Template talk:Unreferenced

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This template is one of several templates used to provide or request sources for articles.

Contents 1 Archive 2 This should be a deletion template 3 Too Many References 4 Sources vs external links - website-only documentation 5 Category:All articles lacking sources 6 Proposed Edit 7 What is "foo"?

[edit] Archive

Older messages (including a TfD discussion and a discussion on the proper placement) can be found in the archive.

[edit] This should be a deletion template

This should be a deletion template; we can add categorization by month like {{wikify}}, articles that still have no sources after three months should be eligible for immediate deletion. That'd light a fire under editors' asses to put some sources in. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Note: See also Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles which may be a more centralized discussion point. -- nae'blis 17:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, do we want to date this template? Rich Farmbrough, 19:53 21 November 2006 (GMT).

That is a really, really good idea (thanks to nae'blis, I think[3]). Its implementation should be fairly simple and non-controversial, but it will greatly improve the utility of this template. -- Satori Son 21:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad the idea is gaining some traction. :) The problem is what to do to effectively implement it. A default parameter won't work since this already has one (although maybe that can be removed, I hardly ever see it used). A named parameter ({{unreferenced|date=November 2006}}, for example) raises the barrier to implementation somewhat, though if we can get a bot to come through and date them afterward if it's left out, it would make that part easier. Any ideas on how to get a grip on the 30k uses this template already has, so we don't blow the whole system up in trying to fix it? 21:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I can run a bot to fix those instances to "November 2006". Perhaps a second parameter ({{unreferenced||November 2006}} would be a solution. Alternatively set the template up however is best, and I can run a bot to fix the old default calls to the template. Rich Farmbrough, 23:12 22 November 2006 (GMT).

Probably not a second unnamed parameter, unless it switches order with the first one. I've tried to strike up a conversation with Beland, who apparently runs the wikify-date conversion bot, on how hard it would be. My instinct is to say that the optional parameter that is there now is very rarely used and can be deprecated/swapped pretty easily, or failing that, to use a bot and a named parameter. Maybe I'll post this at RFC to get more eyes... -- nae'blis 05:52, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Most of the dated templates are dated by bot now. Rich Farmbrough, 21:16 27 November 2006 (GMT).

OK I've put a "date=" field, and created the supporting categories a la cleanup, I've implemented it in two test articles. No docs yet, have a look, and see if it preents any problems. Rich Farmbrough, 22:08 27 November 2006 (GMT).

Seems to be working okay, I processed a dozen or so and found most of them to be in the last few months (thankfully), but went ahead and made the subcats through late 2005. I'll update the main description page and do some publicising tomorrow or the day after, unless you can think of anything else... slick work by the way, thanks for your contributions to getting a grip on this. -- nae'blis 06:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Template only created in August! Rich Farmbrough, 12:02 28 November 2006 (GMT).

That's odd. At least one entry I saw went back to June 2006, but it might have been a variant title that got merged later. That's good to know, though. -- nae'blis 14:12, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The merged page history goes back to January 2005, and there's a TfD discussion above from February 2005. I'm sure this was merged from one or more of the 16 templates that now redirect to it, but if we want to fix those as well, we're looking at almost 2 years of aggregated use! -- Satori Son 14:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

That'll be it, then. I've just found a March 2006 one. I have some historical data dumps, perhaps I can scan those. Rich Farmbrough, 16:32 28 November 2006 (GMT).

Incidentally I don't think it's the end of the world if some (or even a lot) are dated wrongly - I always assumed the templates were worded "from XXXX" meaning perhaps even before. I'd like to get the backlog done before the December lot starts in two days. Rich Farmbrough, 16:35 28 November 2006 (GMT).

Agreed. Since there are so many, getting the date perfect is not critical at this point. -- Satori Son 18:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'm running a dump from December 2005, then there's a gap 'til June. Should be able to start them tonight. Rich Farmbrough, 22:39 28 November 2006 (GMT).

December 2005 run, June almost finished, July started. Plan is finish June/July this evening, Aug tonight, Sept tomorrow morning, Oct tomorrow evening. Nov will probably be morning of 1st Dec, then it's just a question of keeping up. Rich Farmbrough, 09:45 29 November 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Too Many References

Is there a template for too many references? --WhiteDragon 17:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Not that I know of. Which is good, I think...the better-referenced an article is, the better. That way, if a website vanishes, or a source is discredited, there will still be enough presumably good references to keep the article trustworthy.

If you're worried about the appearance of the References section, there are solutions; see Stegosaurus#Footnotes for an example of how a fair number of refs can be managed. --zenohockey 06:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources vs external links - website-only documentation

I'd like to ask people's opinions on use of Unreferenced with the following class of articles, which I've seen a lot of:

• Article text about person, band, organization or company, reads like it's uncontroversial
• "External links" section to article subject's website, which bears out the article's facts
• No "References" section

In my opinion, the "external link" is useful, and so belongs right where it is, but it fails WP:REF, and the article should be tagged as unreferenced. I've usually added a HTML comment citing WP:REF. But I'd like to hear what others are doing. --Alvestrand 05:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

External links (if properly put into that section!) are useful, but they do not qualify as RS, so I tend to tag those articles. Even worse are articles which are listing only online links, but as their references. See Cheating in counterstrike, my "favourite" references section so far. Kncyu38 10:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

In the situation described by Alvestrand, where the website is owned by the article subject, the link may well qualify as a reliable source (see WP:RS#Self-published sources in articles about themselves). In such a situation, I would not tag the article as unreferenced, but move (or copy) the external link to a newly-created "References" section. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 06:28, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:All articles lacking sources

Why does this template put articles in Category:All articles lacking sources? That page says the category "exists primarily as an aid to bots and other automated processes", but as a botmaster myself I know that it's very easy to go through Category:Articles lacking sources by month and traverse the relevant subcategories. In my opinion, the category unnecessarily clutters up the list of categories at the bottom of articles tagged with the template. See for instance geometric analysis where the only useful category for the reader is Category:Mathematical analysis. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 06:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's a near clone of the cleanup scheme. The category is useful for Dragons flight/Category tracker but there is doubtless a better solution that we can work to. I'll ask Dragons flight. A side issue is that putting cleanup tags right at the very end (as we do with stub tags) makes the "real" categories the first in the list, which may think is better. I'll do this to geometric analysis as an illustration. Rich Farmbrough, 11:57 10 December 2006 (GMT).

User:Derlay suggests on his talk page:

Sometimes related articles have a distinct initial substring in their names (for example, articles about United States Navy ships have names beginning with "USS"), and then it's much easier to look for them in one single category than in multiple monthly (or daily) categories. --Derlay 00:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough, 17:09 14 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Proposed Edit

<div class="messagebox cleanup metadata plainlinks">
{|style="width:100%;background:none"
|width=60px|[[Image:Information_icon.svg|40px]]
|'''This {{{1|article or section}}} does not cite its [[{{SITENAME}}:Citing sources|references or sources]].'''<br /><small>Please help [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} improve this article] by introducing appropriate citations. ([[Help:Contents|help]], [[{{SITENAME}}:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check|get involved!]]) {{#if:{{{date|}}}|This article has been tagged since '''{{{date}}}'''.}}</small>
|}</div><includeonly>{{#if:{{{date|}}}|[[Category:Articles lacking sources from {{{date}}}]]|[[Category:Articles lacking sources]]}}[[Category:All articles lacking sources]]</includeonly><noinclude>
{{/doc}} 
</noinclude>

Which looks like:

---

-- PatrickFisher 09:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As I asked on Template talk:Context, what is the reason for including the icon? The reader's focus should primarily be led to the text and not to the template. Patrick did not answer there, while Gurch agreed with me. I therefore propose that the icon be deleted. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, I'm curious as well. I've removed the {{editprotected}} tag until the question is answered. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Hasn't another admin, Zsinj, already made the requested edit? Personally, I agree that there was not much point to it. -- Satori Son 01:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Seeing that I'm not alone, I removed the picture. The rest of the edit still stands. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 07:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I like dab's comment from Template_talk:Fact#Shorten: "why shorten it? I say make it blink, in an 18pt font. This is our last line of defence against the ever-looming "Wikipedia is unreliable" verdict" - that said, I won't revert the removal without further discussion, but I don't see the point in making this template less obtrusive. -- nae'blis 20:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought about it for a while. I don't agree because it conflates lack of references with unreliability, in my opinion. However, it does seem to be the general opinion on Wikipedia that lack of references is a cardinal sin, so I have to concede that Naeblis has a point. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 07:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is "foo"?

Some of the sample tags on this page have the word "Foo" inserted in them. What does this mean? Is it vandalism? If not, could someone explain on the page why the word is in the tag?--Dmz5 19:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

See wikt:foo. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I would assume lots of users come to this page to figure out how to use these tags. Having a "metasyntactical" term in the sample template seems confusing to me. Can't it be changed to "article title" or something more obvious?--Dmz5 19:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I changed it; tweak if necessary. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 00:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)