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talk page for discussing improvements to the
ISBN page. |
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Archives: 1 |
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Hi, I wonder whether it is really the best option to include the hyphenation. There are several reasons why to avoid it:
The best option is to include the number unformatted to the article. The hyphenation, if necessary, should be part of the user preferences, and the software should parse the number, to avoid errors.
-- Eleassar my talk 14:00, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
I probably am not understanding something but it seems I can't quite fathom a few use cases based on the way ISBNs are current held. If I know the non-hyphenated version of an ISBN for the book I'm interested that may have been cited on wikipedia somewhere. How would I go about finding any references given that the ISBNs are recorded here only in hyphenated form?
1. via wikipedia search?
2. via google?
If I'm correct in saying this isn't covered, is there a case for either smartening up the search function a little, or actually changing the way the isbn is stored to include both hyphenated and unhyphenated versions in the markup? I'd be interested in knowing some thoughts, I'm probably missing something really obvious and simple so sorry in advance. ---- nonsense ferret 00:53, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
maybe not much of one, but at least it seems like there is something a bit inconsistent about the current behaviour:
All ISBNs on pages have been converted to hyp version. I click on hyp version on an article I get sent to search page prepopulated with unhyphenated version. I click link to search wikipedia for all instances of the ISBN (using the prepopulated unhyp version) Expected: find the link on the page I originally clicked Actual: find no results - because there is a mismatch between hyp and unhyp.
Similarly, find a book on amazon which lists unhyp ISBNs, go to WP and search - Expected: find all references to that book where people have bothered to type in the ISBN Actual: find no references, ever, since they have all been converted by a bot.
Assumptions:
Two obvious approaches:
So, when you type in an ISBN on Wikipedia's lookup system, there are two huge problems with it:
I get the first one - I can imagine that might be a technically challenging thing to implement, or lots and lots of labor. But the second? Really? When I type in a really long number, my first question is "did I type the right number". You're not answering this basic question here. Ego White Tray ( talk) 13:00, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
SusunW came about a rather bizarre case: According to Google Books this book misprints its own ISBN (correct is ISBN 978-0-8061-1758-4, as confirmed by WorldCat, not ISBN 978-0-8061-1458-4). Any chances of implementing a "redirect" so that entering the ISBN as printed in the book (assuming this isn't a digitalization error) will point to the correct ISBN? Huon ( talk) 13:45, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
Are people here aware that a decision has apparently been made to remove all magic links, which includes ISBN and PMID?
I can't find any discussions where consensus was established. There is Requests for comment/Future of magic links on Mediawiki. Five people have taken part, and it isn't what we call an RfC. There was a mailing list post by Legoktm in October; a thread on phabricator, T148274; and there is a request to approve a bot to remove them. Spinningspark left a note about the bot request on WP:VPP.
Leaving this here in case anyone is interested, and pinging Doc James because it affects PMID. SarahSV (talk) 16:01, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
With magic links deprecated, and with no plans to bring them back that I am aware of, would anyone object to the removal of information on magic links on the page? It takes up a considerable amount of text for something that is not used, and makes it hard to find the information you are looking for. Kees08 (Talk) 02:56, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
Came across a reference using the cite book template which threw up an ISBN error because the terminal X was given as lower-case x. The book source had its ISBN written with lower case X and as it was in a printed book was obviously valid to the untrained human.
Is this a case where the error message could be more explicit when saying that the ISBN contains an invalid character as to what the invalid character is? Or even treat lower-case x as upper-case X? Or the various documentation could indicate that ISBNs have to be given with capital X to avoid the problem. GraemeLeggett ( talk) 21:52, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
if the check digit is a lowercase 'x', change it to an uppercase 'X'? You are welcome to improve the help text to make it easier to parse. – Jonesey95 ( talk) 21:57, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
Our how-to page here has the sentence "Use hyphens if they are included, as they divide the number into meaningful parts; the placement of hyphens varies between books." Is this really the case? Let's try a book actually titled ISBN 9781909388062. If you go to Special:BookSources/9781909388062 and look you will get "results", but the various resources/ external links listed -- WorldCat, Amazon.com, Google Books, HathiTrust, etc. -- do not list the book. But try OCLC 1065580670 -- yes, it is a real book, produced in a limited edition of 16. Is there a problem? Perhaps our ISBN 9781909388062 did not have the right hyphenation! Actually, NO. Why? Because BookSources says "Spaces and hyphens in the ISBN do not matter." What's up? When ISBNs were being developed 50 years ago the "meaningful" parts really were meaningful. This is no longer the case. When we click on How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler, we can find publication data. The ISBN numbers listed in the article will give us links to WP:Book Sources, and those various external links all give ISBN-13 numbers. AND they are ISBNs that do NOT use hyphens! SO, I recommend that we remove the "Use hyphens if ...." sentence because it is out-dated and incorrect. Instead we say "hyphens may be included, but ISBN citations should seek a consistent style of hyphenation within each WP article." – S. Rich ( talk) 02:17, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
{{
Format ISBN}}
that used
Module:Format ISBN and
Module:Format ISBN/data. That template would correctly hyphenate an ISBN. {{Format ISBN}}
was nominated for deletion by Editor
Srich32977 at
Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2022 November 18 § Template:Format ISBN partially on the grounds that [this] template is not used in any articles.The source for the template had this:
{{safesubst<noinclude />:#invoke:Format ISBN|main}}
See my user-talkpage for some recent discussion on the topic.So I went looking for that discussion. I found several:
{{
Format ISBN}}
would be useful, not least for helping with the aim of consistency.
Kanguole 22:43, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
The elements should each be separated clearly by hyphens or spaces when displayed in human readable form
The use of hyphens or spaces has no lexical significance and is purely to enhance readability.
I would welcome reinstatement of the Format ISBN templateWorking on that...
{{
Format ISBN}}
and restored modified versions of
Module:Format ISBN and
Module:Format ISBN/data updated to the ISBN RangeMessage as of 2023-04-19. The new version is different from the old so read the template's documentation before using. I generally suck a documentation so if there are improvements that can be made, please do, or let me know and I'll attempt to do better. The template is auto-subst'd by AnomieBOT.{{
ISBN}}
or when the ISBN is stand-alone so, perhaps for those use-cases, preserving 10-digit ISBNs might be worth while. I suppose a specific template {{
Format ISBN10}}
would be the best way for editors to get this functionality.{{
Format ISBN}}
should be rewritten to format and return the ISBN in the form that it is given rather than to return only 13-digit ISBNs. If I do that, we can discard {{
Format ISBN10}}
. Opinions?{{
Format ISBN10}}
. It works much the same way as {{
Format ISBN}}
except that 13-digit ISBNs as input are returned without modification compared to {{Format ISBN}}
which converts ISBN10 input to ISBN13.{{
Format ISBN}}
to leave ISBN 10s unchanged, and don't think two templates are required. It'd be consistent with the other ISBN templates which accept either form. I'd also support it handling SBNs (add a 0 to hyphenate as ISBN10, then remove the 0), but other templates do treat them differently, which makes sense for clarity. There could be a parameter that confirms the "as printed" digits, 9, 10 or 13? Since the ISBN should be entered as printed, the only value would be in confirming a 9 digit SBN is not a typo. Automatic conversion between forms seems unnecessary. I've been making a lot of ISBN hyphenation changes using the ISBN ranges as they are updated from
https://www.isbn-international.org/range_file_generation . I'm interested in knowing how {{
Format ISBN}}
will be kept current, and could help with that as I know how the range files work (but unfortunately not much about Wikimedia template code).
Salpynx (
talk) 21:48, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
{{
Format ISBN10}}
and that n-digit input gets n-digit output. Hadn't given much thought to SBN formatting; adding a leading zero, formatting and then dropping the leading zero (and the hyphen) is simple enough. Not sure what you mean by a parameter that confirms the "as printed" digits.
<!--...-->
) in
Module:ISBN RangeMessage xlate/doc. There are instructions there that (I think) explain how to update
Module:Format ISBN/data when International ISBN Agency updates RangeMessage.xml (with more than just changes to <MessageSerialNumber>...</MessageSerialNumber>
and <MessageDate>...</MessageDate>
). Does that answer your questions?{{
Format ISBN/sandbox}}
which will format SNB, ISBN10, ISBN13. The template returns the formatted input:
{{Format ISBN/sandbox|035789360}}
→ 03-578936-0{{Format ISBN/sandbox|1605206245}}
→ 1-60520-624-5{{Format ISBN/sandbox|9781571816559}}
→ 978-1-57181-655-9{{
Format ISBN10}}
goes away.{{
Format ISBN}}
with {{
Format ISBN/sandbox}}
so that the template, by default, returns a formatted ISBN that has the same length as its input. I have made one adjustment: |out=
will accept values of 10
and 13
so that editors may specify the format output. This does not work for SBNs or for ISBN13 with the GS1 prefix 979
:
{{Format ISBN/sandbox|9781571816559|out=10}}
→ 1-57181-655-0{{Format ISBN/sandbox|1-57181-655-0|out=13}}
→ 978-1-57181-655-9{{Format_ISBN/sandbox|9791220008525|out=10}}
→ 979-12-200-0852-4{{Format_ISBN/sandbox|035789360|out=13}}
→ 03-578936-0{{Format ISBN}}
and delete {{
Format ISBN10}}
.{{
Format ISBN10}}
is no more. I have tweaked
Template:Format ISBN/doc to reflect the changes in Module:Format ISBN. The ~/doc could probably benefit from a third eye giving it a look-see.978
is the GS1 prefix and 0
is the registration group element. The 12
(or 1234
or 123456
) is the registrant element. For the 0
registration group (English language), ISBN defines registrant elements in these ranges:
978-0-12-345678-6
is correct because the registrant element (12
) is the only one to fit into any of the defined ranges; 1234
and 123456
do not fit. You can check this for yourself by downloading the
RangeMessage by group prefix document from isbn-international.org (a direct download). ISBN has information and two other related documents available at
ISBN Ranges (also direct downloads).A few days ago, prompted by this edit in which ISBN hyphens were removed, I and Jonesey95 had a conversation with Srich32977 (who started this thread) about removing hyphens from ISBNs. Per this, as Jonesey95 pointed out, Srich32977 has been asked before to stop removing hyphens. I suggested that they should find a forum where they could get consensus before removing hyphens from ISBNS. I just found this discussion and I think this constitutes a consensus in the opposite direction; hyphens should not be removed from ISBNs. Srich32977, do you agree? It seems clear to me that practically every commenter above expressed approval for including the hyphens, and we do still have "Use hyphens if they are included" on this how-to page. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:07, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
first=
last=
parameters in a citation in favor of author=
. Both versions are potentially correct, but the marked up version is better. I hope no one will argue in favor of author=
and less information. I've noticed some of @
User:Srich32977's edits convert pre-ISBN-13 ISBNs to ISBN-13, which is another unnecessary ISBN edit, the printed ISBN-10 is likely to be more useful to people with the book in hand. ISBNs are not just for creating special book source links.
Salpynx (
talk) 22:02, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Is it a tool doing this?Calling Srich32977 a tool might be construed as a personal attack, so I won't do it, but I long ago ran out of good faith with that editor.
It needs to stop.Agreed. There is no good reason to remove valid hyphens from ISBNs. – Jonesey95 ( talk) 22:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § RfC: Standardizing ISBN formatting (and an end to editwarring about it) is a discussion which watchers of this page may be interested in. Izno ( talk) 02:16, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
In this book, it says it has two ISBNs, one for the paper print, and one for "OA". Which one should I use? Is there a way to show 2 ISBNs in one ref? - Dents ( talk2me 🖂) he/him btw!!! 11:20, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
ISBN page. |
|
Archives: 1 |
This project page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Hi, I wonder whether it is really the best option to include the hyphenation. There are several reasons why to avoid it:
The best option is to include the number unformatted to the article. The hyphenation, if necessary, should be part of the user preferences, and the software should parse the number, to avoid errors.
-- Eleassar my talk 14:00, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
I probably am not understanding something but it seems I can't quite fathom a few use cases based on the way ISBNs are current held. If I know the non-hyphenated version of an ISBN for the book I'm interested that may have been cited on wikipedia somewhere. How would I go about finding any references given that the ISBNs are recorded here only in hyphenated form?
1. via wikipedia search?
2. via google?
If I'm correct in saying this isn't covered, is there a case for either smartening up the search function a little, or actually changing the way the isbn is stored to include both hyphenated and unhyphenated versions in the markup? I'd be interested in knowing some thoughts, I'm probably missing something really obvious and simple so sorry in advance. ---- nonsense ferret 00:53, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
maybe not much of one, but at least it seems like there is something a bit inconsistent about the current behaviour:
All ISBNs on pages have been converted to hyp version. I click on hyp version on an article I get sent to search page prepopulated with unhyphenated version. I click link to search wikipedia for all instances of the ISBN (using the prepopulated unhyp version) Expected: find the link on the page I originally clicked Actual: find no results - because there is a mismatch between hyp and unhyp.
Similarly, find a book on amazon which lists unhyp ISBNs, go to WP and search - Expected: find all references to that book where people have bothered to type in the ISBN Actual: find no references, ever, since they have all been converted by a bot.
Assumptions:
Two obvious approaches:
So, when you type in an ISBN on Wikipedia's lookup system, there are two huge problems with it:
I get the first one - I can imagine that might be a technically challenging thing to implement, or lots and lots of labor. But the second? Really? When I type in a really long number, my first question is "did I type the right number". You're not answering this basic question here. Ego White Tray ( talk) 13:00, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
SusunW came about a rather bizarre case: According to Google Books this book misprints its own ISBN (correct is ISBN 978-0-8061-1758-4, as confirmed by WorldCat, not ISBN 978-0-8061-1458-4). Any chances of implementing a "redirect" so that entering the ISBN as printed in the book (assuming this isn't a digitalization error) will point to the correct ISBN? Huon ( talk) 13:45, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
Are people here aware that a decision has apparently been made to remove all magic links, which includes ISBN and PMID?
I can't find any discussions where consensus was established. There is Requests for comment/Future of magic links on Mediawiki. Five people have taken part, and it isn't what we call an RfC. There was a mailing list post by Legoktm in October; a thread on phabricator, T148274; and there is a request to approve a bot to remove them. Spinningspark left a note about the bot request on WP:VPP.
Leaving this here in case anyone is interested, and pinging Doc James because it affects PMID. SarahSV (talk) 16:01, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
With magic links deprecated, and with no plans to bring them back that I am aware of, would anyone object to the removal of information on magic links on the page? It takes up a considerable amount of text for something that is not used, and makes it hard to find the information you are looking for. Kees08 (Talk) 02:56, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
Came across a reference using the cite book template which threw up an ISBN error because the terminal X was given as lower-case x. The book source had its ISBN written with lower case X and as it was in a printed book was obviously valid to the untrained human.
Is this a case where the error message could be more explicit when saying that the ISBN contains an invalid character as to what the invalid character is? Or even treat lower-case x as upper-case X? Or the various documentation could indicate that ISBNs have to be given with capital X to avoid the problem. GraemeLeggett ( talk) 21:52, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
if the check digit is a lowercase 'x', change it to an uppercase 'X'? You are welcome to improve the help text to make it easier to parse. – Jonesey95 ( talk) 21:57, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
Our how-to page here has the sentence "Use hyphens if they are included, as they divide the number into meaningful parts; the placement of hyphens varies between books." Is this really the case? Let's try a book actually titled ISBN 9781909388062. If you go to Special:BookSources/9781909388062 and look you will get "results", but the various resources/ external links listed -- WorldCat, Amazon.com, Google Books, HathiTrust, etc. -- do not list the book. But try OCLC 1065580670 -- yes, it is a real book, produced in a limited edition of 16. Is there a problem? Perhaps our ISBN 9781909388062 did not have the right hyphenation! Actually, NO. Why? Because BookSources says "Spaces and hyphens in the ISBN do not matter." What's up? When ISBNs were being developed 50 years ago the "meaningful" parts really were meaningful. This is no longer the case. When we click on How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler, we can find publication data. The ISBN numbers listed in the article will give us links to WP:Book Sources, and those various external links all give ISBN-13 numbers. AND they are ISBNs that do NOT use hyphens! SO, I recommend that we remove the "Use hyphens if ...." sentence because it is out-dated and incorrect. Instead we say "hyphens may be included, but ISBN citations should seek a consistent style of hyphenation within each WP article." – S. Rich ( talk) 02:17, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
{{
Format ISBN}}
that used
Module:Format ISBN and
Module:Format ISBN/data. That template would correctly hyphenate an ISBN. {{Format ISBN}}
was nominated for deletion by Editor
Srich32977 at
Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2022 November 18 § Template:Format ISBN partially on the grounds that [this] template is not used in any articles.The source for the template had this:
{{safesubst<noinclude />:#invoke:Format ISBN|main}}
See my user-talkpage for some recent discussion on the topic.So I went looking for that discussion. I found several:
{{
Format ISBN}}
would be useful, not least for helping with the aim of consistency.
Kanguole 22:43, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
The elements should each be separated clearly by hyphens or spaces when displayed in human readable form
The use of hyphens or spaces has no lexical significance and is purely to enhance readability.
I would welcome reinstatement of the Format ISBN templateWorking on that...
{{
Format ISBN}}
and restored modified versions of
Module:Format ISBN and
Module:Format ISBN/data updated to the ISBN RangeMessage as of 2023-04-19. The new version is different from the old so read the template's documentation before using. I generally suck a documentation so if there are improvements that can be made, please do, or let me know and I'll attempt to do better. The template is auto-subst'd by AnomieBOT.{{
ISBN}}
or when the ISBN is stand-alone so, perhaps for those use-cases, preserving 10-digit ISBNs might be worth while. I suppose a specific template {{
Format ISBN10}}
would be the best way for editors to get this functionality.{{
Format ISBN}}
should be rewritten to format and return the ISBN in the form that it is given rather than to return only 13-digit ISBNs. If I do that, we can discard {{
Format ISBN10}}
. Opinions?{{
Format ISBN10}}
. It works much the same way as {{
Format ISBN}}
except that 13-digit ISBNs as input are returned without modification compared to {{Format ISBN}}
which converts ISBN10 input to ISBN13.{{
Format ISBN}}
to leave ISBN 10s unchanged, and don't think two templates are required. It'd be consistent with the other ISBN templates which accept either form. I'd also support it handling SBNs (add a 0 to hyphenate as ISBN10, then remove the 0), but other templates do treat them differently, which makes sense for clarity. There could be a parameter that confirms the "as printed" digits, 9, 10 or 13? Since the ISBN should be entered as printed, the only value would be in confirming a 9 digit SBN is not a typo. Automatic conversion between forms seems unnecessary. I've been making a lot of ISBN hyphenation changes using the ISBN ranges as they are updated from
https://www.isbn-international.org/range_file_generation . I'm interested in knowing how {{
Format ISBN}}
will be kept current, and could help with that as I know how the range files work (but unfortunately not much about Wikimedia template code).
Salpynx (
talk) 21:48, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
{{
Format ISBN10}}
and that n-digit input gets n-digit output. Hadn't given much thought to SBN formatting; adding a leading zero, formatting and then dropping the leading zero (and the hyphen) is simple enough. Not sure what you mean by a parameter that confirms the "as printed" digits.
<!--...-->
) in
Module:ISBN RangeMessage xlate/doc. There are instructions there that (I think) explain how to update
Module:Format ISBN/data when International ISBN Agency updates RangeMessage.xml (with more than just changes to <MessageSerialNumber>...</MessageSerialNumber>
and <MessageDate>...</MessageDate>
). Does that answer your questions?{{
Format ISBN/sandbox}}
which will format SNB, ISBN10, ISBN13. The template returns the formatted input:
{{Format ISBN/sandbox|035789360}}
→ 03-578936-0{{Format ISBN/sandbox|1605206245}}
→ 1-60520-624-5{{Format ISBN/sandbox|9781571816559}}
→ 978-1-57181-655-9{{
Format ISBN10}}
goes away.{{
Format ISBN}}
with {{
Format ISBN/sandbox}}
so that the template, by default, returns a formatted ISBN that has the same length as its input. I have made one adjustment: |out=
will accept values of 10
and 13
so that editors may specify the format output. This does not work for SBNs or for ISBN13 with the GS1 prefix 979
:
{{Format ISBN/sandbox|9781571816559|out=10}}
→ 1-57181-655-0{{Format ISBN/sandbox|1-57181-655-0|out=13}}
→ 978-1-57181-655-9{{Format_ISBN/sandbox|9791220008525|out=10}}
→ 979-12-200-0852-4{{Format_ISBN/sandbox|035789360|out=13}}
→ 03-578936-0{{Format ISBN}}
and delete {{
Format ISBN10}}
.{{
Format ISBN10}}
is no more. I have tweaked
Template:Format ISBN/doc to reflect the changes in Module:Format ISBN. The ~/doc could probably benefit from a third eye giving it a look-see.978
is the GS1 prefix and 0
is the registration group element. The 12
(or 1234
or 123456
) is the registrant element. For the 0
registration group (English language), ISBN defines registrant elements in these ranges:
978-0-12-345678-6
is correct because the registrant element (12
) is the only one to fit into any of the defined ranges; 1234
and 123456
do not fit. You can check this for yourself by downloading the
RangeMessage by group prefix document from isbn-international.org (a direct download). ISBN has information and two other related documents available at
ISBN Ranges (also direct downloads).A few days ago, prompted by this edit in which ISBN hyphens were removed, I and Jonesey95 had a conversation with Srich32977 (who started this thread) about removing hyphens from ISBNs. Per this, as Jonesey95 pointed out, Srich32977 has been asked before to stop removing hyphens. I suggested that they should find a forum where they could get consensus before removing hyphens from ISBNS. I just found this discussion and I think this constitutes a consensus in the opposite direction; hyphens should not be removed from ISBNs. Srich32977, do you agree? It seems clear to me that practically every commenter above expressed approval for including the hyphens, and we do still have "Use hyphens if they are included" on this how-to page. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 11:07, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
first=
last=
parameters in a citation in favor of author=
. Both versions are potentially correct, but the marked up version is better. I hope no one will argue in favor of author=
and less information. I've noticed some of @
User:Srich32977's edits convert pre-ISBN-13 ISBNs to ISBN-13, which is another unnecessary ISBN edit, the printed ISBN-10 is likely to be more useful to people with the book in hand. ISBNs are not just for creating special book source links.
Salpynx (
talk) 22:02, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Is it a tool doing this?Calling Srich32977 a tool might be construed as a personal attack, so I won't do it, but I long ago ran out of good faith with that editor.
It needs to stop.Agreed. There is no good reason to remove valid hyphens from ISBNs. – Jonesey95 ( talk) 22:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § RfC: Standardizing ISBN formatting (and an end to editwarring about it) is a discussion which watchers of this page may be interested in. Izno ( talk) 02:16, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
In this book, it says it has two ISBNs, one for the paper print, and one for "OA". Which one should I use? Is there a way to show 2 ISBNs in one ref? - Dents ( talk2me 🖂) he/him btw!!! 11:20, 28 January 2024 (UTC)