Template talk:Cite news/Archive 4

Parameter request: volume and issue
Some news publications have volumes and issues, so I was wondering if somebody could port the relevant code from cite journal? The reason I do not simply use that instead is that the article requires some fields not present in that template (such as the "agency"; see a few sections up.)

I see now that this issue has been discussed, and seemingly accepted, but no-one took the initiative to implement the change. Maybe this reminder will help. --Adoniscik(t, c) 02:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Not trying to be contentious or anything, can you clarify why cite journal won't work for what you want to do? — Bellhalla (talk) 03:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, how about an item that requires an "agency" and "work" fields? cite journal has only "journal", which is what would replace the "work" field. Where would the "agency" go? --Adoniscik(t, c) 04:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I see. If you can provide a (manually) formatted sample of where the volume and issue should go, I can try to take a look at implementing the code for it. — Bellhalla (talk) 17:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. Does the code above not work? --Adoniscik(t, c) 17:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Accessdate in cite news is broken site-wide
Hello. Site-wide, and evidently only in cite news, ISO dates entered as YYYY-MM-DD are no longer expanded to Month DD, YYYY as they are in the other cite templates. Can this please be fixed? -SusanLesch (talk) 18:02, 18 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Can you give examples? Also, when you observed YYYY-MM-DD being expanded to Month DD, YYYY, were logged in with a date preference set? Autoformatting according to a date preference is now deprecated by WP:MOSNUM because most readers have no accounts, and do not benefit from autoformatting. Autoformatting created an illusion among some editors that they were writing properly formatted articles when in fact they were an inconsistent mess with respect to date format. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:35, 18 October 2008 (UTC)


 * P.S.: Autoformatted dates violate the ISO 8601 standard; the people who implemented it don't seem to have read the standard. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:37, 18 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Why is accessdate only in cite news different than the other cite templates? I'm not sure which of these two edits caused this. Look at any article using cite news for examples. Deprecated doesn't mean break everything in a path backward in time. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:43, 18 October 2008 (UTC)


 * True, depricate does not mean to break things that did things the old way. The problem is that date autoformatting has always been broken because its design was hopelessly flawed, so this argument does not apply. You didn't say if you have date preferences set or not. I don't. For access dates entered in YYYY-MM-DD format, I see that Cite web, book news, and journal all output the YYYY-MM-DD format, but while web and journal link the date, news and book do not. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:57, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If the argument doesn't apply then WP:MOSNUM is incorrect to say and link to deprecation. Yes I have preferences set. Yes you're right cite book is broken too. How sad. I may not get back to this discussion but I will mention it on Tony1's talk page. -SusanLesch (talk) 19:23, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, Susan. I always recommend that people avoid using templates: they were designed for newbies who'd never properly looked at or written a reference list, but soon spread like leprosy throughout the project—it's a pity, because they're uncoordinated subject to change at developers' whims, and I like to think that these things can be controlled at article level. That might make me unpopular here, but too bad.

Have you thought of choosing "no preference" for your dates? I believe that all WPians should do that, since it allows them to see in display-mode the many inconsistencies and wrong global choices of date format in our articles—in effect, what our readers have been seeing. Tony  (talk)  02:10, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the idea, Tony and Gerry too. I changed my preference to no preference. When WP:CITE can state what it is, I am more than happy to adopt a citation style. Since my second month here, in July 2006, I've been looking for agreement on how to cite articles. -SusanLesch (talk) 05:06, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I very much disagree with the idea that templates are for newbies. I've been criticized on WP:FAC for using citations without templates. Regardless, the current situation is unacceptable. The template either needs to go back to linking dates, so that a format other than YYYY-MM-DD can be displayed, or it needs to be updated so that it changes the format to the user's preference. It is wholly unacceptable to believe that the millions of uses of this template should all be changed to MONTH DD, YYYY (or similar) format. Instead, that needs to be changed in this, possibly by just putting " " inside a Template:Date call.--Patrick «» 18:53, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Still need to unlink dates
editprotected

The wikilinking of dates is now depreciated. Where ever, , , and appear in the template, please remove the brackets. Thank you. -- Suntag  ☼  15:39, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅, but it's "deprecated" (i.e. discouraged) rather than "depreciated" (which means reduced in value). Stifle (talk) 15:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This makes the template inconsistent with others of its kind. the skomorokh  09:50, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This makes those templates inconsistent with wikilinking of dates is now depreciated and they should be fixed, too. -- Suntag  ☼  14:01, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

The "date" parameter still needs to be de-wikilinked, in addition to the other three date parameters that have already been done. – Dream out loud (talk) 16:31, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done --Elonka 03:43, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Ho hum. Thousands of articles now showing ISO dates. Who has the bot? --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  21:25, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Parallel activity
Editors here may be interested in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style on a new Citation template that would putatively replace all the Cite family.LeadSongDog (talk) 16:15, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Examples with accessdaymonth and accessmonthday
I've taken the liberty of adding examples using the "accessdaymonth" and "accessmonthday" fields to the documentation. I don't expect this to be problematic, but I'd rest more easily if someone could check that everything is correct. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Remove curly
editprotected This template uses typographic quotes in contravention of WP:MOS. Will an admin please make the following changes to always use "straight quotes"?
 * 1) Change line 31 from | .&amp;#32;}}""{{#if: {{{format|}}} | &#32;({{{format}}})

Thanks! RossPatterson (talk) 03:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think this is a necessary change. The curly quotes are an optional parameter and can be used if so chosen by an editor. Despite what many MOSers may think, the MOS is a guideline and not an iron-clad list of musts and must nots. Are there compelling reasons for using straight quotes? Yes, which is why the template defaults to those. Is there a site-wide prohibition on the use of curly quotes? I don't know, but I suspect not, which is why they are an option in this template. Please do not make this requested edit. Thanks. — Bellhalla (talk) 18:54, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{tlx|edit protected}} template. --Elonka 04:10, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay... but the versions provided to copy and paste all include the "curly=y" parameter. Lots of people will simply copy-and-paste without changing that, and so curly will become the de facto standard. Personally I think that's a bad thing.Loganberry (Talk) 16:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

date expression
editprotect

is there anything being done yet to return some consistency to the citation templates?

deprecated/discouraged; linked/unlinked or whatever....i'd just like to see them standardised. (this has been posted to both talk pages) --emerson7 16:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Also noted on Cite web's talk, but seems to me that this template was edited too early with the delinking just removed without making sure the date's retain their format. I'd suggest undoing that edit and returning it to autoformat until a proper fix can be implemented. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 16:37, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

It's worth noting that for new citations, the accessdaymonth/accessmonthday solution works for both templates. I think that what's needed is some enterprising bot creator to make a bot or script that changes accessdate to accessdaymonth or accessmonthday and accessyear, as appropriate, in templates put in before autolinking of dates was deprecated. (It should also change the format in the "date" field from ISO 8601 to whatever's appropriate for the article.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Wait...huh? When did new fields get added? -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 19:15, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Months ago Gary King  ( talk ) 19:21, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Anyone else annoyed with the longer  format over the shorter  ?  Anyone else think that ISO dates are just god damn fine for this?  — Dispenser 03:35, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. I much prefer accessdate with the ISO date and auto formatting (sans linking), than this mess. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 03:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm declining the edit request, because it's not entirely clear what's being asked. If there's consensus though, then perhaps update the Template:Cite news/sandbox and re-submit the request, and we'll be able to get it ported over. --Elonka 23:13, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * the request is for consistency across citation tags. although only cite web an cite news were given in the above example. the other  "cite x" templates are all over the place as well. any suggestions for a forum where a global solution can be arrived at? --emerson7 15:48, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * So are we going to change them? I attempted to format the expression similar to cite news, but apparently it broke the template. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 17:32, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Archive url without archive date?
Sometimes a newspaper article is archived on a site that doesn't give a date for the archiving. For example, here's a Washington Post article about Robert Reich. I added it as a citation to his article (and the article on multiple epiphyseal dysplasia, a.k.a. Fairbanks disease, which Reich has), but I can't use the "archiveurl" field because the archive page doesn't give a date of when the story was archived. The story was originally here, and is now archived (abstract free, full text for a fee) here.

What's the proper course of action in a case like this? I'd like to do something like this:

But that yields this:

Why is this? Why is archivedate required? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:34, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I may be completely wrong here, but I assumed the archive parameters were intended to allow permanent access to pages through the Internet Archive. So for the link in the example above, I would choose the earlier appropriate date from here (the asterisk indicates a new version of the page). Even if it's not the intended use, it's a good workaround. the skomorokh  15:26, 8 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks — that does indeed work as a workaround. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Centralized discussion about date situation in templates?
Is there a centralized discussion somewhere about how we're applying the deprecation of automatic date linking to citation templates? I agree with the principle of delinking, but we've been left with thousands of dates in ISO 8601 format. Is there a bot working on this? If not, where do we go to request one?

Also, I'm slightly concerned that the pre-loaded examples now give the date only in "15 November 2008" format. Per WP:MOSDATE, there are circumstances in which the American formatting ("November 15, 2008") is preferred, and usage should be consistent within an article. Should we list both alternatives in the documentation, or is that too confusing? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 10:09, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Nope, no central discussion, which I think really should have happened before all this delinking started. Also strongly agree with you on the pre-loaded examples. FYI, you might want to look at cite web's talk, because the planned "fix" to the template will also force that singular format rather than allowing a choice. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 10:12, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah. That discussion led me to Wikipedia talk:Citation templates, which is something close to a centralized discussion.  It looks to me as if the proposed technical solution will use "15 November 2008" format as a default, but will add a parameter to allow "November 15, 2008" format in appropriate cases.  It's slightly clunky, but it's much better than leaving all these "2008-11-15" dates all over the place. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 10:56, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Its something...though I still strongly disagree with 15 November 2008 being the default. I'd like someone to try and get a rough idea of how many articles actually use International over American. I strongly suspect American is used on more articles and should therefore be the default. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 16:56, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * There is now a RfC on a proposal to deprecate YYYY-MM-DD in footnotes, as well as in text as is already the case. -- Alarics (talk) 19:20, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

No author
If the author is not stated at a website, that entry is left blank, right? I have someone at Over the Edge (1999) who insists on listing the website name in that spot because no author is mentioned on the site.  TJ   Spyke   17:12, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep, left blank. Gary King  ( talk ) 17:15, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Ditto...leave blank. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 17:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The "curly" parameter - why?
This is a discussion question, not a formal "editprotected" request, which is why I'm making a new section here... but I'm confused as to the reason why the "curly" parameter is there at all. The only reason given in the brief discussion above is that it's an optional parameter, and that the MOS is a guideline and not an iron-clad rule. That doesn't seem like all that strong a reason to me; you could add huge numbers of other optional parameters if that were the only thing that mattered. I think it especially undesirable that the sample template outlines provided for copy-pasting have "curly = y" as default.

Would anything be harmed if all quotes were straight? Only if you think it looks ugly and if you further think that's important. Would it make anything better? Yes, in making the template (slightly) simpler, in avoiding any problems with displays that can't deal with curved quotes (there are a few), and in encouraging a uniform style. As well as this, the "curly" parameter is not used in other cite templates, such as Cite web and cite book. I genuinely do not see the point of it. Loganberry (Talk) 16:53, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not trying to be flippant, but if you don't like it, don't use it. Personally, I use straight quotes and never have used the "curly" option, but what is harmed by leaving the curly option there for those who wish to use it to match a curly quote style in a particular article? Just because someone fails to see the utility of something doesn't mean that all share the same viewpoint.
 * As far as the sample having "curly = y" for the copy-paste example, I would agree to its removal. — Bellhalla (talk) 17:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd be lying if I said I felt particularly strongly about this matter, and I'm not going to argue further, except to say that if the copy-paste defaulted to not having curly it would be a good thing. I don't like curly quotes at all (on screen, that is) but of course I accept that some others do. I still think it's rather pointless, especially since nobody is forced to use cite templates in the first place, but given the lack of pages of instant and impassioned support for what I said I seriously doubt there's any sort of consensus! Right; back to writing articles for me. Loganberry (Talk) 09:50, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * In the template documentation I removed the "y" from the  parameter in the full example and removed the entire   parameter from the shorter versions since the MOS recommends straight quotes. (Note that this change does not affect the template itself; setting   to "y" will still work, should one fell compelled to use it.) — Bellhalla (talk) 00:08, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * It would be much better to remove all mention of curly quotes. They serve no purpose, and are deprecated for various technical reasons. -- Alarics (talk) 19:44, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Standardisation with other citation templates
Other citation templates – Citation, Cite Journal, Cite book and Cite web (imminently) – now all use a standard 'engine', Template:Citation/core, to produce their output. This means that they produce output in a consistent format, and that future improvements to each template can be made in one place and discussed centrally.

Upgrading Cite News to use this central template will involve a couple of minor formatting changes to make the output consistent with other templates; the order of a couple of parameters has also been switched. Examples of the sandbox output can be viewed at Template:Cite news/test cases, and I'd welcome any other potentially problematic examples, in case my code needs further tweaking. If anyone has any major concerns about the changes in output, please list them here so I can address them. Thanks, Martin 18:24, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * No-one has raised any problems, so please replace the current template code with that at :Template:Cite news/sandbox. This should also address some of the below issues.

Thanks, Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  19:31, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Ruslik (talk) 19:34, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This change has broken (or removed?) support for the parameters accessdaymonth/accessmonthday/accessyear, leaving some references with false information in them. A sample from FA 1923 FA Cup Final:
 * renders the incorrect retrieved date:
 * There are plenty more FAs that use this format. Mr Stephen (talk) 00:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There are plenty more FAs that use this format. Mr Stephen (talk) 00:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

editprotected


 * I'm afraid that this must be reverted. There are too many inconsistencies at the moment. In an FAC that I'm currently working on,  produces


 * The date formats are inconsistent, and this makes this template completely inconsistent with others that look like "). Retrieved". Gary King  ( talk ) 01:37, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

This template is inconsistent with others, now returning a "retrieved on" rather than "Retrieved on". Please bring this template back in to line with other cite templates. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 11:33, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I reverted my edit. Ruslik (talk) 13:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Both problems are fixed in the current sandbox. Please copy the sandbox to the template page. Thanks, Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  14:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done--Aervanath (talk) 15:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It looks like full stops are now missing from the ends of citations. Please fix.  Pagra shtak  15:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think I've fixed that part—why was this not caught? It affects every call and should have been a noticeable problem. What other problems are we now missing?  Pagra shtak  19:10, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Now that this has been done, is anyone planning to update the documentation?  Pagra shtak  15:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Sisterwiki links
I find that in this template, one can only use a full url, and cannot add a wikisister project wikilink, using the defined syntax. For example one has to quote en.wikisource.org/... rather than using .... It would be great if we could adapt the url field to give both forms. -- billinghurst (talk) 06:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Date formatting
Is it possible to change the date formatting in cite news (2 December 2007) to match cite web (2007-12-07) at Elmer Gedeon?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 21:30, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there a particular reason why the accessdate field is defaulting to DMY format if ISO formatting is used? It is creating situations where the date field is displayed in ISO and the accessdate is DMY. --Bobblehead (rants) 09:13, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, it needs to be the other way around. CiteWeb needs to be fixed to do as cite news does and convert the ISOs to mdy (not dym), but it hasn't happened yet. One of many, IMHO screw ups, from the whole sudden stripping of autoformatting without planning. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 16:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In the current A-Class review at WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Elmer Gedeon this is an issue. What should I say the resolution of the problem is.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 23:15, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Volume & Issue parameters
Is it possible to add volume & issue numbers to this template. I notice this was previously suggested here but it wasn't acted on. I am trying to cite student newspaper NYU Today (here), but it gives Vol. and Issue numbers. I realise citation has these parameters, but it is advised not to mix citation templates, so I was wondering if the code could be copied over please. Rambo's Revenge (talk)  20:20, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Use cite journal. Gary King  ( talk ) 20:27, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * We do need it in the longer term, though. Hopefully all these citation templates will be merged one day. --Adoniscik(t, c) 20:39, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The above-requested edit will provide these (and effectively merge cite news with citation and cite journal). Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  19:33, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Date format
I've noticed that the "date" section does not automatically turn 2009-01-03 into January 3, 2009. The "accessdate" does do this, but not the basic "date" (for publication date). I'd fix this if I knew how, but I think it needs to be done to be consistent with the other dating styles that are present.  BIGNOLE     (Contact me)  13:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There seems to have no resolution of this accessdate problem. Why does it autoformat ISO dates to DMY? Surely it would be better to allow the user to define how the dates are done in an article rather than having a needless one-size-fits-all conversion? Am I missing something here? Sillyfolkboy (talk) 08:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This is awaiting an edit which has been requested at Template talk:Citation/core. If a different format is required for an article, one can specify dateformat (or , or alternatives listed at date). Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  13:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Sep=period
When did we switch to "|Sep = " Now it puts a double period in after the title when the title has a period. Remember a title can have more than one sentence. It looks terrible. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Periods missing at end of citations
Citations using Cite news no longer end in periods. This needs to be fixed. I assume it has something to do with the (unnecessary) switch to Cite/core. Kaldari (talk) 19:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think I've got it fixed, but I hope there aren't any other problems from the switch.  Pagra shtak  19:09, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

URLs printing
Since the "cite news" template was updated to use "citation/core", URLs are now printed, making reference sections with citations to newspaper articles with URLs very, very long and unreadable, and printouts of Wikipedia articles much, much longer. This problem exists with other citation templates that use "citation/core", such as "cite book", "cite journal", etc., but the problem is much, much more glaring with citations using the more frequently used "cite news" template. Please fix this problem as soon as possible. Thank you. Newross (talk) 00:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * To my knowledge, the printable version has always printed the full URL. It is one of the issues noted with using reflist and multiple columns; the URL can get mangled. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  00:32, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The printable version  never  printed URLs until the citation templates were "enhanced" to use citation/core. Was this change intended? Discussed? What is the value of a URL on a piece of paper? Newross (talk) 01:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Hm, to my knowledge, the printable version did include reference URLs. I can probably find a printout somewhere but I'm fairly certain that this was the case, having printed quite a few articles from Wikipedia in the past few months. The URLs are useful, especially on paper. When traveling with a printout, it's an excellent way to have a quick list of useful sources for a specific topic on paper. Gary King  ( talk ) 02:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm also pretty sure the URLs were always printed in the printable version, from old print outs I've done. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 02:32, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I am absolutely, positively, 100% certain that "cite news" URLs did not print when printing Wikipedia articles until 15:38, 28 January 2009.

For example, from United States Senate election in Illinois, 2004:

before 15:38, 28 January 2009:
 * ^Davey, Monica (2004-03-18). " As quickly as overnight, a Democratic star is born ", The New York Times, p. A20. Retrieved on 4 November 2008.
 * Howlett, Debbie (2004-03-19). " Dems see a rising star in Illinois Senate candidate ", USA Today, p. A04. Retrieved on 4 November 2008.
 * Mendell, David (2004-03-17). " Obama routs Democratic foes; Ryan tops crowded GOP field; Hynes, Hull fall far short across state " (paid archive), Chicago Tribune, p. 1. Retrieved on 4 November 2008.
 * Fornek, Scott; Herguth, Robert C. (2004-03-17). " Obama defeats Hull's millions, Hynes' name; Consistent effort results in landslide for Hyde Parker " (paid archive), Chicago Sun-Times, p. 2. Retrieved on 4 November 2008.

after 15:38, 28 January 2009:
 * ^Davey, Monica (2004-03-18). " As quickly as overnight, a Democratic star is born ". The New York Times: p. A20. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E2DD1231F93BA25750C0A9629C8B63&pagewanted=all . Retrieved on 4 November 2008
 * Howlett, Debbie (2004-03-19). " Dems see a rising star in Illinois Senate candidate ". USA Today: p. A04. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/2004-03-18-obama-usat_x.htm . Retrieved on 4 November 2008
 * Mendell, David (2004-03-17). " Obama routs Democratic foes; Ryan tops crowded GOP field; Hynes, Hull fall far short across state " (paid archive). Chicago Tribune: p. 1. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/580623991.html?dids=580623991:580623991&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT . Retrieved on 4 November 2008
 * Fornek, Scott; Herguth, Robert C. (2004-03-17). " Obama defeats Hull's millions, Hynes' name; Consistent effort results in landslide for Hyde Parker " (paid archive). Chicago Sun-Times: p. 2. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=CSTB&p_theme=cstb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(Obama%20defeats%20Hull's)%20AND%20date(3/17/2004%20to%202/17/2004)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=3/17/2004%20to%202/17/2004)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=(Obama%20defeats%20Hull's)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no . Retrieved on 4 November 2008

How is having less than useless URLs—that make a References section completely unreadable and make a printout of an article almost twice as long—anything other than exasperating? Newross (talk) 08:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I've just double-checked physical printouts I have of articles printed in December 2007 and June 2008, and in both of them, the URLs for cite news references did indeed print out. So this has not changed.  Wasted Time R (talk) 14:51, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Whether or not the template used to print out the URLs is somewhat of a moot point; they should only be printed (or concealed) if that option is better than the other. I can think of the following pros and cons; feel free to add to them:
 * Pros:
 * Makes it easier to verify sources


 * Cons:
 * Takes up lots of paper
 * Suppressing printed urls by default would require a very minor change to Template:Citation/core, which I'd be happy to code if consensus shows that it's necessary.
 * Just to explain the change to citation/core; it has two main benefits; the first is that it produces COinS metadata; but the more significant is that is ensures that the output produced remains consistent with other citation templates - the 'cite' family were prone to drift apart from one another. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  14:09, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The stylesheet for printed pages is at MediaWiki:Print.css.


 * There should be a way to over-ride this. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  22:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

There are  no  Pros.

Adding—on a piece of paper—a URL like:
 * http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=CSTB&p_theme=cstb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline(Obama%20defeats%20Hull's)%20AND%20date(3/17/2004%20to%202/17/2004)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=3/17/2004%20to%202/17/2004)&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=(Obama%20defeats%20Hull's)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no.

to the printed reference:
 * Fornek, Scott; Herguth, Robert C. (2004-03-17). "Obama defeats Hull's millions, Hynes' name; Consistent effort results in landslide for Hyde Parker". Chicago Sun-Times, p. 2.

does  not  make it easier to verify the source, it is just wasteful and makes the printed reference less readable.

Before the "cite news" template was changed to use "citation/core", whether or not the less-than-useless URLs printed depended on the web browser:
 * If you were among the 68% using Microsoft Internet Explorer, URLs did not print.
 * If you were among the 32% using other web browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Opera, Netscape Navigator, etc.), URLs did print.

I usually didn't print Wikipedia articles from a web browser, but instead cut and pasted articles into Microsoft Word and printed articles from there after condensing the text to a smaller-but-readable font size with narrower margins. Since the "cite news" template was changed to use "citation/core", this now also pastes the less-than-useless URLs into Microsoft Word.

This same problem also affects other citation templates (Template:Citation, Template:Cite journal, Template:Cite book, Template:Cite web, etc.) using Template:Citation/core and was an annoying nuisance, but many extensively referenced Wikipedia articles make heavy use of the "cite news" template, and the URLs to archived newspaper articles are often very, very long, which makes the problem with the "cite news" template much more glaring and less tolerable.

For those accustomed to wasteful and poorly readable printouts of Wikipedia articles that included less-than-useless URLs, the change of "cite news" to use "citation/core" was almost nil, but for those accustomed to having the choice of using Internet Explorer (or cutting and pasting from any web browser into Word) to print less wasteful and more readable printouts of Wikipedia articles that did not include less-than-useless URLs, the change of "cite news" to use "citation/core" is a major, severely detrimental change to the usability of Wikipedia.

If Template:Citation/core can be easily tweaked to remove the additional span class=printonly source code that forces printouts from all web browsers (including IE) to print less-than-useless URLs, please do so as soon as possible.

If this cannot be done, please immediately revert the "cite news" template to the pre-"citation/core" version. Newross (talk) 23:05, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Add this to your .css:


 * I did not test every template, but it does suppress the URL for cite book, journal, news and paper. It obviously does not work for references that do not use a template. --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  18:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Change to accessdate field
Change the mess from this: |AccessDate= , which forces all dates to international date format (dmy) to this (per cite book: ""

Let the editor select the date format he or she wishes to use for the article (entire article standardized to one date format per editor preference). This forced standard is causing confusion and difficulties at FACs.


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: so you want to instantly break all citations that use accessday accessmonth accessyear or accessdaymonth accessmonthday, in order to fix a date formatting issue? A little more thought needed, I think. Happy‑melon 23:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Couldn't your bot clean up the broken accessdaymonth/accessmonthday like it did for cite web? --Bobblehead (rants) 01:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * A better solution would be to add the line  to Template:Cite news, then use the dateformat parameter to specify a non-standard date format where it's required. There may then be a case for discontinuing the accessdaymonth and accessmonthday parameters, if that was deemed a good idea. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  03:03, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * On the back of this, the current sandbox has been updated with a dateformat parameter, as well as a simplification of the archival process. All test cases are operating as expected. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  00:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Ruslik (talk) 09:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Format changes to cite news?
Two items to discuss. First, why is there a colon after the work title if a page number is provided? Some contrived examples: Shouldn't that be a comma instead perhaps?

The second item is how dates are handled for unattributed articles (i.e. no author or byline on the news item). A real example: with the two dates one after the other. Note that the date location and punctuation are different if there's a byline: I don't recall exactly how the template handled this before, but the consecutive page number and article date make it hard to parse, especially at the typical reflist sizes:



Can anyone recall how the date was handled for unattributed articles before, and was there any discussion regarding the change? — Bellhalla (talk) 06:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * See Template_talk:Cite_news for invitation of discussion and reason for changes. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  12:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm familiar with the move to citation/core for all of the templates. I guess I was trying to find if there was a discussion about these particular output format changes or if they were just accidental changes brought about by the move.
 * In the mean time, I answered my own question by creating a test version of the 7 July 2008 version, and this is how some of the above examples were formatted in that version:
 * "A very good article", Anytown News, p. 1. Retrieved on 5 February 2009.
 * "A very OK article", The Anytown Press, p. 1. Retrieved on 5 February 2009.
 * "Navy's big fighters here after hard work" (pdf). The New York Times (19 September 1904), p. 1. Retrieved on 5 February 2009.
 * Unless there was a specific discussion about these moves (which were detrimental, in my opinion), can we make the following changes?
 * Restore the use of a comma after the work name instead of the colon when a page number is present.
 * Restore the parenthetical article date after the work name, but before the page number, if any.
 * I don't know enough about to be able to propose specific edits. Thanks in advance. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:37, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Not sure these changes are necessary; they'd make the format inconsistent with that used for journal articles, which I'm not sure is a good thing. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  03:07, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * While it's good to have a certain level of consistency across related templates, if we wanted everything to match exactly, what would be the purpose of having separate templates? Given that there is a widespread consensus for using the multiple family template, I don't think this one has to match cite journal exactly. (And if anyone wants the exact format of, they'd just use it, right?) But the question that still remains is this: Was there consensus to change to the current format, or was it an unintentional change during the conversion? As of right now, I haven't seen any discussion regarding these specific format changes, so I'm assuming the latter. — Bellhalla (talk) 04:56, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The changes were advertised in the section above; no-body commented then, which suggests that nobody considered the changes deleterious. The numerous cite templates exist for historical reasons; 'the way it's always been done' is a weak argument. If there are strong reasons for the change you're proposing, let's hear them; otherwise, I think it's better the way it is. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  05:05, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Similarly, 'I think it's better' is a weak argument for going against consensus that has evolved over time. Anyway, in trying to format and comment on some examples, I've noticed quite a few differences in style that need more discussion. So, as part of the cycle…


 * I'd like to request that the template be restored to the stable 18 November 2008 version because of style changes that were made as a part of the citation/core implementation. For many reasons, the implementation of is desirable, but the particular implementation in this case has made the output internally inconsistent and introduced changes in style that were not adequately discussed beforehand. — Bellhalla (talk) 14:34, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No. The current template has many advantages over the old one, and there was a unanimous decision to implement it. If you wish to change back, please give detailed reasons of the problems with the current version, and we can go about addressing them.  A reason not to go back is that the stable version lacked full DOI support and did not produce metadata.  These functions should not be removed. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  16:16, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Will dateformat come here?
I've got an article with calls to both cite news and cite web. The web citations have their dates rendered in article-standard, mdy format. Cite news overrides that to dmy, even though I've specified the date parameter in mdy order. How do I override that in cite news? Or, why isn't dateformat adopted for this template also? —C.Fred (talk) 01:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It should be implemented - all that is necessary is to add the line |DateFormat = to the template, preferably after the   line. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  14:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That is not correct. On Accessdate the template currently forces DMY:


 * In order to allow the dateformat to work properly, it will need to be updated to something along the lines of |AccessDate= . As an example, here is cite news without the dateformat set:




 * Here it is with dateformat=mdy:


 * Please note in both cases the format is DMY despite the dateformat being set to MDY. --Bobblehead (rants) 19:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * See the discussion at Template talk:Citation. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  22:10, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * See the discussion at Template talk:Citation. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  22:10, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Status of DOI support?
Is the doi= parameter now "officially" supported? If so, the documentation should mention it. - Pointillist (talk) 09:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  20:27, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

access date format
Why are the instructions for this template using the date format as 10 April 2009 for the access date, when the "cite web" template uses 2009-04-10? Is there a reason why the instructions are not consistent between these citation templates? --Funandtrvl (talk) 19:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know for certain, but I'd guess that it's because Wikipedia is currently in the midst of a discussion about the linking and formatting of dates. Until fairly recently, it was standard procedure to present dates in an automatically linked format; for logged-in editors, a date written as 2009-04-10 can display as 10 April 2009 or April 10, 2009.  However, there is a movement away from this standard, because to non-logged in readers it still appears as 2009-04-10.  People who think this is a problem have been recommending that dates be written out in full and unlinked, instead of using the ugly YYYY-MM-DD format.


 * There is some disagreement among Wikipedians on this issue; I would wager that the cite news and cite web templates have been caught in this larger, ongoing dispute. With luck, the matter should be settled soon, and then the templates can be brought in line with each other (whichever way the dispute is settled). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:54, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the explanation! I just wish they would be consistent, either one way or the other!--Funandtrvl (talk) 21:01, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is  given in the usage examples in the documentation? Copy/pasting into an article doesn't work. . Is there a reason for this being added? I don't want to remove it if it was discussed and agreed elsewhere that it should be given this way. Matthewedwards : Chat  21:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, trying it out. I'm gonna paste this:

Use of these HTML character entities in place of the literal quotation marks will improve readability of the template and distinguish quote marks to be rendered on the page from those which enclose a parameter to a tag. Hgrosser (talk) 02:43, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * here:
 * Hgrosser (talk) 00:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Trying it again, this time with the built-in editor, not WikiEd:
 * Hgrosser (talk) 00:58, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Trying it inside  tags, like User:Matthewedwards's example: ''' which represents an opening quotation mark to be rendered on the page (as opposed to enclosing a parameter to an HTML or wiki tag) with
 * 1) Similarly, replace every closing   with
 * 1) Similarly, replace every closing   with
 * I'm pretty sure the manual of style recommends to not use curly quotes. --- RockMFR 02:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It sure does: MOS says "The following types of quoting should not be used: ... Typographic or curly style: “ text ”, ‘ text ’." RossPatterson (talk) 03:43, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't bother with it at all, and I don't come across many other pages that do either. When I copy/paste the title of the page, I just remove the  parameter. Matthewedwards :  Chat  05:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The MOS is is guideline, not mandatory, and if this change is implemented, nothing in the appearance of this template will change whether or not an editor deletes the line  unless he specifically fills in this parameter. Furthermore, if curly quotes are supposedly so deprecated, how come the very first characters made available on the Insert line in the edit window are n-dash, m-dash, ellipsis, and the curly quotes?Hgrosser (talk) 09:06, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There are times that curly quotes should be used in articles, such as in the article Quotation mark, which is perhaps why they appear in the insert line. Also, whereas the insert line is for use across all namespaces—including user pages and talk pages, where users are free to excercise their personal preferences—the MOS is specifically for the article namespace. –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 19:25, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Any other articles in which curly quotes should be used, other than Quotation mark? Are you saying that 3 million Wikipedia articles have to risk being infected with this annoying and unnecessary option, for the sake of that one article? - Alarics (talk) 19:53, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Template bug: url doesn’t display when blank archiveurl parameter is supplied
The url parameter is not displayed when the archiveurl parameter is supplied but left blank, as it might be when the template example in the documentation is copied and the appropriate line is neither filled in nor deleted. I think it is due to the line |URL= which should be changed to the syntax used later in this template: |OriginalURL =

Cite web doesn’t suffer from this bug, and it uses the second syntax exclusively for these parameters.Hgrosser (talk) 09:05, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess what needs to happen here, is for the first line of the code you quoted above to become:

|URL= Does this look right to you? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:53, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks correct - installed. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  16:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Restore
editprotected Request edit changing the default separator be reversed. No discussion or consensus here, and edit summary claims to look at Talk:Citation, with no direct link (nor relevance to this template). -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 01:35, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This is already done, I believe. Amalthea  12:59, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Translation
I have added a new param, trans_title, for an optional translated title (e.g. for foreign publications). Will add docs later. Please revert if any problems are encountered (or have any admin revert it if you are not admin). Crum375 (talk) 05:36, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The addition does not seem to result in a visible change at this time. I believe it's because "TransTitle" (no underscore) does not match "trans_title" (underscore), but I'll refrain from making the change until someone can confirm that that is indeed the issue. –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 16:19, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * They are not supposed to match. 'TransTitle' is the core engine parameter, while 'trans_title' is the external wrapper parameter. See for example the Gol 1907 reference section for examples. Crum375 (talk) 16:29, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Huh, I wonder why I can't get it work then... (I guess it's a good thing that I refrained from making a change.)
 * produces
 * What am I doing differently? –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 17:29, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The difference is the 'work' parameter. At this point, the translation feature is disabled once 'work' is specified. For the time being, as a workaround, if you use 'publisher' instead of 'work', it will fix it. But it really needs to be fixed correctly. Crum375 (talk) 17:47, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I was able to get it to work for the cite news template with the 'work' parameter (i.e. your above example should be OK), but there are some remaining issues. I'll keep working on it. Crum375 (talk) 18:28, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for working to address these issues and for adding the parameter. I often use non-English sources, which is why your initial post caught my attention, and think this is a good optional parameter to have. Thank you again, –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 18:30, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for catching that problem. It's good to know this is needed for others too. I'll keep this page posted on any progress with the remaining issues. Crum375 (talk) 18:35, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I have fixed all the known remaining issues. Crum375 (talk) 19:06, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Again, many thanks. I just tested both this template and cite web, with the work parameter activated, and it worked both times. –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 19:33, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Excellent! Thanks again for your help with the testing and feedback. Crum375 (talk) 19:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Again, many thanks. I just tested both this template and cite web, with the work parameter activated, and it worked both times. –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 19:33, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Excellent! Thanks again for your help with the testing and feedback. Crum375 (talk) 19:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)