Template talk:Acad/Archive 1

Edit request from Arnaugir, 27 June 2011
add catalan iw: ca:Plantilla:Venn

Arnaugir (talk) 09:04, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Please add this to the bottom of Template:Venn/doc as this is unprotected. Thanks &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:29, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * (sorry to ask again) I know (and I've just done this) but there are other iw's located in the main template that should be moved to the doc. Thank you for your attention--Arnaugir (talk) 20:10, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, sure. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:54, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

New template script based on cite encyclopedia
I have placed some code into Template:Venn/sandbox. It has the advantages: comment? -- PBS (talk) 04:16, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) It formats the output via cite encyclopedia so that the output will be similar to other cited text.
 * 2) Because cite encyclopedia is used if the parameter "ref=harv" is passed in then this template can be used with the harv family of short citations.
 * 3) Several other additional parameters are added so that volume and date of publication can be passed in. If not set then the date is set to "1922–1958" and displayed, but the year is set to 1958 allowing short citation templates to use that year for linkage.

Template on French WP
Hello,

The fr:Modèle:Alumni Cantabrigienses has the same purpose on the French Wikipedia. If someone could insert this interwiki.

Thank you,

Cantons-de-l&#39;Est (talk) 18:29, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

✅
 * I've done it but you could have done it yourself by adding it to Template:Venn/doc which is not protected. -- PBS (talk) 03:29, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Bold?
Is there a reason why the output of this template is in bold? This is out of keeping with other citation templates.  Magic ♪piano 16:54, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
 * As it does not appear in bold on the template page, nor in the first article in the list of articles in which it is included (A._A._Milne) can you link an to an article here were the output appears in bold? -- PBS (talk) 19:01, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm. It's gone away (it was bold on the template page when I wrote the above). Someone's working on cite encyclopedia, but it wasn't exhibiting the problem, so I thought the problem lay here.  Never mind then.  Magic ♪piano 19:15, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Protection level
If there is a consensus to do so I will change the protection level on this template so that it is only protected from edits by new editors and IP addresses. -- PBS (talk) 09:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Publisher link
✅

The link to Cambridge University Press isn't likely to be helpful to anyone - can the item be unlinked please? Colonies Chris (talk) 09:14, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I do not think that should be done because it forms part of a full citation. Instead how about adding a conditional parameter called short=1 that is set removes some of the parameters (like publisher) from being displayed? See Cite Catholic Encyclopedia for an example. -- PBS (talk) 14:53, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not suggesting removing the name of the publisher, just the wikilinking. That wouldn't make it less of a full citation. Colonies Chris (talk) 08:58, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I have not objections to that, so I will make the edit. Do you also want me to implement the short parameter? -- PBS (talk) 09:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this. I have no particular view on the 'short' parameter. Colonies Chris (talk) 14:23, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Citing Venn or citing ACAD?
Because of discussions about how Module:Citation/CS1 is flagging citations with date ranges as malformed (here and here), I came to look at this template.

It occurs to me that is misnamed. What this template is really doing is citing the online A Cambridge Alumni Database. That database contains Venn, but, it also contains Emden's A biographical register of the University of Cambridge to 1500 as well as information from Newnham and Girton colleges.

This caused me to wonder if should perhaps be rewritten as a  wrapper to cite the individual volumes of Alumni Cantabrigienses as listed on that wikipedia page. Of course the problem with that is that there are more than 5,000 transclusions of this template. So maybe a new template or split Venn into two parts  and.

The current template then, might be moved to and be re-written as a  wrapper.
 * The wrapper template :
 * would produce:
 * which gives:
 * which gives:
 * which gives:

The volume and year parameters extant in current instances of would be ignored and marked as deprecated in the documentation. accessdate would be added because ACAD isn't a dated work.

If one wanted to specifically cite Venn, then
 * a new wrapper template, perhaps :
 * would produce:
 * which gives:
 * which gives:
 * which gives:

I also noticed that internally, places an external link to ACAD in title. This is inappropriate because it corrupts the COinS title metadata. I've tweaked that in the and without objection, I will update.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:45, 16 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I have no objection to you initial changes (those you have made to the sandbox). I don't see it is necessary to change from cite encyclopedia to cite web -- PBS (talk) 16:54, 17 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Ok, so what about the part of my post where I suggest changing this template into ?


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:50, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure. I come across this template a lot on biography articles I edit, but I do not add it myself, so I guess that people who use it are better qualified than I to make that judgement. I understand you point, but is it ever cited for anything other than Venn and what is the usual name that secondary sources that cite this type of information use? Ie would a secondary source state "according to Venn ... " or "according to the ACAD ..."?-- PBS (talk) 08:34, 18 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I've posted a note at WPT:Biography. If moved to,  remains as a redirect to . I don't know how a secondary source would cite information retrieved from ACAD.  The admonition to editors at Wikipedia is to WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. If editors are finding and referring to information at ACAD, especially from the encoded right panel (compare at Milne for example) then the citation should say so, shouldn't it?


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Two other points that might be considered. If the ID is unique we could make that along with the author's name the unique identifier for harv templates as is done with {[tl|NHLE}} and the implementation of a short= parameter to remove from view some of the fields that are set by default (as is done in many other similar templates). -- PBS (talk) 08:42, 18 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The ID is identified as unique in ACAD records (top of right panel). And, were it not unique,  might be in trouble because the ACAD url relies on id.  I agree that adding support for  and  is a good idea.  I'm ambivalent with regard to a short parameter.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Sandbox
now has what I think could be the new. I've added error detection and reporting (which can be optionally hidden). I've also changed how ref is handled.

Because doesn't have author or editor or date or any of their aliases,  can't create an anchor id other than CITEREF when harv. So either creates the anchor id from the value in ref or uses  to create a CITEREF anchor id using ACAD and the unique id.

To properly use or  with the default CITEREF anchor id, editors write:. An editor may also specify some other value for ref (other than ). Examples:

 Some obviously fascinating information that is referenced to A. A. Milne's ACAD entry using the default anchor id. More riveting commentary referenced to Milne at ACAD using somesfnref and.



The error detection looks for the positional and named parameters  (id),   (name), and the special case of harv. Because doesn't have author or editor or date parameters or any of their aliases, Module:Citation/CS1 doesn't have any information from which to create the CITEREF anchor id. If an editor specifies harv, will emit an error message:



Because id is required to create the url link to ACAD, if id (or positional parameter ) is omitted or left blank,  will emit an error message:



Similarly, if name is present but empty, will emit an error message:



If name or positional parameter  is omitted,  will use the current page name in place of name and emits an error message:



I think that this behavior should be removed. Editors are citing ACAD which has a title, Milne, Alan Alexander in these examples, so the citation should reflect that title and not the page title where the citation currently resides.

To hide these errors set yes:



—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:04, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Changed url behavior. When id omitted or empty, url links to the ACAD search page.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:58, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

There having been no comment, I have synched from the sandbox and updated the documentation. I intend to move to  and then run AWB through the list of page that transclude  to change the template names on those pages from  to  and remove the deprecated parameters.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:54, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Acad roll out
Well done. --PBS (talk) 08:56, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Ttm I do not think you should remove what you have called "depreciated" parameters. If editors want to add them along with page numbers they shoudl be free to do so. Indeed I think you should remove the word depreciated from the instructions, and if the users want to set ref=harv or something they should be free to do so. The reality is that the majority of editors from no on will not do so but that should be left as an option. Also I would recommend that "chapter" is added as an alternative to "name" as the name chapter (If not chapter then title), either of which is more standard then a parameter called name. -- PBS (talk) 08:56, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I guess I don't see the benefit of leaving parameters in the template that won't be used. If editors wish to cite part (which was never part of ), volume, and page then they should consider using  which I created for just that purpose.  So far, I've made it through just over 250 pages that use  and not one of them has used the deprecated volume or year parameters.


 * is a tool to cite an online database that isn't divided into chapters. Nor does the concept of chapter, I think, fit very well; title might be better as an alias of name.  But, the lack of a title parameter doesn't seem to have stopped editors from using.


 * When Module:Citation/CS1 processes a citation template that has harv, it constructs a unique anchor that is formed from the text, the first four authors names from last1 through last4 (or their aliases) or, when there are no authors, the first four editors and the year portion of date or year.  The online database does not name its editors nor does it identify publication dates.  So, from the data available to it, Module:Citation/CS1 constructs an anchor that simply reads  ; not so unique.  Still, editors are free to use harv and can hide the error message with yes.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:31, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Your point about is well made, and I suggest that it is promoted to the fist section as an alternative to this template. In which case some of what I have written above can be disregard. I suggest though that when you run AWB if you remove a volume parameter you include a hidden comment along the lines   
 * I thing you are missing my point about the legacy usage, if "ref=parameter value" is set then you will have to alter the templates because if they are relying on ref=harv they will not be broken, and if they have constructed one with some other parameter value now you are removing other fields the information displayed in the harv will not tally with what is displayed in the references section. -- PBS (talk) 14:25, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Pretty sure that I understand your position on legacy usage of harv. I understand that changes to  and  will be required and I will make those changes if and when I encounter the need.  So far, with something over 500  to  changes, none have used year or volume or ref.  One was linked from an  template in a.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:18, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I have run AWB through the list of mainspace pages that transclude – some 5000+ pages. The only page that used ref is the one mentioned above. I found no pages that used the deprecated parameters volume and year so I have removed those parameters from the optional parameters section of the documentation.

There are some 300 or so pages listed in that are mostly missing name though there are likely some that are missing id. These will need to be fixed manually. That seems a bit problematic because connection to ACAD can be somewhat spotty.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:41, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Farking around with this template
The template was OK.


 * 1) It defaulted to using the $articlename when no $name parameter was defined.  By moving this you've now farked up probably thousands of times this has been used.
 * 2) The old link used the identifier to link directly to that.  The new one uses the identifier in the search and therefore also returns any relatives which have the id cross-referenced.

Genius. Barney the barney barney (talk) 15:09, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't think the name problem was a big deal, but started fixing them, and some actually would have been wrongly pointing to $pagename, probably due to editors not knowing to fill in that parameter. I don't know why the url changed, though. Usually, direct links are preferred over search results. Someone probably thought it would be better for some reason, but I haven't looked far enough into that, yet.  —PC-XT+ 21:16, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * For the record, the url has indeed changed from the first interation of (then :
 * to the current url:
 * to the current url:


 * Perhaps Editor Barney the barney barney is referring to the url that uses when id is empty or omitted:
 * That url does indeed link to the search page.
 * That url does indeed link to the search page.


 * The notion that I have now farked up probably thousands of times this has been used is belied by the number of pages listed at . I am working my way through that category repairing those  templates that are missing parameters.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 22:11, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That sounds reasonable to me. Thanks for the hard work! There is less than a page left to fix, and the citations will be better than they were before the change. —PC-XT+ 03:15, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Forcing the ACA database to return a single result
Still farking around with this template.

I have noticed that sometimes the ACA database returns more than one result from a search for a "unique" id number (positional parameter 1 or id). It occurred to me to try the search with quotes around the value provided by.

This url was the url produced by  before I changed  to quote parameter   in the url assignment:
 * http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search.pl?sur=&suro=c&fir=&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=all&tex=M661J&sye=&eye=&col=all&maxcount=50

If you follow the above link, the database will return two results.

The modified template link returns a single result:

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:10, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Tweaked categorization
More farking around with this template.

Initially, an template that emitted an error message was categorized regardless of namespace. Now, adds the page to  only when the page is in the article namespace. Also initially, when yes, would keep such pages out of Category:ACAD citations missing parameters. That is no longer the case.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:38, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Displaying the id parameter
I have edited the current version in the sandbox. The version in the sandbox now displays the ID in brackets at the end of the title display (after the name). My reasons for thinking that this is desirable, is because without it there is no visual clue to link a short citation to a long citation. One has to know that ACAD are the initial to "A Cambridge Alumni Database".

If there is more than one ACAD entry in the References section, without the id there is no way to tell visually which short citation links to the long citation.For hard copies or sites that do not copy the links from Wikipedia pages, this is a marked disadvantage.

Also displaying the id will help editors notice typos and/or cut and past in the id field in the sort citations.

Unless there are objections to the modification I propose to add the code to the production version. -- PBS (talk) 18:23, 10 January 2014 (UTC)


 * See "testcases" for some sandbox examples. See also Cite PastScape for a similar presentation. -- PBS (talk) 09:48, 11 January 2014 (UTC)


 * No objections.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:02, 11 January 2014 (UTC)