CZ Talk:How to edit an article

Citation needed

Hi all! I am editing the article on Johann Sebastian Bach at the moment and I was wondering if there is a way to indicate that a citation or reference is needed for a certain claim or paragraph. I remember that something like this was possible in Wikipedia. Is there something like this on CZ, too? THanks, Matthias Röder 11:52, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

I personally find it a practice of disgust, and anything that requires a "citation needed" should be pulled from the article. It allows for fabrication, rumors, and hearsay.--Robert W King 12:04, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

I am not sure I understand what you mean. Sometimes a not so well-known statement or passage may be important to have for an article. In order for others to find out more about this statement a references or citation might be useful. If such a reference does not exist yet, and if I am currently not capable of providing such a citation, how can I make other editors aware of the fact that a citation is needed? Is there a CZ policy on this? Should I put a comment on the talk page? Matthias Röder 12:16, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

If a reference or a citation does not exist for a "not so well-known statement", then doesn't it seem like you can just about fabricate anything? For instance, I could say "Matthias Röder advocates the stomping of ants(citation needed)". I can't provide a reference for that, and it certainly could be a "no so well-known" fact about you despite it's truth or falsehood.

On Wikipedia, anything can be made up and slapped with a "Citation Needed" reference to ensure its inclusion, regardless of truth. --Robert W King 12:22, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

Let me give you a concrete example from Johann Sebastian Bach. The article states correctly: "The Art of Fugue, published posthumously but probably written years before Bach's death, is unfinished." I know that there are several articles by Bach scholars about this topic (among them Christoph Wolff) and I think it would be great to have those articles listed in a footnote for those readers who are interested in reading more about this. Since I cannot produce the citation myself at the moment (I'm travelling) I would like to bring this to the attention of other editors. Is there a shorthand that would produce a "reference to be added" flag into the text? Or is it better to indicate this in the talk page? All I want to know is whether there is a CZ policy for this situation? Matthias Röder 12:34, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

I would put it on the talk page.--Robert W King 12:56, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, Robert! I also posted this on the forum, which I just discovered. Cheers, Matthias Röder 13:01, 9 August 2007 (CDT)

Links need cleanup

The links on this page badly need to be cleaned up. "Help:" (the namespace) is deprecated; the prefixes should be CZ: . --Larry Sanger 10:59, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

Re 'blockquote' -- minor question

If I use <blockquote>I shall return.<ref>xxx</ref></blockquote> to insert a direct quote, do I need to include double quotation marks, as

"I shall return."

? --Anthony.Sebastian 20:13, 20 February 2008 (CST)

Every style guide I know of drops the quotation marks from block quotes. Stephen Ewen 20:22, 20 February 2008 (CST)

Thanks, Stephen. I will drop them. --Anthony.Sebastian 20:56, 28 February 2008 (CST)

Changes

Editing tools in a wiki that help semi automate markup

Special characters and markup available for insertion in editing screen if clicked.

I've gone through this to simplify it a bit, remembering that this is mainly to help get people going. Some bits I've commented out (the dates section) - I don't think we want this, but others may disagree. I think we want to keep this page quite concise though and focussed on the most important things - too much is intimidating to newcomers.Gareth Leng 09:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Do we want to have a figure explaining this stuff (see two figures to the right)? I think other browsers might have different tools (possibly more)? Chris Day 09:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)