Template talk:Cite news

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Template:Cite news is permanently protected from editing, as it is a heavily used or visible template. Substantial changes should be proposed here, and made by administrators if the proposal is uncontroversial, or has been discussed and is supported by consensus. Use {{editprotected}} to attract the attention of an administrator in such cases. Any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes, categories or interwiki links.

Archives

*Archive 1

Contents 1 Date conversions 2 Position of quotation marks 3 Location 4 Associated Press? 4.1 modify the template? 5 Quote parameter 6 Volume/issue for magazines 6.1 Volume/issue, redux 7 Section parameter needed? 8 Author attribute 9 Request date format change 10 Punctuation inconsistency 11 Formatted "accessdate" 12 "Edition" parameter suggested 13 Spacing of (in language) 14 Cite news bot 15 Semi colon between first and susequent authors desirable 16 Pages parameter major problem 17 Too many unresolved items here 18 Error category should only be applied in article namespace 19 Automatic date wikilinking 20 archiveurl 21 Typo fix 22 Changes to publisher, article name quotes 23 Doc and comments 24 Bug in pre-Jan. 2, 1970 date parsing? 25 work= vs. publisher= 26 The New York Times 27 How to specify URL for a preprint of the article? 28 Subtitle 29 archiveurl without original url 30 Quotes and comma 31 In doc examples, put title first 32 Instructions tweak suggestion 33 Bolding language= output 34 license status? attribution? what is involved in porting? 35 Extra space 36 Accessdate should not be linked 37 Pre-epoch parsing 38 italicize publication titles 39 Hide the access date

[edit] Date conversions

Y Done

Just curious—is there a reason the date and accessdate fields work differently? The latter automatically converts ISO 8601 dates to the end-user's preferred format, but with the former you have to wrap it in [[brackets]]. Thanks. — Muffuletta 16:02, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the reason was explained on the news reference talk page. --Muchness 16:30, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

D'oh! That explanation makes sense. Thanks. — Muffuletta 18:42, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm copying the relevant question and answer from {{news reference}}:

Why is the {{{date}}} parameter not wikilinked? Doing so would format it, just like the {{{urldate}}} is formatted. — jdorje (talk) 02:10, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

This would be because it is not always possible to know the precise date when something was published: it might be sometime within a given month with no day listed, or even just a year, and auto-linking partial dates would be disastrous. You should always know when you checked the URL, however, or else your clock is broken . HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 09:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

urldate is the old name for accessdate. --Ligulem 19:21, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

{{News reference}} no longer exists. Where is this explanation now? Others will surely want to see it (I would myself). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Can someone format this in such a way that you don't have to enter everything in the ISO format date. I come from a country where we would never link to dates in such a way, and I find myself forgetting to do it every time. Particularly for the accessdate field, this would be enormously helpful. JRG 05:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm from the same country and I see no problems with the ISO format. In fact it's a lot easier to use 2005-10-26 than it is to type "[[26 October]] [[2007]]". And of course there are the incorrect (for Australia) variations that people use such as "[[26 October]], [[2007]]", "[[October 26]] [[2007]]" and "[[October 26]], [[2007]]". The ISO format seems far more logical, especially since it autoconverts to the correct display format anyway. --AussieLegend 06:22, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

My request still stands, despite what he says. JRG 06:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The current arrangement works quite well. Accessdate=, an administrative detail of little interest to most readers is efficiently summarized using ISO format, and date= can be spelled out using [[month date]] [[year]] or some other default format of the editor's own choosing that gets rearranged according to user preferences. Please don't change them. --HailFire 10:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Position of quotation marks

Hi guys,

before eventually editing the code I would like to ask: is it intentional that the quotation marks enclose the whole [...] tag rather than just the title? This, of course, causes the external link image to be visualized inside quotes. Thanks --Gennaro Prota^•Talk 12:34, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe it is an accident of history, not a deliberate action. RossPatterson 22:44, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Location

Y Done I have been using this lately - and it seems to me that a location should be added since that is commonly part of the dateline of news articles. --Trödel 15:51, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

We have a location param in other cite templates too, so that seems reasonable to me. At least I can't think of any reason why not. --Ligulem 22:57, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Those are two radically different usages. The dateline usage is part of the news item's content, to give context to readers of that news item in its original publication(s) as to what locale the story is about; it is not part of the metadata about the news item, which is what this template provides as source details for Wikipedia articles. The location field should be present - especially since multiple publications in different locations often have the same name - but it should be for the location of the publisher, just as it is in {{Cite book}}. And the docs should explain this, so people do not misuse it for dateline location. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Could we have a "Location" field? Seems to make sense for newspapers that don't have the city in the name, like The Times. I think it should appear in parentheses after "work".—Chowbok ☠ 22:15, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

• Not opposed to the field necessarily, but if you link in the publisher field to which The Times you mean, it should clear it up. e.g. The Times of India or The Times (Shreveport). I'm not sure I've ever seen a location given in off-wikipedia newspaper citations before. But I'm no expert. --W.marsh 22:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

That falsely presumes that all reliable sources that could use this template have Wikipedia articles! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

If consensus develops to do this I'll edit the template. But first it needs to be discussed, implemented, and tested. Then add an editprotected tag. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:49, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

No opposition since June 2006, and implemented in other templates of this sort equates to plenty of consensus. Its implementation in other templates can simply be copied here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

So we need to simply add the code from {{cite book}} that would enable this parameter in {{cite news}}, along with various other code changes proposed on this page. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I have a suggested implementation at User:RossPatterson/cite news. The changed code adds a location= parameter to the template and displays it in parentheses after the publisher= value, but only if publisher= is specified. The {{cite book}} template does this differently, placing the location before the publisher and separated by a colon, but it seems to me that "The Mercury (Hobart, Tasmania)" and "The Times (London)" look better than "Hobart, Tasmania: The Mercury" and "London: The Times" and put the emphasis more on the publisher that its location. The implementation passes all the examples in Template:cite news/doc plus this one:

• {{cite news | first=John | last=Doe | title=News | url=http://www.example.org/ | work=Encyclopedia of Things | publisher=News co. | pages= 37–39 | date=[[2005-11-21]] | id={{ISSN|0028-0836}} | accessdate=2005-12-11 |location=[[Hobart]], [[Tasmania]] }}
• Doe, John. "News", Encyclopedia of Things, News co. (Hobart, Tasmania), 2005-11-21, pp. 37–39. ISSN 0028-0836. Retrieved on 2005-12-11.

RossPatterson (talk) 17:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

{{tl|editprotected}}

Please add the location= parameter to this template by replacing:

 | , {{{publisher}}}

with:

 | , {{{publisher}}}{{#if: {{{location|}}} |  ({{{location}}})}}

RossPatterson (talk) 02:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Hangon, please - Not sure about this proposed solution. Location= may be helpful, but publisher= is an existing field already in use for a long time. At Barack Obama, for example, I routinely use publisher= to indicate the print or web source of work=Associated Press articles. For most sources using this template, the useful location information will be inside the url= itself, linked via the Uniform Resource Locator. Changing the name of the field would impose a lot of cleanup for articles using publisher=, unnecessary in my view. --HailFire (talk) 06:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm also confused on what this change is supposed to do. Why do we need a new parameter for the publisher's location? Can't we just put that info in the publisher field if it's ambiguous? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

This was already explained: "The location field should be present - especially since multiple publications in different locations often have the same name". Same field as {{Cite book}}, which is frequently misused to cite things which should be cited with {{Cite news}} because they are periodicals not books; this field being missing makes it harder to clean up such instances. Basically, don't worry about it. It doesn't need to be used in every single case of citing a news story, so it does not add any burden to you or anyone else. But it should be present for when it does need to be used. The "For most sources using this template, the useful location information will be inside the url=" point is not valid; many, many, many things cited with this template have no URL at all; the Web has only existed since the early 1990s, remember, and Wikipedia is not only about "sexy" new topics that are covered in new articles in current publications that have online versions.

I'm restoring the {{editprotected}}, but in a format consistent with {{Cite book}}; the last thing we need to do is implement something inconsistent in the process of trying to implement something consistent! Heh. The colon format comes from MLA style I think.

{{editprotected}}

Please add the location= parameter to this template by replacing:

 | , {{{publisher}}}

with:

 | , {{#if: {{{location|}}} |{{{location}}}: }}{{{publisher}}}

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Y Done Neil ☎ 11:47, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Associated Press?

I've found, especially recently for some reason, a lot of stories that while they are found on, say, Yahoo News or Rocky Mountain News or what-have-you, are actually from Associated Press. It's unclear to me how these are to be formatted; is the work "Yahoo News" or "Associated Press"? Is the publisher "Yahoo.com" or "Associated Press"? Also, different venues may edit the story as it comes to them from Associated Press, so one may know that a particular detail existed in the full story (for instance, if you find it in a Google cached version) but may be unable to find it in the story as run by anyone who still has it online. How does one handle this? -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Good question - I usually use just the published newspaper name - or try to find the wire article. to attribute it to AP - the problem with just using AP is that the newspaper you read it in could make editorial additions/deletions for space/interest/etc. so it may not match the AP wire content. Anyone else have suggestions...--Trödel 16:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

In this example I used the work parameter to specify the newspaper (published online in this case), and the publisher parameter to specify that the source was the Associated Press. Probably not technically correct, but I thought it was the best way to cite the original source, since I didn't have a link to the AP archived article. --KeithB 21:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

That's the approach I've been using, since it seems to me to be the one suggested by the template documentation. I haven't been including format = reprint, though. Perhaps it's best not to specify "reprint" if it's common practice for the final publisher to edit the AP release before publishing it, as stated later in this discussion. Wdfarmer (talk) 23:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

• I have this same question and I would like to hear some more thoughts on this. In my case, I am talking about events that happened in Austin, Texas, but I'm reading an Associated Press article that ran in the San Diego Union-Tribune. I think the problem with citing the San Diego Union Tribune as the work/publisher is that (a) this gives no credit to the Associated Press when it seems they are due some credit (b) it might convey an erroneous impression - namely, that the San Diego city paper actually assigned a reporter to cover this event.

It has been suggested to me that I use work=San Diego Union Tribune | publisher=Copley Press | author=Associated Press. However, that does not feel right to me since that leaves no room to credit the actual human author. What would be the preferred way to handle this? Johntex\^talk 03:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I simply don't specify an author in such cases. Usually such material is edited to a point anyway. Not to mention that "publisher" has always been intended for the publication, despite its less than ideal name. Circeus 04:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

If the author and first/last fields are not mutually exclusive in the actual code, use first/last for human author and the author field for AP. Otherwise, use author=Lastname, Firstname ([[Associated press|AP]]) or something to that effect. I concur with the above about citing the specific publication; AP newswires as republished and sometimes modified by news outlets are effectively reported speech (that is, very long and sometimes modified quotations), so in the absence of the original, they must be attributed to the source from which the citing editor got them, per WP:V. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:07, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The author= parameter is ignored by the code if the last= parameter is specified, so they are mutually exclusive. RossPatterson 21:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• My work-around is to specfiy the work as the journal the item was printed / published in, and to list "(Associated Press)" as a co-author. This makes is abundantly clear where the citation / source was located, and that the AP was the underlying source, whom the author worked for.
  Example:

Kellman, Laurie; (Associated Press). "Mukasey Prospects Dim Over Waterboarding", Washington Post, October 31, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-11-01. 
-- Yellowdesk 04:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• Here's an alternate approach, using "work =Associated Press" combined with "publisher=CBS News":

H. Josef, Hebert. "Congress Begins Tackling Climate Issues", Associated Press, CBS News, January 29, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-09-30. 
--HailFire 11:38, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

• I've used yet another approach, combining the two in the publisher field, i.e. |publisher=Associated Press for CBS News. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:10, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] modify the template?

How about having an optional publisher2 or wire service parameter? Bwrs (talk) 08:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quote parameter

Y Done

Is there a reason this template doesn't have a quote parameter? Kaldari 11:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I would also like this added. The template would be much more useful then. I've been using "cite web" instead just so I can include a quote. I'm going to add the editprotected template and hopefully an admin will add "quote". — coelacan talk — 21:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm 99% sure I added such a parameter correctly (the template is a bit more esoteric than I'm used to working with). I also made the change to the documentation page. If I've inadvertently broken the template somehow, drop me a line on my talk page and I'll revert it post-haste. EVula // talk // ☯ // 02:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, using coelacan's code, I've added the quote tag again. It appears to be working now... EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The current coding uses smart quotes namely “ and ”. These are not standard in wikipedia - can they be replaced please with normal plain quotes ". Secondly, if a quote is very long, then it can be hard to identify as such, therefore can it be italicised. Hence the elements required are (NB with added spaces to identify the elements): ' ' " {{{quote}}} " ' '

The coding (without talk-page typesetting spaces) thus would be: ''"{{{quote}}}"'' David Ruben ^Talk 13:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Then the same problem exists on {{cite book}}, which is where the quote system was copied from. — coelacan talk — 21:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

{{Editprotected}} Per WP:MOS#Quotations this does in fact need to be fixed as requested above, and at {{Cite book}} and any other such template that has a quote field ({{Cite web}} does, last I looked); no further consensus discussion is required on this one, since WP:MOS trumps template formatting quirks. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

You need to either write / update the code or find someone to write / update the code. The code is too esoteric for a quick admin fix. When the new code is ready, re-enable the editprotected request. Cheers. --MZMcBride 01:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Very well: {{editprotected}} Please change

|  “{{{quote}}}”

to

|  "{{{quote}}}"

Thanks! RossPatterson (talk) 02:21, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Y Done Neil ☎ 11:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Volume/issue for magazines

As there is no specific template for Magazines, I assume this is the one to use for citing magazines. If this is the case is it possible to add an ISSUE parameter for use by magazines, as this is at the moment missing? Cheers Lethaniol 16:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Try {{cite journal}} instead. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 16:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Have read that cite journal is for academic use only, due to the way it is formatted - see Wikipedia talk:Citation templates#Magazines? and it says at cite journal "cite journal is for formatting references to articles in academic journals in a consistent and legible manner." Ideally Magazines should be somewhere else I should think, and they have much more in common with News - e.g. Magazine like the The Economist. Lethaniol 16:57, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, technically, both formats can be used. I've seen numerous cases where magazines were cited giving only a date rather without volume/issues. Circeus 21:06, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's just borrow code from {{Cite journal}} and (if necessary) some new code, to enable volume and number parameters, and an issue parameter. This would once and for all end any confusion about whether to use {{Cite news}} or {{Cite journal}} for magazines, probably much to the pleasure of {{Cite journal}} people. We would need both volume/number and issue because different publications use different systems (and need them at all, because not all publications make it apparent at all what date they were published. For example, I subscribe to Cook's Country, a cooking magazine, and it never has a publication date in it anywhere, making it impossible to cite that magazine with this template. After this is done, it would be wise to have {{Cite magazine}} and {{Cite mag}} redirects go to {{Cite news}} to prevent any further confusion. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Alternatively, use volume/issue, and document that "issue" can mean either "issue within a volume" if used with "volume" or "issue since the first one" for publications that don't use volume numbers. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Volume/issue, redux

{{editprotected}}

This has been requested before: could someone please add an option volume and issue parameter for citing printed media? (Yes, we could use {{cite journal}} for this, but that is not correct if you're not actually citing a scholarly journal. Thanks, Lewis Collard! (natter) 06:38, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. It would speed things up if you write and test the code in a sandbox somewhere. CMummert · talk 12:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking that's not my job. Lewis Collard! (natter) 00:14, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Everyone here is a volunteer - it's nobody's job. So if you are particularly interested in a new template feature, but refuse to write and test code, you have to wait until someone else makes time to do it. In this case it won't be hard to write the code but requires thorough testing, which takes some time. CMummert · talk 02:14, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I take back my previous comment. (Was tired and cranky at the time. ;/) Lewis Collard! (natter) 12:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

With over 20,000 transclusions, there should probably some testing first : - ) . Also the new code doesn't need to include so many spaces. Also, I'm not sure the documentation needs to be included in the actual template hidden in comments. That could probably be removed also. Cheers. --MZMcBride 15:34, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This code contains "volume" and "issue" copied directly from {{cite journal}} and placed below "pages", just like {{cite journal}}. I've also removed all HTML comments and other spaces that could be safely removed. It reduced the overall size from 3,998 bytes → 2,088 bytes, though the code is not nearly as pretty now. Note: This code has not been tested. Cheers. --MZMcBride 19:10, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be worthwhile to have a page with test cases for important templates like this that exercise all the features and can be consulted whenever changes are made (or can be copied and used to test drafts). I'll work on it. CMummert · talk 02:18, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

<includeonly>{{#if:{{{title|}}}
|{{#if:{{{author|}}}{{{last|}}}
| {{#if:{{{authorlink|}}}
| [[{{{authorlink}}}|{{#if:{{{last|}}}
| {{{last}}}{{#if:{{{first|}}}| , {{{first}}} }}
| {{{author}}}
}}]]
| {{#if:{{{last|}}}
| {{{last}}}{{#if:{{{first|}}}| , {{{first}}} }}
| {{{author}}}
}}
}}
}}{{#if:{{{author|}}}{{{last|}}}
| {{#if:{{{coauthors|}}} | , {{{coauthors}}} }}. 
}}{{#if:{{{curly|}}}|“|"}}{{#if:{{{url|}}}
| [{{{url}}} {{{title}}}] 
| {{{title}}}
}}{{#if:{{{curly|}}}|”|"}}{{#if:{{{format|}}}|  ({{{format}}}) 
}}{{#if:{{{work|}}}
| , ''{{{work}}}''}}{{#if:{{{publisher|}}}
| , {{{publisher}}}
}}{{#if:{{{date|}}}
| , {{{date}}}
}}{{#if:{{{volume|}}}
  | '''{{{volume}}}'''
}}{{#if:{{{issue|}}}
  | ({{{issue}}})
}}{{#if:{{{pages|}}}
| , pp. {{{pages}}}
|{{#if:{{{page|}}}
| , p. {{{page}}}
}}
}}{{#if:{{{id|}}} 
| . {{{id}}}
}}{{#if:{{{accessdate|}}}  
| . Retrieved on [[{{{accessdate}}}]]
}}.{{#if:{{{language|}}}
|  (in {{{language|}}})
}}{{#if:{{{quote|}}}
|  “{{{quote}}}”
}}|Template error: argument '''title''' is required.}}<span class="Z3988" title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004<!--
-->&rft_val_fmt={{urlencode:info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dc}}<!--
-->&rft.type=newspaperArticle<!--
-->&rft.subject=News<!--
-->{{#if:{{{first|}}}| &rft.aufirst={{urlencode:{{{first}}}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{last|}}}| &rft.aulast={{urlencode:{{{last}}}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{author|}}}| &rft.au={{urlencode:{{{author}}}}}}}<!--
-->&rft.title={{urlencode:{{{title|}}}}}
-->{{#if:{{{url|}}}| &rft.identifier={{urlencode:{{{url}}}}}}}<!-- 
-->{{#if:{{{format|}}}| &rft.format={{urlencode:{{{format}}}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{work|}}}| &rft.source={{urlencode:{{{work}}}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{publisher|}}}| &rft.publisher={{urlencode:{{{publisher}}}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{pages|}}}| &rft.pages={{urlencode:{{{pages}}}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{page|}}}| &rft.spage={{urlencode:{{{pages}}}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{date|}}}| &rft.date={{urlencode:{{{date}}}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{language|}}}| &rft.language={{urlencode:{{{language}}}}}}}<!--
-->"> </span></includeonly><noinclude>
{{protected template}}
{{/doc}}
</noinclude>

So, what's the hold up? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section parameter needed?

For many newspapers, a page is identified in the format: Section, Page. For example, "City & State, Pg. 2". Given this, would it be desirable to have a "Section" parameter for this template? It looks a bit awkward inserting "City & State" in the "Page" argument, since it gets rendered as "pp. City & State, p. 2". -SpuriousQ 17:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I came here to suggest that as well, but I don't know enough about hacking this really complex template to do that. Anyone? --Delirium 11:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Strongly concur. I believe that {{Cite web}} has code for this which can be copied. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:55, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Author attribute

When using the author= attribute, I've filled it out first name last name, e.g., "John Doe". However, I've seen articles using the Cite news template where the name is placed in the attribute as "Doe, John". I'm not sure which is proper, but I think I assumed that author= would be a straightforward "John Doe" format, because first= and last= set up a "Doe, John" format. What is the general consensus? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

That's exactly why I always use first=John|last=Doe - the decision about how to render the citation becomes part of the template, not part of the citation. It's always a Good Thing to separate data from its presentation. RossPatterson 22:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

And what about coauthors=? Which way should it be? If I set it up as last, first, then it will show up as "Doe, John, Doe, Jane", and the commas seem to make it confusing. If it was first last, it would show up as "Doe, John, Jane Doe," which also appears inconsistent. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:47, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Use last, first for consistency. The "author=" attribute (borrowed from {{Cite book}}) exists to handle cases in which this formatting won't work or the author is notable and has an author here ("author=unspecified", "author=Doe, Jane", "author=Doe, Jane (Associated Press)", etc.), not to invert the name order. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request date format change

This isn't a note about wikilinking the date - no worries :) Just a formatting question. For "cite web" (and I think others), the date appears just after the author. Is it supposed to be different for newspaper references? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 00:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

No, and it needs to get fixed. Discussed in more detail below. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:28, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} I've had no response here or on Wikipedia:Citing sources, so I'd like to request a change to this template. Please move the date of the publication (in parentheses) to directly follow the author, if there is one, to match {{cite web}}, {{cite book}}, and {{cite journal}}. If there isn't an author name, the date should stay where it is. Thanks! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is a good idea. It would lead to a huge amount (anonymous ones) of references starting with a date rather than more useful bibliographic data. Circeus 15:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh - I don't mean that. Cite-web and the others start with author name if there is one and then have the date (in parentheses). If there isn't an authors name, it they start with the article's title (or book title) and then have the date. This template should match that format, that's all. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 17:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Here is what we have right now:

{{cite book}}

Author (2007). Title. 

(2007) Title. 

{{cite journal}}

Author (2007). "Title". 

"Title" (2007). 

{{cite news}}

Author. "Title", 2007. 

"Title", 2007. 

{{cite web}}

Author (2007). [URL Title].

[URL Title] (2007).

It looks like web is the only one of these that rearranges when the author is omitted. You are suggesting making {{cite news}} act like {{cite web}}, right? There is already a lack of standardization between the templates, so I don't know that it is worth doing it just for the sake of standardization. CMummert · talk 18:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry - that last comment cracks me up - it isn't worth standardizing for the sake of standardizing? :)

Web does seem to be the only one that's rearranging. But all of the three have the date before the title with the exception of web if it would mean starting with the date. I'd like to see it standardized here as well, with the date before the title unless it means starting with the date. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 21:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone else have a comment on this issue? CMummert · talk 14:29, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

The method used by the other three templates does look slightly better. The coding might be complicated, though. --ais523 16:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This should be standardized. IMHO, it looks weird in a long list of references if the date is sometimes before the date and sometimes after. — Ksero 10:42, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I disabled the editprotected tag for now, but that does not mean that this issue is "resolved". If someone writes the code to accomplish what SatyrTN suggests, and there is consensus for it here, I will be glad to edit the template. CMummert · talk 00:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

The lack of standardization among the various cite templates is crazy making, but I always assumed they followed some standard citation format (whether it be MLS, APA, whatever). I'd like more standardization, but only if a consistent citation style is employed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Quick comment: I'm certainly in favour of standardising. Like Sandy, I'd prefer if they all followed one house style. I'll have a look through the various talk pages and the Style Guides to investigate (unless someone else contributes that info first...) Colin°^Talk 07:45, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

OK. I've had a good read of the talk history and various house styles. It appears that the cite templates produce a formatting that is home-grown as a result of internal discussions, and follows none of the major style guides. Admin Ligulem is a frequent maintainer. The publication year comes after the author(s) in APA, Chicago and Harvard styles. Only the APA put it in parenthesis. The year goes at the end, with the other publication info, in the MLA and NLM (medical) styles. All the style guides vary as to the punctuation, but other than the year, the order is relatively uniform. Whether "pp" or a colon precedes the page(s) varies amongst guides and also among source types.

The {{citation}} template is an alternative to all the various cite templates. See Citation templates for details of both. That template is at least consistent wrt news and other sources.

There doesn't seem to be any effort to produce templates that closely support a particular house style (or even to have the style as a parameter itself). Without this considerable effort, the only way to get consistent styles in the format of your choosing, is to follow Sandy and ignore the templates. Colin°^Talk 13:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a perennial argument, in which everybody champions their own favourite "Manual of Style". There will be no end to this argument, which is pointless anyway; having people switch references around from one externally-favoured format to another is a complete waste of time and resources. What is needed is for us to decide on a synthesised style which works best for Wikipedia, rather than borrowing from other places which simply work in a different manner. You don't get "consistent styles" if different users keep using "styles of their choosing".

The only consensus is that there is no consensus. WP:CITE/ES says "please use the citation style of your choice" (their emphasis). Templates are a means-to-an-end. Only the end result is relevant as far as WP policy and guidelines are concerned (unless the implementation details are a source of problems in themselves). If editors are encouraged to pick a style of their choosing, it might be nice to have template support for it. If WP wishes to invent its own house style, then it should be better documented! That way, editors can choose whether to use templates or not but still follow that style. Currently, the cite templates aren't consistent (both in appearance and also in parameter usage). The citation template is better in this regard: implementing one synthesised style. I can appreciate the argument that says "pick what works best for WP", however there is no consensus for "best". I'm no template expert, but it appears the limitations prevent clever handling of punctuation, etc. Therefore, anyone wishing to format citations neatly is forced to ignore templates. The loss of meta data is one consequence of this. Colin°^Talk 14:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, from a template and coding point of view, there's no limitation like you speak of. Particular templates may not be handling things right, but that's a coding issue that can be (and should be) fixed. I routinely use the templates because I don't understand what the "best" format is. I agree with everyone that a standard should be implemented (our own home-grown or an adopted one). But I have no idea how to go about that - and from what I've seen, it's been tried. But I'm willing to do the coding if one can be consensed! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but :-) As I understand the long-standing issue (and having seen it on FAC/FAR), there are plenty of editors who *do* have a preferred style, and will scream if a different standard is implemented. Different topic areas use different styles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

On a different note, I have been agitating for some considerable time for some code to avoid the problem of the date appearing first when no author is specified, in particular for use in "Bibliography" sections in articles for authors, where we don't actually want the name to be duplicated: it would appear that I have missed some important developments, which are nonetheless very welcome. Maybe we could work to incorporate this code into the other templates. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 13:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't care what style is used or what style is chosen; I just advocate for consistency between the templates. The templates frustrate me so much I rarely use them. I think the only time I consistently use them is if an article has a lot of PMID links that need to be converted (then I use Diberri), or if I'm helping out on an article that already uses a lot of them. If a consistent style would be employed, I would still do refs manually, but I would follow the cite template style. (Two asides while we have the attention of some folk: Link to previous discussion in my talk page archives and WP:CITE/ES has some dismally outdated examples, which I'm hoping to work on as soon as I get time. I've been sending people to that page, which turns out is frustrating them as well, since it's in bad shape.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:32, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Punctuation inconsistency

Look at this output from Cite news (sans links):

Gene Weingarten. "Cartoon Raises a Stink; Some See Slur Against Islam in a 'B.C.' Outhouse Strip", Washington Post, November 21, 2003, pp. C1+.

Why is there a period after the author's name but a comma after every other element? --zenohockey 02:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It looks strange here because the date is after the title. Most of the cite * templates put the date right after the author's name, and so it looks more reasonable. But it is consistent with the other cite * templates to put a period after the list of authors (in some cases, this list can be long). CMummert · talk 11:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Then as per the above thread, I propose that we fix the inconstency between this template and the others in its class. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:03, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Formatted "accessdate"

{{editprotected}} Can't we just leave the formatting of the "accessdate" field alone? If it's a proper date, it will be formatted by the user's preferences - no need to fiddle with US vs European formats, etc. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree 100%. The recent changes should be reverted. --- RockMFR 15:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Strongly agree: Please revert to unembellished earlier version: "Retrieved on [[{{{accessdate}}}]]" --HailFire 19:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

done. CMummert · talk 02:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

This discussion is now being carried out at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Date formats in cite templates. Please comment there. CMummert · talk 15:24, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

The comments on Willage Pump redirect to here. Apparently there is some belief that there is little objection to this inconsistently-applied change. But I have to agree with the above viewpoints that this revision should definitely be reverted, at least until a consensus opinion can be reached. — RJH (talk) 21:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

{{Editprotected}}

The date on this template appears to be unformatted, since April 13. CMummert · talk 12:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Edition" parameter suggested

An edition, like "Late Edition - Final" is a necessary part of a cite of many newspapers, since many newspapers publish multiple editions on the same day.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Randwolf (talk • contribs) 22:55, April 24, 2007

Strongly concur with whoever wrote that. {{Cite journal}} wasn't created for this sort of thing; newspapers are news, not science journals, so the needed parameters for them belong in this template. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:06, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spacing of (in language)

Think the (in {{{language}}}) should use   — looks bad when it breaks there... --GregU 03:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean  –, which which I would concur. That is, if we are going to used a spaced dash it should be an en-dash, per WP:MOS, and it must butt up against the leading nbsp in order for it to not allow a linebreak there. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I think he means to change (in {{{language}}}) to (in {{{language}}}), rather than add any dash. —Ms2ger (talk) 18:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cite news bot

Has the idea ever been discussed before about create a bot that'll convert wikilinked news references to use this template before they die? Since I've noticed a lot of these (specifically from yahoo) turning up dead a few months later. —Dispenser 07:09, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Semi colon between first and susequent authors desirable

Y Done
Shouldn't the template distingish between the first author and second authors, when there is one, with a semi colon? At present, the result in the footnote is:

Last, First, First_2nd Author Last_2nd Author.

This can be quite needlessly confusing, especially with ambiguous first/last names. For example:

James, Robin, Chris William.

-- Yellowdesk 18:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I just came here to say this. cite book template uses semicolon, and semicolon should be preferred to avoid confusions like the ones mentioned above. Let's use editprotected, if no admin notices this soon. The line

| {{#if: {{{coauthors|}}} | , {{{coauthors}}} }}.

should be changed to

| {{#if: {{{coauthors|}}} | <removethisnowiki>;</removethisnowiki> {{{coauthors}}} }}.

As far as I can see, this won't cause any problems, and solve this semicolon issue (I added removethis to be able to use nowiki twice, please remove "removethis") Deniz^T_C 10:13, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

---

{{editprotected}} Please change the template so that the initial author is separated from additional "co-authors" by a semi colon.
There appears to be no objection to this change.
-- Yellowdesk 04:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I made the change. Now {{cite news|title=foo|author=james|coauthors=bob}} appears as

james; bob. "foo". 

— Carl (CBM · talk) 17:19, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pages parameter major problem

The "page" and "pages" parameters here need to replaced with the code from {{Cite book}} (and its documentation), not only for consistency but so that {{Cite news}} can be transcluded itself is more source-specific templates. Before anyone WP:PANICs, the "page" parameter should be kept, silently in the source code, as an alternative to "pages", and a bot or big AWB session would be used to change cite news occurrences of "page=foo" to "pages=p. foo", and "pages=foo" to "pages=pp. foo". The manually formatted cite book style "page" is more useful for other reasons, as well, such as citing things that are not numbered pages (e.g. "page=frontispiece" or "page=back cover", someting that is not possible with cite news's current parameters. Even without this bot cleanup work, it's not a big deal; some citation styles call for not using "p." or "pp." to begin with, but simply giving the page number, since the numbers can't mean anything but page numbers in the context. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Too many unresolved items here

After doing an archival run on this page, which was getting long and had a lot of duplicate threads, it's become clear that the number of unresolved but non-controversial improvement requests and proposals is really kind of through the roof here. The vast majority of them can be resolved with copy-pasted code from related templates and massaging it in. Any volunteers? I can probably do it, but if someone more intimately familiar with this template did it that would probably be better. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Error category should only be applied in article namespace

Y Done
{{editprotected}} After policing Category:Articles with broken citations for a few months, I've come to the conclusion that only articles should be placed in that category. I think it's still a good idea to display the error messages ("You must specify ...") any time the template is used incorrectly, but there's no need to flag things like user-page examples or talk-page samples for repair. I've made the necessary modifications and put the result in User:RossPatterson/cite news, could an admin please replace this template with that copy? RossPatterson 17:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Template talk:Cite web also mentions a very similar request; discussion should probably be centralized on one or the other page. – Luna Santin (talk) 04:25, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Centralizing discussion would be good. As I pointed out on the other template, the code would also need to be written and tested before it can be made live. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:10, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The code has already been written and tested. It's at User:RossPatterson/cite news as noted above, and it passes all the examples in Template:cite news/doc including an error-generation test case that I added and temporarily disabled until the editprotected is done. It's ready to go. If you prefer to see the code change, it is simply replacing [[Category:Articles with broken citations]] with {{#if: {{NAMESPACE}}|| [[Category:Articles with broken citations]]}}. RossPatterson 02:22, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

This change was made to {{cite web}} several days ago, can it please be made here too? Thanks. RossPatterson 23:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I missed the code the first time. I made the change. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic date wikilinking

Y Done

{{editprotected}}

I would like it if this template automatically wikilinked the date parameter if it is in ISO format (for example, 2007-11-27). This has already been done on Template:cite web and Template:cite press release without any complaints (see the discussions at Template talk:Cite web#Automatic date wikilinking and Template talk:Cite press release#Automatic date wikilinking), so I think it's safe to go ahead and tweak this template too.

Please change

    | , {{{date}}}

to

    | , {{#ifeq:{{#time:Y-m-d|{{{date}}}}}|{{{date}}}|[[{{{date}}}]]|{{{date}}}}}

Thanks in advance! —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I second this request! -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 09:33, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Umm - is that going to cause some problems? Some dates are already linked, so this change would double-wikilink it, wouldn't it? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

No, it is designed to not break existing wikilinked dates. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 18:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I also support his request. Regan123 03:11, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

This code is working very well with {{cite web}}, Remember the dot's change links dates that are specified as YYYY-MM-DD and leaves everything else as it is written. Please, let's make the change. RossPatterson 01:41, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Note that there is a limit on the number of #time: calls allowed on a page. Is this change likely to cause the limit to be reached? --ais523 09:42, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Y Done, seems fine. Neil ☎ 11:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I doubt that this will exceed the limit on #time: calls for any given page. If it does I would guess that the dates would just not be wikilinked. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 15:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a limit, but it isn't on the number of #time: calls. It's on the total size of the all format strings, and it is 6000 characters. This change (and similar changes on other {{cite whatever}} templates) costs 5 characters, so there's a maximum of 1200, minus any more-mundane usages. And the usage here would fall back to the value of the date= parameter. I don't think there's anything to worry about. RossPatterson 00:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] archiveurl

Hey, I'm trying to cite a New York Times article that's from 1903, and archived here. But I don't really understand the archivurl function of the template. How do I get that? Murderbike (talk) 05:23, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Just use the url parameter in this case. archiveurl is almost always used for web pages that have been taken down, but can still be accessed through the Internet Archive. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 06:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! Murderbike (talk) 08:06, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Typo fix

{{Editprotected}} There is a missing space character (plain, not nbsp) between the ":" at the end of the location field, and the publisher field. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

You're right, but I'm not sure immediately how to fix it; there's already a space at the relevant point in the source, which is being ignored for some reason (probably because it's at the end of a #if:), so more experimentation and testing will be needed to figure out what the fix is (most likely moving spaces around inside/outside templates). --ais523 20:25, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Y Done. I believe I have fixed it by replacing the space with   as is used elsewhere in this and similar templates.—Random832 20:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a great tip, I'll have to remember that! --ais523 12:13, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changes to publisher, article name quotes

I've received a second request to 'fix' references in Interstate 355 (in Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Interstate_355 by removing the quotes around the article name, and to italicize the publisher. I'd rather those changes be done here, in the template, than on the article. Is it a concern? (Ignore the date - technically I used {{cite web}} accidentally, so I'll convert it to cite news soon).

Old: (from cite news) Presecky, William. "Tollbooth to nowhere put to the test: vacant Lemont tract a proving ground for new I-PASS technology", Chicago Tribune, August 13, 1997.

New: (from {{cite web}}) Hilkevitch, Jon (October 22, 2007). New superhighway opening soon in Will. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on October 23, 2007.

Thanks! —Rob (talk) 18:26, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Doc and comments

Could we standardize the documentation page by using {{Documentation, template}}? This involves changing:

{{/doc}}
</noinclude>

To:

{{Documentation, template}}</noinclude>

I also noticed that this template has a lot of embedded comments. I know we are not supposed to include the documentation in the template for performance reasons, and I would think this applies to comments as well. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bug in pre-Jan. 2, 1970 date parsing?

I find that using ISO YYYY-MM-DD format for date= does not work for dates earlier than January 2, 1970. As an example, for the desired date December 30, 1969, entering date=1969-12-30 yields only the numeric result "1969-12-30". Are you aware of this apparent bug? Is it necessary to use the bracketed dates for pre-Jan. 2, 1970 dates as a workaround? JGHowes ^talk - 03:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

This is a known issue with the ParserFunctions. —Dispenser (talk) 10:34, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, OK. Many thanks for pointing that out. JGHowes ^talk - 17:22, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

• This being the case, it is proposed that the following modification be made to instructions (change rubricated):

Date: Date of publication. The ISO 8601 YYYY-MM-DD format is recommended, and will be automatically wikilinked to enable date user preferences if used. If the whole date is known and another date format is used, it should be wikilinked (e.g., date=[[3 December]] [[2007]]). (Note: for dates earlier than January 2, 1970, ISO 8601 YYYY-MM-DD automatic wikilinking will not work; instead, wikilink using [[3 December]] [[1969]] format)

Thanks, JGHowes ^talk - 21:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The instructions aren't protected, if you want them changed just change them at Template:Cite news/doc. RossPatterson (talk) 23:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thx for clearing that up. It's done. JGHowes ^talk - 00:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Are the MediaWiki folks working on this? Since it's using four-digit years, seems like this is fixable...—Chowbok ☠ 03:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] work= vs. publisher=

Have long-standing confusion on when to use these two parameters.

• If I'm citing a simple newspaper article, do I use work=[[The Washington Post]] and no publisher= ? This will italicize the name of the paper, which is correct.

• If I'm citing a simple written story on a television news organization's website, do I use publisher=[[CNN]] and no work= ? This will not italicize the name of the news organization, which is correct. But it's very asymmetrical to the first. They are both news providers, and it's not clear why one's a "publisher" and one's a "work".

• Or should I only use publisher= for both, and add the italics markup in the newspaper case myself?

I understand there are some cases where both can be used together, e.g. work=[[NewsHour]] | publisher=[[PBS]], but I'm confused about the straightforward cases above. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The publisher is often not the same as the work although similar in many cases. I try to list both. -23:05, 23 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by JodyB (talk • contribs)

Meaning what? work=[[The Washington Post]] | publisher=[[The Washington Post Company]]? That's pointless repetiton. work=[[CNN]] | publisher=[[Time Warner]] puts CNN into italics (wrong) and gives an ownership that usually isn't relevant. I still don't get it. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The New York Times

Now that The New York Times has kindly put their archives on-line, I find myself using their older articles on a frequent basis. I do find that the URL is quite unwieldy and proper access depends on how you are logged in. To get around these issues, I created {{nytquery}}. Please let me know on the talk page if this is useful or if there are any issues. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 01:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How to specify URL for a preprint of the article?

What is the best way to specify an url for the article preprint, assuming that url= is already used for linking to the published version of the paper? It is often the case that a published version of the paper requires a paid subscription, whereas a preprint (or the author's version) of the same paper is available free of charge. In this case, it really makes to give links to both the published version and the preprint but there is only one url= field... Maxal (talk) 14:36, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Subtitle

Should we add a subtitle? For instance, what do I do with [1] (in German)? The title is „Ich kann einfach nicht aufhören“, but the (much more relevant) subtitle is Haribo-Chef Hans Riegel über Gummibären, Gottschalk und die Generationenfolge im eigenen Unternehmen, which indicates that it is an interview.

So I'd like to have either a subtitle parameter, or an "explanation" kind of parameter, where I could write "Interview with Hans Riegel" to describe the source. Do you think this is sensible? Any ideas/suggestions? -- Lea (talk) 22:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] archiveurl without original url

The archiveurl parameter's documentation makes it sound like it should be possible to use it without having a url, but the way it's set up right now, it's actually dependent on url being filled in. I sometimes need to link to news articles that have been transcribed or posted by their authors on personal sites, but that AFAIK have never been made available on the original newspaper's site, or aren't directly linkable.

Can someone at the very least update the documentation to point out that archiveurl requires url? And can some consideration be given to severing that dependency? Thanks. —mjb (talk) 03:32, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Doc has updated. RossPatterson (talk) 00:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quotes and comma

I think the quotations marks and comma surrounding the rendered link are odd-looking and extraneous and should be eliminated. {{Cite web}} does not have them, and the resulting refs look better; plus, I should think our two major ref templates should be consistent with each other. --CrazyLegsKC 06:27, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

It's also somewhat problematic for the comma to come after the quotation marks. That's bad style in North America. Not sure how to resolve the issue aside from removing quotes altogether. Or not. I guess WP:PUNC has made the opposite decision on this already. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 13:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] In doc examples, put title first

Because "title" is the only required parameter, and also (appropriately) the parameter first discussed in the descriptions of the parameters, I suggest that it be the first listed parameter in the three example templates. This makes it easier for editors to copy the examples, and fill out or delete the parameters while following down the documentation. TJRC (talk) 20:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

If an admin would update the documentation to use {{documentation}}, then doc tweaks could be made by any editor. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:14, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I can edit Template:Cite news/doc; but for such a widely-used template, I didn't want to do so in case there's some good reason for the present order I didn't see. TJRC (talk) 20:22, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Instructions tweak suggestion

For work, instead of "Do not italicize", it would be clearer if it read something more like "the template will automatically italicize this value". BuddingJournalist 17:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bolding language= output

{{editprotected}} If language= is specified, it is added to the citation in parentheses and gray. However, so as to be more consistent with {{Languageicon}}, the parentheses and language name should also be bolded.

« D. Trebbien (talk) 16:50 2008 April 13 (UTC)

I converted it to use {{languageicon}} as a meta-template, so it will always be synchronised with the formatting there. Happy‑melon 09:01, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] license status? attribution? what is involved in porting?

I ported some material I contributed here to another wiki -- one that doesn't currently have any support for {{cite}} templates. Does any one here know:

1. who wrote these templates?
2. how are they liscensed? are they available for re-use under the {{GFDL}}? if so, how should the authors' work be attributed?
3. how much work would porting and installing the {{cite}} templates be? Do they depend on a bunch of other templates?

Similarly, this other wiki doesn't have support for the <ref> </ref> <references/> set of tags.

Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 22:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Extra space

Y Done

{{editprotected}} Can somebody please remove the extra space in the language parameter of the template: | {{languageicon||{{{language}}} }}. The one that is after {{{language}}}. It makes the extra space appear in the refs if language is specified.  ARTYOM  07:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Some one did it already - Nabla (talk) 17:59, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Accessdate should not be linked

The accessdate parameter should not be automatically wikilinked. What this often does is to produce links to unneeded pages such as January 31, 2007. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 23:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Huh? How are you getting that? When I use accessdate, I get January 31, 2007. —Chowbok ☠ 00:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I assume you're typing |accessdate=2007-01-31. If a user types |accessdate=January 31, 2007, the full date is wikilinked. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, then they're misusing the template. It says specifically to use ISO-8601 formatting.—Chowbok ☠ 01:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, wait... Removing the wikilinks would cause problems with ISO-8601 dates, wouldn't it...? Never mind, then; I guess the dates will just have to be updated manually in the articles... Black Falcon ^(Talk) 02:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-epoch parsing

It'd be nice if we could get this fixed. I was fooling around with it but it's a bit over my head. Couldn't we use something like Template:dts2 in place of Template:date?—Chowbok ☠ 00:31, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] italicize publication titles

I believe this template is incorrect. Titles of publications, when entered, are normally italicized. Dr. Cash (talk) 14:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hide the access date

We have a consensus that access dates for online copies of offline sources, while helpful as a comment in the source, should be hidden from the reader. Could somebody who is competent to adapt the citation templates please do so? The idea is to keep the access date as a template parameter but remove the code that displays it. Thanks, --EnOreg (talk) 09:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC) {{editprotected}} All it takes is to comment out these two lines:

 }}{{#if: {{{accessdate|}}}
   | . Retrieved on [[{{{accessdate}}}]].

--EnOreg (talk) 11:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I understand where you're coming from with this, but a problem with this particular template is that it is sometimes used in cases where the source is online-only (and has never been available offline). For those cases, we don't want the accessdate hidden. I'm not sure how widespread this usage is, nor whether this is how the template is meant to be used. --- RockMFR 14:05, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't an online-only news report still have a publication date provided by the date parameter? My concern is that showing two dates for one source is more confusing than helpful... --EnOreg (talk) 15:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I think we should keep all discussion about this in the thread linked above. — Omegatron (talk) 17:30, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I've wrapped the "retrieved on..." in CSS like the other cite templates. See comment at the discussion linked above. Happy‑melon 18:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure which discussion you mean ... could you spell out what this change does? Thx. Wasted Time R (talk) 18:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)