Talk:Muhammad Abu Zahra

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The need for citations

Citations to reliable, authoritative, and neutral third-party sources are essential. Wikipedia requires them. Two good sets of Wikipedia guidelines that I have found really useful can be found HERE and HERE. See the Manual of Style guidelines for biographies located HERE. Wikipedia's rules on biographies of living persons are strict. If something is unreferenced, and potentially contentious, it should be removed immediately. George Custer's Sabre (talk) 17:17, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@GorgeCustersSabre: Except that Abu Zahra died long ago, and wikipedia guidelines on the biographies of living persons don't apply here. 17:53, 3 January 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)[reply]

So what do you make of what WP:BURDEN states:

@GorgeCustersSabre: At best, you may add ^{[citation needed]}, or the "factual accuracy of this article is disputed" banner, but that's not an excuse to remove content. So I kindly invite you to re-add back the content.

I also added citations for the Works section.

18:09, 3 January 2016 (UTC)CounterTime (talk)

Dear CounterTime, I clumsily missed the fact that he is dead. Sorry. Yet I'm not wrong to point out that WP:BURDEN places an onus of responsibility upon editors who add unreferenced material, but not upon editors who remove it. So let's both work on finding sources. Regards, George Custer's Sabre (talk) 18:20, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@GorgeCustersSabre: In addition, this article should be more or less a translation of the arabic one, and if you visit it you'll find all of the books I listed previously there. Regards. --CounterTime (talk) 11:45, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dear friend CounterTime, I hope you are well. I'm sorry I haven't been able to get to this issue. I've been ill for a few weeks and have hardly looked at Wikipedia. George Custer's Sabre (talk) 10:45, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Responsibility for providing citations

Shortcuts

All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.^[1]

Attribute all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. The cited source must clearly support the material as presented in the article. Cite the source clearly and precisely (specifying page, section, or such divisions as may be appropriate). See Citing sources for details of how to do this.

Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step.^[2] When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that there may not be a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable.^[3] If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it.

Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living people or existing groups, and do not move it to the talk page. You should also be aware of how the BLP policy applies to groups.^[4]

References

^ Once an editor has provided any source that he or she believes, in good faith, to be sufficient, then any editor who later removes the material has an obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia (e.g., undue emphasis on a minor point, unencyclopedic content, etc.). All editors are then expected to help achieve consensus, and any problems with the text or sourcing should be fixed before the material is added back.
^ It may be that the article contains so few citations that it is impractical to add specific citation needed tags, in which case consider tagging a section with {{unreferencedsection}}, or the article with {{refimprove}} or {{unreferenced}}. In the case of a disputed category or on a disambiguation page, consider asking for a citation on the talk page.
^ When tagging or removing such material, please keep in mind that such edits can be easily misunderstood. Some editors object to others making chronic, frequent, and large-scale deletions of unsourced information, especially if unaccompanied by other efforts to improve the material. Do not concentrate only on material of a particular POV, as that may result in accusations that you are in violation of WP:NPOV. Also check to see whether the material is sourced to a citation elsewhere on the page. For all of these reasons, it is advisable to communicate clearly that you have a considered reason to believe that the material in question cannot be verified.
^ Wales, Jimmy. "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", WikiEN-l, May 16, 2006: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."

[1] Once an editor has provided any source that he or she believes, in good faith, to be sufficient, then any editor who later removes the material has an obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia (e.g., undue emphasis on a minor point, unencyclopedic content, etc.). All editors are then expected to help achieve consensus, and any problems with the text or sourcing should be fixed before the material is added back.

[2] It may be that the article contains so few citations that it is impractical to add specific citation needed tags, in which case consider tagging a section with {{unreferencedsection}}, or the article with {{refimprove}} or {{unreferenced}}. In the case of a disputed category or on a disambiguation page, consider asking for a citation on the talk page.

[3] When tagging or removing such material, please keep in mind that such edits can be easily misunderstood. Some editors object to others making chronic, frequent, and large-scale deletions of unsourced information, especially if unaccompanied by other efforts to improve the material. Do not concentrate only on material of a particular POV, as that may result in accusations that you are in violation of WP:NPOV. Also check to see whether the material is sourced to a citation elsewhere on the page. For all of these reasons, it is advisable to communicate clearly that you have a considered reason to believe that the material in question cannot be verified.

[Wales_2006-05_Wikimedia_wikien-l-4] Wales, Jimmy. "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", WikiEN-l, May 16, 2006: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."

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