Wikipedia talk:Citing sources

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Contents 1 Retrieval dates for online versions of old printed sources, again 1.1 Hide the access date 1.2 Access date for newsgroups and mailing lists 1.3 Default setting: show or hide access date? 2 Punctuation 3 Including passages in the citations 4 Citing Whole Books Published Electronically 5 Archive The Sun sources? 6 Citing editorial material from a book 7 Is citing page numbers of a book a policy?

Retrieval dates for online versions of old printed sources, again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hide the access date

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.reference-accessdate {display: none}

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

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

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

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

No. Doesn't agree with best practice, no discernible benefit, doesn't agree with most common ciation methods on Wiki. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:37, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I really can't see the point, as the page currently appears to require, and is certainly believed by most to require, of adding access dates for Project Gutenburg and similar online texts, and museum images with a numbered page name. Either may one day go dead, but the links won't change to new content. Johnbod (talk) 08:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Do you really think so? I don't. Jane Eyre, accessed through Project Gutenburg, is still the book Jane Eyre. I might link to PG for convenience, but the access date is really about citing websites that were created as websites, not books that happen to be conveniently available online. I don't cite access dates for news articles that I read online, either. Reuters News or Associated Press stories will be verifiable for many years after the news.yahoo.com link goes dead.

Have you looked at what this guideline actually says? Access dates are never required. They're only deemed helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

That isn't the line taken by many PR/FAC reviewers, and if what you say is the case, which I am glad to hear, the wording is far from clear. Johnbod (talk) 18:51, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you'll ask them nicely to show you exactly where this guideline requires it. The effort to find a non-existent requirement should be an educational experience for them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

As I say, the wording is not very clear, and whenever this is the case people will become entrenched in a particular view. Johnbod (talk) 22:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe they consider it the best practice to inform the reader when certain information has been used. It's academic accuracy and may affect the reading of the material in some cases. Ty 22:34, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see it myself - see the PR on Raphael, although this often comes up on other articles. Johnbod (talk) 22:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer_review/Raphael/archive1 specifies "internet refs". Since websites do change, it is reasonable to include the access date, just like you'd include a publication date if you were citing a newspaper. If the ref isn't web-only -- and I see no reason to think that this comment is intended to apply to anything else -- then an access date is unimportant.

I'd like to make this less confusing, but I honestly don't see the problem. Exactly which words in this guideline do you find unclear? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:54, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Access date for newsgroups and mailing lists

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Default setting: show or hide access date?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Punctuation

Where do you put the punctuation in a reference?

1. Example 1^[1].
2. Example 2.^[2]

C Teng ^[talk] 16:57, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Either is acceptable so long as the article is consistent. If you are editing an existing article, conform to the established method on that article if there is one. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:40, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd also add a full stop at the end of each footnote. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 04:01, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The relevant guideline is WP:REFPUNC ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so it goes after. Thanks. C Teng ^[talk] 12:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Including passages in the citations

I've been experimenting with including the relevant passage (i.e. relevant sentence/s from the sources) in which I am citing my sources to try to improve verifiability on Game Boy, using either the {{citation}} template or, for my multiple references from a video game history book, including it direct from the reference. I find it easier to have the quote from the relevant passage (if applicable and provided it doesn't cause WP:SIZE problems) included in the reference; it seems easier to verify right there in the article as compared to placing it on the article's talk page. I also think this makes an article more sustainable and maintainable. Is this a good idea to do? MuZemike (talk) 00:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd do this sparingly and only if the quotation really adds value to the article, for example, if it is a critical statement in a source that's not easily accessible, or if it's an English translation of a foreign-language source. I wouldn't suggest that editors do this routinely for every single source, otherwise this will prove to be a burden for editors, and will generally make the "Notes" sections of articles very long and possibly quite difficult to read. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 04:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

It's also a useful approach when documenting frequently challenged statements. It's not necessary in most instances. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:38, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Citing Whole Books Published Electronically

I am using questia.com to provide me with some books electronically. Questia is a commercial service, and it publishes the book via html but with the original pagination (from its edition). This does not seem to me the same as a true 'indirect cite', where you say that book X says something because web page Y says Book X said something. Neither does it seem like a true 'web cite'.

I am leaning towards citing these books as books. I can't even give a URL, as of course, the service is commercial. So. What do you think? GPa Hill (talk) 03:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Such sources seem, for all intents and purposes, books. Although you can access them online because you've paid for the service, other readers can't (you mentioned you can't provide URLs for such works). I agree that you should just treat such works as print books. In fact, even if a book has been digitized and made available online (for instance, through Google Books), it is in essence a book and I would treat it as such rather than as a website. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 04:05, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

It is a book, but I would include information about how it was accessed. I don't know if you pay for each book, or you subscribe to all of them, but if customers of that service can get it at no extra cost, why not let them know it is there? Also, if it is html and the original is a printed book, there is always a potential for differences between the paper and electronic version, so the one you read should be cited. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

What formatting would you use to include it? I often draw information from Google Books digitized works and don't say so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ImperfectlyInformed (talk • contribs) 07:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Good point, although from a cursory glance at Questia I noticed that some works are available in PDF in which case the concern about the HTML not matching the printed text disappears. Perhaps works in HTML can be cited as follows: Joseph Smith, ed. (1987), The American Constitution: The First Two Hundred Years, 1787–1987, Exeter: University of Exeter Press (reproduced on Questia) . — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

If a book is available online as a PDF, I simply treat it as a book but add the URL of the website where it can be accessed. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Archive The Sun sources?

The Sun shut down, should source links to The Sun be pre-emptively archived? Google finds about a couple of hundred links. -- SEWilco (talk) 02:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Try WebCite (http://www.webcitation.org/archive.php), and see if the New York Sun permits archiving and caching of its content. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 03:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Could someone please answer my question, asked here a month ago? Thanks.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 02:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Citing editorial material from a book

How do I cite something that was was written by the editor of a book by someone else? For instance, Robert Southey's whole biography of William Cowper was part of his edition of Cowper's poems; Cowper is listed as the author on the title page, and Southey as the editor. You can see how I cited that at Striking and Picturesque Delineations..., ref 10. I tried a different method for Brian Boyd's footnotes in his edition of novels by Vladimir Nabokov (using the "author" field in the "cite book" template for the editor and the "editor" field for the author)—see Pale Fire, note 36. Or some years ago, I used yet another method at Carmen (novella) (which doesn't have in-line references). Does any of these work? Do I need to abandon citation templates and use something like MLA, which would mean changing all the references in the first two of those articles?

And if this isn't the right place for me to ask, where should I ask? —JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I would treat the biography as a chapter of the book, like this:

Wikitext: {{citation|author=[[Robert Southey]]|chapter=Life of Cowper|editor=[[William Cowper]]; Robert Southey, ed.|title=The Works of William Cowper. Comprising His Poems, Correspondence, and Translations. With a Life of the Author by the Editor, Robert Southey, LL.D., Poet Laureate, Etc.|location=London|publisher=H.G. Bohn|year=1853|volume=II|pages=110, 141}}

Output: Robert Southey (1853), "Life of Cowper", in William Cowper; Robert Southey, ed., The Works of William Cowper. Comprising His Poems, Correspondence, and Translations. With a Life of the Author by the Editor, Robert Southey, LL.D., Poet Laureate, Etc., II, London: H.G. Bohn, pp. 110, 141 

You should be able to achieve a similar effect with the {{cite book}} template, as it also has a "chapter" parameter. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:33, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that's very helpful. It's a lot like what I did with the Boyd reference, reversing author and editor, but yours is better. (Except I don't like the boldface volume numbers the citation templates give for books—I think that's just for journals—so I put volume numbers in titles.) I guess for the other books, I'll use "Preface" or "Notes" or Notes sur «Carmen» as the "chapter" title.

This should come up often, as an apparatus criticus is a great place to find information and commentary on classic books. Should your example be at WP:CITET? —JerryFriedman (Talk) 17:32, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to propose that it be included there. :-) By the way, if you're using {{Citation}} and feel that the parameter name "chapter" is inapt, you can also use "contribution" which has the same effect. P.S. What's an "apparatus criticus"? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:20, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again. Apparently I don't know what an apparatus criticus is. The WP article, which unpretentiously calls it a "critical apparatus", says it's just the list of variants of a particular passage in a text, possibly with comments on why the editor picked the one he or she did. I knew it in the wider sense of all the material in a scholarly edition that the original author isn't responsible for: introduction, notes, critical essay(s), glossary, author biography, etc. The narrator of Pale Fire uses it in this sense, referring to his Foreword, Commentary, and Index. The dictionaries I looked at agree with our article or are ambiguous. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 00:19, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I learned something new today. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 02:59, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Is citing page numbers of a book a policy?

Is this ok? I believe page numbers should be provided, or tags left until this is done...? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Citing sources#Including page numbers" says: "If you are quoting from, paraphrasing, or referring to a specific passage of a book or article, you should if possible also cite the page number(s) of that passage." Note that the guideline says that editors should cite page numbers "if possible", which means this is desirable but not mandatory. The guideline also doesn't mandate that references with missing page numbers be tagged with {{Page number}} (the template potentially makes an article quite cumbersome to read, in my view). This means the template can be used at the discretion of editors. If there is a disagreement about whether the template should be used or not, this is a matter that needs to be discussed by editors on the talk page. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 03:08, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but the lack of specific page numbers in a cited book source calls into question (for me, anyhow) whether the points alleged to be supported by the cite are actually supported on some unspecified page of that cited book source. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 10:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Editors should strive to include page numbers wherever possible. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

There are times when page numbers are not appropriate. For example, you might be supporting a very general concept (e.g., "A diet of primarily raw vegetables may have beneficial health effects") instead of a specific fact (e.g., "Persons that followed a diet of 60% raw vegetables by weight for three months lost an average of twelve pounds"). The first example could easily be supported by a entire book about whether or not this is a healthy diet. The second could not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:47, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Nonetheless, it is likely that a fact that is mentioned in a Wikipedia article is supported by a particular sentence or paragraph that summarizes the book, in which case the page number of that sentence or paragraph should be mentioned. We should be as helpful as possible to readers, and not say to them, "It's somewhere in this book – go read the whole thing." — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 04:25, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I like seeing page numbers wherever it's appropriate. Or even chapter numbers, or whatever chunk of a long work seems helpful. But I don't think that we can issue a blanket demand for page numbers in every single instance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:12, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how widespread this is, but I know of cases where material from reliable printed sources has been posted verbatim on websites, but with the page numbers omitted. For example, Dennis King has placed the full text of his book online. In that case he still has it arranged in chapters, so some location information can be given. But because of cases like that we shouldn't make supllying page numbers mandatory. Of course if someone asks where an assertion can be found then the editor who added it should give all available information, at least if they're still around. If another editor sees something sourced without page numbers and makes a good faith effort to find the material but can't succeed, then {{refimprove}}, {{citequote}}, or similar tags might be used. Ultimately, if it isn't verifiable I suppose the assertion might be removed, even if cited. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:52, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't think that this is good advice. If there is no page number, WP:AGF. One can always go to a library and verify the page number. If the book is not widely available, you can contact a librarian and ask for that information. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:02, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

What I meant is that if one has the book in hand and can't find the assertion, and no one can offer a page number, then the assertion is unverifiable. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:08, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

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