Wikipedia talk:Parenthetical referencing

Is this a preferred style??
Surely this is not a preferred style of referencing on wikpedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.167.65.79 (talk) 00:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not? Editors can use any citation style they like, even including styles they've made up.  Wikipedia cares about the practical outcome (readers can figure out what source supports which statement), not about forcing editors in one academic field (like English literature, which uses parenthetical referencing) to use a citations style from an unrelated academic field (like hard sciences, which use numbered footnotes).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I know that was a rhetorical question but the answer to it is that Wikipedia should aim to serve the WP:READER and, while this style of citation is helpful in print, it falls far short for an online encyclopedia. Academic writers should be welcomed, but this shouldn't be a preferred style and WP:CITEVAR should be emended to allow converting it to something less cluttered and more reader friendly. — Llywelyn II   00:36, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree. As a reader, the way I view it is that a last name and date don't provide any real information to back up a statement if I'm not familiar enough with the topic to do so from prior knowledge.  Until I mouse-over / look at the reference, for all I know "(Smith 2018)" could be anything from someone who just invented working FTL travel to someone who wrote a press release for some company that managed to get under the radar as news.  If I have to examine it in more detail anyway, give me the numbered reference and leave out the clutter.  It has a tendency of breaking the flow of text badly, especially when multiple references are applied in this way. A Shortfall Of Gravitas (talk) 00:27, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Break

 * While I was investigating Talk:Habanera (music), I encountered a mix of footnote and parenthetical referencing methods, including sometimes both for the same reference. This made me wonder about which system to use for the merged article and therefore briefly studied the advantages and disadvantages of each system, since similar as in this old discussion, intuitively it did not make sense to me that 2 systems exist on Wikipedia.
 * I encountered section Parenthetical referencing, which points to Author-date referencing, for an overview of advantages and disadvantages in general. (Although it was not clear to me initially that this was not a Help page but a regular article).
 * When I look at that Author-date referencing I have the following observations:
 * The first 3 bullets are to a large extend in Wikipedia also covered with footnotes, because when you hover the mouse pointer on top of the footnote number it displays its contents.
 * The last 2 bullets appear to be not or for a big part not applying to Wikipedia, but to parenthetical referencing in other media.
 * When I look at the remainder of Parenthetical referencing, I have the following observations:
 * Point 1: Specifically with respect to Wikipedia, parenthetical referencing has the advantage of being very simple. It requires no special knowledge about the MediaWiki software, no arcane codes or tags, and no templates. Any person who could produce this type of reference on a typewriter already has all of the skills and knowledge necessary to produce this type of reference on the English Wikipedia.
 * Observation: For editing WP you need to have a basic understanding of using these codes, tags, etc. There are a lot of other of these needed to know, so it doesn't make a material advantage for parenthetical referencing. Also with the advent of the Visual Editor, this pro is reduced more.
 * Point 2: Parenthetical referencing may be particularly appropriate for articles about humanities, society, arts, and culture. Academics in these areas often prefer parenthetical referencing to footnotes.
 * Observation: (a) See mouse over comment above and (b) IMHO, one of the strengths of Wikipedia is that it's information is good accessible to all (including non academics and strangers to a field) partly due to the a uniform format of information. Besides referencing there are many other things that would be formatted differently in each separate academic area, but in Wikipedia in a similar way. I agree uniform format in this sense should not be too tight, but this ideal might be worthwhile to look into and not dismiss outright.
 * Point 3: Parenthetical referencing may be particularly appropriate for articles about humanities, society, arts, and culture. Academics in these areas often prefer parenthetical referencing to footnotes.
 * Observation: This may be true (although I didn't verify), but is this currently and would it need to be currently also be reflected on Wikipedia? for example in the arts and culture sub field of classical music, and actually most areas of Wikipedia so far I remember, I mainly see footnotes.
 * My preliminary conclusion on this quick scan seems to be that footnotes are better, because parenthetical method's advantages are not material. But than again this is just a quick scan and I'd expect this is all already elaborately discussed before, but I couldn't find it. Could someone point out if and where such discussion may exist or if not have discussion here or elsewhere? LazyStarryNights (talk) 08:50, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Re point 1: There's a good example of parenthetical referencing which does use templates at Actuary; this uses extensively, but it's not perfect since the page numbers are sometimes given in the parentheses, sometimes in the full citation in the References section. In this article, parenthetical referencing is used to the total exclusion of those techniques which use  and its variants.
 * The mouse-over only works if at, you have "" enabled.
 * If you are the creator of an article, or the first person to add references to an existing unreferenced article, you can use pretty much any style you like. Unless the article is likely to always be short, I normally use (as used in NBR 224 and 420 Classes but others don't like that. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:04, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the break and reply, Redrose. And thanks for pointing out the Actuary example. This is an interesting technique improving on the "traditional" parenthetical referencing by means of the link function. Still I feel the reading is a bit clogged by all the extra inline text. Maybe even slightly more than with the traditional technique, because they are all in blue now so they jump more in sight in relation with the surrounding text.
 * Based on my own experience, I guess the mouseover setting is by default and I'd expect most users have this activated (assuming most users don't change default setting - not even have an account)?
 * The technique in NBR 224 and 420 Classes looks wonderful in both easy editing and reading. Also besides clicking and going to the short footnote, the mouse over allows clicking to the long footnote at once if you wish. Do you know why others don't like this technique?
 * ps. That is a terrible train accident, reminds me of the poor people in Santiago de Compostela derailment. LazyStarryNights (talk) 20:53, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

By hand
"Again, notice that clicking on the inline citation highlights the full citation."

No it doesn't. There is no CSS styling to highlight the target as there is with the templates. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:01, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

It would highlight if it were handcoded as: (Ritter 2002)
 * Ritter, R. (2002). The Oxford Style Manual. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198605641.

AFAIK, it used to highlight OK if coded as stated in the article. If the nonhighlighting is the result of a recent change, that change must have broken the highlighting in some number of existing handcoded cites. That would not be a good thing. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:37, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * See MediaWiki talk:Common.css. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 04:50, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Related discussion now underway here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:42, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * and at Template talk:Citation. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:52, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: By hand: does not highlight the full citation
Re this edit, my guess is that it has something to do with Mediawiki:Common.css. 2002a> Note the following two examples: Ritter 2002a and Ritter 2002b, rendering as: Ritter 2002a and Ritter 2002b.

*body of cite for Ritter2002a. , rendering as and *, rendering as In Template:Wikicite, I see 
 * body of cite for Ritter2002a.

In MediaWiki:Common.css, I see: /* Styling for citations */ span.citation, cite { font-style: normal; word-wrap: break-word; } and /* Highlight clicked reference in blue to help navigation */ ol.references > li:target, sup.reference:target, span.citation:target { background-color: #DEF; }

I'm not a CSS jock, but this looks like it's involved. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:36, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * See MediaWiki talk:Common.css/Archive 12. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 06:18, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I completely forgot about the discussion above. I re-noticed the issue while reviewing the page. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 06:20, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Page references
Anyone else find it odd that this guideline and the article Parenthetical referencing both use numeric in-text referencing instead of the reference system they discuss? ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 19:21, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Move to Help
Propose to move this page to Help:Parenthetical referencing and make it a how-to. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 16:33, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Strange example
Any thoughts on this edit? The added "Bauchet" case study doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the page. Does the deleted "MediaWiki extension" section still belong here? -- John of Reading (talk) 15:40, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The example is puzzling and perhaps spam; it certainly does not illustrate parenthetical referencing. m:Extension:HarvardReferences is neat, but is not installed, thus not useful to our editors. ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 17:51, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Harvard references
The template is up for deletion: see Templates for discussion/Log/2012 January 24. Please comment there. -- Red rose64 (talk) 00:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Move to Help
Since this is really a how-to page, propose this be moved to Help namespace. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 13:27, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * In general, Support, but it's never been clear to me when how-to pages should be in Help: and when they should be in Wikipedia: I did develop the impression that Help: contained the shorter get-you-started versions, whereas Wikipedia: contained the longer this-is-the-real-story versions. This impression has become fuzzier with time. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:11, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * In my opinion: Help pages tell you how to do some process, whereas Wikipedia pages are policies and guidelines. Help pages reference and perhaps interpret policies and guidelines, but do not create them. Help pages were originally transcluded from meta until the meta help pages fell way out of date and en.wiki became very customized. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 00:23, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I changed the header from essay to how-to. This page is certainly not an essay. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 17:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment (tending towards split): I think there is much to be said for "get-you-started" tutorials in Help namespace, where some of the material should be moved. There is also a great need for an in-depth, comprehensive review of various aspects of referencing, for which WT seems the better namespace.  However, in both cases I see "parenthetical referencing" a misnomer.  The difficulty could be finessed in WT namespace, but in Help there should be a better name.
 * Would it be appropriate to make an alternate proposal in this discussion? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 00:23, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay. Let's see if I can shape some concepts.
 * I think there is no doubt this "project page" currently suffers from confusion of focus. I think we do need an essay about "parenthetical referencing", describing and clarifying it. But that is distinct from describing how-to use some such system of referencing; that should be in Help space. Wherefore I suggest a split of some form, details pending.
 * Problem: "Parenthetical referencing" is a misnomer, as the use of parentheses is not the key characteristic of this system of referencing. But what the Help tutorial should be named is unclear, because of a bigger problem: the overall topic (of citation/referencing generally) is confused.  Before we can clarify that I think we need to better see what pieces we have.  I don't know if we have any kind of map showing all the different pieces (do we?), so my second suggestion: let's build a map of all the pieces we have, or should have, pertaining to the general topic of citation.  With that kind of big picture we can better see how to handle particular cases like the current one.
 * Revising the current page as an essay (i.e., removing the tutorial parts) could proceed independently of writing the tutorial, with the understanding that an improved tutorial of some form is needed,
 * Are those points generally agreeable? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposal has been flagged as failed, but I would comment that it wasn't totally without merit, and we should continue discussing how to better organize all this stuff. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:39, 22 February 2012 (UTC)


 * True, but it was apparent this had stalled. Certainly open to other ideas. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 00:43, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Parenthetical referencing
Addressing point 3: "Parenthetical referencing" is the standard name for this citation style. It is used in our article on Parenthetical referencing and by a number of style guides. I am not sure wht else we would call this. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 20:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The problem I have (and I suspect many other people have, though they may not be conscious of it) of parenthetical is that it can be any kind of reference in parentheses (not necessarily author-date style), and implicitly is not any kind of reference (including author-date) not in parentheses.
 * The principal style guide that uses this term is Turabian. The fifth edition (1987) noted in the preface that it was introducing "a new chapter on parenthetical referencing and reference lists" (I don't know if it used the term previously).  However, CMS-13 (from which Turabian-5 was derived) does not use the term (except incidentally, once or twice?), preferring the more specific "author-date system".  Similar for CMS-15. In the limited views I have of CMS-16 the relevant usages (see sec. 15.1 snippet, see also Ch 16 pdf) seem to be predominantly "parenthetical author-date references".
 * So is "parenthetical" merely a synonym for "author-date" referencing, which can be used with parentheses, but does not require them? Or does it refer to a more restricted use of author-date that is limited to use in parentheses? I find neither of these satisfactory.
 * Indeed, I find it curious when you refer to "this citation style ... used in .. Parenthetical referencing", because both there and in WP:Parenthetical referencing a numbered note system is used. And neither really gives a good demonstration of either parenthetical or author-date referencing use (outside of the examples).  That author-date and notes can be, and are, used together further confuses matters.  So when you refer to "this citation style" I am perplexed: just what is this style? I don't know what to call it, either, but "parenthetical" doesn't seem helpful.  Unless it is qualified "as used in Turabian", which itself seems to have some unstated qualifications.
 * ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:31, 9 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Did you even read the article? The intro specifically notes that the term "parenthetical" encompasses both the author-date system (which comes in various different flavors: Harvard, versions of Chicago, etc) and the author-title system notable for its use by MLA. Certainly, different proprietary referencing versions are going to use their own lingo. We're aiming for a more broad description of referencing styles in this article. II  | (t - c) 01:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Chicago encompasses two systems: Notes and bibliography (NB), similar to our system, and author-date which does use various permutations of parenthesis. Author-title and author-page systems are very similar. ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 13:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have read both the article and the project page. and find both to be inaccurate and misleading. I agree we need a broad description of referencing styles; I am working on it. The point I was addressing was the statement about "parenthetical referencing". I agree with Ed that it is commonly used.  But, as I remarked, I find it poorly defined, and even ill-conceived.  ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:27, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I've written an essay which I hope might clarify both some of the broader issues and the specific issue with "parenthetical referencing". Comments? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:55, 12 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Your comment on parenthetical referencing is this:"One instance is 'parenthetical' because it is set off in parentheses, the other, being set off in a note, is ... notical? At any rate, the use of 'parenthetical' as synonymous with 'author-date' is incorrect, and unfortunate in confusing what is basically a simple matter; such use should be avoided, even rejected. Also incorrect is the widespread conception that use of the author-date method (of linking the basic reference of a citation to the full reference) and the use of any note system (of moving citations out of the text) are antithetical or exclusive." First - who is confusing parenthetical as synonymous with author-date? I haven't seen it. Parenthetical is clearly a super-set author-date and author-title, so it is not incorrect to say that someone using an author-date system is using parenthetical referencing. Second, who uses both author-date citations and note citations? I can't recall ever seeing it. I know this was batted around as an idea at Wikipedia, and it might be buried within the thousands of pages at the CMOS, but I've never seen it in practice. I was taught that one of the advantages of author-date is that it makes it more natural to use notes for aside comments. II  | (t - c) 17:32, 12 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, "superset" is more accurate than "synonymous" (I may revise that). But most editors seem to not make that distinction, and use "parenthetical" interchangeably with "author-date". As to who is confused, we can start with WP:Parenthetical referencing – the parent of this talk page – which starts by making a broad distinction between parenthetical referencing and note systems.  And concludes the lede with: "The remainder of this essay focuses on the author-date method." This is also where WP:HARVARD – very much an author-date system – is redirected to.  And similar for the Parenthetical referencing article.
 * Re your second point: I use both. I use author-date style short citations as links to full references, and endnotes as the places to put those citations.  "Author-date" and "notes" are really solutions to different problems, and, contrary to common perception, not mutually exclusive. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:13, 12 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I believe you are referring to, which is generally considered a hybrid between and . I consider it a separate system, although some mix  and . If this help page is not describing parenthetical referencing, what is it?  ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 23:28, 12 February 2012 (UTC)


 * No, neither in what I was referring to, nor as a hybrid.  But truly a good question, as to what this project page is describing; I ask that myself.  "A subset of citation practice on Wikipedia" seems as good as any, but as description it suffers from all of the misconceptions and confusion of its topic.  This is why I am trying to revamp our conception of citation. Straighten that out, and a lot of the confusion would go away. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:06, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Map
A comment was made about a map of related topics. How about Wikipedia referencing?

---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 16:13, 10 February 2012 (UTC)


 * That could work. Can we be pretty sure that it is a comprehensive view of citation/referencing? Any notable omissions? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk)
 * Everything is a work in progress, but I think it covers most of it. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 00:17, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Move to Help:Author-date citation style

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Jenks24 (talk) 08:28, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Parenthetical referencing → Help:Author-date citation style – Request made 5 July 2012 by user:Gadget850 using template:movenotice. Reason given by Gadget850 is "The previous thread wandered off, but there was a lot of merit in the core discussion." -- PBS (talk) 08:42, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The previous thread wandered off, but there was a lot of merit in the core discussion. I propose we move to Help:Author-date citation style. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 12:18, 29 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose, but might support move to Help:Parenthetical referencing. -- PBS (talk) 09:20, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
A similar process (in that case a merge) was carried out for Help:Footnotes and Manual of Style/Footnotes see history of MOS/Footnotes. The intention (as discussed at Manual of Style (footnotes): Merge) is that guidance should be in WP:CITE and the mechanics of the process in the help pages, because having two guidelines that covered the same issue can lead to inconsistencies between the guidelines which leads to confusion on article talk pages.

However as parenthetical referencing does not involve the same level of technical issues and covers more style issues, I am not sure that it is a subject that it should be moved into Help: -- PBS (talk) 09:20, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Pros and cons
I'm sure this page is mostly frequented by supporters who are anxiously trying to convince other editors that this is a a Real Thing they have to live with (that's certainly why I'm here). All the same, kindly allow me to note that a "pros and cons" section should list cons. I'm not saying my attempt is definitive, but—whatever the final consensus version ends up being—the very considerable failures of this style of citation for an online encyclopedia should be noted. — Llywelyn II   00:33, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Added an important note about the downside of using this style for mobile devices. --Cornellier (talk) 18:09, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
 * And I have removed it, because it is a disadvantage of the Wikipedia implementation, not of the referencing system. The text I removed is copied here:
 * "When using the wikipedia app on a mobile device or tablet, the behaviour of regular references (as used in most of WP) is that a small pop-up appears on screen showing the full reference. The pop-up can be dismissed by tapping on an X. With parenthetical referencing, the page display scrolls down to the References section at the bottom of the article, losing the reader's place in the text, and the only way back it is to scroll back up manually. Tapping the browser back button takes the reader to the previously-viewed article."
 * This can probably go back (with modification) into the article somewhere, but not under a discussion of the referencing system.
 * --NSH001 (talk) 20:48, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
 * "This" was not entered under a discussion of the referencing system as stated above. The page is, to quote from its title "a how-to guide, detailing processes or procedures of some aspect or aspects of Wikipedia's norms and practices". The comments you deleted are an attempt to inform editors of the outcome of the usage of this referencing technique. Please state why this should not stand. --Cornellier (talk) 04:46, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * No, you're not quoting from the title of the article, you're quoting from its hatnote. (Sorry I missed the hatnote, otherwise I might have worded it differently.) By taking the lazy course of reverting, you have put back in the falsehoods that I had earlier listed below.
 * I don't object to the difficulties for mobile users being mentioned, but a key point is that implementation problems can be fixed, so they are not an inherent problem of the referencing system. But before you do, could you please go to the Actuary article and click on any of the parenthetical references there. I would be surprised if the back button didn't work correctly, but I can't test it, since I don't have any mobile device. If it really doesn't work correctly, then you should report the problem at WP:VP(T), as it's a serious problem that needs to be fixed ASAP.
 * I will shortly revert back to my version, as I can't allow the falsehoods listed below to stand. Feel free to add the difficulties for mobile users, but the point about implementation problems needs to be mentioned. Yeah, I know this is me being lazy this time, but I've done enough work on this already, and I don't see why I should have to do all your work for you.
 * --NSH001 (talk) 09:08, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The page in question is a how-to guide, not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. It contains a section entitled "Pros and cons versus other referencing systems" which would benefit from the addition of the following facts:
 * "When using the wikipedia app on a mobile device or tablet, the behaviour of regular references (as used in most of WP) is that a small pop-up appears on screen showing the full reference. The pop-up can be dismissed by tapping on an X. With parenthetical referencing, the page display scrolls down to the References section at the bottom of the article (e.g. Actuary), losing the reader's place in the text, and the only way back it is to scroll back up manually. Tapping the browser back button takes the reader to the previously-viewed article."
 * I've tested all of the above myself on iOS. If anyone has test results that do not support this please address the statements above directly. --Cornellier (talk) 00:31, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Referencing systems vary between articles, Wikipedia does not have "regular references (as used in most of WP)"; this is covered at WP:CITESTYLE. I would like to know how the mobile app handles articles that use, such as NBR 224 and 420 Classes. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:16, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback . iOS handles better. There is a popup as with WP:FOOTNOTES which can be dismissed. However there is no link to the full source. Propose replacing the text "regular references (as used in most of WP)" with "WP:FOOTNOTES created with reference tags". --Cornellier (talk) 14:55, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * How about Moulsford railway station? That uses  tags. -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:08, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Moulsford railway station behaves exactly the same as NBR 224 and 420 Classes. I guess because the short refs and long refs are separate. I take it the goal is not to repeat the long source while allowing individual page numbers for each ref. --Cornellier (talk) 17:34, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd like to emphasise Redrose's point that there is no such thing as one, single, "standard" or "regular" referencing system on Wikipedia. In fact there is a lot wrong with the most common referencing style (which I find totally unacceptable). Meanwhile, if the behaviour of the mobile app really is as you describe (and I still find it hard to believe), then the app badly needs to be fixed. The problem is with the app, not the referencing style. --NSH001 (talk) 19:02, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It's becoming clear from the discussion at Talk:Actuary that this is a serious fault in the app. In my opinion, someone needs to file a Phabricator report, marking it as top priority. But it may be better to report it at WP:VP(T) first, to get wider input (are other mobile apps affected by the same problem? How many such apps are there anyway?) – and the people there may be more adept at filing Phabricator reports. --NSH001 (talk) 17:43, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:MULTI fails again. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:44, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd like to emphasise Redrose's point that there is no such thing as one, single, "standard" or "regular" referencing system on Wikipedia. In fact there is a lot wrong with the most common referencing style (which I find totally unacceptable). Meanwhile, if the behaviour of the mobile app really is as you describe (and I still find it hard to believe), then the app badly needs to be fixed. The problem is with the app, not the referencing style. --NSH001 (talk) 19:02, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It's becoming clear from the discussion at Talk:Actuary that this is a serious fault in the app. In my opinion, someone needs to file a Phabricator report, marking it as top priority. But it may be better to report it at WP:VP(T) first, to get wider input (are other mobile apps affected by the same problem? How many such apps are there anyway?) – and the people there may be more adept at filing Phabricator reports. --NSH001 (talk) 17:43, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:MULTI fails again. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:44, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:MULTI fails again. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:44, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

"On the other hand, it is unable to combine identical references, clutters the running text of the article, and is generally done in a way that doesn't provide the ability to link quickly from the citation to the full information about the work. In short, it's easier for article writers and less helpful for readers."

This is wrong on several counts:
 * If implemented using the standard templates, clicking the the parenthetical citation does go directly to the full citation. See Actuary (a Featured Article) for an example.
 * It effectively does combine identical references, since the full citation is given once at the end. Granted, you might have to repeat "(Jones, 2011)", but that's a fairly small piece of text.
 * It's debatable whether it clutters the text for the reader, and in any case what "cluttering" there is (for the reader), is small.
 * It follows that the final sentence is not true.

It also omits one of the compelling and overwhelming advantages of the system, namely that it completely removes the clutter of huge citation templates from the body of the article. This is a huge advantage over the common (but in my opinion totally unacceptable) practice of putting huge horizontal cite templates in-line. Of course, it shares this advantage with list-defined references and short-form referencing.

--NSH001 (talk) 20:48, 23 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:53, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Parenthetical vs. HTML coding
Parenthetical referencing has been used in essays. Why is parenthetical reference either no longer or less encouraged nowadays? I tried that on Robert E. Streeter, but someone else changed it to HTML/template referencing. I'm worried about technical issues with the HTML referencing, but I can see readability issues with the parenthetical style. --George Ho (talk) 00:56, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I take it that you mean by  - that was a violation of WP:CITEVAR, and so you would be justified in reverting it, possibly retaining the changes which did not alter the ref style - such as the extra cats. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 15:44, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I was under the impression that parenthetical referencing was less readable or accessible, especially if it was not linked inline, though I may be wrong. With regards to HTML/template style, the only problem I was aware of is that it affects page loading times. If there are other issues I did not consider, please elaborate. Vycl1994 (talk) 16:39, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Parenthetical referencing can be linked (see for example Actuary) but this is not required (see for example Tropical year).
 * What you are both referring to as "HTML/template" referencing, is a misnomer: the  tags are not HTML (although they do resemble HTML tags), and the edit by Vycl1994 to Robert E. Streeter did not introduce any templates other than - it's just plain text between the tags. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 17:23, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

...I should move this discussion to WT:Citing sources, shouldn't I? Meanwhile, I'll relent to the inline formatting for that article then. Also, what about what WP:citation templates says? Templates are becoming prevalent despite being "contentious". --George Ho (talk) 00:11, 6 February 2017 (UTC); edited twice. 00:15, 6 February 2017 (UTC) 00:23, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

It's just a small article anyway. I forgive you,, for your good-faith edits, and (as said before) I'll accept the changes. However, Vycl1994, if you want to change the style for the next article from parenthetical to inline formatting, please let me know. Therefore, we can discuss further about this. All right? --George Ho (talk) 00:36, 6 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Good faith all around! Thanks, but if non-inline parenthetical references don't cause the accessibility problems I thought they did, WP:ILIKEIT is not enough to stand on. The only good thing to come out of this discussion seems to be my awareness of these. Vycl1994 (talk) 00:49, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * You're welcome, . If I parenthetical references for other articles, I must be careful then. I shall be aware of Harvard templates and use them for accessibility. Otherwise, inline footnotes then. Okay? George Ho (talk) 01:05, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I can definitely support your statement above, though again, I reserve the right to be completely wrong about my own views, as after all this time, I am still unsure of which style is better for accessibility. I recall reading somewhere that inline, whichever format, was best, and making inline citations is the reasoning behind my edits to the Streeter article, but I haven't been able to locate anything concretely supporting my views on citations at any point throughout this discussion. Vycl1994 (talk) 01:58, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm... I can't decide about which style is suitable either. However, using consistency to support either style isn't a good reason enough to me. Let's go for case-by-case basis instead, i.e. which style fits well for an individual article. George Ho (talk) 02:58, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia does not prefer any one referencing style over another, except that some that were in use ten or twelve years ago (such as the Footnote3 system) have been deprecated for some time because of their clear disadvantages. The style that Vycl1994 altered Robert E. Streeter to is known as list-defined references, which is a technique created fairly recently, but it does have its opponents. Since there is more than one acceptable style, this is why we have WP:CITEVAR. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 23:10, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Self-contradiction
This is self contradictory: "the citation is placed after the period, like (Smith 2005)." Either the written rule is wrong, or the example is, since it shows the cite before the dot. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:51, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The dot was moved in this edit by -- John of Reading (talk) 06:26, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Authors with the same surname
It could be quite a problem when works of the same year by two or more authors with the same surname are cited in the same article. Is there a workaround for such a case in Citation, Harv, etc.? If not it should definitely be implemented. Nardog (talk) 10:29, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * This can happen where a parent and child are writers in the same field; for example Cecil J. Allen and G. Freeman Allen. Usually the year is sufficient disambiguation; do you have any examples where the surname and year together are not unique? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 19:24, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * When using the 1899 edition of Spitta's Johann Sebastian Bach as a reference one would need something to distinguish the three volumes of the same author, published in the same year. How it's usually done is add a, b and c indexes to the year, e.g. "Spitta 1899a" (for Vol. I), "Spitta 1899b" (for Vol. II), etc. The same could be applied for two different authors with the same surname who published in the same year, and appear on the same page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:41, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I know one could do that, but would it be appropriate? MLA, APA and Chicago all prescribe using the initials. Nardog (talk) 20:05, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, do what you think most appropriate when you encounter the problem: if nobody objects it is likely "appropriate". But anyhow, does not seem like "quite a problem" to me. These issues have been handled before and it is not as if Wikipedia would implode if using a year with a letter index when using an initial would be more appropriate. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:26, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * If you want to know what is acceptable per MLA, APA, CMS, I suggest you read up in those sources. Distinguishing similar sources with a letter suffixed to the year is very common, and entirely "appropriate" at Wikipedia. As to your original question: why should multiple "authors with the same surname" be a problem? "Allen & Allen, 1978", even "Allen, Allen, and Allen, 2001" (perhaps a married couple, and an entirely unrelated author?) are quite fine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by J. Johnson (talk • contribs) 22:21, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * We're talking about multiple works by different authors with the same surname published in the same year, not about a single work by co-authors with the same surname. Nardog (talk) 00:07, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Still seems to me like trying to develop something that is quite near to a non-issue into "quite a problem". Have you any in-Wikipedia example of a page where this so-called "quite a problem" exists? In Wikipedia guidance we're not really in the habit of writing guidance for issues than can be sorted out individually on article talk pages when the possibility of the problem recurring often is quite low. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:20, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, I concede that we probably shouldn't rush to make a rule about such a case unless it actually occurs and causes a problem among editors per WP:CREEP, and that "quite a problem" and "should definitely be implemented" may have been a stretch. Nardog (talk) 10:47, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Your specification of, first, "two or more authors with the same surname", and then "multiple works by different authors with the same surname", shows that you are a bit confused as to what question you are asking. If there is a particular instance you are having a problem with it would be best to ask about that particular instance (though this isn't really the proper place). The problem you seem to be asking about is (perhaps?) where different works "collide" in having the same author-string (that is, the surnames of the [up to] first three authors) and year. As you have already been told, standard practice in such cases is to append a letter to the year. No problem. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:58, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The guide page currently states: "If the same author has published two books or articles in 2005, and both are being referenced in the text, this is written as (Author 2005a) and (Author 2005b)", which is not the same thing as "works of the same year by two or more authors with the same surname". Adding letters to the year in references to works each by a different author who shares the same surname with one another is not the practice in MLA, APA or Chicago; they prescribe disambiguating the works by the use of the authors' initials as I've already mentioned with links. It may be practiced on Wikipedia in some articles, but is not codified in this guide page.
 * The other two who have participated in this discussion show clear understanding on this point. It seems to me you're the one who's "confused", not me or anyone else. Nardog (talk) 04:50, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I guess it would have been clearer if I had written two or more works of the same year by authors with the same surname instead of works of the same year by two or more authors with the same surname. Sorry about that. Nardog (talk) 05:00, 6 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Do you have an actual problem? Or are you just playing around? Because while I am fine with helping people with questions, I really don't like having to debate the answer. As you can't even formulate a clear, specific question, I think we're done here. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:44, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

VPR Discussion
Please see Village_pump_(proposals) for a discussion on deprecating this style. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:39, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

'.. new articles should not be created with it'
in this diff you introduced '... new articles should not be created with it'. I think that is way too strong a statement (though some of the people did !vote so strong in the RfC). I would not 'forbid' creation of pages with this style here, but rather say something along the lines of 'Some existing articles may still use this form of citation and editors are allowed to create articles with this citation style or add this citation style to existing articles, but articles using this citation style should, eventually, be converted to the preferred citation style.' (or something similar). The now strong wording 'allows' WP:BITING of new editors because they made a great article but were using 'the wrong citation style' (and I'd rather have a handle to trout people who BITE than to allow the biting). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:39, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
 * "Shouldn't" doesn't mean "won't be" (and if you read the closing rationale, it explicitly included instructions that AfC declines should not be based solely upon using such citations). However, the consensus of the discussion was clear, in that new articles should not be getting created with it, and existing articles should eventually be converted. So, I remain comfortable with that wording as a reasonable interpretation of the consensus. That is essentially what "deprecation" means&mdash;"Don't use this for new stuff, and eventually get away from using it for existing stuff too." Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:04, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I added a paragraph to the lead that I thought would address this:
 * You should never reject contributions, including whole articles, on the grounds that the citations weren't formatted in the expected way. As Citing sources says "While you should try to write citations correctly, what matters most is that you provide enough information to identify the source. Others will improve the formatting if needed."  If you see an edit that does not use  tags (which produce this:) or that does not conform to the established style for that particular article, and you know how to improve the formatting, then you should fix the formatting yourself or start a discussion about the correct style on the talk page, instead of rejecting the contribution.
 * However, someone thought that was unnecessary on the grounds that if you clicked through to the linked guideline, and actually read it, then you'd see most of that anyway. Personally, I believe that Nobody reads the directions, especially if that requires magically knowing that you need to click through to another page to get the information you need, but perhaps others are more optimistic.  Perhaps someone else would like to consider whether any of this would be useful on this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:51, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * If "Nobody reads the directions" then creating doubles of those directions only makes it less likely them being read. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:35, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * , my problem with the wording is because 'new articles should not be created with it' (on an extremely short piece of text) will result in people bashing newbies around because they did something that 'they shouldn't'. I agree, no-one reads the directions, but it is easy to find a stick to beat a dog.  You take this stick away by telling people that IF articles get created like this (or IF articles get additions like this) that they should be converted to &lt;ref>-tags.  There is simply no need to tell people (in this case) what they should not do. Dirk Beetstra T  C 06:10, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I understand that you think that. If someone does that, it can be dealt with on an individual basis. The generalized guidance should remain that editors should not be doing that. If someone is doing it, they should be corrected in a reasonable and polite manner&mdash;but they should be corrected. When the community has made a decision of "Don't do this", we absolutely should tell people "You should not do this." Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:55, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * , yes, but there are more ways of stating that, and I don’t think that handing out sticks is then the preferred way. Dirk Beetstra T C 19:27, 11 September 2020 (UTC)


 * agree with Beetstra on this one. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:03, 10 September 2020 (UTC) a discussion on the ground of the matter should not be on a user's talk page: this is where the discussion is. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:35, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Extent of deprecation
I understand that parenthetical references at the end of sentences are now deprecated, so that sentences like (1) should be converted to (2):
 * (1) Initial trials showed the Foo company's widgets performed slightly better.
 * (2) Initial trials showed the Foo company's widgets performed slightly better.

But what do we do with sentences like (3)?
 * (3) argued that more robust testing did not demonstrate significant differences.

And how about citations inside a footnote? I would imagine it should be preferable to use parenthetical citations there, so that we don't have to do footnotes to the footnotes. I don't remember any of those scenarios being discussed in the RfC (apart from scattered mentions of cases like (3) by some of those who opposed deprecation). – Uanfala (talk) 16:28, 10 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Afaics #3 is (linked) in-text attribution, not affected by the parenthetical citations RfC. Since "" does not mention a page number, it would often still need a footnoted reference at the end of the phrase/sentence/paragraph (unless the page number is included in the list of sources or the source has no page numbers). --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:44, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * If page numbers are to be specified in this case, I'd think that something like is neater than having to repeat the reference at the end. – Uanfala (talk) 19:01, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * ... which, imho, would be parenthetical referencing: the reference, which includes a page number, is between parentheses, thus parenthetical referencing. In other words, the kind of in-line clutter rejected by the RfC. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:12, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I am personally in favor of citations of the form " argued that more robust testing did not demonstrate significant differences." But my understanding is that this was deprecated. It would be rewritten something like: "John Doe argued in a 2007 article that more robust testing did not demonstrate significant differences", with a footnote or shortened footnote at the end. Or if the date is not important enough to include in the sentence (it depends on the context): "John Doe argued that more robust testing did not demonstrate significant differences." Biogeographist (talk) 20:00, 10 September 2020 (UTC) and 20:04, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * So we're expected to reduce clutter by adding more words to the sentence and then appending a linked superscript number at the end? – Uanfala (talk) 23:01, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, the exact content of the sentence would depend on the context and editor discretion. I added extra words to my examples, but if minimizing word count is called for in a given context, one could just remove the parenthetical and add a shortened footnote at the end: "Doe argued that more robust testing did not demonstrate significant differences." Biogeographist (talk) 00:28, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The template allows page numbers: " argued that more robust testing did not demonstrate significant differences." -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 06:33, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Meaning? The "" example was already given above – is there a specific reason for giving an additional example? Please explain what you want to say by giving this example. Tx. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:55, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Meaning that since that example was given, one person at least has persisted with the pageless form. One thing that really annoyed me about the RfC was the number of people who !voted to deprecate on the illogical grounds that page numbers apparently cannot be given with parenthetical refs, which is demonstrably complete and utter rubbish. Even in this discussion, people have been giving different meanings to the same terms according, it seems, to their own whims - just like Humpty Dumpty. Parenthetical referencing means exactly this: a reference that is provided in the form of a parenthesis. A parenthesis is typically denoted by the use of round brackets (...), it says nothing about what is between those brackets, other than it should be a reference. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 17:05, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Tables and lists
I'm currently building a discography list at Concerto for Two Violins (Bach). An example from the table (as is currently):

Question 1: Would the following be acceptable: With the link in the last column going to the full reference for the Doremi 2000 release? – In other words is this an "in-line" use of a Harvard template?

Question 2: if the entry on the recording were presented in a list, something like this: Would this be acceptable – a list entry not exactly being prose? --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:46, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
 * 1946: Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Rudolf Barshai
 * 1946: Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Rudolf Barshai

Question 3: or (still as a bullet list entry): —technically not even parenthetical referencing while not a single bracket is used—which starts with a "Harvard" family template (full name of that template: Harvard citation no brackets). --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:15, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
 * : 1946 recording by Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Rudolf Barshai
 * : 1946 recording by Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Rudolf Barshai


 * Note that Author-date referencing and Harvard referencing redirect to Parenthetical referencing, so all inline author-date/Harvard/parenthetical referencing has been deprecated, regardless of whether there are parentheses.
 * Your table is an unusual case because the name in the short reference is the publisher, not the author. I would ask: Is there any value to keeping a wikilink to the publisher page in the table? For example, the next row after Doremi (2000) is Columbia (1925). If so, another option would be to put the link to the reference within the parentheses like this: Columbia (1925), using a manual wikilink like this: . And the citation template of the full reference would include , or else the link from the short reference would use the standard author-date harvid instead of the custom publisher-date harvid. This would have to be done consistently in all of the rows.
 * In conclusion, there are many options for how to do this, and the advantages and disadvantages of each option should be weighed carefully (more carefully than I have done). For example, a disadvantage of the parenthetical link that I just suggested is that it may not be clear to readers that clicking on the date will take them to the full reference, especially if the reader is using a touchscreen device that does not permit mousing over the link to see the link destination, since this is not even a standard author-date short reference. In contrast, most readers will know that clicking on a footnote is likely to take them to a reference. Biogeographist (talk) 11:30, 11 September 2020 (UTC) and 11:48, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Let me say first that I, personally, would not do any of the formatting displayed in the questions 1 to 3 above. So I can't really answer to the if-and-but questions asked by Biogeographist. What I would do, is what I did when building the table, and that example is displayed above before the questions. I was just looking for a more or less realistic example of "the use of the ... harv templates" which the RfC "does not deprecate". (for clarity: the phrase in the RfC closure reads "... does not deprecate the use of the ... harv templates.") So show me a use of harv that is not deprecated. The only thing I could think of is the type of example given above in question 2, because, of course, makes no sense whatsoever: this would render as:


 * –there is no sense whatsoever in enclosing an entire short citation in brackets, and the brackets are automatically generated by the harv template. So, if the template is not suitable for short citations – what use of these templates is not deprecated?
 * The question resumes to: are data cells in a table "inline" use? – I don't think so. Are list entries "inline" use? – I don't think so.
 * Re. "all inline author-date/Harvard/parenthetical referencing has been deprecated" – that is not in the RfC closure report. And can not be inferred from current redirects, which are entirely circumstantial. Any of these redirects can be converted to guidance on the legitimate use of that precise type of template of the (broad) harv family, and/or its non-template equivalent. But then we need to define precisely what such legitimate use is.
 * For clarity:
 * All "Harvard referencing" is "parenthetical referencing": in other words, without the brackets there is no "Harvard referencing".
 * Not all "author-date referencing" is "parenthetical referencing": in other words, harvnb does not by itself produce "parenthetical referencing": if no brackets are put around it manually it is not even Harvard referencing, despite the template's name being incorrect in that case.
 * It would have been much preferable if would have kept to the terminology as used in the guidance at the time when they wrote their closure report, instead of doing some quirky redefining outside of a framework of well-defined concepts in the guidelines (their only excuse is that the quirkiness was already in the phrasing of the RfC's OP question): new definitions partially incompatible with that well-defined framework. If the confusion persists in a way that makes it impossible to implement the current closure of the RfC (while starting from ill-defined concepts), they'll have to update the close. What I think they intended to say was:
 * all "parenthetical referencing", as understood by the relevant guidelines, is deprecated;
 * all other referencing techniques described as acceptable at Citing sources, including its section on "Short citations", remain acceptable.
 * how that affects template usage is either (option 1) to be decided for each of the harv family of templates separately, or (option 2) decided as follows: ..., or (option 3) a de facto deprecation of the entire family of harv templates, which does however not affect sfn, and its auxiliary templates such as SfnRef.
 * Option 2 would then probably best deprecate the harv template itself (to avoid future confusion), though some of the other templates of the family might have a legitimate use outside of "parenthetical referencing". --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:47, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Parenthetical referencing in explanatory footnotes

 * said: So show me a use of harv that is not deprecated. Any of the harv family of templates (seen at ) can be used within  tags. "Inline" means outside of  tags. The harv family of templates is not deprecated, only their use outside of  tags. Tables and lists in the article body are outside of <ref ></ref> tags, therefore they are "inline". As the lead of Template:Harvard citation documentation says: Also note that inline use of these templates, i.e. use of harv without <ref ></ref> tags around it, was deprecated in September 2020. At the end of this sentence are some footnotes copied verbatim from Common factors theory that show several of the harv family of templates used within <ref ></ref> tags.   Biogeographist (talk) 17:59, 11 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't think we should be using the Common factors theory article, which was last modified before the "parenthetical citations" RfC, as an example here: more than half of that article are appendices, and the last section of these appendices apparently contains WP:OR, by grouping further reading in subsections apparently according to assessments of the listed works by Wikipedia editors (at least no reference for these categorisations is given). In sum, as is currently, a fairly indigestible article for a casual reader. On topic:"The question of whether all psychotherapies are all roughly equally effective (known as the Dodo bird verdict) and the question of whether all effective psychotherapies share common factors (known as common factors theory) are two different questions: 'Though many authors view outcome equivalence as the main reason to study common factors in psychotherapy, we cheerfully disagree. Regardless of outcome, it is noncontroversial to say that psychotherapies of many origins share several features of process and content, and it follows that better understanding the patterns of these commonalities may be an important part of better understanding the effects of psychotherapies. That is, irrespective of whether some psychotherapies are equivalent to others in symptomatic outcome, understanding what part of clients' improvement is due to factors that are shared by several approaches appears to us to be a conceptually and clinically important question.'"(6th footnote of the examples above) is not OK after the RfC, whether given in a list of numbered footnotes or in the body of the article. The same goes for "Lisa Wallner Samstag has argued that Saul Rosenzweig's contribution to common factors theory has often been misunderstood " in the 5th footnote above. Please appreciate that parenthetical referencing is deprecated. The entire guideline is deprecated: it should not be smuggled back in via references. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:33, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Wait, so you're saying that parenthetical referencing is out in footnotes as well? But this means that providing a citation inside a footnote would entail adding a subsidiary footnote. Do we really want to have footnotes to the footnotes? – Uanfala (talk) 10:40, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * said: Please appreciate that parenthetical referencing is deprecated. The entire guideline is deprecated: it should not be smuggled back in via references. This is totally incorrect, as it contradicts both the proposal and the close of the discussion. From the proposal: I am not proposing we ban ALL parenthetical references. I am merely proposing that we do not use inline, non software based, text parentheticals. This is NOT a proposal to ban Template:sfn, or Template:Harv (as long as it is properly nested in a ref tag). From the close: This discussion supports the deprecation only of parenthetical style citations directly inlined into articles. It does not deprecate the use of the entire citation format when it is used within tags, nor the use of the sfn and harv templates. It is very clear that the harv family of templates is not deprecated, only their use outside of <ref ></ref> tags. Biogeographist (talk) 10:44, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, if there's a legitimate use for parenthetical referencing (and I understand it here that the acceptable context includes case where the ref tags are generated under the hood by templates like efn), then we will need to keep at least some of the recently blanked sections of this page that explain how it is used. – Uanfala (talk) 10:50, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * said: we will need to keep at least some of the recently blanked sections of this page that explain how it is used. Have you looked at Help:Shortened footnotes? There is already quite a detailed explanation there, and anything that is missing could be expanded there instead of here. See especially, for example, . Biogeographist (talk) 10:57, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Re. "This is totally incorrect" – no, it isn't. As has been pointed out to me multiple times, the RfC closure contains: "WP:PAREN will have its current text replaced with an explanatory note and be marked historical." – "WP:PAREN" is shorthand for "Parenthetical referencing", and that means that that entire guideline is deprecated. Or, as I said it, "parenthetical referencing is deprecated". --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:03, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is totally incorrect! The relevant section of WP:PAREN (a.k.a. WP:HARVARD and WP:ADR) that was replaced with an explanatory note was titled "Inline citation in the body of the article". It was about inline use of Harvard referencing, not about use of Harvard referencing within <ref ></ref> tags. Your claim that Harvard referencing is being smuggled back in via references, implying that the harv family of templates may not be used in new articles within <ref ></ref> tags, is false. Biogeographist (talk) 12:52, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I really dont' see why you two should disagree so much. For all I've seen so far, the RfC hasn't left any guidance on three classes of borderline cases we're discussing here. If the current wording endorses parenthetical references inside the text of explanatory footnotes, that's simply a fluke, a side-effect of having to mention ref tags to avoid the impression that short footnotes would be deprecated as well. Ideally, we should have another RfC (or a series of RfCs) to decide on the exact extent of permissible use of parentheticals (though I hope there may not be a need for that if everyone uses good sense and doesn't start converting away parenthetical citations in cases where they don't add clutter). – Uanfala (talk) 13:54, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Use of the harv family of templates within <ref ></ref> tags (including within the efn family of templates) is not a borderline case. There are multiple ways of creating shortened footnotes, as shown at . And shows an example of more than one short citation within a footnote. These are accepted variations of shortened footnotes, and there is no need for a new RfC about them as far as I can see. Biogeographist (talk) 14:29, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Note that there is a method to convert parenthetical referencing in explanatory footnotes to footnoted citations. As an example I applied it here (revert if you don't like it, just showing that the technical solution can be easily implemented). --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:04, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Note that I wrote most of Common factors theory over five years ago when I knew much less than I know now about Wikipedia. I'm not sure that I even knew about sfn back then, which would explain why I didn't use sfn in the article. Biogeographist (talk) 14:11, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I will add that in the case of Common factors theory, having a footnote to a footnote, as in your edit, is acceptable but a little silly in my opinion, as the extra footnote adds an unnecessary click to get to the full citation. I would be inclined to reserve footnotes-to-footnotes referencing for articles that have a separate section of longer explanatory footnotes: i.e., separate sections for explanatory footnotes, shortened footnotes, and full citations. But even in those cases the need for footnotes-to-footnotes may be questionable, as the extra footnotes add an unnecessary extra click to reach full citations that is eliminated by using parenthetical references in the explanatory footnotes. There is a lot of room for editor discretion in this area. Biogeographist (talk) 17:32, 19 September 2020 (UTC) and 17:55, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Inviting to continue this discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources, after a similar issue was raised in the discussion preceding that subsection. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:48, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Parenthetical references in tables (continued from above)
The table at List of compositions by Claude Debussy reads, in part:

The numbers in the first column refer to François Lesure's catalogue of 1977, those in the second column to the same author's catalogue of 2001. Here is the same, with the two first columns merged into one:

Note that the harv references in the first column assist with the sorting (if a number appears as well in the older as in the newer catalogue, such pairs will always be sorted in the same way, i.e. old number before new number when sorting in ascending order, and new number before old when sorting descending order) – this could not be done with superscripted numerical reference links. I'd contend that something like this would be an acceptable usage of the template in the body of an article, while not "in-line". Thoughts? --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:52, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Wow, that is quite a table at !
 * I would say that this usage may violate the letter of WP:PARREF but does not really violate the spirit of it (see Letter and spirit of the law). Biogeographist (talk) 16:07, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Although you could avoid violating the letter of WP:PARREF in this case by, for example, making up an abbreviation for the two catalogues and linking the abbreviations to the full citation like so:  and  . Biogeographist (talk) 16:18, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Making up an abbreviation and linking it to a full citation is less ambiguous than linking only a date to a full citation. As I noted in the earlier discussion above, linking only a date to a full citation is problematic because people who are reading the article on a device that does not show the link destination will not know that the link leads to a full citation and not to something else such as 1977 or 2001. In contrast, linking a unique abbreviation implies that the link will provide more information about the abbreviation, which in the aforementioned case is true. Biogeographist (talk) 17:08, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Earlier discussions about the list were whether and when the "L" and "CD" abbreviations could be used in Wikipedia (see column headers in unmodified example): my proposal deliberately avoided to use the "L" abbreviation for that reason. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:13, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Edit warring
Greetings and. You must be getting close to wp:3RR by now. Just sayin' --Northernhenge (talk) 18:36, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Replacement text
I disagree with Seraphimblade's unilaterally implemented replacement text. It was reverted (by me): normally we should now have a discussion (see WP:BRD), before reinstating anything that has no consensus. Seraphimblade chose to disregard normal processes, and the explicit advice by the closer of the RfC to avoid rash action and discuss first, and imposed rash action by multiple reverts, instead of diligent discussion. See also above,, where other objections to Seraphimblade's replacement text are voiced (also: no consensus thus far). Summarizing my objections: --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:26, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * There's no consensus whatsoever on the replacement text
 * Diligent discussion about the content of what is the most suitable replacement text is needed
 * The RfC closure does not say when a replacement text needs to be instated, but the closure report does say to do step by step after discussion and consensus of each step
 * Full replacement is counterproductive as long as many articles need to be converted, often by editors who still first have to learn how the system works they're converting

A few things about 's objection don't make sense to me: Thanks, Biogeographist (talk) 19:53, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * is the closer of the discussion, so is not ignoring advice.
 * The lead of the version that prefers is very close to 's version. What's the controversy?
 * The discussion close says Discussion should take place at relevant policy pages but this is not a policy page. Perhaps that is confusing ? It also says Additionally, WP:PAREN will have its current text replaced with an explanatory note and be marked historical. That's exactly what did.
 * There is a full mainspace article, Parenthetical referencing, that describes the system, so a description here is not needed.

Also, the replacement text was not part of the close, nor a time schedule, nor did Seraphimblade write in their close they were the one who were going to do the replacement, and that they were going to do that immediately. I agree with the close, but not with what is not in the close. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:14, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, Seraphimblade can ignore their own advice (duh). Saying everything should go step by step and then impose unilateral rash action *is* ignoring their own close.
 * The controversy is mostly about the large and unilateral deletion, which is anyway too early
 * I have no problem to have this discussion at a policy talk page, if guideline updates should need to be discussed at a policy talk page, but this is where the discussion now is, and should not be moved without due reason.
 * The mainspace article does not explain how this is implemented in Wikipedia, with and without templates, etc, so conversions to article versions without parenthetical referencing are all but easy (and little help is to be expected from those who are versed in the system that is now taken down: so a sizeable group of the converting editors will probably be newbies in Wikipedia's implementations of parenthetical referencing).

As a side note, I initiated Templates for discussion/Log/2020 September 9, and am surprised by how difficult that discussion goes. Quite essential to that discussion is however the definition of Harvard referencing that was in the guideline, and the other distinctions of referencing styles, as they were part of the in-Wikipedia handling of parenthetical referencing: taking a sledgehammer through the defining framework before such discussions come to a close is pure disruption. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:21, 10 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't see a contradiction between 's actions and closing summary. However, I think your latest comment includes a good reason for why the previous text of this page should not be removed (that was missing from your first comment), so I would support the restoration of your version as a starting point for further discussion. Biogeographist (talk) 20:38, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Re. "I don't see a contradiction between 's actions and closing summary" – that is true up to the point where they were reverted: if the wording of the replacement text is not accepted (as said, see also above ), nor included in the closure report, nor a time schedule for implementing the replacement is mentioned in the closing report, then normal Wikipedia discussion should take over from the point where the first revert was done – not re-reverting. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:47, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I've changed my mind, and I now agree with that the former content of this page does not need to remain. Looking at the former content again, I noticed that it contained a lot of extraneous information, such as the "history" section. Any editors who need to review any information in the prior how-to page can access it in the page history. But other editors will be protected from confusion, as  suggested, by omitting the former content. That is not to say that the current version is perfect, but any further information that is needed can be added as the need for it arises. Biogeographist (talk) 21:14, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Three points: --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:28, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * has been invited by ping to participate here, an invitation I repeated on their talk page yesterday. So I suppose they had ample opportunity to participate in this discussion. Failing other opinions I'm implementing the consensus view that the replacement text they implemented had no consensus and was anyway implemented too soon, as still a lot of citation style conversions have to be implemented.
 * Another reason for urgency is that I learn from the Templates for discussion/Log/2020 September 9 discussion that some of the template documentation is unclear and/or seems to contradict the definition of concepts as was in the guideline here before it was emptied by Seraphimblade. Guidance as written out in a guideline supersedes template documentation (see WP:CONLEVEL policy): emptying the guideline leaves us with deficient template documentation, which indeed leads to smoke and mirrors in discussions.
 * has started to push their idiosyncratic views on the matter, which have no community consensus at all, in the current parenthetical referencing guidance: this should, of course, be reverted too, and can not be implemented in guidelines as long as it has no broad consensus to change guidance in this way (which, as said, is currently far from the case).

Wow, there is so much to correct in what incorrectly claimed! I have duly reverted. Thanks, Biogeographist (talk) 12:59, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * He claimed in his edit summary that there is "consensus" for his version of the page, which is false.
 * He claimed that this page was a WP:GUIDELINE page marked with guideline template, which is false. As the page history shows, this was one of the supplemental WP:HOWTOPAGES marked with Wikipedia how-to which explicitly states: "It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community." Thus per WP:CONLEVEL this page has "no more status than an essay."
 * He claimed that I have started to push my so-called idiosyncratic views on the matter, which is false. I am just editing like any other editor, and I will eagerly admit that I am wrong when I am proven wrong, as I hope would do too.

just left a 3RR warning on my talk page, but ironically I have only reverted once. In contrast, he has reverted four times! The question we are all asking ourselves is: If I revert a second time, will he revert a fifth time, far past 3RR? Shall we see? Biogeographist (talk) 13:18, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

OK, redirected the page instead, which is fine. Thanks, Biogeographist (talk) 13:20, 13 September 2020 (UTC)