Editing Talk:Cognitive warfare (section)

== On References and in-line citations ==

This article seems to flip flop between the wiki standard of superscript references and more "academic publishing" style (ex. Author, 2005) without then providing direct references. 

What is the procedure here? Are bracketed refs without links allowable/acceptable? 

This article also seems to suffer from 'reference clustering' where a bunch of refs are inserted at the front or end of the paragraph and in between are numerous bold statements without direct references, making it difficult for the reader to connect the statement to the reference it links to. What is the guidance on that?

I'm trying to tidy this article up, but I don't want to be disruptive by taking out huge chunks of (what seems to me) unsourced info if it actually is sourced but the reference isn't closely placed.  [[User:Maryshelagh|maryshelagh]] ([[User talk:Maryshelagh|talk]]) 07:40, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

:Also, much of the most recently added content seems to come from users as part of a class project, and their references are mostly in Chinese. Not an issue in itself imo, but how would I go about verifying them? [[User:Maryshelagh|maryshelagh]] ([[User talk:Maryshelagh|talk]]) 08:03, 25 July 2025 (UTC)
::You can use machine translation ([http://translate.google.com Google Translate] or -- and I rarely advocate this but in this one limited use case it works well -- Chatgpt) to verify if the text looks close enough. If you're aware of a better English language source [[WP:NONENG|generally replace it and use that]] instead. If you're not aware of one, you can tag it with an in-line maintenance tag. Templates like <nowiki>{{better source needed}}, {{Verify source}}, {{Request quotation}}, {{Unreliable source?}}, {{Additional citation needed}}, {{Globalize inline}},</nowiki> all potentially can be useful depending on how much information you have to go on. Do keep in mind though that verifiability alone doesn't guarantee inclusion. Per our policies: {{tq|While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and other policies may indicate that the material is inappropriate. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.}} So for example, if after researching you still can't really verify something but it theoretically *is* verifiable, you can still remove it pending discussion, and the responsibility for discussing and gaining consensus then shifts to any future editor who wants to try and reinclude it. Basically as long as you're making good-faith efforts to discuss and work collaboratively with other editors on the article talk page, you shouldn't have to worry about disruption. [[User:Swatjester|<span style="color:red">⇒</span>]][[User_talk:Swatjester|<span style="font-family:Serif"><span style="color:black">SWAT</span><span style="color:goldenrod">Jester</span></span>]] <small><sup>Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!</sup></small> 16:27, 27 July 2025 (UTC)
:::Thanks for the guidance!  [[User:Maryshelagh|maryshelagh]] ([[User talk:Maryshelagh|talk]]) 18:02, 27 July 2025 (UTC)