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Citing the author of a chapter within a multiple authored work or a forward to a book by a different author

I believe that there is a gap or weakness in the available book citation template when dealing with the case of citing a chapter in a book where the chapter's author is different from the book's author (e.g. a book forward in the front matter), or in a book with multiple authors, plus an editor. The final output should look something like:

Witzel, Michael (2006), "Rama's realm: Indocentric rewritings of early South Asian History", in Fagan, Garrett G. (ed.), Archaeolological Fantasies: How pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past and misleads the public, Routledge, ISBN 0415305926

or

Inayat Khan, Pir Vilayat (1978). "Front matter: Forward". In: Khan, Hazrat Inayat. The Complete Sayings of Hazrat Inayat Khan. New Lebanon, NY: Sufi Order Publications. ISBN 978-0930872021.

In order to generate the first example, we'd have to use "editor1-first = Garrett G. (ed.)" which is going to break automated processing of his first name. As things are, we have to settle for:

Witzel, Michael (2006), "Rama's realm: Indocentric rewritings of early South Asian History", in Fagan, Garrett G., Archaeolological Fantasies: How pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past and misleads the public, Routledge, ISBN 0415305926

which is OK but not ideal. Ideally, if there were "editorn-first" and "editorn-last" items then an "(ed.)" or "(eds.)" would get appended onto the list of editors automatically. However...

To generate the second example, we'd have to use "editor1-last = Khan" but this is misleading since Khan is the author of the book and not an editor. There are in fact reference lists in Wikipedia that use this method (e.g. Indigenous Aryans). This is also recommended in an earlier Wikipedia help discussion. But they would get broken if we implemented an automatic appending of "(ed.)" to lists of editors.

The "chapter" item in the "Cite book" template is fine for citing a chapter written by the same person as the book, but it wasn't really designed to deal with a book that has multiple authors. I suspect we would need a separate template to handle that, rather than trying to get "Cite book" to carry too diverse a load. Ideas or opinions? --MouseRancher (talk) 22:24, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I see that this complexity has been addressed in the "Cite book" template docs as:

• editor: Name of editor/editors. Do not Wikilink any values in the editor field but use editor-link instead. The template automatically adds "ed." after the editor's name unless the chapter parameter is used in which case the template adds "in" before the editor's name which appears after the chapter and before the title. This implies that the author is responsible only for part of the book (including the cited chapter) and the editor responsible for the whole book. If, however, the author(s) and editor(s) are responsible for the whole book, then the editor field or its alternates described below should not be used if the chapter field is being used. Instead, the editor(s) should be included in an author field with possibly "(ed.)" after the surname(s). Alternatively, the editor field may be used if the chapter detail is included in the title field instead of using the chapter field.
• OR: alternatively editor-first and editor-last can be used in the same way as first and last.

and

Citing a chapter in a book with different authors for different chapters and an editor

* {{cite book |last=Bloggs | first=Fred |editor-first=John| editor-last=Doe |title=Big Compilation Book With Many Chapters and distinct chapter authors |publisher=Book Publishers |date=2001-01-01 |pages=100-110 |chapter=Chapter 2: The History Of The Bloggs Family |isbn=1234567890}}

• Bloggs, Fred (2001-01-01). "Chapter 2: The History Of The Bloggs Family". in Doe, John. Big Book With Many Chapters and distinct chapter authors. Book Publishers. pp. 100-110. ISBN 1234567890.

Citing a chapter in a book with two joint authors and an editor

* {{cite book |last1=Bloggs | first1=Joe| last2=Egg| first2=Fred| first3=John (ed.)| last3=Doe |title=Big Book With Many Chapters and two co-authors |publisher=Book Publishers |date=2001-01-01 ||origyear=1st. Pub. 1986|pages=100-110 |chapter=Chapter 6: Getting There| chapterurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/ |isbn=1234567890| lastauthoramp=y}}

• Bloggs, Joe; Egg, Fred & Doe, John (ed.) (2001-01-01) [1st. Pub. 1986]. "Chapter 6: Getting There". Big Book With Many Chapters and two co-authors. Book Publishers. pp. 100-110. ISBN 1234567890. http://en.wikipedia.org/.

In other words, the policy is to have the template purposefully omit the "(ed.)" if a chapter title is given (why?), and to encourage the "(ed.)" to be hard-coded into the surname (I think "given name" was intended in the documentation). I think this is a reasonable attempt at a compromise to address a complex situation, but am feeling like the better approach would be to have "Cite book" for single author works, and something like "Cite book-multiauthor" for cases where the cited author is not the book author (e.g. a preface author) or is one of several in a book with a named editor. Then the "(ed)." would always be there if the person is an editor not an author, without hard-coding that into the person's name, and authors would be indicated in fields as authors and editors as editors. Perhaps the best approach is one with no "author" field, but instead using "author-chapter" and "author-book" or "editor-book" fields. The "Cite book" would be retained for the simple case, and the use of its editor fields would be depreciated in favor of the new "Cite book-multiauthor" template. Any thoughts on this? --MouseRancher (talk) 05:12, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Multiple editors

Is there a method to cite a chapter of a book that has multiple editors?  Cs32en Talk to me  02:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

The names of up to four editors may be given. The parameters are

|editor1-first= |editor1-last= |editor1-link=

to

|editor4-first= |editor4-last= |editor4-link=

inclusive. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:40, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Seems that I haven't read the documentation in full. I had tried "editor-first1" and so on, which didn't work.  Cs32en Talk to me  16:09, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

What do we gain with reference templates?

On the page Wikipedia:Template namespace, we read that "Templates duplicate the same content across more than one page. You can change a template in one place and it will immediately propagate to the pages that use it." What is gained by asking authors to find and manually cut-and-paste a large number of standardized field names into their text, then manually erase many of them? How are "reference templates" and other templates (aka message templates) similar or different?
Jerry-va (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:18, 29 August 2010 (UTC).

Citation templates give consistency. In this way the references section appears to be neatly organised, even if the underlying data is not. So, a book ref might be built up as

{{cite book |page=123 |title=A Book |last=Doe |first=John |year=2010 }}

or as

{{cite book |year=2010 |last=Doe |title=A Book |first=John |isbn= |url= |page=123 |accessdate= }}

and both will look exactly the same in the displayed page:

Doe, John (2010). A Book. p. 123.

Doe, John (2010). A Book. p. 123.

Furthermore, should it later be decided that (for example) the author should be in italics but the title should not be, it's a change which needs to be made in just one place, as opposed to several hundred thousand places. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Why title link in bold?

When {{cite book}} includes a title which is linked and the template is used in that article, the link is omitted and the title is rendered in bold. (When the template is used in any other article then the title in not in bold.) I can understand why the link is omitted (the reader is already on that page), but don't understand why it is also in bold. It looks very ugly. If there isn't a good reason for the boldness then could it please be removed. HairyWombat 17:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

It's more general: any link, when placed on the page to which the link points, is emboldened. Example: Template talk:Cite book. I presume the logic is to provide emboldened text for terms which lead one to the page. In other news, under what circumstances would you put a link to page A on page A, even in a citation template? --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:35, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

You would do it, for example, via another template used in a <ref>. If the <ref> appears on several pages, for all but one of them including a link makes sense. I guess the solution is to use additional logic in the template to detect this situation. HairyWombat 03:32, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Addition of "(ed.)" and capital "In"

I've propose another two minor fixes:

{{Cite book |last=Langley |first=Lester D. |chapter=James Gillespie Blaine: The Idealogue as Diplomat |editor1-first=Frank J. |editor1-last=Merli |editor2-first=Theodore A. |editor2-last=Wilson |title=Makers of Modern Diplomacy |year=1974 |pages=253–278 }}

produces

Langley, Lester D. (1974). "James Gillespie Blaine: The Idealogue as Diplomat". in Merli, Frank J.; Wilson, Theodore A.. Makers of Modern Diplomacy. pp. 253–278.

but it should be

Langley, Lester D. (1974). "James Gillespie Blaine: The Idealogue as Diplomat". In Merli, Frank J.; Wilson, Theodore A. (eds.). Makers of Modern Diplomacy. pp. 253–278. (or (ed.) in case of only one editor)

Could somebody please fix this? —bender235 (talk) 22:18, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. This looks like it is due to a conditional on IncludedWorkTitle in Template:Citation/core. I've sandboxed a fix which removes that conditional, but I don't understand why that conditional was placed there in the first place. If the sandboxed fix is published, the cite should read:

• Langley, Lester D. (1974). "James Gillespie Blaine: The Idealogue as Diplomat". in Merli, Frank J.; Wilson, Theodore A.. eds. Makers of Modern Diplomacy. pp. 253–278.

Note that the doubled period after "Theodore A." is caused by the period being supplied in "editor2-first=Theodore A.".

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:39, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I think we should avoid that double period. I don't see why there has to be a period after the editors' names anyway. We could easily put "ed." or "eds." in parentheses. Also, that "in book title" follows a period, therefore it should be capitalized, e.g. "In book title". —bender235 (talk) 00:34, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I've mentioned this at Template talk:Citation/core#Displaying "ed" or "eds". I think that this discussion should continue there rather than here, since that is the talk page for the template which would be affected. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:19, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Awkwardness with periods

I give the following citation:

• Kechris, Alexander S.; Moschovakis, Yiannis N. (2008). "Notes on the theory of scales". In Kechris, Alexander S.; Löwe, Benedikt; Steel, John R. (eds.). Games, Scales and Suslin Cardinals: The Cabal Seminar, Volume I. Cambridge University Press. pp. 28–74. ISBN 978-0-521-89951-2.

Note the double period in the name Steel, John R.. .

Now of course I could leave the period off the editor3-first field, but this would be semantically incorrect, because his name, for these purposes, is John R. Steel, not John R Steel (it's a US-published book and uses the American style). So then, if the template were ever to change to use something other than periods (which strike me as an odd choice) to separate the different regions of the citation, it would be wrong.

Not sure I have a fix to suggest; mostly I'm flagging a problem, and secondarily asking why periods are used for this purpose in the first place. --Trovatore (talk) 01:23, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed that the section immediately above is (in part) about this exact problem. --Trovatore (talk) 01:25, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I just came over here today because I have noticed the double period / double fullstop problem as well, in a case where the author's given name ends with a period.

Surely, some logic can obliterate that.

Append . if <final char> <> .

Good luck, Varlaam (talk) 05:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

No, in practical terms, it can't. Wikicode is quite limited when it comes to string manipulation. Yeah, some people have created templates that could do that BUT they don't work on all characters, are very expensive (and that really matters for this template, because it's sometimes transcluded hundreds of times on a single article) and may have some other problems. Svick (talk) 06:18, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Gotcha.

In my case, I deleted the . off the fellow's initial.

But at some point, that will look like an error to another, admittedly eagle-eyed, editor.

Can we create a convention, a symbol, a note, so purists/completists can mark these spots as fine, in spite of appearances?

Like [√] a check mark, for example.

Varlaam (talk) 07:51, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I think a better solution would be to get rid of the periods. The various elements should instead be distinguished with bold or italics or small caps. --Trovatore (talk) 22:20, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm in favor of scrapping the cite book template and replacing it with something similar to BibTeX. That would probably have been computationally too expensive five years ago, but it's possible now.  Cs32en Talk to me  22:29, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Love it! That would be fantastic.

But unfortunately it's sort of orthogonal to the current problem. Even if there's a database of bibliographic references that you can just call up, you still have to agree on the formatting of those refs. The problem is caused by the current formatting choices (at least, when and as they intersect with American conventions regarding personal initials), not by the fact that the bibliographic elements have to be repeated in each article. --Trovatore (talk) 22:43, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

BibTeX is much more than a database. It includes functionality to construct bibliography entries according to the styles of different publishers and universities. We would need to agree on which style we would want to use, however.  Cs32en Talk to me  23:09, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

The {{citation}} template uses commas instead of periods in most places, avoiding this problem and the related problem where the "in" is not capitalized after the first period and the "pp" is not capitalized after the last period. E.g., Kechris, Alexander S.; Moschovakis, Yiannis N. (2008), "Notes on the theory of scales", in Kechris, Alexander S.; Löwe, Benedikt; Steel, John R. (eds.), Games, Scales and Suslin Cardinals: The Cabal Seminar, Volume I, Cambridge University Press, pp. 28–74, ISBN 978-0-521-89951-2. I tend to think it should say ", eds." after the list of editor names but since citation and cite book use the same underlying code there's still an issue of how to get exactly one period after "eds" in both of them. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:11, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Book title

Some books have both a big title and a smaller subtitle. For example, "The Origin of Species" (title) "by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" (smaller subtitle, see File:Origin of Species title page.jpg for layout). Should the "Title" parameter have the title and subtitle, or just the title? MBelgrano (talk) 15:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

By convention, they are separated by a colon, "On the Origin of Species: by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". So with just a |title= parameter, you can chose to include both or not. HairyWombat 16:12, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

As purely personal advice, my method is to use the subtitle only when it is needed to distinguish the book from others with a similar title, or if the book is commonly referred to with the subtitle in sources. For The Origin of Species, neither of those would apply, so I would skip the subtitle. --RL0919 (talk) 16:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Annotation field

There should be an annotation field. -- Tomdo08 (talk) 17:27, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

See Template talk:Cite journal#Annotation field. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:38, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Ed.

For a book with just an editor, the output is "name, ed" with no punctuation, which is incorrect. It does, however, include a period after "ed" when an author is specified. Also, with just an editor, the name is followed by a comma, while with an author it's followed by a period. For example:

• Stumpf, Richard (1967). Horn, Daniel (ed.). War, Mutiny and Revolution in the German Navy: The World War I Diary of Seaman Richard Stumpf. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
• Sturton, Ian, ed. (1987). Conway's All the World's Battleships: 1906 to the Present. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0851774482. OCLC 246548578.

Can someone fix this please? Parsecboy (talk) 11:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

This appears to relate to the #Awkwardness with periods discussion above. As mentioned there, this involves {{Citation/core}}, and there's a related discussion going on at Template talk:Citation/core#Displaying "ed" or "eds". I'll mention there that this comment popped up here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

odd punctuation etc.

Why is the word "in" (after a chapter title) in lower case? Looks very odd to me. Forex:

• Bloggs, Fred (2001-01-01). "Chapter 2: The History Of The Bloggs Family". in  Doe, John. Big Book With Many Chapters and distinct chapter authors. Book Publishers. pp. 100-110. ISBN 1234567890.
• Tks • Ling.Nut 13:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

See #Addition of "(ed.)" and capital "In" above. Really, we need a FAQ section at the top of this page. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:39, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

No offense, but really, what we need is people who know what the hell they are doing when they make these templates! • Ling.Nut 01:20, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Better yet, fully test (as I always have) using the many sandboxes required for this group of templates. One certainly shouldn't make changes to {{Citation/core}} and such without testing the templates that depend on it. --Tothwolf (talk)

• That goes without saying, doesn't it? But apparently it needs to be said. Who are the people who maintain that template? Wake them up. I left a note over at Template talk:Citation/core. • Ling.Nut 02:14, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Beats me, I don't maintain it as I'm not an admin. I did some work on it previously [1] when I identified a number of flaws and bugs while creating {{Cite IETF}}. Honestly, what probably needs is something like {{Cite IETF/regression tests}}, but it is not an easy task to create a test such as that. --Tothwolf (talk) 04:59, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Chapterformat

I have a citation where the book link leads to a HTML page but the chapter link leads to a PDF page; I tried using the "format" parameter to point that out but it only applies to the main "url" field. Would it burden the template too much to add a "chapterformat" parameter to go with "chapterurl"? Waltham, The Duke of 18:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Dot between series and volume

For example:

Freedman, Michael H.; Quinn, Frank (1990). Topology of 4-manifolds. Princeton Mathematical Series. Vol. 39. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

I think the dot between "Princeton Mathematical Series" and "39" should be removed. Or is there any reason for that? —bender235 (talk) 10:19, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I just came here to post that same request, before realizing that I already did it more than three months ago. Can someone please implement this change now? —bender235 (talk) 23:33, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe that the dot is inserted by Template:Citation/core; this would be the appropriate place to make the edit request. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 00:17, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. —bender235 (talk) 01:20, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

AFAICS, this gets pretty messy if it's to be addressed down in core. I think some more discussion is indicated here, and I've said so there.

I think what you're trying to do here is to get a book citation formatted as citation of a journal article. It's probably better to go up to template selection alternatives rather than going down to core. {{cite journal}} can be used instead of {{cite book}} to get the desired formatting. Following are a couple of alternatives using cite journal:

• Freedman, Michael H.; Quinn, Frank (1990). "Topology of 4-manifolds". Princeton University Press. Princeton Mathematical Series. 39. Princeton, NJ.

• Freedman, Michael H.; Quinn, Frank (1990). "Topology of 4-manifolds". Lecture Notes in Mathematics. Princeton Mathematical Series. 39. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

If "but it's a book, not a journal" is an objection, I think that similar stuff can be done by fiddling parameter selections in the {{Citation}} template but I haven't looked at that with this in mind. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:10, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

The first example using "Citation":

• Freedman, Michael H.; Quinn, Frank (1990), "Topology of 4-manifolds", Princeton University Press, Princeton Mathematical Series, 39, Princeton, NJ. {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |separator= ignored (help)

And note that "Cite document" is a non-specific alias of cite journal that can also be used:

• Freedman, Michael H.; Quinn, Frank (1990). "Topology of 4-manifolds" (Document). Princeton, NJ. {{cite document}}: Cite document requires |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |journal= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |series= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |volume= ignored (help)

Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Variable n

There is a convention, possibly not used in WP, to mark the variable portion of a string in italics,
so | firstn = | lastn = would be written
as | firstn = | lastn =
making clear(er) the distinction between what is fixed and what is variable.
Happy New Year, Varlaam (talk) 15:36, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

We already do, see Template:Cite book/doc#Description. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:51, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

authorlink1 authorlink2 problem?

I'm not sure what I did wrong such that the links are not working properly here?: von Sternberg, Kaspar; Palacký, Franz (1868). Leben des Grafen Kaspar von Sternberg. Prague. pp. 23–24. {{cite book}}: Check |authorlink1= value (help); Check |authorlink2= value (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |laydate=, |separator=, |laysummary=, |trans_title=, |month=, |trans_chapter=, |chapterurl=, and |lastauthoramp= (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 22:42, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't wikilink the authorlinks; the wikilinks are generated automatically.

• von Sternberg, Kaspar; Palacký, Franz (1868). Leben des Grafen Kaspar von Sternberg. Prague. pp. 23–24.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

It does say on the doc page,

• authorlink: Title of Wikipedia article about author ... Must not be wikilinked itself. ...

(my bolding). --Redrose64 (talk) 22:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

D'oh, it had to be something obvious I did wrong! Many thanks! Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 23:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

format parameter issue

When using the template to cite the Indiana Department of Transportation's Reference Post Book, which is available in PDF format, I'm getting the "(PDF)" after the year, and not after the link. For an example, look at U.S. Route 131. Can this be fixed? I thought that if I added |author=Staff that it might fix it, but that didn't. Before that change, the reference started with the format information. Imzadi 1979 → 00:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Authorlink problem

It seems to me that the authorlink parameters created strange links (see, e.g., the second link in example). It puts "[" and "]" around the link and a spurious "|" character appears because the link name. Am I using it correctly? Jason Quinn (talk) 22:58, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

No

• • authorlink: Title of Wikipedia article about author (not the author's personal website). Article should already exist. Must not be wikilinked itself. Do not use this on its own, but along with author or first and last.

--Redrose64 (talk) 23:03, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I understand now. Perhaps there ought to be some way of linking to an author's url? Jason Quinn (talk) 00:47, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Physically it's only possible to create one link to the author's name and that link should be to the Wikipedia article. If the author has an external url, this would be identified in that article so, I would suggest, no need to link from the template. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 09:57, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I think the external link would be distracting, particularly if the title is already an external link. Just my opinion, and your mileage may vary. Imzadi 1979 → 12:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I guess the template is okay as is. I was thinking along the lines of having two template parameters that are mutually exclusive (e.g. "authorlink" vs "authorweblink"). To handle the odd case where both are defined, authorlink would take precedence. I don't know much about wiki templates so I don't know if that's technically feasible. (Nor am I sure it's even a good idea if possible.) Thanks again. Sometimes it's hard to get feedback on templates but you guys are quick. ;-) Jason Quinn (talk) 17:50, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Language handling

As you know, the processing now is: (in <lang>), so Chinese gets you (in Chinese).
That seems a little verbose and a little old-fashioned these days. It's not (in Chinese).
What if the template supported the input of the 2/3-character language code and generated the icon, if the editor so chose?
(in Latvian) (in Albanian) (in Asturian) (in Aragonese)?
Alas there are some 3-character language names, e.g. Lao, Min, Twi, Ewe.
Varlaam (talk) 22:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Opppose: I don't see the point. The only difference I'm seeing is the loss of of the word "in" and some coloration in the text. Additionally, this idea would mean changing all sorts of templates, and then updating all of the transclusions of the cite templates with languages specified so that they'd continue to work, at minimal or no benefit. Oh, and we'd have to educate editors to use language codes (which may or may not be in common usage) instead of commonly known language names. Imzadi 1979 → 22:52, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Language codes are commonly used. They are used to label external links, amongst other things, all over the place.

I clearly didn't say anything about replacing the current functionality.

I am talking about supplementing the existing functionality.

You pass a 2-character parm, you get a call to {{<lang> icon}}; you pass a longer string, you get the current behaviour. As a software designer that's how I would approach it.

At present, a 2-character string outputs nothing, correct?

But I understand that string processing around here is weak.

Can we do a len(s) == 2?

The current operation would be unaffected. I always write my code that way.

Varlaam (talk) 05:08, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

{{Str len}} is expensive. Templates using {{citation/core}} (including {{cite book}}) are slow. Adding expensive processing will increase the complaints that we get, so I don't think that it likely to be done. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:07, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

A conversion of a language name to the icon template is something a bot could do, but I'm not sure whether editors would be broadly in favour. Rjwilmsi 18:55, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Passing along a criticism.

An editor at WT:Citing sources/example style#Specific problems with citation templates noticed some problems with this citation:

• Bate, Jonathan (2002). "Scenes from the Birth of a Myth". In Nolen, Stephanie (ed.). Shakespeare's Face: Unraveling the Legend and History of Shakespeare's Mysterious Portrait. Free Press. pp. 103–25. ISBN 9780743249324. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help) ["Cite book|..."]

As I understand it, there are two problems: (1) Either "pp" should be capitalized (e.g. Pp), or it should be preceded by a comma, (2) page number should follow the title. It should appear more like this:

• Bate, Jonathan (2002). "Scenes from the Birth of a Myth". In Stephanie Nolen (Ed.), Shakespeare's Face: Unraveling the Legend and History of Shakespeare's Mysterious Portrait, pp. 103–25. Free Press. ISBN 9780743249324 [Manually edited]

I'm just passing this along. See his complete criticism here: WT:Citing sources/example style#Specific problems with citation templates. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

In the discussion referenced I have noticed that simply removing "book" from the template name (i.e., using {{Cite |title=....}} causes cite to default to the desired behavior. E.g.:

• Bate, Jonathan (2002), "Scenes from the Birth of a Myth", in Nolen, Stephanie (ed.), Shakespeare's Face: Unraveling the Legend and History of Shakespeare's Mysterious Portrait, Free Press, pp. 103–25, ISBN 9780743249324 {{citation}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help) ["Cite |..."]

  Why is this? Can it be relied upon? (And why don't the 'cite xxxx' templates provide a list of the whole pantheon?) - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:44, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

{{Cite}} is a redirect to {{Citation}}. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:48, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

  Ah. So an unadorned {{Cite}} is only {{Citation}} in disguise, and not related to {{Cite book}}, {{Cite journal}}, etc.? Curious. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk)

Most of the citation templates have aliases (i.e. redirects to the "real" template), but we don't encourage their use. Indeed, there are bots which, upon encountering an alias such as {{cite magazine}}, will alter it to the "real" template (in this case {{cite journal}}). --Redrose64 (talk) 22:20, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

  Perhaps someday {{cite xxx}} will include a list of that family of templates. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:03, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Translation parameters and other items

I'm updating Template:Cite_book/doc#Description. The template has the code |TransTitle={{{trans_chapter|}}} and |TransItalic={{{trans_title|}}}. Shouldn't TransTitle and trans_title be related to each other. Also, what is TransItalic supposed to mean? Thanks. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

|TransTitle= and |TransItalic= are parameters in {{citation/core}}. {{citation/core}} is the subtemplate that does the real work of displaying a citation entered using front-end templates such as {{cite book}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}, {{citation}}, etc. To achieve consistency of appearance, some of the {{citation/core}} parameter names don't necessarily match the parameter names in {{cite book}} etc., and it is to emphasise this difference that all the {{citation/core}} params are named using mixed capital and lowercase letters.

Consider this example which uses a French book translated into English:

*{{cite book |last=Descartes |first=René |year=1637 |chapter=Première partie |trans_chapter=Part I |language=French |title=Discours de la méthode |trans_title=Discourse on the Method }}

• Descartes, René (1637). "Première partie". Discours de la méthode (in French). {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_chapter= ignored (|trans-chapter= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)

So, the chapter title is not italicised, but the book title is. If |trans_title= were passed through |TransTitle= it would be italicised in French but not in English. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for looking over my changes to Cite book/doc, Redrose64. Above, you describe |TransItalic=. However, here it indicates that that there is no |TransItalic= parameter. Also, the cite book template has the code

|IncludedWorkTitle = {{{chapter|{{{contribution|}}}}}}
|IncludedWorkURL = {{{chapter-url|{{{chapterurl|{{{contribution-url|}}}}}}}}}
|OriginalURL = {{{url|}}}
|TitleType={{{type|}}}
|TransItalic={{{trans_title|}}}
|YearNote = {{{origyear|}}}

However, you deleted my posts about these to Cite book/doc (generally saying that there is no such parameter).[2] Template:Citation/core describes some of these parameters. Since the code for cite book has these in its code, would you please post in Cite book/doc an explanation for each of

TransItalic, IncludedWorkTitle, IncludedWorkURL, OriginalURL, TitleType, TransItalic, YearNote

even something as simple as "This param is used in citation/core, not in cite book." Thanks. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 11:50, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the point. The documentation for cite book should describe the parameters recognised by {{cite book}}, and no others. You can, for example, put

{{cite book | ... |chapter=Chapter six: in which Eeyore has a birthday, and gets two presents | ... }}

or you may put:

{{cite book | ... |contribution=Chapter six: in which Eeyore has a birthday, and gets two presents | ... }}

which has exactly the same effect. However, you cannot put:

{{cite book | ... |IncludedWorkTitle=Chapter six: in which Eeyore has a birthday, and gets two presents | ... }}

because the string {{{IncludedWorkTitle does not occur anywhere within the source of Template:cite book, so therefore the parameter |IncludedWorkTitle= is unrecognised. To document this parameter in Template:cite book/doc could mislead people into thinking that it was valid for direct use.

What happens to the parameter values in the inner workings of the template (or its subtemplates) is of little interest to the people who want to know which parameter is the proper place to put the chapter name. If people really need to know the parameter names in {{citation/core}}, they should look at the documentation for that template. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:56, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

need a parameter for translators

The various Cite templates need parameters for specifying translator(s). Hpvpp (talk) 01:03, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• |others= "others: To record other contributors to the work, such as "Illustrated by Smith" or "Trans. Smith"." Fifelfoo (talk) 01:18, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Technically, a translator does not 'contribute'. Hpvpp (talk) 01:23, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• Feel free to fix the documentation. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

That would not be appropriate. What is needed is a proper handle for translators. Hpvpp (talk) 02:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Why? What's inappropriate about others? Svick (talk) 20:23, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Translators are people and people tend to have their own ideas as to what some text might actually mean. In addition, people are influenced by the culture they are part of. Thus, some text will be translated differently by different people at different times. Furthermore, the culture in which the original text was created is not always understood to the same degree. The result is that translations of important texts are continuously being evaluated to see if they cannot be improved. This is shown by the fact that, for example, the ancient Greeks have been translated anew many times over the past centuries, leading to some translation being the current 'academic standard'. As a consequence, it can be critical which translation is being used. For example, Jowett's translations of Plato are not bad, but they have been superceded by Cooper's 1997 edition. The point is that translators are not just some 'other' contributor, but are noteworthy in their own right. Hpvpp (talk) 03:18, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I also do not see why you couldn't put |others=trans. Jowett or |others=trans. Cooper etc. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:36, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I do not see why one programmer couldn't make a small effort to make life easier for many editors. Hpvpp (talk) 21:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

OK. We (by which I mean "not me, somebody else") would need to change, as a minimum, {{cite book}} (this template), {{citation/core}} (the subtemplate that does the real work), {{citation}} (because that's supposed to offer the full functionality of {{cite book}}), plus the documentation pages for all three.

Prior to making the changes for real, they must be sandboxed and fully tested, because we've caused consternation in the past by putting through untested changes. After the changes have gone live for real, many thousands of pages will have become invalidated and will need rebuilding, which will take time. The enlarged templates will also make edits to those pages just that little bit slower too. Every additional parameter makes the template slower, and such changes have caused complaints in the past, to the point where decreased functionality, not increased functionality, is being seriously considered. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

My interest in Wikipedia is as a user/editor and not as a programmer and while I do have my opinions I will defer to those who know more about its inner workings. If it will be done I shall be happy if it won't I shall adjust. Hpvpp (talk) 00:17, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

As a librarian (not a programmer, mind you), I agree that having a parameter for translator is very important. What I've done in the past, just to make it clear that a book is translated and that the translator him/herself is not lost is put that information as "editor." That, however, is a bit misleading since the translator is not editing the work at all. But back to the point of why I think having the parameter is important. Researchers need to have the translator information easily accessible and it can sometimes be essential to finding the correct document (book, article, or otherwise). Unless people read the talk page and see this discussion, they will do much like I did and either put the person as "editor" and maybe even "author." As was said above, there are certain editions of books whose translations have become the standard or there may be a specific quotation from a given work and the translation of that work is essential for referencing that specific edition and translator. When I started editing, I thought it was a bit curious that "trans_title" was there, but nothing denoting the translator. Maybe that's the librarian in me, but it seemed like obvious information that goes together. I even looked through the template and it didn't dawn on me that I should potentially use "others" as is proscribed on the template page. Yes, I even read through many of the parameters to clarify questions I had. From reading the comments by those who work on the template, I can see how adding this parameter could be problematic. Perhaps as a compromise, the template editors could add in the "brief instructions" section at the top of the table the information listed below in the full description which is pointed to by many other people on this thread. Those are my two cents, but please do as you see fit. EauLibrarian (talk) 16:13, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's my take on it as a sometime editor of these templates and as one who has once caused consternation by botching a change.

First, the question of doing it inside vs. outside of the template generally has to do with the blue highlighting which works on some (most?) browsers.

link to the cite: stuff inside the template., stuff outside the template.

Material which is part of the cite should be done inside of the templates so as to get highlighted. That probably includes translator info and may include other stuff.

{{Cite book}}, {{Cite journal}} and {{Citation}} (probably others as well) already support a quote= parameter, which works as follows:

link to the cite: other stuff inside template. quoted stuff, stuff outside the template.

As currently implemented, the quoted stuff is placed at the very end of the material produced by the template. If we can agree that a parameter (misc=??) for users of this family of templates to optionally insert whatever wikitext they want for rendering without modification except for delimiting punctuation immediately prior to the quoted stuff, it would be dead simple and very low risk to implement that. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

volume number should not be in bold

Currently, the template renders the volume number in bold. This is useful for journals, but not for books. The reason why bolding the volume number for journal articles works well is that it draws the attention to the initially relevant bit of information when looking for a particular issue in a library where issues are typically bound in volumes of which there would be many on the shelf. However, this is not important for books which typically have only a few volumes. (Bolding the volume number for encyclopedias would be useful). Hpvpp (talk) 00:01, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

This has been brought up several times before, most recently at Template talk:Cite book/Archive 8#Volume in bold and Template talk:Cite book/Archive 8#volume. For books, I tend to ignore the |volume= parameter and put it all in the title, something like this:

{{cite book |last=Dow |first=George |authorlink=George Dow |title=Great Central, Volume One: The Progenitors, 1813-1863 |year=1959 |publisher=[[Ian Allan Publishing|Ian Allan]] |location=Shepperton |isbn=0 7110 1468 X }}

which produces:

Dow, George (1959). Great Central, Volume One: The Progenitors, 1813-1863. Shepperton: Ian Allan. ISBN 0 7110 1468 X.

because otherwise, you get more bolded than italicised (Dow, George (1959). Great Central. Vol. Volume One: The Progenitors, 1813–1863. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)). --Redrose64 (talk) 10:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Not meaning disrespect, but wouldn't fixing the problem be better? Hpvpp (talk) 11:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Commenting from the sidelines, I'll observe that it is more about consensus re what is and is not a problem than about fixing problems perceived by individual editors. Citation style in WP has a long history of disagreement between editors. WP does not have a mandated citation style -- handcrafted citations use whatever style their crafters favor; templated citations use whatever style is the flavor of the moment at {{citation/core}}. 12:23, 27 February 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtmitchell (talk • contribs)

Ditto (more or less). It would have been more accurate to say "volume number of books should not be in bold". What we have is a single concept, with a single parameter, used in two different contexts (books, distinct from journals). The parameter could be made sensitive to context in {cite book} vs. {cite journal}, but {citation} doesn't make that distinction. And having "volume" perform variously depending on context makes its use more complicated and less intuitive. A programming "fix" here would only change the trade-offs. Might be better to adopt the convention suggested by Redrose64: the "volume" paramter understood to apply only to journals (and such), with book volumes being incorporated in the title. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:28, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to dissent, but it seems to me there are two problems here:

(i) (narrowly) bad design and

(ii) (broadly) a lack of standards.

Unfortunately, these problems are outside my competence to address. I have noted a problem, I have learned that the problem has been noted before and I note the comments made now. I hope that some day somebody can do something about it. Hpvpp (talk) 22:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I am not in disagreement. What I was pointing out is, first, what you call "lack of standards" is really the inconsistent concept (of "volume"), which is a problem outside the province of programming. Second, what you see as bad design is largely unavoidable. As I described, the "volume" parameter could be made to perform differently in {cite book} and {cite journal}, but that only trades off one kind of "bad design" for another (inconsistency), and doesn't work for {citation}. Several centuries of publishing practice have made the problem too ingrained for anybody to "do something about it." The best we can do is to work out how to accommodate it. I suppose we could add a "bkvol" to handle volume numbers in way appropriate for books. But other than that I think the best accommodation is as suggested by Redrose64: handle it within the title, just as we do for sub-titles. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay. I should have been clearer. A well-designed program is one that is capable of producing meaningful output regardless of input, even to the extent of being able to cope with garbage input. (And, yes, I have been a programmer.) Accordingly, the "volume" parameter should indeed be made to perform differently in {cite book} and {cite journal} and the software should be able to handle {citation} as well. But I gather that there are substantial problems involved which brings me to my other point about lack of standards. What I mean here is that Wikipedia should opt for one particular citation style only. That would make life a lot easier for everyone, including the programmers writing the tools. However, adding a "bkvol" would only exacerbate the problem.

But, since I don't know how to get Wikipedia to adopt a standard, I will do as suggested by Redrose64. Hpvpp (talk) 22:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Re getting WP to adopt a citation style standard, that would be discussed at Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources. I don't think that you'll make much progress on that. Re WP templates software engineering ("systematic approach to the analysis, design, assessment, implementation, test, maintenance and reengineering of software") methodology, fat chance. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

And so I lose another illusion. Hpvpp (talk) 23:38, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The "volume=" parameter currently does as you suggest: "opt for one particular citation style only. " (Which is to do volume numbers appropriate for journals.) Making it perform differently for {cite book} and {cite journal} would make it inconsistent, which, in "fixing" one problem just creates another. And as {citation} does not have "book" and "journal" sub-types (nor any way of psychically determining the particular "meaningful output" each user wants), something would have to be added. I believe the simplest would be an explicit "bkvol" parameter. Even simpler, go with the suggestion. (P.S. I may have a few spare illusions. :-) - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request

{{editprotected}}

The |language field appears before the title instead of after it like the related templates {{cite web}}, etc. could someone please fix this?

e.g:

Someone. An example of the error. ({{cite book}})

Vs

Someone. "An example of the error". {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help) ({{cite web}})

Thanks, --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 02:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I've disabled this edit request for now. This difference appears to come from differences between cite book and cite web in the handling of the title= and work= parameters. I don't know how well the requirements about this were thought out, but there ought to be some discussion about it here and/or (more probably, I would guess) on the cite web talk page before an edit is made. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

That' fine, there seems to be an inconsistency issue with the various citation templates on how they're structured. This should be discuss in full to insure that we have a standard format for all of the various cite templates. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 06:17, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

The |title= parameter has a different purpose in these two templates. If we add a chapter name to the |chapter= parameter of cite book, and a website name to the |work= parameter of cite web, we see:

• Someone. "Chapter 1". An example of the error. ({{cite book}})
• Someone. "An example of the error". My website. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help) ({{cite web}})

The intended consistency should now be somewhat clearer: for a book, the title is the whole work, with chapter being a subdivision; whereas for a web page, the website is the whole work, the individual webpage title being the subdivision. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

We really need one page that explains how this series of templates works and why. The current doc pages merely show the parameters. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:09, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

In Association with

Which field would i use "in association with London's Transport Museum"? (ISBN 1-85669-326-0) Simply south...... 12:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

|others=: To record other contributors to the work, such as "Illustrated by Smith" or "Trans. Smith". ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:45, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that the book in question is "Published in association with the London Transport Museum", in which case it's not really an "other contributor". I have several books which fall into this category, one states "Published in association with the London Transport Museum" on the back cover only, and everywhere else that a publisher might be shown, it states either "Capital Transport" or "Capital Transport Publishing" and it is the latter form that is the legal one, since in one case it directly follows the © symbol. So in this case I would use:

• Day, John R.; Reed, John (2008) [1963]. The Story of London's Underground (10th ed.). Harrow: Capital Transport Publishing. ISBN 978 1 85414 316 7.

that is to say, I ignore the "Published in association ..." bit. Simply south, please verify that "Published in association with the London Transport Museum" is indeed the case. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:36, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

In the Amazon preview under the publisher it shows "Published in association with London's Transport Museum".[3] I am not sure what that means— does it modify the publisher or the author? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:39, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

The second page reads

The Moving Metropolis
A History of London's Transport since 1800

Edited by Sheila Taylor
Introductions by Oliver Green

In association with London's Transport Museum

Laurence King Publishing

Simply south...... 16:55, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I've got that book - my copy says This book was designed and published by Laurence King Publishing Ltd, London, in association with London's Transport Museum As the vast majority of the photos come from the Museum I'd say it's more like an enhanced acknowledgement of the museum's help to put both the material and layout of the book together. As such I'd either ignore it or list the museum under |publisher=. NtheP (talk) 17:33, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Whilst we're on the subject of this book, could you tell me why searches show Oliver Green as an editor when I'm sure from above he is not? Simply south...... 19:04, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

According to the contents Green wrote the introductions (note plural) As each chapter is an amount of text followed by loads of photos and captions I'm assuming Green wrote the text bit and Taylor edited the contributions for the rest. NtheP (talk) 23:08, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll probably just put Green in others and ignore the London Transport Museum. Simply south...... 23:16, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Chapter DOI

Can a parameter be added for a DOI for a chapter in a book? Currently, the DOI is for the whole book, but many scientific books have DOIs for each chapter (e.g. doi:10.1007/3-540-31265-X_11).  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 13:25, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Typically, if you're just citing one chapter, you use the contribution= or chapter= parameter. Even then, there's no implication that the DOI is for the book. Are you citing multiple chapters within the book and having an issue? Please clarify with examples. – VisionHolder « talk » 16:15, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The reason it seems to me that the DOI is for the book instead of the chapter is that the DOI is listed right next to the ISBN instead of by the chapter name. Maybe it's not confusing for anyone else but me.  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 21:48, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Nardi, N. Beyer; da Silva Meirelles, L. (2006). "Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Isolation, In Vitro Expansion and Characterization". In Wobus, Anna M.; Boheler, Kenneth (eds.). Stem Cells. Handbook of experimental pharmacology. Vol. 174. pp. 249–82. doi:10.1007/3-540-31265-X_11. ISBN 978-3-540-77854-7. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

If it was up to me, the citation would look more like this:

Nardi, N. Beyer; da Silva Meirelles, L. (2006). "Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Isolation, In Vitro Expansion and Characterization". doi:10.1007/3-540-31265-X_11. In Wobus, Anna M.; Boheler, Kenneth. Stem Cells. Handbook of experimental pharmacology. 174. pp. 249–82. ISBN 978-3-540-77854-7.

From what I understand, there is no standard format for listing things like ISBNs or DOIs in any named referencing system. This is a Wiki invention, intended to facilitate finding and verifying a source. From what I can tell, there appears to be a preference to put all identifiers at the end of the article. Anyway, people will find out what the DOI is for if they follow the link. I think most people know the DOIs are usually for articles and ISBNs are for books. – VisionHolder « talk » 22:10, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

A doi for a chapter? In terms of books, this seems absurd. I suspect that the case in mind is one of these collections of different papers, by different authors, which have been collected into a single work, arranged and numbered as chapters. In such a case I could see an isbn for the whole work (volume), and doi numbers for each individual chapter. But I don't see any valid overlap of the two, and I suspect that instances where a publisher has been so confused to do that are pathological cases. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:17, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Your suspicion is exactly what we're discussing. For instance, "A Consideration of Leaping Locomotion as a Means of Predator Avoidance in Prosimian Primates" (with its own DOI) is a chapter in the book Primates Anti-predator Strategies. I even have a few books were chapter can be made up of as many as 20 articles (e.g. The Natural History of Madagascar). They are really fun to cite, especially if you use multiple articles from a single book. The book information gets very redundant unless you get creative. – VisionHolder « talk » 00:21, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Citation can be so much fun! But if these are only a few pathological cases do we need to be very concerned about them? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:20, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

parameter question

does this template except a generic author = parameter? ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 00:13, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. It says so in the documentation. – VisionHolder « talk » 00:42, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I just re-read that and I cannot find where it says that, there are other author related parameters but nothing about {{Cite book |author=}} ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 01:03, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

My bad... I should have told you that it's deprecated. It's not in the list, but under the "Fields" heading there is a line that reads: "OR: author: Full name of author, preferably surname first. (deprecated) Don't wikilink (use authorlink instead)." Anyway, I suggest using last=, first=, or a list using last1=, first1=, last2=, first2=, etc. – VisionHolder « talk » 01:44, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Except that author= is the best (only?) way to list corporate authorship. Imzadi 1979 → 01:47, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

As things stand, |author= is merely a synonym for |last= - the full list of synonyms in order of precedence is |last=, |surname=, |last1=, |surname1=, |author1=, |author=, |authors=. That is, if both |last= and |author= are given, |author= is ignored; similarly, if both |author= and |authors= are given, |authors= is ignored. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:21, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Part and section

I have just asked these questions at template talk:citation

As far as I can tell there is neither a part of a section parameter. Three questions

• Has this been discussed before?
• As there is a volume= parameter why no part= or section= parameters?
• What is the work around for placing these three books all cited in the article Seige into templates which are usable with {{harv}}?
  • Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Part 2. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
  • Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Part 6. Taiepi: Caves Books Ltd.
  • Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Part 7. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.

-- PBS (talk) 14:47, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Does |at= work for this? Also supported by {{citation}}. The standard for multiple pubs by the same author in the same year is to add an alpha suffix to the year; documented at Template:Harvard citation#More than one work in a year. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:01, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

PBS, you raised a near-duplicate thread at Template talk:Citation#Part and section; please see my reply there (the answers are identical save for the use of {{cite book}} instead of {{citation}}), and per WP:MULTI let's keep the discussion there. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:10, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I did, did you read the first line of this section where I stated as much? I am happy to either keep it there, but as so some reason best known to others that two templates are not identical, it seems to me that the answers may not be identical. If they are then I am happy to discuss it on either page. -- PBS (talk) 19:35, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

One line would have been enough, but you then repeated the whole of the original post as well.

The templates are identical insofar as they recognise pretty much the same parameters and they both push their data through {{citation/core}}, but there are differences: the two biggest areis that {{cite book}} allows both |trans_title= and |trans_chapter= whereas {{citation}} doesn't, conversely, citation has parameters for the journal name (|journal= and its four synonyms) which cite book doesn't. Otherwise they primarily differ in some very minor ways such as the separator between the various items of information.

So far as the matters under discussion are concerned, the sole difference is that if you want harvard referencing to link, and you're not intending to use a custom link (ie |ref={{harvid|...}} ), you must provide an explicit |ref=harv to cite book, whereas that is the default action for citation. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:32, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Title and subtitle

Checking the archives, there hasn't been a proper consideration of whether a book's subtitle should be possible (or even encouraged) to specify as a separate field/parameter. I think the best reason is to facilitate Wikipedia:Microformats: if subtitle were separately specified, it would be easier to recognized that a book like Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is the same book as Frankenstein. The title and subtitle would be combined for normal display purposes, separated by subtitle-separator if such a field is supplied. Thus here's a version of how to format Shelley's famous book:

{{cite book| title= Frankenstein| subtitle= The Modern Prometheus| subtitle-separator= ; or, <!-- ignoring whether an escape character or other encoding is needed here --> | author = Mary Shelley| month= March | year= 1818| publisher= Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones }}

I don't see any downside to such an addition. Thanks. 67.100.125.207 (talk) 21:08, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I see I generated a lot of enthusiasm for the idea. 67.101.6.204 (talk) 22:06, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

My concern is that if the template produces a standard separator, it would not always match the separator chosen by the author or publisher. This mismatch might make it more difficult to search for the book in sites other than Wikipedia (or even within Wikipedia, since it is unlikely everyone would use the parameters in the same way, and not every article uses cite xxx templates). I do acknowledge the publisher might not use the same method of distinguishing the title from the subtitle in various parts of the book (e.g. cover vs. title page). Jc3s5h (talk) 01:07, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

There is currently no microformat for books or citations; you may be thinking of COinS. It appears (from http://generator.ocoins.info/?sitePage=info/book.html& ) that COinS does not support a separate subtitle parameter, but it could be useful to have the subtitle excluded from a COinS title parameter. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:28, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Editor names w/ chapter field

Hi everyone, I know WP has its own citation style, but AFAIK cite book contradicts the three major styles guides (MLA, Chicago, APA) in a citation like this: Sieche, Erwin (1984). "Austria-Hungary". In Gardiner, Robert; Gray, Randal (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906–1921. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.. No other guide has the editor names arranged Last, First; Last First – they use First Last and First Last. Regards, Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:18, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but I spot-checked checked MLA Works Cited Page: Books at Purdue Online Writing Lab, and found the following:

Basic Format

The author’s name or a book with a single author's name appears in last name, first name format. The basic form for a book citation is:

Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium of Publication.

and

A Work in an Anthology, Reference, or Collection

Works may include an essay in an edited collection or anthology, or a chapter of a book. The basic form is for this sort of citation is as follows:

Lastname, First name. "Title of Essay." Title of Collection. Ed. Editor's Name(s). Place of Publication: Publisher, Year. Page range of entry. Medium of Publication.

Some examples:

Harris, Muriel. "Talk to Me: Engaging Reluctant Writers." A Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One. Ed. Ben Rafoth. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2000. 24-34. Print.

Swanson, Gunnar. "Graphic Design Education as a Liberal Art: Design and Knowledge in the University and The 'Real World.'" The Education of a Graphic Designer. Ed. Steven Heller. New York: Allworth Press, 1998. 13-24. Print.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

The first example is not what I am talking about, but the second example is (sort of). Note that "Ben Rafoth" is in the form Firstname Lastname. I'm also talking about multiple editors, which I don't believe that web page covers. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:59, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Apart from the question of whether or not MLA, Chicago, APA, etc. style guides place the last name first, it seems to me that last, first ordering is useful. Entries in a list of references are typically ordered alphabetically by last name, and referenced from elsewhere by the author's last name — see e.g.,WP:CITE#Wikipedia:CITE#Shortened footnotes. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:57, 11 June 2011 (UTC) Quoting Emily Litella, "Never mind". (editors -- you're talking about editor names where author names also appear -- I get it now -- duh). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:05, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, exactly. Sorry for not making that more clear. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:36, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

When to use authorlink= paramter?

Please see Template talk:Citation/core#authorlink paramater on a question of when the |authorlink= should be used and when the |author= and |editor= fields can be linked directly. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:17, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Translators (again)

I've just read through last January's thread about a special parameter for translators. I think that hpvpp and EauLibrarian are quite correct about the need for the translator to be listed right next to the original author (in many cases). For most literature, the translation is essentially a new work of literature. This is the reason that great works (Homer's The Odyssey) have been translated many, many times. Anyway, here's how I chose to manage it for the section of the article The Robbers concerning the different translations from Schiller's Die Räuber. I used the parameters for the {{cite book}} template: |last1=Schiller |first1=Friedrich |last2=MacDonald |first2=Robert David (trans.). This renders as "Schiller, Friedrich; MacDonald, Robert David (trans.)". Clumsy, but I can live with it. For the reasons that EauLibrarian noted, in the long run it would be superior to have a specific parameter. Cheers, Easchiff (talk) 18:33, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem with doing it that way is that the COinS metadata in the final page is incorrect. The COinS metadata is there for the benefit of search engines and similar tools, outside of Wikipedia. For example, some browsers may offer plugins which, upon displaying a web page containing COinS metadata, will utilise it in a form which enables a library search to be performed, see here. These processors will be looking for authors written as unambiguous plain text, like "MacDonald, Robert David" or "Robert David MacDonald", possibly split into forename/lastname; but they will not be looking for authors containing annotations like "(trans.)" - the parenthesis will probably confuse them. Even if these two characters are filtered out, they'll still encounter the curious-looking "MacDonald, Robert David trans.".

If your browser has a "view page source" function (most do, but the method for accessing it varies considerably), try viewing the source for a page containing a citation. Search for 'class="Z3988"' - that is the start of the COinS for a citation. Much of it is cryptic; what you're looking for are the bits beginning 'rft.au='. Each of these extends to the next '&', and there may be more than one of them if there are multiple authors (there will also be 'rft.aulast=' and possibly also 'rft.aufirst=' too, but a problem in these will also show up in the 'rft.au='). Using your example, we have:

rft.au=Schiller%2C%26%2332%3BFriedrich&

rft.au=MacDonald%2C%26%2332%3BRobert+David+%28trans.%29&

Here, the %2C is a comma; the %26%2332%3B is the Unicode representation of a space; the + is also a space but of a different significance, whilst the %28 and %29 are the opening and closing parentheses.

The upshot of all this is that the COinS processor is being told that the text "(trans.)" is part of the author's name, which us humans know is not the case. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:50, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I understand the difficulty. As time permits, I may create a variation of the {{cite book}} template ({{cite translation}}?) that would manage this situation. In the meantime, the alternatives seem to be to abandon use of the template, or to mis-use it. What's your view? Easchiff (talk) 23:26, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Personally I would use the |others= parameter. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:34, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

How should it look? Additional parameters should be proposed to {{citation/core}} so they are available to all templates. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:48, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

I suppose we should try to straighten this out. So here's what it looks like when I use |others=, following Redrose64:

Schiller, Friedrich (1995). The Robbers. Robert David MacDonald, Trans. London: Oberon. ISBN 9781870259521.

This formatting is fairly consistent with the APA style guide, which gives an example:

Camus, A. (1988). The stranger (Matthew Ward, Trans.). New York: Knopf. (Original work published 1958).

A question for Redrose64: will this usage work out in the metadata? If so, I'll update the documentation to explain how to manage translators using |others=. Cheers, Easchiff (talk) 02:22, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

The content of |others= does not get placed in the COinS metadata, so to my mind, it's valid.

I see from the APA style guide which you linked that the "Edition, Translator, and Volume Information ... goes in parentheses directly following the title". We don't quite do the same - it's volume, then others, then edition - but only the edition is in parenthesis. The order in which the various items are presented to the reader, and their styling, is controlled by {{citation/core}}, to which {{cite book}} is merely one of several front ends. So should it be desirable to move the translator into the parenthesis following the edition, the change would be requested at template talk:citation/core. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:38, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

chapterurl and archived pages

Can we add a companion parameter to chapterurl for archived versions? For instance, I use this template to cite specific chapters of environmental impact studies (EISs) for highway construction. Most EISs are broken down into separate PDF files for each chapter of the overall document listed from a DOT webpage about the project. The problem is that sometimes an EIS is no longer being hosted on the DOT website, but it's usually still available through archive.org. If I use archiveurl/archive date, I can link to the archived version of the main page that lists the various files, but I can't link directly to the archived version of the chapter. That means the chapter link link will be dead, but the link to the EIS page will link to an archived version. Imzadi 1979 → 19:52, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Where should the format be listed?

I am using the following code:

{{cite book |title=Annual Report of Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Tourism (2009-2010) |url=http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/reports/pdf/2009_2010cht_ar.pdf |archiveurl= |archivedate= |format=PDF |accessdate=July 17, 2011 |type= |edition= |series= |volume= |year=2010 |publisher=Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Tourism |location=Winnipeg |page=54}}

It produces the following:

Annual Report of Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Tourism (2009-2010) (PDF). Winnipeg: Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Tourism. 2010. p. 54. Retrieved July 17, 2011.

Is the format intentionally listed at the beginning or is this a glitch of some sort? In my experience, I have found that the format is usually listed after the title/link in most citation templates on Wikipedia. Graham11 (talk) 21:28, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

There are no authors or editor - ordinarily those would come before the title. However, since it's a PDF, there's no need to explicitly state |format=PDF, because the fact is automatically detected from the URL. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:50, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, here's another weird one, cited in Caryn Navy:

{{cite book | last = Watson | first = Stephen | chapter = Chapter 4: Problems I wish I could Solve | editor1-last = van Mill | editor1-first = Jan | editor2-last = Reed | editor2-first = George M. | title = Open Problems in Topology | pages = 52–53 | year = 1990 | publisher = [[North-Holland Publishing Company]] | location = Amsterdam | isbn = 0444-88768-9 | url = http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.153.8646&rep=rep1&type=pdf | format = PDF | accessdate = February 10, 2011}}

produces:

Watson, Stephen (1990). "Chapter 4: Problems I wish I could Solve". In van Mill, Jan; Reed, George M. (eds.). Open Problems in Topology (PDF). Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. pp. 52–53. ISBN 0444-88768-9. Retrieved February 10, 2011. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)

Especially since the URL itself doesn't say ".pdf" (but that's what loads if you click it), I think the format should be given right after the link. Ntsimp (talk) 21:54, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I've definitely seen links to PDFs where the PDF logo appears in addition to the format parameter. But supposing that there weren't a logo in this case, why wouldn't the format appear after the link? Can this be fixed somehow? Graham11 (talk) 22:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

This is the format when there is no author; with an author it would show as:

author (2010). Annual Report of Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Tourism (2009-2010) (PDF). Winnipeg: Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Tourism. p. 54. Retrieved July 17, 2011. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)

As to why this style was chosen, I can't answer. This is not APA stle, as APA 6 states "In a reference to a work with no author, move the title to the author position, before the date of publication."

The PDF icon is generated by CSS when an external link has the .pdf extension— it has nothing to do with the template. Without the extension, you don't get the icon. If you really want the icon, you can add:

|format={{PDFlink|1=[http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.153.8646&rep=rep1&type=pdf ​]}}

to get:

Watson, Stephen (1990). "Chapter 4: Problems I wish I could Solve". In van Mill, Jan; Reed, George M. (eds.). Open Problems in Topology ("​".). Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. pp. 52–53. ISBN 0444-88768-9. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help); External link in |format= (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |format= at position 1 (help)

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:06, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Multiple citations from the same source

I've come across a little problem with {{cite book}}. Let's say I have to make multiple citations from the same source, and I'd like to use the page numbers. It's no good naming a reference because then all my citations link to the same reference with the same page number. The only solution, that I can see, if to include the same book many times. But then my reference section looks horrible:

Milnor, J. W.; Stasheff, J. D. (1974). Characteristic Classes. Princeton University Press. pp. 50–53. ISBN 0691081220.

Milnor, J. W.; Stasheff, J. D. (1974). Characteristic Classes. Princeton University Press. pp. 131–133. ISBN 0691081220.

Milnor, J. W.; Stasheff, J. D. (1974). Characteristic Classes. Princeton University Press. pp. 222–225. ISBN 0691081220.

Is there a way of using one reference, but having many page numbers? For example, in the text you'd see [1a] and [1b]. Then when you click on it you'd jump down to the reference line and you'd see

[1]: Milnor, J. W.; Stasheff, J. D. (1974). Characteristic Classes. Princeton University Press. [a]: pp. 50–53, [b]: pp. 131–133.

Is this currently possible, or is there a way of making it possible? — Fly by Night (talk) 15:25, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

There are several ways, and I use at least three of them. They are each based upon the idea of shortened footnotes. Rather than try to explain it all, I'll direct you to two shortish articles: (a) Esher railway station has two references: the first uses <ref>{{cite book}}</ref> and the second uses <ref>{{harvnb}}</ref>; (b) Abingdon Road Halt railway station groups all the {{cite book}} at the bottom, and uses custom short notes within the text, each being enclosed in a <ref>...</ref> (I could have used {{harvnb}} instead of the custom short notes, but I was still learning way back then); (c) Hinksey Halt railway station also groups all the {{cite book}} at the bottom, but uses {{sfn}} instead of <ref>...</ref> within the text. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:50, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

There's also {{rp}} which used in conjunction with <ref>...</ref> produces a footnote indicator followed by a superscripted page number. NtheP (talk) 15:55, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

To demonstrate technique (a) using your particular examples - I would put something like Fact one. Fact two. Fact three.

Please note that for this purpose the {{cite book}} has been modified in two ways: (i) it uses |year=1974 and not |date=1974 (this is because a |date= must contain a month otherwise the year may not be interpreted correctly); (ii) the special parameter |ref=harv has been added. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Redrose64, thanks for your replies. I had thought of doing that myself, but it still has the same problem: we get three entries for three facts, and the resulting repartition doesn't look very nice. Any idea how to get around that? Can we change the code used by the remplate?
• NtheP, thank you too for your reply. Could you please give an example of your suggestion in action? — Fly by Night (talk) 18:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Fact one. Fact two. Fact three

Milnor, J. W.; Stasheff, J. D. (1974). Characteristic Classes. Princeton University Press. pp. 50–53. ISBN 0691081220.

Hope this helps. NtheP (talk) 18:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Nthep, I don't see how that's any easier than using regular short notes: in fact, I think it's more difficult because the page number is now divorced from the rest of the ref. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:13, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say it was easier, just that it's another means to the same end. My personal preference is {{sfn}}. NtheP (talk) 19:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I too favour {{sfn}} - so, Fly by Night, see (c) Hinksey Halt railway station or here's a demo of your example using {{sfn}}: Fact one. Fact two. Fact three.

• Milnor, J. W.; Stasheff, J. D. (1974). Characteristic Classes. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691081220. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Please note that for this purpose the {{cite book}} has been modified in the same two ways as before. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:17, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Page numbers in references

Per the verifiability policy, "The source should be cited clearly and precisely, with page numbers where appropriate." There are several methods to include page numbers, depending on the citation style.

Numeric in-text citations

Standard footnotes— include unique references for each citation, showing the page numbers in the reference list

The brontosaurus is thin at one end. Then it becomes much thicker in the middle.

Standard footnotes— use named references with {{rp}}, showing the page numbers in-text

The brontosaurus is thin at one end. Then it becomes much thicker in the middle.

Standard footnotes— use list-defined references with {{r}}, showing the page numbers in-text

The brontosaurus is thin at one end. Then it becomes much thicker in the middle.

Shortened footnotes, showing the page numbers in the notes list and a separate list for the full reference; using {{sfn}}

The brontosaurus is thin at one end. Then it becomes much thicker in the middle.

• Elk, Anne (November 16, 1972). Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Parenthetical in-text citations

Parenthetical referencing (Harvard) and showing the page numbers in-text using {{harv}}

The brontosaurus is thin at one end.(Elk 1972a, p. 5) Then it becomes much thicker in the middle.(Elk 1972a, p. 6)

• Elk, Anne (November 16, 1972). Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:57, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Another solution

Thanks to everyone for their posts. There have been some very ingenious examples of how to work within the existing confinds of the template. One thing I did mention, that hasn't been mentioned, is whether the existing template can be changed to yield the results that I suggested. For example:

Is there a way of using one reference, but having many page numbers? For example, in the text you'd see [1a] and [1b]. Then when you click on it you'd jump down to the reference line and you'd see

[1]: Milnor, J. W.; Stasheff, J. D. (1974). Characteristic Classes. Princeton University Press. [a]: pp. 50–53, [b]: pp. 131–133.

— Fly by Night (talk) 04:32, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

As it stands right now, no. There's no way to suffix the footnote number as you propose without modifying the footnote system built into the MediaWiki software that runs Wikipedia. I see a potential for confusion though. Currently if footnote 1 is repeated in the body of the article a few times using named references, after the number 1 in the reference list, there will be linked letters a, b, c, etc. The a is linked to the location of the first time footnote 1 is used, the b to the second, the c to a third, etc. This allows a reader to click the linked footnote in the text to jump to the reference, and then click the letter to jump back to the text. Under the KISS model, lowercase letters shouldn't be used in similar ways for different meanings. In this case, you have letters to denote the links back into the text and which specific page range (or page) of the source is being referenced. We also have the ability now, using named groups to have the footnotes appear as lowercase Latin or Greek letters or lowercase roman numerals. (U.S. Route 131 uses lowercase letter footnotes for explanatory notes rather than reference footnotes to keep the two separate.)

In the article Michigan State Trunkline Highway System, I've used a few books and journal articles. In the case of footnotes 26 and 27, one is to pages 65 and 66 (the cited information crosses from one page to the other) and the other is to page 66 alone (the information from the three repetitions is spread throughout the page) in the same journal article. To be as verifiable as possible, I use the specific page number, changing my footnote as necessary. The reader should be pointed to a specific page rather than dig through a range so they can find the source information. Imzadi 1979 → 05:35, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

See T15127 Page number attribute for <ref>...</ref> tags, which after three years has no clear example of the expected output. Michigan State Trunkline Highway System uses a mix of shortened footnotes and standard footnotes. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:06, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Imzadi1979, but I don't see how the confusion can be any greater. As it stands, if you cite and name a reference and then link to it, then when you go down to the reference section you will see 1 ^{^ a b c} and 2 ^{^ a b}. The only difference is that when you click the b superscript in 2 ^{^ a b} I suggest, instead of being linked back up into the main body of the text, that you be linked to the page number in the reference:

• 2 ^{^ a b} Milnor, J. W.; Stasheff, J. D. (1974). Characteristic Classes. Princeton University Press. a: pp. 50–53, b: pp. 131–133.

It seems more logical to me. The only thing that stops this is the lack of code; but I think that that can be changed. — Fly by Night (talk) 01:52, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the superscripted letters in the reference list refer to the first, second, third, nth times the footnote is repeated in the body of the article. They are generated, not by the citation template, but rather by the MediaWiki server's footnote extension. To use your method, no letters could appear next to a citation in the reference list unless it's referring to a page number or page number range inside the footnote. How would the reference list indicate that a footnote is reused other than the existing letters? Your idea is not a bad one, but it encompasses more than a single citation template. Remember too that many editors despise using the templates for citations, so many articles have hand-formatted footnotes. We'd have to lose one functionality in the server software to implement this, which would take a very wide-ranging discussion of the community. How would we allow readers to jump back to the second or third time a footnote is used the body of the article? Imzadi 1979 → 02:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)