Template talk:Cite book/Archive 7

New field request: pageurl
Many times, a citation is for a specific page of a book, and there is a url that corresponds to that specific page (maybe on google books or elsewhere). I've been using, and that gets the job done, but I think it would be cleaner if there was an additional field called pageurl that could be used like   to have a linked page number in the citation. Use of  should also enable. —Chris Capoccia T&#8260;C 08:28, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Why not just specify the page's url in the url parameter? Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  18:59, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * i suppose i could do that, but the chapterurl is for pointing to a specific chapter, so i figured that the url was for a general url for the entire book, not just a url for the specific page. —Chris Capoccia  T&#8260;C 14:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I thought that's what the URL parameter is for. At least, that's how I've always used it. --Adoniscik(t, c) 21:14, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The chapterurl comes in handy when a chapter is available separately - URL can refer to a page about the book, with the chapter pointing to a PDF of the specific chapter or contribution, perhaps on an author's private web space. A page url would generally be in the same place as the general URL, but slightly more useful to the reader, so I think replacing the URL is the right thing to do. I'll update the documentation accordingly. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  17:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

here's two specific examples from recent edits I made in History of abortion: I think the links make a lot more sense being tied to page numbers than to chapter or book titles. —Chris Capoccia T&#8260;C 21:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

placement of year when author missing
Where author information is present, the year appears early on. When the author is absent the year information is now going to the end. This isn't the way it used to be. An example was in the booklist in Anna Louise Strong, but I've changed it now to include a dummy blank author just indicated with a hyphen. It is still preferable to have it the way it was, so that within an article on a particular author, one can list the works of that author, without repeating the name, and in date order with the date leading the information. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 14:18, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Discussed at, above. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:17, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Origyear
Previously the template had an origyear parameter that would allow for an original publication date that was different than the edition, such as
 * Marx, Karl [1867] (1967) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Vol. I. Edited by Frederick Engels. New York: International Publishers.

Currently the origyear parameter is no longer available. Is it possible to bring it back? Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 22:21, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I could quite easily construct a fix that would display it as:
 * Marx, Karl (1867) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Vol. I. Edited by Frederick Engels (1967). New York: International Publishers.
 * That seems more intuitive to me (and is much easier to code!). Does that meet your needs?
 * Sorry that the parameter got overlooked in the conversion, I don't think it was listed in the 'full version' in the doc. Thanks for being so civil about it, I'd have got my head chomped off if I'd made the same mistake on {Cite journal}!
 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  03:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That works, but what about in the case that there is no separate editor? Would that appear as:
 * Marx, Karl (1867) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Vol. I. (1967). New York: International Publishers.
 * I tried finding where the original style of the square brackets came from, but I can't find any good source for it, so any format is fine by me. Thanks for your help.  Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 04:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hm, that's a good point. Perhaps the year should come after the publishers? Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  04:53, 1 2008 (UTC)
 * Why not just put it back the same way it was: with the brackets after the author? That way it's apparent from a glance (no need to even read the whole citation) that it's coming from a later version? Since there was apparently no stylistic controversy over its display before, that implies a de facto consensus for the way it was. — Bellhalla (talk) 06:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Just wanted to lend support for the reinstating of origyear field in its original form. Readers are used to the old format and juxtaposing the two dates next to each other makes more sense. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 09:21, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * My solution is to use " " or " ". An "origyear" field would be nice, but the output "[1867] (1967)" is not meaningful to the ordinary reader; it should be more explicit, e.g. (1967; originally 1867)" --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 17:19, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * May I just argue that origyear is not just "nice" but very important particularly in the context of historical articles. The publication date of the edition used ("year") is important for identifying the edition in order to follow up citations (page numbers can vary from edition to edition). "origyear" is important because it tells the reader whether the book was contemporary or near contemporary to the events described or written more recently with a modern perspective. As to format, I tend to agree with User:Jorge Stolfi that "[1869](1969)" is a bit obscure but is hardly rocket science to work out. Perhaps "(1969; first published 1869)" would be better. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 17:43, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree with Stephen, if something like "(1969; first published 1869)" can be done easily that's great, otherwise let's just have it the way it was with the brackets. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems like there is a general agreement that the origyear parameter should output as "; first published ". Can the change be added to the template.  Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 23:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

It is requested that the origyear parameter be restored. If it is possible, the output should be modified so that rather than appearing in square brackets next to the year (or date) value it should appear after the year value but within the same parenthesis as the year value with the text "; 1st publ. " or "; first published " between the year and origyear values. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 10:18, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd also like to see  back, and even on cite web too - partly for simple consistency, partly for citing old pre-web internet resources that are now accessible by web-hosting. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:28, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I've disabled the request; it's necessary to provide working code to be implemented before a request can be made. If no-one else rises to the challenge, I'll do the coding myself when I next have time (probably the weekend). Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  14:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * OK Thanks. You're a top man. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 15:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Fully support bringing back this needed  parm, hope that it can be coded soon. Just a couple of points/comments:
 * there used to be  and   parms as well, planning to restore these too?
 * Strictly speaking, "first published YYYY" may not always be correct or exact for all intended uses of  parm. Sometimes, the YYYY may refer more to when the text was composed, not published. For eg, the text may have been an MS., notes or other document that remained unpublished until (sometimes considerably) after the author's demise, and indeed the 'modern' edition being cited may itself be the first time the text has been technically published. Or, the first publication may have been in some original language, whereas the modern edition derives from some later-published translation. If some kind of text is to be automagically supplied by the parm itself, perhaps it wld be better if that text could be optionally overwritten by some user-supplied info, that could more accurately describe what   refers to. Alternatively, just retain how it originally worked, with the square brackets. --cjllw  ʘ  TALK 04:07, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * We should get this parameter right before coding it into the template. Perhaps we could call it 'original' and have the whole thing inputted as text, so the user would specify what they meant: for example,   or  .  This'd provide the necessary flexibility and clarity without being too onerous.  Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  04:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Well I spose a new original free text parm could handle those cases; but then what do to about all of the existing instances of cite book with origyear coded (I'd guess most of these instances still contain only YYYY)?--cjllw ʘ  TALK 09:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with the above. Adding yet another parm which is only subtly different from an existing one creates confusion and the prospect for misuse. Let's just restore the original origyear and origdate functionality so that the existing instances work again. As I said before, having a second date in square brackets may make the new reader pause for thought but it's not exactly rocket science to work out what it means. Is origyear used to feed anything else? I ask because I wondered what would be the consequences of adding text to the field e.g.  or   etc.? Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 11:35, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * As far as I know origyear isn't included in the metadata so those options could work. I'll try and get a straight restoration of origyear coded today. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  13:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Can I suggest that the square bracketed format is used? It's pretty much an academic standard, although I'm more used to seeing it in the form (1967) [1867], i.e. this publication in round brackets before first publication in square brackets. Martin User:Smith609's proposal to put date of first publication by the editor isn't acceptable, as the example clearly shows: Engels was the editor in 1867, not 1967. The only reason for listing 1967 at all is to ensure publisher and page references are correct. --Matt's talk 06:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd be happy enough with just a return to the simple  layout, it is reasonably standard (though IIRC the former implementation of origyear had these the other way around). Since we don't think that origyear feeds anything else it could be used as a freetext field anyway, ie you can put whatever you like in there. Propose restoration to (newyear) [origyear] appearance, without the template supplying any additional text of it's own.--cjllw  ʘ  TALK 23:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

editprotected
 * Please replace Template:Cite book with Template:Cite book/origyear. This edit will have no immediate effect but will ensure that the origyear parameter displays as soon as Template:Citation/core is updated. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  13:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅  It Is Me Here  t /  c  21:33, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

"Origyear" is still being ignored where no "year" is given. There's an example at Donald McCullough, and in an unknown number of other places. It used to display. Backwards compatibility is presumably counted as an important aim in this redesign. In the documentation no "prerequisite" is given for origyear. So could I suggest either
 * display origyear even where the rest of the date is absent, or
 * use the origyear as the year if the latter is absent, or
 * add something to the bot to move origyear to year in that case. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 11:47, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Use in Bibliography
I wanted to use this template in (for example) John Lister-Kay's bibliography, on a page about the author, but, if the author's name is omitted, it produces results like:


 * (1972) The White Island. Longman. ISBN 0-582-10903-5.

when


 * The White Island. Longman (1972). ISBN 0-582-10903-5.

would be more appropriate. This was discussed in March-August 2007, but I don't believe that the requested feature was ever added. Can someone assist, please? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:40, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Nudge. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:37, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * produces the desired result: . Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  18:57, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you. It may do so visually, but not semantically - and thus not in COinS, which it breaks - since it includes "1972" as part of the publisher property, and not the date. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 01:15, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know how feasible it would be, but what about some property to flag date-in-front vs. date-at-end? It should probably default to the latter if not present, but it would allow people to use the former when specifically wanted. Sukael \o/ 22:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Also fix the placement of "language" when the author is missing, please. --Adoniscik(t, c) 05:25, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Inconsistent formatting
First, an example of incorrect formatting of editor reference:
 * Here is a citation with the chapter title included:


 * The editor's name is preceded by in.


 * If the chapter title is omitted, the treatment of the editor changes:


 * Now there is a double period after ed and the in has been dropped.


 * Aside from this inconsistency in format, insertion of the word in before the editors name is sometimes inappropriate. The word in makes sense for a collection of works by various authors, edited by an editor. But it does not make sense for a reprinted classic work, such as this example, where the original authors are responsible for the entire work. In this latter case, the reference is not to a chapter among variously sourced chapters, but to a particular topic in a work by the same authors.

This issue is remedied by simply using the editor's name followed by (editor) in all cases.

Second, an example of inconsistent linking to url. If |chapterurl= is not used, the url should attach by default to the title, and not to the chapter heading. The option |chapterurl= then becomes a true option, and is not forced upon the writer. Brews ohare (talk) 15:20, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is a citation with the chapter title Preface specified. The url for the book becomes attached to the chapter heading:
 * If the chapter title is omitted, the url is attached to the book title instead:
 * If the chapter title is omitted, the url is attached to the book title instead:


 * "using the editor's name followed by (editor) in all cases." - sounds good to me, personally. Sukael \o/ 22:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Suppress the terminating period if the quote field is used
Otherwise you get two periods; one inside the quote, and another straight after it. --Adoniscik(t, c) 21:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * To implement this change, please replace |PS =  with   |PS =
 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  00:24, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  00:24, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅ --cjllw ʘ  TALK 08:25, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

origyear being ignored
In, for example, Donald McCullough, there are citations saying "origyear", and that field is being ignored. It didn't used to be. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 14:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I guess that is because in that one, those cites do not have "year" as well, only "origyear". "origyear" only displays if "year" is also present. That wld make sense in terms of what the two fields are designed to be used for. Either put in the "year" as well, or convert those origyears to years. --cjllw  ʘ  TALK 07:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm sure you are factually correct, but I find the present behaviour lacking in user-friendliness. As for your kind suggestion "Either put in the 'year' as well, or convert those origyears to years.", I'm not sure if you're suggesting that I should manually search Wikipedia for any such uses, in which case I must decline your offer, or whether you're advocating the use of a bot, which would best be done, I presume, by a modification of the bot which is already doing the rounds.
 * I've restated the problem further up this page, where I should have put it in the first place. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 11:56, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * My suggestion was not directed towards anyone in particular; consider it prefaced with "One could either put in..." as a case-by-case remedy if no template change is performed.


 * I have no idea how many such examples there may be, but I would expect it is not a common way to use the field (without an accompanying "year"). In principle, all cited published books would require the year of publication (year) of the particular edition consulted. Only some subset of these could do with also having origyear to indicate the work was first published or composed considerably earlier than the publication of the edition or version actually consulted. In the example that you gave, I presume that the intention was to list McCullough's works by their first published editions &mdash; if so, "year" (of edition's publication) equals "origyear" (of first publication) so origyear would be redundant.
 * In any case, am not objecting to restoring the ability of origyear to display without year present, if only for backwards-compatibility if that's the way it used to work. Personally I don't see it's useful to have origyear without year, but if it has been used that way by some then it's reasonable to request a return to the status quo functioning unless/until those parm's usage is more specifically defined. --cjllw ʘ  TALK 02:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm content with your reply; thanks. So what happens next? Does the template have an "owner"? SamuelTheGhost (talk) 12:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * No, no owner per se. Someone just needs to work out the coding, have it tested to see it doesn't break anything else, then put up an editprotect notice here for an admin to come along and implement it. I can try and have a look-see but will probably be a couple days before I can manage it.--cjllw ʘ  TALK 08:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Books in languages other than English
Are there any plans to develop this template to support citing books in languages other than English? In some cases it would be most helpful to provide a parallel translation of a book's title, especially for the languages with non-Latin alphabets, but the way the template is currently built does not provide for a clean way to do it. I am thinking of a structure similar to what the Cite Russian law template uses. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:28, December 18, 2008 (UTC)
 * What about something like an "origtitle" or "nativetitle" field (and similar for other equivalents) to designate the book's native text? Also, an "origlanguage" (or similar) to note what language is being used for metadata purposes. Sukael \o/ 22:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Number of pages
There was a discussion a while ago when someone assumed that the 'pages' field meant number of pages in the book. While this was incorrect, it could technically be used as such in the past. However, with the recent change to the template, this is no longer possible. I suggest a new field, 'pageamount' or something similar, which will write down [XXX] pages. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 13:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * You can work round this. The typical protocal used these days is to have a short in-line citations in the form pointing to under a Notes heading (these would not show the number of pages in the book but output "Johnson (2003), pp.233&mdash;234" etc.) and to have a full book description under the References heading. Because the References section is just a listing of book descriptions and doesn't point to specific pages you can use the   parameter to show the total pages. You just include   in the template which will output as "XXX pages". A major advantage of this is that putting full book descriptions in-line clutters up the underlying text making it more difficult to edit. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 12:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * What's the point of using a workaround when there doesn't need to be one? Adding another optional field does not hurt the template. As you said yourself, today it's standard to use both a references section and a bibliography section, and this makes the total amount of pages in cite book a necessary parameter (in the bibliography section). I can make the change myself, but since it's a 'highly visible' template, discussion should come first. On a side note, the correct dash in place of 'to' is the en dash (i.e. pp. 233–234). -- Ynhockey (Talk) 13:06, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Having said that, if you use today's standard, in-line citations do not include the book title (just Author (year), p. X) so using the cite book template for them is overkill (it doesn't really work because the mandatory  parameter is blank) and so it is only used in the bibliography section ( is used in-line). The   and   parameters to identify specific page(s) therefore become pretty much redundant. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 16:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Which does not mean that we should use a parameter meant for specifying pages inside a work, as a workaround for specifying the number of pages. Besides, the refs/bibliography format is only standard for certain types of articles, and there's no reason to use it everywhere. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 18:45, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * You shouldn't use page and pages for anything but identifying the pages you're referring to, because this template uses microformats to make reference details available to other programs (e.g., browser-based tools) and it uses these two parameters in a way that is only appropriate for page numbers, not counts of pages. RossPatterson (talk) 22:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with Ynhockey; there needs to be some field that means 'total number of pages'. It's information that is quite common in citations.  There are already uses of pages=... for "number of pages", in Wikipedia; yes, officially that's not correct, but there isn't a reasonable field to change them to.  'pageamount' would be okay, as would 'numberofpages' or whatever, but we need a field that has this common meaning. -- Dwheeler (talk) 03:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Documentation
I've updated the documentation at Template:Cite book/doc but it doesn't seem to update the transcleded version at Template:Cite book. Am I missing something here? Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 00:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Did you try purging? Anomie⚔ 01:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes I did. However, it seems to have sorted itself out overnight. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 10:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Purging isn't always immediate. Mr Stephen (talk) 12:26, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

bibcode
This parameter is listed in the template but is undocumented. Anyone got any idea what it is?! Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 10:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Bibcode indicates astronomical bibliographic reference. The template formatting appears to provide a lookup for it. (John User:Jwy talk) 16:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've added this to the documentation. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 17:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Date format
Have I just been oblivious to it or is the hard coding of the date format in  new? Specifically, all the cite book citations for the article I just wrote are displaying as 3 January 2009 when they are written in the template as January 3, 2009. (This is not a preferences issue, I just checked). Well regardless of whether new or not, it should be reformed. There is long standing consensus for using the date format the writer picks, and where relevant, using the date format based on the topic, i.e., U.S. specific subject, M/D/Y; European specific subject, D/M/Y and so on.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 09:50, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * When they tried to add that to cite web a month or so ago, it was quickly reverted for exactly that reason. I believe the way to fix it is to simply pass  to Citation/core; then the default will be "as entered". Ideally we would have a magic word to set the date format per article and a parser function to use that, but I don't know if certain others can see past "I don't like user preference based date formatting" to get a consensus for that to be created. Anomie⚔ 15:40, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I just skimmed the long debate over at cite web. I glazed over a bit and can't really disinguish between the competing factions but I see you're in my camp. So what now? Is there anything in the works to implement the edit you suggest above? Do we need to wait for the bug fix people are discussing?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Adding  to this template could be done immediately, the support in Citation/core already exists. Adding the magic word and the rest I mentioned needs consensus for it to exist (discussion is at WT:MOSNUM for now), time for someone (possibly me) to write the code, and someone convincing Brion it should be added. Anomie⚔ 20:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Spoonfeeding required. Where exactly in the template would that be properly added? Is it a change to any existing text, or solely an addition? I am loathe to make changes to a template transcluded on a few hundred thousand pages without more perfect understanding.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:48, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem, caution is warranted. It's an addition of the one line, nothing else changed. Anomie⚔ 12:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Done, and it worked. The cite book dates in the article I wrote last week are now displaying properly.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:37, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

editor field
editprotected

The "editor" parameter currently yields this: "ed.." Can we get rid of the extra period please? Also the description of this parameter: "No text is added beyond "in," so labels such as "(ed.)" have to be supplied by the user." seems to be out of date. Thanks. Katr67 (talk) 00:24, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

originally posted separately without seeing the prior post and consolidated here The parameter  is producing:   (two periods). I imagine there must be an if parser containing "ed.." but didn't find it looking at the template code. Can someone more familiar fix this?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised this is taking so long for someone to fix. Is there some issue involved that I don't know about? Katr67 (talk) 22:22, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Nah. There's only so many template gurus around. Probably lots of users have noticed but shrugged their shoulders. If someone can tell me what to change I can make the edit, but I would need the explanation first.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:11, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It's got to be some separate template that's transcluded inside this one. I just searched the code for ".." and nada.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:13, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I suspect the problem is in Template:Citation/core, but I've been playing the the sandbox trying to recreate it and can't recreate THIS problem. Could someone point me to a page that has the problem?  Also, there seems to be spacing problems as well.  If I used edit1-first and edit1-last, it doesn't put a space between the name and the 'ed.' (John User:Jwy talk) 00:53, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem is inside Citation/core, which is used by several high-use templates, and scares quite a few template gurus (search for ""). It's clearly demonstrable – the "Complex usage showing effect of using volume parameter" example in Cite book/doc shows it.  It can probably be quickly avoided by using the new, parameter:
 * RossPatterson (talk) 01:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * RossPatterson (talk) 01:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * RossPatterson (talk) 01:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's an example if you still need it: The last cite in the "Further reading" section of this article: Salt Lake Cutoff. Thanks for working on this! Katr67 (talk) 01:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I had stalked your contribution list back to just before your first update here and found it. I've added Ross' suggestion there.  Its not completely satisfying because it changes ALL the separators to, – and makes this entry different than the others.  I can see how the logic to completely fix this would not be easy:  if there is an ed with no following separator or with a following non-period separator, a period needs to be added. (John User:Jwy talk) 01:18, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * As it's still not working, another example: the first citation in Draggin' the Line.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 09:41, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

As I understand it, we should see 'ed.' where the rest of the citation is separated by periods, and 'ed.,' where a comma separator is used. This can be resolved by changing Template:Citation/core by replacing the line     }}, ed., ed{{ This will always display a period after 'ed', unless the citation separator is itself a period, where it will display 'ed.' instead of 'ed..'. Martin 18:51, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have implemented the change. However, I purged my cache and an affected page's cache but it doesn't seem to have solved the problem.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Here are some test cases, from article New Cutie Honey's References section (change them to s if you wish), that use the   parameter:


 * {{cite book |title={{nihongo|New Cutey Honey Perfect Guide: Angel's Resurrection|新・キューティーハニー パーフェクトガイドブック 天使の復活|...Tenshi no Fukkatsu}} |editor={{nihongo|Sakai, Yukio|酒井征勇}} |location=Japan |publisher=Keibunsha |id=63554-58, T1063554581387 |date=1994-05-19 |language=Japanese }}
 * {{cite book |title={{nihongo|New Cutey Honey Perfect Guide Vol. 2: Splendid Warrior|新・キューティーハニー パーフェクトガイドブック 華麗なる戦士|...Karei naru Senshi}} |editor=Sakai, Yukio |location=Japan |publisher=Keibunsha |id=63554-91, T1063554911382 |date=1994-11-11 |language=Japanese }}

...and without the Japanese template stuff or hidden comments:


 * {{cite book |title=New Cutey Honey Perfect Guide: Angel's Resurrection |editor=Sakai, Yukio |location=Japan |publisher=Keibunsha |id=63554-58, T1063554581387 |date=1994-05-19 |language=Japanese }}
 * {{cite book |title=New Cutey Honey Perfect Guide Vol. 2: Splendid Warrior |editor=Sakai, Yukio |location=Japan |publisher=Keibunsha |id=63554-91, T1063554911382 |date=1994-11-11 |language=Japanese }}

Looks like they're taking the new code or some result of it as literal. Only those two seem affected in the article. Not sure what code I'd change even if I was an admin. --an odd name 04:30, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * editprotected disabled as no specific change is requested.  Sandstein   20:13, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't understand. The original request is for the specific change of the "editor" parameter from "ed.." to "ed.". Do you mean that I have to specifically request the exact change to the coding? I hope not, as that seems a bit ridiculous. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the rules here... Katr67 (talk) 08:45, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's generally what you have (or someone else has) to do. It isn't ridiculous, because all {{tl|editprotected}} does is ask any administrator who wanders by to make a change.  The admins want to know exactly how to make the change, and rightly so - tens of thousands of articles use Citation/core, and screw-ups there cause firestorms.  If you can't or won't say what to change, then either someone else will (as Martin did) or it won't get done.  As I noted above, {{tl|Citation/core}} is complex, and apparently the change didn't have the effect that Martin and I both expected it would. It was reverted the next day, and has not yet been re-attempted.  RossPatterson (talk) 17:12, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe the best bet is to bring up the issue, linking to this section, at the Village pump technical. Certainly that is a higher viewed page than here which a lot of code savvy people frequent.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk)
 * Went ahead and posted. See Village pump (technical) .--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Note that the fix above may need to be applied in two places in /core (search for " "), as 'ed.' is used twice there, depending the precense of some author fields. This may help. — Edokter  •  Talk  • 18:26, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Double punctuation problem with editors
During a FAC, an issue was raised over the format of cite book output like the following:



Per "Soukhanov, Anne H.. ed..", both the editor's middle name and the abbreviation for editor, are double punctuated. This problem doesn't seem to occur (any longer) with the 'author' field, so perhaps the same solution can be applied to the 'editor' field? Thank you.&mdash;RJH (talk) 20:47, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This has been discussed substantively above at . Right now there is no fix identified. See also Village pump (technical)/Archive 54 (which doesn't seem to have done much) and Template talk:Citation/core.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Edit requested at Template talk:Citation/core will fix. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  22:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

edition ....again.
I think the current implementation of the 'edition' field is troublesome. 1) it should not be in parenthesis, and 2) if it is to be pre-filled, it should be spelled out, not abbreviated. --emerson7 19:14, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * This seems to be a matter of personal formatting preferences. Is there a reasoned consensus that the current output is unsatisfactory? Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  15:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Laysummary does not appear to work
Can someone fix it? Xasodfuih (talk) 11:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * To fix, add

|laysummary = |laydate = after the line |quote =
 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  15:43, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Ruslik (talk) 09:14, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Chapter formatting
Related to the thread immediately above, there is a grammatical problem with the |chapter= field. The chapter is rendered in quotation marks and followed by a full stop. This is problematic when both chapter= and editor= are defined, because what results is:
 * Author (date). "Chapter name". in Editor Name, Book Name.

See for example here. The lowercase "in" following the full stop is an embarrassment. I suggest that if is defined, then  should not include a full stop. Thoughts? Skomorokh 00:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Absolutely correct; perhaps a colon would be better. However, the in Editor Name is not appropriate in every case. It works for a collection of articles edited by a single editor, but not for a book that is all of one piece and simply edited by the editor, or possibly translated by the editor, or possibly edited by several editors. Brews ohare (talk) 03:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Good point, but the original problem remains. Can someone suggest a fix to the template? Skomorokh  16:45, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Page numbering not handled properly
Presently, it produces results like "...Timbuktu: Wizards of the Coast. pp. 134-137". This isn't grammatical. Either it needs to move "p[p]. " somewhere else, have a comma or semicolon or something instead of a period (full stop) after publisher, or the first (or only) "p" preceding the page number needs to be capitalized. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 15:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Will be fixed when edit requested at Template talk:Citation/core is fulfilled by admin. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  22:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I also want to note that most academic journals have gone over to an open punctuation style: "p 1–2" rather than "p. 1-2" or "pp. 1–2". This is the style recommended by CBE Scientific Style and Format. I strongly recommend it be adopted here. Peter G Werner (talk) 18:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a journal. I see nothing wrong with making this an option, specifically for use in science articles that would use CBE style, but it should not be the default. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 00:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Semicolon
The template currently seems to put a semicolon after the first author (if the coauthors parameter is filled). Should that be changed to a comma? r ʨ  ana ɢ  talk/contribs 15:21, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Probably not, for clarity's sake. Compare:
 * James, Darren; Ross, Peter; Clement, Andrew
 * James, Darren, Ross, Peter, Clement, Andrew
 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  00:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ideally, only the first author's name should be last-name-first anyway. "James, Darren; Peter Ross; Andrew Clement" is sufficient for alphabetization purposes. —Angr 11:23, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Why "ideally"? It actually depends on the Style being used. Both APA and Harvard maintain a Last, First format (see Style section on the "template" tab above). Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 13:46, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Also note that using the Lastn Firstn parameters gives a Last, First outcome for all n. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 13:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * "Ideally" for precisely this reason: using First Last for all subsequent authors, as the MLA, CMS, and Turabian do, is much easier to read. —Angr 13:51, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well I would dispute that (as presumably do Harvard and APA). I would contend that it's confusing for the casual reader to switch half way through especially if you have names which can be both given names or surnames eg Blake James (James Blake), Barry John (John Barry) etc.. I would argue having Last first followed by a comma then First last leaves no room for confusion. I agree that you can argue it either way hence my problem not with the format but the use of "ideally"! We don't need to continue this discussion......really! Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 15:20, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * People will fight about this until the end of time. Just create a "mla=y" flag, to cause it to do things the confusing MLA/CMS/Turabian way. There are probably other formatting options that this flag could trigger as well. If that works well, start adding more flags (cms=, chicago=, etc.) to trigger various formatting customizations. A far, far greater problem, really, is that all of the cite-family templates use different formatting, some do not support a location= field, etc., etc.  The inconsistency is far worse that this template not suiting the expectations of someone's particular pet citation style. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 00:17, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

adding panel field
Earlier in the Wikiproject: Anime and Manga we discussed using the template for graphic novels. Ultimately we decided that this template was better, however there was one exception that could be useful in certain circumstances: the panel field, which is currently lacking from this template. The reason for this is that unlike standard text layouts, sometimes comments, especially side comments, can be different sizes and often quite small so that a reader cannot see them. Also because of the non-standard method of dialogue, it may be more difficult in word-heavy graphic novels to know where the reference comes from, especially when citing manga read from right-to-left for those readers unfamiliar with the practice as it is not intuitive for most English readers. Finally it could be used to help show a certain scene in an action sequence where multiple things are happening, such as with time field on where such action can move around more fluidly than reading through a paragraph Therefore the addition of panel field would be appreciated and useful for such circumstances. じん ない  20:33, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * How about using rp along with inline citations, like this:
 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  21:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I would, but the amount of times it would be used is why I would want it as a field. If it were just for 1 article or a few articles then that would also be fine, but a number of articles I know offhand could use that, as well as probably some I can't think of. Plus constant use of that kind of citation inside a paragraph would become distracting to a reader. じん  ない  22:20, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That's the current recommendation for citing page numbers in-line - surely a panel is more specific than a page number? Alternatively, could you do ' ' to generate ' panel 3'? Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  22:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Sometimes, although other times panels take up multiple pages. じん  ない  18:03, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The other problem is when panels aren't so neatly divided you can say "panel 4" but might need to say "third panel down, left side" if the panels are non-standard. This takes up a lot of room and distracting when reading the article, but in the citations if it's more descriptive it's not so bad. じん  ない  21:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Read by
Is it okay to add such a field for audiobooks? -82.81.228.66 (talk) 15:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * How often are audiobooks used as sources for articles? Wouldn't people be more likely to just cite the print edition, even if an audio edition exists? —Angr 18:04, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, you can just do:   There are various other potential bits of metadata one might want to add to a citation, but this template doesn't need to account for every possible need of this sort. It is already overcomplicated. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 00:22, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Citing chapter written by authors in a book with editors
I found no convenient way to do this using this template or any other template available here. Is there a way? Typically "advanced" scientific monographs consist of chapters written by individual authors, and the title of the chapter is fairly relevant too. E.g. Author1, Author2, "Some specialized topic" in Editor1, Editor2 (ed.) "Book name", pp. xxx-yyy. Concrete example. Xasodfuih (talk) 08:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * To make the matter more complex these books usually belong to a series, which would be nice to mention. Xasodfuih (talk) 08:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  19:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  19:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  19:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * This looks bad because "in" is lower case after a period. The documentation says that the "editor" parameter automatically adds "ed." after the editor's name, but apparently it doesn't anymore. —Angr 20:32, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I have been lately adding sociology sources, which usually have a different author for every chapter and also an author for the whole book, so I share the pain of Xasodfuih. Guys, the whole point of using params is to unambiguosly put every discrete of data in a properly named parameter, not to reuse one field ("author") for two unrelated data (book author and chapter author). What happens when you want to put book the book author and the chapter author? Could you just add a properly named "chapterauthor=" param for us editors? Please? Pretty please? With cherry on top? --Enric Naval (talk) 14:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If each chapter has a different author, the book as a whole will have an editor, not an author. —Angr 14:40, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point there. I had been using "editor" for the company publishing the book, I see that I should have been using "publisher", that's why I had that conflict. (in Spanish, "publisher" translates as "editor" and "publishing company" as "editorial", false friend words FTW) --Enric Naval (talk) 11:00, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've disabled the edit request per Angr's point; the editor field should be used for the "author" of the entire book. I have, however, encountered one difficulty here when citing chapters of a book in a series, where there is a series editor, volume editor, and chapter author. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  20:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I've asked a very similar question at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(lists_of_works). Any help would be much appreciated. Sidefall (talk) 07:56, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I just figured it out using the current template. Its not that hard. See reference 8 at glucokinase regulatory protein. alteripse (talk) 23:16, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I added an example to the documentation so hopefully people will see it in the future. I wasn't sure about putting "(ed.) after the editor's name, but I did as I felt it made their role clear. If there is a consensus that this is not the done thing, I'll apologise in advance. Sidefall (talk) 16:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Automatic detection of citation format
I have proposed that Citation bot amends pages using a mixture of 'Cite xxx' and 'Citation' templates so that only one family of templates is used. I would welcome comments on this suggestion here. Thanks, Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  20:03, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

The language field
The language field seems to be out of place, or just has messed up spacing. Example:
 * 1) (in Japanese)Metal Gear. Konami Gamebook Series. ISBN 4876550131.
 * 2) (in English)Metal Gear Solid. Del Rey. 2008. pp. 336. ISBN 0345503287.
 * 3) (in Japanese)Metal Gear Solid - Guns of the Patriots. ISBN 9784047072442.

No space between the "(in )" and the title. TH 1 RT 3 EN talk ♦ contribs 00:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Can't replicate the problem. Please give examples of how you are producing the above output. Thanks, Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  20:08, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * From List of Metal Gear media:
 * produces:
 * TH 1 RT 3 EN talk ♦ contribs 00:08, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * TH 1 RT 3 EN talk ♦ contribs 00:08, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * TH 1 RT 3 EN talk ♦ contribs 00:08, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * at Template:Citation/core. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  00:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

editor= vs. editors=
Both  and   place   Can we get editors (plural) to output   instead? If someone can tell me what code to change I can do it.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Purpose of "url" field
Is the "url" field intended solely for links to online editions of a book, or is it also acceptable to use it as a link to, for example, a page about the book on its publisher's website? (Obviously this would be appropriate only in cases in which there is only one publisher.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've certainly used it the second way, and no one's objected yet! —Angr 05:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * In my view a link to a publisher's website amounts to a commercial advertisement and therefore qualifies as spam. The only exception to this is if there is an extract from the book on the site which is directly relevant to the specific citation. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 09:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's spam any more than linking to http://www.toyota.com from the article Toyota is. —Angr 10:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * If the Toyota site had only model # and price and how to buy then it too would be spam. But the Toyota website has detailed specs of its cars which is added value - as would the publisher's website be if it had relevant excerpts. Otherwise it's just a puff to buy the book which = spam. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 16:56, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

origyear not working with editor field(?)
I've come across a potential bug in the template. The  field seems to be ignored if there's an editor without an author: produces: The same citation with  and   (instead of   and  ): gives this: I've worked around this by placing "ed" in the (author)  field, but it would be nice to have the template work as expected in the future. :)
 * subst'd version for archival purposes:
 * subst'd version for archival purposes:
 * subst'd version:
 * subst'd version:

Also, should the ed have a period after it as an abbreviation for editor? Or is it standard in citations to not have the period? — Bellhalla (talk) 01:49, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, looking at the call generated by, this template is properly passing on the parameter, so the fault must lie with the former. Have taken question to Template talk:Citation/core. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Feature request: internal link to bibliography
Some articles cite the same book umpteen times, but citing different pages / sections chapters. IMO all current methods of dealing with this are bad:
 * Using the citation templates repeats the bibliographic details ad nauseam in the "references" section of the article.
 * Harvard referencing looks horrible because it occupies a lot of space in the main text, especially if the work was written by a team, e.g. "Ruppert, Fox and Barnes (2004)" - which is not an extreme example. In addition Harvard referencing provides no help in formatting chapter titles, etc., and most uses of it provide only page numbers. This is of little use if a differnet edition or publication in a differnet format changes pagination, and is of no use to readers of other languages, as translations are likely to have different page numbers.
 * Citing_sources/Example_edits_for_different_methods avoids repeating the bibliographic details ad nauseam and avoids occupying a lot of space in the main text. However it provides no help in formatting chapter titles, etc., and most uses of it provide only page numbers.

I think a better approach would be to combine the advantages of the citation template and Citing_sources/Example_edits_for_different_methods methods:
 * The full biblio details are given by a variant of cite book that provides a link target, as in Harvard referencing and Citing_sources/Example_edits_for_different_methods.
 * Individual refs use a variant of cite book that links to the full biblio details and explicitly supports a short name, e.g. "game manual" or "Ruppert, Fox and Barnes (2004)".
 * Both variants support the "chapter" parameter, as chapter title is sometimes part of the basic biblio details (I'm thinking of a typical book on invertebrate zoology, with a chapter per phylum).
 * Both variants support the various author-related parameters, as they may form part of the full biblio details or may identify contributions (chapters) in a compilation.
 * I'm not sure what to do about dictionary entries (e.g. for etymology or history of usage). Possibly treat them as pseudo-chapters? --Philcha (talk) 08:19, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Are you familiar with the rp template, which produces the following output?
 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  14:54, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Now where have I seen that before ?-)
 * I'm not keen on it because: it makes the blue pox more obtrusive, although not as bad as Harvard referencing; it doesn't handle the other issues I raised, e.g. chapter. --Philcha (talk) 23:01, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * If you have a page number, does it really add value to have the chapter title as well? Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  13:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Are you suggesing that the chapter title of cite book is redundant since WP requires page nums?
 * Situations where I think chapter title is important for normal books: new edition where page numbers change; translations.
 * BTW I think compilations are a different matter, as the authors vary and I'd repeat the biblio info for each chapter / contribution. --Philcha (talk) 09:15, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you can achieve the desired result using the Harvard reference template. If you insert an inline citation using the Harvnb template e.g. it yields under the Reflist (typically under the Notes heading) and creates a link to a location on the same page called #CITEREFSmith2000. All you need to do then is anchor this link to the full reference of Smith's book in the book list (typically under the References heading) by including the parameter  in the cite book template used for Smith's book thus:  which yields: If you click on the "Smith 2000, p.25" blue link in the second sentence above you will find it redirects to the full book details immediately above this sentence which includes the appropriate ref parameter. If the inline citation is to multiple pages you replace the  parameter with   or if the reference is to something other than a page (say a chapter) you can insert appropriate text by replacing   with   or other suitable free text after loc=. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 11:46, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, if you don't want to us the Harvnb format you can follow the variation given in the Template:Cite book Examples section under the heading "Wikilinks to full references" which allows you to format the inline citation in your own style. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 11:59, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Using chapter and editor parameters
The template doesn't format correctly when both the  and   parameters are being used. After the chapter title, there is a period, followed by "in" and the editor's name.

Here is what (I believe) it should look like: Flood (2005) [1993]. "The Zooropa Story". Anthony Savona. ed. Console Confessions: The Great Music Producers in Their Own Words. San Francisco: Backbeat Books. p. 130. ISBN 0879308605. OCLC 60393511. – Dream out loud (talk) 01:06, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see how this is "incorrect". It formats as described in the template's documentation. This formatting implies the book is a compilation with each chapter written by a different author and the whole thing edited by an editor. In the formatting you suggest the implication is that the author wrote the whole book (with the assistance of an editor). So: if the editor is responsible for the whole book but the cited author only responsible for the portion cited, then the "in" format is appropriate; if the author cited and the editor are responsible for the whole book then it isn't and the  field should not be used if the   field is being used. In this case the editor should be included as an author but possibly with an extra "ed." after the surname. The documentation is a bit obscure, I'll admit, saying: "The "editor" field and its alternates should only be used when the cited author(s) and the book editor(s) are different. If the whole book is cited, instead of a specific part, use the "author" fields (possibly with extra "(ed.)" instead)". In fact, this is wrong and I'll give some thought to changing it. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 09:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've had a go at the documentation to reflect the true effect and intentions of the template....I think! Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 11:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that most of your changes are right, but your text at |url= is too expansive. We need something that the editor will understand as "Do not put a books.google.com link here if it (1) has an ISBN and (2) is available from all kinds of places."  Books.google is not preferable to a link to  the Gutenberg project, or the full text at the publisher's website, etc., but it is very commonly used to the exclusion of all other sources.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Not sure I agree. Nothing wrong with Books.google provided the book being referenced has an on-line preview available on the site to which the link points. The sense of the url comment is that the link should not be to somewhere like Amazon which serves only to sell the book, not provide access to referenced text. I've made a small adjustment to reinforce this idea. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 08:42, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * So you think that it's better to send readers off to "my" preferred online source, instead of letting them pick their own preferred sources? Because that's what we're doing when we encourage links to books.google (or Gutenberg Press, or anything else).  Google is not, after all, the only online source for the text of many books, but it is one that requires moderately high bandwidth (and one that supports an absolutely enormous international corporation).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No. I think it's it's appropriate to send readers to any site that has the text published online (ie the whole book or a preview of the relevant part) so that the citation can be verified. As long as the text is a true reproduction of the book, it doesn't matter what site it's on. In the circumstance we are considering, the reader doesn't need or want a choice: just a one step link to the text which supports the citation so it can be quickly checked. The choice is therefore made by the editor who did the work and found the source and until the Wikipedia community arrives at a consensus regarding preferred sources etc., this is how it should remain. The point of the url link is verification, not "How do I get hold of a copy of this book?" The best way for that is to follow the isbn link to, say, WorldCat which will provide alternative sources where the book can be bought. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 20:36, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The ISBN magic word also offers online sources, including books.google. If we rely on the ISBN (when it exists), then we maximize reader choice, while simultaneously providing every desirable feature of a direct URL.  On the other hand, if we link to "my personal favorite online copy", then we force the reader into my choice, regardless of whether "my" URL even works in that reader's country.  Do you see the problem with this?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * All very principled. However, if I am given a "choice", the ISBN look up (first click) gives me a list of possible on-line editions, although It may be that there isn't an on-line edition but the text in question forms part of the partial preview in books.google which won't appear in the ISBN search, anyway if there is I choose one (second click), then find the page cited (another click or two) then I give up the will to live. That's why when I want to verify a citation I prefer someone to put in "their" choice of site so that the link takes me direct to the relevant text (one click). If I want a choice I can still click on the ISBN number. Do you see where I'm coming from? Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 23:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'd rather be able to make one click and end up at the text I want (whereever that is). Having to select a source is an extra click and another layer of faff. If I felt strongly that I always wanted to avoid Google, or use Worldcat, etc., I would be happy to make the extra click on the ISBN to fulfil my personal preference. With journals, the guideline seems to be to link the title to a freely available source if one is available; doing the same with books seems like a good idea! Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  16:47, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In my cack-handed way that's exactly what I was trying to say but Smith609 does it so much better! Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 21:13, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Ampersand for editor list
I notice that when there is a list with multiple editors rather than multiple authors, the "lastauthoramp" property does not produce an ampersand before the last editor. There is no equivalent "lasteditoramp" property. So when creating a list that includes both multiple-author works and multiple-editor works, it looks inconsistent. Not a big deal, but perhaps this could be added in the future. --RL0919 (talk) 14:33, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * in Template:Citation/core. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  16:42, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Dead Links
MLA, APA and Harvard style links were tested and found dead Davidbeare (talk) 19:22, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

links in title confuse url placement


I added "XXX" as the first word of title to make the confusion clear; the pdf indication is placed before the first linked word, Lisp in this case, instead of at the end of the title. tooold (talk) 04:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm amazed it works at all. You'll see in the documentation "url: URL of an online location where text of the book can be found. Cannot be used if you wikilinked title."....which you did! Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 12:09, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * and I'm amazed that it's restricted when it's not difficult to do. The template probably tries to nest the title, something like [url title] and probably Wikipedia doesn't handle nested links. The template should generate something like the example below -- insert the link at end of title without nesting.  &nbsp may not be the best choice, but it works (in this one example!) with the current template. ":" deleted from &nbsp to make it visible.


 * title = Lisp 1 Programmer's Manual&nbsp




 * btw, the world is changing. While the restriction may have been ok some years ago, now more and more historical books are becoming available online. Thus the need for urls together with linked titles.


 * Any chance of someone fixing the template, or do I have to recode as in this example? Thanks tooold (talk) 15:20, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The template contains the two lines:

|Title= |URL=


 * I don't know the syntax of the language being used here; the syntax below is my attempt to communicate what needs to be done, not the syntax that would actually do it. In words, it is: if url is present then title = title| concat with '[' concat with url| concat with ' &nbsp' concat with ';]' else |title = title|.

If url is present then |title = title| '[' url| ' &nbsp' ';]' else |title = title|


 * Thanks, tooold (talk) 03:28, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't quite understand what your desired behaviour is. Are you saying that if a URL is present, the title should not be linked, but rather a linked space should be added to the end? Quite aside from users for whom the little 'this is a link' icon does not render (I know that there are some), who will then be unaware that the title is linked, I simply don't think that making the link invisible is a good idea. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  16:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Look above at the two cite book examples, both beginning "Fox". The 1st is current behavior, where the linked text in the title causes a problem.  The second is with the link appended to the title - quite visible, the pdf token is very visible. tooold (talk) 00:25, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, the little light went on. I'm focused on the link in the title, while the current case is the entire title being highlighted for a link.  So I won't make a sale with this proposal, thanks for helping. tooold (talk) 00:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Format of title
Does anyone know why Cite book (and a couple of other Cite xxxx templates) formats the  field in italics while cite journal, cite conference, cite encyclopedia, cite news, cite web, cite episode and cite mailing list format it in normal text but enclosed in double inverted commas? Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 17:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't say for all of those templates, but for cite journal the "title" field is the title of a specific article, which would not normally be italicized. Italics are used for the "journal" field, which is the name of the journal. For cite web, the "title" field is for the title of a specific page, which is assumed to be an article or other short item (which would go in quotes instead of italics), and there is a "work" field that can be used to name the overall site. I'm guessing the other templates would be similar situations (e.g., name of a specific mailing list post in quotes, name of the mailing list itself in italics). --RL0919 (talk) 17:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Translated book and chapter titles
I have added support for translated book and chapter titles, using the trans_title and trans_chapter parameters, respectively. Please see the documentation for details. Let me know if you encounter any difficulties. Thanks, Crum375 (talk) 20:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Group authorship
How do I cite a book with group authorship ("Dabaotai Han Tomb Excavation Group" in the book I want to cite)? Having a simple "author" field as alternative to "last" and "first" might be a good idea. BabelStone (talk) 08:17, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh dear. You need to read the instructions for this template a bit more carefully! If you click on the "template" tab above and go to "2.2 Description of fields" you'll see there is an author parameter. It doesn't appear in the examples because last/first are preferred ( is "deprecated") but the circumstance you describe seems an obvious occasion to use  . Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 09:12, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I don't know how I missed that. BabelStone (talk) 09:23, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Archiveurl requested
Can someone add the archiveurl= and archivedate= parameters from cite web to this template? --Philosopher Let us reason together. 10:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Page numbering in {cite journal} and {cite book}
I suggested a change to this template, please see this discussion; any input would be appreciated. Thanks, r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 04:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I have responded to this at this discussion. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 09:20, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

One period too many in editor-first?
yields:

I don't think there should be a period separating "San Fu" and "ed." -- A. di M. – 2009 Great Wikipedia Dramaout 09:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:ASIN
Would it be possiple to add some aspect of Template:ASIN to this template for books that do not have an ISBN? Thanks.Tstrobaugh (talk) 19:50, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 * You should be able to use the ASIN template in the 'id' field. The detailed instructions for that field explain how. --RL0919 (talk) 16:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Transliteration
Three points.
 * When citing titles in non western scripts it is generally standard and very helpful to have a transliteration as well as a translation of the title. Would it be sensible to have a separate field something like.
 * I strongly agree with Cryptic that a  field.
 * I have used the Cite book template in a wikibook, and the monograph series and number are not displaying at all. Why would this be? (I realize I should probably ask at wikibooks, but figure that templates probably start off life at Wikipedia) Tibetologist (talk) 21:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Spacing is messed up
I'm using the template in a number of pages, and have noticed the spacing between elements in the result is nill. There's no spacing at all, as far as I can tell; the bits just run up against each other. Maybe it's Firefox screwing it up, but that's what I'm seeing. - Denimadept (talk) 12:45, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I use Firefox 3, and I've never noticed this problem. --RL0919 (talk) 16:36, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I figured it out. Generally, when I copy a template like cite book or infobox bridge, I copy the blank template as is, and fill out the bits I can, leaving the rest alone in case someone else might come along later with more data.  That doesn't seem to work with this template.  The "separator" line screws it up.  If "separator" is left blank, it is taken as null, and everythingrunstogether.  If I remove the line, it formats properly. - Denimadept (talk) 22:24, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Translator
I am citing the English version of a book that was originally written in French. I have listed the French author, Bernard Pullman, in the  field. What should I do with the translator, Axel Reisinger? There does not appear to be a  field. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:31, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * You can use the 'others' field to add something like "Translated by Axel Reisinger". --RL0919 (talk) 16:38, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * A sound plan! Thanks, mate. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:34, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The documentation says 'Trans. smith'.  Kayau  David Copperfield  MOBY DICK   the great gatsby  10:43, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The template documentation is illustrative, not prescriptive. It doesn't exhaustively document every possibility. 'Others' is a free-text field, you can put in there whatever makes sense [ "translated by A. Smith", "English translation by A. Smith", "trans. A Smith", "A. Smith (trans.)", among other variations].--cjllw ʘ  TALK 01:56, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

url behavior with chapter wrong
As documented, url and chapterurl imply that url will show up as the link for title. However if chapter is used without chapterurl, url value moves over and becomes the link for chapter.

Here is the cite in question:



The URL is for the whole book, but shows up as a link on the chapter. Based on the documentation, this is incorrect behavior, the link should be applied to title. Hopefully someone will fix this. --J Clear (talk) 19:37, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Accessdate required
I added the syntax 'accessdate=' to the "Most commonly used fields" because I noticed that it is required when the 'url=' syntax is employed. Binksternet (talk) 14:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I notice the accessdate doesn't show up at least when only a "chapterurl" is supplied. Could someone with privileges fix it? Thanks! --Fl e x (talk/contribs) 14:07, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I've noticed the same thing. I'm trying to cite both the print and online versions of a book, but the chapterurl doesn't produce an accessdate.


 * I'd think that if you're using "chapterurl" the accessdate should show up as well; unfortunately, my command of template syntax is inadequate to the task. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Then if a chapterurl and url are both specified, how will one know which the accessdate refers to? Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  02:09, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I hadn't thought of that — but isn't there a way to make accessdate show up in cases in which chapterurl is specified but url is not? Alternatively, would it be useful to add a "chapterurlaccessdate" field? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll vote for a separate field, but would call it, which I think parallels   better (it's not  , after all). I'd also suggest adding   as a field. If one uses   and   at the same time, the   parameter will be displayed, but out of place; and again, if both   and   fields need to be used where each url has a unique format, the   field alone leads to a conundrum. --papageno (talk) 18:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Since url and chapterurl are supposed to point to the same site according to the doc page, I'm not sure this is a big issue assuming a reasonable structure to the web site. If you set accessdate to the more specific chapterurl, it's likely to serve the purpose for both links.  Can someone come up with an example where accessing the chapterurl did not validate the url for the entire work?  --J Clear (talk) 13:33, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Citing preface or introduction by a different person in a Book.
I want to cite the preface/introduction in a book. This is written by Seán Duffy who is a Senior lecturer in medieval history at Trinity and the book is written by a long-dead author called Edmund Curtis. The book is A History of Ireland from Early Times to 1922, google link here. The current book template does not easily cover this. Seán Duffy is not the author, editor or publisher but he provides valuable biographical data on the actual author (many "classic" book usually have this kind of preface describing the author or the circumstances of the book's publication). In effect we're not actually citing the book author but the separate writer of the introduction. How do I do this ? Ttiotsw (talk) 07:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not ideal but using " " and then " " should work OK. The book author should be left as Curtis because that is one of the ways someone wishing to verify the citation identifies the book. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 09:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

On your "my preferences" click on the "gadgets" tab. You then click on the "cite tools" and save your changes. A new option appears on you editing tools. To add a cite, clike the cite tab, and pick the type of reference you wish to use i.e. Book, Web, Journal etc. On the "Book" option you can then follow the advice of Stephen Kirrage. -- Domer48 'fenian'  10:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * OK will use other= etc Ttiotsw (talk) 10:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The suggestion above will do as a workaround, but it doesn't really produce a great citation for this situation. The preferred result would be something like this:

Duffy, Sean. "Preface." in Curtis, Edumund. A History of .....

Basically the ideal result is the same format as if you used the 'chapter' field with an edited book, except that Edmund Curtis is the main author rather than an editor, so you wouldn't want "(ed)" to show up after his name. Using the 'other' and 'page' fields as suggested above will get the right information into the citation, but not ideally formatted. Perhaps there really should be an additional field to support this, such as a 'mainauthor' field (Edmund Curtis in this example) that can be used in cases where a non-compilation has a single chapter or section (mostly commonly an introduction/preface or afterword) by a different author. --RL0919 (talk) 13:51, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The MLA approach is if the writer of the piece is different from the author of the complete work, then write the full name of the principal work's author after the word "By." so for my example we would have,


 * Duffy, Sean. "Introduction.", A History of .... by Curtis, Edmund etc etc etc


 * What I felt was that our current cite template doesn't handle these introduction, a preface, a forward, or an afterword cases (and actually other 'bots even for MLA also don't handle introductions). Biographical data like this is often found in older (classic) books whereby a modern authority adds the introduction to an older work discussing the life and times of the author and circumstances about the work. This can be valuable information for us, as it is in this case for me. How do we get the template changed ? Ttiotsw (talk) 17:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The output from the template isn't MLA style specifically, so personally I'd prefer that it be consistent with the way similar situations are output currently (like the anthology example I mentioned), rather than trying to match MLA. As far as how it gets changed, I assume someone with the appropriate skillset would need to see these comments and take it on themselves to do an update. Alas, I'm not skilled with editing this type of template, and I sure wouldn't want to take one as widely used as this one for a learning project! --RL0919 (talk) 17:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)