Wikipedia talk:Citation templates/Archive 4

Archives: Nov 2007 - Sep 2008

How to cite unpublished material?
QUESTION: I have been working on the Wikipedia College Football project and have gotten information from the Sports Information Department from the University of Texas at Arlington about their college football program that was discontinued back in the 1980's.  This is the only source I have found on the program and coaching records--but the events are noteworthy because many of the coaches went on to other schools after successful seasons at UTA. But all I have are "scratch notes" on the program. I'm sure the information is correct because it came from their SID dept... how do I cite the source?--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The reliable sources guideline requires that sources in WP be published. Is there any other way to get the information (local newspapers, etc.)? UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:02, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've been searching and searching, and will keep searching. I have forwarded the information to the College Football Data Warehouse and they will eventually post it on the web (it's a regular cited source in our project).  But perhaps now with the information I may be able to find more of it, now that I know what I'm looking for... but I doubt it.  Any other ideas?--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Cite video game
Can the Cite video game citation template be added to the list? It would make it much easier for people to realize there is such a template. AnmaFinotera (talk) 21:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I would rather see this as a general software citation as in a broad sense video games are just another form of software and from my outside point of view a similar structure to general software development. I notice you leave out a URL field for instance, which should link back to any active company which published it. Further, aren't there usually authors attributed to the games, just like in software? In some cases I realize there are teams, but in many instances there are individuals who are considered the creators. There also must be a way to locate information within the game. In software, I could cite a specific resource within the code. In a video game, how would you provide a verifiable citation of an event that occurs only after advancing to the highest levels of the game? e.g. in a video, one could specify an approximate time-code within the video and a reviewer could fast-forward to that point. In a video game, I guess you would just have to play the thing and get VERY good at it?--Mac128 (talk) 17:46, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

need a template for citing a work from an electronic library or subscription service
Following the MLA style, it would need the parameters of citing a periodical:

"(author, article title, periodical title, and volume, date, and page number information) followed by the name of the database or subscription collection, the name of the library through which you accessed the content, including the library's city and state, plus date of access. If a URL is available for the home page of the service, include it." 

Earthsound (talk) 16:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not bound by MLA style, but rather has its own style guidelines. (Actually several styles are used for citations, depending on the article.) In most cases, a periodical that was accessed electronically would be best cited with the cite journal template. In some cases cite paper might be more appropriate. The newer template citation can be used for almost any kind of citation; it is more flexible than the other templates. I don't really see the need to include information on the library from which the material was accessed. If the information is in an externally-run service such as Science Direct, the content will be the same regardless of where you access it from. If the information is in a locally-run database, then the library is the publisher and should be listed as such. All of the templates have an "accessdate" parameter for recording the date the information was accessed.--Srleffler (talk) 03:15, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

multiple editors
In the example for encyclopedia, should we include the way of handling multiple editors? (eg. editor1-last, editor2-last)  DGG (talk) 00:15, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * At most, I would suggest a field called "coeditors", similar to how all the other templates treat multiple people. I think allowing for multiple individual editor fields adds unnecessary complexity (not to mention, just how many editors should we allow for?). — Huntster (t • @ • c) 02:12, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

The code is already there, it works to use it the way i mentioned. andd it looks like it automatically moves to et al after a certain number. It's just a question of adding an example. DGG (talk) 05:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, you're referring to Citation rather than Cite encyclopedia (sorry, I don't like or use Citation, so didn't realise your intent). It wouldn't hurt to mention the multiple editor fields, but I feel this page should be about 'advertising' the different types of templates available, and should feature the most basic code to get people by. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 09:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Citing sources discussion
There's a discussion in Wikipedia talk:Citing sources about the current guideline wording, and the wider issue of whether or not the use of Citation templates on the whole should be discouraged.

--SallyScot (talk) 21:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Citing Brochures
Is there a way to cite a brochure for a location as a source for information? Thanks. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 04:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Try cite paper or just citation.--Srleffler (talk) 03:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Place or location
For book citations, the common usage column for the citation template shows both location and place, but the documentation seems to indicate these are synonyms. Shouldn't just one of these be listed? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:19, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've removed location. –Pomte 20:26, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

hello interview citations
why isn't the interview template Template:Cite_interview listed on the template page??

Bookmarklet
Hi, I posted this over on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources and it was suggested I mention it here too:

I've made a simple bookmarklet that helps to create formatted citations. You can find it here, with a description and example usage. Much lower-rent than Zotero, but I find it frustrating when Zotero won't extract perfectly good metadata. I don't want to blow my own horn by adding it to the list of tools straight away, since I don't know if anything like this already exists (I couldn't find anything quite like this), or if anyone else would find this useful. Feel free to play with it. --Bazzargh (talk) 01:47, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * While it is an interesting (and fairly accurate) tool, the usability is reduced to almost nil given that the content in the window that pops up cannot be copied. Also, there were "h1" and "h2" parameters (among others) shown a few times, which don't exist in the cite web template. I'm assuming that aside from a handful of necessary fields, your tool simply makes a direct copy of the metadata (heh, trying running it here). — Huntster (t • @ • c) 02:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The content can be copied in both Firefox and Safari. Cmd-A Cmd-C on the mac, Ctrl-A Ctrl-C on windows. Try it! (I'll add that to the docs). Firefox is a bit annoying here as the text isn't highlighted, but it does copy. And it is deliberately dumping out all the metadata, whether or not it fits the template. Take the title for example - on some sites this is just the page title; on the NY Times website its the meta field named 'hdl'. Its dumping all the candidates so you can apply some intelligence to it. The alternative is to go to the page and individually copy and paste all the fields across, which is painful. I guess the docs should make it clearer that the field names won't all match those in the template, I hoped the example had covered that. --Bazzargh (talk) 09:24, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Aha, interesting. Learn something new about Firefox all the time.  Sorry for being dumb on the 'h1', 'h2', etc, bit; I stopped reading at the source code section, and I guess I didn't properly read the rest!  I'm going to take some further comments to your talk page, if you don't mind (running out of time right now). — Huntster (t • @ • c) 12:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem; feedback on things I didn't make plain enough in the docs is good too. BTW theres a newer version of the tool on its talk page which does grabs the selection too - useful for picking a quote, or grabbing some metadata off the text of the page. I'll be moving that to the tool page if it works on Safari. Unfortunately it looks like the tool will never work on IE, but I could maybe get a cut down version to work (grabbing just the basic metadata). IE can't deal with long bookmarklets. --Bazzargh (talk) 12:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
 * (last one, I'll stop being noisy here). Updated to support selections and IE, and the documentation should be more navigable now. --Bazzargh (talk) 15:10, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

question about "cite video" template
when i use this template the release date doesn't show up in the footnotes generated, even though i enter it each time. is that deliberate, or am i doing something wrong, or ... ? one example of what i mean is the citation of Four Flicks, currently numbered 100 on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gibson_players i entered the 2003 release date in what i believe is the proper place, but it doesn't appear in the footnote. thanks for any insights!

and as long as i'm here ... the "citation" template for periodicals seems to use a different convention for page numbers than the "cite book" template. maybe it would be worthwhile for some generous Template Expert to tinker with those to make them consistent? that would be easier for well-meaning non-experts struggling to get the hang of these things. thanks Sssoul (talk) 11:44, 21 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Use year2= instead of date=. See cite video for the documentation and the talk page for why this kludge exists.  Speaking of kludges, why is List of Gibson players using  ?  --—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  11:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)




 * thanks for the clarification! i was using the "cite video" template as i found it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_templates - would it be worthwhile updating that page to include this "year2" variation and/or a recommendation to check out the cite video page?
 * as for the reflist|4 format ... i have no idea. thanks again for the help Sssoul (talk) 12:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

article in book
Is there a template to cite an article in book? If so, what, where, etc. If not, why not? --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 04:55, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what an "article in book" is, but this might help. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, that's grand. And I think I can just about do it with the "cite book" template, which is the one I've been using (for books).  I've been playing with it at Facundo.  Thanks.  --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 05:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * You might take a look at History of the Philippines (1898–1946). -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: "accessed" instead of "retrieved"
I propose that the various templates be reformed to output the word "accessed" rather than "retrieved" in response to the accessdate parameter. In the case of cite web in particular, the source being cited is sometimes an interactive site that is being accessed to obtain the information to which the cite applies. Retrieving the cited URL, by itself, does not obtain the information.

An example is in D. B. Cooper where we have:



which expands to:


 * Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator.&#32;United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.&#32;Retrieved on 2007-12-26.

It seems to me that "accessed" will always be accurate, but sometime "retrieved" will not be. Another admittedly minor point is that it matches the parameter name, so it's more intuitive to see what parameter generates what text. TJRC (talk) 22:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * In theory I'd support such a change, however, the current format is somewhat based on APA, which uses the "Retrieved" term. Also, when expanding templates like you did, don't subst them, just use Special:ExpandTemplates. Handy, see? — Huntster (t • @ • c) 23:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Citing laws
I very often find myself in need of citing Russian laws in articles, and I've been looking for a way to use an existing citation template for that. Unfortunately, none of the existing options work well. To see what I need, take a look at, for example, Gruzinsky (settlement) (where the citation is entered as plain text). The choke points in this example are, first, that the date should not be in parentheses, and second, and more importantly, that existing templates provide no means to add English translation after the Russian title. Any suggestions would be appreciated.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see anything specific to Russian laws, but there are Cite swiss law and Cite Ukrainian law. Take a look in Category:Law citation templates and see if anything applies.  --—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  21:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Great! I must've missed this cat.  Thanks much.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Datelinking in the doc
Was there a deliberate decision to show date=yyyy-mm-dd examples vice date=yyyy-mm-dd in the template documentation? I thought the templates all handled this without datelinking. LeadSongDog (talk) 20:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The major-use templates have been brought up to code, but most of the lesser used ones don't allow that yet. If they do, then feel free to reflect that in the /doc page examples, but otherwise it doesn't hurt for them to remain wikilinked. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 06:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Cite book with url?
Should their be a special template for the likes of Google books i've been using cite web however cite book would also apply, perhaps we need a cite book with urlGnevin (talk) 13:59, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * There are url and chapterurl parameters on Cite Book, url, chapter-url and contribution-url on Citation. Anyway, I don't think it is proper to fill wp with GBooks links. Links should be put to fully available books or book parts. ISBN is a more neutral alternative, set either in the templates or as a Magic word. trespassers william (talk) 15:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've lately been trying to use citation for everything, including books with url. Can you give an example of how your cite book with url might differ from that? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 15:05, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't understand the question.trespassers william (talk) 22:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't realise cite book supported url's. No need for a other template I will use that for Google book reference in the future 23:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Is there a policy or guideline discouraging the addition of Google Books links? Google Books has limited previews for many publications. The potential advantages of adding such links are (1) that users can refer to the corresponding page of the source, if it is included in the Google books preview (it is possible to have the ref link jump directly to the correct page in the preview), which enhances verifiability and (2) that people can look at a book named in a list of references or literature to decide whether they would want to buy it. I think these could be significant benefits to the user that would add value. Jayen 466 13:15, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I've certainly not seen anything discouraging a link to Google Books; indeed, I've used the site many times myself. As you have pointed out, even if the entire book cannot be linked, it can conclusively back up a particular citation, and make such information available to everyone, rather than just those that can obtain a physical copy. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 18:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I have since been told (and have empirically confirmed) that Google Books links to a specific page decay after a while – after a few months, they just don't work any more. So in light of this, I now think it is not a very good idea to place such links, as they would have to be regularly checked and updated every so often. Jayen 466 00:38, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It is true that they decay, but that does not detract from the immense utility they provide while they do work. --Adoniscik(t, c) 01:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Published Software Template
Can't seem to find a reference anywhere in Wiki for citing software (except a Micosoft Style book I'd rather not buy). Either way, a template would certainly be useful. In the meantime, I suppose I should treat it like a book?--Mac128 (talk) 17:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Retrieval dates for online versions of old printed sources, again
Please contribute to this discussion at Citing sources: Wikipedia talk:Citing sources --EnOreg (talk) 16:04, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Consensus: We have a consensus that access dates for online copies of offline sources, while helpful as a comment in the source, should be hidden from the reader. Could somebody who is competent to adapt the citation templates please do so? The idea is to keep the access date as a template parameter but remove the code that displays it. Thanks, --EnOreg (talk) 09:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

A doubt
How does one cite matter from a chapter in a book that has contributors that are different from the editors mentioned on the cover and elsewhere? Which all authors are to be included in the citation?

Kindly help me with this doubt.

Regards.

 —Ketan Panchal  t aL K   13:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing you'd use the "coauthors" attribute of the Cite Book template. Bettia   (talk)  14:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Use the author field for the author of the chapter. Put the editors in the editor field. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 14:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, thanks a lot! Somehow, had never cared to see the template in its expanded form. Regards.  —Ketan Panchal  t aL K   14:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikilink of airdate
The 'airdate' field of the cite episode template produces a wikilink to the date. (Example: ) I don't think it should be doing so, since the full date doesn't necessarily have a page. The editor should be allowed to wikilink the date themselves.&mdash;RJH (talk) 20:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The format for the airdate is meant to be in yyyy-mm-dd format, so in this case 1994-11-03, and the cite would then appear as: ) This is the standard way of inputing dates into cites.--  十  八  20:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Beat me to it. This is the ISO 8601 format and it allows the date to be formatted according to the editor's preferences.  See MOS:SYL for more on date formatting.  In my opinion, date links are not useful, but the ability to show a date in U.S. or European formats is quite useful.  --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  20:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It'd be simple to include a bit of code that would automatically check to see if it is formatted in YYYY-MM-DD format, and auto-link if it is. Can be pulled from Cite map or other templates if desired. Template is protected, so can't do it myself at this time. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 22:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Conference citation template, wiki of retrieval date is unnecessary
Hi, I'm using the conference citation template - the template wikifies the Retrieved on date - this must be a mistake, no reason for that, and it produces an ugly link in red. See this example:

- Power.corrupts (talk) 13:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No, the citation is correct. You just didn't format the date correctly. It should be:




 * -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 14:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see. But why is the date wikilinked?  It is a completely arbitrary date when I accessed that document, there is no info added linking it to "June 5 is the 156th day of the year (157th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar...." etc.  It may be a matter of personal taste, but find overlinking confusing, and I prefer links that add value. Power.corrupts (talk) 15:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Full format and ISO dates are an exception to "overlinking." It isn't linked to provide a link, but to allow the date to be formatted per user preferences. :) So for me, all dates that are properly wikilinked appear in the format of mmmm dd, yyyy. Others, like UK users, may have their set so it shows as dd mmmm, yyyy. So it does add value, just not in the usual way one might expect.-- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 15:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * See MOS:SYL for more information on date formatting. --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  15:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Point taken, I see the value added. Thanks, Power.corrupts (talk) 09:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

What about Patents?
Is there a recommendation for how to do patent citations? --SV Resolution(Talk) 16:36, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * For U.S. patents, i've generally been using a format like this (from Harry Aubrey Toulmin, Sr.):
 * , Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright, Flying-Machine, May 22, 1906
 * It captures the patent number, inventors, title and date of issue; and includes links both to the U.S Patent office text (if available; this particular patent is too old to have text online) as well as to a PDF. For non-US patents, there's the Patent template, too.  That template links to the European Patent Office.  It supports U.S. patents, too, but I prefer US Patent for U.S. patents; the USPTO is a more authoritative source, especially for older patents, and the US Patent template includes the PDF link.  TJRC (talk) 17:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Book with no "author"
I am using a book entitled "House of Steel" about the Pittsburgh Steelers stadium, Heinz Field. The book is listed as (c) 2002 Pittsburgh Steelers. Now obviously the football team didn't write the book; on the copyright page it lists a long line of names from the Steelers and "NFL Creative". Should I cite the "Editor-in-cheif" as the author, as his name is at the top of the list? Or just leave the author blank? This probably seems like a picky question, but I like to be through. Thanks!  Black  ngold29   05:44, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * In these cases, I just don't list an author (or look at Amazon.com and see how they dealt with it). Corsulian (talk) 15:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't find the editor's name listed online anywhere. If he is named in the book, I would probably cite it as (using Citation):
 * , Contributors: Pittsburgh Steelers Staff, NFL Creative Staff.

Citation Template on Mediawiki 1.12
Anyone using this template on a different MediaWiki-powered site? For some reason, my citations are coming out like this in the references section:


 * ^ Author (2008), [Title], <[URL]>. Retrieved on 21 May 2008

In other words, the Title becomes a link to whatever is listed as the URL parameter, but then the URL is also listed between chevrons.Corsulian (talk) 01:49, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

"Retrieved on..." Who cares?
I see the point of giving the date of retrieval of general website pages, because they tend to change often, but why in the world do we indicate the date of access of online journal and news articles, which are not supposed to change in the first place? --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It is not useful for currently available material, but since online material, even journal and news articles have a habit of getting archived away from publicly accessable areas or even removed entirely, the "accessdate" parameter allows people to search a website's archives and sites like archive.org for old copies of them. It does serve a definite purpose...less so for regular readers, but even they may find value in it. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 00:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Phenylalanine, please see the extensive discussion here. In particular, please contribute your opinion to this last section. Thanks, --EnOreg (talk) 03:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

A bit of Wikicitation humour.
http://www.xkcd.com/285/

Trust me, you will see the funny there.65.189.146.128 (talk) 17:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Op cit?
I attempting to tidy the references in Exeter. A particular book is cited multiple times but with different page numbers. I considered using Op. cit. on the later citations - any opinions on this? Normally if a work is cited multiple times, I would of course use a named reference but this then does not allow citing the page number which is valuable. The way it is currently done with a separate bibliography seems messy to me. Any opinions?--NHSavage (talk) 08:45, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Per Footnotes: "Do not use Ibid, op. cit. or similar abbreviations in footnotes." It appears that Exeter is using a mix of author-date (Harvard) referencing and footnotes: see Author-date referencing and Footnotes.  These should not normally be mixed— discuss it on the article talk and see which comes to a consensus.  When using footnotes, you can use rp to include page numbers. --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  10:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The only solution I found to this was to put the multiply cited books in a separate reference section and then include the name and page numbers in the notes. See here Reactive attachment disorder. I've never seen rp. Can you point me to an article where its being used? Fainites barley 21:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * If the pages differ, either name all the pages in the combined ref or use Harvard style. Don't use op.cit. --Adoniscik(t, c) 01:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Also consider rp. --Adoniscik(t, c) 17:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for all the advice. In the end I took the option of citing the book multiple times which looks bad. The article originally used the method in Reactive attachment disorder but this seems to mix Author-date referencing and Footnotes which, as I understood it was generally seen as poor style. I really dislike rp as it seperates the page number from the work cited and generally looks awful. This needs further consideration IMHO.--NHSavage (talk) 18:45, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, see Citing sources/Example edits for different methods. The examples there don't address citing a single source multiple times with different times with different page numbers, but that's an easy extension from those examples. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:26, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Another template please
Can we have one for those papers that are published as chapters of an edited book. This happens a lot in the area I'm editing in. I was using the citation template but that produces different results to the family cite templates. I've now used the encyclopedia template which works - but they're not really encyclopaedias and it took ages to find out what to do. How about "compendium" ? Fainites barley 21:19, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * cite book is designed to handle that case. Use the "author" or "first" and "last" fields for the author of the chapter, and the "editor" field for the name of the whole book's editor. Put the name of the individual paper in the "chapter" field, and fill in the rest of the fields as makes sense. It works.--Srleffler (talk) 04:00, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

format field
Can anyone think of a good reason why one would use the format field with a document type recognized by MediaWiki, such as PDF? I think it is junk. --Adoniscik(t, c) 01:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. The right place to bring this up would probably be the talk page of the style guideline: External links. --EnOreg (talk) 03:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * WP:EL doesn't say one word about using this field. This is the page where the use of the field is discussed; therefore the discussion about the field belongs here.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Quoting ISBN
Hi. I don't know if this is a bug, or expected behaviour (or just me !), but when using the template, if I specify "isbn=xxxxxx", then it displays ok, but if I specify it as "ISBN=xxxxx" (i.e. capitalised), then it doesn't - yet the  template copes with both. CultureDrone (talk) 08:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Note, keywords in citation templates are case sensitive and are all lower case. It also appears that the wikipedia parser ignores keywords it does not recognize including capitalized keywords. The following citation does not produce an error message.

--Dan Dassow (talk) 13:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Just for the record, all keywords of all templates are case-sensitive and all unrecognized keywords are ignored. That potential for confusion is one of the reasons that all the  templates exclusively use lower-case parameter names. RossPatterson (talk) 14:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Geographical date format option in cite web

 * ''see proposed example at cite web/sandbox
 * ''discussion should be had for now at Template talk:Cite web

See Template talk:Cite web about moving away from always having blue wikilinked dates, as these are nolonger required by WP:MOS. More specifically need to be able to specify American style (eg August 1, 2008) or British/European/International style (eg 1 August 2008) as might be geographically appropriate to the contents of an article. Whilst registered editors currently may set a date preference, most have not and this does not apply to all unregistered anon editors both of whom currently see the ISO style of 2008 - 08-01. There is no immediate wish to remove the current default of wikilinking dates, but only to allow fixed formating where editors choose to in articles.

Unfortunately MediaWiki does not currently allow the best of both worlds - namely always showing in a user's preferred format where this has been set, otherwise for everyone else showing as either the current default ISO or some fixed style set by an editor - for there is no means to test if an editor has set a date preference (meta:Help:Date formatting and linking).


 * Assuming people do not for now want:
 * cite web dates only ever to be shown in cite web as unlinked ISO yyyy-mm-dd style
 * date parameters to always be totally unprocessed unlinked values - i.e. no user preference ever processed, values not being machine readable etc
 * values to default to an unlinked international format, unless a datestyle parameter set otherwise (I guess Amercians will be unhappy to see all articles on the USA Constitution change overnight to show dates in British style, and likewise I would balk at forced American-style dates forced onto British topics)
 * ... then the proposal (within MediaWiki current constraints) as per cite web/sandbox is for:
 * a) Unchanged default wikilinked dates - for those registered users with a preference set this still respected, for everyone else the current linked yyyy-mm-dd style.
 * b) Where an editor selects a specific datestyle, then an unlinked date is shown in this format (user preferences nolonger then apply)
 * c) Formating dates is done with the parserfunction that can't cope with dates before 1970-01-01 and even less so for before 1901. The current sandbox example makes use of a metatemplate date style to trap all these errors and show unformated iso-style dates (until such time as MediaWiki bugs sorted).

Compare, as an example, current cite web:

To planned version with datestyle parameter:
 * Undefined (the default)
 * =myd Am-date
 * =dmy Br-date

A couple of further points:
 * The current plan is for all date-parameters ('date', 'archivedate' & 'accessdate') at cite_web to show consistantly with this new coding
 * All references using the cite_XXX family should presumably be reasonably consistant when used together in the same article, so after a trial period perhaps this date flexibility should extend across the other templates (the coding is relatively simple).

I've posted notes at the main cite_XXX & citation templates without really much additional comment, hence this heads-up more afar - further discussion should be had for now at Template talk:Cite web David Ruben Talk 18:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * What is the rationale behind going away from the international recognized ISO 8601 date format? Nsaa (talk) 22:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * To allow greater consistency: currently dates from citation templates mainly display to non-logged in users in the ISO format, whereas wikilinked dates in the main text are nearly all in American/International format. So there's an inconsistency, which looks bad. This change will allow the option for all the dates in a article to display in the same way, providing consistency. Per WP:DATE the ISO date isn't generally used except in technical documents, which Wikipedia articles generally aren't, so articles will choose one of the three options as appropriate to the subject. The citation dates will still be entered in ISO format in the raw wiki page, and there will be no change to existing articles unless a datestyle field is added to their citations. Rjwilmsi  22:40, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

New rule needed regarding the frequency of "citation needed"
I just read the article Modern animation in the United States, which is, imho, completely unreadable because there are too many occurrences of "citation needed" in it. Could we please work towards a new rule that defines how often this tag can be placed? Thanks. Peter S. (talk) 07:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

In situations like that they should use refimprove or refimprovesect --Adoniscik(t, c) 14:18, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * And there should be discussion on the talk page. Some folks go mad with tagging, when a good discussion can fix or clear up issues.  These folks aren't going to read rules, they just copy what they see. --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  14:31, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

--Adoniscik(t, c) 01:33, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Proper citation for photo archive
The Los Angeles Public Library has a collection of historic photographs that relate to the Wineville Chicken Murders. One can view the pictures by going to the LA Public Libary homepage, clicking BROWSE THE PHOTO COLLECTION and entering the key word "Northcott". There are currently 131 relevant copyrighted pictures viewable at the LA Public Library. There is no permanent direct link to these picture. What is the proper way of citing this resource?--Dan Dassow (talk) 13:24, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Retrieved on January 1, 2008
Can the templates be fixed so that they allow the form "Retrieved on January 1, 2008" as an alternative to "Retrieved on 2008-01-01"? If I indicate the article date as June 1, 2007, for consistency, I prefer to use the same date style for the accessdate: "Retrieved on January 1, 2008" as opposed to "Retrieved on 2008-01-01". Also, I would prefer it if wikilinking the accessdates was optional (requiring the use of brackets). Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

De-linking dates
linking of dates is no longer encouraged in MOSNUM, I believe they should be delinked in all the relevant templates. I am referring to the 'accessdate' field, which links the ISO-formatted dates to the relevant date/year articles. These links add nothing to the article and create unnecessary and often totally irrelevant cross-links. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The templates concerned are, inter alia:


 * Support this proposal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:42, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment if the delinking is removed, will the templates still format the dates, or will all the references suddenly show the ISO dates instead of mmmm dd, yyyy? -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 05:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Linking is still done here - in question with MOS - as to autoformat the ISO dates to the user prefs and we don't want to leave bare ISO dates around. A cleaner solution is three steps:
 * Add a US vs INT date format field to the citation templates
 * Encourage strongly the use of accessdaymonth and accessyear over accessdate
 * Get a bot/script that can convert "accessdate" fields to "accessdaymonth/accessyear" fields.
 * Nothing terribly hard, just a matter of gaining consensus to do it. --M ASEM 05:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Masem, I think we all know that date-linking is still done here. The point of the message here was to see whether we could agree to stop doing it here.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The autoformatting thing is a total non-issue. We already have bare ISO dates laying around, millions of them, because 99.something percent of WP users are readers with no account (thus no date formatting), and many editors who do have accounts do not turn on the date formatting function (it's actually discouraged to do so, since it masks date formatting inconsistencies in articles, which affect a huge number of articles to date). Basically the only people who do not see ISO dates as output from these templates are the tiny percentage non-editor readers who have created accounts and turned on the formatting feature, and an indeterminate proportion of editors with accounts with the feature turned on. That is a comparatively very small number of WP users.
 * The templates need to stop date linking, and should stop mandating ISO date formats (and should actually discourage them; WP:MOSNUM has deprecated for ages). A bot can do the cleanup, I would think (look for other dates in an article and use either Day Month Year or Month Day, Year to reformat any ISO dates in the same article based on the first encountered non-ISO date, or default to Day Month Year (since only the US and a handful of other places use the other format) if no non-ISO dates appear in the article. The number of cases where an international-style date will be put into an article on a US topic will just be a drop in the bucket of manual cleanup that is needed.
 * —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 06:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes please—this is inevitable, and the sooner the better. I agree with SMcCandlish entirely. If Masem's proposal involves the continuation of the linking of template-generated dates, I strongly disagree with it. It would be excellent to move to a system where, finally, the same format is used throughout an article. However, I'm willing to live with a binary system for the moment, just to rid ourselves of the autoformatting in the main text. Tony   (talk)  07:43, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * My proposal was not to keep linking; it was to get some bot/script in place that takes any date field in "date" or "accessdate" fields of the cite templates and get them to the separate fields for the year and the month/day, which already are or would not take more to get supported by all cite templates. We can't just strip linking as that would leave bare ISOs around; though, so a simple stripping via the template isn't going to cut it. --M ASEM  12:41, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I totally support this, but remove the linking from the templates as soon as possible, and let the bot start working when it's ready. In the meantime, we will see "2008-09-11", but at least we won't see the abominable "2008-09-11", which is what we display right now (except to a few users). -- Jao (talk) 20:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, let's hold off on removing the date links; it's being proposed at WT:MOSNUM that all dates be delinked in new FA's for a month, to guage community reaction better. There's really no hurry.  On the ISO, problem though, that needs to be undone immediately.  WP:MOSNUM has said use DD Month YYYY or Month DD, YYYY, and never YYYY-MM-DD, for years, and these templates have caused a godawful mess by ignorning that.  The docs should be updated to specifically deprecate that format. I would suggest that the code for date be applied to accessdate post-haste. I.e. make it an open field. This will a) de-link the ISO dates (which is okay, FA test not withstanding), b) make the many, many cases of   link, but be valid code finally, and c) make the many, many cases of ,  , and other variants by people who did not notice or ignored the off-kilter instructions to use ISO, to also work fine, whether linked or not.  PS: I don't understand what someone said above about moving accessdate date components into the separate date parameters; can't do that - year, month and day are an alternative to date, not to accessdate. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 04:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused about this proposal, since the way to delink dates in citation templates is already there: instead of accessdate, use accessmonthday or accessdaymonth along with accessyear. I've been doing it for months. I have not yet found an article where I can't make consistent delinked dates in citations. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 04:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * But who would want to do that manually? The accessdate parameter should simply stop linking and stop demanding ISO date format. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 22:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Support if it's depreciated, it's depreciated everywhere. NJGW (talk) 06:27, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Support delinking of all dates in templates. It's just a weird leftover from autoformatting that never should have happened in the first place. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:01, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Support I agree with NJGW above. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Isn't it at all possible to create autoformatting without linking? - J.Logan`t : 09:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes - can use two methods of formating from yyyy-mm-dd style dates:
 * Template_talk:Cite_web suggested using coding to trap php's 1970 and 1901 date-handling errors (in which case unformated text shown). Otherwise would format per an optional 'date_style' parameter - see User:Davidruben/sandbox4 (uses metatemplate User:Davidruben/sandbox3). This was widely tested (after a less satisfactory tested prior version)
 * Alternative approach is to treat the "yyyy-mm-dd" as a string of mathematical action (ie year minus month minus day) and that seems to work for all positive dates AD - see User:Davidruben/sandbox7 (uses metatemplate User:Davidruben/sandbox6). As far as I can see, this second method is far more robust and would allow consistency throughout an article (only real problem is need to specify 'date_style' for each cite_XXX call as wikipedia does not currently allow article-variables)... but got entangled over issue of Julian vs Gregorian dates (ISO format applies to Gregorian, so we could not refer to 'yyyy-mm-dd' as being ISO) and then all discussion seems to have been focused at WP:MOSDATE about use of yyyy-mm-dd style date entry and so any movement to such coding options seemed best to put on hold. Whilst 1st approach (sandbox 3&4) are at at finalised state, the second approach (sandbox 6 & 7) would need some finishing finesssing - but it did not seem worth my effort until any support to continuing proceeding :-) David Ruben Talk 17:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * David, you're taking the right approach. It's up to the MOSNUM people to get the consensus and requirements for one of the above changes. Only then can it be implemented. Rjwilmsi  21:42, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Support delinking and changing the documentation so that people don't add ISO dates to new citations. Shall we implement this already? Conscious (talk) 09:49, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Support; it looks pretty funny with all dates delinked except the accessdates for references, which is what we have now. --John (talk) 23:44, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Support. The proposal to delink the date fields appears to have consensus. Could someone with admin priviledges please implement this?--Srleffler (talk) 17:40, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Support - What more is needed to move this forward - It looks like there's a consensus. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 03:47, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm going to be sad when you all change references away from ymd format. I personally like the shorter format in references. Anomie⚔ 10:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If I'm not mistaken, I believe using ymd format is discouraged. DiverseMentality  (Boo!)  22:41, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
 * To quote MOSNUM, "However, they may be useful in long lists and tables for conciseness and ease of comparison." The References section is (ideally) a long list. And anyway, I'll still be sad when you people force through that change, because I still like it the way it is now no matter how much others "discourage" it. Anomie⚔ 23:57, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Support. Linking dates is a deprecated practice. DiverseMentality  (Boo!)  22:41, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Support per John and others. Peter Symonds  ( talk ) 17:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong support. Linking dates is not helpful and clutters the references. LouScheffer (talk) 15:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Support - as others have said, these blue date links just clutter up references sections of articles. It Is Me Here (talk) 19:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Support as per NJGW.Bonfire of vanities (talk) 01:13, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Support and Question: If the linking of "accessdate" is removed (A Good Thing™), why can't the the templates then utilise instead? That would avoid the ugly display of ISO dates, wouldn't it? (I know that Date only works for dates later than 31-Dec-1969, but that can't possibly be a problem for "accessdate" — although it might be for dates after 19-Jan-2038.) Michael Bednarek (talk) 08:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Note that date will cause inappropriate output on articles not using DMY date ordering. Anomie⚔ 17:08, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Displaying "2008-11-02" is always better than "2008-11-02", even if the rest of the article uses "November 2, 2008". Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * So says you. I happen to prefer YMD format dates outside of running prose and possibly infoboxes, the other formats are needlessly verbose. There is absolutely no reason for an article to have MDY format and the references to have DMY format, and the reference templates should not dictate the article format. Anomie⚔ 14:38, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Removing template accessdate auto-linking does not preclude editors from using either ISO or "running prose" dates, they just won't be linked. --Phenylalanine (talk) 16:25, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I know. But using date would preclude editors from using any format other than DMY, because date will convert both YMD and MDY dates into DMY format. Anomie⚔ 16:51, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I personally prefer the format: "Retrieved on November 2, 2008" and wouldn't want to be forced to used the ISO "2008-11-02" format. I think the important is to be consistent within articles in the use of date formats. --Phenylalanine (talk) 18:08, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * And I personally prefer the YMD "2008-11-02" format for references, but I'm not going to fight over it. date doesn't leave either of us the option. Anomie⚔ 23:29, 2 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Support this proposal. Cite news accessdates have already been delinked. Cite web accessdates should now also be delinked. --Phenylalanine (talk) 16:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Conditional support — I gather from the discussion at Template talk:Cite web that a technical solution to the ugly display of ISO 8601 dates is underway. What we should be aiming for is citation templates in which the dates are not linked, but are formatted appropriately to the article (that is, in day-month-year for British topics, month-day-year for most American topics, and so forth). I don't understand the technical aspects well enough to follow the talk of "scapping revisions" and such, but as long as we get rid of the display of dates as "2008-11-15" I'm happy for all the dates to be unlinked. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 10:47, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment How do we distinguish between American/British topics, and what would you do for those that transcend this classification? -- Lemming64 03:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Adding refs at the final references block
At Cite.php it has been proposed a solution to the problem with -tags needed to contain the information, templates etc. inside the first occurrence in the text. The solution above place all text/templates etc inside the ref in a block at the end. If this is implemented a big pain will be relieved for a lot of editors (not so familiar with meta data and codes disturbing the main text etc.). Should this be implemented at en-wiki (see Cite.php)? Nsaa (talk) 22:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That will be so good. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 06:13, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I haven't thought about the ramifications but having a choice seems like a good idea. I like the idea of not cluttering the text with templates; it increases legibility. However, I'm more eager to see a solution to the ref tag's page numbering problem. --Adoniscik(t, c) 23:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * An interim solution for the page numbering problem is Rp. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 06:13, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

A Cite template for references to material in the (UK) National Archives
I have been slowly working on the comments made on the Whitby and Pickering Railway article. Some of the references I am adding need to cite material produced (and in some cases published) by the early railway companies or reports by Railway Inspectors; all of which is held in what is now The National Archives although I still think of as the Public Record Office. I imagine some similar problems may arise when referencing material in other similar institutions in other countries, perhaps even the Library of Congress.

So far in different articles I have tried Citation and Cite Book but neither really meet my requirements, trying to fit the necessary information into them gives a rather 'klunky' feel. Neither template (to my knowledge) supports quoting things like volume and minute numbers when referencing company minute books

Is there already a more appropriate cite template that I could use ? Or could a suitable new template be created, if so further consultation with possible users would be needed to ensure it covers all required fields. I doubt my very limited experience of template writing would be adequate for this task - are their others who might take it on ?

Indeed do (unpublished) company minute books and other records held in a national archive (or indeed any archive), qualify for use in a Wikipedia reference ? XTOV (talk) 22:41, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you aware that you do not have to use a citation template at all? You could just format them by hand.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Granted but the Assesment Comments on one or two articles I have contributed to specifically ask for them; for instance 'Requires addition of inline references using one of the {Cite} templates'. XTOV (talk) 20:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Did you happen to ask the assessors why they were demanding the use of optional templates? Perhaps they were unaware that citation templates are strictly optional.  So long as the final output looks consistent to the reader, what happens in between the ref tags is of no importance whatsoever.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Whilst I would entirely agree that citation templates are strictly optional and should not be insisted upon, if you feel an external link template might be helpful (being easier to markup and allow more consistant appearance), then you are free to choose to use a template (but no one can or should obligue you). So if you would like help setting up such a template, feel free to ask me (but please set out a couple example links and the level of details needing to be shown). NB this would only work if there is consistancy at The National Archives in how their topics, subjects and pages are arranged (no point in setting up template if only worked for railway data but a different website structure used on say road planning etc) David Ruben Talk 21:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Cite news – activate the location parameter
I have placed a couple of requests at Template talk:Cite news for the "location" parameter to be made functional. Supposedly the "location" parameter displays only when the "work" parameter is omitted. That in itself would be a problem, because there should always be a "work" associated with a news article. The purpose I would expect for the "location" parameter would be to display the location where the news source is published where that is not obvious from the title of the "work".

But the "location" parameter doesn't even display when the "work" is omitted. See below for examples.

displays as:



displays as:



What I think the "location" parameter ought to do is as follows.

should display as:


 * Doe, John (September 9, 2008). "Some Arbitrary Article", The Sun (Kuala Lumpur), p. 1. Retrieved on September 9, 2008.

Can anyone make this possible? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Cite book's current behavior seems clearer to me, though of course the field should not simply disappear in this template due to a missing work. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 06:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Unless a good reason, cite XXX family of template should try to have consistent style, see cite book where location is shown in normal font after italicised publisher and a separating fullstop, then has a trailing colon rather than a comma. Hence in the last example as:
 * Doe, John (September 9, 2008). "Some Arbitrary Article", The Sun. Kuala Lumpur: p. 1. Retrieved on September 9, 2008.
 * Now I agree in brackets has some aesthetic appeal but is inconsistant. None of this makes coding hard, just need briefly think through what would be an appropriate style. David Ruben Talk 13:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The location parameter is supposed to be displayed (always, if present, not with or without the presence of work!); it is part of all (MLA, AP, etc.) style manuals on citation, as it is crucial meta-data about a cited work (if unclear on why, consider that a book written about Colonial India published in London may be very, very different in its assumptions, biases, coverage, focus and intended audience, than one published in New Delhi; also there are publishers by the same name in muliple countries, and some publishers (Oxford U. Pr., etc.) that publish different editions, with different page numbering, etc., of some works, out of multiple branches in multiple countries).
 * Just do what Cite book does, consistently across all of these: . —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 06:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)  [Above, David Ruben says it comes after publisher, but he meant the italicized work title (title in Cite book, work in Cite web, journal in Cite journal, etc.).]
 * PS: A case can be made for suppressing visual display (with CSS  - it should still be present in source, even as received by the end-user browser, as valid meta-data) of location and its following colon if publisher is empty, since it looks funny. Since publisher location is rarely known where publisher is not, there should be very few such cases (many Cite web users neglect to put a publisher field, but they don't use location either generally). —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 06:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)