Citation templates
... in conception
... and in reality

removed support for |authors=; what about |people= and |credits=?[edit]

I have removed support for the deprecated |authors= parameter from the sandbox:

Cite book comparison
Wikitext ((cite book|authors=EB Green|title=Title))
Live Title. ((cite book)): Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help)
Sandbox Title. ((cite book)): Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)

This leaves us with |people= and |credits= as the only 'free-form' name-list parameters.

Support for |people= is documented in ((cite av media)), ((cite mailing list)), ((cite map)), ((citation)). Search results:

Using |people=:
  • ((cite av media)) ~7900
  • ((cite mailing list)) none
  • ((cite map)) none
  • ((citation)) ~30
Using undocumented |credits=:
  • ((cite av media)) none
  • ((cite mailing list)) none
  • ((cite map)) none
  • ((citation)) none

Support for |credits= is documented in ((cite episode)) and ((cite serial)). Search results:

Using |credits=:
  • ((cite episode)) ~3300
  • ((cite serial)) ~30
Using undocumented |people=:

It seems to me that ((cite mailing list)), ((cite map)), and ((citation)) should not be using |people= and |credits=. No doubt there are templates that use |people= and |credits= aside from those mentioned here but similar searches to those above show relatively low usage counts; fewer than 100 articles for ((cite book)), ((cite journal)), ((cite news)), and ((cite web)) combined. It seems to me that use of these two parameters should be limited to ((cite av media)), ((cite episode)), and ((cite serial)).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:43, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There having been no comment, I have restricted |people= to ((cite av media)), ((cite episode)), and ((cite serial)) in the sandbox. |credits= in the live module is already restricted to ((cite episode)) and ((cite serial)).
—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:04, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The typical freeform list on web, news, etc is |others= which flags CS1 maintenance if |author= or |editor= is not also listed.
"titl_para". othrs_para. 2000-12-31.((cite web)): CS1 maint: others (link)
This seems fine normally, but may not make sense if authorship is deliberately omitted, such as on many websites, or perhaps on 'zines without bylines (and without a named section editor, I suppose). So this parameter use would make sense in e.g. ((cite web)), however, if a web page is cited in its entirety, and photographs are separately credited in a heavily-illustrated essay while the editorship is omitted.
CS1 has no documented explicit parameter value for an unlisted author+editor. I've seen it requested and suggested here to use "n.a." similar to "n.d.", but this is not consistent with major citation styles (and per link, only Chicago ever sanctions "Anon." and dashed-out author entries). SamuelRiv (talk) 12:07, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

cite report: number, id, docket[edit]

Testing ((cite report)), ((cite tech report)), and ((cite thesis)) I find that |number=, |docket=, and |id= are used inconsistently in an undocumented manner. (See also previous related discussion: Cite report issue parameter not displaying (May 2023).)

In report and thesis, |number= appears to not be used at all, while |docket= and |id= are aliases for an ending bare text in report, and separable parameters in thesis (with the word "Docket" prepended, unlike in report). Meanwhile, |number= and |id= are aliases in tech report, also mutually incompatible. Particularly problematic is that |id= is specified as A unique identifier, used where none of the specialized identifiers are applicable -- this is semantically distinct from all uses of |number= in CS1, and from what appears to be their documented metadata. 

((Cite_report |author=Alex |date=May 1999 |docket=DOC 27 |id=Celex 3334 |number=777 |publisher=BYU |title=Tango))

((Cite_report))

Alex (May 1999). Tango (Report). BYU. DOC 27.

((Cite_thesis))

Alex (May 1999). Tango (Thesis). BYU. Docket DOC 27. Celex 3334.

Also, I suggest considering again the suggestion of @Tcr25: from the linked previous discussion, that instead of outputting report number/docket at the end of the citation, it should follow the title and document type. Currently it outputs after page number, which only makes sense if it's an external catalogue identifier (like |id= is usually used for) and not, as is often the case with technical reports, splashed across the front page as part of the title. SamuelRiv (talk) 22:16, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You should not be surprised that ((cite report)), ((cite tech report)), and ((cite thesis)) are 'inconsistent'. Each of those templates was created at different dates by different editors:
Each of those templates then developed along their own paths until they were each reimplemented using the meta-template ((citation/core)); again at different dates and different editors:
  • ((cite report)): 30 November 2011‎ by Editor Fifelfoo
  • ((cite tech report)): 14 September 2011‎ by Editor Gadget850
  • ((cite thesis)): 25 March 2011‎ by Editor Headbomb
Development continued along their own paths until migrated to Module:Citation/CS1; also at different times by me:
  • ((cite report)): 15 February 2015‎
  • ((cite tech report)): 9 November 2013
  • ((cite thesis)): 9 November 2013‎
I can't speak to the migration to ((citation/core)) but when I migrated these templates to Module:Citation/CS1, the goal was to make the migration more-or-less transparent so differences among them inherited from their individual developmental paths were retained in the module version. No doubt, since those migrations, the individual templates have continued to differ and likely continued to diverge.
Were these templates developed simultaneously by a single author, they would probably have been much more consistent but that is not the way of a wiki.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:38, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I understand. Is this acknowledging that this is a bug? If so, is this to imply that current maintainers will address this in a future version, or else give permission for me to fix it now? SamuelRiv (talk) 22:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All that I provided was a history to explain why those templates are the way they are. Do you need permission to propose a change to these templates? Each module in the suite has a sandbox that anyone can edit so long as they don't break anything.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:05, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can "mode=cs1/cs2" be handled like date formatting?[edit]

This question stems from a recent realization that the Visual Editor offers the Citation Style 2 ((citation)) template as the default citation method. I remember as a new editor not being clear on why ((cite web)) and ((citation)) had a different appearance. My first thought was the Visual Editor should autofill "mode=cs1" if it's trying to use ((citation)) as a quick machine-generated reference. My second thought was, why do we have to specify in each template usage? ((Use dmy dates)) gives a consistent format to every citation on the page. Can something similar be done with the punctuation format? (((use cs1)) & ((use cs2))) Rjjiii (talk) 04:35, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just drop my semi-annual comment that the output of CS1 and CS2 are so similar that they could be merged together and the distinction between them finally removed. My preference would be to use the comma separation and capitalization of CS2 with the terminal period of CS1, allowing the option to override that terminal period. If they were harmonized into a single style, it wouldn't matter if someone used ((citation)) and someone else used ((cite web)) on the same article. Imzadi 1979 → 04:44, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
((cs1 config|cs1)) or ((cs1 config|cs2))
—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:18, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's fantastic! Do you mind if I add some examples to the documentation? Or create a kind of announcement at WP:VPT?
There's probably no clean answer to this question, but I wonder what it would take make CS1 style the default for citation templates currently using CS2?
  • We could open a discussion at WP:VPT, and post notices. Probably an RfC to show consensus.
  • There are a bunch of niche templates that use ((Citation)); I could add |mode=cs2 to keep their formatting and post a ((please see)) notice on their talk pages so that it would be opt-in.
  • I'm not too familiar with bots, but if a bot would add ((cs1 config|cs2)) to every article with 3:1 ratio of CS2:CS1 templates, I think that could help to frame this as supporting WP:CITEVAR rather contesting it; a bot adding ((cs1 config)) to pages where ((citation)) is the primary style could also function as a way to announce this editors who want CS2, maybe with a link to the RfC and clear instructions on how to auto-CS2 the content they create.
I feel like this would be a much cleaner solution than trying to fix the auto-citation in the VisualEditor. Rjjiii (talk) 14:23, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you think that the documentation can be improved, and know how to do it, please do. I fail to understand how WP:VPT is pertinent; in general issues pertaining to cs1|2 are not 'technical'. A clean answer requires a 'clean' description that clearly states your objective. I am not at all clear on what it is that you are asking.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:39, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would make the citation templates easier to use for editors and more consistent for readers if CS1 becomes the default style. I mention VPT and other areas of discussion because I also think that would be a significant change where people would want advance notice and an explanation. Rjjiii (talk) 15:10, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The template should probably be named ((cs config)) rather than ((cs1 config)) btw. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:00, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
CS1. Is. Too ugly. And it. Would break. A lot. Of formatting. Where editors. Have not anticipated. That lots. Of useless. Periods. Would be added. If CS2 became the default style, as Imzadi suggested, I think it would be less problematic. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:12, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer the periods for dividing specific groups of information, not least because I prefer semicolons for dividing author name pairs. As someone who has fixed a lot of |author= parameters with multiple names in them, semicolons are invaluable for denominating a specific author name pair. Commas would hence Suck to then divide authors from whatever comes after.
I assume this is an actual point in favor of periods rather than mere preference, as voiced above. (I make this comment in the general.) Izno (talk) 17:43, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Error tracking category[edit]

The documentation for ((Cite AV media notes)) gives examples that use the others= parameter with the name of an artist or band without providing a value for |author= or |editor=. Further, the template documentation makes no mention of the requirement that others= be only used with primrry editorship or authorship information. However, such usage places articles in the Category:CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) category. The documentation there says that the others= can't stand alone.

Which is correct? -- Mikeblas (talk) 03:13, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. Is it that first= and last= used in the examples serve as an alias for the |author parameter? That's not intuitive, as first= and last= are multiple parameters, and author= is singular. And, even if so, the documentation makes no mention of the requirement. -- Mikeblas (talk) 03:20, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As the template documentation shows, |author= is an alias of |last=; see Template:Cite AV media notes § Authors. Even the TemplateData 'documentation' (such as it is) shows that these parameters are aliases of each other; see Template:Cite AV media notes § TemplateData.
The template documentation it is not protected. If you believe that the template documentation can be improved, you are free to do so. The documentation for |last=, |author=, and |others= is at Template:Citation Style documentation/author. Remember that the documentation template is used by all cs1|2 templates. If you use VE, consider improving the TemplateData.
Similarly, Category:CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) is not protected so you are free to improve the documentation there.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:17, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know that I'm allowed to edit the documentation. I'm trying to figure out which is correct: the template documentation, or the error tracking category documentation. It seems like the error tracking category documentation is correct, but I'm not 100% positive. Does anyone know? -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:53, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose that both are correct as far as they go. The maintenance categories are added whenever the cs1|2 template does not have any authors or editors but does list others names in |others=.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:51, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That maintenance category is the subject of several discussions now. Probably we need to modify the documentation at this point specifically to say this maintenance category for this pair of templates is the lowest of low priorities and not to worry about it (for now). Izno (talk) 22:56, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's strange that most of those previous discussions point out the documentation problem, but here we have the claim that the documentation is correct. I have added some notes to the doc about the interplay of the others= parameter.
FeRDNYC, in one of those older discussions you say that the error message produced here is not actionable. Can you explain why that is? That is, why isn't the remediation action to remove the others= parameter, or place its value in author=? -- Mikeblas (talk) 18:32, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is not obvious what the replacement is in the vast majority of uses of these two templates. People will cite any myriad of values in these parameters that do not obviously to me line up with the intent of |author= or other current equivalents. Take 10.000 Nights of Thunder as a prime example of the use of these templates. The band is not likely to be the author of the liner notes, or at least not all of them, if even the physical notes specify who the author of the notes are (many, maybe even most, probably don't). The current examples at Template:Cite AV media notes reflect this use of placing the artist in |others= and I don't think the documentation there is necessarily wrong to say so. Template:Cite AV media is better in some ways and worse in others as it suggests that we should add the role some significant person to the media played in the |others=, but which again does not necessarily line up with the expectations for |author=. Izno (talk) 20:09, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Mikeblas: Precisely as Izno says: The band is not likely to be the author of the liner notes. It's often extremely difficult to find out who wrote the liner notes for a given piece of media; rarely are they explicitly credited somewhere in the text. But without that information, currently the template "considers itself" incompletely filled out. IMHO that's an unreasonable expectation, making the tracking category nothing but noise. That being said, "working around it" by simply crediting the band as the authors turns the citation from incomplete to incorrect, which is not an improvement. If we want the tracking category to go away, we should make the tracking category go away, not corrupt our citations to satisfy its requirements. FeRDNYC (talk) 13:21, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the explanation. I guess I'm seeing it as any other staff-written publication. Some specific author(s) certainly wrote an article, but since they're staff, we just credit it to the publisher ... Crediting Blondie or Reuters is just the same. The documentation already advises this usage: author: this parameter is used to hold the name of an organizational author (e.g. a committee) or the complete name (first and last) of a single person;. -- Mikeblas (talk) 13:30, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Mikeblas: We do do that, but only when the organizational author is given a byline, as in Reuters articles. That's a very different situation than crediting a band as the author of their album's liner notes. ((Cite press release)), for example, explicitly documents and allows for |author=<!--Not stated--> as a parameter, because it's exceedingly common for press releases to be published without a credited author.
My argument is that ((Cite AV media)) and ((Cite AV media notes)) fall more into the press release category than the ((Cite web)) / ((Cite news)) category. (And, that being said, ((Cite press release|author=<!--Not stated-->|others=something)) will also trigger inclusion in Category:CS1 maint: others.) FeRDNYC (talk) 14:19, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking my Reuters example wasn't really as good a match as I had originally thought. Maybe "The Committee for Studying Something that gets Studied". Might be one, might be multiple authors, but all not specifically named in the Committee's report. Either way, in the case of liner notes or media booklets, it doesn't seem particularly important to note the author -- it's self-published by the band or producer or their publisher. That seems like what we ought to be documenting. Why would ((Cite AV media notes)) not also allow a "not stated" author? -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:16, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Cs1 config and Cite templates compatibility[edit]

((cs1 config|name-list-style=vanc)) and cite with non-Latin author generates an error.

Example (added |name-list-style=vanc to cite to generate error):

노 성환 (April 2021). "한국 오줌싸개 치유에 대한 비교민속학적 고찰" [Korean Bedwetter and East Asian Folklore]. 비교민속학 (in Korean). 73: 45–88. doi:10.38078/ACF.2021.4.73.45. ISSN 1598-1010. S2CID 238041634. ((cite journal)): Vancouver style error: non-Latin character in name 1 (help)

I know translating the author would avoid the error. (There are other work-arounds.) But I believe a specific cite should be able to override a global setting.

User-duck (talk) 15:34, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you want Vancouver styling you must comply with the (somewhat relaxed) Vancouver system rules. For |name-list-style=vanc, |last<n>= and |first<n>= must hold names written using the Latin character set.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:16, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cite magazine parameters[edit]

Is it possible to automatically show the volume and issue parameters when first opening it up in the visual editor? And then, perhaps, hide the PMID parameter that does automatically get added; that is more for journals. I do not know of many magazines archived by PubMed. Why? I Ask (talk) 03:04, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Thanks for the feedback. It may take a bit for the changes to take effect, Rjjiii (talk) 03:16, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Why? I Ask (talk) 03:21, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

collaboration parameter in cite journal[edit]

I'm citing this paper, which is written by 6 authors on behalf of a wider collaboration. When I cite it in Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome as [1], it generates an etal, per documentation of the collaboration parameter. Is there a way to stop the etal? With vauthors, I get an error if I simply put the collaboration after the author list. Anybody know a way around this?

References

  1. ^ Sotzny F, Blanco J, Capelli E, Castro-Marrero J, Steiner S, Murovska M, Scheibenbogen C, et al. (European Network on ME/CFS (EUROMENE)) (June 2018). "Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – Evidence for an autoimmune disease". Autoimmunity Reviews. 17 (6): 601–609. doi:10.1016/j.autrev.2018.01.009. PMID 29635081.

—Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:08, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I count seven names. Doesn't WP:MED somewhere suggest that name lists should be limited to not more than six names? The old ((vcite2 journal)) (now a redirect along with the since deleted Module:ParseVauthors which implemented it) automatically imposed a six name limit. That template was written primarily for use by the WP:MED community.
I'm not sure that a group of authors writing on behalf of some entity means that the entity is a collaborator. Were it me, I would omit |collaborator= entirely. If you must include EUROMENE, you can write the template:
((cite journal |vauthors=Sotzny F, Blanco J, Capelli E, Castro-Marrero J, Steiner S, Murovska M, Scheibenbogen C, ((European Network on ME/CFS (EUROMENE))) |date=June 2018 |title=Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – Evidence for an autoimmune disease |journal=Autoimmunity Reviews |volume=17 |issue=6 |pages=601–609 |doi=10.1016/j.autrev.2018.01.009 |pmid=29635081 |doi-access=free))
Sotzny F, Blanco J, Capelli E, Castro-Marrero J, Steiner S, Murovska M, Scheibenbogen C, European Network on ME/CFS (EUROMENE) (June 2018). "Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – Evidence for an autoimmune disease". Autoimmunity Reviews. 17 (6): 601–609. doi:10.1016/j.autrev.2018.01.009. PMID 29635081.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:21, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can't count.. Useful to learn of a soft recommendation for 6 authors at MOS:MED! Thanks :). As these people wrote the paper "on behalf of" EUROMENE, that does make it a collaboration, right? Or am I missing what this parameter is supposed to do? Simple solution seems to be to omit the 7th author, and simply use collaboration parameter as is. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The documentation for |collaboration= says (in part):
Name of a group of authors or collaborators
That, to me, says that the group actually participated in the writing. Because the group participated in the writing, etal is appropriate. When authors write on behalf of a group, the group is not a participant in the writing so should not be listed as a contributor.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:40, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
et al. is not appropriate when the entire group is listed. This has been pointed out and ignored for years now. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:28, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How to indicate an issue is a supplement?[edit]

What is the proper way to indicate that an issue is a supplement? GobsPint (talk) 19:13, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If unnumbered, |issue=Suppl. If numbered, |issue=Suppl. 3. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:33, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

COinS has rft.part for use with journal objects so we could (should?) add an appropriate parameter: |supplement= that would cause the template to render the 'Suppl.' (cs1) or 'suppl.' (cs2) static text as part of the |issue= rendering. I suppose that the parameter rendering might look like this:
|volume=V |issue=4 |supplement=3 → V (4 Suppl. 3)
|volume=V |issue=4 |supplement=<title> → V (4 Suppl. <title>)
|volume=V |supplement=yes → V (Suppl) – where yes is a special keyword; more-or-less equivalent to |issue=Suppl
Other renderings?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:32, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

CS1 errors: generic name[edit]

Hello, the list on the category page includes "email" but does not appear to cause an error. On Politics of Kaliningrad Oblast

protected, email. "Kaliningrad Separatism Again on the Rise".

Keith D (talk) 20:57, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed in the sandbox.
((cite news/new |last=protected |first=email |title=Kaliningrad Separatism Again on the Rise ))
protected, email. "Kaliningrad Separatism Again on the Rise". ((cite news)): |first= has generic name (help)
—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:54, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The url-access lock icon becomes huge if the linked source is a PDF file[edit]

Like this cite magazine from Maidenhead Locator System:

Tyson, Edmund, N5JTY (January 1989). "Conversion between geodetic and grid locator systems" (PDF). QST Magazine. Newington, CT: American Radio Relay League. pp. 29–30, 43. Retrieved 2018-03-09.((cite magazine)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

Removing ".pdf" from the link makes the lock small again. AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 02:17, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On the mobile theme it looks fine.[1] The template's CSS includes "background-size: contain;" for the Vector themes but not Minerva or Timeless. Toggling that off seems to make it the correct size. Rjjiii (talk) 03:13, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm using the Vector 2010 skin on mobile (using the desktop site), and the icon also looks huge. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:58, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Toggling background-size: contain; made no difference for me, but disabling padding: 8px 18px 8px 0px; set the smaller size. (using monobook skin) —  Jts1882 | talk  14:40, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Where did you do that? padding: 8px 18px 8px 0px; does not exist in Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:47, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's from MediaWiki:Common.css, found it while searching if this bug was reported previously. AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 14:49, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You have to toggle the bg-contain rule twice because :not(.skin-minerva):not(.skin-timeless) triggers once for each skin. Removing either this or the padding works. Izno (talk) 16:15, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging @Izno who has much more experience with css than I.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:16, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've overridden the padding from Common.css in the sandbox, the effects of which can be seen already on this page (since the sandbox styles are presently on the page after the non-sandbox styles). Izno (talk) 16:47, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still seeing the over large padlock, should it have changed? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:22, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Probably just caching or something. User:Izno/Sandbox is fine for me. Izno (talk) 20:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! That fixed it, Rjjiii (talk) 00:25, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mysterious Harv and Sfn no-target error[edit]

In Minkowski inequality, the ((sfn)) footnote to Bahouri, Chemin & Danchin 2011 and the reference generated by the template ((Bahouri Chemin Danchin Fourier Analysis and Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations 2011)) are together somehow generating a "Harv and Sfn no-target error" categorization (look at the text of the footnote id="cite_note-FOOTNOTEBahouriCheminDanchin20114-3" in the source of the generated article) but without generating a script-highlighted error nor any actual problem in harv/sfn link targeting. Does anyone know why this error occurs and whether there is something to do (hopefully without having to subst the citation template) to make it go away? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:45, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This behaviour is explained at Category:Harv and Sfn template errors#Resolving errors, and the following section, "Current limitations and false-positive errors". It can be resolved by adding the template ((Sfn whitelist)), or just be ignored. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:38, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is a limitation of the mediawiki software, the check happens before the templates are expanded. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:43, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Where do you get that idea? MediaWiki software has nothing to do with this error message. The error message is emitted by Module:Footnotes because the module can only see the wrapper template call in the wikitext. The Module cannot look into the wrapper template to fetch names and date from the wrapped ((cite book)) template. The check occurs during the expansion of each ((sfn)) / ((harv)) template.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:56, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry I thought the check could only occur at that point due to a limitation of mediawiki, if not could the check not happen later (or the false positive be quashed after the expansion bof the templates)? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:43, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks all. sfn whitelist did the trick. Resolving this would have been easier if the error were visible rather than having to grovel through the rendered html source to find the offending citeref. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:10, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When the error messages were first introduced we didn't yet have ((sfn whitelist)) or Module:Footnotes/whitelist so editors complained. You can show these error messages with the css described at Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors#Displaying error messages method 3.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:16, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Current format for issues is odd, proposal for additional parameters[edit]

Some magazines don't advertise the issue number as clearly on the front magazine, and it can take a lot of extra effort to find the correct issue if they are cited but missing important information. We may have to buy the magazine itself just to confirm the issue number and sometimes there is no issue number at all and they label the issue by month/date, or they will have it by Holiday. It would be easier to add an additional parameter specifically for the name of the issue.

Current version
<ref name="Famitsu">((cite magazine |title= パタポン3 |issue=May 5, 2011 |magazine=[[Famitsu]] |language=Japanese |date=April 21, 2011))</ref>

"パタポン3". Famitsu (in Japanese). No. May 5, 2011. April 21, 2011.

Looks awkward with the No. in front of it.

Proposed change
<ref name="Famitsu">((cite magazine |title= パタポン3 |issue-name=May 5, 2011 |magazine=[[Famitsu]] |language=Japanese |date=April 21, 2011))</ref>

"パタポン3". Famitsu (in Japanese). May 5, 2011 issue. April 21, 2011.

^^A proper issue name. 

<ref name="Famitsu">((cite magazine |title= パタポン3 |issue-name=May 5, 2011 |issue-Num=999|magazine=[[Famitsu]] |language=Japanese |date=April 21, 2011))</ref>

"パタポン3". Famitsu (in Japanese). May 5, 2011 issue (No.999). April 21, 2011.

^^For both.

This will simplify things and make the citation easier to read.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 17:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 12:35, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think |publication-date= would probably cover this use case without needing a new parameter:
<ref name="Famitsu">((cite magazine |title= パタポン3 |publication-date=May 5, 2011 |issue=999|magazine=[[Famitsu]] |language=Japanese |date=April 21, 2011))</ref>
"パタポン3". Famitsu (in Japanese). No. 999 (published May 5, 2011). April 21, 2011. 〈 Forbes72 | Talk 〉 01:13, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Forbes72: That solves the last example, but that was merely hypothetical. There is no issue #999 for that magazine. There is no issue numbering that is immediately known to the direct public unless you purchase it and search for the issue number in the magazine, which can make things harder to reference
Another problem is the example of having an issue name instead of putting an issue number. For example, "Christmas issue" or "Halloween issue". if we put "Issue=Christmas", it will instead say "No.Christmas" or "No.Halloween".
the proposed change will allow us to say "issue" at the end.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 17:33, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the issue number is unknown/does not exist, just leave the |issue= blank. You can provide equivalent information by filling out |publication-date= and converting the holiday into a date if necessary: "Christmas 2011" becomes "Dec 25, 2011", "Halloween 2011" becomes "Oct 31, 2011", etc. From what I can tell, Famitsu has the publication dates listed pretty prominently on all their magazine covers, so I think it should be clear at a glance which issue is being referenced. 〈 Forbes72 | Talk 〉 01:16, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Forbes72: Famitsu was just a hypothetical. Don't you consider it original research to assume the publication date based on the name of the issue? Magazines are released monthly/weekly/bi-weekly/bi-monthly. So the publication date can be days, weeks, or even a month apart if we just assume it lands on the holiday. Either way, it's still misinterpreting the name of the issue and going out of our way just to avoid something as simple as citing the name of the issue. Wouldn't it simplify everything by just allowing a "Issue-name" parameter?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 12:28, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Another problem is when the publisher prints a range of issue numbers or dates. Sometimes that is a regular occurence, and sometimes only when an issue is delayed. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:08, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is JSTOR really free access?[edit]

I tried to describe jstor-access as registration, because the article in question could only be read if you signed up for a JSTOR account. But I got an error, and the template doc for cite journal says that JSTOR can only be marked as free. While it's true that once you sign up for the site you can read 100 articles without paying, I think it's misleading to mark it as free access, when it isn't actually public. Is there logic behind this that I'm missing? Pingnova (talk) 17:51, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We do not highlight the norm. Sources linked from named identifiers (|jstor=, |doi=, etc) are normally hidden behind some sort of paywall or registration barrier. Because that is the normal case, flagging those sources with |jstor-access=registration, |jstor-access=limited, or |jstor-access=subscription is redundant and would add unnecessary clutter to the wikitext and to the rendered reference. When an occasional source at JSTOR is free-to-read, it is appropriate to mark that source with |jstor-access=free.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:15, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Period following ellipsis and title punctuation[edit]

In CS1 style it appears a terminal period is included following exclamation and question marks, but is omitted following ellipses (3 dots) (for fields unenclosed in "quotation marks"):

I only found one previous post from 2023-11-22 on this. At issue is that no style guide that I know of, that uses terminal punctuation in citations, omits the punctuation following an ellipsis. MLA citation has the ellipsis follow the stop] while APA and Chicago precede a stop (but the latter two refs do not discuss citations). APA has a citation guideline using an ellipsis for 7+ authors without punctuation, but the ellipsis is within the author list and not terminal: "a_1, a_2, ... a_N.". The only style guide saying that an ellipsis should not add adjacent punctuation is Chicago's FAQ response on fiction style.

Regarding question or exclamation points and the citation style punctuation, they style guides get a bit more subtle. Generally (APA MLA and Chicago) citations usually have periods or commas be superseded by "stronger marks", but when the reading is more prose-like as in a bibliography entry, the comma is retained.

Given all this, I suggest removing the code that omits citation-style punctuation following 3-dot ellipses. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:17, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Twin ISSN in cite journal[edit]

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived.

Many magazines now have two ISSNs, one for print and one for Internet. In typical printed cites they are published with a comma in between. It would be great if the issn= parameter in ((Cite journal)) would allow that, too. Викидим (talk) 18:47, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you looking for |eissn= which already exists and can be used with |issn=? And, really, do you need either issn? There are those who believe that issn is mere pointless clutter.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:55, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Got it, thank you. Will re-address my request to Citer tool creators. To me, ISSN is like ISBN - not necessary, but a useful tool when the cite is unclear / mistyped. Викидим (talk) 19:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Access-date < Date[edit]

Edit preview doesn't show an error if access-date is earlier than date parameter. — hako9 (talk) 01:02, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily an error. The "February 2025" issue of a print magazine may be mailed to subscribers in January 2025 or even earlier, and made available on the web as soon as it is mailed. When reporting a problem, always provide a link to a real example. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:58, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I did not consider that. — hako9 (talk) 10:01, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

|agency not working in Cite book template?[edit]

Is the agency parameter still working in the Cite book template? It is listed as an active template parameter on Template:Cite_book/TemplateData but the template is throwing up Unknown parameter errors, e.g. Template:Cite_OED_1933/doc Skullcinema (talk) 14:04, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that you meant to write: [[Template:Cite_OED_1933/doc|here]] → here.
Support for |agency= in templates that shouldn't support that parameter was removed as a result of this discussion. |agency= is defined for ((cite news)), ((cite press release)), and ((cite web)). Also supported by ((citation)) when that template has |newspaper= or |work=.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:36, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have encountered several of these |agency= in book citations in cleaning up CS1 errors. All the ones I have seen should instead have been |publisher=. I have seen no evidence that |agency= is actually a useful and meaningful parameter for these citations. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:09, 27 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In this particular case I was looking for a way to reflect the Philological Society's contribution to the work.
Obviously there are two reasons for citing a work, one to identify where the source material can be found and the second to give credit to the creators of the work. The OED is atypical for a book in that there were a myriad of contributing authors and the publisher came into the process 20 years after the start of the work.
If not |agency= would you have another option for crediting the Society within the citation? — Skullcinema (talk) 15:55, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As the work was based on materials they helped collect would |others= be appropriate? e.g.
Murray, James A. H.; Bradley, Henry; Craigie, W. A.; Onions, C. T., eds. (1933). The Oxford English Dictionary; being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. The Philological Society (1st ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0198611013. LCCN a33003399. OCLC 2748467. OL 180268M. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:13, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that will work fine. — ROU Skullcinema (talk) 22:23, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can we please not remove parameters breaking hundreds or thousands of article citations? The agency parameter was used in tons of ((cite report)) citations for weather-related articles citing NOAA government offices / agencies. Even if your argument is that these are "incorrect" or whatever, really seems bad to just break literally thousands of citations with no backup plan. Master of Time (talk) 09:11, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If one is to believe the results of this search there are ~355 articles in Category:CS1 errors: unsupported parameter with ((cite report)) templates that have |agency= and where the article, somewhere, contains the word 'weather'.
Some cases, like this from Weather of 2021, the value in |publisher= us unnecessarily duplicated in |agency=:
((cite report|agency=National Centers for Environmental Information|title=Storm Events Database January 25, 2021|url=https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents/eventdetails.jsp?id=938002|publisher=National Centers for Environmental Information|access-date=May 5, 2021|archive-date=May 10, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510142454/https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents/eventdetails.jsp?id=938002|url-status=live))
Others, like this one from the same article, appear to use some sort of made-up 'agency' name:
((Cite report |url=https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents/eventdetails.jsp?id=972354 |title=Pennsylvania Event Report: EF2 Tornado |publisher=National Centers for Environmental Information |agency=National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |year=2021 |accessdate=December 18, 2021 |archive-date=December 18, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211218061648/https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents/eventdetails.jsp?id=972354 |url-status=live ))
('National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania' does not appear on the Storm Events Database page linked from the citation).
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:04, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The category CS1 errors: unsupported parameter currently has more than 3000 pages listed, the majority for |agency=. Some are fixable, but what about when the citation has something different for |publisher=?.--Auric talk 13:06, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

|agency= is not now, nor ever has been, an alias or synonym of |publisher=. If the source is delivered by some provider other than the publisher, use |via= to hold the name of the provider.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:04, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense, thanks.--Auric talk 17:56, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, it appears to have been frequently misused as an alias or synonym of publisher. That does not mean that there has ever been a time when citations that did so were correct. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:58, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There may have been some confusion when the publisher of a source is a government agency. Rather, |agency= has been a shorthand name for a parameter holding the wire agency of a news story, to properly credit that the origin of a news article in a paper was the Associated Press/United Press International/Agence France-Presse/etc. and not the cited newspaper itself, with or without any additional reporter byline. Imzadi 1979 → 22:31, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As the parameter |agency= has been removed, how should the entry for it on Template:Cite_book/TemplateData be corrected? Should it just be deleted from the table? — Skullcinema (talk) 16:06, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

SSRN over 4700000[edit]

SSRN 4700569 from Cyber Solidarity Act (draft) is correct. The limit needs to be increased. Auric talk 13:49, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A CSS bit[edit]

It would be nice if the <i>...</i> output around work titles, generated by |work= and all its many aliases like |journal=, |newspaper=, etc., or generated by |title= in ((Cite book)), and probably a few other variations, had a specific CSS class, e.g. <i class="cs1-work-title">...</i>, so that it can be targeted and re-styled. If those who personally cannot stand seeing website names and other non-dead-trees publications in italics had a simple one-line means of suppressing that effect, and could be pointed to CSS code they can just copy-paste into their global.css, then this would probably go a long way toward ending their defiance, their mis-placing of non-paper works' titles in |publisher= or sometimes other parameters in an attempt to suppress italics. This is behavior that results in incorrect citations with the wrong info showing up in metadata parameters as well as inconsistent title display for the readers. Maybe even do <i class="cs1-work-title cs1-website-title">...</i> so that the output of ((Cite web)) in particular can be more narrowly targeted. (In theory, it could be made extra-clever and auto-detect domain names, in case one is used in some other template, like ((Cite news)).) It's annoying that this matter has been debated repeated, and resolved again and again in favor of using consistent italics for titles of major works per MOS:TITLES, for over a decade now, yet various individual just do not abide by it. The community has no patience for a bunch more "style drama", so it seems the thing to do is simply to provide a technical "out".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:53, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A selector like .cs1.web i would already do this (modulo attempting to catch misuses of the system), since there are no other elements that are placed by the citation system in italic. I think though by your recent comment this would not have helped anyway since it appears that the user was doing so inadvertently and not because they're in the group of people who don't particularly like italic website names. Izno (talk) 21:01, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Citing an entire conference[edit]

What do I do if I want to cite the booklet of an entire conference, rather than a specific paper in it? The only way no error is thrown is if I put the conference title in |title, don't use the |conference tag, and put the conference booklet URL in |url rather than |conference-url - but is then the formatting okay? Rontombontom (talk) 10:43, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You need to have a page number to go with it, which implies you can cite specific sections...?
Ignoring that, if you really need to, just use ((cite book)) instead. Izno (talk) 22:11, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unflagged generic title: "Data"[edit]

I found a reference with |title=Data today. It turned out to be a generic title (not the real title of the link) and probably should have been flagged as a generic title (it wasn't). —David Eppstein (talk) 01:29, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please document |article-number= better[edit]

Many electronic journals have switched from page numbers to article numbers, so for example I can cite to the last page of a 5-page article as:

Jeet, Justin; et al. (23 June 2015). "Results of a Direct Search Using Synchrotron Radiation for the Low-Energy 229Th Nuclear Isomeric Transition". Physical Review Letters. 114 (25) 253001: 5. arXiv:1502.02189. Bibcode:2015PhRvL.114y3001J. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.114.253001. PMID 26197124. S2CID 1322253.

So the hierarchy is work/journal, (series), volume, issue, article-number, page(s). (Usually issue is redundant, as article numbers are unique at least within volumes, just as many academic journals used to only restart page numbering per volume.) Many, many references in Wikipedia abuse the |page= parameter to hold the article-number instead, because the editors didn't know about this parameter. This comes out looking okay in the formatting, but produces mangled metadata, and prevents citing to a specific page. (Usually, when editors need to cite to a specific page, they place the article-number in the |issue= parameter instead.)

It would be easier for readers of the documentation (and less reference-correcting work for me) if volume, issue, article number, and page number were listed in that order, and as close together as possible, so that they appear together in the documentation as they appear together in the rendered output.

Specifically:

to
  1. Edition, series, volume
  2. Periodical
  3. In-source locations
  4. Publisher
Although I can't get my preferred global order without splitting the Periodical subsection to insert volume between work and issue, this comes as close as practicable.

Thank you! 97.102.205.224 (talk) 18:00, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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