Check Wikipedia:Cite_sources.

The template does not follow the recommendations there which are the ones I have been using. MLA style and similar styles are now very widely used in both literary and scientific articles.

Also, I again and again cite material from books that have editors rather than authors. Translators sometimes need to be mentioned (and translators of sections of a book are sometimes different from the editors of a book). Illustrators are also important (sometimes the reason that the work is being cited is the illustrator). Then there is the matter of noting particular editions or providing reprint information. There is the matter of ISBN numbers. There are somtimes re-releases of a book under a different title or even contemporary release of the same work under different titles. Some academic books are part of a continuing series and the series name should be mentioned.

See for example the references I recently added to Norse mythology which contain entry after entry that just won't fit this template. And that bibliography contains no individual articles. Individual articles within a book or periodical add futher difficulties.

The idea of a list of templates for every reference likely to be cited numerous times is a very good one, but such a template needs to be far more flexible and complete than this one is (or there needs to be a set of templates for various uses). And templates should agree with the suggested formats in Wikipedia:Cite_sources or the suggestions there should be changed. I don't think they should be changed.

Sorting material by author and date and using author name and date as the in-text reference is the most reader-friendly method for in-text reference which is why it has caught on so widely for academic use.

The idea of having bibilographic information in one place for a reference is a good one, but needs much more work before it is practical for anything but the very simplest cases. Probably someone with a lot of bibliographic and library cataloguing experience should work on this.

A template containing only the minimum BibTeX fields is not suitable for real world use.

Jallan 15:50, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have a little more time now to attempt to address specific issues. I have left your text intact above but will butcher a copy below in order to try to address all points:

The template does not follow the recommendations there which are the ones I have been using. MLA style and similar styles are now very widely used in both literary and scientific articles.

I have now updated the template to get it close to MLA. Note that it still requires the authors string to be input precisely to get the right author layout. To get round this issue we would have to have templates Template:Book_ref_1_author ... Template:Book_ref_5_authors. On the face of it, this would be reasonable - however when combined with the need for other templates outlined below, it cause the number of required templates to grow exponentially.

Also, I again and again cite material from books that have editors rather than authors. Translators sometimes need to be mentioned (and translators of sections of a book are sometimes different from the editors of a book). Illustrators are also important (sometimes the reason that the work is being cited is the illustrator). Then there is the matter of noting particular editions or providing reprint information. There is the matter of ISBN numbers. There are somtimes re-releases of a book under a different title or even contemporary release of the same work under different titles. Some academic books are part of a continuing series and the series name should be mentioned.

This is all good stuff. The "editors" case is extremely common, and I think we should proliferate the templates to allow for that. I think perhaps we should also allow a "further information" parameter which can be populated with illustrator, translator information as required. There is a question of whether "close to MLA" is good enough of course in that case.

Sorting material by author and date and using author name and date as the in-text reference is the most reader-friendly method for in-text reference which is why it has caught on so widely for academic use.

No problems with this, though it is a matter for article-writers.

The idea of having bibilographic information in one place for a reference is a good one, but needs much more work before it is practical for anything but the very simplest cases. Probably someone with a lot of bibliographic and library cataloguing experience should work on this.

I would definitely welcome professional input! Pcb21| Pete 09:04, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is a good start! I've had in mind a scheme to make Bib:xyz entries recorded in a separate table in the database, so the bibliography could be searchable and shareable a la images, but that's a lot of hacking... a set of templates like this is a good bridge. Stan 20:53, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

While still simple, I think this is a great big step in the right direction. Not only will it make citations easier, which encourages adding them, but more importantly it creates a standardized format which can be changed easily. I would recommend retrofitting all existing book references with such a template once it's stabilized. Derrick Coetzee 03:37, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If we can create a single dynamic template, I have the makings of an open-source Bibliography Creator on my website, found here. (I didn't code it, but the original author's website is down). It's javascript, so presumably a developer could just embed it into something like Wikipedia:Bibliography creator.

I will also shoot this idea over to the guy who is doing the coding for the Firefox Wikipedia extension and see if he could implement it there. --Alterego 21:32, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Have you noticed that if you do not complete all fields the template shows missing field in the reference. Also if you put field_name= it shows a redundant point. Example:

• Sussex, John (editor) (1990). Stamp World London 90, souvenir handbook, Stamp World Exhibitions.
• Sussex, John (editor) (1990). Stamp World London 90, souvenir handbook, Stamp World Exhibitions.

--AdrianMastronardi 15:34, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(The above example stopped failing when support for optional parameters was added to the template. SEWilco 14:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC))

There is an upgraded version called WikiBib that I released a couple days ago. Yes, it is static at the moment. After I get a little more comfortable with javascript I will insert some 'if field is empty, then do not enter field'. However, we should strive to include as much information as possible so it should not be a big deal in the meantime! --Alterego 19:58, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

The extlink in the above paragraph just displays a lump of XML. I havn't got Javascripting switched off. Why?. -- Chris j wood 12:18, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That was an issue with Internet Explorer, now fixed. --Alterego 15:08, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

WikiBib is nice, Alterego! I don't have much experience with templates (I'm learning, though). (1) How can we standardize the citations even further so that all types have links to the year and consistent punctuation (like the parenthesis and periods in the beginning of most references)? (2) Also, a Google Print template would probably be a good addition. --J. J. 15:53, 2005 August 25 (UTC)

I reverted User:Rdsmith4's changes of today because they broke articles that use this template. This is a very commonly used template, and thus is a dependency of a lot of pages out there. We shouldn't break it lightly, and if we do break it by changing its interface in an incompatible manner, we must be willing to fix the articles that are broken by the change. Preferably, considering the wide-ranging consequences of breaking the interface to commonly used templates, these changes should be discussed first ... —Morven 06:32, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

I think the format:

Author: Title. (Publisher, Year)

or

Author: Title. Publisher, Year.

is much more common. (I never saw the year in parentheses in between Author and Title.)

I don't know Templates well. Is there a possibility to check of absence of a value ? e.g., if one field is not given, the dot should not be put. MFH 23:42, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Personally I think Turabian style is the easiest and most pleasing on the eyes.:

Author, Title (Location: Publisher, Year).

Just an idea. --Fastfission 14:03, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That style is for a note, but in the bibliography the style is slightly different:

Author-last-name, Author-first-name. Title. Location: Publisher, Year.

I write my share of history articles in Wikipedia, and I would never use any template that didn't use this exact format; my God, anything else would be uncivilized. And in the field of history writing at least, other formats seem amateurish. :-) --Kevin Myers 15:46, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

The Chicago Manual of Style makes a difference between bibliography format and reference list format. In bibliography format, the year comes at the end, as above. In reference list format, the year comes between author and title. In theoretical linguistics publications, at least, we always always always use reference list format. The difference between a bibliography and reference list is that a reference list includes only works actually cited in the article; a bibliography contains all works that might be of interest. --Angr/탉 20:03, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

For those who think that "Author (Year) Title..." should be preferred to

Author, Title, (Publisher, Year).

I suggest to check at any moment the reference list of the most recently added article in any of the subjects (physics, mathematics, computer science, biology...) found at the world wide largest preprint server arxiv (15ooo connections/hour w/o counting mirrors; more than 100 new articles/day), e.g.

• recent math articles
• recent physics articles
• recent computer science articles

I have not the lightest fear in receiving an e-mail each time someone notices that the most recent submission prefers the first to the second format. — MFH: Talk 13:55, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

(Somehow my above reply slipped on the wrong page, on Wikipedia_talk:Cite_sources, and I got the reply below, which is maybe here no more needed, but I don't want to delete it by myself.) — MFH: Talk 23:09, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Um, with whom are you arguing? The article explicitly says that there are many citation formats, and that the one given is just an example for those people who aren't familiar with one, and that other styles are also acceptable. (For my part, I'm used to the style used in the hard sciences and engineering, which is neither the APA nor the MLA style and doesn't put last name first.) We don't really care what format people use, as long as they include the information. However, it is important that the present page remain as simple as possible to make it easy for people who aren't used to citations — an exhaustive list of many possible alternative styles is counter-productive here. —Steven G. Johnson 17:45, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

I checked one CS article from arxiv and noticed that the citation form is also different from what is standard in linguistics. Linguistics papers always cite the reference thus: (Smith 2005), whereas the paper I checked (and I know from experience a lot of papers in hard sciences) cite the reference thus: [1]. In the first method the references list is then listed in alphabetical order by author's last name, which is immediately followed by the date. In the second menthod the references list is listed in order of first mention. Since I mostly edit linguistics articles here I like to follow the conventions linguists are accustomed to. People who write on other sciences will presumably also prefer to follow the conventions their colleagues are accustomed to. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 15:22, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

That's really the core issue: Wikipedia articles encompass a great variety of disciplines, and adherents of the various disciplines will advocate their preferred citation style over others. (I've already reverted this template when it appears in history articles, and probably will continue to do so, since it seems so "wrong".) A single Wikipedia "house style" seems unlikely to emerge anytime soon. I've considered making a "history book" reference template; perhaps a variety of citation/reference templates would be helpful, with advice on which one to use for the various disciplines. This approach might create a bit more consistency, while keeping the anal retentive types (i.e. me) happy. --Kevin Myers 17:33, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The logical decision is to support every single citation style there is and let the editor use their discretion as to which is the most appropriate. If done properly, this means that it is something that only has to be done one time, because citation formats are nearly permanent. --Alterego 02:00, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

I have created Template:Book reference no ISBN. On an unrelated note, can someone fill me in on why Music of the United States#References has a problem? Note the works by Gillett and Malone, where the ISBN doesn't display as a link. Tuf-Kat 02:23, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

And in the Music of the United States#Further reading section. Tuf-Kat 02:29, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

• Ah so, grasshopper, this would be because whoever inserted the ISBNs failed to prepend the magic "ISBN " koan. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 17:06, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • I have no idea who that could have been... It must have been the mysterious one-armed man. Thanks! Tuf-Kat 17:30, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Why do we need this template (or similar ones for news sources and even web references)? What purpose does it serve? It's more time-consuming to create and much harder to read (in edit view) and edit. This would be OK if I could see an advantage over just doing the formatting manually in whatever way seems best (following various developing wiki conventions unless there's reason not to). I can't. From where I'm standing, this looks like an enormous waste of time! Am I missing something? Rd232 2 July 2005 15:22 (UTC)

The citations which use the template have a consistent appearance, reducing variations between articles. (SEWilco 14:28, 4 November 2005 (UTC))

Please keep this in sync with Template:Book reference link, Template:Chapter reference and Template:Chapter reference link. (Probably we should use some sub-templates to automatically keep some parts in sync. Benwing 07:57, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to extract some parts of these as subparts. For example, if we ever were to change the Year, as I tried before, I'd want the change automatically propagated to the other similar templates. Similarly for the "publisher ID", which could be a subpart. This is even more important in the new things I created: Chapter Reference, Book Reference Link, and Chapter Reference Link. There is a large amount of code duplicated among these three, and I really want to subpart it.

Is there a standard for creating subtemplates (i.e. subparts)? Do we just go ahead and create a Template and use it, and pick some reasonable name? At the very least we need to pick a standard for naming subpart templates.

Benwing 08:39, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead and created a demo of this. I have a few templates named 'Section:...' and I'm using them for common template parts that are shared among one or more templates, so that changes need be made only once rather than propagated. I've done similar things for the following templates: 'Book reference link', 'Chapter reference', 'Chapter reference link'. It's true that it typically doesn't save space in the template definitions, at least for simple ones like these; but it saves a good deal of headache, esp. over a larger tree of templates, as it allows for consistent propagation of changes.

Benwing 12:46, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

BTW do not revert simply because the formatted result of this template page "looks" wrong. This is a bug in Wikipedia; the actual definition in the Edit box is correct, and calls to these templates look correct with the new definition (actually, they no different from before). Benwing 12:50, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Using the new default value syntax, I converted the template so the only mandatory parameter is Title.

{{Book reference | Author= | Title= | Year= | Pages= | Publisher= | ID= | URL= }}

• Wikipedia, the book.
• Everyone. Wikipedia, the book.
• Everyone (2100). Wikipedia, the book, 1–5, Miami: Wikiprint. ISBN 111112222X Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum.

— (SEWilco 19:21, 25 October 2005 (UTC))

It looks like a few more fields are needed:

• First: First name of author (ignored if Author field is used).
• Last: Surname of author (ignored if Author field is used).
• Chapter: Produces: Author (Year). "Chapter". In …rest of book info starting with Title.
• Editor: inserted before Title. No text added so label such as "(ed.)" has to be supplied by user.
• Others: inserted after Title with a preceding comma. For uses such as "illustrated by Smith" or "trans. Smith".

If I add these then several other templates will become obsolete. Comments? — (SEWilco 05:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC))

If you can make it more versatile, you are encouraged to do so! Please update the "What to type to use this template" section, above. --StanZegel (talk) 10:12, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Updated documentation and renamed to the standard "Usage". (SEWilco 18:35, 2 November 2005 (UTC))

New fields added. (SEWilco 18:35, 2 November 2005 (UTC))

• Wikipedia, the book.
• Everyone. Wikipedia, the book.
• Everyone (2100). Wikipedia, the book, 1–5, Miami: Wikiprint. ISBN 111112222X Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum.
• Everyone. Wikipedia, the book.
• Everyone, Jane. Wikipedia, the book.
• Everyone, Jane. Harriet Michaels (ed.) Wikipedia, the book.
• Everyone, Jane (2100). Harriet Michaels (ed.) Wikipedia, the book.
• Everyone, Jane. Wikipedia, the book, trans. Babel fish.
• Everyone (2100). "Citations" Harriet Michaels (ed.) Wikipedia, the book, trans. Babel fish, 1–5, Miami: Wikiprint. ISBN 111112222X Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum.

Some existing templates allow linking to an author's Wikipedia article. I can add an optional field for the name of an author's article. Does AuthorWiki seem like a good name for that field? I'm concerned if using "Wiki" is too WP-oriented, but AuthorArticle can have several meanings. (SEWilco 06:51, 3 November 2005 (UTC))

Authorlink might do as well: looks less "technical", and probably best not to get into too much CamelCasing. BTW this parameter is definitely needed for those interesting situations where you need some sort of disambiguation. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 18:07, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

That looks like a good label. There is a possible different meaning of "URL link to author's site", but such a thing belongs in an author's Wikipedia article. If a separate URL link is needed a separate citation can be created for the web reference. (SEWilco 19:26, 3 November 2005 (UTC))

If such a thing were desirable, AuthorURL would be more appropriate, but I agree that this kind of thing should be relegated to an article on the author themselves. AFAICT the only sensible thing for the URL parameter to point to is the actual book if a definitive version exists on-line: you might want to consider what happens if a link to a particular Chapter is required :-) HTH HAND Phil | Talk 13:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Having problems with Authorlink. Template isn't letting me have two left brackets, and when I split them up they're not recognized as marking a Wikilink. Not sure yet if the pipe symbol will be a problem. Any suggestions? (SEWilco 15:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC))

• Clark, Manning (1998). History of Australia, Abridged by Michael Cathcart, Melbourne University Press. ISBN 052284779X.

Figured out a way around a couple of template quirks and got it working. (SEWilco 07:39, 5 November 2005 (UTC))

The nice new system seems to break if a URL is used which contains a "=". I have tried encoding the "=" as "%2D" but this doesn't seem to work: it doesn't get converted back into a "=" so the target system doesn't get to act upon it properly. Is this something to do with how the {{if}} template is implemented?

Here's an example:

* {{Book reference
  | Author=Frederick J. Newmeyer
  | Title=The History of Linguistics
  | Publisher=Linguistic Society of America
  | Year=2005
  | ID=
  | URL=http://www.lsadc.org/fields/index.php?aaa=history_of_ling.htm
  }}

• Frederick J. Newmeyer (2005). The History of Linguistics, Linguistic Society of America.

This should link to http://www.lsadc.org/fields/index.php?aaa=history_of_ling.htm but obviously doesn't. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 13:06, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Fixed it. An unnamed parameter with an equal sign requires a specific assignment. I had to add some named numbered parameters to both "book reference" and "if". (SEWilco 16:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC))

Kewl: I've fixed the article where that blew up on me. Now to go out and hunt down {{book reference url}} and obviate it :-) —Phil | Talk 14:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Book_reference_URL removal

Actually, I'm trying to think: would it hurt if for the time being I simply changed {{book reference url}} into a REDIRECT to {{book reference}}? —Phil | Talk 15:37, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, so the only places now linking to {{book reference url}} are talking about it, rather than actually using it. If no-one beats me to it over the weekend, I'll nominate it for deletion next week. HTH HAND Phil | Talk 16:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh? Yes, TfD it. I will point out that I'm avoiding REDIRECT of the other templates. It's easier to find&convert existing usage before a REDIRECT, so I'll be converting the other variations before dealing with obsoleting them. (SEWilco 05:52, 5 November 2005 (UTC))

Is it possible to use a different order if the Author parameter is missing? For example, when constructing a Bibliography in the author's article, it's not good to show the author's name each time, but if you don't you get:

• (1998). First Book. ISBN ????.

which looks awful. Is it possible to arrange that if there is no Author-related parameter present, the Title is shown first? For example, this would be rather better:

• First Book (1998) ISBN ????

Maybe I'm asking too much of the system...this could get really complicated if we have to take into account all the various Author-related parameters. —Phil | Talk 16:54, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

"n.a." could be used for no author, but this looks like another advantage of using a format which places the date further in the citation. (SEWilco 19:09, 7 November 2005 (UTC))

I think the format should encourage the specification of an author. There should be no reference to a book that doesn't say who the author (or editor) is, even if the author (or editor) is "Anonymous". I don't know of any book that somebody or some group didn't either write or edit. COGDEN 21:34, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I think you have misunderstood my meaning: I am referring to the listing of books in the article for the author. There can be no ambiguity as to who wrote it: the point is that it is inelegant to repeat the author's name for every book in a bibliography. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 09:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I think the author should always be specified in the template, to distinguish from the situation where no author is known (or perhaps where naming the author is not allowed). That way the author is defined in the citation, and how to present the author's name becomes a style and technical issue. (SEWilco 16:40, 9 November 2005 (UTC))

I think the author should always be specified. Of course it would look better if we could leave away the author for bibliographies, but that works only for the special case where all books in the bibliography were written by the subject person of the article alone (example 1). If there are books where the subject person of the article is only co-author of at least one book (example 2), we have to add all authors on all books in the bibliography anyway (if we don't want to go into even more complications). That whole wormbox isn't worth the trouble. So don't change the template. Let's always specify the author(s), even if it (or they) get repeated many times in bibliographies. — Adrian | Talk 21:46, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

(Edited): The newly introduced "Coauthors" parameter completely changes the preconditions that existed when Phil started this thread. For example, we could now test for the absence of Frist,Last and then spit out something along the line "with {{{Coauthors}}} {{{Title}}} ({{{Year}}})", e.g. in the article of Martin Fowler this could be something like:

• with Kent Beck; John Brant; William Opdyke; Don Roberts. Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (1999).

However, it is now clear that this new "Biblio"-feature (a Bibliography in an author's article) – if at all – should only be implemented for the First,Last variant of the template. A very nice implementation would be if we imposed that First,Last should *always* be specified but inside the template we could *detect* that it is instantiated in an author's article (I don't know if this is technically possible) and then suppress the display of First,Last. If that detection mechanism is impossible to implement, we could, as a last resort, add (yet) another parameter which serves as a flag. What about "biblio" (i.e. {{Book reference|biblio=yes...}})? — Adrian | Talk 12:53, 17 November 2005 08:03, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi, can something be done to make this template put a full stop at the end of the reference regardless of what options are used? I've cited a book with no ISBN at WAY 1979 and it is coming out without a trailing full stop. Snottygobble | Talk 22:44, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I prefer it with no full stop, then I can add comments on the end with whatever punctuation I like. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 09:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Most citation styles end citations with a full stop, presumably following grammatical customs of ending a textual segment. It seems better to have the template not also generally require addition of a full stop, so I am restoring it. As the format of templates can change, text around a template call should be phrased to not be dependent upon the template so starting a new sentence following this template seems like a good idea. (SEWilco 16:30, 9 November 2005 (UTC))

There are situations, however, where I can see merit in ending with a comma or a semicolon, such as when there are multiple citations listed in the same footnote; for example:

¹ Compare Washington, George (1795), Wooden Teeth and Me, New York: Dental Asylum Press, with Bush, George W. (2003), Look Mom: I'm a War President Now, Washington, D.C.: Rumsfeld Press.

² See Washington, George (1795), Wooden Teeth and Me, New York: Dental Asylum Press; Bush, George W. (2003), Look Mom: I'm a War President Now, Washington, D.C.: Rumsfeld Press; Cheney, Dick (2005), What's More American than Torture?, Abu Graib: CIA.

-- COGDEN 23:13, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Please discuss and vote:

Template:Book reference 2

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template: Book reference 2

Template:Book reference 2a

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template: Book reference 2a

Template:Book reference 3

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Book reference 3

Template:Book reference edition

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Book reference edition

Template:Chapter reference

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Chapter reference

Template:Chapter reference link

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Chapter reference link

I have added a prominent warning notice to the template. Through the magic of mediawiki and the judicious use of the <noinclude> tag, this does not appear on client articles. Ay thenk yew. —Phil | Talk 15:58, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I would like to propose to eliminate the variant First,Last (FL) and to use only the Author variable. I've just done (only) a (very) quick sample and could not find any single applied actual use of this template in the variant FL. I do see a chance to simplify things by eliminating FL as soon as possible. In the first step, I propose to deprecate FL in the documentation (on this page) as soon as possible and then try to do a thorough search to count the exact uses. We could then take a final decision based on the statistics. If the consensus would be to do the elimination, we could then change all existing uses of FL to Author and when done delete FL from template and doc. If the consensus would be *not* to do the elimination, we could just undo the deprecation. Opinions? — Adrian | Talk 23:43, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

No. First,Last are being used in many other citation templates and should be available for compatibility. As with the other templates, identification of First and Last names allows consistent formatting of citations. (SEWilco 04:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC))

I think one-author-books should not be treated different from multi-author-books. The one-author-book case should just be one application of the multi-author-book. Also, author names do not only consist of First, Last. Many do have two first names, often abbreviated by an initial (but in Wikipedia:Cite sources/example style: "A good guideline is to list author names as they are written in the original article/book, without using any abbreviations.") (example: Robert Cecil Martin). Other authors do use other additions, like Jr. (example: Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. (1995). The Mythical Man-Month). And how do we support "consistent formatting" among multi-author-books? One of the reason that motivated me to propose elimination of FL was that it is quite hard to find all occurences in articles, something that would be easy with a separate template (e.g. "Book reference single author" or whatever). But I don't like the idea of an arsenal of book templates. However, I'm not obsessed to my proposal. If you prefer to keep the FL variant, then that's ok. — Adrian | Talk 10:51, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

More authors could be supported at the cost of making the template more complex. If citations move to a database form then multiple authors may be better handled. (SEWilco 12:55, 15 November 2005 (UTC))

For example the template Web reference does *not* provide First,Last parameters, only Author. I think this qualifies as "other template". So my proposal would at least be consistent with that. — Adrian | Talk 17:11, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh. I've been editing {{web reference}} and thought we were there. I've seen {{book reference}} having FL in use. A scan of one bot log shows Alchemy, Aradia (goddess), Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, Batman's Treaty, Binding of Isaac, Branchala, Burchard of Worms...need more? (SEWilco 21:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC))

Yes (my email is on my user page). But thanks for the log scan. However what's interesting is that if we take all articles starting with letter A that use Book reference (26) there are just 3 that use FL (according to your list). That's 12% of the articles beginning with the letter A that use Book reference are also using FL. If we take the actual uses of each instance of Book reference, that ratio will even be lower. Of course that was only letter A. I know that I cannot infer from that to other letters. But anyway, I will stop here. Please excuse me if I was too persisting. I just couldn't follow your arguments. I really appreciate the template as it is. — Adrian | Talk 22:56, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

My list was quite limited in scope as it was from one of dozens of log files created by a variety of bots, so I don't know how to interpret 12%. And my arguments contained increased confusionivity due to my confusion between templates. (SEWilco 03:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC))

No particular opinion on the issue at hand, but I have used FL in a few articles. Might it be wise to add an optional "Middle" (assuming we keep FL)? Some authors use their middle name (or initial) all the time, though it could always be added to the same field as "First", I suppose. Tuf-Kat 05:12, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, "First" is actually for whatever is not "Last" due to the last name often being used for sorting or searching for author information. (SEWilco 05:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC))

I agree that we need to distinguish (at least optionally) between First and Last, for indexing purposes. But I wonder if we shouldn't change this to Surname and Given, because of cultures such as Chinese where the surname usually comes first. Given would include all given names, including middle names. COGDEN 19:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

(Edited to update example) My proposal to eliminate First,Last is now *obsolete*. My thanks go to SEWilco, who added a new parameter "Coauthors" to the template and updated the documentation. In fact, this obsoletes the Author variant of the template, which should no longer be used (if possible). The First,Last variant with the new "Coauthors" parameter is now a full replacement for the now deprecated Author variant, also for the case of multi-author-books. For multi-author-books, the most prominent author (which is also the one that serves as the address of the reference together with the year of the book) should be placed in First,Last while all additional authors should be added to the new "Coauthors". Example:

*{{Book reference

| First = Martin
| Last = Fowler
| Authorlink = Martin Fowler
| Coauthors = [[Kent Beck]], John Brant, [[William Opdyke]], and Don Roberts
| Year = 1999
| Title = Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
| Publisher = Addison-Wesley
| ISBN = 0-201-48567-2

}}

which now produces (intentionally written without using the template):

• Fowler, Martin, Kent Beck, John Brant, William Opdyke, and Don Roberts (1999). Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-48567-2.

See also the thread "Book reference First Last" on SEWilco's talk. 09:50, 17 November 2005 (UTC) – Adrian | Talk 14:36, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

See also Template talk:Journal reference#The Authorlink, and First & Last parameters. – Adrian | Talk 22:19, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I think we ought to rethink the advice given above, where it is suggested that Authorlink should only be used if there is already an article. See, I think it would actually be a good thing if we linked more aggressively: if we're adding lots of references for the same author, and that author doesn't have an article, maybe they should, so it would be a good thing if the name appeared on Special:Wanted Articles. IMNSHO we should have an article on every author who is cited commonly: what better clue for notability could we think of than this? HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 09:09, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal: change wording from "Article must already exist" to "Avoid excessive production of redlinks". — Adrian | Talk 13:03, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Or maybe "use your own judgement whether to link an author.." Pcb21 Pete 14:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the sentiment in general; should be up to the editors whether the author should be redlinked. --KGF0 ( T | C ) 16:35, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Something I just noticed on editing Arnobius — URL always puts the link on Title, i.e., on the book itself, in this case Catholic Encyclopedia. IMHO, while this is good as a default, since Title is mandatory and Chapter is not (I use Chapter for Article, as appropriate and necessary), I think it would be A Good Thing to have some option for putting a URL on the Chapter instead or in addition. Best thing I could think of would be (yet another) optional argument, such as ChapterURL — this would allow a link to the chapter in question in books where the online version gives each chapter its own page, while also allowing the URL field to provide a link to the top-level of the book itself, which is what I, as a reader, would expect to get from clicking on a linked Title. I would just Be Bold and do it if this template weren't already complex beyond my ability to edit confidently; I don't want to break it while people are using it. That said, I think the change required would be from:

 }}{{if
   |{{{Chapter|}}}
   | "{{{Chapter}}}" in
 }}

to something like:

 }}{{if
   |1={{{Chapter|}}}{{if
     |1={{{ChapterURL|}}}
     |2=[{{{ChapterURL}}}
     |3=
   }}
   |2= "{{{Chapter}}}"{{if
     |1={{{ChapterURL|}}}
     |2=]
     |3=
   }}
   |3=
 }}

I'm not at all sure that this is legal syntax; I leave its analysis to SEWilco and the experts who have done such a good job so far. (BTW, who added "in"? What citation style standard includes, or even allows, for that? It certainly isn't MLA; I've never seen that anywhere. I've removed it for now, confident that I can successfully make that small a change. If someone knows which style that's implementing and disagrees with me, they can always revert; and I'd appreciate a comment if that happens, here or on my talk page, so I can (re)learn the referenced style.) --KGF0 ( T | C ) 17:18, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I've been looking at this. With the new updated version using {{qif}}, I think the change should now be:

}}{{qif
  |test={{{Chapter|}}}
  |then= "{{{Chapter}}}"
}}{{qif

to something like:

}}{{qif
  |test={{{Chapter|}}}
  |then= "{{qif
   |test={{{ChapterURL|}}}
   |then=[{{{ChapterURL}}} {{{Chapter}}}]
   |else={{{Chapter}}}
}}"}}{{qif

Can anybody see anything syntactically wrong with this? HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 11:39, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest you do first a test under your user space with examples. At the moment im not that motivated to do this myself (re qif shooting). But I'm willing to assist. Maybe you could also run the regression tests (Template talk:Book reference/regression tests) under your user space before submitting here. It might also be useful to create a non-protected development branch of this template and work exclusively there, and then let an admin (you?) copy stable versions (i.e. releases) into template:book reference to minimize changes. Changes in high traffic templates means work to the servers (database can lock for seconds), so it might be good to minimize changes. – Adrian | Talk 17:47, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I've just been so bold to create a new very simple template {{book author}}{{book coauthor}} (talk) and would like to use that in the examples section here. I would copy the muli-author example from the book author talk page. Shall I do this? Is book author book coauthor useful? Thanks! – Adrian | Talk 17:42, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not so sure it's that useful, since most citation styles I know of only prescribe Last, First format for the first author; subsequent names in the Coauthors param should be First Last, or First Last, First Last, or et. al. in my experience. Also IIRC nested templates don't work, unless this has been updated in recent wikisoftware changes of which I am unaware. I suppose this could have applications elsewhere, though I can't think of an example. --KGF0 ( T | C ) 18:24, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Regarding "subsequent names in the Coauthors param should be First Last, or First Last, First Last": I guess it would be easy to change {{book author}}{{book coauthor}} to adapt to that (if this is the consensus). – Adrian | Talk 10:30, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Regarding "nested templates don't work": hmm. I think they do work. Have you looked at Template talk:book authorTemplate talk:book coauthor? Have I overlooked something? Can you give me a pointer ("cite your sources" :-). Or even much better: Do you have an example that does *not* work (if yes, could you please add that on Template talk:book authorTemplate talk:book coauthor under a new discussion thread section)? Thanks! – Adrian | Talk 10:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I've just created {{book authors}}{{book coauthors}} (please note the "s" char at the end). See talk page. – Adrian | Talk 10:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I've decided to limit the use to coauthors and renamed the new templates to {{book coauthors}} (talk) and {{book coauthor}} (talk) – Adrian | Talk 13:01, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Template:book coauthors (includes Template:book coauthor, Template:book authors and Template:book author) has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Book coauthors. Thank you. – Adrian | Talk 10:47, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I have moved them to my user space. See User:Adrian Buehlmann/book coauthors. I'm very pleased to see that the templates still work. I always thought they had to reside in Template namespace to work. Good by template sandbox! – Adrian | Talk 00:41, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

When the publisher ends with a period, e.g., "Inc.", this template adds a redundant period after it. It may have the same problem with other fields, though I haven't checked it out. The template is a nice idea, but until it is fixed to stop this goofy behavior, it is of somewhat limited use. --Quicksilver^{T @} 22:19, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

AFAICT, the only viable fix for this is user education; I will note it in the Usage section. Allowance must be made for the final period regardless of whether the Publisher should end with one, or whether Publisher is included at all, since that's an optional argument. Edit: Just noticed that, if you follow the instructions under Usage, in accord with most citation styles (including MLA and Chicago if memory serves) Inc., PLC, LLC, &c. should not be included in the citation to begin with. See also: Wikipedia:Cite_sources/example_style. --KGF0 ( T | C ) 22:50, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Re: "It may have the same problem with other fields, (..)". I can confirm this with parameter First. Example (from C++):

*{{Book reference

| First = James O.
| Last = Coplien
| Authorlink = 
| Year = 
| Title = Multiparadigm Design for C++
| Publisher = Addison-Wesley
| ISBN = 0-201-82467-1

}}

Which is expanded at the time you read this as:

• Coplien, James O.. Multiparadigm Design for C++, Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-82467-1.

Which was expanded when writing this as (without using the template):

• Coplien, James O.. Multiparadigm Design for C++, Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-82467-1.

To circumvent this, I had to define First = James O (without the point after the Initial "O"). This problem does not exist when a year is specified (which is not a required parameter). – Adrian | Talk 22:06, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Cite sources/example style says, "please use the citation style of your choice" (original emphasis), and Wikipedia:Cite sources says, "If available and unquestioned, follow the established practice for the appropriate profession or discipline" (original emphasis). There are a number of standards of equal merit in varying disciplines, many of which are covered in various topic area of Wikipedia. I'm wondering about the viability of expanding the template to allow for any of them, or at least any of the common ones.

It seems that the recent effort to consolidate on a single template for all books is worthwhile, meritorious, and largely successful, if still a work in progress. It would be a shame to have things forking again in the future as disputer arise under the above-referenced policies as one group writing in psychology insists on APA style, while the sciences insist on Chicago, and the academics pine for {{Harvard reference}}. With the addition of one more optional argument (and, yes, a mountain of code) I think this template could serve everyone equally, since every citation style is including essentially the same information and simply formatting it differently for display.

For example, with the addition of an argument style, which takes values such as MLA APA Chicago Harvard, the template could provide a top-level if-nest based on the existence and value of that parameter, and format the reference in accord with the related organization's dictates. This would also simplify the matter if, say, a reference was originally created with APA style, and the community consensus in that subject area is that Chicago should be used instead: just change that one param, and bingo, there's your change.

I think I'm beginning to understand how this template functions now, so if there's any interest in seeing this, I could do a mock-up in my user space within the next week or so. Thank you in advance for your input, pro and con. --KGF0 ( T | C ) 23:07, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I find this idea quite nice. A proposal: one template (let's assume that's Book reference) that contains the implementation logic and has a new style paramater (as you wrote). But then don't let users instantiate Book reference everywhere in articles. Instead, create new front-end templates like "Book reference MLA", "Book reference APA", "Book reference Chicago" and "Book reference Harvard" (or other names whatever) that just delegate to "Book reference" and set the new style paramater of Book reference accordingly and just forward all other parameters to Book reference. That way it, it would be easy to find the different variants in articles. – Adrian | Talk 01:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Addendum: Use for the name of the implementation template "Book reference implementation" (or similar): intentionally long to write so that users won't take it by accident. And, that name should be different from "Book reference". Edit 01:59, 19 November 2005 (UTC): The contents of Book reference (as it stands now) should be moved to the new "Book reference implementation". "Book reference" (exact name) should then be demoted to a front-end template (i.e. the "old" "default" variant). – Adrian | Talk 01:37, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Why not start the mockup at "Template:Book reference implementation" right away (instead of in your user space)? We (you) could copy the contents of Book reference to there and we would have an own decoupled playground for the start (with the luxory of an own discussion space). And if it should fail, we do not hurt gurus nor users here (just TfD as needed). Book reference is used in more than 3'500 articles. So, we should know what we are doing... – 02:34, 19 November 2005 (UTC) – Adrian | Talk 00:53, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Changed my mind (and removed redlink above): I didn't know that we can use templates that reside in user namespace. So you can perfectly start that under your user space (Example: User talk:Adrian Buehlmann/book coauthors, look at the code). I'm just wondering what's the template sandbox good for. – Adrian | Talk 00:53, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

This seems related to Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikicite and related projects. Store the information in a standard format and then display the information. At the moment {{Book reference}} is serving as the formatting and storage method, but making this template more complex will increase article display overhead. (SEWilco 05:05, 19 November 2005 (UTC))

I recall that you want to use different citation styles depending on value. I have made a template {{booleq}} that you can use if you want to check if a value equals a string, see Category: If Templates for usage and more templates. --AzaToth ^talk 12:17, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Technical comment on how to add a new talk thread: may I propose to use the + tab on the top of this page to add a new discussion thread or if you just hit edit of the previous section but go adding a new section title to fix the title in the edit summary. The edit summary of your edit that added this new thread just shows the title of the previous section. That confuses me. However, thanks for your pointer to {{booleq}}! – Adrian | Talk 15:01, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, have missed that button, will use it next time :) --AzaToth ^talk 15:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Recent edits have totally killed the appearance of the template. I reverted to an old version that looked right. I appreciate the importance of eliminating calls to deprecated templates, but this is trumped by the importance of having book references that look vaguely right. Error committed to this template affect a lot of pages, so please write and thoroughly test your changes elsewhere before committing them here. Snottygobble | Talk 23:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that the change was made because every single instance where the {{{Editor}}} parameter is used shows {{{Editor}}} jammed right up against {{{Title}}}. I was attempting to insert some white-space between the optional {{{Editor}}} parameter and the mandatory {{{Title}}} parameter in such a way that it would only manifest itself when {{{Editor}}} was defined. As far as I could see my change worked fine, and none of the (many) other instances of the template in the various articles I checked appeared broken (never mind "completely killed"). Please supply details of what was actually wrong, and how you intend to accommodate the changes necessary to fix the problem I was trying to solve before you reverted. —Phil | Talk 13:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

• I reverted to Phils version, mostly because ifnone should not be used. _→AzaToth 14:52, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

In your edit summary (revision of 23:38, 29 November 2005 UTC) you wrote "(...) this was killing Template:Black and Bolton 2001. (...)". {{Template:Black and Bolton 2001}} is expanded as:

{{Book reference | Author=[[David Black (historian)|Black, David]] and [[Geoffrey Bolton|Bolton, Geoffrey]] | Title=Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia, Volume One, 1870–1930 (Revised Edition) | Publisher=[[Parliament of Western Australia]], Parliament House, Perth, Western Australia | Year=[[2001]] | ISBN=0730738140}}

So writing {{Template:Black and Bolton 2001}} at the moment you read this gives:

Black, David and Bolton, Geoffrey (2001). Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia, Volume One, 1870–1930, Revised Edition, Parliament of Western Australia. ISBN 0730738140.

using the most recent version of book reference (14:51, 30 November 2005 UTC by AzaToth, which reverted to Phil), this is (intentionally written without using any template, compare to above):

Black, David and Bolton, Geoffrey (2001). Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia, Volume One, 1870–1930 (Revised Edition), Parliament of Western Australia, Parliament House, Perth, Western Australia. ISBN 0730738140.

Could you explain what's broken with that? – – Adrian | Talk 16:29, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Obviously there is nothing broken with the above. But it was broken before. After snooping around, I noticed that User:JonMoore made a change to Template:If six minutes before my revert of this template, and it was reverted by Adrian one minute after my revert. I had a play around in the template sandboxes, and have confirmed that it was the change to Template:If that "totally killed" the appearance of Template:Black and Bolton 2001. I thought that my revert had fixed it, but it must have been Adrian's revert of Template:If one minute later that fixed it. My humblest apologies to one and all for disrupting your fine work. Snottygobble | Talk 22:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I feel with you. Never mind. At least, I can affirm that after Jon's accidental if-edit book references looked really shocking :-). I could quickly conclude that it must had been if, because web reference already used the new {{qif}} and they still looked fine. – Adrian | Talk 23:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)