Welcome to twinme.com on July 6 2009.
This is an internet experiment running to monitor browsing habbits of individuals through wikipedia contents.

Template talk:Cite web

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Template:Cite web is permanently protected from editing, as it is a heavily used or visible template. Substantial changes should be proposed here, and made by administrators if the proposal is uncontroversial, or has been discussed and is supported by consensus. Use {{editprotected}} to attract the attention of an administrator in such cases.
Any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes, categories or interwiki links.
This template is one of several templates used to provide or request sources for articles.
Werdnabot automatically archives sections on this page that are older than 120 days. The age of a section is determined by its most recent timestamp (sections without a timestamp will not be archived). All archived sections are listed here, by size. When an archive reaches 256 kB, a new one is created. The current archive is Archive 5. A list of all archives is here.

Archives
  1. March 2006 – June 2006
  2. June 2006 – December 2006
  3. December 2006 – August 2007
  4. September 2007 – July 2008
  5. August 2008 – Current

Contents


[edit] Error message improvement

The template generates an error if the URL or title are missing:

I propose that these be wrapped with class="error" to make them stand out. For example:

  • . 

--—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 00:29, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I'd like anything to make it stand out. Something as obvious as that is more likely to be fixed sooner rather than later. Currently, it's very hard to spot errors in a list of 100 or more references, which is quite often, especially in articles at places like FAC. Gary King (talk) 00:55, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I would like to propose these specific changes:

<span class="error">Error: no {{para|title}} specified when using {{tl|cite web}}</span>

Error: no |title= specified when using {{cite web}}

<span class="error">Error: no {{para|url}} specified when using {{tl|cite web}}</span>

Error: no |url= specified when using {{cite web}}

This makes the problem more obvious and makes the verbiage consistent. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 03:07, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure. I'm be willing to use anything besides how it looks now, short of using the blink element. Gary King (talk) 03:28, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

As one of those who regularly fix broken citation errors I completely agree that it is sometimes very hard to find the footnote with the citation error. They should really be red (like reference errors).

I also agree that it would be better if both |url= and |title= errors had the same text: or You must specify ... when using {{Cite web}} , or No ... specified. I personally like the first better.

I see consensus here. When will this be implemented? Debresser (talk) 00:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Y Done Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:59, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

This is great. It is now so much easier to spot the reference with the problem! Debresser (talk) 08:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Please notice that when the title is missing, the last two brackets are not in red. Example: "Error: no |title= specified when using {{cite web}}". http://doviddebresser.angelfire.com/.  Could someone fix this, please. Debresser (talk) 00:34, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the error message is linked, and includes a link to Cite Web. The solutions are to remove the error message from the title field [which would either involve quite substantial changes to the template, or moving the error message to a later point in the citation]; to prevent the title from being linked [undesirable]; to remove the link to Cite Web [undesirable]; or to leave it as it is [ugly]. Which would people prefer? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:53, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
But the error message for a missing url doesn't show this same problem. Just the error message for a missing title. So why should this be any more difficult? Debresser (talk) 15:53, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Because the title isn't linked to anything, because there is no URL to link it to. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
I understand now. As one who works with this error category a lot, I'd prefer to remove the link after the error message. If a reason is needed, it would be that often the problem is not that a title is not provided, but e.g. that the word "title=" is missing from the template or that it is capitalised "Title=", so the first thing I do is check the whole template in the edit page to see where the error is, and I never ever get to press the link provided by the error message in the article page. Debresser (talk) 18:22, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Double periods

Cite web adds a period to the publisher, editor, and first fields, and there may be other fields. If these fields already end in a period (for instance, if the publisher ends in "Inc.", "Co.", or "Corp.", or a name field ends in an initial or in "Jr.") the result is a double period. I'm told there's no way to tell Cite Web not to add the extra period if it already exists, because Cite Web is a template, not a program. But this strikes me as not taking the problem seriously enough; double periods in Cite Web are among the most frequent proofreading problems in Wikipedia, and although removing the period after "Inc." works, it's much too big a problem to solve one article at a time. If we can't change the template, can we get a bot to remove the extra period, or at least put a warning in the document? Art LaPella (talk) 05:11, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

A warning in the documentation would be a good idea. I see no reason, really, to add end punctuation to anything in the template save for material in the title, which I treat as a quote. I don't use punctuation for names (Abrams, J J), companies (Camelot, Inc), etc. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 05:37, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
OK, I'll change the documentation, although few people will read it. Of course the issue is how Camelot, Inc(.) is written throughout Wikipedia, not just by one editor. Art LaPella (talk) 06:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Oh, most definitely it is an issue throughout the site, but the /doc change is a good first step. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 07:17, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
The StringFunctions extension has a {{#sub:}} function that would return the last character in a string, and that could be tested by {{#if:}}. However, Special:Version shows that the extension is not installed. —AlanBarrett (talk) 08:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
The best solution would be to change Cite Web's default separator to a comma: you can see how this change affects an individual citation by specifying |sep=,. Currently the cite and citation templates aren't consistent in using a period or comma: perhaps changing them all to use commas by default would be a good idea? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 12:50, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Of course the Inc. Co. Ltd. etc are erroneous input anyway. Should the template output mark it as an error?LeadSongDog come howl 03:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
But Pubs., Pr., etc. are not. They are even mandated by some citation styles. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Title

I added "The word 'title' should not be capitalized to avoid 'broken citation' error." and was reverted by User:RossPatterson. His rational was that the template documentation writes 'title' with a small letter.

I included this warning because it is one of the mistakes I see on a daily basis when correcting broken citations. Lots of editors don't copy an empty template from here, but write it themselves. And sometimes they write 'Title'. That's why I think that my warning was necessary here.

Let's hear the opinions of other editors on this. Debresser (talk) 13:23, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't see much harm in including a note that the parameter names are case-specific. I know its a frequent problem with some other templates that do use uppercase...so when you use lower case, it borks. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 13:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
My rationale was that all of the parameters are lower-case-only, not just |title=. Getting any of them wrong produces a bad citation. Getting |title= or |url= wrong also produces an error. I actually think the error is better, as it tells you what is wrong, but MediaWiki templates can't detect typo'ed parameter names, so we can't report errors on those. RossPatterson (talk) 19:38, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
I perfectly agree with your rationale. I was just trying to address a relatively common mistake. Anyway, is not a must for me. I doubt it would help significantly. :) Debresser (talk) 20:35, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Because of another unfortunate edit like this (see here), involving all parameters in 7 cases, I decided to put a general notice in the doc page to avoid capitalisation of all parameters. Debresser (talk) 12:32, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I have expanded the logic of AWB's general fixes to correct this for {{cite web}} on en-wiki (rev 4131, now in SVN release, will be generally available in next AWB release). I have 1500 hits from the October database dump that I'll now run through. Do any other 'cite' templates have the same restriction that the AWB fix should also apply to? Thanks Rjwilmsi 20:16, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
All of them I think (see User:Citation bot), but certainly {{cite book}}, {{cite news}} (by documentation) and {{cite journal}}, {{cite press release}}, {{cite hansard}} (by inspection). I don't think I'ver ever used any of the others. While an edit is open, can we convert: id=PMID -> pmid=; id=ISBN -> isbn=; id= OCLC -> oclc=; id=DOI -> doi=; (there may be others, I don't know). Mr Stephen (talk) 21:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
rev 4132 AWB now covers cite ... web|book|news|journal|paper|press release|hansard|encyclopedia and citation. For the DOI/PMID business, I have no knowledge of this stuff, so please file an AWB feature request with more details, examples of correct edits, maybe even the relevant code from the DOI bot (better to convert tested code than rewrite from new). Thanks Rjwilmsi 22:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Another mistake which is made approximately ten times more often than the one mentioned directly above is that editors don't provide a title parameter. I've changed the documentation page to stress this point clearly. Debresser (talk) 00:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I did make a feature request for Reflinks which should help in clearing up this error, but it's not been implemented yet. Rjwilmsi 20:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "Written at"?

Currently, if you use a "location" parameter in the cite web template, the location will be prefaced with the words "written at". How can we get rid of the "written at" in the template? I'm not convinced that most people would want or expect that phrase to show up in the citation. Besides, in some cases the location refers to a place of publication, not a place of writing. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:52, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

  • On the other hand, it's sometimes useful to have a "written at" attribute: wire service articles, for example, often contain a location (distinct from the publishing news outlet's location). Is there any way to distinguish the two, and do we want to include the ability to store that information in the citation? TheFeds 19:54, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Support for parameter "accessyear"

I'd not be surprised if thousands of articles still use this particular parameter for the definition of the year of a source's access. I therefore think it is imperative that support is re-introduced for this field in the template, or some way of script-assisted conversion is considered. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 12:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I just realised I didn't phrase my comment properly. Forget what I said above. What I meant to say is that date formats of the form accessdate=14 January|accessyear=2001 do not work, whereas they once did. I for one once used this reference format liberally, and I learned it from someone else. So it seems likely that, regardless of whether it is correct or incorrect, this form may have once been used to some probably considerable extent in the past. Can support for this be re-introduced at all? —Anonymous DissidentTalk 12:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
See the section #Access dates below. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:18, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Possible bug with cite journal?

I'm not sure why but it seems that the text "Archived from the original on .." isn't displayed when using the archiveurl parameter with {{cite magazine}} (cite journal). I added a magazine article reference to the Dondurma article using the {{cite magazine}} template but it didn't display the archived url so I had to switch to {{cite web}}, but then apparently cite web doesn't accept the issue= parameter so both templates weren't ideal for me. Oh well, just thought I'd bitch and whine. -- OlEnglish (Talk) 22:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not a bug – cite journal simply does not support archiving. See the documentation at Template:Cite_magazine#Parameters. Regards, Skomorokh 22:32, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
And, in this case, the original is still online and free to all. Mr Stephen (talk) 22:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Right. I switched back to cite magazine. Still it's too bad cite journal doesn't support the archiveurl= parameter, as there are many online journals and magazines. Plus it would probably help WebCiteBot if it's approved. -- OlEnglish (Talk) 19:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
You know {{cite magazine}} redirects to {{cite journal}}, right? Yeah, I'm sure WebCiteBot will improve things. I'll ask at Template talk:Cite journal why the parameter is not supported anyway. Skomorokh 20:57, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Yup I'm aware. Thanks. -- OlEnglish (Talk) 23:25, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] doi parameter

Ok, I don't claim to understand the need for a doi, or how it works, but is it possible to use a piped link for it? I've just seen it added to Abbots Bromley, and it appears as a meaningless jumble of characters. If possible, I suggest it be change to something like [{{{doi}}} permanent digital identifier] or something similar, yielding (in this example) permanent digital identifier. Can this be done? —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 17:44, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

References with a DOI will generally not be cited with this template. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:01, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Can I remove it from the article then? —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 19:08, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
It's cited using Template:Citation and should remain. See WP:DOI for more info. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
My mistake - I didn't cotton on to it not being cite web. I'll raise the discussion on template talk:Citation. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 08:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Access dates

Are accessdaymonth and accessmonthday supposed to work, as the documentation says? Because they don't seem to.--Kotniski (talk) 11:43, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

In fact, if the ordinary accessdate parameter is not linked anyway (and it seems not to be), then why do we need any alternative parameters for the access date? (And shouldn't the documentation be updated?)--Kotniski (talk) 11:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I changed the accessdate code to use the same code as {{cite news}}. The parameters are working again. But I don't know the answer to your second question. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, I made a couple of changes to the documentation based on how the template seems to work (i.e. it doesn't link dates, so there's no need for a special syntax for making unlinked dates). Hope it make ssense now.--Kotniski (talk) 10:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Are these parameters for when you don't know what the date is, but you're pretty sure what the year is when you use a website as a source? -- Jeandré, 2009-04-19t12:34z

The parameters are holdovers from when the date was automatically linked, and are now deprecated. They should not be used, and there's an ongoing effort to remove them entirely. The accessdate should be entered using |accessdate= in the appropriate date format for the article (dmy or mdy, depending). Happy‑melon 13:50, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] The template page

Why is there a broken url message on top of the template page? Debresser (talk) 08:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

That's the template itself. It displays that message when no URL parameter is provided. Perhaps there's a case for putting it in <noinclude> tags. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 08:51, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
It's because the update that switched this template to using {{Citation/core}} accidentally removed the <includeonly> and </includeonly> that should enclose the template itself. That probably means that all the templates switched over to {{Citation/core}} in recent months have the same problem. RossPatterson (talk) 11:47, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Fixed Happy‑melon 11:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Happy‑melon for fixing this. My "question" was actually meant to get this fixed. And this fix was a lot more important than you think. Let me explain.

Before the fix, the first thing you would see on the page is: provide a url, or the template errors. Nothing is mentioned about the necessity to provide a title also, until much later, in the technical parts of the documentation. In my opinion this contributed significantly to the large number of uses of the Cite web template without a title parameter (around 10 a day, about 50% of all citation errors in Category:Articles with broken citations. You have now fixed the template, and I hope the occurence of this error will go down. Debresser (talk) 09:21, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

There is a very noticable reduction in the number of problem encountered in the Category:Articles with broken citations. Thanks again! Debresser (talk) 18:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] { {accessyear}}??!!

I dont know if it's just me or if every single "citeweb" reference has { {accessyear}} at the end!!?? Every article? Dt128 (talk) 08:06, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

That was my error; it's fixed now. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 08:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
For example, Duffy discography is still showing { {accessyear}}! Dt128 (talk) 09:39, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Purge your cache. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 09:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! Dt128 (talk) 10:21, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Use template:languageicon?

Would it be possible for the "language" attribute to use the Template:Languageicon template? --76.167.241.45 (talk) 22:59, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Pretty sure you "can" use it, but no real reason to use it. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 23:32, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] dateformat parameter

I see that there is a "dateformat" parameter available, but I don't see any documentation (or even mention) of it in Template:Cite web/doc. Since people are adding it to citations in articles, can we get this documented? (Besides showing the patterns and what they produce, it should be clear for potential users what patterns work, and what don't or aren't tested.) Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:38, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] location parameter is hosed

{{Editprotected}} Someone monkeyed with this to insert weird and usually counterfactual wording, such that the location parameter renders as "written at LOCATION", kind of randomly in the middle of the citation. First off, this does not correspond to any citation style in the world. Secondly, the location (which is part of most widely recognized citation styles) is the location of the publisher not of where the author was allegedly sitting at the time of writing. It should be rendered "LOCATION: PUBLISHER". If the publisher field is not yet present, the display of location and the colon following it should be suppressed with "display:none;" CSS, or with a wikicode #if. The current code is so screwy that people are actually deleting this information from citations! (example). It needs to be fixed immediately. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Strongly support this be changed back to "Location: Publisher" to follow virtually any normal citation format. I'd change it myself, but I can't make heads or tails of this metatemplate junk. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 01:01, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, Template:Citation/core seems to be expecting a PublicationPlace parameter but this template does not pass this. I cannot see any obvious recent changes which may have affected this issue, so I assume it has been like this since January. Could you possibly be more specific about the change that needs to be made? I'm not so familiar with this code. Deactivating the request until we sort out what exactly needs to be done. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:22, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

{{Editprotected}}

Ah, right. {{Cite web}}'s |Place = {{{location|}}} needs to be |PublicationPlace = {{{location|}}}. I didn't realize it was {{Citation/core}} that was doing the weirdness. It has, indeed, a Place parameter, but this is clearly a highly specialized location parameter for exact site of authorship that is not pertinent to {{Cite web}} (I'm having a hard time imagining what it is used for and where). {{Citation/core}} is probably smart enough on its own to handle the formatting problem of a location being specified without a publisher, and if it isn't, that should be fixed over there, not here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:38, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
I've put your proposed change on the sandbox. Can you test it and confirm that it is behaving as intended? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Y Done What a mess :D Happy‑melon 09:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters

If deprecated date parameters are used, the page is placed into Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters. The sorting in that category is rather odd, as the code is:

[[Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters|{{NAMESPACE}} {{PAGENAME}}]]

I propose to change this to the more standard:

[[Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters|{{PAGENAME}}]]

---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 11:20, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Now that all the non-article pages have been removed, yes. Before, it was useful for filtering and prioritising work (ironically, the non-articles were done first, which wasn't really the idea, but never mind). Happy‑melon 12:14, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
That is just the way my twisted mind works. :) Apart form the fact that 1. there's less of them, and since you have to start somewhere, why not start where you can easily make a difference? 2. templates and files are usually used on other pages, so fixing them effects both the template or files as well as the page(s) they are transcluded upon. Debresser (talk) 18:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I am in favor of the proposed change, as I am the one who raise this point on both your talkpages. But, as I have pointed out to Gadget850 before, there is much to be said for sorting non-articles together in one place. In other categories we've chosen for "!". Could this be done also? Debresser (talk) 18:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

That could be done by changing the referenced markup to:

{{namespace detect showall
| 1 = [[Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters|{{PAGENAME}}]]
| 2 = [[Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters|!]]
| main  = 1
| template = 2
| category = 2
| help = 2
| file = 2
}}

---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 20:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks good. Debresser (talk) 22:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC) I see a three-party consensus here. And I doubt if there's anybody else looking at this category. :) Debresser (talk) 00:46, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

If you'll allow me to speak my mind. I was frankly a little surprised when I first saw this solution (with 1={{PAGENAME}} and 2="!"). I thought the obvious solution would be to use {{FULLPAGENAME}}. I agree that that doesn't set aside template and others completely, but it does group them together. And it is much shorter and more elegant. And has the additional feat of sorting templates, help pages, categories and files separately, much like you tried to do once with "!", "#", "@" and"$". I din't say this before, because I very much appreciate your efforts and I am dependend on you since I am not an admin and can't edit templates myself. But it is what I would have done without even a second thought at the first moment this subject arose. Debresser (talk) 11:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Then we don't need to make any changes, as the current {{NAMESPACE}} {{PAGENAME}} = {{FULLPAGENAME}}. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 12:07, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
That's precisely what's bothering me here. Why didn't it sort the pages alphabetically only by namespace (there were "u" for userpages and "t" for "templates, but all articles were together in one big row)? It should work the same way as other error categories we work with, where articles get sorted alphabetically also. I think the reason is that {{NAMESPACE}} {{PAGENAME}} is not {{FULLPAGENAME}}. {{FULLPAGENAME}} is {{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}. Debresser (talk) 15:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Which means all articles get sorted under ":". What exactly are we trying to do here? Why won't that be achived by using a FULLPAGENAME sort? Happy‑melon 08:31, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
That was a theoretical excursion. I'd still like to request the factual (not theoretical) change to the "!" sorting as described above. Debresser (talk) 18:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
We were just exanging opinions with Gadget850. Of course {{FULLNAMEPAGE}} will be the best solution of that sort, hypothetically. What I'd like to request though is to implement the first suggestion, sorting all non-articles under "!". If that's too much trouble, then {{FULLNAMEPAGE}} is definitely a good solution which is preferable to {{PAGENAME}}. Debresser (talk) 10:45, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Y Done with FULLPAGENAME, as that's easy. I'm not sure the extra work needed to sort non-articles by ! is justified by the results, given that this is supposed to be a transient category anyway. Happy‑melon 10:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. This is called: making the live of gnomes a little easier. :) Debresser (talk) 10:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Do I understand correctly that as soon as they're fixed you'll discontinue support for them from the template? Debresser (talk) 10:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Page and pages parameters are broken

The page is just displayed as a number by itself, making no sense. It needs to say Page {{{page}}} or Pages {{{pages}}}. Although I did a lot of work on these new templates, unfortunately I'm not an admin so can't make the change myself anymore... {{editprotected}} ··gracefool☺ 10:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. And no changes have been made to {{Cite web}} that could have any repercussions except for that technical category of the previous section, and that changewas made correctly. If there were anything wrong, we'd have manyfold posts by now. Could you give an example, please? Debresser (talk) 11:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
For example, the last reference at List of OECD countries by suicide rate reads
"The Social Report 2008 - Health" (PDF). New Zealand Ministry of Social Development. 26. Retrieved on 2009-05-10.
"26" comes from page=26. It should say something like "Page 26", or if the pages parameter was used instead, Pages 26-28 etc. Or perhaps just p. 26 and pp. 26-28 like {{cite book}}.
··gracefool☺ 11:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Also it should be reordered so pages are displayed after title rather than almost at the end. Thus:
"The Social Report 2008 - Health" (PDF), page 26. New Zealand Ministry of Social Development. Retrieved on 2009-05-10.
This reordering needs to be done to the other citation templates as well. ··gracefool☺ 13:34, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Is this an informed comment you're making? Are you quite sure that the current citation method is actually wrong? It's quite possible that it's simply a particular style of referencing format. A template talk: page may not be the best place to get informed opinions on that. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 13:42, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
The number definetely needs something to make it clear, otherwise it is a rather 'misterious' number hanging in the middle of the text. A working example currently at User:Nabla/Test1, using User:Nabla/Test as the template (diff from the original).
Not sure about the position, though it looks better as in Gracefool's second example.
Nabla (talk) 13:49, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Other templates to p. or pp., not page or pages. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 14:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that 'cite web' is the most appropriate template for paginated sources; as I understand it is intended for web pages, and PDF files would be better handled with citation/cite journal/cite paper/cite book/ etc. (Cite book, for instance, displays pp. by default). In most cases, it would probably be more appropriate to cite the source, and use the {{rp}} template in-line. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
For the most part, I tend to agree with this. If you do use pages with cite web, just manually add the p./pp. Its only recently that the other templates did this automatically anyway. :-P -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Nevertheless, I think ··gracefool is right. There is this option to indicate pages. And it is relevant, since many online sources use pages. So the template should show it in the same nice way as {{Cite book}}. Since they've made it work for {{Cite book}} they can just copy it here and {{Cite web}} will use it also. Debresser (talk) 15:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Unless you (or someone else) are able to task a bot to go around and fix all transclusions to avoid double page indicators ("p. p. 35"), then this is a moot point. As for the placement of "page", you'd be better off getting "Cite book" or "Citation" to implement first, since it typically leads the way with changes. Note, however, that MLA, APA, and CMS citation formats all place the page number at the very end of the citation, so I'm not sure what precedent Gracefool is drawing from, other than some kind of aesthetic. I would not support either proposal, as it seems unnecessary. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 15:54, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
As a side note, there is a bot that does/did that for the other templates, so presumably it could also fix any cite web instances broken if the pages parameter were updated. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Good points all. I agree with Smith609 and Collectonian, cite web should not have pages. I can't think of any time where it should - on the web, a page is a url. If it's a PDF or whatever, another template should be used. Can anyone think of an exception? Yes a bot could fix this, I doubt it has been used much at all.

Great point Huntster, standard citation formats have the page number at the end, so I withdraw that idea. Same with "page" instead of "p". Heh it's all a matter of remembering why I made it that way in the first place :p ··gracefool☺

I recommend replacing the current code with:
 |At = {{#if: {{{page|}}}
         |{{#if:{{{nopp|}}}||p.&nbsp;}}{{{page}}}
         |{{#if: {{{pages|}}}|{{#if:{{{nopp|}}}||pp.&nbsp;}}{{{pages}}}}}}}
       }}
I don't think that casual editors should have to worry about such things. It also saves a lot of bot work. Where in the citation the page data is cited is a function of {{Citation|core}} it seems to me. --droll [chat] 19:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Well its not quite that easy is it. It would still be necessary to clean up places where editors added p. or pp. in the article text. Can't be that many occurrences. It should be easy to clean up. It would be best to use a dump generated just before the code change. --droll [chat] 19:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
If Templatetiger is correct there are 22 pages that use the page field and 210 pages that use the pages field. Some hang an external link on it so the nopp field would be useful. --droll [chat] 20:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
If my code or something similar is agreed upon I volunteer to do the clean up. It would be good to add a maintenance category associated with the two fields to catch changes since the dump that Templatetiger uses. Something like:
{{#if:{{{page|}}}{{{pages|}}}|[[Category:Cite web templates using page fields|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}
--droll [chat] 00:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Mentioning cross-namespace redirect in /doc

See this discussion I had with another user. He changed cite web from a redirect (to this template) to a disambiguation page (diff) which I reverted. Per the discussion, he wants a mention of the redirect (perhaps using {{for}} or {{otheruses}}) on this template's /doc page. I feel this would be unnecessary and make the template documentation awkward. What is your opinion? ~EdGl ★ 02:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

It should be deleted. Cross-space redirects are not allowed, and it certainly shouldn't be encouraged or mentioned here. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 02:24, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Cross-namespace redirects does not say they are not allowed; there are arguments for both sides. See #Arguments for keeping CNRs for good reasons to keep cite web. The redirect was nominated for deletion, but was kept because consensus to delete was not reached. ~EdGl ★ 02:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
My opinion is to keep the status quo. In general I am in favor of simplicity. Debresser (talk) 14:39, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Change in default separator and minor bug

I notice that the default separator has been changed from a period to a comma. Was that intentional?

Also there seems to be a bug in the new code. Notice that:

 {{cite web
   | url = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Cite_web
   | title = Template talk:Cite_web
   | separator = 
   | publisher = Wikipedia
   | accessdate = 2009-05-23 }}

yields:

"Template talk:Cite_web"Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Cite_web. Retrieved on 2009-05-23. 

The code was probably meant to be something like:

  |Sep = {{#if:{{{separator|{{{seperator|}}}}}}|{{#ifeq:{{{separator|{{{seperator}}}}}}|;|&#059;|{{{separator|{{{seperator}}}}}}}}|.}}

A switch expression might even be cleaner if there was a consensus about which separators were to be allowed.

I know this is trivial but I think it is good to get it right. --droll [chat] 23:35, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Request edit changing the default separator be reversed. No discussion or consensus here, and edit summary claims to look at Talk:Citation, with no direct link (nor relevance to this template). -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:33, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Request above code be used to restore default separator as also solves the problem of using a semicolon.--droll [chat] 01:53, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

  • Are semicolons really that important? --droll [chat] 03:33, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
    • I suppose if someone preferred to use a comma separator, a semicolon is necessary if the citation fields contain internal commas. That said, I've never seen anyone override the cite template separator in practice, though I'd guess that usage does exist somewhere. The important thing was to restore the peiod (full stop) as the default. —TKD [talk][c] 06:32, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Fixed using your code (with some spacing for readability). I will be applying this to the other cite templates, which were also affected. —TKD [talk][c] 05:04, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
Apologies about changing the default, I hadn't intended to do so. But - how, now, is one to suppress the separator, if one wishes to do so? (I think that specifying a non-breaking space will result in double spacing in the template, as other spaces are already hard coded.) Your 'fix' has changed the behaviour of the template; if there is some editor out there who has, for some reason, needed to suppress the separator in some articles, then those will now be broken. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:13, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
You're right. I've attempted the fix that case now: Unless {{{separator}}} or {{{seperator}}} is a semicolon, it'll fall back to the old {{{separator|{{{seperator|.}}} }}} coding. —TKD [talk][c] 15:28, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Display of original and archived links

Currently, a template like this:

{{cite web|title=The 19th TASS |url=http://www.fac-assoc.org/19%20TASS/19thTASS.htm|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/5gwhyRHS6|archivedate=2009-05-21|deadurl=no|accessdate=2009-05-19}}

displays like this:

"19th TASS". Archived from the original on 2009-05-21. Retrieved on 2009-05-19.

where the first link is to the archive, the second to the original.

I suggest this instead:

"19th TASS". Retrieved on 2009-05-19. Archived on 2009-05-21.

The revised format has a number of advantages:

  • It's shorter.
  • It puts the retrieval date of the original link next to that link.
  • It puts the original retrieval date and archive date in chronological order.
  • It makes it easier for the reader to follow the link to the original page, which is a better place to go. (Better for the reader, plus the original page owner will be less unhappy with any archive link if his/her page gets a more prominent position.)

On the flip side, I acknowledge that the current format works equally well whether the parameter deadurl has a value of "no" or "yes", while the proposed format is not the best if the value is "yes". So, at the cost of yet more complexity, I suggest that what the reader sees should depend on whether the original url is recorded as dead or not; if deadurl=yes, then the current display is better. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:49, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Good change. An admin needs to make it tho.--2008Olympianchitchat 22:49, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I strongly object. I believe that the first link should be to the page that contains the information that serves to verify the information in the article. Maybe I'm missing something but it appears that if this change is make then hurried users are likely to click the link to an updated page or dead link and become confused. The fourth point seems to claim that there is some value to the page owner if the change is made. I believe Wikipedia should put the good the the reader first. We are under no obligation to the owners of web pages we link to except that they should not be misrepresented. Most links to archived pages are the result of link rot. If rot results in a dead link what value is there in placing the dead link first.
By the way, should the accessdate be the date the bad link was last accessed or the date the archived version was last accessed. The first case seems to provide little in the way of useful information to the reader. --droll [chat] 00:29, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Accessdate should always be the date the original website was accessed, because that shows exactly when the cited material was pulled, and may determine which copy of an archived page should be used. Accessdate should not be changed unless 1) the source has changed and text in the article is being changed to match, or 2) it can absolutely be confirmed that the current version of the source matches the originally viewed source. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 06:41, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

To address each of Droll's points:

  • the first link should be to the page that contains the information that serves to verify the information in the article. The best source of verification is the original page, if available. That's because (a) the pageowner may have posted a correction or updated the page; or (b) the pageowner may have updated the links on the page that provide supporting facts. Moreover, if the page no longer provides support for the citation, that can be an indication that the pageowner has changed his/her mind about the matter. Let's keep in mind that the core issue isn't whether the original posting editor was right or wrong (something that the archived page can resolve); the issue is whether what is in the article is correct. And for that, we want to send the reader to the latest version of the page.
  • hurried users are likely to click the link to an updated page or dead link and become confused. If they click the link to an updated page and it doesn't support the claim, we want them to realize that's a problem - and we'd want them to do that whether or not the original page ever supported the claim. As for finding a dead link and becoming confused, they would always have the alternative of clicking on the "Archived" link. (It's reasonable to assume that Web users are quite familiar with dead links, and understand what "Archived" means.)
  • We are under no obligation to the owners of web pages we link to except that they should not be misrepresented. Owners of web site pages provide supporting information for Wikipedia; if we can help them without hindering readers, we should.
  • Most links to archived pages are the result of link rot. Here I owe an apology for not having prefaced my suggestion with some background: we have a new bot, User:WebCiteBOT, whose purpose is to try to archive every external link that can be archived (some web owners block this). So while it's certainly true that most archived links today are due to link rot, that (hopefully) won't be the case in the future as this bot goes to work. (It was looking at this bot's work that lead me to this template; originally I thought that the bot was formatting the citation I was examining.)

Finally, I note that we should encourage editors to change the deadurl parameter from =no to =yes when a link is bad. Better yet, we should get a bot to do link checking and change this parameter as needed (see the discussion at WP:VPPR#Dead external links). Droll and I have no disagreement as to what do do when a link is bad - we absolutely don't want to provide that link when we have an archived version that works. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Authorlink display

Note that the template displays incorrectly when an authorlink is used.

For example

or even

in comparison to

where "[|" and "]" are added around the author's name. Hyacinth (talk) 22:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Authorlink is intended to link internally to the author's wikipedia entry. It isn't intended for a URL. For example:
Shakespeare, William (1 January 2008). "Random website". http://en.wikipedia.org/. Retrieved on 2 February 2009. 
— Huntster (t • @ • c) 23:24, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "released date" or "article date" for date filed

this article has left me in a quandary as to what to cite. The problem is the release date is before the article date. EDIT: another site - this one is off by an even larger margin and this one is not even in the same year.陣内Jinnai 01:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

If you are talking about what date should be included in the |date= field, then it is always the article date...when the article itself is published. For the purposes of the citation, it doesn't matter when the media (audio, video, etc) was actually published...though it is useful that the article clearly gives that date. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:11, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
??? That statement wasn't clear due to way you used "published."陣内Jinnai 04:54, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
What I mean is you should use the date that the article, review, whatever, was published...originally written. Not the date the media was released. For example, in the case of the first link you provided, you would use |date=February 6, 2008, the date the article was published, instead of February 5, the date the media was released. Is that clearer? — Huntster (t • @ • c) 11:17, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Field order

Given the importance of reliable sourcing, it makes no sense to me to have the URL displayed before the publisher. Can we change that? Disembrangler (talk) 12:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean? The URL is part of the title field, which is definitely appropriate in its current location. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] archiveurl

I used the "archiveurl" parameter in a citation to link to the archive in case the original becomes unavailable, but I want the main link to still point to the original which is currently available (using the archive as a back-up only). How do I do that? --Joshua Issac (talk) 19:08, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Use url= to include the original URL and it will link displayed as "original". See #Display of original and archived links above]]. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 19:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I had not noticed that section. --Joshua Issac (talk) 20:28, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Translation parameter

I have added support for the translation parameter. Will add docs later. Revert if any problems are encountered. See also here. Crum375 (talk) 13:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Date format

Is there a particular that this template continues to use ISO 8601-format dates it in its examples even though Wikipedia no longer autoformats dates, or has it just been forgotten? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Black Falcon (talk • contribs) 19:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I have boldly replaced the date format to use {{CURRENTDAY}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} (e.g. 6 July 2009). This affects just the examples in the documentation and can be modified (added later: within articles) as desired by individual editors. –BLACK FALCON (TALK) 16:25, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I support you here. Debresser (talk) 16:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
That fixes the examples. I'm guessing by the state of thousands of articles that ISO has become the defacto standard. We do have a way to format the date without linking, but no will to implement this. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 19:35, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Parameter sequence

Do I understand that the sequence of parameters is determined by the editor (e.g. if I type accessdate=2009-01-01 first when editing, it will be rendered in first position)? Maybe that should be written in the doc, then. -DePiep (talk) 08:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

No, off the top of my head I cannot think of any template that allows user-defined placement. This template uses a fixed placement of output that depends on what parameters are used. In your example, accessdate will be output close to the end. For example:
— Huntster (t • @ • c) 11:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, a sandbox-test confirms your answer. Thx. Must have been a different mistake by me. -DePiep (talk) 12:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] date parameter moved?

Am I crazy or did the date of production-related parameters (date, year etc.) get moved from parentheses after the author to the end of the line? Why? Circeus (talk) 16:35, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Not as far as I can tell. See my example in the section above...the publication year still comes in parentheses after the author. You may have run into some kind of special situation...can you show an example of the problem? — Huntster (t • @ • c) 04:03, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
See notes #1,2,10,11 at Yves Bérubé. Notes the same problem shows up in notes #8 and 9, which use {{cite journal}}. Circeus (talk) 06:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Ah, I see, I thought you meant the dates were showing up at the end even when author was present. IIRC, it was considered inappropriate (and I agree) to place the date at the front of the citation when there was no author given, so things could be sorted better (i.e., sort either by author or title). This is already an issue with metadata collection, and could eventually be useful in articles if/when citation handling is improved. I don't remember if the date used to stay at the front in all cases, but I don't believe it's been that way for a while. AKA, this is a normal occurrence. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 11:03, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. Personally I would have moved the date to after the title, but I'll bow to the statu quo. Circeus (talk) 16:45, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Quotes should not be part of the link.

{{editprotected}} Compare Bob (2009). "FOOBAR". BARFOO. http://www.google.ca.  ({{cite journal}}) with Bob (2009). "FOOBAR". BARFOO. http://www.google.ca.  ({{cite web}}). Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 17:07, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I think I agree, but have no idea how to fix it. I've asked User:Crum375 if he/she can help. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
This is a {{Citation/core}} issue, and after looking at it, I don't see a readily apparent fix, considering it appears to be designed to accommodate both quote marks and italics. Far too complicated. Personally, I don't see this as an issue...it doesn't change the meaning of anything, but don't care either way. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 11:10, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I concur with Huntster. I too see no easy way around this, without adding complexity to the core engine (which services many other citation types). How important do you feel it is? Crum375 (talk) 12:58, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Couldn't resist a challenge, so I fixed it. Since this is a common engine, it may affect other citation types, so this may need to be reverted if other users run into issues. Let me know what you think. Crum375 (talk) 14:03, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Looks good here. I can't see where it would break a citation style, if anything, it would've fixed the other styles, as they too would need to have the quotes outside the link. Thanks. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 15:09, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Hopefully you are right, and it won't break anything or ruffle any feathers. Worst case, we can always revert to the old style. Crum375 (talk) 17:37, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Well done, Crum, thanks for that. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 09:44, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] error in titles with closing bracket

It seems like titles with closing brackets "]" at the end of the title are placed after the url link on the title page. Many of the music references in School Rumble use closing brackets for their title the final bracket is placed after the link despite being part of the title.陣内Jinnai 18:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I believe this is a known issue in most of the citation templates. You'll have to wrap that part of the title in <nowiki></nowiki> tags to get around it. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 18:52, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Cite_web"
Personal tools
Visit joltnews for the latest headlines
Visit bloit.com for company information
Geed Media does computer consulting on long island.
This page viewed times. See Logs