Template talk:National Heritage List for England

Suggestion/request
Thanks for the template. Is it possible to add a parameter ref=[] as has been done for the cite XXX family and the citation template? The reason for asking is that if NHLE is used in a bibliography along with citation entries, the latter generate anchors that can be referenced in line by sfnp or Harvard citations. Might I suggest that either using just the desc or desc(num) would be suitable anchors? Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:58, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Using an anchor template achieves nearly the same result, but navigation and highlighting doesn't quite work. for example:

==Article body== * Fred 1066 * Church of St Giles 1060971 ==Notes== ==Bibliography== * *  Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:53, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion
I have started to use this template rather than generate my own links, but I've noticed that when multiple links to NHLE are on the same page it results in gross over-wikilinking in the reflist. Can there be a parameter where you can turn off/on the blue links ? Thanks. Acabashi (talk) 17:31, 11 April 2013‎ (UCT)
 * I have added a parameter called "fewer-links" to the test code. To use it it has to be set to something (anything) eg fewer-links=x. It removes the links from "English Heritage" and "National Heritage List for England." See an example of its usage in Template:NHLE/testcases. Is that what you want? -- PBS (talk) 12:31, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The parameter "fewer-links=1" looks good to have. It would work well on pages like this. You can imagine what this page would look like with all refs converted to the present NHLE template. Look forward to the new parameter being operational. Many thanks.Acabashi (talk) 12:40, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Done.✅ -- PBS (talk) 16:10, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Very many thanks - and it even works with the accessdate parameter and the Grade parameter inserted. Magic. Acabashi (talk) 19:24, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Wrapper around template:Citation
Please see Template:NHLE/sandbox. I have rewritten the template as a wrapper around Citation. I think that the the only visual change I have made is to add an author. This coupled with the hidden ref= parameter will allow this template to be placed in a references section and linked to a short citation in the body of the text. -- PBS (talk) 16:35, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Testing by another editor would be appreciated. -- PBS (talk) 16:35, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Is there any value in adding "English Heritage staff" as author? I would have thought that this was implicit. The entries generally don't have named authors.--DavidCane (talk) 23:37, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I came to this template because of its usage on Westwood House. That article uses short citations. To move this template down into the general references section and then link it using the standard harv templates the reference needs an author. -- PBS (talk) 07:28, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I was working on an article in my sandbox yesterday and used:
 * in the text
 * in the bibliography.
 * This is a slight update on my suggestion from March. Using NHLE as the author makes sense to me, the whole entry is a product of EH, and not necessarily that of a single author.  Likewise the unique reference number seems to be more sensible than a date which could be listing date, description date or latest update date.
 * I'll experiment with the new template this lunchtime; since my current work is in the sandbox there will be no problems with visibility. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:18, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I've been working on the template over lunch and have changed |ref= to .  In the original case the citation template was seeing that ref was explicitly an empty string and that inhibited the automatic generation of the CITEREF id.  The conditional form will only generate a ref= clause to template:citation if one is actually present, otherwise no clause is generated and the citation template generates an automatic CITEREF as documented.
 * Thinking about the author, rather than English Heritage Staff or NHLE perhaps simply English Heritage is the correct designation? In my sandbox there are three examples of the template: one using the old template with an anchor, the other two using the new template.  Of those, the one without the year produces CITEREFEnglish_Heritage_staff whilst with the year set to the  reference number it generates CITEREFEnglish_Heritage_staff1086410.  My concern with the former is that there may be multiple NHLE entries within a single WP page with no obvious way to distinguish them. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:19, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not in favour of anchor, because while it would work it is far away from standard. I think "staff" helps if "English Heritage" is to be used as the publisher. If we junk the publisher then "English Heritage" as the author would do, or keep it as it is but use "EH staff" instead.
 * Personally I favour date or year if a separation is needed, as it is the usual way to do this. as to the confusion over dates it does not really matter, providing they are unique. However another solution is to use SfnRef. We can set CITEREF to  then the call in the short citation would become  . I have altered the code in the template's the sandbox (but have not tested it) see what you think. -- PBS (talk) 14:12, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

The anchor example was just to show how I had done things before your work on the template. Getting the template right is by far the best solution, so thank you. I like what you did with SfnRef, I've tested it against my new article (and cleaned up a minor typo). Although you mentioned dates, using the number in the way you do is far better; a lot of the entries originated at the same date.

Personally, and I accept that this is a matter of preference, I would leave the "staff" off. Some of the work comes from other people, for instance the descriptions may quote earlier authors. Generally I have found that corporate publications with no identified real authors take the corporate name in library filing systems. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:18, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I've just noticed, the new template does not support accessed. Is the date of retrieval important for NHLE entries? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:27, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * accessed is not supported but accessdate is (as is the case in the current live version). -- PBS (talk) 10:09, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * oops, yes. My mistake. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:46, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Date of retrieval is important as the information can change. For example, if the grading of the listed item changes. Accessed should be included.
 * I don't think that there is a need to list an author. I think "NHLE" is satisfactory, with English Heritage as publisher.--DavidCane (talk) 22:40, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Author is helpful for short citations. It makes them easier to read and understand. Perhaps the simplest solution would be to remove publisher and keep author. That would simply move English Heritage from the end of the template display to the start. That solution would also make it clear where in the general reference section the entry should be place (under E). If there is not the consensus for this then we can fix the short citation problem by including the publisher parameter rather than author in SfnRef, but we are moving further and further away from the standard short citation layout and so I would rather stick with author. -- PBS (talk) 10:09, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Let's change from bottom-up to top-down thinking. When writing an article I would like to either simply add  and down in the bibliography to have an entry  producing:
 * ^ a b NHLE 1086410.  and
 * NHLE, " (1086410)", National Heritage List for England, English Heritage


 * or else use etc and see:
 * ^ a b English Heritage.      and
 * English Heritage, " (1086410)", National Heritage List for England
 * of the two I'd prefer the first, there is less typing to do, however the latter is possibly closer to standard Harvard citations. I think the order for considering options must be: (1) the reader, (2) editors writing articles, (3) theoretical perfection Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:46, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

As you did not number your choices and there are only two pairs, I am confused! However I have altered  to display which will link to Notes: Notes: from work to title, and also restores the wikilink markup for the National Heritage List for England text that was removed by Editor Gilo1969. A diff of the current broken live template and the sandbox is [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AComparePages&page1=Template%3AEnglish+Heritage+List+entry&page2=Template%3AEnglish+Heritage+List+entry%2Fsandbox here].


 * See the testcase page. Are there any objections to updating the live template from the sandbox?


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:05, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The sandbox version nearly gets the y behaviour correct, but it's putting it in quotation marks, which the current version doesn't do and isn't really appropriate for just the bare number output. --  Dr Greg   talk  02:40, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The short form has always (as far as I can tell) been rendered quoted in upright font.  That was the purpose of the  template. I think that comparing the sandbox to the current live template is problematic because we wouldn't be here discussing it if the change to Module:Citation/CS1 had not happened.  So why do you believe that the short form should be italicized?


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 02:56, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't; you have misunderstood. When I said "in quotation marks" I meant the double-quote character ("1234567") not two single-quotes (1234567). I've been using it in infoboxes (not references) such as in Tower Hill Water Tower. I'm expecting the short-form output to be upright, unquoted (as it currently is as I write this) e.g. 1197069 Maybe I am using the short form for a purpose it was not intended, but I'm not sure what other purpose it could have been intended for. --  Dr Greg   talk  18:56, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, I understand now. It isn't clear to me from any discussion on this page or the template's documentation page, what intended use was planned for y.  I misspoke when I say that it had been always been rendered quoted in upright font.  The use of  accomplished that at the expense of corrupted metadata.


 * Because your desired output can be obtained by the creation of a simple external wikilink, and because in your use example, there is no 'citation' value (no author, no title, no date, no need to be a target for a or  reference, no anything else normally expected from a citation) we could simply make a test in the template that would build an external wikilink whenever short is set. New code in the sandbox takes this:
 * which produces this raw output:
 * which gives us this rendered external link:
 * which gives us this rendered external link:
 * which gives us this rendered external link:


 * The cases where short is empty or omitted are unaffected. The sandbox code for these other cases still makes reference to short so there is a bit of cleanup yet to do if this is an acceptable solution.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:58, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That looks like a good solution to me. Thanks! --  Dr Greg   talk  20:22, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

separator, ps, and mode
separator has been deprecated and replaced with new parameter mode in CS1 and CS2 templates. Because the underlying template is, mode may be omitted or left blank. When the predominant citation style in an article is, setting cs2 will render as if it were a CS2  template.

separator is still present in the template so that Module:Citation/CS1 will properly categorize and emit error messages for those templates that use separator. When those templates have been updated to use mode, separator support in may be removed.

ps is no longer assigned a default value. The value assigned to ps will override the setting determined by mode.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:45, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Where is the discussion where the consensus for removing separator agreed? -- PBS (talk) 12:50, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 7
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:14, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * There were only 4 people involved in that discussion and the parameter "separator" was not mentioned. There also no mention there of what the proposed solution to use a new parameter "mode" which I think is a very retrograde step. So before you make any changes pleases show that there is a broad consensus to deprecate the parameter "separator" and that there is a broad consensus to introduce a parameter called mode. -- PBS (talk) 15:03, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You do have to read all of the discussion including the subsections. separator is discussed.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:15, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:15, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:15, 15 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The changes made to this template only reflected changes made elsewhere - why revert these? If you think there is a problem then this need addressing with the cite web template. Keith D (talk) 20:06, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Two points the first is that when a statement is made on the talk page and is under discussion, then changes ought to be delayed until the conversation is complete. About five editors on an obscure page thought that introducing a mode parameter is a good idea does not mean that it should be pressed through without a more general discussion. The removal of separator and postscript reduces flexibility and presupposes that editors to not want the flexibility to set the separator to anything other than a full stop or a comma. What if someone wishes to set it to a semicolon for example? Is it desirable to remove that functionality? If so who decided that it is? The introduction of a "mode" parameter (which would probably be better named "style"), presupposes that it is desirable to introduce the concept of style out of the boiler room of the lower interfaces up to interfaces such as this one. To the best of my knowledge there has been no discussion of any of this in a public forum such a village pump, why not? -- PBS (talk) 23:02, 15 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The definitive style for CS1 is stated at Help:Citation_Style_1. By far the vast majority of citations that use separator, specify either a full stop or a comma.  Module:Citation/CS1 has, for a very long time preceding the most recent update, used the content of separator as an indicator flag to switch modes from CS1 style to CS2 style.  I have seen a few cases where editors used ; but they are quite rare and, when used, create a non-standard style.  I have yet to find an entire article of CS1-like citation templates that specify a separator character that is not one of the two default characters.


 * ps has not been removed from nor postscript from CS1.  Because Module:Citation/CS1 sets the default postscript character according to the template that invokes it, in this case  via, there is no need to specify that same default character in . Otherwise, ps → postscript continues to function as it did previously.


 * So called public fora are not really the place for technically oriented discussions because, for the most part, editors don't understand or don't care. This is why we are repeatedly reminded that the proper place to discuss templates is on the template talk pages.  I would very much like to have greater participation by the general editing community.  Help talk:Citation Style 1 is not private.  If you know how to get more of the general editing populace to participate in our discussions, please put that knowledge to work for the betterment of our community.


 * I too, would have preferred style to mode but objections were raised so it's mode.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 01:17, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I think you miss the point. Just because something is not widely used that is no reason to remove it, particularly when the decision is made by less than half a dozen participating editors. You have come here to change a template and are basically telling anyone who objects lump it or leave it. It does not even seem to cross you mind that perhaps you ought to roll back the change and instead of removing parameters just add the new one and see if it is adopted. -- PBS (talk) 15:11, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

In this case, notwithstanding lack of discussion elsewhere, the parameter is unnecessary because the template formats with a dot without it anyway. DrKiernan (talk) 19:31, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The purpose of separator in was to allow editors to style this template like  which uses a comma for the separator character.  The comma also forced Module:Citation/CS1 to leave off terminal punctuation and render certain static text provided by the template in lowercase, for example the text added for access dates; all this, same as .  That functionality was replaced with mode which it is hoped more clearly defines what happens.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:55, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd misunderstood. I've added mode; if you choose to add separator back, then fine. DrKiernan (talk) 21:17, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * So called public fora are not really the place for technically oriented discussions because, for the most part, editors don't understand or don't care. Trappist, surely the same could be said in reverse: those who are interested in the technical side of things often don't understand or (seemingly) care about the impact on content. - Sitush (talk) 21:25, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course. Do you think that I think otherwise?  I want outside opinion, but my experience, when I ask for it is, 9 times in 10, silence.  For this reason, I'm not quiet about the changes I make to the underlying code.  I write quite a bit at Help talk:Citation Style 1 about what I'm doing.  Sometimes it's writing to myself because no one comments.  Other times I get responses from the usual group of editors who have an interest.  I invite you to watch that page, participate.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 00:51, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I think that templates are something of a black art and that there are certain people whose presence in discussions about them probably actually discourages others to dip their toe into the waters. That aside, just the formatting of your opening post in this section is enough to put most people off. I've no idea if there is a better way to format but it does make things look incredibly complicated. I'm not a stupid person, and I've done my time in coding, but it is pretty much gibberish to me. - Sitush (talk) 08:43, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Templates aren't really any more of a black art than articles on higher mathematics are a black art. There is a learning curve; one doesn't read and understand the lede of Zolotarev's lemma without a certain amount of knowledge gained beforehand.  I did not set out to educate anyone with my opening post in this topic.  I did want to document what I did and why I did it; an expanded edit summary, if you will.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:31, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@DrKiernan you ought not to be changing the template while discussions about the changes are ongoing (PBS (talk) 10:11, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I thought you wanted the option of using a comma. If you don't, then simply undo the addition. Have it whatever way you want. DrKiernan (talk) 10:34, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * @DrKiernan It is the introduction of mode  and the removal of separator (diff) to which I was referring. -- PBS (talk) 12:48, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That change merely removes a broken parameter and replaces it with a working one. DrKiernan (talk) 13:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The question that is being discussed is why is the parameter broken and should it be replaced with a new one, while that is being discussed changes ought not be made. -- PBS (talk) 20:10, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

English Heritage is Changing
EH is splitting into two parts (see this) and the part that looks after listing, etc is to be called Historic England. So this will mean a lot of work on the template and to references currently linking to EH. Is there any way of making this easier? --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 12:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably depends on the changes to the website, hopefully they will keep the same ID for entries and just change the URL. May be most of the references will be just a change to this template, but I suspect there are numerous articles not using the template and these will need changing individually. May be now is a good time to convert them over to using the template to future proof ourselves, and get some of the error checking from the cite web template. Keith D (talk) 13:14, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Search indicates 2,800 articles using the URL and 4,598 using the template. Keith D (talk) 13:54, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It will also affect Commons:template:Listed building England Keith D (talk) 14:08, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I've done a few tests & all seem to have kept the same UID with a robust redirect system. Other templates potentially affect may be English Heritage listed building header and English Heritage listed building row.&mdash; Rod talk 19:48, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The structure of the database is the same, with just the organisation name in the url altered. In fact the presentation of the individual entries on the new Historic England website is a little bit more attractive. I've changed the template to link to the new url and changed the organisation name used in the template and in the documentation. We need to move the template now, as the name is incorrect. It could either go back to its original name, NHLE, or to Historic England List entry. I would prefer the former as that is what the list is actually called on the Historic England page.--DavidCane (talk) 12:24, 19 March 2015 (UTC)


 * NHLE will be opaque to most Wikipedia editors and needs to be spelt out in full. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:50, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The official name is "The National Heritage List for England", as here. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 14:48, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

This page suggests that the change only becomes effective on 1 April 2015. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:07, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * But the online usage has already been changed to Historic England. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 14:48, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid all of this has broken the linkage between templates. I had a quick look at All Saints Church, Frindsbury. in the text generates "English Heritage (1107886)" as a citation and a CITEREFEnglish_Heritage1107886. NHLE in the bibliography has an id of CITEREFHistoric_England11078864, which of course don't link. Is it possible to detect programatically where such breaks have occurred? For instance any page generating CITEREFEnglish_HeritageNNNNNNN must be suspect. Sorry, more problems and no more answers. :-( Martin of Sheffield (talk) 23:49, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * This just needs a search through the pages that link to the template using AWB with a rule set to fix the citation. I'll have a go now.--DavidCane (talk) 01:02, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've never used AWB so am happy to leave it to an expert.  The pages I watch look fine.  I'm just knocking them back into alphabetical order. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:40, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
 * DavidCane what is the regular expression that you are using in AWB? I ask because it seems to have missed conversions on two of the pages on my watch list in a similar way. Tekels_Park diff and Frimley Park diff in both cases it has converted
 * to
 * but missed
 * you probably need to run it again with a partial regular expression of  to replace sfn, and you may want to add to   some space checking   to catch formatting changes. As there is more than one way to skin a cat and you may have used another form of regular expression it would help find a fix if you would show us what it is that you used (and to educate me if you used some other regular expression). -- PBS (talk) 00:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't actually use a regular expression in this case. I just ran two separate plain find/replace rules in parallel. These were:
 * Find:, Replace:   (The 1 at the end was used to exclude simple short footnotes like  ).
 * Find:, Replace:.
 * I forgot about harvnb, but I was just about to do another run to pick up and fix other English Heritage references, so I'll include this in the task.--DavidCane (talk) 11:11, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Any more thoughts on a potential move to National Heritage List for England or similar? PC78 (talk) 06:59, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that makes sense now as it will be simply confusing in the future to keep the current names for the template. I'm in Italy at the moment looking at some of their heritage, but, when I'm back at the weekend, I can do another AWB run to make the names change if everyone is happy with the suggestion. --DavidCane (talk) 06:26, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that makes sense now as it will be simply confusing in the future to keep the current names for the template. I'm in Italy at the moment looking at some of their heritage, but, when I'm back at the weekend, I can do another AWB run to make the names change if everyone is happy with the suggestion. --DavidCane (talk) 06:26, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Content transclusion limit exceeded
See Talk:Grade II* listed buildings in South Somerset. – Wbm1058 (talk) 18:09, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It looks like the recent renaming of this template has blown the lid off what the software can handle. To save any future problems, I propose we go back to the beginning and move this template to the name with which it started: NHLE.--DavidCane (talk) 10:03, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * What makes you think the template name is the issue? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:26, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * My guess would be this change that will have increased the size of the template and is totally unnecessary. Keith D (talk) 16:23, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That change was not unnecessary nor does it have any effect on post-expand include size. PC78 (talk) 19:08, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 6 June 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Though I will add that moving templates is largely pointless, creating redirects saves a lot of time. Jenks24 (talk) 06:12, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

– These are three related citation templates which each refer to a separate database maintained by Historic England. Ideally the names should be consistant, particuarly when they are being used in the same article; my preference would be for National Heritage List for England, Images of England and PastScape, alternatively the titles should all be preceeded with "Cite" or followed with "entry". Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 13:59, 20 June 2015 (UTC) PC78 (talk) 09:59, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Template:National Heritage List for England entry → ?
 * Template:Images of England → ?
 * Template:Cite PastScape → ?
 * Comment - My preference would be the same as yours. I don't believe that we need to add "cite" or "entry" as both words are implicit in the usage of the templates. Of the many hundreds of external link templates that we have only a small minority start with "cite" and I couldn't find others that use "entry" in this way.--DavidCane (talk) 10:41, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment UKgov Images of England entry would be good, it wouldn't be confused with a gallery page residing in templatespace. Or a tag to place onto filepages of England; the National Heritage List for England entry seems good enough, since it is a link to an entry; and PastScape entry ; as potentially, one could build a set of articles for each of the databases themselves, whcih could be interlinked with footer templates, which would lead to "National Heritage List for England" and "PastScape" to mean a navbox instead; are these citation templates or simply EL templates? -- 70.51.202.183 (talk) 07:23, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The templates are primarily used for citations. Not sure where you've got "UKgov" from for Images of England. PC78 (talk) 07:30, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Articles already exist for National Heritage List for England and Images of England, while PastScape is sort of covered by Historic England Archive. Confusion with non-existant navboxes seems like a very hypothetical concern, I'm not sure there would be any basis for creating such templates anyway, though a combined Historic England navbox might be an idea. But this all seems a bit off topic... PC78 (talk) 07:39, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Suggest moving to National Heritage List for England and PastScape and leaving Images of England where it is, in the absence of any further comment. Regarding the IP's comment above, I don't see any good reason to distinguish these titles from navboxes that don't exist and almost certainly wouldn't be viable anyway, and I don't believe there is any naming convention that would make this necessary. Best to keep the titles as simple as possible, it will make them easier to remember and less cumbersome to use. PC78 (talk) 14:40, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Enough time has passed now; go for it.--DavidCane (talk) 21:59, 26 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

orig-date not working
There's a citation error on Wilford Suspension Bridge that says orig-date is being ignored. The documentation here says it's a valid parameter, as long as either date or year are used, and "date" is present. Could someone who understands the template look into what's going on there, and either fix it or update the documentation to make clear it's deprecated?

I've also seen an influx of errors on other articles about ps, which I've dutifully turned into postscript. I mention that only in case it wasn't an intentional change and ps is still supposed to work. Mortee (talk) 09:02, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * orig-date has never been supported by this template, but orig-year is. I've update the documentation accordingly. Since ps was an undocumented alias for postscript, I didn't think it would have many uses and was tracking to check. Thanks for updating the ones that you saw. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 10:43, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You're welcome, and thanks for updating the documentation. Curious that the orig-date error only showed up this morning. If I see more, I'll cut the month/day information and switch to orig-year. Mortee (talk) 10:59, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The errors newly showing (instead of silently doing nothing) was a side effect of updating how this template wraps cite web. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 11:03, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, that'd do it. Certainly, showing the errors so they can be fixed is an improvement compared to ignoring the parameter. Mortee (talk) 11:10, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Re ps, it's hard to know how common it is since they're trickling into Category:Pages with citations using unsupported parameters, but they're certainly around. Lists of works by architects like and  are the most strikingly affected. Perhaps a more expert AWB user than me could fix them up in bulk. Mortee (talk) 19:43, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I've restored it as an alias to prevent the errors until usage can be assessed (Category:Historic England citations needing attention). —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 20:47, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * There were 5,712 usages of ps at the start of the month. Keith D (talk) 01:07, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah! I hadn't encountered the template parameter tool before. Very handy. Mortee (talk) 02:00, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * They are all none. For any that have cs2, none doesn't do anything. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 04:27, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I think from memory that most of them appear with short which again does nothing. Keith D (talk) 12:30, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

access-date?
What is the purpose of access-date, for this template? There is no archive-url and even if there was, no URL in the wikisource (only a num) so the archive bots and automated archivers would skip it. Possibly it might be in case the source changes so you can reference an older version, but again, likely no archive to reference. This template is neither here or there the worst of all worlds.

The problem is it breaks the model established by CS1|2. The non-CS1|2 external link templates were meant to be used in places where CS1|2 didn't make sense such as in External links sections or talk pages, not for citations. If the concern is that the source URL sometimes change and to only need to change it in one place, that is easily fixed with a bot run in 30 minutes. That rare and minor problem is far outweighed by the need to maintain citations consistently by the wide number of tools that use and expect CS1|2. -- Green  C  05:17, 9 December 2018 (UTC)


 * access-date doesn't refer to archiving, but to the date on which an editor verified that the information in the article was supported by the reference. The reference here is the number in the Historic England database, which fulfils the role of a URL.  If you were to remove access-date you would need to substitute something along the lines of |verified-on= which is a pointless duplication of fields. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:25, 9 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Why does one note when the information was verified, what's the importance of having a date? The existence of access-date is sort of sketchy in terms of indicating the source says what it should. Theoretically every few years someone checks the source, updates the access-date to indicate it was checked, but in reality it very rarely happens. Usually the access-date is added by whoever creates the cite (and they are not always reliable in terms of what the source actually says), then it never changes. The only practical benefit is for archives in terms of knowing which timestamp to use in case the link does dead. -- Green  C  16:15, 9 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Well I for one will update access dates if I have occasion to check the source. However it also gives: (1) an indication of the reliability of the statement and (2) diffuses any disagreement/edit-war over what a source says.  Case (1) alerts you to potential link-rot or the risk that the source page has been changed, much as you should quote (if possible) publication dates and edition numbers.  Case (2) is related; if an editor has asserted that source A claims the moon is made of green cheese, a subsequent claim that source A claims the moon is in fact large glow worm can be resolved easily using dates.  Moving back to archiving, the archive-date is the parameter which dates the archive; see Template:Cite web/doc for more information. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:27, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Harv error: no target
Why has this happened? What is to be done? --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 18:06, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Trappist the Monk has improved sfn error checking which was previously handled by a script. At the moment it erroneously picks up NHL entries.  See Module_talk:Footnotes Martin of Sheffield (talk) 18:24, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. Sorry my simple mind does not understand what is happening.  Is it going to be fixed? --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 18:45, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't know. I reported it as a problem but was told off.  Martin of Sheffield (talk) 19:14, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Well it makes literally hundreds, if not thousands, of articles and lists look stupid. Guess it is unintended consequences of something, but these things should be tested before they go live. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 20:10, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * – You might want to have a read of the discussion at Module talk:Footnotes. It seems like Trappist's last idea is a possible runner, but I'm keeping my head down after his last comment to me! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:03, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I tried to read it, but did not understand it. No matter, it seems to be sorted - at least for the present.  Cheers. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 15:36, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

harv & sfn templates used with this template
I have noticed recently that there is peculiar use of the and  families of template when used to link to this template. Particularly, like this:
 * → ← extraneous ampersand

but it does make a wikilink to:

To make the target anchor ID, this template does this:

which makes the anchor ID:

Rewriting the template so that it makes visual sense, renders a wikilink to nowhere:

But, it can be rewritten another way:

Because that requires editors hand-code the ref parameter, editors who maintain this template might want to consider writing wrapper templates for and. Consider,perhaps, and  that each take two parameters:  for author name or 'Historic England' and  for the identifier number. For the visual rendering, these two parameters are concatenated, separated as you choose, and provided to the short-cite template as its first parameter. For the anchor ID link, concatenate.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:39, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * This surfaced in July 2017 when year checking was enforced. The first discussion centered on full dates in newspapers, see Loose ampersand and a few days later the NHLE issue was discussed:  Loose ampersand again.  When I made my erroneous report a fortnight ago it was to flag up this issue. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:52, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I remember the first conversation but not the second. I understand your post at the third conversation to be about the  messages; you did not mention the extraneous ampersands.
 * In the second conversation you asked about forking . Instead of forking, you can wrap as I have suggested above.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:27, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't bother mentioning the loose ampersands because after nigh on three years I (and I strongly suspect others) had accepted it as a fait accompli. You just live with these things.  Moving on, a wrapper might be a solution, failing that I've had a quick look at the pre-lua version to see if it could form the basis of a new appropriate template. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 19:15, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't bother mentioning the loose ampersands because after nigh on three years I (and I strongly suspect others) had accepted it as a fait accompli. You just live with these things.  Moving on, a wrapper might be a solution, failing that I've had a quick look at the pre-lua version to see if it could form the basis of a new appropriate template. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 19:15, 4 April 2020 (UTC)


 * The National Historic Assets of Wales and Historic Environment Scotland templates both use harv/sfn in the same way as NHLE. If changes are made here it would be helpful to have an equivalent (something like and ) for use with these other templates too.  EdwardUK (talk) 03:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

"Heritage category" for Maritime Wrecks, please?
An ( has created a useful set of records for Protect Wrecks, such as South Edinburgh Channel Wreck. The NHLE listing for a historic wreck has a title such as "South Edinburgh Channel" which gives no indication what it is. The record has a field "Heritage category" which says "Maritime Wreck". I can't see anywhere in the template where I could include this information (I toyed with fudging the description into "South Edinburgh Channel: Maritime Wreck"). Presumably there are other useful categories for Registered Battlefields, Parks & Gardens, where the same thing may apply.

Just as we can include the grade for a listed building, it would be useful to be able to include the category for records which are not buildings - it would make sense to leave this null for "ordinary" listings of buildings. Any thoughts? Pam D  09:31, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Seconded; I've been doing a lot of work on Scheduled Monuments lately, which are also included in NHLE. Would be good to have a "grade=" equivalent for those too. Dave.Dunford (talk) 08:09, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Parameter type may be appropriate, having a pre-defined list of possible values, with building not been displayed unless explicitly given. The problem may be the expansion limits on the list articles if the template is changed. May be the switch to use "Template wrapper" could be removed if this were to happen. Keith D (talk) 11:41, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Template talk:PastScape which is somewhat related to this template. It is not an especially lively discussion. If anyone has an opinion please weigh in. TiB chat  12:24, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Change to single instead of double space before (Grade)
Please remove the space after  in the line that begins. This causes the output to display a double space before (Grade) instead of a single space – as can be seen in the fourth example of the template documentation. This is an identical issue to one found and changed in the lesser used (and therefore less-protected) Scottish and Welsh equivalents of this template – It has been tested in the sandbox for this template. EdwardUK (talk) 16:57, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:16, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 28 October 2023
to: Dave.Dunford (talk) 12:50, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, that didn't work. I was suggesting that the template should accept "grade=scheduled" to produce " (scheduled monument)" after the name of the entry (it currently appends " (Grade x)" whatever the value of x). I attempted to write the necessary code, but that seems to have been lost to the ether. Pseudocode:

I made a similar suggestion in 2020.

Dave.Dunford (talk) 12:58, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ * Pppery * it has begun... 15:26, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I've used this at Great Coxwell Barn. Dave.Dunford (talk) 16:16, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 21 July 2024
From a discussion here Talk:Pinxton Castle. How do we feel about adding '?section=official-list-entry' to the URL? This will point directly to the content of the record, rather than the less useful Overview section. I've altered the sandbox version and given it a quick test. It should work fine. The only small potential issue I foresee is perhaps some editors have used the template to cite location-based content? I don't expect much of that (if any), and overall it must be an improvement? TiB chat  10:30, 21 July 2024 (UTC)


 * .  P.I. Ellsworth &thinsp;, ed.  put'er there 16:09, 21 July 2024 (UTC)