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WP:CITEVAR

It's been several times Rockypedia added vertical citation style in articles under my watchlist and that after I cleaned up after them, Rockypedia reverted all my edits as it was, according to them, a violation of WP:CITEVAR. A previous discussion about this problem ended up as a non-consensus discussion. As the horizontal format is, as far as I know, used more often than the vertical format, I don't find it helpful to add an extra citation style to an article. Rockypedia doesn't share my opinion and I therefore wanted to know if WP:CITEVAR was actually relevant regarding this issue. I mean WP:CITESTYLE clearly says : "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", which seems to contradict WP:CITEVAR, while other editors clearly stated the vertical format is virtually only used for infoboxes. WP:CITEVAR also states that "imposing one style on an article with inconsistent citation styles (...) [is] an improvement because it makes the citations easier to understand and edit", which also contradicts what is previously stated. Synthwave.94 (talk) 20:17, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

WP:CITEVAR is about how citations appear once rendered, not how they are coded (save for templated vs non-templated). However, traditionally on Wikipedia, when two equivalent things exist, and nothing but opinion differs, you defer to the first major editor. "vertical" citations have many advantages over "horizontal" ones. Vertical citations are much easier to parse, edit and review, while horizontal citations take much less space in the edit window. When there's disagreement over that kind of thing, defer to the style first used consistently / style of the first major editor. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:14, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. Considering I am the first major editor of the three articles where there is a disagreement between I and Rockypedia ("Money for Nothing", "99 Luftballons" and "Rock the Casbah"), I suppose that I made the right decision to keep a consistent horizontal format within these three article. Can you confirm it ? Synthwave.94 (talk) 22:02, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

If I'm reading Headbomb's answer correctly, when he says "first major editor", he's not talking about someone who claims ownership over a particular article, or in your case, every article in the entire English Wikipedia having to do with 1980's music (see this paragraph). I believe he's talking about whoever made the edit in the first place. Just as I don't go around changing peoples' horizontal cites to vertical ones, neither should anyone go around and do the reverse, as WP:CITEVAR (as Headbomb explained) has to do with citations once rendered, or templated vs. non-templated, and neither of those apply to horizontal vs. vertical. Rockypedia (talk) 23:14, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Looking at before either of you got involved, most references were horizontal [1]. Neither of you get to claim to be the 'first major editor' here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:33, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't claim ownership over every article I edited so far. I simply clean up after other editors and revert vandalism and similar LTA, which is something numerous editors like me do. Anyway the same thing can be said about "99 Luftballons" and "Rock the Casbah" : most references were horizontal before either of us were involved. Synthwave.94 (talk) 23:45, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

So keep them horizontal. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:50, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Or... ask some other, neutral, editors to look at the articles and tell you which style they would prefer. Let them decide. And abide by their decision. Either way... stop edit warring about it. Blueboar (talk) 00:43, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm not looking for the article to have hidden text conform to one style or another; the entire issue here is whether or not that needs to be the case. I'm fine with every editor's horizontally-formatted references staying that way. I'd like the same courtesy in return; to wit, just leave the vertical formatting alone. In my opinion, WP:CITEVAR is clear on this: horizontal and vetical formats can co-exist, it's fine that they co-exist, and one editor should not change references from vertical to horizontal just because horizontal is the way they like it. That's what Synthwave has been doing. There was already a discussion about this, most editors in that discussion agreed that the two formats could co-exist, none stated that they couldn't. Rockypedia (talk) 12:30, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Rockypedia. Paul August ☎ 15:32, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Based on what Headbomb said, I restored all versions of the three articles before Rockypedia decided adding a vertical format (and therefore before edit wars started). I then cleaned them up, as I regularly do. Synthwave.94 (talk) 19:57, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't believe horizontal and vertical formats should be used together in the same article. There should be a consistency in horizontal/vertical citation style over an article. Synthwave.94 (talk) 20:23, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

I think you're both edit-warring over something pointless, trivial, and extremely lame. If you don't stop it now, you will likely both get blocked. DrKay (talk) 20:30, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

• Having read the previous discussions, and the above, I would suggest the following. 1) before either Rocky or Synth edit an article, they should both agree on what the pre-existing citation style was (and thus what the style will eventually be). 2) While they edit they may each use the style they each prefer... but 3) when done editing an article, they will both work to conform their edits to the agreed upon pre-existing style. Blueboar (talk) 20:46, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Blueboar offers a good solution here. Edit how you want, but when you're done, it's perfectly fine to cleanup and bring them inline with how they were before. I much prefer vertical citations myself, but it's extremely simple to convert them to inline after I'm done if people object. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:20, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

The difference of opinion here isn't whether vertical or horizontal cites should be used in a given article. The difference in opinion is whether an article needs to have all vertical or all horizontal cites. Synthwave contends that it does. I contend, per WP:CITEVAR, that it does not matter if an article has horizontal and vertical cites mixed. That's the crux of it. Does every article on Wikipedia need to have all vertical or all horizontal cites throughout? Rockypedia (talk) 17:16, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

No, it's a trivial and hidden coding change that has no impact on the read display. DrKay (talk) 19:53, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Not trivial. Even under the hood, so speak, out of sight of the reader, it still matters to have clarity, both in legibility and format. (A position instilled by many years of writing code, and, more importantly, checking code.) Little things like closing up pipes (|) and equal signs with the the parameter name, but setting off the values with spaces, makes a BIG difference in readibility. (And that is regardess of horizonatal or vertical style.)

Now I find that a generally vertical style works for me. But I also find that it is a lot easier, and a lot faster, to check (e.g.) author's names if the first and last name are on the same line. Likewise with volume/issue/page: they fit together. So that's the way I put them in. If I was just passing by, and had a good source to throw in but don't plan to be back, I don't mind what that article's habitues do with it. But when I am maintaining an article (likely because, having done a deep dive into researching and writing/revising it in the first place, I am the editor with the best grasp of the topic), I find it really annoying when some bot comes along and makes all my templates all vertical or all horizontal, just because some bot writer prefers it that way. Likewise for some pass-through editor who is unlikely to stick around and work in the mess he makes.

So these matters do have an impact. Not on the superficial aspects of text display, but on the more subtle aspect of making the editing clearer, and incidentally easier.

Where two or more editors disagree on how formatting is to be done it can be difficult. If the matter cannot be resolved on any other basis (such as original style, or as a courtesy to somoene who has done substantial work on an article), then we should probably handle the matter of how citation is done just as we do for "style" overall: be tolerant. However, we do not need consistency of method where that does not affect consistency of display. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:44, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

No bot is approved to switch citations from horizontal to vertical, or vice versa. If you see those, please follow WP:BOTISSUE and notify the bot's operator. I note that some bots will fill citations in a specific way, but you always have the freedom to convert them to the established format. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:49, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

So far, I've seen several editors that have expressed that vertical and horizontal-formatted cites can co-exist on the same page ("under the hood", as it were), and none that have stated that a page needs to have all vertical or all horizontal. Would you say that's accurate? Rockypedia (talk) 03:58, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

No policy— certainly not CITEVAR— requires that citations be either all vertical or all horizontal. Paul August ☎ 16:35, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

That is true, but there is also a (somewhat unfortunate) clause that says it is "generally helpful" to be "imposing one style on an article with inconsistent citation styles (e.g., some of the citations in footnotes and others as parenthetical references): an improvement because it makes the citations easier to understand and edit;". So, in the long run, this tends to encourage editors to take an article with a mixture of styles (e.g. both horizontal and vertical formatting of templates) and impose one style. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:14, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

"Imposing one style on an article with inconsistent citation styles (...) [is] an improvement because it makes the citations easier to understand and edit" contradicts with what most editors here (including Rockypedia) say about the mixture of horizontal and vertical formats. If you want to introduce a new style or format then you should reach an explicit consensus first (instead of blindly edit warring) before changing everything. Please do not forget I'm the main editor of these 3 articles and I entirely cleaned them up way before Rockypedia started editing them for the first time. While I appreciate the addition of new sources in an article, I cannot accept the fact editors like Rockypedia almost instantly revert my clean up edits for personal preferences only (let's not forget the horizontal was entirely used in all three articles, apart from the infobox, before they started making their own contributions). I'm sorry but it doesn't work like this at all and you cannot accuse the main editor of an article of "ownership" just because they want to keep a consistent format thorughout the article. Synthwave.94 (talk) 19:15, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

This is one reason that I think that language in the guideline is unfortunate. It seems to me that editors who arrive at an established article should ensure that newly added citations match the style of the existing ones; if they don't to do so, the resulting inconsistency should not be a reason to change the older citations to the format introduced by the more recent editor. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:24, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

If you read that section, the portion that states it's "generally helpful" to be "imposing one style on an article" is talking about different styles of citations, such as "switching between major citation styles, e.g. parenthetical and <ref> tags." To me, that pretty clearly defines what it means by "style". By contrast, horizontal and vertical is defined as a "format", not a style. The horizontal and vertical cites are already the same style. They're just formatted differently. Rockypedia (talk) 20:23, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

For the purposes of CITEVAR, both the outward appearance and the formatting used in the wikicode count as part of the citation style. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:58, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I tend to agree, but (like others) have a little problem in that "style" does seem to be more the display aspects. Perhaps we should say that CITEVAR applies to the "style and method" of citation? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:43, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

There was an inconclusive RFC last year, so finding the right language for the guideline may be challenging [2] . The middle way is that key kinds of formatting do count - particularly vertical versus horizontal templates - but not every triviality. But the situation in this thread shows the reason for CITEVAR to apply equally well to formatting: we don't want people to waste time arguing over the formatting, when no version is better than any other, so it's better to just have an easy rule of thumb: use the existing method when you start editing another article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:48, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

How about an even easier rule of thumb - when an article uses <ref> tags, you should also use <ref> tags, but vertical vs. horizontal formatting doesn't matter because it's not part of the outward appearance of the page. Rockypedia (talk) 22:03, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

If it doesn't matter, perhaps you should allow the other person to simply change the page to match their preference, and then leave it the way that they change it? That is to say: if CITEVAR applies to horizontal / vertical, then as the newcomer to the page you should match the existing style. If it does not, then you should not complain (or use CITEVAR as a reason to change it back) when someone changes it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:04, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Except that if it's content that I've added and sourced, and I revisit it later, I could ask the same question of the other editor: if it doesn't matter, why not just leave it alone? I don't go changing other cites to vertical format, even on pages that I've created. Why would anyone need to change vertical cites to horizontal? I also point out that WP:CITEVAR, when talking about styles, is very specific about what constitutes a style: the example even specifies "e.g. parenthetical and <ref> tags"; it doesn't say "vertical <ref> tags", just <ref> tags. That's the style. The horizontal vs. vertical is just a format, not a style. Rockypedia (talk) 22:16, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

My point is that, if someone wanted to that claim CITEVAR doesn't apply, then they can't use CITEVAR to complain if someone changes it... But, really, CITEVAR does apply to these things, and as a new editor of a particular page someone should take care to match the existing formatting in new citations, or at least be ready for someone else to clean up the new citations to match the existing ones. Beyond CITEVAR that is also common courtesy as a newcomer to an existing page; CITEVAR just formalizes this courtesy. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:19, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I think CITEVAR does apply. And that it's pretty clear it applies in cases of "parenthetical and <ref> tags", which are different major citation styles. Rockypedia (talk) 22:33, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

If CITEVAR does apply to the formatting under discussion here, then new citations should (eventually) be brought into accord with the existing citations, of course. It seems like you are arguing that CITEVAR doesn't require you to match the existing formatting, but that it does prevent anyone else from changing the different formatting. That isn't how it works: if it applies to your formatting, then it applies to the previous formatting just as well. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:35, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

CBM puts it clearly, and I can only agree. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:48, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

That's not what I'm arguing, and CBM is conflating two different points. CITEVAR applies to different styles, which it defines as parenthetical vs. <ref> tags, and it specifies "major citation styles." There's no way you could argue that horizontal vs. vertical are two different "major citation styles." That's just a formatting difference. To the second point: if one editor formats their <ref> cite vertically, and it's a good cite, then other editors shouldn't be changing it to horizontal, and vice versa, especially since this is an under-the-hood change and isn't even visible to a person just reading the article. If I come back to a cite that's on a page that's on my watchlist, it's more difficult (to me) to look at a cite I had formatted vertically and has now been changed. I give the same courtesy to editors who format cites horizontally; there's no reason to change them to vertical cites and I don't do that. If an editor has license to go and do that, then what's stopping every editor that prefers vertical or horizontal cites from changing every cite on every page they're watching to their preferred format? It'd be endless edit warring; it makes no sense. Just leave the vertical or horizontal as is formatted by the editor that added the cite. Rockypedia (talk) 16:59, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Citevar does apply to both how a citation is rendered and how it is formatted under the hood, hence editors should not change horizontal to vertical or vice versa without consensus. I personally hate vertical format as it obscures the prose in the raw wiki text making it harder to edit. Citations are meant to support the prose, not the other way around. As a compromise, if someone really, really wants vertical format, it should be moved to list-defined references so as not to make the prose in the raw wiki text unreadable. Boghog (talk) 17:28, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the evidence that it also applies to "how it is formatted under the hood" is the clear understanding that editors cannot change between plain text and templates, even though the displayed output is the same. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:30, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I disagree there has never been consensus for that view. -- PBS (talk) 18:34, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

@PBS: see Wikipedia:Citing sources#To be avoided: "adding citation templates to an article that already uses a consistent system without templates, or removing citation templates from an article that uses them consistently". Personally, I wish this wasn't the consensus, because I believe strongly in using citation templates, but I know from experience that there are plenty of editors who will object to converting to templates, referencing this part of CITEVAR. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:47, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

There has been a lot of instruction creep since this was originally discussed back in the middle naughties. The original intention was to try to stop a bot being used to mass change pages from one style to another ie from inline to footnotes. To see how this section has suffered instruction creep just look at how is was in June 2010 and compare that with today. As far as I know there has never been a wide acceptance for the current wording and how it is used to justify things far beyond the 2010 "Citations in Wikipedia articles should use a consistent style." More recently since it has been pointed out that it was a style issue at some point "method" was added, a sticking plaster to try to make it more restrictive. I do not believer that there is a consensus for the current wording because it can be and is widely misused (because it is used to cover much more than style), for example I have seen it used to justify opposing changing <ref>{{harvnb|author|date|p=1}}.</ref> to {{sfn|author|date|p=1}}, despite the fact the the latter is clearly better as it automatically combines short citations with a similar format. -- PBS (talk) 19:26, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

As I can see right now, most editors disagree with you, Rockypedia. You cannot decide to introduce a new style/format to an article and then complaining about someone like me cleaning up after you. WP:CITEVAR does apply to vertical and horizontal formats, as some editors pointed out, even if I agree they are not visible to a person who is simply reading the article. Sure you clearly prefer the vertical format and you don't change horizontal and vertical formats on pages you created or often edit. However you shouldn't try imposing this format in articles you never edited before, especially if the main editor of a specific article disagree with you (and if you start edit warring by the same way). Synthwave.94 (talk) 22:51, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

"most editors disagree with you, Rockypedia"??? That's complete fabrication on your part. Most editors in this discussion, as in the previous one, that have stated an opinion, have stated that "editors should not change horizontal to vertical or vice versa without consensus", as Boghog just did. I don't change horizontal cites to vertical, and you don't change vertical to horizontal. Very simple. Rockypedia (talk) 03:38, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

You never had an explicit consensus to begin with. Carl said "the resulting inconsistency should not be a reason to change the older citations to the format introduced by the more recent editor" (in this case, you) and that "new citations should (eventually) be brought into accord with the existing citations" (Peter coxhead agrees with this argument and so do I). Boghog also pointed out that "as a compromise, if someone really, really wants vertical format, it should be moved to list-defined references so as not to make the prose in the raw wiki text unreadable." As far as I can see, you didn't introduce list-defined references, and you still don't have a consensus to add vertical formatting in the articles for "Money for Nothing", "Rock the Casbah" and "99 Luftballons". Synthwave.94 (talk) 20:56, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Not one editor agrees with you that an article needs to have either all vertical or all horizontal citations. Not one. You're taking Peter coxhead's comments about plain text and citation templates out of context, and attempting to contort that into some kind of support of your opinion that all the cites need to be either horizontal or vertical. There's no support for that argument of yours. None. In other words, you should leave the citations alone that other editors add, just as other editors leave your citations alone. It's really simple. Rockypedia (talk) 12:41, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Meanwhile, Boghog and Paul August have explicitly stated that vertical and horizontal cites can co-exist, and that no editor should change horizontal to vertical, or vice-versa, simply to satisfy their own personal preference. Leave the cites as they are. You've been changing my vertical cites to horizontal for months, and it's really disruptive editing at this point. Rockypedia (talk) 12:49, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

What CITEVAR says is that once a citation style has been established, it should be maintained unless consensus is to change that style. That includes additional citations that are added after the style has been established by the first major contributor. Hence CITEVAR implies that all the citations within the same article should be horizontal or vertical. I prefer horizontal, but that is merely my opinion. Boghog (talk) 13:01, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Actually if you read CITEVAR carefully, it's clear that when it says "styles" it's referring to differences such as those between "parenthetical and <ref> tags". This implies that as long as all the cites are ones using <ref> tags, they're all one style. If you look at any of the cite templates, like this one, they all refer to horizontal and vertical as a "format", as in "horizontal format" or "vertical format." Both are part of the same style. Rockypedia (talk) 14:06, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

The implication "that as long as all the cites are ones using <ref> tags, they're all one style" is a gross simplication. I could come up with a dozen distinct "styles" (likely more with a little exertion), all using <ref> tags. Similarly, "parenthetical" style – putting references in the text, and in parentheses – is a class of "styles" (see Parenthetical referencing), including but not limited to the often disparaged "Harvard referencing style". None of which get into the details of how such styles are implemented.~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:52, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm talking specifically about the definitions and distinctions that Wikipedia policy pages draw. CITEVAR doesn't differentiate between horizontal and vertical, but does call <ref> tags a different style from parenthetical, and the template pages for cite:book, cite:web, etc, all refer to the difference between horizontal and vertical as formats, not styles. Rockypedia (talk) 20:17, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

I still don't see any explicit consensus, Rockypedia. Also, as per WP:BRD, you should discuss to reach a clear consensus and not just reverting my edits over and over until someone blocks you. Remember that between both of us, you're the one who introduced a new style/format to several articles. Synthwave.94 (talk) 20:51, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

I did not introduce a new style; I added valid citations, and the vertical and horizontal formats can co-exist, according to policy and several editors' opinion, so you need consensus, per WP:BRD, as your changes are completely unnecessary and based on your own personal perferences of <ref> formats. I don't mess with horizontal cites to change them to vertical. You're the one being disruptive. Rockypedia (talk) 20:56, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Incorrect, you added a new format that was not in the articles you edited. You're still trying to impose the vertical format and are now misusing the BRD cycle. Please wait for an explicit consensus before making new changes again. Synthwave.94 (talk) 20:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Vertical citations are not a "new" format. They're a perfectly acceptable format that co-exist with the horizontal format on thousands on wikipedia pages. I added a new citation, not a new format. There is nothing in CITEVAR that requires any article to have all vertical or all horizontal formats with <ref> tags. Therefore, your edits are disruptive, and your attempt to use WP:BRD to justify your edit warring is a desperate reach. Rockypedia (talk) 21:04, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

@Rockypedia: yes, CITEVAR does not explicitly cover vertical vs. horizontal layout, although it does explicitly favour consistency in other internal formatting of citations. But what follows from this is not that editors are free to do whatever they like, since the requirement to seek and follow consensus always applies. So in the absence of agreed over-arching guidelines, as Synthwave.94 says above, you need to seek and obtain consensus article by article when challenged. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:04, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

I would also add that you are going against the spirit of WP:OWN by saying that others must not change edits you make. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:09, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

If you weren't introducing a new format - if it was really no different than what was there before - then it would make no sense to object when someone changes the formatting you've used... In any case CITEVAR does apply to these things. While no editor is force to match the existing style and formatting, we expect that eventually someone else will edit new citations to match the existing style and formatting. So it is just a matter of time, in the end. It is not appropriate in any way for someone to claim that the new citations they have added cannot be edited to match the previously existing citations in the article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:25, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm not the one making superfluous changes. I added citations that were necessary, and Synthwave made a formatting change to them that added nothing. It is not appropriate in any way for someone to claim that the format change to the citations they didn't add can't be reverted to the original format. That's a violation of WP:CYCLE: Synthwave made a superfluous change, I reverted it, and now we're discussing it. Meanwhile, nothing in CITEVAR says that all the cites have to be vertical or horizontal, and there are thousands of articles where the two formats co-exist - with good reason, there's no policy against that! Your statement that "we expect that eventually someone else will edit new citations to match the existing style and formatting" is pure opinion; YOU may expect that, but it's just not supported by policy in any way, as policy only states that style needs to be consistent. Formats, in terms of horizontal and vertical, can be mixed, as there's no policy prohibiting that, and in the current Wikipedia, they do co-exist everywhere. Rockypedia (talk) 14:41, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Converting to the established style is acceptable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:02, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

There's no policy against adding additional references, but if someone adds one in a way that differs from the rest, we expect that eventually it may be cleaned up (compare WP:DEADLINE for why this is OK). This guideline says "If the article you are editing is already using a particular citation style, you should follow it; if you believe it is inappropriate for the needs of the article, seek consensus for a change on the talk page. " - and the choice of horizontal vs. vertical template usage is one aspect of the style that an article may use. The argument that someone can add citations in a way different from the existing ones, and then nobody can change them to match the existing ones, is exactly the opposite of the actual practice. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:38, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

@Rockypedia: The revision history for "Money for Nothing" clearly shows that you started making controversial changes without any consensus on 3 February 2016‎, with an edit war ending on 25 March 2016 after a discussion. You then resumed this behaviour on 20 and 21 October 2016‎, and started making other controversial changes since 4 May 2017‎ and haven't stopped ever since. You even started adding vertical formatting in the articles for "Rock the Casbah" and "99 Luftballons" (one week ago), again without even discussing your changes. From my side, I started two discussions (a discussion on the talk page for "Manual of Style" and this current discussion. None of them ended up on an explicit consensus that would confirm you can use a vertical format wherever you want. You therefore misused the WP:BRD cycle twice.

It's true you added several references to "Money for Nothing", "99 Luftballons" and "Rock the Casbah", and I appreciate the addition of sources in articles under my watchlist. Your persistent use of the vertical format is not acceptable, however, as pointed out by several other editors. WP:CITEVAR says that "imposing one style on an article with inconsistent citation styles (...) [is] an improvement because it makes the citations easier to understand and edit", which implies that even horizontal and vertical formats may be modified to match a consistent format chosen by the main editor of an article and for readibility purposes. Per Carl, WP:DEADLINE confirms that you should not attempt to impose your own style/format in an article which already uses a consistent citation style/format. There are no differences between horizontal and vertical formats and other citation styles you can find in an article: if you want to change them, respect the BRD cycle and reach a consensus and do not start an edit war. Note that I don't care if there are other articles with a mixture of horizontal and vertical formats, considering they may not be cleaned up correctly.

I therefore suggest that you stop using the vertical format in the articles for "Money for Nothing", "99 Luftballons" and "Rock the Casbah" and that you to stick to the horizontal format used in all three articles. I spent too much time on this issue and I don't want to waste my time edit warring with you again. Synthwave.94 (talk) 21:50, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Your phrasing "I appreciate the addition of sources in articles under my watchlist" is further proof, straight from the horse's mouth this time, that you consider those pages "yours" and anyone else editing them is subject to your approval. That's not the way it works. Furthermore, when I added the sources, you are the one who made the controversial edit by changing the formatting for no reason other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT. There's still not one editor, not one, who agrees with your your assertion that horizontal and vertical cites cannot co-exist in the same article, and WP:CITEVAR does not support that assertion either, as multiple editors agree that H/V are just formatting, and not different styles. So, when you made your edit, that would be the BOLD part of WP:BRD that you set in motion. I reverted it, because your edit was not based in policy, just personal preference and your feeling that you owned those pages. Despite the fact that in both discussions, no one agrees that all of the cites have to be horizontal, you have reverted the revert dozens of times, in direct violation of WP:CYCLE. Rockypedia (talk) 23:43, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Um, I am sure I have said several times that CITEVAR does apply, and that if you add a different style you cannot be surprised when someone changes it to match the existing one. Headbomb above said "Converting to the established style is acceptable." BOghog wrote "Hence CITEVAR implies that all the citations within the same article should be horizontal or vertical. " Peter coxhead wrote "you need to seek and obtain consensus article by article when challenged" It is true that the different styles can coexist temporarily, but eventually we expect each article to get standardized to a single citation style. The entire point of CITEVAR, like ENGVAR and STYTLEVAR, is that the normal editing cycle does not apply to these things - it is inappropriate to go around changing the citation styles of existing articles based just on your own preferences, and inappropriate to try to claim BRD for such edits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:21, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Again, CITEVAR is clear on the point that horizontal and vertical verisons of <ref> tags are different formats, not different styles. The <ref> style is a style, distinct from styles such as the parenthetical style of cites. No one is changing the citation style. Synthwave is changing the format of the <ref> tags to suit his own personal preferences, and I agree that it's inappropriate of him to do that. Rockypedia (talk) 13:54, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

@Rockypedia: You missed my points about your behaviour and about how I consider your addition of sources helpful, but it doesn't matter anyway. Carl (and other editors involved in this discussion) rightly confirmed that WP:CITEVAR does apply in this specific case. As I pointed out several times, you don't have an explicit consensus to restore your vertical formatting. If you revert me again (for "Money for Nothing", "99 Luftballons", "Rock the Casbah", or for all of them) I will start a dispute resolution or a discussion that requires the intervention of administrators and other experienced editors (I'm not sure which one is the best in this case). From now on I hope you will stop your disprutive behaviour. Synthwave.94 (talk) 22:38, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

You have no consensus that says changing cites from one format to another based solely on personal preference is a good edit. Your disruptive edits to valid cites that I've added to the page, and your failure to observe WP:CYCLE while doing so, is behavior that will probably require an admin to correct. I've never, not once, taken a horizontal citation and converted it to my personal preference of vertical format. You, on the other hand, have now changed the format of vertical cites to horizontal more times than I can even count, without any valid policy reason behind it, and your reason appears to be that you don't like vertical cites. Fine, keep using horizontal format. No one will complain, or change their format. Why you can't leave vertical cites alone, in a similar manner, is beyond me. That's the disruptive behavior here. Rockypedia (talk) 03:35, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Since this issue doesn't seem to be going anywhere (productive, at least), I have started a Request for Comments in a section below. AHeneen (talk) 10:46, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Let's hope it would solve this issue. Synthwave.94 (talk) 22:49, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Converting citations on a page that I created

Hi all, I am learning more about citations and on the Citing sources page I read the "avoiding clutter" section. I like the idea of having a short citation instead of the long ref stuff that seems to be the standard, because I think it makes the source code more readable. The only thing stopping me from converting all the citations is the sentence "articles should not undergo large-scale conversion between formats without consensus to do so." I'm not the only editor to edit the article, but I'm the main one (so far), and I don't think any other editors have added citations. Is it okay to just go ahead and do the conversion in this case? Thanks in advance. LAroboGuy (talk) 14:58, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

To be more specific, I am considering editing the citations to become List-defined references (WP:LDR) on that page. Also, assuming I make the change, do all citations have to be written in this method once I make that change, or it okay to mix the two different types? LAroboGuy (talk) 15:01, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

@LAroboGuy: What article? ―Mandruss ☎ 15:04, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Mike Rossi (DJ) LAroboGuy (talk) 15:06, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

@LAroboGuy: You're correct, no one else has created a cite there. I don't think policy precludes you from changing your mind at this point and switching to LDR. From a technical standpoint, LDR and inline can peacefully coexist in an article. Some will say that it's important to be consistent one way or the other (I'm not one of them at this stage in my editing career). From a practical standpoint, experience tells me that other editors won't maintain pure LDR there, as LDR is not widely used or understood. To maintain that requires an ongoing dedicated LDR-tender who takes new inline citations and converts them to LDR. I've done that at a couple of articles, including Shooting of Michael Brown. I don't anymore as it became tedious. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:14, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

thank you very much! I will try it once, I'm definitely going to do it on any future articles I create. appreciate the advice. LAroboGuy (talk) 15:29, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Numbering in DEADREF

The WP:DEADREF section has steps to take, numbered 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, . . .

I'm using the doubled step 3 is an accident, right? Alephb (talk) 01:40, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

 Fixed, thanks for pointing this out: Noyster (talk), 07:58, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to default references element to column mode

I have started a proposal to switch the default behaviour of <references /> to automatic column mode. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:21, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Correct-marked comparisons in the WP:INTEXT section

Just to be clear, the WP:INTEXT section now has comparisons that are marked as correct. As seen here, here, here and here, LeadSongDog added them and I have somewhat challenged them. I'm okay with what is there now, but I'm just not sure that they are needed, especially since the section is meant to focus on what not to do, and we want to be clear on that, instead of illustrating how to write the matter when there are different ways to write it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:01, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Number of columns when displaying ref..tags

Resolved

 – The RfC that was already open at Village Pump has concluded (permalink).

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

"Support" the default for <references /> remaining 1 column or "Oppose" it should be altered to multiple columns if there are more than 10 ref..tag pairs on a page. Second question {{reflist}} has already been change, is this desirable or should {{reflist}} mirror the default behaviour of <references />? -- PBS (talk) 11:26, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Copied from a discussion (but not an RfC) at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Automatic column mode for references element

Recently it became possible for <references /> to automatically use responsive columns when there are more than 10 references in the generated list. Currently this behaviour is an opt-in mode (<references responsive="1"/>). The opt-in was intentional as throughout Wikimedia, we had many templates that already relied on pre-existing behaviour.

1. Currently <references /> never has columns
2. When we switch the default, <references /> will have columns if there are more than 10 references (30em wide, same size as most Reflist usages).
3. This switch of the default will not influence {{Reflist}}, which can be used for changing column width and a few more advanced features.
4. It will be possible to disable these columns by using <references responsive="0" />.

If there is agreement, then we can file a phabricator bug report to make the change. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:15, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

• Comment TheDJ, I think that this is the right place to hold an RfC because without wide consensus such a large change seems to me to be a violation of WP:CITEVAR and this is the content guideline page that owns WP:CITEVAR. -- PBS (talk) 11:26, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
• Comment TheDJ, I think your comments at VP show a misunderstanding of why people use {{reflist}}. They may use it to display multiple columns, but they may also use it for its other attributes of making the text smaller, or simply use it because it is used elsewhere. It would be interesting to see a proper search done, but using insource:/\{\{[Rr]eflist/ (which times out), and the small sample returned on the first page of results: twelve of the 20 have no parameter, two use "2" as the parameter five use "em30" and one uses "em35". -- PBS (talk) 11:26, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
• Support (as the initiator of this RfC) keeping default as 1 column. It was the change to the template {{reflist}} that now displays multiple columns as seen on the page Great Officer of State that alerted me to this change. While I agree that short citations are better displayed with multiple columns, the majority of pages I have looked at, if they have inline citations, they are full citations and I do not think that full citations are better wrapped into narrow columns because it makes them harder to read. -- PBS (talk) 11:26, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
• This RFC should be snow-closed per WP:MULTI as a fork of the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Automatic column mode for references element. PBS, if you believe the former discussion should be an RFC, you are free to tag it with the magical {{RFC}}. --Izno (talk) 11:45, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

• I think that is is a better place to hold the discussion because it will attract more attention than anywhere else. This is because this is the guideline that is used to give guidance on citations, and this talk page is the central place to hold discussions about changing look and feel of citations. Changing from on column to multi-column over tens of thousands of oages is a big change and this is the place to discuss such changes. -- PBS (talk) 12:07, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

• I don't really care what the "behind the scenes" default setting for the template is... however, I would oppose incorporating any language into policy itself about this. I am concerned that such language would lead editors into thinking that it is somehow "wrong" to change the setting, if they think more (or fewer) columns would be better at any given article. How many columns are best for the reflist should remain a matter of LOCAL (article level) preference and consensus. A one-size-fits-all "rule" on this is not the way to go. (note... I don't think a "rule" is being proposed, but I wanted to express the concern anyway). Blueboar (talk) 11:52, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

• I don't see it as need to change the wording of this guideline. We are talking about default settings and whether they should be changed. Changing the display on tens of thousands of pages without an RfC that shows clear community support is not the usual way that Wikipedia operates. -- PBS (talk) 12:07, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose – The majority of articles use, with good reason, {{Reflist}}, {{Reflist|30em}}, and some other variations that display responsive columns. Making <references /> behave the same way will improve consistency across Wikipedia. A 1-column display for >10 references can still be done. No downside. Note that this matter has also recently been raised at Template talk:Reflist#Default number of columns. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:28, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

  @User:Michael Bednarek you write "The majority of articles use, with good reason ..." the admitadly small sample I looked at above does not support your assertion, so what is your evidence that your assertion is true? -- PBS (talk) 22:04, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

• Close per WP:MULTI The discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Automatic column mode for references element is already well underway. This smells like an attempt at WP:FORUMSHOP to me. Anomie⚔ 13:02, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
• I will just note that people on this page were informed and invited, several sections up: #Proposal to default references element to column mode. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:53, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

  @user:TheDJ (1) what makes you think that "Proposal to default references element to column mode" would be a very significant header or that "I have started a proposal to switch the default behaviour of to automatic column mode" would be understood by most people that you intended to change the behaviour of the default setting? (2) why did you make changes to the default behaviour of {{reflist}} before there was a general consensus for such a change? -- PBS (talk) 22:15, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Data repetition and citing sources in graphs

I am talking about the use of the {{Television ratings graph}} template in a "List of ... episodes" article (example: Rick and Morty ratings). As you can see, this is a case of data repetition, data that have already been cited in the episode tables, above the "Ratings" section, in the "U.S. viewers (millions)" column. Is it necessary to provide sources for a second time when this data are presented in the table, just below the ratings graph? If yes, can we provide the sources below the ratings table (like it's being done now), or do the sources need to be inside each cell containing viewer figures? -- Radiphus 09:35, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

If all the information presented in the graph has already been mentioned and cited in the text, it is optional to cite it a second time in the graph. Blueboar (talk) 09:46, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Are there any guidelines regarding this issue? -- Radiphus 10:01, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Could someone please let me know, where can i get an administrator's response on this issue? -- Radiphus 09:56, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi Radiphus. This is not so much an admin thing as a policy thing. The best reference for Wikipedia's approach to how many citations are needed is at Wikipedia:Inline citation#When you must use inline citations, especially the section on text-source integrity. It always helps to have the source next to the information instead of having to look for it someplace else and it doesn't have to be in the same cell. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:20, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Ongoing <references /> discussion at WP:VPPR

Resolved

 – This RfC has concluded (permalink).

The village pump discussion about modifying <references /> into columns is still ongoing. I invite you to comment there. --George Ho (talk) 09:58, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

What is the relevant category for international standards?

Should it be considered a journal as it is equivalent to science? Problem is that there are no authors you can name.

Also in international standards there is something called the ICS code - https://www.standardsportal.org/usa_en/resources/ics_code.aspx - which is the classification code for such documents, maybe the equivalent of ISBN for books. Should I include this code when referencing a standard? It is not currently included. Botatao (talk)

Please keep in mind that any citation style is allowed. One of the many citation styles allowed is citation style 1 which uses templates, and one must know which template to use, such as {{cite report}} or {{cite journal}}. Is that what you mean?

There is another citation style that uses templates, {{Citation}}, which looks at the parameters provided to decide what kind of source it is and how to format the citation.

If you are using some other style, such as The Chicago Manual of Style or APA style you would refer to the documents that define those styles.

If you are only interested in citation style 1 you might move this discussion to the corresponding talk page. Jc3s5h (talk) 10:42, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

The CS1/2 template have a generic |id= btw. You could put |title=Syringes, needles, and catheters + |id=ICS 11.040.25 or cite with |title=ICS 11.040.25 – Syringes, needles, and catheters, or many other variation. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:24, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Looking at the web page provided by the OP to describe ICS codes, I note it is published by ANSI. ANSI is the reseller in the USA for ISO standards. ICS codes are specified in an ISO standard. This means that the web site is a biased source. Since they have a financial interest in selling such standards, they may exaggerate the degree of acceptance of such codes in the standards community. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:07, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't be too concerned about that. While ANSI does distribute/retail the standards, they evidently don't discriminate between "Standards Developing Organizations" except possibly to the extent of favouring US national organizations over other nations' equivalents. Other national distributors behave similarly. Everyone chafes at the pricing on standards, but the reality is that they often do represent a huge investment of time, money, and effort by those who develop them. Still, they are frequently available in libraries. As a result, searching WorldCat for the ISO number or title will generally turn up a result, with an OCLC such as OCLC 173972534. This can then be used in the citation template to substantiate the existence of the document, if not to access its content.LeadSongDog come howl! 16:25, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

For reliable sources there is always an "author", which is the entity to which the authorship of a document is attributed, and the basis for any claim of authority. In the case of standards (international, national, industrial, etc.) the "author" is the body that has developed or promolugated the standard: ANSI, ISO, IMO, NEC, etc. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:45, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

J. Johnson may be correct in an abstract sense; a book found lying on a shelf with no indication of who wrote or published it would not be considered a reliable source. But several style guides do not recommend putting any entry in the position in the bibliography entry where the author would normally go if the publication does not list one or more natural persons as the author(s). Citation style 1 does not take a position on whether such a publication should leave the author parameter absent, or should designate some group or corporation as the author. Jc3s5h (talk) 04:32, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Library practice in the card index days was exactly as J Johnson suggested. The alternative is to have drawer after drawer with nothing but "Anon" entries. Personally I would always look for a corporate author if no natural person was specified, and weird circumlocutions such as "staff of ..." leads to the "S" drawer being over full. Coming rather more up to date, in a bibliography section it is pointless trying to keep things in neat alphabetic order if half the entries don't have a primary key. Whilst you can let the automatic linkage do the work for you, it is much easier to find "New York Times (2016): Brexit chaos in London" under "N" rather than under "B" for "Brexit chaos in London (2016); New York Times". Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:22, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

"Anonymous" is special case where an author wishes to be unidentified. In that case we are unable to assess him or her expertise, reputation (for ill or well), possible conflict of interest, etc. Unless some other entity vouches for the material and its authorship, it should not be considered a reliable source.

Newspapers are an interesting mixed case. Modern practice has been to greater use of by-lines, especially for the larger stories, so the reader has a more particular basis for assessing the credibility of the story. The older practice is that editors do that, and the organization takes responsibility for the story. But even there the writers, though unidentified, are not necessarily anonymous. It's more a matter of whom takes responsibility: some little known and transient reporter, or a long-established and well known publication. (Incidentally: recommended practice is that newspaper articles, whether by-lined or not, are collated by the name of the paper.)

In the case of standards: these are usually worked out by committees, whose composition various over time, and often building on previous work. There is rarely a "natural" individual (or individuals) to which it can attributed; authorship is attributed to the organization.

Jc3s5h: which "several style guides" do you have in mind as suggesting that authors must be natural persons? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:02, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

APA style (6th ed.) indicates in 6.13 and 6.25 that group authors are treated the same as natural persons. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (7th ed.) also says to treat the group author like a natural person (5.5.5). Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.) in the section on using footnotes or endnotes for citations says to treat groups like natural persons in the bibliography (14.92), and seems to be silent about what to do if there are footnotes but no bibliography. Chicago's chapter on author-date citations (similar to Harvard citations) says a group may be treated like a natural person. (15.35)

So I guess I must have been rembering some system that I don't have a manual for at hand. Or maybe I'm remembering an earlier edition of one of the ones I just mentioned. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:21, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Our usual practice is to cite standards (and other long-form organizational pronouncements) as books or (if they only exist online) as websites. If they're short, treat them like articles/papers (titles in quotation marks) not major works (italics). Simple example WP templates:

• Long, paper: {{cite book |title=XYZML Specification |version=Ver. 1.0 |author=XYZ Working Group |publisher=World XYZ Consortium |date=2017 |isbn=978-1617750250 |at="1.2.3: Positioning of XYZs", pp. 27–29}}
  XYZ Working Group (2017). XYZML Specification. Ver. 1.0. World XYZ Consortium. "1.2.3: Positioning of XYZs", pp. 27–29. ISBN 978-1617750250.
• Short, paper: {{cite report |title=XYZML Specification |version=Ver. 1.0 |author=XYZ Working Group |publisher=World XYZ Consortium |date=2017 |isbn=978-1617750250 |at="1.2.3: Positioning of XYZs", pp. 27–29}}
  XYZ Working Group (2017). XYZML Specification (Report). Ver. 1.0. World XYZ Consortium. "1.2.3: Positioning of XYZs", pp. 27–29. ISBN 978-1617750250.
• Long, online: {{cite web |title=1.2.3: Positioning of XYZs |work=XYZML Specification |version=Ver. 1.0 |author=XYZ Working Group |publisher=World XYZ Consortium |date=2017 |url= https://www.xyx.int/XYML1.0/}}
  XYZ Working Group (2017). "1.2.3: Positioning of XYZs". XYZML Specification. Ver. 1.0. World XYZ Consortium.
• Short, online: {{cite web |title=XYZML Specification, Ver. 1.0 |work=XYZ.int |author=XYZ Working Group |publisher=World XYZ Consortium |date=2017 |url= https://www.xyz.int/XYML1.0/ |at="1.2.3: Positioning of XYZs"}}
  XYZ Working Group (2017). "XYZML Specification, Ver. 1.0". XYZ.int. World XYZ Consortium. "1.2.3: Positioning of XYZs".

People have different approaches to specifying online stuff in detail, and some might leave out |work=XYZ.int in the last case. Note that |version applies to the |work (a.k.a. |website) parameter in {{Cite web}}, not to the |title parameter (which serves a different purpose than the |title parameter in {{Cite book}} and {{Cite journal}} where it's equivalent to |work). In the last case, then, the version number has to be shoehorned into the whitepaper's |title.

For short paper works, there's also {{Cite techreport}} and {{Cite press release}}, with more specific wording than "(Report)". There's a proposal open here to merge these templates and use a generalized |type parameter to customize the output of that label (e.g. for standards, press releases, forms, etc.), for more citation flexibility.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:38, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Deletion discussion for Cite_Q

There is a deletion discussion for {{Cite_Q}} which editors who watch this page may be interested in. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:56, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

R. M. Ritter

@SMcCandlish: The catalogue of the Library of Congress lists him as "Robert M. Ritter". So does the catalogue of the British Library. I think that just about settles it. Zero^talk 14:00, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Huzzah! I shall go update Ritter (surname) at least. I'd love to write an article on this person, but like so many behind-the-scenes academics there's little to work with, at least available online.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:07, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: He was previously listed there for a while (as Robert M. Ritter (publisher)), but was removed for non-notability in August 2012.—Odysseus1479 07:02, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, principal author of two of the two most influential style manuals for the English language of the 21st century seems pretty notable; just a matter of getting the secondary sources to demonstrate it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:40, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Language=en

Is there some policy that confirms that, in template citations, the "Language=" field does not need to be included for English-language sources? Thanks for any help (please ping me if you respond). -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:34, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

@Ssilvers: Not policy, but Help:Citation_Style_1#Language. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:37, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

The citation module will not display the language where the language is English and English is the only language entered. The consensus for the implementation of the citation module is here. --Izno (talk) 02:51, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:35, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

To clarify for anyone wandering past: It's okay to add |language=en; the citation template will just ignore it. Translators apparently appreciate it (because then it's in place for when they copy the template to a Wikipedia in a different language), but mostly people don't bother. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:51, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Not one, not two, but THREE ways to cite a web page

According to this article, when you cite web pages the field order is: (1) URL (2) author (3) title.
However ...
According to the Cite web documentation page the order is: (1) URL (2) title (2) author.
But!
If you use the RefToolbar to add a citation the order is: (1) author (2) title (3) URL.

• example: {{cite web|last1=Solitary|first1=Pyxis|title=WTF|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pyxis_Solitary|website=Wikipedia|date=October 2, 2017}}.

There are three roads on the Wikipedia map. Which one is the way to citation rapture? Pyxis Solitary talk 09:08, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Since the list of elements is an unordered list using * markup where, by definition, the order of the listed elements is arbitrary, I do not see how Wikipedia:Citing sources#Web pages can be read as enforcing any particular element order. RefToolbar receives user input and emits a {{cite web}} template that contains the user's input. I presume that the creator/maintainer of that tool had reason for choosing the order of the fields in the web citation form. The {{cite web}} documentation may list citation elements in some arbitrary order, but element order in the the template itself, as you have written you example here, does not matter because the code that renders the final citation is indifferent to source-element order in its rendering.

If you choose to hand-craft a web citation (or, for that matter, any other kind of citation) WP:CITEVAR requires that your citation be stylistically the same as other citations in the article so you should order the elements accordingly.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:07, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate your response. The reason behind my question was an edit in a PC1 protected article by an IP-only editor in which the order of fields in an existing template was changed and a reviewer accepted the edit. The edit contradicted the citation style used in the article. Until your reply I was not aware of WP:CITEVAR. Thank you. Pyxis Solitary talk 11:52, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Most articles do not use reference lists with the entries in alphabetical order. So for most lists, I don't think there would be any expectation that the parameters be in any particular order. If there is an alphabetical reference list, it would be thoughtful to put the parameter that determines the entry's placement in the list first, which would usually be the last name of the first author. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:10, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Strongly agree with User:Jc3s5h. It is a right royal pain alphabetising lists where the author's surname is buried in random places. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:16, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't know how my inquiry was interpreted as being about alphabetization, but it's not why I inquired about the 1-2-3 of citation fields. However, my 2 cents: articles don't write themselves, nor do they give themselves titles. For me, in this game, the "who's on first" should be the author, "what's on second" should be the title, and "I don't know" the URL. Salut! Pyxis Solitary talk 07:24, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

The correct take-away from the inconsistency you cite is that it doesn't matter. Parameter sequence is not important enough to warrant a guideline about it, so why should our own examples be consistent? Citation style does not include parameter sequence to my knowledge, so CITEVAR does not apply. If an editor wants to spend their time and a miniscule amount of server resources re-arranging parameters with no effect on what readers see, let them. At some point they will become bored and do something more useful. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:37, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

If CITEVAR doesn't matter ... then it devolves into "my way or the highway". If there's one thing I've learned about Wikipedia, it's that too often editor ego and hubris likes to grab the wheel. Pyxis Solitary talk 08:38, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

If it doesn't matter, and it doesn't, let 'em have their way. Fight battles that are worth fighting. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:54, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, maybe for some people having consistency within an article is worth fighting for. In a nutshell ... you like tomato and I like tomahto. Pyxis Solitary talk 09:27, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

It is more a question of cost/benefit and collateral damage (for instance if enforcing a consistent style drives off the primary content maintainer(s), it is a net loss for WP).--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:41, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Maybe. Maybe not. If you don't enforce a consistent style, the style you do have eventually becomes chaotic and unpleasant. Personally, I don't worry about the retention of IP-only editors who have nothing better to do than to 'rearrange the furniture' because ... whatevs. Pyxis Solitary talk 12:04, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

As Jc3s5h alluded to already, WP:CITEVAR most certainly does not require that the "citation be stylistically the same" as others in the article, if by "stylistically" you're talking about the order of the parameters. CITEVAR refers specifically to major styles of citations, such as parenthetical vs. <ref> tags. Since the text is hidden from the reader, my feeling is it would be a major waste of time to attempt to make every <ref> match every other one on the page. Hell, I'm thankful when a user puts any parameter into <ref> tags beyond a bare URL. Do we really want to make it any more difficult and complicated than it already is? CITEVAR does matter, but only when it's something that actually affects what the reader is seeing. When it comes to the order of parameters - no, that is a minor issue that only OCD editors would have a problem with. If you feel like reordering the hundreds of millions of citations that don't match the rest of the citations on each article, go for it. Rockypedia (talk) 14:00, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

"that is a minor issue that only OCD editors would have a problem with. If you feel like reordering the hundreds of millions of citations that don't match the rest of the citations on each article, go for it."

Are you implying that I'm OCD? You don't even know me. And like other editors who think they're holier-than-thou, you shot from the hip without obviously reading and comprehending any of my comments. Don't waste people's time with amateurish responses. Pyxis Solitary talk 04:47, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I think it's generally accepted that major changes to the way the citations are written in the wikitext are covered by CITEVAR, such as using list-defined references or not. But I've never seen any effort to keep the parameters in a strict order, so I'd say that's too minor for CITEVAR to apply. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:11, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Should usage of vertical and horizontal templates fall within WP:CITEVAR

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Previous RfC on this and related matters (27 June 2016):

Is a change in citation markup method a change in citation style?
(summary of result: only if it affects the displayed output).

In a lengthy discussion above ("#WP:CITEVAR"), there is substantial disagreement about whether WP:CITEVAR applies to the use of horizontal vs. vertical citation templates, ie. (using Template:Cite journal):

{{cite journal |last1= |first1= |last2= |first2= |date= |title= |url= |journal= |volume= |issue= |pages= |doi= |access-date= }}

Versus:

{{cite journal
| last       = 
| first      = 
| last2      = 
| first2     = 
| date       = 
| title      = 
| url        = 
| journal    = 
| volume     = 
| issue      = 
| pages      = 
| doi        = 
| access-date = 
}}

See these diffs for subject of the edit warring: [3], [4], [5].

WP:CITESTYLE states in part:

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.

WP:CITEVAR states in part:

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. ... As with spelling differences, it is normal practice to defer to the style used by the first major contributor or adopted by the consensus of editors already working on the page, unless a change in consensus has been achieved.

Since the discussion above ("WP:CITEVAR") shows there is disagreement about whether the current policyguideline covers usage of horizontal/vertical citation templates, the RfC is phrased to determine if it should so that the issue can be settled. An earlier discussion about the issue resulted in no consensus. It's time to settle this issue. AHeneen (talk) 10:44, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Support

• Of course the formatting of a citation should be protected by the normal procedure that editors should not change established style without a compelling reason. By all means "fix" citations to what you LIKE once, but if challenged, go and find another article. There is no objective way to decide which end of an egg should be broken, nor is there an objective way to decide if citations should be horizontal or vertical. All available weapons (style guides) should be used to prevent disruption. Johnuniq (talk) 11:00, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
• For purpose of dispute resolution, yes. Edit warring over this is completely silly. If there's an established format, it's fine to convert citations that don't follow the mold into citations that do. Refs bundled up at the end of articles can be in a different format than those inline, however. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:34, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
• As others have noted above, the only way to prevent endless cycles of changes back and forth and eventual edit-warring is to agree that there should be consistency within an article. However, I'm open on whether this should be said at CITEVAR or elsewhere. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:43, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
• The horizontal format was already used in all articles Rockypedia decided to add vertical formatting in. There's no valid reason to add an unecessary extra format to articles already cleaned up. It's also the only way to stop this endless edit war. Synthwave.94 (talk) 22:54, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - WP:CITEVAR's purpose is just as much behavioral as content-based. In other words, it's not just about what displays on the page but avoiding edit wars and resolving disagreements where there is no one clear answer. Many aspects of CITEVAR already apply to things other than the way something is displayed (such as grouping named refs in the references section vs. using storing refs inline, as they're used). The same is true here. It is not sufficient to say that it does not apply, as that means precedent doesn't matter. Edit warring to stretch a reference over as much space as possible simply because you prefer it that way is disruptive (and the reverse would likewise be disruptive, of course, if the precedent on the page were to use the long version). Yes, stylistic disagreements are lame and tedious and I get the inclination to avoid including them in policy/guidelines, but this comes down to: do you want to ignore lame and tedious disagreements such that they recur, unresolved, or do you want this RfC to very simply resolve this and all future disagreements on the matter without even requiring any change to the policy text? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:15, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
  • That directly contradicts the previous and rather recent RfC on this, which concluded that CITEVAR only apply to changes that affect the displayed output.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:16, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
• Support, per Rhododendrites, who made the argument I would have made but said it better than I would have. Resolving behavioural disagreements is an important function of CITEVAR. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:20, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support. The purpose of WP:CITEVAR is to avoid edit wars. Don't change citations without consensus, or you are likely to find yourself in a pointless, frustrating and time-consuming edit war. It's not worth it. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 09:36, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
• Support - per all above, no need to change from one method to another. Mjroots (talk) 18:25, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose. The question is "Should usage of vertical and horizontal templates fall within WP:CITEVAR", the question is not which is better in any particular circumstance. The only thing that CITEVAR might say is that existing styles should be respected. To attempt to lay down a fixed rule in this case is micromanagement and will only lead to edit warring. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:26, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

There already has been edit-warring. The issue here is whether CITVAR can be applied to such sitatuations, either to enforce an existing style of formatting (implying that formatting must be consisten), or to declare that it does not apply (implying that consistency is not important). ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:24, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Current policy does not apply to formats of cites, such as vertical vs. horizontal, only the styles of citations, such as parenthetical vs. <ref> tags. This makes sense, as differences between horizontal and vertical formats are invisible to the reader, while differences in style are not invisible. Current policy makes sense. Perhaps an explicit note should be added to CITEVAR stating that as long as <ref> tags are the style of cite used in the article, horizontal and vertical formats of that style are both acceptable and can co-exist in the same article. Rockypedia (talk) 14:46, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - This is a wikitext formatting convention, not a citation style. The choice of one or the other makes no difference in what readers see. Disagree with Rockypedia's last sentence above, as such a change would imply that CITEVAR encompasses wikitext formatting decisions. We don't want to blur that line, trust me. I'm not opposed to addressing the question elsewhere, with a clear community consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:49, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Unnecessary instruction creep that expands the guideline to wikitext formatting that has no effect on the final seen citation style. DrKay (talk) 15:58, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Unbelievable instruction creep over a trivial issue. If someone has a fetish for "horizontal" or "vertical", let them have it. You let it go and find something better to do. EEng 16:59, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Citation style (e.g. Harvard referencing) and citation encoding (e.g. the "vertical format") are different things. Style- and encoding-guideline development accordingly demand different considerations. One obvious difference is that citation style must take into account the priorities of the reader, whereas citation encoding need only consider those of the editor. Another difference is purpose. "WP:CITEVAR" was presumably developed to address the problem of competing, pre-existing house citation styles. By contrast, the facility for choosing a citation format owes more to utility and function. Contributors have cited certain instances where the vertical format is more useful, even when their preference is for the horizontal. There will even be occasions when it'd be beneficial for horizontal and vertical formats to coexist in the same article. Pololei (talk) 20:54, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I am fascinated by this discussion, and this may be offtopic but I think both of the editors involved need to find something better to fight about. As for the question, I prefer horizontal citations, but because it's part of source code, it does not appear, to me, that we are required to make all the citations on a page all the same, vertical or horizontal. I don't think it's a good idea to require that, either, because that would involve a lot of work for no benefit, since readers can't see the source code. I don't know why an editor would care one way or another anyway. LAroboGuy (talk) 16:01, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose as CITEVAR is about parenthetical vs ref style, or ASA vs Chicago style. Putting it into how whichever is typed rather than was the reader sees seems excessive, not useful, and not realistic expectation. Shown with realistic content, seems it would have to be multiple lines anyway.Markbassett (talk) 00:31, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose: Consensus has not changed since the RfC here last year that concluded CITEVAR applies only to the rendered appearance. This proposal is scope creep and instruction creep, a form of bureaucracy. We already have way too much control-freak behavior about citations; the last thing we should do is empower more of that disruptive nonsense. CITEVAR is about citation styles like WP's CS1 versus Harvard versus Vancouver style; it is not about wiki code layout and spacing. The clear fact of the matter (and we've been over this multiple times) is that some layouts are better than others in particular contexts. Using horizontal layout is better in running prose, because the vertical format makes it very difficult to discern the basic paragraph structure of an article, a core editing necessity. Using vertical format with citations all laid out in the references section (LDR-style) makes that section easier to read, maintain, and edit, and can also be useful in cases where entire paragraphs are cited to single sources (though few paragraphs stay that way, so few in-text citations stay vertical). Horizontal format is by orders of magnitude the most common and is the de facto standard in regular text (over 95% of our articles use that format) even if some people here resist any page saying so.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:01, 6 July 2017 (UTC) Revised: 13:29, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose as instruction creep. Further, I see no need for a consistent formatting convention for this template either across articles or within a single article. Next we'll be instructing ourselves to put the parameters in the template call in the same order every time. As to the stylistic disagreements that may arise from the current lack of guidance, the solution is never to change the formatting of this template call for the sake of consistency. Snuge purveyor (talk) 03:13, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't see the need. My main concern about citations is their being complete enough and transferable between articles (which can be difficult with different citation styles but not affected by this debate). Doug Weller talk 09:53, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose -- no need. If someone wants to make them all uniform, all the power to them. But I don't see a need to codify this. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:08, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose as instruction creep...no benefit for readers --Moxy (talk) 11:44, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Other

• Oppose in prose sections of article, indifferent in reflist - I don't think that the policy currently extends to the use of horizontal vs. vertical templates, which in my opinion is a formatting style and not a citation style (comparable to the named ones). If the current policy did cover vertical vs. horizontal templates, then it could also be interpreted to cover the order in which parameters are listed. I really don't feel there are any good policy reasons for/against, so I'll use personal preference. In my opinion, the use of vertical citation templates in prose is difficult to work with, as it makes the source content much more difficult to see where the paragraphs are and overall much longer. However, when the content of the citations (whether all or only some of the article's citations) are contained in the References section, eg. [6] (source content of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370#References, if the link breaks), I am indifferent as the vertical citation templates are visually easier to work with, but I don't really see any need for consistency (the example link is mostly vertical, but a few horizontal ones exist) here. In particular, if the article begins with horizontal citations in the reflist but a major contributor at a later point prefers vertical, I don't see any good reason why there should be debate/consensus before making a change. AHeneen (talk) 10:44, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like a better idea. However the addition of references in the References section of an article in order to solve a problem (as Guanaco did in all three articles where Rockypedia decided to add an extra format in) doesn't look like a good idea. All citations should be left in a horizontal formatting. Synthwave.94 (talk) 20:17, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

CITEVAR says nothing about citations being in the same formatting. Your entire basis for your pointless edit warring was that horizontal and vertical were different "styles". Now that you've accepted that majority opinion that they are, in fact, formats of the same style, what's your excuse for continuing to edit war with this edit less than 24 hours ago, and then attempting to hide your edit with 2 more edits in the next 60 seconds? This was well after you were warned that would be blocked if you continued to edit war. Rockypedia (talk) 20:29, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Remember that you never achieved a consensus to add an extra formatting, as it entirely based on your personal preferences only. My edits had nothing to do with edit warring, but with standard clean up editing. You need to stop acting like a bad faith editor with such childish reactions. This article doesn't belong to you and you should be aware that you never started a discussion to solve the issue you are still involved in in the first place, and are still reverting for nothing at all, as your argument is not valid any more. Anyway what AHeneen is a better idea than your opinion. Synthwave.94 (talk) 20:38, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

AHeneen states that "I don't really see any need for consistency". I'm glad you agree. I assume that means you won't be making any more non-substantive changes to citations based purely on your personal preference for horizontal formatting. Glad we could end this civilly. Rockypedia (talk) 21:38, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

It was not based on my personal preferences but on a full consistency in an article to avoid a mixture of several formats. Synthwave.94 (talk) 20:52, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Also I'm not saying I full agree with AHeneen, but only that it's a better idea, which is a bit different. Synthwave.94 (talk) 22:39, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

The remark about not seeing any need for consistency was for the citations that are in the references section when viewing the source code (ie. after clicking "edit"), not in the rest of the article. AHeneen (talk) 14:17, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

• Question What does "style" mean? - in the sense of, "that which citevar is against pointless variation of".

The two types described here are issues of source code formatting. They have no influence on the visible (and invisible) content of the published article. They do not even change the mechanism (templates etc.) by which that article is generated. All they do is move whitespace around within the article's source wikicode. As any programmer will tell you, whitespace formatting wars are lame, yet a poor whitespace format is a burden on the efficiency, effectiveness and accuracy of those having to work with it.

There are three aspects to WP ref formats: source code formatting whitespace, choice of template used and finished presentation. It has never been clear what CITEVAR refers to (except obviously the finished presentation) and there will never be an answer to this question whilst it does not.

For myself, I often change the whitespace to this "vertical" format. It is the only way to make wall-of-text references visible to the editor. No case has ever been made for why all whitespace must be stripped from within them. The idea that the whitespace characters "waste valuable storage space" is pathetic. The misunderstanding that the "blank lines" take up even more space than an embedded space is ridiculously incorrect. I have every intention of continuing to embed "vertical" whitespace whenever it is necessary to be able to read and work with the source. I have some sympathy for preserving the other two. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:18, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

• Here are my thoughts on this entire issue:

1) We already have a firm policy that says "DON'T EDIT WAR"... this applies to disputes over behind the scenes coding variations. Remember that "DON'T EDIT WAR" applies to "me" as well as "you". It always takes two to edit war.

2) It is perfectly fine to allow both horizontal and vertical citation coding formats in the same article. In the absence of a local consensus, the default mode should be to allow both.

3) It is also perfectly fine for the editors working on an article to reach a local consensus favoring one variation over another. Such a consensus needs to be established on the article's talk page, so others will know that the consensus exists, and what it is.

4) If a local consensus has been reached favoring one over the other, that consensus should be respected (always remembering that consensus can change... so it is a good idea to re-examine the question and re-establish the consensus from time to time).

5) However, since this deals with coding, a degree of flexibility is always needed. Remember that some people are better at coding than others... and not everyone will be capable of following the consensus. These editors need to be respected.

• So... if someone is not following the consensus, do NOT simply revert... instead contact the other editor and explain the situation. a) Make sure that they are aware that a consensus coding style has been set. b) offer your help to conform their edits to the consensus style.
• Realize that the other editor may need to temporarily use the "non-consensus" style, while they make some additions... be flexible and understanding about this... the edits can be conformed to the consensus style once they have completed their work. It is not necessary for all citations to be in conformity at this exact moment in time. Be patient.

6) If (after all this polite and respectful communication), a dispute still arises... STOP... DON'T ESCALATE the dispute... seek outside opinions and assistance.

7) Finally, always be willing to back down. If you are spending an inordinate amount of time in a dispute over something as minor as this, ask yourself "is this really all that important to me?" The world will not end if you let the other guy win the dispute. Blueboar (talk) 18:44, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

While I concur with points 1, and 5–7, I have to at disagree least in part with several of these points, and add some "big picture" points:

2) There is a broad consensus to use horizontal format for most purposes in the main article body (easily proven by the fact that about 95% of articles use this format in that context, despite the cite template's documentation showing both, which should otherwise result in a 50/50 distribution). Use of vertical format in WP:LDR referencing is less clear-cut, but it's certainly tolerated and seems to be preferred, and it's also tolerated to use H in the body and V in the refs section. But it's not likely that consensus would support veering from format to format within the article's main text (much less ban normalization to a single format), since doing this makes the article harder to edit or even understand in source mode. The common practice of normalizing pointlessly vertical citations to horizontal in the main text is one reason why this proposal is falling like a lead balloon (the other is we're tired of obstructionism from those who turn apoplectic when anyone doesn't agree with their personal preferences regarding articles they feel inappropriately WP:VESTED in). We do want some level of consistency, but the WP:CREEP page exists for a reason; we want neither a rule to use one format or another (even in a particular context), nor a rule that forbids normalization within a context.

3) That "local consensus" scenario is not at all perfectly fine; it'd be a WP:CONLEVEL, WP:TAGTEAM, and WP:EDITING policy problem. The entire nature of CITEVAR is that, for things we define as "citation styles" (e.g. CS2, Vancouver referencing, etc.) – something that makes a visual difference when the page is rendered – the community has determined that we're making an exception to those provisions against restraining editors by local consensus. So, it logically cannot be that template formatting that does not qualify as a citation style also is an exception to editorial freedom rules under CITEVAR. The whole point of this RfC, which is verging on WP:SNOW against the idea, is to extend CITEVAR to include template formatting after all; your no. 3 argument assumes as already true the result that is almost certainly going to be rejected. Also, there's no difference at all between the idea that CONLEVEL can dictate template formatting as that a gaggle of page-controllers could come to a "local consensus" that all templates used in "their" article "must" be substituted, or that they're "forbidding" the use of raw HTML and "requiring" the use of template wrappers (or vice versa). This simply is not among the powers of a local consensus. Anyone engaging in that nonsense would end up at ANI soon enough, and get a topic ban if they didn't stop reverting or hounding people for normal use of perfectly permissible features of the editing system at the article in question.

4) Aside from point 4 depending entirely on point 3, we definitely should not re-re-re-argue about citation formatting on article talk page after article talk page. That would be an absurd waste of editorial productivity, and an abuse of the purpose of article talk pages, which are for article improvement.

I would add a third bullet to point 5: It is not necessary to have any form of WP expertise to edit here. Other editors will correct newbies when they violate policies and guidelines. They have no business at all brow-beating a new editor for not using the template formatting preferred by the critic, though normalizing to a consistent format is generally permissible. People shouldn't pretend there's a policy to do so, though. It can be effective to try to convince the new [or not new, for that matter] editor, in user talk, why a different template layout will be more useful in a particular context. (The reason I use V formatting in LDR is because someone convinced me why it was better in that case.)

I can see an additional point 8), to continue your numbering: The entire premise behind this and previous failed attempts to get a "you cain't touch muh cites in any damn' way!" rule is a position (not widely supported) that any and all changes to citation details that do not make the citation more correct or complete are a waste of time both for the editor doing it and for watchlisters, and that (more correctly) disputes about such matters are disruptive. Ergo, it's classic hypocrisy for the same WP:OWN camp to posit that they're permitted to fiddle unnecessarily with cite details to get they result they want in "correcting" a noob who isn't actually doing anything wrong. Disputes about this stuff can definitely be disruptive, but it's the editor trying to pointlessly force all other editors to conform to his/her personal vision that is the source of the dispute and thus of the disruption.

9) In reality, such disruption is now rare, because the vast majority of us understand that horizontal cites work better in the main prose, and we're not WP:JERKs when we go about normalizing them to do so; the amount of argumentation about this has plummeted over the last decade to near-nonexistence. Further proposals to make new "CITEVAR and then some" rules are beyond CREEP, just a bunch of continued narcissism in the face of rejection of the idea of personal control over articles. It's a long-running WP:NOTGETTINGIT problem. To their credit, most editors who early on made the case that every single facet of a citation should be subject to CITEVAR have stopped, after the last RfC on this, which concluded against that idea but in favor of the one that the displayed content of a cite (even punctuation style) was covered. A handful have obviously not accepted this result.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:54, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

• Issue with request. The request for comment appears to refer to "WP:CITEVAR" as policy. It is in fact a guideline. This may change how editors respond. Pololei (talk) 01:07, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that. I've struck-through "policy" in the intro and added "guideline". AHeneen (talk) 06:23, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• Comment on the support votes of Headbomb and Peter coxhead: Both editors cite edit-war avoidance as a reason for standardizing formats as well as styles in CITEVAR. I propose that edit wars can easily be avoided, by specifying that both vertical and horizontal formats are acceptable (within the same style, in this case <ref> cites), and once a cite is written, it should be left alone, assuming it's valid, of course. As Johnuniq stated in his vote, "By all means 'fix' citations to what you LIKE once, but if challenged, go and find another article." I agree with that position 100%; if an editor changes a cite from one format to another, and someone else changes it back to the original format, that should be the end of it. Rockypedia (talk) 19:00, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

• WP:CREEP. We already have a policy against edit warring. If editors disregard that policy, what on earth makes you think they will refrain from edit warring because of some guideline? ―Mandruss ☎ 19:12, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Yup... the problem isn't determining which style to use (that can be set by consensus)... the problem is Edit Warring about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueboar (talk • contribs) 19:24, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't work, because that makes maintenances of articles harder for no damn reason. Basically Rockypedia, stop being an contrarian obstructionist, with "No, this is MY citation, you may not touch it". By all means, add references in a manner you want, but don't revert or fight editors after they cleanup after you to bring them in line with established conventions. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:32, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

What are the established conventions here?--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:52, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Whatever is used in the article before the edit war. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:53, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

There is OWNership on both sides here. I think an "established convention" needs to actually be established (on the talk page). Otherwise all we are saying is: "I edited first, so I own the article" Blueboar (talk) 20:27, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I c, I thought you were talking about a specific style stated somewhere.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:56, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I really don't appreciate the name-calling by Headbomb here. Also, the assertion that other editors "cleanup after you to bring them in line with established conventions" is a strawman; the whole reason for this RfC is to gauge opinion on whether vertical and horizontal formats for cites can co-exist. There's no policy that states all the <ref> cites have to be vertical or horizontal. There's no maintenance to the article if we agree that once a citation is written, it can be left alone, provided it's valid. If I changed one of the horizontal cites to vertical (which I've never done, to any citation, anywhere) on a page on Synthwave's watchlist to "clean it up", I doubt very much he would not revert it. Rockypedia (talk) 20:13, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I'd probably see this as a case of WP:CREEP as well. Independent of that I find the vertical version really annoying for people working with the source text when it is used for footnotes in the article's text. It makes source text almost unreadable.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:49, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment. Using Visual Editor and templates for references results in horizontal references. In addition, editing an existing templated reference results in a horizontal reference no matter its original format. Using VE to edit one seems to cause the reference to be parsed and read into a copy of the template. The saved edit removes all spaces and new lines around parameters and fields resulting in a very tight horizontal reference, even if the original was vertical. See an example here. I haven't yet decided how I feel about the issue under discussion. Since I am relatively unfamiliar with VE I ran a few experiments to see what many of our newer editors will be doing. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:32, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

  Not just new editors; there are some long-time editors who prefer it -- I'm one. I was thinking about whether VE is relevant to this discussion: if we end up agreeing it's OK to add a non-conforming cite, so long as it's OK for the main editor(s) to edit it to make it conform, then there's no problem. VE users themselves won't care -- they won't know which format is in use, unless it's a format such as {{sfn}} that VE can't handle. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:30, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I had forgotten about VE. In their frenzy to make a "user friendlly" tool the VE developers rather poorly kludged the handling of citatatons, and have built-in their own limited and rather mishappen view of How It Should Be Done. So if we were to decide that an existing and/or consensual "style" of how to implement citations were to be respected, and that style was vertical formatting (or eschewed the abomniable named-refs) then any use of VE would be in violation. And while that might be taken as a reason for not requiring CITVAR-like consistency, it could also be argued that if it is okay for VE to freely alter formatting, then that should be allowed generally. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 17:52, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

• Unhelpful RfC It seems to me that the question in the RfC has not been set up well, so !votes don't really deal with the underlying issue. My support for extending CITEVAR is so that ownership of individual citations is rejected in favour of CITEVAR's general preference for consistency within an article, respecting the established style and format. Rockypedia wants the editor who first inserted an individual citation to own its formatting, vertical or horizontal, so that no later editor can change it if challenged. I'm not aware of anyone else who has agreed with Rockypedia, but those who don't agree are in both the support and oppose lists above. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:21, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

• An abort would be fine with me, simply due to the false premise that CITEVAR has something to do with wikitext formatting. A new RfC could resolve the question with no mention of CITEVAR.
  In a better wikiworld, more editors would just learn to live with things that are not their preference but work anyway. I have my preferred CS1 cite format that I always use when I create a cite, but I no longer feel the need to "standardize" it within an article. (When we pursue consistency solely for the sake of consistency, with little consideration of the real need for that consistency—or the costs of pursuing it—we have entered tunnel-vision OCD territory.) I've even evolved to the point where I don't get my panties in a twist when somebody changes "my" cite format to their preference. This stuff really isn't all that important in the end, and I have far more important things to be upset about. My suggestion would be a mind-set adjustment on the part of at least one editor here, but I'd settle for a better-framed RfC. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:21, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Mandruss: it is not "a false premise that CITEVAR has something to do with wikitext formatting"; that is the specific and explcit issue here, of whether it should "have something to do" with it. Which invokes another issue, of whether there should be consistency in the implementation (e.g., formatting) of how citation is done, but that, strictly speaking, is not part of the RfC.

But I agree that an abort would be fine. I think our collective grasp of the matter is not yet ripe enough for a productive discussion. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 17:57, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough. In that case, I strongly oppose the corruption of CITEVAR by extending it to include wikitext formatting. It should remain only about citation styles, which have a completely different set of considerations from internal coding conventions. It's intuitive that we would be asking for trouble down the line if we tried to combine the two into one guideline. I hope you find that more satisfactory. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:11, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Everything on Wikipedia is written in wikitext, so any stylistic dispute is a matter of "wikitext formatting." Presumably what you mean is that you don't think it should apply to citation style changes that don't affect the display of the page. But it's clearly there not just for the reader, but to resolve frequent disputes between editors (why include the line about sticking with precedent, if we only care that it's consistent?). Would you also say that it doesn't apply to grouped named references vs. inline references? I've certainly seen it applied as such many times, but it doesn't mean any difference for the reader. Similarly, the use of citation templates vs. manually formatted references that display the same way. It's all "wikitext formatting" and it's all citation style. It's not instruction creep to logically apply the language to citation styles. It's not just about the end product for the reader, it's about the editing process. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:19, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Clearly we disagree on the definition of "citation style". My definition is consistent with the prose at WP:CITESTYLE, which talks about APA, Vancouver, etc, and says absolutely nothing about anything invisible to the reader. If you wish to change that definition, that's a different debate.
If CITEVAR has already been applied to inline vs LDR, is that a perceived de facto consensus or an explicit one with broad participation? If it's the latter I suppose I have to live with it for the time being, but that doesn't mean I have to support compounding that problem. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:25, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Rockypedia has been arguing that if an editor puts a vertically formatted citation into an article, then even if all the other citations are horizontally formatted, no other editor can change that citation. We shouldn't mandate one layout or the other – I agree that this would indeed be inappropriate instruction creep. But to prevent edit-warring and ownership issues, I think we should allow editors to make articles consistent, without fear of reversion, provided they respect the formatting mainly in use already. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:50, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I addressed this in Threaded Discussion, below, about 2 miutes ago; I suggest we keep comments on votes down there, for ease of reading. Rockypedia (talk) 19:04, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

We already have policy to prevent edit-warring and ownership issues. It is at WP:EW and WP:OWN. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:06, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

And yet here we have guidance that instructors editors to stick to the precedent and not to change it to fit their personal preference. Edit warring is something that happens after that happens, and it's not "ownership" to say that, yes, new edits should stick to precedent. It sounds like you'd rather not have CITEVAR at all, beyond CITESTYLE. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:21, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

• If we do abort and start over... something needs to be clarified... are we discussing the scenario where editors are attempting to change horizontal/vertical formats permanently ... or are we discussing the scenario where editors temporarily change formats (so they can more easily work on an article). I suspect our consensus will be quite different depending on which of these scenarios we are talking about. Blueboar (talk) 18:18, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
• I suppose a do-over could work something like this, presented at a village pump rather than on this page to leave open which policy/guideline applies while at the same time resolving the question:

extended content -- option for an alternative RfC

An article with several references formats the references this way: {{cite web|url=http://example.com|last1=example|first1=example|title=example|work=example|date=1 January 1001|accessdate=1 January 1001|archive-url=http://example.com|archive-date=1 January 1001}} Editor 1 adds a new reference to the article, formatted this way: {{cite web |url=http://example.com |last1=example |first1=example |title=example |work=example |date=1 January 1001 |accessdate=1 January 1001 |archive-url=http://example.com |archive-date=1 January 1001 }} Editor 2 reformats the reference to look like the others. Editor 1 restores his/her original formatting (with parameters on separate lines). Which version should stand? Why?

— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I'd support that with the explicit provision for a third option: Defer to local discussion/consensus. In my view an RfC result on something like this is of little value without a resulting guideline, and I don't feel the issue is important enough to warrant a new guideline. Per CREEP I think it's unwise to create guidelines for such trivial matters for the sole purpose of avoiding edit wars that wouldn't occur if editors observed clear and well-known existing policy. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:18, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

On what would local consensus be based? We have differing interpretations of which, if any, policies/guidelines apply, and how they apply. That's something RfCs are good for -- clarifying how policies/guidelines apply to a particular situation. "Defer to local consensus" is what we already have and the reason we're talking about an RfC to begin with. Formatting it as I did, with the basic ~"which version and why" allows people to draw from any policy/guideline they see as relevant to this situation in order to provide guidance for what to do. If there's no agreement on which way to go, the RfC will end with no consensus, and thus, defer to local consensus (which is the default). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:44, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Participants will need a way to !vote the position that it is not covered by existing p&g and it is not important enough to cover it. I think a neutrally-framed RfC would provide that option explicitly, as at least some editors feel bound by the options presented, but I'm prepared to set the precedent early in the !voting (and to hope it's noticed).
I also think the RfC should link to the consensus for the inline-vs-LDR precedent that some will cite to claim that this is covered by CITEVAR. If it's a case of "not formally discussed with wide participation, but it happened and nobody has objected in two years, therefore consensus is assumed", then the RfC should make that clear in its opener. That basis will be key, and I think it should be clarified before any !voting occurs. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:06, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I think the discussion at the RFC last year on the matter and especially all of the questions/concerns/callouts that SMC makes in one of his typically-long posts are interesting. No-one ever really got around to asking each individual question, and certainly, we got dropped into this RFC by the seat of our collective pants.... --Izno (talk) 02:27, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the links; don't know how I missed that. I haven't read nearly all of it due to reading bandwidth limitations, but I read SMc's list and the close. If that RfC is the extent of it, there is no basis to assert a precedent for applying CITEVAR to disputes about internal coding formats, and anyone who does so is either misinformed or bluffing. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:33, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Broadly, I agree, and so did the closer of the RFC. However, like SMC, I take the view that perhaps we should dig at the specifics--the question of vertical vs. horizontal is one-such specific that I might reasonably veer from the general opinion that formatting is not style, since, the introduction of vertical citations anywhere but in LDR could be disruptive to article maintainers. (I am not entirely sure I would take the reverse opinion--but wouldn't be bothered if others did.) Perhaps LDR is the same way, or perhaps everyone would agree that LDR is a matter of formatting rather than style (I'm doubtful). Either way on those topics, and others, I think the approach of "dig into the specifics" would help settle the mess that CITESTYLE arguments can become--like the one above, and this one. --Izno (talk) 12:19, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Aside, you commented in that discussion, coming down on the "No" side. --Izno (talk) 12:21, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

So I did. I see that I argued the opposite position as to CREEP, and I'm almost swayed by my own argument. Almost. But I also opposed the extension of CITEVAR to formatting, so I'm not exactly sure what I was saying there. Apparently I'm either a waffler, confused, or capable of changing my mind, depending on your point of view. . ―Mandruss ☎ 13:11, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I propose this RfC be closed; "oppose" seems to be the clear consensus choice. Rockypedia (talk) 02:03, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
• Closed due to opposition consensus, if I am doing this wrong please inform me on my talk page immediately Ncfriend (talk) 03:05, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Concern about citing and verifiability

I cannot seem to find anything that discuses this problem, and it seems largely ignored by policy. Giving an example is the best way to describe the issue. Say that I write a paragraph, with a reference at the end of each sentence in the paragraph. Later, another editor comes along and adds a phrase or makes a modification of one of the sentences. Now, the new sentence basically says something that the source does not mention; effectively making the once verifiable sentence, a case of failed verification.

I am really big on citing sources and think its the single most important aspect of Wikipedia. This tiny little issue essentially delegitimizes one of Wikipedias core tenets. How can this be resolved? Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 18:55, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

And yes, there is the "source integrity" aspect that describe this. But it seems to be largely overlooked and not a strongly enforced policy. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 19:01, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

simple... When new text is added, a citation to a source that supports it should be added as well, See our WP:Verifiability policy. Blueboar (talk) 19:16, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

But if it gets inserted in the middle of a phrase, it "splits" the referenced statement. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 20:17, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

It is all but impossible to address this without any specifics. Is the addition simple vandalism? If so it should simply be reverted. Does it reflect updated information? If so the new source may be better than the old one (and should replace it). Does the added info reflect a missing, contrary POV that may simply have been put in a poor location? (The addition may be something worth adding... just not in the location where it was added)... there are so many possibilities that it is hard to write guidance for it. And since the kind of issue you are describing can often be dealt with by engaging in talk page discussion and with subsequent editing, it may be best that we don't have too much guidance on it. Lack of guidance can give editors flexibility to deal with a unique issue. Not every situation needs to have a "rule" to resolve it. Blueboar (talk) 22:35, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

The essay WP:HIJACK deals with such situations, and not much more to what it and Blueboar say can be added. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:49, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Thnak you for your comments. They are much appreciated. I guess I am more concerned, not with when someone notices a bad edit as I described, but when they go unnoticed. It's nearly impossible for readers to decipher the text and references once it happens, leading to the degradation of quality content. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 17:35, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

As hinted above, wp:INTEGRITY is what you're discussing. The real solution is to have more people doing wp:REVIEWs, but the underlying assumption should always remain that the text in a WP article is not reliable. We cite sources precisely so that they can be read. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:14, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• All of this can be dealt with by editing... if an addition makes it difficult for a reader to figure out which parts of a sentence, paragraph or section are supported by the various sources... fix it. Rewrite the sentence, paragraph or section to make it clearer. Blueboar (talk) 21:54, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Fixing it in this case is, of course, the best route to take. But not all sources are accessible, that is, they may be behind paywalls or in books that aren't immediately referenceable. In these cases, the great content is essentially lost to "unintentional", likely good faith edits. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 02:07, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Still usually fixable. The material originally added with a particular source, before material was inserted into it, is discernible in page history; I repair "citation hijacking" fairly often, though admittedly this is easiest to notice and fix in an article one is already very familiar with.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:44, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

• • Are you sure? I think an essay can explain it in more detail. Policy allows leeway for editors. Essay can be more direct. We can continue this at Citation underkill or another essay. Please give QuackGuru more ideas to churn out content. QuackGuru (talk) 00:40, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

It looks like QuackGuru was reading this thread and was making changes to the new essay. QuackGuru (talk) 00:40, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

I love this essay and feel like it should be policy. It makes sense to do everything possible to preserve quality cited content. I think about the hours I spend researching and writing scholarly content, just to have it potentially destroyed by seemingly harmless edits like discussed here. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 02:07, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

The essay WP:HIJACK deals with such situations, but Citation underkill also deals with such issues. Citation underkill states "Citation hijacking occurs when adding new information before an existing citation where it does not verify the claim." Citation underkill deals with almost all the major issues.

I edit many controversial topics. I am more concerned when failed verification content is noticed and the editor who is causing the problem claims it is not a problem or ignores the problem. Verifiability policy is not strictly enforced. Policy is ambiguous without examples. Original research is a content dispute according to admins. Admins stick to consensus. But what about policy? If most editors claim there is nothing wrong with the content admins will support the wording even if the content failed verification. Preserving quality cited content is exactly what unpaid and paid advocates are against. The essay touches on issues that are critically important to building quality content. For the first time, editors have explicit instructions on how to greatly improve article content. Wikipedia:Citing sources#Bundling citations has a link to Citation overkill, but not to Citation underkill. I didn't ignore the concerns. Citation underkill states "WP:CITEBUNDLE claims bundling citations has several advantages, while without going into detail when bundling poses disadvantages." I recognized there are issues with indiscriminate bundling. I am able to spot problems where others don't see any problems. QuackGuru (talk) 12:31, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

If the information is not an exceptional claim or something negative about a living person or operating organisation then you could add template:Citation needed span. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:40, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

• All this said... adding info in the middle of a cited paragraph or section isn't always a case of HIJACK. For example... suppose an entire paragraph discussing some historical event is supported by a single source... ok, So an editor can put that source at the end of the paragraph. So far so good. However, let's say that the source gives the year of the event, but not the exact date. So another editor inserts the exact date (citing another source) in the middle of the paragraph. All the information in the paragraph is still verifiable and cited. Adding the date (and citation) does not materially alter anything in the rest of the paragraph. Nothing has been hijacked. Blueboar (talk) 12:55, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Citing a Source on the Lorentzian Ether Theory page

First forgive me if I am doing this wrong as I am new to Wikipedia. I have had a problem editing on the page mentioned (Lorentz ether theory) using a certain source that always gets reverted. I had made the addition that a neo-Lorentzian Theory was still an active area of research and dialogue. Then I cited the 3 Volumes edited by Michael C. Duffy, Joseph Lèvy and one Volume was edited by Volodymyr Krasnoholovets. I was told that it was reverted because there was not a quote on this by them saying exactly that. I explained that that was the purpose of the book which shows it is by them (it is a compilation of articles by Physicists on the their research and talking about it) so I didn't understand why that was needed. It got nowhere. So today I decided to add in a few words that are mine but made explicit in the text instead then. I added in that it is explicit this time. I also gave information on who the editors were (I previously mentioned at least another who is in the book namely Franco Selleri and that a previous book by one of the editors was Jean-Paul Vigier who helped comment on it and supported him so as to help forestall uneasiness about the editor and contributer of the book I cite, I did not mention Simon J. Prokhovnik or others who did as well. Nor anyone one else in the Volumes mentioned as there are many). Unfortunately it was reverted again as he said the Publisher was a fringe source even though I gave (via links) the qualifications of the editors and their contribution in the foreward, it seems like an ad hominen perhaps as they are modern neo-Lorentzian's. I did not talk with him again as it appears to me that the excuses changed as to why it cannot be included and this makes me feel uneasy and quit upset as I am trying my best. Anyway sorry for the long comment. Thanks for your help. 173.49.86.173 (talk) 20:29, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

You are involved in a routine content dispute. See Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for guidance. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:24, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

How do libraries handle Julian dates in COinS?

While the proposal made above (RFC: Accurate dates in citation metadata) has stalled, an interesting question was raised. And I would still like to learn: How do libraries handle Julian dates in COinS? Or any other calendar?

Perhaps someone more familiar with COinS could check some older sources with non-Gregorian publication dates and see how they are handled? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:48, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

This already seems to be the subject of the <hr />-divided sub-thread in the RfC above.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  21:51, 17 October 2017 (UTC)