Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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Does Wikipedia:Article feedback actually serve any useful purpose?

A simple enough question: does Wikipedia:Article feedback actually serve any useful purpose? I rarely bother to look at article feedback, since it seems to consist largely of pointless comments such as this gem for our Human article: "117.207.14.93 did not find what they were looking for. IMPROVE this page". Do other contributors actually (a) read article feedback, and (b) act on it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I personally have read hundreds of comments and acted on dozens. Without article feedback, I would not have realized how many people reading about less-common medical conditions are primarily interested in the prognosis. (I had always assumed that symptoms would be more interesting to our readers.) Without article feedback, I would not have realized that some of the articles on my watchlist, like High school diploma, contained zero images despite images being readily available. Images aren't very important to me, and there are more than 2,000 pages on my watchlist, so I haven't really read most of them for years, if ever.

If you personally don't care about these reader comments, then ignore them, but leave them for those of us who do care. Generally, AFT is only enabled on a page these days because an editor specifically chose to enable it, so if it is currently active, someone at that article wants it there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Sure, it serves some useful purpose, as WhatamIdoing explains. Other other side of the coin is if it serves any disadvantages. I think it does. It splits the communication process into multiple channels causing extra complexity. This encourages a division between readers and editors, and probably negativity impacts the uptake of new editors because of that. So the real question is if the benefits outweigh the costs. Jason Quinn (talk) 22:48, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Seems to me, the majority of readers aren't in the slightest interested in editing or learning about how Wikipedia works. The split between the consumerist majority and us producers has always been there. What some consumers are willing to do, is rate and especially to complain. They should get every opportunity. Of course, the complaints of the semiliterate, semithoughtful majority must be handled cautiously. They have no idea of the big picture, and we must guess and calculate how and whether their concerns should be met. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:41, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Whom should I ask about getting the feedback tool put on Cancer pain? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:05, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

See the simple instructions at Wikipedia:Article Feedback/Help/Editors#How can I add this tool on articles I watch?. It might take a minute to have an effect. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I tried that but User:Nemo bis removed it with an edit summary I didn't understand, and now that category is a red link. Is there some other way of inviting reader feedback? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:36, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

It seems that after someone "enables feedback" (in the toolbox on the left side), somebody else disables feedback, anonymously - since WMF developers forgot to log somewhere when and who enables/disables feedback... This is almost funny. ;-) At Wikipedia_talk:Article_Feedback_Tool/Version_5#Re-enabled_on_all_pages User:Blethering Scot writes "When i enable feedback AFT5 appears at the bottom then 24 hours later i have went in to these articles and it is no longer enabled." At Wikipedia_talk:Article_Feedback_Tool/Version_5#The_category_system_was_not_great.2C_but_the_status_quo_is_far_worse User:Altamel writes "why doesn't the Article Feedback Activity Log track who enables and disables feedback on pages? I re-enabled feedback on Laurie Island after somebody disabled it, but I wish I could discuss with that user why they disabled feedback." Currently this special AFT page Articles with feedback on English Wikipedia says that: These 125 articles have feedback enabled on English Wikipedia. ... This list is refreshed daily. But those articles that i checked all had feedback disabled. --Atlasowa (talk) 20:41, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

As ive stated several times i strongly suspect there is a bug rather than users simply entering a disable war. Ive had to reenable on a page every day since the cat was removed and given its page view stats seems highly likely its not being removed by a user.Blethering Scot 21:48, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

• Hi folks, thanks for reporting these issues -- and sorry for not responding sooner. We are disappointed to hear that anonymous editors disabled feedback on over 2,000 articles without consulting their fellow editors about this. Our deepest apologies to those of you who were inconvenienced as a result, especially Anthonyhcole, Altamel, Atlasowa and Blethering Scot, to name but a few. Fortunately, we kept track of which articles had feedback enabled as of last month on this spreadsheet, and we will re-enable feedback on these articles shortly. We are also working on a patch that will prevent anonymous editors from enabling or disabling feedback on a page (to complement Gerrit patches 64621 and 64620). If all goes well, these patches should be deployed next week, so that only logged-in editors can enable or disable feedback -- and all these actions should appear in the logs, for transparency and accountability reasons.

The Article Feedback experiment is still going strong on the French Wikipedia, where feedback from over 40,000 articles is now being evaluated by their editor community. They are finding the tool useful and keeping up very well with their moderation workload, without the issues reported by the English community before we deployed our new tools. Our current plan is to continue to monitor this experimental feature on a few pilot sites through the end of the year, then determine our next steps with the community, based on these pilot results. In January 2014, we plan to report back to you with these findings and recommendations, and discuss their relevance for the English community.

After the March RfC on Article Feedback, the closing administrator resolved to keep this tool on an 'opt-in' basis on the English Wikipedia, so that editors who want reader feedback for their articles could use it for that purpose. To support their needs, we created this special 'opt-in/opt-out' tool that makes it easier to enable or disable feedback (without requiring prior knowledge of the AFT5 category name). As a result, you can now simply click on 'Enable feedback' in the article toolbox to enable feedback on pages you are working on, as described here -- and the old AFT5 category is no longer needed. Once the new patches are deployed, anonymous users will no longer be able to disrupt this experiment -- and enabled articles will be added to this list, which is refreshed daily.

We will post an update on the Article Feedback Talk page once the new patches have been deployed. We regret this temporary inconvenience, and will do everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen again. For an update on the current status of this project, check these updated slides. Thanks again for your interest in Article Feedback! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 01:09, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that great response, Fabrice. I know you've got a lot on but, if you remember, could you or a helper possibly ping me once the above is fixed? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

You're very welcome, Anthonyhcole. I will be sure to ping you when these issues are solved. Thanks for your patience and understanding! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:29, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

To answer the original question, I have personally made many improvements to articles based on specific feedback from readers. Dcoetzee 01:11, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your experience, Dcoetzee. I am glad that the tool has been helpful for you, and appreciate that you took the time to point that out. I have heard similar reports from quite a few editors, who don't always have time to participate in discussions like these, but find the tool useful as well. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:29, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Also addressing the original question: this tool needs to be used with discretion. It would be pointless on Justin Bieber or Pokemon, anything of value would be lost in the background noise. But as the main author and watcher of Cancer pain, I want all the criticism and advice I can get, and this little tool may facilitate that. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. The Article Feedback is particularly effective on pages like yours, which typically get a lot more useful feedback than high-traffic, controversial pages like Justin Bieber, as you point out. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:29, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

• I find article feedback to be really useful. Especially on newer articles that benefits from feedback from more than one user. I think article feedback should always be available on all articles.--BabbaQ (talk) 23:04, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I have the feeling that the responses here, while correct in itself as opinions, come from those people who were among the minority of users that supported it during Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Article feedback, while the then rather larger group of people with other opinions no longer can be bothered about it and just ignore it. I have to admit, this thread made me look at the feedback for the first time in many months, so for me personally, the tool is totally useless, as it only serves to have comments in different places, instead of one location per article. Furthermore, looking at the general fedback page, I saw that there are 213 comments where oversight has been requested; these should either be swiftly oversighted, or changed to some other status (oversight denied, whatever), but not simply ignored (as they seem to be now). Many of them don't need to be oversighted IMO, but others (like one about an alleged love child of Vin Diesal (sic)) shouldn't be kept for 7 months. Fram (talk) 10:08, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

And maybe WMF can keep their help pages up to date? [[1]] States that you simply have to add Category:Article Feedback 5 to your page, but that category is deprecated and deleted...

As for the feedback: three hours ago, this was posted and sits at the moment unreviewed (not hidden, no oversight requested): "Hello I need your assistance ASAP before a child gets hurt. My son met a 18 yr old by the name of XXX from Cambridge Ohio. My son lives in El Paso Texas. I want to know if this person XXX is a Pedifier. I called Cambridge Police de" (I have replaced the full name with XXX here of course). This on a very high traffic page (80,000 page views a day!), not some obscure page with no viewers. Seeing that "oversight requested" is still at the same 213 pages I reported above, this seems rather useless. Just disable the thing, like most people wanted at the RfC anyway. Fram (talk) 07:56, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

It's gone now, at least 8 hours later. I don't believe it would have stayed that long on the normal talk page of Facebook, but that's guesswork of course. Fram (talk) 13:33, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

HTML tables cleanup! Help needed!

At about 4,500 pages use HTML tables. Check Wikipedia:CHECKWIKI/031 dump. This causes problems in rendering and to the Visual Editor. Help is needed to start cleaning/converting these tables. In most cases are just lists of players and it should be straightforward. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:44, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Since when are HTML-style tables deprecated? Shouldn't VE be fixed instead? Anomie⚔ 10:09, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I thought I would look at an article. Wow! A set of steak knives goes to the first editor who can replace the html table in the infobox at the top of Zhuang people! Not that I've ever tried to nest a table inside an infobox—maybe it isn't so hard? Johnuniq (talk) 10:33, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Anomie Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#Deleting_a_row_from_table_has_disastrous_results. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:59, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

And yes, I think in many cases we can use wikicode instead. Meanwhile, we can work on closing tr and small tags. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:01, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Converting HTML table markup to wikimarkup is quite easy using AutoEd. But wikimarkup tables break inside infoboxes. --  Gadget850 ^talk 11:10, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Gadget850 then I guess we can do as much as possible but not all. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:15, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

{{multiple image}} works inside infoboxes; see Scouting in California. --  Gadget850 ^talk 11:32, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

To be clear, this bug only occurs in very one specific instance, i.e. a HTML table with a closing </tr> tag but no corresponding opening <tr> tag. It was reported as Template:Bug where the developers quickly responded and there is a patch that should fix this awaiting a review so it should be fixed soon. There is therefore no need to deprecate html tables anywhere (although anyone can of course convert tables if they want to). Just if you happen upon one while source editing you might want to check it has properly formatted row syntax. I'd be surprised if as many as 1% of html tables have this issue though. Thryduulf (talk) 02:07, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Still working with wikitables is better in order to add/remove rows, spot unclosed tags etc. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:52, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Am I harming Wikipedia?

I've been a Wikipedia editor since 2004, and a member of WikiProject Citation cleanup almost as long. I've made over 170,000 edits to Wikipedia, and a lot of them looked like this one. That is adding bibliographic information that was missing (e.g., journal volume, issue, etc.) and implementing citation templates for a consistent citation style within one article. I know the use of those templates is neither encouraged nor prohibited. I simply use them out of convenience, to let the templates take care of the exact layout.

Recently, it has been pointed out to me that those sorts of edits "are strongly discouraged". Some "site-wide consensus", which I am unaware of, has been cited according to which "changing from non-template references to template references" is prohibited in general, even if no contributor to a particular article objects them. Is this the case?

I have been aware of WP:CITEVAR, which discourages disputes over citation styles and offers a rule-of-thumb resolution ("keep the original style") in cases in which a group of editors of some article cannot find consensus otherwise. But I never took it for a general ban on changing citation styles in cases of no dispute.

So have I, for the past years, violated Wikipedia rules by doing this? If so, I'll stop doing it immediately, and leave. --bender235 (talk) 16:19, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

The discussion/arguments about citation templates are several years old now, so as an experienced editor you should be well aware of them. For example, here is a thread from WT:CITE in 2008: [2], but there were many more discussions than that. For example, there is an explicit arbcom finding about optional styles at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Date_delinking#Optional_styles.

In the end, a compromise was reached about citation templates:

• For articles that use templates, they should not be removed by editors who happen to dislike templates
• For articles that don't use templates, they shouldn't be added by editors who happen to like templates

In other words, citation templates are just another optional style that should not be changed without substantial reason.

So, if you are still asking whether it is appropriate to pick random articles and unilaterally convert them to use citation templates because you personally think templates are better, the answer is that it is indeed inappropriate. It would be equally inappropriate to pick random articles that use templates and then remove them. Neither of these edits is an actual improvement to the encyclopedia, and these edits only get in the way of content creators. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:32, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

On the other hand, if there is a mix of styles present, then anyone willing to do the work is free to make them all match. Furthermore, the problem is the "unilaterally", not the "convert". If Bender wants to clean up refs (a tedious and often thankless task), and the article doesn't follow the style he'd like to use, then all he needs to do is to post a note on the talk page that says "Hey, I'll fix this, unless you object to the use of citation templates". If there are no objections within a short period of time, then he has met CITEVAR's requirement for an apparent consensus to change the style.

Given how very rare it is for people to actually object to citation templates that happen to appear alongside of substantive improvements (Dear Bender: Please turn your attention to WP:MED's articles about diseases; practically all of the editors there want citation templates), I suspect that he'd be justified in doing what he wants to, and then adding a "feel free to revert, because I'll never edit war with you" message to the talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:46, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

No, he should not go around posting to talk pages about how he wants to change the style. CITEVAR does not say "do not change due to personal preference unless you ask first". It says, "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change." – note the "or". Similarly, the arbcom principle Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Date_delinking#Optional_styles has no provision "unless you ask first". The principle at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Date_delinking#Fait accompli is also relevant to this: if an editor cannot get consensus that a style is preferred, it is inappropriate for them to go around implementing it on numerous articles as if it had consensus. In the case of citation templates, we all know that the actual site-wide consensus is that they are neither better nor worse than other templates, and there there is no general agreement either for or against them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:53, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, do please notice that or. If he "first seek[s] consensus for the change", then he is allowed to change the style. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

"Or" does not mean "unless". The guideline text says that (1) one cannot change due to personal preference; (2) one cannot change just to match other articles; (3) in addition, if there is some other reason, the editor needs to seek consensus first. Changing solely due to personal preference is inappropriate, and the last thing we want is dozens of editors doing that (each to their own personal preference, of course). — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:03, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

If Bender wants to clean up refs (a tedious and often thankless task), and the article doesn't follow the style he'd like to use, then all he needs to do is to post a note on the talk page that says "Hey, I'll fix this, unless you object to the use of citation templates".

I always found this impractical. Instead, I simply did the changes I wanted to, and if someone did not like them, he/she could revert them. I accept this. I never started an edit war over citation styles, and never will. Like I said, less than 1% of my edits of this nature were reverted. Only recently CBM started to revert them on a per se basis, because they were "strongly discouraged" in general, according to him. --bender235 (talk) 17:59, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

You have, in fact, edit warred over styles, e.g. [3]. But the fact that others didn't revert your edits does not make them correct, it just means that you are (intentionally?) picking articles that few other people watch. If you had been doing this to featured articles, you would see much more reaction. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:03, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I did not edit war. I restored information you (involuntarily?) deleted, like "issue" number and DOI/JSTOR links.

As for the articles I choose: find me a feature article with inconsistent and/or incomplete citations, and I'll fix it. Thankfully, however, there are none. They aren't featured for no reason. --bender235 (talk) 18:09, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

There are plenty of FAs the do not have DOIs and do not use citation templates. One is Duino Elegies, the TFA from August 2. This does not mean that one can change the article to use templates based on the ruse that the citations are "incomplete" for lacking DOIs. But this is exactly you did on Additive model. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:17, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Nice try, but I'm not getting myself into hot water again. You know very well this is one of the many articles User:ColonelHenry claims ownership for, a user who recently launched a ludicrous AN/I against me. The article's citation style is not-so-clean and incomplete (pages?, year?, spelling error ("Gesammelte Werke") in German title, not mentioning missing DOIs), but I'm not even thinking of touching it. --bender235 (talk) 16:30, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't own shit Bender, and quite frankly wouldn’t care. But I'd prefer you avoid casting aspersions regarding my motives just because I had the high holy audacity to disagree with you and your bellicosity. On that occasion, I said your contribution in violation of WP:CITEVAR was not appreciated and disrupted myself and other contributors to the article. However, the issue is moot and I'd rather avoid rehashing the bitch-fest because apparently you still refuse to see it anyone else's way and continue to be snide about it...and that was and still is the problem: am I wrong in not agreeing when someone insists and barges forward with their agenda disregarding that other stakeholders said "no, we disagree"? Apparently, you think so--simply because your agenda was momentarily thwarted and you took umbrage. That's the same philosophy that gives us such barbarism as "no means yes, yes means anal."[4] Insisting and continuing to insist will get you no where with a lot of people in this life…and just because you throw a petulant temper tantrum because you didn’t get your own way, and continue to do so, doesn’t make other people agree with you. Someday, you'll learn that. Thank you by the way for noticing three largely insignificant citation errors that no one in the Duino Elegies FAC noticed. I'll have to rush to fix that just because you mentioned it. (*sarcasm*) --ColonelHenry (talk) 17:00, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

The article I mentioned contains many more inconsistencies in the citation style. Usually I would fix them, but you told me to "stay away from your articles", so I do. Which, again, confirms what I already wrote. I do not insist, I do not badger, I do not edit-war. I only fix as I see, and when somebody reverts, I ask—if anything—for a brief explaination. Unfortunately, in your case the reply to a "don't like citation templates?" was a "stop talking to me, or I'll ask AN/I to have you blocked". That was a first, in nine years. An embarassing, ugly exception to Wikipedia's usual way of dispute resolution. Thanks again for displaying your interpretation of calm and polite discussion. --bender235 (talk) 17:47, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

"I do not insist, I do not badger..." I have to call bullshit on that. How many times did you insist that your way was right despite myself and other editors pointing to WP:CITEVAR and saying the equivalent of "enough, go away, your services are not wanted here" in varied shades of frustration because of your continued stubborn refusals and insistence upon plowing ahead. Apparently, your attempted intervention at The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock wasn't your first, and as indicated above has not been your last venture down this path. How many other articles that you've never worked on are you going to barge into just to change it to your personal citation preferences? You never worked on the Prufrock article, who were you to dare ignore the people who have spent months on the article insisting "hey, we're changing the citation templates" and damn what you think. What fucking balls. How many editors who actually work on these articles (unlike your drive-by) are you going to keep ignoring? How many times are you going to ignore WP:CITEVAR because it's inconvenient? Here you are YET AGAIN asking why someone had to stand athwart your plans and YET AGAIN you wonder what you've done wrong for intervening despite being well aware of the clear, unambiguous language of WP:CITEVAR and yet here YET AGAIN you continue to act obtuse by feigning ignorance thinking that is a position to argue from. You never learn. --ColonelHenry (talk) 23:11, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

That is not an edit war. Jason Quinn (talk) 22:38, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

"In other words, citation templates are just another optional style that should not be changed without substantial reason."

What is the basis for this statement? --bender235 (talk) 18:12, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

"The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged: an article should not be switched between templated and non-templated citations without good reason and consensus" - WP:CITE. "When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change." - Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking#Optional styles. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:17, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, citation templates aren't the only Wikipedia technicality that is "neither encouraged nor discouraged". Because so are infoboxes. Does that mean anyone adding infoboxes is violating Wikipedia rules?

By the way: what does, in your opinion, qualify as "good reason" for a style change? --bender235 (talk) 18:24, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Personally I think what Bender is doing is good and I for one appreciate that he is doing it. Most of the articles he is editing had the references added by folks who don't know ho wto use the templates nor how to properly format the references. So he is in fact just cleaning up a mess. I would also note that I have had problems with CBM and his personal preferance for undoing edits he doesn't like without discussion and have even been threatened with being blocked if I didn't do as he said, often where there was no consensus except for his personal opinions. So IMO, CBM needs to take a step back, stop being a DICK and let bender continue to clean up the mess because I for one am tired of CBM getting into the middle of things he has no input or interest in other than showing he has the power. Kumioko (talk) 20:38, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

CITEVAR is clear enough, and I would revert such changes to an article I have written on sight. There are some articles I am unable to continue to develop because I have missed an unwanted and unneeded change of style, and it is now too complicated to go back and unpick it, and I can't work in a blizzard of template cruft. Always ask first - very often no one will object and you can go ahead. Johnbod (talk) 20:47, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Although I do agree that if an editor is actively developing the article they should be able to revert such changes while the article is being developed, I also do not think that every edit should require discussion. It should be discussed by exception, not by default. There are good reasons for not having the templates and there are a lot of good reasons for having them. So we really shouldnt be fighting about this. Kumioko (talk) 20:56, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the topic, User:bender235. I do a lot of this too! I think I can help here by adding a few important pieces of information I know from my experience:

• Very rarely are large pages with a decent number of references consistent in the citation style used. There is almost always a mix. Why is this important? Because it means that in practice users like Bender235 (and myself) are making pages consistent, not converting them. As this is the dominant situation, I think it is fair to answer "no", you are not harming the Wikipedia, Bender235. You are helping it.
• These edits aren't merely converting the references, they often are adding/correcting information in those references or correcting spelling or other obvious errors in the article simultaneously. Why is this important? Because we must not lose sight of the extra value provided by users who like to edit references. Given this, if there are no objections to the change, it starts to violate common sense to disallow to it. Plus, things like doi's can't really be handled the same way with manually formatting as the cite templates handle them. So if a person wishes to add doi's or other such parameters, they really have little choice but to convert. The point here is that there are side-benefits that occur from users who edit like bender225.
• If there are inconsistencies in the reference formatting, it is an improvement to the article's quality if they are formatted consistently. Why is this important? Well, if there's an editor willing to make them consistent in format but only if he/she wants to convert the article from no templates to cite templates, do we really want to discourage them in the name of "preventing conversion"? Truth be told, for articles with a large number of references, manually handling the formatting is error-prone and tedious. I can see why a "reference gnome" would tend to prefer the cite templates.
• Many articles have virtually nobody maintaining them and are in poor shape. Why is this important? Improving references may lead to other substantial improvements. If an editor makes "lateral changes" like reference style changes on neglected or abandoned articles, there's a good chance that they may also contribute to the content in the future too. So, I'm willing to give them "room to maneuver" here and there to edit as they enjoy rather than pushing them away.
• articles with few references haven't really established a pattern. I think it makes to no sense to talk about article with just a few references as having established any convention that must be followed. That's could be a whole discussion itself. But in my entire comment, I am assuming enough references are used to clearly establish that a convention is in use, or it is not.

None of this means that conversation for the sake of conversion should be encouraged. But in practice, such situations almost never arise as the reasons stated above suggest. As with Bender225's experience, I have never had any objections to my reference formatting edits; his 1% figure is an over-estimate compared to my experience.

Also, let's keep clear that the date formatting RfA is about date formatting. So, while some of the conclusions about that RfA make great advice for citation style formatting, they are separate issues. As citation templates can support whatever date formatting a user wants, they are also completely independent. Jason Quinn (talk) 22:37, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Bender, please keep converting references into citation template format. If someone reverts you on a particular article, discuss the matter on a talk page, or, heck, just leave that article alone. It is absolutely, completely, 100% ridiculous to think that adding extra details to citations with more information that will help readers find the information in the future to verify the facts in the article is in any way wrong. If there is a mixture of styles in an article, WP:CITEVAR says you can make it consistent, and if there's disagreement about which is best, use the style used by the first major contributor (still, making it consistent with that). And I would argue that if you had an article that just had a bunch of plaintext references, you could argue that that's not actually a "style" in the sense that WP:CITEVAR means. Wikipedia is now a serious reference work. We need to have, whenever possible, our references be complete, accurate, and of lasting value. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:04, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

No you are not harming Wikipedia. I am another cite tweaking, repairing, drudge who also toils in the trenches of obscure, rarely touched articles and some not so obscure. And my tool of choice is templated citations.

One of the things that few editors realize is that humans aren't the only things that read Wikipedia. Bibliographic software can read Wikipedia and from the Citation Style 1 templated citations extract the bibliographic data. You may have seen this referred to as COinS metadata. I confess that I'm no expert on COinS. I do know that CS1 citation templates support it and that hand-crafted citations do not.

@Editor Jason Quinn: {{Doi}}, {{PMID}}, there are probably others. It isn't necessary to convert to CS1 to cite an article using doi or pmid.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:38, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Good point, Trappist the monk. Forgot about those while writing my comment. Stuck that sentence. Jason Quinn (talk) 23:43, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

• In other words Bender you are free to add information to citations anyway you want (and yes you are improving the Pedia - assuming you are adding correct info), but don't do it where there is objection to that style (if you only use that style). Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:01, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the support, everyone. But what I still want to find out is the "meaning" of WP:CITEVAR. Does "if there is disagreement about which style is best, defer to the style used by the first major contributor" mean

(a) a per se ban on citation style changes, or

(b) the quick-and-easy solution if and only if there's actually a dispute?

This question brought me here in the first place. --bender235 (talk) 09:02, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

My experience is that manual citations are often too imprecise, and anyway are human-readable-but-not-machine-readable. Turning that into semantic markup, especially generated from a DOI, PMID or similar (and checked) is surely an improvement to the encyclopedia. That it's better to have stuff in a semantic markup, rather than a human-readable string of text, goes back to the very design of the Web. If policy sacrifices, say, the discoverability of citations in favour of keeping an editor's subjective preference (I don't know if it does) then that policy works against the quality of Wikipedia If there's a DOI for a source, and the Wikipedia citation lacks the DOI, then adding the DOI is an improvement: people denying this need to actually make a logical argument. There should be no excuse for deleting DOIs that are accurate. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:24, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

One deficiency I find with {{cite book}} template is its not been easy to figure out how to do it where you cite the same source but a different page. Do you just repeat the whole template again but with a different page number? Or leave the page=feild blank and tag the page on to the end outside the template: "p.X"? Or do you put "Author, page" for the second cite or "Author (date) page" if the same author is cited for multiple works? Or . . .? Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:56, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Investigate {{harvnb}} and {{harvid}}, or else {{sfn}}. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:58, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Right Harvard is another work around but when multiple editors edit the article, harvard has to be set-up by basically one person first.-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:16, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

To answer your question, I'd suggest to always repeat the entire {{cite book}} (with a different page), since this much more practical on our mobile frontend. Mobile users usually don't see the references list in its entirety, so reading "Smith (2010), p. 123" is useless to them unless they click thru all other footnotes to find the complete "Smith (2010)" reference. --bender235 (talk) 11:20, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Does that work the same way with "ref name =" or does ref name ignore the fact that you are basically repeating the same cite (with a different page)? Then do you basically assign two different refnames, etc? Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:49, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

That's why it's important to link multiple cites to the source (i.e. using {{harvnb}} as well as <ref name="..." >). Duplicating the entire ref is pointless and unhelpful. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:08, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Ok, you're right. Things are different when "Smith (2010), p. 123" is a link to the full citation. --bender235 (talk) 12:15, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Late comer to the discussion. If you want to make a change that could be controversial, Propose the change on the talk page of the article (and potentially at WikiProjects that are on the talk page). If you don't get any opposition, you've acquired a consensus (if silent). Make the change. If someone reverts you citing an objection for that page (and not the far reaching "We generally" or ArbCom ruling) invite them to discuss it on the talk page (WP:BRD is such a beautiful thing). Editors who bulk revert the changes are, themselves being disruptive to the primary purpose of wikipedia, so they would have to prove their case more than you would. Sidebar: I personally prefer citation templates over raw references for the simple fact that a lot can get screwed up when an average user types in a reference Hasteur (talk) 12:33, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I've always been an advocate of WP:BRD. In practice, however, it means submitting the (possibly) controversial edit first, wait for someone to revert second, and then discuss. It does not involve asking for permission on each article's talk page first, which if you think it thru would be way too cumbersome anyways. --bender235 (talk) 12:40, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

That is fine for general editing, but WP:CITEVAR specifically says: "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change". I suggest you take that to heart, however "cumbersome". Johnbod (talk) 12:45, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Then I'm sorry, but I'll stop doing those sorts of edits on Wikipedia. I'm doing citation fixes on a couple of hundred articles per month, which already consumes a lot of time and energy. I certainly won't start several hundred discussions on talk pages all over Wikipedia and having to monitor all of them for a month or more. Most definitely not. --bender235 (talk) 13:16, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

A week would be fine if no one comments/disagrees, maybe less. Johnbod (talk) 16:05, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Please don't bender, the above arguments are absolutely fallacious. What they are saying is, very clearly "Do not improve the encyclopedia" by adding useful, helpful information and making unformatted citations neater, more complete, machine-readable, etc. I almost never invoke WP:IAR, but it's obviously necessary here. Again, I do agree that if people revert you, it's up to you to go start the discussion, but having to start a discussion first is simply wrong and counter to every other principle we have on editing. The only other instance I know of when editors are "required" to ask first is on changes to featured articles...and even that isn't strictly required. I guess maybe you could say that any major change on an article under discretionary sanctions...but this reading of WP:CITEVAR essentially places all references on all articles under this unduly burdensome requirement. Because, here's the thing: you're not changing it for "personal preference". You're changing it because an unformatted reference lacks information that a formatted reference has. And again, I agree that you shouldn't go changing, say, cite templates into Harvard style, but that is, as far as I can tell, not what you are doing. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:50, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

No, they are just saying "Follow the guideline". A move from (consistent) no templates to templates is certainly caught by CITEVAR - please don't pretend otherwise. Yes, there are some messy articles where there is no predominant style, and no sign of particular editors sticking with the page, or the main editors left WP years ago, where boldly wading in may be appropriate, but some of Bender's edits cited above do not seem appropriate. Johnbod (talk) 16:05, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I always only fix citations if there is something to fix (i.e., either bibliographic information missing, or inconsistent citation style, or both). I never have and never will switch a non-templated citation style that is both consistent and complete to templated citation style.

The problem, so far, has been some users' (e.g., User:CBM's) definition of "consistent". In his eyes, there are only two styles – with templates, and without. So even if every footnote varies in punctuation and order of information, it'd still be "consistent" in his eyes because it does not use templates (see this recent dicussion). Of course, this definition is nonsense. "Not using templates" is not a citation style, and neither is "using templates" (an article using both {{citation}} and {{cite book}} is far from being consistent). --bender235 (talk) 07:02, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

That's fine if the issues are really major, but not if you are just using a few discrepancies as an excuse to change the whole style. Johnbod (talk) 10:03, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Johnbod...saying "hey, some citations lack commas or dates" has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with supporting your insistence that you have the right to unilaterally change from non-template to template or vice versa in violation of WP:CITEVAR. It's the equivalent of saying you had justification to kill a man because he was committing a crime when all he was doing was littering. an entirely disingenuous stance.--ColonelHenry (talk) 23:39, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree, if you do the change and someone has a problem with it then it can be discussed, other than that, I think your doing a helpful service and should continue. Kumioko (talk) 14:02, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes Bender. Obviuosly IAR would apply if CITVAR actually meant what some above seem to argue, but it cannot mean that where no one objects (such a claim is unreasonable). On the other hand, it is one thing to IAR, and quite another to IOE - ignore other editors. It looks like you have found two editors who will always object, so steer clear of thier articles (eg. where they have edited them) (or DR with them if it is important). Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:24, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I usually don't check who owns an article before I edit. Plus, User:CBM seems to track my edits and arbitrarily reverts them on articles he, too, has not edited before. So there's no way to avoid "his" articles, because I have no idea which ones are his. --bender235 (talk) 15:29, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

That's a behaivioral issue. Do you want an interaction ban? That, you would probabely have to discuss directly with CBM, if you cannot work that out (but you might try WP:DR first). As for not checking the edit history, ok, but that would just be one way to potentially avoid the issue, the work, and the stress. Because it looks like policy allows you to add this info and policy allows others to object. But if someone is following you, they should not - not for this. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:57, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't waste your time with DR or an interaction ban with CBM. He has had ownership and behavioral issues with Math related articles for years. He rarely edits anymore and most of what he does do is just revert other peoples edits to articles he feels like he owns and seems to single out the same editors over and over. Nothing has ever been done about it and I doubt it ever will. Kumioko (talk) 16:01, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I've never heard of him before, but if any editor finds another is consistently breeching guideline, whether on this, vandalism or a POV issue, or things like WP:ERA, WP:ENGVAR etc, he is doing a useful service by following that editor and reverting or adjusting them. Surely we've all done that? It seems some people here just don't like WP:CITEVAR, but it is the guideline, and the community does support it. Johnbod (talk) 16:11, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

No. We're all saying that your interpretation is unreasonable, overly strict, and obviuosly leading to a potential for disruption, here, and no, no one, follows anyone around to enforce an unreasonabale interpretation of policy, not if they want to work with other people. If you have a systemic problem with Bender, then take him to DR or AN (after you kindly talk to him).Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:59, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I've never heard of Bender before either, but there are several disruptive cite-bandits out there, many less restrained than him, and too prolific to follow far back. The interpretation of the policy is not only reasonable but correct, and even if no one here seems to like the policy, it normally finds a lot of support from other editors on talk pages. See for example, currently, Talk:Roman Empire. If you don't like the policy you should try to change it. Johnbod (talk) 09:54, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

One of those "cite-bandits" is why don't edit anything involving aircraft. I carefully format cites and refs, fully linking everything, only to have them come along and strip out the lot, because "the cite template puts a comma in the wrong place" or somesuch trivia. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:09, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

As has been noted multiple time, it's one thing to discuss a particular article. It's quite another to blanket revert someone's else's edits on multiple articles based on the fallacy 'its always wrong.' That is unreasonable. Policy does not say, its always wrong, quite the opposite -- if the reason is article improvement by more informative citations, and the result is more informative citations, then it has a substantive recognized claim of being 'right and good' under CITEVAR. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:44, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Yep, concur with Alan. Kumioko (talk) 17:27, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Having just read all of this, ditto. — Scott • talk 11:52, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to take a different approach to this discussion: CITEVAR is apparently unclear. For that, let me apologize. The reason I apologize is because I wrote the thing in the first place. I therefore think it not unreasonable of me to have some idea of what CITEVAR is supposed to say.

Speaking as its original author, CITEVAR is not supposed to prevent you from taking a mess of mixed-up, inconsistent citations and imposing (any) one form on it (except bare URLs). It is supposed to prevent you from taking a perfectly good citation system and changing it to some other citation system. There are three things that it tries to stop: Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style:

1. merely on the grounds of personal preference,
2. to make it match other articles, or
3. without first seeking consensus for the change.

Let me expand on these three items, and then get back to the fundamental requirement:

1. If your goal is to change the style simply because you love/hate Style X, then you do not get to make the change. Notice the word merely: if you've got a good objective reason (e.g., you happen to hate citation templates, but there's also a major problem with using them in this article, because they're slow and you're citing 500 different sources), then that's a different kettle of fish.
2. If your goal is to change the style because everybody knows that all articles about widgets are supposed to use Style X (even if "the WikiProject said so!"), then you do not get to make the change.
3. If you first seek consensus for the change you want, and you obtain consensus (or at least don't find any significant resistance), then you may change the style to whatever the consensus supports (or at least doesn't oppose).

Now back to that fundamental requirement: These three things only apply if any article actually has "an established citation style". If you find an article that doesn't have "an established citation style", then according to CITEVAR, you can WP:BOLDly do whatever you want to it.

So if you go over to Pain, you will find that there is an explicitly established style that does not use citation templates. You will find that 119 out of 124 current citations are plain wikitext, and the other five were added by people who didn't notice that the article doesn't use citation templates. The rejection of citation templates was discussed at length on the talk page. So if someone were to convert all of those citations to using templates, even if this is done to make it convenient to add dois, then that would violate CITEVAR.

But if you go over to Community-acquired pneumonia and figure out why the little blue superscripted "[1]" leads to two different citations marked "1", and fix it, then you've done a good thing. Ideally, you'll fix it in a way that involves the fewest number of changes/is most consistent with the dominant style, but you really are allowed to fix that mess. Similarly, you may go boldly, without a single word of discussion in advance, fix Ebastine so that it uses some kind of inline citation, rather than 100% general references. This is allowed under CITEVAR.

If this isn't clear to everyone from reading CITEVAR, then I hope you will join me on the talk page at WT:CITE to see how we can improve its clarity. I'd also be open to starting a {{supplement}} page to give specific examples of what should be discussed in advance and what should just be boldly improved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree more clarity is a good idea. The working of the "or" between 2 & 3 seems to be the issue with the current wording. But let's pursue it there. Johnbod (talk) 03:26, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

"Speaking as its original author, CITEVAR is not supposed to prevent you from taking a mess of mixed-up, inconsistent citations and imposing (any) one form on it (except bare URLs)."

This sounds good in theory, but in practice it is too vague. Consider this recent edit of mine. I added all sorts of missing bibliographic data. Now, if User:CBM had his scope on this article, he would likely revert my contribution, saying "the article's established style was non-template", and I could have added all the missing bibliographic information to the existing non-templated style.

The point is: CITEVAR needs to explain to certain users, what a "consistent citation style" actually is.

[5], Nikki R. Keddie, Social Research via FindArticles.com, Summer 2000; accessed September 21, 2008.

Revolution, Islamization, and Women’s Employment in Iran, by Roksana Bahramitash

According to some users, these two form a consistent style, because they both do not use templates. That is just nonsense. "Non-templated" is not a citation style, and neither is "templated". Contrary, there are thousands of citation styles within the "non-templated" category, and in fact even various within "templated" ({{cite book}}, {{citation}}, {{vcite book}}, etc.).

I changed both of the citations above to:

Keddie, Nikki R. (2000). "Women in Iran Since 1979". Social Research. 67 (2): 405–438. JSTOR 40971478.

Bahramitash, Roksana (2002). "Revolution, Islamization, and Women's Employment in Iran" (PDF). Brown J. World Aff. 9 (2): 229–241. ISSN 1080-0786.

Could I have done that without templates? Sure. But that, too, would have meant to change the citation style. That is my point. --bender235 (talk) 08:11, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

• Generally speaking, the underlying format (e.g., citation templates vs manual formatting, whether templates are displayed on one line or one line per parameter, list-defined references vs inline) is considered by most editors to be a part of the "style", even though (1) the reader will never see it and (2) I personally think that's just a bit silly to consider anything that is invisible to the reader to be part of the "style". I don't "win" every discussion, but I do know WP:How to lose, and I was definitely in the minority on that discussion.
• Even if you have to change the citation style (e.g., because there isn't a consistent style), it is usually preferable to make the fewest possible number of changes. Therefore, cleaning up that mess without templates (or without switching from WP:PAREN to little blue footnotes, or whatever) would be the ideal approach. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:52, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm wondering. If changing WP:CS1 without templates to CS1 with templates is considered a citation style change that violates WP:CITEVAR, does adding microformat generating date templates violate WP:DATERET in the same manner, and is therefore prohibited? --bender235 (talk) 07:25, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, then I'll stop doing those sorts of fixes. If I have to spend valuable time trying to figure out which of the myriads of citation styles in one article is the one the owner of the article wants me to choose, or (worse) none of the existent citation styles includes bibliographic details like volume, issue, and page numbers (see above) and I would have to arbitrarily choose a position anyways, but still am not allowed to do choose the easiest option and go for templates, it is just not worth it.

To give an example of the article that caused me the most trouble recently:

Eliot, T. S. "The Unfading Genius of Rudyard Kipling", Kipling Journal, March 1959, pg. 9.

Sorum, Eve. "Masochistic Modernisms: A Reading of Eliot and Woolf." Journal of Modern Literature. 28 (3): 25-43. Spring 2005.

Walcutt, Charles Child. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". (1957). College English, 19, 71-72.

Three completely different citation styles in one article. Which one was the correct one, i.e. the one the owner of the article wishes to have? So instead of rolling the dice and then arbitrarly picking one of these, I rather choose WP:CS1 in the first place. --bender235 (talk) 06:12, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Well if you can't be bothered to propose this on the talk page, then wait a week or so to see if anyone objects, then you should stop editing in those circumstances. Johnbod (talk) 16:46, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok, so tell me what to do in this example: I did some fixes, User:CBM reverted citing WP:CITEVAR (even tho he, like me, never edited the article before), and then I left a message on the article's talk page. Nobody reacted, apart from CBM. So, does that mean no opposition? Can I now implement the change? --bender235 (talk) 07:25, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

The talk page discussion you started is stuck at the two of you, neither contributors. While that continues I think you have to leave it. His drive-by objection is as valid as your drive-by change. "citation clean-up" is not the clearest edit summary. Johnbod (talk) 09:06, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

So CBM, or any user who doesn't like templates, is entitled to track my edits all over Wikipedia and revert them, citing CITEVAR for an apparent controversy they themselves created in that very moment. That's a perverted rule of there ever was one. --bender235 (talk) 21:31, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Benefits of citation templates

Much work has been done on citation template recently, adding useful features such as trapping invalid ISBNs and other errors, which seems to have been overlooked in the discussion here to date, and which advantages are not available in untemplated citations.

Furthermore, for some years our citation templates have emitted machine-readable metadata in the form of COinS markup, which is an internationally recognised and interoperable format. This means that they can be understood by citation management tools such as Zotero and Mendeley, and thus more easily and conveniently reused by editors in other articles (I do this regularly using Zotero), and by people who need to cite the same source in other works, or query their library catalogue, or whatever.

Anyone replacing an untemplated citation with one using any one of our citation templates could arguably be said not to be doing it for "personal preference", but for the added value it brings to our fellow editors and to our readers. I realise that this view may not be popular with those who object to the use of templates, or metadata, for whatever reason, and indeed may attract the kind of attempts at opprobrium which Bender235 has experienced, but the fact that such mechanisms exist is unarguable and the benefits undeniable. It's my understanding that CITEVAR pre-dates such benefits (if not, its disregard of them is lamentable) and so should be revised accordingly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:02, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you. People tend to forget that Wikipedia is also read by machines. That is why our infobox templates support hCard microformat. Having our citation templates provide COinS markup is just one of the many benefits.

Unfortunately, this is not the place to suggest a change in CITEVAR, or MOS in general. --bender235 (talk) 13:51, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree too. Just the ISBN validation can be expected to catch many errors that would otherwise go missed. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:20, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Very good point Andy, and given Wikipedia's mission is to enable the widest possible audience to benefit from free knowledge, templates which open up that content to other audiences (for citation analysis, quality checking or just for reading in novel ways) further that goal. Thanks for keeping the focus on "the added value it brings to our fellow editors and to our readers". I hope other editors take your cue. MartinPoulter (talk) 19:13, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I would wager that the concerns over manual vs. template citations losing the ISBN validation and other technical benefits could be met with some program (maybe even a bot created ) to look for that. Just requires the time and ingenuity for someone to write it. And Wikipedia relies on redundant alternatives to address the needs of its varied users and contributors. The same should apply here, with WP:CITEVAR, the technical ramifications, etc. What we have here is a "six of one, half dozen of another" quandary. By making Wikipedia more machine-friendly, we make it less contributor-friendly. Forcing such a change would drive away editors that run from an article they've thought about adding to when they see template cruft (I'm one of them...just not worth my time to wade through that crap...and it keeps me away from making the contributions I prefer making and enjoy making). Wikipedia already has enough editors disappearing, the increasingly esoteric coding would just lead more of them to other hobbies, and content on Wikipedia would suffer. Machines don't contribute the quality content, whether they read it or not is incidental because Wikipedia is ultimately dependent on contribution.

In political philosophy, technocratic societies tend to exclude people who would otherwise be a benefit to it except for their technical knowledge. The increasing emphasis, as Weber and other reification scholars point out, undermines notions of community and purpose, and creates an augmented alienation and among those who might want to identify with that community or purpose. Ultimately, it is that alienation that leads them to find other things to identify with. It creates castes, and precludes mobility. That's the psychological/sociological basis for why an editor would leave or avoid contributing to Wikipedia or any similar increasingly technocratic community. People find things (hobbies, activities, etc.) that validate their worth. Making it harder for people to feel the merits of contributing make them contribute elsewhere. Wikipedia suffers. That historical and sociological lesson ought to be applied here. --ColonelHenry (talk) 15:55, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Your wager ignores two important points: who will write and operate such a tool? And why would they expend such effort, given that we already have a working technical solution. Will you? The visual editor will remove the perceived barrier of what you dismiss as "that crap". Otherwise, your philosophical essay ignores the advantages which I describe, and offers no viable alternative means of providing them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:40, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Visual editor should remove it, but it has its own shortcomings. If someone gets around to it, all the better, but I know it won't be me writing/operating such a tool. That's not my area, and I recognize my limitations...especially it would keep me from stuff I actually like to do. No one method is everything for everybody, that's why alternatives exist. If you can't open a can with a can opener, there's an automatic one, or you can use a hammer and screwdriver the rough way. By way of another analogue...not everyone can make chocolate soufflés...there's only one way to do it and it's a bitch to do. However, a lot of people can make chocolate mousse or for the less able chocolate pudding and there are several ways of doing it from scratch or by an instant mix. If the world only allowed chocolate soufflé we'd have a lot of crappy soufflé, and a lot of people would start hating chocolate.--ColonelHenry (talk) 12:55, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see anyone trying to force you to make chocolate soufflé (use citation templates); but I see some people saying that because they can't make soufflé, nobody should be allowed to in a particular kitchen (on a given article). If you want to add citations as plain text, it's quite clear from the conversation above, that someone will turn your raw ingredients into a delicious soufflé. However, (and while I don't intend to prolong this discussion further), I should be happy (after my weekend wikibreak) to talk you through the use of citation templates, which are no more complex than the infobox template which you recently asked me to expand, in order that you can use it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:09, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for the offer, but I already know how to use the various citation templates, I just prefer not to use them. They slow me down, and I despise having to edit around them. For the record, I don't screw with infoboxes--that got me in trouble years ago when I was still learning and I find it wiser to avoid that imbroglio--so I appreciate your assistance on that. As you can see, in some areas, I'd rather ask someone to do something rather than stomp on what is putatively someone else's backyard...something WP:CITEVAR intends to accomplish by keeping drive-by editors from getting a one-night stand with an article and unceremoniously disregarding the workspace preferences of those who actually did or do most of the heavy lifting. When you walk into an architect's office, it's usually bad form to move his pencil jar just because. When wielded in a way as to ride roughshod (the changing of formats) for the sake of personal preferences, sure the intentions may be good (hey, we're all improving the encyclopaedia), but it's hard to assume good faith when its done unilaterally over protest. We'll always have to agree to disagree...then move on to better things. --ColonelHenry (talk) 18:00, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I always thought chocolate soufflé was pretty easy. I mean, you just cook your sauce and beat your egg whites and fold it together. It's not really harder than an old-fashioned (raw egg) mousse. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Last night's episode of Masterchef made me think of that example. I make a pretty good soufflé, too...but I've had a lot of bad soufflés by people who didn't know to make one and hear too many others run scared from it. So the analogy still works. ;-) --ColonelHenry (talk) 17:53, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

• Correct me if I am wrong, but was there not a template cap? Or was that a previous version of mediawiki that we have since moved beyond? Resolute 16:06, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

  For most cases, we don't hit it. --Izno (talk) 00:28, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

  • No, we don't. But that limitation is as meaningful to us and our readers as the existence of metadata within the templates is. Resolute 18:28, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

    • What is the "template cap" and how does it work or help, here, for the woefully uninformed like me?Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:28, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

As I understand it, template cap has to do with how much time is required to process and render the text that a template produces. Simple templates take a short amount of time. Complex templates, like CS1 when they used {{citation/core}}, required much more time. With the transition to the Lua Module:Citation/CS1, citations can now be processed rendered many times faster.

If you look at the page source for this page and search for "NewPP limit report" you will find the statistics for this page.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:07, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:23, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Contrary to ColonelHenry's believe, "by making Wikipedia more machine-friendly, we make it less contributor-friendly," I don't think citation templates do that. While it is true that editing templates (in particular infoboxes) tends to confuse unexperienced users, existing citations should be the last thing edited by new users. A citation (once it is complete) does not need to be touched anymore. If anything, users might want to add new citations. And if they do, they easily can without using templates, and simply wait for an experienced user to fix them. The same way it happens with all others types of newbie edits on Wikipedia. --bender235 (talk) 08:32, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

So creating inconsistent styles, allowing you to sweep in & change everything to the style you like? Johnbod (talk) 09:06, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Is it better to leave inconsistent citations inconsistent? Are we still trying to improve Wikipedia here, or is this all about people propagating their stubborn ideology? --bender235 (talk) 21:31, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation

I started Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation as a community information/communication directing page. Can you guess the Wikipedia shortcut? It could use links to things such as the mailing lists, grant opportunities, Bugzilla, etc. to help newcomers understand the WMF and how they might engage with the WMF, if interested. Biosthmors (talk) 08:46, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I think a soft redirect to meta:Wikimedia Foundation (which I think has the information you're referring to), Wikimedia Foundation or maybe a DAB page to both would be better so that we don't duplicate content. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:55, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not worried about duplicating content. I'm just trying to help English Wikipedia editors know how to engage, if they choose. I don't want them to have to leave English Wikipedia to learn, either. I think that's a potentially jarring and confusing disincentive for new editors. Biosthmors (talk) 09:45, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

In the same vein as Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback, for example. Biosthmors (talk) 09:47, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Some Suggestions

Dear Sirs First of all congratulations for changing the whole world of Learning with Wikipedia. Whenever I go to study first i open Wikipedia in a window only then start my real topic of study. I think it must be the case with most of the learners through out the world. For me Wikipedia plays the same role in my learning process which Oxygen performs in my breathing process. I am sure in future Wikipedia is going to be revolutionise the world of learning of world.

May i dare to give some suggestions, which i think will make it even more useful. I think Wikipedia should have four levels for every search item.

1. Line Level - Information about the item should be in one line, with/without one photo.

2 Paragraph Level - Information about the item should be in one para with one photograph.

3 Page Level - Information about the item should be in one page.

4 Booklet Level - Unlimited Information about the item.

This will help the user immensely. Presently when i use wikipedia sometimes the information i need about the item can be only one paragraph and its really difficult to select the desired amount of information.

I know you have already got a very very big project and to suggest changes may be so easy for me, even than i am writing to you.

I have personally benefited so much from Wikipedia I am at your service for any technical job.

Thanking you Dr m K Pande Dehradun India — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.212.49.131 (talk) 11:17, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree that in an ideal world there would be a short version/short versions of English Wikipedia. Would you like to volunteer for Wikipedia? Feel free to create an account and come back. You can ask questions at the WP:Teahouse. Best. Biosthmors (talk) 11:26, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Template:Diacritic

I've started a userspace draft for combining diacritics for editors whose browsers don't support the toolbar, but I was wondering whether or not it would likely be deleted if I moved it to the template namespace. Thanks. — SamX‧☎‧✎‧S 14:32, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Won't know till you try right? :) Besides, even if it does get deleted, it can still exist and be useful in your userspace. -- œ^™ 19:45, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. To anyone who happens to see this discussion, feel free to make any improvements to the template, which is located here. — SamX‧☎‧✎‧S 19:56, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Nobel Peace Prize

If it goes to Jimbo, who might split it with him? Albert deBroglie (talk) 02:13, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello

Note the death of Donald Featherstone in recent deaths. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scymso (talk • contribs) 15:30, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I assume you mean Donald Featherstone (wargamer). I have just removed the '3 September 2013' statement from thae article, as such matters must be cited to a published reliable source. If you know of one, please add it to the article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:36, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

HighBeam requests?

Is there a place to request for people with a HighBeam account to add information to articles? I was working with another editor whose free account expired at the beginning of the month, and he did not get the chance to do a couple of final lookups for me. In this case, is there anything that could be added to John Zeleznik [6], or Nene Thomas [7]? BOZ (talk) 16:34, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Why not apply for your own free HighBeam account? See WP:HighBeam. -- œ^™ 02:34, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm going to do that sooner or later. I'm busy with a few other initiatives at the moment, but I am going to need an account because I have a ton of things to look up.  ;) These two are just kind of "need it right now" lookups because we got interrupted by circumstance. BOZ (talk) 13:59, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

• @BOZ: you can ask at WP:REX and they'll provide you with the source material, but I'm guessing that you will have to do the article editing part. 64.40.54.22 (talk) 03:53, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! It looks like a lot of requests there may go unanswered for a long time, but I will give that a try all the same. If I wind up needing to do it myself, then I guess them's the breaks!  ;) BOZ (talk) 13:59, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Website scrapbookpages

Hey everybody, is it normal that eight articles still use the in my opinion revisionist website Scrapbookpages.com as a source? First, it's in my opinion not a quality source, as it is the personal blog of a guy like you and me, I can't remember the profession of the guy... probably not an historian, any way... Second, the website is quite revisionist, see for instance the blog of the website, http://furtherglory.wordpress.com/, or read carefully the website. Those are two good reasons not to use this website as a source... I've already told you about this problem a few years ago, but there hadn't been any true reaction then :-(( I'm concerned that Wikipedia may use other crap websites as a source... Is there any possibility to choose the sources more carefully for those types of articles, to be a bit more restrictive? 78.251.245.128 (talk) 00:58, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

No comment on the site, but you may want to try asking at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. -- œ^™ 02:28, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, actually I've read a bit the talks about the subject yesterday, and I've noticed that at the time of my first alert about this site, in 2008 I believe, there were actually many more links to this site, maybe more than one hundred. Since then, I've seen that other people have protested as well against those links, and if I understood well it's been black listed, but all the articles haven't been cleaned... Well, just eight links remaining, it's still eight links too many, but it's much better than one hundred, I was a bit hard yesterday when I wrote there hasn't been any true reaction :-)

Anyway, thanks for your answer, I'm going to write to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, as you recommend :-) 78.251.229.252 (talk) 13:56, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Is this a free license?

"Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as:

• Credit is given to the "City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za)";
• If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original article on this website;
• The name of the article's author is acknowledged;
• The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill in this brief online form)."

I found it on the website of Johannesburg Municipality. Does it allow us to use their content?--eh bien mon prince (talk) 14:12, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

The last bullet point would make this non-free as far as Wikipedia is concerned. Our licence allows reuse with attribution without telling anyone about it. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:28, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's a type of free license. You might be interested in some copyright FAQ. We cannot use their content on Wikipedia because nothing is said about derivative work based on their content. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. Killiondude (talk) 17:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Why not contact them, and explain CC licensing, and suggest that they switch to using one? If you need some local support, I can put you in touch with some SA Wikipedia activists. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:12, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

It's too bad that it can't be considered a free license. I wrote them an email a week ago, but maybe I should send another one. Thank you for the replies!--eh bien mon prince (talk) 19:52, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello

Please help ad a reference to my article Larisa Kadochnikova. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scymso (talk • contribs) 19:37, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

infobox film template

(I've tried looking around to see if this has been brought up before, didn't see anything. So here goes...)

Since nearly all articles about films, especially new ones, contain the films critical ratings from the review site Rotten Tomatoes, has there ever been any consideration to adding this item to the infobox? (thereby necessitating a template change).

For example, the bottom of the infobox could (sort of) look like this;

Country - United States

Language - English

Budget - $150,000,000^[1]

Box office - $642,740,000^[2]

RT rating - 71%^[3]

This, of course, is if we just add it to the bottom of the list. The order of precedence could be debated.

Any thoughts anyone? - thewolfchild 00:36, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

See Template:Infobox film#IMDb, Allmovie, and other external links for a brief summation. ;)

Also, we tend to avoid non-official External links in infoboxes, with a few exceptions in the sciences. –Quiddity (talk) 01:11, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I had read that already, but I wasn't suggesting adding external links to the infobox (they're fine where they are at the bottom of the page). I was merely suggesting adding the value of the Rotten Tomatoes rating. As I said, this is already included in the body of virtually every film article, this would just make it quicker to reference. Also, since it's right under the box office total, it provides a greater picture, at a glance, of the film's success. I also suggested RT as it seems to be the premiere/ go to site for critical consensus (as supported by Alexa rankings).

This is a minor adjustment that can only enhance the infobox and therefore the articles. This is also a small, specific and singular issue that has not been addressed before. - thewolfchild 22:37, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake.

However, Template talk:Infobox film is the place to suggest that. I suspect it very unlikely to be supported though, as despite their popularity, rottentomatoes is still a subjective resource, and infoboxes tend to (try to) avoid subjectivity [as a gross generalization]; RT is also a commercial entity, which adds complications. –Quiddity (talk) 00:42, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

OK, I'll take it there. - thewolfchild 04:19, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

"Why Wikipedia Should Be Your New LinkedIn"

Not sure that this is the correct place, but editors may want to be aware of this article, written by User:Versability, in case there is an influx of self promoting editors. It may be appropriate to take sanctions against the editor in question also, since their only edits seem to be of a self-promotional nature, and the article goes against the whole ethos of Wikipedia. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:06, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion#Brian_Penny. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:09, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

The Patriot Ledger, which should know better, should get some scathing e-mails from as many Wikipedians as possible, making it clear that they have been pwned, and misled their own readers, to the detriment of their reputation. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:52, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

We've found a witch. May we burn her?. In all seriousness I think a indefinite salting of the title, an indefinite block of the editor until such time that they post a follow up to correct the first post's misconceptions. Hasteur (talk) 14:22, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Do you think we should take it to WP:ANI? --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:28, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

In reaction to his block, Brian has declared war on Wikipedia. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:57, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Copy pasting from other wikipedias using google translate

I noticed two pages today: [8] and [9]. This worries me a bit. Any ideas of how can we deal with it? Maybe a new filter? -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:50, 8 September 2013 (UTC)