User:Peaceray/Converting Havard citations to shortened footnotes (sfn)

Framing the problem

 * The urgency
 * As per WP:PARREF, there is a consensus that inline parenthetical referencing should be deprecated on English Wikipedia.
 * What is parenthetical referencing & what's the simplest way to replace it?
 * What is parenthetical referencing (AKA Harvard referencing)?
 * Parenthetical referencing used to be a valid citation style, (see examples at WP:HARVARD), again, now deprecated.
 * The simplest replacement is shortened footnotes: Help:Shortened footnotes

Why use shortened footnotes?

 * They are advantageous when individual sets of footnotes reference different pages from the same source.
 * The full citations are then placed in alphabetic or alphanumeric order, rather than in order of citation use. This eases locating the citation when viewing the section by itself.
 * In cases where an article has an inconsistent citation style, WP:CITEVAR recommends seeking consensus and
 * imposing one style on an article with inconsistent citation styles (e.g., some of the citations in footnotes and others as parenthetical references): an improvement because it makes the citations easier to understand and edit;
 * combining duplicate citations (see Duplicate citations).

Before and after examples

 * Actuary, an easy conversion, because it was primarily changing from one template to another
 * Before: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Actuary&oldid=975935343
 * Diff: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Actuary&diff=next&oldid=975935343&diffmode=source
 * After: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Actuary&direction=next&oldid=975935343
 * Shizi (book), a more complicated conversion, because it required creating both full citations and shortened footnote templates
 * Before: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shizi_(book)&oldid=983678367
 * Diff: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shizi_(book)&type=revision&diff=993547062&oldid=983678367&diffmode=source
 * After: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shizi_(book)&oldid=983678367
 * Kahlil Gibran exemplifies conversion to shortened footnotes as part of WP:CITEVAR
 * Before: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kahlil_Gibran&oldid=985030005#References
 * After: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kahlil_Gibran&oldid=991619709#References

Recommended: install User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js
This will warn you of any errors such as full citations that are not used by shortened footnotes, or sfns that do not have a full citation to which to link.
 * Documentation: User:Ucucha/HarvErrors
 * JavaScript: User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js
 * To install the script, add:
 * to Special:MyPage/common.js.
 * to Special:MyPage/common.js.
 * to Special:MyPage/common.js.
 * to Special:MyPage/common.js.

Pick an article

 * Go to User:Peaceray/Conversions from Use Harvard referencing
 * If you do this, please apply a strikethrough by using the tags when done.
 * Alternately, go to Category:Use Harvard referencing and drill down into a month.
 * State your intention on the article talk page
 * For example, see Talk:Shizi (book)

To obtain a full citation and a sfn

 * Pick a citation in your target article that needs conversion
 * If you have a URL, DOI, ISBN, PMID, PMCID, or OCLC #, go to Citer
 * If you only have a title for a book, a journal, or article, go to WorldCat.org to get an OCLC # or an ISBN, then go to Citer at https://citer.toolforge.org/. (Also see [Github citer page https://github.com/5j9/citer] for concise description)
 * Citer examples &mdash; Note that some need to be manually adjusted
 * URL: Citation for www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/01/07/prophet-motive
 * Wayback Machine at web.archive.org: Khalil Gibran, archived from collectiondevelopment.library.cornell.edu
 * ISBN: 9780861402793
 * DOI: 10.31826/9781463240387
 * OCLC: 62023693
 * OCLC, rendering as web page rather than book: 589037866
 * If the citation link goes to a Google books item, then follow the  pulldown/links. This will take you to WorldCat to get an OCLC # or an ISBN, then go to Citer.
 * At Citer, pick the appropriate ID type from the drop down list at the upper left, enter the ID value (URL, DOI, ISBN, OCLC #, etc.) that you have. Submit.
 * Copy the Shortened footnote and citation to a text editor.
 * Adjust the citation as needed. For instance, if the URL or DOI is to an article, and the generated citation omits the author(s) or date(year), alter the citation and the sfn template accordingly, including any  values. If the citation has one or more author last names, it will generate a ref value containing the each of the first four author names plus the year of publication.
 * Citer will typically render a single author as format whereas it will render two authors will generate a  format. Please keep this in mind if you are manually altering the generated values.
 * Or hand craft it yourself!

Placing the citation and a sfn

 * Ensure that there are the appropriate sections. I prefer ==References== and ==Sources== . See MOS:NOTES.
 * Either place the full citation first by editing the Sources section (easier), or by placing the full citation and sfns simultaneously by editing the full article code (harder). Always preview! If you have User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js installed, it will warn you of any errors.
 * If are placing the shortened footnote(s) after placing the full citation, do it now.

End steps
After you have completed the conversion, there are follow through steps.
 * Add the Use shortened footnotes template using the  syntax near the top of the article.
 * Consider adding done (✅) and any comments to your comments on the talk page.
 * Notify a template editor to (or if you have template editor privileges) add Shortened footnote editnotice using the  syntax. You can find an example at Template:Editnotices/Page/Kahlil Gibran.