Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 8

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Move the date's location

{{editprotected}}

Move:

<small>{{#if:{{{date|}}}|''({{{date}}})''}}</small>

To after:

removed.

Remember to add a space between the period and the date. This is to conform with other templates, which have the date at the very end of the message. Gary King (talk) 18:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk) 18:57, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Ah I also just realized that the extra small is unnecessary, so replace:

<small>{{#if:{{{date|}}}|''({{{date}}})''}}</small></small>

With:

{{#if:{{{date|}}}|''({{{date}}})''}}</small>

Gary King (talk) 19:01, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done Sorry, missed checking back here. PeterSymonds (talk) 21:33, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Can we add a category

Resolved

 – The cat. is already there.

to this template so that we can easily track what articles need to be cited?^MY♥_INchile 22:52, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

There are categories, but they are hidden on the actual articles this template is used on. See Category:All articles lacking sources and the montly subcategories like Category:Articles lacking sources from July 2006. Garion96 (talk) 23:09, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

ah, i see. hey is there any way to make the hidden categories be seen? or separate navigational/reader categories from procedural/editorial ones?^MY♥_INchile 05:55, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

You can see the categories normally by going directly to the category, but not on the article page itself. Only when you click on "edit this page" you can see a box with in there the info on transcluded templates and the hidden categories. Garion96 (talk) 08:20, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Citations missing

Template:Citations missing has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. (This template is a potential merge-to or redir-to.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Can a different language wikipedia be the sole source?

There are several articles like Lasalle, Gard, Fressac or Cornillon that have "Based on the article in the French Wikipedia" as the only reference. Is the {{Unreferenced}} tag appropriate for these articles? Or is the French Wikipedia valid as a sole source?  — Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 11:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't know what others think, but I personally do not object to having references to other Wikipedia articles or other Wikipedias if there are no other references to use or if an article was based on another article or other Wikipedia, because I believe that even a weak or non-realiable reference is still better than no references at all. However, referencing Wikipedia is an example of self-referencing, and such self-references cannot be considered "true" references. If somebody wants to use them, they can only be considered a form of "intermediate" or "imperfect" weak references just to enable the reader know where the information they read comes from (and, of course, to enable them read anything with a grain of salt). Imagine if somebody based something on another Wikipedia article and put no references at all, some readers would assume that the writer wrote the article based on their experience and my believe that the writer thought that they knew what they were doing. However, if a (Self-)reference to another Wikipedia article is added, then the reader is warned that the information they read is simply a "copy" from a source which is unreliable and cannot be trusted as a "real" reference, so the readers can take care in their use of the information they read. Thus, I see self-references to other Wikipedia articles or other Wikipedias as warnings, or intermediate references until something better can be found, rather than "true" references. As such, I consider that it would be appropriate to say that an article only citing Wikipedia as a source can still be considered unreferenced, even if it contains a References section, as long as the only reference given is Wikipedia. However, this obviously doesn't apply in translated Wikipedia articles if they contain the original references given in the other Wikipedia. NerdyNSK (talk) 21:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I found my answer in WP:SPS: "Articles and posts on Wikipedia may not be used as sources."  — Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 04:14, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It is a little more complicated than that. For example if I write "Heathrow is the largest airport in Britain", it is more "likely to be challenged" (WP:PROVIT) than "Heathrow is the largest airport in Britain". But if someone does challenge it then one can either argue the toss on the talk page or add a citation. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:28, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Style tweaks

{{editprotected}}

I've made some tweaks to the sandbox to match the styling used on similar templates. Just needs synced. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:58, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Y Done The Helpful One 21:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Category

This template does not belong to category:cleanup templates. It is very difficult to track it without being listed there. Someone needs to add it to the category. --GPPande 19:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

It belongs to the more specific category of Category:Citation and verifiability maintenance templates. What are you trying to track? — Satori Son 19:23, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Template incorrectly refers to unverifiable material

Unverified information may be removed. We do not require that the information be unverifiable before removal. This is the heart of Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden of evidence; the burden is on the editor wishing to include challenged or likely to be challenged material to verify it. While we do have some Wikipedia mores urging editors to attempt to find sources before removing unsourced material, this does not turn the burden on its head, and the template should reflect the policy. Given the massive number of articles this is transcluded in, I came here seeking feedback before making the change.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 10:18, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry but the proposed change is not consistent with common practice and consensus. It has been repeatedly shown at AFD that a merely unverified article will be kept and that the nominator must try and fail to find sources before the article will be removed.--BirgitteSB 17:46, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

You're conflating deletion of article norms with removal of unverified information norms. What happens at AfD with respect to whether an article is verifiable or not and thus should or should not be deleted is not relevant to the framed issue which speaks to WP:BURDEN, which is the standard this template directly invokes.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:46, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

This template is about entire articles, not about pieces of information. If you remove the unverified information referred to by the template you will be blanking the article as this only applies to articles where no sources are given at all.--BirgitteSB 04:44, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

That is neither here nor there because the removal, per the template and the policy it quotes in shorthand, is not applicable to all material, but specifically to: "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged [which] must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." (emphasis added). It goes on to say: "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed, but editors might object if you remove material without giving them sufficient time to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider tagging..."</nowiki>" This is long standing policy with bedrock consensus and is expressly not about unverifiable material but unverified material. The whole point of the policy section is that the burden is on the person seeking to keep or add the challenged information to source it, and it is no small thing that the template perverts the very policy it stems from. This is not discordant, and should not be confused with, the deletion standard that the subject of an article be verifiable (rather than verified).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This template is not used to mark "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged ". It is used to mark articles without any sources, changing this template to say "unverified material may be challenged or removed" is not good. None of the information in these article is verified and changing the language in a way that might encourage people to blank them or put them in AfD for containing only "unverified information" is a problem. So don't make the change that you proposed, because it does not have consensus. --BirgitteSB 23:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

That is simply factually incorrect, as a simple reading of the template shows. The template says there are no sources, and material that is challenged may be removed, given that state of affairs. Willfully ignoring what it says gets us nowhere. Whether the template should remove the express language from WP:BURDEN entirely is another matter, but if it's going to invoke that policy, it cannot function to reverse the burden by requiring information be unverifiable before removal.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:42, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

You very well may disagree with me, but claiming that I am "willfully ignoring" anything is out of line. However much I disagree with you, I assume that you believe what you state is true. I expect you to extend this same courtesy to me. Since you cannot manage that; I have no interest in further discussions with you.--BirgitteSB 19:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

As far as the template goes, I agree, the point of the template is that no sourcing is provided in the entire article, so every disputed or likely-to-be-disputed claim is up for removal, since its source cannot have been properly indicated. AfD is about deleting the whole article, not specific content within it.

However, I don't think "unverified" is a good word choice. There is no policy that says that material in an article needs to be verified. It just needs to be sourced properly. There is no need that any editor or reader actually verify the source. If someone tries and fails, they can mark it as such, remove the false source or even the claim etc., but there is no policy saying they must try.

I think the word choice "unverifiable" reflects this fairly well, and is in agreement with the name of the policy itself, WP:V. However, I'd be fine with "unsourced" instead of "unverifiable". I definitely think that "unverified" sends the wrong message, as if there were official WMF censors who go through articles verifying them for foundational appropriateness. JackSchmidt (talk) 06:40, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe simpler wording would help? I've noticed lots of new editors take {{unref}} as if the article was scheduled for deletion. Here is something simple:

One doesn't want to say too much on it, because most articles without sources are already pretty bare and need lots of work. JackSchmidt (talk) 23:25, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

That works for me--BirgitteSB 23:34, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Changing it to remove WP:BURDEN entirely seems like a good solution. It is slippery for users not very familiar with the ins and outs of verification, sourcing, deletion etc. to understand how they interact and don't interact, and without the full quote from the policy it is apt to confuse (I can see many users thinking "what does "challenged" mean in this context?"). However, the change cannot say "please help make this article verifiable by adding..." That's a non sequitur. An article is either verifiable or it is not. Citing sources proves that information included is verifiable, and lack of sources, after looking, is evidence that information is unverifiable, but whether information is or is not verifiable is an unchanging state of affairs (except by new sources coming into existence). An article subject or information in an article can be ''verified by addition of sources, and sources can help verify" an article's subject or information in and article, but whether the subject or information is "verifiable" exists regardless of whether it has or has not yet been shown.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

How about:

I think this addresses your concern about "verifiable" being objective and true/false, and handles my concern that verification can only be done individually by each user. There is no official stamp of approval, "this article has been verified" thing. Why would anyone trust such a thing on a wiki? To me WP:V is a core policy because it answers the fundamental objection to "an encyclopedia anyone can edit": how can any reader trust its contents when anyone can write and rewrite the articles? Answer: the only material included is taken from reliable sources which are cited inline for easy verification. JackSchmidt (talk) 18:32, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what stamp of approval you're talking about and I think we're talking past each other because that suggestion still suffers from the same problem. Is it possible we have different understanding of what verifiable means? Verifiable means "capable of being verified." You would not say "help make this article more easily capable of being verified"; we "help verify an article by citation to reliable sources" and an article "is verified by citation to reliable sources." In any event, I don't think three users are enough for consenusus on removal of WP:BURDEN entirely from the template, given just how high use it is (though we're now 2; I've driven away BirgitteSB with my characterization of her post). I think I'll advertise a bit at the village pump later.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:39, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I see your point about "more easily verifiable," but disagree that adding a citation makes a claim verified, either objectively or practically on enwiki. Verification is done by the consumer of the article, the end-user, the reader, not by any editor (and this is supported by the wording in WP:V). Practically speaking, there are way too many objectively false statements with inline citations (for instance in mathematics articles). However, the reader can themselves verify the claims by going to the sources, noting the mistakes made in the wiki article, and coming away with useful knowledge. If the mistakes are particularly egregious (such as, the reliable source does not even address the claim), then there is a nice template, {{failed verification}}, for them to add, and in fact some of us at WP:FACT go around routinely to do this.

How about:

Having a rough draft we can agree on provisionally is a good idea before proposing at VP. What do you think about this? Should it mention the "inline" part of citation, or just be general? JackSchmidt (talk) 15:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

A couple of points (unindenting):

• It's true that sources may be miscited and that they allow a reader to check themselves whether a citation verifies what it's cited to verify, but sources either verify what they purport to verify, or they do not, objectively. It is customary usage on Wikipedia to use verify as a verb mean "add source(s)", and verified as the past tense thereof. However, I would like to take a different tack (below), that sidesteps the whole issue.
• If the language from WP:BURDEN is going to come out, what's wrong with just keeping the current language? "This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources" and appending "Verifiability of information is one of Wikipedia's core content policies"? That way we still invoke WP:V explicitly without the y / ied / iable suffix issue rearing its head.
• I started this with objection to the use of unverifiable in the template, when that places the burden, prior to removal, of finding and citing sources on the person challenging the material, which is directly the opposite of what the invoked policy section says. Maybe we can keep it almost the same but get rid of the issue by using the language from the companion template {{Refimprove}}, which states "Unsourced material may be challenged and removed." In fact, this template in prior versions contained similar language: "Any unsourced material that has been or is likely to be challenged may be removed at any time." (prior version). I also note that both of these formulations, speaking of "unsourced" material, rather than material for which no source can be found, bolster my point that unverifiable in the current formulation is erroneous.
• To boil this down, I suggest, if we are to mention WP:V explicitly but get rid of the WP:BURDEN invocation:

• And if we are going to invoke the language of WP:BURDEN, without using the V word in any form:

• I prefer the latter and I think we should be mentioning the burden. No matter how much we link to policies, only some small subset of people will actually look at policy page and distill it. So, if we don't mention it in the template itself, it's lost on many. I also think getting rid of it is likely to be controversial. I also like your idea of adding inline citations in some form. So my final and preferred suggestion for the moment is:

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:07, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:V does not require material to be sourced, only to be verifiable in theory. Only quotes and things that are challenged or likely to be challenged "need" to be sourced. Uncontroversial facts that clearly could be verified in reliable sources do not need to be explicitly sourced. If a change is needed in the template here, the last sentence could be removed entirely. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:37, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

As already stated at VPP, I agree, but the template is invoking WP:BURDEN, challenged material can be removed if unsourced, not unsourceable. See third template up for suggestion of what to replace the last sentence with, if WP:BURDEN material is to be taken out of the template entirely.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:57, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Fuhghettaboutit's last suggetion is good. Blueboar (talk) 12:34, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Books

For the new Book feature on Wikipedia, I think that this template should be added to Category:Exclude in print.

--Wyatt915✍ 16:53, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

This is done. The documentation for Category:Exclude in print clearly indicates this template should be added. JackSchmidt (talk) 17:28, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Presumably that goes in from Ambox? Rich Farmbrough, 17:34 4 March 2009 (UTC).

Table

How about adding a new parameter, table, for templates that would accompany an unreferenced table? "This table doesn't cite any...". --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 13:36, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

{{unreferenced|table}} works already. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Edit requested

{{editprotected}}

Could someone add ({{Findsources}}) before the closing </small>. Kevin (talk) 01:05, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see some opinions on that first. We don't want to litter our articles with google links. I can accept that on {{BLP unsourced}}, but I'm not sure if we want that on all unsourced articles. --Amalthea 18:31, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Would seem a sensible solution. I'm unclear if any downside outweighs the added nudge for editors to find and add sourcing. -- Banjeboi 22:25, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

What about maps?

As discussed at Template_talk:Fact/Archive_5#Version_for_maps.3F, we could use an unreferenced template which would say "this map is unreferenced". Also, we could use an inline version of {{fact}} to tag map captions in the articles to note that a map is unreferenced.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:07, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

{{unreferenced|map}} should work, no? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:10, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Although I'll note we still don't have inline version for captions - consider how many people actually bother clicking on a map picture to go to map page and will therefore not see the large template... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The tag would need to be rendered with the image at whatever resolution it's reduced to in thumbnail version to really work or be forced into the caption somewhere. Unless it appears immediately in the article it's not much of a warning as most in-article renditions of maps are large enough to not require clicking through to the full size image. PetersV       TALK 03:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we have the means to add a tag to the image itself, but a citation needed and similar tags for captions seem feasible. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)