Template talk:Unreferenced/persist

Jimbo on Unreferenced

Kim van der Linde wrote:

That would amount to deleting around 90% of the article as unsourced........

Jimbo Wales wrote:

Go for it!

--Jimbo

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Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:

If you want to go the bad-ass evil & sneaky route, simply tag all of the unsourced items with {{fact}} (an edit which, granted, would take some time), let them be for a week and then summarily remove them. If it is as bad as you say (which I don't doubt, after a quick look at it), raze and rebuild from the ground up is a very sensible option.

Jimbo Wales wrote:

In general, I find the {{fact}} tagging to be overdone in Wikipedia. A better option is to nuke the unsourced material. Sometimes {{fact}} is warranted, I don't mean that it is always a bad idea. But it is overdone.

I very often see completely preposterous claims tagged with {{fact}}, usually because an editor is being excessively cautious. Be bold. :)

--Jimbo

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Signpost interview: Jimbo Wales, September 10, 2007

WS: Mike Peel asks, "A lot of Wikipedia's articles are unreferenced. What do you think are the best ways to encourage contributors to reference their additions?"

JW: I think the amount of unreferenced content should decrease naturally over time. Certainly, BLP has helped in this regard quite a bit. At least in that sensitive area, we are much better than we used to be.

References

Archived frequent or substantial recommendations for change

Delete this template

1. Summary of Unreferenced TfD
2. last vote cast on this TfD at 07:38, 17 February 2005

Template placement

1. Talk pages only Discussion beginning 2005 Apr 6 (based mostly on comments from TfD
2. Straw poll on placement 2005 through 2006
3. Test of new methods {{Unref-talk}} Special template to post on User talk page December 2005 See also Notification template 29 December 2006
4. I Move this Issue be given an RFC 12 April 2006

Image and box formatting

1. Box Mar 27, 2005 (response to edit summary Diff 27 March 2005) and removal of box around template
2. Box style 25 July 2005 Box is back around template to stay
3. Image? 30 June 2006
4. Proposed Edit 7 December 2006 Add and remove image Diff 9 December 2006 add image and Diff 12 December 2006 remove image
5. Layout problem with Infoboxes 16 December 2006
6. EDIT 17 January 2007 suggestion to add search link to template. See also Proposal for an update suggestion to add multiple search engine links to the template
7. Articles v sections 22 April 2007
8. icon needed 19 May 2007
9. Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 3#Icon
10. Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 3#Is it time to add an icon?

Template usage no references and undereferenced

1. I would like this template to say... "does not cite any" (brief) 16 Jun 2005
2. Need template for substantially incomplete references 15 November 2005 (early discussion of issue)
3. Usage revisited 25 November 2005
4. Effect when used by New Page Patrol 15 December 2005
5. This template should not be used with stubs 3 May 2006
6. Template:Primarysources 5 May 2006
7. Minor text changes 15 July 2006 Diff 15 July 2006 - Change to "needs additional" (sources) Reverted Diff 17 July 2006
8. Sources vs external links - website-only documentation 30 November 2006
9. This template should rarely be used, it is for lazy editors 6 January 2007
10. Merge with Template:Primarysources? 10 January 2007
11. Redirect from Template:Not verified 5 April 2007 links to discussion of merge on Template talk:Not verified
12. Point of this template 3 May 2007
13. Proposed change 7 May 2007 (UTC) (brief) on "any" versus "few" citations
14. Changes to this template 10 May 2007 Broad but moderate length discussion on "Adequately and "few" vs "any" references.
15. silly wording 14 May 2007 Another discussion about "Any"
16. Merge and Redirect, after speedy close of TfD 23 May 2007 TfD attempt leads to discussion on articles vs sections and a Categorization.

"Adequately" in the text

1. The first change to "does not adequately cite" was made on 21 March 2005 [1] on 27 March 2005 [2] is was changed back (for the first time)
2. Partially unrefererenced 20 January 2007 leads to discussion about use of "Adequately"
3. adequately Recommendation to wikilink "adequately" to Wikipedia:Attribution (brief) 5 March 2007
4. Sudden thought 25 March 2007 (brief) the wording of "does not adequately cite its references."
5. Suggestion - earlier change revisited (long) Discussion beginning 20 April 2007 to revert from including "adequately"
6. Diff Last removal of "adequately" from template at 13:52, 21 April 2007
7. Adequately (brief) discussion beginning 24 April 2007 to return to "adequately"
8. Changes to this template 10 May 2007 Broad but moderate length discussion on "Adequately and "few" vs "any" references.
9. Project Proposal discussion beginning 15 May 2007 to clean up articles tagged with {{unreferenced}} when {{refimprove}} should be used.
10. Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 3#Seeking consensus on warning text
11. Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 3#Adequate to Any
12. Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 3#editprotected
13. Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 3#We need to change "any" to "sufficient"

"Material that has no source may be removed"

1. Suggested addition of text 12 July 2006
2. Redundant and misleading text 12 April 2007 Discussion about The statement "Any material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed at any time."
3. Newest change 2 June 2007 Discusion about Diff 2 June 2007 adding although it may be a good idea to ask for specific sources first and removal of the addition Diff 5 June 2007

Category/Categorization

1. Category:All articles lacking sources 2 December 2006
2. This template on Category pages? 17 May 2006
3. Category:Articles lacking sources 13 May 2007

Date

1. Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 3#auto date?
2. Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 3#Age of unreferenced
3. Template talk:Unreferenced/Archive 3#Couple of improvements