Citation needed

"[Citation needed]" is a tag added by Wikipedia editors to unsourced statements in articles requesting citations to be added. The phrase is reflective of the policies of verifiability and no original research in Wikipedia and has become a general Internet meme. On the English Wikipedia, the display effect looks like this:

The display effect of the citation needed template in English Wikipedia

Usage in Wikipedia

By Wikipedia policy, editors should add citations for content, to ensure accuracy and neutrality, and to avoid original research.[1] In June 2005, Chris Sherlock, a Wikipedia editor with the username Ta bu shi da yu, created the "citation needed" template, to be added to statements without a citation that needed verification.[2][3] The template is used frequently—419,519 articles in the English Wikipedia are marked with the template.[4]

Usage outside Wikipedia
An xkcd comic featuring a protester with a "[citation needed]" placard

In 2007, the webcomic xkcd published a comic called "Wikipedian Protester". In the comic, a group of people are listening to a politician's speech, and a protester raises a placard which says "[citation needed]",[5] in Wikipedia's characteristic blue color for internal hyperlinks.[6] This also spawned a meme, on the "explain xkcd" wiki, of placing a "citation needed" tag after obvious statements.[5] Randall Munroe, the creator of xkcd, has also used "[citation needed]" in similar fashion throughout his blog What If?,[5][7] and, consequently, in the book published as a compilation of the blog's entries.[8]

In 2008, Matt Mechtley created stickers with "[citation needed]", encouraging people to stick them on advertisements.[9] This kind of graffiti has been dubbed "wikiffiti".[10] Quickly becoming an Internet meme, "[citation needed]" appeared not only on billboards, but also some internet kuso pictures.

"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. Some "protesters" held placards with "[citation needed]".[11]

In 2011, German defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was facing accusations that he plagiarized his doctoral thesis. Protesters with "[citation needed]" placards called attention to the many contexts in his thesis where his sources were not labeled.[12]

Between 2014 and 2018, YouTube creator Tom Scott presented a panel show called "Citation Needed" with the Technical Difficulties group.[13]

In 2017, the hosts of the Cognitive Dissonance podcast and the hosts of The Scathing Atheist podcast began working on a weekly podcast with the name Citation Needed. In the podcast, one of the cast is assigned to read an article on Wikipedia and prepares a comedic essay summarizing the article.[14]

Notes
  1. In the source, the first "[citation needed]" bears a link to a Google search for Chevrolet Citation on craigslist, while the second is a link to the Wikipedia article Citation (horse). Munroe has made the same pun off the Chevy model on the wiki for the sport he started, geohashing (https://geohashing.site/index.php?title=Citation_Needed&oldid=30881).

References
  1. 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.
  2. Chris Sherlock. "User Chris Sherlock". Stack Overflow. Archived from the original on 2018-05-10. Retrieved 2018-07-27.
  3. en:Template:Fact, oldid 17662960
  4. "Category:All articles with unsourced statements", Wikipedia, 2020-04-22, retrieved 2020-09-06
  5. Explainxkcd contributors. "285: Wikipedian Protester – explain xkcd". www.explainxkcd.com. Archived from the original on 2017-10-10. Retrieved 2018-07-27.
  6. Wikipedia: the missing manual By John Broughton, 2008, ISBN 0-596-51516-2, p. 75 Archived 2018-02-07 at the Wayback Machine
  7. Munroe, Randall (May 28, 2013). "Alien Astronomers". What If?. Retrieved April 13, 2019. The Sun is really bright [citation needed] and its light illuminates the Earth.[citation needed][note 1]
  8. Munroe, Randall (2014). "Alien Astronomers". What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-544-27299-6. The Sun is really bright,[citation needed] and its light illuminates the Earth.[citation needed]
  9. Joshua Glenn (2008-01-02). "[citation needed]". Boston.com. Archived from the original on 2018-07-27. Retrieved 2018-07-27.
  10. "Wikiffiti – stickers that read [citation needed]". boingboing.net. Archived from the original on 2017-01-14. Retrieved 2018-07-27.
  11. Ted Johnson (2010-11-01). "Satirical rally calls for sanity and/or fear". Variety. Archived from the original on 2010-11-16. Retrieved 2018-07-27.
  12. Natalia Dannenberg (26 February 2011). "Academics attack German minister in plagiarism row". Deutsche Welle. Archived from the original on 2018-07-27. Retrieved 2018-07-27.
  13. "Citation Needed, from the Technical Difficulties". IMDb. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  14. "About Us". Citation Needed [the podcast]. 2020. Archived from the original on 2020-01-08. Retrieved 2020-01-23.
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