Citation needed

Wikipedia tag added to unsourced statements

This article describes the history and effects of the Wikipedia tag. For the template that generates the tag, see Template:Citation needed. For proper usage of the tag, see Wikipedia:Citation needed.

An example of the citation needed template as seen in an article on the English Wikipedia

"[Citation needed]" is a tag added by Wikipedia editors to unsourced statements in articles requesting citations to be added.[1] The phrase is reflective of the policies of verifiability and no original research on Wikipedia and has become a general Internet meme.[2]

## Usage on Wikipedia[edit]

The tag was first used on Wikipedia in 2006.[2] By Wikipedia policy, editors should add citations for content, to ensure accuracy and neutrality, and to avoid original research.[3] The citation needed tag is used to mark statements that lack such citations.[1] As of February 2019[update], there were more than 350,000 pages on Wikipedia containing at least one instance of the tag.[1] Users who click the tag will be directed to pages about Wikipedia's verifiability policy and its application using the tag.[4]

## Usage outside Wikipedia[edit]

A 2007 xkcd comic by Randall Munroe featuring a protester with a "[citation needed]" placard

In 2008, Matt Mechtley created stickers with "[citation needed]", encouraging people to stick them on advertisements.[5]

Protesters at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, 2010

In 2010, American television hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert led the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where some participants held placards with "[citation needed]".[6]

Randall Munroe has frequently used "[citation needed]" tags for humorous commentary in his writings, including in his 2014 book What If?[7][8][9]

The subdomain of citation download for Springer Nature journals is "citation-needed", e.g., https://citation-needed.springer.com/v2/references/10.1038/nature14539?format=refman&flavour=citation .

From 2014 to 2018, Tom Scott, Chris Joel, Gary Brannan and Matt Gray a.k.a. 'The Technical Difficulties' had a YouTube panel show titled "Citation Needed". Will Seaward and Matt Parker also featured as guest panelists in episodes 6x03, 6x04, 7x03 and 7x04 standing in for Gray.[10]

## References[edit]

1. ^ a b c Redi, Miriam; Fetahu, Besnik; Morgan, Jonathan; Taraborelli, Dario (13 May 2019). Citation Needed: A Taxonomy and Algorithmic Assessment of Wikipedia's Verifiability. WWW '19. San Francisco, CA, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 1567–1578. doi:10.1145/3308558.3313618. ISBN 978-1-4503-6674-8. S2CID 67856117.
2. ^ a b McDowell, Zachary J.; Vetter, Matthew A. (2022). "What Counts as Information: The Construction of Reliability and Verifability". Wikipedia and the Representation of Reality. Routledge, Taylor & Francis. p. 34\. doi:10.4324/9781003094081. ISBN 978-1-000-47427-5.
3. ^ 栗岡 幹英 [Masahide Kurioka] (2010-03-01). "インターネットは言論の公共圏たりうるか：ブログとウィキペディアの内容分析" [Can the Internet be the Public Sphere of Discourse? : Contents Analysis of Blog and Wikipedia]. 奈良女子大学社会学論集 [Nara Women's University Sociological Studies] (in Japanese). 奈良女子大学社会学研究会 [Nara Women's University Sociological Study Group] (17): 133–151. ISSN 1340-4032.
4. ^ McDowell, Zachary J.; Vetter, Matthew A. (July 2020). "It Takes a Village to Combat a Fake News Army: Wikipedia's Community and Policies for Information Literacy". Social Media + Society. 6 (3). doi:10.1177/2056305120937309. ISSN 2056-3051. S2CID 222110748.
5. ^ Glenn, Joshua (2008-01-02). "[citation needed]". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on 2018-07-27. Retrieved 2018-07-27.
6. ^ Johnson, Ted (2010-11-01). "Satirical rally calls for sanity and/or fear". Variety. Archived from the original on 2010-11-16. Retrieved 2018-07-27.
7. ^ Munroe, Randall (2014). What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. Hachette UK. ISBN 9780544272644. Retrieved 2021-06-15.
8. ^ Hill, Kyle (2014-09-02). "Review: XKCD's What If?". Nerdist. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
9. ^ Poole, Steven (2019-09-19). "Book Review: 'What If' by Randall Munroe". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
10. ^ Scott, Tom (October 3, 2019). "Citation Needed, from the Technical Difficulties". Archived from the original on May 6, 2022. Retrieved 2022-05-11 - via YouTube.

## External links[edit]

* The dictionary definition of citation needed at Wiktionary
* Citation needed at Know Your Meme

* v
* t
* e

Wikipedia

Overview
(outline)|

* Censorship
* Citation needed
* Conflict-of-interest editing
* Criticism
* Biases
* gender
* geographical
* ideological
* religious
* racial
* Deletion of articles
* Deletionism and inclusionism
* Notability
* Edit count
* Fact-checking
* "Ignore all rules"
* MediaWiki
* Plagiarism
* Political editing
* Predictions of the project's end
* Reliability
* Vandalism

Community
(Wikipedians)|

* Administrators
* AfroCrowd
* Arbitration Committee
* Art+Feminism
* Bots
* Lsjbot
* Edit-a-thon
* List of Wikipedias
* The Signpost
* Wiki Indaba
* Wiki Loves Monuments
* Wiki Loves Pride
* Wiki Loves Earth
* Wiki Loves Folklore
* WikiConference India
* WikiConference North America
* Wikimania
* Wikimedian of the Year
* Wikipedian in residence
* WikiProject
* Women in Red

People|

* Esra'a Al Shafei
* Florence Devouard
* Sue Gardner
* James Heilman
* Maryana Iskander
* Dariusz Jemielniak
* Rebecca MacKinnon
* Katherine Maher
* Magnus Manske
* Ira Brad Matetsky
* Erik Möller
* Jason Moore
* Raju Narisetti
* Steven Pruitt
* Larry Sanger
* María Sefidari
* Lisa Seitz-Gruwell
* Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
* Lila Tretikov
* Jimmy Wales

History|

* Bomis
* First edit
* Logo
* Controversies
* US congressional staff edits
* Essjay controversy
* Seigenthaler biography incident
* Henryk Batuta hoax
* Jar'Edo Wens hoax
* Zhemao hoaxes
* Internet Watch Foundation
* Scientology
* Hillsborough disaster Wikipedia posts
* VisualEditor
* #1Lib1Ref
* Star Trek Into Darkness discussion
* Coverage of American politics
* Coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic
* 2021 Wikimedia Foundation actions on the Chinese Wikipedia
* Coverage of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

Honors|

* 2008 Quadriga award
* Wikipedia Monument
* 2015 Erasmus Prize
* 2015 Princess of Asturias Award

References
and analysis|

* Cultural
* Bibliography
* Films
* Academic studies
* Listen to Wikipedia
* Wikipediocracy

Mobile access|

* Apps
* QRpedia
* Wikipedia Zero
* Wikiwand

Content use|

* DBpedia
* Depths of Wikipedia
* Kiwix
* Wikimedia Enterprise
* Science information
* Health information

Similar projects|

* Interpedia
* Nupedia
* Citizendium
* Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español
* Everipedia
* Veropedia
* List of online encyclopedias
* List of wikis

Related|

* The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs
* Print Wikipedia
* Magna Carta (An Embroidery)
* Death and Wikipedia
* Wiki rabbit hole
* Wikiracing
* 274301 Wikipedia
* Wikipedia for World Heritage
* Wikimedia Foundation
* movement
* Wikipedia in India

* List
* Category

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template