This is thetalk page for discussingWikiProject Reliability and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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Reliability This page is part ofWikiProject Reliability, a collaborative effort to improve thereliability of Wikipedia articles. If you would like to participate, please visit theproject page, where you can join thediscussion and see alist of open tasks.ReliabilityWikipedia:WikiProject ReliabilityTemplate:WikiProject ReliabilityReliability

The content ofWikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check wasmerged intoWikipedia:WikiProject Reliability on 11 January 2019. The former page'shistory now serves toprovide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. For the discussion at that location, see itstalk page.

Important -Monthly after the bot creates a new Category: For the new category withinAll articles lacking reliable references, add (Edit) the following lines. {{align|center|{{resbox|'''{{large|{{Random page in category}}}}'''}}}}{{Filter category by topic}} For the new category withinAll articles with unsourced statements, add (Edit) the following lines. {{align|center|{{resbox|'''{{large|{{Random page in category}}}}'''}}}}{{Filter category by topic}}*'''Please help improve an article in this category by adding [[WP:REFB|references]] to [[WP:Reliable sources|reliable sources]] that [[WP:V|verify]] content within the article. Once the reliable source references have been added, the unsourced (citation needed) tag can be removed.''' After the category has more than about 50 articles would be the appropriate time to add the above.

I'm interested in any statistics regarding the dispositions of the {{cn}} tag during the project. A while back I did a personal project where I resolved about forty or so randomly selected such tags. It turns out with little effort I found valid references for about 80% of them and with minor editing another 10% or so were referenceable leaving about 10% for deletion of the tagged statement as not referenceable. I suspect most {{cn}} are attached to valid statements and too many have been applied by tag bombers who have no idea whether the tagged statement is valid or not, see for exampleRemove tag bombing of Floppy Disk Article wherein an editor admits to tag bombing for nearly two decades

It seems to me that such tag bombing litters Wikipedia with unjustified questioning of facts which to the casual reader makes Wikipedia seem to be much less reliable than it actually is. I'm going to propose a change to the policy regarding {{cn}} to maketag bombing explicitly a form ofdisruptive editing; it would useful for such a proposal to have more statistics on how many {{cn}} tags have been replaced by readily found references.

Any statistics would be appreciated.Tom94022 (talk)00:13, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Iadmc,Conyo14,Nick Number,Apollo468,D-Flo27,Butlerblog,Jpeeling,Ligaturama,GranCavallo, andWizardman: Thanks you all for your efforts in the June 2024 drive to reduce unsourced statements. A while back I ran into a tag bomber at a site I monitor, so I did someresearch and found that most fact tags were applied to readily verifiable statements; is this your experience? It would be great if you had some qualitative or quantitative information about your June experience that you would be willing to share. If inclined to do so you can post it below. ThanksTom94022 (talk)16:01, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While I didn't keep any specific quantifiable notes, I can say that, yes, I did experience some{{cn}} tags that were unnecessary. In cases where they were obviously not needed, I removed them altogether, noting this in the edit summary for forensics if someone objected. I didn't find a lot of these, but there were a few dozen maybe.

Also, since I work a lot on the Westerns project and its task forces, I focused on articles in that space. I found that when looking at actor biographies, there were often{{cn}} tags for credits (such as a TV show where the specific episode is noted). These are not necessary, since the credits of the show noted are the primary source (perMOS:TVPLOT:Plot summaries, and other aspects of a program's content,such as its credits, may be sourced from the works themselves, as long as only basic descriptions are given., emphasis added). In those situations, if I could locate a decent secondary source, I did that. Otherwise, I left the tag. I would feel that these{{cn}} tags could be removed, but really only if the credits were verifiable. Some of these classic TV shows did not always list everyone in the onscreen credits, so it's better to verify rather than assume.

I don't know if that helps. I'm certainly willing to go back over my stuff and give some specific examples for review.ButlerBlog (talk)16:57, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I likewise didn't keep notes, and it's hard to offer anything but vague impressions after the fact. Since this was framed as a drive with a time limit, I was cherry-picking tags that were relatively easy to fix. The majority could be referenced with articles via Newspapers.com – a resource that not everyone has access to – or Google Books. A significant fraction of them, maybe 10%, could be resolved by adding a footnote to one of the citations already present in the article. A small handful of statements weren't verifiable and were sufficiently dubious that I ended up removing them.

I don't know that I saw too many instances of clear-cut tag bombing. There were at least a few articles where someone had slapped CN tags on almost every paragraph.Nick Number (talk)17:51, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Most tags were attached to easily sourced material. Made it easy to get so many done, though! — Iadmc♫^talk 19:02, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was mainly doing sports articles, so a majority of them were needed and easily accessible, but some not so accessible. Only in 5 instances, that I can recall, did a source already exist in the article and be used again for a cn tag. The remaining ones were "source=" tags for sports tables.Conyo14 (talk)19:10, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Of the ones I found (also sports), I'd say about 50% did need a citation and it took some effort to find (either with newspapers.com or book sources), 25% needed a citation and were easy to find, and the remaining 25% were either uncncyclopedic things that I removed as trivial or things that really did not need a cite (I found "he became a free agent after the season[citation needed]" multiple times despite the next sentence being signed to a new contract which proves the prior sentence). I did find a few articles that do have ref-bombing and it made me question the point of doing so (one had 30+ cn tags and it was a rather short article).Wizardman20:35, 5 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say I dislike the characterisation of tag-bombing as intrinsically bad. Yes, there are a few problematic editors who inappropriately tag, but one of the most important policies of Wikipedia is thateverything must be supported by reliable sources. Any editor who questions the validity or verifiability of any content should always feel free to tag it. If the tag is inappropriate or unnecessary, it can be easily removed.Adam Black^{talk •contribs}13:42, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Adam Black: While it is true that everything needs to be verifiable only those "likely to be challenged" require inline citations! When an editor who has never made a contribution to an article adds 30 {{fact}} tages in one edit I have to question whether that editor has a "good faith" basis for adding such tags particularly since there is a presumption of "good faith" of the editors who created and allowed the material to stand until the tag bombing. Removing such tags is tedious so they tend to remain in place littering Wikipedia and making it seem less reliable than it actually is. I think we need a change to the policy to make removal of such tags easier.Tom94022 (talk)17:10, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd argue that someone attaching a cn tag to a statement means it more than meets the threshold of being "material whose verifiability has been challenged", the second type of statement which requires a citation as perWP:VERIFY. I've already conceded that some "tag-bombers" as you call them are acting in bad faith but the vast majority of cn tags I have come across in my editing were valid and vilifying those who tag uncited statements because it is "tedious" to remove them appears to me to be incredibly bad faith.

If anything, I think we need to be much stricter on verifiability. You claim these tags make Wikipediaseem less reliable than it actually is, but in its current form with over 6.8 million crowdsourced entries the vast majority of Wikipedia articles are about as reliable as the rhythm method is at preventing pregnancy. Hit the random article button and you're way more likely to be hit with an unreferenced stub than a reliable, well crafted featured article.Adam Black^{talk •contribs}00:55, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Adam Black: I believe there is independent evidence that Wikipedia articles are at least as accurate as Britanica which is quite a bit more reliable than the rhythm method. Personally, I undertook asmall study of fact tags and found most of them were applied to verifiable statements; although my sample size is small I believe the study is statistically valid and it seems to be supported by qualitative experience of these participants above. There are 500,000+ fact tags throughout Wikipedia, if most of them are attached to referenceable statements then I consider litter to be an accurate description and such litter has to make a casual reader question the accuracy of the article; there is no such litter in Britanica. This is particularly so when a tag bomber places 30+ tags in one article to which they have never made a contribution. We obviously disagree and I look forward to continued discussion when I raise the policy question regarding improving the criteria for adding and removing fact tagsTom94022 (talk)06:02, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW I tried your random page test; only one of the ten pages had an article needs references tag; none were stubs.Tom94022 (talk)06:08, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A novel written by Charles Eric Maine is not included in his written works@2601:1C2:100:E9E0:D173:9CB5:2C76:7DB1 (talk)07:24, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion atWikipedia talk:Citation templates § References not notes, which is within the scope of this WikiProject.142.113.140.146 (talk)10:44, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, we are reaching out to members of this project, because you are experts when it comes to referencing. For many years, community members have requested an easy way to re-use references with different details. Now, a MediaWiki solution is coming: The new sub-referencing feature will work for wikitext and Visual Editor and will enhance the existing reference system. You can continue to use different ways of referencing, but you will probably encounter sub-references in articles written by other users. More information onthe project page.

We want your feedback to make sure this feature works well for you:

• Please try the current state of development on beta wiki andlet us know what you think.
• Sign up here to get updates and/or invites to participate in user research activities.

We are aware that enwiki and other projects already use workarounds like{{sfn}} for referencing a source multiple times with different details. The new sub-referencing feature doesn’t change anything about existing approaches to referencing, so you can still use sfn. We have created sub-referencing, because existing workarounds don’t work well with Visual Editor and ReferencePreviews. We are looking forward to your feedback on how our solution compares to your existing methods of re-using references with different details.

Wikimedia Deutschland’sTechnical Wishes team is planning to bring this feature to Wikimedia wikis later this year. We will reach out to creators/maintainers of tools and templates related to references beforehand.

Please help us spread the message. --Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk)11:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How do I add my name to the list of participants?Electrou (formerly Susbush)(talk)09:04, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Has anyone else noticed howCategory:Articles with unsourced statements has had the biggest increase in tags^{[citation needed]} this month compared to any other month previously? This month alone has increased 22,000 to 536,000, which is +4%. Without needing to see the graph, I see the steady increase from ~1% a month last year, to ~2% last month, and now ~4%. This could genuinely be at 8% increase by next month at this pace. Is there any motivation to try and organise another backlog drive? I see above that the previous wasn't that successful, or at least the results were short lived as it were. @Cremastra is it possible to get a graph update?CNC (talk)10:19, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

CNC Some of this may be due toModule:Sports table, which, for reasons unknown, spits out "citation needed" if a cite isn't provided instead of just returning "sorry, you'll need a citation", which would be an infinitely better approach since it would reduce the backlog and make lazy editors actually cite their sources.

</rant>

That aside, yes, a drive may be necessary in February or March, but honestly I'm dubious it'll do much good, seeing as this backlog grows so fast. IMHO it might be best to restrict to just GAs, since those are the highest-priority, and that sub-backlog is big enough.[1] Or with vital articles.

Regardless, to run a drive we'll need people willing to do spot-checking. Looking at the previous drive, I'll also need to clarify the scoring system, since what counts and what doesn't count caused understandable confusion last time.Cremastra 🎄u —c 🎄16:36, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Granted, I'm not convinced a drive would make that much difference at this point, but it's worth a try eventually I guess. I'll also preface that I have added numerous cn tags to BLPs, but in this case, the issue is the quantity of unsourced material in BLP as opposed to tagging unsourced material imo. Naturally if it's contentious or dubious I remove, but usually this isn't the case. I also don't believe there is more unsourced content being added to articles than in previous years, only tagging of unsourced has increased I think, but this is beside of the point.

On this note, it might be worth considering BLPs over other articles as well, givenWP:BLPUNSOURCED is a lot more problematic than unsourced elsewhere (usually speaking at least). I just checked petscan and it's 98,000, which is a reasonable chunk. Personally I don't care so much about the other 400K+, that's much less likely to be an issue with libel or otherwise.

Anyway, starting with GAs and seeing how that goes would be a good start and seemingly achievable as a goal. We would need thousands of participants to tackle BLP articles, whereas GAs are realistic at present.CNC (talk)17:36, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've started something atWikipedia:WikiProject Reliability/March 2025 Drive.Cremastra 🎄u —c 🎄18:03, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think about having BLP as secondary priority? In case we actually complete GA, or otherwise. I'm almost not convinced that vital articles require further attention from a backlog drive, as if they are that important then thereshould be the editors available to resolve tags. At least that's my interpretation anyway.CNC (talk)18:11, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, so is this drive still gonna happen? It's almost March. I'm down to participate if there is one.D-Flo27 (talk)07:12, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Same here.MrLinkinPark333 (talk)03:09, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objections to there being a drive, and you're welcome to work with the draft I made above, but, to be honest, I have no desire to coordinate this one. Sorry. I've been busy IRL and am taking a semi-break from Wikipedia in any case.Cremastra (talk)03:14, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are we delaying the drive? I wanted to sign up, but no one else has joined.MrLinkinPark333 (talk)23:50, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am looking to discuss the wording found in WP:RSSELF and the following passage in particular:whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. I have noticed that editors (including myself, initially) have interpreted this section as inclusive of certain instances of WP:USEBYOTHER, such as instances where a self-published source is merely heavily cited in published academic work (journal articles, books, etc.). These interpretations can be found in conversations 1 and 2 of the WP:RSPSOURCES entry forCatholic-Hierarchy.org. Generally speaking, some editors were arguing that because content fromCatholic-Hierarchy.org is heavily cited in published work, it therefore passes WP:RSSELF.

First, it seems that confusion could be due to different interpretations of the word "work", especially given that there are dozens of formal definitions for the word. "Work" and "works" can be used as synonyms to refer to specific discrete intellectual products such as books and articles (and art). However, "work" could probably also be used to refer to forms of intellectual labor that do not appear solely as discrete books and articles. Perhaps a definition of "work" could refer to the collection of an academic's conferences, emails, and thoughts. When we say: "The professor's 'work' transformed the field ofAssyriology and opened up new frontiers of understanding", are we solely referring to this professor's books and journal articles? Some people might maintain that interpretation, but others might justifiably expand the interpretation. Thus, ambiguity.

Second, there could also be ambiguity around the words "published" and "publication". I presume that WP:RSSELF is generally referring to instances where an author is "published" by "publications" such asNature orNYT, and not merely instances where the intellectual labor of an author appears in a "published" "publication". Both academic journals and individual books could be defined as "publications." However, books are "publications" that do not "publish" while academic journals are "publications" that "publish." These are all potentially unnecessary nuances found in WP:RSSELF, resulting in some very heavily lifting being performed by the word "by."

So, could this section from WP:RSSELF be improved? In a different thread, I proposed something like "whose scholarly or journalistic works in the relevant field have previously been published by reliable, independentperiodicals orpublishing houses." This new wording provides some enhanced emphasis without adding too many new words.OldPolandUpdates (talk)17:36, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Please correct the error in the rhs Chelsea flower show description. You mean FORMERLY not FORMALLY!!92.26.194.4 (talk)10:09, 2 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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I found the following texts on{{Unreferenced}} and{{More citations needed}}:

Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.

Though seemingly coping with theverifiability principles, this description of the editors' task is misleading. It makes no sense to just add citations without immediately altering existing contents that do not align with the sources, and removing those that cannot be supported by any sources. Such an act is especially disruptive if some sourced texts are preceded by some unsourced ones, making the range of texts supported by the cited sources unclear. Therefore, I propose changing that text to:

Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources, altering existing content to reflect the descriptions in the sources, andremoving any challengeable content not directly supported by a source.

The proposed version highlights the importance of working on existing content in the process of adding more citations and in pursuit of thecore content policies. I plan to port this proposal to the Chinese Wikipedia if it passes here, so feel free to criticize and give suggestions to refine this proposal. Cc@自由雨日,YFdyh000,魔琴, andRastinition.1F616EMO (talk)15:19, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On hold for a while until I have time to move this thread to the Village Pump and deal with community inputs.1F616EMO (talk)08:20, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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