Wikipedia talk:ProveIt/Archive 2013

on the article Rangers F.C. which i am working on improving if i edit the entire page proveit says there only 161 reference when in fact there is 186 reference these are all in cite format no bare reference oh plain url'sAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 23:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I haven't checked all of them, but based on my review I believe most are due to using <br /> in the references. Unfortunately, it is a known issue that ProveIt does not correctly parse references with embedded HTML tags or comments. I am looking to fix this when I have a good way to do so. Superm401 - Talk 02:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

is there any other way to do html <br> such that it allows proveit it to recongise the references?Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 21:16, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

It seems like it's being used in some cases unnecessarily (e.g. to separate ordinary sentences). If it is necessary, you can use {{br}} to workaround the ProveIt issue. Superm401 - Talk 02:11, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

{{br}} does a clear. {{crlf}} is a <br />. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:22, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I took the liberty of wrapping in a {{tl}}. Superm401 - Talk 02:32, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

After looking, I recommend {{break}}. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:48, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

thanks gadget that works perfectly, superm it now lists 190 out of 191 references in proveit i aint sure which one is missing and why if you can advise me i be grateful, i can try finding the missing reference but nto sure i will work out what wrongAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 15:28, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

i have found the reference that does nto show up in proveit this is the one .^[1]

I expect it is the <nowiki> tag around RFC 2012 that keeps it from doing the magic linking to Request for Comment. What is RFC in this contect? --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:34, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

the RFC in this context is the name of the company and since itnot a internet standard i used nowiki to stop it producing the link i am open to other ways to do itAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 19:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

{{#tag:nowiki|RFC 2012}} → RFC 2012 should work. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:05, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

thanks for fixing it very much appericated :)Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 20:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

can anyone explain why whejn you bring proveit up some are red instead of black?Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 19:28, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

It's because they are invalid, because a required parameter (the ones flagged in bold on the edit views) is missing. Generally, this is correct, but there may be an occasional error due to parameter synonyms or outdated information. They are deliberately flagged like that so editors notice and (if possible) fix them.

For example, "Fans pile into manchester" is invalid because it is missing the work parameter (I've left it as is so you can see the issue). It is a common misconception (due to the confusing names), but for cite news, publisher is actually the name of the person who publishes the paper. As you might expect, {{cite news}} says "Name of publisher; may be wikilinked if relevant. Not normally included for periodicals" (people typically don't care about this information). Instead, you can put that name in work (to remember this, it might help to think of "work of journalism" similar to "work of art"), which is pre-shown in bold on the new reference screen.

I hope this helps. Superm401 - Talk 02:17, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

yeah that should help i will want to fixthem before i put it up for GAC and FAC, couldnt find somewhere where ti explained it but figured it must mean a problemAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 21:15, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

okj i have fixed all but one, and i cant see what wrong with it, as it teh same as another one the only thing i can notice different is in teh quote it has a :, i am guessing that might be causing the problem if it is wont harm to remove itAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 15:27, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

this is the last remaining reference that is highlighted red ic ant work out what wrong with it ^[1]

I think this may already be fixed, but for the record, it was missing Date (date=), which is required for {{cite news}}. Superm401 - Talk 05:47, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi,

I noted that there is no URL field is in Book option, when using ProveIt tool. If there is an url option it is easy to link reference or quotes or notes to e-books, google books etc.

And if there is "Find by Word" option is in ProveIt means that's also useful. For ex. if one user want to verify one reference link means

1. he needs to the click the link
2. search by pressing (Ctrl + F) keys and search that line by typing that word.

If more than 1000 lines in that link means it is very difficult to point out the exact reference lines. So if there is search by word option means the user can easily search the exact reference line by the words filled in "Find by Word" field.

And it's better to arrange the words in "Find by word" is as defaultly in Web page when that user clicks that link.--Tenkasi Subramanian (talk) 12:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

URL has been added as a default parameter for {{cite book}}. Thank you for the suggestion. I'm not going to be able to act on the Find By Word at this time. Since part of it occurs after you click the link, it would require another component, such as a user script or an extension. Superm401 - Talk 07:05, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

{{Cite video}} has been renamed to {{Cite AV media}} to more accurately reflect its purpose. {{Cite video}} is a redirect and still works as expected. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 08:52, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for notifying me here. {{Cite AV media}} is now the canonical template/type, with a friendly name of "Audiovisual work". I have added all of the redirects (including of course video) as mappings that go to AV media. I also made some related fixes, among others adding trans_title and deadurl and making the presentation of types more consistent. Superm401 - Talk 06:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I found a couple issues with the change, which I will be fixing shortly. For now, I'm going to roll back the gadget. Superm401 - Talk 07:14, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm apologize that it took so long for me to get back to ProveIt. This is fixed properly, and I have updated the gadget. As always, please let me know if you find any issues. Superm401 - Talk 07:33, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Dear Provelt Team,

I would like to request a feature. A web citation is becoming increasingly popular, and so is the use of your Provelt, but since websites usually go dead within a few years, even in months, I would like to ask the Provelt team to include boxes for users to add permanent link URLs and archive dates for web citation. I specifically ask for this, because without a suggestion from the citation templates or an encouragement from Provelt, people will neglect to archive some links that are prone to link rot. For examples, articles about movies, like Skyfall, or The Matrix, rely heavily on the official announcements from their official websites as sources, but first-party information, like: http://www.skyfall-movie.com/releasedates/ , is prone to disappear shortly after the hype dies. These sites will be there for only as long as it suits the distributors' sales or publicity. And if editors keep following wp:citation templates article, or keep using the current version of Provelt, which is the easier method, contributors will never think to archive some of the first-party sources, because they have no where to put the links in. The refs will be come dead, and by the time they do, active contributors will be long gone, and nobody will care to fix them. The quality of the article will drop only in a few years after the release, and it will become tedious for whoever have to clean it up, especially without Provelt. So... can you add those boxes for editors to add permalinks and archive dates?

Thank you very much. Let me know what you find my suggestion.

Regards, Anthonydraco (talk) 16:39, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I use web citations almost exclusively, usually with just a simple ref tag, although in an article with any hope of reaching FA with a cite web tag. I find that old references do go dead, and new ones can sometimes be found as replacements, sometimes they can be found from the web.archive, but I prefer not to actively create web archives, although if something is from a newspaper it can be helpful to include a short quote in the reference, for example if retrieving the source requires registration (even if unpaid). Apteva (talk) 20:15, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

While I understand that your approach works, I personally disagree with the method. After all the efforts we put into creating a GA, I would prefer it not to rot with the links. And it is not always that you can find a substitute. An article like The Matrix (film) for instance is 13 year old, but it has quite an impact on the film industry, but now that the official source is gone, it is almost impossible to find a substitute for some sources. It will be harder still for some articles on less notable subjects. And why create more work? If we do it your way, we will have to patrol the article constantly, check over 100+ references to see if every link works, then when some don't, go around finding sources again, hoping that any can be found. It's a needless tedium. Are you sticking around an article for five years? I'm not. Most editors won't. I would rather create another article on a more useful topic than boringly work on something created five years ago. Why all that when we can do it only once if we archive the sources when we work on it the first time around? Wikipedia is already nortorious for so many unreliable articles. Why do we have to risk a GA we work so hard on to decay and become unreliable when we don't have to? Why do we have to put more needless effort when a slight change can save all that? All this is like the Y2K problem 12 years ago. It would've been much less of a problem if some people had been more insightful. We can do that here and now. Anthonydraco (talk) 21:03, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

This is a good idea. I will add archiveurl and archivedate as default parameters in the appropriate places (issue 161). Superm401 - Talk 08:46, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I've changed how the development version (User:ProveIt GT/ProveIt.js) user script works. This does not affect gadget users currently (if you installed it through your preferences). The change is to make that file a loader that loads two files:

1. A pure JS (no CSS) version of ProveIt
2. A ProveIt CSS file

The advantage to this is that it will allow me to use ResourceLoader to load CSS for the gadget version, while still having the JS remain identical; I will make this change soon.

There were a couple small hiccups in the user script deployment. If you have problems, you may want to bypass or clear your cache. After that it should work. Let me know otherwise. Superm401 - Talk 07:30, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I am now using ResourceLoader to load the CSS. Besides improving the performance, this eliminates the unformatted flash at the top left of the screen (flash of unstyled content). As always, let me know if you are using the gadget and notice a problem. Thanks. Superm401 - Talk 06:07, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I saw a contributor make an edit using ProveIt that I found highly disruptive.

As near as I could tell this edit, that lit up the diff like a neon sign, made absolutely no changes to the article's actual content.

As I noted in my comment on that contributor's talk page "Policies and guidelines do not prefer one reference style over another. When I add new references I use my preferred style. When I modify, update or correct templates someone else has written I leave them as unmodified as possible, unless they are completely broken. And I would recommend everyone follow this practice."

I am sorry, but if your tool can't be resist rewriting templates that aren't broken, then, in my opinion, it should not be run on wikipedia articles. I am sorry, but if your tool can't add missing fields, or correct incorrect fields, without rewriting the entire reference, then, in my opinion, it should not be run on wikipedia articles.

Massive rewrites of article's metadata, for purely or largely esthetic reasons, are highly disruptive, because they seriously erode the usefulness of our history mechanism. Geo Swan (talk) 06:23, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I can't really see how this should reflect in any way on the creator of ProveIt. The tool is a wonderful one when used correctly, and the onus is on the user to make use of it in such a manner. You can't make accusations of inadequacy over the way a tool is used; I could similarly claim that the wiki software itself is complete rubbish because it doesn't automatically revert vandalism. ProveIt is designed to make it easier to add references, and for that, it is wonderful. If people want to use it to rewrite existing references, then take it up with them. The programming behind it is not child's play, and plenty of us here are very appreciative of what it does. For the tool to recognise an existing reference, its syntax and semantics, and alter its generated output to match that would require a massive amount of work, and all because someone used it differently. Finally, the changes were not purely aesthetic; they were made to facilitate the use of the tool; it is not preferring a style, rather converting it to something it can use. If I chose to write out every date in seconds since the Big Bang, then it'd be changed so humans could understand it. Similarly, the references are rewritten to conform to ProveIt's understanding, thereby allowing for editing. You've already taken the issue up with the user in question, and I suggest leaving it there. drewmunn talk 07:38, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree that edit had several issues. They did not include an edit summary besides the automatic one (which is a supplement, not intended to be the only one). It also looks like he just added italics to the publisher field, which is not correct since the template takes care of formatting. As a separate note, it should be using the work field, not publisher.

However, ProveIt certainly does not make it easy to add such incorrect italic formatting. It is an interface, not a bot. The user had to open each reference and put the '' formatting themselves. The intended purpose of the edit functionality is to help the user make meaningful edits (adding a page number, fixing dead URLs, etc.). As far as preserving the spacing and order, I understand your point. However, it is not a trivial fix, and in the meantime it uses what aims to be a useful order (the same one shown on the ProveIt edit screen) and a compact but readable spacing. VisualEditor and Parsoid take special measures to avoid such dirty diffs. They are planning to expose an API, which may help improve this aspect. Superm401 - Talk 20:49, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

First off, great tool! Second, is there a way to stop the addition of the '0' at the beginning of a one-digit date (auto-generated for access)? This keeps getting cleaned up after I save the edit, and I forget to manually delete it. drewmunn talk 18:46, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in responding. What does everyone thing about using ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) for this access date? Currently, the Wikipedia Manual of Style says, "Access and archive dates in references should all have the same format – either the format used for publication dates, or YYYY-MM-DD."

YYYY-MM-DD does use a leading 0, but it's also a consistent and recognized format both on Wikipedia and elsewhere, so I think it's an appropriate default. Superm401 - Talk 07:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, thank you! I'm glad you find ProveIt helpful. Superm401 - Talk 07:15, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Cheers! I'd have no problem with the leading 0, if it weren't for the fact that my edits get picked up and corrected to remove it. I agree that we should use an overarching format (in fact, I'd advocate ISO formatting as standard), but this seems to be undermined somewhat if people (and bots, if I remember correctly, I'll see if I can pinpoint one) clean up leading 0s. drewmunn talk 08:13, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Right now it uses Monthname DD, YYYY. While that isn't unheard of, it's probably not as popular as YYYY-MM-DD, which is endorsed by the MOS as an option for access dates (see quote above). People might still change YYYY-MM-DD, but if they do so it should be to use the publication date format. If they change it to another arbitrary format (or worse, YYYY-M-DD [1-digit month), then you could point them to the MOS.

So I'm leaning on switching the code (back) to use ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD). Incidentally, it used to use that format. We changed it without fully investigating the MOS, though the MOS may have been different then anyway. Superm401 - Talk 08:35, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like the best plan to me! drewmunn talk 09:49, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

This is done. Superm401 - Talk 02:08, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The following templates have been update to use the Lua module:

• {{cite book}}
• {{cite encyclopedia}}
• {{cite journal}}
• {{cite news}}
• {{cite web}}

These updated templates are backward compatible with the old version, but there are some new features:

• There is no limit to the number of authors: first1, last1...firstn,lastn
• Coauthors still works, but should be deprecated
• The same for editors

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:23, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

See Module talk:Citation/CS1/Updates for a discussion. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:12, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Just to clarify, only coauthors is newly deprecated, right? Superm401 - Talk 22:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

It still works, but there is no need for itt it be, so I would recommend it be removed. We have one citation now with 33 authors by last/first. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:25, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. 'coauthors' is actually already not pre-filled by ProveIt. However, besides the obvious labelling issue for the lastn, etc., this is an opportunity to improve the author UI. Superm401 - Talk 04:01, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if it's just me, but when I have ProveIt enabled there's a delay of about 30s on some articles eg List of Doctor Who serials after opening the edit window and before I can edit. I'm using Chrome on Windows 7. Thanks Edgepedia (talk) 18:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Did you install it through your preferences (gadget) or by editing your user script page? Superm401 - Talk 02:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Gadget, and thank you for answering, but problem seems to have gone away. Edgepedia (talk) 15:29, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

It would be nice if you can add real support for Non-English Wikipedias so that we can still use it just by linking and keeping just some configuration locally. Right now, it is not possible to localize elements of UI, change the date format and so on. The only way to do it is to copy and modify code, what I would like to avoid so that we don't miss further updates. --DixonD (talk) 13:23, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree, and this is one of my priorities. Superm401 - Talk 21:17, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Issue 169 is a report that the <ref></ref> wrapper is missing when adding a new reference in Chrome 27.0.1453.94 m. I could not reproduce it in a slightly different version. Let me know if you can (and what browser). Superm401 - Talk 05:19, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Is there a reason for the sudden format change to the access date field? Up until now, it was Month dd, yyyy. Now it is yyyy-mm-dd. For those of us you copy dates from sources, the previous formatting is better, requires slightly less effort and is less ambiguous. - MrX 02:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

See #Date cleanup. It's also an ISO Standard now. drewmunn talk 07:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

It is just one of the date options for access date. Locking it like this is why I no longer use ProveIt. And the use of numeric dates in Wikipedia is an accidental defacto standard. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:07, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I think it's good to settle on the ISO date format, but I think what we will see people mixing date formats because of this. Unfortunately, WP:CITE does not settle on any particular format and only states that it should be consistent throughout the article. - MrX 12:42, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I'm all for ISO overall. It's much easier for cross-compatibility, us English lot, and for programmers in general. I might see if this is a discussion on a project-wide basis at the moment, and if not, I'll start it. drewmunn talk 12:47, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

You really should read previous discussions before you jump into that briar patch. User:Gadget850/FAQ/YYYY-MM-DD dates --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:34, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Quite a lot there... <steps back slowly/> I'm not for linking in any way, nor do I think they need to exist in prose, but ISO is there for a reason, and I think it'd be much tidier in the background. I think this opinion grew out of extreme frustration with UK/US format discrepancies, especially whilst learning programming. I'm going off to have a nice, cool drink, and focus on one of the many other tasks I've got backlogged here before getting into debates about dates. Thanks for the heads-up. drewmunn talk 13:49, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Didn't want you stepping on a Santayana IED.--  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:53, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The reason I changed it to this is that it is explicitly noted as an allowed format by the Manual of Style, whereas the old format had an extra 0 for single-digit days and was just one of many formats. However, I realize that it also says, "Access and archive dates in references should all have the same format", which I have not tried to implement yet. MrX, Gadget850, et al, what is your preference? Do you think it should be inferred based on the existing access date formats used in the article (first reference in text order, majority)? And/or an editor preference (Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-datetime or a custom one?)?

I should also note that the pre-filled format of course isn't required. That is the default, but you can still change it. Superm401 - Talk 22:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

"Do you think it should be inferred based on the existing access date formats used in the article (first reference in text order, majority)?" - No, I don't think that ProveIt should attempt to infer a date format from the existing references, which are frequently chaotic anyway. I think it should be user selected, and should default to the Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-datetime setting. Until there is a citation date format standard on en.wiki, we can only hope for a bot or a gnome to come by and make the date formats consistent on a per article basis. For formats with the month name spelled out, there should be no leading zero for the day. - MrX 01:57, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

There is no way to pull a user's preferences; many will be the default of No preference, including unregistered readers. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:27, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, then perhaps we can have a default (ISO?) and have the option of passing a JavaScript parameter to the script to set a user preference, similar to proveit = { shouldAddSummary: false }; - MrX 03:26, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Gadget850, unregistered users of course see the rendered template, and can edit without ProveIt. But we're talking about pre-filling in a ProveIt text box, which only logged in users can see right now. Unless/until ProveIt is enabled by default for all users, only registered users can use it via either the gadget or user script. ProveIt could easily read this preference for the current user. There's not even a performance hit since it's already in JavaScript on every page. You're of course right that we have to choose a default if the user hasn't set their preference. I am inclined to agree that ISO makes sense there.

I could add a ProveIt-specific preference, though I like the idea of (also) reusing the Special:Preferences one. It's easier to point people to a Special:Preferences link then ask them to fiddle with JavaScript. I will remove the leading 0's on any non-ISO format that gets implemented. Superm401 - Talk 04:23, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

@Superm401, has this change been implemented yet (reusing the Special:Preferences date format)? I ask, because ProveIt still seems to be autofilling the ISO formatted date in the accessdate field. - MrX 03:05, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

 Done See below. Superm401 - Talk 02:33, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

The latest update provides full user control over the default date format. The simplest way to use this is to go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-datetime, choose a radio button at the top, and save.

However, I recognize that some people may want to use one format there, and another one just for references. Thus, I've provided a ProveIt-specific preference as well. If both are set, the ProveIt one applies when creating a reference. To use this, put the following in your user script file. If you are using the dev version, put this above where you load the dev code.

proveit = window.proveit || {};
proveit.dateFormatString = 'ISO 8601';

Where it says 'ISO 8601', there are four values you can use (the same four listed in Preferences): 'mdy' (Month Day, Year), 'dmy' (Day Month Year), 'ymd' (Year Month Day), or 'ISO 8601' (YYYY-MM-DD);

Hi, I am one of the regular user of this nice tool for adding citations in [ta.wikipedia.org/ Tamil Wikipedia]. However it is not working for a while there. Any updates ? Is anybody maintain the code over there ?--Manian (talk) 18:45, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

ProveIt is not working in the correct manner on Punjabi Wikipedia(pa.wikipedia.org). When i enable it from my preferences and start editing an article then the whole ProveIt tab is shown on the topleft corner and that too in a poor manner overlapping with other components of the Wikipedia. Can anyone give me any tips so that we can use ProveIt once again? It was working fine a few months back. --Satdeep gill (talk • contribs 09:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I was wondering if it would be possible to change ProveIt, so that it is possible to format refs in AFC namespace, at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/ . This would mean I could help people on the IRC better with their submissions, and it would generally be better. Thanks, Matty.007 15:42, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I second this, I came here for the same reason :) Newyorkadam (talk) 03:35, 30 November 2013 (UTC)Newyorkadam