Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library/CITEOPEN

Can Wikipedia Citations Become Open?

There are aspects to good citations that The Wikipedia Library wants to advance and ensure:
 * Verifiable - citations that are high-quality and meet the reliable sources policy
 * Accessible - citations that all readers can check for themselves
 * Tagged - citations that indicate their level of openness
 * Structured - citations with metadata in a machine-readable format
 * Linked - citations that are connected to each other and relevant properties in a database
 * Dependable - citations that are still usable even if the url dies or breaks

This document focuses primarily on making citations accessible, the different paths to do that, and the options as well as risks for each possible way forward.

Policy

 * Preference: Wikipedia sourcing policies prioritize reliability over accessibility. In the future, we could seek a change such that, all else being equal, a comparable open source is preferred to a closed source.
 * Replacement: Wikipedia consensus could permit that if an open source is found which similarly verifies a claim supported by a closed source, then the closed citation can be replaced with the open citation.

Signalling

 * Icons: Citations that are known to be fully open (free to read and reuse), open to read, open to read with registration, and only accessible with payment or subscription are marked with a consistent, user-friendly lock icon scheme in the citation. Both color and lock design can indicate the respective levels of access.