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This template was considered for deletion on 2019 April 18. The result of the discussion was "Move patent citations out of {{Citation}} and into {{Cite patent}}, deprecate the dedicated code in {{Citation}} for patents".

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Citation template.

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Non-breaking spaces

Why does the template throw ugly errors on the page for non-breaking spaces in content, including in names, titles, quotations, and other fields? Like this:

1. Non-breaking spaces are a normal part of written text. They are absolutely required in practically all kinds of text, including in normal content from sources cited, according to our own Manual of Style and authoritative references. They are also mandatory for common punctuation in foreign-language text (e.g., in French for colons, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation marks).
2. If there is a reason to flag these, then an invisible error should only show up in previews and in the Visual Editor. It should not create ugly breakage in article text displayed to the reader, interfering with reading.
3. The basic template docs should explain this.

Example of error messages generated by correct text:

• J. K. Doe (2021), L'espace insécable : oui!, Quoi ? {{citation}}: no-break space character in |author= at position 3 (help); no-break space character in |quote= at position 5 (help); no-break space character in |title= at position 19 (help)

Example of mandatory non-breaking spaces in typographically correct normal English usage:

• En dashes: NBSP-dash-space, according to MOS:DASH
• Ellipses: NBSP-dot-dot-dot per MOS:DOTDOTDOT, or space-dot-NBSP-dot-NBSP-dot per the CMOS
• Initials: J.-NBSP-R.-NBSP-R. Tolkien, per MOS:INITIALS

It drives me nuts to get these messages all the time when I’ve pasted correct text into references, and then have to go track down the correct invisible characters that I or someone else has taken the trouble to enter, strip them out, and see the citation content display incorrectly in an article. Based on no rationale that I can fathom. —Michael Z. 17:08, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Because intentional non-breaking spaces should be declared with  , not just the direct character. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:26, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

And if you just want to clear the errors, just run User:Citation bot on the article, and it will remove all invisible non-breaking spaces. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:47, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Per MOS:NBSP:

Insert non-breaking and thin spaces symbolically ({{nbsp}}, {{thinsp}},   or  ), never by entering them directly into the edit window from the keyboard – they are visually indistinguishable from regular spaces, and later editors will be unable to see what they are.

But, the templates {{nbsp}}, {{thinsp}} should not be used in cs1|2 template parameters because they render extraneous markup that corrupts the citation's metadata. The templates render like this:

<span class="nowrap">&nbsp;</span> ← {{nbsp}}

<span style="white-space: nowrap;">&thinsp;</span> ← {{thinsp}}

Careful construction of parameter values may be something that you do, but, the vast preponderance of the no-break space character in |<param>= at position n that I have fixed are copy/pastes from sources that appear to use no-break space characters indiscriminately.

And, last point, cs1|2 are not CMOS, are not APA, are not Bluebook, are not any published style. cs1|2 are amalgams of various styles plus stuff that en.wiki have decided for themselves to make part of the cs1|2 styles.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:47, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Is anyone able to fix this? Please update the error message text so:

1. It makes this clear, say, as Unicode no-break space character in |title= at position 00 should changed to latin entity &⁣nbsp;?
2. It only appears in previews and editing?

I can update the documentation.

There still remains a problem that literal NBSPs will be transcluded from sources that we have no control over, i.e., in {{cite q}}, and I will mention that problem at the relevant talk page. —Michael Z. 17:49, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Updated docs. —Michael Z. 17:57, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

@Mzajac, I've been annoyed by this, too. Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 74#ISBN line breaking redux may be related. {{u|Sdkb}}  05:10, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

The proposed HTML simplifier in CS1/CS2 and a scheme to enhance other templates (like {{nbsp}}, {{thinsp}}, {{lang}}, {{nowrap}}...) to emit internal metadata for CS1/CS2 might become part of a possible solution to this problem, see Help_talk:Citation_Style_1#Guidance_for_science_etc.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:33, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Possibly doi-access could be "abstract" or "limited"

doi-access, and similar access parameters deemed to be normally paywalled, only allow value "free" (deemed normally to be "subscription"). It's fairly common to allow free access to the abstract, only, of a paper, which is usually a lot better than nothing at all. Possibly a little more than an abstract is sometimes offered; I'm not sure. I would suggest allowing value "abstract" (and possibly "limited") for these access parameters, with suitable displayed wording such as "free access to abstract only". Possible counter-argument: free access to abstract is very common, perhaps universal, so no real need to specify. Up for discussion. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 13:24, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Put me in the oppose category. I'm sure that I've seen publisher sites where everything is paywalled except some amount of bibliographic information. I've seen paywalled sites where you can read the first page of an article (abstract, first paragraph or a bit more, and a footnote or two). I've seen paywalled sites where an article's reference list is reproduced. If you want to cite something in a journal article's abstract and the abstract is available on the journal article's landing page, use {{cite web}}, set |type=abstract, and omit |doi= or other identifier.

If we support minor variants like |<identifier>-access=abstract for free access to abstract only, where does it end?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:57, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Without trying to push the matter, the large variety of partial information that could be available might possibly justify |<identifier>-access=limited. But I take it that Trappist the monk is against it, and I'm not strongly for it because, as a reader, I'm aware that clicking a DOI link is often useful even without full-text access. Pol098 (talk) 15:06, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Or alternatively, simply a {{cite journal |... |doi=... |at=Abstract}} or See abstract in {{cite journal |... |doi=...}} if you're citing the abstract. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:16, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

While we should be careful in our selection of possible states and not introduce semantical redundancy, I think these various access and status parameters don't make any sense at all if the real-world states cannot intuitively be associated with the supported states. So, to answer the question, IMO it should stop when we have covered a reasonable abstraction of possible real-world cases. This may also require to review the set of supported states once in a while in order to check if new real-world states have emerged which are worth to be included. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:22, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

How to add lang attribute to chapter title?

It seems the template doesn't add a lang attribute to a chapter title based on |language=. Is this intended or not? If it is intended I'll use {{lang}} for that job? Thanks in advance for any help, (pings appreciated) --Marsupium (talk) 17:47, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

It is as intended. We cannot know that the title or chapter-title is in the same language as the text of the rest of the book. If the title or chapter title is written using a non-Latin script, use |script-title= or |script-chapter=. Do not use {{lang}} in cs1|2 |title=, |chapter=, or any other parameter that contributes to the citation's metadata; doing so will corrupt the metadata.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:54, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

I propose to allow all language codes in |script-title= and |script-chapter=, not just those for non-Latin scripts. For those in the short list of non-Latin scripts, the parameter would behave just as before (bdi etc.), but for the other codes, after stripping off the code, it would contribute to |title=, but we would have a proper language code we could use for the lang= attribute. See also:

• Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_67#Possible_improved_treatment_of_title_parameters_and_language_attributes
• Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_72#Value_for_script-title
• Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_73#Guidance_about_indexing_by_first_name?

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:10, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Brings up a related issue: At present we also don't set the lang= attribute of the <q> element in |quote= sections. Given that the quote is an extract of the contents of the publication written in the language specified by |language=, I think we would be safe to assign this attribute to the <q> element. (|script-quote= already uses lang=, but only for the <bdi> defined by |script-quote=, not for the quote as a whole.)

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:46, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Free-form "Editors"?

Hi. The template already supports a free-form "authors" field. Could it support a similar free-form "editors" field, please? Thanks. fgnievinski (talk) 05:15, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

No. |editors= was deprecated at this edit and removed at this edit. Of all the 'name' (author, contributor, editor, interviewer, translator) parameters, the only free-form parameter is |authors=. Use of |authors= is discouraged; see Template:Citation § Authors.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:25, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

conference param

I suggest making |conference= an alias of |title= and automatically detecting conference type in that case. Needed especially in cases like this for easy conversion from {{cite conference}}. Invasive Spices (talk) 3 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't think so. {{citation}} is not going to automatically support all variations of the 26 cs1 templates. If you want to cite a conference and have the citation rendered in cs2 format, use |mode=cs2. But, ...

This template is a mess:

{{citation | first1=Azaiez Ouled | last1=Belgacem | author2={{small|1=(] )}} | first3=Safaa Mohammed | last3=Al-Farsi | first4=Hayel Al | last4=Wawi | first5=Hadi Abdullah Shaif | last5=Al-Yafei | first6=M. | last6=Al-Sharari | first7=Ahmed Mohamed | last7=Al-Hamoudi | first8=Mounir | last8=Louhaichi | author9={{small|1=(] )}} | title=Spineless cactus in the Arabian Peninsula: adaptive behaviors and production performances | publisher=] | hdl=20.500.11766/9182 | title=IX INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CACTUS PEAR AND COCHINEAL - "CAM crops for a hotter and drier world" | location=], Chile | date=March 26–30, 2017 | s2cid=199636444}}

An ORCID identifier is not an author so does not belong in the |authorn= parameters.

No cs1|2 template can have two |title= parameters because the template cannot see both (MediaWiki supplies only the last of the two) and if it could, which should it display? That is not a decision that a template should be making.

The use of templates inside cs1|2 template should be avoided: the {{small}} template doc specifically notes this.

According to this website, the paper: "Spineless cactus in the Arabian Peninsula: adaptive behaviors and production performances" was presented on 28 March 2017. According to this website, the paper was not included in the conference proceedings. {{cite conference}} is best suited to citing conference proceedings. If the paper is published elsewhere (abstract p. 77 – I didn't find a copy of the full paper online) then perhaps a different cs1|2 template should be used. This abstract appears to be the same as the content provided at hdl:20.500.11766/9182 which does not appear to link to the full paper.

There is nothing of interest at Semantic Scholar so retaining the s2cid identifier seems rather pointless because a reader will gain nothing from it.

The default automatic citation for {{citation}} is a book-style citation. For books, |location= is the location of the publisher, not the location of this conference.

If the abstract is sufficient to support a claim in Cactus, them consider rewriting the template:

{{citation |first1=Azaiez Ouled |last1=Belgacem |first2=Safaa Mohammed |last2=Al-Farsi |first3=Hayel Al |last3=Wawi |first4=Hadi Abdullah Shaif |last4=Al-Yafei |first5=M. |last5=Al-Sharari |first6=Ahmed Mohamed |last6=Al-Hamoudi |first7=Mounir |last7=Louhaichi |title=Spineless cactus in the Arabian Peninsula: adaptive behaviors and production performances |work=] |hdl=20.500.11766/9182 |hdl-access=free |date=March 26–30, 2017 |type=Abstract}}

Belgacem, Azaiez Ouled; Al-Farsi, Safaa Mohammed; Wawi, Hayel Al; Al-Yafei, Hadi Abdullah Shaif; Al-Sharari, M.; Al-Hamoudi, Ahmed Mohamed; Louhaichi, Mounir (March 26–30, 2017), "Spineless cactus in the Arabian Peninsula: adaptive behaviors and production performances", CGIAR (Abstract), hdl:20.500.11766/9182

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:28, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

revised-date?

Is this the best way to document a living document with a date of original publication and a date for the latest update (ignoring the update)? Does orig-date apply here (and if so, can we make that explicit in the documentation, please?)? Thanks for any advice! HLHJ (talk) 17:20, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Cite the date of the version that supports the in-text claim. You can add |archive-url= and |archive-date= if you want to link to a specific version of a page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:00, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I came to this Talk page to discuss just this, and a solution I have found for a source which states that it was published on a certain date, and updated on a different date. Most date parameters require a rigidly specified date format—"|date=March 1, 2008, updated March 1, 2012" is not allowed—but orig-date is free-format; it displays its contents in square brackets after the date, and documentation encourages that an explanation be included: |date=1 December 2022|orig-date=originally published 31 November 2022, rendering as "1 December 2022 ". When the original publication date is more important, e.g. to establish precedence, I use the parameter backwards: |date=30 November 2022|orig-date=updated 1 December 2022. Maybe the parameter should have an optional form, possibly alt-date or update-date, or both?

@HLHJ: This may be the solution you seek. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 14:22, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

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