Template talk:Cite web

Template:Werdnabot

Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters

If deprecated date parameters are used, the page is placed into Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters. The sorting in that category is rather odd, as the code is:

[[Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters|{{NAMESPACE}} {{PAGENAME}}]]

I propose to change this to the more standard:

[[Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters|{{PAGENAME}}]]

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:20, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Now that all the non-article pages have been removed, yes. Before, it was useful for filtering and prioritising work (ironically, the non-articles were done first, which wasn't really the idea, but never mind). Happy‑melon 12:14, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

That is just the way my twisted mind works. :) Apart form the fact that 1. there's less of them, and since you have to start somewhere, why not start where you can easily make a difference? 2. templates and files are usually used on other pages, so fixing them effects both the template or files as well as the page(s) they are transcluded upon. Debresser (talk) 18:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I am in favor of the proposed change, as I am the one who raise this point on both your talkpages. But, as I have pointed out to Gadget850 before, there is much to be said for sorting non-articles together in one place. In other categories we've chosen for "!". Could this be done also? Debresser (talk) 18:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

That could be done by changing the referenced markup to:

{{namespace detect showall
| 1 = [[Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters|{{PAGENAME}}]]
| 2 = [[Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters|!]]
| main  = 1
| template = 2
| category = 2
| help = 2
| file = 2
}}

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks good. Debresser (talk) 22:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC) I see a three-party consensus here. And I doubt if there's anybody else looking at this category. :) Debresser (talk) 00:46, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

If you'll allow me to speak my mind. I was frankly a little surprised when I first saw this solution (with 1={{PAGENAME}} and 2="!"). I thought the obvious solution would be to use {{FULLPAGENAME}}. I agree that that doesn't set aside template and others completely, but it does group them together. And it is much shorter and more elegant. And has the additional feat of sorting templates, help pages, categories and files separately, much like you tried to do once with "!", "#", "@" and"$". I din't say this before, because I very much appreciate your efforts and I am dependend on you since I am not an admin and can't edit templates myself. But it is what I would have done without even a second thought at the first moment this subject arose. Debresser (talk) 11:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Then we don't need to make any changes, as the current {{NAMESPACE}} {{PAGENAME}} = {{FULLPAGENAME}}. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:07, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

That's precisely what's bothering me here. Why didn't it sort the pages alphabetically only by namespace (there were "u" for userpages and "t" for "templates, but all articles were together in one big row)? It should work the same way as other error categories we work with, where articles get sorted alphabetically also. I think the reason is that {{NAMESPACE}} {{PAGENAME}} is not {{FULLPAGENAME}}. {{FULLPAGENAME}} is {{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}. Debresser (talk) 15:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Which means all articles get sorted under ":". What exactly are we trying to do here? Why won't that be achived by using a FULLPAGENAME sort? Happy‑melon 08:31, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

That was a theoretical excursion. I'd still like to request the factual (not theoretical) change to the "!" sorting as described above. Debresser (talk) 18:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

We were just exanging opinions with Gadget850. Of course {{FULLNAMEPAGE}} will be the best solution of that sort, hypothetically. What I'd like to request though is to implement the first suggestion, sorting all non-articles under "!". If that's too much trouble, then {{FULLNAMEPAGE}} is definitely a good solution which is preferable to {{PAGENAME}}. Debresser (talk) 10:45, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done with FULLPAGENAME, as that's easy. I'm not sure the extra work needed to sort non-articles by ! is justified by the results, given that this is supposed to be a transient category anyway. Happy‑melon 10:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. This is called: making the live of gnomes a little easier. :) Debresser (talk) 10:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Do I understand correctly that as soon as they're fixed you'll discontinue support for them from the template? Debresser (talk) 10:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Debresser's heroic effort, Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters is now essentially empty. I intend to remove these parameters from the template code entirely now: that will mean simplifying the |AccessDate= code to this:

  |AccessDate={{#if:{{{accessdate|}}}
                |{{#if: {{{accessyear|}}}
                   |{{{accessdate}}} {{{accessyear}}}
                   |{{{accessdate}}}
                 }}
                |{{{accessday|}}} {{{accessmonth|}}} {{{accessyear|}}}
   }}

Any thoughts? The next stage should be to clear out usage of the |accessday=, |accessmonth= and |accessyear= parameters, IMO. Happy‑melon 11:03, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the proposed change. What will happen if somebody uses |accessdaymonth= or |accessmonthday=, after that change?

I also agree with the next step proposed by Happy‑melon, to start eliminating all other minor date parameters, leaving only |accessdate=. And I will be willing to lend a hand. Debresser (talk) 08:25, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

They will simply not function; it would be like setting |snorkel=. (also)Happy‑melon 08:51, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Page and pages parameters are broken

The page is just displayed as a number by itself, making no sense. It needs to say Page {{{page}}} or Pages {{{pages}}}. Although I did a lot of work on these new templates, unfortunately I'm not an admin so can't make the change myself anymore... {{editprotected}} ··gracefool☺ 10:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. And no changes have been made to {{Cite web}} that could have any repercussions except for that technical category of the previous section, and that changewas made correctly. If there were anything wrong, we'd have manyfold posts by now. Could you give an example, please? Debresser (talk) 11:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

For example, the last reference at List of OECD countries by suicide rate reads

"The Social Report 2008 - Health" (PDF). New Zealand Ministry of Social Development. 26. Retrieved on 2009-05-10.

"26" comes from page=26. It should say something like "Page 26", or if the pages parameter was used instead, Pages 26-28 etc. Or perhaps just p. 26 and pp. 26-28 like {{cite book}}.

··gracefool☺ 11:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Also it should be reordered so pages are displayed after title rather than almost at the end. Thus:

"The Social Report 2008 - Health" (PDF), page 26. New Zealand Ministry of Social Development. Retrieved on 2009-05-10.

This reordering needs to be done to the other citation templates as well. ··gracefool☺ 13:34, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Is this an informed comment you're making? Are you quite sure that the current citation method is actually wrong? It's quite possible that it's simply a particular style of referencing format. A template talk: page may not be the best place to get informed opinions on that. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:42, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The number definetely needs something to make it clear, otherwise it is a rather 'misterious' number hanging in the middle of the text. A working example currently at User:Nabla/Test1, using User:Nabla/Test as the template (diff from the original).

Not sure about the position, though it looks better as in Gracefool's second example.

Nabla (talk) 13:49, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Other templates to p. or pp., not page or pages. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 14:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that 'cite web' is the most appropriate template for paginated sources; as I understand it is intended for web pages, and PDF files would be better handled with citation/cite journal/cite paper/cite book/ etc. (Cite book, for instance, displays pp. by default). In most cases, it would probably be more appropriate to cite the source, and use the {{rp}} template in-line. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

For the most part, I tend to agree with this. If you do use pages with cite web, just manually add the p./pp. Its only recently that the other templates did this automatically anyway. :-P -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I think ··gracefool is right. There is this option to indicate pages. And it is relevant, since many online sources use pages. So the template should show it in the same nice way as {{Cite book}}. Since they've made it work for {{Cite book}} they can just copy it here and {{Cite web}} will use it also. Debresser (talk) 15:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Unless you (or someone else) are able to task a bot to go around and fix all transclusions to avoid double page indicators ("p. p. 35"), then this is a moot point. As for the placement of "page", you'd be better off getting "Cite book" or "Citation" to implement first, since it typically leads the way with changes. Note, however, that MLA, APA, and CMS citation formats all place the page number at the very end of the citation, so I'm not sure what precedent Gracefool is drawing from, other than some kind of aesthetic. I would not support either proposal, as it seems unnecessary. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 15:54, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

As a side note, there is a bot that does/did that for the other templates, so presumably it could also fix any cite web instances broken if the pages parameter were updated. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Good points all. I agree with Smith609 and Collectonian, cite web should not have pages. I can't think of any time where it should - on the web, a page is a url. If it's a PDF or whatever, another template should be used. Can anyone think of an exception? Yes a bot could fix this, I doubt it has been used much at all.

Great point Huntster, standard citation formats have the page number at the end, so I withdraw that idea. Same with "page" instead of "p". Heh it's all a matter of remembering why I made it that way in the first place :p ··gracefool☺

I recommend replacing the current code with:

 |At = {{#if: {{{page|}}}
         |{{#if:{{{nopp|}}}||p. }}{{{page}}}
         |{{#if: {{{pages|}}}|{{#if:{{{nopp|}}}||pp. }}{{{pages}}}}}}}
       }}

I don't think that casual editors should have to worry about such things. It also saves a lot of bot work. Where in the citation the page data is cited is a function of {{Citation|core}} it seems to me. --droll [chat] 19:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Well its not quite that easy is it. It would still be necessary to clean up places where editors added p. or pp. in the article text. Can't be that many occurrences. It should be easy to clean up. It would be best to use a dump generated just before the code change. --droll [chat] 19:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

If Templatetiger is correct there are 22 pages that use the page field and 210 pages that use the pages field. Some hang an external link on it so the nopp field would be useful. --droll [chat] 20:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

If my code or something similar is agreed upon I volunteer to do the clean up. It would be good to add a maintenance category associated with the two fields to catch changes since the dump that Templatetiger uses. Something like:

{{#if:{{{page|}}}{{{pages|}}}|[[Category:Cite web templates using page fields|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}

--droll [chat] 00:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Someone above asked for an example where page numbers are useful with {{cite web}}, and I have one. I wanted to point out a typo in some web sources. These are long hand or OCR transcriptions of an old book and have the book's page numbers embedded. For other citations of this reference I use {{cite book}}, but here wanted to emphasize this was a problem with the web transcripton.

From Mont Clare, Pennsylvania: "[Note: A version of Bean's History, copied on several websites, names it Quineyville, but this is a transcription error.<ref>"BEAN'S HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, CHAPTER LXXII. UPPER PROVIDENCE TOWNSHIP". pp. pp. 1057-8. Retrieved 2009-07-07.</ref>]".

It would also possibly be useful where there was something like a javascript pagination or gallery mechanism where the URL always takes you to page 1 and there citation is further back.

However some other editor has since removed that pp. in spite of the template not yet providing it. Is the change discussed above imminent and this is pre-clean up, or do I need to put the pp. back in? --J Clear (talk) 18:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

"released date" or "article date" for date filed

this article has left me in a quandary as to what to cite. The problem is the release date is before the article date. EDIT: another site - this one is off by an even larger margin and this one is not even in the same year.陣内_Jinnai 01:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

If you are talking about what date should be included in the |date= field, then it is always the article date...when the article itself is published. For the purposes of the citation, it doesn't matter when the media (audio, video, etc) was actually published...though it is useful that the article clearly gives that date. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:11, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

??? That statement wasn't clear due to way you used "published."陣内_Jinnai 04:54, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

What I mean is you should use the date that the article, review, whatever, was published...originally written. Not the date the media was released. For example, in the case of the first link you provided, you would use |date=February 6, 2008, the date the article was published, instead of February 5, the date the media was released. Is that clearer? — Huntster (t • @ • c) 11:17, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Field order

Given the importance of reliable sourcing, it makes no sense to me to have the URL displayed before the publisher. Can we change that? Disembrangler (talk) 12:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean? The URL is part of the title field, which is definitely appropriate in its current location. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

archiveurl

I used the "archiveurl" parameter in a citation to link to the archive in case the original becomes unavailable, but I want the main link to still point to the original which is currently available (using the archive as a back-up only). How do I do that? --Joshua Issac (talk) 19:08, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Use url= to include the original URL and it will link displayed as "original". See #Display of original and archived links above]]. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I had not noticed that section. --Joshua Issac (talk) 20:28, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Translation parameter

I have added support for the translation parameter. Will add docs later. Revert if any problems are encountered. See also here. Crum375 (talk) 13:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Should a url of a translated non-English language page be included in the template - something like |trans_url=  ?? Or would that mess up the template? 78.32.143.113 (talk) 09:11, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

No, I see no reason to do that. Leave it to readers to decide which translation tool they prefer, rather than giving preferential treatment to any one. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 14:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Date format

Is there a particular that this template continues to use ISO 8601-format dates it in its examples even though Wikipedia no longer autoformats dates, or has it just been forgotten? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Black Falcon (talk • contribs) 19:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I have boldly replaced the date format to use {{CURRENTDAY}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} (e.g. 9 November 2024). This affects just the examples in the documentation and can be modified (added later: within articles) as desired by individual editors. –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 16:25, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I support you here. Debresser (talk) 16:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

That fixes the examples. I'm guessing by the state of thousands of articles that ISO has become the defacto standard. We do have a way to format the date without linking, but no will to implement this. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:35, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Parameter sequence

Do I understand that the sequence of parameters is determined by the editor (e.g. if I type accessdate=2009-01-01 first when editing, it will be rendered in first position)? Maybe that should be written in the doc, then. -DePiep (talk) 08:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

No, off the top of my head I cannot think of any template that allows user-defined placement. This template uses a fixed placement of output that depends on what parameters are used. In your example, accessdate will be output close to the end. For example:

• Last, First (2009). "Title". Work.com. Retrieved 2009-01-01.

— Huntster (t • @ • c) 11:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, a sandbox-test confirms your answer. Thx. Must have been a different mistake by me. -DePiep (talk) 12:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

date parameter moved?

Am I crazy or did the date of production-related parameters (date, year etc.) get moved from parentheses after the author to the end of the line? Why? Circeus (talk) 16:35, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Not as far as I can tell. See my example in the section above...the publication year still comes in parentheses after the author. You may have run into some kind of special situation...can you show an example of the problem? — Huntster (t • @ • c) 04:03, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

See notes #1,2,10,11 at Yves Bérubé. Notes the same problem shows up in notes #8 and 9, which use {{cite journal}}. Circeus (talk) 06:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see, I thought you meant the dates were showing up at the end even when author was present. IIRC, it was considered inappropriate (and I agree) to place the date at the front of the citation when there was no author given, so things could be sorted better (i.e., sort either by author or title). This is already an issue with metadata collection, and could eventually be useful in articles if/when citation handling is improved. I don't remember if the date used to stay at the front in all cases, but I don't believe it's been that way for a while. AKA, this is a normal occurrence. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 11:03, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Personally I would have moved the date to after the title, but I'll bow to the statu quo. Circeus (talk) 16:45, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Quotes should not be part of the link.

{{editprotected}} Compare Bob (2009). "FOOBAR". BARFOO. ({{cite journal}}) with Bob (2009). "FOOBAR". BARFOO. ({{cite web}}). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 17:07, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I think I agree, but have no idea how to fix it. I've asked User:Crum375 if he/she can help. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a {{Citation/core}} issue, and after looking at it, I don't see a readily apparent fix, considering it appears to be designed to accommodate both quote marks and italics. Far too complicated. Personally, I don't see this as an issue...it doesn't change the meaning of anything, but don't care either way. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 11:10, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I concur with Huntster. I too see no easy way around this, without adding complexity to the core engine (which services many other citation types). How important do you feel it is? Crum375 (talk) 12:58, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't resist a challenge, so I fixed it. Since this is a common engine, it may affect other citation types, so this may need to be reverted if other users run into issues. Let me know what you think. Crum375 (talk) 14:03, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks good here. I can't see where it would break a citation style, if anything, it would've fixed the other styles, as they too would need to have the quotes outside the link. Thanks. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 15:09, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully you are right, and it won't break anything or ruffle any feathers. Worst case, we can always revert to the old style. Crum375 (talk) 17:37, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Well done, Crum, thanks for that. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 09:44, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

error in titles with closing bracket

It seems like titles with closing brackets "]" at the end of the title are placed after the url link on the title page. Many of the music references in School Rumble use closing brackets for their title the final bracket is placed after the link despite being part of the title.陣内_Jinnai 18:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I believe this is a known issue in most of the citation templates. You'll have to wrap that part of the title in <nowiki></nowiki> tags to get around it. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 18:52, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Rearanging archive & original placement order

There has been talk on the village pump and Template talk:Citation to rearrange the order of the urls due to WebCite collapsing largely because of overload from Wikipedia. Rearranging the order, original first then archived url, was suggested to help minimize the overload since often a website doesn't change much in content (except front pages of news sites and the like) over time. Since a major amount of articles use this template, I thought it appropriate to bring up here.陣内_Jinnai 02:10, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Citing a PDF that doesn't end in the PDF extension

I'd like to get PDF citations to display the way that external links using {{PDFlink}} do. Specifically, they show the acrobat icon and have PDF wikilinked, regardless of whether or not the actual URL ends with the extension ".pdf". Observe:

• {{PDFlink|http://www.google.com}} => Template:PDFlink

There seems to be some autodetection happening with vanilla links that adds the icon (something having to do with CSS, about which I'm fairly ignorant):

• [http://www.google.com/foo.pdf] => [1]

And this autodetection naturally falls through into the links created by {{cite web}}:

• {{cite web|url=http://www.google.com/foo.pdf|title=Look at the icon}} => "Look at the icon" (PDF).

I keep seeing URLs that point to PDFs, but are going through a database (or other system) so that the URL doesn't have the PDF file name in it. And in these cases, the icon isn't generated.

• {{cite web|title=State Route 143 Resolutions|publisher=[[Utah Department of Transportation]]|url=http://www.udot.utah.gov/main/uconowner.gf?n=200609181649181|format=PDF}}

=> "State Route 143 Resolutions" (PDF). Utah Department of Transportation.

Could we get cite web to detect "|format=pdf", and then specify the PDF icon rather than the default icon? Perhaps this could be via a similar mechanism as {{PDFlink}}, i.e., using <span class="PDFlink">. DeFaultRyan 19:47, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

"page=" parameter issue

Minor thing I've noticed with some references I've used, the "page=" parameter is only showing the number, not "p. #". To illustrate:

• {{cite web |publisher=[[IGN]] |author=Shea, Cam |url=http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/954/954036p2.html |title=Street Fighter IV AU Review | page=2 |date=2009-02-12 |accessdate=2009-08-09}}

• Shea, Cam (2009-02-12). "Street Fighter IV AU Review". IGN. p. 2. Retrieved 2009-08-09.

Happens with "pages=" as well. Sorry if this is an already known about issue.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 14:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

— KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Italics for "Work" parameter

The "Work" parameter seems to automatically italicize the entry, but not all applicable entries should be italicized, such as websites. This seems like a problem to me. Drewcifer (talk) 06:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Since there is no manual of style to indicate what output this template is to produce, how do you know websites should not be italicized? --Jc3s5h (talk) 10:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This is correct. Use work when the publisher should be italicized (like citing the NY Times website or the like), otherwise use the publisher field which is not italicized. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 12:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Disagree. The work is always the published medium, the publisher is the company doing the publishing. Work is italicised, publisher is not. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 04:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Publisher and work are two different things, at least in the case of many websites. Allmusic, for example, is published by Macrovision. And you're right, there is no MOS about this template specifically, but there is an MOS about websites and that they shouldn't be italicized. Where it's at eludes me at the moment, but if you need proof I can try and dig it up. So, that said, any template that is meant to facilitate websites should have the ability to facilitate the website in the appropriate style, ie, not italicized. Drewcifer (talk) 05:05, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I don't disagree with regard to that, just pointing out to Collectonian that the two fields cannot and must not be used interchangeably. Since Cite web shouldn't be used to cite news stories that were printed in physical form (for example), I see no problem with removing the italics altogether from this template, speaking in broad terms. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 05:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I feel that the work parameter should be made devoid of the auto-italicising. Instead we can make the publisher as auto-bracketed like the way it is done for Cite news templates. Just a thought. --Legolas ^(talk2me) 05:44, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The template does italicize the work entry automatically, but if you italicize the entry like this: work=Allmusic, it would appear in normal font in the reference section. For example reference #10 in the article "Live to Tell". Frcm1988 (talk) 06:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Websites are not a "published medium" but generally a publisher of content. Makes sense to me. And not saying use them interchangeably, there are some web sources where you can and should use both. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 11:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Websites are most certainly published media..."published" does not necessarily mean the same thing as "printed". The website is never a publisher of content, merely the work that contains the content...there will always be an individual, company, or other entity behind that website. Two totally different things. If you can include both sets of data, then do so, but "work" is the only thing that really needed. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 22:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The concept of what a website is, and a publisher is, is not made clear in the documentation (perhaps because there is no agreement on the meaning). In my mind, a website is a work; the medium is the World Wide Web. The publisher is a corporation, partnership, or individual. Unless you think Tron or The Matrix are non-fiction, publishers cannot exist in electronic form. --Jc3s5h (talk) 13:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

My only worry with re-doing the template is that it would fail to be backwards compatible. ie, all of the instances where the "work" parameter should be italicized. I can't necessarily think of any examples, but I'm sure they exist. So instead, what if we just added an extra parameter: "website". It's more straightforwardly language-wise (calling the website the "work" always was a bit of a stretch, IMO), it would be un-italicized, and it wouldn't mess up all of the millions of times the template's already been used. Drewcifer (talk) 17:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Unnamed editor who posted at 17:01, 12 August 2009 UT, what is a website? --Jc3s5h (talk) 17:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, that was me. One too many tildes, though I've fixed it now. I'm not sure what you mean by your question. Go to website to find out more I guess. Or is this question leading somewhere? I'm very confused. Drewcifer (talk) 00:08, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

The website article indicates, and I agree, that a website is a collection of digital content that is addressed with a single domain name or IP address. It could be a work if it is under the creative control of a single entity. On the other hand, if the only thing the different components share is the address, then it does not qualify as a work. For example, home.comcast.com wouldn't qualify as a work because the component pages are independently created by the many subscribers to that ISP. On the other hand, Wikipedia (English version) is a single work. If there is to be a website parameter, there should be clear instructions about when to use it. In some cases, it would be redundant to give both a work parameter and a website parameter. Also, since a cite web citation will usually include a link, the website is indicated by the address, so isn't usually necessary. --Jc3s5h (talk) 00:36, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I think we're somewhat in agreement here. Adding a website parameter is not meant to replace the work parameter. And alternatively, they could of course be mis-used, like any parameter in any template. So of course clear instructions would be necessary to avoid misuse and redundancy. That said, the clear difference between what one would call a "work" and what one would call a "website" means we need to add or adjust something in the template. Drewcifer (talk) 00:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Anyone mind pointing me to where it says that website names shouldn't be italicized? I can't find it. Goodraise 16:55, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles) doesn't specifically address website titles, however websites do not fall under the list of italicizing and in most citation styles, website names are not italicized nor put in quotes. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 18:06, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Undocumented parameters

I'm using {{cite web}} with |ref= in some of my edits; it works in the same way as that at {{cite book}}. Should it be documented in {{cite web}} as per {{cite book}}, or is it deprecated and should I desist?

Further to that, the following parameters are recognised by the template source of {{cite web}}, but are not documented, and I can't find anything above to suggest that they're deprecated (as with |accessyear= etc.):

|at=
|authorlink1= to |authorlink9=
|dateformat=
|first1= to |first9=
|last1= to |last9=
|postscript=
|publication-date=
|separator=

nb |first1=, |last1=, |authorlink1= are all ignored if |first=, |last=, |authorlink= respectively are present; however |first2=, |last2=, |authorlink2= etc. are always valid. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:34, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

As it is based on {{Citation/core}}, I would have thought that you could have used any of those parameters. I usually check for deprecation there, though I am also basically trying to get refs done as painlessly as possible.<g> -- billinghurst (talk) 01:26, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Parameter "edition" needed

{{Editprotected}} An edition parameter is needed, for online works that change over time but hold static materials that are being cited, and probably for some other cases. The field should only appear if the work parameter is used, and it should be formatted like, and have the same syntax as, the same field in Template:Cite book. Example:

<ref>{{Cite web
|title=What is Occam's Razor?
|first=Phil
|last=Gibbs
|year=1997 article in May, 2009 compilation
|work=Usenet Physics FAQ
|editor=Don Koks
|url=http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/occam.html
|accessdate=August 17, 2009
}}</ref>

would be much more elegant as:

<ref>{{Cite web
|title=What is Occam's Razor?
|first=Phil
|last=Gibbs
|year=1997
|work=Usenet Physics FAQ
|edition=May, 2009
|url=http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/occam.html
|accessdate=August 17, 2009
}}</ref>

Please note the differences:

• accessdate: When the editor saw the cited page.
• date, year, month: Relate to when the cited page or series of pages was/were published (i.e., usually proximal to the authorship date)
• archivedate: relates only to Archive.org, etc.
• edition: An open parameter in which any value may be inserted, e.g. "2009", "3rd", "revised", that relate to the larger work containing the cited page or series of pages. When used to provide a work-publication date, may be many years different from the date (or year / month) values.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:11, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

This looks like it might be a good idea. But would you mind leaving it a few days to garner comments and obtain a consensus before placing the {{editprotected}} request? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

An edition parameter is definitely needed. Do you have the code for the change so we can slap the editprotected banner back on it? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 13:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Parameter "editor" needed

An editor parameter is needed, since any work of any kind in any medium can have an editor (and this editor may be a signficant part of the citation information). It should be formatted like, and have the same syntax as, the same field in Template:Cite book, after two recently-reported bugs in that code are fixed. Example:

Without the field:

<ref>{{Cite web
|title=What is Occam's Razor?
|first=Phil
|last=Gibbs
|year=1997
|work=Usenet Physics FAQ
|url=http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/occam.html
}}</ref>

With the field:

<ref>{{Cite web
|title=What is Occam's Razor?
|first=Phil
|last=Gibbs
|year=1997
|work=Usenet Physics FAQ
|editor=Don Koks
|url=http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/occam.html
}}</ref>

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:26, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done to support 4 editors, using same input format as Template:Citation. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:21, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

James C. Marsters

Please see #4, as I want to reuse it on other articles.

This is the reason I have always just used the URL and the access date. What in the world am I doing wrong?Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:34, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

You had a hard return in the middle of the title. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 18:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I was also referring to the coauthor but then I remembered it was "coauthors" and when I tried to use a singular when it had a plural, or vice versa, it didn't work.

I copied and pasted the title, which doesn't work very well with PDFs.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:24, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Problem with accessdate parameters

Accessmonthday

At the moment the code for the accessmontday parameter is

#if:{{{accessmonthday|}}}|{{{accessmonthday}}} {{{accessyear|}}}|

This results in a missing comma, in the case that there is an accessyear. Adding the comma in the code would result in a superfluous comma, in the case that there is no accessyear. The solution could be

#if:{{{accessmonthday|}}}|{{{accessmonthday}}}{{#if:{{{accessyear|}}}|, {{{accessyear}}}}}|

Debresser (talk) 22:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of first problem

Use of |accessdaymonth= or |accessmonthday= will put the page into Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters, so it's not a good idea to use them. I believe that |accessday=, |accessmonth= and |accessyear= are also deprecated, that's why none of the five are in the documentation... instead, |accessdate= should always be used, because when you find the web page that you're citing, you know what today's date is --Redrose64 (talk) 22:32, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

We know that. We are now discussing how to program the code that has to handle any parameter comming its way. Debresser (talk) 22:48, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

There have been several discussions along similar lines in the past, see #Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters and quite a lot in Template talk:Cite web/Archive 5, in particular Template talk:Cite web/Archive 5#Access dates --Redrose64 (talk) 22:46, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

The simplification discussed in #Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters met general agreement, but was not implemented, for unclear reasons. Please pay attention though, that only the problem described in the first subsection here would be solved by that simplification, but not the second, which remains in its place in the simplified code also. Debresser (talk) 22:51, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

BTW, I personally would like to simplify even more, and scrap accessday, accessmonth, and accessyear as well. Leaving only one accessdate. That for sure would solve both problems! Debresser (talk) 22:58, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, might I suggest then, that (a) a paragraph be added to the documentation along the lines of

The parameters accessday, accessdaymonth, accessmonth, accessmonthday and accessyear are deprecated and should not be used. accessdate should be used instead.

and (b) the template code be modified to place articles into Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters should any of these five be detected --Redrose64 (talk) 23:03, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

At the moment the text is "accessdate: Full date when item was accessed, in the appropriate date format for the article. Should not be wikilinked." I would not change that at all. Perhaps indeed just add "The parameters accessday, accessdaymonth, accessmonth, accessmonthday and accessyear are deprecated and should not be used." Debresser (talk) 23:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

BTW, according to the logic in the documentation page, I would scrap the day parameter as well. It says there "either date: Full date of publication. ... or year: Year of publication, and month: Name of the month of publication. If you also have the day, use date instead." Which means you never should need day. Debresser (talk) 23:15, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I finally finished the job I promised to do a while back, which as Debresser notes, I forgot to complete, and have removed |accessdaymonth= and |accessmonthday= entirely. I think this resolves the first issue? Happy‑melon 13:12, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it does. The second problem remains, though, and virtually no input from other editors. Debresser (talk) 16:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Accessyear parameter

At the moment the interaction between accessdate and accessyear is defined by the following code

{{#if: {{{accessyear|}}}|{{{accessdate}}} {{{accessyear}}}|{{{accessdate}}}}}

If the accessdate parameter includes the year and an accessyear is defined, the result will have a double year. The solution would be to scrap this line entirely. But in that case, if the accessdate does not include the year and the accessyear is defined, we will not have the year at all.

In other words, the present code represent a judgement as to what is the less likely mistake. I would like to ask editors to reevaluate that judgement. Based on the documentation page, which calls for a full date in accessdate, and does not even mention the deprecated accessyear parameter, I would have chosen the opposite solution. Debresser (talk) 22:29, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of second problem

Scrapping the accessyear parameter would solve it, but would that have consensus? Maintaining the status quo is another option, and changing the code is the other. Debresser (talk) 16:03, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the best propositions are deprecating accessyear (in which case a bot would have to do some work to retain accessdates), or keep the status quo. Debresser (talk) 16:06, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

How many cases are there of |accessyear= being present but |accessdate= being absent? Basically, how many references would lose their "Retrieved on"? If there are a small number, I think a manual fixup might be best; several of the links may well turn out dead in any case, so might usefully be removed.

I'm not sure how to search for that combination (template A contains parameter B and not parameter C) without a bot. Please correct me if I'm making the wrong assumption there, but I've never managed to get the standard WP search tool to succeed with anything other than the most basic searches (word A is present, word B is present or both are present in the same article). The "advanced" search just seems to restrict to particular namespaces, rather than being like Google's advanced search facility. Now, if I had access to a UNIX shell prompt, read rights for the wiki sources and execute rights for egrep it would be a different matter... --Redrose64 (talk) 10:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Obviously instances of accessyear without an accessdate would be dealt with by changing "accessyear" to "accessdate". Debresser (talk) 10:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I can run a search on last week's database dump if that would help? Rjwilmsi 12:27, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that will be necessary, thank you, because I didn't mean to deprecate any parameter without putting something else in its place. Debresser (talk) 12:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

It is impossible for a situation to arise where the "accessdate" of a reference can be anything other than a specific date. If you encounter a plain |accessyear= parameter, you can just click through the link, ensure that it still works, and then update the |accessdate= to the current date! There should never be a need for a parameter other than |accessdate= alone. Deprecated, replace, and remove, |accessyear=, |accessday=, |accessmonth=, IMO. Happy‑melon 14:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree with User:Happy-melon. Personally, when editing a page and encountering there an existing {{cite web}} ref with either incomplete or missing access date, I've been back through page history to find out when it was added, and used the date of that revision as the value for |accessdate= - see, for example, this edit where I went back to this and this to get the access dates. Tedious, admittedly, but accurate. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Why more accurate? Accessdates represent the most recent time when the link is known to have worked, to help us spot dead links. Really, we should be filtering old accessdates into a category and going round refreshing them! Happy‑melon 17:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It's more accurate because it shows the date that the cited web page was found by the user who originally added the reference. There's nothing in the documentation stating that the date should be the "most recent time when the link is known to have worked" - it states, and I quote, "Full date when item was accessed ..." which I suppose is ambiguous. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree it's ambiguous; my interpretation of it was always the "last time known to have worked" date. I don't see any value in recording what effectively amounts to the date the reference was added; that can be easily found through wikiblame if it's needed. Much more useful is, as I said, an indication of when the reference was last checked to be valid. (also)Happy‑melon 15:07, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I shan't be updating |accessdate= whenever I visit an external link that succeeds. There are too many of them. When I discover any that fail, what I am doing is to pop in one of these:

• {{Citation needed}} - if it doesn't back up the statement
• {{Registration required}} - when site asks you to log in before you can see the page
• {{Dead link}} - if it's a total failure

--Redrose64 (talk) 15:49, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Fortunately, this being a volunteer community and all that, there's no requirement for anyone to do anything. It's the difference between what happens in reality, and what would happen in an ideal world. In an ideal world, therefore, what would happen to |accessdate= parameters? Happy‑melon 11:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Pre-filled "accessdate" parameter

Hi-I just noticed that the pre-filled "accessdate" parameter has been removed from the /doc page of this highly used template, without any discussion or consensus about the matter that I can find. The reason stated was that since the date format is used differently around the English-speaking world, the pre-filled date in the DD-MM-YYYY style was removed and left empty, because in some places, the MM-DD-YYYY format is more widely used. I'm concerned that editors (myself included) copying this format without the pre-filled access date will not remember to add any date at all. Wouldn't it be better to list the example with the date filled in, or if necessary, list two examples, each with the different date formats? That would make it much easier to use for copying & pasting the format, otherwise, the current form is inefficient, necessitating an extra (somewhat forgettable) step. --Funandtrvl (talk) 15:31, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

There have been several disconnected discussions. You can go over to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and pick one of the several current discussions. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:21, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for the link. I realize that this is a long debated topic without any general consensus. It's too bad we can't all agree on something for the accessdate parameter, because with the "blank space for the date", it's only promoting the lack of efficiency for keystrokes. --Funandtrvl (talk) 16:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

We could give examples for all the date formats commonly used; would that be better? Eubulides (talk) 16:39, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that would be better, then editors can just copy & paste the relevant one. Thanks! --Funandtrvl (talk) 16:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, done. To avoid combinatorial explosion I trimmed down all the common alternatives to one, but with three commonly-used date formats. Eubulides (talk) 23:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for fixing that, I appreciate it, it saves some steps!! --Funandtrvl (talk) 05:45, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Author formatting

By trimming down all the common alternatives to one, you may be giving the impression that |author= is preferred to |last= |first=. An examination of the template source shows that several pairs of the latter (ie |last1= |first1= all the way up to |last9= |first9=) may be provided, and each pair may have an associated |authorlinkn=; however only one |author= is permitted, and where this is used for more than one author, |coauthors= is necessary and I don't think the latter will work with more than one |authorlink=. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:30, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I added examples of the |last1= etc. style. Eubulides (talk) 18:15, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Made one chg to match instructions under opt. parameters, since "author" should only contain one author's name, and used 2 instead of 3, last, first, examples to prevent breaking to 2nd line. --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

No, there's no requirement that author must list only one author, and it's fairly common for it to list multiple authors. Furthermore, there's no requirement that author must contain last name first. The instructions should not imply that last-name-first is preferred. Eubulides (talk) 23:48, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

|authorlink= doesn't work as expected unless |author= has just one author (the whole string is linked to a single article, not just the first-named author); however, the order of names (first last vs last, first) is immaterial for |authorlink= to work --Redrose64 (talk) 23:58, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi-User Redrose64 is correct about authorlink not working with more than one author. I thought I read somewhere that there was a discussion that the last & first parameters are preferred to the author & coauthor parameters, but I haven't searched lately for that discussion! Anyways, I think Last, First should be used as the example for a citation, according to WP:CITE#HOW, the last name is usually first in any bibliography, it also matches the "listas" parameter instructions from WP:BIOG. So I don't agree that the instructions shouldn't imply that last name comes first, because I sure am tired of fixing a lot of bibliographies in WP articles, for that very type of style error. --Funandtrvl (talk) 00:16, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

• "I think Last, First should be used as the example for a citation, according to WP:CITE#HOW". No, WP:CITE#How does not say that "last, first" is preferred.
• "authorlink not working with more than one author" It is quite common to use |author= without |authorlink=, and in that case it works just fine with multiple authors; individual authors in within |author= can be wikilinked as needed when |author= is used, and this is also common. It is also common to avoid wikilinking authors entirely, as per WP:OVERLINKING. In all these styles, |author= works just fine with multiple authors.
• Many featured articles format author names themselves, using |author=, and there is nothing wrong with that. This is independent of whether last names are first; for example, the Vancouver system, a last-name-first style, is very commonly used in medical articles, and medical articles typically use |author= in order to employ that style, because the format used by |last= etc. is incompatible with Vancouver style. The {{cite web}} template is not about enforcing a particular format for authors; it allows all the common ones, and the documentation should not imply otherwise.

Eubulides (talk) 01:05, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

A clarification, I did not list all of the links in the see also section of WP:CITE#HOW. However, that is what I was refering to in that section. For example, the commonly used styles of APA, MLA, CMOS, Harvard, and Turabian use last, first. If the exception is the Vancouver style, couldn't the description be updated to indicate that? Isn't it the same issue as listing only three of the most commonly used date forms? If an editor has a format to follow, or copy and paste, isn't it easier that way? Also, the issue is not which format for the parameters to use, author or last, first, the issue is whether to show an example of using the author parameter with last, first. It is not a requirement, but if the five major citation style manuals show the author with the last name first, wouldn't you say that the example using last, first, would not be a problem? Like I requested before when the "today's date" parameter example was removed, it is much easier to copy and paste when an example is shown. The instructions can be updated to include the citation style differences and recommendations. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

In practice |author= is used more often than |last1= and so should be listed first. Again, there seems to be a misperception here that |last1= etc. supports the major styles. This is incorrect. For example, the template mishandles multiple authors with the MLA style. So, if one really wants to use MLA style, one must often use |author= instead of |last1= etc. anyway. It is true that Vancouver is even more-poorly supported than MLA, because with the Vancouver style, one must use |author= even if there's just one author. But that doesn't mean MLA is well supported. Eubulides (talk) 20:51, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I am aware of the fact that the |last=, etc. parameters do not support the MLA style, when using multiple authors, so that is not a misconception on my part. Nor do I disagree that |author= should be listed first. This is your quote that I'm referencing: "Furthermore, there's no requirement that author must contain last name first. The instructions should not imply that last-name-first is preferred.", in conjunction with: "Citations within a page should use consistent formats. However, there is no consensus about which format is best. The following examples are for citations where one author is listed as part of a single |author=Last, First parameter, along with |coauthors=Last, First; Last, First ... allowing for additional authors. Also shown below are three separate date formats that are commonly used in Wikipedia:". What I'm wondering is what your suggestion would be to improve this paragraph. It seems like we're talking about two different things here. --Funandtrvl (talk) 21:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry: I did misunderstand your comments. Let me try again (I hope I get it right this time). There are common styles where authors are listed first name first. For example, Turabian style uses first-name-first in footnotes, with the following as an example:

• 10. Jeff Rybacki, “Neenah Creek Elementary School,” Wisconsin Dells School District, http://www.sdwd.k12.wi.us/neenahcreek.html [accessed March 8, 2008].

The blank form shouldn't specify any format for author names, as the blank form doesn't care about format if only |author= is specified. The first, simple form should not specify |coauthor=, as that parameter is too tricky: it requires a semicolon between author names, for example, and this is not at all obvious to a first-time user. Nor should the simple form give an example of |coauthor= with last-name-last, as that is less common (it contradicts MLA too, no?). Let's keep the first form simple; the more-complex stuff should be put later. I propose this diff (which I immediately reverted). Eubulides (talk) 23:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, now it makes sense. Go with it and be done with it! :) Funandtrvl (talk) 02:38, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Odd formatting

Hello everyone! I'm not sure if this is the correct place to be asking, but I am having an issue with the cite web template in one of the articles I'm working on, so I thought I'd drop a question here. On the article Andalusian horse, two reference templates are for some reason putting some of the website url into the title. The link is working fine - it's just showing up wrong. Here's the formatting I'm using:

<ref>{{cite web|title=ANCCE|publisher=National Association of Purebred Horse Breeders of Spain|url=http://www.ancce.es/ver_wysiwyg.php?id=historia&seccion=¿Que es ANCEE?&subseccion=Historia|accessdate=2009-09-29}}</ref>

<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ancce.es/ver_wysiwyg.php?id=datos&seccion=El Caballo Español&subseccion=Datos del Caballo Español|title=Important Information about the PRE Horse|accessdate=2009-06-20|publisher=National Association of Purebred Spanish Horse Breeders of Spain}}</ref>

And here's how it's showing up:

es ANCEE?&subseccion=Historia "ANCCE". National Association of Purebred Horse Breeders of Spain. Retrieved 2009-09-29. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)

Caballo Español&subseccion=Datos del Caballo Español "Important Information about the PRE Horse". National Association of Purebred Spanish Horse Breeders of Spain. Retrieved 2009-06-20. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)

Does anyone have any ideas about how I can fix this? Dana boomer (talk) 16:49, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that those URLS have. Replace the spaces with their proper URL encoding (%20 for spaces). "ANCCE". National Association of Purebred Horse Breeders of Spain. Retrieved 2009-09-29. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks for the quick response. Guess you learn something new every day :) Dana boomer (talk) 17:04, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

series identifier

There is no way to specify a series identifier, like "Technical report TR23-45A" or a subtitle. Both of these would be helpful. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 02:52, 1 October 2009 (UTC)