Help talk:CS1 errors

Note: Most conversation about Citation Style 1 (CS1) templates happens at Help talk:Citation Style 1. This page is for discussion about the content of Help:CS1 errors.

Check |url= value suggestion

The suggested IDN Conversion Tool Verisign at #Check |url== value has a limitation as mentioned Only enter the domain in the tool and not the full url. But i found another site where it is more convenient and it support for whole url, also that site has other features like url encoding/percent encoding etc. (non-promotional) punycoder. So might add that their instead of Verisign.––kemel49^{(connect)(contri)} 17:09, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

External link in |<param>= when page title really does contain a URL

What's the correct recourse for the 'External link in |<param>=' warning when citing a page whose title contains a URL for whatever reason. Is the intention that the URL be omitted or that the warning remain and generate noise?. The current suggestions are only to move the URL to a different tag (e.g. where the editor has placed it in the title field in error). DDFoster96 (talk) 21:34, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

It this a hypothetical or have you got a real-life issue? Link to it so we can all know what it is you're talking about?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:48, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 February 2025

The wikipedia interface to edit CSS files has the following warning when using the suggested message display snippet: Warning: Element (span.cs1-maint) is overqualified, just use .cs1-maint without element name.

Change span.cs1-maint to .cs1-maint

Change span.cs1-hidden-error to .cs1-hidden-error JamesLear314 (talk) 06:40, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

 Done ~ Rusty ^meow ~ 19:34, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

@JamesLear314 and Rusty Cat: The new version without span fails to display the messages for me on Drosophila connectome in all three tested browsers so I'm reverting the edit. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:14, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: It does not display indeed. Personally, I use

.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint, /* display Citation Style 1 maintenance messages */
.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error, /* display hidden Citation Style 1 error messages */
.mw-parser-output .harv-error { /* display Module:Footnotes errors */
    display: inline !important; 
}

and it works fine (albeit with a warning about using !important), but if I remove !important the messages do not show. ~ Rusty ^meow ~ 00:14, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Last name error

I'm seeing an error message because an author has the last name of bureau:

Davies, Roger L.; Kuntschner, Harald; Emsellem, Eric; Bacon, R.; Bureau, M.; Carollo, C. Marcella; Copin, Y.; Miller, Bryan W.; Monnet, G.; Peletier, Reynier F.; Verolme, E. K.; de Zeeuw, P. Tim (February 2001). "Galaxy Mapping with the SAURON Integral-Field Spectrograph: The Star Formation History of NGC 4365". The Astrophysical Journal. 548 (1): L33 – L36. arXiv:astro-ph/0011254. Bibcode:2001ApJ...548L..33D. doi:10.1086/318930. {{cite journal}}: |last5= has generic name (help)

Is there a work-around? – Praemonitus (talk) 16:19, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

|last5=((Bureau)) – Help:Citation Style 1 § Accept-this-as-written markup

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:23, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Oh okay. I just found I could use a Unicode character to remediate it, but your approach is probably more kosher. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 16:28, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

ISBN checksum error

Hi everyone!

Recently, on ICD-11, I cited this book.

The page lists three ISBNs for it:

• 9789290612487 (‎PDF)‎
• 9789290612483 (‎Paperback)‎
• 9789290613053 (‎Hardbound)‎

I linked to the ebook, so I figured I had to use the first one, the PDF ISBN. However, when I copy-pasted it into Cite book, this happened:

WHO Western Pacific Region (2007). WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region. ISBN 9789290612487. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)

This checksum error does not occur with the other two ISBNs.

Did the WHO use an erroneous ISBN here? Or is this a mistake on the Wikipedia side?

- Manifestation (talk) 17:03, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Your paperback and pdf isbns are identical except for the checksum. The '7' checksum appears to be correct for the 10-digit form:

{{isbn|9290612487}} → ISBN 9290612487

looks to me like WHO incorrectly stated the ISBN as ISBN 978 92 9061 248 7 on the reverse of the title page.

You can remove the 978 prefix and write |isbn=92-9061-248-7 or you can write |isbn=((978-92-9061-248-7)) which will suppress the error message and add the article to Category:CS1 maint: ignored ISBN errors.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:01, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Ok thanks! I've used the 10-digit number, which seems to be recognized by all the big sites (e.g. Google, Worldcat).

Btw... I don't think the template should throw a maintenance message when a misprinted ISBN is used with "(())". A maintenance message implies that something needs to be maintained, i.e. fixed. But if a printed book uses an incorrect ISBN, and if that book was never re-printed with the correct ISBN, then us Wikipedians have nothing to fix.

Instead of this maint. category, perhaps there should just be a category called Category:Articles citing books with incorrect ISBNs, emphasizing that these erroneous ISBNs are not to be fixed. At least not by us. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 19:33, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

ISBN / Date incompatibility

On the recent addition made by @Trappist the monk, I’d like to point out that an error is detected and displayed even when |publication-date= is filled with a date later than 1965, which doesn’t seem quite right. Keriluamox (talk) 20:33, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Evidence? Always provide evidence of failure so we-all know what it is that you are seeing. Here is a template that uses |publication-date=1951 and has an isbn:

{{cite book|authorlink=C. S. Lewis|editor-first=Kaye|editor-last=Webb|editor-link=Kaye Webb|first=C. S.|isbn=0-14-030173-9|last=Lewis|location=Harmondsworth|others=illus. Pauline Baynes|publisher=[[Puffin Books]]|title=Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia |publication-date=1951}}

Lewis, C. S. (1951). Webb, Kaye (ed.). Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia. illus. Pauline Baynes. Harmondsworth: Puffin Books. ISBN 0-14-030173-9. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)

A proper error message. If I change the date to 1965 (don't do this in real-life unless the date matches the isbn):

{{cite book|authorlink=C. S. Lewis|editor-first=Kaye|editor-last=Webb|editor-link=Kaye Webb|first=C. S.|isbn=0-14-030173-9|last=Lewis|location=Harmondsworth|others=illus. Pauline Baynes|publisher=[[Puffin Books]]|title=Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia |publication-date=1965}}

Lewis, C. S. (1965). Webb, Kaye (ed.). Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia. illus. Pauline Baynes. Harmondsworth: Puffin Books. ISBN 0-14-030173-9.

No error message.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:14, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I wasn’t clear enough. The error is detected when there’s a main |date= earlier than 1965, and a |publication-date= later. Say:

{{cite book|last=Smith|first=John|title=Title|date=1950|location=Place|publisher=Publisher|publication-date=2000|isbn=0-14-030173-9}}

Smith, John (1950). Title. Place: Publisher (published 2000). ISBN 0-14-030173-9. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)

It seems to me that the publication date here should determine whether there might be an ISBN or not. Keriluamox (talk) 06:12, 16 April 2025 (UTC)