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Citation needed

Today we are going to delve into the fascinating world of Citation needed. Whether you are a history buff, a music fan, a nature lover, or simply someone looking for various information, this article is for you. Citation needed is a topic that has captured the attention of many people over the years, and that is why we want to explore it in detail. From its origins to its impact on today's society, let's dive into the many facets that Citation needed has to offer. Join us on this journey of discovery and learning about Citation needed.

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This article is about the history and effects of the Wikipedia tag. For the template that generates the tag, see Template:Citation needed. For proper usage of the tag, see Wikipedia:Citation needed. For the comedy video series, see The Technical Difficulties.

Example of "Citation Needed" in an English Wikipedia article
An example of the citation needed template as seen in an article about the mushroom on the English Wikipedia. As of the revision at 14:07, 19 June 2023, this can no longer be seen at the part pictured above.

The tag "" (stylized as "") 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]

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, , 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 "" placard
Poster at the 2017 March for Science

In 2008, Matt Mechtley created stickers with "", 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 "".[9]

Randall Munroe has frequently used "" 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]

YouTuber Tom Scott and The Technical Difficulties used "" as the title for a Wikipedia-based gameshow that ran from 2014 to 2018.[15]

Wikipedian Molly White publishes a newsletter covering the cryptocurrency and technology industries called Citation Needed.[16][17]

References

  1. ^ a b c 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. ^ a b 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 (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 (in Japanese) (17). 奈良女子大学社会学研究会 : 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. ^ Scott, Tom; Brannan, Gary; Joel, Chris (March 19, 2014). "Citation Needed, from the Technical Difficulties". The Technical Difficulties. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved August 19, 2024.
  16. ^ White, Molly (November 10, 2023). "Laser eyes". Citation Needed. No. 43. Retrieved June 4, 2025.
  17. ^ 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.
  • The dictionary definition of citation needed at Wiktionary
  • Citation needed entry at Know Your Meme
  • Citation Hunt
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