Forum:Citations in 2014

We've been using citations as a method of certifying and correcting material here at the Codex for a while now, and it seems it's time to revisit the issue. Some are saying that I've been citing too much and point to this Wikipedia article. So I think it's time we talk about how solutions to problems--and problems from solutions--might be improved.

What I find hard to understand is that this issue came to a head over Iolo's death in U7.5 in Gwenno. A main party member's death is no trivial issue, and if we shouldn't be citing that when we can (if we can) then I don't know what we should be citing. So I'd like to hear people's thoughts on when to cite and when not to.

Another WP article that might be a good read is Wisps' Law, however, in my case, reading it alone hasn't yet helped me understand what the problem might be over here. One thing I did get from it is that a lack of secondary sources can be a problem, but that sounds like it would be only exacerbate the problem here (or maybe I don't know what a secondary source is). Another issue it raises is that citations can harm the readability of text (see the LASER! bullet point). I don't quite get that either. I see it similar to the ticker tape that TV news outlets started putting on their screens 20(?) years ago. 'Bugged the hell out of people at first, but viewers eventually learned to manage the distraction and, I don't know what it's like in the rest of the world, but on N. American TV news, it's standard. Another WP we might resort to is the WikiProject Video games.

I should probably also go back to the problem that I've been trying to solve: a lot of material here was written when this wiki was young (and indeed all wikis were young) and editors were few. It's not enough that we have a lot more plurality and we've matured by leaps and bounds and have a much better understanding of how to write wiki articles, because there's a lot of legacy material which cannot be corrected merely by a quick inspection. It requires a lot of research, and it'd be nice if we didn't have to reresearch the same material over and over again, since we never know if anyone's given it a proper look yet. I saw citations as the best way available to certify material, but ultimately imperfect, since citations can't be used in all cases were it would be useful. The Ultra-Mind (talk) 17:36, 3 July 2014 (UTC)