Forums: War Room → Article Sourcing

After many a time that content of articles or page names have fallen under fire, isn't it about time this information is documented on the page so that it is clearly referencing WHY said questionable material is there in the first place?

We currently have "Reference" tags that allow us to link internally or externally when sourcing the material we put on our pages. Well, it's about time we make more active use of it! But then what about the content that we cannot link? Nick.com is gone, and information from art books or other such material is not on the internet to "reference" link to.

I am proposing that we get our facts together and get this information on the page in a clean, reference-like manner (template can be created for said purposes). Face it - the knowledge is old, and if we don't document the information that is known now - each day will be a greater risk of not knowing why a page has the information it does or is named what it is. An example would be Aang's Armor - it was recently moved/challenged that it's name should not be Aang's Armor, considering Aang never purchased it. But it was countered that it appeared in an art book, sourced as such: "Aang armor and Sokka training outfit designs by Angela Muller" p141 art book." - however, this information is not saved anywhere...and even further interesting, The 888th Avatar is fully aware the page used to exist as Aang's Armor while nick.com was up. This information must be saved - before it is gone or forgotten.

For this to work we will need all of your support - when changes are made or when such information is known by you - that information would be most beneficial to help this wiki maintain a factual and accurate reputation, leaning away from uncertainties or questionable information found on our pages. We want to be as accurate as possible. Please provide your input here, whether you will try to help assist us in this matter or fully agree with it, or just any opinion. Vulmen (talk • contribs) 07:35, March 1, 2011 (UTC)

Sourcing is very important in solidifying our reputation as an information source. Unfortunately, a lot of our information was verified in the past by Nick.com's Avatar site, and that site is no longer up. However, I have a lot of confidence that our articles were totally accurate (if not written very well) while that site was up. We should try to find alternative sources where possible, and failing that, check that that particular piece of information was added before 2009, and then add that it was from the original Nick.com site.

In the past, people have been a little hesitant helping with this. I'll try to make a template on the lines of the Wikipedia references templates so that we can make this easier. I also think we should focus on the main character articles first. The 888th Avatar (talk) 07:54, March 1, 2011 (UTC)

What I have always liked about Avatar Wiki is that it doesn't use sourcing. Personally, however accurate it makes the information, it can also make a page look really messy. I would like to know exactly what would be sourced, for example;

Aang was born to two unnamed Airbenders in 12 BSC who gave him to the monks at the Southern Air Temple. - Then do we source the fact that this was from The Avatar and the Firelord?

If this is done, then almost every few lines will have a source next to it, and I think it makes the article look a little messy. Usually when incorrect information is published to the wiki, it is filtered out by other users reading the article, registered or not registered. I do not feel so strongly for the argument, but I thought that maybe my input could help the discussion. There was another point I had but I have forgotten it. :S Also due to school I am going to be fairly inactive, but you will see me on site discussions. Rassilon of Old ^{(Talk - TTFF - Teru)} 08:47, March 1, 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the creation of those templates; something like: "The information in this article is considered canon since it was taken from the original Nick.com website", or the art book. And, Will, sourcing is necessary, but it's not necessary to source every sentence. Sometimes we source the entire paragraph, for example, in Character articles. The history of an episode is narrated and the source is placed only in the last line of the paragraph, reffering that all the previous text before the last "number" belongs to the same chapter. Dcasawang1 (talk) 18:21, March 1, 2011 (UTC)

We used to be able to claim full accuracy without citations, because the community was smaller and there were fewer edits per day, meaning that we could check every single edit to every single page. That's obviously no longer possible - so to avoid being accused of throwing up falsities and to protect our reputation, we should introduce reliable references. The Avatar: Legend of Korra article has been changed over as a model. There is now a template for citing online articles - I'll get round to templates for citing episodes (which will be very common) and books soon. The 888th Avatar (talk) 11:36, March 7, 2011 (UTC)