Wikipedia talk:ProveIt/Archive 2021

Shortened footnotes

Is there a way to allow ProveIt to work with shortened footnotes ({{sfn}}, {{harvnb}} in ref tags and the like)? Cheers, Ovinus (talk) 10:37, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Enhancement request

I use ProveIt to remove bogus sources, it's good because it picks up all referenced instances of the source. This would be easier if the "filter" box would search on the entire citation - authors, website etc. Guy (help!) 09:14, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: I agree, I don't usually do this, but I can see how it would be nice to be able to search all fields for templated citations. Also, in terms of general UI enhancements, it would be great if all the buttons had tooltips to remind you of their behavior - Add Reference, Add Bibliography, and Normalize Everything in what I'll call the "bibliograhy view", and Cite, Remove, and Update on what I'll call the "individual reference" view. Lastly it would be great if the tool had a link directly to the gadget project page, maybe at the bottom where there's some empty grayspace. -Furicorn (talk) 17:32, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

new Category:CS1 maint: discouraged parameter

Noted a new CS1 template about hyphenation. Appreciate if normalising reference can fix this at the same time also. --Justanothersgwikieditor (talk) 09:22, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

cite dictionary being changed to cite encylopedia

Why? There is a significant difference between a dictionary and an encyclopedia that needs to be preserved (even though at present the output is the same). That may not be the case in the future. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:09, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Using ProveIt to change citation templates to a preferred style

I have once again found an edit made to an article where the sole purpose for using the ProveIt gadget was to alter the format of citations — which in doing so defied WP:CITEVAR, which states: "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change.... editors should not attempt to convert Wikipedia to their own preferred style, nor should they edit articles for the sole purpose of converting them to their preferred style."
This edit was unnecessary and since this is not the first time I've seen how ProveIt has been used to change the established templates in an article, I believe that this gadget is being misused.
I'd like to take this opportunity to point out to those who are using ProveIt that Wikipedia's edit toolbar contains pre-formatted templates under "Cite". When you open Cite you open the "Templates" selection. When you open Templates you get 4 choices: cite web, cite news, cite book, cite journal. ProveIt is being used to alter these templates.
A manual for how to properly use the ProveIt gadget is needed because some editors are shooting from the hip with it (frankly, they don't know what they're doing). I have also posted this comment in WT:CITE. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 12:34, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, it's more a cosmetic rearrangement of the citations, than another citation style. Grimes2 (talk) 17:38, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

In the example cited, because the previous text used {{cite web}} rather than {{cite news}}, the gadget changed instances of work= to website=, which is irritating but doesn't affect the output. Ideally the bot should flag these for attention (like wp:REFILL) rather than accept the citation type at face value. I also think it unhelpful to change author=John Doe to last=John Doe: although the output is the same, it misleads subsequent inexperienced editors. Do it right or don't do it at all.

In most cases where I have felt the need to use ProveIt's "normalize everything", the citation markup already in the article has been appallingly bad – definitely nowhere near raising CITEVAR hackles – and typically I have had to use ReFill and CitationBot too, as well as hand-crafting. So, despite its flaws, it is a useful tool.

Perhaps it would help to have a 'report a problem' in the style of User talk:Citation bot?--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:26, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Citing template capitalized

Hi! I love using this gadget as it makes formatting references much more efficient. However, is there a reason why it automatically capitalises the first letter of the deployed citing template (Cite web, Cite news...) while the standard is to have those templates with lower case? I know this is a (very) minor issue, but I thought I asked anyway since I am recently leaning towards lowering the case manually, which makes the process of formatting references a little slower. Thanks! --Tanonero (msg) 10:25, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Mnemonic ref names

Could ProveIt's Normalize everything function be improved to use mnemonic reference names (e.g. "Smith 1980", "Nature 2003:4", etc)? — Guarapiranga ☎ 01:36, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Vertical format

can we do away with vertical format? This needs to go. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 03:58, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

No. You need to drop your WP:STICK. It's an improvement. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:13, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

By the way, you really want to get rid of the feature that minimizes vertical referencing. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:14, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

This gadget should be used only in articles that do not have cited sources

Use of this gadget is creating strange, unnecessary changes to citation templates. It's screwing around with the order of parameters, capitalizing templates, adding quotation marks to refnames when under Template:Refname rules the marks are optional if a refname meets the specific guideline, and other alterations to citation templates that were not problematic beforehand. This gadget is a cosmetic tool that satisfies OCD editing, but nothing else. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 09:20, 23 August 2021 (UTC)