Help talk:Citation Style 1

Automatic refname for Visual Editor

Discuss at meta:Talk:WMDE Technical Wishes/References/VisualEditor automatic reference names

I happened to see meta:WMDE Technical Wishes/References/VisualEditor automatic reference names. They are in the process of automating the refname that they will use for footnotes of the form <ref>{{cite *}}</ref>. They are considering several options and one of them is to "ask each wiki" for a "defined set of rules".

There are two problems with that. (1) How are they going "ask"? (2) There are a lot of exceptions and complications to those rules and new problems are discovered all the time (See {{sfn/doc#Possible issues with author-date link}}). It occurred to me that you all here at CS 1 have already solved all those problems in order to make the CITEREF anchor. We have the code to take the parameters of almost any citation template and create a unique name. And we have work-arounds to use if that fails.

I think it would be better, easier and more robust if the visual editor called a template to make the refname, so that the good people here at CS 1 could create refnames using the technology we already have to create anchors.

They closed the discussion 4 days ago, but I pitched this idea in a Reply:

EDIT: Please see complete proposal at User:CharlesGillingham/Drafts/A Proposal for the Visual Editors' ref names

The visual editor should call a template to get the refname. Each wiki could define their own version if they so choose.

Given citation template with these parameters:

{{cite something|...parameters...}}

The visual editor creates this footnote:

<ref name={{VE-REFNAME|footnote-number=n|template = cite something | parameters}}>{{cite somthing|parameters}}</ref>

And you create a default VE-REFNAME that does whatever you're doing now for refnames.

This way, implementation and maintenance are all managed by the wiki, similar to option (2). It's less work for you all, it allows local wikis to handle maintenance (and with citations, there are hundreds of odd cases see Wikipedia:Tempate:sfn/doc. You can't just grab a field.) and it lets the wiki decide when to roll it out.

Think about it.

I'm not sure if it's too late for them to look at my suggestion. I hope not, because I am sure it is the right answer. If you can think of any way to help me pitch it, I would appreciate it.

Regardless of what you think of my idea, we should all be paying attention to what they do at the visual editor, because that will become the defacto standard for Wikipedia. ---- CharlesTGillingham (talk) 03:28, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Nardog, I hope it's fine to ping you for thoughts. I think the script User:Nardog/RefRenamer already uses the template parameters, but I am often wrong about things, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:20, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

I've left a response on meta , I don't think creating a new template for generating reference names is a good idea, it makes the wikitext more cluttered and I fail to see how it's less work. Our proposal would allow wikis to define individual patterns for autogenerated ref names for all of their (citation) templates. We won't "ask" wikis, we'll likely implement a mechanism allowing communities to define their preferred patterns (including possible combinations of template parameters / "fallback chains") via TemplateData. Wikis will also be able to define their own naming scheme for references that don't use a template (or only use templates without a defined auto-name pattern). That way wikis could also choose to stick with the current names (<ref name=":0">) or any other default name of their choosing if they dislike the upcoming improvements. --Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 07:23, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Before you judge, consider my complete proposal, which I've prepared here: User:CharlesGillingham/Drafts/A Proposal for the Visual Editors' ref names. I need to know how where I should propose it.

In answer to your arguments made in the paragraph above:

• Clutter: see the proposal. The ref name constructor is subst:'d so there's no clutter.
• "Fail to see there is less work". There is literally almost no work for Visual Editor team. (Except sunk costs.)On the CS 1 side, the only work is adapting the CITEREF code to return the part of the anchor that comes after "CITEREF". Should be very easy. All the difficult work of catching the odd cases is already done.
• This is not a different proposal. I am describing efficient method to "implement a mechanism allowing communities to define their preferred patterns" Protocol/Delegate is the right software design pattern for this problem. (I am also arguing that this is all you need.)
• The CITEREF code already implements "possible combinations of template parameters / "fallback chains"". You should not try to duplicate this effort. It turns out to be quite complicated, as the number of exceptions and special cases is large. CITEREF has had twenty years to work through all these problems.
• It creates more work for the CS 1 people to specify "possible combinations of template parameters" in TemplateData. It's easier just to give you the name they already have.

The problem of selecting a ref name is already solved here at CS 1. The solution is complete and robust, well tested for over 20 years. And going forward, CS 1 is able to fix problems and apply solutions much faster than Meta-Wiki. It's better to give control of the ref name to these people.

Cheers. ---- CharlesTGillingham (talk) 16:35, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

I still don't see why your idea is simpler than just allowing community members to add an additional line in TemplateData of {{Cite book}}, {{Cite journal}} etc. that tells VE to combine the author/last and data parameters to create the reference name (or whichever parameter(s) each community prefers). Keep in mind that the solution needs to work across all wikis (many of them use templates which are less advanced than enwiki's CS1 templates) – and also for non-CS1 templates used within references. Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 18:04, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

It's simpler to let CS-1 supply the ref-name. It's one "additional line in the TemplateData", and it handles every possible case, for this wiki and every other.

Here's a good example. Suppose the template has "|date" and no "|year". You want parse the date field to get the year. There are a dozen ways to write a date, so that's some code.

And it turns out that's a thing that you need, because in 7 million articles there's going to be several where two authors have the same last name and the article never uses "|year" just "|date", and there's going to be a refname conflict in that article, and somebody's going to post on this page about the problem and so on, and people here will tell them how to work around it. And they might ask Meta-Wiki to fix it.

How would this get fixed? Does Meta-Wiki fix it? Do CS 1 people specify that code with "template parameters"? How do they use "template parameters" to specify an algorithm? I'm not sure what that looks like.

But here's the thing: somebody fixed the date-and-no-year problem a long time ago for CITEREF. (Was it Gadget? I think so.) If we let CS 1 tell Meta-Wiki the ref-name like I'm suggesting, then this (and a dozen other things) are all fixed. Meta-Wiki doesn't have to bother learning what all these cases were and how they were fixed. They don't have to fix them. They only have to implement one thing: asking CS 1 for the name of a function that supplies the ref-name. That's one (and only one) "additional line in the template data". That's dead simple for Meta-Wiki. It's also dead simple for CS 1, because they already have the code with all the fixes.

This is just one example, but the point is this: CS 1 is better equipped to deliver ref-name than Meta-Wiki, for several reasons. ---- CharlesTGillingham (talk) 20:59, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Is the Visual Editor still being maintained? I haven't seen an update for a long time. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:28, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Default ref-names for CS 1 templates (again)

Discuss at meta:Talk:WMDE Technical Wishes/References/VisualEditor automatic reference names

I've posted a detailed argument here:

• en:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Ref names produced for citations in the visual editor

And also an abbreviated version here:

• m:Talk:WMDE Technical Wishes/References/VisualEditor automatic reference names#CS 1 should provide the default ref name for CS 1 templates

@Nardog: Notice that I've downgraded/clarified the proposal to producing the default ref names for CS 1. Please view this as an extension what you're already doing; it's just "allowing community members to add an additional line in TemplateData", as you said. It doesn't conflict or undo anything you're already doing. It's just a way for the visual editor to take advantage of a very strong code base and documentation that already exists. ---- CharlesTGillingham (talk) 12:43, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

No such page as mw:Talk:WMDE Technical Wishes/References/VisualEditor automatic reference names.

cs1|2 has no control over what visual editor does. This is probably the wrong venue for whatever it is that you are proposing.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:35, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Well, I'm trying to convince them to allow us to set the refname with a template. I they do that, then we'll have to write that template, so it's relevant to the people here. ---- CharlesTGillingham (talk) 21:16, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Fixed the link. ---- CharlesTGillingham (talk) 21:42, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

"allow us to set the refname with a template" yuck. No. No no no no nonononono no no no. Whatever solution you think this is, it is much worse than whatever WMDE will come up with. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:27, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

doi-inactive messages

How do you suppress these? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:25, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

You can run Citation bot. If the DOI is active, |doi-broken-date= will be removed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:07, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Replace repeating em dashes generated by the mask parameters with two‐ and three‐em dashes

Currently, a parameter like author-mask = 3 will generate three repeating em dashes (———). Since Unicode actually includes a three‐em dash (⸻) as well as a two‐em dash (⸺), I believe it would be better to use these seamless characters whenever possible, instead of using single em dashes with noticeable gaps. This could either be achieved by checking if the number is evenly divisible by 3 or 2 respectively (prioritizing the smallest amount of gaps for larger numbers), or by adding special exceptions for 3 and 2 only. VulpesVulpes42 (talk) 18:06, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Hard oppose. These are obscure characters. People will search for mdashes and they'll expect to find the masks. Having a special case for 2 or 3 mdashes is editor-hostile. MOS:SUP explains this in the context of superscript/subscript, but it's basically the same thing here except for dashes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:19, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

The physical width of dashes (of whatever kind) varies with many factors. Operating system, installed fonts, browser, skin. Not to mention the user settings for all of these. For me, a row of three em-dashes has no gaps. Also, the claimed three-em dash is noticeably narrower than the row of three em-dashes: the former is 26px wide, the latter 39px (3 * 13px). That two‐em dash is 20px wide - half the width of the row of three. YMMV, as they say. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:45, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Module:Citation/CS1/Date_validation posibble bug

there is possible bug Module:Citation/CS1/Date_validation#L-727 check_date() return only 2 values so COinS_date will be nil, another thing COinS_date is not used variable. حبيشان (talk) 17:31, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Not really a bug, just inert leftovers from previous versions. The module works as it should. But, yeah, fixed in the sandbox I think. I know that there are other like leftovers in the module suite which it is my intention to fix before the next update – which I should probably do soon...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:26, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Cite book: Year of publication

Year of publication states "Year of the source being referenced" Shouldn't this be "Year of source"/"Year of writing" or something like this?

Publication date seems to already be used for date when something is published...I think cite book should be clearer about which fields are referring to Publication, and which fields are referring to Writing Lcporschen (talk) 07:36, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

I've never understood why |publication-date= exists, |date= should be used for publication date and |orig-date= for original date. It seems overly complex to have a third field that needlessly complicates things. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:56, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Since at least April 2020, I have believed that |publication-date= should go away (here). Similarly, I hold that |publication-place= should go away. There have been several discussions on this topic which are collected at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 86 § place, when publication-place is redundant with work.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:04, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Agree, both simply confuse the matter and are redundant. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:24, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Can it not be useful if there are several editions or versions of a work? |date= for the year of the edition quoted, |orig-date= for the 1st edition, |publication-date= for the publication date if it is a later re-edition, publication in another series etc. Keriluamox (talk) 16:51, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

References exist for verification, you only need to give details of the work you have not it's publication history. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:15, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Taking that argument to the extreme, the sole ISBN would suffice. I find it useful to give some information about the work. Dating a 1900 work from 2020 because that’s the edition used feels off, if not slightly misleading. Keriluamox (talk) 06:49, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Take Crime and Punishment or many other books from around that time. They single volume is different than when the installment was published. More so light novels which are often written in installments on a website, then bought and printed by a publisher. Given that many books take time to publish, especially anthologies, having all three are useful. date is for the creation, orig-date is for when it was originally released, and publication-date is for when this exact publication was made. Jerod Lycett (talk) 06:30, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

This is about the <skeptical air quotes>documentation</skeptical air quotes> at Template:Cite book § TemplateData? The template's actual documentation for |publication-date= is at Template:Cite book § Date. The template data are not protected so if you think that it can be improved, please improve it.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:04, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

It's actually at Template:Cite book#Publisher, or more specifically, Template:Cite book#csdoc_publication-date. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:31, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested: |publication-date= is mainly for non-daily periodicals where the cover date is often later than the date when the periodical goes on sale. For example, a magazine with cover date August 2026 might be on sale already. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:01, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

In taxonomy, the date when a book or journal was first published can be very important to establish precedence. For various reasons the year/date on the title page is not always the year/date when the work was first distributed. In such cases I use date= for the date on the title page and publication-date= for the date when the work was first distributed. - Aa77zz (talk) 21:23, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

How do you know when it was first distributed? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:05, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Url-access

(Conversation copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab). Please add al further conversation here.)

Hey, I have an idea for a modification to the various citation templates, but i have NO clue what I'm doing when it comes to template editing.

One parameter is url-access, which is used to indicate wether a link is free to access or not, shown by various little padlock icons. Currently, the only three options for the parameter are "subscription", "registration", and "limited." While the last one, "limited," is kind of vague, I'm not going to get into that at the moment. I would, however, like to suggest the addition of a new category, for when you can make one-time purchase to get access to that specific article/issue/whatever, without having to set up a recurring subscription. Perhaps it would be called purchase or smthng. Commandant Quacks-a-lot (talk) 23:15, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

When there is a purchase option there is also usually a subscription option. But may bot be the other way round. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:20, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

You are absolutely right, that's often the case, although I've encountered a lot of science paper repositories and various "other things" that only give a purchase option. While not super common, it's at least often enough that I think it would warrant an additional parameter. Commandant Quacks-a-lot (talk) 23:55, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

That's why the DOI access options exist. They're complementary to the URL access ones, because journals tend to be weird. (And owned by Elsevier.) Jerod Lycett (talk) 06:21, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Commandant Quacks-a-lot (talk) 23:09, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Subscription and pay means the same thing. Paying for one article or paying for the entire journal is really up to you. This is an effectively meaningless distinction. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:48, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Not really, there's people who may be more willing to do a one-time payment to access something than a recurring subscription. We could perhaps rename the param to say "payment required" or something to make it more clear that it means both. Some things only have one option or the other (for example, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive is one-time-purchase only, no subscription option, and it's a helpful resource). Commandant Quacks-a-lot (talk) 13:05, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

URL error false positive?

Trying to add the following citation, and it’s giving a URL error… any ideas why?

[www.worldaerodata.com/wad.cgi?airport=OSDZ "Airport information for OSDZ"]. DAFIF. Retrieved 1 October 2006. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)

Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:16, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

http:// :-) Keriluamox (talk) 20:18, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

I thought I had added that… I’m a numbskull! Merci! Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:21, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Well, // at the very least. You only need the http: if the website can't handle https:. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:37, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Either way I’m a numpty for missing that! I thought I’d tried adding HTTPS, but obviously didn’t… Danners430 _{tweaks made} 17:41, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Proxy detection maintenance category?

In https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henna_ceremony&diff=next&oldid=1365166895, the proxy

> https://www-jstor-org.northernkentuckyuniversity.idm.oclc.org/stable/40326803 is fixed to > https://www.jstor.org/stable/40326803

A maintenance category that detects urls with "idm.oclc.org" in them to facilitate this cleanup would be hugely helpful.

@Trappist the monk: thoughts? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:18, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps. If we are to believe this search there are fewer than 30 articles with that sort of url.

We might want to expand whatever category we create to include other urls. For example, I've been wondering about the citeseerx urls in cs1|2 templates that exist without alternate identifiers or archive snapshots so that human editors can remove or replace them.

There is no real requirement to share a common category but because the detection code would likely be a single function having that function fill a single category would be easier. At the moment, I am unable to conjure a name for a combined category...

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:55, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Well those are for JSTOR urls that are proxied. There's many others that end in idm.oclc.org. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:58, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Right. Still, not that many (~260). At this writing, 81 of those are wikipedia library urls which should already be caught in Category:CS1 errors: URL.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:59, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm sending Citation bot on them, there were closer to 400 earlier. The point of that category would be that it's bot-able, like the others in User:Headbomb/Sandbox#Bot-assisted cleanup. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:05, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

In the sandbox:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |url=https://www-jstor-org.northernkentuckyuniversity.idm.oclc.org/stable/40326803}}

Title.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: miscellaneous url (link)

'proper' urls ignored:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40326803}}

Title.

two of the 'old' format citeseerx urls caught:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/doc/10.1.1.595.6890}}

Title.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: miscellaneous url (link)

{{cite book/new |title=Title |url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/10.1.1.595.6890}}

Title.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: miscellaneous url (link)

but the 'new' format url is ignored because the host's redirection to archive.org appears to work more often than not:

{{cite book |title=Title |url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=9d88b8fc1ba4f542267c159f037aac03ff933931}}

Title.

wikipedia library urls ignored by the new test but caught by a more specialized test:

{{cite book/new |title=Title |url=https://www-jstor-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/stable/40326803}}

Title. {{cite book}}: Wikipedia Library link in |url= (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:10, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

"Cite dictionary" not mentioned

The side panel "Citation Style 1 templates" does not mention "Cite dictionary" as an option. Please add it.
(See the edit history of "Privileged altar" if you want to know why I'm asking.) ~2026-32444-59 (talk) 05:45, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

{{cite dictionary}} is a redirect to {{cite encyclopedia}}. Jerod Lycett (talk) 06:34, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

@Jerodlycett Yes, but people who aren't very familiar with the intricacies of Wikipedia (such as me) probably won't know that. I totally removed the dictionary-entry value from a reference (because it was being coded as work= and causing an error), because I didn't know "cite dictionary" existed. I looked in the Help (which is quite convoluted) and didn't find it. The same could will happen to other editors. This is the obvious place to provide this help. ~2026-32444-59 (talk) 07:44, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Cite archive params 'date' and 'type' not rendered

Moved to Template talk:Cite archive § Cite archive params 'date' and 'type' not rendered

 – {{cite archive}} is not a cs1|2 template

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:40, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Journal with ISBN / ISBN with Journal tracking category

This would help deal with cases like this.

Where

• {{Cite journal |last1=Fricke |first1=Burkhard |year=1975 |title=Superheavy elements: a prediction of their chemical and physical properties |journal=Recent Impact of Physics on Inorganic Chemistry |volume=21 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/recentimpactofph0000unse/page/89 89–144] |doi=10.1007/BFb0116498 |url=https://archive.org/details/recentimpactofph0000unse/page/89 |access-date=4 October 2013 |series=Structure and Bonding |isbn=978-3-540-07109-9 }}

• Fricke, Burkhard (1975). "Superheavy elements: a prediction of their chemical and physical properties". Recent Impact of Physics on Inorganic Chemistry. Structure and Bonding. 21: 89–144. doi:10.1007/BFb0116498. ISBN 978-3-540-07109-9. Retrieved 4 October 2013.

Should be converted to

• {{Cite book |last1=Fricke |first1=Burkhard |title=Recent Impact of Physics on Inorganic Chemistry |chapter=Superheavy elements a prediction of their chemical and physical properties |series=Structure and Bonding |year=1975 |volume=21 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/recentimpactofph0000unse/page/89 89–144] |doi=10.1007/BFb0116498 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/recentimpactofph0000unse/page/89 |access-date=4 October 2013 |isbn=978-3-540-07109-9 }}

• Fricke, Burkhard (1975). "Superheavy elements a prediction of their chemical and physical properties". Recent Impact of Physics on Inorganic Chemistry. Structure and Bonding. Vol. 21. pp. 89–144. doi:10.1007/BFb0116498. ISBN 978-3-540-07109-9. Retrieved 4 October 2013.

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:18, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

This is a variant of the test that fills Category:CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN. In the sandbox I have extended that test to look for |isbn= in the various periodical templates:

• {{cite journal}} – ~12700 articles (search times out)
• {{cite magazine}} – ~900 articles
• {{cite news}} – ~2100 articles (search times out)
• {{cite web}} – ~3100 articles (search times out)

The test for these periodical templates categorizes to Category:CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN:

• {{cite journal/new |title=Title |work=Journal |isbn=9780515058482}}

  "Title". Journal. ISBN 9780515058482.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)

• {{cite magazine/new |title=Title |work=Magazine |isbn=9780515058482}}

  "Title". Magazine. ISBN 9780515058482.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)

• {{cite news/new |title=Title |work=Newspaper |isbn=9780515058482}}

  "Title". Newspaper. ISBN 9780515058482.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)

• {{cite web/new |title=Title |work=Website |isbn=9780515058482 |url=//example.com}}

  "Title". Website. ISBN 9780515058482.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)

and to show that the original test still works

• {{citation/new |title=Title |work=Work |isbn=9780515058482}}

  "Title", Work, ISBN 9780515058482{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:53, 24 July 2026 (UTC)