Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Citation needed (4th nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) Ashley  yoursmile!  05:45, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Citation needed
AfDs for this article:


 * – ( View AfD View log )

I understand this is a perennial nomination, but I am having an incredibly hard time finding significant, independent, reliable sources that would signify notability for this article. I recommend restoring the redirect to Citation needed.

On the sourcing:
 * First source I will need to AGF.
 * Second source is an about me page and does not meet criteria for inclusion.
 * Third source is a blog hosted on boston.com, but not written or reviewed by the site.
 * Fourth source is a YouTube source, and does not meet the standards for YouTube sources.
 * Fifth source is only a passing mention of the phrase "Citation needed".
 * Sixth source appears to be a self-published-source.

While AGF, only 1 source in the article could be argued for notability. A courtesy google search gave me this WMF source. JackFromReedsburg (talk &#124; contribs) 13:47, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. JackFromReedsburg (talk &#124; contribs) 13:47, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment has since removed a multitude of the unreliable sources. You may visit the page as Jack describes it at Special:PermanentLink/1018141230. Chlod (say hi!) 13:52, 16 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:DEADHORSE. Also, take a look at the sources found in the 2nd nomination. Tercer (talk) 14:15, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * On those sources: (saw full text via sci-hub)
 * "Citation Needed" is only the title, and is not referenced to the Wikipedia usage in the text. Journal is about hyperlinks in text. Not usable.
 * , Wikipedia's usage of citation needed is mentioned once as an example. Not significant coverage.
 * is returning a 404. AGF that it is significant coverage, but it is very likely not.
 * , again another passing mention. "Citation needed" is used once. Not significant coverage.
 * , again another passing mention. "Citation needed" is mentioned once. Not significant coverage.
 * Cannot access this now, but i'll see if I can get JSTOR access soon.
 * again, another passing mention of "Citation needed". Not significant coverage.
 * again, another passing mention of "Citation needed". Not significant coverage.
 * again, another passing mention. Not significant coverage.
 * passing mention of citation needed. Not significant coverage.
 * by AGF, we might have 2 scholarly sources. These are all passing mentions, and as such ineligible for GNG.JackFromReedsburg (talk &#124; contribs) 14:41, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Here is an Archive of the one that was receiving 404 WikiVirusC (talk) 14:54, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The paper by Anderka et al. is not a passing mention, they are actually studying the use of the citation needed template. Tercer (talk) 15:21, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * No, it's studying cleanup tags in general on Wikipedia. Also, Wikipedia Academy sources are neither reliable nor independent so far as I can tell. Eddie891 Talk Work 15:22, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * And, in particular, citation needed. They present data about it, and mention it in the text: The first inline tags were Dubious and Citation_needed, which have been created in July 2004 and June 2005 respectively. and The most common cleanup tag is Citation_needed, it has been used nearly 2 million times in the 2 268 days after its creation, which corresponds to an average ratio of 871.64 usages per day. This means that on average one in 200 revisions has been tagged with this cleanup tag. They are not just name-checking it. Tercer (talk) 15:35, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * That isn't exactly significant coverage. Nobody is arguing that the template hasn't been mentioned anywhere. And even if it was sigcov, it doesn't make it independent coverage. You don't just get to pick and choose which of significant, reliable, and independent a source is, it must be all three. Eddie891 Talk Work 15:44, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * merge to somewhere, perhaps Reliability of Wikipedia. In-depth coverage is rather lacking, despite a lot of passing mentions. Eddie891 Talk Work 15:26, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I do think that the article's content should be merged into an article relating to wikipedia in popular culture or so. (Reliability of Wikipedia seems like an alright article to merge into) However, the redirect to Citation needed should be restored. JackFromReedsburg (talk &#124; contribs) 16:34, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment I do agree that the coverage is rather limited, and initially I did consider supporting deletion, however the phrase has evidently been much referenced and used in popular culture, and some of the sources mentioned do at least suggest that the tag is well known or at least considered infamous. Should that not be enough? Anonymous 7481 (talk) 16:15, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:GNG. It stipulates that such phrases must have significant independent coverage by reliable sources. 100 passing mentions do not equal significant coverage. Being known "in popular culture" is not a criteria for notability. JackFromReedsburg (talk &#124; contribs) 16:28, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * To clarify my opinion: I believe this should either be outright deleted or just simply merged per Eddie891. I am not seeing reliable coverage here, so it doesn't deserve its own article. JackFromWisconsin (talk &#124; contribs) 19:39, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete - no real significant coverage, passing mention of the phrase in multiple places but not enough focused coverage to pass GNG. If a redirect was made afterwards, I would think article space Reliability of Wikipedia would be better than WP:CN. WikiVirusC (talk) 20:26, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 22:15, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd like to applaud everyone for doing a far better job of AFD discussion than Articles for deletion/Talk page was back in 2008. We all at least looked to see what sources were available and how policy actually applies.  I'm sure that several of the people in that discussion didn't even look at the article that they were discussing. On that note, and following the observation by Eddie891, I point out that we do have books and articles on this, one with an entire chapter on Wikipedia Cleanup processes, and the others discussing fact, other related tags, and cleanup in general at several points.  So yes if we want more than XKCD there is a real umbrella subject to write about, that this can be renamed and refactored into.
 * Uncle G (talk) 07:15, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't be opposed to an rename and general article about Wikipedia clean up. WikiVirus<u style="font-family: Tahoma">C <b style="color:#008000">(talk)</b> 13:59, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Uncle G (talk) 07:15, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't be opposed to an rename and general article about Wikipedia clean up. <b style="color:#000080; font-family:Tahoma">WikiVirus</b><u style="font-family: Tahoma">C <b style="color:#008000">(talk)</b> 13:59, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Uncle G (talk) 07:15, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't be opposed to an rename and general article about Wikipedia clean up. <b style="color:#000080; font-family:Tahoma">WikiVirus</b><u style="font-family: Tahoma">C <b style="color:#008000">(talk)</b> 13:59, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Uncle G (talk) 07:15, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't be opposed to an rename and general article about Wikipedia clean up. <b style="color:#000080; font-family:Tahoma">WikiVirus</b><u style="font-family: Tahoma">C <b style="color:#008000">(talk)</b> 13:59, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't be opposed to an rename and general article about Wikipedia clean up. <b style="color:#000080; font-family:Tahoma">WikiVirus</b><u style="font-family: Tahoma">C <b style="color:#008000">(talk)</b> 13:59, 25 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep Apart from all the specific sources catalogued above, note that Wikipedia did not invent this concept. Churchill wrote, I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel.  He replied, "Verify your quotations."  Churchill didn't actually provide a source so I tracked down the original and found that this was probably Dr Routh.  Anyway, the worst case here is obviously merger to citation so why are we having yet another deletion debate? Andrew🐉(talk) 08:44, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The article isn't about the concept in general though. It is about the citation needed tag specifically in regards to Wikipedia. A lot of people have mentioned merge, but a rename and expansion to Wikipedia Cleanup in general based on the sources posted by Uncle G could also work. <b style="color:#000080; font-family:Tahoma">WikiVirus</b><u style="font-family: Tahoma">C <b style="color:#008000">(talk)</b> 13:59, 25 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep: It was agreed to be kept during the previous AfDs. Per reliable sources indicated above and in the previous AfDs, as well as the reasons above, the article is still good enough to pass WP:GNG. ASTIG😎  (ICE T • ICE CUBE) 02:50, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The sources directly above aren't for the citation needed template, but more on general cleanup tags in Wikipedia. And if you look at the top, I run down all of the sources presented in the 2nd AfD nomination, finding all of them are unsuitable (just passing mentions of "citation needed", instead of about it. JackFromWisconsin (talk &#124; contribs) 14:18, 25 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep: See also above and previous nominations, there are enough sources to pass WP:GNG. User3749 (talk) 13:32, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. The tag has become a permanent fixture on the Western cultural landscape. It's a cultural icon and as such doesn't need a treatise in several volumes dedicated to it for its significance to become apparent. As for sources, quite a few have been brought up above, and even a cursory search will come up with more (on Google Scholar there are about half a dozen papers on the first two pages that are about Wikipedia and have "citation needed" in their title). – Uanfala (talk) 20:01, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per everything pointed out above. I feel like this is the second time within this year I'm seeing this up for AFD, were the last couple of ones not enough to establish that it's clearly notable?★Trekker (talk) 14:20, 30 April 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.