Template talk:Cite act/Archive 1

Archive 1

Proposed revisions

1. add a toggle to allow switching display wording between "Act" and "Bill"

2. add a field to allow inclusion of the legislative body involved (supporting wikilink)

3. add a field to include an indicator of whether the legislation was passed and enacted vs. proposed and rejected vs. pending

4. add a field dependent on URL field being filled which supports indicating the publisher of the legislation detail linked via URL. For instance, in this diff, I revised the sourcing of the PDF of the legislation; originally the PDF was published by MOHAN Foundation, but the revision draws on the Lok Sabha's own publication repository.

Thanks for considering these. I'll put a note on the WikiProject Law referring to these suggestions. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:02, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I pressed ahead with item 1, and have implemented |type=Act/Bill/Directive and |articletype=Article/Annex/Appendix for the subsection equivalent. User:GKFX^talk 15:32, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

i18n proposal

For citing laws not drafted in the English language (i.e. where 'language' is set), it would be useful to support the translation of the 'title' field, which for other templates are supported with the 'trans_title' field. Thanks. Lklundin (talk) 19:45, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree and also think that this template should allow translated quotes of acts which are in foreign languages. This could consist of two parameters: one for the quote, the other for the translation. It could be displayed, for example, as:

A law in French (In French: "un loi en français")

AHeneen (talk) 01:11, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. fgnievinski (talk) 22:23, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Added it. Use trans_title, and it'll work now. Hecseur (talk) 17:04, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Jurisdiction? Legislature? Session?

How do I specify which jurisdiction/legislature the act was passed/proposed in? -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 05:18, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Standardize "Retrieved" with other templates?

I believe most, if not all, cite templates say "Retrieved July 22, 2018", but for some reason this cite template adds the word "on" and says "Retrieved on July 22, 2018". Is it possible to remove this word so it's the same as cite web, etc...? Mattximus (talk) 17:05, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

 Done @Mattximus: for consistency with other citation templates I've also deprecated trans_title, articletype and accessdate, for trans-title, article-type and access-date, so make sure you update these fields. Hecseur (talk) 14:34, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Display of page numbers.

Was it intentional that this template displays pages as "p. page 29–42" and "p. P. 0029 - 0042"? If the normal "p." is not suitable, |at= should be used instead of |page=.

--User-duck (talk) 03:26, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

 Done @User-duck: This does seem to be a problem, as many citations use the old format where in order to display "page" before page numbers, the word "page" had to be in the value of |page=. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Hecseur (talk) 07:05, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Just to note: there is a general consensus that page numbers on Wikipedia should follow our style guide and not that of any external style guides. There is certainly leeway in formatting per WP:CITEVAR, but as best I can tell there is no good reason why this template should use anything but |p=42 (p. 42) or |pp=42–64 (pp. 42–64). Editors on individual articles that for some reason need to may always override it (using, e.g. |at= or similar) with whatever they choose. --Xover (talk) 07:13, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

@Xover: The problem isn't a style preference, it's the fact that in most citations people wrote things like "page" or "p." since for the longest time there was no functionality to add these fields. I can make some if statements to fix this probably, but that might just be over-complicating an already relatively messy template. Hecseur (talk) 08:41, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

That's one of the nice things about using the CS1 modules as a base: issues like this, and many more, are automatically detected, warned about, and added to a tracking category. Every CS1-based citation with stuff like |p=page 24 (p. page 24) will end up in Category:CS1 maint: Extra text where they can be fixed. Some CS1 errors are not shown by default (because there are a lot of them) and must be manually enabled using the instructions on that category page; while others are. The determination of which is which is based on discussions at Help talk:Citation Style 1 and is common for all CS1-based citation templates (and complaints about the error messages is also directed there). That's one of the benefits of being part of a larger ecosystem. --Xover (talk) 08:59, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

@Xover: I completely agree that'd it'd be much more useful to use the CS1 modules as a base, but that'd cause hundreds, maybe thousands, of these extra text issues that no one wants to fix. Unless we get a competent bot which can delete all extra text in that field correctly, we could only fix these errors by hand, and no one wants to do that. The best way to not have a bunch of errors lying around for the mean time is finding a way to not have this duplication happen, and as soon as we get a bot that can fix this onboard, revert the changes so we get the errors back. Hecseur (talk) 09:13, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

There are tens of thousands of these errors already (overall), and even with the warnings you'll constantly get more of them due to sloppy or confused editors. By using |at= all you're doing is hiding the problem, making it harder for conscientious editors to get it right and making it impossible to fix existing ones. There are loads of these kinds of maintenance backlogs on Wikipedia, and there are lots of editors and bot operators working on fixing them, that all rely on detection and tracking categories to do the job. My strong recommendation would be to make use of this facility for more correct output and tracking of the inevitable errors.

It is probably for the best, though it is going to take forever for these errors to get fixed, especially since there are already thousands of them. If there is, and there probably is, a way to put the article in the maintenance category via the citation, then we can make a temporary fix in which if the citation was fixed by the temporary fix, add it to Category:CS1 maint: Extra text. Anyway, for now I'll revert the changes, we'll see what we do next. Hecseur (talk) 09:41, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Looks like that all that really needs to be done is to change the documentation. I thought that {{cite act}} may have unique format requirements. Yes, I am correcting pages showing up in Category:CS1 maint: Extra text. I did not "fix" the template documentation, not knowing the "requirements".

FYI. There were thousands of "Extra Text" pages. I have fixed maybe 100. Thousands were fixed quickly by others, must have had a tool. And, yes, more pages have shown up.

--User-duck (talk) 16:39, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

P.S. Thousands out of 5,000,000+ pages is a very small percentage. Most editors work from examples. That is why it is important to reduce the number of examples. -- User-duck (talk) 16:44, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Good call, I fixed the documentation. Hecseur (talk) 21:42, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Addition of page parameter

Is there any support for a |page= parameter, such as seems needed on ARSAT-3K? I'm tempted to simply add it myself if there is no disapproval.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:57, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Template, documentation, and ARSAT-3K all updated with |page=, modeled on ARSAT-3K's usage.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  19:20, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

YMD dates

{{cite law}} is being used at Driver's license but it complains about the YMD date format. All the other references in the article use YMD and YMD is an allowed format to use for Wikipedia references. Is there a reason why cite act and cite law' don't allow YMD dates?  Stepho  talk  04:08, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

@Stepho-wrs: As far as I'm aware, in {{cite act}}, dates appear as part of the title of the reference, corresponding to "general use" demonstrated in MOS:DATE. Thanks for asking though, since I now notice there are several problems with this template, 1 which is a possible bug, and another which is the documentation being outdated, misleading and confusing on how the template should be used. I fixed the template on Driver's license on how it's supposed to be, but I'll get right away on fixing the issues. Cheers! Hecseur (talk) 12:24, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, However, I don't understand if your fix will be to allow YMD dates or to make its dis-allowance clearer in the documentation.  Stepho  talk  12:32, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

@Stepho-wrs: I'm sorry, I've been unclear in my comment. What I meant is that there were unrelated documentation problems which came to my attention by seeing how you used the template, so thanks for commenting! I didn't allow YMD because it still doesn't fit MOS guidlines, I can make a clearer message on why YMD is not to be used, but the way the date parameter works for this template is pretty complicated already, and I don't want to have over-complicated code that no one can understand. If you think that YMD should be possible though, you should open a discussion and see what community consensus is on it. If people want YMD to be allowed or the template to be changed, I'll happily implement whatever I can do with my knowledge of how the template works. Hecseur (talk) 11:47, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Actually we had an RFC about the use of YMD in references this time last year. See Talk:Tesla_Model_S/Archive_6#RfC_about_date_format_in_references. It was also advertised in many MOS and project talk pages so that interested parties could chime in they had something to say (eg Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers/Archive_157#Rfc_on_reference_date_format_at_'Tesla_Model_S'). The conclusion was that YMD in references is supported by MOS. To disallow YMD in references is against MOS. I'm a professional programmer, so I'm willing to help with the changes if you like.  Stepho  talk  22:35, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

@Stepho-wrs: I completely agree that generally this should be the case. However, the date format in cite act, as of right now, works differently than in other templates. If YMD dates were allowed, a citation, in the current format, would look like this:

• "The approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs". Annex II, Directive No. 2000/13/EC of 2000-03-20. The European Parliament & Council of the European Union. p. 29-42.

The date parameter is specifically part of the de-facto title of the citation, saying "Act of 1998-02-12" doesn't make sense in that context. The date parameter in this template is specifically designed so acts which have a certain year in their name could include them. A random example, citing the "Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989", could be written as:

• Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 (Chapter 34). 1989.

The year "1989" is inherently related to the citing the act (see Citation of United Kingdom legislation), and so it is given priority over the date the legislation was passed, being a part of the de-facto title. As of right now, the entire citation template is really odd to be frank, a pretty unique case which needs to be examined on its on or possibly changed. In its current form, both including and not including YMD dates would break Wikipedia policy. Not including them, as you mentioned, breaks consensus in Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers/Archive_157#Rfc_on_reference_date_format_at_'Tesla_Model_S', and reference guidelines in MOS:DATE. However, the usage of dates in this citation applies as if it's a general use case, appearing in a name or a sentence, and so general use guidelines of MOS:DATE should apply. Regardless, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and what should be done about this mess, though this probably will require some wider consensus which is specifically on cite act, since, as of right now, it works quite differently than anything else. Hecseur (talk) 23:18, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, that does present a problem. Cite act seems to be uncommon in being used in both prose and references. All other uses of the {{cite}} family I have only seen used as references. I can think of only a few solutions:

1. Allow all valid forms of date (including YMD) and rely on the user to not use YMD when used in prose.
2. Have an extra param {{{prose}}}. If it has the value 'yes' then the template actively disallows YMD, otherwise YMD is allowed.
3. 'Cite act' allows YMD. Create 'cite act prose' which disallows YMD but otherwise calls 'cite act' to do the rest of the work. Both this and #2 can be done together if we choose.

And of course clear warnings in the documentation for when YMD is and isn't allowed by MOS.  Stepho  talk  22:15, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Having an entire template for one parameter is basically asking it to be merged back to the original. However, I really like the idea of a {{{prose}}} parameter, which can actually work. Since until now there was no way to put YMD dates and so generally there aren't YMD dates in cite act I think {{{prose}}} should be set to 'yes' by default. But should someone want a YMD date, setting it to no could possibly overwrite the checks for date formats and writing a date would instead make the citation look like this:

• "The approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs". Annex II, Directive No. 2000/13/EC. 2000-03-20. The European Parliament & Council of the European Union. p. 29-42.

Lemme know if you agree with this idea and I can get to work right away. Cheers. Hecseur (talk) 05:18, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good!  Stepho  talk  10:08, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

 Done @Stepho-wrs: put anything in {{{odf}}} (stands for "other date format") to use YMD dates. Sorry it took a while, I had to do some thinking to figure this out, and now it works thanks to an if statement in the {{{_exclude}}} of the template wrapper, which, quite surprisingly, is a thing that works. Cheers. Hecseur (talk) 20:36, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

second url for english translation of laws

I would like to link both the law in its original language (foreign language) and a translated version of the law (in English); to make verifying easier. How can I do that? If I add the url behind the {{cite act|...}}, it goes into a second line; which looks ugly (especially in bullet lists). Please delete that line break from the cite-act-template! C-Kobold (talk) 17:28, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

@C-Kobold: Generally, there isn't a way in a citation to supply a second language link, so creating something like this would be both difficult, and an oddity among citation templates. By default the preferred reference would be the one in English per WP:RSUE, though it has to be from a reliable source, and when it comes to laws this is almost exclusively the legislature enacting the law. Also, as far as the coding of this template, there is no line break in the code, so if there is a problem, it might be a mistake on your part, or, though unlikely, a problem with either Module:Template wrapper, or Template:Cite book, or perhaps the line break is an intended feature of either of the aforementioned, I wouldn't know, since I'm not a citation template expert. If you gave me an example of what you were trying to do, I might be able to help more. Cheers. Hecseur (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

@Hecseur: Thank you for your fast answer!

1. I do not want to use only the English translation of a law. The reason is: the content (usually html) behind the links to the foreign language laws can change (can get consolidated), if the law gets changed by an amending law. Translation documents (usually pdf or docx) however do not get updated, if some law changes.

2. An Example can be found here: User:C-Kobold/EU_parliament_national_election_systems#Cyprus ("also available in English..."). C-Kobold (talk) 21:38, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

A problem with dates

To cite an Act in Australian jurisdictions, I need it to display as, for example: The Northern Territory Surrender Act, 1907 (SA). The date is in the title of the Act. I don't want to have The Northern Territory Surrender Act, 1907. Act of 1907. SA. But that is the result of the Cite Act template.

In the Parameters table in the Cite Act template page, for the required parameter named "Date", the Description states: "The date the legislation was passed, unless there's some other date or year that appears in the name of the act." I notice that on the test cases page, under the yellow heading "Basic test with garbage data in the year parameter", the recommended data to enter in "Year" was |year=garbage data|. The example shwn has now triggered the warning in that section, "Error: the date or year parameters are either empty or in an invalid format, please use a valid year for year, and use DMY, MDY, MY, or Y date formats for date."

I suspect someone has changed things without noticing the words "unless there's some other date or year that appears in the name of the act". Any chance of it being changed to not requiring the Date= or Year= field to be completed? -- i.e., as before?

I'm aware of the existence of Template:Cite Legislation AU. However, it has its own (different) errors, too.

Cheers, SCHolar44🇦🇺 💬 13:08, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Follow-up: I have bypassed the problem with manual formatting; see Template talk:Cite Legislation AU#Getting the format right if the template fails.SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬  at 02:11, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@SCHolar44: Sorry for the VERY late response, I was on a long hiatus from editting. Considering your specific example, I'd cite it with something alike to this:

The Northern Territory Surrender Act, 1907 (946). SA. 1907.

While you are right that this looks a bit cluncky, you should take into account this is the original title of the act, so I'd assume it to be the best way to cite it. Hecseur (talk) 19:34, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello Hecseur, Welcome back! I loved "I was on a long hiatus from editting" (sic) – a fine demonstration of what happens when one is too long away!! Thank you for following thus up.

What is needed, whichever way it's achieved, is for the title of an Act to be set out in accordance with the standard formatting of Australian legislation, as in the Commonwealth Style Guide [(https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/style-rules-and-conventions/referencing-and-attribution/legal-material/acts-parliament#style_for_act_titles_is_title_case_not_always_italics)], viz.:

• Act in italics
• jurisdiction in roman, abbreviated, in parentheses
• and for Wikipedia, a link to Austlii or the jurisdiction register via a box-and-arrow icon.

Specifically, in the case of the Act that I chose as an example, the Act should appear as:

The Northern Territory Surrender Act, 1907 (SA)

Section 2 of the Act states: This Act may be cited as "The Northern Territory Surrender Act, 1907." The quotation marks only embrace the wording of the Act; they weren't intended to proscribe the format. So – sorry – the way you propose isn't what we're after.

Further comments most welcome if you have any. :-) Cheers, Simon – SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬 at 11:09, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

@SCHolar44: I dug into this subject some more, and have come into the obvious conclusion that Australian Acts aren't currently part of the scope of Cite act.

MOS:LAW#In_Australia suggests the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (specifically the 4th ed. as it's the latest) is to be used when citing Australian Acts. As for linking to the Act, since the AGLC only addresses URLs in the context of secondary sources, my assumption would be that Wikipedia content guidlines apply. WP:CITE#Links_and_ID_numbers guides that a URL should be applied to the title of a citation. According to WP:CITE, and pages 67-68 of the AGLC, the specific example you first gave would be cited:

The Northern Territory Surrender Act 1907 (SA).

Other than the period that ends the citation, this seems to be consistent with Template:Cite Legislation AU. If you're not violating WP:CITEVAR, you may use the Australian citation style using Cite Legislation AU like so:

The Northern Territory Surrender Act 1907 (SA). (Note the period following the template)

In cases where WP:CITEVAR applies, you could either establish consensus, or use the Cite Legislation AU template without having a period following it. Feel free to point out if I got anything wrong, Australian law is NOT my area of expertise. Hecseur (talk) 00:19, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks for your researching and comments, Hecseur. I confess that my retention of a comma was based on using my last-century hard copy of the Commonwealth Style Guide; I had forgotten that it is now omitted. So that's really good to have been picked up.

As to the original behaviour that I reported (and leaving the incorrect comma in)...

To cite an Act in Australian jurisdictions, I need it to display as, for example: The Northern Territory Surrender Act, 1907 (SA). The date is in the title of the Act. I don't want to have The Northern Territory Surrender Act, 1907. Act of 1907. SA. But that is the result of the Cite Act template.

... I can't remember the specific circumstances that generated the error in the Cite Act template, and I suspect it may have originated in a parameter that I entered. :-/   With renewed thanks, SCHolar44 (talk) 03:03, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Date of signature

Could we add a day= parameter? To add the actual date of passage, enactment or signature. Possibly also a parameter of method= which could be filled by signed or initiated, depending on whether it is a bill or legislation? There could be many reasons we might want to include that date in the citation. –Iveagh Gardens (talk) 20:07, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

@Iveagh Gardens: Sorry for the VERY late response, as I mentioned above, I was on a very long editting hiatus. As for your question, I doubt there could ever be a situation where something along a day= parameter would be in any way be necessary. The goal of a citation is to uniquely identify a source of information, and, as acts have a plethora of identifiers, there shouldn't ever be a situation where such a field should be needed to identify said act. Hecseur (talk) 19:34, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

EDIT: Should this ever be a problem (which I HIGHLY doubt), you CAN use the ODF parameter to expand the date into whatever you want (you really shouldn't), and by that method include multiple dates. Hecseur (talk) 19:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: Amendments (to the Act)

I think it would be very useful if we added information to this cite template regarding amendment of laws. Often laws are originally passed older and the verbage has since been modified by legislative amendments. So I think the following variables should be implemented:

• amended - true/false - states whether an act has been amended after original enactment (enables usage of two variables below as well)
• amended-date - date of amendment being cited in amended-by
• amended-by - legislative act/resolution/etc which amended original legislation
• amended-link - name of wiki article (if existing) of act which amended the act being cited

Thoughts on the proposal? ~Gwennie🐈｟💬 📋｠ 21:57, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Gwennie-nyan, should we enable linking to the amending act to enable verification? firefly ( t · c ) 08:07, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Great idea Firefly! I'll add it! ~Gwennie🐈｟💬 📋｠ 15:35, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Examples

Current Behavior

{{Cite act
|type=Section
|index=B and E
|date=1959
|article=51
|legislature=[[California State Legislature]]
|title=[[Unruh Civil Rights Act]]
|url=https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=51.}}

"Unruh Civil Rights Act". Article 51, Section No. B and E of 1959. California State Legislature.

---

Proposed Modified

Just amended

{{Cite act
|amended = yes
|type=Section
|index=B and E
|date=1959
|article=51
|legislature=[[California State Legislature]]
|title=[[Unruh Civil Rights Act]]
|url=https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=51.}}

"Unruh Civil Rights Act" as amended since. Article 51, Section No. B and E of 1959. California State Legislature.

---

Just amended and amended-date

{{Cite act
|amended = yes
|amended-date = Sept 8, 2015
|type=Section
|index=B and E
|date=1959
|article=51
|legislature=[[California State Legislature]]
|title=[[Unruh Civil Rights Act]]
|url=https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=51.}}

"Unruh Civil Rights Act" as amended (Sept 8, 2015). Article 51, Section No. B and E of 1959. California State Legislature.

---

Just amended, amended-date, amended-by

{{Cite act
|amended = yes
|amended-date = Sept 8, 2015
|amended-by = Senate Bill No. 600
|type=Section
|index=B and E
|date=1959
|article=51
|legislature=[[California State Legislature]]
|title=[[Unruh Civil Rights Act]]
|url=https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=51.}}

"Unruh Civil Rights Act" as amended by Senate Bill No. 600 (Sept 8, 2015). Article 51, Section No. B and E of 1959. California State Legislature.

---

All proposed variables (amended, amended-date, amended-by, amended-link)

{{Cite act
|amended = yes
|amended-date = Sept 8, 2015
|amended-by = Senate Bill No. 600
|amended-by = Wikipedia:Example
|type=Section
|index=B and E
|date=1959
|article=51
|legislature=[[California State Legislature]]
|title=[[Unruh Civil Rights Act]]
|url=https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=51.}}

"Unruh Civil Rights Act" as amended by Senate Bill No. 600 (Sept 8, 2015). Article 51, Section No. B and E of 1959. California State Legislature.

---