Help talk:Introduction to referencing with Wiki Markup/1: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:59, 8 October 2020

Revision as of 15:38, 10 November 2020

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:::{{u|DESiegel}}, I saw the Teahouse thread after I replied. Since the editor mentioned {{tq|new to ''active'' editing}}, I assume they must have an account that's older than April 2014, which seems like a very rare situation, but I guess if they're asking about it it happens. How about we link to [[Wikipedia:RefToolbar]] over "RefToolbar"? That will provide an option for the (presumably very few) editors experiencing issues to more easily troubleshoot without cluttering things for the majority who don't need the fine print. <span style="color:#AAA"><small>&#123;{u&#124;</small><span style="border-radius:9em;padding:0 5px;background:#088">[[User:Sdkb|<span style="color:#FFF">'''Sdkb'''</span>]]</span><small>}&#125;</small></span> ^{[[User talk:Sdkb|'''talk''']]} 16:12, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

:::{{ec}}I initially thought [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Introduction_to_referencing_with_Wiki_Markup/3&type=revision&diff=969356309&oldid=961721355&diffmode=source your edit yesterday] was a sound one, {{u|DESiegel}}, and worthy of a further tweak by me, but I now also appreciate that RefToolbar has actually been activated by default [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_68#Proposal_-_Turn_on_RefTools_gadget_by_default since early 2011]. The discussion [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse#Why_doesn't_my_edit_box_include_a_%22cite%22_menu? yesterday at the Teahouse] which initiated this change now seems to me to have been sufficiently unusual ''not'' to warrant a specific mention here that RefToolbar can be turned on/off in Preferences>Gadgets. If new users since 2011 have it by default, do we really need to tell everyone about activating it in this Help section? Yes, the questioner who didn't have the Cite button began here in 2009 (so maybe that was why they didn't have a 'Cite' button visible whilst editing, or they'd simply turned it off without appreciating its purpose) but I think most long-standing editors should either know enough to investigate Preferences to find tools for themselves, or know how to ask at a help forum, as that one did. Even just adding ''"'RefToolbar' can be disabled in your [[Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets|Preferences]] settings"'' would seem rather unnecessary. (Just to note that I've since made [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Introduction_to_referencing_with_Wiki_Markup/3&type=revision&diff=969466017&oldid=969374394&diffmode=source some further tweaks] to add clarity and to this page, including a mention of 'Preview' which I suspect is of more value to most readers) I also think Sdkb's (edit conflicted) suggestion above of linking to RefToolbar is a good way to point to "turning it off and on again". [[User:Nick Moyes|Nick Moyes]] ([[User talk:Nick Moyes|talk]]) 16:29, 25 July 2020 (UTC)      

== "The Michigan Daily" example - "letter to the editor" by an author without established reliability? ==

I am surprised that [https://www.michigandaily.com/content/debunking-moon-myth this letter to the editor] is considered a reliable source. The paper itself and anything written by staff, sure; but a letter to the editor can be written by anyone. I can't really find anything else the author has written other than that article, so it is not as though the author is a known authority on the matter. If the paper does its own independent fact-checking, then I could see calling this a reliable source, but I see no indications that that is the case. This seems to have the same issue as the "Forbes" example:

: "Not reliable. Forbes, a well-known American business magazine, might seem at first glance like a reliable source. And indeed, content written by Forbes staffers is considered generally reliable. However, this article was not written by a Forbes staffer, but rather by an unaffiliated contributor. Such articles have little editorial oversight and are considered generally unreliable."

Similarly, the letter to the editor was written by an unaffiliated contributor. That makes me think the answer to the Michigan Daily should be "not reliable". [[User:Ikjbagl|Ikjbagl]] ([[User talk:Ikjbagl|talk]]) 15:38, 10 November 2020 (UTC)