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Cite podcast: is host= really an alias of last= ?

I was trying to improve CITEVAR consistency in an article that included a {{cite podcast}} template, and I ran into a bit of trouble. I was trying to change a full name in the |host= parameter into two separate parameters for the host's name. The documentation says that |host= is an alias of |last=, so I tried this:

{{cite podcast|host=Smith|first=Jane |url=http://www.example.com|title=Podcast title}} → Smith, Jane. "Podcast title" (Podcast).

I got two errors: "More than one of author-name-list parameters specified (help); |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help)". If |host= is an alias of |last=, I don't think I should get those errors.

Then I looked at the documentation, which says that this should work:

{{cite podcast|last=Smith|first=Jane |url=http://www.example.com|title=Podcast title}} → Smith, Jane. "Podcast title" (Podcast).

It does work. This makes me think that the code and the documentation have a mismatch somewhere. Any ideas? – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:10, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

|host= is an alias of |authors= (plural). Not sure why, the {{citation/core}} version assigned |host= to |surname1= so the documentation is probably correct but the code has been wrong since January 2014.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:22, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
That explains a lot. Possibly fixed in the sandbox, including addition of support for numbered host1=, host2=, etc. I did not fork more aliases to create host-last=, host-first=, and other flavors.
Cite podcast comparison
Wikitext {{cite podcast|first=Jane|host=Smith|sandbox=yes|title=Podcast title|url=http://www.example.com}}
Live Smith, Jane. "Podcast title" (Podcast). {{cite podcast}}: Unknown parameter |sandbox= ignored (help)
Sandbox Smith, Jane. "Podcast title" (Podcast). {{cite podcast}}: Unknown parameter |sandbox= ignored (help)
Cite podcast comparison
Wikitext {{cite podcast|first1=Jane|first2=Juan|host1=Smith|host2=Gomez|sandbox=yes|title=Podcast title|url=http://www.example.com}}
Live Smith, Jane; Gomez, Juan. "Podcast title" (Podcast). {{cite podcast}}: Unknown parameter |sandbox= ignored (help)
Sandbox Smith, Jane; Gomez, Juan. "Podcast title" (Podcast). {{cite podcast}}: Unknown parameter |sandbox= ignored (help)
I do not have actual Lua skills, though, so please check my work at some point. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:36, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
Do we really need to support host numerical parameters? Host at all? What is the issue just with using author? --Izno (talk) 20:46, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Condition for multiple names to trigger

The maintenance category for multiple names in a single name parameter (e.g. |author= Name, Name2, Name3) requires more than 1 comma or semicolon to display the message and categorize the page.

Is there any reason why it should not be more than 0 semicolons? --Izno (talk) 17:23, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Maybe: John Smith, Jr – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:15, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Which doesn't have a semicolon? --Izno (talk) 19:16, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
ĤŤΜĿ éñṭıťíèṣ？
—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:32, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Maybe inside a style attribute, but that's bad for the metadata anyway. --Izno (talk) 19:58, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Oh, sorry, totally didn't get that. More than one of those would still trigger the message. I'd rather see the Unicode parameter anyway, which would go into the metadata better. --Izno (talk) 20:48, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

|display-interviewers= and |display-translators=

Editor Izno points out that cs1|2 does not support |display-interviewers= and |display-translators= and that cs1|2 does not detect the un-abbreviated 'et alia'. I have remedied these in the sandbox:

Cite interview comparison
Wikitext {{cite interview|display-interviewers=etal|display-translators=etal|interviewer=Interviewer|last=Subject, ''et alia''|title=Title|translator=Translator}}
Live Subject; et al. "Title" (Interview). Interviewed by Interviewer; et al. Translated by Translator; et al. {{cite interview}}: |translator= has generic name (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)
Sandbox Subject; et al. "Title" (Interview). Interviewed by Interviewer; et al. Translated by Translator; et al. {{cite interview}}: |translator= has generic name (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)

Similarly, cs1|2 does not support |display-contributors= though for completeness it probably should. I'll address that in a bit. Are there any others?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:22, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

and |display-contributors=:

Cite book comparison
Wikitext {{cite book|contribution=preface|contributor2=Contributor2|contributor=Contributor|display-contributors=1|last=Author|title=Title}}
Live Contributor; et al. preface. Title. By Author. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: contributors list (link)
Sandbox Contributor; et al. preface. Title. By Author. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: contributors list (link)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:15, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

See the addition of hosts above, which I have left a comment on the value of having a separate 'host' parameter, which is currently aliased to lastn. Otherwise, I did not see any other display-name needs. --Izno (talk) 21:11, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Cite interview comparison
Wikitext {{cite interview|interviewer=Interviewer|last=Subject, ''et alia''|title=Title|translator=Translator}}
Live Subject; et al. "Title" (Interview). Interviewed by Interviewer. Translated by Translator. {{cite interview}}: |translator= has generic name (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)
Sandbox Subject; et al. "Title" (Interview). Interviewed by Interviewer. Translated by Translator. {{cite interview}}: |translator= has generic name (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)

Editor parameters and extra text

I've been fixing various citations tagged in Category:CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list for having extra text like "ed." or "eds." in |editor= and related parameters. Obenritter rightfully objected on the grounds that in some cases the template was not displaying "ed." at all, so removing the extra text misrepresents the displayed info by (incorrectly) suggesting to the reader than an editor of a work is actually an author. What I didn't realize was, as stated in the documentation of {{Cite book}}, If authors [are present]: Authors are first, followed by the included work, then "In" and the editors, then the main work. If no authors: Editors appear before the included work; a single editor is followed by "ed."; multiple editors are followed by "eds." I'm not sure why the presence of an author should negate the need to clearly identify editors beyond the use of "In", and I can't yet find an archived discussion that gets into this. Using Obenritter's examples:

  • CS1 error due to extra text, but the template is not displaying "ed." on its own because an author is present:
Peterson, Neal H. (2002) [1992]. "From Hitler's Doorstep: Allen Dulles and the Penetration of Germany". In George C. Chalou, ed. (ed.). The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II. Washington DC: National Archives and Records Administration. ISBN 0-911333-91-6. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Removing "ed." to dismiss the error message leaves Chalou without an "ed.":
Peterson, Neal H. (2002) [1992]. "From Hitler's Doorstep: Allen Dulles and the Penetration of Germany". In George C. Chalou (ed.). The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II. Washington DC: National Archives and Records Administration. ISBN 0-911333-91-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • The template displays "ed." when no author is present:
Hunt, Chris, ed. (2005). NME Originals: Beatles – The Solo Years 1970–1980. London: IPC Ignite!. p. 103.
  • The same citation with extra text creates a redundancy (and a CS1 error message):
Hunt, Chris, ed., ed. (2005). NME Originals: Beatles – The Solo Years 1970–1980. London: IPC Ignite!. p. 103. {{cite book}}: |editor-first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

Thanks.— TAnthonyTalk 23:03, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm grateful you raised this here, TAnthony, because I'd seen the changes you've been making and the problems they leave behind in the case of author-editors of a multi-contributor work.
I've nothing to add except to say I completely agree with Obenritter's objections and that this misrepresentation is a far more important issue than the need to fix apparent errors in the interest of maintenance. Readers don't view the inclusion of (manually inserted) "ed."/"eds" as any sort of an error, but they do get presented with incorrect information on authorship when the "error" is removed. It's like deciding that, in the interest of encyclopedia maintenance, we'll ignore a sourced credit that says someone provided a horn arrangement on a song and instead list the individual as a horn player. In fact, with many of the multi-contributor book sources, we end up vastly over-crediting an author-editor, because in reality they only write perhaps 10 per cent or less of the book. Which is why Wikipedia editors reinstate the "ed."/"eds" text after it's been removed. JG66 (talk) 01:02, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
I'm of a mind that "ed." or "eds." should always be included when the editor parameters are used, but the fact that they are intentionally left out under certain conditions suggests a discussion took place about it. I'm not up on style guides outside Wikipedia, so does anyone know if this " ed. only in the absence of an author" business is actually a thing?— TAnthonyTalk 01:17, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
I'm continuing to look thru old discussions like this one from 2013, which indicates this is a long-standing situation but has no background. Trappist the monk noted in this 2015 discussion:

The 'In <Editor> ...' formatting was introduced with the transition from {{citation/core}} to Module:Citation/CS1. Clearly it was done intentionally and is briefly mentioned at Module talk:Citation/CS1/Archive 3#Multi-phase transition to Lua cites. I didn't find the discussions that led to that decision; they may be in the archives of the individual template talk pages.

In the same discussion, Jonesey95 said:

APA does it the way we do for chapters within books, but with "(Ed.)" after the editor's name.

I'm hoping for some more background before this becomes a full on discussion regarding changing the template(s).— TAnthonyTalk 01:38, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
@TAnthony:@JG66: Thanks for ringing in JG66. Actually, it seems a bit ridiculous to me that simply adding ed. or eds. at the back end of the editor(s) name is somehow a major formatting concern, when in actuality it protects Wikipedia from having improperly attributed Sources in its Encyclopedia. If we are truly building an Encyclopedia, it seems academic integrity would FAR outweigh Wiki formatting nuances. --Obenritter (talk) 02:02, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, well put. That is precisely what I meant by the dubious identification of an "error" relative to what the reader's presented with on the page: "If we are truly building an Encyclopedia, academic integrity would FAR outweigh Wiki formatting nuances." JG66 (talk) 02:06, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

@TAnthony, JG66, and Obenritter: one point to consider is that the templates also emit metadata about the information they display. So if you're manually adding "ed." to an editor's name to get it to display, the template would include that extra text as part of the name in the metadata emitted. Assuming tomorrow that your desired extra text were added to the output display of the template, we'd still have to go through and remove the errant extra "ed." inserted in the input parameters because now we'd be displaying that indicator twice, once from the errant input and once from the modified display output.

In short, it's still an error to include extra text within an input parameter that's only supposed to supply the name, regardless of any modification of the output displayed. Imzadi 1979 → 03:07, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

@TAnthony, JG66, and Imzadi1979: So input parameters and metadata takes precedence over academic integrity? #Wonders_why_he_bothers_sometimes --Obenritter (talk) 04:09, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Imzadi1979, but I have no interest in the issue of metadata emission (or, more accurately, any understanding of the concept). If it is a problem, then the solution remains to ensure that the template actually displays "ed." as it does in the "when no author is present" example given above by TAnthony. I freely admit I'm coming from a position of total ignorance with regard to metadata, but not so writing and ensuring that information is accurately and responsibly reproduced on Wikipedia – which I've always understood to be a central tenet of the encyclopedia. JG66 (talk) 04:30, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
@Obenritter and JG66: if you were to use |editor-first=John, ed. |editor-last=Doe to get "In Smith, John, ed." as part of the citation, the CoINS data embedded in the output that can be read by Zotero and other bibliographic tools will be told that the first name of that editor is "John, ed.", which is exactly what you input into the parameter. If you use |editor=Richard Roe, ed. to get "In Richard Roe, ed." in the citation, the same issue happens, telling those bibliographic tools that his name includes ", ed.". Setting Zotero aside, editors reading the direct wikitext will be told, in a literal sense, that either name includes ", ed.", although I'm sure we'd all agree that many people would intuit that the text doesn't actually form part of the name.

For whatever past reasons to which I'm not aware, the "In" text in the middle of a citation followed by a name was used to indicate that the name that followed would be an editor, and again for whatever past reasons to which I'm not aware, it was decided that "ed."/"eds." was unneeded in that case. Conversely, if there was no author indicated, the "ed."/"eds." was inserted to distinguish the placement of a name at the front of a citation as an editor instead of an author because that name was moved to the position normally occupied by an author. In a use case not displayed above, if we have a book with authors and editors, but no individual chapter/contribution being cited, you get something like:

  • Doe, John (2019). Roe, Richard (ed.). Important Book. City: Publisher. p. 47.
Now then, for consistency reasons and simplicity, you'd probably prefer that the output always displays the "ed."/"eds.", and that editors would no longer have to manually insert the "ed."/"eds." text. I'm all for giving clearer indications of what the content in a citation means. See my preferences in another discussion thread about using a slightly more verbose method to list a journal citation's volume, issue and page numbers. Given that, I'd probably support making the change myself, and if that change were made, the extra text would still need to be removed to avoid duplication and to avoid corrupting the metadata. Imzadi 1979 → 06:46, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Imzadi1979, thank you for your detailed reply. The second point you make, at the conclusion of which you talk about how the absence of an individual chapter means that "ed." is displayed, just highlights how nonsensical it is, surely, that the template omits the qualification in other instances. The Cambridge Companions to Music series has clearly designated editors who make some, but comparatively minimal, writing contribution to the volume; and there's no doubt they are the author-editors. So what on earth is Wikipedia doing ignoring credits that appear on each book's cover, title page and CIP entry? I guess we'll find out if and when anyone else unearths a rationale for this author-editor + chapter title scenario.
I'd seen the recent journal citation discussion, yes. I'm all for greater clarity in these templates; the cite AV media template is a real nightmare, as far as I'm concerned – the displayed text often only makes sense when one opens an article's edit window and reads the content accompanied by the relevant field. I'm getting ahead of myself but, assuming that we can restore "ed." in the display for cite book, I'd like to see it enabled that, if an article's style is British English/EngvarB, then the plural form can be rendered as "eds" (not "eds."). That's in keeping with British (and Australian) usage, where a full stop is not required if the abbreviation (contraction) ends in the last letter of the unabbreviated form, per WP:MOS#Full stops and spaces. JG66 (talk) 12:49, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Regarding that last, we've had a discussion on it. You were involved. It was archived just recently. Please start a new section if you would like to revisit the question. --Izno (talk) 15:38, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Izno: That was not a discussion about removing the period from "eds." JG66 (talk) 16:17, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Gosh-does-it-sound-the-same. I'd oppose your suggestion here as well for the same reasons as there. --Izno (talk) 16:19, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Chicago supports an explicit "ed" or similar statement [1] as does the APA [2] as does MLA. I would guess others similarly do so. Adding the explicit statement of editorship would somewhat duplicate the "in" statement, which may have been cause for the removal. --Izno (talk) 15:38, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
I've removed the special case in the sandbox. I have no opinion on the change, but this is how it would look.
Peterson, Neal H. (2002) [1992]. "From Hitler's Doorstep: Allen Dulles and the Penetration of Germany". In George C. Chalou (ed.). The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II. Washington DC: National Archives and Records Administration. ISBN 0-911333-91-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
--Izno (talk) 16:02, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Replying to JG66 above, I would not add any option to drop the period at the end of "eds." because that abbreviation would terminate a section in the middle of a citation. Since each block in a citation in CS1 ends in a period, the end of the editors block should end in one as well. So in this case, it wouldn't be any different in the end, just a slightly different rationale with the same result. Imzadi 1979 → 23:30, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Imzadi1979: Fair enough, and that is in keeping with the importance I'm attaching to display over all other concerns. I guess I'm used to seeing the qualifier parenthesised (... In George C. Chalou (ed.). The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II ...), in which case, the period doesn't serve the same purpose. Thanks again, JG66 (talk) 02:12, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I would propose to always display it in brackets. This syntax is more logical, less ambiguous and much easier to parse (mind that "ed." is also used to abbreviate "edition" or refer to "Edward"). Following the general MOS guideline to avoid abbreviations where possible, I would even suggest to write "(editor)" or "(editors)" instead of abbreviating it. Wikipedia is not paper. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:58, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
Several editors seem to agree that "ed." should always be displayed when an editor parameter is used, regardless of whether or not an author is present. I don't think I've ever suggested a change to such a widely-used set of templates; is this the proper place to initiate that discussion, or is it better as an RFC, or ... ? As far as cleanup goes, if this change is made I can continue the AWB run that prompted this discussion and remove the 2185 or so redundant "eds" in a a few hours.— TAnthonyTalk 16:53, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
TAnthony: yes, like you, I have no knowledge or experience of the process here, and some advice would be much appreciated. Matthiaspaul: I'd normally agree that abbreviations should be avoided, but mainly in prose – after all, we abbreviate "page" in all citations. (Oh, and don't get me started on what "ed." might also be short for; to some of us Brit English editors, "ed." = "edn" in the case of "edition". (Please see thread in most recent archive for this talk page ...) At this stage, surely, the important thing is just to see author-editors credited as such, and not as authors, and the credit made consistent whether a specific chapter in the work is identified or not. JG66 (talk) 13:40, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@Tanthony, JG66, and Matthiaspaul: I've added the brackets and removed the preceding comma in the sandbox (keeping it consistent with no-author, no-date case), as you all seem to be mostly in agreement. See my example at 16:02, 26 January 2019. Changes in the sandbox are usually deployed quarterly or so. --Izno (talk) 14:41, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Izno. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:59, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Many thanks, Izno. Just to confirm, when you say changes "are usually deployed quarterly or so", this means that the text won't necessarily appear (ie, be displayed) for a few months yet, is that right? JG66 (talk) 05:17, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
That's right. See the history for recent updates of the live code. Kanguole 11:45, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 4 March 2019

Add /* {{pp-template}} */ to make the CSS page display a lock icon at the top like all other protected pages. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 00:27, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

<ten pending edit requests> {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 00:27, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
What does <ten pending edit requests> mean?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:37, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Ignore that, it's just me keeping a running tally of how many edit requests I have open at the same time. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 00:47, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Is there no better way to show the lock icon so that those who update the live css page don't have to remember to make sure that they don't overwrite that comment when copy/pasting sandbox into live? All other pages in the module suite can be updated simply by copy/pasta; it would be best if the css page were the same.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:37, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
CSS pages are parsed as ordinary wikitext, so I guess you could add something like (untested) /* {{sandbox other||{{pp-template}}}} */, but remember, of course, that all of this wikitext is visible to the user reading the CSS page. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 00:50, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
that works. done.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:05, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Turns out it didn't work, and I had to fix a bug in Template:Sandbox other which made it not fork for /css pages. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 01:17, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
If it doesn't work, why do I see the full protection lock icon at Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css and no lock icon at Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox/styles.css?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:41, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
  1. Because I fixed the bug before you made that comment.
  2. Because Template:Pp-template auto-detects the protection level and produces an error instead of a lock when the page isn't protected
Note the edit by MusikBot to Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox/styles.css. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 01:59, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Support displayauthors in cite arxiv

|display-authors=

|displayauthors=

  • Smith, John (2001). "Title". arXiv:1010.1010. {{cite arXiv}}: Unknown parameter |displayauthors= ignored (|display-authors= suggested) (help)

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:42, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

fixed in the sandbox:
{{cite arxiv/new |last=Smith |first=John |year=2001 |title=Title |displayauthors=etal |arxiv=1010.1010}}
Smith, John (2001). "Title". arXiv:1010.1010. {{cite arXiv}}: Unknown parameter |displayauthors= ignored (|display-authors= suggested) (help)
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:34, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

cite book in bibliographies

We have |authormask= in {{cite book}}, as it is often used in lists of works on articles about authors.

However, there is a rendering oddity where one of the books in a list has a co-author; consider: 

* {{cite book |last1=Cocker |first1=Mark |authormask=0 |title=Birders: Tales of a Tribe |publisher=Jonathan Cape |year=2001}}
* {{cite book |last1=Cocker |first1=Mark |authormask=0 |title=Birds Britannica |first2=Richard |last2=Mabey |publisher=Chatto and Windus |year=2005}}
* {{cite book |last1=Cocker |first1=Mark |authormask=0 |title=A Tiger in the Sand |publisher=Jonathan Cape |year=2006}}

which renders as:

  • Cocker, Mark (2001). Birders: Tales of a Tribe. Jonathan Cape. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
  • Cocker, Mark; Mabey, Richard (2005). Birds Britannica. Chatto and Windus. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
  • Cocker, Mark (2006). A Tiger in the Sand. Jonathan Cape. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)

Would it be possible for the template logic to detect this case, drop the leading semicolon, prepend "with", and put the date to the end?

Is there an alternative work-around? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:29, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

... Don't use an author mask of zero? Two or 4 or some other number seems entirely sufficient and is the purpose of the parameter. I would not support custom rendering as the only use of author mask is in the context of bibliographies (per WP:IBID). --Izno (talk) 19:58, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that it's a good idea to use |author-mask=0 because the purpose of that parameter is to show that the author/editor/... name has been omitted for brevity. I think that an 'unflagged' omission does a disservice to readers who might be confused when a name is omitted entirely without any indication that it has been omitted.
If you want to hide all authors you can use |display-authors=0 but, this too, may be a source of confusion for readers.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:20, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

A value of 2 displays as:

  • Cocker, Mark (2001). Birders: Tales of a Tribe. Jonathan Cape. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
  • Cocker, Mark; Mabey, Richard (2005). Birds Britannica. Chatto and Windus. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
  • Cocker, Mark (2006). A Tiger in the Sand. Jonathan Cape. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)

Why would we want those long dashes (or longer, with a value of 4) in a section like Mark Cocker#Bibliography? Note that the formatting issue on the middle line partially persists. Also, why cater for a value of 0 if it's not to be used? And no, |display-authors=0 is not what is wanted, either. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:15, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

As I wrote, so that readers know that a name has been omitted. When the Lua code was written to support |author-maskn= it was written to mimic the way {{citation/core}} handles the parameter. Because there is no limit in the {{citation/core}}, there is no limit applied in Module:Citation/CS1. We could implement limits such that the value assigned to |author-maskn=m is 0 < m ≤ M where M is some as-yet-unspecified maximum; the module would simply insert M number of mdashes when m is greater than M and one mdash when m is 0.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:16, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Have you looked at Mark Cocker#Bibliography? There is no need there to indicate on each line that the name "Cocker, Mark" has been omitted. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:19, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Of course I looked at Mark Cocker#Bibliography; the books list needs more work than this |author-mask=0 issue, mostly inconsistent bibliographic details.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:48, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Then it should be clear to you that there is no need there to indicate on each line that the name "Cocker, Mark" has been omitted. Which returns us to my original question: Would it be possible for the template logic to detect this case, drop the leading semicolon, prepend "with", and put the date to the end? [or] Is there an alternative work-around? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:01, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Because we disagree about the legitimacy of |author-mask=0, without the opinions of sufficient others in this discussion to form some sort of consensus, we are at stalemate.
See the documentation for this parameter, which says (in part):
... set author-mask to a text value to display the text without a trailing author separator; for example, "with".
yeah, sort of vague (cs1|2 documentation is always in need of improvement), still:
|author-mask2=with Richard Mabey
Cocker, Mark; with Richard Mabey (2005). Birds Britannica. Chatto and Windus. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask= ignored (|author-mask= suggested) (help)
Were a consensus to determine that |author-mask=0 is legitimate, moving the date is a special case that exists only when:
there are multiple names
the first name is masked (blanked) – your Cocker–Maybe example
which is a relatively rare case. Perhaps the correct solution at Mark Cocker#Bibliography is to avoid use of {{cite book}} and manually format the book list. cs1|2 is a general purpose template suite that is adequate for many uses but not for all uses.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:10, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

|author-mask=with is better (and new to me), thank you; and works equally well using |authormask1=with |first2=Richard |last2=Mabey. However, either method leaves the date oddly positioned with relation to the adjacent entries:

  • Cocker, Mark (2001). Birders: Tales of a Tribe. Jonathan Cape. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask1= ignored (|author-mask1= suggested) (help)
  • Cocker, Mark; Mabey, Richard (2005). Birds Britannica. Chatto and Windus. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask1= ignored (|author-mask1= suggested) (help)
  • Cocker, Mark (2006). A Tiger in the Sand. Jonathan Cape. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authormask1= ignored (|author-mask1= suggested) (help)

I haven't counted, but I doubt from experience that the use-case I describe is as rare as you seem to think it is. Avoiding cite book is not a solution, since the alternative would remove the COinS metadata (which is why, IIRC, authormask was added in the first place). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:53, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

This search finds 140 articles that use {{cite book}} and where any of |authormask=0, |author1mask=0, |authormask1=0, |author-mask=0, |author1-mask=0 or |author-mask1=0 are used on the page (not necessarily in a {{cite book}}). This search finds 30 articles that use {{citation}} (same caveat – some articles also show up in the first search.) These searches are imperfect. Constraining the search to find any of these parameters within {{cite book}} alone times-out so that's no help. Still, as a worst case, assume that all of these occurrences are book citations and all use either {{cite book}} or {{citation}}. For the cite book case, 140 out of a million articles is 0.014%. For the {{citation}} case, 30 out of 214,000-ish articles is, interestingly, also 0.014%. So, yeah, relatively rare.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:12, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

pdf detection tweak

I'm in the process of converting {{cite IETF}} which uses {{citation/core}} to instead use {{citation}} via Module:Template wrapper much as I did for {{cite wikisource}}.

{{cite IETF}} and {{Cite IETF/sandbox}} build section urls that are put into |section-url=. The section urls contain # delimited fragments. Because # characters are reserved to MediaWiki for ordered list markup, these templates use the html numeric entity &#035;.

Module:Citation/CS1 has a function, is_pdf(), that looks at the various urls to see if they have a PDF file extension with or without # character fragment delimiters. This function does not look for &#035; entity delimiters. I have tweaked Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox to make this detection:

{{cite book |title=Title |url=//example.com/example.pdf&#035;section}}
Title (PDF).
{{cite book/new |title=Title |url=//example.com/example.pdf&#035;section}}
Title (PDF).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:54, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Placeholder for discussion on new Cite ChemRxiv

Sharouser has added some code to the sandbox modules that attempts to support {{Cite ChemRxiv}}. This is a placeholder section for that editor to explain the proposed changes, if they desire to do so, and to show some test cases. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:15, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

I would rather see a {{cite preprint}}, personaly. And then biorxiv / chemrxiv, etc... can all be shoved in it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:30, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, I was wondering what was special about ChemRxiv. That we support biorxiv and arxiv already is more a fact that they got here first. --Izno (talk) 13:09, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Because Sharouser has declined to discuss these changes in the sandboxen, I have reverted.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:26, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

This module already contains arxiv and biorxiv. There are no differences between biorxiv and chemrxiv. --Sharouser (talk) 01:25, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
It does. I don't object to the creation of {{cite ChemRxiv}} but I do object to the process you used. This timeline shows that that you:
09:33, 27 February 2019‎ – created ChemRxiv
09:43, 27 February 2019 – created {{Cite ChemRxiv}}
01:39, 1 March 2019‎ – modified Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox
01:41, 1 March 2019‎‎ – modified Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration/sandbox
01:44, 1 March 2019‎‎ – modified Module:Citation/CS1/Whitelist/sandbox
01:50, 1 March 2019‎‎ – modified Module:Citation/CS1/Identifiers/sandbox
01:51, 1 March 2019‎‎ – modified Module:Citation/CS1/COinS/sandbox
01:56, 1 March 2019‎ – made a request of Edgar181 for an update to the live module suite
The problems that I have with what you did are:
  • you did not test the module changes that you made to make sure that they actually work
  • there is no discussion that I can find that indicates that {{Cite ChemRxiv}} should be created; if there is, please give a link to that discussion
    as an aside, at this writing, the term 'ChemRxiv' is little used
  • you did not create documentation for {{Cite ChemRxiv}}
{{Cite ChemRxiv}} can be supported if the community needs it; additions to the module suite must be tested to show that the additions work; the base template requires documentation.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:59, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Moving some items from maintenance to error

There are a few maintenance items that I'd like to propose moving to errors. The categories in question are:

These all have consistently very few or no pages in them, indicating that people do find these to be true errors.

However, it's a bit puzzling to me in the module how to do this, since the maintenance and error setups are quite a bit different in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration.

Moreover, I think this should be a consensus discussion. --Izno (talk) 17:07, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

For PMC format, the citation displays fine with |PMC12334=, it's done to accommodate some other tool which refuses to strip the PMC part of the PMCID. But the citation displays fine. The maintenance category is useful as is, since running User:Citation bot (or User:CitationCleanerBot) on it will not only cleanup the stray 'PMC' part of the ID, but also remove and fix all sorts of crap inserted by that citation tool as well, like redundant URLs.
No opinion on the other categories. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:14, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
I think that Izno is correct, but someone should probably dig up the original talk page threads that led to the creation of these categories. They probably contain some rationale for creating them as maintenance categories, typically something like "we don't know if we'll get a bunch of false positives or not, so let's use maint cats until we know for sure". Usually the underlying implication is that if there are no false positives, the category should be converted to a regular error category. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:06, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Et al was a case of "let's see".
  • Display-authors as a maintenance message looks like this discussion. I do not see any super-great consensus that it must be a maintenance message at this time.
  • Missing pipe was a case of "hash out the false positives".
  • Discussion about PMC was somewhat acrimonious. I'm wondering if that should be a maintenance task at all or if we should remove the maintenance/categorization and simply silently drop during display the PMC part of the PMCID (which we already do). If it makes sense to, I'd be happy to separate PMC into its own topic.
--Izno (talk) 01:01, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
I'd also like to add Category:CS1 maint: Date and year to the list of errors. Or even, just remove the special case for them and treat them as true aliases. --Izno (talk) 18:20, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Until |date=YYYY-MM-DD is outlawed, I think that we have to keep |year= so that year disambiguation can be supported (unless, of course, we allow disambiguation within the YMD format: |date=YYYYa-MM-DD).
—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:17, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
I don't understand this comment as I wasn't suggesting to remove |year= entirely from support. Just not to be special-cased as it presently is. --Izno (talk) 05:36, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
The category exists because there is a special case for |date= and |year=, which in all respects could be aliases were it not for the disambiguation need that I described. When duplicates of proper aliases occur in cs1|2 templates they get a red error message. We could rewrite the special case so that |year= without disambiguation in the presence of |date= creates the same red error message but it is still a special case becauise we have to support the disambiguated |year=.
We got rid of |day= and |month= so it makes some sense to me to also get rid of |year= if and when |date=YYYY-MM-DD is outlawed. Keeping |year= as an alias of |date= seems to me to be poor practice because |year=27 February 2019 describes a 'date' not a 'year'.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:16, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
I think we still need a special case for the disambiguation, but that can be handled with something like "if Date is 4 digits and N letters at the end, do disambiguation". --Izno (talk) 13:35, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Title. 1 January 1990 website=. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Missing pipe in: |date= (help)
  • Title. 1 January 1990 website=. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Missing pipe in: |date= (help)
Done for missing pipe. I also added some intelligence so we know where to fix the problem. I'll work on the others soonly. --Izno (talk) 19:08, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Author; et al. (1 January 1990). Title. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
  • Author; et al. (1 January 1990). Title. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
  • Title. 1 January 1990. {{cite book}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help)
  • Title. 1 January 1990. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
  • Editor; et al., eds. (1 January 1990). Title. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |editor= (help)
  • Editor; et al., eds. (1 January 1990). Title. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |editor= (help)
  • Title. 1 January 1990. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  • Title. 1 January 1990. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  • Author A, Author B, et al. (1 January 1990). Title.
  • Author A, Author B, et al. (1 January 1990). Title.
  • Editor A, Editor B, et al., eds. (1 January 1990). Title.
  • Editor A, Editor B, et al., eds. (1 January 1990). Title.
--Izno (talk) 19:55, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Some interesting variance there when we use the deprecated parameters. Otherwise, et al is done. --Izno (talk) 19:59, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
And no detection in |editors=? --Izno (talk) 20:00, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Fixed. Don't know why we hadn't implemented that. Also more informative error messaging.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:59, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the messaging--that looked above my paygrade when I considered it. --Izno (talk) 14:07, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
Except it's not coded quite right, since it's using the synonym present in the *List rather than the actual parameter passed in the frame (editor-last1 instead of editor). That will be too confusing for the Standard Reader if left like that. --Izno (talk) 14:08, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
The problem with this code is that there is so damn much of it that is more-or-less stable so I don't spend all that much time buried in it so I forget what's there. I didn't remember that select_one() also returns the name of the parameter that it selected. At the time that extract_names() was modified to detect first-missing-last, select_one() only returned the selected parameter's value which is why the first-missing-last error message reads as it does. It wasn't until sometime later that I modified select_one() to return the selected parameter value and the selected parameter name. I'll look at refining the first-missing-last error messaging.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:06, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
Cite book comparison
Wikitext {{cite book|first=First|title=Title}}
Live Title. {{cite book}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
Sandbox Title. {{cite book}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
Cite book comparison
Wikitext {{cite book|first2=First2|first=First|last=Last|title=Title}}
Live Last, First. Title. {{cite book}}: |first2= missing |last2= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Sandbox Last, First. Title. {{cite book}}: |first2= missing |last2= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Cite book comparison
Wikitext {{cite book|title=Title|translator-first=Trans-First|translator-last=Trans-Last|translator2-first=Trans2-First}}
Live Title. Translated by Trans-Last, Trans-First. {{cite book}}: |translator2-first= missing |translator2-last= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: translators list (link)
Sandbox Title. Translated by Trans-Last, Trans-First. {{cite book}}: |translator2-first= missing |translator2-last= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: translators list (link)
Cite book comparison
Wikitext {{cite book|title=Title|translator-first=Trans-First|translator-last3=Trans-Last3|translator-last=Trans-Last|translator3-first=Trans3-First}}
Live Title. Translated by Trans-Last, Trans-First; Trans-Last3, Trans3-First. {{cite book}}: Missing |translator2= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: translators list (link)
Sandbox Title. Translated by Trans-Last, Trans-First; Trans-Last3, Trans3-First. {{cite book}}: Missing |translator2= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: translators list (link)

error messaging for the various missing name-list parameter now more specific.

All of these errors categorize to Category:CS1 errors: missing author or editor. As you can see from the above, that category also gets translators (and, though not illustrated, interviewers and contributors) so perhaps a different category name would be appropriate?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:39, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

"Missing name"? That's what you made display-authors-editors into in the code, which seems reasonable. There are a couple other places in the documentation also that I've been poking at recently where we need to think about better naming. --Izno (talk) 16:47, 10 March 2019 (UTC)


Error/maintenance display convention

Why does it seem the convention for maintenance messages is "CS1 maint:" and for errors it is not "CS1 error:"? --Izno (talk) 19:17, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Maintenance messages are merely the maintenance category name and the whole concept of maintenance categories and messages arose after the red error messages were already established.
I sometimes think that adding a 'CS1 error:' prefix to the error message would make some sense when trolling through some category or other fixing those errors because jumping from the top of the page to the errors would simply be a matter of using Ctrl+F and a constant text to seach for ('cs1' with or without more letters to distinguish errors from maintenance).
—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:42, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
I think it would be excellent for that reason, which I have found is helpful when working through a category by hand. --Izno (talk) 02:23, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Module:Citation/CS1/testcases

I noticed that Editor Izno was poking around in Module:Citation/CS1/testcases tweaking this and fixing that. I'm glad for that because it pointed up an error related to this discussion. When I added that change to Module:Citation/CS1/Identifiers/sandbox I did it wrong (even though I got it right in the discussion). That error left a glaring red, rather cryptic, error message for any citation that used |pmid= or |jfm=.

The ID "" is unknown to the system. Please use a valid entity ID.

This error is saying the Wikidata doesn't have an entity ID for an empty string. At the time we started using Wikidata for links to articles about the named identifiers in the various different languages that use these modules, neither |pmid= nor |jfm= had entity numbers that allow this module to link to the local language article. And it still doesn't though I suppose that for JFM, we could use zbMATH Open (Q190269) because at en.wiki JFM is a dab page that links to Zentralblatt MATH.

While I was looking at the ~/testcases page, I wondered why there were 318 failures (everything). The answer is TemplateStyles. Because there are some 25ish cs1|2 templates, it was easier and arguably better for us to instance our Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css and Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox/styles.css in one place in the code instead of 25 live templates and 25 sandbox templates. But, that causes problems with comparisons (does expected equal actual?) because TemplateStyles inserts a stripmarker at the end of every cs1|2 template rendering and each stripmarker has a unique id number. So, this always fails:

{{#ifeq:{{cite book |title=Title}}|{{cite book |title=Title}}|ok|FAIL}}
FAIL

even though the two {{cite book}} templates are identically written.

As a test, I hacked a bit of code into Module:UnitTests that replaces the identifier in the sandbox module's stripmarker with the identifier from the live module's strip marker: 

	local stripmarker_id = expected:match ('\127[^\127]*UNIQ%-%-templatestyles%-(%x+)%-QINU[^\127]*\127');	-- get templatestyles strip marker id from reference
	
	if stripmarker_id then
		actual = actual:gsub ('(\127[^\127]*UNIQ%-%-templatestyles%-)%x+(%-QINU[^\127]*\127)', '%1'..stripmarker_id..'%2');	-- replace different id with id from expected
	end

I don't know if I'll propose this as a permanent change to Module:UnitTests or not so I've documented it here in case I do decide to do that.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:07, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

I thought it might be COINS, but it makes sense that it is TemplateStyles. If it does not become part of UnitTests, there should be a way to assess the delta on that page otherwise.... --Izno (talk) 23:30, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
Also, that approach seems a little brittle given how the stripmarkers like to change. I'm not sure our test module should depend on stripmarkers always looking like that. --Izno (talk) 01:52, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

is there a parameter to add a proQuest number?

This attempt add a proQuest number (below) doesn't work. If you just use "id=734005592", it puts the id to the left of ProQuest, which is a bit confusing, and I sorta wish the id could link to a ProQuest page (if possible, etc.) Is there a way to do it?

  • {{cite news |last=Mathews |first= Jay |date= 2 June 1989 |title= Chinese Army Moving Closer to Protesters: Finances, Leadership Split Student Ranks| work=The Washington Post |via= ProQuest Historical Newspapers The Washington Post (1877–1994) |id ={{ProQuest| 734005592}}|ref=harv}}

Thanks! ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:19, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Except for |id=, no. As far as I can tell, there is no {{ProQuest}} as your example shows (at least by that spelling).
—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:27, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
OK Then, thanks! ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 11:09, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
@Lingzhi2: Template now created. Note that you must not prefix the ID with a space, as you did in your example.[1] Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:19, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
Groovy, thanks! ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 16:25, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Mathews, Jay (2 June 1989). "Chinese Army Moving Closer to Protesters: Finances, Leadership Split Student Ranks". The Washington Post. ProQuest 734005592 – via ProQuest Historical Newspapers The Washington Post (1877–1994). {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

changes to publication-place in Template:Citation Style_documentation/publisher

In reply to Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 50#changes to Template:Citation Style_documentation/publisher,

@Trappist the monk: I still do not have real use example in enwiki for the parameter in that way, but there is real use example in other lang wiki. It is used that way since the url https://tv.line.me/onepieceth/videos/allDate/#tab_focus is available in only some countries. --Ans (talk) 07:50, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I wonder if a better solution might be some sort of variant on |url-access=; perhaps |url-access=restricted where the tool-tip might say something like 'Free access subject to certain restrictions' or some-such. In the rendering of this template:
{{cite web|url=https://tv.line.me/onepieceth/videos/allDate/#tab_focus|title=วันพีซ (ONE PIECE)|publisher=Cartoon Club Channel|publication-place=ประเทศไทย|website=LINE TV|accessdate={{date|2018-12-13}} }}
"วันพีซ (ONE PIECE)". LINE TV. ประเทศไทย: Cartoon Club Channel. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
|publication-place= tells the reader nothing about the source except that it is published in Thailand. If shown the URL access icon, at least the reader is forewarned (mimicked here with |url-access=limited):
"วันพีซ (ONE PIECE)". LINE TV. ประเทศไทย: Cartoon Club Channel. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
Still, if you have been hunting for a real life example for all of this time and found only one instance, is it really worth worrying about?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:35, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
I've found more real life example in enwiki --Ans (talk) 10:21, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
Ok, so you've now found five articles that use this source, my last question still applies: is it really worth worrying about?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:35, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
@Trappist the monk: Then, how much number of references using this source that you think it is worth for? --Ans (talk) 10:16, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
No, no, don't be answering my question by asking it of me. That is not an answer.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:20, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
@Trappist the monk: If I say that it is worth for, do you agree? In case you disagree, then how much number you think it is worth for? --Ans (talk) 08:52, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
You are still attempting to answer my question by turning it back on me. This suggests that you have no reason more substantive than because you want it. So, to forestall what could become an endless cycle of non-answers, I will answer your non-answer questions: I do not agree. cs1|2 is not, cannot be, all things to all people. Answering special cases such as this just bloats the code for very very little benefit. If a goodly number of editors rise up in support of this feature or if the problem becomes so widespread that many many more citations exhibit this same problem then I think that it might be worth doing something about. Until then, no.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:42, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
@Trappist the monk: For books, does the publication-place mean the location of publisher or the location where the books are distributed to public? --Ans (talk) 04:39, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Location of the publisher.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:27, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Citation authors in Wikidata, but not Wikipedia

The artidle on James Farish cites a source, one of whose authors is "Mabbett, Ian" (no relation). That author has no Wikipedia article, but does have a Wikidata item: Ian W. Mabbett (Q57340982).

Is there a way, in the citation template, to associate the name with the Wikidata item, short of creating an item for the work cited?

If not, should there be? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:02, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Why should there be? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:25, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
Disambiguation; to help people (and bots) find further data about authors, and other works by them; and per the principles of linked data. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:29, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
Which is not the purpose of citations on Wikipedia. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:23, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
It's the purpose of Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:19, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
It is not. That's the purpose of Wikidata. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:27, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
I have never understood the logic of wikilinking authors' names in citations; I rarely or never do it. The purpose of a citation is to support the information in the article; the purpose of including authors in citations is to more precisely identify the source so that it can be located, not to give information about the author. There's a practical problem, too: an author should only be wikilinked once, but the nature of references and the way they are added to and removed from articles makes this difficult to maintain. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:03, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
The visual presenation of citations is secondary to the issue I raised. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:26, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
Well, we obviously have very different understandings of our mission. But even if you were correct, handing off "Disambiguation [and] further data about authors, and other works" to Wikidata still requires what I asked about: "to associate the name [in the Wikipedia citation template] with the Wikidata item". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:26, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
The purpose of Wikipedia is to provide free access to knowledge. Linking authors names' to enable the reader find more information about or other works by them has always been standard practice on Wikipedia in furtherance of that purpose. It's also standard practice on almost every database on Earth. Why should we not do this? Personal preference should not be a reason to prevent discovery by others who have different discovery preferences. Gamaliel (talk) 20:30, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
Because Wikipedia is not a database, we're an encyclopedia. Knowing which of the 100000 John Smiths of the world wrote a specific reference (e.g. doi:10.1017/S0016672300014634) is completely irrelevant to Natural selection. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:36, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
Why is it irrelevant to an encyclopedia that links damn near every other proper noun for the same purpose? Gamaliel (talk) 20:40, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
See WP:OVERLINKING.
The overlinking guidelines apply to article text, which is meant to be read linearly. It's not relevant to citations as people don't normally read the list of references from end to end. They look up individual citations as and when they're used in the text, so each individual citation should not assume context and be able to stand on its own. – Uanfala (talk) 01:41, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
What would help in practice is some way of automatically handling the repetition of wikilinks to authors in citations. If it's considered ok not only to add them but also to keep repeating them (which I dislike but have to accept MOS:DL allows), it shouldn't be necessary to keep adding |author-link= and potentially something like |wikidata-link= to every occurrence of an author's name in a citation. Any ideas about how this could be managed? Peter coxhead (talk)
What is proposed here fits none of the examples or criteria at WP:OVERLINKING. That page says "A good question to ask yourself is whether reading the article you're about to link to would help someone understand the article you are linking from." Knowing more about the sources of the information used to create the article is absolutely fundamental to understanding it. Gamaliel (talk) 20:56, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

[ec] Two subjects are being conflated: whether to link; and over-linking. There are plenty of use-cases for technically facilitating the former. The latter can be managed as easily for Wikidata (in a hypothetical |wikidata-link=, or whatever) as for Wikipedia, as at presently done for |author-link= which incidentally, clearly exists both for a purpose and by consensus. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:00, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

One link to Wikidata for the whole citation is sufficient. There is zero need to clutter citations with oodles of |author-wikidata-link1= ... |author-wikidata-link249= in

If a link must be provided, for some unfathomable reason, you can link it in the normal way, with |author-link= pointing to Wikidata.

But really what should be done is

with whatever QID is appropriate for that citation. And then all the stuff about authors (ORCIDS, affiliations, etc...) can be put in there.

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:21, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

"One link to Wikidata for the whole citation is sufficient" - now read what I wrote, in my OP: Is there a way, in the citation template, to associate the name with the Wikidata item, short of creating an item for the work cited?. "|author-wikidata-link249=" How many of our citations have 249 named authors? I note that your fist example displays precisely one. "But really what should be done is..." Then we should have a |wikidata= (and not shoehorn this into |id=); but again, my first point applies. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:41, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
You wrote "Is there a way, in the citation template, to associate the name with the Wikidata item, short of creating an item for the work cited?" And then talked about linking authors to a wikidata entry. You can use authorlink for that, if its needed (and it never is), or give a wikidata link to the citation, and shove all that nonessential information there along with the rest of the stuff, where it belongs. As for a specific wikidata parameter, I've long supported that, but that's for Trappist the Monk to implement, since he's pretty much the only one that can. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:15, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

I like to imagine that this, and all other missing citation features, will be happily resolved by the magic of meta:WikiCite, when it comes one day. Personally, I've had the wild thought that there could be a new namespace, dedicated to authors whose work has been cited, more as an aid to the project, to help understand authors' backgrounds, biases, etc and hence aid in the judgement of the reliability of the sources used. I understand this isn't remotely practicable. And as for linking authors in general: of course that's useful, but it's probably not worth worrying about too much: how many readers read the citations and want to find out more? – Uanfala (talk) 01:41, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@Uanfala: WikiCite is already here; and its data in Wikidata can be accessed using {{Cite Q}} - but there was pushback from some in the community against using that template, which has resulted in a pause in its development. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:37, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Rename Category:Pages with DOIs inactive since 2018 to Category:Pages with DOIs inactive as of 2018

Same for the 2019 category. The reason is that when exactly a DOI became inactive is irrelevant, and nearly impossible to determine. However, we can easily determine if something that was inactive in 2018 is still inactive in 2019. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:06, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Done here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:12, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Invalid Check |url= value complaint for .today

At the page Stellar (payment network), a cite with the working url https://u.today/keybase-starts-supporting-stellar-wallets, which was created using the visual editor citation tool, is marked as Check |url= value. It seems like the citation template doesn't yet accept the .today TLD, since adding e.g. a .com to the end makes the error go away (while breaking the URL). ★NealMcB★ (talk) 14:39, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

It is not that Module:Citation/CS1 fails to recognize the .today tld; it does:
{{cite web |title=Title |url=//archive.today}} → "Title".
what it does not recognize is single-letter second-level domain for .today.
This search finds only two uses of .today with single letter second-level domain (neither are in Stellar (payment network) as you claimed). When I followed your link, u.today completely trashed my browser's back button – any web source that misbehaves so badly should not be linked from en.wiki. Still, the source exists, is used, so I have added support for it to the sandbox:
Cite web comparison
Wikitext {{cite web|title=Title|url=https://u.today/keybase-starts-supporting-stellar-wallets}}
Live "Title".
Sandbox "Title".
probably best not to click these links; u.today misbehaves by trashing the back button (chrome latest – not tested with other browsers)
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:01, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Foreign language quotes

What is the format of doing foreign language quotes? I've seen this talk discussion in Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_33#How_do_I_do_multiple_quotes and there are proposals to add trans-quote parameter to the templates. —Wei4Green | 唯绿远大 (talk) 03:40, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

You would have me repeat my opinion that quote do not belong in citations? I can do that, but it's already in the conversation that you linked. Assuming that both the original text and the translation text are sourced (not the result of WP:OR), put each in a {{efn}} and cite them.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:57, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
And I would have to repeat my proposal of a |trans-quote= (or even |script-quote=) parameter, simply because it improves readability and maintainability and would help to establish a consist format for quotations, which we could centrally change when found necessary later on. And, in the very long run, if we would find a better solution, we could transform this into the future format using a bot.
We've recently had a related case at the School strike for climate article, where several editors requested that references would have to provide citations and translations as well. So, quotes and translations variously ended up in the |quote= parameter, sometimes both and without attributation. If the contents of a |trans-quote= parameter would always be put after the contents of |quote=, and if it would be put into [brackets] when preceded by |quote=, this would really help - and not harm in any way elsewhere.
--Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:15, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

cite magazine, volume: uppercase "V" and missing full stop after volume number

Something that bothers me about {{cite magazine}} is that "Vol." is capitalized whereas "no." isn't, and the omittance of a full stop after the volume number.

For example:

Intini, J. (13 November 2006). "The End: Brian Schubert, 1940–2006". Maclean's. Vol. 119 no. 45. p. 160. Retrieved 26 March 2019.

Ideally, I would want it to look like this:

Intini, J. (13 November 2006). "The End: Brian Schubert, 1940–2006". Maclean's. vol. 119. no. 45. p. 160. Retrieved 26 March 2019.

You'll notice the subtle difference, of course. Looking through the archive, I was unable to find any real prior discussion regarding this issue. Although I saw one user mention it, I cannot recall where since I closed the tab. Anyways, I don't expect this to be a contentious suggestion. Pardon my ignorance if it turns out that this is intentional and was previously agreed upon. Jay D. Easy (talk) 01:23, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

That there is no separator between the volume number and the numero abbreviation was intentional (or it was an oversight that none but one editor mentioned). I'm pretty sure that it is intentional; volume and issue are grouped together to form a sort of fragmentary sentence which, I suspect, is also why the numero abbreviation is not capitalized.
As far as I know the only discussions about the topic are these
Page display in journal could use improvement
|volume=, |issue=, |page(s)= and cite magazine
—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:40, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Space inserted

The {{cite magazine}} template adds an inappropriate space in the issue field after a comma separator in the number.

{{cite magazine |editor1-last=Piggott |editor1-first=Nick |title=Twin crash loco's new identity |magazine=The Railway Magazine |date=March 2002 |volume=148 |issue=1,211 |page=34 |publisher=IPC Media |location=London |issn=0033-8923}}

gives
Piggott, Nick, ed. (March 2002). "Twin crash loco's new identity". The Railway Magazine. Vol. 148, no. 1, 211. London: IPC Media. p. 34. ISSN 0033-8923.

Keith D (talk) 15:29, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Don't put a comma in issue? --Izno (talk) 16:03, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
Is that two issue numbers, 1 and 211, or one issue number, 1211, prettified with a comma? If the former, then the insertion of the space character after the comma is correct (multiple issue numbers are allowed); if the latter, then the module cannot distinguish it from the allowed, multiple-issue case. Because 1,211 is indistinguishable from 1,211, if you must use 1,211 as a single issue number, wrap it in <nowiki>...</nowiki> markup:
{{cite magazine |editor1-last=Piggott |editor1-first=Nick |title=Twin crash loco's new identity |magazine=The Railway Magazine |date=March 2002 |volume=148 |issue=<nowiki>1,211</nowiki> |page=34 |publisher=IPC Media |location=London |issn=0033-8923}}
Piggott, Nick, ed. (March 2002). "Twin crash loco's new identity". The Railway Magazine. Vol. 148, no. 1,211. London: IPC Media. p. 34. ISSN 0033-8923.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:04, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, I am assuming that it is a single issue number as it refers to a single page rather than 2 separate issues as you would then expect 2 page numbers 1 in each issue. Keith D (talk) 16:46, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
But why would it default to adding a space? Issues with commas aren't that uncommon (The New York Times's issues are well into the ten thousands), and I'm not sure when a citation would have multiple, nonsequential (i.e., where one wouldn't use an en-dash to denote a range) issues. If it's really necessary to add a space, an editor can add a space in the code. Umimmak (talk) 22:13, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Because it is the same code that handles lists of page numbers:
{{cite book |title=Title |pages=1,3,5,7}} → Title. pp. 1, 3, 5, 7.
It is the job of the template to make things presentable. In the best of all possible worlds, editors will do as you suggest and always, every time, provide correct, perfectly formatted parameter values so that the templates don't have to reformat anything ever. Ya, that's not gonna happen, so the templates make what they can from the marginally correct inputs.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:02, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

access-date and archive-date

When a |url= is dead and there exists |archive-url= + |archive-date= + |deadurl=yes then the |access-date= becomes somewhat confusing and redundant in the rendered output.

Template:Cite web says |access-date= is "Not required for linked documents that do not change" and gives example scenarios, such as publication dates. It does not mention archives. This is a curious problem because one would think archive URLs "do not change", but this not true. Wayback URLs can stop working for technical and policy reasons, and they will sometimes get redirected to other pages within the Wayback database that contain different content. Thus it is one of my bot's jobs to hunt for and fix link rot in archive URLs themselves. So unclear if archives qualify as "documents that do not change"?

At the same time, |access-date= can still be occasionally useful to bots (and maybe people) in certain edge case scenarios, my bot relies on it in some rare instances when data is missing in other fields. Nevertheless I don't think it's so useful that it warrants all the extra rendered dates in the footnotes section.

Proposal: it might be useful to suppress rendering |access-date= if there is |archive-url= + |archive-date= + |deadurl=yes, but still retain the |access-date= in the template. Thoughts? -- GreenC 16:31, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Just today I was fixing a cs1|2 template at List of sports idioms where the archive url of an adjacent template linked to a pointless archive. At the time I didn't bother to chase down why nor did I bother much with its peculiar title (there are other articles in the category that I'm currently clearing). I did think that it was an automated edit; clearly a human (assuming good faith here) would not write:
{{cite web|url=http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50107103/50107103se8 |archive-url=https://archive.is/20120708012538/http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50107103/50107103se8 |dead-url=yes |archive-date=2012-07-08 |title=You have been automatically redirected to the new Oxford English Dictionary website |work=OED| publisher= Oxford University Press|date= |accessdate=2011-04-19}}
"You have been automatically redirected to the new Oxford English Dictionary website". OED. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 2012-07-08. Retrieved 2011-04-19. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
This topic got me wondering about that particular citation because I used |access-date= to search in archive.org for a replacement for the pointless archive.is url. I didn't find one.
That citation was not written by a human; see this edit where there are 105 citations with the exact same title. This kind of thing is why I have problems believing that automated tools can be trusted as much as editors here appear to be willing to trust them.
I know, this has nothing to do with the topic to hand.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:17, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
It's a soft-404, and an old edit. WaybackMedic has been improved since then and wouldn't make edits like that anymore. I actually have been thinking of ways to go back and find these soft-404s and remove them since WaybackMedic has been building up a database of known soft-404s, but I've been waiting to acquire more data, which happens each time the bot runs, which is every few months... Anyway can we discuss |access-date=? -- GreenC 17:45, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
I can see your point, although I do not consider displaying |access-date= as a problem at all (as it's not in the body of an article, but only in the references section). I'm open regarding not displaying them under certain well-defined conditions (like: |dead-url=yes combined with the existance of an |archive-url= that still works and an |archive-date= which is identical to |access-date=), but I oppose their removal from the source code as recently attempted by rough editors through "citation bot" (and as soon as an |archive-url= wents bad, |access-date= should be displayed again). There are several reasons for this:
In my opinion there are no permanent links in its true sense. There are links which are designed to be static, but even DOIs are not garanteed to remain functional forever. Since we are here to build an encyclopedia lasting for many decades (hopefully longer) we need to address the problem that (non-mainstream) information which can (still) be verified now might be very hard to verify in the future once links got broken and when even archives might not be available (any more). Just removing such information won't work, because in the long run that would put most of today's contents at risk, and we all would be wasting our time working on this project (unless we work in mainstream areas only). I guess, in the long run some additional "web of trust" needs to be established, and I see |access-date= parameters as one (small) piece in this. As you already mentioned, they can not only be useful to find alternative links by narrowing down a timeframe for research, but also help to extend support to article-essential but difficult to source statements into the future at least when originally applied by a trusted editor basically stating something like "I personally checked and hereby certify that this external resource actually existed under this link and supported the statement at this day".
There is another reason: Web contents can not only disappear, but also change over time. In this case, even an existing (earlier or later) archive might not reflect the state of a reference when incorporated into an article. So, even with |archive-url= and |archive-date= given, |access-date= might not be redundant at all. It might even be more important than the original publishing |date=.
Therefore, removing |access-date= parameters just because they might seem somewhat redundant now is IMO a bad idea in the long run.
--Matthiaspaul (talk) 18:42, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
@Matthiaspaul: agree that removal from the citation is not ideal long term. However if the three archive parameters set, it would be a real improvement to not display the access-date as it clutters and confuses the citation render. Looks like a good solution to this question that often comes up, and it would be a second purpose for |dead-url=. -- GreenC 15:19, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Explicit et al

Hi, just spotted Hofmeister series article that includes |last2=et.al. that has not got a categorisation of Category:CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. may be an odd case. Keith D (talk) 10:07, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Fixed in the sandbox:
Cite journal comparison
Wikitext {{cite journal|doi=10.1007/s10653-014-9641-4|first1=M. W. C.|journal=Environmental Geochemistry and Health|last1=Dharma-wardana|last2=et.al.|pages=221–231|title=Chronic kidney disease of unknown aetiology and ground-water ionicity: study based on Sri Lanka|volume=37}}
Live Dharma-wardana, M. W. C.; et al. "Chronic kidney disease of unknown aetiology and ground-water ionicity: study based on Sri Lanka". Environmental Geochemistry and Health. 37: 221–231. doi:10.1007/s10653-014-9641-4. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last2= (help)
Sandbox Dharma-wardana, M. W. C.; et al. "Chronic kidney disease of unknown aetiology and ground-water ionicity: study based on Sri Lanka". Environmental Geochemistry and Health. 37: 221–231. doi:10.1007/s10653-014-9641-4. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last2= (help)
—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:07, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
It's a mis-spelling - no stop needed after the "et". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:36, 26 March 2019 (UTC).
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