Template talk:Inglis family tree

Unreferenced section

@user:Bikeroo as you will be aware you have reverted an edit I made to a dozen templates. I have chosen this talk page because the revert is the first simple one where you revered the addition of {{Unreferenced section}}, as in some reverts the changes were larger. As the edit and the reverts were similar in all 12 cases, it seems sensible to hold a discussion about the edits and reverts in one place.

These are the templates which have been edited and reverted in chronological order based on the time the revert was made:

1. Template:Muirhead-Boulton family treeLatest revision as of 06:51, 4 April 2015 diff Also in this case why change back from template:chart to the deprecated template:familytree (a change you had made)?
2. Template:Coleridge family tree Latest revision as of 06:52, 4 April 2015 diff Also in this case why change back from template:chart to the deprecated template:familytree (a change you had made)?
3. Template:Windham family tree Latest revision as of 06:52, 4 April 2015 diff Also in this case why change back from template:chart to the deprecated template:familytree (a change you had made)?
4. Template:Inglis family tree Latest revision as of 06:53, 4 April 2015 diff
5. Template:Ruck family tree Latest revision as of 06:53, 4 April 2015 diff
6. Template:Terry family tree Latest revision as of 06:53, 4 April 2015 diff
7. Template:Robin Fox family tree Latest revision as of 06:53, 4 April 2015 diff. Also in this case why change back from template:chart to the deprecated template:familytree (a change you had made)?
8. Template:Hanbury Neilson family tree Latest revision as of 06:53, 4 April 2015 diff. Thank you for removing ^{Superscript text} The edit box must have been slow to open and I must have clicked on something accidentally.
9. Template:Dummer family tree Latest revision as of 06:54, 4 April 2015 diff Also in this case why change back from template:chart to the deprecated template:familytree (a change you had made)?
10. Template:Mackarness family tree Latest revision as of 06:54, 4 April 2015 diff Also in this case why change back from template:chart to the deprecated template:familytree (a change you had made)?
11. Template:Birley family tree Latest revision as of 06:54, 4 April 2015 [1] Also in this case why change back from template:chart to the deprecated template:familytree (a change you had made)?
12. Template:Wollaston family tree Latest revision as of 06:54, 4 April 2015 diff. Also you placed an external link to a German article within the tree, are you aware that such links ought not to be created (see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Layout#Links to sister projects — such links should be red links to inform editors that English language articles are needed).

• Why have you changed some of the templates back from template:chart to the deprecated template:familytree (a change you had made)?
• Given the content of WP:UNSOURCED, a link to a section the verifiability policy, why have you reverted the addition of {{Unreferenced section}}?

-- PBS (talk) 09:02, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for contacting me regarding this. My main problem with the addition of the {{unreferenced section}} is that it creates an issue without going any way towards helping solve it. I agree that, in an ideal world, all content added to Wikipedia should be fully referenced. The problem here is the logistics of doing so. On some of these templates, there are in excess of 40 people. For each person, there should be a separate citation for their date of birth, date of death, parentage and marital relationship, so this would require the addition of up to 160 separate references.

My main reference source for these templates was Ancestry.com; as this is generally a subscription only source, this needs to be stated in the citation. A typical citation to an Ancestry page is in excess of 350 characters, so this would require the addition of 56,000 characters to each template. The templates are about 2,500 characters at present, so the addition of full citations would make them rather unwieldy and difficult to open or edit.

Of course, if an editor adds a family relationship into an individual article, this should be properly referenced at that time.

The reversion to the old template:familytree was simply a mistake on my part; I seem to have reverted to an earlier edit than I meant to. I have now put this right.

Best wishes. Bikeroo (talk) 10:40, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Your write "it creates an issue without going any way towards helping solve it". Policy on this is quite clear. The alternative according to policy is delete the content of the tree and before it can be restored (WP:BURDEN "burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material"... "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").

Instead of travelling down that route I am adding {{Unreferenced section}} because as the policy say "Whether and how quickly [deletion] should happen 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". Adding {{Unreferenced section}} is an appropriate step as per Wikipedia:Verifiability#cite_note-3 " 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}}".

The problem of dates is not the major concern the major concern is the relationship between members in a tree. For example it only takes one wrong wife (because a man marries twice) for half a tree to be wrong.

Let me give you an example of this sort of problem. There is an article called Anthony Hungerford of Black Bourton his father was Anthony Hungerford of Down Ampney, a user incorrectly assumed that the man with that name that Wikipedia has an article on was his father. In fact the article Anthony Hungerford of Down Ampney was his grandfather. The result of that mistake if put into a tree would have meant that the siblings, mother and all four grand parents on the father's side would have been wrong. It is far too easy to make this sort of mistake when building trees which is why they have to be fully cited with reliable sources.

My experience is that it takes nothing like the number of sources you are talking about. A typical entry for a reliable source to a man in such a tree will have the name of his parents, his wife and and his children. If any of his immediate family is notable (such as cousins and grandparents) they too will often be mentioned. Therefore it is likely that one reliable sources will cover at least four and probably more (man, wife and man's parents, and children if they have any), of the people in a tree. Take for example this edit to Colin Campbell (colonial governor), which changed an un-cited ancestry tree with 32 entries into a fully cited one using in-line citations only took four sources.

Because these templates may or may not be placed in articles before or after a references section they need to be self supporting. To this end I suggest that the following is used:

|list2style=text-align: left
|list2='''Notes:'''
{{notelist-lr}}<!--- use either {{Efn-lr}} and/or <ref group=lower-roman /> To fill this notelist -->

I am not sure that ancestry.com is a Wikipdia reliable source. If not then other reliable sources will have to be used. -- PBS (talk) 12:16, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

As far as I can see, none of the family trees on Wikipedia are fully referenced. Presumably, therefore, you will be tagging them all accordingly. If not, why not? Bikeroo (talk) 13:19, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

I am not going out of my way looking for them. I am running an AWB process to add {{chart top}} to charts that are not collapsible within articles, templates such as these are simply those that I came across while processing that search (I am about 500 out of 900 pages through the list). I do think they should all be fully cited, but I have other interests on my long list of things to do, before I go specifically looking for all the family trees.

Now that I have explained why I added them are you willing to let me put the templates back in?-- PBS (talk) 13:46, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

I really don't care. I've been disillusioned with Wikipedia for some time. Let the pedants and those who know all the rules but have no heart take over. I'm out for ever. Bikeroo (talk) 18:50, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry to hear that. In the hope that you change you mind here is a link to the conversation at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Ancestry.com. Given that you say you built some of the trees based on Ancestry.com and the conensus at RN/N is that it is not a reliable source, but rather a starting point, I think it is important that the relationships are examined and supported by reliable sources. The easiest way to do this is add a {{Unreferenced section}} to the templates as this both warns the reader that it may not be fully accurate and also informs editors that more research is requested.-- PBS (talk) 09:02, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure Colin Campbell is a particularly good example, as he was so inbred he had only 10 out of a normal 16 great-great-grandparents, meaning that the refs are heavily duplicated, which is cumbersome. And in the case of Charles II of Spain, for example, as most of the people on his tree have their own wikipedia entries anyway, adding refs to all of them as well is a bit redundant. It does seem a bit on the pedantic side to go scattering unrefs all over the place, but whatever floats your boat. Neckar (talk) 09:15, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

CC was used as an example simply because it is one that was done recently and I knew about it. However the CC tree may show inbreeding, but that makes it easier to fully citations as will Charles II of Spain. However just because Wikiepdia has articles on an entry in a tree does not mean that their family connections have been accurately mapped in that article. See the talk page of CC for an example of how confusing it can be when both mother and father have the same surname and their relations share common first names (because they are related and the families often use the same few first names). A problem is that editors can add these templates to otherwise fully cited articles, this can mislead readers into thinking that the entries in the template are accurate. Without citations to reliable sources there is no way to know if they are accurate -- as Bikeroo states many of his/her entries are based on Ancestor.com which is not a reliable source. I see no difference with these trees than I do with any text in Wikipwdia and what is more because on mistake can have a very big affect on the accuracy of a tree there is probably more need for accuracy in these family tree and ancestry trees than there is for facts in biographies. This is because if a man is confused with is similarly named father, a fact about his family in a biography will probably affect a sentence or two, but it will not usually cascade through the whole biography. But mistake on his wife of children could populate half a tree with inaccurate information, although in point of fact only one mistake in one entry could cause this damage. -- PBS (talk) 09:40, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I think it is clear that the template at the top is needed to alert readers to the fact that the template is not referenced. A footnote at the bottom about Ancestry.com, together with a description of the drawbacks/weaknesses of Ancestry.com as a source would be helpful, and should include the information that it is only a partial source for the templates. The idea that an encyclopedia article should have a "heart" is pretty much the definition of WP:OR, no? -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:28, 5 April 2015 (UTC)