Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/United States/References

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was ambiguous.

The majority opinion is against the use of this page. Serious concerns were raised during the discussion that this could be perceived as a precedent for a non-standard method of citations. Several users further argued that the facts which are being cited are common knowledge and, as such, do not technically require citation either according to our policy or according to the traditional standards of citation for encyclopediae. Reviewing the current contents of the page, I have to concur with that assessment though I admit the possiblity that less self-evident facts might someday be included on the page.

So, returning to the deletion discussion... After reviewing the discussion several times, I do not find the necessary consensus to delete the page. I do, however, find a rough consensus to deprecate the page in favor of more traditional uses of the article's regular Talk page and/or of the regular citation process. Accordingly, I am going to redirect this page back to Talk:United States. Anyone wishing to merge some of the contents of this page to another destination may do so by pulling the content from the page history. I explicitly decline to "merge and delete" because it unnecessarily complicates the problem of maintaining attribution history - a requirement of GFDL.

Please note that redirect decisions are not considered "binding" in the sense that normal deletion decision are. If there is a discussion by the participants of the Talk:United States page which concludes that this will be a useful and sanctioned tool for the improvement of the main article, the redirect can be reversed at that time. If there is such a discussion, I would strongly recommend that the page remain in the Talk-namespace. Sub-pages in the main article-space are strongly discouraged. Rossami (talk) 03:33, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] United States/References

N.B. this is now Talk:United States/References. — xaosflux Talk 13:45, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

This is well intentioned, but some of it is rather comical ('"situated primarily in central North America". Infered from the physical layout of the country.'). Any references which are required should be in the article itself, as for every other referenced article I have ever seen. Delete Sumahoy 01:33, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Merge any useful references in to United_States#References, delete the page once done.  (aeropagitica)  (talk)  06:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge. A real article should not look like that.--Jusjih 10:18, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge and delete per aeropagitica. Kimchi.sg 11:56, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment – Quoting from the article: '"comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories." Based on a count of CIA Factbook entry, Administrative divisions & Dependent areas'. Isn't counting like that a violation of WP:NOR? --LambiamTalk 12:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge - looks like an amateurish hack bypassing citation templates. --Dhartung | Talk 17:01, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Please explain further; the citation templates(i.e. {{cite book}}, {{cite website}}, etc.) are used to cite references - they are irrelevant to a list of the sources which support the facts in an article, which is what this page consists of. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

*Merge and Delete per aeropagitica. Could even be speedied per CSD:A3 (No content whatsoever: . Any article consisting only of links elsewhere (including hyperlinks, category tags and "see also" sections), a rephrasing of the title, and/or attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title.) -- ReyBrujo 17:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

    • See above. It's NOT AN ARTICLE. Any of the CSD A items don't apply. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Changing my vote to Keep per JesseW. I need to read about this splitting too. I would suggest adding a link to the United States article to this one, if it is suitable. -- ReyBrujo 22:56, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge and delete per aeropagitica. TheProject 19:43, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Note that this is not an article, and has such been moved to Miscellany for deletion.--Sean Black (talk) 22:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
    • What are you basing that on? It is in the main namespace, so it is posing as an article and it remains an article unless it can be demonstated to belong to some other established class of page. Scranchuse 00:02, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - This is not an article. It is not part of the encyclopedia, in the same way that Talk pages are not part of the encyclopedia. It is part of a method to make sure the content in the encyclopedia is accurate. By going through the sources listed in the article, and writing down the exact bits of them that back up the specific facts stated in the article, we can make sure that the article follows Wikipedia:Verifiability. It is on a seperate page from the article for the same reasons that the Talk page is on a seperate page - it would take up too much space in the article; it is a behind-the-scenes method for improving our content, not directly a part of the content, etc. Merging it into the United States page is not a meaningful suggestion - it would be like suggesting that a Talk page be "merged" into it's article. Thanks for your attention. JesseW, the juggling janitor 23:04, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Comments: aren't the purpose of the new reference style to prevent this kind of "offline" linking where you need to remember a section of the text to search into another page? Also, this page is hidden from the casual user, this way it serves no purpose. Newbie questions, sorry. -- ReyBrujo 23:11, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your questions. In order: The purpose of the new reference style (by which I assume you mean m:Cite.php) is to allow footnotes to be included inline in the text, so they don't have to be edited in two places. This is good and useful, but is unrelated to the purpose of the Talk:United States/References page, which, as I said above, is a tool for editors to colaborate in making sure that the sources given in the article actually do support each and every one of the statements in the article. As for it being hidden, the page was linked from United States(although someone removed it) and is now linked from the top of Talk:United States, so it should be findable by those who wish to locate it. JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:01, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the answers, they are pretty useful. -- ReyBrujo 04:09, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom, and it should have stayed on articles for deletion. Saying that it is not an article when it is in the article namespace is totally wrong and seems to lend false credence to the idea that this is a legitimate way to reference. If someone wants to do this sort of thing, it should be in the User space. Scranchuse 23:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
    • This is a "legitimate way to reference; and, now, it is not in the article namespace. Please explain what leads you to think it was not a "legitimate way to reference"? What do you mean by "legitimate"? I look forward to your explanation. JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:01, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. The necessary referencing should be done in the usual way. Anything else should be deleted. The project should also be deleted unless the people behind it can get a separate namespace created. Golfcam 00:09, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
    • We don't delete project pages, we, assuming there is consensus for it(which is not shown by one XfD, btw) put {{rejected}} tags on them. And as for trying to reject a useful way to make sure that our articles are actually well-sourced, by colaborating on checking the statements in an article against the sources provided, good luck - I don't think Wikipedia is going to throw out WP:V anytime soon. JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:01, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
      • MfD does delete project pages if they are ill-conceived or mal-formatted; see April MfD debate for "History of the US Timeline". Xoloz 13:58, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
        • You are correct. Is this page "ill-conceived or mal-formatted"? If so, please explain further what is wrong with it. I look forward to your response. JesseW, the juggling janitor 18:50, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Deprecate, possibly delete Now that this page is in talk-space, I'm not completely opposed to it; however, it should not be viewed as an alternative to the typical (in-text or footnote) methods of citation in WP. Additionally, as written, the page provides sources for items of information at or near the level of common knowledge. (The US is in North America; there are 50 states...) These simple facts are not those which most urgently need citation. The final item on the list is an example of an different class of assertion, that demands citation before inclusion. Xoloz 13:58, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I strongly agree that this type of detailed verification is not, and should not be viewed as a replacement or alterative form of in-article citation for controversial or disputed points - thanks for suggesting this, I'll add it to the description. As for the page providing sources for "common knowledge", I also mostly agree with this - the introductory section of the article (which is the only section verified by Talk:United States/References) does consist mostly of "common knowledge", as it should. I also agree that such more-or-less obvious, uncontroversial facts are less urgently in need of citation than other, controversial facts.
    • However, I strongly reject the idea that the detailed verification of such uncontroversial facts is in any way harmful to the encyclopedia, or that such work is worthless, or that the results of that work (such as Talk:United States/References) should be thrown out, as various commenters on this page seem to propose. Being able to provide clear, written-down specific sources for as many of the statements in our encyclopedia as we can is a Good Thing, and assists us in maintaining the accuracy of our material. JesseW, the juggling janitor 18:50, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
      • The reason I am somewhat in support of the deletion of this page, and the reason I believe it may qualify as "ill-conceived" (per the above) is that it sets an example I am not sure I'd wish newer, unsophiscated editors to follow. The best investment of their time, if they wish to research, is to provide citations for details outside of common knowledge or for controversial facts. Additionally, they should always provide citations first within the article -- this page is a duplication. It isn't that I wish to "throw out hard work": I don't hate the page, I just worry about the example it sets, especially since I'd imagine "United States" is an article attractive to new editors. Xoloz 16:38, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
        • I have added a clarifing and warning section to the page, to hopefully address your concerns. It is not, in fact, a duplication - the facts that are cited in that page are precisely the citations which would be removed from the main article as "unnecessarily confusing the reader", which is why they are seperated out to this page so they don't "confuse the reader". While I am sure you are acting with the best of intentions, I don't think that deleting detailed citations is a useful way to set an example to new editors that researching and referencing is valued. It certainly is making me feel much less inclined to put in my time and effort only to see it disparaged as "comical" and "an amateurish hack". If you are truly concerned with creating a culture of sourcing and referencing at Wikipedia, deleting the work of people who are doing that is not a good way to get there. JesseW, the juggling janitor 18:28, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect. Don't delete. — Instantnood 19:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, a perfectly reasonable way to compile specific citations that do not need to be included in the main article. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:38, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.