Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articles/Unreferenced GA task force

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[edit] Further suggestions

If anybody's willing to maintain it, there could also be a category for articles that are not well-written yet, but already severely lacking in references. It is usually easier to add references as you go along rather than add them after the fact.

I know that there are a lot of science articles that could be improved in this way. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 12:35, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

That's true Samsara, there is a ton of those. Thetruthbelow(talk) 05:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


There are a lot of articles out there that simply need a script run to do the following things:

  1. pick out all "plain" web references (e.g. this: [1])
  2. check for double occurrence in an article
  3. retrieve linked page to obtain content of <title> tag
  4. throw an error if it's a dead link (e.g. check for 404 or look for regex /error/i in html)
  5. insert appropriate <ref>{{cite web | }}</ref> tag, using the <ref name="myname"> construct for any duplicate mentions

Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:51, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like that somebody might be me. Have you taken a look at my Citation Tool? What it does now is quite a bit different from that, but it still seems like a logical added (optional) feature to add on. Wanna put in a "feature request", and I'll try to get to working on that. LotLE×talk 21:05, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unreferenced rejections suggestion

Try searching the category Category:Former good article nominees most if not all of the articles that fail the GA nominees show up in this category. Since many articles are rejected for a lack of references you might find alot of worthwhile articles to work on. Perhaps one of the objectives of this wikiproject could be to bring articles in this category to GA status? Tarret 22:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks... Only just saw your comment. Exactly what I was thinking! Thanks again! - Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Going through and lessons learned

I've just finished going through, including all of letter A (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced GA/Nominations), and have the following observations to offer:

  • We will have to focus on those articles where lack of references is the only or overriding main reason for not reaching GA status, otherwise our efforts will get tied up in cleanup operations of small-time articles.
  • We must take care to check the assessment made on the talk page by the GA reviewer, because sometimes people will simply give "lack of references" as a reason and reject the article without further review, when there are actually other problems with the article. We should take heart from this because it means that the GA reviewers take references quite seriously.

Please feel free to review and comment on my assessment of letter A and the numbers section. We should then probably give these pages some basic classification on a separate page, similar to the way it is being done on WP:GA.

Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Types of referencing problems

  1. Lack of references - not enough to cover material
    This may include articles that seem to reference other Wikipedia articles. (If this is the case, then if those other Wikipedia articles have references, they can be copied over. If the other Wikipedia articles are lacking in references as well, then there may be a much bigger referencing project to be done.)
  2. References that aren't particularly reliable/reputable. (See WP:RS) This is less likely to be noticed by editors who are unfamiliar with the material, unless it is blatant. Such references are better than none at all, but efforts should be made to replace them with more reputable sources. If this cannot be done, it may be a sign of original research, indicating that some material may need to be removed from the article or restated in a more verifiable way. The reliability of some references may be borderline.
  3. Formatting of references. This is less important than the other two. You should not refrain from adding references just because of formatting. However, formatting can be useful for a variety of reasons. (For example, dates are important in case a link goes dead - that way, at lease editors will know that it existed at one point in time. Many other formatting issues make the references easier to add and use to check facts, as well as crediting those whose ideas we used.)
  4. Anything else?

Armedblowfish 02:56, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

On point 2, is there a template to indicate this specific problem on articles, and a corresponding category? I know that there are templates for verifiability and lack of sources... - Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't know of one, but one could be made. How's this?
Some of the information in this article or section may not be verified by as reliable a source as would be preferred. It should be checked for inaccuracies and modified as needed, citing more reliable sources.
— Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 16:50, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Ticks the boxes for me. :) - Samsara (talk • contribs) 09:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Yay! : ) It's called Template:Unreliable now. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 12:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Guess it's official now. [2] - Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
The category page also mentions {{Not verified}}, {{Verify source}} and {{Verify credibility}}. The last one seems to be an old-school version of your template. The templates and categories themselves may be in need of cleanup. Perhaps we should try to start with documenting what is already there? Would that be too "meta"? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:34, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
It would probably be a good idea to have separate categories for articles lacking sources, and articles with possibly unreliable sources. I don't think my template is redundant with {{Verify credibility}}, though, as my template is for whole articles/sections, and Verify credibility is for individual unreliable solurces (sort of like the difference between {{Verify}} and {{Fact}}). Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 18:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I get you. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Gan-fail

Template:Gan-fail has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. TheJC TalkContributions 22:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New template proposed

I propose a new template particularly for science references, which gives

  1. the reference for the scientific study, possibly with a url to download it, and
  2. a link to a news article where the results have been interpreted - this could be Nature Science Update or any reasonably major newspaper.

Comments?

Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:15, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

This template would in essence unify the purposes of {{cite news}} and {{cite journal}}, and possibly take much of the clientele of {{cite web}}. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:17, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of unifying the primary source, which in this case might be more reliable but harder to understand, and secondary source, which in this case might prove the importance of the former and be easier to understand. : ) Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 16:24, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

For subscription articles, it may be useful to include a reference to the abstract, e.g. on PubMed, as a third link. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 22:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, well, let's brainstorm what it should look like on here. In my first draft, I'll stick with the formatting of Cite journal, so:


Warkentin, K.M. (1995). "Adaptive plasticity in hatching age: a response to predation risk trade-offs". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 92: 3507-3510. news abstract fulltext


A possible alternative for "news" is "popscience", "press" or "summary"; a possible alternative for "fulltext" would be "publication" (I think "paper" is too restrictive). The template could be subsequently extended to include the possibility of replacing the fulltext field with an "excerpt" one if the publication is not available online in its entirety. However, for the time being, we should decide on exactly one variant and implement it so people can start using it. Comments? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
I propose to call the template Template:Cite science, nice and snappy and most academic pursuits now seem to be called science or "sciences", so one size fits all? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
I would format the external links at the end a bit more, e.g. :
Warkentin, K.M. (1995). "Adaptive plasticity in hatching age: a response to predation risk trade-offs". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 92: 3507-3510. See news, abstract, or fulltext.
Aside from that, looks great! : )
— Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 16:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

My main issue wih such a proceeding is that in many cases, Full texts are not available to the casual internet user. I have used DOIs and PMIDs for {{cite journal}} in numerous instances where I couldnot link to a full article. Aditionally, {{cite journal}} and {{cite news}} are aimed at two primarily different sources: newspaper/internet general news sites and academic/peer-reviewed journal, and have fundametally different formatting from {{cite web}} for that very reason.

In scientific articles, references links can be included via the URL/DOI/ID parameters, which provide more than enough possibilities, I believe. Circeus 20:12, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I fail to understand how the existence of situations where it would not be helpful precludes the existence of situations where it would be helpful. It's just another option. If it fits an editor's needs, they can use it. If not, they still have the same other choices as before. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 21:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I can see the logic behind having links to both the abstract and the full text, since almost any academic paper or journal article (scientific or otherwise) will have both. Likewise the fact that economics or access may prevent some users from obtaining the full text while abstracts may (often are?) more freely available. But there are a couple of points I don't understand:

  1. Why is this proposal for a new type of citation? Given that we already have {{cite journal}}, {{cite paper}}, {{cite conference}}, etc., doesn't it make better sense to add parameter(s) to identify the abstract to those instead? The existing parameters are presumably already used to identify the full text, so they obviously don't need to be added.
  2. Why include the news parameter? Surely any interesting paper, study, etc. will provoke more than just a single "news" item. Anything really interesting will also provoke differing analyses and opinions, all of which may make sense to cite. Shouldn't we instead rely on the existing {{cite news}} or {{cite web}} to cite commentary and reportage about an article or paper?

RossPatterson 23:19, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that adding the needed parameter(s) to an existing citation template makes more sense. --Trödel 01:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Why? You don't need the news link for all things that use cite paper etc., just Science articles. Wikipedia is not paper, there is no reason to conserve templates. I think it is handy to have everything in one place, rather than haveing to go to different sections to find relevent material. pschemp | talk 02:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
It's done. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 4288

Please support bug 4288 which is an enhancement that allows general tagging of revisions. This will allow user and group defined tags which can then be used for things like this project and possibly other stuff in the future. Thanks. --Gbleem 23:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 14:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title of this project

I propose spelling out the title of this article. See http://www.answers.com/topic/ga-abbreviation. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis 14:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I moved it, but it can be moved back if anyone disagrees. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 16:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] James Joyce

The above article is a current featured article whose continuing status as such is currently being challenged on the basis of its lack of references. Given it's quality and status, I think the help of any members of this project to provide references would be more than welcome. Badbilltucker 23:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] created Category:Good articles needing attention

Created Category:Good articles needing attention as an administrative cat. Actually, articles I place in there in the near future are those that may be delisted because they have been warned already, but the category will exist for other purposes as well. --Ling.Nut 13:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The category appears to have been deleted. : ( Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 02:53, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] {{Cite science}} vs {{Cite journal}} and {{cite news}}

I agree that citing both a science publication and general public readable news article should be encouraged; however, I disagree that the {{cite science}} template should be used, as it is a fork from the much more common and familiar {{cite journal}} citation template. Any related news articles should be cited using {{cite news}}, or other appropriate template to give full credit to the author for that reference. These two reference can appear immediately one after another, e.g.[sci][news] So as a suggestion:

+mwtoews 04:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

So here's for people who can't be bothered to research the history of templates before they put them up for deletion. The sensible thing for you to do rather than nominate things for deletion and go on a template replacement rampage in the course of which you failed your own standards of uniformitarianism for at least the PMID field, would have been to fix {{cite journal}}, which I have now graciously done. A proposal to amend that template was originally rejected which is the reason why this template was created (yes, forked, as you observed - got one thing right). Deleting things that reveal your insufficiencies will not be the solution to your problems. I'm surprised you had the guts to propose the deletion of this template and close the discussion prematurely when you don't seem to have read the relevant documentation and discussion. Never fear esoteric features. Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 05:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry if my changes appeared as a rampage—I'll admit I should have discussed this with yourself before taking my course of action. It was just a moment of WP:BOLD. Please continue this discussion Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 March 10.+mwtoews 05:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
To clarify my issues with {{cite science}}:
  • It is a fork of a popular template, {{cite journal}}, which is not desirable (documentation maintainability, etc.)
  • Adds to confusion: e.g., should one use {{cite journal}} or {{cite science}} — the difference between them is not immediately apparent in the documentation. +mwtoews 00:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I've now fixed the documentation and added a purpose to {{cite science}}. +mwtoews 01:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • In the cases that I reviewed where {{cite science}} was in use (15 in total), most would suffice using {{cite journal}} (they were not using abstract or news parameters, which are the "features" that this template fork employs, as I understand—are there any other features?). +mwtoews 00:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The use of DOI and PMID IDs should be encouraged over the use of a URL to an abstract field. From my experience, DOIs and PMIDs always show the abstract to general domains, and provide links to the PDF or full text, if available, for registered domains (e.g., if your institution's library has a subscription). Providing a abstract URL is not desirable, since this could potentially be a copy-paste from the browser address bar where the abstract was viewed. Certainly URLs often use cookies, or they may change with time. PMIDs and DOIs are more or less permanent links to the article. +mwtoews 00:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The abstract/news/full article paradigm is actually more user-friendly. It requires no knowledge of what a PMID or a DOI might be, which most people won't have. While at least school kids will also be unfamiliar with this particular meaning of "abstract", I'd say two out of three ain't bad. And again, see my comment on the fact that when you print a Wikipedia document, the URL actually magically appears. Samsara (talk • contribs) 05:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I'll agree that it is cleaner and more user friendly; however, I wouldn't underestimate the abilities of kids, and I'm sure you knew your library's filing system as any other kid when you were in grade 2. I'm less concerned about others knowing what a "DOI" or "PMID" is than I am about the jargon in the abstract—which is why a related news article should be paired up (and cited in a separate reference, along with my argument). Nonetheless, both use and knowledge about DOIs and PMIDs should be encouraged—I'm shocked when I find people in an academic environment who don't know what these are.
  • One thing that I should draw attention to is that not all articles have a DOI or PMID (particularly older ones), so these abstracts (where available online) need to somehow be linked to the article (I would do this in url of {{cite journal}}, if no full article online is available). +mwtoews 16:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Providing a news link, as I suggested before, is only a partial citation. It gives almost no credit to the author/publisher for the referred news material written in "laymen speak". I would expect any encyclopedia to give full credit for any sourced material — not just a URL. Furthermore, the "References" section of many articles is fairly substantial (> 100 in some). It would be difficult to see the link to the news link if it is embedded in a single citation, which may also have links to the author, publisher, article PDF, and DOI. (Although I do acknowledge in the mock-ups above that they are clean and concise). Presenting the link to the news article as a separate citation is the simplest answer, since it gives full credit and is easier to find in the references. +mwtoews 00:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • And lastly, if this template is to be encouraged to be used for "Good Articles", they should have a text citation—not (for example) a news URL, which lacks useful information when printed. The text citation is of course for WP:1.0 print, or perhaps if someone prints an article and wants to find the citated news article in their library.
    +mwtoews 00:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Re your last point - same reply again. I am increasingly convinced that your entire argument is based on a misunderstanding of what happens when you print a document, or perhaps the fact that the url is supposed to be a full url, i.e. http://newspaper.com/articles/article.php=19743. Samsara (talk • contribs) 05:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks, I was unaware that a URLs expand when printed (using CSS). However, this was not my "entire argument" as the URL is still of limited use when printed. Granted sometimes it is possible to make out a publisher and date from the URL, but often it is still of limited aid for finding the news article in a library from a printed WP article (e.g., "article.php=19743" as above). This is especially true for news articles that require subscription, such as the New York Times, where you would actually need to find the physical news article in a library full of computers without an online subscription. I don't see how using a separate {{cite news}} is a problem. +mwtoews 16:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
All you are saying is that you want use of the date and source field to be encouraged. We can't force people to use templates correctly, whether they be {{cite news}} or whatever. Many people won't use templates, and someone else has to come along and convert stuff. Also, Wikipedia is not just for kids, as you seem to imply. We want everyone to be able to read and contribute. The rule on Wikipedia is to be bold in fixing things, so if there are additional parameters that you think should be contained in {{cite journal}}, then please put them in and defend that move. But please understand (other people make the mistake of thinking this) that we can't force people to do stuff. Whatever you "decree", you will still have to fix it afterwards to get the right result. And I'm not convinced that people want to be using two templates. In any case, I am concerned that if they are used that way, it should be using the syntax <ref>{{cite journal | blabla}}{{cite news/web | blabla}}</ref> AND NOT <ref>{{cite journal | blabla}}</ref><ref>{{cite news/web | blabla}}</ref>, as you did. The lay source should only ever be a companion to the proper source, and therefore bundled with it. This is how using two separate templates creates the wrong idea, namely that they are separate items. That's the wrong way to think. Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
My concern here is that the reference for the related news article needs to be text readable, such that you can print it out and find it in a library (irrelevant of the Wiki-readers age or ability -- doctors, teachers, stoners, whoever). Displaying just the source and date are rather insufficient. I do see your point about keeping it as a single citation (using one <ref>-pair). I've made a proposed edit to {{cite journal}} found at User:Mwtoews/Template:Cite journal which makes use of a laycite which is at the very end, and makes a new line (<br/>), and reads "Layman's read:" followed by a proper citation (from the collection of Category:Citation templates, such as {{cite news}} {{cite web}}, etc.). So, for example, try:
{{User:Mwtoews/Template:Cite journal |first=Roughgarden |last=J
 |coauthors=Oisho, M & Akçay, E |year=2006
 |title=Reproductive social behaviour: cooperative games to replace sexual selection
 |journal=Science |volume=311 |pages=965–969 |doi=10.1126/science.1110105
 |laycite={{cite news |title=Overthrowing Darwin's Number Two Theory
   |last=Wittlin |first=M |publisher=Seed Magazine |date=March 2, 2006
   |url=http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/03/overthrowing_darwins_number_tw.php}} }}

J, Roughgarden; Oisho, M & Akçay, E (2006). "Reproductive social behaviour: cooperative games to replace sexual selection". Science 311: 965–969. DOI:10.1126/science.1110105.
Layman's read: Wittlin, M. "Overthrowing Darwin's Number Two Theory", Seed Magazine, March 2, 2006.

(or you can view the same in single <ref> tags here)This format makes it much more flexible, without the need to add many more parameters (personally I get confused by too many parameters in any template; I've removed all of the other lay.* fields). We should depend the other citation template designers to design their templates, rather then reinventing the wheel. Is this looking more like something that we could agree on? Please comment. +mwtoews 22:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

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