Template talk:Citation/Archive 2

Bibliographic record keeping discussion.
WP:VP/T. -- Jeandré, 2007-12-31t20:39z


 * No. -- Fullstop (talk) 00:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Zeteo provides a centralized database that can produce citation templates for you to copy and paste into articles. It's not very complete, and including the data in an article is more than just supplying a universal ID, but you might find it helpful anyway. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * refbase and zotero and OttoBib and many others can also provide citation templates, but the original interest in this topic was to be able to use citekeys to easily refer to the same citation in multiple articles. The DOI bot may be close to achieving some of what was wanted (e.g. to provide maximum reference info when given a simple identifier). --Karnesky (talk) 22:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Zotero and OttoBib seem to require you to build up your own bibliography databases; Zeteo's (and refbase's?) is a single centralized db that everyone shares. And I believe Zeteo's was built by crawling Wikipedia. So in that sense it's closer to the original request. I'm very pleased with what DOIbot is doing but you need to start with enough for it to identify the citation; it doesn't seem to be a substitute for filling in citations yourself in that sense. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:49, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Co-publishers
I've been running into a several books that are co-published by two publishers. I'm not talking about different publishers, editors, and printers here. The inside cover literally says "Co-published by Finishing Publications and ASM International" for example. I know this is probably very unusual outside the field of materials engineering, but if it's not too much work, could we modify the template to allow publisher1, publisher2, place1, place2 parameters? The goal is that the citation should come out as
 * Sheasby, P. G. & Pinner, R. (2001), The Surface Treatment and Finishing of Aluminum and its Alloys, vol. 1 (sixth ed.), Materials Park, Ohio: ASM International & Stevenage, UK: Finishing Publications, ISBN 0-904477-23-1.

Instead of
 * Sheasby, P. G. & Pinner, R. (2001), The Surface Treatment and Finishing of Aluminum and its Alloys, vol. 1 (sixth ed.), Materials Park, Ohio & Stevenage, UK: ASM International & Finishing Publications, ISBN 0-904477-23-1.

I don't really have the programming skills to do this safely, so help would be appreciated.--Yannick (talk) 19:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)


 * In the absence of location1, location2, etc. and matching publisher1, publisher2, etc. parameters, it looks to me as if you can achieve what you are after by (mis?)using Citation as follows:
 * I see that this complete work has a Google Books listing (Vol. 1 alone appears not to), so:
 * Hope that is useful. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hope that is useful. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hope that is useful. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It is not standard practice to specify multiple publishers. One or the other is sufficient. Just as, for example, one provides only one location= for a publisher even if - for example OUP - has a six or more locations noted on the flyleaf.
 * It is not even necessary to specify multiple publishers. The point of a citation is to lead the reader to the source in question. Providing multiple publishers or multiple locations does not further that end. -- Fullstop (talk) 00:42, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

FIX for {citation} hack, which new preprocessor will break when date= is provided but year= is not
With Tim's new preprocessor, citation will barf when a  is not specified but   is.

The problem is with this code:

In the first 'case', the #switch is checking if the #time returned an error. This will not work in the new parser.

Replace that snippet with either

or (more correctly :-)...

-- Fullstop (talk) 01:55, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I have another comment about this template. I tracked down a diff in the new parser that can be reproduced with the code  at Special:ParserDiffTest. The new parser spits an error into the HTML. The old one calmly ignores it. It doesn't seem to break anything usability-wise, just seems odd, and I don't understand where the difference came in. Since this template is used in 10,000+ articles I thought I'd mention it here, in case perhaps two errors could be fixed at once to save the servers a bit of work. •  Anakin  (contribs • complaints) 02:59, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * (confused) Actually, this looks like exactly the same problem Fullstop has reported above. Hadn't realised that. It also breaks on all valid, but wikified, dates, like so:, but not if the date is valid and not wikified. •  Anakin  (contribs • complaints) 03:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * yep. Its the same problem, the fix for which is noted above.
 * See also 7th row in table at Migration to the new preprocessor.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 06:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Yes check.svg|20px]] Done. Ping me on my talk page if I just broke 11,000 pages. : - ) Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:23, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Interesting aside: This exact bug on this same template is what the #iferror parserfunction was conceived for (that is, the bug in #switch accidentally catching errors in the old parser). It was very amusing to realize why this worked in the old parser (the #switch was seeing an equals sign in the error, and causing the #switch not to have a default, so errors suppressed all output). --Splarka (rant) 00:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Glitch in Citation template treatment of accessdate= field
(topic copied from Wikipedia talk:Citing sources where i first raised it)

An anomaly which comes up in use of what I believe to be a standard Citation reference, is that use of "accessdate=January 20, 2008" ends up generating a red-link to January 20, 2008, while use of "accessdate=2008-01-20" does not. Seems like a bug to me, I am trying to report it here. Please advise on where it should be reported, if not here. (IT SEEMS RELEVANT TO RAISE HERE IN TEMPLATE TALK:CITATION)

This came up for me in editing List of National Historic Landmarks in Oklahoma. I tried eliminating the red-link by going ahead and creating the article on January 20, 2008, but an efficient wikipedian ever-so-promptly and politely deletes the new article (as is appropriate) :) doncram (talk) 23:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

References:




 * This was changed in this edit. Both cite web and cite news specify accessdate in ISO format and wikilink it. Apparently Kaldari changed citation such that it's also wikilinked, which means it must be in ISO format to avoid a redlink. [Cite web and Cite news have code which check if the date (not accessdate) is in ISO format, and only wikilink it if it is. This was apparently never extended to accessdate.] Gimmetrow 02:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Gimmetrow. SEEMS LIKE IT SHOULD BE EXTENDED TO ACCESSDATE. Hope that this is helpful and now reaches someone who can evaluate it AND fix it if agreed it is a problem. Sincerely, doncram (talk) 22:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Until recently, Citation's accessdate parameter required a wikilinked date. That requirement was removed in order to regularize Citation  with Cite web, Cite news, etc.  The Cite web documentation for its accessdate parameter reads:
 * accessdate: Full date when item was accessed, in ISO 8601 YYYY-MM-DD format, for example "accessdate = 2008-01-22". Must not be wikilinked.
 * The Citation documentation should probably be undated similarly. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

1. The issue of auto-formatting of dates will automagically resolve itself when 4582 issue is resolved. (in a week or two hopefully)

2. The issue with the redlink for non-ISO dates is known. That is why citation does did not link dates.

3. Would people please relax about date auto-formatting? For 99.99% of all views, dates are not formatted even if wiki-linked. -- Fullstop (talk) 08:47, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Some thought needed to have been put into this change before making it, I think. I have always wililinked "English" dates in "accessdate", not using ISO.  So, I had: accessdate = 1 January 2008
 * As a result of this change, I know of at least three Featured Articles that now need editing, as the citations now appear as: Retrieved on [[1 January 2008 ]]
 * What is the recommendation here? Go for horrible ISO dates when using citation? Carre (talk) 09:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

editprotected Can someone please sort out this template, and either undo the change that added "auto" linking of dates, or add in the check to see if the date is either already formatted, or is in ISO format (as in the cite family). Thanks. Carre (talk) 08:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Concur. Kaldari's change was thoughtless. He/she should minimally have said something before unilaterally doing what she did (not that she is actually watching this talk page after the fact either, or she would have rv'd himself by now).
 * A solution without the link overloading could be to change
 * to
 * At the moment, that template will reformat dates to "24 January 2008" style but will eventually (and independent of whats invoking it) be reformatting to reflect userprefs.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 12:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Possibly even more thought than that - we need to consider the possible ways this template has been used in the past. Since it never used to link any accessdate parameter, we need to cater for those cases where people have used dates already wikilinked.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 12:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Possibly even more thought than that - we need to consider the possible ways this template has been used in the past. Since it never used to link any accessdate parameter, we need to cater for those cases where people have used dates already wikilinked.


 * At present, Kaldari just does

| .&#32;Retrieved on
 * if:
 * which obviously slaps the wl brackets on regardless. This breaks: non-wikilinked "English" dates (makes the wl to the full date, including year, hence probably redlinked) and also all wikilinked dates (including pre-linked ISO format) by sticking the unneeded brackets in.  As Gimme says above, cite web does this for some dates:


 * which would appear to trap unlinked ISO dates, and leaves the rest alone. Not sure what it'd do about ISO dates that are already linked though.  If we apply that test to the AccessDate parameter here, until that bugzilla date formatting thing is sorted out once and for all, then I think this would be a decent interim solution. Carre (talk) 13:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Watch this:
 * 1980-10-19 => 1980-10-19
 * 1980-10-19 => 1980-10-19
 * October 19 1980 => October 19 1980
 * 19 October 1980 => 19 October 1980
 * Note how the pre-linked ISO (or any other format) date doesn't change.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 13:25, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, cool :) I had a look at the source of date, but didn't really understand it!  That'll do nicely, sir/madam. Carre (talk) 13:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The date solution seems the best one, but I'm hesitant to change this widely-used template again. This has been discussed before at, where you will see that accessdate did use to be linked automatically. Therefore, I want to wait a bit and see what other people say, instead of making a change that will later have to be reverted. It also worries me a bit that this Template:Date does not seem to be used widely.
 * I also left a message at Kaldari's user talk page. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[←] Appreciated, but the problem with that is that the thing discussed at didn't actually break anything, it just stopped dates linking/formatting. Kaldari's change broke how the template works in some cases. When I first noticed it (looking at one of "my" FAs), I checked the first 20 or so of the articles in "what links here", and 4 or 5 of them were broken by this change. On top of the three FAs that I know are affected. Luckily none of them have appeared on the main page yet. Carre (talk) 14:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC) I switched the template to use the date template for formatting the accessdate, as was suggested above. Let me know if that solution is acceptable to everyone. Kaldari (talk) 16:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm just going to revert the template for now, since the date parsing fix is expected soon. Kaldari (talk) 15:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I see no indication that the date parsing bug is going to be fixed any time soon after looking through the bug comments. Regardless, even if that bug is fixed, it still means that everyone who uses this template will have to unlink their dates. The people who use Cite web, Cite news, etc, will only have to change the templates when the big fix happens. So they are already ready for the bug fix, we are not. Kaldari (talk) 16:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There isn't a single accurate statement in the comment of 16:19. But thank you for reverting your "draconian" (your word) edit.
 * Oh, and that switch to date is the reason why this template is already ready for the bug fix, while your favorite templates are not.
 * And the solution to bug #4582 (which is not about "date parsing") has already been 'live' for me for two weeks.
 * Which of course you might have learned more about if you had ever actually said anything before you made your "draconian" edit, or even if you had checked back afterwards.
 * It may also be of interest to you that over 99% of the people who use the 'pedia don't profit from linked dates. Neither for their link value, nor for their reformat-ability. Or that YYYY-MM-DD is not friendly for over 99% of the people who use the 'pedia but who see only YYYY-MM-DD in all those invocations.
 * But of course all this stems from your supposition that linking is the only way to make dates reformattable. Or the notion that it is ideal to do so. Blue is a nice color. But it is not so nice that it would compel anyone to find out what other events took place on the date that some editor accessed some url.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 23:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Removed the editprotected template, since Kaldari has reverted.
 * While I don't necessarily agree with the manner of Fullstop's post above, I do agree with the sentiment of that post, and can assure you that, while there is no default "English" (whether US or Brit) style date format for non-registered/non-preferenced users, you won't get me to touch those hideous ISO dates with a barge pole. I would also suggest that the best thing to do with all those cite templates is throw them in a bin and replace them with this excellent all-purpose one. Carre (talk) 18:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Citation style
The following was just added to WP:CITE: "There are (at least) two families of citation templates, the template and the templates where xxx could be book, web, etc. These two families produce different citation styles. For example, the "Cite xxx" family separates elements with a full stop, and gives page ranges as plain numbers, while the "Citation" template separates elements with a comma, and precedes page ranges with "pp." Thus, these two families should not be mixed in the same article."

Would it be possible to regularize citation style across these templates? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:43, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * As per the previous section, changing cite templates is dangerous, as modifications that aren't thought out properly can damage hundreds of articles.


 * Incidentally, putting the trailing period in citations, where those citations are used to create a list of referenced work, goes against the MOS which says that bulleted lists, where not a complete sentence, should end with either semicolon or no punctuation, except the final entry in the list. Carre (talk) 08:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * @Carre: Thats a) not the punctuation that Boracay Bill is referring to, and b) a citation is formally a complete "sentence".
 * @Bill: citation uses commas to avoid very complex "look-ahead"s. Switching to '.' would require the core to be pre-deterministic, which -- given the lack of string functions -- would either necessitate a whole lot of template code. With respect to p/pp: There is no standard for page numbers, which in the real world would not appear (except for journals) in a bibliography. The present p/pp usage is fine because it unambiguously identifies what those numbers are.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 13:14, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Replacing a comma with a dot seems like it should be a simple change but I haven't looked closely at the code and, having been a programmer, I appreciate that internal details may not be as simple as they seem to an outsider. I picked up, agreed with, and echoed here the point that it would be a good thing if citation style through template usage were regularized across all WP citation templates. I do not believe this to be a radical idea. I think it would be a good thing if Citation could supplant and deprecate the forest of alternative  templates out there. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 14:45, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I strongly support any changes that make this template behave more like the other citation templates, including switching to periods and eliminating the pp notation. Kaldari (talk) 19:13, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * yes, no question. Standardization would be good thing. -- Fullstop (talk) 19:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

←Does anyone else think that this is an ideal situation for a meta-template? contains a standardised output format, where parameters are named, and have defined formatting. Then all the other citation templates become partially hardcoded instances of the metatemplate, converting  into , etc. We define the formatting of each field, and the formatting that goes between them, but let each cite template implement that standardised formatting however works best for that type of citation. Thoughts? Happy‑melon 16:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Such a template already exists. Its called ... citation. -- Fullstop (talk) 19:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's not quite what I mean.  attempts to cover all possible bases, and probably does so fairly effectively.  However, it is not a meta-template - if it were, it would not be utilised directly.  What this template tries to do is provide a field to take any possible piece of reference data, and present it in a reasonable format.  It has a completely different set of parameters for citing, say, books, as to citing patents.  What would happen if someone, for whatever reason, tried to mix and match fields from several different systems, is not clearly defined.  A true citation meta template would be quite different.  As I said above, it would define a set of preformatted output fields, but let templates like  define how those fields are used. Many fields would be used identically in all citation templates - there will be an italicised field which almost always is used for , but there are other parameters which vary between citation templates but should still use the same formatting.  Essentially we create a way to easily standardise the citation templates while retaining maximum flexibility.  Happy‑melon 20:20, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The meta you are thinking of is citation: the real "engine" is citation/core, the citation is just the front that does some elementary rewiring.
 * The "meta-ness" of isn't diminished by the fact that it can (also) be called directly. For instance, (using your example) there is no reason why  (as well as encyclopedia, book, journal, newspaper ...) couldn't call  instead of calling /core. Even episode film tv dvd cd vhs audiotape seem to work ok with a direct call.
 * The proliferation of cite templates has more to do with the lack of understanding of how citations are built than with any real-life divisions. For starters, the division by medium is insane. But an encyclopedia is an encyclopedia, and Wikipedia would be cited the same way regardless of whether the medium is a book, bazillion volumes, CDs, DVDs or microchips.
 * There are some s though, maps for example, that don't fit the raster. These would have to call the /core directly (though maps is so odd that it really does warrant its own handler). -- Fullstop (talk) 00:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Aha, yes, is exactly what I mean by a meta template.  Now can anyone satisfactorily explain why the   templates don't use it   Happy‑melon 09:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Accessdate soft conversion
I've changed this template to use the date template for the accessdate. That way, any date entered in any format, whether wikilinked or not, will display in a reasonable manner. I have added a note to the template instructions, however, stating that unlinked ISO 8601 date format is preferred (to make conversions between this template and the other citation templates less painful, and to prepare for the 4582 bugfix). I hope this solution is acceptable to everyone. Once bug 4582 is fixed, however, I believe we should switch to match the behavior of the other citation templates. Kaldari (talk) 17:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Coauthors
Please can someone show some pity on people trying to cite papers with a dozen authors and add a coauthors field? I hate to type first0=, last0= ... first9=, last9= when I can copy and paste the entire author list. It's only going to appear as et al. in the article anyway, so what difference does it make if we mark-up the authors individually?

I notice we have an authors field, which shows the coauthors, all right, but makes the template useless for harv because the entire list of authors has to be pasted in the citation, rather than merely the first author's last name. I could not successfully use the authors and last1, which would have been ideal. --Adoniscik (talk) 15:27, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Just mentioning that the template also has an optional ref (lowercase 'r') field. harv and harvnb have amatching (in function if not in name&mdash;uppercase 'R') optional Ref field. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:10, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, but I could not find much documentation on that field, except that you can set it to "none". How would it help me? --Adoniscik (talk) 23:24, 3 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Examples:
 * and
 * or something like
 * and
 * or something like
 * and
 * and

-- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm just dropping by here again to note that the following also works. I hadn't been using harv and harvnb that way, but will start doing so. I picked this up from the discussion below of et al again, which also may be of interest.


 * and
 * -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Boldface volume
For journal articles, this template uses boldface for volume numbers, which is inconsistent with Template:cite journal. I think we should choose one or the other format for both templates for the sake of consistency. I have no preference for one or the other; both are commonly used.


 * With cite journal:


 * With citation:

Ashill (talk) 15:25, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd prefer that both boldfase the volume number; it's a standard convention. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 15:27, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Only standard in certain styles, none of the other optional parameters in this template are put into bold (one could make a case that page number for a book should be so highlighted). Discussion already had at Template talk:Cite journal and previously at Template talk:Cite journal/Archive 2. Whether or not discussion and change then implemented at was correct, more certainly there should be no inconsistancy if  &  are both used in the same article. Unless overriding objection to this, then I make this template follow the (apparently) accepted change of cite journal not to use bold.David Ruben Talk 21:24, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I did not comment in the previous (very recent) discussion. I would prefer to have the volume in bold for both templates for utilitarian reasons.  I agree with Emerson that it makes it very easy to distinguish the four possible numeric fields (volume, date, issue, pages), which is particularly important if any of those are missing.  The only objections to the bolding that I've seen are aesthetic.  I don't think it looks bad, but would tolerate it looking bad if it made articles easier to locate. --Karnesky (talk) 22:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I concur with Karnesky, who spoke my mind :) (and better than I could have).
 * With respect to the perennial "consistency" issue:
 * a) Per David Ruben's comment, that is a problem of the article, not of this or any other template.
 * b) The need for a whole suite of templates is itself a consistency issue. Fix that, and the other consistency issue will fix itself.
 * c) The nice thing about conventions and standards is that they are conventions and standards. This citation template does a pretty good job sticking to those conventions and standards. Which is why I use it, even though it is slower and less flexible than writing out bibliography by hand (but which would be standard-compliant too). -- Fullstop (talk) 00:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the volume number to be in boldface, so it is clearly distinguished from issue and page numbers. This is a common convention. The cite journal template used to do this, and should not have been changed.--Srleffler (talk) 05:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I made that request here; before I found this discussion. The bolding is very useful and it should be instated in 66.30.221.105 (talk) 15:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * See the extended discussion at Template_talk:Cite_journal. I moved your request into that section. Other editors also would like boldface to be restored.--Srleffler (talk) 15:00, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Thesis, dissertation citation
Is there a standard for citing a thesis/dissertation/Habilitationschrift? I used journal=Habil. and place=The Uni, but this seemed awkward. I did not see examples. JackSchmidt (talk) 02:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I've been using series=Dissertation (or whatever) and publisher=The University; I think that works a little better, as it formats the title less like a journal article and more like a book. But some guidance and standardization would probably be a good thing. —David Eppstein

(talk) 15:48, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Dissertation (or whatever), as David Eppstein also described, but... Place of University, unpubl. plus the name of the faculty and university in parenthesis. Giving...
 * Quite right. After all, a published diss/habil has the same citation format as any other book.
 * (Incidentally,... there is no need/purpose for a diss/habil/whatever identifier when citing a published work because -- even if the book were originally a *schrift -- the published book is not the same work/edition as the original manuscript. As always, the source being cited is the work you hold in your hands, and not some previous "edition" or form thereof).
 * For an unpublished thesis/diss/habil, I have used

a) The citation format for an unpublished thesis/habil/diss is of course no different from, say, an unpublished screenplay. b) Adding support for a generic ** parameter might be the way to go. Besides avoiding the misappropriation of, such a parameter would also accommodate/be necessary for citation of A/V material, as in APA/MLA's "[Television broadcast]", "[Audio cassette]", "[CD inlay]" or whatever.
 * With respect to normalization/standardization...
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 14:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * ** alternatively, or   or  ?

et al again
I think it would be reasonable for citation to display all authors, while harv displays the et al. Is this possible? I believe earlier on this page it was also suggested this is a good idea that would follow standard practice in the print literature. This is not currently done: Thanks to the authors for this great template and citation system. Am I allowed to add this feature, perhaps with a flag to control it so that default citations remain with the et al.? JackSchmidt (talk) 02:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I made the tiny changes needed at User:JackSchmidt/Citation and User:JackSchmidt/Citation/core, you can see the difference:
 * It displays up to eight authors, but lists a ninth author as et al. It doesn't say "and and", but it would be easy to make it do that.  It doesn't take a flag to do old behaviour, but that is also easy to add if desired. The user page histories should show the entire diff. JackSchmidt (talk) 03:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It displays up to eight authors, but lists a ninth author as et al. It doesn't say "and and", but it would be easy to make it do that.  It doesn't take a flag to do old behaviour, but that is also easy to add if desired. The user page histories should show the entire diff. JackSchmidt (talk) 03:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It displays up to eight authors, but lists a ninth author as et al. It doesn't say "and and", but it would be easy to make it do that.  It doesn't take a flag to do old behaviour, but that is also easy to add if desired. The user page histories should show the entire diff. JackSchmidt (talk) 03:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I support this change. I took a look at the id= fields generated by Jack's version, to make sure that this will still work correctly with the harv templates, and all seems ok in that respect. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

This page sucks
I want to add citations to an article. Learning how to do this is WAY TOO DIFFICULT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Full Decent (talk • contribs) 01:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Then don't use the citation template. Add the citation information in any way you see fit so that a reader can find the source. Citation templates can help with a uniform citation format, but the use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged. It's far better to include a citation in a format inconsistent with the rest of the page (that can be cleaned up later) than not to include the basic citation information. Ashill (talk) 04:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I read FullDecent's comment to mean 'citing sources is in general "difficult"', or that the documentation isn't very good. After all, there is nothing particularly "difficult" about 'last', 'first', 'title' and 'year', but perhaps these basic params go under in the doc. -- Fullstop (talk) 09:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

parameter request
The current version has the following lines:
 * |Surname2 =
 * |Surname3 =
 * |Surname4 =

The parameters author, author2, etc. are useful for the Japanese version, because the Japanese name order is surname-givenname and the parameters first, first2, etc. are not used.

Similarly, since the Japanese version doesn't use the parameters editor-first, editor2-first, etc., could you please add the bold letters shown below?
 * |EditorSurname2 =
 * |EditorSurname3 =
 * |EditorSurname4 =

Also, why don't you insert a space every three braces? I think "}}} }}} }}}" looks better than "}}}}}}}}}". - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 09:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

When you define contribution-url but not url, the parameter accessdate doesn't work. Is that a supposed behavior?

- TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 08:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

See e.g. "= Title of included work =" section in Citation/core See top #if condition of last section in Citation/core, which should instead read
 * Yes,  "moves" to   when   is provided but   is not. This is intentional (and good thinking by whoever wrote it).
 * Yes,  only appears when   is defined. This is a bug.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 09:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

PMID
editprotected For support for PubMed identifiers, please add... (additions are in green, existing stuff [for context] in grey )

1. in Citation...

2. in Citation/core

3. in Citation/core (note: linkage is not necessary because "PMID \d+" is mediawiki magic)

Optional in Citation/core (occurs 5 times)

Thanks -- Fullstop (talk) 12:25, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅, but note that you made a tiny but catastropic error - please make a sandbox copy of the code and thoroughly test changes like this before asking that they be made live. <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 15:44, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * sorry about that. (ps: I did test it on my personal wiki... I must have dropped the colon while formatting it here). -- Fullstop (talk) 16:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The template still appears to be broken. See, for instance, "Bucentaur". &mdash; Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 16:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Um, would you also tell us what you think is wrong? :) The reason why the Shakespeare Quarterly citation appears incomplete is because its missing the author= and year= fields (and the pages= range is incomplete too) (also: the wikilink around journal= breaks COinS). -- Fullstop (talk) 16:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Language redux
There's been a request to add a "language" parameter, similar to the one used by other cite templates. It's probably been missed, since it's several screens up the page. Thought I'd re-up the request here. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 15:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * How might a language= parameter might be useful to a reader? I may be missing something (and here I assume that editors are not so crazy as to translate titles), but from a source's title it will be be obvious to a reader whether a source is/isn't in English. That is, a reader will recognize the language if he/she can comprehend what the title says. Inversely, only knowing what language a text is in is not going to help read that source.
 * I am also not aware of any stylesheet manual that describes how a source's language is cited, and I'd be surprised if one did: After all, the point of a citation is not to describe the source, but to lead the reader as closely to the source as possible. A language= param wouldn't contribute to that.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 16:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes we are "crazy as to translate titles", but fortunately often done for us. Hence at cite journal when referencing biomedical papers and using Dibberi's tool to provide citation details from PubMed. The title & abstract are given in English, but the full paper may not have been translated at all,
 * Hence:
 * Gives:
 * The link is to abstract in English, the full article is as per the PDF link (but NB acrobat reader wanted to do a 11MB download to shown the simplified Chinese font - I declined).
 * So yes might link to a source where a meaningful English title that English Wikipedia readers can see, but they need warning that they may well not be able to read the original full source. David Ruben Talk 23:36, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

series number
currently this template uses a series parameter and a volume parameter. volume seems to apply to the volumes of multi-volume books. However, there are also single-volume books that are part of multi-volume series (sometimes called volume, sometimes called number, depending on the publisher). The template doesnt seem to be able to handle this distinction. Does there need to be a series-volume or series-number parameter? So, is there some other way to indicate. – ishwar  (speak)  04:00, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Not ideal, but I've used title (seriestitle XXI) before. As in
 * Let me know if you come up with a better idea. More often than not, I just drop the series info, since in the field I dabble in, most books are part of some series anyway and series:author (rather than title:author & series:editor) association is doesn't really happen anyway. YMMV of course. -- Fullstop (talk) 01:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Let me know if you come up with a better idea. More often than not, I just drop the series info, since in the field I dabble in, most books are part of some series anyway and series:author (rather than title:author & series:editor) association is doesn't really happen anyway. YMMV of course. -- Fullstop (talk) 01:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, it would be an option to simply omit the series info. But, some authors occasionally refer to works by the series name and its series number instead of the title (for example, Marianne Mithun's book The languages of native North America generally cites all of her bibliographic entries this way). For this reason, I always try to cite a full citation including the series name & number. And, it is for this reason that I generally dont use citation templates (they not being flexible enough).


 * You could also do what you have suggested above by parenthetically adding series & series number to the title name. But, I would have thought that a template should be able to organize this information with a separate parameter since it uses a separate parameter for title, for author, etc. (otherwise, you could just be everything — the author, date, the publisher — under title.)


 * The only answer I see is to have both a title-volume parameter and a series-volume (or series-number) parameter. Well, if consistency is the goal, then it's the only answer I see. I think that the template should be able to handle any type of citation. – ishwar  (speak)  03:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Complete documentation
Wasn't there a discussion (somewhere) about adding documentation to this template for citing web sites, television, and so on? There is documentation at Citation templates but none here. Is someone still working on this? (See Wikipedia talk:Citing sources) CharlesGillingham (talk) 05:31, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * There was something at Template:Citation/doc/draft but it got nuked before I could save it elsewhere. -- Fullstop (talk) 01:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd be happy to restore the page for you if you want to work on it. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Did the deleted sub-page get un-deleted and userfied? If so, where is it?  --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 00:54, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The month is not displayed
When you are citing a journal using a month/year format, the month does not get printed. An omission? --Adoniscik(t, c) 01:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Example please where it appears to not work? -- Fullstop (talk) 01:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

, which becomes:

It expects you to enter the "date" too, for some reason. --Adoniscik(t, c) 02:04, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no month= parameter. You'd want to do this:
 * or this:
 * If you don't have a volume number it will also not display as "(no. January 2008)" . The second option is formally correct, but if you go with the first option, provide the year= field anyway to be on the safe side. -- Fullstop (talk) 02:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * or this:
 * If you don't have a volume number it will also not display as "(no. January 2008)" . The second option is formally correct, but if you go with the first option, provide the year= field anyway to be on the safe side. -- Fullstop (talk) 02:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If you don't have a volume number it will also not display as "(no. January 2008)" . The second option is formally correct, but if you go with the first option, provide the year= field anyway to be on the safe side. -- Fullstop (talk) 02:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If you don't have a volume number it will also not display as "(no. January 2008)" . The second option is formally correct, but if you go with the first option, provide the year= field anyway to be on the safe side. -- Fullstop (talk) 02:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

That's funny, 'coz one of the examples in the docs mention the month parameter. Why isn't there one anyway? Can we add it? --Adoniscik(t, c) 02:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That is indeed strange. Perhaps its a throwback to the days when someone was working out what was needed and what wasn't. Its not needed since date= is more generic/flexible, as whoever wrote that example (User:COGDEN?) appears to have noticed too ;). You might want to get his take on it. -- Fullstop (talk) 03:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it's awkward because you have to specify the year anyway for purposes of the harv template (which is the only good reason to use "citation" anyway), so why not finish it off with a month field? --Adoniscik(t, c) 04:27, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Can someone please restore the "month" field? Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  06:55, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Archiving
This 198kb talk page was in need of archiving. It already had Archives 1-3 with the third covering Dec-06 to Nov-07, so I've just appended on the Mar-07 to Dec-07 that needed shifting from here (see Template talk:Cite journal/Archive 3) - no way was I going to try and merge into time order :-) David Ruben Talk 12:35, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

It's been approaching 3 months, and the accessdate formating is still broken
Instead of waiting for a fix of bug 4582, which doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon, why not wikilink accessdate in the template, like most, if not all, of the templates do, adjust the docs to require unlinked ISO 8601 YYYY-MM-DD format, and send somebody's bot around to convert everything   to  ? With many, if not most date pref settings, the accessdate currently displays in a different format than the other date(s) in the template/on the page. Shawisland (talk) 05:41, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Citing book - I don't want "et al."
I'm citing a book with four authors. How come the forth author is replaced with "et al."? I want the four of them to appear in the citation.

--Phenylalanine (talk) 01:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. And we have a solution; it just needs implementation. See "et al again" above. Maybe we can ask JackSchmidt (or someone else who understands template magic better than I do) to merge his changes into the main template? It's been two months and nobody has objected to the proposed change. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Good idea. --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I encourage you to do this as well. Sometimes, you just want to know the authors' names. If the citation is used to refer to the source of an interesting bit of data, one might be interested in seeing if one of the authors wrote any other books or articles. Knowing the fourth or fifth author makes this easier because you dont have to go get the book to find out those other names. – ishwar  (speak)  03:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and did the merge, since it needed an admin to do it. I hope I haven't broken something else in the process... —David Eppstein (talk) 03:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot! --Phenylalanine (talk) 10:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks from me as well. JackSchmidt (talk) 19:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong object I have been using the Citation template extensively in articles such as General relativity. Now, all of a sudden, in the middle of a peer review and heading for FAC, I notice that all my "et al." are gone, and I find further, upon looking up this talk page, that the reason for this appears to be that the template has been changed. I think that's not a good idea, and frankly, the fact that nobody has objected here on the talk page up until now means very little – I would think that only very few editors watch the pages of all the templates they use; that doesn't mean those editors won't object to changes when you pull some function of the template out from under their feet.


 * In this case, I am convinced that many other editors did as I did, that is: they list only the first four authors of an article with more than four authors (the last article I entered had 26), and rely on the template's "et al." automatism to take care of the rest – if I remember correctly, the Harvnb template won't even work properly if the Citation lists more than the first four authors. Which means that, with this change you made, there are now very probably a great number of citations which are simply wrong – they list four authors only, with no et al., for articles that have more authors than that.  So please, please change it back.  If you want the option of not having et al., fine – introduce an extra switch or something, but please do not change the default in a way that is likely to break a great number of references. Given the current state of wikipedia, there's quite enough to do when it comes to adding proper citations and references.  Please be so kind as not to make that work any harder and frustrating than it is already. Markus Poessel (talk) 01:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Markus has very valid points. And yes, I too list all authors (my max was only 15 though). ::Perhaps a compromise can be reached in that the full list appears only in a print version? This could be accomplished with a little CSS magic. -- Fullstop (talk) 02:11, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe a reasonable workaround would be to make lastn=others, and omit firstn. E.g.

becomes

Let that be your "extra switch". —David Eppstein (talk) 02:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * As I said, this probably affects everyone who used Harvnb and the old Citation – we could be talking about hundreds of citations that would need to be changed, with no way of knowing which those are. And frankly, even if we could find out who all the other editors were, I think it would be pretty rude to go to all of them and basically say "thank you for putting in citations, and for using proper templates to do so; as a reward, here's some extra tedious work for you." Surely the only thing that makes sense is backwards compatibility – reprogram the template so that a) it doesn't break anything that's already out there, and b) it gives the needed extra functionality (leaving out the et al.) to those who asked for it. Also, there is the issue that WP:CITE explicitly lists Harvard referencing as a citation option (mentioning that it is "the most commonly used reference method in the physical and social sciences"). So leaving users of the Citation template without a proper way of implementing this citation style, well, if your goal is to try and discourage people to put in proper citations, you're on the right track. Markus Poessel (talk) 14:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know what you're on about regarding Harvard referencing. The harv series of templates haven't changed, nor has the code in this template that makes the link names that the harv templates refer to. The only difference is which authors are displayed in the actual citation. And, by the way, all the citations that listed full author sets for papers, beyond the first three (and there are many of them; I added plenty of them myself) now work, and would be back to their earlier broken state if we added an explicit switch that had to be included in the template to get the non-broken behavior. So that same argument cuts both ways. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Putting "others" as an author should never be done. It will make the machine-readable metadata incorrect. I don't see any reason why this template shouldn't use the et al. style for its display. The key to using citation templates is to type in all the data correctly and then, unless it is actively broken, ignore how the overall output looks, leaving that to whoever wrote the template. If an individual editor simply prefers a different style, there's no requirement they must use the templates in the first place. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I strongly disagree. The point is that the physicists didn't type the data correctly (and can't do so) because they have papers with thousands of authors. A list of authors that ends with an explicit ellipsis like "others" (and, by the way, "others" is the prescribed method of indicating this in bibtex files as well) is better than one that includes four authors and then stops with no indication that there are really 996 more of them not listed. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, as far as I can tell the only problem is with those uses of the citation template that included only 4 out of n (n greater than 4) authors, and depended on the old behaviour to hide the omission. The use of the harv templates is completely unaffected.  Only the first four authors are used to make the link anchor that the harv template links to.  To me it seems (1) not terrible that "et al." is missing on 4 out of 25 author papers, (2) better to set last4 (or last15 or whatever) to "others" if there are authors missing.  For (2), this sounds sane if only because "others" is shorter than the n'th authors full name, which is not going to be displayed anyways.
 * I probably don't have time to cook up the code for this, but it might not be too hard to include another argument to the template, maybe "numauths" or something, which logically defaults to:
 * 1 if there is no Surname2 (by the time we get to core)
 * 2 if there is no Surname3
 * 3 if there is no Surname4
 * infinity if there is a Surname4 (I think infinity=10 would suffice with the current code, but infinity=999 should be more future proof)
 * Then, the et al. would be displayed exactly if numauths was greater than the number of Surnames given. For the fairly common case of 4 author works, the bibliographers would be forced to add numauths=4 to get rid of the annoying "et al." refering to precisely one author, but those who were used to the default behaviour would not need to make any changes.
 * Editting the template code takes a little more concentration than I can give in the next month, but the change is in principle simple. Just give citation and citation/core a new argument, do the three deep nested if to set its default value, then change the #if: guys to include the numauths condition (and I think switch to Surname detection, but I would need to check citation again).  The sea of braces is too much for my tired eyes this month, but if noone here can put something together better than a revert, I'll create a quick version that handles only MP's complaint. JackSchmidt (talk) 15:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, this is a much better fix - we should use template parameter names to specify conditions, not the contents of their arguments. What if there is an author named "other"? &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 15:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify my problem: Back when I put in my citations, I found by trial-and-error that I didn't get the proper behavior out of Harvnb if I included more than exactly the first four authors in the Citation template, and the same four names into the Harvnb template – the link from Harvnb to the Citation wouldn't come out right. That's why I assume that others did the same.  If someone could implement the fix sketched by Jack Schmidt, I'd be most grateful. Markus Poessel (talk) 16:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It should still be the case that you need to specify exactly four names in harvnb, and at least four names in citation. If this change broke your Harvard templates, that was unintended and should be fixed. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * "authorX=others" is not a good idea. Fields should not be co-opted to do something they were not intended to do. On the other hand, numauths= is not so good either because it would result in quite a bit of #if-ing. Given that the issue at hand is 'all or 3+et al.', a simple listall= (to override the old et. al. functionality) should suffice.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 19:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I think I'm fine with that. The numauths= has the slight advantage that the user can customize how soon the et al. appears, but I suspect the vast majority of people would prefer all or "nothing" (that is, 3).  Certainly it is no worse than the current "8 or more are explicit, 9 and higher become 8+et al.". We should document that the "et al." is defined now and forever to occur after the first 3 authors or not at all (on this particular template), to avoid biting MP and other science editors. JackSchmidt (talk) 20:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, that sounds sensible. Also, the numauths/listall possibility could coalesce as a parameter named etal=, with a value of 'off' to turn it off. Then, if more flexibility than just 'off' or 3 (default) is desired, someone could still implement etal=8 for 8+et al, or whatever. -- Fullstop (talk) 20:52, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Perfect. Right now, just have it be yes/no and only hook it enough to show 3+etal or all.  Later on when my eyes are better or when there is actually a pressing need, the etal=8 can be added, hooking "yes" etc. to be 3.  This also fairly clearly says "don't set first4=et al." to someone who only reads the parameter names, addressing CBM's concern. It also addresses my concern for metadata: if you omit the authors in the template, they will, a fortiori, be omitted from the metadata.  Having the et al. parameter also allows future generations to say "we want better metadata, you should set etal to (whatever) if authors are omitted, so the new metadata scheme can properly encode this."  Right now, the current method is probably fine. JackSchmidt (talk) 22:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for all your efforts – I appreciate what you're doing here. There's one more thing I noticed.  WP:CITE gives the following guideline for Harvard referencing: "For two authors, use (Smith & Jones 2005); for three or more authors, use (Smith et al. 2005).".  I'm used to doing the same in the reference section, namely: for the three authors of Smith et al. 2005, I would only list Smith and then et al.: "Smith, J., et al. (2005): Dutch Citing Practices. Harvard University Press." – this is also how it is listed in http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm?harvard_id=27#27 (given as a link in the WP Harvard Referencing article).  Yet Citation, in this case, would list the first three authors explicitly, and only then add et al. – is this deliberate?  Is this a different citation style? Markus Poessel (talk) 00:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Questions
--Phenylalanine (talk) 11:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * What citation-style (APA, MLA...) is the template "Citation"?
 * Is the template "Citation" equivalent to the other citation templates (cite book, cite journal...) in terms of the citation-style (APA, MLA...)?
 * Why does Wikipedia use multiple templates for the same purpose (citing books, journals...)?
 * Why isn't Wikipedia consistent in its use of citation templates across articles (some articles use "Cite book", others use "Citation" to cite books, etc.)?
 * It is not designed to be in strict compliance to any external style, but is customized to make article location easy.
 * The templates occasionally do diverge in style, but several people try to make them very similar.
 * Different authors have different preferences. WP does not encourage or discourage a particular method of citation over any other.
 * See above.
 * --Karnesky (talk) 20:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for the response. By "article location", do you mean the location of journal articles, via pmid and doi? But I don't see how that has anything to do with citation-style. Do Britannica, Grolier and Encarta use their own citation-style? Avoiding well-established citation methods seems unprofessional, the varying and inconsistent use of such methods across Wikipedia is even more so! Just my opinion. --Phenylalanine (talk) 07:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * 1. If you have concrete suggestions with respect to how we can make things better (read: more compliant) then please list them. For technical reasons (and as Karnesky has already noted), not all of them may be implementable, but I will address them if I can.
 * 2. Wikipedia has multiple templates for historical reasons, and are retained because some people feel very strongly about doing things the way they are accustomed to doing things.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 18:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I propose that all redundant citation templates be deleted and that WP make mandatory one particular method of citation, preferably one that is compliant with well established standards, such as MLA or APA... The current wishy-washy attitude with respect to citation styles is totally inappropriate for an encyclopedia.--Phenylalanine (talk) 20:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Please define which styles are 'redundant,' propose how to fix all of the articles that use them before the templates are deleted, and explain why we would want to switch to a style less suited to us (since they contain less information that assists in locating articles (especially online)). I think it might be better to just fix inconsistencies where you see them. --Karnesky (talk) 14:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * While I think that our needs differ from those of other encyclopedias, I'd welcome you to state the exact citation styles you think your examples use. Divergence from APA and MLA are incredibly common even in the print world--look at the number of styles included with reference management software.
 * I think this is almost a special case of WP:ENGVAR. In any case, I don't know what you are trying to accomplish by commenting on a single template page--this would require a more centralized discussion (perhaps on the talk page for the style guideline WP:CITE, since that guideline would have to be edited if others agreed with you). --Karnesky (talk) 14:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * See also Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_12, Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_13, Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_15, Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_16 (just a few of many other discussions similar to this). --Karnesky (talk) 14:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the links. I agree that additional parameters are useful for linking to external and internal pages, but there is no reason why we can't simply add them on to citations that are formatted using APA or MLA (or other widely used) styles. Also, I think the transition on Wikipedia to a style such APA need not be abrupt. We can start by recommending the style for new articles and by encouraging changes to old articles provided the're not controversial. Some time later, we can turn the recommendation into a rule and start enforcing it through FAC and FAR, etc. By the way, I don't know much about how templates work and how to change them, so I'm being purposefully vague here. --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * There are already subsets of Wikipedia that have essentially given up on the FAC/FAR process due to an overemphasis there on form over content. We don't need to make the problem worse. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Management of volunteer organisations is a complicated matter. Deleting thousands of hours of volunteer labor and then violating established policies like WP:PILLAR by adding some new mandatory rule for editing, in order to gain only a small amount of traditional typographic conformance is not a good management decision.
 * In another direction, the rigid rules of LCSH has produced a scheme that does not scale well today's information resulting in rigid rules that no one has time to apply. The more liquid and responsive "keyword tagging" has adapted to this environment.  With several million articles, and new articles coming in at more than one per second, a flexible method of citation is needed in order to keep up with the large number of unsourced articles.
 * In other words, until the backlog at Category:Articles needing additional references is more under control, there is little gain in declaring rules for citations. JackSchmidt (talk) 21:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * What do we have to lose by at least "recommending" one particular citation style right now??? and not in 10 years, when Wikipedia will have tripled in size, and we will have an even bigger task on our hands. --Phenylalanine (talk) 10:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * While I agree with you in principle, there isn't any reason why the present status-quo can't continue indefinitely. But if you think that there ought to be a recommendation, then file a proposal to do so at Village pump (proposals). Keep existing habits in mind if you do so, and remember that there is some functionality that  cannot presently (or should not ever) duplicate but that some editors will insist on anyway.
 * Perhaps it would be good idea to first build a "translation" map, i.e. demonstrate how each call to might translate into a call to  . Besides exposing the functionality that needs to be added to  for compatibility, it will be necessary for any argument towards a recommendation. -- Fullstop (talk) 15:00, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

COinS location
When the COinS span tag wraps around content, that content is replaced by things like OpenURL Referrer extension. So when you wrap it around the reference, the entire reference is removed and replaced with a link. :) It's supposed to be at the end, enclosing nothing, but Mediawiki strips out tags that enclose nothing, so we enclose a non-breaking space.   See .  Surrounding an nbsp is the only thing that works on Mediawiki.  We might be able to get away with a comment instead?  I'm not sure if this would always work.  I know Tidy is turned on and off sometimes. — Omegatron (talk) 05:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * If I'm reading you correctly, you're suggesting that the end &lt;/span&gt; be moved up to after the beginning &lt;span class="Z3988" title="..."&gt;, right? -- Fullstop (talk) 18:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Fullstop, I don't quite understand what you mean, but I think you're not quite right. I think that Omegatron is referring to this edit of his to Template:Citation/core. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks. I didn't put two and two together. But I wasn't far off... Omegatron moved the &lt;span&gt; to the end, while I thought he was suggesting to move the &lt; / span&gt; up (so that the cite followed the COinS span). -- Fullstop (talk) 00:17, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * People have tried to wrap the COinS span around the content of several templates a few times now. One reason they have done this is that they want to associate the COinS more with the human-readable reference.  The only response to that is to say that COinS does not work that way.  A second reason is that they find the non-breaking space to be unaesthetic.  A work-around to this seems to be to use

&amp;nbsp;
 * within the COinS span, a'la Template:Cite journal. For browsers that can render CSS, there will be no "extraneous" space.  Tools that replace the contents of the COinS span will replace the hidden span too, so that the link will still be visible.  Tools that place a link adjacent to the contents of a COinS span will place it outside of the hidden span.  --Karnesky (talk) 21:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * COinS is supposed to be empty, by design. It's not something you wrap around things, unless you're wrapping it around something that you want to be replaced by COinS-reading tools.
 * display:none; also doesn't work, because it causes the button or icon to be hidden as well. The only thing that works right now is a non-breaking space.  Someone could petition the developers for another solution... — Omegatron (talk) 23:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Um, if an extension is replacing the entire contents of the span, then ...
 * ought to work fine, no? -- Fullstop (talk) 00:17, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * ought to work fine, no? -- Fullstop (talk) 00:17, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree & this is how I've implemented it in refbase and why I said what I did in my first point.
 * You're mistaken regarding my second point. It is true that if you applied the display:none to the COinS span or to a span that contained the COinS span that the link would be invisible.  But if you apply it to a span that is contained within the COinS span, it will be replaced too (just as Fullstop states). --Karnesky (talk) 00:31, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Karnesky's idea is great. Gets rid of the whitespace while not being stripped by Tidy and is replaced correctly by OpenURL Referrer:


 * 1) Empty COinS tag: <span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.issn=1045-4438">
 * 2) Space inside COinS tag: <span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.issn=1045-4438">
 * 3) Comment inside COinS tag: <span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.issn=1045-4438">
 * 4) nbsp inside COinS tag: <span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.issn=1045-4438">
 * 5) nbsp inside display:none COinS tag: <span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.issn=1045-4438" style="display:none;">
 * 6) nbsp inside display:none span tag inside COinS tag: <span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&amp;rft.issn=1045-4438">

— Omegatron (talk) 00:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes--Currently, 1-3 are removed by tidy, 4 works & is what we have on many templates (including this one), 5 is not removed by tidy, but LibX (and presumably OpenURL Referrer & other tools) fail to render it (as it is hidden), and 6 works well. 6 is what I encouraged Template:Cite journal to use & I see no reason not to use it on other templates (including this one) too. --Karnesky (talk) 00:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I made the suggested change. I've never used COinS before, so I installed zotero to make sure I didn't make a mistake (and because I wanted to have a look anyway). The non-breaking space is indeed not displayed, and zotero can still find all the information. Omegatron or Karnesky, could you please check whether I didn't break anything? Cheers, Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It appears to be fine. Thanks for the super-fast response to GeometryGuy. -- Fullstop (talk) 13:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Link accessdate
Can someone please link the accessdate for this template? As it says in the documentation, the ISO standard version for dates is preferred. Since this is what the template expects, could we please have it like cite web so that linked OR unlinked ISO dates both work, and are automatically linked either way? Right now, it shows the dates, but they are NOT formatted properly. There should also be a period after citations. If how it currently operates is the proper format for these fields, then please disregard this message. Thanks! Gary <b style="color:#02b;"><i style="font-size:large;">K</i>ing</b> ( talk ) 07:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, shouldn't there be a period at the end of citations? Gary <b style="color:#02b;"><i style="font-size:large;">K</i>ing</b> ( talk ) 04:45, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * By now that would be difficult to change. Many articles put in the periods explicitly after this template, because it's not already included. And in some situations, it's useful to be able to tack additional material onto the end of the citation, outside of the template, by using punctuation other than a period. I think we're just going to have to live with that minor inconsistency between this and the cite series of templates. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Recent change whitespace
A recent change seems to have resulted in whitespace being added to the end of citation templates. This is unfortunate as many authors prefer to end references with a period, see e.g., Mario Vargas Llosa. Could someone who knows the code track it down? Thanks, Geometry guy 11:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * See above. Summary: I implemented the suggested fix, so the whitespace should no longer be there. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, many thanks indeed for the fast response Jitse! Geometry guy 08:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion about DOIs over on WP:AN
There's an ongoing discussion relevant to this template at Administrators' noticeboard. Partly it's about whether the bot is sufficiently unbuggy to be allowed to run as a bot, but some people over there seem to feel that DOIs are an evil to be eradicated altogether from Wikipedia. (I disagree, but let's not have the same discussion here.) —David Eppstein (talk) 03:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

parameter request - LCCN numbers
It would be handy if this template supported Library of Congress Control Numbers. The support would not need to be any more sophisticated than the support for OCLCs. An example of a LCCN is "08035502". An example of a LCCN URL is

http://lccn.loc.gov/08035502

--❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 13:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Bump. Ditto with adding support for Template:LCC. --Blehfu (talk) 05:02, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

documentation request - web example needed
Apologies if the article gives one, but I could not find an explicit example of citing a web site. It mentions web-site at the top but I could not fathom it. None of these sections fits for a web cite:
 * 1) Citing books
 * 2) Citing journals, newspapers, magazines, or other periodicals
 * 3) Citing edited books, or parts of edited books, including encyclopedias and encyclopedia articles
 * 4) Citing contributions, republications, or edited quotations in a periodical article

I have a second query related to URLs that are incompatible with wikimedia software, ie. those containing brackets. Here is the example I have failed to wikify:

 http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-545269 

I have resorted to using WebCite and nowiki tags like this:
 * Privacy International. Leading surveillance societies in the EU and the World 2007. 2008-05-15. URL:http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-559597 . Accessed: 2008-05-15. (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/5XpxPOdbb)

Notice the URL contains [ and ]. Thank you for any pointers. -84user (talk) 15:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * A web page is just another source. It does not require special handling.
 * So, use...
 * which gives...
 * The '[' and ']' square brackets need to be encoded as %5B and %5D respectively.
 * The archive link is not valid, since it is not referring to the same document. But not only should you should use archives when possible, the link is for PHR2007, i.e. newer than the 2005 version.
 * So, use...
 * which gives...
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 16:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * which gives...
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 16:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 16:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 16:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, the method of using hexadecimal code is an excellent solution to URLs such as these, and the example of template use is helpful.

Yes, I gave the direct link to the 2006 survey and the WebCite archive link to the 2007 rankings published online in December 2007. I am confused about Privacy International's year numbers though, I see you found the editor name from the PHR2006 Forward here:

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-559059&als%5Btheme%5D=Privacy%20and%20Human%20Rights

That looks Ok for 2006.

But I could not locate an editor for 2007 (except for a simple "Privacy International"), so have I understood the 2007 edition links correctly? The "Leading surveillance societies in the EU and the World 2007" at

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-559597

shows a 2007 map, rankings and a summary. It also states "The most recent report published in 2007, available at http://www.privacyinternational.org/phr ". That phr page has "Privacy and Human Rights 2006". Therefore it seems (but I am not sure) that the 559597 link is a taster for the 2007 edition, yet to be published in print and also not online yet. The EPIC web site it links to here: http://epic.org/phr06/ shows the Privacy and Human Rights 2006 edition, published in September 2007 (ISBN:8930442897).

It appears that PI publishes each year's report late the following year, and also online some months afterwards, so I would expect edition 2007 to appear late 2008. Does this seem right, and if so would it be Ok to just use PI as the editor? -84user (talk) 20:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Good catch with the later publication of the PHR. However, it appears that the 559597 file is one of a series distinct from the PHRs (but like it also appears to be published annually).
 * The 2007 edition of this report is titled "Leading surveillance societies in the EU and the World 2007" and dated 28 December 2007. (Similarly, the x-347-545269 link that you originally noted appears to be from the 2006 edition of the same series).
 * As for the editor of a "current" version,... you could use the current director/deputy director.
 * Taking these three points into account you'd get...
 * yielding...
 * you could also add a  if you wish.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 21:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * you could also add a  if you wish.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 21:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikilinked access dates
Access dates display Wikilinked, but the main page of this template specifies unlinked. What gives? See for example, where the dates were just changed from the way they were entered originally (August 6, 2006) to the ISO format (2006-08-06) and they automatically are Wikilinked, and I see no way to-unlink them to comply with this template. Either change the language to call for linking, or change the code of the template. Thanks. Edison (talk) 18:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Retrieval dates for online versions of old printed sources, again
Please contribute to this discussion at Citing sources: Wikipedia talk:Citing sources --EnOreg (talk) 16:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Consensus: We have a consensus that access dates for online copies of offline sources, while helpful as a comment in the source, should be hidden from the reader. Could somebody who is competent to adapt the citation templates please do so? The idea is to keep the access date as a template parameter but remove the code that displays it. Thanks, --EnOreg (talk) 09:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Object. There may be some consensus to do this for "non-web" sources, but "citation" is a generic template & is sometimes used to cite the very "in flux," web-based sources that an accessdate is an important aid for. --Karnesky (talk) 13:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Point taken. I guess it is not viable to refer users to the cite web template for this case? I hope the template experts here will help find a creative solution. Maybe an access date visible flag? Or simply a recommendation to use the access date parameter exclusively for web-only sources while moving it to a comment for all other links? Cheers, --EnOreg (talk) 13:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If the access date is hidden for templates where most resources have physical manifestations, it might be appropriate to:
 * Alter the template instructions (as you suggest)
 * Hide the parameter when a "physical identifier" (e.g. isbn) is provided
 * I do not think an extra flag to change whether or not the parameter is visible is very useful--it doesn't fix old entries, raises debate about what the default should be, and would most likely be neglected by future editors. --Karnesky (talk) 14:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Can we keep the discussion in the above linked thread where everyone can see it? — Omegatron (talk) 17:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Typographic quotation marks
Can we change this to include real quotation marks (“ ”) around a title, instead of the typewriter quotes (" ")? As long as there is no need for an editor to fiddle with the typography, why shouldn't it look as professional as possible? Might even help encourage use of the template. —Michael Z. 2008-05-26 19:43 z 


 * That seemed minor enough that I was bold and did it. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:58, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you! —Michael Z. 2008-05-26 20:38 z 

edit protected
 * David, please undo that change. It is both formally and syntactically incorrect. Style manuals (APA, MLA, Chicago whatever) prescribe straight quotes for good reason. A title is not a quotation.
 * -- Fullstop (talk) 16:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The Chicago Manual of Style uses the "real" curly quotes (and not straight quotes). Can't vouch for the others offhand, but I've seen plenty of print bibliographies that do not use straight quotes.  --Karnesky (talk) 16:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Additionally: MHRA uses real single quotes (not straight ones). Does APA even use quotation marks?  --Karnesky (talk) 16:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * ❌ Unless David Eppstein adds them back. There seems to be a good case for the curly quotes, and this is supported by two editors. PeterSymonds (talk)  17:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I just looked at the house styles for math and computer science journals from ten different publishers (eight commercial, two major societies). Two of them use curly quotes. The rest use a bibliography style that does not use quotes. None use straight quotes. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

ps: Just an idea: should we switch to Chicago for year/vol+issue positions?
 * hrm. -- (ps Karnesky: right, APA doesn't use quotation marks at all, and APA is what citation is based on. Also, my 1993 14th Chicago says straight ones). -- Fullstop (talk) 21:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Re. Chicago: Does is specifically state that, or is it just typset that way? If it is just typeset that way, how does it typeset in-text quotations.  My source was the online version, which  is an HTML version of the 15th edition and contains figures illustrating usage. --Karnesky (talk) 22:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Turabian (old school chicago) 3rd edition, 1970 impression, uses straight quotes for all examples (which are in typewriter font), but uses curly quotes in the fully typeset portion of the book (the main text). JackSchmidt (talk) 02:23, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * ditto. I looked at the online 15th Chicago and it notes that the changes include updates for "current technology," which I assume is a belated recognition of the general availability of GUI-based word processing software. Anyway, that web edition has typographical quotation marks, and since WP is web too, WP is evidently now up to snuff on "current technology" as well. Right? -- Fullstop (talk) 03:04, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Help me fix this template at Linus Pauling
Hi, I'm trying to cite the Dunitz reference in-text using the Harvard citation template over at the Linus Pauling, and it's not working. CTRL-F to Dunitz and try the link; it is dead. Yet Dunitz is referenced at the bottom using Citation. ImpIn | (t - c) 09:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Should be fixed now. You need to add the year and use only single | characters, like in . -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that was a typo. I don't see why we need the p=. Why not just have the last field automatically be pages? ImpIn | (t - c) 01:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Because page numbers within a Harvard citation and within a bibliography entry mean different things. In the Harvard citation, it indicates the page where that specific fact can be found, but in the bibliography it indicates the range of pages that publication uses within some larger entity (e.g. a chapter within a book, a journal article within an issue of a journal...). —David Eppstein (talk) 01:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm talking about the in-text format, though:  This page number will always the page to look for in the article. I'm not really following. In this template, I can do "Dunitz" rather than lastname=Dunitz. The same should apply for page number. ImpIn | (t - c) 01:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, you mean why do you have to use "p=" to specify a page number rather than letting it figure it out from the argument order? Because the template is not coded in a smart enough way to distinguish three arguments that give an author, year, and page from three arguments that give an author, second author, and year. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:59, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but it's almost that smart. Everyone who uses this template is going to naturally put author first, date second, and page third. Might as well allow it to recognize the fields like that. Who does the code for this thing, by the way? ImpIn | (t - c) 02:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I just looked up the docs for harvcol. It claims to be able to handle a third argument with p=, with pp=, or with nothing. Does it not work if you omit the p=? —David Eppstein (talk) 02:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It breaks it. Still lists the page, but the link doesn't go through and it gets outputted as "(Dunitz & 1996 333)" rather than "(Dunitz 1996:333)". ImpIn | (t - c) 23:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, it links to instead of . -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * One needs the  to distinguish it from pp., to distinguish it from something other than p./pp., and because the p./pp. is not necessarily in the third argument (think multiple authors). -- Fullstop (talk) 03:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It is necessarily the last argument, however. The p/pp could be coded out. ImpIn | (t - c) 23:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Bugs with page/pages and doi
Documentation says that "p." or "pp." is automatically prepended to page numbers, but this is not true (as can be seen in examples). Also, nothing is produced when doi= is added; this forced me to switch to the  template (which had other cosmetical problems). --Blaisorblade (talk) 14:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * "p." or "pp." are used for book chapters etc., but our style for journal article citations omits them. As for doi, when no other url is present, it should show up as a link on the title of the article; the actual doi code is not shown in that case. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yep, the suppression of p./pp. is intentional for periodicals. And doi works just fine.
 * gives
 * Tadaa! :) -- Fullstop (talk) 19:59, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Tadaa! :) -- Fullstop (talk) 19:59, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Tadaa! :) -- Fullstop (talk) 19:59, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Citing foreword, introduction, etc.
The convention when citing a foreword seems to be: (boldface added) Is there any way to do that using this template? Merzul (talk) 09:45, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Author (of introduction, preface, etc.). Foreword.  Title of book.  By  Author of Book. ...


 * With the difference that it shouldn't be in quotation marks, a foreword (or introduction, preface, afterword) is essentially the same as any other chapter in greater work. So...
 * gives
 * At present there isn't a way to suppress the quotation marks. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * At present there isn't a way to suppress the quotation marks. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * At present there isn't a way to suppress the quotation marks. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, well, I don't care so much about quotation marks, but I was trying to do a proper formatting of this ref:
 * . Introduction. Acts of Religion. By Derrida, Jacques. New York & London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92400-6.
 * It's an introduction to Anidjar's translation of Derrida's book, which is why one uses "by" not "in". Merzul (talk) 17:41, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Patents
What about patents? The fields just don't seem a perfect fit. Any recommendations? --SV Resolution(Talk) 16:34, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * citation with automagically switch to "patent" mode when you use  instead of  . For a list of options, see Template:Citation/doc -- Fullstop (talk) 18:15, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Somehow, I just didn't find that the first time I searched. --SV Resolution(Talk) 16:50, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Broken DOIs
Just had discussion at cite journal over broken DOIs (the doi value is correct but publisher either closed down or taken over, and so the doi database link nolonger hits a target). Removing the doi value in such cases only has another editor or a bot later trying to reinsert it. Yet would be helpful not to link the value to prevent readers from wasting their time. Conclusion was to use a doi_brokendate parameter: doi value still shown but not linked, indicates when this citation feature noted (similar to accessdate) and adds page to a category list. See Template talk:Cite journal (historically ). Coding changes here. I'm happy to add to this citation template if people agree :-) David Ruben Talk 13:49, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Inconsistency with Cite Journal template
While the input parameters for this template are the same as cite journal, the code output is very different. For example, DOIs are not even rendered ( gives no output;  does). For consistency, this should be addressed.

Further, does this template not render {Cite journal} redundant? So many long and arduous discussions have been had at Cite Journal that seem to have to be made again here - it'd make sense just to have one template and stick with it!

Smith609  Talk  12:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Because citation has formating issues compared to cite journal and the two are not currently equivalent (although I agree they should be consistent) ?
 * Take the issue of linking the title. My understanding from discussions at cite journal is that title links should be to both full and freely available versions. Linking doi to the title is problematic as these are often not full versions but an abstract, however the title-linking to PMID is awful as these are only ever abstracts. Finally, not only does this template link the title to PMID, but it then duplicates showing the link later.
 * Hence

, Gives:
 * But

, Gives:
 * PubMed Central, unlike PMID from PubMed, is a repository of full and freely avaialble journal papers and a suitable alternative to title linking if the url is not specified, and cite journal allows just this one alternative to the url for title linking:
 * Hence

, Gives:
 * But

, Gives:
 * I agree through having a single template would reduce having to look at several template documentation pages to decide which to use, and centralise citation template development. However I can't help thinking if this single template has such widely differing parameter sets, in particular for citing patents which shares almost no parameters with the other uses of this template, then might not the documentation and indeed the template coding itself be simpler for splitting off "cite patent" as a separate template altogether ? Finally seeing a range of self-identifying templates, eg cite web cite news cite journal, does help me as an editor trying to locate quickly a particular reference to edit in a larger article section. I think it might be harder for editors looking at a sparse reference to decide from just the url if the source was just a web news service or an incompletely-filled journal reference.
 * Smith609 raises a very good point, and the current muddle needs be sorted. So either:
 * the templates should be merged into one or
 * they need to have much better coordination between their development so that parameter usage and output formating are the same...
 * Perhaps all the outlying template talk pages should redirect here for single discussion area and then implementating changes across all the "cite" templates in a uniform maner.
 * Whilst I could envisage having the other templates each call one master template that provides the actual rendering, that seems IMHO an unclear fudge :-)
 * David Ruben Talk 15:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

How to cite conferences with this template?
This template lacks a "conference" parameter. To which parameter is this equivalent, and how should one use it to cite the published proceedings of a conference? (cf. Template:Cite conference). Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  18:11, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Is the spoken word at a conference WP:Reliable sources (any more than what my professors said in a lecture is not) ? I thought we needed to wait for any subsequent peer-reviewed journal paper to cite from. As WP:RS says "Wikipedia articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources" (bolding as original). Prelimary findings are often presented at a conference, subjected to critiscm and resulting in a somewhat different final published paper - and it is upon the latter that other researchers and later papers will cite. David Ruben Talk 22:51, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Martin is presumably not talking about citing talks at conferences, but about citing conference proceedings. Some (perhaps even many) proceedings are subject to rigorous peer review and can be used as reliable source. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:07, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * (Edit conflict) Conference proceedings are printed and often peer-reviewed, so your objections are unfounded. As for how to cite them using this template, I use contribution=The name of the paper | title=The title of the conference proceedings (i.e. what's on the cover of the book, not always the same as the conference name) | pages=Where the paper appears in the proceedings | year=Publication date of the proceedings (not always the same as the date of the conference), etc. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:08, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to merge redundant citation templates

 * Perceived problem:
 * The template "Citation" duplicates a wide range of templates: "Cite journal", "cite web", "cite news", "cite conference"... and so on
 * Wikipedia aims for a consistent citation style
 * Every time a change is made to one template, it must also be made to the other. This often doesn't happen; further, some people only watch one template, so don't contribute to all discussions.


 * NOTE: this discussion does not address the issue of whether editors ought to use citation templates or not. It merely aims for consistency where editors do chose to use a template. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  09:12, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Proposed solutions:
 * The only way to avoid this redundancy is to have one template, or family of templates, in use. To achieve this we can either:
 * 1) Phase out all "cite whatever" templates, and only use "Citation"
 * 2) Phase out "Citation", and only use "cite whatever"
 * 3) Re-write "citation" so it calls the appropriate "cite whatever" (likely to be a drain on Wiki servers)
 * Bots can help out here, and there's no need to make the change instantaneously. We can worry about the details later.
 * NOTE: just because the templates at the moment do not have the same functionality does not mean that this functionality could not be added eventually. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  18:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Discussion:
 * At this stage, please restrict the discussion to the perceived problem. Is there an advantage to having separate templates? Does it justify the problems of redundancy and inconsistent formatting?  To keep the discussion clear, please set up a new level 4 heading for each advantage/disadvantage, so it can be discussed in place.
 * Once there is consensus that this is a problem, we will move on to the next phase of discussion, and work out if and how it can be resolved.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Smith609 (talk • contribs) 07:27, 24 June 2008

Comments
Wikipedia does not yet aim for a consistent citation style between articles. Per Citing sources, the use of templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged and there is no single citation style that is encouraged over others (although it is preferred that additional citations added to one article use the same style as those added early.

In any case, I do not think that "phasing out all 'cite whatever'" templates is an appropriate solution. Citations are complex & I fear that WP's templates are somewhat brittle. It is useful to have multiple templates to customize them to the unique needs of certain types & to minimize impact to other citations when making a change to a single resource type.

I don't often use the 'Citation' template, but it is useful to have a generic template that often works & I think any benefit for deprecating it would be marginal & would not make up for the inconvenience to other editors who do use it.

Sharing functions (like those in citation/core) and/or calling other templates where appropriate might be more reasonable (though I still question whether the "problem" you raise actually needs any solution). The proof for this strategy would be in code--make templates in your user namespace & post examples. Others can then make sure that they do bring a benefit (at minimum: making references more uniform) without too many defects. --Karnesky (talk) 12:04, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Support in principle: I do think that having duplicate templates is a problem that should be resolved. The fundamental problem is this: Inevitably, the different templates wind up with different formatting (which means that different template families can't be used in the same article) and different features (which means that I sometimes want to use different template families in the same article).

The feature of that I most often want to use is the creation of an anchor that can be easily linked to with. Currently, that function is not easily implemented with or other cite xxx templates because they don't take the last2=, last3=, etc parameters (which are used to form the anchor). Surely this and other features could be duplicated in the different templates, but it seems like wasted, duplicated effort. ASHill (talk &#124; contribs) 13:04, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose for now. I would love to have a simple template, useful for anything, but the reality is that the same field is formatted differently for a scholarly journal, a website, and a news article – so either the fields would have to be named differently for each (having, for example, fields such as newsissue and journalissue, duplicating all but formatting), or we would need a code that switches the template from journal mode to news mode to website mode (maybe something like  for news,  for journal, and so forth. ), which would be the same as using multiple templates, really. A good idea in theory, but I don't think we're there yet. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 14:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Either (1) a unified template can be modified to display everything correctly, or (2) it can't. So there's either no point in having  "citation", or no point in having "cite this" and "cite that".  Template:Citation does a pretty good job of formatting things properly, as it happens.  Anyway, it reads like you are opposing the existance of Template:Citation – thus supporting a merge. Is that fair? Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  15:17, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose in principle. I dislike, and do not intend to use any of, the citation templates; but those who differ in this should indeed have a general template for those occasions when a reference does not fit into any of the categories which are served by the special templates. Conversely, when an article is citing books or newspapers or journals, there should be a simple template which can be easily filled out. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * But the citation template is not a general template to use when none of the cite xxx templates are appropriate; in fact, the citation template cannot be used in an article in which the cite xxx templates are used, at least according to the featured article candidate review process. ASHill (talk &#124; contribs) 15:39, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Really? I hadn't heard about that piece of mindless rule enforcement, although it is fully characteristic of the process; which candidacy came up with that gem of imbecillity? If so, someone with an odd reference and a preference for template citation must use only citation, which means it must exist. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The most recent one I was involved in: Featured article candidates/Formation and evolution of the Solar System (see comment by Sandy Georgia). The formatting concern is not altogether without merit, which is why I support merging all the functionality of the two template families into one family or the other; I think there is no reason in principle why the cite xxx templates can't be made to support . ASHill (talk &#124; contribs) 16:12, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstood Sandy. Her objection seems to me to be that citation and the individual cite templates produced different formats in the final output visible to the reader, which is a bad thing; although not as bad as Sandy thinks it is. This could be fixed by tweaking the individual templates, not by merging them; if not, it should be documented clearly and unmistakably. The problem should not be cause for FA oppositioon, but clearing FA of idiotic MOScruft is more than this discussion can do.  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I respect the preference not to use any citation templates, but I do not see how that preference is relevant to this discussion of whether there should be different templates with duplicate purposes. ASHill (talk &#124; contribs) 15:39, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Merely a disclaimer of personal interest, which is why this is opposition in principle. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose (edit conflict). See no reason at all for this sort of merger and citation does NOT cover all of the cite templates, nor should it. The individual cite templates are far more useful, properly format their citations for the type of media, and provides a quick idea to editors of what sort of citation an item is just by its name. This is taking "simplification" to excess. It would be one thing to merge very similar templates, like journal and news, but merging them all just isn't reasonable nor useful to anyone. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 15:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry to be replying to every oppose, but please read the proposal carefully. The proposal does not take a position on whether citation or the various cite xxx templates should be kept; only to choose one family or the other. Would you support the elimination of the citation template? ASHill (talk &#124; contribs) 15:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Then why do it? It is really rather annoying that you are pouncing on everyone's oppose. And no, I wouldn't support getting rid of this one either, as there again is no reason too. They are not as redundant as proposed, and each have their purposes. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 16:18, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * What are these "purposes"? I've never seen any documentation advising when it is preferable to use Cite XXX or Citation.  If there is indeed a difference, it should at the very least be spelt out clearly somewhere.
 * P.S. If it does "annoy" you that someone's opinion differs to your own, please try and resolve the difference slightly more civilly. If Ashill doesn't have a valid point, I'm sure he'll respond much more generously if you politely explain where he's mistaken. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  18:43, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment. The templates are sufficiently different from each other, and used frequently enough throughout Wikipedia, that it would be highly nontrivial to get rid of one or the other. To point to one of the most obvious differences: proper use of citation requires the use of last2=, last3=, etc, or else it will not make a proper anchor that harv can find, whereas cite journal doesn't support those parameters. So while in principle I see the duplication of effort in the two sets of templates as a problem to be fixed, in practice it doesn't look at all easy to do a merge. I definitely do not support getting rid of citation in favor of cite, because cite doesn't make the harv anchors. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:00, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * cite book has a  parameter that can be used to support harv, although you have to format the CITEREF in  manually (someone could create a template to use as " " if that's a big deal); maybe the same could be added to cite journal. Anomie⚔ 18:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Anything can be added to any template – which is sort of the point of this discussion. Cite journal could easily be changed to generate a CITEREF using the   and   parameters. The only reason it hasn't is because the change was proposed at Citation, and because there are two separate templates no-one thought to suggest it at Cite journal too.  Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  18:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * cite journal could perhaps be modified to support the lastn= parameters and generate the anchors, though I suspect grinding through all the template code would not be as easy as you guess. The many instances of cite journal in articles would be much more difficult to change systematically to use the lastn= parameters properly. And if they aren't all changed systematically, we're going to see a lot of complaints about the harv template not working properly when it's really the fault of a half-baked template merge. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Fundamentally different. Despite the fact that people using the templates don't seem to notice this, the Cite family separates elements with periods, which is customary for alphabetical reference lists; it is best suited for the Harvard citation style, or for short endnotes. The Citation template separates elements with commas, which is customary for footnotes. (In the case of Wikipedia, since we present an entire article as a single web "page", "footnote" and "endnote" are synonymous.) If there is a merge, one of two things would have to be done:
 * 1) install a flag that indicates whether it is a footnote or a reference list entry, or
 * 2) alter the Manual of Style to state that it is Wikipedia house style to always separate elements with periods (or commas, whichever everyone agrees with) regardless of whether the citation is a footnote or a reference list entry. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If that is the case, then the distinction needs to be made clear in the respective templates' documentation; I see no mention in any template documentation of in Citing sources. It's very odd that the cite xxx templates are best for use with Harvard citations, because they don't produce the anchor needed to support ! If there's a consensus to make these differing purposes clear and kept in mind when editing the templates, I would support keeping both families. ASHill (talk &#124; contribs) 19:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It is the use of periods to separate elements that is customary in alphabetical reference lists. The fact that cite xxx templates fail to provide anchors for Harvard citations indicates a deficiency in their design (if indeed they were designed; maybe they just happened). Similary, the fact that the Citation template supports Harvard citations but does not use periods to separate elements when using Harvard citations indicates a design flaw. As for "the distinction needs to be made clear in the respective templates' documentation", that's true only of the templates are to continue to be supported. If they are abandoned, we don't need to fix the documentation. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:03, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Qualified support While I agree that, eventually, Wikipedia should use machine-readable citations on every page, I think that this is a project which will take several years, perhaps even decades, to implement.

I disagree strongly that the way to carry out these changes is to write something into a Style Guide that recommends changing thousands of articles, without first gaining the consent and support of the editors of those articles. There is, in my view, only one way to implement a change in citation format that is in the spirit of Wikipedia. A dedicated group of editors must systematically: This allows all the editors of Wikipedia to participate in this discussion. It is, in my view, well within their rights to refuse to agree to the changes you are proposing. In short, there is no point in changing a style guide to recommend a change that many Wikipedia editors disagree with.
 * 1) Post a message on the talk page of each article where which uses a non-standard citation template or format.
 * 2) Wait one month or more to see if any of the "local" editors have an objection to this change.
 * 3) Argue persuasively on the talk page of each article that this new citation format is an improvement.
 * 4) Implement the changes to that page.

I also disagree strongly that the way to fix this is to change the citation templates so that they appear differently in any article where there were used, for similar reasons.

I agree that the templates can be rewritten to share a common core, if it is possible to do this without changing the way they function in any of the millions of articles in which they appear. CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Strong Support I have long felt that factoring out the common functionality into a single 'core' template makes perfect sense and resolves issues with bugs not getting fixed across every one of multiple templates and am glad to see this issue getting attention. While factoring out common code might pose performance problems, I do not feel such problems would be extreme, nor do I feel they should weigh significantly in the decision of whether to do the factorization. The servers will always get more powerful over time, so to not do something that makes the editors more productive today and moving forward because the computers may not be able to keep up today is a poor trade-off in my opinion. Therefore, I fully support the idea of making the existing templates all implemented in terms of a common core of factored templates to remove redundancy across templates and result in more consistent citations through shared code. WilliamKF (talk) 22:47, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Neutral. I personally only use the the "Cite xxxx" templates, because I don't care for the formatting of "Citation". However, I've been constantly bugged by the idea that we must be beholden to a particular citation style (MLA, APA, whatever). Rather than trying to fix a somewhat broken and divided system, why not develop an easier-to-use, unique, simplified citation style for Wikipedia that will better meet our needs, rather than try and conform to the assorted disjointed formats out there. Sure, there will always exist the need for specialised templates for maps, patents, court cases, etc, but to have a single format that won't boggle the minds of our readers should be our ultimate goal.  Basically, I suppose I'm saying: work towards scrapping what we have...we can do better than this. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 01:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with Hunster's comment that "there will always exist the need for specialised templates for maps, patents, court cases, etc". There are too many specialized needs to be able to create everything that could be needed in advance, and we can't expect an editor to suspend editing an article until an appropriate template is created. Thus, there is always a need to create citations without templates. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 02:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I fully agree with that...I'm simply operating here on the idea that templates tend to get built when there is a demonstrated need/want for them. Obviously, if nothing exists for a particular application and you have neither the desire nor ability (or it just doesn't make sense) to create a template, then normal text is perfectly fine. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 04:26, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Conclusion
So issues raised over markup used by citation and cite xxx and which, if either, exclusively to use. Hence the decision-tree & questions to try and gauge consensus on are:
 * 1) Should, in principle, there be just citation or cite xxx family (asuming feature list the same, eg anchors for Harvard, doi_brokendate etc)
 * 2) *1a) If so, which of citation or cite xxx family ?
 * 3) *1b) Else we choose to maintain both.
 * 4) If both kept, then in principle, should their output/markup be the same when the same-named parameters are used (i.e. citation given journal-like parameters looks same as cite journal) ?
 * 5) *2a) If so, then should a single collective decision result in changes being implemented automatically across all the citation & cite xxx (i.e. no need separate discussion for each template) ?
 * - 2ai) If so, then should all the template talk pages be redirected to a single centralised discussion area ?
 * 1) *2b) If not, then we are choosing to have different family of citing templates with different markups (the period vs comma item separation as already discussed above) David Ruben Talk 18:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm a weak suporter for 1b), but very strong for 2a) & 2ai) David Ruben Talk 18:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I weakly support 1a (no preference for which, assuming feature equity), but am not sure it's worth the substantial effort required (read: I'm not willing to contribute to the work). If we go with 1b (status quo), I strongly support 2a. ASHill (talk &#124; contribs) 18:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * One additional incompatibility: cite ends its citation with a period. citation does not punctuate the end of the citation, allowing other punctuation to be used to continue the citation. Dealing with this would be trivial if cite were to be phased out in favor of citation (just add the period when you convert the templates) but harder to change or justify with other possible solutions. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I fee that 2a is essential; I don't interpret any of the above discussion as unresolved opposition to this move. I've a fair bit of template experience and would be happy to design the changes; I wonder whether others could help by (1) checking my amendments before they go "live"; (2) finding and listing "unusual" cases of references that are likely to break here.
 * If I go on to make the changes, it should be possible to provide "backwards compatability" until all the templates are compatible with the new format (for example, "cite journal" could go on supporting "last" as well as "last1").
 * As nobody seems to mind too strongly either way about point 1, we may as well leave it as it is for now, and worry about it later if necessary. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  10:26, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Why is there no merger template at the top of the article "Template:Cite book" and why does Template:Citation only show a merge banner with "cite journal"? --Phenylalanine (talk) 12:22, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Adverts were placed either on the content, talk or doc pages of all the affected pages I could find. Feel free to add more where you deem it appropriate! Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  14:47, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Standardisation
There appears to be a consensus to standardise the templates to produce an output in a consistent format. (Option 2a above)

I guess the question is "which format should we use"? I know that a lot of discussion has gone into the matter at Template:Cite journal, so it seems to make sense to use that style. Are there any significant and justifiable weaknesses with using that style?

Please remember:
 * Editors are always welcome to use their own favourite styles on pages simply by not using the templates
 * The style of citation formatting is of minimal importance, so long as it presents the data clearly, so there's no point losing sleep in a protracted debate!

Does anyone have any strong reasons to avoid making the "cite journal" style standard?

Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  14:47, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The format used by "Citation" has some functionality which "Cite journal" lacks, in that it can be used to cite contributions or republications by one author contained within a periodical article by a different author. "Cite journal" doesn't provide for this, as far as I can see. If the "Cite journal" style does end up being the standard, we should make sure we don't lose the ability to use "Citation" to do this. -- Arvind (talk) 11:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Obviously we should be very careful not to remove functionality. I don't think I quite grasp what you mean - could you give a working example, please? Thanks. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  13:28, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, of course. Here's one I used yesterday while writing tbis article:




 * Here, the journal article in question is a review symposium, which contains a number of review pieces by different authors but published as one article (and hence with a single contents entry, a single doi number, etc.) I'm using the first of the reviews as my source.  Citation lets me do that quite neatly, by allowing me to cite the individual contribution within the journal article.  I don't see how I could do this using Cite journal. -- Arvind (talk) 15:12, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I support the proposed standardisation of output. I would also support expanding any missing functionality across both templates. For what it's worth, however, were the original merge proposal to reappear I'd very strongly suggest that the proposal be discussed significantly more widely. There are hundreds of editors using both templates daily for whom a merger would likely be controversial, but who don't habitually monitor the technical forums. Personally, I find a single multi-use "Citation" template vastly preferable, more flexible and more intuitive than the multitude of templates in the "Cite journal" suite, but am more than happy for others to use "Cite journal" if they prefer. Debate   木  14:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've started work on the combined template, which can be tested using by the code in place of  or  .  At the moment, it should provide an output which supports all the features of both the templates Citation and Cite Journal, and it's hopefully most of the way to being combined with Cite Book too.  It'd be really helpful if any interested parties could test out the new code and make sure that there aren't any features I've missed!  Many thanks, Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  20:30, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've not done a rigorous test, but at a cursory look the output from citation looks fine to me with your code. I'm not sure if we're yet at the stage where the parameters are also supposed to be merged across both templates, but I note that some "author" and "publication-date" fields are not being translated across to cite journal in your sample output. Debate   木  21:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I tried it at User:Gerry Ashton/sandbox and the output makes no sense to me. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Whoops, my bad. I'd forgotten to delete some of my test cases! Try again now. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  22:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Good luck to you Smith609. If a unified citation format can be developed and consensus-approved for replacing the various stuff we have now, we'll be all the better for it. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 22:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've noticed that Smith609's version separates elements of the citation with periods, while the original Citation template separates with commas. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * A decision had to be made between the Citation and Cite Journal formats. The "Cite journal" format approximates the Harvard conivention (see below) and it seemed to make more sense to use an already-established reference format than inventing one of our own. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  09:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * When I try Smith609's version I get spurious " (in in) " text after each journal article or conference paper title. Additionally, I get two periods after every citation: one from the template, and one from the source text of the article which is not expecting citation to terminate the citation and includes a period itself. All the doi's, which citation uses to make links on the paper title, show up neither as a link nor as an explicit doi. And for a book title with a volume number in a series (title=... volume=... series=...) the "vol. NN" is placed immediately after the title with no punctuation or spacing, and would be better placed after the series instead of after the title. I'm sure the change from commas to periods throughout will cause grief in some other articles (I have several times used “citation; citation; citation” and that will be wrong with the new punctuation) but it didn't make any difference in the example I was looking at. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for pointing out these errors. That's exactly the kind of feedback I need!  I'll fix them ASAP - although I'm away for the coming week. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  09:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've been looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Smith609/Citation whose documentation gives test examples. I've also added cite news, cite web and cite book for further standardisation comparison.
 * NB cite news needs work as (a) pages listed after publisher rather than after citation details like cite web and cite journal, and (b) Retrieved & Archived sections in reverse order from cite web and more generally when Retrieved details come last of all. David Ruben Talk 01:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The weakness of following the "Cite journal" style is that it, line all the cite templates is limited. When a source comes along that does not fit into any of the existing templates, there is no guidance about what to do. If a reputable paper style manual were followed, there would be guidance for a greater number of sources. This would give guidance to editors who are manually citing a source (because the Citation or cite templates can't handle it) in an article that otherwise uses templates.

Naturally there would have to be some modifications to the style suggested by a paper style manual, since certain text effects (like hanging indents) are difficult, and some improvements can be made that are not possible on paper (wikilinks and web links, for example). --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:21, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The guidance offered is "use any style you wish, so long as you are consistent within an article". Just because one or two citations don't fit a template, we shouldn't do away with the template altogether!  For what it's worth, the formatting most closely resembles the "Harvard style" of reference presentation (I'm not talking about citing with (Author 2002), but about the typeface and punctuation of the citation itself) - this would seem a sensible guide to follow if you are confused in specific cases. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  09:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Another minor issue with User:Smith609/Citation: in an entry that has contribution=, title=, and journal=, it's formatted as contribution. in Editor, “title”. The word "in" before the editor name should be capitalized. citation also has it lower case, but the difference is that the new template has a period prior to the word instead of a comma. Example:

appears as Also, I notice that this still uses straight quotes for the title, while we agreed here to use curly quotes for citation. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:46, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The Manual of Style recommends straight quotes. If an editor needs to type some information into one of the template fields, or chooses to format a citation manually, it will be difficult for the editor to be consistent with the Citation template due to the difficulty of typing curly quotes. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * On my keyboard a curly quote is the same number of keystrokes as a straight one. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:35, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Unless I've serious misunderstood my keyboards all these years, you must have a different style than mine. I don't even have the option for curly quotes, unless I hunt them down in the character map below (which I'd wager most people writing never touch...I certainly don't). — Huntster (t • @ • c) 21:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm using a Mac. Straight quotes are shift-singlequote. Curly quotes are option-squarebracket (and option-shift-squarebracket for the closing quote). —David Eppstein (talk) 21:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Aha. Well, that still rules out the functionality for the sizable number of those using other platforms. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 23:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * cite journal and the other cite XXX templates allow a curly parameter (set it as anything and one gets curly, if undefined then straight quotes used). Coding is easy: David Ruben Talk 02:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * But why give editors the option of flaunting the manual of style? Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  06:54, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Beta 2
I think I've fixed all the unresolved points above. The "full stop at the end of the article title in the text" issue is one that's going to lead to problems either way - some articles' citations already have one, many don't - but a bot can pick up on this and remove spurious ones if necessary. Otherwise - what else have I missed?!

Thanks, Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  09:03, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Editprotected

Sounds like we're ready to go, then. Please replace the contents of Template:Citation with User:Smith609/Citation, and Template:Citation/core with User:Smith609/Citation/core. Thanks! Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  08:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done. The |DOI= parameter changed to |doi= in the new version, so ping me if it broke anything.  Cheers.  <i style="color:green;">lifebaka</i> (talk - contribs) 13:53, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Archives
I just noticed that the archives of this talk page point to Template_talk:Cite_journal archives. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm rather lost on that myself. I've left a note on the original archiver's talk page asking for clarification. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 08:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * mea culpa :-( I'm an idiot (I obviously had both talk pages open at teh same time) - easily untangled, I'll do later today when I have a free moment (don't archive anything until I'm done), oh the shame - but that for spotting an obvious blunder :-) David Ruben Talk 08:57, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

✅ David Ruben Talk 14:20, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Author field?
Is there an "authors" field, where you can list all the authors without having to use "first" and "last", like this: author1, author-link1, author2, author-link2, author3, author-link3, etc.? Thanks. Phenylalanine (talk) 13:20, 29 June 2008 (UTC)--
 * I would appreciate that, too. Seperating all the names makes the template unnecessarily copmlicated to use. --EnOreg (talk) 23:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Rather than concurring with this request, I'll offer an explanation for why it's required that they be separated in this way: If the names weren't separate, it wouldn't be possible for the template to construct the html anchors that the harv templates link to. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I thought author1 meant the first author and author2 meant the second author of a multi-author work. This makes much more sense than interpereting them as given name, surname, etc. Considering that author-link1 and author-link2 exist, this is the only sensible explaination. You wouldn't have one wiki-link to William and a different one to Shakespere, would you? On the other hand, it would make perfect sense to have different links to each author of a multi-author book. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 14:42, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Although it's undocumented, the author field does exist and works as expected. For example:



Note that using the author= field instead of first= and last= will cause the template not to create the anchor for as it normally does. ASHill (talk &#124; contribs) 15:16, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Apparent bug with publication-date
I've just noticed that the publication-date parameter doesn't override year for purposes of producing a cite id. Shouldn't it?

Test cases: ,

Workaround:

harvnb and Citation templates
For the featured article rework on history of computing hardware, I use the harvnb and Citation templates to save on the byte count. My observation has been that I need to use with a corresponding.

But if there is no last name, for example when the citation is from an organization like IEEE or Intel, what should the harvnb contain? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 02:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You could set |last=IEEE or |last=Intel? Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  09:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * As Smith609 says, use the name of the group author, IEEE. If neither the group nor the individual author(s) can be ascertained, the Chicago Manual of Style suggests using the title or a shortened form of the title (14th ed. §16.41).
 * Also, you can use matching Ref= in Harvnb and ref= in Citation.

.

vs.




 * This can be useful when there are many articles by, e.g., "IBM". Also, it avoids having "IBM" appear twice and still allows "IBM" to be identified as publisher. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Language
The article Leopard 2E is currently going through FAC, and I noticed that different templates put the language in different spots. Specifically, see below -



The first one is the cite book template and the second on the cite news. Is there anyway to make these consistent? As in, make the cite news template put the language in a similar location to the cite book template? As it stands, people believe it's my fault for the lack of consistency. Thanks! JonCatalán (talk) 09:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * By comparison, cite journal follows cite book in style:
 * As an aside, in the above example, the title parameter was set with the square brackets as per the convention at PubMed (and hence as User:Diberri's template filler tool so provided this) where the title is the English translation of the original title.
 * Anyway, cite news was the odd one out I agree, I've been bold and standardised - as above examples now show :-) David Ruben Talk 02:02, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Anyway, cite news was the odd one out I agree, I've been bold and standardised - as above examples now show :-) David Ruben Talk 02:02, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Standardising with other templates
A suggestion comparing this to the other cite XXX templates:
 * cite web & cite news place after the title "(format) (in language)", whilst cite journal & citation order these two as "(in language) (format)" - which is better ? David Ruben Talk 03:42, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure it matters, as long as we're consistent! (but I'd go with (format) (in language)). Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  09:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * (format) (in language) looks easier to read, too. Gary <b style="color:#02b;">King</b> ( talk ) 19:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Just pointing out that external links often use a bolded version of how cite web currently shows language - i.e. - see Template:Languageicon. Drum guy (talk) 23:21, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Cite web option for editor-set date styles
See Template talk:Cite web re proposed new parameter of datestyle. As a default it leaves date/accessdate/archive date as wikified dates as is the current case. However if specified it would show dates as "=dmy" 23 October 2007 as "=mdy" October 23, 2007 or as "=ymd" 2007 October 23. Given ideally cite templates should be consistant, should such a proposal be implemented here too ? Please discuss at the above link. David Ruben Talk 19:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Would it be better to leave the date format up to the user's preference settings? SharkD (talk) 06:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If all users set a preference and for those that had not (including all unregistered readers) MediaWiki could determine the reader's geographical location then perhaps. But most editors and all anon readers have no preference set, and so the ISO yyyy-mm-dd gets shown. This is not appropriate in most articles (and is inconsitant with how any dates would be written out in the text), and recent change at WP:Dates means should not be routinely wikilinked (and seems Featured Article process now seeks to unwikilink dates too).
 * MediaWiki does not (currently) allow reading of a user's preferences, so if we wish to allow editors to set a consistant date style across an article (appropriate to its geographical location), then such an option will for now overide any user-set preference. See Template talk:Cite web David Ruben Talk 13:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Einval
Hi! I am new to parser functions and was wondering what "einval" is. I haven't found anything useful while searching. Thanks! SharkD (talk) 03:44, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've not come across it... in what context is is appearing? Parser function help can be found over at ParserFunctions. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  08:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The only place I can find it anywhere in the site is on this page, in the code under . Of course, I can't figure out the reason for it being there, either. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 19:44, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, I see. It is there to raise an error if a date is not specified, and is an abbreviation for "error in value" ( I guess).  The precise word used is not important; any random string would to to raise an error for the {{#iferror: function. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  06:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. I thought it was a variable of some sort. SharkD (talk) 06:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

All available parameters?
Could someone compile a list of all available parameters to supplement the partial lists presented in the examples in the documentation? --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 11:24, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

DOI breakage
editprotected Please revert the last which removed DOI support. See A-group for instance for missing DOIs. JackSchmidt (talk) 14:02, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sample:


 * for convenience. Neither doi= nor DOI= works. JackSchmidt (talk) 14:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done, I thought that would happen. Working on a possible solution, will upload to sandbox. Cheers. <i style="color:green;">lifebaka</i> (talk - contribs) 14:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Bah, it could be fixed by changing a small thing on Template:Citation. It's still trying to have |DOI= instead of |doi= when it calls Template:Citation/core, though it takes both parameters itself.  I'll go fix it now.  Template should still work in the interim, with luck.  <i style="color:green;">lifebaka</i> (talk - contribs) 14:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Excellent, thanks! Personally I liked the old doi format better (making the title an external link), but presumably somebody had consensus to change that part.  I think the cite journal template did it with doi at the end like that. JackSchmidt (talk) 14:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was argued about at length over at Template talk:Cite journal, if I recall correctly. Displaying the DOI separately gained very broad support, but whether or not to link the title was more divisive - it was decided to leave it to editorial preference by not linking it automatically. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  14:59, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. To avoid having to wade through the divisive part, can you give me the quick summary: was the problem linking the title to *anything*, or just linking the title to the DOI (resolver)? (it seems like a lot of things would want to be the title link, is url= the "winner" as far as who gets to be the title link?) JackSchmidt (talk) 15:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell the problem is some idealogues not liking any reliance on commercial sites, and the fact that the DOIs often go to commercial publisher's web sites that will only give you the abstract but not the full text of the paper unless you have a subscription. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:10, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Cool, sounds good. Most of my url= are also commercial publisher websites that don't even give abstracts, just author, title, journal, volume, price.  They just don't happen to have doi's.  BTW Math. Annal. is a tricky one.  I give doi= which takes you to springer's cashier, but I also give url= to uni-gottingen which gives you free access (especially to the stuff that is out of copyright). JackSchmidt (talk) 15:18, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I think everyone agrees that if url= and doi= are both given then the url takes priority. The question is what to do when there's a doi but no url. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:23, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that the gist was that many editors prefer to link the title only when a URL can be provided to a free-access version of the paper, and not to link it otherwise. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  15:37, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Could we at least demand that the free-access version be word-for-word the same as the published version we're claiming it to be the same as? Usually non-publisher copies of journal papers differ from the eventual published version, sometimes in important ways, and this can cause verifiability problems. Correctness should trump unwillingness to pay. And how is this "title links must be free" idea supposed to work for papers where the only available links are non-free -- how is it useful to avoid including the url in that case? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Could we at least demand that the free-access version be word-for-word the same as the published version we're claiming it to be the same as? Usually non-publisher copies of journal papers differ from the eventual published version, sometimes in important ways, and this can cause verifiability problems. Correctness should trump unwillingness to pay. And how is this "title links must be free" idea supposed to work for papers where the only available links are non-free -- how is it useful to avoid including the url in that case? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

accessdate disappearance
Just so you know, the "accessdate" parameter is no longer displayed (was displayed properly yesterday). Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 15:53, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This was an edit to Citation/core today. --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  <sup style="color:darkblue;">talk  -  16:03, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I see where some of the confusion comes from in the accessdate issue. It was stated above at  "We have a consensus that access dates for online copies of offline sources, while helpful as a comment in the source, should be hidden from the reader".  That is not correct— the outcome of the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources was to wrap accessdate in a CSS that gives the option of hiding the accessdate. --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  <sup style="color:darkblue;">talk  -  16:13, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. How do we get them back?  Must we format them manually?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 02:32, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * They should be added back to the template. I can look into it tomorrow if nobody else does first. In the meantime, the data is still in the articles, so once the template is fixed, they'll display again. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 02:46, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * There actually was a consensus to hide the access date but it was later overturned. Then a new consensus developed to CSS-wrap the access date for printed sources. Since the Citation template can also be used for web-only sources the access date should not be wrapped here. --EnOreg (talk) 05:09, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Fix this, please. ASAP. Thanks. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Why keep the accessdate? It doesn't seem to offer any benefits. II | (t - c) 02:06, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It is vital for any citation to a web source, for instance. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:09, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * This has gone on for much too long; what is the delay in getting the accessdate fixed? And anyone who has to ask the benefit probably hasn't spent much time at WP:FAR, trying to restore and cite older articles with dead links.  If accessdates aren't displayed, there's little reason for editors to know they should add them, and most bibiliographic styles anywhere use accessdates on websources.  Can whomever damaged this please fix it ?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 02:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It should be evident that for sources that are not stable and, therefore, don't have a publication date the access date must be specified to make the exact version of the content verifiable. Stable sources that do have a publication date (including web copies of printed sources), however, can be verified without an access date. Therefore, I don't see the value to display an additional access date in these cases. That is only confusing for the readers.
 * The Citation template may be used for unstable sources and hence the access date should not be hidden or CSS-wrapped here. --EnOreg (talk) 04:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

new code for checking
I set up a sandbox at Template:Citation/Sandbox and Template:Citation/core/Sandbox. I updated those to re-add the access date functionality: I'd like someone else to double-check the code (preferably someone who has followed all the discussion about access dates) before I copy it to the live template. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:09, 26 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Like I said earlier: Since the Citation template can also be used for web-only sources the access date should not be CSS-wrapped here. Thanks, --EnOreg (talk) 08:49, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * THE TEMPLATE exists for the editors; not the editors for the template. Stop philosophizing and fix the crapulous thing, in order to be in line with common usage. Stop arguing. Fix. It. Now. Thanks. Ling.Nut (WP:3IAR) 02:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I did fix the code in the sandbox three days ago. I'm not authorized to change the current template. You need to ask an admin. --EnOreg (talk) 04:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅ Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk)  09:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I checked and copied the code from the sandbox. Ideally, the CSS should be applied if there is a publication date, or at least for books, journals, etc.; I think that's what the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources concluded. That's left as an exercise for the reader. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 09:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC) (via edit conflict; I'm getting too slow, probably the age)
 * That discussion is confusing. As I understand it, a CSS class was created for accessdate. by wrapping the accessdate field in a span with this class, editors have the option of hiding it by adding some code to their monobook.css. Further discussion on whether the date should be hidden by default stalled. See this diff from cite book for the change involved. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  <sup style="color:darkblue;">talk  -  11:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Another example of what ails the citation and cite xxx templates on Wiki; there should be a centralized discussion place (perhaps WP:CITE) for changes to these templates so that they can stay in sync. Instead, changes are made to each template based on discussion at the template page, resulting in citation templates that are out of sync with each other, out of sync with WP:MOS, and out of sync with practice.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 11:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The only article where I've ever used this blooming template (Samuel Johnson) still has no accessdates; before the July 25 changes to citation/core, they displayed fine. This is still not fixed. (Yes, I tried purging the page.) Sandy Georgia (Talk) 10:36, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Never mind; inserting a null edit forced them back. Looks good now.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 10:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)