Citing sources so that readers can verify them

Goal

A reader can check a claim within minutes and judge how much weight it carries, even if the author is no longer reachable.

Prerequisites

The claim is stated precisely (which version, which condition, which number), and the source meant to support it is accessible and has been read.

Steps

1. Take the duty to cite seriously: the cited Wikipedia policy requires that all non-trivial claims be backed by sources and thus be verifiable, and it places that burden on the person who wants the claim in the text, not on the person who doubts it.
2. For technical claims, choose the primary source: a specification, an RFC, official documentation, or the original measurement. Use summaries, blog posts and encyclopedias only if no primary source is available, and then mark them as secondary sources.
3. Record the details in full: title, author or publishing organization, date or version number, a stable address (RFC number, DOI, documentation with a versioned path rather than "latest"), and for long documents the section or page.
4. Tie the claim to the passage precisely: cite the paragraph that supports exactly this claim, not an entire work for a vague relationship. A short verbatim quotation of the passage makes checking easier.
5. Read it yourself: a citation taken over from another work does not always say what is claimed. If you have not found the passage, do not cite it.
6. Preserve volatile web pages: give the access date and create an archived copy (for example in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, cited), so that the address remains verifiable even after a website is restructured.
7. Delimit the scope: "RFC 9457 defines the format" is supported; "all clients understand it" is a separate claim with no support. A citation attributes; it does not prove.
8. Leave contradictions standing: if two sources say different things, name both and state the difference instead of picking the more convenient one.
9. Comply with the license and attribution terms of the quoted material, and identify the source of the borrowed content.

Expected result

Every claim in the text is assigned to a passage; reviewers can spot-check; gaps are visible as "unsupported" and are not hidden by choice of wording.

Limits and test basis

Stable addresses are not permanent; archives help but are not guaranteed themselves. This wiki's automatic check only confirms that a phrase appears on the page, not that the page supports the claim; that remains a reading task. The procedure follows the cited policy and general scientific practice.