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I propose we should have a disclaimer before the Answer form about how references are must. Since it's official policy of this site anyway.

At the moment we use a bot[citation needed] "Sklivvz" to write it in comments of every unsourced answer, but it's kinda waste of time I believe.

Is it technically possible to make such disclaimer for skeptics.SE only, i.e. not disturbing other SE sites?

2

We already have the following text displayed to new users answering a question:

Thanks for contributing an answer to Skeptics - Stack Exchange!

This is a Q&A site, not a discussion forum, so please make sure you answer the question.

Provide details and share your research. Avoid statements based solely on opinion or personal experience; only make statements you can back up with an appropriate reference.

  • Sorry I missed it ;) That seems very nice. – user288 May 7 '11 at 13:53
  • could the wording be tweaked a bit to clarify that "can back up with reference" actually means "MUST proide references. [link] to META discussion on what acceptable references are". Please note that this is a material distinction - I was downvoted by Sklivvz for failing to provide the links to Facebook API, whose existence is an obvious and uniquitous fact. So, I COULD back up the statements (and did immediately upon Sklivvz indicating the need), but was initially downvoted for not providing them upfront, although I have not violated the rule you quoted. – user5341 May 7 '11 at 14:48
  • @DVK You can propose a different version of that disclaimer in the meta question I linked. Then you just have to convince Jeff to change it. – Mad Scientist♦ May 7 '11 at 15:06
  • should I first propose the change as a Q on meta? – user5341 May 7 '11 at 15:34
  • @DVK Just reuse the old question for now, if your proposed change meets with approval, we can then try to get Jeffs attention. – Mad Scientist♦ May 7 '11 at 15:36

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