Template talk:Cite BAILII/2010-2012 archive

Change to formatting
Why is the citation now placed in brackets? This is not conventional. I appreciate that the division should be placed after the number for Divisional Court references, but it should be placed before the number for Court of Appeal references. Since there will be probably more references to CA than DC judgments, might I suggest we revert to the old order unless someone can write some code to distinguish between CA and DC divisions. ElectricLemon (talk) 12:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've removed the brackets as suggested. I think the order currently presented is consistent with the "media neutral citation style" mentioned at the link you provide, so don't think that needs (or should be) changed unless I've misread it. GDallimore (Talk) 15:55, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅: fixed the template so that it displays "EWCA Civ" and "EWCA Crim", and all other divisions in parentheses after the case number. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:42, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

High Court of Justiciary
High Court of Justiciary cases have their court as ScotHC on BAILII and as such formatting this to uppercase causes broken links. Davidkinnen (talk) 20:04, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:42, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Neutral citations for Scottish cases
I would like to tweak the template so that it presents neutral citations for Scottish cases correctly. What are the correct neutral citations? — SMUconlaw (talk) 14:31, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * [2009] ScotCS CSIH 92 or [2009] CSIH 92?
 * [2009] ScotCS CSOH 169 or [2009] CSOH 169?
 * [2010] ScotHC HCJ 1 or [2010] HCJ 1?
 * [2010] ScotHC HCJAC 8 or [2010] HCJAC 8?

Never mind, I figured it out. — SMUconlaw (talk) 20:19, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Link to BAILII
I feel this template ought to link to BAILII to provide an explanation of the source of information to the reader. Comments? —Phil | Talk 13:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * In a sense, it does. When a reader clicks on the link it sends him or her to the text of the case cited in BAILII. I think it should be fairly obvious from there what BAILII is, and if not the answer is only one or two clicks away. — SMUconlaw (talk) 05:33, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I mean in the sense that imdb title links to Internet Movie Database, so that the reader can discern the source of a reference without having to hover their mouse over the link, and most particularly so they should not have to click through to an otherwise unknown destination to find out where they're likely to end up! (I also feel that BAILII ought to be expanded to provide a better explanation but that can go forward in parallel as per usual here ;-) HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 06:59, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, this template is different from imdb title, which is used mainly for external links. Cite BAILII, on the other hand, is a citation template used to create properly formatted citations to cases. I think it is unnecessary for the template (which may be used a number of times in a single article) to keep mentioning that the case appears in BAILII. I had a look at a typical BAILII web page on which a case appears, and noted that by clicking on the BAILII logo in the top left-hand corner one is immediately brought back to the home page where there is an explanation of what BAILII is. So it is not difficult at all for readers to find out more about BAILII. I agree, though, that "BAILII" (which is only a short section in an article) can be expanded somewhat. — SMUconlaw (talk) 13:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Taking division into account
Now that the template can automatically work out the court name from the code in, could it be fixed to also take account of  ? I'm thinking particularly of things like  meaning Queen's Bench, etc. TIA HAND —Phil | Talk 16:02, 12 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible because there are some overlaps. For example, "QB" can refer to both the Queen's Bench Division in the High Court of England and Wales and the High Court in Northern Ireland. For the template to work, we need users to specify which Queen's Bench they are referring to – EWHC or NIHC. (By the way, what is "TIA HAND"?) — SMUconlaw (talk) 20:16, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, that's reasonably obvious, because they have to specify the  anyway, so we would always know whether they meant "EWHC/QB" or "NIHC/QB". (It means "Thanks In Advance Have A Nice Day) —Phil | Talk 23:12, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ummm, if a user needs to specify both the "court" (e.g., "EWHC") and the division ("QB"), isn't that what the current template requires? Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean. Could you explain it again? What is it you would like the template to do that it is not already doing? — SMUconlaw (talk) 15:51, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I thought it was obvious. Where the template currently deduces  from , this does not take   into account so that instead of   resulting in "Queen's Bench" or   resulting in "Chancery Division", they both result in "High Court (England and Wales)". You said that where   is "QB" we need to know whether that's the QBD in the High Court of E&W or Ireland, so I said that this is already known because   specifies it. —Phil | Talk 10:51, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see. You would like to have the division of the High Court indicated when the name of the court is stated at the end of the citation. How should that appear – "High Court (Queen's Bench) (England and Wales)"? — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:02, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Links to articles on courts and reporters
I think it would be useful if the template wikilinked the court and reporter name (or abbreviation) to the WP article (or article section) about this court or reporter (e.g. to High Court of Justice or All England Law Reports); it would make the citations much less obscure. Apokrif (talk) 17:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikilinking of the names of courts is done automatically if  is used in the template. As for linking of law reports, this has to be done manually by the editor when specifying the case citation using parallelcite. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Links to older Privy Council cases
It appears that Bailii does not use consistent syntax for referring to older cases on file. The compiled URL does not work, as in the case of which points to http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/1937/6.html, instead of the proper URL at http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/1937/1937_6.html.Raellerby (talk) 18:07, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, I've noticed this is a problem for older Privy Council cases. If you can figure out the year before which the format "http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/1937/1937_6.html" begins to be used I can reprogramme the template to use this format automatically depending on the year specified. This would be the best option. Alternatively, I can add a parameter (like " ") for you to manually "switch on" the other format when required. This is less desirable, but may be the only option if the year when the change in format takes place can't be identified. Let me know. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:30, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I did some digging, and it appears that the URL formatting at Bailii changes for cases in early 1996. From May 1996 onwards, the URLs point to the format used in the current version of the template. From January to April 1996, there is a mixture of references, and the problem I pointed out is consistent for cases prior to 1996. I hope that helps.Raellerby (talk) 20:04, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Ugh. Tell you what – I'll tweak the template so that it displays cases before 1996 using the "http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/1937/1937_6.html" format, and cases from 1996 and onwards using the current format. This won't solve the issue of the cases between January and April 1996, so we'll just have to update the documentation to mention that if there is a particular decision handed down during this four-month period that has an inconsistent URL, it will have to be linked to manually and not using this template. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:14, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

✅: sorry it's taken a while for me to get to this. I've fixed the template so that if you need to display a Privy Council judgment that uses the "http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/1937/1937_6.html" format, add the parameter " ". — SMUconlaw (talk) 17:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * The new parameter works. Many thanks.Raellerby (talk) 10:40, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Great. You're most welcome. — SMUconlaw (talk) 15:33, 15 October 2012 (UTC)