Citation needed

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An example of the citation needed template as seen in the English Wikipedia's article about the mushroom, prior to a citation being provided Citation needed example.png
An example of the citation needed template as seen in the English Wikipedia's article about the mushroom, prior to a citation being provided

The tag "[citation needed]" (stylized as "[citation needed]") is added by Wikipedia editors to unsourced statements in articles requesting citations to be added. [1] The phrase is reflective of the policies of verifiability and original research on Wikipedia and has become a general Internet meme. [2]

Contents

Usage on Wikipedia

The tag was first used on Wikipedia in 2006, [2] and its template created by user Ta bu shi da yu. [3] According to Wikipedia's policy, editors should add citations for content, to ensure accuracy and neutrality, and to avoid original research. [4] The citation needed tag is used to mark statements that lack such citations. [1] Wikipedia editors may use tools like Citation Hunt to address these uncited statements. [5] As of June 2025, there were more than 604,000 pages on Wikipedia (or roughly 1% of all pages) containing at least one instance of the tag. [1] Users who click the tag will be directed to pages about Wikipedia's verifiability policy and its application using the tag. [6]

A parody of the tag, [cetacean needed], is used for missing images on Wikipedia's list of cetaceans page. [7]

Usage outside Wikipedia

A 2007 xkcd comic by Randall Munroe featuring a protester with a "[citation needed]" placard Webcomic xkcd - Wikipedian protester.png
A 2007 xkcd comic by Randall Munroe featuring a protester with a "[citation needed]" placard
Poster at the 2017 March for Science Citation needed - March for Science (cropped).jpg
Poster at the 2017 March for Science

In 2008, Matt Mechtley created stickers with "[citation needed]", encouraging people to stick them on advertisements. [8]

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., where some participants held placards with "[citation needed]". [9]

Randall Munroe has frequently used "[citation needed]" tags for humorous commentary in his writings, including in his 2014 book What If? . [10] [11] [12]

The podcast "Citations Needed" is a Webby-nominated [13] media criticism podcast, hosted by journalists Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson to explore the intersection of media, PR, and power. [14]

Wikipedian Molly White publishes a newsletter covering the cryptocurrency and technology industries called Citation Needed. [15] [16]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Redi, Miriam; Fetahu, Besnik; Morgan, Jonathan; Taraborelli, Dario (May 13, 2019). "Citation Needed: A Taxonomy and Algorithmic Assessment of Wikipedia's Verifiability". The World Wide Web Conference. WWW '19. San Francisco, CA, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 1567–1578. arXiv: 1902.11116 . doi:10.1145/3308558.3313618. ISBN   978-1-4503-6674-8. S2CID   67856117.
  2. 1 2 McDowell, Zachary J.; Vetter, Matthew A. (2022). "What Counts as Information: The Construction of Reliability and Verifability". Wikipedia and the Representation of Reality. Routledge, Taylor & Francis. p. 34. doi: 10.4324/9781003094081 . hdl:20.500.12657/50520. ISBN   978-1-000-47427-5.
  3. ↑ Ta bu shi da yu (June 15, 2005). "Template:Citation needed". English Wikipedia . Retrieved March 23, 2025.
  4. ↑ 栗岡 幹英 [Masahide Kurioka] (March 1, 2010). "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) (17). 奈良女子大学社会学研究会 [Nara Women's University Sociological Study Group]: 133–151. ISSN   1340-4032.
  5. ↑ McDowell, Zachary; Vetter, Matthew (2022). Wikipedia and the Representation of Reality. New York: Routledge. p. 33-34. ISBN   978-0-367-55571-9.
  6. ↑ McDowell, Zachary J.; Vetter, Matthew A. (July 2020). "It Takes a Village to Combat a Fake News Army: Wikipedia's Community and Policies for Information Literacy". Social Media + Society. 6 (3). doi: 10.1177/2056305120937309 . ISSN   2056-3051. S2CID   222110748.
  7. ↑ Helm, R. R. (November 10, 2015). "Awesome nerd joke hidden in Wikipedia's "List of Cetaceans" | Deep Sea News" . Retrieved August 5, 2025.
  8. ↑ Glenn, Joshua (January 2, 2008). "[citation needed]". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on July 27, 2018. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
  9. ↑ Johnson, Ted (November 1, 2010). "Satirical rally calls for sanity and/or fear". Variety . Archived from the original on November 16, 2010. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
  10. ↑ Munroe, Randall (2014). What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. Hachette UK. ISBN   9780544272644 . Retrieved June 15, 2021.
  11. ↑ Hill, Kyle (September 2, 2014). "Review: XKCD's What If?". Nerdist . Archived from the original on July 13, 2021. Retrieved July 12, 2021.
  12. ↑ Poole, Steven (September 19, 2019). "Book Review: 'What If' by Randall Munroe". The Wall Street Journal . Archived from the original on May 8, 2024. Retrieved July 12, 2021.
  13. ↑ "Podcast | Citations Needed". Nima Shirazi. Retrieved November 8, 2024.
  14. ↑ Groundwater, Colin (April 29, 2020). "The Best Podcasts to Listen to in Self-Isolation". GQ. Archived from the original on April 30, 2020. Retrieved November 8, 2024.
  15. ↑ White, Molly (November 10, 2023). "Laser eyes". Citation Needed. No. 43. Retrieved June 4, 2025.
  16. ↑ Cohn, Cindy; Kelly, Jason (May 21, 2025). "Love the Internet Before You Hate On It". How to Fix the Internet. Electronic Frontier Foundation . Retrieved June 4, 2025.
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