Template talk:Cite journal/Journal reference (archived)

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

1 Punctuation
2 The Authorlink, and First & Last parameters
3 There is something wrong
4 Case of par names
5 Article title in quotation marks
6 Volume title should be bold?
7 Junk code
8 References to recurring columns and journals referenced by their publication date
9 CSS hack reduces accessibility
10 Bug report
11 Removing this template is easy
12 A complaint
13 Title mandatory
14 Confusing

This template is for a reference to a journal, with no issue number. Changes to this template should be synchronized with Template:Journal reference issue. dbenbenn | talk 20:10, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also sync it with Template:Journal reference novolume --SFoskett 14:12, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

These templates have got out of sync due to recent edits to Template:Journal reference which have not been done to Template:Journal reference novolume and Template:Journal reference issue. Not sure which is "correct". Template:Journal reference now does not match Wikipedia:Cite_sources but I think I'm not bold enough to change it back. Muntfish 09:40, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Got them into sync now, and in agreement with the style used by most journals - MPF 10:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Punctuation

There should be a period ("full stop") at the end. I'd add it myself, but the template is so complicated I'm afraid of screwing it up. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 17:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, the title should be between quotes (“ ”), doesn't it? --surueña 17:03, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Full stop added. --surueña 08:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The Authorlink, and First & Last parameters

Just removed from the documentation the parameters Authorlink, First and Last. IMHO they aren't needed and introduce too much complexity to the template. The Author and Ref are enough, and can be when the article has multiple authors. Have I missed something? Maybe we can use a bot for updating the articles using this template to completely removed these three parameters. --surueña 08:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Note: I recently proposed something quite similiar at {{book reference}} (see Template talk:Book reference#Eliminating variant First, Last) and received opposition from SEWilco. In the thread "Book reference First Last" on SEWilco's talk, I tried to attack the problem from the other side and presented the idea of a new parameter "Coauthors", which SEWilco picked up promptly and built it into book reference. – Ligulem | Talk 22:15, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I would like to implement the First, Last, Coauthors, Authorlink fields, to conform with the usage with the Book Reference template. As I understand it, it is important to have the Last field (and year) for indexing purposes, but if you want to link to the Wikipedia article on that author, or there are multiple authors, all that is ruined. Is this right? PAR 10:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

There is something wrong

I came here by way of Filipino people. I was looking at the references and they were all mixed up. I took a look at Ayn Rand and it was the same thing. Is this template no longer good, and if so which template should be used now? Thanks. --Chris S. 19:50, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

We tried a new template, but was not fully working, it's all reverted now _→AzaToth 19:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Case of par names

Can the template Gods prevail upon this template to understand lowercased parameter names? It's very irritating having to remeber to capitalise them, and very non-standard compared to other parameterised templates. -Splash^talk 01:26, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Everybody is his own god here, this is a wiki :-). I agree with the lowercase names. At the moment we have bigger fires: Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Qif. Ligulem 08:27, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I made a new backwards-compatible version with lower case params on User:Ligulem/work/jref-lowercase-060207. Test inclusions can be seen at User talk:Ligulem/work/jref-lowercase-060207. If there are no objections, I will put that here and declare the upper case params deprecated. --Ligulem 14:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think I have a better idea: I propose to deprecate this template here and replace all calls with a new template under the name template:Cite journal. The new Cite journal shall provide lowercased params only. Then we can switch over all calls article by article to the new Cite journal, thereby switching the parameters. I think this is much better and safer than providing both (upper/lower) case in the same template, as done on web reference. It is difficult to update all calls in articles while depending on the same template (protected articles, incomplete "what links here", new calls are added while updating, ...). --Ligulem 22:24, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I've prepared the new code at User:Ligulem/work/cite journal/1 (diff). Ready for moving. --Ligulem 23:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

See also the discussion at Template talk:Book reference#Needs accessdate and accessyear attributes to go with URL --Ligulem 15:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Article title in quotation marks

Isn't it pretty standard to put an article title in quotation marks, or at least to write "in", as in the example below? Without this, in a list of mixed types of references it can be hard to tell what is a book and what is an article. —Michael Z. 2006-01-8 08:16 Z

Last, First (2006). "Article title" in Journal title (1).

Volume title should be bold?

In physics, at least, it is standard for the volume number in a reference to appear in boldface. Is this not the case in other fields? Can this be added to the template?--Srleffler 07:05, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I concur. –Joke 18:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Junk code

I was looking at the source of the article "T-34", and found that this template puts a bunch of meaningless junk into its content, hidden from visual browsers using spans and CSS. The code for a single reference looks like this:

<cite style="font-style:normal" id="Reference-Para-2002">[[{{{Authorlink}}}|Para, Carl]], ({{{Date}}}) (April 2002). [ Military Heritage feature on the T-34]. Military Heritage 3 (5): pp.18-20, 22-23. .</cite>

And the actual content within that, leaving out the spans and cite elements, is this:

[[{{{Authorlink}}}|Para, Carl]], ({{{Date}}}) (April 2002). [ Military Heritage feature on the T-34]. Military Heritage 3 (5): pp.18-20, 22-23. .

Hiding content with CSS is not the same as leaving the content out! Not all web browsers use the CSS. Readers using alternative browsers, especially handicapped web page readers, will see or hear this junk code read to them. This is obviously a workaround for something, but it's not an acceptable way to leave the page content. This must be changed ASAP. —Michael Z. 2006-01-16 00:00 Z

Hi. This is related to 'meta-templates'. The way 'Journal reference' and many other templates used to work was by calling sub-templates to evaluate conditional parameters, which then called other sub-templates to evaluate different conditions, et cetera. When one of those 'bottom' level templates was updated it then required all of the templates calling it, and all of the pages calling those templates, to be updated as well... which apparently causes significant server load and thus a directive came down from the developers to stop doing things that way.

Two alternative options for evaluating complex conditions have since been developed. One is based on CSS and was used here. The other requires a blank parameter to be set in the call to the template (usually "|if=") and then uses parameter default tricks in the single template to evaluate conditions. I tend to prefer the latter version (and indeed first developed a replacement for this functionality in that format) due to the same problems you describe above and a couple of other limitations. However, to date, most people have advocated strongly for the CSS version - largely on the grounds that there aren't enough people with non-CSS browsers and adding the extra parameter to the template calls can take a while on heavily used templates. Note that the 'CSS style' is currently being considered for implementation at Template:Book reference and has already been used to convert Template:Taxobox and many others. People with non-CSS browsers are already seeing alot of this. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 00:23, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I fully agree with CBD and I am sad about that "Junk" too. It is a consequence from WP:AUM and the refusal of developers to implement template:qif (which violates WP:AUM) in code and the additional refusal of an alternative methode invented by MrWeeble (and thus sailed under the name "Weeble code" or "Weeble trick") which needs an extra parameter |if= to work on each and every call. An example for a weeble style WP:AUM compliant template can be seen at User:Ligulem/work/Infobox TV channel/2006-01-02 with a test transclusion at User talk:Ligulem/work/Infobox TV channel/2006-01-02. Given to all these refusals, the ultimate option of last resort would be to remove these template calls entirely, which seems to be on the line of some Wikipedians. On the other hand one important proponent of WP:AUM, Netoholic (inventor of the CSS trick), added that CSS-trick to a bunch of templates already, so we already have it in articles, which is a strong argument not to avoid that CSS trick on other templates. Please also take a thorough look at all those lengthy discussions on the theme at the talk of WP:AUM (alert: long) before making your definite own opinion. Thank you. --Ligulem 09:14, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't expect to learn all the ins and outs of conditionals in templates, but I definitely won't change the opinion that reducing accessibility of pages is absolutely unacceptable. The fact that the people who need assisting technology just to read Wikipedia is a very small minority in no way excuses this. I can't emphasize enough how very bad this practice is, especially in a so-called open web site. It's lame enough that old web sites retain inaccessible code, but to actually add it, using back-end technology changes as an excuse, is appalling. I will try to make this opinion heard in the places where it belongs. —Michael Z. 2006-01-16 17:32 Z

Just to clarify: is the CSS hack being chosen because the other alternative is more work to implement? Is this being implemented as a temporary fix for visual browsers, or a permanent solution? —Michael Z. 2006-01-16 17:40 Z

I've responded on your talk. Please follow me :-). --Ligulem 17:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

EVERYONE - in order to quash this ForestFire, please follow-up discussion at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#CSS hack reduces accessibility. -- Netoholic @ 19:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

References to recurring columns and journals referenced by their publication date

Consider the following journal reference (taken from Non-measurable set):

A. K. Dewdney, A matter fabricator provides matter for thought, Computer recreations, Sci. Am. April 1989, 116-119.

How would Dewdney's column "Computer recreations" be referenced with the journal reference template (if at all)? What about volume and issue? As far as I know, single issues of Scientific American are referenced by month and year, so would I use the template parameters Year and Month

Dewdney, A. K., ({{{Date}}}) (April 1989). [ A matter fabricator provides matter for thought]. Sci. Am. (): 116–119. .

or should I use Issue and Volume

Dewdney, A. K., ({{{Date}}}) ( ). [ A matter fabricator provides matter for thought]. Sci. Am. 1989 (April): 116–119. .

instead? (The first variant looks somewhat goofy to me.) —Tobias Bergemann 15:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Scientific American is a magazine, not a journal. Isn't there an alternative template? --Oldak Quill 23:44, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

None that I am aware of, i.e. none in Category:Citation templates and none referenced from Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles. —Tobias Bergemann 09:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

If I were you, I'd make a template specific to magazines and papers of record. Off the top of my head the following fields would be included: Publication name, author name, date of publication, column name, URL, author link, an issue number if the newspaper/magazine uses one. --Oldak Quill 16:35, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

That would be useful.--Nectar 05:45, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

CSS hack reduces accessibility

I just learned about the CSS hack being added to a number of templates, to compensate for a changed policy on template transclusion. I understand that there is an alternative, but this is being implemented because its easier.

This hack injects junk code into the body of the page, then hides it from most visual browsers using CSS. This makes Wikipedia less accessible for users of assistive technologies, like web page readers for the handicapped, and text readers. This is sloppy programming and bad practice from the point of view of usability and accessibility. Wikipedia is an open encyclopedia; please lets not start treating the minority who has the most difficult time reading like second-class citizens. —Michael Z. 2006-01-16 17:51 Z

I've responded on your talk. Please follow me :-). --Ligulem 18:00, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

EVERYONE - in order to quash this ForestFire, please follow-up discussion at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#CSS hack reduces accessibility. -- Netoholic @ 19:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Bug report

Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but there is a bug of some sort in this template. If the Journal field is left blank the ID field doesn't show up. For example {{Journal reference|Author=Doe, John|Year=2005|Title=Essay on stuff||ID=Preprint 12345}} creates

Template:Journal reference

The journal field isn't listed as required and might often be omitted for preprint references. -- Fropuff 03:15, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what was causing the problem, but this seems to have fixed it. All of the conditions appearing after 'Journal' (Volume, Issue, Pages, and ID) were being ignored, though nothing in the syntax should have caused that. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 13:59, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Probably helped that you replaced improperly-"nested" tags with wiki-markup: take a close look again

. The improper markup probably triggered HTML Tidy which is used by Mediawiki to clean up just this sort of thing. Or not. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 18:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I did miss a '/' there, but that wasn't the problem. The same thing was happening here... and then I changed it TO the version trying to fix that. Seems to have been related to the non-blanking space or having a default for the Journal parameter... neither of which should have mattered. Whatever, it works now. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 18:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Removing this template is easy

Since the CSS hack has been added, I've replaced {{book reference}} and {{journal reference}} with literal text in the references section of "T-34". The change was pretty easy, although to approximate the template's previous output I added something like <cite id="Reference-author-2006" style="font-format:normal;"> . . . </cite> to each item on the page.

Removing the template actually allowed me to improve the format slightly, adding quotation marks around article titles, avoiding double punctuation after an article title ending with a question mark, and avoiding an undesirable space between the issue and page numbers.

This could be made even easier by using a simple template that wrapped the citation tag around the literal content and added a backlink, but it's not necessary. —Michael Z. 2006-01-23 21:22 Z

I've created {{wikicite}} and {{wikiref}} to make this easier. Example of use: T-34#References. —Michael Z. 2006-01-24 04:19 Z

A complaint

Why do you guys make the simple things complex? Why do you apply this cumbersome template for something so simple as a reference notation? 10 or so different variables in a decision making template. Totally unnecesary. No need for this extravaganca. -- Boris 22:29, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I find this template to be extremely useful. Most of the parameters are optional. --Rikurzhen 23:04, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

How would you write in you code this text:

1. Novel GLUD expressed in neural and testicular tissues and encoded by an X-linked intronless gene. JBC. 1994; 269: 16971-76; Free text (PDF - 3.2 MB);

-- Boris 07:13, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

If I were doing it, this is what I'd write:

{{Journal reference | Author = Shashidharan, P., Michaelidis, T. M., Robakis, N. K., Kresovali, A., Papamatheakis, J. and Plaitakis, A. | Year = 1994 | Month = June 17 | Title = Novel human glutamate dehydrogenase expressed in neural and testicular tissues and encoded by an X-linked intronless gene | Journal = J. Biol. Chem. | Volume = 269 | Issue = 24 | Pages = 16971-16976 | ID = | URL = http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/abstract/269/24/16971 }}
Template:Journal reference

I setup EndNote so I can download/export the citations easily, which is what I did here. --Rikurzhen 07:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

How do you set up an EndNote? What do you mean by saying I can download/export the citations easily? From where i sit i don't see any benefit. I'm not familiar with the techniques so i don't understand what you are talking about. Why do you have to download/export a citation? Do you use a javascript or something? -- Boris 09:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Boris. You can just type the text into the article the way you did above. The template is meant to be a way of putting such references into a standard format. Everyone could type those formatted messages in as well, but it would be difficult to get everyone doing it precisely the same way and if there was later a group decision to change the format every reference would have to be updated manually... whereas with the template we can just change the format there and it automatically updates in all articles. Since the template call requires each element of the citation to be identified (as the 'title', 'author', 'pages' or whatever) it is longer than just typing in the straight text, but the standardization/update benefits are worth it to some people. Use whichever citation method works for you. People may come along and convert your citations to this format later, but the important thing is to get the citations into the article in whatever form works for the person making the updates. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 11:52, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Boris 16:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

To Boris: EndNote is a commercial reference management software package. It can be configured to output references in various formats. Rikurzhen is saying that he has set it up to export references in {{subst:tl|Journal reference}] format. Gdr 16:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Title mandatory

Why is the title mandatory? If something has to be mandatory, can't it be the author? The reason I ask, is in physics (at least) it is conventional in most journals to cite without the title (just journal, volume, page). I always try to include it, but sometimes for really old articles (e.g. 1950) it can be hard to find. Of course, usually if you're citing something you actually have it, but if you know a certain paper was where an idea was first proposed, you ought to cite it whether you have access to the paper or not (see the reference to Peter G. Bergmann in canonical gravity for an example). –Joke 13:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

The title and the source shoud be mandatory. -- Boris 19:34, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Why? –Joke 20:20, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Because Boris said so.Travb 04:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Confusing

This set up for this journal refernce is confusing to saw the least: "This template has been deprecated."??? Deprecated???

1. To express disapproval of; deplore.

2. To belittle; depreciate.

This is a really poor word to use.

Worse, replacing a descriptive *{{Journal reference | Author= | Title= | Journal= | Year= | Volume= | Issue= | Pages= | URL= }} with an article's title only seems like a bad joke. What about the author, year etc.

Where was this decided, and who decided to do this? whoever did, it appears on its face like a really ill concieved and foolish idea.Travb 04:38, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, reading over this page I think I understand now, why not replace the {{{title}}} with the new template so as not to confuse users new to this idea.Travb 04:44, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I think there might be some important misunderstanding. This template here has a lot of optional parameters. I've deprecated the template after discussing with user:Splash (see this talk page here and on my talk). The goal is to have a new version of Journal reference with identical functionality but with lower case param names for simplicity and easy of use at template:cite journal. All functionality is kept. There is not the slightest intention to let journal references go down, it just will continue to flourish on template:cite journal. It's the same thing, with a new name and lower case parameters. It is just a technical process as it makes the migration to lower case parameters possible. You might want to consider this just as a special form of move or rename. Hope I correctly understood your concerns. Please correct me, if I'm wrong. Sorry if all this is a bit confusing. You may also ask on my talk. I'm happy to explain as much I can. I'm currently migrating calls of Journal reference to cite journal. Everything is kept as it was. Just a new name and lower case params. --Ligulem 09:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Ligulem, if this template is deprecated, shouldn't Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles/Generic citations be updated? It is still listed there. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:05, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Thanks for pointing this out! I'm going to do that right now. --Ligulem 08:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

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