Wikipedia talk:Citing sources

Citation overkill proposal at WP:Citation overkill talk page

Opinions are needed on the following: Wikipedia talk:Citation overkill#Citations. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:19, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Convert some refbegin lists from : to * lists

Please see/join this discussion about a bot conversion of some existing reference lists making use of unordered lists (*) instead of definition lists (:). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:07, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

"Bare" / "Raw" URLs in common style guides

I had a disagreement with another editor over the use of URLs in citations that follow a major style guide (the Bluebook for U.S. legal works):

Extended content

Hello, I reverted your good-faith reformatting of references in the article Star Athletica, L. L. C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc. because the citation style used in the article is the Bluebook (Note: Template:Bluebook is on the article's talk page), which is the standard legal style manual in the US. WP:CITESTYLE allows articles to use any common citation style and US legal articles should use the Bluebook style. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases/Style guide#Final sections. The Bluebook format for internet pages is different than the citation templates. Sorry to have to revert your edits, but hopefully you've learned something new to apply to future US legal articles you come across. AHeneen (talk) 01:23, 12 May 2017 (UTC) @AHeneen: Thank you. I made the reformatting changes with some reluctance when asked to do so by @The Rambling Man: as you can see here, with reference to the rule that bare URLs are not allowed at DYK. Perhaps the term "bare URL" needs clarification. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:07, 12 May 2017 (UTC) No, bare URLs should not be allowed anywhere on Wikipedia, "bluebook" style or otherwise. They promote linkrot and should be fixed in all circumstances. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:26, 12 May 2017 (UTC) That also means the article should be removed from DYK prep as it violates the rules. A shame that no more US legal cases will be permitted to feature at DYK given this oddball approach to citation. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:37, 12 May 2017 (UTC) Note, I've pulled it, re-opened the nomination. Interestingly, plenty of articles in Category:United States Supreme Court cases do not adopt this odd raw url approach, so clearly this "bluebook" style is not being applied consistently. Arguably you could run the DYK with the references tidied up and not bare, and then the edits could be (once again) reverted to restore the raw URLs and linkrot. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:44, 12 May 2017 (UTC) Per the style guideline WP:CITESTYLE (underlining mine): While citations should aim to provide the information listed above, Wikipedia does not have a single house style, though citations within any given article should follow a consistent style. A number of citation styles exist including those described in the Wikipedia articles for Citation, APA style, ASA style, MLA style, The Chicago Manual of Style, Author-date referencing, the Vancouver system and Bluebook. ... 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. Another style guideline at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal#Referencing style states: While any citation style may be used in an article (see WP:CITEVAR), for articles on cases, case law, or subjects which use a large amount of case law, it is recommended that editors use the referencing style for the jurisdiction that heard that case or for which that legal subject applies. ... United States, consider using Bluebook, ALWD, or an official state system (e.g., the California or New York systems). Second, the links were not bare URLs. "A bare URL is the URL with no other information about the source useful for addressing link rot." (Wikipedia:Bare URLs#What is a bare URL?) The URLs in the article were all used in combination with other identifying information about the source and were either a piped link or a plain-text link (in accordance with the Bluebook citation style). For the articles published on the internet, the Bluebook requires the URL to be part of the citation, so those are piped as http://www.marshallip.com/publications/apart-at-the-seams-copyright-protection-for-apparel-star-athletica-llc-v-varsity-brands-inc/, whereas the statutes that are published in print and thus officially do not have a URL and so I just used a piped link to an available third-party internet source. So the bottom line is that the use of this particular citation style is within policy (even if it is not used consistently across a genre of articles) and links weren't "bare URLs" because they were part of references that had sufficient information to locate the source material. AHeneen (talk) 09:55, 12 May 2017 (UTC) Other such articles manage to produce non-raw URLs, this one should be no different. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:50, 12 May 2017 (UTC) No, it is the appropriate way to cite an online resource. See [1] (given in the OP above), [2], [3] (p. 2-3), [4], [5], [6]. AHeneen (talk) 05:37, 13 May 2017 (UTC) Other such articles manage to produce non-raw URLs, this one should be no different. In any case, that now precludes it from DYK, along with any other such article. It's funny, I've reviewed dozens of legal articles, this is the first that has insisted on such a curious approach to such unfeasibly pointless raw URLs being used. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:43, 13 May 2017 (UTC) Incidentally, the claim that these grotesque manifestations won't fall foul of linkrot is simply wrong. With the understanding that all references should stand alone, I see no easy way of an editor using " Id. at 2-3 (quoting 799 F. 3d 468, 471, 491-492 (2015), available at http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20FCO%2020150819101/VARSITY%20BRANDS,%20INC.%20v.%20STAR%20ATHLETICA,%20LLC [7])(some internal citations omitted)." to locate the original article. This is pure linkrot kingdom. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:42, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

According to this page (see WP:CITESTYLE), Wikipedia does not have a single house style, though citations within any given article should follow a consistent style. A number of citation styles exist including those described in the Wikipedia articles for Citation, APA style, ASA style, MLA style, The Chicago Manual of Style, Author-date referencing, the Vancouver system and Bluebook.

How to cite web pages in major style guides (without formatting the URL)

APA Style (source): Last, F. M. (Year, Month Date Published). Article title. Retrieved from URL Satalkar, B. (2010, July 15). Water aerobics. Retrieved from http://www.buzzle.com ASA style (source): Author(s). Year of publication. "Web site title or title of section retrieved." Place of publication: Publisher. Retrieved on Date (web site address). Purdue University Online Writing Lab. 2012. "Formatting in Sociology (ASA Style)." West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University. Retrieved May 2, 2012 (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/583/1/). MLA style (source; note: excludes beginning "http://" or "https://"): Editor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number, Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available), URL, DOI or permalink. Date of access (if applicable). "Athlete's Foot - Topic Overview." WebMD, 25 Sept. 2014, www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/tc/athletes-foot-topic-overview. Chicago Manual of Style (source): Firstname Lastname, “Title of Web Page,” Publishing Organization or Name of Website in Italics, publication date and/or access date if available, URL. “Illinois Governor Wants to 'Fumigate' State's Government,” CNN.com, last modified January 30, 2009, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/30/illinois.governor.quinn/ Vancouver style (source): World Health Organization. Drinking water [Internet]. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2015 Jun [cited 2015 Jul 20]. Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs391/en/ Bluebook (source): American Bar Association, Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Statistics, http://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources/statistics.html (last visited Aug. 31, 2015).

Because the style guides are designed for use in print, they all include the URL spelled out rather than link an element of the citation like the Wikipedia Citation Style 1 templates, which link the title of the web page or article:

• Using cite web: Gee, Mark (November 11, 2016). "How-To: Photograph The Moon". Popular Photography. Bonnier Corporation. Retrieved 14 May 2017.
• Using cite news: Choe, Sang-Hun (May 13, 2017). "North Korea Launches a Missile, Its First Test After an Election in the South". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 May 2017.

The question is how should the URLs be formatted when using one of the major style guides outside Wikipedia, eg. APA, ASA, Bluebook, the Chicago Manual of Style, MLA, or Vancouver system? Should the URLs be formatted as prescribed in the style guides, with the URL displayed in full? Eg. (in Bluebook style):

Ronald Mann, Opinion analysis: Court uses cheerleader uniform case to validate broad copyright in industrial designs, SCOTUSblog (March 22, 2017), http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/03/opinion-analysis-court-uses-cheerleader-uniform-case-validate-broad-copyright-industrial-designs/

And is this type of URL really a "bare URL"? AHeneen (talk) 12:31, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

I wonder about accessibility. For readers using screen reader tools, how are those citations spoken? "aych tee tee pee ess colon slash slash double-yew double-yew double-yew period ..."? I can imagine that such readings would become unintelligible when they include percent encoding and query strings. I would think that all readers, regardless of visual abilities, would prefer url labels that are contextually meaningful rather than 'technically correct' per the style guide.

I suspect that most style guides are focused primarily on printed paper. While articles from Wikipedia can be printed, the encyclopedia is first and foremost an on-line resource. Rules that are necessary for printed paper may not be necessary here; the url rules being an exemplar. If a reader needs the url in its raw form, it is available with a mouse click.

The style used in Star Athletica, L. L. C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc. includes Id. and Ibid. which are dependent on the relative positioning of other citations in the article text. These are very fragile because anyone can move or insert or delete anything at any time and so break the tenuous connections between these dependent citations. Discouraged by WP:CITE; see WP:IBID.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:34, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

I replaced all uses of Id. and Ibid. in the article. Regarding readability, I am neutral: one the one hand, I can understand how the plain URLs can be annoying with screen readers, but, on the other hand, there's also the need to have the URL when printing (Citation style 1 templates print the URL). A relevant style guideline is MOS:LINKSTYLE: The text needs to make sense to readers who cannot follow links. Users may print articles or read offline, and Wikipedia content may be encountered in republished form, often without links. AHeneen (talk) 15:20, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually since 26 September 2015 cs1|2 templates did not include urls in print versions (discussion here). Apparently no one noticed so thanks for the prod to get it fixed.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:51, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Also linkrot affects these types of citation. Despite claims to the contrary, some of the URLs in the cited article would not be easy to find on archive.org as insufficient metadata is presented alongside to facilitate a suitable search should the URL itself just go dead. As for typing in URLs from printed material, does that really happen? In almost all such URLs in the cited article, there are over 100 characters to type in, many of which aren't English words. That's unlikely to be hand-typed by anyone ever. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:46, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Could you also please explain how " Slip op. at 2-3 (quoting 799 F. 3d 468, 471, 491-492 (2015), available at http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20FCO%2020150819101/VARSITY%20BRANDS,%20INC.%20v.%20STAR%20ATHLETICA,%20LLC" is sufficient enough for (when the link goes dead) anyone to go looking for the archived link? What does "Slip op. at 2-3 (quoting 799 F. 3d 468, 471, 491-492 (2015)" mean to anyone outside the author of the article please? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:53, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Finally, there's at least one other legal case nom at DYK right now, i.e. R v Jordan (2016). This appears to not use bare URLs. Does that make it wrong, right or something else? It certainly makes for a better reader experience, avoiding those barely parseable URLs. If this article can use this approach, why not Star Athletica, L. L. C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc.? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:49, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

• This guideline already explicitly recommends against the sufficiency of bare URLs: "improving existing citations by adding missing information, such as by replacing bare URLs with full bibliographic citations: an improvement because it aids verifiability, and fights linkrot;" (bold mine). I'm not sure why that is unclear for the OP, they are already being told, in plain English and in simple terms, to convert bare URLs as a best practice. Using MLA or Chicago Manual of Style for guidance where Wikipedia has none is fine, but we have explicit, in-house rules that couldn't be clearer. --Jayron32 16:31, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

• My 2c, as this has popped up in a number of places now. There are multiple competing issues here.

1. Bluebook is a valid citation style

2. As described, Bluebook is a bare citation contains bare URL's, as *Wikipedia* defines a bare citation URL.

3. Wikipedia encourages bare citations citations with bare URL's to be changed to a more informative citation. (WP:CS in general)

4. Wikipedia *heavily discourages* (to the level of having an arbitration case) changing an already established citation style to something else. (WP:CITEVAR specifically)

5. DYK doesnt allow bare citations.

So lets get the easy one out of the way first, DYK is its own project with its own rules. If you want your articles to be eligible for DYK, you have to satisfy the DYK requirements. This means not using a bare citation style URL. You can still use Bluebook or other 'bare' styles, but it wont be eligible for DYK. The ways around this (in order of effectiveness) 1. Change the citation style. 2. Convince reviewers at DYK to IAR this particular rule as in some areas 'Bare' styles are heavily used. 3. Convince DYK to change its rules on a more permanent basis to allow 'bare' citations in some areas. If you dont want to attempt any of those 3 actions, then keeping Bluebook (and other 'bare' styles) means an article is extremely unlikely to be accepted at DYK.

WP:CS in general encourages 'bare' citations to be improved. However WP:CITEVAR is explicit that no citation style can be forced on an article, and has the arbcom case to back it up. As WP:CS is a best practice guideline, it should be followed in most cases as following it results in a better article for the broad audience who are reading wikipedia. It does not mean it has to be followed in all cases, and where it conflicts with CITEVAR, something that has already been in front of ARBCOM is going to come out on top (absent another arbcom ruling).

So to sum up: You can use Bluebook (or other 'bare' styles) if you want, and anyone attempting to enforce a style against WP:CITEVAR risks coming up before ARBCOM, but you have to accept that while using a 'bare' citation style, the article will be locked out of a number of community-led processes like DYK. I would also say that the point of a wikipedia article is to appeal to a broad audience, and be understandable by a broad audience. If you use a citation style that is predominantly used by the legal profession, its not really tailoring the article to a broad audience is it, even if the article itself is a legal-based one. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:11, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Bluebook citations do not use bare citations because the URL is accompanied by other information that allows those who understand that citation style to locate the source even if the URL goes dead. Whether a citation is "bare" isn't about whether the URL is directly visible in the article, it's about whether the source can be found even if the URL goes dead. Jc3s5h (talk) 11:35, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

It uses a bare URL. Bare URL's for most wikipedia editors constitute a bare citation where the URL is the primary part of the citation. This isnt a view that I alone hold. You can go argue at DYK that using Bluebook isnt a bare citation style, but as far as I recall that argument was already held and rejected because DYK does not allow bare URL's. You are correct that it isnt entirely a bare-citation style, so I will amend the above. It doesnt change that ultimately if people want to use any style they can, but have to accept where that style conflicts with individual projects, they can either change it or not participate. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:40, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

If you look at WP:CITE, for which this is the talk page, you find

• improving existing citations by adding missing information, such as by replacing bare URLs with full bibliographic citations: an improvement because it aids verifiability, and fights linkrot;

There are a few other statements in WP:CITE that also indicate that whether a citation is bare or not has to do with the presence or absence of the necessary bibliographic information; there is no mention of any encouragement or discouragement of making the URL directly visible in the rendered article. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:00, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

However Bluebook citestyle routinely contains bare URL's which are disallowed in places like DYK. It still doesnt change the fact that you cant make someone replace bare URL's if they dont want to per CITEVAR. Regardless of what the wider WP:CITE says. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:10, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

You are correct, no one can make you improve the article (the correct link, by the way, is WP:NOTCOMPULSORY), however, you can also not make anyone at DYK post your article for whatever criteria they want. People have reached a consensus that bare URLs are insufficient. You can't make them post your article at DYK in contravention of that consensus. --Jayron32 14:05, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't believe Bluebook allows bare URLs (as "bare" is understood in WP:CITE). Please provide a link to a law journal article where the journal requires Bluebook and the article contains a bare URL.

The bullet point I mentioned above,

• improving existing citations by adding missing information, such as by replacing bare URLs with full bibliographic citations: an improvement because it aids verifiability, and fights linkrot;

is part of the Generally considered helpful section. Actions in that section may be taken without asking for consensus on the talk page, and in spite of CITEVAR, unless there is something special about the article that would render the word "generally" inapplicable. So if an article contained, throughout its history, only bare URLs (as understood in WP:CITE), any editor could come along and rewrite all the citations to follow the citation style of the editor's choice without seeking consensus on the article's talk page. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:28, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

The way I read it, WP:CS is satisfied by a full Bluebook citation given the text such as by replacing bare URLs with full bibliographic citations, which does not require that a bare URL have 'text'-make sure to read the full clause. So I agree, from this point, this is a thing specific to WP:DYK (per OID). However, WP:Accessibility#Links says to avoid unintuitive link text--I wonder if that suggestion also extends to no link text. @Graham87: Thoughts on no-text URLs as an accessibility issue? What is the difference between a link, no text; a link, bad text, and a link, good text? --Izno (talk) 12:53, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

A link with no text generates exactly the same output for all readers (the URL), which can usually be skipped over fairly easily by arrowing past it. Graham87 13:55, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Maybe OID is correct to the extent that maybe the editors who determine whether an article appears in DYK won't accept "exposed" URLs. But DYK's Supplementary guidelines states "References in the article must not be bare URLs (e.g., http://example.com or [8])....

The linked WP:Bare URLs essay states "Note that some citation styles, such as the MLA style, use full bibliographic citation that happen to display the text of the URL in addition to proper identifying information, like the author, date, and title of the publication. These are not considered bare URLs." So if OID is correct, then it appears DYK isn't following its own guidelines. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:49, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Very good point, here is then full lead from WP:Bare URLs with my emphasis underlined:

A bare URL is a URL cited as a reference for some information in an article without any accompanying information about the linked page. In other words, it is just the text out of the URL bar of your browser copied and pasted into the Wiki text, inserted between the <ref> tags or simply provided as an external link, without title, author, date, or any of the usual information necessary for a bibliographic citation or useful for addressing link rot. Note that some citation styles, such as the MLA style, use full bibliographic citation that happen to display the text of the URL in addition to proper identifying information, like the author, date, and title of the publication. These are not considered bare URLs.

Here is what a true "bare URL" is on lines one and two (when not accompanied by any other bibliographic information) followed by Bluebook-style citations on lines three (an online-only source) and four (a print source, which a third party has made available online):

1. [9]
2. http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/03/22/copyrights-supreme-court-star-athletica-v-varsity-brands/id=79767/
3. Gene Quinn & Steve Brachmann, Copyrights at the Supreme Court: Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands, IPWatchdog (March 22, 2017), http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/03/22/copyrights-supreme-court-star-athletica-v-varsity-brands/id=79767/ ("The Court did not decide whether the chevron stripes were themselves original and thus subject to copyright protection once removed from the cheerleading uniform.").
4. 17 U.S.C. § 113(a), available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/113.

Example 4 is a properly-formatted legal citation to a statute. The citation style of legal citations varies by country. Here, "17 U.S.C. § 113(a)" means Title 17, Section 113, Subsection (a) of the United States Code. The "official" US Code is only published in print and the link is to a third-party source that has posted it online and is merely included in the citation for the benefit of the reader, so according to the Bluebook style, the link is preceded by "available at". That is basically akin to including a Google Books URL in a citation for a page of a print book and including "via Google Books". However, the Bluebook doesn't have a way of denoting the website name of the third-party URL, which is why it's just "available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/113". In example 3 above, the source is an internet article not published in print, so the URL is necessary to locate the original source (although the website name is included as part of the citation) and isn't preceded by "available at" because that URL is the original source. The most recent edition of the Bluebook (in 2015) now allows the addition of archival URLs in brackets after the URL, so when others added archival URLs to the article, I reformatted them to match the Bluebook citation style.

Most Wikipedia citations to particular cases (see case citation) are to cases that have been published in print (at least most case citations on Wikipedia), so like the US Code example above, the URL is a third-party source that merely benefits the reader and is not necessary to find the original source. For example, "Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)." was published beginning on page 483 of volume 347 of the United States Reports law reporter and was a US Supreme Court decision (because only year is provided; lower courts will be specified in the parentheses, eg. "Fla. 1954" indicates a decision of the Florida Supreme Court and "9th Cir. 2017" is a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit). Most published US cases can be quickly found online by entering the by entering the page, volume, and reporter (example for "410 U.S. 113"). However, the article that started this discussion was just decided in March, so it has not been published in a reporter yet. The "slip opinion" (abbreviated "slip op.") was released on the Supreme Court's website, which is why the article repeatedly uses the phrase "slip op." While it should be quite intuitive that the slip opinion being cited is that of the case that is the subject of the article, to avoid any ambiguity, I changed all cases to include the short citation "Star Athletica" before "slip op."

So the bottom line is that Bluebook-style citations and the citations in the article that caused this issue have sufficient information to locate the original source, which may be only available in print, and are not "bare URLs" as defined at WP:Bare URLs. (Note: I will be busy and may not reply until the weekend, May 20-21). AHeneen (talk) 08:21, 18 May 2017 (UTC)