Forum:Citation cleanup

Forums: Index > Watercooler > Citation cleanup

internal references

I started cleanup of Category:Citation Missing and encountered 3277th Imperial Marine Regiment. It is using a {{Page cite|...}} to cite another wiki page. In this case the article references 1115. I think the use case is valid: Cite another wiki page.

• Do we have such a cite template?
• Should we
  • just use <ref>[[1115]]</ref>?
  • Disallow this kind of reference?
  • Something else?

—¿philoserf? (talk) 11:02, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

I would say you should just link to the article. Usually the date pages (e.g. 1115) should just be a list of events linked to the original sources. So the date pages are not a source of citation, they are an organizational page to give context. It's why there shouldn't be a sources template on the date page either. And for the Regiment article, that page cite should be to an original publication. Tjoneslo (talk) 17:02, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

The 1115 entry had no citation so all I could do was reference to it BackworldTraveller (talk) 17:43, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

So it is a bad reference. Delete? —¿philoserf? (talk) 22:24, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

broken references upon transclusion

I am not sure how to fix these reference errors. Perhaps the page itself needs a redesign. See Goods/Protective gear. Guidance? —¿philoserf? (talk) 11:02, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

The Goods subpages (e.g. Goods/Protective gear) are generated from the individual articles by DPL templates. Those pages are there because they are part of an external project. I'm not sure exactly how to fix the problem, so please ignore those pages for now. If you find others, let me know and I'll take another look at fixing the problem. Tjoneslo (talk) 16:58, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

Freelance Traveller (magazine) issues

I have found citations for Freelance Traveller magazine issues. We do not have them in the ludography. Is there a reason we should not add them? —¿philoserf? (talk) 11:28, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

We do not have them in the Ludography simply because no one has taken on the task. That and updating all the mongoose books are the two specific tasks for the books to do.Tjoneslo (talk) 14:17, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

Stellar Reaches 08 “:” in article name

I think there is an issue with citing the ludography when an article name has a colon. See Lazisar (world) and Stellar Reaches 08 article “Adventure: Until Sheep May Safely Graze”. Acknowledging I do not fully grok the Ludography Infoxboxbook2 Dpl Cargo world yet. —¿philoserf? (talk) 12:25, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

The problem isn’t the colon in the article name, the infobox update for the article didn’t complete correctly when the not updated the article. I need to figure out why. But simply edit and save the article fixes the problem. Tjoneslo (talk) 14:12, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

named references

During cleanup I encounter duplicate citations. I can clean these up by adding a citeName=xyz parameter to the first instance and replacing the remaining with <ref name=xyz/>. I think I’d rather have a template like {{ref|xyz}}.

Question: What should the template be named. My example calls it ref but I think ref should be saved for a template to replace/simplfy <ref name=xyz>content</ref>. Which we also do not have and I want to create.

Proposal (new templates):

ref

{{ref|name=xyz|content=the reference}} that expands to <ref name=xyz>the reference</ref> Notes: use 1=, allow for no name

r (or a better short name)

{{r|xyz}} that expands to <ref name=xyz/>

BTW: I am not fond of Ludography cite’s name= and citeName=. I more commonly expect title= and name=.

The Template:page cite template was conceived of being a (thin) wrapper around the Template:Ludography cite, with the citeName= parameter tacked on. So the parameters of page cite match the Ludography cite. And the Template:Unpublished cite created for all (known instances of) the citations not published. That's the reasoning for the existing templates.

If you look at the page cite template, you can have both uses (name/content or just name) in the same template. But that may not be the way that makes the the most sense to you.

I have no objection to adding the new ref template if that makes your job easier. We should have docs on both these new templates and the existing page cite and unpublished cite to explain how they interact (if at all). Tjoneslo (talk) 12:10, 13 June 2020 (EDT)

I will get used to the citeName here. I understand its use and name, since name was already used where I think of title. That’s just from time in Wikipedia’s citation system. I am still mulling the need for the other named reference templates. I will play in my sandbox until I have a better sense of it. —¿philoserf? (talk) 10:12, 14 June 2020 (EDT)

Characters and Combat#References & Contributions (Sources) illustrates why I think we need better named reference handling. Can this be fixed in page cite? Are we just doing it wrong? I have been playing in the sandbox. Looking for a solution. See user:Philoserf/sandbox/1, user:Philoserf/sandbox/2, and user:Philoserf/sandbox/3. —¿philoserf? (talk) 20:46, 16 June 2020 (EDT)

This page is being done wrong. I don't think every link on the page needs a page cite, as the individual articles should have the references. The pageCite isn't being used in the article in a way that allows collapsing the duplicates. Side note: I may have a way of fixing this, if you think it's important, it's just complicated template programming. Tjoneslo (talk) 07:10, 17 June 2020 (EDT)

I am a fan of the source list with spare inline references/citations where they are important. That said, complex template programming can be a benefit if it makes editing easier/intuitive. I’ll need more time here before I can recommend a way forward. I have started with, what I hope is, fixing more obvious problems. Perhaps a citation style MOS explaining the source list/inline relationship and tools to achieve that. We do not want the many ways, no recommended footnote style, that leads Wikipedia to so many mixed and over-cited pages. —¿philoserf? (talk) 08:32, 17 June 2020 (EDT)

How was the name in {{Page cite}} and {{Unpublished cite}}’s citeName parameter supposed to be used? I haven’t yet found any reuse of this name in the wild. I see much more of the repetition like you might see in ToolSet#References & Contributors (Sources). All I know about that would work is <ref name=abc/>. What did I miss? If I have missed nothing then I will move forward on {{ref}} and {{r}} so I can use {{r|abc}} rather than the ref tag in cleanup. —¿philoserf? (talk) 23:57, 17 June 2020 (EDT)

In {{Page cite}}, the first time you use the full set of parameters (name, page, citeName). This gets you <ref name=abc>cite</ref>. For the second and subsequent uses, use just the citeName parmeter. This gets you <ref name=abc/>. Or if the {{r}} also generates the same, you should just be able use that directly instead of the 2nd and following {{Page cite}}. {{Unpublished cite}} works the same way. Tjoneslo (talk) 06:13, 18 June 2020 (EDT)a