Verifiability: revision #29

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**Verifiability** is the rule this whole wiki stands on: readers — human or machine — must be able to check that the information here matches what reliable sources actually say. If a fact has no source, it does not belong in an article.

## The core rule

Every statement of fact — a release date, a developer credit, a sales figure, an award, a platform — must carry an inline citation to a reliable published source. The burden of evidence sits with whoever adds or restores material. Unsourced factual additions are declined in review, however plausible they sound. "It's well known" is not a source.

## What counts as a reliable source

In rough order of preference for the facts this wiki deals in:

1. **Primary official sources** — the developer's or publisher's own website, press kit, press release, or official social account; platform holders' pages (Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, Apple); investor-relations data for sales figures.
2. **Store pages** — Steam, Nintendo eShop, App Store and similar listings, for release dates, platforms, genres and descriptions. (Steam's public app-details data is a fine citation for what the store itself states.)
3. **Reputable games and tech press** — outlets with editorial standards and named authors (for example Polygon, Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Game Developer, IGN, PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, The Verge, or major general press).
4. **Award bodies** — BAFTA, the Independent Games Festival, D.I.C.E., national game awards — for award claims, cite the awarding body or solid press coverage of the ceremony.

**Not citable as sources:** other wikis (including Wikipedia — follow its citations to the underlying source instead), forums and Reddit threads, YouTube commentary, storefront user reviews, AI-generated text, and rumor aggregators. These can inspire research; they cannot support a claim.

## How to cite

Citations use markdown footnotes with an access date, so future editors can detect stale links:

Example: Stardew Valley first released for Windows on 26 February 2016.[^1]

And at the bottom of the article: [^1]: ConcernedApe. ["Press"](https://www.stardewvalley.net/press/) — stardewvalley.net. Retrieved 9 July 2026.

The editor's **+ Citation** button inserts this template for you. Include: who published it, the title, the URL, and the date you checked it.

## Handling disagreement between sources

Sources sometimes conflict (regional release dates, publisher changes, differing sales figures). Do not pick your favorite silently. Either cite the most authoritative source (official beats secondhand, newer beats older for current facts), or state the discrepancy explicitly with both citations.

## Freshness

Facts age: platforms get added, studios get acquired, prices change. Articles display when their sources were last checked. If you re-verify an article's citations, say so in your edit summary — moderators update the verification date. Claims that cannot be re-verified may be softened ("as of 2024…") or removed.

## No original research

The wiki summarizes what reliable sources say; it does not host first-hand discoveries, datamining results, frame-by-frame analysis, or personal reviews. If it has not been published somewhere citable, it is not yet wiki material.

## See also

- [[Style guide]] — how to write and structure articles
- [[Moderation]] — how review works
- [[What counts as cozy]] — inclusion criteria