Africa Growth Pilot/Online self-paced course/Module 4/What if there are no sources

What if there are no reliable sources for the topic that I want to write about? And the answer is: if there are no reliable sources at all, you shouldn't write about it. Wikipedia should not have an article on it, or the paragraph that you wanted to add should not be included in the article.

For example, if a pop star has a new girlfriend, and the the way we know that they have a new girlfriend, is that some gossip column reported it, that is not a reliable source. And we should not make assertions about a person's private life, personal life, with Wikipedia's Voice, based on some gossip column. Even if we feel, "oh, lots of people care about this, this should be in Wikipedia", it should not.

On the other hand, that's the kind of thing we take people's word for, so if the person himself, the pop star, has said this in their own capacity, even as a tweet, saying "I have a new girlfriend", or "a new partner, and her name is Maria", whatever, that can be cited. Again, not as a scientific fact, but as "according to [this star], they are now involved romantically with Maria" or whatever. That we could report on, when it's coming from the person themselves. Because we do trust people generally to tell us whether or not they're in a romantic partnership. That's not something we can establish with academic sources, or government sources.

So, if you cannot find sources, don't write the thing! Move on. There's plenty of other notable things to cover. There's plenty of other things that can be supported with reliable sources. I remind you of the Reliable Source Noticeboard. Go and use it and say, "hey, I want to cover this. I know it's true, but I just can't find sources. Can anyone help me?" People will help you.