User talk:Citation bot/Archive 32

Punctuated bare URLs again
Many thanks to @AManWithNoPlan for the prompt fix of this issue, reported at User talk:Citation bot/Archive_31. The bot is now chomping its way through a list of 1,355 articles with punctuated bare URLs.

However, I just spotted a glitch. On Belt-driven bicycle, there was a bracketed bare ref followed by a full stop:

The bot edited the page, but didn't fill this ref.

So I stripped the brackets etc, leaving a "pure" bare ref:

Then I invoked the bot again, and in this edit it filled the ref.

I set up some testcases at User:BrownHairedGirl/sandbox198, where the bot did not do well: it failed to fill any of 5 bracketed refs. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:45, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

PS As before, feel free to experiment with that sandbox. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 17:54, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

fixed AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:00, 24 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Bless you, @AManWithNoPlan. That's great.
 * When the bot has finished its run through the batch of 1,355, I will pre-parse the list again and run the bot again on the residue.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:05, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * And it's working. The bot is chomping its way through Articles with bare link followed by punctuation, take 2, filling the bracketed+punctuation refs: e.g., ,.
 * I wish that editors were a bit less creative in finding ways to mangle citations ... but thanks to your diligent programming, we are working around some of the creativity.
 * Note that as a separate workflow, I have been using the bot to fill what I call "semi-bare" refs: bare URL followed by access-date, e.g.  I do that by partly-filing a cite web, without title, then letting CB do the rest. the documentation is at User:BrownHairedGirl/Articles with semi-bare links and SemiBareRefNeedsTitle.
 * I considered asking you to include this directly in CB, but decided that a) I had bombarded you with more than enough requests recently, and b) some of it is a bit edgy, and might draw unwanted heat onto the bot.
 * For example: the date formats are all over the place. AWB does an amazingly thorough job of rescuing malformed dates (like the one in my example above), but there are some so offbeat that it can't accurately decipher them, and those end up in the date field still needing attention. I reckon that's hepful 'cos that way the errors are tracked and hence more likely to be fixed, but I got a monstering before for moving imperfect data into tracked citation parameters, and I wouldn't want to make you and CB the target of that editor's pedantic wrath, esp since AFAIK CB lacks the cunning date-fixes built into AWB's powerful WP:GENFIXES, which does a lot more than the documentation claims.
 * However, if you were interested in perhaps extending the bot to of some of the more straightforward semi-bare refs, I could set up some testcases and show you regexes which work. Only if you are interested.
 * Meanwhile, my task for tomorrow is seeing whether I can tackle semi-bare refs with a Webarchive template included. It should be possible to do something with them, but I need a clear head for that.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 04:03, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Invisible characters
ZWS Issue fix confirmed, encoding still not. I assume thats not gonna be possible easily within reason (info). Aidan9382 (talk) 17:46, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That is impossible. https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/data/citation/mediawiki/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerozero.pt%2Fcoach_compet_detail.php%3Fid%3D5455%26competicao_id%3D42 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:16, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh wow, I see why. Ok, thats understandable. Thanks for fixing the ZWS issue at least. Aidan9382 (talk) 18:17, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

TNT volume/issue/page(s)=Online

 * Not fully fixed. See and . &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:35, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Caps added. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:43, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Fails to TNT volume/issue = N/A
Running on does nothing. But removing the title and then running has the bot properly TNT the volume/issue information. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:00, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Normalize hyphens, and TNT volume/issue=N/A accordingly
The difference in hyphen in the title leads to a failure of TNTing. The before hyphen is &amp;#45; (&#45;), the after hyphen is &amp;#8208; (&#8208;). Both should be considered equivalent/normalized to the plain - (&amp;#45;). &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:09, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Bot chokes on Academic studies of health information on Wikipedia
This happens on several longer articles. A systematic fix would be nice. Perhaps the bot could have a 'there's X references to be processed, I estimate processing time to be X &times Y' and then only die after that threshold has be exceeded by a certain factor (like +50%/double/triple the expected processing time). &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:39, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The PHP server does not actually support that (printing out stuff before the entire run is complete), but I will look into seeing if there is an internal timeout that is killing the run. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:02, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Bot not recognising lists on my batch job pages
For the last 10 months, I have been running batch jobs using the "Linked pages" option at the bottom of the form https://citations.toolforge.org

I have several such pages for different workflows, each with a similar format: a section or two of explanatory notes, then a "lists" section where the pages are linked in a numbered list, e.g.

This system worked very well for me, because:
 * 1) The bot's edit summaries included the page name, allowing anyone to monitor what I am doing
 * 2) That same feature allowed me to track different workflows
 * 3) Each batch page had a linked list, allowing me to click on the link to a page which the bot skipped, and inspect what happened

See e.g., with over 150 versions since October 2021. Here is an example of a documented batch: Special:permalink/1089218065

Then sometime on the 24th this system began to degrade. First the webform stopped recognising the lists unless I stripped out the documentation. Then in the last few hours it stopped recognising the lists even when all the docs were removed, and the only remaining content was the linked list. See e.g. the latest version of list of new articles, which the webform said contained no list. I had to reformat the list a pipe-separate lit, and submit it through the first line on the form. This is extra work for me, makes it harder to track jobs, and removes transparency.

What is going on? Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:39, 26 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Can you check again. Seems to be working for me. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:35, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Any luck  Brown HairedGirl ? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:46, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the slow reply, @AManWithNoPlan. I was trying to find the notes I had made when I last used the listed-pages line on the webform, about 12 hours ago.
 * User:BrownHairedGirl/Articles with new bare URL refs - initially failed on MS Edge, but worked after a hard refresh
 * User:BrownHairedGirl/Articles with probably fixable bare links - rejected by both MS Edge and Opera, even after a hard refresh; initially failed on Google Chrome, but worked after a hard refresh
 * I have left both pages untouched since then.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:04, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The bot died today and I have done a reboot about little bit ago. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:16, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @AManWithNoPlan: I just tried restarting User:BrownHairedGirl/Articles with new bare URL refs, using Google Chrome. Despite multiple hard refreshes of the webform, I repeatedly got the response "!No links to expand found" ... but there are 1,039 links.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:27, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @ Brown HairedGirl  works for me:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Citation_bot AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:09, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @AManWithNoPlan: Which browser did you use?
 * I get difft results from difft browsers.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:10, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Chrome Version 101.0.4951.64 (Official Build) (x86_64) AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:14, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe I need to update Chrome. It'll see if that helps.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:32, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! Good work
This edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reasonable_accommodation&type=revision&diff=1084655807&oldid=1079082280 is [IMHO] a good example of how the use of this bot can result in a successful edit.

Skimming around in this "Talk:" page, I found several instances of ["alleged"] problems or "issues", in some cases with an apparent "lack of consensus" -- so far! -- about what should be done. I have no objection to a situation in which other readers, editors and/or coders -- [persons who probably know WAY more than I do about the design and operation of this bot, and the related "issues", if any] -- come here to hash out some decisions that might affect some possible future changes to this bot.

I just wanted to chime in with a  *** Thank You ***  , because I found this edit (see the above link to a "DIFF" listing) to be inspiring.

I probably should also send a "ping" -- such as ""to User:Whoop whoop pull up. (right?) If so, then ... here goes:

Thanks! --Mike Schwartz (talk) 17:11, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

State of the bot
The command line does work, if you have Oauth Tokens. Extensive code coverage improvements have been implemented and a huge number of new test cases have been added. This has found a couple of small bugs and should prevent new bugs. The code base has been shrunk significantly by merging duplicate code functionality into functions - this should significantly speed-up bug fixes and code development and reduce new bugs. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 01:29, 17 May 2022 (UTC)


 * That's great, @AManWithNoPlan. Huge thanks to you for all your hard work keeping the bot running, and continually improving it.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 03:33, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The slowest step - by far - in citations is determining that DOI's are broken. That was a surprise.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:57, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I am now monitoring the error logs on tool forge. Found a bug in gadget mode.  My apologies for that being highly unreliable.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:05, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That's time-consuming work, @AManWithNoPlan, but very valuable in improving efficiency.
 * I hesitate to add to your high workload, but here's an if-you-have-time-and-inclination suggestion: does the bot log failures or successes of the zotero to return a page title?
 * I know that any such logs would be huge, but if they could be made even for a few days, then they would invaluable for my work in bare URL cleanup. They would help identify websites where bare URLs rarely or never get filled by Citation bot, and that would allow more targeted processing.
 * They would be invaluable for @Rlink2's work on BareRefBot. If we could identify websites where Citation bot cannot fill the title, then articles with those URLs could be pre-processed by BareRefBot to cleanup those URLs. I know of some high-profile ones like nytimes.com and cbc.ca, but if we had a longer list then BareRefBot could make a huge dent in the bare URL backlog without burdening Citation bot for a first pass.   It might also be feasible to tag such URLs as not-CB-fixable, and thereby exclude those bare URLs from my CB list-making.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 22:22, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I have wondered the same thing over a year ago, and they don't. But, I will think about if it is possible to put stuff in the error log, other than crashes. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:26, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I was thinking that it would need to be a pair of new logs (e.g. ZoteroNoTitle and ZoteroGotTitle), so that they would be free of other data and it would be would simple to compare them to distinguish transient failures from persistent failures.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 23:48, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

My new best friend will be file_put_contents( $filename, $data, FILE_APPEND); AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:14, 18 May 2022 (UTC)


 * The People Endorse Your Wise Choice Of Friend. By 102% of the votes in a 105% turnout.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:26, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, tracking failed ones would allow the bot to skip them in the future and speed up runs. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:57, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Tracking is now running. Existing runs will not track.  Files are  ZoteroWorked  & ZoteroFailed.  Note that is includes any failure, including page not found etc.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:36, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Wow! @AManWithNoPlan, you are on the case as fast a fit terrier. This is great work.
 * Can you give me any idea of the structure of the data files (or a few sample lines), so that I can begin thinking about how to analayse them? I want to be able to distinguish difft types of failure.
 * If this allows CB to skip some sites, that will be a big help to CB's efficiency.
 * this development is very significant for bare URL cleanup. It will be a big help for BareRefBot.  If we can identify websites for which Citation bot cannot fill the ref, the there will be no need to run CB on those pages first: BareRefBot can just get to work on any links to those sites.
 * If BareRefBot builds its own list of websites for which it can never get a title, then we can intersect that with the CB-cannot-fix set to build a list of bot-unfixable websites. That would allow us to tag those bare refs as bot-unfixable, which would allow them to be excluded from bot list selections and possibly to display a note that they are bot-unfixable.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 20:23, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Bot imports markup with title
I took a quick look at the HTML source for the URL. The issue isn't on ResearchGate's end, the meta tags are pretty clean. The DOI resolves to this article on Biotaxa, which has the following metadata and HTML fields for title:
 * Zootaxa - Lines 6-9
 *  - Line 23
 *  - Line 63
 *  A new genus and two new species of Apomecynini, a new species of Desmiphorini, and new records in Lamiinae and Disteniidae (Coleoptera) - Line 221-223

I'm not sure which of the four fields the bot is scraping, but three of them do contain the ... tag in some form. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:23, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh and the meta tags do really have the entities encoded that way in the content fields. Just in case ya'all thought it might be a issue with the way code rendered it onto this page. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:26, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, @Sideswipe9th. That is some mighty ugly HTML.
 * P inside H1! Eek.
 * HTML inside meta tags? Aaarrgh.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 17:18, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * the bot does not parse the HTML, crossref has the bad data also https://search.crossref.org/?from_ui=&q=10.11646%2Fzootaxa.4691.5.8  the bot strips a lot of html.  i will look at this example AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:41, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Bot broke URL

 * Both those link resolve to the exact same page. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:27, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Both ResearchGate urls work for me. What the bot did not do was supply a value for title (that particular LCCN isn't going to give that information).  Since the cited source is the author's copy that they uploaded to ResearchGate,  is correct.  Because n79122466 refers to 'University of San Diego. School of Law'  that identifier is misleading and doesn't help the reader locate the cited ResearchGate source so should be omitted.  If you want to cite the source as a San Diego Law Review article, then write a  template and use the SDLR url that you found (also free-to-read and, unlike the ResearchGate copy, is the article-of-record).
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:38, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The LCCN, is the LCCN for the publisher University of San Diego. School of Law. The Bot does not use LCCN's to expand anything anyway, since they are often the wrong thing. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:58, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The LCCN, is the LCCN for the publisher University of San Diego. School of Law. The Bot does not use LCCN's to expand anything anyway, since they are often the wrong thing. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:58, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, all ... and sorry for the false alarm. Kinda weird: when I first tried it, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228163323 gave me an error page. Now when I tried it again, it works. Maybe I screwed up copying the new URL from the diff.

Thanks for the explainer on LCCN. After this failed, I did then rewrite the ref to use the SDLR URL.

This arose from trying to systematically fill ResearchGate bare URLs. About half of the URLs are to pages which do supply a DOI, so I wrote a script to scrape them from the page's headers, which are well structured: e.g. .  That worked nicely for about 20 URLs, until the site started giving me HTTP 429 errors ("too many requests"). Setting delays of over ten minutes between requests allows me to make some more progress before it's back to the 429s, but only if I do manual requests simultaneously.

I am beginning to dislike ResearchGate. Damn these commercial outfits grabbing part of the academic space, and then protecting their turf. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:53, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I asked RG about allow the Bot IP address, and they told me to kiss off basically. The Bot ignores RG URLs for that reason.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:57, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @AManWithNoPlan: wot bar stewards. I thought of making my own approach, but now I see no point.
 * I have adapted my method to use v intermittent script alongside manual work. That combination is keeping me clear of their filters, so I am making some progress: down from 639 to under 500 in the last few days.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:17, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Do not change editor-first1 to editor1-first
Evidence to support your This is not the preferred form claim? If I believe these search results (some cirrus searches time out so they aren't definitive): then, editorn-last is used more often than editor-lastn.
 * editorn-last – ~83k (timed out)
 * editor-lastn – ~41k (timed out)

Similarly: Were it up to me, there would be only one enumerated form for these and their author, contributor, interviewer, translator counterparts. Alas, it is not up to me, both forms are allowed and may be used. In the best of all possible worlds, the bot will use the form predominant in the article that it is editing.
 * editorn-first – ~90k (timed out)
 * editor-firstn – ~41k (this search did not time out)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:36, 1 June 2022 (UTC)


 * The citation template documentation is not consistent. That could use some cleanup. I have deleted the code that normalized the editors. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 01:37, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * There is no problem with normalizing editors as part of a substantive edit. Izno (talk) 02:46, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I meant only that the documentation does not favour one form over the other, and both are equally valid. Personally, I prefer the number last form, as it is easier to edit by changing the last character than by altering one in the middle. It's also consistent with the more common firstn form. Hence my Watchlist being cluttered with these changes.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  03:24, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I prefer number last also. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 11:16, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Moved your comment. I would like to know where you see the cs1|2 documentation being inconsistent.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 12:07, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * "Full parameter set in horizontal format" and "Full parameter set in vertical format" are editorN-last. "editors=" is suggested to be replaced with editor-lastN. "Editors" section suggests " for multiple editors, use editor-last1, editor-first1 through editor-lastN".  "This template has custom formatting." area only lists editorN-last style.  "Recently removed CS1/CS2 parameters" just adds dashes and suggests both.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:07, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I guess I gotta wonder if the horizontal and vertical full-parameter-set listings are realy of any value because they don't show all name-holding parameter options. We could, I suppose, add links to an end note that would tell editors that 'this enumerated form is used here but this other enumerated form is also supported...' or some such.  Same for the actual editor parameter documentation.  'This template has custom formatting', which I presume you mean the abomination that is TemplateData, is not cs1|2 documentation and should never be assumed to be correct – see  as an example.  The recently removed parameters table is more or less correct in that it shows that the unhyphenated parameter names have direct hyphenated replacements; editors in that table could use some work.  I believe that the documentation should use a single enumerated form throughout the documentation for the avoidance of confusion; aliases should be mentioned in footnotes or parenthetically.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:04, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Bot still imports markup with title
Every HTML tag has to be handled explicitly, since the bot has to support math and physics titles. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:47, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Bot added "chapter" section to ref with "cite conference" tag
Non-mobile diff https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1091168664 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:49, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * This resulted from the citation having the wrong title to begin with. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:25, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Multiple issues with conference paper citations – please stop the bot from doing further damage until fixed
Non-mobile diffs https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1091419654 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1091235355 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:52, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I will fix (1). Can you give an example of (2), I would like to see that.  (3) is not a bug, the cite conference is really intended for proceedings that are not turned into a book or a special journal issue.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:54, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * (2) is also in one of the linked diffs (please search for the quoted paper title to find it).


 * Regarding (3), I must say I'm surprized to hear that, as "cite conference" template has a number of params specifically for printed proceedings (book-title, publisher, volume, isbn etc.) – could you explain the rationale behind preferred use of "cite book"?


 * By the way, thanks for cleaning up the mess left by the bot yesterday (much appreciated), and best of luck fixing these and other bugs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.66.35.138 (talk) 14:12, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * cite conference parameters are significantly different from the rest of Cs1/2 and editors often get them wrong. it really is impossible for the bot to make a cite conference since ACM uses book or journal formatting for all their meta-data.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:06, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, the point of cite conference is not to cite things that happen at a conference but to cite the conference proceedings. Izno (talk) 19:00, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree that the only point of cite conference can be to cite published conference proceedings, because that is the only output from a conference that is citable. As the editor of multiple published conference proceedings, I don't understand what sort of thing you mean by "proceedings that are not turned into a book". It is like you are talking about "bananas that are not fruit". Proceedings are a special type of book. No turning-into is needed to make them a book. They already are one. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:04, 4 June 2022 (UTC)


 * https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/commit/86518d8c928ff9eaec9c05bf55d2ea3f79e1a4d9 Bot will not add a chapter-url, if the chapter is wiki-linked. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:33, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Changes cite conference title/conference to chapter/conference/title
title gets title of the paper; book-title gets title of the published proceedings; see ; conference gets name/date/location of the conference (mostly unnecessary when you have book-title; see (documentation for conference-url is misleading because conference-url links conference).  For years I have been saying that this template should be revised but the notion of revision has been met which resounding indifference ...

In this example, the template should have been written:

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:11, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Use for cosmetic edits
It's unfortunate that Citation bot is making edits like this that are entirely cosmetic. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 17:28, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * A bug clearly. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:55, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * That is very odd. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:58, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * . Very odd code case. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:13, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 18:14, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

User sandboxes
Can user sandboxes be excluded from "fixing" by the bot? I've had plain URL references in my sandbox changed several times over the past week into messy citations that I have to keep reverting.  Sounder Bruce  21:55, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
 * That's what nobots is there for. However, you often don't understand what you're reverting, like this, which removed useless parameters. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:12, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I can't see the point of the bot editing sandboxes, esp when they are targeted -- as happened this week, on a big scale.
 * Many of the sandboxes edited are stale, so those edits are useless.
 * For fresh sandboxes, there will be many cases where an editor has added lots of empty parameters, to be filled as the draft is developed. Having the bot remove those empty params is disruptive.
 * The general principle is that editors should be free to do whatever they want with their sandboxes. There are some exceptions to that principle, but I dont see any way that Citation bot's edits fall within those exceptions.
 * I don't see why editors should have to add nobots. The bot should respect WP:USERPAGE and leave all userpages alone, without having to be specifically excluded from every individual page.  The only situation in which the bot should edit a userpage is if the page's owner asks Citation bot to clean it up.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:48, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * They should certainly be excluded from mass/category runs, but the bot shouldn't be hard-blocked from being run on a sandbox. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:51, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * There was a run fixing parameter errors (such as dead-url), that run is now done. Something went wrong in generating the list of pages and new sandboxes gor edited also.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 11:27, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @AManWithNoPlan: I still see no need to edit the sandboxes.
 * If an old sandbox page has a template error, so what? It's old and stale.
 * If a fresh sandbox page has a template error, why does the bot intervene without a request?
 * I agree with @Headbomb that user sandboxes should certainly be excluded from mass/category runs, just like drafts.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:45, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Incorrect "date" for Spotify releases
Release date of single in Spotify ≠ date of page publication of this singe in Spotify (the page may have been published before the release date as pre-order. A situation where the bot added wrong dates previously occured with iTunes and Apple Music pages. Was it fixed? Eurohunter (talk) 21:46, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

website gives start date for date range
Giving citation date of 1947 for documentation of something in 2011, etc.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Economy_of_the_United_States&diff=next&oldid=1093846318

I will undo this, but it is doubtless messing things up elsewhere.

DavidMCEddy (talk) 22:56, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Adds obviously-wrong website date (adds first date of data range)

 * Right. Besides which, the only correct date is the date when the website was inspected to extract the information it is cited for. Neither the creation nor modification date correspond to that. Zerotalk 07:44, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
 * That would be access-date, not date. --Izno (talk) 14:48, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily the bot's fault. The site's metadata contains:
 * IceWelder &#91; &#9993; &#93; 15:10, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does contain those times, AS I EXPLAINED CLEARLY IN MY BUG REPORT. It is the bot's fault for misinterpreting those times and using them to falsify a reference. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:55, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
 * My bad, must have slipped my gaze. However, I do recall several cases where the datePublished/article:published_time data was correct but (presumably by mistake) not actually shown; GameSpot used to do that a lot. In such cases, I would prefer to bot to add that date. The reference from the bug report is probaly an outlier in that it was created and timestamped years ago and then continuously updated to fit entirely new content, not just fix typos. Difficult to say how the bot could avoid making this mistake without blanketly stopping such date imports. Does Citation bot respect cbignore? IceWelder  &#91; &#9993; &#93; 11:56, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The bot can avoid this mistake by noticing the wide range between publication and modification dates, noticing that its subhuman intelligence is not adequate to resolve that wide range, and doing nothing. Relying on other editors to detect these problems individually and tag articles with special tags to force the bot to stop falsifying dates is a non-solution that will not stop the majority of date falsifications by the bot. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:17, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
 * My bad, must have slipped my gaze. However, I do recall several cases where the datePublished/article:published_time data was correct but (presumably by mistake) not actually shown; GameSpot used to do that a lot. In such cases, I would prefer to bot to add that date. The reference from the bug report is probaly an outlier in that it was created and timestamped years ago and then continuously updated to fit entirely new content, not just fix typos. Difficult to say how the bot could avoid making this mistake without blanketly stopping such date imports. Does Citation bot respect cbignore? IceWelder  &#91; &#9993; &#93; 11:56, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The bot can avoid this mistake by noticing the wide range between publication and modification dates, noticing that its subhuman intelligence is not adequate to resolve that wide range, and doing nothing. Relying on other editors to detect these problems individually and tag articles with special tags to force the bot to stop falsifying dates is a non-solution that will not stop the majority of date falsifications by the bot. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:17, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Now this is interesting - I ask on this particular talk page whether or not it's acceptable to add page publication dates that are stated in the page's metadata but not on the page itself, and just one day later this issue is brought up of Citation Bot adding page publication dates that are stated in the metadata, are not stated on the page itself, and are (shall we say) open to misinterpretation.

I have to say, I find myself agreeing with David - if a page/site does not display a visible publication date (I know I'm bringing up LeatherLicensePlates.com again, but none of that site's pages display visible publication dates), then it is probably better to leave them undated - even if the publication dates stated in the metadata (and, for that matter, the modification dates too) are correct. Klondike53226 (talk) 21:05, 18 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I have added simonsfoundation.org to the list of no-date websites. This is one of the few websites that give the starting date for the range instead of the ending date for the range.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:56, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Cite patent support
Is it possible to add support for autofilling cite patent from just a country and patent number? I was about to fix a page where someone used cite web for patents and was about to just replace it all with cite patent and just the country and number, and then get citation bot to do the rest when I realise citation bot doesn't do patents.

I think I will take a look at the github and try implementing it myself, but it has been years since I coded anything, so that probably won't work out.Kylesenior (talk) 02:44, 30 May 2022 (UTC)


 * If you can give examples of URLs that patents usually have, then the bot can parse them. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:22, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Cite news or   parameter question
Preview-editing the lead section of Presidency of Rodrigo Duterte and using the Citation bot converts  to , while other Philippine online news (like  ) sites are ignored, which might confuse other future editors because the code is not standardized. Is there a possibility to set the bot to either:

—Sanglahi86 (talk) 14:18, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
 * disable the conversion of  to   or
 * allow the bot to recognize these Philippine news sites and convert their  parameter to   ?

for that one newspaper. Others can be added. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:54, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Duplicated journal number
JSTOR calls them "issues", despite them being volumes. I would add to "volumes only" list, but some years have issues. Will look into a specific fix. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:39, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

'work' to 'journal'?
Why is this bot changing 'work' to 'journal'? It adds no value in doing so; 'work' is the standard and 'journal' is an alias. The bot isn't even consistent in doing so. This seems like an arbitrary change by somebody. Praemonitus (talk) 03:16, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Because journal is clearer than journal, and if you have a cite journal, then journal is the standard parameter. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:37, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It's not documented as the "standard parameter" for a journal paper, and hence that's just a personal style preference on your point. I reject that as a justification. Praemonitus (talk) 14:55, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Cite journal. All examples use journal. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:13, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * My issue is with bot edits to citation, so your example is beside the point. Praemonitus (talk) 00:56, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It's also untrue that journal is just an alias for work. Some of the templates (especially citation) use the parameter name to choose among some variations of formatting (journals are formatted differently from magazines or web sites or newspapers). —David Eppstein (talk) 04:10, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, thank you for the clarification David. In that case your script is working inconsistently. See, for example, this edit and lines 168, 181, and 202, among others. The citation documentation also needs to reflect your point for clarity. Praemonitus (talk) 14:55, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * There is kind of a gray area of whether scholarly-society newsletters and bulletins should count as journals or as magazines. The visible differences involve formatting of volume/issue numbers, which are important for academic journals and usually unimportant for magazines and newspapers. For newsletters and bulletins, they are also important. There is also a semantic difference (actual journal articles typically go through a formal peer-review process but newsletter and bulletin articles do not) but that is not important for formatting purposes because it is not really something that the formatting makes visible to readers. So it is not unreasonable to call them journals for the purpose of citation formatting. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:37, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, but this doesn't address the issue of why, for example, "Astronomy and Astrophysics" was changed to journal in some templates but not others. Praemonitus (talk) 13:50, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The bibcode actually was the reason. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:27, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
 * They all have bibcodes, so I'm not clear what you're saying. Praemonitus (talk) 20:47, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The problem is multi-faceted. The citation is difficult to deal with. Secondly, "complete" references do not query the API's so they will not get told "this is a journal".  I misread the diff and thought that bibcodes were the problem.   AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:46, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
 * fixed the problem with citation AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:13, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Web->Book: I don't think that it was right in this case...
I suspect because the citation is for a webpage about a book, that the 'web' citation was replace with a 'book' citation... but it really was intended to be a citation for the website (I created it) because the citation is supporting the existence of the book and it's properties. I'm not sure if there's something that can be included so that it doesn't get converted again in the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaav (talk • contribs) 19:29, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That looks fine to me? The title field still gets transformed into a link in the reflist as before. The only difference to the reader is that the title is now italicised, which makes sense as the citation should be to the book based upon how it's being used in context? Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:23, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It is not fine. It was a reference about a translation of a book, sourced to a publisher's web site describing the fact that they have published it. It was replaced by a reference directly to the book itself, with a link that is likely to be removed or replaced by something else (because for book references the link is not the important part). The purpose has been lost. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:25, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * This is the same issue as the section above, which shows why this sort of thing's a bad idea even if in this case it only resulted in cosmetic changes. More generally, I'd say that while it's perfectly reasonable in some cases for a human editor to conclude that, that's not a decision we can expect a bot to make with any degree of reliability. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:46, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I have flagged the ref to not be changed. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:42, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Weird ref conversion bug
Not sure why it wants to convert things in the first place, but the comment should halt the process. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:42, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Misleading edit summary

 * "Some additions/deletions were parameter name changes" says it right there. It removed work and added magazine. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:13, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Feature request: populate author-link
Couldn't citebot automatically populate author-link? — Guarapiranga ☎ 06:54, 1 July 2022 (UTC)


 * No. Besides it being highly context-sensitive about who is who (many people share the same names), author linking is often completely superfluous and unneeded. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:11, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Headbomb: How about adding an author-link parameter when the author incorrectly contains a wikilink? For example:
 * Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:46, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think you will find editors who argue that such usages are not incorrect and should not be changed. Certainly, links in the author parameter are necessary if the authors are listed in Vancouver style in a single author parameter. The one that I find annoying and incorrect is when people put a link on part of a name using the last= parameter. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:48, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It is not 'wrong' to write any of the examples you gave; cs1|2 knows how to parse those links so both the rendered citation and the metadata are correct. author-link is required for last / first pairs.  &lt;name> is an error but because last and author are aliases of each other, assigning linked values to them is allowed.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 01:02, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Trappist the monk: Then should we update Template:Citation Style documentation/author to remove the instruction "Do not wikilink—use author-link instead." so users know that assigning linked values to them is allowed? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:26, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Ask Editor Jonesey95 who added that instruction at this edit.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 02:18, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This is the second time people have wondered about this instruction recently, and the previous time, I'm pretty sure I looked for a discussion about it and was unable to find one. Since putting wikilinks in the author fields appears to work without creating problems, I have removed that bit of instruction. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:35, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Headbomb: If many notable authors share the same name, the dab page would be linked, leaving it for editors to disambiguate, as usual; otherwise, if the citation is of an RS, its author is most likely to be the one that is notable among the many people sharing his name (and unlikely false positives can be remedied by article editors, who'll be clued in to the referenced authors' homonyms). — Guarapiranga ☎ 03:46, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Let's say there is one John Smith notable in the world, and all the other John Smiths are not notable, meaning there are no disambiguation pages at John Smith. What's the guarantee that the John Smith you are citing is the notable John Smith, and not one of the non-notable ones? &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:29, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * notabug – disabled while the discussion continues
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 02:18, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This is the second time people have wondered about this instruction recently, and the previous time, I'm pretty sure I looked for a discussion about it and was unable to find one. Since putting wikilinks in the author fields appears to work without creating problems, I have removed that bit of instruction. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:35, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Headbomb: If many notable authors share the same name, the dab page would be linked, leaving it for editors to disambiguate, as usual; otherwise, if the citation is of an RS, its author is most likely to be the one that is notable among the many people sharing his name (and unlikely false positives can be remedied by article editors, who'll be clued in to the referenced authors' homonyms). — Guarapiranga ☎ 03:46, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Let's say there is one John Smith notable in the world, and all the other John Smiths are not notable, meaning there are no disambiguation pages at John Smith. What's the guarantee that the John Smith you are citing is the notable John Smith, and not one of the non-notable ones? &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:29, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * notabug – disabled while the discussion continues

Suggestion: Could citebot learn from its mistakes?
I don't expect this to be easy, but it'd be great if citebot could learn from manual edits made to the citations it created. I suspect this would involve maintaining a (rather large) table of all auto-gen'd citations, indexed by ISBN, URL, etc, that could be routinely updated as editors correct and change citations. This will probably involve some sort of heuristic to decide what version (or mix of versions) should prevail against various citation instances of the same source. I'm not suggesting overrunning editors' consensus ref formulations, of course; just that in new citebot cites it uses past editors' input. — Guarapiranga ☎ 07:07, 1 July 2022 (UTC)


 * This is not an AI bot, so this is impossible. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:12, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't see how AI would be required, Headbomb; I use the term 'learn' in a loose, informal, sense, not actual machine learning. What I mean by it is that citebot, in its daily rounds, take note of citations it created that have been subsequently edited. A precursor to the (rather large) table of citebot citations already exists at WP:RSP. It seems to me Web2Cit has a manual version of this process. — Guarapiranga ☎ 04:00, 2 July 2022 (UTC)


 * wontfix

bot removes publisher

 * It could also change the reference to   GoingBatty (talk) 22:44, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @GoingBatty: that would be ideal. It's what I later did manually.
 * However, I think it would be hard for the bot to reliably disentangle malformed data like this, so I would be content for the bot to just refrain from removing it. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:11, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Mount Bandra Church
Bot says no changed reqd for Basilica of Our Lady of the Mount, Bandra just inserted a bare url Nolicamaca (talk) 01:24, 9 July 2022 (UTC)


 * no idea. worked for me.  google books might have been down for a second.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:09, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

A momentary bug i suppose thanks for doing it may you can head over here WP:Teahouse Nolicamaca (talk) 14:30, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Weird Author
Greetings. Why do you create a news article out of a web citation in Minneapolis? Beaverton isn't mentioned in the source, so where did you get her name? Thank you.
 * That person is listed in the meta-data as the author. I have added a comment to make sure no one else adds it back. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:47, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Authorization forgets page title
The page loss is not fixable. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:35, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * No idea why you would need to keep authorizing stuff. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I often face the issue because it often causes me to re-login. Could you elaborate on why page loss isn't fixable? From what I know of OAuth, a solution would be to add a parameter to the website to autofill the page, and have mediawiki redirect to that URL (e.g. https://citations.toolforge.org/?page=ASDF). SWinxy (talk) 20:24, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you using the webpage, or clicking on the "expand citations" on the left of the page you want to expand? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:50, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Wait... there's a sidebar action?? omg. I had no idea that was a thing. I've been using the webpage to do those citations all this time... SWinxy (talk) 18:40, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The reason I ask is that the BOT uses POST for everything on the webpage, and POST gets lost. GET does not get lost, and that is used for the thing on the side.  We only allow GET for single pages for some technical reasons..  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 22:08, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah I see. Thanks for the clarification. SWinxy (talk) 22:33, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Feature request: populate author-link (cont.)

 * "Citebot would pick the wrong John Smith when generating the citation"
 * This is exactly why this is not going to be implemented ever. There is also a WP:CITEVAR issue, issues of WP:OVERLINK, and also of link relevance. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:27, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Refinement suggestions for Philippine citations
Hello. The following notable Philippine print newspapers have online versions. Please include them in the bot's list of recognized newspapers to process from  to. Currently, only Philippine Daily Inquirer is recognized.

Also, please check if the tabloids below warrant inclusion. Tempo, owned by Manila Bulletin, is arguably the most reputable tabloid in the Philippines. Pilipino Star Ngayon is a sister newspaper of The Philippine STAR, while Bandera is owned by the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Also, for citations whose URL parameters start with, please set the bot to use   instead of  ,  , or. The citation should look like below:
 * Philippine News Agency

The same goes for citations whose URL parameters start with, please set the bot to use   instead of  ,  , or. The citation should look like below:
 * Philippine Information Agency

Thank you. Sanglahi86 (talk) 11:33, 12 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Should all be done now. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:35, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Weird title
Oddly it is actually the title listed on the website for these pages. Very sloppy work by the web editor. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:19, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

www.academia.edu/download/


-- Green  C  00:31, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Remove invisible character
There's an invisible character between = and The, which the bot should remove. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:46, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Automatic cite magazine conversions
Online magazines are magazines. The bot's behaviour is correct. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:38, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * They aren't magazines, they are websites. They don't have physical pages, they don't have physical publishers, they don't use identifiers such as isbn, etc. If someone cites a web source with all of the correct parameters according to cite web this should not be randomly changed to cite magazine by a bot, which should be fixing actual errors. - adamstom97 (talk) 03:49, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * "Online magazines". It's in the name. And they do have identifiers, which for magazines are ISSNs. In this case, 1049-0434 (print) and 2169-3188 (online) &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:53, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * A quick Google of "do websites count as online magazines" gave several explanations for why they are not, and our own article clearly describes something that is not a basic website. Entertainment Weekly may have an ISSN for its online magazine (which this page suggests is a digital version of the magazine that can be read like a normal magazine on various devices), but it looks like ew.com is a separate thing. Is there consensus somewhere that citing a website that happens to be associated to a magazine using cite web is incorrect? Or was it just decided by the bot people that it needed to change those refs? - adamstom97 (talk) 04:49, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment: it's not just with Cite magazine, Citation Bot also converts Cite web templates to Cite newspaper and Cite news from time to time, which I feel is unnecessary. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:19, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Pinging here as they may have something to add. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:23, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping. I also don't agree with these changes and I feel that if the bot wants to continue with them, it should actually see if there is consensus for it. Gonnym (talk) 23:40, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Cite magazine states, "This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for articles in magazines and newsletters." So citations of articles from the website should remain web citations and not be converted to magazine citations like the bot currently does. -- Zoo (talk) 03:55, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Just letting this page's watchers know that a simultaneous discussion is going on at . Perhaps it would be better to keeps things centralized. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:06, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I did not see an immediate issue with these changes, as they have occurred on MCU articles such as WandaVision for Rolling Stone, but given how widespread they are, and how the templates are only intended to be used to cite the publications themselves, whereas cite web should remain just for the websites themselves. I'm unsure if there was any consensus to make this change to the bot, but I do not see a need for changing the cite web templates. Cite news and cite web are generally the same, although cite web should remain for sites like Collider.com, which has also been changed. Trailblazer101 (talk) 13:55, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It also converts Bleeding Cool from cite web to cite news. Trailblazer101 (talk) 17:49, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

I also agree that Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, if using the url para and clearly pulling an article from their websites, should be using Cite web, not Cite magazine. Obviously, if you are citing a print article from either, then Cite magazine should be used then (and in many of those cases, the url parameter would not be used at all). - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:11, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, Entertainment Weekly was never affected by this tool until recently, so what changed? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:11, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It appears it could have been from this request here back in April. In this instance, the only change should be if cite journal is being used to cite Entertainment Weekly, NOT Cite web. The publication shouldn't have a "catch all" adjustment. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:13, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Ok so I'm pretty sure in this part of the code, it needs to be edited at line 581 to remove 'entertainment weekly' and 'rolling stone' from "ARE_MAGAZINES" and move those to line 590 for "ARE_MANY_THINGS". I don't know if any of the other bot's files need adjustment, but this seemed to be where the issue lies. And honestly, I feel basically a lot more in the "ARE_MAGAZINES" need to move too... - Favre1fan93 (talk) 23:51, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * apologies for the ping, but I saw you as contributor on this part of the GitHub. Are you able to assist in these changes? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 23:54, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * No prob at all with the ping, @Favre1fan93. It's a helpful way of letting me know that I might be able to help.
 * I have a vague recollection of making a related change a few weeks ago, so I could probably make this one if I approved of it and if there was consensus to do it.
 * But I don't approve of this change; I oppose it. I agree 100% with @Headbomb's succinct comment that Online magazines are magazines. The bot's behaviour is correct .  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:08, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The documentation for Cite magazine says: This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for articles in magazines and newsletters. I would not use this to cite an article appearing on Entertainment Weekly's website, nor Rolling Stone's; I'd use Cite web (or news). Also it doesn't help the fact going forward that EW is ceasing print publication, which even more so shouldn't use Cite magazine in my view. At the very least, I believe EW should be removed from what was done with the add requested back in April, because that was for a single-use instance where an article was citing the print magazine. I don't know how to check, but I'd gather the vast majority of EW cites on the project are from their online articles. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 00:18, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * To be honest, is there any visual difference between Cite web, Cite magazine, and Cite news? Or between url and magazine and newspaper? If not, what is the purpose/benefit of the bot changing the templates/parameters? InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:24, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @InfiniteNexus: the diff is that Cite magazine, and Cite news support some parameters used only for paper publications, but Cite web does not support those parameters.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:33, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Which is why making such a change to online magazine articles is pointless. They're not going to have page numbers or ISSNs and stuff like that. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:35, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Favre1fan93: I get that. But still, I agree 100% with Headbomb's comment that Online magazines are magazines. The bot's behaviour is correct, and you appeared to have overlooked our views when interpreting the documentation for Cite magazine.
 * So for a ref to EW or Rolling Stone, I would prefer Cite magazine.
 * For me this is the same issue as using Cite news for a ref to The Guardian newspaper. Sure, most en.wp editors use the website rather than print, but The Guardian and The Observer that's appropriate because both adopted a "Digital First" strategy in 2011.
 * "Digital First" did not make ''The Guardian' cease to be a daily newspaper.
 * "Digital First" did not make ''The Observer' cease to be a Sunday newspaper.
 * The same applies to Rolling Stone magazine and to EW. The move online does not make either of them cease to be a magazine.  They are now online magazines, not ex-magazines.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:31, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Well seeing as the change made a few weeks back in reference to this request was for a specific instance of the print EW, and sourcing that site had been uncontested until that point (hence this discussion), I think EW should be removed from that part of the code locking it in to just Cite magazine. Or at the very least move it to "ARE_MANY_THINGS" so hopefully instances of EW using Cite web won't be touched by this bot/tool as "incorrect" (if I'm understanding these distinctions correctly). - Favre1fan93 (talk) 02:35, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * you say that you agree with 's statement that Online magazines are magazines. The bot's behaviour is correct, but I don't think either of you have explained why you believe this or if there is any consensus to support it. In my response to Headbomb above I gave what I thought was reasonable evidence that online magazines and magazines are not actually the same thing, are you able to refute that or have you guys just unilaterally decided to make these widespread changes that are clearly controversial? - adamstom97 (talk) 06:46, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Adamstom.97: sorry, but I did not find your comments to be either substantive or persuasive.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 11:11, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * So you guys have just decided that you want it to be like this with no evidence or reasoning to support your position, and it sounds like you are planning to ignore the fact that many editors disagree with you (including some who do have evidence and reasoning that goes against your position). It would be fine for you to continue to do whatever you want if this toy of yours wasn't changing many articles across Wikipedia without consensus, but unfortunately it is. - adamstom97 (talk) 11:20, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Adamstom.97: Your false claim that I have offered no reasoning is deeply uncivil conduct.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 14:51, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

I am curious, is there a location/past discussion that justifies which publications should be using which citation template? Has consensus been reached for any? Or have requests just come to this bot noting "issues" and then those that maintain put the publications in the certain categories? I am asking because I felt seeing the tool go through and adjust EW from Cite web to magazine as vandalism given what I felt was a stable status quo on the matter. That is why at the very least I feel as I mentioned above, moving it to "ARE_MANY_THINGS" would be acceptable since the comments in the code states "These are things that are both websites and newspapers", which applies here. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:28, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The tool is still being used on pages I watch and making these adjustments (obviously because nothing as changed), but I am viewing this now as WP:DISRUPTIVE. I continue to suggest my change be implemented, or a full removal of EW from the magazine-only list be made until some sort of great consensus can be reached on the matter. Though I have found the area of concern, I'm not confident in my own ability to make edits to the GitHub lest it causes greater issues. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 20:41, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Is there a venue where we can get more voices on this? InfiniteNexus (talk) 20:56, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with @Favre1fan93 that at the very least, move EW to ARE_MANY_THINGS as it seems to fit what EW is more than just a website or a magazine. It's gotten tedious to constantly clean up after the bot and I've held off on running the bot myself, hoping for something to be changed first. -- Zoo (talk) 21:09, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I have left a discussion notice at Help talk:Citation Style 1 (here) which seemed most appropriate. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 21:56, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Add me to the list of believers in "Online magazines are magazines". Our article Entertainment Weekly clearly classifies this source as a magazine. I think cite magazine is an appropriate choice for this source. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:23, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * EW was a physical magazine that is now just an online magazine, but the sources that are being automatically changed to cite magazine are not for either, they are for the EW website which is a separate thing. - adamstom97 (talk) 23:16, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keeping in mind that the bot seems to be applying CS1 citation guidelines (although this is not explicit in the documentation):
 * If I remember correctly, cite web was originally implemented to cite websites as sources that cannot fit any other classification. In general CS1 templates cite by work (source) type, regardless of the delivery medium or publishing platform. In this case the work type is a serial (magazine). The bot is correct in its application of the CS1 formatting guidelines. 50.74.109.2 (talk) 00:59, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * But it isn't a magazine, that is the whole point of this discussion. It is related to a magazine, but these sources are for the website not magazine articles. - adamstom97 (talk) 01:05, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I suppose a real-world example is needed. Unless a missed a diff posted somewhere of such presumably erroneous conversion. 50.74.109.2 (talk) 01:13, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Just one example from the diff included in the report summary at the start of this section: this source is an article on ew.com that was cited using cite web. It was then automatically converted into cite magazine because EW produces a magazine, but the source is for the website not the magazine. Some users have claimed that because it comes from the magazine company's website it is actually an article from an online magazine, but that is not the case. EW's online magazine is literally a digital version of a physical magazine and is available from digital magazine provider websites such as magzter.com or zinio.com. It is a separate thing from their website at ew.com. Sometimes they may include articles (or partial articles) from the magazine in a web article, but that still does not count because the actual magazine has not been cited. - adamstom97 (talk) 01:31, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * This is not correct. Many print sources have digital fascimiles, and also web-delivered editions that may or may not have different (usually additional) content. The distinction regarding the medium is independent of the type of source cited. EW is still a magazine, that may have print/digital/audio or whatever editions published. 172.254.162.90 (talk) 12:50, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Irregardless of "is it or isn't a magazine", using Cite web for such content on EW's website is not incorrect. I feel at this point the crux of my issue is that this bot is unilaterally putting content from this source in Cite magazine. As I've been pointing out, if it is put under a different classification within the bot, uses of Cite web should remain as they are (which is how they've been for this publication since only a few weeks ago with no issues), but presumably if the bot finds a bare url formatting, it would then format it to Cite magazine. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:13, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It is also not incorrect to use a hypothetical for any EW version or even the also hypothetical  for content on EW's paper version. But CS1 generally does not cite per medium, but per work (source) type/function. If the source is classifiable as a serial: subtype magazine, and CS1 provides a specific facility for the classification, then it is best to use that specific facility. It seems that the problem here is one of disputed classification. The bot apparently applies CS1 guidelines, as also noted above. To resolve the classification dispute, CS1 would perhaps be the proper forum. But I think the current CS1 format guideline is OK, and the bot is correct in applying it. 65.88.88.201 (talk) 16:33, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * For clarification, the issue at hand is a change made to the GitHub code that put EW under such classification. Another question I have regarding that code, is how were which publications put under each heading? Just by the maintainers as "bugs" arrose? This is the part of the source code in question, specifically this change that was made off of this bug request a few weeks back. Until that point, EW was not listed here and things were functioning "fine". Entertainment Weekly in my view should just be moved to "ARE_MANY_THINGS" given the comment for that classification is "These are things that are both websites and newspapers" which is 100% what EW is. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:18, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The utility or applicability of the ARE_MANY_THINGS code may be ripe for questioning. Many of the items included could be characterized as one thing, or mainly one thing. The comment is comparing apples and oranges. There are also things that are both printed matter and magazines, but we don't use them interchangeably in CS1 citations. 64.18.11.64 (talk) 20:45, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * is a real, though rarely used, template for episodic television, radio, web brodcast programs. Perhaps you meant If the source is classifiable as a [periodical]...
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:42, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Correct. "Serial" was used in the bibliographic sense, which covers any periodically published item regardless of the medium. For some reason I thought cite serial was no longer around. 64.18.11.68 (talk) 20:24, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Add me to the list of those who consider that "online magazines are magazines". The medium is irrelevant. Do you categorise documents according to writing implement used to write them? A magazine is a magazine if its publishers say it is. Even if it is posted on a wall as samizat, it still a magazine. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:34, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * To pick an orthogonal example, consider The Economist. It is a weekly, printed on gloss paper in demitab format. Per WP:DUCK and the logic of some editors above, we should use cite magazine. But its publishers say it is a newspaper, so we use cite newspaper. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:01, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * A magazine is a magazine is a magazine is a magazine. The bot's edit was semantically correct.  While not obvious to readers who consume cs1|2 citations visually – the visual renderings of the example bot edit in both  and  are identical.  For those who consume the citations using reference management software, there is a notable difference between the metadata emitted by  and the metadata emitted by .  The source is a magazine so it should be cited as such using the proper cs1|2 template,.
 * 2 templates that have https://www.webcitation.org/ ... parameters. Archived snapshots at webcitation.org are no longer available. Those who care about Thor: Ragnarok might want to start revising those cs1
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:42, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * No one is saying a magazine is not a magazine, I am saying that there is a difference between a magazine, a digital magazine, and a website, and no one who disagrees with me has provided any actual reasoning or proof to support them other than just wanting it to be that way. And the fact is that whatever you believe about digital magazines vs. websites, it is objectively correct to use cite web to cite a web article. Regardless of the digital magazine vs. website debate, there are clearly many editors who think this bot should not be unilaterally changing cite web to cite magazine, and since there apparently was never any consensus to do it in the first place I think it's clear that it at least needs to be paused until the people who want this to happen have gained consensus for it. - adamstom97 (talk) 05:36, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * If a web article from EW/Rolling Stone etc. (that is not in a digital/print magazine at all) uses the parameters of Cite web correctly and as intended for that template, would a management software reading the metadata be confused by what it sees or expect something different? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 02:13, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly are magazines so their articles, regardless of how they are distributed – paper-form, electronic facsimiles of the paper-form, online portals, or any other way – are cited as magazine articles because the sources (Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly) are magazines. When the source responsible for the article is a magazine, cite it as a magazine.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:37, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * But that didn't answer my question and curiosity. Stepping back from the definition of these sites, will management software reading the metadata, which you pointed out, be confused by what it sees or expect something different if Cite web is used? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:49, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * cs1|2 classifies each citation into one of these genres:
 * uses the genre  because all cs1|2 templates require title and because magazine contain articles.   uses genre   because cs1|2 cannot know from available parameter values, what the editor is citing.  For readers who consume the citations using reference management software, all  templates will be lumped together in the   genre.  Misusing  to cite an article in a magazine, regardless of how that article is delivered from the publisher to the reader, is a disservice to the reader.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:17, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Then what's the point of the "ARE_MANY_THINGS" designation of this bot, if each publisher of citeable material should be fit, more or less, to one cite template? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:31, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * There is no point to it, and neither are the items (listed as falling under that designation) "many things". As far as I can tell they can be properly described as one thing without diminishing them. The routine seems like surplus code whose main function is to add complexity without any clear benefit. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 15:10, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I've taken up that challenge at Thor: Ragnarok, alas there's an issue with IABot at the moment causing it to still autofill using WebCite. I've filled an issue on Phabricator about it. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:51, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Uh, how about only converting  ONLY IF it ALSO has one or more actual magazine, newspaper, or journal parameters, such as   (and maybe others that can be discovered)? ((Parameters that {cite web} does not have, such as   are possible, but less likely, because they trigger warnings.)) -A876 (talk) 23:37, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I think that is logical and would be a good solution. - adamstom97 (talk) 23:50, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * If that can be coded into the bot, then I also agree with this option. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 02:13, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Those parameters would be available very very rarely, if ever. So this proposal would almost entirely prevent the bot from using Cite news/newspaper.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 12:54, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * But it would ensure that when it does do that it is doing it correctly. - adamstom97 (talk) 06:03, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * We disagree on what is "correctly", and you seem to be in a small minority.
 * Plus, eliminating the overwhelming majority of valid uses is not a good idea.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 23:26, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
 * A small minority? There is clear consensus in this discussion that the bot should not be automatically changing these cites, and in the time since I started this thread there have been multiple others started by different users for the same issue. People keep coming here to see why this bot is making incorrect changes and only a few editors who run it are turning them away. There are also plenty of other discussions about this happening in other places, for instance at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Marvel Cinematic Universe task force where editors have even considered trying to block the bot from certain articles since you and the gatekeepers of this bot are seemingly refusing to listen to anyone else. As I have said in previous messages, you are forcing your own opinion on many other articles without any actual consensus that these changes are required, and I don't see why it is so difficult to follow the logical compromise that has been suggested here and only change the cites that are 100% confirmed to need the change. - adamstom97 (talk) 01:01, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * There is absolutely not a consensus in support of your extremist view.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 07:20, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * How is using the standard practice of cite magazine and cite web for EW extremist? That seems like an extreme label. There does seem to be just about consensus here, especially as the change was implemented recently without consensus so that should be reverted until consensus for it Indagate (talk) 07:23, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That's not the standard practice.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 07:26, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem to be evidence either way but in my experience it is Indagate (talk) 07:29, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * With respect, I see no basis for putting much weight on claims of experience by someone who has been an editor for only two months, and who has edited only 1,367 unique articles. That is a good start, but it is still early days.
 * There are 27,404 articles with links to EW.com, but you have edited precisely zero of those articles.
 * There are 36,093 articles with links to rollingstone.com, but you have edited only 203 of those articles. That is a sample of only 0.56%.
 * So why are you claiming relevant experience?
 * And what (or who) brought you to this discussion?  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 08:09, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Not much weight I guess but still some experience, cite web is used for EW, and don't see reason it shouldn't
 * See here for where I have edited EW link, so haven't "edited precisely zero of those articles", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shang-Chi_and_the_Legend_of_the_Ten_Rings&diff=prev&oldid=1086706324
 * Have edited this page before so on watchlist, think originally saw in MCU edit summaries, though don't see relevance Indagate (talk) 08:33, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * So, even tho the claim based on experience i actually based on almost no experience.  But you stand by it.
 * Just you like claimed that there was consensus for your view, even tho half the participants in this thread (including the most experienced) oppose your view.
 * This looks set to be one of those discussions.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:18, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * By my count, it's currently 9 against changing cite web to cite magazine, and 8 support, including IPs not sure whether are same person as replied to replies above, would be greater consensus if they are same. Plus two are Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Film/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe_task_force who didn't post here so could be 11v8. Indagate (talk) 09:34, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * 9 to 8, yet you claim that there is a consensus?
 * Wow.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:49, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * When the change was implemented recently without any consensus, then that 9 to 8 seems relevant, especially when chance of being greater with 2 from previously linked discussion Indagate (talk) 09:52, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Wow.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:49, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * When the change was implemented recently without any consensus, then that 9 to 8 seems relevant, especially when chance of being greater with 2 from previously linked discussion Indagate (talk) 09:52, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Why is bot changing website → magazine? These are references to website, not magazine. It should be disabled. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Now_You%27re_Gone_%E2%80%93_The_Album&curid=17999854&diff=1087006271&oldid=1086669184 Eurohunter (talk) 19:39, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Billboard is a magazine. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:47, 9 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I have previously complained about them changing website to magazine and was laughed out as if I was the idiot. I fully support any and every person (including, , and ) saying that when linking to a website we should be using cite web, and the Bots behaviour is both wrong and vandalism. We're not using issues, we're not using volumes, if the BBC added a newspaper version tomorrow we wouldn't suddenly change all web links to cite news. The changes this BOT makes are also an issue raised at Featured Article review, stew on that. The users behind this bot are also fairly happy to gang up on any editors who don't follow their view regarding this, as seen above, and are completely unwilling to accept any outside views. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 09:15, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Darkwarriorblake: please promptly retract that allegation of vandalism, per WP:NOTVAND.
 * If you make utterly bogus allegations, no wonder you get laughed at.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:20, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * No, if it's going against consensus and several editors see it as an issue, and when I undo it you and your fellow editors force it back in, as you did previously, it's vandalism and disruptive editing. Your failure to address anything raised there speaks volumes. Anyway I know how this goes, I make valid points, you ignore them, I just wanted this on the record so the above editors don't think they're going insane, hopefully they can learn from my previous experience with the people in charge of this bot. I won't be back to respond to you further girl with hair, rest easy. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 09:22, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * OK, so either you have't read WP:NOTVAND ... or you have read it and want to make false allegations anyway. So much so that you repeat those false allegations.
 * Not good conduct.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:53, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
 * , your behaviour here is becoming borderline bullying, especially your treatment of above. The fact that you are an experienced editor does not make you better than those who have joined recently, but it does make it remarkable that you think it is appropriate to act this way. The change that we are asking for is not unreasonable, and is far from an "extremist view", but you are acting like we are trying to force you to commit murder or something. - adamstom97 (talk) 03:59, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Adamstom.97: an editor claims experience, but demonstrably has very little experience. Note that the person who chose to make Indagate's experience an issue was not me: it was Indagate.
 * Another editor makes a wholly bogus allegations of vandalism. And instead of retracting it, they double down.
 * You falsely accused me of offering no reason, when I clearly had.
 * Yet you accuse me of bullying for pointing this out? Boggle.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 04:10, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * All Indagate did was point out what they had seen in their time on Wikipedia, they did not deserve to have you go trawling through their edit history to prove why their experience isn't "good enough". And Darkwarriorblake was not technically correct to call the edits "vandalism", but they were right to call them disruptive (especially while this discussion is ongoing) and you asking them to retract their statement is just pedantic and unnecessary. I stand by my claim that you are bullying these editors, I think that is a completely valid description of the way that you aggressively ripped through Indagate's edit history and tried to make them feel like they weren't allowed to participate in the discussion, not to mention statements such as "no wonder you get laughed at". Please try to be civil and focus on the issue that we are discussing. - adamstom97 (talk) 05:11, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Adamstom.97: I stand by my responses. If you want civility, then stop attacking me
 * And if you really really really think that the way to handle bogus allegations of vandalism is to attack the person who objects to them, then you are conducting yourself like a very nasty bully.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:09, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * PS Here is the comment where Adamstom.97 falsely claimed that those of us supporting the bot's current configuration had offered no reason for doing so: . Not true: Adamstom.97 is of course free to disagree with the reasons offered, but the claim that no reason was offered is clearly false.  This misrepresentation of other editors is a means of poisoning discussion, and of impeding development of consensus.
 * The values which Adamstom.97 has repeatedly displayed here are classic bullying: fine to make demonstrably false allegations against others or to make implausible claims of experience ... but when the falsehoods are challenged, claim that the objections are "bullying" and "incivility". That is textbook bullying.
 * That bogus claim of vandalism is serious, because it is a claim that the bot's owner is acting in bad faith. WP:AGF is a core policy, and Darkwarriorblake has trampled on it ... and Adamstom.97 defends that malicious attack.
 * For nearly year, I have watched @AManWithNoPlan work very hard and very conscientiously to keep this bot working to improve citations, and to ensure that it works within consensus. So I am disgusted by the vile allegation that AManWithNoPlan has acted in bad faith, and appalled that Adamstom.97 not only refuses to denounce that vicious allegation, but labels me as a bully for objecting to it.  Nasty, nasty, nasty conduct.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:30, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I think everybody needs to take a chill pill and get back on topic. I see there's a 50/50 split on whether online magazines are magazines, but I think we can all agree that online magazines are also websites, no? In that case, by logic it is not wrong to use Cite web because that template is meant for websites. So the question is, if both Cite web and Cite magazine are correct, why should Citation Bot force articles to use one over the other? That is, unless an editor wants to argue for the position that online magazines are not websites, which would be a pretty bizzare cliaim. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:35, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Speaking from a strict metadata perspective, using Cite web for online newspapers or magazines is incorrect. As Trappist pointed out at 17:42, 8 May 2022 (UTC) and 17:17, 10 May 2022 (UTC), when consumed by reference management software, the metadata omitted by Cite web and Cite magazine or Cite news is sufficiently different.
 * I have to agree with what BHG, AManWithNoPlan, Trappist, et al. are saying here. It is misuse of Cite web to use it for a magazine. Citation Bot is making the correct correction when converting Cite web citations for EW, Rolling Stone, etc. to Cite magazine. I'm fairly certain I've seen Citation bot make the same correction for whenever I (mistakes can happen) or any other editor uses a Cite web for an article in an online newspaper like The Times, The Guardian, The I, etc. Furthermore, I believe that the documentation for Cite web makes this clear. The only circumstance you should use it, is when you're citing something that isn't better provided for in any of the other Cite template variants. Cite web is explicitly a fall back, to be used when none of the other templates apply.
 * but I think we can all agree that online magazines are also websites, no? I disagree on a technicality. Online magazines aren't also websites. They have websites, where often the publish the same content as their print editions assuming they haven't gone digital only. This distinction between being a website and having a website, is similar to how I would describe content that you would ordinarily cite with Cite conference or Cite journal. For example, I could cite this paper using Cite web, as I'm citing something that has its content available in full on Cell's website. However that would be in error. What I'm actually citing is a research paper, released in an open access format, from the journal Neuron. The website is where I can access it, but the underlying publication is a research journal. The journal isn't also a website, the journal has a website. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:09, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * So you're telling me that entertainmentweekly.com is not a website?? I'm fairly certain Wikipedia is both an encyclopedia and a website. As for your research paper example, I don't oppose using Cite magazine for articles extracted from print magazines, but right now we're talking about articles (such as this one) that do not appear anywhere on a print magazine. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:25, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I think you missed the important distinction in my reply. | entertainmentweekly.com is the website of a magazine. | en.wikipedia.org is the website of the English language edition of the encyclopedia Wikipedia. Neither are examples are stand-alone websites. They are websites belonging to a specific publication. The specific article you linked, while it only appears on Entertainment Weekly's website, it is nonetheless still fundamentally published as part of the magazine Entertainment Weekly.
 * Many previously print-only publications are moving solely to digital publishing. However they do not stop being a newspaper or magazine when they do so. Many previously print-only publish exclusive content on their websites in a hybrid format. In both cases however, the content is still considered as being published in a newspaper or magazine, even if it can only be accessed exclusively through the website belonging to the publication.
 * However the content is still considered as being published in a newspaper or magazine, even if the format is digital only. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:42, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Does Cite web prohibit websites that are not ? I think not. And I wasn't saying that online magazines are not magazines. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:49, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The top of the documentation for Cite web says This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for web sources that are not characterized by another CS1 template. The short description for it in the infobox says web sources not covered by the above. As the specific examples that have been mentioned here, like the Entertainment Weekly article linked in your last reply, are magazines regardless of whether they are in print only, print and online, or online only formats. So yes I believe that Cite web prohibits use in this manner, and the bot is merely correcting editorial error when it makes these changes. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:00, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll give you that. But since editors can't come to an agreement on whether online magazines are magazines, whether those sources is disputed. A bot should not be taking sides on a disputed matter, so it should not be forcing all articles to use Cite magazine. Period. InfiniteNexus (talk) 02:26, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * that reasoning would hold if there was consensus that the website for a magazine is the same thing as an online magazine, but that is not the case as has been pointed out numerous times throughout this discussion. Myself and others have provided proof that an online magazine is a separate thing from a magazine's website, and the only response we have received is that certain editors don't like that idea. No proof has been provided to support the idea that an article on a magazine's website is inherently an online magazine article. - adamstom97 (talk) 02:52, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @InfiniteNexus: as explained several times already, the reason to use cite magazine instead of cite web is that:
 * cite magazine displays in exactly the same way as cite web when supplied with the same parameters
 * cite magazine allows the use of additional parameters not available to cite web.
 * So there is precisely zero advantage to using cite web for those article which claim are not magazine. And because cite magazine is needed for some cases, there is no downside to using cite magazine in all cases.
 * I thank you for not following from the attack-smear-and-bully bully tactics of Adamstom.97 and Darkwarriorblake. However, I set out some of the points above briefly in a pinged reply to you on 7 May,. That was three weeks ago.
 * After three weeks, it's long past time for all of you to drop this.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:10, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Even if Cite magazine is more advantageous than Cite web, like I said it is technically not incorrect to use Cite web. So since there are editors who don't support using of Cite magazine, I don't think it's appropriate to force everyone to do so. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:25, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, worry not, I saw your pinged reply to me three weeks ago, in fact I even replied to it above. But right now I'm not asking the benefits of using Cite magazine instead of Cite web, I'm asking why editors should be forced to use Cite magazine if Cite web is also a correct option. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:31, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * "we should use cite magazine because it looks just like cite web, even if it isn't correct" is not a good enough reason to force this change. If the bot cannot be 100% certain that the source is actually an online magazine then it should not be making the change. It is as simple as that. - adamstom97 (talk) 00:29, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @InfiniteNexus, it is not as simple as that. And no, Cite web} is not a correct option.
 * The reasons why it is not as simple as that and why Cite web} is not a correct option have been explained to you many times, but you don't seem to be hearing any of it. It is tedious to find a repeated refusal to acknowledge those explanations.
 * Nobody is trying to force any editors to do anything. All that is happening is that the bot is doing what it does all the time, on thousands of pages per day: improving citation templates. The bot demands nothing of any editor, and the allegation that it forces anyone to do anything is just another of the hyperbolic falsehoods which have been a characteristic of so many of the objections.
 * A small group of editors is refusing to accept the many explanations offered in this tread, by some of Wikipedia's most experience editors in the use of citation templates. These WP:IDONTLIKEIT objections are no reason to change the bot.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 04:02, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That was Adamstom who said as simple as that, not me. Anyway, the bot is forcing editors to comply with the use of Cite magazine, because otherwise we would have to revert the bot for eternity or block it outright. Are you suggesting that as an alternate solution? InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:07, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Break
Holy jeez is this thing still going on. I'll transclude the CS1 documentation here. Note in particular: cite web: [for] web sources not covered by the above. Covered by the above is cite magazine. EW is a magazine, so use cite magazine (and again, online magazines are magazines). End of story. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:18, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * No, you don't get to decide to just end the discussion because you don't like what half of the participants are saying. There is no consensus that web articles associated to magazines are the same thing as online magazines and the fact that you lot have still, nearly a full month later, failed to provide any proof that these two things are the same suggests that there is none. - adamstom97 (talk) 04:26, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The bot is editing in line with the CS1 documentation and inline with common sense. You're the one claiming that a blue car isn't a car because it's blue. Online magazines are magazines. So they are covered by cite magazine. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:14, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Half-a-dozen noisy (and sometimes nasty) editors don't get to redefine the purpose of the cite templates just because they refuse to read long-standing documentation and refuse to understand the distinctions.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 14:17, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * As neither position in this disagreement seems able to convince the other of the strengths of their respective position, and consensus does seem to be evenly split between the two positions, do we need an RfC to settle this?
 * If so, then can we at least come to an agreement on what the question for it will be? And where would be the most suitable venue for such a discussion? Here? Village Pump technical? Somewhere else? Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:09, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * You two said it yourselves, half-a-dozen editors believe the use of Cite magazine is incorrect, which means there is no consensus on which template to use. Thus far, still no one has provided a reason why Citation Bot should be taking sides and enforcing the preferred template of only half the editors here when consensus is evenly split between the two positions. Again, since there is a dispute, the bot should leave it up to editors of individual articles on deciding whether to use Cite web or Cite magazine. So please get rid of this function. InfiniteNexus (talk) 16:23, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * And Sideswipe9th, to answer can we at least come to an agreement on what the question for [an RfC] will be?, it's simple: If someone in this thread thinks the answer is "yes", then there's a problem, because we're not using common sense here. InfiniteNexus (talk) 16:31, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's the right question, or perhaps not the whole question. At least some of the disagreement here is over whether or not content that is exclusively published on a magazine's website, like the EW article you linked yesterday, is considered to be published as part of the magazine. And I think that's what our question, or one of our questions should focus upon. We need to establish what the consensus is surrounding that type of content. As otherwise the RfC you've suggested is focused upon blocking a specific action of Citation Bot with no follow up to unblocking that action at a future date.
 * Also I would be very cautious against basing an argument on common sense. Common sense is exclusively subjective, and not in any way an objective measure. As the article on it suggests, it is coloured by many different aspects of your individual perceptions and world view, and a definition of it has illuded philosophers for centuries. It should be quite clear by now that what I believe to be the common sense way for the bot to handle this type of content is entirely at odds with what you believe to be the common sense way. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:06, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I could be wrong here, but based on the results of this discussion, I suspect an RfC will just yield an equally divided response. If no consensus indeed emerges from a hypothetical RfC, would you (and the maintainers of this bot) support removing this function? InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:03, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * This is definitely far too small a number of editors to extrapolate a broader consensus from. I think however that understanding of, to paraphrase, no consensus means the bot stops doing these edits, can be either inherent to the question we ask or explicitly stated as one of the outcomes. So if we ask the right question, then yes I would support disabling this feature at least for this particular subset. There are of course non-controversial uses of the same function; converting an erroneous Cite web to Cite journal for example. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:40, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see, the proposed question is thoroughly loaded: I agree with Swipe that it presumes a small group of noisy editors on this page are the basis of determining a consensus.
 * If there is to be an RFC, the it needs to address the substantive issue: which pages on EW's website should be treated as part of a magazine?  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:22, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * not trying to start another squabble with you, but I would advise not using the word "noisy" to describe editors who are simply trying to express their opinions. Doing so makes it seem like you're degrading us and unwilling to hear what others have to say. InfiniteNexus (talk) 01:53, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @InfiniteNexus: I used that word because it was milder than the phrase "aggressive and abusive" which first came to mind in respect of two of the six. If you prefer, I can edit the post to use that longer phrase.
 * I think that "noisy" is a fair and quite mild (probably excessively mild) term to describe the conduct of the group as a whole, many of whom have behaved very disruptively, by posting repeatedly whilst showing no evidence of effort to grasp the explanations offered to them.
 * You have mostly been quite civil, but overall the arrival of this six has been a very unpleasant experience. Most editors who post on this page are highly experienced and knowledgeable.  That has not been the case with these six, who have generated more heat than light.  I note that even after one of the six outrageously accused the bot of vandalism (a v serious allegation), none of the other five reproached them, and one of the six even accused me of being a bully for objecting to the smear.  So the reality is that you have degraded yourselves.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 02:08, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to comment on other editors' behavior above, but #3, 4, and 6 of state that editors should respond to incivil statements calmly, specifically warning editors against snapping back. Sure, it was a fair request to ask Darkwarriorblake to retract their claim about vandalism. But did you really need to add a snarky statement at the end?  Sure, you were understandably upset when Adamstom.97 called you a bully. But then you did the exact same thing and called him a nasty bully. And you could have easily made your point about Indagate without having to comb through their edit history and presenting actual statistics to support your claim. Again, this is neither an endorsement or condemnation of the aforementioned editors' actions, but I would think a self-proclaimed  editor like you (and a former admin too, I see) could have handled the situation better. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:20, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, ? Mostly? Kindly point out when and where I have ever been incivil during this discussion, because I choose my words carefully. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:24, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Sigh. InfiniteNexus explicitly refuses to condemn Darkwarriorblake's bogus accusation of vandalism, but instead picks up the game of attacking for alleged imperfections in my response to the smear.
 * Whether deliberately or otherwise, InfiniteNexus is playing a partisan game: do nothing at all to disparage or denounce the blatant abuse by those on whose support he relies ... but instead join the tag-team attacks on me for challenging the abuse.
 * That is civil conduct only insofar as it refrains from using rude words. But in its substance, it's gang logic : a nastily partisan form of conduct in which a polite veneer is used to poison the atmosphere by partisan application of standards.
 * Also, in the last few day, my en.wp user account has been subject to a failed hacking attempt. That is the 4th such failed-hack saga in the last few years, either to my en.wp user account and/or my wp-only email account.  Each of those occasions has coincided with a discussion in which aggressively partisan editors are slinging muck, as the outriders to other editors who are formally polite but whose conduct is calibrated to not offend the wild ones.  Coincidence?  Hmm.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 05:56, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * As I've said, I will remain neutral regarding Darkwarrior, Adamstom, and Indagate's comments. Why must I pick a side? I was not trying to attack you above, rather I was giving constructive criticism in the hope you would see the error of your ways. Clearly that didn't go down so well. I also don't understand why you say I when I clearly said that your request for Darkwarrior to retract his vandalism claim was . I have been trying to assume good faith with you, but your latest comment indicates to me that you are not doing the same. I'm not sure what you were trying to suggest in that last paragraph, but if you're implying that I may have something to do with said hacking attempt, I vehemently deny such a baseless (or should I say, bogus) allegation. InfiniteNexus (talk) 16:31, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @InfiniteNexus: you chose to remain neutral about the editor who made a bogus allegation of allegation, and repeated it when challenged. Even now you don't actually directly reject that, and instead you insist of remaining "neutral" about a bogus allegation of vandalism.
 * Why the neutrality?
 * But you chose to attack me, repeatedly, for objecting to that. And you also chose to attack me for actually providing the evidence to support a critique I made of Indagate's claims ... as if an unevidenced assertion is somehow better.
 * So, no, I do not believe that you are acting in good faith.
 * And note that I did not accuse you of the hacking attempts. I just noted that yet again, hacking attempts coincided with a drama.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 20:37, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Let me get this straight. When you give detailed evidence to prove your point about an editor's perceived inexperience, it's totally acceptable. But when I give detailed evidence to prove my point that you chould have been more calm and civil in your responses, it's an outrageous attack? This is about as hypocritical as you calling Adamstom a bully for calling you a bully.
 * All that being said, this is veering more and more off-topic, so please let us refocus our attention on the actual issue at hand and leave this behind. I could go on forever with this, and I'm sure you could too, but since this is going nowhere we need to get past this. InfiniteNexus (talk) 02:41, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * While the examples were specific to EW and Rolling Stone, the question itself seems as though it's best asked in the broader format. It's late so forgive me if this is too leading, but something like Citation Bot has a feature that automatically converts Cite web citations to Cite news and Cite magazine. For the purposes of this feature, are articles that are published exclusively on the websites of hybrid-print/digital publications considered to be published in a newspaper or magazine? We can then include a couple of examples, ideally from edits that the bot has made that have either been implicitly accepted or rejected by editors at the article level which I'm sure editors here should be able to provide, and presented like of Should Citation Bot transform to A) or B) leave it as is. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:08, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, Sideswipe, I would be fine with this phrasing, unless someone objects to it. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:22, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The answer to the question is, in my opinion, simple.
 * Is the rolling stone a magazine? Then use cite magazine.
 * Is the rolling stone not a magazine? Then don't use cite magazine.
 * Is Entertainment Weekly a magazine? Then use cite magazine.
 * Is Entertainment Weekly not a magazine? Then don't use cite magazine.
 * As for cite web, the documentation literally says This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for web sources that are not characterized by another CS1 template. The bot is just working with what was put there, if you think it should change then that's a bigger question that could warrant an RFC.
 * Again i am looking at this at a purely neutral standpoint: I have not taken a side as of yet. Rlink2 (talk) 13:07, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I wish it were as simple as that, but right now editors are not divided over whether Rolling Stone and EW are magazines. Consensus is split over the question of whether the websites owned by Rolling Stones and EW are considered magazines even though the web articles do not appear in the print magazines. InfiniteNexus (talk) 16:37, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to point out as well, that though some editors are saying "online magazines = magazine", as far as I can tell, no where in the documentation of either Cite magazine or Cite web is this defined. All Cite magazine says on the matter for anything online is two instances of how to cite an online magazine article that has been archived. And the opening of that documentation states: This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for articles in magazines and newsletters. No where to me does that indicate that publications that create content in print (or in an explicit online publication or online version of an in print publication) as well as separate articles appearing on their website (of which EW and Rolling Stone both do or did), that Cite magazine is the proper citation template for both. To me, the first example of material in a print or online magazine (one that has a table of contents, individual pages, etc.) would use Cite magazine, and any article that is completely separate from what is in "print" appearing on their website, should use Cite web (or I guess Cite new too). - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:51, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure that most users believe that "cite news" refers to any news media source, not just newspapers. Therefore the notion that this debate that cite news needs to work out some sort of rule between print and non-print sources is misguided. Abductive  (reasoning) 00:29, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * There's a reason why  (can't figure out a way to directly link here due to technical reasons) exists. Because it's saying that both templates are correct!, it says, which implies that this is no longer the case and editors are now free to choose between the two templates at their discretion. The only two differences between Cite web and Cite news, according to the documentation, do not apply to online newspaper articles. InfiniteNexus (talk) 02:57, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

RfC Sample Question workshop
RfC Question: Citation Bot has a feature that automatically converts Cite web citations to Cite news and Cite magazine. For the purposes of this feature, are articles that are published exclusively on the websites of hybrid-print/digital publications considered to be published in a newspaper or magazine?

RfC Examples: For example, what should Citation Bot do to the following Cite web citations:
 * A) Change it to
 * B) Leave it as is.
 * B) Leave it as is.


 * A) Change it to
 * B) Leave it as is.
 * B) Leave it as is.


 * A) Change it to
 * B) Leave it as is.
 * B) Leave it as is.


 * A) Change it to {{tq| {{Cite news |last=Siddiqui |first=Faiz |date=April 26, 2022 |title=Tesla's value dropped Tuesday by more than double the cost of Twitter |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/26/elon-musk-tesla-twitter-stock/ |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220427050151/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/26/elon-musk-tesla-twitter-stock/ |archive-date=April 27, 2022 |access-date=April 26, 2022 |newspaper=The Washington Post} }}
 * B) Leave it as is.
 * B) Leave it as is.

Alrighty, making this a bit more structured. InfiniteNexus and others, you've said that there are a number of edits that the bot has made that you've reverted. Could you please provide diffs to a selection of those edits, so that we can provide some actual examples of this in action? Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:44, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The EW article above is the first citation in the diff provided by Adamstom in his initial report, so that is an actual example. More examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:08, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Perfect! I'll get those into the example list now. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:48, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I think if we can limit this to one or two examples for Cite magazine and one or two for Cite news we can convey the locus of the dispute, without bombarding everyone else with technical details. Are there any Cite news examples we can use for this, cause it seems like that too would be a source that would be getting changed in this manner? Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:53, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes. Here's one that I partially reverted a few weeks ago. Basically it converted everything from The Washington Post (which again, do not appear on the actual print newspaper) to Cite news. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:04, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Perfect. I've copied two examples from that diff. Thanks! Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:20, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * While I think including example edits the bot could make are important for editors who may be unfamiliar with what Citation Bot is doing, I'm not happy with the format I've used to present this. Can anyone think of a better way to present these examples? Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:44, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The only one calling for an RFC as of this moment is Sideswipe, if everyone thinks an RFC is good then RFC it is. But we shouldn't start an RFC because one person thinks so. I would first make sure there is consensus for an RFC before drafting the RFC question. I think Sideswipes intentions to cool tensions is good, but at the same time an RFC can make them even larger so we have to be careful.. Rlink2 (talk) 17:35, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Think RfC is probably best way to get a consensus, current discussion is lengthy and doesn't seem to be reaching a conclusion Indagate (talk) 17:45, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey, I tried convincing the editors in charge to block the bot from making these changes since no consensus has emerged from this discussion, but they refused to do so. If we can avoid an RfC I'm all for that, but I'm growing increasingly frustrated at one or two editors' refusal to honor the fact there is no consensus for the bot to make these changes. InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:46, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That is true! I'd like to note that I'm mooting the idea of an RfC not only because of the tensions here, but also because it seems as though discussion is by and large unable to reach a conclusion. Without additional eyes on this discussion, we're likely to remain at the current deadlock between those who are in favour of the bots edits, and those who are opposed to them as neither position seems able to convince the other. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:47, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * There have been quite a few comments since I last looked so just adding my general comments down here. The RfC question we should be asking is The main reason I think we should not is because I learned at the start of this issue (and provided evidence about this above) that an online magazine is actually a separate thing from a magazine's website, so the assumption being made by the editors who think we should treat magazine websites as online magazines is incorrect. For example, Entertainment Weekly recently covered the new series Obi-Wan Kenobi for their final print magazine. They put a version of the cover story on their website, here, as well as in the physical magazine and the digital version of the magazine (which is a digital document, like a pdf, that is formatted just like a magazine with a cover and pages, etc., and available through digital magazine subscription services separate from ew.com). They also released supplemental interviews for the series on their website, such as this one, which do not appear in their physical or digital magazines at all. So to me I think it is clear that the physical/digital magazine and the website are separate things and we should not be automatically treating them the same. The only argument that has been given in response to this is that other editors don't agree, but I have seen no evidence to support why the website and digital magazine should be treated like the same thing. I'm not sure if an RfC is the best way to handle this situation, but surely anything is better than the toxic mess that this discussion has become. Newspapers is a lot less clear of an issue to me because I have never seen a "digital newspaper" that is literally a digital version of a newspaper, in my experience newspapers with websites do just stick news articles on the website. I'm guessing that journals are likely closer to magazines though. - adamstom97 (talk) 02:32, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * There are, in fact, PDF-style "digital newspapers" out there, for example here is The Washington Post. Not all articles published online appear in the print version (due to space and cost issues), and I even found an article talking about this. Since there is no way for the bot (or anyone, unless you're actively subscribed to every newspaper out there) to determine whether an article that appears online also appears in the print/digital version, in my opinion Citation Bot should not be changing Cite web to Cite news either. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:12, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I appreciate both of your perspectives on how you'll answer the question, but can we save that for the RfC if we decide to have one? I'd rather keep us focused on what we can agree on here, eg what question to ask, rather than rehashing discussions that we've already done to death. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:15, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm OK with the current wording or Adamstom's version. What's the hold up the RfC? Are you just waiting for more users to chime in? InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:24, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * RFC it is then.
 * I think that the question should be about cite web -> cite magazine in general and not just citation bot. Since i think this issue is larger than citation bot. Other than that it looks good. Rlink2 (talk) 11:45, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm curious if the RfC needs to start more general to gauge editor's inclinations on using citation templates to gather that consensus (which may be what is being considered). I'm thinking asking what citation template would an editor use in three examples: 1) an EW article only online; 2) an EW article only published in its magazine; and 3) an EW article published both in its magazine and online. A large portion of this discussion was between editors who felt print magazine that also publish online are not "online magazines" while others think they are. Seeing the response to these three scenarios might prove helpful and insightful where the community's consensus is at. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:28, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That could be a good way to frame it, as you're both right that this doesn't just cover whether or not the edits by Citation Bot are acceptable, but how the community in general cites articles like this in absence of the bot. We do at some stage need to link it back to the various cite templates, as well as Citation Bot though. Is there a good format for multi-question RfCs?
 * If we were to go with the more generalised question per Adamstom's wording, how would we present the examples? Would something like "Here's an article in EW that only appears on their website. If you were using CS1/2 templates, would you A) use Cite web B) use Cite magazine" be the way to do that? Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:53, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I think even more general than that: "What CS1/2 template or templates would you use in the following examples?" - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:17, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * We're still somewhat hashing out the format, what question to ask and how to present the examples supporting it.
 * The other important question that we need to decide is where to hold the RfC. Do we do it on this talk page? Village pump (technical)? Help:CS1? Or somewhere else? If we're holding it here, where do we want to list it anywhere? Or notify any particularly relevant WikiProjects? Sideswipe9th (talk) 15:56, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sideswipe9th We can do it here, then announce on the feedback request service, notify relevant Wikiprojects, and village pump about the discussion. That's what I've seen being done from other RFCs. Rlink2 (talk) 17:01, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * sounds good! Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:02, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I think location depends on the question, as I brought up above. If it's specifically about the edits by the bot, then here. If it's about generally when citation template are used in certain instances, to then inform how this bot is functioning to editor's current practices/consensus, this isn't the right spot. WT:CS1 likely would be. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:17, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that somewhere more general would make sense, and once there is consensus we can come back here and make sure the bot aligns with it. If we were to use Favre's wording (an EW article only online; an EW article only published in its magazine; and an EW article published both in its magazine and online) we would just need to make it clear that when we say "online" we are referring to EW's website and not the digital version of their magazine which is also online. - adamstom97 (talk) 22:31, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Following-up on this, here is a suggestion of what the question could be based on Favre's wording: What do we think of that? - adamstom97 (talk) 23:18, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately per WP:RFCBRIEF that is far too long a question. The question needs to be short and neutral, ideally no more than a sentence or two. We also don't need to explain the background of the dispute within the question, because that can be implied from the question itself if well written, and is by and large not relevant to most editors who may opine on it.
 * I also don't like restricting this to just Cite web -> Cite magazine transformations, as we have examples where Cite news were also disputed. There's also two reports below this section for a similar transformation involving Cite book that seems on some level to be related. Ideally our example list should reflect this, and we too can keep that brief by including one example for each transformation.
 * If we're going for a more generalised RfC on how to handle this content type in general, then I think some variation of your earlier question Should articles on a website associated with a magazine, newspaper, or journal always be treated as if they are an article in that publication?, with the exact text of magazine, newspaper, or journal reflecting the examples we chose, or the proposal by Favre1fan93 What CS1/2 template or templates would you use in the following examples? better fits both brevity and neutrality. Of those two, I prefer your earlier wording as it more accurately reflects the locus of this dispute. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:58, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I am just concerned that there is a lot of necessary context that can't be implied with such a simple question. If we don't make the digital magazine vs. website part clear then we are just going to be back where we started with this discussion, with editors claiming that "online magazines = magazines" and not addressing the actual issue. If we were to remove the specific example, we could have something like this: That is just two sentences plus our three short scenarios, so it isn't too long. - adamstom97 (talk) 00:11, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * While I understand the point you're making, to do that would inherently make the question non-neutral. Remember that part of this disagreement also covers whether there is a distinction between the website of a publication, and what you're referring to as the digital magazine. For some editors like myself, there is no such distinction. The locus of the dispute is in how we fully define what is covered under a specialisation template like Cite magazine versus the much more generalised Cite web. However the question as you've phrased it pre-supposes that everyone will agree that there is a distinction between a publication's website, the print edition, and what you're referring to as the digital edition, whereas we already know that is not an agreed upon thing.
 * I think arguments on this distinction are best served within the discussion/survey section. They are not something that we can pre-suppose in the question itself. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:37, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It's not non-neutral to make it clear what we are arguing about, but it is non-neutral to word the question in such a way that everyone will agree with you. The whole point of this discussion is that digital magazines and websites are two separate things but some editors want to treat them the same way. If that is not somehow made clear in the RfC then we will not be making any progress and might as well not have the RfC at all. - adamstom97 (talk) 01:47, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The whole point of this discussion is that digital magazines and websites are two separate things but some editors want to treat them the same way. No. This is what we cannot find consensus on. Half of the editors present believe the publication's website is separate from the editions of the publication, print or digital. The other half believe all are the same thing. Accordingly we have no consensus on whether these are separate things or the same thing. That is what we need to ask in our question, and that is why I believe a variation on your original proposed question Should articles on a website associated with a magazine, newspaper, or journal always be treated as if they are an article in that publication? better fits both the brevity and neutrality concerns.
 * It better fits brevity because, well it's shorter. If reworded slightly, it will better fit neutrality because it does not presuppose for either side whether or not there is a distinction between a publication and its website. Arguments on whether or not there is a distinction are best served in the survey/discussion section of an RfC, because that is where arguments are put forward to support an answer to the question. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:00, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * In an RFC, put as much background information as possible, but don't reword it (or else you run into neutrality issues). Do not omit this discussion or any previous discussions, any voters should be clear that we had this discussion. Rlink2 (talk) 02:02, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Exactly, by removing all of the background information and not even including the actual issue (digital magazines vs. websites) in the wording you are making it very unclear what we have discussed and what the issue is. That wording is brief, yes, but it also makes it sound like "are digital magazines the same as physical magazines" when the question we actually want to ask is "are digital magazines the same as websites". - adamstom97 (talk) 02:05, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

The initial question for the RFC still needs to be brief, much like the one I proposed earlier today. And then give examples, and a "Background" section as Rlink2 said to cover all the information editors would need on the matter. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 02:14, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Let me rephrase, because I think I've accidentally left things unsaid. Per WP:RFCBRIEF the question must be short and neutrally worded. Ideally this is in the form of one or two sentences. In part this is because of a technical limitation with Legobot and how it transcludes the question to the the various list pages for notification.
 * However what I've failed to convey, because I've been focusing entirely upon the question and hadn't even realised until now, is that we can include the background behind the dispute, but we must do so separately from the question. There are a number of sample RfC formats provided at Requests for comment/Example formatting, and I think a variation on the Pro and con sample may suit us best here, as it would allow us to convey both sides of the background side by side. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:23, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, Should articles on a website associated with a magazine, newspaper, or journal always be treated as if they are an article in that publication? is not succinct enough. We should be more direct and specifically mention the different CS1/2 templates, i.e. something like For magazine, newspaper, and journal articles that are published exclusively on their associated websites, should Cite web be used in lieu of Cite magazine, Cite news, and Cite journal?. We can then give additional background info and examples below. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:48, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Apologies for getting a little heated there, that all makes sense to me. , I think "For magazine, newspaper, and journal articles that are published exclusively on their associated websites" is a bit leading, it suggests that we have already decided that they are magazine, newspaper, or journal articles. We should mention in the background section that this discussion is specifically about the cite templates so I don't think we need to worry about that being missed. - adamstom97 (talk) 04:22, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe it's just me, but I thought the proposed wording was a little confusing/ambiguous because I myself had to re-read it a couple times before I fully understood it. How about If an article is published on a website associated with a magazine, newspaper, or journal, but does not appear on the print edition of the publication, should Cite web be used in lieu of Cite magazine, Cite news, and Cite journal? InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:34, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * How on earth is any editor who encounters a ref to a URL on e.g. theguardian.com or irishtimes.com supposed to identify whether the article also appeared in the print edition?
 * Unless that unless this question can plausibly be answered, then an RFC based on such identification is in effect a wrecking amendment which would make those templates unusable.
 * And note that this wording would also bar use of Cite magazine on those EW articles which the objectors claim are part of the online magazine.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 12:03, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * As stated repeatedly above, Cite magazine and Cite news should only be used for print articles. So yes, you're right that this would make them unusable online. But they won't be unusable for print articles. InfiniteNexus (talk) 14:40, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @InfiniteNexusThanks for clarifying your intent. But as printed newspaper sales plummet, most major newspapers are now giving the digital platform at least as high a priority.  I can't think of any newspapers which maintain a rigid separation between online and offline content: can you identify any?
 * So what is the actual purpose of applying this distinction between print and web, when the papers themselves don't follow it?  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:41, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * As long as print newspapers exist (which they will for at least a decade longer), I don't see this as an issue. When print newspapers do actually die out 20 years later, then we'll talk. But contrary to what you may believe, print newspapers (and their digital PDF-style replicas) continue to be published separately from the web articles. There is still a distinction.
 * Also, as a side note, you can stop pinging me in every message as I am watching this page. InfiniteNexus (talk) 16:32, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I realise I'm breaking with my intention to keep discussion here focused on the RfC question and format. However what you've said about cite news is definitely not common practice. Common practice, at least insofar as the articles I am familiar with, with cite news is to use it for any news organisation. This includes hybrid print/digital publications like The Times or The Guardian, online only publications like HuffPost or The Independent, as well as TV broadcasters like BBC and CNN.
 * However I do recognise that this also seems to be an important part of the dispute here, and so should be reflected in the question, examples, and any other supporting materials for an RfC if we do go ahead with one. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:48, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I beg to differ. If Cite news should be used for all news organizations, then 90% of all citations on articles ought to be using that template. This is not the case on any of the articles I usually edit. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:01, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I think that question is maybe still a bit leading. What about If an article is published on a website associated with a magazine, newspaper, or journal, but does not appear on the print edition of the publication, should you use Cite web or one of Cite magazine, Cite news, and Cite journal? This is closer to the actual dispute, which seems to be over what template should you use, and not is cite web a suitable alternative to the specialised templates.
 * We could then break down the arguments for and against the more specialised cite templates similar to the pro and con sample I linked earlier, and include examples of what the wikisource for each citation would look like. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:15, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Why do we need an RFC?
In the section above, huge amounts of work are being put into drafting an RFC. If there is an RFC, lots more editor time will be put into the responses, and then into weighing a close. But why? What is the problem to be resolved?

Some editors disagree with some instances of the conversion of cite web to cite magazine or cite news. They make a distinction between the publication and its website. I don't share that view, and think that any distinction is pointless ... but clearly, some want to maintain a distinction.

But after all this debate, I don't see why they want to maintain a distinction, and why they object to cite magazine being used in e.g. some articles on the EW website. Sorry if I have missed some statement of this, but it would help to have a clear answer to the question: What is the harm done by these conversions?

For example, does the change cause an unwanted alteration in the display of the citation? Do the objectors dislike the five extra character used by "cite magazine"? Or is this just about the name of the template? Or is it something else?

Pinging @InfiniteNexus, who is one of the objectors. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 20:27, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Because if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Because it is a wholly unnecessary change. Because it disregards a long-standing convention on many articles. Because it breaks consistency with the rest of the article which uses Cite web templates. Because Cite magazine is not intended for non-magazine articles. Because this change was made without consensus in the first place. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:04, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @InfiniteNexus: that doesn't try answer my question: What is the harm done by these conversions?.
 * Noting in that response identifies anyway in which the change damages the reference.
 * Your points are unpersuasive:
 * unnecessary change: The bot always converts cite web to a more specific template if one is available. That is a significant part of its work.
 * disregards a long-standing convention on many articles: any convention on which template to use should not be set at article level. A WP:LOCALCON on each page or on each web domain is a recipe for madness when trying to maintain the citations on over 6 million articles -- these matters need to be decided centrally.
 * breaks consistency with the rest of the article which uses Cite web templates: most articles use a variety of citation templates, for different types of source. Unless you are asserting that these articles must use Cite web for all refs to all sources, then there is no consistency to break ... and when the bot processes a page it makes the needed conversions to all refs.
 * Cite magazine is not intended for non-magazine articles: that does not address the question of what harm is done to the citation.
 * this change was made without consensus: not so. Converting cite templates to a more specific type is long-established practice.
 * As far as I can see, this is all about the name of the template cite magazine. It seems that these sensitivities over nomenclature could be resolved by creating a redirect to cite magazine called something like cite article in a magazine or on the magazine's eponymous website, and using that redirect for EW.com and rollingstone.com.
 * Unless someone can identify actual harm being done, then this whole drama looks like an attempt to resolve a non-problem, i,e. a complete waste of lots of the tie of lots of people.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 11:54, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Well I'm sorry if you didn't find my reasons compelling, but those are my reasons for opposing the bot's changes. I'm not sure why you only pinged me specifically when I am not the only objector, so pinging for their take on BHG's question. InfiniteNexus (talk) 14:42, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * BHG, you can comment and call IN's points unpersuasive once the RfC is running. They don't need your approval to start the RfC and this sub-section of yours is very condescending. Gonnym (talk) 17:08, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @Gonnym: of course, no approval is needed to start an RFC.
 * But an RFC does consume a lot of the time of other editors, so it is perfectly reasonable for anyone to challenge the idea that a proposed RFC is a good use of editorial energies.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:03, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * But why? What is the problem to be resolved? While my answer as to which template is the appropriate one to use is the same as yours BHG, I can answer why I think an RfC is a good idea here.
 * We have here a dispute, between editors who are opposed to cite web being transformed into a more specialised cite magazine or cite news, and those who are in favour of it. The discussion has been lengthy, and I completely agree it has been uncivil at times. Of the editors who have contributed recently, 50% are in favour of the bot making the transformation and 50% are opposed. Those who are in favour seem unable to convince those who are opposed, and vice versa. The underlying issue however seems to be spilling over into main space. Adamstom.97 linked a discussion on 21 May where the members of at least one WikiProject taskforce are considering banning Citation Bot from all pages under the scope of that task force, over this feature, even though it will block the other features that CB performs that they do find acceptable. I say at least one, as I've not done a search to find out if there are similar discussions on other WikiProjects or taskforces.
 * That is an issue that needs to be resolved, and it's clear that we seem unable to do so here with the editors present. So what is the next step? CONTENTDISPUTE has a few options, and we're out of scope for many. There doesn't appear to be an appropriate noticeboard or WikiProject for this type of issue, we have too many editors for a 3O, and I'm not sure DRN would be able to handle a discussion like this. So that pretty much leaves an RfC as the only option to resolve the dispute. As Rlink2 said on 29 May my intention here is to cool tensions, and resolve a dispute that seems to be spilling over or about to spill over into the article space. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:38, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sideswipe9th: yes, I get all that. The lack of resolution does propel us to an RFC, and I thank you for your hard work in trying to refine the question.
 * However, the persistence of the objectors does not alter that fact that they have failed to identify any actual problem that they seek to fix. That is why I wanted to try to nail down that down before the RFC ... but so far, without success.
 * Unless that changes, we are going to have a big RFC about a non-problem, where the goal sought by the 6 objectors will be to effectively ban the use of cite news in the vast majority of cases because some editors make a distinction between newspapers in different media (print, web, app, PDF) which has long since been abandoned by the newspapers themselves. InfiniteNexus has explicitly stated that that is their goal.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:18, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The issue in my eyes, which I've felt I've been trying to convey, is there is no statement as far as I can find in official citation documentation that says "online magazines = magazines". Thus, if an editor is explicitly choosing to add reference material with cite web for a site like EW.com, because as far as I was aware that was a fine and correct thing do to, only to have a change to this bot's classification code go through on its runs and adjust to a template which in my view does not support an online source from such publication based on given documentation, and the bot continually is making such changes opposed to "leave if its cite web, fix if it's completely not this or a bare ref etc.", I think that needs to be clarified within the community. Because clearly there had to be some sort of "understanding" or "status quo" for lack of better terms to how editors were approaching this publication until the bot coding change. I never felt there was or was aware of any "issue" or opposition with citing online material from EW, Rolling Stone etc. with cite web until this discussion. So my hope with the RfC would be to clarify where the community stands on, frankly, is an online article from "traditional print" magazines, "a magazine". - Favre1fan93 (talk) 02:39, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Readers don't see the template name, only the formatting it produces, which is largely unchanged. Your answer makes it sound like the only issue is cognitive dissonance caused by your feeling that you had been using the right template name only to have bots come along to correct you. Am I misreading and there's more to it than that? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:01, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @David Eppstein: that is also my view on the objections, i.e. that the objections are to the name of the template. That's why I started this section: to ask if there's more to it than that. And so  far, there isn't more.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 23:01, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Even if (emphasis on if) that is the case, consensus has already formed for an RfC. And don't you both want to get this over with? InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:06, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * So you do not deny that the RfC you want to push forward with is completely pointless? You certainly do not have my consensus to waste our time with pointless RfCs. Maybe you should instead ask for a RfC on a different question: should we switch all citations from Citation Style 1 to Citation Style 2? Because in Citation Style 2, there is only one template citation so there is no reason for getting hurt feelings by having your chosen template name changed. (Hint: You will not get consensus to switch all citation styles.) You could at least start using CS2 on any new articles you create (as I usually do); then the bot won't change the names of your templates when it cleans up your citations. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:02, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't say it was pointless, the reasons for my view are clearly listed above. I can't speak for other editors, but I am not advocating a switch to CS2, nor is this RfC about me getting hurt feelings. There is indeed consensus for an RfC, you and BHG appear to be the only one opposing one, and I must say I'm not swayed by your arguments either. An RfC is neither pointless nor a waste of time; this subsection is. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:39, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Despite the work I've put into drafting it, I would like to point out that I'm still somewhat on the fence about whether or not an RfC is necessary. I would/will likely do a quick go/no-go check prior to opening it, just to assess the consensus for an RfC at that time based on the question being asked and the way it and the supporting material is being presented. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:49, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll restate what I previously wrote. Of course I would be content if this matter is resolved quickly within this thread. But after no consensus emerged in the discussion above on which template should be used, the maintainers of this bot refused to honor this fact and stop the bot from favoring one side's viewpoint, for reasons I am still unsure of. Some editors indicated that they would only be willing to change the bot's behavior following an RfC, so I voiced my support for that if that's what it takes. Not to mention that I and others have been repeatedly assailed and accused of being petty or time-wasting. We are long past debating whether Cite web and Cite magazine are incorrect or not, and I again pose the following question that I have repeated multiple times (but received no response other than "because it's wrong"): why should Citation Bot make these changes if there is no consensus to do so? InfiniteNexus (talk) 02:59, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * No response after four days. Why am I not surprised? Since you folks are unwilling to cooperate with the consensus (or lack thereof), an RfC is the only way out in my eyes. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:48, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I still feel an RfC will be helpful in gathering consensus on how editors approach these sources and which citation templates they use. That in turn will inform the bot's coding. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:59, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @InfiniteNexus: no response because there was nothing new to respond to.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 17:12, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Nothing new? No one has made it clear why the bot should not abide by the lack of consensus, and you still can't answer it. Either honor the results of this discussion and stop the bot from making the contested changes, or start an RfC to gather more opinions. There is no third option. What do you say? InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:19, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It's still just a bunch of angry people making a mountain out of a molehill.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 18:25, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It's still a lack of consensus that the bot needs to honor. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:40, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * A small number of people going on and on about how mad they are about nothing and then arguing that their point of view is unopposed because everyone else has gotten tired about them yelling about nothing and stopped responding is not the same thing as a lack of consensus. It is more accurately described by WP:FILIBUSTER. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:45, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You're mistaken. The lack of consensus is not because you stopped responding, it's because editors are divided 50/50 over this issue. I never argued that our point of view is unopposed, not sure where you got that idea. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:49, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The claim that editors are divided 50/50 over this issue is an absurd sampling error.
 * The bots makes hundreds of such edits every day (maybe thousands of them), but the objections come only from a group of about a dozen editors who worked themselves into a frenzy on some other page.
 * Other editors, who don't frequent either that other page or CBtalk, can be assumed not to object.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:55, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Not a fair assumption, they might not want to get involved in this discussion, not notice the change, not care either way, etc. Hundreds seem like hyperbole for the specific edits in question. Indagate (talk) 10:02, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, it's quite fair to assume that only dissenters will come to complain.
 * The specific sites EW & RS which started this discussion probably account for only a few dozen edits per day.
 * But the draft RFC question includes all changes of template to cite news/cite magazine, and that is part of the hundreds or thousands of CB edits per day.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:40, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * So I did a quick check on this. Yesterday, 12 June 2022 Citation bot made somewhere in the region of 2900 edits. 413 edits contain "Alter: template type" in the edit summary, which indicate the bot making converting at least one CS1 template to another. Unfortunately there does not seem to be finer logging in the edit summary indicating what sort of CS1 template conversion occurred.
 * Of the ~2900 total edits, only 6 were reverted. Three of these reverts were to a test account. Of the other three, 1 appears to have been reverted in error, 1 appears to have been reverted as part of a content dispute not involving the bot, and 1 was reverted as part of this dispute.
 * So no, BrownHairedGirl is not being hyperbolic when she said the bot makes hundreds of such edits every day. Sideswipe9th (talk) 04:09, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking the time to do that analysis, @Sideswipe9th.
 * So the EW/RS edits which the angry group disputes are about 0.03% of all bot edits, and about 0.24% of all template changes.
 * Yet we are headed towards an RFC which to allow InfinteNexus and his angry friends to demand the end of a set of changes which are 99.76% uncontested.
 * It seems that when I called this crusade a bunch of angry people making a mountain out of a molehill, I was being too generous to the objectors.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 07:03, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Because more data is always good, I've pulled together a table of the same analysis for all of Citation bot's edits over the seven day period 6-12 June. Collapsing it because it's a big table, but I want to include it here so you all can check my working.

In summary, Citation bot made approximately 36,415 edits over this period. 6,784 edits contained "Alter: template type" in the edit summary. As before, "Alter: template type" only indicates a conversion from one CS1 template to another. 88 total edits were reverted over the period: 35 were to test accounts, 53 were to non test accounts, and 5 were part of this dispute. After doing this analysis, I'm very heavily leaning towards what BrownHairedGirl has said; that a small number of editors are making a mountain out of a molehill, as not only is the total number of reverts for any reason tiny, the total number of reverts as part of this dispute is even smaller. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:29, 13 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Many thanks, @Sideswipe9th, for taking the time to skilfully gather and present that data. It clearly involved a lot of work, but the results are very valuable.
 * The result clearly demonstrates that the bot's changes of template type are overwhelmingly uncontroversial. That probably won't deter the small angry brigade from pushing for an RFC, but it does give a good indication that the wider community views these changes as unproblematic.   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:24, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't want to prejudge any responses either way, but even if we do proceed to an RfC this data will be very useful in it. I do agree however that it does seem to give a good indication that outside of an extremely small minority, alter template edits by the bot are pretty much accepted. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:28, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I also appreciate the data, but my mindset is less that no one else is reverting these edits, but that this all started because one editor back in April came here and said "EW should be a magazine" and then that was just implemented in the bot's code, and there wasn't any consideration to use the "ARE_MANY_THINGS" part (which I've seemed to gather probably isn't even that correct to use?). Editors here have said "online magazines are magazine", which ok, maybe they are, but where's the support for that? The template documentation sure doesn't suggest that. I think the RfC will help bring clarity to that distinction. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:02, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * "Where's the support for that?" Online  magazines   are magazines. Do you see the big word that says magazines? Because that's where the revolutionary idea that magazines are magazines stems from. Kinda like the revolutionary idea that blue cars are cars. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:09, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You can make the text as big, bold or any different color, the template documentation still does not support this. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:25, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It literally does. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:34, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * No it doesn't. I don't see "online magazine" anywhere there or at Template:Cite magazine/doc. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:05, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * That's because documentation is written expecting that people understand that words meant what words are normally understood to mean. Online magazines are magazines. If there was a distinction, the template would be called cite print magazine and another one would be cite online magazine. Both are magazines, and both are covered by cite magazines. You should also look harder, because "online magazine" appears twice in Template:Cite magazine/doc, with examples, on how to cite them. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:22, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * We'll just circle back to the argument then, which does not need to keep being rehashed, if an online article is strictly there, not available in a "magazine", this template still doesn't feel right, and in my view, support using such template for such an article. Hence, feeling an RfC is appropriate. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:54, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You appear to be referring to User talk:Citation bot/Archive 31. From the comments made by it's not that one editor ( said EW should be a magazine, it's that at one point cite magazine was a redirect to cite journal, and at that time cite journal was used for magazine citations. What happened after April is a correction to code that was erroneously transforming non journal cite web to cite journal was made, so that those would instead be transformed into the appropriate cite magazine. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:14, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * But again, why wasn't the "ARE_MANY_THINGS" part of the code used? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:25, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not familiar with the underlying bot code, so I do not want to make any comments on why or why not a certain code path was used. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:02, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I see there has been a lot of new comments since I last checked up on this. Sideswipe9th, thank you for compiling this data, but how can we assume that most editors are fine with this just because they don't bother to revert? Adamstom mentioned in his initial report that he had been ignoring these changes for a while before reporting this issue, and I know I did the same too. That doesn't necessarily mean I or Adamstom agreed with those changes. If you truly want an accurate view of the community's opinion, start an RFC. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:47, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:SILENCE would apply I would have thought, though I do recognise that it is the weakest form of consensus. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:57, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Most deletion and move discussions only involve a small batch of participants. Consensus is then determined based on comments in that discussion, and that consensus determines what to do and what not to do. Does that mean the rest of the Wikipedia community approves of that final decision? Not necessarily. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:53, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

We're not making any progress if we're just sitting around and neither side is willing to concede. is the RfC moving forward or what? InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:13, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Links to the RFC
I hope that this proposed RFC will not happen, because I think it's a waste of time.

However, if the RFC goes ahead, it would be helpful if while the RFC is open, Citation bot linked to the RFC in relevant edit summaries. For eaxmple, instead of "Alter: template type" in the edit summary, there could be "Alter: template type (see RFC)".

@AManWithNoPlan, would that be doable without too much work? -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:59, 16 June 2022 (UTC)


 * That should not be hard. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:50, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
 * But it would be bad. Spamming article histories with a link that will get archived within a month or so. We don't need that. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:59, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't see how including any potential RfC link in the bot's edits will be beneficial, especially if all relevant areas of the site are properly notified. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 01:00, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @Headbomb: adding 10 extra characters to verbose edit summaries is not spam. The archiving issue can be dealt with simply by linking to a redirect (e.g. WP:2022CBALTERTEMPLATERFC), which can be re-targetted when the RFC is archived.
 * @Favre1fan93: the purpose of the link would be to ensure that the RFC is notified to editors who focus on content and pay little attention to the various drama forums. By including the link in the edit summaries, they are likely to see it in their watchlists.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 08:41, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

RfC Question second draft and format
If an article is published on a website associated with a magazine, or newspaper, but does not appear on the print edition of the publication, should you use Cite web, or Cite magazine, or Cite news?

So format is based on the Pro and con example format for RfCs. The first sentence is the brief, neutral question per WP:RFCBRIEF. The table after is, or will be the summary of the past discussion covering the main points of each side of the discussion. While I still think we should include examples, I've collapsed them here because it kinda becomes unwieldy. I've also bold texted the differences between the two templates for each example. We could add an extra row for each example, to show what the wikitext output of the citations looks like, though it will be identical for both templates. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:33, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Also just wanted to point out, the summary of both sides of the dispute in the first table is far from final. I'm fairly certain I've missed a point or two somewhere and the wording itself I'm not entirely happy with. But I wanted to get this out to see what you all think, and what needs adjusting. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:38, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not happy with the use of "generic" and "specialized". One is not more specific than the other, they're just different. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:14, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * So I didn't call them Specific-source templates because that has a specific set of templates within it that exclude cite magazine and the others in this discussion. This is also true for Wrapper templates.
 * The documentation text for cite web says This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for web sources that are not characterized by another CS1 template. To me, that means that it is a generic catch all template, to be used when there is not a more appropriate template to use. The text for the other templates like cite news have specific criteria describing what they should be used for. For cite news this is This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for news articles in print, video, audio or web. To me, this means they are a specialist template to be used for a specific content type.
 * In light of this distinction which is already made at the templates regarding the circumstances for their use, how then would you describe the differences between cite web and the other CS1 cite variants? Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:32, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, I would simply avoid attaching any adjectives to the templates. This wording implies that Cite web is a fallback that should be replaced by the more specific ("specialized") templates, which is not what some editors believe. I will also note that the word "generic" has a slightly negative connotation. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:45, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmmmm. Not sure if I agree on that, at least based on what the documentation text at each template says. However, how about Reasoning to use cite web and Reasoning to use cite magazine, cite news, or cite journal? Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:50, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's what I was suggesting, delete "generic" and "specialized". InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:52, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:53, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It all looks good to me. Make sure that this discussion is linked though. If there is even one piece of missing information the RFC discussion will be dominated by that instead of the real issue. Rlink2 (talk) 02:16, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll insert a permalink to the state of this section at the time of opening the RfC. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:34, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Do we have an example for a controversial cite web -> cite journal transformation? I've rechecked the discussion we've had on this, and it wasn't even mentioned as being controversial until two days ago. I think we should maybe omit cite journal transformations from this RfC as they do not appear to be controversial unlike the other two. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:32, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I never objected to Cite web being converted to Cite journal, so I'm fine if it's removed. In fact I don't think anyone has explicitly expressed dissatisfaction with this, so I'm not sure who brought it up in the first place. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:09, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:16, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * In addition to someone checking if I've summarised the points for each side, and haven't missed anything, I'd appreciate it if someone could list the relevant Wikiprojects, and topic areas for the initial notifications please. I've had a quick look at Template:Rfc, and I think at least "tech" and "proj" should be included. But I'm not sure what others should be included. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:21, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

None of the pro or con reasons address whether the choice makes any visible difference at all to readers. If it does not make a visible difference, why are we arguing about the very important choice we must all make correctly or the world will end about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Just let the bot rationalize the citations and don't worry about legislating the way citations must be identically coded by everyone who uses them. Or, alternatively, argue by WP:COSMETICBOT that it should only change citation type when that will make a visible difference, rather than by how very angry you are that the bot is not letting you use the wrong citation type. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:06, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The reasons list isn't complete yet. I've only done a first pass of this discussion, and would appreciate it if someone else could check to see if what I've missed. I also did mention in my reply on 20:33, 1 June 2022 (UTC) that the output of the two citations is identical to someone who reads a Wikipedia article through a web browser. But there are differences in metadata output for folks who consume Wiki articles through COinS, as mentioned in the table. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:11, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Just out of curiosity, is there data on exactly how many Wikipedia readers use this kind of software? And do you? InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:22, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I used it in the past yes, when I was a researcher. While Wikipedia isn't a reliable source, its citations quite often are. As for how many use it, because the metadata is embedded into the HTML output of all pages using CS1/2 templates, I do not think it is tracked or able to be tracked in any way beyond how many pages use those templates. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:28, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * One of the major differences between cite web and cite magazine, as mentioned by, is in the metadata embedded in the HTML output by those templates. That makes it, I believe a substantive edit, as it changes the output HTML in a way meaningful to how it is consumed by citation management software. I do not think a valid argument on WP:COSMETICBOT can be made in this case. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:20, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

I want to make a more fundamental challenge to this draft RFC, because it is framing the question to an unduly narrow perspective. The real question to ask is whether CB should replace a generic cite web with any of the more specific CS1 templates. If the argument is good for cite news and cite magazine then it is equally good for cite book, cite journal, cite press release – indeed any document that has a web presence. There is no reasonable basis on which to pick magazines as the hill to die on except to distract from the broad principle of whether specific templates are more useful than the generic one. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:46, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * cite web is NOT a generic citation template. The generic citation template is citation (which by default produces Citation Style 2 can be used generically in Citation Style 1 with cs1). Cite web is often misused, but it should be used only for content published directly on the web rather than through the sort of editorial process used by books, journals, magazines, or newspapers. Using cite web for a reference is a red flag that the reference is likely not to be a reliable independent secondary source; they are generally either primary and non-independent, or unreliable. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:00, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed, cite web is the citation template of last resort for online sources. Per CS1/2 documentation, if another more-specific templates exists, that's the one that should be used. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:12, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

the first statement of the argument to use cite magazine or cite news is a fallacy. There is no way to confirm that articles on a website are also in print, a list of facts or top 100 sci fi films is unlikely to feature in print for instance. As we move ever onwards to a digital world and print continues the slow death initially prophesized by professor Spengler, how will cite magazine apply when the magazine no longer exists? Do we then go alter all those cite magazines? And how is it a valid use to cite a magazine when clicking the title will take the user to a website? It is an unreasonable statement arguing for the use of cite magazine and cite news. Cite web is not a generic template either, it's heavily used because we are not in 1982. There's a reason cite web is used nearly 5 million times and cite magazine less than 200K. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:45, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Which is completely irrelevant. Online magazines are magazines. That there is a print version or not is irrelevant. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:15, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * As has been pointed out way too many times by this point, "online magazines are magazines" is not what we are talking about here. We are debating whether websites related to magazines are the same thing as online magazines. - adamstom97 (talk) 23:25, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * One can argue the same thing the other way around: online magazines are online. Online, as in the Internet, as in websites. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:28, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * There is no way to confirm that articles on a website are also in print – which is why it is safer to just leave all magazine websites citations as Cite web. A bot has no business messing around with this when it cannot possibly verify whether an online article also appears in the print edition. Cite magazine can still stick around, even if and when print magazines fully die out, as it is the appropriate template for citations to print magazines that cannot be found online. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:22, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Cite magazine is the template for all magazines, regardless of whether or not they are online, per documentation. Much like cite journal is the template for all journals, regardless of whether or not they are online. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:46, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The arguments being made right now are best served for when the RfC goes live, as they are arguments for/against one of the two options. The purpose of this section is to resolve what question the RfC will ask, and in what format it will be asked. Save arguments on the merits of each point for the RfC please. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:14, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Also just to clarify, the purpose of the table above is to summarise the key talking points from the prior discussion on this in favour of either position. It is not to pass judgement on the merits of those talking points, it is there so that new readers can get up to speed on the key arguments for each position/choice quickly, without needing to go into the full detail of the past lengthy discussions that lead to this impasse. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:21, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * With the exception of a couple editors' hesitancy over an RfC, I'm pretty sure there's a rough consensus in support of the proposed format. Editors are only making these comments because the RfC still hasn't started after a month. At this point, I feel like some editors are just trying to stall the RfC from happening. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:00, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * There is one question currently outstanding per a request on my own talk page, over one of the bullet points from the summary. Once that's resolved, then I don't see any other blockers per-say. Only reason I hadn't made it happen yet, was that I've been waiting since for someone to confirm I've summarised the points fairly and accurately. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:10, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, you've summarized the points fairly and accurately. If any clarification is needed they can just be added after the RfC goes live. Obviously I wasn't aware of that discussion, I agree it makes sense to wait for that matter to be resolved. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:31, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I think we are good to go per the latest comments at Sideswipe9th's talk page. - adamstom97 (talk) 22:17, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Cool. I'll get it started shortly. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:37, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * . Just hope I've done it right! Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:57, 30 June 2022 (UTC)