Wikipedia talk:Citing sources

Talk:Donald Trump and using WP:LOCALCON to disallow citation archives

The fine folks over at Talk:Donald Trump currently have a "Current consensus" item on their talk page that disallows including archive URLs for citations that aren't dead (25. Do not add web archives to cited sources which are not dead. (Dec 2017, March 2018)). This runs counter to this guideline, specifically WP:DEADREF, which seems to suggest that it's better to preventatively archive pages than to wait for them to be dead and hope that an archived copy is available (this guideline also notes that even if a link doesn't necessarily die, the content of the link can change and make the source unsuitable for statements it is used to support). My gut says to simply strike that item as a clear WP:LOCALCON and direct those editors here to make their case for an exception, but I wanted to see what the feeling was here before proceeding. Also relevant is this closed discussion: Special:Permalink/1197984238#Reversion_of_archives. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:07, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

You know that it is entirely possible to "preventatively archive pages" without pushing the archive link into Wikipedia, right? Just tell archive.org to archive the page. Then, if you ever need it, there it is on archive.org waiting for you. If you don't yet need it, what is the point of keeping a prematurely frozen archive link here, when archive.org will keep track of all the archived versions that it has and let you choose which one you want when you want it?

I would suggest that, to the extent that WP:DEADREF suggests copying the archive link here rather than merely making an archived copy, that language should be changed. But I note that the actual language of DEADREF is merely to consider making an archived copy; the actual language suggesting copying it here is in WP:ARCHIVEEARLY which does not even have the status of a Wikipedia guideline. Therefore, there is nothing for LOCALCON to be violating.

As for why it can be a bad idea to copy the links here: because sources may still be in flux and the editors may prefer readers to see the current version than an old frozen version. This may be especially true for topics in current politics. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:52, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) I was about to suggest something similar, i.e. making sure archives exist without actually adding them (if that's possible). Primefac (talk) 07:57, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:DEADREF links to a section titled Preventing and repairing dead links, which is kind of where I got the impression it was more than simply a suggestion (and as to WP:ARCHIVEEARLY, it is literally tagged as a how-to guide). I agree it's possible to create an archive and not link it, but this still places the burden on future editors/readers to find a revision of the page that supports the statement being cited which can be problematic if a source changes (as you note for political content, this can happen frequently). I've also always viewed citations as a point-in-time thing when it comes to people/events, so the idea that an archive link might point to an "old" version is a feature, not a bug. The reasons given at Talk:Donald Trump all seemed to revolve around bloating of the page size which seems like a technical concern that shouldn't be getting used as a means to stifle page development. —Locke Cole • t • c 08:08, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

So your position is that this guideline forces editors to use frozen versions of sources rather than allowing sources to be dynamic? Instead, that seems to me to be the kind of content-based editorial decision that a local consensus is entirely appropriate for. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:30, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

*sigh* If the live source changes after a statement is written, the frozen archive can be used to verify the source as it was originally seen... Nothing is being "forced", I'm just stating plainly that it's better behavior for editors to preserve their sources as they write rather than have to go through archives for potentially years to find the source that originally said something if the source ended up being dynamic/changing. Regardless of that, I'm concerned that we're recommending preventing dead links here in this guideline and a page has taken it upon itself to wholly disallow this good and desirable behavior. I'll again point to Special:Permalink/1197984238#Reversion_of_archives, where an editor was basically hit with a hammer over this and their response was about as good as you'd expect (I am never touching this article again). Do we really want individual pages to unilaterally decide these guidelines are irrelevant and drive off productive editors doing what we're suggesting? —Locke Cole • t • c 18:44, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

"disallows including archive URLs for citations that aren't dead" – Good. It's not "good and desirable behavior". It's code bloat that we don't need, and additional cite-by-cite verbiage and link confusion that the reader doesn't need. Removing that cruft does nothing whatsoever to "stifle page development". It's entirely sufficient to have IA archive something while you cite it, and just not add to Wikipedia the archive-url that we do not presently need. If linkrot happens for a particular citation, the add it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:01, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

I think the theory is that if the archive links are added now, then they will less likely to be archive links to 404 pages (thus requiring manual intervention to find the correct one, rather than just using the most recent). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:33, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand how you think that changing Wikipedia to point to an archive link now, rather than merely telling the archive to make a copy but then only using that copy later when it is needed, would have any effect on what one finds at the archive link. If the archive link works, it works, and linking to it will not change that. If the archive link 404s, it 404s, and linking to it will not change that either. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:13, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

• If you make the archive link today, and you record the archive link today, then you know the content is good, and you know which archive link you need to use.
• If you make the archive link today, and sometime during the next several years, the page becomes a 404, then at some future, post-breakage date, you will have to go through multiple archived links, some of which have the desired content and some of which don't, to figure out which one actually verifies the contents (see "requiring manual intervention" in my comment above).

This is due to the structure and goals of the Internet Archive. They don't archive a URL just once. They make multiple copies at different points in time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:54, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Does WP:DEADREF not reflect the current consensus here? I honestly don't care if people here want to shoot themselves in the foot anymore, so if the thought process from @David Eppstein and @SMcCandlish is that early archiving is code bloat that we don't need or it is entirely possible to "preventatively archive pages" without pushing the archive link into Wikipedia (sic, emphasis added) then perhaps it's time to strike DEADREF or shuffle it off to a different (non-guideline) page. Sources, especially online sources, can be brittle and subject to the whims of website designers and complete site overhauls where old links die completely (and current "archives" are just "not found" pages). I don't think "code bloat" should be a concern used to undermine preventative measures to preserve sources/citations. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:45, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

DEADREF is not broken in any way, and is quite clear: When permanent links [DOIs, etc.] aren't available, consider making an archived copy of the cited document when writing the article; on-demand web archiving services such as the Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/save) or archive.today (https://archive.today) are fairly easy to use (see pre-emptive archiving). That does not say "and put the archived copy into the article before it is actually needed". All of the other material in that section, as in every single word of it, is about repairing citations with dead links.

What is broken is WP:ARCHIVEEARLY (which is part of a supplementary how-to essay, not a guideline), which someone added as their opinion and which clearly does not represent an actual consensus. It says To ensure link accessibility and stability, please consider pre-emptively adding an archive URL from an archive source such as the Internet Archive or WebCite. This practice is actually and clearly disputed, and that material should be changed, unless/until there is a firm consensus that not only is it good advice but that we actually need it despite WP:CREEP. It should instead re-state in a how-to manner what is said about this at DEADREF: create the archive on-demand today, but do not put it into the article if it is not already needed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:07, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

create the archive on-demand today, but do not put it into the article if it is not already needed —Locke Cole • t • c 17:44, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I really wish the consensus at Donald Trump were exported site-wide. I had a discussion about a month ago on the same topic at Talk:Augustus. Basically, people are still wasting their time WP:MEATBOT-ing and the results of it are extremely disruptive to editors seeking to actually improve articles rather than "maintaining" them. Ifly6 (talk) 03:42, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm struggling to see how having an archive of a citation used in our article is somehow a negative thing. I still haven't come across a convincing reason other than WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT. Which.. cool. I like an encyclopedia I can verify the information it contains through it sources, today and in the future. It kind of stuns me that anyone can defend not having archive links ready that capture sources in the state they were when they were used for a statement. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:41, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Can you explain what these drive-by archivers are doing that isn't already done automatically? Ifly6 (talk) 05:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

automatically I'm assuming you mean bot that finds dead references and attempt to produce an archive after the link has died? That's easy, see WP:DEADREF, but basically it's better to create an archive before a page goes missing (or changes substantially) than to wait until the worst has happened. If an archiving system like archive.org hasn't produced a backup, then there's no getting that source back (because it's already gone). —Locke Cole • t • c 05:45, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Bots create the archives automatically too... doing so around 24 hours after the site is added. And if you use |access-date= the bot will also choose the version closest to or before the access date if the link 404s. What is being done that isn't just drive-by archivers duplicating bot work? Ifly6 (talk) 09:45, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

What bot is doing this? —Locke Cole • t • c 15:10, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

It's all documented at Wikipedia:Link rot#Automatic archiving. There is a bot called No more 404 that archives added links. There is a bot, WP:IABOT, which monitors whether those links become dead and inserts |archive-url= when that occurs. Ifly6 (talk) 16:52, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

So... not a BOT in the WP:BOT sense but an opaque, off-wiki process that has no way of being verified? I'm still not entirely sure why people are so aggressively against pre-emptive archiving. Do you want your work to be unverifiable if a link goes stale, dead or changes? —Locke Cole • t • c 19:52, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

If the information being cited at the link source changes, then our articles need to reflect that change. Linking to “archived” (ie out of date) version of the source isn’t what we want. Indeed, an out of date source may be considered “no longer reliable.” Blueboar (talk) 20:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

That's wonderful. It sounds like something that should be addressed on an article talk page when a changed link occurs. It sounds secondary to wanting to preserve our sources so they can be verified even if they change or disappear. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:56, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

That is the opposite of how I see it. We cite a source to verify content in an article. If the information on a website changes, then it may no longer support that content. It is then necessary to either change what the article says to match the source, or find a new source to support what the article says. We need to be able to verify that the website in its previous state did indeed support the content in the article. If the original content of that website is no longer valid, then it doesn't matter whether the website is unchanged, has been updated, or is dead. We then need to assess available reliable sources to determine what the article should say. If we know that a website is likely to be updated, we should be citing an archived version of the website that supports the content of the article, rather than linking to something that is likely to stop supporting the contents. I think that in the overwhelming majority of cases, any changes to a website are likely to reduce its usefulness as a source for the contents of the article. Donald Albury 21:27, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. Suppose we write that 25 people were killed in a deadly accident, based on a source that originally reports “25 people were killed”… ok, our content is verifiable. HOWEVER, let’s say that subsequently that source amends its reporting to say “25 people were seriously injured, and 3 died”… now our content is outdated, and is no-longer verified by the source. We need to update our content. If we prematurely archive the source, we might never catch that the source corrected its information and no longer supports the “25 dead” number. Blueboar (talk) 22:06, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

There are more kinds of articles than "current events"-type articles, you understand that right? There are other reasons to have archives prepared in advance as well, not least of which is being able to confirm if a statement was ever true (for behavioral issues where an editor makes a statement, provides a source, then claims it "changed"). —Locke Cole • t • c 03:21, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Blueboar, in that unusual circumstance, both the article content and the archived link need to be updated.

The far more common circumstance is: the article gets cited, the bot adds an archive link, the original site (or at least that article) dies, and we can still see what the original article said when it existed.

On a side note, I wonder if people are really understanding each other. We're talking about the difference between these two versions:

• Regina Milanov. "Istorija ribarskog gazdinstva Ečka". Retrieved 2018-07-31.
• Regina Milanov. "Istorija ribarskog gazdinstva Ečka". Archived from the original on 2019-10-04. Retrieved 2018-07-31.

If you've got the first, and the website dies (this particular website now throws a HTTP 403 error), then you can't tell whether the website used to say something relevant without someone digging through the Internet Archive to see whether they happened to archive that page before it died. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:35, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

That article will have a thousand citations by the election. Will 1000 extra parameters and links slow the page loading? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:18, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Will 1000 extra parameters and links slow the page loading? Even if it does, it shouldn't be the basis for how we edit the project. See WP:AUM for a time when page loading was used as an excuse to try and prevent editors from creating a better encyclopedia. It's on the devs to look at things that are causing site problems and address them using technical means. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I can't see anything in policy that dictates the point either way, so editors seem to be allowed to make article by article decisions on the matter. Personally I would be pro-inclusion for the reason outlined by WhatamIdoing above, but I don't see anything that says it must be done one way or the other. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Why would we WANT to “preemptively” archive?

Perhaps I am missing something, but I don’t really understand why anyone would want to archive a citation “preemptively”. Could someone who supports doing so enlighten me? Blueboar (talk) 16:51, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Is there something at WP:DEADREF and WP:ARCHIVEEARLY you don't understand? —Locke Cole • t • c 19:45, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes… I understand using archives for dead links… but when we expect a webpage to change its content (say because it is out-of-date or incorrect) why would we want to cite an archived version? I would think we would want to cite the most up-to date version (and if necessary change OUR article content to match the up-to-date, corrected website). Blueboar (talk) 23:01, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

There's one case I know of where it's worth doing: Galactic Central hosts bibliographic details such as this which are autogenerated from a database that is updated once a quarter. When the quarterly update happens, all the URLs change, so if you were citing that page to show that Keith Laumer's The Planet Wreckers appeared in the February 1967 issue of Worlds of Tomorrow, the page will no longer contain that information. When I cite this website I usually preemptively archive it so that I don't have to go hunting for the right archive page a year later. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:11, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Blueboar, I see on a very regular basis articles with dead references that were never archived. Would it be nice if those references had been archived shortly after they were originally added to the article? Yes. Do I think it must occur? Not really. So I guess I'm not really in either of the camps discussing the issue in the main thread, but I guess from a maintenance standpoint I am pro-archive. Primefac (talk) 16:49, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

That is a good argument for triggering off-site archival of pages that you use as references. It is not an argument for using the archived copy to replace the source on Wikipedia. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:51, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Who's talking about "replacing"? The idea, I gather, is to have both live URL and archive URL listed before it's too late. Which sounds reasonable enough. Frankly, I can understand if people say "I'm too lazy for that", but I don't have the slightest idea why anyone would want to prevent others from doing it. Gawaon (talk) 18:04, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

@David Eppstein, @Gawaon Yeah, is this the reason for the attitude thus far? At no point has anyone suggested we replace functional URLs with their archive's. This is why {{cite web}} has both a |url= and |archive-url=, and only when |url-status=dead (or if |url-status= is not set) does the |archive-url= get used if it is present. If |url= is still live, simply using |url-status=live will keep |archive-url= from being shown. This is all explained in the docs at {{cite web}}. The only argument at Talk:Donald Trump appears to center around "bloat" of the page, which again, is not a reason to avoid good maintenance of one of our more popular articles. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:32, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

• Ok… I can see that there might be situations where prermptively archiving a source is helpful (thanks)… I hope people can understand why I had concerns. Perhaps we need to work up more guidance on when to do so and (perhaps more importantly) when not to do so. Blueboar (talk) 18:34, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

  To be a little more precise, it's not pre-emptive archiving that is questioned; after all, you can't make a copy in the archive once the site/page is already gone. Archiving must be done in advance, or it can't be done at all. The complaint is that the Wikipedia article is storing a link to the archive copy. I believe there are two complaints about this:

  • Depending on the parameters chosen, the existence of the archive might be shown in the (visible) references list. It won't be linked as the regular/main link, but readers will see that it exists, and some editors think that's ugly.
  • Even when it's not visible to readers, the extra URL is visible to editors in the wikitext, and some editors think that this "unnecessary" (so far) information is very inconvenient for them to work around.

  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  Those seem very weak reasons. Gawaon (talk) 07:24, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  I'm sure that all reasons held by any given individual seem strong to that particular individual. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  • Beyond the fact that you have to archive preemptively, as described, another element is that you don't necessarily know a page will get properly archived before its content completely changes to something like a redirect (as is the case with many long-running sites, at some point they change their structure and a bunch of old content essentially gets black-holed, and it's not going to be very visible to editors who added that link originally that the content is effectively gone; at least with the archive we're giving readers a fair shot of finding it without having to check for archives themselves.) I appreciate the people who hate the density of the wiki text, but there are ways around that (putting refs in the ref section at the end, for instance, rather than inline) and WP:V is a much more important principle than "it looks nicer to me without the extra text in references". Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 17:39, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

A modest proposal

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Withdrawing to see if proposed method is acceptable —Locke Cole • t • c 15:49, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

---

There appears to have been some misunderstandings above about what archiving a citation means (see WP:DEADREF for the current language and WP:ARCHIVEEARLY for the process, see WP:LINKROT for some reasons why archiving is a good idea). Just to reiterate, it does not mean replacing existing |url= with a link to Archive.org/Wayback Machine. It means filling the |archive-url= and |archive-date= parameters and setting |url-status=live for links that are not presently dead (see {{cite web}} for more details on the parameters and how they interact). While my reading was that creating such archive URLs was strongly encouraged, there appears to be a consensus that the current language does not even say that. However, what I would propose is not explicitly requiring archive links, but perhaps language here that effectively disallows individual pages from banning the practice altogether. I can't really see where having them causes any harm to our editors or our readers, and the benefits of having them far outweigh the arguments against including them.

All that being said, please indicate whether you Support including language that would forbid individual pages from creating a WP:LOCALCON to disallow archive links, or whether you would Oppose such language. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:33, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

A proposed version appears below with the addition highlighted.

To help prevent dead links, persistent identifiers are available for some sources. Some journal articles have a digital object identifier (DOI); some online newspapers and blogs, and also Wikipedia, have permalinks that are stable. When permanent links aren't available, consider making an archived copy of the cited document when writing the article; on-demand web archiving services such as the Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/save) or archive.today (https://archive.today) are fairly easy to use (see pre-emptive archiving). No page covered by this guideline may forbid including archive links in citations as described here using a local consensus.

—Locke Cole • t • c 04:33, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

!Votes

• Support as proposer for reasons stated above. I am open to alternate wording or different placement within WP:DEADREF. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:33, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Comments

• The wording is strange and I think it should be improved before we discuss this proposal much longer. WP:CONLEVEL, as I understand it, already says that a local consensus, say on a talk page, cannot override guidelines such as this one. The problem with the mentioned section, however, seems to be that it mentions "making an archived copy of the cited document" but doesn't say anything about adding a link to the reference using the |archive-url= mechanism or so. Surely it was the intent that one should do that too – after all, what would be the point of an archived copy if nobody knows where to find it? So I think a simpler fix, and more in line with the usual wording of guidelines, would be to add something like "and adding it to the relevant reference, for example using an |archive-url= parameter" after "consider making an archived copy of the cited document when writing the article". Once that's there, CONLEVEL should handle the rest and no new sentence is needed. Gawaon (talk) 19:02, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  I would support this and agree it's a cleaner approach. I would not object to closing this early and proposing your change instead. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 01:55, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  You could just try adding it to the page first and see if anyone reverts it. Maybe it'll be fine even without requiring further discussions? Gawaon (talk) 07:13, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  Done, with minor addition. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:45, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  Well, it was challenged, so I guess further discussion will be needed. Gawaon (talk) 13:19, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Nikkimaria: You don't get to revert "per talk" and not actually comment on the talk page. Why are you reverting this? —Locke Cole • t • c 16:24, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  Multiple editors raised concerns with this practice above. While I agree that your proposed addition was poorly phrased, I don't agree with the advice to just implement your new change given the previous discussion. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:28, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  Multiple editors were confused about what was being discussed apparently, believing working (non-dead) URLs would be replaced with links to Archive.org/WaybackMachine. Since that correction there has not seemingly been any push back on it. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:30, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  I don't see multiple editors conflating those situations, but do see specific objections to adding, eg the concerns about code bloat and additional parameters. I see that you disagree with those objections, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:40, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  Do you have an actual objection to this or are you simply objecting because of your interpretation of the conversation above? —Locke Cole • t • c 19:21, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  I share the concerns expressed in the conversation above. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:24, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  Which one? —Locke Cole • t • c 04:48, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  That it is appropriate to simply ensure that an archive exists if it is needed, that pre-emptive additions result in a lot of bloat, that this is a matter for local editorial consensus, and that a dead link is indicative of the need for editorial reconsideration rather than simple technical substitution. Plus, peripherally, the meatbotting is annoying. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:04, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  it is appropriate to simply ensure that an archive exists if it is needed This does nothing for future editors or readers in determining the validity of a statement if an existing source becomes dead (either temporarily or permanently). pre-emptive additions result in a lot of bloat This is irrelevant, and can be mitigated by placing citations at the end of the article and referencing them earlier (see Ridgeline High School (Washington) for an example). that this is a matter for local editorial consensus Our articles being verifiable with citations that are able to withstand sources changing or disappearing is not something up for local editorial consensus. a dead link is indicative of the need for editorial reconsideration rather than simple technical substitution And an archive can aid in finding a live version if it is a copy of a widely published paper, but without a copy of the original source to refer to for quotations, such a search becomes more problematic depending on the citation/source used and the statement needing to be cited.

  meatbotting is annoying ??? I assume you mean people doing the good work of providing archives for references or are you engaging in personal attacks?

  Is there anything else? —Locke Cole • t • c 17:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  There are benefits to creating archives pre-emptively, which is why no one AFAIK is proposing banning the practice. But there are also drawbacks, and requiring rather than simply permitting adding archivelinks pre-emptively requires engaging with those drawbacks in good faith. Instead dismissing concerns as "irrelevant" and "personal attacks" (??) weakens rather than strengthens your case. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:51, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  It hasn't been suggested that they be required, only that people doing the work not have their efforts reverted or omitted simply because of a WP:LOCALCON. If an article starts without archives, and six months, a year, or years later, someone adds them, it should not be permissible for that to be a point of editorial discussion on just that page. It's disruptive to the maintenance of a project like Wikipedia. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:58, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  If you are arguing that editors cannot choose to exclude something, you are arguing that that something is required. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:01, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  The two statements are not mutually exclusive. So, no, not required. Required would mean they needed to be added with any new or changed citation. Nobody here has proposed that. Simply acknowledging that a local consensus cannot unilaterally remove archives (or in this case, ban them outright) does not mean editors must add them. Only that they cannot remove them once added without a good reason (wrong archive, source changed, etc). —Locke Cole • t • c 18:28, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  The people who formed a local consensus to exclude archivelinks felt they had good reason to do so. If you somehow manage to ban local consensuses on this issue without making archivelinks required, they can just revert citing those reasons instead. How is that an improvement on the current situation? Nikkimaria (talk) 19:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  The people who formed a local consensus to exclude archivelinks felt they had good reason to do so. Well, you can certainly go see the good reason for yourself. I hesitate to call the reasons provided good however:

  • They appear to not understand how archive links work (some proponents of omitting them appear to believe simply having an archive at all is good, even though it may mean wading through hundreds of revisions to find the correct one (as discussed above))
  • They appear to have concern over "bloat" of the page wikitext (which can be resolved completely by formatting it to have references all at the bottom, this also makes reference/citation maintenance easier)
  • Belief that it will somehow make the page larger for downloading (hint, MediaWiki (the software that runs Wikipedia) uses gzip to compress page results on modern browsers, so while the HTML response for Donald Trump is 1.79MB, the compressed size is 317KB; Archive.org/WaybackMachine links are typically an archive.org link, followed by web and a ISO formatted date/time, then the original URI, so the major part, the original URL of the source, will be duplicated, which should compress very well; example: https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-us-rounding-turn-covid-trump-claims-1542145 vs https://web.archive.org/web/20230510211847/https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-us-rounding-turn-covid-trump-claims-1542145)

  The consensus version of Wikipedia:Citing sources encourages pre-emptively archiving. Per WP:CONLEVELS, Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. I'm very sorry that the editors at Talk:Donald Trump don't understand why we pre-emptively archive, but editors here have already made it a site-wide recommendation. The edit we were making was attempting to clarify this already existing consensus. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:20, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

• The consensus version asks editors to consider creating an archived copy, nothing more. I'm very sorry that you'd like it to be much more than it is, but it's not, plus even the version I reverted wouldn't be enough to achieve what you seem to be desperate for. And given the above, I don't think further discussion is likely to shift the needle. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:54, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

  I mean if you want to be obstinate, I can't stop you. Go with God. But if you think there's anything less than a consensus that pre-emptively archiving is a desired practice sitewide, then you're going to be sorely disappointed. Good day. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:15, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

  I also find it troubling that, even faced with the "reasons" for omitting archive links being refuted, you simply ignore that entire part of my response to focus on my reading of the text as it stands. It's almost like you don't really care if there's a reason for excluding archive links, you WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:35, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

  They appear to have concern over "bloat" of the page wikitext (which can be resolved completely by formatting it to have references all at the bottom, this also makes reference/citation maintenance easier) Re that last, a subject dear to my heart. See the case study at Killing of Michael Brown. Yes, it eliminated a lot of clutter in the prose, which is why I did it. I soon discovered its downsides, including the fact that nobody else wanted to change the way they had always done citations. I ended up spending tons of time converting their work to conform. Every day I would have a number of new citations to convert. Editors could see me doing that, and still they didn't help out. No thanks. Have a look at the wikitext to see how well the convention held up after I left (spoiler: it didn't). And there are other more obscure downsides that I could get into but won't.

  I'm very sorry that the editors at Talk:Donald Trump don't understand why we pre-emptively archive - Do you mean "pre-emptively add the archive parameters"? Those aren't the same thing. Let me reassure you that the article's editors do understand the link rot issue. You'd be surprised how much we understand. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:44, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

  I was discussing it in the sense of how Wikipedia:Citing sources talks about it. They are the same thing, on this page, because that's literally what the page is recommending be done to avoid linkrot. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:21, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  Quite remarkable that this discussion has been open for over two months and the subject article was not notified until now.[1] Heaven forbid one should facilitate opposing opinions and additional insights.

  It's quite simple. Donald Trump has historically had problems with exceeding the Post-expand include size limit, effectively breaking the article. We tried various solutions over the years, some of which helped for some period of time until the article grew more. Ultimately the article's editors decided to omit the archive parameters for sources that are not dead, and the problem has not recurred since then. The PEIS limit is 2,097,152 bytes and the most recent attempt to add the archive parameters (to 585 citations) increased the article's PEIS to 1,980,594 (94.4% of the limit). In other words, just a little more article growth, which is likely to happen soon given the current election situation, would break the article again. Things like this are precisely why guidelines are only guidelines.

  Persuade the powers-that-be to increase the PEIS limit substantially (if they have the power to do that), and I'm sure we would be happy to revisit our consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:01, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

  Tracked in Phabricator
  Task T189108
  

  I looked over the "consensus" reasons provided and PEIS was never mentioned. Looking at that further, I think it's an issue, but not as significant as it's being made out to be by you. In a revision where archives were added (Special:Permalink/1186826799) the PEIS was 1980826/2097152 bytes (94.45%). Once it was reverted (very next revision) ((Special:Permalink/1186827656), it was 1869188/2097152 bytes (89.13%). As PEIS is a technical restriction, one which hasn't changed in decades, the correct solution is to get that setting changed, not to make our articles worse. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  I looked over the "consensus" reasons provided and PEIS was never mentioned. Exactly what I previously said below. the correct solution is to get that setting changed, not to make our articles worse. Self-quote from above: Persuade the powers-that-be to increase the PEIS limit substantially (if they have the power to do that), and I'm sure we would be happy to revisit our consensus. Key word "revisit": upping the PEIS limit wouldn't guarantee a consensus change, since editors may still prioritize other factors over the avoidance of limited link rot. You and others are welcome to participate in a revisitation of the consensus at the article's talk page ("the article's editors" don't "own" the article by any means), but the issue is still subject to local consensus. All this talk about CONLEVEL appears to assume that there is a community consensus to use the archive parameters regardless of any other factors or considerations, and I'm not aware of any such community consensus (feel free to correct me, but WP rarely imposes such bright lines for anything). As I've said, guidelines are only guidelines. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:12, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  WP:CONLEVELS is that way, you're welcome to take this up with the arbitration committee. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:39, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  Belatedly reviewing the 2017 and 2018 discussions, I don't see any talk about PEIS. Editors were concerned about raw file size, download time, and code clutter. The article currently sports 837 citations, virtually all CS1. I'm apparently conflating the two issues, but the PEIS limit has in fact been a serious problem and PEIS is in fact impacted by the archive parameters. So my above argument stands. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:33, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

• Back to the beginning of this discussion: The fine folks over at Talk:Donald Trump currently have a "Current consensus" item on their talk page that disallows including archive URLs for citations that aren't dead. None of the current 837 cites at Donald Trump are dead, as proven by the last time someone "rescued 291 sources and tagged 0 as dead" on March 12, 2024, and added 57,600 bytes to the page’s 430,000 bytes. The page mostly relies on "news reporting from well-established news outlets" (WP:NEWSORG), i.e., news articles that are permanent links and routinely and repeatedly archived on the Wayback Archive. I’m fine with a bot tagging an allegedly dead link or three and adding archive-urls, although they usually turn out not to be dead and easily found under their new url. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 11:50, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

  Please read the above discussion. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:14, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  If you wanted the article's editors involved from the beginning, you should have notified us from the beginning, instead of relying on Nikkimaria to do that more than two months later.[2] Per community norms and basic ethics. Clearly, you didn't want the article's editors interfering with your agenda. Better yet, you could have raised this at the article's talk page (where the article's local consensuses are discussed) and posted a note here to bring in outside voices. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:59, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  I didn't want you involved, actually. My question was less about this specific article and more about "should articles be deciding on their own" when WP:CONLEVELS is a thing. Nothing you've said here changes that. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:34, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  I didn't want you involved, actually. Lol. Yeah, I got that. Nothing you've said here changes that. Your opinion. I think plenty of what I've said here changes that. You are free to assert your opinions in a local consensus discussion and, if you can persuade the majority, So Be It. That's how it works around here. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:02, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  That's how it works around here. Somebody better tell WP:ARBCOM that their thoughts at WP:CONLEVELS aren't relevant to the editors at Talk:Donald Trump. After all, their opinion (Where there is a global consensus to edit in a certain way, it should be respected and cannot be overruled by a local consensus) is only eleven years old and been used repeatedly in ArbCom decisions... —Locke Cole • t • c 03:09, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  I think you misunderstand the function of guidelines. As I've indicated, they are only guidelines and do not represent community consensuses that things must be done a certain way. They are one of the things to be considered in consensus discussions, not the only thing. As I've indicated, there is no community consensus that the archive parameters must be used for all live sources; that would have to be separate from the guidelines, as an RfC or something. Feel free to show me where ArbCom meant "global consensus" to be interpreted in that way.

  Again, you're free to assert your opinions in a local consensus discussion. Even if you're correct as to CONLEVEL, ArbCom, PEIS, or anything else, you still need to persuade the majority of the merits of your arguments. There are very few trump cards in Wikipedia editing. If you think other editors are too ignorant to be trusted with these decisions, you need an attitude adjustment.

  Me, I've been on the losing side of many debates where I "knew" we were in the right and the opposing side was "patently" wrong. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it gets easier with practice. I had to learn to let go and not care so damn much (and that benefited me in real life, too, so WP editing has been therapeutic for me). Welcome to Wikipedia. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:19, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Locke Cole: - Thank you for raising the PEIS limit issue at VPT, at WP:Village pump (technical)#WP:PEIS. But reading it suggests that you expect that the archive parameters will be added if the limit is increased, no questions asked. As I said previously, Key word "revisit": upping the PEIS limit wouldn't guarantee a consensus change, since editors may still prioritize other factors over the avoidance of limited link rot. You would still need to get a new local consensus after the increase. I don't wish to be accused of moving goalposts. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:03, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  WP:CONLEVELS. As we're starting to deviate into behavioral issues, I'll just open an WP:AN/I and go from there. Thank you for making it clear it's not about WP:PEIS though. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:19, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Locke Cole: Further up the page, multiple editors expressed disagreement with your interpretation of the guideline at WP:DEADREF. You commented, "There appears to have been some misunderstandings above about what archiving a citation means [...]". Are you discounting the lack of consensus for your interpretation based on the belief that dissenting editors don't understand your position? I don't think that opening a discussion at ANI about Mandruss will have any positive effect in this discussion, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 06:42, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for making it clear it's not about WP:PEIS though. That is not what I said. I said it's not only about PEIS. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:52, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  No, it's not about PEIS at all, as evidenced here. When presented with a solution to a problem, your reaction is to revert it because... you want to maintain the status quo (which runs counter to WP:CONLEVELS). Then there's the WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior exhibited directly above with this quote: Me, I've been on the losing side of many debates where I "knew" we were in the right and the opposing side was "patently" wrong. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it gets easier with practice. I had to learn to let go and not care so damn much (and that benefited me in real life, too, so WP editing has been therapeutic for me). Welcome to Wikipedia. You're not here to improve the encyclopedia. You're here to win a battle and apparently welcome people to a project that have been here longer than you. I'm not seeing how that's civil at all. Like I said, there's a reason I didn't go out of my way to solicit comments from editors at Talk:Donald Trump here. You're proving my point in spades though. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:58, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  It seems strange to accuse someone of wanting to win battles when they actually just mentioned they're used to losing debates (not battles). This is not constructive nor fair, and I suggest you drop it. Gawaon (talk) 07:14, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  What precisely is constructive about welcoming an editor who has been here longer? Or bemoaning "lost battles" with the clear insinuation being that somehow I've lost? No, I won't be dropping it. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:21, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Separate section for explanatory notes

A few comments above show resistance to having explanatory notes separate from the references that support the article text. Two points here: (1) a (very brief) survey of featured articles and (2) thoughts on technical reasons whey separate notes are desirable (is the technical argument right?)

(1) Surveyed 10 featured articles and found 2 that did not use explanatory notes in any way. The remaining 8 all had the explanatory notes separate from references.

(2) I believe that the only way to put explanatory notes in the same section as the references is with ref../ref. However, for technical reasons, you could not put any links or other markup elements in the explanatory note. The only way to reference the note (and if it is an explanatory note, it almost certainly needs a reference) is to just type it in with the rest of the note content. This is, essentially, parenthetical referencing, which is deprecated. The only way that I know to show explanatory notes without using ref.../ref is with a template such as {{efn}}, which seems to compel a separate explanatory notes section. Therefore, if explanatory notes are to be referenced, surely anything other than a separate explanatory notes section is deprecated. Does this idea hold water? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 12:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think this does hold water. See Wulfhere of Mercia for a featured article with explanatory notes in amongst the footnotes, and with embedded links. (I'm not sure why you think markup is not possible in a reference.) You've posted many times over the last few weeks, arguing for or against certain citation formats. I don't think the results of those discussions have been productive, and it's worth repeating that the point of CITEVAR is almost entirely to avoid having such discussions in the first place, because people have such strong opinions about citation formats (as you've seen) that it's almost never productive to do so. What's your ultimate goal here? To get rid of CITEVAR? To deprecate one or more currently acceptable formats? If so I think you are most unlikely to be successful, and I doubt it's worth the time investment you're making in it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:32, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

In reverse order: My goals are (1) to try and understand exactly how the mechanics of referencing works so that we can all concentrate on article content – I regard myself as a "content" editor not a "technical" editor (2) have a referencing system that uses the technology in a way that is helpful to the reader.

Technical limitations come from (a) Template:Refn, which I now see is incorrect on not being able to link to another article within the ref../ref text.
(b) because: article text<ref>this is an explanatory note and here is its reference <ref> cited work</ref></ref>
gives: article text</ref>
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:04, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I think Cefnllys Castle#Notes demonstrates a different sort of explanatory note (especially note 2) than we see in Wulfhere of Mercia. The former example gives information forks which the reader can choose or not choose to follow, whereas the latter is really just exploring the matter of sources in more detail. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:15, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Mike Christie. None of these lengthy musings are likely to lead anywhere. Johnbod (talk) 16:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Item (2) is plain wrong. It is bad ides to put notes in the same section as references, for several reasons. And I often use {{efn}} syntax, which allows references within, see eg. Town of fools or Wise Men of Chelm. - Altenmann >talk 17:20, 15 February 2024‎ (UTC)

I think the situation in which mixing the two types is most common is when there is only one or two explanatory notes and not very many sources, either. If editors don't want to bother with separate sections in that circumstance, I don't really blame them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:58, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree, but I saw cases when the notes are, like, 50% of the text and nearly no references. But at the first glance the article looks thoroughly referenced because there are so many footnotes. In such cases I split notes and refs, just to see what is going on. - Altenmann >talk 21:22, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Note that ThoughtIdRetired is very aggressively campaigning to force a change of the note standard in talk:Vasa (ship). They've been at it at galley too. Peter ^Isotalo 20:15, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Editor changing citation style from short to long formatting.

Recently at Heidi Game, Khoa41860 changed most citations from short to long format, see these diffs. As one of those who improved the article to FA standard, my inclination is to consider this a violation of WP:CITEVAR and no real improvement to the article, but it's essentially a matter of formatting, so I'd appreciate opinions on whether it is something to keep or revert per the MOS. I don't think leaving a note on the talk page of the article would get me the informed opinions I seek on a matter of MOS, and I already have left a note on the editor's talk page to no real result. Thoughts?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:13, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Those edits are indeed harmful, full bibliographic details for every source should be given just once. Otherwise readers are confused and editors' lives are made much harder. Frankly, I'd certainly revert them. Gawaon (talk) 16:18, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Not everyone agrees that "readers are confused" by seeing the normal/full citation when they hover over a ref tag, and some of us actively disagree that "editors' lives are made much harder" by using a less familiar system (in about 1% of articles here, and almost unheard of at most other Wikipedias) that is not supported by any of the buttons in the toolbars (except maybe in WikEd, which I haven't used for years because it was so slow). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:19, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Should be. Khoa41860 (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:19, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Remove all redundant bibliographic details and only keep one please. Khoa41860 (talk) 16:51, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

update them and remove any redundants. Khoa41860 (talk) 16:51, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I have reverted to the prior version, per CITEVAR. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:55, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks. Wehwalt (talk) 17:10, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Splitting notes is an arbitrary Wikipedia-made standard with unknown consequences for readers

I believe the project has created a pretty unique and kinda unrecognizable standard for notes without actually knowing how it actually affects anyone outside the project.

First off, the terms "footnotes", "notes" and "references" tend to have artificially exact definitions here on en.wp compared to elsewhere. Outside of the project, "footnotes/notes" have nothing to do with the content of the notes, but are simply typographical terms. "Notes" are just any kind of notation that is set aside from the main text while "footnotes" are notes that are placed at the bottom of a page[3][4][5] in documents that have a page structure. "Footnotes" are distinct from "endnotes" which are placed at the end of the text. "References" is not a term specific to anything related to notes as such at all. I don't think it's appropriate that Wikipedians are using their own definitions of these terms. It makes for a very obvious hurdle to newcomers, even if they are very familiar with how to use notes from other contexts. And it can create a lot of confusion and pointless disputes simply due to misunderstanding of terms.

Secondly, using two sets of notes with a very sharp distinction between those containing any kind of explanatory text and those that only contain citations is in my experience non-existent outside Wikipedia. There's also no evidence that splitting notes up is actually beneficial to readers in any way; as far as I know, all arguments are 100% based on the opinions and observations by individual Wikipedians. On the other hand, there's a very easy argument to make that using rare or unique formatting style might unnecessarily astonish readers and distract from the reading experience.

Thirdly, there seems to be a very clear bias among experienced Wikipedians to favor solutions for notes that are supported by specific technical solutions like template:sfn and template:efn, and also to favor templates over just using plain ref-tags. Strictly speaking, it seems to be a lot easier to apply the sfn/efn system in an article than not. In my experience, it's actually quite complicated to have a single set of notes and still apply templates. So there's a situation where we're supposed to allow different formats, but in practice, only one format is actually properly supported by well-functioning templates. Also, the choice of deliberately excluding citations from the explanatory notes is a complete mystery to me. The only logic I can see in it is technical convenience; it creates a neat and tidy separation of two kind of notes, but without any known benefits to anyone actually reading the note.

And lastly, we might also a have a problem with users who have taken upon themselves to force the standard of two sets of notes on articles in general. That's technically an issue with consensus-building and user behavior, but it is definitely tied to the uncritical introduction of splitting up explanatory notes from citations.

What is sorely missing is concrete evidence of external effects. Like with all other mainspace content, notes are intended for readers. I'm all for leaving established standards in articles alone to avoid subjective bickering; I for one am not going to start campaigning for a Wikipedia-wide switch to one set of notes. But I also believe that we need to start applying a more critical view that is focused on what we actually know about how readers interact and read notes. Peter ^Isotalo 12:38, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually, explanatory notes are used only in a fairly small number of articles. Gawaon (talk) 12:42, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

User:Gawaon, is that just your impression, or do you have any hard evidence to back that up? Looking solely at Featured Articles, explanatory footnotes are actually quite common. The survey mentioned above shows 60% of a sample of 101 featured articles had a separate section for explanatory notes, whilst a further 7% had explanatory notes mixed in with the references. This sort of ratio seems to be repeatable if you look at other blocks of featured articles. I have just taken a look at another dataset of 28 featured articles and found 61% with a separate explanatory notes section and 4% with explanatory notes mixed in with references. In every instance found so far, an article with many explanatory notes has a separate notes section. Taking a good statistical look at what you actually find in featured articles is actually quite informative. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 15:30, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

The {{efn}} template reports that it is used on approximately 196,000 pages. Remsense诉 15:33, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

That's about 1 in 35 articles, if we assume (incorrectly, but perhaps not materially) that they are all used in the mainspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Statistical surveys of template usage in articles is a measurement of how Wikipedians behave. It provides no insight into what's actually helpful for readers. Peter ^Isotalo 15:40, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, but I think we need to take into account that editors who take an article to FA status have well considered opinions about how best to present the article. The opinions of other editors is also important so that an article can meet verifiability standards. Extensive explanatory notes in the references could make understanding its sources a problem – which might explain why editors tend not to do this.

If you are considering the view of Wikipedia readers, the fact that Wikimedia has around 10 billion views per month suggests that they have got used to what they find here. Many of those readers will have not read any academic book with references – some will never have been inside a library since they left school. I suggest that Wikipedia needs to align itself with other computer-based systems, and to recognise that by its own size, Wikipedia has created some of the standards that readers expect. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 16:01, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

This is 100% your own personal analysis. It's not helpful. Peter ^Isotalo 22:00, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

OK, Imma stop you there. You don't get to say we can't make our own arguments as to what is the appropriate thing to do here. Yes, we can, and should. --Trovatore (talk) 21:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

No objection to personal analyses on principle. Just saying that unless we know how layout and formatting affects readers, we shouldn't try to convince each other that one variant or the other is superior.

And unless the reference section is a a complete mess, we definitely should not swoop in and switch styles without previous engagement in an article.[6] Peter ^Isotalo 19:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

... there's a very easy argument to make that using rare or unique formatting style might unnecessarily astonish readers and distract from the reading experience.

I would like to hear you make this argument! I think "astonishment" is something of a slippery mischaracterization, even if tongue-in cheek. Reading is a very intensive activity, I don't immediately see any a priori argument why it would be confusing other than "it isn't what everyone else always does". It's not as if no one else does it, plenty of books have citation lists at the end of chapters or in footnotes on pages, and then a bibliography with full citations at the end.

Also, the choice of deliberately excluding citations from the explanatory notes is a complete mystery to me.

Agree to disagree on this one, it's simply much nicer to not have to skip back and forth over what could be a paragraph-long footnote looking at what works have been cited, and it's nicer not to trip over short-cites when I'm reading explanatory footnotes. I will agree to disagree here.

So there's a situation where we're supposed to allow different formats, but in practice, only one format is actually properly supported by well-functioning templates.

It would be nice to have more well-functioning options for different needs, I agree.

I also agree in that I would like to see some data as to which layouts readers tend to find most readable and useful at-large. Remsense诉 12:48, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't really understand this. Are you saying that people don't write notes like Badian 2009, p. 14; Goldsworthy 2006, pp. 31–32. The consul of 157 BC was Sextus Caesar; the consuls of 91 and 90 were Sextus Caesar and Lucius Caesar, respectively. ? Ifly6 (talk) 18:15, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

The argument is over whether it is better to have something like Cefnllys Castle#Notes or your example Julius Caesar#References. The Cefnllys Castle model of a separate informational notes section is the substantially more common way of providing informational notes in Featured Articles by a factor of around 10 to 1. Most featured articles with informational notes mixed in with references have only 2 or 3 such notes.

Issues against the Julius Caesar model are: accessibility – easier to find the footnote if working on a small device or if have poor vision (a point whose importance had previously escaped me); logic – an informational footnote is an entirely different thing from a reference; general readability – in that rare situation when an encyclopaedia user reads an article from one end to another, all the footnotes are collected together at the end of the article text. So if the reader missed them, they are all there to see if the reader wishes. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:32, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

As a reader of Wikipedia articles (or scholarly articles) I much prefer the separation of notes, since I only occasionally need to know about the source, but I usually want to read the footnote, so I want to know which is which before I look. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:43, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

It feels to me that almost every footnote should explain its relevance. A nonsubstantive footnote, to borrow a phrase from below, seems largely meaningless. Perhaps that's a very Bluebook § 1.5(a) view. Ifly6 (talk) 23:02, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

using two sets of notes with a very sharp distinction between those containing any kind of explanatory text and those that only contain citations is in my experience non-existent outside Wikipedia. I see explanatory notes at bottom of page and sources at end of work/chapter all the time in nonfiction works. This isn't unique to Wikipedia at all. I don't see either configuration as a detriment to usage in general; it just depends on context. VQuakr (talk) 20:05, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Real-world examples, please. Peter ^Isotalo 21:40, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Peter, perhaps you'd like real-world style guides? There's a tendency for people to dismiss individual examples as just one author making a mistake, and we end up in Wikipedia:Bring me a rock territory.

I believe that The Chicago Manual of Style calls these "substantive notes" and recommends separating them from citations when there are a lot of citations. In the MLA they're called "content notes". @SMcCandlish is usually the best person to ask if you want to know what a variety of style guides recommend. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I could do a deep dive on that, but I don't think it would be worth the trouble, because there is no (and for the forseeable future will not be ) consensus on what to name such sections. MoS kinda-sorta recommends "Notes" and "References", but "Footnotes" for the former is quite common, and names for the latter (sometimes as a section, sometimes as two sections, sometimes as a section with a subsection) are all over the map, including "References", "Sources", "Bibiography", "Works cited", "Citations", and many other variations (including even "Notes" or "Footnotes" for that matter). While it might be possible to arrive at a kind of averaged-out best practice across a bunch of style guides' recommendations, it would probably not even amount to a majority usage but the barely-most-common minority usage that's consistent across multiple such works. That surely wouldn't translate into any impetus on the part of the WP community to adopt something specific. Especially not with a sort of "let chaos reign" sensibility having such a hold on WP:CITE for 20+ years, in favor of permitting any imaginable approach to citations. If MOS:LAYOUT actually tried to impose a fixed pair of such section names, that would end up being a WP:POLICYFORK battle between MOS and CITE regulars. Not something I would relish. At any rate, it is useful for readers to separate the citation footnotes from substantive/content footnotes, since the latter are often of interest to all readers while the former of most of often not, and only important to those trying to verify sourcing (mostly editors not readers), or interested in getting a list of sources (mostly students "mining" Wikipedia for convenient sources to use for their own papers since they can't cite a WP article itself in most cases), or sometimes for seeing the source(s) for a potentially controversial claim. That is, I would not support a move to merge these two very different kinds of footnote sections, either at a particular article or across articles generally.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:44, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

@VQuakr To get some idea of how common it actually is, can you provide some examples of what types of nonfiction works that use this? Peter ^Isotalo 19:37, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

@Peter Isotalo: WhatamIdoing said it better than I can here. I don't think isolated examples (which of course can be produced showing any number of citation styles) are going to advance the conversation meaningfully. VQuakr (talk) 19:49, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

No, I genuinely think this is important. I'm not interested in trying to do ad hoc statistical surveys. I've been aware of the split note issue since at least back in 2010.

If there's a disconnect here due to the kind of nonfiction different people read, that's very relevant for everyone to know about. If, for example, the humanities and natural sciences are using different standards for notes, that's a tangible, real-world fact, not just a personal opinion. Peter ^Isotalo 18:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure how one would search for publications that include explanatory notes of any sort. We might run across them occasionally, but I'm not sure how one would deliberately search for them, especially if you didn't want your search to be biased towards publications using a particular style guide (e.g., "Works Cited" being closely associated with MLA) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I requested examples after VQUakr stated that he sees them "all the time in nonfiction works". I'm assuming that means they're not one in a million or anything.

Surely someone can point out at least a handful of real-world examples. Peter ^Isotalo 19:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Robert Kershaw (2022) Dünkirchen 1940: The German View of Dunkirk Oxford: Osprey Publishing (print ISBN 978-1472854377 version checked is a Kindle edition). See page 106, two separate explanatory notes explaining "Landser" as an equivalent nickname to "Tommy" for a British soldier and explanation of "Reichswehr". This is at the end of a chapter in the Kindle edition, but may well be at the bottom of the page in the print edition. Cited sources are in a separate section at the end of the book, titled "Notes" and "Bibliography" (and there are many cited sources – far too many to count). There are explanatory notes like the two listed here at the end of 5 out of 9 chapters. Osprey Publishing are an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, so I think that makes them perfectly mainstream. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Bellwood, Peter; Ness, Immanuel (2014). The global prehistory of human migration. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Inc., Balckwell. ISBN 9781118970591.. There are about 10 chapters that have a notes section for explanatory notes before "References". There are 52 chapters in this book, all by different authors as far as I can tell. The explanatory notes give, for example, linguistic information, updates after the paper was written, explanation of how radiocarbon dates are calibrated for dates in the chapter, etc. I am guessing they are there as the information will be obvious to some readers and not to others. (There is a lot of interdisciplinary involvement in this subject.) ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:26, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

ADELAAR, K 2006. "The Indonesian migrations to Madagascar: making sense of the multidisciplinary evidence." In Austronesian diaspora and the ethnogenesis of people in Indonesian archipelago, 1 ed., 205-232. LIPI Press. This is a book chapter that you might be able to download for free. There is a clear difference between the explanatory footnotes that are at the bottom of some pages and the parenthetical referencing that refers to sources in the bibliography. The explanatory footnotes sometimes refer to a ref in the bibliography and there is at least one instance of the footnote simply having a reference, just like the main body of the text. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

You mean author-year or more generally parenthetical referencing, where citations are generally put in parentheses and foot- or endnotes are only used for explanatory notes, right? That may well be the most common style of giving references in scientific research today, certainly in many fields, hence there is really no need to give any specific examples. Gawaon (talk) 23:16, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, where I have said "parenthetical" in these remarks about real-world instances, I should have said author-year, with that linking to a bibliography at the end. The point about mentioning the method for standard references is to make clear that there is a differentiation from the explanatory notes – perhaps a bit of over-kill. My focus is on showing that there are a good number of academic works out there that use separate informational notes. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Mahdi, Waruno (2017). "Pre-Austronesian origins of seafaring in Insular Southeast Asia.". In Acri, Andrea (ed.). Spirits and ships: cultural transfers in early monsoon Asia. Pasir Panjang, Singapore: ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute. ISBN 978-9814762755. I am only looking at a pre-publication copy of this book chapter, but I have the print edition somewhere. You may be able to find the pre-publication version on line. There are 52 explanatory notes that appear at the bottom of pages, with references in the main text being dealt with by author-year in brackets and a bibliography at the end. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Mitchell, Peter (1 October 2020). "Settling Madagascar: When Did People First Colonize the World's Largest Island?". The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. 15 (4): 576–595. doi:10.1080/15564894.2019.1582567. A clear example of separate explanatory notes being put in the "endnotes" with the list of references following.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Horridge in Canoes of the Grand Ocean [7]. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:49, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I checked all the examples you've provided.

They all have a combination of parenthetical citations (directly in the text) and footnotes or endnotes (separate from the text). The section called "References" in the examples are just ordinary bibliographies, not a separate set of notes.

None of the examples have two separate sets of notes in the manner of the sfn/efn template combo. Peter ^Isotalo 09:14, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, and why should they? They put references into parentheses, while we move them into footnotes, since that's easier to do on the web than in print and indeed more user-friendly. But they, and we, keep citations/references and explanatory notes clearly separate and so are very similar to each other in this respect. Which is why your claim that Wikipedia's style is totally customary and unusual it simply not true. It is rather fairly close to the most widespread style in academics, through adapted to better fit the web and the needs of lay readers, which will care less about references than your typical academic reader likely does. Gawaon (talk) 11:45, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

On close examination, Kershaw (first of those examples listed above) is most similar to the Wikipedia situation of a separate explanatory notes section, full referencing and a "further reading" section. Each reference is accessed through a superscript number in the text, just as in Wikipedia. So it is not an "sfn/efn" situation, it is certainly an "efn" situation with full referencing.

Otherwise, as per User:Gawaon, above. All the remaining examples had open to them the option of a numerical superscript to take the reader to a mixed explanatory notes and reference listing – but they did not. Particularly in the Kindle environment, I understand that choosing not to do so is marginally more work for the publisher if there are explanatory notes, so suggesting an active stylistic decision to avoid mixing explanatory notes and references. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 14:56, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

This discussion is about quite specific formatting standard. If you bring up examples that use completely different formatting, it's not going to strengthen your argument. If anything, it's a good reason to allow parenthetical references, because that would be a far more recognizable way of providing citations. You guys have no idea if these publications would actually choose to have two sets of notes.

There's nothing inherently wrong about inventing new formatting and layout standards. I personally think that it's unwise because much of how people understand text and referencing is based on real-world standards. I'm prepared to reconsider if someone can prove the benefits with something other than their own personal convictions. Peter ^Isotalo 17:25, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

"allow parenthetical references" – seriously? That ship has long sailed. Gawaon (talk) 18:52, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

More seriously: Wikipedia is not an academic paper and will never be one. But this doesn't mean we can't learn from the academic community – and keeping citations and explanatory notes separate is certainly a good idea we did well in adopting. (You're right in that it's far from universal in the academic community – but it's widespread nevertheless, and no doubt useful). Gawaon (talk) 18:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

If it's "widespread", show some actual examples. Or accept that it might be extremely rare, and not just in academic sources. I think I've seen something akin to a double set of notes in the last 10 years, but I'm sure it was exactly once.

The academic world may be overly conservative and stuck in the past. The split-note standard might be far better for readers. But we have nothing to go on here other than fierce convictions. Peter ^Isotalo 17:05, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

The relevant style guides have already been provided for you. We're thoroughly in WP:FETCH territory here. VQuakr (talk) 17:11, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't get you, Peter Isotalo. Do you really doubt that parenthetical referencing is widespread? Or did you just misunderstood my comment? (If so, please read it again). Gawaon (talk) 18:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

We're discussing a fairly specific typographical format; one set of notes or several? The examples provided use one set of notes.

They could just as well be used to argue that two sets of notes aren't a thing. Peter ^Isotalo 13:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

It appears that there is a related RFC involving some of the same editors at Talk:Vasa (ship)#RfC: separate informational notes section. Anyone who's interested should feel free to join that discussion, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:06, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I have thought for a while using the heading Appendix and making subheadings.

Appendix

• Works or publications (of the author, in biographies pages)
• Footnotes (for notes included in the text which in books would have a letter and then a note in the foot of the page)
• End notes (for notes applicable to the whole page)
• References (Check "Reference Lists Versus Bibliographies" from the APA Manual of Style)

The reason why in some articles in Wikipedia there is a division of in-line citations, references is that generally in writing styles like APA, the guidance establishes that in running text an abridged in-line citation is included next to the relevant text. At the end of the publication there is an appendix with the complete list of references in long form, including more information about the cited material.

Then also there is a further division of general references when there are no in-line citations and the long form reference material used in the article is listed.

Sincerely, Thinker78 (talk) 05:51, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Having both "Footnotes" and "End notes" would be confusing, since in Wikipedia both go at the end of the page. Also, I'd leave an author's "Works" or "Bibliography" section out of it, since it is part of the main article content (it goes before the "See also" section), not its end matter. For the end matter, naming schemes in Wikipedia vary widely, but the think the following is fairly popular and works well:

• Notes – for explanatory notes using the {{efn}} template, if used (most articles don't need them, but they can be useful)
• References – for source footnotes using <ref> or {{sfn}} and similar templates
• Bibliography – for books and other important works repeatedly cited in the References (many articles neither have nor need this section, but I think it can be handy to make the repeatedly cited works easier to find)

Gawaon (talk) 07:34, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

MOS:ORDER has some points of order these sections, but steers clear of what naming should be used for notes/references. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Is anybody very familiar with Citing Medicine? I found this recommendation, though it refers specifically to tables

Authors should place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain all nonstandard abbreviations in footnotes, and use symbols to explain information if needed. Symbols may vary from journal to journal (alphabet letter or such symbols as *, †, ‡, §), so check each journal's instructions for authors for required practice.

— Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, p18

Can we learn from their long experience? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Why prioritise this medical journal? Ifly6 (talk) 02:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

No, I'm not proposing that we prioritise it, only that we can learn from it. They've been doing this for rather longer that we have. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:56, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

The sentence before the quote is "Give each column a short or an abbreviated heading." The "heading" in this case refers to tables and the whole instruction is very specifically about how to deal with tables. It's not a comment on article content in general. Peter ^Isotalo 07:33, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Case against

May I be first to argue against the principle of this proposal? IMO it is critically important for Wikipedia that our articles distinguish [on the one hand] between statements that we assert to be valid (because they are supported by evident reference to reliable sources) versus [on the other] our own supplementary notes (which are just body text in another form). Wikipedia is not itself a reliable source, so readers must be able to identify the evidence basis for the text. Footnotes are a form of parenthesised text, perhaps clarification of a detail for readers unfamiliar with the topic, but are still part of the article and may (and often do, even should) themselves contain citations. To me, it is critically important to our readers (and to some editors) that we maintain a clear distinction between what is reliable and what is not. Peter identifies that a work by a credible researcher might not not usually make this kind of distinction [though in my experience, most do, by putting explanatory footnotes at the bottom of the page and putting citations at the end of the chapter or of the book]; fundamentally the status is different – if they do not do so then it is because they believe that they don't need to. The same need for distinctive treatment does not arise. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:33, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

This binary distinction between footnotes that are just extended body text and footnotes that are purely citations to references is not supported by reality. In practice, many footnotes mix a citation to a reference with a textual explanation of what the reference actually supports and where it can be found in the reference. It makes no sense to separate those things from the reference itself. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:51, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I have been examining a lot of Featured Articles on this point. You are right: some footnotes are a discussion of which source says what. I see the argument that they should be in with all the other references, where anyone who wants to verify the article content will find them. However, there are plenty of footnotes that are more than that, genuinely expanding the article content with additional, perhaps parenthetical, material. These are more common in the FAs that I have looked at. The debate is about much more than the "shades of grey" cases. The article I keep holding up as good practice (just because it was one of the first I checked) is Cefnllys Castle, but you could find something similar in a few minutes at WP:FA. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:27, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

That suggests that having "a rule of having no rule" would be appropriate. Alternatively, we could give advice: separate if you have technical limitations/need to cite the explanatory note; combine if the number of sources+notes is very small; separate if you think it's important to signal that the text itself is unsourced; etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

@JMF, I haven't actually proposed anything other than that we need to move past our own personal opinions regarding how we think about notes. Are you sure this is what you're arguing against here? Peter ^Isotalo 21:50, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

At the moment, we have two discussions on this page - this one and the one in Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Separate_section_for_explanatory_notes which attempt to demand a one holy way of presenting notes and references. This goes against the spirit of MOS:RETAIN and if continued will be disruptive. We should not be forcing one's own preferred method on everybody else, as this will only damage the encyclopedia and drive editors away.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:34, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Yea, I don't see any need to force people to do it one way or another. Both are fine and I've used both (see Julius Caesar contra Alexandrian war). I'm also confused as to why people think that the "normal" footnotes need to be non-substantive. I am of the view, from Bluebook §§ 1.2, 1.5 that a footnote should explain its own relevance. A bare footnote, except when conveying a self-evident fact (eg Broughton MRR 2.__ says Cicero was consul in 63), seems strange. Ifly6 (talk) 23:08, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree, footnotes should certainly earn their keep just as much as the main body text. That is why, for example, I suggest that they can and often should be supported by citation too. Yes, I have found remarks in articles that look very close to editorialising; in terms of intrusiveness the pecking order is (a) comma separate phrase (b) parenthesised phrase (c) footnote. In all cases it gets the same questioning as any other sentence in the text: what is this, why is it here?

Peter, I'm not questioning your perspective or indeed your good faith, but only contrasting with my own experience of the types of reference books I read. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

My "case" in my opinion is that we need real-world data to get anywhere with this. I think it looks weird with a "Case against" heading unless you're genuinely against trying to refocus the discussion to take real-world data into account.

My intention was not to actually argue the merits of my points, only to illustrate that personal opinions aren't getting us anywhere useful. Peter ^Isotalo 19:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

My view is that the important reason to distinguish explanatory footnotes from sourcing footnotes is not so much where the actual note is located, but in the fact that they are differentiated in the text itself (e.g. with "[note 1]" or "[A]" instead of "[1]"). This puts the reader on notice that the note is not just "where is this supported?" (which readers may not care so much about if they trust that it actually is supported), but "here is some more information you might be interested in". I am generally much more interested in reading explanatory footnotes than I am in reading sourcing footnotes, except in two cases: (1) if I doubt the article and want to see proof, or (2) if I am genuinely invested enough to go track down the RSSs, not necessarily to substantiate the WP article, but just because I want to read them and see what else they say. Those two cases are considerably rarer than the case where I just want to see what else the explanatory footnote has to say.

David Eppstein does indeed raise a middle case, but for the most part I would go ahead and lump that in with the "sourcing" case, the ones that as a casual reader I am unlikely to bother reading. --Trovatore (talk) 03:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

@Trovatore: A couple of studies show that non-editing readers express more confusion and are less likely to check the footnotes as the number of footnote sections increases. So a "References" section alone was their preferred experience, while the full "Notes", "Citations", "References", and "Further reading" was least-preferred. One was "Wikipedia and undergraduate research trajectories" by Lily Todorinova. I'm afraid I never bothered to save the other. I don't mind doing multiple sections, but I have always assumed we have them that way for other editors since we don't have the same hard line between reader and author that most publications do. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:41, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I mean, OK, that's interesting, but it would be good to know whether the multiple sections made them less likely to read explanatory notes specifically.

I think (and this may be controversial) that we actually shouldn't care very much whether readers follow sourcing links. It's critical that Wikipedia content be easily and transparently verifiable, but it's not really in our remit to worry about whether most readers actually verify it.

On the other hand, if an explanatory note provides important nuance, then we probably should care a bit more about the visibility of that. --Trovatore (talk) 21:17, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I question the interpretation that I understand User:Rjjiii to be making on the "trajectories" research. It states "This study analyses undergraduate students’ use of Wikipedia bibliographies." So that is all about understanding the sources on which an article is based: a different objective than what we are discussing here, how to handle explanatory notes. We don't even know if the articles they looked at had explanatory notes. The criticism included sections like Further reading (my view: if the work is so good, why isn't it used as a source in the article?). Also, the study is based only on 30 students, all of whom are on English writing courses (so, no scientists). Also the participants said that they had been warned by academic staff not to do their research in online encyclopedias – so not setting a very good context for understanding what they find here. I gleaned this just from the abstract, but I can't see that the full paper is going to differ much on these fundamentals. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:44, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I was sitting trying to better understand the point made here, then I realized I'm essentially a Wikipedia native while others aren't—I read Wikipedia as a kid before I read other sources with footnotes and citations. That may be a dimension to be kept in mind. I know we try really hard not to invent our own house style or otherwise "move first", but it's unavoidable to some degree. If we're talking about unknown consequences for readers, perhaps these are also positive: "an arbitrary Wikipedia-made standard" is a standard a lot of younger people may be more comfortable with. Remsense诉 04:09, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

To bolster the OP in this subsection, I would add that not only are informative/substantive/content footnotes just body copy in another form, any such note needs one or more source citations of its own, since our content has to be sourced. Our reference citations, on the other hand, do not carry source citations because they are source citations. They're just a completely different animal that very incidentally take the form, of page-bottom footnotes. In theory, they could take a completely different form, e.g. ref. citations in a sidebar and content notes as popups, or whatever (and you could even make that happen on your own with custom user CSS and JS, or a new website "skin"). It's important not to confuse wholly different content typoes simply because of incidental presentation similarity (cf. separation of content and presentation).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:50, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Just by the way, this is what was nice about parenthetical referencing; that made a very clear distinction from notes. Oh well. (sigh) --Trovatore (talk) 16:35, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Notes with footnotes, and footnotes both are very useful in a wide variety of articles. Notes provide detailed asides, perhaps not strictly necessary, but useful nonetheless as contextualization or explanation (particularly on side concepts or event sequences the reader might have difficulty with or questions about). They also help with reading flow, as the info is not stopping the main text for the aside. And no, it was not invented by Wikipedia (an idea which seems like we are rather full of ourselves) readers of books usually nonfiction but sometimes fiction are familiar with bottom notes together with end notes (although perhaps we employ it more often, but that is because we have basically minimal editorial control, or disperse editorial control). Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if restating a bit of background helps. This debate originated at Vasa (ship). A major authoritative source has just been published (Vasa II, the companion to the previously published Vasa I). This covers, among other things, the sails, spars and rigging – which have survived to a massively greater extent than on other archaeologically investigated wrecks. The article therefore needs to cover what the ship tells us about 17th century sailing rig, which differs substantially from the Square rig of the late 19th and early 20th century (which is familiar to some people). Footnotes are needed so that the new text in the main article is not overwhelmed with general explanations. A separate notes section is so that the reader can easily refer back to those explanations if necessary. Otherwise, I suggest it would be very wearisome for a reader to have to find what is meant by a "bonnet" or a "martnet" if they skipped taking in the footnote the first time. (Yes, there is an entry for bonnet but that is not totally appropriate for 17th century square rig – and note poorer functionality of {{Nautical term}} versus the mouseover of {{efn}}). So this started as an article content specific issue to try and make a bit of yet-to-be-written text a lot more readable. But there are other articles where exactly the same applies. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 14:08, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, an example when notes can be good is when generally unfamiliar words are used, or when a word is used in a specific way - to go into it in detail (but those are not the only time). Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:56, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I think one of the most important use cases is avoiding lies to children, while keeping a reasonable flow in the inline text. Not infrequently, to make what the text says strictly true, you need to add some nuance, but doing it inline could make it harder to read. Explanatory notes are an excellent way of handling this situation.

See for example the second note (at the current writing) in The Pirates of Penzance (permalink). Unfortunately that article does not have a separate "Notes" section, meaning that a reader will probably think that the note is just to support the claim. If there were a separate section, a reader might be more likely to see what the note says. --Trovatore (talk) 19:59, 11 March 2024 (UTC) Huh — I just checked, and that article actually does have an explanatory notes section; that note just wasn't in it. I've fixed it now. --Trovatore (talk) 20:29, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Discussion in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

Note that there is a proposal in Village pump regarding the consistency requirement for short and long inline citations: [8] Bogazicili (talk) 14:57, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Year of publication differs from that generated in citebook

What happens when {{cite book}} is autofilled from the ISBN field, yet the date field has a different year from the date of publication shown in printed book? As far as I can determine, there has only ever been one edition of Hocker, Frederick M. (2011). Vasa. Stockholm : Oakville, CT: Medstroms Bokforlag ; David Brown Book Co. [distributor]. ISBN 978-91-7329-101-9. (this is autofilled). But the printed book says "copyright 2015 ..." and also gives a printing date of 2015. There is reason to believe the book was actually written in 2011, as the foreword is dated August 2011.

What date should appear in the date field? Is this the date that a short reference template such as harvnb would pick up as the identifier of the cited work? If you were filling in cite book manually, rather than using the autofill, would you ever get to use a date different from that in the printed book? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:41, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

This book can be seen online at [9] . ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:32, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Use the date given on the copyright page of the version you are taking the information from. The copyright may have been registered more than once as the book was reprinted. The entry here on WorldCat shows both dates for English editions, but they have the same ISBN numbers. StarryGrandma (talk) 22:47, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Is the information on WorldCat ever wrong? I have made a pretty intensive search and can only find a translation into Swedish as an alternative edition. I have met incorrect ISBN numbers before, so it is not inconceivable that there may be other errors. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:53, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

The link to WorldCat given above offers you, among other options, an e-book which says it is 2011 but when you open the document you see the 2015 publishing date. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:54, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

A new printing is not a new edition. Books can go through many printings. It only becomes a new edition if revised. Interestingly enough the WorldCat entry for the book labelled 2015 gives the date as c2015 rather than the usual ©2011. I would say use 2011. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:20, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

How do other people cite it? Ifly6 (talk) 23:12, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

In Vasa (ship) it uses the 2011 date – but the origin of that is actually an edit[10] by the author of the book a little while before it was actually published. I am guessing that the Swedish language version is a factor in this, even though it was a translation of the English original. As you can see the Swedish edition has a different ISBN, but WorldCat says that was published in 2018 – if so how did the ISBN get in Wikipedia in 2014? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:44, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if I will get an answer, but I have fired off a question to the publisher about the publication date of this book. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:54, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Publisher has confirmed two different editions: 2011 and 2015. The latter has some extra material. Confusingly, they both appear to use the same ISBN. This would be why the autofill gives the wrong date. There is absolutely no mention of the 2015 published book being a second edition within the book. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 12:45, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, that's surely not how ISBNs are meant to be used. Somebody should whack the publisher with a big trout! Gawaon (talk) 13:47, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Source citing question

What is the preferred way to cite specific sections of a book that does not have page numbers? I'm looking to overhaul Vince Gill using the book For the Music: The Vince Gill Story (Jo Sgammato, Random House, 2008), but the copy I found does not have page numbers. What would be the best way to tie citations to specific passages from the book using the {{sfn}} system? Chapter numbers? Quotes? Both? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 20:56, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I would generally use chapter numbers in such cases, as the closest available locator. Gawaon (talk) 21:15, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Is this a record for excess cites?

28 if I counted right

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=European_emission_standards&diff=1215675542&oldid=1215553786 Chidgk1 (talk) 14:27, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@Chidgk1, the "Hall of Shame" is at Wikipedia:Citation overkill#Examples. Please add this link, even though it doesn't set a new record. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:37, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

That list is for corrected examples but on this one I changed to one cite but the overcites were readded. So maybe this is a record for still existing excess cites Chidgk1 (talk) 05:00, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Author-link in cite templates

Moved from Help talk:Citation Style 1

I am working on a request from another user at WP:AWBREQ to add author links to citation templates. The first edit I did on the AWB run ended up with, I believe, 159 {{cite web}} templates for the given author. My regex of course identifies each of those templates for adding in the author link, and I dutifully included the author link in all of them as per the request. But before I do this on the hundreds of pages where this is germane, I was wondering whether we are bound to the MOS guide to only link the first instance in an article, or whether that does not apply to references as well.

TLDR: Should I add author-link to every citation of a given author, or only the first reference on the page? VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 01:34, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Typically users spot check citations as required, we don't read every one, so if it was previously linked it wouldn't be obvious. In long lists of cites, it's difficult to impossible to know if another cite already linked it. In practice every cite stands on its own like an independent unit. BTW this is great work you are doing. I had an idea how to do this in another discussion. Basically build a database of existing cases of author-link and the |title=, then find other instances of that title that are missing an author-link and add it there. With some sanity error checks. Could be fully automated. -- GreenC 02:01, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Wanted to get an MOS perspective as well. VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 03:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

The example you show seems excessive; out of 205 citations, a single author is linked 159 times. Putting this extreme example aside, the general idea is good. MOS:REPEATLINK doesn't apply to citations. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

I think it really depends: not all cited authors are directly relevant to the article, I would only link ones that are. Maybe that sounds odd, but I really feel visual exhaustion from overlinking can even apply to citations. Sure, they can be stand-alone and should be functional as such, but that doesn't erase the fact that they're usually being viewed in the context of an article. Remsense诉 04:31, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

In-line citations and spaces

Hi, I have a general question. Why is it required by the MOS to always put a citation immediately after the final character, instead of leaving a space in some cases? For the body of an article, I understand leaving no space. But for some areas, like an infobox, my humble opinion is that a space looks far better. Please see the infobox on this page. By the time you click the link, hopefully nobody has edited it, but currently some of the lines have spaces before citations and some don't. I may be in the minority, but I think when there is no space it looks dreadful, cluttered, and sometimes difficult to read if the word ends with a certain character, such as lowercase "i". If there's plenty of room for a space without messing up text or formatting, is there any flexibility for using spaces? Sorry, but this is just my pet peeve. I hate seeing those citations slammed up against the words when there is apparently no practical reason for it, other than adhering to a rigid policy. Wafflewombat (talk) 16:48, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

There's a note[11] in WP:Manual of Style#Punctuation and footnotes that suggests using a hair space for this purpose. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:29, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip! Very helpful to know. Wafflewombat (talk) 22:38, 20 April 2024 (UTC)