Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 2

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Contents

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:

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!)

-- 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)

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)
Better yet, Foo The word foo itself has no meaning and is merely a commonly used logical representation that is used much in the way that the letters 'x' and 'y' in algebra are used to represent a number. In computer programming metasyntactic variables such as foo are used as a variable to represent the name of a subroutine, variable, or any other programmer named part of a program. Cuvtixo (talk) 22:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Layout problem with Infoboxes

Hi folks. This template here produces a layout problem. On articles with an infobox on the right, the box overwrites the infobox. Problem articles are for example Beaverton, Oregon, or Oregon. See this screenshot, which shows the rendering of Beaverton, Oregon in Firefox 2.0 on Windows XP SP2.

I played a bit in my sandbox for finding a change that would fix this. If we would change the template code to

<!-- start unreferenced --><div class="messagebox cleanup metadata plainlinks">
{|style="background:none"
|'''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 would remove the "width:100%" it would look like this. So I propose to remove the "width:100%" unless somone has a better idea. --Ligulem 12:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Plus the problem described in this archive thread is still not solved. This would still be the same with or without my change above as IE7 puts the box below any infobox creating the problem shown in Image:Norefs.jpg --Ligulem 09:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok. I've removed the "100%" per above for now. --Ligulem 12:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The text is no longer centered. This is ugly. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:42, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the unneeded table. The text should now be centered again. --Ligulem 15:25, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Notification template

I'd like to create a template to place on the talk pages of users who create articles without sources, asking them to provide the sources they use. Any wording suggestions? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd start with {{needsource}} and go from there, though that may do the job by itself... -- nae'blis 04:33, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the pointer, but the wording in that one just really grates on me. It feels patronizing, wordy, and misdirected. "as you might be aware there is currently a drive to improve the quality of Wikipedia by encouraging editors to cite the sources they used when adding content." What the hell is that doing in a warning template? I'm going to make a conciser template for new articles that basicly says "thanks for creating an article, but we need your sources or it might be deleted," and has a link back to the specific article, a {{sources-warn}} to go with {{nn-warn}} and {{spam-warn}} Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed wording:

Hi, I noticed that you created [[{{{1}}}]], but listed no sources for the information contained in the article. According to Wikipedia's content policies, all information must be verifiable from reliable sources. Therefore, it's necessary to cite your sources so other editors can check that the information included in the article is correct and matches the sources used. Information not previously published in such sources is prohibited as original research, since other editors can't verify it. Unsourced information may be challenged and removed at any time, and articles that can't be verified are likely to be deleted. Guidance on how to cite your sources is available, and if you need any further help, feel free to leave a message on my talk page.

This template should rarely be used, it is for lazy editors

If you time to browse articles and find fault with them, then you have the time to do a little research and put in references. That would be better for Wiki that this. 99% of people that use the template, will never notify the people that have been contributing to this article and most will have moved on and never see it. And the template will stay. Before using this template, take the time to leave a message on the contributors talk pages, or fix it yourself. Don't be lazy. --71Demon 15:58, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want to clean up a list like Wikipedia:Dead-end pages or Special:Lonelypages, the only hope of getting things properly done is to catch the attention of the people who are putting in material without references. The template helps do that. And the people who have not moved to other things will normally have it in their watchlist, so they will see it. I think. --Alvestrand 16:21, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Putting 'unreferenced tag' in your edit summary is all you need to do to notify the page's editors, assuming it's in their watchlist. Cop 633 18:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
The "lazy" editors, are those not bothering to cite their sources. Anyhow, this template has some use. For one, when articles are nominated for deletion, people can see that there's been ample time/notice for references, and an article is unlikely to ever get any. Also, its a service to our readers, to note the claims of the article aren't backed up, and to be extra cautious. As well, there's a tendancy for people to simply assume how things are done, is how they should be. Most peole fail to cite sources, because most articles they see, don't. This tag helps tell new editors, that even though a particular article doesn't cite sources, it aught to. --Rob 02:56, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
This lazy editor adds this template frequently when doing stub sorting. My primary focus is on stub sorting, so noting an unsourced article as such is all I have time to do as I stub sort, which is a never-ending maintenance task in and of itself. Caerwine Caer’s whines 11:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Its a warning to readers too - take this article with a bit of caution. MadMaxDog 09:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge with Template:Primarysources?

Template:Primarysources has been re-written since it was originally about requiring "secondary sources", which wasn't really founded in policy and there were some other problems with it (see talk page there). So, it is proposed to rename it to Template:Reliablesources. Yet, is there any case where would want to notify about "sources or references" (as this template says), yet would not want to encourage at least some "credible, third-party sources" (as Template:Primarysources says)? So, I think it might be best to consolidate a "good sources" template at Template:Sources; Template:Unreferenced could either remain as it is, as an "any sources" template, or be redirected there. —Centrx→talk • 14:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

response on Template talk:Primarysources Jeepday 16:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • No merge. They're different, and both are needed. --Alvestrand 19:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
    • This isn't a vote. Please explain what is wrong with the reasons I gave and suggest improvements. —Centrx→talk • 19:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Wanted to make clear my position. I don't agree with your reasoning - articles that don't have ANY sources are different from articles that just have primary sources. We can quibble about the names of the templates (I wince every time I use "unreferenced"), but I oppose a merge. --Alvestrand 21:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I prefer it the way it is. Template:Reliablesources explains too much and (to me) would be used to articles which have some sources or external links just not the right ones. This template is used for articles which have no source and no external links at all. Garion96 (talk) 18:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, an alternative would be to change it to "This article or section needs sources or references that appear in credible, third-party publications. Please include appropriate citations from reliable sources.", or some form thereof, without half the Template:Primarysources. The purpose is that completely unsourced articles do still need reliable sources, they are just in a different current state. It does no good to put "This article needs sources" on a sourceless article and then when someone adds sources, to put another template that "This article needs reliable sources"; it should just be said in the first place. —Centrx→talk • 14:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Centrx I hear you are saying, that you don’t feel that editors are using reliable sources when they respond to the tag {{tl:Unreferenced}} and you think/hope that by changing the template they will. But the template already includes a link to Wikipedia:Citing sources that pretty much lays out step by step what to do. It also includes directions to add footnotes and citations, and they don’t always do that either. If we put in everything on the about referencing in the tag you might just as well either provide step by step directions on the questionable article or fix it yourself. I think the assumption with the {unreferenced} tag is that someone will correctly reference the article by the wikipedia guidelines. If they don't you have two choices, fix it yourself or use one of a bunch of more specific templates to help guide them. Jeepday 04:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

People are far less likely to click on and read a link. If someone thinks they know how to "cite sources", they aren't to bother reading the page that tells them "how to cite sources". If it says it right on the template, anyone reading the template will see it. Also, Wikipedia:Citing sources doesn't really say much of anything about reliable sources; it tells how to cite sources in the appropriate style, whether they be random personal websites or the Decline and Fall. I see no reason not to have "This article or section needs to cite reliable, third-party sources." It is quite short. —Centrx→talk • 05:08, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - proposal open for a month and no consensus, accodingly I'll remove the tags. Addhoc 15:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • oppose - The two pages are used for different purposes, both important. It is better the way it is now.--Sefringle 08:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Request

Hi! Can you help in adding thhe Arabic interwiki for this template?

<nowkik>ar:قالب:مصدر</nowiki>

Thanks. - Qasamaan 23:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. For templates that have a doc page, you can do it yourself (scroll to bottom). Doc pages are not protected. --Ligulem 22:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

EDIT

Pleas add this link to the bottom of the template. It's a research resource that I programmed to automatically search for the article name. Saves shiteloads of time. Here's the code:

<small><span class="plainlinks">[http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-quick-search?pos=1&num=25&id=SMI0204-0-1763&newsearch=Y&res=Y&type=sub&keyword={{PAGENAMEE}}&method=relevance&auth_checked=Y (search for sources)]</small></span>

Thanks. ~ Flameviper Who's a Peach? 17:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Why should a search link for any one particular search link be added? I imagine there's probably a way for an individual user to add a such a link to their skin via javascript, and it might even be a good thing to make more easily available, but I really can't see Wikipedia promoting any one single search engine over the others. Caerwine Caer’s whines 18:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
(Side note) In my capacity as an admin reviewing the edit request: I don't see consensus yet, and I have thus removed the editprotected tag for now. Feel free to readd it once you have consensus or drop me a note on my talk page. Cheers, --Ligulem 22:30, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Hm... I would be a bit uncomfortable linking any particular site over another, but the general idea seems helpful. Perhaps it would be better to create a page along the lines of Help:Finding sources or some such? (I haven't been able to find one, unfortunately). Luna Santin 22:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

It is not specific to this article, and no one (I hope) would suggest that wikipedia put it on all pages, so I can't see a reason to have it. Firefox has a neat little tool... But that is off topic, I would say I leave the link off the article Jeepday 04:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Partially unrefererenced

Is there a template for articles which leave substantial portions unreferenced (not necessarily in one section), as opposed to being completely unreferenced? I had a quick search but couldn't find anything.

If there is no such template, I think it might not be a bad idea to have one, especially if people are feeling inclined to delete articles which have been marked with this tag for x amount of time.

-- Qarnos 10:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

There used to be one, but it was deleted in February 2005; see the TFD discussion. Personally, I think your proposed template would fill a useful role. Two possible options at the moment are using {{fact}} tags and {{Citations missing}}. --Muchness 19:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Expanding on the above proposal, would anyone object to changing this template from:

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!)

to

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!)

-- Qarnos 20:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I like the proposed change to "adequately", Having only one reference while it is better then none, still does not meet WP:V or WP:N 03:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I also fully support this change. If a 20-kb article has one reference, it should still be tagged, and "adequately" fixes this problem. Thanks! Steevven1 (Talk) (Contribs) (Gallery) 22:22, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
  • What does "adequately" mean here? Can it not be said about every article on Wikipedia, save for some of the featured ones? If this change means that everyone is now free to add that degrading tag to a million articles because they all could do with more references, then I'm against it. No article is perfect, but we shouldn't start them all with big tags to excuse this fact. I am much more for using the {{fact}}-tag to flag specific statements that needs a citation. This is both more reader and editor friendly than just throwing a big "some important things here are not referenced, but we won't tell you what. Have a nice read". With specific fact-tagging editor's will know which statements that need looking up to find the source, while readers will know exactly what might be dubious information. But, again, does this change now mean that a million articles should start with this tag? Shanes 05:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
  • "Adequately" means there are sufficient sources to verify all the information contained within an article. There are about a million articles on Wikipedia which should start with this tag - that is the problem we are trying to resolve! I am not going to spend an hour adding a {{fact}} tag to every sentence of an article because people don't like blanket tags like this. If a 20kb article has just one reference, then it should be tagged. Click "random article" ten times in a row and see how many articles you find with any references, let alone one or two. Wikipedia needs to clean up its act with regard to references and this, in my opinion, is one step in the right direction. -- Qarnos 11:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I think the change to "adequately" was a mistake. I find it important to make a distinction between the articles that do not cite any references and those that are not adequately referenced. Perhaps two tags are needed here rather than one. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 01:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I think the move to "does not adequately" was correct and I think it is strongly supported by Wikipedia:Attribution Editors should provide attribution for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or it may be removed. The burden of evidence lies with the editor wishing to add or retain the material. the tag {{unreferenced}} whether it says "does not adequately" or "does not site" states that this reference on this article are not sufficient to meet expectations. If there is one reference or no references does not mater, the expectation of attribution is not met and that's what this template is for. On occasion a single reference may be sufficient for a stub but as seen in Wikipedia:Notability expectations for multiple reference exist and so if there were two tags and if an article goes from none to one reference editors would be swapping out "does not site" for "does not adequately" because the article is either adequately referenced or is not. As an aside to Qarnos - a quote from WP:A Although everything in Wikipedia must be attributable, in practice not all material is attributed., so yep there is a million out there and they all need to be fixed. Jeepday 03:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I strongly disagree with the use of "adequately". The situation before was very clear... if an article had no sources, it needed at least one, period, end of story, and the tag was usually not disagreed with. If an article had a source but needed more, then the specific statements were highlighted with {{fact}}, and people could discuss whether a particular statement was controversial and whether it needed sourcing. Now, the situation is far less clear. Someone says "I think the article needs more sources", without pointing out what statements need sourced, or why more sources are needed. So someone else is then free to remove the tag, and similarly doesn't need to give any specific reasons other than that they vaguely disagree. It makes the discussion far less precise. If the "adequately" clause remains, I encourage others to stop using this template, and to only use {{fact}} instead. --Interiot 04:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

My new 'unreferenced2' tag

See {{unreferenced2}}, and my user page for my reasons for its existence.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 03:54, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Reference to Jimbo's quote

I quite don't understand what this link does anything with Jimbo's quote on top of this article. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054929.html --Manop - TH 22:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

adequately

I suggest wikilinking "adequately" to Wikipedia:Attribution in the template. Jeepday 00:24, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Reliable sources has been supereceded by Attribution

Reliable sources has been supereceded by Attribution. Should this template be updated to refer to current policy.--ZayZayEM 14:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Addhoc 20:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Y Done - Harryboyles 21:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Except that it has not. See for example Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Archive 14#This merger is a really bad idea--Henrygb 22:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Ooooh. Sorry. I was just reporting what I was reading.--ZayZayEM 03:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


Yep, to be fair the situation has changed in the last few days. Addhoc 18:13, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge from Wikipedia:Reliable sources

I have suggested on Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources that Wikipedia:Reliable sources be merged and redirected to Wikipedia:Attribution#Reliable_sources. Please see the discussion (if any) at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources. Signed Jeepday 14:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Sudden thought

While the phrase normally passes me by without a second glance, I just now realized something about the wording of "does not adequately cite its references." By definition, this implies that there are references from which the content is derived, when the article may very well be a convincingly-worded collection of lies, as was the case with the now-long-dead article "Porchesia." Surely a user could misinterpret this to mean that the original contributors simply forgot to put in the sources, but that thouse sources — "its references" — still exist somewhere. Why shouldn't the wording be something like "does not cite sufficient sources", or, in when this is the case, "does not cite any sources," with the possible addtion of "and may therefore be unreliable"? Does this possibly exist in the form of another template? \sim Lenoxus " * " 00:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Redirect from Template:Not verified

I have suggested that Template:Not verified become a redirect to this article. Please see Template talk:Not verified#Redirect to Template:Unreferenced for a opinions on this suggestion. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:45, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Redundant and misleading text

The statement "Any material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed at any time." shoud be removed. Any material may be challenged and removed at any time, whether or not it is referenced. The suggestion that adding references will exempt material from challenge or removal is not only factually incorrect, but it supports the idea that referenced material is somehow correct simply because it is referenced, which is not the case at all. Material is correct if it is correct. Wikipedia contains millions of good unreferenced sentences, and many misleading, incomplete, inaccurate and biased paragraphs that are referenced. The objective is to have correct material, not misleading but referenced material, but the template implies a preference for the latter. Honbicot 20:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

strong agreement. this is misleading--removing unreferenced material as merely unreferenced in most cases without an attempt to find sources or discuss on the talk page is wrong. This should be changed. I Are there any objections to simply removing it? I dont think a change of wording would help.DGG 06:36, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I object to removing the statement, I offer Template talk:Unreferenced#Jimbo on Unreferenced as exhibit one. additionally if an editor was going to simply remove the the text as unreferenced they would remove it, not place a {{fact}} or {{unreferenced}}. Please also review WP:V#Burden_of_evidence. Jeepday (talk) 13:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:ATT

{{editprotected}}

Suggest removing the link to Wikipedia:Attribution in favor of the old link to Wikipedia:Reliable sources. WP:ATT is only a proposal at this time. Frise 00:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Support. You'll notice that the line "Encyclopedic content must be attributable" has already been changed back to "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable." Miss Mondegreen | Talk   08:57, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

V link to RS

{{editprotected}}

After ATTs de-policyification, a request was made to revert the link back to the prior link to WP:RS. See above.

User:SlimVirgin instead changed the link to WP:V--with an edit summary explaining: "(per talk, but V is policy, not RS)"

RS is however a WP guideline, and is official in that capacity. I think that the link should be changed to what it was--after all, the only reason that the link was changed by SV, is that it was changed in the first place by superceding policy.

If a straw poll, or discussion or whatever here decides that V works better than RS, than I have no qualms about changing the link. But if a guideline worked fine until a policy superceded it--there's no reason a guideline shouldn't work fine now.

For the record, I did raise this issue first at SV's talk page but received no reply. Miss Mondegreen | Talk   22:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi, first, ATT hasn't actually been "de-policyified" (good word); that issue is still being discussed. Regarding V and RS, V is the policy on sources. If you read RS, much of it has been copied from V, so it makes sense to link to the actual policy. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Well--it lost it's green check mark and now has a purple question mark, so that's really all I mean by that. No consensus means no officiality--it certainly has officiality in that it comes from key policies and guidelines and that it did at one point have the green check mark, but that's so much more complicated than a pretty green check mark saying "go ahead--stake your arguement on this"
Anyway...now that I understand your reasoning, it makes sense--your edit summary was shorter and seemed to imply something else. And in re CMummert's arguement, I do prefer linking to stable pages--constant policy changing really does annoy people--they can quote "the WORD" one day, only to find out that the WORD is different the next. We'll never get things quite in stone, but I think that there is certainly something to be said for longstanding and unchanging policy--as long as it doesn't hold wiki back.
And thanks for the "good word"--I was rather proud of that one myself. Miss Mondegreen | Talk   00:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Once the status of the various pages is settled, then let's change the links. Both ATT and RS are in flux, whereas V is pretty stable. CMummert · talk 00:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay, sounds good. Whatever happens to ATT, it contained V's words on sourcing, so those words (whether on the V or ATT page) will remain policy. At least we have that bit of stability. :-) SlimVirgin (talk) 00:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Addition requested

Template:Citation style to the see also section —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Richard001 (talk • contribs) 03:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC).

Done. For future reference, you should put {{editprotected}} on a new request or it might not get noticed. —Centrx→talk • 03:52, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion - earlier change revisited

I really think it's useful to make a distinction between an article that cites no sources at all and one that cites sources but is not adequately referenced. Since this template used to be for totally unreferenced articles but has now been changed to inadequately referenced articles there is no such distinction.

I propose two (2) templates. This one, for not adequately referenced articles, and one for unreferenced articles, perhaps it could be called {{Totally unreferenced}}. What do the people who made this change to this template think? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 19:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

There's also {{More sources}}. How about we add the word "inadequately" to that one, then change this one to say "no references"? --Geniac 19:39, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I ran into an edit conflict just now trying to point that out. I really think the change to adequately was somewhat of a mistake. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 19:40, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I strongly agree with changing it back. This template was intended (and by me still used in that way) for articles with no sources at all, no external links etc. Garion96 (talk) 20:37, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
External links that are specifically external links and not references are irrelevant. A template for articles that are completely unreferenced should still apply to articles that have external links. Miss Mondegreen | Talk   11:51, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Depends. If a film article has only a short summary of the story and an infobox, an external link to IMDB is a good reference for that. Garion96 (talk) 13:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Then the article can simple be edited and the IMDb link can go under the reading references. It won't be a footnote and it won't be a thorough reference and IMDb is not the best reference, but if we count it as a reference, if that is where information for the article was taken from it DOES NOT belong in an external links section. Plain and simple. If someone comes across a page that says unrefed and checks it out and it turns out that the external links reference the page, they can reformat the page and stick on a partially referenced tag. But if something is in the external links section it simply doesn't count.
If, by the way, the issue is that the links are not solid enough to count as references and that is why they are in the external links section--then the article is still unrefed. Miss Mondegreen | Talk   21:04, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
It should perhaps, but it doesn't always happen. Either way, if one encounters a small stub article of a film with an IMDB link it's not necessary to put this tag on the article. Also, IMDB is not a bad reference regarding some information (casting for instance), but definitely a lousy source for BLP issues. Another example, with five random clicks I encountered this mini stub, The Institute for Effective Education. I don't think that article needs the unsourced tag. Garion96 (talk) 21:31, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree. A reader is supposed to be able to look at an article and tell where the information comes from. If that information is under external links, they can't--external links are the equivalent to additional reading--it's information that is on topic or related that a person may want to look at but isn't a source for the information in the article either because it isn't reliable or because it doesn't include that information. Or sometimes, it could be used as a source but the article has another better source and an external link is included for a different reason that has nothing to do with sourcing. If the article has no references that are labelled as such--nothing that says, "the information you are reading was taken from here", it is UNreferenced.
But, I agree with you--IMDb serves as an excellent reference in some regards, and all The Institute for Effective Education needs to not be unrefernced is to have the title of the section "External Links" changed to "References". Because the website should be an adequate reference for certain factual things. It doesn't however serve as a reference that proves notability, so that article should be slapped with a needs more references tag and a notable? tag. Miss Mondegreen | Talk   22:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
I think we do agree though. I agree external links should not be used as sources. However just changing it to References, like you did in The Institute for Effective Education is good enough. Garion96 (talk) 09:05, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
  • That would be WP:V The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. that User:Miss Mondegreen is referring to when she talks about "unreferenced". Signed Jeepday 00:09, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Ah yes thank you. Going back to the discussion as to what should happen to the templates, I'd like to see the language on this one made stronger, making it clear that there are no references, and a second reference one for needing more references. I think that this tag is necessary--an article with zero references is a problem and sometimes editors don't have the time to do the research or can't find something online, but the internet is not the be all and end all. Tagging an article gives people an opportunity to come and look and find sources, or to help to original contributers site the sources that they used.
It would also be nice to have more specific categories for articles with unsourced material. Miss Mondegreen | Talk   08:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

(rm indent)I agree, two templates works for me. This one than made stronger and {{More sources}} for partially sourced articles. Garion96 (talk) 09:05, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Please Note that a conversation took place above at Template_talk:Unreferenced#Partially_unrefererenced before the change was made. Jeepday 13:27, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I saw. It happens about every few months that someone wants to change this template. Garion96 (talk) 14:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
  • My motivation for supporting the change to "adequately" I am not aware of any Wikipedia Policy or Guideline that indicates a single source of reference is sufficient to meet the core content policies; Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view in an article. I am also not aware of any articles that have survived a nomination to Articles for deletion with a single reference. When the template said "This article or section does not cite" it also said "its references or sources" (plural). I hear people saying that they want a template for articles with no references and another for articles that have one or more reference. But I don't see anyone offering support that one reference will meet any Wikipedia Policy. Take for example an article that I just edited this morning Corduroy road I added some wording and a reference, but the article remains inadequately referenced. It fails WP:V and per WP:V#Burden_of_evidence is subject removal of most all of it's text. If I had removed the {{unreferenced}} when I added the single reference to the article that would not have supported Wikipedia core policy. Jeepday 14:17, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
I have no problem with a template that says adequately, or one which asks for more sources. But it looks like that one was deleted. This template however was meant for really bad articles (bad in the way of sourcing, not necessarily in writing) where there are no sources or anything resembling a source on the article. Garion96 (talk) 14:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
When written as "This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources" the template meets the need for an article with no sources, and a partially sourced article. While a partially sourced article still needs to be in the Category:All articles with unsourced statements. How do propose maintain that when the template is removed from a partially sourced article? If you really need a two templates one for really bad and one for partly bad are you going to put them both on the article?. Jeepday 15:06, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps I am misunderstanding you. But if there is a template for partially sourced articles, you won't need two templates on the article. Like stated before {{More sources}} already seems to have been made for that purpose. Garion96 (talk) 15:17, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
With adequately one template meets both needs, and no one has to change from one to the other. Adding one reference just makes the article less broken it does not fix it. Think about the article growth, it starts as unreferenced stub, it gets a stub tag and an Unreferenced tag, some random editor adds a link to the company web site and take the unreferenced tag off. As "Miss Mondegreen" noted above it still needs to be referenced. This tag does not go on articles that are start off on their way to FA status, it goes on Stubs and such. Jeepday
I see it as articles with no sources, external links are a problem and need to adressed fast. Articles partially sourced are in less of a hurry (excluding BLP issues here). With only one template it's impossible to look for totally sourced articles when the template is also used for partially sourced articles. Like Abu Dhabi for instance. Yes, it could use more sources, but it does has sources. Garion96 (talk) 09:05, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
See also this and this message on the mailing list. Garion96 (talk) 10:28, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a need for two templates. Merge and put "adequately". — Omegatron 15:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

One reason I see a need for two templates is that it makes it easier to find the articles that are in the most dire need of attention. Any article with a single unsourced claim is not "adequatly" referenced - but if the unsourced claim is that water is made of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen it's not a big deal. However, if we have an entire article on Temporay employment that does not cite a single source and contains some questionable or misleading information, that is a big deal. That article needs work, and needs it badly. Even one source is better than no sources. With a single template the category becomes unmanageable large. With two it's still large - but at least we know what needs the most attention. A template that says "adequately" is easier to misuse in an edit war (hence the problem is harder to fix) than one that clearly and unequivocably says "this article has zero sources". ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 16:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed wording change strengthen {{unref}} and use {{more sources}} for partially referenced

Proposing stronger text to include directions for partially referenced. Jeepday 16:59, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. All material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed at any time. If this article is partially referenced but needs more sources please replace this template with {{More sources}}

I like this strengthening and re-wording. It makes the situation where this template is to be used more clear, and points out an alternative for partially, inadequately referenced articles. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 16:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
I like the adding of "any". Makes it clear that this tag is for totally unsourced articles. It would mean a lot of work moving this template from replacing this template with {{moresources}} on articles which are partially sourced, which I already do when I encounter one. Garion96 (talk) 21:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Hey Garion, could you change "removing" to "replacing with {{More sources}}" in your comment above :) Jeepday talk 12:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
No, that was not a Freudian slip. :) Garion96 (talk) 14:53, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Only positive comments on the proposed change have been posted would someone like to post the changes? Jeepday (talk) 03:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I added "any" to the template. I did not added the link to moresources since that already was reverted a couple of times. See the history. Garion96 (talk) 14:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't like the current change, I preferred the older version. If this template is added to an unreferenced article and 1 ref is added to the article it has to be changed. Quadzilla99 16:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

RI - That was the point, if an unreferenced article gets one reference the tag {{unreferenced}} should be replaced with {{more sources}}. The reasoning be that while it is true that an article with one reference is probably not up to par, at least someone has looked at it and confirmed that it is not a speedy delete candidate. as you can see in the talk above the {{more sources}} still says get references, but {{unreferenced}} is screaming for a editor to come take a look because this article is potentially really bad. Jeepday (talk) 01:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd say an unreferenced article that may need references for notability reasons is already covered by {{notability}}, this move creates a huge amount of extra work as editors have to replace tags on pages every time even one unformatted [] link is added. Also, new editors will almost definitely remove the tag when an article has one reference, at which point the article will be untagged for needing references despite having only one. Quadzilla99 01:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I made similar arguments above, (except {{notability}} as it has the {{underdiscussion}} going on). I also suggested adding If this article is partially referenced but needs more sources please replace this template with {{More sources}} to the template, but apparently could not get agreement for the inclusion. Jeepday (talk) 02:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Clean up

Does anyone know how we can get an estimated count of how many articles have {{unreferenced}} on them? I am thinking it might be an idea to try and set up a project like User:Triddle/stubsensor/20070206 to go through and clean them up. The Stubsensor project in it's current format addresses 10,000 articles at time. With 9 registered volunteers we have done about a third of them in 6 weeks. There is always a gap between us finishing and Triddle getting a new one up, so we could potentially migrate that group of volunteers to a new Unreferenced clean up project. Jeepday talk 02:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Articles v sections

I've been bold and removed the reference to sections alongside articles. It's getting to the point where the categories are so large that it's not useful to have unsourced articles and articles with only unsourced sections all lumped together. There is already {{unreferencedsect}} for the purpose of tagging individual sections without sources, it should be used instead. --bainer (talk) 11:09, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Given the large number of articles it's used on, you'd actually probably be better off using a conditional on the whole template, so if this is used on section, it'll transcluded Unreferencedsect instead. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:06, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with the link to {{unreferencedsect}} being part of the template, because it is distracting. The template, in my opinion, is to inform wikipedia readers that not all the material in a particular article is reliable. I don't think having the link helps the process of incouraging editors to add sources, or warning readers not to trust the material of the page.--Sefringle 18:24, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but it should be listed in the noincluded section of the template. It's also already listed at Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup which is where editors should be pointed. --bainer (talk) 23:48, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

There is no consensus to make this change. At the moment this template is embeded in sections of articles and removing the section remark causes confusion. If you wish to make this change then please first check all the usages and convert those that need converting before making the change to the words here. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:00, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

With reference to the earlier discussion, this template is frequently put at the bottom of a page in a Reference section for the whole document. So changing those sections to {{unreferencedsect}} is not what is wanted --Philip Baird Shearer 09:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I see the "or section" language has been re-added, but it should be included within the parser code field, like this:
{{{1|article or section}}}
Otherwise, the "or section" part always shows, even if "section" is added in the template field. Right now, for example, there are quite a few articles out there with templates stating "This section or section does not cite...". -- Satori Son 12:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Fixed. Uncle G 09:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I agree with User:Thebainer that it is incorrect to use this template on articles which lack sufficient sourcing but do have sources. There's {{Unreferencedsect}} for that. I am removing the 'or section' wording, since it was not on the original and I don't think there was consensus to add it. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 21:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I'm going to go through articles transcluding this and fix the usage to correspond with my change before making it. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
It has been several weeks now, can we make the change to back to just article? The longer we leave it as "article or section" the longer people are going to be adding it incorrectly.Jeepday (talk) 02:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

{{Editprotected}}

Please remove "or section" from the template per the above discussion. Jeepday (talk) 13:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Y Done. Parameter 1 still exists and allows the text 'article' to be overriden to say something else. --ais523 14:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Adequately

Can you please add back the "adequately" or some equivalent? An article may have references here and there, but may need many more, or may need more detailed referencing. The way the template looks now, one may assume an article has no references at all. Using dozens of citation tags instead of this single tag is not a good alternative as it makes the article look hideous and unapproachable. Laval 04:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

{{more sources}} can be used for articles that have references here and there but need many more. Having a template that applies only to articles that do not have any sources at all is beneficial. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
About a million and a half articles does not "adequately" list its sources. Maybe only about a few hundreds do. If we start adding tags to almost every article on Wikipedia, we'll end up degrading the purpose of both the tag and the category it populates. Lets use big shouting tags for only the very worst cases. For everything else there's the more to-the-point {{fact}} note. And, of course, we still have talk pages where opinions and improvements can be suggested and discussed in plain english. That's the respectful and considerate way of raising consernes over an article. A big tag slapped on top of an article you're working on by someone who's never worked on it or showed any interest in its content can be seen as quite insulting. Shanes 16:37, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for an update

I was wondering if the template could include links to the three big search engines (Yahoo, MSN and Google) to prompt people to start searching for sources. I chose those three search engines, because those are the search engines that Wikipedia already chooses to use as part of its searching system: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=googleblat

I've created a proposal so that people can see what I mean before implementing anything: Template:Unreferenced/Proposal

The template essentially plugs the article name into the search engine as a search term. Could lead to useful results, or at least represent a good starting point to refine the search terms used... GDallimore (Talk) 11:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

N Not done yet. This would be a highly visible and major change, and possibly constitute advertising; please obtain consensus for it before putting {{editprotected}} back up. (You may want to mention it at WP:VPR to see what people think of it.) --ais523 12:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry. I thought editprotected was to get attention for a discussion, not an order to make the actual edit.
Agreed it would be very visible, but that was the point - to actively prompt people to go look for sources. If it is advertising, then Wikipedia's core code on the search page is advertising, as pointed out when I explained my reasons for choosing those three sites.
Will mention at VPR as you suggest. Thanks.GDallimore (Talk) 12:52, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This issue is now being discussed at the Village Pump (Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposed change to "Template:Unreferenced"). Please join in there! GDallimore (Talk) 13:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Point of this template

Can anyone say what the point of this template is? Adding it to the top of a page tells you nothing about how badly the page needs sources (e.g. is it a BLP, does it make contentious claims?) or precisely which claims within it need sources most urgently. Someone recently posted a list of all the BLPs that had this tag on them, but it didn't help us one bit to know how to proceed.

It's much more useful if people actually tag the sentence or claim that needs a source i.e. use the {{fact}} tag. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

This template currently means that there are no references on the article and clearly fails WP:V The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. If the article has one reference then {{More sources}} should be used to indicate the article is not adequately referenced but is probably not a speed delete candidate. Jeepday (talk) 02:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Slimvirgin: are you proposing that the template ought to be used less, or you really don't know what the purpose is? The problem with fact tags, for the record, is that applying them properly requires reading the article and deciding which statements actually require explicit citations, which takes much longer than putting a tag at the top. Worse, some editors put fact tags after every sentence, which is worse than putting a single tag at the top. In an ideal world people would use the talk pages to discuss the articles...
Jeepday: there is no requirement that all articles must list sources, including WP:V. And lack of sources is not a speedy deletion criterion (I can't tell if you're claiming it is). Speedy deletion criteria for lack of sources have been proposed more than once but have never found consensus. CMummert · talk 04:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Response to CMummert for simplicity I am not addressing politeness, time to respond, WP:BITE, etc but would assume common sense is applied. Per WP:V "Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed." I read that to say if sources are not provide the material may be removed, so if the whole article is not referenced the complete text of the article could be removed. That would leave you with a candidate for {{db-empty}}. The reality and application is likely to be more delicately applied unless the article truly is a candidate for {{db-spam}} or something. WP:V is pretty clear "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" not verifiable does not meet the threshold for inclusion so it should be removed. Also in WP:V If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it., so I don't see any support for the position that "there is no requirement that all articles must list sources", the opposite is clearly true all articles must have references. Most editors, myself included assume good faith for most articles and either try to find a reference, or tag the article so the original editor will reference it. Jeepday (talk) 02:04, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change

The template says: "This article or section does not cite any references or sources."

Why not change it to "This article or section cites few or no references or sources."

This would fit better, because technically, the template would not be appropriate once somebody added a single reference. MadMaxDog 10:05, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Correct, this template is only appropriate for articles without any sources, external links etc. {{moresources}} can be used for partially sourced articles. See discussion a few sections above. Garion96 (talk) 10:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

help, get involved!

Could anybody change the comma to the bullet ·? The current phrase it a bit confusing. — Kalan 15:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

It seems to me that an awful lot of bot edits could be avoided by having maintenance templates like this one date themselves. {{prod}} already does this. Doing so requires having two templates. One is substituted by the user, which then transcludes the other along with the appropriate parameter. The end result is no more complex than the current situation - one template with a parameter - and the need to either supply a date or use a bot disappears, saving effort. The only thing that's more complex is the construction of the template itself, which doesn't matter.

I've put together an illustration of how this could work at Template:Unreferenced2. This also does some other things, like inserting a References header and <references/>, which won't always be a good idea but which are probably useful when tagging an article with no references at all. The main point is that {{subst:unreferenced2}} leaves behind another template – Template:Unreferenced-end – unsubstituted and correctly dated. Any comments? – Gurch 00:45, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Changes to this template

Firstly, it was "this article does not cite its references or sources", then "this article does not adequately cite its references or sources" and is now changed to "this article does not cite any references or sources". For articles that have a small but inadequate number of citations, the "does not cite any" wording is inappropriate.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 15:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I thought that, but then saw that someone has already said to use {{more sources}} in such a case. This template then serves a different purpose to that other one. GDallimore (Talk) 16:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Around and around we go. Now it's "very few or no." If people are going to keep changing the various templates about inadequate sourcing to say pretty much the same thing, maybe we should just try merging them? PubliusFL 16:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, indeed, we're back to square one. The point, originally, of this template was to tag totally unsourced articles. But people started using it for partially sourced articles. We have {{moresources}} for that. Totally unsourced articles are most important to fix. But with the current wording people will again keep adding this template to partially sourced articles which means we can't identify the articles which are most in need of sourses. Garion96 (talk) 17:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
One thing that might help - {{sources}} redirects to this template. Since people tend to use {{sources}} pretty generically, maybe that should redirect to {{moresources}} instead of here, so that editors who are more discriminating can continue to use this template for the worst offenders. PubliusFL 17:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
That last suggestions sounds like a good plan, and was also made by User:Kingboyk. A template such as {{references}} could also be made that took parameters such as "none" to indicate no sources or "more" to indicate more or "inadequate" to indicate better sources needed, etc etc. Could be too unwieldy for editors who are just looking for a quick fix, though. GDallimore (Talk) 21:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest reverting back to the "Any" and updating the useage directions below the template to give direction for {{moresources}} and describe what we have talked about here (and above, and above...). An editor should not have to read the talk page to know what the expectations are. Jeepday (talk) 03:51, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I've already made a first stab at that. What do people think? GDallimore (Talk) 09:16, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Apparently someone's changed it to "very few or no". We need to settle on something. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 21:25, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

  • We settle on something every other month, and every time it is different, It's a good thing this template is protected other wise someone might come and edit the template without looking at the talk page to see if the change they are making is counter to the consensus that was reached last month. Jeepday (talk) 12:13, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I reverted the template change, and I'm going to point {{sources}} to {{moresources}}. C Mummert · talk 12:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I liked the former wording a lot better, not a big fan of the current wording as I said above. Quadzilla99 13:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
This template is intended for articles with zero sources. If there is even one source of dubious quality, this template is no longer appropriate. There are plenty of other templates to use in that case. C Mummert · talk 18:26, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I understand that is what is currently intended for, as I said above I think it was simpler before. Quadzilla99 14:42, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

These recent redirect changes were not reflected on Template:Unreferencedarticle, which I have since fixed (and added additional redirects). However, this template does not list all redirects to it: {{sources}}. All of these redirects are confusing. There should be a single notice for an UNreferenced article, a single notice for an UNreferenced section, a single notice for an article needing more (but already has at least one) references, and a single notice for a section needing more (but already has at least one) reference. As it is now, there are multiple notices for articles that have no, or need more, references. -Єερ² (τ|c) 13:48, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Category:Articles lacking sources

I am probably going to be sorry I brought this up,(deep breath) ok, here goes. It would seem kind of pointless to use {{unreferenced}} for article with absolutely no references and {{More sources}} or {{Refimprove}} for those that are poorly sourced if they all place article in the same category. As it happens {{Refimprove}} puts articles into Category:Articles lacking reliable references, so perhaps Category:Articles lacking sources should be limited to {{unreferenced}} and everything else like {{primarysources}} should go to Category:Articles lacking reliable references.

Always something with this template right? :). I agree, that doesn't make sense. I always use the "what links here" but it makes more sense to use separate categories. Garion96 (talk) 13:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
How about, in the first instance, redirecting {{refimprove}} to {{moresources}}? Addhoc 13:33, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I personally would redirect the other way {{moresources}} to {{refimprove}} it already goes into Category:Articles lacking reliable references, it seems cleaner to me. But that might be a topic better discussed on one of those two templates. So how about recategorizing templates for "Articles lacking reliable references"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jeepday (talk • contribs) 13:44, 13 May 2007 (UTC).
Ok, no objection regarding the categories, however I prefer the more positive wording of {{moresources}}. Could we use this phrasing in the {{refimprove}} template? Addhoc 10:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

silly wording

Aside from the warring about the template, in which I have no interest, both instances of "any" need to be excised now from the template. They add nothing to the meaning; in fact, they detract from the authority of the template. Tony 11:58, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Beat me to it :) Also, I believe "Material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed at any time" can be strengthened to "Unreferenced material may be challenged and removed at any time", correct? — Deckiller 12:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Please read the discussions above. Any is there to specifically specify that the article contains No References. you may prefer to use a less specific template there is {{more sources}} and {{refimprove}}. This is a topic of recurring debate. Jeepday (talk) 12:46, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
We are saying the word "any" is redundant; the same meaning is conveyed by omitting it. — Deckiller 12:50, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Would the word "its" in place of "any" be redundant as well? Diff Diff Jeepday (talk) 13:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Tony says yes, because "its" is understood in the context. We also found that the last line can read "Unreferenced material may be challenged or removed" and still convey the same meaning. — Deckiller 14:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
To me, "unreferenced material" and "material with no references" means two different things. If I use a book to write a sentence, but do not cite the book, I would say that the book has not been referenced—it is unreferenced material. Perhaps this is the mathematician in me speaking. Pagrashtak 14:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
This entire discussion about the wording of the template is pointless (and, indeed, silly) until the discussion above about what the purpose of this template is has been completed - should the template be used exclusively where an article cites no references at all? More to the point, do we need a template that can be used to highlight that more references are needed and a separate template to highlight that there are no references at all, each pointing to its own category. Is it going to be useful to be able to categorise articles in these two different ways or is it just needless over-categorisation with no useful purpose? I don't know the answer to this question, which is why I haven't chimed in, but I do know that the answer will materially affect the discussion we're having here. GDallimore (Talk) 15:35, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't care much about the precise wording of this template, so long as it is reasonably clear that this template is for articles with no sources at all. I am going to be traveling for for the next week, so I will not be able to respond further for a while. I'll abide by whatever consensus forms while I'm gone. C Mummert · talk 16:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


"do we need a template that can be used to highlight that more references are needed and a separate template to highlight that there are no references at all, each pointing to its own category" I would say yes, we do. If we have an article on some common, well-known, frequently searched for concept like, say, Temporary Employment which cites zero sources - that's a problem that needs to be fixed pronto and is fairly easy for anyone with half a brain and 10 minutes of free time to fix (I know.. so why haven't I fixed it yet). On the other hand, if we have an article on something like Chesaning, Michigan that started out as a Rambot spew of census data but has since been added to, presumably by locals, almost exclusively by anons, with such things as local history and interesting attractions, but no sources are cited for the new stuff; but it feels right, - it's a lot harder for the same "anyone with half a brain and 10 minutes" to fix the problem. The article is not totally unsourced - the census data from Rambot is sourced. It's not adequately sourced. This is a completely different (imo) situation from the former article. Chesaning needs {{more sources}}, but not anyone can supply them. A banner that says this article needs more sources is a pointer for the local-dwelling historian who discovered that anyone can edit Wikipedia without logging in, so that when they return they can say, "Oh, look, I added this stuff and now they want me to source it. I can do that." But only they can easily source that - no one else (who is probably in California, or Canada, or Calcutta - in other words, not Chesaning) can. On the other hand, Temporary work has been around. It consists of very simple facts. Anyone can source it. The fact that no one has should be setting off alarm bells that that article needs attention in other ways - it's not on watchlists, link-spam is not being removed in a timely fashion, vandalism is not being fixed.
Of course, not all articles these templates would apply to are exactly like those two - but I think I've made my point that separate templates and categories are useful here. In other words, "Is it going to be useful to be able to categorise articles in these two different categories?" Yes. Very. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 16:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
You make your case well and I am inclined to agree. With that explanation, the answer to the question of whether to include the word "any" is easy: Yes, we should include the word "any". It may be redundant (I'm not totally convinced by some of the arguments) but it improves the clarity of the template since it makes this intended use of the template obvious to even a casual reader. Redundancy is not such an evil that it should be removed at the expense of clarity. GDallimore (Talk) 17:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Except that in this cause, the extra words reduce the impact of the template without contributing to clarity. Do you actually think people will be confused by "Material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed"? - Merzbow 07:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I was only talking about the first proposed edit: "does not cite any references or sources". I haven't considered the wording of the second line yet - one step at a time or things just become a mess. GDallimore (Talk) 08:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Project Proposal

  1. Find some way to end this constant change back and forth to Adequately, it has gone on since Marck 2005 [1] when SlimVirgin slipped it in as part of a change to a text box. Do we need to take a vote, or what?
  2. Embrace {{unreferenced}} is for articles without any references and {{more sources}} or one of the other under Template:Unreferenced#See_also is for anything else
  3. Re-categorize all except {{unreferenced}} from Category:Articles lacking sources to Category:Articles lacking reliable references
  4. Start a project to systematically go through Category:Articles lacking sources and address articles with {{unreferenced}} to: - change to {{more sources}}, find reference, WP:PROD, what ever.
  5. Post the project on {{Active Wiki Fixup Projects}} and otherwise promote it.
  6. Work on the project Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles

Signed Jeepday (talk) 03:17, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

If we decide that more categories are needed to separate the different levels of referencing within articles then the different categories need to be clearly defined, as do the different templates. Categories that spring to mind are as follows:
  • Category:Articles with no references - could be used with Unreferenced and Unreferenced Section where there are no references at all.
  • Category:Articles needing more references - could be used with More Sources. Used in cases where there are some references, and the references that are there are good, but more are needed.
  • Category:Articles lacking reliable references - would be for Primary Source and Refimprove, or other templates where the references that are used are inadequte for some reason.
In summary, we need to make sure that the templates as a whole are all clearly delineated and match up with appropriately delineated categories. There therefore needs to be a discussion as to which levels are needed and would be useful. GDallimore (Talk) 11:34, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
"Start a project to systematically go through Category:Articles lacking sources and address articles with {{unreferenced}}" I would be willing to help with such a project. If we got enough people everyone could pick a letter and spend a few days (weeks) working on that letter until, eventually it got down to a manageable level. Let's start a project. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 19:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Project Proposal update

  • Step 1 - Ongoing discussion, but does not impede starting a project.
  • Step 2 - Pretty much we are there, after reviewing (and being involved in) past discussions, it is mostly editors new to {{unreferenced}} that have not read all the history that question this.
  • Step 3 - (and addressing User:GDallimore comments above)
  • Step 4 - I guess I am going to start working on putting Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles together give me an hour or two, before you start making changes.
  • Step 5 & 6 - need to finish step 4 first, target date to get well worded directions in the project, Friday May 18th?

Signed Jeepday (talk) 03:09, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I got the first draft of Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles up. I borrowed from a couple other projects for formatting and some text. I am going to bed now, I expect others will add to it as will I, tomorrow. Jeepday (talk) 04:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

icon needed

I believe an icon is necessary on this and many (every) other template. Icons are quick ways to catch the eye and having a lot of text just convolutes things. -Eερ² (t|c) 01:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Please note that at Template_talk:Unreferenced#Proposed_Edit above a similar proposal was made and did not take root. 03:12, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm just proposing an icon, not a rewording... -Eερ² (t|c) 05:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
That was about an icon, the wording of the template has changed since then, unrelated to the icon. 2 days after the proposal the change was made to add the image [2] then 3 days later the image was removed again [3] The text box catches the eye, if you go back to march of 2005 [4] the box was considered too obnoxious by many . Your proposal for an icon fails to indicate how the icon can clarify the need to add references to an article more then current text that clearly describes the deficiency, rationale, solution, and the repercussions. Additionally your link to convolute goes to a disambiguation page (poor form try Wiktionary:convolute, next time) that includes the description Convolute means to roll up or to make something unnecessarily complex. and you are proposing adding a icon with out a clear meaning and you are possibly suggesting that image will replace a lot of text that "just convolutes things". As you might gather from the length of this talk page and the protected status of this template, every word in this template has been discussed at length. You may also want to consider if your additions of this icon to non protected templates [5] without discussing it are appropriate. Jeepday (talk) 06:47, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I really don't see what the big deal is. Icons just "pretty up" things but can also be used to convey information. The "i" stands for "information" and is not new in GUIs. Plain text is boring. I also don't like the white background; I use the "simple" template that allows the web browser-specified background color on pages, but is overridden in many templates and tables. I'd rather have the background remain user-specified (bright white on a medium-dark background tends to be overbearing and even painful to the eyes due to the contrast extremes). -Єερ² (τ|c) 20:43, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge and Redirect, after speedy close of TfD

Apparently there was a TfD for Section specific maintenance templates to merge and redirect 9 section templates to the article templates. I happened to catch it when they changed the text of {{refimprove}}. I reverted the change [6] before I realized there was a TfD because the change was done with out any discussion. They did not post proposed merge tags on the receiving templates. The TfD was speed closed about 7 minutes after being posted. I bring the topic here it happened to this template as well. You may notice that this template has a habit of being less then stable and while it currently says "article or section" it has only said it since 28 April [7] and said just "article" only a few days earlier [8] Maybe I am wrong, but it seems like this a rather controversial item for a speedy close on TfD. I am not sure what the next step should be, but I am pretty sure that several editors who read this page might want to participate in the discussion. Jeepday (talk) 02:51, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

1. You seem to have misunderstood my closure. It merely reflected the fact that a deletion debate was inappropriate. It was not indicative of a determination that the mergers should (or shouldn't) occur. In no way did it mandate any specific course of action.
2. A merger may be performed by any editor in good standing without advance discussion or tagging. Such a change, however, may be reverted by someone who disagrees with its wisdom (at which point it's best to discuss the matter). If it becomes clear that the merger is not backed by consensus, it shouldn't stand.
As you can see in the text of my closure, I advised Mr.Z-man to respond to any reversions or objections via discussion, and you're quite correct to seek it. —David Levy 03:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
I just don't see the need to have 2 separate templates when one will do the job. Most templates already work this way. I'm mainly trying to simplify and standardize some of the templates. While it was fairly recently changed to article or section from just article, it has been article or section historically (since Feb. 2006). bainer's original argument about "categories are so large that it's not useful to have unsourced articles and articles with only unsourced sections all lumped together" no longer applies as the section specific one uses the same category as the general one. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 06:55, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Mr. Z-man, I have made the same argument myself on this very page Template_talk:Unreferenced#Partially_unrefererenced. But the consensus (if which I am now a part) is that this template is only for articles without ANY sources, this was most recently reaffirmed above at Template_talk:Unreferenced#silly_wording. By including it the template {{unreferenced}} in a section you would not be placing the template on a partially referenced article and the correct tag would be {{Unreferencedsection}}, {{refimprove}} or {{refimprovesect}}. Actually now that you have brought it up I am surprised one of the other frequent editors has not removed the reference to section that is currently displayed in the template. [9] user Garion96, how did you miss that last time you cleaned up? Jeepday (talk) 02:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I did not miss it, but I was going to wait if Morven was going to do something. See this section. Garion96 (talk) 19:18, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Its minor semantics, both templates put the article in the same category, Articles lacking references. "Lacking" does not even necessarily mean "totally devoid of." If a template that says "This article or section..." is placed in the middle of an article on top of a section, I would think editors could realize that the tag is not referring to the entire article, just that section. We should be trying to make things simple. Instead, we have 5 different tags when 1 or 2 will do. We have {{Unreferenced}}, {{Unreferencedsection}}, {{Refimprovesect}}, {{Refimprove}}, and {{Unreferencedarticle}}, most or all have multiple redirects too. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 02:50, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Mr.Z-man brings up a good point, should section tags go to Category:All sections lacking sources or should they go to Category:Articles lacking reliable references to keep in context with consensus that Category:All articles lacking sources should be only for articles without any references? Jeepday (talk) 03:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Also, whether or not we keep all the section specific ones around, {{Unreferencedarticle}} just seems totally redundant, does anyone mind if I redirect it to this template? If it isn't, it should be renamed as it has marginally different wording from this one. It might actually be closer to {{Refimprove}}. Any thoughts? Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 16:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I mind, it seems counter to the the consensus that has been reached on this template repeatedly like in Template_talk:Unreferenced#Articles_v_sections above. Jeepday (talk) 00:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
The consensus there is to have separate ones for articles and sections. I understand that, but if we are going to use {{unreferenced}} only for articles, what is the point of {{Unreferencedarticle}}? This one should be changed to reflect the consensus. Right now it says article or section. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 01:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
On reflection I think you might be correct about {{Unreferencedarticle}}, I just took a look at what links here and it probably needs more then just a redirect, as that would create doubles. I fixed a couple of what would be the doubles and the rest would take a little more time. Would it be more effective to just go through and replace the tags then delete the old {{Unreferencedarticle}}? It seems needlessly complex to me. Jeepday (talk) 02:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I've asked User:^demon (who operates a template replacement bot) if he could replace unreferencedarticle with unreferenced. After that (or before if he wants the discussion first) we can take it to TfD. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 02:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Looks like all the changes have been made. I went through and cleaned up the rest of the redirects. Found one user using unreferencedarticle and left a note on his talk page. Jeepday (talk) 13:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I watched for a while and see some editors are still using unreferencedarticle, so I redirected to here. I am thinking those editors would actually prefer the {{refimprove}} but the name of the templates suggests a merge to here would be cleaner. Jeepday (talk) 17:34, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

How long to wait before deleting?

If an article has no sources, how long is a good time to wait (after tagging it) before nominating it for deletion? Chronology of PlayStation games has no sources (and was noted on its talk page over a year ago for it) and somehow survived an AFD back in October despite having no sources. Over 7 months after surviving an AFD, no one has added any sources. I decided to tag it today, how long should I wait for people to source it before nominating it again? TJ Spyke 05:13, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Long answer = I sent the article Sigi Schwab to WP:AFD when it had been actively tagged as unreferenced since December of 2005 [10]. I also believed it would fail WP:N and I had searched for and been unable to find references. As you can see at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sigi Schwab the article currently looks to survive the AFD. It is considered poor form to, and is against WP:AFD#Before_nominating_an_AfD to nominate an article unless you beleive it should not be on Wikipedia. Use a tag or edit to meet criteria is the expecation
  • Option = Per WP:V#Burden_of_evidence "Any edit lacking a source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them a chance to provide references", in this case it may be appropriate to remove the material to the talk page and explain why you did it, but you may want to consider this only if you beleive the content is untrue, but "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material"
  • Last thought = Wikipedia:Assume good faith and remember you can't force anybody to do anything on Wikipedia, best choice is if you think it should be referenced find some references and add them. In this case I beleive that if you look at some of the articles in the list you will find that they will supply most of the reference you would like to see on list :) Jeepday (talk) 01:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Link to BRD

In [11] this edit, a link to WP:BRD was added to the tempalte. i feel that this is unhelpful, as we should if anything be encouraging discussion such as requests for specific sources first. I plan to remove this link from the template. If anyone disagrees, we can discuss the matter here. DES (talk) 00:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Newest change

"although it may be a good idea to ask for specific sources first." - Sorry, but can we get any more wishy-washy??? (No offense to whoever proposed that, but its using weasel words right in one of the most often used templates).

I propose to change it to: "...though for uncontroversial claims, please request references first." MadMaxDog 13:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

That's a bit beanish (in reverse). No-one would think to delete claims that they knew to be uncontroversial until you put the idea in their heads... ;-) Anyway, the current wording is bad for biographies of living persons, where we are required to delete unsourced contentious claims, not wait for a reference to be provided. I suggest deleting the new text (after "although") entirely. There is no evidence that we need this new nannying phrase at all. Templates ought to be concise.—greenrd 23:53, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree the sentence "although it may be a good idea to ask for specific sources first." should be removed from the template, it is counter to policy, and was not discussed on the talk page to seek consensus (which it does not appear to have) before being posted. Jeepday (talk) 13:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Agree with all of the above. There is no consensus for the addition. It's full-protected right now, so I guess an admin should undo it. --Anonymous44 12:29, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I've asked DES to remove the text he added when removing the BRD link. GDallimore (Talk) 13:07, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I see someone else removed the wording before I came back online again -- I've been off for several days. I do think that some version of this is a good idea. Policy says that unreferenced statements may be removed. Except in BLP cases, this is a judgment call. i am merely suggesting that in many (but far from all) cases, where statements are not obviously implausible or hopelessly PoV, it may be a good idea to ask the person who added them, or the interested editors as a group (on the talk page) to supply sources. This can start a healthy editing dialog, which simple removal is perhaps less likely to do. Obviously there are many cases where simple removal is the right choice. That is why I used the words "may". And I have seen plenty of people remove "unsourced" but pretty obviously accurate statements in an overstrict application of sourcing policy, and I have seen plenty of others remove as "controversial" statements that most editors did not think so.
I think that some version of this advice is a good idea and ought to be on the template. But Obviously I will not reinsert the wording until/unless it has consensus. DES (talk) 21:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you in principle, and had nothing against the ethos behind the warm and friendly wording you introduced - Wikipedia would be a far nicer place if there were more warm and friendly people. The only question is, where do you stop when seeking to clarify the meaning of the template message? You can't include the whole of the guidelines and advice. However, you can include a link to those guidelines and leave the template and just a very brief identifier of a problem. It's then down to the good faith of the editors of the article to discuss inclusion or removal of content.
With that in mind, does the template need any warnings at all about "unreference material may be remove"? Possibly not. Why not just have the template read "this article does not cite any sources" and then include the bit about how you can help and link to a relevant guideline and then simply stop there without any accusatory statements at all? GDallimore (Talk) 21:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
That might be fine. But as long as it includes the curent wording that seems to invite or even threaten removals, i think that the counterbalancing reminder that in many but not all cases asking for sources first is a good idea (although not a mandatory process) should be present. DES (talk) 21:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki links that don't exist

{{editprotected}}

The interwiki links

don't work. Those pages don't exist. Could an administrator remove them, please? Thanks. ElinorD (talk) 20:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. For future reference, the interwiki links are on the /doc subpage, and can be edited by anyone. Cheers. --MZMcBride 20:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah, thank you. ElinorD (talk) 20:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Error

I'm thinking something has been messed up in the recent edits of the template. See the tag here. - Dudesleeper · Talk 01:52, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

the date needed a "date=" parameter. GDallimore (Talk) 02:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I've alerted the editor accordingly - Dudesleeper · Talk 02:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)