Template talk:Citation/Archive 6

This is an current talk page .

Found this while reading an article. First, the reference code:
<ref>{{Citation | last = Collins | first = Andy | author-link = http://www.andycollins.net/ | title = Spelljammer: Shadow of the Spider Moon | journal = Polyhedron | issue = 151 | pages = 16–65 | date = May 2002 | url = http://paizo.com/dungeon/products/downloads/92}}</ref>
Which results in the visual of this:
[|Collins, Andy] (May 2002), "Spelljammer: Shadow of the Spider Moon", Polyhedron (151): 16–65 The author name does link to his website, but as you can see, the format is rather strange and has uneeded characters on it. The extra symbols should be removed to make it more consistant with standard referencing. Turlo Lomon (talk) 19:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah, that old chestnut. As stated at Template:Citation#Authors (which comes from Template:Citation Style documentation/author):

• authorlink: Title of existing Wikipedia article about the author—not the author's website; do not wikilink.

--Redrose64 (talk) 20:09, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Would it be worth adding a check for this? Something like:

{{#ifeq: {{trunc|{{{authorlink1|}}}|4}}|http|{{citation error|{{para|authorlink}} links to URL, not Wikipedia article; see the template documentation.}}
...}}

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:42, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, with the rest of template placed as alternative branch of #ifeq, so that the error would get rendered instead of the reference, not in the middle. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 22:15, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Would it be worthwhile to add a tracking category for these errors? If there's a significant amount, maybe a bot could monitor the category and remove the offending parameter? GoingBatty (talk) 17:46, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Not really. The message is clear and it is hard to miss. We shouldn't abuse bots. Furthermore, making editors fix such breakages by hand forces good habit of reading docs. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 18:25, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I would rather put it in the first #if for each authorlink— this will reduce overhead. There are bound to be a number of extant bad uses; we should track and repair these for at least the short term. It only checks for http, but I don't see that there would be many other uses. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:50, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

At present, at Template:Citation/doc#Display options, the documentation says:

postscript: The closing punctuation for the citation; defaults to a period (.); if the parameter is present, but blank, no terminating punctuation will be used. Ignored if quote is defined.

This is not correct for the {{Citation}} template: if the postscript parameter is omitted the effect is the same as if it is present but blank, namely no terminating punctuation will be used. I haven't edited the documentation to correct this because I'm a bit confused by the nested templates and their parameters which make up the documentation. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:36, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually it is a bug that should be fixed: unless postfix is specified, the template should render with a period on the end. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:14, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

That is: line "|PS = {{#if:{{{quote|}}}||{{{postscript|}}}}}" should be replaced with "|PS = {{#if:{{{quote|}}}|{{{postscript|}}}|.}}", if I get this template correctly. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:22, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. Added switch so it now shows: "postscript: The closing punctuation for the citation; defaults to none. Ignored if quote is defined." ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:02, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

This is not a fix. Citation is a full sentence, so it should end with period unless there is any special case. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 11:16, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

This fixes the presented issue in that the documentation did not properly describe how the template actually works. If you want to propose a change to the template, please start a new discussion for clarity. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:23, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

It seems that |trans_title= does not work for journal articles, and that one has to use |trans_chapter= instead. This seems counterintuitive and wrong, and besides is not what the documentation says. Example:

• With |trans_chapter=:

{{citation | last = Erdős | first = Pál | authorlink = Paul Erdős | journal = Matematikai Lapok | language = Hungarian | mr = 0144871 | pages = 28–38 | title = Számelméleti megjegyzések, III. Néhány additív számelméleti problémáról |trans-chapter=Some remarks on number theory, III | url = http://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1962-22.pdf | volume = 13 | year = 1962}}.

produces

Erdős, Pál (1962), "Számelméleti megjegyzések, III. Néhány additív számelméleti problémáról [Some remarks on number theory, III]" (in Hungarian), Matematikai Lapok 13: 28–38, MR 0144871, http://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1962-22.pdf .

• With |trans_title=:

{{citation | last = Erdős | first = Pál | authorlink = Paul Erdős | journal = Matematikai Lapok | language = Hungarian | mr = 0144871 | pages = 28–38 | title = Számelméleti megjegyzések, III. Néhány additív számelméleti problémáról |trans-title=Some remarks on number theory, III | url = http://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1962-22.pdf | volume = 13 | year = 1962}}.

produces

Erdős, Pál (1962), "Számelméleti megjegyzések, III. Néhány additív számelméleti problémáról" (in Hungarian), Matematikai Lapok 13: 28–38, MR 0144871, http://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1962-22.pdf .

I'm not entirely sure how to fix this: the template code does pass |trans_title= along to the core template in either case, but under the wrong core parameter name (the one for the journal name rather than the article title). I'm not sure why the core template then ignores it rather than putting it in the wrong place. We would need to be careful that fixing this case doesn't break the other types of citations. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:24, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The issue is in {{citation/core}}. journal in {{cite journal}} is passed to the metaparameter Periodical to {{citation/core}}, where a bunch of template magic is performed when Periodical is defined. If journal (or an alias) is defined, then title is treated as a chapter: enclosed in quotes and trans_chapter applied. If journal is not defined, then title is treated as a title: displayed in italics and trans_title applied.

{{citation
 | last = Erdős | first = Pál | authorlink = Paul Erdős
 | journal = Matematikai Lapok
 | language = Hungarian
 | mr = 0144871
 | pages = 28–38
 | title = Számelméleti megjegyzések, III. Néhány additív számelméleti problémáról |trans-chapter=Some remarks on number theory, III
 | url = http://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1962-22.pdf
 | volume = 13
 | year = 1962}}.

{{citation
 | last = Erdős | first = Pál | authorlink = Paul Erdős
 | language = Hungarian
 | mr = 0144871
 | pages = 28–38
 | title = Számelméleti megjegyzések, III. Néhány additív számelméleti problémáról |trans-title=Some remarks on number theory, III
 | url = http://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1962-22.pdf
 | volume = 13
 | year = 1962}}.

I can fix the documentation. It would be nicer if the template did this automatically. The Periodical chunk of the core is very complex (it makes at five changes in formatting that I know of), and I don't have my head it it at the moment. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:20, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The keywords language, trans_title (or trans_chapter) do nothing in a patent citation. (Yes, country-code should be a clue that the patent is in German.)

• {{Citation |inventor-first=Alexander |inventor-last=Meissner |inventorlink=Alexander Meissner |title=Einrichtung zur Erzeugung elektrischer Schwingungen |trans-title=Equipment for production of electrical oscillations |country-code=DE |patent-number=291604 |publication-date=April 10, 1913 |issue-date=June 23, 1919 |language=German }}

• Einrichtung zur Erzeugung elektrischer Schwingungen [Equipment for production of electrical oscillations] (in German), April 10, 1913 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |country-code= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |inventor-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |inventor-last= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |inventorlink= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |issue-date= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |patent-number= ignored (help)

Glrx (talk) 17:11, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Updating the documentation for patents has been on my list. If inventor-surname or some other parameters are defined, then {{

citation/patent}} support a much smaller set of paramters, which does not include trans_title. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk

19:46, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see a problem. The documentation at Template:Citation#Citing patents doesn't mention |language=, |trans_title= or |trans_chapter=. Just because those parameters are provided for the non-patent form doesn't mean that they are necessarily valid for the patent form. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:40, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Undocumented parameters:

• publication-number
• year
• fdate
• pridate
• assign1
• assign2

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:32, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

For translated works, particularly books, the name of the translator is significant information that should be included in a citation. I can't find any fields in the citation templates for providing the translator name. Am I overlooking something, or can this be added? --Orlady (talk) 11:47, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

See Template:Citation#Authors. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:04, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

{{

{{citation |url=http://www.example.com/about.html |title=About Example |first=John |last=Doe |date=September 14, 2011 |accessdate=September 14, 2011 }}

As long as it was the long-lasting default until recently, I consider this change to be non-controversial. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 15:31, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

It is far from uncontroversial. There are huge numbers of citation templates out there that expect no terminator, and where one is provided after the template in the text of the article. This would break them all. I don't know what you mean about "as long as it was the long-lasting default"; I don't remember a time when this was the default. (Maybe you're thinking of {{cite journal}}, for which it was and still is the default?) —David Eppstein (talk) 16:20, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that this sort of thing needs to be discussed in more detail (in other words I don't think it is non-controversial enough to just be done). So I am going to disable the editprotected request, although the discussion is not closed in any way.

Historically, the lack of punctuation was used in articles to add additional items to the end of citation, relying on the fact that the items are separated by commas and there is no period at the end. Many other articles that use the citation put an intentional period after the template. Thus adding a period here would break numerous articles. The lack of a period in this template dates back to at least 2007, it is not a recent change; perhaps a period was inadvertently added recently and then re-removed. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 15:51, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Strongly support no change i.e. no punctuation should be the default. There are two quite different issues:

• Breaking existing usages: adding a full stop by default would, as noted above, break existing usages, e.g. "{{Citation ...}}, chapter 5" which would render with ".,".
• Whether citations should end with a full stop. I think they shouldn't; they aren't sentences. Others clearly think they should. But even if there is a consensus for a full stop, this doesn't justify changing long-established template behaviour.

Peter coxhead (talk) 16:46, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Strongly oppose this proposal. The reason I favour the {{

Fatuorum

16:53, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

comment This template uses different punctuation from the Citation Style 1 templates, including the terminal period. As best I can tell, it was a deliberate design from inception. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:23, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. That would break a lot of existing citations. Also, there are many cases where the automatic period is not desired, and having to include a whole parameter to preclude that quite offsets the dubious advantage of not having to type a single period. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:57, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Would the source "MLB.com" appear as "MLB.com" in the reference section, or "Mlb.com"? Or are both allowed as long as the article is consistent. As I've come to understand, the rules that are applied to other sources which may appear as all capitals, such as "Life," do not appear in all caps when being referenced (the article is even Life) would make sense to apply to "Mlb.com" as well. Zepppep (talk) 19:45, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Please comment at Help talk:Citation Style 1#Capitalization of web sites in references, not here, in order to avoid split discussion. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:29, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Exactly what I was about to say.

WP:FORUMSHOP seems relevant. —David Eppstein (talk

) 20:30, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, being as I am the one who started that thread...but thanks. Zepppep (talk) 06:45, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I see that Template:Cite_quick was added to Julian Assange today (i reverted this). Have things changed about the templates usage? And if so why is the new coding not being implemented into this main cite template?Moxy (talk) 17:57, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

The article size is about 148kb and I count over 200 {{

2011–2012 Egyptian revolution, Arab Spring, Suasoria, and Controversia articles. I see taht a discussion here was closed with a result of keep. Based on this, I've reverted the change as a good faith edit. Wtmitchell (talk)

(earlier Boracay Bill) 23:20, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

It changes the formatting (specifically it parenthesizes the publisher rather than separating it unparenthesized from the work by a period) and so violates

WP:CITEVAR. And it loses important information: compare "276. ^ El Comercio." (from the quick variant) to "276. ^ (in es)El Comercio. http://www.elcomercio.com/politica/Julian-Assange-embajada-Ecuador-Londres_0_721727907.html" from the original. I think it's not yet ready for prime-time. Re-undoing. —David Eppstein (talk

) 00:27, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Taking that specific example:

• {{cite news| url=http://www.elcomercio.com/politica/Julian-Assange-embajada-Ecuador-Londres_0_721727907.html | work=El Comercio | language=es}}
• → El Comercio (in Spanish) http://www.elcomercio.com/politica/Julian-Assange-embajada-Ecuador-Londres_0_721727907.html. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• {{cite quick |news| url=http://www.elcomercio.com/politica/Julian-Assange-embajada-Ecuador-Londres_0_721727907.html | work=El Comercio | language=es}}
• →

It appears that with {{cite quick}}, the "work" has been used as if it were the article title. If the |title= parameter, omitted in both cases, had been used, a more consistent appearance is produced:

• {{cite news| url=http://www.elcomercio.com/politica/Julian-Assange-embajada-Ecuador-Londres_0_721727907.html | work=El Comercio | language=es |title=Julian Assange pide asilo político en embajada de Ecuador en Londres }}
• → "Julian Assange pide asilo político en embajada de Ecuador en Londres". El Comercio (in Spanish).
• {{cite quick |news| url=http://www.elcomercio.com/politica/Julian-Assange-embajada-Ecuador-Londres_0_721727907.html | work=El Comercio | language=es |title=Julian Assange pide asilo político en embajada de Ecuador en Londres }}
• →

But whether |title= is used or not, there are two items of information lost by use of {{

WP:COINS metadata and the language indicator. As an aside, the documentation for {{cite news}} shows that |language= is not intended for a language code such as "es" ("Use the full language name; do not use icons or templates"). --Redrose64 (talk

) 12:46, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The language parameter applies to all of the Citation Style 1 templates, as well as {{citation}}. In the given example, the issue is not with {{cite quick}} per se, as the abbreviation was used with the previous use of {{cite news}}; there was also no title, which is why the original and updated versions are odd. Indeed, {{cite quick}} does not support language.

I agree with the above: the quick templates must demonstrate that they render in the same manner as the standard templates. The concept is good, but the implementation is not yet there. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:12, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to suggest that |language=es wasn't being recognised because it's a code, nor was I implying that it's only recognised by {{citation}}. All my comments refer to {{cite news}} and {{cite quick}}, these being the two templates involved in the double revert concerning ref 276 in that article. The correct usage - whether you're using {{cite news}} or {{citation}} - would be |language=Spanish - but whether you put |language=Spanish or |language=es, {{cite quick}} ignores it and the other two output it verbatim, so you get "(in Spanish)" or "(in es)", respectively. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:54, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I was responding to the original post. Sorry for the confusion. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:33, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Have the errors been corrected in the template? - as the template is still being implemented in other high profile articles like here at Israel. The explanation for the change leads us to an essay called Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation error. Moxy (talk) 16:20, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Removing COINS metadata

FYI: Template talk:Citation/core#Removing COINS metadata Kaldari (talk) 00:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Section parameter edit request on 7 December 2012

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please add a |section= parameter to the template. Newspaper often are divided into sections (sports section, metro section, etc.) and it would be helpful to have a |section= parameter to optionally include that information in the cite. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Not done: It has been suggested before, and it was agreed that the |at= parameter serves this purpose, as in |at=sec. C, p. 12, col. 4 --Redrose64 (talk) 15:14, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Found it. Template:Citation#In-source locations discusses parameter |at=. Below are two cites:

• Sumrall, Harry (July 10, 1988), "Big, Bad, Loud And Ugly, Heavy Metal Maintains Its Magnetic Attraction For Generations Of Teens",
  San Jose Mercury News, p. 18 {{citation}}: More than one of |at= and |page= specified (help
  )
• Sumrall, Harry (July 10, 1988), "Big, Bad, Loud And Ugly, Heavy Metal Maintains Its Magnetic Attraction For Generations Of Teens",
  San Jose Mercury News
  , sec. Arts & Books, p. 18

The first cite merely says page 18, but that's only true for the Arts & Books section of that newspaper. So, like most newspapers, the above newspaper cite needs the section info. The second cite gives the correct information. On a different note, if you look at:

• Last, First (January 1, 2012), "Article title", Newspaper, p. 18. (This uses |page=18)
• Last, First (January 1, 2012), "Article title", Newspaper, p. 18. (This cite uses |at=p. 18)

They produce the same result. The |page= parameter merely is one form of the |at= parameter. Why isn't |page= listed as an alias of |at=? This would encourage using the |at=, which has more versatility. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 15:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

|at= is not an alias for |page=. As is documented, when |at= is defined, then |page= has no effect. Now, {{cite news}} supports |department=, which may be what you want (see the documentation) and can easily be added here. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:33, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I got that backwards: the order of precedence is |page=, |pages=, |at=. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 06:29, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

|department= now in {{citation/sandbox}}:

Markup	Renders as
{{Citation/sandbox |first=Harry |last=Sumrall |title=Big, Bad, Loud And Ugly, Heavy Metal Maintains Its Magnetic Attraction For Generations Of Teens |work=[[San Jose Mercury News]] |department=Arts & Books |page=18 |date=July 10, 1988 }}	Sumrall, Harry (July 10, 1988), "Big, Bad, Loud And Ugly, Heavy Metal Maintains Its Magnetic Attraction For Generations Of Teens", Arts & Books, San Jose Mercury News , p. 18

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:55, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that |section= would a more intuitive alias for |at=. And the prospect of mixed (e.g.) at[section]=Sports and p=4, which fails because 'at' suppresses 'p', gets back to an earlier discussion. Is it time to re-visit the matter of suppression? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:33, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

|department= is not an alias for |at=. There is no alias for |at=. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:01, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Online newspaper sources show things like "Section: NEWS", so using "Department" to mean "Section" in Wikipedia cites might be confusing to others. When I made my initial request above, I didn't know about the |at= parameter. I'm surprised that the |at= parameter is a catchall for so many things: "page (p.) or pages (pp.); section (sec.), column (col.), paragraph (para.); track; hours, minutes and seconds; act, scene, canto, book, part, folio, stanza, back cover, liner notes, indicia, colophon, dust jacket, verse." To work around the above issue, my current, standard newspaper cite template is <ref>{{Citation |at=sec. xx, p. xx |work= [[]] |publication-date= |title= |first= |last= |authorlink= |accessdate= December 9, 2012 |url= }}</ref>, where I will replace the "xx" variables with the correct text. Most newspapers use something like "Section: NEWS", but they also will show the page as something like "35A" where the "A" portion means NEWS section. Personally, I do not like leaving the Section text out of the Wikipedia cite because the Section text makes it much easier to find the article in a real/paper newspaper. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:07, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

The primary purpose of a citation is to assist others in verifying your edits. Whether you put |at=News section, p. 35 or |at=Section news, p. 35 (or even |at=p. 35 in News section) is of secondary importance, so long as it's a unique description for the place where the supporting text occurs, and that others can understand it. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:10, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. But as some periodicals paginate within a section, an editor trying to use |at=Section X with |p= might be surprised, and even a bit discouraged, to see that doesn't work. (P.s.: I did not mean to imply that 'section' is an alias of 'at', but that it might be useful if it was.) ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:28, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

section was already used as an alias of chapter in {{

cite manual}} and is now supported as such in {{cite book}} now that manual is merged. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk

12:07, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

With the perspective of the primary purpose - assist others in verifying your edits - that clears everything up. I wasn't looking at the big picture. I'm really impressed at the level of thought that has gone into this template. Keep up the great work everyone. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:05, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I think of "section" as more generally a subdivision of "chapter" (though possible counter-examples come to mind). Well, what's done is done; I'm not going to worry about it. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:01, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Retrieved parameter

I'm liking this template more than the news, web, journal, book templates. I just posted Atrium Award. What is the reason that the |retrieved= parameter shows up in some of the cites and not others? -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 17:53, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

??? There is no |retrieved= parameter. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

It's |accessdate=. It's used in all five citations in that article but for some reason is visible only in two of them. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:32, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, in which case, the answer is simple: only two of the citations have a non-blank |url=, so those are the only ones for which |accessdate= is meaningful. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:27, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

See Template:Citation#Syntax and Template:Citation#URL. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I was thinking of "retrieved" when I subsequently posted this thread. Regarding the request, I always thought |accessdate= meant the date when I accessed the item, similar to |archivedate=, which is the date the item was archived, and |format=, which is the format of the work/item. Renaming |accessdate= to be |urlaccessdate= would make the purpose of the parameter clearer. Now I'm wondering why |accessdate= has been listed (in the cite news, web, book template) as one of the few basic parameters. So long as the URL works, does it really matter when the URL was accessed? -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:26, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, because the content of the web page pointed to by the URL may change; this is particularly the case with recent news stories where new developments may cause the page content to alter. It's been discussed many times here and on other talk pages, but comes down to this: regarding the origin of your data, you need to provide sufficient information so that others may

verify that what you have written agrees with the source. --Redrose64 (talk

) 15:46, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Chicago advises including an access date only if a publication date cannot be determined. Discussions have gone both ways— some to include it only for content subject to change and others to always include it. The documentation shows how to hide the access date. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:07, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Now I see the value in the |accessdate= parameter. Perhaps some explanation can be added to the documentation as well, something like: "accessdate - Date when the url was accessed ( see

WP:V) in case the content of the web page pointed to by the URL changes." On a different note, has the issue of renaming |accessdate= to |urlaccessdate= been addressed before as well? -- Uzma Gamal (talk

) 11:58, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Authorlink parameter

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please add a "yes" condition option to the authorlink parameter that, if |authorlink= yes, the authorlink wikilink takes on the parameters |First= and |Last= (and somehow avoids linking to yes). A "yes" condition option will help save time in preparing a citation template and reduce errors in the |First= and |Last= parameters in some cases. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:19, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a

edit protected}} template. This will also require changes to {{citation/core}}. --Redrose64 (talk

) 15:14, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the concept of |authorlink=yes, it seems like a fair addition. From a technical standpoint, I'm now fairly sure that we would only need to modify {{citation/core}}, since {{citation}} does nothing with the parameter - it's merely passed through. This means that the feature would be simultaneously added to the Citation Style 1 templates such as {{cite book}}, {{cite journal}}, etc. so there would be no issues of inconsistency.

One consideration which could be a "killer" is that the speed of the various citation templates has attracted so much adverse comment that we rarely add new non-essential features. There are now at least five schools of thought: (i) get rid of all citation templates and use hand-crafted references; (ii) write an entirely fresh set of citation templates that are purported to be faster (by up to 10x in some claims); (iii) wait for mw:Lua and then rewrite all the existing citation templates using that; (iv) strip out all non-essential features; (v) do nothing (especially, do not add any new features), and put up with the speed as it currently stands. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Huh? Perhaps I am missing something obvious, but it seems to me that |authorlink= specifies a wikilink, which is to say, some value in article namespace. As "first" and "last" have no meaning in that namespace, it is quite unclear to me what this request is supposed to do. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:47, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that you would like {{citation|last=King|first=Stephen|authorlink=yes|....}} to generate [[Stephen King|King, Stephen]] instead of [[yes|King, Stephen]]? GoingBatty (talk) 22:55, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

That is how I understood Uzma Gamal's request. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:36, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Overhead would be very low, as the template already does a check for authorlink. I am wondering how many valid links can be made vs. links that have to be disambiguated. The example of King, Stephen rendering as King, Stephen is perfectly valid, but this won't work for James E. West (Scouting). --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:34, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

My request is {{citation|last=King|first=Stephen|authorlink=yes|....}} would generate [[Stephen King|King, Stephen]]. If implemented, <nowiki>{{citation|last=King|first=Stesrphwen|authorlink=yes|....}} would generate a red link for [[Stesrphwen King|King, Stephen]], giving a clue to the editor in that, either something is wrong with the first and last parameter or that Wikipedia has no article for Stesrphwen Stesrphwen. When I wrote the recent article Ford assassination attempt in Sacramento, I used 50 references. Collectively, those 50 references took a lot time themselves to write. For each one, I needed to get the person's name correct. Then, to determine whether I can add a name to |authorlink=, I have to stop everything I'm doing, copy the newspaper author's name, post it in the Wikipedia search box, then look at some of the results and try to figure out whether Wikipedia has an article on that newspaper person. (I was using the cite newspaper, book, periodical, web templates for that Ford assassination article, but have finally decided to comit to using Citation template. They all have authorlink, but I'm now using Citation template in a new article I'm writing and posted my suggestion on this talk page). If there were an authorlink=yes option, I could have checked all fifty authorlink= parameters all at once (lessening the amount of time my writing an article is disrupted and saving me a lot of time that I could used for my writing). Then, I would need to have only either removing the "yes" from the |authorlink= or revising |authorlink= to read, for example, "James E. West (Scouting)" when needed. In any event, if an editor used {{citation|last=West|first=James |authorlink=yes|....}}, User:DPL bot would (?) post on the user talk page a notice that the James West link is to a DAB page. -- Uzma Gamal (talk)

My understanding of this is that you want either automatic creation of a suitable authorlink, or at least a list of candidate links. I think the first is unlikely, as there is no way to automatically resolve ambiguities. As to the second, it seems you have a mind an automatic search and presentation of candidate links, with a single click sufficing to create a filled-in authorlink. I don't know how that would work, and am rather dubious about its utility. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you got the list of candidate part. At some point in the cite process, an editor has to manually determine the suitability of the authorlink. Authorlink=yes would create an authorlink, where the suitable of the First, Last, authorlink parameters could be manually determined afterwords by right clicking on the linked author name. J. Johnson, how do you now go about manually determine the suitability of the authorlinks that you use? -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 15:13, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm having difficulty understanding what you envision. It seems you want something like "auto-completion". But that would more properly be a function in the editor, not in the citation template. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:25, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the original editor's request is that the link be automatically created from first/last, in the hope that this is most often the right link. However if this links to a disambiguation page, or happens to link to the wrong individual, editors will then manually fix them. I'm suspicious that the automatic linking will not always get manually checked, so we'll have more linked authors and more incorrect links. Rjwilmsi 08:14, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Rjwilmsi, you probably are right. Editors may leave it for others to change the "yes" in |authorlink=yes for incorrect links, so we would end up with more incorrect linked authors then the current authorlink method. Also, I just realized that probably no more than 10% newspaper authors have a Wikipedia article, so it's better to keep things the way they are than to have a |authorlink=yes option that presumes the author has a Wikipedia page. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:18, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Web-link flag for Author-link

I understand that |authorlink= is not intended for and does not work for external links. It is meant to be used for wikilinks. There have been several discussions on this talk page's archives here, here, here, and here about trying to use |authorlink= for external links.

The following crafty workaround (that I found here) seems to work in circumstances when an author of a source does not have a wikipedia article and the editor who included the citation wanted to include an external web page that references the author.

{{Citation|last=[http://www.altogether.com/patricia/ Monaghan|first=Patricia]|title=The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore|publisher=Facts on File|date=January 2004|pages=512|isbn=978-0816045242}}

The workaround is clearly a hack and the |last=/|first=/|authorlink= parts of the {{Citation}} template were not intended to be used that way. However, it's clear from the past discussions on this talk page's archives, and my (relatively little) experience, that it would be useful to be able to make |authorlink= work for external links.

My solution for this is to add a set of |weblink=yes flags to the {{Citation}} template which could be used for each |authorlink=. If the |weblink= flag is set to yes, then |authorlink= should be treated as an external link. Additional weblinks could be added for additional authorlinks: for example, |weblink1=yes |authorlink1=http://www.author1page.com/, |authorlink2=Stephen King, |weblink3=yes |authorlink3=http://www.author3page.com/, etc. This modification would not require changing pre-existing citations and would create new functionality for future edits.

Please advise if my request here is sufficient to build consensus for this change or if we must open a discussion on Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. Thanks! - ʈucoxn\^talk 04:46, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't see the need. The purpose of the citation is to provide a way to verify the content with enough information for an editor to find the source. Links are a convenience. Lets take the long view: what happens to that site when the author is dead ten years? And now that I look, your example author Patricia Monaghan has an article, and recently died. The article has information on the author, including the website link. If there is no article, and the author is notable, then create an article. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

When we re-enable the

COinS metadata, constructs like |last=[http://www.altogether.com/patricia/ Monaghan|first=Patricia] as suggested above will seriously screw things up. Use each parameter for its designated purpose, and no other, please. --Redrose64 (talk

) 15:12, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

• internet archive
  version.
• Also, what happens if the author is not notable, or not notable enough for a wikipedia article. How do you link to that author to make it easier to find the source? Take, for example, Michel Lafon. Please don't ask, "which one?" I'm not sure... there are several writers with the same name, many of whom are not notable. However, the name is referenced in many wikipedia articles, making it even more useful to add a web link to the author, in order to verify the source.
• COinS metadata is re-enabled. Those are both reasons why |weblink=yes should be implemented. - ʈucoxn\^talk
  10:29, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Editor and translator fields for historical sources

The editor field does not appear to function appropriately for editions of historical (and literary) texts. In such publications a single work is published, but with two creators. One is the author (who lived in the past and had no direct connection with the modern publication) and the editor or translator, who is considered the creator of the modern published work – often because of the interpretative commentaries and notes added to the published edition or translation. The appropriate citation format differs, depending on the information of the title page of the published edition.

When the author's name appears as part of the title (e.g., Bede: The Reckoning of Time), the Chicago style manual recommends that the editor or translator's name should appear in the place of the author (e.g. Wallis, Faith, tr.), which can be done for editions (but not for translations) using the present editor field.

Things become stickier when the author and editor (or translator) both appear on the title page: Then the recommended citation format would be: Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive originum, ed. W. M. Lindsay,... The present editor field seems to be designed for editions which are collected works, with editor(s) and title for the collected work and with different authors and titles for each chapter or section. It apparently can't deal with scholarly editions of historical works where a work with a single title has both an author and an editor.

A similar translator field is also needed to deal with the same situation for translated works. Can something be done to emend the editor code to deal with scholarly editions of this sort and to extend or reuse the editor code to deal with scholarly translations. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:16, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Use |others=:

• {{citation |last=Isidore of Seville |title=Etymologiarum sive originum |others=ed. W. M. Lindsay}}

Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive originum, ed. W. M. Lindsay

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a good way to deal with an editor where the author appears with the editor on the title page. It doesn't deal with the case where the author does not appear on the title page and the editor or translator is to be listed first. Do you have any suggestions there? --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Example? --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:02, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Agency - when available, I use cite news

This has come up in a couple of archived discussion threads. Currently I avoid using 'citation' if an agency is included as part of the byline (such as 'jj rhythm, staff writer for Associated Press') as there is _apparently_ no support for the rather complicated concept of agency in the general citation template. In the archived discussions, some people mentioned articles which have no by-line but are associated with an agency; I personally avoid these as citations because it is not clear whether the agency association is related to redistribution or composition by anonymous staff. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

You should not be using {{

WP:Citation Style 1 templates, in an article formatted using {{citation}}. The formats differ in subtle ways that make them incompatible. —David Eppstein (talk

) 01:58, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

When using {{citation}}, you can include the agency in |series=. This will render in exactly the same manner as {{cite news}}, as it feeds into the |Series= meta-parameter. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 08:41, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Translated title

Would it possible to port trans_title over?

―Lgfcd (talk) 14:28, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

This template supports trans_title as documented, if that is what you are asking. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:Infobox person

You guys did such a good job with Template:Citation in covering cite book, web, news, etc. Any chance you would be willing to expand your effort to Template:Infobox person to get that template to cover other Category:People infobox templates? -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:11, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

ERIC No.

ERIC # is "a unique accession number assigned to each record in the Education Resources Information Center database; also referred to as ERIC Document Number (ED Number) and ERIC Journal Number (EJ Number)." Does the citation template accept ERIC Numbers, such as EJ986098, to link to a URL, such as http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/detail?accno=EJ986098? Looks like it also can be referred to as "Accession No." Thanks. - Uzma Gamal (talk) 03:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

No. The convention is to first create a stand-alone template, such as {{arxiv}}, then use that in the |id= field. If the use becomes great, then we can integrate it into {{citation/identifier}} and update the various templates. So, start by creating {{ERIC}}. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

There seem to be over 600 already-extant urls of that form on the en WP, so it would seem to make sense to implement the template, in case the ERIC query syntax should ever change. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree. I will look at this when I get some time. There seem to be at least two methodes of linking. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:32, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Started. {{ERIC|EJ986098}} →

ERIC EJ986098. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk

12:55, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:ERIC looks good. Thanks for creating it. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 08:57, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Online Computer Library Cente – redirect?

Nitpick:

WP:NOTBROKEN notwithstanding (I think a different standard applies to heavily used templates), wouldn't it be a good idea to avoid the REDIRECT in Template:Citation/identifier for Online Computer Library Center to OCLC?
In other words, change [[Online Computer Library Center|OCLC]] to [[OCLC]]. -- Michael Bednarek (talk

) 13:02, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

 Done I didn't see any issues. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:33, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

ISBN

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Can we remove the link labelled "ISBN" that goes to

this discussion? Thanks. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs

) 00:04, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a

edit protected}} template. This is a wide-ranging change and would not just affect {{citation}} but also all the Citation Style 1 templates, because it's in {{citation/identifier}}. It's been discussed before, and rejected. Most recent was Template talk:Citation/core/Archive 16#ISBN but there have been several others. --Redrose64 (talk

) 07:49, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

All of the identifiers link to the Wikipedia article on the identifier; see the table in the documentation for {{Citation/identifier}}. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I am seeing a consensus at

Talk:International_Standard_Book_Number#Change_the_ISBN_link, if not a really good reason for it. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs

) 19:33, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not. What I see there is an open RFC. Until that RFC closes consensus cannot be determined; even if it's

snowballing (one way or the other), it should be closed before any actions are taken which depend upon its outcome. --Redrose64 (talk

) 20:44, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Instead of <i>, this template should use <cite> to format titles of publications, along with proper support in the MediaWiki:Common.css style sheet (i.e., restoring the default italic rendering of the cite element).

For bonus points, each article/section title should be in a cite element too, but in roman text with quotation marks, perhaps as “<cite class=article>[...]</cite>”.

Comments? —Michael Z. 2013-02-26 23:03 z

Further reading from W3C: 9.2.1 Phrase elements: ... CITE ... in HTML 4.01; and 4.6.6 The cite element in HTML5. Note the change in purpose. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:16, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I had considered this. We would need a fallback for IE8 and other older browsers that don't support HTML5. We also support <time> and <data>. And <bdi> for RTL text and <ruby> for Asian text. We need to consider if there a real use for this. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:47, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

No fallback is needed. The new definition of cite only concerns semantics, and it is a tightening of the old meaning.[1] Any use that conforms to HTML5 also conforms to the looser requirements of HTML 4. My emphasis:

• Old: “a citation or a reference to other sources”
• New: “the title of a work [. . .] that is being quoted or referenced in detail (i.e. a citation), or it can just be a work that is mentioned in passing”

The only thing all browsers do with cite is render it in italics, which hasn’t changed since IE 5.5.[2] —Michael Z. 2013-02-27 18:18 z

You are correct in that <cite> is supported by older browsers and only the intent has changed. It still needs CSS; for example 'title' does not show in italics. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:42, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

That’s because MediaWiki:Common.css turns off the italics. We used to use cite to surround an entire citation in some templates. Don’t know if that’s still in use.

/* Default styling for titles of works, styling for the title of an article
   within a periodical, or a contribution within a compilation. */
cite,
.citation cite.article,
.citation cite.contribution {
    font-style: inherit;
}
 
/* Styling for the title of any work within a citation,
   or specifically the title of a periodical. */
.citation cite,
.citation cite.periodical {
    font-style: italic;
}

 —Michael Z. 2013-02-27 21:29 z

Aha. I think I updated the few template uses, but Citation Style 1 never used it. Yes, some editors used <cite> to enclose the entire citation, which is probably why the CSS is as it is. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:46, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah. That practice would be obsolete now. I see that the .citation class is used for that now. I will request that the default styling for be reset to italic. The incorrect italicizing should help to make the incorrect uses evident. —Michael Z. 2013-02-27 22:03 z

See MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Restore default style for HTML cite element. —Michael Z. 2013-02-27 22:16 z

The <cite>...</cite> element is used in some of the quote boxes, e.g.

Template:Quote. I still see it occasionally used to enclose a citation template; I fix these up when discovered, as here

. To aid detection of these, I've put

cite { background-color: #aaaaff; border:1px solid #7777ff; }

into my Special:MyPage/common.css. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:24, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

I added a trans_title parameter to the second Bagina reference in the

Works just by changing from {{citation}} to {{cite journal}}, so a template bug. LeadSongDog come howl! 05:07, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

When you set a periodical parameter (work, journal, newspaper, magazine) then the title is in quotes like a chapter, thus you have to use trans_chapter.

{{Citation | last=Bagina | first=Olga | title=Мозаики из выпуклых пятиугольников |trans-chapter=Tilings of the plane with convex pentagons | language=Russian | year=2011 | journal=Vestnik KemGU |volume=4 | issue=48 | pages=63–73 |url=http://www.mathnet.ru/php/seminars.phtml?presentid=4640 |accessdate=29 January 2013}}

{{Cite journal}} is set up a bit differently, so it always works, but it doesn't support chapters:

{{cite journal| last=Bagina | first=Olga | title=Мозаики из выпуклых пятиугольников |trans-title=Tilings of the plane with convex pentagons | language=Russian | year=2011 | journal=Vestnik KemGU |volume=4 | issue=48 | pages=63–73 |url=http://www.mathnet.ru/php/seminars.phtml?presentid=4640 |accessdate=29 January 2013}}

In this article, there is a mix of Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2 templates which should be avoided. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 07:10, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. I saw that there was a mix of cite style too and noted it ought to be fix before I got sidetracked by this issue. I usually prefer "cite" templates over "citation" templates myself. I had tried "cite journal" and noticed that trans_title would work with it. But the more pressing issue become the question of if the citation template was working than the proper formatting of just an individual reference. I think the design of the citation template is off if trans_chapter should be used by the translation of the title of a work in certain cases. Using trans_chapter seems like a viable workaround but I think indicates a larger bug with the template design. To the extent possible, the parameters ought to be used exactly for what they call themselves and nothing more. If the design is good, at the very least, the trans_chapter is a bad name for the parameter and something more general sounding ought to be used. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:15, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

This is why the Citation Style 1 templates were created: {{citation}} has a number of quirks like this that the CS1 templates essentially work around. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:45, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

As a side issue: "should"? I think we recommend that editors not mix templates so that they don't get tangled in the details, but there is no problem mixing them provided the details are properly handled — right? I mention this because I recall instances where editors have insisted that uniformity was required, which is hardly the case. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:46, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Citing sources: "While citations should aim to provide the information listed above, Wikipedia does not have a single house style, though citations within any given article should follow a consistent style." The CS1 templates and {{citation}} use different default name separators and terminal punctuation, and do some different layout depending on the parameters used. Thus, the same citation using either style usually looks different. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:55, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I wanted to add a footnote citing a TV source, and assumed that this would be one of the innumerable aspects of the "cite" template. I was wrong, of course — by googling Wikipedia I found that separate templates "cite AV media" and "cite episode" exist, and for all I know there are still others for other media.

Could someone please add a "See also" section at the end of the "cite" documentation linking to these templates and any others that the main "cite" template does not cover? Please be sure to include descriptive words like "film" and "television", since those are what people in my position are likely to do text searches on.

Thanks. --50.100.193.51 (talk) 17:37, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

See Citation Style 1 and the navbox at the end of each CS1 template. {{Citation}} is a similar template but uses different styling and should not be mixed with CS1. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

When both pages=from–to and page=number are specified, could the result please include "from–to, number" instead of omitting the range? It's not a huge deal, but it makes it easier ordering from some libraries with off-site journal storage, figuring out how much money will be needed for copies, and it looks a lot more professional. 75.166.220.33 (talk) 00:50, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Just put all the page numbers in 'pages' per the documentation:

{{cite book |title=Title |pages=7-9, 12, 30-32}}

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:07, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

{{citation}} currently has 'pages' override 'page', whereas the Citation Style 1 templates has 'page' override 'pages'. Seems to me like this is a mistake that should be corrected. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:59, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Only (and noting the previous section) I wonder if use of both page= and pages= ought to be flagged as an error. Or at least as a warning that something improper is being attempted. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:32, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Citation Style 1 and {{citation}} ought to take the same action. Another possibility for what that action might be would be outputting the "pages" field name if {{{pages}}} is not empty and then, if {{{page}}} is not empty, outputting that content with an appropriately placed comma separator either before or after the {{{pages}}} content. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:25, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Category:Pages with citations using conflicting page specifications. The use of both 'page' and 'pages' is usually when 'pages' is used to indicate the number of pages in the source, which is not an element of CS1 citations. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:30, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Not all cases are when |pages= has the total - sometimes, I think it's used for the upper end of a range (|page= being the lower end), as here, for example. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

5000+ articles. That's going to take a while to clean up. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Cleanup will be needed, but I thought I'd asked in CS1 templates for pages to override page, and this had been done, which was what I thought was the pre-Lua behaviour? Rjwilmsi 06:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

For the old and Lua CS1 templates, the order is 'page', 'pages', 'at'. For some reason {{citation}} currently uses 'pages', 'page', 'at'. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 09:35, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The following citation:

ISBN 0-415-28078-8 {{citation}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help

)

complains about the missing title, but the title is actually supplied (and displayed too). GregorB (talk) 07:32, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The keyword chapterurl is specified but the chapter title is not given. The link points to a book rather than a chapter - thus you need to use the url=. Aa77zz (talk) 07:42, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - makes sense, even if the error message is a bit misleading. In this particular case chapterurl should be fixed as suggested, but it could have pointed to an actual chapter, so in that case chapter param would be missing rather than title. GregorB (talk) 07:56, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the real error is "|chapterurl= without |chapter="; the error message is misleading and needs to be fixed. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:58, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I'm taking it to

Module talk:Citation/CS1. GregorB (talk

) 08:10, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm using Ucucha's HarvErrors script which, unsurprisingly, gives red error messages next to the references in the Further reading section of articles: Harv error: There is no link pointing to this citation.

I find the script very useful but the messages are unsightly. I would like to turn off the generation of anchors for these references. The documentation states that "If an empty |ref= is given, no anchor is generated;". I find that I need to include quotes like this: |ref="" to switch off the generation of anchors (as reported by the Ucucha's script). Perhaps the documentation should be more specific as what is meant by an empty |ref=. Aa77zz (talk) 08:34, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

This is a change with the Lua version. I have reported the issue. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 08:58, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The documentation for this template includes this: "accessdate: Date[n 1] when the url was accessed." That's clear enough. So why does it output "Retrieved on [date]"? If it's an access date we're talking about, wouldn't it make more sense for it to output "Accessed on [date]"? As is recommended by the MHRA Style Guide, for example? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:29, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Because that is how the creators designed it. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:40, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Accessed and retrieved mean exactly the same thing. All that matters is that usage be consistent within any one article. -- Alarics (talk) 05:50, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Right. So how do I get the template to consistently output "Accessed" instead of "Retrieved", as recommended by the style guide that I personally like to follow, the MHRA Style Guide? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:00, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

You don't. You use the style already established in the article. See

WP:CITEVAR. --  Gadget850 ^talk

01:14, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, I'll phrase that differently; where do I find the series of citation templates that output "Accessed" for the access date, for use in those articles where that style is already established? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:07, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I am not aware of any such templates. You will have to create them. --  Gadget850 ^talk 14:20, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

In some articles, we have started getting errors of the following type where the citation template is used without the title parameter in the form of a short footnote. This technique is used so that quotes can be included. Can someone take a look at it please?

{{citation |last=Burns |first=Douglas |year=2010 |page=355 |quote=By May 1953, ''Variety'' was reporting that the Best Picture winner had amassed $18.35 million in worldwide rentals.}} In: {{harvnb|Block|Wilson|2010}}.

Burns, Douglas (2010), p. 355, By May 1953, Variety was reporting that the Best Picture winner had amassed $18.35 million in worldwide rentals. {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) In: Block & Wilson 2010 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBlockWilson2010 (help).

Betty Logan (talk) 10:57, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

This is an undocumented and unanticipated method of use. Where is this used? --  Gadget850 ^talk 11:25, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

This particular example comes from the List of highest-grossing films, but this error has only appeared today I think. I edited the article yesterday and I didn't notice it. It is sometimes used when the Sfn system is in place and editors want to add a quote. Betty Logan (talk) 12:01, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

The error check has been in place for a while, but caching may hide it until the page is edited. Does this method have a name? --  Gadget850 ^talk 12:37, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Not to my knowledge, it's basically a hack. It problem isn't a major issue anyway since the book in question has bits written by authors but without an internal title which is quite unusual. It just caught my eye, but I can sort it out at least on this article by writing them out manually. Betty Logan (talk) 12:46, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

OK. Use |title=none. This feature was just added. --  Gadget850 ^talk 14:54, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I see a problem where {{citation}} no longer accepts "More than one of |location= and |place=". This seems to be a Lua change. Is this the best place to discuss this? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:10, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The template never supported multiple parameters like that. The new version detects it as an error. Example? --  Gadget850 ^talk 23:29, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The |location= and |place= parameters are aliases for each other; if both are specified, only |place= is displayed. Previously, if |location= was specified in addition, it would be silently ignored; but since the Lua upgrade, we display the message "More than one of |location= and |place= specified (help)". Choose either |location= or |place= but don't use both in the same {{citation}}.

It might be that |location= has been misused and that the |at= parameter should have been used instead. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:21, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I see. This has come up where I specified the 'location' of a conference where a paper was presented and the 'place' where it was published. Apparently I had not noticed that one parameter was silently ignored. I am inclined to just drop 'place'. Any suggestions as to a better way? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:46, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The way these sorts of things are often formatted in MathSciNet is (in terms of our equivalent parameters) to have |title=Conference name (Location, date) and then to have the date and location parameters refer to the publisher's address and the actual date of publication (which is often a different year from the conference date). For example:

• MR 1476449

In this example the conference location and publisher location happen to both be "Cambridge", but that's coincidental. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:57, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Now that I understand your intent (examples really help), then I can point you to 'publication-place'.

{{citation |title=title |place=place |publication-place=publication-place}}

If any one of 'publication-place', 'place' or 'location' are defined, then the location shows after the title; if 'publication-place' and 'place' or 'location' are defined, then 'place' or 'location' are shown before the title prefixed with "written at" and 'publication-place' is shown after the title.

And it looks like it got lost in the documentation. I will fix that in a moment. --  Gadget850 ^talk 22:24, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I fixed the doc. This is pretty clean in core, but each template has this swap the fields around kludge. --  Gadget850 ^talk 22:40, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Of course "written at" and "presented at" are two different things...for most references to conference papers, saying the paper was written at that location is not right. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:41, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi. If I've used |chapter-url= but also want to indicate the archive URL in a citation, is there a parameter for this? (I didn't see one mentioned in the documentation.) I tried using |archiveurl=, but this parameter works only with |url= and generates an error message if it is missing and only |chapter-url= is present. —

I hope this is the right place for this. To illustrate what I mean, see the page field for citation at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wendel%27s_theorem&oldid=529017245 The value for page is entered as 109–111, which, while unnecessarily escaped, is not incorrect (I think. It's certainly rendered correctly in the references). The COinS that is rendered for the page field, however, looks like rft.pages=109%26ndash%3B111, which is not right. Looks to me like the right way to handle this would be to first unescape HTML special characters and only then URL encode the string. That should result in correct encoding rft.pages=109%E2%80%93111. Aurimas (talk) 03:00, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Is there some way we can get these two to work in harmony? See reference 19 here for what I'm describing; it's showing up right, but for some reason it's still giving angry red text. Both urls are showing up exactly where they're supposed to, but the template is still giving an error message. Anyone have some idea of what's going on? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:45, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Sometimes I wish to cite the same article with multiple {{

{{sfn}}, which is used in Shortened footnotes, has a 'loc' parameter. --  Gadget850 ^talk 17:04, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

However, as I noted, it is missing other parameters. Also,{{sfn|loc=}} seems to entail an extraneous wikilink. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 03:25, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

The wikilink in {{

harv}}-related templates, takes you to the full citation. Go to NBR 224 and 420 Classes#Notes and click any of the bluelinks; the browser moves to the relevant full citation which should also gain a pale blue background. That's if you have Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera; some versions of Internet Explorer don't support the :target pseudo-class (probably because it's CSS 3 but not CSS 2.1) so the background doesn't change colour although the movement should still be made. --Redrose64 (talk

) 09:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

You will have to give us an example of what you need. And what is an "extraneous wikilink"? --  Gadget850 ^talk 10:47, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure from the responses above whether the answer to User:Chatul's original query has been made clear; apologies if it has. As I understand it, he wants to provide a different url for each page/section/chapter, etc., which can be done by externally linking the value of |loc=, e.g. {{sfn|Smith|2005|loc=[http://... section 2]}}. (A common mistake I make is to put "|" here as in an internal Wikilink.) This works for a single page if you want the "p." to be included in the link text, which looks better to me, e.g. {{sfn|Smith|2005|loc=[http://... p. 2]}}. If the "cite" templates are being used, rather than the "citation" template, you must add |ref=harv. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:01, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

What I'm looking for is a means to get the formatting the {{

cite manual

}} for the details on the full publication. I'd like something like the following to make SC24-6073-03 in the second citation a wikilink to the first citation.

{{cite book |last=Laplace |first=P. S. |date=1951 |title=A philosophical essay on probabilities |others=Truscott, F. W.; Emory, F. L. trans. |place=New York, NY |publisher=Dover |origyear=1814}}