Template talk:Ref Jane's

Using this template

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Jane's

There's more than one Jane's item (consider periodicals, other reference materials from them) that could be referenced. I think the title of this template should be made more specific. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 13:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Alternately, the template could be made more generic (ie, {{Ref Jane's|fighting|The Hawker Hurricane|128-129}} rather than the current) to allow the use of any jane's publication by simply adding more options to a #switch field. AWB could run through the existing uses and convert them. ericg ✈ 20:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

It's done, though the order can be switched later via awb as previously mentioned. ericg ✈ 22:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Problems with this template

This template, as currently set up, gives wrong information for at least two of the Books that can be referenced.

Jane’s Fighting Aircraft of World War II is not edited or authored by Fred T. Jane (who died in 1916- the original 1946 Jane's on which it was based was Edited by Leonard Bridgeman, and the version published under that name by Studio was not published in 1946 but 1989.

Similarly Jane’s Fighting Aircraft of World War I was not principally editied by Jane - The 1919 edition on which most of it was based was edited by C.G Grey (although the 1914 edition of which extracts were also used was edited by Jane). The Studio edition was first published in 1990.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:42, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks, Nigel. I have them both sitting on my shelf, but I pulled down copyright info from an isbn search and didn't really think to verify. ericg ✈ 04:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Typographer's quotes?

Any particular reason this template uses typographer's quotes (pretty quotes)? The MOS doesn't much care for them. Livitup (talk) 03:13, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I removed them from the output. If I missed any, please feel free to remove them yourself. — Bellhalla (talk) 17:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Update to template

In addition to the mostly cosmetic changes for usage and documentation already implemented, I've created a sandbox for this template with a revised version of the template. Some notes:

• No changes to the existing calls of the template are necessary.
• The proposed changes call {{cite book}} for proper reference formatting and still correctly implement all of the existing parameters. (The titles Jane's All The World's Aircraft and Jane's Fighting Ships are considered serial publications and as such should technically be cited through {{cite journal}}. Since that template requires an article title, an option with {{Ref Jane's}}, I have used {{cite book}} instead.)
• I expanded the reference information to include more locator information like OCLCs and ISSNs.
• Where ISBNs were previously provided, I have used the information from [http:worldcat.org Worldcat.org] to supplement and/or correct previous information.

Please take a look at the code and at my test page with all permutations of parameters for appearance. If there are no objections, the sandbox code can be copied into the template. — Bellhalla (talk) 18:51, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

These are fairly fundamental changes:

1) This is a complete change in Citation style to APA format - the existing MLA style is entirely legitimate and allowed by WP:Cite. This template is often used in articles which use MLA style for citation so the proposed change will cause articles to have inconsistant citation styles. 2) Use of Cite Journal for Yearbooks such as Jane's All the World's Aircraft and Jane's Fighting Ships is entirely inapprpriate. These are books with ISBN numbers - ISSN and OCLS numbers are virtually useless in this case as they don't point to the specific editions, while much of the bibliographical informationin the proposed format, even if it has come off Worldcat is complete nonsense - Fred T Jane had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with Jane’s Fighting Aircraft of World War II - as discussed above, he was long dead by the time the 1946 edition of All the Worlds Airc4raft of which this is a virtual reprint was written.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:26, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I knew it was a pretty dramatic change, which is why I proposed it in advance and executed it on a sandbox page and not in the template itself. Some replies to your comments:

• You have a very good point about APA vs. MLA style. Perhaps an optional style parameter could be added for those who wish to use it with "cite" templates (i.e. {{cite book}}, {{cite web}}, {{cite news}}, etc.)?
• In no case did any of the proposed changes remove an ISBN. Many of the books listed were published (or listed a year of publication) before the ISBN system was in place, and would therefore not have one.
• An ISSN or an OCLC, even when not pointing to a specific year or edition, is better than no locator information whatsoever. (See item above for discussion of editions published before the ISBN system was implemented).
• I am aware that Jane died in 1916. I do not have access to any of the volumes and only had the information from Worldcat.org; I intended this proposal as a starting point, not a fait accompli.

— Bellhalla (talk) 21:59, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

You're both free to do as you like, as long as you can agree on a solution. I'm very much inactive, only doing a little bit of typo correction here and there and occasionally looking up specifications for articles. If other people are using this template now, then by all means update it and improve it! ericg ✈ 23:56, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Duplicated period

This template often produces a duplicated period, for instance if you invoke the template with no parameters:

Bridgeman, Leonard. Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II. London: Studio, 1946. ISBN 1 85170 493 0.

Is there a reason for the duplicated period after 1946? If not, can it be fixed? Art LaPella (talk) 01:07, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

4 months later, I found this in another article, came here, found my own comment, and decided there wasn't much to lose by attempting a fix myself. I believe it's  Fixed. Art LaPella (talk) 22:17, 9 December 2014 (UTC)