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)

Wisps' Law is a good article. And expands well on parts of the "You don't need to cite that the sky is blue article" (especially the Citing Everything section). To grab the most important part "Wisps' Law, as this guideline is called, states that individual game quotes should generally only be included in articles for game characters (including species, groups, organizations, and lists) insofar as they corroborate information that is likely to be seen as controversial, spurious, or especially specific.". To tweak that for our purposes "citations should generally only be included in articles insofar as they corroborate information that is likely to be seen as controversial, spurious or obscure".

Terilem and I aren't saying "Don't source Iolo's death because it isn't important". I'm saying it doesn't need citing because putting a citation on it wouldn't bring anything to the article. Iolo dieing isn't likely to be seen as controversial (he is definitely dead in the game), spurious (anyone who has played through the game killed him) or obscure (major plot point). -- Fenyx4 19:53, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I seem to have opened a bigger can of worms than I anticipated. The point I was trying to make about the Gwenno article was more that not every in-game occurrence is going to be mentioned in dialogue, books, etc. (we ran into the same issue with Mikos awhile back). I was concerned about the prospect that a lack of citable material might preclude such information from appearing in an article, even though it's entirely valid. I do think there is less of a pressing need to have citations for non-conversational events that are directly observed by the player; I'd rather have verification efforts directed to areas more in need of them. --Terilem (talk) 22:54, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Looks like it was a good thing we had this conversation. It seems there are at least 3 different opinions on this:

@Fenyx: It sounds like citations are only to be used when you've got something to prove--citations are an academic way of saying "yeah yeah, I know what you're thinking, but just look at this, this and this and you'll see why it says that". Wouldn't that make well over 90% of what I've done inappropriate?

@Terilem: Your concern is valid, because inclusion/exclusion is a matter of judgment and collateral damage is inevitable. I wouldn't remove material merely because it couldn't be justified by dialogue (or any other reference material) but sometimes it's hard to know what to do. Sometimes I feel the need to terminate w/extreme prejudice because no material is better than erroneous material, the problem of proving a negative, etc. It's a tough call. In the case of Iolo, it was my hope that two very momentous events (his death and resurrection) should have some chatter somewhere, but I got tired for searching. What's an example of "areas more in need" to you? The Ultra-Mind (talk) 17:26, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, for example the Gwenno article is one I'd consider to have already been in pretty good shape. It was extensively rewritten and referenced after we got serious about our standards, so it's already leaps and bounds ahead of the legacy material from the wiki's younger years that you mentioned above. That's not to say that more work should never be done on it, but it makes more sense, to me at least, to devote time to the older articles that are still lagging rather than polishing ones that have already had a lot of attention. I'd rather have a wealth of articles at 80-90% than a few at 99%, I guess you could say. That's just my feeling though; I'm not one to try and tell people where to direct their efforts, and ultimately any work is good work. --Terilem (talk) 01:05, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't go so far as to say 90% of what you have done is inappropriate. I do feel you go too far sometimes but as with everything there are grey areas.

If you are interested in looking at articles that are older and in need of more love you could start here Special:AncientPages. The first one, Chicken, is broken for some reason but there are around 150 articles that haven't even been touched since the great Wikia migration. -- Fenyx4 18:52, 8 July 2014 (UTC)