This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Footnotes module. |
|
Archives: 1, 2Auto-archiving period: 60 days |
Module:Footnotes is permanently
protected from editing because it is a
heavily used or highly visible module. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by
consensus, editors may use {{
edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit.
|
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)
|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)Hi Renata3, could you add this for {{ME-ref|SK}}?
['CITEREFTolkien2015'] = template_names['ME-ref']
Thanks, Andy02124 ( talk) 20:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Hi Renata3, here's another one, for an edition of Tom Bombadil.
['CITEREFTolkien2014'] = template_names['ME-ref']
Thanks. Andy02124 ( talk) 15:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
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?)
Answer/guidance will be appreciated.
Yiba (
talk |
contribs) 12:32, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
{{
cite journal}}
creates CITEREFpublicationnameYEAR
when the template does not have author/contributor/editor name(s) is unfounded. See this example:
{{cite journal |title=Title |journal=Journal |date=2024}}
'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000017-QINU`"'<cite class="citation journal cs1">"Title". ''Journal''. 2024.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=Journal&rft.atitle=Title&rft.date=2024&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AModule+talk%3AFootnotes" class="Z3988"></span>
id=
attribute in opening <cite>
tag:
<cite id="CITEREFJournal2024" ...>
|ref=
. There is no requirement to use |ref={{
sfnref}}
.{{
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.[[#some ref value]]
– wikilinks may or may not be piped; not piped here for clarity{{cite journal |title=Title |journal=Journal |date=2024 |ref=some ref value}}
|ref=
has the same name:
<ref name="some name">{{cite ... |ref=some name}}</ref>
|ref=
is used for more than just links to sfn templates, so it cannot be deprecated in the way you suggest.|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)
{{
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.|author=pubname
is not necessarily wrong.{{cite web |author=Fun Facts |website=FunFacts.com |title=Man bites dog}}
allowsThis is whack!{{sfn|Fun Facts}}
to point to the citation.{{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}}
|author=
/ |contributor=
/ |editor=
parameters just to avoid the need to use a custom value in |ref=
.|ref=
has been a cs1|2 parameter since c. 2005.Using
|author=pubname
is not necessarily wrong.
|ref=
.Yiba, the documentation for {{ sfnref}} may not make clear why you'd need the template. Help:Shortened footnotes#Linking includes this list of situations:
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. [1]
"Leroy Chollet". Hall of Fame. Canisius College Athletics. Retrieved March 30, 2023. |
Also, thanks to Mathglot for the ping. Also, also, Trappist the monk if you want to move the discussion and leave a link here, that seems fine. Rjjiii ( talk) 20:11, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (
link)|author=Anon.
; simple. --
Michael Bednarek (
talk) 04:35, 31 March 2024 (UTC){{
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)
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)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Footnotes module. |
|
Archives: 1, 2Auto-archiving period: 60 days |
Module:Footnotes is permanently
protected from editing because it is a
heavily used or highly visible module. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by
consensus, editors may use {{
edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit.
|
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)
|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)Hi Renata3, could you add this for {{ME-ref|SK}}?
['CITEREFTolkien2015'] = template_names['ME-ref']
Thanks, Andy02124 ( talk) 20:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Hi Renata3, here's another one, for an edition of Tom Bombadil.
['CITEREFTolkien2014'] = template_names['ME-ref']
Thanks. Andy02124 ( talk) 15:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
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?)
Answer/guidance will be appreciated.
Yiba (
talk |
contribs) 12:32, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
{{
cite journal}}
creates CITEREFpublicationnameYEAR
when the template does not have author/contributor/editor name(s) is unfounded. See this example:
{{cite journal |title=Title |journal=Journal |date=2024}}
'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000017-QINU`"'<cite class="citation journal cs1">"Title". ''Journal''. 2024.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=Journal&rft.atitle=Title&rft.date=2024&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AModule+talk%3AFootnotes" class="Z3988"></span>
id=
attribute in opening <cite>
tag:
<cite id="CITEREFJournal2024" ...>
|ref=
. There is no requirement to use |ref={{
sfnref}}
.{{
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.[[#some ref value]]
– wikilinks may or may not be piped; not piped here for clarity{{cite journal |title=Title |journal=Journal |date=2024 |ref=some ref value}}
|ref=
has the same name:
<ref name="some name">{{cite ... |ref=some name}}</ref>
|ref=
is used for more than just links to sfn templates, so it cannot be deprecated in the way you suggest.|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)
{{
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.|author=pubname
is not necessarily wrong.{{cite web |author=Fun Facts |website=FunFacts.com |title=Man bites dog}}
allowsThis is whack!{{sfn|Fun Facts}}
to point to the citation.{{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}}
|author=
/ |contributor=
/ |editor=
parameters just to avoid the need to use a custom value in |ref=
.|ref=
has been a cs1|2 parameter since c. 2005.Using
|author=pubname
is not necessarily wrong.
|ref=
.Yiba, the documentation for {{ sfnref}} may not make clear why you'd need the template. Help:Shortened footnotes#Linking includes this list of situations:
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. [1]
"Leroy Chollet". Hall of Fame. Canisius College Athletics. Retrieved March 30, 2023. |
Also, thanks to Mathglot for the ping. Also, also, Trappist the monk if you want to move the discussion and leave a link here, that seems fine. Rjjiii ( talk) 20:11, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (
link)|author=Anon.
; simple. --
Michael Bednarek (
talk) 04:35, 31 March 2024 (UTC){{
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)
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)