User talk:Citation bot/Archive 33

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

As a quick update to an earlier discussion here, I now see there's been under way for the last couple of years a WM project along these lines (of keeping a centralised citation db) called Shared Citations. — Guarapiranga ☎ 01:59, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm seeing of lot of "Regular expression failures" but I don't see what's getting things flagged. Example:

!Regular expression failure in Jules de Cuverville when extracting Templates The following text might help you figure out where the error on the page is (Look for lone { and } characters)

# # # CITATION_BOT_PLACEHOLDER_TEMPLATE 2 # # #

References 

  !Report this problem please about page Jules de Cuverville

   # # # 

Done with page. Abductive (reasoning) 15:18, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I came here to echo that I have the same problem here's the error from "Los_Angeles_Unified_School_District"

> The following text might help you figure out where the error on the page is (Look for lone { and } characters) > # # # CITATION_BOT_PLACEHOLDER_TEMPLATE 17 # # # # # # CITATION_BOT_PLACEHOLDER_TEMPLATE 18 # # # # # # CITATION_BOT_PLACEHOLDER_TEMPLATE 19 # # # # # # CITATION_BOT_PLACEHOLDER_TEMPLATE 23 # # # Mason (talk)

{{fixed}} Sorry, AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:24, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

All have PMCs set (or free DOIs), and thus should be overriden by autolinking.

  !Unhandled write error.  Please copy this output and report a bug

Unfixable. Although since it seems be more common, I might have the code sleep and try again. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 22:39, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Citation Bot adds page publication dates that are stated in the page's HTML metadata but not on the page itself.

For instance, the publication dates for just about every page on LeatherLicensePlates.com:

• http://leatherlicenseplates.com/old-delaware-license-plates-vintage-delaware-license-plates/ (published August 27, 2015 according to the metadata)
• http://leatherlicenseplates.com/old-nebraska-license-plates-vintage-nebraska-license-plates/ (also published August 27, 2015 according to the metadata)
• http://leatherlicenseplates.com/old-washington-license-plates-washington-state-vintage-license-plates/ (published August 28, 2015 according to the metadata)

Is it legit to add these dates when they're not actually stated on the page itself, even if they *are* correct?

Klondike53226 (talk) 00:54, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes.

b

} 02:18, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Uh... anyone going to back Headbomb up here?

All I want here is to be 110% sure that it *is* acceptable to add page publication dates when they're stated in the metadata but not on the page itself, being someone who is so used to adding such dates when they *are* stated on the page (as with news or magazine articles).

Nothing more, nothing less. And, as ever, no disrespect intended. :)

Thanks, Klondike53226 (talk) 22:48, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

No, it is not acceptable in cases like this where there is a range of dates between when the web site was first published and when it was last modified. The bot has no way of knowing which date is applicable to the version of the site used as a source. That's what access dates are for, but even if an access date is provided, and lands within that publication-modification range, it is impossible to infer the correct date of the cited version of the source, because it could have been modified multiple times within that range. The only reasonable thing to do with web sites with this sort of date issue is to flag them for human attention so that a human can check that the current version still sources the content and update the access-date. But even if you did that, you'd be very likely to run into "helpful" gnomes (bot-like humans) who run through lists of these flags, check only that the web page exists and not that it is still accurate, and set a bad access-date. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:13, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Well, I was already far from 110% sure that it was acceptable to add publication dates in cases such as this one with LeatherLicensePlates.com, when the discussion two below this one popped up - and now I'm as far from 110% sure as one can get. That is, 0% sure.

I find myself agreeing with you that it's better to leave a source undated when the corresponding page/site does not display a visible publication date, even if the publication and modification dates stated in the metadata are correct.

I've already put the "deny Citation Bot" comment in the date parameter for some of the LeatherLicensePlates.com sources used, and I shall waste no time in tackling the rest of these sources. Klondike53226 (talk) 22:18, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Have to agree that the date should be shown on the displayed page or there is no easy way to verify that you are looking at the source that it is claiming to be. You should not add just from the HTML code. Keith D (talk) 16:08, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

The bot's still doing this - compare this edit to this source. That date being in the HTML isn't ironclad proof that that's truly the proper publishing date. I'm seeing that I'm the fourth person here to question this - is there a consensus somewhere that pulling these dates from the HTML is proper? Hog Farm _Talk 22:20, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

This is one reason why the bot never adds |access-date= and it never adds a |date= that is newer than the |access-date=. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:23, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

i watch that error category and fix them by hand. almost universaly, the bot points out that the cite was broken to begin with. i will add code to log these pages. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 11:40, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Mostly {{fixed}}, many will still require human interaction to clean-up. But they are now being logged to a file when they are found. The error category does not include Draft/sandboxes/etc AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:04, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Umm, cs1|2 errors in draft namespace are categorized in all appropriate cs1|2 categories except when the page is a /sandbox, /testcases, /log, or /archive subpage; see line 12 et seq. If you have evidence to the contrary, I would like to see it.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:10, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

That is news to me. I am glad to hear that. I will keep the logging so that I can correct these by hand when they occur. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:27, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Side note, the old version of Google Books did not generate a publisher in this example, while the new version added |publisher=Berghahn Books. Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 13:42, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

This bot routinely causes CS1 errors - for example, [this edit] caused the article to be listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CS1_maint:_numeric_names:_authors_list. It happens often, making unnecessary busywork to those of us who do CS1 maintenance. The bot should be modified so that it doesn't make any CS1 errors and cause pages to be listed at either https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CS1_maintenance or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CS1_errors

Ira Leviton (talk) 20:37, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Bad metadata is an ongoing issue yes. There's no way to anticipate all cases.

b

} 21:37, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

As with any other script, users of Citation bot are responsible for verifying that edits made using that feature are correct. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:46, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

New York added to non-human list. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:33, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

The bot has repeatedly changed the "cite web" to "cite journal" in this reference though it is clearly a web page and not a journal (<> and {} brackets removed so it shows here): cite web ref name=IOC12.1Gill, F.; Donsker, D.; Rasmussen, P. (July 2021). "IOC World Bird List (v 12.1)".

Not only in bird lists, in individual species' pages. Craigthebirder (talk) 18:52, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Why are you citing version 12.1 in the title and version 11.2 in the doi (which doesn't actually link to version 11.2 of the list)? And for specific bird species why aren't you linking to the particular place in the list for that species – shouldn't you link to https://www.worldbirdnames.org/new/bow/buttonquail/ from Plover?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:01, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

First question - because I messed up; have corrected for future and will try to correct earlier entries. Second question - because that page is the link to the whole species list. But will link to family sections in the future. Thanks for pointing these out. Craigthebirder (talk) 20:34, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

I flagged 10.14344 as a non-journal DOI. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:01, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. Craigthebirder (talk) 20:34, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Your bot MUST be removed! You are damaging articles with no real benefit to balance that.

At Hezekiah (governor), this edit added data of little importance (doi, jstor, s2cid) since the URL is already indicated, while removing the very much essential page number and replacing it with incorrect or insufficient ones:

• "page= 122–126 [125]" is correct data, in both form and content. It means that the entire article covers pp. 122–126, while the relevant ref page is 125 only.
• "pages= 8, 13" are the correct, relevant ref pages. The bot replaced them with who knows what ("109–118"), maybe the general pages of the article.

What really matters is the actual page the ref is citing. Some sources can't be fully accessed online, but the ref page can be. If one can indicate the start & finish pages, that can benefit some who do have access (subscribers, access to hard copies), but is not essential. The form "x-y [z]" is well accepted in academic publications and transparent enough for the user: "the article goes from x to y, but look up only z." I have also seen it as "x-y (z)". Now you have forced me to remove the start & end pages of the article, in order to preserve the relevant page number(s) I'm actually citing. What's far worse, elsewhere the intervention of the bot has most likely not been reverted and now the cited page is missing. Now you must go and manually fix all the damage already done.

The bot harms the user. We're far better off without it. Arminden (talk) 06:17, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

|page=122–126 [125] should be kept when converting to the proper |pages=, yes. But |pages=8, 13 is definitely incorrect. Those are the pages of the preprint PDF, not the pages of the published book, which is what the reader [thus bot] is expecting.

Also, you were not harmed by the bot. Don't be dramatic.

b

} 06:52, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

The template is problematic, as there's only one page of reference, 125, so definitely singular, page. But it can be useful to indicate the size and position of the article, 122–126. I'm not coding, those who are should find a solution.

As I wrote on your page: your manual edits are absolutely perfect, detailed, and most welcome; the bot however is not ready to be let go. Unless and until it is, it is totally wrong to activate it.

"Being dramatic" is a touch too personal, if you don't mind. Wiki IS better off without the unfixed bot, broken bots tend to damage lots of articles, and those in charge aren't always quick to react, so clear words can only help. Arminden (talk) 10:45, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

fixed- now detects square brackets or commas AManWithNoPlan (talk) 11:37, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

AManWithNoPlan, great, thanks! Now that I know you can do it, let's see all aspects.

• "page= X–Y [Z]" means that only Z is directly relevant, so "page" in the singular. Or not? Ideally the template should lead to smth like "pp. X-Y (see p. Z)", or if needed "pp. X-Y (see pp. V, W, Z)".
• "page= X–Y (Z)" is also used by some. I also seem to remember that in some templates or contexts, straight brackets create a lot of chaos, so round ones are an important option. Arminden (talk) 11:56, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

PS: All the edits produced by the bot before it reaching the final, mature and correct form must be fixed retroactively. Does that happen automatically, or must they be identified and fixed by hand, one by one? If the latter, how and who? Arminden (talk) 12:00, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

round paras add too. The bot has been fully approved for well over a decade. People are expected to report problems as they see them. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:10, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Why on Earth would the reader be expecting the pages of the published book and not the linked copy? On the various templates we provide links to preprints, partial google books previews, and chapter excerpts, in spite of the bulk of the citation indicating the full published work, entirely because we fully expect the bulk of the readers are not going to have journal subscriptions or a complete next-door library and thus, should they want to verify a statement, they should be given as direct a route as possible.

Changing page numbers in any form is absolutely uncalled for unless you, personally, verify they still point to the sourced information. SamuelRiv (talk) 12:17, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

""Why on Earth would the reader be expecting the pages of the published book and not the linked copy?" because that is the published version. I'm the one that added the preprint link. It wasn't linked before. If I tell you look up something from Hoogenboom, BJ; Manske, RC (October 2012), "How to write a scientific article", International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, 7 (5): 512–7,

b

} 13:52, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

SamuelRiv, hi. We are almost of the same opinion, but just almost. Indicating the pages of the actually linked PDF (a preprint) is what we had and what's most needed, the bot changed that, and then the editor who apparently activated it, Headbomb, set in both infos.

Why the full info can be of some use? Because links rot, people do have access to hard or digital copies, and I for instance often bump into JSTOR docs I can only read online and knowing if the needed page is not too far in (not, say, on the 20th page of the doc) helps me decide right away if to bother clicking through the doc. I do read some of the referenced sources, as they educate me about topics I'm interested in, and often bump into "failed verification" cases. For some important titles I do have & use hard copies. So it's not all that hypothetical. ANd if it does no harm by replacing potentially useful, valid data with bad, let it be, it's a bot, doesn't cause sweat.

What I didn't realise: apparently, the bot isn't automatically crawling through the entire enWiki and doing edits, but needs to be activated by a specific editor for each article. Or not? Very different concepts. Arminden (talk) 13:27, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Both modes are authorized. Generally a user has a specific issue that needs fixe, such as all pages where the jstor url has #meta_blah_blah_blah included, or all pages with a certain invalid DOI, etc. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:42, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

In the case where both the page range and pinpoint page(s) are given, the pinpoint should be preferred as the page range is almost always easily determined with the rest of the citation information, and the pinpoint is far more important for verifiability. If the bot can't distinguish in a template whether the editor was referencing page range, pinpoint, both, or neither, the proper action is to leave it alone or, if the metadata are corrupted, convert to |at=. SamuelRiv (talk) 18:06, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

More generally, starting or ending with one. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 11:27, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

There's not even an ISBN anywhere in the article!

The bot detects the number of "978" present in the article before and after. One PMID added had that. The code now counts "978-", since that is what the bot adds. The mistake will still happen if for example the title of a journal article added is "The 978- area code: demographics", but that is rare enough to live with. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:49, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I've looked everywhere for a stray bracket, and I just can't find what the issue is.

The fix was to make this template-looking-thing in a math block less template looking.

b

} 23:20, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

The inner brackets around the \tau are unnecessary: \tau_f and \tau_s would have worked. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:09, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

indeed {{math stuff} more math} does confuse the bot. About once a week I add spaces to markup on a page. All such page failures are logged. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 11:14, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Like so.

The doi prefix

 Fixed once deployed. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:32, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Please see publishers page (linked via DOI for 2nd edition) and the MR review for first edition. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:07, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

The book itself and a correct description of its content is more definitive than what the publisher lists it as in some database. Lothaire is a name for the group of people who wrote the content (its author). It is not a name of an editor. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:37, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

I see that now. I have flagged the page to avoid the using of the bad meta-data. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:44, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Flag all pages with this DOI. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:56, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Since this appears to be bad publisher metadata rather than a bot bug, I think there is nothing more to do. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:48, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Nor is the cited source a journal...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:05, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Fixed the wiki-problems. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_new_religious_movements&type=revision&diff=1103126764&oldid=1102985631 BUT a topic expert needs to look over and probably double check. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:13, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, only a minor thing. I am mostly puzzled about how the bot came to do this, because it's so odd that it suggests the possibility of a wider glitch in how the bot decides that a URL is that of a newspaper. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:36, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

It is Citoid: [ { "key": "4HM5G9UK", "version": 0, "itemType": "newspaperArticle", "creators": [], "tags": [ { "tag": "Война России с Украиной", "type": 1 }, { "tag": "Украина", "type": 1 } ], "title": "Леонид Кучма: \"Путин хотел уничтожить Украину, а получит наше второе рождение\"", "publicationTitle": "BBC News Русская служба", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-62419765", "abstractNote": "Экс-президент Украины Леонид Кучма встретил российское вторжение у себя дома в Киеве и уезжать не захотел. BBC News Украина удалось взять у него первое и пока единственное интервью за время войны.", "language": "ru", "libraryCatalog": "www.bbc.com", "accessDate": "2022-08-08", "shortTitle": "Леонид Кучма" } ]

Hi bot i give you a barnstar 😁 Einahr (talk) 11:23, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

The citation that matches that URL has no url-status flag set. Neither does the the other citation to openvms.compaq.com. Do you get the same error if you set |url-status=dead? Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:01, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

First not flagging a url as live does not mean the url is dead. Second, even if it was flagged dead, websites often from back to life, so in thourough mode, it should definitely check the url if it can.

b

} 01:41, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

"First not flagging a url as live does not mean the url is dead" The documentation for those parameters is not of the highest quality.

Help:Citation Style 1 says:

• url-status: To change the order with the title retaining the original link and the archive linked at the end, set |url-status=live

...

When the original URL has been usurped for the purposes of spam, advertising, or is otherwise unsuitable, setting |url-status=unfit or |url-status=usurped suppresses display of the original URL (but |url= and |archive-url= are still required).

and Template:Cite web says:

By default, if "archive-url" is used, the parameter |url-status=dead is assumed and the resulting main link is to the archived version:

and Template:Citation Style documentation/url says of url-status:

this optional parameter is ignored if archive-url is not set. If omitted, or with null value, the default value is |url-status=dead.

(and also mentions a "deviated" value for url-status).

So either not flagging a url as live does mean it's dead, if there's an archive-url parameter, or the documentation needs to be fixed to indicate that omitting url-status isn't the same as saying url-status=dead.

Guy Harris (talk

) 02:05, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

"Second, even if it was flagged dead, websites often from back to life, so in thourough mode, it should definitely check the url if it can." ...but not complain if the check fails, because it was warned that it's (probably) dead).

Guy Harris (talk

) 02:09, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

So either not flagging a url as live does mean it's dead No it doesn't. It's an assumption the template makes as far as the presentation of links go. It does not mean the URL is dead. Plenty of people simply archive links preemptively, but don't bother as flagging the url as live, mostly because it's rather pointless to do so.

...but not complain if the check fails The bot doesn't a complain about it, it reports that the check failed.

> Could not resolve URL http://www.openvms.compaq.com/doc/73final/4515/4515pro_012.html#basic_arch_sect

The message is in gray, because it's not a very important thing to report. Unlike messages that are in red/orange/other colors. ce

b

} 03:00, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Just a heads up that my little handy dandy guide on Citation bot finally got in the Signpost, as intended years ago. Feel free to leave a comment (or make suggestions for other guides on different topics).

Thank you. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:05, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Just read it, and it is good. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:14, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Good work, @Headbomb. And it's probably just as well that this fine guide did not appear sooner, 'cos until Citation bot got a massive amount of extra capacity a few months ago, the result of the extra attempts to use CB would ave been a lot of frustrated editors as requests timed out. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:09, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the words, though

b

} 07:35, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th: Please don't hold RfCs in user talk space (the practice of holding RfCs to discuss user conduct ceased some years ago). This matter should be discussed at Help talk:Citation Style 1. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:29, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I had asked previously where to hold this and there was an even split between this talk page, and the CS1 talk page being the appropriate venue. I'm not opposed to moving it, if it was to be relaunched, so to speak, with the same question, would copy and pasting what has already been discussed and !voted on be acceptable?

I'm also not opposed to using this opportunity to address the concerns raised by both @XOR'easter and David Eppstein:, which may result in a different question being asked however. I'd just like to check what the options are. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:41, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

I've moved the whole RfC unchanged, apart from a slight adjustment to the section heading and also omitting the two posts above. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:14, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Moved to Help talk:Citation Style 1 § RfC: Should Citation bot use cite web, or cite magazine, or cite news?

 – Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:14, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

RFC closed

The RFC has been closed[14] by @ScottishFinnishRadish:

There is a strong consensus for Citation bot to use {{cite news}} and {{cite magazine}} in cases where online content doesn't appear in a print edition of a publication.

It is helpful to have this community endorsement of Citation bot's good work. This outcome was clearly foreseeable, but it is a relief that the saga is finally over.

However, I remain very sad that so much time and effort was spent in resolving the complaints of the 12 Angry Marvelites who created the drama. Their refusal to listen to more experienced editors led to this vast time-sink, and their aggressive rudeness poisoned the atmosphere. I hope that the 12 Angry Marvelites will reflect on their conduct, and pursue andy further concerns without the groupthink and assumptions of bad faith which characterised their approach to this issue.

And thanks to @Sideswipe9th for their hard work in preparing the RFC. I wish that the RFC had not been needed, but when the 12 Angry Marvelites refused to listen, it was the only way to end the drama. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:35, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you all. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:52, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Some of the people on other side to you seem more experienced with the websites involved with dispute which is more relevant, even though you seem to be more experienced with references. No need to be uncivil, we were acting in good-faith, don't believe we were rude, this is not the place to discuss user conduct. Indagate (talk) 13:34, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

There is nothing uncivil in pointing out the time wasted by this drama. The rudeness is well-documented, and even extended to falsely accusing the bot of vandalism, an outrageous allegation which was repeated even after the rude Marvelite was pointed to

WP:NOTVAND

. Not one of the tag-teaming 12 Angry Marvelites objected to that smear, but instead I was attacked for asking for a retraction. And Indagate may not have been actually rude, but it was not civil for Indagate to waste the time of other editors by a silly claim that 9 to 8 amounted to a consensus for their view, and it was not civil for Indagate to falsely claim experience which they actually lacked.

I still hope that the Angry Marvelites may learn from this saga, and raise any further concerns more colegially. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:04, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl: I have no desire to get into this again, but I'd like to note a few things:

• This RfC was not a "waste of time" to address our concerns. The lack of consensus in the prior discussion left us with no other option to resolve the dispute, unless you would have preferred that the discussion drag on forever and Citation bot's edits continue to be reverted, or the bot be blocked outright on a large number of pages. I too am deeply saddened that you continue to regard our concerns as petty and insignificant.
• Just because a group of editors has more "experience" does not mean the opinion of editors with less experience do not matter. We did not refuse to listen to you, we provided very clear counterclaims (magazine websites have different content, etc.) and questioned why Citation bot should continue making these changes despite there being no consensus at the discussion. Do you recall what response we received? "Online magazines are magazines." (Not the point, we're talking about magazine websites.) "There is consensus because most edits are not reverted." (We're talking about consensus in the discussion, not in CB's edits.) And for the record, some of the editors who disagreed with you had comparable levels of experience, so your repeating that you have "more experience" is beginning to feel condescending.
• Darkwarriorblake is not a "Marvelite". I've almost never seen them pop up on a Marvel-related article, nor are they part of our taskforce.
• it was not civil for Indagate to waste the time of other editors by a silly claim that 9 to 8 amounted to a consensus for their view – 9 to 8? Really? Unless my counting is significantly off, the participants of the prior discussion were pretty evenly split. If it really were 9 to 8 I wouldn't have called for an RfC, because consensus would have been clear in that case.
• You continue to admonish us for being rude and uncivil, yet you're once again attacking Indagate, who did nothing wrong. Yes, maybe they shouldn't have claimed experience based on their account age, but that's not the definition of "uncivil", which implies malice. Mind retracting that statement?

To repeat, I do not want another lengthy debate, so I won't reply further. Also, I'd like to thank Sideswipe9th for their efforts as well. But I'll close my comment with this: while it's totally appropriate to reflect on the results of the RfC, do you really think it's appropriate to dance on someone's grave with this patronizing subsection of yours? InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:56, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

@InfiniteNexus: there is no grave to dance on. Nobody has died or been banned or blocked.

Your choice to reply with absurdly dramatic hyperbole is another reminder of how unpleasant the whole saga was made by the 12 Angry Marvelites. And no, I will not alter my view that making false claims to try to sway a discussion is uncivil. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:14, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

The edit at Aberration_(astronomy) changed the pages= entry to the issue number (e.g., A91), removing the page range (e.g. 1-6) of the article. This happened several times. I recently corrected the pages= entries.

You're actually reintroducing errors the bot is fixing (full proper fix is here, there were some GIGO issues). A&A and similar journals use an 'article ID' instead of a page number. This is what goes in |page= and how people cite these journals. There are no issue numbers for those.

b

} 17:07, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by this usage. There are clearly page numbers in the pdf version of the article; where should they be provided if not in the page(s)= entry of the citation template. The article ID seems analogous to an issue number. Could you point me to appropriate reference supporting this strange usage of the citation template. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:08, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

OK, I see that you're using the page= value to place the ArticleID without parentheses, which are used for issue numbers. It's a bit of a kludge but it reproduces the style used in AandA. However, it leaves no place for the page numbers (which this historian of science finds standard for a complete citation). I'm not going to make a big deal of it. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:31, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

So when I tag those citations with {{Page needed}}, what is the suggested remedy? SamuelRiv (talk) 18:51, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Don't misuse parameters to hold something that they are not intended to hold. An article number is not an in-source location so |page=, |pages=, and |at= are not the right place for an article number. cs1|2 does not have any support for article numbers. I think that there has been some discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1 but never to the point of action. Quite often I see article numbers in |number= (an alias of |issue=) which, really, is also incorrect. I suppose that if you must include an article number |number= is the best place for it pending some decision to add support for article numbers – but don't be surprised when someone like me comes along and removes it.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:07, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps use the |id= parameter. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:41, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

|id= is for bibliographic identifiers like {{

b

} 22:46, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Trappist has already stamped on |at=. I'm trying to find a parameter which would not be misused. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:33, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I think Trappist is wrong. For journals that identify articles by article numbers rather than by page numbers, the article number must be included in the citation, in the position that the page numbers would go for page-number-using journals, and page= or at= are the only ways to put it there. id= is no good because it puts the key article-identifying information in the wrong part of the citation. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:50, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Trappist is wrong indeed.

b

} 00:15, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

I've been using |id= for press release numbers but reading this I think that may have been wrong. Perhaps I should have been using |number= instead, but there is no documentation to support this. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:26, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Article numbers go in the same slot as page numbers; the journals themselves even do it that way (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society springs to mind as an example that I've seen recently).

talk

) 16:09, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm pleased to see that I wasn't the only editor disturbed by changes involving article IDs. Articles with article IDs also have page numbers within the article. There should be a separate place for both within the citation template. It's beyond my abilities but those involved in maintaining the citation templates should be asked to deal with this new citation style, which seems to be proliferating in the science journals. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:06, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Standard practice is to use brackets |page=A9 [17] if you want to refer to a specific page/page range.

b

} 21:10, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Another convention I've seen (working better when the article numbers are short) is to use artnum:firstpage–artnum:lastpage as the range of pages, so Headbomb's example would become |pages=A9:1–A9:17. That's how they're numbered by LIPIcs (an open-access publisher of many computer science conference proceedings), for instance. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:22, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Instead of modifying Google books URLs, use the GBurl template where the search parameters are encompassed by the template. This change may need an RFC. Possibly the Citer tool (python) may provide more documentation on the parameters of the Query part of the URL, for which there doesn't seem to be easily findable documentation. In *Template.php:expand_by_google_books_inner* the current code doesn't seem to cope with the munged title now being part of the string, so that may be worth enhancing.

      if (preg_match("~^https?://www\.google\.(?:[^\./]+)/books/edition/_/(.+)$~", $url, $matches)) {

Here's some perl snippets since I'm not PHP literate.

use URI;
use URI::Split qw(uri_split uri_join);

LINE:
while (<>) {
    chomp;
    next if /^$/;
    if (/^\s*#/) {
	print $_, "\n";
	next;
    }
    my($uri) = URI->new($_);
    my($sch, $aut, $pth, $qry, $frg) = uri_split($uri);
    if (defined($sch) && ($sch eq 'http' || $sch eq 'https')
    && defined($aut) && defined($pth)) {
	my($template);
	substr($aut, -3, 3) = '' if substr($aut, -3) eq ':80';
...
	if ($aut =~ /^www\.google\.c(?:a|o(?:m|m\.au|\.uk|\.in))$/
	&& $pth =~ m|^/books/edition/[^/]+/([-A-Za-z0-9_]{12})$|) {
	    my($gb_arg) = $1;
	    foreach my $gb_restrict (split('&', $qry)) {
		if ($gb_restrict =~ /^(pg|dq)=/) {
		    if (substr($gb_restrict, 0, 5) eq 'pg=PA') {
			$gb_arg .= '|p=' . substr($gb_restrict, 5);
		    }
		    else {
			$gb_arg .= '|' . $gb_restrict;
		    }
		}
		elsif ($gb_restrict =~ /^bsq=(.+)/) {
		    $gb_arg .= '|dq=' . $1;
		}
		# Safe to skip: hl= (Normally en), gbpv=
		# printsec= - skip only if there's a pg=
		# Shouldn't convert if there's anything else?
	    }
	    $template = "{{GBurl|$gb_arg}}";
	}
---
Example URLs
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/D%C3%BCsenj%C3%A4ger/r_cuAAAACAAJ?hl=en
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/%EC%8A%A4%ED%83%80%ED%83%80%EC%9D%B4%EB%93%9C_%EB%9D%BC%EC%9D%B4%EC%A7%95_2_%EC%96%91%EC%9E%A5%EB%B3%B8_Ha/Cn_9jgEACAAJ?hl=en
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Machiavelli_The_Prince/05R7kYOKD0cC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Cambridge%2520University&pg=PT12&printsec=frontcover
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Machiavelli_The_Prince/05R7kYOKD0cC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PR4&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cambridge
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Machiavelli_The_Prince/05R7kYOKD0cC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT12&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cambridge%20University
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Existential_Graphs_of_Charles_S_Peir/Q4K30wCAf-gC?hl=en&gbpv=0
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Existential_Graphs_of_Charles_S_Peir/Q4K30wCAf-gC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA113&printsec=frontcoverG
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Golden_Enclaves/7kRYEAAAQBAJ?hl=en
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/When_Computers_Went_to_Sea/Mi8MhzheOokC?hl=en&gbpv=0
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/When_Computers_Went_to_Sea/Mi8MhzheOokC?hl=en&gbpv=0
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Conflict_and_Conquest_in_the_Islamic_Wor/jBBYD2J2oE4C?hl=en&gbpv=1
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Playwriting_for_Profit/jhwLAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22show%20not%20tell%22
https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/A-c7AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA419&dq=%27Barnstead%20charter%27 Provincial
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Provincial_and_State_Papers/A-c7AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq='Barnstead%20charter'%20Provincial&pg=PA419&printsec=frontcover
https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Principes_d_exp%C3%A9ditive_fran%C3%A7aise_pour/FgVJ55_weywC?&gbpv=0

{{GBurl|r_cuAAAACAAJ}}
{{GBurl|Cn_9jgEACAAJ}}
{{GBurl|05R7kYOKD0cC|dq=Cambridge%2520University|pg=PT12}}
{{GBurl|05R7kYOKD0cC|pg=PR4|dq=Cambridge}}
{{GBurl|05R7kYOKD0cC|pg=PT12|dq=Cambridge%20University}}
{{GBurl|Q4K30wCAf-gC}}
{{GBurl|Q4K30wCAf-gC|p=113}}
{{GBurl|7kRYEAAAQBAJ}}
{{GBurl|Mi8MhzheOokC}}
{{GBurl|Mi8MhzheOokC}}
{{GBurl|jBBYD2J2oE4C}}
{{GBurl|jhwLAAAAMAAJ|dq=%22show%20not%20tell%22}}
{{GBurl|A-c7AAAAIAAJ|p=419|dq=%27Barnstead%20charter%27%20Provincial}}
{{GBurl|A-c7AAAAIAAJ|dq='Barnstead%20charter'%20Provincial|p=419}}
{{GBurl|FgVJ55_weywC}}

No, this is a bad idea, especially for a bot. --Izno (talk) 01:53, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

This was marked as fixed in February 2020 – either that was in error or it's subsequently been broken again. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:45, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

|postscript= specifies the citation's terminal character. For cs1 templates, the default character is a dot; for cs2 templates, the default is no terminal punctuation. When the value assigned to |postscript= has more than one character, Module:Citation/CS1 emits a CS1 maint: postscript message and adds the article to Category:CS1 maint: postscript. At Whites, Jews, and Us § External links, both cs1 templates have |postscript= – which Module:Citation/CS1 sees as 7 characters. The exception to this one-character limit is the keyword none which suppresses the normal cs1 terminal dot (not allowed in cs2 templates because redundant). Consider writing:

{{cite ... |postscript=none}}&nbsp;– <descriptive text>

for cs2 templates:

{{citation ... }}&nbsp;– <descriptive text>

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:01, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Trappist the monk, now fixed in the article as per. I see that the documentation for {{cite journal}} and {{cite web}} both say Additional text, or templates that render more than a single terminating punctuation character, will generate a maintenance message, but that doesn't seem to have happened here. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 12:17, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Are you sure? When I look at this citation in your revert of the bot edit, I see both maintenance messages. Remember that maintenance messages are hidden by default. Editors who wish to see the maint messages must enable them (see Help:CS1 errors § Controlling error message display).

You came to this discussion with the complaint that the bot [removed] a necessary non-breaking space yet in this edit you did the same thing?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:13, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I didn't realise maintenance messages were opt-in – from the documentation I assumed it would be like the red "Text 'Foo' ignored" and similar messages that I see without having to enable anything. Re the space, it only needed to be a non-breaking space while in the postscript parameter, as a leading space is ignored otherwise. If it's not in the template a normal space is fine (but per

MOS:DASH en dashes still need to be spaced). – Arms & Hearts (talk

) 14:19, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

cs1|2 emits preview messaging in the preview-warning box at the top of a previewed page which advertises the existence of cs1|2 error and maintenance messages and links to the instructions that describe how to display or hide those messages.

The

MOS:DASH

says (in part):

Ideally, use a non-breaking space before the en dash, which prevents the en dash from occurring at the beginning of a line (markup: {{

snd

}} or  –)

There is no reason to believe that a citation in Whites, Jews, and Us § External links won't wrap at a place that would place the en dash at the beginning of a new line; where a wrap occurs depends on user screen size, window size, font size, zoom level, ...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

There are sometimes good reasons not to use non-breaking spaces, i.e. to minimise potentially confusing and easily breakable code for the benefit of newer editors using the source editor. I assume that's why that bit of the guideline's framed as it is ("ideally") and isn't that commonly adhered to. But no objection to using them in this case. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 15:42, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

This has been discussed in the past, and there was a very strong agreement that adding these was a good idea. The DOI can be found via google, etc. and that makes it a useful identifier, even if broken. Also, it encourages people to report and get them fixed. Note that the dx.doi.org reporting method does not necessarily work often, since the DOI might be owned by a different company than the journal owner. I have actually reached out to various publishers and gotten many of them fixed. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:08, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

We do remove/block some DOIs, such as the Angle Orthodontist DOIs, since the old ones will never be registered (I have verified that with the publisher via email). AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:39, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Will do, if not book, and if no existing |date=, and id year matches any existing |year=. Now to right the code, and unit tests. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 11:35, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Please make this work only with the |volume= parameter, and not |title=.

A date in the title may be genuinely part of the title, e.g. "Hospital opening delayed to August 2023". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:48, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I am still not sure how to distinguish dates and Issue numbers/names that are dates. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:55, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Issue is for issue number, not the issue date/issue name.

• Smith, J. (2007). "Title". Magazine. No. Summer 2007. p. 23.

should be converted to

• Smith, J. (Summer 2007). "Title". Magazine. p. 23.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Same in cite journal, etc.

b

} 04:31, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Please remove |year= if you add |date= in this case. Izno (talk) 05:15, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

It we take time to get these right, so I will program in tests before implementing it.AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:17, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

How common is this problem? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:13, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

I will look into doing that. I have run across at least one DOI where the first character in the suffix is a slash. Absolutely nuts. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:47, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

I have fixed this and am now running the bot over those pages. Here is a better REGEX. Note that the difference is that it first limits to pages with the phrase "doi" on them. This shrinks the number of pages to REGEX so you get more hits. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&ns0=1&ns118=1&search=insource%3Adoi++insource%3A%2F10%5C.%5B0-9%5D%5B0-9%5D%5B0-9%5D%5B0-9%5D%5B0-9%5D%3F%5C%2F%5C%2F%2F. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:18, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

The site in question seems to have some kind of browser validation. Perhaps it doesn't like Citation bot and directs it to a different page than normal users. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:45, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for reporting. Interesting that this is the "title" for the page, since the page sends that as the valid title instead of sending an actual 403 code. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:18, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Is it possible to add ghostarchive.org and archive.ph alongside the current website/(s) this bot uses? Jenkowelten (talk) 08:35, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

 Fixed. Hopefully, no CAPTCHA or such will block us. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:27, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

|script-title= was not noticed and so a title was added, but then it was removed for being basically the same. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:11, 19 August 2022 (UTC)