Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 December 25

= December 25 =

Notes, References, See Also, Further Reading...
Is there a clear, concise definition of what "Notes", "References", "See Also", "Further Reading" and similar sections are supposed to contain? ThomasOwens (talk) 00:27, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you want WP:layout. Algebraist 00:33, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you. That is what I was looking for. ThomasOwens (talk) 15:40, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Dispute on secondary source
Consider the following sentence:


 * "In 2007, Nature with a Impact factor of 28.751 was ranked first among multidisciplinary scientific journals."

Are the sources given considered secondary? There is a discussion going on in one of the foreign wikis about this. And I just wanted to verify the answer.

Thanks.--زرشک (talk) 01:22, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * By not revealing many of the details of the discussion you mention, you may be phrasing your question as a trick question. It is often possible to lift isolated sentences from a larger context, which uninformed observers might interpret differently than they would if they also had the context. The fact that a discussion is going on at all on this unidentified foreign Wikipedia strongly suggests there is more to this issue than meets the eye. The sources you give look to me at first glance to constitute secondary sources, although I'd certainly prefer sources from reputable news organizations rather than trade groups for any content that is controversial. However, I have no idea what people are arguing about on this foreign Wikipedia, so nothing I write here constitutes choosing a side over there. (I like to know what a fight is about before I endorse the position of one side or the other; who knows, maybe both sides are at least partly wrong in some ways.) And strictly speaking, the other language Wikipedias may have slightly different rules; see Wikipedia, so the opinions of English Wikipedia users would count for less than opinions of well-regarded users over there, just as their opinions would carry less weight on the English Wikipedia. Depending on the issue, of course - but you haven't told us anything about the issue. Re-read WP:IAR carefully enough to realize that on Wikipedia, we don't blindly follow rules as if they apply invaryingly to every situation. Instead we must know the details of each situation, to see if the rules make sense for it. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. --Teratornis (talk) 04:49, 25 December 2008 (UTC)


 * It would also help to have people involved in the discussing of this who actually know the importance of impact factors in scientific publication. They would most likely know which publication publishes them (and which are the copycats) -- Mgm|(talk) 10:53, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * This is not the best place for dispute resolution. Thanks,  Jake Wartenberg Talk 19:27, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Deadlink clearing house
DEADLINK says: "This page is intended to be a clearing house for all such external links. If you make corrections to the source article to fix a broken link, please indicate so below to prevent a duplication of effort" I don't understand where they are refering to. Is it just fixes from the past database dumps? --Sultec (talk) 11:23, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * For general background read everything under WP:EIW. If you don't find the answer there, ask on Wikipedia talk:Dead external links where there seems to be fairly active discussion about the DEADLINK page. Be sure to read that talk page and its archive before asking, just to make sure your question is not a repeat. On the Help desk, there may or may not be anyone present just now who is familiar with the details of that page. --Teratornis (talk) 22:34, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

search soundex
Example: lao chu not / Did you mean ... / Laozi?

Such help with search is common in searces. Can soundex search be implemented in wiki(pedia) search or, borrowed as a popup window? 67.86.58.205 (talk) 13:34, 25 December 2008 (UTC)wikici
 * We already have something like this. -- Jake Wartenberg Talk 20:04, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Encyclopaedias
Is it allowed to use (online) encyclopaedias as sources, as one the IRC help told me not to. But I have seen articles that use encyclopaedias as sources. --Nicoliani (talk) 18:38, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * An online encyclopedia is almost certainly a reliable source. You cannot, however, copy and paste from copyrighted text.  Further Reading.  Thanks,  Jake Wartenberg Talk 19:24, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I thought. But how do I make an article about for instance this Abarta on wiki. The source is just 9 words. It's pretty much impossible to make it with own words, even though it's possible. --Nicoliani (talk) 19:37, 25 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Be careful, though. Some encyclopedias are not reliable; some are mirror sites of Wikipedia (i.e., they are exactly the same as Wikipedia, just under a different name); and some are hosted on wikis, which (ironically) are not reliable sources because anyone can edit them. Do some checks on the encyclopedia itself, and ensure it's credible. But yes, encyclopedias online are often acceptable. Best, Peter Symonds ( talk ) 19:41, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You will need more than one source with nine words to write an article on Wikipedia. If you have enough material in several sources to justify a separate article on Wikipedia, you should have no difficulty choosing a wording that avoids duplicating entire sentences verbatim from the sources. If you only have that one source, then you probably don't have enough for a separate article, and you would instead mention the subject in the section of some suitable parent article. Because you would then be fitting the content into the context of the parent article, you should again have no difficulty in avoiding a verbatim quote of the source. See WP:LAYOUT, Help:Section, WP:SIZE, WP:MERGE, and WP:SUMMARY. If you can't figure out what to do, then explain on the article's Talk page what you want to do, and maybe someone else will eventually do it. --Teratornis (talk) 00:27, 26 December 2008 (UTC)