This is an archive of past discussions about Module:Footnotes. 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.
I have the Svick script installed and it highlights the missing harv cites, but does not highlight the duplicate harv cites (i.e. errors in Category:Harv and Sfn multiple-target errors). How can I get them highlighted?
Would there be any way to compile a list of most popular missing harv cites? I.e. a list of 20 articles that cite "Smith 2020"? Today, I came across a whole cluster of missing cites related to country singers. Dozens of articles were citing the same missing sources, which I added. It's much easier to address such clusters in one go rather one-by-one. Any way to detect such other clusters?
Use "Method 3" on the category page to show the duplicate ref errors. As for the clusters, it may help to look through the category for articles with similar names. I did that a few times when the category first existed, and I found clusters of ship and submarine articles that I was able to fix or pass along to the relevant wikiproject. If you find a broken ref that you think might exist in other articles, you can search for (e.g.) CITEREFSmith2020 in your Wikipedia search box. Here's an example that turns up three articles. If historic British buildings are your thing, try CITEREFPevsner (currently 44 articles). – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:02, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
Ok, Method 3 works. Thanks! As for clusters, yes, I was using the Wikipedia search to find articles once I identified a common missing cite. But I was thinking more along the lines of a report. I.e. something similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia. Like they have "Journal X" is cited 20 times in these articles. What would it take to get a report with "Broken sfn ref Smith 2020 cited in these articles"? Renata (talk) 03:44, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
Add to whitelist
I think I figured out the basics on how to add wrapper templates to whitelist. Can someone figure out how to add this one? From Filters in topology:
['CITEREFArkhangel'skiiPonomarev1984'] = {'Arkhangel'skii Ponomarev Fundamentals of General Topology Problems and Exercises'},
{{cite web|last=Molina Carpio |first=Jorge |last2=Cruz |first2=Rodolfo |last3=Alurralde |first3=Juan Carlos |title=IMPACTOS TRANSFRONTERIZOS DE PROYECTOS DE TRASVASE: EL CASO DE LA CUENCA DEL RÍO MAURI|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315114506_IMPACTOS_TRANSFRONTERIZOS_DE_PROYECTOS_DE_TRASVASE_EL_CASO_DE_LA_CUENCA_DEL_RIO_MAURI|website=[[ResearchGate]]|publisher=25th Latin American Hydraulic Congress|accessdate=28 February 2018|ref=harv|language=es|format=PDF|date=9 September 2012}}
And an explanatory answer, for those who learn that way: a citation template using |author= with the author's full name will not work with {{sfn}} templates that use only the author's last name. See this edit for another example of how to separate |author= into |last= and |first=. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:10, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
The template {{Hounshell1984}} is producing what appears to me to be a false-positive error in Gauge block: the link produced by the short footnote correctly links to the citation in the References section. Could somebody check and, if appropriate, add it to the whitelist? Thanks, Wham2001 (talk) 19:19, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
Both can have the year or the date overide the default year because there may be multiple instances of references to the same year necessitating YYYYa-z formats.
@Wham2001 and Finnusertop:{{New Cambridge Medieval History}} is one of the templates where, in the absence of a specific |last=, the "lastname" part of the citeref comes from an |editor-last= buried in the template encoding, same for year: in this case (and many similar) it's indexed by the volume number. So rather than adding every editor/year as a separate entry in the whitelist itself, a more accurate approach would be to recognize the volume-dependent default using an appropriately indexed table in the module's data. Mark you, this is a vague memory from a year ago, and I thought Trappist the monk had implemented the construct, at least in part, so I may be missing something. And, of course, easy for me to say especially as I don't speak LUA. David Brooks (talk) 19:02, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
I only became involved because of a discussion on a user's talk page (User talk:Keith D#Harv error - false positive), until that moment I had no idea that such tracking took place and I still do not understand its purpose. It just seems to me, with my superficial knowledge, to be a Sisyphus task for someone to maintain with all the thanks that goes with such a commitment.
Perhapse you can point me to a page that explains why perfectly good long citation that is linked to with a short citations using a Harvard template need to be listed here because of false positives. -- PBS (talk) 17:09, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
To be fair, I did start a discussion on a possible more flexible solution about a year ago (Dynamic whitelist revisted) but I do recognize that (a) the universe of templates contains a lot of complexities that can defeat a programmatic approach (b) I'm basically saying "easy for you to do" when I realize you're a frantically busy guy. I've pretty much forgotten the arguments I put forward then because you scratched my particular itch (thank you!), but I remember you did add valuable input. David Brooks (talk) 17:18, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Category:Harv and Sfn template errors is the only thing that I have written about this issue. The whole mechanism was conceived as a way to inform editors that an article has broken short-ref / long-ref links. Most editors do not use one of the scripts that highlight these errors so the vast majority of us are wholly unaware of these broken linkages unless we take it upon ourselves to test each link individually. Most of us don't even think about that because, after all, those links are blue, right? When we first turned these error messages on, the community, as it is wont to do, overreacted because, you know, we hate, hate, hate change, so the error messaging is hidden. As a result of no one knowing that the links are broken, there are still 26k articles in Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors (down only a little from 29k in May 2020) and 3100 articles in Category:Harv and Sfn multiple-target errors (down a tad more from 4600 at the same sample point); see this archive.org snapshot.
I still think that this subsystem is an inelegant solution because it requires continuous manual supervision and amendment, although I can not see an obvious alternative given that some think the ends justify the means.
One of the problems with the current system is edits like this. It will "fix" the particular page, but it is not clear unless you are in the know why it is necessary, and every new instance will need it. However that fix has three problems. The first is that other editors will remove the extra parameter as it is not obvious what it is there for (as it is hiding a false positive entry in a maintenance category). The second is more of a problem, as once in place, the extra parameter ignore-err=yes can create false negatives if in the future any information is added to the long citation (such as a change in date for a different edition). The third is that it is likely that new instances will be created over time and that editors will have to repeatedly make similar edits to new instances in other articles. I think the solution to this is to improve the documentation for editors to report two or more false positives here if they involve non-standard citation templates rather than plastering over the cracks. -- PBS (talk) 11:30, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
If you know how the documentation can be improved, please do so.
Trappist the monk, thank-you very much for the additions to the whitelist. I have been working through Category:Harv and Sfn multiple-target errors for a few months now, systematically fixing the more straightforward cases. At the current rate it will take me about another year to get through to the end and the category should be left with 500 articles or so. I think that there are a few other editors also working on the same backlog. The no-target errors, though, are a more daunting backlog. I think it would be very good if it were possible to have the error messages display by default, and I would hope that the community might be a bit more receptive if they all represent "real" errors. Best, Wham2001 (talk) 21:09, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
I think that we could turn on the multiple-target errors without too many pitchforks launched our way but I'm not willing to turn on the no-target error messages and I certainly won't be the one to cleanse Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors of all of the false positives so those errors are going to remain hidden. Unless... I have often wondered what would happen if we metered error messaging – at first only emit error messages in articles with names ending in a certain letter; some time period later, add articles that end with another letter, etc until finally all are shown – sort of the frog-in-the-cookpot version of error messaging. So, should we turn on the multiple-target errors and see what happens?
I would support turning on the multiple-target errors, though it's likely you that the people with pitchforks will come after! Another couple of thoughts: (a) is it possible to identify templates transcluded from pages that also transclude {{sfn}} / {{harv}} / etc. and which themselves transclude a CS1/2 template? That would, as I understand it, provide a pile of transclusions to look through for false positive errors. (b) Would it be helpful to advertise your script (which as I understand it emits very few false positives) on the documentation pages for {{sfn}} etc? I suspect that a big part of the problem is editors thinking that if the link in the short footnote is blue then it must be working (by analogy to wikilinks). Best, Wham2001 (talk) 07:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
Multiple-target error messages now showing. At this moment, Category:Harv and Sfn multiple-target errors has 3066 members. I'm afraid that your question (a) is sufficiently convoluted that I don't think that I can understand it well enough to give a rational answer. All of the ways to show errors are named at Category:Harv and Sfn template errors which is linked from the error message help link. I have thought the same which is why I wrote above Most of us don't even think about that because, after all, those links are blue, right?
User:DavidBrooks/EncycStats might be a sort of answer to Wham2001's question. It hasn't been updated in ten months, but I suspect that it is still a useful list. The "articles" links will take you to pages that transclude a given template and have at least one error (not necessarily from that template). I cleaned out most of User:DavidBrooks/CiteBookStats last year, since templates transcluding {{cite book}} typically have only one author. Templates transcluding {{cite encyclopedia}} are more challenging, however, since the list of authors can be endless. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:13, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I think that list probably captures all the templates I was thinking of. Thanks! I shall bookmark it and come back to it once I've worked through the multiple-target errors. Wham2001 (talk) 19:22, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm flattered those lists are still useful. It did require a fair amount of API spelunking. But I've also noted that {{Cite web}} has been used by editors in the past to achieve similar (erroneous) ends—after all, {{Cite web}} can be used to reference any online encyclopedia. David Brooks (talk) 21:17, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
That (or some other action?) seems to have had the side-effect of adding user sandboxes to the category – at least, a few have suddenly appeared in the first 200 pages... I guess they can probably be left alone for the moment, though. Wham2001 (talk) 19:27, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
Trappist the monk, after a week and a half of error messages being enabled, I've seen numerous editors who aren't primarily reference gnomes fixing these errors, and new articles are being introduced into the category at a lower rate (~1/day rather than a few/day beforehand). I consider that a win.On the other hand, I have found what I think is a false positive, or, at least, I cannot work out where the problem is. History of LGBT characters in animation: 2010s shows a multiple-target error for {{sfn|GLAAD|2017}}. There is only one source emitting that anchor id (I can only find it once in the rendered page's html) and if I comment the source out the error changes to a "no-target" error. The error appeared with this diff. Any ideas? Thanks, Wham2001 (talk) 11:56, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
This one.{{cite tweet}} invokes Module:Cite tweet which assembles |author= from one or more of |last=, |last1=, |first=, |first1=, |author=, |author1=, |author-link=, |user= plus some static text. The article reader is not sufficiently sophisticated to know what metatemplates do to assemble their anchor IDs in all of the ways that they do so the article reader only looks for |last= aliases and |year= or |date=. In this case, it sees |author=GLAAD and |date=May 25, 2017 and creates CITEREFGLAAD2017 which is also created by this{{cite report}} which uses |ref={{sfnref|GLAAD|2017}}.
Ohhhh, I see. Thank-you both very much! I agree that it would be more consistent with the documentation for {{cite tweet}} to not produce an anchor by default (I'm also not convinced that we should be encouraging editors to cite tweets in the first place, but that's a different argument!). Thanks, Wham2001 (talk) 15:28, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
When we first turned these error messages on, the community, as it is wont to do, overreacted because, you know, we hate, hate, hate change, so the error messaging is hidden.
The community didn't overeact, the way "error" detection is inherently flawed and had a false positive rates in the range of ~10%, sometimes turning every page on a single topic littered with red warnings about something catastrophic when everything was peachy. And that is simply not acceptable. Additionally a plethora of errors would have been fixed by simply making |ref=harv default (which it now is), as well as thousands of errors being bot-fixable. If that legwork at been done before, and if the errors flagged were all actually errors, it would have been a different story. But that wasn't the case, and still isn't.
The second one definitely looks like an error to me. As for the first, I can imagine a legitimate case in which someone wanted to cite a no-byline article from 2600: The Hacker Quarterly without a date for some reason, creating CITEREF2600. A database dump report should be able to find instances of sfn and sfn-like templates that use only numbers in the first parameter, and which pages they appear on. That would tell us whether there are edge cases that we are not thinking of. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:13, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for adding that to the id list. That might fix a few other false positives in the tracking category as well. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:02, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
I added the latter two to the whitelist, but I don't see a good, systematic way to add the London Gazette customized ref ids to the whitelist. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:14, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Can someone explain this in plain English?
The article on Marvin Gaye has several errors in the citations:
This category holds articles that use any of the short-cite templates ({{harv}} and {{sfn}} template families, and {{harvc}}) where one or more of those short-cite templates do not properly link to a full citation, the target, or where multiple full cites can be the target of a single short-cite template.
Would someone explain that in plain English, please?
The article is useless with the non-sensical text. I'm happy to fix it but I need to know what is wrong and how to fix it
It means that the short citation "Edmonds 2001a" points to two different full citations in the (mislabeled) "Further reading" section, namely:
Edmonds, Ben (2001a). What's Going On?: Marvin Gaye and the Last Days of the Motown Sound. Canongate U.S. ISBN 1-84195-314-8.
Edmonds, Ben (2001a). Let's Get It On (Deluxe ed.). Motown Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc. MOTD 4757.
One of those needs to be changed to read "2001b". Note also that there are short citations to "Edmonds 2001b" that produce the error message "sfn error: no target: CITEREFEdmonds2001b". Changing one of those full citations to "2001b" will fix those errors also. The trick, of course, is to know which one should be Edmonds 2001b, i.e. which source supports which claims in the article. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Trying to set up pattern for Template:Cite Austrian gazette
Refs 57, 58, and 61. The red error messages show up for me with one of the usual scripts. They all look like false positives that need whitelisting. I have found it much more satisfying to work on the "multiple target" errors, which are almost always fixable on the page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:23, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
It was. I suppressed the false warning by adding {{sfn whitelist|CITEREFWood2002}} [1] but that template is deprecated. It should have been suppressed by adding |ref=none but then the reference didn't work. [2]Hawkeye7(discuss)21:06, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
No, |ref=none will not suppress the harvnb error: no target: CITEREFWood2002 error message because |ref=none prevents {{cite encyclopedia}} (which underlies {{Australian Dictionary of Biography}}) from creating an anchor id to which the {{harvnb}} template links.
There are three ways to fix this particular template pair:
{{sfn whitelist|CITEREFWood2002}} – this has been implemented
add CITEREFWood2002 to Module:Footnotes/whitelist – master list of CITEREF identifiers and a better solution
the canonical name of {{Australian Dictionary of Biography}} is {{Cite Australian Dictionary of Biography}} – Module:Footnotes looks for templates named {{cite <anything>}} when looking for a CITEREF target so will find {{cite Australian Dictionary of Biography}}; this is the best solution.
Thanks to Jonesey95 for sending me this way. It looks like article Sue Raney is trying to use Template:AllMusic for an Sfn citation, but I'm not sure it's an actual citation template because it won't build itself an anchor (I think). The "ref" parameter is being set using SfnRef, but AllMusic doesn't appear to be wrapping Cite web or Citation or any other template for citations, so it's doing no good to set ref. At least this is my conclusion. Is there a citation template for AllMusic? I couldn't find one. Eewilson (talk) 16:47, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
{{Cite DCB |last=Kesteman |first=Jean-Pierre |title=Galt, Sir Alexander Tilloch |volume=12 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/galt_alexander_tilloch_12E.html}}
{{Cite DCB |last=Rudin |first=Ronald |title=Heneker, Richard William |volume=14 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/heneker_richard_william_14E.html}}
Sorry, that explanation is just about how to set up the error messages. I see the messages normally -- just not in some articles, some of the time. Am I missing somehting? -- Mikeblas (talk) 02:13, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
I just clicked on it from the original message at the head of this section. Please link to a couple of articles where this error category appears without an error message, and I'll take a look. – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:33, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
I suspect that Editor Mikeblas saw the category but did not see the error messages because at the time of the original post, 18:06, 30 March 2022 (UTC), User:Mikeblas/common.css did not have the necessary rule to show the error messages. The rule was added with this edit 02:11, 1 April 2022 (UTC). Had the example articles not been fixed, the messages would have become visible after that edit.
The edit in question was made to try and troubleshoot because I thought I had "Method 2" installed (see here). Maybe the explanation is that some new warnings are incompatible with the "old script". Problem is, I never received a notification that the script I was using had become deprecated ... but maybe that's why some messages might not have been displayed for some articles. Thing is, for many (most!) articles, they warnings were displayed just fine. -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:25, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
no target error from template usage?
If I view 8th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Confederate), I see warnings that say "sfn error: no target: CITEREFKennedy1998". But the footnotes decorated with these errors *are* supported by a source. In fact, hovering over the footnote highlights that source, as does clicking on it. Do the errors falsely trigger when the target is defined by a template? I don't recall previously encountering this limitation. -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:31, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
Templates like this need to be listed in Module:Footnotes/whitelist. There was some duplication of CITEREFKennedy1998 in that file. After I fixed the duplication, the false positive error message is gone. Thanks for reporting it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:24, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
Thanks! Looks like there are many problems of this type. {{TDV Encyclopedia of Islam}} in Al-Musta'li and Al-Hafiz, for example. I'm curious about how the whitelist works. There's already an entry for author Küçükaşcı and the encyclopedia. Does that mean any footnote for that author will be ignored by this category, even if it isn't correctly defined, just because an invocation of the {{TDV Encyclopedia of Islam}} template is present? -- Mikeblas (talk) 17:22, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
Not done as the to the immediate edit request, feel free to discuss below, or to make corrections in the sandbox. When an edit is ready to go, please reactivate the edit request. — xaosfluxTalk15:13, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
{{cite q}} is not ready for primetime so all of the {{cite q}} templates in Antonio Lasciac should be replaced with their expansions. That done, Module:Footnotes can find author and date information.
Renata3, for more information about the problems with {{Cite Q}}, see this talk page thread from December 2020. The fundamental CITEVAR-related problems with the template have not yet been addressed, the template is still not labeled as "beta" in its documentation despite the need for such a label; because it is not labeled, good-faith editors have expanded the usage of the template in non-settlement articles from about 700 articles to about 4,300 articles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:51, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
That would be helpful for resolving CITEVAR issues caused by a single unmodified Cite Q template inserted into an otherwise conforming article. Renata3, if the false positive error messages bother you, you can work around them like this. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:25, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
I can imagine how such a bot might be implemented but I can also imagine that there will be a significant amount of pushback from those who think that {{cite q}} is a good thing. If there were an rfc to support bot expansion of {{cite q}} templates...
Jonesey95: any idea why whitelist is not working for this article? Both Loverance refs have been added to whitelist, but still show up as errors. Renata•302:08, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
Fixed by removing the disambiguation letters after the year. I added a note to the whitelist documentation at the top of the page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:36, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
More templates for whitelisting
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
ActivelyDisinterested: I think I already added most of them. There are two that I skipped on purpose as they are far from ideal. Letter "A" is almost done! As far as future whitelist entries go, it would be best to format it in the way the module wants them formatted so it's easy to copy&paste. For example: ['CITEREFDukeKeilty1990'] = {'Duke-RDC'},
First is the missing CITEREF followed by last name & year (can be copied from the error message) followed by the template name used in citing the book/work. Note that the brackets and apostrophes have to follow the pattern: [' and {'. Renata•302:30, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
Sure, I did the last batch, but please ping me as I am on-and-off on this clean up task so I might miss messages here. Renata•317:44, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
In the whitelist, line 473 has the same table index as line 474; both are ['CITEREFBrand1991']. The second overwrites the first so the first (line 473) is never seen. There is no whitelist fix for this.
The London Gazette template is commonly referenced as "Gazette" and the issue number. I see with {{National Heritage List for England}} a special pattern is used (as it's usually referenced as "Historic England" and the catalogue number) so each entry doesn't have to be whitelisted. Could the same be done for the London Gazette? Given that there are tens of thousands of issues of the Gazette it would be easier on the whitelist. - LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:03, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
Looking at your search results I thought I must have been unlucky, but I don't think your searches are working properly as a different search finds others. My search is catching mostly errors that are unrelated, but as an example Johnnie Johnson (RAF officer) has the error but doesn't appear in your search results.
There is a group of 18 CITEREFGazetten identifiers at line 738 et seq. all used in Robert Stanford Tuck. Of those, two are also used in other articles:
The whitelist is best for cases where there are a lot of same-CITEREF-ids used across many articles. With so few articles actually using some sort of short-form template to link to {{London Gazette}} citations, those articles are best served by using {{sfn whitelist}}.
Please add the following to the Footnotes module whitelist:
['CITEREFAbélanet2011'] = {'Itinéraires mégalithiques'} (Caixa de Rotllan)
['CITEREFHistoric_England'] = {'NHLE'} (Caesar's Camp, Rushmoor and Waverley & others)
['CITEREFDangel-Hofmann1999'] = {'NDB'} (Carl Orff, should be checked?)
['CITEREFNicholson2018'] = {'ODLA'} (Candidus Isaurus)
['CITEREFBaldwin1991'] = {'ODB'} (Candidus Isaurus)
['CITEREFSmid2008'] = {'Smid2008'} (Canned cycle)
['CITEREFSadie1980'] = {'cite Grove'} (Carlo Gesualdo)
['CITEREFBianconi2001'] = {'Cite NewGrove1980'} (Carlo Gesualdo)
['CITEREFNicol1968'] = {'The Byzantine Family of Kantakouzenos'} (Carlo III Tocco)
['CITEREFGrenfell1870'] = {'DGRBM'} (Carneades)
['CITEREFAnton_Schlossar1888'] = {'Cite ADB'} (Caroline Pichler)
['CITEREFWilsonFiske1889'] = {'Appletons' '} (Catharine Van Valkenburg Waite) OBS apostrophe in template name
['CITEREFHalmos1982'] = {'Halmos A Hilbert Space Problem Book 1982'} (Cauchy–Schwarz inequality)
['CITEREFCallwell1999'] = {'Muni Chronology'} (45 Union/Stockton)
['CITEREFMatthee2012'] = {'Encyclopædia Iranica Online'} (Abbas II of Persia)
['CITEREFHitchins2001'] = {'Encyclopædia Iranica Online'} (Abbas II of Persia)
I've accumulated a few of these to reduce the workload on template editors patrolling this page: please let me know if that's not a helpful way of doing it (or if the formatting should be changed). Best wishes, Wham2001 (talk) 07:48, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
Renata3 I've gone through these and checked for duplicates, whitelisted singles uses, etc. I've added what remains to some I've already picked up and combined them all together here. Could you add them to the whitelist when you have the chance? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:18, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
In celebration of clearing all errors under B, could the following be added to the whitelist?
['CITEREFBosworth1999'] = template_names['Iranica'],
['CITEREFGregoryKazhdan1991'] = template_names['ODB'],
['CITEREFKelley1975'] = {'Kelley General Topology'},
['CITEREFIacocca1984'] = {'Iacocca1984'},
['CITEREFNestruev2020'] = {'Nestruev Smooth Manifolds and Observables 2020'},
['CITEREFOrmsby1982'] = {'Cite DCB'},
['CITEREFVentura1963'] = {'DBI', 'Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani'},
['CITEREFZălinescu2002'] = {'Zălinescu Convex Analysis in General Vector Spaces 2002'},
Thanks -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:22, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
Renata3 sorry to ping you again, but could you add these to the whitelist?
['CITEREFEl-Hibri2021'] = {'The Abbasid Caliphate: A History'},
['CITEREFHolland1989'] = {'Holland1989'},
['CITEREFHowes1995'] = {'Howes Modern Analysis and Topology 1995'},
['CITEREFRockafellarWets2009'] = {'Rockafellar Wets Variational Analysis 2009 Springer'},
['CITEREFSearle1980'] = {'Searle 1980'},
['CITEREFVan_Riemsdijk1994'] = {'Book-Van Riemsdijk-Compound Locomotives'}, -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:36, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
All that's left of C in the error list are a few to be whitelisted.
['CITEREFGaines2008'] = {'Cite Gaines 2008'},
['CITEREFSmid2008'] = {'Smid2008'},
['CITEREFSmid2010'] = {'Smid2010'}, Redrose64 would you mind adding these to the whitelist? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:50, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Hi Renata3 could you whitelist the following? A new template is caiy a lot of false positives.
['CITEREFNesbittOikonomides1991'] = {'Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art'}
['CITEREFNesbittOikonomides1994'] = {'Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art'}
['CITEREFNesbittOikonomides1996'] = {'Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art'}
['CITEREFMcGeerNesbittOikonomides2001'] = {'Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art'},
['CITEREFMcGeerNesbittOikonomides2005'] = {'Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art'},
['CITEREFNesbittMorrisson2009'] = {'Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art'}
['CITETEFCotsonis2020'] = {'Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art'}
The template Quick-stations-5 has been amended as the underlying citation has been revised and updated from 2019 to 2022. The template is whitelisted showing the 2019 date, please amend it to 2022. I am currently going through the footnotes using this template to amend the page numbering as there have been significant changes but now they are showing as sfn errors. This situation will not occur in future as steps have been taken to archive the current version and when it is updated in future a new template will be produced.
Nempnet (talk) 16:15, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
It should be changed to:['CITEREFQuick2022'] = {'Quick-stations-5'} please. Versions 5.01, 5.02 and 5.03 all have different years but they all point to the same web address, that of version 5.04 which is the 2022 version. Nempnet (talk) 14:06, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
Renata3, sorry could you correct ['CITEREFQuick2020'] = {'Quick-stations-5'}, to be ['CITEREFQuick2022'] = {'Quick-stations-5'}, and add ['CITEREFTolkienSwann2002'] = {'ME-ref'}, There are both racking up false positives error. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:10, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Renata3 When you have a chance could you whitelist the following?
['CITEREFApostol1976'] = {'Apostol IANT'},
['CITEREFBournoutian2018'] = {'Cite Armenia and Imperial Decline'},
['CITEREFCsászár1978'] = {'Császár General Topology'},
['CITEREFHovannisian1971'] = {'Cite The Republic of Armenia Volume 1'},
['CITEREFКавказский_календарь_на_1913_год'] = {'Cite Kavkazskiy Kalendar 1913'},
['CITEREFКавказский_календарь_на_1917_год'] = {'Cite Kavkazskiy Kalendar 1917'},
['CITEREFLang2002'] = {'Lang Algebra'},
['CITEREFLurie'] = {'Lurie-HA'},
['CITEREFTsutsiev2014'] = {'Cite Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus'},
['CITEREFVenables1911'] = {'DCBL'},
['CITEREFWilansky2008'] = {'Wilansky Topology for Analysis 2008'},
Hi Renata3. My sandbox is filling up again, could you add these to the whitelist?
['CITEREFHalm1991'] = {'Das Reich des Mahdi'},
['CITEREFHalm2014'] = {'Kalifen und Assassinen'},
['CITEREFHovannisian1982'] = {'Cite The Republic of Armenia Volume 2'},
['CITEREFHovannisian1996a'] = {'Cite The Republic of Armenia Volume 3'},
['CITEREFHovannisian1996b'] = {'Cite The Republic of Armenia Volume 4'},
['CITEREFHovannisian1967'] = {'Cite Armenia on the Road to Independence'},
['CITEREFKazemzadeh1951'] = {'Cite The Struggle for Transcaucasia'},
['CITEREFКавказский_календарь_на_1910_год'] = {'Cite Kavkazskiy Kalendar 1910'},
['CITEREFКавказский_календарь_на_1915_год'] = {'Cite Kavkazskiy Kalendar 1915'},
['CITEREFNicol1994'] = {'The Byzantine Lady: Ten Portraits, 1250–1500'},
['CITEREFTolkien1979'] = {'ME-ref'},
['CITEREFTopping1975'] = {'Wisconsin History of the Crusades'},
Eeeugh wish I could edit this myself. I made a mistake with CITEREFTopping1975, as it's previously used (I check for this, but must have missed it). Renata3 could you make this update Topping1975, as well as adding Halm2003 above?
['CITEREFTopping1975'] = {'Setton-A History of the Crusades', 'Wisconsin History of the Crusades'},
Sorry to bother you again Renata3, could you add the following to the whitelist? It's new and is starting to generate a lot of false positives.
['CITEREFLilieLudwigPratschZielke1999'] = {'Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit', 'PMBZ'},
-- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 13:12, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
CITEREFHovannisian1996a and "Cite The Republic of Armenia Volume 3"
Hopefully, I fixed it. I think the issue is that the whitelist does not differentiate "a" or "b" after the year and treats the second template as a duplicate. Renata•321:12, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
This is normal for all custom templates. It could be whitelisted but this is the only article where the template is used with short form refs, which doesn't make it worthwhile. Instead I've added {{sfn whitelist}} to the article to suppress the error. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:23, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
"E" has now been cleared
Hi Renata. Could you change the following, they have disambiguation when they shouldn't. CITEREFTolkien1954a should be removed as it's a duplicate. CITEREFHammondScull2006a and CITEREFHammondScull2006b should be replaced with one entry without disambiguation. Also could you added the following: ['CITEREFDer_Matossian2020'] = {'Cite The First Republic of Armenia'},
['CITEREFEaston1897'] = {'eastons', 'EBD'},
['CITEREFLilieLudwigPratschZielke2000'] = {'Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit'},
['CITEREFLilieLudwigPratschZielke2001'] = {'Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit'},
['CITEREFLilieLudwigPratschZielke2002'] = {'Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit'},
['CITEREFLilieLudwigPratschZielke2009'] = {'Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit'},
['CITEREFLilieLudwigPratschZielke2013'] = {'Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit'},
['CITEREFLilieLudwigPratschZielke1998–2013'] = {'Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit'},
-- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 16:33, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
Recently a well-intended usertook it upon themselves to "correct" an apparent error by changing the cites using {{bluebook journal}} to {{cite journal}} in Flood v. Kuhn. I reverted, since the former template is preferred when citing law reviews and journals as it is designed, per its title, to display citations to them in the titular format, i.e. volume ABBREVIATION FOR TITLE page, per MOS:LEGAL. It seems the editor found a different way of rectifying the problem, but as the slightly testy edit summary suggests, this can only be a short-term fix.
It would take a huge effort to replicate this across thousands of articles that use this template. I wonder if some shorter way could be found ... perhaps writing this functionality to fully support {{sfn}} into the bluebook templates? (As it is presently, actually, clicking on the short link gets you down to the right place in "works cited", just without the highlighting) Daniel Case (talk) 02:43, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
thousands of articles[citation needed]This tool says that there are ~330 pages that transclude {{Bluebook journal}}. This listing says that there are ~310 articles in mainspace that transclude {{Bluebook journal}}. This simple search says that there are fewer than 10 mainspace articles that transclude both {{Bluebook journal}} and {{sfn}}.
Well, then, my point is that it's a potential issue, as properly any article that cites a legal journal should use it to ensure correct formatting of the cite, and given that {{sfn}} works just fine for making short-form legal cites, I don't exactly see how the current status of the issue counsels (ahem) inaction.
It's easy to take action, make sure you have the error messages active and add the {{sfn whitelist}} to each of the effected articles. You could also solve the problem by migrating the templates to Cite bluebook, as that would also mitigate the issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:14, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Backlog under 15k!
Harv and Sfn no-target errors category is now at 14,999 remaining articles. Woo-hoo! An incredible progress. Thank you! Renata•302:59, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
"F" has been cleared
Hi Renata3, only a few this time. First CITEREFEaston1897 needs to be corrected, it currently lists "eastons" it should be "Eastons". Sorry my fault. Also the following need to be added:
['CITEREFCoverdale_&_Colpitts1946'] = {'Coverdale & Colpitts 1', 'Coverdale & Colpitts 2', 'Coverdale & Colpitts 3'}},
['CITEREFFordCrowther1922'] = {'Hounshell1984'},
['CITEREFLegifrance'] = {'Cite Legifrance'}, Thanks -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:43, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
Hi Renata3. There are no new additions to the whitelist. The only thing outstanding is:
['CITEREFFordCrowther1922'] = {'Hounshell1984'},
Needs to be corrected to:
['CITEREFFordCrowther1922'] = {'Ford1922'},
A mistake I made earlier.
According to Wham2001's log the category is nearly half emptied, and I'm slightly concerned that the category isn't tracking correctly. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:24, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
The category totalled 26k, and now has a little over 13k. I've cleared from A-G, and have had the whitelist watchlisted that whole time (and no large amount of work has been done on it). If I look forward at roughly how many articles are in "H", it's about the same as were in "G". I know other work has been done on the category, but these facts don't seem to add up. Supposing that errors are effectively randomly distributed, and given the frequency of the first letter of English words, then the vast majority of errors should still be outstanding and that doesn't match the current tally. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 08:37, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
Clearing A–G while adding to the whitelist seems to me like a good recipe for cutting the overall total in half. Articles starting with the letters A–G must have a disproportionately higher count than 7/26 (I looked for but did not find a report or page with this information, so this is an educated guess). Also remember that articles starting with numbers have also been cleared, and there are plenty of those on Wikipedia. The whitelist additions have, meanwhile, removed some pages from the back end of the alphabet, and other gnomes are no doubt clearing pages from H–Z as well. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:28, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
X-Z were, I think, worked over before I started my log (which I didn't know anybody else was aware of!), so it's really 7/23 rather than 7/26. I don't think that category changes caused by whitelist entries show up in the watchlist so articles can be removed from the category without a watcher noticing. I regret that I've hardly been able to help at all with your very impressive backlog clearance drive, but work has kept me from having much time for Wikipedia this year. Best, Wham2001 (talk) 07:51, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
I have saved an Excel export of all articles with sfn errors as of Sept 22, 2020 and as of May 16, 2022. At the time, there were 24,950 and 22,877 articles with errors. Distribution by first letter:
Letter - Sep 2020 - May 2022
Number - 209 - 2
A - 1676 - 182
B - 1384 - 1295
C - 1788 - 1825
D - 930 - 909
E - 902 - 870
F - 735 - 752
G - 1139 - 1058
H - 1561 - 1340
I - 606 - 686
J - 1108 - 1073
K - 647 - 655
L - 1677 - 1720
M - 1609 - 1735
N - 726 - 771
O - 488 - 471
P - 1304 - 1297
Q - 87 - 97
R - 982 - 980
S - 2127 - 2196
T - 1529 - 1562
U - 305 - 241
V - 371 - 382
W - 734 - 695
X - 52 - 6
Y - 149 - 34
Z - 136 - 33
(On mobile, can't put this in a table). If someone could run the same statistics as of today, it would be interesting to compare. Renata•305:11, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
I've updated the table below (note the extract doesn't quite match the category as it's by article title, while the category brakes default sort into account). I think to answer my original question whitelisting has had more of a general effect that I first estimated. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 13:26, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
I've been working on the Q pages (taking a break from the Ts) and have got the error page count down to nine (without using whitelist because I don't know what that is). Six of these pages don't display any script-raised errors so I am wondering why, and what, if anything, I can do to fix them.
Two pages (Quasicircle and Quebec Bulldogs) have ambiguities that I can't resolve, and one, Queens directories, is so poorly thought out that I don't want to deal with it.
Thanks! Andy02124 (talk) 21:23, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
All of the pages display "no target" errors if you have one of the scripts installed that shows them (see the category page for details). I have fixed four of them with whitelisting and a couple of other edits. If you don't want to deal with whitelisting, I recommend moving on to a different letter. Great work with the Qs! – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:58, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. I have the Trappist script installed but never saw errors for those six pages, still don't for Quatre Etudes or Quercus wislizeni. I wouldn't have caught the rather esoteric cites you fixed.
I understand the concept of whitelisting but if there is no error displayed, I can't use it, right? I don't see the sfn whitelist template in any of the four articles you corrected. What am I missing? Andy02124 (talk) 02:49, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
It's a false positive (if you click on it then it takes you to the correct cite) caused by the {{IRCAM work}} template. The template has no default author details, so the best idea would be to add {{sfn whitelist}} to suppress the error (which I've done).
Hi Renata3. It's that time again, just one addition to the whitelist needed this time:
['CITEREFKubrusly2011'] = {'Kubrusly The Elements of Operator Theory 2nd Edition 2011'},
I've also re-run PetScan, just go keep a running log. Thanks to whoever has cleared down "R"!
The category is now less than 10k, kudos to whoever has been clearing "T".
Renata3 could you add the following to the whitelist?
['CITEREFNemiroffBonnell1998'] = {'Cite APOD'},
['CITEREFNemiroffBonnell2004'] = {'Cite APOD'},
['CITEREFNemiroffBonnell2005'] = {'Cite APOD'},
['CITEREFNemiroffBonnell2006'] = {'Cite APOD'},
['CITEREFNemiroffBonnell2007'] = {'Cite APOD'},
PetScan table, really just for my reference.
Well "J" has been cleared, and much faster than I expected. Thanks to anyone who's working on the backlog. The total is now less than 9k. I'll post the PetScan totals just to keep a record.
Seeing as there is an active drive to empty the category, I have added a backlog progress bar. I was going to make the initial number of articles identical to the number when the drive started, but I don’t know how to find the exact number, so I have improvised by making it the present number of articles in the category. — Mugtheboss (talk) 13:42, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Your linked edit fixes that one case, but what about all the other articles that have it in lower case, which is how I always code it? Wouldn't it be simpler to just add it to the whitelist both ways? Looking for example, at the current whitelist for Cite Catholic Encyclopedia including its redirects around lines 178–181, I think we need to do the same thing and include all the variant spelling/redirects of {{cite legifrance}}. Any objection, or do you see anything I'm missing? Mathglot (talk) 17:30, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
Trappist, adding to L. 232 would've required adding a template_names call in the local_whitelist, and since there was only one redirect, I added it there directly (diff) at line 1090, like other whitelisted templates do that have few redirects. AD, this change only deals with the accented-é version of the legifrance template, which wasn't what your OP was about, and I'm not entirely sure if your original issue still remains or not. If so, can you elaborate, and/or point to a failing case? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 16:53, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
"K" has been cleared
Hi Renata3 could you add the following to the whitelist?
['CITEREFDaniel2001'] = template_names['Iranica'],
PetScan record, thanks again to everyone who has been helping.
Done I have also sorted the list (using the script) but it says that the byte count decreased... so something must have been deleted (a duplicate?). If I broke something, let me know. Thank you! Renata•319:54, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
The sorter doesn't properly handle CITEREFs where the first character after CITEREF is anything but a digit [0-9] or ASCII letter [A-Za-z]. I've restored those CITEREFs that were dropped at the last sort to the unsorted section and will think about how best to handle non-ASCII sorting.
Fixed by adding a test to find and group CITEREFs that don't begin with digit [0-9] or ASCII letter [A-Za-z]. These are now grouped in OTHER (just above UNSORTED). Also added a crude test to ensure that the key contains a minimally correct key (this, for example). The sorter will abandon sorting with an error message when CITEREF not found in an entry.
As I slog through the footnote error list, I occasionally add a whitelist. Is there any protocol to follow? Should I notify anyone who maintains the master list?
I'm currently working on "List of..." pages (I've corrected hundreds but it seems endless). There is a set of pages that include a header section with a footnote. Is this an appropriate solution for the "child" pages?
List of Empire ships (Co–Cy)
{{#section-h:Lists of Empire ships}}
<!-- the section contains a reference that needs to be whitelisted -->
{{sfn whitelist|CITEREFMitchellSawyer1990}}
Also, there is set of pages that include a lengthy bibliography via a template, which, of course, raises false positive errors. Is the best solution to edit the template, adding a long list of CITEREFs?
(List of World War I aces credited...)
After working from A to L I had not been looking forward to "List of" as they were going to be a complete mess as is common for list articles, so knowing someone else is working on them is nice. I don't think transcluding the header to each child page is a great idea, but that's just my opinion there's no rules around how it should be done. The only option is to use {{Sfn whitelist}} as you have been doing. I'm pretty sure there is a guideline against having article content inside templates, but I can't remember where I saw that. I copy bibliographies in a template back into the article and remove the template. Looking at how {{List of World War I flying aces/Page bottom}} is used it also makes category maintenance harder. I would copy everything (including {{Lists of flying aces}} at the bottom) back into the article. Wikipedia won't be running out of disk space to store plain text anytime soon. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:38, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
I checked, and {{excerpt}} doesn't drop embedded {{sfn}}s, not sure why. I had a look at List of Empire ships (Co–Cy), and I think if Excerpt were adjusted to handle {{sfn}}, that would obviate the need for any whitelist for similar situations. I'll ask over there, and report back if I learn anything. Mathglot (talk) 03:57, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies. Yes, lists can be painful to deal with. All that sloppy cutting-and-pasting.
Andy02124, have a look at the top of List of Empire ships (Co–Cy), which now transcludes the lede of List of Empire ships without the need for the added whitelist. This uses {{Excerpt}}, and strips the {{sfn}} template from the middle of the excerpt, and then I tacked it on manually after the excerpt, meaning no whitelist is necessary anymore (diff). The method uses a workaround, because the right way to do it, would be via |references=no, but that isn't working yet at Module:Excerpt according to this discussion. For the time being, use |templates=no to exclude embedded sfn's from your Excerpts. After the module is fixed, they can be changed to |references=no, which is better, because currently if Empire ships used other templates in the lead (like {{ill}}, or {{convert}}, or whatever), they would have been stripped out too (but it doesn't, so no worries). If you wish to, you can use this solution at all the "List of Empire ships (Xx–Yy)" subpages. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 19:10, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Actually, "never needed" is not true: it needed it in this version, in spades. Andy fixed it by adding the whitelist, and then DuncanHill refixed it by adding the citation, which is the other method of resolving that error. So, Andy's original question was relevant. Mathglot (talk) 20:45, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
The edit that started down this path was very wrong. The correct solution was correcting the cite not removing it, thanksfully DuncanHill caught that. The solution is always copying in the cite, {{sfn whitelist}} is only for false positives which was not the case for this article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t° 22:26, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks to all for the clarification. That's why I asked the question. The page was on the error list and I fixed it but thought there must be a better way. DuncanHill replaced the citation in the parent page with a sfn and added the full citation to the children. Andy02124 (talk) 19:59, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
This is one of the reason I dislike transclusion, you can look at the history of an article and be misled because the transclusion in the history is the current status of the article being transcluded. My earlier comment was in error, please ignore it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t° 20:53, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
"L" has been cleared
No nee records require whitelisting. Thanks to anyone who has also been fixing no target errors, especially Andy02124 who helped clear a lot of "List of" articles (which I was kind of dreading). Less than a quarter of the category is still outstanding. Petscan record.
Congrats and thanks for the shout-out! I've learned a lot by looking at your remediations - mainly that I shouldn't hesitate to replace orphaned footnotes with CN tags (I sometimes think I have to "solve" everything).
Yep sometimes no amount of searching, checking or other work will solve the issue. Marking it with CN tags flags the issue to editors with subject knowledge who should be able to find sourcing, or if they can't it flags that the content has issues. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t° 19:30, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Tools for resolving no-target errors
I made a tool (really two interrelated tools) that may be of interest to those who clear Harv and sfn no-target errors, available at https://citation-toolkit.toolforge.org. The first is track-no-target, which provides a view of Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors, but with false positives filtered out and sorted by the number of issues. The second, and more interesting, is lookup-citeref, which allows you to plug in a short reference and get a list of articles that include it (at least as of the last refresh). They're interlinked, so you can easily see whether a short-cite that's missing from one article might be defined in another. Vahurzpu (talk) 04:07, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
The majority of no target errors are caused by editors copy short references, but not the required citations. I've always searched by the "name year" format of the short ref, but this will make it a lot easier. Awesome work. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°14:57, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Whitelist request
Could this new edition in the Tolkien canon be added?
I found the discussion Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_92#Best_practices_for_a_full_citation_with_no_author,_when_linked_by_shortened_footnotes (which is discussed by @Rjjiii, @Redrose64, @Mathglot and others) and realized I have no clue on the history of {{SfnRef}}/{{harvid}}, and would appreciate your pointing me to a right direction on two questions.
The automatically generated anchor in the case of having no surname entry in |author= , |editor= , |translator= , |last= , etc. in the journal citation template defaults to CITEREFpublicationnameYEAR, so a valid reason for adding '|ref={{SfnRef}}' might be, to enable using a shorter anchor name in place of full publication name (which is very convenient as the name often is long and may be in, or include, foreign characters). However, "why Template:SfnRef says '{{SfnRef|Surname of author|Year}}' instead of '{{SfnRef|Anchor name|Year}}' ?" (Citation templates automatically generate the anchorID CITEREFsurnameYEAR if surname is available, without having a |ref= or {{SfnRef}} entry. Isn't the use of SfnRef thus meant for when |author= , |editor= , etc. is not available because there is no credited author/editor/translator, i.e, when surname is not available by definition?)
My second question is: "Since surname or publication name is automatically used in anchor generation without adding '|ref= ', wouldn't it be better to abolish {{SfnRef}} and make '|ref= ' do what '|ref={{SfnRef}}' does now?" In other words, isn't '|ref=anchorname(YEAR)' (which does not work now) much better than '|ref={{SfnRef|anchorname|YEAR}}' because it is shorter with one less template to do the same thing? (Or creating '|anchor= ' to accept anchorname(YEAR) and deprecating '|ref= ' and '{{SfnRef}}' easier to implement?)
Your notion that {{cite journal}} creates CITEREFpublicationnameYEAR when the template does not have author/contributor/editor name(s) is unfounded. See this example:
Thank you. I checked the example I had again and it was a case of somebody wrongly using '|author=publicationname', sorry about my mistake. My questions still stand though:
1. Why Template:SfnRef says '{{SfnRef|Surname of author|Year}}' instead of '{{SfnRef|Anchor name|Year}}' ?
2. Why not create '|anchor= ' to accept anchorname(YEAR) and deprecate '|ref= ' and '{{SfnRef}}' ?
Editors putting anything they want in |ref= and there is no requirement to use |ref= do not answer the questions, and it might even strengthen my point on the second question, as anything other than CITEREFsomethingYEAR or {{SfnRef}} after |ref= has no meaning and is garbage as far as I can tell. Yiba (talk | contribs) 14:47, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
{{sfn}} and the various {{harv}} templates are Parenthetical references (often called author-date references or Harvard references) so those templates emphasize that aspect. {{SfnRef}}, in keeping with its name and association with {{sfn}} and the {{harv}} templates, does the same.
A commonly used convention is to create wikilinks like this:
#some ref value ← [[#some ref value]] – wikilinks may or may not be piped; not piped here for clarity
and then use the wikilink to link to a particular citation:
Thank you for the explanation. I now understand how |ref= may be used other than CITEREFanchornameYEAR or {{SfnRef}} for mostly pointless and rare reasons, and that SfnRef name was so chosen for customary emphasis on the association with sfn. That still do not answer the questions:
1. Why Template:SfnRef says '{{SfnRef|Surname of author|Year}}' instead of 'CITEREFAnchor_nameYear' ?
2. Why not create '|SfnAnchor= ' to accept anchorname(YEAR) and deprecate '|ref= ' and 'CITEREF' ?
|ref= is used for more than just links to sfn templates, so it cannot be deprecated in the way you suggest. The documentation for sfnref also mentions |ref=harv a practice several years out of date, anyone can update the documents (it is only the template itself that is locked). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°17:04, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, paste mistake. 1. should read:
1. Why Template:SfnRef says '{{SfnRef|Surname of author|Year}}' instead of '{{SfnRef|Anchor name|Year}}' ?
I answered that already. {{sfn}} is a Parenthetical reference (author-date) template. Because author-date is its most common use case, the documentation for {{sfn}}, the {{harv}} templates, and {{sfnref}} reflect the author-date heritage.
This is whack!{{sfn|Fun Facts}} to point to the citation.
To answer your questions:
1. Template documentation does not, admittedly, cover every use case. But then the documentation, not the code, should be updated.
2. Adding a new parameter or deprecating old ones is a task that should not be undertaken unless you can demonstrate that it results in a major improvement. Adding anchor as a sort of synonym for ref is not that.
As for putting "anything" in the ref parameter - that's a bit of hyperbole. "Anything" that results in a valid CITEREF would be more accurate. A title is the most common replacement for author.
{{sfn|Military Balance 2016}} points to {{cite book|title=The Military Balance 2016 |date=February 2016 |volume=116 |isbn=978-1-85743-835-2 |publisher=Routledge |ref={{sfnref|Military Balance 2016}}|author=International Institute for Strategic Studies}}
Also, be careful when translating pages from foreign language wikis for the English wiki; they use ref= differently. Andy02124 (talk) 15:52, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now I feel someone is on the same page.
1. OK, I will try editing the documentations unless someone else comes up with other reasons not to, within a reasonable time.
2. I understand, and somewhat reluctantly agree.
Because of how Template:SfnRef is written, especially how it appears as if SfnRef requires surname when there is no credited author/editor, etc., I thought there may be some unknown reason why SfnRef came into existence.
Just to make sure before I start editing, am I correct in understanding that:
a. SfnRef does not require a surname when there is no credited author/editor etc.
b. Citing templates (cite book, journal, web etc.) do not require surname when there is no credited author/editor etc.
There are many doc and description pages (and examples) that mislead the readers on the above b. in my opinion (as if they were written before |ref= came into being). Yiba (talk | contribs) 17:05, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
Writing and updating documentation is rarely a task editors want to take on and editors can't be forced to edit, so documentation is always a bit lacking. This isn't an issue limited to Wikipedia but common across most projects. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°17:08, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
a. SfnRef does not require author/contributor/editor names. Any text is allowed but author/contributor/editor names are preferred.
b. As above, cs1|2 templates do not require author/contributor/editor names. If none are credited, do not misuse the |author= / |contributor= / |editor= parameters just to avoid the need to use a custom value in |ref=.
But is generally not correct. Do not abuse cs1|2 parameters. If the publisher is not the author, do not say that the publisher is the author just to avoid the need to use a custom value in |ref=.
The anchor can be created manually with {{sfnref}} or {{harvid}} in situations where the automatic anchors would create issues including:
Multiple authors with the same last name
No known last name for the author
Unusual characters in the author field
Multiple works in the same year by the same author
Year of publication unknown
If it appears as if SfnRef requires surname when there is no credited author/editor, this is a shortcoming in the template documentation. It will take an author, organization, title, and more. For example, this citation has an organization and effective date, neither of which would make sense for |author= or |date=:
Markup
Renders as
Leroy Chollet was inducted into the Canisius Hall of Fame in 1964.{{sfn|Canisius|1964}}==Citations==<references/>==References=={{cite web|ref={{Sfnref|Canisius|1964}}|url= https://gogriffs.com/honors/hall-of-fame/leroy-chollet/5 |title= Leroy Chollet |publisher=Canisius College Athletics |work=Hall of Fame |access-date= March 30, 2023}}
Leroy Chollet was inducted into the Canisius Hall of Fame in 1964.[1]
@Rjjiii, thanks a lot for the excellent info and the clear, simple and easy to understand example. I really appreciate the time you took in coming up with this.
"Leroy Chollet". Hall of Fame. Canisius College Athletics. Retrieved March 30, 2023 (Cited as Canisius 1964).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
is needed or recommended in your view? I see his point that sometimes a word that does not appear anywhere else in the full citation like "PanthersNews" is felt by the editor to be more appropriate as the sfnref anchor name in place of "Canisius", in which cases looking up where the full citation is referenced in the article becomes difficult without the (Cited as ). Yiba (talk | contribs) 03:40, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
That would be fine. As a result of the conversation you linked, I ended up doing this: Leroy Chollet#References. APA says the short citation should look something like "Canisius College Athletics, n.d." and Harvard says something like "Canisius College Athletics, no date" either of which will work with {{sfnref}}. You could also use the title instead of the organization, which may be more natural with the {{cite xxx}} templates. Documentation should reflect best practices, but we don't have a standard citation method across the encyclopedia (WP:CITEVAR). Rjjiii (talk) 04:39, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
I see! Your solution on that page:
* Canisius (1964). {{cite web |ref={{Sfnref|Canisius|1964}} |blahbleh... }}
Yiba, your questions are worthy, and I appreciate you raising and discussing the finer points and adding the follow-ups to help come to a resolution. It sounds like you may have gotten the responses you needed (even if not always the hoped-for one, perhaps) so it seems like this has been very productive. It sounds like you are willing to update some of the doc based on what you have learned here, and I think that's a great idea and would help many others going forward. Besides a certain level of unwillingness on the part of some editors to work on doc as mentioned previously, sometimes even when there is a will to do so, it can be hard for editors who are too familiar with a topic to see where the pain points are for a newer editor or one encountering a doc page about some template or other item for the first time. So I value the feedback and questions of newer editors and encourage them to try their hand at updating a doc page they find confusing, incomplete, or inadequate in other ways, as they may perceive where the problems are better than more senior editors can, and I encourage you to do so.
Sidebar: as it happens, I'm one of the editors who actually likes making doc pages better, especially when I find them confusing to me personally; I just don't always have time for it. The doc for Template:Archives is the most recent example of that, and I'd very much appreciate hearing your feedback about the documentation there. (For comparison, the earlier version I found confusing is this one.) If interested, please use Template talk:Archives for feedback, not this page.
Am I correct that you feel that your questions are basically resolved? I hope to see you active in improving Wikipedia's documentation at {{SfnRef/doc}}, or any page you think needs it. If you want more eyeballs or feedback, you can leave a request at any template's Talk page; and if you have some ideas about improvement but are unsure and prefer to make a doc update proposal, you can use template {{Help me}} from a template Talk page to propose doc changes or ask for feedback on your previous changes and someone else will come by and respond. If you don't get enough feedback you can also make a feedback request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates. There is such a request now at the bottom of the page, and you could copy that one or use similar wording to draw attention to any doc page updates you are doing, or wish to do. Hope this helps, Mathglot (talk) 21:15, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
To address something from way back up in that thread:
Using |author=pubname is not necessarily wrong. {{cite web|author=Fun Facts|website=FunFacts.com|title=Man bites dog}} allows ....
But that is wrong. "Fun Facts" is not an author, but the publication name, which should be rendered |website=Fun Facts, unless the site literally uses FunFacts.com as its title not just its domain name (in which case "Fun Facts" is not anything, just something an editor made up for no reason). Abusing |author= like that produces polluted metadata. The thing to do when a web article has no attributed author, and you need {{sfnp}} or whatever to work with it, is: {{cite web|author=<--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|title=Man bites dog|website=FunFacts.com|url=...|ref={{sfnref|FunFacts.com|2024}}}}. (The point of the HTML comment is so other editors understand that a known author was not accidentally omitted, and thus don't waste time by going and looking for one.) — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 22:05, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
Hi,
Could the following be added, I'm editing a series of articles using these templates and have been using local whitelists,
['CITEREFMarshall1969'] = {'Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway 1'},
['CITEREFMarshall1970'] = {'Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway 2'},
thanks Nempnet (talk) 07:42, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
loc, at
Would be nice for conversion ease and memorability if |loc= had an alias of |at= to match all the CS1/CS2 templates, and the /doc pages were updated to use the latter instead of the confusingly different former (or at least list both). I'm willing to take care of the latter part if someone with more Lua skillz does the first. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 21:44, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Thank you! But hmm, while the new test case uses "at" in the header, it still uses "loc" in the actual example. Is that a mistake or are I misunderstanding something? Gawaon (talk) 07:09, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
Whatever the issue was, it seems resolved now. I see a test case for |loc= and one just below it for |at=, with the live template not showing that new parameter working (since it's not implemented yet), but the sandbox version showing it working as-expected. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 02:18, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
Any news on when this will actually appear in the wild? So far it's not working outside the sandbox prototype, it seems. Gawaon (talk) 10:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
There are a bunch of separate templates. Let me drop a notification at each to give folks a chance to comment if there are any issues. Rjjiii (talk) 02:36, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: this should now work on the various templates. For {{sfnm}} and {{sfnmp}}, |xat= works the same as |xloc=. For the technically unrelated {{harvs}}, I added "at" as an alias for "loc", but didn't add anything for its rarely used "loc2" and so on parameters. Rjjiii (talk) 01:55, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
I figured my new bespoke single source CS1 wrapper working in practice but categorizing articles into Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors was a transclusion issue with a known fix.
Anyway, from the above I take it I should request the following:
You may want to rethink how you format you |ref= field. Each different cite needs a separate reference, you can't just use 'Sima, Sima' as that will link to four of your examples at the same time. If they're on the same page the link won't know which one to use and will give an error.
Normally this is handled by including the year (so 'Sima, Sima (1959)' and 'Sima, Sima (1739)') but you have three examples for the year 1959. You could use 1959a, 1959b, 1959c, which is the standard way of differentiating works on the same year, or some custom method.
ActivelyDisinterested, the template in not intended to be called ten times in an article or however many testcases I have there. Those were for checking other behaviour, and I only mentioned it because the CITEREFs are visible and I don't know what I'm doing here and may have fouled up the syntax. I did forget that when the flags |sole= and |comma= are both set, the template uses CITEREFSima.The relevant line from the template code (which I still need to format sanely; it's my first) is | ref= {{#if:{{{comma|}}}|{{#if:{{{sole|}}}|{{sfnref|Sima}}|{{sfnref|Sima|Sima}}}}|{{sfnref|''Shiji''}}}}Folly Mox (talk) 10:30, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
Incidentally, I recorded my rationale for citing by title instead of author surname at Template:Cite Shiji/doc § Use with shortened footnotes. For clarity, I certainly don't intend to transclude this template more than once per article: I'm planning on adding support for multiple chapters, but even if I don't it's still best practice to cite the full bibliographic information once rather than multiple times, as the existence of this module attests. Folly Mox (talk) 10:37, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
Thanks I just wanted to make sure. There's a few outstanding updates that need doing, I've reposted these all together in the section below (with the addition of CITEREFSima). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°10:52, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
Resolved
