Given the commonality in markup for the author-date templates, I have developed a meta-template at ((Harvard citation/core)). See Template talk:Sfn#Core update. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 01:39, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Could someone create a version of this template with parentheses for the years, to complement it as ((sfnp)) complements ((sfn))? Otherwise the system is incomplete for those who wish to use parentheses in their citations. Waltham, The Duke of 18:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Is there any reason that the number of multiple citations could not be increased to 25, 30 or more? For some statements in controversial articles, one has to refer to many references to show that a scholarly consensus exists, or else risk constantly answering challenges on talk pages. I realize efn might work for this, but it would be nice just to use this template to bunch them in one place in the reference footnotes. • Astynax talk 23:58, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
References
I am trying to convert citations within an article from Template:Citation to Template:Sfn and Template:Sfnm. There is one citation with a comment within it. When I use the parameter "|nps=" it appears to produce two issues. The first issue is the absence of a space between "p. 138" and "(for quote)". The second issue is the absence of a period after "(for quote)". Is this my fault or an issue with the coding? I've used this template with other grouped references and a period has always appeared at the end of the citation. Here is the specific citation:
<ref>Robinson, pp. 455, 485; Louvish, p. 138 (for quote).</ref>
((sfnm|1a1=Robinson|1pp=455, 485|2a1=Louvish|2p=138|2ps=(for quote)))
((sfnm|1a1=Robinson|1pp=455, 485|2a1=Louvish|2p=138|2ps=))
Mitchumch (talk) 01:31, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
((citation))
at all. It's a hand-constructed ref, and so is not processed any further but output "as is".((sfnm|1a1=Robinson|1pp=455, 485|2a1=Louvish|2p=138|2ps=(for quote)))
((sfnm|1a1=Robinson|1pp=455, 485|2a1=Louvish|2p=138))
<ref>...</ref>
tags) or in a section that lists sources." I guess I misunderstood. I corrected the coding for the other issue you discovered. Mitchumch (talk) 08:05, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
|nps=
parameters - in this case |2ps=
is blank or absent, a period (full stop) is appended automatically. If it's non-blank, there is no period. As noted in the documentation:
|ps=
– terminating quote or comment; defaults to period (.) 
or  
. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:10, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Dear editors, I am contributor and admin at swahili wikpedia. You surely did a great job with this template that -if I understand correctly- shortens the space used for in-text references and simplifies the text input into the source text of articles. But it makes life more difficult for us people in smaller wikipedias. So far we often could just copy the source text of references of the old type if -like in our case- readers can understand English language references and where there are no reference books etc in our languages anyway. If you switch to the new type of templates we cannot cope because we do not have the people to understand the system and language of the new intertwined templates. That means we have to stop more or less using your references or need much more time to reconstruct them manually. What shall we do? Cheers Kipala (talk) 16:23, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Why does this template use a semicolon as opposed to a period, as separate phrases (or another separator)? czar 03:04, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
If you use ''
in the author parameter of this template, in addition to rendering the output in italics, it defines ''
as being part of the CITEREF anchor. For instance, in the following example the anchor becomes CITEREF''Italicized_Book_of_Stories''2000
.[1] This is undesireable because in the long citation templates ''
doesn't become the anchor name even if you add in in the ref parameter.
Italicizing works as desired in ((sfn)).[2][3]
References
– Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:50, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Please see the discussion at Module talk:Footnotes#implementing sfnm and sfnmp.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:10, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
Example given at Template:Sfn#No_author_name_in_citation_template. How to adopt ref=((harvid|...|...))
citations? C-Kobold (talk) 13:44, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
((Sfnm|1a1=Smith|1a2=Jones|1a3=Johnson|1y=1996|1p=15|2a1=BGI|2y=1996|2p=50))
[1]References
((cite book |title=Important Book |year=1996 |publisher=Big Government Institution |ref=((harvid|BGI|1996))))
((cite book |last=Smith |last2=Jones |last3=Johnson |title=Important Book |year=1996 |publisher=Big Government Institution |ref=harv))
I would like to cite multiple laws after another (they reference each other). Laws should not get referenced with their author (which is usually some parliament). Laws are usually referenced with the two following arguments:
The arguments 1a(uthor) and 2a(uthor) are therefore misleading for law citations. C-Kobold (talk) 18:53, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
I do not want to rely on the order of arguments, I want to give the arguments explicitly with e.g. 1a=..., 2a=..., 2loc=..., 2ps=....
The EuWO (Europawahlordnung), given as first argument (so 1a), is however not an author. So the parameter name "1a" is misleading. Did you understand me? C-Kobold (talk) 19:02, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
The arguments 1a(uthor) and 2a(uthor) are therefore misleading for law citations.and
The EuWO (Europawahlordnung), given as first argument (so 1a), is however not an author.
|1an=
is just a name; could be author, could be editor, could be some other name, could be the name of a magazine, ...; it is just a name. Yeah, it is modeled on Author-date referencing but there is no requirement that the name must be an 'author' name. If your application is multiple law/date elements and each law/date pair has only one law, you can write:
((sfnm|EuWO Law|1y=1996|Cylaw|2y=1979))
|1an=
to be misleading.
I do not want to rely on the order of arguments, I want to give the arguments explicitly with e.g. 1a=..., 2a=..., 2loc=..., 2ps=....
|1an=
, |2an=
, etc is the order in which the short-form references will be rendered; there is no getting away from that."For the purposes of this template, |1an= is just a name; could be author, could be editor, could be some other name, could be the name of a magazine, ...; it is just a name. Yeah, it is modeled on Author-date referencing but there is no requirement that the name must be an 'author' name." - Thank you, that answered my question! C-Kobold (talk) 16:12, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Please see the discussion at Module talk:Footnotes § broken harv link reporting where a broken harv-link reporting scheme is proposed.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
((sfn))
[edit]Are there any major differences between ((sfnm)) and ((sfn))? Or is the former the same as the latter, but just using fewer parameters? Was thinking today that there functionally might be a case to combine the two, for simplicity of usage. czar 06:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
((#invoke:Footnotes|sfn|template=sfn))
((#invoke:Footnotes|sfnm|template=sfnm))