Wikipedia:Don't use ref tags on talk pages
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 | This page in a nutshell: Unless necessary to present text exactly as it would in the article, footnote templates negatively affect talk page discussion in a number of ways. Use a simple external link instead. If you absolutely must use footnotes, remember to use the reflist-talk template. |
Wikipedia articles must be verifiable and cite sources using a variety of citation styles. Most of the time, they take the form of footnotes. This is great for articles because you can provide readers with a lot of information about the source without affecting the readability of the article. It also allows linking to sources directly when those direct links wouldn't be appropriate in the body of an article.
Sometimes users need to link or mention sources on talk pages, and may be tempted to use the same syntax one uses for articles. There is one scenario where using footnotes always makes sense: to visualize/propose/discuss a passage exactly as it would appear in the article. Most of the time, however, it's unnecessary and can negatively affect the functionality of the talk page.
Why using ref tags on a talk page is a bad idea[edit]
- Extended bibliographic information is rarely needed on talk pages, where extended markup clutters discussion. Though there are exceptions, most of the time when people want to refer to a source on a talk page, a simple external link will suffice. Sometimes there is a need for certain details (such as dates when discussing event notability or publisher when evaluating the reliability of a book, but the full citation using citation markup is unnecessary. Using ref tags like one would in an article typically leads people to cite sources like they would in an article, providing a lot of information that ultimately clutters talk page discussions.
- Talk pages are not single subjects. Articles have one subject, so it makes sense for footnotes to be grouped together. Some talk pages, on the other hand, contain a dozen or more discussions happening simultaneously. By default, footnotes appear at the bottom of a page. This means all of the footnotes from all of the discussions are combined and appear as though they're in the final section of the page, which might contain any footnotes.
- Broken ref tags can hide discussion. Sometimes adding new ref tags will trigger a problem with one that had been opened elsewhere, making the problem hard to find. For example, this edit, which contains no errors (other than using ref tags on a talk page without a {{reflist-talk}} template), effectively hid about half of the page because of a broken tag from 5 days earlier.
- Almost nobody uses them carefully. While broken tags are usually quickly fixed, few people ensure the footnotes are appearing in the correct thread.
- Talk pages are threaded discussions. Even when everything is done correctly, reflist templates take up a lot of extra space and break up threaded discussion unnecessarily.
Best practices for using references on talk pages[edit]
- Use simple external links whenever possible.
- If you absolutely must use references, remember to use {{reflist-talk}} to ensure the footnotes appear directly under your comment.
- Double-check your syntax before saving.
- Think yet again whether a simple external link would suffice.