Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 7

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Archive 1

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Archive 5

"and updates"

I'm trying to cite a web page which gives its publication date as "2009 and updates". If I code "date=2009 and updates" (or "year=...") it formats OK but adds a red message Check date values in: |date= at the end. Is there any way of avoiding this message?--Keith Edkins ( Talk ) 17:30, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

We need a real example, please. -- Gadget850^talk 17:46, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Such is the ephemeral nature of web citations as indicated by "2009 and updates". Because what an editor might have seen one day at a website might be different from what you see today or tomorrow, we use |access-date= to identify that point in time where the cited source supported the article text.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:26, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm still grappling with how to cite a number of online web resources which have previously been cited using "YYYY onwards" (as they themselves recommend in some cases). The citation year can just be omitted, but it does convey useful information to knowledgeable readers. Also templates like {{harvc}} then can't easily be used to cite different contributions without repeating the main work. Another possibility is "YYYY–ACCESSYEAR" on the grounds that the cite can't apply to any updates after the access year (or the full access date). So far I've mostly settled for converting such citations to plain text, which seems a retrograde step to me, but does avoid the red error message. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:38, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

error chapter=ignored

I've been getting this error on hundreds of citations since the update to Lua. Cite news no longer accepts section= for newspaper titles. I know a section above discusses this, but I'm not sure why it's taken several months without a fix nor am I prepared to read that wall of technical text as I am unfamiliar with Lua. Newspapers have sections, the section parameter should be handled by it as it was previously. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 03:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

|newspaper= for the name of the newspaper: |newspaper=New York Times

|title= for an article title |title=11 Women, Seven Seas and One Point to Make

|department= for the section |department=Sports (which see)

{{cite news |last=Museler |first=Chris |title=11 Women, Seven Seas and One Point to Make |department=Sports |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/23/sports/international/in-volvo-ocean-race-womens-sailing-team-hopes-to-navigate-new-path.html?ref=sports |date=23 December 2014 |page=B9}}

→Museler, Chris (23 December 2014). "11 Women, Seven Seas and One Point to Make". Sports. The New York Times. p. B9.

As best I can tell, |section= is not and hasn't been a documented parameter for any CS1 templates except {{cite manual}} (now redirected to {{cite book}}) where it is an alias of |chapter=, and {{cite map}} where it is used to hold grid location identifiers.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:18, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

@Floydian: Template:Cite news#In-source locations suggests that you use the |at= parameter for the section title. GoingBatty (talk) 14:24, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I get the chapter= ignored error when using the {{cite conference}} template even when using the suggested "Full parameter set in horizontal format".

This:

{{cite conference|first=Jean-Claude|last=Larchet|title=The question of the Roman primacy in the thought of Saint Maximus the Confessor|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=3mxbj99yRaQC&pg=PA188|year=2006|conference=Academic symposium on the Petrine Ministry. Vatican City. May 21–24, 2003|editor-last=Kasper|editor-first=Walter|editor-link=Walter Kasper|booktitle=The Petrine ministry: Catholics and Orthodox in dialogue|location=New York|publisher=Newman Press|isbn=978-0-8091-4334-4|page=188}}

Outputs:
Larchet, Jean-Claude (2006). "The question of the Roman primacy in the thought of Saint Maximus the Confessor". In Kasper, Walter (ed.). The Petrine ministry: Catholics and Orthodox in dialogue. Academic symposium on the Petrine Ministry. Vatican City. May 21–24, 2003. New York: Newman Press. p. 188. ISBN 978-0-8091-4334-4. {{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help)

Also, it does not matter if I use |book-title= (as described in "Full parameter set in vertical format") or |booktitle= (as described in "Full parameter set in horizontal format") the conference's publication title (from |booktitle=) is not shown. —BoBoMisiu (talk) 18:33, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Horizontal or vertical format is only for humans. The template's processor code, Module:Citation/CS1, cannot and does not distinguish between the two formats.

The missing chapter error is fixed for {{cite conference}} in Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox. The error will go away and the citation will display correctly when the module suite is next updated.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:47, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I know horizontal vs. vertical coding is for convenience but there is a "-" in one but not in the other. I tried both formats of the variable. I am glad your answer is that it will fix itself. Thank you for the fast response. —BoBoMisiu (talk) 19:03, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

{{cite news}} and {{cite periodical}} should be fixed to pass section= along to the at= parameter or whatever would put it directly before the page number. Newspapers and periodicals are very often organized into sections, some with page numbers that reset for each section. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 19:13, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't how this is related to the topic, but you probably want |department=. -- Gadget850^talk 21:14, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Month style in date ranges test

I have added a test to Module:Citation/CS1/Date validation/sandbox that tests months in a range for matching style: either both short: Jan–Mar or both long: January–March.

Month to month in the same year ranges:

Title. January–March 2014.
Title. January–May 2014.
Title. Jan–Mar 2014.
Title. Jan–May 2014.
Title. May–Jul 2014.
Title. May–July 2014.
Title. Jan–March 2014. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Title. January–Mar 2014. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Because it uses much of the same code, season to season ranges in the same year should not be broken:

Title. Summer–Autumn 2014.

Day and month to day and month in the same year ranges:

Title. 12 November – 3 December 2013.
Title. November 12 – December 3, 2013.
Title. 12 Nov – 3 Dec 2013.
Title. Nov 12 – Dec 3, 2013.
Title. 12 Nov – 3 December 2013. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Title. Nov 12 – December 3, 2013. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Title. 12 November – 3 Dec 2013. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Title. November 12 – Dec 3, 2013. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Month and year in different year ranges:

Title. December 2013 – January 2014.
Title. Dec 2013 – Jan 2014.
Title. Dec 2013 – January 2014. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Title. December 2013 – Jan 2014. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Because it uses much of the same code, season to season ranges in the different years should not be broken:

Title. Winter 2013 – Spring 2014.

Day month and year to day month and year ranges:

Title. 12 December 2012 – 3 January 2013.
Title. December 12, 2012 – January 3, 2013.
Title. 12 Dec 2012 – 3 Jan 2013.
Title. Dec 12, 2012 – Jan 3, 2013.
Title. 12 Dec 2012 – 3 January 2013. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Title. Dec 12, 2012 – January 3, 2013. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Title. 12 December 2012 – 3 Jan 2013. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Title. December 12, 2012 – Jan 3, 2013. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Have I missed something? Keep this change?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:36, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: Looks good, as it should encourage editors to ensure they're using consistent month formatting. GoingBatty (talk) 02:33, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

format with chapter-url but not url

Currently |format= is dependent on |url= where it should be dependent on |url= or |chapter-url=. In this example, adding a parent link seems overkill:

Markup Renders as

{{cite book |chapter=Organizational Actions of Units to Form the 9th Field Artillery Regiment Under the US Army Regimental System (USARS) |title=Official Department of the Army Administrative Publications and Forms |id=General Orders No 34 |publisher=Department of the Army |date=15 January 1986 |chapter-url=http://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/pdf/go8534.pdf |format=PDF}}

"Organizational Actions of Units to Form the 9th Field Artillery Regiment Under the US Army Regimental System (USARS)" (PDF). Official Department of the Army Administrative Publications and Forms. Department of the Army. 15 January 1986. General Orders No 34. {{cite book}}: |format= requires |url= (help)

-- Gadget850^talk 13:26, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

|chapter-format=

"Organizational Actions of Units to Form the 9th Field Artillery Regiment Under the US Army Regimental System (USARS)" (PDF). Official Department of the Army Administrative Publications and Forms. Department of the Army. 15 January 1986. General Orders No 34.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:29, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Forgot this was added. -- Gadget850^talk 16:08, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Cite journal and Google books

This works,^[1] this works,^[2] but this gives a Check |url= scheme (help). error.^[3] In other words, {{Cite journal}} apparently cannot deal with {{Google books}} URLs. Would be nice if it could. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 10:44, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

You'd need to add|plainurl=yes to that template, 82.136.210.153.

{{Google books|EToEAAAAMBAJ|Product Comparison|page=PT63}} gives Product Comparison, p. PT63, at Google Books, which is not a plain URL in its output, so it's messing up the input into {{cite journal}}
{{Google books|EToEAAAAMBAJ|Product Comparison|page=PT63|plainurl=yes}} gives https://books.google.com/books?id=EToEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PAPT63, which is a plain URL that {{cite journal}} can understand.^[4]

I hope that solves the problem for you. Imzadi 1979 → 11:14, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Ah, yes; thanks. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 11:17, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't see that there is much benefit gained from this roundabout method of adding |url= to {{cite journal}}. Why type all of that extra text?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:19, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

References

^ "Product Comparison". InfoWorld. 10 (49). IDG: 64. 5 December 1988. ISSN 0199-6649. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
^ Product Comparison, p. PT63, at Google Books
^ [Product Comparison, p. PT63, at Google Books "Product Comparison"]. InfoWorld. 10 (49). IDG: 64. 5 December 1988. ISSN 0199-6649. Retrieved 29 December 2014. {{cite journal}}: Check |url= value (help)
^ "Product Comparison". InfoWorld. 10 (49). IDG: 64. 5 December 1988. ISSN 0199-6649. Retrieved 29 December 2014.

@Trappist the monk: The benefit of using a template in the |url= parameter is that if the website changes its URL format, you just have to change the template instead of finding and changing many articles. 14:57, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps. But, if we're worried that Google will change its format then we should bring the functionality of {{Google books|<identifier>|page=<page>|plainurl=yes}} into Module:Citation/CS1 as a special identifier (somwhat akin to |doi= or |jstor=). But then, what if Google changes their identifier scheme? What then? I choose not to worry about something that I cannot predict and have no control over; "O, that way madness lies; let me shun that." ^{(King Lear Act 3, scene 4)}

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:35, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Given the infrastructure and the cost of development I don't see Google changing this soon, nor without good reason. -- Gadget850^talk 16:05, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

cite journal without |title

In Lawrencium is this citation:

{{cite journal|first=G. N.|last=Flerov|journal=At. En.|volume=106|page=476|year=1967}}

→Flerov, G. N. (1967). At. En. 106: 476. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

No |title= yet no error message. Is this how it should be? The missing title error message is output when none of the meta parameters Title, Periodical, Conference, TransTitle, or ScriptTitle are set. Because |journal=At. En. has a value, no error message. I don't think that this is proper. I think that all CS1/2 citations must have |title=.

Is there a reason that we shouldn't have this requirement and that I shouldn't remove Periodical and Conference from the title test?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:06, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Tricky. In the botanical literature, it's common to give citations for the scientific names of plants without titles. For example, the citation for the name Freesia here is (in cite journal formatting) "Klatt (1866). Linnaea. 34: 672. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)" Should we be using such citations? Probably not, but sometimes they are hard to avoid, partly because of access problems and partly because old botanical works often didn't use titles in the way that is done now. I'm already having to convert citations with open-ended dates to plain text and seeing others do so as well; I'd be sorry to see yet another category of citation unable to use citation templates. On the other hand, the great majority of citations should have titles. Ideally there would be a way of overriding a "missing title" error message. Peter coxhead (talk) 02:03, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

|title=none could explicitly set no title. -- Gadget850^talk 02:26, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Because botanical citation style differs rather significantly from the general purpose citation styles that guided the development of CS1/2, it would seem to me that such citation needs would best be met by specialized templates to render that style rather than twist the CS1/2 definition. Are there not such citation templates?

Editor Gadget850's suggestion is possible, though I think messy, so I'd rather not if I can avoid it.

and, yeah, this was supposed to be a separate discussion ... fixed

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

As Peter coxhead states, some scientific traditions cite papers this way in their standard style. I've seen this in physics, crystallography, etc. — it is far more widespread than just botany. We should support them rather than deciding for ourselves what a proper citation is or should be. And again, why are you discussing changes to CS2 here without even a pointer to the discussion in the proper place? You do this over and over and it is a problem every time. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:19, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

PS for some examples of physics articles that use this style (somewhat inconsistently, and currently without benefit of templates) see Logarithmic Schrödinger equation, Scissors Modes, Noiseless subsystems, Quantum dimer models, etc. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:18, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Those are ugly. To me they indicate laziness on the editor's part and make the reader's task more difficult should they ever decide to try to find the referenced source. For example, this:

E. F. Hefter, Phys. Rev. A 32, 1201 (1985).

Would it have been so hard to make this?

Hefter, Earnest F. (August 1985). "Application of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with a logarithmic inhomogeneous term to nuclear physics". Physical Review A. 32 (2). American Physical Society: 1201–1204. doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.32.1201. PMID 9896178. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)

I think that editors here sometimes forget that we are not creating content for people 'in the business' but rather, we are creating content for the rest of the world.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:45, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes editors feel like they should follow the conventions of their field, and sometimes those conventions include or exclude different information than you would. I agree that your reformatting is better, but I think you have the wrong attitude. These templates are supposed to be here for the convenience of the editors, to make it easier for them to format citations the way they would like to format them, and with greater consistency than hand-formatted citations. They are not supposed to be for the re-education of badthinking proles who don't want to format citations in exactly the same way you would. The templates currently support multiple minor variations in style (e.g. punctuation, use of author initials vs full names, inclusion vs non-inclusion of journal publishers, etc). This is another such variation, one that is very standard in some fields. Who are we to say that it is to be forbidden? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:00, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

MOS:JARGON applies. But this is a separate discussion.

Agreed. As a short-term solution, a |title=none option to explicitly override the need to insert the article title to "silence" a visible error message would be a good option. If silenced, I'd suggest that the template use some sort of tracking category so that interested editors can expand the citation out in full. As Trappist the monk's example shows, the longer citation (with DOI/PMID) is quite a bit more helpful. As for David Eppstein's comments, I understand a desire to allow academics to emulate their academic practices into Wikipedia writing, but at some point, I should think everyone would agree that Wikipedia has a house style (our MOS), and at least some things should eventually be updated to conform to our MOS's basic requirements in an effort to be accessible to the masses

As I recently noted elsewhere, if I'm taking a university class where the instructor specifies APA style for citations and formatting, I use APA style and re-capitalize titles accordingly. If another instructor requires The Chicago Manual of Style, then CMOS it is. One semester, I was taking 5 course, one of which required CMOS (with footnotes), another required APA, two explicitly required MLA and the third required me to "just indicate your sources in parentheses with a list of sources at the end" (so I used MLA). An article I wrote in MLA style I expect to be revised into the house style of the textbook publisher. Now, our MOS is very flexible in terms of citation styles, and CS1/CS2 are two style options that can be selected, but Wikipedia:Citing sources does at a minimum specify consistency within an article, that journal citations typically have article titles, etc. There's another guideline someplace that also says that journal names should be spelled out in full to be accessible to non-specialist readers, but I'm not locating that advice at the moment. Our generalist mission, or our goal of being accessible to as many readers as possible, in any rate should push us to expand these shorthand conventions from various disciplines into fuller citations that non-specialists can reliably parse. Anyway, that's my 2¢. Imzadi 1979 → 06:00, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with all that. What I disagree with is the idea that making our templates more rigid and inflexible is a good way to encourage users to format their citations better. I think it's better to keep them flexible, so that people want to use them, and use other means to encourage stylistic consistency. After all, a much bigger problem than misuse of the templates is all the inconsistently hand-formatted citations that don't use the templates at all. We can't fix that problem by making our templates so prickly that only experts can get them to produce error-free output. For this reason, I would not be opposed to title-less cites causing the addition of a maintenance category, so that people who care about such issues can find them and fix them. But making them bomb out with an error message visible to all users, as was proposed here, goes beyond that and I think would cause more problems than it solves. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Help:Citation Style 1#Work and publisher has a sentence about not using abbreviated journal names.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Not as messy as I thought it might be:

{{cite journal/new |author=E. F. Hefter |journal=Phys. Rev. A |volume=32 |page=1201 |date=1985}}

→E. F. Hefter (1985). Phys. Rev. A. 32: 1201. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

{{cite journal/new |title=none |author=E. F. Hefter |journal=Phys. Rev. A |volume=32 |page=1201 |date=1985}}

→E. F. Hefter (1985). Phys. Rev. A. 32: 1201.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)

When |title=none article is included in a maintenance category Category:CS1 maint: Untitled periodical.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:55, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Occasionally an editor might want to refer to an entire issue of a journal (or newspaper) without specifying a particular article. This might be more likely if the issue being cited were a special issue or extra edition. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:49, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Minor tweaks to move the is-title-present test ahead of COinS generation so that we don't get &rft.atitle=none; no special treatment of |title=none when the template is {{cite encyclopedia}}, or when {{citation}} uses |encyclopedia=:

"article". none. Encyclopedia.

"none". Encyclopedia.

"Article". none.

"none", Encyclopedia

"Article", none, Encyclopedia

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:09, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Citing a primary source document

As his personal physician, Rear Admiral George Gregory Burkley, completed the first "certificate of death" for JFK: front, back. (The notation in the upper left corners appears to indicate that it is a US Navy form.) This report can found in a few other places online, but the National Archives and Records Administration appears to hold the original documents and, therefore, be the most authoritative source of the document. My pathway to accessing these pdf's was 1) http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/, 2) http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/finding-aids/jfk-key-persons.html, 3) http://research.archives.gov/description/7460634, and 4) clicked the last two pages. I'm not sure what citation template to use since Template:Cite document redirects to Template:Cite journal. Thanks! - Location (talk) 05:32, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps {{cite report}}:

Burkley, George Gregory (23 November 1963). Certificate of Death (front) (Report). NAVMED Form N.

Burkley, George Gregory (23 November 1963). Certificate of Death (back) (Report). NAVMED Form N. {{cite report}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)

But {{cite report}} (as it is currently implemented) does strange things when |work= is made part of the citation (title is rendered quoted in italics):

Burkley, George Gregory (23 November 1963). Certificate of Death. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection (Report). National Archives and Records Administration. pp. front, back. NAVMED Form N.

The next update to Module:Citation/CS1, will fix that weirdness and allow you to dismiss the '(Report)' annotation by setting |type=none.

Cite report comparison
Wikitext	{{cite report\|date=23 November 1963\|first=George Gregory\|id=NAVMED Form N\|last=Burkley\|pages=[http://media.nara.gov/dc-metro/rg-272/605417-key-persons/kennedy_john_f_4-1_autopsy/kennedy_john_f_4-1_autopsy-0078.jpg front], [http://media.nara.gov/dc-metro/rg-272/605417-key-persons/kennedy_john_f_4-1_autopsy/kennedy_john_f_4-1_autopsy-0079.jpg back]\|publisher=[[National Archives and Records Administration]]\|title=Certificate of Death\|work=The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection}}
Live	Burkley, George Gregory (23 November 1963). Certificate of Death. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection (Report). National Archives and Records Administration. pp. front, back. NAVMED Form N.
Sandbox	Burkley, George Gregory (23 November 1963). Certificate of Death. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection (Report). National Archives and Records Administration. pp. front, back. NAVMED Form N.

Or, you could just use {{cite document}}:

Burkley, George Gregory (23 November 1963). "Certificate of Death" (Document). National Archives and Records Administration. pp. front, back. NAVMED Form N. {{cite document}}: Unknown parameter |work= ignored (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:56, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I like "(Report)" included in the citation, however, I think I'll use the last {{cite document}} you used since the front and back pages are together. I'll post an FYI for you once I have it in the article.

While I have you on the line, I have a web cite to very similar material: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/oswald/faq/ . Per American Experience (season 20), "Oswald's Ghost" (not italicized) was an episode of American Experience (italicized) that first aired on January 14, 2008. The episode aired on PBS, but the corresponding website material appears to have been authored by WGBH Educational Foundation as it states at the bottom: "This site is produced for PBS by WGBH". In Template:Cite web, I'm utterly confused as to who and what to credit as author, publisher, website, series, etc. This was my first attempt:

{{cite web |url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/oswald/faq/ |title=Oswald's Ghost |author= |website=www.pbs.org |series=American Experience |publisher=WGBH Educational Foundation |accessdate=January 5, 2014}}

...which gives...

"Oswald's Ghost". www.pbs.org. American Experience. WGBH Educational Foundation. Retrieved January 5, 2014.

Do you think that is sufficient (even though American Experience is not italicized) or is there something else that you would recommend? Thanks again! - Location (talk) 17:26, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

If you like '(Report)', you can add it to {{cite document}} with |type=Report.

For the other, perhaps this:

{{cite web |author=[[WGBH Educational Foundation]] |url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/oswald/faq/ |title=Oswald's Ghost |website=[[American Experience]] |publisher=[[PBS]]  |accessdate=January 5, 2014}}

→WGBH Educational Foundation. "Oswald's Ghost". American Experience. PBS. Retrieved January 5, 2014.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:12, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Outside style guides like APA don't treat collections as works. In the case of APA, the collection information is just put at the end of the citation. Perhaps like this:

{{cite document |last=Burkley |first=George Gregory |title=Certificate of Death |publisher=[[National Archives and Records Administration]] |pages=[http://media.nara.gov/dc-metro/rg-272/605417-key-persons/kennedy_john_f_4-1_autopsy/kennedy_john_f_4-1_autopsy-0078.jpg front], [http://media.nara.gov/dc-metro/rg-272/605417-key-persons/kennedy_john_f_4-1_autopsy/kennedy_john_f_4-1_autopsy-0079.jpg back]|id=NAVMED Form M |date=23 November 1963}} The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection.

which renders as

Burkley, George Gregory (23 November 1963). "Certificate of Death" (Document). National Archives and Records Administration. pp. front, back. NAVMED Form M. The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection.

Jc3s5h (talk) 18:06, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

That's where |via= can come in very handily. Also, I wouldn't use |pages= that way, using |at= instead

Burkley, George Gregory (23 November 1963). "Certificate of Death" (Document). National Archives and Records Administration. front side, back side. NAVMED Form M. {{cite document}}: Unknown parameter |via= ignored (help)

Imzadi 1979 → 18:20, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for all of the feedback. While newer references indicate that this has changed, older sources (e.g. Manual of the Medical Department of the United States Navy, 1906) confirm that "Form N" was the US Navy's death certificate form. I'm guessing that "(REV. 4-58)" in the corner of the form/report/document indicates that it was revised April 1958. It's not unusual for governments to use various number forms, but I'm wondering how detailed we should be. I know this seems pedantic: If they call it a "form", should I use |type=Form instead of |type=Report? - Location (talk) 20:04, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Certificate is already implied in the title. -- Gadget850^talk 20:09, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

You can be as pedantic as you'd like to be. I put the form in |id= but it can just as easily go in |type=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:26, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Request to update Template:Cite compare

Based on the discussion above, I've made a request at Template talk:Cite compare#Request to update the template to make code more visible. Discussion and technical assistance would be appreciated. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:42, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Preface/introduction citation - is what I'm doing correct despite feeling hackish

I am attempting to cite an introduction written by one author which appears in a book written by another author. To make matters more interesting, the author of the introduction is credited as the editor of the complete text. The book, at its core, is an edition of the well-known Anna Lombard by Victoria Cross (Annie Sophie Cory). The introduction is by Gail Cunningham. I _think_ that the correct way this should display is:

Cunningham, Gail (2006) [1901]. "Introduction". In Cross, Victoria (ed.). Anna Lombard. Late Victorian and Early Modernist Women Writers. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. vii–xxv. ISBN 978-0-8264-8184-9.

Buuuut ... that raises at least two problems in my mind. First, the origyear parameter makes this look as though the Introduction was originally published in 1901, when that's not actually the case (just the book itself). Second, to get this outcome, I've stuffed Victoria Cross in the editor field, which is the opposite of reality. I feel that can only create trouble for metadata scrapers (and potential futures where we go back to displaying "ed."); indeed, the publication itself considered Cunningham the editor.

What's best practice here, with the ultimate goal of being able to tag this with a Cunningham-named sfn (naturally)? Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 22:16, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Unless something is changed with {{cite book}} to allow us to specify contribution authors separate from the authors/editors of the encompassing work, the only thing I could suggest is splitting it into two templates, like:

Cunningham, Gail (2006). "Introduction". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help) In Cross, Victoria (2006) [orig. pub. 1901]. Cunningham, Gail (ed.). Anna Lombard. Late Victorian and Early Modernist Women Writers. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-0-8264-8184-9.

This is the best I can figure at the moment. Imzadi 1979 → 22:48, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

That's ... unpleasant, but better than wrong. Thanks. I'm surprised there's not a sane way to do this, though. It can't be that uncommon... Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 23:37, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that thhis solution brings its own set of problems. Now there are two sets of related but disconnected metadata. The second is complete and correct but the first gives us a metadata citation to a periodical article named "Introduction" but doesn't name the periodical. Perhaps fudge it a bit where |chapter= is modified:

Cross, Victoria (2006) [1901]. "Editor's Introduction". In Cunningham, Gail (ed.). Anna Lombard. Late Victorian and Early Modernist Women Writers. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. vii–xxv. ISBN 978-0-8264-8184-9.

or, set |display-authors=0

Cunningham, Gail, ed. (2006) [1901]. "Introduction". Anna Lombard. Late Victorian and Early Modernist Women Writers. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. vii–xxv. ISBN 978-0-8264-8184-9.

and set |ref={{sfnref|Cunningham|2006 (in which case |page=vii–xxv is inappropriate).

Neither are perfect but at least this way we don't have disconnected metadata fragments.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:02, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think either of those are really acceptable solutions, either. The first is formatted in a way that suggests Cross is the author of the introduction, and fudges the "chapter" name in an effort to combat that implication. But I don't see that changing section/chapter names is best editing practice. The second one disincludes (at least from visibility) the author of the actual book the introduction is attached to, which doesn't seem permissible, either. 00:35, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok, a slight variant:

Cross, Victoria (2006) [1901]. "Introduction". In Cunningham, Gail (ed.). Anna Lombard. Late Victorian and Early Modernist Women Writers. Introduction: Gail Cunningham. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. vii–xxv. ISBN 978-0-8264-8184-9.

Or you could set |ref=harv

Cross, Victoria (2006) [1901]. Cunningham, Gail (ed.). Anna Lombard. Late Victorian and Early Modernist Women Writers. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-0-8264-8184-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Then use short-form links to the single citation but using two different names:

{{harvnb|Cross|2006|pp=55–56}}

→Cross 2006, pp. 55–56 harvnb error: multiple targets (5×): CITEREFCross2006 (help)

[[#CITEREFCross2006|Cunningham (2006), "Introduction" pp. vii–xxv]]

→Cunningham 2006, "Introduction", pp. vii–xxv

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:11, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

(different commenter) I think that if the existing template does not configure the citation in a manner which can be properly interpreted, you should set aside the template and manually compose the citation. I would add an editorial note to the wikitext () so that editors like me who do a lot of templating of citations don't go and do the wrong thing by templating it. I do understand that this would make the citation unavailable for automated analysis or decomposition, but it is better to properly present then information than to conform to the template standard. It would be useful to create a template which flags intentionally non-templated citations so that they can be parsed in a different manner than templated citations, and not be invisible to such parsing routines. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:09, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd take this suggestion if I knew what the intended output even was. Wikipedia's Citation Style 1 isn't an exact match for any other standard reference format, after all. This would also then require use of {{wikicite}} to restore sfn functionality, which (while not guaranteed), is a pretty good sign that something's being done wrong. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 00:35, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Just to compare, this is how an introduction would be formatted in APA and Chicago:

APA: Rieger, James (1982). [Introduction]. In Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus: 1935 (pp. xi–xxxvii). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chicago: Rieger, James. Introduction to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, xi–xxxvii. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.

-- Gadget850^talk 12:59, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Cite Conference - adding presenter parameter?

I am thinking that it might be useful to add "presenter" as a new parameter to Template:Cite conference. Currently only the authors are addressed, but the program will focus on the presenter. Thanks for considering this. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:43, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I would use |others= to meet this edge case need. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:06, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

However, the presenter will typically be one of the authors, and if I am remembering correctly, "others" are co-listed with "author". --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:02, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

P.S. this isn't really an edge case, but rather a piece of information which is always available for a conference, but not currently captured in Wikipedia citations. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:03, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

My expectation is that the vast majority of "cite conference" citations are (whether Trappist puts his stamp of approval of this specific usage or not) citations to papers published in conference proceedings. We should only cite a presenter when the citation is to an actual presentation, rather than the associated publication, and we should only make such citations when the presentation has been recorded allowing us to verify the contents of the citation. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:29, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Presumably by "presenter", you mean the person standing at the lectern who reads the paper out to the assembly. Is this important? That is, did the presenter have any creative input? If so, they should already be listed as a (co-)author; if not, there shouldn't be any need to mention them at all. In the BBC documentary Terry Pratchett - Living with Alzheimer's, there was a sequence where Pratchett began reading a paper to an audience, then stepped down part-way; somebody else stepped up to the lectern and read out the rest of Pratchett's paper. That was not spur-of-the-moment but pre-arranged, but I don't think that it's necessary to give the name of that kind person in a citation. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:20, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

At the conferences I go to, conference talks are given largely ad lib rather than being read from a written script, so there is definitely creative input in them regardless of whether the presenter is an author of the corresponding paper (the usual case) or not (as sometimes happens e.g. when travel plans break down). So if the presenter is not an author and we are referencing the actual presentation (not the paper) then we should credit the presenter. But I'm skeptical that this is a frequent enough case to need a special field in the templates. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:46, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

It would be especially infrequent because most conference presentations are not recorded, so can't be cited per se in Wikipedia. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:11, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Separator parameters

At this discussion I asked why we have several different separator parameters. This discussion assumes that we don't need so many and proposes a path to streamlining this set of parameters.

CS1/2 needs three types of separator: one to separate |first= from |last=, one to separate the items in a name list (authors, editors), and one to separate the various elements of the citation. This discussion applies to the first two of these.

The name separator parameters are:

|author-name-separator=

|editor-name-separator=

I can see no reason to have different separators for first/last name separation in a citation. Whatever separator is used to separate author last/first names should be used to separate editor last/first names. We should combine the functionality of these separate parameters into a single parameter. The most appropriate parameter name would be |name-separator=. But that parameter name is already in use.

The name list separator parameters are:

|author-separator=

|editor-separator=

|name-separator=

Again, I see no reason to have different separators for name lists in a citation. Whatever separator is used to separate authors in the author list should be used to separate editors in the editor list. We should combine the functionality of these separate parameters into a single parameter. The most appropriate parameter name would seem to be |name-list-separator=.

Because |name-separator= is already in use, I think that we need a two-stage process to cleanup this mess. In the first stage we:

create |name-list-separator=
make |author-separator=, |editor-separator=, and |name-separator= aliases of |name-list-separator=
modify Module:Citation/CS1 to use |name-list-separator= where it now uses |author-separator=, |editor-separator=, and |name-separator=
deprecate |author-separator=, |editor-separator=, and |name-separator= in favor of |name-list-separator=
create a script (or bot if necessary) to troll Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters that will replace instances of |author-separator=, |editor-separator=, and |name-separator= with |name-list-separator=
after the number of instances of |author-separator=, |editor-separator=, and |name-separator= in Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters has been reduced to an acceptable level, these three parameters are added to Module:Citation/CS1/Suggestions, are removed from Module:Citation/CS1/Whitelist, are removed as aliases of |name-list-separator=, and are removed from the documentation

At some point after the last step in stage 1, do stage 2:

remove |name-separator= from Module:Citation/CS1/Suggestions
recreate |name-separator=
make |author-name-separator= and |editor-name-separator= aliases of |name-separator=
modify Module:Citation/CS1 to use |name-separator= where it now uses |author-name-separator= and |editor-name-separator=
deprecate |author-name-separator= and |editor-name-separator= in favor of |name-separator=
create a script (or bot if necessary) to troll Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters that will replace instances of |author-name-separator= and |editor-name-separator= with |name-separator=
after the number of instances of |author-name-separator= and |editor-name-separator= in Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters has been reduced to an acceptable level, add these two parameters to Module:Citation/CS1/Suggestions, remove them from Module:Citation/CS1/Whitelist, remove them as aliases of |name-separator=, and remove them from the documentation

Are there flaws in this plan? Should I proceed?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:20, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Looks good. I recall this being discussed a few years ago, but the discussion went off the rails. I did a quick search for |author-separator=; every use also makes the style changes made by {{vcite2 journal}}. -- Gadget850^talk 13:42, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I support the basic idea here, but it would be great to come up with parameter names for these two items that are less ambiguous. We already see unsupported parameters like |name= and |published= used by editors, for whatever reason.

It looks like we are proposing default parameters of |name-separator= as the separator between first and last names (typically a comma in CS1 citations), and |name-list-separator= as the separator between authors (typically a semicolon in CS1 citations). These parameter names imply that there is a |name= parameter, but there is not. I understand that we are trying to indicate that there is one of each separator parameter that covers both authors and editors.

I would love to see parameter names that are more self-evident; if I have to look at the documentation to remember which is which, the names are not good enough. I don't have a brilliant suggestion right now, but one of us may be able to come up with something. I will be OK with the above plan going forward even if there are no suggestions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:58, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

There's no point in having a parameter for the default separator between first and last names. If people want to get rid of the comma in names that are usually written surname first, the only sensible way to do that is with a separate parameter for each author or editor name. |author-name-separator= and |editor-name-separator= are just hacks that do that in some cases but not others. (Not that getting rid of the comma is necessarily a good idea, but that's a different issue). Kanguole 22:32, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

No argument. Instead of |name-separator= we could use |last-first-separator= because it only applies to |last=, |first=, |editor-last=, and |editor-first=. Or we could ask a more fundamental question: do we even need to specify a last/first separator character? It has been argued that we don't need to disable the separator for Asian names. It could be argued that we only 'need' |author-name-separator= and |editor-name-separator= when editors want to use CS1/2 in quasi-Vancouver mode (|author-format=vanc or |editor-format=vanc). Is there any other case where |first= is separated from |last= by any other character than a comma? If no, then why have |author-name-separator= and |editor-name-separator=?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:44, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Display parameters: do we need them?

Discussion split from above.

That then begs the question: do we need any of the display parameters for CS1? I have previously expressed that if the Vancouver or other style is to be used, then a specific template should be created. And now we have {{vcite2 journal}} for just that purpose. Would it be possible to change the display parameters so that they can only be called by another module or template? This discussion may need to be split as it is straying from the original topic. -- Gadget850^talk 22:54, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that there is a way of 'denying' the use of a parameter except by using the value assigned to CitationClass as a qualifyier. We have parameters that only work with one template: |mailing-list= only works with {{cite mailing list}} because we look for CitationClass equals mailinglist which is set with {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation|CitationClass=mailinglist}}. Yes, I agree, if the question to be discussed is :Do we need any of the display parameters? then we should split that off.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:11, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I see that |author-mask= is used for bibliography lists and I know |display-authors= is well used.

These parameters are generally used in conjunction with others to form a variant style.

|authorformat=
|author-name-separator=
|editor-name-separator=
|author-separator=
|editor-separator=
|name-separator=
|last-author-amp=
|postscript=
|separator=

We have a lot of inconsistent uses, such as Way of the Patriarchs where one cite template uses |author-name-separator=.

If CitationClass would do it, then that would be a solution. Set it to ExternalTemplate or the like. -- Gadget850^talk 00:15, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that keeping |postscript= and |separator= has some value because the allowed editors to mix CS1 and CS2 and have the rendered styling be the same for all citations. Here is an admittedly poor example. Presume that the page primarily uses CS2 so |postscript= and |separator= are added to the CS1 {{cite press release}} so that it stylisically resembles the predominat CS2 style:

Smith, Bob; Jones, Joe (15 December 2014). "Press Release Title" (Press release). Big Big Newspaper {{cite press release}}: Unknown parameter |separator= ignored (help)
Smith, Bob; Jones, Joe (15 December 2014), "Web Page Title", Website {{citation}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:18, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

For that we should have |cs2=y. -- Gadget850^talk 01:56, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Now that is the kind of good idea I was hoping for above. Is it loaded with unintended consequences? Can it be combined with |author-format=vanc into a single parameter that controls multiple display elements? – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:36, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I strongly support the idea of having a single parameter to convert "cite" templates to CS2. Because {{citation}} doesn't provide the extra information in the second part of the "cite" template name, it's proved impossible to fully replicate some behaviours between the CS1 and CS2 templates (thus {{cite web}} can produce a title in double quotes without |website=; {{citation}} cannot). Hence users of CS2 are occasionally obliged to use "cite" templates with the ugly additions |separator=, |postscript=none. How about |style=cs2 with alternatives like |style=vanc? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:16, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

|cs2= would be for the occasional use where we need to mix with CS2 where {{citation}} simply does not work. If you are going to use the Vancouver style, then it needs to be used for all citations. The new {{vcite2 journal}} is a step in the right direction. With the name, it immediately establishes the citation style and allows follow on edits to conform. While doing parameter use searches, I found a number of articles with very inconsistent use; for example, Tropical cyclone has a number of uses of {{cite web}} but only one uses |author-separator=. There is another article where one citation uses |. There is currently no way to discover consistency within an article other than by scanning it by eye. -- Gadget850^talk 21:46, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

|cs2= would also be useful for using templates that provide a specific reference in cs1 style (example: {{Introduction to Algorithms}}) within a cs2-styled article, assuming those templates can easily be modified to pass that parameter along. But they would have to be individually programmed to do this, which makes it unlikely the {{cite doi}} can do this, unfortunately. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:56, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

It could be done. First, update the bot so it adds |cs2= to each new citation, then add |cs2= to each doi subtemplate, another bot job. But I'm not sure of the status of {{cite doi}}. -- Gadget850^talk 22:26, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I think I prefer |style= because it's then relatively simple for an editor to copy a CS1 or CS2 template from a page using one style to a page using the other style. It's only one parameter so converting CS2 to CS1 would be {{citation |... |style=cs1}}.

Adding a pass-through |style={{{style|}}} to the templates listed at Category:Cite doi templates looks like a relatively simple bot task. Trolling Category:Mathematics source templates, Category:Citation Style 1 specific-source templates etc. should be just as simple.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:02, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Many templates recognise a |style= parameter, and it's almost always intended for a semicolon-separated list of CSS declarations, and as such is passed unchanged into the style="..." attribute of some HTML element. We should not introduce confusion by using |style=cs2 (or variations on that) for a completely unrelated purpose - at some point somebody will attempt to use |style=background-color: yellow; border: 1px solid blue; font-family: Times,serif; and wonder what went wrong. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Redrose64 has a good point. Maybe |citation-style= or |citation-format= instead. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:37, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

When editors wonder what went wrong: Check |style= value (Help)? I like to think that most editors are clever enough to understand a word's meanings in when it is used in different contexts.

Alternate names: |styling=, |mode=, |form=, |appearance=

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:57, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

For the sake of argument, let us assume that we have or will settle on a parameter name that is both descriptive and not likely to be confused for some other parameter. In the discussion that follows, I use |<style>= to identify this unnamed parameter. What is required to implement this functionality?

create the new parameter – not required in all CS1/2 templates; when not used, default values used according to the value assigned to CitationClass Yin sandbox
define the values that it will accept Yin sandbox
1. cs1
2. cs2
3. ~~vanc~~ – this sub-style only applies to author/editor lists so |author-format=vanc can only modify |<style>= author/editor related settings
4. are there others?
define the list of existing parameters that will be obsoleted by this new parameter Yin sandbox
1. |author-name-separator=
2. |editor-name-separator=
3. |author-separator=
4. |editor-separator=
5. |name-separator=
6. |separator=
7. are there others?
in Module:Citation/CS1/Whitelist mark these parameters as deprecated Yin sandbox
in Module:Citation/CS1 and Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration create code that allows for |<style>= and/or these deprecated parameters in a citation. When they coexist, the value in |<style>= controls. Yin sandbox
1. define default values:
  1. |author-name-separator= and |editor-name-separator= functionality (combined): separator character is comma; when |author-format=vanc, space
  2. |author-separator= and |editor-separator= and |name-separator= functionality (combined): separator character is semicolon; when |author-format=vanc, comma
  3. |separator= functionality: separator character is period (CS1), comma (CS2)
in Module:Citation/CS1 and Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration create error message code for times when |<style>=value is not one of the defined values Yin sandbox
after the change has been taken live, create a script or bot task to remove the deprecated parameters
1. if |separator=, and CitationClass is CS1 then |<style>=cs2
2. if |separator=. and CitationClass is CS2 then |<style>=cs1
after the number of these deprecated parameters in Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters has been reduced to an acceptable level, obsolete the deprecated parameters and modify Module:Citation/CS1 accordingly.

What did I miss? Shall I proceed?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:40, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand the remark about not being needed in all CS1/CS2 templates, unless you mean the ones that are not handled by the LUA module. It seems to me that CS2 is close to the styles generally used outside Wikipedia for footnotes and endnotes, while CS1 is close to the style usually used outside Wikipedia for bibliographies, lists of works cited, etc. I can't think of a single kind of work that couldn't be cited with either an endnote or a bibliography entry, depending on the citation style adopted for a particular article. Thus, I can't think of any kind of work that wouldn't need both CS1 and CS2 available. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:21, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I presume that you are referring to not required in all CS1/2 templates; ... I meant that CS1/2 templates default to their 'native' set of separators. We don't need to have {{citation |title=...|style=cs2}} because the module will assign the defaults to the rendered citation based on what CitationClass tells it. CitationClass is a parameter passed to the module as part of its invocation. Here is the module invocation for {{citation}} (which I notice is out of date because |separator=, |ref= and |postscript= are set to their defaults inside the module):

{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=citation |separator=, |ref=harv |postscript=}}

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:37, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

{{citation}} #invoke now fixed.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:50, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I propose cite-format. -- Gadget850^talk 20:19, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Here are the currently proposed parameter names:

|style=
|citation-style=
|citation-format=
|styling=
|mode=
|form=
|appearance=
|cite-format=

Unless there is objection, I'm going to proceed along the path I've outlined above using |mode=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:50, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

It occurs to me that, yet an other name for this parameter might be |alt-style=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:52, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

The following examples are all derivatives of these to templates:

{{cite book/new |last=Last1 |first=First M. |last2=Last2 |first2=First M. |editor-last=Elast1 |editor-first=First M. |editor-last2=Elast2 |editor-first2=First M. |date=2014-12-20 |title=Title |publisher=Publisher |chapter=Chapter |mode= |separator= |authorformat=}}
{{citation/new |last=Last1 |first=First M. |last2=Last2 |first2=First M. |editor-last=Elast1 |editor-first=First M. |editor-last2=Elast2 |editor-first2=First M. |date=2014-12-20 |title=Title |publisher=Publisher |chapter=Chapter |mode= |separator= |authorformat=}}

First as they are rendered by Module:Citation/CS1:

Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20), "Chapter", in Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.), Title, Publisher {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

and by Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox:

Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20), "Chapter", in Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.), Title, Publisher {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

set |mode=cs1 for {{cite book}} and |mode=cs2 for {{citation}}, there should be no difference:

Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20), "Chapter", in Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.), Title, Publisher {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

set |mode=cs2 for {{cite book}} and |mode=cs1 for {{citation}}, note change in separators and now cite book sets |ref=harv, {{citation}} does not; is this correct or appropriate behavior?

Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20), "Chapter", in Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.), Title, Publisher {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

set |mode= for {{cite book}} and |mode= for {{citation}}, set |separator=#; |separator= value is ignored and cites rendered with deprecated error message:

Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |authorformat= (help); Unknown parameter |separator= ignored (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20), "Chapter", in Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.), Title, Publisher {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |authorformat= (help); Unknown parameter |separator= ignored (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

set |mode= for {{cite book}} and |mode= for {{citation}}, set |separator=, set |author-format=vanc; cites rendered with comma separated author and editor names which are in the form <surname><space><initials>:

Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |separator= (help); Unknown parameter |authorformat= ignored (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20), "Chapter", in Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.), Title, Publisher {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |separator= (help); Unknown parameter |authorformat= ignored (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

set |mode=cs3 for {{cite book}} and |mode=bluebook for {{citation}}, set |author-format=; cs3 and bluebook are not recognized modes:

Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help); Invalid |mode=cs3 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20), "Chapter", in Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.), Title, Publisher {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help); Invalid |mode=bluebook (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

set |mode=cS1 for {{cite book}} and |mode=Cs2 for {{citation}}; |mode= is case insensitive:

Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help); Invalid |mode=cS1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20), "Chapter", in Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.), Title, Publisher {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |separator= and |authorformat= (help); Invalid |mode=Cs2 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

tldr; This appears to work. The questions that arise are:

is it correct to default set |ref=harv when |mode=cs2?
is it correct to default set |ref= when {{citation}} has |mode=cs1?
we have both |author-format= and |editor-format=; is there any reason to maintain two separate format parameters? These parameters take one of two defined values: vanc and scaps. Does it make sense to allow any and all combinations of these formatting parameters? Should they be combined into a single parameter? If so, what is that parameter called?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:13, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Is it correct to make |ref=harv the default whenever cs2 is used, even by "cite xxx"? Is it correct to make |ref= the default even when "citation" is used? I'm not sure what current editors expect; my best guess is that "citation" should always default to |ref=harv and "cite xxx" should only default to |ref=harv if |mode=cs1 is set.

But from the point of view of scholarly writers in general, the current system is backwards. Periods with separators are normally used in lists of works cited (or equivalent section title) and these need ref=harv. Commas are usually used with endnotes, and the <ref> tag already provides linkage between the footnote number and the endnote, so |ref=harv is superfluous. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:55, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

|mode= is not a required parameter. Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox uses the content of |CitationClass= in the {{#invoke:}} to establish the defaults when |mode= is empty or omitted from the template. These defaults in the sandbox version are the same as the defaults in the current live version. So, setting |mode=cs1 has no effect when the template is a CS1 template; setting |mode=cs2 has no effect when the template is {{citation}}. Because a defining feature of {{citation}} and hence CS2 is the automatic setting of |ref=harv, it seems appropriate to auto-set |ref=harv when a CS1 template is switched to CS2 styling via |mode=cs2 except when the template has |ref=sommat else.

I'm not at all sure I understand your second paragraph. In the current system which has been the current system since forever, CS1 separates elements with periods, CS2 separates those same elements with commas; CS1 does not auto-set |ref=harv, CS2 does.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:21, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I understand the current behavior, and I'm saying the current behavior is backwards. CS1 should have been designed to automatically set |ref=harv. CS2 doesn't really need to create an anchor to link to; it would have served it's purpose pretty well if |ref= were the default. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:52, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not understanding that notion of 'backwardness'. Neither do I understand the distinction that you are making between periods and commas and how they define the 'backwardness'.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:07, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Outside Wikipedia, comma separators are used with endnotes. The endnote number links the inline marker to the note, and in Wikipedia that is reinforced with a link. This comes for free with <ref>; there is really no need for re=harv. Periods as separators, outside Wikipedia, are used in alphabetical lists such as "Bibliography" or "Works cited". The wikilink between the inline citation or short footnote is very helpful; |ref=harv really helps with that kind of list, but it isn't the default. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:36, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

So, more-or-less this from Chicago:

1. Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (New York: Penguin, 2006), 99–100.

2. Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma, 3.

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Well, we could change, but do we really need to change? I mean, do we really need to change? The emphasis as I understand it, is to avoid mixing CS1 and CS2. This change, establishes a simple way to mix so that the reader can't tell that the article contains a mix of CS1 and CS2; that bibliographic citations have the same look as the citations in the reference list which have the same look as entries in an external links list.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:18, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I've kinda always wondered why we didn't just merge CS1 and CS2 together. From my vantage point, they're essentially the same except the comma vs. period distinction, which prompts a few capitalization variations. I never use CS2 because there isn't a way to properly cite a map in that style, and my subject area regularly requires the citation of maps. If CS1 were to suddenly get some commas and lowercase letters tomorrow, I'd blink twice and move on. Of course that's an idea for another discussion, but a mode switch that would allow {{cite map}} to work in a CS2-formatted article would be a handy option in the interim. Imzadi 1979 → 23:57, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Trappist's example is OK except that the two numbered footnotes would be in a different section from the unnumbered bibliography entry. Also, his note number 1 would have been a short note if the article had a bibliography. I think a small change that would make CS1 easier to use in the application it is best for, alphabetical lists, would be to make |ref=harv be the default for everything. That way, any instances of Citation that rely on it would continue to work, and the articles that contain alphabetical lists would be easier to edit. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:05, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Not my example, I did write that it came from Chicago. If you object to it, talk to the people at Chicago Manual of Style.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:43, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the full version of Chicago's example on page 662 of the book makes it clear that they don't think a full citation in a endnote should look the same as an entry list in a bibliography, and that an article that has a bibliography probably won't have a full citation in an endnote. Trappist's comment doesn't seem to agree with Chicago's approach: "bibliographic citations have the same look as the citations in the reference list which have the same look as entries in an external links list." That is, if by "reference list" Trappist means a citation in an endnote. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:59, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

I've written this before: CS1/2 is not Chicago/APA/Bluebook/... take your pick. I have also written that CS1/2 needs its own style guide. I've written these things because as they exist, CS1/2 invariably conflict in some way or other with published style guides that do not define CS1/2 though were influencial in their (CS1/2) development. This is exactly the kind of question that would be answered by a CS1/2 style guide.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 02:08, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

A year ago I took a college class that required Chicago's footnotes in our research paper. The first footnote to a source is given in full in the footnote style, and any subsequent footnotes to that same source use shortened forms. If a note 2 references the same source as a note 1, you use ibid. If note 2 is to a different source and it's note 3 that's the first repeat of the source in note 1, then it's a shortened name and title. Then there's a bibliography at the end with a full list of all sources in a different format. Some publishers will shorten even the first reference, but many don't. Of course, it should be noted that CS1 takes more of it's initial styling cues from APA, not Chicago. Imzadi 1979 → 01:48, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Of course, space-saving measures that are more fragile if the references are moved around, such as "ibid" or omitting repeated author names, are frowned on here: WP:IBID. So there's one argument against following the style guides too literally. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:54, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

It's natural to think that |ref=harv should always be enabled — what does it harm? But the reason it isn't always enabled is that it can generate invalid html when two references have the same set of authors (or both have no authors) and the same set of dates (or both are undated). When this happens, we get two html entities with the same name, something that is not allowed. This is more common than you might think, especially with {{cite web}}. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:27, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Not part of that list, but something we need to answer is:

What to do about |author-format= and |editor-format=?
Are separate formats necessary or even appropriate in CS1/2? If not, then I propose to deprecate these parameters in favor of |name-list-format=
Right now, |author-format= and |editor-format= support vanc and scap. Step 5 in my list of things to do settles |author-format=vanc which leaves us with: What to do about scap?
MOS:CAPS#All caps pretty clearly states that editors should not be writing in all capital letters and explicitly includes small caps in that statement. Wikipedia:WikiProject Mesoamerica/Citations makes extensive use of |author-format=scap; there may be others I don't know about. WP:MESO ~~will be~~ have been invited to this conversation. If there isn't a compelling reason to keep |author-format=scap then I propose to deprecate and remove it.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:52, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

{{cite book/new |last=Last1 |first=First M. |last2=Last2 |first2=First M. |editor-last=Elast1 |editor-first=First M. |editor-last2=Elast2 |editor-first2=First M. |date=2014-12-20 |title=Title |publisher=Publisher |chapter=Chapter |name-list-style=vanc}}

→Last1 First M., Last2 First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1 First M., Elast2 First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{cite book}}: Vancouver style error: non-Latin character in name 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

→Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |separator= (help); Unknown parameter |author-format= ignored (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

→Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |separator= (help); Unknown parameter |editor-format= ignored (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

I have also removed the small caps formatting keyword scap and its associated code. Because there is nothing to replace it, it is simply gone and we get an error message:

{{cite book/new |last=Last1 |first=First M. |last2=Last2 |first2=First M. |editor-last=Elast1 |editor-first=First M. |editor-last2=Elast2 |editor-first2=First M. |date=2014-12-20 |title=Title |publisher=Publisher |chapter=Chapter |mode= |separator= |name-list-format=scap}}

→Last1, First M.; Last2, First M. (2014-12-20). "Chapter". In Elast1, First M.; Elast2, First M. (eds.). Title. Publisher. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |separator= (help); Unknown parameter |name-list-format= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

So now, in the sandbox, the only value accepted for |name-list-format= is vanc.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:25, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

The changes look like progress to me. Given the search results in the section below, it would be useful if a bot, or an editor using AWB, could change those parameters shortly after the module is updated from the sandbox. This will prevent articles from changing their appearance unnecessarily or emitting error messages that could easily be avoided. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:30, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk and Jonesey95: I'm happy to update WP:AWB/RTP and submit a bot request to change |authorformat=, |author-format=, |editorformat=, and |editor-format= to |name-list-format=, if you would like to share the results of those insource searches. (Was there another task to be done?) Ping me when you get closer to updating the live template so we can coordinate. Enjoy the holidays! GoingBatty (talk) 02:44, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:17, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Postscript

I did insource searches for these parameters:

|authorformat= found 991 (scap & vanc)
|author-name-separator= found 642
|editor-name-separator= found 1
|author-separator= found 4356
|editor-separator= found 2
|name-separator= found 2
|last-author-amp= found 1
|postscript= found 12247 (insource:/\|\s*postscript/) "|postscript=—Based on the Random House ...", "|postscript=", "|postscript=<!-- Bot inserted parameter. ...", "|postscript=none"
|separator= found 2901 (insource:/\|\s*separator/)

|postscript= is, I think, going to be the most difficult parameter because it is (mis)used in a variety of ways. |postscript=, is the same as |postscript= which does nothing; |postscript=none specifies no postscript character which functionality would be handled by |style=cs2; these can be removed by bot or script. Parameters like |postscript=—Based on the Random House ... are problematic because they may contain useful information. It would seem that for such use where the value assigned to |postscript is not a single character or html entity or hidden inside &<lt;!--...-->, then such text should be moved so that it follows the citation template's closing }}. And then there is this which is added by Citation bot:

|postscript=<!-- Bot inserted parameter. Either remove it; or change its value to "." for the cite to end in a ".", as necessary. -->{{inconsistent citations}}

. What do we do about that? If it has value, it can be moved outside the citation template.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:31, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Re including non-trivial text in postscripts: I don't do this, but one reason some editors might want to use in combination with |ref=harv linking, so that the added text stays within the text that is highlighted by clicking on the reference link. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:00, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

David Eppstein

Do you have an example? Perhaps we should test |postscript for values over one character and put them in a hidden category so we can see what we are dealing with. This field was only intended for the terminating character of the citation, not for elements of a citation. -- Gadget850^talk 18:06, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I think most examples are likely better handled either by |at= or by just putting the text after the reference. (I agree with you re the intended use of postscript, and only use it for that myself, but any time we provide a convenient but semantically-wrong parameter for producing text in some kind of format, you know there will be editors who use it.) One style that I sometimes use is "(reference). As cited by (parenthetical cite of other reference)." for situations where it is clear from the other reference that the first reference is the appropriate one to cite for some piece of information but I haven't been able to track it down and read it myself. I think it's ok that the "As cited by" part doesn't get highlighted, but others could disagree. I'll also sometimes put "Reprinted in..." information following a reference to the original publication of some work. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:23, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Is `|origyear=` alias to `|orig-year=` or vice versa?

{{Cite book}} shows |origyear= as alias to |orig-year=, as per <templatedata> on that page and on Template:CSdoc#date. However, {{Cite journal}} shows |orig-year= as alias to |origyear=, as per <templatedata> on that page, inconsistent with Template:CSdoc#date. Which is it? Thanks :) ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf) 17:05, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

|orig-year= is the RFC-preferred form.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:15, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll correct {{Cite journal}} and any others I find to reflect that, ~~if no one minds~~ unless there's a good reason not to. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf) 17:23, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

If both are present, |orig-year= has precedence - but since an error message More than one of |origyear= and |orig-year= specified (help) is also thrown, I don't think that it's worth worrying about. You also risk annoying people if you go around switching one form to the other. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:45, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm ok with annoying people, as long as it reflects consensus and order (the Pluto reaction immediately comes to mind). ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf) 17:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your edits. The documentation for our citation templates is currently inconsistent with regard to multi-word parameters. If you are willing to improve it carefully, that would be great. I recommend against modifying the TemplateData section, for various reasons. See the discussion above for details. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:23, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

That's a good reason. {{Cite sign}} and {{Cite web}} TemplateData were (carefully) changed by me,^{[overzealous]} before your message. However, all citations are now consistent regarding |orig-year=. I'll leave them alone and become semi-agnostic, though. Thanks. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf) 18:49, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Disagree with decision to default suppress page/pages prefix (p./pp.) under CITE PERIODICAL/WORK.

I think we should not suppress the p./pp. prefix by default under "WORK" citations. While I understand the ugliness concern of "pp. front page" this is a bad idea for several reasons:

The fact is that most page references are either arabic or roman numbers, or a letter number prefix like "G-12" for Glossary page 12. All such number schemes should be preceded by the p./pp. prefix. The few pages that are not some kind of number scheme should be the exception and not the other way around.
1. The occasional ugly "pp. front cover" citation can manually suppress the prefix using the |nopp=y command in the cite tag.
  1. As a matter of personal experience I cannot ever remember a need to cite a front cover when obviously more substantial information was be found inside the journal within an article the front cover referenced. I have occasionally cited flyleafs and back cover review comments on books, but never on periodicals.
Looking at a citation display for page references without the p. prefix makes it visually harder to find the needed information.
Not having the p./pp. prefix is inconsistent with other WP citation formats.
In the event that a reference is something like "p. 1976" or "pp. 2013-2014" (some journals have cumulative page numbering within a issue/volume set) under the CITE WORK or CITE JOURNAL template this will show simply as "1976" or "2013-2014" and that will be potentially confusing.

Finally, can anyone point to any discussion archive where the logic of this decision was debated and consensus was reached? 104.32.193.6 (talk) 19:47, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's an example {{cite journal}} citation:

Author (2013). "Title". Journal name. 45 (7): 45–67. {{cite journal}}: |author= has generic name (help)

Here's a similar citation for a book:

Author (2013). "Chapter". Book name. pp. 45–67. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)

The CS1 style for journal articles is roughly based on the Chicago style and the APA style, neither of which use "pp." to denote page numbers. Because Chicago, APA, and similar styles are in such wide use, anyone who is familiar with citations of journal articles has seen this style countless times and understands the concise notation being used.

That said, I would not object to "pp." being added to journal citations to make page numbers clearer in journal citations and to make citations display more consistently across different citation templates. If you feel strongly, write a clear, concise RFC and advertise it widely. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:22, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

That's not exactly right. It's not that CMS (and APA?) does not use "pp", but rather that they are not used in that particular format, where the page numbers are preceeded by a volume number, optional issue number, and a colon. In such a context "p." or "pp." is not only unnecessary, it is excessive clutter, and contrary to standard (and I believe nearly universal) convention. Check your favorite style manaul. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:59, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I would be in favor of inserting the p. or pp. when there are no volume or issue numbers ahead of the colon. In other words, with the following:

Author (2015). "Title". Journal. 1 (2): 3–4. {{cite journal}}: |author= has generic name (help)
Author (2015). "Title". Journal: 3–4. {{cite journal}}: |author= has generic name (help)

the first would remain unchanged, and the second would have "pp. 3–4" displayed instead of ": 3–4". Otherwise, I'd leave things unchanged. Imzadi 1979 → 02:26, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Something I just noticed, but we don't end the journal name with a period, and that's something else I'd add. Imzadi 1979 → 02:32, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

And location and publisher are enclosed in parentheses. -- Gadget850^talk 14:00, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

{{Cite news}} also has a similar behavior. If there's a work, location and publisher displayed, the latter two are in parentheses. If there is a work and location, the location gets the parentheses as well, but any other combination of two of the three parameters lacks parentheses. Imzadi 1979 → 23:46, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Date formats

I just got an red error message, "Check date values in: |date=" from {{Cite web}}, because I copied and pasted a date as "01 February 2014", not "1 February 2014". It's significant that the error message did not say why the format I'd used was not accepted.

Per Postel's Law, and to make life easier for our editors, I think we should be more accepting of unambiguous date formats (another example is "17 Febr. 2015"). A Lua module should be able to handle them; and a bot could standardise them if desired.

If there is a reason why we can't do that, or ins cases where it is not possible to do so, then we should at least use more helpful error messages, such has "month not recognised". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:41, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Were you able to follow the "help" link immediately following the error message? That help text leads to MOS:BADDATEFORMAT, where a wide variety of date error types are listed. I am not a programmer, but I imagine that correctly identifying the type of date error, with a minimum of erroneous error messages, would be quite a challenge.

The specific error you created, along with many others, is fixed automatically by BattyBot's task 25, which runs about once a month on the CS1 date error category. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:51, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

If a bot fixes this, then we don't need to generate - nor to trouble editors with - an error message. Formats that can be fixed by bot (and are thus not really "errors") can also be detected by a Lua script. And yes, I did see the help page; it's generic, not specific; refers to prose content and not template data; and it says nothing about the case I cited. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:58, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

There are bots that fix other errors (cite errors for example) but we still generate an error message. Errors give an editor immediate feedback that there is something wrong. If they figure it out on their own, use the help page or ask at the Help Desk, then they learn how to do it correctly and they don't have to wait a month for a fix. If I make an error with no feedback, I am likely to keep doing it.

For example: Richard Earl Thompson has access dates for every citation, even though none has a URL. This particular error is still hidden, so the editor kept doing it.

And bots cannot repair every error. That is why Referencebot reports errors on user talk since cite errors can be complex. -- Gadget850^talk 18:58, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

There may be such errors; but that's not what's being discussed here. Entering "01 February 2014" is not wrong. It is a valid way of expressing a date, and one which we can cater for programmatically. We do not need to "train" editors not to do it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:56, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

We aren't going to come to an agreement on this. Dropping out of this part of the discussion. -- Gadget850^talk 21:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

1 FEB 2014 is also a valid way of expressing a date, but we call it an "error" because it is not one of the house formats. Hell, we don't even accept dates containing slashes/strokes, which in their various variations are some of the most commonly used date formats. It's sensible to draw a line somewhere short of accepting all conceivable date formats, and you're simply proposing to draw the line in a slightly different place. It's not about what's "correct" or not. I personally don't feel it's asking too much to remove that zero after a copy-and-paste, nor is it asking too much to figure out where the problem is when you see the error. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:09, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

"not one of the house formats". We're talking about data entry, not content display. The line should be drawn at ambiguity (5/4/2014 is ambiguous; 23/4/2014 is not). We have machines to do things like this for us; and humans' time - especially those willing to voleunteer their efofrts to building the encclopedia - is better spent doing things that machines cannot. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:26, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok, then you're actually proposing that we support not only 01 February 2014, but 1 FEB 2014, 1FEB2014 (common military usage), 23/4/2014, 2014/2/1 (no more ambiguous than 2014-02-01), and a few others that don't come to mind at the moment, including any unnecessary leading zero in day or month. It also seems you're proposing that we perform format conversions to normalize dates for display, which we are not doing now. Is that correct? ―Mandruss ☎ 21:32, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Then you have to add a format parameter and update every existing use. -- Gadget850^talk 23:05, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Pragmatically you'd support (or start by supporting) the formats most commonly used by editors, but given that: yes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:39, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed a million times over the years. Do we really have to start all over again? Can we really not just leave things as they are? -- Alarics (talk) 22:58, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Anything should be open to discussion. The community is constantly being remade as people drop out and join, and there's no reason to assume that its judgment will never change (or to cling to the status quo). But no one is forced to participate in any discussion. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:05, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Links, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:36, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing wrote: "The line should be drawn at ambiguity (5/4/2014 is ambiguous; 23/4/2014 is not). We have machines to do things like this for us..." You are right. As I said above, BattyBot will fix unambiguous dates to conform them to the MOS.

Please move this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers. The citation module is designed to mark citation date formatting that does not conform to the Wikipedia consensus. If that consensus is changed, the citation module will be changed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:27, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

No. As I said above, this is not about content display (which is what the MoS is for); it is about data entry formats accepted by this family of templates. There is no "Wikipedia consensus." that our templates may only accept the date formats currently used by this set. It is my contention that we could change the module; and this is the correct place to discuss that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:36, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I see no reason to prioritize modification of the date standards when there are still 180,000+ existing CS1 errors that can be cleaned up first. Fixing the cite conference break that appeared a couple of months ago is a far better way to spend the module programmer's time than attempting to identify and parse the vast amount of potential "non-ambiguous" formats. Changing the date parsing to accommodate trivial matters such as avoiding backspacing over a zero is surely a long way down the list of useful ways to spend time. - Stamptrader (talk) 00:09, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't recall asking you or anyone else to prioritise this. (Though I wonder how many of those errors are actually invalid data, and not just valid formats that we don't tolerate.) If there is consensus to support editors by accepting such date formats, then the job can be queued, or perhaps a new volunteer will come forward to undertake it (because a module that normalises such date entry will be useful elsewhere, too). By way of example (and perhaps code can be reused), I note that Wikidata accepts a wide a variety of date formats and normalises them, without drama. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:44, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

The wikidata date support is execrable and is so bad that any wikidata birth or death date before about 1924 is unreliable. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:38, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

If so, that appears to be a separate issue, unrelated to the matter at hand. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:45, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that VisualEditor is the place to add any such tolerance/conversion, not CS1. For the most part, the people who need the tolerance will be using VE anyway. I don't know about you, but I intend to avoid VE as long as that's possible (with any luck, until my Wiki-retirement), and I have no problem mentally converting a source date to the MOS/CS1 format appropriate for the context. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:48, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I have no wish to use VE. I do not teach my trainees to use VE. I regularly see trainees get date errors like the one I described above. Resolving this at the template issue will help more editors than doing so in VE. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:45, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

"no date" should be a valid entry in the date field

Currently the date field accepts "n.d." as a valid response in the date field, where this stands for "no date" For people who do not know the order of citations, having "(n.d.)" appear in the citation is not obviously recognizable as a note about the date, and even if someone thinks it might be, they will not be sure what this means without being told.

It should be acceptable to write "no date" in the field without getting an error, but an error message happens in this case now. This would make the citation more accessible to people without academic training in the Western citation system, which includes most of Wikipedia's readers. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, I recently saw an editor remove |date=n.d., apparently because they didn't know what it was. I don't why else they would have done that. I checked the source and it, in fact, had no date. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:37, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Template:Cite conference fails to display title and chapter

This:

{{Cite conference | doi = 10.1109/ICPR.2014.624 | conference = 2014 22nd International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR) | pages = 3630–3635 | last = Banerjee | first = Siddhartha | coauthors = Cornelia Caragea, Prasenjit Mitra | chapter = Playscript Classification and Automatic Wikipedia Play Articles Generation | booktitle = 2014 22nd International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR) | date = 2014 }}

currently results in the following:

Banerjee, Siddhartha; Cornelia Caragea, Prasenjit Mitra (2014). "2014 22nd International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR)". 2014 22nd International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR). pp. 3630–3635. doi:10.1109/ICPR.2014.624. Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters

I.e. the "chapter" parameter is not displayed, and the template throws an (invisible) error message linking to Help:CS1_errors#deprecated_params - but "chapter" is not among the deprecated parameters listed there.

Another example (likewise from here), using the "title" instead of the "chapter" parameter:

{{Cite conference | publisher = ACM | doi = 10.1145/2661829.2661840 | isbn = 978-1-4503-2598-1 | pages = 2033–2035 | last = Zhang | first = Kezun | coauthors = Yanghua Xiao, Hanghang Tong, Haixun Wang, Wei Wang | title = WiiCluster: A Platform for Wikipedia Infobox Generation | booktitle = Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management | location = New York, NY, USA | series = CIKM '14 | date = 2014 | url = http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2661829.2661840 }}

results in:

Zhang, Kezun; Yanghua Xiao, Hanghang Tong, Haixun Wang, Wei Wang (2014). "Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management". CIKM '14. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp. 2033–2035. doi:10.1145/2661829.2661840. ISBN 978-1-4503-2598-1. |chapter= ignored (help)[[Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters]][[Category:CS1 errors: Chapter ignored]]

The linked help page already indicated that this error message is erroneous, but in any case, the content of the "title" parameter should be displayed.

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 22:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The people who control this template have inexplicably decided that it is to be used for conference talks (which we never cite) and not for conference papers (which we frequently cite and which have no other good CS1 template). But, ignoring this decision and the damage to our article references that it has caused, the workaround in this case is to use |conference= instead of |booktitle=:

{{Cite conference | publisher = ACM | doi = 10.1145/2661829.2661840 | isbn = 978-1-4503-2598-1 | pages = 2033–2035 | last = Zhang | first = Kezun | coauthors = Yanghua Xiao, Hanghang Tong, Haixun Wang, Wei Wang | title = WiiCluster: A Platform for Wikipedia Infobox Generation | conference = Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management | location = New York, NY, USA | series = CIKM '14 | date = 2014 | url = http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2661829.2661840 }}

results in

Zhang, Kezun (2014). WiiCluster: A Platform for Wikipedia Infobox Generation. Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management. CIKM '14. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp. 2033–2035. doi:10.1145/2661829.2661840. ISBN 978-1-4503-2598-1. {{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

(Much less silly than the recommended alternative, {{cite encyclopedia}}.)

Incidentally, I know that in their BibTeX (as you do above) ACM separate out the acronym for the conference as a "series", but I don't like this choice because it is not a series (if it were, it wouldn't include the year number). So I would prefer to put those two parameters together into a single parameter:

|conference=Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM '14)

. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:11, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I believe that this problem has been fixed in the sandbox code for the citation modules:

Cite conference comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite conference\|booktitle=Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management\|date=2014\|doi=10.1145/2661829.2661840\|first=Kezun\|isbn=978-1-4503-2598-1\|last=Zhang\|location=New York, NY, USA\|pages=2033–2035\|publisher=ACM\|series=CIKM '14\|title=WiiCluster: A Platform for Wikipedia Infobox Generation\|url=http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2661829.2661840}}`
Live	Zhang, Kezun (2014). "WiiCluster: A Platform for Wikipedia Infobox Generation". Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management. CIKM '14. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp. 2033–2035. doi:10.1145/2661829.2661840. ISBN 978-1-4503-2598-1. `{{cite conference}}`: Unknown parameter `\|booktitle=` ignored (`\|book-title=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	Zhang, Kezun (2014). "WiiCluster: A Platform for Wikipedia Infobox Generation". Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management. CIKM '14. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp. 2033–2035. doi:10.1145/2661829.2661840. ISBN 978-1-4503-2598-1. `{{cite conference}}`: Unknown parameter `\|booktitle=` ignored (`\|book-title=` suggested) (help)

When the sandbox is merged into the active code, the value of |chapter= will be displayed, as shown in the "Sandbox" version of the example citation above.

The |coauthors= parameter (which I omitted above, for clarity) has been deprecated for quite a while. The use of |last2= / |first2= etc. is recommended. This is an entirely separate issue from the failure to display the value of |chapter=. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:08, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for the explanations! I've used this workaround for now and look forward to see the sandbox code merged.

I should have mentioned that these two examples were (basically) the result of Zotero's automatic import and (Wikipedia) export functions, including the use of the |coauthors= parameter: [1] / [2] and [3] / [4]. I'm not sure where/how to file upstream bugs for things like this in Zotero (there are a few other issues too, e.g. Zotero including multiple ISSNs in Template:Cite journal which the template can't parse).

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 11:15, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

fields with double values

A lot of books have two or more parallel texts, each in a different language.

A lot of books have two or more titles, one per language used.

A lot of books are simultaneously published by two or more publishers, each in a different city ("location"). (I mean, the same one copy of the book says that it is published in NYC by company X and in London by company Y, for example.)

A lot of books have two or more ISBNs. (I have in mind books printed and bound at the same place and time and with identical pagination: hardback and paperback editions differing only in their binding, books jointly published by two publishers [see previous item], etc.)

A lot of books that don't have ISBNs have two or more useful OCLC numbers.

It's considerations such as these that have until now made me avoid the template wherever possible. (I haven't fought against others' use of it; I simply haven't used it myself.) But I appreciate the motivation for it and of course I want to cooperate with others who do use it. So I can no longer ignore these problems. What's the approved/best approach to problems such as these? -- Hoary (talk) 01:36, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I have edited a lot (tens of thousands) of citations, and in my experience, books cited in WP with two parallel texts, each in a different language, are exceedingly rare. I can't recall coming across one. Books with two or more useful identifiers (ISBN, OCLC number, etc.) are more common, but the primary purpose of the identifier is to help the reader locate the source that you are citing in order to verify a statement or do further research. If any of a number of OCLC numbers (or ISBNs) helps the reader locate a particular edition (at worldcat.org, for example), then one number is sufficient.

If you come across a case where the citation template is not flexible enough to meet your needs, you can format the citation manually, add explanatory text after the citation template but within the ref tags, or do something else that maintains a consistent citation format while helping the reader understand how to locate the source in question. I admire your dedication to doing so.

If you have specific examples from specific articles, you are welcome to post them here. A number of helpful editors watch this page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:18, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

For many of the potentially doubled fields listed above, you can format that one field manually with |id= and still get the benefit of the template's more consistent formatting and richer metadata for the rest of the citation. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:06, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you both for your input ¶ I would never claim that the books I list, or cite, are representative of books in general; but I find that a large minority of books I deal with have such complications. A chronic underachiever, I've never even aimed for FA and I've got just one GA. Let's take a look at it (no cite book templates). The man has so far published 15 books (the 16th is coming next month), and eight have two titles. (This is a separate matter from the use of Japanese script.) Something that's peculiar to Japanese books, perhaps? No it isn't: just go to a popular bookstore and look at the coffee-table books from Taschen and the like. I'm now working on this (with cite book templates), and there are a lot fewer books with double titles, but other complications all over the place. Here's a simple example of complexity:

Gianni Berengo Gardin (photographer), Susanne Berengo Gardin (editor), Italians = Italiener (Kempen: te Neues, 2000), ISBN 3-8238-5453-4. Text in English and German.

¶ Sorry, I don't understand the use of the id property. I'd be grateful for an explanation. Here's a start:

Berengo Gardin, Gianni (2000). Berengo Gardin, Susanne (ed.). Italians. Kempen: teNeues. ISBN 3-8238-5453-4.

to which I could of course add something like

The book also has German text and the German title Italianer.

But this would not be picked up by whatever algorithms the Cite book template is designed for; indeed, it seems to defeat the purpose (as I (mis)understand it) of the template. ¶ Incidentally, in neither of the lists I've linked to am I actually "citing" the books as the word "CITE" is most commonly used; I don't suppose that this matters. ¶ I do think it's a good idea to give all relevant ISBNs where possible. (Clicking on one is unlikely to take you to listings for the other.) I'm willing to put in the effort, but I want to be sure that I'm going about it in the right way. -- Hoary (talk) 08:21, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Specific examples would help us to understand this discussion better.

As to |id=, I recently used it to indicate the source of a document, embedding another cite template in it. Here the cited document is a translation of a single chapter from a Chinese work.

{{cite journal |author=Shi-Xue Tsai |title=Introduction to the Scene Matching Missile Guidance Technologies |publisher=[[National Air Intelligence Center]] |others=SCITRAN (trans.) |url=http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA315439 |chapter-format=PDF |id=Translated from: {{cite book |title=Promotion of Chinese Aviation Between Centureis: Proceedings of Conference for 30th Anniversary of CSAA Establishment |language=zh |issue=Nr. 10, 1994, (Cama) Vol. 3, Nr. 1 |date=1996 |pages=227–237 |postscript=none}}}}
Shi-Xue Tsai. "Introduction to the Scene Matching Missile Guidance Technologies". SCITRAN (trans.). National Air Intelligence Center. Translated from: Promotion of Chinese Aviation Between Centureis: Proceedings of Conference for 30th Anniversary of CSAA Establishment (in Chinese). 1996. pp. 227–237. {{cite journal}}: |chapter-format= ignored (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Added at 11:13, 30 January 2015‎ by Gadget850

Now I'm thoroughly confused, I'm afraid. You're giving me the English translation of a Chinese-language original that mysteriously has an English-language title. Also, I don't see any duplication there. ¶ I'll try again. Here's a book:

{{Cite book | editor-last=Berengo Gardin | editor-first=Susanne | author-last=Berengo Gardin | author-first=Gianni | title=Italians | location=Kempen | publisher=teNeues | year=2000 | isbn=3-8238-5453-4 | language=English}}
{{Cite book | editor-last=Berengo Gardin | editor-first=Susanne | author-last=Berengo Gardin | author-first=Gianni | title=Italianer | location=Kempen | publisher=teNeues | year=2000 | isbn=3-8238-5453-4 | language=German}}

The one isn't a translated reissue of the other; these are instead two ways of writing the same book. Are you suggesting

{{Cite book | editor-last=Berengo Gardin | editor-first=Susanne | author-last=Berengo Gardin | author-first=Gianni | title=Italians | location=Kempen | publisher=teNeues | year=2000 | isbn=3-8238-5453-4 | language= | id=With parallel texts (English and German), and the alternative title ''Italianer''}}

? The result of the latter, viz

Berengo Gardin, Gianni (2000). Berengo Gardin, Susanne (ed.). Italians. Kempen: teNeues. ISBN 3-8238-5453-4. With parallel texts (English and German), and the alternative title Italianer.

looks good, but I suppose that the value of id wouldn't be machine readable. But if this method is the best way to handle such duplications, then I'll happily use it. ¶ Incidentally, I've been thinking more about Jonesey95's remark about the rarity of books with parallel texts and parallel titles. This surely depends on the subject matter. My own shelves aren't so capacious, but they include quite a lot of them. At least half are Japanese+English, but others include Estonian+German+English+Russian (a book about Narva) and Finnish+English+Armenian (about the Armenian diaspora). -- Hoary (talk) 14:12, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Why not:

{{Cite book | editor-last=Berengo Gardin | editor-first=Susanne | author-last=Berengo Gardin | author-first=Gianni | title=Italianer |trans-title=Italians | location=Kempen | publisher=teNeues | year=2000 | isbn=3-8238-5453-4 | language=German, English}}

→Berengo Gardin, Gianni (2000). Berengo Gardin, Susanne (ed.). Italianer [Italians] (in German and English). Kempen: teNeues. ISBN 3-8238-5453-4.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:41, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

The result looks good; but unless I completely misunderstand one major purpose of the template, that's very wrong. As I (mis)understand it, the combination of title and trans-title is for the non-English title of a book and its nonce translation (I mean, a translation by a Wikipedia editor) into English. But this book instead comes with two titles. (Here's its front cover.) Also, this use of the template implies that the language, singular, has the value "German, English". The meaning is obvious to you and me, but not to a computer unprepared for it. Does use of the template presuppose that machine use considers strings inside values? ¶ I realize that I may sound very pernickety/pedantic in all of this; but I'm under the impression that the Cite book template and its relatives are for three purposes: (i) to prod editors into providing all needed information; (ii) to format this information in a comprehensible and consistent way; and (iii) to make the result computer-readable and -manipulable. I'm not worried about the first two (I'm confident of my own ability to get this stuff right without the help of a template), but I'm concerned about the third. ¶ If, four years ago, somebody had told me of a book with parallel texts in Finnish, English and Armenian, I'd have thought "Pull the other one", so here's its front cover for credibility and your viewing pleasure. -- Hoary (talk) 00:34, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

|trans-title= holds an English translation of a foreign language title (regardless of how many times it's used) and is not necessarily constrained to translations only made by Wikipedia editors – the translation may be done by others, even by translate.google.com.

Following the links at Special:BookSources/3-8238-5453-4 shows that Wikipedia isn't the only place where the double title is confusing; there are a variety of titles listed for that particular publication.

Currently, Module:Citation/CS1 does not understand |language=German, English though I would hope to one day enhance language support so that the module will understand multiple languages. The content of |language= is not included in the COinS metadata.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:16, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

But when a book has (to continue with this example) "Italians" and "Italianer" on its title page and front cover, and when it has parallel texts in English and German, I think it's odd to suggest that the English title is a translation of the German one. (In this particular instance, both titles are translations of the Italian title that's used for a separate book.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:16, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Then perhaps trying to shoehorn the citation into CS1 is too painful. CS1 is useful for a great many citation needs but it is a general purpose tool. If you aren't happy with how CS1 renders your citation, perhaps a hand crafted citation is a better fit.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:32, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

That would be a pity, but thank you for the suggestion all the same. Hmm, I'll think it over. -- Hoary (talk) 01:40, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

New series

As a small but significant percentage of large series more or less reach their expected completion, the editors or publisher think it's a good idea to redo the thing, and launch what they often term a "new series": more or less the same format as the existing volumes, but with revised content. An obvious example is Contemporary Authors (though I think the new volumes of this particular monster are titled "New Revision Series"). If I add "| volume=NS 11" or similar to the Cite book template, the result is formatted very differently from the same minus "NS". Should I be attempting this in some other way? -- Hoary (talk) 00:23, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps like this?

{{cite book |title=Title |chapter=Chapter |series=New Revision Series |volume=11}}

→"Chapter". Title. New Revision Series. Vol. 11.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:54, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

If I understand the question correctly, "Contemporary Authors" is already the name of a book series, so we don't want to replace it with other information. But maybe |series=Contemporary Authors (New Revision Series) would preserve that information and also include the fact that it's the new series? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:01, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes! Sorry, my question was stupid. I asked it before taking a shower, thought of this or a similar solution while in the shower, but had to rush out of the house with no time to delete the question. Sorry for wasting your time. -- Hoary (talk) 01:37, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

True, but the citation needs a title, so perhaps this instead, using the title from the cover image (according to Amazon, Google, and WorldCat):

{{cite book |title=Contemporary Authors |series=New Revision Series |volume=142 |publisher=Cengage Gale |date=2005 |isbn=978-0787678968}}

→Contemporary Authors. New Revision Series. Vol. 142. Cengage Gale. 2005. ISBN 978-0787678968.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:48, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

A proposed new error to detect: URL in `|title=`

I recently came across a URL in a |title= parameter, and I got to wondering how many more citations had that error in them. I did a search for insource:/\|\s*title\s*=\s*http/ (for those of you who don't read regular expressions, that's " 'title' followed by an equals sign and 'http', with optional spaces") and got between 500 and 1000 results. I suppose that it's possible for the title of a web page to be a URL, but I scanned the list quickly and did not see any such legitimate titles.

I propose that we create an error category, or a least a maintenance category, to flag or track these. If we find that there are titles that legitimately should contain URLs, we may be able to find a way to accommodate them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:43, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I at first thought you meant titles that include external links in them, and I wrote something about that, but I now realize you mean actual urls as the sole content of the title. I agree that this is probably an error, although if we're going to flag it as such we should probably have some way of marking it as legitimate just in case it is. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:50, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Having a url as a title doesn't seem to keep the citation from working. If there is no url, the title is linked, and if there is one, the title doesn't seem to override the url. I expect a url is usually a poor choice for a title, but some things may actually properly have url titles. —PC-XT+ 00:58, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

1,000 is a miniscule fraction of six million, and there aren't enough editors to handle the error tracking categories we already have. Is it worth it? ―Mandruss ☎ 01:42, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Response 1: A reference that contains a full URL, and only a URL, in both the title and URL parameters, is essentially the same as a reference that contains a URL but no title, something for which we already have an error category. That category won't catch this sort of error, of course. Bare URLs are subject to link rot and therefore not a good idea.

Response 2: We have created error categories for much less. Those error categories, like Category:CS1 errors: PMID, help editors avoid creation of references that are incomplete or inaccurate.

Response 3: re: "there aren't enough editors...." The number of articles with CS1 error messages is decreasing, albeit slowly, even as we add new error categories.

Response 4: re: "some things may actually properly have url titles." Hence my alternate suggestion for a maintenance category, or a third option – an error message hidden by default – until we determine if there are any legitimate URL-only |title= parameters. If we find legitimate URLs as title parameters, we could work around the error message via character encoding or some other recommended method (aside from creating yet another edge-case parameter). – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:26, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

It seems reasonable enough as simply an exploration of possible improvement, if time is found to implement it. I tried some similar searches for an idea of what to expect, but we may be in a better position to discuss with a populated category. I might go ahead and start working on the search results for insource:/\|\s*title\s*=\s*(https?:)?\/\// for the time being... —PC-XT+ 04:57, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I only found two relative protocol urls. I changed them to urls without titles, first, in these edits: Special:Diff/643775832 and Special:Diff/643775984. Most of the other titles starting with "//" are using it as a separation symbol for crumb navigation menu titles. (That may be a separate issue.) —PC-XT+ 05:16, 23 January 2015 (UTC) (That second one, in International Association of EMTs and Paramedics, wasn't relative protocol, but a url with two slashes in front. That page uses urls for most of its titles, but doesn't have a url parameter set in those cases.) —PC-XT+ 05:26, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Website

On a related note, I regaulry see traineess enter the URL of a cited web page into |wesbite= rather than |url=. Could we trap this, too, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:54, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Time for a module update?

Is it time to update the module from the sandbox? It's been about five weeks, and we have a few bug fixes to roll out, along with a few new citation templates to convert to using the module and a few enhancements. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:32, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I came across my first new arXiv value today, in Percolation threshold. It is marked as an error. The new module code will accept it:

Cite journal comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite journal\|arxiv=1501.01586\|first=Krzysztof\|last=Malarz\|title=Simple cubic random-site percolation thresholds beyond Rubik’s neighborhood\|year=2015}}`
Live	Malarz, Krzysztof (2015). "Simple cubic random-site percolation thresholds beyond Rubik's neighborhood". arXiv:1501.01586. `{{cite journal}}`: Cite journal requires `\|journal=` (help)
Sandbox	Malarz, Krzysztof (2015). "Simple cubic random-site percolation thresholds beyond Rubik's neighborhood". arXiv:1501.01586. `{{cite journal}}`: Cite journal requires `\|journal=` (help)

One more reason to roll out the bug fixes and enhancements. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:04, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Real life is about to interfere. Update in February.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:21, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Is the sandbox stable enough to move to the main module? If so, someone else with the necessary rights can do it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:06, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Are we ready to update the module? The arXiv false positives are piling up, and the {{cite conference}} and {{cite encyclopedia}} fixes should be rolled out. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:45, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

arXiv identifier

"The canonical form of identifiers from January 2015 (1501) is arXiv:YYMM.NNNNN, with 5-digits for the sequence number within the month."[5] -- Gadget850^talk 23:48, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I have updated the documentation in Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox. I am not good enough with programming to change the error-checking code, but it shouldn't be too hard. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:09, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

And I overwrote that change with my first hack at supporting the 1501 form. It basically works but there are other changes necessary to fix lurking bugs:

Cite book comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite book\|arxiv=1501.00001v1\|title=Title}}`
Live	Title. arXiv:1501.00001v1.
Sandbox	Title. arXiv:1501.00001v1.

The live version should be throwing an error with the new form but doesn't ... More tomorrow.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

9107–0703

fail. arXiv:math.GT/9006136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid year
fail. arXiv:math.GT/9106136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – valid year, invalid month
pass. arXiv:math.GT/9107136.
pass. arXiv:math.GT/0703136.
fail. arXiv:math.GT/0704136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – valid year, invalid month

fail. arXiv:math.GT/0000136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – valid year, invalid month
fail. arXiv:math.GT/0013136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – valid year, invalid month

pass. arXiv:math.GT/9107136v1.
fail. arXiv:math.GT/0703136v. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid version
fail. arXiv:math.GT/0703136V1. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid version

fail. arXiv:math.GT/001036. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid number
fail. arXiv:math.GT/00100136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid number

0704–1412

fail. arXiv:0607.0136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid year
fail. arXiv:0703.0136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid month
pass. arXiv:0704.0136.
pass. arXiv:1412.0136.
fail. arXiv:1501.0136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid year, valid month

fail. arXiv:1500.0136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – valid year, invalid month
fail. arXiv:1513.0136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – valid year, invalid month

pass. arXiv:0704.0136v2.
fail. arXiv:1412.0136v. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid version
fail. arXiv:1412.0136V2. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid version

fail. arXiv:1001.136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid number
fail. arXiv:1001.00136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid number

1501–

fail. arXiv:1407.00136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid year
pass. arXiv:1504.00136.
pass. arXiv:1612.00136.

fail. arXiv:1500.00136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – valid year, invalid month
fail. arXiv:1513.00136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – valid year, invalid month

pass. arXiv:1504.00136v2.
fail. arXiv:1512.00136v. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid version
fail. arXiv:1512.00136V2. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid version

fail. arXiv:1501.0136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid number
fail. arXiv:1501.000136. {{cite book}}: Check |arxiv= value (help) – invalid number

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:16, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

@A930913: ReferenceBot (talk · contribs) is leaving error messages concerning the new arXiv identifier format. This is going to confuse some editors. -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 04:07, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Is there a timeline for when this is getting fixed? Erroneous error messages are being generated on user talk pages due to bot notifications of errors generated by Module:Citation when this bug triggers the error routine -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 07:27, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Reference Errors on 4 February

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

On the Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) page, your edit caused an arXiv error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:20, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

ReferenceBot is still producing error messages, even though this is a valid arXiv ID, so the module is giving editors invalid talk page messages. -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 11:41, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Date ranges like "2000–present"

I have two suggestions:

Would it be possible to tweak the template so that a value like "2000–present" (or, alternatively, "2000– ") in the |date= or |year= parameters doesn't generate a CS1 error? This occurs when a serial that is currently being published is cited. It would not be correct to indicate a range like "2000–2014" as that would suggest the serial ceased publication in 2014.
Also, what about a parameter called |origdate= corresponding to |origyear=?

— Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:35, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

You cite what you read. You read something published on some definite date in the past, and that's what you should cite. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:57, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of that, but {{citation}} can also be used in "Further reading" sections, like this: "Supreme Court of Singapore#Serials". In such cases, it is useful to be able to indicate that a serial is still being published. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

@Jacklee: |origyear= can take values other than years, for example:

Title1. Publisher. 2014 [1999].
Title2. Publisher. 2014 [1 January 1999].
Title3. Publisher. 2014 [First published on 1 January 1999].

Hope this helps! GoingBatty (talk) 17:58, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

That's useful to know, even though it doesn't quite address the issue I mentioned. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Cite DoI/ Cite PMID

Both {{Cite doi}} and {{Cite pmid}} are marked as deprecated, but have 17,919 & 7243 transclusions respectively. Is the intention to replace these? If so, should a bot be requested to do the job? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:38, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that User:Citation bot is still adding citation data to template space. Citation bot should instead replace {{cite pmid}}, {{cite doi}}, and {{cite isbn}} with in-line {{cite journal}} and {{cite book}} templates. As soon as that is done, a bot can substitute the existing transclusions as discussed here. Also after this change is made, we can de-deprecate {{cite pmid}} knowing that Citation bot will replace that template with a full in-line citation. Boghog (talk) 20:32, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Yet another reason I do not love citation bot. Has there been any attempt to remove that functionality from citation bot? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:20, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

IMHO, the best solution is to alter, not remove this functionality. The {{cite pmid}} templates are convenient, especially for new editors. If the bot replaced these templates with the appropriate in-line templates instead of adding the citation data to template space, we would retain the convenience while avoiding the disadvantages. The problem is that maintenance of citation bot is sporadic. We need someone with more time and PHP scripting experience to take over. Boghog (talk) 12:04, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

"adding citation data to template space" in what way? What triggers this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:30, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

See the RFC: Template talk:Cite doi#RfC: Should Template:cite doi cease creating a separate subpage for each DOI?. The result was:

Existing and future DOI details should be included in articles, however, the bot function should remain, with a BRFA raised to change its function to use cite journal within articles without separate subpages. CSD:T3 does not apply, and mass deletion of orphaned citation templates should not occur without further consensus. Some consideration should be given to future automated processing of the data in case there is a future consensus to centralize citations. This is without prejudice toward further UI improvements that may render this discussion moot by providing seamless editing of centralized citations

If you want to alter this decision, then another RFC is required. The way this decision is worded is very confusing to me. -- Gadget850^talk 12:31, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: "adding citation data to template space, in what way, what triggers this?" Citation bot scans Wikipedia for new instances of {{cite pmid}}, {{cite doi}}, and {{cite isbn}} templates, and if it finds one, it creates a second template that contains citation data. The first template then transcludes the second so that the citation data is displayed in the Wikipedia article. For example, {{cite pmid|10367338}} was placed in Alcohol. Citation Bot then created {{Cite_pmid/10367338}} which contains the citation data. This data is then transcluded back into Alcohol as Alcohol#cite_note-15.

@Gadget850: I agree that the wording of the decision is confusing, but I interpret to mean that the bot should not create new transcluded templates and instead, it should substitute {{cite pmid}} with {{cite journal}}, etc. I have made a request directly to the bot operator here to implement this change. Boghog (talk) 19:39, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Substitution

I just tried subst:ing an example of Cite doi, as an experiment, and it failed. Any idea why? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:29, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Because subst has never worked inside <ref> tags. -- Gadget850^talk 12:34, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Always something new to learn. Thank you. Is there a work-around? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:38, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

The work-around involves work: copy it outside the <ref> tags, subst it, show changes, copy the changes, paste into the content. Repeat. $$Profit. -- Gadget850^talk 12:45, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Vcite journal + Vcite2 journal

Can anyone tell me why we have both {{Vcite journal}} and {{Vcite2 journal}}? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:21, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

It is a Lua version and uses Module:Citation/CS1 and Module:ParseVauthors. The other Vancouver templates have not yet been updated. When I looked at this before, it is being mixed with CS1 templates. It uses parameters that differ from {{Vcite journal}}. And the talk page redirects here for some reason. So we now have {{Vcite journal}}, {{Vcite2 journal}} and {{Vancite journal}}. -- Gadget850^talk 12:43, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

The reason that {{Vcite2 journal}} talk redirects here is that it is based on Module:Citation/CS1. The primary reason for {{Vcite journal}} (298 transclusions) and {{Vancite journal}} (12 transclusions) was performance. The new Lua based citation templates are much more efficient hence the rationale for {{Vcite journal}} and {{Vancite journal}} has largely disappeared. Furthermore these two templates were never widely used and have largely fallen into disuse. The reason for the new {{Vcite2 journal}} template (1723 transclusions) is to avoid the parameter overhead of explicit first1, last1, ... author parameters while still generating clean author metadata. If there is no objection, we could replace {{Vcite journal}} and {{Vancite journal}} with {{Vcite2 journal}}. If |vauthors= support were added to {{cite journal}}, we could also deprecate {{Vcite2 journal}}. Boghog (talk) 13:03, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd favour the later, otherwise former, merges. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:09, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree. As I have previously argued here, a much better long term solution would be to add |vauthors= support directly to Module:Citation/CS1. That way, we can:

deprecate the {{vcite2 journal}} template,
avoid creation of a parallel set of {{vcite2}} templates,
quickly replace (and eventually deprecate) instances of multiple authors stored in a single |author= parameter with |vauthors= so that clean author meta data is generated,
avoid parameter bloat with citations that have large numbers of authors.

Boghog (talk) 13:12, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

CS1 and Vancouver are two different styles. If an editor wants to use Vancouver, then great, but don't get the two mixed. See Autism which uses {{Vcite2 journal}} and CS1 templates such as {{Cite journal}} and {{Cite news}}. By having distinct names for the templates, the style is made clear. -- Gadget850^talk 13:22, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

That could also be done with a switch-parameter, say |style=vancouver. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:25, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

#Display parameters: do we need them?. -- Gadget850^talk 13:42, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Or with |vauthors= that if invoked would also automatically set |name-list-format=vanc. Boghog (talk) 13:55, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

(EC) I have not run across a single editor who has insisted that we must have a citation template that renders pure Vancouver format. The primary reason for {{Vcite journal}} was not the format but rather page loading efficiency. Likewise, the primary purpose of {{Vcite2 journal}} is not the format, but compactness. The format of this new template is mixed (Vancouver for authors, CS1 for everything else). As a result of Diberri's template filling tool this mixed Vancouver/CS1 format is already widely used in {{cite journal}} templates and this usage far exceeds that of the old vcite templates. As the old templates were hardly used, these formatting differences hardly matter. What does matter is consistency within the same article. Boghog (talk) 13:53, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

The Autism example is illustrative. As it now stands, autism has an inconsistent mix of hybrid (the predominate style) and pure CS1 and pure Vancouver formatted citations. We could fix that by either creating a parallel set of {{vcite2 book}}, {{vcite2 news}}, etc templates or adding |vauthors= support (that automatically sets |name-list-format=vanc) to Module:Citation/CS1. The later is a much cleaner solution that avoids template proliferation. Boghog (talk) 14:52, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Reviving request for trans-quote

I see this was proposed back in 2013 without a response. I think this is quite vital - if someone is quoting directly from non-English text, the translation could be flawed in some way. This would encourage people to put the original quote. It would be especially vital when the quote is used to support some kind of discrepancy. Wikimandia (talk) 02:44, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata

I miss a parameter "Wikidata". Imho we need three:

a) "wikidata-book" if the book has an item on Wikidata (example: d:Q15220486)

b) "wikidata-journal" if the journal has an item on Wikidata (example: d:Q217305)

a) "wikidata-article" if the article has an item on Wikidata (example: d:Q7110639)

Even if we don't import the data right now, these parameters will save use a lot of work later. --Kolja21 (talk) 00:13, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

There is some sort of not-very-active project to use wikidata items as citations. I can't muster a lot of enthusiasm for wikidata because its entirely human-unfriendly queries and properties are entirely meaningless to human readers. If I understand your post, in edit mode, a journal citation might look like this:

{{cite journal |wikidata-article=[[d:Q7110639]] |wikidata-journal=[[d:Q217305]]}}

Of course you'll counter that we use ISBN and doi identifiers which are equally human unfriendly, and you'd be right. They are human unfriendly when read in isolation. Because of that we shouldn't use {{cite doi}}, {{cite pmid}}, etc.

I'll be more likely to support wikidata when access to the bits, pieces, and parts of data that it holds are accessible by natural language methods. Until then, I'm not ready to support wikidata items as elements of CS1/2 citations.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:57, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I understand your concerns about Wikidata today, but in the future it will be the main database anyway. So why not give users the possibility to add {{cite journal |wikidata-journal=Q217305}}? This unique identifier could be used for Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals, helps finding typos etc. If we don't start now the only advantage is that we will have more work later. --Kolja21 (talk) 01:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

In theory Wikidata could act like {{cite doi}} does now, but better: provide a central place to store information on each citation (rather than having to copy it to multiple articles with the associated likelihood that the copies will have diverging information and that mistakes in one article will spread to others and be difficult to eradicate), but allowing per-article formatting options (e.g. CS1 vs CS2, full author names vs initials) compared to the strict formatting of cite doi. And in addition unlike cite doi it could be used across different languages of Wikipedia rather than being restricted to en. So I agree with Kolja21 — I think in the long term it's a win and in the short term it may already be time to start trying to move towards it. As for whether the data format is human-readable: I don't think this is important. I currently format most of my citations by copying the bibtex from MathSciNet and converting to {{citation}} format, so as long as tools for that sort of automatic conversion are possible the ability for humans to directly edit the data is secondary. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:31, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

BTW: First tests how to use Wikidata items for citation are already made, see d:Template:Cite item. --Kolja21 (talk) 01:39, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Kolja21. It's a matter of when, not if. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

NCID

Japan is a populous country with plentiful publishing and plenty of university and other large libraries. Putting aside Japanese books (in any sense of "Japanese") for a moment, just the Japanese holdings of English-language books published in the west are significant. Most large libraries pool their information to CiNii, which ends up as something like a Japan-specific Worldcat (though with a lot fewer near-duplications) -- and, conveniently for us, which has an English-language interface. The libraries that contribute to CiNii typically (or always?) ignore Worldcat: what's at CiNii usually (always?) complements rather than duplicates what's at Worldcat.

CiNii uses what it calls NCID numbers for books. Here's the page for one book: you can see that its NCID is BB15607497 and that the relationship between NCID and URL seems very simple. I suppose, but don't know for sure, that there's a bijection.

All things being equal (translation: if somebody other than me did all the work) it would be good if there were a Template:NCID (there's currently Template:NAID for journals) and an ncid field for this template too.

Just throwing this out. (translation: it's just my personal brainfart; don't expect me to wear out my little brain doing any hard thinking) -- Hoary (talk) 09:31, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

@Hoary: There seems to be no mention of this on Wikipedia. Do you have a reliable source (preferably in English) that we can cite? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:52, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry if I seem slow, Andy Mabbett, but a reliable source for what? (That CiNii is the major Japanese union catalogue?) -- Hoary (talk) 13:56, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

@Hoary: No, that NCID is their identifier for books. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:14, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

That could be difficult; I'll give it some thought when I'm wider awake. In the meantime, however, I've done a little wikistalking for your recent activities (excuse me!), and notice that List of public art in Birmingham and Anuradha Patel (sculptor) cite the books

Noszlopy, George T. (1998). Public Sculpture of Birmingham including Sutton Coldfield. Public Sculpture of Britain 2. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 0-85323-682-8.
Chambers, Eddie (2014). Black Artists in British Art: A History since the 1950s. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9781780762715.

respectively. The former isn't in CiNii, but the latter is; see this page, and the detail on the right, below the red cover: "NCID: BB17453918". I do realize that a sample of two (books by Hornstra and Chambers) is laughably small; please give me a little time. -- Hoary (talk) 14:38, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I can find no information about NCIDs online, either in English or in Japanese. Time permitting, I'll search dead-tree resources. Meanwhile, I note that NCID is not limited to what I think of as books. Each of the following has an NCID:

Anyone accustomed to Japanese libraries will know that most (though not all) impose a division between "Japanese" and "Western" books. (These presumably being the only kinds of book of any interest to traditional librarians here. Please don't ask about Chinese, Korean or other troublesome books, OK?) While I've been using examples in English in order not to confuse y'all, I think that I should also look for Japanese materials. And so:

a humdrum small paperback (bunkobon) of what is translated into English as In Praise of Shadows, by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
Asahi jānaru (Asahi journal), a much-missed weekly current affairs magazine that was actually worth the paper it was printed on
1871 edition of what was then titled 學問のすゝめ (now far more commonly 学問のすすめ), i.e. Gakumon no susume
Six-roll set, published in 1686, of what is known in English as The Life of an Amorous Woman

Each of these has an NCID. Indeed, NCIDs are applied to some remarkable extensions of the notion of "book". I draw your attention to the category "3D Artcraft or Naturally Occurring Object", of which an example:

a wood block from 1886. (Or set of wood blocks? Anyway, thing[s] from which woodblock prints were made)

HTH. (Well, HTIBTN, hope this is better than nothing.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:34, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

NCID stands for "NII NACSIS-CAT ID". The NACSIS-CAT webpage provides a large amount of related documentation in Japanese, but the information available in English is minimal. --Cckerberos (talk) 01:15, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, a large amount of related documentation, but the string "NCID" doesn't appear in that page. Amazingly, when I google for ncid site:catdoc.nii.ac.jp, I get one hit, catdoc.nii.ac.jp/MAN/CAT6/furoku_a_2.html, which itself contains just one hit, viz:

NCID 総合目録データべース書誌レコードID

I.e. "NCID: comprehensive catalogue database shoshi record ID". Within which, shoshi is a slightly technical term (one not used in conversation, except perhaps among librarians) for books, periodicals and so forth. Attempting to parse this rather impenetrable string of nouns, I'd suggest "record ID(s) for shoshi within the database of the comprehensive catalogue". -- Hoary (talk) 02:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I think I'm confused about what it is you're looking for. As I wrote above, we know what NCID stands for. When you do a search and click on an entry, "NII NACSIS-CAT ID (NCID)" is written on the right, as on this page. --Cckerberos (talk) 03:07, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I'll quote Andy Mabbett (above): "that NCID is their [sc CiNii's] identifier for books". It certainly is an identifier of CiNii's for books. It's also CiNii's identifier for things that are related to books but aren't normally thought of as books: printed magazines, CDs of newspapers, etc: even wood blocks. What I don't know is whether it's CiNii's only identifier for books. At this point, I've no compelling reason not to think that if I keep digging around for books (or booklike objects) I might not come across an "NCID2" or whatever. I thought that Andy was looking for a reliable statement that CiNii gives a unique NCID to each species of book -- informally and approximately, each "book" that, if published since the popularization of ISBNs, would be given its own ISBN (if its publisher asked/paid for one) -- that it catalogues: that it never catalogues a book without giving it an NCID, and that it never identifies a book with some system regarded as alternative to and incompatible with NCID. Sorry if I misunderstood the request and am just muddying the waters. (Incidentally, you guess correctly: I have not even the most negligible education in librarianship.) -- Hoary (talk) 04:23, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

COinS

It also appears that an NCID can go in the |rfe_dat= parameter of COinS metadata, per [6]. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:56, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Not sure what |rfe_dat= is. That parameter isn't among the parameters listed here and has a different prefix (rfe v. rft) and different separator (underscore v. period).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:06, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

How odd. I suspect the "e" is a typo. A Google search with q="rft.dat"+Z3988 finds a few examples in the wild, but not many. I wonder if it's a local extension? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:11, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata

I've proposed a Wikidata property for NCID. See here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:11, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the effort, Andy Mabbett, but I wonder. I haven't yet had my second coffee of the day, and I've never done more than dabble at Wikidata; but I think (very wrongly?) that you are saying there that the novel The Catcher in the Rye has the NCID BA89854848, at ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA89854848. If this is indeed what you are saying, then no. You've instead given the NCID of one specific edition (an edition published in Japan, in English but with Japanese annotations, ISBN 9784268000859) of The Catcher in the Rye. The novel has no NCID. A search at Ci.Nii for title=catcher ∩ author=salinger ∩ language=English ∩ format=Book and Journal currently brings 32 hits (most but not all of which are for the novel itself); NCID BA28843418 (ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA28843418), as another example among these hits, is of an entirely different specific edition of the novel (Hamish Hamilton, 1994, ISBN 0241002516).

I'm sorry, but I don't know the criteria that must be met for a discrete NCID. For that matter, I don't know the criteria that must be met for a discrete ISBN (although given a very large pile of pairs of "the same" book, I'm confident that I'd be at least 98% successful at guessing which pairs would and which wouldn't share the same ISBN). I get the impression that the two sets of criteria are pretty much the same. (Very possibly one criterion for NCID is "If it has its own ISBN then it gets its own NCID.") This being so, the NCID starts to look superfluous: a quasi-ISBN merely for the use of Japanese academic libraries. However, the system of NCIDs fills at least two large gaps: (i) books recently published in Japan for which the publisher hasn't arranged ISBNs (and there are very many of these; among them, almost all the photobooks published by Sōkyūsha=Sokyusha=Sokyu-sha=蒼穹舎), and (i) books published in Japan before ISBNs were adopted (and, like Italy, Japan got around to them late). (Note all the ISBNs missing from the pretty good list of publications [pats self on back] within the otherwise dreadful non-article on Issei Suda: with the possible exception of the last, they're missing because they don't exist.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:48, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikidata is in the process of working out how to differentiate works from representations of the work. What I've said there is that CitR may be represented by that NCID; anyone could add a second, third, or additional NCID values. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:08, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Template:Literatur

Section heading was "Template:Literatur converted to use Template:Citation. Should we convert foreign-language templates to English?"

{{Literatur}} was recently converted to use {{citation}} instead of {{citation/core}}. If you see articles popping into CS1 error categories despite no recent edits to the article, that change may be the reason.

This template, along with {{Internetquelle}} and {{Книга}}, makes me wonder if there is a WP policy or guideline that says to prefer English in template code. I have read Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), but it does not apply. Is there a policy or guideline that would recommend the conversion of templates like {{Literatur}} to {{citation}}?

I am not suggesting that these templates go away; I think that they are useful for copying and pasting citations from one language's WP to another. I am wondering if we should routinely search for transclusions of these templates in the English WP and convert them to English-language citation templates so that English-speaking editors/readers can edit/read the references more easily. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:49, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Consensus at TfD over many instances is that such templates are permitted as a temporary step, but should be Subst:-ed into one with parameter names in English. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:56, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you remember (i.e. can you link to) any examples of such consensus decisions? It would be helpful to read some of the discussion there rather than rehash it here. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:25, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm, if I am understanding this correctly, my feeling is, if the editor speaks only English, should they really be editing non-English articles in the first place? What is the point of this? Wikimandia (talk) 02:49, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you are understanding it correctly. The above templates exist in English WP for the convenience of editors who want to copy and paste references from another language's WP and have them appear in English WP. The question is whether there is a policy or guideline that would recommend converting instances of these templates in articles to their English-language equivalents. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:39, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Not off the top of my head; but see templates using {{Subst only}} in their documentation, such as {{Infobox Bahnhof}}, {{Infobox Autostrada-it}}, {{Infobox Unternehmen}}, {{Infobox Ortsteil einer Gemeinde}}, etc. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:03, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Cite tweet

I've made {{Cite tweet}}, as a wrapper or {{Cite web}}, and directed its talk page here. Improvements welcome. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:32, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Does this not fall afoul of WP:SPS?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:37, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Trappist, self-published sources are allowed under certain circumstances. Otherwise we would have to remove all citations of the US Supreme Court, for example. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:42, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

No. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:54, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I do not use Twitter, so I don't know what options tweet authors have about sharing their tweets. Should guidance be added to the template documentation about only citing tweets that are publicly accessible? Jc3s5h (talk) 15:40, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Various style guides recommend a different method than what Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing) set up. For example, the APA and the MLA say to use the entirety of the tweet as the title. Both also call for the usage of real names with account names in brackets/parentheses unless the real name isn't known, in which case only the account name outside of brackets would be used.

Since CS1 is heavily based on APA practices, with influences from the others like Chicago MOS, I would suggest the following changes:

Use the number as an option to generate the link only, and allow an editor to use a URL
Include proper ability to use the actual author name (so |first= |last= |author=) in addition to the account name, |user=.
Drop "Twitter", which shouldn't be linked as a default. (If there are multiple tweets cited, the website name should only be linked in the first footnote to avoid overlinking.)
Set the default |type=Tweet to indicate that it is a tweet from Twitter. Since other "tweet" is unique to twitter, the website name is superfluous.
If we decided to still include "Twitter", we'd need to add a parameter to facilitate unlinking the name. {{Google maps}} defaults to linking the publisher, but it has |link=no to shut off the wikilink for additional uses.
Drop |quote= because the title of the tweet is the full text of the tweet itself.

The question I'd have then is how to deal with links within the tweet text. APA's example added the "http://", but that text wasn't present in the displayed tweet, so as long as we faithfully quoted the original text, it wouldn't generate an issue with nested external links to link the text of the tweet to tweet itself. Imzadi 1979 → A few examples of what I'd use:

Mabbett, Andy [Pigsonthewing] (7 February 2015). "This is an example tweet. Hello, Wikipedians!" (Tweet). Retrieved 7 February 2015.
Gates, Bill [BillGates] (February 26, 2013). "#Polio is 99% eradicated. Join me & @FCBarcelona as we work to finish the job and #EndPolio. VIDEO: b-gat.es/X75Lvy" (Tweet). Retrieved February 7, 2015.

-- Imzadi 1979 → 18:55, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I've numbered your suggestions for ease of reference:

What kind of URL, other than that generated by the current template, would be entered?
Happy with this if others deem it useful. We'd also need |authorlink=
OK, if we implement 4
Needs a revised title, otherwise redundant
OK
I object to this. Far better to use the |quote= parameter, not least semantically, but also because it's not a title, and because editors may wish to only quote part of a tweet, as with other cited works.

The Twitter names in your latter examples should include the "@". I feel we owe no allegiance to APA or MLA, and need not be bound by their inadequate responses to this new medium. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:55, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

The Twitter names should definitely begin with the "@", and I would actually put it before the "real" name, particularly as several Twitter names are noteworthy/recognizable in their own right and as many may represent a real person or institution, but not be the only account of that person or institution. This would allow the eye to be drawn most clearly to the most relevant - and most specific - name first. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:56, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Book reviews

I've written a number of articles that rely on academic book reviews. Databases usually provide their title either as blank, "Review", or the name of the book reviewed. In the journals, they're typically without a proper header or title within a book review section. Is there consensus somewhere on how they should be cited? Of the two examples below, the former is my normal format (i.e., title either "Review: Name of Book" or "Full Name of Book" in quotes, like giving the piece a title) and the latter is what Chicago uses ("Rev. of Title, by Author" without quotation marks in the place where the quoted title would be). The only way to get this second effect without the quotation marks in {{cite journal}} is to add something to the |journal= field, but it's a jury-rigged hack and not a proper solution.

Ahern, Wilbert H. (2000). "Review: Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited". The Journal of American History. 87 (3): 1045–1046. doi:10.2307/2675343. ISSN 0021-8723. JSTOR 2675343. (Login required)

Ahern, Wilbert H. (2000). Rev. of Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited, by Robert Francis Engs. The Journal of American History. 87 (3): 1045–1046. doi:10.2307/2675343. ISSN 0021-8723. JSTOR 2675343. {{cite journal}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help) (Login required)

My questions are (1) is there a preferred way to handle this? (2) If not, how can I do the second format without the jury-rigged param? Would it make sense to make a |review= param that would put unquoted, unitalicized text in the "Rev. of X, by Y" format after the title and before the journal params? czar ⨹ 14:03, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps:

Ahern, Wilbert H. (2000). "Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited: Samuel Chapman Armstrong and Hampton Institute, 1839-1893 by Robert Francis Engs". The Journal of American History (Review). 87 (3): 1045–1046. doi:10.2307/2675343. ISSN 0021-8723. JSTOR 2675343. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)

Adding extra words to |title= or |journal= corrupts the citation's COinS metadata. You can do simple wikimarkup styling in |title= as I have done here because that markup is removed from the metadata. Use |type= to identify this title as a review.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:34, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Would there be any objection to the style of my second example? And if not, how could I implement it? I feel that would be a cleaner citation since the title of the work (the review) is not actually the reviewed book's title. czar ⨹ 14:41, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I think so because when you write:

|journal=''Rev. of ''Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited'', by Robert Francis Engs. '' [[The Journal of American History]]

all of that ends up in the metadata as:

&rft.jtitle=%27%27Rev.+of+%27%27Educating+the+Disfranchised+and+Disinherited%27%27%2C+by+Robert+Francis+Engs.+%27%27+The+Journal+of+American+History

where the keyword &rft.jtitle (which see) identifies the journal's name as

''Rev. of ''Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited'', by Robert Francis Engs. '' The Journal of American History

when, in fact, the journal's name is:

The Journal of American History

When I followed the doi and JSTOR links, the reviews are identified as:

doi: Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited: Samuel Chapman Armstrong and Hampton Institute, 1839–1893. By Robert Francis Engs. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999. xx, 207 pp. $32.50, ISBN 1-57233-051-1.)

JSTOR: Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited: Samuel Chapman Armstrong and Hampton Institute, 1839-1893 by Robert Francis Engs

How are these, or a very close approximation as you did and as I did, not the correct title?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:06, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk, I completely agree on not using the jury-rigged |journal= param—I was just wondering how else I could have the same effect (see below). As for what JSTOR identifies as the title, if you export JSTOR book review citations, the title fields are blank unless the book review has a unique title. czar ⨹ 00:08, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

As an alternative possibility to |type=, I've been using |department=Book Reviews (or whatever the journal calls it) for many of these. And your example does indeed call it Book Reviews (look at the table of contents for that journal issue). So your example would come out Ahern, Wilbert H. (2000). "Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited: Samuel Chapman Armstrong and Hampton Institute, 1839–1893 by Robert Francis Engs". Book Reviews. The Journal of American History. 87 (3): 1045–1046. doi:10.2307/2675343. ISSN 0021-8723. JSTOR 2675343. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help) —David Eppstein (talk) 16:56, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Concur with David Eppstein. I was about to give the same answer. -- Gadget850^talk 17:32, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

All the main citation styles use a variant of the "Rev. of XXX" format (like my second example above). I don't know how CS1 was determined, but why wouldn't it make sense to follow that format? And is there some param that would allow me to have the same effect without implementing something special? czar ⨹ 00:08, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

The design (if you can call it that) of CS1/CS2 is informed by published style guides, Chicago, APA, etc. CS1/2 is none of those but is what you see: a general purpose tool that more-or-less gets the job done for several million citations throughout en.wikipedia. CS1/2 can't and doesn't do it all.

There is no parameter or set of parameters that will correctly render a citation that looks like your second example – something special would be required: {{cite book review}} perhaps? If it is to be made part of CS1/2, then this new template would require changes to Module:Citation/CS1 to support it. And of course documentation ...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:09, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Would anyone be willing to help implement this in {{cite journal}}? I'm thinking |review=''Summerhill'', by A. S. Neill could produce "Rev. of Summerhill, by A. S. Neill." in-between the title and journal fields, and use the URL if no title is entered. More flexibly, the param could just allow text in-between the title and journal fields, though the former is preferable for the purpose of book reviews. czar ⨹ 14:38, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I found a workaround by using |conference= (should be okay as that param doesn't use COinS). Only thing is that {{cite conference}} omits |conference='s trailing period and space when there is no |title= present. E.g., the second bullet between Peshkin and Christianity:

Parsons, Paul F. (November 7, 1986). "Reading, Writing, and a Way of Life (Review: God's Choice)". Christianity Today. 30: 35. ISSN 0009-5753.

Parsons, Paul F. (November 7, 1986). Rev. of God's Choice by Alan PeshkinChristianity Today. Vol. 30. p. 35. ISSN 0009-5753. {{cite conference}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Is that an error? czar ⨹ 18:06, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it it is an error, not necessarily in {{cite conference}} but in how it is misused: |journal= (or any of the |work= aliases) is not defined for use in {{cite conference}}. Also, the title is not included in the metadata when {{cite conference}} is used in this manner.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:08, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk, is there any way to have the title display without the quotation marks? (Surely you know what I'm looking for by this point?) How are/should book reviews (be) supported by the current citation formats? czar ⨹ 15:29, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Titles are rendered in quotes or in italics. There is no specific mechanism to render titles without styling though there have been inconclusive discussions on that topic.

At the moment I don't have an opinion about how reviews of the type I think you want to cite should be cited except to suggest the use of either |type= or |department= (this last might benefit from alternate naming).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:26, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Undocumented parameter?

In World War II References there is a Cite book param I never heard about: authorformat. What about possible values, or «scap» is the only one? Carlotm (talk) 04:58, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

At the next update to Module:Citation/CS1, |author-format=scap will become non-functional. This because that styling is in conflict with MOS:SMALLCAPS. After the update, the only valid parameter value will be |author-format=vanc which renders last/first author and editor lists in Vancouver style. See Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 7#Separator parameters.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:28, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

How widely used is that? |vanc=y is more concise. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I see 14 pages using of |authorformat=vanc and |author-format=vanc.[7][8] With {{vcite2 journal}} it is rather redundant. -- Gadget850^talk 13:48, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

insource:authorformat=vanc and insource:"authorformat=vanc" are less restrictive searches than insource:/authorformat=vanc/ and both of them find a few more instances.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:38, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

As discussed here, a much better long term solution would be to add support for |vauthors= directly into Module:Citation/CS1 and make {{vcite2 journal}} redundant. Boghog (talk) 17:45, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Update to the live CS1 module weekend of 14–15 February 2015

On the weekend of 14–15 February I propose to update the live CS1 module files from their sandbox counterparts:

Changes to Module:Citation/CS1 are:

bug fix to ASIN error checking; discussion
fix cite encyclopedia format promotion; discussion
fix cite conference format promotion; discussion
{{citation |encyclopedia=...}} mimics {{cite encyclopedia}}; discussion
no CITEREF anchor id when no author or date; discussion
migrate cite mailing list; discussion
authorlink error when value contains one or more [ or ]; discussion
duplicate separator fix; discussion
migrate cite report; discussion
deprecated separator and display parameters: (discussion)
1. parameters: |authorformat=, |author-format=, |author-name-separator=, |author-separator=, |editorformat=, |editor-format=, |editor-name-separator=, |editor-separator=, |name-separator=, |separator=;
2. added support for |mode= and |name-list-format=;
3. removed support for |author/editor-format=scap and for |separator=none
require yes, true, y values for |registration= and |subscription=; discussion
Upgrade arxiv validation; discussion
Fix bug in Norwegian language handling;

Changes to Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration are:

Add |mailinglist=; discussion
deprecated separator and display parameters: (discussion)
1. parameters: |authorformat=, |author-format=, |author-name-separator=, |author-separator=, |editorformat=, |editor-format=, |editor-name-separator=, |editor-separator=, |name-separator=, |separator=;
2. added support for |mode= and |name-list-format=;
3. removed support for |author/editor-format=scap and for |separator=none

Changes to Module:Citation/CS1/Whitelist are:

Add |mailinglist=; discussion
deprecated separator and display parameters: (discussion)
1. parameters: |authorformat=, |author-format=, |author-name-separator=, |author-separator=, |editorformat=, |editor-format=, |editor-name-separator=, |editor-separator=, |name-separator=, |separator=;
2. added support for |mode= and |name-list-format=;
3. removed support for |author/editor-format=scap and for |separator=none

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:49, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the updates. But when you make changes that affect {{citation}}, please both discuss them and announce them at Template talk:Citation. You have consistently failed to do this and it is a serious problem. This board is an inadequate substitute because it is mostly about a different citation format. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:49, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

It is not ok to remove parameters that are widely used such as scap like this without having wide community input and consensus. This is really rude and inconsiderate. There is no valid reason to deny editors the ability to use small caps in reference lists.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:56, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Journals with chapters

How should I cite a journal, using {{cite journal}} that has chapters inside of articles. Should I just cite them as though they were articles inside of departments or is there a better way? Also, when those chapters have multi-page sections, as in the examples below? – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 04:49, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

My example is:

{{cite journal|journal=Applied History|volume=II|editor-last=Shambaugh|editor-first=Benjamin F.||place=Iowa City|year=1914|publisher=The State Historical Society of Iowa|title=Reorganization of State Government|author-last=Horack|author-first=Frank E.|chapter=State Government in America|section=The Legislature|pp=11-14}}

Which displays as:

Horack, Frank E. (1914). Shambaugh, Benjamin F. (ed.). "Reorganization of State Government". Applied History. II. Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa: 11–14. {{cite journal}}: |chapter= ignored (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); More than one of |section= and |chapter= specified (help)

Another example is (The articles are by various authors, though this one happens to be by the editor):

{{cite journal|journal=The Iowa Journal of History and Politics|volume=2|number=4|editor-last=Shambaugh|editor-first=Benjamin F.|place=Iowa City|year=1904|publisher=The State Historical Society of Iowa|title=Assembly Districting and Apportionment in Iowa|author-last=Shambaugh|author-first=Benjamin F.|chapter=The Territorial Period|section=The Proclamation of Governor Mason|pp=521-24}}

Which displays as:

Shambaugh, Benjamin F. (1904). Shambaugh, Benjamin F. (ed.). "Assembly Districting and Apportionment in Iowa". The Iowa Journal of History and Politics. 2 (4). Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa: 521–24. {{cite journal}}: |chapter= ignored (help); More than one of |section= and |chapter= specified (help)

Any assistance is appreciated. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 04:49, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

One way would be |at="The Territorial Period: The Proclamation of Governor Mason", pp. 521–524. It would look like this:

{{cite journal|journal=The Iowa Journal of History and Politics|volume=2|number=4|editor-last=Shambaugh|editor-first=Benjamin F.|place=Iowa City|year=1904|publisher=The State Historical Society of Iowa|title=Assembly Districting and Apportionment in Iowa|author-last=Shambaugh|author-first=Benjamin F.|at="The Territorial Period: The Proclamation of Governor Mason", pp. 521–524}}

Which displays as:

Shambaugh, Benjamin F. (1904). Shambaugh, Benjamin F. (ed.). "Assembly Districting and Apportionment in Iowa". The Iowa Journal of History and Politics. 2 (4). Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa. "The Territorial Period: The Proclamation of Governor Mason", pp. 521–524.

I don't know if there is a better way. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:30, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

From the original volumes (online here and here), I would say these are articles within a journal, which I would cite as

{{cite journal|journal=Applied History|volume=II|place=Iowa City|year=1914|publisher=The State Historical Society of Iowa|title=Reorganization of State Government in Iowa|author-last=Horack|author-first=Frank E.|pages=1–86}}
{{cite journal|journal=The Iowa Journal of History and Politics|volume=2|number=4|year=1904|title=Assembly Districting and Apportionment in Iowa|author-last=Shambaugh|author-first=Benjamin F.|pp=520–603}}

rendering as

Horack, Frank E. (1914). "Reorganization of State Government in Iowa". Applied History. II. Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa: 1–86.
Shambaugh, Benjamin F. (1904). "Assembly Districting and Apportionment in Iowa". The Iowa Journal of History and Politics. 2 (4): 520–603.

Citations of journals typically omit editors, locations and publishers, though for an ambiguous title like Applied History it makes sense to include the publisher. It is customary to give the range of page numbers covering the author's full contribution. While it is common for lengthy contributions to journals or edited volumes to be divided into sections, these are typically not mentioned in a citation. If fine-grained referencing is required, this can be added after the citation, or Shortened footnotes can be used. Kanguole 09:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Isn't Applied History more a book than a journal? If so, then:

{{cite book|last=Horack |first=Frank E. |editor-last=Shambaugh |editor-first=Benjamin F. |title=Applied History |chapter=Reorganization of State Government|chapter-url=//archive.org/details/appliedhistory02stat#page/10/mode/2up |place=Iowa City |publisher=The State Historical Society of Iowa |date=1914 |volume=II |pp=11-14}}

→Horack, Frank E. (1914). "Reorganization of State Government". In Shambaugh, Benjamin F. (ed.). Applied History. Vol. II. Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa. pp. 11–14.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

It could be viewed as a book series, and the foreword describes it as such. But the page range should still cover the full chapter/article by Horack, i.e. 1–86. Kanguole 12:18, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I guess it depends on how the citation is used. If it is a 'Further reading' sort of citation then, sure, |pp=1–86 may be appropriate. But, if the template is being used to cite a particular point in the article then the page range should be constrained to just large enough to contain the salient material in the source. There isn't any need to force the reader to search the whole range of the author's chapter in search of the supporting text.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:32, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

It's a common issue with journal articles and contributed chapters of books. The full citation should always give the page range of the whole contribution. If one wants to specify the particular page{s) referred to, that would be additional, either added after the citation or in a separate short footnote. Kanguole 13:15, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

The underlying issue is the ambiguity of |page= and |pages=. For a book where no named chapter is given they are used to specify the page(s) on which the relevant information appears. For a journal article they are used to specify the page span of the article as a whole. For chapters in books I've come across both uses. This kind of semantic ambiguity always causes problems. However, I think it's too late now to correct it (by having different parameters) given the huge number of uses with both meanings. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:14, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Legal citation uses both, actually, with the first page of the journal article and then the actual page(s) being cited (as in 24 Iowa L. Rev. 64, 82-83.). I'd actually never heard the "cite all pages" rule for articles before - it seems like it would be particularly useless on Wikipedia, as it would make verification extremely difficult - especially for works that aren't available online (and can't be text-searched). – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:48, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

But back to my original query. Is it generally thought, then, that the chapters and sections should be omitted? I generally prefer providing more information when possible, but if that's the general rule ... – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:48, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I favor always giving as much information as possible, including chapter/section/page/paragraph numbers, even though some odd cases (articles with chapters??) are difficult. But do keep in mind the different context of citing the whole source (or "work"), and citing the specific material. As Kanguole just said: in the full citation (as implemented with the {{citation}}/{{cite xxx}} templates) the |pages= parameter is the range of the whole source (e.g., article). In a short cite (as implemented with {{harv}}) the |p= parameter is the location of the specific material. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:17, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I use standard inline citations and try to never cite "the whole source", as that's only necessary if the information you are using came from the whole source as opposed to particular pages of it. (See Trappist the monk's comment, above.) Again, though, we are drifting from the main topic, which was whether I should cite the chapter and section, not how I should use page numbers. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:59, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

– Thank you all for your thoughts. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:50, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

`|name-list-format=vanc` not displaying middle initial

Apparently the new |name-list-format=vanc has now gone live. However it doesn't seem to display the middle initial. For example:

{{cite journal | last1 = Groves | first1 = JT | title = Artificial enzymes. The importance of being selective | journal = Nature | volume = 389 | issue = 6649 | pages = 329–30 | date = Sep 1997 | pmid = 9311771 | doi = 10.1038/38602 | name-list-style = vanc }} renders as:
Groves JT (Sep 1997). "Artificial enzymes. The importance of being selective". Nature. 389 (6649): 329–30. doi:10.1038/38602. PMID 9311771.

What happened to the to the middle initial "T"? According to the definitive Vancouver system guide:

Patrias K (2011) [2007]. "Author for Journal Articles". In Wendling P (ed.). The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers [Internet] (2^nd ed.). Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US). {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

the middle initial should be displayed. Boghog (talk) 13:57, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

The code that handles conversion of names to initials was not changed in the recent update. Here is the diff; search for the function reducetoinitials(). So, that would seem to suggest that for the case you illustrate above, the function never worked as you would have wanted.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:16, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the explanation. In the example used above, the first and middle names are already reduced to initials. This is how PubMed displays citations and Diberri's template filler tool generated citations. As a result, there are tens of thousands of articles in which the citation are formatted in this way. Hence the reducetoinitials() function should check for the special case where |firstn= contains only one word with two capital letters. If it encounters such a case, it should return the initials unchanged. Boghog (talk) 14:42, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Inserting if string.len(first) == 2 and string.match(first,'%u%u') then return(first) end at the beginning of the reducetoinitials() function should be sufficient. Boghog (talk) 15:08, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Fixed in the sandbox I think. Also fixed the case |first=J.T.

Cite journal comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite journal\|date=Sep 1997\|doi=10.1038/38602\|first1=JT\|issue=6649\|journal=Nature\|last1=Groves\|name-list-format=vanc\|pages=329–30\|pmid=9311771\|title=Artificial enzymes. The importance of being selective\|volume=389}}`
Live	Groves, JT (Sep 1997). "Artificial enzymes. The importance of being selective". Nature. 389 (6649): 329–30. doi:10.1038/38602. PMID 9311771. `{{cite journal}}`: Unknown parameter `\|name-list-format=` ignored (`\|name-list-style=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	Groves, JT (Sep 1997). "Artificial enzymes. The importance of being selective". Nature. 389 (6649): 329–30. doi:10.1038/38602. PMID 9311771. `{{cite journal}}`: Unknown parameter `\|name-list-format=` ignored (`\|name-list-style=` suggested) (help)

Cite journal comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite journal\|date=Sep 1997\|doi=10.1038/38602\|first1=J.T.\|issue=6649\|journal=Nature\|last1=Groves\|name-list-format=vanc\|pages=329–30\|pmid=9311771\|title=Artificial enzymes. The importance of being selective\|volume=389}}`
Live	Groves, J.T. (Sep 1997). "Artificial enzymes. The importance of being selective". Nature. 389 (6649): 329–30. doi:10.1038/38602. PMID 9311771. `{{cite journal}}`: Unknown parameter `\|name-list-format=` ignored (`\|name-list-style=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	Groves, J.T. (Sep 1997). "Artificial enzymes. The importance of being selective". Nature. 389 (6649): 329–30. doi:10.1038/38602. PMID 9311771. `{{cite journal}}`: Unknown parameter `\|name-list-format=` ignored (`\|name-list-style=` suggested) (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:01, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Change looks good. Thanks! Boghog (talk) 16:38, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Smallcaps

Discussions at Module talk:Citation/CS1/Archive 11#name-list-format=scap now producing error and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#RfC: Proposed exceptions to general deprecation of Allcaps. -- Gadget850^talk 22:09, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Cite journal - review article vs. non-review

I think it is pretty important when citing a peer-reviewed journal article to be able to indicate whether the source is a review article or an original research article. Is there a parameter in the cite journal template which would serve to support indicating this distinction? If not, would folks entertain the notion that maybe a new parameter "review=yes" be added which would ... maybe add "Review: " before the title in the presentation of the citation? Thanks for considering this. I did a brief search of archives to see if this had been discussed before and did not find an indication that it had been. Regards --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:24, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Can this be handled with |department= or |type=? —David Eppstein (talk) 04:15, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

According to the documentation |type= refers to the media type and therefore is probably not appropriate. |department= refers to a "regular department within the periodical" which comes closer. I take "department" to mean a regular section of a journal like communications, full articles, and reviews. Perhaps the department parameter documentation should be clarified so that it is clear that the parameter can refer to publication type (e.g., communication, full article, review, etc.). Boghog (talk) 10:01, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I have been bold and added the following to the "department" parameter description:

Examples include "letter to the editor", "communication", "full article", "original research", or "review".

Boghog (talk) 10:17, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

The intent of department is for the name of a regular column in a periodical. Many periodicals have Letters to the Editor or From the Editor; The New York Times has Lives; Scouting has Bryan on Scouting. When the field was introduced, it was intentionally not named column as not to confuse it with physical layout. -- Gadget850^talk 11:28, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Individual issues of many journals are divided into sections (i.e., "departments"). For example, the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry is divided as follows:

Editorial
Perspectives (i.e., reviews)
Articles (i.e., original research)
Brief articles (i.e., communications, original research)

Clearly the intention of these sections is to group articles of the same type together. Hence it would be appropriate to use this parameter to identify a source as primary (original research) or secondary (reviews). Boghog (talk) 11:42, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

How is a source specifically identified as primary or secondary? -- Gadget850^talk 11:46, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

As with any source, distinguishing primary from secondary takes some judgement. If a journal has section marked as "reviews", "perspectives", etc., then the articles in that section are almost certainly secondary. PubMed identifies articles by their Publication Types and is a good source to consult when in doubt. Boghog (talk) 11:59, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary break #1

The documentation also says that |type= isn't displayed when |work= or an alias is set. That appears to have once been true:

Cite journal comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite journal\|journal=Journal\|title=Title\|type=Type}}`
Live	"Title". Journal (Type).
Sandbox	"Title". Journal (Type).

I don't know when that changed, or if we should 'fix' the module to match the documentation or fix the documentation to match the module. Is there a reason that |type= shouldn't be available when citing journals and other periodicals?

I don't know that |type= couldn't be used to distinguish a review article from an original research article. We set |type= for {{cite AV media notes}}, {{cite DVD-notes}}, {{cite mailinglist}}, {{cite podcast}}, {{cite pressrelease}}, {{cite report}}, {{cite techreport}}, and {{cite thesis}} more as a visual indicator of what the citation is than as an indicator of the citation's media type. So, if we keep |type= handling in Module:Citation/CS1 as it is, then I see no reason why |type=Review couldn't be used for this purpose.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:11, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

According to the documentation, the |type= contains "Additional information about the media type of the source". Furthermore the value of |type= appears after the journal name and not title. Hence |type= appears to refer to the journal, not the article. While some journals only publish review articles it is much more common for journals to publish a mix of original research and reviews. So unless the output were modified so that type appears after the title instead of the journal name, I don't think |type= would be a good solution for this particular request. |department= does appear after the title:

Cite journal comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite journal\|department=Department\|journal=Journal\|title=Title\|type=Type}}`
Live	"Title". Department. Journal (Type).
Sandbox	"Title". Department. Journal (Type).

Other than the odd name, |department= is a good solution to this request. Perhaps a new alias |article-type= for |department= should be added. Boghog (talk) 17:42, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I chose 'department' quite deliberately. Per Chicago 16: "14.202 MAGAZINE DEPARTMENTS. Titles of regular departments in a magazine are capitalized headline-style but not put in quotation marks." -- Gadget850^talk 01:18, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Chicago MOS refers to magazine "departments". Sections of journals are rarely if ever referred to as "departments". The National Library of Medicine Style Guide refers to an optional Article Type that if present should appear in brackets after the article title. Likewise both the APA and MLA styles require that citations of reviews and letters to the editor be designated as such after the title. In short, the designation "departments" may make sense for magazines but less so for journal articles. For clarity, I think there should be an alias of |department= called |article-type=. Boghog (talk) 03:14, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the discussion. I think that the last comment from Boghog sums up, that |department= would be appropriate, but that an alias more akin to Journal structure, that being |article-type=, should be added. Would this be added to the common code for Citation Style 1 or would it be specifically added to the code for {{Cite journal}} as it is only (at this time) relevant to that citation case (as well as to {{Citation}} when used for journal article citations, though). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:30, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

IMHO, the scope of |article-type= should not be limited to journal articles. It equally applies to other types of publications including magazines. Furthermore we should not expect that editors are familiar with Chicago MOS nomenclature. The meaning of a parameter should be immediately clear from its name. |article-type= fulfills that requirement. |department= does not. Boghog (talk) 09:02, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

|department= is the formal name of a regular column/department. |article-type= as you define it appears to be a description of the article based on the editor's judgement. -- Gadget850^talk 10:15, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Not necessarily. If the journal/magazine is subdivided into sections, then |article-type= refers to how the journal/magazine defines it (or alternatively how PubMed Publication Types define it). Boghog (talk) 10:28, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I can see that we are not going to agree on this. If I added an example that The New York Times has a department/column named Lives, I expect you will change it to something generic. What you want is not the intent of this parameter. Done with this. Out. -- Gadget850^talk 11:24, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The scope of {{cite journal}} includes not only magazines but also journals. A department in a magazine is exactly analogous to a section of a journal. For journals, we can use the exact term the journal uses (e.g., perspective, invited review, analysis) to describe the section or use a more generic term like "review" that covers them all. Furthermore the APA, MLA, and NLM all specify that the article type be included after the title. This is exactly where |department= places its contents. So we can have either two separate parameters, "department" for magazines and "article-type" for journals, or have one an alias of the other. Since the two parameters are highly analogous and have identical output, it makes more sense to use an alias. To insist this parameter only be named "department" and only follows the Chicago MOS while ignoring APA, MLA, and NLM is not rational. Boghog (talk) 12:03, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
One additional note. It appears that the |department= parameter is not extensively used (1,120 results and a good number of these are false positives). WP:MEDRS is an important guideline that stresses secondary sources are strongly preferred to support medical claims. Adding |article-type= parameter that distinguishes between primary and secondary sources would be of significant value to the WP:MED (and other) projects. Boghog (talk) 21:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

It is exceedingly useful to note whether or not an article is a review or a primary source when it comes to medical content. Pubmed as mentioned does a good job of listing this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:50, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary break #2

Ceyockey asks about distinguishing peer-reviewed articles from articles not peer-reviewed, but then confuses matters by referring to review articles -- such as review the current state of a topic, or perhaps recent developments -- as distinct from original research reports. Most journals have the reports of original research in a designated section, which could be deemed a "department". Review articles are usually separate, possibly identifed as a review article, but this is usually not any separate "department". Moreover, review articles are also peer-reviewed. So there are two divisions here, either of which might warrant identification. However, marking articles to show they are reviews, or are peer-reviewed, seems distinctly novel; I am not aware this has ever been done.

In the end I think this comes down to how an editor might indicate the quality of a source. Peer-review is, of course, only one factor edtiors should consider in evaluationg a source, and we hope they will consider all relevant factors. But we don't expect an editor justify his assessment in the citation. (If there is some special case, that is covered in a note in the text.) Nor does standard citation practice (or the relevant authorities) have any provision for providing such evaluations in the citation.

Regarding the specific notion of having a |review= parameter: I think it would tend to get used for reviews of books, shows, and other material of no special authority, and thus would be confusingly inconsistent. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:53, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@J. Johnson: Just to be clear, Ceyockey wanted to distinguish original research articles (primary) from review articles (secondary), not peer-reviewed articles from articles not peer-reviewed. Please note that peer reviewed ≠ review article. These two concepts are often confused, but are really quite separate. In medicine and science, for a source to be considered reliable, it must be peer reviewed. Reliable sources include both published original research articles (primary sources) and published review articles (secondary sources). Books written by experts and reviewed by expert editors are also considered reliable secondary sources. WP:PSTS is a policy that applies to all of Wikipedia and states in part that primary sources can only be used with great caution while secondary sources when available are strongly preferred. The WP:MED project as explained in WP:MEDRS is constantly making judgement as the the quality of sources. WP:MEDRS in a nutshell states that medical claims ideally should be supported by reliable secondary sources. Primary sources, even if they are peer reviewed are not normally sufficient. Peer reviewed secondary sources (review articles or books) published by high quality publishers do absolutely have special authority. As summarized in {{Reliable sources for medical articles}} there are objective third party authorities that can be used to establish whether medical sources are secondary or primary. Furthermore the definitions of primary and secondary sources in WP:MEDRS are precise and can be applied very consistently. Ceyockey's request for a field to designate if a source is secondary is very reasonable. Boghog (talk) 04:24, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Nor does standard citation practice (or the relevant authorities) have any provision for providing such evaluations in the citation – As stated above, the National Library of Medicine Style Guide refers to an optional Article Type that if present should appear in brackets after the article title. Likewise both the APA and MLA styles require that citations of reviews and letters to the editor be designated as such after the title. Boghog (talk) 04:39, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Looking at those last two examples from Boghog, that reminds me of how I've been indicating that a source published in a newspaper is actually an editorial using |type=Editorial in {{cite news}}. That follows the advice on the CS1 help page, which says: type: Specifies the type of work cited. Appears in parentheses immediately after the title. ... Other useful values are Review, Systemic review, Meta-analysis or Original article. Compare:

"Welcome Center Plan Worth Seeing". The Times Herald (Editorial). Port Huron, MI. August 19, 2013.
"Welcome Center Plan Worth Seeing". Our Views. The Times Herald (Editorial). Port Huron, MI. August 19, 2013.

Each example uses |type= to indicate that the source is an editorial, and the second also adds |department=. The output in these cases is the same between {{cite news}} and {{cite journal}}. I'll also note that in both templates, |title= refers to the title of the article within the newspaper or journal, so the documentation implies that the |type= should trail it, and not the newspaper/journal name. In other words, the output of |type= should come immediately after the article title, when a citation is specifying both the |title= and an alias for |work= because we're not citing the full work, but rather a component (article, chapter, etc) of that full work. Imzadi 1979 → 07:00, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

It is important that editors distinguish between primary and secondary sources, but that does not mean we should record our assessments in articles – that would be original research. The |department= field has the virtue of reporting a distinction made by the publication, and is sufficient for marking editorials, letters, book reviews and abstracts. If a journal has separate sections for surveys and research reports, we can put that in |department=, but we cannot record our own assessments. Kanguole 10:12, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely right. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:28, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

If we cannot reliably tell the difference between primary and secondary sources, we are in big trouble. It is in fact not that difficult. Furthermore there are independent third party authorities such as PubMed that have classified articles by type. Can we not record the PubMed assessment? Boghog (talk) 11:36, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
It is often obvious from the context that an article is a review (e.g., it is published in journal that only contains review articles or is included in a section entitled "reviews", "perspectives", etc.). In these cases, it is not original research to state that an article is a review. Furthermore it is not original research to state that reviews are secondary. Boghog (talk) 15:12, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, I am quite aware of what Ceyockey probably means, but he can best speak for what he means. And I point out that review articles can be peer reviewed. Also, reports (of original research) often start with a review section which amounts to a secondary source, and which, if done by a noted authority, can be just as notable as a stand-alone review article.

Boghog accurately stated my intention. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:28, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I am also quite aware that types of publications -- such as letters, editorials, abstracts, thesi, etc. -- should be indicated. However, while some types of publication imply peer-review, I do not see that there is any standard biblographic convention for explicitly identifying sources as peer-reviewed (or not). That a source is peer-reviewed is (as I said above) one of several factors an editor may consider in assessing a source (which is not OR, because editors should assess their sources). But (following Kangoule) an editor's assessment of a source is (generally) not appropriate in the citation. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:08, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The issue is not peer review. The issue is primary vs. secondary. Also, can we not record the PubMed assessment using the NLM bibliographic convention? Boghog (talk) 04:41, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary break #3

You and Ceyockey keep throwing out "peer reviewed" and "original research", so no wonder I was a bit confused on that point. It's fine with me if you want to focus on the PubMed article type, but that has no mention of peer review or original research. Nor of the primary/secondary source distinction you just mentioned, which is more of a Wikipedia thing. So what should we be discussing here:

Ceyockey's original request for a |review= parameter (which is only a single article type)?
A more general parameter for indicating article types?
Or some way of indicating in a citation whether the source is primary/secondary/tertiary?

If we could have some clarity on this it would avoid a lot of uneeded discussion. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:04, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

#3 (primary/secondary/tertiary) is equivalent to either #1 |review=yes (secondary/tertiary) or #1 |review=no (primary). Ceyockey was not (I think) asking for #2. Boghog (talk) 23:31, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
PubMed article type ... has no mention of peer review or original research – Exactly. Most of what is in PubMed has been peer reviewed. Scientific publications that have not been peer reviewed are generally not appropriate for either PubMed or Wikipedia (with limited exceptions as noted by WP:SCIRS). All primary sources in PubMed are by definition original research. Per WP:PSTS, WP:MEDRS, and WP:SCIRS, primary original research sources should only be used with caution. Per WP:SCIRS, non-peer reviewed sources are only appropriate if they are written by experts in the field. Secondary sources as designated in PubMed include "Meta-Analysis"and "Review". Tertiary sources include "Textbooks". Boghog (talk) 23:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Just to be absolutely clear, if a scientific source is not peer reviewed, it is not worth talking about. The |review=yes/no parameter assumes that the source is peer reviewed. Boghog (talk) 00:38, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

My #1 is Ceyockey's original question about adding "a new parameter "review=yes" ... able to indicate whether the source is a review article or an original research article" (emphasis added), perhaps by adding "Review:" before the title. My #3 is not equivalent to #1, because while "review articles" (as commonly found in scientific journals) are generally secondary sources, that is not an adequate criterion for determining primary/secondary/tertiary: many secondary sources are not such reviews, and many primary sources (orignal research) contain a certain amount of review which is secondary in nature. And this criterion says nothing about tertiary sources.

You state: "All primary sources in PubMed are by definition original research." By whose definition? As I said before, PubMed makes no distinction of peer review or original research (nor, I might add, of "primary" or "secondary" sources) let alone any definitions; these interpretations are entirely your own. PubMed article types that by WP definition are primary ("close to an event") but not original research in the scientific sense (and most certainly not peer reviewed) include Abbreviations (lists of), Account Books, Addresses (Lectures), Advertisements, Anecdotes, Annual Reports, Autobiography, and many more. QED, your statement is incorrect.

Finally, you are quite wrong to state that "if a scientific source is not peer reviewed, it is not worth talking about." Looking at just Science and Nature, there many "pieces" written by scientists and very knowledgable science reporters (usually in the form of "news" or "commentary") which are not peer reviewed, yet are most excellent secondary sources. As you already said, the issue here is "not peer review", so I would suggest not raising it.

If we can't determine what the topic here should be, and clarify the applicable (or otherwise) concepts, this discussion is not going to reach any fruition. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:06, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

This discussion is going around in circles. One last attempt to clarify:

It is important to note that the medical/scientific fields use a more restrictive definition of secondary compared to most other fields. "News" or "commentary" pieces may be useful to help establish notability and document basic facts such as when a discovery was made. But these types of sources cannot be used to support the reliability of the results or conclusions of original research. For this, review articles are required.
Links to "news" or "commentary" in medical/scientific journals would be appropriate to included in |laysummary=, but they are not marked as review articles in PubMed (see for example PMID 25631438) nor are they considered reliable secondary sources by WP:MEDRS. Only review articles published in medical/scientific journals would qualify.
PubMed makes no distinction of peer review or original research – Again, you are confusing these two concepts. Both original research and review articles are peer reviewed. The distinction that needs to be made is between primary and secondary, not between peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed. If PubMed marks a publication as a review (or meta-analysis), it is by definition secondary. If it is not marked as a review (or meta-analysis), it is not secondary. The template {{Reliable sources for medical articles}} relies on this distinction. When this template is transcluded into an article's talk page, it provides links to citations in PubMed about the subject of the Wikipedia article that have been designated as review articles and hence secondary / WP:MEDRS compliant.
To summarize, if PubMed says a citation is a review, then it would be appropriate to designate this with |review=yes. Boghog (talk) 05:46, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
PS: As explained in MEDLINE/PubMed Journal Selection, journals are selected for inclusion into PubMed based in large part on the "quality of editorial work" and "especially on the explicit process of external peer review". Hence any PubMed publication type marked as "Journal Article" is highly likely to have undergone peer review. A "Journal Article" that is also designated a "Case Report", "Clinical Trial", or "Research Support" (NIH, non-governmental, etc.) is a peer reviewed primary source. Any PubMed citation that is marked as "Review" or "Meta-Analysis" is peer reviewed and secondary and likely to be WP:MEDRS compliant. Citations that are marked "Monograph" or "Textbook" are also secondary and often are excellent sources but may not have undergone external peer review and therefore may need to be treated a little more carefully. The use of a |pmid-publication-type= parameter would remove any possible disagreements about interpretation. Boghog (talk) 12:22, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
PPS: PubMed makes no distinction of peer review or original research – as stated above, PubMed is selective as to what journals it chooses to include and as a general rule, these need to be peer reviewed. Hence PubMed does not need to to designate individual "Journal Articles" as peer reviewed, this is a given. Furthermore PubMed does mark review articles, and these are by definition secondary. In addition, articles that are marked as "Case Report", "Clinical Trial", or "Research Support" are primary.
many primary sources (orignal research) contain a certain amount of review which is secondary in nature – these "mini reviews" that are in the introduction of original research articles are not generally regarded as reviews and they certainly are not WP:MEDRS compliant.
these interpretations are entirely your own – these are logical conclusions that follow directly from definitions provided by PubMed and WP:PSTS. It is not original research to state that a PubMed citation marked as "Review" is secondary. It is also not original research to state that a PubMed citation marked as a "Case Report", "Clinical Trial", or "Research Support" is primary. Boghog (talk) 20:16, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

To report the article type PubMed has assigned to an article is one thing. However, to "directly follow" a line of inference to a logical conclusion is "to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources" — to "join A and B together to imply a conclusion C" — is indeed your own interpretation, and constitutes WP:synthesis. Even worse, these "definitions provided by PubMed" don't seem to exist (the article types being descriptions, not definitions, and not at all mentioning peer review or original research).

And you just couldn't refrain from throwing out "peer reviewed" another dozen times, even though you have admitted (above, 04:41 23 Jan) that "[t]the issue is not peer review." Well, it seems to me you are the one that keeps kicking this dicussion around in circles. As you can't figure out which issue you want to discuss I'm done with this.~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:51, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The issue is whether we can use PubMed to distinguish between primary and secondary sources. As demonstrated by {{Reliable sources for medical articles}} template, we can. Also interpreting a PubMed citation that is marked "Review" as secondary is not original research, it is compiling facts and information and in particular "Reliable sources do not always use consistent terminology, and it is sometimes necessary to determine when two sources are calling the same thing by different names". The only reason I keep bringing up peer review is your insistence that PubMed descriptions do not at all mention peer review Again according to MEDLINE/PubMed Journal Selection, journals are selected for inclusion into PubMed based in large part on the "quality of editorial work" and "especially on the explicit process of external peer review". Boghog (talk) 06:45, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Try this little experiment: go to the PubMed "Publication Characteristics (Publication Types) - Scope Notes" page, then use your browser to search for "peer". Did you get any hits? Any mentions? I think not. (Or if you did: show us the text, from that page.) I insist on the point because it is a demonstrable truth,

What you have totally missed is that while PubMed's journal selection criteria imply that a selected journal has peer reviewed research, it by no means "defines" any article type as peer reviewed.

You have also mistated the use of the {{Reliable sources for medical articles}} template: it only provides "links to possibly useful sources of information". It does NOT "distinguish between primary and secondary sources", as you stated. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:21, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The criteria for indexing a journal by PubMed is that it should be peer reviewed. If the journal is peer reviewed, then all the regular articles (i.e., articles other than "letters to the editor", "editorials", and "news") within that journal are peer reviewed. Peer review does not need to be explicitly indicated on a per article basis. An article inherits this property from the journal it is published in. The disclaimer in the {{Reliable sources for medical articles}} template covers cases where a review article may be either inadequate or inappropriate. For example, the source may advocate a minority view that conflicts with the majority view as documented by other reliable secondary sources. In addition, the search query is based on the Wikipedia article name and because of alternative meanings may return false positive hits. The hits are still reviews, but may not be relevant to the subject matter of the Wikipedia article. Boghog (talk) 05:30, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Your conclusion ("... then all the regular articles ... within that journal are peer reviewed") is false, arising only from your own erroneous intepretations. But I weary of trying to explain this to you. For the record, I find your faulty understanding and invalid logic insufficient to support any proposal. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:30, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

One thing that is absolutely clear and there should be no controversy whatsoever is that if PubMed designates a citation as a "Review" or "Meta-Analysis", it is by definition secondary. This conclusion is not original research.

arising only from your own erroneous interpretations – You clearly do not understand how scientific publishing works. If a journal has a policy of peer review, it will apply that policy uniformly to all regular articles (i.e., articles that are not "Comments") published within that journal. No reputable journal would ever peer review some regular articles and not others. Furthermore it is relatively straight forward using PubMed's classification to distinguish those secondary articles within a journal that are subject to peer review (those marked as "Meta-Analysis" and "Review"). Other articles that are marked as "Case Report", "Clinical Trial", or "Research Support" are peer reviewed primary sources. Articles marked as "Comment" are not subject to peer review. Boghog (talk) 07:18, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Boghog: You so don't get the point. Even allowing that PubMed can be used to identify journals that are peer reviewed, NO WHERE does PubMed (nor, I think, NIH) identify any article type as peer reviewed. You derive that connection solely from your own understanding of "how scientific publishing works", and your expectation of which "regular" articles will be peer reviewed. No? Then tell me: in a peer reviewed journal, are the contents of a "Letters" section peer reviewed, or not? More importantly: how do you know that? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:56, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

By "Letters" I assume you mean "Letters to the editor". These are classified as opinions/commentary, relatively short, and may or may not be reviewed (see for example Science Magazine: How to Submit a Letter to the Editor). Because it is not known if they are peer reviewed, it is assumed that they are not. In contrast, if the journal does use peer review, short communications, full research articles, and review articles are without exception subject to peer review. The types of articles that are subject to peer review should be clearly defined in each journal's "Instruction to Authors" (see for example Science Magazine General Information for Authors). Boghog (talk) 00:39, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

You are right in one regard: you assumed that I meant "Letters to the editor". You overlooked that what would be consdered Reports in Science are called "Letters" in Nature (being considered a letter to the editor). That ambiguity is not resolved at PubMed. That we accept one "Letters" as peer reviewed, and the other as not, depends on information not provided in PubMed's article types. If anyone was so benighted to question whether the the one case is and the other not (a point I would consider rather "blue sky") it would, of course, be readily resolved by referring directly to the particular journal. PubMed's description (not definition!) of a given article type is not only not necessary, it is entirely not relevant on the point of peer review. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:39, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I think things are being over-thought here. We currently have |type= to indicate the type of a source, and if I was dealing a with "Review" or "Meta-Analysis" article in a journal, I'd just add |type=Review or |type=Meta-Analysis. All this discussion of peer-reviewed status is really not required to resolve this situation. At most, we may need an |article-type= parameter or discuss moving where in the order the output of |type= appears. Imzadi 1979 → 08:31, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree. Boghog (talk) 08:46, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, no: the |type= field has a clear definition, "additional information about the media type of the source", and we should keep that clarity. A |pubmed-type= field would avoid the original research problem, but it seems unjustifiable for Wikipedia to innovate in that way when no-one else does it. Kanguole 12:05, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

@Kanguole: type: Specifies the type of work cited. Appears in parentheses immediately after the title. Some templates use a default that can be overridden; example: {{cite press release}} will show (Press release) by default. Other useful values are Review, Systemic review, Meta-analysis or Original article. That's what Help:Citation Style 1 says for documentation on the parameter. As for the "immediately after the title", that's why I wonder if the output of |type= shouldn't be right after the title of a journal article. As for your comments about "additional information about the media type of the source", I think you're talking about what we use |format= for. Imzadi 1979 → 12:31, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

The default placement of the |type= in {{cite journal}} is after the journal name (see "Cite journal compare" example above), not the article title. The documentation is misleading and probably should be changed. |department= is placed after the article title. What we need is an |article-type= and/or |pubmed-type= alias for |department=. Wikipedia's places a unique emphasis on the importance of review articles that does not exist with other types of publications and therefore this innovation is justified. Boghog (talk) 13:34, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

In {{citation/core}} |department= becomes |TitleNote= and in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration becomes metaparameter TitleNote. |type= becomes |TitleType= and metaparameter TitleType. I think that this suggests that an alias for |department= aka TitleNote might be appropriate. Position of the metaparameters TitleNote and TitleType might also be addressed. Where do they belong in a rendered citation? Which comes first if both are present? What formatting should be applied to them?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:52, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

This reminds me of an issue with maps printed in atlases. Compare the following two situations for a moment:

"Michigan" (Map). The Road Atlas. Rand McNally. 2013.
Official Transportation Map (Map). Michigan Department of Transportation. 2014.

Each indicate that the ultimate source is a map, and through the lack of intervening punctuation, each joins that indication to an italicized title. However, the indicator that the source is a map comes after the title of the atlas, yet the atlas isn't the map, the component map is. Ideally, we'd have that first example output like:

Rand McNally (2013). "Michigan" (Map). The Road Atlas.

For a journal article that's a review, using |type= to indicate that gives us:

Author (February 2015). "Article". Important Journal (Review). {{cite journal}}: |author= has generic name (help)

but because the Important Journal isn't the review, we should get:

Author (February 2015). "Article" (Review). Important Journal.

If the department of the journal were indicated:

Author (February 2015). "Article" (Review). Department. Important Journal.

The documentation says that the type follows the title of the source, and in this case, the article within the journal is the title of the source being cited, not the title of the journal. Another reason I think these placements need refinement is that the type indication is joined to the title by the absence of a period to separate them. The Road Atlas (Map). and Important Journal (Review). parse as a single unit as if the content of the parentheses is modifying the title, yet in those cases, it should be modifying the title of the component of the encompassing work.

Boghog's alias idea seems appealing at first glace, but it fails in a consistency sense because |department= is not rendered with in parentheses, yet for maps, press releases, etc, the indicator of the type of the source is rendered that way. Also, it fails to allow an editor to specify the name of a department and the type indication. Imzadi 1979 → 14:25, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: I was quoting the documentation of {{citation}}. It's unfortunate that the two are inconsistent. Kanguole 16:34, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Separator and postscript values...

Quick question for anyone watching the page... has something happened to the way that the separator and postscript bits of the template are working? The appearance of the citations using the template on a number of pages has changed, probably quite recently, and I can't work out why! Hchc2009 (talk) 09:36, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes and no. |separator= has been replaced with |mode= which takes one of two values cs1 or cs2. For CS1 templates setting |mode=cs2 causes the citation to be rendered using CS2 style ({{citation}} is CS2). Similarly using {{citation}} with |mode=cs1 causes the citation to be rendered using CS1 style ({{cite web}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite book}}, etc are CS1). |mode= sets the default terminal puntcutation but may be overridden by |postscript=. See this discussion.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:50, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Trappist. Is there anyway to automatically update the articles effected, or does it need to be done by hand? Hchc2009 (talk) 11:53, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I have an AWB script that I'm working on that will troll Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters and update the effected templates.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:08, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

VMT! I wasn't looking forward to going through them...! Hchc2009 (talk) 12:25, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Using this new mode parameter seems to automatically include |ref=harv, which makes it useless for Further reading sections and isn't documented behaviour. Eric Corbett 22:14, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

How does it make it useless for §Further reading? Yeah, not yet documented, I'm working on that.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:21, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Because it flags up a big red error message warning that the cite isn't used. Of course it's not used; if it was, it wouldn't be in Further reading! Eric Corbett 22:31, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

From the User:Ucucha/HarvErrors script, right? |ref=none.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:54, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

That's right, yes. Eric Corbett 23:00, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Prior to this change a separator could be set to many different characters for example a semicolon, this functionality has now been removed. Why not keep it? For example if ref=harv is indeed turned on this may cause problems with short citations linking to the wrong article if there happens to be more than one source with the same author year combination which previously was not active because the ref=harv parameter was off by default.

As I have repeatedly stated there needs to be far border consultation before changes to parameters are introduced, including discussions about the side effects of such changes. -- PBS (talk) 23:14, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

|mode=cs2 causes a CS1 citation to act and render just like a CS2 {{citation}}. Because CS2 sets |ref=harv automatically, so too, does |mode=cs2. Conversely, {{citation |mode=cs1 ...}} automatically sets |ref=none (unless overridden by |ref=<something>) so that these render and act as CS1 templates.

If you know how to get the greater editing community to participate in our discussions, please put that knowledge to work.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:29, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Can you explain to me, Trappist the monk, why the output from

{{cite web |title=Council welcomes ITV plans to move Coronation Street to Trafford Wharf |url=http://www.trafford.gov.uk/news/press/details.asp?ID=2208 |publisher=Trafford Council |mode=cs2 |date=16 December 2010}}</ref>

is different from

{{citation |title=Council welcomes ITV plans to move Coronation Street to Trafford Wharf |url=http://www.trafford.gov.uk/news/press/details.asp?ID=2208 |publisher=Trafford Council |date=16 December 2010}}

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Eric Corbett (talk • contribs)

Because without some indicator to {{citation}} that |title= refers to a website (or journal or news article), {{citation}} assumes that the work named in |title= is a book and formats the citation accordingly. Rewriting the citations to use |website= instead of |publisher= gives these results:

{{cite web |title=Council welcomes ITV plans to move Coronation Street to Trafford Wharf |url=http://www.trafford.gov.uk/news/press/details.asp?ID=2208 |website=Trafford Council |mode=cs2 |date=16 December 2010}}

→"Council welcomes ITV plans to move Coronation Street to Trafford Wharf", Trafford Council, 16 December 2010

{{citation |title=Council welcomes ITV plans to move Coronation Street to Trafford Wharf |url=http://www.trafford.gov.uk/news/press/details.asp?ID=2208 |website=Trafford Council |date=16 December 2010}}

→"Council welcomes ITV plans to move Coronation Street to Trafford Wharf", Trafford Council, 16 December 2010

It has been ever thus.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:12, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It's not quite "been ever thus", e.g. previously you could use |contribution= without a title to get round this issue. This is one of the reasons for |mode=cs2 – there are some outputs now impossible to produce with the citation template using the same parameters as the correct "cite X" template. If you really want to use {{citation}} for a web citation, you need to include something to be italicized. This can be done in at least two ways, not only Trappist the monk's above. (I changed the example because the link is dead.)

{{citation |title=Coronation Street move approved by Trafford Council|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-12433377 |website=BBC News |date=11 February 2011}} produces "Coronation Street move approved by Trafford Council", BBC News, 11 February 2011
{{citation |contribution=Coronation Street move approved by Trafford Council|contribution-url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-12433377 |title=BBC News |date=11 February 2011}} produces "Coronation Street move approved by Trafford Council", BBC News, 11 February 2011

Peter coxhead (talk) 20:24, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, sort of ... Your first example produces both a correctly formed citation and properly formatted COinS metadata. The second looks right, but the metadata are flawed. Module:Citation/CS1 produces this from both citations:

&rft.atitle=Coronation+Street+move+approved+by+Trafford+Council

but this from your first example (the correct version):

&rft.jtitle=BBC+News

and this from the second (incorrect, it is referring to BBC News as a book title):

&rft.btitle=BBC+News

This occurs because there is nothing in the citation to tell {{citation}} that we aren't citing a book.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:45, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

~~Sigh, yes, sorry, I should have looked at the page source to see what the metadata was.~~ @Trappist the monk: Actually it's not quite so simple, since in &rft.jtitle=BBC+News, "jtitle" means "journal title" and this isn't what it is either. Why is it more wrong to treat BBC News as a book rather than as a journal? (The OpenURL standard only seems to provide for books and journal articles.) Peter coxhead (talk) 22:25, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Because what BBC News does is considered journalism? I have no better answer than that. The COinS code has remained relatively unchanged from its inception which predates my involvement. The code is not at all documented so the rationale for the choices made may be lost to time.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:24, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: "journal" doesn't have anything to do with journalism, here, rather &rft.jtitle is the title of a journal, like an academic journal, in which &rft.atitle is the title of an article. However, I do understand that you've only been trying to improve and error-check existing templates. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

That's exactly what I expected you to say Trappist, but it's the wrong answer. It's surely self-evident is it not that a citation that includes only a title and a url is a web citation? Eric Corbett 20:29, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure Trappist the monk can reply for himself, but I'd like to say that I once thought like you. However, what you say is only true if the citation is correctly done. Unfortunately articles are riddled with incorrect citations; the combination of just a book title + a Google url is not uncommon, perhaps because an editor has "corrected" a bare link of the form [URL TITLE]. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:39, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

How does that affect anything I've said? Shouldn't we be concentrating on citations that are correctly done? Eric Corbett 20:47, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm with Eric here. What we seem to be doing is creating more incorrect citations by rolling out changes like this. - Sitush (talk) 21:17, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not at all happy with some of the changes made recently, and at first I was equally unhappy about this issue. But when I thought about it more carefully I saw the problem. Consider this citation: {{citation |last=Last |first=First |title=Title |date=1999 |publisher=Publisher |url=http://www.archived.com/Title }}. What makes it a website rather than a digitized book? The problem is that if you insist that this is a website, e.g. because there's no publication place or ISBN, then many incomplete book citations will be incorrectly formatted. There's no way round the general point that {{citation}} requires extra information to determine the nature of the cited object. There's probably a case for saying that websites should be the default and not require extra information, like |website=, as they seem to be more common here, and that books should require differentiation, but I strongly suspect that making one of |publication-place=, |isbn=, etc. compulsory wouldn't be popular either. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:23, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

But all you've provided is a url; if it's to a digitized book, then cite the book. As I said, let's get this template working properly for properly cited citations rather than making excuses for incompetence. Eric Corbett 22:35, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Alas, I am not smart enough to write code that can intuit what an editor wants. Of course, were I that smart, I wouldn't be here doing this for such paltry (read zero) remuneration. Editor Peter coxhead is correct and I have nothing to add to his post.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:50, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Unlike you, I am. That's partly because I actually use these templates, and know how they're used. Eric Corbett 22:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Then I look forward to learning from you. The current code is at Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:24, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

That's not where the problem lies. Eric Corbett 00:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Then, where is the problem?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:03, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Am I expected to teach you everything? Eric Corbett 01:11, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

No, of course not. When I said that I wasn't smart enough to write code that can intuit what an editor wants, you replied: Unlike you, I am. So, teach me that; I'll be content to learn other stuff from other people.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:22, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Think about it. Why don't the two templates work identically, as it's claimed that they do? Eric Corbett 02:54, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that there is a claim that {{cite web}} and {{citation}} work identically. They didn't when they shared {{citation/core}}:

{{cite web/old |title=Title |url=//example.com}}

→"Title". //example.com.

{{citation/old |title=Title |url=//example.com}}

→ Title, //example.com

In the olden days, {{citation}}, without some sort of indicator parameter to tell it otherwise, assumed that |title= is a book title. In the present day that still holds true which brings us right back round the circle to your 2015-02-17T19:37UTC post. Why did the original creators of {{cite web}} and {{citation}} make the decisions they did? I don't know.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:02, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Trappist the monk please revert your changes until they stop breaking existing uses of the template. NE Ent 20:28, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Can you tell me which template is broken? Provide an example?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:39, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

You state here [9] you made change(s) which change how the template displays; I'm told pages liked [10] used to render correctly before the changes to {{citation}}. Regarding the prior discussion Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_7#Separator_parameters; first of all, a five to six editor discussion which changes how a template that affect 125,000 pages renders a page isn't sufficient justification for making such a change. NE Ent 02:23, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I did so state. The errors in MediaCityUK were not related to the change that I described in that statement. The errors in MediaCityUK are:

Missing or empty |title=

Accessdate requires |url=

Check date values in |accessdate=

|chapter= ignored

None of those are related to the separators change and not part of the separator parameters discussion.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:53, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Subscription or registration required

Why not produce something useful if the parameter subscription ({{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, etc) is given the value no?

Giving subscription|no has no effect. It should rather display something like (free access). It is a rule rather than an exception that subscription is required, at least for the references I use in math and physics articles. This rarely needs to be pointed out, while in the rare cases where papers are available, it should be made visible, preferably in a uniform way with support from the template. YohanN7 (talk) 23:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Some time back there was a proposal to add support for {{open access}}, but it just adds a linked icon and was deemed as non-obvious. -- Gadget850^talk 23:20, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Requiring a subscription is a potential hindrance to using the provided url; where there is no hindrance, there is no need to remark on the url and it would just be clutter. That said, I could see some utility to amending {{reflist}} or something similar so that it produced a standard footer pointing out that urls such as those pointing to GBooks may not work in the same manner for every reader - that point causes confusion even among editors. I could also maybe see a point in amending the of the subscription parameter output to say something like "subscription to source website required". - Sitush (talk) 04:22, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary, as I explained, in some areas it is clutter to remark that there is hindrance, while no hindrance is rare and remarkable. Let the editor be the judge of what is appropriate. YohanN7 (talk) 06:18, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

How can it be clutter to include information that is informative, which is what is achieved by the note about requiring a subscription to view. That something is openly available is really one of the founding principles of hyperlinks and should not need stating except where the principle fails. We will end up with a note at the end of every citation, saying either "subscription required" or "content freely accessible" - that seems like clutter to me. - Sitush (talk) 08:37, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

It is not a founding principle of hyperlinks that they will lead to anything publicly available. Academic journals aren't free. Therefore it isn't worth clicking the link because you'll just find an abstract and an offer to pay €35 for the pleasure to read the full article. This is the default for academic journal whose content are worth citing when it comes to math and physics. An article with, say 51 refs, 3 of which are publicly available shouldn't need to have "subscription required" on 48 entries. That is cluttering.

Let the editor decide when and what to flag. Sweeping statements about "founding principles of what hyperlinks are" don't matter much in practice. YohanN7 (talk) 12:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, you'll never see "subscription required" in math and physics articles (unless I put it there), even tough it is required. In other words, the de facto default is not what you envision about hyperlinks. YohanN7 (talk) 13:08, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

My opinion on the matter is that this is like the citation style in general, which is influenced by both personal preference of the first author to add references in earnest and the topic area the article resides in. As pointed out, there are topic areas where open access is rare, and others where open access is becoming common. For instance, in the physical and mathematical sciences, closed access is the norm, whereas in the biological sciences, open access is being pushed HARD by governments and institutions. In the realm outside of peer reviewed material, the VAST majority of our citations are cite-web type which point at basic internet pages. Of these, the majority of the locations which reside on the wild web are open access, whereas the majority of those which are news oriented (i.e. specific news publications) are closed access.

It is not necessary, though VERY helpful, for a source to be accessible to all editors and readers.

One of the sources of clutter is the variation in indicators of accessibility. For academic journal articles where the use of {{open access}} and {{closed access}} are common, the inline indicator is an image of a lock being either open or closed, with a color difference. However, for the other paywall-related indicators, the phrase, for instance, 'subscription required' is exposed as a superscript, which is pretty obtrusive. One solution here is to work on revision of the set of templates related to this topic to both a) increase their specificity and utility, and b) make their presentation more consistent and less obtrusive.

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:06, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I totally agree. The functionality of {{closed access}} and {{open access}} is what I'm after in particular, but not standalone and not using icons. (I have never seen them in math/physics articles.) I'd like to see both "yes" and "no" supported as arguments for "subscription" in {{citation}} etc. It seems very natural to have it, and trivial to implement. YohanN7 (talk) 15:09, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not adverse, but we need a good methodology. It needs to be obvious to readers and accessible to the visually impaired and in print (mono and color).

We have several related templates. What functionality do we need from these?

{{Closed access}} vs. {{Open access}} to display a symbol to indicate that a publication is or is not available under open access and is or is not behind a paywall
{{Free access}} and {{limited access}}
{{Link note}}
{{Subscription or libraries}} to add when a subscription may be required or content may be at a library
{{Password-protected}}
{{Registration required}} to flag an external link that requires free registration
{{Subscription or membership required}} to flag an external link that requires subscription or UK library membership
{{Subscription required}} to flag an external link that requires subscription
the access-level options of {{citation}}, e.g., "url-access"

I TfDed {{Login required}} as redundant and little used. -- Gadget850^talk 15:29, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

It occurs to me to wonder if, instead of a change to Module:Citation/CS1, editors couldn't, and perhaps shouldn't, segregate citations inside different {{refbegin}} / {{refend}} sets under separate headers; one set for restricted access and one set for free access. Something like this perhaps:

==References==
'''Restricted access references'''
References in this section require registration or subscription for access
{{refbegin}}
*<ref name="...">{{cite journal ...}}</ref>
*<ref name="...">{{cite journal ...}}</ref>
{{refend}}

'''Restricted access references'''
References in this section are free access
{{refbegin}}
*<ref name="...">{{cite journal ...}}</ref>
*<ref name="...">{{cite journal ...}}</ref>
{{refend}}

I think that something could be implemented for {{sfn}} and {{harv}} style short- and long-form referencing.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:32, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

No. This is far too internet-centric. References should be published things (like, in many cases, printed on actual paper) that one can find in libraries. Whether the courtesy link is free for all or requires you to access it from the library of a subscribing institution or not there at all or whatever is far too secondary to call out like this. Separating sources into primary and secondary makes sense, because it is about content. This does not. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't see a big problem with displaying "(subscription required)" after an entry, or with leaving it up to the editor's judgment when to set this parameter. I expect they will set it mainly in situations where the readers might expect open access. Thus, they won't set it in the physical sciences but might otherwise.

Where I do have a bit of a problem is the "Help" message. Currently we display a tooltip reading "Sources are not required to be online. Online sources do not have to be freely available. The site may require a paid subscription." It seems strange to say "may require" when the editor set it because it does require.

I also wonder, what's the purpose of the mini lecture on citing policy? Is this to deter editors who delete sources because they are offline or subscription, like a warning – keep your hands off this source, it has every right to be here? That is a problem, but to me this seems like scolding or nagging. I would rather trust editors to be familiar with the policies. And even if they aren't, I think this kind of thing would be better handled by recent change patrollers. If they see someone deleting a source for the wrong reasons, they could revert it and leave a message on the person's talk page. I guess what I'm saying is that I would prefer to have "(subscription required)" only, with no help and no tooltip. Simple is best. – Margin1522 (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that the tooltip was included not so much for the editor but for the reader who is not an editor. I think that the discussion around the tool tip (such as it was) is here.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:25, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

The tooltip annoys me too. I even think the reader feels a little intimidated, having the obvious explained to him (perhaps for the billionth time). I prefer as well to have "(subscription required)" only, and "(open access)" respectively. About wording, journals that support open access, call it just that, so "(open access)" can't be wrong if my suggestion becomes implemented. YohanN7 (talk) 21:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

mode

Currently |mode= can be set to cs1 or cs2 to change the style. Why did we not use |mode=vanc instead of |name-list-format=? -- Gadget850^talk 23:16, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Because Vancouver style, as I understand it and how it is implemented in {{vcite2 journal}} only applies to author and editor name lists. The style required the use of | |authorformat=vanc |author-separator=,, and |author-name-separator= . Vancouver style doesn't effect the element separator (old parameter |separator=) nor the terminal punctuation. If we had made |mode=vanc, we would have needed two of them: one each for CS1 and CS2 styles.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:15, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Why would we need CS1 and CS2? If we are going to support multiple styles, then we should do it in one parameter. -- Gadget850^talk 15:20, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Because we have two and have had two for a very long time? Because if we were to take one of them away, then the resulting storm of disapprobation would make the current furors over |mode= and small caps seem a gentle spring rain? I don't know that supporting clearly defined 'sub-styles' is necessarily a bad thing. It may be that |mode=vanc would be a better parameter if we choose to strictly support Vancouver style which would make |name-list-format=vanc obsolete.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:45, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

To reiterate, virtually no one uses a pure Vancouver style in Wikipedia. In contrast, because of the extensive use of Diberri's template filling tool, the CS1/Vancouver author 'sub-style' is widely used. Hence the |name-list-format=vanc parameter that supports a frequently used 'sub-style' makes far more sense than |mode=vanc to support a style that no one uses. Templates and their parameters should follow existing usage, not dictate usage. Boghog (talk) 20:40, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

OK, so:

Citation style	Parameter
Citation Style 1	`\|mode=cs1`
Citation Style 2	`\|mode=cs2`
Vancouverish	`\|authorformat=vanc`

-- Gadget850^talk 21:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

access date without url

Is there a consensus to have a bot automatically remove access dates from citations that do not have a URL, if (and only if) there is another link out such as HDL, PMC, PMID, JSTOR, or DOI. I suggest the link out requirement because otherwise it might be the url is missing because it was broken and someone just deleted it instead of pointing to an archive etc. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:31, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I forgot to mention the driving reason for this. It would greatly reduce the size of the size of Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL and thus focus humans on fixing real problems AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:37, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

The documentation for |access-date= says:

access-date: Full date when the contents pointed to by url was last verified to support the text in the article; do not wikilink; requires url; use the same format as other access and archive dates in the citations. Not required for linked documents that do not change. For example, access-date is not required for links to copies of published research papers accessed via DOI or a published book....

I read this to mean that if a citation has an HDL, PMC, PMID, JSTOR, or DOI value and no URL, removal of the access date is appropriate. I would support a bot request to remove such access dates.

We could also remove access dates from {{cite book}} templates, based on the instructions above. Do we have consensus for that change as well? – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Although the content of a work such as a scholarly journal or book isn't likely to change, working URLs can come and go. If someone is searching for a different URL to use to replace one that is dead, is there a benefit to knowing when the dead URL was last known to work? Jc3s5h (talk) 00:22, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

There is, yes, as one can then use one of the archiving services to find a copy of the page that's being cited. Eric Corbett 00:40, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Have we not had this conversation before? Perhaps a review of the archives is in order before proceeding?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:45, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

What I have seen was a discussion that blindly removing the accessdate was a bad idea, since it might point to a bigger problem with intermediate edits. That is why I suggested avoiding this objection by avoiding the ones with other links AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:29, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

What to do with Category:CS1 errors: invalid mode

I don't know what to make of Category:CS1 errors: invalid mode. The category page does not currently exist, but error messages are being displayed and articles are being placed in the category. The error message says "Invalid |name-list-format=scap", but the articles (e.g. Moctezuma I) do not use |name-list-format=.

The "help" link goes to Help:CS1 errors, but there is no subsection to describe the error message yet. There are about 400 articles in the category so far. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:56, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Fixed in the sandbox; Category:CS1 errors: invalid parameter value created.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Does this categorization include checking the value of |subscription= as well? – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:03, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

No, nor |registration=. These, which take any value, could be checked but for now we don't care what that value is (we haven't restricted the value to yes, true, y, whatever): |last-author-amp=, |no-pp=, nor |template-doc-demo=. There may be others that aren't checked that I haven't though about.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:20, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Volume number looks like series number

The following citation {{cite book|first=David|last=de Posada|editor-first=Alan|editor-last=West-Durán|title=Latino and Latina Writers|series=Scribner writers series|chapter=Edgardo Vega Yunqué (1936– )|year=2004|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons|volume=2|pages=1019–30}} sets as

de Posada, David (2004). "Edgardo Vega Yunqué (1936– )". In West-Durán, Alan (ed.). Latino and Latina Writers. Scribner writers series. Vol. 2. Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 1019–30.

The book in question, Latino and Latina Writers, comes in two volumes, and is part of the unnumbered series "Scribner writers series". However, the template sets it and the boldface volume number 2 looks more like #2 in the series. Can this be made more intuitive? Choor monster (talk) 13:44, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Per the documentation:

volume: For one publication published in several volumes. Displays after the title and series fields; volume numbers should be entered just as a numeral (e.g. 37). Volume values that are wholly digits, wholly uppercase Roman numerals, or fewer than five characters will appear in bold. Any alphanumeric value of five or more characters will not appear in bold. In rare cases, publications carry both an ongoing volume and a year-related value; if so, provide them both, for example |volume=IV / #10.

-- Gadget850^talk 14:10, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Another option not mentioned in the documentation, is to use |volume=vol. 2, which will drop the boldfacing because it's over 4 characters.

de Posada, David (2004). "Edgardo Vega Yunqué (1936– )". In West-Durán, Alan (ed.). Latino and Latina Writers. Scribner writers series. Vol. vol. 2. Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 1019–30. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)

This option also appears to generate a terminal period on the series name, where that punctuation is otherwise omitted. Your only other option is as Gadget suggests:

de Posada, David (2004). "Edgardo Vega Yunqué (1936– )". In West-Durán, Alan (ed.). Latino and Latina Writers, Volume 2. Scribner writers series. Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 1019–30.

Imzadi 1979 → 15:48, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much. There's also this fake:

de Posada, David (2004). "Edgardo Vega Yunqué (1936– )". In West-Durán, Alan (ed.). Latino and Latina Writers 2. Scribner writers series. Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 1019–30.

Choor monster (talk) 17:24, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Not recommended because that 'styling' breaks the COinS metadata. The book title becomes &rft.btitle=Latino+and+Latina+Writers+2 and &rft.volume= doesn't get populated as it should.

Editor Gadget850's suggestion from the documentation (Editor Imzadi1979's second example) suffers in the same way but at least the title identifies the book as the second volume whereas in your fake, it is unclear just what the '2' indicates.

Here we are with another question about why things are the way they are: Why is it that when volume follows series and volume is not bolded, why is series terminated with a period? Is it because the bold font is sufficient to distinguish one from another? Should volume really follow series or should it follow title? Should there be another parameter, perhaps |series-num= to identify the title's sequence in the series?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:44, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that volume and series mean different things for books and journals (real books and journals, not the second word in the template names). In journals, volumes are usually a year's worth of issues. Sometimes libraries will send a year's worth of journals to a book binder and have them bound into a physical volume, but it's really just an abstraction today, just as the Federal Bureau of Investigation cannot conduct all it's business from one bureau. In journals, a series indicates a group of volumes that follow the same numbering scheme. Occasionally a journal will decide to start the numbering over again, so it will be necessary to indicate in the citation that the volume belongs to the second series (or whatever the series number might be).

For books, the volume number is normally used when a book on a particular topic is so long that binding it in a single volume would make it fall apart, or would be too heavy to carry, so the book is divided into volumes. A series is one of several books, normally by the same publisher. For example, Integrated Electronics by Millman and Halkias is a single-volume book in McGraw-Hill's Electrical and Electronic Engineering Series. The series does not have a number, and the book does not have a volume number. If you want to properly treat volume and series, you will have to recognize they mean different things for books and journals, and install different logic depending on whether "cite book" or "cite journal" is being used. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:57, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Date position

Originally part of Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 7#cite map, I have made it a separate topic. —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:32, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I think we are likely to see many maps without an author. We still have the problem, which was agreed in an RFC long ago, that citations with an author put the date after the author but citations without an author put the date near the end of the citation. Since this problem is likely to occur often when citing maps, perhaps it would be better to finish work that we already have a consensus for before undertaking new work. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:46, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't see this as a necessary preliminary to the changes suggested for {{cite map}}. Are you sure that the outcome of the 'RfC' places dates near the end when the citation doesn't have author/editor text? I don't read that conclusion in your Summary of results.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:32, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't see this as an issue, as many of the roads editors who will be using the updated template will likely be repeating the name of the publisher as the author. Otherwise, they'll probably skip using the |cartography= parameter for a person or office and put that information into an author field. The reason I say this is that if you were to look for an atlas in the library, it's likely to be indexed by its publisher, so the Rand McNally atlas I've used as an example will be indexed under Rand McNally. The sheet maps printed by the Michigan State Highway Department/Michigan Department of Transportation are indexed in the catalog for the Library of Michigan under MSHD/MDOT. Imzadi 1979 → 16:52, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

The outcome wasn't to put the date near the end if there was no author, that is the current behavior of most CS1 templates (but apparently not cite maps). The outcome was no change if there are authors, editors, etc, but if there are none of these, put the title first followed by the date in parentheses. Three of the editors agreed exactly with this; I thought there should be a period at the end of the title, the other two thought no period was needed. On further reflection, I'd be fine with leaving off the period after the title, because that will make it easier to deal with titles that end with exclamation points or question marks. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:07, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

If the map is lacking its publisher, then you get a similar behavior:

Chief Noonday Recreational Trail (Map). Scale not given. Cartography by unknown. 1998.

Imzadi 1979 → 20:01, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Gold Book, IUPAC webpage citation style using `{{cite web}}`

Hi, I would like to know how to cite (using {{cite web}}?) a page from Gold Book web page, such as this. The web pages suggest the citation style at the bottom of the pages. I've tried to do this on Functional group page. I'm not sure if I've done it correctly. Also, the provided ISBN 0-9678550-9-8 does not return any book. Rishidigital1055 (talk) 18:08, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I always {{GoldBookRef}} to handle the technical details and centralize for any changes they or we might make to its boilerplate. DMacks (talk) 18:14, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Should that be converted to a wrapper rather than hardcoded itself? DMacks (talk) 18:15, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

url vs. website

I've noticed that a significant number of my trainees use |webite= instead of |url= when using the toolbar to compete a {{Cite web}} template. (Here's an example of me fixing such an occasion). Pages with this error are added to Category:Pages using web citations with no URL, bit could we display a visible warning in this specific case? Perhaps the toolbar could issue the warning, and refuse to "insert"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:33, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

RefToolbar is a separate project; discuss at Wikipedia:RefToolbar. -- Gadget850^talk 12:24, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

We could display the "missing url=" error message by default. This RFC resulted in the hiding of those error messages "until an appropriate bot fixes resolvable instances of the error", but after working with this category for a while, I don't see how a bot could fix those errors. Almost every instance I have seen requires human judgement to determine if a URL can be found, or if a URL has been placed in a different parameter, or if a different template is needed (e.g. cite book instead of cite web, or cite journal instead of cite web), or some other solution.

I looked at a random sample of about 30 articles in the category, and I did not see a pattern of parameters that a bot would be able to detect and modify with a low false-positive rate.

I propose that we display "missing url=" errors for articles that meet the criteria for inclusion in Category:Pages using web citations with no URL, since the conditions of the RFC have been met for that category. A group of us could also, either before or after displaying the error messages, embark upon an effort to reduce the number of articles in that category. I have found them to be pretty straightforward to fix. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:37, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

The criteria for inclusion in Category:Pages using web citations with no URL are:

the template is {{cite web}}, {{cite podcast}}, or {{cite mailing list}}

but:

none of |url=, |archive-url=, |conference-url=, and |transcript-url= are used

There is a note in the code wondering if |conference-url= should be part of this test because these templates are essentially all just web citations and shouldn't have anything to do with conferences. While it is a legitimate parameter, |transcript-url= is not currently rendered – we make an external link out of it and then do nothing with that link – also, it isn't clear that this parameter should be part of this test.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:10, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree that we should display "missing url=" errors as Jonesey95 proposes; but my experience relates to a specific subset of those, where |url= is missing, but |website= is set. I think a trainee seeing a "missing url=" error message would respond "but I have given a URL!", and we may need a more specific error message. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:02, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

In the Reftoolbar dialog, "Website" should be "Name of website". Perhaps "URL" should be "Web address". -- Gadget850^talk 22:11, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 28 February 2015

This edit request to Template:Cite news has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

On Template:Cite news (and possibly other citation templates), the documentation says (emphasis added)

display-editors: Controls the number of editor names that are displayed when a citation is published. To change the displayed number of editors, set display-editors to the desired number. For example, |display-editors=2 will display only the first two editors in a citation. By default, all editors are displayed except when there are four editors, then the editor list in the citation is truncated to three editors, followed by "et al." This exception mimics the older version of the template for compatibility. If a citation contains four editor names and one wishes all four editor names to display, "et al." may be suppressed by setting |display-editors=4. Aliases: displayeditors.

Surely that should read "more than three editors" and "all editor names" (or "the first four editor names"). Cf. higher on the page

If no authors: Editors appear before the included work; a single editor is followed by "ed."; multiple editors are followed by "eds."; more than three editors will be followed by "et al., eds."

So the paragraph should read (plus wikicode of course)

display-editors: Controls the number of editor names that are displayed when a citation is published. To change the displayed number of editors, set display-editors to the desired number. For example, |display-editors=2 will display only the first two editors in a citation. By default, all editors are displayed except when there are four or more editors; then the editor list in the citation is truncated to three editors, followed by "et al." This exception mimics the older version of the template for compatibility. If a citation contains more than three editor names and one wishes the first four editor names to display, "et al." may be suppressed by setting |display-editors=4. Aliases: displayeditors.

Thnidu (talk) 17:19, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Not done The documentation is not protected.

When there are exactly 4 editors listed, three are displayed followed by et al. To display all four of those editors, use |display-editors=4. When there are more than four editors, all editors are displayed unless constrained by |display-editors=.

{{cite book |title=Title |editor1=Editor1 |editor2=Editor2 |editor3=Editor3 |editor4=Editor4}}

Editor1; Editor2; Editor3; Editor4 (eds.). Title. {{cite book}}: |editor1= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link)

{{cite book |title=Title |editor1=Editor1 |editor2=Editor2 |editor3=Editor3 |editor4=Editor4 |display-editors=4}}

Editor1; Editor2; Editor3; Editor4 (eds.). Title. {{cite book}}: |editor1= has generic name (help); Invalid |display-editors=4 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link)

{{cite book |title=Title |editor1=Editor1 |editor2=Editor2 |editor3=Editor3 |editor4=Editor4 |editor5=Editor5}}

Editor1; Editor2; Editor3; Editor4; Editor5 (eds.). Title. {{cite book}}: |editor1= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link)

If the documentation does not match the reality illustrated above, you are free to correct it.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:33, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I believe that the documentation is correct. If we can clear up the roughly 1,000 articles in the error category, we can remove this compatibility mode and simplify the documentation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:35, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

want to use Cite_AV_media in de

Can somebody help me to make it possible to use [11] also in de:wp? Thank you, Conny (talk) 11:40, 2 March 2015 (UTC).

I took a look at the cite templates on the German Wikipedia— they do not use a core meta-template. You can use the December 2008 version of {{cite AV media}} before it was updated.[12] -- Gadget850^talk 12:03, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Maintenance category messaging

I have added code to Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox that adds a message to citations that, for whatever reason, put the page in a CS1 maintenance category:

{{cite journal/new |title=none |journal=Journal |date=2014 |year=2014}}

→Journal. 2014.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)

The message is hidden by default but if you have turned on all error messages (see Help:CS1 errors#Controlling error message display), these messages are visible. Currently, and for simplicity, the message is the maintenance category name without namespace.

I'm not sure about the color which is #33aa33. If there is a better color, what is it? See also web safe colors. Whatever color is ultimately chosen should not be similar to the standard error message color and should have relatively good contrast against the standard background color.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:08, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I support the general idea of this messaging, because as the code currently stands, it can be tricky to figure out which citation is causing the article to be included in the maintenance category.

I think the message should be used for clear-cut cases that have a straightforward resolution, like |language=English, but not for cases that do not have a clear way to remove the maintenance message, like |language=English and German. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:49, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Just because a page is in a maintenance category, it doesn't necessarily follow that something needs to be fixed Category:CS1 maint: Untitled periodical might be such a category – though I wonder if support for that was a proper decision. Part of the purpose of maintenance categories is to be an indicator for what else needs to be done in the module; multiple language support is one of those things, another is what to do about templates that use both |date= and |year= where the year values don't match.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:33, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Re "Just because a page is in a maintenance category, it doesn't necessarily follow that something needs to be fixed". But an explicit message strongly implies that something needs to be fixed, so we will at least need guidance for editors who have the hidden messages enabled. Perhaps a "help" link after the message, leading to a new Help:CS1 maintenance messages page modeled on the Help:CS1 errors page. I am willing to set up such a page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:08, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I've added links to the category pages where there is text to describe what purpose the category serves.

Title. ASIN 1935071874. {{cite book}}: Check |asin= value (help)

Title. 2005.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Author. Title. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Invalid |display-authors=1 (help)

Author; et al. Title. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |author2= (help)

Title. – no message here because this condition only renders messages in article space

Title (in Gernan).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

Journal.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:55, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

That works for me. I have added a note to the language category page about multiple languages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:55, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Adding translator to citation?

I've encountered a case where I need to add the translator's name to a citation. Since this property is critical when it comes to literature & history -- there are a lot of different translations of various works -- being able to indicate this property is important. So am I not reading the documentation correctly, or is this something that needs to be added to the template? -- llywrch (talk) 21:55, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

others: To record other contributors to the work, such as Illustrated by John Smith or Translated by John Smith. -- Gadget850^talk 22:25, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The documentation snippet above appears at Template:Cite book#Authors and in the documentation for other CS1 templates as well. To use it, type |others=Translated by John Smith within the citation template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:34, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

c. 75

The date format "c. 75" is in accordance with the documentation. Why then does it put out an error on Jewish_Messiah_claimants#cite_note-JW_Book_VII-14? Debresser (talk) 07:12, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

It looks like any year less than 100 triggers the error. Aside: If the linked article is correct, you can't have read this version to use it as a reference. -- Gadget850^talk 11:55, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Can (should) this be fixed? Debresser (talk) 18:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

date and year in the same citation

We have a maintenance category, Category:CS1 maint: Date and year that collects page with citations that use both |date= and |year=. When the year-value in |date= matches the value in |year=, both are not required. The exception is when |date=YYYY-MM-DD and |year=YYYYa (disambiguating |year= for {{sfn}} and {{harv}} references to multiple works by an author in the same year).

Currently the category is filled by detecting the presence of |date= and |year= without regard to content. I have tweaked the date validation code to detect differences between the year values in |date= and |year= (formatting is not considered in this test). In the sandbox version, when |year= and |date= have the same year values:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=January 2015 |year=2015}}

→Title. January 2015.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

but if different:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=January 2015 |year=2014}}

→Title. January 2015. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

With date ranges in |date=, one of the two years must match the value in |year=:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=December 2014 – January 2015 |year=2014}}

→Title. December 2014 – January 2015.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=December 2014 – January 2015 |year=2015}}

→Title. December 2014 – January 2015.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=December 2014 – January 2015 |year=2013}}

→Title. December 2014 – January 2015. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

The code doesn't yet do a special test for disambiguated |year=YYYYa when |date=YYYY-MM-DD (not an error and shouldn't be in Category:CS1 maint: Date and year) nor does it properly handle the case when |date=YYYY–YY.

Why do this? Category:CS1 maint: Date and year should only contain pages where |date= and |year= have the same year values; the duplication is benign.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:16, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Now tests for disambiguated |year=YYYYa when |date=YYYY-MM-DD:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=2015-01-01 |year=2014}}

→Title. 2015-01-01. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=2015-01-01 |year=2015}}

→Title. 2015-01-01.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=2015-01-01 |year=2015a}}

→Title. 2015-01-01.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:46, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Please explain difference in behavior; the first case produces no green message but the second case does. The difference is the format of the date.

No message:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=2015-01-01 |year=2015a}}

→Title. 2015-01-01.

Green message:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=January 1, 2015 |year=2015a}}

→Title. January 1, 2015.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Jc3s5h (talk) 18:23, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Because this:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=January 1, 2015 |year=2015a |ref=harv}}

→Title. January 1, 2015. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)

is equivalent to this:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=January 1, 2015a |ref=harv}}

→Title. January 1, 2015a. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

The CITEREF anchor for both of them is:

CITEREF2015a

The date checking code will fail a disambiguated date in the form |date=YYYYa-MM-DD so for citations with a year initial numeric date, |year= is required to handle disambiguation.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

And for dates in the form |date=YYYY–YY and |date=<month/season> YYYY–YY:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=Winter 2015–16 |year=2015}}

→Title. Winter 2015–16.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=2015–16 |year=2016}}

→Title. 2015–16.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |date=Winter 2015–16 |year=2014}}

→Title. Winter 2015–16. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:56, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Multiple languages

Where a source is in multiple languages, use of |language=Foo and Bar causes an "unrecognized language" error. How do we get around this? Mjroots (talk) 09:18, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not seeing an error: Title (in Foo and Bar).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link). Where do you see this? -- Gadget850^talk 11:46, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Not an error. When the content of |language= isn't in a form recognized as a language by Mediawiki, the page is placed in a maintenance category. At the next update, those who have enabled display of all CS1 error messages will see the CS1 maintenance message:

Title (in Foo and Bar).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

Support for multiple languages is one of those tasks still to be done. The maintenance category gives us some idea of how editors are using the parameter.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:09, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I see the message in your example, but not in current uses. I think the OP is referring to List of shipwrecks in December 1939, reference #30. I see the hidden category but not the CS1 maint: Unrecognized language message. Mjroots does not have any custom CSS, so he should not be seeing any CS1 messages. -- Gadget850^talk 12:56, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Next update to Module:Citation/CS1. The green message above comes from the sandbox version ({{cite book/new}}).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:01, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

trappist the monk - Maybe I don't have custom CSS, but I do have hidden cats enabled via my preferences. That's how I knew the error was caused. Mjroots (talk) 19:36, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

You were perhaps answering Editor Gadget850?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:49, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The situation the original poster describes is not an error. Category:CS1 maint: Unrecognized language page has explanatory text. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:34, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Error data - accessdate without URL

Over the past couple of years, there have been many discussions about the 47,000+ errors in Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL. Probably not as exhaustive list - [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Discussion has often gone in circles, but to condense it as much as possible (as I see it, at least), the errors aren't being fixed because it might be possible to use them to find URLs which once were present but have since been deleted, and the error messages are hidden by default until it's been decided how (or if) to get a bot to deal with them.

When I have come across these errors, I have simply deleted them because I thought that trying to use the accessdate to find a formerly present URL was an edge case that wouldn't be successful often enough to be worth the effort, but without actual data that's just another opinion. So, I compiled the data.

I used a pseudo-random method to select articles in the error category and went back through the revision history to find the edit containing the origin of the citation causing the error. Often, an individual editor wrote multiple citations that caused errors for the same reason - in these cases, they were counted as a single error. When errors on the page originated from multiple editors, those errors were counted once for each editor. I corrected 500 errors and tallied the results.

Of the 500 citations containing an accessdate without URL error, 445 of them had never contained a URL.
Of the 55 citations that do / did contain a URL, 28 of them were malformed in the current article version and had the URL someplace where it shouldn't be (1x in issue=, 2x in publisher=, 2x in title=, 11x in website=, 2x in work=, 1x commented out due to the URL being on a Wikipedia blacklist, 3x the template was missing a vertical bar or some other syntax problem, 6x the URL was in a second citation somewhere else in the article).
The 27 remaining citations formerly had a URL with correct syntax in the original edit of the citation. 16 of them were not restored by me, mostly because the URL had been removed by an editor for a valid reason (10x the URL had originally pointed to a DOI / PMID / JSTOR / etc page and had been replaced by parameter usage, 2x the URL pointed to a copyright violation, 2x the URL pointed to a commercial page (Amazon.com link)). 2 of the unrestored URLs were dead and unrecoverable with the Wayback Machine but I was able to find another source for the info so I put those URLs in the citations instead.
That leaves 11 citations for which I did restore URLs. 3 of the restored URLs were still live and could have been found with a simple Google search without looking for a URL in the original edit. 2 of the restored URLs were now dead links which could not be found via the Wayback Machine, nor could I find the exact same info through a currently live URL - I restored those dead URLs anyway and tagged them with a dead link template (might as well, maybe some other editor can do something with them that I couldn't). The remaining 6 URLs were all currently dead and were restored via the Wayback Machine. Of those 6, I was also able to find the exact same source in a currently live page for 3 of them (for example, Associated Press articles that are still live on other newspaper websites).

In other words, I searched through 500 errors and I was able to repair 3 citations that I couldn't have otherwise fixed without knowing the accessdate. Not very profitable. That made me wonder how successful I would have been if I had just ignored the original citation and done a Google search instead based on the title, author or other info present in the citation. I started another batch of 500 articles containing errors.

I didn't finish them, though - the trend was clear enough that I stopped after 250 articles, so you can double the numbers to scale them up. After using Google to search for URLs which could be put into the citations which had accessdate without URL errors, I found 63 correct matches out of 250 with the URL containing the full article content being cited (not merely abstracts, no limited book previews, etc). Another 14 matches were found that I didn't add to the citations, as I thought those hits would have caused copyright problems (newspaper articles that had been cut & pasted into blogs, academic journal articles found on students' personal pages, scanned copies of computer gaming magazines, etc).

So, I'm going to continue deleting the accessdate parameters that are causing the errors. Trying to use them to find the correct URL for a citation is a real waste of time compared to simply doing a Google search, which gave me a success rate more than 40 times higher. Stamptrader (talk) 16:43, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Code rearranged in Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox

Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox has grown to be a file in excess of 100k bytes. Of course a lot of that is non-executable documentation. Today I spent some time reorganizing the code. The purpose is to prepare it so that chunks of it may be split-out into separate modules. For example, it seems that all of the special identifier code (arXiv, ISBN, ISSN, PMC, etc) can be placed in its own module; common utility functions that were used repeatedly can go into their own module, and the like).

As part of the reorganization, I have change almost all functions to be declared as local which limits their visibility (scope) to the module in which they reside and effects whether other functions can see them. In order for a function, local function b() for example, to call local function a(), it is necessary for local function a() to precede local function b() in the module. I think that I have got all of this kind of organization noodled out but it is certainly possible that I haven't.

Another thing that I changed was function names. Before today, there were at least three separate naming 'styles', allruntogether(), camelCase(), and underscore_separated(). I have changed all function names to this latter. I think that I've got these all squared away, too, but of course I could be wrong.

So, when we update the module next time, it is distinctly possible that certain citations will Script error or Lua error fail because I didn't catch all of them.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:31, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

You still don't have a library of test cases of citations that you can use to find regressions and bugs? You just program and hope? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:47, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Italian identifiers

A bit off-topic, this; but people posting here seem to know about this kind of stuff, so here goes.

If I google for donne "fotografie degli anni sessanta" "berengo gardin", one of the hits is this, a potentially useful bibliographical record with a grotesquely long URL within sbn.it. The page tells me "Ricerca: BID = IT\ICCU\CFIV\016866" and "Codice identificativo IT\ICCU\CFI\0039704". Anyone know how one might use either the "BID" or the codice identificativo to go either to this page or to any other useful page? (Incidentally, neither BID nor it:BID says anything about this.) -- Hoary (talk) 14:26, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Something that CS1 doesn't do very well is cite database records. Here we have a database: Online Public Access Catalog Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale OPAC SBN. The data record doesn't have a title so how do we cite that? We could use {{cite report}}:

Donne : fotografie degli anni Sessanta. OPAC SBN (Database record) (in Italian). Retrieved 2015-03-10.

Here I just took the title from the database record but perhaps there is a more appropriate title.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:36, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, O monk. I regret that I wrote my message when my head wasn't entirely clear. (Not only was I sleepy, I had downed a Chimay, so the Trappists are partly to blame.) Your response answers questions I hadn't thought of asking, and looks useful: thank you; I'll make a mental note of it. ¶ My question was template-irrelevant. (Well, perhaps relevant to a template in the distant future.) Rather, it was about this database info, and I asked it here because this was the only talk page I could think of that I knew was patrolled by people familiar with this kind of thing. Anyway, yes, the url http://www.sbn.it/opacsbn/opaclib?db=solr_iccu&nentries=1&resultForward=opac%2Ficcu%2Ffull.jsp&searchForm=opac%2Ficcu%2Ferror.jsp&do_cmd=search_show_cmd&saveparams=false&rpnlabel=+BID+%3D+IT%5CICCU%5CCFIV%5C016866+&rpnquery=%2540attrset%2Bbib-1%2B%2B%2540attr%2B1%253D5032%2B%2540attr%2B4%253D2%2B%2522IT%255C%255CICCU%255C%255CCFIV%255C%255C016866%2522&&fname=none&from=5 takes us where we want to go, but it's grotesquely long and it includes parts that look to me as if they may not apply to different browsers, and it tells us of a "BID" identifier and an (unnamed) codice identificativo (identifying code) that look to me as if they're designed to be used somewhere (rather as one can use an ISBN to get info from websites such as Worldcat). But which website can either be used at, and how?

The reason why I'm asking this is related to my earlier question (currently still on this page, but a long way above) about (Japanese) CiNii: this website sbn.it has bibliographic records for a lot of books that have somehow escaped the attention of Worldcat. Can en:WP articles present these records usefully (in a way that's unlikely to bring obsolescence, and preferably is compact)? I hope so; but even if this is possible, I don't suppose there'd be much demand for their use. And until/unless there were much demand, I wouldn't push for more additions to Template:Cite book and its documentation. -- Hoary (talk) 00:29, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

origyear -> origdate?

Should "origyear" be changed to "origdate"? I think it would make the current usage of cite templates more consistent. Jason Quinn (talk) 19:49, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. It has always seemed odd to me that "origyear" can take values other than years. We could leave "origyear" as an alias, of course, but "orig-date" makes a lot more sense semantically. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:45, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

coauthors

To avoid duplication of a thread, please see Wikipedia talk:Template messages/Sources of articles/Citation quick reference#coauthors. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:10, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Done.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:26, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Which url to link with podcast cites?

In the podcast template, should I use the url that links to the mp3 (e.g. [23]) or the mp3 link (e.g. [24]) itself? Thanks! - Location (talk) 01:09, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Treatment of a literal "et al." in an author parameter

[Formerly titled: "|author=Alpha Beta, et al. -> |author=Alpha Beta|author2=et al.". Re-titled to remove templates. J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:23, 28 February 2015 (UTC)]

I searched the archive, and the only treatment (implied, at best) of this scenario I found was here, placing et al. in the (deprecated) |coauthors=et al. parameter. My gut says to do |author=Alpha Beta|author2=et al., so that a subsequent |author-link= will be properly displayed, and/or that someone will come along and enumerate the literal et al., but I wanted to check with you guys first. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf) 21:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that the use of |authorn=et al. should be discouraged because et al. is not an author's name and because, Module:Citation/CS1 not being very smart, the non-author et al. gets added to the COinS metadata as if it were an author's name. I have seen cases where other author names have been added after |authorn=et al. which makes no sense. Better, I think, would be to create some sort of parameter that might be used to explicitly add et al. to the author list when there are one or more authors identified: perhaps |et-al=yes or some such. The parameter would display all of the identified authors so its functionality would be distinctly different from |display-authors=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:33, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Which do you think has a more likely chance of happening, Module:Citation/CS1 properly removing/never-instating non-author et al. COinS metadata, or |et-al=yes being created? ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf) 17:22, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

There is a feature request for us to do something about et al. in the author list but just what that something is, remains undecided. I choose to not speculate on which of the two things you mentioned is more likely. It could be one, the other, both, neither, perhaps something completely different?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:23, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

In the meantime, would it be more useful to have |author=Alpha Beta|author2=et al. in the metadata, if and only if 1 author is explicitly named in the original |author= parameter, or for both to be contained in |author=Alpha Beta et al., identical to the n>2 case? ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf) 23:02, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

When et al. is in its own |authorn= parameter, then the author metadata looks like this:

&rft.au=Author&rft.au=et+al.&rft.aulast=Author

When it's combined, essentially two or more authors in a single |author= parameter, then the metadata looks like this:

&rft.au=Author+et+al.&rft.aulast=Author+et+al.

To me, this second 'style' corrupts both &rft.au and &rft.aulast so the lesser of two evils is et al. in its own parameter.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:45, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I am going to reiterate what Trappist said: use of |authorn=et al. should be discouraged. I will also expand: |author[n]= is for institutional or other "authors" whose names do not parse into first/last. Most authors have a definite last name - more precisely, a surname - which is the primary term for identification and sorting. This should be put into |last=, with the rest of the author's name in |first=.

I think it would make more sense if citation template builders made templates that were flexible, intuitive and open to the different ways that editors actually use them, instead of make templates strict and fixed to a number of arbitrary rules and subjective preferences. First of all you cannot expect editors to know the rules you invent or to read the documentation for the templates, and second you dont have any authority to limit or discourage particular ways of formatting references. Using "et al." in the author field is useful (sometimes it is hard and inconvenient to find all the different authornames or fit them in) and it is an intuitive solution for most basic users. It is a usage that is not likely to disappear. It would make more sense to make a template that could accommodate it than to create a rule discouraging i.t·maunus · snunɐɯ· 22:35, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I think most of us would consider "first-name" and "last-name", and even the shortening to "first" and "last", pretty intuitive. Your "arbitrary rules and subjective preferences" presumably refers to standard bibliographical conventions as established by noted authorities (such as The Chicago Manual of Style), and hardly my "invention". Explicitly adding "et al." in a parameter is a misuse of a tool, and breaks the metadata, as Trappist explained above. As for any kind of template that would be flexible enough to accomodates every kind of misuse and misunderstanding: that would require some kind of mind-reading, with a dash of omniscience. I don't think our current technology is there yet. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:04, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Utter nonsense. First of all it is not misuse. Hardly anyone cares about the meta data. What readers and editors care about is the immediate visual output. It is misuse of the template function to build them so that it makes it harder for editors and readers to edit. Secondly you dont need to be mind readers you just need to pay attention to what people actually do instead of trying to establish rules for what you think they should do. My "arbitrary preferences" refer to the arbitrary choices that template editors think they have the right to make on the behalf of content editors which make some reference styles possible and others impossible - instead of accommodating the styles that editors actually use - including adding "et al" as a parameter.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 23:14, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Hey, if you don't like the templates that have been supplied, why don't you write your own? Let's see you develop a free-form template with absolutely no "rules" that always turns out absolutely correct and perfectly formated citations no matter how incompetent the input. I say you're a fool if you think you can do it (but feel free to demonstrate otherwise). And a jerk if you expect that others should. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:27, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The only people who care about metadata are the people who use it. That is sufficient reason to not dismiss it out of hand.

I have tweaked Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox so that it detects a variety of forms of 'et al'; italicized or not, with or without a leading comma, with or without a terminal period. When any of the various forms are detected, they are stripped from that parameter before it is included in the metadata and a flag is set. The flag tells follow-on processes to include the static form of 'et al.' (same way that |display-authors= does). The code also handles the case when el al. is used in an editor name list. Et al. is presumed to be the last item in a parameter.

{{cite book/new |title=Title |author=Author, ''et al.''}}

→Author; et al. Title. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)

metadata:

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-000001BB-QINU`"'<cite id="CITEREFAuthor" class="citation book cs1">Author; et&nbsp;al. ''Title''.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Title&rft.au=Author&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AHelp+talk%3ACitation+Style+1%2FArchive+7" class="Z3988"></span> <span class="cs1-visible-error citation-comment"><code class="cs1-code">{{[[Template:cite book|cite book]]}}</code>: </span><span class="cs1-visible-error citation-comment"><code class="cs1-code">&#124;author=</code> has generic name ([[Help:CS1 errors#generic_name|help]])</span>; <span class="cs1-visible-error citation-comment">Explicit use of et al. in: <code class="cs1-code">&#124;author=</code> ([[Help:CS1 errors#explicit_et_al|help]])</span>

other variations:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |last=Last |first=First, ''et al.''}}

→Last, First; et al. Title. {{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |first= (help)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |last=Last |first=First |last2=''Et Al.''}}

→Last, First; et al. Title. {{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last2= (help)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |editor-last=Last |editor-first=First |editor-last2=''et al.''}}

→Last, First; et al. (eds.). Title. {{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |editor-last2= (help)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |author=Akhmet al-Hassan}} – should not find the et al in this (contrived) author name

→Akhmet al-Hassan. Title.

I'm inclined to make these conditions emit error messages and have a couple of additional parameters, perhaps |more-authors= and |more-editors=, which if set to yes or true would add the static 'et al.' text to the rendered citation; the parameters could be categorized so that those editors with the inclination, or a bot, could fill in the rest of the authors/editors.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:20, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for being forthcoming in this, the problem with a special parameter to do it, is that the people who are likely to add "et al." the wrong place are also the most unlikely to be familiar with those specific parameters.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:57, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Why don't we put these in a tracking category for now and see what we have? Then we can decide how to go forward. insource:/=et al./ gets 4,026 hits but there are probably more variants. -- Gadget850^talk 19:06, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I also support a maintenance category. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:45, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, Category:CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:56, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I generally favor this. But I confess I have used explicit 'et al.' (mainly in the GW articles). I guess it's time to find a better way. I hope it doesn't hurt too much. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:38, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Update to the live CS1 module weekend of 21–22 March 2015

On the weekend of 21–22 March I propose to update the live CS1 module files from the sandbox counterparts:

Changes to Module:Citation/CS1 are:

long-term bug fix in reduce_to_initials(); discussion
Vancouver style author/editor name error checking; discussion
add |script-title language codes bg and ka for proper categorization;
migrate cite map from {{citation/core}}; discussion
strip 'et al.' from author/editor lists; discussion
add maintenance category messaging; discussion
fix bug in accessdate nowrap; discussion
refined simultaneous date/year checking; discussion
reorganized and limited function scoping; discussion

Changes to Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration are:

fix invalid parameter value error categorization; discussion
Vancouver style author/editor name error checking; discussion
add |map=, |mapurl=, |map-url= |map-format=; Section annotation; discussion

Changes to Module:Citation/CS1/Whitelist are:

add |map=, |mapurl=, |map-url= |map-format=, |sections=; discussion

Changes to Module:Citation/CS1/Date validation are:

refine simultaneous date/year checking; discussion
reorganize and limit function scoping; discussion

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:58, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

The 155 articles that use |publisher-link= in {{cite map}} (see Category:Pages using cite map with publisher-link) should be cleaned up before the transition. Does someone have an AWB script that can make quick work of the category? If not, I'll go through it manually. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:55, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Such a task needs to compare the content of |publisher= with the content of |publisher-link=. If they are the same, then the fix is to wrap the content of publisher with wikilink markup:

if |publisher=Publisher Name == |publisher-link=Publisher Name then

|publisher=[[Publisher Name]]

else

|publisher=[[Publisher link|Publisher Name]]

I should be able to hack an AWB task to do this.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:32, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

It looks like more than half of them are Louisiana or Michigan maps that have similar or identical publisher/publisher-link pairs. If I have time in the next day or two, I will go after those with some explicit text matching in AutoEd. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:58, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, that was quick. Nice work, gnomes. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:09, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

months auto translate on cy-wiki

I've copied these over to Welsh language WP, and used two in the cy:w:Modur trydan (electric motor article). Gan I set it up so that when we copy citations from en and paste into Welsh Wikipedia, it automatically translates to the Welsh names of months? ie the third citation on the Modur trydan page cites '12 February 2013' which should be 12 Chwefror 2013. Diolch, thanks! Llywelyn2000 (talk) 17:12, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if it actually works, but a template like {{Cytuj stronę}} might give you a hint about how to do this. You could also look at User:BattyBot/CS1_errors-dates for bot code that finds invalid dates and cleans them up, including translating foreign-language month names. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:11, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

What other wikis have done is to modify get_month_number() so that it lists month names in both English and their language:

local long_months = {['January']=1, ['February']=2, ['March']=3, ['April']=4, ['May']=5, ['June']=6, ['July']=7, ['August']=8, ['September']=9, ['October']=10, ['November']=11, ['December']=12};

local short_months = {['Jan']=1, ['Feb']=2, ['Mar']=3, ['Apr']=4, ['May']=5, ['Jun']=6, ['Jul']=7, ['Aug']=8, ['Sep']=9, ['Oct']=10, ['Nov']=11, ['Dec']=12};

local welsh_long_months = {['Ionawr']=1, ['Chwefror']=2, ['Mawrth']=3, ['Ebrill']=4, ['Mai']=5, ['Mehefin']=6, ['Gorffennaf']=7, ['Awst']=8, ['Medi']=9, ['Hydref']=10, ['Tachwedd']=11, ['Rhagfyr']=12};

– these month names not checked for correctness

and then they would add these lines before return 0;

temp=welsh_long_months[month];

if temp then return temp; end -- if month is the Welsh long-form name

Do the same for short month names if desired.

The above is done so that you can use the module and the CS1/2 citations with the local language months. It is on my longer-term todo list to somehow split out anything that can be localized.

As for auto-translation, there is mw.language:formatDate () that may or may not be useful – documentation is pretty sparse. You might experiment with that.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:20, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks all. Still hitting my head against that wall! Into which template does the above code go? Llywelyn2000 (talk) 09:25, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

It goes in cy:Modiwl:Citation/CS1/Date validation.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:17, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

"ed." and "eds." option

Would an editor with coding skills be able to add a parameter allowing for the display of "ed." and/or "eds." when the "editor=" field(s) are used? My concern is that the following two citations are significantly different:

Doe, John (2015). A History Book. Anywhere: Book Publishing. ISBN 123-456-789-0 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum
Doe, John, ed. (2015). A History Book. Anywhere: Book Publishing. ISBN 123-456-789-0 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum

However, when using {{cite book}}, the two will appear identically on the page if the standard parameters "first=" and "editor-first", etc., are used. I've taken to adding "ed."/"eds." in the "editor-first" parameter, but I'm sure this is messing up the COinS data. If this option doesn't currently exist, could a coder create it, please? Many thanks. White Whirlwind 咨 16:26, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

@White whirlwind: The template already does what you want, when you use the appropriate parameters.

Using |first= and |last=:

Doe, John (2015). A History Book. Anywhere: Book Publishing.

Using |editor-first= and |editor-last=:

Doe, John, ed. (2015). A History Book. Anywhere: Book Publishing.

Using |editor1-first= |editor1-last= |editor2-first= and |editor2-last=:

Doe, John; Roe, Richard, eds. (2015). A History Book. Anywhere: Book Publishing.

|first=/|last= are for an author, while |editor-first=/|editor-last= are for an editor, complete with the "ed.". As you can see, if you specify multiple editors, it automatically switches to "eds.". Imzadi 1979 → 16:57, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

@Imzadi1979: Thanks for your speedy reply! I'm glad to know this already exists! I have one further question: is it by design that the "ed."/"eds." do not display when a chapter in an edited book is cited? For example:

Knechtges, David; Chang, Taiping, eds. (2010). Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, Part One. Leiden: Brill.

but,

Knechtges, David R. (2010). "Ban Gu 班固". In Knechtges, David; Chang, Taiping (eds.). Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, Part One. Leiden: Brill. pp. 6–16.

I know it's obvious that the second two are editors from the context, but it would be nice stylistically to have the consistent inclusion of "ed."/"eds." as an option. White Whirlwind 咨 17:27, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

The 'In <Editor> ...' formatting was introduced with the transition from {{citation/core}} to Module:Citation/CS1. Clearly it was done intentionally and is briefly mentioned at Module talk:Citation/CS1/Archive 3#Multi-phase transition to Lua cites. I didn't find the discussions that led to that decision; they may be in the archives of the individual template talk pages.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:11, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

One other short discussion here (December 2012). Note that Talk page archives that use {{cite journal}} and other templates will render the citation as the template currently renders it, so examples given by editors may not match the description given in the editor's explanation or request.

The APA does it the way we do for chapters within books, but with "(Ed.)" after the editor's name. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:29, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I have no problem with the "In <editor(s)>" form, in fact I kind of like it. I just wish that for stylistic consistency it was possible to include "ed." without breaking COinS data. White Whirlwind 咨 22:39, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I think we should add ", ed." and ", eds." as appropriate in that case, but that will require some discussion.

In one situation, we will need a way to add the name of an author of a contribution in a book that wasn't edited; in other words, how to cite the forward or introduction to a book. Because of the ambiguity caused by dropping "ed." or "eds.", some of us have been able to exploit that with something like:

Phipps, Makena Elizabeth (2004). "Forward". In Phipps, Terry W. (ed.). Seasons of Sleeping Bear. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. p. 5. ISBN 0-472-11445-X.

I suppose that we could switch that to:

Phipps, Terry W. (2004). Seasons of Sleeping Bear. Forward by Makena Elizabether Phipps. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. p. 5. ISBN 0-472-11445-X.

but that doesn't make it clear that the text being cited on p. 5 is from the Forward. In several citation styles, the preface materials like the Forward or an Introduction are cited like a contribution in an edited book, but because there are no editors involved, "ed." or "eds." would be dropped. I know that we have {tl|harvc}} now, but that seems a clumsy way to create a single footnote in Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. Imzadi 1979 → 23:23, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

"translator=" field

Hi all,

Is there any chance a Lua proficient editor might be able to add a "translator-first"/"translator-last=" functionality to deal with published translated titles. We have the "trans_title=" field now, but that doesn't help for works such as:

Gong, Kechang 龔克昌, translated by David R. Knechtges (1997). Studies on the Han Fu (Han fu yanjiu 漢賦研究). New Haven: American Oriental Society.

In the above citation on fu (poetry), I had to add the "translated by..." stuff in "first=", which I'm sure is terrible template usage protocol. Is there a way to do this currently, or could we possibly add this functionality otherwise? Thanks. White Whirlwind 咨 22:49, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Try this:

{{cite book |last=Gong |first=Kechang 龔克昌 |others=translated by David R. Knechtges |date=1997 |trans-title=Studies on the Han Fu |title=Han fu yanjiu |script-title=漢賦研究 |location=New Haven |publisher=American Oriental Society}}

→Gong, Kechang 龔克昌 (1997). Han fu yanjiu 漢賦研究 [Studies on the Han Fu]. translated by David R. Knechtges. New Haven: American Oriental Society. {{cite book}}: Invalid |script-title=: missing prefix (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:58, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: Not a bad workaround, thanks. That will work until a formal option is added (fingers crossed). White Whirlwind 咨 06:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

lay-url-format

A link to a lay summary can be included in {{cite book}} via the |lay-url= parameter, but there doesn't seem to be any way to indicate the format, eg PDF. Would it be possible to add a |lay-url-format= parameter for this purpose? - Evad37 [talk] 00:07, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I presume that this is related to this citation in Forrest Highway:

{{Cite book | author1=Main Roads Department | title=Main Roads Dept. of Western Australia: Collection of Ephemera Materials |location=Western Australia |date=1952–{{CURRENTYEAR}} | url=http://catalogue.slwa.wa.gov.au/record=b1886857~S2 |type=Various items |at=Call No. PR8302/161 |layurl=http://www.slwa.wa.gov.au/pdf/ephemera/pr8302.pdf |laysource=State Library of Western Australia: List of items in this collection |quote="An invitation to the official opening of the Old Coast Road and a map of the Old Coast Road. 19 September 1969"}}

→Main Roads Department (1952–2024). Main Roads Dept. of Western Australia: Collection of Ephemera Materials (Various items). Western Australia. Call No. PR8302/161. An invitation to the official opening of the Old Coast Road and a map of the Old Coast Road. 19 September 1969 {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |laysource= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |layurl= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

I wonder if this is a proper use of |lay-url= and |lay-source=. Would it not be more appropriate to split this single citation into two:

{{Cite web | author1=Main Roads Department | title=Main Roads Dept. of Western Australia: Collection of Ephemera Materials |website=[[State Library of Western Australia]] |location=Western Australia |accessdate=2015-03-20 | url=http://catalogue.slwa.wa.gov.au/record=b1886857~S2}}

→Main Roads Department. "Main Roads Dept. of Western Australia: Collection of Ephemera Materials". State Library of Western Australia. Western Australia. Retrieved 2015-03-20.

and

{{Cite web |title=Ephemera PR8302 |website=[[State Library of Western Australia]] |location=Western Australia |accessdate=2015-03-20 | url=http://www.slwa.wa.gov.au/pdf/ephemera/pr8302.pdf |format=pdf |at=Call No. PR8302/161 |quote=An invitation to the official opening of the Old Coast Road and a map of the Old Coast Road. 19 September 1969}}

→"Ephemera PR8302" (pdf). State Library of Western Australia. Western Australia. Call No. PR8302/161. Retrieved 2015-03-20. An invitation to the official opening of the Old Coast Road and a map of the Old Coast Road. 19 September 1969

Regardless, we should probably have a format parameter for every url parameter.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:53, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Splitting into two {{cite ...}}s (along the lines of <ref>{{cite book|postscript=,|...}} summarised in {{cite web|...}}</ref>) is probably a good idea in this specific case, as the first isn't actually a technical work, just hard to access with an easily accessed (online) summary. But in general, one should be able to specify formats for the url parameters. - Evad37 [talk] 23:49, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

name-list-format

王二麻子, 홍 길동, ბენდელიანი ჭიჭიკო. "title". {{cite news}}: Vancouver style error: non-Latin character in name 1 (help)

I think |name-list-format= should check whether name is Latin script or not. � is a replacement character. --Namoroka (talk) 12:27, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

For Vancouver style, according to Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, names in non-Latin characters are to be Romanized; which see. That is not something that Module:Citation/CS1 can do. Lua treats multi-byte characters simply as a sequence of bytes.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:04, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I think there should be a formatted error messages, not unrecognized characters. Is that impossible?--Namoroka (talk) 15:01, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Something like this?

*{{cite news/new|title=title|name-list-style=vanc|last=王|first=二麻子|last2=홍|first2=길동|last3=ბენდელიანი|first3=ჭიჭიკო |last4=Smith |first4=Jon Jacob}}

→王二麻子, 홍 길동, ბენდელიანი ჭიჭიკო, Smith JJ. "title". {{cite news}}: Vancouver style error: non-Latin character in name 1 (help)

I added Smith to prove that I hadn't broken anything. The test relies on the first character (byte) of |firstn= not being a Latin character in the set [A–Za–z].

We might want to make the error message more general and use the help text to describe the reason for the error in the event that there are other things that should be flagged as errors; for example if we attempt to merge {{vcite2 journal}} (Module:ParseVauthors) functionality into Module:Citation/CS1 ...

Pages with this error would be categorized in Category:CS1 errors: Vancouver style.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:58, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Here's another edge case for testing:

*{cite news/new|title=title|name-list-format=vanc|last1=Smith |first1=Jon Jacob|last2=González|first2=Ángel}}

→Smith JJ, González Á. "title".

The reference linked above says that letters with diacritical marks should have them removed, so the error message is accurate. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:36, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: This is really silly. You have identified a problem that doesn't exist and the proposed solution is counter productive because it removes information and makes it more difficult to reuse citations. The original request above was to flag non-Latin text (MOS:ROMANIZATION) which I agree with. However diacritical marks are part of the extended Latin script (ISO/IEC 8859-1) and are allowed in Wikipedia (see MOS:DIACRITICS). How does following an archaic NLM guideline (that even PubMed which is run by the NLM no longer follows, see for example PMID 15196329) help our readers and editors? Boghog (talk) 04:23, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it looks good.--Namoroka (talk) 05:29, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I've tweaked the code a bit so that the module gives an error message when |last= or |first= contains characters that are not in the ASCII character set plus spaces plus the hyphen. This will allow western hyphenated names and Hispanic multiple surnames

González Á. "title".

González A. "title".

Gonzalez Á. "title".

Gonzalez A. "title".

Gonzalez-Smith A. "title".

Gonzalez Sanchez JM. "title".

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:50, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Tweaks:

so we don't error when a surname given name has an apostrophe and when an initial is followed by a period:

O'Brien AD. "title". (Alan D. O'Brien)

Hart D. "title". (D'Arcy Hart)

to remove periods from surnames

St James CA. "title". (Charles A. St. James

treat hyphens as spaces (Jean-Louis same as Jean Louis → JL):

Lagrot JL. "title". (Jean-Louis Lagrot)

There is a requirement to place family rank (Jr, II, III, etc) after the initials as Jr, 2nd, 3rd, etc. When a rank is used directly in a CS1/CS2 template, an incorrect name may be rendered because the code interprets the 'Jr' as a second name. When the rank is an ordinal number, the code emits an error message because the digit is not in the set [A–Za–z]. Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox does not support family rank.

Lagrot JL Jr. "title". |last1=Lagrot|first1=JL Jr

Lagrot JL 2nd. "title".{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) |last1=Lagrot|first1=JL 2nd

Some non-Latin characters are romanized into multiple Latin characters (Θ → Th) so that the romanized name 'G. Th. Tsakalos' should become 'Tsakalos GTh'. Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox does not support this form because it can't know that Th is a multi character romanization and not an abbreviation of Thomas:

Tsakalos GT. "title". |last1=Tsakalos|first1=G. Th.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:04, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I have changed the error message from 'Author/editor name not Romanized' to the more generic 'Vancouver style error'. Is there a better error message?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:16, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that works, as long as the help link points to a clear explanation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:37, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Additional link to doi, bibcode, arxiv, etc. via the url parameter

I recently had a brief argument with User:The Vintage Feminist about what constitutes good practice in citation cleanup. The bone of contention was this edit, where she added http://dx.doi.org/... links to the |url= option of citation templates that already included DOI information in the |doi= option. In some cases, she also added JSTOR IDs, which led to citations like this:

Solow, Robert M. (February 1956). "A contribution to the theory of economic growth". Quarterly Journal of Economics. 70 (1). Oxford Journals: 65–94. doi:10.2307/1884513. JSTOR 1884513. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)

This is now three times the same link information. The Vintage Feminist appeals to the fact that WP:INTREF3 encourages people to "fill in as much information as possible about the source," but I wonder if this is link overkill rather than good practice. Any opinions on this, or maybe guidelines I'm not aware of? --bender235 (talk) 05:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Those additional links are useful and do more good than harm. Sometimes dx.doi.org does not work correctly, or JSTOR may point a reader to a different way to access the article. In this case, the JSTOR link and the DOI link point to two different pages. A reader may have access to the full PDF version of the article via one of those pages but not the other, depending on where they are when they are viewing the page.

I have also seen it argued that readers are more likely to click on a linked article title (which |url= provides) than on an obscure series of letters and numbers and symbols following a cryptic initialism. I haven't done A/B usability testing with readers to find out if this is true, but it seems reasonable to me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:49, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't really buy the "alternative link" argument, since in the cases I'm arguing, both |doi= and |url= provide exactly the same external link (http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1884513 in this case). What's the point of having the same link twice? --bender235 (talk) 15:27, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I provided two rationales. In your first sentence, you appear to conflate the rationales. The "alternative link" rationale, my first paragraph, applies to the fact that in your example, there are two pieces of data that link to two different web pages.

Having the same link twice is my second rationale, which I have seen suggested in the past. The point of having the same link twice, as I said in my second paragraph, is that readers may be more familiar with the behavior of a linked set of words than they are with a linked set of numbers, letters, and other characters. You and I do not know that this is true, but it is at least a reasonable argument. Having both a URL and a DOI does not make the citation any longer when it is rendered. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:37, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps another way of looking at this is to consider the question: "What would be gained by removing one of the links?" The citation would then be one of these three:

Solow, Robert M. (February 1956). "A contribution to the theory of economic growth". Quarterly Journal of Economics. 70 (1). Oxford Journals: 65–94. JSTOR 1884513. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
Solow, Robert M. (February 1956). "A contribution to the theory of economic growth". Quarterly Journal of Economics. 70 (1). Oxford Journals: 65–94. doi:10.2307/1884513. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)
Solow, Robert M. (February 1956). "A contribution to the theory of economic growth". Quarterly Journal of Economics. 70 (1). Oxford Journals: 65–94. doi:10.2307/1884513. JSTOR 1884513. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: postscript (link)

In the first example, the JSTOR link has been lost, JSTOR is subscription free through a number of library/university logins, where doi might not be. In the second example, in the academic world doi numbers are a signifier of academic credibility, but it is not visible. In the final example, as Jonesey95 has pointed out, the citation has not been made any shorter but has become less user-friendly to those who are unfamiliar with doi / jstor numbers. So I don't see the benefit of losing one of the links. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 16:29, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

In the first example, the JSTOR link has been lost, JSTOR is subscription free through a number of library/university logins, where doi might not be.

Nothing is lost, ~~because http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1884513, doi:10.2307/1884513, and JSTOR 1884513 link to exactly the same page.~~ Turns out they don't in this case. Weird, I've never seen any DOI link in the "10.2307" domain not going to JSTOR.

In case there's a misunderstanding: I am not advocating the removal of JSTOR and/or URL in general, but only in cases where the information is redudant. Such as in the above case. --bender235 (talk) 16:36, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

True, adding all those options does not make the citation longer, but nonetheless it is the equivalent of linking every word in a sentence. It is simply distracting. --bender235 (talk) 16:33, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I concur. If we follow this rationale, then for consistency, when the template has |isbn= then the template must also have |title-link=Special:BookSources/123456789X and similarly for arXiv, ASIN, Bibcode ..., Zbl. Yeah, sure, nothing is 'harmed' but it sure seems like a waste of time.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:51, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Using the doi URL in the |url= I think is a bad idea. But using the JSTOR link in addition is fine with me. Jason Quinn (talk) 10:55, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

cite episode and cite serial

Last two and I've put them off as long as I could but now its time to migrate these two template into Module:Citation/CS1. I'm thinking to do them at the same time because they are related and share common peculiarities that are different from the rest of the CS1 suite. I will notify Wikipedia:WikiProject Television which seems to be the parent project of a whole raft of other projects that use {{cite episode}} and {{cite serial}}. Are there any other projects that should participate?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:26, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Are they really the last two, or is {{Cite arXiv}} on the list as well? See above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:30, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Bother.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:50, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

cite episode

Some parameters in {{cite episode}} are different/new and that will require some thinking:

|credits= alias of |author(s)= – while not necessarily confined to this template, this sort of catch-all parameter often includes text that might not properly belong in the citation's COinS metadata. For example I have seen things like |credits=John Smith (producer); Jane Doe (director). We need to think about how to do this kind of attribution in a better way.
|transcript=, |transcripturl= – assigned to {{citation/core}} meta-parameter |Other=
|airdate= – alias of |date=
|began= and |ended= – combined to become a date range as an alias of |date=; should probably be deprecated because Module:Citation/CS1 supports date ranges
|serieslink= – alias of |title-link=
|episodelink= – makes my head hurt; this parameter is used in {{citation/core}} meta-parameters |TransTitle=, |IncludedWorkTitle=, and |Series=; some of this arose from this conversation
in-source location supports |at=, |minutes=, |timecaption=, |time= – |page= or |pages= are not supported
|id= gets |network= and |station= – probably a misuse of |id=

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:29, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Why is it that the current live {{citation/core}} version of {{cite episode}} doesn't display the value from |seriesno= when |season= is set? Shouldn't it? These four show that |episodelink= does not effect the output:

Cite episode comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite episode\|number=Number\|sandbox=yes\|season=Season\|series=Doctor Who\|serieslink=Doctor Who\|seriesno=Series#\|title=Mission to the Unknown}}`
Live	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. Season Season. Episode Number. `{{cite episode}}`: `\|number=` has extra text (help); Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. Season Season. Episode Number. `{{cite episode}}`: `\|number=` has extra text (help); Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)

Cite episode comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite episode\|sandbox=yes\|season=Season\|series=Doctor Who\|serieslink=Doctor Who\|seriesno=Series#\|title=Mission to the Unknown}}`
Live	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. Season Season. `{{cite episode}}`: Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. Season Season. `{{cite episode}}`: Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)

Cite episode comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite episode\|episodelink=Mission to the Unknown\|number=Number\|sandbox=yes\|season=Season\|series=Doctor Who\|serieslink=Doctor Who\|seriesno=Series#\|title=Mission to the Unknown}}`
Live	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. Season Season. Episode Number. `{{cite episode}}`: `\|number=` has extra text (help); Unknown parameter `\|episodelink=` ignored (`\|episode-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. Season Season. Episode Number. `{{cite episode}}`: `\|number=` has extra text (help); Unknown parameter `\|episodelink=` ignored (`\|episode-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)

Cite episode comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite episode\|episodelink=Mission to the Unknown\|sandbox=yes\|season=Season\|series=Doctor Who\|serieslink=Doctor Who\|seriesno=Series#\|title=Mission to the Unknown}}`
Live	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. Season Season. `{{cite episode}}`: Unknown parameter `\|episodelink=` ignored (`\|episode-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. Season Season. `{{cite episode}}`: Unknown parameter `\|episodelink=` ignored (`\|episode-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)

This one shows that |seriesno= displays when |number= is set:

Cite episode comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite episode\|episodelink=Mission to the Unknown\|number=Number\|sandbox=yes\|series=Doctor Who\|serieslink=Doctor Who\|seriesno=Series#\|title=Mission to the Unknown}}`
Live	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. Episode Number. `{{cite episode}}`: `\|number=` has extra text (help); Unknown parameter `\|episodelink=` ignored (`\|episode-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. Episode Number. `{{cite episode}}`: `\|number=` has extra text (help); Unknown parameter `\|episodelink=` ignored (`\|episode-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)

And this one shows that |seriesno= displays when it alone is set:

Cite episode comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite episode\|episodelink=Mission to the Unknown\|sandbox=yes\|series=Doctor Who\|serieslink=Doctor Who\|seriesno=Series#\|title=Mission to the Unknown}}`
Live	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. `{{cite episode}}`: Unknown parameter `\|episodelink=` ignored (`\|episode-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	"Mission to the Unknown". Doctor Who. `{{cite episode}}`: Unknown parameter `\|episodelink=` ignored (`\|episode-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help); Unknown parameter `\|serieslink=` ignored (`\|series-link=` suggested) (help); Unknown parameter `\|seriesno=` ignored (`\|series-number=` suggested) (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:06, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

|seriesno= and |season= are alternatives. |seriesno= is generally used by UK and Australian programmes, while |season= is used by US, Canadian and some Australian programs. US terminology seems to dominate the world these days so, since "season" is used more than "series" I'd assume that its use overrides "series". --AussieLegend (✉) 18:31, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks but that still leaves the unanswered question: Should |seriesno= be displayed even if |season= is set? If not, should there be an error message?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:38, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Because they are alternatives, if both are set there should be an error message. --AussieLegend (✉) 19:08, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

This one may be done. See Template:Cite episode/testcases and feel free to add others if there is something there that you think should be.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:42, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Search for insource:/\|began=/ shows 338 uses of |began=, 227 empty. Obsolete and update to |date=}. -- Gadget850^talk 12:47, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

In the module, |began= and |ended= are deprecated and the module code promotes their content to the meta-parameter |Date=. After the migration, a simple AWB script can fix the extant uses and we can then obsolete these parameters.

"Title". Series. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |began= ignored (|date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |ended= ignored (|date= suggested) (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:22, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

cite serial

Some parameters in {{cite serial}} are different/new and that will require some thinking:

|transcript=, |transcripturl= – assigned to {{citation/core}} meta-parameter |Other=
|airdate= – alias of |date=
|began= and |ended= – combined to become a date range as an alias of |date=; should probably be deprecated because Module:Citation/CS1 supports date ranges
|episode= – alias of |chapter=
in addition to |page=, |pages=, and |at=, in-source location supports |minutes=, |timecaption=, and |time=
|serieslink= – different from {{cite episode}}, applies to |series=
|id= gets |network= and |station= – probably a misuse of |id=

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:46, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I use {{cite episode}} all the time but I wasn't aware of the existence of {{cite serial}}. Having all of the talk pages for these templates redirecting here makes it impossible to work out which projects are affected. Doctor Who seems to be a heavy user of {{cite serial}}, but it's also used elsewhere, although I don't see any projects that need notification in the articles I checked. As for "wishes, desires, bitches, or complaints", as long as cite episode still works as it does now, I don't see any issues. As a bit of guidance, I've generally found that the most commonly used parameters are:

 | title = 
 | episodelink = 
 | series = 
 | serieslink = 
 | network = 
 | station = 
 | date = 
 | season = 
 | seriesno = 
 | number = 
 | minutes = 
 | time = 
 | quote =

Others are used, but seem less common. --AussieLegend (✉) 12:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

This makes my head hurt. Here is the statement of purpose from {{cite episode}}:

This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for television or radio programs and episodes.

and the same from {{cite serial}}:

This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for broadcast programs (television, radio, web) which use individual titles for a collection of episodes.

From this one might conclude that {{cite serial}} refers to or cites the named group of episodes. Yet, {{cite serial}} has a parameter |episode=. Why? If one is citing an episode, then oughtn't one use {{cite episode}}? I note that {{cite episode}} doesn't have a |episode= parameter.

So, what to do about this? Since {{cite serial}} is transcluded in less than 200 articles, perhaps it should be modified so that it can't refer to episodes?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:40, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Merge {{cite serial}} to {{cite episode}}. -- Gadget850^talk 12:44, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

WP:WikiProject Doctor Who make this distinction at WP:WHOCITE:

{{Cite serial}} puts the serial title in italics, and the episode title in quotation marks. It should be used when citing a serial from the classic series as a whole, or an individual episode from a serial.

{{Cite episode}} puts the episode title in quotation marks. It should be used when citing episodes of the revived series.

Not being a member of that project, this makes no sense to me. I'll invite comment from them.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:05, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I haven't edited with these templates before, but being familiar with classic Doctor Who, each season of that show is divided into serials (stories), which are then further divided into individually broadcast episodes or parts. Hence the need to put a serial title in between an individual episode title and the series title in citations (there are examples at WP:WHOCITE). I don't see why the two templates couldn't be merged, as long as the ability to enter an episode title, serial title, and series title is maintained (but disclaimer: I don't edit articles with these templates, I just saw this discussion) - Evad37 [talk] 14:25, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Note that the examples are displaying oddly because some parameters were removed with this September 2012 edit [25] - Evad37 [talk] 01:11, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see a clear path to merging these two templates so I think I have migrated {{cite serial}}; see Template:cite serial/testcases. The glaringly obvious difference is that the {{citation/core}} version does not support |credits= while the module sandbox does (because the {{citation/core}} version of {{cite episode}} does). This parameter was removed in September 2012 (though no one appears to have noticed). Two other parameters were removed from the template code in April 2012 but may still exist in article text are |season= and |number=. The module simply ignores these when encountered.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:50, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Cite arXiv doesn't give an error when last2, first2, and author2 all exist

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature. I'm referring to this version of Deneb and this particular citation: {{cite arXiv |last1=Turon |first1=C. |last2=Luri |first2=X. |last3=Masana |first3=E. |date=2012 |title=Building the cosmic distance scale: From Hipparcos to Gaia |eprint=1202.3645 |class=astro-ph.IM |author2=Xavier Luri |author3=Eduard Masana }} ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf) 13:14, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

{{cite arxiv}} does not use Module:Citation/CS1, so no error messages.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:20, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

cite map

In April 2014 Editor Imzadi1979 started a conversation with me on my talk page and another at WikiProject U.S. Roads regarding the migration of {{cite map}} to Module:Citation/CS1. Perhaps the time has come to consider what needs doing to make the migration.

There is some support for {{cite map}} that was done before my time:

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite map\|accessdate=November 18, 2013\|cartography=CSHD\|date=July 1923\|issue=7\|map=New Map Showing the 8,880 Miles Which Comprise Colorado's Primary Highway System\|oclc=11880590\|pages=12–13\|publisher=Colorado State Highway Department\|scale=Scale not given\|title=Colorado Highways\|type=Road map\|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=czs5AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA10-PA12\|via=Google Books\|volume=2}}`
Live	"New Map Showing the 8,880 Miles Which Comprise Colorado's Primary Highway System" (Road map). Colorado Highways. Scale not given. Cartography by CSHD. Colorado State Highway Department. Vol. 2. July 1923. pp. 12–13. OCLC 11880590. Retrieved November 18, 2013 – via Google Books.
Sandbox	"New Map Showing the 8,880 Miles Which Comprise Colorado's Primary Highway System" (Road map). Colorado Highways. Scale not given. Cartography by CSHD. Colorado State Highway Department. Vol. 2. July 1923. pp. 12–13. OCLC 11880590. Retrieved November 18, 2013 – via Google Books.

|map= and |mapurl= were added to the {{citation/core}} version as aliases of |chapter= after what support there is was added to Module:Citation/CS1.

Clearly WikiProject U.S. Roads should be notified of this discussion; who else?

Comments? Opinions?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:46, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite map\|author1=Rand McNally\|cartography=Rand McNally\|edition=2013 Walmart\|inset=Western Upper Peninsula\|isbn=0-528-00626-6\|location=Chicago\|map=Michigan\|pages=50–51\|publisher=Rand McNally\|scale=1 in=30 mi\|section=B13\|title=The Road Atlas\|year=2013}}`
Live	Rand McNally (2013). "Michigan" (Map). The Road Atlas (2013 Walmart ed.). 1 in=30 mi. Cartography by Rand McNally. Chicago: Rand McNally. pp. 50–51. Western Upper Peninsula inset. § B13. ISBN 0-528-00626-6.
Sandbox	Rand McNally (2013). "Michigan" (Map). The Road Atlas (2013 Walmart ed.). 1 in=30 mi. Cartography by Rand McNally. Chicago: Rand McNally. pp. 50–51. Western Upper Peninsula inset. § B13. ISBN 0-528-00626-6.

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite map\|author=Michigan State Highway Department\|cartography=H.M. Gousha\|date=July 1, 1930\|inset=Detroit Area\|location=Lansing, MI\|publisher=Michigan State Highway Department\|scale=Scale not given\|section=C3–C4\|title=Official Highway Service Map}}`
Live	Michigan State Highway Department (July 1, 1930). Official Highway Service Map (Map). Scale not given. Cartography by H.M. Gousha. Lansing, MI: Michigan State Highway Department. Detroit Area inset. § C3–C4.
Sandbox	Michigan State Highway Department (July 1, 1930). Official Highway Service Map (Map). Scale not given. Cartography by H.M. Gousha. Lansing, MI: Michigan State Highway Department. Detroit Area inset. § C3–C4.

Some thoughts I've had:

For many (most?) maps, the publisher is the important detail on the same level as the author of a book. When the template was originally created, and before it was more fully moved into the CS1 scheme, that assumption meant that the publisher was listed first. I think that going forward, the template should discard that assumption and allow the full range of |authorn=, |firstn= |lastn= and |authorn-link= parameters, and the publisher should be shifted back into the order. If editors wish to list the publisher up front, they'll update articles to duplicate it in the appropriate author parameter. I would not repurpose |cartography= as an author.
The |via= parameter needs to be added, which I assume would be something that module support would accommodate. As it is, we can't indicate that the map being linked is hosted by a different entity than its publisher.
It would be better if the "(Map)." indicator "floated" a bit. In the example above, it follows the name of the journal (Colorado Highways) or the book (The Road Atlas) in which the map was published. That journal isn't the map, but rather the quoted title in the live output is, so the indicator should move to follow the quoted title in that case. In the case of sheet maps, the indicator should remain behind the italicized map |title= because there won't be a |map= defined.
1. It would also be nice in some circumstances to allow an editor to override the default, say to explicitly note that if something were a "Topographic map" or an "Aerial survey".
The edition should follow the italicized title and not have the scale and cartography information come between the two.
Where the page(s), inset, and section(s) are noted, they should be displayed in that order, which ranks them in size order. Also, we should consider adding |sections= to provide the plural form of the label. I would suggest we consider using the section mark (§) as a label, with the plural (§§) as well.
Something I suggested elsewhere would simplify a situation here. Maps can be published in a journal or in a book or atlas. As such, we have a need to use either the "V (I): p" format of a journal or the "p./pp. #" format of a book citation. I'd personally like to see us insert the "p." or the "pp." in front of a page number or range anytime that a volume or volume and issue aren't defined. If we did that, then the map template could assume it was within a journal because the lack of a volume or issue would prompt the "p." or "pp." to appear. In any case, the in-source location should be ordered: volume, issue, page(s), inset, section(s).

Imzadi 1979 → 04:32, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I've added |map=, |map-url=, and |mapurl= as pseudo-aliases of |chapter=.

From your list:

Item 2, |via= already available in the module.

Item 3.1, use |type=; this has always been available (see the first comparison above where |type=Road map).

In the module, after a bit of processing we come to a place where all of these meta parameters are concatenated into a single string separated by the separator character (period for CS1 or comma for CS2). There is one version for 'book-like' citations and another for 'journal-like' citations:

Title

TitleNote – this is |department=; not needed for {{cite map}}?

Conference – not needed for {{cite map}}?

Periodical

Format

TitleType

Scale

Series

Language

Volume

Issue

Others – not needed for {{cite map}}?

Cartography

Edition

Publisher

Agency – not needed for {{cite map}}?

This list of things seems sort of odd to me. For example, Chapter isn't listed here. It is lumped together with Authors, Date, Chapter, Place, Editors but Others is in this group. One would think that contributors would all be in the same group and title components would be in another group.

Ignoring the author/editor/date/chapter-as-map-alias group and the in-source location group (page, inset, section) for the time being, let us confine ourselves to the 'Title' list only for the time being. What is the preferred order of these parameters? If different orders make sense for different citations (sheet map, journal, atlas, book, other), then make multiple lists. It is not necessary to include all of the items in the list; you might even add new items if it makes sense to do so.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:52, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I'm a bit confused by what you asked at the end, but I'll go with what I think you're asking. In terms of output, CS1 is heavily based on the APA style, but the APA manual isn't terribly helpful with the lone example it gives. My general thoughts are to emulate what this page from NCSU Libraries suggests for APA style and pair it with how {{cite book}} handles the order of things.

There are only a few things that are map-specific: the scale of the map, the name of the cartography source, then the inset or map section as part of the in-source location. So basically, if we followed the order from a book citation, we'd be 90% there. The scale, as NCSU says, would come immediately before the series. I would then include the cartography information, if supplied, next before any |others= output. (I would imagine that other contributions would be rare, but why omit the possibility?) As for |agency=, I could foresee noting that a map out of a newspaper came through the Associated Press if someone were so incline to specifically cite just a map from a newspaper article. Looking at a book citation:

Author (2015). Title. Book Series. Other contribution by someone else. Place: publisher. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)

So basically that if we used that same order, but put the map scale in between the title and the series, and a cartographer precedes any other "others". Wrap it up with the in-source location (volume/issue/page/inset/section), the various identifiers (ISBN/OCLC/etc) as well as the |access-date= |via= and archive-related information.

I guess in other words, a good map citation should look like a good book citation, but the default (or customized) type should float depending on if we are citing a |map= in a |title= or just a |title= alone. Using cite book as a mock up:

Rand McNally (2013). "Michigan". The Road Atlas (Map). 1 in=30 mi. Cartography by Rand McNally (2013 Walmart ed.). Chicago: Rand McNally. pp. 50–51, Western Upper Peninsula inset, § B13. ISBN 0-528-00626-6.
Michigan State Highway Department (July 1, 1930). Official Highway Service Map (Map). Scale not given. Cartography by H.M. Gousha. Lansing, MI: Michigan State Highway Department. Detroit Area inset, §§ C3–C4.
U.S. Geological Survey (1999) [Photorevised 1993]. Raleigh West quadrangle, North Carolina (Map). 1:24,000. 7.5 Minute Series. Cartography by USGS. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey.

I'd only make two changes: in the atlas example, the "(Map)." should go after the map title because The Road Atlas isn't a map, but a book while "Michigan" the title of the map, and the edition should really follow the title (which it should for books anyway) because it's modifying the title and not the series or contributions of other people. The latter though is a criticism I'd have of the {{cite book}} in general though. This sets aside the other issue of how to deal with maps in journals for the volume/issue/page vs. just page in a book. Imzadi 1979 → 16:47, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

What I wanted was a list of the meta parameters in order. I have tweaked the code and created three lists that look like this:

For maps in a book:

TitleType, Title, Format, Scale, Cartography, Others, Edition, Publisher, Series, Language, Volume

For maps in a periodical:

TitleType, Title, Format, Scale, Cartography, Others, Publisher, Series, Language, Volume, Issue

For sheet maps:

Title, TitleType, Format, Scale, Cartography, Others, Edition, Publisher, Series, Language

You can see the effect of this change in the comparisons above (ignore punctuation, spacing, and other weirdnesses; we'll fix those later).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:46, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite map\|author1=U.S. Geological Survey\|cartography=USGS\|date=1999\|language=fr\|location=Reston, VA\|orig-year=Photorevised 1993\|publisher=U.S. Geological Survey\|scale=1:24,000\|series=7.5 Minute Series\|title=Raleigh West quadrangle, North Carolina}}`
Live	U.S. Geological Survey (1999) [Photorevised 1993]. Raleigh West quadrangle, North Carolina (Map). 1:24,000. 7.5 Minute Series (in French). Cartography by USGS. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey.
Sandbox	U.S. Geological Survey (1999) [Photorevised 1993]. Raleigh West quadrangle, North Carolina (Map). 1:24,000. 7.5 Minute Series (in French). Cartography by USGS. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey.

Ignoring the spacing and punctuation weirdness, that's pretty much looking good to me so far for maps , except that Series should be appear between Scale and Cartography. (In a book, the Series appears after the Title and before Others.) I'm neutral over where Language appears. Imzadi 1979 → 19:43, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment: I have posted a link to this discussion on the Talk pages of half a dozen WikiProjects that appear to be active and (in my judgement, based on the articles transcluding this template) may have an interest in the use and formatting of this template. We have had objections in the past about decisions made by one of two editors, and I'd like to avoid those objections in the case of this template, which is used in 18,000 articles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:16, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Tweaks that I think get the spacing and punctuation right, add |sections=, use § and §§ for sections:

"New Map Showing the 8,880 Miles Which Comprise Colorado's Primary Highway System" (Road map). Colorado Highways. Scale not given. Cartography by CSHD. Colorado State Highway Department. Vol. 2. July 1923. pp. 12–13. OCLC 11880590. Retrieved November 18, 2013 – via Google Books.
Rand McNally (2013). "Michigan" (Map). The Road Atlas (2013 Walmart ed.). 1 in=30 mi. Cartography by Rand McNally. Chicago: Rand McNally. pp. 50–51. Western Upper Peninsula inset. § B13. ISBN 0-528-00626-6.
Official Highway Service Map (Map). Scale not given. Cartography by H.M. Gousha. Lansing, MI: Michigan State Highway Department. July 1, 1930. Detroit Area inset. §§ C3–C4.
U.S. Geological Survey (1999) [Photorevised 1993]. Raleigh West quadrangle, North Carolina (Map). 1:24,000. 7.5 Minute Series (in French). Cartography by USGS. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey.

Categories in the existing template

Please note that there are two maintenance categories in the existing template that may need to be considered in this migration: Category:Pages using cite map with both series and version and Category:Pages using cite map with publisher-link. – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:14, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

There are six pages listed at Category:Pages using cite map with both series and version that have citations that look a lot like this:

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite map\|date=1891\|publisher=Ordnance Survey\|scale=1:10,560\|series=County series\|sheet=115/NE\|title=England - Lincolnshire\|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/mapsheet.aspx?compid=55127&sheetid=5029&ox=0&oy=0&zm=1&czm=10&x=259&y=123\|version=Epoch 1}}`
Live	England - Lincolnshire (Map). 1:10,560. County series. Ordnance Survey. 1891. Sheet 115/NE. `{{cite map}}`: More than one of `\|version=` and `\|series=` specified (help)
Sandbox	England - Lincolnshire (Map). 1:10,560. County series. Ordnance Survey. 1891. Sheet 115/NE. `{{cite map}}`: More than one of `\|version=` and `\|series=` specified (help)

It seems to me that, at least for these six, |series= and |version= could be combined into |series=County series Epoch 1. It isn't clear to me if Epoch 1 is something that Ordnance Survey used in naming the map series or if that is something applied by British History. See here. |sheet= isn't a supported parameter in either the old or the new template.

The other article-space page has this:

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite map\|date=03/04/2006\|isbn=9780319238332\|page=247\|publisher=OSGB\|scale=1:25 000\|section=Bottesford & Colsterworth\|series=Explorer\|title=Grantham\|version=A1}}`
Live	Grantham (Map). 1:25 000. Explorer. OSGB. 03/04/2006. p. 247. § Bottesford & Colsterworth. ISBN 9780319238332. `{{cite map}}`: Check date values in: `\|date=` (help); More than one of `\|version=` and `\|series=` specified (help)
Sandbox	Grantham (Map). 1:25 000. Explorer. OSGB. 03/04/2006. p. 247. § Bottesford & Colsterworth. ISBN 9780319238332. `{{cite map}}`: Check date values in: `\|date=` (help); More than one of `\|version=` and `\|series=` specified (help)

which appears to me to be a malformed citation. Follow the ISBN link to Amazon to look at the map.

There is a note at the top of Category:Pages using cite map with publisher-link that says "This parameter is in the process of being removed." If that is true, then an AWB script should be able to make pretty quick work of clearing the category.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:04, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Based on the example citations, it looks like citations in the "both series and version" category would end up in the CS1 redundant parameter category, and citations with |publisher-link= would end up in the "unsupported parameter" category.

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite map\|date=1974\|publisher-link=Iowa Department of Transportation\|publisher=Iowa Department of Transportation\|scale=1:10,000\|title=Iowa Highway Map}}`
Live	Iowa Highway Map (Map). 1:10,000. Iowa Department of Transportation. 1974. `{{cite map}}`: Unknown parameter `\|publisher-link=` ignored (help)
Sandbox	Iowa Highway Map (Map). 1:10,000. Iowa Department of Transportation. 1974. `{{cite map}}`: Unknown parameter `\|publisher-link=` ignored (help)

As long as we track them somehow with the new code (which it looks like we do), I'm satisfied.

An AWB script may not suffice to clear up publisher-link parameters. I have found a few of them in template code. I'll poke through that category. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:49, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The |version= might be analogous to a different |edition= of the map. It's something worth investigating slightly, and that might be the first to make it "(Epoch 1 ed.)." in the display of the citation. Imzadi 1979 → 17:00, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk and Jonesey95: the |publisher-link= parameter was put in use to deal with the author/publisher situation. If there is no author defined in any of the usual ways (|author= |first= |last=, etc) then the value of |publisher= is moved into the authorship position. However, for a brief period of time, the |publisher= was merely copied, and the value was also displayed in the traditional publisher location in the middle of the citation, following a |location=. In that brief period of time, |publisher-link= was added to serve as the analog of |author-link= so that one could link the name of the "publisher as author" without also linking the "publisher as publisher" output. Otherwise we'd have forced editors to insert the brackets to wikilink the publisher name, and it would be linked in both locations.

So, moving forward, we're going to have 3 basic options:

Status quo: publisher is shifted automatically, and if the |location= is defined, it appears alone in the middle, disconnected from the publisher unless an editor also defines |author=.
Restore the once-used version of the automation where the publisher appeared in both locations ("as author", "as publisher"), and un-deprecate |publisher-link= so that the "as author" portion of the citation can be linked without also linking the "as publisher" location.
Remove the coding that moves the publisher forward and require editors to specify an author (which doesn't have to be the |cartography= name) if they want some name to appear ahead of the map title.

Imzadi 1979 → 16:16, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

wikilinked publisher (Map). Publisher.
wikilinked publisher and location (Map). Location: Publisher.
publisher (Map). Publisher.
publisher and location (Map). Location: Publisher.
~~Author. author, wikilinked publisher (Map). Publisher. {{cite map}}: |author= has generic name (help)~~
~~Author. author, wikilinked publisher, and location (Map). Location: Publisher. {{cite map}}: |author= has generic name (help)~~

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:24, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The code that did this has been disabled at this edit

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:29, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

AWB is equally at home in Template space as in main space. There is, apparently some dispute about what to do with |publisher-link=. See the second paragraph of Editor Imzadi1979's 2015-02-25T15:52UTC post above. It would seem that if there is no |location= then |publisher= becomes |author= and |publisher-link= becomes |author-link= and Bob's your uncle. Not quite so simple if |location= is set; and this is where some thinking is probably still required.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:10, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Publisher vs. Author issue

Compare the following examples, all citing the same map in the same atlas used as a source in the M-553 (Michigan highway) article:

Publisher, location, but no author:

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite map\|accessdate=March 29, 2012\|cartography=Rockford Map Publishers ''c''\|location=Rockford, IL\|map=Forsyth T45N R25W\|mapurl=http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas/US/16079/Marquette+County+1962/\|oclc=15326667\|page=17\|publisher=Rockford Map Publishers ''p''\|scale=1.25 in:1 mi\|section=2, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 22, 23\|title=Plat Book with Index to Owners, Marquette County, Michigan\|via=Historic Map Works\|year=1962}}`
Live	"Forsyth T45N R25W" (Map). Plat Book with Index to Owners, Marquette County, Michigan. 1.25 in:1 mi. Cartography by Rockford Map Publishers c. Rockford, IL: Rockford Map Publishers p. 1962. p. 17. § 2, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 22, 23. OCLC 15326667. Retrieved March 29, 2012 – via Historic Map Works. `{{cite map}}`: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: `\|publisher=` (help); Unknown parameter `\|mapurl=` ignored (`\|map-url=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	"Forsyth T45N R25W" (Map). Plat Book with Index to Owners, Marquette County, Michigan. 1.25 in:1 mi. Cartography by Rockford Map Publishers c. Rockford, IL: Rockford Map Publishers p. 1962. p. 17. § 2, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 22, 23. OCLC 15326667. Retrieved March 29, 2012 – via Historic Map Works. `{{cite map}}`: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: `\|publisher=` (help); Unknown parameter `\|mapurl=` ignored (`\|map-url=` suggested) (help)

Publisher, author and location:

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite map\|accessdate=March 29, 2012\|author=Rockford Map Publishers ''a''\|cartography=Rockford Map Publishers ''c''\|location=Rockford, IL\|map=Forsyth T45N R25W\|mapurl=http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas/US/16079/Marquette+County+1962/\|oclc=15326667\|page=17\|publisher=Rockford Map Publishers ''p''\|scale=1.25 in:1 mi\|section=2, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 22, 23\|title=Plat Book with Index to Owners, Marquette County, Michigan\|via=Historic Map Works\|year=1962}}`
Live	Rockford Map Publishers a (1962). "Forsyth T45N R25W" (Map). Plat Book with Index to Owners, Marquette County, Michigan. 1.25 in:1 mi. Cartography by Rockford Map Publishers c. Rockford, IL: Rockford Map Publishers p. p. 17. § 2, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 22, 23. OCLC 15326667. Retrieved March 29, 2012 – via Historic Map Works. `{{cite map}}`: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: `\|publisher=` (help); Unknown parameter `\|mapurl=` ignored (`\|map-url=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	Rockford Map Publishers a (1962). "Forsyth T45N R25W" (Map). Plat Book with Index to Owners, Marquette County, Michigan. 1.25 in:1 mi. Cartography by Rockford Map Publishers c. Rockford, IL: Rockford Map Publishers p. p. 17. § 2, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 22, 23. OCLC 15326667. Retrieved March 29, 2012 – via Historic Map Works. `{{cite map}}`: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: `\|publisher=` (help); Unknown parameter `\|mapurl=` ignored (`\|map-url=` suggested) (help)

Author, location, but no publisher:

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite map\|accessdate=March 29, 2012\|author=Rockford Map Publishers ''a''\|cartography=Rockford Map Publishers ''c''\|location=Rockford, IL\|map=Forsyth T45N R25W\|mapurl=http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas/US/16079/Marquette+County+1962/\|oclc=15326667\|page=17\|scale=1.25 in:1 mi\|section=2, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 22, 23\|title=Plat Book with Index to Owners, Marquette County, Michigan\|via=Historic Map Works\|year=1962}}`
Live	Rockford Map Publishers a (1962). "Forsyth T45N R25W" (Map). Plat Book with Index to Owners, Marquette County, Michigan. 1.25 in:1 mi. Cartography by Rockford Map Publishers c. Rockford, IL. p. 17. § 2, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 22, 23. OCLC 15326667. Retrieved March 29, 2012 – via Historic Map Works. `{{cite map}}`: Unknown parameter `\|mapurl=` ignored (`\|map-url=` suggested) (help)
Sandbox	Rockford Map Publishers a (1962). "Forsyth T45N R25W" (Map). Plat Book with Index to Owners, Marquette County, Michigan. 1.25 in:1 mi. Cartography by Rockford Map Publishers c. Rockford, IL. p. 17. § 2, 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 22, 23. OCLC 15326667. Retrieved March 29, 2012 – via Historic Map Works. `{{cite map}}`: Unknown parameter `\|mapurl=` ignored (`\|map-url=` suggested) (help)

In each of the examples, I added an italicized a, c, or p to note when "Rockford Map Publishers" is defined as an |author=, |cartography= source or |publisher=, respectively. Ignore the changes related to where "(Map)." is located, the change from "section" to "§", and the inclusion of the |via= in the following discussion.

In the first comparison, no |author= is defined. The current template, and its sandbox behave identically. The publisher is shifted forward to take the place of an author, and the location appears alone in the middle of the citation. In this case, there is effectively no publisher noted because of that shift.

In the middle comparison, |author= is defined. In this case, the author is displayed up front, and the publisher appears in the middle of the citation after the location, as expected in the sandbox. The live template ignores the value for the publisher, as you can see, because that value is superfluous because we have something else to display up front for an author.

In the last comparison, the live template is ignoring the |author=, and because there isn't a |publisher= to take its place, there is nothing listed in the author location. As a result, the year appears in the middle of the citation after the location. In the sandbox, the template isn't ignoring the |author=, so it appears where we expect, followed by the year. Because there is no |publisher=, the location stands alone, also as expected.

This is the more fundamental question of template output behavior that needs to be resolved before discussing |publisher-link=. Imzadi 1979 → 16:46, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I am totally confused. Please, briefly and succinctly, state the fundamental question. My simple little brain is apparently incapable of extracting the fundamental question from what you've just written.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:41, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

The fundamental question boils down to how the template will deal with this confusion over the proper role of citing an author (or authors) and publisher. Until that is resolved, totally deprecating |publisher-link= may be an effort in futility because the parameter may be needed after all.

The only situation that currently gets it "correct" is the sandbox when the author and the publisher are separately specified. If both are not provided, we are getting results that are visually inconsistent with the rest of the CS1 templates. In the sandbox, if an author (or set of authors) is not provided, the publisher is moved forward, but then we don't have something displayed where the publisher should be displayed.

So either we need to break this crazy "publisher as author" automated behavior and force editors to manually specify the author of a map, which usually is the same entity as the publisher, or we need to re-add the code that duplicates the publisher into both roles unless the author(s) is/are specified to override that behavior. Imzadi 1979 → 18:58, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

If I understand you, the fundamental question is:

Shall {{cite map}} place the map's publisher in the author position of the rendered citation when |<author alias>= is empty or omitted?

If that is the question, then my answer is no. If it is up to me, special cases in the code, and hence special cases in operation and documentation shall be avoided.

Is that the fundamental question? If so, your answer is? If not, please restate the question.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:52, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

And my answer, for a few years now, has been that the publisher should not be a direct replacement for the author. On that much, we both agree. Furthermore, if editors want to indicate that X company or Y agency both authored and published a map, then they need to list that name twice so that it appears in both places. Imzadi 1979 → 22:26, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Ok. I've disabled the code that moves publisher to author when author not present.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:25, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Something to note, but these plat atlases were published with written text and advertising solicited from the local 4H program and the appropriate county office/agency, and most library catalogs actually list those two entities as the authors of the book. Rockford Map Publishers just drew the maps using that text and printed the books. As it stands, the role of the 4H program and the county has had to be ignored because the design choices made years ago with the template and carried forward to the initial {{citation/core}} conversion forced us to discount the possibility that there could be separate authorship, cartography and publication of a map source. Imzadi 1979 → 16:57, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

If multiple authors are to be credited, then in the sandbox version, all of them may be listed as |author=Rockford Map Publishers |author2=Illinois 4H ... In this case, the publisher will not be moved to the author position. Isn't this what you wanted?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:41, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, basically, but if an author or authors are not specified, we're not getting an output which also notes who the publisher is, because that spot is left empty when the publisher is moved into the author position. Imzadi 1979 → 18:58, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

You wanted to list Rockford, 4H, and the county as authors and also list Rockford as publisher. The {{citation/core}} version of {{cite map}} does not support that but the sandbox does. Whether we continue to move publisher data into the author position when there is no author data is irrelevant to this case because when there is author data, publisher data is not moved into the author position.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:52, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Geological maps?

I have not been attending to all of the above because I generally cite geological maps, for which {{cite map}} has been wholly unsatisfactory. (I use {{citation}} in a somewhat hacked form.) However, I wonder if there might be some interest in getting citation/cite map into a form (eventually) of making it more satisfactory for use with geological maps, which are generally cited in a more scholarly form. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:34, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

@J. Johnson: I'm slightly confused. The changes being made are will make the output follow the general format for the APA citation style for maps, using the same general changes you'd find between CS1/CS2 and APA for things like books, journals and the like.

Compare the following examples from Western Washington University:

Sheet map:
- Metsker Maps. (1979). Metsker's map of Island county, Washington [map]. (ca. 1:70,000.) Tacoma, WA: Metsker Maps.
- Metsker Maps (1979). Metsker's Map of Island County, Washington (Map). c. 1:70,000. Tacoma, WA: Metsker Maps.
Sheet map in a series:
- Easterbrook, D. J. (1976). Geologic map of western Whatcom County, Washington [map]. 1:62,500. Miscellaneous investigations series, map 1-854-B. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey.
- Easterbrook, D. J. (1976). Geologic Map of Western Whatcom County, Washington (Map). 1:62,500. Miscellaneous investigations series, map 1-854-B. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey.
Map from an atlas:
- Magocsi, P. R. (2003). Population movements, 1944–1948 [map]. 1:8 890 000. In P. R. Magocsi, Historical atlas of central Europe. (Rev. & ex. ed.) Seattle: University of Washington Press. (p. 53).
- Magocsi, P. R. (2003). "Population Movements, 1944–1948" (Map). Historical Atlas of Central Europe (Rev. & ex. ed.). 1:8 890 000. Cartography by P. R. Magocsi. Seattle: University of Washington Press. p. 53.
Map from a periodical:
- Clout H. (2006). Figure 2: France: Types of countryside [map]. Scale not given. In H. Clout. Rural France in the new millennium: Change and challenge. Geography, 91, 207.
- Clout, H. (2006). "Figure 2: France: Types of countryside" (Map). Geography. Scale not given. Cartography by H. Clout. 91: 207.
Online map:
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [cartographer]. (2009). Cahaba River Natural Refuge [map]. 1:24,000. Retrieved from http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps109506/
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2009). Cahaba River Natural Refuge (PDF) (Map). 1:24,000. Cartography by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Retrieved March 14, 2015.

Overall, the new template will follow the general format from {{cite book}}, but it will also handle in-source citations in a journal with volume/issue/page numbers in the same output format as {{cite journal}}. The template will also handle noting insets and map sections right after the volume/issue/page number; those things very common on road maps printed as sheet maps or road atlases as part of the in-source location. After that, we get the usual suite of potentialID numbers (ISBNs/ISSNs/JSTOR/OCLCs/etc) as well as the |access-date=, archival information and even |via=.

About the only thing it doesn't handle that APA shows is the name of the article containing a map in a periodical, and it appears the |editor-first= |editor-last= aren't working either. Those could be added though. So what is it that you'd need for geological maps? Imzadi 1979 → 23:35, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Example of |editor-first= and |editor-last= not working?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:59, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I tried this for an example above while editing it:

Magocsi, P. R. (2003). "Population Movements, 1944–1948" (Map). In Magocsi, P. R. (ed.). Historical Atlas of Central Europe (Rev. & ex. ed.). 1:8 890 000. Seattle: University of Washington Press. p. 53.

Imzadi 1979 → 00:05, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Strike that, it wasn't working before. Imzadi 1979 → 00:06, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Imzadi1979: your examples are free-form (untemplated), but as models your geological map examples are generally fine except that we usually:

1) omit "[map]";

2) omit place of publication for well-known agencies like the USGS;

3) identify the agency (publisher) before the series name;

4) put the scale and number of pages/plates at the end.

Following are examples of how I have done this using {citation}. I also use |journal=, which italicises the agency, and (with |volume=) use to make the series name/number bold. (E.g.: U.S. Geological Survey, Open-File Report 2010-1149.) Not an ideal implementation, but the best I have been able to devise.

Barnett, E. A.; Haugerud, R. A.; Sherrod, B. L.; Weaver, C. S.; Pratt, T. L.; Blakely, R. J. (2010), "Preliminary atlas of active shallow tectonic deformation in the Puget Lowland, Washington", U.S. Geological Survey, Open-File Report 2010-1149, 32 p., 14 maps.

Dragovich, J. D.; DeOme, A. J. (June 2006), "Geologic map of the McMurray 7.5-minute Quadrangle, Skagit and Snohomish Counties, Washington, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Holocene Activity on the Darrington–Devils Mountain Fault Zone", Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources, Geological Map GM–61, 1 sheet, scale 1:24,000, 18 p. text.

{Cite journal} generates a very similar result, but {cite map} is not even close, in neither the old nor the new form:

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	{{cite map\|at=1 sheet, scale 1:24,000, 18 p. text\|date=June 2006\|first1=J. D.\|first2=A. J.\|journal=Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources\|last1=Dragovich\|last2=DeOme\|ref=CITEREFGM-61\|series=Geological Map GM–61\|title=Geologic map of the McMurray 7.5-minute Quadrangle, Skagit and Snohomish Counties, Washington, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Holocene Activity on the Darrington–Devils Mountain Fault Zone\|url=http://www.dnr.wa.gov/Publications/ger_gm61_geol_map_mcmurray_24k.zip}}
Live	Dragovich, J. D.; DeOme, A. J. (June 2006). "Geologic map of the McMurray 7.5-minute Quadrangle, Skagit and Snohomish Counties, Washington, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Holocene Activity on the Darrington–Devils Mountain Fault Zone" (Map). Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources. Geological Map GM–61. 1 sheet, scale 1:24,000, 18 p. text.
Sandbox	Dragovich, J. D.; DeOme, A. J. (June 2006). "Geologic map of the McMurray 7.5-minute Quadrangle, Skagit and Snohomish Counties, Washington, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Holocene Activity on the Darrington–Devils Mountain Fault Zone" (Map). Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources. Geological Map GM–61. 1 sheet, scale 1:24,000, 18 p. text.

.

I am fine with using {citation/journal} (aside from the lack of bolding), but identifying maps as journals seems a little dishonest. Not a burning issue, but one I think we should think about. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:50, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Here's the citation above using {{cite map}} with some parameters used as documented (I think) and the sandbox version shown:

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	{{cite map\|date=June 2006\|first1=J. D.\|first2=A. J.\|last1=Dragovich\|last2=DeOme\|publisher=Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources\|sandbox=yes\|scale=1:24,000\|series=Geological Map GM–61\|title=Geologic map of the McMurray 7.5-minute Quadrangle, Skagit and Snohomish Counties, Washington, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Holocene Activity on the Darrington–Devils Mountain Fault Zone\|type=1 sheet, 18 p. text\|url=http://www.dnr.wa.gov/Publications/ger_gm61_geol_map_mcmurray_24k.zip}}
Live	Dragovich, J. D.; DeOme, A. J. (June 2006). Geologic map of the McMurray 7.5-minute Quadrangle, Skagit and Snohomish Counties, Washington, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Holocene Activity on the Darrington–Devils Mountain Fault Zone (1 sheet, 18 p. text). 1:24,000. Geological Map GM–61. Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources. `{{cite map}}`: Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help)
Sandbox	Dragovich, J. D.; DeOme, A. J. (June 2006). Geologic map of the McMurray 7.5-minute Quadrangle, Skagit and Snohomish Counties, Washington, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Holocene Activity on the Darrington–Devils Mountain Fault Zone (1 sheet, 18 p. text). 1:24,000. Geological Map GM–61. Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources. `{{cite map}}`: Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help)

Feedback on the sandbox version? – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:19, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Definite improvement re the current version. (And even better if "series" is bolded.) However, the series name, which is often more significant than the full title, should precede the descriptive details (scale, sheets, etc.), which should come at the end. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:25, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Some comments

I would oppose the ommission of "(Map).". In the other templates of the CS1 series, like {{cite press release}} or {{cite thesis}}, we indicate the type of source it is. Using |type=Geological map, |type=Topological map or even |type=Aerial survey would be ways to change the default, but something should be noted.
The place of publication isn't required, so you'd be free to omit if you wish. (We don't seem to require it on books, and we wouldn't require it on maps.)
I can see switching that, but the current order was based on the APA style (which is also the basis for most of CS1 and CS2) and it renders consistently with {{cite book}}.
I can also see switching that as well, to put the scale between publisher and in-source location information, but once again we started with the APA ordering as a basis.

In your example though, the publisher (USGS) should not be in italics. Nowhere else do we use italics in citations this way in the other templates, which is reserved for published works like the name of a book or the name of a journal.

Cite map comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite map\|at=1 sheet, 18 p. text\|date=June 2006\|first1=J. D.\|first2=A. J.\|last1=Dragovich\|last2=DeOme\|publisher=Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources\|sandbox=yes\|scale=1:24,000\|series=Geological Map GM–61\|title=Geologic map of the McMurray 7.5-minute Quadrangle, Skagit and Snohomish Counties, Washington, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Holocene Activity on the Darrington–Devils Mountain Fault Zone\|url=http://www.dnr.wa.gov/Publications/ger_gm61_geol_map_mcmurray_24k.zip}}`
Live	Dragovich, J. D.; DeOme, A. J. (June 2006). Geologic map of the McMurray 7.5-minute Quadrangle, Skagit and Snohomish Counties, Washington, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Holocene Activity on the Darrington–Devils Mountain Fault Zone (Map). 1:24,000. Geological Map GM–61. Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources. 1 sheet, 18 p. text. `{{cite map}}`: Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help)
Sandbox	Dragovich, J. D.; DeOme, A. J. (June 2006). Geologic map of the McMurray 7.5-minute Quadrangle, Skagit and Snohomish Counties, Washington, with a Discussion of the Evidence for Holocene Activity on the Darrington–Devils Mountain Fault Zone (Map). 1:24,000. Geological Map GM–61. Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources. 1 sheet, 18 p. text. `{{cite map}}`: Unknown parameter `\|sandbox=` ignored (help)

Imzadi 1979 → 23:13, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

@J. Johnson: I'm glad you think it's an improvement. I don't think bolding the series matches any of the style guides cited above, but moving the series may be possible. Do a text search above for "Series should be appear between Scale and Cartography" to see a discussion about the placement of that parameter. Pinging Imzadi1979 for comment. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:15, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Generally, I'm opposed to the usage of boldface text in citations. I've been in favor of totally removing it in the past for volume numbers. I'm not aware of any other style guides that bold volume numbers, and when it comes to books, I personally prefer |volume=vol. 1 to both add context to the number and force the template to render the output in roman (plain) text. For series names, I would oppose the boldface treatment, and I think it would go against our MOS.

As for the location of |series= vs. |scale=, the general order follows that of {{cite book}} combined with the map-specific items from the APA style.

First is the author(s) followed by the year in parentheses.
Then we render the name of the map in quotation marks, if it's a map within an atlas or journal (the analog of a chapter in a book or an article in a journal).
Then it's the name of the atlas/journal in italics. If it's a single sheet map, that name is rendered in italics as the map itself is the published work and not a component of a larger work.
The "(Map)" indicator is now flexible and follows the name of the map, whether that is in quotes or italics.
APA runs the scale next followed by the series. Cite book runs the names of other contributions after the series, so that's where we put the |cartography= output followed by |others=. (The former of those two is something I feel is a bit of a compromise based on how other road editors have and will use the template.)
Then we use the place of publication and the publisher, just as APA style and cite book would. Of course, many editors drop the place of publication when citing books.
Then we note the in-source location. For books, this has been the page number, and for maps, we also include the ability to source an inset of a map as well as the map sections.
Then we use the various possible ID numbers, like ISBN, ISSN, JSTOR, OCLC, etc.
Finally is any online-specific information, like access dates, archive dates, republisher (aka |via=) all like the other CS1 templates.

So in short, I'm flexible, but changing some of the ordering would also mean we should discuss the situation with other templates to keep consistency within the citation style. Imzadi 1979 → 23:40, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

So many points to consider!

Regarding omission of "[map]": the parallel with sources like theses and abstracts is incorrect. In scholarly work sources like these are identified because they have less weight than usual, but this is not applicable to geological maps. The correct parallel is with books and journals, where we do omit the source type. (E.g.: we don't indicate [book] or [journal].) Perhaps in some cases such an indication might be useful, but should be neither required nor the default.

I do not find APA style fully authoritative here. The USGS and most other agencies are quite similar in putting the name of the agency - the "publisher" - before the series name. Consider how ambiguous the very common "Open-File Report" is without specifying "USGS" or "Washington DGER". Indeed, it seems the name of the agency is deemed part of the series name, with subsequent specification as publisher omitted as being redundant. And in some cases (e.g., the Journal of Geophysical Research) the combined agency+series is all italicised, just as if was the title of a journal (and in line with your "3. ... atlas/journal in italics"), which gets back to the point I made above: geological maps are scholarly works on par with journal articles.

Out of time. More comments tomorrow. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:22, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Location of map scale and details

I raise a question of where the map scale (and certain other details, like the number sheets, numer of pages of text, etc.) should go. Imzadi1979 previously cited this page from NCSU Libraries that the scale "would come immediately before the series." I don't find that satisfactory. (In part because I find the NCSU examples generally clumsy and inelegant). In most (all?) geological usage the scale and other details are subordinated to, and therefore follow, the series; I recommend that here.

As to where scale should be placed relative to volume/issue/language: I do not recall ever seeing such a mixture. Do atlases and road maps have established usages in this regard? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:29, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

CS1 is based on the APA style with modifications from it. It also uses The Chicago Manual of Style for inspiration, along with Wikipedian-generated concepts. The current template is mostly a Wikipedian-generated format that doesn't match the others in the CS1 series (it conflates the author and the publisher, and can't cite both), so in transitioning it to the Lua module, now is a good time to whip into shape to match the others.

The current APA stye guide only has a single example (p. 210):

Lewis County Geographic Information Services (Cartographer). (2002). Population density, 2000 U.S. Census [Demographic map]. Retrieved from http://www.co.lewis.wa.us/pubilcworks/Demographics/census-pop-dens_2000.pdf

That's why I pulled up the NCSU Libraries page because it has actual examples for citing maps in formats designed to be used with APA style, as the starting point for updating {{cite map}} to CS1 style as CS1 is so heavily based on APA.

CMOS 16 is largely silent. It does talk about noting map sources in a credit line (p. 128). The closest example is on p. 726 where it shows how to cite an illustration or table on a page as a part of a footnote, saying:

The abbreviation fig. may be used for figure, but table, map, plate, and other illustration forms are spelld out. The page number, if given, recedes the illustration number, with a comma between then.
50. Richard Sobel, ed., Public Opinion in US Foreign Policy: The Controversy over Contra Aid (Boston: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993) 87, table 5.3.

To me, this isn't helpful because it only deals with citing a map as an illustration in a published work, and not when the map is the work. So, at this point, I think we're on our own, other than consulting the recommendations of various university libraries or cartography programs for guidance.

@J. Johnson: what exact order would you like us to use? I'm assuming that after the title(s), you would immediately go to the location*/publisher followed by series, scale, in-source locations, identifiers (ISBN, etc), and then the online archival/retrieval information where optionally used. That could work for me too, if that's what others want. (* |location= is omitted by a lot of Wikipedians in citing books, so as I've mentioned, individual editors could omit it as they wanted.) We'll need a place to insert |cartography=, to deal with the situations I illustrated in the next subsection. We'll also need a place in that order for |others= as well as |agency= in the rare cases of maps that have been translated (|others=Translation by Jean-Luc Picard) or distributed through a news wire agency (|agency=Associated Press).

Imzadi 1979 → 03:08, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

For all that I have seen (and I have spent most of today researching this), there are two locations for map scale: 1) immediately following the map name ("title"), or 2) following the series name/number. These correspond to two broad conceptions, which we can loosely identify as "APA style", or "geoscience style" (apparently universal with agencies and publishers in the US). Given that citations (references) are supposed to aid in identifying and locating sources, I find the APA style (esp. the NCSU examples) cumbersome in presenting the most relevant information. (E.g., "Reston, VA: United States Department of the Interior" are attributes of the USGS, and contribute nothing to identifying a map.) I will note that many experts consider a map's scale to be of primary importance, which would justify emphasis. However, in practice this is more of descriptive datum, and less important than the series, wherefore geoscience style subordinates scale to follow the series.

In all geoscience uses I have found the scale is always at the end of the citation, but this needs to be qualified in two ways. 1) As we are striving for broader usage, there are data that reasonably follow, such as ISBNs, urls, access date, etc., and perhaps volume and page numbers, which are generally absent in scholarly usage. 2) Geological maps generally include certain details such as the number of sheets (plates), the number pages of text, supplemental files, etc. These are usually associated with the scale, but I haven't seen any particular format.

Note that a "map" can consist of more than one sheet, at different scales. So it would be quite reasonable to see (though I haven't seen it) something like "2 maps (scale 1:62,500, 1:24,000), 32 p. text". Also, APA says that if a scale is not specified the citation should explicitly state "scale not given". However, there are "maps" that have multiple images (on a single sheet) at different scales, where this is nonsensical. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:52, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

So, J. Johnson, what are you proposing? As a follow up, is anything you're proposing something that needs to be immediately addressed in the Lua transition, or would that be something to be addressed in a supplemental update to the template? Imzadi 1979 → 04:50, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

A quick second thought, but could it be that what you need to cite is just different enough from citing individual sheet maps, maps in atlases, online maps like those from Google Maps, et al., that there should be a forked template that is similar, but has a different use for these geological maps you need to cite, a {{cite geo map}}? Imzadi 1979 → 04:53, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

As for different scales, the insets on a sheet road map are almost always drawn at a different scale than the main map. In the few cases where I've had a need to cite the main map plus one of the insets, I've used separate footnotes, or manually indicated the locations on the sheet map being cited through the use of |at=. To follow the APA guidance, if necessary, I'd note "Scales not given" in the plural, although some of Michigan's maps included the scale on the insets but not the main map, oddly enough. For something like the iconic London Tube Map, I had occasion to use |scale=Not to scale. Imzadi 1979 → 04:59, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

No, nothing (that I am aware of) that needs immediate attention, although I would caution against having |scale= either required, or defaulting to "not given". (My initial question was "if there might be interest ...." We do seem to be well beyond a simple "yes".)

I don't believe a forked template (e.g., {cite geo map}) would be useful. In my context most (all?) geological maps are scholarly works, and are cited without special distinction as maps. My interest here is to see if {cite map}, and perhaps certain parameters in {citation}, can be made general enough to be suitable for geological maps. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:49, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

At the moment, |scale= is not required and does not have a default value, which isn't something that is not being changed in the transition. Imzadi 1979 → 23:58, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Keeping |scale= as not required is good. How this is ordered with other similar details does not seem very significant. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:08, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

"Cartography"

The use of the |cartography= parameter has been touched on in several places above. Scott5114 suggested (24 Feb) that this field is intended to identify the original source of the "cartography" that has been republished by others, the people doing the actual cartography being seldom credited. However, in geological and topographic maps it is common to identify who did the cartography. But (at least in geological maps) this is only part of the "authorship", and I am not aware that cartogrpahers, distinguished from authors, are ever mentioned in a citation. So possibly the use of this parameter needs clarification. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:31, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I've cited a few county plat atlases in the past. The library catalogs credit the county and the local 4H Club as the authors of the atlas, while the company that actually published them did the cartography. Once the template is transition to the Lua module and updated, I can properly credit the authors of the atlas (the county, the 4H club) separate from the publishing company for their contributions.

I typically cite the official state road maps from Michigan. These were all printed by what is now the Michigan Department of Transportation, and for the most part, they drew them in house. However, for a few years in the 1930s, the base road map was drawn by HM Gousha or Rand McNally, while the state did all of the other work and may have modified the contracted company's work. The library catalogs credit the state highway department as the author; the cartography source is either omitted in the catalog or moved to a secondary contribution note.

In working with gas station road maps, the company who distributed them (say Esso) is typically thought of as the author because of the quantity of content they added to the map while they may have contracted with Rand McNally to provide the base road map. These are also indexed in library catalogs under the oil companies' names, not Rand McNally's.

I agree that in many contexts, the cartography is the author and doesn't need separate billing. Until the updated template goes live in the next module update, we have no way to separate author, publisher, and cartographer (where distinct), as the current inadequate template inappropriately conflates author and publisher. Imzadi 1979 → 02:30, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

So looking forward: should we have specific criteria to avoid ambiguous uses of this parameter? Perhaps even a caution that it is normally not used unless there is something special about the cartography/cartographers? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:45, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I think it might be fine to simply note that this parameter will usually be blank unless the information is available. The third-party cartography information is important because it can be helpful to know that, e.g, the Texaco Rand McNally map cited will probably have substantially similar content to a Rand McNally map with Skelly branding. In addition, some older Oklahoma state maps did list a credit for the woman who drew the maps (along with the name of her supervisor, for some reason), and when citing those maps I have included this information. Newer maps have nothing of the sort, probably because the map is the responsibility of a team of cartographers) so it is omitted. —Scott5114 ↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 04:24, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

As I said above, geological maps often credit who did the cartography (part of the general scholarly practice of crediting everyone who has contributed or assisted), but I am not aware of any cases where such information was of any use in a citation. Perhaps it would be sufficient to say that this parameter is for special cases, and not normally used. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:53, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

"Scholarly" vs. "Everything Else" map citation order

@J. Johnson: I think we're both in general agreement about most of the order of presentation. It seems to be a question of where to put the |series= in relation to the publisher, and I'm ok with a general "Location: Publisher. Series" order. As you note, the publisher forms a type of natural disambiguation with the series name in that respect. ("Which '7.5-Minute Series'? Oh, the 'US Geological Survey 7.5-Minute Series'!") As for |scale=, I'm neutral about running it after the map name or after the publisher/series. So if we had a general order of:

Author(s). (Date). Titles (in italics or in quotes and italics as appropriate). Location: Publisher. Series. Scale. Others. In-source location(s). ID numbers. Online-related data.

I think we'd both be generally happy. Maybe I've mis-read slightly, so one of those pieces may need a slight shuffling. (Others would be where to handle wire agency or |cartography= in the general scheme.)

The various CS1 templates though have no function to note the total number of pages in a book, so something like "2 maps (scale 1:62,500, 1:24,000), 32 p. text" doesn't seem to fit with the way the rest of the template family does things. I might be tempted to tell editors who felt strongly enough to insert that into |scale= since that is a free-form parameter that doesn't impact any metadata.

Turning to the "in-source" location, road maps have grid sections, which are supported through |section= or the new |sections=, which will be prefaced by § and §§, respectively. I'm wondering if we should add |sheet= and |sheets=. The MDOT Right-of-Way Map File Application (the name of their website) divides the state highway system into 83 "maps" (by county name) with individual numbered sheets as well as the county title sheets. I've used |at=Sheet 180 in the past, but a |sheet=180 along with |sheets=1–2 would be useful. I gather that would be useful for multi-sheet geological maps as well? Do geological maps ever have sheets numbered as multiple pages, or pages numbered as separate sheets? Imzadi 1979 → 03:11, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, sheets get numbered (also in dissertations), and a |sheets= parameter could be good. That could also take the number of pages of text. As to whether this should come immediately before or immediately after scale: I see no consistent pattern. (And I have no consistent opinion on this!) Any guidance from roadmap usage? Alternately, all this could go into (say) "desc=". Or simply appended to the template. But definitely after publisher/series.

Regarding "series": I strongly favor preceeding it with the "publisher". Preceding that with the publisher's location is a problem, because it could be confused as the location of the map. I suggest omitting location, just as we usually omit the location of a journal publisher. I also favor italicising the publisher, to distinguish it from the name of the series. (I note that some publishers do this with a colon, or even a comma.) With {{citation}} I have found that using journal+volume or journal+series works well, though strictly speaking that is a misuse of |journal=. However, |publisher= gets put after volume/series, so that isn't satisfactory. How do we manage this?

BTW, I found an interesting discussion on Map Authorship and Citation Guidelines. Part of it is about distinguishing between maps, and the data used to generate the maps. I don't think we need to worry about that. Yet. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:15, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, Trappist the monk, can we add |sheet= and |sheets= then? As for order, I'm thinking sheet/sheets should go with the page/pages ahead of any inset or section/sections. That would keep things in a general largest-unit-to-smallest-unit order, I think.

Regarding location, publisher and series, as I've noted, J. Johnson, you'll be free to omit the location, while others will include it, so that comment is less helpful. I agree with you that publisher can go ahead of series to have the natural disambiguation aspect mentioned above, but I'd oppose italicizing the publisher as no other CS1 templates does such. Yes, we should be designing a template to accommodate academic practices, but we're also fitting this template into the rest of a family of templates with an established style.

You left one of my questions unanswered though. Is a single sheet ever numbered as separate pages? The answer would let us know how to order the display of the parameters if both are present. Otherwise, I doubt we'd run into citations that used both. Imzadi 1979 → 02:16, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I think we are pretty much in accord. We agree that the publisher should precede the series name, the challenge being in how to arrrange that. I would like the italicisaton, but I grant that's not likely. For scholarly usage (I dilike "academic") we don't need a separate template if this one will work, and I think it will. Having "location" right after the map title would be an issue, but as long as it can be omitted that is not an issue. The description of the map itself - such as the number of sheets (plates) and pages of text, and things like "five-foot poster of nine maps" (there is an instance) - should precede the page range or such that indicate where the map (or map subset) is to be found. Which I believe is what we are converging on.

I am not certain if I understand your last question. Geological maps generally consist of a main map sheet (like any other map), possibly additional supplementary sheets, and explantory text, which may be on the sheet, or in a separate pamphlet or book. If there is more than one sheet they will (or should) be numbered, just like the pages in a pamphlet or book are numbered. But sheets are not pages, they are separate. Sometimes sheets are bound into a book (often as foldouts), but they are not counted as pages. What might be confusing is where a small map is printed on a page. These are usually treated as a kind of figure or illustration, andare often numbered (just like tables), so might be cited as "map 2 on page 99". But in such a case the "map" is just a figure within a larger source (such as a book). If I understand your question, the answer is "no": as discription sheets and pages (of text) are counted separately, and as locaters they do not overlap. Okay? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:46, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, I think that we've probably converged on opinion then, and it's a matter of getting the Lua module changed at the next regular update to rearrange the display order and add |sheet= and |sheets=. I'll note that we have |at= for free-form locations, which is quite handy for more custom situations. The initial Lua conversion was implemented today, so if we make a list of specific tweaks, they can be implemented in the next regular update in a few weeks. Imzadi 1979 → 20:22, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Yep, make a list of specific tweaks so that I don't have to try to understand all of what you-all are talking about. For existing in-source locators, the order of precedence is: |page=, |pages=, |at= but its |sections= over |section=. I think that's backwards. I should also add the redundant parameter error detection.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:59, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Some maps have both text (pages) and sheets, so as description it is useful to have both the number of pages and the number of sheets. But I don't believe there is any particularly appropriate order for these (or scale). As for specifying a location within a larger work: I believe COinS is primarily about locating the work itself ("in the local library"), and specifying a particular page or sheet (in-source locator) does not seem useful. And as pages and sheets are non-overlapping specifying both as a location suggests some kind of error. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:15, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Since no list of specific tweaks has appeared, has this train of thought been abandoned?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:12, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm conflicted in my thought processes on this. On the one hand, the current order in the template was designed to mimic the style of the other templates in the CS1 family. It is also based on the APA style, just as most of the other CS1 templates are based on APA. APA is a scholarly style, so while I see some advantages to the style as proposed by J. Johnson, I'm content to leave the template as it is in terms of output order.

As for |sheet= and |sheets=, I still think that would be good to add. As I suspected, a map citation should not refer to both a page and sheet number, so in terms of an in-source reference, they'd be first followed by any inset and ending with the grid section(s). That would tell me that we could combine them into the COinS metadata in that order. Imzadi 1979 → 15:24, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

A map's full citation should handle having both number of sheets and number of pages as description; combining them for COinS seems fine. I believe we are agreed on the authors-date-title-[location]-publisher-series-scale... ordering. This is nearly what we have currently, except for

1) moving publisher in front of series, and

2) moving scale further down. And

3) adding a |sheet= parameter.

I don't believe there is anything critical hanging on any of this, so there's no need to get everything "right" on the first go. Take a whack at it, and we will see how it looks. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:35, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

I still disagree on the full number of sheets or the full number of pages. We don't cite how many pages are in a book, just the page or pages where the cited information will be found.

As I noted immediately above, I'm still conflicted on changing the output order. As I've been working on updating the usage of templates in articles to use the updated {cite map}, my viewpoint is back on the side of leaving the order as it is now, based on CS1/APA usage, because that flows with {{cite book}}'s output. Your #1 change would move {cite map} away from {cite book} again, not toward it. The series for a book appears before the publisher, not after it, so it would follow that the series for a map should appear before the publisher to stay consistent. As for #2, APA style keeps the scale ahead of the series nearer to the title of the map; it could be moved, but I'm not sure why. APA is a scholarly citation style, so I don't see why we need to change things. Imzadi 1979 → 02:22, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Map Title (Map). Sheet 4. – sheet map

"Map Title" (Map). Journal. 45 (3): Sheet 4. – map in a journal

"Map Title" (Map). Title. Sheets 4, 5. Detail inset. §§ C2–D3. – map in a book or atlas

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:47, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

APA has evolved within the social sciences (and humanities?), with very little (if any) feedback from the geosciences on the use of map citations. Broad-based experience has led nearly all geoscience authorities (as I have said above) to converge on a fairly standardized style. Not being able to accomodate that will be a strong dis-incentive for using {cite map}, and limit {cite map}'s applicability.

A few details: The full citation of books often include the number of pages (which is often useful for identifying variant editions or reprintings); this is more common for pamphlets ("books" of less than 50 pages), which geological maps more closely resemble. Scale is very important in paper maps, where the relationship is fixed, but less so in digital formats (such as pdfs) which can be reproduced at any scale. This may be why scale is getting relegated to the descriptive details.

BTW: Trappist, your examples are hybridized short/full citations. E.g. (to use one of my examples), a short cite (in-line, with an in-source spec) could be "Dragovich and DeOme, 2007, p. 12" (author-date), or "GM-61, p. 12" (short title), while the full citation would be like any of the examples above. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:08, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

The purpose of the three citations above is to illustrate new parameters |sheet= and |sheets=. No other purpose is intended.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:01, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

No CS1 template includes total number of pages, and {{cite map}} is a CS1 template. The CS1 family is based on APA and the Chicago Manual of Style. Editors are free to use any style of citation they which, but they are supposed to do so consistently. Until now, this template was not very consistent with the rest of the CS1 family, and now it is.

APA says to omit a scale where it is not fixed, like Google Maps and such, but if a scanned map is reproduced in PDF format, the scale is still fixed. It's no different to enlarge a PDF on screen than to take a magnifying glass to a printed paper map. The original scale of the map will still impact the level of detail, even when enlarged because unlike something like Google Maps, the enlargement does not add details. You may omit including the scale if you wish as the template does not require a value in |scale=, nor can it because the template needs to be able to cite variable-scaled maps like Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, OpenStreetMap, etc.

@Trappist the monk: I just thought of something. |title= has a corresponding |trans-title=; should we have a |trans-map= to go with |map=? Imzadi 1979 → 23:20, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

"Map Title" [Translated Map Title] (Map). Title. Sheets 4, 5. Detail inset. §§ C2–D3. – map in a book or atlas

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:06, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

A map scale relates the size of a physical map to the size of the physical topography covered by the map. If a map sheet at 1:24,000 scale is 20 inches across, it means that the map covers an area of 480,000 inches (40,000 feet). And an inch on a physical map is still an inch, no matter how much you magnify it. (Presumably your ruler is below the magnifying glass, not above it.) All digitally derived maps are "variable-scale" until they are expressed physically, and then the resulting scale is specific to that expression.

If the scale is to follow APA style (following the title) then we should have a |desc= parameter where the scale can be included with the descriptive details. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:57, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Linked editor with initial in first name causes doubled period

A minor rendering bug in the code: If the final editor of a {{cite book}} has a first name ending in a period, then the template is clever enough to omit the extra period separating the editors from the rest of the citation, preventing an ugly doubled period. For example,

{{cite book|contribution=Chapter 27: Automorphism groups, isomorphism, reconstruction|title=Handbook of Combinatorics|pages=1447–1540|editor1-first=R. L.|editor1-last=Graham|editor1-link= Ronald Graham|editor2-first=M.|editor2-last=Grötschel|editor3-first=L.|editor3-last=Lovász|first=László|last=Babai|authorlink=László Babai|publisher=Elsevier|location=Amsterdam|year=1995|contribution-url=http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~laci/handbook/handbookchapter27.pdf}}

produces

Babai, László (1995). "Chapter 27: Automorphism groups, isomorphism, reconstruction" (PDF). In Graham, R. L.; Grötschel, M.; Lovász, L. (eds.). Handbook of Combinatorics. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 1447–1540.

But, if the editor's name is wikilinked, then the doubled-period suppression doesn't work:

{{cite book|contribution=Chapter 27: Automorphism groups, isomorphism, reconstruction|title=Handbook of Combinatorics|pages=1447–1540|editor1-first=R. L.|editor1-last=Graham|editor1-link= Ronald Graham|editor2-first=M.|editor2-last=Grötschel|editor3-first=L.|editor3-last=Lovász|editor3-link=László Lovász|first=László|last=Babai|authorlink=László Babai|publisher=Elsevier|location=Amsterdam|year=1995|contribution-url=http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~laci/handbook/handbookchapter27.pdf}}

produces

Babai, László (1995). "Chapter 27: Automorphism groups, isomorphism, reconstruction" (PDF). In Graham, R. L.; Grötschel, M.; Lovász, L. (eds.). Handbook of Combinatorics. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 1447–1540.

One could work around this by omitting the period from the editor-first parameter, of course, but this is undesirable for a couple of reasons: it breaks the metadata, and it causes the wikilink to fail to include the final period in the editor's name. So fixing the code to suppress the doubled period in this case would be better. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:14, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I'll work on this after the next update.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:22, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks; no particular rush on this one as long as it gets done eventually. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:48, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Fixed in the sandbox.

Babai, László (1995). "Chapter 27: Automorphism groups, isomorphism, reconstruction" (PDF). In Graham, R. L.; Grötschel, M.; Lovász, L. (eds.). Handbook of Combinatorics. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 1447–1540.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:38, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Where should `|format=` be used?

Where should it be used and where is it even necessary? Should it be used for TXT files? PHP files? Dustin (talk) 20:01, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

My preference would be to use it only for {{cite web}}, where the linked web resource *is* the citation. For journal articles or arxiv preprints or whatever that happen to include a link, the link is an incidental part of the reference, and could be changed to a different link in a different format that doesn't change the main information of the reference, so I don't see why the format of this incidental link is such important information that it needs to be displayed prominently in the citation. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:14, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it is ever necessary, but if the document is a .doc or a .xls file, or something other than HTML or PDF or something else that displays normally in a web browser, it might help a reader to note the format. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:55, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Jonesey95, except that I also note PDFs. Not all browsers can display PDFs, and because PDFs tend to be larger files than HTML pages, some users would appreciate the warning that clicking the link means downloading a PDF. Imzadi 1979 → 22:11, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

|format= only applies to the content of |url=. Similarly, |chapter-format= only applies to the content of |chapter-url=. The parameters should be used whenever the file format of the file referred to in the url parameters is not an html document. Wikimedia adds the pdf icon to external links that have urls ending in .pdf but, these icons do not have alt= descriptors to tell screen readers what the image is so for pdf documents, it is important to include |format=pdf in the citation.

URLs that end in .php usually render HTML files so using |format= for them is unnecessary. For .txt files, it probably doesn't matter but might be a good thing to do so that readers have some idea of what they might expect if they click the citation's link.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:07, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with your claim that format= should always be used for pdf links in citations that are not cite web. It is irrelevant cruft that clutters up the citation and makes the actual useful information harder to find. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:55, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Here's a citation from Dots and Boxes to which I have added |chapter-format=pdf. Explain to us please, how that simple addition has made the actual useful information harder to find?

{{Citation
 | last = West
 | first = Julian
 | author-link = Julian West (author)
 | contribution = Championship-Level Play of Dots-and-Boxes
 | editor-last = Nowakowski
 | editor-first = Richard
 | title = Games of No Chance
 | pages = 79–84
 | publisher = MSRI Publications
 | place = Berkeley
 | year = 1996
 | contribution-url = http://library.msri.org/books/Book29/files/westboxes.pdf |chapter-format=pdf}}

→West, Julian (1996), "Championship-Level Play of Dots-and-Boxes" (pdf), in Nowakowski, Richard (ed.), Games of No Chance, Berkeley: MSRI Publications, pp. 79–84

Returning to Editor Dustin V. S.'s question, other cases exist where |format=pdf should be used. The New York Times, for example, publishes archived copies of old articles in PDF format but the URLs don't end in .pdf so a reader has no way of knowing that the link to the article is not the usual HTML that is used for archival of more recent articles:

"Resolute Beats All Cup Course Records" (pdf). The New York Times. 11 June 1914.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:58, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Since the |format= value is displayed without the period, I would add "PDF" in uppercase because it's an acronym. GoingBatty (talk) 04:11, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

And then someone will notice MOS:ACRO and demand that it will be spelled out as "Portable Document Format" rather than abbreviated, no doubt... —David Eppstein (talk) 04:19, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

At MediaWiki:Common.css, the file extensions that change the normal external link icon to the pdf icon are .pdf, .pdf?, .pdf# (also in uppercase, but not mixed case). It occurs to me that it is relatively simple to test urls for these extensions. I've hacked a test into Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox that tests the url that is applied to the archive link. If the file extension is one of the Common.css recognized extensions then the code adds what amounts to |archive-format=PDF to the rendered citation (there is no such parameter).

The other thing I did was to shrink the size of the format annotation. Editor GoingBatty noted that because PDF is an acronym, it should be capitalized. I have always found that to be rather loud so have usually done |format=pdf as you can see from my New York Times example above. In the experiment, I set the annotation to 85% of the surrounding text. These examples are encloded in {{ref begin}} and {{ref end}} to mimic how reduced size format annotation might look in real reference lists.

"Title" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Title" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:58, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

I've expanded a bit on the above by defining a presentation style in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration/sandbox for |format=, |chapter-format=, etc. The style is the same as described above except that it forces the content of the format parameter to be uppercase before the size is reduced:

Cite book comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite book\|chapter-format=pdf\|chapter-url=//example.org/somat.pdf\|chapter=Chapter\|format=PDF\|title=Title\|url=//example.com/somat.pdf}}`
Live	"Chapter" (pdf). Title (PDF).
Sandbox	"Chapter" (pdf). Title (PDF).

In typing the above example, it occurred to me (not for the first time) that the is_pdf() test described above should be applied to all url-holding parameters and the appropriate format-holding parameters set to PDF if not already set.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:42, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

At Help_talk:Citation_Style_1#lay-url-format I suggested that we should probably have format parameters for all url-holding parameters. The url-holding parameters that don't have matching format parameters are:

|archive-url=
|conference-url=
|contribution-url= – alias of |chapter-url=
|event-url= – alias of |conference-url=
|lay-url=
|section-url= – alias of |chapter-url=
|transcript-url=

So, without objection I'll add format parameters for the above.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Six are done, |archive-format= yet to be done.

conference: Title. Conference (format).

contribution: "Contribution" (format). Title.

event: Title (Speech). Event. {{cite speech}}: Unknown parameter |event-format= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |event-url= ignored (help)

lay: "Title". Journal. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |lay-date= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |lay-format= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |lay-source= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |lay-url= ignored (help)

section: "Section" (format). Title.

transcript: "Title". Series. Transcript (format).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:31, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

And archive:

with |format=fmt and without ~~|archive-format=afmt~~:

"Title". Archived from the original (fmt) on 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Title". Archived from the original (fmt) on 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

without ~~|format=fmt~~ and with |archive-format=afmt:

"Title" (afmt). Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Title" (afmt). Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

with |format=fmt and |archive-format=afmt:

"Title" (afmt). Archived from the original (fmt) on 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Title" (afmt). Archived from the original (fmt) on 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

without ~~|format=fmt~~ and without ~~|archive-format=afmt~~:

"Title". Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Title". Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

Book with a |chapter=, |chapter-url=, |url=:

with ~~|format=fmt~~, ~~|chapter-format=cfmt~~, ~~|archive-format=afmt~~:

"Chapter". Title. Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter". Title. Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

with ~~|format=fmt~~, ~~|chapter-format=cfmt~~, |archive-format=afmt:

"Chapter" (afmt). Title. Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter" (afmt). Title. Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

with ~~|format=fmt~~, |chapter-format=cfmt, ~~|archive-format=afmt~~:

"Chapter". Title. Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter". Title. Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

with ~~|format=fmt~~, |chapter-format=cfmt, |archive-format=afmt:

"Chapter" (afmt). Title. Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter" (afmt). Title. Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

with |format=fmt, ~~|chapter-format=cfmt~~, ~~|archive-format=afmt~~:

"Chapter". Title (fmt). Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter". Title (fmt). Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

with |format=fmt, ~~|chapter-format=cfmt~~, |archive-format=afmt:

"Chapter" (afmt). Title (fmt). Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter" (afmt). Title (fmt). Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

with |format=fmt, |chapter-format=cfmt, ~~|archive-format=afmt~~:

"Chapter". Title (fmt). Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter". Title (fmt). Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

with |format=fmt, |chapter-format=cfmt, |archive-format=afmt:

"Chapter" (afmt). Title (fmt). Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter" (afmt). Title (fmt). Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

Book with a |chapter=, |chapter-url=, ~~|url=~~:

with ~~|chapter-format=cfmt~~, ~~|archive-format=afmt~~:

"Chapter". Title. Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter". Title. Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

with ~~|chapter-format=cfmt~~, |archive-format=afmt:

"Chapter" (afmt). Title. Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter" (afmt). Title. Archived from the original on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

with |chapter-format=cfmt, ~~|archive-format=afmt~~:

"Chapter". Title. Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter". Title. Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

with |chapter-format=cfmt, |archive-format=afmt:

"Chapter" (afmt). Title. Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)

"Chapter" (afmt). Title. Archived from the original (cfmt) on 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (|deadurl=no)

In the examples that include |url=, you can see that the archive code doesn't swap |chapter-url= with |archive-url=. This seems wrong to me. Shouldn't |archive-url= be paired with the most specific url in the citation?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:05, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I have consolidated all of the format styling into a single function where as in the tests described above it was strewn thither and beyond. As part of that consolidation, I have restored the code that detects the various pdf file extensions so that when |xxx-format= is empty or omitted and the a url points to a pdf file, the the code sets |xxx-format=PDF:

conference: Title. Conference (PDF).

contribution: "Contribution" (PDF). Title.

event: Title (Speech). Event. {{cite speech}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |event-format= (help); Unknown parameter |event-url= ignored (help)

lay: "Title". Journal. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |lay-format= (help); Unknown parameter |lay-date= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |lay-source= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |lay-url= ignored (help)

section: "Section" (PDF). Title.

transcript: "Title". Series. Transcript (PDF).

These examples make sure that we get an error message when |xxx-format= is set but |xxx-url= is not

format: Title. {{cite conference}}: |format= requires |url= (help)

archive: Title (format). {{cite conference}}: |archive-format= requires |archive-url= (help)

conference: Title. Conference (format). {{cite conference}}: |conference-format= requires |conference-url= (help)

contribution: "Contribution" (format). Title. {{cite book}}: |chapter-format= requires |chapter-url= (help)

event: Title (Speech). Event. {{cite speech}}: Unknown parameter |event-format= ignored (help)

lay: "Title". Journal. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |lay-date= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |lay-format= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |lay-source= ignored (help)

section: "Section" (format). Title. {{cite book}}: |chapter-format= requires |chapter-url= (help)

transcript: "Title". Series. Transcript (format). {{cite episode}}: |transcript-format= requires |transcripturl= (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:02, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Strongly object. I hope this is an April Fools joke, because I very much dislike format= in cases where the url name makes the format obvious, very much do not want this gratuitous cruft added automagically to the references of the articles I edit, and very much do not want to have to add display-format=no (or whatever) to prevent your automagic cruft from crufting up the articles. By your stubborn insistance on imposing your formatting preferences on others despite their objections (see above) you are in gross violation of WP:RETAIN. Please DO NOT DO THIS. You are driving me away from using templates to format citations at all, because you keep making the templates harder to use and harder to prevent from doing annoying things. Is that really the effect you intend? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:10, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

This morning, these search strings turned up more than 68,000 pages that use |format= to identify PDF documents in CS1/2 citations:

insource:/\| *format *= *PDF/ – 53,991 pages

insource:/\| *format *= *pdf/ – 14,136 pages

I did not invent |format= nor did I write Help:Citation_Style_1#External_links or Template:Citation_Style_documentation#csdoc_format. Because icons do not support the alt attribute, leaving out |format= is a disservice to those who cannot see the icon (or the url since it is hidden in the href= attribute of the <a>...</a> tag). If you have a beef with |format= parameters, the beef is not with me but with W3C, or browser makers, or MediaWiki who have either not defined a requirement for alt= text use with images in CSS, not implemented such defined support in browsers, or who have not added alt= text to the icon portions of MediaWiki:common.css and perhaps elsewhere. When such support is defined and supported, then there is no further 'need' for |format=pdf when a visual icon is present. For other, non-browser supported file types (.xls, etc.) there will always be a need for |format=.

Because the icons are applied with CSS, they are therefore, not content but merely decoration. I suppose that in the module it's possible to override the background property and then insert the same icon using an <img /> tag with appropriate alt= text and whatever other attributes are required. It would seem better to do that globally in the MediaWiki software. You might raise the issue at Phabricator.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:41, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Hey, thanks to all of you for helping me to find an answer to my inquiry, as well as for the work you put into this template. Dustin (talk) 20:10, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

{cite map} oddity

Overall, I'm very pleased with the changes made with {{cite map}} to convert it over to use the Lua module and make it more consistent with the other CS1 templates and academic citation standards. One little weird thing has popped up though.

Michigan Department of Transportation (2014). Pure Michigan: State Transportation Map (Map). c. 1:975,000. Lansing: Michigan Department of Transportation. §§ A1–B2. OCLC 42778335, 900162490.
Colorado State Highway Department (July 1923). "New Map Showing the 8,880 Miles Which Comprise Colorado's Primary Highway System" (Map). Colorado Highways. Scale not given. 2 (7): 12–13. OCLC 11880590. Retrieved November 18, 2013 – via Google Books.
Rand McNally (2013). "Michigan" (Map). The Road Atlas. 1 in≈20 mi. Chicago: Rand McNally. §§ A1–B1. ISBN 0-528-00626-6.
Rand McNally (2013). "Michigan" (Road map). The Road Atlas. 1 in≈20 mi. Chicago: Rand McNally. §§ A1–B1. ISBN 0-528-00626-6.

If the map is a sheet map, or a map in a journal, as in the first two examples above, then the "(Map)." appears after the name of the map. For a sheet map (#1), that title is in italics; for a map in a journal (#2), it's in quotation marks while the journal is italicized. If it's a map in a book (#3) though, "(Map)." is missing instead of appearing after the map name in quotation marks. If |type=Road map (or some other type of map) is defined (#4), then the type shows up as expected, but the default isn't appearing as it should. If this can be fixed, it would be great. Imzadi 1979 → 05:36, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Fixed, I think, in the sandbox. I've tweaked #s 2, 3, 4 to use {{cite map/new}}.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:44, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Sounds and looks good. Thanks for all of your work getting us to where we are on the template. Imzadi 1979 → 15:25, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Article style template

~~I created {{article style}} as an edit notice for to indicate various styles within an article. -- Gadget850^talk 12:51, 27 March 2015 (UTC)~~

That looks helpful for editors. Do you have a grand vision that templates like {{Use British English}} and {{Use dmy dates}} could be merged into this new template? – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:53, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Need to roll through Category:Editnotice templates.

Currently only admins can create article edit notices, and the system for non-admins is cumbersome. I have some thoughts on that. -- Gadget850^talk 19:22, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Re "only admins...", I have run into that inconvenience in the past. It would be nice if having the article style template at the top of an article made the edit notice appear (admins could still do custom notices, I suppose), but I don't know any of the technical details that make WP work the way it currently does. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:07, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Users with the template-editor right can also created edit notices. I'm willing, within reason, to create them for people. I'm sure others with the TE right would feel similarly, although they may not be aware that they have the ability. Imzadi 1979 → 22:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I've nominated this template for discussion. I like the concept of having this information readily available, but I oppose this approach due to getting users with elevated privileges involved in style changes, and the screen space the notice would occupy, which is an activity where users need all the screen space they can get. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:16, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Date parameter

I want to give the date as "Christmas 2007", but |date=Christmas 2007 throws up an error. Eric Corbett 18:20, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Will |issue=Christmas 2007 work? Do you have a specific example from a specific article? That always helps. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:35, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

The issue parameter is intended for the issue number, for those periodicals that assign numbers for their issues (usually, but not always, starting at 1 in January). If the date printed in the magazine is "Christmas 2007" that's the date, and Eric is right and the error message is wrong. So the options are just leave the error message, format that particular citation by hand, or rip all the citation templates out of the article and use some non-template citation method for the articles. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:20, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Why can't it be the "Christmas of 2007" issue? If "Christmas, 2007" is taken as a date (though not a style we really recognize) it implies the date of the issue really was December 25, 2007. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:43, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

I was going to try to give you a good answer, but it's all wrapped up in the different placement of the date depending on whether an author is named for an article in a periodical. So I decline to explain myself until that bug is fixed. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:02, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

That's fine. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:13, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

In addition, note that the publication may also have a conventional issue number - which would be lost if Christmas 2007 was used as the issue - really this is no different than Winter 2007, which is allowable.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:06, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

A specific example is ref #130 in the Stretford article. Eric Corbett 22:32, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Five more examples: Northern Rail ref #4, Mario Kart: Double Dash‼ ref #33, Populous: The Beginning ref #23, Strange (TV series) ref #1, and Desiré Wilson ref #4. GoingBatty (talk) 22:41, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

This looks like a real thing. The linked source in Northern Rail gives its date as "Christmas 2004". The Mario Kart and Populous articles cite a magazine called Edge that published issues with issue numbers and "Christmas YYYY" dates (example). The Strange article cites SFX magazine, which has also published issues with issue numbers and dates of Christmas YYYY. That's enough proof for me that "Christmas YYYY" is a real date for citation purposes. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:32, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Cite book comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite book\|date=Christmas 2015\|title=Title}}`
Live	Title. Christmas 2015.
Sandbox	Title. Christmas 2015.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:38, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

When is that likely to go live? Eric Corbett

Cite:_web problem.

I would really like a way to insert a {{rp}} for web sites, like you can for books. Let us take a highly newsworthy murder and trial, for example. There may be dozens of articles from CNN.com, Foxnews.com along with various other news organizations, but then the ref list gets really long, really quick. Wouldn't it make more sense to line up references with RP for one single site? If there is a way to do that, would you mind sharing it with me (on my talk page, please)? While I understand that for books, the RP displays page numbers inline, but who says the web version has to do that? Why not over a hover with the webpage link for that citation? Let's say we name one that functions similarly as {{Wcp}}, (that is template:wcp). The markup would look like:

{{wcp|http://www.news.com/evil_ killer_convicted}}

Then inline text would look like article text....^1.1, so when you hover over the 1.1, it provides the full citation (as any well-done citation does) with a clickable link to that particular article. Does this make sense?

MagnoliaSouth ^(talk) 19:13, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

{{cite journal}} (and others) : linking supplementary material?

Quite a few papers are accompanied by extra stuff (raw data, full experiment transcripts, elaborated proofs, source code, …, and for conference submissions more and more often talk slides and even recordings.) When reading a paper, having access to these is helpful.

The template currently only supports linking the main paper and a (single?) "laysummary". Adding separate citations for all of these materials isn't really an option – this would clutter the list, or may not fit the format (e.g. in the section "selected bibliography/works" of a person's page.) Leaving out these links means that everyone who's interested has to search for them. (And has to think of searching for these – if the paper doesn't mention the existence of extra materials, this may not happen.)

How should these supplementary materials be handled? (Just ignore that they exist, or include them in some way?)

If they should be included, should the template(s) be extended with extra fields (or a single, free-form-ish one) to accommodate these? (Or is there a better way?)

—80.153.23.35 (talk) 01:48, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

You can always just add links to the additional material at the end of the template-generated citation within the <ref>...</ref> tags.

<ref>{{cite journal ...}} [http://example.org/important-paper/raw-data.html Raw data]. [http://example.org/important-paper/talk-slides.html Talk slides].</ref>

Something like that should work if you customize it to whatever you extra materials you wanted to include. Imzadi 1979 → 02:06, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

multiple language support

One of the biggest contributors to Category:CS1 maint: Unrecognized language is multiple languages in the |language= parameter. I have tweaked Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox so that |language= now accepts a comma-delimited list of language names – either as ISO639-1 code or spelled-out (or a mix of both) – and renders a properly formatted language list:

Cite book comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite book\|language=nb, french , de,lt\|title=Title}}`
Live	Title (in Norwegian Bokmål, French, German, and Lithuanian).
Sandbox	Title (in Norwegian Bokmål, French, German, and Lithuanian).

Names or codes that aren't recognized are rendered as presented:

Cite book comparison
Wikitext	`{{cite book\|language=nb, Basilisk, de,lt, xt\|title=Title}}`
Live	Title (in Norwegian Bokmål, Basilisk, German, Lithuanian, and xt).`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
Sandbox	Title (in Norwegian Bokmål, Basilisk, German, Lithuanian, and xt).`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:34, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

This is a great idea. Based on poking through this category, I would like to see an option for an "and" between the last two languages accepted as valid. That would make the following examples valid:

|language=German, French
|language=German and French
|language=German, Swedish, French
|language=German, Swedish, and French
|language=German, Swedish and French

But this would not be valid, since it is not valid grammar:

|language=German, and French

I think it reads much better to use "and" after the introductory "In" before the language names, and based on what I see in the maint category, I believe that other editors feel the same way. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:52, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, but ... Formatting of the rendered citation is the responsibility of the template. So, the rule for inside the raw template is: comma separate the languages and the module will add appropriate punctuation and interstitial words:

Title (in German).

Title (in German and French).

Title (in German, Swedish, and French).

Title (in German, Swedish, French, and Spanish).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:58, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me, though it might be interesting to track the usage of "and". --Izno (talk) 21:53, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I can live with that and will be happy to document it in the shared template documentation. Once the code is live, a bot or AWB script can be used on the existing 6,200 articles in the main category to remove the existing instances of "and" and replace them with commas. I hope Trappist or GoingBatty or another AWB expert will be willing to do that. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:23, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Good change. Howevever, since the template doesn't recognize "xt" in the second example, shouldn't the template still cause the page to be added to Category:CS1 maint: Unrecognized language/emit the error? --Izno (talk) 21:53, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

The module doesn't categorize pages from the Help namespace. When this example:

{{cite book |title=Title |language=nb, Basilisk, de,lt, xt}}

is placed in a mainspace page you get this additional hidden output:

<span class="citation-comment" style="display:none; color:#33aa33">CS1 maint: Unrecognized language ([[:Category:CS1 maint: Unrecognized language|link]])</span>[[Category:CS1 maint: Unrecognized language]][[Category:CS1 Norwegian Bokmål-language sources (nb)]][[Category:CS1 German-language sources (de)]][[Category:CS1 Lithuanian-language sources (lt)]]

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:09, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Ah, the error just isn't turned on. --Izno (talk) 22:14, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

The maintenance messages are controlled by the same mechanism that turns on all error messages. See Help:CS1 errors#Controlling error message display; which I need to update because that's the only way to see them.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:37, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Putting multiple authors or editors (an author list) into a single parameter should be deprecated

Putting multiple authors or editors (an author list) into a single parameter should be deprecated, as it muddles the metadata and (in that such a list is displayed however the editor formats it) can conflict with how the template displays the rest of the data. It also invites short cuts like where an editor copy-pasts the entire author/editor list into a single parameter (often including the footnote numbering of the original document. While this last is often a useful indication of sub-par editing, it really should not be encouraged. If we must have some kind of 'author-list' option it should be conditioned on having at least four 'lastn/firstn' parameters.

Which gets back to how much typing is needed. If your pdf (like many) is only an image of text, all you can copy is bits of image. To get text you have to either run it through decent OCR software, or type it in your self. Though if you have some other kind of identifier you might be able to find the bibliographic data on-line. Once you have text the insertion of parameter code can be done with some adroit search-and-replace editing. Or with a script. If you don't want to type in (say) 40 author names, fine, you only have type in one more than the number of authors you want to display.

Important note re COinS: standard cataloging practice is that works with many authors are identified by the first three authors. Don't count on COinS finding "Smith, Jones, and Brown, 2007" at someone's local library if all you give it is "Smith 2007". Incomplete data is a form of corrupted data, as is muddled data. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:04, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I have added a header to the above comment, since it is really a new conversation about policy, not a continuation of the conversation about how to allow editors to make "et al." display without resorting to lame hacks.

As for the substance of the comment, I am generally in agreement, but there are some around here who will CITEVAR you until you are blue in the face. One disadvantage of typing multiple authors is that it makes harv referencing more challenging and time-consuming. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:02, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

It still amazes me that CITEVAR is used to protect lazy editing. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:03, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

It still amazes me that people think we should make our citation templates even harder for new editors to use and even less forgiving of sloppy usage by new editors. I'm all for wikignomes or bots cleaning up author parameters and splitting out the separate authors and the different parts of authors names, so we get better metadata and more consistent formatting. However, it's easier to start out using this parameter and then later once you're more familiar with the templates learn to separate the names out properly. It's also worth noting that there are some citations where author= is the correct parameter to use; for instance this week I had occasion to use |author=Editorial board (for an unsigned editorial in an academic journal). —David Eppstein (talk) 22:43, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Laziness is not the issue. Scripts such as WP:REFTOOLS can easily produce bloated "first1, last1, first2, last2, ..." parameter lists. The issue is how to avoid this unnecessary parameter bloat. The {{vcite2 journal}} template and the |vauthors= parameter which puts multiple authors in a single parameter and produces clean metadata. The citation-template-filling tool produces citations formatted in this style. If the author list is comma limited, why do we need to split authors into separate parameters? Lua scripts such as Module:ParseVauthors can easily parse a comma limited author list. Boghog (talk) 22:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree regarding author (singular), but what we are talking about here are the plural forms. If we have robust tools for parsing such lists they should be made available. (Perhaps any attempt to use an authors/editors parameter should pop up a link to suh a tool. At the least be flagged for maintenance.) But it is not simply a newbie issue: I've seen cases where an editor just did not want to take the trouble to clean-up an author list, let alone split it. Or thought such sloppiness was good enough for Wikipedia. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:23, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

deprecated |authorsn and |editorsn

These two parameters nave never made sense to me, were not part of the {{citation/core}} versions of the various CS1/2 templates so I propose to deprecate them at the next update.

Title. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors1= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |authors2= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editors1= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editors2= ignored (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't recall ever seeing or using these. But can we have some statistics on how many articles actually use them, before deciding on deprecation? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:05, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

For |authorsn=:

insource:/\| *authors1/ finds 4 instances

insource:/\| *authors2/ finds 12 instances

insource:/\| *authors3/ finds 2 instances

insource:/\| *authors4/ finds 3 instances

insource:/\| *authors5/ finds 2 instances

insource:/\| *authors6/ finds 1 instance

From Epigenetics of autism is this malformed citation that accounts for single finds when looking for |authors6=–|authors9=:

{{cite journal |authors=Davies|title=Xlr3b is a new imprinted candidate for X-linked parent-of-origin effects on cognitive function in mice|journal=Nature Genetics |volume=37|pages=625–629|year=2005|authors2=W.|authors3=Isles|authors4=A.|authors5=Smith|authors6=R.|authors7=Karunadasa|authors8=D.|authors9=Burrmann|display-authors=20|doi=10.1038/ng1577|pmid=15908950|issue=6}}

→"Xlr3b is a new imprinted candidate for X-linked parent-of-origin effects on cognitive function in mice". Nature Genetics. 37 (6): 625–629. 2005. doi:10.1038/ng1577. PMID 15908950. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |display-authors=20 (help); Unknown parameter |authors2= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |authors3= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |authors4= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |authors5= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |authors6= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |authors7= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |authors8= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |authors9= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)

Changing |authorsn= to |authorn= reveals that the module doesn't understand something about |authorsn=:

→Davies; W.; Isles; A.; Smith; R.; Karunadasa; D.; Burrmann (2005). "Xlr3b is a new imprinted candidate for X-linked parent-of-origin effects on cognitive function in mice". Nature Genetics. 37 (6): 625–629. doi:10.1038/ng1577. PMID 15908950. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |display-authors=20 (help)

I stopped looking at

insource:/\| *authors10/ finds none

For editors:

insource:/\| *editors1/ finds 1 instance

insource:/\| *editors2/ finds 1 instance

insource:/\| *editors3/ finds none in use

The insource: search appears to be somewhat crippled. It failed to return any results with these search strings:

insource:/\| *authors\d/

insource:/\| *editors\d/

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:44, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I didn't even know we had "authorsn" parameters. They certainly don't make sense (multiple lists of authors??). I say delete them. As there are so few instances I would be willing to convert all the "authorsn" to "authorn". ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk)

Wow. This was so weird, I had to double check that lists of authors was actually a thing that worked. Looking at the history, I'm pretty sure I created that functionality by accident. A extra misplaced "#" in the parameter lists. Mea culpa. I agree with getting rid of it. Dragons flight (talk) 21:21, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm usually a proponent of moving slowly on changes like this, but this looks like typos all the way down. We should just change this to unsupported instead of deprecating it. I'll be happy to work with J. Johnson (JJ) to clean these up before we roll out the changes to the module. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:06, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I've killed them.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:45, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

It looks like all instances of |authorsn= and |editorsn= have been cleaned up, according to an insource search. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:03, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

I just finished the last one now, assuming no more exist beyond |authors10= and |editors3=. |authorsn/editorsn= should still be made to emit errors, or at least aliased, in case they appear in the future. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf) 15:05, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

There are error messages for the citation in the first post of this discussion. Do you not see them?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:26, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Whoops, all good. ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅contribs ⋅dgaf) 15:33, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

|accessdate= checking

Following up on this feature request, I have added code to Module:Citation/CS1/Date validation/sandbox that constrains valid accessdates to the dates that fall between 15 January 2001 UTC and tomorrow's date UTC.

"Title". Retrieved 2001-01-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

"Title". Retrieved 2001-01-15. – Wikipedia start date

"Title". Retrieved 2001-01-16.

"Title". Retrieved 2024-11-24.

"Title". Retrieved 2024-11-25. – today's date

"Title". Retrieved 2024-11-26. – tomorrow's date

"Title". Retrieved 2024-11-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) – day-after-tomorrow's date

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't seen to be working for tomorrow's UTC date.

Example please.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

{{cite web/new |title=Title |url=//example.com |accessdate=2015-04-03}} displays as

"Title". Retrieved 2015-04-03. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) [Link icon and colors not reproduced.]

in the UTC-4 time zone at 16:05 UTC-4. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:08, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

The comparison date-times for today (2015-04-02 UTC as write this) are 2001-01-15T00:00:00 UTC (Wikipedia start date) and 2015-04-03T00:00:00 UTC (tomorrow). The code produces an error message when the access date comparison value date-time (2015-04-03T00:00:00 UTC for your example) is not between those two date-times. In about an hour and a half, your example citation should no longer produce an error because 2015-04-03 will have become today UTC. Right?

{{cite web/new |title=Title |url=//example.com |accessdate=2015-04-03}}

→"Title". Retrieved 2015-04-03.

The above citation is showing an error as of the date and time of my signature.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

For completeness, at 2015-04-03T00:08 UTC the above citation was no longer showing an error message (after a null edit).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:16, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

I think the point is more that people in early time zones will expect their date to work consistently, so the check should allow anything up to and including UTC today + 1. Dragons flight (talk) 22:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, can be done. The test then becomes:

Wikipedia start date <= accessdate < today + 2 days

which is:

2001-01-15T00:00:00 UTC <= <accessdate>T00:00:00 UTC < 2024-11-27T00:00:00 UTC

So the full 24 hours of Wikipedia start date UTC and the full 24 hours of tomorrow UTC.

I'll tweak the code tomorrow UTC.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Tweaked and I've tweaked the examples above.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:16, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: please rephrase your reply to not use the word between. Please choose among the phrases less than, less than or equal to, greater tha, and greater than or equal to. I agree with Dragons flight that since time zone designations are not normally included with accessdate, an access date should be considered valid if 15 January 2001 <= accessdate <= the least date in progress anywhere in the world at the time the check is made. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Does the above answer?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:37, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

[1] "Product Comparison". InfoWorld. 10 (49). IDG: 64. 5 December 1988. ISSN 0199-6649. Retrieved 29 December 2014.

[2] Product Comparison, p. PT63, at Google Books

[3] [Product Comparison, p. PT63, at Google Books "Product Comparison"]. InfoWorld. 10 (49). IDG: 64. 5 December 1988. ISSN 0199-6649. Retrieved 29 December 2014. {{cite journal}}: Check |url= value (help)

[4] "Product Comparison". InfoWorld. 10 (49). IDG: 64. 5 December 1988. ISSN 0199-6649. Retrieved 29 December 2014.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

"and updates"

error chapter=ignored

Month style in date ranges test

format with chapter-url but not url

Cite journal and Google books

cite journal without |title

Citing a primary source document

Request to update Template:Cite compare

Preface/introduction citation - is what I'm doing correct despite feeling hackish

Cite Conference - adding presenter parameter?

Separator parameters

Display parameters: do we need them?

Postscript

Is |origyear= alias to |orig-year= or vice versa?

Disagree with decision to default suppress page/pages prefix (p./pp.) under CITE PERIODICAL/WORK.

Date formats

"no date" should be a valid entry in the date field

Template:Cite conference fails to display title and chapter

fields with double values

New series

A proposed new error to detect: URL in |title=

Website

Time for a module update?

arXiv identifier

Date ranges like "2000–present"

Cite DoI/ Cite PMID

Substitution

Vcite journal + Vcite2 journal

Reviving request for trans-quote

Wikidata

NCID

COinS

Wikidata

Template:Literatur

Cite tweet

Book reviews

Undocumented parameter?

Update to the live CS1 module weekend of 14–15 February 2015

Journals with chapters

|name-list-format=vanc not displaying middle initial

Smallcaps

Cite journal - review article vs. non-review

Arbitrary break #1

Arbitrary break #2

Arbitrary break #3

Separator and postscript values...

Subscription or registration required

mode

access date without url

What to do with Category:CS1 errors: invalid mode

Volume number looks like series number

Date position

Gold Book, IUPAC webpage citation style using {{cite web}}

url vs. website

Protected edit request on 28 February 2015

want to use Cite_AV_media in de

Maintenance category messaging

Adding translator to citation?

c. 75

date and year in the same citation

Multiple languages

Error data - accessdate without URL

Code rearranged in Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox

Italian identifiers

origyear -> origdate?

coauthors

Which url to link with podcast cites?

Treatment of a literal "et al." in an author parameter

Update to the live CS1 module weekend of 21–22 March 2015

months auto translate on cy-wiki

"ed." and "eds." option

"translator=" field

lay-url-format

name-list-format

Additional link to doi, bibcode, arxiv, etc. via the url parameter

cite episode and cite serial

cite episode

cite serial

Cite arXiv doesn't give an error when last2, first2, and author2 all exist

cite map

Is `|origyear=` alias to `|orig-year=` or vice versa?

A proposed new error to detect: URL in `|title=`

`|name-list-format=vanc` not displaying middle initial

Gold Book, IUPAC webpage citation style using `{{cite web}}`

Where should `|format=` be used?