Forgotten Realms Wiki talk:Help-Citing sources

Reference Names
"Note that this will only work if the full citation appears before any shortened ones, although you can use the shortened format many times in one article if necessary."

- Help:Citing sources

Hurtzbad 07:58, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This is not technically correct. The current (as of 01/09/2008) version of wiki in use only requires the full (for example) appear somewhere in the text (before the, I believe) Can I suggest it be changed to"Note that this will only work if the full citation appears somewhere before the reference section. You can use the shortened format many times in one article if necessary."

Danilo Thann
in the page referring to the masked lords of waterdeep Danilo Thann is cited as "Danilo Thann: Masked Lord, cousin of Khelben Arunsun" in the book Elfsong page 21 2nd paragraph 4th line Khelben is referenced as his uncle NOT cousin.

Jode_at_home@yahoo.co.uk

Citation Template Proposal
After accidentally creating a new citation template for "Player's Handbook, 3.5 Edition" because I missed it in the template list due to irregularities in the way the citation templates were named, I propose that we revamp the way the Core Rulebooks are listed in the citation template. Currently, there doesn't appear to be a standardized way they are input for their nomenclature; reference the various ways the PH & DMG are entered by various edition. What I would think would work best would be one of the two following methods for naming the templates for the core rulebooks. First, the longhand format:
 * Players Handbook, 1st Edition

* NOTE: 1st Edition did not include an apostrophe in its nomenclature.
 * Player's Handbook, 2nd Edition
 * Player's Handbook, 2nd Edition (Revised)
 * Player's Handbook, 3rd Edition
 * Player's Handbook, 3.5 Edition
 * Player's Handbook, 4th Edition

Here is the same sort of standardized entry scheme with a shortened version:
 * Players Handbook 1.0
 * Player's Handbook 2.0
 * Player's Handbook 2.0 (Revised)
 * Player's Handbook 3.0
 * Player's Handbook 3.5
 * Player's Handbook 4.0

On the plus side, this should make future references easier and can be carried over into new citation templates whose sourcebooks have multiple editions also.

On the not-so-good side, this will probably break a few citation links causing us need to repair them. Thoughts anyone? --Crazyhorse75 09:08, May 18, 2010 (UTC)

About cite consistency
Maybe it's not a big deal, but I've seen several section names (Sources, References and Notes) used indistinctly and interchangeably in the wiki for the Notes and References sections mentioned in this article:

Citing Wikipedia
How does one cite Wikipedia? I'm assuming everything on there is considered canon for the purposes of this wiki.

&mdash;Lemony Sn (talk) 16:17, March 22, 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a canon source, nor an official one. It can be a great starting point for research, but should never be cited directly. --Ir&#39;revrykal (talk) 16:26, March 22, 2019 (UTC)

Citing Multiple Sources for the Same Information
Should multiple sources be cited for the same information in the text of an article, particularly if the sources are from different editions or were published several years apart? If so, should this also be done in Infoboxes? If not, is there a preference for the most recent source?

A good example is the Goliath featured article. The description cites only the 4e Player's Handbook 2 (2009) for height and weight. It does not cite the original 3.5e Races of Stone (2004) or 5e sources Elemental Evil Player's Companion (2015) and Volo's Guide to Monsters (2016), which have the same height and weight information. The benefits of multiple citations in the text would be to show the consistency throughout publication history (i.e., to show the absence of contradiction) and giving the main places the information can be found. The drawback could be articles littered with footnotes. If we are against multiple citations for the same information, should the singular citation follow the canon policy hierarchy? And, in cases where the sources of the same information are of the same level (e.g., realms sourcebooks), should the initial source or the most recent source be used?

Continuing with the goliath article example, the 5e sources Elemental Evil Player's Companion (March 2015, pp. 10-11) and Volo's Guide to Monsters (November 2016, pp. 108-109) contain the exact same information. The Player's Companion was essentially a digital release for the Princes of Apocalypse adventure while Volo's Guide was a subsequent D&D core sourcebook (but also a realm sourcebook, as it was written by Volothamp Geddarm) that, among other things, incorporated previously released information. Should both be cited? Or should the initial source (Player's Companion) or subsequent sourcebook (Volo's Guide) be cited?

Using the 5e goliath example above, should multiple sources be cited in infoboxes? (Feel free to move to the Infoboxes talk page if this question should go there.) Adoxos (talk) 18:55, May 16, 2020 (UTC)


 * Should multiple sources be cited for the same information in the text of an article, particularly if the sources are from different editions or were published several years apart?
 * Yes! People still play in all editions of D&D, so all references are helpful for the interested reader that wants to verify and/or research more about a topic.


 * If so, should this also be done in Infoboxes?
 * Yes! Many if not all infoboxes provide a parameter for each section of the infobox that allows reference tags to be placed in the header of the section rather than cluttering up the data. But it is okay to cite specific pieces of data when there is a discrepancy between editions, for example. This may or may not require a Note to explain, it depends on how the differences were handled in the body of the article.


 * Not everyone has access to every book, so feel free to add missing references, even if they are for the same information in a different publication. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 19:36, May 16, 2020 (UTC)