Wikipedia talk:Citing sources

Retrieval dates for online versions of old printed sources, again

I know this has been discussed a couple of times in these Talk archives, but I want to bring it up again. What is the rationale for requiring access/retrieval dates for online versions of past printed materials?

For example, editors are beginning to link book cites to Google Books. Thus, editors are putting "Retrieved on" on their cites, in addition to the usual author, title, publisher, year, ISBN, and page information. It looks very strange to see a book being "retrieved" ... such a link is just a convenience link (problematic too, given the semi-random way Google Books' "limited view" works); the content of the book is unchanging. If the link goes bad, the rest of the cite remains: an unchanging reference to an unchanging book.

Another case are old newspaper and magazine articles. If a cite gives a 1983 New York Times story's publication date, title, and author, and also gives a convenience link to the NYT archive, what is the value of having the retrieval date for this? The content of the story is fixed and unchanging, and is defined by the print/microfilm version. Again, if the archive goes away, the rest of the cite remains, an unchanging reference to an unchanging story. If the archive gets moved, one would re-lookup the online version by the published date/title/author information; knowing the old retrieval date wouldn't tell you anything.

And there is a real cost to having retrieval dates in place everywhere: to us they take up article edit space, to browsers they increase output HTML space, and to readers they clutter up the cite and can be visually confused with publication date. I understand that retrieval dates are necessary for web pages without publication dates, and arguably necessary for dated news stories originally published online (CNN, current NYT, etc.), but I just don't see the rationale for them in the above cases. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:08, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It's useful to be able to refer to that date in the WayBack Machine at archive.org. In the case of the NYT archive, we can be fairly certain that those will always remain, but other links won't. It's quite possible that some print sources could be basically impossible (or rather expensive/time-consuming) to track down. People will increasingly rid of print archives. However, if you're crunched for time, do what you can. If it's a podunk town newspaper, put the date; if it's the NYT, don't worry about it. That's my take at least. ImperfectlyInformed | {talk - contribs} 23:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The most common cause of newspaper links going bad is that articles get moved behind pay/subscriber walls. Is the WayBack machine able to show the article anyway, or are they enjoined from making free what is otherwise supposed to be charged for? Wasted Time R (talk) 23:58, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

One of the issues with the citation template is that the nomenclature of "retrieved on" is tacked on automatically and now has become part of the architecture of the citationa as judged by the amount of citation templates in place. I agree that the term looks arcane but with its widespread use, it is hard now to incorporate a "found," "accessed" or "located" tag as an alternative. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 14:25, 11 May 2008 (UTC).

To clarify, my issue is not with what word is used here. I don't think books or old newspaper articles should be listed as "found", "accessed", or "located" either. Those printed sources are unchanging over time; it doesn't matter if you "find" a 1976 book in 1988 or 2008, it's the same book. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely agree on that point, sources that are "fixed" in time, do not require a location date. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 19:26, 13 May 2008 (UTC).

The "retrieved date" merely refers to the convenience link to the online version, and may be safely removed on any cite that is not an online link. That's all. (And if the link goes bad, the dead-tree portion of the cite remains valid.) -- Yellowdesk (talk) 00:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

But what's the purpose of a retrieval date for an online version that's just mirroring a print original? What usefulness does it have? What does it tell anyone? Wasted Time R (talk) 04:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• On more than a few occasions I have used the retrieval date for munged references to rediscover the orginal edit that created it, and on more ephemeral sources, search for likely new location for the changing location of the convenience link. In some cases a retireval date indicates when the (changing) source was viewed and relied upon, occasionally important, when the source has changed. It's not superflous, but I would consider it optional.
  Who's to say that even a supposedly fixed archival convenience link will stay that way, and what harm comes from using the access date even there, such as in this example:
  "New Hampshire: Nomination of Bainbridge Wadleigh for United States Senator at the Republican Caucus". New York Times. June 14, 1872. p. 1. Retrieved 2008-05-05. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) -- Yellowdesk (talk) 14:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• The harm is that the "Retrieved on" takes up extra space (a real issue for our longer, heavily-cited BLP articles) and moreoever is visually confusing — the reader sees two dates, instead of the expected one, and has to figure out what each means, which a possible risk of mistaking the retrieval date for the publication date. In the example of this old NYT story, if the link stops working, it's because the NYT moved its archive or changed its for-free policy on this time period or something like that. If you need to find where they moved it to, you'll do a lookup within nytimes.com using the article's title and publication date; when someone last retrieved it won't matter one way or another. And would you really use a retrieval date for a book, that someone happened to look up in Google Books instead of at a physical library? That really seems offbase to me. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, I would, and have. Especially on heavily edited articles. For the reasons I stated further above: an indicator of when the convenience link worked. I do consider it optional. For example, if some link has an old retrieval date, and apparently not findable by search, then I tend toward deleting the convenience link. For more recent dead links, I'm less likely to remove the link--perhaps the publisher/source is in process of revising the link/location. Essential? No. Useful? Yes. The "retrieved on" is in english, and if using a template, the template does indicate through the parameters how to properly use it. Say more about the confusion you've encountered. (I have to remark, there's plenty of other confusion on articles surrounding refs, such as puctuation, quotations, where to place it and so on, and I've done a fair big of cleaning up other's typos and misplacments on that score. Is this that much different?) -- Yellowdesk (talk) 05:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this largely depends on the 'dependability' of the on-line source. For the NYT above, the accessdate is not really needed. On the other end of the spectrum, here is where someone (it's not even clear who) added sections of a (very) small town newspaper from the first half of the 1900s. It's true that this is on-line copy of a print original, but I think it would be rather difficult for even a motivated researcher to find that original. So in practice, the web copy is all that exists, its maintenance is unknown, and an accessdate tag is appropriate. As to how this might be implemented in practice, I think there could be a list of sources that are considered stable enough that accessdate tags are not needed (major newspapers, academic journals (DOIs are an explicit attempt to address this here), arXiv and other pre-print servers, and so on). LouScheffer (talk) 17:51, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

(off topic) You deserve a barnstar if you've been cleaning up refs. I'm surprised you haven't run off screaming. :) -- Fullstop (talk) 19:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hide the access date

In order to find the content of broken links in archives it would be sufficient to store the retrieval date in a comment that is not visible to a reader, only to editors. This is an approach I would support.

Otherwise, I second the notion that (visible) retrieval dates for off-line media are visually irritating, cluttering and superfluous. --EnOreg (talk) 05:50, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Fair enough. How do you propose to obtain uniform use of the proposed standard? -- Yellowdesk (talk) 04:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

A partial solution would be modify the citation templates to store info generated by the accessdate= parameters as a in an HTML comment that is not visible to a reader, only to editors. That would quickly handle a large percentage of retrieval dates. Many thousands of articles would need to be individually edited to bring the handcrafted cites into line. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Bill suggests what I had in mind: Leave the parameters of the citation templates as they are, just modify their implementation to not display the access date (except cite web). And adjust the WP policy pages to reflect this change. --EnOreg (talk) 01:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier to just use a field that is visible to people editing the page but not to people viewing the page? But that function is available now in all templates: just use a field that the template does not itself already use. E.g. invisible-retrieval-date= ... —David Eppstein (talk) 16:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. By removing any mention of {{{accessdate}}} in the template implementation, the data would remain, but wouldn't be parsed by the server, so the casual reader's display wouldn't be cluttered. I'd support that for {{cite journal}}, at the very least, as with this template the accessdate is of no real utility when rendered. Smith609 Talk 16:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure sure I follow. Sounds to me like we violently agree. What's the difference between your proposal and Bill's? --EnOreg (talk) 18:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

To "hide" the access date, the templates only have to not parse accessdate= parameter. No HTML comment is necessary, nor is it necessary to rename the parameter. After all, its still in the source.

But "hiding" the access date only addresses the symptoms. It does not fix the underlying problem, which is the misconception that a source on the web is a web source.

As such, merely hiding the access date (however that hiding occurs) for all but {{cite web}} will not be much use -- {{cite web}} is being used for virtually everything that editors happen to find on the "web".

The source of this misconception is of course the {{cite xyz}} farrago. That a source on the web must be cited with {{cite web}} is merely a "logical" continuation of that nonsensical paradigm. That is the real problem (and living proof that caring about sources has zero priority).

But hiding accessdate is a start, even if its only a band-aid. Next step other insane linking (e.g. google books, amazon, jstor and so on). In the long run we must teach editors how to cite properly, how to quote properly, and why it is necessary to do both.

-- Fullstop (talk) 19:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The retrieved date allows a reader to understand the age of the online link. In the past, I have done a manual link check and have updated those retrieved dates to show that the links were still valid as of that date. The CheckLinks tool checks links, updates to archived links on dead links and now optionally updates the retrieved dates. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

• I invite someone to apprise those who watch the various "cite" templates to put a notice on each of the cite-template talk pages, that this conversation is occurring. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 05:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I put a notice there already some days ago. Anything else we can do to invite feedback? --EnOreg (talk) 15:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not see how an accessdate on sources which do not change - such as journal articles - is beneficial. However, on sources which may change, such as web content, it helps clarify which version of a page is being cited. Therefore I feel it ought to be displayed only in the cite web template. I don't think anyone has disagreed with this feeling here, so I suggest that someone bold goes ahead and proposes or enacts the change at all non-"cite-web" templates. People have had the chance to complain if they feel otherwise! Smith609 Talk 23:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate what is being discussed here. In my opinion there are two issues popping up:

1. Print sources of which you get a copy from the web (JSTOR etc) should be referred to as their print version. Access date is irrelevant as the content is not dependent on the web, nor will it ever change. For such sources the use of citeweb should discouraged, and access date not listed or removed
2. True web sources, which are rarer than most editors seem to think is another issue altogether. Websources are not permanent, and even if they are long term the content may dramatically change. Therefore it is not only essential that access date is recorded and reported, but also that when updating text for such sources a critical reflection whether the text is still covered by the website has to be applied. In printed articles, this is not so much an issue as you refer to the website once, and your text will not change, even if the website content does. As both Wikipedia and referred to websites change this is very complicated indeed. Arnoutf (talk) 06:18, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Consensus: It indeed seems we have consensus that access dates for online copies of offline sources, while helpful as a comment in the source, should be hidden from the reader. I have removed the RFC (style) tag and will modify the policy. Anybody who is competent to adapt the citation templates, please do so. Thanks everybody, --EnOreg (talk) 08:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

HTML comments are stripped out by the Mediawiki software, so these won't be visible except in the original template call. I've included one here, for instance: Would it be better to hide the date with CSS? — Omegatron (talk) 17:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a good idea. We can also assign an ID to it in case people want to make it visible with user css. --Karnesky (talk) 18:22, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I've responded to all the editprotected requests that are up at the moment by wrapping the "retrieved on..." text in a CSS class (reference-accessdate), so it can be hidden in either personal or sitewide CSS while still being accessible for those that want to see it. You can personally hide the accessdates yourself by adding

.reference-accessdate {display: none}

to your monobook.css. If there is a real and extensive consensus to hide these data, adding the same code to MediaWiki:Common.css would have the same effect for all users who didn't override it in their own monobook. Happy‑melon 17:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Options are better than hard coding here. Where do we document this? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 18:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

No idea :D. From a technical end, I've added to the catalogue at WP:CLASS; where and how you note the new feature is the balliwack of people on this page. As an ultimate goal, we ought to be working towards encapsulating all the similar reference 'facts' in suitable css (reference-title, reference-volume, etc) and defining their appearance centrally in Mediawiki:Common.css. That greatly facilitates updating and standardisation between cite templates (I shouldn't have had to edit five templates to implement this change), and instantly circumvents the "data X should have formatting Y because it's the standard of source Z": we can just say: go on then, add foo to your monobook and the problem is solved. Ultimately, I have yet to see a good reason why a properly-built {{cite meta}} is not possible, to centralise and de-duplicate the considerable amount of code (the CoinS tags, for instance) that is almost identical across all the cite templates, and needs to be maintained in the same way in each. But that's another story. Happy‑melon 19:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this is the better implementation. Many thanks, Happy-melon! I believe now the default CSS should hide the access date from unexperienced users. They are most unlikely to go and research a broken link and therefore wouldn't lose anything. But they would gain a less cluttered WP appearance. The same is probably true for the vast majority even of experienced users. Where do I campaign for this change? Cheers, --EnOreg (talk) 05:36, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

No. Doesn't agree with best practice, no discernible benefit, doesn't agree with most common ciation methods on Wiki. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:37, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I really can't see the point, as the page currently appears to require, and is certainly believed by most to require, of adding access dates for Project Gutenburg and similar online texts, and museum images with a numbered page name. Either may one day go dead, but the links won't change to new content. Johnbod (talk) 08:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Do you really think so? I don't. Jane Eyre, accessed through Project Gutenburg, is still the book Jane Eyre. I might link to PG for convenience, but the access date is really about citing websites that were created as websites, not books that happen to be conveniently available online. I don't cite access dates for news articles that I read online, either. Reuters News or Associated Press stories will be verifiable for many years after the news.yahoo.com link goes dead.

Have you looked at what this guideline actually says? Access dates are never required. They're only deemed helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

That isn't the line taken by many PR/FAC reviewers, and if what you say is the case, which I am glad to hear, the wording is far from clear. Johnbod (talk) 18:51, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you'll ask them nicely to show you exactly where this guideline requires it. The effort to find a non-existent requirement should be an educational experience for them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

As I say, the wording is not very clear, and whenever this is the case people will become entrenched in a particular view. Johnbod (talk) 22:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe they consider it the best practice to inform the reader when certain information has been used. It's academic accuracy and may affect the reading of the material in some cases. Ty 22:34, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see it myself - see the PR on Raphael, although this often comes up on other articles. Johnbod (talk) 22:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer_review/Raphael/archive1 specifies "internet refs". Since websites do change, it is reasonable to include the access date, just like you'd include a publication date if you were citing a newspaper. If the ref isn't web-only -- and I see no reason to think that this comment is intended to apply to anything else -- then an access date is unimportant.

I'd like to make this less confusing, but I honestly don't see the problem. Exactly which words in this guideline do you find unclear? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:54, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the dubious-discuss template after a review so cursory it missed this section (obviously, my bad but I'm going out on a BRD limb). Since webpages change, accessdates should be given and should be visible in the references section to enable verification in case the website changes or disappears and the Internet Archive is used (though obviously updating the link and information is preferred). Invisible links help only on-line editors who are really interested in this, there's no help for print versions. Citation templates all allow for an accessdate= parameter, which produces a visible datestamp. Seems a good idea to encourage including accessdate for all online sources. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 12:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Access date for newsgroups and mailing lists

I don't see any strong consensus to hide this parameter for templates where the availability of material might be ephemeral. I think it should stay visible on, at least, the generic citation template, the mailing list template, the newsgroup template. --Karnesky (talk) 13:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Right, I'm afraid this hasn't been discussed properly, yet. To make this clear: I don't advocate removing the access date, only hiding it from the reader. Unlike most web pages, posts to mailing lists and newsgroups carry a "publication" date that doesn't change. Therefore, the additional access date doesn't add any value for the reader. It can, however, make it easier for editors to recover a link that has become unavailable. That's why we should keep it in the page source as a comment. Note that mailing lists and newsgroups are being replicated and archived in so many different places that it is much easier to find a post than a copy of an arbitrary web page. --EnOreg (talk) 13:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I understand what you are advocating, but I think that it should stay visible for content that might not be locatable or might have changed at some future date.

As a reader, I've printed out articles & retrieved the references from them (both physical sources & online sources), and the accessdate is useful for sources that might change URLs, disappear completely (some usenet posts have requests not to archive, for example), etc. The parameter's utility is greater than any aesthetic objections. At bare minimum, the accessdate should be visible when the publication date parameter is not given. But I think it should always be visible for sources that don't have physical manifestations. --Karnesky (talk) 14:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd like state that I'm strongly opposed to this idea for any template that may cite any kind of online material. For Cite book, Cite paper, etc, that are only used to cite physical or "permanent" publications (even if it may be found online and linked to in a particular template), then so be it, Accessdate isn't necessary. But to hide it in Cite news, Cite press release, Cite map, etc etc (which more and more may cite a document online that *cannot* be found in print) is doing a grave disservice to anyone who doesn't want or know how do delve into the edit page and figure things out, yet still may want information that will allow them to access a website that has been lost over time. That is precisely what Accessdate is useful for; not to mention, even for webpages that are still existent, it says precisely when data was originally pulled from the source. "Accessed on..." or some variant of it is an almost universal standard for citation formats outside of Wiki...I see no reason why we should be the oddballs and not use them in a citation display. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 14:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I only argue to hide the access date for sources that already have a publication date. These source typically don't change after initial publication, and even if they do the publication date is enough to find the original content in the Internet Archive. What additional value do you see that the access date provides that makes it too important to hide? --EnOreg (talk) 05:55, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Hiding the date for one template such as {{cite news}} without changing all of the templates is going to cause some inconsistency. There are already enough differences among the cite templates. There are opinions on both sides of the issue as to show or hide the accessdate— why not allow editors who don't want to see the accessdate to be able to hide it? We should be able to come up with a script to do this and get it approved as a gadget. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess this has largely been taken care of by Happy-melons implementation (s)he explains above? --EnOreg (talk) 05:55, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Default setting: show or hide access date?

After Happy‑melon's CSS-ification of the access date it is up to the users whether they want to see the access date of stable references or not—that's great. (Note that this only applies to references that also have a publication date!)

Changing the default behavior, however, requires fiddling with the user's monobook.css which only expert users will be competent to do. Now after the discussion above it seems to me that the access date is relevant mostly to these expert users and editors. For casual WP users showing two different dates for one reference is confusing and clutters the reference sections—but they don't know how to hide it. Therefore, I would suggest to hide the access date of stable references per default, i.e., modify MediaWiki:Common.css accordingly. Comments? --EnOreg (talk) 00:12, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I suggest not hiding it by default for web references, since such a source can change with time. It's important to document when the page was visited, in case content changes or becomes unavailable. This remains true even if the page has a known publication date.--Srleffler (talk) 02:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Right, this question has been discussed in the previous sections. Three points:

1. Most web references don't have a publication date, hence hiding the access date doesn't apply to them. This discussion is only about sources that don't change after publication.
2. I would argue that chasing broken links can safely be left to slightly experienced editors in the interest of not confusing readers with two different dates.
3. Could someone explain again why we wouldn't find the original content under the publication date?

Thanks, --EnOreg (talk) 03:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the true source should always be given, even if that is a Web source that purports to be a true copy of a print publication. In that case, the access date should be specified and should not be hidden by default, because it is part of the correct reference. I suppose it occasionally happens that the editor has actually read the print version and is merely adding the URL for the convenience of the reader; in that case, I suppose a case could be made for omitting the access date. --Boson (talk) 06:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Quite often; many weblinks are for the reader's convenience. Commenting out the access date would be a reasonable compromise. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm definitely in favor of hiding the access date by default for stable references. The extra visual clutter and possible confusion of having two dates on cites affects many, while the need to track down and inspect cites by access dates affects only a few (and they'll still be able to do it by looking at the article source or changing the default setting). Wasted Time R (talk) 18:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Help from a historian please.

This article covers two separate topics. First, how to format individual citations. Second, how to present citations in articles. (Currently the second topic is covered in the middle of the article - surrounded by discussions of the first topic.) Is there some reason why the two separate topics are not in two separate articles? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 02:48, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Anyone have an answer for this question? Anyone? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:27, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Why should it be a historian that answers your question? :-) Seriously, though, I think the answer needs to come from the editors who are primarily involved with maintaining this guideline. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:51, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I believe there are three main topics: when to cite, formatting a citation, adding the citation to an article. The article is complicated mostly because there are several cases of "when", several ways to "format" and several methods to "add", so each of these sections contains a lot of detail, enough for a good sized guideline by itself. The whole guide also covers various other less important topics related to citations: "Citation problems" and a few other things. I think that, at the moment, most of us think this is all the same topic, really: "how to use citations", in general. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:51, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you should change the first line or change the "nutshell". The language is repetitive. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:51, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

what about the overuse of "citation needed"

Most times, "Citation Needed" is a good thing. (citation needed) However lots of Wiki editors (Wikipolice) OVERUSE "citation needed" (citation needed) particularly when observation is fact(citation needed), such as when salt is used as a preservative "citation needed" (citation (who?) and Mayans and Incas and every tribe of man that ever encountered salt knew it. (citation needed) They didnt need a citation. (citation needed) They used it and it worked. (citation needed) Salt dries out bacteria and viruses, killing them, by the way. (citation needed) I havent been to Salt in a while, i trust annoying counterproductive overuses of "citation needed" can be avoided in the future. (Citation needed) I hope my overuse of "citation needed" drives home a point. It can ruin a great read of a good article. (Citation needed) and usually the citations never get cited. (citation needed) I recommend that wikipolice that want to "citation needed" take it upon themselves to research and properly cite the article in question rather than leave it to someone else who really isnt that interested. (citation needed) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.179.22.132 (talk) 07:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your observations. References are desirable for uncontroversial statements of fact (e.g., "salt is used as a preservative") as they help to increase Wikipedia's credibility (see "Wikipedia:Citing sources#When to cite sources"), but are probably not mandatory. Nonetheless, an article that is inadequately referenced is unlikely to achieve Good Article status. More specific facts, I think, do need referencing, especially if they are challengeable (see "Wikipedia:Citing sources#When adding material that is challenged or likely to be challenged"). For instance, if an article states "Mayans and Incas used salt" and "salt dries out bacteria and viruses, killing them", I would expect to see references backing up these assertions. A reader might ask, for example, whether Mayans and Incas had the technology to produce salt in a crystalline form, and whether it is the drying effect of salt that kills bacteria and viruses or whether salt is somehow toxic to such pathogens. If you feel that some {{Fact}} tags are unnecessary, start a discussion on the talk page. Also, while it would be great if editors who added such tags to articles took the time to provide the missing references, at the end of the day "[t]he burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material" (see "Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden of evidence"). If the person who has added a fact does not back it up with a reference, another editor is justified in removing it. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:34, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

With Google so easy to use and so powerful, it is much more thoughtful to add a reference, than to be a ballbuster with negative tags. Some people here seem like that's what they mostly do.TCO (talk) 17:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

--While it is understandable that Wikipedia is working extremely hard to demonstrate its rigor-du-jour with regards to citations, the overuse/abuse of citations, particularly in the social sciences is a discredit to academic discourse. Sadly it has been fueled in the last half-century by contemporary systems of peer-review and promotion that encourage name-dropping, as it were, for the sake of multiple listings in the citation indexes. One would indeed think that professionals, especially those educated within a discipline, would share some core of knowledge to which too-oft repeated references were not necessary. How much longer will we have to read the same basic literature reviews, for example, in every similarly themed article written within a five year period (at least). Is this contribution to knowledge, or contribution to self-promotion, faulty academic systems, and wasted paper or cyber space? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.118.168 (talk) 18:15, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this "citation needed" can be used too often. Someone actually requested a citation for "A week is a period of time longer that a day and shorter than a month." Will adding citations to this improve credibility? I think it would have the opposite effect. It is interesting to note that you won't find such citations in most encyclopedias. Since no one is checking these citations, they are of limited use anyway. They only make you feel good. There is an additional issue that many of the cited sources are not 'neutral point of view.' This then makes writing a balanced and fair article even more difficult. DrG (talk) 09:05, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I keep this useful link handy, for removing excessive tags: Subject-specific common knowledge

Johnbod (talk) 15:01, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

YouTube as a reference

I don't know how common, or acceptable, YouTube is as a reference, but apparently it now features the capability of jumping to a specific point in a video, by adding a timestamp to the URL. For example: http://youtube.com/watch?v=qie-N8idatc#t=1m54s Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 09:43, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the useful information. Linking to a YouTube video is all right provided that the video has not been uploaded to YouTube in breach of copyright. However, if the information can be referenced to a print or online source, I think that would still be preferable. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure. But it can be highly useful to show a particular kind of behavior or action. E.g. as source for a bird's song. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 01:50, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:38, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

How do I re-use a numbered citation?

In MS Word (or any decent program), it is possible to make a link for endnotes. This allows me to use the minimal intrusive citation format (numbered endnotes), while still re-using them when the same source at the beginning of an article needs to be cited later for a different fact. How do I do this in Wiki?TCO (talk) 11:01, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

See WP:FOOT#Naming a ref tag so it can be used more than once. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 11:29, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

ok. looks complicated. guess I need to play with it.TCO (talk) 11:46, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

See also the section "How do you re-use references?" above. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:39, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Avoiding abbreviations

I remember reading somewhere in the guidelines that it's preferable not to abbreviate author names and journal titles in citations, but I can't pinpoint where exactly I read it. Any idea where it is, or was it removed? Thanks. Phenylalanine (talk) 02:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I can say from experience that with some names, like Hungarian and particularly East Asian ones, it is dead frickin important not to abbreviate. Journal titles... you may find this section on my userpage useful. Sure, I abreviate them whenever possible - the abbreviations were made to be unique after all. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 01:36, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Dysmorodrepanis, you have built quite a list. I feel that unless the journal title is very long and well know by its abbreviated name (PNAS is an example), the average reader (not necessarily an expert in the relevant field) might not recognize the abbreviated journal name—indeed, it is not always easy to guess what exactly the abbreviations stand for (especially when there is no wikilink). --Phenylalanine (talk) 22:29, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Proper Citation of Emails

How would one properly site information recieved from an official source via an email correspondence? --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:42, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

E-mails aren't an ideal source as they aren't publicly accessible and thus difficult to independently verify, but I'd just put something along the following lines: "Personal e-mail communication dated 11 November 2008 between Jacklee and Mr C. Thinker, Director of the Wikipedia Editors' Circle." — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 05:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

If the email is published then you cite the publication (or web page or whatever) in which it appears. If it isn't then citing it probably violates wp:NOR. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The problem would be WP:verifiability, not original research. A reader would have no way of knowing what the email says or that it was actually sent by said official source. --NE2 14:25, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if it would be possible to make use of the Open-source Ticket Resource System (OTRS) in the same way that it is used at the Wikimedia Commons. At the Commons, when an editor has obtained e-mail confirmation from an external party for an image to be licensed freely, he or she forwards the e-mail correspondence to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org. The correspondence is verified by a volunteer working the OTRS e-mail queue, who then places an OTRS ticket on the image description page (see, for example, "commons:Image:RichardHakluyt-BristolCathedral-stainedglasswindow-whole.jpg"). Perhaps a similar procedure could be developed for an editor to forward e-mail correspondence with an external party to OTRS, and for the OTRS volunteer to add an OTRS ticket in the footnote containing the reference to the e-mail, like this:

Personal e-mail communication dated 11 November 2008 between Jacklee and Mr C. Thinker, Director of the Wikipedia Editors' Circle. ( The correspondence has been archived in the Wikimedia OTRS system; it is available here for users with an OTRS account. To confirm the permission, please contact someone with an OTRS account.)

The issue will need to be raised at "meta:Talk:OTRS". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:09, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

As an unpublished source, it's not usable per WP:V. But the OTRS idea is creative. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 11 November 2008 (UTC)