Talk:David Bordwell

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[edit] Please use citation templates

Use of informal reference styles is strongly deprecated, and proper use of citation templates is highly desirable. See WP:CITET for information on proper use of citations on Wikipedia.

The parent guideline on citations is Wikipedia:Citing sources, which points down to the template specifics. The point of templates is to allow consistent formatting and identification of fields across articles. Once these are used consistently (a big project, of course), WP or another publisher of the articles, can impose a particular reference style across the board and/or extract fields to more structured databases of information. In general, there is no good reason to use informal citations in any future edits; updating the prior ones is simply an issue of legacy content. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, this is getting ridiculous. It is not a list of citations, it is a list of the subject's books. Is this not terribly, terribly obvious? As the list displays now it is inconsistently formatted, how on earth can you think that makes for a higher quality article? I will not revert it again right away, I will await your reply. -- Ramanpotential (talk | contribs) 07:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Please, please, please just follow WP guidlines and policies, such as those I mention! I have no idea what hairs you think you are splitting, but it's just plain the vastly preferred style to use citation templates rather than free-form references. If you don't understand this, ask about it on the talk pages of one of the WP guidelines, or maybe in the Village pump or the like. There's simply no ambiguity about the fact that citation templates are the right way to cite books, articles, web pages, etc.
Moreover, I pretty much presume you reverted it for the sole reason that I spent quite a bit of work improving it to use the proper citation format. If you don't like the way WP renders book citations, please feel free to discuss that on the template talk pages. I really don't care one way or the other, but the goal of getting citations in a data-oriented format, with distinct fields, as templates do, is infinitely better than free form cites that every single editor of each article does differently. I believe it's technically feasible to, e.g. use some directive to make a page format to Chicago Manual vs. APA style vs. Times style, or whatever. Obviously, with the free-form notes, that's impossible. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 10:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Do you ever actually listen? What part of "It is not a list of citations" is so difficult for you to comprehend? It is a list of books by the article's subject, not a bibliographic/reference/citation list for the article. Wikipedia's policies regarding citations are not in the least bit relevant, because it's just a simple bloody list! Come to think of it, having the author's name in the list is utterly redundant as well. All that should be there is the title, italicised, the year and perhaps the publisher. Unless someone else (someone who actually reads and understands what people say to them) can give me a good reason why templates need to be employed in a simple bloody list, it will be reverted. -- Ramanpotential (talk | contribs) 11:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm surprised that there is any argument about citation templates for books and written works. It really is the best way to do things here and allows a standardization for all articles. Any article that is currently under peer review or the featured article nomination process is going to use citation templates for cited references and for other supporting documents.--MONGO 04:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)