Misplaced Pages

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Manual of Style

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Retrieval dates: redundant for sources with official publication datesThis subject keeps coming up. There are extensive discussions in the archive: 1, 2. Please add new comments here, not in the archive. --EnOreg (talk) 14:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56

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Linking to Google Books pages

Should WP:CITE say that Google Books page links are allowed in footnotes, although not required, and that editors should not go around removing them?

Note: this RfC is about whether we're allowed to add URLs that go directly to a specific page of the book, where preview is available. It is not about adding Google Books links in general. SlimVirgin 18:18, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments

• Support page links being allowed. No one should be required to add them, but in the same vein no one should be going around removing them either. I only recently became aware, when I tried to add them to an article, that some editors object and are systematically removing them. I don't mean links to the main book entry on Google Books, but links to the actual pages being cited. These can be added in a number of ways. For example:

• Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, 1971, p. 200.

• (edit mode) Rawls, John. . Harvard University Press, 1971, p. 200.

• Rawls 1971, p. 200
• Rawls 1971, p. 200.

Or with a citation template:

• Rawls, John (1971). A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press. p. 200.
• There's also a special template: {{Google books}}

There seem to be four arguments against them: (1) they add clutter to footnotes; (2) they increase load time; (3) they may not be visible in all countries; and (4) they are unstable.

1. The clutter argument seems weak: this link http://books.google.com/books?id=kvpby7HtAe0C&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA200 adds no more clutter than a newspaper link.
2. I can't judge the load time argument, as I'm not a technical person. But I've never heard editors complain about newspaper links being added because of load time.
3. The argument that they may not be visible in all countries ignores that they are visible to millions of our readers. We don't remove from Misplaced Pages everything that isn't visible in China, and anyway the reach of Google Books is increasing with time.
4. The view that they are unstable may be anecdotal. Perhaps it was true in the past, but stability is likely to increase as agreements with publishers are reached.

I'm aware of a few discussions about this before, which concluded they're allowed, but as it keeps being raised, I'd like to determine consensus. See earlier discussions at Village pump, Nov 2007; FAC talk, May 2009; and FAC talk, Oct 2010. SlimVirgin 18:21, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support permitting but not requiring them. Where has this been discussed more fully? I'm not really seeing the arguments against. RJC _Contribs 20:42, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support allowing but not requiring per nom, and without prejudice to the specific free online book preview service used (although I'm not personally aware of any, but if there are analogous services to GBooks, editors should be free to use them instead). Making citation verification only a click away rather than a library trip away is a very useful thing. --Cybercobra (talk) 20:43, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support SV's 3rd argument (visible to many) is most compelling to me. Sasata (talk) 20:45, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Slim's rebuttal of arguments against their inclusion are very convincing, in my mind. And Sasata's comment about saving a library trip is also quite true. Not requiring them (or allowing any other such service that may now or in the future exist) also makes the fundamental aspect true: It's the book that's being cited, not a webpage. The link just makes the book itself more accessible. oknazevad (talk) 20:50, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support them being allowed, totally oppose any effort to make them compulsory. – iridescent 20:55, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Allow them but don't make them compulsory per my comments at the lengthy recent discussion at Talk:Featured article candidates on this topic. Johnbod (talk) 21:29, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support but don't make them a requirement of any kind. Quadzilla99 (talk) 21:52, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support them being allowedSwitch to oppose per hamiltonstone and Elcobbala, both of whom raise good points; strong oppose them being required; strong oppose them being imposed on any page where there is not consensus to do so; oppose them being used in addition to links to the main book entry. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:03, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose "editors should not go around removing them" verbiage, but support other aspects. Not all Google Book entries have the work available online (e.g. those with no preview or only snippet view). To use the current TFA as an example, the first referenced work has a GB entry, but no viewable content. It would be utterly pointless to add a GB link to this reference, but the purposed wording would preclude removal of the meaningless link if that were to happen. Wording should address the necessity of adding a GB link. I'd like to see something in the spirit of ENGVAR and citation format consistency (i.e. the existing state of affairs should be respected unless there is a compelling reason for the link). There are articles, for example, that reference no online material; adding GB links would be clutter in those examples (a GB link is not equivalent to a newspaper link when the latter isn't there in the first place). Эlcobbola _talk 22:06, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose While possibly helpful, this can lead to internal inconsistency for even the same reference work where it may be available for pg 100 but not pg 200. It also puts a lot of weight on an non-standard external source (unlike, say, ISBN number databases). In a more ideal world when you can guaranty every page of every book would be available from that service, this makes complete sense, but not with the patchwork way GBooks works now. --MASEM (t) 22:20, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• There are two issues here:
  1. Are links to Google Books acceptable (ever, or occasionally)? I strongly oppose anointing Google Books as a preferred source. The fact that I personally (usually) prefer the commercial source Google Books to the non-commercial source Gutenberg Press is no excuse for me inflicting my personal preference on readers. If the Google Books link isn't offering the reader more than the dozens of personalizable options available through the ISBN magic word, then it shouldn't be included (and, yes, should frequently be removed: A link to "snippet view" is inappropriate). If, however, the link leads to something that can't be achieved any other way -- say, a link directly to the specific page being cited, or a book without an ISBN -- then I would keep the link.
  2. Should the community's current views be documented on this page? Oppose. Fundamentally, I don't think that this page needs to mention it one way or the other. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support Google Book links properly used can be an invaluable asset for verification by broad editor and reader base, which is essential to the WP quality management. However if another (non commercial) online source of the reference is available, its use is preferable to Google. There are justified caveats against Google books links such as the overly reliance on a commercial company and that the access may vary from country to country. However imho as long as a large portion of our readers and editors can access such links, the benefits (quality improvement, verification, reliability, etc.) outweigh the caveats. As far as the different variation above are concerned I think that the use of templates should be preferred, since this allows a central management of such links and makes it easier to react to potential changes (for instance like Google changes the format of the url).--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:41, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support - linking to a specific page, which confirms the reference supports the text, is helpful to readers and other editors. PhilKnight (talk) 22:50, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose linking to a specific page using a long search string such as this which goes to a book without a page view: http://books.google.com/booksid=_t0EAQAAIAAJ&q=A+serious+character:+the+life+of+Ezra+Pound&dq=A+serious+character:+the+life+of+Ezra+Pound&hl=en&ei=Ssm_TMGJFYv9nAe7_f34CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA. If the article uses multiple pages from a text, then add page numbers to footnotes and a convenience link to the Gbook URL in the references. The long search string clutters the edit window, (which in this case moves off the page) makes editing difficult, and moreover it's not impossible to add an error to the string in the course of editing, rendering the URL inoperable. Support single convenience link per source in reference or source sections. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 23:28, 29 October 2010 (UTC) Strike comment. I was the person going around removing and don't consider this an appropriate place to comment regarding the cause of my action. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:32, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I agree that urls such as that are quite ugly. However, there is an alternative. While I often find my way to material in a Google book with such a search, I then copy the url into the Google Book citation tool which makes a much nicer link, usually managing to get the proper title, author etc, although just as with any tool one shouldn't use it mindlessly.--SPhilbrickT 00:23, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

For example, if you enter the url used about in Slimvirgin's example, it generates a proper cite, even including isbn.

• John Rawls (1999). A theory of justice. Harvard University Press. p. 200. ISBN 9780674000780. Retrieved 30 October 2010.--SPhilbrickT 00:28, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support as proposed. --JN466 00:42, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Conditional Oppose You forgot to say "ADDING or removing them" . Plus "go around" is informal, but that's a trivial matter. changed to O per Hamiltonstone via EC. • Ling.Nut (talk) 03:01, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Kind of oppose Google Books is not the only organisation / facility through which books can be linked. I think if WP:CITE is going to document this at all, it should be to say "web-based external links to books are allowed in footnotes, but are not required" or (simpler, and per Elcobbola) "web-based external links to books are not required". I also inclined to agree with Elcobbola that a case can be made for removing links to GB if the linked page provides no preview of any sort. Those cases actually seem to me a form of WP:linkspam and should be actively removed, because they effectively take someone to a particular platform yet don't provide any more information than would the full text cite or the ISBN link. The principle should be platform neutrality in respect of the level of information available. A GB link is allowed if it gives access to information not provided through, eg, the ISBN or the cite itself, but otherwise it is linkspam. Does that make sense? hamiltonstone (talk) 03:12, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
  • As the people at WP:External links have to spend a fair bit of time explaining the difference between a citation that supports article content, and an external link (which does not), I would sincerely appreciate it if the words "external links" did not appear in any sentence on this page that applies to proper reference citations or the further reading section. (Try "links" or "URLs" or some other term -- just not "external links", please.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't want any rule saying we can't remove links to things that Google and its partners sell. I don't like the idea that Misplaced Pages is being used to advertise items for any specific companies. I think we ought to try and link to books that are totally free, like the books on Archive.org. Free sources should always come first, then commercial.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 04:12, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose we shouldn't be linking to what is basically a platform for promoting books, and which has geographical biases. If I find a Google books link that doesn't work for me in the UK, I can't see why it should remain Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:35, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Don't disallow them. Don't encourage them. Don't discourage them. Do discourage their removal. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 06:43, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support Wiki has millions of students who would not otherwise know how to get the very valuable information that books.google provides. As for the "commercial" aspect, if publishers can't sell books they will go out of business (as is happening to newspapers) and then where would Misplaced Pages get its RS? Rjensen (talk) 08:21, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Don't regulate, don't advertize, don't ban. One of the reasons of keeping these links is cover your ass tactics against template warriors who aren't happy even with inline footnotes; this crowd needs instantly viewable proof. East of Borschov 11:12, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support They generally allow ready access to what the book actually says. It is an added impulse to keep our stuff in line with what the source actually says. I wouldn't link to a book page if I wanted to indulge in some word twisting or cherry picking etc. But at the same time, I would say that not linking to a page does not mean that I am doing OR.-Civilizededucation 15:51, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Google books links are used in actual practice and always will be. Google books is also a piss-poor substitute for actually citing hardcopy, since usually only fractions of relevant content can be accessed by this means. But a link beats no link. Carrite (talk) 16:57, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Not needed and unnecessary promotion of GB. This is a convenience link if it works and includes the required pages; otherwise I see no merit in it. Just because some editors are "going around" doing something there is no consensus for them to do, doesn't mean we need a guideline banning their actions. Colin° 18:39, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support per the rationale of Wtmitchell: Don't disallow them. Don't encourage them. Don't discourage them. Do discourage their removal. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:24, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support per the rationale of Wtmitchell: Don't disallow them. Don't encourage them. Don't discourage them. Do discourage their removal. --InaMaka (talk) 20:54, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Partly neutral I see both sides of the issues concerning favoring one company over others, etc., and don't have a strong view either way. Partly oppose: However I strongly disagree with the suggestion that using the {{Google books}} template alone could be regarded as a proper citation.   Will Beback  talk  21:53, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. The compromise position SlimVirgin proposes here is eminently sensible. Links to google books are neither required nor discouraged, but wholescale removal of information that can be useful to many readers is not in the spirit of Misplaced Pages. I would also likely support variants of the proposal which take into account the style of the first principal contributor. Geometry guy 22:22, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support proposals of SlimVirgin and Wtmitchell. — pd_THOR | 00:07, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support per SlimVirgin and Wtmitchell. Jayjg 01:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support SlimVirgin. These links should be encouraged, not removed. The more information in a cite the better. We want to make it as easy as possible for readers to verify the text. -- œ 04:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose unnecessary standards creep. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support a modified version that gives a generic description of free online republishers, without naming Google specifically. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• Other: I certainly agree with Hamiltonstone's position that not all GB links are equal, and we should enforce a baseline of "no link unless there is actually some text there" - a Google Books link without even partial readable content is basically useless as further reading. This may seem a bit tangential to specific page numbers, but we don't currently mention GB at all - being definite about what we are and aren't encouraging is essential. Generalising this to cover all online book services, as Brianann suggests, is sensible - where we're looking at publicly viewable content, GB is on a par with the open books in Hathi, say, or on archive.org, and it's odd to have a rule for one specific case. Shimgray | talk | 15:36, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support keeping links to source material. I see this as an extension of a tendency of certain enforcers to perceive any external link as advertisements. It's getting to be a ridiculous dogmatic position that is contrary to Misplaced Pages's interests. Why shouldn't Misplaced Pages link to Google Books? From what I can tell Misplaced Pages benefits quite a lot from the way Google searches seem to favor Misplaced Pages articles in Google search results. Misplaced Pages became what it is because it is open. I see trends at work steering the project towards abandoning principles that have made it successful. This case is but one symptom. Lambanog (talk) 17:18, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. We cannot guarantee that the information will be available. This will mislead people into thinking, "oh boy, I can get that information", when a great deal of the time they can't. Karanacs (talk) 16:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
  • comment This is a problem for any form of link. If one buys into this argument one should never link to anything since the link might drop out. JoshuaZ (talk) 18:49, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
    • It's one thing to wager that the link isn't going to change. It's another matter entirely to deliberately link to a website where you know that the majority of the content will not be available to the average reader. Karanacs (talk) 18:54, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Do you need the majority of the content? If the relevant pages are there then what's the issue? Is this any different then people having links to journals which require pay to read more than the abstracts? JoshuaZ (talk) 18:59, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
      • I think there may be a misunderstanding. This RfC isn't about adding general Google Books links, but about adding URLs to specific pages. Those URLs can't be generated (so far as I know) unless preview is in place. So if it's there at all, it will indeed be visible to most of our readers. Who is not able to see page 200 here—Rawls 1971, p. 200? That's helpful to millions of readers, and to other editors who need to check that the material matches the source, but doesn't match it too closely. SlimVirgin 19:06, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
        • I can't, for one. That link takes me to page 202, and when I try to get to page 200 I get a message saying the page is unavailable. I don't know why that happens, but it's certainly not the only time it's happened for me. There are undoubtedly misunderstandings happening on both sides of the debate. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
          • There's no reason this shouldn't be available to you, NM. Can you take a snapshot of what you see, showing the URL you used, and email it to me, please (slimvirgin at gmail dot com)? I'd be interested to see what happened in case we can work out how to fix it. SlimVirgin 19:27, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
            • I don't have a working camera available at the moment. I just clicked on the link you provided above, and the message "You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or have reached your viewing limit for this book". Nikkimaria (talk) 19:32, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
              • You don't need a camera, NM, just the snipping tool. SlimVirgin 19:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
                • The what now? What's "the snipping tool"? Nikkimaria (talk) 19:39, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
                • Actually, never mind. I think I've figured out what the problem was, and can now see page 200. Of course, now I can't see 202...and as we all know, context is important ;-). Nikkimaria (talk) 19:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
                  • Funny; with me it was exactly the same thing as happened to Nikkimaria: The first time I couldn't see anything, on trying again it worked, but page 202 is/was? blank now. Buchraeumer (talk) 21:03, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
                    • Google page views are idiosyncratic at best. Sometimes (often!) clearing your browser cache or using another browser will allow you to see a page that is "reached your viewing limit for this book." I've gotten a lot of mileage out of switching between two browsers to view pages that are not viewable, after I've reached my vague page limit on the first one. First Light (talk) 04:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. As is the case with ISBNs, in practice this will only lead to pressure on editors to include links, even when they are working with real life printed books. People can very easily copy and paste the author/title or ISBN and go to google book search themselves. Where I live I can't use google books without most of the book becoming "access denied" incredibly soon, even if the book is on preview, which happens seldom enough. Also, sometimes these conditions change: A book I could use at google in January was suddenly at "no preview" in May. Buchraeumer (talk) 17:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support. A link to the the Google books page is merely a convenience and does no harm. It would help readers and editors to verify text more quickly in any case where it worked. It cases where it did not succeed (China, I suppose), all the normal methods of verification are still available. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support permitting but not requiring, as outlined above.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 18:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• Conditional support—I think we need to differentiate between two kinds of Google Books links—ones that contain a view of the passages we're sourcing from, and ones that don't. I am strongly in favor of linking to the former, and strongly opposed to linking to the latter. Sometimes these things change and the links should be updated/added/removed accordingly. From my point of view, linking to Google Books pages that don't contain what we're citing is no different from linking to a commercial site selling the book (e.g. Amazon), while linking to pages that do creates much more transparency in verification, because most serious articles make heavy use of book sources. —Ynhockey 19:17, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• To the question as put: No. Uncle G (talk) 22:26, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• HEAVY SUPPORT: all sources that can be verified but use of the source should be acceptable. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 01:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support --occono (talk) 16:55, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support Allow Google Book links. They help.Kmarinas86 (Expert Sectioneer of Misplaced Pages) 19:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Strongest Support. I think that any URL which yields specific printed page results should be allowed, such as this one from archive.org, a page scanned from the U.S. Army Register from 1946 which I used inside a cite book template at the biography article Caleb V. Haynes. I am a huge fan of Google books, Internet Archive, and any other organization which scans pages and offers them online. They all add to human knowledge, not take away from it. Binksternet (talk) 21:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support encouraging them as a courtesy to other editors. Also support strongly discouraging their removal. No, they don't always show up for every user. Yes, they are a wonderful courtesy for editors and readers who would like to confirm the reference or learn more about the subject. First Light (talk) 02:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support allowing such links - as an online resource it's a fdact of life that users and editors will benefit from direct links to the quickest way to check factual claims in articles. I haven't heard anyone claiming Google Books is an unreliable source. If it's not there so be it, but if it is, then (as for any media link - newspaper, academic peer reviewed paper, or any other source) cite where it can be found and try to help the reader. FT2  04:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support the spirit of the proposal, but obviously we don't need to explicitly state that editors shouldn't go around removing the links. Once we state that the links are allowed and can be helpful then no one will remove them, right? Or if they did they could be referred to this guideline. Yaris678 (talk) 17:55, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• I agree that we shouldn't remove these links. Anyone systematically removing useful links like this who refuses to stop should be blocked for disruptive editing. The argument that "I can't read it so it should be removed" is deeply parochial - not all links to references need to be immediately accessible to all readers with no charge. Fences&Windows 21:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support for citations only. The purpose is not to advertise for books in random links. But as part of a citation, it might be helpful to allow users to follow up with the secondary source. It helps readers understand the verifiability standard on Misplaced Pages more easily, and makes us seem more reliable. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:14, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support - This allows for easier access to verify citations and in cases where there is either a full view or at least substantial amounts allowed in the preview, it is worthwhile linking for Further reading sections. This isn't advertising. I use it a lot but have never bought a publication based on seeing it at Googlebooks. You find out-of-print materials that aren't for sale commercially.
  ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 23:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Would we censor useful, free, realiable(=verifiable) references (I am talking about pages that can be viewed)?--Wickey-nl (talk) 16:48, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Inappropiate cites may always removed. Adapt the last part: If appropiate, such footnotes should not be removed.

--Wickey-nl (talk) 10:27, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

I don't see any reason to disallow these links with a blanket rule; we allow pretty much any reference style. On the other hand, as usual, if an article has an established style that doesn't include these links, we should generally respect that, just like we respect any other citation style. So new editors on a particular article should generally defer to the established style if there are complaints. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:48, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Changing the established reference style - whether to accommodate these links or due to personal preferences - should not be done. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:52, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, if several people are all working on one article and they all agree to the change, that could be OK. So I don't think it's completely black and white. But if I start going to random articles outside my usual editing area simply to insert links, that's a different story. A complete reference without links is still a perfectly good reference, after all. I can see some merit in the argument that very long google book links can make the source code hard to edit in the same way that citation templates can. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:59, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Adding a link to a footnote isn't changing the citation style. For example, changing this:

Deboick, Sophia. "Poland's faith divide", The Guardian, 28 October 2010.

to this:

Deboick, Sophia. "Poland's faith divide", The Guardian, 28 October 2010.

is not a style change and is always helpful. Google Books page links are no different, and they are short when done properly, e.g. http://books.google.ca/books?id=kvpby7HtAe0C&pg=PA200, which leads directly to page 200 of that book, and is a shorter link than the one I posted above for The Guardian. We can't have a situation where a small number of editors are running around removing links for some reason, perhaps because they don't like Google (I'm still not entirely clear what the reasons are). It's a commercial company just like The Guardian or Cambridge University Press, and we don't remove links to their publications. When we supply sourcing information we're doing it to make things easy for the reader, and if a link might do that, that's reason enough to add it. SlimVirgin 17:36, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that people should not go around removing links where the established style of the article includes them, but similarly I would not like to see links added "by force" if the established style of the article is to leave them out. If none of the references has links, and that was a conscious choice, then adding the links is certainly a style change. A reference without a link is still a perfectly good reference, and especially for book references we really want people to have the book in their hands anyway. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:56, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

It would be a major policy change to say that adding newspaper, journal or book page links to a citation was a style change. We don't want people to be forced to have the books in their hands. We want them to be able to check that what we claim the source said really is what the source said. If they can do that by clicking on a link rather than going to a library (which is not an easy thing for everyone to do), that's a good thing. SlimVirgin 20:22, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

It is a style change to add links - whether that's for better or for worse in all cases is part of what's being debated here. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a list of citation styles here. Whether a courtesy link is supplied is not connected to what style is used. SlimVirgin 01:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Slim, could you point out to me which of the citation styles in that list include courtesy links the way you propose? In any case, to add them in is to change the style, whether or not you choose to explicitly connect them to the style in use. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we need to be more specific regarding what we mean by Google links, since their appearance and usefulness greatly differ. There are

• a) no preview
• b) snippet
• c) restricted preview (page of interested is accessible)
• d) full preview

a) and b) have little or no value for verification or further information to readers or editors and hence can bee seen as purely promotional links for a particular company (aka spam). However c) and d) can be very valuable for verification and further information. I suspect that most supporters have mainly c) and d) in mind, while some opposers are particularly annoyed by a) and b). So it might be useful to state the undesired arbitrary removal of Google book links refers to the c) and d) scenario or more precisely taking the geolocation issue into account refers to links for which c) or d) is true for a large part of our readers/editors.

Another thing is the exact intent of the added text. Is its purpose to generally block people from removing Google links or is its purpose to block people from going on a anti Google rampage in "other people's" articles? This also connected to respecting style or preferences of the main authors or maintainers of an article. Concerning the latter one might even wonder, why we would need a specific "lex google" at all, since this seems to be covered by general guidelines/practices anyway. The problem here is that individual editors might adopt (or apparently have done so in the past) a very particular notion of Google books such as considering them generally as undesired spam. From that perspective they could overrule any "respecting the style of other authors or articles" by claiming a guideline violation such as WP:SPAM. Hence it might be useful, that if the community at large does not share such a specific viewpoint of Google books links, it will get stated explicitly to block such a line of argumentation in the future. Also Google books seems to be a of a "hot issue" over which editors repeatedly clash, therefore it makes sense to deal with it explicitly.

The current guideline contains already a section for convenience links (i. e. online copies of a cited source). I think this section could be expanded a bit to deal with the Google books explicitly to be clear which kind of behaviour or approach towards Google books links is accepted and which is not and how it relates to other guidelines (such as WP:SPAM). We probably should state there as well that other non-commercial convenience links (archive.org, gutenberg, university sites offering free online copies, etc.) are preferable to Google books links (if available).--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:17, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I use snippet all the time, especially to verify statements and quotations from the book and to get page numbers and short substantive info like dates. It's unusually valuable and there is no alternative short of inter-library loan 95% of the time. Rjensen (talk) 09:24, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Well imho snippets is borderline scenario, they can indeed be valuabe for verification for a very short and invidual fact (such as a date or a very short quote). However often the snippet is so short that contrary to a page access one lacks contextual information that often is important to fully understand the meaning of the line in the snippet. So snippets have a much higher potential of being misleading than a page access and hence their careless might actually cause quality/verification issues as well rather than helping with the verification.--Kmhkmh (talk) 10:46, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Personally I'd never link to a snippet/no view, though of course that might be visible as "preview" somewhere else, so without knowing that, they can't be banned while other googler links are allowed. Johnbod (talk) 12:01, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

• A side point, but I strongly disagree with " I think we ought to try and link to books that are totally free, like the books on Archive.org. Free sources should always come first, then commercial." by Brianann MacAmhlaidh above. The vast majority of "totally free" books are public domain = really old = probably not RS, & certainly not to be preferred. Johnbod (talk) 12:01, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Well i think we can all agree that the decision for source itself (being reputable, reliable, current, etc.) comes first and after the source is picked and we are just considering a convenience link for it, then we can consider a preference a free link over a commercial one.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:10, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

There was a proposal some time ago to add to WP:V that links to free sites were preferred over commercial ones, if the sources were of equivalent value, and it was rejected. Almost every publication we cite is commercial, including all the academic sources, many of which lie behind paywalls. That has never been a consideration for Misplaced Pages, and Google Books is free to the reader anyway. SlimVirgin 17:42, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure how to read this. Are you agreeing with me or not? There is a difference between the choosing the source and choosing the convenience link. The debunked proposoal was about preferring free versus commercial regarding the choice of the source and here we are talking about free versus commercial regarding the choice of the convenience link.--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:37, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether I'm agreeing with you. :) I think we should choose the best source, and the best convenience link, regardless of any other consideration. The only service that currently allows links to specific pages is Google Books and it's free, so that satisfies all concerns. Whether something is commercial or a charity (both aim to make money in some way, just for different purposes) isn't something I think we should consider. SlimVirgin 19:40, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

It does matter about "free as in freedom" as opposed to "free as in beer". Google puts their content into hard to access formats in terms of re-use and acquisition. This is by design for their "clients" and due to the demands put on them by publishers, but it does pose some problems for end-users. I think it is an ethically sound argument to suggest that Misplaced Pages ought to be encouraging sites like Project Gutenberg and Archive.org which have genuinely free content that can be used without having to go through proprietary access tools. If there is a book that can be obtained from one of these other sources and referenced in this manner, it ought to be preferred even at the expense of removing a link to Google Books in that instance. It isn't just how somebody makes money, but how the end-user can access the content and if there might be some sort of licensing agreement or other limitation to the content once you have accessed it. It doesn't cover content under copyright that you can't obtain from sites like this, but for those situations where you can obtain the content from free sites, it ought to be not only preferred but to me preferred at the exclusion of "non-free" sites. Google is certainly one of those "non-free" sites. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:57, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

(reply to Johnbod) I meant that if a particular book is available on GoogleBooks for sale, and also available legitimately for free on another site, we ought to link to the free one. That's all I meant. It's not right that we are about to make a policy forcing articles to flog books for GoogleBooks when we don't need to. It'll be a race to the finish: as soon as one editor links every cite to a book on GoogleBooks, whether it's available for free on other sites or not, we won't be allowed to switch it because of this rule. Obviously recent sources are gonna be more valuable than outdated ones. Common sense man. Whose gonna argue with you about that? What I meant with my comment was that when we've got the choice, the same book one being sold on GoogleBooks, the other totally free, go for the free one. Exactly how Robert Horning put it above me.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 04:31, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Well ok, but it didn't read like that, & your example was probably not well chosen in that case. There is actually quite a problem in many areas of people using old 19th PD sources that are not RS when they could get much better information from more modern ones on Google books or elsewhere. Plus the google books search facility (within a book) is often much easier to use in practice. Johnbod (talk) 05:49, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

• Reply to Hamiltonstone. Just to note that we're talking here about links to Google Book pages, where these exist. Not links to Google Books in general. So this kind of link where it goes directly to the page: Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, 1971, p. 200. SlimVirgin 20:28, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks SV. I am comfortable with that kind of linking, since it clearly infers that the Google book in question has the page viewable. In my experience, most Google Book links are not made to a particular page, but a general link to the book, and it is those ones I would not want to explicitly support, in the cases where the linked book cannot be previewed in GB. Incidentally, I actually think there is a high degree of common ground between most of us commenting here. I liked Robert Horning's observations above too, and agree with Johnbod re watching out for the use of old sources just because they happen to be free - I think most editors who have participated in the discussion here are not the sort of people who would do that, but i have certainly come across it, and one wouldn't want to encourage that laziness :-) hamiltonstone (talk) 23:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

In this list of responses, I can't figure out what these support and oppose terms refer to. There's more than one question, and I think a few editors may be using the opposite terms to label the same positions. Does "oppose" mean "I oppose including links" or "I oppose removing links" or "I oppose saying anything about the links here"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:27, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

The proposal was clear enough to me, as are most of the support votes: we do not want wholesale removal of google books links. Apart from that, the position that we neither encourage nor discourage the inclusion of such links appears to be the status quo. It would require a separate discussion to change that status quo, and as far as I can judge, most editors (including myself) do not wish to change it. Geometry guy 23:53, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

In Say Where You Got It, propose what to omit

I propose to add to WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, to clarify what does not need to be included in a citation. Some non-Misplaced Pages style guides call for information that Misplaced Pages does not request, and too much information may interfere with readers' use of WP.

This follows the discussion at another Talk topic. I've added microforms to the proposal.

Nick Levinson (talk) 05:25, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

That text sounds about right, although it seems a bit wordy and I'm not convinced about the last two sentences. I also wonder whether it's the best place on the page to put this information... but it is the section that editors seem to think addresses it, so perhaps it is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:51, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

On the last two sentences: One is for the case of citing an article in the N.Y. Times; a link to the article on the nytimes.com website should be provided, which is different than linking to a third-party site, though both may restrict access. The other is that if the only source is online then access should not be totally omitted even though only some readers will be able to access it, because a difficult-to-reach source is better than no source at all, although a more easily verifiable source remains preferable if existent. Nick Levinson (talk) 11:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

So in your proposal, those two sentences run:

If the publisher offers a link to the source or its abstract that does not require a payment or a third party's login for access, you should provide the URL for that link. And if the source exists only online, give the link even if access is restricted.

On the first sentence, even URLs to WP:PAYWALLed and registration-required sources are desirable in some instances. However, such links, even if free, might not be desirable in others, e.g., when the URL is redundant to the doi, or is at a notoriously unstable website (here I am naturally thinking of links to news.yahoo.com).

On the second, I'm not convinced that this is necessary in all cases. For example, many academic journals provide an online supplement to articles, such as extra images. It would be perfectly adequate to cite "Jones, Mary. 2009. Supplementary images for "<Name of Paper>." M Pressive Journal..." Furthermore, while the source may never reach hard copy, "my" link isn't necessarily "your" link. I might use Athens, and you might use ScienceDirect to reach exactly the same online publication. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:32, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

On the first sentence:

• A link to a publisher's own website is, almost by definition, not a link to Yahoo News. If a publisher's own website is unstable, I don't think there's anything we can or should do about that. I think we should give the link anyway and let the publisher figure out whether and how to stabilize their content and their links.
• A DOI could link to several places with different users getting different destinations from the same DOI (as I understand its mechanics), so a publisher's URL and a DOI for the same source may as well coexist in the same referent. They may be redundant for some users but nonredundant for other users.
• Registration-required URLs divide into those which make registration free and relatively easy and those making that hard or costly. If I visit an institution and use their database access and then provide the resulting link in Misplaced Pages, it turns out you can use that link only if you have the institution's registration, and you almost certainly don't and probably can't get it. This has led to Misplaced Pages editors deleting my links as inaccessible to most WP users, while keeping the hardcopy bibliographic data related to the URL and the main text statement it supported.

On the second sentence: What's the alternative? If a source exists only in hardcopy, omitting the URL just because only some people can access it means not providing the main-text information it supports, because you'd be citing no source at all. It's permissible to cite hardcopy that's scarce, e.g., available only in a few libraries and only in person (if that's the most accessible you've got). So I think it should be acceptable to cite a URL that only some people can access. Better to cite an easily-accessible source the world can see, but a limited-circulation source is preferable to no source at all.

Nick Levinson (talk) 06:03, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

order of named refs

A problem: Say an editor creates: Supported statement.<ref name="main-source" /><ref name="less-important-source" />

Say this displays as: Supported statement.

Along comes a bot or editor who rearranges the references into numerical order. Then they'll be in less than ideal order, because the less-important source will precede the main source.

I don't have much of a suggestion, except that editors should not count on the order in which references appear. Perhaps this should be addressed in the guideline. Nick Levinson (talk) 12:12, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Manually assigning references, such as <ref>cite1; cite2</ref> would be superior in this case. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:16, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

but you want to reuse a particular reference several times, so combining is not always a good choice. It also makes it harder to maintain references (replace them by better ones or remove them, since you lose the Identifikation by a unique index/footnote.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:21, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I think most readers/editors won't consider the order of the references as an order of priority or importance. Though imho it makes little sense to apply such a scheme, since it will not be transparent to others.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:18, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree: the order of the refs is just not that important. WhatamIdoing (talk)

Don't use named references. They force you to make considerations such a this one. Use short references in the footnotes (<ref>Smith 2001, p. 49</ref>) and put the source info in a bibliography at the bottom of the page. Combine references in a single note when that seems logical and explain in the footnote if the sources support different aspects of the statement or claim. --Hegvald (talk) 12:50, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

That only works if your sources are lengthy (e.g., books) and you're not citing the same page several times.

A short citation of "Smith 2001, p. 1 (out of 1)" would be kind of silly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Why would anyone write "p. 1 (out of 1)"? If the source is a single page one can just write "Smith 2001". The bibliography will explain it as referring to 'Smith, Alfred, "A short note on something", Journal of Somethingology, Vol. 76 (2001), p. 1.' And you can cite "Smith 2001" as many times as you need to. --Hegvald (talk) 02:37, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Why would anyone create a short citation of just "Smith 2001" when they could use ref name to go directly to the full citation? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Because in many cases, one will want to cite several sources in the same footnote, or add explanatory content to the footnote. (See the example by Headbomb below, and the comment by Rjwilmsi below that.) The latter you cannot do if you use named refs consistently, and doing the former by just piling on footnotes after a sentence leaves the curious reader and later potential contributors wondering why you are citing all these sources. Does each source support a separate part of the preceding statement? In that case, which part? Or is it just a case of some non-discerning author adding any random source they find through Google that appears to support the claim they are making? I don't see any advantage to being able to "go directly to the full citation" as opposed to scrolling down to a bibliography. --Hegvald (talk) 14:57, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The order of refs is a matter of editorial judgment. It is standard in my field for references to be presented out-of-order, because they are sorted by author at the end of a paper and then referenced by number. So you might see "This is a claim ", which indicates that 5 is the best source, then 2 then 7. However, if someone in another field is used to sorting the inline notes by number, that's fine too. It's a matter of the citation style in an individual article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:58, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I like the option (as an option, so editors who ignore order are still fine), but to keep the option of arbitrary order how do we stop or discourage the bot or editor that insists on rearranging in various articles? I don't remember which articles I saw it in, so I can't track who's doing it. If it's a bot, then I guess WP knows. How do we find out so we can keep our option? Nick Levinson (talk) 05:49, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Carl and Nick, I agree with you, and on the pages I watch it is WP:AWB that does this, a good place to start would be to ask the programmers to disable that feature. -- PBS (talk) 20:51, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I've posted regarding AWB. Thanks for the clue. Nick Levinson (talk) 05:47, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Sources should be in numerical order. If someone wants to say a source is the best, it should be done in the note itself, like this Using some obscure reference ordering system lost on the reader is not a good practice. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:56, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Example note

1. For a general treatment on the topic, see Smith et al. (2004). Jones et al. (1998) treats this case specifically.

I don't think you can assume that readers will infer anything about importance/relevance/scope of the references from their ordering, so if one source is more important than the other and you want readers to know about it, then make it clear in the reference text as suggested by Headbomb. Rjwilmsi 09:25, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

But it's completely established practice in some fields to sort juxtaposed references by importance. You can't make a general principle about it, nor can you assume it will be lost on readers.

The more important thing is that if some editor has explicitly gone out of their way to sort the references, they shouldn't be resorted by some quasi-automated process. One difficulty with longer notes (e.g. Headbomb's example) is that they wouldn't fit well in an article that only uses short footnotes.

If the editors of a particular article decide they want to sort the footnotes numerically, good for them. But if editors have decided to sort the notes by importance, those editors shouldn't have to worry about drive-by changes to change the order they have established. Our general principle is that reference style is established on a per-article basis. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:19, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The guiding principle of the Manual of Style is "write so you cannot be misunderstood". Out-of-order referencing are completely lost on the reader so the only thing that achieves is giving a look of sloppy editing and the vast majority of editors. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:03, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

It can't be misunderstood in any critical way - at worst, the reader still has two references with no idea which is more important. But the readers who do know that the order reflects importance will be able to interpret the order correctly. If anyone actually complains that it looks "sloppy", it's no different than if someone complains that Gynaecology is misspelled. It's an opportunity for them to learn something they didn't know before. Given that there is no real issue of confusion, it's best to leave it up to the editors of each individual article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:17, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

And then the next time they see a random they'll think it means they are sorted in terms of importance, while they have no meaning. These implicit system only work when they are consistently followed, which they aren't. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:27, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, of course I view those as sorted by importance :) No system will work when the editors of an article don't do what they mean. But we don't want to undo intentional work of some editors because of mistakes by others. By analogy, we don't want to replace "Gynecology" with "Gynaecology" in an article that uses US English, just in the articles that use British English. Similarly, an editor has to spend time reading the references to know which ones are more important than others for a particular claim. Just looking at the footnote numbers tells nothing, and in general the number should just be viewed as opaque labels for references. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:35, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

In-text attribution

It seems to me that "in-text attribution" has nothing to do with citing sources. It may be there is a more appropriate guideline or policy where it can be placed but it is cluttering up this guideline and should be removed or compressed to one sentence. -- PBS (talk) 20:31, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

People often ask about in relation to CITE: whether citing involves intext attribution, and if not when is appropriate. It makes sense to refer to it here. I'm not sure how you can say it has nothing to do with citing sources. Intext attribution is the citing of a source. SlimVirgin 20:56, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

While I understand in general it can be argued that an in-text attrition identifies a source (meaning a person) and so is a citation, I do not see in-text as a "citation" as meant and defined in this guideline, and I think that the wording of the sentence "An inline citation should follow the attribution, either after the phrase, sentence, or paragraph in question." makes that clear. -- PBS (talk) 21:11, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Intext attribution is a way to cite your source, and this guideline is about how to cite sources, so it's appropriate here. In addition a person could write "John Rawls (1971) argues that ..." at which point inline citation and intext attribution become intertwined.SlimVirgin 21:24, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Slim here. See also {{harvtxt}} (the template for in-text attribution) which is definitely something covered by this guideline. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 21:30, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it from reading the section this is not about Parenthetical referencing which covers the use of {{harvtxt}} because it says "An inline citation should follow the attribution" and we use Parenthetical referencing as a form of in-line citation. If you and I read this section in such a different way, then there is clearly something wrong with the section. If this is being put forward as a hybrid system then it needs moving down below the sections "Footnotes" and "Parenthetical referencing". First I guess we need to decide what it is that the section is meant to be about. -- PBS (talk) 20:21, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

No, you're right. I was just trying to point out that it's very much like a citation. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:23, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it's appropriate for this page to include that. I think it would be silly to say that editors must write things like "In his famous 1971 book, The Sun is Really Big, John Rawls argues that ... (Rawls, 1971)." The point of inline citations is to let the reader know where the information came from; in this kind of sentence, they already have that information. I do not believe that our readers are so stupid that they need a short citation to repeat the information already in the sentence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:32, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Text-source integrity

Since I last looked here the section "Text-source integrity" seems to have been plonked in front of "How to write " which seems odd because how is someone who needs to know how to write them meant to understand their ordering before it is explained to them how to write them? Also "Text-source integrity" seems to be at best a subsection of the older Bundling citations and at worst a reiteration of the same information. I suggest that the text is moved down to Bundling citations as a subsection and then integrated into Bundling citations. -- PBS (talk) 21:00, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not a subsection of bundling. It advises people to make sure they place citations in a way that makes clear which text the cites support. One of the recent plagiarism problems people have been talking about was caused by that not being done. SlimVirgin 21:03, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Without opening old wounds, if that is the intent then why not give a demonstration of placing the citations within a sentence? At the moment the only explicit example given has the advise "Where you are using multiple sources for one sentence, consider bundling citations at the end of the sentence or paragraph". Let us assume for the moment that it is a section worth keeping then I think the advise should be moved down to after "How to format and place inline citations", eg just before "Dealing with unsourced material" -- PBS (talk) 21:21, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what the old wounds are. The section does say that they can be placed after the phrase, sentence, or paragraph. SlimVirgin 21:24, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

old wounds: ref tags and punctuation. -- PBS (talk) 20:28, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

<Slim, I liked the structure you had a few weeks ago, where you placed a number of topics under Background. Although this was a bit of a potpourri, it helped first-time readers to jump straight into the "how-to" section. Could we revive the "background" and place integrity in there? That way integrity would still be prominent but not obstructive. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 21:27, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Just in case it's not clear: the issue here is that the current structure buries the first time reader in details that will only begin to make sense when they have understood the basics. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 21:33, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'll play around with it along those lines. SlimVirgin 21:34, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I just tried it and it looked even more top-heavy to have integrity in the background. Which bits do you think should be at the top and/or most obvious? SlimVirgin 21:41, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

1. Numbered list item

Move "In-text attribution" and "Text-source integrity" below or to the end of "How to format and place inline citations". -- PBS (talk) 20:36, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that my top priority is that new editors find the information they need without getting confused and giving up, I like this structure:

1. How to format and place inline citations (with the paragraph that used to be under inline citations)
   1. Footnotes
      1. How to write them
      2. Bundling
      3. Shortened footnotes
      4. List-defined references
   2. In text attributions
   3. Parenthetical references
2. When and why to cite sources
3. Text source integrity
4. Dealing with unsourced material
5. Say where you got it

etc...

n Use of terms

I'm thinking of "in text attribution" as type of citation, and it belongs in the section describing types of citations. I'm thinking of the next set of things as philosophy: important to understand and to point out to other editors, but not something you're looking for the first time you open this page. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 23:25, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I think it better to place "In text attributions" after "Parenthetical references" If indeed it is meant to be hybrid method as I think placing "In text attributions" implies that can not be used with parenthetical references. -- PBS (talk) 23:41, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Nothing in the guideline says that you can't use them together ... you might need to add a sentence to the section "inline citations" that says "in text attributions are used in articles that use footnotes and also in articles that use parenthetical references." This is not awkward at all.

Note that I am just rearranging things here. I would be WP:BOLD with this, except that I want to hear what Slim says. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:57, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The logic for moving "In text attributions" after "Parenthetical references" is the same as moving it down in the first place (describe the method before in this case PR, before an application of its useage). -- PBS (talk) 21:16, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi Charles, I wouldn't mind keeping inline citations, in-text attribution, and text-source integrity near each other. I was thinking of adding something to the effect of INCITE + INTEXT + INTEGRITY = three rules of thumb when citing your sources. Haven't thought of how to word it yet, or where to place it. Do you think it's a good idea?

Maybe you could go ahead and make your BOLD edit, and I could try to work around it. SlimVirgin 21:29, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I did it. (Keep in mind that my main interest is in presenting topics in an order that is most useful to the first-time reader. I think it's important to keep in mind that this is a guideline and not a legal document or a computer program. The most important thing is that new editors find it useful, not that its logical structure is airtight or that it covers every caveat and detail every time a subject comes up.)

Anyway, now I hope the first section of the article provides a quick how-to for the new reader. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 01:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Slim, I like the "three rules of thumb" idea. Section 2 of the article? Maybe Citation principles? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 01:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Google Books

If the discussion about Google Books comes up again, you can now point people to User:Uncle G/On common Google Books mistakes. Uncle G (talk) 21:01, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how helpful that site is overall. It's by no means nor complete as far as the somewhat vague technical aspects are concerned.--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:41, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Discussion in The Scientist of citations

• Sprecht (2010-10-20). "Opinion: Mutations of citations - Just like genetic information, citations can accumulate heritable mutations". The Scientist. patsw (talk) 03:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Ha, interesting, especially "The high incidence of wrong citations reflects the fact that the contained information is to a certain extent redundant ..." :) SlimVirgin 04:30, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:INTEXT

Should we tread on other guidelines while writing this one? While I like having an INTEXT section, here's a few changes:

• Change argues, argues, maintains to says, states, states, per WP:SAY. This change would also appear in WP:V et any al.
• Change "a helpful thing" to "helpful".
• To remove climate-change detritus, change to a vague issue where WP's throwaway implication of a majority position will not be a debate issue. E.g.: "John Smith states that these variations all constitute one species" and "his view may be held by the majority of geneticists".
• Change "fixed by writing" to "fixed by citing the statement", because a debated majority or plurality view must be cited as such.
• Change "this evening" to "on 19 January" (i.e., coded as "on {{date||dmy}}") per WP:DATED. JJB 12:49, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Reflist template proposal

Editors who watch this page may be interested in Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(proposals)#Change_to_template:reflist_wiki-wide?. Please leave any comments on the village pump page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:29, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Methods of inline citation

Carl, what other methods are there, apart from footnotes and parenthetical referencing? SlimVirgin 03:52, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

If you define all reference formats to be one or the other, then of course there aren't any others. But there are certainly many variations on how footnotes or parenthetical referencing are achieved. One can use cite.php or use some other system for footnotes, and can format the footnotes in many ways. One can put parenthetical references in parentheses or square braces, and can format them dozens of ways. So the examples on this page aren't (and can't be) exhaustive. We don't want to see people go around blindly changing formats just because the formats don't match the examples here.

The core policy on this page has always been that any internally consistent style is acceptable as long as it meets the needs of verifiability. It would be a complete about-face to change that to say that now only a few methods are acceptable. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:07, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

This is what the policy said: "The two styles of inline citation used on Misplaced Pages are clickable footnotes (<ref> tags) and parenthetical references. Editors are free to use either method."

To suggest that they can use any method, including the above, suggests that there's something other than footnotes or parenthetical refs. But there isn't, so it's confusing as currently written. SlimVirgin 05:49, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Editors could, for example, use footnotes but not use cite.php to achieve them. The problem with the wording is that it suggests a false dichotomy: that footnotes have to be done the way shown, and the parenthetical references have to be done the way shown. But the inline citations can be done in any internally consistent manner. The point of this page is not to tell editors how they must format things, only to tell them how they can format things. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:02, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

At some point that was changed from "the two most popular styles" (correct) to "the two styles" (not)... Christopher Parham (talk) 19:20, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

SV's copyedit changed "On Misplaced Pages, there are several different styles. The two most popular are ... " to "The two styles of inline citation on Misplaced Pages are ..." Editors can also use prose citations, naming the author or work in prose in sufficient detail to identify it in the list of references. Geogre seemed to prefer that, as I recall. Gimmetoo (talk) 13:16, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Another method exists, apparently meant mainly for tables that need footnotes, but which I saw for regular footnotes. Please pardon me for forgetting what it's called or how to write it, but I had a scathing opinion of it when I found it in one article, albeit only one article. It uses one template in the article and another template in the foot of the article. If you need to add a note anywhere except the end, you have to manually renumber each subsequent note. You make the body template and the note template correspond by writing matching text into each template, which means you have to make sure no other templates of the types have the same wording. My way of dealing with it was to change it to the nontemplated <ref>Refererent.</ref> method, which change we're generally not supposed to do once a method is established for an article, but no one has reverted, complained, asked, or said anything about it, so I guess no other editor on that page minds very much. But the method exists, so I suppose it's good enough for WP:CITE as a third, fourth, or n method. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:25, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

You're probably thinking of the {{Ref}} family of templates (see documentation there). Those templates predated the introduction of the Cite extension which introduced support for the <Ref> tag (See WP:FOOT). Those templates are still used in some articles. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:47, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's it. I found the article I had edited. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:01, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

{{Ref}}/{{Note}} creates a footnote, so it doesn't represent a counter example to SlimVirgin's observation that the only inline citation styles are footnotes or parenthetical references. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:10, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I think we need to stick with the purely descriptive "most popular" language. It is indisputably accurate.

Nick, I've also (recently, even) seen hand-typed, non-clickable/non-ref tagged footnoted numbers. I don't recommend it—actually, I recommend against it—but it is certainly done on occasion, and if you're not hung up on having every single footnote in numeric order, it's not even very difficult to maintain as the article gets expanded. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:39, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Can you link to that example?

I think we should be careful not to veer too far in the direction of anything goes. We don't require per policy that people avoid spelling mistakes, but we do fix them when we see them. SlimVirgin 05:55, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Manually numbered footnotes would be acceptable if there were only one author, but that is just what Misplaced Pages is not about; for collaboration, auto-numbering of references is vital. — Robert Greer (talk) 16:27, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Manually numbered footntes are also footnotes, and still don't represent a counter example. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:10, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Standardization

The underlying issue here is standardization.Standardization has both positive effects and negative effects. Among the positive effects are

1. Standardization shortens learning curve for new editors. It simplifies the documentation and gives new editors clear directions.
2. Standardization helps bots and other editors to find typos and minor errors and correct them. Articles with unusual citation methods tend to be loaded with mistakes (See, for example {{wikicite}}, where I corrected over 1,000 articles with faulty wikilinks, leaving only 100 articles that used the template correctly.)

Among the negative effects are:

1. Standardization stifles innovation. New citation mothods are, by definition, non-standard. See list defined references, {{sfn}} or {{vcite book}}, all of which are "non-standard" but all of which are (arguably) "better" in some way.
2. Standardization invites edit-warring. There are editors who hate certain citation methods and other editors who love them. These editors have, in the past, caused needless strife that does not help the project. The only way to keep these editors in check is to make it clear from the start that you can't change citation methods without consensus.

I think I am just scratching the surface of this issue. Perhaps an essay would be a good place to collect these arguments.

Standardization, out in the article space, always means changing an article from an unpopular style to a popular style, and, as the guideline should point out at every turn, this is a dangerous practice that can lead to trouble and should only be carried out with caution.

(My own view is that we should eliminate (1) truly unusual citation styles (used in less than 500 articles) that are (2) damaged by neglect and (3) clearly are not an "innovation" in any sense. This includes things like unnecessary use of <cite> spans, {{harvrefcol}}, unnecessary use of {{Ref}}/{{Note}}, unnecessary use of |Ref= in {{cite *}} templates and many other, weirder things that are floating around. There are tens of thousands of articles with broken and badly formatted citations that use these methods. I think this kind of maintenance should not be controversial, and is the only kind of standardization which makes sense. Otherwise, we should only document the most popular styles and try to document innovations as soon as they are stable. I believe this is what this guideline does.)

Back on topic and with all this reasoning in the background, I think that this guideline should include the observation that there are really only two (stable, reliable, popular) inline citation styles: parenthetical referencing and footnotes. This shortens the learning the curve and is unlikely to cause edit warring. If there are editors who hate both parenthetical referencing and footnotes, we should document that. If someone can find an innovation that isn't one of these styles, we should document that. However, I don't believe there is any such innovation and I don't believe there are any such editors. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:10, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Couple of minor edits

Made a couple of minor edits that I think improve sentence flow. It's Ok if others disagree. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clipjoint (talk • contribs) 22:29, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Same reference used multiple times, guideline?

MediaWiki obviously has this nice feature that a reference that is used more than once can be named, which means if you cite <ref>Miller (2000), p. 100.</ref> more than once, you can name it <ref name="Miller 2000 p. 100" />, to avoid a bunch of references that look the same. If it detects multiple identical refs, WP:AWB automatically applies this as a general fix. The question now is whether this is based on a MOS guideline, because after applying this here, User:Hegvald reverted it. Who's right? —bender235 (talk) 13:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Since there is no preferred citation style, whoever edits first sets the style. Changes can be discussed per WP:BRD. Your edit summary was rather misleading. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  14:42, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

To quote WP:FOOT, "the use of named footnotes ... is a matter for editorial judgment; some editors do repeat the entire footnote, in case rearrangement of the text removes the first note, or places it after a blank note (previously, the note had to be defined prior to use, although that is no longer the case)." Neither style is preferred; if there's disagreement about which style is more appropriate for the article, it should be discussed on the talk page. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:23, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

AWB is supposed to only add new names to references when there are existing named references. So the fact that it added them here seems to be a bug in AWB. I filed a bug report about that. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:09, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Some styling questions

I would be grateful for precedents for following practices (or comment that they would not conflict established WP "official" or accepted style). These measures would make it MUCH easier to refer to WP articles in non-WP publications. (1) State, in the body of the article, the relevance of every item in the "Further reading" list to the subject of the article, and provide citation number to main bibliography unless this would become too long, in which case make secondary bibliography using {{Reflist}}. (2) Number the items in lists instead of using bullets, particularly when there are several, as in Edward Elgar. (3) Put a few (selected) references to biographies, obituaries, photograph collections, etc. at end of opening sentence in article about a person as in User:Michael P. Barnett/style example contrasted with William Bernbach (this suggestion resembles practice in old style hard copy Wilson indexes). A variant of this is now in William Anderson, artist. I would only do this when it led to just a few references, and not when there is a Biography section covering entire life immediately after opening sentence, as for Edward Elgar Michael P. Barnett (talk) 17:51, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

"Established style", needs clarification

WP:CITEHOW says:

"You should follow the style already established in an article if it has one; where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected."

Now where and when does this apply? As far as I understood it this is a rule-of-thumb for disputes in which person A changes the citation style, person B reverts it, and both end up in lengthy discussion (or worse, like edit war). In my opinion, in those cases WP:CITEHOW applies, ending the dispute by keeping the "established style". But how about person A's original modification in case of no opposition? Is this permitted (per WP:BRD), or is it prohibited (per "the established style is cemented for all eternity, no one is allowed ever to change it again")? Does person A violate WP:CITEHOW by changing the style in the first place, or is this permitted as long as he/she doesn't start an edit war, or violating WP:3RR? —bender235 (talk) 23:52, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

(This is related to the section I started below.) My opinion, based on following this page, the MOS, and arbcom decisions, is that editors should not make large numbers of stylistic changes from one MOS-approoved style to another. This is the same as the principle behind WP:ENGVAR: when there is no broad agreement that one style is preferable over another, the established style should just be left as it is.

It can be appropriate to change styles on rare occasions, such as during FA reviews, when there is clear consensus among the article's active editors that a certain style is preferable. But these situations are about specific articles that are being heavily edited for some reason. Articles that have been stable with an established style shouldn't be changed just for the sake of moving to a different optional style, and in particular editors who have never edited an article shouldn't do so just to switch from one MOS-approved style to another. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:55, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with CBM. My opinion is that it would be disruptive for A to make a habit of changing the citation style in articles (particularly when they have not significantly contributed to the articles), regardless of whether B fails to object. People are different, and some couldn't care if another editor changed citation or other styles, while others would be highly irritated. I think editors and guidelines should bear that difference in mind, and people should not routinely change articles in ways that are essentially invisible to a reader. If A becomes interested in some article and really wants to change the citation style, I would suggest posting on the talk page and waiting at least three days. Johnuniq (talk) 01:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

References template vs. reflist tag

Recently, my watchlist has exploded with multiple editors who change the way footnotes are displayed on large numbers of articles, by changing <references> to {{reflist}} and/or changing the column count of the {{reflist}} template. For an example of the scale of editing I'm talking about, see these contribs and search for the word "references" in the edit summaries there. I don't want to pick on that editor, who is not the only one doing this.

It has always been the case in the past that no particular style for displaying footnotes was recommended by the style guides, and so editors of each article could choose the style they wanted. This page and the main MOS discourage editors from going around changing articles from one style to another based on personal taste.

The issue of whether the usage of {{reflist}} should be standardized has been discussed at Template talk:Reflist recently, but relatively editors follow that talk page. One outcome of the discussion was that several editors disliked that allowed wider screens to show more columns, instead of always showing 2 columns. But that change, away from a fixed column count, is one of the changes I keep seeing on my watchlist (example).

I want to post here to get a broader range of opinions. Are changes like the ones I linked above appropriate? — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

JFYI: This is directly connected to the entry above. There are three questions that need to be adressed:

1. Is replacing {{Reflist}} with {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}} actually a "change of citation style"?
2. Does BOLD, revert, discuss cover these kinds of changes?
3. see section above.

—bender235 (talk) 00:55, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It is certainly a chagne of style: it changes how the footnotes are displayed. If it was not a change, why make it?

Historically, BRD has not been construed to cover stylistic changes, such as citation styles and WP:ENGVAR, particularly not when the changes are made to hundreds of independent articles. Instead, the rule of thumb has been to maintain the established style. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The term "citation style" usually refers to things like APA style or MLA style. Footnote font size or columns are not what I consider part of the "citation style".

And in my opinion, the rule-of-thumb that says "keep the established style" applies if, and only if there's a lengthy dispute (e.g. edit war) that needs to be settled. But starting the debate by being bold and changing the citation style does not, in my mind, constitute a violation of any Misplaced Pages rule. —bender235 (talk) 01:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this "argument" is one that should be settled by vote. I am with bender235 in thinking that this kind of edit does contribute to the article. Some reference lists are just too long for there to be a long line to arduously scroll down, therefore splitting the column into 2 is the best idea. It is not a style change based on solely my opinion (if it could be called stylistic, I think it's more practical than preferential), the greater majority of people's screens are large enough to easily contain two or three columns. User:Thecheesykid, Talk to the hand...! Or my user talk page...

(Just to underscore that editors disagree about this) I, for one, prefer to see my references in one column, because it makes it easier to pick out the the authors' name running down the far left sode. In fact, if it were possible, I would prefer that they didn't "wrap" at all. Multiple columns are just too dense. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk)

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