Template talk:Cite tweet

Generic author flag

Hello, some recent changes on CS1 here introduce checks for generic or invalid author names. These are useful changes, but since cite tweet is a wrapper for CS1, text in the user= field is being flagged incorrectly. For instance:

• {{cite tweet |first=Zach |last=Cohen |user=ZcohenCNN |date=February 13, 2023 |title=Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. |number=1625249963897679878 }}
• Cohen, Zach [@ZcohenCNN] (February 13, 2023). "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

I raised this point on the CS1 talk page (linked above) and the discussion there included a proposed solution with author-mask, but the fix will have to come on the wrapper, not on the underlying CS1 template. Could someone please look into this?-Ich (talk) 08:56, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

This issue still persists. Article Alex Marson has this problem:

• @CNNTonight (April 30, 2020). "Out of 12 antibody tests that were studied by the COVID-19 Testing Project, one gave false positives more than 15% of the time. Three other tests gave false positives more than 10% of the time. https://cnn.it/35gMhMB pic.twitter.com/gdCKgUH1s5" (Tweet). Retrieved 2020-05-01 – via Twitter.
• @Test (April 30, 2020). "Out of 12 antibody tests that were studied by the COVID-19 Testing Project, one gave false positives more than 15% of the time. Three other tests gave false positives more than 10% of the time. https://cnn.it/35gMhMB pic.twitter.com/gdCKgUH1s5" (Tweet). Retrieved 2020-05-01 – via Twitter.

"Test" does not throw the generic name error but "CNNTonight" does.

Jiltedsquirrel (talk) 22:49, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I've ran across this same error several times with CNN users, anytime "CNN" is included in the user parameter it throws the "generic name" error. I tried to force it with 'accept-this-as-written-markup' and it still wouldn't work. What I did was change it to cite web and author=@CNN and forced that through. Weird that it seems to happen with CNN and not other users (in my experience). Isaidnoway (talk) 15:25, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

numeric names

Adding this here as it is seems similar to the above issue, but I'm not certain. It is definitely similar to the previous discussion at Template talk:Cite tweet/Archive 2#Template-protected edit request on 8 March 2023. Adding the |user= value to |author= in {{cite web}} is now going to flag the citation with 'CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list' if there is a number in the |user=. See Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 92#module suite update 25–26 November 2023 for more details. - adamstom97 (talk) 02:23, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, this seems to be the same issue by the author/user overlap. The |author-mask= approach suggested here should work but it would have to be implemented by someone who knows what she's doing.-Ich (talk) 12:21, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, we need a solution. For a live example, see Danbury Jr. Hat Tricks, which has two of these caused by |user=DanburyNA3HL. —Anomalocaris (talk) 11:18, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

I believe the correct solution is that {{Cite web}} needs to allow digits in authors. Template:Citation Style documentation says "author: this parameter is used to hold the name of an organizational author (e.g. a committee) ..." That would include, for example, The Jackson 5, OS/2 Development Team, Windows 95 Development Team, and thousands of other possible organizational authors that have digits. —Anomalocaris (talk) 11:37, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

All cs1|2 templates support markup that allows digits in author names. {{cite tweet}} is not a cs1|2 template but rather, is a wrapper template around {{cite web}} which it uses for rendering.

I offered a solution to the generic-name-text problem that you described at Template talk:Cite tweet/Archive 2 § Template-protected edit request on 8 March 2023. That offer yielded a resounding 'meh' of indifference but it will, if adopted, resolve this issue too.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:44, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: Your solution should be implemented I think. I'm not knowledgable in Lua enough to do it (I would have if I was), so if you are able, that seems the best step going forward. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:17, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I have restored Module:Cite tweet/sandbox to my proposed solution. I have also made what I consider to be improvements to the sandbox:

• implemented Module:Arguments so that any empty or missing parameters in the frame are set to nil before we might use them
• removed the now unnecessary function _if()
• removed support for |dead-url= and |deadurl= because these parameters are no longer supported by cs1|2
• style tweaks (primarily lua table names (args → args_t and the like)

See Template:Cite tweet/testcases

Here are some questions:

• Why does {{cite tweet}} support |location=? That parameter is primarily used to identify the city of the publisher in a book citation; also used occasionally in {{cite news}} to disambiguate |newspaper=. Because twitter is an online source there really isn't a 'publication city'. Is this parameter necessary? When? This search finds about 80 articles that have {{cite tweet}} with |location=.
• When a tweet was posted before November 4, 2010, and doesn't have |date=, the module imposes the (likely incorrect) date of November 4, 2010. Why? Surely this template should not be saying something in its own voice that likely isn't true.
• When there are multiple error messages, the module wraps each individual message in <span class="cs1-visible-error citation-comment">...</span> tags. Why? The entire error message string can be wrapped in a single <span>...</span> tag.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:44, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Trappist! Your tweaks are really nice. The location parameter allows for adding in the location the tweet was made, if it was enabled. Anything before Nov 4, 2010 should not show the date, yeah, and the errors should be in one span. SWinxy (talk) 17:49, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Ok, single error message span. When the template does not have |date= and the tweet was posted before 2023-11-04, the default date from Module:TwitterSnowflake is suppressed.

I guess that I'm not convinced of the |location= parameter's utility. If tweet posters are using that location-of-post functionality, I would expect to find the location that is named in our |location= parameter somewhere in the tweet. A random sampling of articles from this search did not turn up any such location-of-post notices – or I don't know what I'm looking for. And even if it does, how does including |location= improve the utility of a {{cite tweet}} citation?

Snowflake error messages are probably grammatically incorrect (I'm not an English major) and certainly awkward:

• |date= mismatches calculated date from |number= by two or more days;
• Missing or empty |date=, and posted before November 4, 2010;

Surely these can be written in a way that doesn't require a brain reset mid-sentence. Suggestions for better wording?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:29, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I think those messages read fine to me. An alternative for the second one: |date= required for posts before November 4, 2010;. SWinxy (talk) 18:56, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Maybe I'm just picky but I think that error messages should be terse with links to documentation that can fully explain what they mean and what to do about them.

I have rewritten much (all?) of the error handling code so that a composite {{cite tweet}} error message is prefixed with the template name. This serves to notify editors where the message arises. I have replaced all of the old error messages with terse error messages (this will require someone to write text at Template:Cite tweet § Error detection to fully explain them). The live version of the template only acknowledges missing title cs1|2 errors but it ignores all other possible cs1|2 error messaging. I have fixed that in the sandbox.

The live version of the template strips the scheme from urls embedded in |title=. I have changed that to nowiki known schemes (https://, http://, ftp://) in |title=, |script-title=, and |trans-title=.

See Template:Cite tweet/testcases

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:12, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

What to do for empty titles

The title param is listed as required. However, what if the cited tweet has no text, just an image? I guess you could make something like "N/A" but any future automated check will likely get confused after that doesn't match the real text of the tweet. Is there a formal "None" option that's supported? If so, can it be added to the documentation? (Came up for this edit and this tweet if it matters... the kind of low-level personnel overturning that journalists won't write news stories about, so citing Twitter is legitimate in the first place.) SnowFire (talk) 05:26, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

afaik, under the hood, images are either t.co or pbs.twimg.com links in a tweet. Maybe somehow get that URL and put it as the title? I'm not sure how to get them now so it would be reasonable to remove the title requirement. SWinxy (talk) 15:27, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

The mandatroy title param should also be removed given how long tweets can be these days. It should just show the href'd text 'Tweet' if empty. Local Variable (talk) 03:45, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Since I commented, I found the way to get the content: copy the embed code (three dots > Embed post) and paste only the tweet's contents. SWinxy (talk) 05:14, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

"Context" parameter

I was wondering if it would be possible to add a |context variable for tweets with a Community Note attached? As far as I see, this is the only part of the template that's missing, and therefore isn't appropriate to be used for tweets with such a note, given the misrepresentation.

For context sake, I mean like this with the Readers added context part. I realise this isn't a priority, but thought I'd ask anyway.

Thank you to all who have developed and maintain this template, it's very useful.

PS - The |image parameter is missing from the Template parameters. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 09:31, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

What would both look like as a citation? And why would one cite a tweet and its note? Since notes are exclusively pseudonymous and not WP:ABOUTSELF, they're not acceptable to cite. If you want to support a claim that a tweet has a community note on it, just cite the tweet (preferably with an archive link that shows the note). SWinxy (talk) 04:44, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I guess it would look similar to a quote tweet, with the tweet being quoted being the "Readers added context they thought users might want to know", followed by the note information, if that makes any sense? Ultimately, it would "look like" a tweet with a note attached to it...

The reason to cite a tweet with it's note is because the tweet doesn't exist without it. If the idea is to cite the tweet on it's own, then there would be no need. If the idea is to visually represent the tweet, such as using the cite tweet template, it would be necessary.

I therefore don't think anyone should be using this template to cite a tweet with a note attached, as it would be a complete misrepresentation of that tweet. Not sure I understand your point about WP:ABOUTSELF. Using a |context parameter to show a note wouldn't be in order to cite a note, but to cite a tweet with a note, so the same guidelines apply. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 15:39, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I think I get what you mean, but that isn't the purpose of this template. So this template is to generate a citation to a specific tweet, not to recreate tweet itself (which may have media, quote retweeting another tweet, and/or a community note). It just happens to put the entire text of the tweet in the citation. The reason why we don't have those parameters you're suggesting—parameters for images, quote retweets, or a note added—is that the reader can navigate to the source and view those things. We just want to be able to unambiguously point to the source for any given claim.

You might be looking for Template:Tweet or Template:Quote tweet, which recreates a tweet visually. For the Hinkle situation, you probably can get away with using the quote tweet template, but neither can show an added note nor do they have place for a caption saying there's a note. The point you want to get across to the reader in that section is that he spreads misinformation on Twitter, and Haaretz QRTing him is excellent to show that. Either that, or the closing admin on my deletion discussion disagrees with me and keeps the image, or we ditch the visual altogether and rely on prose. SWinxy (talk) 22:44, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Good points, well made. It'd be the Template:Cite_tweet and Template:Quote_tweet that would benefit from a |context parameter instead, given it's supposed to display "all relevant information about the tweet". I hadn't noticed the difference in templates.

As for the Hinkle screenshot, fundamentally it's not a "good image", given as a thumb it's illegible. The only reason I argued for it to remain is because I believe it to be eligible for non-free, not because I actually think it's a good image. I'm pedantic, I know.

You could also just remove it from the article based on the fact it looks bad, if you prefer. No objections from me and doubt there would be from others either. Although it's use under MOS:UPRIGHT is probably legit in fairness under "fine detail". CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 12:07, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Update to sandbox version

Is there any opposition to updating to the sandbox version? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 07:26, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I see above that the documentation was never updated for the template update. I've gone ahead and done this, in case that had caused the wait as I see some support and no objections to the sandbox version. GKFX, if you're okay with it, I'd like to go ahead with the sandbox update this week. If there are objections to the sandbox version, feel free to revert my changes to the documentation. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 08:12, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I think we should proceed. It fixes the issues we've been coming across due to the changes to the underlying CS/cite web module. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Full send. SWinxy (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Also, it looks like GKFX has been inactive since switching the template to lua. Does the template have a primary maintainer to ping? Nardog? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 21:17, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I mean, I've been here a while, and the last two edits to the module were from me. So, me? I guess? SWinxy (talk) 23:29, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@SWinxy: Gotcha, I just didn't want to step on anyone's toes. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 23:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The template and documentation are both updated. And again if this causes some unforeseen issue, feel free to roll back. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 23:46, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Date issue

Do I see this right that the date automatically derived from the Tweet ID cannot be overwritten? If so, that's a problem.

Consider the tweet with this ID: 1784604761263903165

The tweeter states: I am profoundly sad to share that my father, Emeritus Professor Sir Vincent O’Sullivan, died in Dunedin late yesterday (28 April)

The Tweet was sent at 3:25am NZ time on 29 August. When I plug this into the reference template, it shows as being sent on 28 April, probably because at that time, it was still that date at Twitter HQ. However, the tweet's content now clashes with the date. Obviously, this is only correct when it shows as having been sent on 29 April, as the tweeter's father died on 28 April ("late yesterday (28 April)"). Can this please be fixed? I'd like the template to accept the correct date if that is what is specified through the date parameter.

References

Schwede66 06:24, 29 April 2024 (UTC)