Template talk:Sfnm

Core update
Given the commonality in markup for the author-date templates, I have developed a meta-template at Harvard citation/core. See Template talk:Sfn. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 01:39, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Version with parentheses
Could someone create a version of this template with parentheses for the years, to complement it as sfnp complements sfn? Otherwise the system is incomplete for those who wish to use parentheses in their citations. Waltham, The Duke of 18:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Limit of 10 citations
Is there any reason that the number of multiple citations could not be increased to 25, 30 or more? For some statements in controversial articles, one has to refer to many references to show that a scholarly consensus exists, or else risk constantly answering challenges on talk pages. I realize efn might work for this, but it would be nice just to use this template to bunch them in one place in the reference footnotes. &bull; Astynax talk 23:58, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Probably because the more parameters that are recognised, the slower the template becomes; and there are very few occasions that you would need as many as ten. -- Red rose64 (talk) 00:23, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Just ran into the the ten citation limit. What options do I have? The Olson citation does have page numbers so maybe could be turned into one citation for all instances which would reduce the number of citations but that seems kind of kludgy and kinda defeats the purpose of using sfnm.Abel (talk) 20:45, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Since 1946 FEE has sponsored lectures by Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman, James M. Buchanan, Vernon Smith, Walter Williams, F.A. "Baldy" Harper, William F. Buckley Jr. and others.

Issue with code?
I am trying to convert citations within an article from Template:Citation to Template:Sfn and Template:Sfnm. There is one citation with a comment within it. When I use the parameter "|nps=" it appears to produce two issues. The first issue is the absence of a space between "p. 138" and "(for quote)". The second issue is the absence of a period after "(for quote)". Is this my fault or an issue with the coding? I've used this template with other grouped references and a period has always appeared at the end of the citation. Here is the specific citation:

Result without comment, but with period
Mitchumch (talk) 01:31, 10 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Your first example, headed "Citation using Template:Citation", doesn't use at all. It's a hand-constructed ref, and so is not processed any further but output "as is".
 * I see that with the last one (the one where the code precedes the subheading "Result without comment, but with period"), your code sample  doesn't match the demonstration   that follows it. -- Red rose64 (talk) 07:55, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that. For Template:Citation, I was relying on the description from the page that states, "As with other citation templates, this template can be used in a footnote (between  tags) or in a section that lists sources."  I guess I misunderstood.  I corrected the coding for the other issue you discovered.  Mitchumch (talk) 08:05, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * When the last of the nps parameters - in this case 2ps is blank or absent, a period (full stop) is appended automatically. If it's non-blank, there is no period. As noted in the documentation:
 * ps – terminating quote or comment; defaults to period (.)
 * This behaviour is consistent with most other templates that offer the postscript feature. -- Red rose64 (talk) 08:57, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * What about the spacing issue? Mitchumch (talk) 10:56, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That also is consistent. If you really need a space, use  or  . -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:10, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I prefer for adding a space, but all of those options will work. Abel (talk) 21:32, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why that element is by design, but thanks. Mitchumch (talk) 22:43, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Problem for smaller wikipedias
Dear editors, I am contributor and admin at swahili wikpedia. You surely did a great job with this template that -if I understand correctly- shortens the space used for in-text references and simplifies the text input into the source text of articles. But it makes life more difficult for us people in smaller wikipedias. So far we often could just copy the source text of references of the old type if -like in our case- readers can understand English language references and where there are no reference books etc in our languages anyway. If you switch to the new type of templates we cannot cope because we do not have the people to understand the system and language of the new intertwined templates. That means we have to stop more or less using your references or need much more time to reconstruct them manually. What shall we do? Cheers Kipala (talk) 16:23, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Semicolon
Why does this template use a semicolon as opposed to a period, as separate phrases (or another separator)? czar 03:04, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Because it's not a sentence. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 10:28, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That doesn't clarify: two citations ending with a single period (X 1999; Y 2000.) is no more or less a sentence than two citations ending with two periods (X 1999. Y 2000.) czar  15:26, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Italics markup breaks CITEREF anchor
If you use  in the author parameter of this template, in addition to rendering the output in italics, it defines  as being part of the CITEREF anchor. For instance, in the following example the anchor becomes CITEREFItalicized_Book_of_Stories2000. This is undesireable because in the long citation templates '' doesn't become the anchor name even if you add in in the ref parameter.

Italicizing works as desired in sfn.



– Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:50, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

lua implementions of sfnm and sfnmp
Please see the discussion at Module talk:Footnotes.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:10, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

What if author does not exist?
Example given at Template:Sfn. How to adopt  citations? C-Kobold (talk) 13:44, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Your question is a bit vague. Does this answer it?
 * bibliography
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:02, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:02, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:02, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:02, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:02, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

I would like to cite multiple laws after another (they reference each other). Laws should not get referenced with their author (which is usually some parliament). Laws are usually referenced with the two following arguments: The arguments 1a(uthor) and 2a(uthor) are therefore misleading for law citations. C-Kobold (talk) 18:53, 23 February 2019 (UTC) I do not want to rely on the order of arguments, I want to give the arguments explicitly with e.g. 1a=..., 2a=..., 2loc=..., 2ps=....
 * 1) their name (e.g. EuWO - "Europawahlordnung" - European election rules for Austria) or their index number (e.g. law number 72 on the elections of members of the House of Representatives in the Cypriot Republic)
 * 2) A year (e.g. 1996 or 1979 ).

The EuWO (Europawahlordnung), given as first argument (so 1a), is however not an author. So the parameter name "1a" is misleading. Did you understand me? C-Kobold (talk) 19:02, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The arguments 1a(uthor) and 2a(uthor) are therefore misleading for law citations. and The EuWO (Europawahlordnung), given as first argument (so 1a), is however not an author.
 * In my example, BGI (Big Government Institution) is not the author but the publisher. For the purposes of this template, 1an is just a name; could be author, could be editor, could be some other name, could be the name of a magazine, ...; it is just a name.  Yeah, it is modeled on Author-date referencing but there is no requirement that the name  be an 'author' name.  If your application is multiple law/date elements and each law/date pair has only one law, you can write:
 * no 1an to be misleading.
 * I do not want to rely on the order of arguments, I want to give the arguments explicitly with e.g. 1a=..., 2a=..., 2loc=..., 2ps=....
 * I do not understand what you mean by that. The order 1an, 2an, etc is the order in which the short-form references will be rendered; there is no getting away from that.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:36, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:36, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

"For the purposes of this template, |1an= is just a name; could be author, could be editor, could be some other name, could be the name of a magazine, ...; it is just a name. Yeah, it is modeled on Author-date referencing but there is no requirement that the name must be an 'author' name." - Thank you, that answered my question! C-Kobold (talk) 16:12, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

broken harv link reporting
Please see the discussion at where a broken harv-link reporting scheme is proposed.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Potential merge into
Are there any major differences between sfnm and sfn? Or is the former the same as the latter, but just using fewer parameters? Was thinking today that there functionally might be a case to combine the two, for simplicity of usage. czar 06:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
 * No templates in headers.
 * I think that I am opposed to this suggestion unless you can show that this pair of templates will be demonstrably easier to use were they somehow merged into a single template. Internally, they are almost identical and share Module:Footnotes:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:44, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:44, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:44, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:44, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Module talk:Footnotes § loc, at
You are invited to join the discussion at Module talk:Footnotes § loc, at. Rjjiii (talk) 02:48, 4 May 2024 (UTC)