Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 94

Typo in headline
What do I do if the headline for a source appears to contradict the information in that source?— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  20:59, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * , can you give a specific example? Cullen328 (talk) 21:07, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I could ask CBS to correct it, but after a year ...


 * Text used as a source: "'Super Bowl Greatest Commercials: Battle of The Decades' will allow fans to vote on their favorite ads of the last 40+ years."


 * — Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  21:10, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Per MOS:TYPOFIX However, insignificant spelling and typographic errors should simply be silently corrected (for example, correct basicly to basically).. That said, 4+ is not obviously a typo for 40+ without seeing the line Super Bowl Greatest Commercials: Battle of The Decades" will allow fans to vote on their favorite ads of the last 40+ years. from the article itself, so it might be worth adding a comment clarifying what the text actually says in the citation. Umimmak (talk) 22:20, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It's still a draft and I haven't found enough for a comprehensive article, but it might become part of a larger article.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  22:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I didn't use the template, though this is what I was advised to do in a similar situation. That was recommended by someone here. I also contacted WCCO-TV (not sure whether they or CBS News is the "work") to see if they will correct it.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  23:29, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * When I click through to that CBS article, it says "40+ years", which appears to match the article content. If, hypothetically, the headline had said "4+ years", as it does at archive.org, and I were confident that "40+ years" was intended, I would probably write "[40+] years" in my citation, maybe with a note after the cite template explaining the notation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:49, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Apparently after I reported the problem it was corrected.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  18:16, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Web citation (RefToolbar) - asking for Additional fill-in
Asking for change to Web citation (RefToolbar) popup box.

At the URL box, when the magnify glass is clicked, and it fills in additional (such as Title and Website name), can it also fill the Access date? This will be a time-saver as one-less thing to click on.

Asking here, but wondering if I should request at VPT instead? Regards, JoeNMLC (talk) 15:26, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * This is not the correct venue for that request. Try WT:RefToolbar.  Don't expect much of a response.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:35, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. You're right-last talk there was in October 2023. Cheers, JoeNMLC (talk) 15:41, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Questions about Category:CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI
The documentation at Category:CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI states that this issue can be resolved by adding free, but "Exception are pages with Academic peer reviewed or Cite Q on them, where the update needs to be done in Wikidata." Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 05:08, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) What specifically is the update that needs to be done in Wikidata?
 * 2) Is it OK to simply add free to Cite Q templates?  (e.g. this edit and this edit)


 * no idea. See this discussion.
 * yes, but ideally we would do something in Wikidata instead
 * &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:16, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Exclude errors in citations at AfD
I'm going through Category:CS1 errors: generic title and a decent chunk of them are in old, closed AfDs, e.g. Articles for deletion/Indiavision news. I can't think of any case where I'd want to actually edit these. Is there a way to exclude them from display in the tracking category? It isn't actually a big deal, there's a grand total of 11 out of almost 3,000 pages, but as someone with vague aspirations to clear the category it itches. Rusalkii (talk) 22:22, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Add yes to the offending template(s). Error messaging will remain but the page will not included in tracking categories.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 22:48, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * To the individual AfD pages, or the AfD template as a whole? If the former, I don't see where I would add it. Rusalkii  (talk) 23:16, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * to the offending template(s). So, in your example case, change:
 * to:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:24, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * That would have been the obvious interpretation, wouldn't it. Thank you! Rusalkii  (talk) 23:31, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:24, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * That would have been the obvious interpretation, wouldn't it. Thank you! Rusalkii  (talk) 23:31, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Two-part news article
Hello! I'm trying to optimize and thought I would consult w you guys. I do a lot of citations from newspaper archives. In some case the article starts on one page and then is "continued on page 35" or whatever. I like to include links to both clipping URLs in one reference because they're one entity in my mind. I usually end up with something like this:

Is there any more refined way to do this, other than continuing to put [part X of Y] in brackets manually?

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can offer. best, jengod (talk) 04:00, 26 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Jengod: what I usually do, using your example, is something like:
 * One citation for what is really one source, and yet both pages' clippings are linked.  Imzadi 1979  →   05:30, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Imzadi1979 ooh I like that--very clean! TY!! jengod (talk) 05:34, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Imzadi1979 ooh I like that--very clean! TY!! jengod (talk) 05:34, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Inconsistent handling of ref=sfnref on desktop v mobile
If a citation uses a quoted name in sfnref (e.g.,, it works fine and looks fine in desktop view. But viewed on mobile, it generates a harv error: the citations see no target source and the source sees no incoming citations. For a real world example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=East_West_Rail&oldid=1210714109 . Removing the quotes fixes the problem. (In case it matters, "mobile" means Android+Chrome, "desktop" means ChromeBook+Chrome.)

Presumably this needs reporting somewhere, but where? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:00, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * That's bizarre. For convenience, here's a link that shows the offending behaviour via "Mobile view" on a desktop. I notice however, that the click-function 'References -> Sources' works as expected. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:03, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't see any error on desktop or mobile, but I'm only using the basic error messages rather than using a acript. This could be an issue with script your using, I suggest reporting the error at User talk:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 14:40, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Unlikely that this a cs1|2 or Module:Footnotes issue because neither distinguish mobile view from desktop view. I suspect that this is the same problem described at T348928 where MediaWiki is incorrectly url-encoding the short-form link when it should be anchor-encoding the link:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Cite book problem where "work" is not allowed
I'm not sure what was intended. I went to the archived source and it seems to be part of a book. Pearl Milling Company— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  22:55, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Looks like a junk citation to me:
 * template uses but seems to be citing something (a review?) in Public Relations Review
 * template links to what appears to be the book publisher: Greenwood Press
 * at the bottom of the archive snapshot of the chapter(?) the publisher provides MLA and CMOS citations; neither mention Public Relations Review though the author does have an article in that journal that is used as a source for the 'cited' article/chapter/whatever. Note that the referenced article is is from the same journal issue as is mentioned in the junk citation:
 * Have you discussed this with the editor who created the junk citation? (perhaps this edit at Aunt Jemima?) What is it that they are really trying to cite?  A chapter in a book?  A book review? A journal article?
 * Regardless, the citation is junk so the error message is correct and not the fault of.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:07, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * They've combined two refs that are for different works. One is for a book called "Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus: Blacks in Advertising, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" and the other is an article titled "Plantation kitchen to American icon: Aunt Jemima". The article ref was being used to support a quote that is no longer used in either article, so the work and volume details can just be removed. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 00:55, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I forgot I had even asked this question. So what should be done with the ref?— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  16:19, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Figure out which of the two sources best supports the en.wiki article text and then adjust the the template accordingly.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:35, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * So far the source that was linked to seems to support the content but there are six places it is used. "Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus: Blacks in Advertising, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" by Marilyn Kern-Foxworth but I can't tell what the publisher or work might be.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  17:36, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I can't find "rice flour and corn sugar" in the source.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  17:40, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:35, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * So far the source that was linked to seems to support the content but there are six places it is used. "Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus: Blacks in Advertising, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" by Marilyn Kern-Foxworth but I can't tell what the publisher or work might be.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  17:36, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I can't find "rice flour and corn sugar" in the source.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  17:40, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

PMID limit increase
Please see the page 2024 in arthropod paleontology - the PMID limit should be increase, as it gives false positives on PMID values that are over 38400000, such as 38401545. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 23:54, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Edition ordinals
This is a repeat of a proposal that has been made twice before:

I quote :

suggests that sometimes, particularly for software, there is a "3 edition" which is distinct from a "3rd edition". As a native English speaker I don't perceive a difference between "3rd edition" or "edition 3". They are essentially interchangeable. "3 edition" is just wrong. If the edition name is "3", then it should be displayed as "3rd ed.".

raised concerns about "other languages where the cs1|2 module suite is used". While I want to respect the challenge of maintainability of the CS1 suite across Wikipedia sites in various languages, and am wholly unaware of the systems in place for this, I don't think this needs to hold us back here. Changing this could be as simple as adding the following to Template:Cite book when it invokes the module, without even modifying the module to be English-specific. undefined

I find 's description of the benefits to be compelling, and don't understand the downsides to this feature. Daask (talk) 21:33, 1 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I don't know the context of the line of code provided by Daask, or what programming language it is in. But if "Ifnumber" does what I think it does it would be unacceptable. Here is an example of a citation that would be a problem:
 * Jc3s5h (talk) 22:12, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The proposed (pseudo?)code does not reflect the discussion. As far as I can tell from reading the linked discussion, that citation would not be affected, since the edition number is greater than 99. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:49, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The proposed (pseudo?)code does not reflect the discussion. As far as I can tell from reading the linked discussion, that citation would not be affected, since the edition number is greater than 99. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:49, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Problem with Template:Haber kaynağı
Was helping a user with Draft:Halkalı-Bahçeşehir Rail System and noticed that the bot didn't exactly subst the template properly. Is this an issue with the wrapper or with the original placement of the template? Primefac (talk) 13:53, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Oneida is missing from the recognized languages
Oneida has the ISO 639-3 code one. Can this be added so Oneida sources no longer show up under Category:CS1_maint:unrecognized language? Snowman304'&#124;'talk 05:22, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Not recognized by MediaWiki:
 * so you'll have to spell it out: Oneida.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:04, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi Trappist, thanks for the quick response. I'm looking at Morris Swadesh, and I can't figure out what the unrecognized language would be except for Oneida, which is spelled out. Snowman304'&#124;'talk 19:22, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That's the one (pun not really intended). cs1|2 emits the maintenance message because Oneida is  a language name recognized by MediaWiki.  The whole list of MediaWiki-recognized languages and their tags is at Template:Citation Style documentation/language/doc.
 * See to show the cs1|2 maintenance messages.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:18, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
 * See to show the cs1|2 maintenance messages.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:18, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

OCLC limit hit
See for example, which exceeds the current limit of 10100000000. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Same for PMC limits, which now exceed 10900000. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:00, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Nonsensical error when title=none is set
The following gives a "CS1 maint: untitled periodical" maintenance message, but clearly the periodical is named here. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The warning message is unfortunately worded. What it should say is "article title missing in periodical" or something similar. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:26, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Which would also be an error, because the title is willingly bypassed. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:41, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

S2CID still needs an update
Looks like someone last mentioned this a few months ago. The S2CID limit is still too low. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pry_(novel) has a working article with an ID of 268071715. Can we maybe bump it up to 269000000 (or 270000000, if we're feeling cheeky)? Snowman304'&#124;'talk 07:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

url-status when archive-url is also dead
When you set url-status to "dead", it signals to use the archive-url by default. But what do you do when the archive-url is also dead, and you can't immediately find a working archive? Mokadoshi (talk) 12:49, 13 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The best solution would be to find a new source, but otherwise I would suggest removing the archive parameters (archive-url, archive-date and url-status), and adding dead link with the yes parameter after the cite. Defunct archive URLs are pretty worthless. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 15:51, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You'd also need to update iabot.org otherwise IABot will likely re-add the non-working archive URL. --  Green  C  16:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Are you sure that IABot would do this on a link that is marked permanently dead? And if so, how exactly do I make this fix? Mokadoshi (talk) 16:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree. Thanks! Mokadoshi (talk) 16:18, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

extended definitions for Latn character set
This template fails because the character 'ạ' is not recognized by the Vancouver tests (Vancouver allows only Latin characters):

The fix supports characters from Latin Extended Additional (U+1E00–U+1EFF).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:26, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Module access
Is there a reason why Module:Citation/CS1 does not accept access from modules that pass "frame.args" and insists on requiring "frame:getParent.args" ? Are you open to allowing others to add such an feature ? Snævar (talk) 14:26, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * In cs1|2, each template s Module:Citation/CS1 with at least one parameter needed by the module to identify the calling template:, , , , , etc.  For example,  has this:
 * CitationClass is passed to the module in the frame object. To get the parameters from this :
 * the module must consult the parent frame object.
 * This was how the module has worked more-or-less from its inception. The primary and overriding purpose of the module is to support the cs1|2 templates.  To the best of my knowledge, no one has proposed expanding that purpose to other modules.  Why do you want to do it?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:28, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It is quite common for modules to have access for other modules, both here on the English Wikipedia and on other sites like Wikimedia Commons. Citation/CS1 is going against the wind on this one. One module, or a set of them in this case, does not set the norms, the majority of the modules do. As for usecases, they are allready here, there are a lot of modules and templates due to this module access not being in place. These modules and templates are: Module:Cite arXiv, Module:Cite bioRxiv, Module:Cite book, Module:Cite conference, Module:Cite document, Module:Cite encyclopedia, Module:Cite episode, Module:Cite interview, Module:Cite journal, Module:Cite magazine, Module:Cite mailing list, Module:Cite map, Module:Cite medRxiv, Module:Cite news, Module:Cite newsgroup, Module:Cite podcast, Module:Cite press release, Module:Cite report, Module:Cite serial, Module:Cite sign, Module:Cite speech, Module:Cite tech report, Module:Cite thesis and Module:Cite web. As for the templates it is a bunch of substitution templates with similar names, although I do know the reason for their existance is a bit different and unlike the modules might be justified. I am not trying to offend anyone by saying this, but this list of modules feels like an garbage dump. The only difference between these modules is the CitationClass and what title they return.
 * @User:Pppery: I think you are going to like this. Is it not worth getting rid of 24 nearly identical modules, by merging them into one? Snævar (talk) 05:10, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:28, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It is quite common for modules to have access for other modules, both here on the English Wikipedia and on other sites like Wikimedia Commons. Citation/CS1 is going against the wind on this one. One module, or a set of them in this case, does not set the norms, the majority of the modules do. As for usecases, they are allready here, there are a lot of modules and templates due to this module access not being in place. These modules and templates are: Module:Cite arXiv, Module:Cite bioRxiv, Module:Cite book, Module:Cite conference, Module:Cite document, Module:Cite encyclopedia, Module:Cite episode, Module:Cite interview, Module:Cite journal, Module:Cite magazine, Module:Cite mailing list, Module:Cite map, Module:Cite medRxiv, Module:Cite news, Module:Cite newsgroup, Module:Cite podcast, Module:Cite press release, Module:Cite report, Module:Cite serial, Module:Cite sign, Module:Cite speech, Module:Cite tech report, Module:Cite thesis and Module:Cite web. As for the templates it is a bunch of substitution templates with similar names, although I do know the reason for their existance is a bit different and unlike the modules might be justified. I am not trying to offend anyone by saying this, but this list of modules feels like an garbage dump. The only difference between these modules is the CitationClass and what title they return.
 * @User:Pppery: I think you are going to like this. Is it not worth getting rid of 24 nearly identical modules, by merging them into one? Snævar (talk) 05:10, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

"The only difference between these modules is the CitationClass and what title they return." There's a lot more differences than class and 'title', whatever you mean by that. The different modules accept different parameters, and format them differently. cite arxiv for instance, does not support journal/volume/issue/isbn etc... &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:31, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

module suite update 23–24 March 2024
I propose to update cs1|2 module suite over the weekend 23–24 March 2024. Here are the changes:

Module:Citation/CS1
 * removed temporary Julian–Gregorian uncertainty categorization; discussion
 * combine extra-text tests for volume and issue; volume=_and_|issue=|discussion
 * fix bug related to hyphenated given names when reducing to initials for vancouver style; discussion
 * add script-encyclopedia and trans-encyclopedia; script-encyclopedia=_and_|trans-encyclopedia=|discussion
 * allow cs1 and none in ; mode=cs1_and_|postscript=none|discussion
 * fix long-term-sleeping bibcode/postscript interaction bug; discussion
 * fix archive.today timestamp check; discussion
 * cleanup  assignments; discussion
 * extend latn char definition; discussion

Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration
 * add doi free registrants: 1045 - D-Lib Magazine; 1074 and 1194 - American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; 1096 - FASEB; 4249 - Scholarpedia; 5210 - University of Illinois Libraries; 7759 - Cureus; 14256 - Croatian Association of Civil Engineers; 15347 - Wikijournals; 22323 - SISSA
 * removed temporary Julian–Gregorian uncertainty categorization
 * combine extra-text tests for volume and issue
 * add script-encyclopedia and trans-encyclopedia
 * use tabular data file at commons for identifier limit values; discussion
 * removed doi free registrant 3410 - F1000; discussion
 * extend latn char definition;

Module:Citation/CS1/Whitelist
 * add script-encyclopedia and trans-encyclopedia

Module:Citation/CS1/Date validation
 * removed temporary Julian–Gregorian uncertainty categorization

Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:27, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * revise access and wikisource icon css; discussion


 * I've specified that 3410 is F1000 for future discussion. It's still a free registrant, it's just doing some fuckery with its access pages. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:06, 16 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Re: Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 93: the way to incorporate this into Wikidata for each identifier would be to use >  >  &, per d:Help:Property constraints portal/Range. Regarding fragility & vandalism, I think using Wikidata would be superior to c:Data:CS1/Identifier limits.tab, if only for the # of people already watching, for example, , etc.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:54, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. If I understand (not saying that I do),  would get a new constraint as a Qid to be used on only seven identifier properties.  The new Qid might be something like 'cs1 limit constraint'.  Each of the seven identifier properties would get the new Qid constraint with a  constraint property.  That would require us to go on bended knee to the Masters of Wikidata to plead for the new Qid.  Pleading for a new Qid is the 'politics' to which I referred in the original discussion; politics that I would prefer to avoid.  Tabular data at commons doesn't require a plea to the Masters of Commons; it is one file and it works.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:17, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * No new Qid and no pleading required! I can add all the appropriate min/max constraints to Wikidata. I just need to know the minimum values allowed for all of the identifiers @ c:Data:CS1/Identifier limits.tab.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  00:21, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I've added the appropriate to, , , , , , & , effectively duplicating c:Data:CS1/Identifier limits.tab in Wikidata.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think that was a wise thing to do. I don't think that we should apply a constraint that isn't qualified to be a cs1|2-only constraint.  What you have done, I think, is apply the cs1|2-only limits as constraints for any use of those identifier properties.  That is why I said that I think to use wikidata we must have a cs1|2 Qid and to do that we must petition the Masters of Wikidata on bended knee.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:59, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * What you have done, I think, is apply the cs1 - correct. I don't see why OOB values should exist on Wikidata (unless that limit has yet to be updated after a recent bump). If there are no legitimate uses for OOB values, then I don't see why those limits shouldn't be in Wikidata, regardless of whether or not cs1|2 uses them. If there are legitimate reasons, either I or someone else will remove them.  ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:13, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm still not convinced but that may be a moot point. Unless I'm missing something, Wikibase does not provide a mechanism for getting a property of a property that isn't part of an entity (Qid).  See Wikibase Lua doc.  Yeah, if you know the title of the work and it matches the label used in Wikidata, you can get a Qid (  →   but the name in Italian:   →  ).  We must always be able to get to the identifier limits; we can do that easily with commons tabular data.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:19, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Izno: Whatever it is that you did to Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox/styles.css has broken the css for minerva (icons too big), monobook (icons clipped), and timeless (icons too big) skins. See these testcases at my sandbox (permalink):
 * minerva
 * monobook
 * timeless
 * vector
 * vector 2022
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know. I'm not done. Izno (talk) 17:16, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Sorted. Izno (talk) 17:21, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Ummm, really? Minerva, monobook, and timeless still looked borked to me.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:33, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Your revisions are stuck in parser cache. Review my user page instead in the various skins. Izno (talk) 18:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Just for ease:
 * vector
 * 22
 * timeless
 * minerva
 * monobook
 * Izno (talk) 18:14, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yep.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:19, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Best practice for when to use "n.d." vs. leaving blank
The documentation for CS1 currently includes When a source does not have a publication date, use n.d.. However, for citations of things like web pages that don't have a date, I find it much more common to just leave out the date parameter rather than specifying that it has been omitted.

I'm curious to hear from others, what do you think the best practice should be for this?  Sdkb  talk 21:35, 17 March 2024 (UTC)


 * (I see in the archives that there has also been discussion about possibly using "undated" instead of "n.d." or adding a tooltip. If folks want to pick that up, please open a subthread so that we can keep everything organized. Cheers,  Sdkb  talk 21:37, 17 March 2024 (UTC))
 * Blank is definitely common, but blank can mean, "there was a date, but I didn't fill it in" or "it is undated". An "n.d." clarifies, so is better. ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:19, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I've seen date, which at least clarifies it for editors.  Sdkb  talk 23:42, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I guess the thing that makes me uncomfortable about it is that we don't call out the absence of any other element in CS1 citations that I know of. If there's no DOI, or issue number, or second author, we don't designate that, but rather just leave the space blank. I'm open to being persuaded, but my intuition is that it'd be most consistent to adopt the same stance here (or at least to specify something like that "n.d." should only be used in situations where readers might normally expect there to be a date).  Sdkb  talk 23:48, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * In principle, everything that is published is published on some date (except maybe something like search results that are generated on a certain date, but if we're talking that, the access date is identical), but virtually any other field is something that could not be there (not URI for a web page, of course). ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:01, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Please undo your edit to the template and participate here. ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:50, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Didn't see this before reverting you there, seems best to leave the status quo for now until consensus is established for its inclusion. It's far from standard practice for web pages without a date to include n.d., pages are updated without any date being updated so the access-date in WP articles should be the latest date the information was updated if updated properly by editors. Including n.d. doesn't give readers any more information so seems redundant. Indagate (talk) 14:22, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Did you see the instructions at Template:Cite web? There is nothing redundant here. ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:25, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I read the parts about date there, but don't think I've seen any cite web using date=n.d. for websites without a date like Rotten Tomatoes so it doesn't reflect standard practice so doesn't seem to have consensus already Indagate (talk) 14:39, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There are a lot of rules that are broken or ignored: that doesn't justify breaking or ignoring them further. If there is some reason why we should not use "n.d.", then that should be incorporated into the template instructions. ―Justin ( koa v f ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:19, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * When there is a conflict between what the rules appear to say and what general practice is, as here, it's reasonable to keep the status quo while we work to resolve the underlying issue and figure out what guidance should say. This discussion is for figuring that out; let's stay focused on that.  Sdkb  talk 15:42, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Don't forget that sfnp and related need something in the date field, even if it is means having to use &lbrace;&lbrace;sfnp|Doe|n.d.|page=123&rbrace;&rbrace;. The notation n.d. is reasonably well recognised and I don't know of any other conventions that are. But I guess it can be left to whoever is pulling together multiple citations of the same source to backfill it. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:08, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Category:CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI
This one. What is the purpose of this category? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:14, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Does the documentation at not answer your question?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:17, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Only the technical purpose, not why there is a maintenance category instead of automatically flagging all free DOIs. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:49, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The implementing discussion is at.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:04, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Why is archive-date required when archive-url has the date?
Maybe a stupid question, but why is |archive-date required and then checked for matching |archive-url even when the latter already contains the date, like archive.org urls normally do? Wouldn't it make sense to forgo the separate date and just take the one from the url? Or, if it's expected by some processing somewhere else, at least automatically populate the date upon submission instead of rising an error? Since subst exists, this can't be because there's a policy against modifying the user-submitted wikitext. 82.131.19.61 (talk) 14:02, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There may be archiving sites that format their URLs differently to archive.org. Certainly other archive organisations have been used in the past.Nigel Ish (talk) 16:21, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, I think what I said would also apply to any other widely used archive that has timestamps included in its urls. With all of them, the date could be taken from the url. I'm not sure if the date is actually checked with any others besides archive.org, but it's this "we must check the date against the url if entered, but we won't populate the date from the url" one-way logic that I don't quite get. I seems like inconveniencing the user for no good reason (that I can think of). If the data is available, why error out and nag? EDIT: I mean this is not a sanity check, it's a check for an exact match. 82.131.19.61 (talk) 16:55, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Refactoring the code for the final rendering
Hello everyone! While translating the module into Russian, I encountered one issue - some participants do not want to use the CMS or APA style, but prefer styles that correspond to their own language. For Russian, this is GOST.

I attempted to fix the render, but it was very challenging because the entire rendering is scattered throughout the code and sometimes is completely illogical and opaque.

I believe that since individual languages and language projects have different standards for source representation (different component order, formatting, different sets of data), it would be very helpful to simplify editing this representation in a common module. Having the ability to remove italics and bold, as well as rearrange components, would be beneficial.

In ruwiki, there are specific templates that I want to transfer to this module, but it's necessary for them to be able to change the render when a certain parameter is entered. For example: citation_style = gost.


 * These templates are not CMS or APA but instead a mix of a few, and include other qualities that differ from either that we have added, so a bit of a false premise there.
 * Ignoring that, I have thought a few times about making more of the components of this system into 'libraries' that could be used from other citation styles. Maybe all the subpages can be today? I don't know and am pretty sure not based on some of the opinionated choices CS1 makes (mostly around "missing" information) which I'm pretty sure is in the subpages and not the primary module. If all the subpages were CS1 agnostic, that would get you most of the way there with potentially some duplication in the primary module. Izno (talk) 16:25, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is a problem that part of the rendering is taken from the main module (for example, italics or boldness), and part from the configuration (for example, prefixes). This makes it very difficult to edit. Iniquity (talk) 11:14, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Add publication-date parameter to
The template already implements a separate publication-date parameter from CS1. Some journals and their articles have different publication-date, date and orig-date values. The latter is more flexible, but insufficient when there are three different dates, i.e. an article "orig-date=written 1930", published in a journal edition dated "date=2004-2005" and published "publication-date=2006". Ivan (talk) 18:00, 19 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Then the date is 2004-2005. The others are irrelevant. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:47, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * In the case I have given, sources referencing it casually (i.e. without citation) will sometimes reference it with "1930", others with "2005", others with "2006", and if it was published in an issue of a periodical in 2004 whose contents were later published together with all other issues in 2006, then one will also encounter "2004". All for the same article.
 * For citations, it might not matter much. But for bibliography articles, precision helps the reader avoid confusion. I am not a template editor. How would one go about incorporating the parameter for ? This is the correct page to ask? Ivan (talk) 17:55, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Cite what you read. If you read an article in a periodical that was published in 2004, the date is 2004. If you were told that the article was republished in a set of bound things that contained all the articles the journal ever published, and that set was published in 2006, you don't care, you didn't read it. If I obtain the set of bound things and read the article, I'll put a publication date of 2006 in my citation. I could also add a parameter orig-date=2004. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:58, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Pardon my confusing wording above, but the need does not stem from the requirements of but of, where the works in question are the  of the article. Some citation styles prefer the date of printing/publication (i.e. 1931), while others prefer the year published  (i.e. 1929/1930). It is not for the bibliographer to decide which must be used, and including both can help resolve confusion from the reader over which date to use given the style required of them. Posthumously published works excepted, most  styles do not take the date of writing or reception into account, which  free up the orig-date parameter for the publication date, but in  that parameter is still needed to provide useful information to the reader; for example that the discrepancy between the publication date and that of a familiar author's death is due to posthumous publication. Ivan (talk) 03:02, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There's no different requirement in biographies. Something written in 1923 but published in 2012 has a date of 2012. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:08, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not referring to bibliography sections at the end of articles, but to annotated bibliography articles. The purpose is different. Something published 2012 but with a year number 2010/2011 can have a date of 2012, 2011, or even 2010 in the case I referred to in the second paragraph of this section, all depending on the citation style required in the context. But more scientific bibliography articles do not make the choice for the reader. And the only reason I mentioned date of is to show you why we cannot always simply add =published to the orig-date parameter.
 * One of a dedicated bibliography article's purposes is to help the reader find the source detailed therein of the system used in their library's catalogue, or any parametric restrictions imposed by said catalogue, or whichever means they end up using to find it.  to make them aware of any republications, English translations, and so on. I mentioned annotated bibliographies to give you an idea of how extensive the citations in those bibliographies can be on Wikipedia, just in case you are unaware of their existence on the project. Ivan (talk) 03:30, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It sounds like this article is a rare case that needs additional annotations outside of the citation template. Citation templates are not intended to handle all possible edge cases. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:11, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Actually, bibliography articles are a well-established genre on Wikipedia, and use citation templates quite frequently. Sometimes the bibliographies grow too long and the citations have to be converted to manual format to reduce the post-expand include size. Some editors don't use templates as a matter of preference. But for organising longer lists, which are often in a particular order, templates offer the freedom to place the parameter of organisation first, reducing the rate of misplaced items, and greatly speeding up the overall process.
 * I am realising the opposition might stem from simply being unaware these articles exist, like Bibliography of fly fishing or List of important publications in geology, or Bibliography of encyclopedias. The latter is now mostly manual for size reasons, but it began with templates and would have been riddled with mistakes without them. It is only a minority of journals that require it, but I have already incorporatated hundreds of journal articles that have separate date and publication-date values in my to-be-published Wikipedia bibliographies, and my request is simply to enable a parameter already in use for.
 * Although such journals are in the minority, it is still very commonly encountered. . Other editors have managed to get by with manual additions thanks to the publisher parameter coming last in Citation Style 1, but that doesn't work as well when there are many entries. Nor does it fit as nicely as when it is an in-template parameter. Compare with the output of :
 * I have no problem including annotations outside the template. That is standard practice for editions, translations, reviews, et cetera. But publication-date ought to match  in style. It may not be important for books either, outside of bibliography articles. But most bibliographies on this encyclopedia were mostly books. Today there are many bibliography articles consisting partly or entirely of journal articles. It is time to make the  template equally capable. Ivan (talk) 18:58, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * If it was written in 1930, and was published in 2006, then the 2004-2005 date makes no sense. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:30, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The 2004-2005 date is the "year date" (Jahrgang, ročnik, rocznik etc.). Not to be confused with "year number", which is distinct from volume number but the volume parameter will suffice in that case. Typically on the cover pages, marking the period during which works were submitted and/or originally published within issues that make up a volume. It is not uncommon for the year number to span multiple years, especially because of the school year. You can often get away with citing the year number under the |volume= or |issue= parameter in citations, but this is not appropriate for bibliographies, as these publications often have separate volume and issue numbers in addition to the year number, publication date, etc. The relationship between year number and volume number is often not 1:1, because most publications at least in my part of the world have been interrupted at some point, resulting in a year:volume mismatch. Here are some examples in order of increasing complexity:
 * Sometimes the year is a range, as with Abhandlungen einer Privatgesellschaft in Böhmen 14,5, in which 1865-1866 is the year (|date=) and 1866 the date of publication (|publication-date=). Or with Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru, razdio filoloških znanosti 21-22(12-13), in which 1981-1983 is the year (|date=) and 1983 the date of publication (|publication-date=).
 * Sometimes the cover has two non-overlapping dates, as with Sitzungsberichte der Königl.-Böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Prag, Classe fürr Philosophie, Geschichte und Philologie 6, in which 1893 is the year number (|date=) and 1894 the date of publication (|publication-date=).
 * Sometimes the front cover and the inner cover have differing dates, as with Sitzungsberichte der Königl.-Böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Prag 1881, in which 1881 is the year (|date=) and 1882 the date of publication (|publication-date=).
 * Sometimes a single cover page has non-overlapping dates for year and date of publication, as with Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru, razdio filoloških znanosti 20, in which 1990-1991 is the year (|date=) and 1992 the date of publication (|publication-date=).
 * All three journals in the examples above went through changes in their publication cycle that prevents 1:1 conversion based on year or volume number, and even if the relationship was constant, these periodicals are catalogued differently from institution to institution. Some catalogues separate year date from publication date. But even advanced search options are usually limited to whichever of the various dates were selected by the institution. This is why it is so important that a bibliography include both. Ivan (talk) 07:04, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

news and web should allow Network and Station
I tried to cite a clip from PBS NewsHour on the Orca page.

I suppose PBS is the "Publisher" and the "work" is NewsHour, but that felt awkward and there is a more specific form for audio-visual sources.

Unfortunately, the Serial citation suggests it should not be used for news shows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_serial says it is "for broadcast programs (television, radio, web) which use individual titles for a collection of episodes ... For serial publications, see  and  ."

Unfortunately, making it a news citation caused the system to reject the network property. I assume it would also reject station, which might be essential for local news.

My preference would be that the news and especially the web citation forms allow the additional Serial properties.

My second choice -- which might be good even if the news and web citation forms are expanded -- would be that the instructions for Serial remove the word "individual" (when skimming, I thought it meant each episode had its own name, as some Sitcoms do), and change "For serial publications" to "For _written_ serial publications." JimJJewett (talk) 19:37, 23 March 2024 (UTC)


 * It turns out the instructions are not protected, so I already made the 2nd set of changes, unless someone reverts it.
 * I still think that the news citation form should also cater to broadcast news, and the web form should cater to everything, including broadcast clips re-published on youtube. JimJJewett (talk) 19:46, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Is everything okay with COinS?
Hi! When transferring the module to ruwiki, I decided to see how COinS generally live. The official website is dead, there is practically no documentation to be found. OpenURL is dead too. The applications that use it also died, except for Zotero. Shouldn't we think about switching to a new format before everything becomes completely outdated? Or am I worrying in vain and everything is fine? Iniquity (talk) 20:37, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The only COinS documentation I have found is listed at Module talk:Citation/CS1/COinS. Another editor added Dublin Core and SVC (Scholarly Community Service Types?); neither of which are meaningful and should probably be deleted from that page.  No doubt some of those documentation links are dead so archive snapshots should be located if possible.
 * I don't know of any other metadata standard that could be used as a drop-in replacement for COinS.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 21:53, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I didn't find much either. Maybe this one - https://schema.org/Book (RDF/Microdata)? Iniquity (talk) 22:05, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I guess I'm not convinced. Those schema appear to be intended as a way for publishers to provide a structured description of an online source – a purpose different from a citation.  One of the very common things that editors do is cite particular pages from a book, often without reference to a chapter.  Pagination does not appear to be a supported property for a book – it is for the chapter schema.  A quicksearch didn't reveal how one might encoded a journal article – I didn't find a property for the journal name.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:40, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I asked a question on the Zotero forum, maybe they can help. I'll be back as soon as I have an answer. Iniquity (talk) 23:47, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I asked a question on the Zotero forum, maybe they can help. I'll be back as soon as I have an answer. Iniquity (talk) 23:47, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Question about volume parameter that contains New Series
What is the proper way to cite a journal that has a volume parameter with "New Series" or "N.S."? For example, in Origin of the Huns: Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:21, 23 March 2024 (UTC)


 * 17 + New Series &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:28, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

See Help:Citation_Style_1 and note 3 in particular. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Question about volume error in Cite Pacer
What is the proper way to remove the "volume has extra text" error in ? Each instance in Template:Cite Pacer and Template:Cite Pacer/testcases now has the error. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:35, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Likely that template hasn't worked 'properly' since the decision was taken to render 'vol.' and 'no.' static text for volume and issue for all cs1|2 templates except . It appears that case-prefix is not used in any  templates so perhaps you might change the template source to remove support for case-prefix and change volume to number?
 * Alas, the original author is no longer with us so someone else will have to fix the template.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:41, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion. Looks like  is working on it in Template:Cite Pacer/sandbox. GoingBatty (talk) 01:05, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There's another Pacer CS1 template with the same issue, PacerRef. It's only used in a single article though. Could Megaupload be switched to Cite Pacer or another CS1 template, so that we can delete the extra template? Rjjiii  (talk) 01:19, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There's also Cite Pacer Docket, used in 8 articles including Megaupload. GoingBatty (talk) 01:30, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I've tinkered with Cite Pacer Docket but I'm not sure what combination of parameters the Citation template needs. It doesn't display "number" without "work", but "title" is required and doesn't make sense for any of this template's parameters. Hopefully someone else knows, Rjjiii  (talk) 02:28, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Rjjiii: I've updated Megaupload to use Cite Pacer instead of PacerRef. GoingBatty (talk) 01:38, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Rjjiii ...and added PacerRef to Templates for discussion/Log/2024 March 24. GoingBatty (talk) 01:44, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Just saw it, Rjjiii  (talk) 01:49, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Just saw it, Rjjiii  (talk) 01:49, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

How to cite standalone preprint?
If I want to cite a standalone article preprint, made available by a university through an hdl link, how can I? Is there some way to make cite preprint less fussy about what kind of availability counts as a preprint? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:20, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Cite preprint requires one of arxiv=, citeseerx= (why??), bioarxiv=, ssrn=: it wants to be in a known big preprint server (or citeseer), not the case here.
 * Cite book sort of works but it is not really a book.
 * Cite tech report produces a spurious "(Tech report)" as part of the citation
 * Cite document produces a spurious "(Document)" as part of the citation. But maybe this with preprint is best?
 * Cite web doesn't work because it requires a url, not an hdl.
 * is just a wrapper template around the cs1 templates, , , , . It is not intended to support arbitrary preprints of any other sort.  It has been suggested that the preprint templates should be replaced with a 'generic'  template.  As I recall there wasn't much enthusiasm for that.
 * You can suppress automatic type annotation with none.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:23, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:23, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

template:cite journal
I am citing an article which was published in two journals (one US and the other UK). This is useful information for readers who may have access to one but not the other. I cannot see how to show this. "postscript=" gives an error message and there does not seem to be any other way. Any suggestions? Dudley Miles (talk) 16:10, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You have two sources so use two templates.  (and all of the other cs1|2 templates) are designed to support one source at a time.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:20, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Citing the same article as two sources will confuse people as it implies that they are different. Standard academic practice is to say "also published...". It is a weakness in the templates that they do not allow for such useful information to be given. Dudley Miles (talk) 16:53, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You are still citing two sources so bibliographic details of the US and UK journals different.  You can write:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:13, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That should work. Dudley Miles (talk) 17:16, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That should work. Dudley Miles (talk) 17:16, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Enable publication-date for
This proposal was originally made 6 days ago but my wording and explanations were poor.

WikiProject Bibliographies is devoted to standalone bibliography articles. Its participants have been responsible for a respectable portion of the List of bibliographies on this project. While many of these bibliographies were written manually from creation, many use citation templates to speed up the process and achieve a lower error rate. Many of the bibliographies that now use manual citations originated with templates and were only converted out of a need to reduce the post-expand include size. Because the works themselves are the subject of the article and require more detail and precision than in regular citations, we often find ourselves pushing the limits of citation templates.

For most of the additional information, corresponding parameters have already been added to, because the average bibliography article consists mostly of books. Most of what remains can be added after the template. But there is one parameter missing from despite already being available in CS1 and having been incorporated into , that is somewhat frequently encountered and which would benefit from being enabled for  as well: publication-date. For any book Title, dated 2005 but published 2006, originally typewritten 1930, the output of would be:  Most books with "two dates" are better served by the orig-date parameter than by publication-date. In the example I just gave, a book may have 2006 on its front cover but 2005 on its inside cover, with 2005 corresponding to the date the printing began and 2006 to the date of publication after the printing ended. Or 2005 could be the date the printing of the first volume began and 2006 the date the individual volume was printed. And so on.

The main reason both have to be given in bibliography articles is because differences in date and publication-date displayed prominently enough on works for the same work to be cited in one date in catalogue/database but under another date in a different catalogue/database. Only the best catalogues/databases have both parameters, and the reader's library or digital library may not be such a catalogue. Because the primary purpose of a bibliography article is to help the reader find works on a given subject, providing both years in our bibliographies allows the reader to search all year values the catalogue could have, in addition to letting them know that they have indeed found the correct work where providing only one date would leave them second guessing (especially if there are title differences). Differences between prominently displayed "date" (Jahrgang, ročnik, rocznik etc.) and date of publication values are actually common for periodicals  than for books.

Despite the parameter arguably being important for  than for , it has still not been enabled for the former. The interval-discrepancy between Jahrgang (date) and publication date (publication-date) often varies over time. Discrepancies of interval often arise between Jahrgang and volume number and even year number,[†] so you cannot simply enter the Jahrgang in the volume parameter. And because these are bibliography articles, in which the works are the subject of the article, orig-date is often unavailable, thanks to a work being written or typed at a different date, sometimes long before publication, resulting in the work often being cited or even catalogued by the date of writing. Here are some examples of periodicals requiring a separate publication-date parameter in order of increasing complexity:
 * Sometimes the year is a range, as with Abhandlungen einer Privatgesellschaft in Böhmen 14,5, in which 1865-1866 is the Jahrgang (|date=) and 1866 the date of publication (|publication-date=). Or with Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru, razdio filoloških znanosti 21-22(12-13), in which 1981-1983 is the Jahrgang (|date=) and 1983 the date of publication (|publication-date=).
 * Sometimes the Jahrgang is a range (often corresponding to the school year), as with Abhandlungen einer Privatgesellschaft in Böhmen 14,5, in which 1865-1866 is the year (|date=) and 1866 the date of publication (|publication-date=). Or with Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru, razdio filoloških znanosti 21-22(12-13), in which 1981-1983 is the Jahrgang (|date=) and 1983 the date of publication (|publication-date=).
 * Sometimes the cover has two non-overlapping dates, as with Sitzungsberichte der Königl.-Böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Prag, Classe fürr Philosophie, Geschichte und Philologie 6, in which 1893 is the Jahrgang (|date=) and 1894 the date of publication (|publication-date=).
 * Sometimes the front cover and the inner cover have differing dates, as with Sitzungsberichte der Königl.-Böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Prag 1881, in which 1881 is the Jahrgang (|date=) and 1882 the date of publication (|publication-date=).
 * Sometimes a single cover page has non-overlapping dates for Jahrgang and date of publication, as with Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru, razdio filoloških znanosti 20, in which 1990-1991 is the Jahrgang (|date=) and 1992 the date of publication (|publication-date=).

† Year number would be the closest value to Jahrgang but discrepancies arise when a year is skipped and if it happens more than once, the interval changes. Fortunately, the year number is rarely encountered in catalogues and citations, so although it would be preferable to have a separate year-number parameter, the current guidelines for placing the "year-related value" in the volume parameter work well enough. At least the result is within the citation. The publication-date parameter is also within the citation for, as it should be for.

My request is to enable the publication-date parameter for. Ivan (talk) 21:34, 25 March 2024 (UTC)


 * publication-date is already available in cite journal. The following   displays as  -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 21:56, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I must have been using it incorrectly. Ivan (talk) 22:19, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Happy editing. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 22:36, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Also you signature shouldn't hide your actual username (see WP:CUSTOMSIG/P). -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 22:06, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Ideally yes, but I don't want my Cyrillic signature to attract uninvited attention since most of the editors on the articles I usually edit are Croats. Fortunately, this RfC allows for signatures that do not correspond exactly to usernames. Ivan (talk) 22:24, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Generic name
Can you add "phone" and "email" to the generic name list so you get a "CS1 errors: generic name" error. Thanks Keith D (talk) 18:50, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Language is missing in template
Langauge is needed on de.wikipedia.org if a German langauge citation is added. Langauge can therefor not be omitted. Theking2 (talk) 11:34, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Not so. From de:Vorlage:Internetquelle/Doku: "de für „deutsch“ ist nicht erforderlich …" [… for German is not required …]. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * If one is to believe the wikidata list of wikipedias using Module:Citation/CS1, de.wiki does support cs1|2.  If you are having a problem at de.wiki, you must discuss the problem there.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:03, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:03, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

|at= parameter not used for Cite AV Media?
Hey, so I'd like to create a citation for a film which is one of many as part of a multi-disc/multi-film collection, I was thinking about doing something like: But I'd really like to add something like Disc 1, Bonus Features, but it doesn't seem like that parameter is valid for this template? Is there a better way to be doing this? Per WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT I'd like the citation to reflect the specific edition I'm citing. Thanks for any advice! Umimmak (talk) 02:36, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * at is an in-source location parameter. The in-source location parameters supported by  are minutes and time.  Using either of those as a replacement for at is semantically incorrect.
 * Seems to me that if you are citing some bonus feature you should be citing the bonus feature's title, not its physical location.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:57, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah didn’t think about section okay, thank you! Umimmak (talk) 18:08, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:57, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah didn’t think about section okay, thank you! Umimmak (talk) 18:08, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah didn’t think about section okay, thank you! Umimmak (talk) 18:08, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Page ranges
Should the documentation for, e.g., pages, quote-pages, recommend use of page range or subst:page range when page numbers contain hyphens, e.g., pages? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:19, 29 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I don't think we should recommend its usage. IMO it adds complications to already complicated wiki markup. Now every bot, tool, report etc.. that parses wiki markup needs to deal with this template to extract page information. Really how hard is it to use en dash. CS1-2 could even automatically display it as en dash to avoid all this embeded template complication.  --  Green  C  14:29, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It is true that cs1|2 render correctly formatted page ranges from improperly formatted source parameters so is not required.  But...  cs1|2 cannot modify wikisource so for those editors who care, using  will (once subst'd) produce the proper format in wikisource.  Because  auto substs (even inside  tags), the embedded template complication isn't much of a complication because auto-substing usually occurs within an hour after the edit is saved.
 * Use or don't.  Recommend it or don't.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Use or don't.  Recommend it or don't.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

agency in cite magazine
I came across a case where a cite magazine article from India Today was attributed to an agency (Indo-Asian News Service) with no other byline. cite magazine did not support use of the agency parameter. Should it? &mdash; Archer1234  (t·c) 14:10, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Lua error
One of the references at The pen is mightier than the sword is giving "Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Date_validation at line 329: attempt to compare string with number." I can't see anything wrong with it from a quick glance. * Pppery * it has begun... 15:37, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Also William Rugge (bishop) * Pppery * it has begun... 15:48, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * fixed.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:53, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Author-link in cite templates
I am working on a request from another user at WP:AWBREQ to add author links to citation templates. The I did on the AWB run ended up with, I believe, 159  templates for the given author. My regex of course identifies each of those templates for adding in the author link, and I dutifully included the author link in all of them as per the request. But before I do this on the hundreds of pages where this is germane, I was wondering whether we are bound to the MOS guide to only link the first instance in an article, or whether that does not apply to references as well.

TLDR: Should I add author-link to every citation of a given author, or only the first reference on the page? VanIsaac, GHTVcont WpWS 01:34, 30 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Typically users spot check citations as required, we don't read every one, so if it was previously linked it wouldn't be obvious. In long lists of cites, it's difficult to impossible to know if another cite already linked it. In practice every cite stands on its own like an independent unit. BTW this is great work you are doing. I had an idea how to do this in another discussion. Basically build a database of existing cases of author-link and the title, then find other instances of that title that are missing an author-link and add it there. With some sanity error checks. Could be fully automated. -- Green  C  02:01, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * This isn't really an issue for discussion here – not changing or improving the cs1|2 templates. You would be better off, I think, discussing at WT:CITE.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 02:07, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Ahh, much thanks. I got sent here from the redirect at Template talk:Cite, and assumed this was the clearinghouse for that kind of conversation. I'll bring it up at WP:Cite. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vanisaac (talk • contribs) 02:52, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Ahh, much thanks. I got sent here from the redirect at Template talk:Cite, and assumed this was the clearinghouse for that kind of conversation. I'll bring it up at WP:Cite. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vanisaac (talk • contribs) 02:52, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Template:Cite journal/doc


Hi Mathglot, thank you again for your support in the discussion on Module talk:Footnotes. Given what we just discussed there, could you re-visit and examine the revert you did on my edit on Template:Cite journal/doc on 24 March? I now realize I worded the description on my edit very badly/wrongly, and that I should have used in the example. But otherwise what I did on the page, I feel, is basically in line with the result of that talk:Footnotes discussion, and hope you'll see that too, if you revert the revert (with or without saving). If you still stand by your revert, we could discuss further here. If not, we could move to its talk page and discuss how to improve the doc further with my edit as the base. Yiba (talk | contribs) 14:36, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy link: Module talk:Footnotes§ SfnRef

Hello again, Yiba. I've moved the discussion here from my Talk page, so other interested editors may participate if they wish; they are unlikely to find it on my Talk page. In addition, there is a lot of previous discussion at Module talk:Footnotes§ SfnRef about this.

Sorry, I still stand by the revert, or at least, parts of it. My original revert (diff) was motivated by your removal of the "Staff writers" expression from the author param when there is no author.

However, your edit at Template:Cite journal/doc made numerous other changes, unrelated to the "Staff writers" issue. Logistically speaking, that's unfortunate, as several smaller edits with each one targeting a different issue would've made it easier to adjust/revert only that portion which needed it; with one, large, monolithic edit targeting essentially unrelated issues, it becomes harder to deal with. Perhaps I was lazy reverting the whole thing, but given the length and wide scope of the discussion that resulted afterward at Module talk:Footnotes§ SfnRef that seems somewhat vindicated. In any case, I see that you believe portions of your original edit are valid, and should be added to the documentation of either Template:Cite journal/doc (or to Template:SfnRef/doc—it's not clear to me which). In order not to fall into the same problem of long discussion here targeting unrelated or loosely related issues, I propose that we use subsections for each separate topic area of your original edit that you wish to retain. I'll start, right after this message, and I hope you list your issues in one subsection each, so the subtopic discussions remain targeted and on-track. Does that seem reasonable to you? Mathglot (talk) 18:11, 31 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The edit you reverted also contained the incorrect assumption that journal name will be used in a CITEREF if author is unavailable, and that ref's only use is in the creation of CITEREFs for use with sfn/harv templates. As neither of these ideas are correct, it was corrected reverted. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 18:51, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, very reasonable. And ActivelyDisinterested is correct. Thanks to both of you.  Yiba  (talk | contribs) 02:58, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

author=Staff writers, no byline
Your edit removed  from the doc at Template:Cite journal/doc explaining what to do when there is no author. I restored that information in the revert, and as that wording suggestion is standard use throughout several of the citation parameters; it should remain here as well for consistency, so I am not prepared to self-revert in order to remove it. If you see an argument for doing so, how would you deal with equivalent wording at all the other templates? Mathglot (talk) 18:12, 31 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I've never seen the point of doing this, however it's probably something that should be discussed first and implemented across all the citation templates if any change is agreed upon. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 18:53, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm a supporter of keeping it, but only for this reason: I sometimes like to do ref-improvement gnoming, and a missing author is kind of a big red flag, but an exceedingly common one, as anyone who has used RefRenamer is aware of; so I go look for the author. If after investigation, I find out that there really isn't one, then I am somewhat resentful of the wasted time I spent looking for it, and wished someone would have added the comment. However, I'm not married to that solution, and I would prefer something like none to an html comment. There is precedent for this in params type, ref, title-link, maybe others, and I think that could be a good solution here as well. Mathglot (talk) 19:19, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I could see none as a better idea, the hidden comment doesn't seem a great idea. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 19:36, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Fwiw, WorldCat uses none. Mathglot (talk) 19:48, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * IMO, "staff writers" is more useful, though not in a good way. To me it means massaged press release or ChatGPT. It means that the real journalists won't give their byline to it. See also Alan Smithee. So IMO more informative than "none". 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:32, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Agree it's more informative, at least if people are using it right, because it means we know who wrote it, though not by name: it's the staff of the organization (hopefully they filled out work or equiv.) which narrows it down to a few people at a given org. That's different, for me, then Anon. which means the person who wrote it chose not to claim credit, and is listed as "Anonymous" in the work, and could be any author anywhere (see WorldCat usage). Finally, "none" to me means, "I looked hard, and couldn't find it"; i.e. nothing on the title page or cover, web page, or in the html &lt;head> tag author field or any of the usual suspects. But honestly, I don't know if it's reasonable to be able to maintain that level of distinction in a citation template author field. It seems very unlikely someone using a plain-text citation rather than a template would do it, and I don't think the citation templates should be held to a higher standard, just because they are templates.
 * The "Staff writers" has been around for many years, long before ChatGPT, and I'm not aware of any connection between the two. Press releases are usually cited to the org., and given their purpose almost always have a contact person in their PR dept for inquiries, regardless who authored the release; not that anybody cares. In most citations, you can already specify press release (link), and that is sufficient, imho. Mathglot (talk) 23:21, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure that we've seen this discussion before. Spend some time trawling the archives (if you do, report back here with links to those past discussions).  My recollection is that a past discussion ended up recommending author as the unknown-author indicator.  See  where that is recommended.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:38, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks all. Seems I need to do a lot of reading before continuing here, but here is my preliminary points:
 * 1. To me, and from legal points of view, "whom the credit and the responsibility belongs" on a published info is very important.
 * 2. Staff writers, as long as they write in staff writer position/responsibility, do not normally bear the responsibility nor deserve the credit.
 * 3. Author= indicates who the credit belongs. This does not defy "Author=publisher/publication_name is not always a bad thing." as publishers often do bear the responsibility for what staff writers write. Also, the argument for Author=Anonymous (by Mathglot) is correct.
 * 4. Leaving "no byline" and "Author=none" aside for now, therefore I feel Author=Staff_Writer, Staffwriter_Surname, or List_of_Staff_Writers is fundamentally wrong.
 * 5. From a WikiNewbie view, being asked to input into Author= field while the instruction says "when there is no credited author" is idiotic/confusing.
 * 6. Yes, I feel other Citing template pages/docs need re-writing for the above reasons, so I'm glad having this discussion here.
 * Yiba (talk | contribs) 04:01, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * With respect to #4 (by the way: please see "Numbered list" at Help:Cheatsheet for how to create numbered lists in wikicode), I wonder if you might misunderstand what is meant by . This is something visible only to editors who look at the wikicode, and not to viewers reading the article. The symbols ' ' and ' ' are comment begin/end delimiters that hide everything between them from viewers. They can be seen by editors editing the page, and it announces (to editors) that, with or without "no byline", we don't have the name of an author. Mathglot (talk) 04:29, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I do understad how is used, and that the line announces (to editors) that, the words 'Staff Writer' or 'No by-line', or name(s) of staff writer(s) as we don't have the name of an author.  But your post made me aware there can be some fundamental misunderstanding on my part in constructing the argument.  If you see a possibility, please let me know.     Yiba  (talk | contribs) 05:10, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This may support understanding my concern. The doc currently states:
 * To cite a journal article with no credited author
 * and I am proposing to change it to:
 * which solves the credit issue and explains how to link to the citation when there is no author= . I intend to edit Template:SfnRef to explain why SfnRef is needed, and what anchorname is.
 * Yiba (talk | contribs) 05:46, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Bold editing is a thing, but honestly, given the number of misunderstandings or simple disagreement or pushback you've gotten so far, I'm not sure that bold editing of the SfnRef/doc page is likely to have the outcome you desire, as any change is still subject to consensus. For example, I don't see a reason to make the change you just proposed now, and it looks familiar to me; didn't you already propose that, or something very like it, at the Module talk:Footnotes discussion? It might make sense to try and achieve consensus first. Mathglot (talk) 06:36, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, I am surprised how difficult it is to get my points across on this issue. Let me try a different approach:
 * Template:Cite journal/doc and other info pages for these templates 1. Recommends use of |author= when there is no credited author, 2. Recommends use of staff writer names in author= in such case, 3. Do not clearly explain |ref= is needed to link if |author=, |last= , etc. is omitted.
 * The above mentioned proposal of mine solves all these problems.
 * I hope this is understandable.   Yiba  (talk | contribs) 00:14, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstand. the documentation doesn't suggest this, it suggests adding a note that there is no author credited author. For the purposes of the mediwiki software the author parameter is still blank.
 * If you don't understand how hidden text work Manual of Style/Hidden text explains it in detail.
 * As explained many times the ref field is not just for sfnref, it is also not part of the general template use (as it's only needed for certain situations).
 * The author shouldn't duplicate the publisher or journal name, as this is just misuse of the field. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 12:28, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstand. the documentation doesn't suggest this, it suggests adding a note that there is no author credited author. For the purposes of the mediwiki software the author parameter is still blank.
 * If you don't understand how hidden text work Manual of Style/Hidden text explains it in detail.
 * As explained many times the ref field is not just for sfnref, it is also not part of the general template use (as it's only needed for certain situations).
 * The author shouldn't duplicate the publisher or journal name, as this is just misuse of the field. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 12:28, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. But |author= is listed in the "Most commonly used parameters" for "To cite a journal article with no credited author". It's clear to me I am failing miserably in building a consensus. Here is my last approach for your enjoyment:

Suppose I am relatively new to Wikipedia, and find my areas of experience and knowledge can contribute to improve Wikipedia articles, so I decide to edit one of the poorly written articles called ABC Memory. I knew there was a good sidebar article about ABC Memory on BCD Journal, where I used to work, and use some info from the column on the Wikipedia page. The article was not signed, but I know such short pieces are normally written by a staff writer John Jones. As a Wiki editor, I don't even know what CS1 stands for, but decide to use a commonly used citation format: I omitted |author= entry because I know (book) 'authors' are credited, paid, and responsible for what he/she writes, and Jones is not yet a Senior Editor who gets to sign (and paid/responsible for) what he/she writes and publishes. I'm not sure if he actually wrote the piece, but I know for a fact he is a staff writer there. The pair doesn't work. Then I find the info "To cite a journal article with no credited author" and try: but the pair fails to link. doesn't work. doesn't work. (@ActivelyDisinterested Blank pair does not link.) doesn't work. I kept trying because I really don't want to name Jones an author. I'm cornered to give in, but: doesn't work. (! This pair does not link. A bug in CITEREF anchor automatic generation handling |author= . One of the reasons why I think |author= should not be there.) This pair finally works (mind you, without |ref= and the editor being fully aware Jones is a staff writer without any copyright responsibility), and I publish it thinking "Well, this is what Wikipedia documentation instructed me to do." John gets sued later because I named him as the source despite my strong preference not to name him the author, and the sidebar column was found to have been written by an outside contributor Mrs.X who obtained the sensitive inside info illegally. Mrs.X has long fled abroad, and BCD Journal ends up paying for the damages and sues me for 90% of it because pageview spiked after my edit and the page attracted 9 times more number of pageviews than their subscription base. You could imagine how 'I' feel about Wikipedia documentation.

To all of you, I'm sorry to have wasted your time. @Mathglot please don't worry, I will refrain from editing these documentation. Yiba (talk | contribs) 14:32, 2 April 2024 (UTC)


 * is the same as . You are still not understanding the nature of hidden comments. For all effects they don't exist. If you add a hidden comment to author it's the same as the field being blank. Also author is a substitute for last and first, so:   would need sfn to be setup as  to work. I fear any changes you make to the documentation are not going to add much value until you get a better understanding of how things work. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 16:05, 2 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Responding only to this comment:
 * That is not a bug, but an error in the use of sfn parameters. While last is recommended in short citations and not author, it will still work if you use it properly. For example, this generates #CITEREFJohn_Jones2020 if you place the full author in the Sfn param (not recommended!) and links properly:
 * That is not a bug, but an error in the use of sfn parameters. While last is recommended in short citations and not author, it will still work if you use it properly. For example, this generates #CITEREFJohn_Jones2020 if you place the full author in the Sfn param (not recommended!) and links properly:

{{Markup |1= Some fact.{{Sfn|John Jones|2020|page=4}}

Add tracking categories for additional foreign language sources?
Apologies if I'm mistaken about something, but should there be Category:CS1 Yue Chinese-language sources (yue) and Category:CS1 Min Nan Chinese-language sources (nan) to match Category:CS1 Chinese-language sources (zh)? See also Category:Articles containing Yue Chinese-language text et al. Remsense  诉  18:33, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * cs1|2 categorizes the two-character language tags into individual categories because those are the most commonly used languages. All of languages that have three-character language tags (there are some 8000+) are categorized into  sorted by tag.  Articles using nan are categorized at  and articles using yue are categorized at.
 * Alternately there are (imperfect) search results:
 * for
 * for
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:28, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah, my bad! That's a fine enough solution, thank you. Remsense  诉  20:32, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah, my bad! That's a fine enough solution, thank you. Remsense  诉  20:32, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Template:Cs1 config and Cite templates compatibility
and cite with non-Latin author generates an error.

Example (added vanc to cite to generate error):

I know translating the author would avoid the error. (There are other work-arounds.) But I believe a specific cite should be able to override a global setting.

User-duck (talk) 15:34, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * If you want Vancouver styling you must comply with the (somewhat relaxed) Vancouver system rules. For vanc, last&lt;n> and first&lt;n> must hold names written using the Latin character set.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:16, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Can "mode=cs1/cs2" be handled like date formatting?
This question stems from a recent realization that the Visual Editor offers the Citation Style 2 citation template as the default citation method. I remember as a new editor not being clear on why cite web and citation had a different appearance. My first thought was the Visual Editor should autofill "mode=cs1" if it's trying to use citation as a quick machine-generated reference. My second thought was, why do we have to specify in each template usage? Use dmy dates gives a consistent format to every citation on the page. Can something similar be done with the punctuation format? (use cs1 & use cs2) Rjjiii  (talk) 04:35, 8 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I'll just drop my semi-annual comment that the output of CS1 and CS2 are so similar that they could be merged together and the distinction between them finally removed. My preference would be to use the comma separation and capitalization of CS2 with the terminal period of CS1, allowing the option to override that terminal period. If they were harmonized into a single style, it wouldn't matter if someone used citation and someone else used cite web on the same article.  Imzadi 1979  →   04:44, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * or
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:18, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * That's fantastic! Do you mind if I add some examples to the documentation? Or create a kind of announcement at WP:VPT? There's probably no clean answer to this question, but I wonder what it would take make CS1 style the default for citation templates currently using CS2?
 * We could open a discussion at WP:VPT, and post notices. Probably an RfC to show consensus.
 * There are a bunch of niche templates that use Citation; I could add cs2 to keep their formatting and post a please see notice on their talk pages so that it would be opt-in.
 * I'm not too familiar with bots, but if a bot would add  to every article with 3:1 ratio of CS2:CS1 templates, I think that could help to frame this as supporting WP:CITEVAR rather contesting it; a bot adding cs1 config to pages where citation is the primary style could also function as a way to announce this editors who want CS2, maybe with a link to the RfC and clear instructions on how to auto-CS2 the content they create.
 * I feel like this would be a much cleaner solution than trying to fix the auto-citation in the VisualEditor. Rjjiii  (talk) 14:23, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * If you think that the documentation can be improved, and know how to do it, please do. I fail to understand how WP:VPT is pertinent; in general issues pertaining to cs1|2 are not 'technical'.  A clean answer requires a 'clean' description that clearly states your objective.  I am not at all clear on what it is that you are asking.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:39, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think it would make the citation templates easier to use for editors and more consistent for readers if CS1 becomes the default style. I mention VPT and other areas of discussion because I also think that would be a significant change where people would want advance notice and an explanation. Rjjiii  (talk) 15:10, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The template should probably be named cs config rather than cs1 config btw. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:00, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * CS1. Is. Too ugly. And it. Would break. A lot. Of formatting. Where editors. Have not anticipated. That lots. Of useless. Periods. Would be added. If CS2 became the default style, as Imzadi suggested, I think it would be less problematic. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:12, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I prefer the periods for dividing specific groups of information, not least because I prefer semicolons for dividing author name pairs. As someone who has fixed a lot of author parameters with multiple names in them, semicolons are invaluable for denominating a specific author name pair. Commas would hence Suck to then divide authors from whatever comes after.
 * I assume this is an actual point in favor of periods rather than mere preference, as voiced above. (I make this comment in the general.) Izno (talk) 17:43, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I assume this is an actual point in favor of periods rather than mere preference, as voiced above. (I make this comment in the general.) Izno (talk) 17:43, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Cite magazine parameters
Is it possible to automatically show the volume and issue parameters when first opening it up in the visual editor? And then, perhaps, hide the PMID parameter that does automatically get added; that is more for journals. I do not know of many magazines archived by PubMed. Why? I Ask (talk) 03:04, 13 April 2024 (UTC)


 * ✅ Thanks for the feedback. It may take a bit for the changes to take effect, Rjjiii  (talk) 03:16, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Why? I Ask (talk) 03:21, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

collaboration parameter in cite journal
I'm citing this paper, which is written by 6 authors on behalf of a wider collaboration. When I cite it in Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome as, it generates an etal, per documentation of the collaboration parameter. Is there a way to stop the etal? With vauthors, I get an error if I simply put the collaboration after the author list. Anybody know a way around this?

—Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:08, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I count seven names. Doesn't WP:MED somewhere suggest that name lists should be limited to not more than six names?  The old  (now a redirect along with the since deleted Module:ParseVauthors which implemented it) automatically imposed a six name limit.  That template was written primarily for use by the WP:MED community.
 * I'm not sure that a group of authors writing on behalf of some entity means that the entity is a collaborator. Were it me, I would omit collaborator entirely.  If you must include EUROMENE, you can write the template:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:21, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I can't count.. Useful to learn of a soft recommendation for 6 authors at MOS:MED! Thanks :). As these people wrote the paper "on behalf of" EUROMENE, that does make it a collaboration, right? Or am I missing what this parameter is supposed to do? Simple solution seems to be to omit the 7th author, and simply use collaboration parameter as is. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The documentation for collaboration says (in part):
 * Name of a group of authors or collaborators
 * That, to me, says that the group actually participated in the writing. Because the group participated in the writing,   is appropriate.  When authors write on behalf of a group, the group is not a participant in the writing so should not be listed as a contributor.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:40, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * et al. is not appropriate when the entire group is listed. This has been pointed out and ignored for years now. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:28, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * That, to me, says that the group actually participated in the writing. Because the group participated in the writing,   is appropriate.  When authors write on behalf of a group, the group is not a participant in the writing so should not be listed as a contributor.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:40, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * et al. is not appropriate when the entire group is listed. This has been pointed out and ignored for years now. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:28, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Error tracking category
The documentation for Cite AV media notes gives examples that use the  parameter with the name of an artist or band without providing a value for   or. Further, the template documentation makes no mention of the requirement that  be only used with primrry editorship or authorship information. However, such usage places articles in the Category:CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) category. The documentation there says that the  can't stand alone.

Which is correct? -- Mikeblas (talk) 03:13, 9 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see. Is it that  and   used in the examples serve as an alias for the   parameter? That's not intuitive, as   and   are multiple parameters, and   is singular. And, even if so, the documentation makes no mention of the requirement. -- Mikeblas (talk) 03:20, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * As the template documentation shows, author is an alias of last; see . Even the TemplateData 'documentation' (such as it is) shows that these parameters are aliases of each other; see.
 * The template documentation it is not protected. If you believe that the template documentation can be improved, you are free to do so.  The documentation for last, author, and others is at Template:Citation Style documentation/author.  Remember that the documentation template is used by all cs1|2 templates.  If you use VE, consider improving the TemplateData.
 * Similarly, is not protected so you are free to improve the documentation there.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:17, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I know that I'm allowed to edit the documentation. I'm trying to figure out which is correct: the template documentation, or the error tracking category documentation. It seems like the error tracking category documentation is correct, but I'm not 100% positive. Does anyone know? -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:53, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I suppose that both are correct as far as they go. The maintenance categories are added whenever the cs1|2 template does not have any authors or editors but does list others names in others.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:51, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * That maintenance category is the subject of several discussions now. Probably we need to modify the documentation at this point specifically to say this maintenance category for this pair of templates is the lowest of low priorities and not to worry about it (for now). Izno (talk) 22:56, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It's strange that most of those previous discussions point out the documentation problem, but here we have the claim that the documentation is correct. I have added some notes to the doc about the interplay of the  parameter.
 * , in one of those older discussions you say that the error message produced here is not actionable. Can you explain why that is? That is, why isn't the remediation action to remove the  parameter, or place its value in  ? -- Mikeblas (talk) 18:32, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It is not obvious what the replacement is in the vast majority of uses of these two templates. People will cite any myriad of values in these parameters that do not obviously to me line up with the intent of author or other current equivalents. Take 10.000 Nights of Thunder as a prime example of the use of these templates. The band is not likely to be the author of the liner notes, or at least not all of them, if even the physical notes specify who the author of the notes are (many, maybe even most, probably don't). The current examples at Template:Cite AV media notes reflect this use of placing the artist in others and I don't think the documentation there is necessarily wrong to say so. Template:Cite AV media is better in some ways and worse in others as it suggests that we should add the role some significant person to the media played in the others, but which again does not necessarily line up with the expectations for author. Izno (talk) 20:09, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Precisely as says: . It's often extremely difficult to find out who wrote the liner notes for a given piece of media; rarely are they explicitly credited somewhere in the text. But without that information, currently the template "considers itself" incompletely filled out. IMHO that's an unreasonable expectation, making the tracking category nothing but noise. That being said, "working around it" by simply crediting the band as the authors turns the citation from incomplete to incorrect, which is not an improvement. If we want the tracking category to go away, we should make the tracking category go away, not corrupt our citations to satisfy its requirements. FeRDNYC (talk) 13:21, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation. I guess I'm seeing it as any other staff-written publication. Some specific author(s) certainly wrote an article, but since they're staff, we just credit it to the publisher ... Crediting Blondie or Reuters is just the same. The documentation already advises this usage: author: this parameter is used to hold the name of an organizational author (e.g. a committee) or the complete name (first and last) of a single person;. -- Mikeblas (talk) 13:30, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * We do do that, but only when the organizational author is given a byline, as in Reuters articles. That's a very different situation than crediting a band as the author of their album's liner notes. Cite press release, for example, explicitly documents and allows for author as a parameter, because it's exceedingly common for press releases to be published without a credited author.
 * My argument is that Cite AV media and Cite AV media notes fall more into the press release category than the Cite web / Cite news category. (And, that being said, will also trigger inclusion in Category:CS1 maint: others.) FeRDNYC (talk) 14:19, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I was thinking my Reuters example wasn't really as good a match as I had originally thought. Maybe "The Committee for Studying Something that gets Studied". Might be one, might be multiple authors, but all not specifically named in the Committee's report. Either way, in the case of liner notes or media booklets, it doesn't seem particularly important to note the author -- it's self-published by the band or producer or their publisher. That seems like what we ought to be documenting. Why would Cite AV media notes not also allow a "not stated" author? -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:16, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * We do do that, but only when the organizational author is given a byline, as in Reuters articles. That's a very different situation than crediting a band as the author of their album's liner notes. Cite press release, for example, explicitly documents and allows for author as a parameter, because it's exceedingly common for press releases to be published without a credited author.
 * My argument is that Cite AV media and Cite AV media notes fall more into the press release category than the Cite web / Cite news category. (And, that being said, will also trigger inclusion in Category:CS1 maint: others.) FeRDNYC (talk) 14:19, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I was thinking my Reuters example wasn't really as good a match as I had originally thought. Maybe "The Committee for Studying Something that gets Studied". Might be one, might be multiple authors, but all not specifically named in the Committee's report. Either way, in the case of liner notes or media booklets, it doesn't seem particularly important to note the author -- it's self-published by the band or producer or their publisher. That seems like what we ought to be documenting. Why would Cite AV media notes not also allow a "not stated" author? -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:16, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

CS1 errors: generic name
Hello, the list on the category page includes "email" but does not appear to cause an error. On Politics of Kaliningrad Oblast

Keith D (talk) 20:57, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Fixed in the sandbox.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 21:54, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 21:54, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 21:54, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

How to indicate an issue is a supplement?
What is the proper way to indicate that an issue is a supplement? GobsPint (talk) 19:13, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

If unnumbered, Suppl. If numbered, Suppl. 3. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:33, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * COinS has  for use with journal objects so we could (should?) add an appropriate parameter: supplement that would cause the template to render the 'Suppl.' (cs1) or 'suppl.' (cs2) static text as part of the issue rendering.  I suppose that the parameter rendering might look like this:
 * → V (4 Suppl. 3)
 * → V (4 Suppl. &lt;title>)
 * → V (Suppl) – where  is a special keyword; more-or-less equivalent to Suppl
 * Other renderings?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:32, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Mysterious Harv and Sfn no-target error
In Minkowski inequality, the sfn footnote to Bahouri, Chemin & Danchin 2011 and the reference generated by the template Bahouri Chemin Danchin Fourier Analysis and Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations 2011 are together somehow generating a "Harv and Sfn no-target error" categorization (look at the text of the footnote id="cite_note-FOOTNOTEBahouriCheminDanchin20114-3" in the source of the generated article) but without generating a script-highlighted error nor any actual problem in harv/sfn link targeting. Does anyone know why this error occurs and whether there is something to do (hopefully without having to subst the citation template) to make it go away? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:45, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This behaviour is explained at Category:Harv and Sfn template errors, and the following section, "Current limitations and false-positive errors". It can be resolved by adding the template Sfn whitelist, or just be ignored. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:38, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This is a limitation of the mediawiki software, the check happens before the templates are expanded. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 11:43, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Where do you get that idea? MediaWiki software has nothing to do with this error message.  The error message is emitted by Module:Footnotes because the module can only see the wrapper template call in the wikitext.  The Module cannot look into the wrapper template to fetch names and date from the wrapped  template.  The check occurs during the expansion of each  /  template.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:56, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Sorry I thought the check could only occur at that point due to a limitation of mediawiki, if not could the check not happen later (or the false positive be quashed after the expansion bof the templates)? -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 16:43, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks all. sfn whitelist did the trick. Resolving this would have been easier if the error were visible rather than having to grovel through the rendered html source to find the offending citeref. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:10, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * When the error messages were first introduced we didn't yet have or Module:Footnotes/whitelist so editors complained.  You can show these error messages with the css described at Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors method 3.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 01:16, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

removed support for |authors=; what about |people= and |credits=?
I have removed support for the deprecated authors parameter from the sandbox:

This leaves us with people and credits as the only 'free-form' name-list parameters.

Support for people is documented in, , ,. Search results:
 * Using people:
 * ~7900
 * none
 * none
 * ~30
 * Using undocumented credits:
 * none
 * none
 * none
 * none

Support for credits is documented in and. Search results:
 * Using credits:
 * ~3300
 * ~30
 * Using undocumented people:
 * ~90
 * ~5

It seems to me that, , and should not be using people and credits. No doubt there are templates that use people and credits aside from those mentioned here but similar searches to those above show relatively low usage counts; fewer than 100 articles for, , , and combined. It seems to me that use of these two parameters should be limited to, , and.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:43, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There having been no comment, I have restricted people to, , and in the sandbox.   credits in the live module is already restricted to  and.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:04, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The typical freeform list on web, news, etc is others which flags CS1 maintenance if author or editor is not also listed.
 * This seems fine normally, but may not make sense if authorship is deliberately omitted, such as on many websites, or perhaps on 'zines without bylines (and without a named section editor, I suppose). So this parameter use would make sense in e.g., however, if a web page is cited in its entirety, and photographs are separately credited in a heavily-illustrated essay while the editorship is omitted.
 * CS1 has no documented explicit parameter value for an unlisted author+editor. I've seen it requested and suggested here to use "n.a." similar to "n.d.", but this is not consistent with major citation styles (and per link, only Chicago ever sanctions "Anon." and dashed-out author entries). SamuelRiv (talk) 12:07, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
 * CS1 has no documented explicit parameter value for an unlisted author+editor. I've seen it requested and suggested here to use "n.a." similar to "n.d.", but this is not consistent with major citation styles (and per link, only Chicago ever sanctions "Anon." and dashed-out author entries). SamuelRiv (talk) 12:07, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

cite report: number, id, docket
Testing cite report, cite tech report, and cite thesis I find that number, docket, and id are used inconsistently in an undocumented manner. (See also previous related discussion: Cite report issue parameter not displaying (May 2023).)

In report and thesis, number appears to not be used at all, while docket and id are aliases for an ending bare text in report, and separable parameters in thesis (with the word "Docket" prepended, unlike in report). Meanwhile, number and id are aliases in tech report, also mutually incompatible. Particularly problematic is that id is specified as A unique identifier, used where none of the specialized identifiers are applicable -- this is semantically distinct from all uses of number in CS1, and from what appears to be their documented metadata.

Also, I suggest considering again the suggestion of from the linked previous discussion, that instead of outputting report number/docket at the end of the citation, it should follow the title and document type. Currently it outputs after page number, which only makes sense if it's an external catalogue identifier (like id is usually used for) and not, as is often the case with technical reports, splashed across the front page as part of the title. SamuelRiv (talk) 22:16, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * You should not be surprised that, , and are 'inconsistent'.  Each of those templates was created at different dates by different editors:
 * created 16 June 2008 by Editor‎ Cg-realms
 * created 7 February 2006 by Editor‎ Tizio
 * created 6 November 2009‎ by Editor Fifelfoo
 * Each of those templates then developed along their own paths until they were each reimplemented using the meta-template ; again at different dates and different editors:
 * 30 November 2011‎ by Editor Fifelfoo
 * 14 September 2011‎ by Editor Gadget850
 * 25 March 2011‎ by Editor Headbomb
 * Development continued along their own paths until migrated to Module:Citation/CS1; also at different times by me:
 * 15 February 2015‎
 * 9 November 2013
 * 9 November 2013‎
 * I can't speak to the migration to but when I migrated these templates to Module:Citation/CS1, the goal was to make the migration more-or-less transparent so differences among them inherited from their individual developmental paths were retained in the module version.  No doubt, since those migrations, the individual templates have continued to differ and likely continued to diverge.
 * Were these templates developed simultaneously by a single author, they would probably have been much more consistent but that is not the way of a wiki.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:38, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand. Is this acknowledging that this is a bug? If so, is this to imply that current maintainers will address this in a future version, or else give permission for me to fix it now? SamuelRiv (talk) 22:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
 * All that I provided was a history to explain why those templates are the way they are. Do you need permission to propose a change to these templates?  Each module in the suite has a sandbox that anyone can edit so long as they don't break anything.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:05, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:05, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Is JSTOR really free access?
I tried to describe  as , because the article in question could only be read if you signed up for a JSTOR account. But I got an error, and the template doc for  says that JSTOR can only be marked as free. While it's true that once you sign up for the site you can read 100 articles without paying, I think it's misleading to mark it as free access, when it isn't actually public. Is there logic behind this that I'm missing? Pingnova (talk) 17:51, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
 * We do not highlight the norm. Sources linked from named identifiers (jstor, doi, etc) are normally hidden behind some sort of paywall or registration barrier.  Because that is the normal case, flagging those sources with registration, limited, or subscription is redundant and would add unnecessary clutter to the wikitext and to the rendered reference.  When an occasional source at JSTOR is free-to-read, it is appropriate to mark that source with free.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:15, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Period following ellipsis and title punctuation
In CS1 style it appears a terminal period is included following exclamation and question marks, but is omitted following ellipses (3 dots) (for fields unenclosed in "quotation marks"):


 * [2 dots]
 * [3 dots]
 * [4 dots]
 * [3 dots, mode=cs2]
 * [4 dots]
 * [3 dots, mode=cs2]

I only found one previous post from 2023-11-22 on this. At issue is that no style guide that I know of, that uses terminal punctuation in citations, omits the punctuation following an ellipsis. MLA citation has the ellipsis follow the stop] while APA and Chicago precede a stop (but the latter two refs do not discuss citations). APA has a citation guideline using an ellipsis for 7+ authors without punctuation, but the ellipsis is within the author list and not terminal: "a_1, a_2, ... a_N.". The only style guide saying that an ellipsis should not add adjacent punctuation is Chicago's FAQ response on fiction style.

Regarding question or exclamation points and the citation style punctuation, they style guides get a bit more subtle. Generally (APA MLA and Chicago) citations usually have periods or commas be superseded by "stronger marks", but when the reading is more prose-like as in a bibliography entry, the comma is retained.

Given all this, I suggest removing the code that omits citation-style punctuation following 3-dot ellipses. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:17, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Twin ISSN in cite journal
Many magazines now have two ISSNs, one for print and one for Internet. In typical printed cites they are published with a comma in between. It would be great if the issn= parameter in Cite journal would allow that, too. Викидим (talk) 18:47, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Are you looking for eissn which already exists and can be used with issn? And, really, do you  either issn?  There are those who believe that issn is mere pointless clutter.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:55, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Got it, thank you. Will re-address my request to Citer tool creators. To me, ISSN is like ISBN - not necessary, but a useful tool when the cite is unclear / mistyped. Викидим (talk) 19:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Access-date < Date
Edit preview doesn't show an error if  is earlier than   parameter. — hako9 (talk) 01:02, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily an error. The "February 2025" issue of a print magazine may be mailed to subscribers in January 2025 or even earlier, and made available on the web as soon as it is mailed. When reporting a problem, always provide a link to a real example. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:58, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I did not consider that. — hako9 (talk) 10:01, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

SSRN over 4700000
from is correct. The limit needs to be increased. Auric  talk  13:49, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

A CSS bit
It would be nice if the  output around work titles, generated by work and all its many aliases like journal, newspaper, etc., or generated by title in, and probably a few other variations, had a specific CSS class, e.g. , so that it can be targeted and re-styled. If those who personally cannot stand seeing website names and other non-dead-trees publications in italics had a simple one-line means of suppressing that effect, and could be pointed to CSS code they can just copy-paste into their global.css, then this would probably go a long way toward ending their defiance, their mis-placing of non-paper works' titles in publisher or sometimes other parameters in an attempt to suppress italics. This is behavior that results in incorrect citations with the wrong info showing up in metadata parameters as well as inconsistent title display for the readers. Maybe even do  so that the output of   can be more narrowly targeted. (In theory, it could be made extra-clever and auto-detect domain names, in case one is used in some other template, like .) It's annoying that this matter has been debated repeated, and resolved again and again in favor of using consistent italics for titles of major works per MOS:TITLES, for over a decade now, yet various individual just do not abide by it. The community has no patience for a bunch more "style drama", so it seems the thing to do is simply to provide a technical "out". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:53, 30 April 2024 (UTC)


 * A selector like  would already do this (modulo attempting to catch misuses of the system), since there are no other elements that are placed by the citation system in italic. I think though by your recent comment this would not have helped anyway since it appears that the user was doing so inadvertently and not because they're in the group of people who don't particularly like italic website names. Izno (talk) 21:01, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Citing an entire conference
What do I do if I want to cite the booklet of an entire conference, rather than a specific paper in it? The only way no error is thrown is if I put the conference title in |title, don't use the |conference tag, and put the conference booklet URL in |url rather than |conference-url - but is then the formatting okay? Rontombontom (talk) 10:43, 1 May 2024 (UTC)


 * You need to have a page number to go with it, which implies you can cite specific sections...?
 * Ignoring that, if you really need to, just use cite book instead. Izno (talk) 22:11, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Unflagged generic title: "Data"
I found a reference with Data today. It turned out to be a generic title (not the real title of the link) and probably should have been flagged as a generic title (it wasn't). —David Eppstein (talk) 01:29, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

The url-access lock icon becomes huge if the linked source is a PDF file
Like this cite magazine from Maidenhead Locator System:

Removing ".pdf" from the link makes the lock small again.  AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 02:17, 16 April 2024 (UTC)


 * On the mobile theme it looks fine. The template's CSS includes "background-size: contain;" for the Vector themes but not Minerva or Timeless. Toggling that off seems to make it the correct size. Rjjiii  (talk) 03:13, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm using the Vector 2010 skin on mobile (using the desktop site), and the icon also looks huge. -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 09:58, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Toggling  made no difference for me, but disabling   set the smaller size. (using monobook skin) —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 14:40, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Where did you do that?  does not exist in Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:47, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It's from MediaWiki:Common.css, found it while searching if this bug was reported previously.  AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 14:49, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * You have to toggle the bg-contain rule twice because :not(.skin-minerva):not(.skin-timeless) triggers once for each skin. Removing either this or the padding works. Izno (talk) 16:15, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Pinging @Izno who has much more experience with css than I.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:16, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I've overridden the padding from Common.css in the sandbox, the effects of which can be seen already on this page (since the sandbox styles are presently on the page after the non-sandbox styles). Izno (talk) 16:47, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm still seeing the over large padlock, should it have changed? -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 18:22, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Probably just caching or something. User:Izno/Sandbox is fine for me. Izno (talk) 20:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks! That fixed it, Rjjiii  (talk) 00:25, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

This larger padlock appears to have gone live in more skins as of today. I couldn't see it on Desktop in Vector 2022 until today. There is a [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)&oldid=1223060164#Why_is_this_padlock_icon_so_big? new VPT thread] about it. We may want to deploy this change to the live module ASAP. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:08, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Please document |article-number= better
Many electronic journals have switched from page numbers to article numbers, so for example I can cite to the last page of a 5-page article as:

So the hierarchy is work/journal, (series), volume, issue, article-number, page(s). (Usually issue is redundant, as article numbers are unique at least within volumes, just as many academic journals used to only restart page numbering per volume.) Many, many references in Wikipedia abuse the page parameter to hold the article-number instead, because the editors didn't know about this parameter. This comes out looking okay in the formatting, but produces mangled metadata, and prevents citing to a specific page. (Usually, when editors need to cite to a specific page, they place the article-number in the issue parameter instead.)

It would be easier for readers of the documentation (and less reference-correcting work for me) if volume, issue, article number, and page number were listed in that order, and as close together as possible, so that they appear together in the documentation as they appear together in the rendered output.

Specifically:
 * In the "full parameter set" list, place article-number between issue and page.
 * Add article-number to the "most commonly used parameters" lists in the same position.
 * If you're feeling ambitious, add an example.
 * Within the "Description" section:
 * In the "Periodical" subsection, move the description of article-number to just after issue (currently just before)
 * Also change the current subsection order
 * Periodical (describing work, issue, and article-number)
 * Publisher
 * Edition, series, volume
 * In-source locations (describing page)
 * to
 * Edition, series, volume
 * Periodical
 * In-source locations
 * Publisher
 * Although I can't get my preferred global order without splitting the Periodical subsection to insert volume between work and issue, this comes as close as practicable.

Thank you! 97.102.205.224 (talk) 18:00, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I've done item 1. I have not done item 2: I think this is based on a claim that doesn't have an obvious basis in reality (and from extensive wikignoming I haven't seen it). I am not ambitious enough for 3. I've done 4.1. Regarding 4.2, I think the point is to emulate the order of the parameters as eventually displayed, and the work is in periodical, so it goes first. However, publisher appears before in-source locations (even if it is rare to have a publisher listed in a citation for a few reasons, not all of which are external). In this regard, I've moved publisher after ESV but kept it before in-source location. Izno (talk) 17:40, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Current format for issues is odd, proposal for additional parameters
Some magazines don't advertise the issue number as clearly on the front magazine, and it can take a lot of extra effort to find the correct issue if they are cited but missing important information. We may have to buy the magazine itself just to confirm the issue number and sometimes there is no issue number at all and they label the issue by month/date, or they will have it by Holiday. It would be easier to add an additional parameter specifically for the name of the issue.


 * Current version:

"パタポン3". Famitsu (in Japanese). No. May 5, 2011. April 21, 2011.

Looks awkward with the No. in front of it.


 * Proposed change:

"パタポン3". Famitsu (in Japanese). May 5, 2011 issue. April 21, 2011.

^^A proper issue name.

"パタポン3". Famitsu (in Japanese). May 5, 2011 issue (No.999). April 21, 2011.

^^For both.

This will simplify things and make the citation easier to read.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 17:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Anyone?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 12:35, 25 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I think publication-date would probably cover this use case without needing a new parameter:


 * &#12296; Forbes72 &#124; Talk &#12297; 01:13, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * &#12296; Forbes72 &#124; Talk &#12297; 01:13, 28 April 2024 (UTC)


 * That solves the last example, but that was merely hypothetical. There is no issue #999 for that magazine. There is no issue numbering that is immediately known to the direct public unless you purchase it and search for the issue number in the magazine, which can make things harder to reference
 * Another problem is the example of having an issue name instead of putting an issue number. For example, "Christmas issue" or "Halloween issue". if we put "Issue=Christmas", it will instead say "No.Christmas" or "No.Halloween".
 * the proposed change will allow us to say "issue" at the end.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 17:33, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
 * If the issue number is unknown/does not exist, just leave the issue blank. You can provide equivalent information by filling out publication-date and converting the holiday into a date if necessary: "Christmas 2011" becomes "Dec 25, 2011", "Halloween 2011" becomes "Oct 31, 2011", etc. From what I can tell, Famitsu has the publication dates listed pretty prominently on all their magazine covers, so I think it should be clear at a glance which issue is being referenced. &#12296; Forbes72 &#124; Talk &#12297; 01:16, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Famitsu was just a hypothetical. Don't you consider it original research to assume the publication date based on the name of the issue? Magazines are released monthly/weekly/bi-weekly/bi-monthly. So the publication date can be days, weeks, or even a month apart if we just assume it lands on the holiday. Either way, it's still misinterpreting the name of the issue and going out of our way just to avoid something as simple as citing the name of the issue. Wouldn't it simplify everything by just allowing a "Issue-name" parameter?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 12:28, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The templates already work for certain holidays e.g.
 * I otherwise agree, we have sufficient parameters to make this work fine today. Izno (talk) 16:48, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I think your concerns would be clearer if you could point out a few specific (non-hypothetical) citations used on Wikipedia that would benefit from the parameter you are proposing. Have you actually run into this problem while editing?&#12296; Forbes72 &#124; Talk &#12297; 02:01, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I had the perfect example a while back but I apologize I can't remember the issue that was giving me a hard time. all I knew was that for research purposes, I had the issue name but nearly impossible to find the issue number. However, I was able to find a similar example. EGM's magazine "Special Holiday issue" of 2007 doesn't provide the issue # immediately on the cover, and I don't own the magazine. Luckily I was able to find the issue number through different means but I had a couple of situations where I wont know the issue number unless I purchase the magazine and look within he first couple of pages. and sometimes its not there at allBlue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 13:39, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Cool. EGM looks like a fairly popular citation target, 6609 citations across Wikipedia. Searching around for a specific citation, the Holiday 2007 issue was cited in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings:


 * This citation does not currently use a citation template. A scanned copy of the issue is available on Archive.org. Building out the full citation template:
 * This throws up an error. However, as Izno mentions above, some named dates already work: "Christmas 2007" does not cause any issues:
 * I wonder if the simplest solution is just to add "Holiday" to the named date whitelist so the template doesn't show a CS1 error. Do you think that would be enough? &#12296; Forbes72 &#124; Talk &#12297; 00:06, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * This throws up an error. However, as Izno mentions above, some named dates already work: "Christmas 2007" does not cause any issues:
 * I wonder if the simplest solution is just to add "Holiday" to the named date whitelist so the template doesn't show a CS1 error. Do you think that would be enough? &#12296; Forbes72 &#124; Talk &#12297; 00:06, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I wonder if the simplest solution is just to add "Holiday" to the named date whitelist so the template doesn't show a CS1 error. Do you think that would be enough? &#12296; Forbes72 &#124; Talk &#12297; 00:06, 11 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Another problem is when the publisher prints a range of issue numbers or dates. Sometimes that is a regular occurence, and sometimes only when an issue is delayed. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:08, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

ISSN link results in error; WorldCat URL changed?
This is from our testcases page, a bit simplified:.

The resulting URL from the ISSN link is https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=n2:0020-7071. I get an error message that says "Oops, something went wrong". When I use the advanced search to search for that ISSN, the URL I get is https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=n2%3A0020-7071. Strangely, when I click on that link from here, I get the "Oops" message. I am puzzled. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:13, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Also reported at Template talk:ISSN, without response. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:18, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * It's also probably a good opportunity to make ISSN point to the ISSN website, rather than OCLC per POLA. If you want to link to OCLC, use oclc. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:23, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that readers will benefit much if we switch to use the issn.org site because OCLC can supply a list of libraries that may hold a copy of the referenced source.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:19, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * All of your ISSN links work for me.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:19, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I am still getting "Oops, something went wrong" for every ISSN link above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:52, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Cache issue?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I also still get their error message with my regular Firefox browser. However, it works with Chrome and Firefox in "Private Browsing" mode. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:36, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Unrecognized languages
Is there any way to suppress the warning  (without disabling them) in Philippines citation [21] (Cobo, Juan; which uses  ). Another editor added the source so I am not sure if I change Early Modern Spanish to simply  might make the citation less accurate. For Philippine Hokkien, I do not know what to use instead. Sanglahi86 (talk) 19:26, 10 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Either way they should not be linked. Early Manila Hokkien & Early Modern Spanish for convenience. The former says the correct code is  and the template treats that as expected:
 * Early Modern Spanish looks to be more difficult to deal with. Neither it nor its lingual parents in the infobox appear to have a language assigned. Today, there is no way to work around that particularly gracefully. For our purposes though, it would probably be reasonable to mark it as  which the template deals with by trimming to the es:
 * Clearing out this category would be aided by some improvement that allows us to add codes with an English name displayed e.g. a similar input to the one just above which would display as the desired language. Izno (talk) 03:45, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Clearing out this category would be aided by some improvement that allows us to add codes with an English name displayed e.g. a similar input to the one just above which would display as the desired language. Izno (talk) 03:45, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Clearing out this category would be aided by some improvement that allows us to add codes with an English name displayed e.g. a similar input to the one just above which would display as the desired language. Izno (talk) 03:45, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Why is access-date not required for "links to published research papers or published books" ?
The template documentation explicitly says that an access-date is not required for "links to published research papers or published books." That seems to be based on an assumption that "published research papers or published books" do not change after being published, at least not without an explicit identifier such as a new edition. That seems to be problematic because that assumption is not true. In particular, it seems to especially problematic with respect to articles that are changed or withdrawn after publication where the URL and title may not change but the contents do change, sometimes in very important ways. ElKevbo (talk) 04:13, 12 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Because the only reason for an accessdate is to determine which of multiple versions of a web link one accessed. Otherwise who cares when you looked at a web page. The date range might be useful for finding an archived copy, if you need one and have to choose among multiple versions, and it might be useful to readers for determining what date some dynamic information was updated. But published journal papers and books do not vary in the same way. A journal paper might be retracted or have an errata and a book might have multiple editions, but those are indicated in different ways. So the access-date is totally useless and best omitted as a useless distraction. As for your "the contents do change, sometimes in very important ways": [citation needed]. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:37, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The statements "Because the only reason for an accessdate is to determine which of multiple versions of a web link one accessed" and "A journal paper might be retracted or have an errata..." seem to contradict one another. ElKevbo (talk) 05:01, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you did not read the rest of the sentence, "but those are indicated in different ways". We cite the edition of the book we are citing, or we cite a separate erratum for a journal article. The access date is a much more imprecise way of specifying this information. If the other information is provided, the access date doesn't help. If the other information is not provided, an access date likely won't help disambiguate. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:25, 12 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Anything published online can have a problem with revision control. Even a journal article published in print, the online copy can change. This is not a bad thing, it's the promise of the web. Maybe a rule would be if you reasonably believe the content is open to change, use cite web instead, with "web" defined as content that is liable to change and thus requiring an access-date. --  Green  C  04:56, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I should have specified that I was thinking specifically of the "cite web" context. ElKevbo (talk) 05:01, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh. Well, the documentation is by design kind of brief. This is an exception to an exception. Does it make sense to make the documentation longer for this? It's a tradeoff. --  Green  C  05:14, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Contributors in books that have only a primary editor
I recently encountered an error when trying to add this citation:. It produces this:

I am citing a portion of a chapter in a book that has only a primary editor, not a primary author (each chapter is authored by someone different), but using contributor with editor and no author leads to an error message and the contributor not being displayed. What is the proper way to resolve this? Should I be using the parameters differently, or does the template/error detection need adjustment?  Sdkb  talk 16:49, 14 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Aren't they the author of the chapter, if you just use last/first you get: -- LCU A ctively D isinterested  «@» °∆t° 17:09, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The contributor / contribution pair in is used when citing a contribution to a primary author's work: Anna Quindlen's introduction to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (permalink).  Because your example does not have a primary author but does have content authored by one-or-more contributors, I think you should treat the contributors as you would treat authors of an edited collection of independent chapters.  Perhaps you can rewrite like this:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Author has two first names
Or perhaps she considers her middle name to be a last name but she's not hyphenated.

But look what happens.

Okay, it didn't happen. Let me go check.

Variants of SARS-CoV-2 As of right now, ref 116.

— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  19:16, 14 May 2024 (UTC)


 * That article appears to use a mix of Vancouver style and spelled-out first names. You see at the top of the source where it says "cs1 config |name-list-style=vanc |display-authors=6"? That's why it abbreviates her first names to AL rather than spelling them out. However not all citations have first and last split in a way that allows the template to do that. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:33, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * If the person's first name, or first and middle name combined, is "Angie Leventis", then "Lourgos AL" is correct. If the person's last name is "Leventis Lourgos" and first name is "Angie", then put "Leventis Lougors" in last to get "Leventis Lourgos A" in the citation, like this: This page uses "Leventis Lourgos" as her last name, as does this page and WorldCat (though WC's site is mostly broken for me, so that link may be a 404 for you too). – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I went to fix it, but I see it's done. Thanks.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  21:33, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

agency for cite magazine?
On Special Force (2003 video game), I have a citation for a Reuters wire story reprinted in Wired. It used to be a cite web and, as with newspaper articles in cite news, I used agency to denote Reuters as the corporate author that is not the work's publisher. However, Citation bot converts Wired citations to cite magazine, which does not support agency. While I disagree with the automated conversion, using here generally appears reasonable. Given the situation I outlined above, I think it would be valid for to also support the parameter. The affected line in the Module is 3751. Kind regards, IceWelder  &#91; &#9993; &#93; 19:47, 16 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I support the proposal. This would fix for an issue that I have also stumbled across from time to time. Daask (talk) 14:55, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * support addition of agency to . Certainly this happens, and it's useful to know about in case someone doesn't have the magazine and wants to search for the story in another outlet. -- Green  C  15:03, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Users may edit the relevant sandboxes if they wish for inclusion in the module. Izno (talk) 16:08, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Sandbox here, testcase here. IceWelder  &#91; &#9993; &#93; 16:25, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Please do not reactivate the edit request again. These modules sync from their sandboxes anywhere from once every 3-6 months. Izno (talk) 16:26, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I wasn't aware of this, and I cannot find such instructions on this page at the moment. Perhaps it should be documented? IceWelder  &#91; &#9993; &#93; 16:29, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Could probably use an FAQ, sure. It wouldn't be the only thing on it. Izno (talk) 16:31, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

New limit for OCLC.
I have encountered to use of 10208486403 as an OCLC identifier. Help:CS1 errors says to report this situation here. Why is there a limit on the OCLC number? Seems like superfluous maintenance to me. User-duck (talk) 22:34, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Request url-status 'regional' for geographic IP restrictions
Some government websites have IP range restrictions to prevent international (intergovernmental in particular) spamming. I just came across the official law site for Georgia, which despite being linked on the main government site and having extensive English translations, appears to be at least intermittently down for US IPs and several other countries I tried via VPN. Though that proves nothing itself about this site in particular, I've seen similar behavior in websites of many countries seeking to prevent outside spam, including those of US states. Additionally, for legal reasons, a smaller news outlet might block access outside its key local market (such as happened with with several local US newspapers and GDPR).

For these reasons, a site may be seen as dead when it is just inaccessible for some region. If this region is a significant en.wp market, then it is appropriate to have an archive-url be the main title link. However, it would be inappropriate for a bot or other editor to interpret the original url as dead or otherwise problematic -- the original editor should instead be able to set an explicit parameter that the url has restricted access by IP. (Currently I just use an html comment). Since the main purpose is to prevent a bot from incorrectly flagging a dead link, it should go in url-status, and I suggest the term  (or something similar but not identical to   so as to not cause confusion with the url-access parameter). SamuelRiv (talk) 16:55, 26 May 2024 (UTC)


 * These kinds of policy-based outages are beyond the ability and control of Wikipedia to maintain. They can change on a whim. As soon we we set the url-status to one thing it will need to be updated to something else. Given the scale of 10s of millions of links and growing, it's not practical and will end up being a perpetually inaccurate mess. Often times these policies are domain-specific eg. Amazon.com works on country X by not country Y. For 3 years, then it works again. Then 2 years later Amazon.com blocks another country. None of this is advertised anywhere. Users report outages and believe it's due to a blockage, but really it's due to their upstream ISP blocking for one reason or another. It goes on like this. Ultimately, all we can do is provide archive URLs, and if users want to use them, if the primary link is not working relative to their location, they have the option to try the archive URL. -- Green  C  17:55, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * This is a routine request and as unworkable as prior requests. Izno (talk) 16:10, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * There is one solution, but it would require completely changing how we do archives. It's the way they do it on French Wikipedia. Every new link added is "born dead" so to speak, automatically a "[archive]" link appears next to the URL (Example in "Notes" section). Every link has one, regardless if it's dead or alive. No bots, it's built into the MediaWiki software as a module or something (not sure exactly how they do it). This method solves a lot of problems, is clean, simple, comprehensive and efficient. The politics of doing it are daunting to say the least, there are many stake holders. --  Green  C  15:36, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

DOI number
Hello,

The hyperlink behind the DOI number is DOI (identifier) which should be changed to Digital object identifier since this is the current title of the article. I can't find the source code responsible for the link, would be helpful if someone could change that who knows those templates better. –Tobias (talk) 10:49, 28 May 2024 (UTC)


 * , the CS1/2 templates deliberately use non-standard internal links for identifiers like DOI and ISBN so Special:WhatLinksHere will still return meaningful results for those articles instead of being flooded with hundreds of thousands of links from template transclusions. Folly Mox (talk) 11:28, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I mean the replacement of DOI with DOI, that's no flooding in any way. –Tobias (talk) 13:18, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Folly Mox lays out that this was deliberate. DOI is a disambiguation page so that is no good either. In other words, please establish a consensus for the change you're requesting, and consider that it applies not just to DOIs. Izno (talk) 20:29, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Did you even read my message? I never mentioned the disambiguation page. –Tobias (talk) 04:48, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Please see the explanation at R from citation identifier, and maybe also have a look at Category:Redirects from identifiers. Folly Mox (talk) 10:13, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

text collection of one author in a book
I had this problem several times before, the actual is the following in Style and Medium in the Motion Pictures: The link is on the whole collection instead of the chapter, although the link goes to the specific page. It is also confusing for the reader, he does not realize, that the link actually goes to the specific excerpt of the text. With {{cite encyclopedia I could probably solve the link issue. But "encyclopedia" is obviously the false term for this sort of text compilation. "Compilation" would be a good term for it (like in music, or short stories in literature, I suppose), with "title" for the particular text, and "compilation-title" for the book itself. MenkinAlRire 17:12, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * A couple options with some best practices:
 * {{Cite book |last=Panofsky |first=Erwin |author-link=Erwin Panofsky |editor-last=Lavin |editor-first=Irving |editor-link=Irving Lavin |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/threeessaysonsty0000pano/page/92/mode/2up?q=Endemic |title=Three Essays on Style |chapter=Style and Medium in the Motion Pictures |date=1995 |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge (Mass.) and London |isbn=0-262-16151-6 |page=93}}
 * {{Cite book |last=Panofsky |first=Erwin |author-link=Erwin Panofsky |editor-last=Lavin |editor-first=Irving |editor-link=Irving Lavin |title=Three Essays on Style |chapter=Style and Medium in the Motion Pictures |date=1995 |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge (Mass.) and London |isbn=0-262-16151-6 |page=93}}
 * Note the placement of {{para|last}} as the first argument, which makes it easier to find when citations are in a list. The use of {{para|author-link}} and {{para|editor-link}}. The use of {{para|chapter-url}} in #1 and {{para|page}} for #2 depending which you prefer. I prefer #2 when linking mid-chapter and #1 when linking to a chapter. --  Green  C  17:34, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I missed "Style and Medium in the Motion Pictures" has its own Wiki article, it could look like this:
 * {{Cite book |last=Panofsky |first=Erwin |author-link=Erwin Panofsky |editor-last=Lavin |editor-first=Irving |editor-link=Irving Lavin |title=Three Essays on Style |chapter=Style and Medium in the Motion Pictures |date=1995 |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge (Mass.) and London |isbn=0-262-16151-6 |page=93}}
 * -- Green  C  17:42, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * No, you missed, that the reference is in that lemma. It would just redirect to itself. But, ok, for other articles. Thanks again. MenkinAlRire 19:02, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I know, I did not mention Lavin as editor, if I remember correctly, because of the given example in the article. Since the book is correctly referenced above I thought it's ok.
 * The editor is the deciding factor here, or not? I don't see another possible cause for the correct linking now. Cool, that was simple. Thanks. (I hope there are no cases, where it would be still a problem. I wanted to pose a subsequent question, but I can't remember now. I'll come back. Correct citation is a bunch of work, I just began to collect them for later use.) MenkinAlRire 19:00, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * {{reply to|MenkinAlRire}} {{para|url}} links the title of the whole book. {{para|chapter-url}}, {{para|contribution-url}}, or {{para|section-url}} links the chapter/section/entry/article within it. Rjj{{sup|iii}}  (talk) 19:05, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I knew it, I am a dummmy. I just recently used chapter-url. Thank you for reminding me. I have to better organise myself and create my own 'help pages' with these solutions, instead of each time searching all over again. Thank you. - (I am certainly locked in, on the website, just did an edit, and I have the notification in the app, but the app won't recognise me at the moment. It displays my ID number and can't complete the edit. That's a first. On the website it's totally fine. ?/ ) MenkinAlRire 19:28, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * {{reply to|MenkinAlRire}} Yes, the editor makes the difference: with it, {{para|first}} and {{para|last}} describe the author of a chapter. Without it, they are taken as the author of the book. It's awkward, but would be hard to change now. Kanguole 19:37, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Kanguole, at least, there is some logic behind it. Only when the author himself edited his texts, it is kind of redundant. (I don't like the look of |first= and |last=, but you all seem to stress it. I'll contemplate on that.) MenkinAlRire 07:12, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Unflagged free DOI, add a time component to some DOIs
DOI prefix 10.1155's registrant is Hindawi, an open access publisher. However, Hindawi became open access in 2007, and some (rare) DOIs from prior to 2007 are not free, e.g.



There should be a way to specify that for 10.1155, the template should only flag those from year 2007 and up, and not all of them. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:23, 31 December 2023 (UTC)


 * De-archived. Headbomb (alt) (talk) 14:43, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Taking it off the list seems simpler and doesn't require special casing. Izno (talk) 19:05, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * True, but special casing lets us automatically detect ~4000 cases sans the 20 or so false positives. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:25, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Archival website question
Hello, re this section: Template:Cite_web. I realize I can just test this if mechanically possible, but are we allowed as policy to use archival sites beyond archive.org, such as for public records of the US Federal government, for redunant or backup citation functionality? Such as archive.is or to put such collateral on Wikimedia Commons, and thus use it as that secondary link reference? -- Very Polite Person (talk) 14:26, 7 June 2024 (UTC)


 * The field is meant for web archives which are large general purpose archives of the web. The web archives in use on Enwiki include those listed at List of web archives on Wikipedia. The type of site you refer to for the Federal Government is not a web archive, its a site-specific archival collection. In general you want to stick with archive.org, archive.today and a couple other smaller ones. If you want to include a non-archive link + the federal government archive link in the same citation, you could do something like:
 * Alt Archive URL
 * ..But I would need to see the actual URLs to say for sure, it might be the Federal Govt archive link is the primary URL. -- Green  C  14:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've got the basic web cite template narrowed down, but I was thinking about like this on the government site here vs the archive.org link here for the same. I was especially curious about putting copies of such PDFs onto Commons, so as to have a backup to the backup, or to simply place them on 'our' servers to help preserve them in tandem with the article(s) that may use them. Basically, to make sure that even if the source .gov/.mil sites remove the content or archive.org does/goes down, we'd have redundancy. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 14:48, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Generally those links (nro.gov and Commons) would be considered the primary link within the citation template ie. url and not the archive-url. The way you can tell: if the link has a web archive URL, such as at archive.org, we would prefer that web archive URL to be in the archive-url field. If there is a third layer, like a primary to the primary, then use something like I did above, or create a second citation. The concept is that every link is paired with a web archive link, no matter where the primary link is hosted. --  Green  C  15:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah--I think I got that nailed down, like if you look at Invention_Secrecy_Act.
 * Sorry if I was being unclear. I was asking about using non-archive.org options like Commons for Federal stuff, putting an extra copy there, and also using that in the citation, or as an alternative to archive.org, to close the loop and keep the assets on our servers entirely, with no external reliance. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 15:40, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * What citation(s) at Invention_Secrecy_Act are you referring to? -- Green  C  20:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Like if you control-f on DMA RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROGRAM there. That's a government PDF--while it's on the government site and archive, I had wondered if a copy of that can (or should) go on Commons, citing there where it was gotten from, and then we use it from Commons as a source or as the archival link itself. Essentially, archive it ourselves? -- Very Polite Person (talk) 22:06, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes. You could upload to commons, no url or archive-url, instead Document title. Normally there is no archive-url for content hosted at Commons, so just link to the File: in the title. -- Green  C  22:34, 7 June 2024 (UTC)