS and WP:V might help you understand that They can withstand criticism from peers and colleagues at the university (referring to items posted on a notice board!) is not exactly what "peer-reviewed" or "reliable" means.  And you apparently don't get it that WP:AGF is totally inappropriate to invoke when someone questions the validity of a source; WP:AGF has to do with reading poor intentions into an action.  In your case, the problem is unfamiliarity with Wikipedia rules; any good editor is just going to point out that the references are unacceptable, not question your intent.  If you can't find the information you want to post via another source that truly meets WP:RS, please don't post it, since at that point there is no difference (as far as Wikipedia is concerned) between what you've posted and a violation of WP:NOR.  John Broughton  |  ♫ 15:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh really?! I counted my history record and it exceeds 30 edits more than 1 month ago. And does number of edits proof anything if the user is trying to make Wikipedia better? Apparently you have double standards to judge users who were inactively differently from others. Go ahead and rant all you want, I won't be answering more flame messages.
OhanaUnited 22:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to cite "uncommon" yet authentic sources? 

message: An editor on Talk:List of publications in philosophy is interpreting "Any material that is challenged and for which no source is provided may be removed by any editor" as meaning that anything without sources can be removed because the challenging is implicit in the removal. I think the tone of the introduction "Attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. Any material that is challenged and for which no source is provided may be removed by any editor." implies that material should be challenged before it is removed and editors given time to source the material before it is removed. Is this not the purpose of the "fact" template? Am I correct, and if so, could anyone suggest how the sentence I quote first above, could be improved? --Bduke 00:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no hard and fast rule about what has to be done before removing unsourced material in general.  But blanking an entire page is frowned upon. In this case, the user blanked it after listing the article on AfD, and while the AfD template says not to blank the article during the deletion review, it was likely an honest error in not knowing that the article should be left in place during AfD. CMummert · talk 00:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See the discussion on Talk:List of publications in philosophy. He is now saying that if the list is kept at Afd, he will remove all entries again. So, while there may be no hard and fast rule, my concerns above perhaps need to be addressed. --Bduke 01:36, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That is the future.  Until the AfD closes, the page shouldn't be blanked again.  If the article is kept, then it will require some calm discussion to decide on criteria.  At that time, it would be prudent to move the entire list to a subpage and move entries back to the main article piece by piece when it is clear that they meet the new criteria.  A deliberate procedure like that would make it unlikely for the page to be blanked in good faith. CMummert · talk 01:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The page has never been blanked. I've only removed all the list items, leaving in place the introduction and "See also" section. Page blanking is a very specific sort of act that I never have and never will do. This list article has had a perpetual problem with a lack of sources, and I am more than warranted in what I've done per WP:V and WP:CITE. As for discussions of different inclusion criteria, I've already begun one, and none of those complaining about my actions (viz. Bduke and SteveWolfer) have responded to that. In fact, all SteveWolfer has done is persistently maintain the bizarre claim that his preferred entries are sourced (when the article has no sources at all) start engaging in personal attacks   and gross misrepresentations of my actions and intent. Simões (talk/contribs) 18:01, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Removing all the list entries from a list is certainly in the spirit of blanking. Please remember to use good faith in removing things - although you may have the ability to remove items, you should only remove them if you actually feel they are incorrect, unverifiable, etc.  I have left a comment at the talk page of the list itself. CMummert · talk 18:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know the list's talk page is getting rather long, but if you peruse it, you'll see that this is what precisely I've been saying (and is the reason I've openly given for removed the list items; see my edit summary). As it currently stands, whether an item meets the inclusion criteria is unverifiable. Simões (talk/contribs) 18:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are no gross misrepresentations or personal attacks on Mr. Simoes by me.  I invite anyone to look at the talk page and see for themselves.  The "bizarre claims" that Mr. Simoes attributes to me also are addressed on the talk page - by me and by Mr. CMummert.  It is true that I have been persistent in trying maintain Rand's works on this list, but always within the WP Policy, in good faith, and I have provided many, many sources on the talk page, as have others - at the request of those who have been deleting Rand or her works on every philosophy list.  I hope that reasonable people with an honest concern for Wikipedia will look at what is going on in this area.  Steve 20:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Challenging and deleting material

message: Often  is placed inside a cite template.  However, as there often is no first parameter provides little benefit as a hack for IE6, nor as a point to our hopefully-soon-to-be-created bot to list the filesize.  We would like to remove this template from the cite templates.  --Dispenser 04:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I wasn't aware of a desire for the file size (but it's a good idea).  Where was the discussion on such issues?  (SEWilco 17:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  PDFlink in cite templates 

message: I revised the wording (see below) and will up-date the policy in a few days if there is no objection. Nephron  T|C 08:07, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Revision of wording

message: Is there a point where an article can have too many sources. By too many, I mean citations for really obvious things. Preschooler kind of obvious. Pacific Coast Highway {talk • contribs} 05:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure there is. I remember reading somewhere (not sure where) but it didn't involve citations; but it said not to assume knowledge. Like saying "The Thunderbird is a Ford." instead of "The Ford Thunderbird is an automobile." However, it said not to go overly simplistic, like "The Ford Thunderbird is an automobile, (description of what a car is)" etcetera. So I believe it applies here; I'd use my best judgement. --Dayn 07:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In my opinion, an article should have as few inline citations as possible (in my experience, that averages to about one per kb), but a full list of sources that covers everything. You would only then need to provide citations for the more obvious things on request. However, the more controversial a subject, the more citations it needs, because the text will be constantly questioned. So use citations where you think the text may be questioned, as well as for for quotes, figures, little-known facts, etc. qp10qp 07:15, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that an article can have too many references. Take for example the Final Fantasy VII article, which has 138 citations, many of which are used multiple times. Often, these three-digit tags hinder the readability of the article, especially when several sentences in a row are tagged with multiple 3 digit references each (see #Compilation of Final Fantasy VII). As the article may be featured, you might expect it to be brilliant prose, but often this is not so. For eventualities such as this, is there any way for the user to hide the references? Or should there be a  tag? - Jack (talk) 11:18, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source overkill 

message: In a family scrapbook, there is a photocopy of a page from a book that gives a brief history of Oswego, Montana up to about the year 1972.  There are no clues as to the title or author of this book.  I would like to use this source in the creation of the Oswego article, but I have no way of citing where the information came from.  Should I just go ahead and use the information anyways without a citation, and then put a note in the article's talk page about this unusual source? --Billdorr 01:13, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No. However, you could use key words from the page to do a web search; it might lead to something you can cite. --Gerry Ashton 00:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. you have a genuine book publication (no hoax) but have lost the author and title. That does not invalidate the information. Rjensen 07:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: No, not verifiable.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:57, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, add it with a  tag. Then someone with a reliable source has to do less work. --NE2 18:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The local library in Oswego, Montana, would certainly know the title of the book--it's not likely there are many such books. (it may be the 1937 WPA Guide  to Montana) If there is no local library ask the state library at http://msl.state.mt.us/ Also try books.google.com at  02:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untraceable Source 

message: When there is an allegation or accusation, there is an alleger or accuser, and they should be identified in enough detail to allow the reader to judge their credibility. For example, "It has been alleged that Company A stinks" is sloppy; "Company B has alleged that Company A stinks" provides more perspective. Where there is no citeable reference to identify the alleger or accuser, I suggest that editors take care not to imply that the allegation or accusation is true. For example, where no accuser or alleger can be found, it may be that allegations are merely rumours spread by Chinese Whisper or disinformation. Furthermore, if a blog is the source of the accusation or allegation, editors should check the affilliation of the blogger to the extent of sighting any bio page linked to the blog; for example, to reveal that a seemingly private blog is the private blog of a PR person, for example. Rick Jelliffe 17:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citing or quoting allegations or accusations 

message: I've noticed a number of policy pages have sections on what does not constitute the policy. I think that might be a good idea here. I've been embroiled in a move request discussion over at Ethnic Japanese and the nominator insists on placing inline citations for every term describing the article and has removed the articles current title entirely claiming it's original research and unverified. I'm pro citations but, personally, I don't think common terms which are verifiable by hundreds or thousands of sources, including dictionaries, require citation. For heated arguments, however, a common sense supplement here might be helpful. Doctor Sunshine 13:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that this is not a policy page, but a guideline, or as it says at the top of the project page, part of the Manual of Style. The policy that states that a citation must be provided if a statement is challenged is WP:Verifiability. That would be the place to discuss your proposal. -- Donald Albury 13:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What not to cite: A common sense supplement 

message: How does one cite TV series episodes, movies, documentaries and the like? What format is used? Shrumster 00:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Citing Television?. In addition to the points made there, if it isn't fairly obvious how to obtain a copy of an off-line source, I would advise adding contact information to a place where the material may be obtained. --Gerry Ashton 00:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Neat. How about movies or straight-to-video stuff? Shrumster 10:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Give the title, director, year of original publication, and production company. Those are the key facts. Chicago style for films can be found here. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citing non-print Media 

message: I note that search links are discouraged (although not forbidden, such a policy I believe increases the likelihood of such a link being removed from the article).  I believe that a justifiable use would be as a citation of a phrase in order to demonstrate that the usage is sufficiently common for the phrase to be considered a set phrase and not merely one writer's combination of words.  Notatest 07:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citing common usage via a search link 

message: From this page:
"Wikipedia articles cannot be used as sources in and of themselves. Sources 'must' be independant from Wikipedia."
I propose adding two words to the sentence: 
"Wikipedia articles and categories cannot be used as sources in and of themselves. Sources 'must' be independant from Wikipedia."
There have been cases where someone will make an argument of the form, "x is in category y, and WP:CAT says something's membership in a category has to be uncontroversial, so this justifies us saying (on a separate article) that 'x is a y' without the need for an outside source." There are other ways to show why this argument is invalid, but adding those two words to the sentence would end such a line of argumentation quickly. Simões (talk/contribs) 00:18, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for a small expansion of  one sentence 

message: After the issue came up at B-17 Flying Fortress, I've got a few questions about the "Accessed on/Referenced on" part of the cite templates. Template:Cite web previously allowed the user to either use accessdate (with the date required to be in ISO form) or accessmonthday and accessyear (with the date in the form "Month DD" and "YYYY", which produces an unwikilinked "Month DD, YYYY"). I would like it to allow a new date format, perhaps by adding a new parameter accessdaymonth, which would allow the date to show up as an unwikilinked "DD Month YYYY", which some people find is the best date format in "serious" writing. Template:Cite journal currently has only the accessdate parameter with no allowance for other date forms, and would require all three parameters to be added.
I've gone ahead and made the edit to Template:Cite web, and it seems to work, but I wonder if it would be better to modify accessmonthday to change the date format (essentially remove the comma) if it detects a numeral before the month. Suggestions? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 13:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Accessdate" and date formating 

message: I'm interested in opinions on whether it is okay to reference the webpage of a commercial entity, when no non-commercial source can be found.  In particular, I've been adding a listing of public utilities to articles on cities (see Toccoa, Georgia for an example), and the official city websites don't always provide the necessary information – but the webpage of (e.g.) the local telephone utility or local cable utility will often list their service areas.  Is it okay to cite such sources, or should such references be considered inappropriate (i.e. spam) ?  --Bill Clark 17:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps this has been answered elsewhere (I don't think this is the only place this has been discussed), but my two cents: you can cite a commercial website when it's very important, but not when it's minor (per WP:NOT, Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collector of information).  For example, if 50% of the employment of a town came from a manufacturing plant in or near the town, a link to that manufacturer (ideally, to a page on the manufacturer's website that described the plant) would be fine.  On the other hand, for a public utility, I think that this is very minor information, really of interest mostly to residents and potential residents, and to the extent it's not, it should be on the Wikipedia page of the utility company.  -- John Broughton   (☎☎) 19:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Commercial websites as sources 

message: There are often times when I must take a reputable author's word that another author(ity) said such and such.  While I do try to track down the original source, it can be in some obscure academic journal, or out-of-print or expensive book.  For example, Richard Diehl, a well-known and reputable professor, states in his book The Olmecs that Marcus Winter makes a statement that I would like to include in an article on Olmec culture outside the Olmec heartland.  Diehl's footnote says that Winter's essay can be found in "CLARK, John E. (Editor) LOS OLMECAS EN MESOAMERICA", which is unavailable to me (I located it on sale for $250).  Should I just cite the Winter work directly, or should I cite Diehl, or should I cite Diehl citing Winter?  Help!  Madman 05:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the source you'd cite is the one you've actually examined; in this case, that's Diehl.  If you're using footnotes, you can indicate Diehl's source there (e.g. "Diehl, Olmecs, 203.  Diehl cites Marcus Winter's essay..."); I have no idea how this might be  possible using other citation styles, though. Kirill Lokshin 06:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I usually see something like "Author, Cited in Foo (1978)." Circeus 18:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree (I think) with Circeus; do the cite as if you were using the original (best) source; you can then add (still inside the ref tags, but outside the first template) something like "found at" or "per", then a second template for the secondary source (Diehl).  That's if you want to use the citation system; you can of course just use "ref" tags and do this freeform.  The purpose of citing the original source is to point readers (in theory) there as the best source; and of course mentioning the secondary source (which you have) is to show readers why you think the original source is valid, since you've not seen it.   -- John Broughton   (☎☎) 19:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citing another author's citing 

message: According to Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check/Guidelines the preferred citation style is MLA, which uses the following format:
* Landsburg, Steven E. "Who Shall Inherit the Earth?" Slate 1 May 1997. 1 October 1999 .
Note that the date is formatted dd mmm yyyy. Currently the cite templates seem to prefer the ISO date format, yyyy-MM-dd, with a few templates offering the option of the format mmm dd, yyyy. Should all the templates be edited to limit them to the MLA style date, for standardization/unity? Or at least offer that date option? See above for my previous request. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 22:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The "Citing sources" guideline neither encourages nor discourages the citation templates. It is not clear to me that this is the place to discuss them. Also, as far as I know, the citation templates as a group have never identified any style manual as a model to emulate. --Gerry Ashton 22:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

text: To emphasize Gerry's comment, the assertion that MLA is recommended is false. There is no preferred style. As far as your change goes, the general standard seems to be to wikilink dates so that they respond to date preferences; as long as this is in place, I wouldn't mind if you changed the default in the templates to whatever you wish. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Access date formating 

message: I moved the tools section down from below templates to the bottom, above see also, and combined with the tools listed there.  I also added a few links under see also.
I agree with the comments way up this page that this page should be shorter and less intimidating.  Much of the detail can be linked to on other pages.  I envision a list of citation types with brief descriptions of each (starting with the simplest).  Links to templates, more complete information on the various styles, an tools for building citations would follow.  As one not at home with citations (though i must have done it a few times while in school, way back when), i find all of the information overwelming and very time consuming.  I, and other non-academics, crave just a short intro on how to do a basic citation (or footnote or reference or whatever), a note about what other styles are possible/permitted and where to look for details of each if needed. - Bcharles 00:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  moved "tools" section to bottom - call for shorter simpler page 

message: I don't understand what's to stop someone from making a statement, publishing their own article on a free webhost, and using that as their source?  How can we be assured of the validity of anything then unless it is from a bonified news service?  But if it's something like "Bob's home page about the Civil War" then is that a valid source?  Maybe we should need two or three sources per citation.  Stovetopcookies 02:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be fairlly simple to create several bogus sources to verify ones claim.  One could also write up a story and get it printed in a local paper (often starved for cheap content) then refer to the published article as a source.  It is the quality of sources and not the quantity that counts.  If the fact being cited is disputed, one could find a reliable source to the contrary. - Bcharles 03:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To put it simply, "bob's home page about the civil war" is not a valid source. This is especially true for subjects like the Civil War, where there is a well-established academic press and thus a vast array of peer-reviewed, highly legitimate sources on which to build an article. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The policy is on using only reliable sources is WP:RS.  As noted, it makes no difference how many blogs or other self-published sources one wants to quote, they're not reliable sources for anything other than a question as to whether they exist or not. -- John Broughton   (♫♫) 14:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  maybe more sources