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Exclude Wikipedia space from CS1 maint: Extra text

There are quite a few pages in Wikipedia space in Category:CS1 maint: Extra text. Instead of "fixing" these pages (many of which are archives), would it be better to exclude Wikipedia space from this category? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:32, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

My two cents: Wikipedia-space pages appear in the error categories as well. I have fixed hundreds and have never had a complaint. Note that you need to look carefully to see if the error is really a demonstration of an example. In that case, using |template-doc-demo=true may be appropriate to add.

Excluding all WP-space pages would exclude pages that are intended as help and how-to pages, as well as guidelines and policies. We wouldn't want to exclude those, I think. There may be a way to exclude archives, though, just as we have excluded template sandboxes and test case pages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:07, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

We can exclude archives. As originally proposed, the code would have excluded /[Aa]rchive and /[Ll]og pages. The original discussion is here.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:15, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

website deprecated?

|website= is no longer shown as an alias for |work=. Are we deprecating website? Is there any discussion on that you can point me to? Thanks. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:47, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

No. Where are you looking? |website= shows as an alias at cite web.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:18, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Template:cite news#csdoc_work ―Mandruss ☎ 12:38, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Though the doc is in places confusing in its mentions of "website", it is proper not to use it as an alias of |work= in {{cite news}}. 208.87.234.201 (talk) 14:11, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

And this wisdom is written where? If cite news supports it, the doc for cite news should say how it supports it. That's Software 101. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:47, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I updated the documentation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:49, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't see any update. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:58, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: It appears you updated Template:Citation Style documentation/work2, whereas Template:Cite news/doc#Periodical uses Template:Citation Style documentation/journal. GoingBatty (talk) 23:14, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

So I did. Silly me. I have updated both of them now. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:39, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:45, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

This is not a good guideline. {{cite news}} is for citing news sources. Websites are not news sources, they often are the medium news is delivered by a source. The source may be entirely online; it doesn't matter. If it is an online journal, use journal. If it is an online newspaper, use newspaper. There is a |type= parameter if you want to specify medium etc. Based on the latest change, I move to add |print= as an alias of |work= in {{cite book}}. 208.87.234.201 (talk) 15:17, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Of course web sites can be news sources. It's 2016. The documentation for cite news says "This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for news articles in print, video, audio or web." – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:40, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Perfect confusion: "print, video, audio or web" is media. News sources are entities that distribute their product over a variety of media. The template is there to cite a news source. The absence of coherence and common sense surrounding the citation system is breathtaking. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 18:44, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Use {{cite news}} for e.g. The Huffington Post. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:52, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

|work==|magazine= |work=journal. In the absence of |work==|news-agency= or |work==|news-blog=. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 20:01, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

As it says at Template:Cite news#Periodical: work: Name of the source periodical ... Aliases: journal, newspaper, magazine, periodical, website. Pick one, and don't worry if somebody alters it to one of the others, they're all equally valid. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:31, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

If they are all equally valid, they are superfluous. If they provide to editors semantic information, then the one more approximating the type of source (not the medium of the source) should be used. 64.134.100.179 (talk) 22:29, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

The point is, if it's a newspaper that is available online, you can use |work= or |newspaper= or |website= - it really doesn't matter. If we tell people they must use only one of them, we will irritate a lot of people, not to mention all the hassle of sending a bot around to "fix" something that isn't broken. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:33, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't want to force anyone into using any particular alias. But "website" does not belong in a listing that includes types of news sources. It is a medium-type, not a source-type. Nobody is citing websites with {{cite news}} (there's {{cite web}} for that), we are concerned with citing news sources (which may be online). If you want to cite the medium, use |type=web. If we are to add distribution media, then I think more aliases for "work" are forthcoming, such as |print=, |audio broadcast= etc. I'm sure this will make things even more complicated. 65.88.88.46 (talk) 16:40, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Nobody is citing websites with {{cite news}} - Light-years from reality. Tons of editors are doing exactly that, because they have read the first sentence at Template:Cite news, the table at Help:Citation Style 1#Templates, and other guidance elsehwere, and believe in following the guidance given.
I don't really care what's done here, provided the doc accurately describes what the software does. If the software changes, I'll adapt. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:00, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

You are saying that when you cite say, a NY Times article, the source is not the news provider (The New York Times), but a website (www.nytimes.com) that the provider is using to present the information. So that instead of |newspaper=New York Times the proper rendition should be |website=www.nytimes.com How does the latter qualify as a news source? Because the doc is confusing or wrong doesn't mean common sense has to be abandoned. The software does a decent job of formatting the citations. The doc is under par in several instances, especially where it sneaks novel (meaning non-discussed) citation guidelines disguised as citation formatting. 72.43.99.130 (talk) 20:39, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Many choose to code |website=The New York Times, in the opinion that "website" is not a synonym for "domain name". Many will defend to the death the notion that a web site is not a newspaper, since you can't hold it in your hands and turn the pages and it doesn't leave ink stains on your fingers, and so they refuse to use |newspaper= for web-published sources. There is no guidance as to these choices, nor any documented consensus that I'm aware of, hence conflicts such as this one.
Editors spend countless hours arguing about these matters, which make little or no difference in what the readers see, edit-warring and continually "correcting" others' work to no visible change, and they will continue to do so until the end of time, despite exhortations to stop. Thus my comments below.
I personally don't like coding domain names in citations.
I've found that common sense is very often a matter of opinion. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:14, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I've long felt that aliases add unwarranted complexity and conflict (such as this) for no change to what readers see. That's what we're here for, by the way—what readers see. We could simply use |work= for a range of purposes as documented. But I realize it's probably many years too late for that to happen, so this is a pointless comment. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:24, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

|oclc=

I have added simple |oclc= checks to look for spaces. The code first removes any punctuation from the identifier value (WorldCat ignores punctuation in the identifier value) and then attempts to convert the value to a number which must be 1 or greater. Any non-digit characters the identifier value will cause the conversion to fail and the module will emit a bad oclc error message. These errors will be categorized in Category:CS1 errors: OCLC

At the time of this writing, this insource search string found 62 |oclc= values with letters:

insource:/\| *oclc *= *[A-Za-z]+/

None of the links that I checked were valid.

• Fail: a letter. OCLC A. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)
• Fail: number less than 1. OCLC 0.
• Fail: has a space. OCLC 1.000 000. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)
• Pass: comma thousands separators. OCLC 1,000,000. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:30, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

We could check for multiple OCLCs by limiting the number of digits. See this reference source for a rough OCLC specification. Something like this should not be valid:

• Two OCLC values separated by a comma. OCLC 12345678,12345679. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

Thoughts? – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:31, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

That documentation is rather vague. WorldCat specifically identifies the OCLC number in the Details box. The document implies, I think, that there are forms of OCLC that have prefixes. But, inclusion of the prefix in |oclc= causes WorldCat to return a page-not-found error. Simple testing seems to indicate that removing the prefix from the 'number' returns a page that matches the title in the citation.

We can limit the OCLC to 9 digits. If the numbers are sequential, then as I write this, the current top number is 936,401,218 so that leaves us 63,598,781 before the number rolls over to 10 digits. Perhaps we make the test smart enough to limit the number of digits according to any prefix it may have.

I'll work on this tomorrow.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 02:03, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

My reading of the documentation was that some sources use a prefix of their own before the OCLC identifier, but the identifier itself is a whole number starting at 1 and getting close to 1 billion (US style: 1000000000, or one followed by nine zeroes). I think we should limit the OCLC check to ten digits (not nine, given the guidance at that page), greater than zero. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:17, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Rewritten. Since the oclc document specifies length as a function of the prefix, the code tests for length when a recognized prefix is present. For oclc without a prefix and for the prefix (OCoLC), length is constrained to 9 digits for the time being. This is much like the constraint we impose on |pmc= and |pmid=. Where prefixes are included in the |oclc= parameter value, they are stripped from the number and not displayed.

Prefix ocm requires 8 digits:

Title. OCLC ocm1234567. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

Title. OCLC 12345678.

Title. OCLC ocm123456789. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

Prefix ocn requires 9 digits:

Title. OCLC ocn12345678. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

Title. OCLC 123456789.

Title. OCLC ocn1234567890. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

Prefix on requires 10+ digits:

Title. OCLC on123456789. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

Title. OCLC 1234567890.

Title. OCLC 12345678901.

Prefix (OCoLC) requires 1+ digits without leading zeros (constrained to 9 digits):

Title. OCLC (OCoLC)01. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

Title. OCLC 1.

Title. OCLC 123456789.

Title. OCLC (OCoLC)1234567890. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

OCLC without prefix 1 to 9 digits:

Title. OCLC 1.

Title. OCLC 0001.

Title. OCLC 123456789.

Title. OCLC 1234567890.

Unrecognized prefix:

Title. OCLC bob12345678. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

Punctuation between two oclc numbers:

Title. OCLC 12345678,2345. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

Space between two oclc numbers:

Title. OCLC 12345678 2345. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:58, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Looks good. Nice work. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:09, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Interaction with <poem> blocks

It seems that <poem> blocks are processed before templates, meaning that {{cite journal}} and {{cite book}} only work inside them if they go all on one line. See this revision of "Lightbulb joke" for example - refs 3 and 4 are treated as plain wikitext. If you remove the newline before the first pipe, you get some weird errors about delete characters. There are no delete characters in the wiki text. Hairy Dude (talk) 01:26, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I have "fixed" that article by removing the line breaks, but it looks like this is a limitation of the poem tag. I recommend raising the issue at Help talk:Wiki markup, since it may affect other templates used inside of the poem tag as well. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:43, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps pages+page combined as page of pages

In the Category:Pages_with_citations_having_redundant_parameters, I have cleared all old entries from months ago, and left new entries to show a growing set of examples of recent redundant parameters. Previously, over 80% of entries had been pages+page, but 2nd most were author2+last2 (or similar). For the vast majority, as pages+page, the common fix is to show "page of pages" where many people think "pages=" is the total (similar to French "pages totales=" in fr:Template:Ouvrage but not in fr:Template:Lien_web). If the cites auto-combine as "page of pages" then over 80% of former "redundant" parameters will be valid now, and in viewing prior revisions of those pages, such as in old talk-pages. We would simply state in the CS1 documentation, "when pages+page cite shows page of pages" (or such), and that would remove those numerous pages+page errors from cites. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:18, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

All of those edits are relatively new; I have cleared out that category many times over the past year or more. They appear to be caused by editors who misread or do not read the documentation, which clearly states "pages: A range of pages in the source that supports the content. Use either |page= or |pages=, but not both. ... do not use to indicate the total number of pages in the source."

Showing "page x of xxx" would require consensus to change the documentation for the CS1 templates. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:25, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Or are caused by Citation bot. --Izno (talk) 17:30, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

"Check title= value" links to param-link error

I'm confused about the error messages here and how to fix them. I found this citation in Bayou Country.

Cite AV media notes comparison

Wikitext	{{cite AV media notes|authorlink=Joel Selvin|first=Joel|id=FAN-30877-02|last=Selvin|location=U.S.A.|others=Creedence Clearwater Revival|publisher=[[Concord Music Group]]|title=Bayou Country [Expanded Reissue]|titlelink=Bayou Country|type=CD booklet|url=http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/assets/documents01/Artists/Creedence-Clearwater-Revival/FAN-30877-02/Bayou-Country-40th-Anniversary-Liner-Notes.pdf|year=2008}}
Live	Selvin, Joel (2008). Bayou Country [Expanded Reissue] (PDF) (CD booklet). Creedence Clearwater Revival. U.S.A.: Concord Music Group. FAN-30877-02. {{cite AV media notes}}: Unknown parameter |titlelink= ignored (|title-link= suggested) (help)
Sandbox	Selvin, Joel (2008). Bayou Country [Expanded Reissue] (PDF) (CD booklet). Creedence Clearwater Revival. U.S.A.: Concord Music Group. FAN-30877-02. {{cite AV media notes}}: Unknown parameter |titlelink= ignored (|title-link= suggested) (help)

I see "|url= missing title (help). Check |title= value (help)". There is a title, and the second help link leads to the param-link error explanation. I'm guessing it has to do with the single square brackets in the title parameter. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:56, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the brackets are causing the title value error but not the url error.

Cite AV media notes comparison

Wikitext	{{cite AV media notes|authorlink=Joel Selvin|first=Joel|id=FAN-30877-02|last=Selvin|location=U.S.A.|others=Creedence Clearwater Revival|publisher=[[Concord Music Group]]|title=Bayou Country Expanded Reissue|titlelink=Bayou Country|type=CD booklet|url=http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/assets/documents01/Artists/Creedence-Clearwater-Revival/FAN-30877-02/Bayou-Country-40th-Anniversary-Liner-Notes.pdf|year=2008}}
Live	Selvin, Joel (2008). Bayou Country Expanded Reissue (PDF) (CD booklet). Creedence Clearwater Revival. U.S.A.: Concord Music Group. FAN-30877-02. {{cite AV media notes}}: Unknown parameter |titlelink= ignored (|title-link= suggested) (help)
Sandbox	Selvin, Joel (2008). Bayou Country Expanded Reissue (PDF) (CD booklet). Creedence Clearwater Revival. U.S.A.: Concord Music Group. FAN-30877-02. {{cite AV media notes}}: Unknown parameter |titlelink= ignored (|title-link= suggested) (help)

I would guess that because there's a title link the url-title checker is going a little haywire:

Cite AV media notes comparison

Wikitext	{{cite AV media notes|authorlink=Joel Selvin|first=Joel|id=FAN-30877-02|last=Selvin|location=U.S.A.|others=Creedence Clearwater Revival|publisher=[[Concord Music Group]]|title=Bayou Country Expanded Reissue|type=CD booklet|url=http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/assets/documents01/Artists/Creedence-Clearwater-Revival/FAN-30877-02/Bayou-Country-40th-Anniversary-Liner-Notes.pdf|year=2008}}
Live	Selvin, Joel (2008). Bayou Country Expanded Reissue (PDF) (CD booklet). Creedence Clearwater Revival. U.S.A.: Concord Music Group. FAN-30877-02.
Sandbox	Selvin, Joel (2008). Bayou Country Expanded Reissue (PDF) (CD booklet). Creedence Clearwater Revival. U.S.A.: Concord Music Group. FAN-30877-02.

On an aside, I've removed the link from the article in question, since articles shouldn't have self-links (aside from navigation, etc.). --Izno (talk) 23:05, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion about how to fix this instance of the problem, but I think the sandbox code might need to be adjusted. There are a number of articles that appeared in Category:CS1 errors: parameter link after the latest code update that seem to be false positives. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:30, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Square brackets are not allowed in article titles unless they are encoded as html entities (see WP:TITLESPECIALCHARACTERS). The module appears to be doing the wrong thing in this case. Because it is permissible to wikilink the value assigned to |title=, the intent was to reuse the code that finds the illegal characters in |<param>-link= to find the first [ of a wikilink when |title=[[link label]] and |title-link=article title from which the module would produce this illegal construct:

[[article title|[[link label]]]]

I have tweaked the module sandbox to explicitly look for the double leading square brackets of a wikilink in |title= (also applies to |series= when |series-link= is set as well as to the various other link/label pairs identified in the help text.

|title= cannot be linked simultaneously by both |title-link= and |url=. When both of the latter are present, |title-link= consumes |title= so |url= has no title-text for which it can be a link. This is a long-standing error message.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:01, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Meanwhile, to view this thread on a mobile-phone screen, I have wrapped the overlong url by inserting a hyphen into "assets/" as "assets-/" which no longer links to the actual webpage but is treated as valid URL format (and wraps on small-device screens). -Wikid77 (talk) 13:37, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Reverted. If you have a problem with the template, the page you should be changing is Template talk:Cite compare. --Izno (talk) 15:34, 8 February 2016 (UTC)