Wikipedia:Bombardment

Once you've added an appropriate source (WP:V/WP:N), adding another hundred that say the same thing could be considered overkill. By the same token 100+ sources in an article isn't unusual.

Bombardment is the placement of a large number of references in an article in hopes that this will prevent it from ever getting deleted.

Wikipedia's notability guidelines state that a subject is notable if there are multiple reliable sources independent of the subject. This suggests that an article bristling with sources should be safe.

But is it really safe? If you look at a number of AfD debates over time, you will see a variety of reasons articles get proposed for deletion, reasons going far beyond the lack of notability or references, while pages without references are kept.

For example, single events may be given bursts of news coverage in hundreds of newspapers around the world, prompting hundreds of news articles published on a single day. From the next day, not a single news source can be found.

Even if coverage continues for a period of time, local interests are not always viewed as encyclopedic: see the proposed Wikipedia: Notability (local interests).

Or, the sources may not directly address the subject of the article, but instead give trivial details about it. An article could be interpreted as synthesis, a form of original research.

Neutrality can be another issue for which articles could be considered for deletion, especially if the article is a POV fork or a push.

When is bombardment good?

Bombardment is good when each source has a lot of information of its own. Since one of the purposes of references is to provide the reader information beyond what the Wikipedia article says, providing more sources of information is a good thing.

Use of the same source to verify different information in different parts of an article may be necessary. But when this occurs, it is still a single source.

It may also be useful to provide multiple URLs leading to the same source in the event that one becomes a dead link one day, that the other can back it up.

When is bombardment bad?

Bombardment is not necessary when the sources are identical to one another or otherwise redundant.

News agencies like the Associated Press share their stories with many other news organizations. Many news sites then present the exact story, word-for-word. The only difference is the URL used to access the same information. Instead of "multiple, reliable sources," these are merely a single source.

See also

• Wikipedia:Citation overkill
• Wikipedia:Don't create an article on a news story covered in 109 newspapers
• Wikipedia:Masking the lack of notability
• Wikipedia:Wikibombing
• Wikipedia:Wikipuffery