Talk:Junk science/Archives/2018

References are mixed in with Notes section

The "Notes" section seems to be intended as footnotes, but the references are in there, with no separate References section. I think both sections can be used for in-line "ref" tags (references) but obviously they should be separated. Generally, footnotes are intended for notes that would be distracting if in the main article, but they are different from the list of references that appears at the bottom of substantially all WP articles.

I took a look at the section but didn't see anything obvious that would separate the Notes from a Reference section Unitacx (talk) 02:36, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, there is only one {{reflist}}, although the section header is called "Notes" instead of "References", which might be the source of confusion. The terminology is not necessarily wrong, as references are also technically in the "footnotes". You are right that there can be more than one reflist, sometimes one is used for inline comments and another for reference citations. There can also be an additional biography/sources section (like this article's "Further reading", those are usually used with shortened footnotes (which show in the reflist as small author/year references, like for {{sfn}}), but can also serve as a store of important references not yet used in the text (although that is discouraged practice). —PaleoNeonate – 03:45, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Thanks Paleo; changed it to "References". Per my edit note, all of the footnotes follow a common numbering system, suggesting there was no present intent to set up a "Notes" section. (But I wonder if "junk science" can have references.) Unitacx (talk) 04:57, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

I likely misunderstood your original message. I'm still not sure if this will help: the reflist rendering will list both inline references (an example being Neff2005) and those listed at the bottom within the reflist template itself, with the numbering done automatically. It seems that the location of some citations or notes (inline/bottom) is sometimes arbitrary (likely some were added ad-hoc overtime by those editing the article, like Neff2005). One item which may look like a note rather than a citation is "rjrmemo" (although it appears to be two concatenated ad-hoc citations)... By "Junk science" do you mean the Agin 2006 book? If so, currently its reference tag is "Dan Agin Ph.D. - Junk Science" (defined at the bottom) and the inline references are made by matching it using the |name= parameter of the <ref /> tags. Then the {{rp}} template is used after the inline reference to specify the page. There is an additional copy of the book source in the "Further reading" section, but nothing really links to it directly. A common alternative would of course be to use {{sfn|Agin|2006|p=page}} inline, to add |ref=harv in the "Further reading"'s {{cite book}} template, then to drop the "Dan Agin Ph.D. - Junk Science" from the reflist's bottom list. Sorry if I'm still only stating the obvious. —PaleoNeonate – 07:44, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

I see what you're saying. I'm guessing that at one point someone may have wanted two lists. Fortunately, the items in the one list seem to at least fit in as "references", so until someone wants to parse out the "notes", we should be okay. My comment about "junk science" was not the specific "Dan Agin" reference; only the aesthetics of an article on "junk science" actually having references <grin>. (But then advocates of junk science do tend to cite references, or at least the references that "fit".) Unitacx (talk) 15:19, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes I agree, there's no obvious need for a separate "Notes" section at this time. Oh yes, we need references to avoid WP:OR of course, but should select non-partisan ones (per WP:RS, WP:FRINGE and WP:PSCI). So not the ones "they" would like. —PaleoNeonate – 00:49, 1 July 2018 (UTC)