Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 2

Somehow, this^[1] works here

but it does not work here (note missing "tz"). Can someone please assist? Thanks. 219.79.74.171 (talk) 02:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The interlanguage link for de:tz at 2012 Summer Olympics lacked the leading ":", with the result that an (erroneous) link to it appeared in the column listing the article's versions in other languages. Now fixed. I assume the same faulty construct worked here because talk pages are prevented from having interlanguage links the same way articles, categories, templates can have them. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:14, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Not sure I understand, but anyway I was following the instructions at the interlanguage links help page. Either they need to be fixed or it's a bug, no? 219.79.74.171 (talk) 12:43, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The first part of that page covers how to get links into the list which is seen on most pages at the bottom of the left-hand margin. For links within the text, you need to follow instructions further down, at Inline interlanguage links. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:04, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's not a bug. There are two kinds of interlanguage links: those who link to an article's equivalent in another language (e.g. [[de:Olympische Sommerspiele 2012]] on the page 2012 Summer Olympics), and inline interlanguage links (which are somewhat discouraged) as explained on the page you quote in the section Help:Interlanguage links#Method where the leading ":" (colon) is shown. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:12, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh I see. Thanks for the clarification! 219.79.74.171 (talk) 14:11, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

When external links are tagged with one of the {{Language icon}} series of inline tags (short form e.g. {{sv icon}}), the article is placed in a maintenance category corresponding to the language specified, e.g. Category:Articles with Swedish language external links. However, when specifying |language=Swedish this action is not effected. This is a discrepancy. I realize that some of the references are not to online texts, thus some additional provision must be introduced to make that distinction. __meco (talk) 14:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Similar issues will exist for {{cite doi}}, {{cite pmid}}, and kin. Unless they are subst'd after being bot populated, applied categories will only be applied to the subpage, e.g. template:cite pmid/123456 will be placed in the category, not the transcluding mainspace article. For some reason I can't find an analogous category:Articles with Spanish language citations, perhaps there isn't one? How about category:Articles with deadlinks? LeadSongDog come howl! 18:19, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The Citation Style 1 templates do not categorize by language and have never done so nor do they support use of the ISO 639 name. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:47, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

My point rather was that afaict they don't categorize the transcluding article by any criterion. Deadlinks seem more relevant than language to me, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding. It's yet another way the template subpages appear to be a bad idea. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:48, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

LeadSongDog: I don't understand the connection. Templates such as {{cite doi}} use subtemplates that use {{cite journal}}. Since {{cite journal}} does not do any language categorization, then {{cite doi}} certainly will not.

Meco: What are you looking for here? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 03:16, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Articles such as 2012 Norwegian C-130 crash should appear in Category:Articles with Norwegian language external links, where they belong since they are in fact articles with Norwegian language external links. __meco (talk) 13:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Adding this to {{citation/core}} should do the trick:

{{#parsoid

Limitations:

• No check to ensure that the language is correct
• No check to ensure the category exists
• Does not support ISO 639 name

I have seen any number of misspelled language names in citations, so I expect a number of red categories to show. I also would expect to find languages such as Egyptian or Mandarin, which do not have categories.

So, this is technically possible with some limitations. Frankly, I don't understand the need for these categories. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:52, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm fuzzy on their intent as well, so I linked this discussion from wp:WikiProject Categories#Current discussions. Certainly there can be no doubt that such maintenance categories do exist, so at one point somebody thought they were worth implementing. My best guess is that it helps editors to be systematic in citation verification efforts, steering bilingual editors to the articles most needing their skills. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

The problems with red-link categories being created is a minor one. People would notice the redlinks and fix the issue. __meco (talk) 17:17, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

• Use wikisearch for those cite-language lists: I cannot emphasize, enough, the importance to use search-engine style lookup of parameter combinations, such as wikisearch of "language Norwegian" with other cite parameters. In many cases, the results are close enough, ignoring near matches, to provide useful results. For example:

• Wikisearch: title accessdate "language Norwegian"

That wikisearch reports more than 8,040 matching pages, and that is plenty of pages to analyze. For rare searches, feel free to wikisearch with accessdate & "language Egyptian" which matches 9 pages, most with "language Egyptian Arabic" or such. Remember in these recent years, the current bug/feature which allows such wikisearches, for template parameter names, is the magic that allows us to analyze cite-template usage in hundreds of possible combinations of rare parameters. This is the dream of so-called "associative retrieval" which many of us computer scientists have worked years to achieve. Please use wikisearch more, and create unusual rare categories less. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:16, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Because the wp:CS1 citation templates are so complex, with over 230 parameters, the transition to Lua-based cite templates should probably be a gradual phase-in, over a period of several months, beginning in Spring 2013. The initial Lua script cite module, Module:Citation has hundreds of parameters to provide support for the 24-25 forks of {cite_web}, including {cite_document}, {cite_encyclopedia}, {cite_video}, etc.

However, while Module:Citation has been designed to handle all wp:CS1 fork templates, I recently learned that it was also designed to cater to Vancouver-style cites, and special formats, such as small-caps for author name ("John G. Doe"). At this point, I fear too much confusion and advise having a separate Lua module (perhaps named "Module:CS1_cite_core"), just to handle the wp:CS1 templates, with no Vancouver-style features (no removal of dots in author initials) nor small-caps options or such. I can appreciate the techniques learned when dropping dots from names, but I fear the complexity will become unmanageable when mixing features, within a single Lua module, to handle parameters of wp:CS1, Vancouver-style, and small-caps custom formatting. Instead, a separate Lua module, dedicated to wp:CS1 features, should be designated for well-controlled updates. Of course, any clever new features accepted for other styles, in time, could be copied into the wp:CS1 Lua module, if approved.

In general, the Lua technology is a vastly different language system, where the stress testing of Lua has not been done to ensure support for 1.6 million articles, being reformatted hundreds at a time when some shared navboxes trigger all articles in the navbox, to be scheduled in the WP job queue for immediate reformatting. For example, I have seen Lua modules appear to "timeout" or go to sleep, to quit showing dependable results and say only, "Script error" (no other message) when used to process template parameters, perhaps based on a busy-load for the servers. Until full-out stress tests can prove Lua will keep formatting cites, and not "get tired to take a nap", then it should be phased-in by limited-use templates, added within a few articles, each time, to allow for safer testing, little-by-little. When Lua reaches a level of solid reliability, then the Lua-based templates and original markup-based templates can be name-redirected to point to the same templates. Meanwhile, there are still plans to quicken the current markup-based wp:CS1 templates, to allow faster operation, but also support all the current parameters. Also, there is the problem of Lua-experienced personnel, where some bug-fixes or proposed features might be delayed waiting for Lua updates, whereas the markup-based templates could be updated sooner by more people knowing the template markup language.

Any other thoughts about the phase-in of Lua-based cite templates? Should this topic be a separate subpage of CS1 discussions? -Wikid77 (talk) 04:52, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Wikid77. I wasn't really following the cite-related discussion for a while and missed a lot of this lua stuff. Are these backend changes only? If I understand correctly, this should be transparent to editors and the cite templates themselves will continue to work the same as now and tools like the RefToolbar will continue to function uninterrupted. Is that true? Forgive me if the question is dumb. Jason Quinn (talk) 21:13, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

• Lua-based cites have same parameters, nearly identical format: The Lua-based cite templates, as already developed on test2.wiki in September/October 2012, look exactly like using the identical {cite_*} templates, with all the exact same parameters, except over 10x times faster. If an article used the markup-based templates to format 250 citations, in 20 seconds, then the Lua-based footnotes will look identical, except instantly appear within 2 seconds. There are some slight format differences, such as numerous authors can be listed (far beyond just 9 names); however, all the major parameters appear in identical placement for {cite_web}, {cite_news}, {cite_book}, {cite_journal}, {cite_document}, and {cite_encyclopedia}. Testing of the other {cite_*} variations (such as {cite_video} ) has only been partially completed, and their speed is not much of an issue, so they could continue to use the markup-based {Citation/core} for weeks or months after the others are using Lua script. The COinS metadata, embedded for DASHBot or others, is still inside the Lua-based templates, formatted within the same 2 seconds (or faster). Already article "Barack Obama" is running with over 401 Lua-based citations on test2.wiki (see "test2:Barack Obama"), while also using markup-based templates for the President's infobox and naxboxes, etc. Hence, the RefToolbar will continue to work as before, even though some cites might use Lua-based templates while others use markup-based templates, during the transition period in early 2013. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:43, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

That's clears it up for me. Thanks for the reply. Jason Quinn (talk) 01:12, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

This sounds like a big win. The sooner we can get it sufficiently thoroughly tested to deploy, the better. Re the COinS data, I'm curious: does it fix the problem of <math> in titles? For the current template system, the title field is passed into COinS only slightly disguised by percent-encoding, and some later stage of wikimedia sees through the percent-encoding, thinks it should do something to the math in preparation for displaying it as Mathjax, and makes a mess. Other kinds of markup such as wikilinks in titles (or author names that are directly wikilinked rather than being linked through authorlink parameters) will also be passed into COinS, which isn't what should be happening even though the problems it makes aren't as visible immediately. The correct fix is to strip out wiki and html markup before putting the data into COinS, but that would be difficult using templates. Maybe Lua makes it easier? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:21, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

• The Lua version can remove wikilinks and italics from COinS data much faster than in markup-based templates. Thanks for re-explaining the solution to work with math tags. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:16, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

It would appear the |others= parameter was removed from {{cite web}}. Please update the documentation or put it back. Thanks. Goodraise 10:14, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Fixed Added |others=. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:15, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I have updated {{Citation Style documentation}} to include styling and templates to standardize the usage and examples section of documentation. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:00, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Would it make sense to convert the bold text under the ==Examples== section into ===Tertiary=== TOC headings? Although it might clutter the TOC a little, I think that it would make the documentation more navigable. I am specifically starting this conversation with the Template:Cite web in mind, but I think this would apply to other documentation pages for Citation Style 1 templates as well. Peaceray (talk) 04:29, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

See #Citation Style documentation. I have been cleaning up the usage and example sections across the series and have documented the style. I don't see headings as useful for the examples. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 04:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Propose to merge {{cite manual}} to {{cite book}}. There are only three differences between these two templates:

• Citation class=manual vs. Citation class=book
• {{Cite manual}} supports section as an alias to chapter
• {{Cite manual}} supports sectionurl as an alias to chapterurl

Specific proposal:

• Update {{cite book}} to support the two aliases
• Redirect {{cite manual}} to {{cite book}}

I would like to deal with questions here before I take this to formal TfD. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:37, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Now at TfD. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:31, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

The guidance at Help:Citation Style 1#Titles and chapters, the third sentence in title reads: Should consistently use title case or sentence case throughout the article, and should use title case unless...

Regarding "title case," for WP CS1 references, is that intended to mean "capitalize all words, regardless of part of speech"? If not, which "rule" should it follow, based on the many examples at Title case#Headings and publication titles. Thank You. 71.212.92.154 (talk) 21:16, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

It Means to Capitalize All Words that Contain an Accented Syllable. (Also the first word is capitalized even if, as in this example, it is not an accented word). —David Eppstein (talk) 22:00, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

See WP:NCCAPS, third paragraph (the one about English titles of books, films, and other works). It primarily concerns titles of articles, but the same principles are used when giving book titles in references. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:31, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. Redrose64's reference @ WP:NCCAPS says for details see MOS:CT and there are some specific guidelines there which I found very helpful. 71.212.92.154 (talk) 05:35, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I am aware that one is supposed to use {{cite news}} while citing news articles. However, in view of the fact that many editors, manually and using reflinks (for example here), complete citations using {{cite web}} template, and that citations are often news source with multiple contributors as well as agency credit, I think it desirable to add |agency=, so that citations that cite an agency have it rendered in screen output. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 19:05, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I feel like I run into this error often. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:12, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done Added as an alias to series and version. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:25, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I would be grateful if I could get some opinions on two URL referencing tools, Cite web and Webcite. If we just use WebCite, the advantages are that (1) its one stable link that the reader can click and it will always be there. Multiple links may confuse the reader. (2) WebCite will also take a reliable snapshot of a website which may change later at any time. (3) Reader has access to the original URL at WebCite if he needs it. Example of WebCite:

• Science and Technology - Sixth Report at WebCite (archived April 3, 2006)

We can use Cite web, where we can give both the actual URL and the archived URL. They can be switched around using the 'deadurl' URL. An example of Cite Web:

• "Regulation of complementary medicines". Archived from the original on 13 May 2009. Retrieved 17 May 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

If we use Cite Web, we have to detect dead links and then switch around the URL's. Also the user may be confused seeing two links instead of one. I know Webcite has had some outages but its been online for most of the time.

So why should Cite Web be used instead of just WebCite? I know none of the available solutions fully solve the difficult problem of link rot so we're just making attempts to improve the chances that the reader gets to a working URL. --ApplePie3 (talk) 04:43, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

{{cite web}} is a template for citing webpages, and it allows for full bibliographic information (authors, publication dates, publisher, work/website name, access date, etc). It can be used to link to the archived copy of a webpage on WebCite, the Wayback Machine/archive.org and other services. The other template doesn't do full citations, and it's limited to just one service. It's important to note that a webpage archived with WebCite is not permanent; the publisher/rights holder could request that the copy be removed from the archives at any time.

As for link rot, I just pre-emptively archive online copies of news articles. See County Road 595 where every digital copy of an article from The Mining Journal is pre-emptively archived already. I do believe that there is a bot that checks periodically through articles looking for dead links, and it will remove |deadurl=no as needed from the citation templates to perform the flip flop with the links. Since those are the online copies of news articles, they're cited using {{cite news}}, which also allows linkages to ISSN or OCLC numbers and other identifiers to allow readers to search for libraries that have the print editions in their holdings. Imzadi 1979 → 05:59, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

• {{WebCite}} is not a full citation template— it does not support key information such as author, publisher, date of original publication and identifiers such as doi. It does not match the style of Citation Style 1 templates, thus they should not be mixed within an article per WP:CITEVAR.
• {{WebCite}} does not include the original URL. If WebCite were to go dark, then it is harder to find another archive of the site.
• Archive sites such as WebCite or Archive.org are not a perfect solution. They honor the robots exclusion standard and the robots attribute of the meta element; thus they will not archive many commercial sites such as The New York Times.
• |deadurl=no is intended for a preemptive archive. That is, the original link is not dead, but an archive is included as a backup.
• You can use the WebCite link in {{cite web}}:
  • {{cite web |last=House of Lords |title=Science and Technology - Sixth Report |work=UK Parliment |date=21 November 2000 |archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/5EsdOV0Sd |archivedate=3 April 2006}}
  • House of Lords (21 November 2000). "Science and Technology - Sixth Report". UK Parliment. {{cite web}}: |archive-url= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 06:12, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for the replies and additional information! --ApplePie3 (talk) 14:21, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

{{webcite}} accepts just five parameters - four named and one positional; but the single positional param is merely an alias for |url=. One of the named parameters - |dateformat= - is used to implement an obsolescent technique for formatting dates; so really it has only three useful parameters |date= |title= |url=. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:13, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I could not find a parameter for the translator, nor one for the original language of the book where the cited version is a translation. Often an analysis of authority can turn on the credentials of a translator, so I thought that it should be included in the citation. --Bejnar (talk) 17:29, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

See the template documentation; "others: To record other contributors to the work, such as "Illustrated by Smith" or "Trans. Smith"." ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:47, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• What about the original language? --Bejnar (talk) 11:00, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I really think we should include a |translated_by= parameter (or something like it), as it is very common in many articles on classical literature, etc. --Thorwald (talk) 06:29, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I too think that the absence of a |translated_by= parameter is debilitating, as well as the absence of an |original_language= parameter. --Bejnar (talk) 23:50, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

All of the CS1 templates include a class such as book or video. Where is this used? --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it is used per se; but it's possible for custom CSS to use those classes to distinguish sources, if that's what you want. Try putting this into Special:MyPage/common.css and then look at East Linton railway station#References. Other colours are available... --Redrose64 (talk) 15:22, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I well understand how the appearance can be changed, hidden or any variety of things. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:10, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe ping Andy? Might be a microformat. --Izno (talk) 17:38, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I am pretty sure this predates Andy's involvement with microformats. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:51, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

When I add references to articles using the Wikipedia:Reftoolbar using the auto-fill by ISBN feature, it very often adds "[u.a.]" to the city name in the location parameter. I have no idea what this means. Even our little encyclopedia doesn't answer that question. Anybody know? Jason Quinn (talk) 18:04, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Unavailable? I would suggest that if it's not helpful in describing a source, leave it out. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:18, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, usually it added entries like "New York [u.a.]". It's a good guess but I don't think "unavailable" works. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Is it perhaps unitary authority to distinguish the city from the state? NtheP (talk) 19:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Another good idea. Perhaps. I don't know. Jason Quinn (talk) 19:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Unitary authority is more if a British thing. How about urban area? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

If we can't identify it, best to just leave it out. Annoying to have to re-edit, I know. Can't imagine a need for such for a book citation. --Lexein (talk) 20:09, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd say it's German and means "among others". Goodraise 20:37, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Here is an example of it in use at WorldCat: http://www.worldcat.org/title/london/oclc/257262806&referer=brief_results and all the libraries shown for the book in question are German ones, so it will be a German librarians' abbrevation. -- Alarics (talk) 21:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Is the an example ISBN that does this? RefToolbar uses http://toolserver.org/~alexz/ref/lookup.php to do the ISBN lookup, but I can't see the source. I don't know what database it pulls from, but I be the [u.a.] is in the database field. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Hilary Clinton's book about the White House does it (ISBN 0-684-85799-5). That was the book that was the last straw for me and made me investigate it. In my experience, many books do it, perhaps as high as 30 to 50%. The German theory is the most convincing so far. Regardless of the actual origin, I find the "if we [the editors interested in citations] can't figure it out" argument to carry great weight. I think it's enough to conclude that it should not be used. Jason Quinn (talk) 22:10, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I can trace the TCP stream and see that the call to Toolserver is http://toolserver.org/~alexz/ref/lookup.php?isbn=0-684-85799-5&template=book%20HTTP/1.1. I cannot of course see what the Toolserver is calling to look this up. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:43, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Good work. It's a real shame that such important functions of the default UI are inaccessible. I wonder if I could get a toolserver account, if only to see and copy this script. It appears that User:Mr.Z-man (the "alexz" above) has mostly quit editing Wikipedia. That being the case, someone else needs to maintain things. Jason Quinn (talk) 05:05, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I am assuming the database being called up is WorldCat. Here is the WorldCat page for the different versions of the Hillary Clinton book: http://www.worldcat.org/title/invitation-to-the-white-house-at-home-with-history/oclc/44550598/editions?editionsView=true&referer=br and I would guess the one entry there that has [u.a.] against the place of publication comes from a German library and reflects the fact that Simon & Schuster publish in London as well as New York. -- Alarics (talk) 10:06, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The ISBD para 4.1.5 indicates

When a second or subsequent place is omitted, the omission may be indicated by "etc." or its equivalent in another script, enclosed in square brackets (see also 4.2.4).

It could be either "und ähnliches" or "und anderes", both of which are effectively "et cetera". As Seinfeld would put it, "[yadda, yadda, yadda]". LeadSongDog come howl! 20:34, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

This seems to be missing a space between language and title. Example:

• {{cite journal|journal=Sintra Cultural Guide|date=October 2009|issue=46|language=Portuguese}}

renders as

• Sintra Cultural Guide (in Portuguese) (46). October 2009. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

but should (?) look like:

•  Sintra Cultural Guide (in Portuguese) (46). October 2009. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

- Nabla (talk) 13:56, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Problem is definitely in {{citation/core}}; but funny things happen when you use {{cite journal}} and omit certain parameters. For example, it's normally best to fill in |title=, using the title of the specific article within that guide. When I do that, it spaces correctly:

• "Article title goes here". Sintra Cultural Guide (in Portuguese) (46). October 2009.

--Redrose64 (talk) 16:57, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Understood. I would - as normally do - include the article title, but I don't know it, I simply reformatted a previous edit, it is not my source. No big deal, and hopefully someone, someday will get it right. Tks - Nabla (talk) 01:25, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

has anyone got any objection to adding |archiveurl2= and |archive2date= to the list of parameter as i have noticed one problem with archive if the archiving site is down you cant check the archived version so if you have 2 archive the chance of failure should be much lowerAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 14:49, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

How would you want to implement that? It would probably have to go in {{citation/core}}. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:00, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

well you have just made me realise something this template isnt the core one, i thought i jsut need to alter this template but i will look at the sandbox and see if i can alter it to add a scond archiveAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 21:53, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Again, how would you implement it? Would you show both archives in the citation. I have seen alternative archives noted in an HTML comment after the citation. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:05, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

i will have to see how it looks with listing both get feedback then go vrom there truthfully i aint sure the best way to do itAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 22:13, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

See {{Cite additional archived pages}}. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:22, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

excellent that will save me work, but be nice to incorprate it into the main cite core in teh futureAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 16:41, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

It isn't a well used or publicized template, and it needs a bit of work on the output. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:20, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

{{cite book|author=Whiting, Thomas A. L.|title=Maya|year=1998|chapter=The Maya Codices|publisher=Rizzoli|location=New York City|editor=Peter Schmidt}}

results in:

Whiting, Thomas A. L. (1998). "The Maya Codices". In Peter Schmidt. Maya. New York City: Rizzoli.

Obviously, the chapter should be in the book, not in the editor! Probably something like:

Whiting, Thomas A. L. (1998). "The Maya Codices". In Maya. Peter Schmidt (ed.). New York City: Rizzoli.

Kaldari (talk) 22:37, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Our citation style is heavily influenced by the APA style, modified for our particular uses. In looking over this webpage giving APA style examples, it uses:

Labajo, J. (2003). Body and voice: The construction of gender in flamenco. In T. Magrini (Ed.), Music and gender: perspectives from the Mediterranean (pp. 67-86). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

as one of the examples under the heading, "Essays or chapters in edited books". I guess if that's ok for the APA, it's ok for us too. Imzadi 1979 → 01:14, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

That the arrangement seems depends on your pov. I believe it reflects the scholarly/scientific eponymous use of the editor's name to refer to the work. I.e., "in" that person's work, not their physical person. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:09, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps pointing out the obvious here, Editor Kaldari's suggested citation rendering has similarities to Editor Imzadi1979 APA example. To wit:

In Maya. Peter Schmidt (ed.).

and

In T. Magrini (Ed.), Music and gender:...

Both have some notation identifying the editor as such. Punctuation is different and, to my mind, more correct in the APA example. Were I king of the world, I would fix the punctuation to be like APA and include the parenthetical lowercase editor abbreviation.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:59, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

"title: Title of source. Can be wikilinked to an existing Wikipedia article or url may be used to add an external link, but not both. If work is defined, then title is displayed in quotes, else displays in italics"

I've used this template extensively, but it's been brought to my attention at FAC that the title is not in italics as it's expected to be. Any chance this can be resolved please, otherwise I'll have to stop using this template to get through the review? (Example here) Thanks in advance. Socrates2008 (Talk) 09:58, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I think SlimVirgin gave the correct answer at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ellen Southard/archive1. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:10, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes: you are using publisher where work should be used:

• "Disastrous Gale in England" (pdf). New York: Watertown Daily Times. 28 September 1875. Retrieved 21 October 2012. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Disastrous Gale in England" (pdf). Watertown Daily Times. New York. 28 September 1875. Retrieved 21 October 2012. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:26, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps I've misunderstood - the example above has italicised the newspaper name, not the article name (as would be the case with a journal)? Socrates2008 (Talk) 21:47, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Short works are in quotes, long works in italics. "Disastrous Gale in England" is an article, thus it is in quotes. Watertown Daily Times is the newspaper, thus in italics. The original citation confuses work and publisher. See Help:Citation Style 1#Work and publisher. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:21, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Socrates2008 (Talk) 03:23, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

A query was raised at WT:Citing sources that seemed aimed at cite style 1. See WT:Citing sources#How to cite webpage subdivisions?. --Izno (talk) 20:47, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

That's my query. It is not "aimed" at specific stylistic details (such as use of italics, commas, etc.) but at finding a general form for handling web citations. Comments invited. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:24, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I have made a proposal to rename {{cite video}} to {{cite media}}. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:52, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 08:36, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Could someone replace the {{Template for discussion/dated}} transcluded into {{cite video}} with an embedded version with the text modified to make it clear that the template it being propsed for renaming not deletion? Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 23:36, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Not done: Sorry for the delay in answering this. I can see how this might be a good idea, but I think it would be better to fix this problem for all similar TfD nominations, not just this one. Maybe you could suggest this at WT:TFD, and if there is support for the idea we could update {{Template for discussion}} and/or {{Template for discussion/dated}} to allow renames to be specified by the proper template. Let me know if you need any help with the coding. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 14:06, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I have proposed a merge of {{cite sign}} to {{cite AV media}}. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 09:18, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please add <includeonly> tags to Template:Cite AV media. Like in Template:Cite web. You can copy the code from the sandbox. Debresser (talk) 23:34, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Done — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 00:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

No big deal either way, but web has only had noinclude because it checks for title, thus it gives an error message. If you do one, ten do the rest. But it only showed a period. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:53, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Can you update the template under Usage so that it has an access date of 2 January 2013, or even make it update automatically each day so that it needn't manually be done? Goodsmudge (talk) 19:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:Cite web/doc tries to show today's date in the "Usage" section, but it may lag by a few days if Wikipedia's servers give you a cached version. If you purge the template, it should redisplay with the current date. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:45, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I added a note at the top of the Usage section. You may have to purge the documentation to make it appear. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:53, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

If the “separator” parameter is present but blank, and the “postscript” parameter is absent, then it seems that an extra blank space gets inserted between the publisher and the closing period, as in this example:
"How does a bill become a law?". Michigan legislature. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |separator= (help)
Bwrs (talk) 01:46, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

In converting to template style, I've found that journal issue numbers are not showing up. For example, on Joseph McElroy#Anthologies of McElroy criticism are two {{cite journal|...|issue=##}} templates, and the resulting text does not have the issue number. Choor monster (talk) 18:43, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

If you check the documentation, you will see that issue is a child of work— that is, issue is dependent upon work.

{{cite journal |title=The Review of Contemporary Fiction | year=1990 | volume=X | issue=1 | url=http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?GCOI=15647100089080}} (table of contents)

If you add the journal name, then issue appears:

{{cite journal |title=The Review of Contemporary Fiction |work=name of the journal |at=table of contents | year=1990 | volume=X | issue=1 | url=http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?GCOI=15647100089080}}

title is normally the article within the journal, but here you should use Table of Contents:

{{cite journal |title=Table of Contents |work=The Review of Contemporary Fiction | year=1990 | volume=X | issue=1 | url=http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?GCOI=15647100089080}}

And the same for Golden Handcuffs Review. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:06, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm trying to cite this article from The Miami Times, 1979. Obviously, there is no original URL, so I put the the url in the archiveurl parameter. However, the resulting reference has the following error message: Error: If you specify |archiveurl=, you must first specify |url=. Why? What do I do in this particular case, where it an archive of an actual newspaper? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:55, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Just use |url=, not |archiveurl=. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:02, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I guess my point is that this fails to distinguish the fact that the URL is not the original publication, which is what I thought the point of having the archiveurl param was in the first place. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 07:48, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

But if you're going to be picky about the semantics of archiveurl vs url, using archiveurl fails to distinguish the fact that the version you read when you added the information from that source to Wikipedia was probably the online copy, not the original print publication. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:03, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd consider using:
{{cite news |newspaper=The Miami Times |date=August 28, 1979 |page=4A |title=Bolshoi ballerina greeted with tears |agency=Associated Press }} ([http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19790828&id=0dQzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BuoFAAAAIBAJ&pg=839,2953781 image available online]) which renders as
"Bolshoi ballerina greeted with tears". The Miami Times. Associated Press. August 28, 1979. p. 4A. (image available online) LeadSongDog come howl! 23:23, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

That is a convoluted manner of accomplishing something so simple. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:21, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

It's not as simple a case as it seems, because Googlenews doesn't state an archivedate. As a result archiveurl is useless. One could, alternatively, archive the article on Webcitation or elsewhere to establish an archivedate, but the one provided is undated. LeadSongDog come howl! 06:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

In this context, an archive is an electronic snapshot of a source originally published online; as such, there could be multiple snapshots as the page is repeatedly archived. This particular source was published in print, and the Google News version is an image of the original, thus there is no snapshot. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I used {{cite web}} on page Anna Carin Zidek. I have an archiveURL specified which renders properly, but the original URL does not. The citation comes out as:

^ Reimers, Johanna (16 July 2011). "Anna Carin Zideks besked: Jag slutar" (in Swedish). Expressen. Archived from [www.expressen.se/sport/skidskytte/anna-carin-zideks-besked-jag-slutar/ the original] on 8 January 2013.

The "Anna Carin Zideks besked: Jag slutar" is properly linked to the archived page but the original page is rendered with the external link brackets instead of rendering a URL. -- Whpq (talk) 11:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Fixed You forgot the URI scheme http://. MediaWiki needs the URI to detect that a string of text is a link. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! -- Whpq (talk) 12:05, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

If the website supports both the http:// and https:// schemes (as Wikipedia does), the part before the double slash may be omitted, as in |url=//www.expressen.se/sport/skidskytte/anna-carin-zideks-besked-jag-slutar/ but the double slash is mandatory. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

That works in CS1 templates because {{citation/make link}} is adding the [] brackets around the link. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:09, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Is there any way to reuse (in the same article) a named citation (e.g., <ref name=smith1995/>) but add a book page parameter to it?

In other words, if an initial cite book citation includes all the appropriate metadata (name, author, publisher, no. of pages in the book, etc.) and is named, say, <ref name=smith1995> {{Cite book |last =xyz first=abc |title=BookTitle etc.}}, is there any way to avoid repeating all the book metadata again, reuse the citation, but add a unique page number for each subsequent reused citation? Something like "<ref name=smith1995/ |page=271–273>" would be very much appreciated. Cheers. N2e (talk) 13:41, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Maybe the template {{rp}} can help? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:50, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

See Help:References and page numbers. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:02, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

There was some discussion at Help talk:Footnotes#Long and short footnotes intermixed in which several techniques were mentioned (I summarised a few of these in my post of 18:27, 1 April 2012). --Redrose64 (talk) 16:01, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

My preference for this would be to use something like <ref>{{harvtxt|Smith|1995|pp=271–273}}</ref> for the second reference (and make sure to use |ref=harv in the first one so that the wikilink created by the template works correctly). But any style that unambiguously identifies the source and is consistent with the other citations should be ok. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:35, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Which is the same as using {{sfn}}, but I added an example. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:51, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it's the same as {{sfnp}}. I have a slight preference for sfnp over sfn (because that format works better for in-text references), but I think it's more important to choose one of the two formats consistently rather than mixing them. And I think if you want to re-use the footnote you need to do it with ref-harvtxt rather than sfn, which again argues for using sfnp for consistency even with the ones you don't want to reuse. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:16, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

You can reuse {{sfn}}. Identical uses are combined in the reference list. {{sfn}}, {{harvtxt}}, et. al. all use {{Harvard citation/core}}. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:51, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) {{sfn}} operates like <ref>{{harvnb}}</ref>: there are no parentheses on either. However, {{sfnp}} operates not quite the same as <ref>{{harvtxt}}</ref>: they both have parentheses, but the position of the closing parentheses differs. The {{sfn}}/{{sfnp}} templates automatically merge duplicates. Whichever of the four is used, the associated Citation Style 1 template needs a |ref=harv --Redrose64 (talk) 20:55, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh my, no, not {{rp}}!! The basic answer here is to use some form of a short citation, each of which has the specific page number (or such) as appropriate for the text, and all refer to a full citation (or full reference) with the full bibliographic details, usually in a separate list. The suggestions of {{sfn}} and {{harv}} above are just different ways of implementing this. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:19, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

{{rp}} is a form of a short citation. If one uses {{rp}} aloing with named references to combine repeated citations, none of the meta data is duplicated. I major draw back of {{Harvard citation/core}} is that one needs to maintain two parallel sets of data. Futhermore changing one citation formate to another in an article that already has an established citation style without first gaining consensus contradicts WP:CITEVAR. Boghog (talk) 00:06, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

{{rp}} puts some of the bibliography data in the reference section and some of it (the page numbers) in the text of an article. So, using this style, it is not possible to see the whole citation in one place and it becomes difficult to determine which pages of a source are actually referred to. It also adds to the reference-clutter in the main texts of articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:22, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, first off, I very much appreciate that their is some way to do it. Having said that, it appears to be a bit complicated, based on the variety of opinions in the discussion above. Nevertheless, I think it is a problem worth the effort for me to figure out how to do it, and do it well, so I will probably invest the time to figure out the way these things work, sometime. Thanks again! Cheers. N2e (talk) 02:39, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

—Okay, I did a bit of research on {{sfn}} and {{sfnp}} to learn how to use them and was able to eliminate a number of "<!-- p. nnn -->" hidden comments in an article I had previously reused a <ref name=smith1995/>-type references in. It is better.

But it would seem to me to be much better if this multiple-reuse-of-a-single-book-<ref name=smith1995/>-ref were integrated with the <ref name=smith1995/> reference. That way, if any future editor eliminated the first use of the book citation (<ref name=smith1995/>), then the bots would pick it up and fix it. Also, it would be possible for the bots to keep the first use of the <ref name=smith1995/> ref "on top", where it is higher up in the References list than the repeat instances of {{sfn}} and {{sfnp}}. YMMV, but that is my take. Cheers. N2e (talk) 13:34, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Help:References and page numbers#Feature requests --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:42, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Not integrated; segregated! The problems you touch on are inherent in the use of "named refs" ("<ref> name=..."). That's why I put only the specific short cite in the endnote (the <ref> tags or sfn template), and put the "reused" part — the full citation/reference that is common to all the short cites — in a separate section (not in a note). Which is the way you have to do it if you want to order the reference list (alphabetically, chronologically, whatever). ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:59, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Shortened footnotes? --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:16, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Sure, that also works. Didn't mean to imply otherwise, and I am clarifying my comment. The main point is to not trap the full citation in a "named ref". ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:52, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I couldn't believe the amount of reading this template makes you sift through to tell you how to use it. I would suggest someone go through and collapse some of the more "so what" parts of it, like most of the Examples section that seems to go on forever—old format, new format, old format, new format—is this really necessary? Would someone using this template for the first time actually care?

Then there's a Deprecated sub-section that means nothing to people like me who don't care about what you used to be able to do. In addition, the Deprecated sub-section forgets to mention the other deprecated parameters, which are still (for some reason) listed in the Usage section (where you copy/paste the code); these parameters are listed as deprecated in their respective areas, but that seems really disorganized to me. Again, they shouldn't even be given as an option to use, if they're not going to work in the end.

In the end, I basically ended up with the most simplest example: Title of the show, season, episode, boom, done. But I had to spend 20 minutes trying to figure all of that out. While I'm not "new" at Wikipedia, I found the information on this template to be massive and almost intimidating. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 00:01, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Also, does the time parameter include commercials or not? That'd be nice to know. Thanks. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 00:03, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't chapter rather be documented in the Template:Cite book/doc#In-source locations section? --Jerome Potts (talk) 22:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

No. When chapter is used, it is usually an article, essay, short story manual section or the like in an edited collection, thus it is the primary source. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:07, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Is it necessary to include the accessdate date when a publication date is available? I only use accessdate when a given webpage does not have a visible publication date, and almost never use accessdate when it does have one, since I think it's redundant, and can conceivably clutter up the citation. Is there any guideline or consensus on this? Nightscream (talk) 22:13, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

There has been considerable discussion, mainly at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources. I use the Chicago 16 guidance:

14.7 ACCESS DATES An access date--that is, the self-reported date on which an author consulted a source--is of limited value: previous versions will often be unavailable to readers; authors typically consult a source any number of times over the course of days or months; and the accuracy of such dates, once recorded, cannot readily be verified by editors or publishers. Chicago does not therefore require access dates in its published citations of electronic sources unless no date of publication or revision can be determined from the source (see 14.8). For such undated sources--or for any source that seems likely to change without notice--authors are encouraged, as an additional safeguard, to archive dated copies, either as hard copy or in electronic form.

If you check the documentation for accessdate, you will find that you can hide it as desired. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:09, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• I tend to agree. Archive dates are useful if not essential in the case of archived links, but I find access dates next to useless. Most pages are there or are later removed; some pages are dynamic and updated on a daily basis. Accessdates will not help finding the 'consulted' versions of these in either case once they are gone, unless they have been pre-emptively archived, yet Reflinks insert them systematically. I then have to remove them manually, which is a drain on productivity. Maybe I don't properly understand their uses, but as far as I'm concerned they potentially take up Gigabytes of disk space, and perhaps someone could make a case for their whole-scale removal. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 14:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

  The value I see in access dates is that they can be used for an editor to find an archived page, when an archive-url and date is not provided, the special case of which is when the original page url no longer works and it is desired to link to an archive to ensure verifiability. Without an access date in the special case, we need to guess at when the page may have been archived. --Izno (talk) 14:47, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I have never understood Wikipedia's obsession with access dates. They rarely serve any purpose. Sadly, many editors apparently think that, if they put in an access date, they don't have to bother with the publication date. News references in particular should always show the exact publication date, which is much more important than the accessdate. I wish this could be spelled out more clearly. -- Alarics (talk) 18:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Access dates serve a valuable purpose when citing undated web pages that might be subject to future changes. For newspaper or scientific journal references, though, I agree that the pub date is what we should be using. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:14, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

• As said above, for sites or pages that are frequently modified (such as home pages that are cited), the only solution is pre-emptive archiving, because you can never be quite sure which is the version is cited otherwise. Merely having the access date could be helpful, but in practice it's pot luck. When a page has an archive link, the access date is redundant. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:28, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

To whomever made the recent change to the template so that the words "season" and "episode" both appear in the saved info: THANK YOU! It looks MUCH more clear now!

Just one suggested tweak, though: Could we flip them so that the season is given first, and then the episode? For one thing, hierarchically-arranged information tends to be displayed from the general to the specific. For another, the widespread convention is for seasons to be given first. For example, among both sources and informal vernacular, "4.17" often used to denote Season 4, Episode 14 of a TV series. Lastly, putting the season first would emphasize, at a glance, that the episode given is not the overall episode number of the series, but only of that season.

I don't have a lot of experience in changing templates, so how do we go about implementing this? Do we need a consensus discussion? Nightscream (talk) 02:36, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I presume you are referring to {{cite episode}}. It was updated in April, and I used the same order as before the update. Season/episode does make sense to me, but lets see if there is any discussion. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:47, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I can get on board with the switch. It just follows what is customary practice to specify the larger unit before the smaller one in citations. Imzadi 1979 → 23:54, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

So how do we go about doing it? Nightscream (talk) 13:48, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

It is on my todo list. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:51, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Now in sandbox. Please review and comment. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Current

• {{cite episode |title=Billy Crystal, 2nd Visit |series=Inside the Actors Studio |date=October 8, 2007 |url=http://www.bravotv.com/Inside_the_Actors_Studio/guest/Billy_Crystal_-_2nd_Visit |network=Bravo |season=13 |number=1307 |last=Lipton |first=James (host)}}

Lipton, James (host) (October 8, 2007). "Billy Crystal, 2nd Visit". Inside the Actors Studio. Season 13. Episode 1307. Bravo.

Sandbox

• {{cite episode/sandbox |title=Billy Crystal, 2nd Visit |series=Inside the Actors Studio |date=October 8, 2007 |url=http://www.bravotv.com/Inside_the_Actors_Studio/guest/Billy_Crystal_-_2nd_Visit |network=Bravo |season=13 |number=1307 |last=Lipton |first=James (host)}}

Lipton, James (host) (October 8, 2007). "Billy Crystal, 2nd Visit". Inside the Actors Studio. Season 13. Episode 1307. Bravo. http://www.bravotv.com/Inside_the_Actors_Studio/guest/Billy_Crystal_-_2nd_Visit.

I think it looks good. Nightscream (talk) 01:51, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

 Done --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:49, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

At Template:Cite book, the period should be after the quotation mark where it says: "Translated by John Smith." --82.170.113.123 (talk) 13:13, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Fixed to use proper emphasis. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:24, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

If you use the dropdown to insert a "cite web" template, the vaguely titled "Work" field provides a "?" over which you can hover, which then says "What larger work this is part of?". Every time I see that, I ask myself "What the hell do they mean?". Then, buried in documentation, I see that it means "Title of website". Which explanation is short, sweet, and readily understandable. Can we please make the hint match the documentation? --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 02:24, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Request that at Wikipedia:RefToolbar. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 06:25, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Hey, thanks a lot. I've placed a request on the talk page there. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 13:15, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I updated {{cite additional archived pages}}. It now supports multiple archives with different dates as well as an archived series of pages with the same archive date. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:30, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone say if they think I've cited correctly in this edit. My concern is that I accessed the book via the URL and not the physical book, and that perhaps this is not made clear enough from the cite. Either way, I think some wording should be added to the intro of Template:Cite book confirming how on-line book cites should be dealt with. Eldumpo (talk) 12:27, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I fixed the |isbn= parameter. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:22, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I assume the format was OK and that there's no requirement to note that you haven't viewed the physical book, although I think the template intro should clarify matters. Eldumpo (talk) 20:05, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there is one single answer that is always best. If the book is readily available and there is a fair risk that the website may disappear, it's probably better to do as you did. If the book is rare and the website is by a stable organization that seems prepared to make the website available for a long time, it might be better to treat the organization that runs the website as a republisher, the same way one might cite Dover Publications if one had read one of their paper editions if that is the edition you read. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

the existence of the hyperlinked title and retrieval date sufficiently indicate (and imply preference, imo) that the citation is verifiable online, irrespective of the source medium you consulted. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 14:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

In the previous item, note that I cited the paper as the

''[[Toronto Star|Toronto Daily Star]]''

This makes sense to me because I believe it is correct practice to refer to a periodical by its title contemporary with the cited article, with a Wikipedia link provided if possible so people can connect that title to the current newspaper. If there isn't a Wikipedia article, I believe it would be correct to write

''Toronto Daily Star'' (now the ''Toronto Star'')

The {{cite news}} template does not support either of these styles. I think it should, using an added field called something like moderntitle=. For publications no longer in print but better known under a later title, it could be latertitle=, which would expand to "(later the...)".

In the case when there are multiple references in an article to the same former title (again see the previous item), it would be nice if all the cites could be provided by the contributor in the same style and any repetitiousness could be suppressed automatically; but that'd just be an extra bonus feature, not a requirement.

--69.158.92.109 (talk) 20:00, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

you can add info about the work (newspaper) in the |postscript= field (displays last). escape the vertical bar in the wikilink by using the {{!}} template:

[[Toronto Star{{!}}''Toronto Daily Star'']]

65.88.88.127 (talk) 20:26, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

also, postscript does not appear in the mislabeled "full parameter list" (it's not the full list, there are other params not listed). you have to go through the detailed doc. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 20:40, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Where there is an article, there should be redirects from older names. For example, Toronto Daily Star redirects to Toronto Star. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:43, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

to indicate that this is a renamed publication maybe series could be used, if it was available (it's not). as in |work=Toronto Star |series=Toronto Daily Star. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 21:14, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Give the name of the publication as it was at the time. If there is potential for confusion, wikilink it to the article on the present name. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:54, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Redrose on this point. The citation should list the source with its contemporary information. Imzadi 1979 → 15:31, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

There is nothing to let you indicate the copyright holder. I'm sure Disney would not be amused, but actually I'm looking at Egyptian Grammar by Alan Gardiner where the Griffith Institute holds the copyright. Aarghdvaark (talk) 10:42, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

That might be, but the purpose of a citation is to allow someone to locate a copy of the source, specifically the same edition consulted where necessary. I'm not sure that indicating the copyright holder, or lack of one, would assist someone in locating a book in a library. Imzadi 1979 → 10:46, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree. Citations are not intended to include every snippet of information about a source. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:14, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

The copyright holder is often the same as the author or publisher. In the rare cases that it's not, it isn't relevant. That said, some websites don't name a publisher but do name a copyright holder, so I put that information into |publisher= --Redrose64 (talk) 15:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

But that defeats the object of this tagged citation system! Aarghdvaark (talk) 15:45, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Aarghdvaark, how does indicating the copyright holder benefit a reader looking to locate a copy of, or evaluate the reliability of, a source used in an article? Imzadi 1979 → 15:53, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

It is more information to track it down. For example the Gardiner book (1957) is listed on the Griffith Institute web site (as a 1996 reprint) . Some places in Wikipedia say the Griffith Institute (part of Oxford University) are the publishers. I'm looking at my copy (mine's a 2007 reprint) and it says the Griffith Institute are the (c) holders, but UP, Cambridge are the printers. Confused? So am I. Are printers also publishers? Griffith Institute is on the binding - does that make them the publishers? So regardless of the actual publisher of Gardiner (although it does need clearing up), take it as an example where someone (i.e. me) looked inside at the place where publisher normally goes (although in small print it actually says 'printed by', not 'published by') and saw UP, Cambridge - a reputable publisher. And possibly that is wrong. So the reader then does not have the real publisher to help track down the book - or assess the reputation. Aarghdvaark (talk) 18:43, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

It sounds like you want a field for "published on behalf of". That is very different from the copyright holder. (For instance, most fiction and poetry has its copyright held by the author despite being published commercially.) —David Eppstein (talk) 18:45, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Printers are not necessarily publishers; they are contractors engaged by the publisher. Some publishers carry out most of their own printing, but may also engage a contract printer if the demand for a particular title cannot be met in-house. One printer may handle work for more than one publisher; conversely, one publisher might use more than one printer.

If a book is libellous, it is the publisher that you sue, not the printer. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:02, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

In this particular case, the publisher of the book is not obvious from looking inside the cover, but the (c) holder is clearly marked. Hence a knowing the (c) holder could help a reader track this book down (although this is a famous book, so it wouldn't actually be hard to find). I could put the (c) holder instead of the publisher, as RedRose64 recommends, but these tags are supposed to be accurate. Aarghdvaark (talk) 00:11, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Decided that where the publisher is not stated, but the printer and the (c) holder are, then the (c) holder should go into the publisher tag and the actual printer should be ignored, as Redrose64 suggested. But yes, as David Eppstein said above, what I was really looking for was a "published on behalf of" tag. Interestingly, I found out later the book I was trying to reference has its own wiki article: Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs. Aarghdvaark (talk) 03:07, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

In a recent edit to Toronto subway and RT, I wanted to cite an advertisement and an editorial in old issues of a newspaper whose title has changed since they were published. I wanted to use {{cite news}}, but this does not allow for citing things in a newspaper that are identified as not being news articles. To produce what I considered to be the correct appearance:

7. The Toronto Subway Referendum" (editorial), Toronto Daily Star, December 1, 1945, p. 6

8. "Rapid Transit for Toronto" (TTC advertisement), Toronto Daily Star, December 12, 1945, p. 26

I had to do it "by hand":

 <ref name="editorial">"The Toronto Subway Referendum" (editorial), ''[[Toronto Star|Toronto Daily Star]]'', December 1, 1945, p. 6</ref><ref name="referendum-ad">"Rapid Transit for Toronto" (TTC advertisement), Toronto Daily Star, December 12, 1945, p. 26</ref>

I suggest that {{cite news}} should take an additional parameter or parameters to allow these types of items to be properly cited. The minimal change would be a "type=" parameter, consistent with {{cite}}, so that "type=foo" would expand as "(foo)" after the title. Alternatively, something like "type=advertisement|advertiser=TTC" might be preferred.

Or if there is already a way to do this with {{cite news}}, perhaps it needs to be explained somewhere. I tried doing it with {{cite}} but this produced a different format, with the title in italics instead of quotes. --69.158.92.109 (talk) 19:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

as a[n] (unsatisfactory) stop-gap, use the undocumented parameter |department= in {{cite news}}. it displays after the title item. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 20:11, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

To enable type in {{cite news}}, a fix will have to be made to {{citation/core}}, as type is disabled when one of the periodical parameters is defined.

department in {{cite news}} is documented under the periodical parameters. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

you are right, it is(/was?) undocumented in {{cite journal}}. the doc is wrong, it does not display after work, but after title, which i think is the correct format. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 20:31, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Fixed: department displays after title. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:44, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Sheesh. Who knew that the none of the lists of parameters at the top of the documentation, including the one titled "Full parameter set", actually include all the valid parameters? Thanks for the suggestion, but "department" is documented as being for another purpose and I'm reluctant to use it in this way unless the documentation is changed. --69.158.92.109 (talk) 09:48, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

the doc is non-intuitive because a single doc template is used to document citation templates used for widely different types of sources, media, and purposes. so in any given citation template doc you have a lot of stuff that are irrelevant to the medium/source type/purpose of the citation, while more pertinent stuff, parameters, and parameter explanations are ommitted. personally, i ignore anything that 1. does not help readers understand and verify the citation 2. (distant second) does not clarify the citation, including my treatment of it, for other editors. i am mainly concerned with imparting proper info to readers, and complying with template usage is a non-issue when it conflicts. i use templates, it's not the other way around. but that's just me. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 14:37, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I have done a lot of work on documentation, but really have not touched those full document sets. You truly can not include each and every parameter in those sets since they are intended to be copied and pasted. For example, you cannot use author and last in the same citation template, as only one can work. The full parameter list for {{cite book}} was updated fairly recently, with parameters like last[n] that will not work if copy/pasted, so it needs to be changed or a note added to explain it.

"the doc is non-intuitive..." Documentation was all over the place, which lead to my creation of {{Citation Style documentation}}. If anything should have the hobgoblin of consistency, it is citation templates and their documentation. I have been considering a mini-doc section where the most-used parameters are explained. I am always open to suggestions, so if there are documentation issues, please start a new discussion with pertinent suggestions. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:58, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

how many times is the obvious going to be pointed out? and what for? to bulk up discussion archives while nothing is done?

i think that this constant talk and all the bureaucratic procedures are there to actually avoid doing something. after all, what is "controversial" or "disputed" or vague about the following:

1. wikipedia is a general-purpose encyclopedia whose vast majority of readers are nonexperts/nonspecialists
2. it is an encyclopedia that "anyone can edit". how can it be taken seriously? that's like the "novel that anyone can write" or the "bridge that anyone can build" or the "medicine that anyone can practice".
3. the only way for it to be taken seriously is to make obvious that the information is correct + pertinent. this is done by making content easy to verify.
4. so a citation system to aid verification can be desirable and vital.
5. the wikipedia citation system: throw out everything you know about previous citation systems, because this is supposed to be a citation system for, and edited by, nonexperts (see point 1). this is the first time (afaik) any such citation system has been attempted. all previous citation systems were targeted to specialists, experts, researchers, or committed students of their fields.
6. it follows the main design principles should revolve around ease of understanding+verification (for readers) and ease of use+existence of expansive options (for editors). these are not the design principles other citation systems use.
7. once these design principles are firmly established, you can use any helpful element/procedure from other citation systems to speed implementation

assuming you see the validity of the above, you'll just design the proper system for it. imo, asking for the clarification of minutiae or procedure-talk such as "bring it to the right forum", is proof that the fundamental errors (imo again) of the current system are not obvious to you. i am not taking anything away from the work you've done so far and your willingness to do it, which is to be commended. however "fixing" or "enhancing" a system that is fundamentally wrong, is making it more so.

fine, i'll adjust. but when i point out what i think are flaws to the occasional bewildered user, i'd rather NOT have another "discussion" about it. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 16:32, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone figure out why this chapterurl isn't linking?

Siwek, Magdalena; Henseler, Christina; Broich, Karl; Papazoglou, Anna; Weiergräber, Marco (2012). "Voltage-Gated Ca²⁺ Channel Mediated Ca²⁺ Influx in Epileptogenesis". In Islam, Md. Shahidul (ed.). Calcium Signaling. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology. Vol. 740. pp. 1219–47. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-2888-2_55. ISBN 978-94-007-2887-5. PMID 22453990. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

thanks  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 19:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki needs the URI scheme (http:// in this case) to know that this is a link:

• books.google.com/books?id=8h-2oG-lsGoC&pg=PA1219
• http://books.google.com/books?id=8h-2oG-lsGoC&pg=PA1219

See WP:CS1PROBS for this and more issues. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:04, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

oh!!! doh!. thanks. i should have realized that  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 21:59, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

As of this writing, the Cite news template has the location field follow the agency field, rather than the newspaper/work field (see the "No author but sourced to a news agency" example in the documentation), which is confusing, since per the documentation the location field refers to the location of the newspaper ("[g]eographical place of publication"), not that of the news agency.

This has been discussed twice before (Archive 5: Agency, newspaper, and location and Archive 5: "Location" of newspaper vs. "Location" of byline), but no conclusion/consensus was reached. Would someone please be so kind as to fix this?—DocWatson42 (talk) 09:09, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree, this has needed fixing for a long time. The present situation is obviously illogical and wrong. (One of a number of such things often mentioned but never fixed.) -- Alarics (talk) 13:19, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Please provide examples of current format and how you think it should be. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:31, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

See Singapore, footnote 62, which says "AsiaOne. Agence France-Presse (Singapore)." when it obviously should be "AsiaOne (Singapore). Agence France-Presse." -- Alarics (talk) 17:52, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Another: The No author but sourced to a news agency example I referenced above, taken from the template's documentation:

• As it is: "Drugs: Chips trader gets 15 years, 10 strokes". Daily Express. Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. Bernama. 29 March 2007.
• As it should be: "Drugs: Chips trader gets 15 years, 10 strokes". Daily Express (Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia). Bernama. 29 March 2007.

—DocWatson42 (talk) 14:47, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Punting to Module talk:Citation/CS1#Position of "location" versus "agency" fields.

I am not sure if this has been discussed before, but why doesn't this template provide a 'notes=' parameter? For an example: {{cite book |last=Sykes |first=Bryan |year=2001 |title=[[The Seven Daughters of Eve]] |publisher=W. W. Norton |isbn=0-393-02018-5 |pages=291-92 |notes=Sykes discusses the difficulty in genealogically tracing a maternal lineage, due to the lack of matrilineal surnames (or matrinames)}}. Or, is there another way to add notes to a reference? Note that this "note" is not the same as "quotes", where the quotes would be quoting something from within the reference and "notes" would be noting something about the reference. --Thorwald (talk) 01:37, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't recall ever seeing notes in a citation. Why do you need notes to identify the source? --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:48, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you understood my question. Look at my example above. It has nothing to do with "identify[ing] the source"; it is about noting something about the reference/source. --Thorwald (talk) 01:52, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I understand the question, but question your assumption that citations should be annotated. The citation identifies the source material ins such a manner that the source can be located for verification. As best I see it, the note in your example should be in the content with the citation to support it. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:36, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

If the note is about the text and the source supports it, then I place the note within the footnote in front of the Citation, if the note is about the edition, then I place it in parentheses within the footnote, after the Citation.

Examples:

• <ref>2011 Census Village code = 621105, {{Cite web|title=Reports of National Panchayat Directory: List of Census Villages mapped for: Hoskera Gram Panchayat, Shahapur, Yadgir, Karnataka|publisher=Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India|url=http://panchayatdirectory.gov.in/adminreps/viewGPmapcvills.asp?gpcode=221153&rlbtype=V}}</ref>
  yields
  1. 2011 Census Village code = 621105, "Reports of National Panchayat Directory: List of Census Villages mapped for: Hoskera Gram Panchayat, Shahapur, Yadgir, Karnataka". Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India.
• <ref>{{Cite book|author=Kamath, Suryanath U.|year=1980|title=Concise history of Karnataka from pre-historic times to the present|location=Bangalore|publisher=Archana Prakashana|page=106|oclc=7796041}} (revised English version of his (1973) ''Karnatakada sankshipta itihasa'')</ref><ref>{{Cite book|author=Kamath, Suryanath U.|year=1980|title=Concise history of Karnataka from pre-historic times to the present|location=Bangalore|publisher=Archana Prakashana|page=106|oclc=7796041}} (revised English version of his (1973) ''Karnatakada sankshipta itihasa'')</ref>
  yields
  2. Kamath, Suryanath U. (1980). Concise history of Karnataka from pre-historic times to the present. Bangalore: Archana Prakashana. p. 106. OCLC 7796041. (revised English version of his (1973) Karnatakada sankshipta itihasa)
  

--Bejnar (talk) 23:57, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

for the 2nd example, assuming the 1973 version is the original, and guessing the language to be Hindi, i would do this: Kamath, Suryanath U. (1980) [originally published 1973 in Hindi as Karnatakada sankshipta itihasa]. Concise history of Karnataka from pre-historic times to the present (revised English-language ed.). Bangalore: Archana Prakashana. p. 106. OCLC 7796041. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 13:57, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

On 18 February 2013 (Monday), the Scribunto interface for Lua script modules is planned to be installed on English Wikipedia (announced in wp:PUMPTECH). No cite templates will be affected during the first week. This first week is only for installation testing, and editors have been asked not to change any live templates, in case Lua must be removed for adjustments. However, next month, we need to consider changing some minor cite templates (not yet {cite web} or {cite book} ) to use Module:Citation (coming soon), which supports almost all current parameters, to format just a few cites, for initial use. As confidence grows, then other cite templates can be changed to use Lua script. Meanwhile, it appears, with the planned Lua design, that a future change to any Lua-based cite will require reformatting of all 1.7 million articles which have been using Template:Citation/core. Hence, we need to think about splitting the Lua-based templates, into test groups, such as:

• Module:Citation - originally planned to handle all cite templates
• Module:Citation/sandbox - to test Lua changes which might derail cite templates
• Module:Citation/CS1 - Lua module with Citation Style 1 format
• Template:Cite_encyclopedia/lua - proposed Lua-based template, for comparison
• Template:Cite_web/lua - the proposed Lua-based template, for comparison
• Template:Cite_web/markup - the current markup-based template, for comparison
• Template:Cite_book/markup - the current markup-based template, for comparison
• Template:Cite_journal/markup - the current markup-based template

As Lua-based templates are installed, the current template names will be reused: the original Template:Cite_encyclopedia would be rewritten to simply #invoke the Lua Module:Citation, and an old Template:Cite_encyclopedia/markup could contain the prior markup-based template, to compare if new Lua features failed to support the same parameters. Another issue: the Lua-based cite templates have been implemented to again include the COinS metadata, but the overall size and speed of the Lua-based templates will be much smaller and faster than when COinS data was added by markup-based templates. As format differences are fixed, then more cite templates can be switched to use the Lua-based variations. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:03, 16 February, 11:29, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

• Working on Lua to show same cite format: There have been some differences in the format of the Lua-based cite templates. Currently, {Cite_web/Lua} shows the equivalent for {Cite_web}:

• Cite: {{cite web | title=My Page | last1=Doe | first=John | publisher=Acme |location=London | url=http://www.google.com |date=5 May 2009 |volume=II | issue=3 |page=6 |accessdate=8 Febrary 2013}}
• Cite_journal: Doe, John (5 May 2009). "My Page". II (3). London: Acme: 6. Retrieved 8 Febrary 2013. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Cite_web now: Doe, John (5 May 2009). "My Page". London: Acme. p. 6. http://www.google.com. Retrieved 8 Febrary 2013.
• Cite_web/lua : Doe, John (5 May 2009). "My Page". London: Acme. p. 6. Retrieved 8 Febrary 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

To get parameters to match the same format, then lines of Lua script must be moved around into the same order. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:29, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

There is a similar issue with handling of the "origyear" parameter as shown by:

• Cite_web now: Cookridge, E. H. (1972) [©1967]. "The Baron of Arizona". New York: Ballantine Books. OCLC 32333347.
• Cite_web/lua : Cookridge, E. H. (1972) [©1967]. "The Baron of Arizona". New York: Ballantine Books. OCLC 32333347. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)

--Allen3 ^talk 11:46, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks, I have switched us to Lua Module:Citation/CS1 to adjust for CS1 format, because other editors perhaps want the initial Module:Citation to show another style for origyear and such. Formerly, page numbers listed near the end, so I have shifted them back near the end, to match CS1. Values for volume=II and issue=3 are shown now, although {cite_web} had ignored those parameters. The results in Lua are very close now. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:54/17:56, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I noticed that seemingly all the "cite" templates have two instances of |seperator= when |separator=} is clearly intended. I haven't tested what effect fixing the typo would have, so I won't implement it – I'll leave it to someone who's more familiar with the templates.

Seperately Separately, it might be nice to wrap all the templates in <includeonly>; right now it looks like the documentation on most template pages is preceded by a stray period (except template:cite web, which does have an includeonly wrapper: ).--Father Goose (talk) 21:48, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

What you are seeing is {{{separator|{{{seperator}}}, which means if there is a parameter named separator, then use it else if there is a parameter named seperator, then use it. The latter is a common mispelling; it was added before I got into these templates, but I am sure there was a reason, and it doesn't really hurt anything. These duplicated parameters are known as aliases, and are heavily used in the citation templates for a variety of reasons. Most are documented, but this one is for a spelling error and I did not see any reason to tell editors they can use it.

I hate wrapping a template in <noinclude> when there isn't a real reason. If someone makes a mistake, it is not at all obvious when the template doesn't show. {{Cite web}} has it because there is a check for title and it shows a red error message. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:44, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

I see. Thank you.--Father Goose (talk) 06:11, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Citations using cite web may have a date or an accessdate, or both, specified within each entry. The date may appear near the beginning of the citation if author details are present, or near the end of the citation if no author details are shown. In many cases there may be a mix of date styles such as February 27, 2013 and 27 February 2013 within a list of citations.

When citation lists are presented as two or more columns, and the text of each citation therefore wraps to multiple lines, I don't find it easy to look through the list. I am sometimes looking for an entry with a particular date, or looking for entries before, or after, a particular date. I often find I am looking at the "retrieved" date rather than the article date, or vice versa. The accessdate is dependant on the editor adding the entry, and is not a part of the data created by the author or publisher of the original article.

I notice that several non-English Wikis have already overcome this difficulty in a very simple manner. They present the "retrieved" date (and the preceding word) in a slightly smaller typeface than the rest of the citation text (but still quite a bit larger than the "subscription required" or "registration required" text that appears on some entries).

Could this simple change be considered here in the English Wiki?-- 86.136.109.181 (talk) 20:55, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

We do wrap the accessdate text in a span with a CSS class attached, which you could use your browser (or a login plus your personal CSS) to even hide if you wanted. I don't think for IPs that this will change otherwise, however. (No comment on whether it should or should not.) --Izno (talk) 22:07, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I updated Help:Citation Style 1/accessdate to show how to make it show smaller if you have an account. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 03:04, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Lua versions of CS1 templates are available for {{Cite web/lua}}, {{Cite news/lua}}, {{Cite journal/lua}} and {{Cite encyclopedia/lua}}. Please test but do not use in live articles. Report issues at Module talk:Citation/CS1. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

• Also {cite book/lua} but timeout problems: I have also added {{Cite book/lua}}; however, there have been some serious problems with the Lua-based cites hitting the 10-second Lua timeout error (and showing cites as "Script error"), so they are not yet reliable for use in large articles. Others have reported Lua problems with many templates per page. We need to re-focus on faster markup-based templates, in case Lua cites cannot be used in large articles. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:23, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi! At Template:Cite web I noticed that the "Full parameter set" (either horizontal or vertical format) does not include parameters regarding the editor(s), but it does discuss the issue in detail (Template:Cite_web#Editors). I tried to use editor-first and last - and they actually did work. Shouldn't they be included in the full set? Sorry, if I asked something stupid here! Zoli79 (talk) 16:03, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I have updated a lot of the CS1 documentation, but I have done only minor work on the copy/paste parameters sets. Please update as desired. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:45, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

OK, done. Zoli79 (talk) 19:10, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

In the {{cite episode}} template, there are several deprecated parameters, such as "serieslink" and "episodelink" which are listed under "Parameters" as deprecated; however, they are still used in the copy & paste example at the top of the /doc page, under "Usage: Full parameter set in horizontal format". They really shouldn't be listed there, if they are deprecated. This needs to be updated. --Funandtrvl (talk) 17:18, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

See previous discussion. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:40, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

It is very common these days that articles are published online before the printed version, often in the year before the printed version is published. In such cases, an article may be cited using only the year and the digital object identifier, e.g.

Doe J (2010). "Article title". Journal name. DOI: 00000000000

Then the printed version may be published in the following year (2011), and Vol., No. and pp. become available to be used in citations. Also after the printed version has been published, it's common to continue citing the article using the original (first) year of publication.

How can this problem be solved when using this template? In such cases, the citation should ideally include both original year of publication (ahead of print) and the citation of the printed article. Bjerrebæk (talk) 19:58, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

origyear: Original publication year; displays after the date or year. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:25, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

You should give information pertaining to the edition which you actually consulted. There may be differences between the editions. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:41, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

There are seldom any differences between a version published online before print and the printed version of the same article. It is sometimes useful to have the actual full, correct citation, e.g. in a list of publications. Bjerrebæk (talk) 15:29, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I have always taken "original year of publication" to be that of something that was subsequently republished. The cases referred to here are actually prepublication. And it seems to me that (in the sciences at least) the "real" date of publication is that of the printed item. I think we ought to give this some consideration. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:16, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The plan is to switch {cite_encyclopedia}, soon, to use the Lua-based template, as a first phase, to ensure proper handling of parameters. The output has been tested for the Lua version to match the basic functionality:

• Parameters: {{...| |last=Doe |first=J.B. |authorlink=John Doe|editor-first=Edie |editor-last=Tor |editor-link=Editor |encyclopedia=My Encyclopaedia |title=Mein Artikel |trans_title=My Article |url=http://www.aeiou.com |accessdate=5 March 2013 |language=German |edition=2012 |date=1 December 2012 |year= |month= |publisher=AEIOU Staff |volume=IV |location=Vienna |id= |isbn=1234567890 |oclc=Oclc 45 |doi=10.DOI_number |pages=77 |quote=This is a direct quote |ref=harv}}
• Cite encyclopedia/old: Doe, J.B. (1 December 2012). "Mein Artikel". In Tor, Edie (in German). My Encyclopaedia [My Article]. IV (2012 ed.). Vienna: AEIOU Staff. pp. 77. doi:10.DOI_number. ISBN 1234567890 {{isbn}}: Check isbn value: checksum (help). OCLC 45 Oclc 45. http://www.aeiou.com. Retrieved 5 March 2013. "This is a direct quote"
• Cite encyclopedia/lua: Doe, J.B. (1 December 2012). "Mein Artikel". In Tor, Edie (ed.). My Encyclopaedia (in German). Vol. IV (2012 ed.). Vienna: AEIOU Staff. p. 77. doi:10.DOI_number. ISBN 1234567890. OCLC Oclc 45. Retrieved 5 March 2013. This is a direct quote {{cite encyclopedia}}: Check |doi= value (help); Check |isbn= value: checksum (help); Check |oclc= value (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)

Among the slight differences, the option "trans_title" seems more applicable to follow the article title in an encyclopedia, but either way, a user can enter the title of the encyclopedia with an appended translation in square brackets "[__]". The parentheses around the publisher name should probably be removed, as too many items in the curved brackets. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:06, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I am deleting format=PDF from the examples (four instances) in Template:Cite journal/doc. This specification is rarely used and should not be encouraged, as it clutters up the endnote with a "(PDF)" that is wholly unnecessary; the  symbol provides the relevant information. Besides being a distraction for the reader, this usage often leads to inconsistent citation style, since other .pdf references in the same article seldom use this parameter. Peter Brown (talk) 17:35, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The pdf icon isn't displayed when the url does not include the .pdf extension and not all urls do even though they address a pdf document.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I did not know that. Nevertheless, the use of format=PDF should be discouraged when the .pdf extension is present, as in the Template:Cite journal/doc examples:

• Aries, Myriam B. C.; and Newsham, Guy R. (2008). "Effect of daylight saving time on lighting energy use: a literature review" (PDF). Energy Policy. 36 (6): 1858–1866. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2007.05.021. Retrieved September 1, 2009.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

• Woodin, W. Hugh (2001). "The Continuum Hypothesis, Part I" (PDF). Notices of the AMS. 48 (6). Providence, RI, USA: American Mathematical Society: 567–576. ISSN 1088-9477. OCLC 34550461.

Perhaps Trappist the monk or someone else can update the documentation with an example without the .pdf, making clear that format=PDF is only appropriate in such cases. Peter Brown (talk) 18:16, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Format=PDF is also useful for installations that don't load images and for WP:ACCESSIBILITY reasons. I think Format=PDF should be compulsory for all pdf files. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

See Help:External link icons for details. The link icons have no alt text, thus do not meet accessibility standards. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:41, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

External link icons are surely not what WP:ACCESSIBILITY#Images and other policies and guidelines have in mind. Wikipedia:Image use policy, for example, requires that images have an image description; this is not applicable to these icons. Anyhow, if  and  were images in Wikipedia's sense, then, even if format= were used, their use would violate WP:ACCESSIBILITY since they don't have alt text. Peter Brown (talk) 21:34, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I have for a long time been routinely deleting format=PDF from references when the URL ends in .pdf, but not when it doesn't. Although, I must say I don't really see why people need to be warned anyway that a document is in that format. Surely all browsers nowadays have a PDF reader built in? -- Alarics (talk) 21:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Only Firefox and Chrome have PDF readers built in. Not every computer or tablet can read PDFs out of the box. Not everybody needs to have a PDF reader installed. Also, not all PDFs can be "read" via a screen reader. While many PDFs will work fine, only PDFs that are PDF/UA complaint will be guaranteed to work with screen readers. Only a few non-free products can create PDF/UA and not by default. Anything scanned and turned into a PDF will not work with screen readers. Bgwhite (talk) 23:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Whether or not a tablet can read PDFs, (PDF) and  are redundant. If the user doesn't have the PDF software, either indicates that the source is not directly available. Deleting format=PDF when the URL ends in .pdf still makes sense.

Screen readers are another matter, and many of us are not familiar with the technology. Bgwhite, would you explain further? Can screen-reader users follow external links at all? If not,  and (PDF) are equally useless, so including format=PDF is of no help. Suppose, though, that they can follow links. Do the icons register the presence of an external link that might be followed? If they don't, some text indication should be provided in connection with  as well as with . Peter Brown (talk) 00:31, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm certain that screen readers can follow external links; but I don't know what happens when the target is a PDF file. I shall invite Graham87 (talk · contribs) here, who probably knows more than most people about the capabilities and limitations of screen reader software. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:08, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about this discussion. Yes, screen readers work with many, but not all PDF documents, as Bgwhite said above. I've always been a stickler for adding format=pdf or similar to links to any PDF files, because I do appreciate a warning that a link is in PDF format (the Adobe PDF plugins are slower than browsers with my screen reader JAWS, and the layout is obviously different). Until I read this conversation, I had no idea that a PDF icon came up automatically when a PDF file is directly linked. Alt text should be added to these icons, which would benefit not just screen reader users but also people who don't use images. Once the alt text is added, the format parameter can be depricated for all direct links to file formats with automatically generated icons, and a bot should go through and clean up all the redundant format parameters. Graham87 09:50, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

T47891 - External link icons should have alt text. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:33, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Even if the link icons gained alt text and that rendered the parameter largely redundant, we'd still have the visual inconsistency that some links have an icon and other links will have the text. I'm sorry, but I'll stick to consistently adding |format=PDF to all citations to PDFs (or any other non-HTML-based source). Imzadi 1979 → 10:38, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

That suggests a larger problem with pdfs. We'd serve users better by distinguishing the purely scanned-image pdfs from those that have accompanying text. This applies not just to users of screen readers, but also to bandwidth-limited and mobile users. A scanned-image pdf of a book can be tens of megabytes.LeadSongDog come howl! 14:25, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Imzadi1979, your response is puzzling. There is currently an inconsistency in that format= is sometimes used for  but never for . Graham87's proposal, providing alt text for both and using a bot to eliminate format=PDF where it is redundant, would get rid of the inconsistency. Are you opposed? Peter Brown (talk) 15:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

No, it shouldn't be. |format=PDF is telling the reader that the link is to a PDF, just as |format=MrSid tells a reader that a map is in the MrSid format. Both are potential warnings that additional software may be required to access the link. The fact that the MediaWiki software includes an icon for PDFs is irrelevant to that notice. My point is that if half of the links in an article's references have the PDF icon without "(PDF)" appearing, and the other half lack the icon but contain "(PDF)", there is still an inconsistency in visual display, and I'll err on the side of always including the format notation regardless if the link generates a graphic or not. Imzadi 1979 → 00:45, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, if that view is accepted we should surely abolish the PDF icon altogether since there is no need for both, and it just becomes more irrelevant clutter. -- Alarics (talk) 07:46, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

abolish ALL such icons, not just the PDF. the |format= and its output provide more exacting and understandable information. in the doc, suggest to editors, that the "format" field's data should be linked, at least in first use. i do not understand the argument about "citation style inconsistencies". surely this is an article-style problem that should be fixed at the article, not at the citation system level. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 15:22, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

What is the appropriate use of accessdate when a page is archived or dead? My initial feeling was that the accessdate applies to the archival page (if it exists) and otherwise to the "main" page which has been archived or is dead. Is there guidance somewhere? --Izno (talk) 00:34, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Access date is simply the date the link was accessed, usually the date it was added. There is no requirement to include it, and it can be hidden by registered users. It is mainly useful for a web page that changes frequently, or when there is no discernible publication date. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:06, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

If the page is dead, and there is an access date, the latter apparently can serve to locate an archive version that most closely matches the date the citation was placed, but such utility is IMHO debatable. If there is an online archive of the article, I think it makes little sense to leave an access date that serves a purpose no longer. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:22, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I believe I'm the one who argued that, in fact, and applied just that logic today in cleaning up some citations. :) I might agree with the latter sentence, but I'd like thoughts on the below question before I do so. --Izno (talk) 04:54, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but for which link? The archive link or the archived link? I suppose it seems a little incredulous to expect the archive link to go down... --Izno (talk) 04:53, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

however, it does happen (at least temporarily). i always archive online sources (when allowed), preferably at WebCite, and have encountered service disruptions several times. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 14:06, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion: when the original link is dead, then there is no need for an access date, as the archive has an archive date that will normally not change. Where the original link is still live then the access date is useful if there is no publication date, regardless of whether it is preemptively archive. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:57, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

If you are adding an |accessdate=, it pertains to the original |url=. The |archivedate= (although being the date that the archiving service grabbed the page and not the date when you viewed it) does a similar job for |archiveurl= - we know that the archived page isn't going to change further. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:30, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but our ability to access the archived page might [change]. That's the only Pandora's box I'm opening here. :) If the lesser consensus here disagrees with me, that's fine, and I'll remove (or at least, not add) accessdates when the cited pages are archived. To that end, I'm not sure the below proposal captures the point I'm making. --Izno (talk) 18:09, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

As far as I know, {{cite web}} is the only citation template that requires title= not be blank, e.g.

{{cite web | title= | url=http://www.foo.com/ | first=James | Last = Ford }} = Ford, James. http://www.foo.com/. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

{{cite news | title= | url=http://www.foo.com/ | first=James | Last = Ford }} = Ford, James. http://www.foo.com/. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

while at the same time cite web, for some reason, allows the URL to be omitted:

{{cite web | title=Bob | url= | first=James | Last = Ford }} = Ford, James. "Bob". {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)

{{cite news | title=Bob | url= | first=James | Last = Ford }} = Ford, James. "Bob".

This situation makes no particular sense to me. Shouldn't something called "cite web" require a URL? Also, isn't the lack of a title generally a problematic omission in all cases? For example, using {{cite book}} without naming the book seems silly.

In working on the Lua migration of the citation templates, I'm wondering what to do about the error conditions. We can, of course, enforce a rule that {{cite web}} must have a title but not the other templates, if that is what's needed. But that seems rather arbitrary. Do people here have suggestions for what error checks you would like to see? Dragons flight (talk) 04:57, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I find it sensible that when a URL is produced, there should be a forced title for all of the templates. cite web might be the special case where the title is expected to be an online one (not sure that's relevant).

Forcing a URL though? Not sure about that. Even if it is cite web. --Izno (talk) 13:39, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

{{Cite encyclopedia}} now uses the Lua version. Please report any issues. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:48, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

{{Cite Nuttall}}, which relies on this template, is broken (editorlink param). Bob Burkhardt (talk) 22:08, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I fixed it, but it was never a Lua issue. That template was broken due to an erroneous edit last June. Dragons flight (talk) 22:26, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 01:49, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

the replacement of the modular {{cite encyclopedia}} application/{{citation/core}} backend with the present iteration of the monolithic citation/cs citation/cs1 script is a mixed bag.

i didn't test enough to see if there are coding bugs (this should be done by the developers prior to deployment. syntax flaws are UNACCEPTABLE). several glaring logic bugs (the nonsensical dependencies among parameters) have been happily removed. some design bugs, namely the equally nonsensical unavailability of the full parameter set to the citation class have also been fixed. unfortunately other, equally glaring and potentially show-stopping design bugs remain. the most serious is the fact that the porting retains the parameter ambiguity of the previous system when it comes to args.title. this may mean either (a) title a work fragment (eg periodicals) or (b) title of the whole work (eg book). this also unacceptable ambiguity leads to uneccessary and inefficient workarounds of the args.booktitle kind.

as with all bugs it can lead to unexpected results such as below:

*{{cite encyclopedia|ref=harv|last=Author|date=2013|editor-last=Editor|article=Article|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia|type=Type}}

cf. {{cite book}}:

*{{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author|date=2013|editor-last=Editor|contribution=Article|title=Encyclopedia|type=Type}}

as you see, the positioning and punctuation of type in the encyclopedia citation is wrong. this is because type is coded to come after (work) title. but in the encyclopedia/periodical case it instead appears after (fragment) title. the software has no routine to distinguish between the two. such a routine shouldn't be written; instead the parameters should be renamed and the relevant doc be rewritten so there is no semantic ambiguity.

my current evaluation of the lua-based citation implementation is neutral. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 12:43, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Re title: I think you are referring to the title issue described in Module_talk:Citation/CS1#Weird_link_formatting_for_encyclopedia_class this discussion, where the old version used title in an odd manner that caused odd output. This has been fixed. I have reported the issue with type (which was not supported in the old version). I will work on the documentation. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:16, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

i'm referring to the fact that title may mean either a work title (args.BookTitle=args.Title) or a fragment title (see section "-- Account for the oddity that is {{cite conference}}, before generation of COinS data."). this messes type up, as evident in the local tcommon routines of Module:Citation/CS1. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 14:36, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, "title" has an ambiguous meaning that usually translates as "article title", but sometimes translates as "encyclopedia title" or similar. We can't standardize that without breaking the existing base of citations, so it won't be fixed. Regarding "type", it has never been on the list of parameters expected by "cite encyclopedia", so it isn't something we test against (same with "series" and "issue" and "agency", and other options that aren't even supposed to be used for cite encyclopedias). We don't currently check whether the user submitted an invalid parameter set with extra options, though we might in the future. Dragons flight (talk) 15:08, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

P.S. If people want to add additional options, like type=, to classes that don't currently use them then we can work on making sure that they will look right; however, it would be up to users to define what parameters they want to support. Dragons flight (talk) 15:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

nope, this is wrong. it is much more important to fix meaning ambiguous to humans than to guarantee compatibility for software. first, find a way to correct the ambiguity even if it takes all your time and resources. THEN you can proceed with deployment of the new system without the old bugs. this is a unique opportunity to make the citation system understandable and logical. your way consigns a vitally important function of wikipedia to continuing confusion.

what set of parameters had been "expected" by {{cite encyclopedia}} is irrelevant. expected by whom? and when? if adding the full set of params to citation classes will not unduly break performance, then they should be there, period. and the code should properly present any and all parameters to readers. let the editors decide what to use, don't dictate to them. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 15:42, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

"Title" is accepted as an ambiguous word in the printed style manuals that inspired the cite templates. For example, Chicago Manual of Style 16th ed. p. 661 states "titles of larger works (e.g., books and journals) are italicized; and titles of smaller works (e.g., chapters, articles) are presented in roman and enclosed in quotation marks." If you want to change the parameter names now, it is up to you to think of a way to automatically change all the existing instances of the templates in the encyclopedia, and change all the software that helps people create citation templates. If you can't do that, or you can't find a way to live with the ambiguity, you will have to abandon your project. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:29, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Lets look at what is going on here with title:

The old version of cite encyclopedia included:

|Title={{{encyclopedia|{{{title|}}}}}}
|TransTitle={{{trans_chapter|}}}
|TransItalic={{{trans_title|}}}
|IncludedWorkTitle={{{title|{{{article|}}}}}}

So, if you defined title but not encyclopedia then title would be displayed twice:

The old method is just plain wrong. I discussed this before with little response and let it go. I should have fixed it then and there and we would not be here. I think we should treat title as the quote marked included title and fix uses as they come up. I also think we should do the same with the old template, which may be reused on other wikis. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Gadget850, are you suggesting that within the "cite encyclopedia" template, the parameter "title" means the title of an article, but within other types of cite template, such as "cite book", it could mean something else? Because it seemed to me that 70.19.122.39 wanted "title" to always mean the same thing for all citation style 1 templates.

But it already doesn't always mean the same thing, and I think it's too late to change. E.g. in {{cite book}} it's the title of a book while in {{cite conference}} it's the title of an article within a book (and the book title is given by the |booktitle= parameter). —David Eppstein (talk) 17:30, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

and in {{cite news}} or {{cite journal}} it's the title of the article within the work. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:58, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes, title varies among templates. The problem is that these templates were developed separately and then updated to use core. When I updated cite conference, I had to use the parameters that were already in use. For encyclopedia, it should mean the article within the encyclopedia and nothing else. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:11, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

the limitations of the old setup are known. just see the logical + linguistic hoops in the posts above. if in {{cite conference}} title means "paper title" why not rename the param paper? it is unambiguous and exactly describes the cited item. similarly in {{cite news}} etc. why not just use article instead of title? an article is what is being cited, and i challenge anybody to prove that editors will understand article to mean something other that "article title". this is/was a unique opportunity to design a citation system that is logical and accessible from the ground up. as well as establish an ancillary manual of style (the doc) for editors and readers that is simple and readily understandable by non-experts, so let's forget the expert-based systems for the moment. a parallel citation system based on lua or whatever could be designed correctly to coexist with the present, and editors should be given guidance to use it for new citations, while (with some automation) the older style is gradually replaced. or, and to continue with title in a very rough example: define eg book as an additional alias for work/title in {{citation/core}} and {{cite book}} (<- the main offender). replace all instances of title in the {{cite book}} code with book. automate the replacement of |title= with |book= in article space {{cite book}} citations. then at least you will be left with title unambiguously meaning title of fragment-of-work. and even that should be phased out because we don't cite "titles". we cite works that may be articles, books, films, signs, etc. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 13:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

If we were starting from scratch, I would write a specification to work from. But, we have 23 base templates that were independently created. They have been kludged to fit the CS1 style and work pretty well considering.

3Es: engineering, education, enforcement. {{Cite conference}} has been mentioned. It uses title for the included work and booktitle for the main work. It has just under 5000 uses. We could update the parameters, make booktitle throw an error message and use a bot to fix all the uses. But trying to educate all the editors in the new use is going to involve pain and heartache. Or; we could just keep it as is and use the Lua technology to make it work transparently. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:26, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

i too, enjoy a good joke, but this is not very funny. in this very thread i show how handling of at least one error by the present lua implementation is anything but transparent. now whether the "klutzes" that make up the markup-based CS1 performed well is surely a matter of opinion. discussions in several talk pages about problem after problem (real or perceived) seem to suggest otherwise. the point is that the lua implementation is starting from scratch. it completely does away with the previous setup, using (at this point) templates only as wrappers for calling modules and passing them parameters+data. it could (should) have been designed intelligently to do away with all the bugs plaguing the previous system whether these are bugs in code, logic, process, or design. but right now the implementation, and comments on this thread, show that this is not the case, and it may be hopeless. so much for "lua technology" (?) fixing the citation system, solving the eurozone crisis, and brewing everybody a nice cup of tea. as a sidenote, it is interesting how the first reaction of yourself and others is finding an explanation to deny change requests by editors, instead of finding a way to actually implement them. and most of the editor requests imo are legitimate: that is why many are submitted again and again by different editors through weeks, months, and years. the explanations on the other hand, seem trivial: (a) well, that's how it's been done... (b) some irrelevant manual says so (as if we're publishing for a university press, specialist house, or the new york times) (c) can't do it because some editor might disagree about some vaguely defined item and then what are we going to do... (d) let's have an rfc! no, make that a hundred (e) there have been lots and lots of discussions that had no conclusion, so there (this actually is a nice example of recursion or self-reference, as most of the negative comments in these discussions are by those who then bring this up as an argument) (f) i have a toothache (ok the last is probably original research). fun in la-la land. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 00:18, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

You seem to misunderstand. The Lua implementation of citations is not starting from scratch. One of the design requirements is to fully support the existing parameter set so that existing templates can be migrated to Lua without losing the content of the preexisting citations throughout Wikipedia. That means working around any number of stupid historical choices for parameter naming and function. We can still fix many formatting and logic bugs (and we are working on that; it is still early), but we need to support all of the historical use cases which limits the set of changes that are possible. It was never the plan to make Lua citations completely independent of the currently existing template scheme. While there could be some value in reengineering everything from scratch, and rethinking parameter specifications and such, that is not what we are doing here. Dragons flight (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

This is one of the reasons I prefer {{citation}}: one set of params to remember instead of 23 subtly-different sets. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:38, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

According to the CS1 standard, the options the page=, pages=, and at= can all be used to provide page information, but no more than one of these is ever displayed, with page= overriding pages= and both overriding at=. As part of the Lua migration, we have added the hidden category Category:References with multiple page specifications to any page where a reference tries to simultaneously use more than one of these options. This will allow these conflicting parameters sets to be identified and cleaned up. Dragons flight (talk) 17:49, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I think it would be better to throw a red error message in such cases, rather than just using a category, that way, the editor adding the superfluous detail is alerted to it. Otherwise, a subsequent editor nay not know which of the values given is correct. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:13, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I had been considering that as well. I think that both page and pages are added when the editor is including the number of pages in the work, which we don't need. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:19, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

In the future I would agree with you, but not during the Lua migration. To simply turn on an error message that is likely to hit some few thousand pages (once all citation modes are migrated) seems unnecessarily disruptive. If after the migration the backlog gets cleared, then I think it would make sense to convert this to a visible error. Dragons flight (talk) 15:25, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I concur, though not for the reasons Editor Andy Mabbett suggests. I've been plodding through the articles listed at Category:Articles with incorrect citation syntax. Finding the broken citations is relatively easy when there is a red error message. You'd think that editors would see the red error text and fix their citations. Apparently not.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:33, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

pertinent examples are emphasized. i suspect whitespace is the prob.

{{harvnb|Author|2000}}
{{harvnb|Author|2001}}
{{strong|{{harvnb|Author|2002}}}}
{{strong|{{harvnb|Author|2003}}}}
{{harvnb|Author|2004}}

(Bibliography)
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author|date=1 January 2000|title=Title}}
* {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author|title=Title|publication-date=2001}}
* {{strong|{{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author|title=Title|publication-date=January 2002}}}}
* {{strong|{{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author|title=Title|publication-date=1 January 2003}}}}
* {{cite book|ref={{harvid|Author|2004}}|last=Author|title=Title|publication-date=1 January 2004}}
{{refend}}

70.19.122.39 (talk) 14:24, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The five {{harvnb}} are generating links to, in order, href="#CITEREFAuthor2000" href="#CITEREFAuthor2001" href="#CITEREFAuthor2002" href="#CITEREFAuthor2003" href="#CITEREFAuthor2004" whereas the generated anchors are id="CITEREFAuthor2000" id="CITEREFAuthor2001" id="CITEREFAuthorJanuary_2002" id="CITEREFAuthor1_January_2003" id="CITEREFAuthor2004" But the |harv=ref code only uses |publication-date= as a fallback, when both |year= and |date= are absent:

{{harvnb|Author|2010}}
{{harvnb|Author|2011}}
{{strong|{{harvnb|Author|2012}}}}
{{strong|{{harvnb|Author|2013}}}}
{{harvnb|Author|2014}}

(Bibliography)
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author|date=1 January 2010|title=Title}}
* {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author|title=Title|date=2011-01-01}}
* {{strong|{{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author|title=Title|date=January 2012}}}}
* {{strong|{{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author|title=Title|date=1 January 2013}}}}
* {{cite book|ref={{harvid|Author|2014}}|last=Author|title=Title|date=1 January 2014}}
{{refend}}

|publication-date= is intended for use in addition to, not instead of, |date=, so when you only have one, it's best to use |date=. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:30, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Correct: It is the date of publication when different from the date the work was written. A real example:

White, T.H. (1941). The Book of Merlyn. University of Texas Press (published 1977). {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:00, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

i think you guys misunderstood.

|publication-date= passes data to hrefs when (a) only the year is given (b) the href is input with date formated exactly as the data in the "publication-date" field, or (c) {{harvid}} is used

(a){{harvnb|Author3|2012}}
* {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author3|publication-date=2012|title=Title}}
(b){{harvnb|Author4|Jan 1, 2012}}
* {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author4|publication-date=Jan 1, 2012|title=Title}}
 (c){{harvnb|Author5|2012}}
* {{cite book|ref={{harvid|Author5|2012}}|last=Author5|publication-date=Jan 1, 2012|title=Title}}

when a citation is formatted with a verbose date (eg Jan 1, 2012) template code tries to extract year from |date=, and this is passed to |ref=harv.

{{harvnb|Author1|2012}}
*{{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author1|date=Jan 1, 2012|title=Title}}

but this does not happen with |publication-date=.

{{harvnb|Author2|2012}}
*{{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author2|publication-date=Jan 1, 2012|title=Title}}

this is a bug. pls fix.

the suggestion to use |date= when only the publication date is known presents several problems.

what happens in online sources (eg {{cite web}}) when neither work date nor pub. date are known? do we input the access date in |date=?

if not, there's an inconsistency. [when no other date is known, and for verification purposes (the reason citations exist) the access date is the defacto "publication date", which should then subst into |date= per your argument].

on the other hand, if the access date should become the variable data for |date= then the dependency between |accessdate= and |url= should be undone to avoid errors.

and what about archival dates when |deadurl=yes? another clarification should be provided.

secondly, |publication-date= has obvious semantic significance for editors/citation providers. substitution with |date= should not be encouraged. instead |publication-date= should be promoted to the same status as |date= within the template when |date= is absent. similarly for online sources |accessdate= should be promoted when |date= and |publication-date= is absent. and so on for |archivedate=.

or, just do the lazy thing and remove |publication-date= altogether from CS1.

70.19.122.39 (talk) 00:19, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it does not happen with |publication-date= but it is not a bug; it is a side-effect of the non-use of other parameters. Quite frankly I don't know why we attempt to extract a year from |publication-date= in the first place, since |publication-date= (see documentation) is intended to be supplementary to either |date= or |year= (see documentation).

Access dates must only be placed in the |accessdate= parameter (see documentation), no other parameter is intended for this.

The |ref= parameter (see documentation) is pretty much free-form. It is provided so that a manually-constructed anchor may be attached to the {{cite book}} when the special value |ref=harv does not give a suitable anchor. Use of the {{harvid}} template is not obligatory: it is a tool for constructing an anchor which is consistent with the links generated by templates like {{harv}}, {{harvnb}} and {{sfn}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:58, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I need to fix the doc for this parameter. Somehow I thought the field did not display if year or date were not defined. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:46, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

No, that is how it works. If publication-date but not date, then publication-date is used as date and the anchor is formed:

{{cite book |last=White |first=T.H. |authorlink=T. H. White |title=The Book of Merlyn |date=1941 |publication-date=1977 |publisher= University of Texas Press |ref=harv}}

{{cite book |last=White |first=T.H. |authorlink=T. H. White |title=The Book of Merlyn |publication-date=1977 |publisher= University of Texas Press |ref=harv}}

{{cite book |last=White |first=T.H. |authorlink=T. H. White |title=The Book of Merlyn |publication-date=1 May 1977 |publisher= University of Texas Press |ref=harv}}

This should work. Let me look at the original examples again. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:23, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Here is what is happening: {{harvnb}} is including the year only in the link and {{cite book}} is including the full date in the anchor, causing a mismatch:

{{harvnb|Author|2013}}

{{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author|publication-date=Jan 1, 2013|title=Title}}

If you include the full date in {{harvnb}}, then it works:

{{harvnb|Author|Jan 1, 2014}}

{{cite book|ref=harv|last=Author|publication-date=Jan 1, 2014|title=Title}}

At this point, we can debate whether to include the full date in {{harvnb}} or to change the cite templates to include only the year in the anchor. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:43, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

It would be a massive change to put a full date into {{harvnb}} and related templates; people are very much used to using the year alone. As things stand, the cite templates already include only the year in the anchor if you use |date=. It is only |publication-date= where there is inconsistency. See my post of 15:30, 13 March 2013

If we should build the harv anchor from |publication-date=, we should do so in the same manner as |date=. That is, instead of:

|Year={{{year|{{    <!-- attempt to derive year from date, if possible -->
           #if: {{{date|}}}
           |{{
              #iferror:{{#time:Y|{{{date|}}} }}
              |{{#iferror:{{#time:Y|{{{publication-date|einval}}} }}||{{#time:Y|{{{publication-date|}}} }}}}
              |{{#time:Y|{{{date|}}} }}
            }}
           |{{{publication-date|}}} <!-- last resort -->
         }}
      }}}

we should put

|Year={{{year|{{    <!-- attempt to derive year from date, if possible -->
           #if: {{{date|}}}
           |{{
              #iferror:{{#time:Y|{{{date|}}} }}
              |{{#iferror:{{#time:Y|{{{publication-date|einval}}} }}||{{#time:Y|{{{publication-date|}}} }}}}
              |{{#time:Y|{{{date|}}} }}
            }}
           |{{#iferror:{{#time:Y|{{{publication-date|}}} }}||{{#time:Y|{{{publication-date|}}} }}}} <!-- last resort -->
         }}
      }}}

--Redrose64 (talk) 14:05, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree. I just got publication-date added to the Lua version, and it needs some more fixes including the anchor, so this is a good time for that. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:27, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

yes, this is a good solution imo, and goes some way into normalizing date output across CS1. i still have problems with the rationale imposing limits on the use of access date when sources are online (eventually ALL sources may be online). the doc reflects these limitations. imo both should be changed, but that's another issue. Redrose, i don't mean to nitpick, but when software does not perform as expected, eg forming anchors in unpredictable fashion, then it is buggy software. but that's also another matter. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 14:45, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Now in {{cite book/sandbox}}:

{{harvnb|Author|2015}}

{{cite book/sandbox |ref=harv|last=Author|publication-date=Jan 1, 2015|title=Title}}

This would break any instances where someone used a full date in a harv template, but I would expect this to be nonexistent or rare. Do need to update the anchor documentation to include publication-date. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:03, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

It would only break the harv linking if:

• the harv template had used a full date (the docs explicitly state that the year of publication should be given)
• and in {{cite book}} they had specified
  • |publication-date= with a full date
  • and |ref=harv
  • and had omitted |date= or left it blank
  • and had entirely omitted |year= (not just left it blank)

Pretty big set of ifs. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:50, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I searched the archives and don't see this was every reported before, so I think it is pretty safe to go forward. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:21, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

also in {{harvs}}:

|Year={{{year1|{{{year|{{    <!-- attempt to derive year from date, if possible -->
             #if: {{{date|}}}
             |{{
                #switch: {{#time:Y|{{{date|}}}}}
                |Error: invalid time = {{{publication-date|}}}
                |{{#time:Y|{{{date|}}}}}
              }}
             |{{{publication-date|}}} <!-- last resort -->
           }}
        }}}}}}

this should be fixed too. you'd think this routine would be in {{citation/core}} since apart from {{harvard citations/core}} and {{cite book}} it applies to {{cite web}}, and any template that uses |publication date=. nah, that'd have made sense. 70.19.122.39 (talk) 00:49, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I have issues citing eBooks, in particular when referencing a page, which may vary by varying the font size. In Kindle the exact location can be expressed with a number called Location.

So maybe some rules and/or parameters are necessary, Or not? Carlotm (talk) 11:44, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

See WP:Page numbers. You can use |at= with the CS1 templates. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:23, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Gadget850. So I suppose a citation like the following one would be fine.

Epstein, Catherine (2010). "Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser and the Occupation of Western Poland". New York: Oxford University Press. location 2772-2778 (Kindle Edition). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Carlotm (talk • contribs) 07:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Using CS1:

{{cite book |last=Epstein |first=Catherine |year=2010 |title=Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser and the Occupation of Western Poland |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |at=location 2772-2778 (Kindle)}}

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

edited to finish what I started; guess I must have inadvertantly clicked save

I just replaced this citation a {{cite pmid|23019641}} with a {{cite journal}} equivalent at R. Duncan Luce. This page was listed at the end of all of the Template: pages at Category:Articles with incorrect citation syntax. None of the usual error messages were displayed and none of the other citations seemed to have anything wrong with them so I took a chance and replaced the {{cite pmid}}.

So I guess my questions are: how did {{cite pmid}} cause this error? Why wasn't there an error message? Why was the R. Duncan Luce page listed with the Templates?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:31, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

It redirects to {{Cite doi/10.1126.2Fscience.1229851}}, but I don't see anything there. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:32, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

[The key point of this request has been bolded big throughout to -- yes -- shout in desperation how often it's been repeated to no avail.] --EEng (talk) 14:57, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Is there some way in cite book etc. to indicate multiple or alternative ISBNs e.g. paperback vs hardcover? Thanks. EEng (talk) 21:05, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

This is asked quite often; full answers are in the archives, but in brief: give the ISBN for the single edition/version which you actually consulted. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:37, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

That seems like a cop-out. Part of the purpose of ISBN is to allow the reader to find a copy he can consult for himself, so assuming that e.g. paperback and hardcover have identical content, it's useful to include both. Maybe there's a "misc info" parameter I can just stick the other ISBN into as free text? EEng (talk) 22:59, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

As a source we only need the one version - That said let me help - I do it like the following for bibliographies - not sure its ok but been doing it for 7 years - you dont need ISBN's in the {{cite book}} template itself to work - <ref>ISBN 978-0-8020-5016-8</ref> = ISBN 978-0-8020-5016-8

So this coding that has the ISBN's outside the {{cite book}} but with in the <ref> </ref> parameter will work as a reference.

• <ref>{{cite book |last = Taylor |first = Martin Brook|coauthor= Owram, Doug|year =1994|title =Canadian History|volume=|publisher= University of Toronto Press}} Hard cover pp 12, ISBN 978-0-8020-5016-8 and Paperback pp 24, ISBN 978-0-8020-2801-3</ref>
  

Will render this...

• Taylor, Martin Brook (1994). Canadian History. University of Toronto Press. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) Hard cover pp 12, ISBN 978-0-8020-5016-8 and Paperback pp 24, ISBN 978-0-8020-2801-3

--Moxy (talk) 23:22, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

That's what I was doing -- was hoping for something more elegant. But thanks. EEng (talk) 23:30, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Except that "pp" is the abbreviation for "pages", and since only one page number is given, it should be Hard cover p. 12, ISBN 978-0-8020-5016-8 and Paperback p. 24, ISBN 978-0-8020-2801-3 --Redrose64 (talk) 23:50, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

And that stuff outside the template will not render metadata in the new Lua templates as we migrate. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 05:06, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Millions and millions of entries not in templates - any plans to address this?Moxy (talk) 05:30, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

No. ISBN is not required by any major citation style, and is not completely reliable as a unique identifier. We could provide the capability to add 16 different ISBNs, but it would not directly identify the particular edition used in creating the citation. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:43, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Pardon my ignorance, but:

• In what way is ISBN not completely reliable as a unique identifier? If you're going to say that there are occasional glitches such as the same number issued twice, or multivolume works assigned a single number, then by that token we might as well not bother with any kind of identifier of anything.
• What does it matter that no major citation style requires ISBN? Here at WP it's recognized as a highly useful thing to include, so it's worth giving attention to making its inclusion as easy as possible.

EEng (talk) 15:07, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, an editor should be specifying the exact edition of a work being referenced. The pagination and typesetting could differ between editions printed in the UK and and the US, for instance. The pagination normally differs between hardcover and paperback editions of the same edition of a book. An editor could be consulting a revised or updated edition as well. Each of these editions will have differing ISBNs, and the principle is to cite the actual source consulted. Imzadi 1979 → 15:58, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I understand all that, and certainly any provision for multiple ISBNs should include some way to single out the particular ISBN that was consulted, because the core imperative is that the reader be certain he's looking at precisely the work to which the citation refers. It's still useful to include additional ISBNs, with the caveat that different ISBNs may be subject to the sorts of variation you mention. On the other hand, it's often the case the a publisher will explicitly state that two ISBNs are the same page images in different bindings, and it would be useful to be also able to designate those when that's known. EEng (talk) 17:19, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Good— you have identified the issues with ISBN. JSTOR, doi and others use well verified systems with a central point of authority.

The purpose of a citation is to help the reader identify the source used to make a point in the content. If you have a pressing need to identify versions other than the one used, then put it in a further reading section. Alternate sources that were not consulted do not belong in references. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:38, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, honestly! Pressing need? It's amazing the amount of verbiage being wasted to characterize as illconceived something that's obviously useful. We've even had one person interject a correction about pp vs p, as if somehow anyone here needed that pointed out.

Let me state the situation again: Frequently a work is issued in paperback and hardcover, utterly identical except for the binding. Sometimes I'll have both on my bookshelf, so it doesn't make sense to talk about "the one actually consulted." It would be stupid to have two separate entries, one for the paperback, one for the hardcover. I could arbitrarily pick one or the other to use in the cite, but that unnecessarily reduces the ease with which the reader can find a copy for his own consultation.

So if you can find it in your heart, please make some way accommodate the entirely sensible desire to have two or more ISBNs in the same entry.

EEng (talk) 05:10, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

The point is that the reader should not be mislead into thinking both books have been verified to support the assertion against which the ref is called out. Hence we would need citations to the intent of:

Author. Title Location:Publisher (1999) ISBN 978-0123456789 pp.3, 5, 7-9. Also available as ISBN 978-9876543210 (not consulted).

Of course the problem then would be how many versions, editions, and printings to enumerate. Instead, we keep it simple and cite just the one consulted. There are many tools, magically linked via wp:Booksources, for finding the others. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the point of insisting on one ISBN "not consulted" and the other as primary when the person adding the citation has checked that both have identical text. Your comment comes across as not having actually read the previous one. Anyway, can't this all be handled by using |id= instead of |isbn=? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, of course I read it here on this talk page, but how many article readers, or even editors, are likely to do so? If we start down the path of including multiple ISBNs, we will very shortly have many editors showing several ISBNs on the untested premise that they are equivalent. Even in the rare cases where an editor does have the multiple editions at hand and takes the time to check that they are equivalent, it will still make it more difficult for other editors to locate and verify them all. Still, in those rare cases, it would still be possible to say both were consulted, using free-form citations. The template, however, should reflect the usual case as its default. Unless our standard for wp:V is now "one or more of this cited list of editions supports the in-text statement", it would be a move backwards to list multiple editions (even without considering the visual clutter). So yes, EEng, I hold that it is better to just "arbitrarily pick one or the other" than list both. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

If the only difference between two printings of a book is hard or soft cover, and a statement (etc.) can be verified in both (and possibly the editor has verified in both), then it seems a disservice not to provide as much information as possible. But it seems sufficient that in such cases the additional isbns be put into an {{isbn}} template following the citation, as illustrated above. I am doubtful on having supplemental isbn parameters in the citation templates themselves lest some editors think they need be filled in. And similarly for using |id= for that purpose. If there are two identical (except for the cover) editions, equally consulted, then it shouldn't matter which one is the "master" isbn. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

{{ISBN}} doesn't do what you think it does. ISBNs can use magic linking by simply typing ISBN a space and the ISBN. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:36, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Huh? EEng (talk) 01:23, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Help:Magic links --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:00, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

LSD, I don't know which alternative state of the universe is the sadder one -- David's, in which you didn't bother to parse the use case offered; or your own, incorporating as it does your strained (or, perhaps, hallucinatory -- if you will pardon my making the inference) logic for the trivialization of the use case -- logic by which we also musn't allow |chapter= together with |chapter_url= (because maybe the editor didn't check that the linked text is true to the original) or |title= together with |trans_title= (because maybe the translated title isn't accurate) or |authorlink= ever (because maybe the linked article is not actually about the author, but rather someone else with the same name). If a new |isbn2= is documented approriately ("For use only where both ISBNs are known to contain identical content at the page-image level e.g. paperback and hardcover editions differing only in their bindings") would we really be opening the door to unprecedented special danger?

If it will help you sleep at night we can call it |isbn2_but_only_if_they_really_have_same_content=, but in truth you are "straining at gnats and swallowing horses", as my Irish great-grandmother used to say. There can be little doubt that many or most ISBNs are not contemporaneously transcribed from the title page of the "work actually consulted" held so sacred here, but rather looked up online, after the fact, once home from the library (or whatever -- you get the idea). Indeed, the scales having now fallen from my eyes about the many potential (if only incipient -- even imagined) instances of insidious inaccuracy indulged by indolent editors, I propose we require that each ISBN be accompanied by a webcam clip of the editor reading aloud the ISBN -- in fact, the entire citation -- straight out of the physical "work consulted", with close-up shot of title page required as well.

The word edition may have been thrown about loosely in this discussion so far, but as has been made abundantly clear we're not talking about distinct editions in the sense of revised content, merely different bindings or printings of identical page content. One frequently sees, especially in titles intended for both library and textbook sales, ISBN J-JJJ-JJJJJJ-J / K-KKK-KKKKKK-K (pbk.) on the title page, which means exactly what one expects it to mean. Of course, there are sometimes minor corrections in the interval between hardcover and softcover issuance, but this happens silently from printing to printing of even the same "edition" (with the same ISBN!) anyway -- if you know what the mysterious runs of numbers like 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 mean at the bottom of title pages, then you know what I'm talking about. Why aren't you concerned about that?

You say the template "should reflect the usual case as its default". Well, by default |isbn2= will, of course, be null, and that's the usual case.

Finally, your preference that editors "arbitrarily pick one or the other" is, in the context of everything you wrote to that point, contradictory nonsense. If, as you insist, it's hard to know that two ISBNs are interchangeable as the basis of citations, then only one of them is OK -- yet you're suggesting flipping a coin without caring whether you're getting the right one or the wrong one. On the other hand, if picking one or the other arbitrarily is OK, then that must mean you know both of them to be right (i.e. they're identical at the page level), so you may as well help to the reader by including them both.

As to "visual clutter" -- oh, why am I wasting my time? It really makes one think more than twice before bothering to suggest anything. I repeat my earlier comment: It's amazing the amount of verbiage being wasted to characterize as illconceived something that's obviously useful. What a lot of know-it-all bullshit.

EEng (talk) 01:23, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Here ya go. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:09, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

{{cite book |title=Some Book |ISBN=978-0-306-40615-7 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-306-40615-8 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-306-40615-9 (online) ISBN 978-0-306-40615-1 (sign) ISBN 978-0-306-40615-2 (Tijuana bible) ISBN 978-0-306-40615-3 (comic book) ISBN 978-0-306-40615-4 (graphic novel) ISBN 978-0-306-40615-5 (audiobook) ISBN 978-0-306-40615-6 (eBook)}}

Your example above parodies the use case proposed, while the one below illustrates it realistically. And see my further post, as this same indent level, below. --EEng (talk)

{{cite book |title=The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820–1900 | author=Theodore M. Porter| year=1986|publisher= Princeton University Press |ISBN=0-691-08416-5 ISBN 0-691-02409-X (pbk)}}

Not to seem ungrateful, but why couldn't that have just been the answer to my original query? Were the tortures above some kind of hazing process intended to bestow strength of character through adversity? EEng (talk) 04:53, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Now can you please explain to me just how a reader is supposed to know which of that long list of ISBNs is the pertinent one, which he should check to verify an assertion, or conversely in your special use-case, how is assured that the editions/versions/printings are equivalent? It is hard enough to get people willing to source-check articles from one specific edition, without asking them to do so in several, let alone having to listen to an audiobook to find out if it is the same as the print version. Protest the runaround all you like, but what you propose represents a massive waste of time for other editors and a reduction of quality for readers.LeadSongDog come howl! 05:30, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

To help you focus, below Gadget's parody example above I've substituted a realistic one. I've also bolded, in earlier posts, the point emphasized ad nauseum from the very beginning, which for good measure I'll repeat here. Get ready. Ready? Here it is:

As has been made abundantly clear we're not talking about distinct editions in the sense of revised content, merely different bindings or printings of identical page content.

Here it is again, this time in bold:

Not distinct editions in the sense of revised content, merely different bindings or printings of identical page content.

One more, time, this time in big type:

Different bindings or printings of identical page content.

I'd be the last to suggest, LeadSongDog, that your username is meant to connote not only possible hallucinations (as previously noted) but prodigious denseness as well -- but can you please get with the program?

-- EEng (talk) 14:57, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

1. There is nothing in policy or common sense requiring the reader to verify that the ISBNs are correct or match each other. Verifiability means that the reader can verify the content of the article. Whether the ISBNs match each other is not part of the content of the article.
2. The point of supplying the ISBN is to aid readers in finding copies of the book. Multiple ISBNs make this easier, not harder, because there is a greater likelihood that at least one of the supplied ISBNs will work to aid the reader to find the book.
3. In practice the reader seeking verification is going to find whatever copy of the book is easiest to find (perhaps using the ISBN to do so), and look in it for the content he or she wishes to verify (ignoring the ISBN or indeed whether it's a correct edition, except possibly if it's a really wrong edition and the desired content isn't there). So all your questions about "how is the reader going to do this?" are completely pointless; none of those things are things that the reader is going to want to do.

—David Eppstein (talk) 05:51, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

In some usual circumstance -- perhaps an obscure foreign book with a confusing title -- I could see supplying an ISBN labeled (?) or something like that, if it's felt that would help someone locate the work in a dusty smoke-filled Karachi bookstore. But in general, any supplied ISBN or ISBNs (whether one, or several) should be one thought to match the page numbers etc. given in the citation. EEng (talk) 14:57, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the need for this, but you have an answer. And the standard is to use <s> for strking text, not <del>. And <big> is obsolete. Out. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:06, 20 March 2013 (UTC)