Help talk:CS1 errors

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Semi-protected edit request on 24 April 2024

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A section link is broken in Help:CS1 errors#bad_date. Where it says:

[[Help:Citation_Style_1#Date_compliance_with_Wikipedia's_Manual_of_Style|subset of the date rules]]

Change it to:

[[Help:Citation_Style_1#Date_format_compliance_with_Wikipedia's_Manual_of_Style|subset of the date rules]]

73.37.211.177 (talk) 08:28, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done Well spotted! -- John of Reading (talk) 09:46, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Script warning: One or more {{cite book}} templates have maintenance messages; messages may be hidden (help).

This section doesn't say how to resolve the base or core issue at all. It just say, Oh, install script you don't have power to do into your wikipedia. Can we get how to resolve one of these errors because I don't see where the error is on the page and it doesn't help you to flag where the error is, which is a lot less useful that a lot of the current programs. Screw it, I'm posting it, 'cause there is no apparent error I can find in any of the citations.--KimYunmi (talk) 20:10, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See the big (help) link? Click that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:22, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you want more specific help, you'll have to be more specific about where you're seeing that message. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:28, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Season slash error

date = Fall/Winter 2012 does not seem to work. [1]

jps (talk) 16:03, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Did you follow the help link that is part of the error message and read the help text? If you did and still don't know why that error message is present, tell us what it is about the help text that you don't understand so that we can improve it.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:20, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I did. Seasons are supposed to be included. If you use date = Fall 2012, it works without error. It seems that a season of Fall/Winter is the problem. At least, that's the best I can surmise. jps (talk) 16:29, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It appears you have written the citation correctly, since that's how the date is written in the source. So just leave the error message, it's a false alarm. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not true. The consensus for cs1|2 date handling is published at Help:Citation Style 1 § Dates where we say that the solidus is not supported in cs1|2 dates. If you leave the error readers will see it. Someday an en.wiki editor may fix it. Don't leave a mess for someone else to clean up. It is best to write the date in a way acceptable to the cs1|2 template so that others don't have to clean up after you and readers aren't exposed to our error messages.

If you believe that cs1|2 should support the solidus range separator, get consensus to do so at Help talk:Citation Style 1.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:55, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This reply is written in a style that suggests it's better to write a false date that doesn't create an error message than to write a correct date that isn't supported. It's only by reading a different post can one find that there is, in this instance, a way to write the date in a supported way. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If the correct way to write more than one season is to use an en dash, then that should be indicated in the Help file, I guess. But is it really that important that we have this rule? jps (talk) 20:45, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, scratch that. In the Help:Citation Style 1 § Dates section it says that we should use slashes! Sources are at liberty to use other ways of expressing dates, such as "spring/summer" or a date in a religious calendar; editors should report the date as expressed by the source. Although the seasons are not normally capitalized, they are capitalized when used as dates in CS1 templates, and the capitalization of the season stated by the source may be altered to follow this convention. In cases where the date as expressed in the source is not compatible with the template software, the citation should be created without using a template. So this should be fixed in the code unless it would break something else. Otherwise, seems like I am required to use a non-templated format which would be pretty annoying if that were the case. For a single slash I have to abandon the template? jps (talk) 20:48, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Near the top of the help text is a bullet list. The sixth item in that list is:

hyphens or slashes instead of en dashes in date ranges (en dashes are required)

A bit further down is a table captioned: Examples of unacceptable dates and how to fix them; see the second item. See also the table Help:Citation Style 1 § Date format compliance with Wikipedia's Manual of Style

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:55, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Slashes are the normal way I have seen bibliographies indicate two seasons. En dashes make sense as a punctuation requirement for specific dates so that, for example, parsers can work, but I see no reason why a Season string should throw an error for including a slash. Is there some sort of code that / breaks in the templates? If not, it is apparently a mere stylistic choice. jps (talk) 20:44, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is a style choice on Wikipedia to use en dashes for day, month, season, and year ranges. The template complies with that style choice. Wikipedia's Manual of Style (MOS) has a lot of guidance for editors. It can be a lot to absorb, so take your time. I have been here for over ten years and still learn things when I visit the MOS pages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:29, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is fine for day, month, and year ranges, but why seasons? I don't see any discussion that explains how that consensus was arrived at. Can you point me to it? Otherwise, it looks like consensus imposed on sloppy exclusions in the code near edge cases. jps (talk) 21:31, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

These are date rangers, and all date ranges are expressed with dashes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:44, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll also note that in the style guide you cite, there is text that covers this very situation: The slash notation (2005/2006) may be used to signify a fiscal year or other special period, if that convention is used in reliable sources. Seems like the appropriate thing to do here is use slash since that is what the source uses. jps (talk) 21:33, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymous authors

Using |author1=Anonymous generates an error message which directs editors to Help:CS1 errors#generic name. That section says to "use a more appropriate parameter", but does not say which, much less give an example.

Which parameter would be appropriate? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:11, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Pigsonthewing, Just stalking by this talk page and found your query. In this case i would suggest you to not to use |author1=Anonymous as it is not an actual name of any author. just leave that parameter blank. However, In any scenario regarding authors name conflicting with generic names, use

{{Cite web |author1=((name))<!--Dual parentheses around-->}}

It wouldn't produce any error messages.––kemel49^{(connect)(contri)} 01:41, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How to find "Script warning: One or more {{cite journal}} templates have maintenance messages;" errors

I'm editing Atomic clock which at the moment has 212 references. Before saving my edits, I preview the article and the above message is displayed. I know such nits are common and may be preexisting and not in anything I added. The question is "which one of the 212 references needs fixing?"

To see it yourself, start at http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Atomic_clock&action=edit&oldid=1241897325 and hit "Show preview".

I suppose best would be an #anchor that was linked to directly. Second, a pattern I could search for. But "warning", "maintenance", "template", "{{cite" and "help" all fail to turn up anything.

Then there's the "messages may be hidden" postamble. Does that mean hidden in the public rendered version (reasonable for minor things), or hidden in the preview I'm looking at this instant? The latter seems stupid and useless. Editing and reloading custom CSS styles is a giant PITA that risks losing my in-progress Wikipedia edits.

After much effort, I asked the browser for an unstyled render and found appended to reference #4 ("First accuracy evaluation of NIST-F2" the text " {{cite journal}}: Empty citation (help): CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of June 2024 (link)". It turned out someone omitted the final digit 4 from the doi:10.1088/0026-1394/51/3/174.

An easy fix, made infuriating by the difficulty of finding the freaking error message. It should not require such an epic struggle.

There really should be a clickable link, or a documented searchable text string (like "CS1 maint:") to enable an editor to easily find the offending citation template. 97.102.205.224 (talk) 09:43, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I clicked and looked, before I realized you found it, and you know the search string now. The doc pages of templates are open to editing by all, and you are welcome to add appropriate text to the doc page of the type you suggest to aid other editors in finding the problem more quickly than you were able to, and it would be appreciated. Mathglot (talk) 10:34, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathglot: I can propose an {{edit semi-protected}} for the documentation, but the way I did it depends on my using Firefox; other browsers don't have View > Page Style > No Style menu options in the base browser. You need to enable developer extensions, add a plug-in, or enter some esoteric javascript incantation. (I think viewing the HTML source and searching that would work, but it's pretty cluttered and hard to read.) 97.102.205.224 (talk) 12:33, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First this is not an error, this is a maintenance message. This is hidden by default because broken DOIs are common and do not usually required any action from the reader or most editors (bots handle this usually). That's why it's flagged as maintenance, and not error.

Second, there is a searchable string, and that searchable string is indeed "CS1: maint". If you followed the help link in the preview message, you'd know this. To enable it, you must be a logged in editor with a custom .css file in your userspace. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:45, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Headbomb: Um, you'll find the string is actually "CS1 maint:" (notice the location of the colon). Second, that information does not appear anywhere on the linked help page. Please go and search yourself if you doubt me! You can find mention of Category:CS1 maint: archived copy as title, but that's not described as text that appears in the maintenance message.

Seriously, "If you... you'd know this" comes across as pretty impatient, and it's not justified. Reading the linked help was the first thing I did, and the help page was spectacularly useless; thus my plaint on this, the corresponding talk page.

I fail to see the point of having the visibility of the header not linked the visibility of the messages, but that's a larger-scale issue; in the short term the confusingness can be mitigated with better documentation. Just for example, "hidden by default" would be much clearer than "may be hidden", as it gives the reader some clue about "depending on what?"

I'll try to come up with a proposed edit to fix it, it's just going to be pretty involved so I've been putting it off. 97.102.205.224 (talk) 05:50, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you click the help link, you are taken to Help:CS1_errors#Controlling_error_message_display, which I will partly reproduce and bold/embiggen here:

Preview messages

This is only a preview; your changes have not yet been saved! → Go to editing area Script warning: One or more {{cite book}} templates have maintenance messages; messages may be hidden (help).

Error and maintenance messages

By default, Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2 error messages are visible to all readers and maintenance messages are hidden from all readers.
To display maintenance messages in the rendered article, include the following text in your common CSS page (common.css) or your specific skin's CSS page and (skin.css). (Note to new editors: those CSS pages are specific to you, and control your view of pages, by adding to your user account's CSS code. If you have not yet created such a page, then clicking one of the .css links above will yield a page that starts "Wikipedia does not have a user page with this exact name." Click the "Start the User:username/filename page" link, paste the text below, save the page, follow the instructions at the bottom of the new page on bypassing your browser's cache, and finally, in order to see the previously hidden maintenance messages, refresh the page you were editing earlier.)
.mw-parser-output span.cs1-maint {display: inline;} /* display Citation Style 1 maintenance messages */
After (error and/maintenance) messages are displayed, it might still not be easy to find them in a large article with a lot of citations. Messages can then be found by searching (with Ctrl-F) for "(help)" or "cs1".

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:04, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Check `|url=` value suggestion

The suggested IDN Conversion Tool Verisign at #Check |url== value has a limitation as mentioned Only enter the domain in the tool and not the full url. But i found another site where it is more convenient and it support for whole url, also that site has other features like url encoding/percent encoding etc. (non-promotional) punycoder. So might add that their instead of Verisign.––kemel49^{(connect)(contri)} 17:09, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]