Template talk:MacTutor

Request

I request that an additional field(s) be added - for the date of the particular biography. For example, the Yudell Luke biography is dated October 1998 (see version for printing). — ERcheck (talk) 00:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. —Ruud 23:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. — ERcheck (talk) 03:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Citation?

Does anyone else think it would be better if this template used {{citation}} instead of {{cite encyclopedia}}? The MacTutor archive isn't really an encyclopedia, and using {{citation}} would enable this template to be used with {{Harv}} to provide links from Harvard references. Geometry guy 12:20, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Quiet around here. I will make the change. Geometry guy 19:42, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Links

{{editprotected}}

Would there be anyway of linking up John and Edmund's articles up?--Brittish incompetance (talk) 10:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Done. You're in luck, I actually knew how to do that one without needing to bounce it back and whine for exact syntax.  ;) --Elonka 22:30, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Publisher and access date?

In the FAC for Speed of light, I was asked to add a publisher (I suppose it'd be University of St Andrews) and access date (this should be a parameter in the template) for two citations produced by this template. See here. Could you do that? Thanks in advance― A._di_M.^{2nd Dramaout} (formerly Army1987) 20:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC) {{editprotected}} Please add the following two lines before the }}:

|publisher=[[University of St Andrews]]
|accessdate={{{accessdate|}}}

(Excluding the nowiki tags, of course; copy from the rendered page.) Thanks. ― A._di_M.^{2nd Dramaout} (formerly Army1987) 09:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:32, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Template is confusing when used as external link.

This template is confusing when it is used for an external link. In that case, it should just produce the link to the article with a little blurbed saying it's at the MacTutor archive. We do not have to link O'Conner and Robertson and, for sure, they should not be linked before the external link itself. Jason Quinn (talk) 23:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I also find this distracting/confusing: the whole line is blue, but where is the part I'm supposed to click? CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:45, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps a format=reference or format=external parameter should be added? —Ruud 21:28, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

That sounds (to me) like a good idea. --Mike Schwartz (talk) 20:20, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

This problem still exists. (Geez, I don't even remember of making my original comment. Came here to write the same thing and noticed I had already done it.) At the very least the template documentation should be updated to say that usage in the external links section is discouraged. Jason Quinn (talk) 20:12, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

A proposal

Hello, I have a proposal for this template: would it be possible to add a author(s) field(s) and also a author-link field? I know that the major part of the biographies are written by John J O'Connor and Edmund F Robertson, but non all of them are: for example see the Renato Caccioppoli and Giacinto Morera external link sections. It would be interesting to specify and refer the exact author. Thank you for your attention. Daniele.tampieri (talk) 09:40, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

very reasonable proposal, to my opinion. Sasha (talk) 15:17, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this should be done. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that the template should be modified in order to allow the specification of one or more authors, in a way analogous to what is done in the {{citation}} template. Daniele.tampieri (talk) 15:34, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Daniele, do you know how to do it (technically)? (I mean, having a default value for the author field that is overwritten when you specify the author?)

Thanks, Sasha (talk) 16:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Sasha, I did not know how to do it exactly (as a matter of fact I'm an hardware engineer, :-D ), but I believe that looking to the {{citation}}, to the {{MacTutor}} and also to the {{MathWorld}} (which behaves nearly exactly the way I like, placing the constant Weisstein, Eric W. in the author field when the author is not specified) templates should help us doing the job: however an admin's eye would be helpful (consider also that the Template:MacTutor page cannot be edited by normal user, since it's protected]], and maybe again Oleg can suggest us the right names, or we can find out looking at the editing history of the referring page who are the ones who control it. I would like the template to show up like in the following example.

• Maz'ya, Vladimir G.; Shaposhnikova, Tatyana O.; Tampieri, Daniele (March 2011), "Solomon Grigoryevich Mikhlin", in O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (eds.), MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link).

Well, I think that's all for now, and I also think I've indulged too much in self promotion. :-D :-D :-D Thank, you, Sasha, and thanks in advance to all who will take part to this discussion. Daniele.tampieri (talk) 19:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I have tried to implement Daniele's proposal at Template:MacTutor/sandbox. But this is my first template, please help check it! Sasha (talk) 05:04, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Sasha, CRGreathouse, I succeeded in modifying it in order to realize the format shown above, while leaving intact all the standard features: everyone can check its structure looking in the Template:MacTutor/sandbox page and see a comparison with the actual template in its testcase page. I'm going to post the announce in the WikiProject Mathematics talk page. :-D Daniele.tampieri (talk) 21:23, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

this is perfect. If no-one comments in the next couple of days, we can ask a friendly admin to replace the current version with the sandbox. Sasha (talk) 02:23, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

The change looks good to me. I think the template is somewhat problematic with its sea of blue but I see no reason to avoid the fix. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:16, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps erase the link to O'Connor (until there is an article about him) and also the link to University of St Andrews? Sasha (talk) 16:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Please note that the overlinking problem is already present in the original version of the template, on which we must assume there was consensus at the time it was frozen. Also erasing the redirected O'Connor link wouldn't be useful, since it will force an editor interested in adding an entry about him to change a edit protected template instead of simply change a redirection link. I propose to adopt the modified version as is and ask for the intervention of an admin by using the {{edit protected}} and other standard procedures: if my proposal is approved, I can do it. Daniele.tampieri (talk) 19:31, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

You are definitely right, the blue links are a separate issue that can be addressed separately. I think whoever wished to comment commented already, so you can apply the procedure (or do it tomorrow to give the interested editors another day to comment). Sasha (talk) 19:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Let's wait tomorrow, just as a cautionary mesure, and advertise a bit the action on the Wiki Math project page. Daniele.tampieri (talk) 20:34, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for not responding to the previous request on my talk page. The updated sandbox version looks fine. Let me know if you need help copying it to the main template. —Ruud 21:30, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Ruud. Also I need to apologize since I did not post anything on your user page. I'll start the work tomorrow, just to let other editors write their comments, if any: could you be the admin in charge of the update? Daniele.tampieri (talk) 21:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello, I (Daniele Tampieri) propose to change the code of the template according to the one tested in the Template:MacTutor/sandbox: users Sasha Sodin and CRGreathouse have expressed their general consensus on the changes I proposed, while no other has manifested concerns about them. Basically, those changes give an editor the ability to state an author different from the two standard ones, if appropriated, giving credit to them as editors: if no author field (i.e. nor first or last parameter, are stated, the template works exactly as the in the present standard form. Some comparative tests are shown in the testcase page. Thank for your help and collaboration in any case. Best, Daniele.tampieri (talk) 21:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. Perhaps the documentation should still be updated with a few of the new testcases. Cheers, —Ruud 21:21, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I updated the documentation too. I added all the examples tested in the testcase page: please check and correct the documentation. If anyone thinks it's redundant, please reduce its content to a reasonable size, without sacrificing completeness and understandability. Daniele.tampieri (talk) 08:49, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

URL

The URL for the archive apparently changed from Biographies to HistTopics. I get "The page could not be found. Please check your URL" for the former and the article itself for the latter. The page I want is http://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Zero.html using {{MacTutor|id=Zero|title=A history of Zero}}. — Joe Kress (talk) 18:02, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

They apparently rearranged their indices. "A history of Zero" now resides in three subindices at MacTutor History of Mathematics History Topics Index, Ancient Babylonian, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic, and Indian. — Joe Kress (talk) 22:39, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't work when URL doesn't end in HTML filename

I tried using this template for: Miller, Jeff (n.d.). "Earliest Uses of Symbols of Calculus". In O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (eds.). MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. University of St Andrews. Retrieved 2023-06-15., but couldn't because the url only contains subdirs, nothing ending in an HTML filename.

I'd suggest the easiest fix (it appears, I'm not good with template invoke/etc.) would be to add an _alias-map=url:contribution-url so that people can just give something like: {{MacTutor |last= Miller |first= Jeff |title= Earliest Uses of Symbols of Calculus |url= https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Miller/mathsym/calculus/}}, and not have to parse/faff with the |id= or |class= stuff.  — sbb (talk) 15:41, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

URL change ?

Seems that the template points to http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Peddie.html

That URL doesn't seem to work now. A working URL which seems to be the right one is at https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk

I'm sure I could tinker with the template code so that it points to the mathhistory URL instead but as I don't know anything about the bigger picture I ought to leave that to someone else ! Babybrew6 (talk) 11:53, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

@Babybrew6: The working link for William Peddie seems to be https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Peddie/ now. --CiaPan (talk) 09:07, 7 November 2024 (UTC)