Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 86

, when is redundant with
Consider this citation:

The cited article bears a dateline of "London". Per the documentation of Cite news, it would be appropriate to set London (or London). However, a dilemma is then reached (ignore CS1 maint tags; they're from the styling added for emphasis): Is there some way to indicate, like, redundant or something? It seems strange to have a system where I can indicate dateline for, say, The Wall Street Journal or The Mercury News, but not for The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, etc. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 18:54, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * If publication-place is unset, place is interpreted to refer to that rather than to the dateline, and the template incorrectly says that The Washington Post is based in London:
 * If we set Washington, D.C., we violate the rule omit when the name of the work includes the publication place.
 * If we set Washington, D.C., we violate the rule omit when the name of the work includes the publication place.
 * I would omit it. It does not help the reader to verify the claim in the article in any way to know that the writer of the article was in London. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:36, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Location is where the publication was published, not where a particular item was written - such details don't help to locate the reference and merely confuse the reader.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:38, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The current documentation in Template:Citation Style documentation/publisher says place: For news stories with a dateline, the location where the story was written. Should that be removed? Or some note added that would limit it to some subset of cases where it's particularly relevant? --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 19:44, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * We've discussed this before:
 * A quick scan of those discussions suggests that we should, at the least, make all of publication-place, place, and location into exact-equivalent aliases. Doing that gets rid of the 'written at' dateline stuff because as noted above, where a source was written does nothing to help a reader locate the source.  Am I mistaken in my reading of those discussions?
 * Currently, has  articles.  I can dust off my awb script and let it remove articles where publication-place has the same value as location or place.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:52, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That's how I'd read the consensus across those three discussions, yeah. And I tend to agree. I suppose I could see some scenario, less in the context of news articles and more in the context of letters or poems, where location of writing could have some disambiguatory function? But there will almost always be other ways to disambiguate that. And if we were to have a parameter for that, better a specific written-at, with no ambiguity in naming. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 20:04, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Currently, has  articles.  I can dust off my awb script and let it remove articles where publication-place has the same value as location or place.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:52, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That's how I'd read the consensus across those three discussions, yeah. And I tend to agree. I suppose I could see some scenario, less in the context of news articles and more in the context of letters or poems, where location of writing could have some disambiguatory function? But there will almost always be other ways to disambiguate that. And if we were to have a parameter for that, better a specific written-at, with no ambiguity in naming. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 20:04, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That's how I'd read the consensus across those three discussions, yeah. And I tend to agree. I suppose I could see some scenario, less in the context of news articles and more in the context of letters or poems, where location of writing could have some disambiguatory function? But there will almost always be other ways to disambiguate that. And if we were to have a parameter for that, better a specific written-at, with no ambiguity in naming. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 20:04, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Fails to throw a DOI error
Should throw an error. is not a valid prefix. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:59, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * DOI registrants can be any sequence of digits and dots (see https://www.doi.org/doi_handbook/2_Numbering.html#2.2.2). cs1|2 looks for patterns of digits and dots that aren't  in use.  The live module already catches one and two digit registrants without subcode:
 * – two-digit registrant without subcode
 * – one-digit registrant without subcode
 * I have added a test for (presumably) unused one and two digit registrants with subcode:
 * – two-digit registrant with subcode
 * – one-digit registrant with cubcode
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 22:20, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That they can be is not very important relative to the fact that they aren't. When we start having DOIs that don't start with 10.#### or 10.##### then we can remove that check. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:39, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * – one-digit registrant with cubcode
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 22:20, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That they can be is not very important relative to the fact that they aren't. When we start having DOIs that don't start with 10.#### or 10.##### then we can remove that check. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:39, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That they can be is not very important relative to the fact that they aren't. When we start having DOIs that don't start with 10.#### or 10.##### then we can remove that check. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:39, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Distinguishing between minor and major works in titles
I’m wondering whether it’s possible to detect (from within CS1/Utilities/wrap_style, or elsewhere) which field a particular title is coming from. Thanks!⸺al12si (talk) 19:32, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * 2× – answer to a post that no longer exists...
 * As far as I know, that issue has never been discussed here which is why we only have  and   in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration.  It would seem to me that you also want something like   and   using whatever are the appropriate characters (these are not guillemets but were found at https://unicode.org/charts/nameslist/n_3000.html).  How to decide when to switch will require some thought.  If we add these, for consistency, we should probably rename   and   to   and.
 * I don't know what you mean by Other titles are formatted italic. Does that mean that both major and minor titles are italicized?  Does 'roman' really apply to cjk or is that just a loose equivalent to upright (not italicized)?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:07, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:07, 25 September 2022 (UTC)


 * To me, the section title and the OP content seem a bit incongruous? Pls elaborate. 50.74.165.98 (talk) 20:20, 25 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Sorry everyone. I found it out. The  parameter is what I need.—al12si (talk) 20:36, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Bump PMC limit


This shouldn't throw an error. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:05, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

CS1 flagging seemingly fine url as valid
I recently came across the article /e/ (operating system), which seems to be producing a lot of CS1 errors: URL. However, after looking over some of the URLs being flagged as invalid, I couldn't find any issues with them (E.g. https://doc.e.foundation/how-tos/upgrade-ecloud-storage), so I'm not sure why these are being flagged. URLs dont support ATAW markup, so I can't supress the errors either should they be a false flag. Is there something wrong with this url I'm not noticing, or is this simply a misflag? Aidan9382 (talk) 20:06, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Example &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:10, 25 September 2022 (UTC)


 * It seems to not like  &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:12, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The error urls seem to be missing a valid recognizable suffix, such .org. 50.74.165.98 (talk) 20:17, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Aside for country-code TLDs (ccTLDs), single-letter second-level domain names are relatively rare. Until now, cs1|2 has only supported four non-ccTLDs that have single-letter second-level domain names: ,  ,  , and  .  I have added  :
 * I have also moved the list of these TLDs from the main module to ~/Configuration.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 21:57, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Considering the more than 1500 active TLDs, with more in the pipeline, this issue will reappear. The .foundation TLD is lightly used (no more than ~30k registrations) even though it has an almost 10-year history. But this may change in the future. 64.18.11.69 (talk) 23:16, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I have also moved the list of these TLDs from the main module to ~/Configuration.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 21:57, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Considering the more than 1500 active TLDs, with more in the pipeline, this issue will reappear. The .foundation TLD is lightly used (no more than ~30k registrations) even though it has an almost 10-year history. But this may change in the future. 64.18.11.69 (talk) 23:16, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Considering the more than 1500 active TLDs, with more in the pipeline, this issue will reappear. The .foundation TLD is lightly used (no more than ~30k registrations) even though it has an almost 10-year history. But this may change in the future. 64.18.11.69 (talk) 23:16, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Request filed
Add tooltip with person-name (or other stand-in name if not a person) over any-mask. To properly display the full citation when one hovers over a reflink such as harv, sfn or CITEREF (hover-over-hover). 50.75.226.250 (talk) 15:20, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Generic citation title request
Could [Ee]rror be added as a new generic citation title? The title appears around 65 times (the regex times out so it may be more), and none of the uses seem to be the intended/correct title. Note that it would need to check if the title is exactly [Ee]rror and not just contains the word [Ee]rror, as there are a lot of regular uses for it in a title. Aidan9382 (talk) 08:32, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Displaying "n.d." is obscure for readers, "undated" is better
For citations without a date, the abbreviation "n.d." appearing somewhere in the citation is a bit baffling for readers. I would suggest that the displayed citation should show "undated"; the template should allow "n.d" to be entered as at present for compatibility, or "undated". "No date" is other possible clear wording. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 12:59, 19 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Citations are baffling for readers. The reason being that Wikipedia citations were originally, and still, based on citation systems targeting the small minority of readers familiar with the concept and its applications. Because it was the easier thing to do, and was safely within the comfort zone of their field of expertise. For readers, the present system looks quite similar and equally (if not more) baffling. In such a system, "n.d." fits perfectly, and is consistent. It also happens to be common, established cataloguing markup for undated materials. Since the present system just like its ancestors, disregards the needs of the general readership, piecemeal reform will only add confusion. The OP's request should not be applied. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 16:20, 19 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Most general and book citations using citation and variants are fairly clear and obvious, as a random look through articles will confirm - they are not terribly baffling. "Archived from the original" becomes obvious the first time it is clicked. While journal citations are more obscure, they're likely to be understood by those who will use them, and the volume, issue, DOI, etc. do not tell the reader anything useful anyway. But the date, in particular, can be important and relevant, and n.d., if used, is the only really obscure part of a citation. A couple of random examples (with date) that are typical, and shouldn't cause anyone any difficulty:

So I maintain my suggestion (for discussion, not a request). Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 20:29, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree. "Undated" or "No date" would be an improvement. Improvement is good, unless the only thing that's good enough is a revolution where we describe each source of information in full sentences. How's this sound? "I got this information at 3 News NZ at the web address http://www.3news.co.nz/Maori-leaders-at-odds-over-flash-mob-haka/tabid/1534/articleID/226469/Default.aspx with the title 'Maori leaders at odds over flash mob haka' and the date 20 September 2011. That address doesn't work any more, but now you can get it at https://web.archive.org/web/20111227003042/http://www.3news.co.nz/Maori-leaders-at-odds-over-flash-mob-haka/tabid/1534/articleID/226469/Default.aspx on the Internet Archive where it was copied on 27 December 2011."Yes I intend that proposal as gentle sarcasm. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 21:03, 19 September 2022 (UTC)


 * The intention is irrelevant. In fact, the verbose explanation above is far more understandable by practically anyone who can read unadorned English, compared to the current shorthand that citations use. Assuming that any random user of the millions of unique users that visit Wikipedia daily ignores the annoyance of the strange in-text (fiootnote) notation and is curious enough to follow it, they will eventually land on a paragraph with additional strange formatting, resembling the writings of someone who cannot form a sentence. Complete with strange terms and numbers, and various forms of names and dates seemingly thrown in haphazardly. Also assuming they have an idea of the basic Wikipedia policy about verification, they will probably wonder why Wikipedia makes it so hard for any reader to do so. With the confusion of footnoting and referencing systems, with all their peculiar characteristics, special cases and exceptions. And they cannot turn to the virtually non-existent documentation for help.
 * The current system is for those in the know. That category knows exactly what "n.d." means. More than that, they probably expect it, as the professional norm. By adding beginners' formatting to a more or less expert system you do a disservice to both. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 22:59, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * We have used n.d. for an undated publication since its institution along with date checking in CS1 in 2013. A discussion not long after indicated that this is what Chicago, APA, and MLA do. Indeed as 71 implies this is the professional standard for citations (with what was then some consensus on the point; standards have advanced a decade in that time and those citation styles do change, so I haven't looked to see either for new advice from those orgs or contradictory from others).
 * I don't see a reason to differ from those in this regard. The point is that in almost all cases that these will be set off by round brackets, and if a reader hasn't figured out that round brackets indicate a date, I don't know how to help them. That's even if they don't already have their own experience with citations, which I personally gained in high school English.
 * A few other discussions which I have not perused. Izno (talk) 23:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The strong reason is WP:TECHNICAL. Those style guides are for academic audiences in a context where print space is at a premium. Our style guide is for a general audience under WP:NOTPAPER. "Undated" is much easier to understand than "n.d." —David Eppstein (talk) 00:05, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * puts it very well. Our readers (and indeed many of our writers) are not well-versed in the jargon of APA or MLA. "undated" is clear and unambiguous. DuncanHill (talk) 00:08, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Within the contours of the current system, the n.d. shorthand, which is editor markup predating any citation system, fits nicely among all the other elements. If one is able to read & understand CS1\2 citation shorthand, "n.d." is no mystery.
 * CS1\2 is not accommodating the general reader on any level (presentation, documentation, ease-of-understanding, verification applicability etc). Half-hearted attempts to help the (presumably inexpert) reader with minor or cosmetic elements are imo placebos that distract and evade.
 * After all this time, I no longer believe that CS1\2 can ever be a general-purpose citation system understandable by inexpert readers, i.e. fitting an encyclopedia of similar declared goals. It will plod along as a semi-expert system with a confused design philosophy. Within its narrow scope, it can be fractionally, serially improved. Ok, cool. But "Undated" vs or in addition to "n.d." is not an improvement, it's another sideways move. 64.18.11.69 (talk) 01:47, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * This question of "how terse is too terse" comes up every once in a while. I think this is on the line of  that outputs with pages in most citations and   or 3 that outputs with issue and volume in cite journal, and even the fact cite journal does not output any indicator of the page number (ok,  ). If we want to go down the road of arguing that users can't figure out   given the other context clues, then we should look at every other excessive abbreviation, and there are far worse offenders than this one, and I know the discussion here has not been favorable to redoing all those as well. ( given the fact that other citation styles do support  .) Izno (talk) 02:29, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. We've started with other citation guides as a basis, and given that there are some pretty standard abbreviation conventions out there, I don't think we should be ditching many of them, including n.d. It's all find and dandy to spell everything out, but readers are still going to encounter these conventions when they read the source material for their editing here.
 * That said, I wholeheartedly agree that the terse journal notation style is not as helpful when we also use standard abbreviations "Vol.", "no." and "pp." in other templates. My impression is that it was added as a way to embrace subject-matter experts who are accustomed to such notation, even as we have, or had, a guideline saying that journal names need to be spelled out in full for our generalist audience. I would rather focus on that most terse notation so that our citations have a similar level of abbreviation first before then deciding if other fairly common abbreviations should be changed to full words.  Imzadi 1979  →   04:49, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Opening it up to "undated", "no date", etc., I feel makes harv/sfn-style templates complicated; is there going to be support for as well as,  (already see how these two differ), etc.?
 * How much evidence is there that readers are even confused by seeing n.d. anyway? Umimmak (talk) 01:30, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That's hard to tell since relatively few citations on here are specified as having no date. The sample size is too small. Glades12 (talk) 09:40, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I think anyone familiar with the idea of citations can usually figure out the meaning from looking at them; the formatting Wikipedia has chosen helps. I didn't know what "n.d." meant the first time I saw it but searching for n.d. leads quickly to a page where the last item explains it (probably in violation of the rules for disambiguation pages). Citations are absolutely necessary so we have to have them in some form. I haven't seen a reasonable alternative and writing them out in sentence form seems silly. If we were to eliminate the less obvious things like bold to indicate volume number and ":" for page number and "n.d. meaning no date, that would help. We should help where we can. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 13:32, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I repeat the typical examples, chosen randomly from the haka page, I gave before, which may help to form an opinion. They are totally clear to a new reader, I think, except that the academic journal details - which are absolutely irrelevant when reading an article or linking to a reference - such as volume, issue, DOI, etc. are obscure.

Compare with:

Remember also that, depending upon Wikipedia setup, details of references are popped up when hovering over the number in the article text.

I'm concerned only with reader experience, not complying with standards, or editor convenience. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 15:06, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * At best, a little coding to auto-format it as n.d. in the output wouldn't be inappropriate if it's truly felt that the abbreviation is that obscure, much as circa outputs c. for readers. I don't see a need to remove the abbreviation though given that it's common in other citation guides.  Imzadi 1979   →   15:20, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I probably misunderstand, but nobody is suggesting that citations should be done away with. Only that they should be made understandable, so that 1. their relationship to the text (in body or footnote) is unquestionably obvious 2. their path to the verification process a logical, easy conclusion. The OP proposal is schizophrenic, which is no fault of the OP, but reflects the confused design of the Wikipedia citation systems. Simply put, they don't know if they are geared to experts or to the general public. nyone familiar with the idea of citations likely doesn't need to be told what "n.d." means. The majority of readers though are very likely unfamiliar with either the concept or the particulars of citations. For them, adding/changing to "undated" is a meaningless detail in a sea of strange terms parading in an unfathomable sequence. 65.88.88.76 (talk) 16:21, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure whom I'm responding to since a series of IP editors have contributed here, but do you (or anyone else) have a suggestion of a better way to present citations? SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 22:35, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I suppose you are responding to the argument, irrespective of the nominal participant. That covers it. Indeed there are suggestions, but this discussion is rather narrow for them to be added here. The main one is systemwide and would involve a "general" and an "expert" mode of presentation. So each would be internally consistent. Another topic. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 12:45, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Cite journal doesn't support chapter= or section=
Unless I'm mistaken somewhere, the documentation for Cite journal, specifically, includes parameters chapter= and section=; they generate a CS1 error. I haven't checked the documentation for other templates, but:

" templates, , , , , , as well as template when it uses work or any of its aliases, do not support chapter or the aliases contribution, entry, article, or section."

Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 12:40, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you sure? The documentation for  does not include chapter and section cf.  with  (which does include and support chapter).
 * lists chapter (it shouldn't – but that is TemplateData which really has no business acting as template documentation...) Can you point to anywhere else that you think that Cite journal, specifically, includes parameters chapter= and section=?  The same question for, , , , ,  and  when it uses work.  Do you see anywhere that says that these templates support chapter and aliases?
 * Am I misunderstanding the purpose of your posting?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:12, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Am I misunderstanding the purpose of your posting?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:12, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

From Template:Cite journal - "COinS metadata is created for these parameters: Note: This table of metadata is displayed for all Citation Style 1 templates. Not all of these parameters are supported by every CS1 template. Some of these parameters are mutually exclusive, some are aliases of another parameter, and some require other parameters to be present. ."

But this caveat appears in the cite journal documentation. This may be too trivial an issue to be worth doing anything about, but as far as I can see it's misleading. In my case, I added a journal reference where a specific table was relevant, so I looked at the  cite journal documentation ("journal", specifically, not "citation"), saw that "chapter=" was stated to be supported, and added "chapter=Table 3". I'm not asking for anything to be done (and might be misguided anyway), just pointing this out for what it's worth. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 15:07, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm confused. The note that you quote above, added 10 January 2020 by Editor Jonesey95, clearly says that the parameters listed in the COinS-supported parameter list may not be supported by all cs1|2 templates.  Apparently you disregarded that and assumed that the mere mention of chapter anywhere in the  documentation page means that that parameter is supported by .  If you can reword the COinS parameter-list note in a way that is more clear, please do so.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:28, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for your help. I don't think there's anything to do, but I'll try to clarify any confusion - don't waste any more time on this. I obviously didn't read through all the documentation for but searched for "chapter" which seemed a useful parameter for my purpose, and found "chapter=", which generated an error. Further reading found that this was in a general list of COinS metadata embedded in the documentation, which said "refer to each template's documentation". As far as I was concerned I  looking at the cite journal documentation. In fact, what I should have been doing was looking at the  of the displayed page, where "content=" was not mentioned. I continue to think that this is somewhat confusing, but not a serious problem.

[Added later] After a bit of thought I propose to modify the introductory paragraph of the COinS-supported parameter list to read: "Note: This table of metadata is displayed in the documentation of all Citation Style 1 templates. Not all of these parameters are supported by every CS1 template. Some of these parameters are mutually exclusive, some are aliases of another parameter, and some require other parameters to be present. A full list of a particular template's supported parameters, their aliases, and their dependencies are shown in the Usage section near the top of its documentation page." Should I do this, and is it the best wording? Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 17:00, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I've now made the change proposed above to Template:Citation Style documentation/coins, for better or worse. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 21:48, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Translations of "website is for sale"
Thanks for having "website is for sale" on this list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:CS1_errors#generic_title). There are some translations of this phrase that are also common: In a former version of Piedmont Henry Hospital (before i edited on it), my virus scanner / security package warned that the link is potentially harmful.
 * 1) German: "Website steht zum Verkauf" as in List of South Korean festivals. The phrase is accompanied by a company's name: "buyeotour".
 * 2) French: "site web est à vendre" as in former version https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jupiter_(factory)&oldid=1105926591. (?possibly accompanied by a company's name: "Neqo.be"?)
 * 3) Maybe more phrases in more foreign languages.

This has been the subject of the archived discussion Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1164. ( I am not interested in the subjects of the articles mentioned above, i came to the articles while repairing nbsp accidents, i.e. articles where "nbsp" is displayed accidently in the read view. I am de-N, en-2. ) --Himbeerbläuling (talk) 14:34, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This search finds about 100 of the German titles while this search for the French finds none – French search not constrained to text in cs1|2 templates. Is that enough to cause us to add the German to the list of generic titles?  Where should the threshold be?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:42, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I repeat: My virus scanner / security package warned that the link is potentially harmful. (I am fearful: Does Wikipedia put the users' computers at risk?) --Himbeerbläuling (talk) 06:57, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Numbered series
E.g. "O'Brien, Phillips, Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. London: Frank Cass. 2001. ISBN 0-415-44936-7 (Naval Policy and History No. 13) (Editor and contributor)" &mdash;Agentbla (talk) 14:51, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) How do I convey the series volume number? volume= is used for "one publication published in several volumes", not for a series number.
 * 2) What if an individual is credited as both editor and contributor?
 * Not obvious to me that series information is needed. Perhaps if there were multiples of the same author and title.  Does that apply for this case?
 * In your above example, O'Brien is the editor because you have not cited a chapter for which he is the author/contributor so:
 * when citing a chapter:
 * or omit editor-first:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:24, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Just in these archives, we've discussed series numbers a few times. Izno (talk) 16:23, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Re "Not obvious to me that series information is needed": Series information often provides useful information about what kind of book it is. For instance, if a book is listed in Graduate Texts in Mathematics, I can tell just looking at the citation that it's going to be written as a textbook, but probably an advanced one. If it's in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, on the other hand, it's either a conference proceedings or (in rare cases) a research monograph, and I know that I can get subscription access to it through my employer. If it's in LIPIcs then it's definitely a conference proceedings and moreover open access. The number of a volume within a series can be useful for finding the volume in a library or online in exactly the same way that the number of a journal volume can be useful. So it's a useful part of a citation for readers. As an editor, if I see a citation to a book in a series for conference proceedings, but cited as a whole book, then that's a reason for me to look closer at what is likely an insufficiently specific citation. There's a reason that this is a standard part of BibTeX data, for instance. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:47, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * or omit editor-first:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:24, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Just in these archives, we've discussed series numbers a few times. Izno (talk) 16:23, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Re "Not obvious to me that series information is needed": Series information often provides useful information about what kind of book it is. For instance, if a book is listed in Graduate Texts in Mathematics, I can tell just looking at the citation that it's going to be written as a textbook, but probably an advanced one. If it's in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, on the other hand, it's either a conference proceedings or (in rare cases) a research monograph, and I know that I can get subscription access to it through my employer. If it's in LIPIcs then it's definitely a conference proceedings and moreover open access. The number of a volume within a series can be useful for finding the volume in a library or online in exactly the same way that the number of a journal volume can be useful. So it's a useful part of a citation for readers. As an editor, if I see a citation to a book in a series for conference proceedings, but cited as a whole book, then that's a reason for me to look closer at what is likely an insufficiently specific citation. There's a reason that this is a standard part of BibTeX data, for instance. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:47, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:24, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Just in these archives, we've discussed series numbers a few times. Izno (talk) 16:23, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Re "Not obvious to me that series information is needed": Series information often provides useful information about what kind of book it is. For instance, if a book is listed in Graduate Texts in Mathematics, I can tell just looking at the citation that it's going to be written as a textbook, but probably an advanced one. If it's in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, on the other hand, it's either a conference proceedings or (in rare cases) a research monograph, and I know that I can get subscription access to it through my employer. If it's in LIPIcs then it's definitely a conference proceedings and moreover open access. The number of a volume within a series can be useful for finding the volume in a library or online in exactly the same way that the number of a journal volume can be useful. So it's a useful part of a citation for readers. As an editor, if I see a citation to a book in a series for conference proceedings, but cited as a whole book, then that's a reason for me to look closer at what is likely an insufficiently specific citation. There's a reason that this is a standard part of BibTeX data, for instance. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:47, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

author-link=interlanguage
Some calls use an interlanguage prefix in author-link. find 800 cases with German links, e.g. : Should the interlanguage link be detected and marked, or maybe something more advanced like Interlanguage link? produces Dagmar von Gersdorff. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:04, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't see how interlanguage links in any role parameter (author, editor etc.) help in understanding the citation or finding the cited material. Even when the link is in en wiki, this is more of a convenience. The only utility I can think of in en wiki is that by following the link an interested reader may disambiguate common person names in the related roles.
 * Imo, such interlanguage links are unhelpful for local-language readers, and potentially confusing. It would be better to disallow them altogether. 64.18.11.67 (talk) 23:17, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Links to authors, titles, in some cases publishers, have a purpose beyond finding the source. Interlanguage links for authors/editors have been discussed here several times, and it seems that is not going to be supported. The obvious workaround is to construct a manual citation. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:54, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * If by "local-language" readers you mean users of the English language Wikipedia, a large percentage of the readers have English as a second language (or third, or fourth) so having links in other languages may well be helpful to them. In addition, many native English speakers appreciate having a link to a foreign language article when one is not available in English. Finally, monolinguals are a minority in the world, and most people speak more than one language, and English is very often the language of choice. Disallowing such links would hurt a lot of people, without helping anyone, as far as I can see. Mathglot (talk) 10:07, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think these comments are relevant. Citations exist to apply WP:V, not to accommodate whatever bright extraneous ideas one has. It is bad enough that they may be barely understood by the average reader. They should at least quickly and easily lead the reader to proof. Local-language articles can be more speedily (and generally, properly) be verified by local-language citations, for all local wikis. Whether readers may be multi-lingual or not is neither here nor there and does not concern citations. Some non-local-language info is pertinent and the rationale clearly understandable (original titles of translated works for example). Some local-language links are also pertinent: contributors may have identical names; publisher info may be crucial as publishers are often repositories of last resort when a work is out of circulation. But foreign-language links are just confusing, out of place, and not really helpful to verification. Remove. 2603:7000:2B42:BB00:15B3:D925:DAF2:50D4 (talk) 14:37, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I find the rendering to be ugly and cryptic.  For identifiers used in cs1|2 templates, we provide links to descriptive pages so that readers can learn what the the unfamiliar initialisms (ISBN, doi, PMID, etc) mean.   gives a big redlink and a smaller WikiMedia language tag that if clicked takes the reader to a non-English site; its even possible to use  to link out of MediaWiki (see the list at Interwiki map):
 * → 0389790
 * Yeah, we can detect the language prefix; we can test to see if the article name exists at en.wiki (that test is expensive); we can mimic but that mimicry is ugly and cryptic.  Because we know what the language tags translate to, we could create something that is less cryptic:
 * which might render as:
 * Dagmar von Gersdorff [in German]
 * or don't bother linking to a nonexistent article and render as:
 * Dagmar von Gersdorff [in German]
 * Both are still ugly but much less cryptic. What does the template do when en.wiki has a matching article?  Revert to the normal wikilinked author name?  Add a maintenance category akin to  to track no-longer-needed inter-wikilinked authors?  What to do when en.wiki has an article for 'EB Greene' the submarine captain but the interwiki points to ':xx:EB Greene' the poet?
 * Maybe, if we do this, it is best to simply annotate the interwiki:
 * Dagmar von Gersdorff [in German]
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:03, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think we should make some sort of change, per WP:EGG, and IMO the final option is the best one. It is simple and clean. We should not have Easter egg links that look just like en.WP links but drop readers on a foreign-language page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:07, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Sandbox version of the OP citation:
 * The module will accept valid language tags that exist in the MediaWiki interwiki map:
 * For known interwiki prefixes, the module will use the MediaWiki-supported language name unless the prefix is in the cs1|2 override table:
 * – an override: Mediawiki returns
 * MediaWiki knows about  as a language tag for  (which cs1|2 overrides to Blackfoot) but there is no bla.wiki so the module emits and error message:
 * The value in author can be interwiki-linked:
 * When the interwiki prefix is not recognized, the module unlinks the name and emits an error message:
 * and works for the other names:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:55, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Of course, because this is Wikipedia, it's never a easy as that ... The module chokes on interproject prefixes:   for Wikisource,   for Wikidata, etc. because they aren't in the interwiki map that cs1|2 currently uses (Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration builds a map that is language tags only):
 * I have to think about this.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:38, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Waste of time. Why should there be any link to another-language wiki? It does nothing for the citation except add clutter. 65.88.88.69 (talk) 19:32, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think Trappist the monk's proposal is an improvement. Support for d: would even be better. Links to non-English articles of authors serve the same purpose as links to English articles do. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:35, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The only valid reason for links other than the source is disambiguation of citation content (in case of names/terms such us "Smith, John" "Times Publishing" etc), explanation of citation terms that may help the reader discover the source (such as "hardcover" "jpeg" etc) or information about citation content that can help locate the source if unavailable (such as the particulars of a publisher or online provider). Even then, all links other than to the citation source (via URL or identifier) are suspect. This is obvious, but let's spell it out: the targets of these links must be verifiable and reliable themselves in order to be used as citation-related material. What use is a link to an author page in Wikipedia or anywhere, if that page has no citations, or its citations are self-serving, biased or unreliable? Citations are used to prove claims, not add claims related to the citation itself. It is even worse for foreign-language links which do not belong (as reader material) in the first place, and whose provenance is much harder for a non-speaker to discern. What a waste of time and code. 74.64.150.19 (talk) 12:00, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Links for authors, editors, titles, even publishers, provide a quick prima facie check for the reputation, or lack of it, of the source, especially where the citation itself is not readily available to the reader. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:26, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * And why is it presumed that the link targets present authors etc. (and their reputations) in a reliable fact-based manner? This justification for links is shaky and imo should be avoided in general, but especially where foreign-language articles are used as targets. As stated, there can be legitimate uses of non-foreign language links, that may help clarify a citation for the reader. Also, citations are used to prove specific claims made in wikitext, and their reliability should be judged at that level. An author that has been proven disreputable in the past may make a truthful and insightful statement about a certain subject. Using that statement as a citation that proves a specific wikitext claim is a reliable reference. It is up to the wiki contributor to note that the author, not the content of the source, is controversial. Outside of the citation, perhaps in a footnote or the wikitext itself. Conversely for authors, publishers etc. with a reputable history. They may be responsible for untrue (knowingly or not makes no difference) and/or biased statements relative to the specific wikitext. Such reference would be unreliable. 50.74.1.34 (talk) 20:19, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The sandbox module now supports a limited selection of single-letter inter-project prefixes. The supported prefixes are   (wikidata),   (wikisource), and   (wikipedia).  Here is the wikidata example from above:
 * name linked to a wikisource article:
 * name linked to wikipedia with a  prefix.  The module looks at the current project and if that project is a Wikipedia project, the name is not annotated:
 * similarly, if the local wiki's language code matches the language prefix, the language prefix is not annotated; here neither of  and   annotate the name:
 * the order of the prefixes can be swapped, the module does not annotate the name:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:55, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Of course, because this is Wikipedia, it's never a easy as that ... The module chokes on interproject prefixes:   for Wikisource,   for Wikidata, etc. because they aren't in the interwiki map that cs1|2 currently uses (Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration builds a map that is language tags only):
 * I have to think about this.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:38, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Waste of time. Why should there be any link to another-language wiki? It does nothing for the citation except add clutter. 65.88.88.69 (talk) 19:32, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think Trappist the monk's proposal is an improvement. Support for d: would even be better. Links to non-English articles of authors serve the same purpose as links to English articles do. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:35, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The only valid reason for links other than the source is disambiguation of citation content (in case of names/terms such us "Smith, John" "Times Publishing" etc), explanation of citation terms that may help the reader discover the source (such as "hardcover" "jpeg" etc) or information about citation content that can help locate the source if unavailable (such as the particulars of a publisher or online provider). Even then, all links other than to the citation source (via URL or identifier) are suspect. This is obvious, but let's spell it out: the targets of these links must be verifiable and reliable themselves in order to be used as citation-related material. What use is a link to an author page in Wikipedia or anywhere, if that page has no citations, or its citations are self-serving, biased or unreliable? Citations are used to prove claims, not add claims related to the citation itself. It is even worse for foreign-language links which do not belong (as reader material) in the first place, and whose provenance is much harder for a non-speaker to discern. What a waste of time and code. 74.64.150.19 (talk) 12:00, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Links for authors, editors, titles, even publishers, provide a quick prima facie check for the reputation, or lack of it, of the source, especially where the citation itself is not readily available to the reader. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:26, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * And why is it presumed that the link targets present authors etc. (and their reputations) in a reliable fact-based manner? This justification for links is shaky and imo should be avoided in general, but especially where foreign-language articles are used as targets. As stated, there can be legitimate uses of non-foreign language links, that may help clarify a citation for the reader. Also, citations are used to prove specific claims made in wikitext, and their reliability should be judged at that level. An author that has been proven disreputable in the past may make a truthful and insightful statement about a certain subject. Using that statement as a citation that proves a specific wikitext claim is a reliable reference. It is up to the wiki contributor to note that the author, not the content of the source, is controversial. Outside of the citation, perhaps in a footnote or the wikitext itself. Conversely for authors, publishers etc. with a reputable history. They may be responsible for untrue (knowingly or not makes no difference) and/or biased statements relative to the specific wikitext. Such reference would be unreliable. 50.74.1.34 (talk) 20:19, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The sandbox module now supports a limited selection of single-letter inter-project prefixes. The supported prefixes are   (wikidata),   (wikisource), and   (wikipedia).  Here is the wikidata example from above:
 * name linked to a wikisource article:
 * name linked to wikipedia with a  prefix.  The module looks at the current project and if that project is a Wikipedia project, the name is not annotated:
 * similarly, if the local wiki's language code matches the language prefix, the language prefix is not annotated; here neither of  and   annotate the name:
 * the order of the prefixes can be swapped, the module does not annotate the name:
 * I think Trappist the monk's proposal is an improvement. Support for d: would even be better. Links to non-English articles of authors serve the same purpose as links to English articles do. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:35, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The only valid reason for links other than the source is disambiguation of citation content (in case of names/terms such us "Smith, John" "Times Publishing" etc), explanation of citation terms that may help the reader discover the source (such as "hardcover" "jpeg" etc) or information about citation content that can help locate the source if unavailable (such as the particulars of a publisher or online provider). Even then, all links other than to the citation source (via URL or identifier) are suspect. This is obvious, but let's spell it out: the targets of these links must be verifiable and reliable themselves in order to be used as citation-related material. What use is a link to an author page in Wikipedia or anywhere, if that page has no citations, or its citations are self-serving, biased or unreliable? Citations are used to prove claims, not add claims related to the citation itself. It is even worse for foreign-language links which do not belong (as reader material) in the first place, and whose provenance is much harder for a non-speaker to discern. What a waste of time and code. 74.64.150.19 (talk) 12:00, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Links for authors, editors, titles, even publishers, provide a quick prima facie check for the reputation, or lack of it, of the source, especially where the citation itself is not readily available to the reader. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:26, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * And why is it presumed that the link targets present authors etc. (and their reputations) in a reliable fact-based manner? This justification for links is shaky and imo should be avoided in general, but especially where foreign-language articles are used as targets. As stated, there can be legitimate uses of non-foreign language links, that may help clarify a citation for the reader. Also, citations are used to prove specific claims made in wikitext, and their reliability should be judged at that level. An author that has been proven disreputable in the past may make a truthful and insightful statement about a certain subject. Using that statement as a citation that proves a specific wikitext claim is a reliable reference. It is up to the wiki contributor to note that the author, not the content of the source, is controversial. Outside of the citation, perhaps in a footnote or the wikitext itself. Conversely for authors, publishers etc. with a reputable history. They may be responsible for untrue (knowingly or not makes no difference) and/or biased statements relative to the specific wikitext. Such reference would be unreliable. 50.74.1.34 (talk) 20:19, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The sandbox module now supports a limited selection of single-letter inter-project prefixes. The supported prefixes are   (wikidata),   (wikisource), and   (wikipedia).  Here is the wikidata example from above:
 * name linked to a wikisource article:
 * name linked to wikipedia with a  prefix.  The module looks at the current project and if that project is a Wikipedia project, the name is not annotated:
 * similarly, if the local wiki's language code matches the language prefix, the language prefix is not annotated; here neither of  and   annotate the name:
 * the order of the prefixes can be swapped, the module does not annotate the name:
 * name linked to wikipedia with a  prefix.  The module looks at the current project and if that project is a Wikipedia project, the name is not annotated:
 * similarly, if the local wiki's language code matches the language prefix, the language prefix is not annotated; here neither of  and   annotate the name:
 * the order of the prefixes can be swapped, the module does not annotate the name:
 * similarly, if the local wiki's language code matches the language prefix, the language prefix is not annotated; here neither of  and   annotate the name:
 * the order of the prefixes can be swapped, the module does not annotate the name:
 * the order of the prefixes can be swapped, the module does not annotate the name:
 * the order of the prefixes can be swapped, the module does not annotate the name:
 * the order of the prefixes can be swapped, the module does not annotate the name:

for  at another-language wiki, the name is annotated with the language:
 * for project prefixes that aren't supported, the module does not link the name and emits an error message:
 * even when combined with a valid language prefix:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:53, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * even when combined with a valid language prefix:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:53, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * even when combined with a valid language prefix:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:53, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:53, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:53, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

'and others' rejected
The markup:



currently gives an error:



yet the original work literally cites "Ben Dolan and other members of the group" as the authors. The help page only suggests using display-authors, which does not appear to be appropriate in this situation. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:29, 7 October 2022 (UTC)


 * : Izno (talk) 18:35, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I was thrown by the description of display-authors at Help:Citation Style 1, which opens "Controls the number of author or editor names that are displayed when a citation is published.". Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:39, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Broken tag in Red Latter Days
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Letter_Days citation 7 Editor, Alistair Osborne, Associate City (2005-08-01). "Red Letter Days experiences a plunge into administration". Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2019-02-07. : |last= has generic name (help) please assist me, I need help repairing it. 06:41, 8 October 2022 (UTC) Lmharding (talk) 06:41, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. The author's title is not part of his name. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:07, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Reconsider throwing an error on ZWJ sequences?
The template currently errors if the  parameter contains an unescaped instance of. This disrupts seemingly legitimate use of Emoji ZWJ sequences (such as 🏴‍☠️, and 🏳️‍🌈, and most gender/skin tone modifiers), which can occur occasionally in the text of Tweets and Instagram posts. See for example this error (which inspired me to leave this comment). To avoid the error, 🏴‍☠️ has to be rewritten as. Am I mistaken in thinking that unescaped ZWJ sequences are valid Wikitext? Is it feasible to remove the ZWJ from the warnings about invisible chars? Alternatively, could the Module attempt to exclude instances of ZWJ which form a valid Emoji? –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 20:31, 8 October 2022 (UTC)


 * We can't know what constitutes a valid emoji. What can be done and is done today is for some cases to be whitelisted. Izno (talk) 22:49, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you sure? You wrote: To avoid the error, 🏴‍☠️ has to be rewritten...  If I pretend that a variant of that sentence fragment is the title of a book:
 * No error message.
 * cs1|2 has a table of emoji characters that are allowed to follow U+200D ZWJ at Module:Citation/CS1 line 907. I think that we got that table from Unicode emoji-zwj-sequences.txt – whether it is that version or an earlier version I do not know.  The skull and crossbones is character U+2620 and is listed in our table and in the Unicode data.  The rainbow is character U+1F308 and is listed in our table and in the Unicode data.
 * From your error example, the sequence of characters is U+1F3F3 WAVING WHITE FLAG, U+FE0F VARIATION SELECTOR-16, U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER, U+26A7 MALE WITH STROKE AND MALE AND FEMALE SIGN, U+FE0F VARIATION SELECTOR-16. I am not an Instagram subscriber so I can't say for sure, but the one view that they let me see, it looked to me like the same visual rendering as our template's rendering at Charlie McDonnell (and the same as your signature).  The U+1F3F3 and the U+26A7 symbols do not blend into a single compound symbol as the pirate and rainbow flags do.
 * The reason for this, I suspect, is that Unicode does not include the U+26A7 symbol in their emoji-zwj-sequences.txt file. Because they don't, we don't.  My browser, chrome current, does not combine U+1F3F3 and U+26A7.
 * I should write some code to extract emoji characters allowed to follow U+200D so that when Unicode update their .txt file, it is easier to update our table. @Editor Jonesey95: If I remember correctly, you were instrumental in compiling our list of emoji characters.  What was your source?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:29, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think Archive 74 from January 2021 is where we made some useful changes around emoji modifiers. I see that I somewhat unhelpfully described my creation of our initial list as getting a list from here (this link is version 15; January 2021 was version 12) and then "I did a bunch of text processing", with no further explanation. For the record, it appears that I found every emoji code that followed, then sorted and deleted duplicates. Last time, I came up with 37 unique lines. This time, I came up with 11 new ones:
 * From your error example, the sequence of characters is U+1F3F3 WAVING WHITE FLAG, U+FE0F VARIATION SELECTOR-16, U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER, U+26A7 MALE WITH STROKE AND MALE AND FEMALE SIGN, U+FE0F VARIATION SELECTOR-16. I am not an Instagram subscriber so I can't say for sure, but the one view that they let me see, it looked to me like the same visual rendering as our template's rendering at Charlie McDonnell (and the same as your signature).  The U+1F3F3 and the U+26A7 symbols do not blend into a single compound symbol as the pirate and rainbow flags do.
 * The reason for this, I suspect, is that Unicode does not include the U+26A7 symbol in their emoji-zwj-sequences.txt file. Because they don't, we don't.  My browser, chrome current, does not combine U+1F3F3 and U+26A7.
 * I should write some code to extract emoji characters allowed to follow U+200D so that when Unicode update their .txt file, it is easier to update our table. @Editor Jonesey95: If I remember correctly, you were instrumental in compiling our list of emoji characters.  What was your source?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:29, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think Archive 74 from January 2021 is where we made some useful changes around emoji modifiers. I see that I somewhat unhelpfully described my creation of our initial list as getting a list from here (this link is version 15; January 2021 was version 12) and then "I did a bunch of text processing", with no further explanation. For the record, it appears that I found every emoji code that followed, then sorted and deleted duplicates. Last time, I came up with 37 unique lines. This time, I came up with 11 new ones:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:29, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think Archive 74 from January 2021 is where we made some useful changes around emoji modifiers. I see that I somewhat unhelpfully described my creation of our initial list as getting a list from here (this link is version 15; January 2021 was version 12) and then "I did a bunch of text processing", with no further explanation. For the record, it appears that I found every emoji code that followed, then sorted and deleted duplicates. Last time, I came up with 37 unique lines. This time, I came up with 11 new ones:

U+200D U+1F4A8 U+200D U+1F4AB U+200D U+1F32B U+200D U+1F37C U+200D U+1F384 U+200D U+1F525 U+200D U+1FA79 U+200D U+1FAF2 U+200D U+2B1B U+200D U+26A7 U+200D U+2744
 * The "transgender symbol", U+26A7, is one of the new ones, and it is causing the error in the article version linked above, so it makes sense that it would be a new, currently unsupported (by CS1) modifier. If those new items can be added to the CS1 sandbox, I think it may resolve the above problem. This process will presumably need to be repeated occasionally as the list of emojis are versioned up and new modifiers are added. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:00, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I made some incorrect assumptions about what was happening behind the scenes here (i.e. that a whitelist did not exist), and was thus mistakenly assumed this would affect all emoji sequences. However, 🌈 and ☠️ are correctly whitelisted here. The character ⚧&#xFE0F;, which makes up the latter half of the 🏳️‍⚧️ emoji, is not whitelisted, which is what actually triggered the issue I ran into here.
 * As noted in the latest revision of emoji-zwj-sequences.txt, the sequence 🏳+ZWJ+⚧&#xFE0F; is a valid Emoji, and has been since January 2020. On up-to-date systems, it displays as Transgender Flag. This glyph became RGI in Unicode v13.0, one version after the txt file (from v12.0) which you pointed to.
 * So it seems the CS1 config just needs to be updated to include characters from new sequences added since v12.0. But to avoid that repeated maintenance, shouldn't the module should simply accept all ZWJ characters that precede an Emoji, regardless of RGI status? As defined by Unicode here, all sequences of Emoji (and Emoji modifiers) connected by ZWJ's are valid, parseable "emojis", even if they don't map to glyphs that are RGI or widely implemented. The likelihood that someone inserted an invalid ZWJ into a citation template by mistake seems far less likely than the likelihood that the person who wrote that source used a computer which supports new sequences that the citation Module isn't keeping up with (as occured here). –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 00:02, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Good detective work. And unfortunately, people do insert (or copy-paste) ZWJs into citations by mistake, which is one of the reasons that the error category tracks them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:05, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * As an aside,, your browser's ability to render newly standardized Emoji characters depends on the Emoji font installed in your operating system, not on the browser version. I believe Windows 10 tends to lag rather far behind the latest versions in that respect. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 00:06, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * to avoid that repeated maintenance, shouldn't the module should simply accept all ZWJ characters that precede an Emoji No.  We chose to have a short whitelist because Unicode in their wisdom(?) have scattered emoji characters all across the code-point range which makes it much more difficult and time consuming to decide if 'that' character is an emoji.  The current mechanism is fast and relatively small.
 * I'll spend some time tomorrow hacking some code to read an emoji-zwj-sequences.txt file. V15 is the current version?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:49, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Version 15 appears to be the most recent. If you go to this page and click the Charts link, you get version 15. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:03, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I see; I had hoped that Lua's string library supported for Unicode property matching (as JavaScript's regex does, via the  escape), but I've since disabused myself of that notion, so I guess it is necessary to keep a master-list of every plausible Emoji (or range of Emojis) that could appear as part of a sequence. I finagled for a bit, and (as far as I can tell), as of Emoji v15.0, the full set of characters that could follow a ZWJ as part of an RGI ZWJ sequence is:
 * I found that list by running this script on the zwj-sequences.txt page:  Of these, the ones that aren't currently accounted for in the invisible_chars function are:   –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 02:57, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, good detective work. That's the same list I ended up with above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:02, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Created Module:Make emoji zwj table from which I have updated Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration/sandbox:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:25, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Created Module:Make emoji zwj table from which I have updated Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration/sandbox:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:25, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:25, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:25, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Template:Cite magazine
Is there any way to convert this into a regular style ref like Cite web that can be added via VisualEditor? Kailash29792 (talk)  04:30, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
 * , like, is a cs1 template; both are rendered by Module:Citation/CS1 so there is nothing to convert. If  does not work with visual editor then you need to be talking with whomever it is that maintains ve.  If  doesn't work with ve and  does, what about the other 25 cs1|2 templates?  Do they also not work with ve?  If not, seems like a huge ve bug to me.  Talk to the ve maintainers.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:28, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

others = Illustrated by ...
The rubric currently says that the right way to include an illustrator is with the "others" parameter and the words "Illustrated by A. R. Tist". This is a kludge, where we should have parameters "illustrator = " and "illustrator-last = ", "illustrator-first = ". Perhaps that implies "illustratorN =" which I can see means a further slice of work if we're to allow multiple illustrators, which certainly sometimes happens. Still, it'd be the tidy solution. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:05, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a perennial request that has not yet been backed up with analysis that shows the need for it, either for WP:V reasons or because "illustrator" is a useful and widely used value in others. We could add all sorts of trivia about our sources, but why? – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:11, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

T221625
The code reference T221625 which is marked as invalid. Should the workaround get removed or if it still required then it would be nice to update that phab task. Eran (talk) 11:56, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is about the comment at Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration line 620? Has ve been changed?  Does a new page created using ve have content that is available to Scribunto's  ?  If one or both answers is 'no', then the 'workaround' to set   to empty string when   returns   is still required.  That 'workaround' is probably a good idea in case   returns nil for some other unexpected reason.
 * I see no need to update the phab task because the reason for closure as invalid is provided at T221625.
 * The original discussion linked from phab:T221625 is archived at.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:29, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The original discussion linked from phab:T221625 is archived at.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:29, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

CS1 maint: extra punctuation issue
In the article Hadean, reference #39 states "CS1 maint: extra punctuation issue" because the doi parameter value ends with a semi-colon. However, it seems that the semi-colon is necessary for the doi link to work. Is it possible to exempt the doi parameter from this maintenance message? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You can do this to suppress the CS1 maint: extra punctuation categorization:
 * Of course, that brings with it the CS1 maint: ignored DOI errors maintenance category...
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:41, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Of course, that brings with it the CS1 maint: ignored DOI errors maintenance category...
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:41, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

No longer able to have month abbreviations?
Per Help:CS1_errors the date field should allow any format in MOS:DATE. MOS:DATE allows month abbreviations: Only in limited situations where brevity is helpful: For use in tables, infoboxes,, etc. Only certain citation styles use abbreviated date formats. By default, Wikipedia does not abbreviate dates. Use a consistent citation style within any one article.

Particularly for dates that contain a range of months, it can be useful for the date to read, say (Nov–Dec 2020) instead of (November–December 2020). However, despite MOS:DATE allowing month abbreviations to be used in references, it seems that CS1 automatically converts month abbreviations to the full month when I try putting the following in To Shiver the Sky, although I can't reproduce the effect here...



Here I have Nov–Dec 2020 and what reads is (Nov–Dec 2020), but in To Shiver the Sky the above template automatically produces November–December 2020, at least on my end.

Does anyone know what is causing this automatic conversion of month abbreviations to full month names?

Umimmak (talk) 21:54, 16 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I see now this has something to do with Use dmy dates, so I guess this has nothing to do with CS1, but I definitely find it inconvenient that this changes citations from how I've entered them, but perhaps the concept of only using month abbreviations when they're a part of ranges in a citation is not an entirely consistent stylistic decision. Umimmak (talk) 21:57, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It technically does have something to do with CS1, which gets the page content (CS1 is the predominant reason pages transclude themselves these days), and uses the use X date template to automatically format its properly-inputted dates to be consistent on output by design, rather than by accident. But that has a general consensus in place, which I do not expect to go anywhere. Izno (talk) 22:16, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Template:Use dmy dates lists various options so that CS1 can consistency apply variants on the date format. I believe one of those would allow abbreviated months.  Imzadi 1979  →   22:41, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Also documented at Help:Citation Style 1. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:07, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Update SSRN limit
The following citation does not work: even though 4221661 is a perfectly valid SSRN id. Викидим (talk) 20:14, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ssrn required is a weird error for this case. :) Izno (talk) 21:06, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ssrn required error is one shared by the other preprint templates. Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities makes two lists of identifiers; one is sequence of all pretty-like identifiers and their values for rendering and the other is k/v table where k is the identifier and v is its value for COinS (which does not need to be pretty).  Some time ago we decided to inhibit metadata generation for invalid identifier values.  When invalid, the identifer and its value are omitted when Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities creates the k/v table.
 * Module:Citation/CS1 used the k/v table to determine if the identifier parameter that is required for the current preprint template is present. Alas, because invalid parameters are not listed, the module returns the unexpected required-parameter-missing error.  Fixed in the sandbox:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:19, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
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jstor-access
JSTOR requires registration (at least for some articles). So why registration is "Invalid"? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 19:29, 20 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Been asked before. The probable answer is myopic design, which results into locking possible parameter values to a limited range. As is usually the case, fixing bad software design after production is much harder, as it may involve dependencies, which could have been originally there, or appeared later as the software develops. 68.174.121.16 (talk) 22:00, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

cite journal: starting with a stop
Minor problem with cite journal: In both cases, the template leaves an orphan period at the beginning. I'm doing similar stuff with cite book and am not seeing this problem. These are unusual cases, and obviously not a huge deal, but I thought I'd point them out. Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 02:51, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * (suppressed author)
 * (absent author)
 * (absent author)
 * Consider using author-mask.
 * (suppressed author)
 * I think that is the recommended solution. If not, please link to the article where you are trying to use this unusual format, and we may be able to recommend a workaround. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:18, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think that is the recommended solution. If not, please link to the article where you are trying to use this unusual format, and we may be able to recommend a workaround. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:18, 21 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Unsigned journal articles are normally assumed to be authored by an editor/editor team (of the entire journal or of the department the article belongs to). I would use the editor info. In the other case, as Jonesey95 suggested, suppressing author display in lists is properly done through masking.
 * However you are correct in pointing out the orphan field separator (dot). Fixing this cosmetic error is probably low on the totem pole of things to do. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 12:17, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, and -- before I go on -- I do want to emphasize that I'm not demanding action here; just thought it would be useful to register the phenomenon. I'm fine if the resolution is "yeah, sorry to hear about your little dot." The article is currently in userspace: User:Phil_wink/lheng. moved to mainspace 2022-10-22: List of Holberg's plays in English translation. As you'll see, the entries in question constitute an entire section with a single author (Ludvig Holberg). So it would be purposeless and busy to list him repeatedly, and overly spikey to fill the section with author masks. But I do want to keep him in the data, both for bibliographic completeness, and to facilitate the citerefs in the table. Oh, the entry in question ("Toft") is the second entry under Individual dramas. Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 14:18, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is an others problem so is a problem for translator and interviewer when using or any periodical alias with  because in those rendered citations, the others value follows the author and editor name-lists.  This is different from the other cs1|2 templates.  Why is there a difference?  No idea; apparently, ever thus:
 * This is an others problem so is a problem for translator and interviewer when using or any periodical alias with  because in those rendered citations, the others value follows the author and editor name-lists.  This is different from the other cs1|2 templates.  Why is there a difference?  No idea; apparently, ever thus:


 * fixed in the sandbox:


 * But, is this the right fix? Shouldn't all cs1|2 templates render others in more-or-less the same position?  This fix has the obvious 'new' flaw in cs2 where the first letter of the static text in the rendering is lowercase.  Not quite sure how to fix that and support i18n.  Is this a case where we require translator and interviewer to have a displayed value for author or editor?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:58, 21 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I would think that it is a no-brainer for the presentation of any element in a citation (including the positioning) to be consistent throughout. Compliance with i18n is secondary. Uniformity and proper grammar in the wiki's local language should always take precedence. Making secondary roles such as "translator" dependent on the display of a primary role such as "author" or "editor" seems logical, and something that could be expected by readers (including when the author is listed as "Unknown"). I have to say that the OP's application of the templates is not as citations, but as bibliographic entries in a List of Works (in this case, a list of translations of works). Imo, CS1/2 is not a good fit for the OP's specific application. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 15:30, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Reuters and Business as generic last names
Could Reuters be added as a generic value of the last parameter in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration? There are some two thousand pages that use it (Special:Search/insource:"last=Reuters"). Kleinpecan (talk) 08:31, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Similarly, Business when used alone could also be added as a generic last name value. This seems very common with references to CNN Business (Special:Search/insource:"last=Business"). Kleinpecan (talk) 08:39, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Different searches give (of course) different results:
 * with 'Reuters' anywhere in the assigned value for:
 * authorn ~475 (times out)
 * lastn ~420 (times out)
 * firstn ~170 (times out)
 * with 'Business' anywhere in the assigned value for:
 * authorn ~700 (times out)
 * lastn ~390 (times out)
 * firstn ~710 (times out)
 * And, because 'Business' is so often associated with 'CNN':
 * with 'CNN' anywhere in the assigned value for:
 * authorn ~1000
 * lastn ~450
 * firstn ~470
 * And because 'Business' is also commonly associated with 'Inc' or 'Inc.':
 * with 'Inc' or 'Inc.' as the whole assigned value for:
 * authorn ~5 (times out)
 * lastn ~1210 (times out)
 * firstn ~145 (times out)
 * So, to the sandbox I have added 'Reuters', 'Business', and 'CNN' as plain text finds; and added  as a pattern match find.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:42, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Another generic title
Hello, can you add "Security Check Required" to the list of generic titles. There are currently 211 instances, mostly from Facebook references. Keith D (talk) 16:32, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Another one to add is "IMDB" as the full title. Ignoring case there are 244 instances. Keith D (talk) 00:08, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Another one to add is titles containing "This page has been removed", currently 34 articles. Keith D (talk) 23:19, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Use of "oclc="
OCLC numbers can be useful, and I'm happy that Cite book provides the field. My question is about when one should use it. (It may therefore be off-topic here. You're welcome to tell me where I should post this instead of here.)

Most recent editions of books have ISBNs. An edition that has an ISBN probably appears in Worldcat, and if so has one or more OCLC records. If there are two or more OCLC records (as is common), it's often not obvious which is the most informative or the most accurate, let alone the one most likely to cover libraries within readers' reach. Anyway, if an edition has an ISBN, this will normally make it easy to find the OCLC number(s). So whether or not I use a Cite template, my own practice is to provide the ISBN of an edition where there is an ISBN, and to cite an OCLC number only where there isn't an ISBN. If provided together with an ISBN, an OCLC number is IMHO normally mere clutter. And so I've taken to removing the OCLC numbers (example). Comments? ( Yes, there are cases where some mistake has resulted in a single ISBN being shared by two books sharing nothing but a publisher. Of course I'm in favour of OCLC numbers that disambiguate.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:30, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I provide OCLC if there is no ISBN. I don't see a reason to remove them if they lead to the source in question. It's one fewer hop for the reader to finding actual information about the book. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:23, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Personally, I add OCLC numbers even if there is an ISBN, because the OCLC number link will jump right to Worldcat, while the ISBN link jumps to the Special:BookSources page. Yes, you can get to Worldcat from Special:BookSources, but for readers in the know, it's one less step to just use the OCLC. For other source types, such as periodicals, an ISSN jumps right to Worldcat, so I don't see a need to double up.  Imzadi 1979  →   00:23, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you both for your comments. One point, though. Imzadi1979, you talk of "the OCLC" as if a given ISBN corresponds to a single OCLC number. However, in my experience, far more often it corresponds to a bunch of OCLC numbers. Where it corresponds to a number of them, how do you choose among them: the most informative entry (regardless of spelling, etc), the entry with the most conscientious use of diacritics (regardless of a lack of a chapter listing, etc), the entry listing the most libraries? (Worse, I'd guess that many people presented with an OCLC number for an edition would wrongly assume that it is the sole, definitive OCLC number for it.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:54, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * OCLC identifiers correspond to existing works in libraries (and other repositories). As these entities have disparate cataloguing schemes, the id is a way to unify presentation of these holdings. Theoretically, any OCLC for a unique ISBN is acceptable: the work can be discovered in the related institution and perhaps be consulted for verification. Practically, it is probably better to use an OCLC from an institution with known, large resources. Such an institution may be more easily able to supply the work reviewed. But your main thrust is correct. There is a localization issue here. 71.105.141.131 (talk) 01:09, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Personally, I only include oclc when there is no ISBN and when other criteria apply. The main one is when it's otherwise be tricky to locate a source from the rest of the given citation information (e.g., super common titles or surnames, complicated titles where I can imagine libraries might disagree about how to enter the title, non-English titles where transliteration schemes come into play, etc.). Also, if a work (again without an ISBN) is in so few libraries where there is a single definitive OCLC number because only one or two libraries has something, I might also use an OCLC since that helps people more easily see how few libraries something is in. But since multiple OCLC numbers can exist I tend to avoid one since it might not be the right OCLC for a given user and might give them a false sense of which libraries near them have it -- when there are multiple OCLCs I'll somewhat arbitrarily pick the one with the most libraries using it. Umimmak (talk) 01:15, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Hoary: I've run into just this situation a few times. I work with some annually published sources that are indexed by some libraries as individual publications, and by other libraries as annual editions of a serial/periodical. So these sources often have two OCLC identifiers, one for the series, and one for each year. In that case, I list both. I use id so that both appear. In a few rare cases, an individual edition has had three OCLCs because libraries break the series into different overlapping runs of years, but again, I just list them all so that readers can easily search in Worldcat for a library holding the source.  Imzadi 1979  →   01:44, 15 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you,, , 71.105.141.131, . In future, I'll refrain from removing OCLC numbers (unless of course they're obviously misleading or mistaken). I'm very surprised to read of . I hadn't been aware of the possibility. This isn't something I'd often want to use; but would be. Perhaps digressing here, but can Cite book be nudged to produce a version with short descriptions, something like "ISBN 9780195381979 (hardback), 9780190621056 (paperback)"? Believing (or just lazily assuming) that it can't is one reason why I'm seldom keen to use Cite book, though I understand its benefits and don't undo others' use of it. -- Hoary (talk) 23:22, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Well per WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT an individual editor is presumably only consulting one version of a book; it would be rare that someone is consulting both the paperback and hardcover versions. It's also possible hardback vs paperback would have different paginations, also often paperback editions have some kind of update, have a different year of publication, etc. It would be confusing to list multiple ISBNs for a single citation.
 * An exception I guess would be in a MOS:LISTOFWORKS section of an author, but even then it's probably an unnecessary level of detail to provide information about all editions of a book.
 * ISBN allows the use of something like ISBN 978-1-4133-0454-1 but not with providing a parenthetical description for each ISBN. Umimmak (talk) 23:41, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You can use  with the corresponding ISBN. Use  the ISBN you consulted, bindings may have different outlines/layouts including elements such as pagination. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 16:06, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * and IP, perhaps a problem is the vagueness of the term edition. (Book is even vaguer, but the vagueness is widely recognized.) Of course I don't have in mind basing edits to the (currently feeble) article on Call It Sleep on what I see in a Penguin copy, calling that "paperback", and adding a Library of America edition (which I haven't seen) as the "hardback", for both specifying pp 203–208 (because that's where it is in the Penguin). There are, after all, limits to my ineptitude. What I have in mind will be exemplified by Daniel White's Administering affect: Pop-culture Japan and the politics of anxiety. Unsurprisingly for an academic book, its copyright page tells us:
 * Identifiers: LCCN 2021049474 (print) | LCCN 2021049475 (ebook) | ISBN 9781503630680 (cloth) | ISBN 9781503632196 (paperback) | ISBN 9781503632202 (ebook)
 * Putting aside questions related to the "ebook", each page of the "cloth" edition and the paperback will be identical. -- Hoary (talk) 00:03, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There maybe a lot of bibliographic information in the copyright page, but not all of it is useful or necessary for citations in Wikipedia. The simple rule is that we (as readers) need to know where/how, as the citation writer, found the info. This is the easiest way of verifying the related wikitext. If the book has several identifiers for the specific edition/binding you consulted, they may be listed, since they presumably use different catalogs: if a book cannot be found in the ISBN catalog it may be found in the LCCN catalog, etc. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 14:48, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That's true. With luck, somebody wanting to look something up in a book of this kind (or indeed wanting to read it from cover to cover), clicking on the sole ISBN provided, and not finding a copy within reach, will think of the possibility of a differently-bound edition with its own ISBN, and use Worldcat or similar to find it. I think it would be helpful to provide (i) the ISBN of a second edition as long as this was certain to have the same pagination, and (ii) a simple explanation of which ISBN was which; but perhaps the benefit would be outweighed by the risk of well-intended misapplications. -- Hoary (talk) 22:15, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Worldcat does have the option to find other editions of a publication. Sometimes that gets you the listings for a 2nd or 3rd edition when you searched for the 1st, and sometimes that gets you alternate bindings or sister imprints and the like.  Imzadi 1979  →   23:40, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 25 October 2022
I often like to copy the vertical format from the template page when writing a new reference. I think it would improve readability to editors if the "="-signs were directly below each other, like some other citation templates.

The length that appears in other templates, appears to have been chosen in order to have a space before and after " archive-date = ". (And a space after the "="-sign).

I think this should be fairly uncontroversial as it only improves readability.

(Please look at the source-text for this edit-request as I'm unable to display it as plain text due to all the pipes. And I can't see the source-text of the existing templates to inform me of how it should be entered. I have tried "tlx" and "code". They either don't work or they ignore spaces.)

This should be the result of changing the existing vertical format boxes:

Under "Template:Cite web#Usage#Most commonly used parameters in vertical format":

And under "Template:Cite web#Usage#Full parameter set in vertical format":

BucketOfSquirrels (talk) 20:42, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ❌ the page your requested an edit to doesn't contain that wikitext. If you want to change the documentation, you can do so here: Template:Cite web/doc. —  xaosflux  Talk 20:53, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Outdated example
Under Publisher, it gives the example "Example: [ [CBS Interactive] ] (which owns 'Metacritic.com')". This is outdated, as CBS Interactive no longer owns Metacritic. spongeworthy93  talk &emsp; 15:04, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
 * If you are referring to a documentation page, those pages are not protected and may be edited by anyone. You are free to fix it.
 * In future, because this talk page is the target of a lot of redirects from template, module, ~/doc, ~/sandbox, ~/testcases talk pages, please say where you find the problem.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Physical address of Republic of Molossia
I noticed that some user put the physical address in Republic of Molossia in cite web:. Nevertheless, this caused CS1 to output a maintenance error. I tried to fix it writing  but there's no way to insert the numbers. Is there a way to fix it? Thanks in advance.- Carnby (talk) 07:05, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There are several issues with the article, including lack of clarity over the use of primary sources, but to narrowly answer your question, locality where publisher is based. The full or partial address is not required, and it actually generates clutter. 65.88.88.68 (talk) 14:26, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The very reason the error exists is because of the numbers. We have no need for the street-level location. Dayton, Nevada is sufficient. Izno (talk) 20:09, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

access-date in the TOC
At Cite web, I cannot find access-date in the /documentation TOC, nor anything like it. Is that by design? (if so, what can I learn?). Otherwise, please add it. DePiep (talk) 08:29, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It's under URL, since access-date requires url to be present. I recommend using the Find feature of your browser. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:02, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, a Do Find is saying TOC is not working. Anyway may be the logical place by the module code designers, but not for /doc functioning. The dependency-placement is a surprise. (/doc-wise, such a dependency can/should be mentioned with the (proposed) access-date entry, not overtaking it). DePiep (talk) 21:19, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Added to TOC, referencing to § url. . Unlike in e.g. the last2, first2 relationship, this does not unastonishingly follow from url (non-intuitive relationship). Being prerequisited does not answer documentation requirementsd. csdoc to be adjusted? -DePiep (talk) 06:38, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

doi accept-this-as-written markup is being removed by WPCleaner
Help:Citation_Style_1 (double parentheses) on  gets removed by WPCleaner, as in Special:Diff/1119553213. I filed T322177 about it, but in case it takes a while to fix, is there some way to suppress this that could be documented? Micler (talk) 05:36, 2 November 2022 (UTC)


 * And it's already fixed. Cool! Micler (talk) 13:40, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Change to use #invoke?
Hi, an editor went through COVID-19 and changed all the cites and changed cite with a single pipe to # invoke:Cite with a double pipe. Is this considered standard now? X750. Spin a yarn? Articles I've screwed over? 20:07, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * For pages with a HUGE number of templates, this is necessary. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:03, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, sorry to bother, but I've got another question. I am giving an article a rewrite, and it's becoming fairly large. As it stands, the amount of citation templates is about 150, and I expect it to reach 250. Should I change to invoke as well? Thanks. X750. Spin a yarn? Articles I've screwed over? 19:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If you get error messages, and only if you get error messages. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:27, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It a mechanism that allows editors to hold-off tough editorial control decisions because it helps to keep post-expand include size within limits. But, it is only a stop-gap.  This version of COVID-19 (the current version as I write this) has a post‐expand include size of 1,993,186/2,097,152 bytes; 103,966 bytes shy of the limit.  Eventually, post‐expand include size will exceed the 2MB limit and editors who have been putting it off and putting it off will have to pare-down the article or split it.
 * An article's Post‐expand include size is available two ways: Edit → Show preview → Parser profiling data or Right-click → View page source → Ctrl-F search for.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 21:45, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I see, thank you . I did not realise the article was so close to the post-expand limit. X750. Spin a yarn? Articles I've screwed over? 21:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 21:45, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I see, thank you . I did not realise the article was so close to the post-expand limit. X750. Spin a yarn? Articles I've screwed over? 21:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Proper use of the |via= parameter in
Per the documentation for Template:Cite book, this should be used when the content deliverer (e.g. NewsBank) presents the source in a format different from the original,. I was using this to indicate that I'd accessed a work through Project MUSE (ebook format rather than print copy), but it's being removed by Citation bot. Am I misunderstanding the purpose of this parameter, or is Citation bot just being a bit hyper? Hog Farm Talk 14:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)


 * If there's no URL given, via is pointless. WP:SAYWHERE "Note: The advice to "say where you read it" does not mean that you have to give credit to any search engines, websites, libraries, library catalogs, archives, subscription services, bibliographies, or other sources that led you to Smith's book. If you have read a book or article yourself, that's all you have to cite. You do not have to specify how you obtained and read it. " &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:33, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If there is a URL given (external URL), then Template:Cite book complains:
 * produces:
 * i.e. red error " External link in |via= ". —Micler (talk) 15:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That's because via is not meant for urls. use url for urls. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:30, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah, so the OP's situation happened because they used  without  ? I evidently misunderstood. Micler (talk) 15:43, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * cs1|2 should complain. URLs go in url-holding parameters.  Rewriting one of OP's example templates:
 * The URL-holding parameters are: archive-url, article-url, chapter-url, conference-url, contribution-url, entry-url, lay-url (deprecated), map-url, section-url, transcript-url, url. There are a few insource parameters that accept urls: at, page, pages, quote-page, quote-pages.  URLs also allowed in id.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:45, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * What's the benefit to even having via if a reader can just click on the URL to see it comes from Project MUSE? It's purely redundant information, then, no? I perhaps have misunderstood this parameter because the few times I have used it have been when there is no permanent URL or identifier, but I wish to signal to readers and editors that a resource is available online in some database. Umimmak (talk) 16:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Not very much actually. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I thought that I would hunt through the templates to see when via was added. From there I thought I might be able to find discussion on a related talk page.  Amazingly, via has never been supported by the wikitext versions of the cs1|2 templates.  I checked the obvious candidates, , , , and .  I also checked  (the engine that renders the ~/old versions of those wikitext cs1|2 templates); via is not a supported parameter.
 * But, via is supported by Module:Citation/CS1 so I looked at its history. via was added to Module:Citation (a now-defunct predecessor to Module:Citation/CS1) at this edit; no discussion at Module talk:Citation which was created about six months after support for via was added to the module.  But, at this discussion, a clue:  (the linked preceding discussion is archived here).  There is some discussion about via at Template talk:Subscription required.  That discussion links to  and to.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * No templates in section headings.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I thought that I would hunt through the templates to see when via was added. From there I thought I might be able to find discussion on a related talk page.  Amazingly, via has never been supported by the wikitext versions of the cs1|2 templates.  I checked the obvious candidates, , , , and .  I also checked  (the engine that renders the ~/old versions of those wikitext cs1|2 templates); via is not a supported parameter.
 * But, via is supported by Module:Citation/CS1 so I looked at its history. via was added to Module:Citation (a now-defunct predecessor to Module:Citation/CS1) at this edit; no discussion at Module talk:Citation which was created about six months after support for via was added to the module.  But, at this discussion, a clue:  (the linked preceding discussion is archived here).  There is some discussion about via at Template talk:Subscription required.  That discussion links to  and to.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * No templates in section headings.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * No templates in section headings.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Why suddenly change "Spanish" to "European Spanish"?
All references with the parameter  now show "in European Spanish" when, in fact, many of them are from places other than Europe. Colombiaball (talk) 16:07, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think that is true:
 * Can you provide an example that shows Spanish rendering as '(in European Spanish)'?
 * It is true that es-es renders as '(in European Spanish)' but that is not your complaint:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:28, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Colombiaball (talk) 03:15, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It is true that es-es renders as '(in European Spanish)' but that is not your complaint:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:28, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Colombiaball (talk) 03:15, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:28, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Colombiaball (talk) 03:15, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Question
When I write out the reference like this:

It gives me this error: Can someone help to fix?

Thanks! --TerryAlex (talk) 03:34, 5 November 2022 (UTC)


 * – Archer1234 (talk) 03:46, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Still confused. Can you give an example? Thanks!--TerryAlex (talk) 03:48, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If you use others without using author or editor, you will get that maintenance message. The only way to address is to add an author or editor and then the message will not appear. – Archer1234 (talk) 03:55, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Got it. Thanks!--TerryAlex (talk) 04:03, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I would not worry about this one for now. We've discussed it some but no-one has put forth a proposal on how to deal with it. The last discussion: Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 84. --Izno (talk) 04:05, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Not true, a proposal has been suggested at the discussion you linked. Replace the AV media notes templates with parameters contribution and contributor as shown in that discussion. A special template for AV media notes makes no sense to begin with. Notes are in-source locations of the published AV media product as a whole, and they and their authors are not ever indexed afaik. This is another CS1 design flaw. 4.30.91.142 (talk) 13:22, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Not true, a proposal has been suggested at the discussion you linked. Replace the AV media notes templates with parameters contribution and contributor as shown in that discussion. A special template for AV media notes makes no sense to begin with. Notes are in-source locations of the published AV media product as a whole, and they and their authors are not ever indexed afaik. This is another CS1 design flaw. 4.30.91.142 (talk) 13:22, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Book published by two separate publishers in two separate locations
I'm trying to use the template for a book that has been published by two separate publishers, each having their own separate location. But in the template, there is only the possibility for one publisher and one location. How to solve this? Thanks in advance. Roelof Hendrickx (talk) 12:40, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT. If you consulted both, cite both, but cite them independently (two  templates).  If you consulted only one, cite that one, and don't bother with the other.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:07, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think you don't understand what I meant. It are not two publications, it's one publication, published by two separate publishers. For example: 🇦🇹 (1882). Het vorstenhuis Oranje-Nassau. Van de vroegste tijden tot heden (in Dutch). Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff/Utrecht: J.L. Beijers. Regards, Roelof Hendrickx (talk) 13:11, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I did a google search for the book title. Amazon uses: Leiden/Utrecht: Sijthoff & Beijers; WorldCat lists a variety of forms reflective of Leiden en Utrecht: A.W. Sijthoff en J.L. Beijers.  This source appears to have been used at Henry I, Count of Nassau.
 * The real question is which location belongs to which publisher? Do both publishers have branch offices in both cities?  Are they separate?  Are Sijthoff and Beijers partners somehow?  How are these names and locations presented in the book's front matter?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:51, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The front page reads Leiden en Utrecht, A.W. Sijthoff en J.L. Beijers. A.W. Sijthoff was located in Leiden, and J.L. Beijers in Utrecht. They were not partners, but separate publishers. Both publishers do not excist anymore. This source is used in several articles about the counts of Nassau. Roelof Hendrickx (talk) 15:14, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Here's what CMoS 17 says:
 * "When books are published simultaneously (or almost so) by two publishers, usually in different countries, only one publisher need be listed—the one that is more relevant to the users of the citation. For example, if a book copublished by a British and an American publisher is listed in the bibliography of an American publication, only the American publication details need be given. If for some reason (e.g., as a matter of historical interest) information is included for both publishers, a semicolon should be used as a separator. [...] Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962."
 * "When books are published simultaneously (or almost so) by two publishers, usually in different countries, only one publisher need be listed—the one that is more relevant to the users of the citation. For example, if a book copublished by a British and an American publisher is listed in the bibliography of an American publication, only the American publication details need be given. If for some reason (e.g., as a matter of historical interest) information is included for both publishers, a semicolon should be used as a separator. [...] Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962."


 * So just pick one, I tend to just go with the first one. Umimmak (talk) 15:11, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This book was published in the Netherlands only, not in two countries. It was quite common for Dutch publishers to cooperate and publish a book both. It still happens today. In Dutch lists of literature or sources, it has always been customary to mention both publishers. But the main question is, how can I get your example Chicago: University of Chicago Press; London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson in the template cite book. Roelof Hendrickx (talk) 15:19, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You wouldn’t be able to use the citation templates for that sort of example. If it’s that important for you to include both in that format, which again, is generally not required or expected, then you’d have to eschew the citation templates and write it out yourself. Umimmak (talk) 15:23, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying that I cannot use the cite book template for it. Roelof Hendrickx (talk) 17:13, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I have seen people cite both. I assume I've seen people cite only one. I don't think Chicago is unreasonable here and fundamentally don't think citing both is unreasonable here. Izno (talk) 15:54, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Can a reader find the work if only one of the publishers is cited? That is the only pertinent question. Depending on the answer you have several correct options, almost all of them ugly:
 * 65.88.88.237 (talk) 16:19, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Absolutely necessary perhaps not, but leaving one publisher out is not what I prefer to do. I think the options Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff/Utrecht: J.L. Beijers or Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff; Utrecht: J.L. Beijers make it clear. Even if I cannot use the template. Thanks anyway for thinking with me for a solution. Roelof Hendrickx (talk) 17:17, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I was curious what the MLA Handbook said; in general it doesn't require the city of publication for modern (post-1900) books and separates publishing houses with slashes which you could do with CS1 templates (Iberoamericana / Vervuert / Librería Sur). For pre-1900 books it recommends only listing the city of publication and not a publishing house; it doesn't explicitly mention how to cite copublished works when it's deemed important to cite cities of publication but you could I imagine just have either Leiden / Utrecht or A.W. Stijthoff / J.L. Beijers if you wished to go a more MLA style route -- and that you could do in CS1.
 * Again, I think I'd defer to Chicago style and just picking one publishing house myself though. Umimmak (talk) 22:11, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. I go check it. Roelof Hendrickx (talk) 07:48, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You could leave out the locations entirely and just list the two publisher names separated by a comma or a semicolon –jacobolus (t) 02:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Absolutely necessary perhaps not, but leaving one publisher out is not what I prefer to do. I think the options Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff/Utrecht: J.L. Beijers or Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff; Utrecht: J.L. Beijers make it clear. Even if I cannot use the template. Thanks anyway for thinking with me for a solution. Roelof Hendrickx (talk) 17:17, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I was curious what the MLA Handbook said; in general it doesn't require the city of publication for modern (post-1900) books and separates publishing houses with slashes which you could do with CS1 templates (Iberoamericana / Vervuert / Librería Sur). For pre-1900 books it recommends only listing the city of publication and not a publishing house; it doesn't explicitly mention how to cite copublished works when it's deemed important to cite cities of publication but you could I imagine just have either Leiden / Utrecht or A.W. Stijthoff / J.L. Beijers if you wished to go a more MLA style route -- and that you could do in CS1.
 * Again, I think I'd defer to Chicago style and just picking one publishing house myself though. Umimmak (talk) 22:11, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. I go check it. Roelof Hendrickx (talk) 07:48, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You could leave out the locations entirely and just list the two publisher names separated by a comma or a semicolon –jacobolus (t) 02:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

PDF link in cite book failing
Could anyone please explain to me why the following citation is failing to bring up the linked pdf. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alex-Kutt/publication/268151067_Northern_Freetail-bat_Chaerephon_jobensis/links/5473d3d10cf245eb436dba99/Northern-Freetail-bat-Chaerephon-jobensis.pdf also fails, whereas pasting the link into a browser works Jameel the Saluki (talk) 22:41, 7 November 2022 (UTC)


 * It works for me (latest Firefox on a Windows 10 computer) by clicking on the link above, by clicking on the link through the cite book template and by pasting into a browser. Not sure why it's not working for you. SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 23:17, 7 November 2022 (UTC)


 * What I am getting when I click on the link is the page on ResearchGate "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268151067_Northern_Freetail-bat_Chaerephon_jobensis", which does allow the pdf to be downloaded by pressing a further button, whereas the link I am putting in the citation should bring up the pdf directly. I am using Chrome, but tried with Firefox as well (not the latest version). Am I expecting too much? Jameel the Saluki (talk) 23:31, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Because this problem is experienced outside of, this is not something that can be fixed here. I'm guessing that something in the information exchanged between your browser and the ResearchGate server when you attempt to link to the pdf source via a link on a Wikipedia page is telling ResearchGate to choose the landing page instead of the pdf.  Nothing that we can do about that here.  If you don't get a satisfactory explanation, you might try asking at WP:VPT.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:52, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll give that a go, thanks. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 23:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll give that a go, thanks. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 23:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

|people= parenthetical roles
Prompted by Editor Izno's comment in this discussion, and these older discussions: I hacked a couple of awb scripts to troll through and  templates and extract the parenthetical 'role' so often included in people. The tabulated results are in my sandbox (permalink).

The roles are normalized to lowercase. Roles with 10 or more uses account for ~79% of the use. Of the 508 unique roles, 337 are single use. Here are the roles with ten or more uses: If we were to create a curated list of roles for and, it seems that that list should be taken from these most-commonly used roles. If we create a curated list, we can then deprecate people.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:42, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh goddie! Whenever you limit the possible information that can be included in a citation template, it gives me an excuse to rewrite the citation as plain text. If there's enough of these problems in an article, I'd be justified in completely eliminating citation templates from the article. Oh by the way, movies and TV seem particularly prone to describing roles in strange ways. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:09, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * people is an equal alias of authors. We discourage the use of authors because it does not contribute to the citation's metadata so users who consume en.wiki citations via their metadata don't know who the 'people' are.  This has been a long-ongoing issue that we should someday resolve.  I have suggested more than once that we could create a curated list of roles for use in  and  so that editors who use those templates can use these parameters and the module would add the appropriate parenthetical annotation.  Assembling the curated list is step one in that process.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:39, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Did you count only the first instance of a parenthetical appearing? Or all parentheticals?
 * Did you look into what is happening with cite av media notes?
 * Izno (talk) 01:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Everything in parentheses in people except for parenthetical wikilink dabs – nested parentheses are not well handled but there aren't many of those ... I did not look at.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 01:43, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This is not the right approach. If such roles are to be codified, the role choices should be either instrumental or auxiliary in discovering the cited work. It makes no sense to include random roles just because Wikipedia editors are using them in citations 10 times or 10000 times, when they do not help in verification. Agreed-upon international cataloguing and metadata standards list a variety of usable roles (usable in the sense that catalogued works include the role nomenclature and its related person/entity in the item's description). These roles are used by all kinds of participating information repositories (trade organizations, publishers, libraries, accessible online databases etc) to list their works. Using these same roles works can be easily discovered.
 * It is also a good idea to keep people regardless. There may always be unforeseen exceptions and special cases. Assuming roles are properly codified, accepted bibliographic items such as "director" could be part of a people exclusion list, i.e. CS1/2 defined roles should generate an error when input in people. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 17:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If it is unacceptable to use the roles that en.wiki editors have been using for however many years, and there is a standard list of roles, produce that list here.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:20, 7 November 2022 (UTC)


 * When it comes to technical matters, such as deciding which bibliographic elements to use in citations, and their nomenclature, nothing that en.wiki editors have been using in an ad hoc manner is acceptable.
 * The evolving international standards, that basically all major knowledge purveyors are implementing or have agreed to implement:
 * ISO: ISO 2709-2008. The overarching standard (paywalled)
 * ISBD: "Statement of responsibility" pp. 91-92 (2011 Consolidated Standard). Role descriptions and roles
 * ONIX: Codelist 59, List 17 (role codes). Eg "director" is D02. Most roles have accompanying description.
 * UNIMARC: Data elements for printed music (see "Responsibilities"). Example for music records.
 * Another UNIMARC example related to Title: Title-index structure (see "Subfields" for allowable sub-indices). Any subindexed fields can be used in queries.
 * The above are interoperable, and e.g. ONIX (metadata) can be easily derived from ISBD, which has direct mappings with UNIMARC. Also, all this information can be easily discovered online. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 16:07, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Problem with "Issue" parameter and request for addition of a "Subtitle" parameter
The issue parameter does not render in the articles when used. For example, when I add |volume=3 |issue=2 to a cite book template in an entry, only the volume number appears on the page, but not the issue number.

I would also request for the addition of a subtitle parameter so the subtitles of certain book names can be added to the cite book template, because the lack of one presently makes it difficult to add the proper names of certain books that are part of multiple-volume series, such as for example "The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume III: Part 2: The Prehistory of the Balkans; the Middle East and the Aegean World, tenth to eighth Centuries B.C.," "The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume III: Part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries B.C.," and "The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume III: Part 3: The Expansion of the Greek World, Eighth to Sixth Centuries B.C.," among other publications with similarly complex naming formats.

Can these please be addressed? Antiquistik (talk) 20:55, 12 November 2022 (UTC)


 * "Issue" is properly used in citations of serials and continuing resources. It is not normally used (or expected) elsewhere, including book citations. The request for a subtitle is not applicable in the cases you indicated. "The Cambridge Ancient History" is a curated series. Cite it as a collection, this way (print version example):




 * 65.88.88.69 (talk) 21:44, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 65.88.88.69 (talk) 21:44, 12 November 2022 (UTC)


 * As designed. Compare:
 * Note that issue is not rendered in the first one, as it's not a periodical. Mathglot (talk) 22:00, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Note that issue is not rendered in the first one, as it's not a periodical. Mathglot (talk) 22:00, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Note that issue is not rendered in the first one, as it's not a periodical. Mathglot (talk) 22:00, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Volume URL
Is there a means to provide a URL for a multi-volume book and also a URL for a specific volume? E.g., for the citation "" how do I provide a URL for both Koren Talmud Bavli and Tractate Shabbat? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:53, 11 November 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm having trouble understanding what a URL for a multi-volume book looks like vs. a URL for a single volume? Is there example URLs? Generally, the purpose of a citation is to allow readers to find and verify the work, so one might only link the specific volume, since it contains the fact being cited. --  Green  C  19:46, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, in this case https://korenpub.com/collections/the-noe-edition-koren-talmud-bavli-1 has a description of the entire 42 volume Koren Talmud Bavli, Noé Edition collection, of which volumes 2 and 3 are Tractate Shabbath. Should I only give a URL for the specific volume?
 * Well, in this case https://korenpub.com/collections/the-noe-edition-koren-talmud-bavli-1 has a description of the entire 42 volume Koren Talmud Bavli, Noé Edition collection, of which volumes 2 and 3 are Tractate Shabbath. Should I only give a URL for the specific volume?


 * Should I give the URL for the collection and the ISBN for the specific volume? --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:38, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * cs1|2 templates are designed to support one source per template, so, for citing something in these two volumes, two templates, one for each volume.
 * I'm inclined to say that you shouldn't link to that site because it is really nothing more that a bookseller. I seem to recall that somewhere in the MOS there is an instruction to avoid links to pages that are merely book sellers; WP:LINKSTOAVOID #5?).  Because externally linked title is presumed to be free-to-read, which this url is not, perhaps Talmud#Steinsaltz is a better choice.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:51, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The page at https://korenpub.com/collections/the-noe-edition-koren-talmud-bavli-1 is the publisher's description of the collection. Even if it is a poor example, it illustrates the general question, which still applies if I replace url with Talmud#Steinsaltz or The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition#Koren Talmud Bavli.
 * The page at https://korenpub.com/collections/the-noe-edition-koren-talmud-bavli-1 is the publisher's description of the collection. Even if it is a poor example, it illustrates the general question, which still applies if I replace url with Talmud#Steinsaltz or The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition#Koren Talmud Bavli.
 * The page at https://korenpub.com/collections/the-noe-edition-koren-talmud-bavli-1 is the publisher's description of the collection. Even if it is a poor example, it illustrates the general question, which still applies if I replace url with Talmud#Steinsaltz or The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition#Koren Talmud Bavli.


 * Should I specify volume as an external link in cases like that?
 * A secondary issue is what parameter to use for volumes that the publisher doesn't number. volume has the right semantics but adds the string Vol.; neither series nor version appear to have the correct semantics. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:35, 13 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Any unnumbered item that is: 1) normally expected to be numbered, or 2) may be numbered for clarity, may be so implemented by the citation writer. Use something like  which renders Vol.. One should signal the citation interpolation in code. Because, occasionally book editors may number parts of books that the author (or sometimes proofreader) may have left unnumbered. In these cases the published book will normally distinguish such later numbering in brackets. Enter those as they appear, without the interp template:.
 * Trappist is correct regarding the series URL. Readers should be directed to the specific volume cited. It is rather unusual for a whole series to be cited, and in such cases the volume URLs would not be needed. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 16:26, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Order of series, volume and language
Is there a reason that language is compiled between series and volume? For example: Wouldn't it be better to put it directly behind the title? (or behind the volume but a series could contain diffent language objects so maybe not the best solution) LockaPicker (talk) 02:21, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree the statement of language should come after the most specific title being cited. For example, cite magazine currently formats like this but really we want to say that the article being cited is in French, not the larger work/magazine (the larger work/magazine/series/... might be multilingual). Another reason is that it makes sense to put the "(in French)" soon after first the non-English text. —Micler (talk) 18:08, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

CS1 maint categories should probably contain the note about excluded namespaces
CS1 error categories automatically contain a note that begins Pages in the Book talk, Category talk, Draft talk, File talk, Help talk, MediaWiki talk, Module talk, Portal talk, Talk, Template talk, User, User talk, and Wikipedia talk namespaces are not included in the tracking categories. The good reasons for this are somewhere deep in the archives of this talk page.

It appears to me that CS1 maint categories also obey these namespace exclusions, but the explanatory note does not appear on CS1 maint category pages like. I think that this note should appear on those pages.

As always, it is possible that I am misunderstanding or misremembering how these namespace exclusions work or are supposed to work. Corrections are welcome. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:06, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Something like this edit at ?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:24, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Perfect. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:32, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Correct value for "via" when the deliverer is a publication too?
Looked through the archives and couldn't find a past discussion on this; apologies if I missed it.

In the following citation (most params removed for simplicity), to a Pahrump Valley Times piece republished in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which approach(es) is/are correct?
 * 1) Some other via value.
 * 2) No via value.
 * 1) Some other via value.
 * 2) No via value.
 * 1) No via value.

I assume that the last is allowed, but personally I always like to note if the deliverer is someone other than the reader might expect; clicking on a link ostensibly to the Pahrump Valley Times, and winding up on review-journal.com, can make someone think they've misclicked or that there's an error in the citation, and implicitly acknowledges the possibility that the republishing newspaper may have made changes to the original content. So assuming that this is an acceptable case to use  (and if it isn't, the documentation should be clearer, since it's a pretty common use case IME), how should it be presented? My instinct is to use the second, but the one time I did so in an article, Citation bot removed the italics. -- Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 17:43, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * When faced with that situation myself, I cite the publishing newspaper without any reference to the original paper, no via.  Imzadi 1979  →   18:43, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If you saw it in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, cite that as your source. Unless you do a lot of research, you don't know if they left out or modified part of the original article for some reason. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:34, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmm but like, if they see it as worth noting that they're republishing from a different paper, surely this should be noted in some way? The alternative makes things rather confusing reliability-wise. Like, Yahoo! News republishing a paper of record is marginally less reliable than a direct citation to that paper of record, but definitely much more reliable than Yahoo! News republishing a random gossip blog. Doesn't seem very helpful to the reader to cite both of those just as "Yahoo! News". Could the agency parameter be used here? It's essentially the same business arrangement, and seems just as relevant if not more to note. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 19:53, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This is tricky. First, the two news outlets are affiliates. Secondly it is not clear from the LVRJ article that this is a reprint/republication. The byline only identifies the reporter as being in the Pahrump Valley Times staff. Finally, Jonesey95's reservations are valid, as the Valley Times is published less frequently (bi-weekly) and the LVRJ article has been updated at least once. Taking into account all this, I would likely consider LVRJ as the (sole) source, unless you care to dig up additional info to the contrary. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 22:11, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a good point for this specific case, but what about, say, this? That's an Evening Standard article that, for whatever reason, is available through Yahoo! Sport UK. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 23:49, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That is a straight reprint. Use Yahoo! Sport UK, to let readers know that their browser won't land on the source's website. On the other hand, the original is available, so why not use that URL? 65.254.10.26 (talk) 01:31, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Spurious display-authors error


When there's only one author specified, you get an "Invalid |display-authors=1" message. I feel this case should be converted to a silent maintenance message category. Thoughts? &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:02, 16 November 2022 (UTC)


 * The last of the three provided solutions in the help link will correct this issue. And no, as I was the one who implemented the relevant change, this should remain an error. Izno (talk) 02:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with Izno. The help text does a pretty good job of explaining the possible problems. The citation above contains confusing ambiguity, which is an error that should be fixed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:14, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Nested quotations in the quote parameter
The templates handle ' " situations with the minor work parameters (title and chapter), but not with the quote parameter: I see this quite often and have to manually fix it with (from ' " ). Can this be fixed? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:36, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Fixed in sandbox:

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:04, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Looks fine.
 * Also, while we're on the topic of nested quotations—and this is a bit more ambitious: Would it be possible to automatically display single quotemarks instead of double quotemarks when they get nested:
 * Cheers – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Cheers – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:19, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Not a volume, so what?
Can I suggest that series-number is added to the list of accessible parameters for Cite book? On a number of occasions recently, I've come across a book which is part of a numbered series, but is described as a number, not a volume in that series (a situation often found with monographs, for instance). However, unless there's a workaround I'm not aware of, the volume parameter can't used here because it prefixes the number with "Vol." when displayed as a reference. So then, what to do? If one state the series name alone it can looks slightly odd, but ideally one doesn't want to omit that information altogether.

See here for an example of what I'm talking about.

(Edwin of Northumbria (talk) 02:37, 19 November 2022 (UTC))


 * In your example, this is not a numbered series, it is named ("Publications of the Association... etc."). The volumes are numbered. But even if the series was numbered (e.g. "2nd Series") semantically there would no difference between "volume 6", "number 6", or "volume number 6". These templates report the value as a volume ("Vol."), with the implicit understanding that other expressions are equivalent, even when they are disallowed for the sake of simplicity and efficiency. 23.246.74.210 (talk) 04:17, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm slightly puzzled. The only example of a series given on the Cite book page is "History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series". This doesn't seem to me to be any different to "Publications of the Association...", which isn't regarded as being part of the title of the book in question on either the WorldCat or British Library website (indeed on the latter it is explicitly referred to as the series name). Anyway, for the sake of argument, let's assume that the book is the 6th in that series. It is of course correct that volume and series-number would then be semantically equivalent, but that wasn't the point I was making. For whatever reason, the publishers chose not to use the term "volume", therefore it would be preferable to have the capacity to reflect this (an alternative means of doing so would be to use the volume parameter in conjunction with a switch that could be used to suppress the "Vol." prefix).

(Edwin of Northumbria (talk) 07:14, 19 November 2022 (UTC))


 * Respectfully, I object. Will readers be confused by the presence of "Vol."? I don't think so. Suppressing the label would require additional logic in the module. The added routines would presumably be conditional, so this would require discussion on what exactly these conditions would be. But such conditions may introduce novel concepts to CS1/2, such as the concept of monograph. Then these concepts must be accommodated and justified within the system. This is enough to keep everybody here busy for months on end. The other option is to accept that this maybe a specialized case, and forms (templates) satisfy mostly generalized cases, as a rule. 69.203.140.37 (talk) 14:59, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I too don't understand the confusion. What's wrong with citing the 6th volume of that series as Publications of the Association of Ancient Historians, Vol. 6? &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:12, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Reference Tooltips and author-mask
The Reference Tooltips gadget displays a popup of the full reference when one mouses over a short reference (from harv, sfn, etc). When the full reference contains author-mask, typically used in the full reference list for subsequent works by the same author, it is displayed with dashes for the author name. That is easy to interpret in the context of the full reference list, but because the gadget presents the full reference in isolation, the gadget user does not get the author's name (though the short citation will have the surname).

This is the best the gadget can do at present, because the dashes are all there is in the rendering of the full reference. Might it be possible to include both, with varying display? Kanguole 18:41, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If this is possible, I don't know if it is, I suspect that changes to both Module:Citation/CS1 and MediaWiki:Gadget-ReferenceTooltips.js will be required. Perhaps cs1|2 could render masked names and their masks in  tags with appropriate class names where both the mask and the name are rendered in the html.  Only the mask displays on the page and only the name displays in the tooltip:
 * where:
 * is empty (or non-existent) and where
 * hides the 'name'. Such a citation would render like this on the page:
 *  &mdash;&mdash; EB Green . Title. – mockup
 * Presumably – I know squat about what .js can do – the gadget might then rename the classes in the html when it renders a tool tip so that the mask is hidden and the name is displayed:
 *  &mdash;&mdash; EB Green . Title. – mockup
 * I would not be surprised to learn that there is a better way of doing this.
 * Obviously, it will be necessary to get a buy-in from whomever it is who maintains mw:Reference Tooltips.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:34, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The other thing that could be done that requires no change on our part on our wiki at least is to pull the information from the Coins. Izno (talk) 21:30, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I thought that at first but for the .js coder, would be more work, and for the cases where the name is an editor's name, the name is not available in the metadata because COinS doesn't support editor names. For contributor/author names, the first author name if written in the template using first/last is put into   and  .  Subsequent enumerated first/last pairs are put into the metadata as  ; author also goes into the metadata as  .  The .js would have to assemble the first author name and maintain some sort of internal counting to get the other masked names from the metadata.  So, I thought it would be simpler for the .js coder to simply rename the   and   classes and be done.  This (I think) is relatively easily done with a simple regex replace...
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:11, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This has been requested before. Probably using html spans is a good starting point of discussion for the CS1 module edits; tooltip is based on this tag. Its use of the id tag is interesting, as there is a unique citeref id already available to short citations, and could be used to pull the masked name from the appropriate full citation. This could be doable since citerefs are hierarchical, ordered (per name) according to the second concatenated element, normally a date element. 64.18.11.71 (talk) 01:46, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:34, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The other thing that could be done that requires no change on our part on our wiki at least is to pull the information from the Coins. Izno (talk) 21:30, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I thought that at first but for the .js coder, would be more work, and for the cases where the name is an editor's name, the name is not available in the metadata because COinS doesn't support editor names. For contributor/author names, the first author name if written in the template using first/last is put into   and  .  Subsequent enumerated first/last pairs are put into the metadata as  ; author also goes into the metadata as  .  The .js would have to assemble the first author name and maintain some sort of internal counting to get the other masked names from the metadata.  So, I thought it would be simpler for the .js coder to simply rename the   and   classes and be done.  This (I think) is relatively easily done with a simple regex replace...
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:11, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This has been requested before. Probably using html spans is a good starting point of discussion for the CS1 module edits; tooltip is based on this tag. Its use of the id tag is interesting, as there is a unique citeref id already available to short citations, and could be used to pull the masked name from the appropriate full citation. This could be doable since citerefs are hierarchical, ordered (per name) according to the second concatenated element, normally a date element. 64.18.11.71 (talk) 01:46, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

CS1 maint: ref duplicates default: wrong maintenance message?
In my current sandbox, I am trying to use the cite NDB template that calls citation. If I use

I get a "CS1 maint: ref duplicates default" maintenance message but  works correctly. If I remove the  bit, the sfn no longer works (although the maintenance message says that my handwritten ref is the same as the default). Apparently the maintenance message is wrong in this case? Or am I doing something else wrong? Or does the cite NDB template need to be changed? —Kusma (talk) 16:11, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This is being discussed at.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:54, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Magazine with volume, number and issue
The magazine Commodore Microcomputers has a volume number, a number and an issue number (Vol. 5, No. 5, no. 32.) Currently this shows as an error, but the issue does have these numbers. Usually, the number and issue are the same, but not here. Not sure what to do. [from Cite magazine] Auric   talk  14:59, 26 November 2022 (UTC)


 * The magazine numbered issues two ways: per volume (vol. 5, number 5) and serially, per issue (overall number 32). A confusing but not rare practice. It was a bi-monthly. I assume that one or more volumes had more than 6 issues (specials? double issues?), so the serial number is 32 rather than 29. In the contents page the listing uses 3 variants: "Volume 5, Number 5, Issue 32 November/December 1984". The date variant for the issue is also used on the front page. I would use the first scheme, as ordered: Volume 5, Number/Issue 5. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 17:14, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

i18n editor-name / editor-annotation separator
Editor حبيشان has (correctly) tweaked the sandbox. When the citation has an editor name list and a publication date but does not have an author name list, the separator used to separate the last editor name from the editor annotation is a hard-coded &lt;comma>&lt;space> pair. After the tweak, the module uses the value specified by  in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration/sandbox (for en.wiki this is also a &lt;comma>&lt;space> pair).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:39, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

S2CID limit reached
Per Category:CS1 errors: S2CID, I would like to raise the currently configured limit of 254000000 due to new publications going beyond that number. For example, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Taxonomic-study-of-the-genus-Cyprideis-JONES%2C-1857-Sousa-Ramos/070b5685c32091ba9625901a4115943b5ca94548 Aithus (talk) 06:28, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

citeseerx links are ALL dead
It seems that the 10.***** citeseerx links seems to no longer work. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:06, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Looks like citeseerx changed something and broke ~17,000 articles using citeseerx and ~930 articles using the base url that cs1|2 uses. No doubt, there are broken links at other-language wikis as well because many other-language wikis copy articles with their citations from us...
 * It will not be me, but someone should tell citeseerx that they have done a bad thing...
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:42, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * And if you do a "view source" on the new pages, the 10.* number is NOT there. "I felt a great disturbance in the Wiki, as if millions of Unique IDs suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:20, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I have submitted an e-mail through their Contact Us page, FWIW. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:06, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * API worked on 2022-10-12, but failed on 2022-10-17. Very recent. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:29, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * any word? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:10, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * No response. I even checked my spam folder. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This is certainly a fine-how-do-you-do. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:39, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Compare these URLs and what they are and you will notice something https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/30e2498e8104724e200f1f0b507cad9cfb9ddca7 and https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/doc_view/pid/30e2498e8104724e200f1f0b507cad9cfb9ddca7 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:55, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * : This to me seems to point to CiteSeerX being effectively useless. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 22:29, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a great discovery about the IDs (SHA-1, actually) of Semantic Scholar matching. I found a solution to fix the links which could be automated (bot) as long as we know the DOI (or arxiv id, or PubMed ID) from the citation template.
 * Fetch  (see API doc)
 * https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/DOI:10.1257/aer.90.4.1005
 * The response looks like this:
 * Extract that hexadecimal ID and put it in a CiteSeerX URL. So it becomes:
 * https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/doc_view/pid/eb8c5efb4e4b19eeda991e473fc163905c5d8d9a — web page, or
 * https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=eb8c5efb4e4b19eeda991e473fc163905c5d8d9a — direct PDF link. ( does not actually take a DOI.)
 * That's annoying of course. It doesn't make use of the (former?) CiteSeerX ID at all. Moreover, in the random example I chose (from Daylight saving time) the result is wrong! 10.1257/aer.90.4.1005 is actually the paper "Losing Sleep at the Market: The Daylight Saving Anomaly", but what SS returned was "Losing Sleep at the Market:The Daylight Saving Anomaly: Reply".
 * One last note, which you may have already noticed. The hexadecimal ID is actually the SHA-1 sum of the PDF. Really. I can't think of this being useful to us, though, since we generally don't already have the exact PDF to take a checksum of to build the URL. Micler (talk) 02:48, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It certainly broke. All citeseerx hits on Google are broken. I've been checking to see if anyone on the internet had noted this (or if it was just me), and so far this post is the only notice I've found. Micler (talk) 14:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * These folks noticed, but they had only 25 links to fix, so they looked them up and edited them manually. That's not really possible here. I tried just now to send an e-mail to the person listed as the head of the project. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:08, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Their internal search results are crap, so this is a hard task. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:30, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Would that be Lee Giles who you emailed? I notice on their People -> Team page, if you hover over each person, it gives a sentence about what they do. It seems like breaking 18,000 citations on Wikipedia pages is pretty awful, and they should be told about it emphatically, so they can reconsider if this change was intentional. If you don't get a response, I'll be happy to start emailing each of them, making the case until we get a response. Micler (talk) 02:48, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Their internal search results are crap, so this is a hard task. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:30, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Would that be Lee Giles who you emailed? I notice on their People -> Team page, if you hover over each person, it gives a sentence about what they do. It seems like breaking 18,000 citations on Wikipedia pages is pretty awful, and they should be told about it emphatically, so they can reconsider if this change was intentional. If you don't get a response, I'll be happy to start emailing each of them, making the case until we get a response. Micler (talk) 02:48, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I found the jackpot, of sorts. A data dump that relates the old CiteSeerX ID to the SHA1. https://archive.org/download/citeseerx-csx_citegraph.2017-03-31/citeseerx_checksums.tsv.gz (expands to 624 MB) contains over 10 million entries of simply (SHA,ID). So if I have, I can search the file and I find. Voilà, now I can access the new CiteSeerX website: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/doc_view/pid/dc6437569a8a2ddd1c22ef623f8fdd6e74a1b535. (It takes a while to ctrl-f or grep through that many lines. Loading this file into a database would probably help.) A bot could totally do this to fix citations. Unforunately, the data only covers up to early 2017. Micler (talk) 03:31, 10 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Any thoughts on what to do long-term? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:16, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I suppose that a bot or awb task might mark the ~200 articles using the base url (not necessarily in cs1|2 templates) with . Perhaps IABot or some other might be able to find archives of the now broken urls.  Something is happening with those because when this discussion started, there were ~930 articles using the base url.
 * For the ~17,000 articles with cs1|2 templates that use citeseerx, if there is another identifier (doi and the like) or url has a value, a bot or awb task can remove citeseerx and its assigned value on the presumption that citeseerx is redundant. If no other identifiers an no url make a url and mark the template with.
 * For the ~50 articles that use, we might mark that template as deprecated and at the same time tweak Module:Citation/CS1 to emit a deprecated-template error message. Or, instead of the error message, a bot or awb script might convert  to  and mark the new template with  so that IABot or some other might be able to find archives.
 * I don't know what to do about the ~45 articles that use.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:34, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say  is redundant, likely it is an un-paywalled link whereas the DOI is not.
 * Short-term I think converting using the database to hashes will fix the links and long-term the hashes will probably be fairly stable, unless they break the indexing scheme again. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 22:45, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Long term, could we not display the 44-character value as the link item, but maybe _link_ or whatever. Also there are only a few Cite Citeseerx article usages left. RDBrown (talk) 01:02, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say  is redundant, likely it is an un-paywalled link whereas the DOI is not.
 * Short-term I think converting using the database to hashes will fix the links and long-term the hashes will probably be fairly stable, unless they break the indexing scheme again. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 22:45, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Long term, could we not display the 44-character value as the link item, but maybe _link_ or whatever. Also there are only a few Cite Citeseerx article usages left. RDBrown (talk) 01:02, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Long term, could we not display the 44-character value as the link item, but maybe _link_ or whatever. Also there are only a few Cite Citeseerx article usages left. RDBrown (talk) 01:02, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Dates for published editions of manuscripts.
When citing a published version of a manuscript, is there any reason to not require the date in the cite book, etc., to be the date published, with the date of the original manuscript relegated to the orig-date parameter? In particular, if the published version includes a translation, isn't the date of the translation what is importanat in the citation? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:48, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
 * It all depends on what the editor read. If the editor read the published version of the manuscript, the date parameter should be set to the publication date of the published version, and the orig-date parameter could be used for the date of the manuscript. Whether the translation is more important than the original words depends on what the Wikipedia editor is writing about the source. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:56, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I assumed that the editor read the version that he cited, and that he would have cited the original manuscript had he read it. Of course, he might have read both, but then I would expect a citation of both, as appropriate. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:08, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The term "manuscript" may mean several different things. Can you be more specific? Is this about historical manuscripts predating print? Is it an author manuscript that was eventually published? Are they originals? Fascimiles? Tranlations that are manuscripts themselves? Normally, citation templates are not a good fit for citing stand-alone, original manuscripts, and there may also be availability issues. Perhaps a free-form citation is better for what you have in mind. Generally, formal citations cite works that are published (i.e. made more or less publicly available) and as stated above, the publication date is what is needed. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 21:35, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
 * For context, I noticed a change to "Dates earlier than 100 not supported. Wikipedia editors seldom read ancient manuscripts directly; the specific, modern, published edition read by the editor is what goes in the source citation. Thus, the date of the source actually consulted should be provided in date, and the date of the ancient source may be provided in orig-date; the format of the orig-date value is not checked for errors." and thought that the same considerations might be more relevant to more recent manuscripts, whatever the interpretation of the word in the help page. One example that comes to mind is the Babylonian Talmud, whose compilation continued into the 6th century CE.
 * I would expect a citation of, e.g., Ethics of the Fathers, to cite the date of publication rather than c.190 - c.230 CE. A secondary question is what to do when the publisher lists the editor as the author; in this case the original was wrottrn by Hillel the Elder, but Koren lists Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel as the author, presumably because he added notes and similar content, and in Judaic circles it is understood that the original text is Hillel's.. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 00:12, 8 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I would suggest that as a rule, it is better to think of citations as discovery aids (of sources), not as bibliographic records or exact representations of a source's provenance. The emphasis is on finding things, and citations should be structured to represent the way sources are classified by their providers, so readers of the citation can easily discover the source. Some ready examples:
 * Amazon
 * WorldCat
 * Library catalog of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
 * So first, it is not a manuscript that is cited, but a later published translation with commentaries and annotations. Obviously the creators of that work are the primary contributors and the ones a reader would look for. That doesn't mean that you should not add the original date and author somewhere (perhaps in orig-date, perhaps in a note after the citation). The correct edition citation-wise seems to be 1st Hebrew-English, even when the title identifies it as the "Neuwirth edition". This is mentioned in bibliographic "Notes", a field not normally indexed. 65.88.88.201 (talk) 20:27, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Cite book - separate introduction author
I am trying to cite the Introduction to the Oxford World's Classics version of The Varieties of Religious Experience. The author is William James, but the OWC version is edited by Matthew Bradley, who also wrote the introduction. I want my citation to look something like this:

Bradley, Matthew (2012). "Introduction". In James, William; Bradley, Matthew (ed.). The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. x

My problem is that if I list James as the author, then he is listed as the author of the introduction, which I do not want. But I also do not want to list him as an editor, because that is incorrect. And if I list them both as authors, it will cite them as joint authors, which is also wrong. At present I have:

But that's not quite right because it implies that James wrote the introduction, when it was written by Bradley. Is there any way to get what I want with the cite book template? WJ94 (talk) 13:46, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe contributor / contribution may help:

-- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:55, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Perfect, thank you! WJ94 (talk) 14:13, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Add "admin" to generic names
Found at Earlimart pesticide poisoning * Pppery * it has begun... 00:05, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Error in CS1 on clean mediawiki install; Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1 at line 2561: attempt to call field 'hyphen_to_dash' (a nil value)
Hi, the current version of CS1 causes the following error on a clean mediawiki install:

Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1 at line 2561: attempt to call field 'hyphen_to_dash' (a nil value).

Reverting this edit fixes it locally: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Module%3ACitation%2FCS1&type=revision&diff=1017669505&oldid=1017041380

This is the line in question:

Mvolz (talk) 11:20, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Clearly this clean mediawiki install (which I understand to be an installation on a MediaWiki site that has never had the cs1|2 module) did not happen at en:Module:Citation/CS1 so where did it happen?
 * The diff you gave fixes an issue with .  That function returns two values (a string and a boolean).    will return both which, if both are not required or handled by the calling function cause confusion.  For the avoidance of confusion, the fix shown in the diff assigns the string returned by   to   and then returns.
 * The Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1 at line 2561: attempt to call field 'hyphen_to_dash' (a nil value) error message suggests that wherever this clean mediawiki install is, it doesn't have the current version of Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities. The   function is at line 121.  If your clean mediawiki install does not have   in its Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities then the ~/Utilities module is the wrong version.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:24, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1 at line 2561: attempt to call field 'hyphen_to_dash' (a nil value) error message suggests that wherever this clean mediawiki install is, it doesn't have the current version of Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities. The   function is at line 121.  If your clean mediawiki install does not have   in its Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities then the ~/Utilities module is the wrong version.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:24, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Please update broken mr= link address
MR has used urls of the form https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1470715 since October 2017, and these currently work. The citation templates, for the mr parameter, instead currently use urls of the form https://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1470715, and these currently give a 404 error. Can we fix the links to match MR, please? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Both work here. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:59, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Policy for wikilinking
What is the policy for adding internal wikilinks to the website= parameter for example? Should only the first reference from that website be linked? Or none or alle of them? PhotographyEdits (talk) 15:03, 14 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I believe the answer you'll get is that there isn't a policy. Some editors will only include a wikilink on a first reference, some will include it on every reference, and some will not include one at all.  Imzadi 1979  →   16:49, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Imzadi1979 Ah, the reason I asked is that I wanted to write a bot that will link all of them automatically. If I'm going through Wikipedia as a whole, that means I'm creating a de facto policy. PhotographyEdits (talk) 17:08, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I personally would oppose such a bot, and were it to edit on an article I've been maintaining, I'd revert such an edit. I think of the reference section similar to how I think about the rest of the article. I minimize the number of extra links in that section to push readers toward clicking the important links, which in that case are the external links to the specific sources. Extra links dilute the importance of the links that are there.
 * I do see some merit in wikilinking publishers and publication names, so that's why I keep to just first mentions as a balance when I do include them.  Imzadi 1979  →   17:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Imzadi1979 So what about a bot that would wikilink the first occurrence of every publisher used in the references of an article? That sounds like what you're doing right now. If you'd oppose that, why? PhotographyEdits (talk) 19:11, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I still think a bot is a bad idea, even for that. Bots follow consensus, and yours would attempt to create it as a fait accompli. I'm sure it would be considered disruptive, either because some editors think that lots of wikilinks in references are better, or that no wikilinks in references are better. So there are two camps of editors that would be potentially upset if a bot came and made changes to articles on their watchlists.
 * Now some sort of user script that could do the same thing may be helpful so editors can restore such a convention after a period of expansion or editing.  Imzadi 1979  →   19:41, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Such a bot would likely not achieve consensus. There are other thing you should spend your time on. Bots don't get to make their own consensus, they implement a user-created one. Izno (talk) 17:46, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Izno If there currently isn't a consensus, then such a bot would not go against a consensus as well right? PhotographyEdits (talk) 19:33, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Bots need to be approved before they're allowed to operate widely. That approval requires consensus for the desired activity. This isn't a case where you'd get to ask for forgiveness instead of permission.  Imzadi 1979  →   19:42, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * ^. Please read WP:BOTPOL. Izno (talk) 19:46, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! PhotographyEdits (talk) 19:51, 14 December 2022 (UTC)