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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MiszaBot II (talk | contribs) at 07:17, 9 August 2013 (Robot: Archiving 1 thread from Help talk:Citation Style 1.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5→Archive 10

Feature request: trans_quote parameter

I'd like to request the addition of a trans_quote parameter that would be, at least, a repository for a translation of a quote in a foreign-language source. (I'd be happy enough if the parameter were just ignored for display purposes, as long as the quote translation is available to someone who digs deep enough, though if anybody has better ideas about display, cool.) I've actually used this parameter in a few places in hopes that it might exist someday, but that's become problematic now that unknown parameters are showing an error message. Can we add this? —chaos5023 (talk) 17:30, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Date formatting and machine readability

[Not sure whether this belongs here or on one of the related talk pages]

At some point, it's going to be useful to have the dates in citations made machine-readable, so that they can be included in emitted metadata. That could be achieved in a number of ways, for example, having separate parameters for their day, month and year; using YYYY-MM-DD format, or using a subtemplate. Each has advantages and disadvantages. In the first two examples, it's still possible to have the rendered output in the form "17 May 2013" or "May 17th, 2013", according to a setting (see {{Start date}} or {{Birth date}} for examples if this in practice), or even user preference. Anyone got any thoughts? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:32, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Dates used in citations are not always simple dates - you will get things like 13–19 December 2011, or Summer 1975. This would make this sort of automatic generation of metadata difficult.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:47, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Not at all; we already manage to emit metadata for regular birth/ death dates, while accommodating (and not emitting as metadata) irregular dates such as "fl. 1735". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:00, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
No thanks. Please don't try to bring back something that was binned two years ago. Machines are perfectly capable of parsing all the date formats that are permitted under our style guidelines, witness the dates that inhabit {{persondata}}. Thus extra Date Autoformatting templates that consume extra processing and compilation resources without bringing significant benefits should not be contemplated. -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 15:54, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm not "trying to bring back something that was binned two years ago". I'm proposing something new. Persondata is only read by our own tools; not generic metadata parsers, like the ones that read dates in our infoboxes. We already use date templates such as the ones I mention, elsewhere; with no undue overheads; and with significant benefits. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:01, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
I was merely using {{persondata}} as an example. Our MOSNUM-permitted date formats, of which there are only three, are all capable of being parsed by machine, all that is needed is software configuration that's not rocket science. In the average article, there may be up to 200 references, and thus up to 600 dates. Each set of dates is specific to one citation but most are unimportant. If each set of dates is already sitting in a citation template, we hardly need to nest in another three for each date type. If the dates are not already in citation templates, metadata is next to useless. Without contemplating in detail the computing resources consumed, and the benefit of standardising something that scarcely needs standardising is potentially highly disruptive to the 'pedia. -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 16:37, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Nigel Ish, above, has already shown that there are more than three ways to enter date information. Using a sub-template was only one of the example methods I gave; there are others. If we want to include machine readable dates to standard metadata formats like COinS or a microformat, then they need to be formatted consistently, not as prose. Your comments about potential for disruption are a straw man. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:59, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

:oppose until there is a way to set the default date on a page or to read the user preference date. --  Gadget850 talk 16:10, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by "default date on a page"? User preference for date formatting could be achieved by the same CSS technique that {{Coord}} uses for coordinates. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:36, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
That CSS simply places the displayed coordinates. There is no magic word or parser function that will unify all dates on a page, thus citation template can't inherit the date format. The only user preference that I know can be read is gender. There was a 'dateformat' parameter for a brief time after date linking was removed, but there were technical issues an it was removed; you can check the archives. --  Gadget850 talk 17:16, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
That (your first sentence) simply isn't the case; see Template:Coord#Per-user display customization. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:37, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Currently dates in citations are not machine readable because there is no indication what calendar they are stated in, Julian or Gregorian. I suggest Andy go discuss with the various metadata folks about how they should modify their formats to indicate a calendar of Julian, Gregorian, or unknown, and come back when the metadata formats have been suitably modified. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:57, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
This is already resolved for the date templates mentioned above (and which are used on many thousands of articles); see their documentation. It is also resolved in the metadata standards I mentioned. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:11, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Wait. Your original post is confusing, but it looks like this has nothing to do with date formats, and I don't know why you threw that in. You simply want to include the date metadata, which is very possible. We could add an algorithm that would convert the standard date that is displayed to a metadata date that is now shown. For example, May 17, 2013 would be shown and converted to <time datetime="2013-05-17"> which would not be shown. <time> is an HTML metadata element now supported by MediaWiki. --  Gadget850 talk 17:27, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
I want to include the date metadata, and pointed out that how we store the values does not need to limit the display format. But yes, we could do as up suggest (providing we don't change the actual date ;-) )Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:37, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
We've moved to what is, IMO, a very desirable simplicity in both the display and the syntaxing of chronological items. When you say, "separate parameters for their day, month and year", I start to quail that the whole system will become complex—which is not good for the "anyone can edit" principle. I'm also quite unconvinced that metadata systems cannot be developed without the use of localised syntax. And we already have significant tools at our disposal for searching for years and dates. Tony (talk) 04:37, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
This isn't about "searching for years and dates" within Wikipedia. I'm not clear what you mean by your "localised syntax" comment - please clarify, bearing in mind that we already do this for other dates, mentioned above. Separate parameters are only suggested as one of several options what's your proposed solution? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:07, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
We don't need separate parameters. There is no need to change the template input, thus this would be user transparent. <time> is a standard HTML5 tag. --  Gadget850 talk 10:16, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
4.6.10 The time element at W3C --Redrose64 (talk) 11:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
How could that be deployed, in this case? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:07, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Let's say that a given use of {{cite news}} emits <span class="citation news">Lane, Lois (18 May 2013). "Superman prevents another trainwreck". ''Daily Planet''.</span>. All of that is generated by Module:Citation/CS1 using the {{cite news}} parameters as input. We could amend the module so that it tests to see if |date= is a valid date (to cover the situations like 13–19 December 2011, or Summer 1975 mentioned above). If the test succeeds, we put the date through the Lua equivalent of {{#time:Y-m-d}} to generate a valid date string, place that in the datetime= attribute of a <time>...</time> element which is wrapped around the original date, and output it with the rest, something like <span class="citation news">Lane, Lois (<time datetime="2013-05-18">18 May 2013</time>). "Superman prevents another trainwreck". ''Daily Planet''.</span> --Redrose64 (talk) 12:07, 18 May 2013 (UTC) Sorry. I misread the documentation for the time element, so I've rewritten the approprate bits here. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:25, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
OK, so that deals with publication dates. I don't understand to what use the metadata would be put, so please explain to Dummy here how exactly this would be done in the case of access dates, archive dates, and dates within the titles? And to what end? -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 12:42, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
We could use exactly the same technique for access dates and archive dates, in fact these should be easier because they ought to only ever be a single date, and not cases like 13–19 December 2011, or Summer 1975. We shouldn't try to detect dates in titles, these are pretty much free-form, and trying to write code to extract a date sensibly would be a nightmare, and I don't think it's worth the hassle. As regards "to what end"; well, that's up to the harvesters of metadata. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:15, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Does seem like typical YAGNI request: I am also not convinced the date format even matters, here, because any metadata-processing tools could reformat whatever dates, on their end, and using their processing time. So, beware typical YAGNI options ("You aren't gonna need it"). Instead, wait for the issue to become a top headline in a major tech newspaper:
  • "Riot at Wikimedia when users screamed date format more important than fixing Edit-conflicts" (just not likely)
There are probably some huge numbers of feature requests that are just typical YAGNI requests, and so it is a common problem which distracts from fixing the major problems, such as not external-linking the "trans_title=" to the URL address, to allow the trans_title to contain wikilinks, or footnotes, which could better explain the translation. -Wikid77 16:58, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
You seem to present this as an "either/or" choice: a false dichotomy. And that's before we consider the valid use-cases. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:15, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, instead of dismissing the opposition to the idea of collecting it, you ought to demonstrate a solid need on our part for ever-increasing quantities of metadata when the data is already in existence and in an exploitable form. Let's have some valid use-cases, then, instead of just saying or implying we need it. If Google (or any other third party) needs it, they can jolly well create it from what we give them – if they are not doing it already. ;-) -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 05:09, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
It's not in a (readily, to machines) exploitable form; I'm proposing that we make it so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:32, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
  • strong support -- i'm not a coder, but i can certainly see the usefulness of this proposal. it would be USEFUL both for us & for external (i.e.: outside of wp/wm/mw) uses. calling it "yagni" it just a fancy way of saying "can't be arsed"; it's a good idea, & it anticipates (a wide range of) future needs & uses. to put it another way: if we don't do it now (machine-readable dates, as per ISO 8601), we WILL be doing it later...
Lx 121 (talk) 20:02, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
as for the question of "extra processing", wouldn't it SAVE processing, if we standardize everything/most-things into one date format? Lx 121 (talk) 20:07, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Lx 121, ISO 8601 is not suitable for Wikipedia dates. Go read it and let us know if the reason is as obvious to you as it is to me. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:18, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Pure FUD. You've been banging on about this for years; yet we use ISO 8601 for dates in templates like those listed above, on many thousands of articles. It's trivial, in Lua, to put switches in to suppress metadata emission for pre-Gregorian dates. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:51, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Yea, just like your obsession with all things 'metadata' is well known. You still haven't elaborated how "useful" it is, despite having been asked more than once. -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 02:07, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Feature request: possibility of having two ISBNs, one for hard bound, the other for paperback

I noticed that there are a couple of entries in the International Phonetic Alphabet article, Further reading section that are having trouble with the use of the cite book template, because an editor entered two ISBNs for the |isbn= parameter. The books apparently do have two ISBNs: one each for hard bound and for paperback. It seems that the only way to handle this now is to make two separate citation entries, which seems overkill. So how about two parameters that can produce two ISBNs in the listing (and differentiate hb from pb)? Other solutions are fine with me. I'm just looking for some unclunky way to handle such a situation. Evenssteven (talk) 02:20, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

The idea of two parameters for different ISBNs has been suggested before, several times. Where would we stop? Some books have more than two ISBNs - there are deluxe/limited editions/gift sets, eBooks, abridged versions, large print, etc. My copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary has two ISBNs on the copyright page - both are for hardback editions, the only difference is whether there's a thumb index or not. The back cover shows just one.
When this topic comes up with ref sources, the usual response is: give only the ISBN for the edition which was actually used. I think that for books given under "Further reading", the same principle applies: you are recommending a particular book, so you must have read it yourself, therefore give the details for the edition which you read, which will have only one ISBN. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:52, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
Ok, that seems a perfectly reasonable rationale that I can use in my own writing. Do you have a suggestion about how I might go about editing the International Phonetic Alphabet article? I don't know which edition the person who put in the ref had read, and I myself have read neither. So let me answer my own query, and you can supply a better one if you know. Since I am in doubt, or don't know something, I am the wrong person to edit the ref. WP is allowed to be imperfect, and if I don't know or expect my change to be an improvement, then it's really not much of a contribution, and so I walk away from that one. Thanks for the excellent advice; practical on two counts. Evenssteven (talk) 12:33, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
There are two possibilities: one is to alter |isbn=0-521-65236-7 (hb); ISBN 0-521-63751-1 (pb)}} to |isbn=0-521-65236-7 }} ISBN 0-521-63751-1 or to |isbn=0-521-65236-7 }} - either way, the hardback one is the one that I'd leave inside the {{cite book}}. Do the same with the other one as well. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:27, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
"the only way to handle this now" Just want to point out that this never worked properly, as the link to Special:BookSources would contain two ISBNs, which is parsed as a single ISBN, thus is invalid. The templates now do error checking on the ISBN. --  Gadget850 talk 13:38, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
I think |isbn=, like any other parameter expecting a single value, should have only a single value; perhaps this should be documented somewhere? In this case the second ISBN should be added following the template. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:24, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
I thought that's what I put above... nevertheless, I've added a warning to the doc page. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:01, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
I've run into this problem as well. Why not optionally allow a comma-separated list of ISBNs to be given (separated by either "," or ";"). If it is undesirable to link them all, just extract the first one for the link and display the remainder as normal text. Or add support for the comment= parameter I proposed already (Help talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_2#Proposal_for_comment_parameter), where people could add such extra information in free format. Adding it after the template sounds like a work-around (which sometimes could look rather strange), not a solution. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:00, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
The ISBN field is not for identifying all available copies, it is to identify the particular source you read. You can stuff whatever you want in the |id= parameter. If you want 16 ISBNs, then go for it. But you must have read each of them and ensured the page numbers match. WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. I'm tired of repeating this, and will let it fall out when you try to take the article to FA. --  Gadget850 talk 09:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
I beg to pardon, but there is not the slightest reason to be aggressive. As has been pointed out by others, there are books, which carry more than one ISBN on a single sample of the book (I've seen up to four). There are also cases, where someone has more than one edition of a book, each with its own ISBN, and has read both of them to be sure that they contain the same information. Of course, we could just pick one of them, but we could also just allow more than one ISBN. The later would be more correct, IMHO. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:45, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
And how do you plan to handle different dates? --  Gadget850 talk 09:36, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
I haven't seen this in combination with differing dates so far, but just in case, I would propose to handle it in the same way as comma-separated list. Alternatively, the first1 last1 first2 last2 approach could be used here as well, isbn[1], date[1], isbn2, date2, ... --Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:45, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Here you go:

  • Drucker, Sam. The World of ISBNs. ISBN 978-0812695939 (1999) p. 23 (hardback); ISBN 978-0812695935 (2001) p. 26 (paperback); ISBN 978-0812691234 (2010) loc. 123-987 (Kindle); ISBN 978-0812691234 (2013) p.22 (Kindle Fire); ISBN 978-0812345935 (2013) p.32 (ePub).

Infinite diversity in infinite combinations. --  Gadget850 talk 10:10, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

PMID parameter not working in template "cite journal"?

I used the citation {{cite journal|last=Todd|first=Andrew S|coauthors=R. Mark Sattelberg|title=Actinides in Deer Tissues at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site|journal=Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management|year=2005|month=November|volume=1|issue=4|pages=391–396|pmid=16639905‎|url=http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ieam.5630010408/pdf|accessdate=9 June 2013}}, and the PMID external link in the reference takes me here instead of here. Am a doing something wrong, or is there an error with the template? Thanks! VQuakr (talk) 19:23, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Here is a version of your citation with most stuff removed. I notice that when PMID is immediately followed by a pipe or vertical bar (|) then the PMID parameter gets corrupted somehow:
{{cite journal |title=Actinides in Deer Tissues at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site|pmid=16639905‎|volume=1}}
→"Actinides in Deer Tissues at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site". 1. PMID 16639905‎. {{cite journal}}: Check |pmid= value (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
If I move |pmid= to the end of the citation then there isn't a problem:
{{cite journal |title=Actinides in Deer Tissues at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site‎|volume=1|pmid=16639905}}
→"Actinides in Deer Tissues at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site‎". 1. PMID 16639905. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
So, that's the work around until the problem is fixed.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:02, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that there is an invisible character immediately after the 16639905, specifically a U+200E (Left-to-right mark). It may be removed by placing the cursor somewhere within the PMID value (but before its end), marking text from there to somewhere after the pipe, pressing Delete and retyping:
Not directly related, but in templates with more than two or three named parameters, I normally put a space just before each pipe to aid visual separation - trying to spot where one parameter ends and the next begins is more difficult when they're all jammed together. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:48, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
Many thanks to both of you for the rapid feedback! VQuakr (talk) 04:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

chapterurl problem in cite book

In {{cite book| editorlink = Robert J. Sternberg| last = Hyman | first = Ray| authorlink = Ray_Hyman|| editor1 = Robert J. Sternberg |editor2 = Henry L. Roediger| editor3 = Diane F. Halpern| title = Critical Thinking in Psychology| url = http://books.google.com/?id=3mA9NPAgWR0C| year = 2007| publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn = 978-0-521-60834-3| page = 218| chapter = Evaluating Parapsychological Claims }}

Hyman, Ray (2007). "Evaluating Parapsychological Claims". In Robert J. Sternberg; Henry L. Roediger; Diane F. Halpern (eds.). Critical Thinking in Psychology. Cambridge University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-521-60834-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Unknown parameter |editorlink= ignored (|editor-link= suggested) (help)

The url links from the title of the chapter, rather than the title of the book. (This link may still not be accurate, because I modified it from one with two authorlink fields, which was, in tern, modified from one which had first and last (referring to the chapter author) and authors (referring to the book authors, which I called editors). Shouldn't the url link from the book title. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:17, 10 June 2013 (UTC)


As can be seen from this comparison, the new version of {{cite book}} links the |chapter= with |url= just as the old {{citation/core}} version did:
Cite book comparison
Wikitext {{cite book|authorlink=Ray_Hyman|chapter=Evaluating Parapsychological Claims|editor1=Robert J. Sternberg|editor2=Henry L. Roediger|editor3=Diane F. Halpern|editorlink=Robert J. Sternberg|first=Ray|isbn=978-0-521-60834-3|last=Hyman|page=218|publisher=Cambridge University Press|title=Critical Thinking in Psychology|url=http://books.google.com/?id=3mA9NPAgWR0C|year=2007}}
Live Hyman, Ray (2007). "Evaluating Parapsychological Claims". In Robert J. Sternberg; Henry L. Roediger; Diane F. Halpern (eds.). Critical Thinking in Psychology. Cambridge University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-521-60834-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editorlink= ignored (|editor-link= suggested) (help)
Sandbox Hyman, Ray (2007). "Evaluating Parapsychological Claims". In Robert J. Sternberg; Henry L. Roediger; Diane F. Halpern (eds.). Critical Thinking in Psychology. Cambridge University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-521-60834-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editorlink= ignored (|editor-link= suggested) (help)
I'm inclined to believe that |url= should link |title= and not |chapter= when |chapterurl= is omitted. Doing so complies with the {{cite book}} documentation.
Editor Arthur Rubin can add |chapterurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=3mA9NPAgWR0C&pg=PA216 to the citation as a work-around.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:57, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
Even if it's been that way since the old {{citation/core}} days, it still should be fixed.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:02, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
I didn't say that is shouldn't be fixed. The initial goal of the conversion to the Lua module is and should be to be compatible with the existing {{citation/core}} templates. The point of the comparison was to show that the developers did not introduce a bug into Module:Citation/CS1.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:44, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

template errors on type

Perhaps someone familiar with this template's intricacies will know what to do: there are template errors showing on the documentation at WP:CS1#Type. I expect they are related to recent reorganization toward a LUA implementation. —EncMstr (talk) 17:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed --  Gadget850 talk 17:38, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Formatting, readability

Is there any way to have the 'publisher' break to a new line below the author's name, year and title? As it is, when the cite book items are all filled out, it generates a source listing that is entirely strung together on one line, often listing the publisher on the other side of the screen. The wrap around isn't much help because often times the only items that wrap to the next line are page numbers and isbn numbers, etc. When panning through a lengthy bibliography it is much easier to read the individual sources when the author's name, year and title are on one line, and the publisher, page number, isbn are on the second line, with the publisher always at the beginning of the second line. Since many cite book listings wrap around to a second line anyway, (unless you're using a very wide screen) it would be nice if this was accomplished with a little order and uniformity. Below is an example of how the listing would look. A <br> has been placed in the publisher field to accomplish this but in practice these are sometimes removed by bots. If there is reluctance to alter this cite book template could an alternative cite book template be created? e.g.'cite book2'. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 22:18, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

  • Dorwart, Jeffery M.; Wolf, Jean K. (2001). The Philadelphia Navy Yard: From the Birth of the U.S. Navy to the Nuclear Age.
    University of Pennsylvania Press. p.271,. ISBN 0812235754.    {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  • Dresel, H.G. (1896). United States Naval Institute Proceedings, Volume 22 (Naval warfare, tactics, weapons, etc,).
    United States Naval Institute, Annapolis. p. 866.
  • Dull, Jonathan R. (2012). American Naval History, 1607-1865: Overcoming the Colonial Legacy.
    Univ of Nebraska Press. p. 216. ISBN 9780803244719.
That break is going to be stuffed into the COinS output and will be picked up by reference management software. A better solution is to add a class to the 'publisher' field. Then you can add the break in your personal CSS. --  Gadget850 talk 00:07, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I'm more of a writer than I am a computer software hack. I have no idea what's going on with 'COinS', and I'm not clear on how you add a 'class' to the publisher field or about adding a break to CSS. Any help would be a big help. One more question: Will this only effect my viewing of bibliographies? I was thinking in terms of adding uniformity and readability to bibliographies for the sake of the readers. Many bibliographies are quite long, and when all the source items are just strung together on one line, line after line, it tends to make the bibliography look like a blur. Any help along these lines also would be most useful. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 03:25, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
COinS is invisible metadata that is readable by reference management software. If you stuff markup like a break into a field, then it pollutes the metadata. We have an open feature request to add classes to each field for microdata purposes. This would also allow readers to style fields as desired.
Adding a hard coded break is not the best solution, as it will probably mangle the display for mobile users, and it will create shortened lines for users with large displays. --  Gadget850 talk 08:34, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

eBooks

A question recently came up at the Teahouse where an editor was trying to use cite-book for an eBook citation. The problem arose as for an eBook a page number is not really appropriate. There's a sort of workaround with using a "location (LOC)" within an eBook and the "at" parameter. However it seems the template and/or the documentation needs to be adjusted in order to help users wanting to cite specific locations within eBooks easily. --LukeSurl t c 21:45, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Link to archived discussion where this was also discussed --LukeSurl t c 22:36, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm the original user that had the issue. I've been thinking about this from the standpoint of a data designer. I think I may have been over thinking this. There are already various interpretations for the page number based on the edition, paperback, hardcover, etc. So the loc is just one more example. I think the right answer here might just be use the loc as a regular page number. Mdebellis (talk) 02:40, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Italicisation of websites in references

I don't understand why websites are italicised in references when we do not italicise them in any other form on Wikipedia. to me, this seems to be improper formatting, and unless there is a convincing argument in support of it, I propose to have it altered in our system so that websites are no longer italicised in references. an example of this: a reference to an article by the website AllMusic:

True, Chris. "Faith – The Cure: Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards: AllMusic". AllMusic. AllRovi. Retrieved 15 June 2013.

notice that "AllMusic" is italicised. Lachlan Foley 03:39, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

This is a perennial question, and it comes down to this: the |work= parameter is treated as synonymous with |journal=, |newspaper=, |magazine= (and some others, see Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration and search for the entry beginning "['Periodical'] ="). This is the gross work; the |title= specifies an included work. Gross works are italicised; included works are quoted. --Redrose64 (talk) 06:54, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
In my experience, the "work" parameter isn't usually relevant in "cite web". You have the title of the page (title) and the entity who published it (publisher), which is usually the name of the website. I'm not even sure what "work" means in this context. Whereas in e.g. "cite news", "work" is the name of the publication and rightly appears in italics. In the AllMusic example that Lachlan Foley cites, AllMusic has been included in the title of the page so there is no need to also call it a "work". Although, since AllMusic is a well-known website, I'd have been inclined to call AllMusic the publisher and ignore the fact that the copyright is held by a wider entity called AllRovi. In that case, the inclusion of the word AllMusic in the page title would be redundant. At all events, this seems a rather untypical example. -- Alarics (talk) 07:24, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
there is a |website= parameter (which I have actually only just noticed), and |work= is the alias, meaning that |work= is the correct field to put the title of the website under. |publisher=, it seems to me, is for the entity in charge of or powering the website. the |title= field is for, in this case, the title of the page which the URL is linking to, not the website itself. Lachlan Foley 11:44, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
I have occasionally used |work= for the name of the section of the website or for the type of document this page is, when there are multiple pages of the same type elsewhere on the site.
Consider, in cite web,
|url=http://example.com/safety-directives/left-handed-scredrivers |title=Safety Directives - Safely Using Left-Handed Screwdrivers |publisher=The Safety Society
vs.
|url=http://example.com/safety-directives/left-handed-scredrivers |title=Safely Using Left-Handed Screwdrivers |work=Safety Directives |publisher=The Safety Society
-- 31.54.63.131 (talk) 19:08, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
In your example it is a "work". As you point out it is not the publisher, AllRovi is. It seems quite properly cited. --Bejnar (talk) 07:49, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
  • I tend to view these from a practical standpoint – they are the same sides of a coin but used to manage italicisation: |work= italicised, |published= doesn't. The notion of 'publisher' is much more important for books, and the {{citation}} templates instruct us not to cite publishers for periodicals. I would never put Allmusic in the title. It needs to go in |publisher= or |work= depending on whether it is properly italicised or not. -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 11:38, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
in response to Bejnar: it is properly cited, the issue is that "AllMusic" is italicised in the reference, and websites are not italicised anywhere else on Wikipedia, making this a flaw in the citing system. if your message was directed at Alarics, ignore this. Lachlan Foley 11:44, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
Is AllMusic the main work? If it should not be italicized, then should a web page from AllMusic be in quotes as the included work? --  Gadget850 talk 08:38, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Cite book template does not display "others" parameter

It seems that {{Cite book}} does not display the value in the |others= parameter, such as this reference from Johann Heinrich Alsted:

  • {{cite book | first = Paolo| last = Rossi | authorlink = | coauthors = | year = 2000 | month = | title = Logic and the Art of Memory | chapter = |others=Translated by Stephen Clucas | others = | edition = | pages = | publisher = University of Chicago Press | location = | id = | url = | isbn = 0-226-72826-9 }}
  • Rossi, Paolo (2000). Logic and the Art of Memory. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-72826-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |coauthors= and |month= (help)

GoingBatty (talk) 01:02, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

It shows the value of the second |others= which is blank. --  Gadget850 talk 01:10, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Facepalm Facepalm - sorry for not seeing the obvious - thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:20, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata

Perhaps others here will be interested by what's going on at d:Wikidata:Books_task_force. Seems like there's some commonality of interest. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:04, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Your link doesn't appear to be correct. It goes to a blank page. Dragons flight (talk) 21:50, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
I've fixed the link. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 02:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Template:Cite journal; Edition

Is there a reason why "edition" is not mentioned in the full parameter set of Template:Cite journal? --82.170.113.123 (talk) 20:37, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

No. I have updated everything but those full parameter sets, as I don't think they are a good idea, so I am leaving someone else to do it. --  Gadget850 talk 20:41, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Edition is rarely useful for journals. Books have editions, since a given book may be revised from time to time, each update gets a new edition but is substantially the same as the previous. Journals (or any other periodicals) do have progressive identifiers, but these are dates, or volume/issue numbers - the change from one issue to the next is close to 100%. To be honest, I've only come across two instances of a single issue of a periodical going through more than one edition - in both cases an article had to be removed for legal reasons. In one case, the "second edition" got a suffixed issue number (i.e. 1234a where the original was 1234); in the other, the only way you could tell that you had a "second edition" was because the page numbering on a particular two-page spread was 34/37. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:55, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Just for the record, I think these full parameter sets are very useful. I usually start with those, fill in everything I can find and if any of the parameters are unclear I look for information further down these template pages. To give you an example, I just copied the full parameter set of Template:Cite journal, filled in whatever I could find and voilà: [1] Too many templates to know by heart, no time to read through the entire Parameters section, and frequently the most commonly used parameters do not include some additional information I can provide. --82.170.113.123 (talk) 21:01, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Could you please provide an example of an article that contains a reference with {{cite journal}} where |edition= would be useful? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:05, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Me? I have no idea, maybe it's not useful anywhere. I only noticed it wasn't part of the full parameter set, that's all. --82.170.113.123 (talk) 10:09, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Since cite journal is used for magazines as well as journals, how would we denote that an article was published in a specific national edition of a news magazine, but not in the regular edition? I'm thinking of an article in the US edition of The Economist, which is published in the UK. I used the edition parameter in this footnote for instance for that reason. Imzadi 1979 → 15:16, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
That's why we have |location=. In this instance you would put |location=New York. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:37, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Except that the news database I consulted specifically stated "U.S. edition" and didn't mention location. Based on the publication's website, how am I to determine based on the information given if it was published in New York or San Francisco? (They have offices in both locations, neither of which is specified as originating the U.S. edition.) How would either U.S. location inform a reader seeking to find a copy of the article, when the databases categorize it as the "U.S. edition"? Yes, there are limited uses for the parameter, but that doesn't mean there are no uses for it. Imzadi 1979 → 17:58, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
In that case, how about putting the title as "Economist US edition" and maintaining the location as London? It is still essentially a London-produced magazine, I think -- or does it have a whole team people in USA producing an entirely different publication from the UK one? -- Alarics (talk) 11:48, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Formatting of references: archive and quote.

Another suggestion for formatting references in order to make them easier to read. When cite web references occupy two or more columns, start the text "archived from the original on {date}" on a new line. Additionally, start any quoted text on a new line. These changes would rarely result in the reference occupying more lines in total. - 109.176.243.180 (talk) 18:30, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible to set up fixed-position line breaks to apply only when there is a columnar layout. We could set a forced line break at one or another of these positions, but not on a dynamic basis: they would always be present, regardless of the number of columns. That said, when the CSS Multi-column Layout Module gets promoted from Candidate Recommendation to W3C Recommendation, browser writers should then start supporting the Column breaks feature, and it may then be possible to force column breaks to occur between two list items and not inside a list item. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:47, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
{{Reflist}} cannot see the content inside <ref>...</ref> tags- it simply applies the column styling to <references /> which is the tag used by the Cite software to generate the reference list. --  Gadget850 talk 19:39, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
{{Multiple issues}} uses CSS to change the look of the embedded templates. Could the same technique be used here, so that {{reflist}} exposes newlines inside the cite templates that are normally invisible? -- John of Reading (talk) 05:08, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
Is this a question about a single reference that happens to span two columns, or about all references within a multi-column list? I suspect the latter. Starting a new line for archives and quotes would appear to be more readable, however in a single column list the suggestion would always result in many more lines being used. --212.139.98.247 (talk) 20:47, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
@John of Reading: Yes, that is possible. Two things need to be done: first, we need to set up a new class - say reflist-br-condit - and set up the global CSS for that, like this 
br.reflist-br-condit {
  display: none;
}
.references-column-count br.reflist-br-condit {
  display: inline;
}
Second, we would modify Module:Citation/CS1 to emit <br class=reflist-br-condit /> at suitable points. Linebreaks would then be visible in reflists, only when the multi-column feature is used. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:58, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

time parameter?

It's very common these days for web-based material have both a date and time of publication. To my knowledge there's no mechanism to include the time information in the cite templates. I suppose the current closet place for it to be put is in the "date" parameter but that's not what that is meant for. Should a new "time" parameter be introduced? Of course, the question is begged: is this level of granularity necessary for the references? I believe it is valuable when included for two reasons. The time would be useful when used in search engines to find a lost source (e.g. current url is dead) and a time-stamp match would produce confidence that one has actually re-located the proper missing source (date alone is insufficient as big news events often have multiple stories released on the same day). It would be especially useful for the {{cite web}} and {{cite news}} templates. Ideas? Jason Quinn (talk) 04:24, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

@Jason Quinn: - Could you please provide an example of a web page where the time is relevant? (i.e. a reliable source that has content posted for less than a day) Thanks!
I would imagine, for a "breaking news" story, where details arrive in the newsroom at random intervals and they then update the web page as and when they have more information. This story, for example, is currently marked 6:23AM BST 03 Jul 2013 - that's 06:23 British Summer Time, which is 05:23 UTC. Check back in a couple of hours. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
The CS1 templates do support 'time' and 'timecaption':
Markup Renders as 
{{cite web |title=Title |url=http://www.example.org |date=July 3, 2013 |time=6:21AM BST |timecaption=&#8203;}}

"Title". July 3, 2013. Event occurs at 6:21AM BST. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |timecaption= ignored (|time-caption= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)

'timecaption' defaults to 'Event occurs at ', so I worked around by using a zero width space. If this is going to be used, then we should add an explicit 'none' value to suppress the timecaption, as there is a hard-coded space between 'timecaption' and 'time'. --  Gadget850 talk 10:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
The time and timecaption are documented at {{Cite video}}. Their purpose is to document where in a video the relevant information may be found. This is a different meaning than the time the information was published. There is a potential conflict. Updated videos about a developing news story may be posted by a reliable source. In principle, it could be useful to specify both when the update was published, and at what time within the video the information being cited may be viewed. Although, news stories tend to be short so in most cases the reader would just view the whole story. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:36, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
With the Lua-based templates, all or most parameters are available to all templates. The key is context. And {{Cite video}} is now {{Cite AV media}}. --  Gadget850 talk 22:55, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
It isn't unusual for templates to be switched from, for example, Cite AV media to Cite web or Cite news when it is determined the source really falls into a different category. It is a bad practice to use the same parameter name for substantially different concepts. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
We already do it: 'title' in {{cite web}} for a page included in the 'website/work', as compared to 'chapter' for the work included in the 'title'. Which causes problems for some editors. But, time is time— whether is is the time of publication or the time an even occurs. Again, it is a matter of context— this is the first time I am aware that someone wanted to include a time in a source other than audiovisual. Perhaps 'at' would be the better field. --  Gadget850 talk 23:23, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

The variable meaning of title is a perfect example of what not to do. As for "at", you mean that videos should use the at parameter rather than the minutes or time parameter to specify where within the video the relevant information is? Not unreasonable.

If we're going to stretch the meaning of an existing parameter to include time, I suggest redocumenting the date and accessdate parameters to state they can include publication or access time when that would be helpful. This would be less of a conceptual difference than the difference between time within a video vs. publication time. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:35, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

'date' is problematic, as it emits COinS metadata. --  Gadget850 talk 00:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Consider a more complete example:
{{cite web |title=Title |url=http://www.example.org |date=July 3, 2013 |time=6:21AM BST |timecaption=&#8203;| last1 = Doe| first1 = John}}
renders as
Doe, John (July 3, 2013). "Title". Event occurs at 6:21AM BST. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |timecaption= ignored (|time-caption= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
The concept behind the time parameter shows through; it sticks by the title where it belongs, since it is describing the time within the video. It does not stick by the publication date, which it has nothing to do with. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:03, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Put publication time in date parameters: With the common re-updating of news articles, then the time of news update could be inserted into the date, either prepended (14:30, July 3, 2013) or appended after the date (July 3, 2013, 14:30) or as "2:30 pm" format:
{cite web |title=Web Page |url=http://www.example.org |date=July 3, 2013, 14:30 | last1=Smyth| first1 = John |ref=harv}
Smyth, John (July 3, 2013, 14:30). "Web Page". {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
The year is time-extracted from the "date=" value, to set the Harvard referencing, so the time-of-day must be a valid time when using ref=harv. Then the year is extracted to set "<span id="CITEREFSmyth2013">". Otherwise, if the time-of-day contains an invalid hour, then the year will be omitted from the span-tag id (but no error message). -Wikid77 (talk) 11:00, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
How can the time zone be indicated without breaking year extraction for Harvard referencing? The possibility of adding a time should be documented for the date parameters for all types of works where adding a time might make sense. As far as I'm concerned, coders shouldn't bother adding features if there isn't a plan to document them so end users will know how to use them. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:05, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Append time zone "CST" or "EDT" or such, where "3 May 92, 14:30 CST" still extracts the year as 1992. -Wikid77 11:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
If the date/time is a form recognised by {{#time:}} then it should work. For example, {{#time:Y|14:05, 6 July 2013 (UTC)}} yields 2013 ... oh, hang on, that's the old way. Now that it uses a Lua module, I don't know - it's very difficult to trace the code through. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:30, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Lua uses pcall with lang.formatDate and 'Y': The line of Lua script, to extract the year, is:
good, result = pcall( lang.formatDate, lang, 'Y', str )
where the variable 'good' is a boolean set to true when the year has been extracted, into variable 'result'. A Lua function can return multiple variables, separated by commas (such as "good,result"). We could write a rapid Lua YearExtract function to ignore time validation, and just extract the year-number regardless of invalid hour, but the easy way was to use lang.formatDate to transform the date into just the year portion, inside the Lua Module:Citation/CS1. It's funny how {cite_web} will give error messages for obvious ISBN trouble, but an insideous mismatch of years in Harvard referencing will give no error message at all, just fail to link. I guess I should fix that to auto-correct and find the year else error message when ref=harv, since no one else has yet. We have Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox2 for debugging more complex problems. -Wikid77 11:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
I ran some experiments in my sandbox, and found the harv anchor isn't correct if the year is fewer than 3 digits, or if it has a BC after it. Regardless of whether we start putting times into dates, the range of valid years should be documented in the date and year parameters. As for time, I found that EST worked but a random three character group, "BQR", did not. If we are going to put times into dates, the documentation should indicate which time zone symbols are valid for the English Wikipedia. Better still, always use UT, since there will be no facility to convert times to the reader's timezone. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:35, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Bad harv/sfn links - such as typos in years - may be detected quite easily, by installing this script. They then show up as big red error messages like "Harv error: link from #CITEREFDow1859 doesn't point to any citation", which is how I was alerted to make this fix. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Cite journal template

I understand this template is also used for newsletters but not everybody knows that. I would appreciate it if the word "newsletters" was added to the opening description as follows (bold for highlighting here only): "This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for articles in journals, magazines, newsletters and for academic papers." Helen (talk) 06:00, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The documentation page isn't fully protected, so anyone could have implemented that change. Imzadi 1979 → 06:04, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

New wp:VECITE essay for VisualEditor cites

Although the wp:VisualEditor (VE) can edit more references than just the wp:CS1 cites, I have created an essay (wp:VECITE or wp:VEREF) which mentions using the CS1 cite templates within the VisualEditor:

Currently, the responses about using VE have been horrendous, with many experienced users vowing to no longer or never use it, but it can be a "teachable moment" (or "learnable nightmare") about the difficulty of using point-and-click interfaces to select each parameter from a list, rather than using the power of free-form text technology, followed by using a batch-mode "syntax checker" to proofread for invalid parameters in a macro scripting language (in this case, proofreading as red-error messages from the CS1 templates during edit-preview).

As for the fate of VE, with over 300 reported bugs, the onward mandate is pushed by the mindset that there is no "bad software" but that all software is inherently full of bugs and should be used whenever, regardless of the corruption of text files or psychological scarring of users. Hence, I have created that essay to help users cope with problems when being herded into a channel of VE-centric editing. Currently, all users have the option to use the prior edit-source mode for pages, but the VisualEditor provides a slippery slope of luring editors into a point-and-click interface for revising words, which leads to a tedious, slow, click-click-click-on-parameter mode to insert each separate parameter for citations. The new essay wp:VECITE is just a start to providing more help about that slow process. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

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