Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 46

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.

Archive 40

←

Archive 44

→

Newspapers.com citations

Newspapers.com uses "Page number" erroneously. Actually, its number refers only to the microfilm shot being referenced. If the newspaper was filmed out of order, as when there were many sections of a newspaper, then the "Page number" will not match with the actual number of the page as printed in the newspaper. Therefore, I have recently started to cite "Image number" instead of "Page number," so that the searcher can find the correct place on the microfilm reel. An editor has been making changes to my citations which deleted the image number. I find that annoying and counterproductive. Any comments? Thanks to all. BeenAroundAWhile (talk

) 16:16, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, it's breaking the verifiability of the citation, so it should stop. It's a

WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT matter. Even if someone wants to add the original page number, if the cite is to these scanned microfiches numbered by image, something like |via=Newspapers.com|at=image no. ### should be retained. This sort of thing is why we have |at=. I think the |page= / |pages= and |at= parameters conflict in most templates, so it might have to be something like |at=image no. ### (original p. ###), I suppose. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

😼 16:25, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes. There is a similar problem with PDFs. I generally use the pagination of the original printed source, but there are times when the pdf pagination needs to be included. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:38, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes... I would agree that the best solution would be to list BOTH the image number, AND the original page number. That way those searching on the hosting site can easily find it AND those searching the hard copy original can do so. Blueboar (talk) 22:48, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Newspapers.com usually shows the page numbers from the original source in the images, although these are sometimes obscured in scanning. If possible I would encourage using the original page number. That should make it easier for someone accessing the paper in a different way (another site, physical copies, etc.) to find the material. If it isn't available, then the image number is a reasonable alternative. --RL0919 (talk) 16:38, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

When the Los Angeles Times was flush with a dozen suburban sections, the microfilm for one Sunday edition might amount to hundreds of pages, because all pages for each section was included, one after another. Plus comics, Sunday supplements, classifieds, etc. What a chore to find out physically where the story is located: In ORA (Orange County), SFO (San Fernando Valley, East Valley or West Valley, LBO (Long Beach), or ORA (Orange County)? Heck, the microfilm number is right there — so convenient. Very simple. Anyway, I don't mind which is used, as long as the searcher can find the story. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 06:17, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Numeric dating

The guideline in

WP:CITESTYLE

says:

Although nearly any consistent style may be used, avoid all-numeric date formats other than YYYY-MM-DD, because of the ambiguity concerning which number is the month and which the day. For example, 2002-06-11 may be used, but not 11/06/2002. The YYYY-MM-DD format should in any case be limited to Gregorian calendar dates where the year is after 1582.

Given the excellent sense presented during the first sentence, why would we encourage any numeric date format? Why is YYYY-MM-DD less confusing than YYYY-DD-MM? They're all confusing. Is 2018-08-09 the 9th of August or the 8th of September? Depends on who wrote it and who's reading it. Surely we should discourage any numeric dating. --

old fashioned!

16:38, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

See

MOS:DATEFORMAT. YYYY-MM-DD is an ISO standard, I've never come across YYYY-DD-MM, can you cite an actual use of this form? Martin of Sheffield (talk

) 16:42, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I think the point is that 99% of our readers would not have a clue what an ISO standard is, let alone be able to read these frankly ridiculous machine-based date formats. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:45, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I almost never come across MM-DD-YYYY, yet I know it exists, widely, in the American world and elsewhere, despite its lack of logic. And I've never seen YYYY-MM-DD except on Wikipedia. The point remains, why would we tolerate anything that is confusing? We make the point really persuasively that numeric dates are confusing and then say that we are quite happy for it to be used, which is just daft. --

old fashioned!

16:53, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

FYI, the American format uses slashes: MM/DD/YYYY. It is very widespread (in the US) but I would not recommend it here because of its ambiguity and (as you say) lack of logic. But the fact that it is so widespread is pretty strong evidence that TRM's claims for the unintelligibility of YYYY-MM-DD are not well founded. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:45, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Classic non sequitur. Nothing relates the MM/DD/YYYY format to my claim that the ISO format needs knowledge of its format before it can be understood. Another attempt to sully me from an admin. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:51, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

The point is that YYYY-MM-DD is an unambiguous date format. Every other format is ambigous, case in point if I write a date like 06/04/12, you have absolutely zero idea which element is a day, which is a month, and which is a year.

b

} 17:00, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

No, that's not the point. It's an unambiguous date format IFF you understand the definition of the ISO format. Which 99% of readers do not. Why on earth don't we limit to human-readable date formats? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:07, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

It's unambiguous regardless of whether or not you can understand it. Writing "An energy of 3.2 eV" is not ambiguous, even if you don't know that eV means

b

} 17:13, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

"It's unambiguous regardless of whether or not you can understand it." A magnificent attempt to redefine "ambiguous"! Johnbod (talk) 17:21, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

No, that's nonsense I'm afraid, most of the human interactions I make with other humans involve dates in human-readable format. I get around the world just fine and for what it's worth, I do get ISO date formats, because I'm actually very intelligent, but we shouldn't assume that of our readers. And these bullshit date formats litter the encyclopedia (nicely mixed together in many cases with mdy and dmy dates too) without explanation, unlike eV which would be linked in all but the most specialist of articles. So think again before resorting to such poorly reasoned accusations. Can you explain the benefit of ISO dates in English language Wikipedia over human-readable dates such as 26 June 2018 or even (gasp) June 26, 2018? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:19, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

This is an equivocation issue. HB is correct that the format is technically unambiguous from a standards perspective; JB and TRM are correct that it's ambiguous from a typical user perspective. That latter is the more important consideration here, and is why we really should not permit this date format to be used on WP, though that's a

WP:CCC). As far as I can tell, virtually no one uses this format manually on purpose; almost all of it in our articles is inserted there by automated citation tools. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

😼 21:56, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd guess part of the reason very few use it is that it will be immediately changed (with a comment along the lines of "I've better things to do than clear up your mess") to MMM-DD-YYYY regardless of WP:ENGVAR. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I know an editor (Maplestrip) who uses them deliberately. --Izno (talk) 03:00, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Thus "virtually" and "almost". >;-) PS: I'd bet real money Maplestrip a techie ora scientist; no one else would do that. And, more to the key point, most of them wouldn't, because they know this isn't a database or a journal. Heh. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:03, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I do think they look better, result in less clutter, and are more easily readable than other date formats. I find longer date formats to be difficult to skim through when looking at a list of sources. But it's true, I have an IT background. ~Mable (chat) 11:38, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

We usually allow Y-M-D dates in footnotes (and most citations in Wikipedia are in the form of footnotes) because this proposal to disallow them failed. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:17, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It is human readable, and easily so. If you want to see a real machine date consider 1530033214 which is the current date ant time as I write. I'll pass over the 99% claim as self-evident hyperbole. As for only seeing the format on Wiki, I use it for both personal and professional purposes: as an example all photos on my home machine are filed as YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.jpg which makes sorting and finding them trivial. IIRC, the format originated with the military in the pre-computer era, I seem to remember coming across it in the 1970s. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:19, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Human readable if and only if you know how to decode it. This isn't about professional purposes, this is about a consistent approach to serving our readers, not our computer geek editors. Of which I am one. P.S. Your sorting argument went out with the Ark, we can even present our readers with human-readable sortable tables of dates these days! Who knew?! P.P.S. Computers pre-dated the 1970s. Tsk. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:23, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Maybe tables, but can you quote a filesystem that would correctly sort text dates? Re PPS: yes, academic and big business had them, but I doubt many squaddies would have thanked you for an AS400 or VAX 11/780 as a PC! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:27, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I'll ask one more time, can you tell me why our readers would want to see date formats like this? Behind the scenes, sure, for the myriad reasons I'm sure existed in the 1970s for sorting file systems, but humans reading Wikipedia in English? Seriously? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:30, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Human readable if you're over the age of 8 and went to school. Or ever had a receipt.

b

} 17:25, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

No, you're sort of just trying to say the same thing again and again, and not making any more logical sense. I'm over the age of 8 and have a pocket of receipts which are in human-readable format. Where on planet Earth does it say that receipts are ISO-date-formatted, and more importantly, where does it say that's better than actual human-readable dates without any kind of ISO standard to fall back on? What a curious line of sort-of argument. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: and so are you (saying the same thing again and again). All these arguments about date styles in the end come down to "I like this one but not that one". I happen to like the YYYY-MM-DD style for some purposes; you don't. As Headbomb says it's perfectly human readable to anyone capable of understanding most of our articles. The MoS has established a workable set of guidelines which don't please everyone, but do not need changing. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:33, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

No, you see you're wrong. I'm saying that anyone who reads in English can understand 26 June 2018 and June 26, 2018, but not anyone can understand 2018-06-26. Please prove me wrong. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:35, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Wow, it's gone from 99% to "not anyone". Well I understand them (along with millions of others) so your assertion fails. Let's get this in context though, MOS mandates text format for use in the main body of the page, ISO format is permitted for footnotes and tables only. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:40, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh dear, the precision police are out. (By "not anyone", it was the Boolean not of "anyone" (i.e. !anyone), but I suppose you need me to explain I should have said "not everyone"). Honestly, I'm still waiting for an answer to why we would use ISO dates in references in English language Wikipedia when human-readable dates are completely 100% unambiguous and need no reference to an ISO to understand. While you claim my assertion fails and get things into context, please answer that very simple question. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:43, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Because 1) They are easier to parse quickly and rank by date 2) They take much less space 3) avoids

b

} 17:49, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Because 1) is a computer speaking 2) is irrelevant 3) is irrelevant and 4) is irrelevant, for 2, 3 and 4, see the title of the project, it's the "ENGLISH LANGUAGE WIKIPEDIA". The Rambling Man (talk) 17:51, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

See

b

} 17:58, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

See WP:DONTANSWERTHEACTUALQUESTIONTHEN! You failed summarily to address any of the key points, your own points being mainly irrelevant or relying on the ability of our general readers to understand ISO standards. I'd give that a D minus. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:03, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

As a colleague here would say, "for those of you playing along at home..." the question here is "why we would use ISO dates in references in English language Wikipedia when human-readable dates are completely 100% unambiguous and need no reference to an ISO to understand."? Why? All answers so far relate to computer geekery which has no place in our general readership. So..... anything? Or just a stock (and sadly incorrect) answer? (although "They take much less space" is one of the funniest things I've read on Wikipedia this decade, it really is...) The Rambling Man (talk) 18:06, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Space is less of a silly reason than you imply. It has nothing to do with Wikipedia resources and everything to do with reader attention. The access dates and archive dates of a reference are qualitatively different from the publication dates: contingent on editor and archive timing rather than an essential part of the reference, and useful primarily for editors (who may need them to verify references or find more recent versions) rather than for readers (for whom it is useful to know when the reference was written but not when it was read by someone else). Because of the different nature of these two kinds of dates it makes sense to format them differently, as a flag to the reader that the archive dates and access dates are safer to skip over. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:15, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Summon the mathematician! No, there's no advantage to our readers by giving them a saving of a handful of bytes or screen characters. That's absolutely nonsensical. Readers would like to be able to read the encyclopedia, not have to translate the encyclopedia. This is, after all, English language Wikipedia. We can cope with the two human readable formats by writing them out in English, no guide required. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:19, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Being a mathematician is a pejorative now? Wow, I wouldn't have expected such anti-intellectualism from a Wikipedian. In any case, (1) this format is very non-difficult for readers (other than, apparently, you), and (2) I think that helping readers read the encyclopedia is better achieved by making the unimportant parts easier to skip over than by expanding them into an inordinately long string just to satisfy your innumeracy. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:23, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

No, only if you say so. I simply said "summon the mathematician". This format requires an ISO translation whereas all other formats do not. So by that maxim, this format is more difficult than other human readable formats for our readers. I'll ignore your personal attack (although I will log it as normal) but since when is "June 28, 2018" an "inordinately long string"? Are you joking now? We no longer copy things onto tape you know, we're up with the disks and megabytes and things, the items which were once restricted to eight bytes are no longer..... Seriously? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:26, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Frankly, I have no idea what you mean when you say that "this format requires an ISO translation". It is perfectly understandable by (most) humans without aid of calculating devices or manuals. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:33, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Eppstein, it matters not. Your personal attack on me means I'm not conversing with you here. You are not fit to be an admin. Disgusting. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:35, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

And no, if you properly format the references (which I've corrected for you numerous times), there's no confusion, as one says "accessed on" and the other says "archived on". Or similar. So that's really a non-argument there. Disappointing. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:21, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Note that here "corrected for you" means that TRM has repeatedly changed one valid format into another, with no consensus, in violation of our guidelines, and is here promising to keep doing so. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:25, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Also note that admin Eppstein has repeatedly made errors in references and has now resorted to

WP:ADMIN. Noted Eppstein. The Rambling Man (talk

) 18:30, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

We're treading into

b

} 18:36, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

No, we're treading into

WP:DICK territory here. I'm not edit warring over anything. Perhaps you need to calm down and take a step back because you clearly don't have an unobstructed view of what's happening here. This is a discussion about date formats. Threatening to block me for engaging in discussion about date formats is very much territory for you to be blocked. And that would be a real shame. The Rambling Man (talk

) 18:39, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Summarising

It seems that the arguments given for perpetuating tolerating numeric dates are:

A previous proposal failed
They sort
They save spaces
They are easier for machines to read

To which the responses have been

No response yet, but obviously a new proposal would need to be made
So do text based dates
At the expense of readability for humans
At the expense of readability for humans (and the computers have no problems either)

. I think we're about in position to make a proposal which we'd all presumably agree with, unless there are some new arguments not previously made? --

old fashioned!

13:22, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

They are also easier for humans to read. And there are good advantages to having a citation in the style of Smith, John (15 August 2015). "Article of stuff". Example.com. Retrieved 2018-06-27., or in tables, or anywhere where space is limited.

b

} 13:56, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Our own guideline states, correctly, that they are more difficult for humans to read. I don't understand why we're short of space in citations, but I've covered it in point 3. --

old fashioned!

14:34, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

They are abundantly not easier for humans to read. And there are no known advantages to seeing this format in the references. Space is simply not limited. That is a red herring. The only place it could possibly apply is in highly crammed in columns in tables. Nowhere else are we "limited" in space. Nowhere. This isn't 1980s 8-bit land any longer... The Rambling Man (talk) 14:44, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

@Dweller: your heading "Summarising" is highly inappropriate for a very biassed set of statements. Anywhere that the date is not intended to be read as part of text, the YYYY-MM-DD format is concise, inobtrusive, and perfectly easy to understand for anyone able to read most of our articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:29, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Which of the points 1-4 is biased? I think I've covered all of your other comments and the guideline itself disagrees with you on them being easy to understand. --

old fashioned!

14:34, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Point 4 depends upon context. In a long list of dates ISO may be easier to scan by humans than having to skip over the day and month, putting the most important part first draws attention to it. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:49, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd also argue that not only did the previous proposal simply fail, it resoundingly failed by a more than 2-1 margin. And not everyone agrees that YYYY-MM-DD format comes at the expense of readability for humans. That's a 100%

b

} 14:54, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Well yes, that's the point of preference but it is 100% clear that more English-speaking humans will understand 27 June 2018 than 2018-06-27. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:00, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

[citation needed]. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:49, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

As an admin, I'd expect you to know that that tag is for article space only. And I suppose I could point you to

WP:SKYISBLUE because it's fundamentally obvious that human beings who read and write in text rather than ISO standards would prefer to see regular date formats in text. But since you personally attacked me, I guess all bets are off on your judgement right now. The Rambling Man (talk

) 18:51, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

As a putatively intelligent human, I expect you to understand that as a request for evidence that's not purely your opinion. That tag has had wider use than Wikipedia articles since at least https://xkcd.com/285/. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:02, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

As a current admin, I'd expect you to apologise for personal attacks, and to understand concepts such as the sky being blue. You are way beyond the pale in this regard (and I think you know it) so arguing that more people or even an equal number of people recognise the ISO standard than a normal written date as per every other publication I mentioned is somewhat absurd, borderline disruptive really, and certainly not becoming of an admin. Reflect on that, and once you've apologised for claiming me to be innumerate, we might be able to move on. Otherwise, we're simply spiralling towards your

accountability being called into serious question once again and a very sad outcome for you. The Rambling Man (talk

) 19:32, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Your bluster just makes your continued lack of evidence more obvious. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:07, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Your refusal to apologise and retract your accusation of my innumeracy is self-evident. You should not be an admin. You have soiled the position. By the way, the "sky is blue" does not need any "evidence", it relies on human beings being capable of logical thought. This is clearly an issue if you believe that an ISO format date is more or equally accessible to our readers than a human readable format. That you would even attempt to defend such a position is staggering beyond belief. I'll ask you one more time, where else do you see ISO dates in the usual run of things? Britannica? The New York Times? The Daily Telegraph? Please let me know. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:12, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the failure of the previous proposal, that was in 2009, so I would not put too much weight on that. I just looked at it and noticed that I voted oppose, which 1) I did not previously recall, and 2) I am not sure I would do the same now. --RL0919 (talk) 15:48, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

That's interesting to know. I definitely do get a feeling of "we've always done it this way, why change?" from some quarters who inevitably are entrenched with a software engineering mentality. Once anyone can find a single printed source about generalist material which uses ISO dates, I'd consider re-considering, but it's just not the case. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:14, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

A salient point is that "saving space in tables" is not a general goal, it's a goal only when the table is wide. See the main MoS page,

WP:Common sense applies. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

😼 21:38, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Dates in yyyy-mm-dd format are often used for indexing, notably in most earthquake catalogs. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:57, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

TRM asked for non-tech sources that use the YYYY-MM-DD format for human-readable information. So here are a few:

The BBC (with slashes rather than dashes)
NASA
The US National Weather Service
Deutsche Bundesbank
IMDB
TV.com (I think this is a television episode listing service?)
Budget Rent A Car
The Barbados Stock Exchange
The URLs of countless sites including CNN, Scientific American, The New Yorker, Wikipedia (POTD), etc. Ok, it's debatable whether these are actually human-readable, but they make it very difficult to search for other in-text usages

So the argument that this is a tech-only unfamiliar format doesn't fly. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:33, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Most commercial sites are using pre-packaged blog/CMS packages; some of them do this by default unless told not to, and many of them are configured and operated by "geeks" at the company; we have no evidence any of them are subjected to a lot of oversight. A telling point is that the BBC doesn't use this format more broadly, only on web stuff. And it could change formats tomorrow; there's no evidence this is a

WP:VPPOL, since it's not any more related to citations than to anything else). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢

😼 00:51, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

All the "examples" provided by Eppstein are pretty much tech-only examples. So that somewhat backs up the point rather well. Of course, I saw no Britannica, The New York Times, The Guardian etc in there either, but hey... The Rambling Man (talk) 08:22, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Nothing accomplished with all of this language above. Set a standard and have editors follow it. This along with so many other battles rage with knowledge not being recorded for mankind.Eschoryii (talk) 12:19, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Guideline on wikilinks within citations

Should we have a guideline on when to use wikilinks within citations? E.g., if using {{

New York Times" "work=The New York Times" or "work=The New York Times

"? Does it depend on whether the publisher or author has a Wikipedia article? And should the same publisher/author for multiple refs be linked only the first time?
According to previous discussions here, it's currently up to the editor, which can sometimes lead to confusion. Λυδαcιτγ 01:29, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

@Audacity: Aside: |publisher=New York Times is off-target, twice over (incorrect parameter, incorrect name). If you've been putting the publication name in the publisher field, please stop; it's misleading citation metadata and it's creating a lot of frustrating cleanup work for other editors. It's like confusing Game of Thrones with HBO, or The Magical Mystery Tour with Apple Records. This should be done as |work=[[The New York Times]] (|newspaper=, |journal= are equivalent). The The is part of the title in this case. If it had a publisher with a distinct name, it would be added as, e.g., |publisher=[[News Corporation]]. If it was an AP or Reuters or other newswire story, we also use, e.g., |agency=[[Associated Press]], and if we got it via some intermediary, that'd be something like |via=NewspaperArchives.com. In reality in this case, the publisher of NYT is The New York Times Company, so including it is redundant and should just be skipped. I'm pretty sure {{cite news}}'s doc is clear about all this; the problem is people don't read it and just copy-cat badly formatted citations from 2006 or whenever.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:59, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
Cheers - updated above. I do use the Work field, though I find the names confusing -- but that's a separate issue. Λυδαcιτγ 03:23, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
We should probably address this general linking-in-cites matter in the guideline itself. Our general MOS:LINK guideline doesn't want links repeated over and over because it causes a "sea of blue" effect. That's arguably even more important here because citation text is dense and small already. We shouldn't be redlinking anything in citations, nor linking stuff more than once. It's reasonable to link stuff on first appearance in a citation even if already linked in the body, because he cites render in a different section, and we often re-link something the first time it re-appears in a new section if separated from the previous link by one or more intervening sections.A countervailing viewpoint I've encountered is that every citation is a "stand-alone thing" and should be fully linked for everything in it which can be bluelinked. I disagree with that idea, for MOS:LINK reasons and because it makes it harder to tell which link actually is the one to click on to get to the actual source. A complication of linking only in the first cite to the same stuff is that citations can move around with the text and end up in a different order, but this is a fairly minor cleanup matter, and most of our citations are under-linked anyway (at first occurrence), without any measurable negative effect on the encyclopedia.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢
 😼  01:59, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
When I mouseover a citation number, I get a tooltip containing the citation. If I want more info about, say, the publication, should I be expected to go find another citation that links it? It would be easier to just scroll to the top and type the publication name in the search box. Linking only in selected cites, first or otherwise, is a ridiculous idea that shouldn't even be on the table. Not to mention that it would be unmaintainable for a given article in the long term.
Agree that nothing should be redlinked or linked twice in the same cite. If there is to be any written guidance, it should be a gentle suggestion to link anything that can be bluelinked, no more than once in a cite. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:06, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
What Mandruss said. Overlinking doesn't apply to citations in the reflist, although they might certainly apply in lists of works in general. b
} 06:23, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
Strongly disagree on the last point. Citations are not for encouraging editing, they're for providing references. If we're going to deny that that a main-prose rationale can be applied to citations, just so we can favor re-re-re-linking the same stuff over and over again, then the same "citations and main text are different" rationale can also be applied against redlinking. It doesn't serve a purpose in the citations, and it makes it look like there's something wrong with the cites, i.e., it casts doubt on their and thus our reliability.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:33, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
I have to disagree with We shouldn't be redlinking anything in citations--I think the more-reasonable position is somewhere in the realm of We shouldn't be redlinking anything in citations that we wouldn't expect to be notable, which I think hews a bit more closely to the intent of WP:REDLINK. (But I haven't looked that way recently and am on mobile ATM.) --Izno (talk
) 20:10, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
See above.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:51, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
What you present therein is a false dichotomy. We don't need to treat citations as exactly like normal text in all cases nor do we need to create exceptions for citations to the way we treat normal text in all the ways in which we might. I don't like seeing seas of blue in my references section, but I also appreciate why someone might decide that such is useful to the reader (namely, ref pop ups, which I believe are live for all readers on both desktop and MobileFrontend). As for "citations aren't for encouraging editing", I don't think I agree with that statement whatsoever. While I agree their main purpose is to provide provenance information, it doesn't strike me as untoward to allow them to serve as potentially adding to our red link backlog. I do also disagree with "it makes us look bad"--it's a wiki. All red links, with that logic in mind, make us look bad, not just in references, which is quite an extreme opinion and unsupported by current consensus (enshrined in REDLINK). Maybe someone needs a refresher on Wiki 101. ;) --Izno (talk) 04:56, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
You're either mistaking every element of my argument or twisting it on purpose. The "false dichotomy" you project is a straw man. I never suggested that because arguments are presented to ignore one rule in citations that none of them can apply. I'm pointing out that "because MoS says so" is a hypocritical argument in favor of redlinking when it's coming from the same people who reject "because MoS says so" as a rationale for something that doesn't suit their preferences (excessive bluelinking). I also never suggested that it's not possible for a citation to serve as a means of noticing a redlink and deciding to do something about it. I said that it's not the purpose of citations. (Analogy: If I really want to, I can use my boot as a hammer, but I will not go out selecting my footwear on the basis of how well it might drive a nail into softwood, and using it that way is apt to have negative effects on its utility for what it was actually designed for.) We have cites to provide verifiability for our article content, more specifically to provide sufficient source information to identify (not treat in full like some kind of bibliographic database) the sources we are using. That segues into a third point: My logic does not even slightly suggest that all redlinks make us look bad. Red links in article prose are part of our "build the Web" article content network of cross-references. Doing them in citations, which are not part of the content but are meta-data, makes it look like our metadata is incomplete or broken. If a citation is sufficient to correctly identify the source, then it is not in fact broken or incomplete for the purposes for which it exists. All that said, I'm more sympathetic to average to being inclusive of source information (e.g. full author names when known, subtitles along with main titles, publisher name and location when it's not redundant, more than one URL-generating identifier, etc.). I'm also not entirely opposed to the idea below of including a redlink when we actually expect that we should have an article for that publisher (or whatever).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢
 😼  05:23, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

In the past I would also add the wikilinks to the publisher (and sometimes the author) but I was later asked by various authors to stop it. I recall the locic was that it would create excessive incoming links for each article. Thus I see two issues, please feel free to comment on the veracity.

SEO
 google and other search engines will see these wikilinks and place undue importance on some articles such as fortune, etc. This might be less important to us editors, but maybe still to take into account.
Inbound link counts. This will make it difficult for us editors to look at Help:What links here.
I think a policy on including or exlcuding the wikilinks would be useful, as audacity (talk · contribs) has suggested. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:08, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

We should definitely include wikilinks for authors when we have them. On all citations, not just the first one, so that they can be found easily from the individual reference. This goes in both directions: If we want to know what biases or expertise a source might be expected to have, an article on its author is the first place to look. And if we want to know what topics an author is known for writing about, the list of incoming links to that author's page is again a good first place to look. I generally also add links to newspapers or journals, for a different reason: when we see that a source's publication is bluelinked, we can get an idea how reliable the source is. But I feel more strongly about linking authors than publications. I have less interest in linking publishers, but I don't think that's particularly harmful either. SEAOFBLUE applies to article text, not references. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:25, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
On linking publishers, I think we should only do it when it pertains closely to reputability. E.g., do link Salon Media Group or Bantam Books.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢
 😼  09:37, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Comment: I prefer to link in citations if I feel that the link is beneficial, such as linking to a publisher so that readers and editors can quickly check that the publisher is reliable. Linking the author's name can also be beneficial, and the "authorlink" field helps with that. I don't link authors in references often, though. I might start doing so. talk
) 05:11, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
I could live with the idea of optionally blue-linking author, publisher, and periodical information (not location), when it's likely to be useful to the reader, even in multiple citations – if we're certain this really useful in the cite pop-ups – and even red-linking in cases where we're certain the article should exist. What concerns me are a) I see redlinks in cites again and again for random journalists and book publishers and small-town newspapers that are obviously non-notable, and b) I do not want to be groused at by some citation formatting obsessive for not linking something they think I should have linked. I still don't think it's useful to blue-link either 1) general book publishers like Ballantine, Penguin, Houghton-Mifflin, etc., versus publishers that specialize in academic material (or those that specialize in fringe – reputability cuts both ways), nor 2) publishers that are pretty much synonymous with the publication.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:33, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
In one comment, you (1) state personal opinions about what should and should not be linked (not by parameter but by parameter value), and (2) state as part of your reasoning that you do not want to be groused at by some citation formatting obsessive for not linking something they think I should have linked. I guess you can somehow reconcile the two, but then you're smarter than I am. The simplest and most conflict-free way to do this is not to try to guess what will be of interest to the reader, which guess will vary widely between editors, but to give the reader link access to everything we can. Useful guidance tends to point most editors to the same answers. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:51, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
It's a Wikipedia_talk page. We're apt to express opinions here. There's no conflict of any kind between us offering opinions about what our linking guidelines should be (mostly a matter of why / why not to link something), and – quite separately, in a different domain, not not wanting to be badgered by people in and about mainspace for not doing optional things they prefer were done. They're completely unrelated; the latter is a behavioral matter (another variant of "do not go hassle people on their talk pages or be rude to them in edit summaries because you don't like their writing style" – no one actually has to comply with, or even read, MoS to contribute new material; we're free to clean it up later, and it's more important that people add content and source it than that they get style nitpicks correct. It really only matters if new or careless editors start replacing MoS-correct style with random idiosyncrasies, which becomes disruptive if it doesn't cease). It's also not particularly connected to assessing link value to readers (not a behavioral matter, nor a policy-writing matter). The "[we should] not to try to guess what will be of interest to the reader" idea would completely invalidate most of MOS:LINK, including the part of relevance here. We'd simply link everything that could possibly be linked, on the basis that someone somewhere might appreciate any particular link. Consensus obviously does not favor that approach, or we would not have a long-term guideline against over-linking. We do in fact do this assessment all day every day when we're writing Wikipedia. The argument here is to link more in citations that we normally would. I don't find the argument for it compelling, because people are arguing to link things that are not necessary for identifying and finding the sources; they just want to link it all because they like linking stuff, as far as I can tell. There's not a valid rationale for it that I can see, compared to the more sensible one of linking certain key information pieces (notable authors, publisher when relevant, periodical name, plus including more than one linked identifier when available) repeatedly in cites because of how they're used.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢
 😼  18:40, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Headbomb and Mandruss that the guideline which was primarily designed with having the article main body/text in mind, may not be that helpful if applied (strictly) to other special sections of the article such as infoboxes and the references/notes sections. First of all citations are usually not read by the average reader and they are usually not read like text paragraph or block either, hence that sea of blue argument about impairing reading experience in article's main body doesn't quite apply here. So rather than being concerned how blue links or a sea of blue might impair reading of all citations as whole (or like a text block), we should focused on improving the ease of navigation for individual (or "standalone") citations. Because the primary use case are imho readers looking at a selected few citations individually and hence we should not force those readers to browse all citations just to figure out whether a blue link and/or an online copy of the source exists.
In addition ease of use for editors is more important here than for the article's main body as well, because while only a fraction of the readers will actually deal with citations and sources almost all editors have to.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:43, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

In my view only links to help find the source should be linked. The refs are there to support and lead readers to more info.........dump link spam!!--Moxy (talk) 18:09, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
books.google.co.uk cite format?

What format should I be using to cite from google books? Govvy (talk) 14:39, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Follow the citation format that already exists in the article. Different articles can have different citation styles, see WP:CITEVAR. Keep in mind that whatever style is followed, it applies to all the sources in the article (but it may vary according to the kind of source, a book vs. a journal article, for example). The citation style recommended by the source is irrelevant; if an article contained a cite to a journal published by the American Psychological Association and The Astronomical Journal, each of which has a different style used within those journals, they would be formatted just the same as all the other journal cites in the Wikipedia article. Jc3s5h (talk
) 15:26, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
I s'pect the question is angling for a different fish. @WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT conduit. In a templated citation do something like {{Cite book|first=Jane |last=Smith |title=Nocturnal Underwater Basketweaving Basics |date=2018 |location=Los Angeles |publisher=Crafty Publishing |access-date=27 July 2018 |via=Google Books}}. In an article not using templated citations, then something like: Smith, Jane (2018); ''Nocturnal Underwater Basketweaving Basics''; Los Angeles: Crafty Publishing; accessed: 27 July 2018, via Google Books., with punctuation and order that matches the rest of the article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢
 😼  19:12, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
that makes more sense than cite web format to me, cheers. Govvy (talk) 19:19, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
RfC on access-dates and verifiability

 FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere. 
Please see: Help talk:Citation Style 1#Permit access-date in absence of a URL
Gist: The |access-date= parameter in citation templates indicates the last date at which someone checked whether the cited source actually verifies the claim(s) to which it is attached as a reference. Presently, if the citation does not have a |url= parameter, not only is the display of the date suppressed, it is categorized as an error that people should remove. The RfC asks whether this is the appropriate course of action.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:50, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to end conflicting date formats within the same citation

 FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere. 
Please see WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#End "date-forking" into different styles for publication and access/archive in same cite
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:24, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Remove the bullet point that starts "adding citation templates..."



The consensus is against the proposal to remove the bullet point "* adding citation templates to an article that already uses a consistent system without templates, or removing citation templates from an article that uses them consistently;" from Wikipedia:Citing sources.
Cunard (talk) 01:08, 12 August 2018 (UTC)



The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Remove the bullet point "* adding citation templates to an article that already uses a consistent system without templates, or removing citation templates from an article that uses them consistently;" from 
WP:BRD in its stead. -- PBS (talk
) 12:56, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Support as nominator. In the good old days when Wikipedia was young I never came across citation templates. It seems that the dispute about them started in 2005. For a time it could be argued that it was possibly to have a page without templates, let alone citation templates; and later pages with templates, but not citation templates. However with the WP:BRD instead. -- PBS (talk
) 12:56, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Comment For those who will argue ("'Once more unto the breach...") that the wording should be changed to "adding citation templates to an article that already uses a consistent system without citation templates," using the argument that {{WP:BRD process)? -- PBS (talk
) 12:56, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Historically, a few things are treated in this way: ENGVAR is another. The reason is that the choice has no objective "right" answer, so people just argue based on their personal preferences ("I like templates", "I don't", "Well I do". etc.). Since there is no objective source or fact to resolve the disputes, they go on interminably. The point of the rule is to sidestep all that wasted time by cutting off the disputes before they begin. There are not many of these issues that both draw a lot of personal opinion, have no objectively "right" answer, and affect numerous articles. — Carl (CBM · talk
) 17:07, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
ENGVAR is completely different because once an article has content in one dialect or another unless there is a good reason to change it then there is no reason to do so. In the case of citation templates that is not so, because if an article was created nearly 15 years ago then it would not have been created with templated citations, the technology and usage has evolved. To date the change in varieties of English spellings and grammar has been less volatile. Further there is no prohibition on someone adding an American spelling to a British article (it get changed usually within BRD if necessary), what there is a prohibition against is changing the spelling (or syntax) without good reason. In the case of this prohibition, it actually says "adding citation template" which is a different type of prohibition which encompass adding a new citation, not just changing ones already present. -- PBS (talk) 18:15, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Oppose - Weakening Citevar will result in mass changes to reference formats of articles with no benefit to the articles. The rule is in place for a reason.Nigel Ish (talk) 14:52, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
"The rule is in place for a reason." Are you sure about that as your account is not as old as the "rule", because the rule has morphed over the years and been interpreted by some in a way that is not compatible with the BRD cycle insufficient to prevent mass changes? -- PBS (talk
) 16:29, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
The problem with mass changes is that they often present a fait accompli: if you log back on to find that 20, or 200, articles on your watchlist have all changes, what would you do to move the BRD process forward? The BRD cycle only works for changes that are made to a small number of articles; it doesn't work for things that get automated or semi-automated, in which case a centralized discussion is the only reasonable option. The current rule is compatible with CONSENSUS, though, like the rest of the MOS. — Carl (CBM · talk
) 17:03, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
I would start a central discussion and if there is no consensus revert them all (as I have done with such instances of mass changes in the in the past). The current rule is not compatible with CONSENSUS because it is used by some to stop the usual BRD cycle. -- PBS (talk
) 17:50, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I generally support moving to citation templates, but we need to be really careful a change here isn't interpreted as an invitation for someone to go start making large scale changes across many articles. Such efforts almost always generate more disruption than they are worth. Monty₈₄₅ 14:58, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
This concern seems particularly valid given that this RFC has been advertised on other pages as "RFC to ease introduction of citation templates to articles not presently using them" - although the change proposed would equally allow users to remove templates from articles that do use them. I suspect that if adding templates became viewed as a form of "cleanup", we would indeed see large-scale projects aiming to convert nearly all articles to use templates. — Carl (CBM · talk
) 15:02, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
diff please to where is it advertised that way. -- PBS (talk) 16:39, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
@CBM · talk
) 16:59, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, I will change them. -- PBS (talk) 17:42, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
I have edited PBS's changes because the heading PBS used, 'RfC: Remove the bullet point that starts "adding citation templates..."' makes no sense outside of this talk page. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:35, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment Templates are good and bring a slew of benefits (bot maintenance, parameter validation, error checking, metadata, etc.) and should be used when possible. It is now easier than ever to use citation templates, with tools like the b
} 15:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose this has no effect: reread the first para of citevar. Fifelfoo (talk) 16:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Fifelfoo if it has no effect, then why oppose the removal of superfluous text? -- PBS (talk) 08:43, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
superfluous Rfcs ought to be opposed as a waste of time that could have been better used. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:48, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Fifelfoo are you declaring that if the RfC had started "Keep" instead of "Delete" you would have opposed the RfC? -- PBS (talk) 10:23, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
yes, but for the worse procedural sin of a reversed onus. Would you like to insinuate any other points? When do I get my free badger. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:38, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Opposed - per the old adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. An article that uses non-templated citations “ain’t broke”. Blueboar (talk) 17:08, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
But it is broken Blueboar. I have seen editors remove citations newly added because the citation was added template when other existing citations do not, even when the format makes them identical in appearance to the reader. Secondly with the use of templates like {{ISBN}} this bullet point is redundant. -- PBS (talk) 17:42, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Removed completely, or converted to the existing style? Blueboar (talk) 18:09, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Removed completely (dif and see article talk page) -- PBS (talk) 18:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
I would draw a distinction between reverting addition of a citation to a page with a consistent non-templated citation style when the editor who added the template is experienced, and is judged well-capable of conforming to this guideline, vs. an edit by an inexperienced editor who can barely add any citation, and probably lacks the skills to conform to this guideline. I take no position on how often the latter appears, it isn't something that made an impression on me. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:51, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Ok... I would agree that we should not REMOVE a citation (completely) simply because it doesn’t conform to the previously established style. Instead, the non-conforming citation should be CONFORMED to the previously established style. And I don’t think it matters who does the conforming. Blueboar (talk) 20:32, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
But Blueboar the current wording is interpreted that way by some editors even when that change does not affect the visual style; and Jc3s5h this issue is about style and appearance, if the changes conform to the same visual style as the rest of the articles what is the problem with adding templated citations? The addition of plain text citations to articles that use templates often happens (and someone usually (eventually) puts such additions into templates), and this is not an issue with this guidance because it says "changes" not "adds" (unlike with the first part of the bullet point). -- PBS (talk) 09:40, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I disagree that "this issue is about style and appearance". The bullet up for removal is about switching between templates or lack of templates. If an editor went into an article that used consistently used citation templates and rewrote all the citations so they visually looked like CS1, but there were no templates, that would go against the bullet in question.
I don't recall ever seeing someone add a citation to an article with citation templates that mimiced CS1 without using templates; such additions usually do not follow any recognizable style. Also, although it's theoretically possible to mimic CS1, it would not emit any metadata, so it would not be the same. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:21, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
The current wording does not prohibit such an addition (that half of the bullet point is about changing not adding citations). Further I think that your comment shows that you are looking at this as an editor not a reader. A reader does not notice whether or not there is meta data, but they may notice inconsistencies in visual citation style. Whether or not a template is or is not used has nothing to do with the style used other than the limited range of styles that can be used on a page. -- PBS (talk) 16:03, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Granted, the bullet only applies to changing. But I don't recall an editor ever changing one or a few citations in an article that consistently used templates to a style that mimicked CS1 but didn't use templates, or the reverse.
Reading through the archives of this talk page will reveal many discussions about whether CITEVAR only applies to the rendered appearance of a citation, or it also applies to the wikitext that produces the citation. I can't find any clear consensus on this point, so I do not accept your statements written as if such a consensus existed. (To find such discussions, try entering "wikitext" in the archive search box near the top of the talk page.) Jc3s5h (talk) 16:27, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
The definition of style in this guideline is about visual style (hence the comments about short citations either being harvard/bracketed against the usage of ref...tag pairs; and the sentence that starts "A number of citation styles exist...". Nowhere in the guideline is the use of templates equated with style. It is only this bullet point (and one additional bracketed comment) that prohibits the use of templates in an article that has none. The reasons for the prohibition has nothing to do with style. -- PBS (talk) 08:23, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
I disagree; the totality of the talk page archives demonstrates there is no clear consensus as to whether this guideline can apply to undiscussed changes to wikitext that produces no visible change (with the probable exception of the bullet under discussion). Further, this is a companion to the MOS, which has a section Keep markup simple, which serves as a precedent that the MOS and related pages, including this one, apply directly to wikitext even if there is no visible change in the rendered article. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:35, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia should have a new adage then, because this mostly amounts to If it ain't broke, don't improve it. b
} 17:16, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
@Headbomb: Please write that essay!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:46, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose as written, because removing citation templates from articles that already have them is a bad idea, for the reasons that Headbomb describes above. Citation templates provide formatting consistency, automatic linking, and error checking that plain text does not. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment A related discussion from 2010, which proposed to establish a house citation stye, may be found at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Citation discussion. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:39, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose. I believe we all agree that it is preferable to template citations, but that is not question presented here. As to adding or removing templates: this is precisely one of the points where "standard consensus policy processes" is inadequate, where additional emphasis is needed. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:50, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
I'm undecided about whether it's better to template citations. Citation templates in the past simply didn't work for some articles, and that was the environment in which CITEVAR was developed. We will see as the discussion develops whether those who disliked citation templates (and are still around) still dislike them. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:57, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
So perhaps we are not all in agreement re templates, but, as I said, that is not question presented here. Whether we like, dislike, or dgaf, I think we mostly agree that we don't want people feeling emboldened to just dive in and make changes either way. And I think most of us feel that there still needs to be emphasis right up front to caution editors to not cannon-ball into the pool. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:03, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
J. Johnson Your concern is addressed in the first sentence of the section "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change.". The bullet point is meaningless for the reasons I mention above about other citation templates already existing on most article pages and this prohibition totally failed to stop a bot change that added {{ISBN}} to well over 300,000 pages. Has anyone ever seen a person remove all the citation templates on a page that was consistently using citation templates before such an edit? -- PBS (talk) 09:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Certainly you have noticed that a few editors hold that seeking consenus first does not apply for "clear improvements". I believe we need to be explicit about some of the changes in the scope of "seek consensus first". However, while that could be an interesting discussion, I don't believe it would have any effect in the current discussion. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I certainly don't agree with the very unwise assumption that "we all agree that it is preferable to template citations". This might well be true of the assembled gnomes here, but is not for the wider editing group. I have used templates when the project convention required it, on medical articles, but the tools I got used to no longer work, so even my medical FA mostly has to get along without me now. Templates have all sorts of disadvantages, and their added benefits don't compensate imo. Johnbod (talk) 17:46, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
It's more accurate to say that there's widespread agreement that templated citations are preferable. This is obvious from the fact that they used more – massively more – especially in GAs and FAs, but also site-wide. It's mostly new editors who don't use them (yet). The small percentage of established editors who hate citation templates are more likely to congregate at this talk page than anywhere else on the system, BTW.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:55, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
I don't like it. (I am trying to be funny. Guess I failed.) Anyway, I never use citation templates because I am perfectly well satisfied to type out the cites myself; the system is deeply embedded in me; it provides the requisite sources (with links, if there are any); it does not have useless info (like when the cite was added). So that is one answer to the unnamed editor just above who forgot to add the tildes (but that's okay; we all get brain fugues from time to time). Thanks for reading this. Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 19:17, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
@BeenAroundAWhile: Your claim that access/retrieved date is "useless info [about] when the cite was added" is false; it's useful info about when the citation was last checked as being valid for the material for which it's offered as the source. Any number of intervening editors could have messed with it and inadvertently [we hope!] falsified the verification status. It's important, and you need to include such a date even in manual, untemplated citations.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:06, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
And there's nothing wrong with writing everything manually the first time around. The point is to let gnomes more easily convert those to templated citations for enhanced functionality, consistency, error checking, metadata, etc. b
} 20:05, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
You do realize that changing citation style is still possible on an article by article basis... so the gnomes just need to discuss the change on the talk page first, and gain consensus for it. Of course, they would need to convince others that the ability to easily gnome is worth the change (not everyone cares about gnoming). Blueboar (talk) 00:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
b
} 01:12, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes. "the gnomes just need to discuss the change on the talk page first, and gain consensus for it" isn't really true. It's what CITE advises to avoid dispute, but we're free to IAR this, and we do it all the time, with nearly zero dispute. For one thing – whether the template-haters like it or not – there is a generalized consensus site-wide (observable in actual practice rather than rule twiddling omphaloskepsis) that templated citations are preferable because they provide consistent formatting, error checking, and useful metadata. Disputes arise when some asshat comes to a well-developed article with highly consistent CS1 citations and changes them to CS2, or kills the {{WP:LDR, or other things in that vein. That kind of change likely does need consensus, and not seeking it, repeatedly and in the face of objections, is likely to get you ANIed. No one is going to get ANIed for converting substandard citations into good ones. Someone who tried to ANI you for it is fairly likely to get boomeranged on a POINT and OWN basis, if your improved cites are in fact improvements. Fortunately, the number of cite-format obsessives has dwindled, as has the number of careless or intentionally disruptive cite changers, so this'll probably never actually play out in kangaroo court at the drama boards.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢
 😼  06:06, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Oppose. I like citation templates but I can see this leading to mass slow-motion edit wars between proponents of different citation systems. We're better off keeping the current wording. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose per Nigel and Eppstein.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:03, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Support removing the first half of it. Templated citations provide benefits, untemplated ones do not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:08, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Also support removing the first half per SMcCandlish. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:00, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose as drafted as per McCandlish. Consistently converting to templated citations is beneficial in so many ways. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:08, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose per Blueboar (and I routinely do use templates - but I also recognize that some fights just aren't worth it). Ealdgyth - Talk 12:17, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment I find it interesting that no one has commented on the insertion of {{ISBN}} and {{webarchive}} to pages that do not use citation templates. Can such an addition be reverted under this bullet point? If not why not? -- PBS (talk) 16:03, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I believe that in the phrase from the bullet, "citation templates to an article that already uses a consistent system without template", the phrase "citation templates" was meant to apply to the CS1 and CS2 citation templates, the similar templates that preceded them and are now gone or out of favor, and any future templates that serve the same purpose. It does not apply to general use templates that are used within a non-templated citation. For example, if the title of an article contained scientific notation, I could render it with {{e}} rather than treating it as a "citation template" in the sense of the bullet. Jc3s5h (talk
) 16:39, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Those would be b
} 16:48, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
What about templates that are not based on CS1 or CS2 like {{harvnb}} is a citation template while {{webarchive}} and {{ISBN}} are not, because {{webarchive}} and {{ISBN}} and others are usually used part of a citation, and the point about not using citation templates is not meant to be "I don't like them" but such arguments as "using templates in inline citations makes it hard to read the paragraph" presumably the use of any template in a citation fits that description. -- PBS (talk
) 17:33, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I disagree. The extra space occupied by citation templates vs. untemplated citations is only one of many reasons some editors prefer untemplated citations. If typing templates that are primarily used in citations, without actually being CS1 templates or something that serves the same purpose, occupies excessive space in the wikitext, or is more trouble than it's worth, that can be addressed on a case-by-case basis. If such a template isn't worthwhile, both templated and untemplated citations alike would benefit from the deprecation of the template in question. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:57, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Aye. We have a long history of merging away citation-related templates that aren't much use, and turning their intended utility into a parameter in CS1/CS2 (which are now the same codebase themselves).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:37, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Jc3s5h, I think that there is no good reason for not mixing templated and non-templated citations in the same article providing they use the same style. What legitimate reasons have you come across for editors insisting that templates are not used -- Other than space and the consistent use of a different style? -- PBS (talk) 08:23, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
One obvious good reason is that, while those who have learned to write templates in an external style have learned to put the elements in the correct order with the correct typographic treatment, there is probably no one on the planet who has memorized how to write a citation that looks like a CS1 template without the aid of the template markup. We should not expect editors to develop this new skill for no good reason, and there is no reason to expect anyone would want to develop that skill.
Another good reason, which I believe has been mentioned a few times in the archive (but the archives are too vast to find the mentions) is that wikitext markup language is essentially a programming language, and programmers are passionate about consistent formatting and consistent idioms in source code. A language closely related to wikitext is TEX; for the first search result I found about the desire to properly format the source code in this related language see this StackExchange post. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:47, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Last, First. "Title". Website. Publisher: Location. Accessed January 1, 1980. --Izno (talk) 13:15, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Damn, "Retrieved". Still, the point you should make isn't "people should not learn the skill of emulating CS1/2" but instead "CS1/2 change and it's just easier to deal with that change by using the template instead of hand-writing those citations". --Izno (talk) 13:18, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
@b
} 16:38, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Comment. There is a change in the view toward citation-related software by The Chicago Manual of Style since this bullet was put in place. In the 14th and 16th edition I can't find any mention of citation management software. In the 17th edtition (2017) on pages 744–5 there is a subsection on citation management tools. The tone of the subsection seems to presume scholars now use citation management tools; it specifically mentions Zotero, which is capable of creating Wikipedia citation templates. But as Chicago says, the results of such tools need to be manually inspected to check that the tool worked properly. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:02, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Oppose per Blueboar and Ealdgyth. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:56, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose with no prejudice against someone trying to change the citation style though the dispute resolution/consensus building process. I recently encountered a very uncooperative editor who decided to change the citations on a well-developed article from CS1 to Harvnb (among other things). It was very disruptive. Without a clear guideline, addressing such disruption would be very difficult.- MrX 🖋 18:50, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Consensus? As of 18:50 I see one "Support" (from PBS), and eleven "Oppose". (Also two "support removing the first half" [SMcCandlish and Peter], but that is not the question presented.) Though not unanimous, consensus is clearly against the proposal. Are we done with this? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:14, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Meh... Let the process play out... while I don’t expect a late flurry of supporters to suddenly show up, I suppose it could happen... and people wikilawyer about less. Blueboar (talk) 21:32, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
half support  We should encourage conversion to cite templates and not put hurdles in the way. But we should discourage their conversion to non templated references. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:39, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree that we should encourage conversion to templates (but not necessarily {cite}), and even discourage removal of templates. But NOT by granting license to freely trample over the sensibilities of others. Even if some cretin with an inadequate education fails to appreciate the rightness of "{cite xxx} for all", the requirement to seek consensus first is no "hurdle" to such conversions; it's barely a speed bump. Encouraging the simple courtesy of a preliminary explanation shows respect and basic civility, while granting a right to "shoot first, explanations optional" only erodes it. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:01, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
To the contrary, it's a massive time-drain and a recipe for endless drama.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:55, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose removal. That sentence has prevented a lot of disputes. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:33, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose I too oppose removing the sentence. If I find an article with an idiosyncratic citation style, I am perfectly capable of posting on the talk page any concerns I have that the citation style in that particular case is hampering development of the article. We can then move towards consensus, or not. The more usual situation I encounter is the mixed citation article, or even worse, the use of short form citation without providing the base bibliographic data. In those cases, I feel free to beef-up the article and provide full and uniform citation, usually with the use of the citation templates. --Bejnar (talk) 01:28, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose as drafted: There are times when I take a crusty old page and do a complete rewrite. I do a lot of work in the areas of computers and engineering, and a lot of those pages were among the first added to Wikipedia, followed by years of neglect. In such cases I certainly don't need some misguided policy telling me that I can't completely redo the citation style. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:50, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Yep. This is what those who want to misinterpret CITEVAR as something akin to an inviolable law just refuse to accept. And we'll continue to edit around them while they talk to themselves in their echo-chamber bubble here. At some point the community will catch on that part of the guideline wording here is trying to force rather than reflect actual community best practice. I'm patient.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:09, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
All you have to do, per CITEVAR is consult the talk page & wait a reasonable interval. But that's JUST TOO HARD for some people, it seems! Johnbod (talk) 19:28, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
I am confused WP:CITEVAR tells you that you can not "completely redo the citation style", so why do you oppose the removal of this bullet point? -- PBS (talk
) 18:36, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
You are misinterpreting CITEVAR. It does not mean that you cannot do a complete rewrite of a page without retaining the citation style (or anything else) from the old page. As the guideline says: "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change." Any time you interpret a guideline in such a way that it prevents completely rewriting a page, you are interpreting it incorrectly. Some pages are so bad that it is best to just nuke the page and start over. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:05, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
Strong Oppose although I think the guideline should distinguish more between external templates like isbn and bibleref, and actual templated citation styles like sfn etc. Johnbod (talk) 19:28, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Use of small caps in legal references?

Is there a style recommendation regarding use of small caps in legal references? I objected to their use in 
Draft:M21-1 Adjudication Procedures Manual and was told by User:Markworthen that such use is standard in legal citations. I can't find anything in the MOS that talks one way or the other about it. -- RoySmith (talk)
 14:01, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

As pointed out at WP:CITEVAR, any consistent citation style may be used, including Bluebook. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal#Citations and referencing
 describes styles that might be used for articles that cite many legal cases.

As far as I know there are no templates to assist with implementing Bluebook citations. This could easily result in citations that are hard to create, and even harder for someone not familiar with that style to edit. I'm not familiar with the Bluebook, but if it calls for electronic links between inline citations and the full bibliography entry when articles are presented electronically, it would be hard to do this in Wikipedia without templates to support Bluebook.

Another issue is that while articles in law journals may cite hardly anything but cases, Wikipedia articles normally cite many kinds of works; Bluebook may be ill-adapted to citing works other than US legal cases. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:12, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

@sc1}} to help with the styling. You might as well read the full discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 15 #Exceptions to Small Caps before you rehash the same debate. If you still have the will to live after working your way through the RfC in that section, you might consider dropping the matter. Life's too short. --RexxS (talk
) 16:46, 23 August 2018 (UTC)


{{bluebook journal}} and {{bluebook website}}; neither much used.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:55, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
RexxS wrote, "If you still have the will to live after working your way through the RfC in that section ...." ROFLMAO! Best laugh I've had today. ;=)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 01:18, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
It seems to me that "Bluebook" is usually invoked to justify use of small caps for authors' names. But as I recall (from wayback), that is just one of the smallest elements of Bluebook style; there is much more emphasis on (e.g.) the order in which citations (to "authorities") are presented. In several Wikipedia articles I examined a while back that claim "Bluebook style" it appeared that little more than small caps (and certain standardized abbreviations) were actually applied. To invoke "Bluebook" for using all-caps, but not troubling with the rest of that "style", seems disingenuous.
Nonetheless, I think there is something to be said for using all-caps for authors' surnames, especially where there is a mixture of names in first-last and last-first ordering. But that should be justified in its own right, without an over-reaching claim of "Bluebook". And is not restricted to legal sources. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:29, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
I like the idea of using small caps (underlining is also common in some contents) for the family name. Eg, the Chinese women Mrs Foo would write her name as Foo Ling Yoo for a Chinese audience (in China, the family name comes first) but might write it as Ling Yoo Foo for a western audience (where the family name is typically last). Even more fun when someone 'helpfully' does a second rearrangement if they didn't realise it had already been done to get the non-existent Yoo Foo Ling. I would love it if the {{cite}} templates would do this automatically for the |last= field.  Stepho  talk
  23:56, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

It is in order to minimize such confusion that I hold that (in citations) authors and co-author's "last" (family) name should always be inverted ("last-first" order), with no option to do otherwise. To the same purpose I would support small-caps (or underlining) for surnames. But other than that I have yet to see any case made for why legal references need small-caps. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:36, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
In the general case, a name is just a string. Attempts to assign parts of the name labels such as surname or first name will eventually fail. See the classic essay on this topic.
You have missed the point. We are not trying to assign labels to parts of names. We are talking about how to present names where, for lexicographical purposes, one part is already identified as a "last" or "family" name. Whether such identifications are always perfect, or even correct, is outside the scope of how that (possibly flawed) information is presented. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk
) 23:19, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
Not all names include an identifiable surname. And in many names, if you're going to pick out one piece as the surname, it is neither the start nor the end of the name, and reordering the name to move only that piece to the start or end would be nonsensical. Any proposal for how to handle names needs to be able to deal with that. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:39, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
Not quite. Like JJ said, if a template has already identified a name as split into |first= and |last= then the {{cite}} template family can apply some type of formatting for the last name (eg small caps or underling). If the name has not been split or is hard to split (eg Cedric the Entertainer) then we just use the |author= field, which applies no special formatting. If the cite templates are not being used or some other reference format is being used then we can leave the formatting plain as well. Both sides are happy.  Stepho  talk
  08:59, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
Yes, though I generally discourage use of |author= as many editors use it as an easy way to avoid troubling about the "last" name.

David: You are right in that '[n]ot all names include an identifiable surname". (It goes even further: some people don't even have surnames.) But (as I thought I had just made clear) what we are talking about here is where one part is already identified as a surname. Of course, editors often have a source where they don't know which part is the surname (at which point they might wish that their source had underlined, bolded, or capped the surname), and sometimes they just dump the mess into |author=, which just pass the problem on to the readers. But that problem is not what we are talking about.
Nor are we talking about "reordering the name to move only that piece to the start or end". That's already done. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:28, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Are Sᴍᴀʟʟ Cᴀᴘs and Bluebook legal citation on their last legs?
Is this an academic discussion, or is it moving toward some official proposal to prohibit Sᴍᴀʟʟ Cᴀᴘs, which would mean eliminating Bluebook legal citation as an option on Wikipedia. If this is moving toward an official proposal, I suggest asking for WP:LAW members for their thoughts on the proposal.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk)
 14:53, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I see this discussion as just a point of inquiry. I raised the aspect of small-caps as it seems to me that is one of reasons that some editors favor Bluebook style, and that there may be good reasons having small-caps quite independently of Bluebook usage. If anyone at WP:LAW can enlighten us on benefits of small-caps that transcend Bluebook their comments certainly should be encouraged. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:44, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
I doubt that the community at large would develop the consensus needed to change WP:CITEVAR to prohibit small caps. Either way though, getting rid of small caps wouldn't enitrely kill the Bluebook as an option on Wikipedia, if that's the goal. Only the law journal style of the Bluebook's white pages require small caps; the blue pages don't, and WP:CITEVAR would still allow users to choose that Bluebook style. –Prototime (talk · contribs
) 23:58, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't see any goal (or intent) to "kill the Bluebook as an option". I don't know how much Bluebook style would be inconvenienced if small-caps were prohibited; I am pretty sure some folks would want small-caps even if Bluebook was rejected. I don't believe either support or rejection of either one necessarily requires or precludes the other. Though I think there could be stronger case for small-caps other than "Bluebook". ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:27, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
Bluebook style wouldn't be too inconvenienced if small caps were removed. "Bluebook style" is actually two different styles--the Bluebook describes one style for legal citations in law journal articles (which uses small caps), and another style for other documents (which does not use small caps). There are differences between the two styles besides the use or non-use of small caps, but that's the biggest one. So editors could simply default to using the Bluebook style that already doesn't use small caps--that, or they could use the law journal style in every respect except by not using small caps. Either way, I think it's a moot issue, because I doubt there would ever be a Wikipedia-wide consensus to ban small caps from citations. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 06:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
That sounds like good to know stuff. Thanks. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
Foreign language sources

A search for "language" in this article yields no hits. --Jerome Potts (talk) 07:55, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Note that sources do not have to be in English - the best available sources should be used for an article, whatever the language.Nigel Ish (talk) 08:35, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
@Jerome Charles Potts: That's because this is a guideline. The policy on use of foreign language sources is at Wikipedia:Verifiability #Non-English sources. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to have a sentence in this guideline referring readers to the policy. HTH --RexxS (talk) 22:53, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes it does help, thank you for the pointer. —Jerome Potts (talk) 21:04, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Changing styles

Per 
WP:CITEVAR, "If you are the first contributor to add citations to an article, you may choose whichever style you think best for the article." Is this retroactive as well? i.e. If User:X made an article and had a particular style and then chooses a different style later, is it acceptable to change the reference style after the fact? Cf. with just below this anchor in which reads in "To be avoided": "changing where the references are defined, e.g. moving reference definitions in the reflist to the prose, or moving reference definitions from the prose into the reflist." Could User:X move them from the prose to {{reflist}} later or should he stick to whatever style he himself used initially? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M
☯ 23:32, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

This would seem to go against the guideline's own note to get consensus for changes to established styles. Other users have worked on said articles in the meantime too, and may disagree with a unilateral change. I don't think there's a clause or exception for changing one's mind. Ss112 23:37, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
Once other users have started editing then the first editor's choice has finished and the first editor is then treated the same as any other editor. It's the first act which is free, not procession by a certain editor.
Possible leeway if all this is happening close to the original creating time of the article and not much else happened between the choices (ie things are still in a state of flux and the first choice hasn't cemented in yet).  Stepho  talk  23:43, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
Maybe should add something to that paragraph along the lines of, If you were the first contributor, you may not. Or maybe just change it to something like, If you are contributing the first citatoins to an article? —67.14.236.193 (talk) 22:15, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
How do you cite social media as a source?

Cross posted from WP:Help desk.
Ignoring 
WP:UGC, how would you cite a social media post? We have {{cite tweet}} for Twitter, but not a more general social-media-post template, and e.g. Facebook posts don’t have titles (the page title is always “Facebook”). {{cite web|title=Facebook|website=Facebook|author=…}} seems less than ideal. —67.14.236.193 (talk
) 06:08, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Some outside style guides, such as Chicago Manual of Style, call for using a descriptive phrase in place of a title for works that lack a title (and I'd agree that Facebook is not an appropriate title). When a description is used in place of a title, the phrase receives no special typographic treatment: no double quotes around it, and no italics.
Templates such as Citation Style 1 do not provide any method to avoid double quotes or italics for a phrase that serves in place of a title. But you are not required to use templates. If the article uses citation templates, you could propose on the talk page that the article change to some other citation style, such as Chicago Manual of Style. Or, you could create a citation for that one source that looks like the output of a citation template, but was created "by hand", so that the descriptive phrase has no special typographic treatment. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:40, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
@Jc3s5h: Forgot to respond here (sorry!), but I manually added a citation for Lastname, Firstname (date). Facebook post. —67.14.236.193 (talk) 22:59, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
[sic] in citations?

A situation came up at Ali MacGraw, regarding MacGraw's name being incorrectly spelt as "McGraw" in this reference title. This is the sequence of edits in question: [5] -> [6] -> [7] -> [8].
It was always my understanding that we retain spelling differences (including errors) in quotes and titles. However, "[sic]" is usually added after a spelling error in a quote to indicate the error is in the original document, but I have never come across a "[sic]" in a citation title before. "Correcting" a spelling error seems like a natural action to take so I was wondering if there is a convention for including or excluding "[sic]" in citations? Betty Logan (talk) 13:16, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree that we should not "fix" errors in quotes or titles. And generally I would not add the "sic", even though there are some who presume to "fix" what they "know" is wrong. But authors' names are key words, and raise a problem: if an article gets an author's name wrong, should we stick with the error (to identify the article), or "fix" to correctly identify the author?

By a curious coincidence, I was wondering just this morning about a more general case of using brackets in citations. This arises from one of the distinctions of citation style: whether authors' "personal" names (what we stuff into |first=) are spelled out in full, or reduced to initials. It is generally desired to be consistent one way or the other. However, our sources vary in this regard. To be consistent in an article we have to either (a) reduce some names to initials (resulting in a loss of information, and in some cases creating ambiguity), or (b) expand initials to full names. The problem with the latter approach is that we are adding information not in the original. The standard way for handling this is to enclose the augmenting material in brackets. E.g.: "J[ellybean] Smith". The problem with that is that it likely messes up COinS (and other archival methods). Okay, simple solution there: have COinS filter out brackets.

But then we have the prospect of something like "Johhn[sic] Smith" turning into "Johhnsic Smith". ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:48, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

There's not much point in fixing typos or mistakes in titles, but authors' names are pieces of information that should be presented accurately, especially as they may be collected and aggregated by external users via the microformats. In those cases, I can see no valid reason not to correctly identify the author. The article itself will have sufficient other attributes to identify it anyway, if needed.
As for initials, I would always recommend expanding them if we're sure we know the full name, even from another source. Conversely, the suggestion of reducing full names to initials appals me. It really would be foolish to sacrifice first names on the altar of "consistency" – that's genuine "small-minded hobgoblin" territory.
Because the processing of metadata is done by individual third parties, each one would have to implement a "brackets filter" individually. That's a huge waste of resources when we could simply not pollute the metadata with brackets in the first place. --RexxS (talk) 18:07, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I pretty much agree with you, but there is one nagging reservation. As any expansion or augmentation carries a chance of error, the brackets distinguish what the original author is responsible for, and what a subsequent editor has done. In quoted text we absolutely make that distinction, but perhaps with metadata we need to establish a different convention. Such as expansion of author's names does not require editorial attribution. If that is expanded to include correction (which can get touchy) then we don't need "[sic]" in author names.
As to errors in titles (the original question here), I don't know. I lean somewhat towards leaving out "[sic]". But I also have a lot of sources that are abstracts, and I feel these should have "[abstract]" appended to the title. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:08, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Why in the title? If your source gives the abstract but not the full publication, isn't that more for |format=? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:17, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Perhaps you are thinking of the "abstract" section typically found at the head of scientific articles, papers, etc.? I was refering to certain kinds of documents that summarize work being done (sometimes an abstract of an article, but not necessarily). The |format= parameter refers to the file format of a document, not the type of document. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:17, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
For which one might reasonably use |type=. --Izno (talk) 00:59, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
Perhaps. But 1) I find that parameter's usage to be ambiguously defined, and 2) it uses parentheses, whereas I believe brackets ("[" and "]") should always editorial emendations. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:01, 21 September 2018 (UTC)



Citation Machine substitute?

Moved from the top. Note: please click on the "New section" tab to start a new section, and ALWAYS sign your posts with the four tildes. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:14, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Right now, there's citationmachine.net linked in the resources section. Citationmachine is owned by Chegg Inc., a company that bought up most online citation generators, e.g. easybib.com, citethisforme.com, and as mentioned before-hand: citationmachine.net. Chegg now plastered all their sites with AdSense banners, and other types of monetization; it become really difficult to use their sites. See user report here: https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/86dl74/trying_to_cite_an_article_using_easybib_had_to/
I recommend replacing that link with citationgenerator.com - it's ad-free and much easier to use.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:168:A063:0:CC7C:ACF2:BB32:72A2 (talk) 

Agreed, and it apparently doesn't require registration. 21:39, 1 October 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.109.139.254 (talk) 
Further reading

Source integrity: https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/front-matter/web-strategies-for-student-fact-checkers/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.4.26.61 (talk) 08:54, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

"Further" reading? On what? Do you have a question or comment? Also: please sign your talk page comments with "~~~~". — Preceding unsigned comment added by J. Johnson (talk • contribs) 
Acknowledging outside assistance?

I recently found a historical image on-line, which turned out to have an error in the caption (mis-identified which university the subject of my article got a degree from). The archivists at the university and at the historical society hosting the image were both very helpful in confirming that this was indeed an error, and correcting the on-line information. I would like to thank both of them for their assistance, but it's not clear how best to do that in encyclopedic style. My first thought was as a field in the cite template, but there's no such field. Suggestions? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:44, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

This is not something the citation is for. --Izno (talk) 15:06, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
I think it is the responsibility of the source to acknowledge the people who improved the source. It isn't Wikipedia's responsibility. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:54, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
Citing the US Census

There is a common problem with citing population figures from the US Census. For example, the infobox at Dallas cites the 2017 population estimate from this:Bureau, US Census. "American FactFinder". Census.gov. Retrieved May 25, 2018. Clicking through the link, the population figure is not on that page, nor is there an obvious link taking the user to a population for Dallas. Is this a proper citation? Thanks, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 15:04, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

It would be better to give a link to the page with the exact figure. But not all web sites work this way. We can expect readers to take fairly obvious steps once they arrive at the web site in the citation to find the specific piece of information, just as we can expect them to look up a word in a dictionary. In the case of the Dallas example I was able to find the 2017 population in 2 steps and it took about a minute. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:53, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Just to be clear as well; citations are to allow people to find the information, it doesn't mean they have to find it in 1 second. For example, there is information which can be found in online databases like American FactFinder. The way that database works, you cannot link to the result page, instead you input information into a query, and it returns the information. The fact that you cannot directly link to a URL that contains the information is irrelevant: it can be found publicly, and it is reliable. That's all we need here. We don't demand, for example, that print sources are available online, merely published. If I can find a book in a library, then I can cite it. I don't need it to be a one-click link to be a reliable source. --Jayron32 16:00, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
Introduction - Questions - Comments and Suggestions?

Hello Everyone
I have been reviewing this site for a few weeks now. I am looking forward to contributing, i can certainly add some value to the existing knowledge platform.
The instructions, processes and detailed requuirements, have stopped me from doing so. I understand its important to have reliable information that is credible and adds reliable knowledge.
To date, some of the greatest global changes of the century circulated with compassion,conscious and common sense. ?
The future educational system, thankfully is starting to adapt already. Im hoping the digital circular sharing economy,continues to connect
the communities to the cities.
The connection alone, creates opportunities and insight like never before.
The world is a complex place, but does it have to be?
Thanks
Rachel--Maritime2030 (talk) 12:25, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

@Maritime2030: Welcome! You should check out the WP:Teahouse in case you have questions. --Izno (talk) 14:05, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Help wanted at Ascension of Jesus

At the moment this has a references section with a citations subjection (which uses shortened titles) and a Bibliography subjection. The problem is that the Bibliography is part the long titles for the citation and in part further reading. I'm not sure the best way to fix this, or if it needs fixing. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 09:48, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

@WP:NOTES--I think works cited is the best intent.) It probably doesn't need strongly fixing but OTOH it would be helpful from a reader's perspective to distinguish between uncited and cited works. --Izno (talk
) 14:04, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Personally I'd lump them all together in a "Bibliography" section, but then the Wikilawyers would be after me. I've moved them around to keep "Those Who Shout Loudest" quiet. In passing, it's lovely to work on an article where the referencing and ciring is already logically set out and nicely formatted. I don't know who took the effort to do so, but thanks, whoever you were. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:29, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
@Izno and Martin of Sheffield: Izno, thanks, and I've started and Martin of Sheffield has done it. I do think that readers should know what's been used in the article and what is further reading. And sometimes people remove books from bibliographies or further reading. That's no big deal unless they've been used as a source, and I don't think many people would remove a book clearly used as a source. Doug Weller talk 16:52, 31 October 2018 (UTC)


Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_46&oldid=1079354163"

date1	date2
28 June 2019	2019-06-28
23 February 2028	2028-02-13
8 October 1944	1944-10-08
24 July 1744	1744-07-24