Wikipedia talk:Wikicite

Wikicite

Nice software, I have found it very handy, thanks Brian | (Talk) 08:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikicite using Mono?

I noticed that you're writing Wikicite, and you say it's only for Windows. Because you're writing it in .NET, it should be able to work on Linux and other platforms through the Mono development platform. It works great for C# programs, but I'm not sure if it support VB.Net --Jeffrey Sharkey 17:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I may well shift my interest from VB.NET to C# and port Wikicite as a training project because of this. Thanks Jeffrey. --Dave 08:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikicite quirk

Nothing too important, but on the "Web" and (especially) "Book" tabs, pressing the tab button jumps from field to field rather unpredictably. --zenohockey 02:08, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, it was an easy fix but I had to find out from someone before I knew to do it. Fixed now. --Dave 15:44, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikicite version

First let me say that I think Wikicite is great. I use it quite often. I was wondering if you could list the current version on your page. I have version 1.0.2319.26646, but I have no way of knowing if I need to download a new version. Also, a changelog would be nice, if it's not too much trouble. Thanks again. —Muéro^(talk/c) 05:31, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion Muéro. I've put the version number under the help tab programmatically so it will be easy to check which version you have form now on. I've also put the latest version number on my user page so there is something to check against. Wikicite is pretty stable now. I don't anticipate any major changes unless someone points out a bug. If I get some spare time I may try to give it auto-update capability too. --Dave 09:28, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

WikiCite is great!

I've been editing on-and-off for several months and am only wishing that I'd found Wikicite sooner. It's very helpful -- great tool. My only comment would be that I wish more folks were aware of it. Perhaps adding links on the Wikipedia Tools pages or pages about citations would be worthwhile, such that more folks can find it. Thanks very much!Strom 22:44, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed it is but it just took me 15 minites to dig up a link to the executable! CyberAnth 07:23, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

There's another project also called WikiCite that seems to always try to infest my search results, as well. Strom 07:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming my frustration, Strom. :-)

Given our common experience and the fact that we can almost certainly extrapolate our experience to many more but non-vocal others, I have a suggestion.

Before this proggy catches on even more--and more so, so that it even does catch on more--I suggest a program name change to 'WikeRef, WikiCitator, WikiBiblio,' or the like.

Christian_views_on_contraception#References is one among several pages where I turned some citation chaos into quick order with the program, an act that I would never have bothered to even do but for this program, for which Dmoss should take major credit and all Wikipedians should feel pride.

But this program will languish too much in a black hole if the difficulty of finding it remains. The only way I found it again to advocate for it to others is by the Help Tab in WikiCite itself. Wikipedia and Google turned up only dead ends to "that other" WikiCite Project. Fact is, if people cannot easily find it at the drop of a hat, they will surely advocate for it much less. And it is much too useful and worthy for that to happen, in my view.

What do you think, 'Dmoss'? And others?

CyberAnth 08:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think I will happily take all the advice and help I can get to make Wikicite more accessible. If a name change will help, thats an easy fix. I haven't promoted it very much around Wikipedia myself because I don't want to be seen as blowing my own trumpet. If others want to promote it heavily I won't get upset at all :-) --Dave 09:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I created Wikicite with a re-direct to User:Dmoss/Wikicite. This will get things rolling better and enable Wikipedians to easily find the program by a simple Wikipedia search. :-) CyberAnth 10:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikicite on Win2K?

Can you tell me how to run your Wikicite on Windows 2000? The problem is that .Net 3.0 only works on WinXP. Sofeil 11:25, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikicite was originally written using the .NET 1.1 redistributable. I recently upgraded my development PC to to .NET 2.0 so I could run autowikibrowser. Both these redistributables work with Windows 2000. It may be that you require Microsoft Installer 3.0 in order to install the .NET 2.0 redistributables on Windows 2000. You can find Microsoft Installer 3.0 at the Microsoft site, or if that is a problem for you and you don't mind the slow speed, at my site. --Dave 03:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow this is great. Thanks a lot! Sofeil 10:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

A thousand thanks!

Gads, I wish I had found this earlier. I must have done several hundred citations by copying and pasting the appropriate template from Wikipedia:Citation templates. All well and good, except that I had to click in the right place to insert the needed information, and if I wanted to get rid of the vertical orientation of the citation and make it more horizontal, I had to delete all the returns and extra spaces between the vertical bars. I'm sure I will keep some hair on my quickly-balding head much longer now thanks to you!

That being said, could I ask a favor? It would be helpful to be able to include blank fields in the citation for which information is currently missing, but it is anticipated that it will be found. For example, I just helped create a citation to a book that someone else used as a source. I don't have the book; Amazon.com doesn't list the location of the publisher; and I obviously don't know what pages are being cited. If I leave the "Page/s" and "Location" fields blank, I have to remember what the fields are called in the template in order to add them back in. (This isn't always obvious; see "authorlink" and "coauthors", for example. Additionally, if at a later date an article comes to be written about an author, the template should be updated with " | authorlink=Name of article |".

Could you provide a way to copy and paste all the fields whether they're blank or not? Or devise some way for the user to choose which blank fields to include? If this is a pain, don't worry—it's definitely a "nice to have", and I can put placeholders in now and come back and insert the data later.

Thanks.—Chidom ^talk  17:48, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Chidom, thanks for the feedback. When I get some spare time I will be trying to get Wikicite to be able to import a reference as well as creating one. That will allow form based editing of existing references. Thats a fair way off at the moment though. In the meantime, if you click in the fields you want to include, but don't have information for, then press the space bar, Wikicite will include the template code for that field when it creates the reference. I just tested this idea with the web citation, the journal citation and the book citation to make sure it worked. Wikicite checks each field to see if it has text as it creates the reference. If the field has any text at all, including a single space character, it includes that field in the reference. I hope this solves your problem. --Dave 01:21, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

References

Thanks so much. I took the liberty of editing the "References" header so it wouldn't be a section and would stay with these comments. I also used what I've been told is now the preferred code for listing references:

<div class="references-small"><references /></div>

I also noticed that you entered brackets in the accessdate field as I have often done; they are generated automatically for that field because all the date parameters are known for the access date—month, day, and year. Adding the brackets is redundant, and results in brackets appearing on either side of the wikilinked date. For other date-type fields, all three parameters are sometimes not known, so to automatically wikilink the input data results in an error.

To avoid this, perhaps you could add a note to the right of the accessdate input box such as "Automatic wikilink"; you might also want to limit input there to 10 characters.

I just discovered that this apparently this is a "feature" of Wikicite; I didn't add the brackets and they appeared anyway.—Chidom ^talk  06:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

For the other date fields, you might want to modify the input box and label to something along the lines of:

If this would be confusing, perhaps just add some text such as "Please add wikilinking for whole dates". This would apply to all three citation forms for the "Year" input box.

I noticed that the "Year" input box on the Book citation form is more than generous, but the one on the Journal screen needs to be a bit longer so as to allow full dates as well.

Lastly, I would really appreciate it if you would change the character length of the "Year" input box on the Web citation form to allow full numeric dates (10 characters), as often the article I cite has an actual publication date.

Thank you again for all your hard work on this!—Chidom ^talk  00:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I just increased the capacity of the Year fields in all 3 reference types to 10 characters as requested. Also widened the Year field in the Journal type. --Dave 13:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. However, I goofed. The Year field capacity needs to be 18, not 10. If the [[ brackets ]] need to be added to a full date, that takes 14 characters: [[2006-11-20]]. If, however, a month and year date needs to be wikilinked, that would take a maximum of 18 characters: [[September 2006]] (September being the longest name of a month).

Also, brackets are still being added to the accessdate input on the Web tab, resulting in the template code: accessdate=[[2006-11-20]]| which returns

[[2006-11-20]]

Since the {{cite web}} template adds the brackets, the code should read accessdate=2006-11-20|, which returns

2006-11-20

So the changes needed are: on the Web tab, please set the accessdate field limit to 10 characters and don't add brackets to the input; please set the Year field limit to 18 characters on each of the three tabs.

I've actually stopped and tried to think of anything else, and can't, so I hope not to bug you again anytime soon. I'm sorry if I'm being a pest; I do appreciate your help and really, really, really like the tool. (Really!) Have good days.—Chidom ^talk  20:34, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I've increased the size of the Year fields to 20 and taken the [[ ]] characters off the acccessdate on the web reference. Thank you very much for the feedback, its only when people take the trouble to point out whats wrong or needed that I get to improve the program. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. --Dave 01:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

It looks great, thanks again. Glad to be of help, and happy you think I am! I'm thinking you probably made the year fields 20 characters to accommodate a comma and space between the month and year; however, if you include the comma, it won't wikilink properly, so 18 is all that's needed. It's not worth another revision, though! Add it to your punch list for the next update.

I can't access the code at all—the server must be really overloaded. I've done some programming in VBA (which is supposedly not all that different from VB) and wouldn't mind poking around and seeing how much I understand about what you've done. Do you know about SourceForge.net? You might want to check it out as a possible resource for hosting and collaboration. Take care.—Chidom ^talk  19:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikicite has its own Wikipedia page now

Someone flagged for deletion the REDIRECT for Wikicite so I went ahead and made a normal page with appropriate links. I welcome input from other editors! CyberAnth 03:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I would propose that Wikicite be renamed to avoid confusion with m:Wikicite, Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikicite, or Template:wikicite (which is referenced at Wikipedia:Citation templates#See also). Wikicite 'tis a grand name, to be sure, but apparently that's a commonly-held opinion. :-)

Perhaps Wikipedia:EasyCite, Wikipedia:Easy cite, EasyCite, or Easy Cite? Same choices using SimpleCite or QuickCite?

Whatever happens, it would be great if it all could move off of a User:Dmoss page and the whole thing—information, links to the downloads and code, etc., was moved to a project page with this discussion moved to the associated Talk page. Apparently the issue with having a Wikicite redirect is that redirects from Wikispace to Userspace aren't allowed.

Anyway, just some ideas. (Licensed under the GFDL, of course.)

Have good days.—Chidom ^talk  21:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, as the person who spent his entire evening last night building the page in Wikispace after removing the redirect, all I have to say is a big huge F#%& YOU to whoever deleted it after the move without any warning! The assmin who deleted it, WITHOUT ANY SUPPORT IN WIKIPEDIA POLICY FOR SPEEDY DELETION, was User_talk:Premeditated_Chaos. He/She/It deleted it from Wikispace, contrary to he/she/it's comment on the deletion log. If anyone wishes to make a comment on this dipsh!t's userpage, it is under the heading appropriately titled == HEY! YOU DIP SH!T ! == CyberAnth 22:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Whoa. There is a page at Wikipedia:Wikicite about this; your information should be merged with that one. Be careful about making personal attacks. There are established ways to handle these sorts of situations; they're frustrating, but they're what's available. And Admins make mistakes, too, you know. I doubt it was deleted just to spite you.—Chidom ^talk  23:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Redirects #2: "Redirects to the User: or User_talk: space from the main article space. If this was the result of a page move, consider waiting a day or two before deleting the redirect."

So there is a basis for the speedy delete.—Chidom ^talk  23:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I like to assume good faith but this person at the least certainly needs to be stripped of power. The redirect had already been removed and the page was in Wikispace, contrary to the what he/she/it said here. CyberAnth 23:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that page was not in Wiki space. Wiki space is the prefix Wikipedia or WP before its name, so if that page was in Wikispace, it would be Wikipedia:Wikicite. As simply Wikicite, it is in Article Space. 24.89.197.136 00:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC) / User:Logical2u

Okay, I hereby eat a double-decker crow sandwich. I see now that in Wikipedian, "delete" can actually mean "move". Pretty confusing. CyberAnth 00:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I just added a sentence to the opening paragraph of User:Dmoss/Wikicite that establishes notability. Wikicite is currently the only software program in the world that assists people to properly reference Wikipedia articles. Even if others follow with better software (and I hope they do) Wikicite will be still be the first software program in the world to provide this functionality. If someone wants to have a go at recreating Wikicite in article space, including this information about notability, it would be much harder to AfD. --Dave 01:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting. I have already added the notability info in the page at its current location and will be happy to have a go at re-create the page in a few days. However, I wonder if everyone should first once-and-for-all decide the issue of re-naming the software? CyberAnth 01:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the final decision on whether or not to rename the tool and what to rename it rests with DMoss as it will necessitate changes to the code. I only made a suggestion, I'm not married to the idea of a name change.—Chidom ^talk  19:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. But the decision shoul dbe made pretty soon. CyberAnth 23:00, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Name change discussion on Village Pump

I just put a request for comment on the proposed name change on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). Hopefully we will be able to draw on a wider group to arrive at a consensus about what the name of the program should be. --Dave 23:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be much consensus there; I'd be supportive of you choosing, Dave. It's your "baby", you should get to name it. Or rename it, as it were.—Chidom ^talk  15:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank You

RoninBK_ETC has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Smile at others by adding {{subst:smile}}, {{subst:smile2}} or {{subst:smile3}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Happy editing!

I stumbled onto this program after visiting the Village Pump name article. Whatever name you choose to go by, I would like to say that this program is a godsend, and needs to be actively promoted within Wikipedia. Keep up the good work! --RoninBK_ETC 12:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedic tone

This article tries to promote the software and instruct readers in its use. It should be rewritten in a more encyclopedic tone, and some material deleted. —Michael Z. 2006-12-17 19:22 Z

Downloading

I attempted to download the tool, but I stopped when my Antivir warned that it contained a virus. It this a false alarm? Snowman 16:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

a few suggestions

Hello,

I really appreciate wikicite - its a great tool! I have three suggestions to make it better (I would do it myself, if I had the technical skills). First, can you add an ISBN field in the book in the book citing section? Currently I put it in the ID section, and then change ID to ISBN when I past the ref. Secondly, when you include an author link, I find that it cuts off the last name and adds an extra set of brackets. As an example, see the reference at the end of this sentence. Thanks a lot, and keep up the great work! --Illuminato 05:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikicite inputs the reference using the {{cite journal}} template. Like the {{cite web}} and {{cite book}} templates; the following applies to this field -

• authorlink works either with author or with last & first to link to the appropriate wikipedia article. Does not work with URLs.

For more information on the usage of these templates, have a look at the pages linked above. Hope that clarifies for you - Foxhill 17:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Adding date fields to Journal and Web

Would it be possible in the future to add the functionality of "|date=" to the above pages, more useful in some instances like web or news articles when the actual date of publication is known and can be added (and I'm lazy and hate manually adding the field). Thanks for a very useful tool - Foxhill 17:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Meta Wikicite

Hi Dave, I just heard about this tool from your post on the Chemistry WikiProject. It looks as if it will be extremely helpful, so thank you! Are you aware of m:Wikicite? I am working with the author of that to "pilot" his software in the next month or two. If it works well we may have two Wikicites on Wikipedia, we'll have to find a way to resolve that. It'll be a good problem to have, though - both should be very useful for the community. Thanks, Walkerma 20:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Error downloading

I can't seem to download the file. I've been trying for a couple days now. I think the site is down. Anyone have a copy of it? Mahanga^Talk 00:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I uploaded an extra copy in case the site goes down again. Mahanga^Talk 19:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the mirror; the site linked from the main page is currently located at a non-routed IP hosted by a major corporation (perhaps a dynip update in error?) At any rate, your download link worked for me instead. Thanks again. :) --Darkwind (talk) 19:01, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm also having to use your link. Perhaps we should change the main page link to use the megaupload until we know that the main website is up? The Behnam 04:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

http://www.eatlime.com/download.lc?sid=E9955CB9-6A90-6213-E9AC-B257B15829D9 also works. ffm 19:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

My computer won't run this program

I downloaded this program but my computer won't run it. I am using Windows XP professional. --Wkgriffiths (talk) 21:44, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Page

I was wondering if "page" will be changed to "pages." I have noticed that page numbers do not show up when "page" (singular) is used rather than the plural. I have to go back and add an "s" after every "page." At least they don't show with journal cite, I haven't tried book cite yet. -- WiccaIrish (talk) 02:26, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Citenews

This is a great tool, but it would be even better if it supported Template:Cite news. I cite newspapers frequently, and there are new archives appearing so newspapers and magazines are a growing resource. At the moment, none of the citation tools seem to support offline newspaper citations. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:49, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:CITE's list of tools

Should this be added to the list of tools at WP:CITE? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 10:01, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Misleading statement

The statement "Wikicite produces references that conform to the Wikipedia footnote style of referencing" is misleading. Any consistent style of footnotes are acceptable in Wikipedia, including but not limited to the footnote style suggested in the Chicago Manual of Style. The statement should be revised to state something like "Wikicite produces references that use the ________ [family of] templates, which are one of the Wikipedia footnote styles of referencing." Jc3s5h (talk) 19:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Source MetaData

Interested in Wikicite and the future of Wikidata? See WikiProject Source MetaData - Mattsenate (talk) 13:37, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Historical?

Should this page and the URF it links to be marked historical? Thanks, Geekdiva (talk) 11:43, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

RfC announce: Citation tools

There is an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#RfC: Citation tools regarding whetyer citation tools should allowed. Your input on this question is welcome. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:01, 11 November 2020 (UTC)