User:JesseW/References proposal

One of the most common criticisms of Wikipedia is that readers can't tell if a fact in a Wikipedia article is true, or where it came from. To solve this, we should be able to produce credible sources for every fact in our articles, anytime we are asked. While solving this problem is a gigantic, and long-term task, it does not require magic new software tools, or 500 obtrusive footnotes in each article, or giant policy changes, or massive changes to existing articles. (Although tools could be nice, if/when they are written).

We can simply use a seperate page, called, for example, "References". On "References", put a list of facts (i.e. quotes from the article), followed by references to sources which support the fact quoted. Simple, easy to implement - just source one fact after another.

What better way is thee to be able to produce credible sources for every fact in our articles, anytime we are asked, than to write down those sources, in a nice list on a separate page? That way, editors can work together to "produce credible sources", and if we are asked about a fact at 3 AM when no-one happens to be watching a certain page, we will still be able to "produce" the sources? It's important to remember, we don't have to do this perfectly imediately, (or ever) - this proposal is just a good method to use to improve our ability to provide these sources. Every step we take is one less step we still have to take, at least as long as we write the step down in public, where others can build on our work.

If you don't want to work on this, don't work on it. It benefits the encyclopedia, by easing the task of factual verification, but it's not our only work, by any means. And it will take many years to get a large percentage done, but so what? Each piece we do is one more that's done.

Possible objections
"Detailed references are available here."
 * Pages change too fast, there are too many edits.
 * Some pages change very quickly; other's change very slowly. This method is not appropriate for articles which are not stable.  But the vast majority of Wikipedia articles *are* stable.  When we've got all the stable articles fully referenced, we can work out a way to handle the last 2% or so that change quickly.
 * The "References" page dosn't automatically update if the article is changed
 * That's actually an advantage; if the article changes, the references will need to re-checked, so the non-automatic nature of the subpage is actually a feature.
 * It would be bad if the "References" page got out of sync with the article.
 * Actually, while of course it would be better to keep the "References" page in sync, if it was not, it would still be better than not having it. Each fact that is sourced will still be sourced, even if the page no longer contains it.  Every fact that has not yet been added to the page would not have a source whether the page existed or not.  We lose nothing.
 * The "References" page would be longer than the article.
 * Yes. A full reference page would be longer than the page. It would have to be, as it would contain nearly all the text, plus whatever text was needed to state the references. But, what is the problem with this?  Are we running out of hard drive space?  Do we have a limited number of alphabetical letters available?  Are we going to have a "e" shortage?
 * We shouldn't put ugly superscripted footnotes above every single fact in the article!
 * Of course we shouldn't! Note: Nowhere in my suggestion do I advocate this.  In fact, my suggestion doesn't involve footnotes or superscripts in any way at all.  Straw-man argument.
 * A good wikipedia article must be stylish, and readable, and not look like a PhD thesis.
 * No doubt! Making sure that our articles are well written, pleasant to the eye, and not too technical or cluttered is one of our most important tasks.  However, the only change to the text of an article which followes this proposal would be the addition of one line of text, placed in the References section (or simply at the end of the page), saying: (with "here" a wiki-link to the "References" page)

Examples

 * Talk:Warren_Beatty/References
 * Doom/References (incomplete)
 * Journey's End/Sources (incomplete)
 * List of ministers of the environment/Sources
 * List of solar system objects by radius/Sources (incomplete)
 * R. C. Sherriff/Sources (compare a footnoted version)
 * United States/References (punts most of the job off to referencing subarticles, which is not done yet)

Supporters
JesseW, the juggling janitor 05:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Please take discussion to the talk page, but feel free to add objections and/or responses to the "Possible objections" section.