Template talk:ISBN

Using ISBNT code
Could we use the code from ISBNT to add ISBN verification ? --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 12:10, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi NicoV. Yes, of course! --MZMcBride (talk) 18:22, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

RFCs on citations templates and the flagging free-to-read sources
See
 * Village pump (proposals)
 * Village pump (proposals)

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:05, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Make the link style consistent with cite xxx instead of magic links
I made this consistent with instead of magic links which are going away (see Requests for comment/Future of magic links). It was reverted so please chime in on why this would be better with the current style vs. how it is done in cite templates as well as in PMID (see Template talk:PMID), etc. Comments on Template talk:ISBNT also seems to indicate convergence preference towards CS1. Let's converge on a unified link style (I personally am good most sane styles). Thank you. 50.53.1.33 (talk) 22:48, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I support this change. I reverted it because this is a highly visible template that will probably be added to hundreds of thousands of pages in preparation for magic links going away. I thought it would be best to have a discussion and consensus on this page, for the record.
 * For clarity, the proposal is to change the current behavior, in which "ISBN" followed by a number creates one long link to Special:BookSources, to a new behavior, in which "ISBN" is linked to ISBN, and only the number itself is linked to Special:BookSources. I could demonstrate the behavior here, but since it will change, I think a narrative works better. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:18, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * support as well, although I don't really like this principle of linking to id pages such as ISBN because these pages might not be super useful for the reader and "overlink" a bit the citations. But uniformity is more valuable than taste here. − Pintoch (talk) 00:37, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Support Whole hearted support. CS1/2 templates worked like that for a while, but it was changed to magiclinking a while ago. Linking ISBN to the article, and the identifier to the Special:BookSources should be how it's done. I'd even go further personally, and color the Special:BookSources in the same 'external link' color we use for say, but I suppose that's a different matter. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:51, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅. Seeing this discussion headed towards a snowy end, I have reverted my own revert, implementing the change suggested above. If it causes a problem, post a message here. Thanks for being willing to discuss. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:30, 25 January 2017 (UTC)


 * , you should see this. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 20:37, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you everyone. We now have a full set of mostly uniform linking template alternatives to magic links: ISBN, IETF RFC and PMID (even though they differ from Wikiversity's v:Template:ISBN, v:Template:RFC and v:Template:PMID). I look forward to having magic linking (as well as Booksources and the ISBN parser function) moved out of MediaWiki core. 50.53.1.33 (talk) 02:05, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * However there is not consensus that the magic words should be removed. Nor is there consensus that the opposed changes to the Cite family of templates, that make ISBN the most linked to page on Wikipedia are a good thing.
 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:41, 27 January 2017 (UTC).


 * Actually there is, depending on what you meant. There seems to be ample consensus for removing magic links from MediaWiki core, however, it remains to be seen if that will translate into removal from WikiMedia projects like Wikipedia (or if they will be re-implemented by an extension and/or moved to templates, etc.). I too question the value of linking the identifier name (ISBN, RFC or PMID) to article space and personally think it would be a good idea to convert Wikipedia magic links to templates, however, I have not thoroughly studied all the ramifications of the issue either. For now, I was just targeting getting a unified set of alternatives. 50.53.1.33 (talk) 19:33, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually, the consensus in the en.wp community mainly says that we have to take some action since MW is removing magic links ayway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:38, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Kind of a partial follow-up on this topic: Help talk:Citation Style 1 --Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:54, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Linking to ISBN
I'd like to revisit the objections to linking to the this article on every reference? That article link is already in the lead of Special:BookSources if a reader really didn't know what an ISBN was. — xaosflux  Talk 15:24, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * My change suggestion would be to maintain the magic link style, make the ISBN label and the identifier all be the same existing link to booksources. — xaosflux  Talk 15:28, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Pings to editors from prior discussion:, , , . — xaosflux  Talk 15:30, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * the first importat thing iss to make the appereance between cite book and "free text" consistent. I also agree that we do not need some many links to ISBN. which confuses people like me who use "What links here". -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:29, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * That sounds fine too - "what links here" to that article from so many other articles is diluting its effectiveness. — xaosflux  Talk 15:30, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I have started this discussion in Phabricator some time ago. Need to find it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:32, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * perhaps T14396 is on the same topic? — xaosflux  Talk 15:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * As above, I prefer consistency among the related templates. I know that makes it harder to make a change, and I am OK with change, but I would prefer not to have cite book and PMID and ISBN and Infobox book doing different things with the characters "ISBN". – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:17, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I think everything should switch to not linking to ISBN per MOS:OVERLINK. ~ Rob 13 Talk 16:45, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * No, keep the link. Not everyone knows what an ISBN is, and the explanation to readers who don't know is way more important than having a 'clean' "what links here" for a handful of editors. This is how all other identifiers are handled, ISBN shouldn't be the special snowflake that's different. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:07, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * as for as flake-ness goes, there is a significant difference, other identifiers links to external parties (e.g. PMID, RFC) where ISBN is an internal link - so the content is controlled by us and already includes info on the label. — xaosflux  Talk 18:10, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * And I'd argue we should change the appearance of the identifier part to be an external link color to highlight the difference between the two links. The reader doesn't care that the link resolves to an in-house resolver. Not sure what the support for that option would be thought, but I'm going to guess no consensus. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:17, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Due to uniformity issues this also affects PMID, IETF RFC and CS1 . So though it is true we do have some control over the target ISBN page, that is not true of other identifiers. If your objective is just to clean up the link table and What links here, it is possible to have the templates link to article space for the identifier labels while not cluttering the link table by means of using interwiki linking, e.g., using  (ISBN) instead of   (ISBN). Just the identifier label links could be updated while the actual identifier links to Special:BookSources and external sites should of course remain unchanged. If consensus is met, these types of changes could be pushed to CS1 and magic link replacement templates. Usually I dislike interwiki links because they do not show up in any link tables (internal or external) but this side-effect might be usefully exploited here. The same mechanism could be employed on identifier labels elsewhere too like in Authority control, etc. 50.53.1.33 (talk) 18:21, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

A follow-up and possible solution on this topic: Help talk:Citation Style 1 --Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:54, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Related bot requests

 * Bots/Requests for approval/PrimeBOT 13
 * Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 54

--MZMcBride (talk) 23:45, 3 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Bots/Requests for approval/Magic links bot

– Jonesey95 (talk) 23:55, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Allow hiding "Invalid ISBN" error
In some cases, the actual published ISBN is invalid. Is it possible to add a way to hide the error messages in those cases? Rchard2scout (talk) 14:16, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Use Listed Invalid ISBN. I have updated the documentation for this template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:04, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Or add the named parameter  were ? must be replaced by the parameter number 1..9 of the invalid ISBN, f.e.   if the first ISBN is invalid.
 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:03, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Redirect
Why does this template generate a link to International Standard Book Number (identifier), which is a redirect to International Standard Book Number? Why not just link directly? Colonies Chris (talk) 16:39, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

The link that the template generates is a redirect - this change would go direct to the target. Colonies Chris (talk) 17:28, 20 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done — MRD 2014  Talk • Edits • Help! 01:07, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Since nobody pinged me I am seeing this only now... The reason why the link to ISBN was going (and should again go) through a redirect named "International Standard Book Number (identifier)" instead of directly linking to "International Standard Book Number" is down to previous discussions (for example further up in "Linking to ISBN", but also in related talks elsewhere):
 * Some editors take issue with too many incoming links making it impossible to use the "What links here" tool conveniently - typically, when using this tool for article development and maintenance, they are interested in "normal" links to the target page, not the many thousands of links from the ISBN and related templates. Further above it was suggested to bypass the "What links here" mechanism using the "w:" prefix, however, this would completely eliminate chances to backtrack links coming in through the template even when this would be desired.
 * The obvious compromise is to go through the special redirect only used for this purpose (as is explained at length in the source code of the redirect), so that it is easy to distinguish and optionally filter the "normal" incoming links from those generated by this template.
 * Since going through the redirect does not create any inconveniences for other users (even the tool help still works), it is desirable to change this back. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:27, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I disagree, I feel this is very undesirable. "What links here" pollution is nonsense, those are indeed links to the International Standard Book Number page, just as bibcode links to bibcode, arXiv links to arXiv, or ISSN links to International Standard Serial Number. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:52, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * In a constructive discussion you shouldn't discard other people's arguments as "nonsense" - actually, this only disqualifies your own input.
 * Having said this, I originally had difficulties to see their point as well (because, like you, I probably don't use "What links here" like some other people do (see for example here: Template talk:ISBNT for a completely non-obvious use of the tool by an admin for alarming purposes)), but just having no personal use-case for something is not a valid basis to be against something. You failed to present arguments why going through a redirect would be a bad thing here, and I couldn't find any valid arguments against it as well.
 * I didn't like the originally proposed solution to use interwiki links (see here: and Template talk:PMID) because this actually makes it impossible to use "What links here" for some of its intended purposes like reverse-lookup.
 * However, using a redirect, "What links here" continues to work as before, all incoming links are still listed, statistics continue to work. There is no risk for people going through the list to miss a link. The only difference is that incoming template links are now grouped under the redirect (a specially crafted redirect not used for other purposes), whereas otherwise they would show up in random order among the direct links. It does, however, have the advantage, that people, who do not want to see those links, can easily filter them, whereas otherwise they could not.
 * So, if a solution has advantages for some and no disadvantages for the others, the choice should be obvious.
 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 08:56, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Headbomb, I'm still waiting for an explanation why you think this would be "undesirable". I have named a number of advantages of going through a specially crafted redirect ending on "... (identifier)" thereby addressing actual issues raised by various users in the past. What is the disadvantage you, apparently, see (and I don't)? If all that makes you feel this as being "undesirable" is consistency, I'm with you but we should establish consistency based on the technically best solution achievable, not some (perceived) status quo, in particular because achieving consistency among templates is trivially easy (basically, that's one of the very purposes for why we use templates). --Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:54, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Several arguments were given why it is beneficial for the link to go through the "(identifier)" redirecct rather than linking to the article directly. Since no counter-arguments were brought forward over the course of several months, I have changed the template back to the former behaviour of going through the redirect.
 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 00:44, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Stop linking to the redirect version. You do not have consensus for such a change, nor do the arguments make any sense. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:40, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Huh? There were some editors who asked questions, but so far you are the only opposing editor and all you offered so far was an opinion that this would be (citations:) "undesirable", "nonsense", "does not make sense", and "don't like"d. So what?
 * In any useful discussion, we need arguments based on reasons, as we are seeking for the best-most practical and technical achievable solution for the largest number of users and use cases.
 * Based on the input of other editors in prior discussions (linked above), I gave several reasons, why going through a specially crafted redirect (not used for anything else) appears to be the preferable solution, and I explained why it improves the usability/functionality without making anything worse elsewhere. Over the course of months, I explicitly asked for reason-based counter-arguments, because I'm trying to understand your position in order to possibly find a solution working for you as well. (For example, we could address any issues of "inconsistency" simply by changing the cite template framework to go through redirects as well. This would be trivial to do in a couple of minutes. So, we can achieve full consistency and go through redirects at the same time.)
 * Unfortunately, you did not provide any useful feedback at all so far. If there are, I want to hear solid reasons and explanations why you think this "does not make sense" (such as a broken use-case).
 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:04, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Here are a few reasons: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:55, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The intended link is International Standard Book Number, "(identifier)" is a nonsensical disambiguator, as "International Standard Book Number" is not ambiguous.
 * None of the other identifiers, across all templates, citations or otherwise, link to a "Foobar (identifier)" version. We don't have arXiv (identifier), CiteSeerX (identifier) and so on. Consistency is important, we have a uniform standard across citation and identifier templates. And no the solution is not to create and use those other nonsensical links.
 * No reason has been put forth to use International Standard Book Number (identifier) besides "WP:ILIKEIT". I certainly don't see one in Template talk:ISBNT.

A follow-up and possible solution on this topic: Help talk:Citation Style 1 --Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:54, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Simpler version?
Is there a non-Lua version of this template? w:ht:Template:ISBN is still using the magic word, and I'd like to update it – but to something as simple and limited as possible. Is there anything you can recommend? (Please ping me.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:28, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Look way back in this template's history and you will see this version. That could be adapted to link to the Special page in the language of your choice, I believe. In this case, it looks like "Espesyal:SousLiv" is the name of the Special page, and that template handles up to three ISBNs, so you'll need three links. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:40, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Ping . – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:42, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I ended up removing the multi-parameter option and adapting that.  It still forces a stray space (if someone types  ), but that can be fixed in wikitext.  Now my main problem is that the w:ht:Special:BookSources page links to dead/useless links after you search for something (example), and I can't find the page that it's configured on.  (I'm taking that problem to VPT.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:48, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Invalid ISBN
I'm using this template in Sutton Hoo helmet, where the ISBN for Sutton Hoo: Fifty Years After was incorrectly printed as 1-879836-02-7. It seems that the ninth number is incorrect, i.e., 02-7 should be 01-7. Using ISBN 1-879836-02-7, however, still generates an error: ISBN 1-879836-02-7. The error only goes away if I set the invalid number to invalid1=yes (2 through 9 generate the error, as do 0 and having no number entirely). Is this a problem with the template, or am I using it incorrectly? Thanks, --Usernameunique (talk) 20:42, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
 * invalid1 is correct. The "1" refers to the first ISBN in the template, not the digit within the ISBN. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:36, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that makes sense now. --Usernameunique (talk) 15:43, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Automatic hyphenation
I've created an alternative template which does this, in accordance with official rules: format ISBN. ―cobaltcigs 08:26, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That's cool. I always thought of implementing something like this for the ISBN template (unless an optional no parameter would be provided), but I didn't know that the official ruleset was available somewhere. The ISBN template deliberately uses Catalog lookup link and supports more than one ISBN in a list as well, so it might be a bit difficult to incorporate this hyphenation functionality into here as well without losing any other functionality.
 * However, I think your "hyphenation function" should be incorporated into the citation template framework, because over there we always wanted properly hyphenated ISBNs in the output (regardless if the isbn parameter input already contains hyphens or not), and about the only reason why we display the ISBNs unchanged is because we didn't know the hyphenation rules.
 * --Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:59, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Aren't they described at ISBN? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 20:18, 17 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Source: https://www.isbn-international.org/export_rangemessage.xml
 * No, nothing in article space goes into nearly that much detail. ―cobaltcigs 21:10, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Additional template for "See also"
Could oclc be linked in the "See also" section? This is a useful link (that I just learned about) for pre-1967 books that lack an ISBN. I recommend: "oclc, to link directly to Worldcat; useful for books with no ISBN." Thanks. blameless 19:27, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Never mind! pointed out that I could edit the documentation myself.  blameless  20:52, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Invitation: Bot request discussion on bot hyphenation and validation bug
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Bot requests § ISBN hyphenation. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 23:09, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Change dashes to hyphens
Is there a bot for the task of changing (mistakenly) used n- or m-dashes in the ISBN to hyphens? --ElLutzo (talk) 13:23, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Where is this causing a problem? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 05:49, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I had to change dashes to hyphens like in to get rid of the errors from the Template complaining about an incorrect ISBN. --ElLutzo (talk) 10:56, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Then it's an error in the template coding. Whether you use dashes or hyphens (or spaces, or no separators at all) doesn't affect the validity of the ISBN, although using em-dashes does look odd. The second generated link is to Special:BookSources with the ISBN passed in unchanged; Special:BookSources then strips out all separators before passing that value through to each of the various external services. Try these to see if there are any reported problems: Special:BookSources/967—978—475—4; Special:BookSources/967–978–475–4; Special:BookSources/967-978-475-4; Special:BookSources/967 978 475 4; Special:BookSources/9679784754. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 18:37, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Not an error. A dash is not a valid character in an ISBN. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:15, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

changes to Module:Check isxn
Not long ago there was a discussion at that got me wondering about updating the ISBN validation code in Module:Check isxn so that it provides a bit more detail in the error message. This change is more-or-less an update from Module:Citation/CS1/Identifiers from which the original code was taken. The change is implemented in Module:Check isxn/sandbox,, , and. Compare live sandbox renderings at Template:ISBN/testcases, Template:ISBNT/testcases, and Template:SBN/testcases. I think that these are the only templates that directly invoke Module:Check isxn; are there others?

In order to add the error detail, I changed the templates so that they no longer provide the error message to the module so the  changes from this:

to this:

The new parameter template_name is used to tell Module:Check isxn the name of the template that ultimately calls Module:Check isxn so that the error message makes sense. is called from, a template wrapper using Module:Template wrapper, so the call to from Module:Template wrapper includes ISBNT so that  and Module:Check isxn use the correct template name in any rendered error messages.

The value assigned to template_name is also used in the error category name so and  (if made live or used in mainspace) will categorize errors to  and ; the current live versions of these template categorize errors to

If all of this seems overly complicated and redundant, I can't say that I disagree. I'm half-tempted to write a new module that does all of the work of Module:Check isxn/sandbox,, , and (and presumably  and  as well) so that the templates simply become containers of a single invoke of the new module.

Opinions? Comments? Complaints?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:06, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It appears that Module:Format ISBN and ISMN also invoke Module:Check isxn. No comments on the other questions yet. I like the new error messages. I don't think separate categories are necessary; there are already too many ISBN error categories. The test cases look good. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:43, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * A minor tweak to Module:Format ISBN at line 12 so that it reads something like this:
 * allows that module to work with the new.
 * does use Module:Check isxn but has its own checking function  which is not part of this proposed change.
 * It just seems odd to me that we are categorizing SBN errors in an ISBN category; cs1|2 makes that distinction ( and ) so it seems reasonable for us to do the same here.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 01:11, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Updated. All-same-category.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:35, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The current version uses module:check isxn/sandbox Christian75 (talk) 07:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This has been . -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:10, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Updated. All-same-category.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:35, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The current version uses module:check isxn/sandbox Christian75 (talk) 07:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This has been . -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:10, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

is isbn restricted to english numerals
I am finding kannada numerals are used for isbn and dates in cs 1/2. example: kn:ಚದುರಂಗದ ನಿಯಮಗಳು. If i click ೯೭೮-೯೦-೫೬೯೧-೧೩೯-೨ it shows "The given ISBN does not appear to be valid; check for errors copying from the original source." on page. రుద్రుడు (talk) 01:37, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Pinging for this one. This could be an i18n issue, or an incomplete/outdated copy of the CS1 modules, or something else. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:09, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Hard to say. Translating your ISBN gives (I think) 978-90-5691-139-2 which is not valid according to Special:BookSources/978-90-5691-139-2.   returns this: ISBN 978-90-5691-139-2.  I translated another ISBN (taken from that same page at kn.wiki) from Latin digits to Kannada digits.  The Latin-digit form works at kn:ವಿಶೇಷ:BookSources/978-0-7867-0725-6 and  agrees: ISBN 978-0-7867-0725-6.  Translating to Kannada digits, kn:ವಿಶೇಷ:BookSources/೯೭೮-೦-೭೮೬೭-೦೭೨೫-೬ does not work.   here doesn't work (not surprisingly) because the template doesn't know about Kannada digits.
 * I have never seen anything that suggests that ISBNs can be written using non-Latin digits.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 03:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Jonesey95 @Trappist the monk Quick test. 0-679-13028-4. It fails with ೦-೬೭೯-೧೩೦೨೮-೪ numerals. Interestingly phrase search yields result in open library. రుద్రుడు (talk) 06:12, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * That's pretty much the test that I did except for the open library part. But, cs1|2 templates don't link to open library through the ISBN link.  The templates do link to Special:BookSources for which Latin digits are apparently required.  I suppose that we could write a snippet of code to translate digits from the local language (Kannada in your case) to Latin digit before evaluating the ISBN and then using the translated form to build the link to Special:BookSources.  Apparently there isn't an 'automatic' way of getting a local wiki's digits so the translation will have to rely on local editors setting the correct values in.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:46, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * That's pretty much the test that I did except for the open library part. But, cs1|2 templates don't link to open library through the ISBN link.  The templates do link to Special:BookSources for which Latin digits are apparently required.  I suppose that we could write a snippet of code to translate digits from the local language (Kannada in your case) to Latin digit before evaluating the ISBN and then using the translated form to build the link to Special:BookSources.  Apparently there isn't an 'automatic' way of getting a local wiki's digits so the translation will have to rely on local editors setting the correct values in.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:46, 15 March 2023 (UTC)