Template talk:Cite book/2006-2011 archive

Example

How does the user use this template? I cannot get the ISBN nor the accessdate parameters to work. Here is my example:

{{cite book
 | last = Nescio
 | first = Nomen
 | coauthor= Columbus
 | year = 1987
 | title = Exemplars in the wild
 | publisher = exlibris
 | pages=11-15
 | ISBN = 123456789
 | url= http://en.wikipedia.org/
 | origdate=1986
 | month =January
 | format =format
 | others = others
 | chapter =chapter_one
 | chapterurl =chapter_url
 | edition =edition_the_first
 | id =id_example
 | accessdate =2007-11-18
}}

The above produces the following:

• Nescio, Nomen; others (1987-January) [1986] "[chapter_url chapter_one]" in Examplars in the wild (format) (edition_the_first ed.), exlibris, pp. 11−15 Retrieved on 18 November 2007. id_example

Problems to be fixed

{{edit protected}} Problem to be fixed

• Problems mentionned above
• Publisher currently appears after the page
• The page parameter does not automatically add a "p", I think it should do it, especially because it could be internationalized (S. in German). However, it probably implies to correct pages using the current template. So, maybe create a temporary category:cite book with pages parameter beforehand.

I guess the simplest thing to do is copy w:cite book--Zolo (talk) 07:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I have been working on an updated version of the template at {{Cite book/sandbox}} and the results can be viewed at {{Cite book/testcases}}. Let me look into your comments. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It looks good to me, thanks. Just two questions:

• Does "299–360 at 310" means "for our purpose the interesting page is 310" ? If so I guess an additional parameter could be useful to internationalize it.
• I am not sure to understand the last testcase.--Zolo (talk) 10:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, as regards "299–360 at 310". Let me look at the version of the template at the English Wikipedia and see what is done there. (I have a feeling there is no separate parameter, but that doesn't mean we can't have one here.) The last test case is an example of a citation where there is no author stated. I was also trying out the |accessdate=, |archiveurl=, |archivedate= and |quote= parameters. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:03, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes actually it seems fine to me, thanks.--Zolo (talk) 15:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I Have implemented quite a number of additional fixes to {{Cite book/sandbox}}, including the addition of "p." and "pp.". They can be turned off using "nopp=on". There is an |at= parameter in the English Wikipedia's version of {{cite book}}, but it doesn't work in the way suggested above: see "Template:Cite book/doc". Do you still feel that we need to have a parameter for that purpose? It may be easier if we just allow people to state "pages=299–360 at 310". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:12, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't it work with a plain {{{#if: {{{at|}}} | at {{{at|}}}  ? It is not extremely important but "at" is purely English and it would be better to have something multilingual.--Zolo (talk) 20:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I did not mean that it is difficult to implement. What I meant was that if we used |at= in this way it would work differently from |at= in "en:Template:Cite book", and I was wondering if it is a good idea to have the parameters work in different ways in otherwise similarly named templates as this might cause users a bit of confusion. Otherwise, I have no problem with adding |at=. By the way, how is internationalization done? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:32, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah okay, maybe we can ask at en.wikipedia it they want to do it the "commons" way (or why they have done it differently). Internationalization can be done several ways, but in this case the simplest solution is to have {{{#if: {{{at|}}} | {{langSwitch|en=at|fr=à la page|etc.}} {{{at|}}} rather than {{{#if: {{{at|}}} | at {{{at|}}} .--Zolo (talk) 08:04, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Let me have a think about |at= some more. Regarding internationalization – oh, yes, I remember seeing {{LangSwitch}} in use at {{Published}}. Maybe you would like to start on internationalization of {{Cite journal}} and {{Cite web}}? I have already worked on those. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:14, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I have added a few langSwitches and changed date formats to ISOdate (it is the standard commons format and allows automatic translation) at {{Cite book/sandbox}}. Are "month", "year", "accessmonth" etc. currently used ? If not, I think we should only have "date" accesdate... It would make the template more readable and would allow to have some unity and would help to harmonize things.--Zolo (talk) 13:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think it's a very good idea to use {{ISOdate}}. It seems to force users to enter dates in the ISO format, which may cause backwards-compatibility issues when the sandboxed template goes live. (I, for instance, always indicate dates as "17 December 2010", so this would generate an error.) The function #dateformat, on the other hand, handles other date formats. I don't know whether |accessmonth= and |accessyear= are used very much; they were in the original template so I just retained them. But |month= and |year= are definitely used. It is frequently the case that book publishers only indicate the year of publication of books, so I suspect that |year= is used very often. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:54, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

17 december 2010 would not generate an error it would simply appear as "17 december 2010". If we use ISO template, users would be strongly advised to use ISOformat. in the case we only have year, ISOdate is simply the year, so no problem (and I suppose a bot could change "year" to "date". ISOdate provides easy translations and it is already used in the "date' field of {{Information}}, so on most files on Commons (so if you write "Decembre 2010 there you should change that ;). Using ISOdate in this template would harmonize things, so I don't think it would make things more complicated for users. --Zolo (talk) 15:17, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, OK! As regards {{Information}}, I used to use {{Date}} but I noticed that people were using the ISO format to automatically format dates and times so I switched to that a while back. I didn't realize that {{Information}} used {{ISOdate}}. I've added the |at= parameter. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the documentation of {{Information}}could make that clear rather than stating "you can use {{ISOdate}}, {{Other date}} etc. Maybe I'll leave a message there. --Zolo (talk) 08:29, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you planning to make any other changes to {{Cite book/sandbox}}? If not, we can ask an administrator to update the template. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:50, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't plan to make any new changes but I think more languages should be added. Even if there is not much to internationlize, it is easier to do it now. --Zolo (talk) 09:06, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Maybe you can leave a message at the Village pump asking editors to add translations. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:17, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'll leave a message. Actually, given current use of the template I am not sure that a "p" should be added for the page. It seems to me a reasonable idea to do so, but it will create backward compatibility problem. Beside, I have just realized that images are often not in the main text and have a spcial page number ("to the left of page 140", "plate 4"...) I guess we would need to add an automatic maintenance category to get a clearer idea of where we currently stand.--Zolo (talk) 07:57, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Is there a page like "Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks" where we can request for changes to be made to numerous pages at once? If so, then we can request for "p." or "pp." that have been added manually to be removed. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:33, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the only thing we have is commons:bots/Work requests, I guess it should be okay. I don't know what we shold do with cases like "plate 14" though. I can't find them anymore, but I have seen several of them before.--Zolo (talk) 16:08, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I looked at {{Cite book/sandbox}} and it has a lot of {{LangSwitch}} options. I think those would be very hard for users to find and update. I think {{Cite book/sandbox}} should be moved to {{Cite book/layout}} and we should create {{Cite book/lang}}, {{Cite book/en}}, etc. Or as alternative approach to create {{cite book/label|label|lang}} where all {{LangSwitch}} would reside. --Jarekt (talk) 15:56, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean. Can you explain what would be put on the pages {{Cite book/lang}}, {{Cite book/en}}, etc., or alternatively {{cite book/label|label|lang}}? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 21:07, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry I was not clear. I have created {{Cite book/label}} and moved 3 {{LangSwitch}} there. I was proposing to do the same with all other {{LangSwitch}} templates. This way all translations are in a single place - easy to find and edit for others, and less chances of translators breaking down the template. user:Zolo used similar technique in {{Size}}. Sorry I did not finish but I need to go. --Jarekt (talk) 05:01, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I looked some more at this template, and it is still a mess. I think we need to sync the sandbox with en:Template:Cite book and all the templates it is using and than add internationalization, otherwise we will be always tweaking and patching this think. --Jarekt (talk) 15:24, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Define what you mean by "mess" exactly. As I said, my concern is that en:Template:Cite book is so complicated that if we import it wholesale here it may be too difficult to maintain. But I have no objections if we try importing it over to a separate sandbox (e.g., {{Cite book/sandbox1}}) together with all its related templates to see if we can get it to work properly together with internationalization here. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:21, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

It would sure be better to have the same template in Commons as in the English Wikipedia. However there are complaints there because their cite book is so complex that it substantially lengthens the loading time of long pages (I can't find the discussion anymore). It can only get worse if we add to that ten calls to a {{Cite book/label}}. However, since we do not have long pages like in Wikipedia, maybe we can cope with that.--Zolo (talk) 17:45, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

@User:Jacklee, Sorry about the "mess" - I was not trying to be negative, but this template is quite complicated, code could use more comments, our testcases page could use much more test cases. I changed few internationalization labels, but than spotted 2 or 3 places in the code where I think something is wrong, so I went to EN wikipedia version to see how they dealt with the same spots, and noticed that their version is very different. That is when I proposed to start from EN wikipedia version. It seems like wikipedia is a much bigger community and spent a lot of effort on writing and testing this template. There is no need to repeat this process. Our template started as a clone of wikipedia version but was not synchronized in 5 years. I think we should sync it again. --Jarekt (talk) 21:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

May be the easiest think to do would be to move current sandbox to {{Cite book}} (I guess that was the original request and despite my grumbling about a "mess" I think it is better than current version) and move EN wiki code to sandbox. --Jarekt (talk) 13:38, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

 Support. Yes it seems the best solution.--Zolo (talk) 12:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Months and year

Since the template is not very easy to read, I think we could try to do without the month and year parameter. They exist on the English Wikipedia, but it cannot it is not very convenient to do here. But we should certainly know beforehand how much these parameters are used. II don't know any way to do that except by adding categories to the template. In this case it could be {{#if: {{{month|}}}{{{orignmonth|}}}{{{accessmonth}}} | [[Category:cite book with month]] }}{{#if: {{{year|}}}{{{origyear|}}{{{accessyear}}}} | [[Category:cite book with year]] }}
Otherwise It think we have three ways we can use the month parameter:

1. simply allow to use natural language ("December" give "December" regardless of the user's language)
2. create a template to translate months (if it does not exist yet)
3. force user to use a number ("12" for December). But in this case I don't see any point in using this parameter rather than "date".--Zolo (talk) 08:45, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Confused

I added a book citation to the following file using this template: File:George John Spencer 2nd Earl Spencer 1774 76.jpg. The result is: "Spencer, Charles [1998] (1999). Althorp: The Story of an English House, 1st U.S. Edition, 71, New York: St. Martin's Press. 0312208332." There are several problems with this citation:

• There is no "p." to mark the page.
• The cited page number should come directly after the title, shouldn't it?
• The ISBN has no added formatting, links to book sites, etc.--not even a label to tell you that it's an ISBN number. Doesn't the wikipedia version have that sort of thing? I looked for an ISBN template but couldn't find one.

The template usage/parameter explanations are unclear:

• "Use to specify the number pages" is not phrased well. Does it mean "number of pages you are citing" or "page numbers of the pages you are citing?" Should "pages" be the number of pages in the book, as in a full bibilographic citation, or the page(s) actually cited? (Absent explanation and consultation against the WP version, I settled on the latter).
• Should "format" include a term like "hardcover" for an old-fashioned, hold-in-your-hand book rather than a link to an online book source?
• "Location where the print appeared first" doesn't make sense without a corresponding location for the actual edition cited. For example, in this case, the book I actually have is a 1999 NY reprint (i.e., the 1st U.S. Edition) of a 1998 Great Britain (no city specified) original. If I entered the data where the book (why use the term "print?") was first printed, it would be "Great Britain," but the actual printing I have is from NY at a later date. Going on the premise that citations should always be to the edition/version actually consulted, I entered the NY info, putting the additional information in the "origdate" and "edition" parameters, but IMO the resulting citation inserts this data inappropriately. I don't have a current style manual handy so this is of course just my opinion, but it seems to me that the info ought to be at the very end of the citation, possibly within parentheses and with some additional language such as "originally published" inserted.
• Should "url" include a url to a site (like Google Books or WorldCat) where bibilographic information is available, but the book is not available for downloading? GB is particularly handy since it includes links to WC as well as possible purchasing links, such as Amazon and ABE.

Finally, is it possible to use the Wikipedia book citation template instead? What is the syntax to do so? Thank you! Laura1822 (talk) 20:11, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I do not know much about this template parameters, but they should be the same or similar to parameters in en and other wikipedias. You can follow those descriptions if they make more sense. as for using en wikipedia version it is more problematic. It is a good start but Commons templates try to present data to the useds in their native language. That adds a lot of complexity to the templates. Hopefully someone else can answer your other questions. --Jarekt (talk) 21:58, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

We can't transclude templates across projects to another yet, so we can't use the en.wp template. We could import it but as Jarekt pointed out this shouuld be followed by a significant internationalisation effort. I think we can start by moving the {{Cite book/sandbox}} to the main template. It seems to contain less errors.--Zolo (talk) 06:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

{{Cite book/sandbox}} was pretty much created by me, with some internationalization work by other editors. I asked an administrator (Jameslwoodward) a while back if it could be transferred to the main template space, but he said I should draw up a detailed documentation of what the changes between the old template and the new template are. I'm afraid I haven't got around to doing that. Is that a necessary step? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:14, 5 September 2011 (UTC)