Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 12

Yes! Citation are for identifying and locating sources, not for any kind of comment about the source or its authors. And any such misuse of the citations should be removed. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:23, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Exactly so. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:42, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm running into this more and more as I try to clean up pages and need a way to identify the miscreant citation, please.

When I press Preview, I get a message similar to this:

Warning: [Article name] is calling Template:Cite web with more than one value for the "publisher" parameter. Only the last value provided will be used.

Maybe I'm tired, but short of eyeballing every instance of {{Cite web}}, I don't know how to identify this. I'm sure there's a RegEx search that would help, but that is beyond my current skill set.

Wouldn't this error message be better appearing next to the guilty citation in the Refs list like missing/misspelled parameter name messages? Is there some reason it doesn't? And shouldn't this be a maintenance category as well?

Thanks!—D'Ranged 1 | VT^alk :  19:03, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

That error message is is not created by Module:Citation/CS1. The module does not see duplicate parameters; it gets one parameter of each name even if there are 50 of them. The error message is created by MediaWiki.

There is a tool that may be helpful (I haven't used it so don't know): User:Frietjes/findargdups

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:16, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! I gave it a try and it failed, but I left a message at the author's Talk page. Apparently such pages are categorized, so maybe someone else will be able to fix it. I so appreciate your fount of knowledge, kind sir Trappist!

—D'Ranged 1 | VT^alk :  20:27, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

To find these errors efficiently, add the following code to your vector.js or monobook.js file (whichever one you use):

//Find duplicate template parameters
importScript('User:Frietjes/findargdups.js'); // [[User:Frietjes/findargdups.js]]

Then go to the article again, click Edit, and look for the "Find dups" link in your left toolbar, under Tools. Click it, and it will tell you which template has a repeated parameter.

Frietjes, SporkBot, and a handful of other editors have been working on emptying Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls, which is down to about 15,000 articles from a high of well over 50,000 when the error tracking was put in place. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:41, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

I just discovered an article where 99.9% of the citations are in Portuguese! Someone went through and changed all the parameter names, but left the foreign dates behind, which is what triggered the cleanup from me. (That was not fun, by the way.)

So we have citations with valid dates and parameter names, but none of the citations use |translate-title= or |language=. Several also use the |quote= parameter, stuffed with Portuguese. In other words, these citations are nearly worthless on the English Wikipedia.

I can't find a specific {{Cleanup}} template for this situation and wondered if anyone here had any advice on how to tag the page?

Thanks!—D'Ranged 1 | VT^alk :  20:33, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

It is helpful to provide a link to the page when you have a question like this.

BattyBot will clean up most foreign dates in citation templates. It runs that task about once a month, so I usually fix the unsupported parameters and leave the dates in their original language.

You might try {{

cleanup-translation}}. – Jonesey95 (talk

) 23:00, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

@D'Ranged 1: BattyBot just ran over Category:CS1 errors: dates - did it fix the article you discovered? GoingBatty (talk) 03:22, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

The article is A Regra do Jogo; I fixed all the dates in the citations by hand, not really thinking about bots that would do that. Since Portuguese isn't even remotely in my wheelhouse, I had to find a translation of the names of months, lol. All's well and I'll know better next time. Thanks, GoingBattyand Jonesey95

—D'Ranged 1 | VT^alk :  03:36, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

The book has one author and one editor. The editor wrote the Preface/Introduction, how do we cite it? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:22, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

{{cite book |title=Title |contribution=Introduction |contributor=Editor name |author=Author name |publisher=Publisher |location=Location |date=2016}}

Editor name (2016). Introduction. Title. By Author name. Location: Publisher. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:56, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:34, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi, while fixing problems with errors generated by the templates I had a thought that now we know when articles are added to a category may be a BOT could be used to message those who have introduced the error. Thus giving them a chance to go and sort out the problem and so reduce the amount of entries that are in the categories. Something similar to BracketBot that reports broken wiki-mark-up or DPL bot that reports on DAB links entered in an edit. Keith D (talk) 19:57, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

ReferenceBot does this notification already for most of the categories. It might need some updates for categories that have been added recently. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:01, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks the one I was thinking about was Category:CS1 errors: dates‎. Keith D (talk) 01:20, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Template:Cite web has registration=yes/no or subscription=yes/no to represent when a web page may not be viewable based on needing to sign up for a free or cost service.

Do we have a field to represent when neither of these is needed but a website restricts itself based upon the location of the viewer?

For example I am able to view http://www.chrgd.ca/videos/dreamworkstv-pirates-and-party-crashers/ just fine from here in Canada, but when I tried to archive it using the Wayback Machine (based in the United States) it only archived an error page.

This also happens with US/Canada cognates, when I try to view the US version of Disney Jr or Disney XD it will bounce me to the Canadian ones, which can be frustrating since they actually have different programming. Based on what I've seen from archives, the reverse also happens if US people access the Canadian site, it will bounce them to the American one.

If we do not have a field to represent country-locked URLs then could we create one? It seems like a valuable thing to note when people want to check a URL and cannot do so. These restrictions inconvenience archival (it may be hard to find a Wayback equivalent outside the US for sites not viewable from the US) and also fact-checking from editors not in the country the site exclusively serves. A field like subscription/registration to denote these would help prepare people ahead of time for that and to be able to discuss it more clearly. 184.145.18.50 (talk) 02:31, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Is there a way to cite a URL in a way that clicking the link will instead of loading the webpage as HTML instead directly bring up its source code?

I would like to do this because a page displays some information about characters when viewed live, but when I created an archived copy there is some kind of object error which prevents its display, even though it shows up just fine when viewed live.

This happens at http://web.archive.org/web/20160208130149/http://www.nickjr.co.uk/shows/wallykazam/ if you 'view source' on the archive you can see the titular character Wally's age is given as "six year old". You can see it displays as intended in the live version but the archived version gets an error which prevents people from being able to check it.

If we cannot view text directly on an archive due to problems like this, is there some way to include a note hen using template:cite web that people should 'view source' to search for a quote if the quote does not display in the archive like it did when live? 184.145.18.50 (talk) 13:17, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Place a note in the reference after the closing curly braces of the cite template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:07, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I guess there's no "sources=yes/no" or "note=" to help standardize it though? 184.145.18.50 (talk) 02:43, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

We have a |script-title= parameter for titles in foreign languages written in other scripts like Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc. For obvious reasons, we need a similar mechanism for the range of |author= and |editor= parameters (because there are often many different transliterations in use and only the spelling in the original script is representative for a name). Adding script- variants may also be useful for |chapter= and |publisher=.

At present, editors often stuff both spelling variants into the |author= and |editor= parameter (or don't use the templates), putting the original representation of a name in brackets. While this usage may be acceptable for the |author= and |editor= parameters, it breaks when specifying script names (like ja:) or when using the |-first= and |-last= parameter variants. For consistency, the "script-" extension should always be the first part of the parameter name. These parameter variants should follow the same syntax and logic as the existing |script-title= parameter, except for displaying the name in brackets. Examples:

• (for a title, which was only available in Russian):

Ryzhik, I. M. (Рыжик, И. М.); Gradshteyn, I. S. (Градштейн, И. С.) (1951). Tablitsy integralov, summ, ryadov i proizvedeniy Таблицы интегралов, сумм, рядов и произведений [Tables of integrals, sums, series, and products] (in Russian) (Third ed.). Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Tehniko-Teoretičeskoj Literatury (Государственное издательство технико-теоретической литературы).

• (for an English title with two Russian authors):

Gradshteyn, I. S. (Градштейн, И. С.); Ryzhik, I. M. (Рыжик, И. М.); Jeffrey, Alan; Zwillinger, Daniel (2007). Table of Integrals, Series, and Products (Seventh ed.). Academic Press.

Thanks. :--Matthiaspaul (talk) 17:17, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

We have |script-chapter=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:54, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the hint. Not yet documented at Help:Citation Style 1. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 18:20, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

I have meanwhile added documentation for |script-chapter=, but this doesn't change the fact that we still need similar |script-author<-first/-last><n>=, |script-editor<-first/-last><n>= and |script-publisher= parameters. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 15:47, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

When filling out the 'author' (or first= and last=) in template:cite episode in association with quote= is this intended for:

• the name of the character who is saying this thing
• the name of the voice actor who is speaking for the character
• the name of the writer of the script
• some combination of the above.

Instructions for this in the template would be appreciated. I've been doing the characters so far since this seems the most useful, stuff like character's voice actors is explained in the cast and stuff like episode writers is explained in episode lists, so I personally think it ought to be the character who is saying the quote. Particularly since sometimes characters have multiple voice actors and episodes sometimes have multiple writers. 184.145.18.50 (talk) 18:30, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

The |author= and related parameters are intended for the author of the episode being cited, not the "author" or "speaker" of the |quote= parameter, which is used to optionally add a brief, relevant quotation from the cited episode. The |quote= parameter doesn't accommodate identifying the speaker of the quote, as everything in the parameter is enclosed in quotation marks.

The markup for a citation might look something like this:

{{Cite episode |title=What Mary Knew |series=Alfred Hitchcock Presents |series-link=Alfred Hitchcock Presents |first=Alfred |last=Hitchcock |network=NBC |station=WMAQ |city=Chicago |date=April 14, 1958 |number=311 |quote=Mary had a secret.}}

That would display in the references list as:

Hitchcock, Alfred (April 14, 1958). "What Mary Knew". Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Episode 311. NBC. WMAQ. Mary had a secret. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help)

I note that the |city= parameter doesn't seem to function, nor is it documented at the template. I'll open a separate topic for that below.

Hope this helped!

—D'Ranged 1 VT^alk 23:56, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't really help in where we should specify the speaker, this is more important than repeating the writer who will already be identified in using title= or date= or number= since the writer will be listed on the list. Episode writers speak through the proxies of characters so I consider them to be the primary authors and if anyone wants to list the episode writer they can be listed as author2 if necessary. Little is gained from repeating this data, everything is gained by specifying the speaker. 184.145.18.50 (talk) 20:09, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

You have not persuaded me. Citations like this from Wallykazam! are not proper uses of {{cite episode}}

{{cite episode |series=Wallykazam! |title=The Great Missing Potato |author=Bobgoblin |quote=Okay Wally Trollman and Norville Trollman, you may now approach the Great Wishing Potato.}}

Do not misuse cs1|2 templates in this way. If you want to quote a character from an episode, do so, but these templates are not the proper tools for that task.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:54, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

This basically means we can't use the quote= field if we want to attribute a character. We'd just manually put Bobgoblin: "Bobgoblin!" or something. How about a "speaker=" field? First/Last should be taken out and instead have author-first/author-last and speaker-first/speaker-last. It's just very convenient to use first/last to indicate the speaker.

The problem with citing writers is we don't know how specific dialogue actually is to writers. Sometimes when writers work on a show, they don't write the dialogue completely in stone and some ad-libbing occurs on part of the actors. A good example of this is Monday Night Raw. There are certainly script writers in the WWE but they only write the overall plot, they don't actually write every distinct word of the dialogue, which is why if I was quoting from an episode of Raw, the first/last would be attributed to the IRL person, not the WWE writers, particularly since there's a whole bunch of writers and I don't know their names or who was involved in what storylines.

Crediting the voice actors would be more specific, since they are the authors of their own speech, however a writer/director may have dictated it to them. I still think a "role=" field to supplement a "speaker=" field would be good though, since sometimes a voice actor will speak multiple roles in a show and you need to clarify which role did the quote.

Another issue is that sometimes, end credits do not directly associate voice actors with characters, some just give a big unspecified list of voice talent and people will not know which actor to attribute. For that reason a "role=" or "character=" would be useful. It's also useful if someone doesn't know who wrote an episode, since that info isn't always apparent or accessible if quoting from a clip where credits are not viewable. 184.145.18.50 (talk) 02:40, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

First, please use colons to indent your replies under others' replies to improve readability. Look at the post you are posting beneath and use one more colon they they did to indent your response under theirs.

Second, I think you may misconstrue what citations are for. They are not to include footnoted information in the article, but to provide a pointer to a source that supports statements made in the article.

The |quote= parameter is a way to provide a specific piece of information that supports a statement in the article, narrowing the search for the reader for the actual information in the source that is supporting that statement. It's a further refinement of locating the specific information in the source that is relevant to the particular information in the article. Just as page numbers are provided for books, thus preventing the reader from having to read an entire volume, quotes narrow that down even further.

—D'Ranged 1 | VT^alk :  16:42, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

It often happens that a multi-volume work, or one published in parts (sometimes a few sheets at a time) has a date which needs to be expressed as a range, like 1844-1875, rather than a single year. The "Cite book" template currently returns a red warning if a range is entered in the date= or the year= field. A range of this kind is not the same thing as "origyear", and putting the range in origyear= without a date= results in the display of no date at all, hardly helpful. Could we please be permitted to have a date range in date= or at least year= to express the true situation for publications of this kind. With many thanks, Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:40, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Does the help text linked by the error message not answer this question?

{{cite book |title=Title |date=1844-1875}}

Title. 1844–1875.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:47, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

It did, I had read a lot of irrelevant "help" text and tried several combinations. I do think that a plain hyphen or dash should work, as should a spaced en-dash; a bot can convert these if need be but frankly I don't see why anyone would care. Among the problems for the en-dash is that the citation tool doesn't provide for it, so one has to enter a hyphen in the tool, press ok and then tweak the text. It's also not a good choice for people entering the cite book code manually, a hyphen would be far more convenient. But we have to keep the wiki-gnomes busy. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:04, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

We follow MOS, which specifies an unspaced en dash for year ranges. If you want WP to be more flexible, start a conversation at the appropriate MOS talk page. Be prepared for a lively discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:53, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

En dashes can be entered at cursor position in any edit window (right next to the "Insert" drop down menu at the bottom of the edit window). My personal preference is to use {{en dash}} since it also visually signifies to other editors the use of an en dash, and hints the link to the template page, where more info is available. Additionally, it does not mess the metadata. I agree that MOS should be followed (as is already generally the case, imo) when it doesn't conflict with the objectives/purposes of the citation system. 72.43.99.130 (talk) 18:55, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

No, the error message does NOT answer the question for date ranges like "September/October 2006" or "September-October 2006". These are legitimate dates (some publications are bi-monthly), but the idiot code simply does not allow this. So one throws away half of the month information, and too bad if that happens to be the half that some catalog used. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:24, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Maybe the discussion above was unclear. There is no need to discard part of the date. The Help text that is linked from the error message explains this error in the first two lines of the helpful table: Issue: Hyphen (use dash), and Slash (use dash).

Here are two citations for the same publication, one with a hyphen between the month names (not valid, per

MOS:DATERANGE

), and one with an unspaced en dash, per MOS (valid):

"About next month". Journal of Bimonthly Musings. September–October 2006.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)

"About next month". Journal of Bimonthly Musings. September–October 2006.

And here's one with an en dash in the year range, to answer the original question in this thread:

Title. 1844–1875.

Does that clarify things? – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:59, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes. The problem is that the error message cites date values, not the separator, and the help verbiage and table of examples give (gave) no indication that month ranges are acceptable. Okay, I have added an entry to the table showing use of a date range; I hope there will be no objection to that. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 04:16, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

P.S. Since (per MOS) hyphens are pretty much verboten in dates, and most keyboards do not have en-dashes, instead of whining about hyphens why don't we have the code just fix them? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 04:22, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

I have tweaked Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox to accept MediaWiki-recognized three-character language codes and associated names. Because there are some 500 ISO 639-2 languages but comparatively few uses, I have elected to create a single category, Category:CS1 ISO 639-2 language sources, where the member pages are sorted by language code. That sorting is probably not optimal but for the time being should serve until we better understand the categorization needs.

This change does not address the issues raised in the previous discussion about languages and codes not supported by MediaWiki.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:08, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

As an FYI, Wikidata has properties for ISO codes (see search). Maybe you can use this some way? --Izno (talk) 17:35, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

This template uses Cyrillic characters in its domain name:

{{Cite web|url=http://мпгу.рф/novosti/professoru-oksforda-timoti-eriku-uilsonu-prisvoeno-zvanie-pochetnogo-professora-mpgu/|title= Профессору Оксфорда Тимоти Эрику Уилсону присвоено звание Почетного профессора МПГУ (Russian: Oxford Professor Timothy Eric Wilson was awarded the title of Honorary Professor of Moscow State Pedagogical University)|last=Semenov|first=Alexei|date=29 February 2016|website=Видеоматериал подготовлен отделом видеотехнологий Управления маркетинга и коммуникаций МПГУ|publisher=Moscow State Pedagogic University|access-date=10 March 2016| language=ru}}

Semenov, Alexei (29 February 2016). "Профессору Оксфорда Тимоти Эрику Уилсону присвоено звание Почетного профессора МПГУ (Russian: Oxford Professor Timothy Eric Wilson was awarded the title of Honorary Professor of Moscow State Pedagogical University)". Видеоматериал подготовлен отделом видеотехнологий Управления маркетинга и коммуникаций МПГУ (in Russian). Moscow State Pedagogic University. Retrieved 10 March 2016. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)

Module:Citation/CS1 does not understand, and probably never will understand, domain names that use non-Latin script. I have tweaked the sandbox to understand internationalized domain names so we can rewrite |url= to be:

|url=http://xn--c1arjr.xn--p1ai/novosti/professoru-oksforda-timoti-eriku-uilsonu-prisvoeno-zvanie-pochetnogo-professora-mpgu/

Semenov, Alexei (29 February 2016). "Профессору Оксфорда Тимоти Эрику Уилсону присвоено звание Почетного профессора МПГУ (Russian: Oxford Professor Timothy Eric Wilson was awarded the title of Honorary Professor of Moscow State Pedagogical University)". Видеоматериал подготовлен отделом видеотехнологий Управления маркетинга и коммуникаций МПГУ (in Russian). Moscow State Pedagogic University. Retrieved 10 March 2016.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:51, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

That feels really hacky though I'm not sure if there's a better way to deal with it. --Izno (talk) 13:22, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia, and editors who only speak English are constantly called upon to edit articles with foreign language phrases or which use foreign language websites in citations. Please show us a draft of how you will explain this hack to editors who only speak English, and are therefore unfamiliar with internationalized domain names (like me). If the hack can't be explained to a typical editor in the documentation, the hack should not be made, and those citations to domain names with non-Latin scripts should be hand-composed rather than using citation templates. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:35, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

If you believe that internationalized urls are a hack then perhaps you should take that up with the authors of RFC 3490 and of RFC 5890. It is true that domain names in non-Latin scripts exist. It is true that there is a method for converting these to Latin script. It is true that for English-only readers, both the non-Latin and internationalized domain names are unintelligible. It is true that both forms can be expected in current and future cs1|2 templates. Because it is simple to do, Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox now supports internationalized domain names. Tools for converting non-Latin domain names to the internationalized form exist, here are two:

http://mct.verisign-grs.com/

http://idna-converter.com/

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:00, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Examples:

1. Achham District 87-7803-210-9 (bad) 87-7903-210-9 (good)
2. Adamah 0-06-250992-5 (bad) 0-06-250922-5 (good)
3. Company H, 6th Florida Infantry Regiment 9997970322 (bad) Too old to have an ISBN.
4. Collaborators Act 1972
   9843003222 (bad) since fixed with OCLC number.
5. Tim Aaron 9998896924 (bad)
6. Tom De Haven 6302800951, 6302800978, 6302801125, 6302801001 (bad)
7. Gabriel's Oboe 6305614350 (bad) Not a book.

Bgwhite (talk) 08:32, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

We wouldn't expect a template to detect whether an ISBN actually refers to a real book, only whether it is in one of the correct formats for an ISBN, right? Jc3s5h (talk) 10:15, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. And some of these problems look like they may be an edition was cited which is not the original publication. --Izno (talk) 12:41, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

For these three, the errors are caught but masked:

Achham District 87-7803-210-9 (bad) – cite has |ignore-isbn-error=true

Adamah 0-06-250992-5 (bad) – cite has |ignore-isbn-error=true

Collaborators Act 1972

9843003222 (bad) – cite has |ignore-isbn-error=true

these are asin numbers masquerading as isbns:

Company H, 6th Florida Infantry Regiment 9997970322 (bad) – length and check-digit tests pass so the 'number' is correct

• Title.
  ASIN 9997970322. {{cite book}}: Check |asin= value (help
  )
• Title.
  ISBN 9997970322. – can be found at Amazon through Special:BookSources/9997970322

Tim Aaron 9998896924 (bad) – length and check-digit tests pass so the 'number' is correct

• Title.
  ASIN 9998896924. {{cite book}}: Check |asin= value (help
  )
• Title.
  ISBN 9998896924. – can be found at Amazon through Special:BookSources/9998896924

Tom De Haven 6302800951, 6302800978, 6302801125, 6302801001 (bad) – length and check-digit tests pass so the 'numbers' are correct

• Title.
  ASIN 6302800951
  .
• Title.
  ASIN 6302800978
  .
• Title.
  ASIN 6302801125
  .
• Title.
  ASIN 6302801001
  .

though mathematically correct as isbns, none are found at WorldCat nor can these be found at Amazon through Special:BookSources

• Title.
  ISBN 6302800951. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid group id (help
  )
• Title.
  ISBN 6302800978. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid group id (help
  )
• Title.
  ISBN 6302801125. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid group id (help
  )
• Title.
  ISBN 6302801001. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid group id (help
  )

Gabriel's Oboe 6305614350 (bad) – length and check-digit tests pass so the 'number' is correct

• Title.
  ISBN 6305614350. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid group id (help
  ) – works as isbn; found at WorldCat; cannot be found at Amazon through Special:BookSources
• Title.
  ASIN 6305614350
  . – works as asin

I don't know if these asin numbers that pass the length and check-digit tests are not legitimate isbns. Is there a way to know if these numbers are legitimate isbns?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:44, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

An ISBN that cannot be found does not necessarily imply a wrong identifier. It may be that the owner of the number has not registered it with

R.R. Bowker's Books in Print database which is the official ISBN record holder worldwide. Or the ISBN may not be worldwide-barcode-compatible (the owner has to initiate this). Also note that when ISBNs are transferred (e.g. publishing co. gets sold/merged etc.), things can get complicated. Publication history can also complicate things, since different editions must have different ISBNs, which means somebody (at the publisher) has to be on top of things. This could also be useful: isbn.org/sites/default/files/images/isbn_agency_e-books_position_paper.pdf. 65.88.88.75 (talk

) 20:07, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

This page has useful info, and can also generate a file with the ranges of valid ISBNs by language/country. Note that changes in assignations are frequent. According to the source page, "Data from this file can also be used to detect ISBNs that are invalid because a particular Registration Group Element within an EAN.UCC Prefix or a specific Registrant Element Range within a Registration Group has yet to be defined." However, this looks cumbersome imo.

EDIT: A quick tool for 10-digit checking ISBNs is the ISBN Converter, here. It should catch most bad numbers.72.43.99.130 (talk) 20:30, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

I've added that link to Help:CS1 errors#Check |isbn= value.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:01, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I am finding uses of |ignore-isbn-error=true, like this one, that are invalid. Can we please have a tracking category that simply tracks usage of this parameter? There should not be any message displayed in the article, just a hidden category. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:46, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Like this? Needs a better category name I think. When |isbn= is invalid and |ignore-isbn-error= is set:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=123456789 |ignore-isbn-error=yes}}

Title.

ISBN 123456789. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help); Unknown parameter |ignore-isbn-error= ignored (|isbn= suggested) (help

)

and when |ignore-isbn-error= not set:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=123456789}}

Title.

ISBN 123456789. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help

)

and when |isbn= is valid:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=123456789X}}

Title.

ISBN 123456789X

.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:30, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, like that, but with no maintenance message. Some ISBNs are validly ignored – I cleaned out most of the 8,000 articles in the error category, and I found only a small handful (maybe ten?) for which I thought the "ignore" message was valid. I don't remember why at this point, but I think I put in HTML comments. In the last few days, however, I have found multiple "ignore" parameters that were placed in citations with ISBNs that were invalid and easily fixed.

Editors looking at articles in the category can search the wikitext for "ignore" to find the citation in question, so a maintenance message is not needed, I think. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:44, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

I've added another test that adds the category when the ISBN is valid but the template includes |ignore-isbn-error=:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=123456789X |ignore-isbn-error=yes}}

Title.

ISBN 123456789X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |ignore-isbn-error= ignored (|isbn= suggested) (help

)

Also modified the error message so that it says why the ISBN test failed:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=123456789}}

Title.

ISBN 123456789. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help

)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=1234567890}}

Title.

ISBN 1234567890. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help

)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=978-0-471-33218-}}

Title.

ISBN 978-0-471-33218-. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help

)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=978-0-47l-33218-3}}

Title.

ISBN 978-0-47l-33218-3. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help

)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=977-0-471-33218-3}}

Title.

ISBN 977-0-471-33218-3. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid prefix (help

)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=979-0-471-33218-3}}

Title.

ISBN 979-0-471-33218-3. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid group id (help

)

I'm not sure that we should have different visibility for different maintenance categories. Maintenance cat messages are already hidden from the general readership so hiding them even more doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:16, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

And a couple more:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=12345678X9}}

Title.

ISBN 12345678X9. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid form (help

)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |isbn=978-X-471-33218-3}}

Title.

ISBN 978-X-471-33218-3. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help

)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:41, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Someone has changed the definition of a stripmarker. Prior to yesterday, stripmarkers looked sort of like this:

%7FUNIQ--label-...-QINU%7F

where:

%7F is the delete character

label is gallery, math, nowiki, pre, or ref

... is a unique identifier for this particular stripmarker

Yesterday, the form changed to:

%7F'"`UNIQ--label-...-QINU`"'%7F

That change disrupted the invisible characters check and the rendering of <math>...</math> content in a cs1|2 template's metadata.

I have tweaked the sandbox to accommodate this change.

There is a related conversation at WP:VPT

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:45, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Hopefully the fix will be implemented soon. Followed the discussion at Village Pump. It is interesting (not in a good way) that a change with notable repercussions downstream is not better communicated by its author(s). 64.134.68.211 (talk) 13:14, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

The change may have been unintentional. There are a number of bugs listed at T28213 which is the tracking bug for all strip marker changes. --Izno (talk) 15:54, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

All the more so to be careful whenever any changes are contemplated. Especially since from our vantage point, these changes seem to be happening in a vacuum. 72.43.99.138 (talk) 13:20, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Turns out to have been deliberate. Woops. --Izno (talk) 11:34, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

I have spent some time this morning revising the code that must deal with stripmarkers. Stripmarkers are detected with Lua patterns. I've created a central repository of those patterns in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration/sandbox. Having them live in a single location will make it easier should MediaWiki change their form again. I have also taken a cue from Editor Johnuniq, the primary author of the convert module, and made the stripmarker patterns more accepting of variations; the new patterns will work with the current form as well as with the form in use prior to 10 March 2016.

On 20 January 2016, the templates {{

I have changed Module:Citation/CS1/COinS/sandbox to use the <math>...</math> stripmarkers defined in /Configuration/sandbox. I have removed the definitions of {{'}} and {{'s}} that the function coins_cleanup() used to replace those templates with simple apostrophe and apostrophe-s. The function now looks for the css markup that is produced by those templates.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:48, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Well, good work. I use these templates, especially because end-user screens are prone to be 10" and smaller these days, and readability may thus be a more prominent issue. And hopefully, pending changes in mw will be better advertised/tested in the future. 72.43.99.130 (talk) 20:39, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Occasionally I drop myself a note by leaving a comment in the code prefaced with TODO:. One of those wondered why the variable list_name is in the call to function list_people() because that variable isn't used in that function. Apparently I added it in the early days of url and wikilink detection in the various |<param>-link= parameters. Since it serves no purpose, I have removed it from the function and the four function calls – one each for authors, editors, contributors, and translators. Because all are the same, only authors is demonstrated here. Both live and sandbox should show the same error message:

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:27, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Another TODO: involves lists of date parameters. The code creates a list of date parameters in the function call to dates(). Then, it creates a separate list before calling reformat_dates(). I've retained but moved the separate list and pass the list name to both dates() and reformat_dates(). Both live and sandbox should show the same error message:

and both live and sandbox dates should convert to dmy format:

—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:00, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

archive-url handling when both url and chapter-url are present

This TODO: wonders about the link swapping that occurs when all of |url=, |chapter-url=, and |archive-url= are set. At present, |archive-url= is applied to the value in |title= and the archived message gets its link from |url=. Is that how it should be, or should the swap be between |chapter-url= and |archive-url=? In this compare, live shows the url/archive-url swap, sandbox shows the chapter-url/archive-url swap:

The change does not change |archive-url= handling when only one of |url= or |chapter-url= is set. Shall this change be retained?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:07, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

The cited source is the chapter. Assuming the template has been filled correctly, |archive-url= should point to an archive of the source (ie the chapter), therefore the swap should be between |chapter-url= and |archive-url=. The archive should not be pointing to the source's enclosing work. 65.88.88.200 (talk) 13:49, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Alternately, why not have archive options for both? Building on 65's point above, if we had a |archive-chapter-url= along with |archive-url=, we could link the chapter title to the archive of the chapter and link the title to the archive of the enclosing work. As for the "Archived from..." text, I don't see a point in linking out the original title's link if the original chapter link is there. Or maybe we link both somehow if it's not confusing. Imzadi 1979 → 14:31, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

A comment at Help talk:Citation Style 1#Open access icon inspired me to look at how the module handles |embargo=. It occurred to me that any MOS valid date format is accepted but not necessarily handled correctly. For example setting |embargo= to a range of dates in the future doesn't do what is expected:

{{cite journal |title=Title |journal=Journal |pmc=12345 |embargo=20 March – 7 June 2025}}

"Title". Journal.

PMC 12345. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |embargo= ignored (|pmc-embargo-date= suggested) (help

)

• "Title". Journal.
  PMC 12345. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |embargo= ignored (|pmc-embargo-date= suggested) (help
  ) – 2024-04-21
• "Title". Journal.
  PMC 12345. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |embargo= ignored (|pmc-embargo-date= suggested) (help
  ) – 2024-04-19
• "Title". Journal.
  PMC 12345. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |embargo= ignored (|pmc-embargo-date= suggested) (help
  ) – 21 April 2024
• "Title". Journal.
  PMC 12345. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |embargo= ignored (|pmc-embargo-date= suggested) (help
  ) – 19 April 2024
• "Title". Journal.
  PMC 12345. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |embargo= ignored (|pmc-embargo-date= suggested) (help
  ) – April 21, 2024
• "Title". Journal.
  PMC 12345. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |embargo= ignored (|pmc-embargo-date= suggested) (help
  ) – April 19, 2024

{{cite journal/new |title=Title |journal=Journal |pmc=12345 |embargo=20 March – 7 June 2025}}

"Title". Journal.

PMC 12345. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |embargo= ignored (|pmc-embargo-date= suggested) (help

)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:53, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Embargo date should also be suppressed if it is expired.

books

} 17:07, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

The embargo date is never displayed. When the embargo does expire, the module adds the page to Category:CS1 maint: PMC embargo expired so that editors can know to remove |embargo=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:21, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Seems displayed to me in the above examples

books

} 18:07, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

May do, but those dates aren't part of the cs1 templates; they are added outside so that you can see why the templates are rendered as they are: |title= linked or not linked; with and without category messages.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:17, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Ah, I see it now. I was wondering what was up with the strange range for dates in the code, but I was just parsing it wrong in my head.

books

} 18:26, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Many citation errors are caused by a missing pipe (vertical bar), causing the citation template to be missing a title or an author parameter, for example. Some of those errors, like this one, are caught by our existing checks, but others, like this one, are not. I wonder if it would be useful to have a maintenance category that looked for the "=" character in parameters that are highly unlikely to contain one.

I can imagine |title=-holding parameters having "=" characters inside them, but |location= and |pages=, for example, should probably not have such characters. We would not need to check parameters that are already checked for errors that would catch a stray "=", such as |ISBN=, |DOI=, and |date=. Thoughts? – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:48, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I have just fixed a couple dozen of these. Mostly due to missing pipes, I'm finding "=" characters in |quote=, |pages=, |publisher=, and other parameters. I am finding these via Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia/ISBN errors, but extrapolating from that list, I expect that there are hundreds of instances of parameters that are unintentionally being rendered as part of other parameters. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:04, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

I've hacked the sandbox and added a test that looks for parameter values that match one of two patterns:

1. %s+(%a[%a%d]+)%s*= – required white space, letters and digits, optional white space, required '='
2. ^(%a[%a%d]+)%s*= – letters and digits at the start of the parameter value, optional white space, required '='

If either of these are found, the string of letters and digits is compared against the list of valid parameter names. If there is a match, the a maintenance category is added. For this hack I'm using the extra text maintenance category until a more appropriate name is chosen.

Each parameter value is inspected:

{{cite book/new |title=Title isbn = 123456789X}} – pattern 1

Title isbn = 123456789X. {{cite book}}: Missing pipe in: |title= (help)

{{cite book/new |title= isbn = 123456789X}} – pattern 2

isbn = 123456789X. {{cite book}}: Missing pipe in: |title= (help)

{{cite book/new |title=isbn = 123456789X}} – pattern 2

isbn = 123456789X. {{cite book}}: Missing pipe in: |title= (help)

{{cite book/new |title=Titleisbn = 123456789X}} – no match

Titleisbn = 123456789X.

{{cite book/new |titl=Title isbn = 123456789X}} – pattern 1

{{cite book}}: Empty citation (help)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |url=//example.com?isbn=123456789X}} – no match

Title.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:23, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

I've changed the category to Category:CS1 maint: Missing pipe because this abomination of a citation wasn't making sense with the extra text cat:

{{Cite news |last=Herring |first=G. B. |date=19 May 1966 |title=TBD |url=http://newspaperarchive.com/laurel-leader-call/1966-05-19/page-15 |newspaper=Laurel Leader Call |location=[[Laurel, Mississippi]] |accessdate=July 11, 2012 |quote=''Radar bomb scoring {{sic|began}} in 1946 with 888 bomb releases for the year against a site in the{{Verify source|date=August 2013}} San Diego'' }}

Herring, G. B. (19 May 1966). "TBD". Laurel Leader Call. Laurel, Mississippi. Retrieved July 11, 2012. Radar bomb scoring began [sic] in 1946 with 888 bomb releases for the year against a site in the^{[verification needed]} San Diego

Because that citation shows the 'delete character' error message, I changed it to use the sandbox but that produces this:

Herring, G. B. (19 May 1966). "TBD". Laurel Leader Call. Laurel, Mississippi. Retrieved July 11, 2012. Radar bomb scoring began [sic] in 1946 with 888 bomb releases for the year against a site in the^{[verification needed]} San Diego

Templates within a cs1|2 template are processed before the cs1|2 template. So, the module sees this:

{{Cite news |last=Herring |first=G. B. |date=19 May 1966 |title=TBD |url=http://newspaperarchive.com/laurel-leader-call/1966-05-19/page-15 |newspaper=Laurel Leader Call |location=[[Laurel, Mississippi]] |accessdate=July 11, 2012 |quote=''Radar bomb scoring began&#32;&#91;''[[sic]]''&#93; in 1946 with 888 bomb releases for the year against a site in the<sup class="noprint Inline-Template " style="white-space:nowrap;">&#91;<i>[[Wikipedia:Verifiability|<span title="The material near this tag needs to be fact-checked with the cited source(s).&#32;(August 2013)">verification needed</span>]]</i>&#93;</sup> San Diego'' }}

The missing pipe detector is finding the class= attribute in the <sup> tag. So, the current detector is destined for failure and the rubbish tip unless a way can be found around this issue.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:05, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

That turned out to be a simple change: remove xml/html tags from the parameter value, then look for missing pipes.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:51, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Ugh. Thanks for debugging this one. This is why I suggested a maintenance category instead of a red error message. There will be all sorts of false positives at first. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:59, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

This question (Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 5#Transcript parameter for cite podcast) was asked in March 2014 and after becoming frustrated in my attempts to solve it, I left Wikipedia editing for quite some time. Will the question ever be addressed by people who know the Lua coding and can avoid all the mistakes I made in trying to solve it? It still seems a valid parameter to have for the {{Cite podcast}} template.—D'Ranged 1 VT^alk 12:37, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

As a follow-up, is this just not going to happen?

—D'Ranged 1 | VT^alk :  18:51, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

At