User:Ac2k/Cite your sources
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SmashWiki encourages editors to provide citations to reference their article content and corroborate it with another source. However, we recognize that much of the information found on SmashWiki can be extremely difficult to source, or demands an impractical amount of effort on the part of an editor.
Use discretion in deciding whether or not the information requires a reference—if it is basic Smash knowledge (i.e. Mario is a playable character in SSB), you don't need a link to another website to confirm that. However, if you make a claim like "Mewtwo was originally playable in SSB, but was replaced by Captain Falcon", you'd better be able to link to a website with a game developer interview or something to confirm that! Any disputes over whether an article should be properly cited or not can be resolved on the talk page.
What is citation?
Citation is the process by which an article references information found at another location (usually the internet in SmashWiki's case). They appear at the bottom of articles under a level 2 header called External links (i.e. ==External links==).
Provide a link to the website where the information was found in a bullet point under the External links header, preferably with the title of the target page and/or what information is being referenced (i.e. [http://www.source.com/mariosfinalsmash.html Source.com - Mario's Final Smash]). If there are multiple sources of information, each link should get its own bullet point.
On another note, you should generally archive any cited links through the Internet Archive, and cite the archived link instead of the direct link. All too often, web pages being cited are deleted or otherwise become inaccessible to the public, leaving the wiki with invalid citations, and making the sources impossible to retrieve if no one else archived it prior. This is especially important with citations of social media posts, which are volatile and frequently become inaccessible from a cited post being deleted, the user who made the cited post deactivating their account, or said user being banned from the site the cited post was on.
How do I cite a source?
Nearly all citations on SmashWiki will be made using the Cite web template. The following parameters must be filled out:
- url: a link to the original source, created from web.archive.org (see below).
- title: a description that summarizes the source (example: title of a online news article, or "Tweet from Player X announcing Y". Any text in non-English languages should be noted accordingly.
Other useful (but not required parameters) include the following:
- accessdate: The date the website was viewed while editing the SmashWiki article. This can be useful for websites whose content changes frequently.
All URLs for citations must be saved using the Wayback Machine, to preserve information in case old websites become deprecated, or social media posts get deleted. To get a URL using this method, visit [web.archive.org/save] and paste the original URL. The website will then generate a new saved URL, which you can then copy and paste into SmashWiki.
Other more rarely used citation formats include Cite book (for published books) and Cite news (for printed news articles).
What material needs to be cited?
- Game development sections: These should be cited by primary sources whenever possible, such as a post from an official Nintendo website or social media account, or an interview with Masahiro Sakurai. For example, the line "Character X was confirmed on Y date" should cite the character's official Nintendo announcement trailer and/or a post from a Nintendo twitter account.
- History, reaction, and reception sections: When applicable, all material should be cited with primary sources (such as an interview with the player who coined an unofficial Smash term). Reaction and reception sections should include quotes from top players and other well-known community members. Lines such as "Many community members believed that", etc. are also acceptable, and can be cited with Twitter posts, reddit threads, and other popular websites/social media.
- Rumors and hoaxes: All claims in these sections must be cited. These can include publications from the originator of the rumor, and proven debunks of the rumor. If original sources are unavailable or lost to time, forum posts and news articles may also be accepted as secondary sources; these should be noted as so in the title parameter.
- Controversy sections on smasher articles: All claims in these sections must be cited. These should include any links to the initial raising of allegations, responses from the smasher in question, and announcements of punishment from other parties, if applicable. Uncited material in these sections will be automatically removed.
Examples
Here are some examples of well-referenced articles:
