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    [edit]

    To improve accessibility, it's best to have non-linking characters between adjacent links.

    Instead of, for example:

    OCLC 171312798

    could we output, say:

    OCLC: 171312798

    and likewise for other IDs?

    If space is an issue, a thin space ( ) could be used:

    OCLC: 171312798

    after the colon. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:43, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    cs1|2 inserts an unlinked no-break-space ( ) character between the label wikilink and the OCLC external link:
    {{cite book |title=Title |oclc=171312798}}
    '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000002D-QINU`"'<cite class="citation book cs1">''Title''. [[OCLC (identifier)|OCLC]]&nbsp;[https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/171312798 171312798].</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Title&rft_id=info%3Aoclcnum%2F171312798&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AHelp+talk%3ACitation+Style+1" class="Z3988"></span>
    Title. OCLC 171312798.
    This is true for all cs1|2 identifiers except |arxiv=, |bibcode=, |doi=, and |hdl= which use an unlinked, unspaced, colon separator character. If you are seeing otherwise, show us where you are seeing that. I seem to recall that we had some discussions about label/identifier separators when we migrated to Lua. You might find those discussions in the archives.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:20, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The point is to have a non-linked visible ("printing") character, not white space. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:42, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    We shouldn't have stray 'printing' characters, like "ISBN: 978-0-513-49", because the presentation format for all those identifiers is "ISBN 978-0-513-49", unlike URIs which have the presentation format URI:identifier. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:07, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    They would not be "stray", and we should have then for the reason I gave in my OP. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:40, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed. Though we should not be linking to ISBN at all, it's completely unnecessary overlinking. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 17:21, 23 January 2026 (UTC).[reply]
    They would be as they are completely non-standard to present with stray punctuation, e.g. [1] which very clearly shows —, ISBN 978-0-486-85264-5, LCCN 2023052679. And all identifiers link to their articles, because not everyone knows what those acronyms mean. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:31, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    To which standard, specifying such things, do you refer? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:23, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Examples are given in the Users' Manual available from isbn-international.org, the web site of the International ISBN Agency. They all show "ISBN" followed by a space and then the first digit of the identifier. There is also an ISO standard, which costs money to download, like all or most ISO standards. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:30, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I can see where the User Manual says how they should be displayed on books and other works to which they apply; nothing about third party websites which discuss them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:24, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    the comment directly below added here from duplicated discussion. @Rich Farmbrough: if not correct, please fix this discussion page.—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:28, 9 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The difference is that firstly most people have some idea of what ISBN means, secondly when you click the number you go to a page which has a link to our article at the top. Thirdly the magic word, before it was disabled because our software team couldn't make RTL work (so everyone else has to suffer) only linked to the book-sources page. Fourthly people will click on the ISBN instead of the number, as it's by no means clear these are two separate links. Fifthly it adds millions of unnecessary links, probably over 8 million, based on a sample of 10,000 articles. It was a mistake to start linking to ISBN, and it can be simply fixed now. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:13, 9 February 2026 (UTC).[reply]

    Request for new Cite thesis error checking

    [edit]

    Hi there! Could you please consider adding a new error category for {{cite thesis}} with |degree=Thesis or |degree=thesis

    • {{cite thesis|title=Title|degree=Thesis}} generates Title (Thesis thesis).

    I found 695 instances of this issue in mainspace. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:41, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Now 697, even counting the one I fixed. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 17:30, 8 February 2026 (UTC).[reply]

    archive.today deprecation

    [edit]

    Page watchers may be interested in Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § Deprecating and blacklisting archive.today. Izno (talk) 01:18, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    So, voorts closed this RFC an hour ago effectively as speedily deprecate the site. I think it would be a good idea to work on a change to CS1 to help remove these links from display (regardless of any potential challenges that might happen).
    Some requirements for consideration:
    • Remove the link from display entirely when it is in |archive-url=
      • Provide a green maintenance message (for now) to indicate that fact.
      • Avoid displaying a "missing |archive-date=" error
      • Not sure what other messages/warnings to dodge emitting or not
    • I don't know what all TLDs they employ?
    • Remove the link from display entirely when it is in |url= and the template is not {{cite web}}
      • Another green message, probably the same category is fine
      • Another "avoid errors that spawn from lacking this link" since there are a few more that could potentially occur for {{url}}
    • What to do about {{cite web}} and it's in |url=?
    Probably something like this needs to happen for {{web archive}} too. Izno (talk) 02:46, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Suppressing the archive date and url isn't difficult; we already do that when there are timestamp errors. Because of the deprecation, we no longer need to test archive.today timestamps so all of that code goes away and is replaced with code that blanks |archive-url= and |archive-date= and then emits a maintenance message when the domain is archive.today (or one of .ph, .is, .md, .li, .fo, .vn; are there any other tlds?):
    {{cite book/new |title=Title |url=//example.com |archive-url=//archive.is |archive-date=2026-02-20}}
    Title.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
    For an archive.today domain appearing in any of the other url-holding parameters, I have to think some about that.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:36, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    There's a list of domain names in the infobox at Archive.today. I don't know if it's complete, but it's a start. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The ones caught in Special:AbuseFilter/1402 are .fo, .is, .li, .md, .ph, .today, and .vn (i.e. everything TTM listed above). The filter also looks for Tor links, but luckily it looks like there are no such links on Wikipedia. That being said, I would not be surprised if archive.today bought a new TLD just to mess with us... Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 21:03, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Could we apply this to anything that is archive.____ except archive.org? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:29, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    There are some sites of that form that are unrelated to both of them. For instance we appear to have four links to archive.bridgesmathart.org. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:18, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, and I found newspaperarchive.org out and about when I was refining my searches. We could build something which is overwide to start if we want and then refine out the false positives. Izno (talk) 19:30, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I've added a comment in the filter itself, requesting a post here if additional URLs are added. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 21:44, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Can we have a tracking category for archive.today archives with |url-status=live? The current instructions are to remove those WP:EARLYARCHIVEs. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 21:44, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    A category would facilitate bot removal, right? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:47, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    That would be the goal, yes :) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 21:48, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I have hacked on the sandbox some more so that the module suppresses any parameter that has an archive.today (or related tld) url. It also suppresses parameters that are dependent on the various url-holding parameters. For example, |archive-date=, |archive-format=, and |url-status= are dependent on |archive-url= so errors are normally emitted when |archive-url= is missing or empty:
    {{cite book/new |title=Title |url=//example.com |archive-date=2026-02-20 |archive-format=pdf |url-status=dead}}
    Title (pdf). {{cite book}}: |archive-date= requires |archive-url= (help); |archive-format= requires |archive-url= (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
    but when the module suppresses an archive.today url, it also suppresses the parameters dependent on it:
    {{cite book/new |title=Title |url=//example.com |archive-url=//archive.is |archive-date=2026-02-20 |archive-format=pdf |url-status=dead}}
    Title.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
    The module will not emit the usual Missing or empty |url= error message when it suppresses |url=//archive.today (or related tld) in {{cite web}} templates:
    {{citation/new |title=Title |website=Website |url=//archive.is}}
    "Title", Website{{citation}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
    and the same for {{citation}}:
    {{citation/new |title=Title |website=Website |url=//archive.is}}
    "Title", Website{{citation}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
    What about the category name? Should it be changed to summat like Category:CS1 maint: deprecated archive.today url? Usually maintenance messages are hidden; should this one be unhidden?
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 01:49, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I like Category:CS1 maint: deprecated archive.today url as a name. I also believe the maintenance message should be visible by default; this is something we want additional eyeballs on. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 01:53, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe Category:CS1 maint: deprecated archive url, since it doesn't apply only to the .today version? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm happy with that, too. Not super concerned with what color we paint the bike shed. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 21:04, 22 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok, Category:CS1 maint: deprecated archive url and maintenance message not hidden.
    Further tweaks to suppress aliases of dependent parameters; it is possible to write |chapter-url=//archive.today... with any one of |chapter-url-access=, |contribution-url-access=, |entry-url-access=, |article-url-access=, or |section-url-access= so we must check for all of them. Also added a settings flag so that wikis that use this module suite may disable archive.today suppression if they choose to; suppression is enabled by default.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:11, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I've created a page there. The documentation is probably inadequate, but it's a place to start. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    If we're going to make it visible, it should probably be an error. We have no other visible maint messages. Izno (talk) 01:31, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Green because you said that the messaging should be green. I'm ok with red but I'm not eager to face the hoards with their torches and pitchforks loudly clamoring for my head because I have ruined wikipedia forever with awful red error MESSAGES!!!!. I guess that I'm hoping the green is a less inflammatory color...
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 01:49, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Or... maybe not make it a visible maintenance message at this stage? That is, we could have just the hidden category for now? Or make it visible only in preview?
    It sounds like there are a couple of bot runs in the offing, and if we're lucky, that might halve the number of opportunities for the torches-and-pitchforks crowd to complain. We also need a week or two for people to get used to this. WP:ATODAY already has had one upset editor complaining that a decision made by "only" more than 200 editors couldn't possibly have been advertised enough. People are rapidly learning and adapting to the edit filter, but tomorrow's Monday, and I expect it to blow up again, as people who have been off wiki all weekend come back to discover this change.
    Once things have settled down, we could probably benefit from more visibility, but right now, maybe it'd be better to be a bit more discreet in the citation templates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The maintenance message will remain hidden; at least for now. This is not because I agree with you but because we did not design maintenance messages to be individually hidden/unhidden. At this late date I don't want to rewrite the messaging code and its attendant css. We can wait for the next update.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:47, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Having looked at it for a while, I'm beginning to think that Category:CS1 maint: deprecated archive url is not a good name. At first glance it is to easy to get the impression that 'deprecated archive url' means that one of |archiveurl= or |archive-url= is deprecated. While I would like to deprecate the former, that is not the message that we want the maintenance message to convey. Perhaps a better name might be Category:CS1 maint: deprecated archive service. Opinions?
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:17, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Deprecated archive service/tool or deprecated archival service/tool is what came to my mind immediately. --skarz (talk) 16:29, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Those sound fine to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Category:CS1 maint: deprecated archival service. The old category moved to the new name.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:13, 25 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    An additional tweak to the module: when in page-preview mode, no parameters are suppressed; this much like how we don't suppress |url= when |url-status=unfit or |url-status=usurped |archive-url= when it holds an incomplete timestamp or has the keyword save. (don't know what I was thinking there...)
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2026 (UTC) 14:53, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Archive.today pages archived via other archiving service

    [edit]

    Should this url: https://megalodon.jp/2026-0207-0008-02/https://archive.today:443/20230517115137/https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2021/03/19/looking-back-flying-saucer-hype-reached-sioux-falls-late-1940-s/4754123001/ Trigger the "deprecated archival service" maintenance message below:

    • "Looking Back: Flying saucer hype reached Sioux Falls in late 1940s".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)

    I had thought this was an option to get around archive.today's DDoS, but may have missed discussions. (There is a lot of discussion.) Rjjiii (talk) 18:27, 28 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    For that particular example, I would say that it should suppress |url= (shouldn't that be |archive-url=) because the original source is, apparently, live:
    {{cite news |author=Eric Renshaw |date=March 19, 2021 |title=Looking Back: Flying saucer hype reached Sioux Falls in late 1940s |newspaper=Argus Leader|url=https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2021/03/19/looking-back-flying-saucer-hype-reached-sioux-falls-late-1940-s/4754123001/}}
    Eric Renshaw (March 19, 2021). "Looking Back: Flying saucer hype reached Sioux Falls in late 1940s". Argus Leader.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:40, 28 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, I thought making the citation basic would be more clear. Here is the actual citation from flying saucer with |url-status= as "live":
    Renshaw, Eric. "Looking Back: Flying saucer hype reached Sioux Falls in late 1940s". Argus Leader.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
    {{cite news |last1=Renshaw |first1=Eric |work=Argus Leader |title=Looking Back: Flying saucer hype reached Sioux Falls in late 1940s |url=https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2021/03/19/looking-back-flying-saucer-hype-reached-sioux-falls-late-1940-s/4754123001/ |archive-url=https://megalodon.jp/2026-0207-0008-02/https://archive.today:443/20230517115137/https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2021/03/19/looking-back-flying-saucer-hype-reached-sioux-falls-late-1940-s/4754123001/ |url-status=live |archive-date=2023-05-17}}
    (Rjjiii from above, on mobile), Rjjiii (ii) (talk) 22:29, 28 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    [edit]

    PMC and free doi makes auto link in {{cite journal}}, but it conflicts when |title= has internal-link. I edited sandbox and avoid this conflicting:

    Cite journal comparison
    Wikitext {{cite journal|journal=The Journal of Clinical Investigation|pmc=151837|title=The [[AMP]]-activated protein kinase α2 catalytic subunit controls whole-body insulin sensitivity}}
    Live "The [[AMP]]-activated protein kinase α2 catalytic subunit controls whole-body insulin sensitivity". The Journal of Clinical Investigation. PMC 151837. {{cite journal}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
    Sandbox "The [[AMP]]-activated protein kinase α2 catalytic subunit controls whole-body insulin sensitivity". The Journal of Clinical Investigation. PMC 151837. {{cite journal}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
    Cite journal comparison
    Wikitext {{cite journal|journal=The Journal of Clinical Investigation|pmc=151837|title-link=pmc|title=The [[AMP]]-activated protein kinase α2 catalytic subunit controls whole-body insulin sensitivity}}
    Live "The [[AMP]]-activated protein kinase α2 catalytic subunit controls whole-body insulin sensitivity". The Journal of Clinical Investigation. PMC 151837. {{cite journal}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
    Sandbox "The [[AMP]]-activated protein kinase α2 catalytic subunit controls whole-body insulin sensitivity". The Journal of Clinical Investigation. PMC 151837. {{cite journal}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
    Cite journal comparison
    Wikitext {{cite journal|journal=The Journal of Clinical Investigation|pmc=151837|title-link=pmc|title=The AMP-activated protein kinase α2 catalytic subunit controls whole-body insulin sensitivity|url=https://www.jci.org/articles/view/16567}}
    Live "The AMP-activated protein kinase α2 catalytic subunit controls whole-body insulin sensitivity". The Journal of Clinical Investigation. PMC 151837.
    Sandbox "The AMP-activated protein kinase α2 catalytic subunit controls whole-body insulin sensitivity". The Journal of Clinical Investigation. PMC 151837.

    If there are some problems, revert it. --FlatLanguage (talk) 06:10, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    There is indeed a problem, and the problem is that it should show an error in the first case. The live version is what's desired. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:54, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Concur. As I understand it, the sense from past discussion here is that the value in |title= should not be wikilinked, especially partial wikilinking as your examples use – made worse in these examples because AMP is a disambiguation page... If an editor absolutely must wikilink some term or phrase in |title= that would otherwise be autolinked, there is |title-link=none:
    {{cite journal |title=The [[AMP]]-activated protein kinase α2 catalytic subunit controls whole-body insulin sensitivity |journal=The Journal of Clinical Investigation |pmc=151837 |title-link=none}}
    "The AMP-activated protein kinase α2 catalytic subunit controls whole-body insulin sensitivity". The Journal of Clinical Investigation. PMC 151837.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:14, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    So, is it correct that adding |doi-access=free causes an error? Well, if that's what the enwiki editors say, then so be it. FlatLanguage (talk) 04:18, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Not always:
    {{cite journal |title=Title |journal=Journal |doi=10.12345/summat |doi-access=free}}
    "Title". Journal. doi:10.12345/summat.
    {{cite journal |title=[[Title]] |journal=Journal |doi=10.12345/summat |doi-access=free}} – |title= with any wikilinking and |doi-access=free causes an error
    "[[Title]]". Journal. doi:10.12345/summat. {{cite journal}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
    but:
    {{cite journal |title=Title |journal=Journal |doi=10.12345/summat |doi-access=free |title-link=Title}} – |title-link= and |doi-access=free no error
    "Title". Journal. doi:10.12345/summat.
    This was all hashed out at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 70 § Auto-linking titles with free DOIs.
    I have reverted your change to Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:40, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    FWIW I agree that partial wikilinks in the title are usually a bad idea and should not be encouraged as the sandbox change does. Entire-title links to an article about the reference itself, properly formatted using the title-link parameter are a different matter but that's not what was happening here. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:46, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Recent change to the "Quote" parameter?

    [edit]

    Greetings and felicitations. Was there a recent change to the "quote" parameter? I am in mobile using iOS and Safari, and the quotation marks are appearing to me to be extra small and halfway up the quoted text, as in this reference (to which I have added a quotation for test purposes):

    The quotation marks around the title look normal. —DocWatson42 (talk) 13:34, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    There have been no changes to cs1|2 that would account for what you are seeing. cs1|2 uses <q>...</q> tags for |quote= and has for a long time:
    '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000085-QINU`"'<cite class="citation web cs1">[http://www.bartleby.com/61/5c.html "Regional Patterns of American Speech"]. [[Bartleby.com|Bartleby]]<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">2007-10-29</span></span>. <q>La la la</q></cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=Regional+Patterns+of+American+Speech&rft.pub=Bartleby&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bartleby.com%2F61%2F5c.html&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AHelp+talk%3ACitation+Style+1" class="Z3988"></span>
    For me on desktop windows 11 chrome and on my iphone, the quote marks around the quotation look correct. Taking cs1|2 out of the picture, the quote marks in these examples also look the same:
    "La la la" ← "La la la"
    La la la ← <q>La la la</q>
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:06, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Doesn't <q>...</q> use quotation marks in the local language? Couldn't that account for differences? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:12, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm using American English, and the second example looks different in my browser. Give me a few minutes to upload the screenshot. —DocWatson42 (talk) 14:36, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Screenshot. —DocWatson42 (talk) 15:04, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Your browser determines how to treat <q>...</q>. What do you see when you visit https://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_formatting_q or https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/html/html-q-tag/ ? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 15:18, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    If I understand it correctly, en.wiki and cs1|2 override the browser/OS default styling for <q>...</q> in Common.css (at lines 11–14) and in Citation/CS1/styles.css (at lines 21–23). Both of those are identical. That suggests that summat in OP's browser/OS is overriding/ignoring the mediawiki/cs1|2 css for <q>...</q>.
    I don't know anything about iOS and Safari so perhaps the next stop is WP:VPT or WP:RD/C.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:37, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Firefox 147 in Windows 10: the w3schools link gives me curly quotes, the geeksforgeeks one gives straight. Safari in iPadOS 15.8.6: both are straight. I don't know how to find the Safari version, but I assume it's current, since iPadOS is current as of last update (two days ago). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:00, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    DocWatson42, if you go on your iOS device to Settings - General - Language & Region, what is set for your preferred language and your region? Also, if you log out of Wikipedia, is the display the same? – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:26, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    English and United States, and when I log out the size of the quotation marks changes (they get a bit bigger), the position does not—they are still too low. My software is current. I'll check my desktop view, and post a screenshot of the logged-out mobile version later —DocWatson42 (talk) 11:45, 13 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Done (see the second image). However, Trappist's two examples look the identical to me on desktop (Firefox 147.0.1 under macOS Sequoia 15.7.3). —DocWatson42 (talk) 13:35, 13 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I can't explain it. It's very strange. Both examples look the same to me in Safari on iOS. I am one version behind on iOS. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:01, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Pointer to idea lab discussion potentially affecting these templates

    [edit]

    See Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Citations to require date/accessdate when using URL (to help with link rot). Graham87 (talk) 05:20, 16 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    [edit]

    Hello,

    I have no idea if this is the right place to propose it, but something that was bugging me. Suppose isbn=XXX (replace with some ISBN) is set. The CS1 templates emit wikitext that looks like [[ISBN (identifier)|ISBN]] [[Special:Book sources/XXX]]. Is the link to "what is an ISBN itself" really necessary? I'd argue it isn't. If that ISBN (identifier) link was removed yet a reader wants to know more, and they click the link that does display, Special:BookSources includes a link to International Standard Book Number in its very first sentence, and then there are further links in a hatnote to Help:ISBN. So readers can find out "what is an ISBN" just fine. For the users who either don't care or already know, we avoid a WP:SEAOFBLUE unhelpful link to click. More generally, if someone is trying to find out more about a citation, they probably want the Book sources link that will tell them more about this book, not the generic link.

    I don't know if this will require a Village Pump RFC or just a talk page consensus or what, since I know citation templates aren't to be changed lightly. But I don't think all those links to the article on ISBN-itself are that helpful. SEAOFBLUE is good guidance in my opinion; we should highlight the most relevant links that we "want" the reader to click, not "eh it might be helpful 0.01% of the time" links. And in this case, per above, the user will still find that info on the other target page anyway.

    (Before people bring it up, I would potentially be okay with delinking some of the other "identifier" fields as well, but some of those have a slightly stronger case since, say, DOI links go straight to the DOI website without an intervening Wikipedia stop. ISBN doesn't, though.) SnowFire (talk) 20:09, 16 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Nonstarter we should and must treat all identifiers equally. That you know what an ISBN is doesn't mean that Timmy the 4th grader knows. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    This isn't responsive to the point I made above. Fine, Timmy the 4th grader doesn't know what an ISBN is. He'll find out when he clicks the link right next to "ISBN." This is the general reasoning behind avoiding extra links in WP:SEAOFBLUE. Take an example: we now discourage linking styles like [[Baltimore]], [[Maryland]], [[United States]]. Just link Baltimore, instead. If someone is genuinely curious about Maryland, then they'll find many links to Maryland by clicking on the Baltimore article, which is the relevant link we "want" the reader to click 99% of the time.
    While I'd thought that starting with one identifier would be the less controversial way, if this is truly a sticking point, then I'd be down for delinking all identifiers, yes. But I don't want to divert to that immediately as my assumption is that this would be a far larger ask and one harder to find wider consensus for. SnowFire (talk) 21:05, 16 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose. When ISBNs are useful they are more useful linked than unlinked. The same goes for almost all the other identifiers (the only exception might be ISSN because it only identifies the periodical a reference was published in and does not lead to the reference itself). —David Eppstein (talk) 08:19, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    As I understand it the proposal is unlink the initialism ISBN, not the ISBN number itself. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 14:43, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Still no. We should not include mysterious initialisms in our article without any way for people to figure out what they are, even in the reference sections. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:21, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Support. I don't see a real loss in value or information to go from ISBN 9780812222272 to ISBN 9780812222272, especially since, as SnowFire notes, the link to ISBN (identifier) is at the top of Special:BookSources. I agree with the WP:SEAOFBLUE concern and with the point that this link is appearing repeatedly in references where the more important link is the one to the actual source not a definiation of ISBN. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 14:50, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Then you'd have something absolutely boinkers like
    This is completely inconsistent, violating the most basic principles of presentation and UI, and completely senseless. That ISBN is linked on a another page is irrelevant. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:09, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree it would be better to be consistent and delink arXiv, Bibcode, LCCN, etc., but that's not the current proposal. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 15:55, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Can we add a colon between "ISBN" and the ISBN itself? HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 21:28, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    That goes against how ISBN are normally cited and presented. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:36, 21 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    The steering of people away from access/limited sites

    [edit]

    Increase PMC limit

    [edit]

    Reference 21 in the Methylone article shows a PMC error. The PMC value of 12917749 is correct, although the limit is 12900000 per Help:CS1 errors#bad_pmc. Could someone please increase the PMC limit? Thanks! Meltdown627 (talk) 23:37, 20 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Generic cite title

    [edit]

    Hello, there are titles "Wayback Machine" which need flagging with a message so that they can be sorted out to have a valid title. Currently, there are 2,455 instances, so may need to go for a maintenance category. Keith D (talk) 00:13, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    sandboxed.
    Cite book comparison
    Wikitext {{cite book|title=Wayback machine}}
    Live Wayback machine. {{cite book}}: Cite uses generic title (help)
    Sandbox Wayback machine. {{cite book}}: Cite uses generic title (help)
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:26, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    module suite update 28 February – 1 March 2026

    [edit]

    I intend to update the cs1|2 module suite over the weekend of 28 February – 1 March 2026. Here are the changes

    Module:Citation/CS1

    • avoid unnecessary enumerator translation; discussion
    • |contributor= with |script-contribution= error fix; discussion
    • suppress archive.today (.ph, .is, .md, .li, .fo, .vn) and dependent parameters; discussion

    Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration

    • Add safeguard against a possible Lua error; protects against Lua errors if mw.ext.data is not available for some reason; this is the mediawiki support that allows us to store identifier limits at c:Data:CS1/Identifier limits.tab
    • Many free doi prefix recognition patterns
    • suppress archive.today (.ph, .is, .md, .li, .fo, .vn) and dependent parameters
    • add generic title 'wayback machine'; discussion

    —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:45, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    I posted a notice at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § Module updates for major citation templates. Rjjiii (talk) 18:15, 23 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Expand SSRN upper limit

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    According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:CS1_errors#bad_ssrn, something should be logged here when the upper limit on SSRN needs to be increased. Langchri (talk) 18:21, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    If you spot any SSRN value more than the current allowed value, show it.––KEmel49(📝,📋) 23:38, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    URL with underscore

    [edit]
    Moved from Category talk:CS1 errors: URL § URL with underscore

    Here is an edit by IABot where http://url_to_pdf/ is treated as a valid url.––KEmel49(📝,📋) 19:13, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Yep, should not allow that. I'll apply a fix after the next module suite update.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:01, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    It's also accepting example.com, which along with example.net, example.org, and example.edu should probably generate an error. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:25, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    {{cite book |title=Title |url=example.com}}
    [example.com Title]. {{cite book}}: Check |url= value (help)
    Are you sure? Where are you seeing the module accept |url=example.com?
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:32, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    In this revision of the article[2] reference 36. I think the error message isn't being displayed as the |url-status= is set to 'bot: unknown'. So the archive URL (that contains example.com) is shown, but the original is hidden along with the error message. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:42, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Here is the template you mention:
    {{cite book |last=Rebentisch |first=Jost |year=2008 |title=Operation Himmlerstadt |url=https://www.example.com/operation_himmlerstadt.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200102000000/https://www.example.com/operation_himmlerstadt.pdf |archive-date=2 January 2020 |publisher=Überleben |language=de |format=PDF |access-date=24 October 2025 |url-status=bot: unknown }}
    Rebentisch, Jost (2008). Operation Himmlerstadt (PDF) (in German). Überleben. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 24 October 2025.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
    If we remove |url-status=bot: unknown then this:
    {{cite book |last=Rebentisch |first=Jost |year=2008 |title=Operation Himmlerstadt |url=https://www.example.com/operation_himmlerstadt.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200102000000/https://www.example.com/operation_himmlerstadt.pdf |archive-date=2 January 2020 |publisher=Überleben |language=de |format=PDF |access-date=24 October 2025}}
    Rebentisch, Jost (2008). Operation Himmlerstadt (PDF) (in German). Überleben. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
    No error message because https://www.example.com/operation_himmlerstadt.pdf is a valid url. It is probably true that links to example.com are not likely to be useful as sources, but that isn't the same thing as errors categorized in Category:CS1 errors: URL (malformed urls). There is no test in cs1|2 that looks for pointless domain names. Consideration of that should be discussed separately.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:58, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    example.com domain should to be blacklisted.––KEmel49(📝,📋) 23:03, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    If it does anything, it should be put in a category like "likely placeholder url" that's only active in mainspace/draftspace. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:01, 25 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    With (()) markup to bypass categorisation in legit cases. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:01, 25 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    URL cannot be bypassed with (()) markup, because they are throughly checked character by character. Here is an example of url being surrounded by (()):
    [((https://example.com)) "Title"]. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
    See that because of these brackets there is an url error erupted.––KEmel49(📝,📋) 00:11, 25 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    URL can be bypassed by (()) like every other parameter, assuming that functionality is coded it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:14, 26 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    [edit]

    I'm trying to turn references into a template where they look like

    {{cite web|editor1=William Raimond Baird |editor2=Carroll Lurding |title=Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities (Baird's Manual Online Archive) |url=https://uofi.app.box.com/v/institutions-pdf-folder/file/459817054701 |website=Student Life and Culture Archives |publisher=University of Illinois Archives |location=University of Illinois |language=English}}

    The url would be calculated with a large switch statement based on the arguments, but I'd like to have the URL for the overall Almanac (=https://www.library.illinois.edu/slc/national-fraternity-collections/fraternity-sorority-almanac/) somewhere in the template as well. Suggestions on which fields to use? (Right now, the link the almanac is placed in text after the cite, but that feels very clunky)Naraht (talk) 01:02, 27 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Treat the Almanac as a book? So:
    {{cite book |section=proper section title |section-url=https://uofi.app.box.com/v/institutions-pdf-folder/file/459817054701 |editor1=William Raimond Baird |editor2=Carroll Lurding |title=Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities |url=https://www.library.illinois.edu/slc/national-fraternity-collections/fraternity-sorority-almanac/ |publisher=University of Illinois Archives |language=en}}
    William Raimond Baird; Carroll Lurding (eds.). "proper section title". Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Archives.
    I presume that the thing that I labeled as "proper section title" has an actual title...
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 01:50, 27 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    It will have a "proper section", the first letter alphabetically of the groups talked about, which is going to have to be a similar large switch statement. (If they want the pdf for the sororities starting with K, a specific file # and a section title like "Sororities -K". And sort of odd that a cite book has more options for urls than a cite web, but given that it is called an almanac, using "book" seems appropriate, I guess.Naraht (talk) 02:51, 27 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Lua switch ideas for this?

    [edit]

    For this template, the section-url and section-title will be determined by a large switch statement. Is it possible to have the string "section-url=AAA|section-title=A1" (or whatever is for A) returned by a subtemplate so that two identical switch statements (other than output) don't have to be included? I'm trying this and returning section-url=AAA|section-title=A1 (or equivalent) but the receiving template isn't simply using the text as written, it is taking it as an argument to 1= .Naraht (talk) 03:18, 27 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    You could do summat like this:
    {{#invoke:Sandbox/trappist the monk/Cite Almanac FS|main|section=women|subsection=c}}
    Carroll Lurding (ed.). "Women's Organizations (C)" (PDF). Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – via University Library: Student Life and Culture Archives.
    See Module:Sandbox/trappist the monk/Cite Almanac FS and Module:Sandbox/trappist the monk/Cite Almanac FS/data. The former needs much improvement and the latter lacks data ...
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:38, 27 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, I'll take a look!Naraht (talk) 16:24, 27 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you! Could I edit it in there to test it/add data? And I presume when using it as a template, the template would have the {{#invoke:Sandbox/trappist the monk/Cite Almanac FS|main|section=women|subsection=c}} , but with {{section}} and {{subsection}} replacing the women and c? And once tested, the module would move to Module:Cite Almanac FS (and /data).Naraht (talk) 16:31, 27 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes you can edit my sandbox. In the {{Cite Almanac FS}} template use: {{#invoke:Sandbox/trappist the monk/Cite Almanac FS|main}}; the module will fetch |section= and |subsection= from the template frame.
    Further discussion about this template should take place elsewhere. Ping me at that discussion if you have questions.
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:46, 27 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Lang = english

    [edit]

    Is it useful or not to include lang = en in citations? Naraht (talk) 18:52, 1 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Some editors think it is; some editors think it is not. If you expect that the article and citation template will be copied to a non-English wiki, then writing |language=en will be a minor aid to those who translate the en.wiki article to their own language. At en.wiki, we suppress the language annotation when |language=en or |language=English because this is the English wikipedia; no need to highlight the norm.
    Your call. If you do use it, en is to be preferred over English because en will cause Module:Citation/CS1 to render the language annotation in the other wiki's language – assuming that the other wiki uses a more-or-less current version of Module:Citation/CS1 to render the citation template...
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:12, 1 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    We should certainly discourage the variants, i.e. |lang=en-CA, |lang=en-GB and |lang=en-US (I have seen others, I don't recall which ones), because the spelling of colour (or even the pronounciation of tomato) has no bearing at all on the validity of the source. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:18, 2 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess en-AU, en-IN, and en-SG are also major variants. But anyway, I agree: these distinctions are not important for reference metadata. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:28, 2 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    In some cases lang=en will be useful here - for example where the work is in English but has a non-English language title, or an an English language article in a magazine/journal etc that is mainly written in another language. In such cases, it would be better NOT to supress itNigel Ish (talk) 18:41, 2 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    [edit]

    I think there should be more options for |title-link=. I would like to use with any free access identifier and use a similar technique for book chapters.   — Chris Capoccia 💬 00:21, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    The title-link parameter is for wikilinks to Wikipedia articles about the reference (for instance, book references for which we have a Wikipedia article). Maybe you are thinking about a different parameter with a different name? If you want to add an external link to a title, the parameter is url=. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:06, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    no, in the help page, it shows how you can use to link to doi or pmc. I think it should allow more identifier link types and not just for journal citations.   — Chris Capoccia 💬 13:21, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The automatic promotion of free dois and pmc to url= has nothing to do with the title-link= parameter. Again, title-link= is for internal wikilink, url= is for external links. Free dois and pmcs are promoted to external links, not to wikilinks. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:32, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    i can already use title-link=doi for cite journal. I want to be able to use title-link=hdl for example and also be able to use title-link=doi for book chapters.   — Chris Capoccia 💬 19:37, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you provide a link to "the help page" (and relevant section if it's a complex one) this refers to? — SirOlgen (talk) 20:07, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Found it in Template:Citation Style documentation § id2...

    For {{cite journal}}, some identifiers (specifying free resources) will automatically be linked to the title when |url= and |title-link= are not used to specify a different link target. This behaviour can be overridden by one out of a number of special keywords for |title-link= to manually select a specific source (|title-link=pmc or |title-link=doi) for auto-linking or to disable the feature (|title-link=none).

    So we're talking about (A) behavior to specify *which* identifier to use for a |title-link= when more than one of those identifiers has a Wikipedia article, and (B) expanding the possible identifiers that could be specified. It that a correct interpretation of your request? — SirOlgen (talk) 20:22, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    yes, this is what I'm asking about, although it seems like title-link doesn't actually work the way the help info says. Maybe the best solution is just deleting the whole paragraph since the system doesn't actually work that way.   — Chris Capoccia 💬 21:22, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    It's mentioned in Help:Citation Style 1#Identifiers (search for "|title-link=doi") but I don't think it actually works, it seems to be just another case of documentation being out of date. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:22, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    As an example,
    {{cite journal |title=title |journal=journal |doi=10.1000/182 |title-link=doi}}
    produces,
    "title". journal. doi:10.1000/182.
    |title-link=doi doesn't do anything. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:30, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Versus... 
    {{cite journal |title=title |journal=journal |doi=10.1000/182}}
    ...which displays the same thing and takes you to the same place...
    "title". journal. doi:10.1000/182.
    So I think you're right about it not actually working. SirOlgen (talk) 20:59, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The key to this mystery is quoted above: specifying free resources. So this works (and including |pmc= because it will auto-link |title= if |title-link=doi doesn't work):
    {{cite journal |title=title |journal=journal |doi=10.1000/182 |doi-access=free |title-link=doi |pmc=12345}}
    "title". journal. doi:10.1000/182. PMC 12345. – title is linked to the doi identifier
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 21:08, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, I see. The title-link=doi doesn't quite do nothing. If there are two free ids to link, it says which one to choose. But it has no effect on whether there exists or does not exist a link on the title nor on which kind of free ids are allowed to be automatically promoted to a link on the title. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:43, 3 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    so if i had a free hdl, would it be reasonable to use title-link to link the title?   — Chris Capoccia 💬 01:12, 4 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Based on the example from user:Trappist the monk, it doesn't seem unreasonable to want to extend the functionality further such that {{cite journal |title=title |journal=journal |doi=10.1000/182 |doi-access=free |title-link=hdl |pmc=12345 |hdl=20.1000/100 |hdl-access=free}} would yield...
    "title". journal. doi:10.1000/182. hdl:20.1000/100. PMC 12345.
    ... where "title" actually links externally to hdl.handle.net/20.1000/100.
    Presumably there's a use case where having multiple citation elements linking to the same external destination makes sense, but I would normally just expect that a person wishing to access the doi (or pmc or hdl) reference document would simply click on the hyperlinked doi (or pmc or hdl) number rather than a citation title. Maybe I'm being too simple-minded here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ — SirOlgen (talk) 04:26, 4 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    incorrect "generic title" error on the majority of citations in Wayback Machine

    [edit]

    This is probably due to it identifying wayback machine in any part of the title. The titles are definitely not "generic". Example: reference 88. -- ozmoozmo@en-wp (u:uh:t:th:c:s) 08:38, 5 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    This can be solved by adding (()) around the effected titles, it suppresses the error message. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:41, 5 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    mutually exclusive parameters (and the Usage section)

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    The documentation for Template:Citation states

    • "All are optional and indentation is used simply to group related items — these may be mutually exclusive where indicated." (the Full citation parameters section)
    • "A full list of this template's supported parameters, their aliases, and their dependencies is shown in the Usage section near the top of this documentation page." (the Parameters section)

    Where is this indicated? There is no Usage section, and as far as I can see never has been (just quickly looking at the documentation's history).

    How or where do I find an overview over exactly which parameters are mutually exclusive, with what other parameters, under what circumstances?

    All I can find that |page=, |pages= and |at= are mutually exclusive, and only by looking at this page, Help:Citation Style 1.

    CapnZapp (talk) 10:29, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    The indentation referred to was that which existed prior to this edit. Nowadays it's at Template:Citation/doc#Description where a number of aliases are described, beginning straight away with
    • last: Surname of a single author. Do not wikilink—use author-link instead. For corporate authors or authors for whom only one name is listed by the source, use last or one of its aliases (e.g. |author=Bono). Aliases: surname, author, last1, surname1, author1.
    It could perhaps do with a thorough update, several people have moved things around in the last few years. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:01, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    no title

    [edit]

    I was trying to fix a cite here and the link is dead and there is no archive, so I cant put anything. Previously, it was a bare link. Looking at previous discussion, there doesnt seem to be a way to set the parameter to not have a title, so I just used "NO TITLE". Any better options. I could just remove it, but I am not keen on that in the event someone happens to be able to find the source with what is there. ← Metallurgist (talk) 09:08, 7 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    The IRNA appears to be offline, probably due to the ongoing US-Iran war. I would suggest leaving this as a bare url for the moment. When they come back online it might be possible to find the correct article by looking through their archive. Adding "No title" doesn't seem correct as it likely does have a title, just one that we don't know at the moment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:38, 7 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help_talk:Citation_Style_1&oldid=1342218213"