This policy covers the rules of citing sources and references in articles.
Why Sourcing?
On Halopedia, we mainly take our information we put in the article from those it is all about - the Halo Games, Publications, and the likes. However, in some places, we also take information from official gameplay guides, official websites and press & fan websites reporting on unreleased games. Recently, we have got a flood of unofficial information regarding new games, namely Halo: Reach, and they have been added to the site. Thus, the information in the article is a mixture of official information and speculation by fans. In order to ensure our credibility and style, but still be able to use press as a source, we need to give our sources.
What needs References, what not?
References are needed when you take information that is not directly from the game (replace: novel, comic etc. for game), which would be the manual, Official Game Guide, an official or unofficial website and similar sources.
There is no need to cite the game itself. Any information you have on the game by simply playing it can be put in the article as previous - we do not want to flood the articles with references.
What to put into References?
To cite a written source, which you cannot provide a link to, you only need to state it exactly. Remember that a reference section does not always need a link.
How to add References
We have a system of references that is quite similar to Wikipedia, if you are familiar with it. (This does not mean we go to the same scale as Wikipedia, but rather we use the same code.) The special tags you will need are <ref></ref> and <references/>.
Using the Reference System
After the information that needs referencing, use the following format to create a reference:
<ref>[http://www.website.com/ Name of article or source]</ref>
Then add the following to the bottom of the article to create the list of sources:
== References == <references/>
That's all there is to it! For a live example, see Halo (series).
Multiple Citations of the Same Source
In long articles, you could come across the problem of needing to give the same source twice. To do this, you do not need to say the same things twice and add it to the References list two times, but can reuse your previous reference and give it again. For this, you need to give names to your references:
If you give two or more references the same name<ref name="test">Only the description in the first ref with the name (that is, a) is shown</ref>, they will have the same number<ref name="test"/>
The first time you give the reference, you have to use the name= parameter to give a specific, preferably descriptive name (e.g. "official_guide"). The second time you use the reference, you simply use an empty <ref/> tag with the same name given as your previous. Both references will then share the same number, and in the list of references at the bottom of the page, there will only be one entry, with links back to each part of the article from where it is linked, so that the reader can continue to read exactly where they have clicked on the reference:
If you give two or more references the same name[2],
they will have the same number[2]
[...]
2. ^ a b Only the description in the first ref with the name (that is, a) is shown
Requesting a Source
To request a source, we use a workaround. Add {{refneeded}} to statements which seem source-worthy for you:
Master Chief is able to fly in ''Halo 3'' {{refneeded}}.
The result is this:
Master Chief is able to fly in Halo 3 [citation needed].
...with a link to this very page.