[Foundation-l] Requiring a References section (was Re: Enforcing WP:CITE)

Thu Dec 1 19:41:37 UTC 2005

On 12/1/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1) Wikipedia is important enough to significantly injure the reputations
> of people/organizations that are known elsewhere on the web. It may
> provide 2 or more of the top 10 search results for content about them.
>     An old problem, but getting worse with increased popularity.  This is
> the most egregious case I have seen.

Perhaps I simply considered this 'old news' more than many.

> 3) This article was linked to from other pages. It was noticed and
> wikified. At this stage, something could have been done about it.
>     If the first page of our style guide included not only "how to bold the
> topic" and "how to link out", but also "how to flag emotional or
> controversial content" and "how to mark short, unsourced articles" -- this
> might have been noticed and fixed during the ensuing three months.

Good point.  Wikification should start including such things, as well
as formatting fixes.

I think it's also the case that we should be especially careful about
unattributed claims about living persons.  It's the topic where
misinformation can be most hurtful.

> Why not?  Requiring a 'references' section for every article (thanking the
> heavens that WP is not paper), and reminding every editor that *every* new
> article should come with at least one reference, seems a responsible thing
> to do.  Can you offer a reason not to have such a section for any article?

I meant that more than that is hard to automate.  You're right that
the bare minimals can be easily checked.  However, I can't see that we
can automate much beyond that with ease.

> If you're writing about one of those topics that is a) not private
> research/analysis of your own, but b) has never been written about
> anywhere else [that you know of], then we need a new class of references :
> "personal observation by [user]", with a relevant tag not unlike the
> original-reporting templates used on Wikinews.  Then it will be crystal
> clear that readers should visit your page, and see whether they trust you
> as the primary/original observer/author.

Much of this falls under 'original research', doesn't it?  Or are you
talking about the cases where someone believes that something is true
but doesn't have the references to hand?

-Matt