Comment For the sake of uniformity, could you please use the {{cite book}} template for primary and secondary sources listed in the "References" section? Nishkid64 (talk) 04:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, that's fine. A lot of those sources were there when I got there, and were not used in the writing of the article. Do you think I ought to leave them, or not? Coemgenus 15:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You could place unused sources in a "Further reading" section. You would still need to use {{cite book}} for that section as well. Nishkid64 (talk) 19:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please do not. It is not a requirement; we do not, and should not, require features invisible to the reader. {{Cite book}} is inflexible and leads easily into error; as will be seen at Atlantic campaign of May 1794. It also makes code that is much harder to read and maintain. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson 20:40, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Most readers do not click to see the source code for a particular book citation. They just copy and paste the text as seen on the article. Also, I never said this was a requirement. This was only a suggestion I had. From my experiences, {{cite book}} has made book reference maintenance much simpler. As for the invisible features, why don't you bring up the same issue with infoboxes? Essentially, you're inputting data into fields in both situations, and the result is some sort of special display on the article page. Nishkid64 (talk) 22:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If someone wants to do infobox code by hand, I have no problem. The cite templates differ from almost all others in that all they do is to introduce font characters. They also encourage gratuitous error, like "Williams, Ed. Henry Smith (1907). History of France, 1715–1815.The Times." If our editor had looked it up, he would have found: "Williams, Henry Smith, ed. (1907). History of France, 1715–1815.The Times." - or more likely "Williams, Henry Smith, ed., History of France, 1715–1815.The Times. (1907)", which would actually be usage.
The changes I just made was infinitely easier to do by hand than it would have been to reverse=engineer the template.
The format imposed by the template, with last name first and date third, is simultaneously novel and inconvenient. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson 22:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While you two sort this out, I'll leave the references as they are. Any suggestions on other parts of the article are welcome. Coemgenus 03:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
