Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 3

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Problems writing lead sentence in Islam and antisemitism

I cannot formulate a lead sentence, and neither, it seems, can any of the other editors working on this embattled article. It would be good if someone who has not been involved with this or related controversies could have a look. Thanks. Itsmejudith 22:08, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who would consider himself uninvolved, I don't think that anyone who's accumulated more than a thousand or so edits and answered an RfC would be considered uninvolved by all participating editors. Hornplease 22:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but I would really appreciate it if someone could take a detached view just from the point of view of how leads should be written. There are problems with a lot of history articles, e.g. Franciscan Order in modern times. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Itsmejudith (talk • contribs) 17:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

I'm still looking for guidance. What do I do, for example with History of Skipton, an article in need of wikification?

The History of Skipton is the history of the town of Skipton in Yorkshire.

Is that a good enough lead? Itsmejudith 22:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I read this article again and I see that the lead does not need to define the subject if the subject is identifiable in the title and "History of..." is given as an example. However, should not the article title still appear in the first sentence in bold? This is not currently the case with some very important history articles, e.g. History of the United States, History of Los Angeles, History of New York, History of London. All of them, frankly, read as though the editors were unsure how to begin the article. I'll see if the history portal has its own guidelines. Itsmejudith 22:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for rewrite of WP:Lead

In academic and report writing it is an accepted principle that the Intro section should never introduce new facts that don't appear in the main text. Only summaries from the main text! No source references outside the article itself! In my opinion this should be stated more clearly in the WP:Lead guidelines. MaxPont 21:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

It does say it should be an overview. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I would like to echo MaxPoint's call for a complete rewrite of this guideline. As of late, I have noticed a very disturbing trend to strip lead sections down to to one or two very small paragraphs and remove references. I feel that this is detracting from the stated purpose of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. The current guideline is clear about the lead being "carefully sourced as appropriate" so I'm unsure as to why members of the Film project, as an example, have stated the exact opposite. Although the guideline does specify that one should "avoid lengthy, detailed paragraphs", there is no elaboration upon this point, with the interpretation left up to the reader. Is it reasonable to suggest that the recommended number of average words in a lead section would help flesh out this guideline? Recently, one editor interpreted WP:MOSFILMS to suggest that film articles should only have two paragraphs in the lead section. In one debatable example, an editor reduced a large lead section in Philip K. Dick by moving most of the lead to an "overview" section, reducing the lead to one small paragraph. Since the lead is supposed to be an overview, I am confused by the tendency to split up the lead, reduce its length, and basically cheat the reader. The lead is supposed to stand on its own, so that the reader is not required to read the rest of the article; it functions as a comprehensive overview and synopsis of the topic. It appears that this is no longer the case. For these reasons, I would like to join MaxPont and ask that this guideline address these points. —Viriditas | Talk 03:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

By all means add an additional section stressing those points, if you'd like to. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:33, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm trying to find a happy medium between being bold and finding consensus. Tony Sidaway has recently scolded me for doing "too much editing and not enough talking" so, here I am trying to talk about modifying the guideline before I edit it. I was going to ask Raul if he could run a query of the lead sections of every featured article to find an average word count, and compare it to each previous year. My guess is that lead sections have been getting smaller and smaller, and I would like to know why. —Viriditas | Talk 00:51, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of very short leads either. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:37, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

For the records, attempts at preventing sources in the Lead of FACs (whatever the reading of this guideline and the FA criteria used) have generally proven unsuccessful.Circeus 15:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

This guideline says that leads must be sourced just like any other section, so I don't know where the opposite idea comes from. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, my point was that the lead section should strictly build on the body text in the article and not introduce anything new. Hence, (In My Opionin) there should not be direct references to the sources in the lead section. Readers interested in knowing the how&why would as a first natural step read the full article and find the references there. MaxPont 22:05, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I mostly agree with MaxPont. I differ in that I think references in the lead are fine when they're also used elsewhere in the article as well.

I'm also not against introducing a new reference into the lead in the case where the article is being rewritten and the new reference sets a tone for the rewrite. --Ronz 18:32, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

The lead section has to be referenced in just the same way as any other section. See WP:V and WP:NOR, which are policy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

As regards the initial point, I agree. I'd previously added and discussed here "A significant argument not mentioned after the lead should not be mentioned in the lead," which I think is Max's point. I don't think this should be a suggestion, but a requirement (or as much a requirement as a guideline can offer). It's basic stylistics. We can't say every fact though, because there will be specific items (e.g. a birthdate) that only need to be mentioned in the intro.

As regards sourcing, I disagree. A point introduced very generally in a lead does not need to be sourced if a more specific fact that proves it is sourced later. I do not need to source "The Sun is hot" if later I source "the Sun is 5785 K." Marskell 20:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

True, but not because it's the lead. Your point would stand anywhere in the article. If you say in the lead that the sun is 5785 K, it needs a source. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

You don't even have to source "The Sun's surface temperature is 5785 K" if you source it later in the article, with more detail. If you write, "The Sun's surface temperature is 5785 K, but the temperature of sunspots can fall all the way to 5300 K", then you do not need to reference it in the lede. I agree with Marskell about the first point as well. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you do, Tito. :-) See the policies: any edit that is challenged or likely to be challenged and all quotations need a source. No exceptions. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The defense is simple: scroll down. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:07, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I do believe that there generally shouldn't be references in the lead unless absolutely necessary, and the lead policy should reflect that, which it currently does not.--Wizardman 21:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This guideline can't contradict policy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Repeating the same thing over and over does not make it true. It is an adequate level of referencing to state a fact somewhere in the article; you do not need to reference the same fact over and over again within the same integral unit of the article. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's the thign though. The lead should be broad enough that anything that would require a source is already sourced, as well as mentioned in greater detail, later on. For example, you say the sun is 5785 degrees in the lead would need a source? Technically, no, because if there is a section regarding temp. in the article, it would be sourced there. Of course, in the case of the actual article, it's not talked about in the article, so it shouldn't even be in the lead in the first place.--Wizardman 21:10, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

It should be sourced on first reference without making the reader have to search for it. Lots of people only read the lead section. It should therefore be capable of standing alone, as this page says. And therefore it needs references just like any other section. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Slim, if a general point is challenged in the lead and is sourced with greater specificity later, you can point to the later cite—the lead does not require the citation.

Which policy or guideline are you taking "the lead does not require the citation" from? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:22, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The only exception is critical BLP material (at whatever level of generality), which should be cited inline, every time.

Of course this logic applies to the article in its entirety, but its most pertinent wrt lead relative to body, because the lead ought to be generalized relative to the body. Over-specificity in the lead should be discouraged. Marskell 21:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. If it's meant to stand alone every little thing shouldn't need to be cited there. (EC)--Wizardman 21:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

An implication of the no-refs-in-the-lead position would be a lead section about Joe Smith that says, without any sources: "Smith came to public attention in 2007 after being accused of molesting the five-year-old son of a former girlfriend in a public toilet after kidnapping the boy from his home." Entirely unsourced, and with no guarantee that the reader will ever search through the rest of the page to find a source! This is a violation of every single one of our content policies, not to mention incredibly irresponsible editing. Try creating an article like that, and count the seconds until it's dealt with, and the nanoseconds until you're blocked if you tried to restore your version. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:22, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Lots of people will also read the entire article, and the sets are mutually exclusive. The original reason as to why the recommendation of "the lede should stand by itself" was that the plan was to copy the ledes for inclusion in WP:1.0. That plan is mostly dead now, but the stylistic idea is a sound one. However "able to stand by itself" is not "detached completely from the rest of the article". Marskell covered the details as to the exceptions better than I could, and BLP vios are one of them, so your example is moot. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:26, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Slim! Read my post. I just said BLPs are an exception. Marskell 21:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The example is far from moot, because it applies to any contentious material, not just BLPs.

Some questions, which I'd appreciate answers for:

• (1) Which policy or guideline are you taking the idea from that sources are not needed for leads?;
• (2) Do you accept, as this guideline says, that every lead should be capable of standing alone in case it's the only part of the article the reader reads? Or are you questioning that too?
• (3) What if there is a quote in the lead not repeated elsewhere? Do you accept that all quotes need sources?
• (4) What about very contentious points, such as in the lead of the recent Jerusalem FA that it's the capital of Israel? Are you seriously suggesting we include very contentious material on first reference with no source, as in the Joe Smith example? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Jesus, you're reading a lot into my posts that I didn't mean to intimate. First, I do not suggest that "sources are not needed for leads". I'm suggesting that leads ought to be a crafted at a level of generality such that sources are not necessary for most material. Direct quotes in the lead absolutely need a source—they need a source everywhere. But a lead should almost never have direct quotes because they're over-specific. Unless you're talking about a subject whose notable because of quotations, or because of a particular quote, I can think of few stylistic justifications for including a quote in the lead. Similarly, BLP material absolutely requires a source (your point is moot insofar as I'd already mentioned that exception). And, of course, particularly contentious political points should also be sourced in a lead.

Somehow you've read my points as suggesting that leads do not require references—I did not say that. The failure to communicate is, I think, one of selection bias. You're arguing for contentious cases (understandable), while the majority of cases are not contentious. Following the "first mention" logic, I'd need to source "the cougar is a generalist predator" or "an energy source is an absolute requirement for life" in pages I take to FAC. That would be a stupid, time-consuming requirement. Marskell 21:56, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not reading that stuff into your posts gratuitously. Your posts imply these positions, which is why they're problematic. You're trying to impose on this guideline your own idea of the perfect lead. I happen not to share it. I like quotes in leads; they make leads more readable, and that encourages readers to move beyond the lead.

I'm not arguing about particularly contentious cases. I'm arguing in support of policy, viz. all material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotes, must be sourced. It's a long-standing part of policy, widely supported, and it admits of no exceptions. You keep giving examples of sentences that don't need a source wherever they are in the article because they're not likely to be challenged, and anyone who did so would be a jerk. That issue — jerks asking for sources for obvious points — is a completely separate issue from what the lead needs to contain. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The sentences I'm suggesting are slightly paraphrased sentences I've actually written into leads, and have no intention of sourcing. To repeat, leads ought to be a crafted at a level of generality such that sources are not necessary for most material. In general, that's all I'm saying.

I agree with you about referencing for quotes and biographical material. But I never mentioned jerks—non-jerks make good faith but idiotic cite requests all the time at FAC and FAR/C, and it's an awful problem because the primary editors get annoyed by the idiocy. I also agree with you about "challenged or likely to be challenged" but have been thinking more and more that the statement is tautological and should be scrapped in favour of something else (but that's another story).

Anyhow, surely you can agree that we agree on some things and can thrash out a section dealing with referencing for this guideline. Start with the BLP hardline, move to generally contentious stuff, move to non-controversial. Marskell 22:22, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

There are two totally different points being made here:

• Leads don't need sources
• Don't write leads that need sources i.e. don't write leads that contain material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or quotations.

The first is just wrong, policy-wise and commonsense-wise. The second is fine policy-wise, but it would lead to boring leads, in my view. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:29, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Just as an example, I regard this as a good lead, but it violates your rules about quotes, specificity, and references. (Ignore the rest of the article, which is terrible.) But that quote from the sociologist that ends the lead couldn't sum up Gellner more accurately.

These things boil down to taste. All we can do here is make broad suggestions. I know that people over-asking for refs in FAs is very annoying, but it's annoying no matter which part of the article it concerns. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Welll, the first argument is technically wrong, but lead material should be written so as not to need sources. In terms of refs for the article you just said, it seems find to me cite-wise.--Wizardman 23:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the first view is wrong policy-wise, but no one is encouraging that. There is a fine line between "ledes don't need sources" (which is a policy statement) and "ledes shouldn't need sources" (which is a guideline statement, and what at least I would like to see). I happen to believe in the second case, that ledes are superficial summaries of the article, and that the meat of the article should be farther down the page. As for the article you cited, the lede is okay, but I don't see how the quote could not have been replaced with a paraphrase, and the quote introduced and explained in more detail farther down the page. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 00:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Because to paraphrase would almost certainly have led to poor writing, and it was completely unnecessary.

So, let me summarize, you want to say here (a) that leads should be written in a way that includes no material that is likely to be challenged, and no quotations; (b) that if someone does challenge material in the lead we can tell them to piss off, rather than be required to provide a reference, which will require a change to two core policies; and (c) you also want to remove that the lead should be capable of standing alone, because clearly it can't if it's only the kind of bland summary that would require no references.

Good luck with trying to push all these changes through!

As a matter of interest, Titoxd, can you show me a couple of leads that are written the way you're suggesting all leads be written — preferably some you've written yourself? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:30, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

You haven't explained why there should be controversial statements in the lede section, nor why they can't be covered in more detail in the rest of the article; you haven't explained why we have to assume that the average reader is lazy and will read only the lede; you haven't explained how a short summary has to be bland without resorting to quotations and controversial statements. I can see the need for having quotations and points of dissent in certain articles, and those should be properly cited. Yet again, this page is a guideline and most articles are fortunately not that controversial. As for the standing-alone part, I just explained part of the background; that said, it is not an article by itself, it is a part of an article. For examples, read Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Nora (1997) (FAs), and Tropical cyclone (on Peer review), for example. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 00:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Katrina is the kind of lead Marskell is arguing against; namely it has too much detail in it that requires sourcing (11th tropical storm, fifth hurricane, third major hurricane, the costliest, the deadliest, 1,836 dead, $81.2 billion). It all needs to be sourced on first reference so that the lead can stand alone. Ditto Tropical cyclone. Nora's not so bad because less detailed. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is what the guideline says about standing alone: "The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, summarizing the most important points, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describing its notable controversies, if there are any." Therefore, it must (well, "must" insofar as anyone pays attention to guidelines) contain references for any points that need them, or else the reader is forced to search through the article, meaning it's not standing alone; and it must describe the subject's notable controversies, which will also have to be referenced because they may be contentious. What you're arguing here is that we should ignore the entire guideline. :-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

No, that's not what anybody is arguing. We're arguing for summations that cover the details the article will elaborate on, which is exactly what the guideline emphasizes. I view "stand alone" in terms of the spiral approach—move from generality to specificity. As regards Titoxd's examples, science related articles typically have categories of info that are repeated across the type, e.g "second named, third strongest of the season" for hurricanes or "six farthest, second largest" for planets. Of course such info belongs. Rather like a birthdate it doesn't need to be repeated again, and depending on its obscurity may or may not take a citation (probably yes for the hurricanes, no for the planets). But because you persist in suggesting that I'm suggesting "no citations allowed in the lead!", when I'm doing nothing of the sort, you'd guess I'd bar such info. I wouldn't. Fermi paradox is founded on an anecdote, which is cited (this page is a mess, admittedly), while the lead to cougar doesn't require any citations IMO, because there isn't a sentence in it that isn't covered in greater detail later in the article. Perhaps you find it a bland summary; to each their own.

For an example of a lead that gets it wrong, I'd point up the page to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "recentist," excess quotations, and gives undue weight to one controversy. No mention of economy, domestic policy, appointments—the things you expect in an article on a world leader. Marskell 07:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

You're entitled to use the spiral approach, but others are allowed to do otherwise. I like seeing detail in leads. Sometimes I like the inverted pyramid, and sometimes more of an anecdotal lead, depending on the topic. What I'm saying is that you have to allow writers to write, so long as they stick to the policies — and the policies require sourcing for any claim likely to be challenged, whether in the lead or elsewhere. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Someone has criticised my lead at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Anne of Denmark because it has citations in it; and it looks like they're not coming back to change their mind. :( My response there is exactly the same as Slim Virgin's here. The lead of that article is worth checking out as an example of why leads may need citations. Take this sentence: "Though she was reported to have died a Protestant, evidence suggests that she may have converted to Catholicism at some stage in her life." This is a key question about Anne which must be mentioned in the lead; and the use of words like "reported", "may" and "evidence" demands notes. For blander points, the referencing can wait a little, but for controversial ones the sources must be established straight away. Apart from anything else, many people only read the first part of articles, so leads need to be able to stand on their own, which means they have to be sourced where appropriate. qp10qp 04:41, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

For the most part, those lead citations are fine. The Catholicism one's probably unnecessary since that statement in the body is itself cited.--Wizardman 13:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

But how do the readers know that when they read it? Also, the very concise and catch-all wordings we are obliged to come up with for leads often require slightly different references than those used for the same topic in the body of the article—we need to select references which justify that particular wording. qp10qp 16:05, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I prefer to introduce an area within a topic by introducing a fact, opinion, or quote in the lead that may not be repeated exactly elsewhere, though I'll usually re-introduce that area in the main body of the text using other material; that is, I'll come at it from a different angle. I don't want to have to repeat everything that's in the lead as though I'm a robot.

We can't make good writing algorithmic: if you do X, you'll have a good lead; if Y, a bad one. Depending on the topic, writers will sometimes do it one way, sometimes another. What we have here is a loose structure within which they're encouraged to organize themselves, and really the only very strict point (because it's taken from the policy) is that sources must be provided for any claim likely to be challenged, and for quotations. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

First off, I edited the article today and wasn't reverted so I hope the changes are agreeable. Max began this section with "In academic and report writing it is an accepted principle that the Intro section should never introduce new facts that don't appear in the main text." Very true (though we can't bar unique facts per se) and six-odd people subsequently agreed so I added it in guidelinesque form. The sourcing debate is a separate issue (and not just confined to what to do with leads, obviously); this page does need a section on it.

On the other outstanding discussions, I don't want to come off as against editorial discretion. The quote from your sociologist gave me a tickle, Slim—I'd have no problem with it, if I found it while reviewing. I would repeat that much of the difference of opinion here is due to attitudes developed from editing different subject matter. With articles that tilt toward science, there is, to a greater degree than with humanities topics, a lead you have to write; the content and due weight are largely predetermined and you just have to get it down. On cougar, I'm not going to introduce bighorn sheep as a prey item in the lead and deer in the body and cite them both separately. I'm going to introduce deer in the lead generally and re-introduce it in the body at greater length because cougars eat deer whenever they can—if I don't do that I'm not covering the topic properly, and thus there's much less room for descriptive discretion. Bios are obviously much better given to anecdote. But even with bios the general-to-specific rule of thumb broadly holds. Marskell 21:41, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

New "relative emphasis" section

I'm moving this here because I think it could be problematic:

In general, the relative emphasis given to material in the lead should reflect the relative emphasis given in the body. Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although specific facts, such as birthdates, titles, or scientific designations, will often appear in the lead only. Do not tease the reader by hinting at startling facts without describing them. Avoid lengthy paragraphs and over-specific descriptions.

I can see POV pushers using this to keep critical material out of the lead, because no one's had time to write a proper section about it, or because the article's still a stub. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:52, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Slim, the same can be said of every injunction on the page. Marskell 21:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Can someone define a "lengthy paragraph"? I think it is reasonable to suggest how many average words a lead section should contain. My SWAG would be 150-400, so a good paragraph should be anywhere from 50-100 words. Thoughts? —Viriditas | Talk 22:08, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

When I write lead sections, I use the overall length of the article and diversity of significant issues that need to to be addressed to guide the length. Windows Vista, for example, has almost 400 words in its lead section, which at first sounds like a lot, but given that there's a few hundred kilobytes of text spread out across the article and its nine sub-articles, and given that a few themes are very common in the reliable sources used to inform the article (it took a long time to finish, security was a major concern, lots of criticism, new development platform, blah blah blah), a good stand-alone lead needs to very briefly mention them all. I'd like for a casual reader to be able to read just the lead of a lengthy article and know what all the major points are. If it can be done in 100 words, let's do it in 100 words... but if it's going to take 400, I think that's okay, too, but it sure as heck better be backed up with a lot of supporting prose. :-)

Sometimes I do think we should be talking about lead lengths in terms of words and sentences, not just paragraphs. It gives writers a nice, concrete goal to aim for... school teachers usually ask for essays to be a certain number of words. -/- Warren 22:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I support including this in the guideline. How would you compose it? —Viriditas | Talk 00:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

An Introduction is not an Overview

I removed this sentence, which was recently added:

An "Overview" section subsequent to the lead should also be avoided, as the lead is meant to be the overview.

An 'Overview' and an 'Introduction' (or Lead) are not the same thing. These words are not synonymous (check your thesaurus), and in formal writing, they take distinct roles. 'Overview' sections are very common in Wikipedia, especially amongst shorter articles which have four to six paragraphs of text. We still want a short lead section on such articles so that a reader (or an automated tool) can get a quick, one to three-sentence description of those remaining paragraphs, but if the remainder of the article is in one section, what else would we call it?

Anyhow, point being -- this sentence is proposing a significant change to how we organise articles, and that needs more discussion. -/- Warren 22:15, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

If an overview section were to be used, I would expect to find one below the lead of the main article, summarizing a series of related articles - not in a short article alone. This is true for Cricket, etc... I would suggest modifying the statement to read, An "Overview" section subsequent to the lead should also be avoided, as the lead is meant to be the overview. An Overview section may be used if it summarizes a series of related articles. On Philip K. Dick, an editor recently split the lead into an Overview section because he felt the lead was too long - not because it linked (or rather summarized) a series of related articles per WP:SERIES. This should be fleshed out. —Viriditas | Talk 22:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd guestimate at 10-20,000. It's fairly common in computing articles. What I am asking about shorter articles is that, if you only have one section with content, is this: What does one call it? When there isn't enough text to break it into multiple sections (remember, the MOS advises against short sections), but there is enough text to be too long for a sectionless stub, we tend to toss everything into one section. That section needs a general enough name if it isn't specific enough to address one major facet of the subject.

Let's have at a practical example that I just did some clean-up work on: Calculator (Windows). Propose an alternative to the current section layout. -/- Warren 22:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's no lead section (unless you count 13 words describing the title of the article as a lead). Incorporate the main points of the Overview into the lead and expand new subsections per article development guidelines. As WP:LEAD states, "An Introduction headline should not be added at the beginning of an article." How is this any different? My main concern is that some editors are creating Overview sections because the lead is deemed "too long". As I said regarding PKD, we now have two lead sections, and that is a problem. —Viriditas | Talk 23:07, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah-ha, see, you're saying "expand the article" as the solution to fixing the article. A good solution, of course, but I don't have enough time or interest in the subject to do that, and it may be months or years before someone does. That's my point. If an article is likely to sit in such a state for a while to come, a method of organisation is needed where all the interesting information we've got on the article is just enough to make one decent section, and then we can slap a short lead on the top, put references and see alsos at the bottom, and we have a functioning article. One-sentence lead sections are acceptable if the article doesn't have enough diversity of content to justify writing a more lengthy lead. -/- Warren 16:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

On the main point of the thread, I'd suggest that an Introduction and Overview are more or less synonyms for Wikipedia's purposes and that we should deprecate actually placing the latter in as a headline. I think one sentence leads are (if only aesthetically) quite awful; I'd prefer not to have sections if we're talking about very short articles that are likely to remain so. Marskell 16:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Marskell, I agree with your position on one sentence leads; we don't need them. And Warrens? Aren't you making a good argument for WP:MERGE? —Viriditas | Talk 03:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Image or Infobox in Lead section

There is a discussion on the placing of images or infoboxes in the lead section of articles. Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Image_V_InfoBox. The long standing guideline has been to use an image unless there is a compelling reason not to. However, the use of infoboxes in the top right has crept in. The suggestion is that an image should be used in the top right of the lead section, and that, unless there is a compelling reason otherwise, infoboxes should start below the lead section, preferably in the section to which the infobox actually relates. SilkTork 18:05, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't like infoboxes myself, but they're widely used, and I can't see it stopping. You'd need strong support for that change. Do you have it? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

What we have is the start of a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Image_V_InfoBox. It started as a question. But there appears to be - like yourself - a number of people who feel that use of infoboxes could do with some extra guidance. Please join the discussion. SilkTork 21:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

(moved from SV talk)

I noticed that you took out the recent addition to Wikipedia:Lead section. A discussion has started at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Image_V_InfoBox at which your opinion would be valued. I would value your input. SilkTork 21:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised and disappointed at your immediate revert. You have left no comment on the talk page that was indicated. I understand that you disagree with the addition to the guideline; however, as you have not joined in the discussion, I'm not aware that you are aware of the issues. Would you please join in the discussion and give us your thinking on the contradictory guidelines, and your thoughts on how best to advise people to proceed. A revert is not going to assist the debate. The addition is there to bring people into the debate. Without the addition to the guideline people will not be aware of the issue. I would like to get as many people involved as possible. Given that thought, I hope you understand a little more of the reasoning behind the edit, and you will understand why I am now going to put the edit back. I have no problem with the edit being modified after discussion - but it doesn't assist anyone to muffle discussion at the start. SilkTork 21:24, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding the intention. Look at my original edit. In the edit summary I provided a link to the discussion that is currently taking place. There is already an active discussion taking place. You need to be addressing yourself to that discussion rather than attempting to split the discussion by taking it somewhere else. Please stop reverting. Please come to the table with your thoughts. This constant reverting is not doing me, you, the current issue, or Wiki in general any good. Please be aware that you are doing the reverting. Please be aware that you are ignoring repeated requests to discuss this in the place set aside for the discussion. There is no urgent need for the edit to be removed from Wikipedia:Lead section. The edit itself, as I have pointed out, is drawing attention to an active and valid inquiry. The edit is legitimate, coming as it does from a long-standing MoS guideline. You would need to join the debate and give your reasons for objecting to its inclusion, rather than the reverse as you are suggesting. I am stepping aside from this edit war now. I would ask you to please think about what I have been saying and give me the benefit of the doubt as regard good intentions. Regards SilkTork 21:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to discuss adding this to WP:LEAD, please discuss it here, rather than on my talk page or on the MoS talk page. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Whenever this comes up, people say they don't like them but nothing is done about the box creep. For historical arts and bios I find them particularly obnoxious (Shakespeare, W. "Occupation: Playwright, poet, actor"). In other areas, such as taxa, they serve a clear purpose and are well-established. We could deprecate marginal boxes here; I'm sure we'd find support. But Silk, images and infoboxes are not an either/or. Boxes have images within them whenever possible. Marskell 15:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

It's funny that you mention Shakespeare, since that particular infobox does contain some useful information not contained in the lead section, including birthplace and a reference to "Elizabethan era". So if I wanted to find out where he was born, I'd have to either scroll down to the biography (only the birth and death dates are in the lead) or take a quick peek at the box - it's clear to me at least which I prefer. --Darkbane ^talk 16:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

"Scroll down..."—that's precisely what we want readers to do. Marskell 17:38, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

But as a reader, that's precisely what I don't want to do unless I intend to read parts of the article ^_^; If there is a way to present the most relevant facts without having to scroll down, why would you want people to go dig for it? Isn't that essentially information hiding? --Darkbane ^talk 17:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

If everyone agreed that Shakespeare's birthplace was among the "most relevant facts" about him, we probably wouldn't have any dispute. But I think that many people would deny that this fact is particularly important. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Well, it's improbable, but not impossible that someone comes along thinking Shakespeare was born in Venice. But I think your statement is an issue for the standardization of a specific userbox template, and not necessarily an argument against userboxes as a whole. Rather than saying "let's get rid of some userboxes because they appear to have marginal value", I'd rather follow the line of thought that tries to improve those particular userboxes. --Darkbane ^talk 02:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I have copied the public comments above (the talkpage comments are a conversation between myself and SlimVirgin, and have no part in the debate, so I haven't copied them) to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Image V Infobox.

Please direct comments on infoboxes to: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Image_V_InfoBox. SilkTork 07:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

No, please discuss proposed changes to this page on this talk page. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 10:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Just to keep things firmly on-topic, the relevant issue here isn't the over-use (or improper deployment) of of infoboxes; that's another issue which would be better discussed over at WP:MOS. Here, as far as I can tell, the main issue is whether infoboxes should appear in the lead section. There is currently no mention of either images or infoboxes on WP:LEAD, yet the former, at least, is mandated to appear top right of an article in the WP:MOS guideleines. There, there's no mention of infoboxes supplanting images in this position, yet they are doing so with increasing regularity. These points, if for nothing other than a desire for reference points and standards in the encyclopedia, need to be addressed.
I think it makes sense to assess the need for an infobox in the lead on a subject area basis. In some cases they seem to make good sense, others they're ugly, intrusive and even redundant.
Here's one example of what might be an alternative position: sometimes the TOC is so long that an infobox is a good spacefiller. However there's still no need to have one right up there at the top; in fact it might serve this purpose better if the tag is placed just above the first section header. Look at Columbia University for example. It could look like this, without the acres of white space unter the lead, with scope for a nice, big, unboxed image top right.
I suppose the question is, where is the guideline, policy or even discussion which suggested that an infobox should claim top-line position, regardless of layout and other aesthetics?
mikaul^talk 19:13, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Is this article part of MoS?

It has been part of MoS since January 2006 [1]. It uses a MoS infobox. And it is a breakout article from Wikipedia:Guide to layout which is a MoS article. Recently SlimVirgin changed the tag from MoS to Guideline [2] giving the reason: "this isn't part of the MoS because the MoS changes every three minutes". I placed it back as part of MoS, but that was reverted - possibly as part of another revert that SlimVirgin did on a separate edit I made (the reason for that revert was "do not keep adding a new section that someone is objecting to; discuss it on talk first" - so it appears that SlimVirgin was unaware that she had made a double revert (difficult to tell - such is the crude nature of reverts). I will now put the tag back to MoS, and would request a fuller discussion on the topic. SilkTork 07:16, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

We don't focus on layout issues here, but include discussion of content. The MoS is such a volatile and widely ignored guideline that it's not a good idea to be part of it if it can be helped. Otherwise we have problems like the one above, where discussions are started on the MoS, and then someone arrives here to make the change as though no discussion here is needed. It's better for this to be a standalone guideline. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 07:50, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

The principle that article leads should be able to function as stand alone summary articles is a long-standing one that, at least at one point, was basic to some important projects like printed versions. It has a wide consensus that goes well beyond this talk page. We do urgently need a way to distinguish important, broadly-accepted style concerns from the parts of the MoS that are developed by a handful of people on a talk page with the rest of the project standing by uninterested. Perhaps actually removing those important concerns from the MoS is the way to do it. Christopher Parham (talk) 08:11, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

It's hard to edit the MoS and stay sane (try arguing about what to call the serial comma for weeks on end, and see what's left of your mind when it's over), which is why most people have given up on it. I agree it would be a good idea to extract anything of importance then leave it to its own devices, but it would involve a fight, and MoS fights can be nasty, because people dig their heels in. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 08:27, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

The MoS isn't widely, but selectively ignored, and we should be concerned about preserving what it does well. Certain parts of it—respect country-specific differences, use summary style, have a lead that could be a stand-alone summary—are very much accepted, and for the better. Since I've been here, article titles and section headings have become far more consistent (though categorization is still often a total mess). And then there's the micro stuff such as dashes and units of measure that often annoy people when brought up, but have still seen some useful systematization--people don't uses the double dash anymore, for instance.

The problem with the MoS is that it's just so damn big. Perhaps we could select the very broad principles that are long-standing and actually make a short policy page (Naming conventions became a policy).

Note Tony slapped a copyedit tag on the main MoS page. I enjoyed that. Marskell 08:37, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

What of the convention under which a section becomes too unwieldy to remain on the parent page and is spun off to a page of its own..? I thought that's what WP:LEAD was!? In that case, changes made here should be reflected on the MOS page, the summary para on which should be updated accordingly.. no?
Hopefully, the rejig of MOS will restore a little credibility there, but in any event something has to give legitimacy to standards, and that thing has to be wholly coherent and consistent if it is not to be ignored. If the family of guidleines has a drunken parent, are we taking it to rehab or not?
Finally, I can't see how WP:LEAD can possibly be concerned only with content. It clearly is part of MOS and is no less concerned with layout than its section at WP:GTL, which covers the same ground as this page.
mikaul^talk 11:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

That guideline is WP:SUMMARY. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:59, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Possibly POV statement in many lead sections.

There's a conversation going on at WT:NPOV#POV_in_first_sentence? about a reoccuring problem with the way people are introduced in articles. This may influence a change in the WP:LEAD policy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiLeon (talk • contribs)

Thanks for letting us know.

SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 18:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Lead citation

I removed the no-citations-in-lead section added by Eubulides. WP:V requires citations for all quotations and for anything challenged or likely to be challenged, no matter where they are in the article. That's the policy and editors on this page can't decide to change it unilaterally. We write leads, not abstracts. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 18:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think he'd tried to clarify a question I'd asked at the copyeditor's wikiproject. My question was:-

"On another note could someone tell me what the current thinking is regarding in-line citations in the lead? I remember a discussion where somemone argued that as the Lead is a summary of the article and so summarises referenced facts from the body of the article; that referencing wasn't required in the lead - personally I like this approach as it means that the summary style of the lead is visually unincumbered with citation links. WP:LEAD, WP:V, WP:ATT and WP:RS provide no guidance. BTW - I've been on wikibreak for a bit - does ATT now supercede V and RS or are they now all applicable?"

It simply boils down to whether or not we repeat the verification that will be found in the article, in the lead. I'm happy to do either but prefer to leave the lead 'clean' - if the consensus is as you suggest Slim, can be something added to the policy to explain this? cheers --Joopercoopers 10:54, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Jooper, the reason the policy doesn't mention leads is that there's nothing special about them. All material in articles, wherever it's positioned, that is challenged or likely to be challenged, needs a source, as do quotations. Editors who don't want to add citations to their leads can write them in such a way that they don't include quotations, or material likely to be challenged.

As for ATT, it applies, along with V and NOR. The latter two are policy, and ATT is a summary of them. We were hoping ATT would supersede the others entirely, but we failed to get consensus for that. RS is a red herring and can safely be ignored. :-) SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 12:52, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

To me, the only cases where citations are okay in the lead are for quotes (as mentioned), and the odd case where it contains information that simply doesn't fit anywhere else in the article (most often etymologies). If there are issues with citations there, it's probably more to do with the lead being poorly written than any guidelines being less than ideal. Circeus 13:06, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Leads about contentious issues contain contentious material, which must be sourced on first reference. Bear in mind that the lead is often the only part of the page people read. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 13:19, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Eubulides' edit was a descriptive summary of what actually goes on, and in that sense it wasn't wrong. We can say that the lead should be cited like everything else but a large body of editors are going to carry on not citing their leads. Perhaps we need a more prescriptive note on the subject. Marskell 13:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

It may go on in the areas you edit, but not where I edit. I've never seen anything in a policy that suggests leads do not need sources. Perhaps the idea comes from people getting introductions mixed up with abstracts. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 13:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I definitely cite leads for contentious material (e.g., Anti-Americanism) and I agree there's no policy line that says we don't have to. I only mean that a large number of people are under the opposite impression and in that sense Eubulides wasn't wrong. Marskell 13:30, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks all, I think it's a fair statement to say then "there's no clear consensus other than for biographies and quotes". "a large number of people are under the opposite impression" does sound like a consensus to me, but who knows? For my work in progess article (Origins and architecture of the Taj Mahal ) I'll reinstate the lead references - you probably wouldn't be surprised that a 400 year old monument built by a dead empire is really contentious - my response has been to stick almost exclusively to the best academic sources I can find and reference to the nth degree. By the way, if someone would have a look at 'Origins' and let me know of any stylistic howlers, I'd be very grateful. cheers. PS I know the intention of ATT was to simplify, but if we've now got V and NOR and ATT - it's had the oposite effect - shouldn't we deprecate ATT? --Joopercoopers 16:15, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

People continue to link to ATT, JC, so we've just left it as it is, with a tag on it explaining the situation. It's policy in the sense that it very closely reflects the policies, so we shouldn't deprecate it. It will either die a natural death as people stop linking to it, or else it'll keep on being used. Should be interesting to see which ways it swings over the longer term. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

With the above discussion in mind it does appear that this area requires clarification, because the subject naturally comes up among editors. I rewrote the section to address SlimVirgin's comments; I hope this version explains the consensus better. Eubulides 05:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

E, that everything likely to be challenged needs a source is policy. If you want to change that, and say "except in the lead," you'll have to go to the policy talk page to suggest it. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

But the rewritten paragraph does not contradict that policy. What do you see wrong with the rewritten version, with respect to policy? Here it is again, for your convenience:

There are two schools of thought about putting citations in the lead. The first approach omits from the lead all material requiring citations, on the theory that citations distract the reader and make the lead less inviting; Mourning dove is an example. The second supplies citations in the lead as needed, often using named footnotes so that the lead and the body need not contain duplicate citations; Islam is an example of the latter approach. There is no consensus on which style is better, but a single article should be consistent about which style it uses. As the two examples suggest, a controversial subject is likely to need citations in its article's lead. Whether material requires a citation is independent of the material's location; for example, any quotation should be attributed, regardless of whether it appears in the lead or in the body.

Eubulides 05:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

"There is no consensus on which style is better ..." Yes, there is. There is strong consensus for the policy that says all material likely to be challenged needs a source. ALL material, no matter where it is. Go and look at our FAs. Most have sources in the lead, even the non-controversial topics. You also don't seem to realize that what you're writing is unnecessary. If a lead has no material in it likely to be challenged, it doesn't need sources, and there's no need to labor that point. But if it does, it does. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:33, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Of the last three featured articles, two (Holden VE Commodore and Johannes Kepler) had citations in the lead, one (Climate of India) did not.

Then it must not have needed them. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

So in practice both styles are acceptable, contrary to your assertions.

No citations are acceptable if and only if no citations are needed. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:V does not say that all material in the lead must have inline citations in the lead; it merely says that all controversial material must be sourced.

No, it says all material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations. Material need not be controversial for it to be something likely to be challenged. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You're right that it says all material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations. But this does not affect my point that WP:V does not require that all material in the lead must have inline citations in the lead. It merely requires that certain material must be sourced; the details of how sourcing works is left up to the editors for that page. Eubulides 07:35, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Deferring detailed citations to the body is still sourcing.

Many people only read the lead. They deserve to see citations nevertheless. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Both styles supply citations. Clearly you dislike one of the styles, but the point remains that both styles are in common use and WP:V prohibits neither style. WP:LEAD should not impose styles unnecessarily. Eubulides 07:35, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Finally, I disagree that this topic is redundant. It may be obvious to you, but it is not obvious to everybody else, and it deserves to be covered. Eubulides 06:40, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

A completely unscientific survey of the FA's - Sylvanus Morley doesn't have refs in the lead, Elfin-woods Warbler does, Indian Institutes of Technology does, California Gold Rush doesn't, William Monahan does, Still Reigning doesn't, Governor-General of India doesn't. I can't accept that all those that don't have citations in their lead's don't have something likely to be challenged. Slim I think you might be misrepresenting your interpretation of V as a consensus interpretation of V which it clearly isn't. Yours is an opinion, clearly others differ myself and Eubulides to name but two. A note on the policy pages saying there is no consensus in this matter seems perfectly reasonable and sensible.

"Many people only read the lead. They deserve to see citations nevertheless" - seems an odd argument. If people can't be bothered to read the whole article - why would they be worried about citations?

"E, that everything likely to be challenged needs a source is policy. If you want to change that, and say "except in the lead," you'll have to go to the policy talk page to suggest it." I think this ducks the central issue - An article where a well written lead summarises sourced facts is, in it's totality, sourced. The logical extension of your argument would be that every repetition of a sourced fact would need another citation - clearly unecessary and unwieldy. The structure of wikipedia articles is clear for anyone who takes the time to look.

I'm happy to include citations in the lead of my articles to avoid upsetting those who agree with your interpretation, but I wouldn't want to see that body of people claim a consensus they do not have on this page. Regards --Joopercoopers 10:35, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

PS would it be worth someone getting someone with techy wizardry knowhow to survey the FA's and get some stats on this? --Joopercoopers 10:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You shouldn't need to cite something in the lead if you cite the _exact_ same fact in the main text. I don't think there's any requirement, though it is possible with our footnoting system, to footnote the same fact more than once. Squidfryerchef 12:20, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

It is possible - the questions at issue are "Is it desirable" and if so "Why?" --Joopercoopers 14:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I just now surveyed by hand all the front-page featured articles from July 1 through July 16. Nine of them had citations in the lead; seven didn't. Clearly this is an area where both styles are acceptable and are commonly used, though citations in the lead seem a bit more common in this small sample. I will rewrite the section with the above in mind and let's try it again. Eubulides 16:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Citations in the lead - drafts

On second thought perhaps it'd be better to have an editing go-round on this topic here first, as Joopercoopers suggested to me. Here's the latest draft for a "Citations" section:

Like the rest of the article, the lead must conform to Wikipedia's core policy of verifiability. There are two schools of thought about whether verifiability means that the lead should contain citations. The first approach supplies citations in the lead, often using named footnotes so that the lead and the body need not contain duplicate citations; Islam is an example. The second approach uses the lead to summarize the body and sources the lead by supplying citations in the body, on the theory that citations make the lead less inviting; Mourning dove is an example of the latter approach. There is no consensus on which style is better, but a single article should be consistent about its style. As the two examples suggest, a controversial subject is more likely to need citations in its article's lead. Whether material requires a citation is independent of the material's location; for example, all quotations and all potentially negative material about a living person must be attributed, regardless of whether they appear in the lead or in the body.

Eubulides 16:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

A rewrite.

The lead must conform to Wikipedia's core policy of verifiability. There is consensus that the special cases of quotations and contentious facts concerning living people should be cited if they are included in the lead. However, there is currently no consensus regarding general citations in the lead. Two school of thought exist. The first claim that since the lead is a summary of cited facts, to cite material twice is redundant and they prefer to leave the lead 'clean' (Big Bang is an example). The second school claim that the lead is not a special case and the Verifiability policy applies throught an article (Sikhism is an example). At WP:FAC it is more likely that objections will be received that there is insufficient referencing in the lead rather than over-referencing. It is also considered that the more contentious a subject is, the more likely it is to have referencing in the lead.

--Joopercoopers 11:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, the rewrite makes good points, but it's a little scary: it uses words like claim and consensus that are likely to scare off newcomers. Also, I think named footnotes are worth a mention here, for newbies' sakes. How about the following further rewrite?

The lead must conform to Wikipedia's core policy of verifiability. Contentious material about living persons and quotations should be sourced in the lead if they appear in the lead. For other material, one school of thought says that since the lead summarizes the body, supplying citations in the body suffices to source the lead (Big Bang is an example). The second school says that the lead should be sourced independently of the body, often using named footnotes to cite the same source in both head and body (Sikhism is an example). The more contentious a subject is, the more likely it needs referencing in the lead, and featured article candidates are more likely to receive objections about insufficient referencing in the lead rather than over-referencing.

Eubulides 17:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

• Um, "and featured article candidates are more likely to receive objections about insufficient referencing in the lead rather than over-referencing" is not entirely accurate. I've seen objections based on too many references in the lede. Besides, it is difficult to quantify either way, so I'd avoid adding that sentence. Otherwise, looks good. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 01:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
  • OK, thanks, I struck that out of my latest draft. Eubulides 01:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
• "sourced in the lead if they appear in the lead" - rewrite to "sourced in the lead if they appear there"? --Joopercoopers 08:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
• Can we change references to 'body' to 'body text'? (Sourcing independently of the body sounds a bit like lucid dreaming - and if I'm thinking of wikipedia sources when I have mine, its going to be so sad)
• "For other material, one school of thought" can we introduce the two schools and say "For other material, two schools of thought exist. One argues that......etc.etc."
• There is still no requirement for footnotes - it's still one of three methods the last time I checked. Better to get a link in to WP:CITE --Joopercoopers 09:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I reworded it to make it clearer that footnotes are not required, and addressed your other points as best I could. The rest of the project page says just "body", not "body text", and I tried rewording the draft with "body text" but it looked a bit weird (I immediately thought of tattoos) so I changed it back. Perhaps replacing "sourcing" with "citing" should make it clearer were talking about text, and address the "body" problem that way? Here is yet another draft:

The lead must conform to Wikipedia's core policy of verifiability, and lead material likely to be challenged needs to cite reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons and quotations should be cited in the lead if they appear there. For other material likely to be challenged, there are two schools of thought. The first school says that since the lead summarizes the body, supplying citations in the body suffices to source the lead (Big Bang is an example). The second school says that the lead should be cited independently of the body (Sikhism is an example); if the article uses footnotes, named footnotes make it easy to cite the same source consistently in both lead and body. The more contentious a subject is, the more likely it needs citations in the lead.

Good enough? Eubulides 16:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Reads like a pretty fair compromise to me now. Perhaps we can get Slim or one of the others to chime in again? --Joopercoopers 16:47, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

It almost contradicts itself. It says material likely to be challenged must be sourced in the lead, as must quotations, and contentious material about living persons. Then it talks about how, for "other material," there are two schools of thought. But there aren't. There is one school of thought, which is that "other material" need not be cited in the lead or elsewhere. See WP:V. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 19:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:V says that material "likely to be challenged needs a reliable source". I thought the first sentence of the draft made it clear that "other material" meant "other material likely to be challenged", but apparently I was wrong. To clear this up, let's change "other material" to "other material likely to be challenged". I've done that in the draft above (the new text is underlined.) Good enough? Eubulides 20:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that would make any sense, Eubulides. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Slim to the extent it nearly contradicts itself, and offer a pared-down, hopefully clearer, version below - we don't need to mention footnotes, this is dealt with elsewhere. Slim you do need to go and read some of these articles that aren't referenced in the lead - your contention that there's just nothing likely to be challenged in the lead of Big Bang theory is inaccurate I think. --Joopercoopers 09:10, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Then they ought to be sourced, Jc. The point is that V is policy, and the policy can't be changed on this talk page by a small number of editors. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The lead must conform to Wikipedia's core policy of verifiability. Contentious material about living persons and quotations should be cited in the lead if they appear there. For other material in the lead which is likely to be challenged, there are two schools of thought. The first school says that since the lead summarizes the main text (which will be referenced), supplying citations in the lead as well is an unnecessary duplication (Big Bang is an example). The second school says that the lead should be cited independently of the main text (Sikhism is an example).

Change both instances of "claims" to "says" and it looks good to me. Thanks. Eubulides 15:41, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, do we have any more objections - going once.....--Joopercoopers 16:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I object. There aren't two schools of thought. There is one policy. If you want to change it, you must go there instead. As it stands, anything likely to be challenged needs a source. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

You can repeat the same thing ad infinitum, yet not make it true. Given that nobody cared when this question was raised at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Must citations appear in the lead?, I have to question your assertion of it being against policy. If it had been, someone else would have screamed bloody murder. And it is not like that talk page is a hidden corner of the Wikipedia namespace, as it has several active threads at the moment. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "nobody cared," but if you mean people didn't comment, it doesn't mean they agreed. Silence never means agreement on policy pages.

Actually, the only comment received was "it shouldn't be a problem". Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The most-recent draft does not contradict the policy that anything likely to be challenged needs a source. On the contrary, it explicitly states the policy, and goes on to say that there are two schools of thought about how to accomplish the policy. So I don't see how your objection applies to actual wording of the most-recent draft. Both schools of thought are well-represented in recent featured articles (the reported tally was 9 to 7); if there was something seriously wrong about one of the schools of thought, we wouldn't be seeing so many featured articles using it. Your objection is based on style, not on policy; but WP:LEAD shouldn't be dictating one style over another popular and approved style. Eubulides 20:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Slim isn't really responding to any any of the substantive points we've made, just restating his position (as a member of one school of thought) and misrepresenting a consensus that demonstratively doesn't exist. Accordingly, I'm going to post the paragraph. --Joopercoopers 10:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

You're missing the point. The lead must be capable of standing alone as an overview of the article, so the reader can read the lead and nothing else. This means that it must be self-contained. There's no point in writing a supposedly self-contained lead where the reader has to read the rest of the article to find the sources.

Suggesting that citations aren't necessary in intros will lead to a number of scenarios: POV pushers removing citations they don't like, followed by others removing the unsourced material; sources or fact tags being repeatedly added and removed; quotations left unsourced; BLP material left unsourced.

Yes, you can add exceptions, types of material that must always be sourced even in a lead, but why make it so complicated? The policy at the moment is very simple, very easy to remember: source everything that's challenged or likely to be challenged, and quotations. Period.

Perhaps you could explain why anyone might object to having sources in a lead? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 10:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry to have reverted you, Jc, but I foresee problems with the new section, and no benefits. Could you please say why anyone would object to sources in a lead, and what you feel the benefits of that section would be to the encyclopedia. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 10:28, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I restored the material as I find it highly beneficial. This issue keeps coming up on articles, talk, and Project pages, and the new citation section presents it in a concise, neutral manner, leaving the final decision up to the editor. In short, it's beautiful. —Viriditas | Talk 11:53, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems this is all focused on BLP, but what about other articles, ones on fictional subjects? I cannot speak for articles about living people, as I tend to edit fictional topics such as films and fictional characters, but it has always been my understanding that whatever is in the lead must be in the body of the article, so if there isn't a citation in the lead then it doesn't matter because there had better be one in the body of the article. I've kind of seen citations in the lead as a way that some pages get away with having things in the lead that are not mentioned anywhere else in the article. If people want to do it, I don't see it as a problem, but I don't think that there should be a mandate for it since the whole idea of the lead is to summarize everything that you've done. When you write a research paper for school, you generally don't cite things in your introduction and conclusion sections, because they tell you what you are going to talk about and what you just talked about. The idea is that you are going to verify everything you've just summarized when you discuss it in a more detailed manner. I've had people come to articles that I've worked on and do the "this needs a source, I'm challenging it". My response is usually, "read the entire article, it is cited". I don't see a point of requiring citations in the lead (unless you are doing a direct quotation of something, because that should always have an author identified), because the lead should be summarizing your entire work anyway. If it isn't cited in the body, or it isn't present in the body, then that is when you have a problem. If we do the, "anything that is challenged must have a citation" theory, then anyone who is just in a bad mood, misinterprets the style guideline, or just wants to be a prick (pardon my french) to a fellow editor they tend not to like, could demand citations for every statement in the lead. If it's a direct quote from someone, yes, I can see the need, but the lead needs to be as easy as possible to read. People shouldn't have to dodge citations left and right just to get through a couple of lead paragraphs that summarize an entire article. In short, if people are reading an article and trusting that editors have done their job correctly (you cannot expect the average reader to read WP:RS, but that they'll simply trust that the information is reliable), then one allow the average reader to trust that everything in the lead paragraphs are sourced, where there is more detailed information, in the body of the article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:38, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The current wording mentions the style that you prefer, as the "first school". Are you suggesting that the wording be changed to recommend the first school over the second? But that would go too far. The (limited) survey mentioned above suggests that the two schools of thought are roughly equal in practice (the tally was 7 to 9). As there is no consensus on which school is better, the wording should mention both schools neutrally. Eubulides 17:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Your entire point is based on a false premise. In practice, ledes are not sourced iff the body text of the article goes into greater detail than the summary and the body text is adequately sourced. What the added citation section is doing is describing current practice: there is more than one way to cite ledes. It is beneficial to encyclopedia to state how things are actually done, not just how they should be, as policies ideally are descriprive, not prescriptive. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:30, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I feel cites aren't needed in leads, being it is just a summary of the article. But sometimes statements in leads need cites if they aren't discussed in the article. For example, Homer Simpson summarises the points of the article, though not in a matter of regurgitating information in a simpler manner. Alientraveller 19:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

A quick look through FAs shows that most have citations in the lead. This is based only on a random glance, but it'd be worth going through the recent ones more systematically. I don't accept that there are two equal schools of thought here. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 20:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

From the last promotion, consisting of nine articles:

1. House with Chimaeras - 2 references
2. Beagle - no references
3. Chad - no references
4. Bernard Quatermass - 4 references
5. Siege of Malakand - 4 references
6. Soviet invasion of Poland (1939) - 8 references
7. Structural history of the Roman military - no references
8. Ronald Niel Stuart - no references
9. Zhou Tong (archer) - 5 references

Five with references in the lede, and four without. The numbers don't like, and they say that they are about the same. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:48, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

This is just a snapshot. It'd be good to have the figures for the last two years, and some figures for GAs too. I wonder if someone could write a script to do it. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 20:54, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, is anyone noticing the fact that we're being a little small minded here? This page is called "Lead section", not "Lead section for non-fiction topics". If we are going to address any concerns we have to look at this as an issue on Wikipedia as a whole, and not as something specific to WP:BLP. If you want to keep it strictly to BLP (which is fine by me, since I don't edit those types of articles), then it has no place here. That should be taken up at the style guidelines page for BLP.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:57, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is a simple yes-or-no question. Perhaps the guideline be more guideline-like here, that is, not focus on "what does the ideal article look like" so much as "what is the right thing for an editor to do?". As far as I can see, there are a number of different cases:

1. Lead sentence repeats a claim from the body of the article verbatim or nearly verbatim. There's a citation for the copy in the body. Editor A tags the lead claim with {{cite}}. Editor B reverts, pointing out the cite in the body. Then editor A re-tags, and repeat ad nauseam. The guideline should either say that B is right, or that both are wrong for edit warring and that the first one to actually copy the citation from the body gets bonus points for having graduated from kindergarten. The latter option ought to satisfy everybody, unless there are people who think that footnotes to the lead section are actively harmful. I hope that everybody agrees that it would be disruptive of editor A to remove the claim from the lead due to its lack of sourcing, after the source in the body has been pointed out.
2. Lead sentence says something that is not repeated in the body of the article. Whereas people may disagree whether such a sentence ought to exist, there cannot be doubt that as long as it does exist, the need to source it is the same as if it had been in the body of the article.
3. Lead sentence summarizes a longer discussion in the body, for example "Many explanations of this phenomenon have been proposed, but none has so far gained universal acceptance." where each of the many explanations are described separately later in the article, with its own citations. In this case it does not appear to be helpful to anyone to attach a long string of footnotes to the summary in the lead; any reader who wants to follow the sources would be better off reading the descriptions later in the article to find out which references he'd be particularly interested in.

This is a bit more subtle than just "do leads need to be sourced or not?" Subscribing to a "school" that flatly answers either yes or no as a matter of principle seems to me to lead to wrongness either in case (2) or (3). –Henning Makholm 20:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Am I missing something? Citations are needed for all content in Wikipedia, and as far as I know the lead of an article is one of the most important pieces of any article. There are no "two school of thoughts" as some one argued above. This is a no issue: any text in the article lead that may be challenged needs to have sources as per WP:V ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:55, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The current text does not disagree with you. It says that the lead must be verifiable, and that all material likely to be challenged needs a source. The only "schools of thought" are about how to cite sources for the lead. WP:V does not require inline citations, so there are multiple ways to do it. Eubulides 00:55, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

It's my opinion that since a lead should summarize an entire article, then a proper lead shouldn't have any real "challengeable" information in it. Aside from something specific that might be the most important characteristic of the topic of that particular article. If you want to say that Lance Armstrong is the greatest cyclist in the history of the sport, in the lead, I'd expect a source. But there shouldn't really be too much information that could be challeneged, per say, in a lead since detailed statements are best left for the body of the article (otherwise, it defeats the purpose of summarization).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:55, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Let's test that theory by looking at a specific featured article, Daylight saving time. Its lead uses the first school of thought (no citations) in its 1st paragraph, and the second school of thought (inline citations) in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. The 1st paragraph contains material that is less controversial but does require citations in the body (e.g., William Willett invented DST, not Benjamin Franklin), whereas the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs cover more-controversial material (e.g., does DST save energy?). Now, by the theory you're proposing, should the lead's 2nd and 3rd paragraphs be deleted (because they're not a proper summary? even though the vast majority of the article is about those controversies?), or should the citations be removed from the lead? I.e., what exactly should be done for this example? Eubulides 03:01, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

See, what you did was pick one little thing and ignore others. I never said every article that has a proper lead will have no need for citations. I even mentioned that when there are specific instances when it's something important to the topic, that it would probably need that. But since you are a major contributor to that article, and the nominator of its recently achieved FA status, making it seem as though you are really asking is for me to nitpick your accomplishments (which I don't plan to do). What about Jurassic Park, or Red vs. Blue. RvB is interesting, because there are 2 citations in the lead, one for a direct quote from someone, and another for an annoucement on the future of the program (as the article is about an on-going series). Then you have Pilot (House) with no citations. Here's the point, no two articles are the same. You picked a subject whose entire page is about controversial facts. We've already established that anything challengeable should be cited. I think a lot of articles are not really all that controversial to begin with. If it's something important, that really characterizes the subject of the article, and there isn't a way to simply give a summary of it, then you'll probably need a citation attached to it. But, if we are saying that things should be cited in the lead, no matter what (especially when they are challenged), what happens when an article is one the front page? It seems an argument is that we should cite in the lead as well, and not force people to go wandering through an article to find the citation in the body (because that wouldn't defeat the purpose of a summary at all). But where would those citations lead to on the front page? They are certainly of no use there, and in this instance we are trusting people to trust in the judgement of other editors that what is being presented to them on the front page is verified reliably. So, what's the difference between things on the front page not having citations and things not on the front page (as the info on the front page is usually the same information in the lead paragraphs)?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:19, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I sense we're in violent agreement. I agree that Jurassic Park, Red vs. Blue, and Pilot (House) are all fine. That is because I think both schools of thought are valid, and whether a lead should contain citations depends partly on the subject matter and partly on the editors' style. WP:LEAD#Citations currently says that all the articles you mention are fine, and I agree with that. The only thing where we may be in disagreement is that you seem to be saying that citations normally should not be in the lead, and I think that goes too far. Many articles contain citations in the lead, even when the cited material is not particularly controversial. Zhou Tong (archer) is one example. That's OK too; there's nothing wrong with that article. Eubulides 04:42, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

My question about Daylight saving time was not a rhetorical one. I originally wrote that lead without any citations, but one reviewer told me to put them in, so I did. Personally I'd rather omit them. But I wouldn't mind having a second opinion. Eubulides 04:42, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is, unless you are directly quoting someone (which may or may not be appropriate for a lead), then you really don't need citations (again, my opinion). That goes for the article you wrote. I didn't see any direct quotations (though I could have missed them), so I don't see a necessity to cite in the lead. I get that there are controversial topics in the lead, but the body should explain those. But, and I emphasize the alternative here, if someone wishes to put them in (as they are with your article) then I have no issue with them being there. I only have issue with some form of mandation that they must be there. Most of the discussion on this page, as I can make out (because it's slightly chaotic) seems to be about people agreeing that it really depends on the article, and whether or not we should say that in writing. Personally, if the lead is done right, then everything in it should be in the article, and if it's in the article it had better be cited. I've always seen leads as something that didn't need citation (unless there is a direct quote, or some bit of information not actually talked about in the article...which is a whole other problem), because of the simple fact that they summarize. It seems odd that we would require a citation in the lead, for any instance (next to the two things I just pointed), when we don't show citations on the front page. If an featured article gets put on the front page, we don't have citation links there. If we look at Halloween (1978 film), and the information that appeared on the front page, there are 3 citations missing. If we are supposed to insist that readers trust our judgement when they read introductions on the front page, then I think the same should apply when they actually visit that page and read the introduction first hand. Some people might say "well, that means we don't have to cite anything and just say 'trust me'". Leads are special. They summarize an entire article, like the conclusion to a research paper. You don't typically put citations in the conclusion of your paper, as you shouldn't be saying anything you didn't already say before. The same goes for here, except that our conclusion is at the top instead of the bottom, hence the reason that it should be built on the trust that what is in the lead is in the body, and what is in the body is cited appropriately. That's my opinion. It really has nothing to do with the two schools of thought. If you want to cite it, great. I just do not see a need to do so if leads are what we say they are, and that's a summarization of what we are going to explain in detail, backed with verifiable evidence, in the body of the article. Otherwise, if we need to cite things in the lead, why be redundant at all..why even have a summarization.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 05:07, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like we are in agreement, then, in that neither of us sees any mandate for citations in the lead. That is the general consensus in this (long) discussion. The exception is that SlimVirgin wants to require citations in the lead for all material likely to be challenged; that position is advocated only by a small minority, though. Eubulides 15:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I understand her point, but I feel that there shouldn't be anything in the lead that isn't already in the body of the article, and if it's there it should be cited. Otherwise, I don't understand why we don't have citations for articles, or information that is presented on the front page. If we have to show WP:V everywhere, then we shouldn't play favorites with the front page.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:13, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that you are misusing "consensus" here. There is policy which represent consensus, and not style guide or guideline can trump that. Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a source, and I do not see anything in policy that dictates that the lead is not included in the description of "material". ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:41, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Except that WP:V says nothing about where the citation has to be. Heck, it doesn't even require inline citations. All it says is that contentious material needs to be cited, but it doesn't say that it is not OK to put the citations for lede material in the body text. Unless it is a new fact (in which case you should reconsider whether it should be in the lede) or a quotation (which no one is challenging), the introduction will be just a regurgitation of facts expanded in the rest of the article. Henning Makholm hit the nail on the head up there. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

"Except that WP:V says nothing about where the citation has to be." Oh, right, so you can put it on your User page if you like, no need to bother with the actual article? Nonsense. Citations support sentences. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Nice reductio ad absurdum. Who here is arguing that citations be placed outside the article? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:09, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, you might as well be. You're arguing that a reference can be anywhere in an article. The article might be 100k long, and have 100 references, but as long as it exists somewhere, you don't have to reference it in the lead. Of course, the person actually trying to verify a claim in the lead might have to search through the article to find it, and might never actually find it, either because the reference is not explicit enough (it might just be an author and page number), or because the article text has actually changed and it no longer exists. It is your claim that is "absurd" in the end; telling someone "search for it" is not providing a citation. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:16, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

No one is arguing for absurdly poorly-organized articles. They are arguing that a well-written lead can mention (say) William Willett, without citation, trusting the reader who cares to find the citation to look for "William Willett" in the body and find the citation there. There is nothing wrong with this sort of approach per se; it does not pose an undue burden on the reader. Eubulides 05:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem isn't with "absurdly poorly-organized articles", that's a red herring. The problem is that any reasonably complex article will make it difficult for the reader to find uncited material. Your approach would allow editors to simply list every single book used at the end, and encourage the reader to look through them to find the material they think appropriate. There is something wrong with any approach that does not clearly cite claims it makes, in a way that is easy for the reader to follow. It is a violation of policy, good writing, and common sense. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:25, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It may be a red herring, but it's not my red herring; it's a red herring proposed in a previous comment. I disagree that "any reasonably complex article" will make it hard for the reader to find material that is cited in the body. I also disagree that all articles are "reasonably complex". We need a style guideline for all articles, not just for highly controversial and complex articles. Eubulides 06:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

This raises the spectre of it being faster for readers to do Google searches to find support for uncited claims in the lead, than searching through the rest of the Wikipedia article for the references. Common sense alone should tell us not to create that situation. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:31, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Now who's raising the red herring again? Nobody is arguing for poorly-organized articles. But there are well-written articles that do not have citations in the lead. You may not like it, but they exist, and they're quite popular. Fulminating against them will not make them go away. Eubulides 06:39, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break 1

Ok, then I want citations on all information on the front page. Since we are saying that we have to cite things that we've already cited, when presenting a summarization of information somewhere, then we should do it everywhere. There's no playing favorites here. I'd like to see citations in the front page for the Featured Article of the Day, I want a citation for anything stated in the "In the News" section. How do I know that was in the news, I challenge that it was. "On this day"...yep, I want verifiable evidence that those events happened on this day. "Did you know?"...obviously not, so let's show some verifiable citations to show me what I didn't know. "Featured picture"? Image is fine, but I challenge all that text right next to it.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You are welcome to make such a request to editors that work on front page stuff. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:47, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah see, that's the issue isn't it. I don't see you enforcing policy on the front page. You're quick to point it out here, but that selectiveness seems to be seeping through because you insist that I be the one to bring it up to the front page people. See, i don't think there is a reason to have citations in the lead, unless there is a direct quote from someone, because all "challenged information" is verified in the body of the article, the place that isn't a summarization but the real deal. So, i don't really think there should be citations on the front page, but that if you want to throw that "policy trumps style guideline" around, when the only thing this style guideline says is that citing in the lead is overly redundant since everything in the lead is already in the body of the article, with the citations, then really it's your argument that needs to be fair. To be fair, we would need citations on the front page as well, or there would just be loads of hypocrisy going around. We can't have it both ways. Either we cite the front page, along with the lead sections, or we cite neither, as both are nothing more the summaries of articles, with all challenged information verified within the article. It seems paranoia would get the best of us. I mean, if we followed WP:V to the T, like you suggest, we'd have to not only take that to the lead paragraphs but the entire article. Thus, we would have to have a citation behind every single sentence in every single paragraph. Because, technically, every statement is subject to be challenged. How do I know that just because one paragraph deals with a certain subject that all those sentences came from that one source? Now, I could see maybe putting a citation that link directly to a section of the article that discussed that very topic. This way, if someone questioned it, they could click the link and be taken directly to the section that discusses it. Then again, that is sort of what a table of contents does.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:57, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

On cannot have a guideline that actively promotes violation of Wikipedia policy, in this case WP:V. There are no "schools" on Wikipedia, there is policy, and policy says that things should be cited. Now it is true that not everything on Wikipedia is actually cited, but that is not excuse for creating a guideline that actively supports policy violation. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The guideline does not promote violation of Wikipedia policy. It states the policy and then suggests two ways to go about implementing the policy. Nearly half of recent featured articles do what you claim is a "policy violation", which strongly suggests that your claim is not correct. Eubulides 20:04, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

It's one thing to have Featured Articles that have uncited leads; that's bad enough, and would have to change the second anyone challenged anything in the lead. It's quite another to actually encourage people to create article which a priori violate WP:V. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:11, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:FAR is that way, if you really believe in that. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Why would I need to go to WP:FAR? Featured articles don't have to be perfect. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:26, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Because you are making the assertion that uncited sources are against policy. Hence, the articles are not the best of what Wikipedia has to offer. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm not making that assertion; I'm saying that encouraging people not to cite material contradicts WP:V. That's quite different. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:50, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The wording does not "encourage people not to cite material". It tells them the policy, which is that material likely to be challenged needs a citation, and then tells them two ways to go about it. Both methods accomplish the goal; you obviously dislike one of them but other editors like it and this page should not force one editor's style on another. Eubulides 05:47, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it does, and the comments in support of it here on the Talk: page substantiate that. When you don't actually provide citations for material, that's not actually a method of providing citations. The only way you can actually provide citations is by, well, providing them, not telling people "search the text, I'm sure you'll find it somewhere". I don't "dislike one", and you need to stop personalizing this; one method violates policy, and it doesn't matter if editors "like" or "dislike" it. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

None of the comments in support of it here have said that material likely to be challenged should not be cited. Nobody is saying such material should not be cited. The only disagreement is about the style of the citation, not its existence. Eubulides 06:42, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It may as well not exist if readers can't find it, and as a matter of best practice, inline citations are used for any material likely to be challenged. This is why people place a "citation needed" tag after an uncited claim, and not at the end of the article — or randomly somewhere in the middle. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)}

Your argument would make sense if readers indeed could not find citations. But in practice they can find them, in real articles, without too much trouble. Eubulides 07:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:V states explicitly, "Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article." The "article" does not mean immediately after the statement. Why exactly is it unacceptable to congregate references where the article is supposed to be going into detail? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:07, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Citations must follow the material the support; one cannot insist that editors search through an article for the proper verifying material. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:11, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yeah you're absolutely right. What were we thinking. Oh wait, don't we already do that with the front page?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:13, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Why are you talking about the front page? We're talking about articles here. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

They are not just randomly distributed across the article. They are put where the statement introduced in the lede is explained in more detail. I believe that our readers do not need to be spoon-fed like that. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Your beliefs about "spoon-feeding" do not agree with WP:V. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Your statement that readers cannot be bothered to look for sources for a summary deeper in the article is not backed by WP:V either. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

"...not be bothered to look for sources... deeper in the article"? You have it exactly backwards. You must support statements, not tell people "read further, and I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for somewhere amongst the hundred or so references used in this article". Jayjg ^(talk) 20:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

And what do you do when that statement is a summary of a paragraph? Isn't it adequate to introduce an idea, then expand it in the prose of the body text? That is common practice, not just in Wikipedia. Perhaps you are looking at the sentence as the primordial unit of the encyclopedia, and I'm looking at the article. I'm not arguing that ledes shouldn't be cited, as you keep claiming; rather, that if the rest of the article is properly cited, you have the option of extending Summary style (which is explicit and says that under most circumstances, you do not have to cite summaries of articles) to the lead section. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:15, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

If a statement is a summary of a section in an article, you use the same sources for the summary. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:23, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

That would be a good idea when articles used only a couple of references. Nowadays, that would entail adding fifteen citations to the end of every sentence in the lede, which is not practical, nor useful. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:25, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

No, references can be combined into one, and this is often done. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:42, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I am unaware of this practice. Can you cite examples in this month's featured articles? It seems pretty unwieldy to me, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. Eubulides 05:49, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

See Jerusalem, references 2, 5, and 6. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Jerusalem reference 2 is for a claim that appears in the lead but not in the body, so it is irrelevant to this discussion. The other two references are for claims that are identical in the lead and the body (i.e., the lead is no shorter than the body), so they are irrelevant to Titoxd's point. Eubulides 06:48, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly the point made by several editors here. Arguing about WP's front page to attempt to dismiss the issues raised, is not appropriate. We are discussing a style guideline, and nothing else. As for the comment above, the lead of these FA articles if challenged will certainly need to have citations added. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

(EC)It hardly promotes the violation of a policy. You are missing the point and taking the policy a little too literally. If you cite something in paragraph 1, and then in paragraph 2, you talk about it for a second time then you are not required to cite it that second time. That is not what the policy says. It says cite anything that is likely to be challenged, if it's cited once, then it is perfectly fine. Here's where you are taking it too seriously. How does one write a paper? They have an introduction. Do you cite things in your introduction? Not generally, because your introduction says what you are planning to show with the body of the article. The lead is the introduction to the article, and the body is where you prove what you say in the lead. Show me where it says one must cite challenged work every instance it is used. It doesn't. It says you have to cite it. If it's cited once, it's still cited no matter how many times you read it on the page. One doesn't link every word, because that is just redundant, the same goes for citing the same sentence over and over again if you happen to keep coming back to it. See, here's where the "style guidelines" come into play. The policy says you should cite challenged content, but it does not say that you must cite it repeatedly, every time you use it. A guideline that says citing in the lead is overly redundant, because the lead is an introduction that summarizes the entire article, thus anything in the lead IS already cited in the body of the article does not, in anyway shape or form, promote the violation of the WP:V policy.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:09, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you are required to cite it, and you can't force editors to search through articles looking for citations. Also, the insertion is silly because it refers to articles whose leads could change at any moment. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:13, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Please, show me where it says every stances must be cited, not matter how many times you use it.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

(ed conf) No one needs to show you anything. You claim that I am too strict in applying policy, but I am only saying that in certain cases, material in the lead needs to be cited. What are those cases? These in which there is a challenge made. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

We all agree that lead material likely to be challenged needs citations. That's not the issue. The only issue is the style of the citations; whether they need to be inline, or in the lead, or whatever. WP:V states only that the material needs citations; it does not require that the citations be in the lead. Eubulides 05:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The only cases I can think of is when there is a direct quote, which brings in the questions "is that actually needed in the lead". Technically, as I've stated before, there is no true definition of "challengeable information". Anyone can challenge anything. Thus, you'd have ever statement on a page needed sources for that matter.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Why is "scroll down and look at the rest of the article" an inadequate defense to a challenge? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Because there's no guarantee that it will even exist in the article; Wikipedia is constantly changing, and the text might have changed in the interim. Also, articles can be huge, and it might not be clear which citation is supporting which claim. Citations must be explicit. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:45, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

"Too big" is one of those cases in which I agree with you. The text introduced to the guideline allowed users to choose whether they consider that the article is too big, or whether a citation should be introduced. What is wrong with that? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Because the second something in the lead is challenged, then they must produce a citation for it. So, you're encouraging people to do something that is bad practice at best, and at worst encouraging them to violate WP:V by telling people who ask for citations "it's in the article go find it". Jayjg ^(talk) 21:23, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Again, if they challenge something, I can point the user to the reference, if they really are interested in it. While I understand your hesitance due to BLP concerns, that was clearly written as a "must cite" in the proposed text, not every article is BLP, nor every editor is trying to cause to cause trouble when asking for references. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

What, you're going to be the online tour guide for all unsourced leads, any time someone asks for a reference, you'll post to their talk page where to find it? Nonsense. Anything that is challenged, or likely to be challenged, must be properly cited, period. No "go search for it" or "go ask Titoxd, he'll be able to tell you where it exists". This proposed addition to the guideline is policy bloat that contradicts WP:V, good practice, and common sense. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:42, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no "go search for it". That is a red herring. In any well-written article it will be obvious to any reasonable reader where to find the corresponding citations. Wikipedia need not cater to unreasonable readers who insist that every single noun, verb, adjective, and adverb be cited right away. If the article is so poorly written that a reasonable reader cannot follow citations then there is a problem, but that is an editorial issue that will need fixing regardless of the citation style. Do not assume that all articles are written the way you write them. Eubulides 05:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course there's "go search for it" if you don't cite it. In the Charles Darwin article, the citations consist simply of author names and page numbers; there's absolutely no way of knowing which citations support which claims unless you actually provide proper citations in situ. And this has nothing to do with me, or the way I write articles; don't try to personalize this - the issue here is an attempt to encourage people to violate policy, not my article writing style. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I stand corrected. Let me rephrase. Do not assume that all articles are written in the "citation-in-the-lead" style. They are not. And many that are not written that way, are well-written. It is not hard to find the citations in these articles. Eubulides 06:53, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

What featured article do you know of that generally sits around unattended? Also, the way I've seen things, when people find things in the lead that are not in the body, they generally just remove them instantly. It's one thing to have something there that isn't mentioned later, but another to have it there and cited all over the place later. Leads are for introductions, not for giving details. If you talk about something in the lead, and you don't in the body, it's gone.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

"Any edit lacking a source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them a chance to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider moving it to the talk page. Alternatively, you may tag the sentence by adding the {{fact}} template, or tag the article by adding {{Not verified}} or {{Unreferenced}}." The only way to ensure a sentence is sourced it to provide an explicit reference. Fortunately, the "ref" system makes this easy. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:23, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

But it is not lacking a source, if the material is a summary of properly referenced material below. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

By that standard nothing is lacking a source; after all, it must exist somewhere. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

If it is outside the article, I agree with you. If it is inside, then that argument is pretty weak. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:18, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

How can you prove it's inside the article, though? Especially when the article may be different tomorrow? Only by providing a citation can you satisfy WP:V. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:25, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The same way you prove that the citation you add in the lede wouldn't be removed. Current events articles are a tiny fraction of Wikipedia's scope, and most articles go unedited for months. That's not an issue. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

But if it's removed from the lead, then at least you have the history to find it. If it was never cited in the first place, then it suddenly becomes a treasure hunt. No. Citation means citing the sentence in question in situ, not saying it exists somewhere else that we're not actually going to point you to. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:44, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:V does not require citations in situ. Such citations are a style preference; they are not required by policy. Alternative styles exist that do not pose undue burden on reasonable readers; you should not impose your personal preferences on other editors' styles in this matter. Eubulides 05:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

What would the "undue burden" be? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Undue burden would be an amount of work that we shouldn't expect a reasonable reader to do. For example, if the reader had to sequentially scan through 100 references to figure out which one backed a claim, that would be undue burden. Eubulides 07:14, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

All acceptable citation styles involve including the citations next to the statement in question; none allow their placement at random points farther down in the article. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:V does not support this claim. It does not rule out citations in the part of the body that correspond to the statements in the lead. Eubulides 06:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, consensus looks to be that non-quote citations in the lead aren't necessary all that much, and I personally agree with that. As I've said before, the lead is supposed to be general enough that no one's going to outright dispute the information there, expecially if it's cited later. Wizardman 20:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You obviously haven't worked on highly controversial articles, where every single item is challenged multiple times. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

True, I have not. But even for controversial articles, a general lead is preferred to throwing in a bunch of specifics. Wizardman 21:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The reason very general leads don't need citations is that they contain nothing likely to be challenged, NOT because they are leads. Please note that important distinction. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

That important distinction is covered further below, in #Please answer this question. Eubulides 07:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Even if inline citations are appropriate for highly controversial articles, not every article is that controversial. This style guideline is for all articles, not just highly controversial ones. So it's appropriate for it to mention styles for all kinds of articles, not just for highly controversial ones. Eubulides 06:01, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Inline citations in some form or other are appropriate for all articles, per WP:V. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course they are appropriate. But they are not required. That's the point. Eubulides 06:56, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Another break

Still don't see where it says you have to cite the same statement every time you discuss it. The edit has a source. What it doesn't stipulate is if you have to use that repeatedly, or in instances when you are summarizing a section. There is no mention on how to handle the lead paragraphs of an article, as they typical summarize and don't give lots of detail. One could challenge a summary, but then you've that the problem of having to put half a dozen references in one sentence just because it might summarize 6 similar topics. Again, no one seems to want to address the simple fact that FAotD doesn't put citations in. Very curious as to why that is.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there's no guarantee that "the edit has a source" until you actually explicitly provide it. As to the rest of your arguments, please review WP:ALLORNOTHING. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:48, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

What is FAotD?

"Featured Article of the Day".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:09, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The bottom line is that if material is challenged, a source must be added. That's the policy and it can't be changed here. It's no use saying "look through the article and find the source yourself." You might as well tell people to do a Google search, or check some other article.

So far, no one has answered the question I've asked several times: why would anyone object to seeing citations in the lead? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Because when you are writing a summary that mixes and introduces several concepts, citing all the material that can potentially be cited leads to having a summary with a citation every other word. While there are articles that introduce quotes and other things, the vast majority of articles I see are just simply abstracts of the body text. Since leads are usually summaries, to cite everything and attribute everything to the proper citation, it results in an extremely high footnote density, making the lede unreadable and useless. A reaction to that phenomenon is the reluctance of many regulars at FAC to cite ledes unless absolutely necessary. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:23, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

But you don't cite "all the material that can potentially be cited." Just anything challenged or likely to be challenged, and quotations. See the policy, please. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

If you can't backup your claims in the lead with sources, then you're undoubtedly engaging in original research. And "high footnote density" doesn't make a lead "unreadable and useless". Plenty of well-written FAs have lots of footnotes in the lead and yet are perfectly readable. If a footnote makes a lead unreadable, then it makes any prose in the article unreadable, and we might as well do away with them. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I can. Just scroll down and you'll see my sources, that include everything I summarized in the lede. Maybe if you didn't keep trying to push things to the extreme, I would agree with you. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

How do I know which sources support which claims in the lead? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

You read the article and the citations. It's the same technique that you must use even when the lead contains inline citations. One cannot tell which citations support which claims without reading both. It's not that much work in articles where the leads contain no citations. Eubulides 06:23, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

But that means you must read the article and try to find citations in it. Even assuming one can do so (and there are no guarantees, unless the lead is worded identically to sentences in the article), that means that by definition, the lead is not standalone. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:35, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

One has to assume a reasonable reader, yes. But if you assume an unreasonable reader then nothing works, so we might as well assume a reasonable reader. As for the "not standalone" argument, please see #Break 3 below. Eubulides 07:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

And why should anyone be forced to scroll down and go hunting? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Nobody's forcing anyone to do anything. It's not that hard to find the citations in well-written articles, using either style. Eubulides 06:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, of course people are forced to scroll down to find something, if they actually want to know the sources for a statements. And in complex articles with many sources it is hard to find citations. However, when you actually source the lead, per policy, it's not hard to find citations. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:35, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

If you actually want to know the source for a statement, and someone is using footnotes, then yes, you have to scroll down to the footnote. But that is true no matter which style is used. In a well-written article that prefers not to cite in the lead, it's not really much of an issue; it's a bit more work to find the citation, but it's not a real problem, and there are compensating advantages in exchange for the bit more work. Eubulides 07:23, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

This whole idea that it so difficult to find something in the body of an article is rather ridiculous, no matter how large the article is. First off, I don't think there are any true 100kb articles, if so they should probably be split. It's all readable prose people. Secondly, what is the point of having sections if you assume no one knows how to use them? If I say some one acted a certain way, you can be rest assured that it will be in a "Characterization section". Try looking there for a detailed reason on why people assume someone acts a certain way. If I say someone appeared somewhere, try finding the section that deals with that discussion. Not too hard really. Also, your browser has a search option, so looking for key words isn't hard either. Regardless, what you are saying is that we should lead readers around by the hand, because they couldn't possibly navigate an article on their own. As for why this is a problem. If you summarize an entire section into a couple sentences, someone can easily come along and say "I challenge this". What you are saying is that people should be a dozen citations next to a couple of sentences, to prove what an entire sections talks about (as opposed to simply reading the section itself and seeing that it's the exact same thing). Leads are introductions. They are meant to explain what the article will show. They are not meant to show you what the article will show. If that was the case, then we might as well get rid of leads altogether, as it defeats their purpose. A section on characterization might have a dozen people talking about one person's personality with 1 key word. If you use that key word in the lead, to summarize what many people have said, does that mean you need to attach every single citation you used in the characterization section to the end of it, just to prove that more than 1 person said it? It's called over citing an article. When you become so paranoid about proving verifiabilty that you cite every single sentence, even when you are simply summing up what you've been talking about already with the exact same citations.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:09, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I've worked on very large articles. Rudolf Vrba is 88k, and it has 18 citations in the lead, and well over 100 overall. It's readable, and not over-cited. In fact, there is no such thing as "over-citing"; that's a mythical creature. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Rudolf is about 44kb large. So if a sentence, or a two sentences back to back, which discussed the exact same thing, both from the same author...just even more elaboration, and there was a citation after every punctuation (comma, semi-colon, and period)...that wouldn't be over citing? When it's clear it's all one statement, coming from the same individual and easily handled by 1 citation at the end of the entire thing?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:52, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

My editor says it's 88k. You're correct, citation is only required after one statement, coming from one individual, or from a group of sources. However, it's still unclear why you would imagine the lead would be exempt from this policy requirement. The lead is a part of an article as much as any other part of an article, and must be able to stand on its own. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:30, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

You're count code, 44kb is closer to the readable prose (which is the actual size), and since I don't know the image captions by heart (like I do some other articles) it is probably just a hair less than that.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:11, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

If I may add my five pence worth, I am amazed that there's any discussion about this. The lead is just the same as any other part of the article and must be sourced. It's up to editors if they think they can get away without citations there; but when citations are necessary, they should be included. The lead should stand on its own, especially since that's all many people read. If they have to look through the rest of the article for the references, the lead is not standing on its own. For the purposes of this page, I don't think we should suggest to the editors that there's any sort of issue around whether to cite in the lead or not. The principle is the same as for any part of the article.qp10qp 02:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm as amazed as you; these simple points seem so obvious. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Count me amazed too. The lead is no different from any other section of the article. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Count me amazed as well, that the "leads must be cited in detail" guys are claiming that nearly half of featured articles are violating Wikipedia policy. Hey, guys, it's just a style issue! You have your style, and all power to you! Just don't try to impose it on everybody. Eubulides 06:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I did a random check a few days ago, and most FAs do contain citations in the lead, unless the particular cluster I picked on is unrepresentative. The ones without citations didn't contain anything in the lead that was likely to be challenged. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

In the tallies already mentioned, the citations-in-the-lead crowd had narrow leads, yes. One tally was 9 to 7, for example. However, this is hardly an overwhelming majority. And many articles have one or two citations in the lead but are clearly following the we-prefer-no-citations-in-the-lead policy. Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. is an example: it's a recent featured article that cites only the two direct quotes in its lead (which conforms to the prefer-no-citations style). It's pretty closely divided between the two camps; there is no clear consensus overall. Eubulides 07:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I love how people are so keen on using BLP articles, there are other topics on Wikipedia. Shakespeare is a unique case (which was in the comment above until it was removed), because people do not know his date of birth (not the exact date). I'm curious as to where your empirically supported data is that says "most people just read the lead". I look over the entire article, as a matter of fact, the first thing I do is scan the table of contents to see what type of material there is. Leads are summarizes intended to say what a body will explain. Citations are not necessary because real detail should not be present, as that isn't what a summary is.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 02:16, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Who is talking about BLPs? You're the only person I'm aware of. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

No one seems to be able to answer a simple question that I've asked repeatedly. What makes the Featured Article of the Day so special? There are plenty of FA's that have citations in the lead, which do not have those citations in place when they are on the front page. Why are they removed for the front page?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 02:25, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about. The front page is not an article. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

But the front page displays the article, more precisely it displays the lead information...that very information you say has to stand on its own with citations. Why is it that when it stands on its own on the front page there are no citations? Leads are summaries, and a proper summary will not be some word-for-word mock up of what is cited later. When you summarize, you don't state exactly what is stated in the body of the article. Anything can be challeneged. I'm sure if I go to Rudolph's article, I can find things that could be challenged. How about:

Vrba believed that more lives could have been saved if it had been publicized sooner, reasoning that, had Hungary's Jews known they were to be killed and not resettled, they might have chosen to run or fight rather than board the trains to Auschwitz. He alleged that the report was deliberately withheld by the Jewish-Hungarian Aid and Rescue Committee in order not to jeopardize complex, but ultimately futile, negotiations between the committee and Adolf Eichmann, the SS officer in charge of the deportations, to exchange Jewish lives for money, trucks, and other goods — the so-called "blood for trucks" proposal.

This has not citation attached. I don't know what Vrba believed, I didn't know the man. Seems to be awfully presumptuous of his opinion. There's also the part of stating that he accused Aid and Rescue of withholding a report. How do I know he did that?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:11, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Again, I have no idea what you are talking about, or why it would be relevant. The front page is not an article, and we are talking about the lead sections of articles, nothing else. If you have issues with the front pages, go deal with it on the appropriate page. Regarding the Vrba lead, all sourced now; see, that wasn't so hard. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:33, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Rudolf Vrba is not all sourced now, if by "sourced" you mean "a citation appears in the lead for every potentially-controversial claim made in the lead". There is no source for the very first sentence in the lead. And yet the claims in that sentence are controversial enough to require being sourced in the body (see the Douglas Martin reference, and the Vrba CV at UBC). I checked only the first sentence in the lead; I'm sure there are other "problems" like that. It seems very strange that someone who is so strong about sourcing in the lead would not follow that policy on so obvious a point as the lead's first sentence. (I am referring to the now-current version. Eubulides 07:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Break 3

The question is: should the lead be a stand-alone summary? This page says yes, as do others, and that's how leads are mostly written. But without citations, it's obviously not stand-alone. So if you try to add to this page that citations in leads aren't necessary, the page will contradict itself. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

As much as possible, a lead should be a good summary of the article. And as such it needs to be well sourced when required. Much of a do about nothing? Do we really need a 100K discussion on this? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 06:01, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Obviously the lead should be a standalone summary, but it can be a standalone summary without inline citations. This dispute cannot be resolved by appealing to the standalone summary wording. Eubulides 06:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It is, by definition, not stand-alone (self-contained) if the reader has to look elsewhere to find out what the sources are. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

What a strange argument. The lead is also by definition not "standalone" since it doesn't contain the article's references (assuming it uses footnotes). Again, the "standalone" wording does not resolve this dispute. Eubulides 06:59, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly so. People are making awfully strange claims here; it's as if policy says "all section headers must be in bold text", and editors here are insisting that there can be two kinds of bold text, the kind that is bold, and the kind that is not bold, and that one shouldn't force a preference onto the editor. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:30, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:V does not require any particular form for citations. It does not require inline citations at all. Citation form is a style issue, not a policy issue. Eubulides 06:59, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Please answer this question

Could someone please explain why any reasonable person would object to references in the lead? What do references in the lead do that is undesirable? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The lead is supposed to summarize the article. In a summary, every byte counts. The more time we can spend on summarizing, the more efficiently we can summarize things. We should not burden the reader with anything that is not needed to summarize the article. If citations slow the reader down, or get in the way, or make the summary harder to read, even slightly, then they are interfering with the main goal of the lead. Eubulides 06:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

How on earth could a citation slow the reader down or "get in the way"? That was my question: what does a citation in the lead do that is undesirable, and how does it do it? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Passing one's eyes over a footnote number slows the reader down and makes it harder to read? Nonsense! Jayjg ^(talk) 06:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It may be nonsense for you, but it is not nonsense for me. Please don't assume everyone reads articles the same way that you do. Those raised numbers in square brackets slow me down considerably. I realize their necessity in the body, but they aren't necessary in every article's lead. Eubulides 07:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

There are obviously some tradeoffs here. In some articles, notably the highly controversial ones, the needs of citation outweigh the needs of efficient summarization. In those articles, it's better to cite in the lead. But in other articles, the needs of citation are less, so the needs of summarization win out. In those articles, citations in the lead are more trouble than they're worth, and on the whole are counterproductive to the overall goals of Wikipedia, so they should be omitted. Eubulides 06:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Eudulides, you keep missing a very important, indeed vital, distinction. Leads that do not contain material likely to be challenged or quotes don't need citations. But this is because they contain no material likely to be challenged, or quotes, not because they are leads. Do you see that distinction? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

No, I am not missing that distinction. I think that it's OK for material likely to be challenged to be cited in the body, not the lead. I realize not everybody agrees with this style, but that's OK. This article should summarize existing style practice: it should not impose a particular style. Eubulides 07:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

And please: "citations in the lead are more trouble than they're worth, and on the whole are counterproductive to the overall goals of Wikipedia ..." The hyperbole isn't helpful. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

You turned my words into hyperbole by taking them completely out of context. Surely you have better ways to make your argument. Eubulides 07:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I've never read such a morass of illogic and whim as the defenses for removing citations from Wikipedia. Citations, which are required by policy, suddenly become "more trouble than they're worth" in the lead section, and "counterproductive to the overall goals of Wikipedia". One of the more outrageous claims I've seen on this subject. Anyway, any statement in an article that might be challenged needs to have a proper citation, and that includes the lead. There aren't special "treasure hunt" rules for the lead, and I'm not going to repeat myself on the subject. This guideline will not encourage editors to break policy. Period. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is arguing that citations must be removed from Wikipedia. The only argument is how to present citations. It's a style issue, not a content issue. Eubulides 07:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Here's one, what if you have 12 people saying one thing, but not one citation mentioning the 12 people. Does that make that information irrelevant, since it would be rather odd to have 12 in-line citations at the end of a statement because you couldn't find 1 citation that happened to mention that more than one person said something?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 11:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I do not agree that the issue of whether statement requires an inline citation is an issue of style. The superscript numbers are a mild distraction, which slightly interfere with reading the text throughout the whole article. It is a price I'm prepared to pay for being able to easily check a fact. I'm in agreement with much of what SlimVirgin has said throughout this discussion.

I'm not persuaded by the arguments that leads or the sections that have summary-style daughter articles should in any way be treated differently wrt citations. Titoxd said earlier "extending Summary style (which is explicit and says that under most circumstances, you do not have to cite summaries of articles) to the lead section." I don't see the "explicit" excemption from WP:V for summary style? I've heard that argument before and I don't buy it. It seems to go along with the utopian vision that a summary-style article and its daughters might actually be in unity and under the control of the same set of editors. The nature of WP is that the detailed text and the summary text will deviate, and only occasionally may be brought somewhat back into sync.

I'd also like to point out that many, many articles do not and could not have a lead that is a perfect summary of the body text. This guideline admits as much for incomplete articles (think of all the short biographies that would be tedious if they repeated the facts from the lead, since the lead is 30% of the article). One big category of such articles is standalone lists, which are required to have a lead that meets this guideline. Providing a summary of the key points is only one of the tasks for the lead. It must also establish context; explain why the subject is interesting and notable; and, with a list, it must also establish the entry criteria (scope). Our featured lists almost always have inline citations in their leads. Colin°^Talk 13:07, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Colin, there are more than a 1000 WikiProject Films articles rated above B-Class that have lead sections, many of which are approximate summaries of the body text; this is very simple to achieve for film-related articles. —Viriditas | Talk 14:31, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

There seems to have been a lot of discussion underway, and I hope I've read enough of it to get a good idea of the points that have been made. I would like to mention an alternative approach that has been taken at WP:SCG#Summary style. It's for a certain field, but similar logic is reflected there. I oppose the mandatory application of citations, and it seems that the inclusion of citations for controversial material in the lead section should be taken on a case-by-case basis, as with the examples that have been procured here. However, considering that sentences in the lead section are summaries, there seems to be difficulty in re-referencing all citations after a single sentence from what is already fleshed out in the article. The goal of the lead is to entice the reader into reading the article, so the style should be focused on that. If we are citing specific items in the lead section, it seems to me that we would be failing to summarize the article, as an item covered in the lead should be sufficiently detectable in the article body. (E.g., the lead section indicates a film bombed at the box office, and there is a Critical reaction section in the TOC to follow up on.) That's my $0.02. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The quotation at WP:SCG#Summary style is incorrect wrt the text at WP:SS. The SCG guideline admits "This also imposes additional burden in maintaining Wikipedia articles, as it is important to ensure that the broad article and its sub-articles remain consistent." In fact, this burden is the reason why it cannot work on WP. One of SlimVirgin's points is that some of these examples where a citation may be avoided apply to body text too. For example, the lead sentence in a section/paragraph might summarise the remaining text. Why make lead sections a special case? Colin°^Talk 14:15, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that those that edit a given page are divided into two groups: Those that edit the lead, and those that edit everything else? You cannot apply the idea of summarizing the lead to summarzing in the body, not unless you're stating facts right after you summarize. If you write something in the body itself to a point that it is so vague it doesn't need a citation, then it probably shouldn't be mentioned in the article at all. The body is meant to show, not to say. It should explain what a lead states.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I just now changed the quotation at WP:SCG#Summary style to match the current text at WP:SS#Citations and external links. Still, it seems to me that this quotation does not reflect current practice accurately. Take Rudolf Vrba, for example. Its lead's first sentence contains material that is cited in the body but not in the lead. So in this article, there the editors saw the need to cite the claims in the body but not when summarized in the lead. And yet that lead was just vetted by Jayjg, an ardent proponent of the theory that the lead has the same rules as the body. So in practice, despite the vehement protestations of the cite-everything-in-the-lead camp, it does appear that there is a different threshold for the lead: items are more likely to need citing in the body than in the lead. Eubulides 18:13, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Eubulides, there is no "cite-everything-in-the-lead camp". No one is suggesting that. This guideline doesn't suggest that. People are just anxious that you don't add anything to this guideline that might give editors the idea that material in the lead needn't be properly sourced or that citations are at all deprecated in the lead.qp10qp 20:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

None of the posted wording ever said or implied that citations were deprecated in the lead. Nor was there ever a suggestion that material in the lead needn't be properly sourced. It was just a question of the proper style to use for sourcing the lead. Eubulides 01:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Eudulides keeps setting up straw man arguments, or making claims not based in any policy or guideline. Examples:

• (1) That the policies and guidelines don't require inline citations. In fact, WP:CITE offers only three methods of citations. These are footnotes, Harvard refs, and embedded links, all inline citation styles.
  • My claims were about policy, not style guidelines. WP:CITE is a style guideline, not a policy. And even as a style guideline, it allows for general reference, which are not inline citations. The inline citation style should not be forced on all editors. Eubulides 01:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
• (2) That everything in the lead must be repeated in the body of the text. This is false, it would lead to very dull writing, and there is no policy or guideline that I know of that suggests it.
  • I never claimed that everything in the lead must be repeated in the body. Obviously if the lead contains a claim that is not in the body, and the claim is obviously controversial, then the claim needs to be sourced. That is not being disputed by anyone here. The dispute is over claims in the lead that summarize the body. Eubulides 01:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
• (3) That requesting citations in the lead, as elsewhere, means that everything in the lead must be cited, which is a nonsensical straw man.
  • The phrase "cite-everything-in-the-lead" was intended to be shorthand for "everything in the lead that is potentially controversial must be cited in the lead". I'm sorry if you did not understand the abbreviation. Perhaps you can suggest a better term for the policy. Eubulides 01:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
• (4) That style guides should not suggest particular styles, but should allow editors to do what they want. If that's true, why bother having style guides?
  • Nobody is proposing that editors should be able to do what they want. If this style guide is silent on the subject (as it is now), then it places no constraints on editors in this area. Any advice we give here will give editors stylistic suggestions that they do not currently have. Thus any additional advice will place extra constraints on editors (admittedly optional); it will not remove any constraints. Eubulides 01:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Most importantly, he keeps missing one fundamental point. If you want to write a lead without citations, then all you have to do is leave out quotations and anything likely to be challenged. It's that simple. There's no need to start introducing complications into this guideline in order to achieve that, because WP:V already allows it. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 21:07, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I have not missed that point. I have addressed it on several occasions. If I want to write a lead without inline citations, but the supporting material appears elsewhere in the article and is easy to find, then that's OK: it does not violate policy and it is not a complicated suggestion. Eubulides 01:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

You are missing the point that the lead must be able to stand on its own, and hence conform to V on its own. Therefore, all quotations or statements that are likely to be challenged must be sourced directly in the lead. If you send the reader hunting for sources elsewhere, your lead is not 'standalone'. Crum375 01:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I am not missing that point either. I addressed that very point above, when the "lead must stand on its own" argument first came up. I wrote that nearly half of featured articles tallied violate that criterion. SlimVirgin responded that it was less than half. I responded that "nearly half" is indeed less than half, but clearly many articles omit in the lead. How can a lead "stand on its own" if it lacks citations? And I gave Christopher C. Kraft as an example of a recent front-page article that cites only direct quotations, and does not cite anything else. There was no response. Eubulides 04:37, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

But you haven't answered it at all; the fact that some articles have not had statements in their leads challenged does not in any way support changing a guideline to promote the non-inclusion of citations in the lead. WP:V cannot be disregarded for the lead section, nor can we encourage editors to do so. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Sure I answered it. First, nobody is suggesting that WP:V be disregarded for the lead section. Second, the existence of a large body of high-quality articles that contain no citations in the lead is strong evidence that the "lead must stand on its own" style guideline does not mean leads should contain citations. This was the point I answered. Nobody on the other side has seriously addressed this large body of articles, other than to imply that front-page articles regularly violate core Wikipedia guidelines, which hardly seems credible. Third, it's still the case that no one has addressed the point about Christopher C. Kraft. Eubulides 05:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Flawed premise

To me the premise being argued in which citations for the lead are demanded since to do so is against policy is arguing from a flawed position. Never once does our policy demand inline citations. Therefore, the lead does not have to contain inline citations, only material that is sourced from the referenmces provided within the article. Hiding Talk 11:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• Further, a random trawl through featured articles found 8 articles with no inline citations in the lead, contrasting with 7 articles which did. I would say there is no consensus on a standard across Wikipedia, and that currently both approaches are permissible. Hiding Talk 11:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

That won't work, Hiding. My own random trawl (actually, starting from the first one and working my way down in order) found that most did have inline citations in the lead. We need a more systematic study if FAs are to be cited. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 11:23, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Sure it will work. First, my own small tally also indicated that most had inline citations in the lead; but the tally was 9 to 7, indicating that the matter is closely contested. Second, some recent front-page articles have citations in the lead, but only for direct quotations or for controversial material about living people, for which there is no dispute that citations must be in the lead (Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. is one example); these should not count as evidence that all controversial material must be cited in the lead, but rather should count as the reverse. Third, even if it's the case that a majority of featured articles cite in the lead, the presence of a sizeable minority of articles that do not is powerful evidence that it is not required to cite in the lead when the corresponding material is properly cited in the body. Eubulides 14:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Further, it is not, at present, required for material to be inl;ine cited anywhere, is it? So why the problem with inline citing and the lead. Hiding Talk 07:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

citations MUST be addressed in some fashion on this pae

The length of the debate on this talk alone is proof enough that there is not complete agreement in either direction. As this has appeared at FAC in the past, the question must be adressed in the style page. I'm restoring. These pages are supposed to reflect consensus. Since there are current 2 more-or-less consensus on this, the page must reflect that too. Circeus 14:33, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

But there are not two schools of thought. The guideline does not advise that there should be citations in the lead, just that the lead should be sourced. So editors who do not choose to cite in the lead—for example, in short or non-controversial articles—are free to make that decision. That doesn't make two schools of thought about the lead: there is a continuum on referencing all parts of articles between editors who believe in citing every single thing and those who cite sparingly. Just because you can find FAs without citations in the lead does not mean their editors wouldn't have cited if necessary or if requested. We don't need to erect a second school of thought here (by adding that term in the guideline) which might encourage editors to believe that citations may legitimately be deprecated in the lead even for challengeable material. There is nothing to stop editors from writing leads without citations if they so wish, so long as the material is sourced and they are prepared to produce a citation if requested. In such an event, however, editors would not be able to respond with "see later in the article"; if someone requested a citation for a statement in the lead, they would have to insert it in the lead. Without putting too fine a point on it, the present addition to the guideline suggests that editors may disregard Wikipedia policy. qp10qp 14:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Contentious material about living persons and quotations should be cited in the lead if they appear there - It says there are instances when it is clearly needed.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

A quotation may be sourced in the text, and not necessarily with a citation tag. BLP is a special case in all Wikipedia policies (one school of thought: Jimbo's). Otherwise, inline citations are not mandatory; and this guideline doesn't say that they are. It is, however, mandatory to produce a citation when requested, even for the lead.qp10qp 15:13, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

To produce one, but it doesn't say where, now does it. If I'm summarizing something, i can produce a whole slew of sources, all in one entire section for challenged material.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me)

It doesn't matter how many sources you may have elsewhere in the article, if someone sticks a "citation needed" tag on a sentence or phrase in the lead, you must add the citation there. There's no way round this except deleting or rewriting the material.qp10qp 15:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

That's certainly not true. You could discuss the request with the person who made it, and convince them that there is a citation elsewhere in the article, for example. If there is general consensus that the fact in question is adequately sourced, you can remove the citation needed tag without actually adding a citation. This is the same whether the fact is in the lede section or elsewhere. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:31, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Marskell's recent text seems reasonable. However, Viriditas' addition of "Nevertheless, any unsourced content in the lead should be referenced in the body of the article." makes no sense. You're not allowed "unsourced content" anywhere on WP. The text is confusing the words sourced, referenced, cited, etc. Colin°^Talk 15:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree "referenced" is a poor choice of words, because it can mean "sourced" or "referred to". "Sourced" is safer. Moreover, we explicitly do allow unsourced content, just not unverifiable content. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I changed it to "any unreferenced content in the lead should be sourced in the body of the article". —Viriditas | Talk 15:39, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

If it isn't sourced where the material is, then it isn't sourced. Citations are not a treasure hunt. Jayjg ^(talk) 15:47, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad that "two schools of thought" has gone. But that paragraph is a mess; a guideline should guide people, not confuse them.qp10qp 15:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

What is confusing, qp? I agree with the general intent of the thread headline here: we need something or we're just going to have more arguments. The para as it stands does not violate policy. Marskell 15:56, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

That last sentence is still confused and it maintains the lead/body distinction that many here are uncomfortable with. CBM has corrected my earlier mistake (thanks). I completely agree with qp10qp's longish paragraph above, and reject the "I've cited it later on" response to a request for a citation. Colin°^Talk 15:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

All we need is to say that material in the lead, like the material in any other part of the article, needs to be properly sourced, and cited where necessary. The rest gets in the way.qp10qp 16:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

But not everyone is uncomfortable with the lede/body distinction. A proper lede is written in Wikipedia:Summary style, a proper article body is not. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:10, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with that and gave examples further up (13:07, 23 July 2007 (UTC)) where this is not possible or desirable. We need to stop thinking about the lead on an FA and realise these guidelines apply to all articles. And, I repeat, Wikipedia:Summary style says nothing about avoiding the need to supply citations on request. Colin°^Talk 16:19, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the third sentence. The summary style guideline says

There is no need to repeat all the references for the subtopics in the main "Summary style" article, unless they are required to support a specific point. The policy on sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, says that sources must be provided for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations.

and I think something like that would be appropriate here as well. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

J: Material can be sourced in many ways, not all of which are inline citations. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:10, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course. A good editor who doesn't believe in inline citations—someone like Geogre, for example—can write a fully sourced article without using inline citations. No-one is saying that inline citations are compulsory in either the lead or the rest of the article. You could even meet BLP that way ("The Daily Mail said on 24 April 2004 that Smith left his wife after she sold off the contents of his wine cellar"), but it would be a very cumbersome way of sourcing challengeable material.

The issue is that some people would like to suggest to editors that there is something different about the lead in this regard. But Wikipedia policy applies to the lead the same as to the rest of an article. Any attempt to obscure that will always be overturned by those who understand the point.qp10qp 16:35, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, well said. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The only difference I see with the lede is that it is written in summary style. Beyond that, I agree it has no special standing regarding sourcing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

And since the lead is written in WP:SS, there is no need to repeat all the references for the article in the lead section unless they are required to support a specific point. That should be added to this style guideline. —Viriditas | Talk 02:36, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Summary style

The latest addition was even worse. How do you know that leads will be written in summary style? There could very well be something in the lead that is not repeated elsewhere; a quotation, for example. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 02:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I know the lead will be written in summary style, because the lead guideline states that it is an overview, "summarizing the most important points". And of course, the "latest addition" made it very clear that "material likely to be challenged and quotations should be cited in the lead." So, I must ask, on what basis does your objection rest? —Viriditas | Talk 03:01, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

According to the summary style guideline,

"There is no need to repeat all the references for the subtopics in the main "Summary style" article, unless they are required to support a specific point. The policy on sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, says that sources must be provided for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations."

so I think the issue of quotations is a red herring. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:09, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

(ec) That it summarizes the article doesn't mean there won't be material in it not covered elsewhere. My objection is that it's an unnecessary complication, and an attempt to force editors to write leads in a certain way. The guideline has said for some time that leads must be sourced "as appropriate." That's enough, because this is not a policy or guideline about sources. What "as appropriate" means is determined elsewhere, and by common sense and editorial judgment, as is whether to include something in the lead not referred to again in the text. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree nothing is needed here about sourcing, but I do think the point of this guideline is that lede sections should be in summary style. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

See "Should references appear in the lead-in?". There was consensus for changing the lead approximately one year ago, to state:"The lead section should contain up to four paragraphs, depending on the length of the article, and should provide an overview, or executive summary...All the points made in the lead section should be expanded upon later in the article, and the appropriate references provided at that point, rather than in the lead section."[3] —Viriditas | Talk 03:31, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

There has never been consensus for this. (How can you call a couple of people posting about it "consensus"?) It has been pushed by a small number of editors, and any attempts to add it have met with opposition, because it arguably violates WP:V. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:35, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, there was consensus on the talk page, on Village pump, and in the stable page history for the following statement: "All of the various points should be expanded upon later in the article, and the appropriate references provided at that point, rather than in the lead section." —Viriditas | Talk 03:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Not really. This addition has no consensus and as a guideline cannot trump the policy of WP:V. ≈ jossi ≈

The addition had consensus, and remained in the article for one month, until it was removed by SlimVirgin exactly one year ago, on 04:46, 23 July 2006. [4]. —Viriditas | Talk 03:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Thanks. One year of stability is consensus. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

What stability? You're free to pursue the subsequent edit wars, here and here, here, here, etc. —Viriditas | Talk 04:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

And it was added without consensus after a discussion between two users (or thereabouts), none of them experienced as I recall, so it was removed. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

It was added with the consensus of many editors on the discussion page, and modified by many other editors in the page history. It had wide acceptance. —Viriditas | Talk 03:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

You gave a link earlier to the "wide acceptance," and it showed a couple of very inexperienced editors wanting it, and someone objecting. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Viriditas, exactly which editors supported this "consensus"? Jayjg ^(talk) 03:55, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Joshbuddy, User:Worldtraveller, User:Alan Pascoe, User:Carcharoth, User:William Allen Simpson, User:Piccadilly, User:Stevertigo, User:LossIsNotMore, and others. —Viriditas | Talk 04:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Most of whom don't edit anymore, almost all of whom appeared to be occasional editors, and none of whom were involved in policy or guideline development that I'm aware of. This isn't a numbers game. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:12, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Joshbuddy is an admin, last edit 21:07, 31 March 2007. Worldtraveller, recently left the project, last edit on or around 23:56, 3 March 2007. Alan Pascoe, recently left the project, last edit 21:22, 31 May 2007. Carcharoth, active, last edit 00:38, 24 July 2007. William Allen Simpson, last edit 23:53, 21 May 2007. Piccadilly, last edit 11:41, 11 July 2007. Stevertigo, last edit 19:16, 6 July 2007. LossIsNotMore, last edit 11:20, 10 June 2007. To summarize: eight editors, six active, two inactive. I suggest that your statemetnt, 'Most of whom don't edit anymore, almost all of whom appeared to be occasional editors, and none of whom were involved in policy or guideline development that I'm aware of" is false. —Viriditas | Talk 04:23, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, please provide diffs, as I've seen this happen before. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Provide diffs for what? I've given names and dates, and specified talk pages and page histories. It's all in the record. If you are looking for a specific diff, I would be happy to help as time permits. —Viriditas | Talk 04:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Even the version Viriditas linked to above doesn't support his position, because it also said: "However, policy is that challenged statements should have their sources cited, and that policy takes precidence [sic] over this guideline." Indeed. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The original version was added on 03:00, 3 June 2006 [5], and went through various changes.[6] The version you are referring to above wasn't added until 7, 23 July 2006 [7] and doesn't contradict that version, but merely stipulates that "citing sources in the introduction can help diffuse disputes over controversial introductory material in the lead section." —Viriditas | Talk 04:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The change was made by Joshbuddy who had hardly done any editing. [8] Anyway, this is a pointless discussion, because it doesn't matter what was done for a few weeks last year. Before then, and since then, no exceptions have been made for leads when it comes to citations, so you'll need a strong consensus to change it, and there clearly isn't one. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for making that statement. The irony is, there is consensus, just as there was consensus a year ago when you started removing content from this guideline without consensus. Just as you are doing now. —Viriditas | Talk 04:26, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

It appears that the original modification to the guideline was proposed by a non-experienced editor, and supported only in a substantially different form than the current version by a set of mostly inexperienced editors, or editors who have left Wikipedia. The insertion into the guideline only lasted for a brief period, and for the rest of its existence this guideline has lived quite comfortably without it. The insertion doesn't appear to add any positive value, in that it is instruction creep which at best encourages editors to send readers on a treasure hunt if they wish to find citations for claims in the lead, and at worst encourages policy violation. The lead section really is part of the article, and claims must be sourced in it as in any other part of the article. Policy doesn't give the lead section special treatment in this regard. Moreover, it is a section that must be able to stand on its own. Something without citations cannot possibly stand on its own. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:29, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

This was not a "non-experienced editor", but someone who had spent almost a year on Wikipedia (nine months), developed an informed opinion, and acted accordingly, with the full support of active editors to this page. His account was created on 19:13, 12 September 2005. User:Joshbuddy was promoted to administrator less than a month after his initial edit, and concurrent with his editing of WP:LEAD. This issue has not died out within the year. —Viriditas | Talk 04:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

(←) That's just not right. A lede section for any serious article is written in summary style. It stands on its own as an intro to the article subject, I agree, but it is not intended to be a complete replacement for the rest of the article - it just summarizes them. Moreover, inline citations aren't required anywhere, so the "as any other part" argument is accurate only in the sense that inline citations aren't required in other parts of the article as well. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

What other kind of citations (beside inline) are you referring to, and in what way are they applicable to the lead? Jayjg ^(talk) 04:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The reason the lead is supposed to be standalone is that many readers only read the lead, as a quick way to get up to speed on a topic. When they do that, they typically want two things: 1. Learn as quickly as possible what the topic is all about, and 2. Get the most important references, so they can perform their own research. By not providing the references in the lead, we would do those important readers a disservice, as they would need to hunt through the article's body, looking for where the lead items are repeated, hopefully with a reference. This is clearly wrong - if we don't provide references in the lead, those readers might as well just google for the sources and Wikipedia would lose much of its value as a quick and handy resource. Crum375 04:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The opposite is true. See Abstract (summary). Most abstracts do not contain references. "Abstracts help one decide which papers might be relevant to his or her own research. Once papers are chosen based on the abstract, they must be read carefully to be evaluated for relevance. It is commonly surmised that one must not base reference citations on the abstract alone, but the entire merits of a paper." If you are only going to read the lead section, chances are you aren't going to take the time to read the references. Also, none of the proposals have suggested that we shouldn't use references in the lead, only that they are not necessary if the summarized material is already sourced in the body of the article. Film-related articles, for example, do not need to use references in the lead section unless the material is quoted or challenged, as the best film articles have references in the infoboxes which are easier to access than the cites in the text. Typically, every section in a well written film article is standardized (cast, production, release, criticism, etc) and extensively sourced and cross-checked with competing sources. Bottom line, if someone is only going to read the lead, they are not going to make the extra effort to read a reference, nor need to from the lead. I'm genuinely curious why you assume that they would make an additional effort to read a reference when they cannot be bothered to read the article itself; That goes against common sense. —Viriditas | Talk 05:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

A lead is not an abstract. An encylopedia is not a paper. There are commonalities, of course, but there are also differences. The lead is a mini article, standing on its own. It should allow a reader to get a quick overview of the topic and be able to move on to other resources. Often the reader already has basic familiarity with the topic, and just wants some key references. A busy reader often does not want to wade through the main text - he wants to get to the sources (assuming they are online) quickly. By having leads that are without references we destroy that important capability. Crum375 05:40, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

If a reader wants some key references after reading the lead, but they don't have time to read the article, they can just as easily move their mouse over the "References" link in the table of contents, which has the same result as clicking an inline citation. And since most lead sections only use inline citations in the lead for BLP, controversial, challenged, and quoted material, the proposal for modifying this guideline changes nothing except to note the stylistic design of lead sections that lack citations. —Viriditas | Talk 06:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the most important references should be noted in the lede (assuming they are not the only references in the references section). But they should be noted as "Standard references include Jones (1998) and Keaton (1972)", not attached to random sentences. If there are only a few references in the references section, the reader is likely to look there for a list of references, if they are indeed looking for them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:52, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you are confusing reference style or format vs. the actual need for a reference. Clearly it would be very ugly to mix styles, so the lead and the body should have the same style. As far as sending users hunting through a long list of references, why should we? And many times the reference is not clear as to what it's about - 'Jones, 2001' may not be self explanatory. So the only reasonable and logical approach is to include inline citation in the lead, and be nice to our readers. After all, we are doing this for them, not for us. Crum375 05:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

What is unclear about the sentence "The standard reference is Jones (2000)." ? — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I was referring to your suggestion above to send the reader to hunt through the list of references at the end, without using inline citations. My point is that without the originating point, you may not necessarily know what the source is about. Crum375 05:33, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

If the references section has exactly two references, both to published textbooks, presumably both are good places for a reader to start further research. — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:40, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but you design a policy or guideline for the general case where there may be a hundred references. Crum375 06:09, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

That's when the lede should include a sentence like "Common references include Jones (2000) and Smith (1995)." I can write a guideline that says that. — Carl (CBM · talk) 06:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

That would be ugly and unproductive. Much better to have inline citations, post punctuation, that provide the reader what he wants, where he wants, in the most accurate and general way. I have yet to see a flaw in that method, which happens to be what we (mostly) do anyway. Crum375 06:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

(←) Those are inline citations. If we don't say which of the references are the right ones to start with, how is the reader supposed to know which ones to pick out of the hypothetical 100 references for the article? You were interested in telling the reader where to start further research. — Carl (CBM · talk) 06:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. So clearly what we want is inline citations, post punctuation, in the lead. Easy, simple, and what we already do. Crum375 06:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "post punctuation". Harvard style refs always go before punctuation. One of the reasons Harvard refs are used is that they make it easier to refer to a specific work in this way.

But these are not citations for particular facts - those aren't needed most of the time because of summary style. These are explicit pointers to the best places to start further research. — Carl (CBM · talk) 06:31, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Edit war

I noticed an edit war going on around these parts. Edit wars on guideline pages are a "Bad Thing". I protected it for a week -- fight it out amongst yourselves. Just make sure there's consensus for any change, and that guideline pages never violate policy pages. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 03:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

For the record, since admins are involved on both side, I will revert any edit done to the page personally, no matter the triviality. And yes I reverted twice previously, and this is not the one I reverted to. Protection has to mean something when admins are involved too. Circeus 04:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Circeus. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

A case in point

Today's mainpage article Third Servile War. With not a citation in cite (sic - ho! ho!) in the lead.

Arguably the statement:-

"While Spartacus' war is noteworthy in its own right, the Third Servile War was significant to the broader history of ancient Rome mostly in its effect on the careers of Pompey and Crassus."

is challengable - and is dealt with by cited sources within the article:-

"Pompey and Crassus reaped political benefit for having put down the rebellion. Both Crassus and Pompey returned to Rome with their legions and refused to disband them, instead encamping them outside Rome.[52]"

"The effects of the Third Servile War on the Roman attitudes towards slavery, and the institution of slavery in Rome, are harder to determine. Certainly the revolt had shaken the Roman people, who "out of sheer fear seem to have begun to treat their slaves less harshly than before."[56]"

"The legal status and rights of the Roman slave also began to change. During the time of emperor Claudius (reigned 41-54 AD), a constitution was enacted which made the killing of an old or infirm slave an act of murder, and decreed that if such slaves were abandoned by their owners, they became freedmen.[58]"

etc.etc. - are we saying that in addition to citing the detailed facts, the rather obvious conclusions that summarise such facts need a separate citation that concurs with the conclusion? Do we need to cite that the significance of the Third Servile War was mostly in its effect on the careers of Pompey and Crassus. Or is it, as has been contended, true that currently wikipedia authors, believe the lead is a special case? We can debate whether it should be the case - but this article has been through a recent FAC and thus has been tested by the community. With the greatest respect to SV and Jay who argue it shouldn't be like this - they are not representing a full consensus. --Joopercoopers 12:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

With respect, there's no issue. If people want to write leads without citations, there's nothing to stop them. All information has to be sourced, that's all; and it's a judgement call as to what is going to be challengeable and need an actual citation.

As far as having two separate citations is concerned, it is perfectly possible to combine them with a "ref name =" footnote—though, as Slim Virgin suggested higher up, it is perhaps more stylish (certainly less dreary) to vary the wording and referencing between the lead and the article (and if you can't find more than one source for a statement in the lead, then it probably shouldn't be in the lead).qp10qp 13:00, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, but what I argue is that the first sentence in the lead is a summary and conclusion of at least 3 separate references - if, for arguements sake, the lead sentence is challenged - is the solution "While Spartacus' war is noteworthy in its own right, the Third Servile War was significant to the broader history of ancient Rome mostly in its effect on the careers of Pompey and Crassus."[52][56][58]? Or is the referencing in the lead unecessary - you seem to imply it's unecessary, others are arguing that "since people only bother reading the lead" - the lead should be refenced as well, as a matter of course - and presumably as a matter of priority over the rest of the article. --Joopercoopers 15:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Size of paragraphs

How large should the paragraphs be in the lead? If a lead requires 3 paragraphs, how many sentences should those paragraphs contain? Ideally? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 13:02, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's any correct answer. Speaking for myself, I am put off by long paragraphs in the lead and prefer crisp paragraphs of 3 to 5 sentences. The first paragraph can often take being very short indeed, since the births, dates, literal description, etc., don't usually add up to a good topic sentence.qp10qp 13:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

How to create and manage a good lead

I know the following is long, but I have a few thoughts that can help in creating and managing a lead. So far this method has produced some nice leads.

I have a rule of thumb that ensures proper coverage in the WP:LEAD:

• If a topic deserves a heading, then it deserves short mention in the lead.

Here is a table that can be used to help in creating and managing the lead. Just add the major headings and create short summaries of the contents of the various sections in the body of the article. Each item in the table should contain no more than one to three sentences that sum up the basic idea of each section in the article.

The lead is then created by placing those summaries in one (large) paragraph in the order it is found in the table. Then divide it into one to four paragraphs, depending on the size and type of article, and make appropriate changes so it flows as brilliant prose. The result should be a mini-version of the article without too much detail and with no repetition.

HEADING	VERY SHORT SUMMARY
First heading after the lead	One to three sentences summarizing the content.
Second heading	bla bla bla
Third heading	bla bla bla
Fourth heading	bla bla bla
Fifth heading	bla bla bla

There should not be anything in the lead that doesn't refer to specific content in the article and is not backed up by specific references found in the article. There should not be any unnecessary elaboration or detail in the lead. Elaboration should be in the body of the article, not in the lead.

A well-written lead "should answer most or all of the 5 Ws."[9]

Keeping references out of the lead makes the lead cleaner and easier to read. The explanatory and more detailed text with the references should be found in the article. Since refs are used to document specific content, and since the lead is a short summation in a generalized and unspecific format, I would see the use of references in the lead as a duplication of effort. If there are any references in the lead, they should be kept to a minimum. If a reference is required in the lead, then that might be a symptom that something is being introduced there that is not in the body of the article, and that would be improper.

Because articles change and grow, the lead should reflect those changes and be revised accordingly.

Otherwise I think the lead should prepare the reader for whatever is in the body of the article, should get them interested in the content, and inspire them to read the whole article. When they read the article they should not encounter any significant information that was not alluded to in the lead, IOW they should not be totally surprised by what they read in the body of the article. If they are surprised, then that item should be mentioned in the lead.

Wikipedia articles should cover all notable aspects of a subject. When our readers have read an article and then talk to others about the subject, they should be able to always answer "Of course, I already read about that at Wikipedia." They should at least have a basic knowledge of all aspects of a subject, enough to discuss it and not be totally surprised by what someone else tells them. -- Fyslee/talk 09:17, 29 July 2007 (UTC)