Wikipedia talk:Citing sources

Move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus for the move. -- PBS (talk) 22:03, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Citing sources → Wikipedia:Manual of Style (citing sources) — Consolidating naming per Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Poll Gnevin (talk) 16:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Oppose; per my comment at the discussion there - this page is not primarily about style issues and its "master" page is WP:V, not WP:MOS. The primary message is, indeed, that citation style is a matter of only passing importance compared to citation completeness. Style details should be hammered out at the subpages related to specific referencing styles. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:50, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment Then it should be removed from the MOS Gnevin (talk) 19:54, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's totally necessary...as it stands the page is part of the Manual of Style (because it contains some style information) but not a subpage of it (because it doesn't exist to provide further detail on a point of the broader page). This seems like a reasonable status quo to maintain. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:59, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Pages that are part of the MOS should only provide stylistic details. I'll ask Wikipedia:Manual of Style to have a look Gnevin (talk) 22:42, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

The formatting for appropriate citing of sources clearly is a style issue. The questions of what sources to cite, when to cite them, and what information to put into the citation, are clearly not style issues. Maybe these should be separated out so that the style part can be included in MOS? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:48, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd support this Gnevin (talk) 22:54, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

The style parts are included in MOS already, generally under WP:FOOT. Where useful, they are mentioned in this guideline as well. I'd be fine with not including any style advice here if that's what editors of the MOS would prefer, although there is very little beyond telling people to be consistent within articles, but I don't understand why this would be ideal. It makes sense to advise people of the few style rules we have at the same place we are telling them about when and where to cite. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:55, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

It assumes that <ref> is the most recent technique. It should also List-defined references, {{Harvard citation}} and {{sfn}} and their strengths and weaknesses. --Philcha (talk) 00:54, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Since this is already covered at the Main MOS .I'm going to remove from the MOS Gnevin (talk) 08:54, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Oppose This Guideline is only tangentially concerned with matters of style; it's primary concern is with policy related issues touching on Verifiability and Sources. If any change is needed, the suggestion of minimizing the style aspects and removing the links to MOS (Especially the header that says "This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style" seem most appropriate. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 02:30, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose not a style guideline. 70.29.210.155 (talk) 03:47, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

• Comment The main problem it that this page is both a guideline on why and when to cite sources and a how-to on presenting and formatting citations. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I have a hard time understanding why this is a problem...that seems to be a fairly coherent body of information. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:57, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
• Comment—Gnevin, you say "Pages that are part of the MOS should only provide stylistic details." I'm not sure I agree that there's a hard-and-fast boundary between style and other, related concepts. IMO, it will create more trouble than it's worth to insist on such a boundary. The MoS main page itself deals with matters that by some definitions are not stylistic. And some issues, take wikilinking, for example, involve stylistic and non-stylistic matters. Tony (talk) 11:28, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Wiki doi is a covert advertising instrument

For a discussion of what is in my view a gross violation of our core principle Wikipedia:NOTADVERTISING, please see HERE. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:47, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

YouTube?

Is YouTube a reliable source? Acacia Ludwig was a backing vocalist for Red Hot Chili Peppers from 1995 to 1996, and there are numerous YouTube videos of her performing live with the band ([1], [2], and [3] for example). I need to cite her as a member on the List of Red Hot Chili Peppers band members, but I cannot find any other verification, other than one sentence on her father's band's MySpace. I'm not sure if MySpace can be used as a reliable source, either.. Any help would be greatly appreciated! WereWolf (talk) 17:29, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

1. Just because you think it's her, doesn't make that belief a reliable source. Is there captioning explicitly identifying her by name?

2. MySpace is a classic non-reliable source for a claim like that. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:58, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

By captioning, do you mean in the description box for the video, or text on the actual video? WereWolf (talk) 21:16, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

My take. It depends on the nature of the video. For example, if the video is a documentary, and features an interview with the band, including an identification of the vocalist in the video itself, that sounds okay with me. If it's just a video of the band playing, and you recognize the vocalist: no. That's WP:OR, essentially; it's your belief that the person depicted is who you think it is. If she's identified elsewhere on the page accompanying the video... well, that depends on who's doing that identification. If this is a YouTube channel that's the official RHCP outlet, or maintained by an otherwise reliable source, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

For this particular case, please see [4], where apparently the New Music Express, which I count as a reliable source, credits Ludwig as "Backing Vocals". I assume that this is not a fan-contributed section of NME.

Also, please see [5] and [6]. I don't know about their reliability, however. TJRC (talk) 21:19, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes! I was going to use that NME article, but I wasn't sure about that. I'm pretty sure that is a non-fan created section, as well. Could I use that? WereWolf (talk) 22:01, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Name of the publisher

WP:CITE#Citation styles says for books: "name of the publisher optional" but it ought to be provided if available, otherwise if a book is published on the same year on different sides of the pond, (not an unusual occurrence), the page numbers may not correspond in the different editions. If the ISBN is available then it could be argued it is not necessary, but that is true for all the other information as well. As it is not unusual for another well meaning editor at a later date to add the missing ISBN to a citation, one can not be sure that it is the correct one unless the other information in the citation can be cross checked against it and publisher is needed for that.

As publisher is regarded as part of the definition for a reliable source, "The word 'source' as used in Wikipedia has three meanings: ... and the publisher of the work (for example, The New York Times). All three can affect reliability." it rather mandates its inclusion here to help judge whether the citation is reliable and is useful for red-flagging a book as a self published source.

As many third party sources do not include publisher when they cite a source, it is a useful mechanism to find sources cited from a third party source in violation of WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. Of course all editors who know about WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT would would follow that guidance, but not all editors have read the guidance, and including the publisher as standard would help other editors to find cases where the editor who adds a citation has not followed WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT.

So I suggest name of the publisher should not be optional. Some archaic books do not have a publisher but in most of those cases they do have a "printed for in them" and where they have neither then that is a case of IAR because it is also true that not all books have an author or a publication date, but that does not stop us mandating their usage here. -- PBS (talk) 21:57, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Re: Erectheum on acropolis in Athens - wrong photo

Re: Erectheum on the Acropolis in Athens

The wiki article on the Erechteum contains an old sepia photo that is stated to be of the Erechteum

This is incorrect - the sepia photo is of the Propylaea on the Acropolis not the Erectheum

Its a very beautiful photo - so it should be moved to the Wiki page relating to the Propylaea

BY the way - I think Wikipedia is fantasitic and have just provided this info to assist you.

Regards,

165.228.145.108 (talk) 07:01, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

What am I doing wrong?

I'm trying to add citations to the article Stonewall riots from a Village Voice story. I have a citation that reads as follows: <ref name="Truscott">{{cite news|url=http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=uuwjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=K4wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6710,4693&dq=stonewall+inn&hl=en|title=Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square|last=Truscott|first=Lucian|date=July 3, 1969|work=The Village Voice|page=1|accessdate=20 June 2010}}</ref> OK, fine, that appeared as a footnote. Then, I attempted to add <ref name="Truscott"/> and I got an error message. See [7]. I can't quite figure out what I'm doing wrong. Help! ScottyBerg (talk) 23:29, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Never mind, I just figured out my mistake. I put the citation within another, lengthy citation. Arghhhh! ScottyBerg (talk) 23:58, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

The end of the error message referred you to the help page for that message. Did that help you? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:04, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

No, because you see I had inadvertently placed my citation within the text of another citation! It was lengthy and I thought it was article text. I wouldn't expect that kind of situation to be covered by the help page. ScottyBerg (talk) 13:43, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

"This error will also show if <ref>...</ref> tags or a named reference are nested inside another set of <ref>...</ref> tags." ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:37, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Magazines Using Cite Journal

There is a disagreement at Wikipedia talk:Citation templates#Magazines regarding the use of the {{cite journal}} template or the {{cite news}} template when citing a magazine source in an article. Additional views would be useful. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 20:50, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

IMDb

Is the Internet Movie Database a reliable source? WereWolf (talk) 00:00, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

No— just like Wikipedia, additions can be made by anyone. {{imdb}} and similar templates are for the External links section. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:28, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

It's a bit harder to add information to the IMDb; but not that much, in my experience: especially if you are yourself the subject of the listing. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:31, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

First editor's style set in stone?

You should follow the style already established in an article, if it has one; where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected.

Given an ongoing dispute between User:CBM and me, I was wondering how far this rule goes? For example, the article Bessel function, where CBM keeps defending the "style used by the first editor", although those very editors (User:Michael Hardy, User:Paul August) do not oppose the change from <references /> to {{reflist}}. Even the user who originally added <references /> to the article is in favor of the change to {{reflist}}.
I know this rule was a pragmatic compromise to prevent edit-wars over citation styles, but the way it is now (or at least the way User:CBM reads it), it puts an undue weight into one user's opinion: even if a dozen editors agree on the change, it only takes one person (could be someone who never contributed to the article before) to object, hence there's a "disagreement" and the established style remains. Is that how it was supposed to be? --bender235 (talk) 21:32, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Omitted Information

There is no reference to Yusef Rahman Who was The arranger and Composer on Talking Book. Yusef is in the Book of "Who's Who of arrangers and composers"on this Album, I personally saw this and He introduced me to "Stevie" in LA in The Early 80's. I believe this should be added. He's higher in stature then a Recording Engineer. Thank you Randy Bluesman Hock —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.184.206.165 (talk) 17:34, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Why and when to cite sources

I would like to add: Be sure to separate between what the source said and what actually transpired (and of which we know nothing). That way the reader can apply source criticism and form a personal judgment. The reason I would like to add this is because the wikipedia is positing an image of what is actual. We know not what is true, but often information is shown as a 'fact', while it is merely derived from a source, which may or may not be correct. It seems prudent to lay a bit more emphasis on this sine often sources are made into 'absolute truth'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Faust (talk • contribs) 12:19, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I agree. I want to say (with a reliable source, of course) that "X dug up an artifact in the desert," not that "News at 11 said that X dug up an artifact in the desert." My "reliable source" may be wrong. But it will serve until a better source can be found. And to qualify all statements would drive everyone nuts. Often, BTW, most sources are not even notable. So putting them in the text (if that is what you are asking) would be WP:PR for them and even considered WP:SPAM IMO. But maybe I misunderstood you. Student7 (talk) 15:41, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

You misunderstood me. My contribution was ment to counteract exactly what you are pointing to. I have seen many remarks at the wikipedia that are not true, but can be sourced. I might, for instance, give 100000000 sources that the world is flat. However, the world, in fact, is round. To prevent eager readers to think that the world is flat, a note saying that this is the source talking and not a fact is beneficial. To be able to judge the source will also reveal the irrelevance of certain sources and would, in effect, eliminate the problem you are raising. Should I choose different words, seeing as you misread me? --Faust, formerly Arjen (talk) 07:43, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that "source said that..." should be very sparingly used. It is confusing IMO. WHY is the source being emphasized here? Because he alone says the world is round? Well, maybe useful then. But mostly should be omitted IMO because it just clutters article. I think you are saying it should be used when (and only when, I hope) that the source is offering an opinion which appears to differ from mainstream (what is widely understood, but wrong). You may have a point. Student7 (talk) 21:05, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi Student, I am suggesting that the mainstream opinion is wrong 99,99% of the time (the world is oval, for instance). If the wikipedia is going to be a solid source of information, instead of disinformation, we should leave it up to the reader to decide if a source is correct or not. If we say something is x, the reader will not be thinking of source criticism and will stop thinking altogether, believing the final answer has been given. Do you see my point? --Faust, formerly Arjen (talk) 10:53, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Again, if the statement reads "The world is a cube (cite)" this is going to be a bit hard to accept for the average reader. It would be better if the editor inserted "Albert Einstein said 'the world is a cube' (cite)." The reader is less likely to skip over the article figuring that it has been vandalized.

But most of the time, the facts we are presenting are mainstream. They may be "truncated" which is why they are not precisely accurate. I don't necessarily want to know all the details. A generation ago, people would accept that electrons travel in "orbits" around the nucleus of the atom. Physicists figured that this was easier to teach to the general population. Nowdays, our articles probably don't state this (!). But "thre truth" is a bit harder to explain, which is why it got truncated before. (not sure we know "the truth" BTW). Student7 (talk) 16:22, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi Student, this is my point exactly. Is it not beneficial if we make sure that everybody understands that it is a source talking and not a 'fact'? That way a reader can accept the explanation given as a handhold, but that same reader will also know that there are probably more opinions out there and can decide later to do more research. Is that not the entire point of finding a number of different sources for a term anyway? --Faust (talk) 17:00, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Ancestry.com as a reference?

Moved to WP:RS/N#Ancestry.com as a reference?

–xeno^talk 14:17, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Citing BBC

There is a discussion concerning parameters which should be used for citing BBC News. Your input is appreciated. Beagel (talk) 11:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Citing multiple videos on a website using flash

[8] uses a bunch of videos and is flash-based so linking to each indivisual one through the |link= field isn't possible. Also given the number of videos, referencing which one is important. I'm not sure how to cite the specific videos though without making redundant citations to the same website as while there is a way for webpages to cite multiple pages, there is not one to cite multiple videos in the same page; these aren't seperate pages like is usual for seperate flash page (the |page= field lists Page X so simply using that won't suffice. Using the {{cite video}} template has the same problem because it doesn't have a parameter for such (|title= is for the page title for websites).陣内Jinnai 19:23, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

personal witness evidence

It appears to me that an exclusive focus on academic footnotes has led to ignoring first hand witness statements... these are valid for court hearings so should be acceptable for Wikipedia... third party text sources are NOT accepted in court! But no protocol is cited for first hand witness statements. At present if I first write an article on my own web page then I can cite it because I can reference it...but as a first hand witness statement there has been no increase in validity! Even academic text allow for direct witness evidence or science articles reporting research would never get off the ground! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Napata102 (talk • contribs) 17:26, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors are either anonymous, or there is no independent proof of their identities. That is why their personal observations are considered unreliable and unworthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. I strongly suspect if you submitted an article to a science journal and signed the submission Napata102, with no return address and no institution affiliation, your submission would be rejected. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:31, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The reason why first-hand evidence is admissible in court is because the witness is physically present in the courtroom, which enables the judge, jury, lawyers and members of the public to see that he or she is the person providing the evidence. In addition, the witness is subject to cross-examination so the accuracy of the evidence can be tested. Neither of these elements is present when someone inserts information into a Wikipedia article claiming: "Of course it's accurate, I was there when it happened." There is no way to ascertain whether the editor is who he or she claims to be, and no way to verify whether the information is correct or not. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually stop and think .. because what you are saying is quite UNTRUE. I never suggested that you could have a first hand witness that was anonymous...if someone wished to claim first hand witness then they would have to identify themselves and one could judge their reliability etc. ALL forms of evidence are capable of being challenged and actually a reference to a claim in another article is probably pretty weak when all is said and done...I really did not expect ad hominem remarks ... the fact that I am identified as napata102 is irrelevant because I am making an argument not a witness statement...when making an argument the person making it should be irrelevant to the evaluation of the argument .. we try to anonymise exam papers for this reason ...

My name is Dapo Ladimeji ... which adds nothing ..

There is no requirement for first hand evidence to be read in person to be accepted by a court. Either side can ask the witness to attend and of course if the evidence is disputed then the court would require that the other side have a chance to cross examine...(In fact in one court case the other side objected to a witness to giving oral testimony stating that the witness' statements were not disputed!) .. to cite this (unavailability for cross examination) as a reason is misleading because if I cite my own article you do not have a chance to cross examine me! The statement " In addition, the witness is subject to cross-examination so the accuracy of the evidence can be tested. Neither of these elements is present when someone inserts information into a Wikipedia article claiming: "Of course it's accurate, I was there when it happened." entirely misses the point by assuming that all first hand evidence will be disputed ... I don't think so. If the matter is disputed then an article reference is no better than a first hand witness statement ... also 'it must be true I was there ' ... is not a first hand witness statement and would not be accepted in court or by any legal process. There are many bigotted and untrue articles published every month.

The statement "I strongly suspect if you submitted an article to a science journal and signed the submission Napata102, with no return address and no institution affiliation, your submission would be rejected" is both insulting and untrue. Journals regularly allow anonymous comments, 'Foreign Affairs' famously published an article by X! An anonymous math article with proofs of an argument could easily be published in any scientific journal... As a matter of fact I have published an anonymous article years ago in an academic journal, I submitted it anonymously and it was published .. there was a witch hunt to try and find out who wrote it .. which is why it was anonymous in the first place .. but it was published...

The only point you are making ... which is quite obvious, is that first hand evidence must be shown to be first hand evidence and not an imposter and the only way to do that is by identifying the person claiming it.. First hand evidence is only along the lines ... I believe I saw/heard/smelt the following ... it cannot be I saw the X murder Y or I know that the reason B sacked D is F because I was there ... First hand witness can be mistaken, is subject to rebuttal BUT so are articles!

My direct reason for raising this is that I was invited to Obama's inauguration and I heard a song played almost all the time in the streets of Washington DC ... Clearly anyone else who spent time in Washington DC during the inauguration would also have witnessed this .. the song was Sam Cooke's 'A change is gonna come'... this seems to me an important part of the history of this song ...

Mutual respect and careful reading can go a long wa......y. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Napata102 (talk • contribs) 20:15, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Multiple cites of a book but with different URLs

On List of fatal bear attacks in North America, there is an informative book that I'm using multiple times as a reference. I don't have much experience with this, but I know I could list it as one reference and then have a notes section for separate cites/page numbers. However, this book is available on google books, and for the benefit of the user, it is nice to link to the specific page view for more background information.

Is there anyway to do this besides having a separate reference each time I'm using this book? The book is Herrero, Stephen (2002). Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance.. you can see it used many times in the refs.

Thank you very much. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 20:32, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

One common technique is shortened footnotes. With that technique, sometimes the full citations are removed to a separate article section and sometimes they are not. Another technique, not as common, is to use the {{Rp}} template. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:03, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Google books

I feel as though this guideline should establish some clarity on how and when (if ever) it is appropriate to link to Google books. I for one think it is seldom appropriate to do so.

Deep links to Google books are only temporary. They expire after a fairly short period of time. Furthermore, content available on Google books itself changes periodically, and varies geographically. So a Google books deep link posted by someone in the United States may not work for someone outside the United States. There is also, as I recall, some concern over the legal implications of deep linking to copyrighted works under the DMCA, though experts would need to clarify this for the purposes of discussion. So, I think the bottom line is that deep links to Google books should be explicitly discouraged.

This leaves open the question of whether it is acceptable to link to the main page of the book (rather than deep linking to a particular content page). I don't see anything particularly wrong with this practice, except that it is obviously superceded by more robust methods of document retrieval, such as ISBN lookup (with which a book can be easily found on Google books, Amazon, WorldCat, etc.) Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:51, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I link to the main page for the book when it's a full view (people can navigate to the page on their own), but will link to the specific snippet if all that's available is snippet view. I haven't had any problems so far with these links expiring but I'll look through my featured lists and see if any have. --Golbez (talk) 13:17, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• I use The Wikipedia citation tool for Google Books, and it deep links by default. This raises questions I'd never considered. The US courts have not yet definitively weighed in on the question of linking to copyright violations; in Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry they showed a tendency to take such concerns seriously, but no final judgment was rendered on that because the parties reached settlement. Unless there's been a new case with which I'm unfamiliar, there is not yet precedent here. I have been presuming that Google books (giant corporation and all) had achieved proper licensing for its displays. I had not read closely about the terms of its settlement but had vaguely developed an idea that it was all worked out. A bit of reading ([9], [10]) concerns me with respect to so-called "orphan works". It seems as though Google's "opt out" program is not so far different from YouTube's...in the absence of complaint, they'll make the contents available. Leaving aside the question of link stability, it seems like it might be a good idea to avoid deep linking to material that does not meet our own criteria for public domain (pre-1923, barring other evidence of PD) unless there is some final settlement securing Google's right to display it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:40, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I would like to see an additional parameter (say gbid) to add the Google Books ID, and then have {{Citation}} produce a stable Google Books link. Also, if parameter page has a value, the template could produce a stable deep link via the &pg=PA... parameter in the Google Books URL. It should look like this {{Citation |title=Wikis for Dummies |page=90 |gbid=5VXgXlU7g-YC |etc... }} produces "Wikis for Dummies, p. 90 (at Google Books)", or something like that. --bender235 (talk) 13:46, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Good questions above re linking and deep-linking to Google Books. I'm located on a small island in the Philippines. I do a lot of wiki editing, and I place a lot of Google deep links crafted with the http://reftag.appspot.com/ tool, using {{Citation}}, {{Cite book}}, and plain wikicode. I also place Google deep links using shortened footnotes and the {{Rp}} tag — These issues reach beyond Template:Citation/core. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:45, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with this in general; we shouldn't be pre-emptively assuming that there is going to be some legal problem in the future if there isn't one now. If in the future one arises a bot could go through and fix links to go to the front page of the book or whatever. At the very least I can't see how it could be a problem to deep link to a public domain work on Google Books. Google gets an HTTP_Referrer header when someone clicks on a WP link; they can just shut off or redirect this kind of traffic - to any page they desire - if they want to have more control of the eyeballs.

(But they don't do that, so I'm inclined to think that they don't mind deep linking or they even want deep linking. There's no reason they even needed to make deep linking possible in the application, but they did.)

It seems like a horrendous waste to me if you're actually doing your research on Google Books and you have the link immediately available to cut and paste, to not do that and force a WP reader to search through the book to find your reference. One of the major benefits of Wikipedia is often being able to immediately and rapidly check the citations of an article, IMO.

Also, I have not experienced the phenomena Sławomir Biały describes of these links being temporary; I just went and examined a sample of my links from two years and more ago and all but one of them worked. You may perhaps be talking about something I've seen on "Limited Preview" books with particular licensing conditions set, where some kind of licensing token appears in the URL as you browse. I've noticed that if you remove the licensing token from the URL you can't access the book any longer; so I wouldn't be surprised if the token has a time limit on it too. But I have only seen those licensing tokens appear on a very small percentage of the books I've looked at.

As for including the ISBN, I usually do that and the other bibliographical information in addition to the link, but it occurs to me that even if someone only leaves the link you could construct a bot to go in and fetch the other details from Google Books. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 00:03, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

• This should apply not only to Google Books, but other hosts such as Scribd.
• Linking to a specific page precludes reuse of the citation; separate citations would need to be created for each use.
• {{Cite google book}} uses a bot to fetch the info, but it does not seem to be active yet.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 08:44, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Strange, regarding links expiring I just received a message that I reached my "viewing limit" for a book I've been using heavily in references (see my earlier post here). In another browser, it worked fine. This looks like another reason not to deep link. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 14:09, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

That's something which only happens with "Limited Preview" books with particular licensing settings; so as I said above, this wouldn't happen with a public domain book at all. Also, I would expect that it's only you who reached the viewing limit, but other people / IP addresses who have never viewed the book can still follow your citations. If you're talking about the links to the book Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance I just went and clicked on a couple of them and they worked for me, for example. In addition you'll probably be able to go back and follow them yourself if you wait a few weeks or months.

I am beginning to think that the people who are opposed to deep links are the ones who are simply unfamiliar with the way that Google Books works. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 21:05, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I do realize I reached some sort of limit. As I said, it worked in another browser. I've been referring to it a lot, so it's unlikely a user would also reach this limitation. However, tt would be jarring for the user if they encountered this. I still will use the deep links on this limited preview book, but it's something to keep in mind. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 23:09, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Since we're talking about Google Books I thought I'd mention an interesting situation I came across: as you may know a book can have an ISBN number but not really be "legit"; i.e. could be self-published or otherwise not a reliable source. I just came across one that really looked like a genuine academic work - and maybe it still is, I guess - but it wasn't until I looked for it on WorldCat that I found that the book had no WorldCat entry and that it's self-published. So it pays to cross-check. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 03:28, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

References and citations

I think in the context of Wikipedia "The word "reference" may refer to the citation, the source, or both." is not correct. I have raised this point before on this guideline talk page and I am raising it again because in my experience most editors use the word citation as a shorthand for source cited in an "in-line citation" and "reference" for a source cited in ==References== section.

So editors will say this article contains references but no citations. Templates such as {{unreferenced}} and {{refimprove}} by their very names indicate this.

I have just raised the issue of changing the wording of the unreferenced articles project. It is clear that the current wording supports the interpretation I have given above and not that currently given in this guideline. Changing it to fit this wording will make it needlessly more wordy as everyone currently reads references to mean the content of a references section (whether as a list generated by {{reflist}} of as a bullet pointed list).

So I suggest that we change the definition in this guideline to describe Wikipeida editors usage and not that of external sources. -- PBS (talk) 22:54, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

But, <ref>...</ref> tags, {{ref}} or some variation to present the in-text cite whereas the citation that shows in the reference list is often presented using a cite template. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:14, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

This is a semantic question, of course, and the way a linguist solves a semantic question is with examples. Suppose I'm talking about a Wikipedia article and I say:

• "This article has really bad sources." I might say this if the source is a blog written by a high school student.
• "This article has really bad citations." I might say this if the article's citations don't appear in footnotes and consist of book titles in capital letters at the end of sentences, like so. STARSHIP TROOPERS, R.A.Heinlein.

But, in either case, I might say:

• "This article has really bad references."

Thus, "references" is ambiguous between source and citation.

I am not familiar with the usage you describe above. If you said,

• "The citations are great, but the references are terrible."

I would probably guess you are trying to say:

• "The citations are great, but the sources are terrible."

And I certainly would not think that you were trying to say:

• "The inline-citations are great, but the general references are terrible."

I would also like to note that our use of terms should reflect how most English speakers talk, not how Wikipedians have come to talk, if we expect these guidelines to be intelligible to anyone beside ourselves. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 05:26, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It is more this "The articles has a list of references but it does not cite any sources". When people refer to references they mean a list of citations in a reference section. -- PBS (talk) 02:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I would find that very confusing, if you said that. I would have to ask you to clarify what you mean. Anyone else? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:57, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

On second thought, I would interpret that sentence the same way you would. It would take a second, but it's the only interpretation that makes sense.

I think that the source of the disagreement is that you're hearing the word "citation" as short for "inline citation" (or what APA calls a "brief citation"). What you (PBS) are calling "references" I think of as "bibliographic citations". The full-length bibliographic citations that we usually list under References are citations as well, I think, or maybe more precisely they are part of the citation. At least that's how I hear the words.

I also think you are using the word "reference" in a sense that is more restricted than I do. I would have no trouble pointing to something like "(Turing 1950)" and saying "that's an excellent reference; I've used it before". (I would be referring to the source) I would be confused if you said that "(Turing 1950)" is not a reference. Would you say it's not a reference because it doesn't appear at the bottom of the article in the References section? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 07:16, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Purdue has a nice APA guideline.[11] Looks like references are the fully formatted citations that appear in the reference list, whereas in-text citations are the short form.

Systems such as <ref>...</ref>, {{ref}}, {{harv}} and the like could be called "in-text citation systems" and {{citation}}, {{cite xxx}} and the like could be called "citation formatting systems". Templates such as {{reflist}} could be "reference list formatting systems".

You may be interested in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Citation templates: naming by style.

Probably the most popular practice is the use of the Cite in-text citation system in conjunction with Cite xxx templates (what I refer to as CS2). It is a bastardized hybrid, but none of the formal systems such as APA are designed for online publishing. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I read a few parts of APA guide, and I think I may be wrong about "citation", or at least not completely right. Sorry.

I'm still pretty certain that "reference" can refer to the source. If I say "the reference was written by Bill Clinton himself" you would probably think I was saying the Bill Clinton wrote a book that I'm using as a source. You probably wouldn't think that I was saying that Bill Clinton added a "citation" to the reference list at the end of a Wikipedia article. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 07:43, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

From Wiktionary:

• Source: The person, place or thing from which something (information, goods, etc.) comes or is acquired.
• Reference: (academic writing) A previously published written work within academic publishing, used as a source for theory or claims referred to which are used in the text.
• Cite: To list the source(s) from which you used information, words or literary or verbal context.
• Citation: Enumeration; mention; as, a citation of facts.

From Wikipedia:

• Citation: a reference to a published or unpublished source (not always the original source). More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression (e.g. [Newell84]) embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of acknowledging the relevance of the works of others to the topic of discussion at the spot where the citation appears. Generally the combination of both the in-body citation and the bibliographic entry constitutes what is commonly thought of as a citation (whereas bibliographic entries by themselves are not).
• Reference: a previously published written work within academic publishing that has been used as a source for theory or claims referred to that are used in the text.
• Source text: a text (sometimes oral) from which information or ideas are derived.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:27, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Do you think Wikipedia is the most reliable source on this? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 23:33, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

If the articles are wrong, then it is going to be very hard to create guidelines. Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing already references Parenthetical referencing. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 03:03, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I am not talking about what other places or style guides call them, I am referring to the usage in a Wikipedia talk page conversation: references are used to mean the list inside a "reference section" just as "external links" is taken to mean those things listed in the "External links section". If an external link is inside a ref-tab, editors don't usually refer to it as an external link on the talk page instead they talk about it being cited. -- PBS (talk) 04:52, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

As I said above, the usage of these words on Wikipedia's talk pages is irrelevant. If Wikipedians have begun to use some words in a peculiar way, they should stop, and speak English. We're supposed to be writers, after all. And more to the point, these guides are supposed to be intelligible to any educated reader. Our audience is new users, not long-time Wikipedians. If we start redefining words, we're sunk. We're a subculture.

(I hope that doesn't sound too harsh. Note that I don't think you are defending a truly peculiar usage of the word "citation". You're not wrong, about the semantics, not entirely. However, the underlying issue (about usage) is very clear cut for me.) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:56, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

"the usage of these words on Wikipedia's talk pages is irrelevant" So I take it you are not a strong believer that guidelines should reflect usage. It is quite usual for a group to develop their own specialised vocabulary to suit their needs, and proving it is used within the group (and not to confuse a general readership) is done all the time and is acceptable. For example the use here of the word guideline has a specific Wikipedia meaning as do many of the acronyms used in conversations on talk pages. Providing the words are defined and explained (for those not familiar with them eg new entrants to the group) and they are in common use among the group then they are perfectly acceptable. Indeed it is misleading for new editors not to be told what the common usage is. -- PBS (talk) 03:43, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

People can say whatever they want on talk pages, but the guideline (and our articles) should reflect English usage. These pages are for first time users who stop by to find the answer to a single question. They should not have to learn a new language to do that. We should not require that new users become wikipedians before they can navigate the guideline. The definitions are needed to separate the issues.

Having said that, I think we could use a definition of "citation" that indicates that it is attached to article text (with a footnote or parenthetical reference), i.e. that it is "inline". I'm just not sure how to say that clearly.

I think changing the definition of "reference" is a mistake. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 08:18, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Other topics

May I add that I do not care for parenthetical citations? IMO opinion they distract from the article. This forces the perhaps unwilling reader to mentally "skip" over the parenthetical stuff. I really don't care that Harvard, Oxford and Albert Einstein all used them extensively. I find them distracting.Student7 (talk) 14:25, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Student7. Parenthetical citations are like any other technique, they can be used well or badly. The harv... templates include options for every situation I can foresee (that's rash :-D) - for example {{harvnb}} is very unobtrusive, while e.g. {{harvcol}} is for cases where page numbers are required. --Philcha (talk) 15:10, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

That is getting off the topic of terminology here. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

As long as we are airing personal preferences, let me just say that I find footnotes far more distracting than parenthetical references, because footnotes force the unwilling reader to jump down to the bottom of the "page" (which in long Wikipedia articles can be half a mile or more) and back again, just to see what all the fuss is about. However, I have a question for Philcha about these Harvard citation templates with "options for every situation": "Harvard ciitation" is of course not a specific style, but rather a catch-all for a miscellany of styles using author-date format. I have not been able to find a template that correctly formats the bibliographical data for Chicago Style in the List of References—they all seem to want to enclose the year of publication in parentheses, for example, or boldface journal volume numbers. Am I just looking in the wrong place?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:53, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Again, wandering off topic. I am not aware of any Chicago style templates. See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Citation templates: naming by style. BTW: With an article formatted with in-text and citation templates, when you click the in-text link, the focus moves to the citation in the lists (and highlights most), pressing back (for most browsers) returns to the text. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Again, not sure that this remark should be in a separate subsection. I agree that any reference is better than no reference. That said, Wikipedia is written for the general population. There are no popular periodicals and few scholarly ones written that include parenthetical references as a matter of course. IMO we should be discouraging parenthetical references so Wikipedia will continue to be more readable. Mercifully, few editors use that anyway. I'm just sorry it is allowed at all. Student7 (talk) 22:22, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

(I am on a child-friendly computer which sometimes makes unexpected changes to text as it did above! Had no idea it was going to do that! I have been avoiding specific articles and titles with the 3 letter word starting with S**. I am not on this type of computer because I like it!  :) Student7 (talk) 22:45, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Any

Just wondering if 'any' should be removed, per User:Tony1/Redundancy exercises: removing fluff from your writing#Removing one or two words, problem F. Kayau Voting IS evil 07:07, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

New refs with only author and year, without work title

Apparently one of our newer contributors thinks newly added references, with a last name and date (and occasionally a page number) are perfectly permitted by this policy. Is he correct? See Talk:State_church_of_the_Roman_Empire#Badly_composed_refs. I'm very suspicious of his whole endeavor. -- Kendrick7^talk 04:33, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

The citations are acceptable, provided that the work being cited appears in the alphabetical list of references. The few I spot-checked satisfied this requirement. This is standard practice in academic writing. Jc3s5h (talk) 05:00, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Is it appropriate to edit refs to remove valid online links to the source material? For instance, should the bluelink to the excerpt at google books for the following quote be removed from the reference:

In 380 CE Emperor Theodosius issued the Edict of Thessalonica, which established Christianity as the official state religion, specifically the faith established by the Council of Nicaea in 325:

example Reference

μηδείς (talk) 17:13, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there is any definite rule. An argument in favor of removing it (provided the link is available in the alphabetical reference list) is that one purpose of the shortened footnotes is to make the body of the article easier to edit, and having long URLs in the midst of the article body makes it hard to edit. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:27, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, my mistake. I didn't realize the titles of the works appear in the external refs section. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:16, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be referring to State church of the Roman Empire which uses shortened footnotes; See WP:CITESHORT. You should not have the link in the short note, as it is listed in the References section. The article uses long and short notes, and styles should not be mixed in articles. You can optionally link the short note to the reference using {{sfn}}. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

formatting from source to citation

When it comes to citing web sources, I always maintain the formatting of the source's title. Occasionally I copy over an ALL-CAPPED source, and that gets dropped to lower cases and I generally disregard it. However, at Daniel Lakin, editor Kumioko (talk · contribs) has been changing "Medal of Honor Recipient" to "Medal of Honor recipient"; the former version is as presented at [12] by the US Army. Is there any SOP for the transcription of source formatting to the citation in the article? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 17:58, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

As I had mentioned to Thor my opinion was that this type of thing falls under Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters) that the house style of WP is in natural caps and that full caps should be avoided unless under certain circumstances. The following is an exerpt copied from my talk page to help elaborate my reasoning for these changes. "I completely agree that we should carry the appropriate title across, thats one of the reasons I have been making so many edits to them [for the Medal of Honor recipients]. Because many do not have the accurate information. But I do not agree that the capitalization must remain the same. Using the same logic, if the whole title was in caps we would not leave it that way and I have been told by several that it is not necessary to maintain the capitalization of the reference title, just the title itself. A prime example is the individual names on the Medal of Honor website. I previously reported them as caps in the citation because thats the way it is in the website and was told by at least three other editors that maintaing the caps was not necessary and it was in fact preferred to use natural capitalization for citations because its easier for some readers/editors to read." I also support and agree with Thors decision to bring this here for discussion rather than the 2 of us hash it out individually and I am prepared to live with whatever concensus decides and am prepared to go back and correct these changes if needed. --Kumioko (talk) 18:17, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

There's no rule against using title case for titles in citations, or any rule requiring it. The MOS page specifies sentence case for Wikipedia's own contents, but does not require that it be used for citations. Each individual article is permitted to choose its own citation formatting system, including whether the citations will use title casing or sentence casing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

The key is to be consistent within an article. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:33, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

With regards to consistency in that case, need that be consistence with regard to a particular capitalization style (i.e. title case v. sentence case), or can it simply be consistent in that all of the cited sources' formatting are copied verbatim? I generally prefer the latter because I feel it is imparting the intent and specificity of the original source, for however little it might impact. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 06:45, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Use either title case or sentence case, but don't mix them. Use citation templates or hand-crafted citations, but don't mix them. Use the APA based templates or the Vancouver based templates, but don't mix them. Use long footnotes, shortened footnotes or parenthetical referencing, but don't mix them. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

List-defined references and reflist

A quick note about this (relatively) new way of making references. It is an improvement of the current syntax and it does makes the syntax clearer. Slightly. But it's a lot of efforts to move every references manually. And the Usability Initiative is currently working on template folding. Template folding will be incredibly better than this reference hack. And when using template folding, it will become a nuisance to unfold a reference and find "<ref name="Moss-VH12002-07-22" />". Which will basically mean that you have to open a new tab and edit the last section of the article to finally see the damn reference. Template folding and reflist won't be compatible blend in nicely.

In short: it's not worth the effort to change the references syntax just to change it back a few months later when template folding will be released. I suggest to remove it from the guideline for now. Or at least explicitly mention that reflist may not be a future-proof feature. Dodoïste (talk) 00:41, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Erm, if template folding and reflist aren't compatible, then the usability team needs to take a strong look at what the heck they are doing. Reflist is one of the most widely used templates on the site. They're supposed to make things easier, not vastly more difficult. — Huntster (t @ c) 00:46, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

It would help if we were pointed towards discussions on this. As to "a few months", I'm sure there is an intent, but we've been down this road before. If the UI aims to make referencing easier, more intuitive and more standard, then it really needs to start afresh instead of adding one more hack to the pyramid of hacks that is the existing system. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:57, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I meant that the two features won't blend in nicely. It won't be a software issue. But usability-wise, the advantages of the refs at the end of the page becomes soon an inconvenient with template folding.

The relevant document would be Citron_Designs#Templates. Dodoïste (talk) 03:39, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Having the references in the reference section rather than inline makes a world of sense. Template folding under the name of cold folding has been around for years and will compliment list-defined references. Jack Merridew 16:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Citations in infoboxes

Is it good or bad practice to give citations in infoboxes, for facts already cited in the body of an article? Can this project page make clear the answer? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 203.45.100.59, 11 August 2010

203.45.100.59 (talk) 06:56, 11 August 2010 (UTC)