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Section parameter: specific proposal

This is based on the suggestion in Section Parameter above. Please add agree, disagree, or half agree if you only agree with one of the two suggestions.

(1) Add a new optional parameter, the word "section", which causes the message to read "This section..." rather than "This article...", and which adds the article is to Category:Articles needing additional references (or its monthly date-sorted subcategories) rather than Category:Articles lacking sources (or its monthly date-sorted subcategories). This would make {{unreferenced|section}} do the same thing as {{unreferencedsection}}. This is proposed to reflect the reality that people use {{unreferenced|section}} with this intent; it could be argued that they shouldn't, but they do, making it harder for people who make use of the categories.

(2) Remove the description field. All it does is change the wording in the messagebox, and it seems very rarely used except as the word "section," which would be reinterpreted by (1). By removing support for the field, the template will still work if there is a description, it will just ignore it, with the message reading "This article...." Retaining this field makes the documentation and the template code that much longer and more complicated.

-Agyle 21:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• I am pretty sure in the last few weeks User:Rich Farmbrough added the description field and tried get the categories to sort based on the section parameter. You might talk to him about this. Jeepday (talk) 13:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The description field is from an April 2006 change (I went through the history a couple days ago :-), but I'll contact Rich; thanks! -Agyle 00:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a general tendency in the clean-up templates¹ to have default parameter 1 replace the words "article or section" - this can be used with more than just the words "article" or "section" - "table" and "figure" spring to mind. There is no reason that this field cannot be evaluated to select the categor: at the moment I can't think of anything other than "article" that would not cause it to be re-categorized, so this could be the default, if the argument is present.

Rich Farmbrough, 10:16 13 October 2007 (GMT). 1: Note:Some that do not are hang-overs from when parameter 1 was the date

Alternatively/additionally SmackBot could change those templates with the section parameter to unrefsect. Rich Farmbrough, 10:20 13 October 2007 (GMT).

I don't see a problem with smackbot changing "unreferenced|section" to "unrefsect". I believe Bridgett suggested something similar a few days ago. Any thing like ""unreferenced|table" would probably need manual review though. Jeepday (talk) 15:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Building this list as I go along

Values found:

• article -> removing this - most common.
• biography
• companies
• section -> moving to {{Unreferencedsection}}

Rich Farmbrough, 18:06 13 October 2007 (GMT).

When removing the article, also remove the pipe. But you probably already thought of that. Jeepday (talk) 19:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd still prefer adding a section parameter, rather than using a bot to change the template, but it doesn't make a big difference. My general thinking is it would be easier for editors to learn fewer templates with greater flexibility, and unreferenced and unreferencedsection are so closely related that it's a reasonable combination to allow unreferenced to do either.

I do agree now that the description field should be kept. Its main use in other cleanup templates seems to be to use the word "section", to change "This article..." or "This article or section..." to "This section...", but using it to say "This biography" is a good example of where someone might just prefer a different word than "article". It doesn't seem necessary, but the reason I suggested deleting the field was because it seemed virtually unused other than for "section," and that's been shown to be wrong.

-Agyle 12:31, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I really like Rich's proposal. I understand Agyle's desire to keep things streamlined, however a tag that is on 80,000+ articles is one that needs to be refined rather than streamlined IMHO. People need to learn a few more tags as this one is definitely over-used.--BirgitteSB 17:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Hm, just to make we're on the same page: the unrefereced|section articles can be moved out of the "articles lacking sources" with either approach. So there might still be 80,000+ articles that have an unreferenced tag, but not that many in "articles lacking sources". If you just meant that the Smackbot messages might spread some education about unreferencedsection, that's true, but if people unaware of it do learn that template, it doesn't really reduce the number of articles lacking any sources that they should tag as {{"unreferenced"}}. I'm not trying to argue with you, your opinion is your opinion, but I thought from what you said that there might be some confusion. Ultimately I'd say the problem is editors who write articles lacking sources! :-) -Agyle 23:16, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Ultimately the problem is editors writing articles lacking sources, agreed. Then there are editors who argue that Wikipedia policy does not require references[1]. Jeepday (talk) 02:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

What percentage of the 80,000+ articles that have an unreferenced tag are also stubs? "There is currently no consensus about whether this template should be used with stubs." --Philip Baird Shearer 09:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Jeepday, I've encountered that too; informed proponents of non-stub unreferenced articles cite WP:VERIFY's admittedly-vague "challenged or likely to be challenged" standard. Philip, I just took a look at ten random articles in Categories:Articles lacking sources from February, and seven were stubs (one a single sentence); it was a puny sample, but it suggests a lot are stubs. -Agyle 11:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

@Agyle: In my own experience it is not a small minority of people who use this tag on articles they think "Aren't referenced to my satisfaction" rather than articles they think "Lack sources entirely". On Oct 2 I went through many of the recently tagged articles and contacted quite a few editors who I felt could have used a more appropriate tag and directed them to other tags such as {{refimprove}} and {{primarysources}}. I got a number responses from people who were unaware these other options. So I do think education is needed.

@Philip The worst articles I have encountered in going through unreferenced articles were all stubs. Some of these stubs were complete fabrications other were unverifiable rumors or theories. Since I identified them through the unreferenced project they have been deleted. I am against any effort to mass remove this tag from stubs. Also the copyvios I have found have been about half stubs. These sort of articles need to be found and weeded out. Some of them were also tagged {{orphan}} but not all and obviously the orphans are not being worked through very well.--BirgitteSB 14:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Our experiences differ Birgitte, I think articles like Genocide denial, Catalan negationism and Macedonism are much more of a problem than stubs. The first has a subtle built in non NPOV, and the latter two because the introduce neologism into English. This is because to the casual reader (and to the muppets who seem to watch AdD lists and express an opinion on them) they appear to be normal Wikipedia articles. If stub culling is an interest then one can do it through categories that are listed via the stub templates, one does not need to use {{unreferenced}} category for such a task. Further as the stubs are usually given a specific typing it is possible to select stubs in a category area where one has some expertise rather than just picking one from the unreferenced category because its name suggests that one might have some knowledge about the topic. --Philip Baird Shearer 18:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Macedonism may be a problem article but it's problem is not that it is "unreferenced". I really do not understand much of you last response. My interest is in Wikipedia's integrity and not necessarily in deleting stubs. I happen to think that fabricated articles and bad information damage that integrity no matter what the length of the article is. For example, I would find this to be a problem despite its short length. If you think people should not tag stubs with {{unreferenced}} then work on convincing them to take a different action with stubs they find problematic. I spend some time myself convincing people not to use {{unreferenced}} as a catch-all. But any articles currently tagged {{unreferenced}} need attention no matter how long they are.--BirgitteSB 19:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

OK I've done a one-off run removing "article" and changing the "section" parametered ones. This was about 3,000 of the 4,000 with default argument. Sb will do this to any it comes across while dating maintenance tags, but will probably not be searching for them in future. Rich Farmbrough, 21:21 17 October 2007 (GMT).

Update doc with {subst:DATE}

I suggest updating the doc to replace the date examples with the literal code {{subst:DATE}} instead. It's more practical to give people a copy-pasteable code that's permanent (can be stored on their user page or text file cheat sheet) rather than the current example, which is valid only for one day. — Komusou ^talk @ 01:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't know about that; it's a useful tip! The current documentation does automatically adjust the date in the example (i.e. it currently shows currently date=October 2007), which is useful if someone is copying and pasting it from the doucumentation, but I understand the usefulness of subst for copying and pasting from another location. I think for clarity, it would be better to leave the existing examples with a specific month, but then include an additional explanation of the subst:DATE method. I think it would be pretty confusing to some users otherwise. Something like:

Subst:DATE tip

The term "{{subst:DATE}}" can be used in place of "date=October 2007", as it will be replaced with the current date when an article is saved. This can be useful for lists of templates that editors copy and paste into an article, as "{{unreferenced|{{subst:DATE}}}}" can be pasted without the need to manually adjust the date.

(Changes to wording would be welcome. :-) -Agyle 02:08, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Subst:DATE is a great idea, but people regularly misunderstand and put subst:October 2007 etc. I have some code to mop these up, but I always end up manually fixing some of them (I even have a template message for people that do this). Really I would rather people left the date off than get it wrong. Rich Farmbrough, 21:01 17 October 2007 (GMT).

Protection

I'd like someone to please tell me why this template is still fully protected. It's getting ridiculous and quite frustrating to talk endlessly about what to do with the template, even forming what looks like consensus (see the icon discussion), but then having to wait for an admin to take interest in order for the change to occur.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 21:38, 10/17/2007

Sources vs. Referenced vs. Citation

Recently I had a {{Unreferenced}} tag removed from Digital electronics with the explanation "Page does contain references." This indeed is the case. However, nowhere in this article are the references cited.

I read in the application of this template, "{{Unreferenced}} should be used only on articles that have no sources.". Yet the template displays "This article does not cite any references or sources." [Emphasis added].

This seems inconsistent to me and I am in a quandary about this. I'm not sure what the solution to this is and I think something needs to be changed to resolve this issue. (Note that {{Citesources}} links to {{Unreferenced}}.)

Softtest123 15:05, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

{{Citations}} would be more appropriate in the case you describe.--BirgitteSB 15:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree, however, then maybe this article should make a specific reference to {{Citations}} in the "Differences from related templates" section and the template message for {{Unreferenced}} should not contain the phrase "... cite any references ..." if that is the case (changing "cite" to "contain"). Softtest123 16:23, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:V does not mandate references what it says in the section WP:PROVEIT is "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation". It goes on to say that this and some other templates can be used to make such are request. I think that the wording on this template "should be used only on articles that have no sources." needs to be updated to reflect the PROVEIT policy statement. --Philip Baird Shearer 14:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:PROVEIT also says, "Any edit lacking a source may be removed..." and "Do not leave unsourced information in articles for too long...". This verges on a mandate and including tags such as {{Unreferenced}}, {{Citations}}, or {{Fact}} IS a challenge to the tagged text.

there is a difference between a challenge and a request. DGG (talk) 02:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I am concerned with the Wikipedia definitions of "source", "reference", "referenced", "cited", "citation" and the distinction between these words. Are they equivalent and can be used interchangeably? I should think not. Softtest123 14:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

the are used here in an overlapping manner. If you can, propose a distinction; whatever it may be, if it is generally accepted, we wlll have a good deal of editing to do at various policy statements.  :) DGG (talk) 02:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I propose the following:

source -- is well defined in Wikipedia:Reliable sources, though with multiple definitions. In [[Talk:WP:SOURCE#Wikipedia definition of the word "source"]] I have recommended that WP:SOURCE redirect to that article.

reference -- The identification of a specific source, such as a book, article, web page, or other published item, with sufficient detail to identify that item uniquely. [[Reference]] contains a general definition. This would be a good place to add a section on the specific use of "reference" in Wikipedia. To avoid ambiguity, "reference" should not be used as a verb in Wikipedia where "refer to" or "cite" might do as well. "References" is a good heading for the list of "references" by this definition.

referenced -- The property of a source as having been used as a reference. (This covers the case where an article contains references that may not be referred to or "cited".)

citation -- A specific referral to a reference that is associated with a specific body of text. [[Citation]] says: "A citation or bibliographic citation is a reference to a book, article, web page, or other published item with sufficient detail to identify the item uniquely." Note the ambiguous use of the word "reference". Dictionary.com:citation defines "citation" variously for this context:

"5. the act of citing or quoting a reference to an authority or a precedent." and "6a. passage cited; quotation." (Random House),

"1, The act of citing.", "2a. A quoting of an authoritative source for substantiation." and "2b. A source so cited; a quotation." (American Heritage)

"3. a short note recognizing a source of information or of a quoted passage; (Wordnet)

cited -- (noun) The property of a reference of having been used as a citation. (verb) See cite below.

cite -- To provide a citation. Again, Dictionary.com:cite defines "cite" variously for this context:

"1. to quote (a passage, book, author, etc.), esp. as an authority" and "2. to mention in support, proof, or confirmation; refer to as an example". (Random House)

"1. To quote as an authority or example." and "2. To mention or bring forward as support, illustration, or proof" (American Heritage Dictionary)

Confusion arises in this area because generally, in technical publications, all references are normally cited. Lists of uncited sources are normally listed under "bibliography". The eclectic style policy of Wikipedia also contributes to this confusion.

As you inferred, I think it unlikely that these disambiguations will be taken seriously, but if these words had not been used ambiguously in {{referenced}}, I would not have mistakenly applied that tag to articles containing "references" that had not been "cited".

Thanks for the suggestion. Softtest123 16:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Inline references template?

I recently saw a template asking for inline references, on an article that had an extensive References section but few or no inline refs. This seemed to me like a great idea, and I was going to add it to [[ Terra preta]]... but now I can't find the template. Is my memory playing tricks? Was it a deprecated template? --Chriswaterguy talk 15:17, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you're looking for Template:Citations :)

Equazcion • argue/improves • 21:52, 10/20/2007

Thanks! --Chriswaterguy talk 18:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

No problem :)

Equazcion • argue/improves • 19:02, 10/21/2007

Reprotected

CBM just beat me to reprotecting this template. It is used on over 5000 articles, and preventing goatse is far, far more important than letting everyone edit. I know it is frustrating to be unable to edit, but we've got to put the project first. Picaroon (t) 02:02, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

This template is actually embedded in many thousands of or articles. Azatoth has again protected it indefinitely, which is the normal practice for heavily used templates. Edits can be requested with {{editprotected}}. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

See WP:HRT for more info. -- Reaper X 03:02, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Category

This template is not categorizing the article as not having references. Instead, it is putting the category in the article, not as a true category. See: Undecane. Someone needs to fix it, but since it is protected, it can't be. 71.30.136.250 04:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem was not with the template, you were calling it incorrectly. See my fix. Pagrashtak 04:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Improve clumsy wording on the template?

Please, can an admin change it to:

This article cites no references or sources.

The current wording means the same, but is embarrassingly amateurish.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs)

Not embarrassingly so, but your proposed wording does sound better, I think. Gracenotes^T § 18:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Ick, no offence, but that compared to "This article does not cite any references or sources"? I wouldn't change it, your version almost sounds like it contains bad grammar. I'm removing the edit protected template until we have more discussion. -- Reaper X 18:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The proposed version is grammatically correct (does not cite any → cites no), and some would consider it stylistically preferable: "Omit needless words!" Although, it may sound better to you replacing "or" with "nor". If stripping the negative determiner makes the wording seem unintuitive any way you parse it, then it doesn't need to be changed. Gracenotes^T § 21:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, exactly, Ick. Now, you mean "compared with", do you, not "compared to" (a contrast, not a similarity)? Your second sentence is ungrammatical in structure (a semicolon instead of a comma would be one way of fixing it). And I guess your "sounds like it contains" should be "sounds as though it contains". I wonder whether you're the best person to be pontificating on ... Ick ... bad grammar. I'm reinstating the edit-protect template until something is done to improve the wording. The easiest solution would be to go with my proposal, unless someone has better wording. Tony (talk) 12:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotect}}

There is no need to chastise users for their grammar in talk page comments. I also find 'no references or sources' worse to my ear than the current version. Changing or to nor makes it somewhat worse to my ear, not better (I had to say it aloud). The version currently in the template is perfectly understandable, and I don't see any need for a change. Please note that editprotected tags are used only to request changes that already have agreement, not as the first step in discussion. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I certaintly will chastise users when they themselves accuse me of proposing "bad grammar". It does look as though you, too, could do with a few lessons, and are hardly qualified to judge. And where did this word "nor" come from? Is someone twisting my words? Tony (talk) 00:32, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

To make it clear, I stated it "almost sounds like it contains bad grammar", and I didn't say my grammar was any better. Comments on other editor's personal grammar stops here. Thank you. -- Reaper X 01:23, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• No it won't; I'll comment on the grammar of other users when I please. Tony (talk) 14:15, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"date" vs. "Date"

{{editprotected}} I occasionally typo and attempt to use a capitalized "Date" variable, as opposed to the lowercased "date" that this template requires. Would it be possible to make the template recognize either coding? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 15:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

It might help to double-check the template before you save the page – and even if you do mistype it, User:SmackBot will fix it for you. However, allowing a capitalized date parameter would indeed be possible. Do you think it's worth it? (I should also note that the code could use some trimming: #if:{{{date|}}} is called twice.) Gracenotes^T § 18:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Does SmackBot (talk · contribs) fix that? Well, wouldn't it be better for the accidental typo to be accommodated by the template, as opposed to expecting the bot to make one further edit to the article to fix a single capitalization? I know very little of programming outside of wiki markup and HTML, would this prove a spuriously difficult proposition? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 19:01, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Enabling both date and Date is a nice idea, but it might cause unnecessary divergence in the template's usage. I think working to keep one standard is, in the long run, better design than holding an indefinite number of standards. The proposition is by no means difficult, though. Gracenotes^T § 22:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

If we were to implement this (I don't see a strong benefit), we would want to make it consistent with all the other dated maintenance templates. Otherwise the usage will be inconsistent from one to the next. I think this really belongs on a more well-watched talk page, perhaps WP:VPR. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Portuguese intertwiki

Please add [[pt:Predefinição:Sem-fontes]]. :) -- 201.69.46.209 (talk) 19:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Done, Garion96 (talk) 21:31, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Images

Many image pages need references to account for the image if it is a user created map or diagram. Can this template be used for that or can we create another one to cover that area. I created Template:Imagefact to add to image caption boxes in articles with unreferenced diagrams (this has been a problem since people often miss making sure maps / diagrams are sourced in FACs). So, should we create a template for that or change the wording on this to say "image or article"? gren グレン 07:15, 7 January 2008 (UTC)