@DuncanHill: I see you just replaced my <!--Ray Raphael (2002) The First American Revolution-->{{cite Q|Q59420225}} with a reference to the same document using the {{cite book ... template.
What do you have against Wikidata?
I vastly prefer it to other citation templates for several reasons, including the following:
- If there is an error, e.g., a broken link, it can be fixed in one place.
- Wikidata makes it easy to be more specific, e.g., about which human named David Eddy wrote a certain document. I just found Wikidata items for 4 humans named "David Eddy", and that doesn't count David Eddy Spicer and David Eddy Lewycky.
- It is more work to create a Wikidata item for a document for only one use but much less work for subsequent uses.
- I get several emails a day reporting on Wikidata items that have been changed. Nearly all such changes provide additional information, e.g., making it easier to find other publications by the same author.
There are reasons not to like Wikidata, but I have found them secondary to the benefits.
Thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia:Prime objective to help build "a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge." DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:50, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
- @DavidMCEddy: Hi David. Your use of the Wikidata cite together with a {{Harv}} reference in the text caused a no-target error - that is to say, nobody clicking on the text "Raphael 2002" would be taken to the relevant source. This made it harder for readers to verify. I have linked to both the Wikipedia article about the author and the actual book on Archive.org. This makes it mush easier for readers (and other editors) to look up the source. Most of the sources used in the article are formatted with citation templates, and none with Wikidata, so my edit was consistent with the existing style. I also moved the source to the Sources section where it should be. DuncanHill (talk) 19:08, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
- @DuncanHill: Thanks for the reply. I will stop using {{Harv}} until I hear that they have fixed it to work with {{cite Q|...}}. (I've seen it before but on recently started using it. I noticed it did NOT connect to the item as advertised and left a note on the talk page for {{Harv}}, but I have not heard back from that.) DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:29, 22 February 2026 (UTC)