Help talk:CS1 errors/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Bibcode

Why there is 2010Nature....32..450P bibcode for doi 10.1038/nature09049? It is recognized as invalid by CS1 although cited on many places (Google search displays it, but sometimes there is 2010Natur.465..450S)... --Obsuser (talk) 20:46, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Surely you aren't saying that Wikipedia is responsible for errors in cites at sites that are not controlled by Wikipedia? The first bibcode, 2010Nature....32..450P is clearly longer than the 19 characters allowed. Click on the link and adsabs.harvard.edu also thinks that bibcode is not good:

Title. Bibcode:2010Nature....32..450P. {{cite book}}: Check |bibcode= length (help)

Yet the second appears to be correct and also appears to match the doi:

Title. Bibcode:2010Natur.465..450S. doi:10.1038/nature09049.

So what is the question for us?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:11, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

No, just wasn't sure it is incorrect. Thanks.--Obsuser (talk) 22:10, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

How do you confuse Needful with POV?

re: Help:CS1 errors...

It may be pov to you, but I prefer to consider it a breath of useful truth. THE LENGTH AND VERBOSITY of that Help page is a flunk-able offense to NEEDS of EDITORS donating time to improve articles, such as my fixing OTHER's Dates here. SO TELL ME, why should I be happy it takes five minutes to find the text on how to fix a simple and stupid problem because it has been buried on a page that should never have been assembled. (Note: MOST other types of cites errors SEEN here are tag names, often misspellings, which are specific to the cite template used. Many of those could be combined like publication, journal, etc. if some elitist group wasn't trying to force this or that form of citation styles down our throats.)

If you lot want a comprehensive page no one will ever read completely, then you've managed the goal.

If you want something useful and easy to maintain, then split that page into sections including subpages (by sections with apropos stand alone introductions nested in noinclude blocks and directly linkable), and have your errors point the sole subpage which is 'on topic'... NOT all over creation. In short, STOP WASTING MY TIME with such needless verbosity. I don't work for the Government. // FrankB 17:43, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

@Fabartus: Calling people 'idiots' or the guideline "overblown verbose verbiage" is blatant POV trolling. The templates throw specific errors. If you're curious about why you get that error, the TOC is there. You might get a shortcut to the date table in the lead section if you phrase things neutrally, but you won't achieve much success with the attitude you currently have. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:48, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)The page is long because editors make a wide variety of mistakes in using these complex templates. It has plenty of anchors, it is divided into sections with a TOC, and having it as one long page makes it so that the Find feature of your web browser works well once you have the page loaded. Also, errors in citations within articles always have a "help" link that takes you right to the appropriate section. (For example, in the page linked above, the help link goes to Help:CS1 errors#bad date). In that section, you can see "The access date (in |access-date=) is checked to ensure that it contains a full date (day, month, and year)...."

Fabartus: Do you have specific, constructive suggestions about how we could improve the content or navigability of this page while preserving the advantages described above? We make constructive improvements to the page quite often. Also, starting a discussion on the Talk page corresponding to the page you have questions about is the usual way to get those questions answers. Idiotically yours, – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:03, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

It might be useful to have two sections with the error listings (as appropriate) below: A "Common" and an "uncommon". And we can use these based on the current numbers of articles in the categories. This would probably help to pick out the problem when visiting the full page. --Izno (talk) 18:37, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps some of the problem is your error handling doesn't get to the sections for which you have provided anchors. Further, there is no handling for an equivalent term if one cite template uses an variant found in another. This occasion gives a misspelling handling, in effect, so my suggestion there is direct such occasions to the section directly showing that compressed table of legal terms. That way we need not suffer wading through verbosity when we merely need a mental nudge (clue). FrankB

The only way I know to get to the page is from the help links in article error messages. These help links should take you to a section of the page that is relevant to that error message. Are there some help links that just take you to the top of the page, or are there other ways to get to the full page? – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:58, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

As best as I can now recall, this did occur with date errors. Put me at page top, so I had to get vexed trying to wade down looking for the key data. The general problem with the error messages should not be lost by you guys tending this knitting... looking up such is a distraction to what the editor is doing, trying to close, and keep straight. An interruption. The easier and quicker you can make it, the better for all. Hence my subpages suggestion... your handling goes directly to the page designed to show a quick answer (using noinclude blocking-it can display viewed quite directly than the version that gets included as a section. The text is maintained in just one place. ) FrankB 02:36, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

For the record, the text in Help:CS1 errors is maintained in just one place. The text is reused in the various error category pages.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:30, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

re: Do you have specific, constructive suggestions about how we could improve the content or navigability of this page while preserving the advantages described above? Jonesey95

Yes, have the error messages help links go to the content-error-type keyed coverage. In my experience, the date formats are the common problem (though oddly, the system as it stands now prefers the same format as my lifelong date preference-post naval service, at least! ... Until a few years ago. Now find YYYY MM DD more useful as a code, since is numerically unique each year.), ... followed by this or that template not taking equivalent terms that are legacy equivalents not used in the originals ( publication = journal = book, for example).

This as I'm sure you know could be handled either by a switch-default or Wikimarkup language's {{{arg1|{{{arg2|{{{arg3|}}}}}}}}}, including passing each alternative to a common parameter define in a intermediate (caller) template.

I used a pass template often and the subpage technique often in a Wikibook, if you want an example, I can re-visit and locate examples. // FrankB 02:36, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I simply do not understand the wandering, general statements that you are making above. It is a challenge to understand your written English; perhaps it is not your first language?

• To respond about dates: many date formats are supported; all of them are in the Wikipedia Manual of Style.
• As for help links: my experience with the help links is that they all link to specific sections that explain how to fix the problem.

If you could provide a specific citation number within a specific version of a specific article, and then explain what happens when you try to find a way to fix that citation, that would help. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:43, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I do not understand much of this editor's writing either. Editor Fabartus: The burden is on you to show evidence that there is some cs1 error message that does not link to the appropriate section of Help:CS1 errors. Without that evidence, nothing can be done to fix the problem.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:30, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

(←) I have made a first edit to separate the common errors from the uncommon, using roughly ~10k articles in the corresponding categories as a threshold. Perhaps that will satisfy Fabartus? --Izno (talk) 13:27, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

For me, without evidence that there was something fundamentally wrong with the alphabetic organization of Help:CS1 errors, the changes you have made should not have been made. I think that this is a case of it-ain't-broke-so-don't-fix-it.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:30, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Trappist here. The merging of 'identifier errors' does make some sense, although I didn't really see a need for it. Separating in common errors/other errors is unnatural and confusing though. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:33, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Why? This resolve the editor's issue, and I would be remiss if I did not also say that I've gotten lost looking for the common errors. It's also good UX to guide users to the more common issues first before providing an index of all issues. --Izno (talk) 15:15, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

A list of section links from the lede to the most common errors? That would seem preferable to rearranging the content and, presumably, the list of most common is variable so its easier to edit a simple list than it is to move whole sections.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:43, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

It may be variable at some point in the future, but the ones I picked out have over 10k pages affected (and some up to 30k). No-one is going to work through that backlog within the next year, if not larger time period. I think we can safely say those are the most common now and then re-evaluate later. list of section links from the lede to the most common errors Which would duplicate the TOC unnecessarily (if we just organized our content sanely!). --Izno (talk) 16:48, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

It too prefer summarizing in the lead rather than re-organizing the sections. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:25, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I have undone Editor Izno's changes because somewhere among those changes the markup that allows for text reuse by the various error categories was broken. The various categories should only display the text from Help:CS1 errors appropriate to the category's error message.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:49, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I haven't looked into how Help:LST works, so I'm not going to troubleshoot. And especially since there seems to be some dissension about the change... --Izno (talk) 15:15, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

((←) ) Thanks for {{undent}} Izno. I'm afraid I've tended to avoid these meandering discussions since 2009, but for a couple on the commons. To be clear... MY ISSUE guys, is the CS errors page dumps you into a page that is way to large and hard to navigate. I'm often quite happy enough digging out cites and clear things such as {{cn}} tags others let go a long time, but the demands and differences between one template and another is often stupid to someone schooled in engineering vice concentrations in the liberal arts. I couldn't care less at which citation style is used on any article so long as others can follow along.

But the larger point is, if you want a help page, write a help page. If you want an error message handler, which is what triggered we are discussing', write a KISS principle compliant helpful terse para for each type of needed error message, but keep its coverage short, (ideally less than a laptops screen in length--unless a table)... Don't link into a page which is written as comprehensive help and mostly off point. Link that, but as last thing!

Another common issue is name mismatched, hence the aliasing of nested wikimarkup parameters. If you want a editor help link, give brief concise help with a link to a longer overblown concise guide there. In short, a page that long is one which wastes anyone's time 99% of the time. People running into cites error messages mostly just need just a spelling/correct-label nugget--not to search for a needle in a haystack.

My suggestion was using sub and sub-subpages to directly show that brief message with customized includeonly, noinclude portions similar to the Template help system's /doc pages.
 • the sub-subpages might have the 'quick lookup' of a legal/illegal table. Assuming your error detection points to the sub-page, the line which includes the sub-subpage/table could be nested in a noinclude block up high in the text to display when directly viewed. In other words, arranged for quick re-checks by editors, with leads elsewhere for newbies, so the terse important data first. (Upside down from now)
 • Elsewhere, Text to display when included (such as a section of the current CS1_errors page) would permit total rearrangement of the data in a larger text context... so two occurrences of quick aids such as the dates table. How you handle section edit links depends on how you write and nest {{:Help:CS1 errors/subpage}} & {{:Help:CS1 errors/subpage/table}} psuedo-templates...
 • If the section titles are in the subpage, one can click the normal section-edit link to navigate to the section's subpage & edit the section. Since this is Wikimedia/Help namespace, one can assume (hopefully) only knowledgeable editors are editing. A bit awkward, but it's high time something on the website was organized to be mindful of editor's time and treat it as valuable-and refreshingly brief! // FrankB 00:04, 6 December 2016 (UTC) (Oh, and friend Jonesey95, sorry if you find my organization and interjections in responses to be less understandable than native English. Alas, for that thesis, I grew up near Pittsburgh and my college board score in English was 790 of 800 back in the day. Suspect that came from reading an average of about 5 books a night from the fourth grade on. I'll try to do better-with the organization, at least. Just for you. My English is far better than my Russian, German, Italian, Latin, and French. Never did have an ear for romance languages, so never bothered trying to learn Spanish when I had time, though now I wish I had or could!) FrankB

Clearly a date problem

Above, Trappist the monk requested proof that something was fishy in Denmark. This section's verbosity clearly notes a date in the DD MMM YYYY format, yet ACCESS-DATE consistently fails to accept such, or at the least, fails on a date with a single number before the month. See the first cite herein, diff.

• Upon further examination, accessdate or access-date formats probably aren't the error message generation and detection problem — after saving that page to document the problem here, I next substituted a whole series of 'accessdate=' variations, most I suspect were quite legal since they showed up properly in the output of the citation text string,... and got identical error messages.
  
• That leads to the suspicion and conclusion* that the issue is the date= test is complaining that a works' date (i.e. issues by month, in this case September 1899) are missing information. Sorry, many older docs don't give a day date, so the detection for these and the date=year forms are both false positives, the MOS be damned. The world is what it is, not what the MOS wants. I shouldn't have to commit intellectual perjury to satisfy some blindly idealistic format in a date when such is not available. //FrankB 03:41, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

* I CONCLUDE it is the missing day field in the date after recollecting a couple of citations wherein I was forced to 'gimmack' that date parameter in a couple edits last week... using similar historical sources. FrankB

WP:MOSDATE does not allow for the comma, and |accessdate= must take a complete and either current or past date, not the future. --Izno (talk) 03:56, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

What Editor Izno said.

But, your reply doesn't answer my request. You wrote that the error handling doesn't get to the sections for which [we] have provided anchors. That is the claim that I have asked you to prove.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 04:04, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Fabartus, if you click on the "help" link in the error message, you will be taken to section of the Help page that includes a helpful table listing dates that are out of compliance with MOS and how to fix them. The case of "September, 1899" that you linked to above is listed as "Comma in month and year", with an incorrect format followed by the correct format. There is a similar example for "Access date in future". I'm not sure what "gimmack" means (it wasn't on my SAT exam), but reading the help page should help you resolve any of these date errors. If there is an example missing, you are welcome to add it to the table or inquire here.

As for writing comprehensible English, when I am advising writers and copy editors, I always suggest reading prose aloud. It is often possible to locate errors that way that your eyes skip over during silent reading. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:06, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

This first, since it's a LOL event, to me--I have an eyesight problem just closing edits half the time. My visual acuity can just flat out disappear in the span of 5 minutes, so I'm often pushing to finish proofing an edit, struggling to see it. Then again, not so sure that 'Out Loud' technique will go over too well with the Mrs. watching her news programs on the next couch. Then, again, on closing an update,... there are currently 17 windows open on this desktop, a programmer's editor with 19 tabs, a PDF reader with four open references, at least six Windows of multiple tab browsers which have 'open edits' for parallel updates, and most of the rest being reference browsers with such histories as the one with September, 1899 as a date. Four Windows have Maps in one stage or another preparatory to upload in support of one of those edits. So LOL, I edit when I have time, and often work parallel topics integrating pages, esp. in industrial history. But I do my best, time and failing eyesight permitting!

re: :::... if you click on the "help" link in the error message, you will be taken to section of the Help page that includes a helpful table listing dates that are out of compliance with MOS and how to fix them.
... As helpful as that seems, that's the link which started this whole dance. SO I MADE my edit to add an anchor to link the table, not the preamble.

My last on this topic is since news organizations and various professional Journals use the date formats with embedded Commas as part of issue dates, the MOS is wrong to force a wrong date/quote in the | date= case. Be well, all. I've gotten my two year fix of Wikipolitics and likely won't be back! // FrankB 01:03, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Until I read your last sentence, I was going to suggest taking up MOS objections at WT:MOSDATE, but having spent some time there, I can't recommend highly enough that you stay away. It's a challenging place to visit, let alone stay for a while. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:44, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Now we're cooking! Nice to see someone get it! Thanks Jonesey95 & LOL with a giggle! FrankB 20:28, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

URLs in non-Latin scripts

Why are URLs in non-Latin scripts not allowed? Bever (talk) 23:55, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

One conversation in one place please.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:01, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

dual month issue

The template is throwing an error on the following ref. The citation is accurate. What is the correct thing to do here?

-- Jytdog (talk) 04:13, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Use an endash, not a slash. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

let's see ...

yep! Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 08:46, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Your reference is now producing a Category:CS1 maint: Date format maintenance message which apparently indicates yours was a hyphen? Weird. Like so uses a correct n-dash: --Izno (talk) 10:27, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

References

Date with range in both season and year

I'm trying to cite an issue of a journal whose date is listed as "Autumn/Winter 1993/94". But when I try |date=Fall 1993–Winter 1994 or |date=Fall–Winter 1993–1994 I get an error message. Both |date=Fall–Winter 1994 and |date=Winter 1993-1994 work, but it doesn't seem to let me have ranges for both. Am I missing something? Umimmak (talk) 20:19, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

@Umimmak: This was recently discussed at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 31#Multiple years and seasons in a date. --Izno (talk) 20:31, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Ah thanks for finding that @Izno:. Well that's unfortunate that there's no way to accurately cite the issue's date, but also good to know that I'm not the only one with this problem or that I wasn't missing anything obvious l. Umimmak (talk) 20:58, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

We are somewhat at the whim of publishers here, and they sometimes do strange things. If I were putting this date in a citation, I'd pick a publication year (presumably 1993) to put in the |date= field, then put the issue date in |issue=. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:06, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: Well if you're putting the seasons in the issue, you can have a year-range in the date, like so: Last, First (1993–1994). "Title". Journal. 1 (2–3 Autumn–Winter): 1–100.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)? (or for |issue= did you mean something like |issue=2 Autumn–3 Winter?) I think I'll just have |date=Autumn–Winter 1993, to follow what Usernameunique did in Pioneer Helmet as per the earlier discussion. Umimmak (talk) 22:52, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Bibcode error

Bibcode 2002A&A...393..897 is valid, but generates an error in the citation template because it is the wrong length. Praemonitus (talk) 19:02, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

That's because it is not valid. The actual bibcode is Bibcode:2002A&A...393..897R. Yours is missing an R at the end. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:23, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Just because a malformed bibcode 'works' does not mean that it is 'correct' or 'valid'.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:24, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 19:39, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

no title in a {{cite news}}

I'm getting this error in a number of situations associated with historic newspapers, which don't follow the modern convention of putting headlines onto all articles, particularly snippets of local news (major stories do have headlines). It also occurs when you cite a page as a whole (rather than a separate article). I don't think titles should be expected in cite news when the original source does not have a title. Kerry (talk) 04:17, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

There has been some previous discussion but nothing conclusive enough to act upon.

Discussions related to changing how cs1|2 works is best done at Help talk:Citation Style 1.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:11, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Spaces are counted

In the last section of the article, it says "Space characters between the assignment operator (the '=' sign) and the parameter value are not counted." This is confusing... do you mean spaces between the "=" and the very first character (ie "title= Title causing error" with a space after '=' vs "title=Title causing error" with no space after '=") or spaces in the line of text itself? It seems to imply the second (as in spaces among the value) and this is incorrect. Thanks. @Trappist the monk: —Мандичка^YO 😜 02:11, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Module:Citation/CS1 accepts only named parameters. Editors may, and do, write stuff like this (especially when writing these templates in vertical format so that all of the assignment operators and parameter values are vertically aligned all pretty-like):

| title     =     Wind in the willows

MediaWiki trims leading and trailing whitespace from named parameter values so what the module gets is more like this:

|title=Wind in the willows

The module begins counting at 'W' because it does not and cannot know how many space characters are present in the wikitext. So, for my example, the five space characters between = and Wind in the willows are not included in the count reported in the error message. Space characters used to separate words in a parameter value are counted because they do not lie 'between the assignment operator ... and the parameter value' but rather, lie within the parameter value.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 03:14, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Years and Classical publications from Antiquity

This seems to throw an error when using dates of Classics

{{cite book|year= 8|title= ABC|author= ZYX}}

ZYX (8). ABC. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

{{cite book|year= 8 AD|title= ABC|author= ZYX}}

ZYX (8 AD). ABC. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

{{cite book|year= 56 CE|title= ABC|author= ZYX}}

ZYX (56 CE). ABC. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

{{cite book|year= 56|title= ABC|author= ZYX}}

ZYX (56). ABC. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

{{cite book|year= 267|title= ABC|author= ZYX}}

ZYX (267). ABC.

{{cite book|year= 124 BCE|title= ABC|author= ZYX}}

ZYX (124 BCE). ABC. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

{{cite book|year= -56|title= ABC|author= ZYX}}

ZYX (-56). ABC. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

{{cite book|year= 3 BC|title= ABC|author= ZYX}}

ZYX (3 BC). ABC. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

It appears to need a three digit absolute magnitude value or greater. This is clearly an error in the processor. -- 70.51.46.15 (talk) 06:57, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Duplicate of a post at Help_talk:Citation_Style_1#Years_and_Classical_publications_from_Antiquity. Answered there.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:23, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

ISBN check sum error

I'm getting an error on the ISBN-13 value for a source, even though I copied it directly from the Google scan. Praemonitus (talk) 16:15, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I corrected an issue where you were using dashes rather than hyphens. The checksum error remains. It's probably the case the book was printed with a bad checksum. --Izno (talk) 16:31, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Do not use the minus sign (U+2212); use hyphens:

Ryden, Barbara; Pogge, Richard (June 2016), Interstellar and Intergalactic Medium, Ohio State Graduate Astrophysics Series, The Ohio State University, pp. 240−244, ISBN 978-1-914602-02-7 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)

Even so, that ISBN seems to have been misprinted in the book. If you cannot find the real and true ISBN for the book, add |ignore-isbn-error=yes.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:38, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I first tried it with dashes, then with no dashes, then with − to see if it would make a difference. Thanks for the ignore option. Praemonitus (talk) 18:37, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Overzealous software

The bot flagged the access date in a reference I inserted today as impossible because I'm in a time zone ahead of the bot (GMT +7) and it is already June 1 here (but still May 31 in California). Software needs to be tweaked to prevent this presumptuous type of flagging -- the software can already detect location so it shouldn't be hard to link that info with a time zone calculation.Martindo (talk) 02:27, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Is it this template from The Ugly American (film):

{{cite web|last=Rithdee |first=Kong |url=https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/462805/don-t-blame-americans-for-bad-acting |title=Don't blame Americans for bad acting |publisher=BangkokPost.com |date=2015-1-31 |accessdate=2018-06-01}}

Rithdee, Kong (2015-1-31). "Don't blame Americans for bad acting". BangkokPost.com. Retrieved 2018-06-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

If so, the error is because of |date=2015-1-31 which should read |date=2015-01-31. I think that yours is the first complaint with regard to |access-date= and time zones. The rarity of such complaints given the plethora of cs1|2 templates with |access-date= would suggest that Module:Citation/CS1/Date validation is not overzealous. The module operates in UTC time so the time in California (PST/PDT) is irrelevant.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 02:57, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Why does a timestamp (an integral part of the URL in [1], a footnote in México en la Piel (album)) have to be 14 digits? An error message is generated, but AFAICT there's no error. Miniapolis 23:55, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Because, for archive.org, a 14-digit timestamp uniquely identifies the moment that a web page was archived. One of the two (as I write this) archive urls looks like this:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180515174702/http://www.emol.com/noticias/magazine/2004/11/10/163551/luis-miguel-mexico-en-la-piel-es-un-tributo-a-mis-raices-musicales.html

where the timestamp 20180515174702 decodes to 2018-05-15 17:47:02 (15 May 2018 at 5:47:02pm). But, there is something peculiar about that page. If I copy the above url into my browser's (Chrome win7) address bar and watch it after I press the enter key, I see it change to this:

https://web.archive.org/noticias/magazine/2004/11/10/163551/luis-miguel-mexico-en-la-piel-es-un-tributo-a-mis-raices-musicales.html

which is a malformed |archive-url= – it is missing this bit: /web/20180515174702/http://www.emol.com. This is not the fault of cs1|2 but rather is the fault of some process external to en.wiki – javascript in the source page perhaps? I don't know.

So, the fix at México en la Piel (album) is to replace the url in |archive-url= with the complete archive.org url above.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:49, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Unknown parameter ignored

Seeing "Unknown parameter |1= ignored (help)" in the Template:Royal Collection at Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom#References for no apparent reason. Here is an example: "St Edward's Crown". Royal Collection Trust. Inventory no. 31700.. Firebrace (talk) 12:01, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Caused by a stray pipe in {{Royal Collection}}, I fixed it, but those errors shouldn't be visible in the first place when {{{1}}} is empty. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:26, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it was strange and only started happening today. Thanks for fixing the error. Firebrace (talk) 16:23, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Deprecated in

I have no idea what to do to clean these uses: Faraway, So Close!, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Devil's Advocate (1997 film), and City of Angels (film). Thoughts requested. --Izno (talk) 16:36, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Clicking the "help" link usually takes you to useful instructions. It is possible that the instructions were updated after you started seeing the errors; they currently explain that |in= should be replaced with |language=. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:08, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

My mistake, you were asking about some pathological cases. I should have looked at them first. I changed |in= to |title= and |title= to |chapter=. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:10, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I worked through the batch in the category yesterday and none of them had to do with a language. Just goes to show you that our original logic for deprecation was correct. ;) --Izno (talk) 12:31, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Issues with valid date format

While the documentation states the date format " accessdate= October 2015 " is valid, it is producing the following error message: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help). For example, see John Wesley Hardin#cite_ref-WDE1_43-0 . — btphelps ^{(talk to me) (what I've done)} 18:46, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Where is it stated that the documentation states the date format " accessdate= October 2015 " is valid? |access-date=October 2015 gives the error that you see because the date does not include a day so is not a 'full date' as is stated in the template documentation.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:56, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Display loop

@Trappist the monk: Please what display was broke in the category?. –Ammarpad (talk) 09:54, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

At this writing, nothing is broken. The category shows only the text that it extracted from Help:CS1 errors#|access-date= requires |url=. It is unclear to me what your 'fix' was intended to do but it included the entirety of Help:CS1 errors from §|access-date= requires |url= to the end.

So now, your turn. What do you mean by prevent loop display in the cat?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

If it was unclear to you what you should do was ask.

The text Pages with this error are automatically placed in Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL.[a]" should appear in the Help:CS1 errors page where it was written but not in the category page. That's loop display, unintentional reference to current page caused by transclusion and that's why tags exist to exclude unnedeed text either in the destination page or in the page hosting the text. –Ammarpad (talk) 10:37, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

What you meant was unclear; what resulted was not unclear so the action I took was correct. I wrote most of this page and I wrote the {{#ifeq: {{FULLPAGENAME}} | Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL | Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL | [[:Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL]]}} parser function at the bottom of Help:CS1 errors#|access-date= requires |url= (and every other error message section in this page). It is not unintentional reference to current page caused by transclusion. I intended to include that text in the category page.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:03, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I actually mostly agree that this text shouldn't display on the category page as it doesn't add a whole lot of value from what I can see. I tweaked the implementation. (I am not at all attached to the change.) --Izno (talk) 14:43, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I think this change should be reverted so that the page works the same as the other 44 CS1 error category pages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:54, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

So... consistency? That's not a great argument for reversion at all. I'm not attached, but it should be reverted on the substance, if there is such. --Izno (talk) 15:00, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You wrote (some part of) it, but you don't own it; that's first. When I said "unintentional reference" I am referring to the standard way of transclusion and extending or not extending portion of text to the destination page, I am not referring to you, for it's ridiculous to do so. I am referring to the text in whole. And now, as you can see, the earlier no sense display loop was no longer there and that's all I wanted to do from the beginning. –Ammarpad (talk) 15:06, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I presume that you are talking to me. Please do not put words into my mouth that I have not spoken; I have made no claim to ownership. It is true that I wrote most of the help text; it is true that I created the parser function found there. Neither of those assertions are claims to ownership. I wrote what I wrote because you claim that the reference-to-the-category-page-on-the-category-page is 'unintended'; you are mistaken, it is not unintended. If it can be done better then by all-mean propose a better way that retains or improves upon the current functionality.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:42, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Consistency with what? with meaningless back reference to current page?. It's the other pages that need sanitization to get rid of this. Not otherwise. –Ammarpad (talk)

Because you are not attached to your change, I'm going to revert. Each of the error message sections in Help:CS1 errors has that parser function code; it is the same for each section intentionally so that all of the sections and all of the associated categories have the same look and feel. This common mechanism also makes the creation of new sections a bit easier. I am also reverting, at least partially, your changes at Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL because all of the categories should be the same and because I think that cs1|2 error categories should retain the footnote detailing the excluded namespaces. If it is important that 'Pages with this error ...' text be removed from the cs1|2 error categories then we should discuss what, if anything, should replace that text and how that should be implemented across all of the categories. We should not piece-meal tweak one or another according to our individual likes and dislikes.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:16, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Reverts done. Let us now discuss.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:42, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Consistency among similar pages is a reader-friendly practice, and it is a good argument for reversion of a change to just one of those pages. I am happy to hear recommendations for changes to some or all of the pages that would keep all of the CS1 error category pages consistent with one another. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:50, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

The improvement I meant was clear, and now even more so since at least one person now understand it. It remains ether to keep no sense back referencing to current page because of "consistency"/you don't like it or to update the other categories so that they longer refer back to themselves. That's the entire essence of tags and parser functions that provide the functionality. –Ammarpad (talk) 16:02, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

What should I do about multiple ISBNs?

I'm quoting a book that has two 13-digit ISBNs listed inside the cover (and two 10-digit ones, but that's besides the point). I tried putting both of them in with a semicolon (;) to separate them, but of course it thinks there is an error. How can I list both, or if that's "against the rules" according to Wikipedia, which one should I pick? Hannahshipman (talk) 05:48, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Put one or both of them outside the citation template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:14, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Are the two disambiguated in some way? Hardcover? Softcover? ... When there is disambiguation, choose the one that best matches the source that you consulted. When there is no disambiguation, choose one to put one inside the cs1|2 template so that that number is included in the citation's metadata; put the other outside.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 09:24, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Or we could have a proper fix for this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:06, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

"Missing or empty |url=" with ASINs

Hello, I'm writing to this talk page specifically to address one concern: {{Cite web}} templates with an assigned asin= parameter but no url= value. It is to my understanding that web citations with a valid asin= value automatically generate the desired Amazon.com link in the citation. Therefore, a {{Cite web}} reference to an Amazon.com page with a correspoding ASIN should only include, at bare minimum, the ASIN, and the URl parameter should be excluded to avoid redundancy. However, this is not the case in practice. An article I have devoted years on, Dexter's Laboratory, has citation errors for reflinks that include an ASIN without a URL parameter. What should I do in this situation? Do I add redundant Amazon.com links in the url= parameter? Or, do I ignore the citation errors? Or something else? Paper Luigi ^{T • C} 12:08, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Since this edit on 20 March 2013, {{cite web}} has required |url= to have a valid assigned value so that it can link the value in |title=. It is not the purpose of the named identifiers to do that linking (|pmc= is the singular annoying exception). The error message that you see reflects that requirement. Yes, |asin= does create an external link to Amazon (most named identifiers create external links to related hosts) but that does not remove the requirement for |url= to have an assigned value.

The minimal correct solution is to add a value to |url=. If you wish to retain the asin id and avoid redundant links consider using this form:

{{cite web |url=//www.amazon.com/dp/B0009IWFDS |title=Cartoon Network Halloween 2 - Grossest Halloween Ever (2005) |website=Amazon.com |id=ASIN:  B0009IWFDS}}

"Cartoon Network Halloween 2 - Grossest Halloween Ever (2005)". Amazon.com. ASIN: B0009IWFDS.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:12, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Or a more reasonable

{{cite |title=Cartoon Network Halloween 2 - Grossest Halloween Ever (2005) |website=Amazon.com |asin=B0009IWFDS |mode=cs1}}

to give

"Cartoon Network Halloween 2 - Grossest Halloween Ever (2005)". Amazon.com. ASIN B0009IWFDS. {{citation}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:04, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Date without day

Need guidance on what corrective action to take when encountering an accessdate that does not include a day. It would be wrong to just make up a day, so besides completely redoing the reference, there seems to be no simple fix at all. Personally I would prefer if a day could be entered as "00" to indicate 'unspecified' and get rid of the auto-generated error message. —DIV (1.144.110.230 (talk) 09:30, 25 May 2019 (UTC))

Yeah, no simple solution which is a large part of why Category:CS1 errors: dates lists so many articles. The correct remedy is to confirm that the linked source still supports the article text. When it does, update |access-date= to the current whole date.

There was a time when cs1|2 considered supporting edtf date formats which, at the time defined u or U as a digit replacement character so 2019-05-uu would mean some day in May 2019 (the replacement character has been changed to X). Had we adopted that date format, I think it unlikely that we would have allowed the format in |access-date= because we want day-precision dates there (online source can change at any time at the whim of their owners). Except for internal representation of seasons, the edtf format experiment was removed; see this discussion.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:42, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

You could also check the article history to see when the reference was added, and use that date. MeegsC (talk) 20:41, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Error in PMC check

The Alcmonavis article is showing a CS1 error for the PMC value of one reference — but the number is correct, and the linked article shows up just fine. I think somebody may need to update the code, as it appears article numbers are now past 6000000. MeegsC (talk) 20:39, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Fixed in the sandbox; see Help talk:Citation Style 1#Odd PMC error.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:46, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Two digit years

Greetings and felicitations. Regarding two digit years, the Help page states

• Does not handle years before 100 AD, including BCE/BC dates. Try using parameter |orig-year= instead.

Unfortunately

{{Cite book |last=Flavius |first=Josephus |title=The Jewish War |origyear=78 |location= |publisher= |isbn= |at=Book II, paragraph 573; Book IV, paragraph 56.}}

yields

Flavius, Josephus. The Jewish War. Book II, paragraph 573; Book IV, paragraph 56.

(See Transfiguration of Jesus#Location of the mountain.)

I.e., no year at all. Suggestions? —DocWatson42 (talk) 11:34, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Are you actually putting on the white cotton gloves and consulting a 78 CE manuscript? If you are not, then you must be consulting a later edition. Use the date from the later edition.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:57, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Bimonthly published magazines

Some magazines are published bimonthly and give their publication date as e.g., "August/September" - how to handle this? Currently this creates an error message. FOARP (talk) 09:03, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

@FOARP: Search for "Slash in date range (use en dash)" on the help page; August–September should work, using an ndash. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:19, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks FOARP (talk) 11:13, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Check |url= value error for o.bike

I noticed that there are some references on OBike generates the Check |url= error, with the links generally being starting with https://www.o.bike/. The domain is dead for a while, but had been cited when the startup was still in operation. From this help page, it seems that single-character second level domains are generally being flagged with some exception. What's the remedy for this? 1. report to somewhere to add o.bike as an exception? If so, where? 2. delete/replace reference (but also not sure which other pages have o.bike as reference)? robertsky (talk) 04:07, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm not inclined to add support for a specific url without there are a lot of them used in cs1|2 templates; there are not. Because o.bike is dead, one might set |dead-url=unfit or |dead-url=usurped. That will hide the original url and its error message.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:14, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice! I have updated the refs to |dead-url=unfit. robertsky (talk) 16:11, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Need blue tick Asifsayyad07 (talk) 20:47, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

deprecated dead-url

At Toyota RAV4 I am getting a lot of Cite uses deprecated parameter |dead-url= messages. The help link merely says "use a supported parameter". {{cite web}} and {{cite news}} say that dead-url is still supported. Even other parts of this error help page say the dead-url is still supported (with limited values, which are used). What gives?  Stepho  talk  11:30, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I have the same problem with many articles I've worked on. What am I supposed to replace it with? And taking it out doesn't seem to be a good option, as doing so automatically causes the archived url to appear first; as if the link is dead, even though that isn't the case. PanagiotisZois (talk) 11:45, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

It seems url-status is the new term, according to Help:CS1_errors#deprecated_params. Might wait for a bit to see what kind of bot cleanup happens. Quuux (talk) 11:51, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, you all have figured it out. See also Help talk:CS1#update to the cs1|2 module suite after 2 September 2019. --Izno (talk) 12:26, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Sheesh, I don't want to be ungrateful for your hard work (which I do appreciate). But releasing the documentation only after complaints came rolling in is a recipe for confusion. Even better if a bot had been let loose to make this simple and mechanical change before making it mandatory and leaving practically every article with a sea of red references. My recommedation is to turn off then error reporting for a month or so while a bot makes the changes for us. Then turn the warnign back on when the bot has done the bulk of the work for us. Why make people do the simple and boring work when the machines can do it for us.  Stepho  talk  12:36, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

A bot could not have been run before the change because then you would have been complaining about unrecognized parameter errors (because the previous version of the module suite did not know about |url-status=).

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Monkbot 16

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:35, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Was this something that really needed changing? I've never heard of url-status, is it mass used? Get a bot on this please. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 13:53, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Was it sensible to make this change without at least a transitional period when the module will recognise either the old or new parameter? --David Biddulph (talk) 13:59, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

This is the transition period. The deprecated parameter error message is there to educate editors that the deprecated parameter is going to go away. Both |dead-url= (and |deadurl=) and |url-status= are both functional. This process is not new and has been how we have handled deprecated parameter for several years.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:12, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

There is also an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Is there a semi-automated tool that could fix these annoying "Cite Web" errors?. 114.159.158.244 (talk) 14:23, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

I have only just become aware of the death of deadurl. I have used this parameter absolutely everywhere on Wikipedia articles. Is there a bot going around fixing these? Because there is no way I or anyone else is going to go back and manually re-edit literally thousands of articles to comply with this surprise change. Cnbrb (talk) 14:46, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

yes, link above.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:50, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I suggest maybe you post a notice about it on the main help page to avoid confusion (and so you don't have to answer the same question again tomorrow!). Cnbrb (talk) 00:08, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Help pages need to be updated. WP:LINKROT says to use "dead-url", for example. I found myself confused by contradictory information on "dead-url" vs "url-status" as I was trying to fix some references in an article I was updating a few days ago (Anontune) and had to figure out which worked by trial and error. Just today, I ran across another article with a lot of error messages due to "dead-url" no longer working (ARPANET). Documentation needs to be correct and consistent when changes like this are implemented. I'd correct WP:LINKROT myself, if I was sure that this change was going to stick. Carl Henderson (talk) 04:53, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I have updated the LINKROT page. Thanks for the note. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:16, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Cite letter

I've come across a Template:Cite_letter template that's getting flagged with the error "Cite news requires |newspaper=" (see Machine_Identification_Code#References for the actual error). The error references this help page, but the advice to add a periodical doesn't make a ton of sense in this context. I think Template:Cite_letter should be exempted from this error, since a letters are often standalone entities and not part of a larger body of work. It seems like this is probably happening because Template:Cite letter says it is descended from Template:Cite newspaper - GretLomborg (talk) 17:33, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

I addressed that at Template talk:Cite letter#use template wrapper. Anyone can make the fix.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:40, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Fixed, I believe. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:23, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Problematic change

Suddenly italic or bold wikimarkup is not allowed in publisher and periodical parameters including publisher=, journal=, magazine=, newspaper=, periodical=, website=, work=. There are times when such markup is needed. For example the publisher of Vulture.com is New York magazine. Without being able to italicize that in the publisher field, we wind up with a grammatical error — a non-italicized magazine title.

The MOS says that not all rules fit every single case exactly, and that we're to use common sense. I could give other examples, but the point is that there are going to be future examples that we can't envision yet. This stricture needs to be loosened so that we can make common-sense adjustments as the MOS allows. --Tenebrae (talk) 22:05, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

If New York is the publisher (e.g. for an 'About Us' page), then you put it in the publisher field, where it shouldn't be italicized, as per rules for publishers. If it's the publication (e.g. you are citing an article written for the magazine New York), then New York is italicized, as per rules for magazines. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:32, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

CS1 errors: missing periodical

Hello, fellow Wikipedians!

Several days ago, when I checked our WikiProject's [to-do-list], suddenly hundreds of new articles that need to be solved occurred and I confused by these things. Usually, it gives us some task every some period. But this time, the CS1 errors flocked the list, especially CS1 errors: deprecated parameters and CS1 errors: missing periodical. The first one seems OK because there's a way how to solve it, but I don't know about the second one. Therefore, any help from you will be appreciated. Thank you.

Sincerely, Samuelsp15 (talk) 13:45, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

@Samuelsp15: null edit the pages. this should clear the missing periodical category from the pages. robertsky (talk) 14:27, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

See Help Talk:CS1 for long discussions about these error messages. Almost all of the deprecated parameter errors are being fixed by a bot; since there are so many of them, it will take a month or more for the bot to traverse the category, but there is no need to fix the errors yourself. Most of the missing periodical errors will also disappear by themselves.

The missing periodical errors, if they are still present in an article when you look at it, can be fixed by looking at the help text linked from the error message. As a short example, {{cite journal}} requires the parameter |journal= to have something in it. You'll have to use judgement to determine the best solution. In Bank of America Tower (Manhattan), for example, there is a citation to a document by Richard A. Cook that uses {{cite journal}} without |journal=. Looking at the PDF document, I see that it is a paper from a conference presentation, so {{cite conference}}, with appropriate parameters, is probably a better template to use. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:09, 14 September 2019 (UTC)