Wikipedia talk:Inline citation

message: I thought that this type of inline citation is considered 'the worst' of all choices. Is it just my opinion? Wikipedia:Citing_sources lists disadvantages of that specific inline citation style (such links do not normally provide all the information that a traditional citation would have; thus, if the material moves or is dramatically changed, it can be difficult to rediscover the cited material) but makes no recommendation whether to use it or not. Personally I think it is the least useful and it looks most lame, but what do you think? Note that very few Featured Articles use this style, and a common objection during FAC process is 'remove external links from main body, transform into proper inlince citation style.... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is more of an introduction to Inline Citations; as such all I am doing is explaining how to insert them in an article. If this particular type of citation is considered inapropriete for use in Featured Articles or Featured Article Canidates then insert a line to that effect in that section. TomStar81 07:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hyperlinking/using embedded links 

message: Recently the <Gallery> function breaks down the Reference output of the function <Ref>, as in articles Indo-Greek kingdom or Hasekura Tsunenaga. Basically, every reference before the Gallery is dropped, but every reference after appears. I have temporarily replaced Galleries by individual images, but it would be nice to repair this (recent, like 1 or 2 weeks) bug. 82.123.131.127 17:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Breakdown of Ref function by Gallery

message: This page appears to be one of at least 3 different places where citations are cross-linked and explained (WP:CITE, Wikipedia:Inline citation, individual technique pageas).  This essay has not improved my attempts at understanding these techniques, but has added to the delay.  Based on numerous comments behind WP:CITE, I'm not the only one having a hard time with our introduction to citations.  I would recommend this page be merged and redirected to WP:CITE, as introducing inline citations appears to be the primary goal of that page.  Gritty details should be on each technique's page individually.  At the least, I would like to de-link this page from WP:CITE to avoid sending newcomers in circles.  Thoughts? ∴ here…♠ 19:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The sooner the better; this is a POV fork, and (despite being labelled essay) is being quoted as policy, which it is not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've redirected the hyperlink for  inline citations in WP:WIAGA to the  section on Inline citations in WP:CITE, and put in a missing hyperlink from there to Wikipedia:Inline_citation for anyone wanting to read the "essay" - which has the further link to the stub article Inline citation towards which WP:WIAGA originally directed people quite uselessly.  I hope this solves the problem but being new to Wiki I dont know if this is a generic change that can be reinforced with bots in other places. Please let me know if so and if this is helpful! I want to use my energies where they are needed! Lucy Skywalker 14:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I re-removed the link to this article from WP:CITE.  From my first comment : At the least, I would like to de-link this page from WP:CITE to avoid sending newcomers in circles.  When I get an extra moment, I'd like to see this page sent to MfD.  ∴ here…♠ 15:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Merge This is linked to from WP:WIAGA. Quadzilla99 16:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an essay, not a guideline. It does not belong on any guideline page. Cliff smith 02:54, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Support It's the same topic. It should be on the same page then. Basketball110 23:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  merge and redirect to [[WP:CITE]] 

message: I'm uncertain about what counts as an 'inline' citation.  In particular, is the Harvard style
This was a big deal, (McFooBar, 1897)
==References==
*
 
an inline citation?  Or is it only inline if it's
This was a big deal.

==References==

David.Throop 00:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Both are inline citations and are acceptable, although your cite web could use an access date. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: From my understanding, the latter one is inline citation, while the former one is simply adding external links in (supposedly) External links section (not References section). Chongkian (talk) 03:06, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: What is 'Inline'?

message: While this is called an "essay", it's an instructional/information page, and as such, it significantly overlaps with WP:CITE and a number of other pages.  If it were current, I'd shrug it off, but (for example) to say that Cite.php is a "relatively new method" is worse than meaningless to most Wikipedians, who weren't here before Cite.php arrived. Worse (much worse) is clear implication that the "Reference" and "Note" templates are acceptable citation approaches; they are not, per WP:CITE, as best as I can tell, and are certainly bad advice.
So, in short, this is NOT an essay; putting lipstick on this pig doesn't make it into something different; it's simply an outdated page that ought to be salvaged for anything useful, and then a redirect put in place.  -- John Broughton   (♫♫) 00:42, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why isn't the project page a redirect? 

message: Where is the "to inline citation" template? I have seen a template that put a box on a page requesting inline citation instead of citations just listed on the bottom of the page. Now I cannot find it — fnielsen (talk) 11:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I found it myself: It is called Template:Nofootnotes — fnielsen (talk) 11:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where is the "to inline citation" template? 

message: FWICS from the cite.php edit history at mediawiki, it has been around since late 2005. Can we drop the "relatively new" characterization, or at least quantify the "relatively" part? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:23, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Cite.php still "relatively new" 

message: I can't be bothered reading through all this. Could someone please make an 'In a Nutshell' for this page? Flash Man999 (talk) 00:30, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've thrown together a quick first-cut attempt at a nutshell page at Wikipedia:Inline citation/nutshell. Feedback and/or improvements are welcome. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:32, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved that page to Wikipedia:Inline citation/examples and added a  to the project page with a link to that article. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please make a nutshell 

message: on 6 May 2009 by 199.125.109.81 introduced this section:
:Readers are expected to look up any word they are unsure of, and inline links to Wiktionary (like this) are not needed, nor desirable, even if a word is used in a particularly obscure manner.
That doesn't reflect editing practice and it is against WP:LINK and common sense. I suggest to remove that section. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:47, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, and I've removed it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Inline dictionary links

message: SlimVirgin,
Do you want to tell me where WP:V absolutely requires inline citations for "close paraphrasing", i.e., a pair of words that do not appear anywhere in that policy?  
It seems to me that it says, "This policy requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable, published source in the form of an inline citation..."—with nary a word about "close paraphrasing" in the sentence.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:57, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:CHALLENGE, part of V, requires in-text attribution for close paraphrasing. Editors who don't do it risk getting into trouble, as we've seen a few times, so it's important not to give the impression anywhere that it's not needed. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 01:28, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I was actually under the impression that close paraphrasing was unacceptable, even if provided with an inline citation, because of COPYVIO.  Where COPYVIO does not apply—say, all the Enc1911 material—then inline citations are not actually required, as proven by overwhelming community practice (which most certainly does not provide inline citations for every sentence taken from Enc1911 or a US government website), and in-text attribution is basically never used.  For example, I've never yet seen a close-paraphrasing of Enc1911 text that says "According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica...", and I'll bet that you haven't, either.   is transcluded almost 14,000 times.  Either that's 14,000 policy violations that you will doubtless dedicate the next year to fixing, or the community doesn't actually provide in-text attribution of close paraphrasing and direct quotations out of public-domain material.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:18, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Close paraphrasing 

message: Certain cited information is changeable. For example, a sister-cities list. I found a link to the official list for a given place, and noted that the sister city was still there. Therefore, I would like to update the date on the link. (The status of the given city is controversial, so it resonably could change.)
What is the proper method? Just change the date? Add "rechecked on (date)"?Mzk1 (talk) 20:42, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  How do I update the date in a link 

message: You are invited to join the discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1#RfC: Use "Vol.", "pp.", etc. consistently between citation templates, instead of ambiguous formatting like "9 (4): 7".  — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib.  20:12, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal to use "Vol.", "pp.", etc. in citations instead of ambiguous formatting like "9 (4): 7"

message: The absent or presence of general references is irrelevant to whether in-line citations are needed, and the phrase does not need to be mentioned in this article. For example take the sentence.
:"Technically, if an article contains none of these four types of material, then it is not required by any policy to name any sources at all, either as inline citations or as general references."
only needs to say:
:"Technically, if an article contains none of these four types of material, then it is not required by any policy to any reference any source."
-- PBS (talk) 14:46, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  General references 

message: Currently this essay say
:"Some articles (e.g., articles about controversial people) will require inline citations after nearly every sentence. Some sections (e.g., dense technical subjects) may even require more than one inline citation per sentence. Others may not require any inline citations at all."
Can someone supply a link to an article that does not require any inline citations. -- PBS (talk) 14:50, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't believe that it says that we have any articles that do not require any inline citations, although a stub on a major subject certainly might not ("Algebra is a branch of mathematics.").  The statement here is that "Others", i.e., "Other sections", may not require any inline citations at all.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:01, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Others may not require any inline citations at all 

message: Please join the discussion at Articles for creation about the necessity of inline citations as essential for accepting certain drafts into mainspace. This issue is a cause of concern at AfC. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:51, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion about inline citation requirement at Articles for creation 

message: Let's say you write a sentence making a claim. For example, you write that the Empire State Building was the tallest building in New York when it was built. You hyperlink 'Empire State Building' to the Wiki article of the same name, which contains many citations supporting this assertion. Does this count as an inline citation for the purposes of verifiability and WP:MINREF? Lugevas (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely not. Wikipedia is not a WP:RS, fails WP:SPS big time, and see also WP:CIRCULAR. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:41, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: However, if someone is slapping piles of citation-related tags on the page, that's not helpful and is often a sign of an interpersonal pissing match, not actual encyclopedia work. It takes about as much time to copy-paste a source from article A to article B as it does to fill out a testy dispute template. WP:V policy requires that facts be verifi not verifi; lack of an inline citation for something that is not controversial and has already been verified isn't a big deal.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  09:17, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does linking to a well-sourced Wikipedia article count as a citation? 

message: Please see WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#End "date-forking" into different styles for publication and access/archive in same cite — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:20, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to end conflicting date formats within the same citation 

message: :This is listed as an "information page" rather than just an essay. The wording in the "Inline citations and Wikipedia" section seem to dance around using inline citations. The wording "Many Wikipedia articles contain inline citations: they are required for Featured Articles, Good Articles, and A-Class Articles." might be true but it seems to indicate that any articles other than those types listed do not require inline citations. The "Further information" includes Wikipedia:Citing sources that states:  The "policy" states: , and the section does not need to make it appear any different. -- Otr500 (talk) 03:23, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Were someone to create an article that says only "Algebra is a branch of mathematics", then that version of the article would not require an inline citation, as anybody who WP:CHALLENGED that would get laughed at, just like we laughed at the IP who fact-tagged the statement that the human hand has five digits.  See also the first version of Reference work vs how it is now; the first version of ADHD vs how it is now; the first version of Baking vs how it is now.  Once the article acquires information that is LIKELY to be challenged, it needs refs.  Hopefully that will happen more or less immediately, so we have interesting things to read.  Articles containing only "unlikely" content are boring.  ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obscure wording 

message: Is it a requirement when authors are available or just recommended? Shahid • Talk2me 15:52, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, as a rule of thumb, the more information written in the citation, the better, especially when they are available. So yes, I will always write the authors in the inline citation if it is available from the sources I'm citing for my Wikipedia article. Besides, there is a syntax for that, which is 'last1=', 'first1=' Chongkian (talk) 03:08, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no rule that the authors be known.  See Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/FAQ. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:24, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Providing author names 

message: I am trying to find the policy that forbids constructions like My Fantastic Fanzine but I can't find it. Could anyone (a) remind me and (b) either of us can then update the see also. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:42, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: "See also" is a bulleted list of internal links to related Wikipedia articles Only per MOS:SEEALSO. Chongkian (talk) 03:10, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "See also" needs a link to a related policy  

message: :The "Inline citations and Wikipedia" section includes a list of article classes "requiring" inline citations but omits B-class. The criteria states,  Even trying to "beat around the bush" the only things debatable might be what is considered "important" or "controversial" that could possibly be challenged. A tag removes all doubt that "someone" deems the content deserving a citation. --  Otr500 (talk) 04:58, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inline citations 

message: Just wondering whether the example given in :WP:IC#Citation density should be updated now that :WP:Parenthetical referencing has been deprecated as a citation style. If someone clicks on "(Jones 2010, page 2)", they'll see this since it takes them to the relevant seciton on :WP:CS, but if not they might mistakenly assume it's still OK to format citations as such. Maybe it would be better to reformat the citation accordingly using :Template:Dummy reference. For example, "Citation density example" might work OK. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:57, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation density example 

message: In light of the discussion I had with  above, I would like to propose the following alternate proposal, and ask those who have participated to cast their votes on this new proposal so am pinging those who commented so far, , , , , and . I'm also going to cast a wider net with this new proposal, and actually ask for a request for comments since it appears we are not getting that much activity on this local page even after the announcement of the other proposal at the policy level. Thank you for your participation.
*Support as nominator to clarify that not every single statement or type of removal on Wikipedia is a challenge to missing inline citations. For example, removing statements of vandalism or other problematic materials are not challenges to missing inline citations. Huggums537 (talk) 20:35, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternate proposal for valid challenges

message: Note that there is a proposal in Village pump regarding the consistency requirement for short and long inline citations:  Bogazicili (talk) 14:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion in [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)]]