Talk:Scottish art in the eighteenth century

Citation format
Trying to get sfn to work for the MacDonald books. Won't link to the citation of the book. 7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 16:22, 5 October 2014 (UTC)


 * This should do the trick. Sfn needs a special anchor; it won't work without the "ref=" parameter. Huon (talk) 17:03, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I thought I had done that already.  7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 19:56, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Why are you changing a perfectly valid reference system without any discussion on a talkpage?--  SabreBD  (talk ) 20:20, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Wow! I'm really sorry.  Certainly not what I expected. That it was potentially controversial wasn't on my radar.  It did not occur to me that it was a matter of controversy at all.  There is more than one way to skin a cat.  I thought it was a better way.  It was intended to be my long term contribution to your newly promoted GA, for  which you deserve thanks and congratulations. I also spent considerable time on it.  But hey, you created the article.  So revert it all if that will make you happy.  I have no ego in this at all. 7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 20:30, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The main advantage of sfn over the previous system is the built-in link to the correct bibliography entry, and it's less typing for future references, with a guaranteed unity of style compared to manually-created references. I don't see any disadvantages. A bold improvement should not require prior discussion. Huon (talk) 20:52, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
 * No offense is taken, but I would like to change the system back. The disadvantage of the sfn system is that it is much harder work to transfer material to other articles, either for a summary or expansion, and I do a lot of that. For future reference, changes to existing citation systems are mentioned at WP:CITEVAR. Thanks.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 22:43, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I obviously don't have a stake in this article's citation style, but I don't quite see how sfn is more difficult to transfer to different articles than a manual reference to, say, "MacDonald, Scottish Art, p. 64." In both cases you'd need to also add a bibliography entry, wouldn't you? In fact, I'd assume that use of sfn would make consistency across articles easier, since chances are whatever article content is to be transferred from or to doesn't use exactly the same manual system as this one, unless you wrote both of them. As an aside, there was even an inconsistency in this article's references. Huon (talk) 23:15, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

So we are clear, I didn't start out with the intent to change the citation system. It grew incrementally. Apparently you honestly think this article is better with this system that you reverted back to? About tastes one does not argue. I am not interested in edit warring over this, but I diverge from your view. I recognize that you have pride of authorship, and nobody is trying to diminish your vast contribution. Enjoy the article, even as you have made it smaller. 7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 00:12, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree about bringing the article back, I don't quite understand what all the fuss is about, and what the issue was with the previous citation style.--<span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD;'> CaroleHenson  ( talk ) 00:14, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The complete revert Threw out the baby with the bath water. No reason why the Bibliography can't have complete authors' names, for example.  I put that back.  <b style="color:#060">7&amp;6=thirteen</b> (<b style="color:#000">☎</b>) 00:25, 6 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Citations / bibliographies do not need to be formatted with citation templates. The bibliography was fine.


 * I used them a lot myself, but there's a kind of good citizenship that if there's a style in place in an article, then contributors follow that style.--<span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD;'> CaroleHenson  ( talk ) 00:30, 6 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Suggestion: How about if we restore to this version by Huon... and then I'll be happy to update the first names where they were provided in the citation templates, since there's already been a lot of work to gather than info. Does that work?--<span style='text-shadow:0 -1px #DDD,1px 0 #DDD,0 1px #DDD,-1px 0 #DDD;'> CaroleHenson  ( talk ) 00:35, 6 October 2014 (UTC)