Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 51

Archive 45Archive 49Archive 50Archive 51Archive 52Archive 53Archive 55

Transcripts of AV media

While repairing dead links in citations I just ran across a case of a citation to a radio documentary that happened to have a transcript available. Am I having a dumb moment or is there really no way to add a transcript link to a {{cite AV media}}? I would have expected there to be a |transcript=, ala. |lay-summary=, so such a link could be provided as a convenience for the reader. Thoughts? Comments? --Xover (talk) 17:31, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

You didn't provide an illustration. |transcript= and |transcript-url= are both available to {{cite episode}} which may be a more appropriate template.
Trappist the monk (talk) 00:55, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
My apologies. I didn't consider the issue to require an illustrative example, but I should have known better.
The particular cite that brought this up was:
  • Lindfors, Bernth (2007). Ira Aldridge in Europe: How Aldridge controlled his identity as the 'African Roscius' (Audio documentary). Shakespeare in American Life. Folger Shakespeare Library. Archived transcript. Archived from the original (MP3) on 18 December 2015. Retrieved 15 October 2010. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
(temporarily abusing |id= to shoehorn this information in there; and the archive links are provided by the Folger itself after the exhibition ended)
The audio media in question were, as best I can tell, produced by the Folger for this particular website (and the website is a companion to a then-current exhibition): so it does not appear to be a podcast, or episodes of a show or programme airing on radio or TV. At least to my mind, {{cite AV media}} was the most appropriate citation template to use.
In any case, any AV media (including podcasts, episodes of TV or radio shows, standalone videos on Youtube or Vimeo, or elsewhere, recorded lectures, etc.) would seem to be able to beneficially have a transcript link provided. For example, the Folger produces several podcast and stand-alone audio media about various topics in their area of focus, hosted by experts associated with the institution, that are both highly relevant and reliable (in the RS sense) sources; and they usually provide transcripts of this material. I have no particular opinion on formatting of such a link, but something akin to how it appears above would seem to be good enough for the purpose. --Xover (talk) 06:24, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
I have hacked Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox to support |transcript=, |transcript-url=, and |transcript-format=:
Cite AV media comparison
Wikitext {{cite AV media|access-date=15 October 2010|archive-date=18 December 2015|archive-url=http://wayback.archive-it.org/2873/20151218215532/http://www.shakespeareinamericanlife.org/audio/download.cfm?filename=Lindfors2.mp3|dead-url=yes|first=Bernth|format=[[MP3]]|last=Lindfors|medium=Audio documentary|publisher=[[Folger Shakespeare Library]]|series=Shakespeare in American Life|title=Ira Aldridge in Europe: How Aldridge controlled his identity as the 'African Roscius'|transcript-url=http://wayback.archive-it.org/2873/20151218215532/http://www.shakespeareinamericanlife.org/transcripts/lindfors2.cfm|transcript=Archived transcript|url=http://www.shakespeareinamericanlife.org/audio/download.cfm?filename=Lindfors2.mp3|year=2007}}
Live Lindfors, Bernth (2007). Ira Aldridge in Europe: How Aldridge controlled his identity as the 'African Roscius' (Audio documentary). Shakespeare in American Life. Folger Shakespeare Library. Archived from the original (MP3) on 18 December 2015. Archived transcript. Retrieved 15 October 2010. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
Sandbox Lindfors, Bernth (2007). Ira Aldridge in Europe: How Aldridge controlled his identity as the 'African Roscius' (Audio documentary). Shakespeare in American Life. Folger Shakespeare Library. Archived from the original (MP3) on 18 December 2015. Archived transcript. Retrieved 15 October 2010. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
I had intended to position the transcript element in the rendering in the same location as it is in {{cite episode}} (reuse the existing code) but, that position seems wrong to me when the template has |archive-url=:
Cite episode comparison
Wikitext {{cite episode|archive-date=2019-02-05|archive-url=//example.org|date=8 October 2007|first=James (host)|last=Lipton|network=Bravo|number=1307|season=13|series=Inside the Actors Studio|title=Billy Crystal, 2nd Visit|transcript-url=//example.com|transcript=Archived transcript|url=http://www.bravotv.com/Inside_the_Actors_Studio/guest/Billy_Crystal_-_2nd_Visit}}
Live Lipton, James (host) (8 October 2007). "Billy Crystal, 2nd Visit". Inside the Actors Studio. Season 13. Episode 1307. Bravo. Archived from the original on 2019-02-05. Archived transcript.
Sandbox Lipton, James (host) (8 October 2007). "Billy Crystal, 2nd Visit". Inside the Actors Studio. Season 13. Episode 1307. Bravo. Archived from the original on 2019-02-05. Archived transcript.
It seems incorrect to me to have the transcript url appear before the archive url which sort of suggests that the 'Archived from the original' annotation applies to the transcript (it does not). Are there any objections to moving the transcript element in {{cite episode}}?
Trappist the monk (talk) 12:57, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Internet Archive page preview

Internet Archive will soon be offering something similar to the Google Books page preview - the ability to view a select number of pages within a copyright book. IA is actively scanning millions of copyright books. Currently Google Books has a near monopoly on this. This will be a huge win for Wikipedia for a host of reasons, including that Google Books has been deteriorating as a service.

I'm asking this forum how we might best incorporate a large addition of Internet Archive linkages to pages within a book. Currently CS1|2 does not offer a way to link to a book, magazine or journal page number. It's currently done via the |title= / |url= mechanism, but this doesn't always work such as when the |title= contains an internal wikilink to an article about the book. There exists |chapter= / |chapter-url= but this again is not specific to linking page numbers. Do we want a |page= / |page-url= pairing?

For free-form cites without CS|2, if they contain an {{ISBN}} template there might be a {{Pagelink}} template that follows next to it. Beyond that I'm not too learned about all the citation styles (Harvard etc) and how they might come into this. Any thoughts or ideas appreciated. -- GreenC 20:52, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

How is this in anyway different from citing individual pages at books.google.com?
A |page-url= parameter is possible but we run into trouble with |pages-url=. It is perfectly correct to write |pages=5, 75–79, 102 et seq.. Coding for a |pages-url= parameter for such correct parameter values is difficult. This is why the module attempts to strip urls from |page= and |pages= before adding in-source locations to the citation's metadata. If editors wish to link to in-source location in |page=, |pages=, or |at= they can do so using standard wiki external link markup:
{{cite book |title=Title |pages=[http://www.example.com 5], [http://www.example.com 75–79], [http://www.example.com 102 et seq.]}}
Title. pp. 5, 75–79, 102 et seq.
Trappist the monk (talk) 01:09, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
Wasn't aware x-linking was possible in |pages=. That is an easy solution. -- GreenC 03:50, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
Before any one gets too carried away with this, I suggest a read of Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#New gadget that adds "Read Now" buttons to book references (the last couple of comments) and WP:COPYVIOEL to make sure you aren't opening a large can of worms here and linking to copyright violations. Nthep (talk) 14:14, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
Response there. -- GreenC 16:00, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Errors from imported CS1 templates into third party wikis which don't have wikibase

Hi, someone reported an error here with CS1 templates with a third party installation: https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Topic:Usfflano6mfh0tuy&topic_showPostId=usqg5mcck7rhnk7p#flow-post-usqg5mcck7rhnk7p

According to the thread here they solved it by commenting out a several lines of the CS1 module: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:Wikibase_Client/Lua#Error_with_mw.wikibase

Here's a live example of the error here: https://hub.wikitribune.com/Alpha-gal_allergy#References

Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks! Mvolz (talk) 13:46, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

It looks like the relevant code is in Module:Citation/CS1/Identifiers:
if string.match (mw.site.server, 'wikidata') then
		this_wiki_code = mw.getCurrentFrame():preprocess('{{int:lang}}');		-- on wikidata so use interface language setting instead
	end
	
	if is_set (options.q) then
		wd_article = mw.wikibase.getEntity (options.q):getSitelink (this_wiki_code .. 'wiki');	-- fetch article title from wd
		if wd_article then
			wd_article = table.concat ({':', this_wiki_code, ':', wd_article});	-- make interwiki link if taken from wd; leading colon required
		end
	end
Perhaps wikitribune.com does not have mw.wikibase installed? When I go to Special:Version here on en.WP, I see that something called "Wikibase" is installed. At https://hub.wikitribune.com/Special:Version, Wikibase is not listed. It probably needs to be added. Just a guess. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:08, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
This↑ which I presume gives that local installation access to Wikdata. In the above code, options.q is defined for named identifiers in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration (in the id_handlers table) and is the wikidata q number for an article about the identifier. It does this by creating an inter-wikilink to the site link for the local language fetched via the q number from wikidata.
The simple fix for the lua script error might be:
if is_set (options.q) and mw.wikibase then
the module will then link the identifier to a local copy of the article about the identifier (specified in options.link in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration id_handlers table).
If the simple fix works on the third-party wiki, report back so that we can fix it here (also report back if it doesn't work). And have the responsible person(s) talk directly to us here rather than through intermediaries as they are now doing.
Trappist the monk (talk) 15:38, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
@Trappist the monk: I've made the change myself here: https://hub.wikitribune.com/index.php?title=Module%3ACitation%2FCS1%2FIdentifiers&type=revision&diff=4181&oldid=225 and it works: https://hub.wikitribune.com/Alpha-gal_allergy#References. Thank you! Mvolz (talk) 10:47, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
en.wiki sandbox updated with this change.
Trappist the monk (talk) 12:33, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Chapter field

The chapter field appears to be deprecated, it's use now being filled by the "title" field. Whenever I add something to the chapter field, it says "text ignored". Yet why is it still listed here, and still an option when adding the template via WP:ProveIt? --Kailash29792 (talk) 10:20, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@Kailash29792: Do you have an example citation demonstrating the problem? In which template were you trying to use |chapter=? --Izno (talk) 11:45, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
I don't think the chapter field is deprecated, at least not for {{cite book}} and the other three templates I thought might use |chapter=.
  • {{cite book |author=Author |title=Title |chapter=Chapter}}Author. "Chapter". Title. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  • {{cite report |author=Author |title=Title |chapter=Chapter}}Author. "Chapter". Title (Report). {{cite report}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  • {{cite techreport |author=Author |title=Title |chapter=Chapter}}Author. "Chapter". Title (Technical report). {{cite tech report}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  • {{cite thesis |author=Author |title=Title |chapter=Chapter}}Author. "Chapter". Title (Thesis). {{cite thesis}}: |author= has generic name (help)
See Template:Cite book #Deprecated: "None of the cs1|2 parameters is deprecated", etc.
Is there another template that uses |chapter=? --RexxS (talk) 16:18, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Help:CS1 errors#|chapter= ignored.
Trappist the monk (talk) 16:40, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
I used {{cite magazine}} to render the ref like this: {{Cite magazine |last=Sunil |first=K. P. |date=29 November 1987 |chapter=The Anti-Hero |magazine=[[The Illustrated Weekly of India]] |volume=108 |issue=39–50 |pages=40–41}} but the result was Sunil, K. P. (29 November 1987). The Illustrated Weekly of India. Vol. 108 no. 39–50. pp. 40–41. Missing or empty |title= (help); |chapter= ignored (help). So I used {{Cite magazine |last=Sunil |first=K. P. |date=29 November 1987 |title=The Anti-Hero |magazine=[[The Illustrated Weekly of India]] |volume=108 |issue=39–50 |pages=40–41}} and got the desired result, Sunil, K. P. (29 November 1987). "The Anti-Hero". The Illustrated Weekly of India. Vol. 108 no. 39–50. pp. 40–41. Magazines have chapters, don't they? Kailash29792 (talk) 06:07, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
{{Cite magazine}} does not support |chapter=. Using |title=, per the template's documentation, was the right choice. Well done. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:32, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Volume numbers are unbolded

Someone remind me (I've been busy else where): when and why did we stopped bolding volume numbers for journals when they are not numeric? There are cases when a journal has a supplementary volume with an appended letter. And now we get volume numbers like 242, 243, 243a 243-A, 244, which is inconsistent.

And there are cases where a bolded "volume" number seems appropriate, such as "Map GM-50", or "Special Paper 239". How are we supposed to do that? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:25, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Apparently since ancient times. This March 2014 discussion mentions years ago and there is a link to this March 2013 discussion and to this, vaguely related February 2014 discussion. I haven't bothered to search farther back in time but leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Your unbolded 243a example is rendered in bold-faced font by the current module:
{{cite journal |title=Title |journal=Journal |volume=243a |issue=1}}
"Title". Journal. 243a (1).
Trappist the monk (talk) 00:51, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

My apologies, the actual instance uses a hyphen, as follows:

{{cite journal |title=Title |journal=Journal |volume=243-A }}
"Title". Journal. 243-A.
♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:39, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Bug: Fragment identifiers are stripped

If you create a reference automatically from URL, the fragment identifiers are stripped from the URL, breaking the link that you're trying to paste. — Omegatron (talk) 17:35, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

That sounds like a problem with whatever tool you are using to create the reference. You haven't identified the tool that you are using, but cs1|2 does not automatically create references from URLs or from anything else.
Trappist the monk (talk) 17:47, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Template Autocite web

Suggest create template:Autocite web, only giving a parameter: a URL in the template .

For example : {{Autocite web| https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hMD5bqWMFmMSpBvXr1Xo7eGqcM-Q}}


would generate:


{{Cite web | title = London West End show goes multi-lingual | url=https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hMD5bqWMFmMSpBvXr1Xo7eGqcM-Q | accessdate = 19 January 2019}}

and would show :


"London West End show goes multi-lingual". Retrieved 19 January 2019.

BoldLuis (talk) 20:35, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

You want User:Zhaofeng Li/reFill. It will suggest citation template contents for you based on a URL. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:50, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Also the visual editor and 2017 source editor provide a button you can click that lets you paste a URL, click Insert, and it puts in the citation all filled out for you! —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/their)|😹|✝️|John 15:12|☮️|🍂|T/C 04:53, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 11 February 2019

Delete "deaths" as Down syndrome does not directly lead to deaths, conditions that may present with the disorder are what can be life threatening. 198.190.212.151 (talk) 17:12, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

This is a mis-directed edit request. Such requests should be addressed at the appropriate article's talk page.
Trappist the monk (talk) 17:15, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Linking of journal names etc. from {{Cite journal}} et al.

Should journal names in {{Cite newspaper}} |newspaper=The Boston Globe etc. be wikilinked as |newspaper=[[The Boston Globe]]?

Should this only be done once, and no more? In what scope? The whole references section?

This is in reference to a dispute at Talk:Shot heard round the world#February 2019 Andy Dingley (talk) 12:33, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: This was most recently discussed in archive 48, archive 46, and archive 38. --Izno (talk) 13:13, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
One of which links to a similar discussion at WT:Citation style. So take a read through. --Izno (talk) 13:14, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

PDF page number different from document page number

It is not unusual to find a PDF on the internet where the pagination of the PDF differs from the pagination of the original document. What is the preferred way to cite the page number using Template:Cite web?? Would it be worth adding a new parameter to handle this? Thanks! Grover cleveland (talk) 17:48, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Cite the page of the document-proper. --Izno (talk) 17:59, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
I think Grover was talking about cases where the PDF viewer shows a different page number than that visible in the rendered contents itself. In these cases, I would cite what is rendered in the contents (being more "authorative"), although this might make it more difficult to look up the page in the PDF reader.
Given that this is a rather common issue, if we would add some sort of dedicated support for pages in links (see other threads), it might make sense to think up some optional special parameter, so that the citation template shows the page number(s) given via page(s)=, but uses the contents of a new parameter like url-page(s)= for linking if available. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:13, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
WP:PAGELINKS?
Trappist the monk (talk) 22:45, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
I think Grover was talking about cases where the PDF viewer shows a different page number than that visible in the rendered contents itself. Yup, that's the question I answered: Cite the page of the document-proper.
if we would add some sort of dedicated support for pages in links (see other threads) As I think I've stated before (if no others have also?), we unfortunately cannot control the pagination of PDF readers, which may vary across software systems. While most people probably use one particular PDF reader, there are others. (The same as ebooks with their own pagination concerns.) --Izno (talk) 23:21, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Since |pages= technically refers to the mentioning of multiple pages, and the problem described here concerns listing multiple pages, my solution has been to put both under that parameter as |pages=24 (p.35 pdf) and put the page of the pdf document in the URL (i.e., https://example.pdf#page=35) although I dont know how this impacts COinS metadata, does anyone know?  Spintendo  20:18, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Except that your example, Spintendo, would result in "pp. 24 (p.35 pdf)" for the output, and since "24" is a singular number, I would not advise your solution as given. This is analogous to how we cite page numbers in books. If I literally start at the first physical page of a book and count up to my destination, I could find that the 34th page (35th if the cover were counted) had a printed number 24 on it because of the various front matter. I would not cite that print book page as anything other than 24 though because that is what the page is numbered. The same holds true for a PDF in my mind. Imzadi 1979  03:58, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Referring to a particular page using multiple numbers would make a bad situation worse. The page numbers we cite should always correspond to the number "printed" on the pages, not to a different page number that the PDF software uses. Continued immediately below.—Finell 23:08, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

(outdent) The real problem here is people who do not know the proper way to paginate a complex pdf document. A book, a brief in appellate courts, and some other document types have more than one series of page numbers: e.g., an unnumbered title page, an unnumbered reverse side of the title page, prefatory material numbered in minuscule (lower case) roman numerals, and the main body numbered with indo-arabic numerals. The pdf format allows multiple page number series in a document, but it requires a deliberate human choice to use this feature so the pages in the pdf to correspond to the actual numbers on the pages. If one does it correctly, the page numbers, in whatever format, always correspond to the numbers on the pages themselves. But not everyone bothers to do this, including big corporations and big organizations that should know better.—Finell 23:08, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

I hope we are not mis-using the cs1|2 |page(s)= parameter for in-source specification. Though even in its proper use as a range (such as for an article or chapter in a larger work) we have the same issue that adding the pdf pagination can be a great convenience.
With short-cites (templated or not) it is simple enough to simply append the pdf page to get something like "Smith 2012, p. 24 [pdf: 35]". Or even just "[35]", provided this is explained to the reader. In the cite/citation templates this is not so straightforward, as the page range is not conveniently placed at the end of the citation. It seems to me there are mainly two choices. Either (1) allow such use, but modify |page(s)= to not pass to COinS anything in (say) brackets. Or (2) declare that the convenience of a pdf page number is proper only for short-cites, and not to be used in full citations. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:55, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Journal / Magazine / News(paper) uniformity

Bascially, this is a request to change the code of at least {{Template:cite magazine}} to behave like the rest of the volume/issue-based CS1 templates. Right now, we have the following:

  • Using cite journal: Last, First (2019). "Something reliable was printed here". Prestigious Academic Publication. 2 (7): 110–113.
  • Using cite magazine: Last, First (2019). "Something reliable was printed here". General Circulation Magazine. Vol. 12, no. 2. pp. 12–14.
  • Using cite news: Last, First (2019). "Something reliable was printed here". The Still-in-Print Newspaper. Vol. 75, no. 18. pp. 2B–5B.

No two of these templates produce the same formatting as a result, which is a problem. Cite magazine's output is particularly glaring, with the "Vol." and "no." labels. It's particularly terrible in articles that use both forms of citation. Arguably, standardization of the page number display would be nice, also. Journal currently separates the page numbers from the previous elements with a colon but no "p." or "pp."; the others use the page abbreviation. I don't have a horse in the race for which is preferable, and frankly if I only got to make one change to CS1, the magazine situation has clear priority. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 22:45, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Magazine was made that way in this edit as a result of this discussion. --Izno (talk) 23:06, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
At least with {{cite magazine}} it is clear what the elements refer to, in the others you are just presented with figures which are not identified and thus confusing. Keith D (talk) 01:03, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
I'd prefer more harmonization with cite magazine's formatting, which makes it clear what is being referenced in terms of the volume and issue number. I'd tack on that cite magazine and cite news should do one thing that cite journal does. When a publisher is given (which in most cases isn't needed, but that's another discussion), the publisher should not interrupt the volume/issue/page number grouping. Cite journal gets it right by keeping the volume/issue/page numbers together, because all three, if given, are used together to locate the article. I also think we might want to discuss a little capitalization consistency between "Vol." and "no.", but that could be done later.
  • Using cite journal: Last, First (2019). "Something reliable was printed here". Prestigious Academic Publication. 2 (7). Academic Publisher: 110–113.
  • Using cite magazine: Last, First (2019). "Something reliable was printed here". General Circulation Magazine. Vol. 12, no. 2. Magazine Publisher. pp. 12–14.
  • Using cite news: Last, First (2019). "Something reliable was printed here". The Still-in-Print Newspaper. Vol. 75, no. 18. Media Company. pp. 2B–5B.
Imzadi 1979  07:38, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
One thing that positively seem weird to me is inserting publisher between issue and pages. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:18, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Agreed. Whatever anyone thinks about the rest of this, I think that placement is simply incorrect. As to the broader issue, I know that I prefer the cite journal formatting, but it's clear that others prefer the cite magazine formatting. Can we consider amending the documentation to suggest that either way is acceptable for "periodical" sources in general (WP:CITEVAR and all that), but that you shouldn't mix them (because doing so looks awful)? Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:30, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
We should not tell editors to choose a template based on how they want the rendered citation to look. Creating nice rendering is the template's job, not the editor's.
While we're at it, the longstanding problem of radically different order of rendered elements depending on whether there's an author or not should be solved. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:34, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
There are many such longstanding problems. Try to keep focused to the particular ones in this thread. --Izno (talk) 19:08, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind if we switched to magazine style for journal citations. It's not how they're usually formatted in academic publications but I think they're more readable by non-specialists that way, and that's more important. While we're discussing the ordering of things, the language parameter is also misplaced. It's the individual article, not the journal, that has a language (a single journal may well publish things in multiple languages) so the language should be closer to the title of the article than the title of the journal. Here are the same three examples, with a language set:
  • Using cite journal: Last, First (2019). "Something reliable was printed here". Prestigious Academic Publication (in Brobdignagian). 2 (7). Academic Publisher: 110–113.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  • Using cite magazine: Last, First (2019). "Something reliable was printed here". General Circulation Magazine (in Brobdignagian). Vol. 12, no. 2. Magazine Publisher. pp. 12–14.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  • Using cite news: Last, First (2019). "Something reliable was printed here". The Still-in-Print Newspaper (in Brobdignagian). Vol. 75, no. 18. Media Company. pp. 2B–5B.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
David Eppstein (talk) 07:05, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
Language is a known 'issue'. See comment to Jc3s5h. --Izno (talk) 15:12, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
  • The magazine and news ones, like the book one, should use "Vol. X", by default. The just-a-number-in-boldface thing is an academic citation style quirk (only found in certain academic citation styles, at that). It's questionable as a default even for journal citations on WP, because it's confusing the kind of publication we're citing with what is most clear for readers in our own citations. But, I could tolerate the just-a-number-in-bold thing for journals, I suppose. Only for journals. It must be over-ridable, for when using {{cite journal}} to cite a periodical that is not an academic journal, and even for when it is one but our article is using a citation style (per WP:CITEVAR) that does not use just-a-number-in-bold style. Likewise, the mag, news, and book templates should have an override to force just-a-number-in-bold style when our article is written with a citation style that requires it. [Or we could bin all of this and just use a single F'ing citation style, like many of us have advocated since the early 2000s; WP is the only major publisher in the world that permits people to use any citation style they fancy or even make up a new one out of their butts.]  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  03:21, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

access-date

The documentation for access-date is slightly different at {{Cite news}} to that at WP:ACCESSDATE (the documentation for cite news is called from {{csdoc}})

  • Template:Cite news: Full date when the content pointed to by url was last verified to support the text in the article; do not wikilink; requires url; use the same format as other access and archive dates in the citations.[date 1] Not required for linked documents that do not change. For example, access-date is required for online sources, such as personal websites, that do not have a publication date; see WP:CITEWEB. Access dates are not required for links to published research papers, published books, or news articles with publication dates. Note that access-date is the date that the URL was found to be working and to support the text being cited. Can be hidden or styled by registered editors. Alias: accessdate.
  • WP:ACCESSDATE: The full date when the content pointed to by url was last verified to support the text in the article; do not wikilink; requires url; use the same format as other access and archive dates in the citations. It is not required for linked documents that do not change. For example, access-date is not required for links to copies of published research papers accessed via DOI or a published book, but should be used for links to news articles on commercial websites (these can change from time to time, even if they are also published in a physical medium). Note that access-date is the date that the URL was checked to not just be working, but to support the assertion being cited (which the current version of the page may not do). Can be hidden or styled by registered editors. Alias: accessdate.

The key difference is the recommendation to use access dates for news articles, which is standard practice. Would there be any objections to changing the cite news documentation to reflect WP:ACCESSDATE? Nzd (talk) 21:55, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference date was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
It's ambiguous. I just followed the templates' documentation before removing access dates from citation templates linking to PDF files. SLBedit (talk) 22:13, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
@SLBedit: This isn't a direct reaction to our conversation, but was prompted by it because I saw a discrepancy in the documentation. I agreed with you that static files such as PDF's did not necessarily need to use the access-date param. Nzd (talk) 22:39, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
Access-date is useful to know when some information was supported by a source. On the other hand, when a document doesn't change, access-date is unnecessary because the problem lies in the unsourced information, which should be removed or changed. SLBedit (talk) 22:55, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
Access-date is very useful, almost essential, when a url can change or disappear. It's not a question of the document itself being immutable. I recently had a statement challenged where the source was a pdf which was no longer available on the website. By using the access-date I was able to locate the appropriate archived version of the website, and thence the archived pdf. That's an example of a document that didn't change, but the access-date was necessary. You really shouldn't be removing access-dates from any citation where the url is not 100% guaranteed to be stable. --RexxS (talk) 23:16, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
Stableness: when PDFs are online and archived. SLBedit (talk) 23:18, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
Stability: When the information can be found via a url that will not change in the future. Otherwise we need the access-date. --RexxS (talk) 23:34, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
From all the access dates I removed, only one had a bad archive on the Wayback Machine. SLBedit (talk) 00:12, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) For reference, the edits in question were this and this but, as noted above, this wasn't really the reason for me raising this issue. Nzd (talk) 00:14, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
That seems a pretty clear example of a case where |access-date= is required, per (either version of) the above-cited documentation. It is certainly possible that the linked document could change over time. Kanguole 10:49, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
I am in favor of most improvements to the cs1|2 documentation. Can you propose better documentation for |access-date= that can be used more-or-less universally?
Trappist the monk (talk) 22:27, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
My suggestion would be to replicate the text from WP:ACCESSDATE to {{csdoc}} - Note: Although my OP specifies {{Cite news}}, I assume this is transcluded into the documentation of other cs1 templates. Nzd (talk) 22:53, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
Accessdate should recommend the use of archive date rather than this change (or more generally, perhaps). Accessdate should really only be used if an archive cannot be found for the page which contains the information as in the URL. (And if that cannot be found, then perhaps WP:Verifiability can no longer be satisfied with that reference.) --Izno (talk) 00:35, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
@Izno: I'm not sure I totally follow. I would personally only create an archive and add the archive-date param for webpages that I know are transient (an example that springs to mind is the 'On this day' section on the front page of 11v11.com). If you are suggesting that archive-date should be used in favour of access-date, i.e. expecting editors to archive each reference at the point at which they add the cite, then I don't think I can support that. I wouldn't object to recommending that in guidance somewhere but, as I don't do that myself and wouldn't really expect others to, I wouldn't want to see it in the main documentation. Also, isn't this more relevant to the archive-date (and archive-url) params, rather than access-date? It's possible I have misinterpreted, if so I'd welcome clarification.
My objective here is really just to unify the two contrasting pieces of documentation. @Trappist the monk: Do you think that would need an RFC or would a discussion here suffice? Nzd (talk) 23:23, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
I don't think that harmonizing the existing documentation is all that controversial (of course, people do occasionally rise up with their torches and pitchforks for reasons that I can't explain ...). If you are going to do this, post your recommended harmonization here so that participating editors have something more that hypotheticals to discuss.
Trappist the monk (talk) 00:46, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. For absolute clarity, I propose that the current wording within the documentation of |access-date= at WP:ACCESSDATE (which is part of the current wording of Help:Citation Style 1), be replicated into {{csdoc}}:

The full date when the content pointed to by url was last verified to support the text in the article; do not wikilink; requires url; use the same format as other access and archive dates in the citations. It is not required for linked documents that do not change. For example, access-date is not required for links to copies of published research papers accessed via DOI or a published book, but should be used for links to news articles on commercial websites (these can change from time to time, even if they are also published in a physical medium). Note that access-date is the date that the URL was checked to not just be working, but to support the assertion being cited (which the current version of the page may not do). Can be hidden or styled by registered editors. Alias: accessdate.

Nzd (talk) 01:27, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

  • After actual review, I'd take the content out of Help:CS1, or at least abstract it such that an access date is recommended for documents online (all of which may not be permanent), and then the content regarding the research papers/books abstracted to "items with permanent identifiers, or with physical representations, do not need access dates".

    expecting editors to archive each reference at the point at which they add the cite Yes, actually. I would prefer to see archive URLs and dates. This actually guarantees (for some value of guarantee) that someone will be able to access the same information at a later date. It doesn't matter whether the content is dated or not, or which we believe will change on a frequent basis. URLs die. It's just a matter of fact. Our guidance on the point should probably point to User:InternetArchiveBot. If you can add an access date, you can add archive dates today, trivially. --Izno (talk) 14:55, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

  • The "for documents which do not change" thing is a misguided red-herring. PDFs and such are regularly replaced with updated versions. Previously published articles and papers are frequently replaced with corrected or otherwise revised versions. If the source is online, access-date is applicable.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  03:25, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Template:Cite web - missing parameter(s)?

Hi,

It seems to me that there is a need for (an) additional parameter(s) in the Template:Cite web.

In cases where the web page's URL does not access the specific part of the page from which your information is sourced, there does not seem to be any appropriate parameter to specify a section or part of the page.

For example. I need to provide a reference for an edit I'm just making to the Russian Federation section of the article: Russia. I'm updating a sentence that refers to development of the Russian economy over (the last) "nine straight years". This kind of language that implicitly refers to the date on which the edit was made is obviously inappropriate in an encyclopedic entry, so I went to the reference provided (retrieved in 2007) - "The World Factbook". Central Intelligence Agency., which now, helpfully, provides information both updated from and more specific than that in the Wikipedia entry that I'm updating. So this looks like a potentially useful edit and one that will not be difficult or time-consuming to complete.

However, the CIA page opens - as is fairly common in FAQ- and encylopaedic-type sites - with a series of 'folded-up' section headings, but not showing any actual information. Now, ideally, I'd like my URL to automatically load the page with the appropriate section (Economy) already open, but I haven't (yet) found a way to achieve this. (Even though there is an anchor tag "<a href="#economy-category-section-anchor">Economy</a>" in the source, all this does, of course, if I append the anchor ref text to the URL, is to open the page scrolled down so that the Economy section header is at the top of the visible data, but without opening the section. This is better than nothing, but I'd still like to direct the Wikipedia reference-chaser to the appropriate section of the CIA World Fact Book page that s/he needs to open to see read the reference text.) So I think it would be useful for the Cite web template to provide a tag like "section=" which would direct the reader appropriately. There does not seem to be any tag available for such information.

Is the a better way to approach this?

Hedles (talk) 12:22, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

You might write:
{{cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html#economy-category-section-anchor |title=Central Asia: Russia: Econony |website=[[The World Factbook]] |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency}}
"Central Asia: Russia: Econony". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
Trappist the monk (talk) 12:48, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
@Hedles: The better and more "canonical" approach (see Help:Citation Style 1#Pages, on the |at= parameter for non-paginated material):
{{cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html#economy-category-section-anchor |title=Central Asia: Russia |at="Economy" section |website=[[The World Factbook]] |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency}}
(plus other parameters like date and access-date). This gives:
"Central Asia: Russia". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. "Economy" section.
That's actually better meta-data because it doesn't falsify the title of the piece, or confuse people about what's the article title and what's the section title, or hide that you're citing a particular section in the first place.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  03:33, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Bot proposed to fix CS1 URL errors

Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Gaelan Bot, a request for approval for a bot to fix CS1 URL errors. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:18, 20 February 2019 (UTC)