Wikipedia talk:Citation templates/Archive 6

Citing Congressional Materials
I ran into an issue on how to cite testimony at a Congressional Hearing (which is reported both on the Committee website, the witness' website and GPO Access, the Government Printing Office website. There seem to be several 'preferred' styles, including Lexi-Nexus, APA, and others. It would be useful for a Cite template(s) to be added to the Citation Template page. I am not sure how one would suggest a specific style or present it for discussion. 64.197.247.130 (talk) 23:48, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Cite database
User:Droll created this template recently; I think it is a duplicate to Template:Cite web, inconsistent with the other cite x templates. In any case, the template was not discussed before its creation, so I'd like to ask for opinions here. &mdash;innotata 16:37, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There has been some discussion of this at Template talk:Cite database. &mdash;innotata 16:07, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Template caps: "Cite" or "cite"?
Does it make any significant difference if the citation template names are capitalized or not? Is "{{Cite book" better than "{{cite book" in any way? Most the the examples in this and other pages are in lower caps, but I notice that some bots tend to change them to upper caps. It's a little easier to type the lower caps, so that's what i usually do when I'm not using a citation tool.  Will Beback   talk    02:37, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * They're equivalent, the same as Foo and foo are equivalent.  Imzadi  1979   →  03:00, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'd thought that foo had to go through an automatic redirect. But of they're identical, so far as the servers are concerned, then that's great.   Will Beback    talk    03:05, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Related question: should they be left alone, or are bots and other semi-automated processes permitted to change from {{tl|cite}} to {{tl|Cite}}. Personally, I prefer {{tl|cite}}, it's easier on the eyes, and would prefer that people didn't change things when running automated processes to suit their personal preference. – xeno talk 18:29, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It's possibly not the personal preference with some tools, but what api.php normalizes things to. See this for example. Uncle G (talk) 18:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Per our earlier conversation on my talk page: Let me start by throwing myself under the bus and state that I believe I am at least one of the editors mentioned indirectly above. As I was mentioning on my talk page I have been doing this partly for consistency (so it matches what the template name is). As I mentioned I only do this as a minor edit when I am making other more significant changes and until recently knowone has ever mentioned having a problem with changing it. Additionally, I understand they are equivelant but as I stated on my talk page I have been told by and have read and prticipated in conversations were, having redirects or "equivelant" variations of templates can adversely affect sister projects like Wikibooks or outside links like Facebook or other mirror sites. I admit that I am not overly concerned with whether facebook or some other site mirrors information but the fact remains that these sites are doing it (and are freely allowed to do so based on the WP charter) and WP should support that as much as possible. With that said, I admit that I have never heard of a problem as stated above with the Cite templates but...who knows. Personally I prefer Cite over cite but if consensus is there is no concensus I will gladly submit to the will of the community. --Kumioko (talk) 18:50, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes...you are...but I didn't want to name names =) I've never heard of this "adverse affect" for sister projects or external reusers before you told me - is it documented somewhere? – xeno talk 18:53, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No problem Im man enough to admit when Ive been called out by a fellow editor. I cant find any of the conversations at the moment but I will look around and find a couple and leave a couple links here. I know that there was an issue fairly recently with a redirect of Template:Start. It was redirecting to actual template of Template:S-start and that was causing a problem with the associated article(s) not showing/printing correctly in Wikibooks. There was also an issue in the past few months were certain mirror sites and Facebook were having issues with certain template redirects (but I cant remember what they were at the moment). Thats the only ones I can think of at the moment but I know its come up several times with several templates for several reasons and the cause and effect were the same. Redirecting to templates can have unintended and undesireable 2nd and 3rd level effects. --Kumioko (talk) 19:33, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * In terms of how wikicode is processed, there is absolutely zero difference between {{tlx|cite book}} and {{tlx|Cite book}} - they are exactly the same. Not "one is a copy of the other" the same - but they are the same physical file on the servers. There is no redirection, there is no difference in load time, there is no need to change one to the other, and definitely not so that "for consistency (so it matches what the template name is)".
 * The main problem that I have with changing from {{tlx|cite book}} to {{tlx|Cite book}} (or any other first-letter capitalisation) is that it shows in the diff, so if you have the page watchlisted, you spend ages going through loads of changes where the only difference is the case of the first letter. You are then quite likely to miss the real changes - not being able to see the wood for the trees. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:00, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Another Formatting error
Consider the following cite book references that were recently added to the Polylogarithm article:


 * (this 1826 manuscript was only published posthumously.)


 * (also appeared as "The remarkable dilogarithm" in Journal of Mathematical and Physical Sciences 22 (1988), pp. 131–145, and as Chapter I of .)



Is there a way to make the "(in French)" and "(PDF)" parts in the 1st and 3rd references appear immediately after the contribution title, and not after the editor names? Is there a way to make the "in" appear in the 2nd case too where editor names are unknown? Thanks, 217.184.57.154 (talk) 10:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC).
 * Number 2 is easy. The editor is known (it just needed looking up) and the citation template for a conference paper is cite conference not cite book. Uncle G (talk) 10:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Uncle G. I hope you got the real editor there and not just the author of the first conference paper ... :). (And of course this doesn't explain why the appearance of "in" has to be dependent on the availability of an editor name, rather than the proceedings or conference title.) Now, can somebody also fix the positioning problems with the 1st and 3rd references? Thanks again (same guy), 217.184.57.136 (talk) 16:40, 23 September 2010 (UTC). PS: I have an inkling that whoever added the "fix me by providing inline citations" notice to the reference list of said polylogarithm article is no mathematician, or not familiar with the subject matter :).
 * I cannot verify this editor name in reliable sources. I looked at the corresponding references of a handful of papers by apparent specialists (including Zagier as a conference participant) where this conference contribution is cited: always without mentioning any editor(s). Compare AMS-mathscinet for the contribution, Zentralblatt for the proceedings, and Zentralblatt for the contribution. In view of this lack of evidence, I am strongly inclined to remove the editor name. Thanks again (same guy), 217.184.57.153 (talk) 07:46, 24 September 2010 (UTC).

Missing one
Shouldn't Cite album-notes be listed here? Alzarian16 (talk) 13:07, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Question about Conference proceedings
I need to use author, editor, article title, book title, series, date, city, publisher, page number, all together in citing an article. But I can't figure out how to have all of these display in the same template. This is what I am looking for. Thanks Tibetologist (talk) 10:19, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hill, Nathan (2008). “Verba moriendi in the Old Tibetan Annals.” Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages III. Christopher Beckwith, ed. (Proceedings of the 11th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies.) Halle: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH: 71-86.
 * Is any use? -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:07, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Reviews
I also see no template at all for book reviews.Tibetologist (talk) 10:23, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Book reviews tend to be either in periodicals, in which case use for newspapers, or  for other journals including magazines; or they are on web pages, in which case use . If such web page is the online edition of a printed periodical, use / as applicable and fill in the url parameter.
 * There is an example of a reference to a review published in both print and online form on the article Toni Arthur. It's a CD album review, not a book review, but the principle is the same. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:23, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Need to standardise citations
We seem to have 2 mains tools for creating citations:
 * refToolbar, with various versions, by Mr.Z-man and Apoc2400:
 * refToolbar 2.0, by Mr.Z-man, supports the new WP UI.
 * refTool, also by Mr.Z-man, supports the old UI but not the new one.
 * makeref. I've been working on this but it's a laborious job, as there seems to be nothing like a function / subroutine for common code.

Whichever tool(s) we use, I think we need to standardise the parameters in citations. For example Citation_templates shows separate cite comic and comic strip reference, with different parameters for what appears the same information. In academic works (journals, books, etc.) they are all just authors (last1, first1, etc.), whatever their speciality (morphology, molecular phylogeny, fossils, etc.). I suggest that tools should support only the standard params such as last1, first1, etc. I suspect the separate parameters for cite comic and comic strip reference are at best the result of enthusiasms for some writers and artists. --Philcha (talk) 11:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC)


 * User:Gadget850/Citation templates— anchors will give you an idea of the parameters used. As noted, anchor support for Harvard and shortened footnotes is spotty. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 13:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)


 * It's not about Harvard and shortened footnotes nor about CITEREF and other anchors. It's about how many "cite xxx" there are, each with incompatible parameters. --Philcha (talk) 12:43, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Philcha. Wikipedia is a much less well-sourced encyclopedia than it should be, in part due to the confusion caused to newer editors by the myriad ways citation templates encourage form differentiation, and also by the releative difficulty required to use the various formats that set up citations with citation meta-data.  I spent a year or more trying to utilize  formats, but gave up after finding the community itself had never coalesced on any one style/format.  I still add lots of sources to articles, but mostly just go with whatever is easiest for me the editor nowadays, which seems to be okay with Wikipedia policy.  This is usually just skipping the citation meta-data field names entirely.  Cheers.  N2e (talk) 14:23, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Citation of article reproduced on databank
Which template would be used to cite an article that is, for instance, reproduced on ProQuest, if that databank is the source used? John Carter (talk) 16:28, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Assuming it's a journal, use and fill in url. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:02, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

dumb question one: archived url and date
Is the archived url, the same as the regular url, if I don't have a special archive, or should I eliminate the field? And the date is the date I looked at the url or some date of archiving? See for instance citations in TCO sandbox Amanar article? Mea culpa...I am trying to figure out how to use these things! TCO (talk) 05:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * No they are different. Generally speaking, if you locate something on the web and construct a new reference from it, use url for the URL where you found the info; accessdate for the date when you found the info; and date for the date shown on the web page (not all web pages are dated). The archiveurl and archivedate fields should either be left blank, or removed.
 * At some future point, if your url fails, somebody might tag the ref with, and later on a helpful editor (possibly a 'bot) will search for archived versions, and fill in archiveurl and archivedate. The archivedate thus filled in will be the date that the archive copy was taken, and will almost certainly be earlier than the date that the archived copy was found by our helpful editor.
 * For example, on many pages on Doctor Who serials, you may find references which link to the "Outpost Gallifrey" (aka Gallifrey One) website. That website still exists, but many of the pages which it used to carry are no longer there; however, copies were made by other websites, which can be linked. These, if they faithfully duplicate any revision of the original, are known as "archive copies". So, on The Daleks, you will find a ref which states
 * This citation has two URLs. url is the one where the information was first located, but this link no longer works. archiveurl is the archive copy; and that copy was taken by web.archive.org on 10 April 2008. These two archive parameters were added by a 'bot with, on 19 October 2010. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:47, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This citation has two URLs. url is the one where the information was first located, but this link no longer works. archiveurl is the archive copy; and that copy was taken by web.archive.org on 10 April 2008. These two archive parameters were added by a 'bot with, on 19 October 2010. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:47, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Very thorough post. Gracias. (Maybe worth transferring to article, if there are other knuckleheads like me (I?).) I will go back to Amanar, now in mainspace, and clear out the archive date and archive url info. Note, that for that article, I was using this template (changed outer parens so template will display, here), which doesn't seem to have an accessdate (I guess not needed, since it is really citing a periodical).

({Citation | last =   | first =   | author-link =   | last2 =   | first2 =   | author2-link =   | title =   | journal =   | volume =   | issue =   | pages =   | date =   | origyear =  | year =   | month =  | url =   | archiveurl =  | archivedate =  | doi =   | id = })

TCO (talk) 19:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The template does support accessdate; but it's only of relevance if either url or chapterurl is also given. Please note that the example templates shown at Citation templates do not necessarily explain or even list all the valid parameters - the most up-to-date versions are normally on the documentation pages of the specific templates. For example, click on this link -  - to see the documentation specific to that template. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:23, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

dumb question three: how to copy and paste
I am ending up keeping two pages open. One that is the article. And then this one here. I end up copying and pasting all the fields each time (from inside the table). Is that what I'm supposed to do, or is there some easier way, like a macro or like the template "popping open"). TCO (talk) 05:21, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There are tools which, for example, will present a form in which you fill in author, title, date etc. and it constructs the template for you. Further info at WP:CITETOOL. I don't use these, for a variety of reasons; personally, I always use the copy&paste method. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:05, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * :Try Special:Preferences → Gadgets → refTools, adds a "cite" button to the editing toolbar for quick and easy addition of commonly used citation templates. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:14, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

OK. Slick, I added it. Seems like it puts me in the "cat 2" sites usage, fine. Also, I get a little button for named refs. And one for error checking (will have to figure out what that does). I did go read up on the reftools page, but it was pretty techie. Anyhow, thanks. TCO (talk) 19:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Error check brings up another menu with various options that are pretty self explanatory. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 20:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Did I use citation templates properly in Amanar?
Appreciate a look-see, if I was using the templates right. I know now, that I need to back out the archive url and archive date (I didn't understand what that meant). But any other goofs? TCO (talk) 19:29, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

dumb question two: why different versions?
Why are there two different versions under book and journal? What's the difference? Also why not two versions for the others (comic book and all that)? TCO (talk) 05:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a general template, which is intended to cover all types of source; and there are specific templates, such as  and  each of which is intended for use on a narrow range of sources. The two groups have different appearances. For example, here is a book cited using
 * and the same one using
 * Note the difference in punctuation (commas for, periods for ). The two styles should not be mixed on the same page - if you edit a page already using , your new refs should also use ; and if you edit a page already using a mixture of , and , your new refs should use those and avoid the use of.
 * If you are starting a new page, then it's almost entirely up to you which style you go for: but some WikiProjects have their own preferences which should be applied to pages within their remit. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Note the difference in punctuation (commas for, periods for ). The two styles should not be mixed on the same page - if you edit a page already using , your new refs should also use ; and if you edit a page already using a mixture of , and , your new refs should use those and avoid the use of.
 * If you are starting a new page, then it's almost entirely up to you which style you go for: but some WikiProjects have their own preferences which should be applied to pages within their remit. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I think you refer to the copy & paste examples. The documentation for cite book first shows a full version which is in horizontal format then a vertical list which uses vertical format. Both render identically; which you use is a personal option, but should be consistent. Cite book uses what I have been referring to as Citation Style 2, and the documentation is fairly consistent across that series. See User:Gadget850/Citation templates. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:04, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Which do you think is better? I guess if I just use the toolbar I downloaded (without modifying it), would default to style 2.  Is that a general good style?  I don't think it really "matters" in some huge sense, but I kind of want to decide a format, for myself personally, to use when starting articles or editing in ones that don't have a consistent earlier version.  Just kind of get engrained that way.  I guess even, were I doing manual footnotes, that would be worthwhile, to decide on a style, for myself.TCO (talk) 19:27, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The CS2 series is probably the most used set of templates and are well maintained. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 20:08, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Also note that the templates have various parameters by which their punctuation styles can be altered (I see separator=, author-separator=, author-name-separator= and postscript= in the current docs for Citation, author-name-separator=, lastauthoramp= and postscript= in the current docs for Cite book). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:40, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

can I use "as cited by" in templates?
Is there a designated field (or just a place that a text field would fit) within the citation template where I can do "as cited by". IOW refs where I have not read the actual ref, but am citing it from something secondary. I am primarily using the toolbar cite templates, but even if it's not in those popup fields, if there were a field to add manually, let me know.TCO (talk) 03:20, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * You don't directly cite work discussed in a secondary source— you note in the text that the work is from the secondary source and you then cite the secondary source. See Purdue OWL. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 04:07, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That' my point. how do I get the field that allows me to type in as cited in blablabla? Is there a defined field? Will the postscript field work? how do ya do it?TCO (talk) 04:32, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * TCO, let's assume my information comes from Joe Bloggs' The Book of Bloggs. That book cited Jane Doe's Bloggs Around the World as its source. The article would then be written like "Jane Doe wrote in Bloggs Around the World that Mortimer Bloggs came to America on a wooden raft from England.[1]" My article would only cite The Book of Bloggs for the footnote, not attempt to combine them both together.  Imzadi  1979   →  04:50, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That's not what the rest of wikipedia says. Look at Manual of Style.

You don't have to litter up the article text itself. If you are manually doing the footnotes you would describe it as the source itself (where the info came from, but you did not read) and say as cited by where you did read it. But that's all in the citation. You can just have the content itself in the article. Not litter it up with the fact that you (me) were too lazy to go to the library and get the real source. ;)

I'm being cute, but this is a real situation. I am using a review report that cites a lot of other papers. I could be really lazy and just cite the review report (even though that report says where different facts came from) and I'm sure no one would notice. Except I would know I was cheating. Or I could go and ILL a bunch of science papers (and I lack academic library access right now). Or I can do the halfway thing and cite the source and say "as cited in". Here is the actual review I'm talking about:

http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/sfpnw/issssp/documents/planning-docs/ca-hr-chrysemys-picta-bellii-2009-09.pdf

TCO (talk) 05:03, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * See WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. Using that example, use two templates within the  tags:


 * cited in


 * cited in

Perfect. Thanks. TCO (talk) 05:50, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

What are the asterixes for in the popup templates?
What does work* mean? And where the heck is the asterix explained? Also, where is a list of all the fields and their definitions? some are incomprehensible to me. TCO (talk) 03:21, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think you have RefToolbar 2.0 enabled. I think the asterisk indicates a mandatory field. Look at the template, such as cite journal for the fields. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 04:19, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Nope definitely not mandatory field. Very unmandatory and more of a what the heck is that field. TCO (talk) 04:29, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Ask at Wikipedia talk:RefToolbar 2.0. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 05:11, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I just did on both. Thanks. 05:49, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

cite toolbar feedback
1. The toolbar always inserts my refs at the wrong part of the edit window. I am using standard software (Windows and IE). Real pain to move it all the time. Thinking about maybe just learning the fn formats and not using templates.

2. Could the templates, from toolbar, when they pop open have some buttons to push to allow checking the meaning of a field?

TCO (talk) 03:48, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Ask at Wikipedia talk:RefToolbar 2.0. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 04:22, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for new ?field?: |translator
Would it be possible to add |translator to the cite book template? (My temporary work around was to italicize the relevant details within the |title section). Thanks, BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 06:08, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * From the documentation for cite book:
 * others: To record other contributors to the work, such as "Illustrated by Smith" or "Trans. Smith".
 * ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 07:32, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 14:23, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Transclusion of citation templates into other wikis?
Maybe this is not the right place to ask, but I've gotten used to Wikipedia citation templates and would like to use them in my own wiki. For now, I'm going the route of Scary Transclusion, and it seems to get my templates fetched, but the templates expand to show only the template documentation, not the citation I want. Any suggestions on how to proceed? I'm pretty inexperienced with templates in MediaWiki, I'm not sure what's going on. Pointers much appreciated. Yakushima (talk) 14:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

How do I cite a technical report?
Which template to use? My toolbar has cite web, cite news, cite journal and cite book. Do I have to use some other template (which) that is not on the toolbar? Or do it manually? And if so, is there some general discussion of the style of the cite templates for wiki, so that I'm consistent when manual?TCO (talk) 08:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It's unlikely to fit . If it's a separately-bound report, I would say that would be suitable; if it's an article in a technical journal, use . If none of these seem suitable, try .  is intended for sources that don't exist in paper form, only in cyberspace. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been misusing the cite web for two tech reports. Cite document redirects to cite journal.  I guess I could try that. Will let you know hoe it works.TCO (talk) 13:17, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If you view the template page for (or whichever you choose), the documentation should show on a green background. In there is one or more blank templates for you to copy&paste; pop this in your article (either under "References" or between   tags depending on the existing style of the article), then fill in the relevant fields, and remove those that you didn't fill in. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:26, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm just going to use it off the toolbar or Magnus's site thing. OK?


 * I use cite book or cite journal. There are cite report and cite techreport, but they are styled differently. See User:Gadget850/Citation templates. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:55, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I want to stay in the same "system". I guess I just need to list the company or Federal department in the "publisher" field.  TCO (talk) 19:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * What I find I like the best (tried a bunch of things) is to use cite web and the form field to say technical report. Journal ends up giving me two parantheticals next to each other and looks wrong. (and yes, I totally get that it is incorrect and web should be used for things that are web only, but really, I am just using it as a mechanism to create a citation which I could also do manually.  Not arguing, just reporting back, like I said I would.TCO (talk) 03:22, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

P.s. The downside of the templates is that you start to lose connection with the actual output. I found myself plugging and chugging and not caring about the viewed result. Also, if wiki would just choose one style, we could make all the template and tools (there really are three levels of automation: manual, template, and tool (Magnus or cite toolbar)) work correctly together. Also, users who want to just learn one system and rock it out, could do so and get efficient with manual. And I really don't care what system we use. I've been in APS and ACS and AP and all these other formats and they all worked fine. I just want to pick one and rock. There;s no benefit to the Tower of Babble on this stuff. And yes, there may be tricky cases to cite (like citin graffiti or what your cat told you) but those things are hard in any system and you just follow the spirit of the law...having multiple systems doesn't help as those hard cases occur within governing systems anyway.TCO (talk) 03:22, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The format field is not to show any binding style, but is really intended for the electronic document format, to indicate which software may be necessary to view the source. That is, it's intended for "PDF", "MS Word doc", "Excel spreadsheet", etc. I don't think it's necessary to state that it's a technical report; if it's important to the author, editor or publisher, it will be in the title.
 * If the article has an established style, go with that (no matter how much you may dislike it). Citation templates may be tricky for novices to use, but they do give a consistent appearance: and repeated use gives experience and confidence to the editor using them. Also, if Wikipedia decides to change the way that the citations are presented to the end reader, changing a (comparatively) small number of templates is far easier than amending the hand-constructed styling for those articles that don't use templates.
 * The tools which build citation templates make the simpler cases easier, but there are often cases which the template allows but the tool doesn't. In such cases you can use the tool to build the basic structure, then examine the template's documentation to see what else can be added, and add it in manually. For example, some articles use shortened footnotes; unfortunately, some tools put the author(s) into author1, author2 etc. (or worse, squeeze the whole lot into authors), which are useless for linking short notes when and related templates are used. In such cases you would need to manually adjust something like Doe, John; Public, Joe so that it becomes Doe John Public Joe. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:18, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

1. I completely get you on what the purpose of the form field is or what even what the purpose of the cite web is. I'm just saying that using that approach, I actually got "output" (the actual non-markup result) that looked like what I wanted it to look like were I to do it manually. Almost like a "trick". Of course the downside is it might not stay stable as someone thinks I did it naively, and I did not put a hidden comment. Your point about how to do manual stuff is very helpful, but maybe beyond me. Can you clarify a little more? How do I "add manually" to a cite template?

2. I know that I have to use whatever the current article's citation system is. I get that and will conform. I'm not going to be one of these people who waste time arguing about crap like that (and running around with little revert wars) when there are bigger fish to fry in terms of missing content and crappy writing and stuff that is completely unsourced, regardless of citation appearance. That said, it would be EASIER on me (and writers in general) to only do one system and probably help encourage citations even more. We could still "allow" people to cite stuff even with a bare url. Just have others (and there are people drawn to this clerical stuff) go and change it after. I just think having one standard would be an increase in efficiency and even user comprehension. When I read an article in Science, the citations are all the same. WP is different from article to article. Even within articles, there is HUGE variation. The guidelines may say to be consistent with starting format, but for any article below GA (probably below FA), the citations are all over the map. (Don't believe me, try sampling some.) And I would argue that it's the precense of a gazillion formats from article to article that somewhat drives the within article variations.
 * Citation templates are just like any other Wikipedia template: they consist of a pair of opening braces " ", a template name, some parameters, and a pair of closing braces " ". It's all typeable text, so manually adding to a citation template is just a case of editing the relevant section. Let's say that the article contains something like this:
 * Frank Sinatra was a singer who lived on the moon.


 * There is no page number (and a lot of the other parameters allowed by are also omitted). Now, you happen to have that book, so you decide to search for the relevant page, in order to fix the ref - while about it, you decide to add a few other missing parameters. So, you edit the section, find the citation, which looks like this:
 * Insert those additional parameters for which you have information - Ol' Blue Eyes 123 0-12-345678-9 - to produce this:
 * Then save it, which gives:
 * Frank Sinatra was a singer who lived on the moon.
 * Then save it, which gives:
 * Frank Sinatra was a singer who lived on the moon.


 * Job done. You should always refer to the template's documentation page to see which parameters are available, and what their purposes are. Use of a parameter for other than its intended purpose may cause incorrect COinS metadata to be generated, which essentially means that search engines may return unexpected results. Use of an undocumented parameter will generally have no effect: so if the book has a red cover, you wouldn't be able to get any result from red. -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks.TCO (talk) 16:09, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

HELP! ASAP! (blank spaces in output reference)
Am using the field format to allow a clarifying parentheses for reports (please don't lecture me that's not what the field is for, I know that, but it gives me the exact "look" I want in the output, a parenthetical additive). But what troubles me is I get these honking big SPACES in between the title and the format. See here:

Actually it seems to happen in some (21, 44) where I wasn't doing the report in format shenanigans.TCO (talk) 23:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I think it was the pdf icon not displaying.TCO (talk) 16:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Citation problem
The Shakespeare authorship question article uses a source that was published simultaneously in the UK and the US in two very different editions. The page numbers rapidly diverge because the US version has fewer pages and m0re type on the page than the UK version. To help readers find the cited refs, we have configured the ref and cites with the US version page numbers in parentheses. However, in the ref, if both ISBN numbers are included it invalidates them. Is there any way to include two ISBN numbers in one template? Tom Reedy (talk) 22:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Give the ISBN of the edition which was actually used, and (hopefully) for which the page numbers correspond. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:20, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Correct. If both sources are available, you can add both as separate citations with the appropriate page numbers. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 23:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but is there some better way to handle the following situation? Particularly due to the controversial nature of the SAQ, there are many footnotes and references. As mentioned above, one important source is given with two sets of page numbers (60 footnotes).
 * For example, some wikitext in the article looks like this:
 * Example text.
 * which gives a footnote:
 * Shapiro 2010, pp. 238 (209–10)
 * which links to this reference:
 * Both sets of page numbers have been checked by editors, and are provided for easy access to the reader who may have the UK or the US edition. Duplicating 60 footnotes would be a lot of clutter. Is there a better solution than omitting one of the ISBNs? Johnuniq (talk) 00:14, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Then you will have to pick one source. You can't combine two different sources like that and make any sense from it. If you are linking to the US version and using the page numbers from the US version, then use that as the primary. You can add the UK version as Further reading. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 00:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That misses the point completely, which is to give retrievable citations for both US and the UK readers. Using only one edition would leave the readers of one entire continent scratching their heads trying to find the cited text,so doing so would require an explanation in the text that would be intrusive and miss most readers, I'm sure. Since ISBNs are not mandatory, I think we'd be better off just leaving them off if there's no technical solution. The Google link is strictly for convenience; the article wasn't written from it.
 * Or.....if there's any way we can disable the ISBN link, that would work also. Is there any kind of invisible prefix we could use to do that? Tom Reedy (talk) 06:42, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you've missed the point. You can only cite one edition as the source. If it's so necessary, post a section on the article's talk page with "For readers of the US edition (US ISBN given), the following page numbers correspond to the UK edition's pagination." or the reverse.  Imzadi  1979   →  06:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That seems like an awfully clumsy way to handle it, especially since we have both page numbers for each citation. The content of each edition is exactly the same; one is the UK first edition {Faber & Faber) and the other the US first edition Simon & Schuster), published by two different houses. It seems to me that insisting on strict conformance to technicalities (if indeed only one edition can be cited) at the expense of reader convenience reverses the priorities of the encyclopedia. Perhaps the reference template should be reconfigured to take care of these types of problems. Simultaneous publication has been common for quite some time; it is only in the present day of globalism that it has led to what is essentially a minor problem. Anyway, thanks to everybody for their input. Tom Reedy (talk) 12:42, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no rule that says only one edition can be cited. I think the solution described above with the Harvard references is pretty good. If that method were used consistently, I think it would be fine. A bit of explanatory text after the full reference details would help. We shouldn't assume that a standard template alone will handle every possible situation. --RL0919 (talk) 14:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no rule that says only one edition can be cited. I think the solution described above with the Harvard references is pretty good. If that method were used consistently, I think it would be fine. A bit of explanatory text after the full reference details would help. We shouldn't assume that a standard template alone will handle every possible situation. --RL0919 (talk) 14:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

First, you need two templates, one for each edition from which information has been drawn. Give each one a custom ref; also, add the publisher's location: These look like this: Note that only the Simon & Schuster edition has the URL.

Next, construct your footnotes inside the usual  tags but without using   - instead, use a regular wikilink, whose target is the :

If both editions carry the cited fact, give two footnotes, thus:
 * Although the idea has attracted much public interest,

This gives:

and each links to the correct full citation; click them and see. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:53, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for all the detail. I'll digest that and try it out in a day or two. Johnuniq (talk) 02:31, 13 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Note that you don't have to do a handcoded link.
 * or
 * Works as well. Try it:
 * CharlesGillingham (talk) 17:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * CharlesGillingham (talk) 17:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * CharlesGillingham (talk) 17:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Improvement, or mere change of style?
Oftentimes when I implement citation templates (or suggest to do it) I hear that this would be a "change of citation style, which is prohibited per WP:CITE". But is it? I always considered it an improvement of the existing article, like implementing birth date (etc.) in infoboxes. Because these templates also produce machine-readable information that "can be used by web browsers and other software tools to extract the details, and display them using some other website or mapping tool, index or search them." So is this a mere change of style, or an improvement? Does WP:CITE apply, or doesn't it? --bender235 (talk) 11:31, 29 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It may or may not be an improvement overall. Gaining machine readability comes at the price of worse view in edit mode, more disconnection from the output (I've seen it happen with myself and other), more work to do the input.  Even if it is an overall positive--and it may be there are some other positives like forcing a style and fixing formatting--the intention is not to allow or promote edit wars where someone incorporates a new style over otherwise engaged editors.  If the article is lying fallow, if you are in the middle of upgrading it, if you are starting it, then sure use the templates (I do).  But don't ram them down over people who don't want them if others are actively editing or if someone thinks they own the article.TCO (talk) 15:20, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Audiobooks
What's the best way to cite an audiobook? I edited the article on Professor Ellen Schrecker -- the listing of her works didn't include an audiobook she'd done for the Modern Scholars series. For lack of anything better I used the "cite book" template. I think it's a weakness that the resulting listing doesn't indicate that the work is an audiobook, although a reader who notices that the publisher is "Recorded Books, LLC" may figure it out.

According to the publisher's website, there are three different ISBN numbers for the work, depending on the format. I happened to have the one on CD so I used that number in the citation. JamesMLane t c 17:27, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Does  work for you? Normally that field would be used to indicate that an online source is something other than plain HTML, like a PDF, but I assume that would work just as well for an audio book.  Imzadi 1979   →   17:30, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes: each significantly-different version will have its own ISBN (since an ISBN is essentially a unique code for ordering the publication, a significant diff includes whether it's CD or tape, so that a bookshop is ordering exactly the right format), and you should give just one of them, the one of the edition which you consulted. I'm not sure whether you should indicate the fact that it's an audiobook in the format, edition or elsewhere however. BTW the URL that you give for the publisher's website just shows a small amount of text and four buttons, this audio book isn't mentioned on that page. -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:20, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If you follow my link on Firefox or Opera, you see only the four buttons. If you follow it on MSIE, you see the full information on the book.  Evidently the company's web designers think everyone uses MSIE. JamesMLane t c 08:04, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hrumph. Yes, I use Firefox. It's quicker and uses less memory than IE. To h*** with Bill Gates and his evil deeds. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:48, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Right, have just tried it on IE 7.0.5730.13 and the result is same as Firefox: text "Modern Scholar Great Professors Teaching You!" and four buttons "Library", "Consumer", "School" and "Retail". -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:34, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That's weird. I just tried it again on MSIE 7.0.6001.18000 and saw the full course information displayed.  The explanation for this discrepancy is left as an exercise for the reader. JamesMLane t c 07:44, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Does this digression have anything at all to do with the discussion in which it is embedded? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:11, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to find out about the various formats that this audiobook has been produced in, so that I can advise on the original question, but the only URL that has been provided so far doesn't work on any of the four browsers which I have (IE7, Firefox, Chrome, Opera). -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:21, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * AFACT, this title is only available on as an audiobook (see ). Apparently, the cited ISBN is an edition in the form of seven CDs containing containing 14 university lectures -- a total of 14 hours of audio. (see ). You could add a note saying something like "(audiobook)" in the bulleted citation item following the templated citation. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:41, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Use the type parameter. For example, CD would add (CD) after the title. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 13:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * That sounds reasonable, and apparently calls for an update of Template:Cite book/doc and Template:Citation/core/doc. Citation doesn't appear to support such a parameter -- perhaps that should be added there and its docs updated. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:18, 6 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Cite book does document type, and the meta-parameter in core is TitleType; that is type in book is passed to core as TitleType. Could use an update, as it only notes "thesis or dissertation". Don't know why citation doesn't support this, but it is easy enough to add. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 03:08, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Cite book does document the type= parameter. It says, "If the publication is a thesis or dissertation, the type can be specified here. [...]". Citation/core docs say something similar. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:50, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've boldly updated the docs for Cite book and Citation/core to liberalize the usage of the relevant parameters. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 16:29, March 7, 2011
 * Thanks for the help! I've added the type = to specify that Schrecker's book is a CD.  The discussion of documentation and core goes over my head.  My normal procedure is to go to the Citation templates page and cut and paste the template I want.  In this instance, that process gave me no hint that I could insert the "type" line.  If you template mavens can do something to make life easier for the next ignoramus who bumbles into this area, it would be great. JamesMLane t c 08:23, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Citation templates only includes the most commonly used range of parameters available for these templates. Editors should read the full documentation to get full use. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:32, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Cite web and cite news
I have raised a thread at WP:citing sources about whether cite news should be used instead of cite web for 'online newspapers'. Please post there if you have any comments to make. Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 13:54, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The discussion there is now concluded, and the answer is of course "yes". -- Alarics (talk) 11:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Cite google book template
The Template:Cite_google_book template has more than 2 thousand unprocessed usages on Wikipedia. This template seems really popular but is not yet supported by a bot so all these references are sitting around saying "Citation will soon be automatically completed. In the meantime, please check that you have correctly copied the book identifier." Can we do something about this? - Craig Pemberton 07:29, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Why do we need such a template in the first place? Why won't "cite book" do? -- Alarics (talk) 11:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Dunno, but it seems to me that either a servicing bot should be implemented or the template should be modified to remove the notification that the citation will soon be automatically completed. With 2,000 or so transcluding articles out there (your count), it's probably not a good idea to deprecate the template. Note that this tool could be used by a bot to complete the citation, but I don't know how solid the commitment to long-term support of that tool is, and completing the citation by web scraping the HTML produced by the tool without solid arrangements to keep the tool and the bot in sync is pretty fragile. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:20, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh man I feel silly. 2000 came from a Google search for a string and I could have sworn my search included site:wikipedia.org but apparently the total count is just 24 and the rest is other sites mirroring Wikipedia. Given the significantly lower deployment I feel we should make template page and template notification clearly state that the template doesn't actually work and notify the template author on his talk page. - Craig Pemberton 19:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable to me. If there is no work in progress to implement the servicing bot, I'd suggest that 24 or so articles which transclude the template should be edited to use cite book instead (easy to do manually with the tool I mentioned above) and the cite google book template deleted. I don't really like the idea anyhow -- it seems to me that this invites problems with editors leaving erronious URLs (either inadvertently pointing to the wrong book, containing inadvertent typos, or maliciously incorrect) for the servicing bot to deal with, and the bot not being well equipped to recognize the presence of some errors or to deal well with recognized errors. As a first step, this should probably be raised at Template talk:Cite google book. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:11, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That tool is very good and what I ended up using to fix the cites on the page I was working on. It should be easier to find so people find it instead of the defunct template. - Craig Pemberton 19:22, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I manually converted a number of Template:Cite google book transclusions into Template:Cite book, intending to complete that work and then WP:PROD Template:Cite google book. I stopped this work partway through Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Cite_google_book when I came to Template:Cite doi. It turns out that actually comes from Template:Cite doi family, and I've left a message at template talk:Cite doi family asking for comment here if appropriate. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:15, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I updated the message so users know what is going on. - Craig Pemberton  03:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I could write the bot independent of reftag.appspot.com. Copying 6 pieces of information from one page to another is the most tedious process that would be better automated -- ke4roh (talk) 20:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If you do that, I have some suggestions --
 * Parse author data to last= and first=. Handle multiple authors properly.
 * Render author data as last= and first= by default. Handle multiple authors properly.
 * Support editor(s) similarly as for author(s). Handle multiple editors properly.
 * Support to-be-added options to cite google book
 * author=a (?) to render author= instead of last= and first=.
 * Support page={arbitrary string} or pages=={arbitrary string}.
 * Support quote={arbitrary string}.
 * Support ref={arbitrary string} for working with Harvnb.
 * Those cases are plain-vanilla enough that they ought to be handled, I think. There may be others which don't come to mind just now. Then again, perhaps it's better to deprecate cite google book; the devil is in the details. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:20, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I manually converted cite google book citations in the remaining mainspace articles using this template to cite book. I placed a notice at template talk:Cite google book that possible deprecation and deletion of that template is under discussion here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:11, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I removed the remaining link to this template from Template:Cite doi family &mdash; as of now this template has no links from mainspace or template space. I added a Prod, proposing deletion. I've never used Prod before, and see that the Prod hatnote on the template page says "Please use PROD only on articles." In the absence of feedback to the contrary, if this template is still around in a week or so (after 9 April or so), my intention is to delete it. Please speak up if you object. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:59, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've removed the prod and submitted to Templates for discussion since that is how template deletion is normally handled. Please visit Templates for discussion/Log/2011 April 2 to contribute to the discussion there. --RL0919 (talk) 12:19, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Twitter
While Twitter clearly isn't a reliable source for most things, sometimes it's necessary to cite a specific tweet, in order to demonstrate that the account holder actually said what they did: for example, the reference in Middleton Lakes RSPB reserve. Can we have a template for such occasions, with semantic markup such as COinS and, and an agreed standard of formatting? Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:32, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * So I can better understand what you are requesting, please specify where in Middleton Lakes RSPB reserve the citation in question is? Jc3s5h (talk) 22:33, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Scan the wiki-code for the twitter.com URL. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:46, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I see that tweets can be viewed without having to create an account, which makes be feel somewhat better about using twitter as a source. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:19, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The consensus is that Twitter can be used as a primary source under some conditions, see WP:TWITTER and WP:ELPEREN. To reference an account, use Twitter. To reference a specific tweet either use cite web (which is where Cite tweet redirects) or cheat a little and use Twitter with the entire message URL starting with the account name. For example,  results in . I suppose this should be improved by supplying date and accessdate, is that what you are looking for? --Muhandes (talk) 09:11, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you. has CoinS metadata, but neither has the facility to quote the Tweet.  Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I see. I'm not sure this is the right place, as this Project is about citation, not quotation. However, are you looking for something like this? For now it accepts text, sign, id, messageid, date and accessdate. --Muhandes (talk) 19:25, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you, but no. I'm looking for a citation, which includes an (optional?) quotation like the one created manually (and thus with out metadata) in the example I gave above - though I can see that your version would also be useful. I've; set your Lorem ipsum to 140 characters, Twitter's maximum, BTW. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:06, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, something like User:Muhandes/cite tweet? --Muhandes (talk) 11:22, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * {tl|cite web}} supports quote. If that is not what is desired, then please clarify. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 11:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's what I used in User:Muhandes/cite tweet. All it adds is that it uses some fixed format for the title as well. --Muhandes (talk) 14:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Cite newsletter
Myself and others (see page archive) want a dedicated template for citing newsletters. None of the current templates are up for the job. Can the cyber-boffins here build one up. Including two ISSN numbers would be good - one for print the other for online. Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:48, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there anything cite journal does not provide? That's what I use for newsletters. Perhaps a specific example where the existing templates do not suffice will help. --Muhandes (talk) 00:11, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it is fairly well established that ISSN is used only when referring to a periodical as a series and not when referring to an issue. Why two ISSNs— you should be citing only the version you actually used, either online or hardcopy. And as above, what is missing from any current template? ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 01:01, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I used cite in the end at Invasive_species_in_New_Zealand. I was thinking of having two ISSN links in cases such as this one where readers could link to either the online version or a paper copy in a library. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 03:20, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * For all citation purposes, cite journal and citation look adequate, and the reasoning for not having both ISSN's is what Gadget850 mentioned. If you want to mention a journal/newsletter as an external link, I think formatting it manually should suffice and will be more appropriate than complicating the existing template. If you intend to add a large number of newsletters as external links and would like a convenience template created, I've done this several times before and I'll be happy to help, just drop me a line at my talk page. But this does not appear to belong with the citation templates. --Muhandes (talk) 07:04, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The ISSN is a concept which is occasionally misunderstood. Most periodicals, be they newspaper, magazine, etc. have an ISSN, but that ISSN is constant from one issue to the next; the current (June 2011) issue of The Railway Magazine is ISSN 0033-8923, and so was that of January 1997, as were (I'm willing to wager) all those in between. An ISSN will confirm that the periodical exists, and can usually be used to obtain information about the publisher; it is used by newsagents, libraries and their suppliers for obtaining obscure journals whose names might be similar to a better-known title. On the web, the ISSN can sometimes link to the current edition of that periodical as a whole, but cannot be used to link either to a specific article or to any past edition. Periodicals which offer both print and online editions may vary the content between the two; the online edition may also be subject to revision in light of newly-discovered information whereas the print edition is essentially fixed once it has gone to press. Further, whereas print editions are produced at fixed intervals (be they daily, four-weekly, quarterly etc.) and extra issues in between are a rarity, an online edition does not need any set publication date and may be published as soon as the article is completed. Therefore, since there is a good possibility that print and online editions are not identical, they are given different ISSNs. But you should always use the ISSN for the edition which you consulted - don't assume that the other one will carry identical content. If the text of the newsletter is available online, put a direct link into the url parameter. -- Red rose64 (talk) 10:33, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Need better template for citing topographic maps
Cite map doesn't sufficiently reference topographic maps or perhaps other serious maps. It leaves out scale, publication date, language, map type (contour, shaded, outline etc.), series name, index for the specific sheet, lat/lon range, projection, geoid, accuracy. LADave (talk) 19:36, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * How do you mean it "leaves out scale, publication date ..." - several of these parameters are present, certainly scale, date/year and series are valid. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:00, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I stand corrected. I didn't realize the synopsis at Citation templates was seriously incomplete.  Nevertheless a language parameter is missing, and needed because best available (online) maps are not necessarily in English.  They are often in Russian thanks to the late KGB.  Now the Chinese possibly may be catching up, particularly throughout Asia  Whether a map in Russian or Chinese is better for a particular reader is best left to that reader, so let's inform them!


 * Looking beyond reference needs of citing articles, if WP also aims to proactively gather information about maps it wouldn't hurt to have parameters for map type (topo/contour, sketch, relief...), projection and geoid used, accurate to...., coverage in lat/lon or other units. Also identify any grids shown; for example USGS uses Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system while the UK has its Ordnance Survey National Grid. LADave (talk) 19:14, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Just a question, but beyond language/translated title, are the other items necessary to specify which map is being cited? Or are they more a convenience to judge the quality of a map source. The reason I ask is that normally the information in a citation is what is needed to allow a reader to locate a copy of the source for verification and the goal is to keep the citation concise. I look at the Arthur M. Robinson Map Library at the University of Wisconsin and their citation guide for advice on what information is needed.  Imzadi 1979  →   22:30, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that my proposal goes beyond the minimum for locating a copy. Noting that Template:Citation and its derivatives tend to collect more than the minimum -- as do many infoboxes -- I'm inferring that WP possibly has a policy along these lines.  Having the information structured, it can readily be parsed and used for projects we may or may not foresee. So I was hoping to provoke some discussion. LADave (talk) 13:28, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I have recently been invovled in a lengthty discussion as to whether or not information that I gleaned from a reputable map was WP:OR or not. Would this in any way affect the template, or is there a guide somewhere that lits what is and what is not WP:OR?  Martinvl (talk) 14:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'd prefer simple, concise citations without unnecessary information added, but I came of age doing papers for high school and college before the Internet as a reference resource took off. I appreciate listing ISBNs/ISSNs/OCLCs in citations because the software renders those with links to find the sources, but I'm not sold on adding the rest of that information. Other opinions would be nice to hear though. cite map could use a parameter for an atlas name (to differentiate the book title form the map title inside), as well as parameters for the language of the map and translated title(s). Otherwise, I think the template supports the stuff we need in citations without bloating them. As for your OR concerns, Martinvl, no that would not impact this template.  Imzadi 1979  →   14:37, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If map parameters remain constant throughout a map series and mostly so over a producer's entire body of work, perhaps we could have comprehensive information without sacrificing concise citations via a map infobox template to use with articles like (France) Institut Géographique National, Survey of India, Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, (UK) Ordnance Survey and USGS. Now some of these articles could use expansion and others are missing.  For example several national mapping projects mentioned in Topographic map are without links, presumably without articles.  Topographic map doesn't even mention Soviet mapping, nor is there a separate article on this!


 * Nevertheless I think citations still ought to identify foreigh languages and translate titles. LADave (talk) 15:36, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I've made the additions to the sandbox version of cite map, as show in the testcases page with a dummy citation. The edit request has been made, so once an admin completes it, we'll be good to go on language/translated titles.  Imzadi 1979  →   18:19, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * cite map has been updated. This discussion has been most productive and I thank everyone, especially User:Imzadi1979! LADave (talk) 19:29, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Finish/rewrite Cite GIS template: need help !

 * ✅ - made by myself, in a barbaric way (several no understood elements deleted) Yug (talk)  16:17, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Hello,

For this summer, the wiki mapmakers of the Graphic Lab are pushing toward GIS cartogrphy. Modern, GIS cartography is made using specific GIS files, which are quite complex to cite. These files are the fundamental starting point of our work. Also, we really need a Cite GIS template. Cite GIS currently contain a copy Cite map's code, to rewrite into a Cite_GIS files template. My wish is just to display in the order bellow, and if nothing in the field, don't display any comma, or puntuation.

{{Cite GIS Wished output, same order + frame :
 * url_intro= http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm
 * name= SRTM3 v2
 * url_download= http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/SRTM3
 * publisher= NASA
 * year= 2000
 * license= Public Domain
 * topic= topography
 * precision_equator= 93m
 * covered_area= 60⁰N-56⁰S (landmass only)
 * extension= .zip → .tiff
 * size_compressed= ~2Mo each
 * size_uncompressed= ~4Mo each
 * tile_size= 1⁰ x 1⁰
 * tiles_total= ~20.000
 * datum= WGS 84
 * }
 * SRTM3 v2 (download), NASA (2000, Public Domain). Specifics: topography, 93m precision at equator, 60⁰N-56⁰S (landmass only). Files: .zip → .tiff, compressed file ~2Mo each, uncompressed file ~4Mo each, 1⁰ x 1⁰ each, ~20.000 files. Datum WGS 84.

I'm writing down an audacious series of tutorials about this GIS mapmaking, but I'm quite afraid by parse functions. Need help for this template ! Yug (talk)  07:44, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think this is very much overcomplicated with unnecessary detail, but at the same time omits highly relevant information. The primary purpose of a citation is to enable the reader to verify that the stated facts are correct: for that they need information on the source of the alleged fact. Therefore anything which is not needed to obtain said facts is unnecessary in the citation.
 * When citing maps the essential information comes down to two things: (i) the identification of the map or atlas (and page in the latter), including publisher and date; and (ii) the coordinates of the feature concerned. Thus, I believe that stuff like licensing, file extension, file size, number and size of tiles, is irrelevant. The glaring omission from your requirement is the means for specifying coordinates - if I want to cite, for example, the position of a railway station in England, I can give either the latitude and longitude, or the grid reference according to the Ordnance Survey National Grid. I see nothing in your proposal which would permit either of these to be given. A URL for downloading the specific map is fine; even better if it can be centred on the feature itself: but I don't see the point of having a second URL, especially one that throws a "404 Not Found" error, as http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm does. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Not to cite maps, that's to cite a GIS file, the source data used to create a map. The file's "Specifics" (layers, precision, coverate, etc.) are critical to understand the data's (and so the map) quality, reliability, and possibilities. The "File"'s parameters (extension, size, tiles) are rather for convenience, to enlighten the mapmakers on oncoming difficulties, that's true. Thanks for your comments ! Yug (talk)  15:16, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

✅ - I made the template by myself, with bad code but it work. Comments still welcome. Yug (talk)  17:35, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Responding to RedRose, if citations need to be kept short -- mainly for verification -- perhaps Yug's objectives could be met in an infobox template instead of a citation template.  Infoboxes can collect information more comprehensively. LADave (talk) 13:22, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You might find the sample citation formats from the Arthur H. Robinson Map Library at the University of Wisconsin-Madison useful in constructing a citation template for GIS files. None of those suggested formats match how Wikipedia's house style looks, so you'll need to modify them, but given that the library supports the cartography program at UW-Madison, I hold their suggestions in high esteem.  Imzadi 1979  →   17:56, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Citing Print-on-demand titles
When citing Print-on-Demand titles, or listing them in a bibliography, who should be cited as the publisher? See, for example, the bibliographies at Stefan Stenudd, Kerri Bennett Williamson, Garry Davis and many more, which list titles as published by BookSurge Publishing. BookSurge is actually the Print-on-Demand subsidiary of Amazon, and these books are in effect self-published. Should the authors be listed as publisher? RolandR (talk) 18:18, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Or indeed should we be citing them at all, since they will probably not have gone through any editorial process external to the author, as a normal book with a proper publisher would? Are not such books the printed equivalent of personal websites and thus not reliable sources? -- Alarics (talk) 19:55, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This discussion appears to be mis-located (see the hatnote at the top of this talk page). The original question might go to Wikipedia talk:CITE; The followup might go to Wikipedia talk:IRS (as suggestions that info on this be added to the project pages, if those project pages don't already address the issues). The followup might also go to WP:RSN. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I wasn't sure what was the appropriate location for this question, and have moved the discussion to CITE. RolandR (talk) 07:38, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

A consistency issue

 * cite map generates "[map]" after the title.
 * cite report" generates "(Report)" at the end of the citation.
 * cite press release generates "Press release." after the title.

Can we pick one method between these, either brackets or parentheses, and locate the notation in one consistent spot? Second thought, but while we're doing that, can we code it so that the format is appended to the notation? If it's a map in MrSID format, it could have "[map, MrSID]" after the title and a report in PDF format could show "[report, PDF]" as well. Just some thoughts for some greater output consistency.  Imzadi 1979  →   05:55, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems logical. My personal preference is parentheses, but I don't care that much. I would also add that "map" is not capitalized, so "Map" is better for consistency.
 * As for implementing it, changing the brackets/parentheses/capitalization is easy. moving the format inside is quite easy for map and report, which use specific code, but may be difficult to do with press release, as it uses Citation/core and would probably need to be botched. --Muhandes (talk) 10:07, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * APA style uses brackets and capitals, but there is a separate period at the end of the title. The map template is based off a standardized citation method similar to what cartography libraries recommend, which puts the terminal period of the title after the bracketed notation. I'll settle for getting the three to generate their notations in a consistent manner first before worrying about my second idea to combine a format with that notation. As for brackets being round or square, I'd say that it doesn't matter if we get the various templates to display  consistently. I'm not wedded to anything specific, but I'd just like harmony; Brockway Mountain Drive has a report and several maps, yet that Featured Article displays this issue.   Imzadi 1979   →   10:45, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Just because the templates use similar names does not mean they share a common style. Cite press release is part of what I refer to as Citation Style 1 ((CS1). The other two (and many more) are of varying styles. For example, cite book and cite journal have the same output because they are both CS1; see User:Gadget850/Citation template comparisons for more. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:46, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * So what are you saying? That this is a bad idea? --Muhandes (talk) 23:43, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * No— Cite press release is part of a series of styles. The other two were developed outside that system, so don't expect the style to be the same. In my opinion, cite report is redundant to cite journal or cite book. ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 01:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I happen to agree, but I can't bother WP:TfD. --Muhandes (talk) 09:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Setting aside the report template then, we still have an inconsistency issue that I'd like to see resolved. Granted, I try to avoid citing a press release over finding a press article from that time frame, but sometimes it can't be helped. In either event, we have a template that is used to cite maps and one that is used to cite press releases that generate the following output: They both generally follow the same order: publisher, date/year of publication, title of resource, type of resource. In the case of a press release, "Press release." follows the period that terminates the title. In the case of a map, "[map]" follows the title before any terminal punctuation. I'd like to come up with a standard way to notate a resource type so that they match up. cite map may have been written without using citation core, but that doesn't mean it can't be rewritten to use it. At the same time, I think using brackets (square or round) in a standard fashion to notate a type of resource being cited would be valuable, which would mean a change in how cite press release outputs its format. I have other ideas for upgrades to the map template I'd like to see made, as well to better deal with atlases or maps inside books.  Imzadi 1979  →   10:44, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * So far nobody objected. I suggest wait a few more days and then implement. --Muhandes (talk) 10:58, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I just pasted in how using cite book to format an unpublished report* would notate that the resource type in round brackets before the title's period. (*The report is unpublished in the sense that no publishing company sells it, but it is still available to the public upon request.) So the book template uses round brackets before the title's terminal period and whatever capitalization style the user inputs, the map template uses square brackets before the title's terminal period and a lowercase letter, and the press release template uses no brackets and capitalization after the title's terminal period.


 * If I needed to indicate that the resources were online in PDF format, that formatting indication is placed in different ways.
 * At FAC and other forums, editors are requested to add PDF format indications for a number of reasons. Not all browsers display the PDF icon after the link, nor do all links to a PDF end in ".pdf" to trigger the icon display. With maps, the Ohio Department of Transportation's online archives are in MrSID format which doesn't have a special icon. Some readers' browsers can't display PDFs, and most people can't read MrSID files without an external application. Given the larger average size for these files, the format indication is also a good warning for people on slower connections to expect a potentially lengthy download. In relation to the location of the resource type notation, the format notation is placed in different locations. Can we also work on harmonizing that as well?  Imzadi 1979  →   11:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I implemented the change at cite map so it will used the same format as cite report, and it is now awaiting application by administrator. On second thought, since {{tl|cite press release) is implemented differently so no full consistency is possible (the dot will always come before the brackets), and is in very wide use, I started discussion there to see if there are any objections or suggestion of how to implement it differently. --Muhandes (talk) 14:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
 * For a short period of time all three sandboxes were pretty consistent (parenthesis directly following the title, Capitalized word, dot only at the end of the title, outside the parenthesis and following all other qualifiers) but you seem to not like the solution and asked for it not to be implemented. I'm a bit baffled. --Muhandes (talk) 08:14, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * At FAC and other forums, editors are requested to add PDF format indications for a number of reasons. Not all browsers display the PDF icon after the link, nor do all links to a PDF end in ".pdf" to trigger the icon display. With maps, the Ohio Department of Transportation's online archives are in MrSID format which doesn't have a special icon. Some readers' browsers can't display PDFs, and most people can't read MrSID files without an external application. Given the larger average size for these files, the format indication is also a good warning for people on slower connections to expect a potentially lengthy download. In relation to the location of the resource type notation, the format notation is placed in different locations. Can we also work on harmonizing that as well?  Imzadi 1979  →   11:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I implemented the change at cite map so it will used the same format as cite report, and it is now awaiting application by administrator. On second thought, since {{tl|cite press release) is implemented differently so no full consistency is possible (the dot will always come before the brackets), and is in very wide use, I started discussion there to see if there are any objections or suggestion of how to implement it differently. --Muhandes (talk) 14:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
 * For a short period of time all three sandboxes were pretty consistent (parenthesis directly following the title, Capitalized word, dot only at the end of the title, outside the parenthesis and following all other qualifiers) but you seem to not like the solution and asked for it not to be implemented. I'm a bit baffled. --Muhandes (talk) 08:14, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I updated sandbox versions and started discussions to update {{tl|cite speech}} and cite report to use {{tl|citation/core}}. I sandboxed cite press release to fix the type issue and started a discussion. Sandbox versions should now use the same style— discuss on the talk pages if you see issues.


 * I will look at cite map and see what it takes to update to {{tl|citation/core}}. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 08:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * cite press release has been updated to (Press release).
 * {{tl|cite sign}}, {{tl|cite speech}}, cite report, {{tl|cite thesis}} and {{tl|cite techreport}} have been updated to CS1.
 * cite map, {{tl|cite interview}}, {{tl|cite DVD-notes}} and {{tl|cite newsgroup}}: update to CS1 is in sandbox awaiting feedback.
 * ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 23:17, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Citation Style 1
Help:Citation Style 1 now documents templates based on citation/core. It needs expansion. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 12:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Need a template for citing legislative bills, acts, etc.
There is a template for court cases but not one for bills, acts, laws. Thanks, Postpostmod (talk) 15:00, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * cite court uses Bluebook format and is one style for US Federal cases. There aer a bewildering variety of templates in Category:Law citation templates. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 00:15, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Punctuation
The current Cite Web template can produce some odd-looking punctuation. For instance, it puts a period after the author's and publisher's name, which can result in two periods (e.g., "Smith, John Q.." or "Publisher, Inc.."). Could this be fixed easily? Also, I only noticed it with the Cite Web template, but it could apply to others. -- Fcy (talk) 06:22, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * This affects all citation templates and there is currently no way to fix this. See Template:Cite book. --Tothwolf (talk) 08:43, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It affects most citation templates, not all: primarily those built around, but not itself. See also Template:Cite web. -- Red rose64 (talk) 10:21, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * IIRC, Citation's default separator is ',' so it would only do this if . were passed to the template. --Tothwolf (talk) 10:36, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * This would apply to the 16 general templates based on citation/core and to the myriad of specific-source templates based on those; see Help:Citation Style 1. This issue has been raised before, but I don't see a solution other than don't add the period in the name, but that messes up the CoinS output. We can raise this at citation/core— perhaps someone can figure out how to strip the trailing period from a field.


 * And not directly addressing the problem: Publisher should not include corporate designation such as "Ltd" or "Inc"; see cite book and most style guides.


 * ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 13:35, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:43, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Cite web - work and publisher fields
Looking at the current template fields and the guidance info it seems that three potentially useful sets of information are being forced into two fields. I think it would be best to have fields called website name, publisher (to be left blank when same as web name, or if not known), and sub-section, which would replace the work field, and more accurately details the content. At present you either need to lose the web name (if you want to note a sub-area, which can be very useful if the title is not that obvious) or the sub-section. I've posted here because the point is potentially the same for the other templates. Any thoughts? Eldumpo (talk) 19:12, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I think you are referring to something like a chapter in a book? Web pages really don't have chapters. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:10, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Can you give me an example of a web page for which you would really want to list all three, and none of the three are redundant with the URL? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

this diff, for ref 1 provides an example. Because the title of the page does not give much idea of the page content I would've preferred to use the Work field to get across further info on what the page actually is e.g. 'Playing stats and list of matches played'. However, as the web name and publisher are different I can't add that level of detail, without losing the web name, which would not be satisfactory. Eldumpo (talk) 11:12, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * 1) That would not really be an appropriate use of the work field. The citation currently reads, "". You wouldn't want your description to get italicized the way we handle book titles and newspaper names.
 * 2) You can add just plain text after a citation template, and that might work well:  Playing stats and list of matches played."
 * 3) Alternatively, you could steal the "trans_title" parameter, thus: "".  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:02, 20 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, possibly my proposed approach for this article would not link very well with what the current template guidance says, but my point is that potentially a change needs to be made to the guidance/fields, particularly to the work field. Given that the guidance for 'work' states that "...in most cases this is the name of the website" what would be the reasons for opposing the creation of an additional 'website' field?
 * It looks OK at a push, although it's not ideal being after the publisher. However, given the large number of fields available in the template it seems a bit strange to end up not using any of them and just type in text. It appears to reinforce the suggestion that a useful field is missing.
 * Using "trans_title" is not really appropriate as it's not using the field correctly, and is also incorrectly applying square brackets to the title that does not exist in practice. It again points to the need for a new field. Eldumpo (talk) 16:15, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not about "the current template guidance". It's that italicizing your made-up description is inappropriate.  Most citation system use italics to signal that something is a major work, like a book or a periodical.  Your citation style for websites should be compatible with your citation style for books or news articles cited on the same page.  Also, in the context of websites, the 'work' is often the name of the website, but it could be anything, especially if you're citing a subsection of a website or a work originally published on paper but now on a website.
 * The end of the proper citation is the normal place for annotations, i.e., descriptions of the source provided by the editor.
 * I agree that it is a kludge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:07, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not saying that the additional info text needs to be italicised, I was only suggesting that because there was nowhere else for it to go, as there is no proper field name to deal with it. You refer to it as "made-up description" but I would prefer to use the term "additional information to help clarify for the reader the format of the information at the web page". Whilst I agree there should be broad similarity between the templates they are not exactly the same now, so I don't see that the kind of changes we're talking about could not be added. I still don't see any reason to not allow a 'website name' field which would have the website's name and would be the field in italics. Then there could still be a 'work' field (although I'd prefer a more obvious/descriptive name) as well. I note that at WP:CITEHOW all the web bullet points have their own parameter in the template, with the exception of website name, and there is no mention of 'work' at all.
 * OK, if this is the normal place for annotated text, why not add an extra field called 'additional details' or whatever, and have that showing at the end of the citation, similar to the text you manually typed.
 * As an additional point, why are there so many field names without any entry in the guidance e.g. 'asin'. What do they all mean? It seems bizarre that all of these have been added to the template and there is not one for website name. Eldumpo (talk) 07:52, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm saying that your description should not be italicized, and thus I don't think you should use the work parameter for this information.
 * We could, but it's not necessary. You just type it after the template.  Sticking it at the end is all the template would do anyway.
 * The asin field probably refers to ASIN, which is sort of like Amazon.com's version of a UPC number. Why we would have this proprietary field—and in cite web, where it seems wholly irrelevant—is beyond me.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:20, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * It could be argued that any number of the template fields are 'not necessary', as they could all just be typed in manually, but that would defeat the point of having a template. Given that you seem to agree with the principle of displaying additional 'description' text I can't see why you have resistance to adding a proper field for description. Note also post below on this by Gadget, and my response. Eldumpo (talk) 14:53, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your responses on this, see my replies to each above. I can't see any reason though for not making the field changes, given how many existing ones there are (and I suspect a number of those are rarely used). Is it difficult to add fields to an existing template? Eldumpo (talk) 16:15, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * You should discuss this at cite web and give some solid examples of the desired output. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 16:26, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I have pointed this thread out at cite web and asked them to comment here. I've tried to set out above what my issues are, and shown an example. Basically I think the current fields are inhibiting worthwhile information from being added, and I think some of the field names could be changed in order to make things more obvious, and to get across key information. Eldumpo (talk) 16:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds like you want a separate field for a description— none of the templates support such a field and no citation style I am aware of supports a description. Your example is innocuous, but a description is rather tricky and borders on original research. I see descriptions a lot in external links, such as "website supports proposition" or "website opposes proposition."
 * Regardless, you have to look at citation/core and figure out where a description would go and which of its parameters to use. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 11:43, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, amongst other points I am making, I think there should be a field to allow additional information/description to be added, where it is felt that the combination of title, publisher etc does not convey easily to the reader the nature of the source, and thus help them to decide whether it is something they wish to click on or not. Whilst I see the point you are raising re original research, I feel you are being too cautious/negative with regards to the claim of OR. If anything were to be added in this field which was deemed questionable, then it could be challenged/removed in the same way as anything else in the article. The user above seemed to be suggesting that adding annotated text to the end of a citation was a recognsied style. When you say 'none of the templates support such a field' are you just confirming that there is nowhere logical at present for a description to go in the existing templates, or are you saying there is a formatting reason why such a text field could not be added?


 * Sorry, but I'm not sure exactly what you want me to do when you point me to citation core. This seems to be a list of the main parameters in the templates (interesting that 'work' is not listed) at present, so there is nothing presumably where 'description' could be put, but what I am looking for is this to be added. Presumably these templates have had various changes since they were started, and there is nothing stopping additional fields being added? Regards. Eldumpo (talk) 19:38, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

This is NOT difficult!
(Outdent) I really don't understand why anyone seems to have a problem using this (or any related) template properly. The work parameter is the name of the website, the "work" as a whole, without unnecessary URL parts like "http://www", and feel free to use some upper case where this will make it more readable (e.g. "FooBarBazQuux.com"). Or this parameter can be the site's explicit title it if provides one ("Foo Bar: The World Baz Quux Resource"). The publisher parameter is for ("FBBQ Publications Inc."), further identified with a location parameter if the HQ city of the publisher is known, or self-published if it's a blog or something. If unknown, include the parameter but leave it blank, and someone else may figure it out (e.g. by contacting and asking, by whois search, etc.)

Why on earth anyone would ever put something other than the publisher in the publisher field and something other than the overall work being cited in the work field is entirely mysterious to me.

The title parameter is, obviously, the title of the specific page, such as an article being cited ("Foo Barians Raid Baz Quux Headquarters in Northern BazQuuxia"), with an author (prefer last and first parameters, unless the article weirdly uses first-name-first formatting, in which case use author), if known.) If no author is provided (look at the bottom, too), it is a good idea to use author, so that editors understand that the author was not specified in the source, and don't waste time looking for one because they think your citation is incomplete.

If there's a need to cite some specific section of a site, use the at parameter, e.g. Section: "Foo Bar News Reports".

Simple, the end, please drive through, have a nice day. Confusing the website name with the publisher is like confusing the name of Led Zeppelin's album Houses of the Holy with Rhino Records, the label that produced it, or confusing the name of the TV show Firefly with the network Fox Television that aired it. It's just mind-bogglingly weird to do that. The publisher is never the work itself, in any medium. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 22:19, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The "Introduction" is not one.
I really don't like the section currently called "introduction", because it is not written to help new editors. It should only provide the information they need to get started, not bury them in obscure details. I believe that the top of this guideline should only describe those techniques that are used in (literally) millions of articles. Many of the techniques described in the "introduction" are extremely unpopular in Wikipedia. Indeed, several of them are used in only a few hundred articles at most (wikicite, for example). I appreciate that someone was trying to be comprehensive, but I have to point out that there many hundreds (at least) of other odd-ball citation techniques that people have used in a few dozen articles. There's ref and note. There are articles that used sub-pages for references. There are all manner of interesting experiments out there. There is no reason for us to document all these methods, and certainly not in the introduction. We should document the techniques used in the plurality of Wikipedia's articles first, and then mention a few runners-up and a couple of innovations that seem to be gaining popularity.

With this in mind, I'm moving the "introduction" down to the bottom of the guideline. CharlesGillingham (talk) 12:54, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

With a quick review, a lot of content here is better documented on other pages: Footnotes,

Shortened footnotes

Parenthetical referencing

Embedded citations

Footnote3 (deprecated)

Citation Style 1

Citation Style 2

Citation Style Vancouver ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:11, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have an example of an article that uses a sub-page for references? ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:12, 6 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I know I saw it, several years ago. I thought it was for a family of articles related to Race and IQ, but now I can't find it. Someone has "cleaned" it up, no doubt. They had done something like.


 * Anyway, I take it you agree that the old "introduction" (now Variations) goes into too much detail for an introduction? I'm just trying to get editors the information they need. CharlesGillingham (talk) 02:14, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Cite report
This has come up on two FACs that use the Cite report template: see the latest example here. When adding the PDF parameter to cite report, the template places the (PDF) first (before all other info in the citation), rather than later in the citation as done with all other citation templates, resulting in inconsistent citation styel. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 20:07, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It seems to do this only when there is no author field; when an author field is applied it formats it the way as it does with ref 17 in the article provided by Sandy (which in this case uses the |type= parameter). This still places the PDF differently from the other citations, however. I've tried adding those parameters ("type=Report" in this case) to the other citations using the cite report template without the author field, but it did not change anything.  Auree    ★  20:50, 6 January 2012 (UTC)


 * This is common to CS1:
 * The only different with cite report is the default title type and no title formatting (which is under discussion). ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The only different with cite report is the default title type and no title formatting (which is under discussion). ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The only different with cite report is the default title type and no title formatting (which is under discussion). ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The only different with cite report is the default title type and no title formatting (which is under discussion). ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The only different with cite report is the default title type and no title formatting (which is under discussion). ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Helper templates
I have created some helper templates:

Citation Style 1 is a navbox for Citation Style 1:

Wikipedia referencing is a navbox for various referencing styles:

Citation Style documentation uses modular chunks of text to build consistent doc pages for templates.

---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 16:53, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Harvard references
The template is up for deletion: see Templates for discussion/Log/2012 January 24. Please comment there. -- Red rose64 (talk) 01:55, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Cite encyclopedia
I have several issues with the "cite encyclopedia" template: --Martin de la Iglesia (talk) 10:35, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) If I omit the author name (e.g. because it is redundant in a list of works by that author), the editor name moves to the beginning of the entry and looks like the author of the contribution.
 * 2) There's no "ed." or similar suffix behind the editor name.
 * 3) How do I list more than one editor?


 * The editor names are followed by "ed." or "eds.". Multiple names use editor1-last, editor1-last through editor1-first, editor4-last. The template documentation need some tweaking, but I am working on this across the series. I will update the documentation to make this clearer. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 11:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)






 * Doc page updated. Let me know if anything could be clearer. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 11:58, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I still don't get it. In the example, there is no "ed." behind "Boyd, Kelley". Neither did I succeed in making a second editor appear in the citation. Could you provide an example for that? --Martin de la Iglesia (talk) 14:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * What example? ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Found it on the templates page.




 * If authors: Authors are first, followed by the included work, then "In" and the editors, then the main work.
 * If no authors: Editors appear before the included work; a single editor is followed by "ed."; multiple editors are followed by "eds."; more than three editors will be followed by "et al., eds.". ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:09, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think I see now where the problem is: in my opinion, it is misleading that the editors are listed before the included work when no author is given. I'd prefer such citations to start with the title of the included work. Besides, there's no "In:" when the author is missing, which I find unfortunate, too. (Furthermore, there's no dot after "ed" and "eds" - I'd prefer "ed." and "eds.".) ---Martin de la Iglesia (talk) 17:29, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There is a dot after ed. and eds. To change the manner in which this displays, the discussion needs to go to citation/core, the meta-template on which this is built. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 11:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * How can you possibly say there is a dot after "ed"? The example in Citation_templates clearly reads "Winkler Prins, Anthony, ed (1882)." --Martin de la Iglesia (talk) 15:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I am learning about how this works as we go along— this has never been well documented. If there is a date, then no period; if no date, then the list of editors is terminated with a period:












 * ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, but I guess that's not the intended behavior. Do you agree with me that there should be a period after "ed"/"eds"? --Martin de la Iglesia (talk) 23:27, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Fixed in sandbox: et al. with double period:





Fixed in sandbox: period for ed/ eds before date:









---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixes proposed at Template talk:Citation/core. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 12:46, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Luddite comes forward
After at least trying out the new variant of the citation/bibliographic templates, I would like to find a template that will output in Modern Language Association (MLA) format rather than the present APA style. My main reservation is the placement of the date with the publication date, a |PublicationDate= parameter that does not seem to indicate date(s) of publication next to publisher, rather it places it in the author field. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 14:20, 28 February 2012 (UTC).


 * While it would be possible to recreate the full set of cite templates to output to a different style, it's likely not going to be done (mix-and-matching of styles would be way to easy to run into and cause problems). You're free to format references directly as long as consistent styles are used within an article, of course. --M ASEM (t) 14:26, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, it's not really necessary to recreate the full set. Modifying the existing templates so they take a style parameter (style=APA or style=MLA) would solve Bzuk's problem (and make the mix-and-matching concern a non-problem, or at least an easily fixed problem). The only thing missing is volunteers for this task :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 28, 2012; 14:38 (UTC)
 * Whenever I've done "scratch-editing", along comes a citation-only editor (see V-1 flying bomb) who changes the style to that preference. Basically, I believe the citation templates were created as a shortcut system for Wikipedia users who were unfamiliar with bibliographic referencing. The creator/developers, however, have chosen a particular citation and bibliography style based on the American Psychological Association (APA) Style guide which is used for academic work in the social sciences (anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, political science, international studies, communications, and, in some contexts, psychology). I prefer the Modern Language Association (MLA) Style Guide which is used predominately for academic works in the humanities (ancient and modern languages, literature, law, history, philosophy, religion, and visual and performing arts. Additional subjects often included in the humanities are technology, anthropology, area studies, communication studies, cultural studies, and linguistics.). Since the work I specialize in is the history of a technology subject, e.g. aircraft, the MLA style guide works best, however, there are no Wikipedia templates written for this format. It is not that I am a Luddite, as I have been a reference librarian for over 30 years and had used electronic referencing templates for decades. Since I and many other Wikipedia editors can use "scratch" cataloging by hand-writing the preferred style guide, I find I can accommodate all manner of media, from print to non-print, every aspect of authorship and publishing and yet have the information appear correctly to the reader or viewer. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 14:43, 28 February 2012 (UTC).


 * Ok, the idea of having a tag in the cite templates to switch between styles is a possibility. Right now, if I use cite book it calls to Citation/core which is what formats it as AMA-style.
 * It is completely possible (but doesn't necessarily mean feasibility) to insert a second level template before the Citation/core call that calls out to different templates that function like this, but depending on a "style" parameter, will format to the appropriate style; for grandfathering, the current style would always be used as the default if the style parameter wasn't present. And as Ezhiki points out, it's a matter of styles being programmed equivalently to Citation/core with the same parameters just presented in different orders/formatting.
 * My concern is just on the mediawiki side: we are calling a 3-step template for every reference in an article. That may be CPU intensive given the number of references often used on a page. --M ASEM  (t) 14:55, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * is a mix of APA and Chicago with a lot of customization. The templates support both a date parameter (with some options) and a publication-date parameter:


 * PublicationDate won't work when using { templates; it is a meta-parameter used when invoking citation/core.
 * We also have a set of templates. If you want to create MLA templates, then go ahead. I am against adding switches to the current CS1 template to invoke different styles— it would be much simpler to just create and use a new template. Remember that you need to gain consensus before changing the citation style in an article per WP:CITEVAR.---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:57, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The switch from manual to citation style is done all the time, rarely with a consensus. I have literally asked for years for a MLA option (since 2006) and have been rebuffed countless times. In altering the present citation template to incorporate a "publicationdate=" parameter, the link from citation to bibliographic record is broken. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC).
 * If there is a consistent, established style, then it can be changed only by gaining consensus. By "the present citation template", I presume you mean citation or ? How is "link from citation to bibliographic record is broken?" ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If there is a consistent, established style, then it can be changed only by gaining consensus. By "the present citation template", I presume you mean citation or ? How is "link from citation to bibliographic record is broken?" ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

In the citation or templates, if a publication date is shifted into the publication field manually, it will read in output as publication, date but the harv coding is broken. The citation mimics the MLA style but has no advantage then over a manual system. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:24, 28 February 2012 (UTC). Further, most content editors care little about reference formats, and if a new editor comes on the scene, "correcting" the citations, IMHO, there rarely is a challenge. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:27, 28 February 2012 (UTC).


 * I am still confused. Are you removing date and replacing it with publication-date? As to your last, we can, educate and enforce, but there is little way to engineer a template so that is is not misused. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Date or year field is left blank, and in the publication field, the date is attached to the publication as in: "Publication= MBI Publishers, 1986." The "correction" that I noted was the the new editor simply dumps all the previous citations/bibliography notations and replaces them with citation templates (sometimes, just a few of them rather than making wholesale changes). FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC).
 * You are setting MBI Publishers, 1986 and leaving the other date fields empty? ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 16:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * (ec)Also to add from above, it is strongly discouraged for editors to transform one citation format (including manually-created ones) throughout an article to any other style, without seeking consensus. Bringing non-consistent formats into the article-consistent one is ok, but you seem to be describing the scenario where all cites through an article are being changed en masse without consensus. Can you provide examples? --M ASEM  (t) 16:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Surely the point that is being lost sight of here is that Wikipedia is not an academic journal and it is not aimed particularly at academics or librarians. So AMA or MLA or whatever should all be neither here nor there, as long as the format is consistent within any one article and the result is clear to the general reader. -- Alarics (talk) 16:06, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Nor can we control how other editors use or misuse citations, whether templated or not. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 16:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. This is an important point. CharlesGillingham (talk) 20:02, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I see what is going on. In V-1 flying bomb, you made a change:

By abusing the parameter Osprey, 2008 you have done two things:
 * There is now no year value, so the link from Crowdy 2008 to the citation is broken.
 * The metadata for publisher includes the year, which reference manage software picks up as part of the publisher name.

Bottom line: Please don't do that. For some reason, you want to connect the date to the publisher, but does not do that. There is a publication-date parameter, but it won't do what you desire. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:10, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

After this recent voluminous discussion], it boils down to there is no accommodation for an MLA-style output in the present citation template programming. As a former 30 year+ reference librarian, and presently an author and editor in the trades; I know that providing citations in bibliographic format is an area that is difficult for most authors. I have worked with many differing styles and formats; most publishing style guides utilize the MLA (The Modern Language Association) Style or the Chicago Style (an earlier variant) for identifying research sources. The very simple form of this style is the tried and true: "Author. 'Title.' Place of publication: Publisher, Date. ISBN: (optional)."

The American Psychological Association (APA) style guide used as the basis of the Wikipedia citation templates is not generally used in school, public and other libraries by reference librarians working in the Humanities. The one major difference between the APA and the MLA Style Guide is the location of dates as "Publication Date" in MLA style compared to the date of publication being placed by the author in the APA style. The cite templates used for journals, periodicals, video and the like also only output a publication date next to the author name. \

In Wiki editing, I can see the advantage for a reader to highlight the Harvard citation and be connected to the bibliographic record in the reference section. I can mimic this link in a manual system, still using the MLA style guide, see: SNCASE Armagnac for an example. My continual problem is that in the 6,000 articles I have authored or worked on as a primary editor, there are scores of editors, and sometimes, experienced editors, who later arrive on the scene, and introduce the citation template-style, with the canard of insisting that templates are the "proper" citation style, yet they are not either recommended nor mandatory. In many cases, I do not want to go through the process of either edit warring or consensus building, and merely accede to the citation template use, but it just doesn't work well when there are both APA and MLA guides being used at the same time. From 2006, I have asked for a MLA guide to be created for those newcomers that work from templates.

As I had indicated earlier, I am not really a Luddite, as I have been using MARc citation/bibliographic templates for decades, but these templates are literally "bullet-proof" and have none of the "fiddly bits" present in the Wiki cite templates. Since they seem to still be a work in progress, cannot a MLA style template or template "patch" eventually emerge that will resolve the template vs manual conflicts if an MLA style is used in ediing? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC).


 * Let me reiterate:
 * is a Wikipedia creation, and is a mashup of APA and Chicago styles; it is especially designed for web pages, where other styles are not. It is well used and well accepted here, although there are those who have issues. Where it is used, it should be used as intended. Changes to the CS1 style can be discussed at Help:Citation Style 1.
 * Again, you can't arbitrarily change an established citation style without discussion; see WP:CITEVAR.
 * MLA is an acceptable style, but we have no templates for it. I am sure there are others who would be interested in starting a project to document and create such templates. With your expertise, you should be able to provide a specification. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 17:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * And it really does not matter what style is used, as long as the article is consistent and the citation includes the proper elements to identify the source so it can be verified as needed. I have been working with CS1 because it is widely used and very consistent. Unfortunately, it has not been well codified or documented, but I am fixing that. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 17:46, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The performance of citation templates is already in doubt; see This versionof the article about Obama; near the end, templates are not being processed and appear in their raw form. So anything that adds to the complexity of templates must be tested not only for the desired output, put also for performance. Since there is no performance test suite, agreed-upon specific issues, or agreed-upon level of performance, this is a huge issue. I don't think citation templates should continue in use unless the performance issue is properly investigated. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:36, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Hitting the template limits is a completely different and technical issue. I have had some thoughts on this issue and am working a proposal. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 17:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I find it extraordinary that so much energy is expended discussing the arcane subject of citation template output formats! There can be very few readers of Wikipedia who are conversant with the subtle differences between MLA, APA, IRA or whatever......or indeed care! From a reader's point of view it would be welcome if there were a consistent approach across the encyclopedia and a policy to encourage this approach (but of course NOT mandate it, since this would be Wikipedia heresy). This implies there should be a default format, which (in order to avoid re-programming all the templates) should be the current one provided it is agreed that it is easily and intuitively understood by the average reader. I don't suggest this because I think the current format is better than all the others, I don't: but I don't think it's any worse either. As I say, the syntax and presentation of all the different formats is pretty arcane and it is therefore essential to have working templates which the average joe editor can use and be excused the need to remember what goes in italics, bold, where full stops and commas do and don't go etc.. User:Jc3s5h's suggestion that the templates should not continue in use is therefore not an option. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 17:36, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Hear hear! Stephen Kirrage expresses exactly my view. -- Alarics (talk) 18:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Camel-case (or whatever)

 * This discussion is pasted from Template talk:Cite press release.

As "press release" is not a proper noun, the template should not display "(Press release)", but "(press release)". HandsomeFella (talk) 08:12, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * APA style is to capitalize; Chicago is to not capitalize (Chicago 14.213). The temple series capitalizes the type field. ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 12:11, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * APA style is also to use camel-case literally everywhere ("How to Cite a Press Release in APA Style"). Wikipedia doesn't follow APA on using camel-case, so why should we follow them on using it for "press release"? HandsomeFella (talk) 15:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I think you are confused as to what CamelCase is. Your example is title case. Your request is for lower case. Regardless uses sentence case for the type. ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 21:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I know the difference, but maybe I was using the expression loosely. Sentence case is appropriate when there is a full sentence within the parentheses. (This is an example of a full sentence within parentheses, for which sentence case is appropriate.) As you can see, it starts with a capitalized first word, and ends with a period/full stop.
 * If there is not a full sentence (such as in this example), there should be lower-case. The words "press release" by themselves do not form a full sentence.
 * HandsomeFella (talk) 14:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If we change it here, we have to change it where used in other templates. Please continue at Wikipedia talk:Citation templates. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Overview: Some of the templates, such as cite press release and cite interview have a default type: "Press release" and "Interview" respectively. These have used sentence case since inception. The request is to change these to lower case. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 18:15, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Templates with a default type:cite DVD-notes, cite interview, cite map, cite music release notes, cite press release, cite speech, cite techreport, cite thesis. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 19:27, 28 February 2012 (UTC)