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Contents 1 Retrieval dates for online versions of old printed sources, again 1.1 Hide the access date 1.2 Access date for newsgroups and mailing lists 1.3 Default setting: show or hide access date? 2 "The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged." 2.1 Proposal 2.2 Discussion 3 Multiple citation templates in "ref" tags 4 Discursive notes 5 anchor to references section 6 Reference Space 7 Primary source is wrong, secondary sources are right 8 Links in footnotes to newsarticles requiring payment for access 9 Placement of Citations 10 Quick how-to guide

Retrieval dates for online versions of old printed sources, again

I know this has been discussed a couple of times in these Talk archives, but I want to bring it up again. What is the rationale for requiring access/retrieval dates for online versions of past printed materials?

For example, editors are beginning to link book cites to Google Books. Thus, editors are putting "Retrieved on" on their cites, in addition to the usual author, title, publisher, year, ISBN, and page information. It looks very strange to see a book being "retrieved" ... such a link is just a convenience link (problematic too, given the semi-random way Google Books' "limited view" works); the content of the book is unchanging. If the link goes bad, the rest of the cite remains: an unchanging reference to an unchanging book.

Another case are old newspaper and magazine articles. If a cite gives a 1983 New York Times story's publication date, title, and author, and also gives a convenience link to the NYT archive, what is the value of having the retrieval date for this? The content of the story is fixed and unchanging, and is defined by the print/microfilm version. Again, if the archive goes away, the rest of the cite remains, an unchanging reference to an unchanging story. If the archive gets moved, one would re-lookup the online version by the published date/title/author information; knowing the old retrieval date wouldn't tell you anything.

And there is a real cost to having retrieval dates in place everywhere: to us they take up article edit space, to browsers they increase output HTML space, and to readers they clutter up the cite and can be visually confused with publication date. I understand that retrieval dates are necessary for web pages without publication dates, and arguably necessary for dated news stories originally published online (CNN, current NYT, etc.), but I just don't see the rationale for them in the above cases. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:08, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It's useful to be able to refer to that date in the WayBack Machine at archive.org. In the case of the NYT archive, we can be fairly certain that those will always remain, but other links won't. It's quite possible that some print sources could be basically impossible (or rather expensive/time-consuming) to track down. People will increasingly rid of print archives. However, if you're crunched for time, do what you can. If it's a podunk town newspaper, put the date; if it's the NYT, don't worry about it. That's my take at least. ImperfectlyInformed | {talk - contribs} 23:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The most common cause of newspaper links going bad is that articles get moved behind pay/subscriber walls. Is the WayBack machine able to show the article anyway, or are they enjoined from making free what is otherwise supposed to be charged for? Wasted Time R (talk) 23:58, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

One of the issues with the citation template is that the nomenclature of "retrieved on" is tacked on automatically and now has become part of the architecture of the citationa as judged by the amount of citation templates in place. I agree that the term looks arcane but with its widespread use, it is hard now to incorporate a "found," "accessed" or "located" tag as an alternative. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 14:25, 11 May 2008 (UTC).

To clarify, my issue is not with what word is used here. I don't think books or old newspaper articles should be listed as "found", "accessed", or "located" either. Those printed sources are unchanging over time; it doesn't matter if you "find" a 1976 book in 1988 or 2008, it's the same book. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely agree on that point, sources that are "fixed" in time, do not require a location date. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 19:26, 13 May 2008 (UTC).

The "retrieved date" merely refers to the convenience link to the online version, and may be safely removed on any cite that is not an online link. That's all. (And if the link goes bad, the dead-tree portion of the cite remains valid.) -- Yellowdesk (talk) 00:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

But what's the purpose of a retrieval date for an online version that's just mirroring a print original? What usefulness does it have? What does it tell anyone? Wasted Time R (talk) 04:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• On more than a few occasions I have used the retrieval date for munged references to rediscover the orginal edit that created it, and on more ephemeral sources, search for likely new location for the changing location of the convenience link. In some cases a retireval date indicates when the (changing) source was viewed and relied upon, occasionally important, when the source has changed. It's not superflous, but I would consider it optional.
  Who's to say that even a supposedly fixed archival convenience link will stay that way, and what harm comes from using the access date even there, such as in this example:
  "New Hampshire: Nomination of Bainbridge Wadleigh for United States Senator at the Republican Caucus.", New York Times (June 14, 1872), pp. 1. Retrieved on 2008-05-05.  -- Yellowdesk (talk) 14:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• The harm is that the "Retrieved on" takes up extra space (a real issue for our longer, heavily-cited BLP articles) and moreoever is visually confusing — the reader sees two dates, instead of the expected one, and has to figure out what each means, which a possible risk of mistaking the retrieval date for the publication date. In the example of this old NYT story, if the link stops working, it's because the NYT moved its archive or changed its for-free policy on this time period or something like that. If you need to find where they moved it to, you'll do a lookup within nytimes.com using the article's title and publication date; when someone last retrieved it won't matter one way or another. And would you really use a retrieval date for a book, that someone happened to look up in Google Books instead of at a physical library? That really seems offbase to me. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, I would, and have. Especially on heavily edited articles. For the reasons I stated further above: an indicator of when the convenience link worked. I do consider it optional. For example, if some link has an old retrieval date, and apparently not findable by search, then I tend toward deleting the convenience link. For more recent dead links, I'm less likely to remove the link--perhaps the publisher/source is in process of revising the link/location. Essential? No. Useful? Yes. The "retrieved on" is in english, and if using a template, the template does indicate through the parameters how to properly use it. Say more about the confusion you've encountered. (I have to remark, there's plenty of other confusion on articles surrounding refs, such as puctuation, quotations, where to place it and so on, and I've done a fair big of cleaning up other's typos and misplacments on that score. Is this that much different?) -- Yellowdesk (talk) 05:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this largely depends on the 'dependability' of the on-line source. For the NYT above, the accessdate is not really needed. On the other end of the spectrum, here is where someone (it's not even clear who) added sections of a (very) small town newspaper from the first half of the 1900s. It's true that this is on-line copy of a print original, but I think it would be rather difficult for even a motivated researcher to find that original. So in practice, the web copy is all that exists, its maintenance is unknown, and an accessdate tag is appropriate. As to how this might be implemented in practice, I think there could be a list of sources that are considered stable enough that accessdate tags are not needed (major newspapers, academic journals (DOIs are an explicit attempt to address this here), arXiv and other pre-print servers, and so on). LouScheffer (talk) 17:51, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

(off topic) You deserve a barnstar if you've been cleaning up refs. I'm surprised you haven't run off screaming. :) -- Fullstop (talk) 19:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hide the access date

In order to find the content of broken links in archives it would be sufficient to store the retrieval date in a comment that is not visible to a reader, only to editors. This is an approach I would support.

Otherwise, I second the notion that (visible) retrieval dates for off-line media are visually irritating, cluttering and superfluous. --EnOreg (talk) 05:50, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Fair enough. How do you propose to obtain uniform use of the proposed standard? -- Yellowdesk (talk) 04:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

A partial solution would be modify the citation templates to store info generated by the accessdate= parameters as a in an HTML comment that is not visible to a reader, only to editors. That would quickly handle a large percentage of retrieval dates. Many thousands of articles would need to be individually edited to bring the handcrafted cites into line. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Bill suggests what I had in mind: Leave the parameters of the citation templates as they are, just modify their implementation to not display the access date (except cite web). And adjust the WP policy pages to reflect this change. --EnOreg (talk) 01:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier to just use a field that is visible to people editing the page but not to people viewing the page? But that function is available now in all templates: just use a field that the template does not itself already use. E.g. invisible-retrieval-date= ... —David Eppstein (talk) 16:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. By removing any mention of {{{accessdate}}} in the template implementation, the data would remain, but wouldn't be parsed by the server, so the casual reader's display wouldn't be cluttered. I'd support that for {{cite journal}}, at the very least, as with this template the accessdate is of no real utility when rendered. Smith609 Talk 16:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure sure I follow. Sounds to me like we violently agree. What's the difference between your proposal and Bill's? --EnOreg (talk) 18:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

To "hide" the access date, the templates only have to not parse accessdate= parameter. No HTML comment is necessary, nor is it necessary to rename the parameter. After all, its still in the source.

But "hiding" the access date only addresses the symptoms. It does not fix the underlying problem, which is the misconception that a source on the web is a web source.

As such, merely hiding the access date (however that hiding occurs) for all but {{cite web}} will not be much use -- {{cite web}} is being used for virtually everything that editors happen to find on the "web".

The source of this misconception is of course the {{cite xyz}} farrago. That a source on the web must be cited with {{cite web}} is merely a "logical" continuation of that nonsensical paradigm. That is the real problem (and living proof that caring about sources has zero priority).

But hiding accessdate is a start, even if its only a band-aid. Next step other insane linking (e.g. google books, amazon, jstor and so on). In the long run we must teach editors how to cite properly, how to quote properly, and why it is necessary to do both.

-- Fullstop (talk) 19:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The retrieved date allows a reader to understand the age of the online link. In the past, I have done a manual link check and have updated those retrieved dates to show that the links were still valid as of that date. The CheckLinks tool checks links, updates to archived links on dead links and now optionally updates the retrieved dates. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

• I invite someone to apprise those who watch the various "cite" templates to put a notice on each of the cite-template talk pages, that this conversation is occurring. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 05:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I put a notice there already some days ago. Anything else we can do to invite feedback? --EnOreg (talk) 15:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not see how an accessdate on sources which do not change - such as journal articles - is beneficial. However, on sources which may change, such as web content, it helps clarify which version of a page is being cited. Therefore I feel it ought to be displayed only in the cite web template. I don't think anyone has disagreed with this feeling here, so I suggest that someone bold goes ahead and proposes or enacts the change at all non-"cite-web" templates. People have had the chance to complain if they feel otherwise! Smith609 Talk 23:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate what is being discussed here. In my opinion there are two issues popping up:

1. Print sources of which you get a copy from the web (JSTOR etc) should be referred to as their print version. Access date is irrelevant as the content is not dependent on the web, nor will it ever change. For such sources the use of citeweb should discouraged, and access date not listed or removed
2. True web sources, which are rarer than most editors seem to think is another issue altogether. Websources are not permanent, and even if they are long term the content may dramatically change. Therefore it is not only essential that access date is recorded and reported, but also that when updating text for such sources a critical reflection whether the text is still covered by the website has to be applied. In printed articles, this is not so much an issue as you refer to the website once, and your text will not change, even if the website content does. As both Wikipedia and referred to websites change this is very complicated indeed. Arnoutf (talk) 06:18, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Consensus: It indeed seems we have consensus that access dates for online copies of offline sources, while helpful as a comment in the source, should be hidden from the reader. I have removed the RFC (style) tag and will modify the policy. Anybody who is competent to adapt the citation templates, please do so. Thanks everybody, --EnOreg (talk) 08:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

HTML comments are stripped out by the Mediawiki software, so these won't be visible except in the original template call. I've included one here, for instance: Would it be better to hide the date with CSS? — Omegatron (talk) 17:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a good idea. We can also assign an ID to it in case people want to make it visible with user css. --Karnesky (talk) 18:22, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I've responded to all the editprotected requests that are up at the moment by wrapping the "retrieved on..." text in a CSS class (reference-accessdate), so it can be hidden in either personal or sitewide CSS while still being accessible for those that want to see it. You can personally hide the accessdates yourself by adding

.reference-accessdate {display: none}

to your monobook.css. If there is a real and extensive consensus to hide these data, adding the same code to MediaWiki:Common.css would have the same effect for all users who didn't override it in their own monobook. Happy‑melon 17:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Options are better than hard coding here. Where do we document this? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 18:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

No idea :D. From a technical end, I've added to the catalogue at WP:CLASS; where and how you note the new feature is the balliwack of people on this page. As an ultimate goal, we ought to be working towards encapsulating all the similar reference 'facts' in suitable css (reference-title, reference-volume, etc) and defining their appearance centrally in Mediawiki:Common.css. That greatly facilitates updating and standardisation between cite templates (I shouldn't have had to edit five templates to implement this change), and instantly circumvents the "data X should have formatting Y because it's the standard of source Z": we can just say: go on then, add foo to your monobook and the problem is solved. Ultimately, I have yet to see a good reason why a properly-built {{cite meta}} is not possible, to centralise and de-duplicate the considerable amount of code (the CoinS tags, for instance) that is almost identical across all the cite templates, and needs to be maintained in the same way in each. But that's another story. Happy‑melon 19:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this is the better implementation. Many thanks, Happy-melon! I believe now the default CSS should hide the access date from unexperienced users. They are most unlikely to go and research a broken link and therefore wouldn't lose anything. But they would gain a less cluttered WP appearance. The same is probably true for the vast majority even of experienced users. Where do I campaign for this change? Cheers, --EnOreg (talk) 05:36, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Access date for newsgroups and mailing lists

I don't see any strong consensus to hide this parameter for templates where the availability of material might be ephemeral. I think it should stay visible on, at least, the generic citation template, the mailing list template, the newsgroup template. --Karnesky (talk) 13:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Right, I'm afraid this hasn't been discussed properly, yet. To make this clear: I don't advocate removing the access date, only hiding it from the reader. Unlike most web pages, posts to mailing lists and newsgroups carry a "publication" date that doesn't change. Therefore, the additional access date doesn't add any value for the reader. It can, however, make it easier for editors to recover a link that has become unavailable. That's why we should keep it in the page source as a comment. Note that mailing lists and newsgroups are being replicated and archived in so many different places that it is much easier to find a post than a copy of an arbitrary web page. --EnOreg (talk) 13:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I understand what you are advocating, but I think that it should stay visible for content that might not be locatable or might have changed at some future date.

As a reader, I've printed out articles & retrieved the references from them (both physical sources & online sources), and the accessdate is useful for sources that might change URLs, disappear completely (some usenet posts have requests not to archive, for example), etc. The parameter's utility is greater than any aesthetic objections. At bare minimum, the accessdate should be visible when the publication date parameter is not given. But I think it should always be visible for sources that don't have physical manifestations. --Karnesky (talk) 14:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd like state that I'm strongly opposed to this idea for any template that may cite any kind of online material. For Cite book, Cite paper, etc, that are only used to cite physical or "permanent" publications (even if it may be found online and linked to in a particular template), then so be it, Accessdate isn't necessary. But to hide it in Cite news, Cite press release, Cite map, etc etc (which more and more may cite a document online that *cannot* be found in print) is doing a grave disservice to anyone who doesn't want or know how do delve into the edit page and figure things out, yet still may want information that will allow them to access a website that has been lost over time. That is precisely what Accessdate is useful for; not to mention, even for webpages that are still existent, it says precisely when data was originally pulled from the source. "Accessed on..." or some variant of it is an almost universal standard for citation formats outside of Wiki...I see no reason why we should be the oddballs and not use them in a citation display. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 14:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I only argue to hide the access date for sources that already have a publication date. These source typically don't change after initial publication, and even if they do the publication date is enough to find the original content in the Internet Archive. What additional value do you see that the access date provides that makes it too important to hide? --EnOreg (talk) 05:55, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Hiding the date for one template such as {{cite news}} without changing all of the templates is going to cause some inconsistency. There are already enough differences among the cite templates. There are opinions on both sides of the issue as to show or hide the accessdate— why not allow editors who don't want to see the accessdate to be able to hide it? We should be able to come up with a script to do this and get it approved as a gadget. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess this has largely been taken care of by Happy-melons implementation (s)he explains above? --EnOreg (talk) 05:55, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Default setting: show or hide access date?

A user has requested comment on Wikipedia style or layout for this section. This tag will automatically place the page on the {{RFCstyle list}}. When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list.

After Happy‑melon's CSS-ification of the access date it is up to the users whether they want to see the access date of stable references or not—that's great. (Note that this only applies to references that also have a publication date!)

Changing the default behavior, however, requires fiddling with the user's monobook.css which only expert users will be competent to do. Now after the discussion above it seems to me that the access date is relevant mostly to these expert users and editors. For casual WP users showing two different dates for one reference is confusing and clutters the reference sections—but they don't know how to hide it. Therefore, I would suggest to hide the access date of stable references per default, i.e., modify MediaWiki:Common.css accordingly. Comments? --EnOreg (talk) 00:12, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I suggest not hiding it by default for web references, since such a source can change with time. It's important to document when the page was visited, in case content changes or becomes unavailable. This remains true even if the page has a known publication date.--Srleffler (talk) 02:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Right, this question has been discussed in the previous sections. Three points:

1. Most web references don't have a publication date, hence hiding the access date doesn't apply to them. This discussion is only about sources that don't change after publication.
2. I would argue that chasing broken links can safely be left to slightly experienced editors in the interest of not confusing readers with two different dates.
3. Could someone explain again why we wouldn't find the original content under the publication date?

Thanks, --EnOreg (talk) 03:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the true source should always be given, even if that is a Web source that purports to be a true copy of a print publication. In that case, the access date should be specified and should not be hidden by default, because it is part of the correct reference. I suppose it occasionally happens that the editor has actually read the print version and is merely adding the URL for the convenience of the reader; in that case, I suppose a case could be made for omitting the access date. --Boson (talk) 06:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Quite often; many weblinks are for the reader's convenience. Commenting out the access date would be a reasonable compromise. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm definitely in favor of hiding the access date by default for stable references. The extra visual clutter and possible confusion of having two dates on cites affects many, while the need to track down and inspect cites by access dates affects only a few (and they'll still be able to do it by looking at the article source or changing the default setting). Wasted Time R (talk) 18:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

"The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged."

Proposal

In relation to the above point. Citation templates have two advantages: firstly, they allow a consistent style to be applied to the whole of the site. Secondly, and of particular interest to me, they make citation data machine readable. This is A Good Thing because:

1. It allows the citation data to be expanded and maintained by bots (for instance, adding DOIs or URLs)
2. It allows readers to easily find a copy of the text they can read, perhaps with software provided by their university or library
3. It allows citation data to be easily copied and translated into another format, or saved into for example CiteULike.

I can't see any advantage to not using a citation template.

Therefore I'd propose that the above rider is replaced with something along the lines of "Where appropriate, an appropriate citation template should be used". Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:31, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Yes, good idea! --EnOreg (talk) 14:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Bad idea. There are at least these disadvantages to using the citation templates

• It takes longer, if you know what you're doing, to cut and paste all the separate fiddly bits with equals signs into the required citation template format, or to enter the components of the citation separately.
• Idiosyncratic references often require fonts and formats which the templates will not render, or will not do easily. If you have some of these, it is simpler to leave off the rest of the templates.
  • I also dislike the imposed format of last name first. It doesn't work well for sources from antiquity or from outside Europe, and it makes linking more difficult. The chief reason print sources adopt it is to make alphabetization mechanical, but we don't have printers' devils to do that for us.
• The format, often adopted, of one line for each element of the citation templates makes them very difficult to read or understand in edit space; even if not, they are noticeably harder to read than hand-formatted references, which just add an occasional '' to the form in text.

There's enough "let's make it policy to do it my way" around Wikipedia; let's not have any more. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:16, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Re your first point, there are plenty of plugins, scripts and bots which make adding a template much quicker, and much less prone to human error, than formatting them by hand. More importantly, this change won't ban anyone from entering references how they wish – it only acts as a guideline, to format references to make them more useful to readers – nobody is going to turn round to you and say "your contribution violated the MOS, therefore was worthless". The only people who end up reading these pages are those concerned about style Those getting bogged down in the style guidelines are unlikely to be those whose key interest in Wikipedia is in developing a reliable, comprehensive, universally useful encyclopaedia. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

That will only be true when FA and GA are fixed, or deleted, which will not be before WP:DEADLINE. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Re your second point: I can't think of any examples where this is the case. Could you provide some?

• Giovanni Boccaccio; Genealogie Deorum Gentilium Libri. ed. Vincenzo Romano. Vol. X and XI of Opere, Bari 1951.
  • Both ed. and the volumes would have to be handcoded; the templates seem to have problems with ed. and tr. in general, especially keeping them lowercase.
• Natalis Comes: Mythologiae siue explicationis fabularum libri decem; translated as Natale Conti’s Mythologiae, translated and annotated by John Mulryan and Steven Brown; Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006. ISBN 9780866983617
  • You might be able to do half of this (although I'm not sure the apostrophe would survive) with {{cite book}}, but as long as the other half has to be done by hand, why bother? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

• Granted, they'd be a nightmare to push through a template. But I think I'll fall back on my "Where appropriate" clause in the proposed re-wording; the onus to fit it into a citation template would then lie upon any future editor who wished to argue that the "where appropriate" didn't apply. The templates could easily be re-written to include a "translated by" parameter, in any case. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Re the third point, templates allow any format of author name, using the author = parameter

Your final point may well be valid, but I feel that the benefits to readers outweigh the difficulties to editors. (You may also be interested in discussion for how to remedy the problem of syntax-laden references; links, I think, can be found at WP:CITE).

Finally, the policy isn't intended to make people "do it my way", but to make people do it "the best way". I'm convinced that there are an array of positives to having references arranged in a consistent and machine readable fashion, not least that it saves people a lot of searching for versions of the reference they can access.

That's true of everybody's demand that we all do it their way. See WP:TRUTH. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Which is why I opened up a discussion. I'm more than open to be convinced that the way I proposed isn't the best! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Please don't take the suggestion as a personal attack. I just viewed it as an opportunity to increase the amount of articles improved by DOI bot, and at which I can access references without having to go through the rigmarole of a library search. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

And please take my responses in the same spirit. Any proposal to change the way Wikipedia works for the convenience of a bot misunderstands what we depend on: the willingness of the unpaid to do this for a hobby. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Of course. But the reason I love bots is that they make it much easier for me, as another volunteer editor, to verify and expand articles from their cited sources. I completely respect your preference for entering citations in plain text – indeed I never intended this proposal to stop anybody from doing so. I simply hoped that it would give the "cleanup squad" the incentive to make references easier to access for the people who are most likely to access them – those at institutions which have access to primary literature, and use software to provide that access. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:49, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding Smith609's comment that there are many plugins to help with editing, the presence of the templates impedes editing by those who choose not to use these, or by those using a computer where they have limited authority and can't install a plugin.

Good point - though most of the "plugins" to which I referred do not require installation on a computer - simply editing of a wikipedia user page. See my user page for information on a couple. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:46, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding examples of sources for which templates are not suitable, note that there is a limited set of "Cite xxx" templates, and some of those are either not good enough to use, or not well documented enough to use. The Citation template attempts to identify the type of publication by which parameters are specified, so it can only identify "a book, periodical, or a chapter in a compilation" [1]. Some examples of things that either are not supported, or which one could not guess are supported by looking at the names of the templates, are:

• Computer programs
• Computer databases
• Public records (e.g. birth certificate, land deed, survey plat)

--Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:54, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to return to the "Where appropriate" clause in my proposal here. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:48, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Although most of the articles I edit regularly do use citation templates, and I find them helpful, I think that making them preferred for general use further raises the already-high bar for new editors; just typing in

Charles Dickens (1859). ''A Tale of Two Cities,'' p. 123

is a lot easier to understand and remember than

{{cite book | author=Charles Dickens | title=A Tale of Two Cities | year=1859 | page=123}}

(Aside: the spirit of the comment in the documentation "If you don't know how to format a citation, provide as much information as you can, and others will help to write it correctly." needs to shouted from the rooftops far more often that in its.) ASHill (talk | contribs) 19:14, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

This might be a workable idea if there were citation templates for anything other than APA-style citations; but, since neither MLA-style nor CMS-style citation is presently supported by templates, arbitrarily converting everything to them will make a lot of articles more difficult to read—there are perfectly good reasons why APA is not universally used—for minimal and largely theoretical benefits.

(It'd also violate the "don't change optional styles" rule, incidentally.) Kirill ^(prof) 01:03, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Given the discussion above, I suggest that the present wording in the guideline sums up the situation perfectly. Leave well alone, I say. qp10qp (talk) 01:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I want to add my choice to those saying no. I dislike the templates, they are cumbersome and unintuitive to some editors. I also wish to address the point there are plenty of plugins, scripts and bots which make adding a template much quicker, - yes, if you are savy enough to know how to use bots, scripts and plug ins. I'm not dumb, but I haven't figured them out yet. A lot of editors have no background in computers and we need their contributions. I'm happy just to work manually, assuming that I'm not lumbered with tons of regulations mandating that I use complicated templates. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Also no. I agree with Sabine's Sunbird. Ty 05:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Citation templates are awkward in the prose itself, making it much more difficult to edit articles. This was raised in the discussion "Citation templates considered harmful". Wmitchell programmed a solution to this problem Bugzilla:12796, but until it is fixed, I personally oppose the use of citation templates. II 05:04, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Multiple citation templates in "ref" tags

Does putting multiple citation templates within a single set of <ref> tags cause problems? Here's an example:

<ref>{{citation|author=Beth Neil|title=Gethin to know you: Exclusive: Blue Peter star is now strictly sex|url=http://www.mirror.co.uk/showbiz/2007/12/08/gethin-to-know-you-89520-20221195/|newspaper=[[Daily Mirror]]|date=[[2007-12-08]]}}; {{citation|title=Who's danced their way to the number 6 slot?|url=http://www.heatworld.com/Article/3653/Gethin+Jones/Whos+danced+their+way+to+the+Number+6+slot|magazine=[[Heat (magazine)|Heatworld.com]]|date=[[2007-12-28]]|accessdate=2008-01-19}}.</ref>

NYScholar says it does, but I haven't encountered any issues. I usually view Wikipedia with Internet Explorer. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I would at least separate these on bulleted lines so they are not slammed together as they currently are in Gethin Jones (reference 26 has 8 citations back to back). You also need to fix the first link, as it is busted. Frankly, I don't think this method fixes anything— you do away with the multiple ref links in the body, but end up with these back to back cites. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 16:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the useful formatting advice, but that doesn't answer the question whether multiple citation templates within a single set of <ref> tags actually fails to render properly. Also, in what way is the first link (in footnote 26 or footnote 1?) "busted"? It works fine on my computer. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:25, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, multiple citation templates within a single ref render properly. And the link now works, so forget that. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

That's been my experience too. However, NYScholar claims that when there are multiple citations in a single footnote, the external links do not appear properly: see the discussion at "Talk:Jason Isaacs". Has anyone else has encountered this issue, and does it need to be investigated further? If so, by whom? Personally, I see nothing wrong with the use of multiple citations in this way. It's a common usage in printed works. As far as I can tell, there is nothing in "Wikipedia:Citing sources" that deprecates the practice. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I would have to see a specific example of a problem. I have seen this method before and I wondered how it would affect linking and machine readability. Testing the links both manually and with LinkChecker reveals no problems and Zotero picks up all of the links. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 18:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Discursive notes

...earlier part archived...

...later part archived...

Doesn't look like this will happen without a wiki developer to sponsor it. Shame 'cos I thought it was quite a good idea. --SallyScot (talk) 17:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

---

Developments with Footnotes mean that it's now possible to maintain two (or more) sets of footnotes via the reference tag. The group extension of the ref tag doesn't produce a list style type of lower-roman numerals ( ^{(i),(ii),(iii)}, etc.), which I'd suggested might be good with a new <nb> tag, but instead includes the specified group identifier along with regular Arabic numerals in the generated link references. Example code and rendering as shown below.

Code...

Example text,<ref group=nb>This is an example discursive note</ref> more example text.<ref group=nb name=Discursive>Discursive notes can be shown separately from references or citations - giving a neater appearing alternative compared to having mixed "Notes and references" or "Notes and citations" sections. This is an example of such a note. It is generated via use of group extension of the reference tag.</ref> A point made with a supporting reference.<ref>Author, A. (2007). "How to cite references", New York: McGraw-Hill.</ref> A second appearance of a note.<ref group=nb name=Discursive/> 

== Notes ==
<references group=nb/> 

== References == 
<references/>

Rendering...

--SallyScot (talk) 15:35, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

A description of this method has been added at WP:FN, but clarity eludes me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it would still be good if something like <nb>+<notes/> tags could be developed, and though I've posted this before and elsewhere I'd just like to say the reason I suggested a list style type of lower-roman numerals ^{(i),(ii),(iii)}, etc. rather than the use of alphabetic letters, which seem to be favoured by some others in proposing <note> tags, is not only that you can easily go beyond 26 notes, but principally that it avoids any clash with the alphabetic letters already used in back-links with multiple use of references sharing the same name, as in the example shown above ( 2. ^ ^{a b} ).

I also thought the tag <nb> in combination with <notes/> would be more concise than <note>, with the abbreviation paralleling the existing use of <ref> and <references/> tags.

--SallyScot (talk) 23:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I started a discussion at Template talk:Reflist; we have a sandboxed update to add the notes list. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:17, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

The trouble with Roman numerals is that some of the resulting numbers are really chunky and intrusive. Normal letters look good, I think, and anyone who goes above 26 discursive notes in one article deserves to run out of letters, if you ask me. I have to say that I don't mind the system with two sets of numbers, since the word "note" distinguishes them clearly enough. qp10qp (talk) 16:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

General solution for people running out of letter is to continue with aa, ab, ac....zz which adds over a thousand combinations... If you run out of those..... Arnoutf (talk) 17:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Alphabetic letters are already used in back-links with multiple use of references sharing the same name. Using letters would mean you could get a clashing and confusing list of explanatory notes that looked something like this...

--SallyScot (talk) 17:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, you need to reach number twenty-eight before any occurrence of Roman numerals goes above five characters.^(xxviii) - And number eighteen before any occurrence over four characters.^(xviii) - With the majority of numbers below eighteen being made of three or less characters, like the number sixteen for example.^(xvi) --SallyScot (talk) 18:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I still think they look gross. qp10qp (talk) 18:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

But now you don't know why :) --SallyScot (talk) 19:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The alphabetic backlinks appear to only be on this site, others use the default decimal numbering. So if they are confusing, there should be a way to format alphabetic links in the default format. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 20:19, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

A switch to make backlinks use ordinary numbering would only shift the potential for confusion away from the proposed alphabetized Notes section to the existing numbered References section. Like this...

And it's because regular numbers are used already in existing Reference lists, and because alphabetic letters are used already as backlinks, and that these things are already established that I thought it might be an idea to use lower case roman numerals for any new explanatory Notes lists.

--SallyScot (talk) 17:22, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

anchor to references section

Under the heading Under the heading "How to write them" the following text appears:

Creating an anchor to the References section is highly recommended e.g. (Ritter 2002:40). To cite Ritter one would first create an anchor to Ritter's work in the References section:

<cite id=Ritter2002>* Ritter, R. (2002). ''The Oxford Style Manual''. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860564-1</cite>

When I cut and paste the above anchor, as it appears after being interpreted by the system (i.e., beginning with "<cite id=" and leaving out "nowiki" and "blockquote") into the sandbox and select "preview," the system does not interpret the asterisk as a bullet, and the reference is preceded by an asterisk rather than a bullet. I believe that the asterisk should come before "<cite id=Ritter2002>" rather than after. When the asterisk is moved to before "<cite id=" it is correctly interpreted as a bullet.

If this is correct, then someone authorized to do so (unlike me) may want to correct the entry by moving the asterisk. Neuroscientist1 (talk) 21:54, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Done. (PS. It's a wiki - you have authority ) :) --SallyScot (talk) 22:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Reference Space

I was over at French Wikipedia yesterday, and noticed that they had a Reference Space (i.e. an entire region of wiki dedicated to holding complete bibliographic data of references used in wikipedia articles), and I was wondering if this kind of option has been discussed before (I tried googling the archives to see if this had already been discussed, but didn't find anything, sorry if I missed something). As a user who mainly edits mathematics articles, this would be wonderful. The same "classic" references come up time and again on different articles, and as it is now, I try to think about which article I've previously used the reference I want on, then I go there, open up that edit page, copy the entry, and paste it the page I'm adding it, too. Not only does this seem like a waste of time, but also a waste of space. On the french wiki, you basically just use a template that cites "author, title" and it links to the reference space entry (and the requirement for admission into reference space is that it be used on at least one wiki page). Furthermore, there are bots running around english wiki finding references and adding "doi" tags and such to them. As an interesting side effect, you can find out which articles link to the given reference. Anyways, I'll stop here. RobHar (talk) 14:21, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Basically you suggest creating a BibTex or Endnote style bibliographical database that can be accessed from articles? Sounds like a good idea to me. Arnoutf (talk) 14:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

{{doi}} may be along the lines of what you're looking for, at least for any article in an academic journal with a DOI. You do have to know the DOI of the source, but once you (or DOI bot) have entered the details, you only have to enter the DOI in the future and a full citation will be generated. ASHill (talk | contribs) 16:22, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I would like Wikipedia to become a great repository of bibliographies. This could begin with the bibliographies at the bottom of articles, but I'd like to see far more separate-page booklists than we have at the moment. My reason is that it is not so easy for a non-academics to find good book lists reliably. Wikipedia is often acknowledged, even by sceptics, as a good first stop for information: what better resource for a first stop than to offer bibliographies?

It also seems to me a terrible waste that after looking up information, we usually leave no greater footprint of our reading than a page number. I would like to see each article have a hideable set of notes which could contain much more information than the present space-tight system allows. Editors could create vaults of discursive notes and quotations from primary and secondary sources that would be opened by the note tags. Personally, I would probably find this more interesting than the articles, as footnotes provide a layer of background information that is less mediated. I'd like to see note-vaults that contain not just references but scholarly provenances, showing how the scholarship for a particular point of information has evolved over the years. This would entail lists of books and very knot-gardens of cross-referencing. qp10qp (talk) 16:28, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

That is another issue entirely; this post is about supporting editors who are constructing reference lists. As far as I am concerned not a very good idea either as collapsible information is not very printer friendly, and it includes new POV fork options for many articles. Separate lists, perhaps, standard large sections further reading, no. Arnoutf (talk) 16:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Do printed books have DOI's? RobHar (talk) 18:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Not normally. A similar template that does the same thing given an ISBN would be nice. {{isbn}}? ASHill (talk | contribs) 18:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

So, is there a better place for me to bring this up? How would one go about making this happen? RobHar (talk) 16:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Ack; I realize now that I meant {{cite doi}} as along the lines of what you're looking for. I don't have the expertise to create a {{cite isbn}} (or something similar), but the maintainer of User:DOI bot would probably be a good person to ask. ASHill (talk | contribs) 16:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I meant more for the creation of a reference space like the one French wiki has. I suppose the cite isbn template would be a good start. Thanks for the help. RobHar (talk) 16:49, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a wonderful idea!

It would at a stroke solve the problems of manually adding references, and of references cluttering up the edit view when you try to edit a well referenced page.

I had created a system whereby one would simply add "{{cite doi|10.1029/restofthedoi}}" into a page, and a bot would look up the DOI, and create the reference in "reference space".

However, the English are clearly less optimistic than the French, as my attempts were swiftly shut down: such a system apparently takes up too many resources, and would bring the 'pedia to a grinding halt - so much so that it's an exception to the rule "Don't worry about performance". Perhaps the French system would be a useful counter-argument to this argument? I don't pretend to know enough to bet on which side is correct. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. The thing is I don't see how a bot would be necessary for what I'm suggesting, everything could be done by hand as one went along. It looks like what happens is a user creates a bibliographical entry in the "reference space" and a template in "template space", call it "refname", and then when someone references the book in the wiki article, they just write Template:Refname. So no bots are needed to go around to make this happen. Sure you could use bots to do work people aren't doing, or to create a bunch of bibliographical data based on what is already entered, but that's another question isn't it? Am I missing something? RobHar (talk) 20:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Creating arbitarily named references for references, as you seem to be suggesting, requires that:

1. for each reference a user wants to use, they search the template space for the reference
2. once they find it, they work out what the template linking to it is called
3. they then include that template in the article;
4. if it doesn't exist they enter the details by hand in the reference namespace and create an arbitrarily named template.  ::That's a lot of effort! By my approach, a user simply enters a piece of identifying data from the book or journal article - it's ISBN or DOI - in the format given above. If they wished, they could then create a page called "Reference:1-029-39284-21" or whatever the ISBN or DOI is - but why bother, when that information can easily be looked up automatically, and the page created by a bot? Then, when someone wants to use the same source in a different article, they enter the same piece of data and since the page already exists, they'll see the reference appear, without having to do any searching whatsoever.

So yes, bots aren't needed - but what sensible person would use their time doing by hand something that could be done automatically with the same result?0

Anyway, the issue to be addressed is whether creating a separate page for each reference is an acceptable drain on resources. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

All I was trying to say is that it seems like my suggestion is independent of what people think about the amount of resources used by your bot. I'm not against your bot. Having a bot to the grunt work obviously is the optimal solution. Have I misunderstood what you are saying?

As for the issue of creating a separate page for each reference: if a reference is used in two different articles under the current system it would probably take up more space than a reference space page and a template would.

And for completeness, steps 1. and 2. aren't quite right. The user searches the "Reference space" for the work, and once they find it (which shouldn't be very hard if the entry exists), the first information listed is the template to include to reference the article (see fr.wiki example here [2]). RobHar (talk) 23:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Primary source is wrong, secondary sources are right

I authored a Featured Article, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, that apparently has an error in it attributed to the source, not the article. The issue is that Douglas was involved in the Coconut Grove Slum Clearance Committee with a friend named Elizabeth Virrick. Based on Douglas' autobiography and her transcribed oral history on a site sponsored by Florida International University, the date in the article for her involvement is the 1920s. It has been pointed out to me by someone who is cited in the article - a Douglas scholar named Jack Davis - that the Committee was not active until 1948. So I have two primary sources that state the 1920s, and a scholar and this site as well as a few others that verify it was not active until 1948.

So now I'm embarrassed because I wrote it and it's well-cited with two *2* primary sources that are incorrect. Douglas was 93 and 98 years old when she gave the interviews for those primary sources. Acquaintances asserted she was mentally sharp until the day she died at 108. How do I amend the citation? --Moni3 (talk) 15:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

It is extremely common for sources to be wrong, and they are sometimes ridiculously wrong. I also find that two similar things often coalesce over time, causing confusion (perhaps they started with a less formal committee that is not officially documented). I would mention both sides in the notes. This will add to the objectivity of the article rather than undermine it. qp10qp (talk) 16:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Being mentally sharp does not mean that you have a perfect memory (see e.g. Elisabeth Loftus work on memory). In principal secondary sources evaluating the interviews are to be preferred over literal interviews. Arnoutf (talk) 16:15, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I realize sources sometimes contradict each other, but this is the first time I've come across secondary sources contradicting two primary ones. So, I need to change the article to reflect the Committee was started in 1948, but how to cite that is the question. Do I need a regular (ref) then (note)? Or two refs or what? --Moni3 (talk) 17:01, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the primary sources are wrong. The primary sources truthfully reflect Marjory Stoneman Douglas at the time of those interviews/texts. Her memory was wrong (which has less to do with cognitive functioning then often thought - hence my link to Loftus).

Practically I would suggest something like "In later life Douglas attested being part of the Coconut Grove Slum Clearance Committee in the 1920's (primary sources). However she must have been confused in either the name of the committee, or (whatever the 2ndary sources say) as this specific committee did not exist until the 1940's (secondary sources)." Does this help? Arnoutf (talk) 17:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

No need to be elaborate. Just choose which version you want in the article. Then the balancing note can say something like either "Douglas claimed that the committee existed in the 1920s" or "Davis says that the committee was not active until 1948". Done. qp10qp (talk) 17:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Please be careful though, I am not sure that is the claim. The actual claim appears to be "Douglas claimed to be member of the committee in the 1920s" which may either imply confusion about the foundation of the committee (ie she was member of that committee; but thought it was much longer ago) or between committees (ie she was member of a similar committee in the 1920's and confused that with a later committee she also joined). Arnoutf (talk) 17:49, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Links in footnotes to newsarticles requiring payment for access

I have a question regarding the appropriateness of including an http link in a reference to a newspaper article, if this link leads to a short abstract/excerpt of the article on the newspaper's site, where payment is required to access the full version of the article. I am unsure on this issue myself. Many newspapers, such as New York Times, Los Angeles Times, etc, have archival sections for older articles where payment (usually a few dollars) is required to see the article. Doing googlenews searches often leads to such sites. On one hand, icluding a link like that in a reference (rather than just giving a plain text reference, with the publication name, date, etc), makes it easier for people who really want to verify the information cited or maybe learn more about it, to access such information quickly. Paying $3.95 to read an article is easier than going to the library, and, with the gasoline prices being what they are, it may even be cheaper as well -:). On the other hand, providing a footnoted reference link to a non-free site might look like a form of advertisement or commercial endorsement of a particular site.

Is there a policy/guideline or at least some preferred WP convention regarding how to deal with this issue? Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 14:56, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, if the {{cite news}} template or a similar one is used, it reminds the editor of all of the fields that should be provided and these include the published date, page and other information. Be aware that some pages are free when cited and become pay at a later date. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:19, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but what about the appropriateness (or not) of including a url when using {{cite news}} if that url does require payment to begin with? Do you have any suggestions regarding that? Nsk92 (talk) 18:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Including a URL is fine; generally, subscription websites should not be linked under "external links", but this does not apply to citations. However, I don't think it is necessary if you are giving the rest of the necessary information. If it were me, I would include the URL if I had accessed the material online myself. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:36, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. That was exactly the case with the link I included (from LA Times archives): I did pay first and have read the full text of the article before linking it. I wish there was some explicit guidance regarding this issue in some WP policy or guideline, though... Nsk92 (talk) 18:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Placement of Citations

In the HP7 article, an editor reviewed the article in regards to a GA nomination, and said that all the citations in the article should be at the end of sentences. As far as I know, this was never neccessary. Would the citations have to be at the end of the sentences in regard to this article? ~ Bella Swan^? 13:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

No. They are usually best placed at the end of sentences, but sometimes it is necessary to place them at the end of clauses. qp10qp (talk) 15:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Like Bella, I've encountered the same problem with some GA reviewers who have insisted that all footnotes must appear at the ends of sentences and after punctuation; I've even been asked to insert punctuation marks where none were required to comply with this rule. This is clearly wrong, as "Wikipedia:Citing sources#Ref tags and punctuation" states: "Material may be referenced mid-sentence, but footnotes are usually placed at the end of a sentence or paragraph. Footnotes at the end of a sentence or phrase are normally placed immediately after the punctuation..." [emphasis added]. I think the correct approach should be as follows:

• A reference should be placed after the fact it supports.
• If possible, a reference should be placed at the end of a sentence after the punctuation mark.
• However, if a sentence contains more than one fact that requires referencing, and there is already a reference at the end of the sentence, the additional references should be placed after the facts occurring in the middle of the sentence, preferably after punctuation marks.

— Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks. ~ Bella Swan^? 21:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The above editors are correct that footnotes can appear at the end of sentences, clauses, or even individual words as appropriate. It is worth pointing out that the guideline no longer indicates a clear preference for before or after punctuation, although the after punctuation method is more common. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:16, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Quick how-to guide

I have a vague impression that most links on citing sources are made to this article, including above the edit box of new articles. But this article is quite complicated and technically discursive, especially when you're new (as I once found it, even though I was very familar with normal citing). I'm guessing as it's not in the help space that it's not meant to be a quick help article exactly? The lead says "This page describes how to write citations in articles" so you think you might be in the right place.

But for inline citations a subsubheading "How to write them" doesn't appear until half-way down, and then starts: "Creating an anchor to the References section is highly recommended e.g. (Ritter 2002:40)." which I think would throw many new people right away. Then the ref tag system is covered but under the subheading of "Footnotes" - as if something different from citations. Only if you realise this is what you want, and follow the link to Wikipedia:Footnotes and then scroll down to start reading the article and notice the link to the simplified Help:Footnotes do you actually get to a more user-friendly summary of how to do it. And then back in this article, the section on citation templates quickly baffles ("There are (at least) two families...The other family has names of the form {{Cite xxx}}..." and then one look at Wikipedia:Citation templates is enough to make you lose the will altogether.

I wanted to check if there is already, or should there be, a single simple help page to serve as the main quick how-to guide (cheat sheet?) on the general basics of citing, and how to in-line cite in Wikipedia (including getting those template bot pages to format it for you)? So more people can easily add what they want to, with a source. EverSince (talk) 21:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that that would be very helpful. The current page could use a major re-write; I suspect that much of the content may originate from before the ref tag was introduced! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Part of the problem with this is that there are many different methods for citation and no preference between them, so how do you begin such a how-to guide? Admittedly unfamiliar users may find this confusing. Anyone who finds this too daunting should be directed to the second paragraph of the guideline: "If you don't know how to format a citation, provide as much information as you can, and others will help to write it correctly." Format is a very secondary concern and a useful citation, no matter how incorrectly written, is better than nothing. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

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