Help talk:CS1 errors/Archive 1

Does anyone have any idea where this apparently-errant ISSN is coming from? It's rampant in articles about pop singles. From a quick scan, it appears that maybe 10% of the 800+ articles in the ISSN error category are there because of Billboard Brasil. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:13, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

The number looks like a 13-digit ISBN 977-217605400-2. However, I don't think that they start with 977 even though the checksum calculation works. It fools Special:BookSources (and will fool the CS1 ISBN check until I fix that) but doesn't fool the ISBN magic link code. When I googled the number I found multiple pages where most, if not all, of the search results pointed to Wikipedia.

When I clicked around in Category:CS1 errors: ISSN and found a page with the 977-217605400-2 error it had been added by User:Thissz. Has Thissz also added this error to other pages? Where did Thissz editor get this number?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:02, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

A 13-digit number beginning 977 is not an ISBN (that would begin 978 or 979), nor is it an ISSN (that would have 8 digits); it is an

EAN-13, normally seen in the form of a barcode on almost anything sold retail in Europe. Since the 978 and 979 ranges for ISBNs are a subset of the full EAN-13 series, it follows that the checksum calculation for ISBN-13 works for any EAN-13 barcode, even if the barcode does not represent an ISBN. An EAN-13 which begins 977 is the EAN-13 for a periodical, and often includes the first seven digits of the true ISSN (for example, The Railway Magazine, ISSN 0033-8923 is EAN-13 977-0033-892-293). --Redrose64 (talk

) 00:49, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

User:Thissz has added this number to many pages. I left a note on this editor's talk page to ask where the number comes from. It sounds like it might be displayed on a bar code on the front of the physical magazine.

I forgot to mention that I had done a ton of googling to try to locate the source of this number. It's possible that all or most of the instances of this number originate with a single editor. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:08, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

There is an ISSN of 0892-4480 listed for the Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law in the citations for Zephyrhills (water). The full citation is:

• Samek, Kelly (2004). "Unknown Quantity: The Bottled Water Industry and Florida's Springs" (PDF). Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law. 19 (2). Tallahassee, Florida:
  ISSN 0892-4480. {{cite journal}}: Check |issn= value (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help
  )

I tried a couple of tricks that have worked in the past, including retyping the whole ISSN (in case the dash was really an en dash, or something similar; or in case one of the zeros was really a capital letter "o") and typing the ISSN without the dash. What is causing the error message to persist? – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:38, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

If one believes the method for calculating a check digit as described at ISSN (which seems to match the methodology specified in ISSN Manual), then the number 0892-4480 is wrong. Assuming the first seven digits are correct (I have not reason to believe that they are) then the check digit should be 1 not 0. Even more perplexing is that WorldCat and the journal's web site agree that it is a correct number.

Could it be a typo? Compare this ISSN: 0892-4880

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:46, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Nice catch. That's a pretty persistent typo. This ISSN validator says that 0892-4480 is invalid as well. It's interesting that Worldcat appears to be working around it, at least partially. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:09, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps that ISSN validator shouldn't be trusted? It doesn't like either 0892-4480 or 0892-4880 nor does it like 3424-4532 – a number that it uses as an example. "We don't like it either".

ISSN 34244532. {{cite journal}}: Check |issn= value (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help

) (check digit should be 0 assuming all of the other digits are correct).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:56, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Normally there is a date error given when there is something other than a year in the year field such as in this article.

There appears to be no indication of a problem with reference 5 in Aegis Defence Services as I would have expected as exactly the same condition.

May be there is a problem with the combination of parameters causing this not to display as an error. Keith D (talk) 00:33, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh, you mean the extra "last update" part? I've seen that with parameter "origyear=", which lets you specify pretty much anything. I'm no expert at this, but I'm thinking as long as you pass it a year within range it generally doesn't care.

In the previous example (Emma Harrison article) there was a slash with two dates. Perhaps it passed the first date, then was confused as to what to do with the second year? meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 01:01, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Paging Trappist the monk, I think this might be a bug. Check this out:

"As U.S. Military Exits Iraq, Contractors To Enter : NPR". npr.org. 2011 [last update]. Archived from the original on 19 May 2011. Retrieved 29 June 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

"As U.S. Military Exits Iraq, Contractors To Enter : NPR". npr.org. 2011 [last update]. Retrieved 29 June 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)

Identical citations, except that the second one has the archiveurl and archivedate removed. Only the second throws a red error message, but they both should do so. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:34, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm at a loss to explain how this is happening. Apparently, something about a valid |archivedate= (and also |doi_brokendate=, |embargo=, and |publicationdate=) suppresses either date-checking or error-reporting for |year=. Even more perplexing is that the problem isn't exhibited by CS1/sandbox:

I'm not inclined to spend too much time trying to noodle this out because the issue doesn't appear to be present in the CS1/sandbox code. CS1/sandbox has seen quite a bit of change that consolidates and streamlines date handling and improves promotion of |publicationdate= and |year= to |date=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:12, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for looking. It appears to be fixed in the sandbox version. Any idea of a deployment date for the changes? Keith D (talk) 19:30, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm encountering problems with articles being edited by AWB, with user modifications turning coauthor fields in references into author2 fields, which is just wrong in general. I'd actually like coauthor to be an accepted field that doesn't throw an error, and I'm happy to explain why if anyone would like to hear me out. What is the current practice of library scientists (I am neither a librarian nor a programmer, although I try to read about the work of both kinds of specialists in maintaining online bibliography resources) in using fields to describe books with collections of chapters or articles by many authors? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 03:15, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm guessing the coauthors parameter was "eliminated" after considerable discussion, can someone familiar with it provide a link for WeijiBaikeBianji to check out? In the meantime WeijiBaikeBianji you should probably just give a couple of sentences of your argument here. As far as I can tell, no functionality is lost; the authorn parameters display the same as coauthors when they include multiple names, and even better provide the opportunity to use author2, author3, author4 etc to split each name individually if desired. As far as my AWB replacements go, swapping author2 for coauthors eliminates a tech error message but does not change the display or functionality so I'm not clear on the problem you're having. Thanks!— TAnthony^Talk 07:20, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Deprecated cauthors field does not have the same meaning as author2 and the history of yesterday's edits to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Rename template parameters. AWB users with a default configuration won't be changing coauthors to author2 once they restart the program or reload the configuration. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:58, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

With the conversion of the major CS1 templates from {{citation/core}} to Module:Citation/CS1 the artificial limit on the number of authors that could be listed in a citation was lifted. CS1 citations that use Module:Citation/CS1 can support an unlimited number of authors – {{citation/core}} limited the number of authors to nine with eight displayed and the ninth replaced with et al. |coauthors= was a way of getting around the nine-author limit. That workaround is no longer required.

@WeijiBaikeBianji: Citations to books that are collections of chapters or articles by multiple authors typically cite the |chapter=Title of Chapter or Article, |author=Chapter or Article Author, |title=Collection Title, and |editor=Collection editor.

@TAnthony: I think it was more a growing awareness that |coauthors= is no longer needed than a single discussion. Replacing |coauthors= with |author2= is problematic: it may work as intended but then again it may not. |author#= is an alias of |last#= so when |coauthors= is replaced by |author#= the index (#) must be one greater than the last index of |last#= or |author#= or you end up with an error:

{{cite book |title=Title |last1=Last1 |first1=First1 |last2=Last2 |first2=First2 |author2=Author2}}

→Last1, First1; Last2, First2. Title. {{cite book}}: More than one of |author2= and |last2= specified (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

@WeijiBaikeBianji: In the discussion that Editor John of Reading mentions, you say: On the CS1 talk page I have pointed out that there is a use case for the "coauthor" field and that perhaps this field should not be deprecated, as it currently is. Can you give a link to that discussion? I found this discussion but it doesn't seem to make a use case for |coauthors=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:31, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

First of all, thanks to everyone for your careful attention to detail, and your kind offer to discuss the issue here. I should explain that I'm very grateful to the programmers who are implementing the changes in the templates and in the automated editing tools and validation tools for Wikipedians. My background in coming to this issue is having taken a course in cataloging and classification through the library science program (now defunct) at my alma mater university back in the 1970s. Just now I looked up the Library of Congress documentation on the MARC online bibliographic record format [6], which originated way back before when I took my library science course, and I see that it is permitted by the MARC standards to include added fields in a bibliographic record for co-authors.

I'll describe my use case as a Wikipedia here for distinguishing co-authors from main book authors. As Trappist the monk correctly says, usually a specific citation to (for example) a book chapter in a book that is a collection of chapters written by various authors would cite the chapter directly, using the author1, author2, etc. parameters for authors of the chapter in the expected way, with editor1, editor2, etc. parameters used to identify the editors of the collection of chapters that is published in book form. I do that routinely in editing articles.

That said, and perhaps with years of using public library and academic library MARC records in mind, I usually give full co-author information for references to the overall book in talk page references to an especially useful book, and sometimes in article Further reading sections. That's because it happens that my research interests, which motivated me to join in on editing Wikipedia since 2010, happen to coincide with topics that are contentious and heavily edit-warred, including one of the ten most edit-warred articles on Wikipedia.[7] In that context, I've decided that one of the most collegial and helpful things I can do to calm down the atmosphere and progress forward to better article edits is to be really scrupulous about sourcing articles, and painstakingly exact about citing sources. In advance of making article edits, I generally post a lot of sources to article talk pages, and I also keep a

WP:MEDRS very well). Then Wikipedians who are doubting and evaluating individual chapters from one or another source can find out who else was included in a collection to evaluate the editors' editorial decisions in putting the book together in the first place. Perhaps most of you edit in less contentious editing environments—I sure hope so—but I have found it helpful to use the co-authors field as it was documented when I joined Wikipedia, to store bibliographic information with a given bibliographic record, for editors who desire to examine the source's reliability, with the default display of co-authors not being public-visible on the Wikipedia article pages. A while ago I installed the tool for Wikipedians (which I suppose several of you have installed) that shows error messages about bibliographic entries, and that's when I was dismayed to discover that co-author fields are now deprecated in CS1, even though they are still accepted in professional bibliographic practice (as documented by the MARC documentation). I am, of course, glad to discuss this further with all of you. Best wishes for a very pleasant and collaborative editing environment wherever you edit in article space. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit

) 15:07, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your perspective. Unfortunately, I still do not understand why you prefer to use |coauthors= instead of |author2=, |author3=, etc. I find that it helps in cases like this to give a specific example. Can you give a specific example from your list of sources that shows the advantage of using |coauthors= instead of |author2=, |author3=, etc.? I think that would be helpful in advancing this conversation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:01, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarifying follow-up question. My use case ends up preferring a parameter that doesn't display by default, but preserves co-author information in a bibliiographic entry (which I can then trim to use as I gradually cite individually useful chapters of reliable handbooks on the topics I edit about). I can share the main book bibliographic information to readers immediately, using a citation with the co-authors field hidden, allowing editors who care to check the co-authors, while readers who don't care can just look up the book. To me, the hidden (no display by default) nature of the coauthors parameter is a win-win for readers and editors, definitely a feature rather than a bug.

Here is one of the newest entries on my user bibliography, an extremely useful professional handbook with chapters by numerous coauthors. To cite one chapter from that book, it saves me typing to have the full entry at hand, to copy and paste from, and for readers of Wikipedia, seeing the visible (displayed) part of the entry is enough for most readers, while some other editors will check the reliability of this source by peering beneath the hood and seeing which co-authors are on board as chapter authors for this source.

* Weiner, Irving B.; Graham, John R.; Naglieri, Jack A., eds. (2 October 2012). Handbook of Psychology. Vol. Volume 10: Assessment Psychology. John Wiley & Sons.

ISBN 978-0-470-89127-8. Retrieved 25 November 2013. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |laysummary= and |laydate= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help

)

Thanks for asking for an example. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:49, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

That explanation helps. I now understand specifically how you are using the coauthors parameter. My personal assessment of your usage is that you have been cleverly using an unintended feature (some might call it a bug) of the citation templates, which is that the value of |coauthors= is not displayed when there is no value in |author=.

Your clever use of this feature/bug conflicts with the well-meaning use of |coauthors= by article editors who intended to display multiple authors for a book but who ended up displaying no authors, like this:

• {{cite book |title=Handbook of Psychology |coauthors=Edward Brown and Harvey Smith |date=2012 }}
• Handbook of Psychology. 2012. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

We want to highlight and fix the above usage in articles, where editors clearly intended to display multiple author names but did not know how to do it properly or did not pay attention to the results of their edits.

I have two thoughts about your usage:

1. If you put your coauthors parameter inside comment marks, i.e. <!-- |coauthors = Brown, Smith, etc. -->, you should see your previous output without the "coauthors= without author=" error message.

2. If you are building these bibliographies on User, Talk, or many other kinds of pages, the error will be displayed, but the page will not be added to any error categories. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:35, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I concur with Editor Jonesey95's assessment.

It occurs to me to wonder: if you are creating a bibliography of citations to specific chapters or articles, wouldn't it be less effort in the log term to simply create a citation for each chapter of the book? Do the work once then, editors can go to the bibliography, get the citation that they need and be on their way. Perhaps something like this:

• Book Title citations by chapter:
  • Last, First; Last2, First2 (29 April 2024). "Chapter 1 Chapter title". In Editorlast, EditorFirst (ed.). Book Title. Location: Publisher.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  • Last, First; Last2, First2; Last3, First3 (28 April 2024). "Chapter 2 Chapter title". In Editorlast, EditorFirst (ed.). Book Title. Location: Publisher.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:56, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello all - What does everyone think about adding a link to a check digit calculator to the section Help:CS1_errors#Check_.7Cisbn.3D_value ? I have found several that are helpful, particularly http://www.morovia.com/education/utility/upc-ean.asp . Any thoughts on this? KConWiki (talk) 14:51, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I suggest adding this link to ISBN, perhaps in the External Links section. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:25, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure I've seen a similar request somewhere else recently, was it to do with Special:Booksources? --Redrose64 (talk) 23:25, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Some clarification please at the part where it reads:
"... add an appropriate parameter name to complete the parameter,..."
Does it need a specific parameter name (and if so, where can they be found?) or can one be "made up" as needed? Thanks.

Citation templates like {{cite web}} and {{cite book}} use parameters, separated by vertical bars, to indicate information about the source being cited, such as title, author, URL (web address), and more. Click on the template links in the previous sentence to see what parameters are available.

The error message that you are seeing means that there is text in between two vertical bars, but no valid parameter name followed by an "=" character. If you need help with a specific article, please provide a link to it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:52, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I thought my question was quite clear but in any case, your links gave me the answer I was looking for and thus I made a slight adjustment to the paragraph here which would've answered my question and should help others not to ask the same question again. Thanks for the quick response that solved the issue I had.

talk

) 00:32, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Okay. I'm kind of a newbie here, so bear with—not used to participating in Wiki threads, nor am I sure if this is even the right place.

My two questions:

1. Are coauthors and month & day actually deprecated (i.e., are we still wavering back and forth over whether to keep them, or are they as dead as a doornail)?
2. If so, why? (this pertains more to the month/day parameters, since I've already read Why was [the] coauthors field deprecated?...)

I'll side with whatever you guys say, not here to argue; just looking to be helpful and sort of "unify" everything — update documentation, remove deprecated params from the RefToolbar and lesser-known pages, not actively propagate a phased-out parameter, etc. — I just want a clear answer so I can be clear in what I do.

Or, if this isn't the centralized discussion, a referral to another thread maybe? meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 05:54, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Welcome! Answering in reverse order: Most of the general discussion about this stuff happens at

Module talk:Citation/CS1

. I don't think there is a rhyme or reason for this, that's just how it happened. Feel free to add those pages to your watchlist (click the hollow blue star at the upper right to turn it solid) if you want to track and join in on the occasional conversations there. We try not to bite.

My short answer to question 2: |month= and |day= are deprecated because they are no longer needed and comprise unnecessary complexity. They had a purpose once upon a time, when the cite templates were not as clever and sophisticated as they are now.

My short answer to question 1: There are editors and bots that are actively fixing these deprecated parameters, with the goal of eliminating all of them. I can imagine a time in the not-too-distant future when there are no more instances of |month= or |day= or |coauthors= in CS1 templates, at which point the module could be switched to displaying an error like month is not a valid parameter, use date instead. This is just my personal view; a change like that would take significant discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:39, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 07:27, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

The |day= parameter has been deprecated for years; since at least 2010, IIRC (possibly even 2009 - I recall an early edit of mine, which had used |day=|month=|year=, being altered by

talk · contribs) to |date=). One problem was that |day= wasn't being used consistently - some people used it for the day of the month; others used |day= for the day of the week with the |date= parameter used for the day, month and year. |day= was sometimes undisplayed since it relied on the presence of both the |month= and |year= parameters, which some people forgot. The deprecation of |month= is much more recent, and took place less than a year ago. There are two ways of spotting pages which use |coauthors=, |day= and |month= - one is to enable "Show hidden categories" at Preferences → Appearance, and look for Category:Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters at the bottom of the page; the other is to install the CSS shown at Help:CS1 errors#Controlling error message display, and look for red error messages like Cite uses deprecated parameters (help); (the actual text may vary). --Redrose64 (talk

) 13:59, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I am doing a GA review for Ukiyo-e and it has "Check date values in: |date= (help)" error messages for the web citations under Ukiyo-e#Works cited. I have something turned on somewhere to see the error messages that others do not see, and I'm not sure why the error message is appearing.

Here's the wikitext for one of the citations:

{{cite web |last = Fiorillo |first = John |title = FAQ: Care and Repair of Japanese Prints |work = Viewing Japanese Prints |url = http://www.viewingjapaneseprints.net/texts/topictexts/faq/faq_care_and_repair.html |year = 1999–2001 |accessdate = 2013-12-17 |ref = {{SfnRef|Fiorillo|1999–2001}} }}

And this is what I see on the screen:

Fiorillo, John (1999–2001). "FAQ: Care and Repair of Japanese Prints". Viewing Japanese Prints. Retrieved 2013-12-17. Check date values in: |date= (help)

The year range as an en dash has described on the linked section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:CS1_errors#bad_date

Is there something that I'm missing? Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 14:14, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

The something that you have turned on that reveals the CS1 error messages is discussed at Help:CS1 errors#Controlling error message display.

The underlying engine that creates CS1 citations is Module:Citation/CS1. That engine does not currently allow year ranges in date-holding parameters. They will, no doubt, be supported in future. I'm not so sure that copyright dates should be used to date a citation – especially on websites where is is very common to see obviously current material with a copyright date in the past. For this citation, I would simply use |accessdate= and leave off |date= altogether.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:38, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, Trappist!--CaroleHenson (talk) 14:43, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

In the case of these particular web pages, the author has put different copyright date notices on each article at the site. Should the dates still be avoided? Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:01, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

I think so. Dates in CS1 citations are an aid to the reader who wants to consult the same source that the editor cited. This is difficult when citing ephemeral works like websites; a fact that was there in the copyright 2001 version may not be there in the copyright 2001–2004 version. |accessdate= helps to get around that conundrum by identifying the date on which the cited fact was present on the website. Or, consider adding a link to an archived version of the web pages you wish to cite; archive.org, for example. Set |deadurl=no if the website page is still live.

It isn't clear to me just what the author's intent is when he uses a variety of copyright dates. It would seem that he uses these dates much like a last-updated-on kind of date. There are single year copyrights, year range copyrights (as illustrated above), and the odd year range plus another year copyrights (Tsuruya Kôkei (born 1946) copyright 1999–2001, 2010). What does that last mean? Does it mean that it wan't in copyright for the period 2002–2009? It's all too confusing.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:01, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree. As long as the accessdate is provided in the citation, it made sense to me, too, to remove the year range for copyrighted dates/years. For me, this contrasts against specific dates, such as article dates for online magazines or newspapers.--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:23, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

• Okay, just wanted clarification. The date parameter apparently serves a different role than I'd thought. Curly Turkey (gobble) 23:00, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

YYYY–YY is sometimes found ambiguous by some editors, if it could be confused with YYYY–MM. The notice already mentions that date ranges may be incorrectly marked, but there is

The note in the date error message help text about incorrectly marked citations was referring to the 2014-03-30 update. That update having happened, I have removed the note.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 03:26, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Now that the note about ranges has been removed, my suggestion applies. I suggest something like this, to better describe this particular range, and the discussion (correct this as needed): "Dates in the form YYYY–YY should be checked to be sure editors have not incorrectly used YYYY–MM. (See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Months) While the MOS defines YYYY–YY to be correct, consider using YYYY–YYYY instead, to avoid ambiguity, and make it easier for the template to parse." —PC-XT+ 04:23, 1 April 2014 (UTC) 04:25, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I have added text to the help text that I think says what you suggested.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:05, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I cannot understand what's wrong with this citation:

Munday, Rosemary, ed. (l991). "How Australia Began: Significant Dates in Australian History". The Bulletin Australian Almanac & Book of Facts 1992. Sydney: Australian Consolidated Press. p. 3.

There is a value for the year parameter, and the first character is an ell rather than a one. The editor who wrote it must have learned to type on a manual typewriter. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:27, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

no wonder! Thanks. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 03:33, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Looks like the first digit in the year parameter is a lower case L. The individual parameters |year=, |month=, and |day= are promoted to |date= before the date validation code is executed. I am aware of this issue.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 03:31, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

no wonder! Thanks. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 03:33, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Could we say Check values in: |date= or |year=? – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:44, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Or, we could take |date= out, leaving "Check date values (help)", and just list the parameters in the help text. —PC-XT+ 04:04, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I've added text to the help text that I think explains how an error in |year= is reported as an error in |date=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:13, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

maybe accessdate should not raise a flag if doi is filled in? All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 00:15, 13 April 2014 (UTC).

This was discussed and explained at length on this page last year and also before that at VPP (ignore the non-consensus "consensus" summaries and scroll to the bolded "Do you agree that |accessdate= should only be displayed if there is a URL present" section for a quick overview) and maybe in other places.

The reason that this error message is still hidden is that we need a bot to comment out the accessdates in citations where it doesn't belong, like {{cite journal}} templates where doi/pmid/pmc is filled in, or {{cite book}} in most or all cases. Once that is done, we'll have a better idea of how many of those 42,774 articles have actual errors, and we can expose the error messages so that editors know that there is a problem to be fixed.

The basic consensus that I perceive from previous discussions is:

• |accessdate= in a citation without a |url= should not be displayed
• |accessdate= is only for web-based citations that might change, hence it should not be used for books or journal articles
• comment out, do not delete, |accessdate= when |url= is missing, because sometimes people delete or omit the |url= and the |accessdate= gives a clue about the publication date of the web-based source

I believe that this accessdate category will soon be the largest subcategory of the incorrect syntax category (as it was before the date errors and deprecated parameters were tagged; bots are working on those categories as we speak). It's a nice meaty problem for a bot operator, and it shouldn't be that hard to address. I don't have the bot skills to take it on, but other people who read this page probably do. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:50, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

It would be an interesting and not difficult task. Sadly one I am not at liberty to take up. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 02:05, 13 April 2014 (UTC).

I did everything beginning with "." or "Ř".... All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 03:19, 13 April 2014 (UTC).

Perhaps I'll have a go at it with these assumptions:

1. Only applies to CS1 citations that have |accessdate= but do not have |url=
2. Journal identifiers are: |arxiv=, |bibcode=, |doi=, |issn=, |jfm=, |jstor=, |mr=, |pmc=, |pmid=, |zbl=
3. for {{citation}} templates with:
   • a journal identifier: delete |accessdate= and its value
   • |journal= without an identifier: comment out |accessdate= value (|accessdate=<!--date-->)
   • an isbn: delete |accessdate= and its value
4. for {{cite book}}: delete |accessdate= and its value
5. for {{cite encyclopedia}}: comment out |accessdate= value
6. for {{cite journal}} with:
   • a journal identifier: delete |accessdate= and its value
   • else comment out |accessdate= value
7. for {{cite news}}: comment out |accessdate= value
8. for {{cite web}}: do nothing

And since this is rather a lonely backwater, I'll put a note about this discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:01, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I do not think that we should be commenting out |accessdate= for {{cite news}} as it is basically used the same as {{cite web}}. If there is a URL then you would expect to find an accessdate. Keith D (talk) 14:15, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Cite news could frequently refer to an online news source, which is subject to change, so the accessdate may be useful. Cite journal has long been a synonym for cite news, and is commonly applied to any periodical (or the web site of any print periodical). Some of these sources are online and subject to change, so again, accessdate could be useful. Indeed, it suggests it could be useful to have both a date parameter for the date that the publisher designates as the publication date, and a last-updated parameter to indicate the last update designated by the publisher, which might be different from the official publication date. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:36, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Most of the cite templates (not just web and news) have a |url= parameter; if that has been filled in, I don't think that |accessdate= should be removed. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:37, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, so I wasn't specifically clear about what I am talking about. For the above list of actions that a bot might take, I am referring to CS1 citations with |accessdate= but without |url=. I've added that restriction to the list above.

The purpose of the list of actions is to guide the development of a relatively mindless bot that can troll through Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL, fixing or hiding the offending |accessdate= parameter in those citations where simple fixes make sense. This is why, for example, {{cite web}} is not fixed; those citations require a human editor to figure out why {{cite web}} doesn't have |url= but does have |accessdate=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:34, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Here is a list of test edits that I've made that show what my prospective bot would do.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:01, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I notice that this edit comments out the access date for a citation where there is a working URL specified in |url= but the article before the edit had the url inexplicably commented out. Maybe the test should be modified to leave a citation alone if there is any non-whitespace characters in |url=. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:12, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

As far as the script is concerned, there is no |url= in those citations. The opening half of an HTML remark tag lies between the pipe and url: |<!--url. I've updated the script to protect from editing any citations that have the opening half of an HTML remark tag between the pipe and url. I have reverted the edit and had the script try again. This time, the script did not edit the page.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:00, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I think that accessdates should not be deleted, for the reasons listed in the (long) threads I linked to above. The presence of a filled-in ISBN or journal identifier does not necessarily mean that the identifier is valid; we have basic validation for some of them and do not check the rest. Deleting the accessdate from a citation with an invalid identifier removes a clue that might help fix the identifier. I would replace each instance of "delete" with "comment out" in the list above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:35, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not finding that argument very persuasive. For repair of a malformed parameter value, the other information available in a citation, which is actually related to the source, is much more useful than an arbitrary date that identifies some point in time that an anonymous Wikipedia editor consulted that source. The benefits of |accessdate= for ephemeral internet sources is undeniable, but for journals, books, and other fixed sources, meh, not so much.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:40, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I object to |accessdate= being deleted on any citations.

1. I regularly use access date information, even those on material which is supposedly unchanging (e.g. books, PMID, DOI, etc). |accessdate= provides a hint as to when the citation was entered on the page. Generally, this means that the person who added the citation believed that the reference supported the text at that point. While this may, or may not, be accurate, I routinely use access dates to prioritize which references need to be checked to verify that article content is still supported by the citation. Using it in this way is, of course, imperfect. However, there really is just not enough time in existence to do all the checking which really should be performed. This is one piece of information which can be used to help determine where to spend limited time.
2. I have also found that |accessdate= is useful in attempting to determine to what a reference actually is referring. We all know those references that have inaccurate or corrupted information. Sometimes the citation is copied from page to page with errors/vandalism – I recently fixed one that had the same error on 34 pages across 7 wikis which appeared to be the result of copying a vandalized citation. All information we have, including |accessdate=, is potentially valuable in such situations. |accessdate= can provide a hint as to the time-frame of the actual reference date when that is not included with the citation.
3. It also can be used to eliminate some possibilities of what the reference is (It can't refer to a reference created after that date). Let's not delete the information just because some people feel it is not useful, to them, on a citation that is correctly formatted and not corrupted by vandalism and copied from page to page.
4. |accessdate= is also useful as one of the quick sanity checks for a citation: Is |accessdate= before |date=? If so, that citation needs to be checked.
5. In addition, I have used |accessdate= as an indicator that someone has merely copied a reference from one page to another. This can indicate that the person may have not bothered to read the actual reference which may imply that a closer examination of if the reference actually supports the text is appropriate.

I have not yet read the discussions linked above. I will do so in the reasonably near future. Was anyone arguing that having an access date is actually bad? Or just that they did not feel it was useful, for them? It's not like we have a limited amount of space on a page and we need to trim all information which is not critical.

I see no reason to consider that having an |accessdate= without a URL is inherently an error, let alone that the |accessdate= should be deleted for that reason. I can understand the converse being an error: URL without access date. I can understand not requiring an access date for most references without a URL (i.e. ones which refer to physical objects). It is not reasonable to consider it an error to have an access date when the reference does not have a URL where other information in the citation implies that what is being referenced is not primarily on the web. It is reasonable to give a warning that someone should check the citation and verify that a URL is not supposed to be there and disable the warning (perhaps with something similar to |ignore-isbn-error=true). Alternately, just have the module not flag having an |accessdate= without a URL to be an error if there is a valid ISBN, DOI, or other permanent reference.

The existence of the error is not to indicate that having the access date is wrong. It is to indicate that having an access date makes it likely that the person forgot to enter a URL when a URL is what is being referenced. The solution to this type of error is not to get rid of the access date information. The solution is to change the module so that does not report most of the cases mentioned in the list of tasks above where addition information that the module has (e.g. valid ISBN, DOI, etc.) indicates that a URL should not be required. Additionally, there should be a way to directly inform the module that in the specific instance having a |accessdate= without a URL has been checked by a human and is not an error.

It appears to me that people may be coming at this from the wrong point of view: See error...easiest solution is to remove the access date instead of solving it in another, more appropriate manner.

If you do end up deleting, or commenting out access date information, please keep in mind that you need to check for the existence of any URL. These include (not an exhaustive list):

URL positions:

• bare URLS in, or next to the citation (some are placed next to citations; yep, not the way it is supposed to be, but it is done)
• |url=
• |chapterurl=
• |chapter-url=
• |contributionurl=
• |contribution-url=
• |archive-url=
• |layurl=
• |website= (Yep, again not supposed to happen, but it does)
• |deadurl= (Yep, again not supposed to happen, but it does)
• commented out URLs
• Any parameter in which the editor has placed a URL. example:

Fortescue, Sir John William (1915), A history of the British army, vol. 4 part 2, Macmillan and company, pp. 889–890 {{citation}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help

) [Note: This example links to a source which should not be changing, but other citations link to changeable content.]

• Keep in mind that all it takes is a missing | character and the |url= is actually in some other parameter.

In your above list of tasks #7 is just wrong. {{cite news}} is used to commonly refer to news websites with and without URLs being included. It would only be reasonable to comment out |accessdate= if you can actually verify that there is enough valid data to indicate that the source really is a physical paper copy of an article.

For the vast majority of tasks listed above the right solution is for the module to not report the missing URL error when enough information is there to indicate a valid physical source, or "permanent" electronic location information.

— Makyen (talk) 14:10, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

All of the above argues for commenting out, not deleting, the accessdate, in citations that refer to permanent sources. Remember that without a |url=, the access date is already not displayed, so commenting it out does not change the displayed citation.

Makyen's example citation above is a perfect example of why we need to go through this category with a script or a bot. The example uses {{citation}} and it does not contain any identifiers, so it would not be touched by the bot. After the bot removes all of the noise from the category by commenting out accessdates in cite templates for sources believed to be permanent, citations like the one above will be left. We will then be able to troubleshoot and fix them by hand. Thanks for the example. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:57, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Proponents of the RfC that resulted in the hiding of access date error messages, promised a bot that would fix citations in Category:Pages using citations with accessdate and no URL. That never happened. A bot to fix these errors was quietly begun and even more quietly abandoned. What there was of it was rather more mindless than my AWB script, it simply deleted |accessdate= when the citation did not include |url=. In my oppose to the RfC, I noted then that I thought that a bot probably couldn't do the job right.

Editor Jonesey95 has twice in this discussion asserted that we need a bot that removes all of the noise from the category. Yet, whatever action a bot takes, whether it's deleting |accessdate= entirely or simply hiding all or part of |accessdate=, the citation will drop off the radar and these broken (according to the current criteria) citations will no longer be easily found.

Since there seemed to be a desire for an automated tool to fix some of these errors, I hacked up a script to do so. But, as I tested my script, I started to wonder if it really is possible to fix these errors in the manner that has been prescribed. I don't think that it is; at least not using the current criteria and definitions which I have also started to question. To that end, I have started a separate discussion about rethinking |accessdate=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:04, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

It is desirable for "broken" citations to drop off the radar when they are fixed. However, simply deleting all of the accessdates from broken citations in the category (something that has not been proposed seriously) would not be appropriate, since some of the error messages indicate a problem, often a subtle problem, with the citation syntax. We need to find some middle ground between wholesale removal of the accessdates and editing each article by hand.

The trick is to send 40,000+ articles through a filter that comments out accessdates in citations that truly do not need them, like books with ISBNs or journal articles with DOI values. Once that is done, we'll be able to see the articles with actual problems. This is the same approach that was taken in the "unsupported parameters" category, where straightforward misspellings were replaced with corrected parameter names. Once that was done, the one-off "oddballs" were left for humans to process. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:53, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

A bot, or multiple bot runs, may be appropriate in the future. However, the correct solution for the specific situations you mention is to change the module to not report an error in those cases. It should be a relatively simple code change to have the module not report an error when either a valid format ISBN or a valid format DOI are present. The solution to these is not to have a bot run through and comment out the |accessdate=.

To me, such simple situations are bugs/RFE issues with the module. They are not fodder for a bot to go change the citations just to remove them from a category in which they were placed due to a lack of discrimination by the module. If we were stuck with a template using wiki template code then that would be the correct solution. We are not. We have a Lua based module which can be programmed to more accurately assign, or not assign, citations to the error category.

Sure, at some point we will need bots/humans to go through the category. We are not there yet.

note: In the list above (2. Journal identifiers), an ISSN does not uniquely identify an article/item (in most cases). ISSNs are automatically provided by some tools when citing web based sources. ISSNs are usually assigned as one number to a particular journal – not even a particular issue of the journal. I am unsure about a couple of the other identifiers. If the ID does not uniquely identify the work to which the citation refers, it should not be cause to not display the error. — Makyen (talk) 22:22, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Yep, I think it's pretty easy to change Module:Citation/CS1's behavior to create variant subsets of the |accessdate= error. In part that's why I started the discussion about rethinking |accessdate=. Before leaping into the code, we need better clarity on just what |accessdate= is, how it should be used, how it should be displayed, etc.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:59, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: The filtering you describe is not the same as the filtering that fixes misspellings. A word is either misspelled or it isn't making the citation broken or not broken. Following a bot run, fixed citations are fixed, and the broken ones are still broken. After a bot run where the fix is to hide |accessdate= when there isn't a |url=, broken citations are still broken and fixed citations may be fixed or may be broken, but, in any case, are no longer conveniently listed in a place where editors can find and fix those that are still broken. Fixing in this manner is irreversible – once gone from the category, those pages are gone.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:59, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I am citing a book where the lccn number printed on the inside cover does not match the formatting expected by the template. It is only seven digits long. How do I suppress the error message? Or should I just leave the lccn number off entirely? Reyk _YO! 03:56, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

The code that flags LCCNs as erroneous has a bug that identifies some valid LCCNs as invalid. This bug has been fixed but not deployed to the live code yet. I recommend leaving your LCCN in the citation as it appears in the book, even if it creates a red error message. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I disagree that it should be left as it is in the book. 7 digits is invalid under the current format and will not link correctly. Are we "correcting" yy-xxxx to yyxxxxxx??? Definitely not doing so currently.

@Reyk: As far as I know the error can not be suppressed. The issue is that the format of the LCCN which is in the book does not comply with the current formatting requirements of the LoC. The goal for the citation is for there to be a link from the LCCN in the displayed citation to the LCCN Permalink at the LoC. Doing so provides a direct way for the reader to find the cited item. In order to do so the LCCN mush comply with the current format.

The format requirements are here. The minimum number of digits that the LoC now uses for LCCNs is 8. From fixing a bunch of these, and your statement that you have 7 digits I would guess that it is in the format yy-xxxxx (maybe yyxxxxx, but less likely). Change it to yy0xxxxx (add a zero). That should get it done. The 1st 2 digits are the last two digits of the year for years prior to 2000. For 2000 and on all year digits are used. Sometimes there is a 1 to 3 character alphabetic prefix, but it sounds like yours does not have one. You should double check that the link actually does go to the correct item. From time to time these are printed wrong in the book (not often, but sometimes). If it is, use the LC search to find it. — Makyen (talk) 04:22, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

@Makyen:- Thanks for that suggestion. Adding the 0 in place of the hyphen works, and I checked the LC Search to verify that this is correct. Reyk _YO! 04:32, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• I've had the same problem as above. The book I was trying to cite had only 5 digits to the right (published in 1967). Adding a 0 in place of the hyphen resolved the problem. Thanks. Mohamed CJ (talk) 10:01, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

|coauthor= is deprecated, yet I have just come across a problem caused by changing |coauthor= to |author2= with this edit. By substituting these, the two relevant calls in the references section no longer find their Biblio target. I didn't see this, but it becomes apparent if you import User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 03:21, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you can either change the {{

harvid|...}} if you are going to change |coauthor= into |author2=. Like this. – Jonesey95 (talk

) 05:59, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Where is the consensus to depreciate coauthor? -- PBS (talk) 15:18, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I just had a: |archiveurl= requires |archivedate= error (correctly).

In preview, the modified reference was a link to the edit page, and the mouseover error dialog was not available.

It would be nice if previews of pages with references got a section of reference list automagically tacked on, so that they could have normal referencing behaviour, so that editors could notice referncing errors earlier.

Is this the right forum to ask about this? If not, where should I be asking? ArthurDent006.5 (talk) 12:45, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

No, this is not the correct place to be asking as the issue is not actually to do with CS1 errors, even though that is one of the things we desire to have displayed. To implement the functionality that you desire for everyone requires changes to the MediaWiki software. I have added a pointer to the appropriate bug (filed in 2006). It had looked like this would be fixed earlier this year, but the changes were abandoned when someone erroneously claimed that the fixes to a different bug would solve the problem (it did not).

For your own use, you can use a user script which will show this information. The one I use is:

• user:js/ajaxPreview

I use the following config in my common.js.

//Faster preview.  Preview shows References in section edit.
importScript('User:Js/ajaxPreview.js'); // [[user:js/ajaxPreview]]
//Config:
var ajaxPreviewPos = 'bottom'; //buttons on the bottom, replacing standard
//And if you want tables to be sortable and collapsible elements
//  to work as usual in the Ajax-updated preview, use the following code:
 
// code to execute after each preview update
window.ajaxPreviewExec = function(previewArea) {
  mw.loader.using( [
    'jquery.tablesorter',
    'jquery.makeCollapsible'
  ], function(){
    $( 'table.sortable' ).tablesorter();
    $( '#wikiPreview .collapsible' ).makeCollapsible();
  } );
}

— Makyen (talk) 16:57, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Some change has broken the generation of the standard CITEREF for editor fields for when I view articles. Has a recent change been made that could have affected the editor field and CITEREF?

All the example in the collapse box are missing the editor parameters in the CITEREF but are including the year (1993) in all the examples. -- PBS (talk) 15:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Confirmed by examination of Reading Southern railway station#Notes so reverted. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:08, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem appears to be caused by something in the new version of the function extractnames(). What is perplexing is that the same code processes both the author list and the editor list yet gives obviously different results. I have restored extractnames() from the last known working version of Module:Citation/CS1.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:10, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that the problem is fixed in the sandbox. I've changed the examples in the collapse box to use Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:45, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

There seems to have been another problem that the revert fixed. I was editing the article Ultra (cleaning up the citations) -- The intentional witty "title=Codebreakers" parameter I used up above was because I was drilling down on why this Ultra#CITEREFHinsleyStripp1993 CITEREF was being generated as Ultra#CITEREF1993(it was the first title in the References list that used the editor parameters).

But before that issue came up I had added text to the article and included a new full citation in the list. This had included a page parameter with a link to a page in a google book. But this caused a red warning error. Unfortunately I did not keep a record of it as I assumed that it was due to something in the url string and not the underlying code because when I commented it out the red warning (which caused all the entries below it to disappear from the page with similar red warning) disappeared. I have just removed the comments around the url string and the error no longer shows up. QED it follows that the error was in the update that has been reverted.

One of the reasons I was cleaning up the citations in

Before any code is changed this second problem ought to be identified. It should be fairly easy to place it in the sandbox and replicate it using a version of the Ultra page with that error in it.

But I see from the history of the code it has already been altered! Sigh!

--PBS (talk) 12:29, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Script_errors.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:39, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

When a (cite) journal was published for 2002/2003, what should the year= (or date=) value be to prevent the "Check date values" error? --82.136.210.153 (talk) 00:50, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Write (or copy and paste) date=2002–2003. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:11, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 01:12, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I started an examples table at Help:CS1 errors#bad_date. --  Gadget850 ^talk 13:07, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

The addition of this table by Gadget850 (talk · contribs) means that the page is now in Category:CS1 errors: dates, which it wasn't previously. Since the page is also partially transcluded to that category, that puts the category inside itself, and it is now reported at Wikipedia:Database reports/Self-categorized categories. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:30, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I moved the table outside the LST. Can't subst it and edit the markup since it invokes a module. Perhaps we need |template doc demo=yes that supresses the category when used on Help pages. --  Gadget850 ^talk 17:39, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I think using |template-doc-demo=true in the example citations is the right workaround for this situation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:23, 21 January 2015 (UTC)