Template talk:Harvard citations

broken harv link reporting

Please see the discussion at Module talk:Footnotes § broken harv link reporting where a broken harv-link reporting scheme is proposed.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Ref parameter not working in harvs

Because of Dutch capitalization conventions, it is sometimes appropriate to capitalize the first letter of a Dutch surname and sometimes not. For instance, we should capitalize "De Bruijn" in the reference

• De Bruijn, N. G.; Erdős, P. (1951), "A colour problem for infinite graphs and a problem in the theory of relations" (PDF), Nederl. Akad. Wetensch. Proc. Ser. A, 54: 371–373, doi:10.1016/S1385-7258(51)50053-7, MR 0046630, archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-10, retrieved 2010-04-05.

However, it should be lowercase in the middle of a sentence, like "The theorem was proved by Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn and Paul Erdős (1951), after whom it is named." Unfortunately the link tags made by the harv series of templates are case-sensitive. I would have thought we could make the link in the sentence above using the |ref= parameter to {{harvs}}:

• {{harvs|first2=Paul|last2=Erdős|author2-link=Paul Erdős|first1=Nicolaas Govert|last1=de Bruijn|author1-link=Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn|year=1951|txt|ref={{harvid|De Bruijn|Erdős|1951}}}}
• Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn and Paul Erdős (1951)

but the |ref= parameter appears to be ignored and the result is a broken harv link. Setting the ref in the citation itself is no good, because we might need different capitalizations in different harv links to that ref depending on context. Is there any way around this beyond manually expanding the harvs template as in the quoted sentence? Is the failure to respect the ref parameter a bug that can be fixed? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:57, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the answer to your question, but I will note that the inline parenthetical referencing that currently appears in a few places in De Bruijn–Erdős theorem (graph theory) is deprecated per WP:PARREF and WP:Citing sources § Parenthetical referencing. The sentence above should be rewritten to something like "The theorem was proved by Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn and Paul Erdős (after whom it is named) in 1951" with a ref tag at the end. But the question is still relevant when one wants to use the harv series of templates within ref tags. Biogeographist (talk) 22:54, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

The example above works as it stands: clicking the 1951 link takes me to the full ref. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

It is a lie that this style is deprecated. The RFC on deprecation of parenthetical referencing explicitly was framed by its promoters as applying only to inline citations like (Author Year) used as an alternative to footnotes (two different ways of formatting extra-textual callouts to sources), and not to apply to inline text like Author (Year) used as a way to give a name to specific sources as part of the actual text of the article rather than as a mere citation to the article. Participants in the RFC repeatedly stated the constrained nature of what it applied to despite its poor and vague wording that could be interpreted more broadly. The changed wording you suggest is a semantic change to the content of the article (changing the noun in its sentence from a name for the paper in which the proof appears to a less-direct reference to a pair of people who wrote that paper and many others), not a change of citation style. The spread of this lie as a misinterpretation of the RFC is exactly why I was so strongly opposed to the RFC when it happened. As a participant in the RFC you have no excuse for not being aware of all this. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:19, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

As for "it works as it stands": it was definitely not working this morning, but appears to be working now. I think Special:Diff/1004885299 by User:Trappist the monk may have fixed things — thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 01:06, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I am not "lying"; (Author Year) and Author (Year) are both parenthetical referencing; just because the opening parenthesis is moved over doesn't make it less of a parenthetical reference! Both placements of the parentheses are in Parenthetical referencing, and the closing statement in WP:PARREF says that inline parenthetical referencing is deprecated, with no mention of a special kind of inline parenthetical referencing that is not deprecated. Biogeographist (talk) 01:30, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Are you (Biogeographist) the same person as Redrose64? If so, why are you using two accounts to contribute to the discussion? If not, why are you using first person? And yes, whether you are one or two people, you are continuing to promote falsehoods. "(Author Year)" is a citation. It is a piece of extra-textual information, not part of the grammar of the sentence to which it is added, pointing readers to a place where the information in the sentence can be verified. "Author (Year)" may also be a citation (for instance, if it appears by itself in that format within a footnote, also not forbidden by the RFC, which only concerned inline-to-the-text citations and not how to format footnotes) but in the specific article that Redrose64 pointed to, the constructions of this form are not citations. They are all used as noun phrases within the text of the article, as ways of referring to publications within that text, rather than as extra-textual citation markers that are not part of the text but merely used to verify the text. As such, RFCs on how to format citations do not apply to these constructions. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:57, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Redrose64 and I are different people who made different comments above. Again, I'm not "lying". Apparently we are using different definitions of the term "inline parenthetical referencing" because the term was not clearly enough defined in the closure of WP:PARREF. It would take another RFC to clarify which definition is right; accusing me of lying doesn't vindicate your definition. Why I think you're wrong, if it isn't clear already: You say that "Author (Year)" is a way of referring to publications within that text, but a way of referring to publications within that text is nothing but a reference ("referring"), an inline reference using parentheses or inline parenthetical reference, which is what WP:PARREF deprecated! I am not personally opposed to inline parenthetical referencing: I opposed its deprecation. Before the deprecation of inline parenthetical referencing, I used "Author (Year)" inline parenthetical references, but I have stopped using them because of the deprecation. Biogeographist (talk) 02:35, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: To whom did you address the comment It is a lie that this style is deprecated.? If Biogeographist, they are correct to use the first person pronoun when replying. If myself (Redrose64), what did I say that suggested that opinion? Similarly, which of us is implied in your sentence As a participant in the RFC you have no excuse for not being aware of all this.? Judicious use of {{replyto}} (as I did at the start of this post) would have avoided such confusion. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:58, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I was confused by the lack of additional indentation into thinking Biogeographist's initial comment was yours. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:54, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

My post of 22:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC) was indented with a single colon because I was replying to you, not to Biogeographist - in accordance with H:TP#Indentation which says Each comment should be indented one more level than the comment it replies to, which may or may not be the preceding comment. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:55, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Error message needed in harvs

Please see the context of this request: "It looks like {{harvs}} permits |first= without |last=, which should probably be flagged as an error. I recommend bringing that problem up on the talk page for that template, to see if anyone is willing to code an error-tracking category for that template." Thank you, --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 00:39, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Module talk:Footnotes § loc, at

 You are invited to join the discussion at Module talk:Footnotes § loc, at. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:47, 4 May 2024 (UTC)