Help talk:CS1 errors

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ISBN / Date incompatibility

Moved to Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 98 § ISBN / Date incompatibility

– the purpose of this page is to discuss the content of Help:CS1 errors; not to discuss percieved or actual problems with the cs1|2 templates/module; —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:33, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia library url

In a moment of obstinacy, I added [1] a Wikipedia library url to a reference. This produces the error message "Wikipedia Library link in |url= (help)" which links to CS1 errors, giving the instruction To resolve this error, make sure that the value assigned to the URL parameter is not the Wikipedia Library URL but is the URL of the source.

This seems nonsensical – I have put the Wikipedia Library URL in the reference as it is the only online version of this book that I know of. My intent is that other editors who may wish to check the reference can do so, which any WL qualifying editor will be able to do. For those without that access, there is no difference from this being a paywalled url, yet the error message obliterates the access information for everyone. I do not see how this feature makes this a better encyclopaedia. To be clear, the URL of the source (which I don't think I can easily access, though some with academic library rights may have this) would give no clue to a Wikipedia editor that they have access through WL.

Am I missing the point here, or does this need some tweaking to retain useful information (that validates article content) whilst still acknowledging that not everyone will be able to follow the link? ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:59, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Convenience links in cs1|2 citations are for readers, not for editors. While it is true that any WL qualifying editor will be able to have access to the source (500+ edits, 6+ months editing, 10+ edits in the last 30 days, no active blocks), no reader is allowed access to the source via the Wikipedia Library. The error message is for editors so that we don't do a disservice to our readers.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:24, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Noted. But how is a Wikipedia Library url any different from a paywalled url? At present we are doing a disservice to our readers by making life difficult for active editors who either want to check a reference or point out to other editors where a reference may be checked. That is part of the mechanism of getting some quality content into Wikipedia. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 15:10, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WL links use proxies, which grant specifically WL members, but no one else, access, while everyone else gets a generic WL mainpage telling them they aren't part of the club. A paywalled link is less hostile. This is why BsoykaBot cleaned up after you.

Articles are for readers, not editors, and as such WL links are devoid of any value to them. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:27, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, got all that. What we have lost in the BsoykaBot tidy-up is any sort of indicator to another editor that they can probably get to read the reference in WL. This would seem to be a useful functionality for editors. It would ultimately help to improve article content, because the editors would find their job easier. That would make this a better encyclopaedia. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 15:54, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I get all of that but the needs of editors must yield to the needs of the reader. For editors, you can always leave a note on the talk page or leave a hidden comment with the Wikipedia Library url in the article wikitext adjacent to the citation template. Perhaps suggest that to the BsoykaBot operator at User talk:Bsoyka.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:30, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. There must be a way of obviously (to a WL accessing editor) flagging a reference to say that it is in Wikipedia Library. We don't need the WL url. Could the WL icon be added to the reference, or some other indicator? Great if the bot could add the indicator/icon. An icon would be meaningless to the reader, and so ignored. The non-WL url would be in the reference, but an editor could search for the WL entry based on that. It would be much faster to spot that WL access was available (no need to go into edit mode to look for a hidden comment). Generally, reference-checking editors could get through more work. There would be no loss of the "say where you read it" requirement of Wikipedia referencing. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 16:44, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can create an icon template along the lines of {{free access}}.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:32, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am more of an article content editor than someone who would know where to start coding a template. I am guessing, also, that the icon would need to work from the cite book template, which your example seems not to do. There is a WL image already, but it is a bit large to be thought of as an icon. Probably need the input here of someone who champions Wikipedia Library. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 17:43, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Try this:

{{Wikipedia Library icon}} →

Links to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Library; has a tool tip that says 'Available at Wikipedia Library'.

Use it like this:

{{cite book |last1=O'Connor |first1=Sue |last2=Hiscock |first2=Peter |editor1-last=Cochrane |editor1-first=Ethan E |editor2-last=Hunt |editor2-first=Terry L. |title=The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania |date=2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-19-992507-0 |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199925070.013.002 |chapter-url-access=subscription |chapter=The Peopling of Sahul and Near Oceania}} {{Wikipedia Library icon}}

O'Connor, Sue; Hiscock, Peter (2018). "The Peopling of Sahul and Near Oceania". In Cochrane, Ethan E; Hunt, Terry L. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-992507-0.

Needs documentation; I'll leave that to you.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:52, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Like licensing information, this does not belong in articles. If you have access to the WL, the solution is to install Zenodo extensions that will take regular links and take you to the WL version them, as detailed in User:BsoykaBot#Task 2. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:31, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's fine to have this in articles. I don't think that useful information should only be available to people who know about and can install specific third-party browser extensions.

That said, I'd rather that the template wasn't visible to readers/logged-out editors. Can we apply the MediaWiki:Group-extendedconfirmed.css magic, to make it visible only to editors who can use it? (Or at least for autoconfirmed editors?)

I'd also like to see a bot adding these, whenever they can be detected reliably. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:33, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am insufficiently skilled in the art of css to make that work. If it is possible, no doubt, there is someone out there who knows how to do it.

It would seem to me that BsoykaBot could add the icon when it replaces a Wikipedia Library proxy url.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:20, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure that Redrose64 knows how to do this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:35, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(I've asked the bot op to take a look, when he has time for it.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"I'd also like to see a bot adding these, whenever they can be detected reliably."

That's what the extension is for. We do not need WL clutter in our articles. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:28, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does the extension show that access is available, or does it just change the URL after you click on it? I don't expect editors to click on links, just to see if they randomly have access to it.
Why should this information be hidden from editors who do not know about the extension?
Why should this information be hidden from editors who cannot install the extension?

WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:06, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not clutter if it's doing a useful job. There will be editors out there who don't even know about Wikipedia Library, even though they qualify for access. (I was one once.) If those editors start using WL, that will improve this encyclopaedia, because it will be better sourced. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:09, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why are some citation error messages hidden?

Per the title, who made this stupid decision? Blockhaj (talk) 23:14, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because

not all "errors" are errors
see #1

If you want a more substantial repsonse, you'll have to be specific. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:26, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly, it's because they don't affect our target market, i.e. the non-editing readers. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 06:52, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Date issue for a non-English Cite Q entry.

I am getting a "Check date values in: |publication-date" on https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata_talk:Lexicographical_data#Mass_validation_of_lexemes" where I use the {{Cite q}} template and have my Interface in a non-English language (Danish). The date appears as "28. juni 2019". Perhaps the problem is in the Cite Q template? — fnielsen (talk) 08:50, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I presume that you meant this version of that discussion; Editor So9q has since replaced that {{cite q}} template with {{Q|64862991 }}.

Wikidata is multilingual. {{cite q}} and Module:Citation/CS1 are, at best, only sort of bilingual. Module:Cite Q fetches publication date (P577) from wikidata which returns that data in the user's preferred language format. Whatever Module:Cite Q gets from wikidata is passed to Module:Citation/CS1 for rendering. cs1|2 understands English dates and can be tweaked to understand dates from one other language. That works well enough at da.wiki but as you've discovered, does not work at wikidata.

I suppose that the wikidata version of {{cite q}} might be tweaked to fetch the raw (unformatted) time and precision fields from P577:

mw.wikibase.getEntity('Q64862991').claims.P577[1].mainsnak.datavalue.value.time → +2019-06-28T00:00:00Z

mw.wikibase.getEntity('Q64862991').claims.P577[1].mainsnak.datavalue.value.precision → 11

then, depending on the value of precision return the YYYY-MM-DD publication date (precision == 11) or just the YYYY publication date (precision == 9).

This supposition has not been tested.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:59, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another generic title

Titles containing the phrase "Subscription Offers, Specials, and Discounts" are probably bogus. There are currently about 200 examples. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:30, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are they due to citation bot? If so, User talk:Citation bot. There are reports of generic/invalid titles. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:04, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64: I've checked four at random, and the edits are tagged "Visual edit" (diffs 1, 2, 3, 4) -- John of Reading (talk) 16:43, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In which case, mw:Talk:Citoid. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:33, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bibcode validation code needs updating

Bibcodes have evolved to accept characters other than letters, digits and dots in the 10–13 (volume field) and 15–18 (pages field) ranges. From ADS:

As many publishers are moving away from page numbers and using electronic identifiers more and more frequently, the page field is no longer guaranteed to be numeric. Often an identifier of more than 5 digits is truncated, and there may be letters, periods, dashes, or other characters in the page field as well. The volume field may also contain non-numeric characters.

The current validation logic is outdated, falsely flagging errors such as the Schillinger reference in this article (note the hyphen between 100. and 166):

Bibcode:2008AgrJ..100.-166S … {{cite journal}}: Empty citation (help): Check |bibcode= value (help)

Kindly update the bibcode validation code to reflect the current status. If this needs to be flagged elsewhere, please advise accordingly and I'll do the same.

Regards, Alexanderino (talk) 23:00, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have received a response from ADS. It is reproduced verbatim:

length must be 19 characters (<message> = 'length')

characters in position(s): (except as specified otherwise, violations produce 'value' in the <message> portion of the error message):
1–4 must be digits and must represent a year in the range of 1000 – next year (<message> = 'year')

5 must be a letter

6–8 must be a letter, digit, ampersand, or dot (ampersand cannot directly precede a dot; &. (<message> = 'journal'))

9 must be a letter, digit or dot

10–18 must be a letter, digit, dot or dash

19 must be a letter or dot

If someone would be so kind as to update the validation code, or point out who is responsible for that task, I'd be grateful. Thanks, Alexanderino (talk) 20:21, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Canberra

Moved to Template talk:Infobox Australian place § Canberra

– Trappist the monk (talk) 22:48, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]