RationalWikiWiki:References

From RationalWikiWiki

Given that our purpose is to provide general commentary and criticism of RationalWiki, obviously we will not cite our references as fastidiously as an academic journal or even Wikipedia. Sources will be in particular short supply when referencing various secret societies and unspoken policies of RationalWiki, as --- by definition --- they will not be sourced. Consequently, much information here will be unsupported speculation, malicious rumor and hearsay.

That being said, we condemn hearsay and character assassination in our articles. Before spinning events using purely your own memory of them, verify your memory by rifling through the relevant talk pages, user contributions, and logs, and citing the links as necessary.

[edit] Ancient History

Hans Johnson prefers at least providing cites for the most easily verified facts, i.e., anything that can be checked by searching Special:Log on RationalWiki. This creates a modicum of gravitas for the wiki, making it harder to ignore.

Human thinks that if you can't be bothered to provide diff/perma links to reference an assertion, maybe you should rethink what you are saying. Any assertion backed up by a clear reference is sacrosanct and the very lifeblood of RWW. Luckily, RW, rarely, if ever, deletes and recreates pages to hide their history, so their embarrassments are an open book.

[edit] This is the important part

Cite everything, preferably using diffs.