Template talk:Citation needed

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Template:Citation needed is permanently protected from editing, as it is a heavily used or visible template. Substantial changes should be proposed here, and made by administrators if the proposal is uncontroversial, or has been discussed and is supported by consensus. Use {{editprotected}} to attract the attention of an administrator in such cases. Any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes, categories or interwiki links.

This template was considered for deletion on 2006 July 1. The result of the discussion was nomination withdrawn on procedural technicality (and discussion was overwhelmingly in favor of keep).

This page has been cited as a source by a media organization. The citation is in: Kerry Howley (March 2008). "Artifact: The World Needs Citations". Reason Magazine. http://www.reason.com/news/show/124400.html.  (details)

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Contents 1 Documentation 2 Signing tags in articles 3 What the heck? 4 Needed on commons. (Template whiz needed.) 5 Wiki markup? 6 Usage Question 7 Requested move

See also: Template talk:Fact/comparisions

[edit] Documentation

The documentation is not aimed solely at editors of pages, but also at those who edit (or might be tempted to edit) the template itself, and work with it in various ways. Therefore we may consider "User" and "Technical" documentation requirements. Please do not remove great chunks of the technical matter simply because they are not needed by the average "user". Rich Farmbrough, 22:24 8 July 2008 (GMT).

[edit] Signing tags in articles

I have removed this suggestion. Peoples sigs can be complicated an break stuff, including User:SmackBot. Any significant discussion should be on the talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 23:23 21 November 2008 (UTC).

[edit] What the heck?

Why are so many articles with {{fact}} tags showing up in categories such as Category:Articles with unsourced statements from May 2009 (from instead of since)? That's a huge but, I'm finding tons of "from" categories all over the place. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 01:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe because those tags were made in May 2009? I dunno, just a thought. BrenMan 94 (talk) 14:22, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Needed on commons. (Template whiz needed.)

Someone please reproduce this at http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Fact&action=submit and make it work. Many (50+) pages already use this template even though it's never existed on that wiki. More than simple copy is needed.--Elvey (talk) 19:13, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki markup?

^{[citation needed]} really should be included in the list of Wiki markups viewed when editing a page, it'd save people from having to open up a new window/tab to find the code for it.
BrenMan 94 (talk) 14:27, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Encouraging excessive use of this tag would be bad. I don't know if you remember what it was like a few years ago, but it got pretty ridiculous. This tag should only be used in the limited situation where you believe something is contentious, but at the same time you believe it is verifiable. If you think something is just utter bullshit, then nuke it, no need to tag. Likewise if a source is easily found, then add it. If the statement isn't contentious yet lacks a source, then there's no need to do anything. Gigs (talk) 19:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Usage Question

Suppose you want to add this tag to a statement that is in parenthesis, for example:"...the Swiss (the foremost experts of Sambucus cultivation and culinary applications)" is it best to put the tag within the parenthesis or right after the closing one? Colincbn (talk) 04:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It makes no difference. In either case, use the talk page to leave a more detailed explanation of your concern. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I did, and I have been attempting to find sources to back up the statement on my own as well. Please feel free to help out Here if you have the time. I was just wondering if there was a decided upon style for this particular type of tag usage and figured this was most likely the place to ask if there was. Thanks for the quick answer, Colincbn (talk) 05:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Inside the parens it could apply just to the culinary applications,outside to the whole parenthesis. The tag should bind as tightly as possible and no tighter. However it's not that critical. Rich Farmbrough, 11:19, 4 July 2009 (UTC).

[edit] Requested move

Template:Fact → Template:Citation needed — As already noted on the documentation page, the word "fact" is vague and confusing to new editors. Instead of

John Smith was born January 1, 1801.{{fact}}

we should encourage

John Smith was born January 1, 1801.{{citation needed}}

Spelling out the "citation needed" helps make the wikicode more readable, less ambiguous, and easier to learn. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. No one reads the wikicode. There are about a thousand pages views per edit. Or even many more. Telling editors what to do is like herding cats, it annoys them and has no effect on what they do. If you moved the template to another name, editors would still put in cn, fact, or whatever, and a bot may or may not change it to something else. 199.125.109.99 (talk) 02:21, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
  • There are tens of thousands of active editors, all reading wikicode. Some editors may still put in {{cn}} or {{fact}}, but we should be encouraging the syntax that is easiest for all editors to read and understand. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
    • And tens of millions of "active Wikipedia readers". Only a very few (about a tenth of a percent) look at the code, and many find it inscrutable anyway. 199.125.109.99 (talk) 04:08, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
      • What reason is there that those tens of millions should care about a template rename? If they don't, we are free to suit ourselves. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:44, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support move. I see no reason to have an often-used template like that named confusingly. Furthermore, people are welcome to continue putting {{cn}}, {{fact}}, {{proveit}}, {{citeneeded}} etc. in articles. That doesn't mean that the template shouldn't have a name that best describes it. Jafeluv (talk) 05:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• Vague support. Basically giving a "Meh". It certainly couldn't hurt to have the main name a better description of itself (to me "fact" implies someone thought it was wrong instead of merely uncited), but in practice it won't actually do anything. I guess the date bot could correct the name as well as applying the date, so sure, move the template main name ... I guess. -- KelleyCook (talk) 17:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support - calling this template "fact" confused a lot me when i was new, and has always bothered me. Sssoul (talk) 20:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support per above    M   21:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support Don't bite the newbies; this is why it reads "Citation needed". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:42, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

  Does anybody think we can move to {{cn}}, which is what most people actually use, and save server load? It should not confuse anybody who also looks at article space. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:42, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

  Don't worry about server load, and {{citation needed}} is still easier to read and understand than {{cn}}. Maybe the cleanup bots could automatically change the shorthand {{cn}} to {{citation needed}}. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:16, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

  By the way, {{cn}} has about 645 transclusions from article space, and {{fact}} has, well, a lot more (I stopped scrolling at about 6500), so it's not "what most people actually use" either. Did you mean that it's what most people would actually use after the template was moved? Jafeluv (talk) 06:15, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

  I meant "actually use in preference to {{Citation needed}}", not comparing with {{fact}}, which I would expect to be common, since it is also short. IIRC, some silly bot also went through "correcting" both {{cn}} and {{citation needed}} to {{fact}}; I'm not sure why, but I think it was some good soul getting rid of redirects. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:40, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

indeed: "Smackbot" just changed some of my newly-added cn's to "fact": [1] i've alerted the bot owner to this discussion and change in the template name, so i trust the bot will be duly retrained. Sssoul (talk) 05:50, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

This rename is a Good Thing and one that has crossed my mind. It is the work of a moment (for me) and about 40 minutes (for my PC) to rebuild the SB rulebase. And yes people do us {{cn}} a lot and why not? Short to type, easy to remember and gets clarified within a day. Rich Farmbrough, 11:15, 4 July 2009 (UTC).

• Oppose, too long. I'd much rather have for instance "unsourced" (although it's currently taken by an article-wide template, but I think this should take precedence), which is clear and short. LjL (talk) 13:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)