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There has been a barrage of tag wiki edits by a user today and although they looked good when reviewing them, it made me wonder if it would be a good idea to mention the sources when constructing a tag description or tag wiki?

I must admit beforehand I did not mention my sources when making my first tag descriptions or even wikis, but of late I have been doing this, e.g. when I made the signal-processing tag description.

Would it be good to urge users to add their sources or is this unnecessary? Personally, being a big fan of adding my sources, I would opt to start asking users to do it.

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    $\begingroup$ I think it is a good idea to name sources, if they have been used (or quoted) and this is possible. $\endgroup$
    – Chris Mod
    Commented Mar 29, 2017 at 14:33
  • $\begingroup$ I think references are important for several reasons, but is it possible without too much clutter? Edit: I just saw your signal-processing tag: looks good to me. $\endgroup$
    – canadianer
    Commented Mar 29, 2017 at 16:50
  • $\begingroup$ How do you find an overview over recent tag wiki edits? $\endgroup$
    – fileunderwater
    Commented Mar 29, 2017 at 17:27
  • $\begingroup$ Oh, just saw that suggested tag edits can be seen in the normal suggested edit history. $\endgroup$
    – fileunderwater
    Commented Mar 29, 2017 at 18:01
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    $\begingroup$ I must say that I was put off by this barrage and rejected some as badly phrased. Now I am in the same boat — wishing to make some changes to an existing tag and add a set of new ones. What I have done is to post to biology meta, so that people are aware of this and can comment before I do so. I wouldn't say this should be mandatory, but it is an alternative to the suggestion of sources in the wiki. (Hence a comment, rather than an answer.) $\endgroup$
    – David
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 23:14

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A short reaction; I'm bit hesitant. To me, tag wikis are short pointers to describe how tags should be used, and not a full introduction to a subject. For that we have textbooks, reviews, Wikipedia and other websites. While links or single refs in tag wikis might serve a purpose in very specific cases I see them as overkill and unnecessary clutter in general. I don't see the point of e.g. generally linking to Wikipedia pages. If people are interested in a subject they will probably search in Wikipedia either way. Also, tag wikis are looked at and edited seldomly, which means that there is a high probability that dead links will go unnoticed.

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Given the careful feedback of @fileunderwater I wish to share my conclusion here that links to sources in tag descriptions and wikis should be considered as optional, and not as a mandatory component.

Again, and perhaps personally, I am a big supporter of mentioning sources, but I agree with fileunderwater that it may be a bit of an overkill in some cases.

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