LifeMusic Wiki:Be Correct

This page contains a policy that is effective on this wiki. All policies are to be followed. Changes to the policy should be discussed on the policy's talk page, and then, if necessary, a CH forum. Thanks and God bless!

Accuracy

Here at the LifeMusic wiki we want everything you see to be correct. In order to do this, we would appreciate it if you could source anything that you can.

Reference name (naming a ref tag so it can be used more than once)

To give a footnote a unique identifier, use <ref name="name"> ... </ref>. You can then refer to the same footnote again by using a ref tag with the same name like <ref name="name" />. The name cannot be a number, or the extension will return an error. The ref name need not be placed within quotes unless it contains a space, certain punctuation marks, or non-ASCII characters (the wiki parser converts single word quoteless attribute values into validly quoted XHTML). Note that any quotation marks placed around the ref name must be straight quotes (") rather than curly quotes (“ or ”).

Named references are used when there are several cases of repetition of exactly the same reference, including the page number for books; they should not be used to cite different pages in the same book. Named references in wikitext serve a purpose similar to loc. cit. or ibid. in printed media. See also cautions in Style below.

Only the first occurrence of text in a named ref will be used, although that occurrence may be located anywhere in the article. You can either copy the whole footnote, or you can use a terminated empty ref tag that looks like this: <ref name="name" />. Such forward-slash-terminated named tags may precede the definition of the named reference. When using named references, the use of <ref name="name" /> for the later instances of the named footnote is encouraged, rather than copying the whole footnote again. Whole footnotes tend to reduce the readability of the article's text in edit mode, which makes finding specific parts of the text when editing tedious.

This, like the use of named footnotes in the first place, is a matter for editorial judgment; some editors do repeat the entire footnote, in case rearrangement of the text removes the first note, or places it after a blank note (previously, the note had to be defined prior to use, although that is no longer the case). If so, all instances of the footnote must be updated together, which can be more trouble than it saves.

In the following example, the same source is cited three times.

This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote.<ref name="multiple" /> Such references are particularly useful when citing sources where different statements come from the same source.<ref name="multiple">Author, A. (2007). "How to cite references", New York: McGraw-Hill.</ref> A concise way to make multiple references is to use empty ref tags, which have a slash at the end.<ref name="multiple">This text is superfluous, and won't show up anywhere. We may as well just use an empty tag.</ref>

== Notes ==
<references />

The edit text above gives the following result in the article:

This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote. Such references are particularly useful when citing sources where different statements come from the same source. A concise way to make multiple references is to use empty ref tags, which have a slash at the end.

Notes

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One should be particularly careful when deleting a named reference with text content, because the footnote text will be deleted unless it is copied to another ref tag with the same name.

Vandalism/Spam

Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the LifeMusic wiki. Vandalism cannot and will not be tolerated. Common types of vandalism are the addition of obscenities or crude humor, page blanking, and the insertion of nonsense into articles

If you see vandalism in an article the simplest thing to do is just to remove it. But take care! Sometimes vandalism takes place on top of older, undetected vandalism. With undetected vandalism, editors may make edits without realizing the vandalism occurred, and this can make it harder to detect and delete the vandalism, which is now hidden amongst other edits. Sometimes bots try to fix collateral damage and accidentally make things worse. Check the edit history to make sure you're reverting to a 'clean' version of the page, or if you can't tell where the best place is, take your best guess and leave a note on the article's talk page so that someone more familiar with the page can address the issue—or you can manually remove the vandalism without reverting the page back.

If you see vandalism on a list of changes (such as your watchlist) then revert it immediately. You may use the "undo" button (and the automatic edit summary it generates), and mark the change as minor. It may be helpful to check the page history to determine whether other recent edits by the same or other editors also represent vandalism. Repair all vandalism you can identify.

To make vandalism reverts easier you can ask for the rollback feature to be enabled for your registered Wikipedia account. This feature is only for reverting vandalism and other obvious disruption, and lets you revert several recent edits with a single click. See Wikipedia:Requests for permissions‎.

If you see that a user has added vandalism you may also check the user's other contributions (click "User contributions" on the left sidebar of the screen). If most or all of these are obvious vandalism you may report the user immediately at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, though even in this case you may consider issuing a warning first, unless there is an urgent need to block the user. Otherwise you can leave an appropriate warning message on the user's talk page. Remember that any editor may freely remove messages from their own talk page, so they might appear only in the talk history. If a user continues to cause disruption after being warned, report them at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. An administrator will then decide whether to block the user.

Do not nominate an article for deletion because it is being vandalized. That's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and simply encourages vandalism.

Do not feed the trolls. Fanning the fire will make the situation worse. Similarly, do not insult the vandals. If someone is doing something they know is wrong, insulting them over it is likely to make them vandalize more, just to get that reaction. Furthermore, Wikipedia is not the place for personal attacks, it is not a battleground, and two wrongs don't make a right. Instead, report them to the administrators if they continue.

Avoid the word "vandal". In particular, this word should not be used to refer to any contributor in good standing, or to any edits that might have been made in good faith. This is because if the edits were made in good faith, they are not vandalism. Instead of calling the person who made the edits a "vandal", discuss your concerns with them. Comment on the content and substance of the edits, instead of making personal comments.