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The Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki strives to provide actual information about the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise in the most objective available way, and therefore, with a few very specific exceptions, all writing should be based on reliable sources, and therefore be referenced.
Purpose of Sourcing
- To credit a source for providing useful information and to avoid claims of plagiarism.
- To show that your edit is not original research.
- To ensure that the content of articles is credible and can be checked by any reader or editor.
- To help users find additional reliable information on the topic.
- To improve the overall credibility and authoritative character of the MCU Wiki.
- To reduce the likelihood of editorial disputes, or to resolve any that arise.
Note: The Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki and its articles and categories cannot be used internally as sources.
Rules for Sourcing
This list only includes the basics for the rules. For more details, please follow the footnotes provided.
- The introductory paragraph(s) or overview of the article does not need to be referenced.[1] Notable exceptions to that rule are a reference to the name of the article that comes from an external source, or the main quote if presented in some language other than English, the English translation needs to be placed in the reference and the reference itself needs to be placed right behind the sentence inside the quote.
- References go immediately after punctuation and outside of quotation marks, with no space between the end of a sentence and a reference tag.[2]
- When naming references with <ref name="some source"/>, when working on long articles or collaborations, users are encouraged to use full, linkable reference names to prevent accidental duplicates of a reference, though this is not a requirement. This is not necessary on shorter articles, and abbreviations are acceptable.[3]
- Italicize references where appropriate, as with film or TV series titles, etc.[4]
- All articles must be completely sourced.[5]
- Reference articles as sparingly as possible, while still sourcing all of the facts.[6]
- Links are required in references.
- References are required in infoboxes.
- When citing social media posts (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) in articles, an accompanying screenshot of the post must be uploaded to MCU Wiki and linked in the reference itself.[7]
Reasoning
- ↑ This is done to prevent "congestion" in the main introduction of the article. As most—if not all—information appears elsewhere in the article, do not begin sourcing until after the first heading. If, of course, the information does not appear elsewhere in the article, then it is acceptable to source it in the introduction.
- ↑ This is a stylistic rule adopted from Wikipedia and many other English sources.
- ↑ Use of consistent linkable reference names prevents accidental duplicates of a reference. For example: one ref tag named "Fury's Big Week" and one named "The Avenger's Prelude: Fury's Big Week" will result in duplicate references on the same page. The word linkable does not mean that you actually [[link]] to the article, simply that if you did add the link brackets, it would go to the article on MCU Wiki.
- ↑ This is another grammar/stylistic rule.
- ↑ While single-source referencing may seem redundant, the referencing of such articles makes concentrated fact-checking easier, such as sourcing information by specific page.
- ↑ For articles with more than one source, start out as general as you can with the reference tags. For example, if an entire paragraph or section comes from one and only one source, tag the end of the paragraph/section. However, if there is more than one source, then reference specific sentences as necessary. Finally, if that is not enough, tag individual words as necessary, as a last resort.
- ↑ This is done to combat the high frequency with which social media posts containing critical information are permanently removed and not available through archives. Users in general must take care to monitor the validity of such screenshots, as they are prone to intentional falsification.
How to Reference Articles
Insertion of a Reference
References must be added to articles through the Edit page and the distinguish between Internal references and External references.
Internal References
Internal references are a type of sources that lead to articles within the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki. However, the actual source for the facts it references is not the article itself, but the piece of media that the article presents, such as movie, TV episode, comic, guidebook, artbook, video game, etc.
All internal references must be written as the Formatting Guide states, with the first point of citation presented as:
<ref name="CATFA">''[[Captain America: The First Avenger]]''</ref>
And the second and all subsequent insertion points of citation presented as:
<ref name="CATFA"/>
External References
External references are a type of sources that lead to pages outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki. They are used to source statements released in reliable sources such as Marvel's official pages and social media accounts, or news sites.
External references must be referenced with the name of the actual page that it leads to, with the first point of citation presented as:
<ref>''[URL_of_the_source ACTUAL NAME OF THE PAGE]''</ref>
If needed, subsequent insertion points of citation would be presented as:
<ref name="Name_of_Trade">''[URL_of_the_source ACTUAL NAME OF THE PAGE]''</ref>
<ref name="Name_of_Trade"/>
Producing the Reference List
In order to appear within the article, the following code must be added to its bottom, only above the "External Links" section if it does exist. This code will automatically display the reference list, showing nearly everything tagged with ref tags.
==References==
{{Reflist}}
Long Reference Lists
As a general rule, MCU Wiki recommends reserving scroll boxes for reference lists to articles that employ no less than forty to fifty individual references. However, this is by no means a hard figure, and final decisions for the use of scroll boxes should be determined by what best suits each individual article.
To use a scroll box with a reference list, use the following code:
==References==
{{Scroll_box|content={{Reflist}}}}
The standard scroll box size may be enlarged for certain articles, but this should be done only in rare cases for presentation purposes. Requests to do so should be made on the article's talk page or article review pages.