Template talk:More citations needed/Archive 2

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Dual-purposed

Isn't the intent of this template dual-purposed? It currently says, "This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed." This addresses the editor audience, but the reader audience only obliquely. Shouldn't the sentence, "It may contain inaccurate and/or unverified information that may be removed at any time" be added and placed before the request for help? This alerts the more plentiful WP reader to verifiability issues. This is a concern for many of our maintenance tags: they face inward only, ignoring the external reader who isn't interested in editing (are we forgetting WP's purpose?).
Jim Dunning | talk 15:58, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Please revise this template to add the middle line below—

This article needs additional citations for verification.

Readers should be aware that some content is missing citations and may not have been verified as coming from reliable sources. This may affect its accuracy and stability.

Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

This alert is directed at WP readers, while the last line is directed at editors.
Jim Dunning | talk 05:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC) {{editprotected}}

I'm inclined to fulfill this request, and implement the same at {{Unreferenced}}; my only reservation is that the proposed middle line addition is a bit wordy and extends further than one line even on my widescreen display. Is there a good way to chop off a few words? Perhaps dropping the last sentence ("This may affect... stability.") would do, but that may be harsh. Thoughts? – Luna Santin (talk) 09:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

No, this should not be done (per Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles). These tags are not meant to be disclaimers for readers - they are meant to advise editors. --- RockMFR 00:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Er. These tags are in part to warn readers; that's why they're on the articles instead of the talk page. No disclaimers in articles is about warnings about the type of content, not its accuracy; it even specifically states "Templates that provide content warnings but do not duplicate these disclaimers, such as {{current}}, {{disputed}}, or {{POV}} are permitted." —Cryptic 05:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Icon

Other ref tags have icons. Please add the standard one or better yet remove the full protection so someone else can do it. It's been long enough. Equazcion •✗/C • 15:17, 27 December 2007 (UTC) {{editprotected}}

I second that. Please add: | image = [[Image:Question book-3.svg|50px]] -- Lea (talk) 02:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Y Done - Nihiltres^{t.l} 19:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Robot adding

We need robot adding vi:Tiêu bản:Chú thích trong bài. JacquesNguyen (talk) 07:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Need a {{too many reference}} (not like {{Cleanup-references}})

See by example Calligraphy#References Yug (talk) 15:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

{{nofootnotes}} and {{morefootnotes}}?

I removed Refimprove from Yaoi, which also calls for an expert on the subject, warns of original research, and uses {{morefootnotes}}. I figure that more footnotes trumps Refimprove, as it gives more specific instructions as to what can be done (ie. someone reading the further reading and turning them into inline citations), whilst still giving the impression that the referencing system should be improved. I think this should be called to attention on the Refimprove documentation.-Malkinann (talk) 00:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Not helpful

I'm not finding this article very helpful. When I get to articles with this template placed upon them, I do not know what to cite, where to begin or how to remove it. Could we not deprecate this in favor of {{fact}}? Hiding T 13:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Use on stubs

Is there really any point in placing this template on short stub articles (one or two sentences)? Doesn't "stub" status imply that the article needs such things as references? Please comment here and/or at Talk:Metzgeriaceae#Request for Third Party. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

No! and if I see it used on a stub I remove it because the stub templates fulfil the same function without overwhelming the stub. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk)

Please stop using this template!

I was editing Wikipedia pretty seriously a couple years back, and while I still make minor edits from time to time, I consider myself more of a user of Wikipedia than an editor. As a user, I would like to ask the editors most sincerely: Please stop using templates like these! Obviously Wikipedia is a work in progress, and will probably always be a work in progress; on many if not most articles, there will always be significant work to be done. Pointing this out on individual articles does not help the user; it makes the articles look cheap and ugly, and undesirable to link to. Given the incredible multiplication of "fix this" templates since I was a regular Wikipedia editor, I can only surmise that adding templates calling for other people to do work is for many editors a substitute for actually doing the work. Please, stop vandalizing Wikipedia with these awful tags; when you see problems, try to fix them, and if you can't, assume that the people with the ability to fix them will be just as good if not better at solving problems than you are. That's the wiki way.

Sorry, thought I was logged in. Nareek (talk) 01:49, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It's great to hear the perspective of someone like yourself, who has been an editor for a couple of years! While I agree that littering articles with templates like this can be a problem, that problem isn't sufficient to advise editors to cease using the template altogether. Note in particular the last sentence in the messagebox: "Unsourced material may be challenged and removed." That indicates the proper place to use this template: if you are considering challenging the veracity of material in an article because it is unsourced and (in your view) potentially incorrect, giving other editors notice of your thinking is more a common courtesy than a "substitute for actually doing the work." Giving that notice in the article itself, rather than on the talk page for the article, could be considered an attempt to make the article look "cheap and ugly," but it could also be an attempt to bring the lack of citations to the attention of readers, so they can more easily form their own opinion about whether the material is credible. (sdsds - talk) 03:18, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I see this template most often added to stubs simply because they have no references. It is not used only on articles that may be challenged, but on easily verifiable topics, such as scientific names of organisms or groups of organisms. Most often, it is indeed used as a substitute for doing work. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Suppose what you have observed is representative of the template's actual use, i.e. this template is "most often added to stubs." Suppose you removed the template from any article marked as a stub. Perhaps no one would mind your doing so, if you explained in your "Edit summary" your reason. So if you can improve wikipedia by removing this template from clearly marked stub articles, that's making a fine contribution! As they say, {{sofixit}}! (sdsds - talk) 06:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

A fine supposition, but again, that is not the reality. Those who plaster the template over every stub and article are adamant that the template must be worn like a scarlet "A" by all articles deemed uncited. The acolytes of this movement adhere only to the forms and rituals of plastering the template, not only lacking the vision you describe, but positively counter to it. And please know that my limited time improving Wikkipedia is better spent actually adding improvements rather than removing needless templates. --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:53, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not think this template should be used on stubs as the stub templates fulfil the same function. This template if used should be next to the {{reflist}} not at the top of the article. I do think there is a place for this template when it is necessary to put dozens of fact requests into an article.

The most common criticism levelled against Wikipedia in the press was until recently that Wikipedia articles could not be trusted to be true. In the last two years as articles with lots of citations have become more common, this criticism has lessened lots of citations tend not to have that criticism levelled against them. It is not use saying that citations are only needed on uncontroversial information because there is a whole range of other facts that need citations. For example dates, facts and figures, otherwise how does the reader know that they are accurate? Further, just because you as an editor on a subject you are interested in know that something is uncontroversial and accurate, how does the reader who is reading this article to know something more about a subject, to judge if a statement is accurate?

While I agree that if there are only a couple of paragraphs in an article that need citations then just {{fact}} those paragraphs (or sentences). But sometimes there are articles that carry next to no citations, in which case placing one template like this in the "References" section is better than placing facts on the whole article. To see what I mean consider these two articles: compare the Battle of Waterloo as it is now and as it was at the start of 2007. Not a lot has changed in the content, but it is now fully cited. Which version of the article is the most useful for someone who wishes to read about the battle and cite Wikipedia as a source? I have just added this template to the article the Battle of Mauchline Muir, it is not that I know there is anything wrong with what is written it is just that I do not know that is written is accurate, placing this template in the "Notes" section, is in my opinion better than placing a {{fact}} template on every paragraph, most of which are probably quite correct (but without citations there is know way of knowing unless one is already familiar with the battle). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:00, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

This template gets away from using references to verify challenged or questioned claims... most people who use it are treated references like they're decorations, asking for more just because the article doesn't have "enough" references, even though they don't doubt a single claim. Referencing an article is difficult work and very few people who see this tag are just going to say "Hey! I'll spend the next 6 hours finding references because this tag is here!" In 99.9% of articles it's an eyesore until the article gets referenced naturally then someone thinks to remove the tag. But to modify a quote by Ronald Reagan... "The closest thing to immortality on this earth is a maintenence tag" - once created, these things just can't be deleted or even slowed down, no matter how silly or ineffective. --Rividian (talk) 12:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I read the discussion above and as a general sceptic about this craze for referencing will comment. First, the two versions of 'Waterloo' seem superficially quite different to me, aside from issues of referencing. It would take me some time to see if the content has changed. As a user of wiki (as distinct from as an editor) it normally makes not the slightest difference to me whether a piece has detailed referencing. It is not possible for me to immediately check a source unless it is online, which is frequently frowned upon as a source anyway. As someone who has recently being going through a history page, I have been adding refs as I add material, as much for my own convenience as anyone elses, so that I know where to find stuff. But this would be totally useless to someone who wanted to check that i had accurately reported the source texts. There is no way to tell that I have left out all the 'anti' passages and faithfully inserted and referenced all the 'pros'. References may be usefull to a very small minority of readers (perhaps ones who write newspaper articles for a living?), but they are much less important than actual content. I don't mind people arguing that references are desirable (I have got accustomed to reading through legions of footnote numbers), but making general labels is pretty pointless. A reader can see if there is one ref per sentence, one ref per paragraph or one ref per page. This is simply a means for people who want citations everywhere to annoy people who are not bothered about it, and thereby coerce them into spending time on frankly a minority interest improvement to a page. Content is more important than labelling.

One page I have been working on has a big sticker on the talk page failing it as a B-grade history article because it has no inline refs. Another is happily rated B (with citations), but contains some arguably embarassing mistakes. Hmm. Sandpiper (talk) 12:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Please continue to use this template

Many articles are created out of a single reference. When new editors make additions or add new material, none of this is footnoted either. The article starts to degenerate with people adding unsubstantiated "observations" and other unscholarly remarks. This sort of thing tends to give Wikipedia a bad name. Readers should be properly cautioned that what they are reading may be utter garbage. Most properly this is placed at the top of the article so the article can be skipped by careful readers until the editors get around to furnishing references for unsubstantiated statements and eliminating nonsense! Student7 (talk) 04:58, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Why not deal with those unsubstantiated observations? People complain about those kinds of things, you're right. But I've never seen them say "Well, it's okay because there was a {{refimprove}} tag on the article". The solution to bad prose in articles isn't to leave tags on the article for years... it's to actually fix the article. And references alone do nothing to prevent bad claims from being in articles... you still have to read the claims and read the references. --Rividian (talk) 12:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I'mk not at all happy about this obsession with referencing. The basic principle was supposed to be that only contentious material is required to be referenced. Where do you stop. Source A provides a fact forming the first half of a sentence, source b provides the second half, and source c supports part of each. So is that one ref in the middle, one before the full stop and one after the stop? This becomes absurd. Ordinary books are not written with every single fact referenced. If people cannot understand that wiki is voluntarily created by anonymous people, is 99% right but has some real howlers, they should not be referring to it. Putting literally thousands of citations on a page does not make it any easier to spot one which is wrong. Sandpiper (talk) 12:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

(OK, hundreds, but it seem to be growing exponentially)Sandpiper (talk) 12:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a huge effort, and it's true that what makes sense for some parts of that effort might not make sense for other parts. Each of us has a different experience of the need for referencing. Here's a suggestion for anyone who wants to gain experience in places where good referencing is important: take a look at Wikipedia:List of controversial issues or at Pages that link to Template:POV. Add three of them to your watchlist. Watch what happens for a week or so, and decide for yourself if -- by adding citations of reliable sources -- the situation could be improved! (sdsds - talk) 14:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you are saying refs are useful where there is disagreement other the text. I would not doubt it for a minute, producing good sources is an excellent way to try to settle a difference of opinion. The issue is that this template is being used to require citation of undisputed text in an ever increasing way, sentence by sentence. This has to stop. Sandpiper (talk) 21:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I see your point, and agree that template usage like that is annoying if not outright disruptive. What articles are having this trouble? Would the approach of moving the {{refimprove}} from the top of the article (where thoughtless editors often place it) into the == References == section be a possibility? In a way this is offering a compromise to the other editor, and it makes it clearer to third parties when the article really is sufficiently sourced. (sdsds - talk) 03:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The template is also added to articles that have some citations, but not enough in the eyes of the person adding it. How large does the citations section have to be for the template to be removed? And consider, please, the cases when this template is added to newly-created, short, one-sentence stubs. You are saying the solution is to create an entirely new section for this template? --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

This template is never appropriate on an article marked as a stub. As for how many cited references are required: one per paragraph is often enough for non-controversial topics. But in cases of controversy, every assertion made in the article should be substantiated by one of the article's references, and that reference should be cited either directly after the assertion, or directly after some nearby assertion which is substantiated by the same source. Yes, that's a huge burden on editors. And yes, that's what will save wikipedia from total chaos. (sdsds - talk) 08:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

(Back to non-stub articles). I've been amazed at how much othewise uncontested parts of paragraphs (and sentences) change after an editor has been asked to footnote them. The first insertion was "quick and dirty." The second, realizing that the material might be scrutinized, causes all sorts of swirmy contortions towards the real truth!

And you would be surprised at how many people claim the subject of their biography or their city is "the best" which seems quite realistic ("uncontested") until they are asked to footnote it which it turns out they can't because some other person or city has (surprisingly) eclipsed them. "Uncontested statements" are fairly often wrong or not worded quite right because there was no high standard of truth when it was written. Someone did it from memory which tends to be fallible. If this encyclopedia is going to be written "top of the head" it will be ignored. Real encyclopedia aren't written that way because they use real experts not us! Most of us are amateurs trying to sound professional. Nothing wrong with that unless we are unchallenged by "mere footnotes." Some of us are "too good" for footnotes. Maybe we should be applying to Brittanica for pay! Student7 (talk) 12:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[de-indent]Student, what you are saying is that every single sentence needs a footnote. I do not accept this because I consider it wholly impractical that a long article gets a ref list one or more entries per sentence. Such a list is unwieldy and counter productive. Also it is fundamentally contrary to the basic principle of this encyclopedia, that anyone can contribute. You are saying only anyone with a text handy can contribute, everyone else get lost. Even more, I utterly and fundamentally disagree that a text is worthless without references. It is merely better with refs, and sometimes only marginally better. But if this were the accepted view, then the template is wholly redundant and should never be used, because it would be axiomatic that every sentence without a cite needed one. The template only has any purpose if it is to highlight something specific about the particular page. Untill there is policy to cite every sentence, don't use it that way. Once there is such a policy, never use.

sdsds, yes, the template is much more sensible if attached in the refs section. It makes a kinda sense there because it is a general statement about that section. I'm afraid I do not find it helpfull anyone adding a tag saying generally more refs are needed about certain specific points, unless it is explained which points they are. I just find such a tag annoying, and ask the poster exactly which points they meant. When they tell me they dont know exactly, I take the tag away, becaus such a tag is pointless. Those out there who think inline cites are needed, just go ahead and add them when you work on pages. Keep at it enough and it will happen. Don't leave litter on the pages which doesn't help anyone.

Sdsds again, if what you say is true, that the tag should never appear on a stub, perhaps this should be explicitly mentioned in the instructions on the page? Incidentally, the page also makes reference to the tag appearing at the top of the page (section differences with fact), somewhat contradicting the earlier suggestion to place it at the bottom. Sandpiper (talk) 20:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

PS Student, it happens I know someone who did some work for a real encyclopedia. Sure she knew something about the subject, and checked things she wasn't sure about, but then she just winged it like we do. People who write real encyclopedias are not experts on every single article. Sandpiper (talk) 20:45, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Most good references are good for a paragraph unless it involves quantities which are only available from one source which doesn't have any other info to help the editor. My guess is about one reference per short paragraph. But yes, every single fact needs to be documented. I admit looking the other way when there are a lot of links. But those are dependent upon someone else's facts which can supposedly be copied into the current article (if they are there). I haven't seen this yet but I expect to - an editor relying on someone else's (undocumented) "facts" (in another article) which turn out to be wrong but the editor of the new article doesn't discover this.

If the fact is so well known that it is boring, what is it doing in Wikipedia in the first place?

Some editors are just too used to blogging/email that this requirement (and it is a requirement) for precision annoys them. There is money to be made out there in the world of fiction. Most of us here aren't getting paid! You always wanted to write that book. Do it! Not only will you be paid, you won't be bothered by these pesky requests for accuracy! Student7 (talk) 21:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Afterthought: The articles I watch are places, schools, and history, and a few bios mostly. These really require something every few lines at least. I wouldn't know about book reviews even though I do watch a few. Can't crib another's review - that's plagiarizing. Can't review it yourself (supposedly) - that would be WP:OR, but I suspect that is what most people do. It would be hard for me to ask for frequent footnotes in that environment. I suppose there are other articles which might not require precision footnoting. Or for which, our editors haven't yet formulated and enforced a coherent referencing strategy. Student7 (talk) 22:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who was in danger of breaking records for length of argument over Harry Potter articles, I can say that while I agree precise referencing ought not to be so important when the subject is essentially opinion, the experience merely demonstrated that the main purpose of quoting refs on wiki is to keep score in disputes. Absolutely nothing to do with article accuracy. wiki does not have a policy of creating accurate articles, merely referenceable ones. This is an important distinction which short-circuits this debate about the supposed reason for having refs, to boost credibility amongst readers.

I'm not used to blogging nor do I send many emails, more likely have to check it is working when I need it, for lack of use. When I last looked, it is not a requiremnt that anything on wiki be referenced. NOT. It is merely a requirement that it be refererenceable.

• Wikipedia:Verifiability, which is policy, says that attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. (sdsds - talk) 00:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Some may argue it makes life easier if the references are there in the first place, in case a disupute arises, but all that matters is that there exists somewhere a ref which someone could find. The principle is that a fair minded editor will not arbitrarily challenge material unless he feels there is a problem with it. Anything else is merely disrupting the encyclopedia (destroying good content) and wasting editors time.

Re your comment that one ref is good for one para, how do you know? I do not support linking every single clause, but unless you do that, there is no practical way of telling whether a ref placed at the end of a para refers to all the content, or all except 6 words someone slipped in the middle. This whole business becomes impossible: what is the purpose of it? unless you can cast-iron guarantee every single edit, however small, which may have altered the meaning of a sentence, you are not guaranteeing accuracy at all with all these refs. The whole structure of wiki as an open contribution encyclopedia means nothing is any better than the last edit. (Or the first: there is mention in the winston churchill article, which I was looking at lately, that he suggested machine guns be used on striking miners. I doubt it very much, but it has been in the article since its very first version. No one has challenged it despite god knows how many reviews.) A history article (eg churchill) might have one para with points about that topic taken from six different books, all mixed together.

wiki does not want well know facts? well scrap the article about George bush being USA president then. One mans obvious fact is anothers dunno. Obviously dont want anything relating to secondary school level or below, nothing short of degree level is worth including. This exactly demonstrates what wiki is for. Someone who knows all about one thing can run off a lovely article which all the rest of us can benefit from. All this insistence on referencing is completely throwing out the one essential ingredient which permits wiki to exist. Sandpiper (talk) 23:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

People have objected before when I came out with numbers on references. I think that for many articles, one per paragraph is probably a good aim for editors. Particularly the ones I work on:place articles, etc. as I've mentioned earlier.

Try (for a good article I had nothing to do with) McGill University. Those guys are thinking about FA status. I was impressed. (casual visitor).

On the other side of the ooin, try the first paragraph in Air rights#Airplanes and air rights. I'm guessing that you can tell that the editor (not me!) was starting to exceed his knowledge of the topic and was winging it. This is great for a middle-schooler who has maybe never before considered the topic. Lousy for a college student who doesn't even get a reference s/he can use out of the several sentences of, essentially, b.s. Have I done that before? Yep! But at least I have the courtesy of blushing. (Unfortunately, this can't be seen by the reader! :(

You may be a genius with a photographic memory. You need to allow for the fact that the memories of some of the rest of us are fallible. I was constructing an article last night and forgetting important "minor" details as I was summarizing a website. Was it dollars? Euros? What was the exact name of the government agency (they tend to be similar but not quite). What the name of the agency important? I had to keep looking back. Doing this from memory? I don't think so! Maybe your memory! Instead of telling you to use footnotes since your memory is perfect, maybe we should be suggesting that you hold your fellow editors to a higher standard than you hold yourself to! Our memories are definitely not perfect. You should not be trusting them/us!  :) Student7 (talk) 11:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Student, I have no objection to people improving articles. Please go ahead and rectify any deficiencies you see in the air rights article. I am happy for you to do so. But because you may feel the article does not help you, does not mean it helps no one. It may even be that some people would be much happier with a waffly general article than a tight legalistic one full of law references. It depends on what level of information they are at. Either way, why do you have a problem with leaving the article alone if you yourself are unable to improve it? Articles get better by growing based upon what is there already. You just said that yourself. You said you write something, then go back and add points. Well.... thats just how wiki works. One person writes 'the sun is yellow'. The next adds, 'it is in the sky'. The next, more knowledgeable, explains the earth orbits around it. A really clever chap talks about elliptical orbits and adds some mathematics refs. General stuff is good good good. Someone may see it and add something because they reckon they can do better. It is a collaboration. No one should be expected to produce finished work. The difficulty with this tag is it is simply saying something obvious and unhelpfull, that the article could be better. It is essentially part of a threat to those people who did their best writing something where previously there was something worse or nothing. You are telling them to bugger off, that unless they do it perfectly you will delete their work, so no point their even trying. Sandpiper (talk) 23:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Sandpiper you wrote "I can say that while I agree precise referencing ought not to be so important when the subject is essentially opinion", but opinion is when references are needed the most. In history articles facts are usually fairly easy to come by, it is the interpretation of those facts that is where the controversy comes from (and PhDs). For example was the Second Battle of Fallujah a massacre? Sigfrido Ranucci and Maurizio Torrealta think it was, Paul Wood does not (see Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre). To present an opinion about the status of the battle would be a breach of WP:NPOV and probably WP:OR, to quote a third party view about a controversial topic like this is probably a breach of WP:BOLP unless it is backed up with a citation. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

well, I see it differently. Where there is a consensus amongst people informed about a subject that a certain thing is so, then you can reference that as an established clearcut fact. Where informed people all disagree with each other, then the value of any one statement is considerably devalued. Which one is correct? It is not possible to say when all the experts disagree. It is not possible to cite one example and say, 'here, read this, it shows what I told you is right'. What I would do (and yourself?) is read what was available to me and try to create a synthesis. i.e. do original research to extract from those contradictory sources a summary which can be understood by a reader. I may list where each of the mentioned facts comes from, but essentially I have still written my own opinion. A different editor would have balanced it differently, giving a different impression. And a third would differ again. The more fractured are the views of the 'experts', the more useless any one reference becomes. Ok, someone could take my ten referenced books, read them all and form their own view of whether my summary was accurate. But that is impractical. I do it here as an editor because I am writing about something which interests me (really, the other way about: I write on wiki about something I have become interested in outside), but who is going to spend a week reading all those books to check my version of the article is correct? Perhaps there is a difference between people who think wiki articles are a starting point for learning about something, or a reference source to find an answer. If the latter, then the multiple refs are no help at all to check if the article is correct. I look at an article on wiki to find out something, now. If there are clear links to a webpage elsewhere I may read that too, The purpose of an encyclopedia is to give me the predigested summarised info about something. The main usefullness of references on wiki has nothing to do with readers of the encyclopedia, but is for the convenience of editors. Real encyclopedias absolutely do not include all these refs, even though the author may have such notes, because they are not helpfull to readers.

Sandpiper (talk) 23:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Should we be physically moving the above discussion, and subsequent arguments, to WP:FOOT? We may have a better audience there? While it does pertain to refimprove, it seems more to pertain to the concept of footnoting. Student7 (talk) 23:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Why? what does it have to do with how to make footnotes?Sandpiper (talk) 21:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

BTW, I agree that we shouldn't kill little birds in their nests! I generally leave stubs and brand new articles that look lost, alone unless the facts seem wildly out of kilter.

Having said that, we are trying to achieve some sort of consistency here. It may have been okay three years ago to sling something on wiki. We're at over 2 million articles now, a commendable quantity. I think we should now focus on quality. We should no longer write for the middle schooler but develop articles in our sandboxes (that's what we tell vandals! Why not take our own advice?). So what comes out, even initially, should have some credence IMO. We need to rectify our quality reputation which was not that great. High school students should be able to use our articles without criticism from their teachers. Most cannot now because of our old reputation of being slap-dash. This will take time to overcome Student7 (talk) 23:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The way to 'rectify our quality reputation' is to teach people how to use wiki. Teaching them about the article history etc so they can check other versions, check discussion to see whats going on. Understand the sort of errors inevitably part of how it works. Wiki is not a conventional encyclopedia, though in the comparisons I have seen it did quite well against them. Wiki's dodgy reputaion, if it has one, is because pages contain real howlers, and like as not some placed there just minutes before the reporter read them. The reality is that these comments about mistakes on wiki only arise because wiki is becoming widely used. It should be obvious to anyone who considers the statistics that ongoing stupidities will always keep cropping up, because people vandalise articles all the time. The more people are using it, the more often some visitor will find mistakes. Wiki works by people discovering problems with articles and then fixing them.

There is a suggestion kids are being told not to use wiki, but I suspect this is because 1) it straight away gives them the answer, 2) everyone hands in exactly the same homework (all containing the same one mistake). Neither case helps the school look good. But from what I could gather, absolute rubbish extracted from some other website is quite acceptable. I'm afraid no one has explained to me how having loads of refs on a page guarantees quality. I agree there is no sensible assessment mechanism on wiki which tells people how good we think an article is. Sandpiper (talk) 21:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)