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:The ref name ":0" is acceptable because it contains a character that is not an integer. The restriction on using numerals alone is technical and not a policy or a guideline. Any ref name that uses integers or numerals alone will generate a red error message on the article and the reference so named will not format. [[User:DrKiernan|DrKiernan]] ([[User talk:DrKiernan|talk]]) 08:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC) |
:The ref name ":0" is acceptable because it contains a character that is not an integer. The restriction on using numerals alone is technical and not a policy or a guideline. Any ref name that uses integers or numerals alone will generate a red error message on the article and the reference so named will not format. [[User:DrKiernan|DrKiernan]] ([[User talk:DrKiernan|talk]]) 08:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC) |
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::So we can use meaningless ref names like <nowiki><ref name=xyz1></nowiki> and <nowiki><ref name=xyz2></nowiki> that are just irrelevant and it's "technically" ok. It's frustrating because it has been used I believe to confuse editors about the source of quotes when the source is low quality and contested in BLP, from an editor already banned from one article for such sources. '''[[User:Carolmooredc]] <small> [[File:Face-surprise.svg|alt=surprised|18px]][[User talk:Carolmooredc|talk]]</small> ''' 17:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC) |
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== When does house style kick in? == |
== When does house style kick in? == |
Revision as of 17:37, 22 November 2013
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References format
I, for one, found this to be an interesting references format.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:25, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- Interesting use of "div". However, the references themselves need some work. One HTML link just shows up as a clickable link without a name, and several references are actually pages in the Arabic Wikipedia, which is presumably no more of a reliable source than the English Wikipedia (i.e. it's non-reliable). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:57, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
- Shucks. I was kind of hoping we could develop this "feature", so that junk references not only don't print, but wouldn't display. :) ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:08, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
New Ref names numeric guideline???
RE: Help_talk:Footnotes#Policy_or_guideline.3F which reads: Names for footnotes and groups must follow these rules:...Names may not be purely numeric...
I asked on that talk page about someone using <ref name=3>
and the like in articles and ignoring requests not to do so based on the above guideline. After asking about it on that talk page someone wrote: "you mean that they have added the ref <ref name=":0" />
- that's simply the reuse of an existing ref which happens to be named ":0"
They felt it was in line with policy above.
Well, I'm confused by both status of guideline and all those ":0"
in articles. If this is a new policy, I think this needs to be a community decision because it's extremely frustrating to have to figure out what is going on even for editors of 7 years, not to mention newbies. I also wonder if people will just go and try to repeat using a number, not noticing if it's gone or what. Just too high tech. User:Carolmooredc talk 16:38, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
- In that WT:Footnotes seems to be a suitable venue for the current discussion, why are you raising this point here?
- The restriction regarding purely numeric refnames is (I believe) a technical matter. While (as was explained to you) ":0" slides by because it is, strictly speaking, non-numeric, it is really a very poor choice. But these matters more approriately discussed at WT:Footnotes. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
- I thought Help talk:Footnotes would only be a sub-section of this guideline and perhaps there would be more "guideline" type input from more people at the original guideline page. I'm trying to find out if using numerics is a total no no or just a "poor choice" we have to put up with, no matter how confusing it may be to those of us trying to correct a number of problematic edits with those confusing numeric ref names. If there's a change of policy and using numeric is OK, that should be at Help talk:Footnotes. But if it's a higher level policy change, maybe it needs discussing here. If I'm wrong, my apologies. User:Carolmooredc
talk 16:23, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- I thought Help talk:Footnotes would only be a sub-section of this guideline and perhaps there would be more "guideline" type input from more people at the original guideline page. I'm trying to find out if using numerics is a total no no or just a "poor choice" we have to put up with, no matter how confusing it may be to those of us trying to correct a number of problematic edits with those confusing numeric ref names. If there's a change of policy and using numeric is OK, that should be at Help talk:Footnotes. But if it's a higher level policy change, maybe it needs discussing here. If I'm wrong, my apologies. User:Carolmooredc
- Usually you want the most specific venue for a question, which in this case seems to be WT:Footnotes. If you want to simply bring in more editors (possibly with other views) then the usual procedure is to put a notice in various related venues of the original discussion, but without (as you did here) initiating a parallel discussion. As to any question of policy: I don't see that any policies are involved. As I said above, the ban on purely numeric names arises from a technical issue, not any policy. Use of quasi-numeric names (such as ":0") is poor, but that does not arise to any issue of policy, let alone any change of policy.
- I gather you understand how such names are problemantic. Do you need help convincing another editor of that? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk)
- Exactly. That's why I need a definitive answer since my two comments on it have been ignored. If it's policy I might get an admin to convince the editor. This editor works on a lot of the same articles so it's frustrating. User:Carolmooredc
talk 03:49, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
- Exactly. That's why I need a definitive answer since my two comments on it have been ignored. If it's policy I might get an admin to convince the editor. This editor works on a lot of the same articles so it's frustrating. User:Carolmooredc
- The ref name ":0" is acceptable because it contains a character that is not an integer. The restriction on using numerals alone is technical and not a policy or a guideline. Any ref name that uses integers or numerals alone will generate a red error message on the article and the reference so named will not format. DrKiernan (talk) 08:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
- So we can use meaningless ref names like <ref name=xyz1> and <ref name=xyz2> that are just irrelevant and it's "technically" ok. It's frustrating because it has been used I believe to confuse editors about the source of quotes when the source is low quality and contested in BLP, from an editor already banned from one article for such sources. User:Carolmooredc
talk 17:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
- So we can use meaningless ref names like <ref name=xyz1> and <ref name=xyz2> that are just irrelevant and it's "technically" ok. It's frustrating because it has been used I believe to confuse editors about the source of quotes when the source is low quality and contested in BLP, from an editor already banned from one article for such sources. User:Carolmooredc
When does house style kick in?
I'm starting to think that we should start thinking about increasingly, over time, suggesting use of a house style for web, book, and journal citations. Specifically, template- (or manually-) entered Citation Style 1.
- Usage of the template is rising
- Existing citations are continuously being converted to Cs1 of necessity
- linkrot-driven additions of
|archiveurl=
and|archivedate=
- fixups of bare urls by WP:Reflinks and other automated tools
- manual fixups of title-only, publication-only, or "Article about <thing>" garbage citations
- linkrot-driven additions of
Seems inevitable to me. Might be time to start realizing that it's ok to recommend a standard, if we're going that way anyways. Most other publications have a house standard, and Wikipedia has many other standards in place. Also, there's quite a disconnect between our practice of protecting citation first-authorship, and our practice of discouraging WP:OWN. --Lexein (talk) 02:47, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- There was a large RfC about the idea of adopting a house style, and the idea was rejected. I feel that before suggesting this you should have read the prior RfC, so why don't you remind us were it is located? Jc3s5h (talk) 03:13, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- Establishing a house citation style is a perennial proposal and was discussed at great length at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Citation discussion. It took me a while to find the discussion. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:36, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
First authorship
The courtesy guideline WP:CITEVAR goes against WP:OWN. Editors who can't own content, shouldn't be led to believe that they can "own" citation formats, just because they wrote them first. Discuss? --Lexein (talk) 02:47, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- I think the reason for following the existing citation format in an article is for consistency within the article. I see nothing wrong with doing a wholesale replacement of all references from one citation style to another, but adding a new citation with a different citation style than the existing ones can be a bit awkward and difficult to maintain. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:14, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- Wrong. The guideline does provide that the first non-stub version with a consistent citation style establishes the style for the article, unless consensus is reached on the talk page to change the style. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:15, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- This comes from an effort to change an article from Bluebook citation style to a mix of templated (citation style 1), Harvard, and incorrectly formatted Bluebook. He doesn't like Bluebook, so he arbitrarily changed it without consensus. When I pointed out WP:CITEVAR and WP:REFB he indicated that he wanted to change the standard. Regards, GregJackP Boomer! 06:51, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- Wow. What an invention. I did not change "to a mix". I added urls to every single citation (they were all missing one), removed all the precious {{smallcaps}}, all the deprecated uses of ibid, correctly used named refs and correctly used Harvard multi-cites, and used Citation Style 1 in some places to format volume, issue, page and paragraph information so as to be understandable by the hundreds of millions of non-lawyer readers. True, I don't like GregJackP's version of Bluebook, or its overuse, just as I don't like any occupation-specific (legal profession, in this case) citation style applied to non-occupation-related citations. As I opened up discussion on his talk page, if this had been a law-related only article, with legal citations only, I wouldn't have changed any cite format at all. I don't scoff at a behavior and content guideline WP:OWN, just to hide behind a courtesy guideline WP:CITEVAR. It's strange that you'd try to defend your actions behind WP:REFB since you're not a beginner. Any guideline written in a way to encourage behavior which is discouraged by another needs to be reviewed. And given that you've reverted all my changes, removed book publisher and ISBN information (reducing verifiability), broken harvard multi-cite linking (by obscuring the author's last name and removing the usual wikilinking tying them together), and removed publication date information (by which periodicals publicly identify their issues), that's WP:OWN. Funny, you said it didn't matter to you. --Lexein (talk) 07:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- This comes from an effort to change an article from Bluebook citation style to a mix of templated (citation style 1), Harvard, and incorrectly formatted Bluebook. He doesn't like Bluebook, so he arbitrarily changed it without consensus. When I pointed out WP:CITEVAR and WP:REFB he indicated that he wanted to change the standard. Regards, GregJackP Boomer! 06:51, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- I don't understand WP:CITEVAR as a courtesy guideline. I understand it as an instance of "don't change the precedent unless there is clear reason to do so", a very common human heuristic, especially in matters of group decision-making. It doesn't conflict with WP:OWN because the person who set the precedent for the reference style in a particular article has no more right to change it without consensus than anyone else. The deeper principle of both WP:CITEVAR and WP:OWN is to seek consensus. Wikipedia is collaborative. Act unilaterally until you run into conflict, and when you run into conflict, talk it over with the aim of making the article better than either of you would have done alone. I hope you can find a way to do that in your conflict with GregJackP. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 07:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- If what GregJackP is using is really "Bluebook", it's utterly hostile to general readers who aren't lawyers - it omits too much verification information like publisher, dates, ISBN, etc., obscures and complicates simple things like volume, issue and page number, and makes repetitive citation of single sources clumsy and not easily scannable by last name. I don't see any resolution with GregJackP aside from letting him have his way with his precious {{smallcaps}}, and minority, last-listed, much-disliked style (and not just by me, read about it at) Bluebook. Especially since he banned me from his Talk page - see for his accusatory yelling and assumption of bad faith "collaboration". --Lexein (talk) 08:16, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- I am really using Bluebook, and have the 19th edition in front of me. You were banned from my talk page for the same snide, rude, and insulting comments that you are making here (like "precious" above, and comments on my page like "babyducking" and "fanboyism"). The style doesn't complicate "simple things", the placement of volume and page information is actually much simpler. I did not ask for him to tell me what citation style to use, nor to be condescending towards me, and I certainly don't have to put up with it on my own talk page. BTW, I'm not the only editor who has had issues with his communication style. See here, here, here, here and so on. These are experienced editors who have problems with his style of communication.
- I get that you don't like Bluebook. Fine. Don't use it in articles that you create. That doesn't mean that other editors have to use the style that you like. I really dislike Citation-style 1 and Chicago, and I really, really dislike Harvard. I use them if it's appropriate, i.e., if that is the style in use at an article I am editing. I really do know what I'm doing, and it is very presumptuous of you to be telling an editor with multiple FAs and GAs how to edit, especially given your limited work in article creation, mostly at the start-class level. Regards, GregJackP Boomer! 12:23, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- You're both excellent and experienced editors, so you already know all this, but I'll say it anyway as a quick reminder. The place to talk over a dispute about Photography is Not a Crime is Talk: Photography is Not a Crime, not here or User talk:GregJackP, and there you should talk about edits to make to the page, not each other. If you and other editors at Talk: Photography is Not a Crime can't work it out, some other options are WP:3O and WP:DRN. When I get frustrated, sometimes I get reminded of the basics at WP:COOL or WP:WB. Good luck. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 14:30, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- I've abandoned the article as I said I would, if you check the user talk page discussion). I'd like to get the discussion, here, back to the original topic. It's serious, and I've had this concern about the two guidelines for years. --Lexein (talk) 16:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- You're both excellent and experienced editors, so you already know all this, but I'll say it anyway as a quick reminder. The place to talk over a dispute about Photography is Not a Crime is Talk: Photography is Not a Crime, not here or User talk:GregJackP, and there you should talk about edits to make to the page, not each other. If you and other editors at Talk: Photography is Not a Crime can't work it out, some other options are WP:3O and WP:DRN. When I get frustrated, sometimes I get reminded of the basics at WP:COOL or WP:WB. Good luck. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 14:30, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- If what GregJackP is using is really "Bluebook", it's utterly hostile to general readers who aren't lawyers - it omits too much verification information like publisher, dates, ISBN, etc., obscures and complicates simple things like volume, issue and page number, and makes repetitive citation of single sources clumsy and not easily scannable by last name. I don't see any resolution with GregJackP aside from letting him have his way with his precious {{smallcaps}}, and minority, last-listed, much-disliked style (and not just by me, read about it at) Bluebook. Especially since he banned me from his Talk page - see for his accusatory yelling and assumption of bad faith "collaboration". --Lexein (talk) 08:16, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- I don't understand WP:CITEVAR as a courtesy guideline. I understand it as an instance of "don't change the precedent unless there is clear reason to do so", a very common human heuristic, especially in matters of group decision-making. It doesn't conflict with WP:OWN because the person who set the precedent for the reference style in a particular article has no more right to change it without consensus than anyone else. The deeper principle of both WP:CITEVAR and WP:OWN is to seek consensus. Wikipedia is collaborative. Act unilaterally until you run into conflict, and when you run into conflict, talk it over with the aim of making the article better than either of you would have done alone. I hope you can find a way to do that in your conflict with GregJackP. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 07:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- Comment: Since there are several differing opinions above about the meaning and wording of WP:CITEVAR, my questions continue:
- It doesn't currently say or imply that the original author shouldn't suddenly change citation formats without consensus; until it does, IMHO it can still be reasonably read as conflicting with WP:OWN.
- It says clearly "Improving existing citations by adding missing information, such as ...". But (according to GregJackP at talk & this edit), Bluebook excludes:
- publisher, ISBN number, or series from book citations (Olorunda),
- date from periodical citations, even if the publication publicizes its date along with v/i.
- wikilinking between full and following abbreviated citations.
- agency or nonoriginal publisher {like HighBeam, Lyncmigration or COMTEX)
- original publisher (Daily Business Review, Social Science Research Network)
- subscription required (for HighBeam, Playboy)
- no clear identification of page number or issue (159 U. Pa. L. Rev. 335) - What's 335? could be page, could be issue. General readers won't know. Hidden rules suck. IMHO, of course.
- How do we therefore harmonize WP:CITEVAR#Generally considered helpful with the designed exclusion of helpful citation information by some citation styles? Which has precedence, the guideline or the style? And therefore, WP:OWN or WP:CITEVAR? (Assume for the sake of argument that all the convenience links I added have rotted.)
- --Lexein (talk) 16:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
- There are not several different positions on WP:CITEVAR. It is clear, and it does not conflict with WP:OWN. It is generally understood that the first creator past stub establishes the citation style for the article. Bluebook is an accepted style. The fact that you prefer the extra information is OK, but it is required nowhere in WP policy or guidelines.
- Again, if you prefer not to use Bluebook, don't use it. Or you can get accepted to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, or Penn Law, do well enough to get on their Law Review, and then change it yourself.
- This is an issue that is bigger than this talkpage, and you would need to bring it up at the Village Pump to change the policy. GregJackP Boomer! 19:08, 21 November 2013 (UTC)