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Archive 10Archive 11Archive 12Archive 13Archive 14Archive 15

Distinct uses of this template

I feel it would be useful to have a means of differentiating between two distinct scenarios for which this template is prescribed:

In the latter case, I anticipated using the {{disputed}} template, but the documentation for that template says it's to be used only for cases where a source is given. It's for disputing a source, not an assertion lacking a source. That documentation points us to the {{citation needed}} template for unsourced assertions whether or not we disagree with them.

My reason has to do with more effectively attracting attention to the two different issues. This template places tagged pages into the Category:All articles with unsourced statements. I'd like a means of sorting these into "All articles with undisputed, unsourced statements" and "All articles with disputed, unsourced statements". The former would attract editors who enjoy searching for supporting references. The latter would attract editors who enjoy helping to ferret out inaccuracies and fixing or disposing of them. The outcome would be a more effective direction of editorial resources.

Ideally, there would be separate templates for the two scenarios, but the same could be accomplished with a disputed parameter. Hmm, even with the parameter, we could also create a template, {{disputed unsourced}} or something like that, that's redefined as this template with the disputed parameter.

What do you all think? —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:42, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

You'll see that I just resolved my issue regarding the church in Montevideo, but my proposal stands! —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:59, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
@Largoplazo: There is Template:Dubious. The documentation says its for sourced statements but I don't see anything wrong with using for your second case above. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:26, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

LONNIE BURR - citation verification anent HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

March 20, 1915 >> I am LONNIE BURR and provide evidence that I am related to Hans Christian Andersen [www.mouseketeerlonnieburr.com / lonniemmc@aol.com]under my WIKIPEDIA page. Karl Eimer Andersen, third cousin of Hans, was a ship's captain from DENMARK, and he and his family emigrated to the U.S.A.in the Nineteenth Century. Karl was the grandfather of my grandmothe, hence my great-grandfather, on my mother's side of the family. Sorry, I do not have his birth certificate. I have BEEN TRYING TO EDIT THIS CITATION FOR OVER FIVE YEARS but, being as civil and polite as possible and exercising our now lost "social contract", I have over the years found that the supercilious, obfuscated, time consuming, onerous and convoluted DIRECTIONS TO EDIT to be the second worse thing I have experienced. The first, like Oedipus, was putting out my eyes for which I used weasels. ;;--]]]

Mr. Lonnie Burr — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.53.8.76 (talk) 18:05, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Note: this is the wrong place to discuss this. You should discuss this on the article's talk page, Talk:Lonnie Burr. I have actually removed the wording. We would need a published reliable source so that the information can be verified. -- GB fan 00:13, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 29 March 2015

I need to edit the article. 24.34.11.217 (talk) 11:39, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template {{Citation needed}}. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:41, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 2 April 2015

Remove the deprecated $N=Citation needed | Jerodlycett (talk) 10:37, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Jerodlycett: Question: What did it do, and why is it now deprecated? --Redrose64 (talk) 11:35, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
@Redrose64: I'm not sure what it did, seems it to be used to call the page title in Module:Unsubst it was deprecated a year ago or so: Module talk:Unsubst#You can avoid using .7C.24N.3D. I was looking at this template to see an example of how to use it when I noticed. Jerodlycett (talk) 11:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
minus Removed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:03, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Narrow condensed version needed?

Looking at Rechargeable battery#Types I was struck by the way widths of columns in a table were determined by the lengthy [citation needed]. Would it be useful to have a version of this template with the same effect but abbreviated form (showing more information on the template when hovered on)? Maybe [cite?], [ref?], [source?] ? (There may already be something suitable, but I haven't found it.) Pol098 (talk) 16:09, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the formating in the table is not ideal but I don't know if a new tag is worthwhile. One possibility would to tag the section with {{Refimprove}} and using the |talk= parameter to point to the discussion on the talk page where a list is given of the entries that somebody specifically wants referenced. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:15, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
PS {{More footnotes}} is also apropos. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:20, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
I've experimentally replaced the cn templates in Rechargeable battery#Types with a "†" in the column and a footnote "†: citations needed for these items" below the table. The "Types" section of my revision can be compared with the previous one. I didn't want to make readers go to another (Talk) page. Pol098 (talk) 18:46, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
An even better idea. Jason Quinn (talk) 19:12, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

"He Stopped Loving Her Today"

The comment in the "Comeback (1980-1990)" sections indicates a "citation needed" regarding the statement: "When it began being played on the radio in the spring of 1980, just about everyone who heard it was floored. It is consistently voted as the greatest country song of all time, along with "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by Hank Williams and "Crazy" by Patsy Cline."

This statement cabe substantiated by by the "Rolling Stone article cited here: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/100-greatest-country-songs-of-all-time-20140601

Brian102580 (talk) 00:55, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template {{Citation needed}}. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. --I am k6ka Talk to me! See what I have done 01:46, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 June 2015

It is to be noted Connie Bea advocated for Estelle to be filmed in full.

Lisalese (talk) 06:37, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

@Lisalese: Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template {{Citation needed}}. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:17, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 30 July 2015

Please do not delete information that you believe is correct simply because no one has provided a citation within an arbitrary time limit. (emphasis mine)

It should say "incorrect". nyuszika7h (talk) 17:19, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Not done: {{edit semi-protected}} is usually not required for edits to the documentation, categories, or interlanguage links of templates using a documentation subpage. Use the 'edit' link at the top of the green "Template documentation" box to edit the documentation subpage. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:34, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
@Jackmcbarn: Oh, I didn't notice that that. Thanks. nyuszika7h (talk) 17:37, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

When to remove unsourced info vs. when to add this tag?

What exactly determines whether unsourced info should be removed or whether this tag should be applied to unsourced info? Is there any sort of policy on this? --A guy saved by Jesus (talk) 05:15, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

In short, good judgment and common sense. WP:USI gives some advice. I might remove stuff that is unencyclopedic or poorly/confusingly written or is problematic for any other reasons. If I suspect (or know) the information is correct but cannot find a source. I tend to leave it. If it's particularly important or if the article's quality is high enough where it makes sense, I may use the tag. Jason Quinn (talk) 07:21, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
@A guy saved by Jesus: There is a policy:

There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be tagged with a "needs a cite" tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.

— Jimmy Wales, Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information
It's expanded upon at WP:BLP, and although that doc primarily concerns biographical matters, it applies to anything about a living person, whether the article is a biography of that person or not. In short: if you see something controversial about a living person, and it's not reliably sourced, and you can't add a good reference - remove it. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:05, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
Mailing list statements by Jimbo aren't policies (or WP:POLICY more broadly); we delete garbage instead of just fact-tagging it, but we do so because of WP policies like WP:V and WP:RS, not because Jimbo said something pithy.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:35, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: Pithy or not, it is linked in WP:BLP, which is policy. It's not the only policy page that does so, either; see for example Wikipedia:Verifiability ( a core policy) or Wikipedia:Libel (a policy with legal considerations). It's also been quoted in some ANI reports and ArbCom cases. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:04, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
Missing the point. The policy is the policy. Jimbo's opinion is not the policy, even if consensus in forming the policy is that what Jimbo said explains well the rationale for the policy, and should be quoted in linked to from it. It's actually quite important to understand this distinction, which has been well-established and well-known for a long time now. Who has quoted a particular Jimmy Wales statment for some reason isn't relevant; ArbCom in particular has decided it isn't bound by policy, precedent, or anything else, and freely uses its own interpretation of what best practices are and why, in coming to the decisions it does. The community, in operating ANI, has sometimes done the same thing, but does so less and less, as consensus grows that Jimbo's personal opinion is less and less relevant, except when issuing a legal edict via WP:OFFICE. See how long WP:Argumentum ad Jimbonem has been around? Notice that people cite Jimbo statements as rationales for things about 5% as much as they did 6 or 7 years ago? Policies in various places also link directly to various guidelines and essays, and Meta pages, and even MeatballWiki essays, but that does not magically import them into the policy and make them WP policies, too. I'm not suggesting that no one should ever quote Jimbo; rather it's better to quote the relevant policy, and point to the Jimbo quote as a good explanation of why we have it. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:52, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Essentially, when to tag and when to delete is an editorial judgement call. For BLPs our policy is to err on the side of removal... for other articles, we are more flexible. Everyone has their own criteria for when they remove and when they don't (some of us are more "deletionist" than others). My own personal criteria involves asking a simple question: Do I (personally) think it "likely" that the information in question is verifiable? If the answer to that question is "No", I remove it. If the answer is "Yes", or "I'm not sure", I tag it. A lot depends on how well I know the topic. I tend to err on the side of preserving the information (ie tagging) if it is a topic I don't know well.
Of course, I fully realize that my personal assessment could always be wrong.... but no worries... if I am wrong and remove something that is verifiable, another editor can simply return it (with a citation), and if I tag something that turns out not to be verifiable after all, someone else can remove it. Blueboar (talk) 12:30, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I agree with Blueboar. This is especially the case when dealing with newbies or perhaps non-native English speakers. Simply deleting work (which I suspect is verifiable) seems a little harsh and perhaps disheartening. I usually tag it, and then go and chat with the editor at their Talk page.DrChrissy (talk) 12:48, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
  • The firmly established policy is at the Verifiability policy: With perhaps a couple of exceptions (first, involving folks who go from article to article doing little or nothing more than removing unsourced information and, second, involving removal of mass amounts of unsourced information from a single article), the !rule is that it is always acceptable to merely remove the unsourced information simply because it is unsourced with the possible qualifier (I don't believe this is mandatory, but others may disagree, and in any event it's the right thing to do) that you must state in your edit comment or on the talk page that you are concerned that reliable sources are not available for the material (note that you must only be concerned; there is no requirement that you actually go look to see if that concern is justified). Having said that the best practices are, first, to go look for reliable sources and add them if you find them, and if you don't choose to do that (or if you can't find any reliable sources), second, to {{cn}}–tag the material and wait a reasonable time for someone to respond to it and only then delete the information. What's a reasonable time? There's no standard, but if it's an actively-edited article or if the material has just been added when you tag it or if you notify the editor who originally added the material, then a few days or a week should be enough. If it's old information in an infrequently-edited article, then I'd give it a month. The considerations stated by all the previous responders, above, are also correct and I agree with them, but what I've said here are the fundamental policies. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:52, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 July 2015

Please see the book Green English by Loreto Todd . It was dem Hirish what gave dem Jamaicans der dis and dat an ting !!

86.157.69.238 (talk) 15:10, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template {{Citation needed}}. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. — TransporterMan (TALK) 15:37, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Citation needed

Link to IDF/EFFCA inventory: Bulletin of the IDF No. 455/2012 - Safety Demonstration of Microbial Food Cultures (MFC) in Fermented Food Products http://www.fil-idf.org/Public/ListPage.php?ID=23107 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.235.139.8 (talk) 14:23, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template {{Citation needed}}. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:44, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

"[Secondary citation needed]" Template

I suggest that we make this template (which generates"[Secondary citation needed]") for primary sources which need secondary sources to avoid pulling in original research, but, before we do, I would like to hear your opinions about my idea for this "citation needed"-related template. Gamingforfun365 (talk) 05:07, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

There's {{better source}} which can be used with |reason=. Is this an acceptable alternative? Jason Quinn (talk) 07:57, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
I also found {{Primary source-inline}} which is very much the same idea as "Secondary citation needed" was. Jason Quinn (talk) 10:46, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Either the source supports the statement without our introducing our own analysis or interpretation, or it doesn't. "Primary" versus "secondary" has nothing to do with it. Anomie⚔ 23:44, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
That's not at all the only consideration, though. See WP:NOR. The policy is very, very explicit that WP:AEIS (analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic) claims may only come from secondary sources, not primary ones, unless we're directly attributing them in "this source said that" form ("According to a 2015 paper by ..."). If you're inserting a fact as such into an article and just citing a source for it without specific in-text attribute, it required that it come from a secondary source.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:42, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
That's because of people being dumb and treating the heuristic as a requirement, then writing it into misguided policy. Anomie⚔ 23:07, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
There is already {{Additional citation needed}}, but I will note that it is transcluded less than 100 times wiki-wide, so... Dustin (talk) 23:48, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
You've found a template more or less unknown to Wikipedia:WikiProject Inline Templates. I'll have to think about what should be done with it, it's kind of a new class requesting additional refs. WikiProject Inline Templates really needs some more active "members". If you aren't already, please consider checking the project out. It's a very good project to help develop your own editing skills too. Jason Quinn (talk) 10:46, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
I have happened to find this template. I am sorry for requesting that; I did not notice that template, so I assumed that there were not a template. Gamingforfun365 (talk) 21:25, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Jason Quinn: I didn't realize anyone was doing anything at WP:ILT any more. Even though I co-founded that project, it seemed to go moribund after a year of cleanup work, so hadn't been notifying it of new templates. The Category:Inline templates is probably worth examining on a regular basis for new creations, some of which are useful and some of which are probably redundant.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:42, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Individual date parameter

Could we make it more detailed to a specific day and not just a month ? Iady391 | Talk to me here 16:05, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

@Iady391: No, because Category:Articles with unsourced statements has one cat per month, so breaking it down by day would mean that we would need to have thirty times as many of those categories as at present. Also, remember that the |date=Month year pattern isn't confined to {{citation needed}} but also such templates as {{clarify}}, {{failed verification}}, {{orphan}}, {{refimprove}}, {{unreferenced}} - several dozen would need to be changed. Have a look at the subcategories of Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories sorted by month to appreciate the scale of this. There's a related discussion at User talk:AnomieBOT/Archive 7#Please don't do this if there's already a date there!. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:51, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Correct?

The template page states "Please do not delete information that you believe is correct solely because no one has provided a citation within an arbitrary time limit." Is that not supposed to say "information that you believe is incorrect"? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:37, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think so. What I believe the thrust of the statement is, is that if you believe the information is true, but it has been tagged, you should not delete it solely on the basis of it having been tagged. If you believe the information is incorrect then removal may be the best course of action. DonIago (talk) 23:56, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion about when to remove information doesn't seem to have reached a consensus. Anyway, thanks for the reply. It raises the question, though: what happens when one editor believes the information without citation (not about a living person) may be correct and another editor doesn't. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 00:36, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
That's when the editor who believes the information to be correct should provide a source rather than arguing about whether the information is or isn't correct. DonIago (talk) 00:46, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
And until a source is found? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 02:14, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Until a source is found an editor is within their rights to remove material they believe to be incorrect and that cannot be verified. If other editors feel that the material should be reinserted, the burden is then on them to provide a reference. DonIago (talk) 03:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Yes, but, surely that material can stay for some time until either a citation is found or not. Otherwise, this template becomes pointless. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 04:18, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
If you're asking for a personal opinion on such, I'll usually allow tagged material to stay for at least a couple of months unless it's clearly controversial. Then, if it's a large amount of material (versus 1-2 sentences) I'll often move it to the article's Talk page rather than simply removing it. DonIago (talk) 04:31, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Yes, that's how I understood it to work, as well. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:18, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Finding articles with the Citation needed tag

I am kicking around the idea of creating a bot (or human-bot hybrid; see User:Teratornis/Mechanical_turk) to help add citations to parts of articles that have been tagged as needing a citation. Is there a Wikipedia page that I can visit which would give me access to a list of all articles containing a Citation needed tag?

j00tel (talk) 06:53, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes; as noted at Template:Citation needed#Use, use of this template places the article into Category:All articles with unsourced statements. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:35, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Relevant proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Create a separate "BLP citation needed" template.

I have made a proposal relevant to this template at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Create a separate "BLP citation needed" template. Cheers! bd2412 T 12:32, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 March 2016

There is a large notice in the church that says the restoration took 17 years (from 1979). I could supply photo of notice if I knew how to add it to this request. 114.198.30.121 (talk) 12:34, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template {{Citation needed}}. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:35, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Error trapping on date parameter

I've been working on red-linked categories lately and I've been seeing categories of the form Category:Articles with unsourced statements from (reference), caused by inexperienced editors replacing the date parameter of this template with the missing reference, eg here This seems to be happening several times per week. Would it be possible to have a bit more error detection on the date parameter? Even if it was just a rule that if len(date) >15 then (category=>error category) that would make a big difference just to centralize all the broken articles, but obviously it would be nice to do date detection that was a bit more sophisticated than that.Le Deluge (talk) 15:38, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

I think you're looking for Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template. Anomie⚔ 19:32, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Fair enough, I'd missed that - but whilst assigning to that category can there be suppression of the kind of category like Category:Articles with unsourced statements from http://www.jornaldenegocios.pt/economia/detalhe/manuel pinho eacute nome de avenida em paccedilos de ferreira.htmlAugust 2010 resulting from this edit? Le Deluge (talk) 21:05, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Personally, I find those categories useful to know what to search for in the wikitext to find the screw-up. Anomie⚔ 22:25, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
That's not the purpose of categories though - and it's a PITA for those of us working on red-linked categories when people try to use them for other things. If there is information to be conveyed, it should be conveyed by a message box. In fact what I was thinking of was the big red inline text that appears when refs are malformed - surely this template could generate something like that? It would be consistent with other Help:Cite errors.Le Deluge (talk) 13:41, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Having a red-linked category when something needs to be fixed in the article is a pain for people working on fixing red-linked categories? Anomie⚔ 13:31, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes - the purpose of red links is to help WP:BTW, not as error messages. It would be a)neater b)consistent with other cite errors and c)more helpful (as it saves doing a Find on the page) to do the inline red text thing at the point of the error.Le Deluge (talk) 14:53, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposed category

I propose that, whenever this template is used, the page it's used on would be added to a proposed category; Articles with unsourced claims, Articles with unverified claims, or Articles with uncited claims. Even though tagging a page with that category once only can't be guaranteed, at least it's a step in (I think) the favorable direction, considering this template is already used on over three hundred thousand pages and counting. It's not like many users have the time or opportunity to provide sources wherever they're needed, and hopefully, providing a fairly decent system of keeping track of unverifiable information could help make the wiki more reliable. HeatIsCool (talk) 22:35, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Pages are already added to Category:All articles with unsourced statements. What would your proposal do that the existing cat doesn't? --Redrose64 (talk) 13:56, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Cultural meme

Wikipedia's [citation needed] has now become a cultural meme. Perhaps a Wikipedia page on that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.248.197.0 (talk) 22:38, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi and I'm Amy2563 and I totally agree with the Wikipedian who wrote the above question. Why doesn't anybody answer the question? Not to mention that I do not approve of any messages that are not answered. It is really rude and I completely am saying this with civility. (I don't really know the reason but still)

--Amy2563 (talk) 16:46, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, my first question would be whether any reliable sources have commented on this. DonIago (talk) 20:06, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

{{Citation needed}} vs. {{Dubious}}

Template:Citation needed § When not to use this template says:

The {{Citation needed}} template is intended for use when there is a general question of the verifiability of a statement [...] claims that you think are incorrect should be tagged with {{Dubious}}.

Whereas the lead section states:

{{Citation needed}} is a template used to identify claims in articles, particularly if questionable, that need a citation to a reliable source.

And the page for Template:Dubious says:

This template is not to be used [...] to flag unsourced statements, including those which you think might be incorrect – use {{Citation needed}}.

I think the word incorrect in the first passage above is confusing, since {{dubious}} appears intended for when an existing citation is suspected to be misused or generally unreliable. For the sake of clarity I propose rewording that statement to:

[...] statements with a citation that seems unreliable should be tagged with {{Dubious}}.

Or:

[...] sourced statements that you nevertheless think are unlikely or incorrect should be tagged with {{Dubious}} or {{Disputed-inline}}.

Any thoughts? —Coconutporkpie (talk) 21:24, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

I see now that the current guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources § Dealing with unsourced material state that either {{citation needed}} or {{dubious}} are appropriate in cases of individual unsourced statements, so maybe the question is moot. —Coconutporkpie (talk) 21:52, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
I have to start getting ready to leave for an extended trip in about 5 minutes so I cannot look into it now but there's a problem here either in the guideline or templates documentation that ought to be ironed out. Mostly likely the entry on the guideline was added by mistake by an editor not realizing the template was supposed to be for sourced statements. Your thread corrected my understanding of the usage of {{dubious}} and I'm generally pretty familiar with proper usage of the templates so this was a likely situation. I believe that we need to strive for better self-documenting names for our templates. Perhaps the name "dubious" itself is inadequate if it lends itself to misunderstanding. Or maybe the documentation of {{dubious}} should be changed to allow it to function as a "stronger" {{citation needed}}. Curiously, {{Dubious source}} redirects to {{better source}} which is also perhaps sub-optimal. Jason Quinn (talk) 05:20, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
These tags should be mainly targeted at the readers. So "citation needed" suggests that it may or may not be correct, and needs to be verified. But "dubious" gives a clear indication that someone thinks the statement is wrong. The documentation on the Dubious template should be updated. It is a very useful tag and it should not be limited to the Dubious source situation. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:35, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I agree with Graeme here... The tags are to indicate a potential problem with the text in our articles, not issues with the citations. The "cn" tag is used to indicate that the text needs a citation, regardless of whether that text accurate or not. The "dubious" tag is used to indicate that the accuracy of the text is questioned, regardless of whether it is cited or not. They overlap in cases where text is both uncited and believed to be inaccurate. Blueboar (talk) 00:10, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Question: If the material is both unsourced and dubious, why are you tagging it at all? Why don't you just remove it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
    • That's a good question. Wikipedia:Editing policy has this to say: 'Unsourced content may be challenged and removed, because on Wikipedia a lack of content is better than misleading or false content'. I think that in such cases it's better to move the dubious, unsourced content to the article's talk page, or remove it altogether, if the problem can't be simply and immediately fixed. If there is no citation given, I don't think that simply tagging material as {{dubious}} is necessarily very helpful, whatever the documentation for that template may say. —Coconutporkpie (talk) 22:25, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Applying (and dating) template in an infobox results in odd categorisation

Here's a weird one. Not sure how to fix it TBH. Hence this note. If the {{cn}} template is applied and dated (eg: {{cn|date= November 2016}}), and the text to which it is applied is in the article body, then the article is - as it should be - categorised under the relevant dated category. (eg: Category:Articles with unsourced statements from November 2016). However, if the template is applied and dated, and the tagged text is in an infobox (esp a "numeric" infobox field), then the article is - likely unexpectedly - placed under a category of format: Category:Articles with unsourced statements from November 2,016. (Note the thousand separator). Something somewhere is treating the date as a non-date numeric. Possibly low priority. But someone closer to the syntax (of the "cat-date" logic or indeed the related infobox logic) might want to take a look. If isn't a template error, may need to be addressed as a bug report (can't seem to find any equivalent bug on [https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/ Phabricator/Bugzilla). Guliolopez (talk) 01:09, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

@Guliolopez: It's not a bug to report at phab:, nor is it a template error - it's a mistake in the usage of the template. This doesn't happen at all places in an infobox; it only happens when you put it in a parameter that expects a pure number. These parameters often pass the value through the {{formatnum:}} parser function - consider {{formatnum:2016}} → 2,016. Such params often have an associated param for notes or refs, and the {{cn}} should be placed in that other param. For example, {{infobox settlement}} has |population_total= and also |population_footnotes=, so if there was something like |population_total=1234 without a ref, and you considered that doubtful, you would not alter it to |population_total=1234{{cn|date=November 2016}} but instead leave it alone and add the param |population_footnotes={{cn|date=November 2016}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:05, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
Also, it's already in Phabricator as T23054. The part about it mangling category links like these was declined. There's also T30582 which is still open, but no activity since 2011. Anomie⚔ 14:00, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Examples

I've just edited § Examples to show the code for all the examples.

But I don't see the evidence for the description of Example 2 :

[[Humphrey Bogart]] has won several [[snooker]] world championships.{{Citation needed|date={{currentmonthname}} {{currentyear}}}}
The template indicates that it may be that Humphrey Bogart played snooker at some point and it may be that he won some tournaments at some point but no reliable, published sources were given to verify it and the information is not considered common knowledge.

The template code may imply that to an experienced editor, but it says nothing about "it may be that Humphrey Bogart played snooker at some point". Am I misreading this, or is the code really insufficient to convey all that the text says it does?

Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 05:03, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Edit request for template:CN - a cascade-protected page

{{This is a redirect}} is deprecated and should be replaced with {{Redirect category shell}}. Please convert {{This is a redirect|from template shortcut|protected}} to: 

{{Redirect category shell|
{{R from template shortcut}}
}}

It does not need "protected" parameter because the template checks for it - like the old one did (see the current template, it lists "Fully protected" twice). Christian75 (talk) 10:49, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

 Done -- John of Reading (talk) 12:18, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Edit request for template:Cn - a cascade-protected page

{{This is a redirect}} is deprecated and should be replaced with {{Redirect category shell}}. Please convert {{This is a redirect|from template shortcut|protected}} to: 

{{Redirect category shell|
{{R from template shortcut}}
}}

It does not need "protected" parameter because the template checks for it - like the old one did (see the current template, it lists "Fully protected" twice). Christian75 (talk) 10:55, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:52, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Any reason to prohibit use of specific date?

The default per the template documentation is to render the date as Monthname YYYY. I added the template to the AHCA article, dealing with a current event in which there are daily developments, so I thought it useful to give the exact date (June 27, 2017). The AnomieBOT changed it. If most uses of the template give only the month, that's fine, but if the person adding a particular instance of the template wants to give the exact date, I can't see any reason to disallow or revert that form. JamesMLane t c 23:24, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

It breaks the categorization: Category:Articles with unsourced statements from June 27, 2017 does not, should not, and will not exist. Since the only purpose of the parameter is to specify the category to populate, there's no point in wasting effort transforming bad input. Anomie⚔ 00:13, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
Aside from populating a category, the parameter serves the very important purpose of letting other editors know how long the need for a citation has been flagged without having been addressed. If I'm editing an article and I encounter the template, and assuming I'm unwilling or unable to try to find a citation, I'll let the statement stand, with the "citation needed" flag, if the flag was added recently, but I'll delete the statement if concerned editors have had a reasonable time in which to remedy the deficiency. For that purpose, the month is usually sufficient, but on rapidly developing subjects more precision may be useful.
For the category, would it be possible to ignore the few instances with a specific date? That is, instead of Category:Articles with unsourced statements from June 27, 2017, that article would automatically go into Category:Articles with unsourced statements from June 2017. JamesMLane t c 00:25, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
Possible? Probably. Worth the effort and the extra time in the parser to make it happen? I doubt it. If you feel the need to supply more details about the tagging, use the |reason= parameter. Anomie⚔ 02:43, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
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