Wikipedia talk:Cite4Wiki/Archive 1

Horizontal option
Cite4wiki looks very cool. Can you attach the beta in an email? (yes I'm windows based, and use Firefox pretty much exclusively). I use User:Mr.Z-man/refToolbar (turned on in preferences → gadgets) for some citation preformatting, though once I'm involved in an article, I find it easiest to just grab past citations and change the parameters, especially when I have used the same source and accessdate earlier in the article. I have never liked the look of vertical spaced citation formatting when I'm in edit mode. I much prefer as compact a reference as possible i.e., with no spacing at all.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:45, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * ... I prefer citations in the vertical format; you might try boosting the number of rows in your editbox (prefs, under editing; check 'Widen the edit box to fill the entire screen', too;). Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:39, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I do that myself. I vastly prefer the vertical cites, since it is easier to find them, read them and ensure they are coded properly. I will provide an option to use horizontal ones, though. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 19:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Will e-mail it to you. I haven't figured out yet how to create preferences options in FFox add-ons, but if you have even really meager JavaScript sense you can easily modify the source to not use vertical citations. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 04:11, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Update: Horizontal version will be available as a 1.4 downloadable add-on variant, but won't be the default. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 19:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Good stuff.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:28, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, it is the default now, by overall popular demand. The vertical version is now optional. I actually prefer it myself. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  03:05, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Site query.nytimes.com
A few bugs: this is what I got from a NYT article I used it on: Some suggestions: Make it cite news, not cite web; make work=The New York Times. --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The script wasn't detecting "query.nytimes.com", only "nytimes.com", so I'll add that one. In the interim, try just www.nytimes.com articles to see the customization at work. The www.nytimes.com detector already fixes the work, and new version will do same for query.nytimes.com.
 * — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 19:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

PDF datamining
All New York Times PDFs (example) have "Published: January 29, 1878" at the bottom, and that part of the PDF page (unlike the body text of the article) is OCRed, so I would think you could get it recognized. --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * PDFs: Not in the picture, really. JavaScript works on Web pages per se; any PDF you are actually reading online in your browser is being read in a PDF viewer plugin to which the JavaScript has no access at all. Anyway, I'll have a look at the URL you've given here and see what JS can do with it; if the PDF's being loaded in a frame or something, I might be able to get details from it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 19:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 19:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * PS: Redevelopment of this tool in Java might be able to directly deal with PDFs, but that's for someone else to look at; I don't speak Java. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 20:04, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

1.0 formatting issue
fyi, on Cite4Wiki, I get a few garbled characters after the closing ref-tag. I just tried to paste them here in nowiki-tags and MediaWiki got rather confused by them. Fine work, otherwise. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:39, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I was using v1.0 and just bumped to the experimental v1.3 and the loose char issue cleared up.
 * Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:21, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Ha! 1.0 was not my code. That was Cite for Wiki; my Cite4Wiki began at 1.1, based on the former's 1.0, which I believe was first-and-last published in September 2009.— SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 19:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I used the for wiki a few years ago; the version User:Jehochman had linked off his user page (which went broken for some reason; a FF update, I think). I currently have v1.0 of 4 as well as v1.3 of 4. The first version, I installed a few months ago, off Mozilla.org, and the second, yesterday. I'll be uninstalling the old one soon enough. You said somewhere that v1.4 is nearly ready and I'll be sure and grab that. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:38, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

ISO date format
Aren't the dates in cites supposed to be numeric, such as 01-02-2010 for today? Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:21, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Dates in citations are definitely not supposed to be ISO format any longer, per deprecation at WP:MOSNUM several months ago, and slow deprecation in the templates themselves. The date format should match the rest of the article. There are still zillions of citations that need cleaning up, but this add-on won't make more broken ones. :-)


 * That's good to know; I've not been following such discussions. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:38, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Reflinks tool conflict?
I like the vertical formatting, but start lines with the vertical rule, a space, then the arg. Also, Reflinks forces the 'Cite' template to lower case 'c' so the tools edit-war (as do many tool). Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:21, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * That tool seems to act on bare URLs pasted in as "references" and converts them to actual citations as best it can. The output of Cite4Wiki won't be what the tool acts on, so there doesn't seem to be a conflict. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 19:54, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Reflinks will apply common fixes and tweak all the other citation templates on a page to use the lower case 'c' so your upper case 'C' will end up coerced to lowercase if someone hits the page with Dispenser's tool. For what it's worth, I was using 'C' and stopped bothering once I noticed this. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:38, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmph. I've asked Dispenser to have it stop doing that. If he won't, I'm not going to care. ;-) — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 21:50, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Dispenser refused (on grounds that I disagree with, but I'm not in the mood for a dispute). I'm going to change Cite4Wiki to use lower case, even though I know a lot of editors don't like that, because minor irritation to editors is probably less hassle than bots and semi-automated tools engaging in what amounts to willful editwarring on a massive scale. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 19:37, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Useful tool
This is a useful tool and I thank you for putting it out there. More here should be using such tools. The standards for referencing are going to go up over time and the unsourced BLPs are just the beginning. Cheers, Jack Merridew (who's a sockpuppet who goes by 'David' in real-life) 20:38, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Credit really goes to User:Jehochman and User:Unit 5 for coming up with this in the first place. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 17:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Hijacking of Cite4Wiki code
I'm a little shocked to see that you have basically hijacked the addon's code and the "cite4wiki" name I gave it. I did not so much as receive a single email at my attached email address about this. I do not use this account often, but I would have reacted to any email. I'm curious as you how you justify this sort of unethical behaviour and considering what my next step will be. Unit 5 15:56, 2 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I tried contacting you weeks ago, here, in e-mail at the e-mail address publicized in the source code for Cite for Wiki 1.0, and via addons.mozilla.org's forms for contacting the add-on author. I guess the one possible way of contacting you that I could have tried but didn't was WP's "e-mail this user" form, but by that point I'd given up or not thought to try that avenue.


 * The code has been GNU Lesser Public Licensed since Jehochman & Manuar's original version (aside from Mozilla Public Licensed code snippets in there, but there's very little license difference), which means anyone can do anything with it within the terms of the open licensing, including derivative versions as long as they perpetuate the same licensing terms (kind of like Wikipedia itself). I kept a similar name ("Cite4Wiki"; yours was "Cite for Wiki", though the shorter string appeared in a few places in the code) out of respect and a desire to credit you, basically.  If you'd prefer it were renamed, that's fine.  This has nothing to do with taking anything from you or shutting you out, but improving the tool. You were not reachable, so I moved on with it.  Sorry if this is somehow offensive to you.  You were a "wikimissing person", the code had not been updated in any public way since September 2009, and it was spitting out incorrect Wikicode that people were actually using. No offense intended, but I don't think I've done anything wrong here much less "unethical" which is a very strong accusation, although I can understand your initial reaction. I'm not sure what to do to make you happier. My earlier messages to you, via three different means, were attempts to get in contact so that our efforts could be combined, and my goal the entire time has been to find you and work with you on this. Heretofore, however, I haven't even been able to add you to my version of the code's addons.mozilla.org project because the only addresses you've publicized that I can find do not correspond to whatever address you exist as on that site as a developer I can add.  I've been stuck for weeks trying to get through to you (and, yeah, at this point, I wish I'd thought to use the one option I didn't try). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 16:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I monitor the emails you claim to have written to, and no, you did not send any email to me over this issue. In high-handed fashion, you decided you wanted to change the addon, and to hell with me, basically.
 * To claim I was "not reachable" is a self-serving lie. I repeat, you DID NOT send messages to those email addresses. Nor did you contact Ratel.
 * I am extremely busy at the moment, so I cannot pursue this malfeasance further. At the same time, I want what's best for the project. If you can indeed improve the addon, more power to you. All I ask is A) acknowledgement for involvement and B) that the output remains a one line wrapped citation (the original reason I got involved bec I cannot stand the multi-line citation format, or if you want carriage returns, give a preferences option to allow either. Unit 5 01:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll take this all in order:


 * Well, if you're just going to call me a liar, maybe there's no point trying to continue to communicate. I sent you messages via all of the available means that I thought of (the one that I didn't was your "E-mail this user" link here at WP, because odds were that it would go to the e-mail address I'd already tried, as detailed below). My message to w**.ma*****n@gmail.com, the address you published in relationship to the tool itself, was sent Jan. 18, "Subject: Cite for Wiki is using the wrong parameter!", ; I still have it in my Gmail. The message I left on your talk page here is still there. The post I left at your tool's page at addons.moz is still there  has been overwritten by a later note I left there, apparently (I just looked). 02:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC) . So, what's the "lie" again? Unless I'm now evilly forging Gmails, I obviously did contact you.


 * I cannot find any information about Ratel; the only information present was mention of the string "Ratel" in the source code. I have no idea what e-mail address, human name, or Wikipedia ID that might correspond to. I would like to know, so I can credit this person properly.


 * More constructively:


 * A) You're ack'ed all over the place: in the source code, in the "About" and "Options" text, and on the WP:Cite4Wiki page, and in the release notes on the page at addons.moz, and so on. I'm at a loss for anywhere else you could be credited, other than in an annoying pop-up alertbox or something. Heh.


 * B) The version you released used multi-line citations: screenshot. Regardless, the version I've worked up since then will do either one you want (rather, there'll be a version to do either; I haven't worked out the preferences panel code yet to have one add-on offer both options). So, you should be happy either way.


 * The fact that you're obviously really busy is why I proceeded in taking this tool further without you. I did try to contact you. I'm sorry that I didn't do it in the one way out of every way available that would actually work. Water under the bridge now. And you did release this code "to the wild" in August (not September; I was thinking you'd been more active than you have been); that's almost 6 months, which is half way to forever in Internet Time. This wasn't some non-GLPL's commercial software I ripped off for my own gain. It was GLPL'd (and partially MPL'd) free software in turn based on someone else's GLPL/MPL'd work (and some of that is based even on older work, at Mozilla's own developer site and a site in the Netherlands), released to the world in source form as a tool anyone could use and modify, for free, and I did so, for no reason other than to improve it and make other editors' citation needs a little easier to fulfill. I'm going to take your "more power to you" at face value. The two conditions you've listed will certainly be satisfied.


 * PS: I sent you an e-mail directly, the other day, to your "E-mail this user" address from here; haven't seen a reply yet. I'll repeat the gist: If you give me the e-mail address you registered with at addons.moz, I can add you to the project there. We could surely combine them into one code base now that we're in touch, if our dispute is resolvable.


 * PPS: I will not respond at the other talk page, since your calling me a liar to my face in public constitutes a direct personal attack. I'd be justified in even deleting it here, as a matter of policy, but I'd rather just respond to it (here, since it's about your issues with me, not with the tool and its functionality) and hopefully move past our misunderstanding. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 02:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Proof of contact, Jan. 18, 2010. I'm sorry that you were too busy to notice, your filters caught my message and disposed of it, or you don't use that address any more despite publishing it with the source code, but none of those possibilities are my responsibility. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 16:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The only email I received from you went as follows: "Your add-on is not only doing something wrong it's leading to god knows how many Wikipedia editors messing up live articles by creating incorrect citations in them that other editors like me will end up having to fix. The problem is that your tool is putting the domain name of the website in the |publisher= parameter, but this is NOT what that field is for. The field you want is |work= (i.e. the publication). The |publisher= parameter is for the REAL-WORLD PUBLISHING ENTITY, such as a publication company or, in the case of self-publishing, the site owner (i.e. what is likely to turn up in whois). Please fix this ASAP. This error is really glaring. Conceptually, it is exactly the same thing as mistaking the record label (publisher) for the name of the album (work) on which the song (title) appears."


 * Only a complete ass would think that constitutes an effort to collaborate or a request to work on the code. Unit 5 08:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You didn't respond to that e-mail (it was a bug report, not a collaboration request; one of the latter is here), since as you said, you were busy. I fixed the reported problem, since as I said it seemed you were too busy to respond and do anything about it. This was after I'd already reported this problem via addons.mozilla.org (as I also already mentioned). Again, I'm sorry that you did not receive other attempts to contact you. And again, ensuring that you read your own messages on WP, addons.mozilla.org and other sites you supposedly participate in isn't my responsibility. As already noted before, you've expressed above two conditions that will satisfy you; I've already agreed to them. And to repeat one more thing, I don't need anyone's permission to fork and independently develop code released under GLPL and MPL (the entire point of those and other free content licenses is that no one needs any such permission!). That's an awful lot of repetition and nothing new. You do not appear to be satisfiable that the work is good, that our personal dispute is resolvable and that collaboration would be good, so I'm going to stop trying. I now consider this matter closed. You already are and will continue to be credited in every way practical (and Ratel will be credited in more detail if you or Ratel make that possible), and the variant of the add-on code I next release will include a horizontal layout option. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 15:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

[outdent] Let's not have any disputes. The original code was released under a license that makes all derivative works open source as well. If each of you wants to make a different flavor that works differently, you are welcome to do so. I'd rather that you tried to accommodate each other and joined efforts to make a single version, perhaps with options as Unit 5 suggests. Jehochman Brrr 01:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * That's not the issue. SMcCandlish took the same code and name, made minimal changes and republished it as his own work without contacting previous editors. Wikipedia and its admins should not condone this sort of unacceptable behaviour. And SMcCandlish, do not edit my talk comments again please. Unit 5 08:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Don't engage in any more direct personal attacks and I won't feel any need to. I've made quite substantive changes to the code (Cite4Wiki1.4b2.zip). I have approached you (see your talk page) about collaboration. As I already said in user talk, I used the name "Cite4Wiki" as an homage to (i.e. out of respect for) "Cite for Wiki", the Unit 5 version, and I have since offered to rename it, with no response suggesting that it should be renamed. It is just plain ranting to complain about the name, be offered the solution of it being renamed, remain silent on the issue for days, then pop up again to complain about the name once more as if no offer has been made to rename it.  If you want it renamed, say so, if not, then don't make an issue out of a non-issue.  Unit 5, I'm sorry that you do not (or that you pretend to not) understand how GLPL works. I've tried at my talk page to resolve this matter with you, but you clearly will not be satisfied.  Jehochman, I have already agreed to Code 5's two terms (credit was never an issue to start with - you've all been credited - and I'd already resolved, above, to have both vertical and horizontal layout options). As far as I'm concerned, that is the end of it. Unit 5 says himself "more power to you" as long as his conditions are met. They will be. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 16:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You go ahead then with it, Scott. I think I've caned you enough on this and it's something you perhaps will handle differently in future. I genuinely do not have the time to do any further work on the addon. Unit 5 16:16, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Cite4wiki template
Per the TFD outcome, this template has been moved to Cite4Wiki/template. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 03:27, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

OT note
There is a recently renewed discussion on Meta about a separate Wikicite project to track information and metadata about sources. – SJ + 05:03, 25 August 2011 (UTC)