MediaWiki talk:Cite text/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about MediaWiki:Cite text. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Self-references?

Should we add a section which will allow people to cite Wikipedia articles in other articles? I'm thinking something along the lines of:

{{Web reference
 | Publisher = ''{{SITENAME}}, {{MediaWiki:Sitesubtitle}}''
 | Title = {{FULLPAGENAME}} 
 | Author = Wikipedia contributors
 | Date = {{CURRENTDAY}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}
 | Year = {{CURRENTYEAR}}
 | URL = {{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|oldid={{REVISIONID}}}}
 }}

giving:

Web reference error: Parameters url and title must be specified Wikipedia contributors. Template:Web reference. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. URL accessed on 6 October, 2006.

HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 08:21, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

A simple link in a see also section is more appropriate. All of this data will be at the user's finger-prints without needlessly cluttering the page. Superm401 - Talk 07:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with this as well. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 01:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Not Cited?

Catherine Munro added text saying "NOTE: Most teachers and professionals do not consider encyclopedias to be citable reference material for most purposes." I highly doubt that is true. I have always been taught, "cite the source you use." This means you don't try to decide whether it's "appropriate"; you cite it as used because you used it. It would be more correct to replace this with "NOTE: Most teachers and professionals do not consider it appropriate to use an encyclopedia as a sole source for any information." That is probably a more realistic statement and doesn't encourage people to deny the actual sources used fair credit. What do others think? Superm401 - Talk 07:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

That sounds excellent. I was struggling to find a way to address the point briefly on this page, because we really shouldn't provide the citations without at least mentioning the "what teachers will accept" issue, but I didn't want the alert to be alarmist, either. I like your suggestion. Perhaps even "NOTE: Most teachers and professionals do not consider it appropriate to use tertiary sources such as encyclopedias as a sole source for any information." -- if you think the additional link would be helpful? — Catherine\^talk 18:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

That seems reasonable; it might distract the user, but they don't have to click the link and the article's brief. Superm401 - Talk 05:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like a good idea. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 09:21, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

MLA underlining

Ingoolemo just changed the italicized text under MLA style to be underlined instead. The MLA isn't actually so clear about which practice is preferred. [1] Moreover, because underlined text can be confused for hyperlinks in webpages (and Word documents, for example), the italicized option might be less confusing. Of course, this message reminds users to "check for the exact syntax to suit your needs," under the bibliographic details, so I guess it's a moot point. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 07:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

That is a correct observation. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 20:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I've never understood why the cool word "underscore" has been replaced by its insipid and uninspired cousin, "underline." Svanslyck (talk) 16:43, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

AMA

I'm adding AMA style to this and Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia in response to a Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) request. Superm401 - Talk 22:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Typo

CatherineMunro's recent change to this message introduced a typo: under the MLA citation section, the organization name is given as "Wikimedia Foundations, Inc." The s shouldn't be there, of course. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 08:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. This is clearly a typo error. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 16:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

SITENAME

Now that we've changed all occurences of "Wikipedia" to "{{SITENAME}}", we need a {{FULLORGNAME}} variable for "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc." Should I file a bug on this? :^P – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 07:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Can't hurt... Tito xd^(?!?) 00:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

This is indeed a great idea. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 03:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Link to cite a specific version of an article on a (Wikipedia) talk page

What's the best way to reference a specific version of an article on talk? Can we add this on "Special:Cite" (ideally to copy and paste). -- User:Docu 14:37, 6 June 2006 (UTC).

You just copy and paste the relevant revision's link from the history. Special:Cite already provides that link: the link it gives to cite this article is the link to the revision you are currently looking at. -Splash - tk 13:25, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I made this change that implements what I generally use on talk pages. -- User:Docu 15:08, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Fix APA text

See WP:AN#Incorrect APA Citation and bugzilla:7024 where the period at the end of the APA citation should apparently not be there. Kevin_b_er 04:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Done, but I would like to see where exactly on the APA manual it says that. Tito xd^(?!?) 04:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I note now that it was on WP:AN, not WP:ANI. I found what I think is the APA guideline on it too: http://www.apastyle.org/elecsource.html --Kevin_b_er 05:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Primary Contributors

Thanks for taking the lagged tool out for now, Titoxd. There's another alternative I've found, which seems to be no more than a few days behind; see http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl -- would this be a good alternative for the time being? — Catherine\^talk 03:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I had seen a while ago that that tool existed, but the problem is that we cannot pass any parameters to the website; the page's name has to be entered manually in the input box. Would that be acceptable? Tito xd^(?!?) 05:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, that is a problem. Are the advantages of the contributor list worth the hassle of typing or copy-pasting for the user? I'm on the fence about it; adding it probably wouldn't do any harm, but it's likely to be confusing for users, with no good place to put instructions. Maybe we can ask the author if the code can be tweaked to accept parameters? Or we can just leave out the contributors bit until we have a reliable toolserver. I don't feel strongly either way; I just saw your remove the old link and remembered an alternative I had bookmarked a long time ago and thought it might help. — Catherine\^talk 07:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I am not entirely sure about that. We could ask the creator of the tool to expose the parameter to the URL; however, it is still a question as to whether we should. Basically, that tool is an HTML scraper, which is OK for low-usage pages; however, when you have a high-usage tool, such as Interiot's "Wannabe Kate" editcounter, you can eat up to 4 GB of text a day in bandwidth; that may be more than the creator of the history parsers has available to him, so it could actually translate to monetary costs to him. So, ideally, I'd like this to be implemented in MediaWiki... so perhaps we should bring this up in WP:VPT to see what other people think about a software extension? Tito xd^(?!?) 00:59, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I would bug the devs about a built in edit counter before this though... —Mets501 (talk) 01:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

That's an entirely different issue, but since you brought it up, it is of lower importance, IMO, as this would help in the ability to cite Wikipedia, while the editcounter is basically only for our own fun... Tito xd^(?!?) 01:56, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Besides, built-in editcounters already exist, they are just disabled. Tito xd^(?!?) 01:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Good points all -- by all means, bring it up at VPT and bugzilla. Certainly not a priority enhancement for MediaWiki, but a nice one to have down the line. (And not just for those wishing to cite us; a researcher friend I know was delighted to explore the statistics for various articles.) — Catherine\^talk 08:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've submitted Bug 7988 now. Tito xd^(?!?) 23:23, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

That's not true. All I had to do is hack the form. The URL is http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl?lang=en&page=PAGENAME. Should I add it to the page, or are we concerned about the bandwith? Superm401 - Talk 02:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say add it. If it becomes an issue, we'll remove it. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Edit Request

Revert back to the last version by Centrx, as the toolserver seems to be working again (at least for me!). 146.186.44.217 04:40, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the replication lag is so long for the toolserver that it makes the whole tool useless. See for example it's entry for the article"Polar coordinate system", where it says it's unedited, but in fact the page has existed for months. —Mets501 (talk) 06:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Error in Bluebook Format

There is an error in the bluebook format of this page. While I understand concerns the concerns that lead to the locking of this page, it is nevertheless frustrating that I cannot change it myself.

Instead of saying MediaWiki talk:Cite text/Archive 1, //en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_talk:Cite_text/Archive_1&oldid=1108729733 (last visited <citation>November 21, 2024</citation>), it should say MediaWiki talk:Cite text/Archive 1, //en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_talk:Cite_text/Archive_1&oldid=1108729733 (last visited <citation>Nov. 21, 2024</citation>).

Copying and pasting the new code should fix it. Thanks. --cut copy 17:28, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I've added {{editprotected}} to this section; the tag requests the attention of an admin to make the edit for you. (All MediaWiki pages are protected and cannot be unprotected due to their high visibility.) --ais523 17:55, 20 March 2007 (U T C)

Is that better? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:12, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes. Thank you! --cut copy 13:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Both Bluebook styles (where abbreviation of months is required) improperly indicate that May is an abbreviation ("May."). Only months of >4 letters should be abbreviated (other months are fully spelled out and omit the abbreviation-notation period), see The Bluebook, A Uniform System of Citation, 17th ed, 2000, p. 316. (In Bluebook style, months are indicated as follows: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.)

Supplement: Usage of {{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}}. (that is, {{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}} plus the trailing period) should perhaps be replaced by: {{#switch: {{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}} | Jan = Jan. | Feb = Feb. | Mar = Mar. | Apr = Apr. | May = May | Jun = June | Jul = July | Aug = Aug. | Sep = Sept. | Oct = Oct. | Nov = Nov. | Dec = Dec. }} —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamgoldberg (talk • contribs)

Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Sorry, it's apparently fixed for Bluebook style, but not for the Harvard version; also, "<citation>" and "</citation>" surrounds the dates now (and it didn't used to).

Furthermore, the code yields a concatenation of the month abbreviation (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec), with "" for May, "e" for June and "y" for July, otherwise a period. This yields Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sep., Nov., Dec. This is incorrect, as the BlueBook abbreviation for September is Sept.

The code "should" be... (but I don't know how to deal with the <citation> not turning up correctly)

=== [[Bluebook|Bluebook style]] === {{FULLPAGENAME}}, {{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|oldid={{REVISIONID}}}} (last visited <citation>{{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}}{{#switch:{{CURRENTMONTH}}|05=|06=e|07=y|09=t.|.}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}}</citation>).

=== [[Bluebook#Citation_to_Wikipedia|Bluebook: Harvard JOLT style]] === ''See'' {{SITENAME}}, ''{{FULLPAGENAME}}'', {{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}}} (optional description here) (as of <citation>{{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}}{{#switch:{{CURRENTMONTH}}|05=|06=e|07=y|09=t.|.}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}}, {{CURRENTTIME}}</citation> GMT).

Results as currently coded:

Bluebook style

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=H.264/MPEG-4_AVC&oldid=292986051 (last visited <citation>May 28, 2009</citation>).

Bluebook: Harvard JOLT style

See Wikipedia, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC (optional description here) (as of <citation>May. 28, 2009, 23:28</citation> GMT).

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamgoldberg (talk • contribs) 23:49, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Done, I took your code. I'm surprised to see that Harvard style doesn't use a permalink to the page, is that's how it's supposed to be?
The citation tags did surround the date before, see here. I have no idea what they are for though, or if they should include the "GMT" in Harvard style. Amalthea 09:44, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Sorry, still not quite right. I'd hoped that you could figure out what's wrong with the <citataion> and </citation>. I don't know what they're for, but whatever it is, they're not being processed and are coming out as-is. The XML (or whatever) is certainly not part of the Bluebook styles.

Also, I'm surprised that there's a difference in the permalink usage. Both should be the same; I'd very likely want to use {{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}}}, but I'm not a lawyer. Adamgoldberg (talk) 10:52, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Addendum: http://eastcoastlawyer.blogspot.com/2007/01/wikipedia-bluebook-cite.html is a lawyer who indicates the Bluebook style should be "Wikipedia, Article Name (italicized), website address (last visited date). " That DOES seeem to be the style used by JOLT, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/43296467@N00/?donelayout=1 (a snippet from http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v22/22HarvJLTech075.pdf) (ignore the 'signals', "see, e.g., " -- signals used depends on the context). Also note that the actual JOLT usage is {{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}}}.

Based on going to the source (JOLT), I suggest that the JOLT style should be:

=== [[Bluebook#Citation_to_Wikipedia|Bluebook: Harvard JOLT style]] === {{SITENAME}}, ''{{FULLPAGENAME}}'', {{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}}} (optional description here) (as of {{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}}{{#switch:{{CURRENTMONTH}}|05=|06=e|07=y|09=t.|.}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}}, {{CURRENTTIME}} GMT).

Adamgoldberg (talk) 11:19, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I thought that the tag had some purpose, but you're right, they seem to be some feature that stopped working. I'm gonna ask the editor who added it originally. Sooo ... I've removed them, also removed the "See" part, and left the URL of the Harvard format untouched as per your example (which means it doesn't list the permalink, but hints at the revision that is being cited through the "as of date" bit). Hmm.
Thanks, Amalthea 23:39, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, it's been so long since it was added (~ 4 years) that I don't even remember what it was for... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:14, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

OK thanks. If anybody misses them they'll drop by eventually. Amalthea 13:46, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Impropper case in BibTeX entities

BibTeX will make all letters but the first in the title lower case unless you indicate otherwise by putting them in curly braces. For example, the BibTeX title entity should be:

title = "{B}ib{T}e{X} --- {W}ikipedia{,} {T}he {F}ree {E}ncyclopedia",

I don't know how easy it would be to change this. - Mtruch 04:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Not easy. It requires a change in the MediaWiki software. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Primary contributors

I switched the tool to be the same as the one on MediaWiki:Histlegend: Revision history statistics This tool is useful and fast, with no replication lag or other issues as far as I know. --Seattle Skier (talk) 19:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

IEEE

can we add the IEEE citation standard.... please?^[1] Bud0011 (talk) 23:41, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Time stamp

The time stamp for acessed date is not working properly [2]. Can anyone replace the {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTMONTH}}, ..., for acessed date by {{#time:}} to fix it? Thanks. Giro720 (talk) 16:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Well it took me three tries, but I did it! This goes to show how important it is to read bug reports fully. — RockMFR 03:30, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

^ http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/find/citation/ieee.html#Books

[IEEE-1] ttp://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/find/citation/ieee.html#Books

[1]