Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check/Archive 6

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Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Reference Sites

I've made a page on User:Foxhill/internet reference sites accessible with a valid UK Library card (yes, a nice short title..) which lists, funnily enough, those reference sites such as Encyclopaedia Brittanica, OED and The Times Online database that are accessible to holders of a UK Library Card.

Is there anywhere in wikispace that this should be linked to? Neither WP:FACT or WP:RS seems to trade in this type of information, which is kinda handy if you need to find a source even if WP:NOT#DIR may allude to it not being welcome - Foxhill 19:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I have often wondered just the same--there should be a much more organized system of providing this sort of help. (a WP:References perhaps, and subpages thereof?) This could be done more generally. it is much easier than it was even a few years ago, and there are some librarians around who could help, if there was enough interest. Its hard to do as isolated individuals. But don't ask me (smile) I'm too busy with getting the open access journals indicated. There are 200 done and 4000 to go. But Foxhill, perhaps your list could be incorporated into the bibliographic databases articles (a slightly smaller project--there are about 100 done & 1000 to go). I'll take a look, because many will be available in the US also at many libraries. DGG 06:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:Research_resources. It could use some reviving... -- phoebe (brassratgirl) /(talk) 00:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Category sorting

There are quite a few (to put it mildly) entries in Category:Articles with unsourced statements and Category:All articles lacking sources. I recently received a suggestion that these articles could be sorted into more specific categories, much as stubs currently are, and I think this would probably be quite helpful, allowing those with access to a lot of information on certain topics to quickly find unsourced articles that are good matches. What are anyone's thoughts on this? Seraphimblade 05:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Malfunctioning template in use

I find some {{citation}} templates used instead of {{fact}}. I cleared all articles in "what links here" of Template:Citation. But it might be used again. Can someone please either correct the template, or delete it? It does say "For testing only", but not everyone visits the template page before transcluding it. Hoverfish Talk 13:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Citation Formant

Just of out curiosity, but what citation format dose wikipedia use, i know APA, MLA and Chicago.

if some one would fill me in that would be great!

thanks --'•Tbone55•^{(Talk) (Contribs) (UBX) (autographbook)} 20:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

There really isn't a consistent format since all formats are acceptable. The process seems to be to adopt whatever reference format is currently being used on that particular article to at least have consistency in the article. Agne 20:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Suitable sources: forums?

What types of websites are suitable sources for citing? I'm specifically wondering about internet forums and message boards. One of the pages I want to contribute sources to (Hoover sound) contains information which is not, generally, written down and published, but is passed from one interested party - in this case, electronic music producers - to another, basically by word of mouth. This does not invalidate the information contained in the article. In fact this article, though concise, is factually correct. But the only area that such a topic would be discussed and therefore verifiable would be public domain forums. To what extent are they acceptable as sources for fact citation? DrSuperbo 03:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

See WP:RS and WP:V. -- Jeandré, 2007-02-03t11:32z

citing sources - required in WP space?

Hi. I've seen some uncited "facts" mentioned in WP: space, and when I added the tags, a user removed them saying that they were not appropriate for WP: space, only for use within articles. Is this correct please? Thanks, --Rebroad 17:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

You can certainly ask for people to justify what they write in Wikipedia space. Just like anything else, if it is not properly referenced, it is just speculation. However, finding reliable sources for the bits you tagged might be difficult. Certainly some justification is needed though, more than is there at present. Carcharoth 16:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Bi-weekly special article

I replaced Ancient Rome with Poetry of the United States, which was one of the last articles nominated on WP:ARD (Ancient Rome had been there since December). I'm hoping the article referencing drive will become active again; if not, I'll take poetry down in a couple weeks. -- phoebe (brassratgirl) /(talk) 00:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

{{Findsources}}

Hi, I've created a {{findsources}} template, to help web-based seaches. Addhoc 17:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Using open access research.

"examines the degree to which Wikipedia entries cite or reference research and scholarship, and whether that research and scholarship is generally available to readers" "The open access references that we were able to locate for the smaller sample of twenty entries in the course of the study have now been added to the relevant Wikipedia articles and clearly marked with a link to the “open access copy” (by Sarah Munro" — Willinsky, John (2007-03-05). "What open access research can do for Wikipedia". First Monday. 12 (3). Retrieved 2007-03-17.

-- Jeandré, 2007-03-17t06:37z

The problem is, some of the greatest sources are restricted to evil paid databases. What's more important: a source being openly accesssable or a source being reliable and trustworthy? —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 14:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Marking links as inactive

I've already posed this question at WP:CITE but didn't get an answer, so maybe you can help:

Is there a template for marking links as inactive? I mean one for links that are in references but cannot be found using the Internet Archive or WebCite? What to do when a reference link "goes dead" states that they shall be marked with the date when they were identified as broken.

Maybe we could create a template if there isn't one yet, e.g. {{deadsource|link=http://en.wikipedia.org|date=2007-03-31}} ? Thanks in advance. — Ocolon 07:25, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

See Template talk:Cite web#Link rot date?. -- Jeandré, 2007-04-01t19:10z

The web citation templates could have optional parameters for "urlstatus" and "urlstatusdate" added. This would prevent ambiguity about which of several links is being referred to. (SEWilco 03:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC))

Wikipedia:Improving referencing efforts

As a result of several very long discussions on the mailing list, I've launched a proposal that should promote the addition and maintainance of references and make it easier to find articles to reference in a specific field of interest. Since this is a topic closely related to your project, I invite you to share any thoughts and additional ideas on the proposal's talk page. - Mgm|^(talk) 15:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Helping Future Editors To Verify References Speedily

I was about to add a reference to an article from a 40 page paper when I realised and remembered back to the last time that I saw a "suspect" reference. I had to read through a lot of tripe just to determine that the reference did in-fact, not support the fact it had been used support (judging from the summary, the editor hadn't read it (thoroughly) which is what incited me to check). Checking the veracity of a reference could be made a lot easier if a page number of even a page and line number could be provided. Alternatively, if such a practice wouldn't voilate copyright laws, a character string could be provided in the form "modular character of transcription factors allows natural" (<< this is an actual snippet from the 40 page paper I just mentioned) which would allow a fast computer-powered search to the correct point in the text. It would of course be as voluntary as any of the other referencing paramters but would be helpful in a few obvious and considerable ways.

Edit: After verifying references, inclusion of one of these pinpointers would avoid future reference-verifiers having to spend so long scouring the supposed source. --Seans Potato Business 23:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

This format is currently possible:

• Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak, David Frawley (2005). "In Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on Ancient India". Motilal Banarsidass: 155. ISBN 8120816269. the Aryans could just as well have been native to India for several millennia, deriving their Sanskritic language from earlier Indo-European dialects. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Addhoc 23:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I had no idea. Thanks for the info. It's a shame that more people don't use it. Perhaps this WikiProject should advise its usage among members. Otherwise, how do you know that you aren't going round in circles, each checking the same sources in the same slow and inefficient (for want of the quote attribute) manner? I would like to suggest that the use of the 'quote' attribute is added to the guidelines of this project. It only a little extra work, and could save a lot of work by many in the future. --Seans Potato Business 18:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Merger

I believe there should be a merge of two WIkiProjects, this one and Wikipedia:Improving referencing efforts. Both projects are relatively slow right now and both seem to be redundant; a merger will be more efficient. Sr13 (T|C) 07:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I second that proposal. --Seans Potato Business 14:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Um, improving referencing efforts isn't another wikiproject - instead it was a proposal to strengthen this wikiproject. Addhoc 14:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

How do you plan on making sure "Fact 1" and "Fact 2" aren't indeed same "fact"

There are some articles on WP that supposedly provide multiple sources from different and unrelated origins. But when you look at source number 2, it is in fact using source number 1, thus not a corroborative or verifying element, just a dupe designed to fool the layman. As illustrated here on Ordu page where source 4,5,6 and 7 are in fact all are identical in regards to the reference made, just published in different places.

The only way to tell if a source is really original is to read the entirety of all the sources where the reference is made, and who has time for that? So, how do you plan on efficiently maintaining credibility while filtering out underhanded and sneaky sourcing like that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 152.216.11.5 (talk) 19:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC).

I assume your title should read 'How do you plan on making sure "Source 1" and "Source 2" aren't indeed the same "source"?'

If that is what you mean, please remember that we are doing this through human editing, not a bot. Therefore, we do have to read both sources. Also, part of the goal of the project is to encourage people to use multiple sources as the write the article. If the author includes the sources from the start, then they don't have to be added later.

Finally, two links to the same source does provide some value. It serves as a backup in case one copy becomes unavailable. It also gives some indication that the "fact" received some circulation vs just being in one publication. Johntex\^talk 17:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

There are over 16,000 articles on living people that are not completely referenced. Take a look at my lists: User:Messedrocker/Unreferenced BLPs. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 16:51, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Flagged Revisions

As I am nearing completion of the so called "stable versions" extension, I'm wondering what implications that might have for this project? Any ideas? Voice-of-All 17:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for verification

Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for verification

A proposal designed as a process similar to {{prod}} to delete articles without sources if no sources are provided in 30 days.

It reads:

Some editors see this as necessary to improve Wikipedia as a whole and assert that this idea is supported by policy, and others see this as a negative thing for the project with the potential of loss of articles that could be easily sourced.

I would encourage your comments in that page's talk or Mailing list thread on this proposal WikiEN-l: Proposed "prod" for articles with no sources

Signed Jeepday (talk) 14:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

North Sea

This article is in the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive and has a template upon it...Articles with unsourced statements since July 2007 as well as All articles with unsourced statements. I have tried to address several points / sections with references. How many references are required? How is this template reviewed? How is the template discussed? How is the template removed? Help please. SriMesh | talk 04:15, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The article is in the Category:Articles with unsourced statements since July 2007 (and Category:All articles with unsourced statements) because there is a dated {{fact}} tag in the section Geological history following "This is what is normally called the "Strait of Dover Land Bridge". Over all the article is fairly well referenced as with any work in progress it has a few under referenced areas. There are two choices for removing this article from the categories -

1. Reference the statement with the {{fact}} and remove the tag at the same time
2. Move (to talk) or completely delete the challenged statement.

I did notice when scanning the article that Info box "North Sea" and last section "Location" have different but similar areas and volumes. Also neither is referenced. You may also be interested in using named references (User:Jeepday/Cite) so that it is easier to cite the same reference in multiple areas of the article. If you have other questions let me know. Jeepday (talk) 16:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh! thank you. I have now remedied the tag, and the citation naming is oh so awesome! I wish it was on "tip of the day" Thank you so much. SriMesh | talk 17:13, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Participants list

I made a rather drastic change there in the form of a table and alphabetization(mostly). Comments?--Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 12:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Sister projects

As this seems to be the most active of these four projects, Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check, Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange, Wikipedia:Research resources, Wikipedia:Library. I propose a content merger. If there is support for this idea I can get working on it straightaway. Cheers --Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 13:05, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Instead of 1 merged WikiProject, how about 2 subpages of Wikipedia talk:Citing sources:

1. list of good open reference sites online, and
2. list of good restricted references (books small libraries won't have, subscription sites/archives) and the people to contact who have access and are willing to add refs to articles;

with this project's activities moved to Wikipedia talk:Citing sources and the merge templates pointing to that talk page also? -- Jeandré, 2007-08-12t11:19z

I looked in envy on all these seemingly narrow, but very active biology and television WikiProjects and created a similar banner template {{WPFACT}}. Can we go hang that banner on interesting talk pages, to pull people into this project? I started on the category talk:Citation templates. Such pages also get listed in the new category:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check.

No sooner had I set up that category before I learned that there is already a user box. You can paste this into your user page:
{{Participant|Fact and Reference Check|image=Nuvola apps kpdf.png|background-color=#f0d5f0}}

Also today, I wrote comments about bad ISBNs on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject The Simpsons#Citations and ISBNs and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gastropods#Citations and ISBNs. Should we aim to foster other WikiProjects to do the fact and reference checking? How does that relate to the WikiProject Council? --LA2 05:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Checking book.

[Question] I'm not sure how to proceed with this. However, I believe you all might be the best people to know. There is currently a discussion regarding the page Saint Maurice regarding the reliability of a source. The source is a book published in 1981 which is said to indicate that the subject was presented as being white before a certain period, after which time the subject was presented as black. The book in question is The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume II. There had been one copy of this volume available locally prior to the current school year. However, that library has since for whatever reason removed the book from their holdings. There is only one other copy available in the state, to the best of my knowledge, and that's an eight hour drive one way, and I have no way of ensuring that the book will even be there if I do make the trip. Would there be any way in which I could inquire that perhaps others check to see if the volume is available to them, to determine what the book says? Thank you in advance for your consideration. John Carter 15:01, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Asking users nearby (Category:Wikipedians by location) is more likely to get a confirmation. -- Jeandré, 2007-09-24t21:31z

Tried that already. Nobody really lives in the vicinity of that school, at least so far as I can see. No one's listed as attending it, either. John Carter 22:16, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

You can try to find it at a large library (e.g. The New York public library has 2 copies, 1 available) and ask an active Wikipedian from that city (Manhattan Wikipedians) to check it for you. -- Jeandré, 2007-09-27t19:21z

Or ask your local library to order it by interlibrary loan. Walkerma 21:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hiya, I know this thread is a bit old, but I thought I'd throw in that I have access to large libraries here in St. Louis and could go look it up if it's still needed.  :) --Elonka 20:37, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Statistics based ISBN improvement

Since a few weeks back, I'm compiling statistics on the ISBNs mentioned in the Wikipedia database dumps for a number of north European languages, now also German and English. I'm sorting my ISBNs into 4 categories: formal errors (typically 1%), checksum errors (2%), bad hyphenation (25%), and fully OK (72%). Many errors are easy to fix: "ISBN:", "ISBN-13", "ISBN 13-978-", using ndash or period instead of hyphen, and using Cyrillic X instead of Latin X, etc. For other errors, I need to search for the title in a library catalog (or Amazon.com). Fortunately, it is often the same ISBN that has the same error in many articles, because of copy-and-pasting. Based on statistics I can look up a few ISBNs and correct a large number of errors. This work has started to pay off in the Scandinavian languages, where the error categories are down from 2% to 0.2%. I have also started to process bad hyphenation with a bot in some languages. I'm using a Perl program with the Business::ISBN module from CPAN to determine the correct places for hyphens. This has moved the fully OK ISBNs up to 98% or so.

However, that only means the checksum and hyphens are OK. I still don't know if this is an ISBN that refers to the right book, if the citation is complete (perhaps the author name is missing or the year is wrong), or if that book is any good. How am I to determine that? Again, I can use statistics for the frequently cited ISBNs, to see if the same ISBN is cited with the same bibliographic details. If templates such as {{cite book}} are used, my analysis of the database dump can automatically find the author name, title, publisher, etc. But citation templates are not used very often, because they bring so little visible advantage to the article editor.

In the September 8, 2007, dump of the English Wikipedia, the most frequently occurring ISBN error is one zero too many in the ISBN of a Guide to The Simpsons, which is cited in 60 articles (all cites having the same error, of course). In this case, since there is a WikiProject for that TV series already, I called their attention to the problem, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject The Simpsons#Citations and ISBNs. This is not because I couldn't have fixed the error myself, but because I thought that perhaps WikiProjects have a greater role to play in fact and reference checking. Instead of us here doing the work, we could guide the projects to it.

These are the most frequent ISBN errors in the recent dump:

• 66× ISBN 00006388981 (fixed by WikiProject The Simpsons),
• 61× ISBN 854670548 (sent out to WikiProject Gastropods),
• 52× ISBN 1859831012 (fixed by WikiProject Football),
• 44× ISBN 9137087251 (sent out to WikiProject Sweden) -- addressed by myself through template:Ref Stockholm,
• 31× ISBN 8270460509 (sent out to WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force),
• 29× ISBN B0006CPOVM (fixed by WikiProject Kentucky),
• 27× ISBN 9958089028 (sent out to WikiProject Sri Lanka),

Not yet dispatched: 26× ISBN 051243811X (checksum), 22× ISBN 0873403194 (checksum), 21× ISBN 186373986, 21× ISBN 1570035982 (checksum), 21× ISBN 08129310698, 21× ISBN 0321049404 (checksum), 20× ISBN 1840133092 (checksum), 18× ISBN 86844430009, 18× ISBN 086176118X (checksum), 17× ISBN 9985441529 (checksum), 16× ISBN 0195121006 (checksum), 15× ISBN 1576070400 (checksum), 14× ISBN 048626896, 14× ISBN 037010107X (checksum), 13× ISBN 853312702, 13× ISBN 081032048, 13× ISBN 0796706929 (checksum), 13× ISBN 0007275325 (checksum), 12× ISBN 398710333, 12× ISBN 1903341726 (checksum), 12× ISBN 1557491475 (checksum), 11× ISBN 185709171, 11× ISBN 06910147879, 11× ISBN 0517489904X, 11× ISBN 0319237083 (checksum), 11× ISBN 00907521134, 10× ISBN 9994925822 (checksum), 10× ISBN 979968451, 10× ISBN 9637323147X, 10× ISBN 8090110538 (checksum), 10× ISBN 0802005910 (checksum), 10× ISBN 07769101X, 10× ISBN 0752442501 (checksum), 10× ISBN 0395199798 (checksum), 10× ISBN 0380758963 (checksum), 10× ISBN 007034003. --LA2 07:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

A proposal for WikiProject reference library templates

When you think of it, it's actually braindead to copy an entire citation (using {{cite book}} or not) into dozens of articles. If there is an error, you have to go back and fix the error in every place. Of course, there is a whole category:Citations of templates that contain exactly one book citation each. However useful each of them can be, when you consider that the English Wikipedia mentions ISBNs in 349,816 places, referring to 197,327 distinct ISBNs, and that 8165 ISBNs are mentioned in 5 places or more, we'd be flooded with such templates.

Some people have taken the thought one step further. About a year ago, {{Ref Jane's}} was created. This template contains a whole list of citations of works by one person. A parameter to that template is used in a #switch, to select the right work to cite. The talk page to that template is worth reading.

If we could encourage WikiProjects to each maintain such a template, containing their most frequently cited works, maybe we could make them care for it as their standard reference library. Any errors would be entered (and needed to be fixed) in just one place. The need to write, copy and maintain full citations in multiple articles would disappear. All you need to write in each article is {{Ref The Simpsons|Guide-1}} or something similar. Citing these standard works would become far easier than citing some odd book the article editor happened to find. Entering new books (bad books, bad editions) into the WikiProject's standard library would on the other hand become harder, since it could be questioned by other project members. I think the overall effect would be higher quality of cited sources.

The use pattern I'm suggesting is that "WikiProject XYZ" create a "template:Ref XYZ" with a single parameter, a citation label, that is used in a #switch expression, to select one citation from a list. Each citation in the list can be written in free wiki text or using templates such as cite book. --LA2 07:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Keep an eye on template:Ref Stockholm and template:Ref Kentucky. --LA2 12:38, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Today, a template:Ref Ethiopia was created. --LA2 17:47, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Dance

Lusine Vagarshakian, choreographer —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lianagor (talk • contribs) 06:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Relaunch?

This project does not appear to have the profile it deserves. How about a relaunch? Suggested name change: "Fact and citation testing". Yes, you got it, FACT for short. Wikipedians love a recursive acronym. Geometry guy 23:37, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

A list of tools that would help with this task would be great.. seen one? I've seen some chatter about a tool for medical references... Ling.Nut (talk) 01:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a mention in the signpost's new wikiproject segment would help. As it stands now this is quite possibly the most inactive wikiproject I have ever encountered, yet it is also arguably one of the most important. —Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 15:46, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The new name is cool, I support it.

I agree that this is one of the most important initiative's on Wikipedia. I'm thinking about using my time here rather than at the Resource Exchange (by the way, this is maybe something that you could consider as a 'tool', Ling Nut). The Resource Exchange isn't very active either, although I've been trying to revive the Resource Exchange for months. A revive is not that easy apparently. Key to the city (talk) 18:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure it can be done if needs be. The question is what do we want to revive? What is the structure of this reincarnated project going to follow? I'd be strongly in favour of something akin to the League of Copyeditors, perhaps even pirating their listing system (which I'm the primary architect of, so perhaps a slight COI). See my comment here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Happy-melon (talk • contribs) 10:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Even though this is not main space, inactive but important WikiProjects are places to be bold. If anyone has a vision for making this project work more actively, I suggest they try it. If you think the LOCE model will work well here, and have the energy to take it forward, go for it. Other interested editors will surely comment and help you to steer your ideas. Geometry guy 19:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with G-Guy. All this project really needs is one person dedicated enough to put in some time & energy. I think if WP:FLR comes to this project next year this project could suddenly become even more important, coordinating all of the fact-checking work going on in WikiProjects, etc. And FACT is a great acronym! Walkerma (talk) 21:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I want to be a gnome on this project, so I support efforts to get it going but won't be the be bolder person myself. Cronholm, I believe you are witnessing a large horizontal line of people all nodding and taking a step back, leaving you "stepped forward". Good luck; we're all counting on you! --Lquilter (talk) 23:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Happy Melon and Cronholm are both encouraged to take this forward, hopefully with support from each other, but also from LA2, and a collection of Wikignomes. Geometry guy 00:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll step forward :D Happy‑melon 09:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Bibliographic record keeping discussion.

On the Village pump (technical) there is a discussion to simplify the citing of commonly used sources, and more generally to improve our bibliographic record keeping. There are a number of options presented, some of which are ready for prime-time, and an organised effort is required to consider their suitability and prepare a well rounded proposal if any option appears to be workable. John Vandenberg (talk) 04:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Attribution

Wikipedia:Attribution is not a core policy. Rather, the relevant core policies are Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Original research; thus the page is currently slightly misleading. Superm401 - Talk 12:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

You're right. A little late, but I've fixed it. — Satori Son 13:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Assisting Programs

I have created a program to assist FACT members in inserting citation requests and warning messages into articles. I use it very heavily myself (because I have a hard time remembering all the commands.) If you're interested, it's Licensed GNU General Public License. An installer , source code, and a few screen shots are located here. It should be noted that Wikipedia has not endorsed this program in any way. It is a third party application created by me. Feel free to hit me up on my Talk Page if you have any questions. Matthew Glennon (talk) 19:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

If you do give it a try... please drop me a line and tell me what you think. I'd like to get an idea of how many people might use it.. how often I ought to maintain it. Matthew Glennon (talk) 20:06, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Question regarding images used as sources

I hope this is the correct talk page for discussion on this issue, if not, please feel free to move it. I am wondering if there is a specific guideline on using images to reference statements. I'm having particular trouble with an unreferenced statement on Singapore Airlines regarding nicknames used on several historic aircraft in the airline's fleet. I have found multiple images on airliners.net, an aviation-fan website, that verify these names were used on the specific aircraft. Now, airliners.net as a discussion forum is not a reliable source by far and one editor is arguing that the photos are not a reliable source because of that. However, I look at the photograph database as being an exception, as unless there is proof the photographs have been altered, they do helps substantiate claims and are records independent of the unreliable forum posts. Thoughts? By the way, I have tried to find textual evidence to support the claim elsewhere and have been unsuccessful. NcSchu_(Talk) 13:42, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

If the images are not from reliable sources they are not reliable sources. If there are no reliable published textual evidence, it's not notable enough for an encyclopedia. -- Jeandré, 2008-08-16t12:43z

Where is an ACTIVE discussion going on about WP verifiability issues?

Hi. I am interested in the topic and regulary both add citations and tag articles for needing sources. This page looks fairly inactive. Where can I go to find an active community of allies to discuss issues with? Thanks. N2e (talk) 17:17, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Music-related sourcing question

Hi, does anyone know of a way to cite chart positions of the UK Singles Chart, which are below 100? I have chartstats and that magazine ChartPlus already, are there any others?

If this question should be posted elsewhere, please tell me. thanks --^{SteelersFanUK06} ReplyOnMine! 00:38, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Oprah Winfrey: Only black billionaire for 3 years??

• Is this project still active?
• Read Talk:Oprah Winfrey. The claim that Oprah was the only black billionaire for 3 years is repeated around Wikipedia, becoming an Internet meme. There are no reliable sources that make this claim. The closest thing is one USA Today article calling her the "only black billlionaire" but never mentioning 3 years; this claim is contradicted by Forbes for the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. Are there any real researchers here? Find verifiable proof of this claim; I'll give you a barnstar. :-) Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 23:40, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Help needed restoring a worthy deleted list

Since the list of anarchists article was deleted on the grounds of poor referencing, a few of us have been working on a sandboxed version at User:SwitChar/Anarchlist, building it back up from scratch with rigourous referencing. The problem is that we are few, and the putative anarchists we need to vet and find references for are many. We could really use some extra hands sorting through the potential additions here here, finding references for their being anarchists and adding their names with a brief description to the sandboxed version. If you could help, it would be really appreciated. On behalf of the Anarchism task force, the skomorokh 15:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Request for Assistance with International Space Station

Hi folks - we recently failed a FAN for this article, and one of the main complaints was that it apparently needs a good review of citations. If you could spare some time to go over the article for us and give us the OK, it'd be much appreciated! Colds7ream (talk) 10:55, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Geocities

It's no longer a rumor. Geocities will be closing down. If there are any reliable sources located at that domain (I think there's not very many) we should use WebCite to record the page and urge the owner to move their site to avoid linkrot from setting in. - 131.211.211.246 (talk) 12:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Google geocities site:en.wikipedia.org -- 7000 results, mostly articles. Fixing the problem could be a project in itself. --SV Resolution(Talk) 16:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Encarta being discontinued

For any articles which use Encarta, you should be aware of this. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:37, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Active?

Is this project still active? I would like to see an "A-Team" of members from this project who are willing to work on articles when needed. For example, let's say we had a template like {{fact and reference check needed}} (or something similar). This tag would be used at the top of a talk page discussion requesting help with specific claims made in the article. I can't tell you how many times this type of service is needed, and we really need people who are familiar with statistics as some of the claims that are made require a brief, but detailed analysis of search engine results. Is there anyone who might be interested in forming such a team to help out, or is there a project already in place that serves this goal? I understand that the refdesk and noticeboards serve a similar function, but I have been less impressed with their expertise. Viriditas (talk) 04:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Obama's Education Plan

Could someone tell me what this is all about??? I dont really get it... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mowisi101 (talk • contribs) 02:43, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

necesito saber el calado de la distribucion —Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.104.87.45 (talk) 04:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

linda Hopkins

It says in Linda Hopkins' biography that, "In 1972 she was awarded a Tony and Drama Desk Award for her performance in Inner City Blues." I don't believe there was such a show. I believe Linda Hopkins was awarded for her work in Inner City Mother Goose by Eve Merriam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.15.45.43 (talk) 01:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

dumb stuff

cheese is good —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.117.174.15 (talk) 18:02, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Redesign

I did a redesign and update of content for the WikiProject. It is my hope that the redesign will help direct editors to flag articles with the appropriate templates, rather than addressing problems to the WikiProject's talk page (where they have gone unanswered while the project was inactive). In the process of being bold, I hope I haven't stepped on any toes, but please feel free to adjust the design or content for findability and usability. Thanks! Clifflandis (talk) 14:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

the reference 2 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zintl_phase incorrect

The reference 2 in the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zintl_phase is not found in the list of publications at Wiley & Sons's webpage and/or books.google.com. Wiley & Sons does not seem to have a book written by the indicated author, Sevov. Verification needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Livermoretad (talk • contribs) 18:50, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

The reference is referring to a chapter in an edited book: Intermetallic Compounds, Principles and Practice, Volume 3, Progress. The same chapter is also cited in: Coexistence of hydrogen and polyanions in multinary main group element hydrides -- Clifflandis (talk) 03:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

mistake

All I know is that I sailed in the Christoforo Colombo from New York to Napoli in November of 1972. She continued on to Patras in Greece. The article states that she was not doing the Atlantic run at this time. Wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.72.191.199 (talk) 00:05, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

editing a relative's wikipedia entry

Hello,

I recently wrote an update to my great grandfather's entry on wikipedia. I myself, Perry Moore, have a rather well substantiated site on wikipedia. I wrote all the new, pertinent information about John W. Eggleston's life and career as Virginia's Supreme Court Justice. I also pointed wikipedia's fine staff in the direction of where to find the articles to back up all the the information.

I hope that will be enough.

His generosity is why I was able to receive an education, and largely why I have been able to accomplish the many things I have done to date, i.e. producing "The Chronicles of Narnia," and writing my series of award-winning young adult books, "HERO."

I do very much hope they include the changes. The information they have on Eggleston's wikipedia site is scant, and I was able to add so much more.

If anyone out there has any advice as to make sure the changes go through, please let me know.

Thank you,

Perry Moore —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.250.40.87 (talk) 15:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussions of this nature should take place on that article's talk page. Please feel free to post any changes to the article or its talk page, following Wikipedia guidelines, and mention any possible conflicts of interest on the talk page. Clifflandis (talk) 17:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Habbo Page.

On the wikipedia about habbo it reads:

Discussion forums Within groups, there is a discussion forum, where users can post various threads and topics. To be able to post in these forums, users will need to verify their e-mail address first. Users can post virtually anything they wish. Since many people enjoy spamming the forums, Habbo has included a "security code" system, where users must enter a randomly generated string of characters (eg. jsiqnsp) before their message can be saved, to prevent spam.

However, this is wrong because it uses the example jsiqnsp when habbo security codes always have a string of 6 letters. The example shows seven.

It should read:

Discussion forums Within groups, there is a discussion forum, where users can post various threads and topics. To be able to post in these forums, users will need to verify their e-mail address first. Users can post virtually anything they wish. Since many people enjoy spamming the forums, Habbo has included a "security code" system, where users must enter a randomly generated string of six characters (eg. jsqnsp) before their message can be saved, to prevent spam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hiitzemma (talk • contribs) 00:49, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Please feel free to post any changes to the article or its talk page, following Wikipedia guidelines. Discussions of this nature should take place on that article's talk page. Clifflandis (talk) 17:15, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Defining news organisations

Hi, I am trying to start a debate about defining what news organisations, as a reliable source, are good for and/or not good for. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources#News_Organisations_section ~ R.T.G 18:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

IRC?

Do we have a place on IRC to work collaboratively on refchecking? Triona (talk) 20:11, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for reference evaluation.

Experts will be able to better evaluate individual sources in articles, but I think a rough, standard, measured evaluation of references from our WikiProject for specific diffs, could be useful in improving the encyclopedias. If there's support for this, we can ask for more input about the referencing criteria from the rating processes (FA, 1.0, GA, etc.) and about the ratings of articles, books, authors, journals, publishers, etc. from the subject WikiProjects (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Amount of information referenced:

• A: All facts are fully referenced inline or parenthetical style (FRIOPS).
• B: >50% of facts (excluding everything from the "See also" section down) are FRIOPS.
• C: 10% to 50% of facts are FRIOPS.
• D: <10% of facts are FRIOPS.
• E: Some facts are referenced inline, tho not fully: e.g. only a URL with no writer, publication, or date attribution.
• F: 0% of facts are referenced inline, tho there is at least 1 working external link and/or further reading item listed.
• Z: 0% of facts are referenced inline, and no working external links or further reading items.

If a Z rating is given, it can't have a numerical reference quality rating.

Reference quality:

• 1: All references are easily verifiable (in the same language as the article, accessible online without having to create an account or buy a subscription, and in plain HTML or text), and from reliable, published, peer reviewed, journal articles. If the reference is too difficult for a person with an 8th grade reading level, a simple but reliable and easily verifiable "lay" reference should also be provided citing the published journal article.
• 2: 100% of references are verifiable, tho not necessarily easily, and generally reliable (V+R): journals and/or books from trusted publishers, newspapers of record, etc..
• 3: >50%, but not all references, are V+R.
• 4: At least 10% of references are V+R
• 5: 100% of references are verifiable, published, and from 3rd party sources (VP+3).
• 6: >50%, but not all references, are VP+3.
• 7: At least 10% of references are VP+3.
• 8: At least 1 reference is from a source that is usually poor: a tabloid, celebrity magazine, autobiographical, not particularly reliable website, etc..
• 9: The best sources are not reliable: e.g. user created like fanzines, personal pages, wikis, or forums; or the article contains information contradicted by any given easily verifiable reference or not mentioned in them.

Examples:

• FAs should be B2 or better on listing.
• A-Class articles should be B3 or better.
• GAs should be C2 or better.
• B-Class articles should be C3 or better.
• C-Class articles should be F7 or better.

Here are the evaluations of 2 random articles and 2 FAs as on 2010-08-21:

• Hi-Tech Crime Enquiry Cell: F8, previous versions: Z, Z, and Z.
• Kelsey (song): C9.
• Bam Thwok: C6.
• Ormulum: C2. -- Jeandré, 2010-08-21t01:06z, -- Jeandré, 2010-08-21t01:16z, -- Jeandré, 2010-08-24t21:19z

Sounds uttlery Creepy.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:38, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

This is not a policy or guideline, it's a way to assess references in articles by a WikiProject. -- Jeandré, 2010-08-21t15:33z

New task force

A new task force is being assembled under WP:WPEL to check external links to GeoCities. Since some of these are used for references and not simply as ELs, I wanted to let your project know. We have related interests here. :) See WP:GeoCities. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Notice of ArbCom decision on Race and intelligence and related articles

The Arbitration Commmittee case on race and intelligence has just been decided. Thus articles that are either in the Race and intelligence controversy category or mentioned in the findings of the 2010 Arbitration Committee case on Race and intelligence or closely related to those are subject to active arbitration remedies that you may wish to review. The case decision seems to have resulted in an immediate improvement in the editing environment of several articles that previously were very contentious. Peaceful, collaborative editing that turns to sources and upholds Wikipedia policy is enjoyable editing. I thought I should let participants on this WikiProject know that this improved atmosphere now exists, because many of those articles have long been badly in need of fact and reference checking. I have seen some outrageous examples of fudged references in some of the most hotly contested articles in that category. Your participation in editing those articles is welcomed and encouraged. You can look up sources to help improve articles in the source lists I have been compiling to share with all Wikipedians. And because the source lists span several different topics, and those topics fit quite a few articles all over Wikipedia in whole or in part, suggesting new sources would be a very kind thing to do. I delight in collecting sources, rigorously checking their bibliographic details, and then posting ready-to-copy-and-paste citations on my user space for you or for anyone to use. The atmosphere has improved a lot, so the articles can improve a lot. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 01:55, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia Article "Jon Ronson." Ronson is Jewish. See: http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/01/30/ronson.them/

As above.

96.231.218.214 (talk) 00:42, 5 September 2010 (UTC)Elaine Blume96.231.218.214 (talk) 00:42, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

DCdweller@yahoo.com

Los negritos de Huánuco

Famoso baile tipico del Pueblo de Huanuco. http://www.peruredes.com/Folk/negritos.htm NEGRITOS DE HUÁNUCO José Antonio Lloréns Subdirección de Registro Etnográfico Fotos Carlos Díaz Gaceta Cultural del Perú – INC

La danza de los Negritos de Huánuco es una de las diversas y variadas expresiones del arte popular en el Perú y Latinoamérica, que en estas partes del mundo dan cuenta de la diáspora africana. En el caso del Perú, diversos pueblos andinos usaron la danza como una forma de expresar su visión de la condición a la que estaban sometidos los esclavos africanos durante la época colonial. Es una manera de mantener la memoria colectiva y transmitir la historia de generación en generación sobre la situación observada por las poblaciones nativas de este sensible pasaje de la historia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.32.16.83 (talk) 17:10, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Gogen Yamaguchi: Notable Students

Peter Urban is indeed a notable student of Gogen Yamaguchi

From the bio to his book "The Karate Dojo: Traditions and Tales of a Martial Art", Peter Urban, Tuttle Publishing ISBN 0-8048-1703-0

"Peter Urban studied Goju Ryu in Japan as a disciple of Gogen Yamaguchi and brought the style to the U.S. He subsequently founded American Goju Ryu Karate and has taught widely in this country, introducing Goju Ryu karate methods and techniques into the training curricula of many police academies. He lives in Woodlynne, New Jersey."

The current link to him under "Notable Students" in the page of Gogen Yamaguchi erroneously links to a different Peter Urban page on Wikipedia.

Craig Jenkins Toronto, Canada —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.231.152.147 (talk) 23:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter

This is a minor matter but I think this article might be corrected to show that:- 1. Margaret Beaufort was Earl Stanley's second wife, and 2. She was the mother of Henry Tudor, later to be Henry VII not that she was later to be the mother of Henry VII. He was the son of her first marriage Stanley was her fourth husband. One biographer, Raymond Strait, wrote that she married Paul publicly in May 6, had an earlier "secret" marriage in January 28, and her first child was conceived after the secret marriage. Some sources cite Paul as the father of the child, while others cite it to be a result of date rape. The marriage certificate of Jayne and Paul lists their date of marriage as May 6, 1950.

|align = center
|border = 1px
|fontsize = 90%

}} Can someone verify the following part of it?

The marriage certificate of Jayne and Paul lists their date of marriage as May 6, 1950.

I don't have access to the certificate and have no clue of its credibility. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 19:17, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

References

Hello. My name is Gregory and I have a very important message to the world of wikipedia. Corn snakes like to eat peaches. So make sure to keep peaches out of your yard, or else it will become infested with vicious CORN SNAKES! :o --Seefly6548 (talk) 17:53, 3 April 2012 (UTC)Sincerly, Gregory the snake lover.

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research.
—Wavelength (talk) 16:22, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

My Chemical Romance "EP" Like Phantoms, Forever

I feel like I might be missing something obvious but shouldn't this actually be an LP because it's so short? From what I understood, LPs usually only have 2 or 3 songs, and EPs generally have a few more, but not enough to be a full album. I figured I'd be better off asking this instead of going and editing the page myself in case I'm wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.222.219.243 (talk) 02:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Kafr Qasim massacre in 1956 has no reference to the poet Darwish

The entry for the Kafr Qasim massacre has no reference to the poet Darwish who wrote the poem "Victim Number 18" about this massacre. I only learned about the poem through my English 232 class, and don't know nearly enough about it to edit the entry myself, but I thought I would bring it to your attention.

184.0.104.93 (talk) 00:09, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

inline citations request

At the top of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O'Brian is a box which states, This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2012)

I have added the requested inline citations to the page in question. How does one go about having the page looked over, to ensure it meets requisite standards, and have the box removed? Many thanks. Zabriskiepoints (talk) 19:39, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Sharam correction (DJ sharam)

Dear sir/Madam

DJ SHARAM's (iranian American DJ) info needs correction. His name does my come from the word "Sharm". It is actually spelled shahram (read sharam) and it is a historic Persian name, meaning "king's loyal man". I am of Iranian origin and this info is widely known within Iranians and can be looked up online as well, if you need any further clarification. Please correct this info, as it is not correct nor fair to have this music icon's name incorrectly translated to "shame".

Thank you

Ron Modaraei — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.205.134.160 (talk) 17:09, 24 June 2012 (UTC)