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It is an obvious mistake to force boldfacing of the value passed in |Volume=
(|volume=
in the cite templates that use this meta-template) other than {{
cite journal}} and {{
cite news}} and maybe another one here and there. It's worse that pointless in {{
cite book}}.
None of the major style guides (not even a minor one that I can find) recommends this style for books and such, including (I think they're all current):
I do not have a big collection of field-specific ones ( AMA Manual of Style, etc.), nor New Hart's Rules yet (it's on order), and I won't bother to buy and check The Bedford Guide for College Writers, since it's derivative of the above and non-authoritative, but I'd bet a zillion that they don't recommend this boldfacing style for book volumes, either. Many never touch on the issue, like the AP Stylebook, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, The Guardian Style Guide, etc., because they're journalistic, and don't use complete, formatted source citations at all. Neither Strunk & White nor Fowler, do either. Nothing does appear to recommend this style.
The volume is boldfaced for periodicals (in some but not all style guides, and here at WP) because of how those citations are formatted; it's a helpful readability aid:
It is useful here, because this citation style butts the volume, issue and page number together, without labeling any of them.
With magazines and newspapers, the same also applies (other than the page numbers are labeled as such by {{cite news}}
, which is okay, really):
But, with the way "volume" is usually used for books, it is not helpful. It just looks weird, and it inappropriately emphases something other than the title and author, the main points in this kind of citation, especially since multi-volume books are most often obtained as a set and are not serial publications in the usual sense, and usually also have subtitles that are relevant to cite:
{{
cite book}}
: |volume=
has extra text (
help)The rationale for boldfacing simply does not apply at all, as there is no "issue" for the "volume" to run up against, and the page number is nowhere near it.
The boldfacing is not helpful even for curt, number-only, encyclopedia-style volume citation with books:
since the volume number is not up against the page number; books just use a completely different citation style.
Template:Cite book/doc (and others that don't use journal/news style formatting) need to be updated to warn against using |volume=
this way, as it will be meaningless to readers, and instead to always include "Vol." or "Volume": |volume=Vol. II
. It is also too late, really, to modify the meta-template to include "Vol." automatically, the way |pages=
auto-includes "pp. ", since too many extant cases already have "Vol." or "Volume" manually added to the parameter's values.
Anyway, the boldfacing of this parameter in {{cite book}}
(and in any other cite template that doesn't use the "Volume (Issue): Pages" formatting for periodicals) should go away. I'm not advocating any change to {{cite journal}}
, {(tnull|cite news}} or other periodical template. {{Cite book}}
also needs a comma, not a period (full stop), between the title and volume, when volume appears, but let's fix one thing at a time.
The most straightforward way to fix this would be to assume that any citation that that has a volume but no issue is a non-journal/news citation like a book, video, etc. (a safe-ish assumption; if it really is a journal/news citation, it is an incomplete one and screwed up anyway; not boldfacing the volume number in such a case is a trivial result), and just change {{ Citation/core}}'s this:
{{ #if: {{{Volume|}}} | '''<nowiki />{{{Volume}}}<nowiki />'''{{ #if: {{{Issue|}}} | ({{{Issue}}}) }} |{{ #if: {{{Issue|}}} | ({{{Issue}}}) }} }}
to this:
{{ #if: {{{Volume|}}} | {{#if:{{{Issue|}}}|'''<nowiki />{{{Volume}}}<nowiki />'''|<nowiki />{{{Volume}}}<nowiki />}}{{ #if: {{{Issue|}}} | ({{{Issue}}}) }} |{{ #if: {{{Issue|}}} | ({{{Issue}}}) }} }}
If this would actually break something badly, the other obvious fix is to make a non-boldfacing Volume2 variant of Volume, and call it from {{cite book}}
and other cite templates that don't use journal/news formatting:
{{ #if: {{{Volume2|}}} | <nowiki />{{{Volume2}}}<nowiki /> }} }}
— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 20:24, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
|vol=
gets used for both books and periodicals, and that no one has come up with a way ("obvious" or not) of having both behaviors. ~
J. Johnson (JJ) (
talk) 22:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I am not sure that I have ever seen volume numbers of journals bolded in real-life citations. Maybe I have, but in what I read it's certainly not standard. Maybe this is just a random personal preference being enforced even though it makes everything unnecessarily complicated and (so long as the bug isn't fixed) forces editors to put volume numbers for books into the title? Hans Adler 06:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
(od) Note: If the concern is that it's somehow difficult to tell what is the volume vs. issue number is in "IX (9): 224–172", there's no human cognition reason that boldfacing the volume number would magically fix this, and the real solution is obviously to change the display to "Vol. IX, Issue 9, pp. 224–172"; there's no reason for WP to use the excessively clipped and geeky "IX (9): 224–172" format. No one understands that anyway, except professional academics and science students. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 11:41, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Minimal fix, per above, to stop boldfacing of non-periodical volumes is to change:
| '''<nowiki />{{{Volume}}}<nowiki />'''{{
to
| {{#if:{{{Periodical|}}}|'''<nowiki />{{{Volume}}}<nowiki />'''|{{{Volume}}}}}{{
It's in Template:Citation/core/sandbox as of this diff (which is important; other editors have been sandboxing there recently; I reset the 'box to the live code, then made this one-line change.)
This does not resolve the issue of whether even journal volumes should be boldfaced, which is more of a
WP:MOS discussion. Evidence strongly suggest that the boldfacing should simply be eliminated (esp. since it also affects non-journal periodicals via {{
cite news}}
). But we all know it is wrong for books, so that should be fixed right now. —
SMcCandlish
Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ
Contribs. 21:05, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Tests:
{{
Cite journal}}
: Surname, A. Z. (March 2012). "Article Title". Journal Name. IX (03). Smallsville, Cascadia: Screwball U. Press: 234–247. (Aside: Note also the incorrect italicization of |chapter=
, and pointless leading zero in the issue number, in {{cite journal}}
output, neither of which correspond to an major style guide's recommendations.){{
Cite book}}
: Surname, A. Z. (March 2012). "3. Chapter Title". Vol. Vol. II. Smallsville, Cascadia: Screwball U. Press. pp. 234–247. {{
cite book}}
: |volume=
has extra text (
help); |work=
ignored (
help); Missing or empty |title=
(
help)This is still broken – note boldfacing of "Vol. II" in the {{cite book}}
example – despite the attempt work around this in December. Note zero opposition to simply removing the boldfaing, since
#Is boldfacing of volume numbers in periodicals appropriate?, above, revealed that boldfacing the volume even for journals (the only place it's been observed off-wiki at all) isn't a recognizable style advocated by any major style guides, it's just a
WP:ILIKEIT idea from someone who thought it looked nice.
Remove boldfacing of {{{volume}}}. Please change:
| {{#if:{{{Periodical|}}}|'''<nowiki />{{{Volume}}}<nowiki />'''|{{{Volume}}}}}{{
to
| {{{Volume}}}{{
and
|{{{Sep|,}}} '''<nowiki />{{{Volume}}}<nowiki />'''
to
|{{{Sep|,}}} {{{Volume}}}
If people insist on wanting to add it back in for journals, they need to make a better case than "I've seen some journals do it that way" (i.e. WP:IKNOWIT), and do it in a way that doesn't break the output for non-periodicals, or really for non-journals more generally (it shouldn't even affect non-journal periodicals like newspapers). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 11:39, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
The output of |chapter=
is sometimes italicized, as it is in {{
cite journal}}
's output, which is completely incorrect style according to my entire shelf of style guides, in which I cannot find a single example of chapters or papers in a larger work being italicized, and it is sometimes correctly put into double quotation marks, as in {{
cite book}}
's output. The latter style should simply be applied across-the-board. —
SMcCandlish
Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ
Contrib. 09:47, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Fixed in sandbox:
Markup | Renders as |
---|---|
{{citation/core |Title=Title |IncludedWorkTitle=IncludedWorkTitle |Periodical=Periodical}} |
IncludedWorkTitle, "Title", Periodical |
{{citation/core/sandbox |Title=Title |IncludedWorkTitle=IncludedWorkTitle |Periodical=Periodical}} |
IncludedWorkTitle, "Title", Periodical |
---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 11:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
{{LCCN|89456}}
gives
LCCN
89-456, whereas {{citation|lccn=89456}}
gives ,
LCCN
89456 {{
citation}}
: Check |lccn=
value (
help); Missing or empty |title=
(
help). Is it possible to change citation (or maybe citation core) to format the LCCN with the appropriate dash? Thanks
Rjwilmsi 08:57, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Currently in {{ cite book}} if "chapter" parameter is set with no "chapter-url", the "url" value goes to chapter. Eg.:
*{{cite book |url=http://www.example.com |title=Example title |first=First |last=Last |year=2012 |month=March |ISBN=123456789101 }}
*{{cite book |url=http://www.example.com |title=Example title |chapter=Example chapter |first=First |last=Last |year=2012 |month=March |ISBN=123456789101 }}
*{{cite book |url=http://www.example.com |title=Example title |chapter-url=http://www.example.com/chapter1.html |chapter=Example chapter |first=First |last=Last |year=2012 |month=March |ISBN=123456789101 }}
results in:
{{
cite book}}
: Check |isbn=
value: length (
help); Unknown parameter |month=
ignored (
help){{
cite book}}
: Check |isbn=
value: length (
help); Unknown parameter |month=
ignored (
help){{
cite book}}
: Check |isbn=
value: length (
help); Unknown parameter |month=
ignored (
help)Same goes for {{ citation}}:
*{{citation |url=http://www.example.com |title=Example title |chapter=Example chapter |first=First |last=Last |year=2012 |month=March |ISBN=123456789101 }}
{{
citation}}
: Check |isbn=
value: length (
help); Unknown parameter |month=
ignored (
help)This leads to the confusion, as the "url" may be the link to book description, TOC or even download link for PDF, and may not necessarily present the needed chapter to the reader. Furthermore, if linking chapter but not title is intended, "chapter-url" can be used without "url" anyway.
So far my request is to change the template to strictly associate "url" with "title" so that the second example would result in:
— Dmitrij D. Czarkoff ( talk) 13:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
. The template states "This template should be followed by a complete and specific description of the request, so that an editor unfamiliar with the subject matter could complete the requested edit immediately." I am familiar, but I don't see sufficient description of the edit which is to be made, nor anything in the sandbox which might be related. Also "This template should be used only to request edits ... that are either uncontroversial or supported by consensus." I believe that this could be controversial, and I don't see
consensus yet. --
Redrose64 (
talk) 22:10, 20 March 2012 (UTC)Markup | Renders as |
---|---|
{{citation/core |Title=Title |URL=http://www.example.com}} |
|
{{citation/core |Title=Title |IncludedWorkTitle=IncludedWorkTitle |URL=http://www.example.com}} |
|
{{citation/core |Title=Title |IncludedWorkTitle=IncludedWorkTitle |URL=http://www.example.com/URL |IncludedWorkURL=http://www.example.com/IncludedWorkURL}} |
|
{{
editprotected}}
is activated. --
Redrose64 (
talk) 22:31, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
|IncludedWorkTitle=
and /or |Periodical=
is defined . This could be messy, as I think some templates have coded around this behavior. ---—
Gadget850 (Ed)
talk 23:26, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Any comments on this proposal? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff ( talk) 23:12, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
|url=
sticks to title: the documentation of all the citation templates using |chapter=
or |contribution=
say that |chapter-url=
or |contribution-url=
should be used for links to chapters and contributions accordingly. There's nothing cumbersome and error-prone in doing the things the documented way, in contrast to assuming that the link from |url=
magically goes to the text it would better suit. —
Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (
talk) 00:33, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Comment Making this change would break several citations which expected this behaviour. If this is implemented, there needs to be some bot-work done in parallel. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:16, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
As this change appears to be controversial and citation templates indeed are used in far too many cases, I started an RfC to gain attention of wider group of editors. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff ( talk) 11:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Currently the link provided in |url=
parameter of
citation templates attaches to the first of chapter (or contribution) name unless |chapter-url=
(or |contribution-url=
) is specified:
Markup | Renders as |
---|---|
{{cite book |first=Name |last=Surname |url=http://example.com |title=The example book title |chapter=Chapter 3: No link |year=2012 |month=March |isbn=123456789 }} |
|
As sometimes it may make sense to link the book's title without linking chapter (ie. if only book's description is available online), I propose to change the behaviour of |url=
to stick with the title:
Markup | Renders as |
---|---|
{{cite book |first=Name |last=Surname |url=http://example.com |title=The example book title |chapter=Chapter 3: No link |year=2012 |month=March |isbn=123456789 }} |
|
Such change would be in line with the
principle of least astonishment, as the reader who clicks on the link on chapter name expects to see the chapter, not the table of content or cover. Still, as some editors use the floating |url=
behaviour previously, some already existing entries of citation templates will be rendered incorrectly and linking the chapter will require explicitly specifying the |chapter-url=
. —
Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (
talk) 11:08, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
|url=
should be fixed regardless of this change, as using undocumented behaviour is a bad habbit anyway. Everyone using the citation templates can easily access their documentation and see the proper way of formatting the citations. —
Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (
talk) 11:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)