Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 26

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Number of cites per inline statement

If we have a statement like "Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall", and that event is reported by 100 news agencies, is it appropriate to list as cite every one of them using an inline EL? I think its obviously redundant and clutters the article. Let's say only 3 sources report the event. Shouldn't that also be considered redundant? At what point does one how many cites is enough and over that is too many?--Fasttimes68 (talk) 13:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes that is excessive, especially since all reports are copies of a single eye-witness report. In general it is good practice that if you want to report an undisputed fact, a single reference suffices (e.g.: "Humpty Dumpty fell of the wall [1]"). If there are opposing views, or you want to refer to several examples you need more (e.g.: "there are several reports about Humpty Dumpty falling of the wall [1],[2],[3]"). Arnoutf (talk) 14:04, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Normally, one would be enough, but more might be useful if the best source is hard to access, so a more accessible but less reliable source is required. For example:

"Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and died." ^[1][2]

^[1]Death Certificate of Humpty Dumpty. (12 December 2007) On file at Wonderland County Clerk's office.

^[2]"Egg dies in fall." (8 December 2007) Wonderland College Student News. Retrieved from not.a.real.web.site 9 August 2009.

--Gerry Ashton (talk) 14:05, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, could you look at the multiple references listed in Stephanie_Adams and comment as to why those extra references are acceptable or not?--Fasttimes68 (talk) 15:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Biographies of living persons have particularly strict demands on referencing, especially when dealing with potentially contentious issues like sexual orientation and legal issues. Multiple references can sometime be bundled together, however, using the syntax <ref><ul><li><li></ul></ref>, to help with ease of reading (this does not work with named references).

In any case, as I've mentioned above, I think a guideline should be introduced to curb the unnecessary multiple referencing that we see in some articles. It's an impediment both to reading, editing and page load. Lampman (talk) 16:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

slobbovia (not the game)

Al Capp the cartoonist made references to Slobbovia and Slobovians in his cartoons which are not available to me to be specific. I Dont have the resources to research this. Help 64.35.200.6 (talk) 21:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Name order

Why do we put surname before given name(s) in our citations? I.e. "Bloom, Harold" for Harold Bloom. Most sources (both news and academic publishers) seem to do it the other way. --Apoc2400 (talk) 17:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

One of the allowable citation styles is Parenthetical referencing, where the author and either title or year are placed after the passage to be supported, in parentheses. If this is done without templates, or if the article has been printed, the only reasonable way for the reader to find the reference is to look in the alphabetized "References" section. Placing the surname first in that section makes it easier for the reader to find the reference of interest. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:58, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I suspect this is not what Apoc2400 is talking about, though. I have noticed many articles not with parenthesized, in-text author-date citations, but rather with footnote citations, which use templates clearly designed for lists of references or bibliographies. These templates invert the author names, which is decidedly not normal practice in footnotes found in both news and academic publications.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Many of the citation templates can be used for either parenthetical referencing or footnotes, so they must put surname first in case they are being used with parenthetical referencing. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is basically what I said. The question is, why can they be used for footnotes, when the format they generate is clearly meant for alphabetized reference lists?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It's infuriating. qp10qp (talk) 14:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

What is a legitimate source?

Are there any guidelines as to what is a legitimate source? I cited an Amazon.com editorial review of a DVD (not a user review, the site's official review) and it was removed as not notable. That seems strange, since Amazon is one of the largest retailers in the world and I have seen their reviews cited elsewhere. Note that this is in an article where there are a couple of editors who are very adamant about removing things they deem unworthy, and so I'd like to get some sort of official word on this. Thanks. 128.151.71.18 (talk) 21:41, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I am unaware of any notability requirement for qualifying supporting sources. WP:RS provides source reliability guidelines. It seems to me that the an editorial review by Amazon staff should be as acceptable as editorial reviews from other sources, and that reviews by individual readers which might be found on Amazon should be unacceptable. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:20, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

A close reading of WP:RS might suggest that a "review" by the seller of an item, might not be considered neutral or reliabel. Jezhotwells (talk) 09:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

New template related to CITE proposed

Please see here for my proposal of a new template, that would be put on articles that need to have their sources globalized - i.e. on articles that rely on a very similar set of sources likely representing one and the same POV.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 13:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)