[Foundation-l] Enforcing WP:CITE

Wed Nov 30 08:33:52 UTC 2005

David Gerard wrote:

>Brian wrote:
>
>  
>
>>In the same way that we are currently enforcing proper image tags using
>>a bot, could we do the same with unsourced articles? Start out by
>>placing {{unsourced}} in all the articles lacking sources, and then, if
>>it is not sourced in a week, create something like the {{copvio}}
>>page-replacer to hide the unsourced content (the entire article),
>>explaining with a detailed message that the article must be thoroughly
>>sourced.
>>    
>>
>
>
>I don't know about enforcing it ... but, on en: at least, the
>{{unreferenced}} tag (which {{unsourced}} redirects to) is there for
>anyone who wants to use them. I put it on articles I happen across that
>are (a) not a stub (b) don't have even an external link somewhere.
>
>
>  
>
I agree about that, but I think the templates currently aren't taken too 
seriously. People will be motivated to cite/reference with this proposed 
system, or something like it. And it seems like something that we should 
automatically be requiring. Peer-reviewed encyclopedias do not require 
this, because they have trusted, known contributors. Our contributors 
are not known in anything like the same sense, so we have to show the 
public that our content is based on verifiable information.

>>In my mind, at least, it doesn't seem like there should be any
>>difference between enforcing sources for images and sources for
>>articles. If anything we should be enforcing the latter more, since
>>articles form the basis of the encyclopedia. I know this won't solve
>>everything, but I think it should be a vital part of Wikipedia; since we
>>do not know who edits an article, we need to know that it is based on
>>information that we can verify ourselves.
>>    
>>
>
>
>It's hard to *enforce*. It's already good practice per
>[[:en:Wikipedia:Verifiability]].
>
>  
>
I don't think it would be too hard to enforce. To start, a bot can look 
for any external links in the article, or for use of one of the common 
reference templates. Either that, or search for a section called 
"References", "Sources" or "External links". To enforce image tagging, 
we have appropriate image templates which are flagged/ignored by a bot. 
We need only do the same thing with article templates.