Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check/Archive 3

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New experiment: baseline revisions

I have a proposal called Wikipedia:Baseline revision. Basically the gist is that we find a revision of an article that is as accurate, neutral and well written as possible, with all facts referenced correctly. Details are in the article itself - however, currently this is going under review. At the time of writing, I was thinking that we can start off baseline experiment by creating a baseline subpage that hangs off the article. For instance, the Common Unix Printing System would have Common Unix Printing System/baseline where a baseline could be proposed. Anyway, I figured that this project would be a good place to announce this. I would very much appreciate suggestions, debate, and modifications to the experiment.

The nice thing, btw, with the thing I'm proposing, is that it doesn't actually impact or disrupt existing articles. It just adds a new subpage and it might be referenced at the top of the articles talk page. And even better: it's an experiment. If it doesn't work, then we can chuck it out as a failed experiment. That said, I hope it doesn't fail! - Ta bu shi da yu 08:10, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Sounds like a reasonable idea. Thanks for posting it here. I've not read the proposal yet, but I'll say at the outset based on what you've said that I think a tagged revision which is persistant on the History page rather than a subpage might be better, but I need to think through that after reading the proposal. Courtland 13:23, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Baseline revision

I have started off our first attempt to find a baseline revision for Common Unix Printing System. The proposal is here and is locked in to stop vandals from editing the URL to the revision: Common Unix Printing System/Proposed baseline. See the talk page to see the objections and review for the proposed baseline revision. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:13, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Biweekly special article

Some of you might remember that a while back, we had something called the biweekly special article, where the team tried to work collaboratively to reference one article every two weeks.

It sounds good in theory, but the problem was that there weren't too many members, and many weren't active. Now that we have more members, I'd like to bring it back. If you think that this is a good idea, please put in your suggestions for next week's biweekly special article. Don't think it's a good idea? That's okay too, voice your opinions here. -Frazzydee|✍ 21:27, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Titan; Pope John Paul II Courtland 04:40, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)

Revision at Wikipedia:Footnote3

I just noticed that they made a revision at Wikipedia:Footnote3. They're now using the {{ref}} and {{note}} templates.

I don't know about all of you, but I for one prefered {{an}} and {{anb}}. It's a bit confusing for me to remember which is the footnote number and which is the note itself, but more importantly, I don't like the little arrow.

I know how nitpicky this is going to sound, but I also don't like the fact that the two templates have such different names and that they're longer to type. 'an' and 'anb' are easy to remember because they're so short and similar (the one going back only has one letter extra).

Here's an example of what the new format looks like:

This is an example[1]

  1. ^ see?

Remember that we're not bound by any of the suggestions made there, and I don't see how it would be detrimental to any articles if we continue using the old system. -Frazzydee|✍ 01:17, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hi, This is the author of Wikipedia:Footnote3 (though it's wikitext, so you can edit anyway if you want). I also prefered an/anb, that's why I chose them, but even I have to admit it's not totally clear to a random editor what they mean. The aim here is that we should have one recommendation rather than two; There was a competing proposal with identical functionality using the templates ref & endnote and people using that liked it better because they preferred the longer/clearer names. ref & note was a compromise which both I and the proposer of ref/endnote could agree on.
If you don't like the current suggestion, please do try to get a consensus in discussion on Wikipedia talk:Footnote3. It will be much better if we can come with one coherent suggestion for footnotes to the rest of the community rather than several different ones. The value of being able to present a single front with the ref/endnote people is more than the value of one character a command for me. Especially when I see that they do have a bit of a point. Mozzerati 07:10, 2005 Apr 2 (UTC)
I think that random editors also wouldn't know how to use {{ref}} and {{note}} without reading the guide at Wikipedia:Footnote3. I really liked an and anb a lot better than the new ones, and I'm really glad that you made them. Besides, shouldn't Template:Ref and Template:Note just redirect to Template:An and Template:Anb? It doesn't really matter which one redirects to which, since it'll all look the same in the end. They seem almost identical, except they're incompatible with each other. Redirecting would solve this, and I'm going to do that. If you disagree, then don't hesitate to revert me. -Frazzydee|✍ 17:46, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

WikiBib

I do lots of formatting external links to MLA format so I converted a tool I use to produce wiki syntax for basic MLA formatting. It covers about 90% of cases for me. I call it WikiBib. Let me know suggestions. I'm no ace with javascript but maybe i can do it. --Alterego 03:46, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

Great job! I love it, and (if it's not already) I think it should be put on the main project page. I have a couple suggestions for improvement:
  1. Should support book references
  2. Copyright year should default to current year (so it should already be in the box)
  3. Date of access should default to current date.
Thanks for creating that. -Frazzydee|✍ 15:06, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Browsers don't allow designers to fill in those fields by default due to security issues. I thought of a way to get the current date in there automatically (which I will implement tonight), however I am hesitant to do copyright year. I find less than half of sites have updated their copyright status to 2005, and many have none at all. In those cases I first try archive.org to see the last time they updated their content, and failing that I use the whois database to find out the last time they updated their domain. It's important to try to find out the last time they updated their content because, just like a book, after a certain number of years the information will be released into the public domain. It is also the only indicator of the freshness of the data we are providing the user. Will implement other ideas tonight --Alterego 21:07, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)
ok what do you think about it now? --Alterego 08:15, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)
I really love it, thanks again for making this :). But there is one slight problem...when I was citing a news reference, there was no author specified, and it was just listed as by the BBC. Since wikibib uses the templates, it required the author. Are you sure it's not better for wikibib to just generate the MLA without using the template? The MLA format isn't likely to change drasticly, and even if it does, using the old 'version' should be fine. I think the templates might sometimes be a bit stiff, in that they won't work if (for one reason or another) some of the fields don't apply. -Frazzydee|✍ 18:12, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Databases

If you have need for a citation available in this list of 400 databases just leave a message here, on my talk page, or e-mail me and i'd be happy to research it for you. Please do a bit of the footwork by identifying which databases would be optimal to try --Alterego 07:54, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations!

After two weeks, the last Biweekly Special Article, Titan (moon), was a huge success! At the end of the two-week period, we referenced a total of 22 facts! Click here to see how it improved.

Thank you all for your enthusiastic support. I hope that we have this kind of participation for the next biweekly special article. Happy referencing! -Frazzydee|✍ 17:58, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

List of encyclopedias in Google Print

I have started a page with 22 references to book encyclopedias available online. Please use these, as they are preformatted citations, and add more. Wikipedia:List_of_encyclopedias_in_Google_Print. --Alterego 03:27, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

I have archived this page and am unsure about an article

I started trying to improve music of the United States in the same style as Titan (moon), but I'm not sure I'm doing it right. I understand the reasons behind quoting the source, but... a simple, direct quotation can be a reference for the diameter of an object like Titan - describing an author's opinion on American musical development isn't as easy to do in a few direct quotes. Am I missing a part of this footnoting process? Tuf-Kat 01:32, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

well, I think that the quotes are most important to find precise points in the text. Where an idea is spread out through a larger piece of writing give the chapter title and page numbers (stating which edition they came from..) to look at. Often you can find a single quote which is designed, by the author, to summarise their ideas. Use that; but don't worry too much. Our main aim should be to get them to go to the original text and check for themselves. Mozzerati 05:37, 2005 Apr 22 (UTC)

On the topic of Quotes ... template up for deletion

There is a template that is up for deletion at WP:TFD, {{Quoted}}. I've voted 'keep', not because I'm keen on the template itself but because I think that deleting it without some input from this group might lead to a less than desirable outcome. The discussion is running at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Quoted. I'm not advocating Keep or Delete, just would like interested parties to have a chance to weigh in with their opinion.

Regards, Courtland 02:08, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

Help!

I'm having a dispute about sourcing material on Talk:Zoroastrianism#NPOV? I don't think so. Can I get someone to back me up on this? It seems that the following text is not considered POV:

The timing of Zoroaster's life is significant for understanding the development of Judeo-Christian beliefs. Should it be before 1300 BC (prior to Akhenaten), then Zoroaster would be the earliest monotheist known in any religion. Even a later date could make Zoroaster a template for Biblical figures who introduce monotheism over henotheism. Traditional Jews and Christians typically seek to place Zoroaster's life at as late a date as possible, so as to avoid the conclusion that much of the theology and morality of the non-Torah parts of the Old Testament derive from Zoroastrianism, the ideas having flowed into Judaism during the Babylonian captivity which happened shortly after 600 BC. Even the first commandment reflects the henotheistic nature of early Judaism. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" implictly accepts the existance of other gods."

"Traditional Jews and Christians typically seek to place Zoroaster's life at as late a date as possible, so as to avoid the conclusion that much of the theology and morality of the non-Torah parts of the Old Testament derive from Zoroastrianism, the ideas having flowed into Judaism during the Babylonian captivity which happened shortly after 600 BC." is clearly the POV of the author, and as such is unsourced. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:08, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Biweekly special article suggestion.

The Wikijunior project requires sources — I suggest we regularly source the Wikipedia articles of subjects that will go into Wikijunior. e.g.: Kuiper belt. — Jeandré, 2005-06-12t14:47z

Here Here! But now that a lot of wikijunior content has already been built, I would ask if we cannot take the effort right to the wikibook. Certainly, that's what I am about to do. It must be done, since the articles came INTO wikijunior without citation. Multiple authors added information from multiple sources that were not already in the wikipedia. I am going to work my way right through the TOC. Anyone interested? -- Wikibooks:User:SV Resolution 2005-08-24

See librarian page

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Librarians#Reference question, for a question about how much interpretation of a source is acceptable. Tuf-Kat

Bush article

As one of the people who's been actively editing George W. Bush, I'm happy to see that article selected for reference checking. Because it's so controversial, though, you'll probably find that it already has more careful referencing than most articles.

If people from the project are looking at George W. Bush, one way you could help the article would be to respond to a current RfC. We've had an ongoing dispute about the subject of substance abuse. It's all laid out for you, in a format agreed to by both sides, at Talk:George W. Bush#Presentation of substance abuse issues. More input would be welcome. JamesMLane 06:55, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Is Bush still the special article? If not, the tag should be removed from the article's talk page. Thanks. Harro5 21:54, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

What if I referenced an article with online links and the links 'die' after a period of time and no other references online? =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:12, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

You can try to find an archived copy at http://web.archive.org/collections/web.html but if it's not there I think it's better to leave the URL, with a note that explains it's now gone. — Jeandré, 2005-07-12t19:20z
If there are no other mirrors online, then there's not much you can do about it (unless you have a copy, in which case you can quote it where necessary). This is why it's important to reference properly- so users know when it was there. WikiBib is very useful for this. Unfortunately, there really isn't much besides that you can do. -Frazzydee|✍ 21:34, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Requests

I'd like to have the article on cats fact-checked. I think it's only a step away from being an FA, but it lacks references. Toothpaste 10:01, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Nicely done article ... except the count of references is 0. Thanks for bringing it here; I'm sure that some folks will dive in and contribute fact-checking and reference addition. The article is also long enough that one might consider splitting off an article or two from the main. Courtland 10:13, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

Articles which lack sources

Question: what is the status of article tagging, such as the use of {{Unreferenced}} to populate Category:Articles lacking sources? Should it be mentioned on the project page? --Viriditas | Talk 09:34, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Added. --Beland 03:28, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Kambojas

The FRC collaboration seems to have died, but if anyone enjoys properly formatting existing references, Kambojas needs a lot of work in that regard. -- Beland 03:16, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Two Requests for Help

Hello - I have two articles I could really use some help on.

  1. In the process of working on Hurricane Katrina, I came across the term Atlantic Basin. I've seen that term defined in different ways in different sources, but I can't find a source I would consider definitive as to what bodies or water are/are-not included in its definition.
    1. The Atlantic basin is defined by the NHC as a region of tropical cyclone formation. — jdorje (talk) 09:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
  2. Also, at United States, we say that the Territorial waters of the United States border the Bahamas and Russia. Since territorial waters extend 12 miles from a nations coast, and since the bodies of water seperating the US from each of those countries seem to be bigger than 24 miles, I am uncertain of this claims veracity. However, it is possible there is some little bitty island that does not appear on my maps, which would push out the limit. Can anyone find worthwhile sources? Johntex 21:22, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Images that lack citation meta-data / attribution

The matter of violations of "fair use" was brought up in the talk-space for User:Jimbo Wales (see User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Fair_Use_Images) and I mentioned there that I would mention the discussion here for further comment. Do you think that spawning a child WikiProject specifically aimed at encouraging citation of images would be a good thing? After some work on the matter had been done here to work out some of the kinks, I think. Courtland 04:09, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Having been the user who caused the discussion and got yelled at by Jimbo, I believe that it is becoming necessary. --Titoxd 05:21, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Primary sources

I'm rewriting the Bhutan article and I have a problem with two credible sources for the demographics section:

The information on these two pages do not tally! Also one has extra info the other doesn't have, and similarly vice-versa. What do I do? [I'd be grateful if a copy of the reply is posted on my talk page since I am currently really busy to periodically check this page.] =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:49, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

You report what both credible sources say, and attribute appropriately. Common enough on this sort of thing. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:00, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. I think it would be misrepresenting the situation to reflect anything other than the fact that the sources disagree. - Taxman Talk 17:53, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
Quoting the two sources would be ok if one or two facts were incorrect. But in this case, the entire =economy=, =demographics= sections would have two sets of information, which I don't feel would be helpful in anyway. However, MSN Encarta has mentioned that the Bhutanese fovt. does not count Nepali citizens in its census. So I've kind of sorted it out, and I'll go with the CIA source, plus mention the differences. Thanks anyways. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:18, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Request for Help at WikiJunior

I know there is plenty to do at Wikipedia, but User:Danny has requested that we get wikibooks:Wikijunior Solar System finished up in 3 weeks! There is a lot to do. Fact checking is only a part of it, but a big part. This book is going to be printed and distributed to children.

If you are reading this note, we could use your help! Thanks!

--SV Resolution(Talk) 14:31, 7 September 2005 (UTC) (About WikiJunior)

Why this tag?

John Thrumbull - the limited info given here is, nevertheless, tagged as being without references. Surely this is unnecessary - and stupid? Arcturus 10:57, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I do not feel the tag is unnecessary. If the goal of Wikipedia is to be a world class, citeable reference source, it needs to have all of its information be verifiable, no matter how small the article. Obviously, someone put this entry into Wikipedia and they got that information (albeit, very limited) from somewhere. It would not take very long for that person to put in a reference. The tag may have been put on the page in hopes that the original creator of the entry was watching the page and would put the references in. Epolk 20:51, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Well perhaps in this case the contributor might put something like:
References - own brain
Basic, well known, and established facts do not need references. Obviously the contributor has obtained the information from somewhere, but in cases such as these we don't need to know that, for example, the reference was The Monster Book of Facts for Children, or something similar. The Earth is the third planet out from the Sun - no reference necessary. Bill Gates is the richest man in the world; yes give a reference backing up this assertion. Put another way, use your common sense! Arcturus 08:09, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
I can think of few bigger wastes of time than finding references for the obvious, especially while so much questionable or controversial material is in need of references. Fish where the fish are. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:40, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Comments requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Inline links discouraged in favor of more complete sources. (SEWilco 08:03, 11 October 2005 (UTC))

Referencing for an entire section

I was adding references to an article and had an entire section under a section head that was from the same source. I was unsure of where to put the ref template so added it at the end of the section header. Does anyone have any comments or suggestions on how to footnote an entire section?

The article I was working on was U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry and the section is Chairmen.

Epolk 21:11, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I have to say, that doesn't look very good to me. Can someone please make another suggestion? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:32, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Usually a footnote goes at the end of the relevant material, which suggests simply putting a footnote at the end of the section. Or one could have at the bottom "(from SomeSource)" and footnote that. Or use {{ref_harvard}} to link "(from SomeSource)" to the source. The next editor gets to figure out how to dereference anything they insert in the section. :-) (SEWilco 00:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC))

Problems with our info on Google Print

I think since the project page was written Google Print has been playing with its functionality. The links on our project page no longer work. The URL's at GP now seem different to those deconstructed. You are also now required to be logged in to a Google account to browse books which I assume is to make sure you can;t work-around the page limits. Can someone who's able to analyse the new URLs see what can be done with them and rewrite our project-page section accordingly please? I suppose there might be something to consider in whether Wikipedia wants to link references to something that requires you to register too. Lots of our users will find themselves clicking through to a log-in screen, presumably. That wouldn't be good. --bodnotbod 18:49, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Reliable sources - using other encyclopedias as sources for our own articles

Please weigh in at this discussion about whether we should recommend our readers to use other encyclopedias as sources or not. — mark ✎ 10:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Reorganisation

Right now I find this page very cluttered, and nowhere near as simple or organised as WikiProject Stub sorting. Should we start reorganising to make it easier and clearer as to how Wikipedians can help reference our articles? Johnleemk | Talk 10:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

A straw poll is being taken based on whether using only URLs in an article is an acceptable style for citing sources instead of having more detailed citations. See Talk:Global cooling#SEWilco.2C disruptive reverts.2C and citations. (SEWilco 23:41, 24 November 2005 (UTC))

SEWilco is presenting a misleading view of the debate. The real debate, which he has escalated into a revert war on both Global cooling and Kyoto protocol, is over his pushing of his cumbersome footnotes style into these articles with no regard to the consensus of the editors working on these articles. He has been advised against this [2]. Please carefully consider the debate history on those articles if you plan to comment. Vsmith 01:49, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Vsmith is presenting a misleading view of the situation, where the original article had dead URL-only links with numbered format, being replaced with standard Wikipedia:Footnote numbered links to citations. See the discussion in Talk:Global cooling, and if you wish see Vsmith's alternative whose errors and weaknesses are described in Talk:Kyoto Protocol. While he complains of consensus, Vsmith's edit is even more dramatic a style change than numbered links. (SEWilco 05:57, 25 November 2005 (UTC))
SEWilco has been edit warring for weeks in order to try to force editors to use footnotes. He has tried to delete or reduce information about Harvard referencing and embedded links from Wikipedia:Cite sources and from Wikipedia:Manual of style, and has made several misleading edits about those styles. The fact is that embedded links and Harvard referencing are both perfectly acceptable for Wikipedia, and in fact much more popular than footnotes. WP:CITE has no preference between the three styles, except that the style used by the first major contributor should be adhered to if no agreement for change can be reached between the current editors on any given page. SlimVirgin (talk) 06:26, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Please also see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/SEWilco William M. Connolley 10:15, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Important RfC: please weigh in

An RfC has been opened recently concerning an editor who has spread fringe theories and original research over a wide array of articles (>100) making clever use of cross- and self-referencing, thus making his contributions looking reliably sourced and verifiable to editors who assume good faith. Finding a solution to this problem is of eminent importance to Wikipedia's future reliability and verifiability. Read more at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Roylee and weigh in at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Roylee. — mark ✎ 14:47, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, quite simply, fact checkers are needed to clean up and verify Roylee's contributions to the articles listed at User:Mark Dingemanse/Roylee. To get a sense of the problem see Sahara#History, where I have tagged unverified statements added by Roylee using {{fact}}. — mark ✎ 17:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


Fact identifying and checking method

It would be nice if there was a standard way of identifying facts, so that they can be easily checked and cited. I don't know if there is a standard way to do this, but I was thinking along the lines of:

<!--FACT 0-->Elephants are large mammals,<!--/FACT--> <!--FACT 1-->known to fly around in the Himalaya.<!--/FACT-->

Then the talk page could include the facts on the standard to-do-lists as long as they're not checked:

Check facts and provide citations:
  • FACT 0
  • FACT 1

Identifiers instead of numbers? Maybe, this is just a starting point. When they are checked and cited the fact references could be included in the citation:

<!--FACT 0-->A treatise on zoology, part I, ...

Perhaps there is also some room for templating common situations here. This is just a small idea to start the brainstorming, but I think a system like this will help keep track of facts that need to be checked. This is especially important for articles that currently have no cited sources and whose facts are relatively hard to check. When a fact is wrong, it could be removed from the article. A link to the last revision of the article containing the wrong fact could be put on a list of errors (on the talk page) with discussion, so that it's easier to spot if someone puts it back in, for example due to the fact being very well known (but, unfortenately, wrong). Shinobu 20:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

WP:V citations

You may be interested in Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Citation format poll: Format of citations and WP:V examples, and WP:FN. (SEWilco 03:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC))

Help with Christmas article

The article on Christmas needs a lot of work in terms of fact-checking. It was supposed to be the featured article on the 25th. I'm not sure if it still is supposed to be. Theshibboleth 21:20, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Direct quotes in references

Very often, when I've added specific fact references to an well-fleshed out article, I provide the direct quote from the source that I cite, following the citation. I have been asked to start a discussion on this, and I have done so on Wikipedia:Citing sources. Please comment there. Thanks! JesseW, the juggling janitor 09:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Policy change proposal: Wikipedia:Verifiability/temp

A policy change has been proposed which is relevant to this project. See Wikipedia:Verifiability/temp. (SEWilco 04:46, 11 January 2006 (UTC))

Wikicite Project (take 2)

m:Wikicite is a project dedicated to implementing many of the mechanisms and processes recommended by the Fact and Reference Check Project. A new design of this system is currently underway, and hopefully implementation can be completed this year. Before that happens, though, we need feedback from the community regarding the project's useability and functionality. Please take time to read the project proposal on Meta and then post your comments here regarding any improvements or missing features. Thanks.

Jleybov 23:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Multiple uses of a single source

An article may rely in different places on multiple independent sections or chapters of a single large work like a book. Since our goal is to be as specific as possible, it really isn't very useful to just cite the entire book. Do we have any kind of standard style for citing different parts of a single work? I've seen various things, but I would propose something like this:

  • John Doe. Stuff. Stuff Press. 1992.
^ Chapter 5: Craziness about stuff, pp.54–78
^ Section 8.2: Green stuff, pp.105–112

^ Ima Dude. A Work Cited Only Once. Harlton Press. 2003.

What do you all think? Deco 04:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I think current best practice seems to be to have a separate section for the actual citations (titled "bibliography") and a section (titled "references" or something) which contains the detailed page number references. Where a source is used only once, it can just be included in either section depending on whether it is generally interesting for the topic or just for one particular aspect. Mozzerati 14:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Largely agreed, except for the naming of the sections. The list of references goes in References; the individual notes go in Notes. See Athénée Palace for a good example. - Jmabel | Talk 22:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Yehudah Arazi

Hey guys, I just cleaned up Yehudah Arazi. It definitely needs some sources. I've commented out the stuff that contradicts other pages. Could someone give me a hand finding some decent references for the article? Thanks. -- Jonel | Speak 04:44, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Shortcut

Hello! This page's shortcut (WP:FC) presently is linked from a handful of pages. I would like to reassign it to Wikipedia:Featured content (which I plan to develop). WP:FRC could be the new shortcut for this page. Are there any objections? —David Levy 13:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Propaganda websites as sources

Can we simply blacklist websites known to be highly POV / propagandist? From my experience, I can tell that it would really help save a lot of time. deeptrivia (talk) 00:16, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Blatantly POV websites will be recognized as such, I think, though a list would do no harm. I think it is more important to list website that seem initially good, but are far less good than they seem. Andries 00:19, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
My particular concern (that motivated me to write this) is with http://www.dalitstan.org/ and http://www.ambedkar.org, both notorious websites, being used as sources on wikipedia. Some people just want to believe blatant POV has the Truth. Simply telling the editor that your source is untrustable will produce ego hurts, edit- and revert-wars, and all kinds of tensions. Is there a nice way to go about it, that retains goodwill? Other such sites include [3]. deeptrivia (talk) 00:32, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Those website seem suspicious to me, but I do not how to maintain the list and we should make criteria for inclusion and exclusion, otherwise people will list include all websites that they do not like (I can personally think of some) But I dunno such criteria. Andries 00:44, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I had a closer look at dalitstan.org and I think this is a propaganda website. Andries 00:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I know, it's easier said than done. All I can think of is a nomination followed by voting/consensus building process, which obviously has some drawbacks. Hopefully we could work out something. deeptrivia (talk) 01:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, but I think you will find that most controversial WP articles are sourced from advocacy pieces in pop publications or personal websites or blogs. If they were sourced from peer-reviewed academic papers they would not be controversial. Fourtildas 05:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Can you give two or three example of this (citing heavily from advocacy pieces)? I assume that you don't mean citing the advocacy articles for the opinions of their writers, but citing basic facts from advocacy articles in a way that has created of fueled controversy, right? - Jmabel | Talk 05:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)