Template talk:Cite web

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[edit] Dead link question

I was going through and updating some articles I work on with this template and discovered a question which prompts a suggestion. Now that waybackref has been merged, would it be possible to add something to the template to handle dead links that have not been archived? Something along the lines of deaddate= that returns 'Link found inactive <date>'. Thanks! --Bobblehead 16:43, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Good question. There's a school of thought that says that a dead link should be removed from the article altogether. When Stuyvesant High School went through its last-but-one FAC campaign, it got red-flagged for several citations to what I described as "offline" web pages. Converting them to {{waybackref}}s helped in the most recent (and successful) campaign, and motivated me to do the merger support. RossPatterson 18:31, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, according to WP:Cite if the link is a reference link and no archive is available "do not remove the inactive reference, but rather record the date that the original link was found to be inactive". --Bobblehead 19:01, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Good point. And I see that Wikipedia:Dead external links has some procedures and templates to facilitate that usage. RossPatterson 21:25, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I just popped by to make this very same proposal. Could someone please implement it? Often links will go dead without turning up at the Internet Archive, it is important that the prior existence of the link be recorded, as well as the date it eventually became inaccessible. Zunaid©Please rate me at Editor Review! 15:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] last, first

The last =, first = parameters don't seem to be working. When I use them I get no author name. author = works, however. --KarlBunker 20:24, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Can you give an example of the wikicode you use? Circeus 21:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Test:

Doesn't work[1]

Does work[2]


  1. ^ Levin, Carl (1954). Executive Sessions Of The Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations Of The Committee On Government Operations. Retrieved on 2006-06-29.
  2. ^ Carl Levin (1954). Executive Sessions Of The Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations Of The Committee On Government Operations. Retrieved on 2006-06-29.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by KarlBunker (talk • contribs).


Very funny:

{{cite web
| url = http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/06amay20030700/www.gpo.gov/congress/senate/mccarthy/83873.pdf
| title = Executive Sessions Of The Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations Of The Committee On Government Operations
| accessdate = 2006-06-29
| author =
| last = Levin
| first = Carl
| authorlink = Carl Levin
| year = 1954
}}

→Levin, Carl (1954). Executive Sessions Of The Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations Of The Committee On Government Operations. Retrieved on 2006-06-29. (←BUGGY OUTPUT)(FIXED)

{{cite web
| url = http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/06amay20030700/www.gpo.gov/congress/senate/mccarthy/83873.pdf
| title = Executive Sessions Of The Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations Of The Committee On Government Operations
| accessdate = 2006-06-29
| last = Levin
| first = Carl
| authorlink = Carl Levin
| year = 1954
}}

→Levin, Carl (1954). Executive Sessions Of The Senate Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations Of The Committee On Government Operations. Retrieved on 2006-06-29. (←OUTPUT OK)

Note the missing "author=" in the second call. I have put this oddity on my "have a look at" list. In the mean time, don't specify "author=" if you use first, last. There is generally no need to explicitly specify params as empty. Just don't specify the unused params. --Ligulem 10:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Aaand fixed. Add "?action=purge" at the end of the URL for pages that still show the buggy output (purges the cached page of the Wikipedia server) --Ligulem 11:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


Excellent; thank you! KarlBunker 14:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Italicizing publisher field

I'm not sure the publisher field should be italicized "as per Template:Cite news". Not all website names should be italicized, as far as I can tell. (Certainly Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles) doesn't put them on the list.) –Unint 01:51, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please do not link date

Please do not link the dates. Citations are not notable in their own right. We should only get linking to dates that add context to the article. See WP:MOSDATE. Especially something as trivial as the access date. Please de-link all cite templates dates. -- 67.121.112.175 00:34, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

We cannot anymore: it would cause thousands of dates to turn back into ugly ISO format, which is automatically adjusted to whatever format the user has requested in his preferences by the MediaWiki software. Circeus 00:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Just to make this clear: all anons actually *do* see the ISO format of the date, because in absence of any user preferences the dates *are* shown in ISO format with a blue link. Make a test: logout yourself and look at the examples on the upper part of this talk page here. Whether you deem ISO dates ugly or not is a different matter. At least, ISO dates are unambiguous and as such easily understood from all cultures and languages. There is also no chance for confusion between which is the day of the month and which the month. See also http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/iso-date. --Ligulem 10:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Dates should be wikilinked as per the same document 67.121.112.175 quoted in order to display dates in the method specified by the user preferences. I would advise the anon user to sign up and see what we mean by this. -Localzuk (talk) 12:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I replied to the same on my talk. See [1]. (See also m:Help:Preferences#Date_format, and an example screenshot of my date preferences for my own login). --Ligulem 12:26, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
What I mean are the square brackets in this template (and the relatively few similar "cite" templates) so that the access date and other trivial dates do not create a link. I can see the square brackets right in this template in the date-related areas and I am suggesting that they be removed. User-preference formatting gets applied in {{date}} and the built-ins it eventually calls. And anyway, the primary concern should be for the general reader, who is unregistered and who vastly outnumber contributing editors. (I am the same anon, even though I now have a very different IP) -- 64.175.40.143 09:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
You are confused. Linking the date with [[]] is the method that is used to allow user preferences to work. Extract from WP:MOSDATE
Dates containing a month and a day
If a date includes both a month and a day, then the date should normally be linked in order to allow readers' date preferences to work, displaying the reader's chosen format. The day and the month should be linked together, and the year should be linked separately if present.
We don't use templates for dates, we just link them. -Localzuk (talk) 10:11, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
In reply to 64.175.40.143: I believe I do understand your concerns, but I'm afraid there is no consensus to remove the links on the accessdates in the citation template. That whole date linking or not thing is the subject of a lot of debates on this wiki. We have a lot of date linking fans. If you remove them, they are readded within a week or so. Believe me: I've seen this. Better add it on the template than at the calls. --Ligulem 10:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New template proposed: distinguishing news vs. abstract vs. full text

We're discussing what a more integrated template could look like: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Unreferenced GA#New template proposed. Please comment if you wish. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:53, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Documentation back on talk page

I've copied the documentation back to the talk page. Please remove it from the template page. I don't want do ask an admin for every tweak to the docu. If you disagree, update the template page docu yourself accordingly whenever needed. Thanks. --Ligulem 11:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Done by Circeus [2]. Thanks. --Ligulem 14:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pages parameter

It’s great to be able to give page numbers for PDF files, but where only one page is of interest for the citation, the result, e. g. ‘pp. 62’, is a bit ugly. Is it possible to fix the template to allow ‘p. 62’ while retaining e. g. ‘pp. 60–65’? The introduction of a new parameter for single pages would be fine, as far as I’m concerned. Thanks in advance. —xyzzyn 23:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

{{Cite book}} doesn't even have p./pp. abbreviation, and the argument is so rarely used it's probably to cut it. However, trivial edits should be kept minimal due to heavy use. Circeus 01:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not clear on whether Circeus means to cut the "pp." or cut the pages parameter itself, but I would recommend the former. "Pages" is logical, if uncommonly used, and it should follow the pattern established by {{cite book}}, which has already hashed out this issue. If we're concerned about current (temporary) performance problems, perhaps we should temporarily remove the parameter while documenting its book-like use, so that new users will add "p." or "pp." as needed but not be confused by the doubled text. When performance settles down, we can re-enable the parameter and update the older usage with AWB or a bot. (I will volunteer to do the latter as soon as I learn a way to use AWB to generate a list of articles that contain a specified pattern, so it's possible to figure out what tiny subset of the 21,000+ cite-web users actually need updating.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah. I agree it should be done like in cite book. The bad thing happened in April this year [3]. I wish I had opposed that then (this is not to blame anyone, I could have made that error myself). The list could be created using the XML dump. But this won't get you anywhere because the whole thing is a moving target: users insert new calls all over wikipedia while we examine the dump. The technically perfect thing to do would be (don't shoot me) to create a new version of this template here under a different name (cite web2) which treats the pages param as in cite book. I know I'm evil, but this is the well known migration pattern. You can't change the spec of a template and all calls in the same microsecond (or put the wiki in readonly mode while changing the template and the calls). BTW I got my bot flag today and my m:MWB is specialized for this kind of stuff, so I could help. But all this needs to be perfectly thought out first. --Ligulem 22:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Is it not technically possible to see if the parameter has a hyphen or dash in it, then output p. if not and pp. if so? Barring that, how about two new paramters (page, pagerng) and deprecate pages? Sic a bot on the older use of pages after a bit. Just my USD0.002--J Clear 23:36, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
"Is it not technically possible to see if the parameter has a hyphen or dash in it" → Not to my knowledge.
A new parameter would be possible, but that creates yet a new problem that we don't know where those new parameters are used and where not. Which creates yet a new layer of the same problem we are facing here. The result is a pile-on mess with parameters (in the far end, but shit can happen in slow increments). Every new parameter on the template that can be avoided is a good parameter (of course not at all cost, if a new param is needed then it is needed, but then it should have a good reason for its existence). Just my $10 ;-) (I'm kidding, J Clear. Your idea is perfectly reasonable and worth $10 too ;-). --Ligulem 08:10, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I was just going to chalk it up to inflation.--J Clear 23:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick, newbie question on the pages parameter: I thought its aim was to give the total number of pages a PDF has, but Xyzzy n's comments sounds like it should show the pages of interest (correct me if I'm wrong). In case the whole doc of N pages is of interest, should I use [...]pages=1-N[...] or should I simply skip the pages parameter? // Duccio (write me) 11:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

It's definitely pages of interest. Not total count. In my opinion 1-N must be listed in case web-page article has more one page and it's unclear if user need to read all pages or only first URL linked from Wiki. --TAG 12:06, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
(after edit conflict ;-) In reply to Duccio: That's the most common error about the "pages" parameter. It is not the number of pages. It's a page range or a single page or a combination. The addition of the "pp" that cite web currently does suggests that. In cite book, there is no such addition of a "pp", because it can be a single page or a page or even something complicated like "pages=pp 1,4,9,23-38" which means you want to refer to pages one, four, nine and the pages from 23 up to 38. I see this kind of error often in calls of cite book. But I can't know for sure, because I see just a damn high page number. Makes me ususally thinking whether the author of the edit really thought what they should have thought. If anyone has a silver bullet that helps fixing this frequent misunderstand, then she shall step in and make herself heard! If you do not want to refer to any special page or pages (sigh!), then don't fill in that parameter. It's optional. --Ligulem 12:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you TAG and Ligulem for your quick and clear answers. The question rised changing an existing reference from <ref>url</ref> to the preferred {{cite web}} form. In order to see which pages I should have put in the parameter, I found something very strange: here the page of interest is the first, which in the document is called "7-29" (look bottom-right). In order to prevent ambiguities, I think I'm gonna fill the template with pages=1, I'm just saying it here in case there's a different policy for these cases or if you guys have a better idea (a quick look at {{cite book}}'s docs didn't help). // Duccio (write me) 14:53, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
P.S. I now see that it's said explicitly in the documentation of {{cite book}}, but it was not in {{cite web}}'s docs, so I added it.

[edit] authorurllink field

When working on the Valerie_Plame#Plame_affair section, I came accross a cite and a author in which she had a URL to her bio. Never even relizing that authorlink was for Wikipedia, I put in the full URL. I found out afterwards it was just for internal. So I made it authorurllink on the page so if someone were to edit the template to allow external links, that would be great. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 08:20, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I had the same annoying problem. I tried to fix the docs a bit. On your request for a authorurllink (maybe authorlinkurl or authorlinkwww is better) let's hope some developers are reading us... // Duccio (write me) 18:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Your doc edit is good. Um, everybody is a template developer here. So, everybody can provide a proposal for a new version of the template wiki-code. To the problem with an authorurl: I'm not so sure if this is such a good idea to provide support for an additional external link for the author on the template. Cite web is about referencing a site on the internet (an url). I fear an additional external link could be a bit confusing. This might also be the reason why nobody responded here. Also, I'm generally reluctant to add new params (I hate parameter piling). But as always, if it's really wanted and needed, we can do it. In anycase, if this new param should make it into the template I would propose "authorurl" as its name. --Ligulem 22:12, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
You are probably right, the template filling is already enough complicated without an additional authorurl parameter, so let's keep it simple :-) I just wonder if it is technically feasable to return an error in case a URL is given in the authorlink parameter, although it shouldn't be necessary with proper documentation. // Duccio (write me) 09:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Extra period

Can someone remove the extra period that started showing up today.

{{cite web |title=My Title |url=http://mysite.com |Publisher=Know it All! |accessdate=2006-07-17 }}

Becomes: My Title. Retrieved on 2006-07-17. -- Thx in adv --Trödel 19:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. Pagrashtak 21:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Thx --Trödel 21:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Excess italicization

It's great that this template italicizes the "publisher's" name. But where both the work and publisher are given, there's no need to have the publisher's name italicized; only the work should be, as though it were a book.

Example (from Boy Scouts (Boy Scouts of America)):

{{cite web | last = | first = | authorlink = | coauthors = | year =2005 | url =http://www.scoutingmagazine.org/issues/0509/d-lett.html | title =Confused about Venture patrols | format = | work =Scouting magazine | publisher =Boy Scouts of America | accessdate = | accessyear = }}

produces

Confused about Venture patrols. Scouting magazine. Boy Scouts of America (2005).

And come to think of it, why is there a colon after the publisher? --zenohockey 00:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The colon after the publisher qualifies as a bug. But I can't fix it. I lack the access rights to edit the template page. --Ligulem 08:29, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I have them, but can't tell what's the problem. Circeus 20:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
This would remove the colon. This would remove the italics on publisher. Some testcases showing the effect of both are here. --Ligulem 22:51, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Looks fixed now. Thanks, all. --zenohockey 23:21, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date formatting problem

There seems to be a problem with dates - they're auto-formatted to [[22 July 2006]], which is of course a red link. Can it be changed to format [[22 July]] [[2006]], please? - MPF 20:23, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

is it the "date"or "accessdate" parameter? Inputting a non-iso date in "accessdate" will result in improper formatting. Inputting [[22 July 2006]] instead of [[2006-07-22]] or [[22 July]] [[2006]] in date will also result in improper formatting. I doubt the template is to blame. What's the problematic page? Circeus 20:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
List of long-living organisms. I'd tried (with limited success) to link the dates directly in the page itself, see [4] for what it looked like before - MPF 22:23, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I fixed the calls. --Ligulem 22:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Books/Chapters/Lines

Should we include those variables? If not, can you propose an alternate format for "Perseus project" refs about Odyssey, History and The Birds (refs 2,3,4) in Macedonia (terminology)... Thanks. :NikoSilver: 15:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

{{Cite book}} does not have parameters for volumes and lines, but you can put the information for the former into the chapter parameter and give the latter separately or even using the quote parameter, if that’s appropriate. Also note that it has separate url and chapterurl parameters. —xyzzyn 15:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quotations

Is there any logical reason not to have a quote parameter in the cite web template as is available in the cite book template? Webpages can be rather long, and having an extract to point people towards can be rather useful (perhaps also useful if the web page disappears - at least the quote would still be available to search the web for). --AGoon 07:27, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

{{cite book}} is the only template with the quote included. It's always possible to give the quote next to the template, or within the article. Circeus 07:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
If the web page disappears, it can usually be found in one of several archives (e.g., The Internet Archive), and the reference can then be updated to add the archive URL. So I don't think that argument applies to the idea of quotations. Personally, I'd quote the source in the article and use <ref>{{cite web|...}}</ref> to cite where the quote came from, and I've seen that usage all over Wikipedia. RossPatterson 23:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Material often doesn't show up in archives for months afterwards, meanwhile you'd have a dead link. Searching for a quoted bit of text on the internet is a very fast way of finding whether another copy of the article exists (or a plagiarised version ;-).
Yes, I could put the quote after the template, probably work fine.
--AGoon 03:41, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Publisher italicization

Could the publisher field become italicized (as is done in Template:Cite_news)? (--16:20, 8 August 2006 (UTC))

This was discussed earlier (#Excess italicization). The problem is that when a work is given, there's no need to have the publisher italicized as well. --zenohockey 21:44, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
...and when the work is not given? (--Coolhandscot 01:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC))
Beats me. If there's a way to do it, I agree it should be done. --zenohockey 03:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe something simple like [5] would work. (Warning: I have no experience with templates.) Is there a set of regression tests for this template? —xyzzyn 03:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Retrieved on" formatting

{Editprotected} Please change "Retrieved on xxxxxx" to "<small>Retrieved on xxxxxx</small>". Also, please add a template to Template:Cite web to indicate that is protected from editing.

I will wait until the small proposal is discussed before implementing it. Circeus 01:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Just to give an idea of what such a change would look like;
Since most references sections are reduced to 90% text-size to begin with (as above), I don't think an additional 'small' setting for the reference date is needed. --CBD 12:07, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm generally against mixing multiple sizes of fonts in the same line. — Laura Scudder ☎ 22:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I removed the {Editprotected}, given the lack of consensus.--Commander Keane 10:17, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dates do not wikilink

I've installed a mediawiki server at work and am configuring like Wikipedia. The cite.php plugin and cite web templates work and display correctly except it does not automatically wikilink the date or accessdate parameter. If I drop the exact same citation into Wikipedia, they autolink. So, there is a setting, additional plugin, etc I need to get the dates to autolink. Can anyone help?Rlevse 20:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

More details...actually, they do wikilink, but they are red because the date and year pages are not created, BUT they appear in ISO format (what I typed them in), NOT the MMM DD, YYYY date format I have my preferences set to. What is causing this?Rlevse 11:31, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
not sure will this help your problem, but you may want to "play around" with #time parser function, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions and from there #time. I at least managed with following to produce 23.08.2006 format when input is ISO: {{ #time: d.m.Y | 2006-08-23 }} and here for the test: 23.08.2006 (see source) If you want to create your own date links then just format and link the appropriate parts as needed. ould be nice to hear if it worked out for you. Good luck --TarmoK 21:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Beware of (quote from m:ParserFunctions):

"The range of proper functioning is 1970-1-1 00:00:01 through 2038-1-19 03:14:07 (1 through 231 1 seconds after the start of 1970). See also w:en:Year 2038 problem."

Example that doesn't work: {{ #time: d.m.Y | 1955-08-23 }} → 01.01.1970. So, #time formatting cannot be used for dates in citations. --Ligulem 12:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Ligulem, good point. But, just for discussion, how many dates we would have out of this range? Majority of web quotes are for online materials which are created in good case 10 (max 15) years ago. we are not dealing here with birthdates or similar ones. and 2038 ... we having quite many years to go and at least I'm quite sure by this time there is way different possibilities to handle this problem. So saying cannot be used is in my opinion over exarated. --TarmoK 20:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think debating this is worthwile. This function is badly flawed. Just one example: if you look at publish dates of books: How many books have been published before 1970? Quite a few. Banning {{ #time: d.m.Y | 1955-08-23 }} from the citation templates for this reason alone is sufficent. --Ligulem 20:23, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New template limits in MediaWiki install

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#New_template_limits.2C_Special:ExpandTemplates. The number of template calls that is accepted by this MediaWiki install here is now limited. --Ligulem 09:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it, the 'limit on number of calls' is really a limit on size of text brought in from templates... one megabyte total per page. So, you could have an infinite number of blank templates, over a million one character templates, a single one megabyte template, or some variation in between. I see you worked out that there can be rougly 250+ calls to this template and I think that'd be consistent with 'cite book' and the like. Doesn't seem likely to come up often. Though {{listadmins}} will get there in another year or so. --CBD 21:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
No. [6] is 58k of wikitext input. The internal processing blows this up over the 1MB input size limit that Tim installed. I fear there will be some surprises sooner or later. If you take a look at the html of AIDS there is in a html comment
Pre-expand include size: 404451 bytes
Post-expand include size: 140905 bytes
Template argument size: 117627 bytes
Maximum: 1048576 bytes
The Pre-expand include size is at 404451 bytes witch is nearly half of the max value. If you increse the complexity of the citation templates, this will add up to that internal size, no matter how big the combined output of all the template calls is. I fear not that many people besides Tim have understood what this new limit here means. --Ligulem 23:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
BTW, {{listadmins}} is already over the limit *now*. It is not expanded anymore. Take a close look at the hmtl source, there is an error message in a html comment. --Ligulem 23:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Which is a little odd because the 'Pre-expand include size' there is listed as 837703. I guess it stops counting when it hits something that exceeds the limit. I get the difference between pre and post expand inclusion sizes... after 'expansion' cite-web is just a line of text, but before 'expansion' it is about five times as long. My point was that the page you link above shows over 250 cite-web calls processing successfully. Cite-book and the like are comparably sized 'pre expansion'. I don't think there are many pages with ~250 citations currently. Significantly increasing the length of this template would be a problem, but I don't think there are any plans to do that. --CBD 10:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
There were some plans in the past to consolidate the citation templates. But that is now a very bad idea, because template code should stay as simple as possible, because the complexer the template code the bigger the intermediate internal "input" size. A good starter to remove here would be error checking code like
#if: {{#if: {{{url|}}} | {{#if: {{{title|}}} |1}}}}
  ||Error on call to [[template:cite web]]: Parameters '''url''' and '''title''' must be specified
}}{{
#if: {{{archiveurl|}}}{{{archivedate|}}} 
  | {{#if: {{#if: {{{archiveurl|}}}| {{#if: {{{archivedate|}}} |1}}}}
    ||Error on call to [[template:cite web]]: Parameters '''archiveurl''' and '''archivedate''' must be both specified or both omitted
}}
In any case, I'm glad we could settle to lowercase params only. This reduces that "input" size considerably. Good luck to the citation templates! --Ligulem 11:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I have boldly removed all the extraneous crap from the template, which is in any case duplicated at the top of this very talk-page, which should help a little. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 09:57, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't the <noinclude>s take care of that? --zenohockey 02:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, even the <noinclude>s have an associated cost. See Wikipedia:template limits. CBD an myself are currently in the process of refining a docpage pattern. I have applied the newest findings for example on template:cite paper (see the code). The docpage pattern also allows to have the template code protected and the doc page unprotected (see protected template:tl, which transcludes its documentation from unprotected Template:Tl/doc). --Ligulem 09:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] this template is broken

the optional parameters "author", "publisher" and "date" don't seem to be optional

Justforasecond 15:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

My title.
Where are you having a problem with it - as the above quick test is missing author, publisher, date, etc. --Trödel 17:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm guessing he was referring to his last edit before the one above. Was just missing the 'web' in the name. I added it to the page. --CBD 23:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Thx - I should have done that :) - reviewed his history --Trödel 00:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title Bug

In Eastern Test Range I created a cite web ref and cut and paste an web page title in that had a newline or CR in it. The newline caused a strange effect. It sort of broke apart the title link in the displayed ref. Instead of the title being the link, and the URL hidden, it looked like an unparsed extneral link when displayed. I.e. the single square braces were visible, the URL and Title were both displayed inside. Initially I thought it might have been a side effect of the Aug 16 change to the template, as I don't think I've used cite web between then and now, but the other new cite web in Eastern Test Range didn't have this probelm. Finally I spotted the extra newline, and removing it "fixed" the problem. But perhaps a Guru cold look at the template(s) and see if there is a way to prevent that in the template code.--J Clear 17:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The same problem has happened at The Lord of the Rings for the second ref. It is currently rendering as: "[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0866058/bio Biography for J.R.R. Tolkien]. Retrieved on 2006-06-16." I've since fixed this. It was a "new line" error as above. Can someone add a note to a list of "common mistakes" if there is no fix at template level? Carcharoth 13:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think this can be "fixed" on the template. The MediaWiki parser doesn't accept a newline inside an external link
[http://example.com brown 
fox]
produces

[http://example.com brown fox]

--Ligulem 15:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
So that sounds like it's a bug in the wiki s/w. Is there a bugzilla (or is it bugwiki?) to search or report that on?--J Clear 21:08, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
→bugzilla:. But I doubt this qualifies as a bug of MediaWiki. This is probably by design. But I'm not a MediaWiki developer ;) --Ligulem 22:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Submitted it any way (no bug too small) http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7090 feel free to add a comment if I described it poorly.--J Clear 23:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Language icon

I'd like to propose including a parameter such as languageicon, which would be an alternative to language. If, for example, citing a Spanish source, you would use the language code es: languageicon=es. This would produce (Spanish) at the front of your citation:

The icons are nicer-looking than simple text, and stand out more. Because of the standardized language icons, this change should be easy to implement:

{{Template:{{{languagecode}}} icon}}

at the front of this template should work. Λυδαcιτγ 04:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

See here for an example. Λυδαcιτγ 04:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, please not. This would add several levels of a whole diversity of template calls to this high use template. I've removed the editprotected request for now until there is consensus on what to do with your proposal. If you want to produe the icon at the front do it with a separate template call, as you showed here. Let's keep this separate and orthogonal. No need to pile on dependencies here. --Ligulem 10:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I have several problems with the "language icon" idea.
  1. None of these so-called icons are iconic, they're just text in a specific style. As such, they are no more accessible or utile than simple text. Their only genuine utility derives from the restricted set of values for {{xx icon}}, which itself only derives from the fact that nobody has yet created, for example, {{Brooklyn English icon}}. In short, there is no significant difference between {{cite web|...|language=English}} and {{cite web|...|languageicon=en}}.
  2. The recommended usage in {{Languageicon}} is exactly opposite to the proposal here: "It's preferable that the template is used *after* the link in reference lists." While I certainly think that recommendation would make the language icon less intrusive, I don't think following it would reduce the citation clutter or increase the citation value, given the non-iconic nature.
  3. This is an English-Wikipedia-only "solution" to an international problem. If it were more possible to lift articles from one wikipedia and drop them into another, I would be strongly in favor of this proposal. But it isn't, and it won't be - among other impediments, the various language-specific wikipedias use their language-specifc equivalents of terms, even for "Template" and "Category" (e.g., "[[Catégorie:Économie algérienne|*]]" in fr:Économie de l'Algérie), and could reasonably be expected to do the same for "icon" (e.g., "{{en icône}}" on fr:).
In sum, I don't see the value in making the change. RossPatterson 15:57, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I see. Thanks. Λυδαcιτγ 21:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Can we simply edit current template to make it looks like icon in reality was used ? I.e. make it bold and #555 color ? --TAG 20:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confused by bug

Hi, I've been editing the Heysel Stadium disaster article, but have become confused by a bug in the referencing system. I was wondering whether someone more knowledgable could have a look at it and see where it has gone wrong? Cheers, aLii 03:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The same thing just happened to the article I was working on. I believe the most recent change to this template inadvertantly caused the bug. Actually, looks like notes not even using this template have been affected, so I don't know what to say. VegaDark 03:47, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
After discussing it on the Wikipedia IRC channel, and assuming your issue is the same as mine (all the refs are doubled), apparently it works fine for most editors but there are some for unknown reasons that this is happening to. Might be a javascript issue. VegaDark 04:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I've run into what sounds like the same problem after editing the Visiting Forces Agreement page. When I "Show Preview"ed the page it looked OK, but when I "Save Page"ed it the saved page had all the references doubled. The first occurrance of each doubled-section did not hook up with a cite in the body of the text. I didn't know what to do about this, so I've put an html-commented note about it in the References section of the page and left it that way. -- Boracay Bill 07:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
This is a known bug bugzilla:7162. Was also reported numerous times at WP:VPT (see the red box on top). It has nothing to do with the citation templates. WikiMedia CTO Brion Vibber is aware if this bug. --Ligulem 08:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Brion fixed bugzilla:7162. Do a null edit to any broken page you see or add "?action=purge" to the end of the web address (URL) of the page. --Ligulem 11:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Um, oops. If I messed something up, I appologize. I saw that no other admin has reverted my changes, so I'm wondering if that was the cause. Is anyone still having trouble? -Mysekurity 14:12, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
No, your edit didn't mess anything. But be careful fiddling with this template. Normally, changes should be proposed on talk first. Even for admins. But your's is ok (Besides that it eats up from pre-expand size limit). The bug reported by aLii doesn't have anything to do with cite web (as I wrote above here). --Ligulem 15:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit request: doc page pattern

I would like to propose to apply the doc page pattern described at Wikipedia:Template doc page pattern. I have prepared Template:Cite web/doc. Please replace the content of template:cite web with this version of my sandbox. Proof of concept can be seen at template:cite news. --Ligulem 14:24, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. —Ruud

[edit] Access date five tildes

It would be very useful if one could enter accessdate=~~~~~ and have it expand to the date and time the edit was posted. The reason this doesn't work, I'm told on IRC, is that the date is enclosed by double square brackets. Why not make 16:59, 3 September 2006 (UTC) a special case so that it does work? The code could be something like {{#ifequal:accessdate|~~~~~|{{{accessdate}}}|[[{{{accessdate}}}]]}}. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NeonMerlin (talk • contribs) 17:00, September 3, 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I doubt this code snippet works. Please put the new template code for cite web for example at User:NeonMerlin/cite web (or wherever else in your user space) so we can see how that should work. We can't do experiments on the live template. I've removed the editprotected for now until we know more and there is consensus on what to do. --Ligulem 18:14, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Shorter code: {{subst:#time:Y-m-d}}, which becomes 2006-09-04. -- Jeandré, 2006-09-04t18:04z

[edit] Consistent spaces

Can someone please add spaces after all of the equal signs or remove all such spaces in the usage template? It's inconsistent and it's driving me crazy. :) --ElKevbo 17:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I assume you mean the documentation. If yes, you can do it yourself: just click here (no admin needed!). And hack away. You cannot make any damage to the transclusions (see Wikipedia:template doc page pattern for the technical details). There is also an edit link on the top of the template page (in case you overlooked that). So be bold! :) --Ligulem 17:45, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
It's protected. I'm not an admin. --ElKevbo 17:50, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Strange. You can't edit Template:Cite web/doc? --Ligulem 18:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I can edit that. I was looking at Template:Cite web. Why are the instructions for use of this template in two different places, one protected and the other not? And why is it inconsistent between different templates with some having the usage info on the Talk page and this one not? It's all very frustrating. --ElKevbo 18:43, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Uhh. Calm down ;-). There is a whole story behind this stuff! The documentation is transcluded into the template page. If you look at [7] (scroll down) you will see a line reading {{/doc}}. This has the effect that the documentation is transcluded into the template page. Separation of template documentation (template:cite web/doc) and template code (template:cite web) is a relatively new idea and it has not yet been applied everywhere where applicable. You really should read Wikipedia:template doc page pattern for the technical details. You can ask me on my talk if you do not understand it. The template doc page pattern has the benefit that non-admins (like you and me) can edit the documentation of protected templates and changes to the documentation don't invalidate the caches of the articles that transclude the template. Sorry if this all a bit confusing :-). Just ask me on my talk if you have any questions left. --Ligulem 19:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I think I get it all now. I wasn't really in the mood to delve into templates and other esoterica earlier - I was in the midst of cleaning up the references in an article. I'm done with it for now so I'm in a better position to really look at all of this. Apologies for any frustration *I* may have caused! --ElKevbo 19:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
No frustrations on my side. Your are welcome to tickle the template oldies ;-). --Ligulem 19:19, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Cite book may be the only template without the usage docs transcluded. Of course, it was the second template I looked at after this one... --ElKevbo 19:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
(after two edit conlicts ;-) I made an edit request today exactly to change that. See template talk:cite book. --Ligulem 19:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I was just about to do the same - you beat me to it! --ElKevbo 19:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date inconsistency

Why are date and accessdate different? Why would we require accessdate to be in a particular format but not date? I guess that there was originally concern that date must be usable even if one only knows the partial date but don't the year and month parameters take care of that? The inconsistency between these two date parameters is confusing as users should expect them to behave similarly but they do not. If we require ISO format for accessdate and automatically wikilink it then let's do the same for accessdate. --ElKevbo 18:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey man. You have a lot of questions today ;-) ! You can have only a year and a month (without a date). Or even more common: only a year. So this can't be wikilinked easily. Wikilinking or not-wikilinking dates is also a matter of constant debate. So hard-coded date linking at the template is a delicate matter. The accessdate was the first candidate to wikilink it on the template because it was historically always wikilinked (I again refer to history ;-).
If you make changes to this template, then they must be compatible with all existing calls or we must migrate to a new template once again (A lot of calls are now wikilinked for the date param!). We did such a thing when migrating from template:web reference to template:cite web, which were 10,000 calls or so. Now we have more than 20,000 pages transcluding cite web (Uhh, I hope we don't need to migrate that anytime soon ;-). --Ligulem 19:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I know it's probably a very difficult change with widespread ramifications and I don't intend to jump in and make any such changes myself. Even if nothing changes it's worth documenting the questions and frustrations of a "mere user." It's likely that the kind of issues I have raised are reasons why some Wikipedians don't use the citation templates - there's a learning curve which some (including myself at times) perceive to be too steep for the potential payoff. My thought process has been:
"Okay, this looks relatively easy. Put dates here and here. Wait, the [access] date is messed up! Oh - it's gotta be in this weird format. Okay, whatever. But the publication date is still messed up - guess I gotta put it in that weird format, too. WTF? It *can't* be in that format, too? I can't wikilink the accessdate but I must wikilink the publication date? :(" --ElKevbo 19:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for that nice user experience story. We will have to ruminate that ;-). --Ligulem 19:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] cite:web needs a quote param

Just like the cite:book template. I just cited a research paper and have no way to draw the Wikipedia reader's attention to the 12 words I want him/her to read among the 4,000 words of the essay. Someone please add | quote = as an optional param? JDG 04:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Well. Um. I wasn't *that* pleased about the addition of the quote param in template:cite book, but we have it there right now (I do hate parameter piling). I just wonder a bit why we shouldn't simply add the quote in POW ("plain old wikitext" ;-) right after the cite web call... But it seems that this quote param starts getting more popular. So maybe, yes we should simply do that and add it. If not for the sake of compatibility with cite book alone. So, I would say "reluctant support" from my side. --Ligulem 08:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, Ligulem. Anybody else? This seems like a very basic must-have to me. If parameter piling is happening I think a number of cite:web params could be jettisoned to balance the addition of "quote". JDG 19:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Lol. No jettisoning ;-). This would invalidate the calls out there. You can't know where each param is used and each of them was added for a purpose. I will prepare the new wikicode in a sandbox under my userspace soon to copy it to the template (drop me a note if I should forget). --Ligulem 20:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Unless I badly misunderstand, there is a conceptual problem here. I most often use cite templates wrapped in refs (e.g., <REF name=some-name>{{cite ...}}</REF>. It seems to me that both the pages= and the quote= citation parameters are per-cite issues, not per-ref, and are useless in named refs which are used multiply where, for example, the first cite of a particular reference quotes something on page 10 and the second cite of the same reference quotes something on page 15. -- Boracay Bill 23:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand your problem (a case of mutual uncertainty ;-). For example, you can have this wiki text (not exactly a good candidate for a featured article ;-):
bla bla bla blubber bla bla blubber bla,<ref name="X">{{cite web|url=http://y.com|pages=23|....}}</ref> bla bla bla bla
blubber bla bla bla bla.<ref name="X"/>
Which means the text for the second ref is entierly the same as for the first ref. This means also the page number and the quote are the same. If you do have different page numbers, then you must repeat the whole cite call:
bla bla bla blubber bla bla blubber bla,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://y.com|pages=23|....}}</ref> bla bla bla bla
blubber bla bla bla bla.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://y.com|pages=44|....}}</ref>
There is no sharing of a "common part". You can only reuse the entire content what's inside <ref>...</ref>. BTW there is no need to use a cite web call at all to use refs. cite web is just a help to make all web citations look consitently and free the editor from looking up a manual how to format web references. The "manual" is the template (encapsulated, changes can be done at a single point). So template call and <ref>...</ref> mechanism (m:cite.php) are entirely unrelated. --Ligulem 23:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
I've added the new quote parameter, using the same formatting as in {{cite book}}. --Ligulem 18:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Including ref tags in template

Which starts me thinking if we should make a template that already contains the <ref> thingy (duh!). So the above examples could be written like this:
bla bla bla blubber bla bla blubber bla,{{ref web|name=X|url=http://y.com|pages=23|....}} bla bla bla bla
blubber bla bla bla bla.{{ref web|name=X}}
and
bla bla bla blubber bla bla blubber bla,{{ref web|url=http://y.com|pages=23|....}} bla bla bla bla
blubber bla bla bla bla.{{ref web|url=http://y.com|pages=44|....}}
which would be easier to type. --Ligulem 00:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New PARM ulaccessdate (short for "unlinked accessdate")

The autmatic wiki on the year, month and date of the last parameter of the cite-web template is among the most ridiculous I've encountered thus far. For the vast majoritiy of applications, the ability of the reader to wikilink to year, month and date-number is wholly unnecessary, and is an outright interference with the level of usability of the footnotes. Would someone please correct this situation? This feature should, at most, be an option, not a standard feature of the template. Thank you. ... Kenosis 16:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed at naseum. There is no consensus to remove the date linking. --Ligulem 16:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Nonetheless, it's still an absolutely absurd feature to make mandatory across the wiki. Having reviewed some of the discussions, I see reference to "many fans" of the wikilinked date, but no real consensus for either inclusion or exclusion of this wholly unnecessary feature. A mere date should suffice. Frankly, it just gets in the way in numerous footnotes. ... Kenosis 22:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
But there isn't consensus that would describe this feature as "absurd" or "wholly unnecessary". The whole date linking no-consensus thing is a real mess, though. It is simply a not well thought out feature. See also my recent post on wikitech-l about that. Would you be happy with an additional optional parameter, let's say "ulaccessdate" (short for "unlinked accessdate") which doesn't do any date linking? --Ligulem 23:20, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree - there is no consensus that linking dates to force the application of date-formatting preferences is a bad practice. Unfortunately, it is a (IMHO bad) feature of the MediaWiki software that those preferences are only applied to dates that are linked. Thus the software requires linking of dates in order to present them in the user's preferred form. RossPatterson 17:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
As you can see from the answers to my wikitech posting, we will probably have to live with that for ever. Take a careful look at what Brion said. That whole date linking is a real mess (not limited to the citation templates). --Ligulem 18:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
IIRC, the default is simply not to mess with the text, which is always the most sensible thing.[8] - I'd certainly agree with that. Too bad that's not what the software does. But I share your opinion - as often as it's been discussed, I have to assume the current situation is the end result. RossPatterson 20:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I think the option makes excellent sense, allowing editors across the wiki to decide on an article-by-article basis. ... Kenosis 13:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. I believe that instead of patching templates and articles according to the preferences of the authors, we should correct the software to either provide a syntax for indentifying dates in need of formatting or we should remove the preference and the formatting code. See the bug report at [9] requesting the former for a long discussion of why and how. RossPatterson 17:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Ok. You have my support for that additional param (yikes, yet another param). I agree it's better to decide on an article-by-article base than accumulate contention on the template. I propose to wait a few days though and see if others want to weigh in. Please also think about the name of the new param. (Side note: I changed the section title from "Ridiculous parameter" to "New param ulaccessdate (short for "unlinked accessdate")". --Ligulem 14:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose - If it isn't obvious from my comments above, I oppose adding this parameter. This is a global Wikipedia/MediaWiki problem and neither can nor should be solved on a case by case basis. RossPatterson 17:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. So at this point, I would say there is no consensus for adding this new param. Other opinions? --Ligulem 18:20, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with Kenosis -- there's no bloody point to having a linked date in the citation. The linking, per MOS, is supposed to be used only when there is significance to the date. No one can rightfully argue that the date a reference was pulled is significant. Additionally, the argument about having the date linked so it appears in the format preferred by the user is equally vapid -- I have a Euro-preference set for dates, but I'll be damned if I'd get upset if the date were in another format, simply because it just isn't that important.
BTW, in real-world coding PARM is used for parameter not param. •Jim62sch• 20:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Huh. PARM? But if it makes you happy :) (I'm a professional C++ programmer. I've done C, Pascal, Forth, Basic, Modula-2, Modula-3, Oberon, Eiffel, Assembler and some others I forgot). I just really hope we aren't going to nitpick even about stuff like what term we should use as abbreviation for "parameter".
As I already pointed out above, I am willing to do the additional parameter (!) if it is really requested. What keeps me thinking is that consensus-by-article argument. We had some discussion over at template:cite journal about the quotes. It lead first to a fork at template:cite journal2 and was then back integrated into template:cite journal with a parameter "quotes". The point is, Kenosis and Jim could do a fork of cite web as there are some people pro date-linking and some contra (this does not only hold true for the citation templates). It is a wiki-wide issue that pops up every fortnight. I must say, the harm done by that ulaccessdate is smaller than the creation of a fork template. As a side note: I just don't understand why people can be so emotional about this date linking. But that seems to be a wiki-religious thing. I would appreciate if we just could keep less emotional about this thing. And adding this parameter could help in that direction. Ross, would it really be so bad to bite the sour apple and integrate that new parameter? I don't think there is wiki-wide consensus to have these dates linked neither non-linked. It's a real non-consensus thing, and that usually needs an option that can be choosen by editors. I mean, technicaly it wouldn't be such a big issue. Or would it? --Ligulem 22:31, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
If I stand alone, please don't let me stand in the way. If the overwhelming opinion is pro-change, go for it. RossPatterson 00:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I just requested of several admins that they check in here and make an assessment of this discussion, without any assertions that they should necessarily back my point of view. Probably it'll take a few days for them to weigh in if they choose. My gut hunch here is that this wikilinked date/month/year thing is the product of a vocal minority that wants everything linked to everything. Fact is, though, there's virtually no cause for it across the wiki, especially not in footnotes where such things are trivia at best. Given that wikis are intended in general to have relevance to the topic at hand, these extra three date/month/year wikis-per-footnote are just nuisances that get in the way of the important work of properly fulfilling WP:NOR and WP:VER. ... Kenosis 00:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, you seem to be in disagreement with WP:CONTEXT#Dates ("Dates when they contain a day, month, and year — [[25 March]] [[2004]] — or day and month — [[February 10]] — should be linked for date preference formatting"). I think we should leave the template as it is for now until we have consensus on what to do. "Ridiculous" is not a valid argument. Some heated posts here aren't either. --Ligulem 09:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Pardon me Liqulem, but characterizations such as "ridiculous" are summary conclusions about the effects of the practice of forcing date links upon users and readers of articles where the choice is made to use the last-accessed-date feature of the citeweb template. When users come to a template page and report their perceptions of the results of a template design when used in actual practice, that is indeed a valid argument. What is being said is, essentially, that there has no reasonable, valid purpose in the wiki to have these year/month/date wikis in footnotes across the entire wiki-- hence, characterizations such as "absurd", ridiculous, vapid, etc. Within reasonable expression of WP:CIV, there is no requirement that feedback or opinion about this give credit for rationality to a feature found by the users to be unnecessary or ridiculous, in order for the feedback or opinion to be valid for the purposes of WP:CON. Indeed, these kinds of characterizations ought make clear that the users who provide this feedback on this talk page feel strongly about this position when reporting the results of the template coding out in the real world.

If there are any complications at all with using an optional parameter, then I feel compelled to change my position stated just above. These date/month/year links should be removed from that parameter, period, unequivocally. There is plenty of discussion around the wiki about excessive wikilinking, consensus clearly being that excessive linking should be avoided. ... Kenosis 16:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

No need to invoke WP:CIV. I dind't say anyone was incivil. That aside, I took a closer look at the code and noticed there are two parameters "accessmonthday" and "accessyear" (I think I forgot about these completely, apologies). If these two parameters are used, the date of last access is not wikilinked! Would it be acceptable for you to use these two parameters instead of accessdate? Example usage:
  • {{cite web | title=My Favorite Things Part II | url=http://www.example.com/ | accessmonthday=September 25 | accessyear=2006}}
    → My Favorite Things Part II. Retrieved on September 25, 2006.
--Ligulem 17:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Liqulem. Having, I think, done my civic duty in reporting what's going on "out there" that has gotten my attention, I'll now go back and use these temporarily. But having gotten into the discussion, I still believe there's no good cause to have the last-access-date paramater wikilinked at all. So my personal advocacy (and apparently that of at least two others thus far) would be to simply go ahead and remove the wikilinks from the coding of the parameter for accessdate. I appreciate your attention to this issue, and also personally appreciate your diligent ongoing contributions in the "laboratories" of code development for the project. ... Kenosis 17:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Ah cool. Thank you very much. And apologies for having forgotten about these two params first. And sorry if I might have sounded a bit snappy. Thanks again and shake hands :) --Ligulem 17:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
You bet. One electronic handshake coming up. I also put in some feedback on the WP:Context talk page so the editors there know about this practical manifestation of their discussion over there. Take care, OK? ... Kenosis 20:47, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template not working?

Someone put a lot of "citations needed" in the Pete Waterman article, so I decided to try putting one in. In the opening paragraph of this version. I put {{ Citeweb | url=http://www.stockaitkenwaterman.com/interv/pete19.htm | title=The diamond geezer | acessdate=2006-09-23 | author=Shane Danielsen | date=1999-10-09 | publisher=[[The Australian]] }} , and I put a references section near the bottom of the article. However, this simply produces "Shane Danielsen (1999-10-09). The diamond geezer. The Australian." inline in the article. What's going on? -- Arwel (talk) 22:49, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. --Ligulem 23:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Text style for language

Please change style of (in SomeLanguage) text to make it looks like language icon template was used (in SomeLanguage). Code for template available here. Thanks in advance. See discussion at 'Language icon' thread for original suggestion. This is expected to give better consistency over all references then icon used and not. --TAG 10:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Example {{cite web | title=My Favorite Things Part II | date=[[2005-04-30]] | url=http://www.example.com/ | accessdate=2005-07-06 | language=English }}
→ Current code:
→ As proposed by TAG:
(Comparison service provided by: --Ligulem 11:11, 24 September 2006 (UTC))

What seemed like a good argument against this was made up at the last thread, and not rebutted. I've removed the edit protected tag, please re-add it when you have consensus. Thanks! JesseW, the juggling janitor 03:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

JesseW, please cite this argument out of many messages in thread. I see only one against calling one more template - not simply changing style like I've proposed. --TAG 09:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
TAG is correct. There was only opposition against an additional template call. This request here is different and should be looked at separately. However waiting for others to weigh in might be good. I might also be good to hold on with this a bit until that date linking thing has settled. We do have no need to hurry here. --Ligulem 10:00, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'd say that JesseW was right - there was no consensus in the original thread, at least one good argument against the idea, and neither of the two comments finding fault with it received any response. There were only four parties involved the discussion (Audacity, Ligulem, TAG.Odessa and me), and it was two pro and two con. The thread didn't have many messages, just six. So color me "surprised" that the change was made less than a month after the original conversation fizzled out. RossPatterson 00:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I've made the change on a trial basis. Please note that I additionally removed the prefix "in". --Ligulem 12:10, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ! Let's hope people will like it. Anybody who has legit reason to revert this edit feel free to comment here. --TAG 13:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm a supporter of consistency between styles used in wikipedia so I can't really say I oppose this change strongly as it is already a standard in {{Languageicon}}, but can we please spend a few words on how sucky the result is? I used {{cite web}} extensively in X-38 Crew Return Vehicle (the only references template I used there), please have a look at X-38 Crew Return Vehicle#References. Maybe that's my error as I was supposed not to specify the language if it's English on the English wikipedia, I just thought the more information I filled the better it was, and anyway it is not obvious that an ESA article is in English so I still think filling the language parameter wasn't a complete mistake there...
Oh, and notice how weak the consensus was in the discussion for {{Languageicon}}, see Template talk:Languageicon/Archive 1, Template talk:Languageicon/Archive 2 and Template talk:Languageicon. // Duccio 14:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Specifying English is indeed not such a good idea, as that's the default on this wiki (maybe we'd better not use English in the examples). As I said. It's only done on a trial basis. We can easily revert that. Luckily it is only a format change. Additions of new parameters cannot be changed back because one never knows if it is used or not. But formatting changes are easy. I can note that Laura Scudder voiced against different fonts in the same line ("I'm generally against mixing multiple sizes of fonts in the same line" [10]), but that was on a different question. However a trial isn't that bad as usually people only comment here if they dislike a new format which is already active or if they want a new change. So I suggest we wait a bit longer before reverting right away. Maybe we will have some more comments in a few days :) --Ligulem 20:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Language

From the template page:

{{cite web | author=Joliet, François | title=Honnit soit qui mal y pense | date=[[2005-04-30]] | url=http://www.example.com/ | accessdate=2005-07-06 }} → Joliet, François (30 April 2005). Honnit soit qui mal y pense (French). Retrieved on 6 July 2005.

Could someone please add the language parameter? It seems to have gone missing, and proper examples are always welcome. Thank you. - Chsf 15:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Done! In future, you was able to do this on your own - simply check for This template documentation is transcluded from Template:Cite web/doc. This mean you can edit documentation (harmless) - but not template. --TAG 17:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Authorlink bug

The authorlink parameter seems to be broken - see the last example at Template:Cite web/doc. ··gracefool |☺ 04:30, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Nope. This is by design. Section "Optional parameters" states: "authorlink: ....to link to the appropriate wikipedia article. Does not work with URLs". I've removed the {{editprotected}} --Ligulem 08:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] givenname surname

This template recommends the use of "surname, givenname" for the author citation. This style was already archaic when I was in school, and that was more than a few decades ago. Trying to revive this style comes off as a lame attempt to be pseudo-Victorian steam-punk hip. Please correct it. Thanks linas 14:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Really? APA uses lastname, firstinitial and that's not too different. Who cares as long as it's consistent and enables readers to locate the proper reference? --ElKevbo 14:22, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
(In reply to linas) This is incorrect anyway. There are parameters "first" and "last" and if you dislike them, you can simply use "author" instead. If you want to change templates like cite web, you'll have to be much more specific anyway. I've thus removed the editproteced. first / last is now in use on thousands of calls and can't be removed without tremendous work and a detailed plan how to do that. Furthermore, first/last comes from {{cite book}}, where "last" together with a year is used to address citations. We introduced that here to be compatible with cite book. --Ligulem 14:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Surname, given name is the way I've ALWAYS seen it, on all papers I've written for school that's the way teachers want it, and that's the way I've seen almost all references written. See APA style, Turabian style, MLA style, Chicago style, and AMA style among many others. —Mets501 (talk) 19:02, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Those are citation styles for old, existing journals. New publications are not bound to those rules. American high schools and universities have been teaching "firstname lastname" citation style for at least several decades, including the University of Chicago. Is it possible that the Long Island University found an old copy of the Chicago manual of style? See, for example, the actual Chicago style, as given by Chicago and not Long Island: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html linas 23:21, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
And that example shows that the current style employed by this template is the preferred (required) style for bibliographic entries, in-text citations and reference-list entries. The current version of APA employs the same style except that given names/first names are always shortened to the first initial (don't know why; it's odd but that's the way it is). Those are the only two styles in which I write for publication so I can't speak about others but we're in sync with APA and Chicago. --ElKevbo 23:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's another example, as currently practiced in Texas: http://www.ma.utexas.edu/cgi-pub/seminar/calendar or http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/cite/Turabian.htm but I admit that after surfing the web, one would get the impression that lastname,firstname is a popular style. I'm, uhh, surprised. I'm pulling books off my bookshelf now, they're fairly uniformly "first last", e.g. "The Book of Traces" , Diekert and Rozenberg, "The Linux Memory Manager", Mel Gorman, "Introduction to Algorithms", Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, "Concrete Mathematics", Graham, Knuth, Patashnik , "Operating System Concepts", Silzberschatz, Galvin. So far, *every* book I've pulled off the shelf uses first last citation style. Some of those books are standard college texts. I am not in front of my usual collection of books, so this is a thin sampling. linas 23:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm pulling papers at random off of arxiv.org: [11] [12] [13] [14], thats 4 for four. That tells me that people are actually practicing what I'm saying. linas 00:04, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Yup, those are "FirstInitial, LastName." That's a pretty common style, too. Still not "FirstName LastName," though. Again, this really doesn't matter. We've got a consistent, established style for Wikipedia. Journals are free to (and do) establish their own styles and so is Wikipedia. If it ain't broke then why fix it? --ElKevbo 00:22, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I've been editing WP for a few years with a "constant established style", and you seem to have instituted a new style, and are claiming superiority. Despite the evidence of the style guides, its quite clear that the rest of the world is ignoring the style guides. When I went to school, it was stated that the last,first style was considered to be archaic. Its clear that just by looking at books on the shelf, or papers on the web, no one actually uses last,first any more in "real life". linas 00:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Well now you're just being unreasonable. Your assertion that no one uses the style is completely wrong. I assure you that the papers I have written and had published followed the APA style guide as do all of the other authors in those publications. But if you want to ignore that and all of the other evidence we've presented than you're welcome to do so. --ElKevbo 00:53, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

What are any of you arguing about? The answer is crystal-clear: Every footnote/endnote citation I've ever seen uses firstname lastname, and just about every bibliography (or "Works Cited") I've seen uses Lastname, Firstname to facilitate looking someone's works up by their last name. This should be clear from the Chicago Manual of Style examples linked to above. The order of an author's names is not remotely controversial; far more so are things like Lastname, Firstname vs. Lastname, F. (or Lastname F) and where the year goes. --zenohockey 23:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Another very simple reason bibliographic info is usuallygiven in a last, first format is that it makes alhabetical ordering far more proficient. Circeus 00:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Website name entry

I think that there should be an entry for the website's name. Websites frequently shutdown and the name of the website cannot always be determined by the information in this template, including the URL, especially when the website is hosted on a subdomain or directory (examplesite.hostingcompany.com or hostingcompany.com/examplesite). Even whois might not help, as the name listed on the registration often does not always match the website and I do not know if they keep the information indefinitely after the registration expires and I would guess that it is replaced when someone else registers the domain. Knowing the name of the website can be very useful in tracking down the reference when they go offline, or when they move to a new website with no forwarding or notice at the old site. -- Kjkolb 14:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a reasonable use for the existing publisher= parameter. If the URL is http://example.com/bloompicayune and the website is the Bloom County Picayune, then an article from there should include url=http://example.com/bloompicayune|publisher=Bloom County Picayune. RossPatterson 02:04, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Does such a thing as a website name exist? If such a thing does exist in any sense, what permanence or significance does the website name have? As discussed above by Kjkolb, what we're calling a website here may or may not have any close relationship to the domain name where it is found. This website may be located in a subdomain or in a subdirectory, and may have a very loose relationship or no relationship at all to other collections of one or more pages also located on that domain. Such collections of pages are usually (not always) organized as a tree growing from one main root page informally called the home page and are called websites in the discussion in this section. Website home pages may or may not have a <TITLE> tag, and other pages on the site may or may not have <TITLE> tags. <TITLE> tags of the various pages on a site may or may not have any relationship to one another, and may or may not have any relationship to the website name (whatever that term might mean). Having said that, I'll note that most web pages do have some sort of attribute which, though not formally defined in any sense, might be thought of as the web page name (similar in concept to to but not the same as the website name) by persons viewing the site; the pages for which I have used this template have had such an attribute, and that is what I have been putting in the Cite_web title= parameter. So, having recognized that a cited page might have some attribute which, though fuzzily defined, could be thought of as the web page name, and having recognized that a cited web page would probably (not always) be associated with a collection of somehow-related pages which appear in a tree structure of what might be thought of as a web site (though that web site might not have a domain name of its own, as discussed by Kjkolb above), and that collection of web pages might be thought of as having a fuzzily-defined attribute which could be thought of as website name, I guess I don't see any harm in having an optional parameter where an attribute of a cited web page called website name might be recorded if that attribute exists for the particular cited page. -- Boracay Bill 00:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I believe you just answered your own question with a "yes". RossPatterson 02:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Kjkolb, I don't understand what you mean by "website name". We have parameter "title" which is chosen by wiki-editors and is thus descriptive — in contrast to a book title, which is identifying. The URL is identifying. Maybe some specific examples could shed some more light on what problem you are trying to solve. --Ligulem 11:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
How about WikiPedia to create own internet archive to store webpages referenced in articles ? Something like Archive-It. Slashdot has did this for websites they cite. But in general - I think it does not make sense to link to page one can disappear next day. --TAG 15:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
That's exactly what the Internet Archive is, and this template has two parameters designed to make transition to archived copies of pages easy: archiveurl= and archivedate=. Thanks to them and other similar sites, nothing ever really vanishes from the web. RossPatterson 23:10, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
or a book which may have become rare? or an article in an obscure journal which may be available only at horrendous subscription cost? or ...? Though I do use it a lot, my guess is that Cite_web often leads to flakey cites. If today's cites disappear tomorrow or are later found to be flakey, they will be removed by later editors. Perpetuating a flakey cite is not a good thing, IMHO. -- Boracay Bill 22:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
This template isn't the place to discuss turning Wikipedia into a storage medium for non-article data. Wikipedia made that decision a long time ago, when Wikisource was created and the verbatim copies of things like historical documents were moved there. Between Wikisource, the Internet Archive, arχiv, and others, most everything that's every been on the web is still online someplace, and Google Books Library is trying to solve the book problem. RossPatterson 23:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I didn't think this would be such a big deal or so misunderstood. ;-) First, I do not mean "web page name". I mean the name of the website. If you are quoting a company's website, like Pacific Gas & Electric, a government agency, like the United States Department of Defense, or a university, like Stanford University, then that would be the website's name. As for the cases when it is unclear, we will leave it up to the person's best judgment about what name to use or whether to not use one at all, just like we do for most of the other parameters (two are required).

It would be nice if we could only link to sites that are going to be around forever, but that is not the case. For example, the United States Department of Energy is the definitive source on many energy related topics, especially in English, but one of the department's domains no longer exists and every link on it was broken, often with no clues given on where the information could be found. Even websites that are long-lasting have periodic updates where things are shifted around and links get broken. However, web sources are not alone in this limitation, as it can be very difficult to get a copy of some old newspapers or magazines (old being a couple of months, in this case). In many cases, we are not able to shop around for sources. We take what we can get. For example, for an article on a dam or lake/reservoir, the website of the dam owner, such as the Bureau of Reclamation or the Army Corps of Engineers (two major dam owner's in the U.S.) is usually the most accurate and up to date source of information. Occasionally, the are the only source of information that can be found, and even when other sources are found, they only have one or two usable pieces of information rather than a complete profile.

If you think that we should stop using web sources, at least for the most part, fine, then make a proposal and try to get a consensus for it. However, until that happens, many contributors are going to continue to use web sources and we should make them as useful as possible. -- Kjkolb 03:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference displaying oddly

I recently updated several references at Dalek using this template, and one of them displayed somewhat oddly. See Dalek#Footnotes, #4: instead of the link being displayed with the page's title, the URL is displaying next to the title:

Does anyone know why this is happening, and what can be done to fix it? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

There was an extraneous hard return in the Title parameter. I don't quite understand why it caused the template to behave as it did but removing the hard return fixed it. --ElKevbo 01:01, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, Kevbo. That's what I get for copying the title directly from the webpage — I didn't realize that I'd brought the hard return over as well. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:17, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "editor" parameter

It is requested that an edit or modification be made to the protected page.
Please remove this template after the request is fulfilled.

Some pages (like website feedback, q&a, faqs) have no author per se but do have an editor. It would be helpful to have an editor parameter for this cite template. — coelacan talk — 15:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Are publisher is not enough for this ? He is not only editor - but publisher of thouse FAQ, Q&A. Also - please provide examples there you are going to use editor. --TAG 22:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Publisher's not enough, no. A publisher would be the organization or company that produces the web site, while the editor would be a particular person. Here's an example of one cite where I need this:
Editor is used there but is of course not showing up yet. The standard treatment of editor and publisher that "cite book" uses would be fine. — coelacan talk — 23:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] General formatting issues

One of the biggest issue that I have with the use of these templates (cite web, cite news, etc) is that the formatting does not conform to any standard that is used with existing print publications. For example, the dates should use the format of 'December 7, 2006', instead of the less intuitive '07-12-2006'. If you look at references available in MOST academic print publications (most of which are now published on the web anyways), they do it this way. There are other minor punctuation issues as well. These issues NEED to be fixed if these templates are expected to be used by a wider group. Dr. Cash 04:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

If the full date is used and wikilinked (either manually or automatically via the template), the format in which the date is displayed is determined by your user preferences. --ElKevbo 05:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Date formatting is a somewhat frustrating perennial discussion (scroll up and look into the archives). Historic consensus is to have dates in a form that enables user date preferences working, a rather obscure MediaWiki software feature available only for readers that use a login, and which requires writing dates in specific ways to make it work (hard-bundled with having the dates linked, yet another frustrating perennial discussion on this wiki). On another note, Wikipedia is not printed - after all it's still a website and a bit of a deviation from "standards" for print (note the plural) should be ok (an interesting link might be [15]). Per the punctuation, it will most likely be impossible to please everybody with a single format. Of course, detailed proposals for changes are always welcome for discussion and will be enacted if they find consensus. And don't forget that use of the citation templates is not mandatory. They are an attempt to split off the "how to format a reference" decision into a single location, separating that from the data set used on each instantiation. With the possible benefit that Wikipedia could look a bit more professional by having consistent formatting of references. The Germans do it by manually following a pile of formatting instructions [16], with the effect that changing them is pointless, as already written references cannot be changed without tremendous work. --Ligulem 10:42, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
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