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Page numbers

I have now seen, from two completely separate sets of editors, repeated rumors that "the guidelines" require page numbers in citations to be narrow. In one case, the claim was specifically a maximum of two pages. I cannot find anything that says this. Can anyone please give me a link to any page that says this?

(The rumor is wrong, of course, but let's save that for later, after we've figured out whether any of "the guidelines" actually contain the error.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Never seen anything, but perhaps this arises from the strong requests to give specific page numbers for articles, which might logically lead to this thought. But many articles are 60 pages or more. Johnbod (talk) 17:29, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
The "maximum two pages" bit is from the documentation for {{page range too broad}} and {{page numbers improve}}. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:43, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
It looks like those templates (or their /doc subpages, anyway) were written by @Howcheng and @Piotrus. Guys, what motivated this specific limitation? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:03, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing that somewhere else. I didn't just make it up, but I don't quite remember where that was. Doing a search for "page range" broad in the WP namespace brings up a number of FAC discussions where reviewers ask for smaller page ranges. Practically speaking, any range more than a few pages just makes it difficult for someone to actually verify a fact against the source. Personally I would think that a range of no more than 5–10 pages is probably the max that should be acceptable. —howcheng {chat} 07:28, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, Huh. I don't recall writing 'two pages max', but broad ranges are bad, and the shorter, the better. For the record, I am fine with a bit more than two pages, but certainly, a 60-page range is ridiculous, it's like citing two chapters or two papers. In some contexts, citing an entire single chapter or paper is reasonable, but I think it is more of an exception to good practices, and I'd definitely suggest keeping the requested page range <10 and preferably <5 pages, with the best practices being 1 or 2 pages indeed because generally a single fact can be found on a single page, or page-broken into two pages, hence the logic of 'max 2 pages' I guess (for best practices). If we need to refine this maybe a RfC would be good? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:30, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
Now that I think about it, I probably just copied it from the other template. I know I Piotrus's version existed before I made the inline one. —howcheng {chat} 07:33, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
@Piotrus, I don't think we need an RFC (or, at least not yet). I think the problem is assuming that there's a one-size-fits-all solution. We sometimes correctly cite entire books for a broad claim. If you are writing a general sentence such as "The Nazi invasion of Russia was motivated by economic pressures", you could correctly cite The Wages of Destruction in its entirety, and IMO would be improper to pick a single in the book to represent the book's main thesis. If you were writing this same claim in an academic paper, I don't think anyone would expect you to name a specific page or small page range from that book. They might even think it sounds like you're pretending this claim is "only" on page 6, and not on basically every page of the entire book.
Another problem I've seen with this 1–2 page story is that people are trying to apply it to short journal articles. In many cases, a single page or a short page range is feasible and desirable. The Wikipedia article will say something like "Half of people with colon cancer are cured by surgery", cite a paper that is exclusively about the cure rates for colon cancer with surgery, and then someone will say that we need to pick one or two pages out of the paper (they're usually 5–10 pages long), instead of citing the entire paper. If you point out that it's in the abstract, someone may modify the citation to specify abstract, and then the next editor will yell that it's a violation of MEDRS to read only the abstract and not the whole paper (which it is).
Did you originally intend this advice to only apply to books? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
As often discussed elsewhere, in medicine there is a strong belief that only whole papers should be cited, which (after initial objections long ago) I now understand and agree with. I'd also point out that I mostly write about art history, where sources often have lots of images, in journals very often whole page ones, & it would not be uncommon for a single sentence to cover say a 6 page range, if there are 4 pages of images in between. Johnbod (talk) 17:07, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
While there may be advantages to not providing page numbers, there are also many disadvantages. What occurs not infrequently is that editors add large works or huge page ranges (50 or more pages) as sources for contentious claims. If you then try and fact-check the claim it often turns out that the editor's interpretation of the source was completely wrong. This is of course a huge waste of time and most editors won't bother to read whole books just to fact-check one possibly false or misleading claim. Text may also change independently of the sources. WhatamIdoing may write "The Nazi invasion of Russia was motivated by economic pressures.[The Wages of Destruction]" one year. The next year someone changes the sentence to "The Nazi invasion of Russia was motivated by economic pressures and anti-Communist sentiment.[The Wages of Destruction]" Now one has to read through the whole book to check whether the Nazi invasion of Russia was motivated by anti-Communist sentiment or not. ImTheIP (talk) 17:29, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
I agree with that, but one size does not fit all. In medicine the idea is essentially that only the abstract should be cited, and it is OR to pluck factlets from the middle of the paper. But that doesn't work in the humanities. Obviously 60 pages is a stretch, but the "over two pages" language in the templates needs to be removed or at the least adjusted. There's no sign of community agreement on this. Johnbod (talk) 17:41, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
The MEDRS ideal is technically to care only about the conclusions, rather than the abstract, although there may be no practical difference between the two (especially for a systematic review). This is feasible when you are writing about heavily researched subjects such as high blood pressure.
@ImTheIP, I can see how that would be difficult, especially since indexing is a declining art, but I'm not sure that the problem is solved by specifying a page number for the original claim. Imagine that I add the original sentence, and cite page 6 as an example of what the book says about economic pressures. Then someone else adds "and anti-Communist sentiment", without adjusting the citation. You go to page 6 and don't find the word anti-Communism on that page.
Do you then conclude, after reading only page 6, that the book says nothing about the role of anti-Communism? If that feels dissatisfying, then maybe you'd look in the index, or search an online copy of the book. If you did, you'd easily discover that the book addresses anti-Communism directly. In this case, specifying the page number for the first claims doesn't help you figure out what the book says on that subject at all.
But it also doesn't help you in another way: Even if this book didn't address the subject, or (as happens to be the case for this example) the author wrote that he thought anti-Communist sentiment was not a primary factor, the absence of that information from that single cited source does not mean that the information is not actually verifiable. It just means that it isn't cited. You might change the article to say The Nazi invasion of Russia was motivated by economic pressures[The Wages of Destruction] and anti-Communist sentiment[citation needed]" but I don't think that the presence or absence of the page number has helped you determine whether anti-Communist sentiment is generally considered to have been a significant factor.
Also: This is a tolerably rare problem. I've personally seen a handful of examples of it, maybe dozens of examples, but I've also edited thousands of articles. I think we need to optimize for the case of someone citing a book chapter and being told that each separate sentence needs to have a single page cited, instead of citing the same chapter for all of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:57, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
Precision is a good thing. We add sources for readers and other editors so they can check the claims. They can't do that if we cite a whole book or chapter, so a single page should be the aim or a small page range. If a whole paper argues the case, then you can say "p = particularly 10–11". SarahSV (talk) 22:11, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
Precision is a good thing; false precision is a bad thing. If your sentence is about the main point of the whole chapter, then IMO it would be more accurate to say "Chapter One" instead of "particularly 10–11".
I do not believe your assertion that "they can't do that" if we cite a whole book. For them to be actually unable to check whether the contents match the claim in the article, we would have to believe that readers and editors are incapable of using the book's index, taking a "Look inside" the book on Amazon or searching a preview in Google Books. Or, in the example we've been using, that they're incapable of reading the Wikipedia article about the book, or just asking their favorite web search engine about it, since our example happens to be a notable book.
In a few cases, I think it would be silly to cite specific pages. Imagine trying to pick one or two pages from that book to cite, in the BLP about its notable author, "Adam Tooze wrote a book called The Wages of Destruction." If you're going to cite the book itself as a (primary) source for this fact, you shouldn't try to cite a particular page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:53, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
WAID, you're engaging in sophistry. The question is why. This page doesn't say anything about page ranges. SarahSV (talk) 00:18, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Because we have a rumor going around the wiki that says "the rules" require a maximum page range of two, editors are believing the lies in the the rumor, and rumors like that always hurt Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, if the citation is page 6 of The Wages of Destruction and that page doesn't say anything about anti-Communism, then the claim "the Nazi invasion of Russia was motivated by anti-Communist sentiment" lacks a citation. I don't understand how indexing helps (and many e-books and student's editions of books comes without usable indexes), but if it does, then why couldn't the original editor also find the correct page numbers using the index?
We may be editing non-overlapping subsets of Wikipedia because there are lots of source forgeries in the articles I edit. Here defined as accidental or intentional misuse of sources. There are many cranks on Wikipedia and there are many whose English reading comprehension is not great. To check their cites, the page ranges (or similar) needs to be relatively narrow.
Btw, as a thought experiment I checked The Wages to see whether I could find corroboration for the claim "the Nazi invasion of Russia was motivated by economic pressures". I gave up after half-an-hour because it felt like searching for a needle in a haystack. The book is almost 1000 pages long so, certainly, I think one could expect a more precise cite than just the name of the book. ImTheIP (talk) 23:54, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
"Lacks a citation" is not the same thing as "unverifiable".
The way an index helps is that, if you want to know what this book says about anti-Communism, then you get the book, flip to the back, and say, "Let's see, Coal shortages, Commerzbank, Communists/Communism, aha!  Anti-Communism.  That's the page I want." If you are reading an e-book, then it's even easier: you type anti-communism into the search box and read the pages that it finds for you.
The original editor can't find "the correct page numbers" because the original editor is telling you what the entire book is about. "The correct page numbers" are "all of them".
The second editor (the one who added anti-communism to the original sentence) didn't provide a citation for that content at all. It may be verifiable, but you would have to get a different source for that (because Adam Tooze disagrees with that claim). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:21, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
I don't understand your argument. If the reader can find the pages that corroborate the claim about anti-Communism using the book's index, then why on earth can't the editor adding the cite also add the exact same page numbers?! The problem is that, without page numbers, checking whether the source The Wages corroborates the claim about anti-Communism requires reading the whole book. That's way too much work. ImTheIP (talk) 02:08, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
> why on earth can't the editor adding the cite also add the exact same page numbers?!
Nobody said that the second editor couldn't cite a source or page numbers; you merely specified that the second editor didn't do it. If you want to know why your hypothetical second editor didn't add page numbers for the second claim, then I think you can ask only yourself, since that character is your creation, and only you can determine your own characters' motivations.
(I think we can safely chalk up the first editor's failure to add a citation for the second editor's claim to the linear nature of time and the usual human inability to predict how other people will change an article in the future. ;-))
> without page numbers, checking whether the source The Wages corroborates the claim about anti-Communism requires reading the whole book
This is not true. Knowing that the first editor's claim appeared on page 6 would not help you determine whether the second editor's claim is present or absent from the book, or whether it is verifiable in a reliable source. Being able to verify something does not require a citation. Since "verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source" (NB that the policy says 'from "a" reliable source', not 'from "the cited" source'), your second editor's claim could be theoretically verifiable even though it is not present on page 6, and even if it is not present anywhere in that book at all. So in this example, if the first editor had provided a page number, that page number would be useless for anyone who was trying to figure out whether any of the other 999 pages in the book supports the second editor's claim.
The second editor's claim might also be verifiable in a different source. The first editor's citation, no matter how many page numbers are in it, is useless for determining whether the second claim is verifiable in some other reliable source. It happens, in this specific example, the second editor actually would have needed to cite a different book, since this book explicitly disagrees with the second editor's claim. However, nobody needs to read the entire first source to discover that the book disagrees with the second editor's claim; they only need to know how to use an index (or a search tool, for an ebook or Google Books). It took me less than three minutes to figure out that the cited book doesn't support the second editor's claim, and I've never read more than a couple of paragraphs from that book. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:18, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, I totally agree with what you are saying here. At the same time, we need to clarify this somewhere to avoid people from saying 'a hundred range page range is ok, I don't remember which page it was on and the rules don't require me to be more specific'. Also, sometimes we have young students etc. who don't know best practices and need to be taught better. But to be clear, this clarification should not be in the tiny template but on some proper policy page. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:51, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
I think the actual rule is (in practice) and should be (in writing) that for books only (specifically not for news/magazine/academic journal articles), you should cite the relevant pages. The appropriate size of the page range will vary depending upon the claim, such as:
  • "A 2002 survey found that 53% of respondents thought the Sun was kind of big" – correctly cited to the specific page(s) where that survey is described: Miller, Edward (2005). The Sun's Size. Academic Press. p. 26.
  • "People have difficulty grasping how big the Sun really is" – correctly cited to the whole chapter about this subject: Miller, Edward (2005). "Chapter 2: The Cognitive Challenge of Understanding the Sun's Size". The Sun's Size. Academic Press.
  • "Edward Miller thinks the Sun is really big" – correctly cited to the whole book: Miller, Edward (2005). The Sun's Size. Academic Press.
We might need to specify, in that third example, that when the claim in the Wikipedia article is about the main thesis of the book, it would actually be incorrect to cite, e.g., a single sentence out of the front matter, as that could lead to the impression that the main thesis of the book appeared only on page xv. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
I can't see the point of the rhetoric and the extremism. Page numbers are a matter of editorial judgment. Precision is good because it helps the reader. That's it. Instead of making up examples, please use real ones so that we see how it actually works. SarahSV (talk) 20:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

WAID, a real example from your recent edits. You added this source, with a page range of 12, to support "[In the case of a parent–child estrangement, in which the adult child is the estranger] ... The rejected parents do not experience any benefits but do experience social stigma and feelings of loss."

Agllias, Kylie (August 2013). "The Gendered Experience of Family Estrangement in Later Life". Affilia. 28 (3): 309–321. doi:10.1177/0886109913495727. ISSN 0886-1099.

Twelve pages is too large a range, in my view, although lots of editors do it with journals (myself included). For some reason, we see journal articles as easier for the reader to look through than books. It's true that the whole paper deals with the topic, but a lot of it is about data, history, methods and so on. And in the example above (having only glanced at the source), it's seems to be women who describe feeling social stigma, not both parents (p. 312). SarahSV (talk) 21:04, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

That claim does come from a particular small part of the paper, so it is theoretically possible to provide a small page range. However, since I read that source in an unpaginated online version, I can't tell you exactly which page number(s) would be the correct ones for the print version anyway. Including the page numbers for the article is still the standard, proper way to write a citation for a journal article.
If, on the other hand, I had written "On average, mothers who are estranged from their adult children experience different and more negative effects, especially social stigma, from the estrangement than fathers", then the correct page numbers would be "all of them", because that is the main point of this paper. It would actually be incorrect to say that this information appeared only on one or two pages, and not on all of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:10, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

References section with subsections?

Hello! I am posting here on behalf of General Dynamics, a company I have declared my COI. The General Dynamics article is rated C class across six Wikipedia projects, giving a lot of room for improvement. In the Reference section, there are two subsections, citations and sources. Has anyone seen this before? If so, what is the purpose? Can anyone point me in the right direction of an example of why a reference section is formatted like this or a Wiki project page that may have information? --Chefmikesf (talk) 19:04, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

  • It’s rare to set it up this way, but not unheard of. The first part lists direct inline citations... sources that support specific statements. The second part is essentially a bibliography... listing references that do not necessarily support specific statements, but instead support the article in general. Blueboar (talk) 19:17, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Floating citations

I'm sure whether this is the correct term or whether there even is a correct term, but I'm referring to citations that seem to be "floating" all by themselves in white space. They're formatted as inline citations, but they're not attached to any particular bit of article content. I mostly see this with respect to sections which are made up of nothing more than tables or lists. It's almost as if the citation is intended to cited in support of the entire table/list, but the person who added it wasn't sure where to put it; so, they added either to the top of the section before the table/list or to the bottom of the section after the table/list, but not as part of the table/list syntax. It seems like this might also be a MOS:ACCESS problem because a screenreader may come across the citation and read it, but might not be able to associate it with any particular bit of aricle content.

When I come across this type of thing, I mainly try to add a generic introductory statement at the top of the section and then cite that sentence since using WP:REFNAME to cite each individual table entry seem a bit unnecessary. Anyway, I'm wondering whether there's a better way to deal with this type of thing and whether there's any guidance reagarding it in any of the Wikipedia pages related to adding/formatting citations.-- Marchjuly (talk) 05:35, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

If it's for a table, you can move the ref tags to the table's caption. Otherwise, some introductory text is how I deal with it. (More often, I've been the one to make it an issue as a ref tag in a page heading is unequivocally worse.) --Izno (talk) 20:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
I saw one of those the other day, and since I couldn't figure out where it belonged, I decided to leave it and hope that someone else would have a better idea. I think that this sometimes happens because people want to add a citation but don't know how, so they stick it at the end of the ==References== section, or they want to mention a source (e.g., for a list of publications by the subject) but don't know how to get rid of the ref tags. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:16, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
I guess the best way for "fixing" a problem like this needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis, which is fine. I'm just wondering if this kind of thing is mentioned on any of the Wikipedia policy/guideline pages related to citations. If there's was something that could be linked to (perhaps by a short-cut like WP:CITEORPHAN), then it would might make help in explaining things via edit summaries or on talk page. I understand it seems like it should be common sense when adding an WP:INCITE, but some editors (partiuclarly newer ones) might not make that connection. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:50, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Very much case-by-case. I'm not sure that there is any value in creating a shortcut. What would you say on such a page? "There are a million ways to screw up, and here are some of them, which may or may not apply: accidental edit, duplication, not knowing how to use the software, added by the same editor as some 'unsourced' content (so it probably belongs with that content), couldn't figure out how to generate a citation template without the ref tags, but really meant for it to be a ==Further reading== type bulleted list..." I don't think that would be helpful. If you fix it, most people should be able to figure out what you're doing from the diff. If you remove it, try "Removed ref that didn't seem to belong to any content" as an edit summary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:43, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Is there any guidance as to using a desktop URL vs mobile URL in citations. I've been noticing a handful citations in some articles that I try to convert into desktop links when possible. BOVINEBOY2008 01:59, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

As in /amp/ and m.? Yes, I try to prefer the desktop link. That is usually the canonical version. --Izno (talk) 03:06, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I mean. Thanks! Is there a guideline that we have that says that, or does it just fall to the preference of the editor? I don't want to unnecessarily override another editor's preferences unjustly. BOVINEBOY2008 10:17, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
There is no set rule, but I suspect that most people aren't doing it as a matter of preference. Instead, it's just the only URL that they have, so they use it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:44, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Best leave the type up to the editor. Last thing we need is to pick a type we prefer and have mass reverts of positive content based solely on link type that are not harmful. That said we could get a bot to drop the "mobile view" in many links if the community feels that mobile view isn't the best. But in no way should we make a rule limiting the type of link....as we all know lots looking for reasons to revert or maintain the status quo just so they can click that butom. Making a rule of this nature would be a net loss of content even though that shouldn't be affected.--Moxy 🍁 04:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Anyone know how to fix this citation error?

So in Kings Hammer SC, citation #4 says it has a date error. I used cite tweet, and it says based on the 'tweet number' the 'date' is incorrect. However, if you open the tweet, you see that the date entered in the date parameter is correct. Not sure how to remove the error message RedPatchBoy (talk) 15:53, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Spelling of 'Decemeber'?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:58, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
Fixed it. [1] --Guy Macon (talk) 16:47, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, I don't know how I didn't catch the typo. I was so focused on it being some kind of twitter glitch, I never noticed that misspelling. (facepalm) RedPatchBoy (talk) 18:15, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
I lay part of the blame on the W?F. If they would take some of the millions that they have been spending on nonessentials and devote it to having a couple of developers doing the mundane but important task of generating errors and seeing if the error messages are helpful, it would have alerted you to the spelling error instead of sending you in the wrong direction. Too many parts of Wikipedia are user hostile.
As usual, your soapboxing is misplaced, seeing as the error is generated by Module:Citation/CS1. --Izno (talk) 22:53, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
As usual, your criticism is misplaced, seeing as there exists no law that says that paid W?F developers cannot fix a bad error message just because it happens to be in a Lua module.
The W?F should have some developers generate errors, see if the error messages are helpful, and fix them no matter what particular bit of software generates the error. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:51, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
You can either have them work on things that require their activity or you can have them work on stuff that doesn't, for whatever budget of cash they have. You don't get both, if not from a budgetary perspective than the social perspective. As I said, WMF has nothing to do with that error and you should take your soapboxing elsewhere. --Izno (talk) 00:30, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

A quick quiz:

Extended content

You have been editing Wikipedia for 15 years and have have over 13,000 edits. Can you, without looking it up or trying it in your sand box, tell me what each of the following does exactly? I know I can't.

Is there a single person editing Wikipedia (other than the developer who wrote the code) who can get half of those right? --Guy Macon (talk) 21:31, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Nope. I only know the 4 and 5 tildes lol. RedPatchBoy (talk) 22:18, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
I was only really sure about 1, 4, 5, and 8. I had to test the others in my sandbox. Here is what happens:

Well That certainly is intuitive and user friendly!

--Guy Macon (talk) 23:51, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Dispute over WP:CITEVAR

Hi. Another editor has removed valid citations from the Garden State Plaza article, and replaced it with non-valid citations that do not support the material, and has de-templated other citations (taking them out of citations), claiming that since he edited the article in the past, that non-template citations are the "established style" of the article. I have tried reverting these edits, but he continues to revert them back. I have long-observed that when an article is "wikified", it usually means adding templates to the citations, not removing them. It never occurred to me that bare cites -- that is, those lacking a template, are a sort of "style". Can those interested please clarify this by participating in this discussion? I'm not sure how to properly "migrate" that discussion to the article's talk page or this one. Nightscream (talk) 20:48, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, the "style" refers to what the user can see reading the rendered page, and not what editors see when editing the wikicode. A citation template can generate the same look & feel as a plain-text citation, and I see no downside, and plenty of upside, from converting those plain-text citations to templates which in no way confuse readers by a visible change of style for no apparent reason, while making it easier for future editors who edit the wikicode and wish to correct or expand the references, or add new ones using the templates. If your change doesn't upset what the user is used to seeing, and makes it easier for everybody else going forward, I'd encourage your change. Just my 2¢. Mathglot (talk) 02:53, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
CITEVAR seems to include everything, from what the user sees to whether it's plain text or a template to even what the order of the parameters is within the template. —El Millo (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
@Nightscream, what do you mean by "non-valid citations"? Are we talking different sources? Or just different ways of writing down the links/book titles/descriptions of the sources? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:22, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
There is no requirement to use citation templates, and if an article’s established style per WP:CITEVAR uses manual citations, that is allowed and should not be changed without consensus. I had manual citations at Featured article Tourette syndrome for well over a decade (see this version) so I would not have to deal with the vagaries of the citations templates, and I regret changing them to citation templates (for the same vagaries and constant bot changes). Yes, if you are changing established manual citations to templates, you are breaching CITEVAR. Plenty of editors have used manual citations in the past precisely so they will not have to deal with the citation templates constantly resulting in inconsistencies. CITEVAR specifically says not to add citation templates when the established style does not use them for these reasons. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:29, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Contradiction?

It states "Bundling is also useful if the sources each support a different portion of the preceding text", but three of the four supposedly supporting points give the disadvantages of doing so. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:21, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Bullet points 1, 3, and 4 do not make sense as supporting the bundling rule. I support writing the section a bit to reframe them as potential pitfalls that editors should keep in mind when deciding whether to bundle citations. Ergo Sum 00:50, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
I was looking for information about combining references for some criminal topic I want to work on, but the new text confused me. I wondered why and looked in the edit history. That's why I rolled Clarityfiend's edit back.[2]
Clarityfiend's edit said what it did, but I found that it conflicted with the examples given below this text: "For multiple citations in a single footnote, each in reference to specific statements, there are several layouts available, as illustrated below. Within a given article only a single layout should be used." Other than that, how does bundling "make it more likely that inline citations will be moved to the wrong place if the text is re-arranged"? RandoBanks (talk) 09:56, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Using the example just before that section:
Without bundling: "The sun is pretty big,[1] but the moon is not so big.[2]"
With bundling: "The sun is pretty big, but the moon is not so big.[1][2]"
Text re-arranged: "The sun is pretty big. The moon is not so big." If these citations are off-line, how will the editor know which reference goes with which claim? Clarityfiend (talk) 18:21, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
By reading both sources. Our rules require that information be verifiable, not that it be easily verifiable with one click of a mouse. Blueboar (talk) 19:46, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm open to different phrasing if it's an improvement and aligns with best practice. RandoBanks (talk) 00:46, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Is there a substantive difference between "Repeated citations" and "Citing multiple pages of the same source"

It seems to me that everything that is in each one could apply to the other. Should these be combined? If there is sometimes a difference, it could be described in the narrative.

  • ”Repeated citations” is focused on shorter sources such as web pages or newspaper articles (where we would not need to indicate precisely where in the source the information is located). In such situations we are repeating the source in its entirety in each citation.
”Citing multiple pages of the same source” is focused on longer, printed material such as a book (where we need to give the reader a better indication of where precisely in the source the information can be found). In such situations we would be repeating most of the citation info - but the key bit (the page numbers) may be different from citation to citation. Blueboar (talk) 23:55, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Are you saying that the only difference between the two is that one has page numbers and the other doesn't? Leotohill (talk) 00:02, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
I didn't phrase that well. I should have said that it seems to me that the presence/absence of page numbers is the only difference. The solution appears to be the same in both cases, except that when page numbers are involved, you provide the new page number on the subsequent reference. However, I'm not quite sure enough about the suggestion of "short citations" for the latter. Does that suggestion work just as well for the former? If so, then really there is no difference other than pointing out the use of the page number override. Leotohill (talk) 01:27, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
You are right that this is not explained clearly in this document. It should be made clearer. The mechanisms for doing citations evolved over time and so we have many different ways of doing them. "Repeated citations" handles the case when a source, with its range of page numbers if it has them, is used in several places. The solution is to give it a name and give the full citation only once. The source appears in the source list only once. A biography, for example, may take information from an obituary, an oral history, an entry in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, or a short section in a book and use it as a source in several places in an article.
The second case somehow got the name "multiple pages" which I think is misleading. It should be called "multiple different places in the same source". A biography may also take information from several different places in a book that is devoted entirely to that person. Various ways have been worked out to do this but they aren't the same thing as repeated citations (though they can also be set up to repeat as well). One way is to use named citations and add a tiny page number after the citation number. The other way is to put the full citation somewhere (there are different ways of doing this) and then use a short version of the citation (usually author, year) with the page numbers. The short versions can be given names and repeat if they are used in several places. Both the full version and the short versions of the source appear in the reference list; sometimes the full version is in a separate list. People get very attached to doing it one way or another. Templates allow hyperlinking of all this if desired. StarryGrandma (talk) 04:23, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Examples: Richard Nixon uses short citations in the reference list hyperlinked to the full citation in a bibliography section. Ronald Reagan uses short citations in the same way without hyperlinks. In both cases some of the short citations are repeated citations. Some articles put the full reference in the reference list, then the short references after, with or without hyperlinks. Acephali uses page numbers attached to the reference number but this is less common. I like this form but as I get older the little numbers are harder to see. StarryGrandma (talk) 04:45, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Page numbers are not the only reason for using variations of the same citation (e.g. with short citations to avoid repeating all the metadata). You might want to include a quote from the source in one citation where the quote is relevant, and no quote or a different quote in another citation of the same sources. You might want to refer to subunits of the citation by other things than page numbers (for instance, numbered theorems within a mathematics article, even when they might be on the same page as each other). So it is a mistake to phrase this guideline as if pages are the only reason for repetition with variations. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:54, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Resolving the huge "needs an update banner", and clarifying how to decide a style is established

For some time now a section of this guideline has been tagged with a big banner saying it needs to be updated to conform to a consensus change, which is already reflected in material above it.

I attempted this, as well as a clarification footnote (the wording of which was then improved by DrKay). Here's a diff spanning my and DrKay's relevant edits: [3].

This was then reverted without much explanation beyond a general distaste for change. So, let's do the D in WP:BRD.

  1. The concern of the big cleanup/dispute tag is that the section in question appears to imply that no rules of any kind pertain to citation formatting standards due to something ArbCom said, other than that bare URLs don't cut it.
  2. The change I made, which could be wordsmithed further, resolved this by also including inline parenthetical sourcing (the style recently deprecated) as also among those we have a rule against. This can hardly be controversial, since there's a new section about this just above it, and the cleanup banner is requesting this kind of conforming edit.
  3. The footnote I added has been needed for a very long time:
    • Clarifies that while the established citation style is usually that which was set in the first major contribution, when this is hard to determine it can resolve to the first non-stub version of the article. That is certainly true.
    • The note also fixes the problem of the guideline contradicting itself: a section just below this instructs us to impose a consistent style if the article does not yet have one. We know from experience that this can sometimes happen after an article is no longer in stub state, so it is necessarily the case that the established citation style can occasionally come at C-class or better, through such a proper imposition of consistency, and yet will not be the first major contribution (nor the first non-stub version). FMC is the default, not the be-all and end-all. (Remember WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, too; WP's rules are loose and they exist to serve us, not to be a tail that wags the editorial dog.)
    • Finally, it reminds that the person who did any of those things does not have more say than anyone else in any discussions moving forward about what citation style to use and why. That can hardly be controversial, either, since it is simply WP:OWN policy. But we have had occasional problems in this regard because of clumsy wording in this guideline reading "by the first major contributor" instead of "in the first major contribution", as if the contributor magically had permanent control claims over the article.
  • I also improved cross-referencing between guidelines, and various other minor bits of cleanup, which also got nuked in the revert.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:05, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Looking at the diffs, I'd say most of your clarifications have stuck OK, but the note about "first major contrib*" or "first non-stub version" has not. It reads to me like a sensible note, but I don't recall cases where the problem it is trying to avoid has some up (I presume you do recall). Maybe Francis or Nikkimaria can they if they objected for some reason, or just didn't think it needed, or overlooked it, or what. Dicklyon (talk) 23:28, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I thought the edit introduced more possibilities for confusion, rather than resolving them. For example, whether an article is a stub or not really doesn't have all that much to do with when/whether a style is established. If a footnote of some kind is really needed (I'm not convinced it is), it needs significantly more work than should be done in a "live" guideline. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:48, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm generally supportive, and will scrutinise the proposal in a week's time, when my work commitments have eased. Tony (talk) 00:10, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Two thoughts:
    • CITEVAR was meant to follow the same standard set forth in ENGVAR's WP:RETAIN ("the first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety"). That "first post-stub revision" could well be long after it ceased being a stub (and is not necessarily the same revision in which a consistent English variety is established), but it doesn't seem to be a difficult concept, especially since it's meant to be a tie-breaker in case of intractable disputes, rather than locking in a style permanently.
    • I don't think that there is a material difference between "the first major contribution" and "the first major contributor", since the latter makes the former. However, as a matter of practical politics (i.e., not needlessly offending volunteers), I do think that if an article actually has a single major contributor (true for many niche subjects; not true for an article like Cancer), then we should give some deference to that major contributor's POV. We do not serve the project by saying that a couple of editors who do nothing except advocate for a different citation style can outvote the only person who ever added a source to that article. According to WhoColor, SMcCandlish has written about 70% of Glossary of cue sports terms, which uses {{Rp}}. If it's a 2:1 vote in favor of changing the article's citation style, with SMcCandlish opposed and the two in favor having done little or nothing for the article, then I actually do think that SMcCandlish should win. The citation style needs to work for the people who are actually working on the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:50, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
      • Agree that “first major contribution” or “contributor” causes a problem in this sense. Tourette syndrome was a wreck for years before I rewrote it in 2006; I am not the first major contribution or contributor, but I am the only editor citing the article, and we should defer to the editor who is doing the work, as WAID indicates. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:16, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
      • I think the footnote added in this diff will just increase wikilawyering. And the "ownership" sentence may be used as a club to whack the major contributor that WAID/Sandy mention. I'd much prefer this kind of "rule" was used, as WAID says, as a rather arbitrary tiebreaker in a case where reasonable people cannot come to a consensus about which is best. And part of being reasonable, is not imposing pain on the person who did the work and who continues to maintain the article. -- Colin°Talk 10:34, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 April 2021

The IGP Dr. Syed Kaleem Imam wants to improve his Wiki Page. All the changes have been made according to his CV and detailed service record.

It is requested to please remove the protection for further changes like picture and text.

Regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NHMP (talk • contribs)

I think you put this on the wrong Talk page? DonIago (talk) 20:07, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Definition of general reference

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Request for Comment was withdrawn by the poster. — MarkH21talk 04:33, 2 March 2021 (UTC)


Should the definition of a general reference as given here include the word 'reliable'? Adam9007 (talk) 01:25, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

The inclusion of the word 'reliable' contradicts WP:BLPPROD, which makes it quite clear that a reference is a reference, whether the source is reliable or not. Under the current wording a general reference is only a reference if the source is reliable, theoretically making a BLP sourced with only general references to unreliable sources BLPPROD-eligible. This loophole needs to be closed. Adam9007 (talk) 01:25, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

  • Procedural close – for failure to meet WP:RFCBEFORE; where have you discussed this, and reached an impasse or some other situation requiring an Rfc? This will be a huge waste of time. @Adam9007:, I urge you to withdraw this yourself as a gesture of good will (see WP:RFCEND) and start a discussion instead, before raising an Rfc again about it. Mathglot (talk) 09:25, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
  • start a discussion Huh? What do you think I'm trying to do here? Also, do you really think I'd be able to achieve the level of consensus needed for such a change without an RfC, because I seriously doubt that. Adam9007 (talk) 15:56, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
The same way you have for the last 4 years, Adam. It's clear that you are the only person in disagreement here and I can't figure out whether you're doing it to make a point, which is admittedly, missing the mark, deliberately missing every other rational editors point or genuinely don't get it or some combination of all three but you really need to stop. CUPIDICAE💕 17:41, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
The same way you have for the last 4 years I thought BLPPROD's meaning was perfectly clear. Are you saying this is tommyrot? Adam9007 (talk) 17:46, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
Adam9007 you know full well that your views and interpretation of policies and guidelines are the opposite of the community, as was proven when you were told in no uncertain terms to stop engaging in deletion areas, especially removals. So do us all a favor and don't link to your own user essays to make a point. And yes, I am saying you are wrong. As have about a dozen people on your talk page, here and at ANI. Consider dropping the stick before you bury yourself in this hole. CUPIDICAE💕 17:52, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't think BLPPROD is very relevant. I do think the present wording of the guideline seems to indicate that there are either citations to reliable sources, or nothing at all. Suppose I found an article where all the "citations" were to unreliable sources, and the only dates in the article were in those "citations" and in the dd month year format, and all the "citations" used citation templates. I would be free to remove them all and add citations to reliable sources. I could format those citations using the IEEE citation style. I could use dates in the format month dd, yyyy.
If anyone argued WP:CITEVAR or WP:DATEVAR I could respond that since the "citations" were to unreliable sources, according to "Citing sources", they simply didn't exist and don't count towards establishing any sort of style precedent.
I think what this comes down to is should the position and style of citations, and the mechanics of including them, be discussed separately from the reliability of the sources, or is it a community-banning-offence to ever write "source" without sticking "reliable" before it. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:45, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
Jc3s5h, I don't think BLPPROD is very relevant. I do think the present wording of the guideline seems to indicate that there are either citations to reliable sources, or nothing at all. Well, as BLPPROD is about sourcing, I think it's relevant. I have actually encountered editors who seem to rather have no source than a poor one, and that goes for BLPs too (hence, BLPPROD). Adam9007 (talk) 17:50, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
  • @Adam9007: Why not add the word "reliable" to BLPPROD, thus trying to improve the project, instead of removing the word "reliable" from the Citing sources guidelines, thus making the project shittier. What is your ultimate aim here, Adam. What are you trying to achieve. A better project or a worse project. Nick (talk) 18:01, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
  • @Adam9007: then find some other way of reconciling the two differences - I don't see why we should remotely consider supporting your attempt to reword and neuter the citing sources guidelines to remove important information and clarifications on reliable sources, just so it doesn't contradict the BLPPROD policy. In fact, if we look further at the BLPPROD policy, we see it actually asks editors to consider adding reliable sources rather than using the BLPPROD tag, so if we remove the phrase reliable source from this, we'll make it contradict other sections of the BLPPROD policy. Also, have you checked to see what new conflicts would occur from your revised wording ? Why are you choosing this upturned turnip to die upon, incidentally ? Nick (talk) 18:16, 1 March 2021 (UTC)


I'm utterly in the dark here about what this proposal is supposed to solve. What's the dispute that led to this? I mean, there has to be a reason why it needs changing, right? Perhaps more background would be helpful, because it's obvious there's a dispute involving a number of editors, but I'm not able to figure it out from what's being presented. Ealdgyth (talk) 18:12, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Ealdgyth, BLPPROD's placement requirement is that there are no references, reliable or not. The definition of a (general) reference given here seems to contradict that. That's what this discussion is supposed to resolve. Adam9007 (talk) 18:16, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
Ealdgyth There is no dispute between multiple editors, it's Adam9007 vs. everyone else, as Mathglot so eloquently pointed out. Adam fails, again, to understand that WP:GENREF is not unique to BLPPROD and is needlessly stirring up controversy CUPIDICAE💕 18:21, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
So... in other words, because some other more specific guideline doesn't include "reliable" ... we should neuter THIS high-level guideline? If the problem is more specific ... deal with it there, not here. I personaly would prefer if we removed the ability to consider "general references" as any sort of references at all (i.e. I'd be in favor of not allowing them to be considered references in terms of BLPPROD, etc) but that's not germane to this discussion, which is asking to water down the strictness of the general references - if "reliable" is removed, folks could start adding a youtube video from some flat earther as a "general reference" and think that was enough for sourcing. "Reliable" is required here, at the very least... if we're not going to elminate general references altogether. Ealdgyth (talk) 18:25, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
The god damn Germans got nothin' to do with it... Nick (talk) 18:27, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
There needs to be a way to slap people for puns on the internet... I swear... Ealdgyth (talk) 18:33, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
That's more or less the point I've made dozens of times to Adam. But also, you know the fact that policy broadly and without controversy requires reliable sources as a bare minimum for anything. Applicability of prods and CSD criteria aside, WP:V is still a policy and I question the judgement of any editor who doesn't understand that all sources are required to be reliable period. The level of reliability changes in context based on content, but it still requires a reliable source. CUPIDICAE💕 18:32, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
Ealdgyth, I think the word "reliable" in "A general reference is a citation to a reliable source that supports content..." is a distraction. The section is about defining the Wikipedia jargon "general reference" and explaining why is generally inferior to an inline citation. So if I found a bibliography-like-entry near the end of an article that wasn't lined to any particular passage in the article, I would want to
  • figure out if it was a general reference, further reading, external link, or debris
  • figure out if it could possibly be related to the article (if not, delete it)
  • figure out if it was intended to support one, or a few, passages in the article, and if so, consider turning it into (an) inline citation(s).
Some sources are so bad they are obviously unreliable, and can be deleted immediately. But often, a source that needs to be treated with extra care, such as a primary source, is reliable for certain claims but not others. So an editor must figure out what claim(s) the source supports before deciding if it's reliable or not. So the placement of the word "reliable" is a bit confusing, implying that reliability is the first issue to consider. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:37, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
There is nothing confusing about the word "reliable" in this context, as I noted above. The level of reliability is dependent on context but it does not change that any edit still requires a reliable source, whether it's primary, independent etc...is not important for the purposes of this ridiculous RFC. CUPIDICAE💕 18:42, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment – OP has declared their retirement (although two edits here post-date that by ~ five minutes). User:Adam9007, can you clarify your intentions? To the room: procedurally, I don't know if an Rfc abandoned due to retirement must run its course once begun, or if it just gets closed with no result, the way a recent ArbCom issue (sadly) did, or something else? Mathglot (talk) 02:27, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
    By the books, OPs are welcome to remove an RFC tag as soon as they have the answers they needed. When the question has been answered, there really is nothing to be gained by making someone wait 30 days for the bot, or wasting someone's time boxing up the discussion ("closing" it) and summarizing the outcome (usually done at the same time that it's closed) just because there was an RFC tag on it at some point. RFC is subject to WP:NOTBURO just like everything else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:21, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
    WaId, yes, I'm aware of WP:RFCEND but if OP is no longer here, then they aren't available to remove the tag and others here should not unilaterally remove it. Also, I wasn't suggesting someone *summarize* the outcome, only inquiring about a no-op option, that is to say, a close without any evaluation, not even a no-consensus, but rather strictly a no-decision close. If you're suggesting that doing nothing at all is better even than the latter, I'm semi-okay with that—I just wanted to spare good-faith editors wasting their time, coming here to add further thoughts to something that is basically DOA already. I'd give OP a day or two, in case they change their mind and want to continue, but after that, I think we should perhaps close it by consensus among us. Mathglot (talk) 03:51, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
    An RFC is a normal talk page discussion, conducted under normal talk page rules, with an advertising mechanism. Doing nothing at the end of a normal talk page discussion is normal. Therefore, we can do nothing at the end of this discussion, too. If someone lists it at ANRFC, then we can just un-list it. This does not need to be difficult. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:26, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
    Oh, I see now that it's been withdrawn by OP; didn't notice because no comment was added, and I jumped to the most recent comments here and skipped the header. Okay, that's that, then. Izno, do you want to remove the template at WP:GENREF? Mathglot (talk) 04:15, 2 March 2021 (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.

Unsubstantiated sources in an article

Why is it that when I go to footnotes, I frequently am informed that the inline short-form citation cannot be substantiated within the article, but the link to the footnote in the article looks like every other footnote link? In most cases, there is no way to find the supposed source even with the best search methods.

Isn’t there someway to deprecate the link within the article? Just as there are red links when a Wikipedia link within an article doesn’t work? BiliousBob (talk) 12:30, 2 May 2021 (UTC) BiliousBob (talk) 14:31, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

the inline short-form citation cannot be substantiated within the article What does that mean? Can you provide an example article that exhibits this problem? Be specific.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:39, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
@BiliousBob, can you give a link to an article/sentence/footnote with this problem? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:30, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

I will try to do that the next time I see it. Usually it is a short version of a citation, with no way to find the real citation from within that section, and Wikipedia says that automatically in the footnote/citation. BiliousBob (talk) 12:37, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

@BiliousBob: sometimes the link is just broken because the ref IDs don’t match. But if there is no full citation information for the short citation anywhere in the article, then you can tag it with {{Citation not found}} if you’re not able to fix it by adding in the right full citation yourself. Umimmak (talk) 19:53, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Is it a good idea to use Springer Shareable Links in Citations? Specifically, citations to sources that would otherwise require a subscription to access via the Springer doi. Here's an example of a shareable link: https://rdcu.be/cjXIu. Thanks, Tyrone Madera (talk) 18:58, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Here is the link to the same discussion happening at the help desk: Wikipedia:Help_desk#Is_it_a_good_idea_to_use_Springer_Shareable_Links_in_Citations?. Tyrone Madera (talk) 15:28, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
@Tyrone Madera: For me, the link you gave simply redirects to a standard Springer article page, just like a Springer DOI—was it supposed to point somewhere else? If it just redirects like a DOI, then I would use the DOI instead since a DOI is also used as a standard permanent identifier (e.g. by bots) for an article. Biogeographist (talk) 19:40, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) This was new to me, so I looked it up and figured this information might be useful for others as well: Springer Nature wants researchers to share content easily and legally. Our Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative means that links to view-only, full-text subscription research articles can be posted anywhere - including on social media platforms, author websites and in institutional repositories - so researchers can share research with colleagues and general audiences. You have to check a box confirming you’re an author of the paper to get said link, so it would more just be making use of links authors have provided rather than Wikipedia editors generating links themselves. Here are the terms and conditions: [4]. And fwiw Biogeographist the link took me to the PDF. Presumably if Wikipedia were to make use of this, it would be in the |url= parameter, with the |doi= still present. Umimmak (talk) 19:45, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
The link https://rdcu.be/cjXIu didn't take me to a PDF; it took me to the Springer article page https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11258-011-9955-6 with no PDF access. It's interesting that the link apparently works differently under different web browser configurations. Biogeographist (talk) 19:58, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Interesting! For me (in Safari, on iOS) the link expands to https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s11258-011-9955-6?sharing_token=TK-UgZuuB68U_4wdx2ylbve4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY6CwE62gE6r3escAfy0QvyScu-42VIBGwRAFcnXG9e5xOFlXrZFDH-0UWn1q1ATJWHQh4nyJ6IW0pZA0vDBqJx5geVxLqPZ_NeHqGHGUwc2WRwiF0079RbkcV1Ig9A7c7s%3D and that “sharing token” I guess gives me access to the full article. If this doesn’t work for all users that’s definitely worth considering. Umimmak (talk) 20:02, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
I briefly see that same expanded link that you mentioned in the address bar, but the page is blank and then I'm quickly redirected to https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11258-011-9955-6; this is probably due to the NoScript extension installed in my web browser, which disables JavaScript except for whitelisted sites. Biogeographist (talk) 20:22, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Biogeographist, Have you tried whitelisting? Tyrone Madera (talk) 20:51, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
I have not yet been able to figure out exactly which settings would get it to work in my primary web browser ("Disable restrictions for this tab" in NoScript still didn't quite show me the article), but I tried another not-so-locked-down web browser and it works. I see it's not a PDF after all as I anticipated, but an HTML rendering of the PDF for online reading. Biogeographist (talk) 00:30, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Ah my apologies, yeah I suppose I should have been more precise with figuring out exactly what it was. Apologies for the confusion as it to me looked like it was some kind of PDF but You are viewing a complimentary shared article. Complimentary shares do not allow downloading. If you have another access method, please visit the regular publisher article page in order to download. So they can't just make it be a PDF as that would make it too easy to distribute/download. Umimmak (talk) 03:36, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Umimmak, Yes, it would go in the |url= parameter. Tyrone Madera (talk) 20:51, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
The license conditions already linked also say "Reasonable sharing is encouraged for non-commercial, personal use" which doesn't sound like a license suitable for Wikipedia. Would it be best to get someone from The Wikipedia Library / WMF to formally contact Springer about this? It would be great if Springer would allow Wikipedia editors to obtain these links as part of the process of our writing articles. Perhaps AVardhana (WMF) would like to comment? Mike Turnbull (talk) 21:25, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
@Michael D. Turnbull: This is certainly something I can ask about - thanks for bringing it to our attention! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 08:47, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Yes, please do, and please get back to me when you find out. Thanks, Tyrone Madera (talk) 15:12, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Samwalton9 (WMF), Any new word on this? Tyrone Madera (talk) 17:31, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
@Tyrone Madera: Thanks for the reminder. I spoke to Springer Nature the other week and it entirely slipped my mind to ask about this. I've just sent an email to ask explicitly. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:00, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
Samwalton9 (WMF), Awesome, thank you! Please let me know when you hear back :) Tyrone Madera (talk) 21:22, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
The licence conditions already linked say "The shareable links can be posted anywhere, including via social channels and on other highly-used sites, institutional repositories and authors’ own websites, as well as on scholarly collaborative networks". DuncanHill (talk) 21:31, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I think it should be fine. I'm considering adding a bunch of shareable links to a lot of citations to replace URLs that take you to the paywall version of the sources that the doi would take you to, but I don't want to go through all of the efforts if it isn't clear whether that effort will indeed be appreciated or recommended if you understand what I mean.
Springer also states that they can revoke sharable link access for more or less any reason (see the terms and conditions) and might list traffic as one of them, so I am still unsure as to if this is a good idea fundamentally or if this could lead to later problems. However, for all I know this is just a blanket statement meant to cover them in case of abuse and not actually strictly enforced. Tyrone Madera (talk) 15:12, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Should I start an RFC for this? Tyrone Madera (talk) 19:15, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

@Tyrone Madera, I'm not sure what the RFC would say. "Shall we give people a link that legally allows them to bypass paywalls?" is going to have an obvious answer. You might be interested reading Wikipedia:Convenience link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:25, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, I guess that's a bit silly. I wasn't sure because it felt like there was some disagreement in this channel, I think 2:1, and I was unsure if that was enough agreement (and input) to form any reasonable consensus on something like this. Looking at it now, you're probably right. Tyrone Madera (talk) 02:02, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
One might be reasonably concerned about completely replacing links with a linking system that could stop working (the key point being replacing, and not supplementing other links, such as DOIs), and one might be reasonably concerned about systematically (e.g., with a bot) replacing all links to hundreds or thousands of sources, but editors are rarely concerned about adding a legal, official, and functional link whenever someone believes that improves the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:09, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, Got it. Thanks, Tyrone Madera (talk) 21:18, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Using ProveIt to change citation templates to a preferred style

I have once again found an edit made to an article where the sole purpose for using the ProveIt gadget was to alter the format of citations — which in doing so defied WP:CITEVAR, which states: "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.... editors should not attempt to convert Wikipedia to their own preferred style, nor should they edit articles for the sole purpose of converting them to their preferred style."
This edit was unnecessary and since this is not the first time I've seen how ProveIt has been used to change the established templates in an article, I believe that this gadget is being misused.
I'd like to take this opportunity to point out to those who are using ProveIt that Wikipedia's edit toolbar contains pre-formatted templates under "Cite". When you open Cite you open the "Templates" selection. When you open Templates you get 4 choices: cite web, cite news, cite book, cite journal. ProveIt is being used to alter these templates.
A manual for how to properly use the ProveIt gadget is needed because some editors are shooting from the hip with it (frankly, they don't know what they're doing). I have also posted this comment in ProveIt. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 12:39, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

@Pyxis Solitary, did that edit make any visible change to the page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:10, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Citing books, journals, and other physical texts?

Hi, I was just wondering how listing books as a source works here? Unlike a direct link to an online source, citations for physical texts cannot be easily, or readily, verified to actually support the claim being cited. How is this addressed on Wikipedia? Thanks EDIT: Sorry if this is the incorrect location to ask this question, If there is a more appropriate area to ask please link it and I'll go there. 2601:18F:4101:4830:851B:FE8:D8BF:D3C8 (talk) 00:42, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

See WP:PUBLISHED and WP:VERIFY. If it has been published and is still available then it can be verified and is acceptable. It does not have to be online, or easy to find. Meters (talk) 00:57, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
Many out of copyright books and journals have been digitised and are available online. These can be linked to by using the |url= parameter in {{cite book}}, {{cite journal}} etc. Mjroots (talk) 08:31, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Two Questions:

1. How does that apply in the actual editing process though? Let's say John Doe adds a claim, then offers a seemingly legitimate, but non-digitized, reference as the source. If no one disputes it, does that claim stand as is, or do other editors have to find a copy of that text to confirm it actually supports the claim before it can be added? (If so, ± how many other editors are needed to establish the claim?)

2. Without being able to access the reference, few editors can scrutinize the claim. For esoteric subjects in which "encyclopedia X, Volume Y" is cited, the editors who support, or contest, a claim are likely already very involved in the subject, and very limited in number. Isn't this likely to produce echo chambers, personally/ideologically motived edits, and ultimately, a poorer quality article?

If I'm coming off as attacking the legitimacy of using textual sources, that is not my intent. I genuinely want to understand the specifics of how they are utilized on Wikipedia. 2601:18F:4101:4830:2CEA:F5C7:CEDB:BBB8 (talk) 04:40, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

If no one is concerned about the claim, then why would anyone bother checking the source? Trusting other editors to do their best makes Wikipedia vulnerable to ghost references (when we find them, we tag them as {{failed verification}}), but usually, such claims turn out to be accurate representations of the source. Also, it's not usually that hard to find a source if you're willing to put the effort into it. Many editors are happy to provide quotations upon request, and many editors make use of Interlibrary loan options or ask a friend with university library access to have a look. Reference librarians are willing to check sources, and sometimes even (in countries with suitable copyright provisions) to scan a key page and e-mail it to you if you ask nicely. Experienced editors have access to Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library online.
You don't need to access a specific source to scrutinize every claim. If a difficult-to-access print-only source is the only one in the world that says something, then it's probably WP:UNDUE even if it's entirely accurate. If it's not the only source that says this, then you can often find a more conveniently located source that says the same thing. Remember, the point of verifiability isn't to prove that the already-cited source says something; the point is to prove that the Wikipedia editor didn't just make it up. If you claim that the material can be found in Out of Print Book, but I can find the same information at newspapers-r-us.com, then the material is still verifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:17, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
Also, remember that you can always ask someone else to check a source for you. So… if you live in rural Alaska, and need to verify something cited to a book that is only available in the New York Public Library, find a fellow Wikipedian who lives in NY and ask him to check it for you. The key is that someone can verify it, even if you cannot. Blueboar (talk) 23:21, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Do cites to journal articles need specific page numbers for each fact?

Hi all

A quick query re something that came up when I was reviewing the FAC Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Abberton Reservoir/archive1 for Jimfbleak. Ref 5 of the article (Abberton Reservoir) is an 18-page journal article, which is used for numerous references in the article, including the whole of the "Birds" section. I had asked for the inline cites to have specific page numbers attached to them, for easier cross-checking of individual facts, but Jim replied that it is "normal practice here and universal elsewhere to give a range for a journal article. In this case, virtually everything in this 18 (not 20) page range is used in the article, and it makes more sense to read it from beginning to end rather than bit-and-bob about". I wasn't aware of this convention, so just thought I'd double check here that it's OK to omit the individual pages, before signing it off. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 22:08, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

When a source-citation is part of a bibliography list, identifying the article's page range makes some sense. But, that also means that for reader convenience (we are all about the reader, right?), when our editor is citing something in that page range, our editor must identify the specific page or pages where the source material can be found. We can accomplish this through a separate bibliography and one of several styles of short-form citations ({{sfn}}, {{harv}}, {{rp}}, plain text, etc.) or by writing full citations for each page of the source that supports our article – this latter of course, is woefully cumbersome and redundant.
Yes, it is common to see publisher's article landing pages that give the citation detail including the page range; for example doi:10.1093/oxartj/21.2.99. There are tools around that editors use to scrape details like that from various locations that make nicely formatted citations that look pretty but, as you note, aren't all that helpful to readers (we are all about the reader, right?).
So, our editors, when citing the material in a source that supports our article, should identify the location of the supporting word / sentence / paragraph / whatever as specifically as possible; that is usually to the specific page on which it lies. This is especially true for FA candidates.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:11, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
The citation templates provide no provision for specific locations within journal articles (their page parameters are required to identify the journal article itself, by specifying the pages in the journal where the article appears, a necessary part of the citation). As such, and following the typical practice in academia, the pages of specific content within journal articles is usually omitted. In cases where it is important to specify this information (particularly when the article is very long), it should be done outside of the citation templates, for instance by a following note like "See in particular page XX". It should not be done by usurping the page number parameters of the citation templates for a different meaning than their standard meaning. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:40, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
The Help:Citation Style 1 (which includes the {{cite journal}} template) article says:
  • "page: page in the cited source containing the information that supports the article text, for example |page=52 .
  • pages: pages in the cited source containing the information that supports the article text. Separate page ranges with an en dash: – , for example |pages=236–239 . Separate non-sequential pages with a comma, for example |pages=157, 159 . The form |pages=461, 466–467 is used when you are citing both non-contiguous and sequential pages.
For clarity, that last bit means that the correct approach to this article is |pages=686–704 (i.e., if you look this up in a bound volume, you will find the article starting on page 686) and not |pages=18 (the number of pages in the article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:45, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
If it says that, for cite journal, it is inaccurate. "page" and "pages" cannot both be used, so it is not possible to use one to say where in the journal the article is and the other to say where in the article the claim is. For journal articles, "page" should be used either for one-page articles, or for citations where only the starting page number of the article is known, and "pages" should be used only for more than one page. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:16, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
The reason the documentation says "do not record the total number of pages in a cited source" is because sometimes an editor will cite a book in its entirety ("Alice Expert wrote a book about the Sun"), and use |pages= to say how long the book is. That detail probably interests printers and libraries, but not Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:59, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. The rules for books and journal articles are different; for books you should definitely cite only the page range of interest, to help readers find the relevant material. Some sites (e.g. MathSciNet) use the page parameters of their metadata to give total page counts, and I always find it annoying to have to strip this out and/or replace it with something more specific. Probably we have a lot of Wikipedia citations that accidentally or out of ignorance do this. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:16, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
Another anomaly (though not a problematic one) is that open-access academic journals, which are online only, technically provide an "article number" rather than a page number. It's as if they declared that all of their articles, regardless of length, are exactly one page long. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:21, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
@Amakuru, Jimfbleak is correct. It is normal practice both in the English Wikipedia and in academic writing to specify the full page range for a journal article. This is required in some external style guides, such as APA style and Vancouver system, both of which are permitted citation styles on wiki, including in FAs. We've been doing this for more than a decade, and it wasn't even questioned until about two years ago, when a couple of editors with little experience in science articles started telling everyone else that The Rules™ said that the maximum desirable page range was two (just 2) . The guidelines have never said this, and Template:Page numbers improve was corrected after discussions earlier this year.
Jim is probably also correct when he advises you to just read that source. The ideal for an FA reviewer is to read (or at least skim over) the key sources, since that will let you know if any key information was left out, rather than only verifying that the material added was in the source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: hmm, well thanks for the response although I note that your advice that specific page numbers aren't needed does not match what Trappist the monk said above... Also, thanks for bringing my attention to the previous discussion on a similar topic. The general sense of opinion in that discussion seems to be that while the specific instruction to limit pages to two was not correct, the general principle that we shouldn't be linking to large page ranges still holds (except in specific domains such as medicine). And yes, while I should be skimming/reading the article as an FA reviewer, the purpose of these citations is to aid the reader in verifying what's said. Because unlike an academic publication, Wikipedia is for the most part written by non-professionals, meaning it's more important for readers to be able to identify precise sources than it would be in an academic paper. Surely precise pages is therefore preferable, and something a well-written article should strive for?  — Amakuru (talk) 07:57, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
The whole point in a citation is that it allows the facts to be verifiable - providing massive 28 page ranges for a fact does not meet that requirement and doesn't meet the needs of a B-class article, never mind a FA.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:11, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Amakuru and Nigel Ish here. Cites with precise page numbers are essential to readers and reviewers who want to check the information. Carlstak (talk) 16:27, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Citing precise page numbers does not mean citing narrow page ranges. If you are citing an entire publication, or an entire chapter, to support a fact, you should not be picking and choosing one or two pages out of the entire thing. The correct citation for a sentence such as "Alice Expert wrote a book about the Sun" is the whole book, not the first page upon which the Sun is mentioned. The correct citation for a sentence such as "Research is focused on the cause" is the entire chapter titled "Research priorities: Focus on the cause", not one or two pages cherry-picked out of that chapter.
  • Even before we introduced the WP:CITEVAR section to make this explicit, this guideline has always said that editors can use any citation style they choose. Demanding that editors reduce the page range down to one or two pages per individual factoid would mean effectively banning the citation styles prescribed by multiple style guides that are widely used in academic contexts. If you genuinely believe that it's not okay to follow academic styles for citing sources, then (a) this page needs to be changed, and (b) most of Category:Citation templates should be deleted.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
When I use the Ref Toolbar for journal citations, and hover over the question mark beside the Page parameter, it says "Page in the source that supports the content". If I hover over the question mark beside the Pages parameter, it says "Pages in the source that supports the content... do not use to indicate the total number of pages in the source." I don't have to read the page range of an entire journal article to fact check, although I sometimes do, if I have the time. I do always read enough of the context to verify the fact, however. Carlstak (talk) 22:14, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
@Nigel Ish, the source in question spans 18 pages, not 28. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
If we are allowed to the entirety of large massive articles for single facts, which is what was done here, then WP:VERIFICATION is meaningless. Why not just cite a whole book? If they are so imprecise as to prevent verification, then why bother with references at all?Nigel Ish (talk) 19:42, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
If you think you can verify a fact by reading a single line of a source out of context then in many cases you are fooling yourself. And the page range of an entire article is a necessary part of the citation, in order to make it possible to find the cited article in its source. If the article is long and the cited material is a small part of it rather than the whole article, then say so, but do not use the page or pages parameters for that information. They mean something different. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:06, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
Yep. Not everything is a factoid, and using the parameter that's supposed to say where an article starts to instead locate a factoid within it just makes that article harder to find. XOR'easter (talk) 21:21, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Amakuru, Nigel Ish and Carlstak. There is literally no good reason not to refine citations to be explicit about the page(s) used for verification from a larger range. Just saying "that's not what we do" or "the citation template shouldn't be used that way" or variations on those themes is not good enough. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 21:07, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

There is no reason not to specify what part of a source you are using the information from, true. There is a very good reason not to specify it in the pages parameter of article citations: because the full page range of an article citation is a necessary part of a citation, omitting it makes it harder to find the article, if you can't find the article you can't verify more specific information from it, and because using parameters for the wrong metadata makes it harder both for people and for software to understand the citation. So if you want to lobby for another parameter that could hold more specific pointers to within an article (not necessarily limited to page numbers — I would often like to cite theorem numbers or section titles) then go ahead. It could even be a parameter we already have, like "at" (currently forbidden when page numbers are given). But it should not be the page number parameters. As we currently have no such parameter, such information should be specified as text, after the article citation; it should not be specified as the page number within the citation itself. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:51, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
There is always the quote and quote-page/quote-pages fields for pointing to a more specific part of a work if necessary. For most journal papers which are under 30 pages, this isn't necessary, as under WP:V standards, 30 pages is not too much of an onus for people to search through; we're drawing the line at having readers having to read through all of War & Peace to find a relevant quote when we can at least narrow down by chapter, for instance. But I can see cases of review journal articles that easily can get into 50-100 page ranges, and thus maybe here, using the quote= to identify the relevant section and quote-pages what pages that section scans will help to specifically narrow down. --Masem (t) 22:57, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
My suggestion at the FAC was just to use short {{sfn}} referencing for the individual page numbers, since the same article is cited numerous times, with a long form reference in a separate bibliography (which could include the full page range if that's something people care about). I'm not especially bothered about how the information is conveyed, as long as it is conveyed somehow, and in a consistent fashion. That said, I'm a little unsure why someone would be able to locate a citation of told the whole article was on pages 101–123, but be unable to figure it out if told that the actual fact was on page 110.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:04, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Here's my annual pitch for the page= parameter of the {{r}} template, which gives you something like
    The sun is big.[1]: 7 
... meaning page 7 of the cited work. Check out the template documentation for how it's done -- clean and easy. For example, the wikitext for the above is The sun is big.{{r|SmithIntro|p=7}} EEng 17:18, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Smith, Jane (1997). Introduction to Astronomy.

Citing a work accessible only within another author's work

I have a book by John Smith. There is an article by Jane Doe in the appendix of that book. I cannot access the article elsewhere. How do I attribute information to Jane Doe when I only have page numbers for John Smith's book that contains her article? Which citation template do I use? Help would be much appreciated! Surtsicna (talk) 11:21, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

It depends what citation style you're using, but the general principles are outlined at WP:SAYWHERE. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:24, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
{{cite book |contributor-last=Doe |contributor-first=Jane |contribution=Jane Doe's Article |last=Smith |first=John |title=John Smith's Book |location=Location |publisher=Publisher |date=2021}}
Doe, Jane (2021). "Jane Doe's Article". John Smith's Book. By Smith, John. Location: Publisher.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:00, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
Excellent! Thanks. Surtsicna (talk) 23:37, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

CITEVAR clarification

Should CITEVAR apply to changes to citation templates that do not alter the way the citation appears in the article? For example, an article already uses {{cite book|first= AAA |last = BBB |year= 2000 | etc.}} and a later editor adds a citation using {{Cite book|first=CCC|last=DDD|year=2001|etc.}}; the latter has slight differences in capitalization and spacing that do not affect the way the citations actually appear to readers.

Is this seen as a "change an article's established citation style" that should this be disallowed under CITEVAR? It's a minor point, but CITEVAR has been used to justify wholesale reverting of additions of reliably sourced material solely because the template spacing and/or capitalization don't match.

—Ojorojo (talk) 15:19, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Since the dispute you're involved in concerns more than what's been presented here, I would suggest you take the matter to the article's talk page. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:40, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
Answering the question posed here:
There have been RFCs that appear to say that WP:CITEVAR does not apply to the form of a wikitext citation when differences of form or style cannot be detected by the reader.
Template name capitalization and inter-parameter spacing all seem to me to be irrelevant because the rendered citation format or style is identical so, for your example, the addition of the second form to an article that predominantly uses the first form does not constitute a violation of WP:CITEVAR.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:00, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
I would agree that capitalization or decapitalization of parameters, non-newline spacing, reordering of parameters, or the renaming of parameter names to the more "correct" version (like "access-date" over "accessdate") are activities outside of what citevar is meant to cover. The conversion of a inline format between horizontal and vertical formats, conversion from inline to list-based references, and the change of template citation family would all fall within what should not be done per citevar. --Masem (t) 16:22, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
Thanks all. This has been an ongoing issue that precedes the current dispute, which has been taken up on the talk page. Your explanations and the RfC links are very helpful. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:26, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
Still - just because capitalisation of cite templates isn't covered by CITEVAR isn't an excuse for either editor to edit war (even slowly) - and it is arguable that whether website or publisher is used for a website, and what you call the website/publisher does affect how the citation is presented to the reader (where CITEVAR may apply).Nigel Ish (talk) 16:35, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure how often this comes up, but perhaps a simple statement to the effect of "minor variations in citation template spacing, capitalization, or hyphenation that do not affect the actual rendered appearance in the article are not contrary to CITEVAR" would be helpful in the guideline explanation. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:56, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

RFC on removal of reference names

Recently, I've come across an editor who is removing reference names from articles where the reference is only used once in the article. Thus <ref name=ABC123> becomes <ref>. This is not the same as consolidating references where a full reference is later repeated in full and is cut back to use the shortened ref name. The removal of named references is something I'm not comfortable with. Even if a reference is only used once, it is handy to have it named. Another editor may come along later and insert material so that the reference now needs to be used more than once. If it is named, the is is a simple matter of re-using the existing name. Without a name, the editor then needs to give the reference a name, and maybe also check for other uses of that reference elsewhere in the article. I appreciate that any "harm" done by these actions is minimal, and I'm not looking to get editors who have done this in the past sanctioned. What I would like to happen is that the issue is fully discussed and a consensus formed as to whether or not the practice of removing reference names should be deprecated. My preference is that if an editor has named a reference, then it should stay named. Others may feel different, but lets discuss this please. Mjroots (talk) 12:22, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

  • No RfC is needed. This is the worst kind of worthless gnoming, typically done by people who think they're "saving disc space" or "reducing server load". Personally I don't add a refname until there are multiple uses of that ref, because it's handy to know which refs are used only once, the source is a bit less cluttered, and it's easy to add the refname when a second use arises. But when, for whatever reason, a rename is a "singleton", removing it is at best useless and at worst counterproductive because of the editor time wasted reviewing the watchlist churn. In addition, a singleton refname is most likely there because the ref was, at some earlier time, indeed invoked in multiple places, and there's a good chance that will be the case again.
    So whoever's doing this should cut it out. The project has very little tolerance for people stroking their own egos with this kind of worthless busywork. EEng 14:25, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
    "Whoever's doing this"? Mjroots is doing this, as you can see above. Mjroots is a prolific WP editor and administrator of long standing. It seems most unreasonable to accuse him of "stroking his own ego" just for making a suggestion that you disagree with. You E seem to have forgotten to "assume good faith". See WP:AGF -- Alarics (talk) 18:10, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
    Wow, do you ever have the wrong end of the stick. EEng 21:01, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
    Wrong. Mjroots is not doing this. Mjroots came across an editor who is doing this. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:31, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
    It's not that important at the moment who the editor is. Let's stick to what the issue is and discuss it calmly please. No need for any witch hunting. Mjroots (talk) 18:49, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
    OK, well in that case let's just assume it's indeed you doing it (and therefore you were reporting yourself). MJROOTS, STOP REMOVING REFNAMES! EEng 21:01, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
For the record
Um, I got a video explaining "Why dating a young Slavic woman is a good idea". You trying to tell me something? EEng 04:58, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, this! Mjroots (talk) 05:16, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Ref names are always better. It is OK to leave them out if they aren't there already, but they should never be removed. They make it harder to make errors, and easier to fix any errors you might find. Related: ref names should be something unlikely to be re-used when an editor adds a new citation. So ref name = "NYT", ref name = "Ref1", or ref name = ":0" are worse than ref name = "NYT Jones 2016" or ref name = "Yoyodyne annual report 2012". Also WP:NOTBROKEN applies. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:44, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
  • I can’t imagine why anyone would think that this is productive. I may add names to refs as I write because I am not sure if I will cite it again. Sometimes I don’t. But another editor may add something and feel like that source bolsters the contribution. TastyPoutine talk (if you dare) 18:51, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
  • The Template:Refname rules page says : "You may optionally provide reference names even when the reference name is not required. This makes later re-use of the sourced reference easier." I think that covers it. Carlstak (talk) 18:57, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Agree that this removal is mildly harmful, more than merely pointless, and should not be done. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:07, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
Contrary to an earlier parenthetical assertion above, WP:NOTBROKEN does NOT apply here. In long articles such as American Revolutionary War that have not been successfully reviewed by a knowledgeable editor, intelligible footnoting to author and date of publication must be accessible throughout.
- WERE that convention systematically applied over the ~130 sources (50% for estimating) that are used three or more times would result in a current reference to source "aaaaap", which any contributing editor would have to laboriously track down the last-made, OUT-of-alphabetical-order footnote to add a reference in this supposedly "key-stroke-saving method", to ensure he uses "aaaaaq" to conform to the unwieldy system that has been rejected at American Revolutionary War.
Part of the WP Foundation goals is to make functional contributions to every article easily accessible to all editors. s/TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:34, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
@TheVirginiaHistorian: I don't understand the above. Notes only reach "bb", and there is not a single reference that even reaches "b". I've taken a look at the article and references are not named. This proposal does not seek to force the naming of references where they are not named. If an editor chooses not to name references where they are not repeated that is fine, and is respected. It is entirely about the removal of reference names where an editor has decided to name references. For articles where a reference is used lots of times, e.g. List of shipwrecks in August 1873 where one ref reaches "bv", the naming of references is appropriate, as there is one reference number instead of 74! Mjroots (talk) 11:40, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
...To the above entirely correct comment I would add that, in the specific case of someone removing reference names, WP:NOTBROKEN most certainly does apply. It is OK to change an existing reference name if you like the new name better, but it is not OK to remove it. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:33, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
It is also OK to change a ref name if the existing one is inappropriate. Mjroots (talk) 15:24, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Bucking the trend here, and probably a waste of time, but I disagree and think that removing names from single-use refs is a good thing. There are two issues with them, other than that they serve no purpose: (1) they clutter up the WikiText, and (2) they carry an implication that the source is used elsewhere, when in fact it isn't. It's a minor point, and like any gnomish edit that doesn't affect the rendered text is shouldn't be made in isolation. But I don't think we should ban editors from doing this as part of general copyediting.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:02, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: NOT coming a conclusion in this RFC, would allow a continuing disruption of the ARW footnote style, as I have invited two footnote disrupters to join in on this RFC as a matter of WP:GOOD FAITH. At ARW, abstract and undecipherable masking of reference names has occurred 3+ times in the last 30 days, 2 times in the last two days. Reference names such as ref name = "NYT Jones 2016 have been arbitrarily changed by ‘drive-by’ editors to "reference = t" and so on.
- The conclusion to this RFC should be some combination of (1) "It is OK to change an existing reference name if you like a better [mnemonic], but it is not OK to remove it.", and, "It is also OK to change a ref name if the existing one is inappropriate."
On the strength of the eight (8) editor consensus here, please come to a formal conclusion for this RFC. TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN: For using mnemonic references names-dates - Carlstak, Bejnar, Guy Macon, Amakuru, TVH. Against removing mnemonic reference names-dates - Mjroots, E, David Eppstein, TVH. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 17:21, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
I an for using mnemonic references names-dates and against removing (removing does not equal changing) mnemonic reference names-dates.
It never occurred to me that someone would change ref name="NYT Jones 2016" to ref name="t". Anyone doing that should be warned once and taken to ANI the next time they do it. We can't list every possible way that someone can be disruptive so we don't need a specific rule against an obviously harmful change like that. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:52, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm also in favour of using mnemonic ref names, such as "Times280621", and use this system when editing. Mjroots (talk) 18:05, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
To clarify, I use the "NYT Jones 2016" format, and I am also for using mnemonic ref names and against removing them. The behavior TheVirginiaHistorian describes is pretty egregious in my opinion as well. Carlstak (talk)

I would like to put this whole "saving space on the server" nonsense to bed once and for all.

First, editing a wikipedia page --even if all you do is to remove material -- means that space is used to hold another copy of the entire article in the page history, using up far more space than you "saved". Making it shorter for the reader may be a Good Thing. Trying to make it smaller for the server just makes it larger for the server.

Second, Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance says, You, as a user, should not worry about site performance. The servers would "perform" best if there were no content on Wikipedia at all. If it isn't broken, don't "fix" it.

Third, making multiple edits that cause no change in what gets displayed to the reader is generally considers to be disruptive. Doing this clutters edit histories and editor's watchlists without in any way benefiting the reader.

Finally, as has been pointed out before, Template:Refname rules says "You may optionally provide reference names even when the reference name is not required. This makes later re-use of the sourced reference easier." --Guy Macon (talk) 23:19, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you all [y'all, youins, yousguys] for your encouragement and support. So, since my last post, I've noticed at ARW a 'bot' has been run on all the footnotes, and, at first look I was pleased (sigh). 493 footnotes had been reduced to 437. Multiple citations to the same page had 'abcde' by the sourcing, just like in GOOD ARTICLE Status articles I aspire to for the ARW. However, on closer inspection, I was disappointed.
A full mnemonic citation has averaged about 16 keystrokes inside the <ref…> brackets. The 'bot' generated a randomly generated five-character ref-name in a notation of 13 characters, such as []name=”OcHT1” --- so at the second footnote there is a savings of 3 characters across two footnotes.
- For the 427 one-note citations that remain, the ‘bot’ added a diagnostic 13 character ref-name; those are left in place, addressed below.
- For the 36 two-notes ref-name 'bot' saved (3x1x36) 108 characters.
- For the 8 three-notes ref-name 'bot' saved (3x2x8) 48 characters.
- For the 2 four-notes ref-name 'bot' saved (3x3x2) 18 characters.
- For the 2 five-notes ref-name 'bot' saved (3x4x2) 24 characters.
TOTAL ‘bot’ SAVINGS = 198 characters.
- The bot generated ref-names at every one of the 490 citations, numbering (16x490) 7,840.
- But there was no 'cleanup' of all the code laid down at each citation to diagnose multiple same-page citations.
TOTAL ‘bot’ COST = 7,840 characters.
NET ‘bot’ LOSS in server = 7,642 characters in a long article with wide ranging sourcing, going forward.
Therefore, to achieve the ‘bot’ aim of saving server space, there must be a ‘cleanup’ routine removing the singleton ref-name coding of 18 characters such as “<ref name=”OcHT1”>”, those without two or more citations to the same reference page.
HOWEVER, the editing and review process is unnecessarily encumbered by the ‘bot’ in a way that makes it unfeasible to recruit a reviewer, or team of reviewers, to achieve Good Article status. Perhaps, unless those who run the ‘bot’ will be so kind as to undertake the review for the longest Wikipedia articles.
Alternatively, perhaps a page contributor can remove the 493 ‘bot’ edits, without removing the GOOD edits by the same contributor in subsequent posting that I think I have publicly thanked them for since. s/TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:04, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Avoid instruction creep, it is usually better for a policy or guideline to be too lax than too strict. Quite frequently, a ref is used only one time to cite a specific fact and there is no need to use a ref name, so there is no real harm being caused in removing a ref name if one is present. I don't see this as a real problem that needs solving. If editors are not comfortable with the removal of ref names when they are not needed, then write an essay, but we shouldn't be whacking good faith editors over the head with a rule book to enforce something that is not causing any real disruption or any real harm to the project. Isaidnoway (talk) 09:25, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment I mostly agree with what's been said here by EEng and Guy. It is a mild pain in the ass to have to name a bunch of references just to invoke them a second time in an article; maybe there's some benefit to removing clutter from the source, but it's nowhere near clear enough to justify doing an edit just for the sake of removing ref names. jp×g 08:58, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I Support EEng dating either a young Slavic woman or Shaggy, and Mjroots getting banned for some reason.
    Once those more critical issues have been dealt with, I also strongly support the liberal application of trouts to anyone making pointless changes like those described here no matter what their motivation is. Local editors working on an article can come to any local consensus they wish that is not in conflict with project-wide policy using BRD and DR, and there may absolutely be valid reasons in that context to remove ref names for single-use refs (as part of a broader ref cleanup for example). But cross-article gnoming (or bot'ing or AWB'ing or…) for this should always be cause for a severe trouting, even if combined with non-cosmetic / sensible changes. And even in the local article context, systematically removing ref names alone should have a strong established consensus because it is removing information; because the editor(s) that originally added those names may have planned to or planned for future reuse of those refs (there's no deadline; I have one project that's ongoing for a decade now); because having ref names and using mnemonic ref names inherently carries more utility and versatility than unnamed or non-mnemonically named refs, so removing such must carry the burden of proof; and because "making wikitext look tidier", while occasionally valid, is in the general case a nonsense rationale.
    I am however open to being less dogmatic on this issue in individual cases so I reserve the right to contradict myself outside the context of this generalised discussion. I have strong preferences about ref formatting at the wikitext layer, the same way programmers have about indentation and brace placement, so I absolutely sympathise with urges to make refs more "orderly"; I just disagree that this particular variant is anywhere near outweighing the downsides. --Xover (talk) 10:26, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
  • You're all wrong. Nobody should be defining refs in the body of the article, they should be defined elsewhere and then just the name invoked in the body of the article, using List Defined Variables (LDV). The normal (bad!) way is for the "References" section to just consist of a single call to {{reflist}}, everything else is in the body of the article mixed up in a horrid jumble. With LDV the "References" section starts with "reflist|refs=" and then all the named refs one after the other, and then close the template. I just did a whole rant about this at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 67#Honestly, is everyone else crazy, or is it me? The {{reflist}} documentation explains this. (For some reason it won't let me paste any of that here, go look if you like, but this is basic practice I think -- separate the code from the data, don't just mush it all together.) Herostratus (talk) 22:49, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
@Herostratus: It's you. LDR is one way to do things, but it's down to creator's choice, the same as which variety of English to use, which date format to use, whether or not to use {{sfn}} for books etc. Mjroots (talk) 05:14, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Nope. It was a rhetorical question. LDR is objectively better.
Some people here a computer programs. Not using LDR is like doing your first BASIC program, and badly... using hard-coded value deep in an throughout the code, that is, writing if Value=7 [do such and so] rather than int CheckValue=7... ...if Value==CheckValue [do such and so]. The former is not a valid way to do it (generally, I'm sure there are exceptions), not "the creator's choice" (assuming, as here, that other people are going to have to work with the code).
It's the same deal here. If you know me you know that I'm in favor of giving the creator his head as much as possible. But it's not the "creator's choice" whether to write "The 5th Brigade remained in reserve" or "The 5th Brigade didn't do nuthing". Same deal here, it's not the "creator's choice" to write screwed up spaghetti code that makes it harder for the next person to work with. In the rant I linked to, the first (bad, non-LDR) example just makes me go "I want to improve this section, but you know what? I have to use a search function to find where the named refs are defined (probably not even in the section I opened), separate out the code (refs) from the data (text) before I can even begin, and so on. Just screw it.". That is not arguably an OK outcome. It's objectively a bad outcome, periodt.
(However, an editor vouchsafed that in the Visual Editor this isn't an issue, and if most everyone is using the Visual Editor or will be, then nevermind.) Herostratus (talk) 17:33, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
But in fact people are free to use reference styles that you don't happen to like, just as you are free to use styles that others may dislike. If you want to change that, you're welcome to propose mandating your preferred style - but that is not this discussion. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:55, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
Exactly. Carlstak (talk) 02:43, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
No, no, no, that's not the deal here. To "propose mandating" that people do one thing or the other is a bad way to approach a lot of things, here or elsewhere, and anyway practically impossible here even if you wanted to. What I'm engaged in here is persuasion.
I had a lot to say in the rant at the link. Nobody's refuted it and I suppose that's because they can't. The only argument I've seen is that people can do what they like. But I mean people are free to use bare URLs and do, but that doesn't mean they should. Same deal here. Herostratus (talk) 10:45, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps no one's refuting it because it'd be arguing with a brick wall. A suggestion for the future is that "persuasion" might work better if you didn't start off with the assertion that everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 16:02, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
You're both right and wrong. This reference shit in the middle of the article is a pain in the neck for readability in the source editor. It's also a pain in the ass when I want to remove something where a ref is used the first time, then have to check whether or not a ref was used a second time, then having to find the second time the reference point was used to cut and paste the reference code to that point. The "having to open a new section" thing isn't as annoying compared to this. I agree that LDRs would be a better option and transitioning onto them Wiki wide would be preferable. At the same time though, LDRs aren't supported by the Visual Editor. We can't transition over to LDRs when new users won't be able to use them. This makes it an automatic non-starter for me personally until said support is implemented. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 07:20, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
Keep named refs and drop use of LDR ....causes mass cleanup problems and deters new additions.Moxy- 01:18, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
Wait, you mean use LDR to alleviate mass cleanup problems? Right? Altho I don't know of many articles needing mass cleanup of refs. But right, if one does, an LDR-based article would be at least somewhat easier to work with.
People put in bare URLs and partially filled in templates and external links in the body of the text refs all the time. Sometimes they just write the name of the source in plain text with no link, sometimes they write the source info directly in the text, and so forth. All that's fine (allowed but not encouraged, and hopefully fixed in the fullness of time), and I can't see that being much different between LDR and non-LDR articles. Herostratus (talk)
No they cause addition problems.....having to edit multiple sections just to add the source..or the fact cant be edited withVE.....and the problem of reversal of valid additions just because of reference style. Should keep it as simple as posible. That said it's a great way to ensure an article won't change much.....great OWN tool/format.Moxy- 13:25, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
@Moxy, I think there might be a way to compromise between your view and @Herostratus, if m:WikiCite ever happened. Imagine being able to have ref content out of the wikitext and not having to edit a different section every time you add or remove a new source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:44, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Keep the named refs – I won't duplicate the good reasons already explained above. But there's another one: ref names are by definition unique, which makes ref name an ideal way to identify what you are talking about, when you are in a Talk page discussion and need to mention a reference without ambiguity. There is no better way than using a refname (which presumably will be of the type "Feynman-1949", and not ":07"; insert <tear-my-hair-out> emoji here).
As for LDR, I'd go User:Herostratus one step further; references should be defined globally, perhaps in a new namespace, and referred to by unique name, possibly some combo like LastName-Year-OCLCid. But that's another hill for another day. Mathglot (talk) 08:57, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Keep If someone has named a reference then removing the name for no good reason is disruptive. I like LDRs and so usually name my references. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:16, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

The link to the tool Reftag seems to be down. The code for those tools is up on GitHub here: https://github.com/Apoc2400/Reftag but it seems the site is no longer hosted. Jimpaz (talk) 13:14, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Should links to http://reftag.appspot.com/ be removed? Jimpaz (talk) 13:16, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Page numbers links in PDFs

User:Idell made an edit to remove the = sign in PDF page links (WP:PAGELINKS), with the note "As used in Oxford Style Guide's PDF file and per Safari browsers". But in Chrome desktop, the dominant browser in terms of market share, the PDF links only work with page=. I'm not sure if there was a discussion before about the URL format but I'm undoing the edit for now. --Mathnerd314159 (talk) 19:57, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Congressional Record?

Is there a standard template for citing the US Congressional Record? -- RoySmith (talk) 20:43, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

{{USCongRec}}. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:49, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
Be aware, though, that the noise-to-signal ration in the Record is notoriously high. Outside of officially recorded votes on motions and bills, I can't imagine much of anything I'd trust that came out of the Record. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:09, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

What if the content changes, and how to decide access date?

Beckwourth Complex Fire uses a source for which the access date is July 10. However, that source is used for information that was updated on July 12.

There is no change in the URL, but apparently information on that site is kept updated. Greshthegreat seems to be taking most of the responsibility for updating the article.

I don't know if any outdated information from that source is in the article for a good reason (but is no longer found in that source since it was updated), or if all information from that source can be found in the source now, meaning the access date can be updated.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:53, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

When content changes, you need to look at what changed, and try to evaluate why it changed. It could be that the old material has moved to an archive page… it could be that new, updated information has made the previous version obsolete. It could be that an error was discovered and corrected. Blueboar (talk) 20:04, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
I don't have access to what was on the site July 10 or know of any archive page. All I know is the article has had three different figures for acres burned and percent contained. I don't know whether it is proper to use each day's figures to indicate the progress on fighting the fire.
This is a problem with news articles on MarketWatch as well. I have learned never to rely on the early version but wait for the updated article that uses the same URL.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:13, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
There is a relevant discussion at Help_talk:Citation_Style_1#Current_version_of_page_no_longer_contains_cited_facts._url-status=?. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:43, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
I've made the necessary changes to the Beckwourth article. From the questionable source, it now has only information that is there currently.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:58, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
FWIW, the next CS1 update will introduce a new status |url-status=deviated to indicate that the contents of a page is known to have changed in some way, but is still supporting the article. Once it has changed in ways no longer supporting the article, the proper status would be |url-status=unfit, or, if it meanwhile carries completely different contents, the status would be |url-status=usurped.
--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:48, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 September 2021

Dan Carlin's hard core history- Prophets of Doom podcast is a great reference for the Munster rebellion. 73.104.234.144 (talk) 00:55, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

The post by 73.104.234.144 is not relevant to the topic of this guideline, which is how to cite sources. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:25, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Best approach for providing single citation/set of citations for single list/table within a section

Specific example is over at Squid Game#English dub cast. This is a section that really only makes sense as a list without any prefix or postfix prose (where I would normally can plunk down a citation onto). WP:HEADER specifically says not to dump references in the header, so the question is, how best to supply this one reference (or in a more general case, like for a filmography built from 2-3 sources). Is there any recommended practice for this? --Masem (t) 17:16, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

There is a proposal to create a bot to change YYYY-MM-DD format dates within citations to MDY format if the the categories the article is in suggest it has strong ties to the US. The proposal is located at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Bot task for adding MDY tags to U.S.-related articles. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:33, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

@Jc3s5h: Thanks for the warning! What a terrible idea. (If it were targeting DMY dates, I could understand. But I've never heard of anyone interpreting {{Use mdy dates}} in opposition to ISO-8601. ...Until now, I guess.) -- FeRDNYC (talk) 17:06, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
Mission Accomplished
Oh, good, it was already withdrawn. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 17:18, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Sdkb: from that page: the ugly YYYY-MM-DD format (e.g. 2021-10-17). I would have you know this is a widely used international format used by many countries. It is not ugly. It is logical and practical. It is not going anywhere. Thanks CapnZapp (talk) 12:51, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

bare URLs

I am of the impression bare URLs are better than nothing. That is, instead of NOT adding a reference, add a bare URL. Obviously adding full citations is even better, but I came to this page to finally once for all find out Wikipedia's stance on bare URLs.

But I got nothing.

This page barely mentions bare URLs at all. I can find no clear prohibition or even discouragement from using them; only cheerful suggestions to add more complete citations and help out by fixing bare URLs already entered.

Asking here if there's anything I have missed. (If you disagree with any of the above, I would appreciate you telling me what I missed - provided you provide the official policy or guideline supporting your position, of course, so this isn't devolving into mere WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT).

Best regards, CapnZapp (talk) 12:48, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

To quote from WP:BAREURL, there is nothing wrong with adding bare URL references to Wikipedia. Sure, there are potential problems, which as stated in WP:CITEVAR are encouraged to be fixed, but I don't think you've missed anything. Primefac (talk) 14:09, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
I usually use bare ones when editing from my phone cuz it's so much easier. From my PC at home, I'll usually cite fully. No one says boo about it unless I'm creating a new article then the new article reviewer gets grumpy sometimes. I am a believer a bare url is better than none. Masterhatch (talk) 15:51, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Transitioning from plain text to CSx templates

reference info for Funerary art
unnamed refs 138
named refs 6
self closed 4
cs1 refs 6
cs1 templates 7
refbegin templates 1
webarchive templates 3
use xxx dates dmy
cs1|2 dmy dates 1
cs1|2 dmy access dates 2
cs1|2 dmy archive dates 1
cs1|2 last/first 6
List of cs1 templates
  • Cite book (1)
  • cite book (3)
  • cite journal (1)
  • Cite news (1)
  • Cite web (1)
explanations

Forgive me if this has already been addressed in the archive: I'm a little exercised by the guideline to avoid "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". Does that mean that an article, even a very old one, that only includes plain text descriptions of books with hand-written Harvard citations, can never have an additional citation added using {{Cite book}}? And that those plain-text references can never be converted to a citation template, in whole or part, with matching {{sfn}}s? That would seem over-restrictive, and not allow the advantages of the CS templates: stylistic consistency, CITEREF navigation, and COinS metadata. I came here from Funerary Art, with a large list of plaintext citations and subject of a recent edit mini-war over replacing an archive.org link with a wikisource link via a CS template. David Brooks (talk) 22:33, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

That is a featured article, with what appear to be consistently formatted citations in a style that cannot be achieved by CS templates (for one thing, because the publication date is placed differently). I think WP:CITEVAR demands that in such cases you get consensus on the article talk page before attempting any significant change in citation style. The more usual case is haphazardly formatted text citations in an article that has not gone through the level of scrutiny that featured articles demand, and I think that if the citations are not already in a consistent style then it may be ok to rationalize them by picking one, preferably a style that was once consistently used or, failing that, close to the majority of uses already present. Even in such cases, though, if the changes are objected to, then it would be time to have a discussion about what style to use on the talk page rather than just continuing to insist on templates. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:57, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
I have added {{ref info}} to the top of this discussion. Funerary art is more-or-less consistent. I note that the EB 1911 archive.org url pops up an error message so that should be fixed if the archive.org facsimile is to be retained. This url:
https://archive.org/details/encyclopaediabri04chisrich/page/434/mode/2up?q=brasses&view=theater
should probably change to this:
https://archive.org/details/encyclopaediabri04chisrich/page/434/mode/2up?view=theater
If we care about accessibility, which presumably we do, then linking to the wikisource transcription of the EB 1911 article is likely preferable because screen readers can certainly read the transcription, I don't know if they can read the archive.org facsimile. It is not necessary to use {{cite EB1911}} to cite EB 1911.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:29, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
@David Eppstein: Point taken on the Featured Article-ness, but of course I was using that as an extreme example of the general point. The more common haphazard collections of styles are probably a result of editors not having thoroughly memorized WP:CITEVAR. Taken literally, one manually-constructed citation on a low-traffic article would lock the format in for the future, but as you said leaving up a talk page notice for sufficient time would probably work. @Trappist the monk: thanks for the compromise on EB1911. As the custodian of CS, is it your dream that every reference eventually gets converted (within a century or two), or am I being over-enthusiastic? David Brooks (talk) 00:58, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
Thank for the kind thought, but no thank you. Let me here and now dissociate myself from the phrase custodian of CS. Association with that phrase is too much like an assertion of ownership. There are enough editors out there who disapprove of whatever work I do at cs1|2 that I do not need claims like this floating about in the wiki-sphere.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:05, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
Noted. David Brooks (talk) 15:00, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Page references for ebooks - useful?

Page numbers in ebooks are not at all reproducible, as far as I observed. Pagination is calcualted on the fly depending on the margins, the screen size, the font size, etc. A sample book has 631 pages on my smartphone, 322 on my tablet, and 501 on my desktop. As many readers might not be aware of this, they might think it is a bad reference. Rainglasz (talk) 21:29, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

It may depend on the platform. Just sampling a couple books (one novel and one non-fiction book) using the Android Kindle app, the pagination is consistent, and a page number is not the same as the particular screen number; For example, in the non-fiction work, chapter four begins on page 74, and the next screem is 74 as well; then there is, using my normal font size, one additional screens marked as page 74, followed by three screens of page 75, etc. When I use a much larger font, page 74 is is five screens long, and page 75 is seven screens long; the transition between page 74 and 75 is at pretty much the same place, and is consistent across my tablet and cell phone.
Similar observations on the novel.
That being said, for ebooks, maybe using the |chapter= parameter (either in addition to or instead of) page= would be a good practice. TJRC (talk) 21:47, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
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