Wikipedia talk:Verifiability

Are opinion pieces primary or secondary?

SlimVirgin raised an interesting point to me earlier today when she pointed out that op-eds are generally secondary sources. This is true by a conventional interpretation, but WP:NEWSBLOG has a bluelink from "opinion piece" to WP:PRIMARY, and because of this I have been operating under the assumption that op-eds should be treated as primary sources. So, according to Wikipedia, are opinion pieces primary or secondary? --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:58, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

I would say neither, in that the primary-secondary distinction presupposes an objective recounting of information. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:03, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on that? I don't have a concept of how to practically deal with 1.5-ary sources. --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:11, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

It's sort of like saying that primary and secondary are classifications of English-language sources, but op-eds are in Urdu. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:17, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

WP:PSTS seems to suggest that {primary, secondary, tertiary} is an exhaustive classification of sources. On a related note I have been in the habit of treating scientific papers as primary sources for their original claims, and as secondary sources for the background stuff, which can be invaluable especially in subjects where review articles are rarely written, but SlimVirgin also criticized me for not applying the classification uniformly to the whole article. Is that accurate? Or does the classification depend on which claims are cited?

I don't know what to make of Urdu op-eds. Is the bluelink to WP:PRIMARY just a misleading oversight? --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:26, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, reliability of a reference depends on the context where it's used, so it must be evaluated for each sentence supported by a reference. Therefore, a paper might be reliable (and secondary) for some sentences in the Wikipedia article, primary for others, and unreliable for some claims. Diego (talk) 10:56, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Your approach to journal papers is the correct one. If it weren't, about 80% of WP material on scientific topics would have to be deleted as unreliably sourced.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:39, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the 1.5/Urdu approach isn't useful to us. Primary and secondary (and tertiary) are descriptions of content in their contexts, not of types of publication, no matter how badly WP:Reliable sources confuses this distinction and some editors don't notice the accidental bait-and-switch. The publication format and editorial arrangement of the content are not determining factors. Any particular source may be a mixture of any two or all three, and may be primary with regard to one fact and secondary for another. On average, op-eds are primary and journalistic articles secondary, but there's a lot of wiggle room. Large swaths of many high-end op-eds are secondary material, bracketed by an opinional hypothesis that relies on that secondary analysis. Factoids repeated from, e.g., statistics sources by news articles are tertiary, while any conclusion drawn from them by the writer is primary if it did not come from another source attributed in the article; and so on. We have to stop thinking in terms of "newspapers are secondary", "science journal articles are primary", "a subject-specific encyclopedia is tertiary". It's like saying "a dish with chicken in it tastes good", "adult supervision will protect a child", "all Ford Tauruses run smoothly".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:39, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Ideally an opinion piece is composed of two kind of statements: (II) these are the facts..., and (I) these are my opinions about these facts...

(II) is the secondary source part of the opinion piece, (I) is its primary source part. --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:28, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

That makes sense to me - you're saying that the distinction between primary and secondary depends on what claim is cited. So maybe this should be clarified in WP:PSTS? --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

• WP:PSTS tends to cause more confusion than it resolves... it needs an over-haul. Blueboar (talk) 12:56, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

See WP:RSOPINION, maybe also WP:WEASEL, which I suppose Wikipedia's current way of dealing with this. These are guidelines: giving full detail about what exactly is primary and what exactly is secondary in which circumstances is hardly something we'd write in a policy. --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:54, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, WP:RSOPINION talks about reliability and attribution, which are different issues. Whether a source is primary matters, for example, because it determines whether it is subject to the "extreme caution" required by WP:BLPPRIMARY, whether it counts toward establishing notability in an AfD discussion, and whether a Wikipedia article can be mainly based on such sources. --Sammy1339 (talk) 05:06, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

In the context of notability (AfD, sufficient basis for Wikipedia article,...) opinion pieces count as secondary sources (they contain at least a secondary source part, that part contributes to the notability as much as any other secondary source that is not a mere listing).

In the context of WP:PRIMARY the "caution" provision only applies to the primary source part of the opinion piece. As said the policy doesn't detail for every type of "primary" source what needs to be done. But an advantage is that for opinion pieces the way the caution needs to be applied to the primary source part is a fairly standardized procedure, which is described in the reliable sources guideline under the header WP:RSOPINION (in short: "attribution" is the way to exert "caution" in such context).

Regarding main content of a Wikipedia article: start with filling the article with the secondary source content. Possibly add some opinions to it, but don't start with a list of quoted opinions before giving the facts everyone agrees on:

1. statement "this film was released in year xxxx and directed by xyz, with a cash return of abc,def"
2. statement "y1 thought it a good movie, y2 thought it a bad movie"

Guess which statement should be used first. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:26, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Also, for questions regarding source/article/statement combinations you have in mind, please go to WP:RSN: we can theorize about this all we want, but I sense you have particular questions to resolve in this sense, here is hardly the place to sort that out. If the general answers you received here have helped you out sufficiently, I was happy to oblige. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:57, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

• Opinion pieces play a dual role. In principle they could be secondary sources for facts they assert about the world at large, but because opinion pieces aren't fact-checked the way news pieces are, they usually can't be considered reliable, except perhaps those from a writer well known for his or her reliability. Other than that, they are primary sources for the opinions of their writers (e.g. in an article Smith, we might write "Smith, in an opinion piece for the Morning Bugle, asserted that taxes should never be used for ..." etc.). However, we then run into the usual limitations on primary sources -- we generally wouldn't use such material unless some independent secondary source (e.g. a biography of Smith) discusses Smith's positions on taxes; in this case, we might use one of his opinion pieces to illustrate what the secondary source is saying. EEng (talk) 05:08, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
  • But could be secondary sources for facts they assert about the world at large, but because opinion pieces aren't fact-checked the way news pieces are, they usually can't be considered reliable, except perhaps those from a writer well known for his or her reliability is mix-and-matching rationales and definitions. An opinion piece that asserts facts is by definition a primary source for them. That's what "primary source" means. (Old sources, that were secondary when written, are be treated as if primary, because sources close to an event cannot benefit from later analysis of greater amounts of information, corrected factual errors, and broader analysis. Some publishers external to Wikipedia like to say that old sources "are" primary, but this is just unclear use of language. There is no transubstantiation from secondary to primary, and much confusion can be avoided on WP and in researching in general by being clear in one's mind about that.) Furthermore a 'writer well known for ... reliability" does not have some magic Wand of Secondariness that makes their work not primary when it's just their own opinion, or not treated as if primary when it's 100 years old. [Obviously, an op-ed may also include substantial secondary material supporting their own primary material.]  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:22, 21 July 2015 (UTC) Clarified.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:45, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
    • There is nothing to keep a journalist from writing a column that analyses some primary and secondary sources, and draws some conclusion about them, which would be a secondary statement. The journalist could go on to express his/her own opinion, which would be a primary statement. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:56, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
      • Yes. I've been making this point elsewhere in the thread, and just wrote unclearly in that post. I'm clarifying it with insertion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:45, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
• I have to ask: does it really matter whether an Op-ed piece is Primary or Secondary? I don't think it does... The important question is whether a specific op-ed piece is being used appropriately. There is a very good essay on the appropriate use of sources... see: WP:NOTGOODSOURCE and its sub-section WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD. Whether we consider an op-ed piece to be primary or secondary (or some mix of the two)... I would say that there are limited situations in which it is appropriate to use them. We always need to question how much WP:WEIGHT to give an op-ed piece... and when we do use one we should always attribute it to it's author. In essence, they should be treated as self-published works (even though they are not physically published by the "self" who wrote it). Blueboar (talk) 12:53, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Well, the primary/secondary thing does matter in two repects:
    • Does the Op-ed count when determining the number of third-party sources in a notability logic (primary sources usually don't add up in that logic)? The answer is YES, the Op-ed counts as a secondary source there.
    • Are a journalist's opinions primary or secondary? Well, they're primary, I chose to explain the primary source precautions mentioned in WP:OR, as applicable to the context, by referring to a guideline – sure the same can be done by referring to an essay, and illustrate it by "don't read the three core content policies in isolation of one another". --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:22, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

As far as an op-ed counting towards notability goes... I think it is far more nuanced than a dualistic if Secondary = good / if Primary = bad. For one thing, not all op-eds are equal. Sure, an op-ed on some topic written by a nationally known columnistand published in a large circulation, big city newspaper should count positively towards notability of the topic ... but an op-ed piece on the same topic, written by an obscure unknown and only published in a small town, low circulation paper does not have enough of an audience to count towards notability. It's more a function of audience than the primary/secondary nature of the source. Blueboar (talk) 00:28, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

A nationally-known columnist published in a large-circulation newspaper absolutely does not have their opinional material somehow transmogrify into secondary sourcing. It is, of course, true that not all op-eds are equal, and that publisher and author reputability are important factors, but it is impossible for reputation to change anecdotal opinion into researched analysis.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:21, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

(ec) With regard to Francis Schonken's first point, it cannot possibly be true that an op-ed necessarily "counts as a secondary source" for WP:N purposes, as if by magic. It would only do so when the substantial, independent coverage of the topic in the (reputably published) op-ed is actually secondary material based on previous publication and, in that part, is expressing few if any opinional claims as a primary source on the topic, even if the piece as a whole is advancing an opinion as its main objective. Fortunately, that is often the case, so op-eds can frequently be used as sources that help establish notability. But this is not categorically true. As with so much else, it's a case-by-case matter.^[*]

I agree on the second point. There's no such thing as an opinion that's secondary. Secondary sourcing is analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis (WP:AEIS) of primary and/or other secondary material, that is not advancing a novel claim beyond connecting the dots between its own sources. If it's asserting something new (expressing an opinion) beyond that, then it's a primary source (even if it also relies on previously published sources to arrive at the new hypothesis), no matter who wrote or published it. If all it does is catalogue, summarize, or list previously published material without introducing even AIES, then it's tertiary. All three kinds of material are often found in the same source (any subject-specific encyclopedic compendium by a subject-matter expert will almost certainly be a three-way mixture, for example, and any newspaper contains all three between its covers every day). The reason people on WP are are having difficulty with this is that WP:Reliable sources is poorly written and tends to speak of these categories in terms of types of publications instead of types of content. This is something that badly needs to be corrected.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:21, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

^* Clarification: While WP:N allows for the use of non-secondary but reliable material to help establish notability, after there's at least one reliable secondary source, it does not follow that every primary source that could be reliable for something in one context is necessarily reliable for notability or any other purposes for other material in it or in every possible context, because WP:RS relies on multiple context-dependent criteria, and the PSTS nature of the content in a single work can vary. Newspaper book/album/movie reviews are generally considered to help (but not alone) establish notability because they're part of an editorial review process that includes substantial winnowing. If a review of a new work makes into print (or e-print, whatever) in a major, reputable publication, this is evidence of notability of the work for the very reason that it survived such a process. When an op-ed writer, subject to little revision by publication's editors, writing about the environmental impact of Proposition 12 goes into a lengthy, promotional aside about how Green Today, Healthy Tomorrow by J. Random Activist, a self-published book no one's heard of (for all we know, the author is the writer's employer or spouse), was her inspiration for getting involved in the issue, and provides enough material about this book to be "non-trivial" "coverage", this does not actually constitute "coverage" by the reliable source (the reputably published newspaper) at all; it's just trivia and spam their editors didn't bother to excise. It has nothing to do with why they ran the editorial. The real substantiveness is in the political opinion of the writer on the environmental impact of the ballot measure. The relevance and neutrality of the material someone wants to claim is "substantial coverage" is actually quite important here. One of the principal problems with op-eds is that they are often non-neutral not just about the topic they express an opinion on (we already know that and we are accounting for it), but whatever other crap they're including, which often involves a direct conflict of interest. We cannot actually determine anything about the independence of op-ed material in most cases, yet independence is required in order for a source to help establish notability. Ergo, op-eds (vs editorials) often can help for WP:N purposes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:22, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Late reply: Blueboar's instinct is right: It doesn't actually matter whether an opinion piece is primary or secondary.

The reason it doesn't matter is that Wikipedia editors are almost never allowed to use opinion pieces to support claims of facts (e.g., "President Obama isn't a citizen of Kenya"). You may only use them to assert facts about the author's opinion ("Emily Editor wrote that Obama isn't a citizen of Kenya"). Regardless of the intrinsic nature of the source, opinion pieces may only be used on Wikipedia as if they were primary sources. Whether they truly "are" primary (and according to which academic field's standards, because they do vary) is a sideshow; you must use them as if they were primary. See the official rule at WP:NEWSORG:

Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact.

That's been present and accepted for years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:28, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

And in WP:GNG:

If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list.

For any subject mentioned in an opinion piece published in e.g. a reputable newspaper such pieces are "reliable sources that are independent of the subject" so it adds up to the notability criterion for that subject. Also there the primary/secondary/tertiary distinction is mostly rather philosophical than practical for the determination of Wikipedia's content. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:42, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

As I addressed above, that is not categorically true.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:57, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

For any subject mentioned in an opinion piece published in e.g. a reputable newspaper such pieces are "reliable sources that are independent of the subject" so it adds up to the notability criterion for that subject, as addressed above. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:00, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Again, I've already addressed this above. That's usually going to be true for editorials, but not so much for op-eds, because independence from the subject can't be established with regard to the writer. You can't conflate editorials and op-eds on this, even if they are similar in many ways for other analyses.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:05, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What is primary or secondary does not vary for WP; different fields' individual academic standards for what they consider secondary within their ambit is completely irrelevant to WP:RS. The only reason we would care at all is that some judgement must occasionally be exercised when evaluating some external source's description of some other source, or the ways it relies on other sources. WP cares about the end-product that is the cited source. If it contains a novel not analytic claim, it's a primary source for that claim for WP purposes, no matter how it's authors defined "primary" and "secondary" for their own purposes. Aside from that quibble, I certainly agree with WhatamIdoing's point. There is no question at all that WP treats op-eds and editorials as primary sources by default, and absolutely for any opinion, conjecture, or hypothesis in them, and that there is no conflict on this point between the relevant policies and guidelines. Francis Schonken's point is better expressed as something like "where an op-ed contains secondary material that is substantial, independent coverage of a topic, that material can help establish the topic's notability". But it can't go beyond that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:57, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I think that Francis is correct in one respect: editors at AFD often seem to believe the entire contents of a newspaper to be secondary, because they don't understand that WP:Secondary does not mean independent. The result of this ignorance – or, let's put the blame where it's probably due: the result of using a fancy scholarly-sounding word in WP:N without explaining what was meant and why we're including it – is editors declaring that eyewitness news reports are "secondary sources", which not even the most lax historian would ever agree to. When questioned, they will tell you that the news story is secondary because the reporters only saw the events happen with their own two eyes, but did not directly participate in it. That's the definition of WP:INDY, but they don't get it. And they have no incentive to get it, because the fact is that the English Wikipedia routinely accepts articles about current events, under the GNG, for which no actual secondary sources exist. So they're giving the correct, consensus-based "vote", but they're giving a rationale for it that would get them flunked out of an introductory class on history.

I have wondered on occasion whether the solution is to remove the "secondary" requirements from the GNG. We are probably putting too much emphasis on this fuzzy distinction, and not enough on writing encyclopedic articles with due weight given to all aspects. (Another fantasy-land alternative is to enforce it quite strictly on any article more than a week or two old, possibly with the aid of professional historians to tell editors when their favorite sources aren't actually secondaries. I suspect that we'll just keep muddling through, though.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:08, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Re: 'Francis is correct in one respect: editors at AFD often seem to believe the entire contents of a newspaper to be secondary' – Sure, and it's a point I'm making consistently with him. But, 'they don't understand that WP:Secondary does not mean independent' – oddly enough, that's the point FS is missing about misuse of op-eds (vs. editorials) to try to support notability claims, even if he makes the same kind of point to others about some other kinds of sources. I'm chalking it up a temporary blind spot. It happens; I even contradicted myself on this very page earlier, regarding one of the three revision proposals, and had to change one of my !votes after realizing that one of my GAMING concerns was due to a side effect of something I was supporting. [shrug].

I very, very strongly agree with your take on the "it's in a newspaper so it must be secondary" belief being common and notable problem. I think our #1 problem in the WP:V / WP:RS sphere is the misuse of "secondary", etc., as if they are permanent descriptions of entire publications of mixed content types, or even entire classes of such publications, rather than descriptions of particular pieces of content in a particular context. This talk page is drowning in that confusion, even going so far as denials that journal articles can ever be secondary sources for anything unless they are literature reviews, and belief that third-party opinion piece (an opinion piece!) is a secondary source if it was published by a news media outlet. And this is coming from long-experienced, intelligent editors who are certain they understand this policy area. This is pretty much incontrovertible proof that the WP:PSTS wording has to be revised, though WT:V is not the place to propose the new wording.

If we do fix that, I think that this will auto-correct a lot of cascading problems, like confusing secondary with INDY with reputable and so on. They're being confused because the meanings of some of them are not just poorly explained, but in some cases irrationally "un-splained" by turning their real meanings on their ear. The misdefinition of PSTS as labels for publications or types of publications instead of content has been the result of a well-meaning but counterproductive attempt to keep it as simple as possible, to say "yeah, you can use a newspaper, now go write content". But the KISS principle only applies when oversimplification doesn't lead to increased complexity in the long run, which has happened here. GNG isn't broken; PSTS is, and that's where the unnecessary fuzziness is. It's not been caught by enough editors because most of the time when we cite a newspaper we're citing secondary material in it, and a immediate problem isn't apparent. It's only shows up when the "logic" [laugh] of the PSTS wording is used in more complex debates and it collapses in its own backward reasoning. I'm reminded of the death throes of the "pig-lizard" turned inside-out by transporter malfunction in Galaxy Quest.[1]  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:40, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Meh, none of this seems particularily relevant regarding the topic of this section. We can make infinite distinctions regarding the nature of sources, and SMcC is particularily expedient at that, none of this has however much relevance for dealing with practical questions. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:00, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

How wide is the "original research" exception for articles on fictional works?

I am aware of only one "official" exception to WP:OR, and that is for plot summaries in otherwise notable articles on works of fiction. That exception seems to be detailed in MOS:PLOT, part of the Wikipedia Manual of Style guidelines, which is a subsection of the broader guideline WP:MOSFICT.

It reads:

"The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary."

However, I find that there is a really massive amount of detailed original research arcana in the article space on Wikipedia, generally completely unsourced, on various minor characters from fictional works, or "List of characters in ..." fictional work articles.

So my question is, are there other exceptions of WP:V and WP:OR. Places where, by policy, the community has decided that fictional work OR is okay, and verifiability is not important?

Thanks. N2e (talk) 04:17, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

No - there is no exception to WP:OR. If not sourced to third parties, any plot summaries / commentaries/ character descriptions must abide by WP:OR and be merely summaries or uncontested condensations of the primary source - policy does not allow any interpretation or commentary. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:24, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I get your point about "summaries or uncontested condensations of the primary source"; but I believe that is only applicable on (as I quoted MOS:PLOT above) a "a page about that work, [which] does not need to be sourced with in-line citations". So I get that plot summaries must not include additional sythesis. So I may have asked my question poorly. Let me try to clarify.

My question is really then, given that, how many other articles get this "plot summary" exception and don't need to be sourced to published, third party reliable sources? Can the exception to WP:RS, once allowed for a plot summary for a work of fiction, be allowed to then be extended to other articles? For example, to an unending list of minor characters? I occasionally run into editors who assert that the plot summary exception can be applied to a fair amount of arcana about particular characters in other articles, way beyond the original article on the named work of fiction. Here's one example:

"It's sourced TO THE TV SHOW ITSELF. It's not original research to give a summary of a work of fiction using the work of fiction as the source itself. It's the primary source. You just don't know the rules when it comes to writing fiction and how EVERY page on TV shows, film series, comic books, and book series all do the same thing."

I agree with that editor that a (very) large number of article pages "on TV shows, film series, comic books, and book series all do the same thing." They have LOTS of unsourced OR detailed plot-related arcana about obscure characters in the show/book/etc. I'm just trying to find out if it is okay to extend the plot summary exception to WP:RS to all of that? N2e (talk) 11:27, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Again, there's no exception to WP:RS, nor to WP:V. "Third party" sources ("..independent of the subject..") is a WP:GNG concept. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:40, 13 July 2015 (UTC) Expanding (ec):

• (GNG:) if there isn't significant coverage of the subject in reliable third-party sources, you haven't got enough base material for a Wikipedia article on the subject (article can be deleted by AfD, PROD, or in extreme cases speedied).
• (OR/V/RS:) once there is a viable article its content and its sourcing should comply to NOR/V/RS (et.al., like NPOV), none of which make the exclusive use of third party sources obligatory. Not for any subject. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:11, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Re. "It's sourced TO THE TV SHOW ITSELF" – WP:V is only complied to when the TV-show is obtainable (unedited at least for the part on which the Wikipedia content is based) after such information is added to the article (and no interpretative claims etc.). Very detailed Wikipedia content not covered by secondary sources may however present WP:BALASPS problems; on the other hand, a basic description of any subject based on available primary sources (when other reliable sources only have other content on the subject) is never a problem. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:35, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Plot summaries are not "an exemption" to WP:NOR... they are explicitly allowed by that policy: "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source." Blueboar (talk) 11:58, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Yep, Blueboar. N2e, are you interpreting the WP:OR policy to simply mean "unsourced"? Something can be unsourced, or without an inline citation, in an article and still not be WP:OR. Like the reference in the WP:OR policy states after the word exist for its second lead sentence, "By 'exists', the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article. Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy—so long as there is a reasonable expectation that every bit of material is supported by a published, reliable source."

The play, book, television show, or movie is the source, just like you've been told. I've told the same thing to editors who've insisted that the plot section is unsourced and/or WP:OR because it lacks inline citations. If an editor engages in WP:OR with that plot summary, then that's obviously a problem. I understand that you are wondering how you can know if the plot section is true unless you've read the book or watched the show or film. Well, like I've stated on such matters, when it's not true, an editor usually comes along and corrects it. It's also commonly easy to Google the matter and see what's true and what is not; at least for some of the plot material. One area where this is difficult, though, is soap operas because daytime soap operas commonly air five days a week with a new episode each day, and usually don't play reruns (if the reruns happen, it's usually on holidays); that's how it usually is for American daytime soap operas anyway. See the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Soap Operas/Archive 5#Storylines sections lack references 2011 discussion about this. Recently, American soap operas have been dying off, though, with occasional resurgences. Flyer22 (talk) 23:51, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

That was a very helpful response, Flyer22, and Blueboar. So I see now that I was confused as to exactly which actions in this sort of description of fiction is OR vs. Notability vs. etc. OR is not the same thing as just putting in a plot summary, in a named article on the work of fiction, without any source, etc. And, yes, definite problem is it is very challenging to insure Wikipedia keeps an NPOV in these cases were first-person research (but not OR) is done from viewing/reading the work of fiction. N2e (talk) 04:18, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the issue may be a conflation of several concepts. While WP:V , WP:OR , WP:NPOV (and its subsection WP:UNDUE ) and WP:N have inter-relations and impact how the others are applied, they are distinct concepts on their own, and how they apply depends upon the question being asked.

For example, "Do the policies allow me to put into an article the statement 'Marge Simpson's hair is blue' based upon the TV show itself?"

• Does the statement pass WP:V? Yes, it is verifiable by looking at the show that Marge's hair is blue.
• Does the statement pass WP:OR by not making any claim or analysis or implication that is not directly supported by the source? Yes, it passes WP:OR in that any person watching the show will agree that Marge's hair is blue.
• Does it pass WP:NPOV? In this case the answer is "It depends". If the article is about the Simpsons, then in many cases "yes". If the article is about hair salons in China, then probably no, talking about Marge Simpson's hair color would be WP:UNDUE.
• Does the claim and the source establish or help establish that the article the sentence is in meets WP:GNG? No. The TV show is a primary source for the color of Marge's hair and does not establish that third parties have discussed the subject. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:23, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, very helpful response TPoD! I've been conflating some of the core policies, for sure. Your delineation of the policies and issues is quite helpful. Moreover, now I realize I may even be confusing some of the good people trying to help me as the Talk page section title is "How wide is the "original research" exception for articles on Fictional works?", but we are really talking about a larger issue, and what WP core policy says with respect to that, and what are the implications for the quality of the encyclopedia, and particular articles, as a result. Should I perhaps change the section title now, to make it more clear? Or start a new section??? N2e (talk) 04:26, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

@N2e: I wouldn't change the section header name at this point because it would change the context of other people's comments. You may wish to insert a subsection header. Or if the conversation below is heading in the direction that answers your question, just let it roll. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:05, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

• The article the OP is talking about is List of Power Rangers Dino Charge characters. When the editor arrived at the article, it had no sources at all (see this version)
  • On the Talk page, at one point they seem to make the error applying NOTABILITY to specific bits of article content (e.g. whether to discuss a particular character at all, and perhaps how much) which is a mistake - NOTABILITY only applies to articles as a whole. I think the WP-appropriate policy question is whether the mention of the character (or weight given to the description) is UNDUE, which you can generally only settle via independent, secondary sources. That is a good question.
  • IP editors arguing with the OP on the Talk were making the point that the descriptions of the characters didn't need any sourcing per MOS:PLOT - in other words, the whole article didn't need sourcing at all. That seems to be a bad argument to me, as nothing showed NOTABILITY for the article as a whole (but List articles are generally a nightmare to me)
  • The OP seems to making the claim that this article, List of Power Rangers Dino Charge characters, is not the article on the show, which is Power Rangers Dino Charge and so MOS:PLOT does not apply anyway. That seems kind of wiki-lawyer-y to me. Jytdog (talk) 00:58, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

• As an aside, the article has all kinds of interpretative language in it, cited only to the show:
  • "Tyler Navarro is the enthusiastic and adventurous leader of the team, "
  • "Shelby Watkins is a clumsy, slightly ditzy tomboy who works as a waitress at the Dino Bite Cafe inside the Amber Beach Dinosaur Museum. Shelby also has a vast knowledge of dinosaurs, "
  • "Chase Randall is the suave laid-back member of the group from New Zealand with a cat and mouse personality. He is a skateboarder and likes to flirt with pretty girls."
  • "Wrench is another of Sledge's generals who has a whining personality if he is badly hurt. "
• The "color" in these description is WP:OR I believe, as we cannot interpret primary sources. Seems like a fan-blog, not a wikipedia article. Jytdog (talk) 00:58, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

OK... here is my advice on the article... first is the issue of WP:Notability ... the lead of the article needs to establish that the characters of "Power Rangers Dino Charge" are notable enough as a group for Wikipedia to have a separate list article about them. For that, we need reliable secondary sources that are independent of the TV show ... sources that discuss these characters as a group. If this can not be established, the list should probably be merged into the article on the show (as a sub-section).

Assuming we can establish notability, we then move to the issue of content... which characters to include and exclude. This is a function of WP:Due Weight... It may be that some of the characters are worth mentioning while others are not. Characters that appear in every episode would appropriately be given more weight than those that only appear occasionally, and those that have only appeared in one or two episodes are probably too marginal to be worth mentioning at all. Characters that have been discussed by reliable sources should be given weight... those that have not been discussed by reliable sources should not.

Finally, once we determine which characters are worth mentioning, we have to determine what to say about them. This information needs to be Verifiable. VERY BASIC description ("Fred Smith is the Taupe Ranger - it was established in episode nineteen that he is gay") can be verified by the show itself. Character analysis and evaluation (such as "Fred is likable and kind, but overly trusting") requires an external source. Blueboar (talk) 11:49, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes.Jytdog (talk) 11:56, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Slight persnickety: "Fred Smith is the Taupe Ranger - it was established in episode nineteen that he is gay when he came out to his parents" => OK - content of the show directly establishes claim. "Fred Smith is the Taupe Ranger - it was established in episode eighteen that he is gay when he said he likes to arrange flowers and listen to kd lang and admires Harvey Milk" =>Not OK - evaluative interpretation. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:05, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

• I agree with the spirit of Blueboar's comment, but I believe the implied line described here is too tight. Broad aspects of character that any reasonably competent reader/viewer will notice is not OR. (I am too old for the Power Rangers, so I will switch examples.) "Scooby-Doo is easily scared and not too bright." Do we really need to source the fact that he is definitely no Einstein? If you insist. Choor monster (talk) 13:31, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

How dare you! scooby doo is a genius! see here.  :) pop culture articles in WP give me hives.Jytdog (talk) 19:48, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

• Can I point out that WP:PRIMARY, which is part of the no original research policy, says in one of the strongest statements in Wikipedia policy: "Do not analyze, synthesize, interpret, or evaluate material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." Note the word "evaluate." I would suggest to TRPoD that his statements about the color of Marge Simpson's hair and that about Fred Smith aren't necessarily consistent, though as I'm about to say I generally agree with the end result. That is: I agree entirely with TRPoD's statement about Fred Smith, but I'm uncomfortable with the one about evaluating Marge Simpson's hair color as blue, at least in Wikitheory. On the other hand, I'm okay with evaluating her hair as blue as one of those kinds of local exception to policy which stand because no one reverts it and which thus weakly implies that no one disagrees with it. But like all of those exceptions, if someone objects to it (either because they disagree with the evaluation — is Scooby Doo's coat tan or brown? — or merely because it violates the no-evaluation rule), then a "positive" consensus has to be formed to support the exception or a reliable source has to be found to support it. Choor monster, yes, indeed, we do need to source that fact and if it's that important to the character it's certainly been discussed in some episode or third party source.Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:26, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Let me just say that I greatly appreciate the help in clarifying and interpreting the Wikipedia policy(ies) that have emerged to make this such a great, and very useful, encyclopedia. I've learned much, including that the presumption I had in my original question in the Talk page section header above ("How wide is the "original research" exception for articles on Fictional works?") was incorrect. While OR does not allow synthesis, it is fairly clear that WP:GNG and WP:NPOV/WP:UNDUE are probably more of the problem in the sorts of articles with excessive (often unsourced) fancruft in articles on works of fiction that brought me here to ask the question.

I've learned a lot, and am still learning, from the discussion here. Thanks. N2e (talk) 19:37, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Would anyone be willing to help with a project—or point to a project if one already exists—to develop a set of friendly, policy-compliant "best practices" to use when one approaches a WP article on a fictional characters to improve the encyclopedia and do it in a civil and constructive way? I'm thinking of lot of WP articles that are full of fancruft, and nearly "Wikia"-ish in the actual content one sees in the article, rather than Wikipedish. So if an editor would like to help, at the margin, and select an article or few to improve over time, is there a "best order" (e.g., article notability [{WP:OR]]/WP:SYN; or just looking for secondary sources first; or ???) that might have emerged as a good way to tackle such improvement efforts? Cheers. N2e (talk) 16:46, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I haven't followed this conversation, but might recommend Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction as a good starting point, though it isn't character-specific. I'd be willing to help with the development of the project in a limited capacity, but don't really have the resources to do any significant article improvement at this time. DonIago (talk) 17:10, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Not going to wade into this in whole-thread detail. I concur with TRPoD near the top. The MOS guidance here is not some magical NOR exception; it's an interpretation of V / RS. If people are engaging in their own novel analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis (WP:AEIS) of a work of fiction that's an NOR problem. On a side note, the wording in MOS cannot be interpreted with WP:LAWYER level nit-picking. :-) All of WP:POLICY is interpreted in relation to all the rest of WP:POLICY; the fact that WP:SUMMARY exists and tells us to branch long articles into subarticles automatically means that any guideline that applies to the main article on work of fiction doesn't stop applying if some of its content forks out into sub-articles to keep the main one from being a mile long. A published work is still a source, naturally, for what the published work says. And the published work is actually cited, once, at the article on that work. What the MOS bit means is we don't add redundant citations, statement after statement in plot summaries; the entire plot summary as a whole is sourced by the most reliable source possible on what the work says, itself. It's perfectly legitimate to cite a list of characters in the work to the work. It's not legitimate to add personal interpretations to the main or sub-articles. It's also unwise to only cite the novel/whatever one time in something like a list of characters, but rather to do so once per entry; if the work is notable enough to need such a list, its highly likely that secondary source material has been written about various characters and that details from such sources will be added to our list article, citing those sources. As with glossary articles (which character lists are often formatted as), such pages are almost always best sourced on an entry-by-entry basis.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:57, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Restoration of challenged material

WP:V contains this text:

"All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material"

while WP:BLP contains this text:

"All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation."

Given these policy statements, once material has been challenged and removed, under what circumstances can an editor restore it without providing an inline citation in the same edit? Any? Or is the editor obligated to find the source prior to restoring the material? If there's an acceptable lag between restoration and sourcing, what is it?—Kww(talk) 14:14, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• The restoring editor might be putting the disputed statement back in one edit, then intend to provide the source in a subsequent edit. I think a suitable lag would be the time it takes to find and fill in a CITET template. I'd give it an hour, tops, assuming the restoring editor isn't explaining why it might take longer than that. Reyk _YO! 14:22, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

And, politely, without intending to hound: why don't we demand that the editor find and fill in that template before saving?—Kww(talk) 14:29, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

In purely practical terms, and with sometimes mildly demanding wikitable markup, it's much easier to add the citations alone rather than re-insert sections into tables along with their refs. Plus, it's easier to work with a crib sheet of "missing answers". As long as it's not controversial, there shouldn't be a problem. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:34, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Some articles have the list of references in a section the the bottom, such as this one. It's not unreasonable for someone to edit one section to add the info, put the citet template in the references section in a second edit, then come back to do the inline^[1] thing in a third edit. I think an hour is generous enough for someone who's slow about it. I don't think waiting forever on the off chance they might come back to source their stuff is required. Generally if you've got a reason for breaking the process up into multiple edits you'd want to communicate why in edit summaries. Reyk _YO! 16:26, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I've removed the RfC template as the question is answered in great detail on the policy page, both in general for WP:V (see WP:V#Responsibility for providing citations, third paragraph of the section) as in particular for WP:BLP (WP:BLP#Challenged or likely to be challenged, and subsequent subsections). I oppose calling an RfC for a question that basically comes down to: can you point me to the appropriate section in the guidance?

When you're challenging the guidance, first ask, before calling an RfC. Or go straight to a dramaboard (which this talkpage isn't). --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:43, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• Francis Schonken I've restored the RFC template, for the reason that the interpretation of those sentences is being disputed to the point that I am risking being desysopped for enforcing my interpretation (which is that the source must be provided in the same edit). I was hoping to get an interpretation divorced from that conflict, and I guess that opportunity is shot to hell now, but it is apparent that there is some community disagreement about the timing and sequence of when the source must be supplied vs. when the material is restored.—Kww(talk) 14:58, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Well, then go read the policies. You'll have your answer. Sorry to hear about the challenging of your sysop bit. Calling an RfC for something that is plain in the guidance is however not how a sysop should behave (and would incline me to support removing the sysop bit if I were interested enough to have my voice heard in this). --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:06, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• • I've read the policies, Francis Schonken. Can you point at any piece of them that supports the restoration of challenged material while unaccompanied by an inline citation?—Kww(talk) 15:09, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
    • Not every removal of unsourced material is "challenging" – it may e.g. be plain vandalism. BLP has a few conditions built in, e.g. that the removed material is "contentious", if you can't make the judgement call whether material is contentious or not, you shouldn't be "enforcing" anything. Removals of non-contentious material can often be reverted with the addition of a {{cn}} notice (which WP:V describes), but that also is a judgement call, e.g. countering plain vandalism removals with a {{cn}} may be heavy-handed. So the answer to your question, when material without an inline citation is removed can it only be reinserted with a citation is: IT DEPENDS, and requires a judgement call more often than not. Trying to shortcut the judgement call part goes against policy, and editors acting without the judgement call part would probably better not be enforcing anything. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:35, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

How could there possibly be any GREATER "challenge" to content than outright removal????? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:15, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• • • Really, is that the level of this discussion? I'm not going to see a removal like this one as a "challenge" to the validity of the removed content. ever. whether there are refs in it or not, no difference: removal, but no "challenging" of material. Repeating my proposal to fold this discussion with a link where the discussion was (and still is) going on before this forumshopping began. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

That is an unexplained removal of cited material, not what we are discussing at all. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:49, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

"outright removal" is not by definition a "GREAT challenge", QED. Quite often it's not even a challenge of the material at all.

Re. "what we are discussing" – whatever we're discussing, platitudes don't help. FYI, I was discussing "Not every removal of unsourced material is challenging", that's the comment you replied to. --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:01, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we were all discussing removal of unsourced information. And you replied by linking to an unexplained removal of sourced info. To which I responded "What does that have to do with what we are discussing?" -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:12, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

The off-topic "How could there possibly be any GREATER "challenge" to content than outright removal?????" remark came before I gave the example that contained both sourced and unsourced material. Besides the example contained enough unsourced material to illustrate what was said: vandalistic and/or clueless "removals" don't "challenge" encyclopedia content on any level, whether the removals contain sourced or unsourced material (or both). So, no "outright removal" is not necessarily a challenge to content, and certainly not by definition one of the "GREATER challenge(s) to content". So can we skip platitudes and get to the topic being discussed here? Tx. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:22, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

It is not "off topic" to point out that your position was based on the weird presumption that removal of content is not a challenge. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:38, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Which is, again, not what I said. I said it is not always a challenge. Can we quit this non-level of discussion? --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:53, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• • • Actually, Francis Schonken, {{cn}} is only discussed in terms of what an editor can do before removing challenged material. There's no mention at all about using in when restoring text.—Kww(talk) 15:43, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
      • Again, if you can't distinguish between "removed material" and "contentious material", and think "challenged" applies to both in the same degree, getting better acquaintance with the actual policy would probably be more beneficial than fighting the desysopping. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:52, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
        • Your comments center exclusively upon what practices policy indicates should be addressed in the context of removing material, and do not address the question I attempted to start an RFC over at all.—Kww(talk) 15:59, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
          • Your question was about "challenged" material. "Challenging" is not a mechanical concept (we'd have bots to handle it if it were). The policies explain the nuances, depending on circumstances, of what challenging is. No RfC is needed to explain "hey, don't interpret challenging as if it were a mechanical concept, for example by enforcing that no removed content would be brought back without an inline citation". --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:23, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
            • We're not talking about undoing a vandal's section blanking and in the process restoring an unsourced paragraph. We're talking about material removed specifically because it is unsourced and, yes, that is a bright line rule, just like 3RR. It is never OK to restore it without a supporting citation. The only question is whether there's a bit of wiggle room about the sourcing and the restoration being in the same edit. Reyk _YO! 19:21, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
              • A vandal removing a single unsourced sentence and writing "challenging unsourced statement" in the edit summary would still be a vandal. So "unless the challenged statement is vandalism or potentially libellous" (as it was in the answer already given to kww before coming here) the editwarring is a far brighter line than the judgement call needed to assess whether a removal is a WP:V challenging that supersedes WP:BITE and whatnot (as carefully explained to kww before coming here with the same question he had already gotten an answer to). --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:58, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
                • "A vandal removing a single unsourced sentence and writing "challenging unsourced statement" in the edit summary would still be a vandal."- nope, you are wrong. That is not vandalism, ever. Reyk _YO! 20:15, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
                  • Re. "That is not vandalism, ever" – It could be vandalism, easily: below "retaliation" is mentioned as a reason why it could be vandalism, to which I'd add other possibilities like WP:SOCKing; WP:DISRUPTing Wikipedia for whatever (lack of) reason; WP:GAMEing the system;...and whatnot. All of which require sensible editors to interpret whether that's the case or not. Rewriting WP:V in bulldozer format so that these judgement calls are no longer necessary is not helping the encyclopedia at all. --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:01, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

                Note: WP:FORUMSHOP is also a very bright line, and I'm inclined to fold this discussion with a link to where the original discussion is taking place. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:04, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) The BURDEN section of this policy says, "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." (Emphasis added.) I would ordinarily argue that the "should" makes that a best practice, not a requirement, but the language first quoted by Kww, above, says "must" so I think that this is merely a re-emphasis of that requirement, not a new rule, and is therefore mandatory. Moreover, any unsourced material can be removed, whether it's a restoration or a new edit, so in some ways it doesn't matter. However, it should be noted that there's no exception to 3RR or the edit war policies for removing restoration of unsourced edits. On the "same edit" question, I agree with Reyk. Heck, though I'm absolutely committed to previewing and providing edit summaries on every edit I make, I still sometimes hit the save page button before I remember to do so. Editors are human and instantaneously reverting a restoration fails to AGF. Give them some time and then remind them of their obligation and give them another chance before reverting. If they still revert after that, take them to ANI or seek dispute resolution, don't edit war. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:50, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• To the above I would add, the BURDEN section of this policy says "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article." Right there is the answer to the question of whether the citation must be added at the same time the material is restored. And, I might add, a claim that X won Y award followed by [Citation needed] or [unreliable source] tells the reader not to trust the claim. Deleting it when you have no real reason to think it is false harms the LP (slightly) if it turns out to be true. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:15, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

• Actually, Guy, that tells you that the speed of the removal depends on numerous factors. It pretty clearly states that restoration should not occur without an inline citation.—Kww(talk) 05:17, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Imho this highlights the problem: picking one ore two policies while ignoring the broader context of other, as applicable, guidance. Thinking that taking half a paragraph of this policy is a token with which to smash all other relevant guidance including WP:BITE, WP:AGF etc., even when the second half of that same paragraph clearly indicates limits with which this can be enforced.

  It is clear why kww wants to have this discussion on this talk page: in order to maximise ignorance of behavioral constraints (note that ArbCom cases generally judge behavior, not content) – so, repeating my proposal to hat this discussion here to take it back, with an appropriate link, to where the discussion is taking place since before the forumshopping began. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:51, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

• First, this discussion ignores the possibility that the restoring editor has provided a valid reason for not providing an additional citation. Instances I've seen of editors failing to recognize a valid pre-existing citation include:

1. Substantially the same claim, with a valid citation, appears elsewhere in the article.
2. The article contains a valid citation that is not in the form of a footnote, like "Jones explains in chapter 6 of his autobiography.... (where the autobiography is in the reference list of the article).

Second, it is often convenient to make a change in a few edits rather than one edit. This would apply if short footnotes are being added to the body of the article, and a new source to the reference list. It would also apply if named references are being used and some adjustments are needed so that the named reference applies correctly to each spot where the named reference is used. If an editor is trying to do a good job by using these more sophisticated citation systems, and gets reverted in the middle of the process, the editor is justified in being angry at the reverter. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:14, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• I agree with those who say that the citation may be provided after the text is, so long as this is done in a reasonably prompt manner, i would say up to several hours. If the current policy and guideline pages don't provide for this, then they should be changed to clearly and explicitly do so. Addingf a CN tag promptly seems not unreasonable, it documents the request for a citation. Reverting, much less blocking, does not, and I think it is clear that the community consensus does not support such action, and so any policy page that says otherwise is in error. DES ^(talk) 16:43, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

We have this wonderful history feature which provides all prior versions of the article. There is absolutely no need to return challenged material before verifiability is established even for a little while. There is no need for a partially completed edit to sit in the public article. You can use your user space, you can use a text editor. The burden of verifiability was very intentionally placed where it is, and I think it is a good idea. How many times has someone said they were going to fix an article and did not? Chillum 16:47, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Here's the practical side of this: Unless there is something else going on, no one is ever going to be blocked for either restoring unsourced material (even if they never provide a source) or for deleting that unsourced restoration just one or two times. Trying to parse out whether the sources have to be provided in the same edit or can be provided later is a colossal waste of time. Would anyone here want to go to ANI with the complaint that an editor restored unsourced information but X minutes/hours/days late provided a source for it but ought to be blocked anyway only because he/she didn't do it in the same edit? Yes, of course it ought to be in the same edit, but on a practical level — again without something else going on — it's irrelevant other than, perhaps, something to use to try to bluff someone (usually a newcomer) into capitulation. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:34, 15 July 2015 (UTC) PS: I wrote the foregoing before the subsection about the Arbcom Case, below, was added and got an edit conflict because of it. I strongly predict that what I've said here will be proven true in that case, as is already appearing to be the case. — TransporterMan (TALK) 17:34, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I find it quite interesting that editors are expressing widely different and frequently contradictory opinions as to what the policy says in respect to this issue, yet it is so obvious to some that an RFC is unnecessary. So obvious to one that he was even willing to remove the RFC tag twice in order to make certain that no RFC was held.—Kww(talk) 02:56, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

IMHO there are three steps:

1. What to do to make material as challenge-proof as possible?
   1. Find reliable sources. If needed ask advice at the article's talk page and/or WP:RSN.
   2. Source the material in the article to the reliable sources, with an appropriate technique (which e.g. may be somewhat different for tables than for running text)
   3. Additional recommendations: the more easy to find the sources are, the more unquestionable their reliability is, and the more easy the material that is supported by the source can be found in the source (e.g. by providing page numbers), the less likely the material will be challenged.
2. How to challenge material?
   1. For material that is not supported by a reliable source and at the same time is a WP:REDFLAG or potentially libellous, there's only one method: immediate removal (edit warring about this can however only be excused for countering obvious vandalism or when keeping potentially libellous material that is not verifiable to reliable sources out of BLPs).
   2. For other unsourced material (or material that is sourced, but not actually supported by a reliable source) it depends on context & content: techniques going from removal for quite unlikely or somehow contradictory material, over {{cn}} (or one of its more specific ore more general alternatives) when it seems unlikely without immediate threat to Wikipedia's integrity, to raising the issue on an appropriate talk page for less pronounced doubts (or in addition to the techniques used for more pronounced doubts).
   3. In any of these cases, looking for reliable sources and sourcing the content to such sources and/or update the content to what can be verified to reliable sources is appreciated (subject to consensus that the material isn't unduly elaborate etc.)
3. What to do when material is challenged (by removal, {{cn}}-like notice, talk page discussions, etc.)?
   1. Step 2.3, often combined with talk page discussion to find consensus, is usually the optimal approach.
   2. Same restrictions for edit warring as mentioned in 2.1 above.
   3. Even if the material is no longer challenged, see whether you can make it more challenge-proof per the recommendations of step 1. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:51, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Arbcom Case

This posting at talk:Verifiability is clearly an attempt to gain support for the assertion he made at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kww and The Rambling Man/Workshop#Fundamental policies cannot be violated based on local consensus. In my opinion, this is a clear case of WP:FORUMSHOPPING.

I will copy here the opinion of arbitrator Thryduulf on that page, which I fully agree with:

"@Kww: As noted by others, you must give people a reasonable time to add the citation. How long "reasonable" is will vary, in my personal view it will depend on things like how contentious the challenged statement is (more contentious = less time), how plausible it is (more plausible = longer time), whether it has been discussed on the talk page (previously rejected = shorter time, source just requires copying from the talk page = shorter time, agreed it's not contentious = longer time), who the editor restoring it is (users with a history of vandalism should be accorded a lesser time than someone with a reputation for good edits; a new user unfamiliar with adding references will take longer to add one than someone who does it every day), how many sources are being added (e.g. if someone is sourcing a list they should be given time to source all the entries, either in one edit or in several, rather than be required to restore each item individually), the nature of the source (e.g. it will probably take longer to add a reference to a book than to a website), and any statements given about time (e.g. if someone has indicated they'll source something in the next 5-10 minutes, they should in most cases be given at least that long) and possibly other factors too. In all cases policies regarding edit warring remain in effect, and unless the challenged statement is vandalism or potentially libellous then people should be given sufficient time, at minimum, to add the source in their next edit. [note this is personal view, not a statement on behalf of the Committee]"

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:12, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

• Eh. It's a fair question. It's not like KWW is keeping it a secret that his adminship hangs on the outcome of the arbcom case, and I think his interpretation is more right than wrong. Reyk _YO! 17:49, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
• Ehh. It's a fair question. And it's a fair answer which kww had been given prior to coming here. Which makes coming here WP:FORUMSHOP. Again sorry to hear kww's adminship being in the balance, but they didn't say "I got an answer to this question which I don't like, so I come here to get a different answer", which again for me (not in the least interested whether kww keeps the adminship or not) is a sure sign adminship is not a way to go for this editor. This is what is called boomerang, and they should've known better before taking other people's time with a question that already has been given a fair answer. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:39, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I do not think it is forum shopping and it is a reasonable request by Kww to see if other editors agree with her/his interpretation. I do however agree with Francis Schonken that as no change in policy is proposed there is no need for this section to be an RfC.

I agree with Kww, TransporterMan, and Chillum.

TransporterMan you wrote "I would ordinarily argue that the 'should' makes that a best practice," the great "Men's rights movement" moving debate brought to the for that "should" has different meanings in different dialects of English in some it usually means "ought" in other it is closer to "must". In this case I think the sentence has to be read in the context of the previous sentence "Attribute all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." Ie in this case "should" is closer to "must" than "ought".

Jc3s5h I think you have a point but only for the lead section which is meant to be a summary of the rest of the body of the text. If a sentence in the lead is not a summary of a fact in the body of the text and an in-line citation is requested then it should be provided. In the rest of the text although you have a point in practical terms it is just easier to copy the citation to the sentence where it is requested then argue the toss of over whether the same fact is cited else where. As to the rest of your post Jc3s5h we have sandboxes and so if something had been removed as a challenge, then I don't think that the person who finds it "convenient to make a change in a few edits rather than one edit" is "justified in being angry at the reverter"--unless they have first explained what they are doing on the talk page, or added an appropriate template such as {{Under construction}} and even then they do the work within hours not days--because the reverter could equally argue that they are angry that BURDEN is not being followed.

DESiegel (DES) the boat has long since left harbour. The section "Responsibility for providing citations" (WP:PROVEIT) was introduced about a decade ago to held fix what was then a real problem with Wikipedia credibility, and was part of the drive for quality not quantity. At that time it was quite common for journalists to write article about how untrustworthy Wikiepdia was -- because it was easy to find Wikipedia articles full of unverifiable text that turned out to be a nonsense. BURDEN and CHALLENGE have been hugely beneficial to Wikipedia, because it has forced editors to prove that the content is backed up in reliable sources. As a side benefit it has also over time brought stability to a lot of articles that a decade ago were in a perpetual state of flux due to unsourced POV pushing.

A good example of how challenge and burden improved an article is synchronous motor (as it is now) and how it was before it was challenged in Dec 2012. -- PBS (talk) 20:18, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

As I said above, I wholly agree that "should" in this case is a linguistic gloss, not policy-making. The policy is "must." I also fully agree that the policy at least implies that the provision of the source must be in the same edit, but I also feel that the spirit of collegiality and cooperation lying behind a wiki concept along with the absence of an explicit same-edit requirement requires us to allow some slack to allow at least some time to come along and add the source, unless the restoration is demonstrably tendentious. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:29, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

RFC - Restoration of deleted unsourced material clarifications

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I propose the following changes to the first two sentences of the third paragraph of the BURDEN section of the policy. Removed material is struck through and colored red new or replacement material is underlined and colored green. Proposed changes:

Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should must not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly this should happen material should be initially removed for not having a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article.

Notes

Note that there are actually three separate proposals here, each of which is independent of the other two:

1. The change from "should" to "must" in the first sentence.

2. The addition of the clarifying footnote at the end of the first sentence.

3. The clarification in the second sentence that it only applies to initial removals, not to restorations.

Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:16, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

---

Please indicate your support or rejection of each proposal separately. Anyone who chooses to express an opinion here would be well-advised to first familiarize themselves with the discussion taking place in the Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Restoration of challenged material section, immediately above.

Proposal 1 — First sentence should/must

Supports:

1. Support as proposer. Actual policy is clear and "should" is misleading. — TransporterMan (TALK) 14:16, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

   @Jc3s5h: I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it would appear that what you're saying is that you support this in concept, except for the two things you mention below. I have some trouble with both of them: First, an edit removing unsourced material is never vandalism: we don't look at editor's motives, we look at their edits, and unsourced material can always be removed simply because it is unsourced though finding a source for it is the better practice (as has been discussed ad infinitum on this talk page). Second, material which has been properly sourced elsewhere in the article — consensus or no — is such an easy fix that it's almost more objectionable to remove it than it is to just fix the citation. Frankly, the bigger problem is the situation where there are several sentences which are all supported by the same, single citation at the end and one of two things happens: The deleter doesn't realize that and doesn't realize that the citation "stretches back" to the earlier sentences or, perhaps more commonly, someone has come along and added some additional cited material in the middle of those sentences and not copied the citation to also appear at the end of the material just before the new material. The fact is that it's the obligation of the deleter of uncited material to verify that the material is, in fact, uncited, but at the same time it's also the obligation of the restorer to point out the fact that the material is, in fact, cited or to just copy over the citation when restoring it, not just to rv it back in. These are genuine concerns, but we're not publishing a set of statutes here and cannot cover all possibilities. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:55, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

   An edit removing unsourced material is never vandalism? Got a source for that? (smile). Seriously, though, you seem to be implying that someone can come along and delete the entire lead of Engineering and a hundred other pages with unsourced claims in the lead, always noting "removing unsourced claims" in the edit summary, without being a vandal. And, according to some others on this page, I would have to find a source for claims like "The discipline of engineering is extremely broad" and "the term Engineering is derived from the Latin ingenium" before I could restore the material -- times a hundred pages. Somehow I suspect that if someone actually tried this they would be mass-reverted and blocked for vandalism. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:40, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

   Those are actually really bad examples. "Engineering is a broad discipline" is a subjective value judgement, and the Latin thing is exactly the kind of claim that requires a source. Reyk _YO! 18:54, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

   Actually, Guy, I do have a source for that: The Blanking, illegitimate section of the Vandalism policy, which says, "However, significant content removals are usually not considered to be vandalism where the reason for the removal of the content is readily apparent by examination of the content itself, or where a non-frivolous explanation for the removal of apparently legitimate content is provided, linked to, or referenced in an edit summary." (Okay, okay, it does say "usually not" not "never," but let's allow for a little hyperbole on my part...) Removal of unsourced information is also not generally listed in VANDTYPES. However, I've long contended here that the first practice you describe is sanctionable, not because of the removal of unsourced information, or the fact that it's vandalism, but because finding sources for unsourced information is the best practice and, while not following best practices now and then isn't objectionable, habitually and systematically doing so is a form of NOTHERE. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:47, 16 July 2015 (UTC) PS: That brings up another exception in which vandalism would be a reason for restoration of unsourced information (but which is another of those kinds of things which are simply too narrow and obvious to mention here). Let's say a vandal replaces an entire article with garbage or obscenity and that article had a mix of sourced and unsourced material in it. I don't have a problem, and I don't think anyone else does either, in an editor simply reverting the entire article back as it was, even if it was mostly unsourced, without finding sources for all the unsourced information unless it's a BLP and the unsourced information is contentious (but even then it might well be okay). If anyone feels so strongly about this that we need a footnote to discuss it we can craft one, but frankly I think that the right result here is so obvious that we don't need it. — TransporterMan (TALK) 21:09, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

   That's for specific removal. What happens when a page which contains some unsourced material but with legit material as well is replaced with "Wikipedia on Wheels!"? That would be plain vandalism that incidentally removes unsourced material. I think Guy is worrying about this. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:02, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

   I was writing the PS I just added above when we edit-conflicted. I just don't see it being a real issue, but we can work on a footnote clarification if you're really concerned. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:09, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

   TransporterMan's statement that deletions of uncited material are never vandalism is just wrong-headed nonsense. I am permanently opposed to this proposal. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:36, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

   I've acknowledged, above, that I was perhaps a bit too hyperbolic on that statement, and have offered a way to address the one form of vandalism which seems actually relevant (while also saying that I don't think that there's any real need to do it, though I'm open to it if others feel that it's needed). Since you're permanently opposed to this change, however, the logical conclusion is that you're not interested in adopting the change but with a footnote to address that situation. Ping me if I'm wrong. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:16, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

   I'd like to clarify my reasoning stated in my support. I say that the actual policy is clear and "should" is misleading. The policy is this, from the lede of the policy: "[A]ny material whose verifiability has been challenged ... must include an inline citation that directly supports the material." (Emphasis added.) It has long been established here on this talk page that removal of unsourced material because it is unsourced is a challenge. Even if this proposal fails, the !rule is already that restoration of material removed as unsourced must include a reliable source. This change is simply to reduce confusion. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:47, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

2. Support Seems reasonable to me. DonIago (talk) 14:38, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
3. Support- Definitely mandatory. Reyk _YO! 15:03, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
4. Support This is how I've always read the policy, and this phrasing would reduce what others seem to see as ambiguous.—Kww(talk) 15:28, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
5. Support This is also how I've always read the policy Jytdog (talk) 15:52, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
6. Support Not seeing good reasons for readding unsourced content in general (save for vandalism reverts, that is, when a page which contains unsourced material gets this unsourced material reverted back in). I'd follow DES's caveat, though. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:23, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
7. Support With immediacy in fact - I disagree with DES and I see no reason to allow a wait of hours to provide a source for something. If it takes "hours" to find a source then the edit should be delayed by that much. The "there is no deadline" principle applies both ways. And to echo the !votes above, that's how I've always read the policy as well. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 16:52, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
8. support -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:59, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
9. Support: It doesn't change the rule, it just normalizes one case of "should" with the two cases of "must". It is confusing for the policy to use "must" (including in the lead) with regard to this point, and then veer off to "should". It means that people are going to cite the version they like best when they editwar. And new or non-policy-focused editor will have a hard time remembering if this is a requirement or a recommendation. Consistency in the rules is important, even if we change the rule later.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:33, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Opposes:

1. Oppose unless it is explicitly stated that a citation need not be provided in the same edit, but may be delayed for up to several hours. Otherwise this will be taken to imply the "same edit" standard, which is clearly against current community consensus. DES ^(talk) 16:11, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
2. Oppose; does not allow for the deletion having been vandalism, or a consensus being reached that the material is properly supported elsewhere in the article. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:27, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
3. Oppose the "must", because that makes WP:BURDEN too useful for the griefers. It should not be possible for someone you've clashed with to go through everything you've written systematically challenging unsourced phrases or sentences. I'd support an addition along these lines if there was some kind of exception preventing the use of WP:BURDEN in a vexatious or retaliatory way.—S Marshall T/C 20:21, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
4. Oppose per DES, Jc3, and S Marshall. Too much nit-picking instead of focusing on content creation. GregJackP Boomer! 22:35, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
5. Oppose, per WP:Preserve and WP:Blue. WP:Preserve is also policy, and too many editors ignore that policy or don't know about it. And while WP:Blue is a WP:Essay, it has a valid point. Flyer22 (talk) 14:26, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

   PRESERVE says: "Likewise, as long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the "finished" article, they should be retained if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean No point of view), Verifiability and No original research." (Emphasis added.) Preserve does not affect the standards and procedures established by V. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:46, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

   My point is that WP:Verifiability does not solely mean that the content is sourced in the article. This is why its WP:Burden section states, "If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it." The WP:Original research policy is also clear that verifiability does not solely mean what is sourced in the article; too many editors, including a recent editor (N2e) in the #How wide is the "original research" exception for articles on Fictional works? section above, think that WP:Original research simply means "unsourced." An editor going around removing content in a Wikipedia article when that content should be in that article and is easily verifiable can be disruptive. Laziness is not an excuse to remove unsourced information that the editor who is removing the content can easily tag as unsourced or source it on their own. Do I like people putting the WP:Burden on me when it's instead on them? No, I've been clear about that. But I've also seen how damaging removing unsourced material can be. Flyer22 (talk) 02:42, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

   What Flyer said - the verifiability policy does not mean that the material is already verified, only that it is possible to verify. There's a content creator in the legal field who is great on IP law - a real high-level subject matter expert. He writes great articles, but he's not always real good on citing his sources, especially on background material. It's not a real problem, other legal editors usually have no problem in providing cites, but there are those who only see the letter of a rule and not the spirit of the rule. They normally do not see that the material is verifiable, or, as Flyer said, are too lazy to either tag it or source it on their own. GregJackP Boomer! 05:10, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

6. Very strong oppose for the reasons discussed in my section below. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:26, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
7. Very strong oppose: To quote Newyorkbrad, "However, a rigid policy that allows any editor to delete content on the ground that it is unsourced, without restrictions or a requirement that good faith, common sense, and proportionality be applied in this as in all other areas—and by prohibiting restoring such content would be used to dictate other editors' research priorities—could thus be counterproductive and a more nuanced approach should continue to be used". The proposal would give anyone the right to remove every single unsourced statement from Wikipedia (which would be a lot) in one fell swoop, regardless of its quality or accuracy, or is genuinely disputed, or whether it improves the encyclopedia, or is in any way harmful or misleading, or any other consideration. And nobody would be allowed to revert a single one of those removals without providing an inline source. We need the ability to deliberate, interpret and evaluate situations intelligently and in context, and replacing that approach with one of increasingly dictatorial rules that permit no consideration of context would be a very bad step. Mr Potto (talk) 09:11, 20 July 2015 (UTC) PS: What makes me sad is that this whole thing has escalated from such a trivial argument about a very minor piece of content Mr Potto (talk) 09:14, 20 July 2015 (UTC) PPS: I've changed these to numbered lists to make counting easier - hope that's OK. Mr Potto (talk) 09:16, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

   What you're objecting to is already the policy here and what happens on proposal #1 isn't going to affect that one way or the other. Please see my response to Brad, below, for more detail. All that is at stake here with #1 is whether we're going to clarify that unsourced material which has already been removed for being unsourced cannot be reintroduced without a citation. As I note above, that's also already the !rule here but the "should" in this sentence makes it sound as if it's not. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:33, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

   That's what you might think the policy already says, but I don't. I see a significant semantic difference between "should" and "must", and changing one to the other is more than just clarifying. Mr Potto (talk) 13:56, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

   "Should" implies that it is only optional to add a source to content that has been challenged and restored, or that you can do it whenever you get around to it. Both suggestions are unacceptable. Challenged material doesn't come back without a citation, end of story. I've never heard of anyone going on a rampage like you describe, but if ever this fictional boogeyman becomes real then he can be handled at ANI. Hamstringing the verifiability policy by making the sourcing of contested material only a polite suggestion is the worst possible way to deal with that situation. Reyk _YO! 14:35, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

   As far as I am aware, nothing ever happened before the first time it happened. And if it should happen and policy supported it, how could ANI help? (I'm not just trying to be awkward or pedantic, and I do appreciate what's trying to be achieved here and I do support the idea of everything being sourced - I just worry that a hard-and-fast rule that any removal of unsourced material for whatever reason is absolutely forbidden from being reverted without a source could come back and bite us later.) Mr Potto (talk) 14:55, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

   As another thought, I don't see what's actually wrong with the policy as it is written and why it needs to be changed. We've had one bust-up over its use that I know of (in which two editors behaved badly, in my opinion - and bad cases don't make good law) which was easily resolved at ANI. Have there been any/many other problems that a change to the policy wording would have helped with? Mr Potto (talk) 15:05, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

   A bogeyman of pandemic proportions like Mr Potto outlines is not at all necessary for the problem he's concerned about to be serious; all it takes is one User:MegaDeletionist doing this across articles in a particular topic area, probably as part of a yet another wikiproject WP:OWN campaign, for this to be a serious issue, and that already happens frequently. In the last year alone I've quit Wikipedia for a month at a time, twice, to get away from article-after-article hounding by such people. It really doesn't matter if this or that WP:GANG of them is doing it to advance a political agenda (cf. evidence that paid agents of the government of Pakistan are warping the PoV on all Pakistan-related articles), or because of an academic-politics feud between two schools of thought within the same discipline, or (as in WP:ARBAA2) due to racist hatred between two groups, or even well-meaning but boneheaded misinterpretation of policy, and a desire to "save Wikipedia from those bent on destroying it", leading to wikiphilosophical factionalism. It's still destructive and disruptive. I !voted in support of "must" here. But as someone said elsewhere, this is a content policy, not a behavior policy (nor is it a WP:OFFICE legal commandment, I would add), so it's not unreasonable for "must" to be seen as inappropriate. Overuse of "must" in this kind of policy could lead to a direct and immediate massive spate of deletionism, if it actually changed another rule in the policy from "should" to "must" (which this doesn't). If it did, it could be an "ah HA, now I can finally cleanse the wikiworld of all that offends my eye" call to arms. But we already use "must" a few times in here for this same rule. I submit that this could be one of the proximal causes of the sort of problem I outline. But the wording in proposal #1 here won't affect that either way; it's just a conforming edit so that this wording agrees with the policy's lead. If we want to change "must" to "should" (or "must except with rare exception" or whatever, it would need to be done consistently.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:03, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

   I think that Mr Potto is correct to inquire about how common a problem is. One spectacular dispute isn't usually a good reason to change a major policy statement; it's usually just WP:CREEPy. To answer his question, it comes up often enough that User:Blueboar's threat to finally write WP:Let the Wookiee win is familiar. But it rarely results in spectacular disputes, and it doesn't usually result in difficult ones unless we have a WP:POINTy editor of the "MegaDeletionist" bent – and those usually result in a few threats and then the pointy editor getting blocked on WP:NOTHERE grounds. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:01, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

8. Oppose - unnecessarily strong. Rlendog (talk) 02:04, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
9. Oppose "Must" is overly bureaucratic and leads to bad outcomes. Even though the vandal "challenged" the statement in Finger that humans normally have five digits on each hand, we still don't need to provide an inline citation to "verify" what most three year olds can tell you. Also, editors fairly often blank "unsourced" information in leads, despite the material being well-cited in the body of the article. Finally, the statement refers to all unsourced material that is "removed". That includes section-blanking by vandals, because an unsourced section blanked by a vandal is still unsourced material that has been removed. The statement does not limit its force to removals that explicitly indicate that the material is being removed because of a lack of sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

   But why not normalize it to "must", which we're already using in the policy in a 2:1 ratio, then clarify the WP:COMMONSENSE exceptions you outline with a proposal following right on this one? That would seem a more useful outcome and process than for the policy to continue to directly contradict itself.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:38, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

   I'm not afraid of the word must in a policy, or even a guideline, which will not surprise you if you remember that I'm the person who encouraged using those words clearly at Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Content. By "clearly", I mean "using the same definition that you will find in RFC 2119": "must" is "an absolute requirement". The sentence as written (i.e., using must) means that if a vandal blanks a page, then you are absolutely required, with zero exceptions for editorial judgment, to provide inline citations for any and all unsourced material before reverting the vandalism. And if you don't actually mean to say "must", then you should say what you mean, which is "should", i.e., "there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances [such as reverting an obvious vandal or a violation of LEADCITE] to ignore a particular item [such as the general rule to assume that blanking unsourced material is a challenge and that challenges often – but not quite exactly always – need to be responded to by providing inline citations], but the full implications must be understood and carefully weighed before choosing a different course." In other words, I oppose using the word must because we do not mean it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:53, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

10. Oppose this would give too much encouragement to those who simply remove content and don't even try to reference it. ϢereSpielChequers 21:46, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
11. Oppose per WP:NOTLAW and WP:CREEP. The arbcom case demonstrates that there are editors who are not reasonable about this and would interpret such a wording in a disruptive way. Andrew D. (talk) 22:20, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
12. Oppose per this would be bad policy, NYBrad, and Andrew D. I see disruptive edits under current policy that this would make harder to address.--Elvey^(t•c) 22:40, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Neutrals/abstains:

Proposal 2 — First sentence new footnote

Supports:

1. Support Content that was deleted under VERIFY shouldn't be restored unless there is actually a source at hand to be added with it. The editor doing the restoration should have done the work of seeing what reliable sources say and re-reading the content to see if it is actually supported by the sources or needs to be modified. To me, just restoring unsourced content without bringing a source is a red flag of advocacy or ownership or other behaviors that we don't encourage. Jytdog (talk) 15:58, 16 July 2015 (UTC) (note - I would prefer if this were made more flexible per my note in the Discussion section below. I don't think something this rigid is likely to get consensus per the series of Opposes below Jytdog (talk) 16:41, 16 July 2015 (UTC))
2. Support Per Jytdog.—Kww(talk) 16:15, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
3. Support Per Jytdog as well. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 16:53, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Opposes:

1. Weak oppose as proposer. Currently implied by the existing policy, but to make it an express rule by the addition of this footnote seems unnecessarily rigid and opposed to wiki principles of assuming good faith, collaborative editing, and cooperation. TransporterMan (TALK) 14:16, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
2. Oppose Why should we stipulate that the source be included in the same edit? And are we going to accuse editors who belatedly add sourcing of disruptive editing, since doing so is not permitted under this change? If we were going to get pedantic, and I'm not saying that we should, I might stipulate that the restoration of material without a source being provided within 30 minutes may be considered a violation of this policy. DonIago (talk) 14:38, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
3. Weak oppose- IMO it's almost always desirable that the person restoring challenged material cite it immediately (ie same edit). But I recognize that sometimes it's more convenient to do it in a sequence of edits. Reyk _YO! 15:08, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
4. Strongly oppose There is not curent consensu for this standard, and editing by adding a statement and then a source is often much easier, particularly on articles using list-defined references or other indirect citation techniques. This standard might be made to apply to truly contentious content, but not to any content that was simply removed as unsupported. DES ^(talk) 16:15, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
5. Strongly oppose. Editing is already hard enough. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:30, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
6. Strong oppose unless the material is actually and genuinely contentious, which needs another discussion, not hyperbolically and theoretically contentious. E.g. Soham Murders contains a maintenance tag requesting more citations but it also contains quotes without "inline citations" such as "a 15-year-old girl admitted that she had been having sex with Huntley. Police did not pursue the case against Huntley in accordance with the girl's wishes". Now that's what I call contentious. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:45, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
7. Strong oppose, absolutely not. Too much focused on style-points rather than the end result. Too hard if this involves a string cite. GregJackP Boomer! 22:40, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
8. Oppose - Unnecessary. There is rarely urgency to require the citation to be in the same edit. A citation even a day later will almost always be perfectly fine (exceptions would generally be potentially harmful BLP material). Rlendog (talk) 02:06, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
9. Oppose: Micromanages and conflicts with WP:BOLD, WP:AGF. I don't grok why the proponent wrote and then opposed it, but whatever.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:19, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
10. Oppose per WP:NOTBURO. It's best practice, but if you need to save mid-way through an edit, then the world isn't actually going to come to an end. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:41, 21 July 2015 (UTC)#
11. Oppose Per WP:CREEP. And no footnotes, please — policies should be drafted in a simple, straightforward way; not complex legalese. Andrew D. (talk) 22:25, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Neutrals/abstains:

Proposal 3 — Second sentence clarify initial removals only

Supports:

1. Support as proposer. Actual policy is clear, but the current language can be easily misunderstood. — TransporterMan (TALK) 14:16, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
2. Weak support I guess it's a reasonable clarification, but I'm curious as to whether there've actually been any issues with the current wording. DonIago (talk) 14:38, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

   DonIago see the discussion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kww and The Rambling Man/Workshop#Fundamental policies cannot be violated based on local consensus. -- PBS (talk) 09:13, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

3. Support- Considering how many people seem to misunderstand this simple point, I think clarifying the first sentence is a good idea. Reyk _YO! 15:09, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
4. Support Again, this is how I've always read the sentence anyway.—Kww(talk) 15:31, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
5. support -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:44, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
6. Support This as well. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 16:54, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
7. Support Much clearer and doesn't actually change the meaning. There is a lot of confusion on this point (to answer DonIago), and the clarification should resolve much of it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:58, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
8. Support As can be seen in the below in the section "History of WP:PROVEIT", this change will fix a confusion in the text introduced by TheRedPenOfDoom's edit of 30 January 2014. That TheRedPenOfDoom is in favour of this change is evidence that the way some are reading this sentence is an unforeseen consequence of the 2014 edit. -- PBS (talk) 09:04, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Opposes:

1. Oppose - would prefer that this be linked in some way to a mandate that a {{cn}} tag always be preferable to removal, except in BLP cases. GregJackP Boomer! 22:44, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
2. Oppose The whole sentence is so wishy-washy that it's pointless noise.. Just get rid of the entire sentence. Andrew D. (talk) 22:29, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Neutrals/abstains:

1. Hybrid: Yes, the original wording to be replaced is worthless. The proposed wording is fine as far as it goes, but GregJackP's oppose has a point worth adapting, as: When the claim in question is not controversial (e.g. controverted on the talk page, or flagged with an actual dispute tag like {{dubious}}) it is often [not "always"] better to tag it for sourcing and leave it in. And yes, a higher standard applies to BLPs.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:28, 21 July 2015 (UTC) Changing to "support".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

   I could live with that suggestion. GregJackP Boomer! 05:26, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

   @SMcCandlish and GregJackP: Do you really feel that qualification to be necessary when the very next sentence in the current paragraph talks about that very issue, "In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step."? As I recall — which I may not, admittedly, be remembering correctly — this was a compromise between leaving any mention of cn tagging out altogther and making it a requirement before deleting unsourced material. I have no particular objections to the form proposed by SMcC, above, other than it seems kind of redundant in light of the following sentence and probably needs to be coordinated with that sentence. But in that light, this really doesn't have anything to do with the purpose of this RFC, but is introducing a new issue involving additional parts of the paragraph and, it seems to me, ought to be — if anything at all, in light of the fact that there is already something there about it — a separate RFC on those two sentences (i.e. the one to be clarified here and the one just after it) started once the current RFC concludes (so as to avoid having two concurrent RFC's trying to modify the language of the same sentence). Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:02, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

   Yes, it is absolutely necessary because there will be some idiot who will use the footnote as an excuse to gut articles, without requesting that an editor add cites. GregJackP Boomer! 16:16, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

   That doesn't address TM's point, though. How can it be "absolutely necessary" when it's covered by the next sentence in the same policy? I share your concern about what the problem is (see below), but he's right that it doesn't actually relate in any way to wording tweaks that are the subject of this proposal. And this is about sub-proposal #3, the second sentence. The footnote is sub-proposal #2, which is clearly not going to gain consensus, so your "idiot who will use the footnote" rationale will not actually apply. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

   (ec) Good point, TM; I'd forgotten the later context. The problem with the follow-on material is it is too wishy-washy and is basically just ignored with impunity. Deletionists (or, worse, POV-pushers trying to manipulate an article in a non-neutral direction) do not give a rat's ass what "some editors prefer", and they will not at all "consider" tagging. They have a right to delete anything they feel is unsourced or improperly sourced (or even, in the second scenario, that they think they can get away with casting doubt on the sourcing of, or delete the "bad" sources for), see?. But you're right that this is a separate issue to resolve, and how to determine when/what to tag vs. delete isn't trivial. I also don't want to come off as some rabid inclusionist trying to keep unsourced material. I'm quite the opposite. Where I'm coming from is: A) people deleting common knowledge and uncontroversial claims, reducing an easily sourceable article to a smoldering ruin of a stub, or deleting actual citations because they don't like the source; and B) sneaky WP:CIVILPOV-pushers skewing articles step by step until they bear little relation to reality other than the idiosyncratic one inside their own heads. The latter is by far the more severe and prominent problem. A third related issue is C) the "vengeance" editor; you cross them once, and they spend days, weeks, even longer undoing your work across a lot of articles, by raising bullshitty source veracity claims that probably no third party will bother to challenge, demanding sources for basic definitions and word usage, putting multiple cn tags in the same sentence, etc., etc., in a "I'm going to bury you" campaign of wreckage that has nothing to do with the actual content of the article. We need some kind of tighter rubric for when to delete and when to tag, and how to tag in a non-disruptive way, and for dealing with questionable-faith tagging and deletion. It needs to be in this policy, or the answer will always be "that's just in some guideline; WP:V is policy and it says I can delete any unsourced or improperly sourced material I want to". But, yeah, that's a separate proposal or RfC.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

I don't have a dog in the hunt happening over at ARBCOM, but I'm seeing enough disagreement over how the !rules here are to be interpreted and/or applied, both there and above, that I think it appropriate for the community to have a chance at clarifying them for ongoing purposes. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:43, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Using "must" implies a behavioural rather than content policy, does it not? As a matter of implemntation clarity, how would a good faith editor coming afresh to an article be expected to know that the removed assertion was in fact previously removed? Are we to expect editors to search article history before boldly adding text, or are deleting editors now to leave hidden comments to the effect that statement "S" was removed pending a reliable source? LeadSongDog come howl! 16:09, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

All behavioural policies involve some level of judgement as to the consequences, and some reasonable expectation that the editor was aware of the policy he was violating when he did so. An experienced editor reverting an edit with an edit summary saying "unsourced" would be expected to understand that, while an inexperienced editor or an editor including information that was challenged and removed at some hazy point in the past would not.—Kww(talk) 16:14, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I wouldn't ding an editor for re-adding unsourced material unless they were the editor who initially added it. DonIago (talk) 16:16, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Or could be shown to know it had been disputed. Otherwise, tag-teaming would be a problem.—Kww(talk) 16:32, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Although it should be noted that we should support editors who have pledged to find sources and add them in due course. Particularly if they have a track record of exemplary sourcing of articles. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:41, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Sure. If an editor wants to replace an originally-unsourced statement I'm happy to work with them (provided they're being civil about it) as long as it doesn't turn into a vaguely-worded "Well, I'll provide a source later..." At that point I default to "You're welcome to add the information when you have the source available." DonIago (talk) 19:10, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Ok, so you would not advocate the continual removal of such unsourced statements if an editor has suggested that they will provide sources if given time to do so? And yes, not "unreasonable" time, like a week or whatever... The Rambling Man (talk) 19:20, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

It could become very circumstance-dependent. "Hi, my bad on the unsourced statement, I'll provide a reference within the next two hours," is a far cry from, "Stop screwing with my edits you douchenozzle, I'll add a source eventually." I am, as one might reasonably expect I think, more inclined to give leeway to the former than the latter. Communication in such situations is vital, and all parties should try to bear in mind that (hopefully) everyone ultimately wants what's best for the article.

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but maybe we need a "citation pending" template for circumstances where editors are making an effort to provide sources but need more time, with caveats such as that it can't be used in a BLP situation and that it only applies for...I dunno...48 hours or such. DonIago (talk) 19:58, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Interesting idea. If it actually wrapped the content, it could be made to hide the content by bot addition of a | parameter after the time ran out.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:53, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it's definitely interesting, but I don't know whether it's good. My questions would be a) whether it's possible to have it (with automation to automatically hide the material once the time-limit expires), and b) whether there would be a consensus here (and possibly on a larger scale) to allow such a thing. I would be firmly opposed to such a template without an automatic time-limit, as, AGF notwithstanding, I would have serious concerns about editors using this template to avoid providing a source and then for one reason or another not getting around to ever actually providing one. DonIago (talk) 02:35, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

(ec ×5) I concur that WP:TAGTEAMing "would be" (frequently is) a problem (I got into this in detail in a later thread). The frequency with which Tweedle Dee reverts deletion of Tweedle Dum's unsourced or improperly sourced POV nonsense because they're both working the same agenda, must surely greatly exceed the frequency with which which Mr Destructive deletes uncontroversial material to make a point, and another good faith editor is certain that reverting the deletion to restore the unsourced material is the correct thing to do.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:49, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I could see an edit summary pointing at a valid source as a placeholder while formatting was going on.—Kww(talk) 16:46, 16 July 2015 (UTC)* On the footnote about adding it back with a ref. As stated it is a bit extreme and rigid. I would be happier with the footnote including something a bit more flexible, yet still clear about the obligation, like " And the edit restoring the material must also contain the citation or a citation must be included very shortly after the restoration; restoring the material and later providing thewithout providing a citation is not allowed." Please note that the clause after the semicolon takes the immediacy out, but leaves the statement of obligation on the restore-er very clear. Jytdog (talk) 16:39, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Concur. That would probably obviate quite a number of disputes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:50, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

"Inline citation"

Just a quickie, while we debate the timing of the inclusion of sources, there needs to be a clear definition of inline citation, as currently we don't seem to have one: On Wikipedia, an inline citation refers to a citation in a page's text placed by any method that allows the reader to associate a given bit of material with specific reliable source(s) that support it. The most common methods are numbered footnotes and parenthetical citations within the text, but other forms are also used on occasion. Inline citations are often placed at the end of a sentence or paragraph. Some editors/admins interpret that as "the citation must be placed directly after the element being cited" while others suggest "as long as it's obvious to the normally competent reader that this is cited by the nearby citation, it's fine". But the guidance is clear: but other forms are also used on occasion. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:26, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

The most common case where I find that to be a problem is sourcing tables where someone provides multiple sources for a table and the sources overlap. Pedantic bastard that I am, even I don't have a problem with a table sourced to "Oscar source" and "Grammy source" in the head and a bunch of rows related to Grammies and another bunch of rows related to Oscars. I do have a problem with "Chicago Tribune as a source", "New York Times as a source", and a table full of entries that it's inobvious which row is represented by which source.—Kww(talk) 18:42, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Nevertheless, your opinion notwithstanding, it is necessary for us to allow our readers some intelligence and if entries in a table are sourced from one place, a source at the top of the section is allowable per " but other forms are also used on occasion". The only reason this becomes a problem for you is when you declare an award nomination without a "direct inline citation" to be contentious, despite weighty evidence against it. You exercise your right to remove said "contentious material" (which is, to most of us, in no way contentious at all) and then exercise your right to claim that editors are directly attempting to bring Wikipedia down via BLP violations. Surely you understand that Wikipedia will never be brought down by a misplaced critics' award, more likely it'll be destroyed by someone claiming someone raped somebody. Contentious is subjective, but I think you're way off on your interpretation, as do most of the community. Plus there's no such word as "inobvious", not in real English. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:51, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

If this were a paper, permanent presentation, a single cite at the top that could be verified and we go on would be OK. However, since Wikipedia is a dynamic and multi-edited, the single source on top no longer verifies the three extra items that were added by a newbie fan who doesnt know or doesnt care to follow policies. Now an editor or reader unless they have a didactic memory must go and re-verify each and every element of the table to find which are in fact supported by the source at the top, and which are not. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:15, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Because this is easily resolvable by recourse to edit history, it's not a serious problem. If a single paragraph cited to one source gets interpolated material added in later with no source, someone else can joggle the material or the citations around, and either source or {{fact}}-tag the unsourced addition without much trouble. I do this myself frequently on the articles I watchlist, if the unsourced additions seem uncontroversial and likely to be sourceable (I also often just source them, after adding and saving a fact tag; it's not pointy, but way to insert into the edit history an annotation that a particular editor added unsourced material).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:46, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

It is only "easily resolvable" by an experienced editor if not too many edits have occured between the time improper edits were made by the time you choose to try to verify it. It is NOT easily resolvable if there have been dozens or hundreds of edits since the inappropriate material was snuck in nor is it easy for most readers and we certainly should not be expecting them to do work that is easily preventable by having specific in line citations rather than "top of the table". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 05:23, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Don't want to stick my nose in here, but may I suggest that this isn't a productive line of conversation? DonIago (talk) 19:10, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

It would be constructive if we could understand the purpose of the phrase "contentious". I.e. does it relate to obscure film critic awards or accusations of rape? Is it somewhere in the middle? Is it absolutely everything that's unreferenced, so remove "contentious" altogether and just say "anything unreferenced should be removed"? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:19, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I've followed some of the discussion about differing interpretations of "contentious". My view, for whatever it's worth, has been that when editors start arguing about it, it becomes contentious even if it was not previously so. WP:BRD may not be policy, but I think it's often best practice, and as I said above, in these types of situations especially communication becomes very important. I admit I tend towards a deletionist view on these sorts of matters, but I don't think anything unreferenced should be removed. I would prefer that to "you're welcome to add unsourced information as long as you eventually provide a source, if you think one is necessary", though, if it were to come to that. For a good time, check out Talk:Synchronous motor. Or, better, don't. DonIago (talk) 19:58, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

That's an invitation to WP:GAMING, though, and gaming of this sort is already a noteworthy problem; has been for a long time. It's this game: User:POVmonster: "I'm deleting this controversial material"; [deletes obviously non-controversial material, to warp the article's neutrality or factuality]; User:FaithAllGood: "there's nothing contentious about this - we don't need to 'cite sources that the sky is blue'; if you can identify a specific problem with it, please do so on the talk page" [restores of the questionably deleted material]; POVmonster: "I'm hereby controverting it, sthus it is now 'controversial'. I win." [reverts to skewed version].  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:42, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

To paraphrase SCOTUS, I know it when I see it. There's no need to come up with a strict technical definition of the term. Material may be even contentious due to context, so it's best handled on a case-by-case basis with some common sense, but to me "contentious" basically means "something someone objected to, that happens to be unsourced or poorly sourced". §FreeRangeFrog^croak 20:00, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

An inline citation is one in the prose put there (in good faith, of course, not randomly) to cite something specific (at least at the section level, paragraph would be better, sentence or even term even better), versus tacked on at the end as a "general reference". We don't need to be any more specific than that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:30, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, thank you for clarifying that a citation placed within a section can be classed as an "inline" citation. The Rambling Man (talk) 04:57, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

That said, TheRedPenOfDoom has a valid point, generally speaking. We should probably have an actual clarification, if not in this policy then in a relevant guideline, that a citation for a source or two at the top of a list/table works well only for lists/tables that are complete, or the future expansion of which will be done with the then-current versions of the same source[s] (e.g. lists of winners of an award, lists of species in a genus, lists of albums by a band, etc.). For lists/tables that are likely grow in other ways, it is better to source each entry individually. A bunch of cases in point where this conflict has arisen, in ways that strike me as inanely bureaucratic, can be seen (for now) at the top of WT:BIRDS. A number of Featured Lists of bird species are being delisted (and this seems to be the tail end of a long stream of these delistsings) primarily on the basis of "no inline citations" by which the delister actually means "no duplicate inline citations for each entry". Every entry in the list is sourced to the same one or two alphabetical bird catalogues, so sourcing each one would be a big pile of reader-annoying (and tedious to insert) redundant citations. The only actual sourcing issue is that a couple of them also cite another source or two for a handful of taxonomic changes that post-date the main sources, and those needs to be inline on the specific entries. But they'll get delisted anyway.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:42, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Your question is better covered by reading the guidance in the sections WP:INLINECITE and WP:INTEGRITY. A citation placed within a section can be classed as an "inline" citation is usually not adequate if it does not meet WP:INTEGRITY. For example at 20:27, 20 July 2015 the article Karl Mack von Leiberich did not have any inline citations. I added them. If I had only added one per section it would not have been adequate because although the section "French Revolutionary Wars" could be adequately covered with one citation (because it consist of only one paragraph), the section "War of the Third Coalition" needed more. -- PBS (talk) 11:34, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Sure. The issue is that there are editors who think it's impermissible to do it even in the case where one citation is enough. They will demand a sentence-by-sentence or even sub-sentence level citation, just "because". I'm a big fan, actually, of such on-the-very-spot citations where they are helpful (e.g. the material is complex, is likely to attract new detail insertions, and/or includes any controversial, editwarred-about, or specificity-dependent technical terminology. I tend to use them even when it's not terribly important to do so, since I have no way to predict how the article will develop later. But it's just foolhardy to insist others do it when it's not needed [yet]. This could probably be balanced out by requiring that anyone who insist on citation specificity that particular, when INTEGRITY does not presently demand it, has to do it themselves.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:42, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I used to edit a lot of controversial pages, but I have never come across the behaviour you are describing. I have come across demands that some specific sentences in an article are separately footnoted, often in the lead and often because the POV of the sentence was disproved of by the person asking for the citation, but I have never come across demands for unreasonable levels of footnoting through the majority of the text in such articles. In your opinion which is the article where requests for citations is/was most pedantic and unreasonable. -- PBS (talk) 06:44, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Working on a proposal 4 (less "inline citation")

If the subtitle caught you attention, good, but let me make clear I 'love' inline citation. That said, I am reading couple things from the ivotes, and I think we could get consensus on a "middler" path: 1) keep requiremment for "inline citation" for all quotes; 2) make the requirement for challenged and likely to be challenged a "must" "citation" (linked) - that's the less part. Let's face it, inline citation has techincal and tedium difficulty for many would be editors, but let's still honor 'say where they got it' somewhere in the article even if it is a bare url at the end (or in the wrong place). As for unclear or vandalism removals then revert and discuss (vandals don't discuss and BRD kicks in otherwise - 'where's the source' is still the burden of somone who wants challenged article content in the article) - (on a tagential note, we really would solve much, and raise the quality of our talk pages, if we would get talk page participants to get to, as quickly as possible, 'what's the proposed content?' and 'what's the source?' - that way there is less waste of time and less other problems). Finally, I think it is important to remember, we are supporting people to study subjects themselves, not take Wikipedia's word for it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:56, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

History of WP:PROVEIT

Up until 22 October 2010‎ there was a section called "Burden of evidence".

Burden of evidence 22 October 2010

The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. The source should be cited clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate, and must clearly support the material as presented in the article. Drawing inferences from multiple sources to advance a novel position is prohibited by the no original research policy. If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed. How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources yourself that support such material, and cite them. Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, and do not move it to the talk page. References

During 22 October 2010 it split into two sections called "Anything challenged or likely to be challenged" and "Burden of evidence". This division was a not considerd to be desirable the section was recombined Revision as of 14:00, 20 September 2012.

There were large chages after an RfC at 08:25, 20 October 2012 After which the section contained:

Burden of evidence 20 October 2012

The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing reliable sources that directly support the material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. The source should be cited clearly and precisely (specifying page, section, or such divisions as may be appropriate) and must clearly support the material as presented in the article. See Citing sources for details of how to do this. Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed. Whether and how quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step. When tagging or removing material for being uncited or insufficiently sourced, please indicate that you have a concern that the material itself is unverifiable. If you believe the material to be verifiable, then it is better to provide sourcing yourself, instead of removing the material. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources yourself that support such material, and cite them. Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living people, and do not move it to the talk page. You should also be aware of how the BLP policy applies to groups. References

The wording "without an inline citation to a reliable source" was added to the preceding sentence on 30 Jan. 2014 by TheRedPenOfDoom. Before that the two sentences were:

Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed. Whether and how quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article.

It is clear from this that the second sentence was written to complement the first half of the current sentence. TheRedPenOfDoom when you made that edit, was it your intention was that in future the second sentence should apply to both phrases or that it was to remain a comment to cover only the first half? I ask because there is nothing in the talk page archives to indicate that was your intention that the inserted phrase was to be interpreted to mean that, contrary to previous understanding, that a gap (other than as "a series of consecutive edit" per the definition of WP:3RR) between restoration of text and the addition of inline citations was to be acceptable. -- PBS (talk) 11:34, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I have introduced a this history section to this debate, to help clarify that why those who have known about WP:PROVEIT for several years, interpret the sentence "Whether and how quickly..." differently from some of those who are only familiar with the wording since TheRedPenOfDoom made an edit to the preceding sentence on 30 Jan. 2014. I think that the history shows that those--such as Guy Macon here at 23:49/50, 15 July 2015-- who are interpreting "Whether and how quickly..." to mean it allows for time to lapse between restoring text and adding sources after a restoration, are not familiar with the history of the development of the sentences and the conversations on the talk page about the sentences, and are consequently through no fault of their own are drawing inferences from the text that the authors of the text are not implying. -- PBS (talk) 11:34, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

My addition to the body was to specify in the section that is linked to by WP:BURDEN the requirements that have long been outlined in the lead. " All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material."-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:36, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Closure

It appears to me that the handwriting is pretty clear on the wall that participation here has faded away and that the results are pretty clear:

• Proposal 1 - Failed due to no consensus.
• Proposal 2 - Failed due to consensus for "oppose."
• Proposal 3 - Adopted due to consensus for "support."

I'm hereby proposing an early closure with that result. Any opposition? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:20, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Verifiability, sourcing, proportionality, and common sense

(Note: This is adapted from some comments I recently made on the workshop page of an arbitration case, but is of much broader applicability and relevant to the discussion above so I am cross-posting it here.)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia created for the use of its readers, as well as a collaborative project among its editors. Wikipedia is relied upon by millions of members of the general public to provide them with information across all fields of human knowledge. The value of Wikipedia to its readers derives in large measure from the accuracy and reliability of its content. All editors have a responsibility to ensure that content they add is accurate, and to question, modify, or remove content that is inaccurate or misleading.

It would be unreasonable to expect Wikipedia (or any reference source) to be infallible. Nonetheless, the usefulness and reputation of our encyclopedia in the eyes of our readers are undermined when articles are shown to contain false information. Comment by Arbitrators:Comment by parties:Comment by others: Proposed. Wikipedia can accumulate inaccurate content owing to a number of different causes, spanning the gamut from good-faith errors to outright hoaxes. (For further thoughts on this subject, if interested, please see the second half of my book review my book review here.) For what it is worth, in my capacity as a Wikipedia reader, I have found Wikipedia content to be accurate far more often than not—but there are times I have personally been affected by inaccuracies, such as the time I was embarrassed at a professional conference by the error I reported here, or the time I spent an hour trying to track down an apparently nonexistent book as I discussed here.

In principle, all content on Wikipedia beyond the level of common knowledge and self-evident statements should ideally be supported with citations to reliable sources. Providing sources for factual assertions serves several purposes, including (1) ensuring that editors have verified the accuracy of their contributions, (2) allowing other editors or readers to detect inaccurate or questionable assertions, and (3) leading readers to further information on topics of interest to them.

Policy already permits editors to remove unsourced information from articles, to add "citation needed" tags where sourcing is missing or inadequate, or to raise concerns about sourcing on the talkpages of articles. Which of these alternatives, if any, should be utilized in a given instance is a matter of sound editorial judgment that probably can never be encapsulated in a bright-line policy or rule. Also a matter for editorial judgment is the optimal "granularity" of sourcing, e.g., whether a source footnote should appear after every assertion or every sentence in the article, or whether sources should be collected at somewhat less frequent intervals.

However, in practice, it is impracticable for each and every factual assertion across the five million articles of the English Wikipedia to be accompanied by a citation to a specific source. In the short term, achieving such a goal would be impossible because many articles, of otherwise satisfactory quality, were drafted when policy and practice placed less emphasis on sourcing than they do today. Even in the longer term, it is not clear that every assertion or sentence in every article would optimally be accompanied by a citation footnote.

In theory, a sizable portion of Wikipedia's current content could be challenged as "unsourced" or "insufficiently sourced" and tagged or removed. That is true even as to numerous factual assertions whose truth no one questions, which could be (and eventually should be) sourced, and which in fact are correct (and in many cases obviously so). Taking this approach across the encyclopedia could result in removing large amounts of valuable content without an offsetting benefit in increased accuracy. It could also, if done in bad faith, be subject to gaming.

It is necessary to prioritize from among all of Wikipedia's currently unsourced or insufficiently sourced content, determining which content should be removed outright, which should be tagged for sourcing improvement (followed by actual improvement of the sourcing, as opposed to an indefinitely languishing tag), and which should be left alone.

The community has developed some priorities in this area. One priority is enforcement of the policy on biographies of living persons, which emphasizes the importance of appropriate sourcing in biographical articles because of the effect false or otherwise inappropriate article content could have on the article subjects. It also is generally agreed, as a matter of common sense, that removing or questioning content whose accuracy is actually doubtful or subject to dispute, is more useful that removing or questioning content as to whose accuracy there is no real doubt. However, a rigid policy that allows any editor to delete content on the ground that it is unsourced, without restrictions or a requirement that good faith, common sense, and proportionality be applied in this as in all other areas—and by prohibiting restoring such content would be used to dictate other editors' research priorities—could thus be counterproductive and a more nuanced approach should continue to be used. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:35, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

There is no "dictating" of others research priorities other than the editor themself. If they choose to prioritize finding a source to restore unsourced content that has been removed that is their choice. Or they could choose to work on something else and leave the unsourced content out of the article. That is also their choice. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:00, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) NYB, thank you for that thoughtful essay. However, the rigid policy to which you object has already been established here and has been successfully defended against change again and again, over many repeated bloody battles, here on this talk page. I'm one of the defenders — it's the primary reason I watchlist and monitor this page — but, as strange as it may seem for someone who is such a stalwart defender of that policy, I only occasionally delete unsourced information and, indeed, am very tolerant of otherwise-good-seeming articles which sometimes have vast stretches of unsourced material (and that's particularly true for non-BLP popular culture articles). Why? Because I think that a rule which doesn't allow such removals sets up a situation where information which really does need to be removed cannot be removed without risking being sanctioned. Such a rule would chill the process of verification which is the source of reliability for the encyclopedia. I would suggest that the problems which you describe can be handled — perhaps not simply or easily, but handled — through the conduct processes here at WP whereas an opposite rule, in effect, provides a practical presumption that uncited information can stay until it is absolutely and utterly proven to be unverifiable or bogus. Since we don't have an editorial board to make decisions about content (which is not a complaint, but simply an observation), verifiability though citations is our only bulwark supporting reliability and, equally important, the only way end users can be sure that what they're reading is reliable. Having said that, there are a couple of areas which are problematic. First, editors who habitually or systematically remove unsourced information over a range of articles but do nothing to seek sources for the information they remove or, generally, to improve articles. It's my feeling that such editors can be sanctioned for habitually or systematically not following best practices, since clearly the best practice — established by this policy — is ordinarily to seek sources, not merely delete, and an editor who systematically or habitually fails to follow best practices is NOTHERE. Second, and one which is harder to resolve, is the editor who removes vast swaths of unsourced information from a single article simply because it is unsourced. That often happens without controversy, I would note, following a failed, but contested, AFD bid. It happens more controversially when it's just done off the cuff. I have (I think; it's been awhile) proposed changes to V to deal with both of those changes, but the proposals got no traction. I suspect that the feeling was that they were niche problems and adding more to V to deal with them would be rule creep. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:25, 17 July 2015 (UTC) PS: And let me also note that the edit war/3RR policy puts a cap on ordinary controversies arising out of this policy. — TransporterMan (TALK) 15:29, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Pretty much as TransporterMan says. I don't know where Arbcom was while this policy was evolving, but the mandate for immediate inline sourcing has been there for years. If people want to change it, I can understand that, but that doesn't impact what it is today.—Kww(talk) 18:00, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Other than the timing of edits, the definition of "contentious", the definition of "inline citation" and making calamitous judgement errors accusing editors of deliberately attempting to destroy Wikipedia, you're spot on. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:51, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Transporterman and Kww. Obviously it's impossible to patrol every unsourced statement on Wikipedia. But the fact that anyone can challenge any unsourced claim at any time tends to keep writers on their toes, and keeps the standard of verifiability higher. I oppose any attempt to restrict challenges to times and subjects that writers find personally convenient. Reyk _YO! 20:17, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Or to provide a "senior content creator license" that allows some editors to violate WP:BURDEN while denying the privilege to others.—Kww(talk) 20:30, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

That's called "good faith". After all, why not block an editor of ten years standing who spends his entire Wikipedia career asking for sources? And why not compare his actions to those of an IP who turns up to actually harm Wikipedia? And why not ignore the various articles that are full of genuine contentious BLP violations, including rape accusations, and focus on allegedly misplaced film award items. That's the crux. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:59, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

(ec) We already have too much of a "senior content creator" problem, or WP:OWN and WP:VESTED would not have been written. But it doesn't have anything to do with whether someone is inserting citations fast enough during their marathon sourcing spree; that's close to utterly irrelevant to the issue. It's really about point-of-view control over articles and entire topic areas (especially through WP:CIVILPOV but it's often not too civil), and that's coming almost entirely out of wikiprojects that increasingly flagrantly violate WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy. I say "almost" because a review of WP:RFARB and WP:AE archives (when they're not improperly meddling in internal governance matters and wrecking what little separation of powers WP has) shows plenty of it going on with other forms of WP:FACTION, and deeply involving WP:V/WP:RS matters in virtually every case; there was a Signpost article back in March, I think, showing we have external evidence that the government of Pakistan has pro editors constantly manipulating all the articles about that country.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:32, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

To address a point by TranporterMan: 'editors can be sanctioned for habitually or systematically not following best practices, since clearly the best practice — established by this policy — is ordinarily to seek sources, not merely delete'. Nice in theory, but I see no evidence of this in practice. "Can be" vs. "will be" sanctioned is a very wide gap. What really seems to happen is they edit like mad "productively" on topics of narrow, obscure interest, but when crossed will revert-war, sometimes in an email-coordinated tagteam to skirt 3RR, against their "enemies" making good-faith edits at a wikiproject-OWNed topic area, and crossing over into others that don't agree with "their" articles. Any action sought against them goes nowhere because they're pursuing deletion of "unsourced" material (often material that is sourced but about which they make bogus source reliability complaints, and which is competing with material they festoon with citations that do not actually say what they claim – anything they can think of to WP:FILIBUSTER changes they don't like). It's their "right" under policy to delete the "unsourced" material, see? Plus, their edit histories indicate what productive editors they are, and they're "prominent leaders" of a wikiproject, have some FAs, and spend a lot of time at ANI "helping", so nothing wrong could possibly be going on.

A major enabler of this WP:GAMING system is the scattered nature of these policies. If someone refuses to balance WP:V with WP:COMMONSENSE, you basically have to take them to ANI (where it's unlikely anyone will side with you - "We're supposed to delete unsourced material! Are you nuts?"); all because the policy doesn't just plainly state "This doesn't mean you can delete everything you see that's unsourced or imperfectly sourced, and focus on deleting content (generally, in any particular topic, or of any particular editors' contributions). See WP:COMMONSENSE." We've really got to get over this "tradition" that we never need mention a policy point again when it's already been mentioned somewhere on one of the 100 pages few really seem to read much less understand but will lecture you about. I've started making edits of this sort, a little here and a little there (e.g. adding "If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, see if a rewrite can make the issue moot" to MOS's lead), but we need a lot more of it. Every policy and guideline should probably mention WP:COMMONSENSE prominently until it become re-ingrained as meaningful on WP.

PS: Some of us are very, very averse to ANI, AE, and other noticeboards due to a history of being patently abused at them by involved admins, with no recourse (that's cost us a lot of good editors), or simply an allergy to psychodrama; I like my bloodpressure below life-threatening levels. "See a problem? Take it to ANI!" is not a solution for everyone, especially since many of "inviolable right-to-delete" types I'm talking about hold grudges indefinitely, and will emerge from the process unscathed anyway. The editing pool is shrinking enough that it becomes harder and harder to avoid friction with some of these people, so using ANI as a go-to place will make you so many haters you may as well retire now. There's just no up side. These are not trivial problems.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:32, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

As I noted in my long posting above, I think we ought to have a footnote or something here to address serial-article and single-article mass deletions of unsourced information and I've tried (I think, it's been awhile; it might have just been an "Anyone interested?" inquiry during another discussion) to get one in, with no success. I'd be willing to try again, but I'd strongly prefer to get through the current RFP first. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:08, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• I have often been tempted to write an essay called "WP:Let the wookie win" - about how to react when someone challenges unsourced information in an article that you are working on. In essence, the point of my essay be to remind people that when some bit of information is challenged and removed... you have two choices as to how to react: a) spend a few minutes to locate a source, format a citation, and return the information to the article with that citation (thus ending the challenge)... or b) spend hours and hours debating whether a source is really needed, who is responsible for finding it, and how long they have to do this. My essay would strongly recommend the first option... because that option takes far less time and effort, and costs far less in terms of angst and frustration. In other words... don't try to fight a challenge - doing so will just end up with everyone getting more upset. Blueboar (talk) 13:47, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

@Blueboar: Ooh, such an essay would be of considerable value (catchy evocative title that gets the point across instantly, too), though I'm not sure it would address the behaviors I outlined above. And there are others. There's a great deal of WP:GAMING available in the gap between the instruction to not plagiarize, but rewrite accurately in your own words, and the rule that every claim must be sourced. It's gameable because every clause of every statement can be interpreted as a separate "claim"; even the use of this adjective or verb vs. that one can be challenged as a "claim". The "mega-wookies" do this constantly, because it's essentially impossible to source one's own anti-copyvio rewording of what the source says, ANI is unlikely to tell them they are acting in bad faith for raising interpretational "concerns" about any particular wording unless they've been at ANI for such filibustering a dozen times in the last year, and letting them win emboldens them, validating that they are on the one true path to winning the Wikipedia hi score. Just documenting at such a catchy essay (under ==Don't be a wookie== ?) why the gaming as I outlined here and in the post above is disruptive, could go a long way to curtailing it, since it gives other editors a shortcut to use (WP:WOOKIE is fortuitously available).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:31, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I believe that Blueboar's essay will completely ignore GAMING and say this instead: Arguing about whether that sentence needs a source will waste days, if not weeks. Citing a source will probably take mere minutes. So just cite it, roll your eyes in private, and move on. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Related to the this section was a simultaneous Arbitration Committee (Arbcom) case. The opinions expressed by the committee on this issued can be found in the section Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kww and The Rambling Man/Proposed decision#Restoring unsourced material. The proposal: "Restoring unsourced material that is uncontroversial and non-negative to a BLP article in one edit is not a violation of BLP as long as subsequent edits provide adequate sourcing." was rejected by seven to two with three abstentions. However the nuances of the arguments presented (which come down to reasonableness and good faith) need to be read to understand the reasons for the rejection, and that the committee were not as divided on the issue as may appear to be the case from simple vote counting. -- PBS (talk) 14:45, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Academic urban legends and citations

Hey folks! I found this article published in Social Studies of Science exploring the history of one claim through multiple citations. It's a good read for anyone who has tracked down errors in published sources when writing a wikipedia article and I think it might be a neat addition to further reading or the notes. Since I'm not a regular editor of this policy page, I'd rather leave it here and ask the rest of the community for their thoughts. Thanks. Protonk (talk) 12:57, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

It would be good to have a link to this; it's quite a story, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in our verifiability policies as a cautionary tale. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:37, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Section for Nonspecific sources?

Is there, or can/should there be, a section or line that discusses {{Nonspecific}} citations? For example, I have come across statements that are cited with just CNN [www.cnn.com www.cnn.com] or LA Times [www.latimes.com www.latimes.com]. In actuality these statements should be cited to an actual article, not just the homepage of the news agency. Would be great to have a WP:Nonspecific link... --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 18:17, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Note that there is a piece of previous consensus is this regard at WP:DEEPLINK. I do not disagree that it should be mentioned in WP:V, but people tend to habitually oppose every improvement to this page, so you may find it easier to just point to WP:DEEPLINK.--Anders Feder (talk) 18:25, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

There's a template that can be used to indicate the problem: {{Bad linked references}}. As an in-line template I suppose {{Full citation needed}} can be used, containing a link to WP:CITEHOW (where there's a subsection on webpages used as citation). {{Nonspecific}} exists, but is for vaguely formulated article content not even having a citation.

A similar issue (regarding citations to the homepage of Google Books) came up here: Wikipedia:Bot requests#Cleanup of "naked" Google Books? --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

RfC closure challenge: Template talk:Cite doi#RfC: Should Template:cite doi cease creating a separate subpage for each DOI?

Please take part in the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#RfC closure challenge: Template talk:Cite doi#RfC: Should Template:cite doi cease creating a separate subpage for each DOI? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:12, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

DVD & Blu-ray technology

All DVD & Blu-ray technology is unverifiable because the specifications are proprietary, requiring a payment and completion of a non-disclosure contact, therefore, all DVD & Blu-ray subjects in Wikipedia should be removed. --MarkFilipak (talk) 02:13, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Pardon, but actually, "freely accessible without effort" is not a criterium in verifiability. Sources you need to pay for are still valid sources for the purposes of this policy (-->WP:SOURCEACCESS).Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:22, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus is right about sources requiring payment being citable in Wikipedia, but sources that require signing a non-disclosure agreement to see are not published, and so cannot be used to support claims in an article. But I suspect enough published sources can be found to write articles about DVD and Blu-ray technology. Jc3s5h (talk) 11:36, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

The technical sections of DVD & Blu-ray subjects are full of bogus information, "facts" of the most grossly speculative sort. What is written cannot be challanged by informed people without either breaking copyright law or causing a war in the subject entry pages or both. I'm an engineer and I can assure you that the information there is of the poorest quality. Most of the errors are the result of notions that have a certain internal consistency and have therefore achieved a sort of community conscensus, but that are nonetheless wrong; not simply wrong in fact, but wrong in fundamental ways. Sources requiring non-disclosure are and should be ineligible, but that leaves only information that has been leaked to other "sources" that can be cited. Such clandestine information, while accurate, has no currency against the notions that are flawed and therefore cannot stand up to them, especially when such notions are based on popular misconceptions that are internally consistent and easier to understand than are the actual facts. Visitors reading technical articles about DVDs & Blu-rays have no way to differentiate between the accurate and the bogus because both are unsupported. The Wikipedia model of universal editing simply does not work in the case of proprietary knowledge subject to non-disclosure. Such articles should be removed altogether or they should be operated as a user forum within the wiki with one or more moderators who are recognized subject-authorities. The current situation is intollerable and getting worse. --MarkFilipak (talk) 15:55, 10 September 2015 (UTC)