Forum:CT:Expired social media citations

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The result of the debate was no consensus. 1358 ^(Talk) 22:12, January 4, 2016 (UTC)

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Exiledjedi has brought up the issue of some articles on this site sourcing info to expired social media citations with no screenshots, and no other stuff stating said info. This includes some quality articles on the site as well. The issue should be subject to further discussion, and here I am doing just that. It is my opinion that, though unfortunately this potentially leaves the possibility for people to have made stuff up, expired social media citations should be considered valid sourcing even without accompanying screenshots. That said, if someone were to add info to an article and claim it comes from a no-longer existent social media post, that would not be accepted, with too much room for making something up. But for info cited to social media at the time the links were active, and simply were added either before the proper templates existed or just because having screenshots wasn't set in stone then, I feel like it's unfortunate that the screenshots don't exist, but seeing that the lack of a photo was worked into the template, I feel like that would have to count as complete, with the assumed integrity of the user who cited info to said link. The status of several quality articles on this site will be potentially affected by this thread. Hanzo Hasashi (talk) 03:26, December 14, 2015 (UTC)

• Addendum: To make it more clear, I am proposing more clarification to the policy on what is an acceptable social media post: either "social media posts may also include expired citations without screenshots if the template properly acknowledges the fact that no screenshot is available" or "expired social media posts may only be included on the condition that a screenshot is provided of the original post prior to its disappearance." Hanzo Hasashi (talk) 03:50, December 14, 2015 (UTC)

Support (provided the posts were cited prior to their expiration, social media posts may also include expired citations without screenshots if the template properly acknowledges the fact that no screenshot is available)

1. Hanzo Hasashi (talk) 03:26, December 14, 2015 (UTC)

Oppose (expired social media posts may only be included on the condition that a screenshot is provided of the original post prior to its disappearance, regardless of when the post was originally cited)

1. Without a screenshot or some other means of finding what the social media post said, we won't know whether the information someone added is correct. - Brandon Rhea^(talk) 02:34, December 22, 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

What policy are you proposing an amendment to, and what would that amendment be? Right now this vote is about an idea rather than a specific policy change. - Brandon Rhea^(talk) 03:30, December 14, 2015 (UTC)

• Well I originally started an SH forum that didn't receive enough attention. This is making part of the sourcing policy more clear-cut on what constitutes an acceptable social media citation. Hanzo Hasashi (talk) 03:36, December 14, 2015 (UTC)
  • Can you add a specific wording for this policy into your proposal? That way we know what we're voting for, behind just the concept. - Brandon Rhea^(talk) 03:44, December 14, 2015 (UTC)
    • Your initial description talks about grandfathering in citations that have existed for a while, but the specific proposed policy wording you added later says nothing about this; the way it's worded, it could apply to any newly added citations. I don't think that's what you intended. Asithol (talk) 20:02, December 21, 2015 (UTC)
      • Just edited the CT. Perhaps this is more clear. Hanzo Hasashi (talk) 02:31, December 22, 2015 (UTC)