Talk:Cruiser rules

Dates in short citations

From the history of the article:

• 16:40, 25 July 2020‎ PBS talk contribs block‎ 6,736 bytes +20‎ uses Interwiki linking rather than a url to wikisource. Added years to the short citations so that a new edition of book by a cited author will not mess up the citations undo
• 14:46, 26 July 2020‎ Spinningspark Undid revision 969470600 by PBS (talk) There is no disambiguation of sources needed on *this* page, changing the citation style forces page editors to comply or be inconsistent, and WP:CITEVAR says don't do it without discussion

I do not think this is a CITEVAR issue as no change in style was made (I have been editing since before citevar was put into the guideline by SV and am well aware of why she added it, although my opinions on templates has changed over time). It was put in place for changes to style, which meant from harvard style to footnotes etc. It was never intended to be one that covered such things as whether the first letter in a citation template is in capital or not. Likewise the change that I made did not alter the style.

I do not think your revert helps and CITEVAR does not support your revert, because CITEVAR it states (my underline):

If all or most of the citations in an article consist of bare URLs, or otherwise fail to provide needed bibliographic data – such as the name of the source, the title of the article or web page consulted, the author (if known), the publication date (if known), and the page numbers (where relevant) – then that would not count as a "consistent citation style" and can be changed freely to insert such data.

The reason for including dates in short citations is because it future proofs the citations and they ought to be added for precisely the same reason that ibid is discouraged: "as these may become broken as new references are added". So what is your substantial objection to the change that I made? -- PBS (talk) 08:54, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

My substantial objections are (1) it adds unnecessary clutter, and (2) you are not adding anything substantive to the article, just setting rules for others to follow, which they might find inconvenient. Your wikilawyering over CITEVAR is just nonsense, it doesn't support you one little bit. The data is not "missing", it is all there in the full citation in the bibliography. That's how short citations are supposed to work, by their very nature they won't have all the data.

In any case, this is not the place to argue the pros and cons of citation styles or set global standards. Do you have a substantive argument why this article in particular (as opposed to general principles) would benefit from a change? SpinningSpark 11:33, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I did not raise the issue of CITEVAR you opened that door, and as I pointed out it does not prevent this change. The date is missing in the short citations and they ought to be included. This is demonstrated by its include in every example section WP:CITESHORT in WP:CITE (where the short citation includes an author) and in Help:Shortened footnotes. As they are universally used in examples clearly most editors do not consider them clutter, and it does add something substantive to the article as it future proofs the short citations against other citations from the same author being added .

You ask "why this article in particular (as opposed to general principles) would benefit from a change?" As I have shown above using dates in short citations is well documented in the guidelines and help pages, and this article like any other that just uses author will benefit from this change. I would add dates to the short citations in most articles I come across where short citations are used and they do not have them, for the same reason that I would remove ibid and replace them with the appropriate citation whether that is with a named ref..tag or a short citation. -- PBS (talk) 16:07, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

No, that's not "specific to this article". It's all general arguments that you would apply (because you said you would) to any article. But I'll answer you anyway. It's not relevant that all the examples are given in that form, it still doesn't mean they are prescribed. WP:CITESHORT says Forms of short citations used include author-date referencing (APA style, Harvard style, or Chicago style), and author-title or author-page referencing (MLA style or Chicago style) (my emphasis). I'll also note that I have put several articles through FA with this style of referencing. This is the last comment I will make here on styles in general. If you want to discuss it further, take it elsewhere. SpinningSpark 17:22, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Do you have any other argument against adding the date to a short citation other than typing an extra 4 numbers in a short citation is something "which they might find inconvenient"? How do you know that "they" may find it inconvenient? Or do you mean "I will find it inconvenient [to add a four digit dates to a short citations]"? -- PBS (talk) 11:31, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Per dispute resolution, I have requested a third opinion (diff) -- PBS (talk) 16:39, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

For the record I have not (and will not) agreed to 3O as a suitable means of resolving this dispute and do not agree to be bound by its results. SpinningSpark 18:48, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Third opinion here. As someone who spends time cleaning up Category:Pages with broken reference names, I think there's a lot of value in "future-proofing" citations, which also reduces problems when citations are copied or moved from one article to another. So I'd say, why not add the year? It does no significant harm and can prevent future issues. —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:52, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Did you even read the converstation? I gave my reasons why not. And these citations are NOT BROKEN so raising broken citations is irrelevant. SpinningSpark 21:31, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

I did read the conversation, and as far as I can tell the only substantive objections you've raised to including the years are that they add "unnecessary clutter" and that editors might find them inconvenient. It's true that the citations are not broken right now—the value of adding the year is to prevent the citations from becoming ambiguous in the future if someone adds more citations or moves them to another article. I think this outweighs the minor clutter of having a year included in the citation. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:12, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

That said, I agree that this is a sitewide consideration, not specific to this article. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:52, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

While it is a site wide consideration, that is an WP:OTHERSTUFF issue. I arrived at this article to fix the EB1911 citation which used a URL to Wikisource rather than a sister wiki link. This was one of hundreds of pages (see this link). Normally I would use the template {{cite EB1911}} to fix the issue. However I did not fix it that way as it would have changed the visual format. So that is the reason for me reviewing the citations on this page and not the millions of others that may or may not follow the advise given in the guidelines. As both User:Mx. Granger and I have pointed out while the citations are not broken at the moment they are not future-proofed. The question you (User:Spinningspark) have asked can be turned on it head. Why should this article not follow the examples given in both WP:CITESHORT Help:Shortened footnotes? -- PBS (talk) 18:29, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

A new discussion elsewhere concerning this page

Please note that I started Talk:Prize (law)#Redirects to this page which can be retargeted to Cruiser rules. Ain92 (talk) 14:58, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

German crews misrepresentation in regards to survivors

I feel like German U-boat crews were slightly misrepresented here, as there were incidents where captains would try and take aboard survivors of downed ships or provide supplies to increase chances of survival when this wasn’t possible and occasionally provide medical aid. This quickly stopped after the Laconia incident and Admiral Dönitz ordered that such actions would stop in the Laconia order. So there is truth here, but I think it could be improved. Harveywalker500 (talk) 10:23, 30 December 2021 (UTC)