Wikitroid:Requests for Comment/Sourcing Policy

This RfC was closed on 03:42, October 26, 2009 (UTC) by FastLizard4 {ADMIN} (Talk&bull;Contribs&bull;Logs). After waiting quite some time to see if a clear consensus would crystallize (which hasn't happened) and taking some time to study the response, I have decided that instead of mandating the use of sources, requesting the use of sources alongside information that cannot be easily verified otherwise would be best. A help page will be written by me (within the next few weeks, if not days or hours) detailing how to reference pages, and appropriate notices will be inserted below the edit form and in the site notice. Please do not modifiy it.

Sourcing Policy
On this wiki, there are very few pages that make use of sources and references. As a result, vandalism is extremely easy to place here, as well as fanon, if it weren't for the watchful eye of our administrators right now. Far too many pages tend to use statements such as "as seen in Echoes" or "according to the manga" rather than making use of the sources section. A sourcing policy needs to be enacted.

Conditions:


 * 1. All references to in-game information, such as lore and statements by characters, need to cite the game it appeared in, the publishing date, the developing team, the publisher, and the area the event took place in.


 * 2. All references to books such as game manuals, game guides, and manga need to cite the name of the book it appeared in, the publishing date, the publisher, the author (and illustrator for a manga), and the page and chapter the information appeared in.


 * 3. All references to statements by important real-life individuals need to cite the name of the person, the location that they said their statement at, and the date of the statement. If it was in a publication, then one needs to cite the publication the same as one would cite a book or manga.

However, the reason why it looks like this hasn't been done yet is because there is no page on this wiki detailing how to add sources. I myself had to teach myself from scratch. So my fourth condition is:


 * 4. That this wiki create a page in the Help:Editing section detailing how to create sources for any type of source.

So now the rest.

Question 1: Should Wikitroid enact a sourcing policy for articles, that when making a significant edit referring to the above criteria, that one should write the references to the source for the concrete statment?

Question 2: Should Wikitroid create a page in the Help:Editing section explaining how to create sources for books, games, people, and any other not covered here?

Possible Positions: Agree(if user agrees with above conditions), Neutral(if user is unsure of conditions), Disagree(if user disagrees with above policy and conditions)

Default if no consensus: Sourcing Policy will not be enacted and no Help:Sourcing page will be added to the Help:Editing section.

--Tuckerscreator 19:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Agree: Check out this page on the Pikmin Wiki. They have the text they are quoting from the game separate to the article. The same thing is done with creatures and pages that include all of the text (like Lore). I'd like to see this done here, as well. ChozoBoy [ADMIN] (Talk/Contribs) 20:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree This is a definite must for our users to work on. It's nice to say where something comes from, but real source citations are much better and cleaner. It also contributes to ensuring accurate information, given that people won't just put something up that they vaguely remember. Some may think this is a hassle and a waste of time, but it really is an important part of being a encyclopedic source of Metroid information. Zeruel21 20:57, 5 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree - Agree with sourcing policy, but with a few changes:
 * Documentation on citing would be on the policy page itself; the help pages are "shared"
 * Sourcing Policy would be renamed Citation Policy. Articles are already sourced (they say "from the manga" or similar); this RFC discusses the use of In-Line Citations (which point to a specific document).
 * Documenation for the cite templates needs to be written (the templates themselves already exist)
 * A verify template already exists, as well as a category for pages marked with that template.
 * And, of course, I'll probably start drafting the policy in private along the lines proposed above as the RFC progresses and put a final version of the policy in the project NS when the RFC is closed. -- FastLizard4 {ADMIN} (Talk&bull;Contribs&bull;Logs) 05:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Reply - FastLizard, I accept your conditions.--Tuckerscreator 23:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Disagree policy is too spesific. Most editers will not reemember that much info, and thus it would stump the grouth of the wiki. Would also result in irtating anouts of info that most people wouldnt care about (like who made the game. if they want to know that they will go the page on that game). JosephK19 08:46, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Rebuttal - Wikipedia doesn't seem to have this problem. -- FastLizard4 {ADMIN} (Talk&bull;Contribs&bull;Logs) 05:20, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Disagree - I don't seem to understand, because all we need to do is make an effort to use sources. Addition of an easy to find Help page for how to use sourcing would be helpful, but apart from that I agree with the above opinion. Hellkaiserryo12 20:36, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree - AlishaShatogi 05:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree - I remember this being an issue the last time I logged on (around Sept. 2008) and trying to source many pages on my own. Without proper guidelines, my attempts were rather feeble. Wikitroid needs this if it is to be considered "credentialed" (in a sense of course). Remember, Wikipedia does not allow (or, rather, prefer) articles without citations that are incredibly specific because otherwise their information will (and has been) taken to be unreliable. Bob Chao 01:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Disagree - There's no reason to have in-text citations if we're going to have them at the end of the article. Most articles would just refer to the same things multiple times, and having in-text citations would only cause extra trouble in making so many notes, and possibly discourage people from making articles. ConstantCabbage 04:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Rebuttal - Again, no Wikipedia articles seem to have this problem. -- FastLizard4 {ADMIN} (Talk&bull;Contribs&bull;Logs) 05:20, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree - The MarioGalaxy2433g5  { talk /contribs/Logs} 16:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Slight Disagree - More (detailed) citations will just make things more cluttered, and as long as some reference is given to a game, comic book, or video, readers will know how to verify the information they read should they so choose. Dogman15 03:59, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree-I agree if there is one thing insured. When posting, editing, revising, etc. something non-canon, it will have a note or something saying "Be warned. This is non-canon." next to the source. --DekutullaZM 17:27, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Response That is a good idea, DekutullaZM, but the problem with it is that much of the non-game media, such as the many Metroid mangas, are disputed as to their canonicity, and Nintendo has not said anything about their status, so nothing definetive can be said by us.--Tuckerscreator 18:40 29 June 2009
 * Re:ResponseNo, no, no. I'm saying, if it's obviously non-canon, we should tag it or whatever it's called. For example, Metroidguide.com is obviously non-canon, but some of it's info seems very good for theories and images and whatnot. --DekutullaZM 00:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * We don't have a page about Metroidguide.com anyway. And even still, it's always debated what is and isn't canon. Metroidguide.com is largely plausible but so are the Nintendo Comics System comics. So we can't really tag anything. I wish we could but it's only going to get people argueing.--Tuckerscreator 02:28, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree - ƁLƱƦƦƦ(If victory is too high to climb, take the elevator.) 21:05, September 4, 2009 (UTC)