Help talk:Citation Style 1

Citation templates

... in conception

... and in reality

Param suggestion: |page-url=

A lot of the citations that I see pointing to references on archive.org include urls to the specific pages in the |page= parameter as in |page=[https://archive.org/details/cihm_07495/page/n255 237]. It seems like an additional parameter, perhaps named |page-url=, would be handy to keep track of this information separately. So far, I've been leaving the links like this because they don't appear to be breaking anything yet. Slambo (Speak) 15:43, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

It should be an alias of |url=, not a new parameter. Only 1 URL, the more specific one should be entered in citations, with the page, or the first page in a page range. In any case, I would remove the url from the page param and insert the url param. If the citation includes a page number, it is understood that the link may lead to the pertinent page. If one needs to link multiple pages, short refs would be more apt imo. 50.74.114.218 (talk) 17:46, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Why? The URL of the publication provides access to information on the context of the cited pages. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:04, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

That is correct. But also potentially confusing, in the sense of having two URLs pointing to different things, i.e. information/context about the work (the work's URL) and the in-work location (the page's URL). I am not certain the average reader will be able to navigate this with ease. I suppose personally I would include the work's URL in the full citation, and the page URLs on short references. But this is just a preference. 65.88.88.126 (talk) 16:54, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

We recently had a related discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 78#How to extlink the components of a multi-component publication.

These page links are typically added by bots. When I first saw them added to articles a couple of years back I too thought they would be a bad idea (because they add clutter to the |pages= parameters), however, they are not as bad as they might look at first sight: Like you already observed, they are not breaking anything (in any of the page-related parameters, that is), because the links are automatically removed before using the page information for metadata.

Regarding the suggestion of having (only) one alias to |url= for a "page link" and for the proposal to have numbered page parameters (in the other thread), this wouldn't work:

To the contrary of what the IP stated, the |pages= parameter often contains a list of pages or even page ranges, and it is not at all desirable to split them up into individual pages or use short references for them. Splitting up into individual pages is only necessary when it is particularly important to document the exact locations where multiple independent statements are sourced. In the vast majority of cases, this is not important, and combining all references to a single publication and providing a list of pages is sufficient. In most cases, it is easy enough to flip through these pages to find the one supporting a specific statement, so having individual references for each of them would only add redundancy and clutter to the article. Short references add an extra layer of indirection and don't allow for backlinks, therefore they are often inconvenient to use - they kind of solve one problem by adding a bunch of other problems. Per WP:CITEVAR, they are not a requirement at all to use and many people do not (want) to use them because of their shortcomings. So, suggesting anything that would force us to split up citations is simply no solution at all.

Regarding numbered page links (as suggested in the other thread), this would require not only numbered page link parameters but also numbered page parameters, as otherwise it would be next to impossible to know which link belongs to which page. While this would be technically a workable solution, it would not be a good one, because it would make the list of pages even more difficult to read and add an enourmous amount of parameter clutter to citations. It would also make the code much more complex and difficult to maintain. I mean, we do have numbered parameters for the various types of contributors, but we don't have them because this would be a particularly great idea but simply because the template has a need to know the given name, surname and optionally the link to generate the proper representation for display and metadata purposes from this, and the complexity of naming schemes makes it impossible to just provide a name list and let the template reliably extract the informational bits from it. It would work in some cases, but not in general, that's why we need a set of numbered parameters for the names. However, although there is a huge variety in page numbering schemes, they are still much simplier than names and therefore the code can be made smart enough to reliably extract all the necessary information from a single parameter argument.

Finally, there was a complaint that it would be a bad design decision for parameters to accept multiple types of input. I can see where this comes from, and it sometimes holds true, but not for citation templates in Wikipedia. I consider our approach to be kind of object-oriented (or at least we try to give this impression to users). There are limits, but ideally, you could throw any kind of "data objects" holding the relevant information at a parameter and the template would be able to figure everything out by itself. From the viewpoint of users, the most intuitive way to give a link is to use our standard Mediawiki wikitext syntax. Also, it simply should not matter if they provide a single page, a page range, a list of single pages, a list of page ranges, any kind of combination of them, a linked page, linked page range, list of linked pages or linked ranges, you got it... (Not in the case of page-related parameters, but for completeness, in some cases, parameters also accept some symbolic keywords in addition to text objects.) What can be more simple and intuitive from a user's perspective than to allow them to use the normal Wikitext syntax and just provide a list of data items? Actually, it can't be easier than this. (Unfortunately, we can't do this for names, at least not without introducing a special syntax, which would defeat the idea.)

One more thought on this: As stated above already, I too do not particuarly like these long strings such as |page=[https://archive.org/details/cihm_07495/page/n255 237] (but I've come to accept them given that they add useful information for readers and that citations would only become longer when using special parameters for this). However, in many cases the first part of these links is the same as the link provided in the |url= parameter, like in |url=https://archive.org/details/cihm_07495. For these cases, I can envision some kind of shortcut notation like |page=[*/page/n255 237] |url=https://archive.org/details/cihm_07495. This obviously would not work for all cases, but it would reduce the clutter and redundancy in many cases already.

Somewhat related:

• Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_72#Smart_substitution_token_to_reduce_redundancy_among_input_parameters
• Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_72#Add_wayback-timestamp_parameter

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:11, 21 July 2021 (UTC) (updated 13:45, 13 August 2021 (UTC))

You say Short references add an extra layer of indirection and don't allow for backlinks,; however, I see back references to, e.g., 3270Intro, in IBM 3270#References. Admittedly it's a bit clunky, but it works. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:04, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I meant backlinks from the "base citations" back to the various short references. In your example, if you arrive at e.g. the "3270Intro" citation, there are no links to go to all the short references pointing to this entry; you would have to search for them by going through all the references. However, if I would arrive there, I would want to see all the other locations citing from this publication. With an extreme amount of work something like this could be constructed manually, but it would be prone to errors and very difficult to maintain. In your specific example of "3270Intro" there are only two short references pointing there, so they could be easily merged into one with no loss of information. Even in cases such as "3270DS", which have many more short references, most of them are referring to adjacent pages in chapter 3, so it is probably enough to refer to chapter 3 and perhaps the page range, but not to individual pages, and thereby avoid most if not all those short references. If there is a particularly important statement to be referred to, |quote= and |quote-pages= can be helpful as well. If the individual page numbers should be preserved, {{rp}} can be used for the individual pages and |pages= for the combined pages. This way, the additional layer of indirection can be avoided and automatic backlinks are possible.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 15:00, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Using <ref name=foo />{{rp|bar}} works well when you are only adding a page number to the base citation, but what is the equivalent to {{sfn|foo|p=bar|loc=baz}}? --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 21:52, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I would just append it, separated by a comma, like in <ref name="foo" />{{rp|bar, baz}}. Alternatively, you could probably use something like {{rp|at=p. bar, baz}} or {{rp|at=baz}}. Even page links can be used in combination with {{rp}}, although this may sometimes require to use of numbered parameters like |1=[Update 2021-08-11: Calling conventions have been improved, this is now no longer necessary].

However, WP:CITEVAR applies and you can use {{sfn}} etc. if you want. My point above was mostly that multiple pages are perfectly fine in a citation (even when used to support multiple independent statements in an article) and that there is no requirement and often no benefit splitting citations into individual short references - it comes with a price, and the disadvantages are often larger than the advantages - as usual, it depends on the circumstances. I made this point to illustrate why we need to support multiple pages and why proposals which would allow us to deal only with single (or related) pages in a citation do not lead anywhere.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:53, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Adding multiple page numbers that support different statements in a single citation is not a problem, but isn't this discussion about page links? It seems to me a full citation with multiple page links is unwieldy and full of clutter. A short ref with the specific page link for the specific wikitext seems more intuitive and easier to understand. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 17:10, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Using {{rp|bar|at=baz}}, {{rp|bar, baz}} and {{rp|at=p. bar, baz}} gives me , and . The second and third have the right information, but the location is likely to be long and should be in the reference list rather than inline. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:35, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Still an issue with book volumes

All these months later, and the issue with book volumes is still not being addressed. I understand why we don't want an explicit "volume" with a journal/magazine. I do not understand the issue with books. If Birds of North America has 13 volumes, displaying "Birds of North America. 2." does not, to most humans, clearly indicate that the 2 refers to volume 2 – particularly given that the average reader probably has no idea that there are 13 volumes in the set. Why can template not behave differently depending on whether the item is a book or a journal?! I know it's possible to do so, so somebody must have some rationale for why we don't. Please explain! MeegsC (talk) 20:25, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Inertia, basically.

Previous discussions have yielded two proposed alternative styles for rendering |volume=, |number=/|issue= (only used with journals) and |pages=:

	Journal	Not journal	Notes
Current	3 (4): 12–56.	3, pp. 12–56.	Long volume names are not bolded, but |volume=vol. 3 is considered an error.
Proposal 1	3 (4): 12–56.	vol. 3, pp. 12–56.
Proposal 2	vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 12–56.		Non-journals would not have a number or issue.

The current definition of "journal" is

• {{cite journal}}, or
• {{citation}}/{{cite map}}/{{cite interview}} with |journal= specified.

I believe we should offer these alternatives for wider consideration. Kanguole 09:37, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

{{cite magazine}}?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:07, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Adding magazine to the current row:

	journal	magazine	others
Current	3 (4): 12–56.	Vol. 3 no. 4. pp. 12–56.	3, pp. 12–56.
Proposal 1	3 (4): 12–56.	vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 12–56.
Proposal 2	vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 12–56.

Kanguole 14:10, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I support the proposed standardization, but I think that the "scientific" nomenclature might still be desirable to have in heavily academic articles, therefore, I suggest to introduce a |periodical-style= or |serial-style= (or whatever) parameter to select the desired format if this is not the default already. (At a later stage, this could be supported by templates similar to the |cs1-dates= parameter of templates {{use dmy dates}}/{{use mdy dates}} to globally switch the display format for all citations in an article instead of having to use it in individual citations. I had some experimental code for this a year ago, but it would have to be adjusted to the current significantly changed code base.)

I believe that having such an option to override the default would significantly raise community acceptance of a general change to a more standardized format - without it, I already see the next tumult emerging from militant proposers of one of these formats. With such a parameter implemented, we would still instantly have a consistent format in the majority of articles (the goal, we want to achieve), but allow editors to override the default to address special needs in specific citations (and articles). Best of both worlds.

We could either use Proposal 1 as the default formats for the various templates and the parameter would allow to override the default and select the other format, or, we could choose Proposal 2 as the new general default format for all citation types and the parameter would have to be used in individual citations to switch to the scientific format.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:53, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I would be strongly against introducing another style configuration parameter. It would be another knob for people to twiddle and fight over, and we already have plenty of those clogging our watchlists. I would rather have a less-preferred option than that.

As for raising acceptance, I don't think anyone out there loves bold volumes for books. The choice between the other two should be settled at an RFC. Kanguole 17:11, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Design by rfc; how appalling.

I too, am opposed to yet-another-style-parameter. {{cite journal}} renders the academic-journal-style. If you don't like that, use {{cite magazine}} or {{cite periodical}}. No need for special parameters.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:58, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

If we want people to be able to use cite magazine - then it needs to be added to Wikipedia:RefToolbar/2.0 - otherwise most editors will just use the templates which the tools force upon them.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:29, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

You'll get no opposition from me but, good luck with that:

• Wikipedia talk:RefToolbar/Archive 2 § Enhanced toolbar drop down templates
• Wikipedia talk:RefToolbar/Archive 2 § Cite magazine
• Wikipedia talk:RefToolbar/Archive 3 § Request for Wikipedia to add the "cite magazine" citation template to RefToolbar
• Wikipedia talk:RefToolbar/Archive 3 § Request for Wikipedia to add the "cite magazine" citation template to RefToolbar, 2021

Maybe, if enough editors make noise about it, someone will do the necessary (thankless) labor that will give them what they want. Perhaps you?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:12, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, if as indicated by the discussions on the RefToolbar page, the tool is not being maintained, then it should be deactivated.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:34, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I think that you are mistaken. Multiple javascript pages implement WP:RefToolbar. The tool is mostly stable so there is little to do to it. Still, these parts of it were updated this year:

• MediaWiki:Gadget-refToolbar.js
• MediaWiki:RefToolbar.js
• MediaWiki:RefToolbarMessages-en.js
• MediaWiki:RefToolbarMessages-de.js – this is the English Wikipedia; why do we care about the German version here?

As I said before, if enough editors make noise about it, someone will do the necessary (thankless) labor that will give them what they want. If you want the change, recruit enough editors who also want the change, or, failing that, do it yourself.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:10, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Design by RfC has proven to result in inconsistent, incoherent and typically less-powerful solutions. But forcing our own (typically great ;-) ideas onto the community is also no option. I mean, even here in this dedicated place where most of us have quite some experience with citation formats we often have vastly different views in regard to the best solution to a problem, clearly indicating that we have a diverse array of needs and therefore need flexibility to address them. That's why I think we should give the users some guidance (in form of reasonable defaults and good documentation) but also the necessary flexibility so that they can (if they need to) get the results they want to suit more special requirements. Otherwise, they will either complain about our templates or not use them. Both is unsatisfactory for them and us - and for the project as a whole.

I agree that in principal it would be enough to let {{cite journal}} use the scientific format and {{cite magazine}} the verbose format - basically that's a style-parameter in disguise. However, we have readers switching between these templates based on the nature of the periodical which would defeat the idea to choose the template based on the display format.

To sum it up, without a style-parameter to optionally override the default I could still support proposal 1, but not proposal 2.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 02:05, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

@Matthiaspaul: we have readers switching between these templates based on the nature of the periodical - I do that frequently (example), because I often find that some people are inappropriately using {{cite journal}}, {{cite news}} and {{cite web}} for magazines - for me, it's not a case of choos[ing] the template based on the display format but of choosing the most appropriate template for the source. Each of these four has documentation that gives such advice:

• {{cite journal}} - academic and scientific papers published in bona fide journals
• {{cite magazine}} - articles in magazines and newsletters
• {{cite news}} - news articles in print, video, audio or web
• {{cite web}} - web sources that are not characterized by another CS1 template

I believe that the people who do not use {{cite magazine}} do so partly because they don't read the documentation, but mainly because it's not offered by the cite tool that they use (see post by Nigel Ish at 18:29, 28 July 2021 (UTC) and the reply by Trappist. So long as that remains the case, there will always be the need to amend the citation. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:58, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, that's right. In fact, I'm doing this as well, but I'm reasonably happy with the difference in output formats between {{cite journal}} and {{cite magazine}}. I think we should continue to maintain this idea by choosing the most suitable parameter |journal= or |magazine= based on the nature of the periodical. Typically, we would use |journal= in {{cite journal}} and |magazine= in {{cite magazine}}, but following Trappist's comment to choose the template depending on the desired output format above, we would need to acknowledge that some people might have deliberately chosen to use {{cite journal}} for |magazine= or {{cite magazine}} for |journal=, and that, if this makes sense in a particular article rendering as a whole, we should leave this alone.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 10:14, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

I think that what you are saying without actually voicing it is that {{cite journal}}, {{cite magazine}}, {{cite news}} all become redirects to the canonical template {{cite periodical}}. {{cite periodical}} then renders volume/issue/page in the style dictated by the |work= parameter alias that is used in the template. That would likely be a significant challenge, mostly elsewhere than in Module:Citation/CS1. Some one or some series of bots would need to convert existing templates; tools like WP:RefToolbar would need updating, etc. I rather like this idea but I foresee torches and pitch forks because en.wiki editors hate, hate, hate change...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:10, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

I generally favor some form of Proposal 1. Let {{cite journal}} use the shorter format. In {{cite magazine}}, get the page number next to the volume and issue number. (Currently if a publisher is specified, it splits the volume/issue from the page number.) In {{cite map}}, et al., tie the output to whether |journal= or |magazine= is used.

For books though, I'd leave volume number next to title as a function of the title and retain the page number at the end, but otherwise add the "vol." text to the volume number for consistency. Imzadi 1979 → 22:46, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Proposal 2 is the only scheme that makes sense for a project like Wikipedia. It is easily understandable by readers. The comma separator will have to be explained to editors since it violates style. This is because of the current rigid implementation of separators into "style 1" and "style 2", that carries no functional utility. 64.18.9.208 (talk) 23:40, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

• Support Proposal 2 Although I would be happy enough with Proposal 1. Agree with Imzadi about not splitting title from volume. I thought that the maintainers already turned this down. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I'd personally prefer Proposal 2, but I think there would be too much inertia to completely move away from the abbreviated journal format. Imzadi 1979 → 00:16, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
• Strongly prefer 1, but could live with 2. Status quo is unacceptable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:22, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support Proposal 1; I agree that the status quo doesn't work at all. And proposal 2 certainly "isn't the only one that makes sense", despite what an anonymous IP might assert. I'm assuming that if the "number" field is left blank, that parameter won't appear at all – i.e. vol. 2, pp. 12–56. MeegsC (talk) 10:28, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

  Are you saying that readers are better served by different (and convoluted) renditions of issue and volume depending on the use of a template they know nothing about? And why is an assertion by something called "MeegsC" any better on the face of it? 64.18.9.201 (talk) 11:16, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

• Prefer Proposal 2 but also support Proposal 1 and strongly prefer either to the status quo. I think (based on no evidence, obvs) that the majority of editors who add citations to journal articles are probably happy with the academic shorthand since they are accustomed to it; hence the change will annoy them since style changes are always annoying. On the other hand, (still based on no evidence) our average reader probably hardly ever looks at an academic journal and is left to guess what the terse encoding means. I think we should prioritize clarity for the reader over the comfort of familiarity for the editor. This goes doubly for books where the shorthand is not, as far as I know, widely used. Wham2001 (talk) 11:11, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
• Strong support for Proposal 1. This gives the output for journals and books I'd expect to see in scientific literature. Books use Volume or Vol, while journals just have the number, which may be in bold (most?), italics (a few) or with no emphasis. —  Jts1882 | talk  12:17, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
• Proposal 2 - is unambiguous, where proposal 1 leaves ambiguity and leaves you scrtching your head as to what the numbers mean. And the opportunity of mixing styles in a single article is not very good. Keith D (talk) 12:50, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Support for Proposal 1. From a biology viewpoint the vast majority of of scientific journal citations are in an APA style-style which renders volume 8, issue 10 as 8(10) or 8(10) or 8(10). I feel it would be strange to include "vol." in a biology citation, but not unheard of. However, per MeegsC there really needs to be a change, there are so many scientific books published in volumes and cited with words to note the volumes. Jack (talk) 14:11, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
• Proposal 1 - there is no way we can do proposal 2 without getting a lot of immediate friction from the community that will inevitably result in a workaround like the proposed |periodical-style= above which introduces yet more complication. Image the problem of creating a citation via automated means and trying to determine the right style to use for a particular article; then we need to have something like {{use dmy}} cluttering the top of every article. No, don't go that route. Proposal 1 maintains what already exists for {{cite journal}} which is by far the largest of all and will have the least friction while fixing the problem with the other smaller templates. -- GreenC 14:40, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is not a science publication. It is also not a special-purpose vehicle for professionals of any sort, including those in the field of biology. There is also the argument that a solution tailored to the entire community (its readers) has to be bypassed because a minority (its editors, or a subset thereof) may cause a fuss. Not very surprising. "Wikipedians" :) often act with a sense of ownership, and also often throw fits. In the meantime Wikipedia, rather unselfconsciously, proclaims its own worthlessness. 195.123.233.197 (talk) 15:55, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

  Definitely agree with the IP here. Articles are not WP:OWNed by any particular individuals, and if we decide here that using vol. 3 no. 2 is better than using 3 (2), a proposition I strongly agree with, then it is right and proper, for the benefit of our readers that we allow that to propagate to all articles which cite journals.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:51, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

  Who is "we"? Experience has shown, repeatedly, the community all million plus are sensitive to changes of status quo, and when "we" decide to changes things for their "readers" own good according to our expert and correct opinions, the 'pitchforks' come out and trenches are dug. IMO this is a more significant change then say |accessdate= vs. |access-date= and you know how that went, the battle lines now so hardened it is a dead issue, it will never get fixed. Once wide-scale attention is made to the issue, you loose control. Stay as close as possible to status quo and fix the small things that really need fixing, it will be successful. Come back later and deal with cite journal as a separate issue because chances are it will be no-consensus. -- GreenC 20:47, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

  You are correct that any challenge to the status quo will cause a disturbance. Whether that should dissuade from applying the better solution is the question. If it does, mediocrity wins again. This is a norm here. After all, this is a project where without any sense of irony or self-awareness, the majority of its content is designated suspect by default. There is a small minority of so-called "good articles". Which one would think, should immediately give rise to the question, why should an encyclopedia publish articles that it has itself designated as non-good? Compared to such institutional schizophrenia the pitchforks no doubt already being sharpened over this thread seem like toothpicks. 195.123.233.197 (talk) 00:21, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

• Proposal 2. I've long thought that the 3(2) format is not ideal for use in an encyclopedia, where most readers are not specialists and may not automatically know what it means. It's far better to explicitly spell out what is meant, using the vol. and no. nomenclature, as per the Chicago or MLA citation style. This should apply to any publication be it a journal, book, magazine or anything else.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:47, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
• Proposal 1. However, I would like a means to request that {{cite magazine}} use the same nomenclature as the publisher for the issue. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:18, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Implementation

It seems to be universally agreed that bold volume numbers for non-journals are unacceptable, but opinion is divided on whether to retain them for journals, i.e. there is no consensus for change there. So I've changed the sandbox to extend the magazine formatting to all non-journals.

Cite book comparison

Wikitext	{{cite book|first=Ann|last=Author|pages=12–34|title=Book|volume=3|year=2000}}
Live	Author, Ann (2000). Book. Vol. 3. pp. 12–34. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
Sandbox	Author, Ann (2000). Book. Vol. 3. pp. 12–34. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)

Cite journal comparison

Wikitext	{{cite journal|first=Ann|journal=Journal|last=Author|number=5|pages=12–34|title=Article|volume=3|year=2000}}
Live	Author, Ann (2000). "Article". Journal. 3 (5): 12–34. {{cite journal}}: |last= has generic name (help)
Sandbox	Author, Ann (2000). "Article". Journal. 3 (5): 12–34. {{cite journal}}: |last= has generic name (help)

Citation comparison

Wikitext	{{citation|first=Ann|last=Author|pages=12–34|title=Book|volume=3|year=2000}}
Live	Author, Ann (2000), Book, vol. 3, pp. 12–34 {{citation}}: |last= has generic name (help)
Sandbox	Author, Ann (2000), Book, vol. 3, pp. 12–34 {{citation}}: |last= has generic name (help)

Citation comparison

Wikitext	{{citation|first=Ann|journal=Journal|last=Author|number=5|pages=12–34|title=Article|volume=3|year=2000}}
Live	Author, Ann (2000), "Article", Journal, 3 (5): 12–34 {{citation}}: |last= has generic name (help)
Sandbox	Author, Ann (2000), "Article", Journal, 3 (5): 12–34 {{citation}}: |last= has generic name (help)

Kanguole 19:11, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Separator between volume and number

Looks good. Here are two more for comparison (no change):

Citation comparison

Wikitext	{{citation|date=2000|first=Ann|last=Author|magazine=Magazine|number=5,7|pages=12–34|title=Article|volume=3,5}}
Live	Author, Ann (2000), "Article", Magazine, vol. 3, 5, no. 5, 7, pp. 12–34 {{citation}}: |last= has generic name (help)
Sandbox	Author, Ann (2000), "Article", Magazine, vol. 3, 5, no. 5, 7, pp. 12–34 {{citation}}: |last= has generic name (help)

Cite magazine comparison

Wikitext	{{cite magazine|date=2000|first=Ann|last=Author|magazine=Magazine|number=5,7|pages=12–34|title=Article|volume=3,5}}
Live	Author, Ann (2000). "Article". Magazine. Vol. 3, 5, no. 5, 7. pp. 12–34. {{cite magazine}}: |last= has generic name (help)
Sandbox	Author, Ann (2000). "Article". Magazine. Vol. 3, 5, no. 5, 7. pp. 12–34. {{cite magazine}}: |last= has generic name (help)

However, I think we should put at least a comma (possibly a dot in CS1) between the volume and the number info. It looks odd to me that there is no separator between them even in the simple cases above, but even more so in more complicated cases (for illustration purposes I changed the |volume= and |number= parameters to contain lists).

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 14:48, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the current presentation of {{cite magazine}} is unchanged, and now extended to other non-journals. However, the combination of |volume= and |number= should only occur with magazines and journals, so their formatting is independent of this change. Kanguole 15:27, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd add that I've never seen lists in |volume= or |number= in the wild – it's usually 3/4 or 3–4. If an article is published in several parts with different page ranges in different issues/volumes, they would have to be separate cites. Kanguole 15:34, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I have, although rarely and not in combination in both |volume= and |number=. I used it here as an example to show more clearly, that there is something missing between the volume and the number. I basically "hijacked" this thread for the possible discussion of adding a comma (or dot), because this would be another minor change likely accepted (if even noticed) by the masses, and because this thread already has a nice list of rendered citation templates for quick comparison of the output.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:48, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Done. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 14:19, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

HTML markup

@Trappist the monk: Greetings! To answer your question raised in this revert, Sbb started a thread at User talk:Beland#Use of Templates, HTML, and HTML entities within citation templates. I think that happened because I was going around changing articles (including citations) to conform with MOS:FRAC and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Superscripts and subscripts, and the current guidelines result in HTML markup instead of Unicode precomposed fractions, superscripts, and subscripts. I couldn't find an authoritative COinS specification that explains how to handle superscripts, fractions (including those not available as precomposed characters), italics, and other markup in fields. I thought Sbb was advocating without opposition that Unicode characters be used instead of markup, and I was starting to change the guidelines to reflect that when we got your attention. Sbb also pointed out there has been opposition at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Superscripts and subscripts. So, it would be good to discuss so I can get some clarification on what the consensus is here so I can update my spellcheck code and guideline pages if necessary. There are several possibilities for what to do:

• Use Unicode characters whenever possible (but markup is difficult to avoid in 100% of cases)
• Use HTML when necessary to follow MOS guidelines, but avoid templates because they tend to spew unwanted HTML markup, and expect downstream consumers to parse <sup>...</sup> etc.
• As Headbomb suggested, follow Wikipedia guidelines for display purposes, but write some code so that citation templates give downstream COinS consumers output translated into no-markup Unicode, or whatever is needed in any particular case.

Thoughts? -- Beland (talk) 02:59, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not Trappist, but I strongly disagree with your suggestion to use Unicode substitutes in references, and its implication that these can be adequate substitutes for mathematics formatting in reference titles. They are not adequate substitutes. In particular, they are very limited in their application and frequently incompatible in appearance with the proper mathematics formatting that is required when their limits are reached. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:33, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

The COinS metadata is carried in the title="..." attribute of an empty HTML <span>...</span> element that also has the attribute class="Z3988". HTML attributes cannot contain markup of any kind, so if it can't be sanitised to remove the markup, it must be omitted in the first place. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:22, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Markup can appear there, but it does need to be encoded. The examples Sbb left on my talk page use percent-encoding, so for example <sup> would be encoded as %3Csub%3E. It looks like other fields (like the URL of the page) also use percent-encoding, so downstream consumers would be expected to percent-decode out of course? The result of that decoding could be HTML or no-markup Unicode or MathML or whatever. -- Beland (talk) 16:49, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

My conclusion would be, rather, that if COINS cannot represent accurate references, then we should drop COINS instead of using it as an excuse to force our references to be inaccurate. The tail is wagging the dog. We must be able to cite papers like, say, Pintér, Ákos; de Weger, Benjamin M. M. (1997). "${\textstyle 210=14\times 15=5\times 6\times 7={\binom {21}{2}}={\binom {10}{4}}}$". Publicationes Mathematicae Debrecen. 51 (1–2): 175–189. MR 1468225.. If our COINS conversion produces garbage like "rft.atitle=MATH+RENDER+ERROR" because COINS is incapable of representing such titles, prevents us from including the nowrap preventing the horrible line break between double quote and start of title, or worse, prevents us from even being allowed to specify such titles, then the problem is COINS. Find some other way of getting your metadata-scraping fix. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:24, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

This "MATH+RENDER+ERROR" thing is a placeholder inserted by us for math objects for which we cannot generate sensible metadata. As was correctly pointed out already COinS basically wants plaintext, but since all data gets encoded we are not limited to what the HTML title= attribute would allow for and could also pass down almost any kind of other stuff. The problem is that "other stuff" doesn't make sense at the receiver. I think, for as long as the title occasionally contains simple markup like <sup></sup> this is easy enough to be parsed correctly even by humans, but most math stuff is more complicated.

What do other COinS producers do in such cases?

Was/is there some standard notation how to transliterate math into ASCII for example in old newsgroup posts? If so, we could try to translate math blocks into this and make it part of the metadata.

In some cases stripping off all markup and leaving only plain text and digits might also create a string which could still be good enough for humans to recognize a title or to work as a search pattern, but it would hardly be ideal.

Yet another solution could be to provide a so called descriptive title |descriptive-title= in addition to the proper title |title= and if the proper title is too complicated to use for metadata, pass down the descriptive title instead. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:34, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Regarding your remark on nowrap preventing the horrible line break between double quote and start of title, I haven't seen this yet. Can you provide an example? --Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:43, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I now saw that you added an example using nowrap above, so this is no longer necessary. To illustrate your remark here is the example without the nowrap:

Pintér, Ákos; de Weger, Benjamin M. M. (1997). "${\textstyle 210=14\times 15=5\times 6\times 7={\binom {21}{2}}={\binom {10}{4}}}$". Publicationes Mathematicae Debrecen. 51 (1–2): 175–189. MR 1468225.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:53, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

The main thing to keep in mind is that citations are information-discovery helpers, and the data they carry must be in the format easiest to be found, which is, exactly as the source information presents it, "funny" characters and all. By "source information" I mean the index entry for the work in the various classification databases, which is what a reader will be presented with when discovering the source. Whatever WP:MOS says is secondary. And, the suggestion of dropping COinS if it cannot appropriately represent this data is apt. 65.88.88.57 (talk) 12:12, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

COinS does not really "represent" anything by itself, it is a method to transfer data using OpenURL in a structured way. We would not have any problems to pass the math blob in David's example to the receiver, the problem is that the receiver will most likely not be able to make any sense of it, and rather then just dropping onto them what for them is just a blob of strange binary data, we insert a placeholder hoping that at least the remainder of the title is useful enough for the receiver to make sense of it.

I'm not aware of another metadata standard which would have a reliable solution to this problem. Are you?

Regarding the index entry you mentioned, how would a work such as in David's example be represented in your classification databases? The question is in regard to the visual appearance as well as how it is encoded there. Is this something that can be derived from the proper title, or is it a descriptive title?

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:53, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

As was remarked on above by David regarding COinS or any metadata, this is looking at the problem from the wrong end. Metadata representation of any kind (let's forget the underlying problems with OpenURL for the moment) is secondary. This is about presenting data (to the human reader). Reference databases, including specialized databases of mathematics works, build their indices by using data entered as they appear on the work itself, unless the reference/classification database has weird data-entry quirks. Citations should pass the index data "as is", because that is the easiest way to find the underlying source, with very, very few exceptions. It is that simple. If Unicode, COinS or whatever else cannot handle that, then out they should go. 98.0.246.242 (talk) 13:52, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Matthiaspaul: The list at https://publi.math.unideb.hu/searchb.php shows this paper as "210 = 14 × 15 = 5 × 6 × 7 = {21 2} = {10 4}". That clickable link leads to https://publi.math.unideb.hu/load_jpg.php?p=391 which displays a JPEG. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:00, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Michael, this was helpful. But we need more such examples, also more complicated ones to derive patterns from it. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:18, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Other sites' failure to display reference titles properly should not be an excuse for us to fail at the same thing. The pdf link from that site to the actual paper shows how it should be formatted. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:48, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

It looks like I was misunderstood by the IP and by David. I never said this, quite the opposite - I am not searching for excuses but for solutions.

But turning off COinS, as was suggested, is not a good idea, as it still transmits useful info. In the worst case only the offending data should be muted - and basically that's what we do right now with our "MATH+RENDER+ERROR" placeholder (although we should try to do better).

A PDF, as suggested, won't help either, it's just a binary and not much different from passing over a photo of the printed book title or graphical image of our local rendering. For one, we cannot assume that a picture or a PDF can be viewed on the receiver's end, but it also can't be used for searches. What we need is some machine- and human-readable formula notation encoded as text so that a search pattern can be derived from it. That's why I was asking what other COinS producers are transmitting in such cases and how such work titles are stored in the (text) title entry of external databases.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:37, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Two things. 1) No unicode characters. Those are a blight, and should be purged on sight. 2) Readers and accurate rendering of information are the priority. If COinS can't handle something, screw COinS. If magic codefu can be done to convert something non-COinS compliant to something COinS compliant behinds the scene (e.g. ''H''<sub>x</sub>20<sup>6</sup> → H_{x}20^{6} or whatever the COinS standard is), great, but it should not require editors to sacrifice accurate rendering. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:51, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

A few considerations and a question:

• I assume because of general application of MOS:CONFORM to citations (not just quotations), we generally already change punctuation and other special characters to fit Wikipedia style rather than leave it exactly as in the source material. Mostly this is about using straight quote marks. A more exotic case is when someone tweets in all blackboard bold - that gets rendered as all capital letters in the Wikipedia citation.
• When I'm cleaning up special characters in citations, I often find a corrupted title in the document we're citing, whether due to mojibake or some other mishandling. I always correct that so that a human reading Wikipedia with their eyes can see the true title, but if they are searching certain databases they might not find that title verbatim. So while I like the idea of "copy exactly so people can find the original" in theory, in practice we are aggregating from lots of different databases, which may have incompatible and in some cases broken representations. The alternative is "use a consistent representation on Wikipedia" and if our representation is sensible, hope that other databases will use the same or at least be able to normalize our representation to theirs when searching (not to mention web sites that search Wikipedia). Worst case, it should be possible to find the full text of a journal article without the title as a search parameter by using journal, author, and date, though this is clearly not ideal.
• What Wikipedia outputs for COinS may in fact impact the standard accepted format (and whether or not COinS becomes popular), since there seems to be no formal standard for markup issues and we're a major web site and not many sites use it. We could also look at the other sites listed on COinS and see how they handle special characters.
• For science and math articles, MOS:FRAC says we can either use {{sfrac}} or ASCII fractions like "1/2". For general articles we're supposed to use only {{frac}}. So if we're taking the MOS:CONFORM approach, is the desired outcome to change MOS:FRAC to advise using only ASCII fractions in citations, for all types of articles? (Unless part of a more complicated math formula, of course.) Or should we use e.g. ¹/₂ to approximate {{frac}} at the expense of polluting COinS output with HTML markup?

-- Beland (talk) 17:29, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

We should cite formulas in references the way the reference formatted it, even when our style guidelines would tell us to use a different style for the same-meaning formula in our own text. So, for instance, it would be correct to cite: Bandukwala, J.; Shay, D. (February 1974). "Theory of free, spin-½ tachyons". Physical Review D. 9 (4): 889–895. doi:10.1103/physrevd.9.889. I've used the Unicode ½ here, but I think it would be better to use {{frac|1|2}} 1⁄2 and that our template's failure to allow that is a bug: Bandukwala, J.; Shay, D. (February 1974). "Theory of free, spin-1⁄2 tachyons". Physical Review D. 9 (4): 889–895. doi:10.1103/physrevd.9.889. {{cite journal}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |title= at position 22 (help) —David Eppstein (talk) 18:57, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

The COinS data for this title includes a stripmarker (which doesn't make sense to pass on, hence the warning):

&rft.atitle=Theory+of+free%2C+spin-%7F%27%22%60UNIQ--templatestyles-0000001B-QINU%60%22%27%7F%3Cspan+class%3D%22frac%22+role%3D%22math%22%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%22num%22%3E1%3C%2Fspan%3E%26frasl%3B%3Cspan+class%3D%22den%22%3E2%3C%2Fspan%3E%3C%2Fspan%3E+tachyons

We could strip off the stripmarker and pass on the remaining HTML. Decoded, this would result in the following string:

Theory of free, spin-<span class="frac" role="math"><span class="num">1</span>⁄<span class="den">2</span></span> tachyons

which renders (almost) nicely as:

Theory of free, spin-1⁄2 tachyons

but only if we can assume a HTML rendering engine at the receiver's end (which we cannot, unfortunately).

Automatically stripping out the attributes would give this much cleaner looking HTML:

Theory of free, spin-<span><span>1</span>⁄<span>2</span></span> tachyons

or in this easy case even:

Theory of free, spin-1⁄2 tachyons

for:

Theory of free, spin-1⁄2 tachyons

It is certainly better to pass this through than to mute the metadata completely, but this obviously isn't a good solution working in all cases either.

Presumably, the code already extracts useful text for COinS metadata from some specific math stripmarkers (the alt= attribute with PNGs, plain text with TeX, or the contents of <annotation> elements with MathML), but this obviously doesn't cover all cases. It might be worth trying to further improve this, but we probably also need a |descriptive-title= to allow editors to specify themselves what should be passed on as metadata.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:18, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

If you think "Theory of free, spin-1⁄2 tachyons" renders "almost nicely" you must be using a very different browser setup than mine, where the 2 is huge and overwritten by the /. Also, we should not be rewriting references to make them fit into COINS; the only thing that should get rewritten is what appears in the COINS metadata. As for "plain text with TeX": no. What you get with the current implementation from TeX is "MATH+RENDER+ERROR" in the COINS metadata. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:44, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, that's why I wrote "almost". ;-) Basically, we are in agreement here. What's important here is that it carries over the semantic information, not that it looks pretty. Our CSS definitions are not available at the receiver's end (and shouldn't), that's why my example looks a bit distorted. But there will always be differences in the output of different rendering engines. It would matter if this would be used for our local display of citations (where we should not compromise on the quality of its appearance), but it does not really matter for metadata purposes. What we need is not a particularly nice visual representation of the metadata, but an accurate semantic description of the math.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:37, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Previous discussion: Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 19 § math ml rendering changes and metadata

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T138229

It used to be that we could extract the content of a math stripmarker and from that content extract a more-or-less human-readable copy of an equation that we could put into the metadata. What was in the math stripmarker depended on the math preferences setting of the editor who last saved the article. Here is what we used to get for this equation example:

<math display=inline>210=14\times15=5\times6\times7=\binom{21}{2}=\binom{10}{4}</math>

for the various math preferences settings:

MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools)

<span class="mwe-math-element"><span class="mwe-math-mathml-inline mwe-math-mathml-a11y" style="display: none;"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="{\textstyle 210=14\times 15=5\times 6\times 7={\binom {21}{2}}={\binom {10}{4}}}">
  <semantics>
    <mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
      <mstyle displaystyle="false" scriptlevel="0">
        <mn>210</mn>
        <mo>=</mo>
        <mn>14</mn>
        <mo>&#x00D7;<!-- × --></mo>
        <mn>15</mn>
        <mo>=</mo>
        <mn>5</mn>
        <mo>&#x00D7;<!-- × --></mo>
        <mn>6</mn>
        <mo>&#x00D7;<!-- × --></mo>
        <mn>7</mn>
        <mo>=</mo>
        <mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
          <mrow>
            <mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-OPEN">
              <mo maxsize="1.2em" minsize="1.2em">(</mo>
            </mrow>
            <mfrac linethickness="0">
              <mn>21</mn>
              <mn>2</mn>
            </mfrac>
            <mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-CLOSE">
              <mo maxsize="1.2em" minsize="1.2em">)</mo>
            </mrow>
          </mrow>
        </mrow>
        <mo>=</mo>
        <mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD">
          <mrow>
            <mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-OPEN">
              <mo maxsize="1.2em" minsize="1.2em">(</mo>
            </mrow>
            <mfrac linethickness="0">
              <mn>10</mn>
              <mn>4</mn>
            </mfrac>
            <mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-CLOSE">
              <mo maxsize="1.2em" minsize="1.2em">)</mo>
            </mrow>
          </mrow>
        </mrow>
      </mstyle>
    </mrow>
    <annotation encoding="application/x-tex">{\textstyle 210=14\times 15=5\times 6\times 7={\binom {21}{2}}={\binom {10}{4}}}</annotation>
  </semantics>
</math></span><img src="https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/4012a8a0261dae95c0a7443dbf67dcb58800df0c" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -1.005ex; width:40.087ex; height:3.343ex;" alt="{\textstyle 210=14\times 15=5\times 6\times 7={\binom {21}{2}}={\binom {10}{4}}}"/>

LaTeX source (for text browsers):

<span class="mwe-math-fallback-source-inline tex" dir="ltr">$ {\textstyle 210=14\times 15=5\times 6\times 7={\binom {21}{2}}={\binom {10}{4}}} $</span>

PNG images:

<img src="https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/png/4012a8a0261dae95c0a7443dbf67dcb58800df0c" class="mwe-math-fallback-image-inline" aria-hidden="true" style="vertical-align: -1.005ex; width:40.087ex; height:3.343ex;" alt="{\textstyle 210=14\times 15=5\times 6\times 7={\binom {21}{2}}={\binom {10}{4}}}" />

For PNG we took the content of the alt= attribute; for LaTeX we took everything between the paired $...$; for MathML we took the content of the <annotation>...</annotation> tag.

And then, suddenly, that ability was taken away from us; see the Phabrication link. Because a math stripmarker is wholly and completely meaningless to anyone consuming a cs1|2 citation via the metadata, I replaced the stripmarker with the text: MATH+RENDER+ERROR. Except for that, all of the rest of the metadata are correct:

<span ...>...
&rft.genre=article
&rft.jtitle=Publicationes+Mathematicae+Debrecen
&rft.atitle=MATH+RENDER+ERROR
&rft.volume=51
&rft.issue=1%E2%80%932
&rft.pages=175-189
&rft.date=1997
&rft_id=%2F%2Fwww.ams.org%2Fmathscinet-getitem%3Fmr%3D1468225%23id-name%3DMR
&rft.aulast=Pint%C3%A9r
&rft.aufirst=%C3%81kos
&rft.au=de+Weger%2C+Benjamin+M.+M.
</span>

so readers consuming the citation via the metadata are likely to be able to locate the source (especially if the title has more to it than an equation). Despite this 'fix', what actually ends up in &rft.atitle= is dependent on the preference settings of the editor who last saved the article:

PNG:

&rft.atitle=%3Cspan+class%3D%22nowrap%22%3E%7B%5Cdisplaystyle+210%3D14%5Ctimes+15%3D5%5Ctimes+6%5Ctimes+7%3D%7B%5Cbinom+%7B21%7D%7B2%7D%7D%3D%7B%5Cbinom+%7B10%7D%7B4%7D%7D%7D%3C%2Fspan%3E

LaTeX:

&rft.atitle=%3Cspan+class%3D%22nowrap%22%3E210%3D14%5Ctimes+15%3D5%5Ctimes+6%5Ctimes+7%3D%7B%5Cbinom+%7B21%7D%7B2%7D%7D%3D%7B%5Cbinom+%7B10%7D%7B4%7D%7D%3C%2Fspan%3E

MathML

&rft.atitle=%3Cspan+class%3D%22nowrap%22%3EMATH+RENDER+ERROR%3C%2Fspan%3E

I think that this behavior is new since the last time that I looked at this issue because I seem to recall that all three cases put MATH+RENDER+ERROR in the metadata. Alas, we cannot force editors to use PNG or LaTeX rendering, nor can we force MediaWiki to give us back the ability to extract content from math stripmarkers.

The only way that I can think of to include math markup in |title= is to have an alternate |math-title= or some such that requires some sort of special-secret-markup that is not <math>...</math> tags to wrap whatever would normally be in <math>...</math> tags so, for example:

|math-title=A title with some text and $210=14\times15=5\times6\times7=\binom{21}{2}=\binom{10}{4}$ and yet more text

The module would then make a copy of the value assigned to |math-title= and then remove the special-secret-markup and put the result into the metadata. Then, the module would replace the special-secret-markup with actual opening and closing <math>...</math> tags, and then preprocess a special template that renders the math title. That rendering then goes into |title=. Yeah, pretty ugly, and I have no idea if it would work.

This search finds about 650 articles that contain |title= with a <math> tag (not all |title= parameters are associated with cs1|2).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:19, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Very simple proof of concept. I have hacked a sandbox module. It takes a string of text as single parameter |math-title= that may, or may not, have $ delimited math text. If it finds a matched pair of $ delimiters, it replaces the delimiters with <math display=inline> and </math> and then preprocesses that string to get a math rendering that can be used in the citation's title:

{{#invoke:Sandbox/trappist_the_monk/math|math-title|math-title=$210=14\times15=5\times6\times7=\binom{21}{2}=\binom{10}{4}$}}

math title: ${\textstyle 210=14\times 15=5\times 6\times 7={\binom {21}{2}}={\binom {10}{4}}}$; metadata: $210=14\times15=5\times6\times7=\binom{21}{2}=\binom{10}{4}$

The raw value from |math-title= might be used in the metadata as-is because the $ delimiters are 'native' to LaTex / TeX.

To be done: support for escaped \$ (literal '$' appearing in math text), support for '$' appearing in plain text that is not math text – for |math-title=, requiring editors to escape '$' when it appears in text that is not math text seems a reasonable restriction for this parameter. No doubt there is other stuff to do with this hack before we consider implementing it in the cs1|2 module suite.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:24, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I like your approach to grab the data before MediaWiki gets it by playing man in the middle. This is brilliant. I didn't know that such a pre-processing of the formula would be possible. We should definitely try to further build on this.

But: Even if we are able to pass on a perfectly workable string as metadata, we still cannot be sure that it can be correctly interpreted at the receiver's end, so it is good to have this, but we still need a more general solution to cover other cases as well.

Since publishers of works containing formulas or other "visually complex stuff" in their titles will have to pass some textual representation of such titles to customers it is quite likely that some publisher-provided text-only alternative titles are already stored and established as standard alternative titles in external databases. In some cases, they might even be known by our contributing editors, so it would be useful if they could be entered as alternative text titles into our citations without having to give up on the nice "presentation" titles in |title= for our local purposes.

David's |text-title= and my |descriptive-title= are basically the same idea, except that in his, the contents of |text-title= would completely replace the contents of |title= for metadata purposes (similar to how your |math-title= would replace |title= for both, our local rendering as well as the metadata), whereas my |descriptive-title= could be used instead of a normal |title= (if not given), but could also be combined with |title= (when both are given). The contents of the descriptive title should be displayed without text decoration when rendered (not sure if in front or following the normal title if both exist), and should be put into [square-brackets] in metadata to indicate that this is not the original title (probably prefixing the normal title if both exist). The different representation styles would allow to tell them apart when both are displayed or combined into the single &rft.atitle= or &rft.btitle= COinS key.

I think, our ideas are similar enough to be combined so that |descriptive-title= would effectively become your |math-title= when it contains some $TeX$. (And for the rare case, where the $TeX$ stuff should not be interpreted in your suggested way, we have our ((accept-this-as-written)) syntax to indicate this.) This way, the editor would have the flexibility to provide either the |title= or the |descriptive-title= (including its special handling for math), or both.

This would also cover all cases for which we have discussed a need for something like a |descriptive-title= in the past, non existing titles, dynamic titles, visual or acoustical only titles, functional titles, alias titles, unrepresentable titles, because too long, in unsupported scripts, or misleading in our context...

In past discussions we have also established two more special cases: The case where no actual title exists and we want to indicate this by a standardized descriptive title (keyword "none" to display the localized "no title"), and the case where a title does exists, but should not be displayed for some reason (keyword "off"), for example in an article listing many revisions of a work), but where we would still want to issue the complete metadata for it. Last year, I started to implement this by introducing these keywords to |title=none/off, but realized we would still need something more like a |descriptive-title= parameter to specify the title for metadata.

We now have the chance to combine this and cover all these use cases with one new parameter.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:37, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Adding support for a |descriptive-title= is scope creep. What we are trying to solve is the display of math in titles. So we should limit it to such with a name that makes it obvious the purpose of that parameter. Izno (talk) 18:02, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps it is scope creep in this particular thread, but not in general. Our whole discussion including Trappist's proposal is tangential to the original question raised by the OP, nevertheless the discussion was quite productive so far.

However, thinking about how to possibly combine open requirements when they are related is a good design approach. Many of the incoherences of the existing template design were caused by former ad hoc solutions to fix isolated problems. In the past years we were able to correct some of these bad design decisions to improve the interface but there are still weak spots and we also have a long list of still needed features which haven't been implemented yet because of lack of time or because it was felt that something was still missing to round out the design of a feature. Descriptive titles are among them - I had hoped that it would be possible to implement them without a need for a new parameter at all, but then we would have to introduce some special syntax to the normal |title=. It's still a possibility, but when we are now tinkering with the idea of introducing a dedidated |math-title=, it is important to also think about more general descriptive titles. After all, a title for a textual math representation is some kind of descriptive title. Otherwise, we easily end up with a whole new bunch of special title parameters, something, I think, we both want to avoid. Therefore, it is a valid question how to possibly combine this at least in the design, even if not all parts of the actual solution would be implemented at the same time.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:17, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, some sources when ASCIIfying article titles, appear to use TeX-like markup inside special markers like "##" or "$". Examples: [1] [2]. And here's an example of <em>...</em> where we'd probably want to use '', but I think the em tag gets emitted in the final HTML: [3]. -- Beland (talk) 23:49, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the following is a good idea, myself, but one possible way through this would be to add a |text-title= parameter to the template to use as the text version of the title, and simultaneously to allow templates like {{frac}} or {{nowrap}} or whatever in titles when a text-title is present. That wouldn't address the inability to extract meaningful text from <math> formulas, but I'm sure Citation bot could be persuaded to add text-titles for those. One reason it's a bad idea is that the parameter would only produce invisible markup and therefore there wouldn't be much incentive for editors to make it accurate. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:34, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Templates inside a cs1|2 template are expanded before the cs1|2 template is expanded. So, what cs1|2 sees when an editor writes:

|title=A {{frac|1|2}} Title

is this:

A '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000009C-QINU`"'<span class="frac"><span class="num">1</span>&frasl;<span class="den">2</span></span> Title

The templatestyles stripmarker refers to Template:Fraction/styles.css which is where class="frac", class="num", and class="den" are defined. None of that styling is available to readers who consume the citation through the metadata. Module:Citation/CS1 might remove the stripmarker, all class= attributes, and any <span>...</span> tags without attributes:

A <span role="math">1⁄2</span> Title

We might also strip other attributes, style= might be one, and remove other html tags.

This same mechanism, where the editors writes this:

|title={{nowrap|don't wrap this text}}

cs1|2 gets as this:

<span class="nowrap">don't wrap this text</span>

where the nowrap class is defined in MediaWiki:Common.css. cs1|2 would include this in the metadata:

don't wrap this text

If this is a workable solution and if the code that implements it doesn't take too much of the limited processor time, we will need a list of commonly used attributes and html tags that can be stripped from every parameter value that is made part of the metadata.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:46, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I suspect that the <em>...</em> is inappropriate use where <i>...</i> would have been a better choice. Apparently the $ is a standard part of LaTeX and TeX used to delimit the beginning and end of math text; using a standardized delimiter is always better than making up our own delimiters. I've changed my example above to use the $ delimiters.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:46, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

To clarify, $ delimits in-line math text, which TeX renders in a smaller font size. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:48, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Math text in a cs1|2 parameter that contributes to the citation's metadata is always inline math text so the $ delimiters are appropriate, right?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:07, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

The math in reference titles should only be inline, yes. $ ... $ for inline math and $$ ... $$ for display math is old-school TeX markup. The modern alternative (better for being less ambiguous wrt actual dollar signs, and also with some technical advantages in actual TeX for making it easier to hang hooks in the code) is \( ... \) for inline math and \[ ... \] for display math. The Wikimedia developers have vetoed allowing these to be shortcuts for math markup in the Wikimedia codebase, but I suppose that doesn't prevent them from being used in templates that intercept them and convert them to <math display=inline> ... </math> and <math display=block> ... </math> respectively. Would this actually work? Can math tags in template output still be expanded, or is math tag expansion only done before the templates are expanded? If this could be done in the existing |title= parameter, I think that would be better than introducing a new multiplicity of confusing variations of title parameters. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:32, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

For the same reasons it was vetoed there, use in the general parameter I think is a bad idea. Izno (talk) 20:47, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps you could articulate those reasons, and convince me that it isn't one of (1) we are deliberately sabotaging LaTeX-based math because we still want people to use MathML instead, or (2) we don't care about whether mathematics works on Wikipedia because it isn't an important enough subset of our use and we don't want to pay the ongoing development costs of keeping it working? Because neither of those reasons applies to mathematics formulas in citation titles. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:14, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Because you don't know what might be citation titles that look like your preferred <math> tag replacements. Izno (talk) 21:24, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

That would be a valid reason to avoid $ ... $. It's not a valid reason to avoid \( ... \) because very few references use that syntax (very likely, zero references) and because if they do we can fall back to the format-as-typed escape codes already used elsewhere in the citation templates. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:09, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

(edit-conflict) Actually, if it would be possible to include the functionality of the proposed |math-title= (or whatever) into the normal |title=, as David suggests, this would be better from the user's perspective than to introduce a dedicated parameter for this. The question, however, is how conflictive such $TeX$ stuff would be within normal titles. If collisions would be rather rare, we still have our ((accept-this-as-written)) syntax to force the template to take the title verbatim (which is already supported by |title= to override the removal of end interpunctation).

If it can't be combined into the existing |title= parameter then the question is how at least text titles for math (which fall under the category of descriptive titles) can be combined with more general descriptive titles interfacewise, so that we eventually need only one new parameter rather than two for semantically close purposes.

Not thinking about this now at least conceptually is exactly what leads to incoherent interface design, something we should try to avoid.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:22, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

ok, so here's a version of my test hack that uses the \( ... \) delimiters:

{{#invoke:Sandbox/trappist_the_monk/math|math_test2|math-title=Entropy-Based Uncertainty Measures for \(L^2(\mathbb{R}^n),\ell^2(\mathbb{Z})\), and \(\ell^2(\mathbb{Z}/N\mathbb{Z})\) With a Hirschman Optimal Transform for \(\ell^2(\mathbb{Z}/N\mathbb{Z})\)}}

math title: Entropy-Based Uncertainty Measures for ${\textstyle L^{2}(\mathbb {R} ^{n}),\ell ^{2}(\mathbb {Z} )}$, and ${\textstyle \ell ^{2}(\mathbb {Z} /N\mathbb {Z} )}$ With a Hirschman Optimal Transform for ${\textstyle \ell ^{2}(\mathbb {Z} /N\mathbb {Z} )}$; metadata: Entropy-Based Uncertainty Measures for \(L^2(\mathbb{R}^n),\ell^2(\mathbb{Z})\), and \(\ell^2(\mathbb{Z}/N\mathbb{Z})\) With a Hirschman Optimal Transform for \(\ell^2(\mathbb{Z}/N\mathbb{Z})\)

That's a real title I found somewhere (except that in its current guise it uses <math>...</math> tags).

<math>...</math> tags in parameter values are expanded into math stripmarkers before cs1|2 gets parameter values. After cs1|2 has rendered the citation, MediaWiki replaces each math stripmarker with its associated expansion. Using $...$ or \( ... \) instead of <math>...</math> tags allows us to apply <math>...</math> tags and then expand them into math stripmarkers (to be replaced by MediaWiki after cs1|2 final rendering) at the time of our choosing.

The only reasons that I can think of to not support this directly in |title= is that we have to inspect every |title= value for the \( ... \) delimiters and it is possible that some title somewhere legitimately uses the TeX delimiters. Inspecting every |title= value is relatively inexpensive because all we have to look for is the opening \( delimiter so if Title:find ('\\%(') then ... end – attempt to convert delimiters to <math>...</math> tags only when a \( delimiter is present. I found only two instances of the opening \( delimiter; one is vandalism and the other a malformed title. It would not be so simple with the $...$ delimiters so if we proceed with this solution and choose to use $...$ delimiters, implementing |math-title= along-side |title= is the better choice.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:54, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I would be fine with \( ... \) to mark TeX blocks, for as long as our (( ... )) wrapping syntax would disable the feature.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:46, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

\( ... \) TeX delimiters experiment removed

\( ... \) TeX delimiters experiment moved to Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox. I have disabled the <math>...</math> 'allowance' so parameters with <math>...</math> tags will emit the stripmarker error: {{Cite book/new |title=<math display="inline">3987^{12} + 4365^{12} = 4472^{12}</math>}} ${\textstyle 3987^{12}+4365^{12}=4472^{12}}$. math in a book title: {{Cite book/new |title=\(3987^{12} + 4365^{12} = 4472^{12}\)}} \(3987^{12} + 4365^{12} = 4472^{12}\). math in a book chapter: {{Cite book/new |chapter=\(3987^{12} + 4365^{12} = 4472^{12}\) |title=Title}} "\(3987^{12} + 4365^{12} = 4472^{12}\)". Title. math in a journal title: {{Cite journal/new |title=\(3987^{12} + 4365^{12} = 4472^{12}\) |journal=Journal}} "\(3987^{12} + 4365^{12} = 4472^{12}\)". Journal. math in a book title with accept-as-written markup: {{cite book/new |title=((\(3987^{12} + 4365^{12} = 4472^{12}\)))}} \(3987^{12} + 4365^{12} = 4472^{12}\). math in a book title metadata: '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-000000B2-QINU`"'<cite class="citation book cs1">''\(3987^{12} + 4365^{12} = 4472^{12}\)''.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=%5C%283987%5E%7B12%7D+%2B+4365%5E%7B12%7D+%3D+4472%5E%7B12%7D%5C%29&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AHelp+talk%3ACitation+Style+1" class="Z3988"></span> —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:22, 16 September 2021 (UTC) experiment removed; 14:56, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Disabling the default <math> formatting in references is (1) going to cause a huge number of errors with existing citations, and (2) going to cause enormous confusion with editors who don't understand why the mathematics delimiters should be different in this context than everywhere else. I think emitting an error message is the wrong way to go. Better would be to continue to allow the math stripmarkers, but to put them into a tracking category so that a bot or AWB can run around behind the scenes converting the delimiters. I think such conversion is going to continue to be needed on a slow but ongoing basis, rather than being a one-time thing that can be enforced as an error once a change is made. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:54, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Of course, the error message help would explain the problem, and the article is also put into category Category:CS1_errors:_invisible_characters. The COinS metadata for the citation with the MATH+RENDER+ERROR is still issued just like before (after all, it's still possible that MediaWiki will be fixed somewhen in the future). I think that's exactly how it should be, but an alternative would be to change the error message into a warning.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 01:17, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

We don't have any warning messages. If this change is accepted, I expect to remove the parts of Module:Citation/CS1/COinS that decoded the math stripmarker content – it won't be needed.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:24, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

For some unknown reason I often call our maintenance messages "warnings" - probably have worked with systems which could issue warnings and errors rather than maintenance and error messages... ;-)

Removing the code that decoded the math stripmarker contents, this would not affect the code for SVG and LaTeX math extraction, only for MathML, right?

Brings up the question if we should normalize the slightly different output from the SVG, LaTeX and now MathML via \( ... \) extraction methods, because, from a COinS consumer's perspective, that's our internal business and should always give identical output, shouldn't it?

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:10, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

If we keep this proposed solution, all of the code that decoded the math stripmarker contents should go away because we won't need to extract anything from SVG, LaTeX, or MathML, whichever of those the last publishing editor had selected for math rendering – everything we need is right there in the parameter value.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:00, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

But this holds true only for new edits, what about the old ones? And what if some editors continue to use the SVG or LaTeX methods, should we prompt them with an error message and force them to rewrite the citation using \( ... \) although their edits did not actually cause us problems?

We should definitely keep the new solution, it's great. I'm just not sure the old handling should be removed (at least not until the new markup is fully established)...

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:03, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I get the impression that you do not understand how the old mechanism works. When I edit an article that just happens to have a cs1|2 template with <math>...</math> markup in a |title= parameter, and then publish that article, the live cs1|2 module will create the metadata string for that citation (coins_replace_math_stripmarker()) using the math settings in my preferences because MediaWiki renders that math image into a stripmarker before cs1|2 gets the content of |title=. Since the stripmarker was created using my settings, the metadata will be derived from my settings. The resulting metadata are then cached for everyone until some other editor saves the article and their math preference setting is different from mine.

The cached metadata will remain as is until something causes MediaWiki to refresh the article. If/when the proposed \( ... \) TeX delimiters are introduced, as noted elsewhere in this discussion, an awb or some such script will be required to replace the <math>...</math> markup which will cause an article refresh and so new metadata using the \( ... \) TeX delimited wikitext straight from the appropriate parameter. Because we feed the metadata directly from the \( ... \) TeX delimited wikitext, there is no need (and no ability to) decode a math stripmarker so the code that decoded the math stripmarker content (even if it still worked) will no longer be need so should be removed. If we ever need it, we can always get it back from a previous version of the module.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:13, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Trappist. I think I understood the mechanism well, but its always good to get reconfirmation by reading your explanation. What I did not understood was that you really meant a refresh run to be a mandantory part of the introduction process, instead I thought we'd leave that as optional (if some volunteer cares enough to do it) and otherwise the articles would remain with their old cached data until someone happens to edit them (which could take weeks, months, years).

I guess, there will still be editors who continue to use the <math>...</math> markup at least for a while and it would have been convenient for them if they could continue to use it for entries which either do not contribute to the metadata, or to entries contributing to metadata, if they have selected SVG or LaTeX, not MathML. However, this would put the burden to switch to \( ... \) on the next editor with MathML settings and would also leave the citation source code in a mix of markups, which might not be desirable for other parties which read our wikitext rather than metadata, so yes, I agree, a hard switch is probably the better approach here.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:48, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't know that a huge number of errors with existing citations is an accurate description. If these search results are to be believed, there are:

~650 articles that have <math>...</math> tags in |title=

~25 articles that have <math>...</math> tags in |chapter=

I think that editors will learn quickly enough about the change in markup if they can see an error message that has a link to an explanation; maintenance category messaging is hidden from all editors who have not chosen to show those messages.

If we are to keep this change it isn't difficult to write an awb script that will change the <math>...</math> tags to \( ... \) TeX delimiters. That script can be run on the same day that the change goes live (if it goes live) and be done after a couple of hours.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:24, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

This should also work for the title- and chapter-related |script-= parameters which become part of the metadata. Are there other parameters ending up in metadata where math-like constructs could show up occasionally? What about the journal name, work, author etc. names and publisher entries?

And what shall we do with other parameters which definitely might contain math, but are not part of metadata like the corresponding |trans-= parameters, and |quote=, |script-quote= and |trans-quote=. Should we support the \(...\) syntax there as well as an alternative for syntax compatibility/consistency, or should we insist on <math> there?

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:10, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

If we keep this proposed solution, certainly all of the 'title-holding' parameters and the quotation parameters should support \( ... \) TeX delimiters for math markup. |journal=? |work=? |publisher=? |author=? I don't think so; at least not until a need has been sufficiently demonstrated. Quick searches for <math>...</math> tags in those parameters either timed out with no results or returned no results. We should only support one form of math markup.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:00, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

This conversation having died and no consensus for it, I have removed the \(...\) TeX delimiters experiment.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:56, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Guidance for science etc.

Given the new proposed solution for <math>...</math> markup and the above comments, I'm wondering where we've come down on how to handle simple markup. I see contradictions between editors like "No unicode characters. Those are a blight, and should be purged on sight." vs. "exactly as the source information presents it, 'funny' characters and all". David Eppstein said titles should be formatted "the way the reference formatted it, even when our style guidelines would tell us to use a different style", but then used {{frac}} instead of ½. Our style guide says to use {{sfrac}} for science articles, so that seems to satisfy neither the goal of looking consistent with the style of body text nor the goal of being exactly the same as the original document for ease of search.

What are we proposing as the solution for simple markup, like a chemical formula? If we're following the sources exactly, we might use no-markup Unicode vs. <sup>...</sup> depending on what the original document does, though if it's on paper or PDF it will be impossible to tell. If we're avoiding Unicode compatibility characters, then we still have at least three choices:

• Something about H₂O₂. {{cite book}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |title= at position 17 (help) - {{chem2|H2O2}} - Copy-paste: Something about H 2O 2
• Something about \(H_2 O_2\). - \(H_2 O_2\) - Copy-paste: Something about H 2 O 2 {\textstyle H_{2}O_{2}} {\textstyle H_{2}O_{2}}
• Something about H₂O₂. - H₂O₂ - Copy-paste: Something about H2O2
• Something about H₂O₂. - Unicode subscripts - Copy-paste: Something about H₂O₂

Though it's unclear to me how well any database or web search engine is going to handle the difference between say, "H2O2" as a search parameter and an internally stored "H₂O₂". -- Beland (talk) 17:19, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Certainly not {{chem2}}; your example renders this mishmash:

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-000000C2-QINU`"'<span class="chemf nowrap">H<sub class="template-chem2-sub">2</sub>O<sub class="template-chem2-sub">2</sub></span>

The copypasta is not as you have shown it but actually like this because the markup includes <br /> tags:

Something about H
2O
2.

Most cs1|2 templates appear in reflists which reduce text size to 90% so a font size of 70% (already smaller than allowed for accessibility; see MOS:SMALL) is just harder to read.

Also, certainly not Unicode subscripts because the already-hard-to-read Unicode subscript characters are harder-to-read when made smaller in reflists.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:50, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

OK, that leaves the TeX-like syntax and HTML sup/sub tags. The Tex-like solution isn't ready yet, and presumably the COinS citation code could process simple <sub>...</sub> tags and friends cleanly? A rule like "use HTML sup/sub tags instead of Unicode subscripts and superscripts" would be easy to follow and easy to enforce, so I'm thinking maybe do that for now?

What about fractions like movie reviews of Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult? Is it OK to use {{frac}} and {{sfrac}}? -- Beland (talk) 03:29, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

I discussed {{frac}} above at my 11:46, 14 September 2021 post.

Templates inside cs1|2 parameter values are expanded before cs1|2 gets the value so when an editor writes:

|title=Naked Gun 33{{sfrac|1|3}}

cs1|2 gets:

|title=Naked Gun 33'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-000000C7-QINU`"'<span class="sfrac">&NoBreak;<span class="tion"><span class="num">1</span><span class="sr-only">/</span><span class="den">3</span></span>&NoBreak;</span>

The templatestyles stripmarker refers to Template:Sfrac/styles.css which defines the classes: sfrac, tion, num, den, and sr-only. As with {{frac}}, none of that styling is available to readers who consume the citation through the metadata so for them, the markup is just meaningless clutter.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:33, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Not sure where the above discussion landed, exactly. It seems we could either put in code to strip that stuff out, or we could make a clean template. How about a {{citefrac}} that just does ¹⁄₂ (¹&frasl;₂)? If we decide later that COinS conventions have shifted and Unicode fractions are preferred, we can simply change that template rather than all the articles that use it. Actually, if we do universally adopt some sort of Tex-like syntax, having {{citefrac}} would also make it easy to switch over to that, too.-- Beland (talk) 01:00, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Trappist and I suggested that we could attempt to filter/cleanup/simplify the HTML before we create the title metadata. Removing anything CSS-related, unnecessary attributes, empty elements, etc. This would not be a solution for complicated HTML, but would allow to have at least simple HTML markup in the title.

In addition to "simplified HTML" and the \( ... \) solution for math, I continue to maintain that we need something like an optional |descriptive-title= (or |text-title= per David) as a fallback, so that editors can use fancy stuff in |title= for pretty local display purposes (without compromising for COinS), while still being able to exactly match a title, if known, as it may be used in an external database (regardless of what representation or transliteration may be used there) so that it can be used as search pattern there as well.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 08:42, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

A filter/cleanup/simplify solution may not be sufficient. In my sandbox I've hacked some code that removes:

• stripmarkers
• <br /> tags (used in {{chem2}})
• class= attributes from <span> tags
• style= attributes from <span> tags
• title= attributes from <span> tags
• extraneous whitespace
• <span> without attributes and its matching </span>

For the simple cases:

Naked Gun 33{{code|{{sfrac|1|3}}}}

Naked Gun 33'"`UNIQ--syntaxhighlight-000000CE-QINU`"'

Naked Gun 33⁠1/3⁠

we get:

{{#invoke:Sandbox/trappist_the_monk/math|span_test|1=Naked Gun 33{{sfrac|1|3}}}}

Naked Gun 33⁠1/3⁠

Naked Gun 33⁠1/3⁠

but for complex cases:

{{chem2|[{(\h{5}C5Me4)SiMe2(\h{1}NCMe3)}(PMe3)Sc(\m{2}H)]2}}

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-000000D6-QINU`"'<span class="chemf nowrap">&#91;{(η<sup>5</sup>-C<sub class="template-chem2-sub">5</sub>Me<sub class="template-chem2-sub">4</sub>)SiMe<sub class="template-chem2-sub">2</sub>(η<sup>1</sup>-NCMe<sub class="template-chem2-sub">3</sub>)}(PMe<sub class="template-chem2-sub">3</sub>)Sc(μ<sub>2</sub>-H)]<sub class="template-chem2-sub">2</sub></span>

[{(η⁵-C₅Me₄)SiMe₂(η¹-NCMe₃)}(PMe₃)Sc(μ₂-H)]₂

we get:

{{#invoke:Sandbox/trappist_the_monk/math|span_test|1={{chem2|[{(\h{5}C5Me4)SiMe2(\h{1}NCMe3)}(PMe3)Sc(\m{2}H)]2}}}}

&#91;{(η<sup>5</sup>-C<sub class="template-chem2-sub">5</sub>Me<sub class="template-chem2-sub">4</sub>)SiMe<sub class="template-chem2-sub">2</sub>(η<sup>1</sup>-NCMe<sub class="template-chem2-sub">3</sub>)}(PMe<sub class="template-chem2-sub">3</sub>)Sc(μ<sub>2</sub>-H)]<sub class="template-chem2-sub">2</sub>

[{(η⁵-C₅Me₄)SiMe₂(η¹-NCMe₃)}(PMe₃)Sc(μ₂-H)]₂

Maybe that's good enough, I don't know, but is this good enough?

{{chem2|C2H3O2(-)}}

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-000000DE-QINU`"'<span class="chemf nowrap">C<sub class="template-chem2-sub">2</sub>H<sub class="template-chem2-sub">3</sub>O<span class="template-chem2-su"><span>−</span><span>2</span></span></span>

C₂H₃O−2

and stripped of markup:

{{#invoke:Sandbox/trappist_the_monk/math|span_test|1={{chem2|C2H3O2(-)}}}}

C<sub class="template-chem2-sub">2</sub>H<sub class="template-chem2-sub">3</sub>O−2

C₂H₃O−2

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:05, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Not sure if this would be reasonably safe for the general case, but in the examples above the result could be further improved if we would insert a   when a <span role="math"> gets eliminated, and when the text before and after a <span>x<br/>y</span> to be eliminated would be framed in <sub>y</sub> and <sup>x</sup> (perhaps only if inside a class="chemf"?).

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:13, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I've been thinking about your {{chem2|C2H3O2(-)}} example a bit, and ideally, the stripped markup in that example should look just like the input. The the "2" subscript should bind closer to the "O" than the "-" charge.  — sbb (talk) 01:22, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm sure this could be further improved, but I've hacked a "CS1/CS2-compatible" version of {{chem2/sandbox}} [4], which creates hidden metadata reproducing the input, see modified chem2 (this isn't the best possible metadata that could be created, but it was trivial to implement for our illustration purposes here). This is similar to how metadata is embedded into SVG and LaTeX math (which the current implemention of CS1/CS2 can extract already). CS1/CS2 templates could be easily made aware of this extension, so they could extract this data as well and use it for their metadata. This way, templates like {{chem2}}, which produce really difficult output for the HTML simplifier, could actively assist CS1/CS2 in their metadata creation. Over time, more templates could be enhanced this way and thereby be made "CS1/CS2-compatible".

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 10:01, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

If this is to be adopted and used by cs1|2, it would probably be best to not anchor-encode the {{chem2/sandbox}} input. Why anchor encoding? Before cs1|2 parameter values are added to the metadata, they are percent-encoded so, in its present form, what the metadata will get is:

[Cl4Re\qReCl4](2−) ← {{chem2/sandbox|[Cl4Re\qReCl4](2−)}} – anchor encoding

%26%2391%3BCl4ReqReCl4%26%2393%3B%282%E2%88%92%29 – percent encoding of the anchor-encoded input

when the metadata should get:

%5BCl4ReqReCl4%5D%282%E2%88%92%29 ← [Cl4Re\qReCl4](2−) – percent encoding

But, that's not wholly correct because the \q is treated as an escaped q so the result is missing the \ (%5C). This particular {{chem2}} input needs to be tweaked to escape the back slash:

%5BCl4Re%5CqReCl4%5D%282%E2%88%92%29 ← [Cl4Re\\qReCl4](2−) – percent encoding

And, I gotta wonder, are the input symbols that {{chem2}} accepts standardized so that consumers of the metadata will know what they mean when the metadata are decoded? If not then those symbols need to be replaced with the actual thing that they represent, don't they?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:09, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, this is still a demo for illustration purposes. Anchor-encoding isn't optimal here (but was handy for the quick demo). We might switch to a more suitable encoding. Either case, the extractor would have to decode it back before further processing, otherwise we would get the overencoded results as illustrated by you above. The encoding would have to ensure that no spaces remain in the string. " would be a forbidden character as well. IIRC, the allowed charset for class names is (or was) limited in some HTML versions (would have to look this up), so we would have to make sure to not use other reserved characters as well.

(Also, I think, the scheme could be further improved if we would not only embed the desired metadata output (i.e. MeTaDaTa-OuTpUt:), but optionally also the (parameter) input (i.e. MeTaDaTa-InPuT:). This might allow the extractor not only to replace the complete output of a template by its metadata (as in the current {{chem2}} example) but allow metadata fragments to be inherited from internally called templates instead of having to handle everything monolithically on the level of the outer template (example: {{chem}}, which internally uses {{su}} - still thinking about the details...)

are the input symbols that {{chem2}} accepts standardized so that consumers of the metadata will know what they mean when the metadata are decoded? I guess, this very much depends on the template, so even if this would be a standard notation in this particular case (I don't know if it is), it probably won't be in the general case. However, this is still a demo with the main purpose to illustrate how easy it would be to enhance templates in general. In a proper implementation, {{chem2}} would probably not just forward its own input as metadata, but actually generate the metadata by processing the input (like it does for its normal output, but) in a form which would be text-only or use only very simple markup. What can be considered to be the best metadata very much depends on the purpose/function of the template. The advantage of this approach would be that the developers or users of the template probably know best what is the optimal text-only metadata that can be generated from the input (developers would program the template to generate the optimal metadata for the context the template is used in, and users would always be able to override it using the |metadata= parameter), whereas the generic HTML simplifier in CS1/CS2 has no knowledge on the context and semantics and can only simplify based on universal structural rules.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:53, 25 September 2021 (UTC) (updated 09:33, 26 September 2021 (UTC))

I've meanwhile simplified the magic and changed the encoding from anchor-encoding (which was shorter and more human-readable, but also combined various different space characters into one type and therefore was not fully reversible) to a combination of text-decoding (to level the playing-field also for input containing HTML entities) and percent-encoding (for transparent transportation of the metadata, in particular to encode the invalid space and quote characters). HTML 4 seems to have had more restrictions on the character set used in class names (including the percent-sign which is used by percent-encoding), but they have gone with HTML5 (they are still valid for CSS, but we don't use this "MeTaDaTa:" dummy-class for CSS purposes, so it doesn't affect us).

(BTW. mw.text.decode() has a bug as it properly processes   but ignores  . I have added a workaround at least to the wrapper: Module:DecodeEncode.decode.)

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:10, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Also not a general solution out of the box, but one that could be used to make template output metadata-safe:

We could add code to critical templates like {{chem}} or {{chem2}} so that they issue their input in a HTML title= attribute. We could then use this instead of the actual HTML for metadata purposes (similar to what we do with math SVG and LaTeX extraction). Given that the HTML title= might be used by the template for other purposes already, and that it is also shown to users as tooltip (which might not be desirable if it contains stuff like "[{(\h{5}C5Me4)SiMe2(\h{1}NCMe3)}(PMe3)Sc(\m{2}H)]2"), I am using the title= attribute only for illustration purposes here and we might find another HTML attribute or establish a special "steganographic" notation where/how we could transparently hide those entries for possible extraction by CS1/CS2. Templates might even have a standardized optional parameter like |metadata= to override what the template would otherwise use for this. Templates enhanced this way could get a sticker like "CS1/CS2-compatible" or such. Sure, this would work only for those templates which have been enhanced this way, but all we would have to do now is to specify a standard for this and implement a generic extraction mechanism which would take over whenever CS1/CS2 finds this special HTML attribute/notation in a citation's title. Over the years more and more templates could be adapted accordingly.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:19, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

To further illustrate this, this could be a span framing the normal template output of a template like {{chem2}} (following a similar idea as COinS, but for our internal purposes only):

<span class="MeTaDaTa::[{(\h{5}C5Me4)SiMe2(\h{1}NCMe3)}(PMe3)Sc(\m{2}H)]2">normal_template_output</span>

If our template metadata extractor would run into something like this (triggering on the "MeTaDaTa" magic), it would replace the whole span including normal_template_output (and, if present, also the corresponding stripmarker) by what follows the :: following the MeTaDaTa (which probably needs to be encoded in an actual implementation). For a template call like {{chem2|[{(\h{5}C5Me4)SiMe2(\h{1}NCMe3)}(PMe3)Sc(\m{2}H)]2}} this would result in [{(\h{5}C5Me4)SiMe2(\h{1}NCMe3)}(PMe3)Sc(\m{2}H)]2. Would the template be called like {{chem2|[{(\h{5}C5Me4)SiMe2(\h{1}NCMe3)}(PMe3)Sc(\m{2}H)]2|metadata=This is a text-only transcription of the chemical formula}} instead, it would result in This is a text-only transcription of the chemical formula. |metadata=off/none would disable the metadata (nothing would be following the "::" then). If the extractor does not find the triggering magic, or if the extracted data would be an empty string, it would proceed with the HTML simplification demoed above...

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:50, 24 September 2021 (UTC) (updated 09:33, 26 September 2021 (UTC), updated 18:40, 6 October 2021 (UTC))

This is how a CS1/CS2-compatibly modified {{frac}} template [5] could look like:

{{frac/sandbox|1|2|3}}

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-000000F0-QINU`"'<span class="frac MeTaDaTa::%E2%80%891%C2%A02%2F3" role="math">1<span class="sr-only">+</span><span class="num">2</span>&frasl;<span class="den">3</span></span>

Visual rendering: 1+2⁄3

Extractable metadata: " 1 2/3"

{{frac/sandbox|1|2|3|metadata=Custom-Metadata}}

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-000000F5-QINU`"'<span class="frac MeTaDaTa::Custom-Metadata" role="math">1<span class="sr-only">+</span><span class="num">2</span>&frasl;<span class="den">3</span></span>

Visual rendering: 1+2⁄3

Extractable metadata: "Custom-Metadata"

{{frac/sandbox|1|2|3|metadata=off}}

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-000000F9-QINU`"'<span class="frac MeTaDaTa::" role="math">1<span class="sr-only">+</span><span class="num">2</span>&frasl;<span class="den">3</span></span>

Visual rendering: 1+2⁄3

Extractable metadata: "" so it will be ignored

Same for {{sfrac}} [6]:

{{sfrac/sandbox|1|2|3}}

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-000000FD-QINU`"'<span class="sfrac">&NoBreak;1<span class="sr-only">+</span><span class="tion"><span class="num">2</span><span class="sr-only">/</span><span class="den">3</span></span>&NoBreak;</span>

Visual rendering: ⁠1+2/3⁠

Extractable metadata: " 1 2/3"

{{sfrac/sandbox|1|2|3|metadata=Custom-Metadata}}

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000101-QINU`"'<span class="sfrac">&NoBreak;1<span class="sr-only">+</span><span class="tion"><span class="num">2</span><span class="sr-only">/</span><span class="den">3</span></span>&NoBreak;</span>

Visual rendering: ⁠1+2/3⁠

Extractable metadata: "Custom-Metadata"

{{sfrac/sandbox|1|2|3|metadata=off}}

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000105-QINU`"'<span class="sfrac">&NoBreak;1<span class="sr-only">+</span><span class="tion"><span class="num">2</span><span class="sr-only">/</span><span class="den">3</span></span>&NoBreak;</span>

Visual rendering: ⁠1+2/3⁠

Extractable metadata: "" so it will be ignored

Similar for {{chem2}} [7]:

{{chem2/sandbox|[{(\h{5}C5Me4)SiMe2(\h{1}NCMe3)}(PMe3)Sc(\m{2}H)]2}}

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000109-QINU`"'<span class="chemf nowrap">&#91;{(η<sup>5</sup>-C<sub class="template-chem2-sub">5</sub>Me<sub class="template-chem2-sub">4</sub>)SiMe<sub class="template-chem2-sub">2</sub>(η<sup>1</sup>-NCMe<sub class="template-chem2-sub">3</sub>)}(PMe<sub class="template-chem2-sub">3</sub>)Sc(μ<sub>2</sub>-H)]<sub class="template-chem2-sub">2</sub></span>

Visual rendering: [{(η⁵-C₅Me₄)SiMe₂(η¹-NCMe₃)}(PMe₃)Sc(μ₂-H)]₂

Extractable metadata: "[{(\h{5}C5Me4)SiMe2(\h{1}NCMe3)}(PMe3)Sc(\m{2}H)]2" (could be further improved by improving the metadata generated in the {{chem2}} template)

{{chem2/sandbox|C2H3O2(-)}}

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000010D-QINU`"'<span class="chemf nowrap">C<sub class="template-chem2-sub">2</sub>H<sub class="template-chem2-sub">3</sub>O<span class="template-chem2-su"><span>−</span><span>2</span></span></span>

Visual rendering: C₂H₃O−2

Extractable metadata: "C2H3O2(-)" (could be further improved by improving the metadata generated in the {{chem2}} template)

And for {{nowrap}} [8].

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:40, 24 September 2021 (UTC) (updated 11:45, 26 September 2021 (UTC), updated 18:40, 6 October 2021 (UTC))

An example of a variant of this rudimentary "inter-template communication model" using special tokens instead of or in addition to providing alternative metadata can be found illustrated for a modified sic template.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:48, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't know that there is sufficient support to proceed. Editor David Eppstein objects to the \(...\) markup so that may go away. Removing certain html markup may or may not be adequate; I don't know, I'm not a chemist so I don't know if the resulting output to the metadata would be at all useful.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:05, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

This appears to be the thread of misunderstandings... I didn't understood David as if he would object the \(...\) at all, quite the contrary. He was concerned that issueing a visible error message would upset people, but that was before we discussed alternatives.

Regarding HTML cleanup, I'm no chemist either, but even if it might not be good enough to allow for really nasty things such as {{chem2}}, it would certainly be an improvement for many of the simple cases like the example:

Theory of free, spin-<span class="frac" role="math"><span class="num">1</span>⁄<span class="den">2</span></span> tachyons

→ Theory of free, spin-1⁄2 tachyons

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:11, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps we should just change {{frac}} to use <sup> and <sub> instead of <span>s? The sup/sub can be styled for on-Wiki use, and stripped of class attributes that are meaningless to COinS consumers.  — sbb (talk) 01:26, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Frac deliberately uses spans because sub and sup do not match the intent of their content. Do not abuse HTML please. IznoPublic (talk) 14:40, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Format citations differently than body text

I don't see a contradiction between rendering a title as it appears in the work, and avoiding Unicode. The two are unrelated. Exact rendering in citations does not mean exactitude in presentation items like typefaces. It does include items with semantic significance. A formula will be recognized as such regardless of the typeface used, including the easy-to-read sans-serif typefaces traditionally used in citations. There is an issue with items such as subscript/superscript readability, but I believe it is minor, and there are ways around it.

The main thing is this: I would not use WP:MOS or any other Wikipedia wikitext formatting guideline as yardsticks. Citations are not wikitext, and should be formatted according to their own requirements. Whether the cited material is a science item or not makes no difference. 64.18.9.208 (talk) 00:04, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Though the above examples do render in different typefaces, that's beside the point. Behind the scenes they use different representations. Though "₂" and "₂" might look like the same number in different fonts, in fact they are different Unicode characters, and correctly interpreting the second one requires parsing HTML.

It's fine if there are special cases like coping with COinS, but suspending all MOS rules when it comes to citations would make the encyclopedia look quite unprofessional, increase skepticism, and make it a little harder to read. It would have far-reaching implications, and I don't think that's within the scope of what's being proposed. -- Beland (talk) 03:29, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is un-professional, in both meanings of the term. First, as a general-purpose encyclopedia for non-expert readers. Secondly, as a project whose majority of content is unverified and therefore, drivel. As was remarked in another discussion here, the so-called "good articles" are a miniscule minority. So this is a project that unflinchingly publishes information that fails to pass its own mark. Which brings up the question of whether any "good article" criteria such a project decides upon can be trusted.

With such basis, it is imperative imo that citations stand apart, as the only way of turning the garbage heap into reliably usable information. They should not at all resemble wikitext body. They should stand out as its proof. Keeping in mind the target audience, they should be clear, unadorned, and easy to read, so that they can be easily found. It doesn't matter to a reader exactly how a subscript is rendered, only that it is. Use any easy-to-understand rendering, even if it is literal ("subscript 2"). Experts may cringe, but Wikipedia's audience will probably thank you.

Users (editors) I assume have similar expectations of the developers, but that would be a separate comment. 66.108.237.246 (talk) 13:05, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

OK, I guess we just have different goals, then. I'm working toward a professional-looking, credible, well-referenced, and verified encyclopedia. Writing something like "subscript 2" not only looks horrible, it's harder to understand (especially for students) than simply having a ₂. Doing a search in a journal article database on "subscript 2" will almost certainly give bad results. -- Beland (talk) 00:47, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

The use of the literal "subscript 2" was offered only as an example of a non-expert reader's pov, and not as a concrete suggestion. Obviously the proper way would be the title verbatim, semantically, and this is a discussion that should end with the technical minutiae, not start with them. To again point out the obvious, no student should be using Wikipedia for anything related to their work. It is normally (in the statistical sense) unreliable, improperly or not all referenced, badly edited, and of dubious neutrality. And this is just the reader-facing pages. Any work outside of fixing these is just dressing up garbage in a pretty dress. May I suggest a beginning? Remove the "good articles" category and project. Assuming for the moment that the present "good article" criteria are valid, "good articles" are such a dismal minority, it is embarrassing. Instead add a warning to all other articles. Because the normal, obvious expectation of an encyclopedia is that it publishes good articles. Making clear (on a prominent and continuing basis) the fact that this is currently an unprofessional project is the greatest possible service to readers. And it is going to put everyone interested in fixing it in the right frame of mind. 64.18.9.196 (talk) 02:27, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Moving toward a resolution

Are there any objections or comments on doing the following to get the ball rolling:

• Use <sub>...</sub> and <sup>...</sup> instead of {{chem}} and {{chem2}} for chemistry formulas in citations.
• Use {{citefrac}} instead of {{frac}} or {{sfrac}} for vulgar fractions in citations.

?

I don't often see more complicated math in citations, but would we want to make a {{citemath}} that uses <math>...</math> for now and can be switched over to \(...\) when that change is ready to be deployed? (And then easily changed again later if handling of TeX-like math formulas needs to change.) -- Beland (talk) 01:19, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Follow WP:MOS, if COinS chokes, COinS chokes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:32, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, the question is what the MOS should recommend. It seems like these techniques would allow us to keep a consistent style with body text without changing the MOS recommendation for that, and without causing COinS to choke. -- Beland (talk) 00:36, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

I might be missing the point, but if we want to make as little compromises regarding COinS-compatibility as possible, I don't see how something like {{citefrac}} would actually improve the situation in general (besides that it is nice to know if a template is CS1/CS2-safe or not). As far as I understood you, this is meant to be a "lightweight" version for vulgar fractions to be used in citations. But while being lightweight it may produce more COinS-compatible output (which is good), it will also produce less nice-looking titles in citations (which is not so good)...

IMO it is (more) desirable (because more flexible and universal) to try and clean up the HTML automatically, as demonstrated above. This won't work in all possible cases, but the results shown by Trappist above are already quite good IMO, and with a few more tweaks could become quite useable for our purposes. This and the \( ... \) trick for math are IMO a significant improvement over the current state of affairs. For those cases where the processing would not be desirable and we would want to pass the title to the metadata unchanged, we have our ((accept-this-as-it-is)) markup. For those cases, where we have both, a nice-looking title for local display and a (not so nice looking) alternative title used in external databases we want to match exactly to improve searches, we would have |descriptive-title= (which would also be useful for many other purposes, as mentioned further above). With this in place, we may need only a few general recommendations how to provide titles instead of having to address this explicitly in the MOS.

However, given that some significant developer efforts have been trashed by the "mob" recently, and thereby precious developer resources burnt, it would be great if those who agree with these proposals could actually indicate this instead of just remaining silent (as it happens to be the case here so often). This would help to convince the developers that it is worth to devote their volunteering time on these and other things.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:41, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

@Matthiaspaul: Well, if some day the code is implemented to make regular {{frac}} COinS-friendly, we could always just drop the exception from the MOS and redirect {{citefrac}} to it or bot-substitute. If someone wants to say, "hey I'll have that code done in the next couple weeks", I'm happy to wait. If not, then while we're waiting for "some day" it would be good to make progress cleaning up on all the existing Unicode superscripts and subscripts in citations that no one seems to want. You did mention this solution produces "less nice-looking titles". I'm trying to make a lightweight solution that looks exactly the same as {{frac}}. Could you explain what differences you see, maybe with an example? Maybe there's a lightweight fix. -- Beland (talk) 18:20, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Let's have a look at what Trappist's demo further above can do already:

Example:

{{frac|1|2|3}}

produces this non-sensible code in the citation's |title=, prompting the current implementation to throw a stripmarker error message:

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000112-QINU`"'<span class="frac">1<span class="sr-only">+</span><span class="num">2</span>&frasl;<span class="den">3</span></span>

which would be rendered by a browser as part of a citation in Wikipedia as:

1+2⁄3

The proposed generic "HTML simplifier" would derive the following code for metadata purposes, which could be passed on as COinS-metadata:

1+2⁄3

or with a bit more tweaking:

<span role="math">1+2⁄3</span>

or even:

1+2⁄3

This is not perfect for human consumption but much better than the original code already. A user would be able to make sense out of it (although it may not necessarily match the work's title used in external databases, for which we would need |descriptive-title=). Assuming the COinS consuming entity would be able to process HTML, a HTML engine at their end would make this out of the simplified HTML:

1+2⁄3

Let's assume the {{frac}} template would have been made "CS1/CS2-compatible" following my proposed "template internal metadata" demo above, the metadata extractor could, for example, get this even more text-only result:

 1 2/3

for which no HTML engine would be needed at the receiver's end.

Regarding existing Unicode superscripts and subscripts, while I agree that the HTML sub- and superscripts look nicer if used in formulas and are generally to be preferred, in non-scientific articles an occasionally interspersed Unicode super- or subscript character in citation titles might not be a bad idea at all. At least they are COinS-safe out of the box and neither require a HTML engine at the receiver's end nor a TeX-savy human to be decoded. I would not use them in technical articles, but also would not want to ban them in non-technical articles. So, it all depends on the context IMO. What does this mean in regard to MOS or more-citation related guidelines? We could offer some generally recommended best practises there, but we should not rule out any of the possible formats in general. And what does that mean in regard to CS1/CS2? We will have to cope with whatever editors throw at us, therefore we probably need all, special \( ... \) markup, HTML simplifier, template internal metadata, and |descriptive-title= to cope with all possible cases optimally.

Regarding "hey I'll have that code done in the next couple weeks", the next CS1/CS2 update isn't scheduled yet but I guess it could be in mid-October.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:04, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

To reiterate what was stated a couple of times above, this is looked at from the wrong end. The only resolution to this is the one that maximizes the utility of the citation to the average reader. Experts, practitioners and students in every academic field have vast resources available to them, resources that are properly vetted. The average person would mostly or only have Wikipedia, but here's the tendency to make this one resource too some sort of experts' preserve (albeit an unvetted one). Why not start from what the reader sees? Make that as clear and faithful to the original as possible. Then decide on the tools/guidance that editors should have in order to implement the reader requirements. Keep the guidance straightforward and tight. This is only a set of special cases of a single parameter in a sprawling module collection. Largesse in editor choices cannot be afforded in everything. Editors will have to learn to throw what the guidance states. Once the tools and guidance for editors is decided, the module could theoretically be developed in a hopefully carefully designed, rational, bugfeee way. But all development is theoretical. Because there are unresolved issues regarding any CS1/CS2 development. 68.173.76.118 (talk) 00:07, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Everywhere else I can think of, instead of making formatting appear similar to where we're quoting from or citing, we make the formatting consistent on the Wikipedia side. That's what professional publications generally do unless they're showing an actual picture of the original. If we weren't doing that, we wouldn't have MOS guidance on fractions at all, and pages would look somewhat messier. -- Beland (talk) 07:39, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

@Matthiaspaul: It's mid-October. Any update on {{frac}} being made COinS-friendly? I'm not sure what you said above explained why {{citefrac}} looks not as nice as {{frac}}, but perhaps I'm missing something? -- Beland (talk) 07:39, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Did you see my proposal to let known-to-be-problematic templates like {{frac}}, {{sfrac}}, {{chem}}, {{chem2}} etc. actively assist CS1/CS2 in its metadata creation (because the local developers of these templates know best how to translate whatever these templates are designed for in plaintext or simple HTML)? This would not replace the "general HTML simplifier" for those templates which have not been enhanced with this "template internal metadata" feature, but at least those templates which were enhanced accordingly would then produce perfectly nice output for display purposes and perfectly simplified but semantically correct plaintext (or simple HTML) as metadata. I proposed a general structure for this and also illustrated how this would be future-compatible and flexible enough to be further enhanced in other, semantically more abstract ways in the future.

IMO this, combined with the other proposed bits (the general HTML simplifier, the \(...\) markup and the |descriptive-title=), would allow us to address all aspects of the problem in the best-possible way without putting restrictions on users which templates or math markup they can use in citations, so that they can use what is best (based on their editorial capabilities) to produce the desired nice-looking output in rendered citations, but still would produce (or at least allow to produce) perfectly simplified and semantically correct metadata at the same time.

The \(...\) markup and general HTML simplifier have been implemented by Trappist already, although both could be further improved (as discussed). I have shown a "mockup" of the hidden "MeTaDaTa" feature. It would be ready for actual implementation, but I don't want to spend time on it if I get reverted by one of those ninja fighters who either don't participate in the discussions seeking for solutions or only complain about inadequacies without proposing better solutions to the problems. My limited time is too precious for this. Waiting for positive feedback...

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:56, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

@Matthiaspaul: If everyone else is happy with that solution, I have no objection. I will start using those templates in citations. -- Beland (talk) 00:54, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: Use the document icon instead of the external link icon for documents

Following up from this VPR discussion, I'd like to propose that we change the external link icon for CS1 citations in which |format= is set to a document file type such as .xls so that it uses the document icon () rather than the external link icon (). This will give a more appropriate signal to readers that clicking on the link will download a file for them, rather than taking them to a website page.

In technical terms, I'm told by SD0001 that we would do this by modifying Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css similar to what it already does with links to Wikisource. Thoughts? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:11, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Not a good idea. We should train users so they understand that clicking anything with the external link icon is external and a potential security hazard (it might not be a hazard now, but could be in a couple of years when scammers get hold of the website). A friendly document icon tells the unwary that this link is blessed by Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 05:27, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

We already have a separate PDF icon for PDFs, among others; this isn't really any different than that. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:09, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Clicking on an online document will not necessarily explicitly download it. As is often the case with the useless pdf icon (I wonder if the majority of Wikipedia readers know what it signifies), browsers may use an embedded pdf viewer. Just like every other webpage, that item will be downloaded in local cache by default >90% of the time. The templates use the format parameter where the literal extension name with a wikilink to an explanation can be entered. Without any need for fancy icons that may break in a future MW iteration, or CSS workarounds. Instead of interminable ideas about minor presentation details, may I suggest, with all respect, to work towards adding proper citations to the vast majority of articles that need them. 64.18.9.196 (talk) 12:30, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

It's difficult to indicate two independent properties in one symbol.

I, too, consider it important to tell users they are about to click on an external link for security/privacy reasons, but I also think that it is useful for them to know if the external link content typically can be processed with built-in browser capabilities or needs some plug-in or external program to be viewed, or if it is text, graphical, audible, animated, as, depending on the environment the user is in, it may be technically difficult or inappropriate to consume (i.e. when loading an image using a text browser, or when loading a sound file on a computer without sound, or where sound may disturb other people).

It might be possible to superimpose the "external link" and various types of "document" icons to indicate some of these properties at the same time.

Alternatively, we could override MW and stop showing the PDF icon for external PDF files and consistenty show the external link icon for any kind of external links instead. The file format can be specified by |format= which adds some "(format)" text. CS1/CS2 even has some code to auto-detect PDFs based on the file-extension - we could add a few more common file types (per above criteria) to that list.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:50, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

The PDF does not originate from MW. It is entirely a local en.wp customization. IznoPublic (talk) 14:35, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

The quantity of Excel sheets cited is probably insufficient to support a different icon in these modules. Moreover, I doubt an Excel sheet could be classified as a reliable source, anyway. IznoPublic (talk) 14:38, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Izno, if for example a government publishes census data in an Excel sheet, why wouldn't that be reliable? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 21:19, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

We use such reluctantly as it is not generally secondary. Izno (talk) 21:23, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

The thing that matters for reliability is the source, not the format. There are plenty of legitimate uses of Excel spreadsheets if they're published by reliable sources or used for WP:ABOUTSELF information. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:55, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Support - passing this info along to users in a natural and unobtrusive way makes total sense. Clicking a link that goes to an excel file feels like a total bait and switch unless I know about it ahead of time. Retswerb (talk) 03:23, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

cite news documentation

Should there be some text added about the general lack of need for the use of editors for newspapers and such. In many cases, the editors probably had nothing to with the article. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:00, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

No, if authors and/or editors are specified, they belong into the citation, no exceptions. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:36, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Is there any publication out there that formats citations that way? 207.161.86.162 (talk) 04:48, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Newspaper/newsagency (and less frequently) magazine articles may not carry a byline, and also there may be cases of newspapers/magazines with the same name. There is some merit in adding the editor, to find quickly the right news source, especially when the publisher/location is unknown/absent. Another consideration would be when articles are reprinted under different editors (in the same or another news source). In the unlikely case of differences in original vs. reprint, the respective editor should be indicated. Also, all reference databases for news sources include the editor and sometimes sub-index the works by that field, which means the source could theoretically be found quicker by adding the editor info. 65.88.88.91 (talk) 16:40, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

I am thinking more like the newspaper the new york times. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:48, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

I would not add the editor in such cases unless of course the item is signed by her/him or perhaps, in the case of citations of editorials. Afaik, the NYT has an "editorial board", so maybe the correct way to depict this would be to use |department=editorial. 65.88.88.91 (talk) 16:56, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Matthiaspaul, are you saying that every reference cited to The Guardian needs to include the name of the editor of The Guardian? -- Alarics (talk) 20:55, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

If the editor is actually specified as "The Guardian" that would be appropriate, but in most such cases, staff writers are not mentioned at all, and "The Guardian" would be just the name of the news outlet. For staff writers we typically write something like |editor=<!-- staff writer, no byline --> (although I personally don't like this very much (for its bad machine-readability) and instead propose to standardize the case by introducing a special keyword like |editor=staff for it, which could be (actively) ignored by the template for now, but could also be evaluated if we would happen to run into a use case for this in the future - without |editor= (the template can't see the HTML comment), we never know if no editor was specified in the publication or if the author providing the citation was just too lazy to add it.) --Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:26, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

There are enough valid use cases for adding editors to periodical citations that I definitely wouldn't want this to be an error, even though it's usually not the right thing to do. One that comes to mind is when the periodical publishes a special issue or special section (which you can name using the |department= parameter) and you want to cite both an individual title and author within that section or issue, and the editors of the whole section or issue. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:00, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Here's an example of a citation in this style that I used today:

• Williams, Kim (December 1997). Stewart, Ian (ed.). "The pavements of the Cosmati". The Mathematical Tourist. The Mathematical Intelligencer. 19 (1): 41–45. doi:10.1007/bf03024339.

Here, if you go to the DOI you will get a collection of mini-articles, collected into a single journal article, edited by Stewart, from which I wanted to cite the mini-article by Williams. I think this formatting is a reasonable way of doing that, although the ordering of metadata by the template leaves something to be desired (it should more clearly indicate that the author-title and editor-department are paired, rather than shuffling them in an ordering author-editor-title-department that makes less sense). —David Eppstein (talk) 07:38, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Re the order of display. I believe it has been discussed previously. It has to do with the editor role applying to the entire work (journal) not parts of it. Previous discussions about adding editor roles to in-source locations went nowhere. It may be easier to do something like |others=Editor (column ed.) which is a bit clunky. Btw, it would perhaps be more accurate to use the |contributor= set here, but it is not available for journals. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 11:53, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

I actually think WP editors do a relatively bad job of including periodical editors anyway and would not super such a change. IznoPublic (talk) 14:34, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Page, pages, total pages, page range

I generally use the {{sfn}} citation style, with the sources in an alphabetical list at the end of the article. This lets me cite different pages in each source at different places in the article. In the {{sfn}} I give the page or pages being cited, e.g.

{{sfn|Smith|2001|p=19}}

{{sfn|Jones|2002|pp=12–13}}

In the source definition, I would like to give the total number of pages, and in the case of a journal article, the page range, e.g.

*{{citation |title=Precise citations |last=Smith |year=2001 |total-pages=248}}

*{{citation |title=Recent citation style changes |last=Jones |year=2002 |journal=Modern Pedantics |page-range=9–39 |total-pages=31}}

This would display something like

• Smith (2001), Precise citations (248 pages)
• Jones (2002), "Recent citation style changes", Modern Pedantics, pp.9–39 (31 pages)

Any problem with introducing this? It must have been discussed before. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:19, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Add that information after the citation template if you must, as you have done above. It is not a typical or encouraged practice in the English Wikipedia, even though it appears to be common for other languages. Also, you don't need "31 pages" when the complete page range is already listed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:26, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

(edit-conflict) It has been discussed before. There are users who think that the total page information does not belong into a citation, but there are also users who requested it.

In fact, it is rarely given in citations, although I have seen examples where it was actually given. Above you give the example of a bibliography, this is another example where the total number of pages is actually quite common to be given.

Personally, I always provide the information when I have it available from a reliable source (the publication in front of me, not some Amazon or Google books listings as they are very often wrong), because I actually find this information quite useful myself when I find it in a reference. It helps to get a grip on if the publication is substantial enough to be worth the trouble of getting a copy in general, and it allows to quickly verify the (often inaccurate) page range info and estimate copying and postage costs when obtaining a work from a library.

Since CS1 does not have a parameter for this yet, so far I add the information following the citation in parentheses (like (xi+425 pages)), just like you do, but I would prefer to have a dedicated |total-pages= parameter for this, because this would ensure a consistent format instead of each editor having to invent his own nomenclature. It would be machine-readable, thereby we would also help to correct the many incorrect total-page info entries in the wild. There even is a COinS entry for this (&rft.tpages), also indicating that this is sometimes useful info to have. Wikidata has d:Property:P1104 for this and {{cite Q}} is already prepared to support this once CS1/CS2 would add support for it. Some citation templates in other language-entities of Wikipedia have a parameter for this as well.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 14:31, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

The French w:fr:Modèle:Ouvrage has |passage= and |pages totales=. I suppose technically there is a difference between a citation, where we say "this is where this information comes from" and a bibliography entry, where we say "here is what we know about this source." The citation could be short {{sfn}}, giving the page and pointing to the bibliographic entry, which is the style I prefer. Giving both page range and total pages is redundant, but that is what JSTOR does, e.g. [9]. Aymatth2 (talk) 16:22, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

The JSTOR approach maybe a hold-over from older days, where such approaches would be used in articles that did not have continuous pagination, and the ToC was not useful in inferring the page range of an article. The actual page range in a biblio entry may not have been an unbroken range at all, just the article's first and last pages. The page count would be useful in showing the actual number of pages the article occupied, since the ToC would not be able to show it. In books, the total pages are shown in bibliographic/reference databases, but this is for reasons other than citing sources. Even the most used trade references (Nielsen's Bookdata, Bowker's Books In Print) in my experience do not show the total pages (or bytes, or running times) unless you drill down into a record's "Detail View". 65.88.88.126 (talk) 16:53, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

So a 4-page article could be spread over 6 pages by full-page ads. Simpler maybe to show pp.7–12 (4 pages) than the more accurate pp.7,9–10,12 (4 pages). Aymatth2 (talk) 20:51, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

For another example, the German citation template de:Template:Literatur has |Umfang= for this.

You are right, there is a difference between a citation and a bibliography entry, but CS1/CS2 templates are intended and designed to be used for both purposes.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 17:10, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

The main argument for not adding |total-pages and |page-range parameters is it would make the template documentation even longer to support information most editors would not bother to provide. The reasons for adding them are that it ensures consistent formatting and supports greater mechanization in generating or checking bibliography entries. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:51, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

The total number of pages is irrelevant. This has been brought up several times before, see the archives of this page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:35, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

@Redrose64: A citation identifies the source, and as you say the total number of pages in the source does not help with that. But as Matthiaspaul points out, CS1/CS2 templates are intended and designed to be used for bibliography entries as well as citations. In Konstantine Lortkipanidze#Publications it is reasonable to list the number of pages in the subject's works. The template renders "|pages=303" as "p. 303", which does not look like a page count. (303 pages) would be more obvious. In Konstantine Lortkipanidze#Sources there is perhaps less value in giving the page count, but there seems no reason to omit the information if available. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:36, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

p. 303 is obvious, it's a single page. p. 303-310 is equally clear as a range of pages. It's a red herring to say 303-310 might only be 3 pages interspersed with adverts as the point of the template in either a citation or a bibliography is to identify, for the reader, where to find the information. It is not to comment, directly or by inference, on how voluminous the author's work is. Nthep (talk) 06:47, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

The purpose of a bibliography entry is also to identify the source, and the total number of pages is not relevant to that. A list of an author's works is a special case, and I would argue that it does not justify adding a parameter that should not be used elsewhere. There is always the option of adding text after the template. Kanguole 08:51, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia probably contains several hundred thousand lists of authors' works. A bibliography in a book or scholarly article often gives the total number of pages. I suppose a minimalist would say all that is needed is page number and DOI, while a maximalist would say we should describe the source as fully as possible. It seems to be more a question of taste than of principle. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:35, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I dispute the second claim. The standard style guides (Chicago, APA, MLA) are fairly consistent on what information to include, and none of them recommend the total number of pages. Kanguole 12:47, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I was more thinking of a bibliography holding a list of an authors works. When citing periodical articles the cite would typically give author+page, and the bibliography would give the page range for the article. We can do that with {{sfn}}. But if we are combining the cite and source definition as with <ref>{{citation...}}</ref> at present we cannot give both the page and page range. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:26, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Strong support for |total-pages=. Editors frequently misinterpret |pages= as "total pages". It's such a big problem trying to link online books only to end up displaying the empty last page. The |total-pages= will help reduce (not eliminate) the misuse of |pages= and increase accuracy of the citation. This is evidence-based, the reality of what users do in practice. There is behavioral demand for |total-pages=, if we don't provide it, they will do it anyway, and in such a way that it can only be fixed manually. -- GreenC 15:00, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Disagree, I'm afraid. Assuming the documentation is clear, nobody should be obliged to accommodate whatever editors misinterpret. What is the use-case here? The total pages info is immaterial in a citation. It does not help in locating the source and verifying the wikitext in probably 99.99% of possible cases. That is a fact. If editors insist otherwise when clear guidance is given, they are wrong and there can be no further discussion. There seems to be confusion because some think that these templates are or should be used as bibliography templates. They are not, and using them as such is outside of proper citation usage, which is the urgent and necessary application for them. The templates are complicated enough to use without the added overhead of bibliographical entries. 64.18.9.196 (talk) 15:55, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Sometimes what editors ought to do according to what we tell them to do and what they actually do is interesting. -- GreenC 16:18, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

It's the same as with most features, some people need them, others do not. Our general goal here is to set up the best and most comprehensive (and in the long term also most reliable) encyclopedia on earth, and the intent of this talk specifically is to develop citation templates enabling editors to do that as they see fit in the most convenient way imaginable.

Over the years an uncountable number of people have asked for this feature here and in many other places at Wikipedia. Other Wikipedias have it for long, Wikidata has it, COinS has it, some style guides ask for it, including some English ones (i.e. the NLM Style Guide [10]). So, this is a missing piece of infrastructure not only for users but also for machines.

Since enabling this feature does not hinder anyone to work just as before, but not enabling it hinders other users to work optimally, as they always had to find workarounds for it before, I have added the |total-pages= parameter to CS1/CS2 templates now. When specified, the info is displayed in parentheses following the other page info. As the use of this feature is entirely optional, users, who don't need it, can simply continue to not use it as before, but users, who always wanted to have this facility, can now finally use it through documented means. This will make this encyclopeia more convenient to edit, more consistent in its appearance, more machine-readable, and eventually more reliable to use. Since the total number of pages are automatically also reported as part of the COinS metadata we generate, external parties can take advantage of it as well. In the mid- to long run, this will help to fix an uncountable number of incorrectly stated total numbers of pages in external databases (Google Books and Amazon Marketplace come to my mind immediately). So everyone wins.

Examples:

• Binder, Robert V.; Beizer, Boris (2000). Testing Object-oriented Systems: Models, Patterns, and Tools. Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series (illustrated reworked ed.). Addison-Wesley Professional. p. 437. ISBN 978-0-20180938-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |total-pages= ignored (help)
• Ginsburg, Seymour (1959-04-01). "On the Reduction of Superfluous States in a Sequential Machine". Journal of the ACM. 6 (2): 259–282. doi:10.1145/320964.320983. S2CID 10118067. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |total-pages= ignored (help)

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:06, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't particularly care one way or the other but: Over the years an uncountable number of people have asked for this feature; really? Uncountable? I'd be very surprised if Google Books and Amazon Marketplace use our metadata when composing their pages about some book. Seems to me that you are struggling to find an argument that will convince those who oppose inclusion of |total-page= to switch their position.

I think that if we are going to keep this parameter, the supporting code in Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox should be made part of format_pages_sheets(). I have done that, added error detection, and other cleanup.

Further examples:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |total-pages=1 |no-pp=yes}}

Title. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |total-pages= ignored (help)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |total-pages=2 |no-pp=yes}}

Title. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |total-pages= ignored (help)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |total-pages=a}}

Title. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |total-pages= ignored (help)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |total-pages=[//example.com 1]}}

Title. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |total-pages= ignored (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:11, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Okay, strike "uncountable", set "many". ;-) Over the years there were many people asking for it, giving good arguments.

Regarding Goggle and Amazon, what I meant is not that they use our data (at least not directly - although indirectly Google probably does), but that their database entries contain a large number of errors. When I write down references for articles I always try to find an online source for the convenience of the readers. Sometimes I end up at Google Books (not Amazon) and when I compare their info with the publication in my hands I very often find their info to be incorrect in some ways (after verifying that we are actually talking about the same edition), the total number of pages is wrong in probably 20–30% of the cases. I don't know where they derive their data from, but it can't be only from manual entry during scanning. Sometimes the entries seem to be the result of mixing up several different editions of a work. So, even if Google would not be among those who harvest our data directly, providing accurate info will help other parties which do harvest us, and through data exchanges/comparisons/synchronizations, this will in the long term help to reduce the amount of errors everywhere.

Regarding the new error checking, thanks for adding this (this would have been on my list as well in one of the next few iterations).

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm surprised that you added this in the middle of a discussion in which people were disagreeing with you. Please revert. Kanguole 23:28, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

A big improvement. Now when I am translating a French page and hit |passage=132|pages totales=269 I do not have to drop information. Great! A useful step towards supporting meaningful bibliographies. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:31, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

We are here to find and implement solutions to solve problems, not to keep problems unresolved forever. If you don't need a feature, simply don't use it. Other people have a use for the feature and are adding (and were always adding) total page info anyway when they found it appropriate to include it in the entry - it is just that they had to append it at the end of the citation so that it did not show up alongside the other page info where some style guides recommend to put it and that they had to invent their own nomenclature. This caused an inconsistent look and made the entries more difficult to maintain (like Green pointed out). Now, they can do it in a structured and consistent way. Makes it easier to handle for everyone, humans and machines. Fewer errors, and easier to correct.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

There is absolutely no demonstrated consensus for the addition of |total-pages=. This must be reverted. The rationale behind your argument is flawed and the opinions expressed debatable. This is a disruptive edit in the middle of a discussion. 64.18.9.196 (talk) 02:53, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

This change isn't live, just in a sandbox. Nthep (talk) 08:22, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Yep.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

If there is anything that is disruptive, it is the totally inappropriate drama board tone you use. What is also disruptive to the process and project is to try to hinder constructive and productive editors to work more efficiently out of some strange dogmatics. It boils down to WP:DONTLIKEIT. See problems from multiple perspectives and think solution-oriented (solutions to solve everyone's needs, not only your own ones) and not ideologically.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

What goes in the sandbox is test cases of what is decided here. Not your notions of what should be. They don't belong in the modules' sandboxes. As has been pointed out many times this parameter has nothing to do with discovering sources in order to verify wikitext. The ideology here is coming from you, consistently. Instead of making of citations something they are not try fixing the existing problems. Polluting the sandbox with whatever fancy notion or non-applicable request anyone comes up with is hardly constructive. 64.18.9.197 (talk) 12:04, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

What benefit is provided in a reference telling the reader it is page 437 out of 1131? Absolutely none that I can envisage? The only possible use is in a bibliography where there are no page or page ranges mentioned and even then I am dubious that there is any real benefit. Neither do I accept the metadata argument for the same reasons given by Trappist. I'm not here to build a machine-readable work but a human-readable one. Nthep (talk) 08:22, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

In the book example, as a reader, the total page number tells me that this is a substantial work on the topic which might be worth obtaining, and it will also give me a first clue on its weight and consequently the shipping costs which would be significant, for example, when you have to import the book because it is a foreign language work. In a bibliography the entry would typically not carry an individual page number cited but just the total number of pages, because this is information given quite regularly in a bibliographical list. As our citation templates are designed to be used for referencing just as well as for bibliographical lists, it is desirable for editors who want to add this info to be able to do so in a well-defined way instead of having to resort to workarounds - why should they?

In the journal example, the total page info is somewhat redundant with the page range info, but as has been pointed out, some databases only list the first (and the last) page, not the actually covered pages (often enough, the last page is not even given, so a database entry might appear to be for a single-page article whereas it actually covers multiple pages), and so, when an article is spread over multiple pages, the total number of pages might be smaller than the difference between the start and end pages. This is particularly common in magazines and newspapers with advertisments, not so much in actual journals, so perhaps I should have given a magazine example rather than a journal example. So, the entry can be helpful to verify the other page info entries (see Green's comment above). Just like in the book case, it will also help to quickly estimate if an article is substantial or just a short note. This may help in deciding if it is worth to obtain the article from a library and the costs involved for copying, shipping and handling. Libraries can be quite expensive and charge on a per-page-basis, so this is important info to know. Sure, if the other page info is complete (including the end page) and accurate, the number of total pages can be derived from there as well, but, as said, often enough it is not, and if the pages entry is, i.e. |pages=23–24, 27, 29, 30–35, 37, 39, 41–43, 60 (real example from a magazine article) it is easier for the reader to get it from something like |total-pages=18.

You wrote I'm not here to build a machine-readable work but a human-readable one That's fine. You do not need to be here to build a machine-readable work, and nobody is hindering you to continue to focus on humans only, if you want to. However, others are here to make our contents available to anyone, and for me, this also includes machines (although not primarily). Wikipedia is part of the emerging semantic web. And that's not for the purpose of itself, but for the convenience of the readers as well as the users of the information elsewhere. There are lots of services by third-parties which are basically fed by data from Wikipedia. We don't target them primarily, but anything that serves them (and does not go into our own ways of doing things) will indirectly help us as well as consumers of these services and as researchers and writers of other articles. Total number of pages alone don't matter, but COinS as a whole does, and the more complete and accurate the info, the better.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry but the first reason is complete rubbish, citations are not there to help work out shipping costs and/or copying costs but to verify content, period.

You want to make things more machine friendly then again that's fine but I'd suggest that those efforts ought to be concentrated in places like Wikidata where you can add all the machine relevant data you want without it having to become more visual bloat for human readers. Also putting information into Wikidata might aid editors like Aymatth2 as they won't have to translate citation information just pull in the bits they want from Wikidata.

I'd be prepared to compromise on total pages being in but only if the style guide is that they are only used in bibliography lists and not in citations but first preference would be to move it all to Wikidata. Nthep (talk) 11:40, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I think that is a reasonable compromise, assuming use of total pages applies both to bibliographies of the subject's works, where it is important, and to bibliographies of works cited by or relevant to the article, where it is interesting. It is good to have attributes like this in Wikidata, but challenging to most editors to get it there. The most practical way is for the editor to put it in a structured template in Wikipedia, then have a bot migrate it. The French seem ahead of us on use of Wikidata. I am starting to see infoboxes that just display Wikidata attributes, e.g. w:fr:Honoré Bouche (click on "Modifier le code"). Aymatth2 (talk) 13:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll be clear about what I think is acceptable use of total pages - a list of works by the subject, whether that is an article in itself or a section of an article about the author.

Not acceptable - any work used to reference the article or in a further reading section. So anything that goes in <ref></ref> tags or is in a sources section where an article uses {{sfn}} or any other referencing system is not to use total number of pages, nor is it a way to get round this by not citing a work but listing it as further reading.

But I repeat, moving as much details about books, journals, webpages etc to Wikidata and pulling the information from there is much more preferable to having amounts of bloat in Wikipedia. Migrating existing data to Wikidata is fine, adding more into Wikipedia to export it to Wikidata is not ok. Nthep (talk) 16:48, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

(edit-conflict) Nthep, regarding your without it having to become more visual bloat for human readers. I wonder where you see the visual bloating. I mean, it is not that this info wasn't present in articles so far and would now suddenly start to appear. Editors have always been adding total page info to (some) citations and (some more) bibliographic entries where they found it appropriate, and that is perfectly okay per CITEVAR. I consider it more visually displeasing (and also inconvenient) having to append the info at the end of a citation template and seeing this information formatted variously because each editor chooses his/her own styling then to have it included where some style guides recommend to put it, that is, alongside the other page info, and before the identifiers. However, the exact place is certainly debatable, the point is that if the info is included it should be formatted consistently.

I don't expect editors now suddenly starting to add the info all over the place, if that is what you are afraid of, it's just that they now can do what they always did in a structured way without having to worry about how to style it (that's one of the very purposes of templates).

Like you I think that it will be mostly used in bibliographic entries and only occasionally in citations, just like before. So, there is at least some agreement there. But the details of what is appropriate in a particular context is to be discussed, if necessary, by the individual contributors and article editors, not by us. We just provide the tools to enable our editors to work more efficiently and produce more consistent output more reliably. I could understand some concerns when we would be changing the syntax and some users would have to change their long-trained habits just because of a new feature they personally don't need or understand, but in this case nothing changes for them. They can simply ignore it. Occasionally they will see the total page info in articles, but that's not different from the situation now - they always saw them, just in free style notation. So, this really should be a non-issue and no-brainer. If we don't add it, the next good faith editor will come around and ask for it in a couple of months, like they did for years. The fix to the issue is to finally address it, not to ignore it (or the editors asking for it).

There is obviously a reason, why people come here asking for it, there is a reason, why it's recommended in some style guides, and why it is part of COinS, and Wikidata, and is supported by citation templates in other Wikipedias. They can't be all wrong. Smart people try to learn from other people's experiences and habits.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 15:30, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Which style guides recommend it? Kanguole 16:49, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

For your convenience here are some examples:

• NLM [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] (for books, conferences, technical and scientific reports, dissertations, theses, bibliographies, maps, web, media)
• AMS [21] (for books, theses, reports, memos, notes)
• NCBI [22] (for some)
• IWC [23] (for books, chapters, articles, reports)
• KNE [24] (for books, conferences, reports, dissertations, theses)
• CSE [25] (for journal articles)
• AR [26] (for books, conferences, bulletins, theses)
• UVLF [27] (for books, conferences)

I have also personally seen this style studying the references and bibliography sections of French, Russian, Polish, Czech and German publications, including some older books. Reportedly, this style is particularly common in France.

There are many more, but this quickly collected list should already prove that this is a real-world issue and that these requests emerge from actual use cases (not something someone made up as some inhere appear to believe just because they haven't seen it personally - there is a world outside the bubble... ;-)

See also:

• https://books.google.com/books?id=PXJHAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114
• https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/41330/specific-page-and-total-number-of-pages
• https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/443870/how-to-add-total-number-of-pages-on-a-book-reference-with-natbib
• https://liinwww.ira.uka.de/csbib/Misc/beebe
• http://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/master.bib

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:35, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I think there are editors who will start to add it all over the place, simply because the parameter is there. Populating it with what though? Yes, there are going to be conscientious editors who will go from physical copies or good online libraries containing accurate reproductions of documents but there are others who won't and will use figures taken from Google books, Amazon marketplace - which you appear to admit are not entirely accurate. Then we're not improving any quality just reinforcing the status quo. Smart people try to learn from other people's experiences and habits - yes they do, but sometimes the answer is to question back "what benefit do you think this adds to Wikipedia?" and that's what I'm doing. I've not seen any argument that either convinces me that it is necessary or beneficial (just because we could doesn't mean we have to or should do) nor convinces me that it won't be misused. I can see a very limited use case but I still think that it is of negligible benefit to (the quality of) Wikipedia but one I am prepared to compromise on if those pushing for it to be included recognise that others have concerns about it's use and that these need to be discussed - not on an article by article case - but more generally about where total pages is appropriate or not. Nthep (talk) 17:17, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Even if there is irrationality in Wikipedia (including in this thread ;-) I ultimately believe in the conscientiousness of the majority of our contributing editors (otherwise this whole project would have long collapsed rather than emerged into the quite impressive although still imperfect form it has found already). So, if someone would "abuse" the feature, they would be corrected. Ultimately, the decision to include or not include the information is up to the editor working on the article, just as it is now already (hence the need to potentially talk it out on the article talk pages in case of disagreements). We can't dictate anything here, but what I think might be useful to add to the documentation of this feature is an appeal that editors should use their "common sense" in applying it and not use unreliable sources.

All in all, I think, this feature will help to reduce errors in Wikipedia, not increase them. For one, because it would keep people from abusing the |page= and |pages= parameters for the count of pages (Green reported this as a common problem, I have seen it as well many times, and even two participants of this thread (one supporter and one opposer) admitted that they abused the |page= parameter for this - this will create incorrect metadata (COinS rft.pages), so the error is carried on. Switching to |total-pages= would not only eliminate the distribution of incorrect metadata, but even start to add the correct metadata (rft.tpages). Secondly, it will also help to find other incorrect usages of the |page=/ |pages= parameters, which are quite common, where, for articles spanning over multiple pages, only the start page is given and people assume the publication to be a one-pager, or only the lowest and highest page, rather than the actual range, which might be non-continuous. All this will improve the reliability of our information and not only help third-parties, but directly help our readership, i.e. as it will reduce the number of incorrect library orders based on our pagination data.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:11, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Page, pages, total pages, page range: break

The biggest problem Wikipedia has is its unreliability. Obviously, it will never become reliable, as its contributors are anonymous and of uncertain expertise. But it can become less unreliable, by a focus on publishing articles that are based on fact, or on articles that explicitly present currently accepted opinion as such, with space also given to major counter-opinions. In order to do that articles must be verified. A first step towards that is to base wikitext on easily verifiable (by humans) citations, and then verify these citations as appropriate to the article. In the sprawl of current Wikipedia, not even the first step of the first step is anywhere close to conclusion. Instead, add-ons such as Wikidata take precious development resources. What this does, is proliferate unreliability. Because the base data is unreliable. Treating citations as bibliograhic entries unfocusses development from the essentials and adds complexity. This thread and others are proof. Citation templates are there for citations easily readable and verifiable by humans and not software, a necessary and urgent requirement. They are not there for whatever one thinks they can cram into them. The total pages info does not belong in a citation. This is a massive waste of time. 65.88.88.46 (talk) 15:10, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

I have started many articles about authors, always include a bibliography (usually called "Works" or "Publications" to avoid confusion with the article bibliography), use the {{citation}} template for the entries and show the number of pages or journal page range where available. But the format is awkward:

• Honoré Bouche (1664), La chorographie ou description de Provence, et l'histoire chronologique du mesme pays, vol. 2, Aix: C. David, p. 1089

This is not a reference to page 1089, but an attempt to show that the book has 1089 pages. If total-pages were available I would use it, and the bibliography entry would be clearer. Are there in fact 1089 pages in this book? I think there are, but perhaps the source is wrong. The only way to eliminate all errors from Wikipedia is to eliminate all articles. Making it easier to format information does not make errors more or less likely. Some books are cited by several articles. If the metadata for such a book were held in Wikidata and reflected mechanically in Wikipedia articles it could be verified once. The articles that cite it would all show the same verified metadata. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:57, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

None of the above is disputed. Here's where the dispute lies:

• The citation system is used for citations. If it is used for anything else, including bibliographies, it is beyond the system's scope and concerns. Use it for biblio entries if you must; I have done so. But I don't come here with requests for unsupported use. I have to live with what is around, until proper inline biblio forms (ie not infoboxes) are available. I use |no-pp=yes and |pages=nnn pp..
• Yes, in theory Wikidata is going to be a good thing. Sometime. In the meantime, garbage in/garbage out. If the original book information (including any citation) is unverified and unreliable, so is Wikidata. It is also magnifying the unreliability through reuse, making things worse.

104.247.55.106 (talk) 18:32, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

If an article uses {{sfn}} to point to source definitions at the back formatted by {{citation}}, that is long-established practice, good practice when several different pages are being cited from one source. The list of sources is a bibliography and the {{citation}} entries are bibliography entries. They do not give page numbers – those belongs in the {{sfn}} entries – but they describe the source, and could give total pages or page range if known. We have a standard template for formatting information about books, papers, periodical articles etc., and it is called {{citation}}. We do not need a another template for articles that use {{sfn}} and a third for lists of works by the subject of the article. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:38, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

We are going in circles, I believe. Is it understood that Wikipedia is a novel project that cannot be compared with established practice of any sort? There has simply never been a similar project of anonymous, unvetted contributors serving the general public. What would suffice in a professionally edited work by an approved/vetted known author geared to a particular demographic is inadequate here. Is it so hard to understand that a novel project may require novel thinking? Here, everything must be proven. The citation system that helps bring this about must be efficient, clear and easily understood. Topical citations with sources not known to be unreliable, and the fastest, easiest way to apply them for verifiability. The issue is not {{sfn}} or the full citation templates. Needed are correct sources (that is the so-called "work" patameter) and a fast, easy way to locate them (that is all the other citation parameters that point in some way or other to the work's location). "Total pages" does not contribute to that. 64.18.9.197 (talk) 22:17, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Most Wikipedia users find articles to be well-written, useful and accurate, because the articles most users look for are carefully edited. At the other extreme, there is a mass of articles that start off with "The village headman is the most Honorable Amrit Singh who has selflessly conferred many great benefits..." Only those who think covid vaccines contain tracking chips pay any attention to these ones. In between there is a wide band of articles on more or less obscure subjects that are often useful and sometimes excellent, although they may rely on sources that are not entirely accurate. Even the most pompous academic papers often contain errors. We will never achieve perfect accuracy. But we should make it easy for editors who are concerned about quality in citations and bibliographies to record relevant data about sources in consistent format using standard templates. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:41, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

The audience of an encyclopedia are its readers, not its editors. It should be made easy for readers to verify whatever nonsense editors write. It is nonsense until verified. That is only the first step. But it is absolutely necessary because the next steps depend on it. Also, several fictional items were mentioned: how would "most users" know that articles are "accurate"? They are not "useful" otherwise. And if they are "well-written", unless verified, they are well-presented garbage. How can anyone tell that the articles "most users look for are carefully edited"? And how can an article be "useful" and "sometimes excellent" if they depend on sources that "are not entirely accurate"? One could surmise that such vague, unproven, and self-contradictory language comes from people who insist (absent any proof) that vaccines contain tracking chips. Another fictional item above is the notion that citations are about achieving accuracy. They are not. They are about providing the most efficient, clear way to verify claims made in wikitext. Citations are agnostic otherwise. A citation from a source not known as unreliable that verifies wikitext is a good citation no matter if the claim it verifies is later proved inaccurate or biased. These concern further steps in verification, beyond the purview of citations. But they cannot happen unless first, the citations are there. And it is easy to see, by randomly picking any Wikipedia article, that proper citations are a very distinct, small minority. But it gets worse. For a time I was reading designated so-called "good articles". I was not surprized to find they were often poorly cited and badly edited, using language that should have been flagged as non-neutral. 64.18.9.199 (talk) 03:30, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

It is hard to know what sources to trust. Maybe the vaccine is indeed full of chips. I think I saw something on Twitter about that. Let's hope the new |total-pages parameter helps clear up the confusion. Aymatth2 (talk) 22:00, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Citation++

One possibility would be to repurpose the deprecated {{source}} template for use in bibliographies. It could wrap {{citation}}, then add a few descriptive elements to the end: |total_pages= |page_range= |folio= |binding= etc. It would refer to {{citation}} for description of all the other parameters. It would give a sort of escape valve for those who prefer more complete bibliographical information without adding complexity to the citation templates. Just possibly, some obscure parameters from those templates could be migrated to the new {{source}}. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:20, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Changes to Cite news/doc

48Pills: in this edit, alias of 'Lay summary' is not correct. Please change it back to the actual parameter name. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:24, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

We should just deprecate and remove |lay-date=, |lay-format=, |lay-source=, and |lay-url=. I have marked these parameters as deprecated in the ~Whitelist/sandbox and will change our documentation to reflect that state.

Of course, now that I've done that, I expect that somebody's knickers will get in a twist and I'll all end up at some drama board. Those parameters are not amenable to replacement by bot because some human must decide if they are important to the en.wiki article and then create a separate cs1|2 template for those sources. Creating a maintenance category is possible but very, very few of us even know that maintenance categories exist so it will be years before the last |lay-<param>= is removed (if ever).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:16, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

I've reverted them, for the second time now. 48Pills, you must gain consensus for these changes, otherwise they will be reverted again. Changing the standard parameter presentation order without good reason is not acceptable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:59, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

If you had bothered to read every part of the edit you would have seen it involved a change far more important than a re-ordering of the presentation, but that's how editing works on here isn't it. Destroy hours of work rather than let the least important things go. 48Pills (talk) 16:59, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Please see WP:BRD. We are at the "discuss" part now. Please discuss. Introducing incorrect information into the documentation of one of Wikipedia's most-used templates is not desirable. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:11, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I do agree with Trappist the Monk, but the documentation must be kept current and accurate at all times! Rlink2 (talk) 00:54, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

QID

Are there any plans to link the citation templates with Wikidata? I was thinking of 2-way connections:

• The citation templates would accept a |qid= parameter pointing to a Wikidata entry for the source book, magazine, website, whatever. This would pull in values from Wikidata for attributes that were not given in the template. In some cases only the QID and page number would have to be supplied to get a complete citation
• A bot would periodically migrate attribute values from Wikipedia to Wikidata. The articles would now get the attribute values from Wikidata, which can be maintained centrally.

To confirm practicality, I made a very crude template at User:Aymatth2/citeQ to pull values from Wikidata. There is no error checking, but it seems to work:

Code	Renders
{{User:Aymatth2/citeQ |Q25169 |page=123}}	Douglas Adams, Eoin Colfer (1979), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, p. 123
{{User:Aymatth2/citeQ |Q4386569 |page=34}}	Beatrix Potter (October 1903), The Tailor of Gloucester, Frederick Warne & Co., p. 34
{{User:Aymatth2/citeQ |Q313030 |page=456}}	Edward Gibbon (1776), The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, p. 456

The advantage would be complete and consistent source descriptions rendered from a single vetted Wikidata entry. The citations would be the same across all articles that use the source apart from page number. Error messages or hidden categories could be generated when the Wikipedia values did not match the Wikidata values, so they could be tracked down and corrected. I am sure there are all sorts of complexities: Books have different editions, journals get new publishers, articles are spread over multiple magazine editions, etc.. But is there any reason why we would not work towards implementing something like this? Or is it in the works already? Aymatth2 (talk) 14:03, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Umm, {{cite Q}}?

There are no plans to link cs1|2 templates to Wikidata.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:09, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

More or less, there's a lot of WP:BEANS/Vandalism-related reasons for why using Wikidata for citations is undesirable, as well as several style reasons for why we don't want to do that either. We killed {{cite doi}}/{{cite pmid}} etc... because of it, and {{cite Q}} is likewise not widespread for the same reason, and should be removed from articles whenever found. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:19, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Aymatth2: See the talk page for {{Cite Q}} for the reasons why that template is not widespread. It causes CITEVAR problems, primarily because of author name formatting, and needs to be used carefully, if at all. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:32, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Looks like that was not such an original idea. I had no idea {{cite Q}} existed, but used an almost identical name! I can't see any style problems, since it would just wrap {{citation}}. Vandalism seems no more likely if the information is held in Wikidata – which could be semi-protected to minimize risk. The current Template talk:Cite Q looks like steady progress is being made on resolving issues. One problem that I can see is that I prefer first and last names separated which does not seem to be Wikidata standard. This is mainly to keep {{sfn}} entries short. The benefits generally seem to outweigh the drawbacks. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:45, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

{{Cite Q}} does take mode= parameters for the most basic citation variation issues (CS1 vs CS2) but for any variation more subtle than that, like how to abbreviate author names or journal titles, or how to order given names vs surnames, you're forced to enter things manually, obviating much of the point of Cite Q. And as you say, separating author names into first and last is essential for styles that use sfn or other Harvard-style links, so if cite Q doesn't do that, then it cannot be used in many situations. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:00, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Journal template & sic

I raised this in a Phabricator task however it was basically closed as "functions as designed" and I was pointed here. Would be interested in hearing any comment.

Within a CS1 {{cite journal}} template if a {{sic}} template (with 'nolink' option used) is attempted within the text within the |journal= parameter then an error is produced indicating that Italic or bold markup not allowed..... If a {{not a typo}} template is used instead then this is accepted and does not produce the error.

An example can be found here. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multiway_number_partitioning&diff=prev&oldid=1048226979

What happens?:
Note the reference to 'markup not allowed'.

Walsh, Toby (2009-07-11). "Where are the really hard manipulation problems? the phase transition in manipulating the veto rule". Proceedings of the 21st International Jont [sic] Conference on Artifical [sic] Intelligence. IJCAI'09. Pasadena, California, USA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc.: 324–329. Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |journal= (help)

What should have happened instead?:
I would have expected that the following would be valid syntax.

<ref name="Walsh 324–329">{{cite journal|last=Walsh|first=Toby|date=2009-07-11|title=Where are the really hard manipulation problems? the phase transition in manipulating the veto rule|url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.5555/1661445.1661497|journal=Proceedings of the 21st International {{sic|Jo|nt|nolink=y}} Conference on {{sic|Arti|fical|nolink=y}} Intelligence |series=IJCAI'09|location=Pasadena, California, USA|publisher=Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc.|pages=324–329}}</ref>

I can't say that I have tested other citation styles however there are others such as {{cite web}} where the sic template seems to work fine. If this is regarded as FAD and no intention to fix then the documentation requires updating. Happy to do that. - Neils51 (talk) 03:07, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I doubt this is a FAD item. This is a bug. {{sic}} is a necessary utility template that can indirectly affect verification, even when it is understood that citation elements are presented verbatim. I did not look at the code to see exactly why this returns an error in |journal= but not in other {{cite xxx}} templates. But there are several issues with the module code, so it is not surprising. The bottom line is, this should be fixed. Citation-wise this is not frivolous. All such templates should be compatible. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 11:47, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

This does not depend on the {{cite xxx}} template, but happens with any CS1/CS2 citation template, if you put italic markup in one of the parameters for periodicals (|journal=, |magazine=, |newspaper=, |periodical=, |website=, |work=). {{sic}} does that, {{not a typo}} doesn't. The obvious fix would be to correct the two typos in the name of the periodical. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:20, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

They are not typos. That is the function of the {{sic}} template, to make that obvious. This is a bug of the module that should be fixed, and very easily. The bug is based on bad module design. The citation modules should not return errors unrelated to citations. This is very easy to implement. These "errors" and their discussion belong to the COinS pages, not here. As it is now, it can be argued that they indirectly impede verification by limiting legitimate editor choice and making citations less exacting. 64.18.9.201 (talk) 13:39, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

One really does have to wonder about the quality of a source when the publisher can't be bothered to spell-check the title of its offering. And why are you using {{cite journal}} to cite conference proceedings? We have {{cite conference}} for that.

Did you not see it? Right at the top of the {{sic}} template documentation is a message box that has this image: . That message box is there because {{sic}} produces output that is not suitable for inclusion in cs1|2 citation metadata. Instead, avoid the issue entirely: perhaps use {{text}} or {{not a typo}} to mark the spelling errors and prevent auto-spelling correctors from fixing the misspellings and to produce correct metadata:

|book-title=Proceedings of the 21st International {{text|[Jo|nt]}} Conference on {{text|[Arti|fical]}} Intelligence

Walsh, Toby (2009-07-11). "Where are the really hard manipulation problems? the phase transition in manipulating the veto rule". Proceedings of the 21st International [Jont] Conference on [Artifical] Intelligence. IJCAI'09. Pasadena, California: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. pp. 324–329.

Or, silently fix the spelling because it is pretty obvious that joint and artificial are the intended words ...

And why does {{sic}} italicize its output? The brackets aren't sufficient to set it apart from the rest of the text? As a loanword, per MOS:FOREIGN, sic should not be italicized (italicized here because MOS:WORDSASWORDS) – I find it in my 1974 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary which satisfies the rule-of-thumb for loanwords.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:07, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

This is an obvious typographical error that should be silently corrected, per MOS:CONFORMTITLE and MOS:SIC. If you as an editor insists on shaming the publisher by reproducing the typo, that editor should use {{not a typo}}. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:35, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Are you responding to me?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:04, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

No, of course not. Sorry for being unclear. Personal pronoun struck. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:09, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

This is a case of misapplied pedantry. Firstly, {{cite conference}} is the appropriate template, as the cited material is conference proceedings, not a journal. Secondly, the name of the conference is not "21st International Jont [sic] Conference on Artifical [sic] Intelligence", it is "21st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence". The typos are not in the name of the work, they are in ACM's digital library referring to (see use-mention distinction) the conference proceedings. So the appropriate place for {{sic}} would be in some putative body text, "ACM's digital library refers to IJCAI'09: Proceedings of the 21st international jont [sic] conference on Artifical [sic] intelligence ...", not the cite.

The citation used in the article is just ACM's abstract. Why not go to the source and get the actual paper for free, not just an abstract?:

{{cite conference |last= Walsh |first= Toby |date= 2009-07-11 |title= Where Are the Really Hard Manipulation Problems? The Phase Transition in Manipulating the Veto Rule |pages= 324–329 |url= https://www.ijcai.org/Proceedings/09/Papers/062.pdf |conference= Twenty-First International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence |publisher= [[International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence|IJCAI Organization]] |location= Pasadena, California |conference-url= https://www.ijcai.org/proceedings/2009 |df= dmy}}

Walsh, Toby (11 July 2009). Where Are the Really Hard Manipulation Problems? The Phase Transition in Manipulating the Veto Rule (PDF). Twenty-First International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Pasadena, California: IJCAI Organization. pp. 324–329.  — sbb (talk) 14:45, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

The paper is part of the proceedings and as such, its title in the template should not be italicized. The proceedings title should be italicized and since it is nominally the same as the title of the conference, |conference= is not necessary. So:

{{cite conference |last=Walsh |first=Toby |date=2009-07-11 |article=Where Are the Really Hard Manipulation Problems? The Phase Transition in Manipulating the Veto Rule |pages=324–329 |article-url=https://www.ijcai.org/Proceedings/09/Papers/062.pdf |title=Proceedings of the Twenty-First International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence |publisher=[[International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence |IJCAI Organization]] |location=Pasadena, California |url=https://www.ijcai.org/proceedings/2009 |df=dmy}}

Walsh, Toby (11 July 2009). "Where Are the Really Hard Manipulation Problems? The Phase Transition in Manipulating the Veto Rule" (PDF). Proceedings of the Twenty-First International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Pasadena, California: IJCAI Organization. pp. 324–329.

I used |article= here because there isn't a |paper= parameter (probably should be ...).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:04, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

And nothing of the above has to do with the fact that the usage of {{sic}} is not an error and should not be flagged as such, regardless of the citation template, and also regardless of how {{sic}} outputs. The COinS notice at the {{sic}} page is irrelevant. Instead of forcing human editors to comply with limitations of software that has nothing to do with citing sources, the offending software should be fixed. All else is obfuscation, and as far as citations are concerned, a bug. 65.88.88.126 (talk) 15:26, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Not a bug. {{sic}} outputs HTML character entities. That is not allowed in COinS-generating fields.  — sbb (talk) 15:54, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

(edit-conflict) You are correct that this is not a bug. But since, I think, there is still something we could, possibly, improve in our template's behaviour, I'd like to point out that what triggers the error message here is the italic markup issued by {{sic}}, not the HTML character entities. The reason for why the template does not allow italic markup here is because this is typically an attempt to override the citation styling applied by the template itself (and one of the very purposes of these templates is to take the burden of styling away from editors and let the template do this work for them).

It could be argued, however, that matching pairs of italics in the middle of the parameter value might be "other markup" that should be accepted by the template. However, this would raise the question how to render it when the template applies italicization by itself as well. At present, the template removes italics and boldface from the parameter value before applying its own italicization.

Given that, applying italics (directly or through {{sic}}) in the parameter value would not cause any COinS problems - it's automatically stripped off...

What is a bit ironic here is the fact that the HTML entities, which are also produced by {{sic}}, can, while not causing the template to throw an error message, cause some mild issues for COinS consumers (so the red warning sign at {{sic}}'s documentation page is still appropriate), because what is transmitted as metadata could be considered to be overencoded:

%26%2332%3B%26%2391%3Bsic%26%2393%3B

for

 [sic]

which will be correctly displayed by a HTML engine at the receiver's end as:

[sic]

It would be better if we would carry out this decoding of HTML entities into Unicode before we make it part of the metadata, so that, percent-encoded, we would just transmit:

%20%5Bsic%5D

and the receiver could read the data as plain text and would not have to use a HTML engine to decode it. Also, we could (almost) consider {{sic}} to be a CS1/CS2-compatible template then, which, although not necessary in this specific example case, would still be an improvement in the general case.

Almost, because the template would still complain about the italics markup created by {{sic}}. Since the citation template sees the output of templates like {{sic}} rather than the template itself, the only direct fix for this would be to allow italics markup in the middle of parameter values which would not accept it when applied to the value as a whole. Another possible solution could be to make templates such as {{sic}} "visible" to CS1/CS2 through a tricky variant of the "template internal metadata" scheme proposed in another thread: For this, a template like {{sic}} would emit some special kind of invisible metadata, but not to improve CS1/CS2's COinS output but simply to communicate a message like "Hi CS1/CS2, the italics markup you are seeing right now is not user-generated, but was issued by me, sic. You do not need to issue an error message for it, my output is known to be CS1/CS2-compatible." Perhaps this sounds complicated, but implementation-wise it could be a simple <span> setting an invisible flag. CS1/CS2 would just strip off the span, when present, and take advantage of the hidden information provided by subordinate helper templates like {{sic}} to improve its own behaviour.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:21, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Of course, this would not work in cases where the real parameter value would actually contain HTML entities like a hypothetical title "Study on HTML entities like &szlig; in citation templates", which the template would then interpret as "Study on HTML entities like ß in citation templates" instead of leaving it as it is. The question is how likely it is for parameter values to mean HTML entities verbatim rather than them being the result of some (unnecessary or deliberate escape-)encoding earlier down the chain. In parameter fields like those for periodicals (as in the OP's example here) I think it is extremely unlikely that a HTML entity string would be meant as plain text rather than as the character it encodes, whereas in a |title= field there is a higher possibility that it might occur as text, although still rarely. So, if we'd implement this "HTML entity decoding before percent-encoding", the HTML decoding should probably depend on the actual parameter the HTML entity was found in or be disabled when ((accept-this-as-it-is)) syntax is used as well. If we would want to improve the compatibility with specific templates (like {{sic}}) only it would also be possible to try and change them to not issue HTML entities in the first place. This might not be possible for all such templates, but in the specific case of {{sic}} it seems as if it could just issue [sic] instead of  [sic]. This would not be an improvement for the general case, though.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:55, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

While this does not improve the general case, I have meanwhile modified {{sic}} so that it no longer emits any HTML entities (except for, newly,   which CS1/CS2 converts into a normal space internally, so it doesn't show up as a HTML entity in the metadata). Since CS1/CS2 also strips off italics ('') and boldface ('''), {{sic}} could now be considered COinS-safe.

However, CS1/CS2 doesn't "know" that and (unnecessarily) still throws an error for the italics issued by {{sic}}. Unless we would want to allow matching pairs of italics markup in the middle of parameter values which do not allow italics markup for the value as a whole, there is no way for CS1/CS2 to detect this, as it does not "see" {{sic}}, only its output. To illustrate my "communication through metadata" proposal I have changed sic's sandbox ([28]) so that it issues an invisible metadata span:

<span class="MeTaDaTa:safe-italics::"> normal_output_of_template_sic </span>

containing the special token "safe-italics" which would tell CS1/CS2 that these particular italics are okay to accept and that it should not issue the error message. If we would enhance CS1/CS2 to look for this and strip off the span when found before further processing, {{sic}} could be made fully compatible with CS1/CS2.

In this particular case, we do not need to issue alternative metadata text, hence the metadata text that was following the "::" in the other examples above is empty. In other cases, we may need to support a number of other tokens (TBD), so the "MeTaDaTa" string could accept a list of optional tokens in addition to the actual metadata. The general syntax could be something like: <span class="MeTaDaTa[:token1][:token2]...::[metadata]"> normal_output_of_template </span>

IIRC, % was not an allowed character in a class name in HTML4, so if we would still have to support HTML4, we would have to replace all % in the percent-encoded metadata by one of the (few) allowed chars (not used for other purposes already). On the other hand, if we can assume HTML5, this precaution would not be necessary and we could further improve the token syntax (i.e. to become K/V pairs, look nicer and be easier to parse). TBD.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:37, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

I've never come across that. AFAIK in both HTML 4 and HTML5, the only character that can't be used in a class name is the space, because it's the separator in a list of class names (e.g. class="wikitable sortable" is two classes, not one). Some other characters shouldn't be used in class names because they may have special meaning elsewhere - for example, if you want to use a class name in the selector of a CSS rule, that class name shouldn't use characters that have special meaning in selectors, and percent is not among those. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:00, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Red, for your feedback. I, too, haven't run into this in practice, but in HTML 4, the allowed characters in a class name were still severely limited at least in the spec (letters, digits, "-", "_", ":", "." per [29]) whereas in HTML 5 there are almost no restrictions any more. There are still limitations for CSS, but they won't affect us. Would there be restrictions in conjunction with JavaScript (not a use case at present either, but could be one in the future)? Still, the main question is if we need to worry about HTML 4 at all or can just assume that the browser will support HTML 5.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 17:41, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

I think that you are reading the entry for ID and NAME tokens as if it is a continuation of the entry for CDATA. It's separate. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:45, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Am I? Now I'm confused. ;-) Basically I read:

"ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter ([A-Za-z]) and may be followed by any number of letters, digits ([0-9]), hyphens ("-"), underscores ("_"), colons (":"), and periods (".")"

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:15, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I thought as much. That's the part relevant to the id= and name= attributes, not the class= attribute, for which only the CDATA bullet is relevant. See section 7.5.2. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:33, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Now I want to try defining some class names that include character entities! ;-) isaacl (talk) 23:03, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

COinS-generating fields should adjust their behavior to the requirements of human editors, and not the other way around. {{sic}} provides a common way of flagging significant information (apparent but not actual editor typos), used in citation systems from way before software metadata was even a concept. If the facility (the template {{sic}}) exists but it does not work, it is a bug as far as citations are concerned. 65.88.88.91 (talk) 19:30, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Then since CS1/2 templates generate COinS metadata, and COinS data fields can't take HTML markup, and the base requirement seems to be able to use arbitrary templates you want in citations, the conclusion is to not use {{cite xxx}} or {{citation}} templates, and manually format citation data. Those templates are not required to be used.  — sbb (talk) 20:00, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't follow. A more obvious solution is not to use COinS, since it generates false citation errors. 65.88.88.91 (talk) 20:27, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

You can choose not to use COinS by not using CS1/2 templates. Meanwhile, I hope that CS1/2 templates continue to support (and improve their support for) COinS.  — sbb (talk) 22:10, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't think this is how it works at all. Citation modules & templates are there to support citations in order to apply Wikipedia policy. They don't exist to support COinS or any other scheme. Artificially limiting editors of citations because some foreign code has problems is contrary to both spirit and letter of policy. The citation system has enough issues of itself. It certainly does not need the additional problems brought on by external code. 68.173.76.118 (talk) 00:46, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

What external code are you talking about? All that COinS is is a metadata format encoded as an attribute to an HTML <span> tag. CS1/2 templates generate COinS metadata based on the content of certain fields. That's it. There's no external code. Wikipedia is probably the largest generator of COinS metadata for citations on the web. External sites and projects are COinS consumers of WP's data. Wikipedia has chosen to take on the responsibility of producing machine-readable citation data, and it only makes sense to support it when CS1/2 citation data is already declared as sets of key-value pairs.  — sbb (talk) 02:09, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Of course there is external code, the metadata format add-on. Which is fine, as long as it doesn't interfere with the data itself. And here, there is interference. It is not right for the data to be secondary to metadata. Secondly, the responsibility of Wikipedia is to its human readers. The policies afaik are designed with that audience in mind. Machine readers are secondary. That is the platform. If the metadata scheme cannot keep up with these fundamental items it should be either fixed, replaced, or discarded. It's not as if Wikipedia is a restricted property. All native data can be easily accessed. The main thing is, program for humans (non-expert humans) first. I suggest devising a better scheme that follows these priorities. In the meantime, all COinS -generated "errors" should be removed from the CS1/2 UI. We can't wait forever. The status quo is an excuse to never fix what should be fixed. 64.18.9.197 (talk) 11:49, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Hmm. That's really confusing, just reading {{cite conference/doc}}: title: Title of source. .... What you say also appears to contradict the Example case in the docs.

|article= isn't listed in the "Full parameter set in vertical format" list in Usage just before Examples. Also, would |book-title= be the title of the published proceedings? book-title: The title of the published version of the conference proceedings, written in full. May be wikilinked. Formatted in italics. (Not to be confused with conference, below.)

I guess there's 2 ways to use {{cite conference}}: 1. Citing a paper submitted for the conference. I assume this is what's most commonly used. 2. Citing the proceedings itself, as a work. When editing, I generally assume |title= in any {{cite xxx}} template is the title of the work I'm referring to, and I don't care if the title is italicized, quoted, etc. (because the choice of cite template does that for me). So from a principle of least surprise, I would expect to use |title= for this citation (unless, of course, my assumption that use case 1. is not the most commonly-used one).

If possible, I propose that |title= be quoted, not italicized, if |book-title= (or perhaps better named, |proceedings-title=) is also defined. Otherwise, if only one is given, italicize |title=. Is that reasonable?  — sbb (talk) 15:38, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

That would make it mirror {{cite encyclopedia}}'s behavior, I guess.  — sbb (talk) 15:46, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

For a long time I have been saying that we ought to rewrite {{cite conference}}. Maybe someday we will. In the normal case I wouldn't have rewritten your citation as I did except that you included a link to the proceedings and |book-title= doesn't have a matching url parameter.

When I use {{cite encyclopedia}} I tend to avoid |title= and use |entry= and |encyclopedia=. I can imagine something similar for {{cite conference}} (which perhaps should be {{cite proceedings}}) so |prceedings= and |paper=. |conference= should go away.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:34, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Is |book-title= where |booktitle= went??! I remembered that booktitle used to work and at some point stopped working, but didn't remember why. This constant churn in parameter names needs to stop. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:45, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it was deprecated and replaced entirely early in 2021. Unhyphenated multi-word parameters were on their way to complete elimination as part of a multi-year project, and then a small group of loud editors showed up with pitchforks. I think there are six left, out of an original population of dozens of different unhyphenated multi-word parameters and about 300 total parameters. Maybe someday there will be consistency in CS1 parameter naming, but probably not soon. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:18, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

A workaround suggested by Trappist the Monk was

• Walsh, Toby (2009-07-11). "Where are the really hard manipulation problems? the phase transition in manipulating the veto rule". Proceedings of the 21st International [Jont] Conference on [Artifical] Intelligence. IJCAI'09. Pasadena, California: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. pp. 324–329.

I consider this incorrect. "[Jont]" means that the source wrote something a little different, and the Wikipedia editor saw fit to change it. Such changes are often made when it's necessary to change the capitalization or number of a word at the beginning of a quote.

In this case, "Jont" is what was actually written in the source. If it's necessary to draw attention to the misspelling it should be written "Jont [sic]". If the sic template is misdesigned, why not just write "[sic]". Jc3s5h (talk) 17:43, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

The sic template does not seem mis-designed. What is mis-designed is the citation module, which flags errors that have nothing to do with citations. This whole discussion belongs to the COinS pages, not here. As all kinds of inadequate bots and abuse-prone facilities such as AWB and JWB go around "correcting" stuff, it is important for the sic template to be there, since it signals to such software that these are not transcription errors. 65.88.88.91 (talk) 19:36, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

{{sic}} is merely a markup template. Nothing more, nothing less. Much like {{em}}, {{mono}}, {{math}}, and hundreds others. The mis-design is in catering to overly simple regex-driven bots to parse both syntax and language. I'm pretty sure bots like MOS Typo Team ignore anything in cites anyways.  — sbb (talk) 19:52, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Trappist and Jonesey above that this is much ado about nothing. This is the sort of error that should be silently fixed, not proclaimed to the world as an error. We're here to identify references, not to exactly reproduce obvious and minor typographic issues. In this case, the typo isn't even by the conference proceedings publisher (https://www.ijcai.org/proceedings/2009/ lists its name correctly) but in the database of a third party, the ACM digital library. And, as sbb pointed out, the much bigger problem here is the use of the journal citation type for a conference paper. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:01, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, if the typos are not in the original paper but were introduced in ACM's page, we should not be perpetuating that error but going back to the original for the true spellings. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:21, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Disagree, on the general case. This goes contrary to all citation practice. A typo or any other artifact that is not a transcription error has to be presented as is. It should not be arbitrarily "fixed" for any reason, least of all to comply with inadequacies in programming. What can/should be done so as not to confuse citation readers (and secondarily assorted Wikipedia bots), is to signal the obvious discrepancy. This has been done in citations (and cataloguing) for a very, very long time, using the sic notation in most cases. Also, "fixing" of any field, especially one that is indexed in reference databases, may make the item harder to find. 65.88.88.91 (talk) 20:39, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

This opinion should be raised at the talk page for MOS:CONFORMTITLE, not here. In the meantime, I have written to the ACM Library to alert them to the typo so that they can make this issue truly moot. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:29, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

It seems that all the references to citations at MOS:CONFORMTITLE presuppose following the limitations of COinS, which is the actual issue here. Once citations are rid of the so-called COinS-generated "errors", MOS:CONFORMTITLE can be edited to remove the erroneous information. 65.88.88.91 (talk) 21:47, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough regarding the notes about syntax errors caused by templates in COINS. There are a few dozen different types of templates listed at Category:Templates not safe for use in citation templates, many of which interfere with export of COINS information. Maybe it is COINS that needs to be fixed somehow. I don't know enough about that system to say anything smarter than that about it, though. Is it CS1's job to fix COINS in some way? I don't know. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:55, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your input. A good read. And thanks to Trappist the monk for the red warning reminder. I think that I had forgotten about that as {{sic}} usage in {{cite web}} works so well. Interesting points about it being ACMs error as I was sure I had found a PDF from the conference publishers where all the page footers contained the 'jont' error however can no longer locate. The original paper exists elsewhere and is fine. Jonesey95's request to ACM has had immediate results, they have fixed their typos, so the article link item will need a further edit. When I have made requests to Google to fix, say, book titles, I have often received a quick response from a real person acknowledging the request however there is usually a six month wait before actual correction. I think the point made about the level of reference and error needs further discussion. I have often taken the stance that if the original material is correct then it doesn't deserve to be 'besmirched' by a subsequent incorrect reference by a third-party. Perhaps that stance, 'silently fixing' such errors is incorrect. The point made about the ability to search for a catalogued misspelled reference would seem valid. Quite often the refs in error tend to be newspaper based which may reflect the extensive use of OCR. Neils51 (talk) 11:23, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Related edits to the sic template

@User:Matthiaspaul - pls revert your edit @ this template. The nowiki tag you added is messing things up. I have commented at that talk page too. 65.88.88.69 (talk) 19:45, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Can you please give examples where you saw things messing up?

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:56, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

The other thread would be Template talk:Sic#sic and CS1/CS2 citation templates, just in case someone would reply there as well. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:05, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the right place to continue this, but the nowiki tag interfered with the processing of optional parameters (now reverted by Izno). 65.88.88.69 (talk) 20:20, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

The following would not be processed correctly:

{{sic|wrong spelling|expected=correct spelling|nolink=y}}

65.88.88.69 (talk) 20:24, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

What is it (please be more specific) that is not processed correctly?

abc {{Template:Sic/sandbox|wrong spelling|expected=correct spelling|nolink=y}} xyz

abc wrong spelling [sic] xyz

Can't see anything going wrong in the case above and any of my test cases so far... Perhaps some additional trigger condition? On which page did you see things going wrong?

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:52, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Please use Template:Sic/testcases for test cases so that everyone can follow along. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:26, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

This template does not need to be edited, there is nothing wrong with it. What needs to be fixed is the metadata scheme. I would direct my energy there, instead of putting out fires whenever a legitimate use conflicts with COinS. Enthusiasm and willingness to tackle issues are commendable, but the execution should match, and solutions should be applied where there are actual problems. This is stated with no sense of criticism. 64.18.9.200 (talk) 23:51, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Publisher separates volume/issue numbers from journal name

If a |publisher= is included in {{cite journal}} (as unusual as that may be), it is inserted between the journal name and the volume and issue numbers:

{{cite journal |last1=Uthor |first1=A. |title=Reconsidering gizmos |journal=International Rehashing |volume=45 |issue=123 |publisher=Springervier <!--maybe to distinguish it from the more famous "International Rehashing" journal published by Elsespringer?-->}}

Uthor, A. "Reconsidering gizmos". International Rehashing. 45 (123). Springervier.

Is this a bug? With the bolded volume number I suppose it's not so confusing, but it seems more confusing if there's no volume number:

{{cite journal |last1=Uthor |first1=A. |title=Reconsidering gizmos |journal=International Rehashing |volume=<!--this journal doesn't use volume numbers--> |issue=123 |publisher=Springervier}}

Uthor, A. "Reconsidering gizmos". International Rehashing (123). Springervier.

In that case, there seems to be little cue that the (123) is an issue number. I would expect this placement...

Uthor, A. "Reconsidering gizmos". International Rehashing (123). Springervier.

...but perhaps there's some known problem with that of which I wouldn't know.

—2d37 (talk) 09:05, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Is it a bug? Probably not. Before its conversion to {{citation/core}}, the wikitext version of {{cite journal}} rendered your example citations as:

"Reconsidering gizmos" . International Rehashing 45 (123). Springervier.

"Reconsidering gizmos" . International Rehashing (123). Springervier.

yes the author is omitted because that version of the template does not understand enumerated parameters

The next and subsequent versions of the template used {{citation/core}} until the conversion to lua. At the time of the lua conversion, the new lua version of the template was intended to be indistinguishable from the wikitext template and, for your examples, still is:

Cite journal comparison

Wikitext	{{cite journal|first1=A.|issue=123|journal=International Rehashing|last1=Uthor|publisher=Springervier|title=Reconsidering gizmos|volume=45}}
Old	Uthor, A.. "Reconsidering gizmos". International Rehashing (Springervier) 45 (123).
Live	Uthor, A. "Reconsidering gizmos". International Rehashing. 45 (123). Springervier.

Cite journal comparison

Wikitext	{{cite journal|first1=A.|issue=123|journal=International Rehashing|last1=Uthor|publisher=Springervier|title=Reconsidering gizmos}}
Old	Uthor, A.. "Reconsidering gizmos". International Rehashing (Springervier) (123).
Live	Uthor, A. "Reconsidering gizmos". International Rehashing (123). Springervier.

Was there discussion that determined the placement of |publisher= in the {{citation/core}} version? Don't know. I suspect that the subject did not come up or if it did, was deemed acceptable because |publisher= use in {{cite journal}} is comparatively rare.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:23, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

A likely answer for the placement of publisher has to do with the |edition=. This is a guess. Normally the edition info would follow the title, and then the edition's publisher would follow. It is not unusual for works to have editions by different publishers. Then the particulars of the edition (volume etc.). 66.108.237.246 (talk) 11:58, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Update parameter?

I'm copying this here as it's a good question:

Is there any guideline on which date to use when a source is updated, in some cases several times? I've searched "Help" in vain. This article, for example, was published on July 30, 2020, and updated on August 20. Do we keep the original date or use the date of the last update? Space4Time3Continuum2x

What should we do? Maybe we need an "update=" parameter? Please ping us. -- Valjean (talk) 15:50, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

@Space4Time3Continuum2x and Valjean: WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT indicates that you should cite the date of the document that you read. If it was updated later, it may no longer supports the cited statement or it may support an entirely opposite statement (so cite the earlier date). Similar logic applies if you read it later and it does or does not support a particular statement (so cite the later date). Izno (talk) 16:20, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

That makes sense. When using a citation template, how would that work? Is the "access-date=" parameter enough, or would an "update=" parameter be a good thing, since the URL doesn't change when an article is updated. -- Valjean (talk) 16:29, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Use |date=. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:00, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

That parameter is the original publication date and does not account for later revisions and updates. The URL doesn't change. -- Valjean (talk) 17:14, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect. That is the publication date associated with the work when you read it. --Izno (talk) 17:36, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Is that always the case? It seems that the original publication date stays the same, and sometimes the update date is then added along with the notification of the update/correction, so "incorrect" may not always be true. I don't recall ever seeing an example of the original date being removed or changed. Do you have an example of the exception that proves the rule? -- Valjean (talk) 15:04, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

It is not relevant. You claim something in wikitext, and support the claim with a source that verified it on a certain date. If the source was updated and the wikitext claim is still supported as before, then the citation need not be changed. If the update no longer verifies the wikitext, the problem is not the citation, whose original date still supports the claim. In this case the wikitext should be edited: either state that "at a previous date/iteration/etc. such-and-such happened" or edit the wikitext with the updated information and edit the citation by inserting the corresponding version of the source. 65.88.88.46 (talk) 15:32, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

That is current practice. I'm suggesting we make that process smoother by including it as a parameter. I recognize that false claims and controversy surround such updates, and that we would, in such cases, still need to note that in the text, but such updates aren't always connected to any controversy. -- Valjean (talk) 15:42, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

??? Can you explain what you mean by "smoother"? If you need to present two different versions of events you would need two citations. This gives clarity to the wikitext claims. If you want to present one version of events, use the appropriately dated source. Citations have no continuity, and should not be treated as version repositories. You could always note, outside the citation that the information may no longer be current, but this seems convoluted. Unless the wikitext is historical update it, instead. 65.88.88.46 (talk) 16:12, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

In such convoluted cases, where different versions need sometimes-long explanation in the text, it would be handy to use one ref for the first/original version, and another ref for the updated version. That's all. That's what can be done with archived versions. It is actually possible to provide different dates and different URLs for different versions. With normal refs, the URLs don't change, but the ref, with an "updated" parameter, would be different, and should use a different refname. -- Valjean (talk) 18:28, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Again, these convoluted cases are a wikitext issue, not a citation one. If the claims are convoluted, simplify them. If several versions must be included, each one needs a separate citation. There must be a one-to-one relationship between the claim in the text and its verification. You can use one citation to prove many claims (by citing different in-source locations like pages). You cannot use one citation to prove 2 different versions of the same claim, whether using the same date/edition or 2 or more dates/editions. Moving the convoluted aspect to the citation instead of the text where it belongs makes it harder to verify. Obfuscation ensues. 65.88.88.69 (talk) 20:20, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

No disagreement. It is the production of the "separate citation" I'm after to make the "one-to-one relationship between the claim in the text and its verification" easier. -- Valjean (talk) 17:21, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

I mean, I guess you can argue with me as to the correct use of the parameters, but as you are here asking the original question, that seems somewhat of a bait and switch as to your intent behind said question. :)

Yes, |date= is for the date of the source cited. If it has an amendment date and you read the source after that date, it goes in that parameter. There is 0 need for any additional parameters. Izno (talk) 19:05, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't mean to argue with you, and certainly not to trick you. Sometimes tangentially-related ideas get dealt with in the same thread. I'm just trying to learn the right way to do things. I've been here since 2003 and am still learning.

It doesn't make sense for the date in the date= parameter to change with varying versions, except for books, which is not the topic here. I've never heard of that being done. The original date never changes, which is why any updates that affect content here should be noted. Currently, we do that in the text. I'm interested in seeing that done with a new "updated" parameter. Can that be done? -- Valjean (talk) 19:17, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

At the end of the day, it's fundamentally just a new edition of the same work, which as with books ends up being a differently dated citation. So your 'except with books' is precisely the case here.

I would oppose a new parameter accordingly.

If you absolutely feel you must have both dates in the citation, put the later date in |date= and the earlier date in |orig-date=, contrary to what you believe it must be used for from 15:41 today. For most news articles those will not be separated by much so I see it as a waste of space in a citation section, but you seem convinced that you must do it the way you want. Izno (talk) 19:28, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Speaking only about the current date= parameter, it's just disturbing to learn that, without knowing it, I might find a ref which gives a different date than the original publication date. That just destroys my trust in the accuracy of references. Do you have an example of a reference where the listed date is not the original date of publication? If you've been editing this way, you should be able to provide such an example. I have always trusted the date to be the original date, and I shouldn't have to look at archived versions at the Internet Archive to figure out the original publication date. The consequences of a discrepancy can be consequential, as news of something happening is normally almost immediate, depending on the topic. It's also important to be able to know which source was the first with the story. Being careless with the date screws up our ability to know what's happened. Should I start an RfC on this topic so we can formally establish the one-and-only proper way to do this? -- Valjean (talk) 20:07, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, the only pertinent date is the one used in the version that verifies whatever is in wikitext. Whether that is the original date or not, is immaterial. If I may suggest, you are approaching this from the wrong end. Citations are there to prove that there is an actual source (hopefully reliable) for the wikitext and it is not the wiki editor's opinion or fancy, nothing else. And apart from that, there is always pre-emptive archiving. 65.88.88.69 (talk) 20:36, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Whether I have an example to that effect is basically irrelevant. I do not think a change proposal to include another parameter would be successful. Regardless, there are many editors watching this page and I'm sure some are itching to respond to you, since you are not responsive to what I am telling you.

Your hyperbole in the latter half of the paragraph is noted, without response. Izno (talk) 20:40, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Currently, we have these three, tweakable, basic parameters for website and newspaper articles |date=, |access-date=, |archive-date=. Note that |orig-date= is used for things like books, not for website and newspaper articles.

I am proposing we have an |updated= parameter for use when an update or correction has been made to a website or newspaper article or document. -- Valjean (talk) 15:41, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

The "original date" parameter is used to signify 1st editions, which are considered important. It is also static information. In books there is also the "edition" parameter which ties in. Material changes brought about by editions in books are rarer than in other, regularly updated sources, and therefore more significant per se. 65.88.88.46 (talk) 16:12, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Exactly, which is why it's irrelevant to this thread. -- Valjean (talk) 18:22, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

While |orig-date= is often used to signify 1st (and/or other prior important) editions, this is not its only purpose. Another common use is to specify the authoring date when it is different from when the work was actually published (can be important to track down the origin of some information for facts checking or for priority claims, or just for historical reasons), or when a work gets republished without changing the |edition=. |orig-date= can also be used to specify dates in alternative/deviating date formats as they might be stated in the source but are not accepted by |date=. The parameter accepts free-flow text, so, if the purposes it is used for isn't obvious from the context, you can (and should) specify the type of date as part of the parameter value.

If the publication date is different from a later update date, and both are important to be mentioned, the publication date goes into |publication-date= and the update date into |date=. These two parameters are not aliases. They are treated the same for as long as only one of them is given, but they behave differently when both are given at the same time. So, given the unfortunate ambiguity of the |date= parameter name, whenever a publication date is given you can simply use |publication-date= instead of |date=. This way, it becomes clear for later editors what kind of date was actually given. I consider it good editing practise to always choose the most specific parameter if multiple are available, while other's prefer shorter parameter names more. Example:

{{cite news |title=Trump Defends ‘Delay the Election’ Tweet, Even Though He Can’t Do It |publication-date=2020-07-30 |date=2020-08-20 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/us/elections/biden-vs-trump.html |access-date=2021-10-13 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211006114545/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/us/elections/biden-vs-trump.html |archive-date=2021-10-06}}

"Trump Defends 'Delay the Election' Tweet, Even Though He Can't Do It". The New York Times (published 2020-07-30). 2020-08-20. Archived from the original on 2021-10-06. Retrieved 2021-10-13.

So, no need for an |update-date= parameter (unless we would strive for symmetry in parameter names (something I would support) and would make it an alias of |date= introducing it only for the purpose of eliminating the ambiguity of the |date= parameter in future citations).

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:35, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

|date= with |publication-date= is the date on which the work was written, not it's original publication date or its amendment date. If you are going to recommend use of publication-date for whatever reason, please do not suggest another with the wrong meaning. Izno (talk) 20:41, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understood you correctly. Let me try to clarify.

I am recommending to use |publication-date= only for the actual publication date, not for any other dates, of course.

Regarding |date=, perhaps it is just a question of how you define the date a work was written. Are we talking about the finishing date the bulk of a work was written (possibly long before publication) or when some bits were updated/corrected/amended later on? For the first case, I would use |orig-date=, for the later case I would use |date=. If both |publication-date= and |date= are present at the same time, |date= is the date which is used for metadata creation, so it should be the latest date of a published change used in the citation, not a date before publication.

Either way, these unfortunate ambiguities of the |date= parameter name are exactly the reason why I always propose specific parameter names rather than generic ones (even though they are longer to type: As short as possible without creating ambiguity, but not shorter). There isn't much we can do about existing citations, unfortunately, but we could use more self-documenting parameters in freshly entered citations. (That's also why I use |author-last/first= rather than |last/first= when I know they are authors, not editors or other contributors. In this case, they are even actual aliases, but |author-last/first= is self-documenting, whereas |last/first= is, at least potentially, ambiguous - some users use them for any kind of names, although they shouldn't.)

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:38, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Generic title

Hello, could "Database Error" be added to the Generic title list? Currently only 11 instances of this around but could point to other errors in the source. Keith D (talk) 21:28, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Using |work= and |publisher= when both are non-italicized

I'd like to cite a news article from the website of KABC-TV, published by American Broadcasting Company, using {{cite news}}. However, doing the normal |work=KABC-TV and |publisher=American Broadcasting Company results in KABC-TV being italicized, which does not seem correct. Is there any way to force it not to be italicized ({{No italic}} recommends against it so as to not pollute COinS metadata), or is there another way to configure the parameters here? I'm not sure "KABC-TV" is similar enough to "American Broadcasting Company" to justify omitting the latter, and in any case I'm interested in the broader question, as I've encountered this same problem several times. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:52, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

My opinion (not particularly definitive): KABC-TV is an organization. The programs they publish might be titled something like ABC7 Eyewitness News or similar. So use the title of the program in the work parameter, and the name of the organization in the publisher parameter. You can only pick one of KABC-TV or American Broadcasting Company as publisher; I would pick whichever one created the content (KABC-TV for local pieces, American Broadcasting Company for syndicated). —David Eppstein (talk) 18:34, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. You can use |publisher=KABC-TV, or |publisher=KABC-TV if you think the wikilink provides value (and the KABC-TV article provides the reader a link to ABC). If you are sourcing something from KABC-TV's website, you might not have a program for the |work= parameter. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 18:42, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

They do seem to use ABC7 Eyewitness News in the titling of their web site (although the official html title is the clunky "Los Angeles and Southern California News, Weather, Traffic - ABC7 KABC"), so you could still use that as the work parameter for web content. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:14, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

The HTML <title> element refers to the individual page, in this case (AFAICT) just their home/landing page. Sdkb didn't give us an actual URL for the specific page, or even the website, so we don't know what particular page is to be pointed at. In any case, the home page's <title> is unlikely to be the name of the work. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 02:25, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

First of all, if you're choosing parameter values based on what you like italicized, you're heading in the wrong direction. And if you don't want whatever you choose as |work= (like KABC-TV) to be capitalized, then the solution isn't to choose a differnt value for work or to try to outsmart {{cite news}}; the approach to take in that case is to (try to) swing consensus away from italicizing the work (and good luck with that!). The work should be the |work=, and the publisher, if you need to declare it, should be the |publisher= value. Let the template do the formatting for you; that's its job.

The bottom of the home page says, "Copyright © 2021 ABC, Inc., KABC-TV Los Angeles". I would therefore not use |publisher=American Broadcasting Company, as it's incomplete, and I do not think the complete string is so different from KABC-TV as to be necessary. However, I think what I would do in this case is use |work=abc7.com or, perhaps better, |work=ABC7 Los Angeles. This last is what they appear to use (after the faux dash) in their <title> for individual story pages, like this and this and this. So for me: |work=ABC7 Los Angeles, possibly with |publisher=ABC, Inc., KABC-TV Los Angeles. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 02:25, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Work=abc7.com is bad advice. I really really really dislike putting hostnames as works. Hostname is a separate piece of metadata that we don't usually show to readers, and shouldn't. It's for browsers to navigate, and needs to be part of a url. Work should be the name of the site, not the address of the site. Think of it this way: if you want to tell your friends about those beignets you had for breakfast in New Orleans, would you tell them you went to 1039 Decatur Street, or would you say you went to Café Du Monde? Work should be the same: A name, not an address. If we have a lot of references formatted with hostnames as works, it's a problem that needs to be fixed, probably caused by editors who use insufficiently intelligent reference formatting software and then other editors who saw it done that way and incorrectly think it's the way it should be done. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:03, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

My rationale for that as a second preference is that they use it in their site, as in "By ABC7.com staff", for example, at this story. I generally don't like having "example.co.uk" as the work or website (param aliases), either, especially as that info is in the URL I can see when I hover my mouse (when I have a mouse) over the link. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 07:47, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Different outputs for editor field across two cite book templates

I can't figure out why, and I've tried playing around with different inputs to the cite book template, but on Operation Sandwedge#References you can see two citations listing editors rather than authors; one under "Knight" and one under "United States House Committee for the Judiciary". For the former, the editor credit is not listed in brackets, but the latter it is. I've tried matching the formatting for both, but even using a single "editor" field for "Knight, Peter" instead of first and last names, although this would seem to match exactly how the Committee cite is formatted, still results in two different outputs. Does anyone know what's causing this and how to standardise both uses? I have no preference for either but just would like to figure out how to have both display the same as each other. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 15:21, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

I haven't dug through the documentation yet, but adding |year= to the second one makes the display consistent. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:44, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Fantastic, thank you. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 15:48, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Because United States House Committee for the Judiciary doesn't have |date= and because Knight 2003 does. When the citation only has editor names and |date= (or |year=) has a value, we don't want stacked parentheses:

Knight, Peter (ed.). (2003). Conspiracy Theories ...

To make these two citations have more-or-less the same rendering, change this:

{{cite book |title=Impeachment: Selected Materials, November 1998, Part 1 |publisher=[[United States Government Printing Office]] |isbn=978-0-16057-703-1 |editor=United States House Committee on the Judiciary |ref={{sfnref|Impeachment|1998}}}}

to this:

{{cite book |title=Impeachment: Selected Materials, November 1998, Part 1 |date=1998 |publisher=[[United States Government Printing Office]] |isbn=978-0-16057-703-1 |editor=United States House Committee on the Judiciary}}

United States House Committee on the Judiciary, ed. (1998). Impeachment: Selected Materials, November 1998, Part 1. United States Government Printing Office. ISBN 978-0-16057-703-1.

I also removed |ref={{sfnref|Impeachment|1998}} because the long-form citation has a 'name' (United States House Committee for the Judiciary) that should have been used in the short-form citation so you should also change this:

{{sfn|Impeachment|1998|p=57}}

to this:

{{sfn|United States House Committee on the Judiciary|1998|p=57}}

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:49, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

New cite case?

• {{cite case}}
• {{User:MJL/sandbox3}}

Case citations work pretty much like {{cite book}}. I've linked an example of what I'm proposing above which was done in my sandbox. You can see the result right here. Obviously, things can be expanded later as far as features are concerned, but for now I would like to get thoughts on maybe adding this to the primary CS1-suite of templates. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 01:04, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Why not update {{cite court}}, which is used in 5,000 articles, instead of reinventing the wheel? See this 2015 discussion for a previous attempt at making that template behave more like CS1 templates. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:52, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: It has parameters that so radically diverge from CS1-templates. I'd rather we start with splitting off from {{cite book}} and adding features than go from the non-Lua-based {{cite court}}. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:09, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

If you think that there will be sufficient need for a new {{cite case}} template, create a wrapper template around {{cite book}}. Using Module:template wrapper make all {{cite book}} parameters available and allows you to preset |type=Court case and any other parameters that should hold default or calculated values.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:42, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

The existing template is closer to CS2. There is some divergence that is easily remedied. To apply CS1/CS2 style there is no need to use the respective modules. The style consists of field terminators, list separators, capitalization rules, a few punctuation rules (including abbreviations and use of parentheses) and the relative positioning of displayed output.It seems many of the style elements are already in compliance in {{cite court}}, and the editor documentation is more topical to court cases, and better than what the module-related doc offers. I agree with Jonesey's suggestion above, to work with the existing template. 172.254.222.178 (talk) 11:53, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I really don't agree with that. CS1/2 citations are supposed to use lua templates which allow for more flexibility in citations. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:31, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Not at all. It is actually the other way around. Templates, whether based on Lua or not, apply styles, in this case CS1/CS2. Templates do not make citations flexible. They do the opposite: they standardize them, and therefore limit them to certain classes of cases, because by definition they apply the underlying styles rigidly. There were citations, and citation styles, way before the first citation templates were designed. This is not rocket science. 98.0.246.242 (talk) 20:45, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

(Gonna guess you're the same IP user as before since both are Spectrum Business IPs in New York)

What I mean to say is that they can handle flexible use cases and output the right standard citations which comply with our style. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 21:15, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't think there is disagreement there. It is not correct to limit application of a style to any template, set of templates or any other similar formatting helpers. They do not matter as long as the reader is offered the same consistent citation presentation (style). In this case, it may be easier to edit the {{cite court}} source in order to conform to CS1 or CS2 for readers, rather than adding a meta-template. For editors, the proper parameter aliases can be added to the existing template to bring it more in line with the module whitelist. A few of the generic CS1/CS2 details can be added to the more specialized existing documentation after it is amended to accommodate the source code edits. As a bonus, if this is handled carefully, it will port the existing instances to the chosen style. 68.174.121.16 (talk) 23:37, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

The issue for me is that {{cite court}} has 4712 tranclusions which would all need to be updated unless things like |vol= get held over as an alias. This would make {{cite court}} the only CS1/CS2-style citation template that has that alias. That is not even getting into the fact |lang=, |via=, |url-status=, |archive-url=, |archive-date=, |pinpoint= are all inconsistent with all other citation templates. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 15:13, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

There is a bias to look at everything as an editor (or worse, a developer). The consumers of citations are readers. Presentation (style) is also targeted exclusively to readers. So first, see it the way a reader would. If you follow a citation style you apply style elements: punctuation, capitalization, delimiters, positioning, emphasis etc. etc. The citation data is a different animal and is not related to style, so do not mix the two like apparently everyone else here does. The data is basically two things: 1. the source 2. information on locating the source. The type of that information is not arbitrary. Sources are classified by aggregators (trade databases, library union databases, research databases, government databases etc.) in a certain fashion, out of which indices are built. The great majority of these indices traditionally index one and/or two bits from the following: title, author, identifier. Then, they sub-index from another limited number of bits: pub. date, publisher, location, editor etc. If you want to create efficient citations, for say, court cases, first you find out how such information is classified by the primary providers and their aggregators. Then you build the citation data around it. Which means, you label your parameters accordingly. If court cases are generally classified with labels such as "plaintiff" or "litigant" that is what you use, and that is what editors of such citations should expect. Eventually you arrive at the far less important (for readers+editors) stuff that developers do, which is to standardize. Here there are certain core arguments in the main module: "work" (the source) being the most important. Every source label (book/journal/website/sign/podcast/speech etc. etc.) can be aliased to this. In this case, reporter=work. You need to keep "vol"? make it an alias of the core argument for volumes. a "litigant" is "people" in the current setup. And so on. It is commendable that you want to work on this drudgery, but let's not forget what citations are here for. 65.88.88.71 (talk) 16:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

I think MJL may be misunderstanding how wrapper templates work. Take a look at {{Cite scar}}, for example, which is a CS1 wrapper template that takes its own parameters but displays them using {{cite encyclopedia}}. {{Cite court}} could keep |vol= and all of its current parameters, add support for parameters like |archive-url= very easily, and add CS1's error-checking and other features. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:36, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 and 65.88.88.71: I understand that as a concept for how template wrappers work. I just feel that there isn't a justifiable reason for |vol= to be supported as an alias when the underlying templates don't. |vol= isn't like |litigants= which is specific to this use case, but it is just a general way one could refer to volume.
If I may explain my intentions here a bit better, I originally saw a court case being cited using {{citation}}/{{cite web}} which is not currently well-equipped for this use case. I would like to have an immediate and obvious alternative to using those in something {{cite case}}. If someone wants to further work on {{cite court}} to make it more like CS1/2 in output and such, then I would support that. I, however, do not have such capabilities. What I can do is make a somewhat decent wrapper for {{cite book}} in User:MJL/sandbox3. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:01, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

The name "cite court" may be better, since what is cited is an in-source location in a specific court's published case reports (which is the "work" in this case). If it is named "cite case" it may be understood by editors to imply that the particular case is published, and can be therefore found, as a standalone item, which I don't believe is correct here. 65.88.88.46 (talk) 15:36, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I mean in a way the case is published as it could be understood? I mean we're definitely citing the case here at least. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:37, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Usurped titles

There are usurped URLs, we also have usurped titles. See here 38 domains have been usurped by a gambling site, then ReFill or Citation bot add a missing |title= pulled from the gambling site - d'oh. My bot can deal with the usurped URLs but what about the titles: delete the title, or replacing with a place holder? If it is deleted, it won't stop other tools from re-adding the usurped title again. We could notify tool makers, but there is no guarantee they will implement, or future tools will be created, there is also global wikis with the same problem. IMO a placeholder title (eg. |title=Usurped title) that enters a tracking category with a help message would lock up the title field from usurpation until someone can manually add a working title (if one can be found). -- GreenC 19:18, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

As you may remember there have been several discussions over usurped URLs. In the case of online-only citations such as in {{cite web}}, the usurped URL disqualifies the citation, which should be removed as unverifiable. Whether the title has been also usurped or not, it makes no difference. Isn't this a simpler solution? 98.0.246.242 (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I should add, unless there are archived urls with the correct info, assuming the content is static. If the archive becomes the live version, and the title was usurped but then corrected, maybe the status of archive-url (as live-url) could act as a flag to lock the title. 98.0.246.242 (talk) 21:05, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Most cite webs have archives available, and those that don't will be up to someone else to delete, my bot does not delete citations. My bot adds archive URLs and toggles |url-status=usurped - but it does not determine a working title. It can't just leave a spam usurped title, it needs to do something. The question is: What? -- GreenC 21:41, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm confused. I thought I understood your first post as saying that your bot could not deal with |title= (My bot can deal with the usurped URLs but what about the titles). But here you are saying that your bot can't just leave a spam usurped title, it needs to do something. But if your bot does not determine a working title how can it know that the title in |title= is a spam usurped title? Too many 'buts'.

I'm all in favor of identifying bogus titles, emitting an error message, and putting the article in an error category. We should have done that with |title=Archived copy; only a handful of gnomes who have enabled maintenance messaging see the maintenance messages associated with Category:CS1 maint: archived copy as title‎ (52,723).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:06, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

A distinction should be made between generic titles such as "Archived copy" and titles edited to reflect a usurped URL. In the latter case, the {{cite web}} citation itself is bogus and should be deleted, unless an archive exists that verifies the wikitext just like the now non-existent (for verification purposes) original. Non-visible editor flags+cats to mark usurped citations as "delete" or "replace" may be more useful, and may cause fewer complaints. 68.174.121.16 (talk) 23:59, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Wonderful. In this particular case my bot can identity the bogus titles through keywords known ahead of time (see the "See here" link above) so it can replace with |title=Usurped title. The keywords in the title is actually how the 38+ domains where first identified as being usurped. -- GreenC 01:49, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Explicitly showing a citation with usurped URL and title as unreliable (per the proposed solutions above) is counterproductive and unnecessary. Keeping it in any form shows that the project is unreliable. The objective should be to remedy the situation. If there is an archive, the bot should make the archive the live link. If there is no archive, the bot should flag the citation for deletion/replacement and at a minimum, it should be immediately hidden/nonprinted. One would think this area of Wikipedia should be concerned with lessening its unreliability, not merely trumpeting it. The proposals fall short of the mark. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 12:51, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

I have added Usurped title (case insensitive) to the list of generic/bogus titles in the sandbox:

{{cite book/new |title=usurped title}}

usurped title. {{cite book}}: Cite uses generic title (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:21, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

And? This is not a case of a badly formatted date or wrong format something-or-other. A usurped title/usurped url combination disqualifies a {{cite web}} citation. It cannot be "helped". 71.247.146.98 (talk) 13:42, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

You clearly have 0 experience repairing cite web templates, or any other such templates as discussed above, and should honestly stop talking about their legitimacy. Nothing you have said on the point is true or valid. Izno (talk) 14:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

And why would you know what kind of experience someone has? It has nothing to do with your opinion. Also this is not about "repairing" a template, but about adding a misguided "error" message. There is no error. A citation with the usurped combination described above cites nothing and should be removed. There is no fixing it. Unless, as pointed out several times above, there is an archive, in which case a different action was proposed. Your comment above seems to fit you better, no? 74.66.14.68 (talk) 16:06, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm done responding to you. Izno (talk) 16:11, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Clearly you have ignored what Editor GreenC wrote: My bot adds archive URLs and toggles |url-status=usurped - but it does not determine a working title. Setting |url-status=usurped masks the original (usurped) |url= in the citation's rendering when |archive-url= has a value:

{{cite web |title=Title |url=//usurped-examples.com |archive-url=//archive.org |archive-date=2021-10-21 |url-status=usurped}}

"Title". Archived from the original on 2021-10-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)

In the rendered citation, readers do not have access to the usurped url but do have access to the archive url. cs1|2 maintains a very short list of generic/bogus titles. If Editor GreenC's bot cannot supply a |title= value but can recognize a usurped title and replace that title with a value that will cause cs1|2 to emit an error message and category, a human or a 'title-finding' bot can make a repair.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:21, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

I very much understand what GreenC wrote. And am in agreement with his bot action. The whole point is that this is not an "error" to be signaled the same way a wrong date etc. is. Leaving in place the proposed wording devalues the citation and therefore the article. Why should a citation with "Usurped title" be announced or shown? It will be seen by some editors but perhaps thousands and thousands of readers. Another approach is needed. 74.66.14.68 (talk) 16:16, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. We apparently have a developing problem involving 100s (1000s?) of domains that expired and were re-registered by a bad actor who then sold/leased them to a gambling site (and probably others) to create instant SEO and spam on Wikipedia without making a single edit. Fiendishly clever, and a hard problem to track and deal with since domains expire all the time across 900+ wiki sites. Do you think CS1|2 could have a role, such as detecting the domains from a list and automatically treating as usurped and tracked until someone can hard set |url-status=usurped? I can hard set on enwiki fairly soon, on other wikis it could be a long time if ever. -- GreenC 16:34, 21 October 2021 (UTC):

You are suggesting something like a blacklist of known bad |url= values? Isn't that what edit filters are supposed to be? Of course, if these urls get added to an edit filter, all of a sudden editors won't be able to publish other needed article changes until they do something about the blacklisted url. I don't have a lot of experience with edit filters, but I recall being stymied when I couldn't discover from the message just which one of dozens or more urls was the one that prevented publishing the article. Does anyone know if that has improved and the can't-publish-this-page-because-it-has-a-banned-url error message contains a clue about which url(s) triggered the edit filter? If there has been that improvement, then cs1|2 should, I think, stay out of it and let the edit filters do their jobs.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:03, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

It has not improved. That said, if there is a bot taking care of it globally (for citations and otherwise), I don't see a reason to add to CS1. Let the bot do its work and then add the URL to the blacklist after that. Izno (talk) 20:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

No global bot exists for this. Trappist the monk when a domain becomes usurped there are two things to be done: 1. stop any new URLs from being added ie. edit filter. 2) convert existing URLs to |url-status=usurped. The problem with 2 globally is no bot exists for the indefinite future. It's actually quite difficult to usurper a domain: add archive URLs, flip the url-status, undo {{webarchive}} and convert to straight archive, remove entirely citations that have no archive, convert bare/square links to archive. To do it globally is a major undertaking due to the language and template differences. It would help, though be incomplete, if CS1|2 could detect from a list of domains and display as-if |url-status=usurped. -- GreenC 05:15, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure that cs1|2 should be in the business of doing the work that edit filters are supposed to be doing. It is technically possible for cs1|2 to maintain a url blacklist and it can internally set |url-status=usurped when such a url is detected. Setting |url-status=usurped does nothing when |archive-url= is empty or missing so special code would need to be written to suppress the url when the internal |url-status=usurped is set. I fear that once added to a blacklist, urls will never be deleted so the list will grow until sometime down the road the system collapses because the size of the blacklist will push some articles over the lua memory-use or execution-time limits.

If this is a 'global' problem, then a 'global' solution should be applied. Perhaps a suggestion for a global edit filter should be put forward at phabricator.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:17, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

OK understand the concern about scalability, it's network speed to pull a list from somewhere central is not good with a long list and everything else the template does. Edit filters create new problems: users can't make changes such as setting |url-status=usurped or adding an archive URL - the edit filter blocks the corrective. They are left to delete the cite or URL. Since every domain dies eventually , and some percentage of those will be hijacked, long-term it is a problem so trying to explore other solutions. Bots are the best answer, also the hardest. -- GreenC 05:16, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Pseudocode proposal (usurped routine):

Is url-status=usurped?
Y
Is archive-url=[non-empty]?
Y
url=archive-url
via=archive service name
Is title usurped?
Y
title=[original title from archive]
exit (usurped routine)
N (archive-url=empty)
Is cite web?
N
Is title usurped?
N
hide span url url-access access-date format via
exit (usurped routine)
Y (cite web)
flag delete/replace
hide cite span
exit

104.247.55.106 (talk) 01:55, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Edited for non-{{cite web}} cases. 66.108.237.246 (talk) 13:17, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Edited for non-{{cite web}} cases w. usurped titles. 65.88.88.46 (talk) 15:42, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

SEEKING PEDANTS -- writing a script to automatically generate citations and want to get it right

I've made a piece of software called PressPass (a longer explanation of its features and functions is here, along with the code). Essentially, what it does is automatically generate filled-out {{cite news}} invocations from Newspapers.com clippings and search pages. Currently, I am revising some parts of the generation functions, and making a configuration menu (for stuff like, e.g., whether to include access-date). However, I would like to ensure that the templates it generates are properly formatted.

Here is what it looks like, for this clipping:

<ref name="Charle18031112">{{Cite newspaper|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/87466966/public-auction/|date=1803-11-12|page=4|title=Public Auction|newspaper=The Charleston Daily Courier|location=Charleston, South Carolina}}</ref><!-- Sat -->

So far, in the configuration menu, I'm writing features to allow multi-line cite templates, as well as different options for the date output (1969-12-31, 31-12-1969, 1969 Dec 31, 1969 December 31, December 31, 1969"), and the ability to specify whether access-date, via, or location are included.

This is, more or less, all the information exposed to my script from the clipping page. The headline has to be typed in manually by the user since Newspapers.com doesn't have this all scraped. That said, I understand that there's a lot of "best practices" with regard to the ordering of parameters, et cetera (and I can have the date output as whatever). Since I expect this to be used a lot (and have been using it a lot myself, for example in improving Bradford Island to FA), is there anything I should be doing? Is there anything I'm missing? jp×g 20:43, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Regarding date formats, note as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Dates, months, and years, dd-mm-yyyy and yyyy month dd shouldn't be used. isaacl (talk) 20:53, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sounds interesting. This citation template looks valid to me. From a technical standpoint, the order of the parameters does not matter. Some editors get worked up over WP:CITEVAR differences within an article; you'll probably hear from at least one of them as the tool is adopted and used more widely. With respect to manual title entry, {{cite newspaper}} requires |title=, so please ensure that your tool requires it. If you are adding |access-date=, remember that it requires |url=. Some of those date formats are invalid on Wikipedia and in CS1 templates. See MOS:DATE for valid formats. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:58, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, it doesn't work without a title (if you don't enter a title for the clipping, or if you generate them from the search page, it defaults to "Page 5" or "Page B4" or whatever). The date formats were something I was concerned about compatibility for. Previously, it only ever formatted them as yyyy-mm-dd (which has worked fine and never thrown an error or anything). To be honest, I'd be fine with the chauvinism of "yyyy-mm-dd is correct, use it or pound sand", but I figured I'd add some other formats since I am not the king of the world (yet 😈). jp×g 21:42, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

In your documentation for the tool, you can explain that it outputs dates in YYYY-MM-DD format, and that editors can add {{use dmy dates}} or {{use mdy dates}}, as appropriate, to the top of an article to have all CS1 templates display dates in that format. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:35, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Adding, since I did not notice it until others commented on it below: Whatever the commented "Sat" is in your example, it is not good (yet?). First, it's outside the ref tags, when it should probably be inside. Second, if it represents the day of the week, it should not be abbreviated, and we don't need it. If someone wants to know what day of the week a date happened on, they can look it up. None of our citation formats display the day of the week, since it is extraneous. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:50, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Those aren't part of the citation, so they're not in the ref tags -- and I will probably disable them by default. The reason I put them there was to serve as a helpful note, because I was going insane trying to write articles from newspaper refs and put dates to what happened (since every newspaper article will say "Next Monday" or "Last Thursday" or whatever instead of just the date). jp×g 07:36, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Umm, Bradford Island has never been FA so far as I can tell...

Thoughts:

• Spell out 'Charleston' in the <ref> tag name= attribute and hyphenate the date; consider including the page number and provision for a disambiguator for the cases where multiple articles sharing the same page are cited (<ref name="Charleston 1803-11-12 p4a">).
• I think that the default state for any citation linking to a newspaper at Newspapers.com should be |via=Newspapers.com because that is the recommended form at WP:Newspapers.com and because the clipping is not delivered by the publisher.
• |location= should not be displayed except when it is needed to disamblguate the newspaper named in |newspaper=.
• Because the newspaper is dated, |access-date= is generally not required (the newspaper is not an ephemeral source).
• Pagination, I think, requires special attention. I have a niggling memory of pagination listed in the scraped information provided for a clipping where the page number did not match the section page number printed on the original page – the pagination provided was more like a sequence number where 1 was the first page of the first section. It could be that I'm confusing newspapers.com with newspaper facsimiles at google or Trove.
• support |pages=[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/56035464/the-los-angeles-times/ 1], [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/56035546/the-los-angeles-times/ 10] for as many pages as are necessary; allow for page ranges
• I don't think that the day-of-week annotation is necessary but if it is, don't abbreviate it.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:31, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I mean, I'm in the process (the nomination will come after the peer review, and I still have some things to take care of). At any rate, the expanded ref name is a really good idea (I am in the habit of using shorter ref names to keep the source of an article from getting unwieldly, but this is by no means a universal preference. The access-date thing is smart... the pagination thing sounds like an interminable issue. I think the most I could do is add an option to omit page names from the generated cites, and allow the user to fill them in (since actual printed page numbers aren't reliably OCRed, and this information isn't actually available from anywhere besides user input). I can definitely add a warning about it in the documentation or interface, though. The thing about supporting multiple pages, I'll have to look into, as it sounds neat (I had no idea you could even do that in a citation!) The location thing is kind of hard to wrap my head around a solution for -- I could try a basic comparison for whether the city name was contained in the paper name (i.e. "The Detroit News" contains "Detroit"), but this will be imperfect; "The New York Times" doesn't contain "New York City", for example, and the state of New York isn't mentioned anywhere on the clip page -- so maybe I would need to build a huge database of every city and what state/province they were in -- and then I'd need to deal with all the Athens, Ohios and Paris, Texases and Detroit, Alabamas... zoinks! I'll see what I can do, though, and I appreciate the thoughts. jp×g 08:06, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

One of the first things that will happen with your particular example above is that Citation Bot will come along and change your {{Cite newspaper}} to {{Cite news}} or maybe {{Cite web}}. Some discussions here and here. I also don't see the need to note the day of the week, nor do I understand why it's an HTML comment. And regarding date formats: extremely cool, albeit not to be expected, would be if PressPass tried to automatically use the format specified in the page's {{Use xxx dates}} template, if present. Otherwise, what Jonesey said (22:35). — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 00:21, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

That's a good catch -- my thinking was that, even if {{cite newspaper}} was aliased to {{cite news}}, there might be some use to it (i.e. making it easy to find citations to newspapers as opposed to news sites, blogs, etc). But if there's a bot coming through afterwards to fix them, it's just an unnecessary pain in the ass... regarding using the same date format as the article, this isn't really possible the way the software's set up. It runs in your browser when you're on Newspapers.com, and doesn't actually interface with the articles at all (so it has no way to know what you're using them for). I have, however, finished writing most of the code that allows you to save settings for different formats -- this should at least make it possible to conform to article conventions if someone wants to. Of course, it's a good idea, and it would own if it were possible. jp×g 07:50, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

I would like to ask the OP if s/he finds the documentation of {{cite news}}, and this page's parent unclear, and what if anything, s/he believes could be done with the doc to better facilitate similar template development. Not that there is anything wrong with coming here and asking for guidance, it is a good idea. I'm just curious over whether the template configuration questions were partly or wholly prompted by what s/he perceives as doc issues here. 64.18.9.196 (talk) 04:02, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

The documentation here (as for most templates) is refreshingly complete, especially compared to what you'd expect from a volunteer project consisting mostly of non-technical writers. I've got no complaint with that -- I'm just here to make sure that there's nothing I missed with regards to house style, or general convention, or whatever you want to call it. Since this software is going to be used by a lot of people to generate a lot of citations, I think it's worth putting a lot of thought into avoiding issues or creating work later on (because, boy howdy, will it). For example, if 100 people use this, and each of them writes 25 articles containing 40 citations, and something is stupid about them, we now have 100,000 problems to deal with. Most of the stuff brought up here (adding an option for longer reference names, for example) isn't really part of what documentation covers per se... but I'm glad someone thought of it. jp×g 07:36, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

—Trappist the monk (talk) says: "|location= should not be displayed except when it is needed to disamblguate the newspaper named in |newspaper=".

I would much rather put it the other way round: "|location= is ESSENTIAL unless the name of the city of publication is part of the name of the newspaper". -- Alarics (talk) 09:33, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

We do not permit the use of the YYYY-MM-DD format for dates in the Julian calendar. The newspaper.com site provides coverage for some newspapers that were published before 1752, the year in which the British colonies in North America changed from the Gregorian calendar to the Julian calendar. An example of a newspaper available from newspapers.com for this situation is The Pennsylvania Gazette for the year range 1728 to 1752. The metadata emitted by Citation Style 1 is false for Julian calendar dates. In this situation, I suggest you emit a plain text citation with no template. For example,

• Ticket details. The Pennsylvania Gazette. Philadelphia, PA. May 16, 1751. p. 3.

[This example illustrates another failing of Citation Style 1. It lacks the ability to use a description as a title, for cases when the author or publisher have not given a story a title.]

Jc3s5h (talk) 14:51, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

This is not a "failing of Citation Style 1". If a work has no title, and a title is required, a placeholder that is immediately understood as such, can be inserted. But we cannot make up descriptions, and I know of no citation or filing system that allows you to discover a citation's source by arbitrary description. Such sources may be classified with a generally accepted semi-official description in a special field (very rarely in the title field) in which case the relevant metadata would be accessible. But then you would have to know what the description is.64.18.9.201 (talk) 18:17, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

@Jc3s5sh: This is an interesting point, and one I wouldn't have thought of in a million years. How about that! I guess I will account for that (and probably add a warning for users who would otherwise be confused at why it's not working right). One minor question I have is, did you type it backwards in the second sentence? In 1752 the colonies switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. jp×g 09:58, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

As an aside (Bradford Island), several {{cite web}} citations on that page may be more properly entered as {{cite report}} or {{cite news}}. In the latter case, this is recommended even if the news source is online-only. 68.174.121.16 (talk) 13:05, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, saving your clipping into Zotero, then dragging it here from there, using Zotero's Wikipedia exporter function, produces:

{{Cite news| pages = 4| title = Public Auction| work = The Charleston Daily Courier| location = Charleston, South Carolina| accessdate = 2021-10-25| date = 1803-11-12| url = https://www.newspapers.com/clip/87466966/public-auction/}}

While any volunteer is, of course free within reason to work on anything they like, perhaps effort would be better deploying in tweaking that exporter, rather than (if I may) reinventing the wheel? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:53, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, if you are already using Newspapers.com with the script installed, you do not do all that stuff; you just create a clipping and it automatically generates a citation. I've been using this script to source articles, and I can come up with somewhere around ten references in five minutes (accounting, of course, for the manual process of determining which articles are relevant and then creating the clippings). I can't imagine there being an external software that does so more quickly (although I've got no objection to someone using Zotero as an alternative). jp×g 02:25, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

New version released

I've made a lot of improvements to the script, and a new version is here; thanks to everyone who helped me out in this discussion! The documentation page covers all of its behavior: let me know if there is anything I missed. jp×g 21:46, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

There are 2 fields to consider: |author= & |agency=. These are not so much discovery parameters, although they may help in finding the correct source faster, but they have a reliability component. An otherwise unreliable source (such as a newspaper that is an official or semi-official organ of a political party, or is state-controlled) may carry a press report from a press agency with proven prior reliability. Or may take through syndication, the column of an author with a history of past objectivity. Such treatment may provide the citation with elevated reliability. In any case, |author= should probably be included even when there is no byline. This is recommended: |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no byline.-->. 172.254.222.178 (talk) 23:17, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Zotero plugin?

Is anyone aware of a Zotero plugin for Firefox?

I'm aware that Zotero allows for exporting of references into CS1, but it does so by producing a text file with the code. I was hoping there might be some plugin that let me insert it in browser, much like you can insert Zotero references in MS Word.

Cheers.Kylesenior (talk) 05:25, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing may know. Izno (talk) 16:31, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not clear what you mean, but see Wikipedia:Zotero. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:44, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Module:TwitterSnowflake problem

A recent edit at Dave Grohl has produced "Lua error in Module:TwitterSnowflake at line 16: attempt to perform arithmetic on local 'c' (a string value)." That is seen by previewing the following.

{{cite tweet
|author=Foo Fighters
|title=Example
|user=foofighters
|number=1026546600946982912/video/1
|access-date=August 10, 2018
}}

The problem is due to "/video/1" in the number parameter and is easily fixed, but perhaps the module could show that number is invalid. Johnuniq (talk) 02:43, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Not a cs1|2 module. Editor Elli is the author of Module:TwitterSnowflake so perhaps Editor Elli is the correct person to fix this bug.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 02:58, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Been meaning to get to that. Thanks for the reminder. Elli (talk | contribs) 03:06, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

 Done I will note that while I was the original creator and maintainer of Module:TwitterSnowflake, the error was actually caused due to code in Module:Cite tweet which I did not write. Regardless, I have fixed it. Elli (talk | contribs) 03:30, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

False positive match on generic title=Wayback Machine

In Wayback_Machine#cite_ref-DigitalJournal_31-0 .. a generic title error on the phrase 'Wayback machine' is actually a legit part of the title. -- GreenC 00:58, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Accept-this-as-written markup (plus: original url is dead; the article has an author and a publication date; name of the source, not its address, goes in |website=)

{{cite web |first=Alexander |last=Baron |title=((The new Internet Archive Wayback Machine now online)) |url=http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/360776 |website=Digital Journal |date=October 23, 2013 |access-date=November 19, 2020 |archive-date=November 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201119071411/http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/360776}}

Baron, Alexander (October 23, 2013). "The new Internet Archive Wayback Machine now online". Digital Journal. Archived from the original on November 19, 2020. Retrieved November 19, 2020.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:12, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Updated. -- GreenC 01:31, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

ISSN in portal.issn.org not in WorldCat

When I use the issn= parameter a link to worldcat is automatically generated. Some ISSN values are valid and in portal.issn.org but not WorldCat. Example: https://portal.issn.org/resource/ISSN/2531-4661 vs. https://www.worldcat.org/issn/2531-4661 . Is there any way to control the automatically-generated link or just disable it? Thanks Jamplevia (talk) 21:52, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Except that worldcat can identify libraries that hold at least some issues of a periodical identified by an ISSN, as I understand it from what others have written here, |issn= is a low value parameter. There are other opinions expressed at WP:ISSN. Apparently, portal.issn.org does not aid a reader of an en.wiki article in locating a copy of the periodical so, from that perspective, is of little use to our readers.

You can always write something like this after the cs1|2 template's closing }}:

[https://portal.issn.org/resource/ISSN/2531-4661 ISSN 2531-4661 at issn.org] → ISSN 2531-4661 at issn.org

If there are a lot, a lot, of ISSNs like the one in your example, then perhaps we can consider finding some mechanism to link to portal.issn.org.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:40, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Or use |id=. Izno (talk) 23:23, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you both. I was able to combine the advice to use |id=[https://portal.issn.org/resource/ISSN/2531-4661 ISSN 2531-4661 at issn.org] Jamplevia (talk) 15:39, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

A search for the issn at Ulrichsweb found nothing, which is a bit unusual (they currently index 380000+ serials in 200 languages). The journal may be either brand new or in very restricted circulation? 68.173.76.118 (talk) 01:23, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

It seems this would fall under "limited circulation". It is a local Italian newspaper published in the city of Taranto. It may or may not appear at Worldcat, most likely depending on whether participating Italian libraries carry/classify the item. 104.247.55.106 (talk) 14:25, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

extraneous punctuation

I tweaked this citation today and introduced an extraneous = character in |newspaper==Duluth News Tribune. But, I did not see it so the article got published with my error. I expect that I'm not the only one to have done that. So, I've tweaked the extraneous punctuation test:

Cite news comparison

Wikitext	{{cite news|archive-date=2013-01-21|archive-url=http://archive.today/20130121173250/http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/obituary/id/163733/|department=Obituaries|location=Duluth, MN|newspaper==Duluth News Tribune|title=Lynn Diane (Swapinski) Jurek|url=http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/obituary/id/163733/}}
Live	"Lynn Diane (Swapinski) Jurek". Obituaries. =Duluth News Tribune. Duluth, MN. Archived from the original on 2013-01-21.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
Sandbox	"Lynn Diane (Swapinski) Jurek". Obituaries. =Duluth News Tribune. Duluth, MN. Archived from the original on 2013-01-21.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)

Extraneous punctuation is not considered an error so the article ends up in Category:CS1 maint: extra punctuation and cs1|2 displays the green maintenance message for those few who have enabled maintenance messaging.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:58, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

RFC 9134

I've just formatted a reference to RFC 9134 and have been advised to report the "check |rfc= value" error here. Range checking apparently needs to be updated. ~Kvng (talk) 17:33, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any error message when I edit or preview that section. [eta: It looks like a gnome took care of it.] – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:47, 3 November 2021 (UTC)