Template talk:Cite newspaper The Times/Archive 1

Archive 1

Rational

The Times index stretches back to 1785 and has a particular way of citing exactly where in the newspaper an article, a photo, an advertisement etc. is. I feel this is not represented adequately by the existing newspaper templates so have created this one.

This is my first attempt at this type of template so please feel free to improve it or comment. Mehmet Karatay 21:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Why does this template exist? What does it do that cite journal can't do? I fixed the inconsistency in the page field. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:53, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The template is a useful one, having a few Times specific fields not in cite journal (which is for magazines, not newspapers). Having existed this long, I doubt there is any argument against its retention. Mjroots (talk) 09:40, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Universal Daily Register

It occurs to me that as The Times was originally The Universal Daily Register, we should also have a separate template to allow citation from that paper. I realise that it only covers 1785-88 and thus may not be highly used, but I feel that it would be a template worth having. Mjroots (talk) 09:40, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Link

The link to The Times article was recently removed from the template. Would it be possible to add a |link= parameter to allow a single link per article from a reference? The default would be no link, with the insertion of "on" or "yes" allowing a link. Mjroots (talk) 07:53, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

• That seems like a reasonable compromise. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:01, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. Jenks24 (talk) 03:11, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

location

The Times (UK) was indeed wrong, but The Times without any location is even worse. There are many newspapers all over the world called The Times. The correct form for this one, since newspapers are always identified by the city of publication, not by country, is The Times (London). -- Alarics (talk) 09:33, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

date format

The date format given in the example (Feb 08 1932) is completely unacceptable, for three separate reasons:

• We do not abbreviate months, as repeatedly discussed in MOSNUM.
• If mdy is to be used, there must be a comma before the year.
• We do not use leading zeroes in any date format except YYYY-MM-DD, which in any case is deprecated for use in any dates other than access dates.

Also, the inclusion of the day of the week seems perverse. I have never seen it in any other references. Just because The Times own archive cites this does not seem to me a good reason for incorporating it in Wikipedia references to The Times when we do not put it in references to any other kind of source.

I would make the same point about column number. Just the page number is good enough for all other sources, so it should be good enough for The Times.

With all due respect to its creator, who has obviously put this forward in good faith, I do question the need for this template at all. -- Alarics (talk) 09:44, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd argue strongly in favour of keeping this template. You may not see the need for the section and column, but it is those that that Times archives are indexed by. Usefulness to our readers outweighs the obsession with standardized appearances for citation templates, and unless and until the standard templates can handle the Times indexing style, this ought to remain. A page number alone is not a great deal of use when it comes to the Times; early issues were printed on huge format sheets, and 18th-century issues can easily have 30-40 items to a page. – iridescent 14:14, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, keep the template if you want, but the date must be written correctly. I have changed the documentation accordingly. -- Alarics (talk) 15:59, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

The Times Digital Archive

The citation format suggested by The Times Digital Archive has changed. Using the example I have in front of me at the moment:

• (1) Citation at the top of the page: Mr. F. M. O'donoghue. The Times (London, England), Wednesday, Dec 11, 1929; pg. 19; Issue 45383.
• (2) Suggested citation at the bottom of the page: "Mr. F. M. O'donoghue." Times [London, England] 11 Dec. 1929: 19. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 18 Mar. 2012.

A couple of comments on this: (i) The capital 'D' in O'Donoghue has been dropped, though it seems all auto-generated citations are now dropping capital letters everywhere. (ii) The column letter ('B' in this case) is missing, but can be obtained by looking at the full page scane. Previously, the column letter was provided. (iii) The suggested citation at the bottom of the page is accompanied by a suggested URL to use, but looking at the parameters, it includes information on the user ID such as '&prodId=' and '&userGroupName='. And other stuff as well - it may be possible to derive a cleaner URL, but I'm not sure it is worth the effort. I do think people using 'The Times Digital Archive' should say that, as opposed to someone looking up an original print edition in a library. I'm going to ask whether and how this template should be modified to reflect these changes. Carcharoth (talk) 13:11, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

(A) The square brackets round "London, England" are inappropriate in WP.

(B) "England" is superfluous anyway.

(C) The date format used is completely unacceptable. We don't abbreviate months.

(D) Our normal way of citing a page number in newspapers is "p.19".

(E) The name of the newspaper is "The Times", not "Times".

(F) I disagree that it is necessary or desirable to mention the Times Digital Archive, or the word "Web". What we are citing is the newspaper; the website provides a "courtesy copy" thereof, which in this case happens to be an exact image of the actual page or article. Just cite the newspaper in the usual way, and the URL if you must, although since it is not available to most people, I personally think that is not a good idea.

(G) This is what that citation should look like, in my view:

• "Mr. F.M. O'Donoghue". The Times. London. 11 December 1929. p. 19.

(H) Since we have our own rules for citing sources in Wikipedia, I don't think we should take any notice of how a particular source itself recommends that it be cited. -- Alarics (talk) 14:12, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Bolding

The bolding was recently removed. I've undone this edit because it affects hundreds, if not thousands of articles. One case in point is all the "List of shipwrecks in (year)" lists between 1785 and 2006. In these lists, I've bolded the issue number in the case of non-Times references to get a uniform referencing style (e.g. List of shipwrecks in 1820). Removing the bolding from this template means that a vast number of articles will have to be manually altered. Therefore I propose that we maintain the status quo. Mjroots (talk) 07:54, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Similarly, introduction of the template in articles that already use other citation templates introduces inconsistent citation formatting. The answer to this is not to introduce the template to articles that use a different citation format. DrKiernan (talk) 08:18, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

But that is relatively easy to fix, as shown. If we were to remove the bold from this template, would a bot be able to handle the removal of bold from all {{cite news}} templates where it is in use? I'm easy either way re bold, but I don't want to spend hours manually removing bold text to get a consistent ref format. Mjroots (talk) 11:33, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Another thing to consider is that the CS1 citation templates provide COinS metadata for use by readers with reference management software (Zotero, etc). Adding |issue=Issue '''12345''' to {{cite news}} corrupts that metadata (the issue metadata item that should be &rft.issue=12345, becomes &rft.issue=Issue+%27%27%2712345%27%27%27).

The extraneous text and wiki markup should be removed from CS1 citation templates. I don't think that this template should format |issue= in boldface because, at en.wikipedia, that font face is used to identify a journal / newspaper / magazine volume. See MOS:BOLD.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

As I said above, my objection is not the removal of the bold, but the fact that doing so affects hundreds of lists and articles. If a bot removes the bolding where it occurs, then the bold can be removed from this template too. I'd rather spend my time writing articles than having to manually adjust lists and articles where they are affected by the removal of the bold from this template. I understand the arguments for the removal and have no quarrel with them. Mjroots (talk) 12:30, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I suppose we could go to the trouble of getting a bot to do the fixes to the CS1 templates. An alternative is to run through categories known to have pages that use |issue=Issue '''12345''' with AWB. A simple search and replace should do the trick.

find: Issue\s*'''(\d+)'''

replace it with: $1

Once the known categories are out of the way, I can modify Module:Citation/CS1 to categorize pages that use |issue=Issue '''12345''' into a temporary maintenance category. Then rerun AWB over the temporary category and we're done. Right?

So, Category:Lists of shipwrecks by year is one known category. What others are there?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:59, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Category:Empire ships probably has quite a few, plus various other articles using {{cite newspaper The Times}}. Mjroots (talk) 21:31, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I've run AWB over a list of files from Category:Lists of shipwrecks by year, Category:Empire ships, and a list of files that transclude {{cite newspaper The Times}}. I limited the run to article namespace only. Of 1747 files, 34 were changed. Are there any more obvious categories or lists that should be scanned?

I've also edited {{cite newspaper The Times}} and replaced Issue '''{{{issue}}}''' with ({{{issue}}}) so that the template renders more like {{cite news}}. I think that I will further change the template so that it uses {{cite news}}.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:10, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Sandbox

In the sandbox is a {{cite news}}-based version of {{Cite newspaper The Times}} (see Template:Cite newspaper The Times/testcases for more examples.

The changes are:

1. |day_of_week= will not be supported because {{cite news}} and the rest of the Citation Style 1 templates do not support it;
2. |column=, |page_number=, and |page_numbers= will be handled in a slightly different manner. In the current live version, both |page_number= and |page_numbers= will be displayed if both are provided. In the sandbox version, if both |page_number= and |page_numbers= are provided, only |page_numbers= will be displayed.
3. in-source location punctuation is improved.

{{Cite newspaper The Times |articlename=The spelling of Kenya |url=//www.example.com |author=J.H. Reynolds |section=Letters to the editor |day_of_week=Monday |date=8 February 1932 |page_number=8 |issue=46051 |column=B }}

J.H. Reynolds (8 February 1932). "The spelling of Kenya". Letters to the editor. The Times. No. 46051. London. col B, p. 8. template uses deprecated parameter(s) (help) (live)

J.H. Reynolds (8 February 1932). "The spelling of Kenya". Letters to the editor. The Times. No. 46051. London. col B, p. 8. template uses deprecated parameter(s) (help) (sandbox)

I propose that {{Cite newspaper The Times}} should be upgraded to the sandbox version.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:41, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Is there any harm in leaving the day of week parameter in? Mjroots (talk) 21:18, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

No harm. In the examples above, it's present and ignored.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:38, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

inclusion of url

...makes sense if you can access them, but should there not be a warning that a subsciption is required to do so, as in the subscription parameter in cite web?TheLongTone (talk) 16:55, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

& having clicked on the url in an article, it seems to lead you to a login page which is specific to an individual library: ie if I have a Wetminster library subscription it does not help if the original cite was made using (day) a Manchester subscription.TheLongTone (talk) 14:52, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Though I've not seen this template used with a |url=, I have added the subscription functionality to the sandbox version. Can you provide an example {{cite newspaper The Times}} citation that does use the |url=?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:31, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

1910 London to Manchester air race has urls. I don;t use them when citing The Times myself.TheLongTone (talk) 15:47, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

That article does not use {{cite newspaper The Times}}. The Times references use {{citation}}. Or, am I missing something?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:53, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Just an example of how the urls work. I don't see that which template the url is used in is going to make a difference. http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/newspaperRetrieve.do?sort=DateAscend&docLevel=FASCIMILE&prodId=TTDA&tabID=T003&bookId=&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R1&currentPosition=63&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28tx%2CNone%2C8%29zeppelin%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C23%2901%2F01%2F1913+-+04%2F01%2F1914%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&bucketSubId=&inPS=true&userGroupName=wes_ttda&hilite=y&docPage=article&nav=next&docId=CS168231120&searchTypeName=BasicSearchForm&contentSet=LTO is the (very long) url I get for an article: it contains a specific identifier to westminster libraries. I'm basically questioning whether there is any point in cluding the url parameter.TheLongTone (talk) 17:14, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

My thoughts are that we don't need to include the url. It's a subscription only service and of little benefit to a reader. Mjroots (talk) 22:02, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Merge with {{cite news}}?

As far as I can see, the {{cite news}} template offers all of the parameters that this template does, except for day_of_week. The conversion between the two would be: The conversion between the two seems to be:

Times template	News template
articlename	title
author	author
section	department
day_of_week	N/A
date	date
page_number	page
page_numbers	pages
issue	issue
column	at (giving col. N, and p. N or pp. N)
The Times	newspaper=The Times
London	location=London

Cite news would display the contents in a different order, e.g.:

This template: Author (1 January 2000). "Title". Section. The Times. No. 1. London. col 1, p. 1. {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help) template uses deprecated parameter(s) (help)

Cite news: Author (1 January 2000). "Title". Section. The Times. No. 1. London. col. 1, p. 1, pp. 1-2. {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)

Would it be worth turning this into a redirect to the cite news template, with the newspaper and location auto-filled? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:56, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

I'd Oppose a merger, this is a dedicated template for The Times and should stay that way. It handily handles columns and days of the week - the latter is deprecated by some with {{cite news}}. Also, location is automatically added with this template, rather than having to add it in manually. Mjroots (talk) 19:04, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Oppose. What Mjroots said. The Times is unique among newspapers in that for much of its history it was published in chapbook format (that is, one enormous sheet of paper folded over to create four very large "pages") so the column letter has far more significance than for other periodicals; plus, the number of significant weekly features means it's one of the few newspapers for which the day of the week an article was published is significant. – iridescent 19:12, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Support. It makes no sense to have one format for a particular newspaper that is different from that used for all other newspapers. This non-standard template should never have been created. It simply creates inconsistency and looks weird when in the same article there are references from other newspapers. We don't need day of the week or column number. If you really want to include the column number you can do so in cite news, as Mike Peel demonstrates above. -- Alarics (talk) 19:44, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Just to clarify / point out a few things:

• I'm suggesting that it might be worth turning this into an active redirect to the other template, not deleting it in favour of cite news. By that, I mean turning this template into a call to cite news, passing the relevant parameters, and the auto-defined newspaper and location values. That way, the template benefits from the extra features of cite news.
• I doubt that this is the only newspaper that columns and days of the week might actually be relevant for: perhaps it would be worth getting these specifically added to cite news.
• I'm not sure that this is an oppose/support situation (which is why I didn't take this to templates for discussion). Perhaps we could have a discussion about the differences rather than a !vote? I'm happy for no changes to be made, if that's what people that use this template prefer.

Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:03, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

I not only don't use this template, I actively disapprove of it and I would like it to be abolished. -- Alarics (talk) 21:23, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

To reiterate, I would not support anything that involves merging this with {{cite news}} unless and until the latter can properly handle column referencing (rather than the fudge proposed above of using the "at" field and typing "column foo" into it). "Page number" on the Times pre-1850 or so is meaningless, since the "pages" are either front/back or 1–4 (depending on how that particular issue was folded). I can see a case for making the output from this template look the same as cite news, but I find the WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments above completely unconvincing; the reason we have one format for a particular newspaper that is different from that used for all other newspapers is that the old format of the paper in question is different from that of all other newspapers, not a perverse desire to be awkward. – iridescent 21:52, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: - my argument for the retention of this template as a separate one to cite news is not based on IDONTLIKEIT, unlike Alarics reasons for supporting your proposal. Turning this template into a redirect would have the same effect as deleting it. There are solid reasons for keeping this one separate. In some ways, this template creates more work for an editor using it, but that is balanced by it lessening work in other ways. It is said that there is an exception to every rule - this is the exception to cite news. Mjroots (talk) 07:12, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

OK, so the key argument seems to be that the column and day of week parameters are needed. I've asked if they can be added to cite news over at Help talk:Citation Style 1, and pointed back to this page for the reasons. Hope that helps! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 08:20, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Authorlink

This template unlike every other cite template I have ever used, does not support the authorlink= field. Could it be edited to enable this please? DuncanHill (talk) 21:55, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Temporary tracking categories

@Pigsonthewing: - what is the purpose of these uncreated categories? The are appearing on all articles and lists that use this template. Mjroots (talk) 08:07, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

As the name indicates, they are TEMPORARY. One tracks Cite newspaper The Times using the 'column' parameter; the other tracks Cite newspaper The Times using the 'day of week' parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:11, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

The relevant discussion is here (at the talk page for Help:Citation Style 1). Andy should have properly notified those using this template of the preparations he is making for his proposed changes. I do hope the temporary tracking categories are hidden ones, as otherwise they will be directly affecting article namespace. FFS! they are not hidden categories. Readers will be seeing these 'temporary' (over a day and a half now) categories popping up in many articles. That is not acceptable. Carcharoth (talk) 21:39, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

I think, to make the tracking categories hidden, someone needs to actually create them and add {{Hidden category}} to them (see Category:Hidden categories). Carcharoth (talk) 21:44, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Update: I have asked for advice here at the technical village pump. I wouldn't normally do this, but I think the issue needs some wider attention and I'll not be around for the next day or so. Carcharoth (talk) 03:25, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

|quote=

It seems like this template does not support |quote=. Could this be fixed please? Umimmak (talk) 12:33, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

done

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:38, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

|ref=?

Does this not support |ref=, for when you want to use shortened footnotes? Umimmak (talk) 19:35, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Didn't. Does now.

In future, do us the courtesy of not using {{para}} in section headers. Doing so prevents editors from directly linking to the appropriate section from watchlists. I've edited this section's header.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:56, 23 April 2017 (UTC)