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Citing page numbers in PDF documents?

@Daniel Case in Valhalla train crash there's a large number of citations to a NTSB report as a PDF document (ref 13 in Special:Permalink/1202959297) which refer to page numbers (i.e. {{rp|58–61}}) using the PDF page numbers instead of the numbers printed on each page. What do folks think of this? I'm inclined to say it's not a good idea because somebody who has access to the report in printed form won't be able to map the citations to the paper copy. But I'd like to hear what other people feel about this. RoySmith (talk) 22:55, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Maybe if it's a very large PDF with multiple documents with their own pagination it might be a useful, additional convenience to also include the page of the PDF, but I think in most cases it makes more sense to use the pages printed on the page when possible. Past discussion: Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 44#Which page number to use when citing PDFs? and Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 32#PDF Page Number. Umimmak (talk) 23:39, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
There was just recently a thread about this at WT:CS1. The gist is that it should cite the printed page numbers, since people may access the document in multiple formats, including paper, but links can go directly to the PDF page number, e.g.: |pages=[https://example.com/foo/bar.pdf#page=65 62–63].

PS: {{rp}} should no longer be used; it's a form of parenthetical referencing (injecting citation details into the article body instead of keeping them in the citation), and all of that was deprecated by the community in 2022. See User:SMcCandlish/How to use the sfnp family of templates for a crash course on one replacement system. It supports the parameter example I just gave, as do CS1/CS2 templates directly; in sfnp, harvp, and related templates, the shorthand |p= or |pp= can also be used, while if something more specific needed like naming a section, the CS1/CS2 |at= can be used to include a page number with an annotation, and sfnp, etc., have the equivalent |loc=.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:07, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Funny that you should say this. On another article I've been working on in draftspace recently one source is a 77-minute video documentary. It's obviously not enough just to cite the video; one has to cite the timestamp of the material that supports it, much as we would cite the page number or range of a 300-page book. And I found myself having to use {{rp}} ... I'd love to use {{sfn}} but there's just no way to make that work with {{cite AV media}}. Someone, in the process of creating that former template, failed to remember that people cite things other than documents, even though that should have been obvious at the time it was created. Perhaps that can be addressed soon in the Community Wishlist Survey.

Likewise, I'd love to see some equivalent version that works with {{bluebook journal}} or {{cite court}} to produce acceptable short versions of cites in Bluebook format (i.e. "AUTHOR, at PAGE" or "CASE SHORT TITLE, at PAGE" for the first time a single page is cited after the original full cite. Daniel Case (talk) 02:26, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Cite AV media supports the |ref= field, so you can use {{sfnref}} to setup the link. Bluebook journal can be used with sfn in the normal way you would use it with {{cite journal}}, it will cause a false-positive error but that can be suppressed with {{sfn whitelist}}.
{{cite court}} doesn't support either method, but that's what {{wikicite}} is for. Wrap the 'cite court' inside the wikicite, and setup the |ref= field with sfnref. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 03:14, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
{{cite court}} now supports |ref=. You can use {{sfnref}} to create the anchor however you need, the same as CS1 templates. The short citation templates all have a |loc= parameter to cite things that are not pages. @Daniel Case: where were you looking for this in the documentation? It should likely be added there. And would |at= be more intuitive than |loc= for the sfn/sfnp/harv templates? Rjjiii (talk) 05:21, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
SMcCandlish recently raised the loc / at point at Module talk:Footnotes#loc, at, but that page doesn't have much traffic. It does seem more consistent, as |location= is for the general physical location of the publisher. I hate to think how many corrections would have to be made of it was changed though. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:23, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
I'd like it if loc= and at= were aliases, that would make {{sfn}} and {{cite}} more consistent to use with each other. Since loc= would remain valid, existing usages wouldn't need to be changed, as I understand it. Gawaon (talk) 16:00, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
I use loc= for all sorts of free-form usages. I've cited things I've found in old newspapers and put something like "near the bottom of column three on page 47" in the loc field, because otherwise there's no way anybody could find what I was talking about. Services like newspaper.com do provide URL-addressable clippings, but they have the same problem as PDF page numbers; they won't be of any use to somebody accessing the original source material via a different format (paper archive, microfilm, etc). But, yeah, a computer should be smart enough to see "loc=47", figure out that the digit string is a page number, and format it accordingly. RoySmith (talk) 16:25, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I go by what I read in template documentation. It should be no surprise; we seem to be absolutely horrible at updating it. For instance, only thanks to SMcCandlish above did I learn that {{rp}} has been deprecated for over a year. There is still nothing on the documentation to advise editors of that, much less tell us what we should do instead. Daniel Case (talk) 18:49, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
It's not really deprecated though… what was decided in 2022 was to get rid of in-line MLA/Harvard style parenthetical referencing; {{rp}} barely came up in that discussion. Having multiple back to back instances like this[1]: 1–4 [2]: 17  can get cluttered, but there isn’t a blanket proscription on this template (yet). Umimmak (talk) 18:57, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
I agree. SMcCandlish created that template and has been steadily encouraging people to develop and use better options, but it's not actually banned, and Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2021 December 17#Template:Rp (more than a year after the RFC about parenthetical citations) had a WP:SNOW-level keep response. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
I would not use the PDF's own page numbers if there are printed page numbers visible in the doc. We have had questions about this for academic journal articles, and the advice has always been to use the printed/official ones (which could be something like pp. 124–131) rather than the PDF's (always and automatically starting a 1). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:41, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
I understand where you're coming from, but more often than not the PDF's numbering is more visible than that on the pages in it. Sometimes, with more recent PDFs, it seems that it is possible for the equivalent page numbers to be used by the software, but a lot of older ones don't do that, and IME too many readers take the reader's numeration as canonical. Daniel Case (talk) 02:29, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Agreed -- where there are page numbers visible use those; where they are not, use the PDF-associate numbers. Note that some publishers have eschewed the addition of page numbers even to their printed works (looking at you Chasma Press), which presents some special issues. I believe the retirement of {{rp}} in favor of {{sfnp}} is a mistake, but I won't go into that more here as it's an aside. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:57, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
On Google Books, a lot of times when it gives you Google's e-book version there are no page numbers visible. You sort of have to guess from what the URL numbered the page you landed on from "Preview". Daniel Case (talk) 18:46, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Per WP:EBOOK If there are no page numbers, whether in ebooks or print materials, then you can use other means of identifying the relevant section of a lengthy work, such as the chapter number or the section title. -- Ebooks do not have fixed page numbers; the content per "page" dynamically adjusts based on window/screen size, font size, etc. You should not arbitrarily assign one based on how Google Books happened to format a particular title since that page number is meaningless for anyone who accesses that (e)book in any format other than the Google Books Preview. Umimmak (talk) 19:04, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Page numbers in older books can sometimes be interesting. I guess due to the requirements of the printing technology of the day, sometimes you would find a bunch of color plates bound into a book but outside of the normal page numbers. So, page 144, 145, no-number, no-number, no-number, no-number, 146, 147. I tend to cite those as "unnumbered page after page 145". I could see somebody naively looking at such a book and saying, "I don't know why they didn't number it, but it's after page 145 so it must be 146" and cite it as page 146, which would be wrong. RoySmith (talk) 19:21, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
I would firmly believe that the page numbers as printed should be those cited. Journals are regularly consecutively paginated; a PDF of a single chapter has the same issue. Moreover, some people might try to access it through other formats (eg Westlaw or Lexis' long web pages with [*123] to mark page divisions; see also Federal Register's version of the same with side notes). These are not compatible with this very naive approach to page number assignment. Ifly6 (talk) 19:40, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Why not put BOTH in the citation? We had the flexibility to do that when we formatted citations by hand (just add a parenthetical to explain). I would think it would be easy to add an extra parameter to our templates… One for printed pagination, another for PDF pagination. While we would not use both pagination fields often, having two would be very helpful on the rare occasions when there are two distinct paginations. Blueboar (talk) 20:06, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    Why not put BOTH in the citation? — The citation originally being asked about is "Highway-Railroad Grade Crossing Collision, Commerce Street, Valhalla, New York; February 3, 2015" (PDF). National Transportation Safety Board. July 25, 2017. pp. 18–19. Retrieved March 25, 2018. Hereafter cited as NTSB Report; page numbers will be those given by the PDF software, rather than those indicated in the document's pages. — to me, this is not one of those rare occasions which would benefit from including both. This article makes use of {{rp}} so has citations like [13]: 37–38 ; to me it seems much more intuitive to ignore the line about page numbers will be those given by the PDF software, rather than those indicated in the document's pages. and just have [13]: 26–27 . There's no easy way to include both sets of page numbers with {{rp}} but even if these were converted to more standard short referencing I don't think any reader would benefit more from NTSB 2015, pp. 26–27 [37–38 PDF] over just NTSB 2015, pp. 26–27 in this particular case. Umimmak (talk) 20:32, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    Absolutely. If a doc has page numbers, there's no good reason not to use them. If not, the question of "both" won't arise. Gawaon (talk) 20:57, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
    I would only use the printed page numbers for that NTSB report. I would expect others to do the same (e.g., if a news report needs to say something like "the photo on page 12 of the report"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
    What would we do, however, if what we wanted to cite was on a page that is unnumbered in the document? Daniel Case (talk) 06:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
    Is that the case here? On the odd occasion you would have to do that, you’d treat it like you would when you cite an unnumbered page of a print report/book: |at=Front cover, |at=Title page, |at=Copyright page, etc. I guess in a pinch you could say something like |at=Frontmatter, n.p., but just because one might conceivably cite a non-numbered page from a report doesn’t mean one should completely ignore the actual page numbers printed on each page. Umimmak (talk) 07:21, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Why is all this not in the documentation?

It has been such a pleasure to get dragged into this discussion and learn about all these things, rather than in, oh, the appropriate template documentation, you know, that big wall o' text on green background that most users consult when they want to know how to cite things? Template:Cite web/doc#In-source locations, for instance, says nothing about using a PDF's internal page; nor does its book counterpart explain anything about what WP:EBOOKS tells us (In fact, I can't find where EBOOKS takes me other to the main WP:CITE page ... there is no boxed shortcut I can end up at. I realize that template documentation is mainly technical, but there is absolutely nowhere on them that I can remember ever being directed to one of these links to know what I've been doing wrong all these years of not participating in discussions here because I was too busy creating content and blocking vandals.

There's WP:PAGENUM, but it says nothing that would lead an editor to conclude that the printed page number is preferred over the one given by the reader.

Also, there is WP:PAGELINKS ... what number do we put in the URL? The printed one or the one the reading software uses (which may not always be the same)? Daniel Case (talk) 07:14, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I suppose no one just ever expected an editor to not just use the page numbers printed on the page for the page numbers. This is the appropriate venue because one can cite pages with the CS1 family of citations, {{citation}}, or without any template at all — this is a question about citing sources in general, not about a specific template, although the documentation in various templates could be changed if this is deemed necessary. WP:PAGENUM reads If there are no page numbers, whether in ebooks or print materials, then you can use other means of identifying the relevant section of a lengthy work, such as the chapter number or the section title. — to me that suggests if there are page numbers then no additional instructions are needed because one would just use those. Umimmak (talk) 07:32, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
I decided to stop being snotty about this and ponder why we started doing it that way. I think it goes back to the late 2000s, when we only had the now-long-deprecated {{PDFlink}} (which had no page number support IIRC) for PDFs and we didn't have all the {{cite}} ones yet. At the time, also, I remember, a lot of PDFs were often created specifically for the web, usually from Word. They were rarely more than one-page documents, and those that were often weren't numbered within the documents because no one expected them to be used anywhere but online. And further, clicking on one usually triggered Adobe Acrobat Reader or whatever other software you had installed to read them, externally entirely from your browser.

I remember over at WP:NRHP we often had to deal with scanned copies of old nominations to the National Register which had never been numbered because no one expected them to be so easily readable when they were created and reviewed. That may have been where we used software-assigned pagination.

Nowadays, with a lot of online PDFs being versions of hard-copy documents even though they may be read much more online than off, that's less of an issue than it was, but I must admit that even in 2017 I was still holding to the old way.

For things that clearly have a real-world existence, like journal articles or court decisions (anything using consecutive pagination, really), I have always used that pagination.

Of course there's another issue ... PDFs comprising a collection of documents from disparate sources whose on-page pagination isn't sequential, so you might have several possible page 7s. Yes, you could give the title of the collection of documents within the PDF, but a reader might not know that and wonder where your source is and, when they don't find it, plant a {{failed verification}} tag that really wasn't justified inline and give you a small headache. In that case it would make more sense to use the software's pagination; the issue that prompted Roy to start this thread would not be a problem because the document represented by the PDF wouldn't/doesn't exist in real life.

Daniel Case (talk) 07:01, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
Just to state the obvious, usage of {{rp}} (and {{r}} as well?) and whether or not it is desirable/deprecated or whatever should be in documentation. Generally, I think a lot of the grief over referencing is due to a lack of clear, up-to-date and well thought out documentation that is accessible to the ordinary editor. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:39, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
I agree that much of the documentation around citations is just plain terrible. I suspect much of it makes sense to the insiders, but to people coming at this new, it's impenetrable. I also think (and I know I'm not going to convince anybody of this) we need to standardize on one common reference style that's used everywhere. Even if we went with a style that I don't like, at least it would be a common target that everybody could aim for, ranging from end users, to the people who document templates, to the people who write tools like Visual Editor or Citoid. RoySmith (talk) 15:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
You will get no argument from me when you say that documentation around citations is just plain terrible. If you think it needs improving, improve it. None of the cs1|2 documentation is protected; anyone who has the skill to improve the documentation may do so. If you know how to improve the citation documentation, don't complain about it, improve it.
If the past is any predictor of the future, what happens now will be absolutely nothing ... until the next time it is convenient to complain about citation documentation. Whereupon, I shall reissue this challenge, get the same result; wash rinse repeat.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:02, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
With all due respect, that's blaming the victim. How can somebody who doesn't understand how something works improve the documentation which explains how it works? RoySmith (talk) 16:27, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
I don't think so. My experience suggests that newbies who don't understand ask for help rather than complain about documentation quality. It's the experienced editors who do understand that complain about documentation quality. I suspect that you are a member of that latter group. Because I am so close to the cs1|2 templates from a technical point of view, I tend to write from that point of view which is not really accessible to non-technical editors. In the real world, there are people (there were when I was living in the real world) who translate writing written by technical people into something that a user can understand. That is what we need here. Wikipedia has lots of people who are skilled at writing for those who don't 'know'. They are the people who can make citation documentation accessible. Will they? Will you?
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:59, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
It keeps going back to the fact that we are all volunteers here. I have experience at creating and presenting training materials for bureaucratic procedures and for computer use, but I edit WP because I enjoy finding good sources and adding content. That, and trying to follow the selection of project pages that are on my watchlist, already eats up more time than I am comfortable with spending on WP. I've also seen editors put in a lot of time revamping policy or guidance pages, only to see the community flatly reject the changes (although, what I'm thinking of happened many years ago). So, while I might consider helping on a rewrite of the citation procedures, I would want to be sure first that the community wants it to happen, and there was some clear consensus on what would constitute an improvement. That means there would have to be a lot more discussion than we have seen here. Donald Albury 17:57, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
If there were to be a revamp of referencing advice/methods/etc. it would make sense to start with analysing whether what we have actually meets the hopes and aspirations on the subject. A particular problem is the way the long form reference displays the page numbers in the text of an article. Fine if it is just one page number, but if you have two page ranges that support the article text, or a non-numerical location identifier, it takes a lot of article space. I am no fan of {{sfn}} (pain in the neck to edit) but it gives a much better result for the reader. Surely something like that could be replicated with long form references? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:38, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Should our aspirations on referencing include a target of reducing the number of ways of doing this? We already have parenthetical referencing deprecated. Is this a clue that we should perhaps target just two main referencing styles (long and short form) and achieve those with a limited number of templates that would give style consistency? The advantage would be for the reader, as they would consistently see better technical displays of referencing info (getting mouse-over displays, etc.). I suspect that it would also weed out some "problem" references – for example ambiguous identification of the work cited in a short referencing arrangement. I am not suggesting a massive conversion of all of Wikipedia to a new system, just preferring a more limited range of methods for new content. Clearly, a slimmed down methodology would be much easier to document for new and existing users. I appreciate this might upset the "Betamax man" editors who are wedded to an older system, but I think that is just a feature of a changing world. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:53, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Established citation style

If I completely rewrite an article (not keeping any of the original text or references), I usually use whatever citation style makes sense to me. If someone else comes along and says they want the citation style changed to what it was before the rewrite, are they correct? (t · c) buidhe 00:01, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Assuming that what was there had an established citation style, yes. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:12, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
If there was a clear style beforehand, and you heavily modified the article then the style shouldn't change. But if the article is completely replaced with a new version then choosing a new style would seem appropriate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:16, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
I agree with ActivelyDisinterested; a rewriter has discretion to choose a new citation style. Ifly6 (talk) 22:34, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
In particular, as articles grow in size and complexity, a change to the citation style can often be a good idea.
Even if none of that applies, it's important to remember that the other editor can't single-handedly require that the old style be used. They can only require that a discussion happen on the talk page, and that both of you adhere to the result of any consensus reached there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
You should ask on talk first. If the article is in such a state that it needs completely rewriting, probably no one will object. Johnbod (talk) 04:28, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
I agree that there should be a discussion on the talk page. However, just to be clear, there was a previously established citation style that was 100% consistent and follows a widely used citation style. The article was completely rewritten, but extensive edits (from more than one editor) using the previously established citation style were made afterwards. Boghog (talk) 22:37, 8 February 2024 (UTC) So it is OK to change the citation style once, but not twice? Boghog (talk) 22:59, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
In my opinion the edits afterwards the rewrite should have confirmed to the article style as it was after it had been rewritten. If the article is basically a different article, the previous style has no bearing on the the article after the rewrite. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:41, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
The subsequent edits are substantial approaching another rewrite. What really matters is consensus on the article's talk page. Boghog (talk) 00:35, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
And, I recommend, on the article's actual talk page, not the GA review page. The Wikipedia:Good article criteria explicitly say that consistent citation format is not required for GA status. Therefore, that's a problem that you can solve at your leisure, after the GA review (hopefully) gets resolved one way or the other soon. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:41, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
@Boghog: I agree that the discussion is unrelated to the GA review. As WhatamIdoing says, a consistent format is not part of the standard. The GA criteria only require citations sufficient to locate the cited source. Rjjiii (talk) 03:41, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

An article rewrite requires a significant amount of input from the editor(s) tackling it. A rewrite also implies that there is something fundamentally wrong with the article in its previous state. One of those may well be an old-fashioned citation style that is not appropriate to the needs of the article. It seems rather onerous on editor(s) who are prepared to put in the work on a rewrite to have their hands tied on one aspect of how it is done.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 09:36, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Their hands are only tied if there is a consensus on the talk page not to change the citation style. If there's something fundamentally wrong with the article, it's usually going to be the case that there's no editor who is actively looking after it and there would be no objections on the talk page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:03, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
Yes. We have probably millions of articles with "something fundamentally wrong with" them, but, contrary to what many editors seem to think, this is never or almost never "an old-fashioned citation style that is not appropriate to the needs of the article". That's a very minor aspect. Johnbod (talk) 15:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
MOS:RETAIN pertains to the first non-stub version of an article. If it was previously a stub, you are free to change the citation style. Otherwise, as noted above, you require consensus on the talk page for a change. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 17:27, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
Am I reading MOS:RETAIN wrong? It's just about the English version, isn't it? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 18:58, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
What about if subsequent citations added have not conformed to the style of the first citation? What if the original citations did not conform to current standards? Consider Vaquita, which looked like this (definitely not a stub) after the first edit on 25 November 2003? The citations had become a mess by this version on 18 April 2023. Are you saying that I was wrong to revise the citations to a current standard (not the original style) here, as of 5 May 2023, without finding a consensus to do so on the talk page? Donald Albury 17:53, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
This would seem to go against the third pint of "Generally considered helpful" under CITEVAR, "imposing one style on an article with inconsistent citation styles". If the article is now a mess of citation styles now, I don't believe it's helpful to insist editors search back through the article history before tidying the referencing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:35, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
  • This is simple… go to the article talk page and reach a consensus on which citation style should be used in the article going forward. Do that, and any previous citation styles that may have been used/not used no longer matter. Blueboar (talk) 19:17, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
The expectation of a consensus on citation style may well come up against an article-watching editor who, almost by definition, thinks the existing set-up is OK. I suggest that is why there are articles out there with referencing that is difficult to handle (largely from a reader point of view). To pick an example:[1] in Vasa (ship), where you will also find explanatory footnotes treated as references, and lots of meaningless ref names (e.g. ref name=":0") – and an editor who seems to resist change. OK, there will be another point of view on that example, but it looks like a barrier to improvement to me. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:21, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
There certainly is; I personally find splitting explanatory footnotes and references tiresome and unhelpful, both as an editor and a reader. Academic books almost never do it, and I simply don't understand why so many of our editors do. I agree re the "ref name=":0""though, but these are produced by the templates that new editors are instructed to use these days. Johnbod (talk) 04:35, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
The issue of separate notes is about an online encyclopaedia that is trying to use summary style. An explanatory footnote allows the editor to handle something that breaks the flow of an article (perhaps an explanation that will be well-known to some readers). This is similar to the links to other articles – sure there are links in printed encyclopaedias, but not so speedy as we have here. What an {{efn}} allows is the ability to reference the content of a footnote without risking breaking the constraints of the referencing system being used. Whether or not our system follows the format of most academic works has little relevance as the majority of Wikipedia readers do not spend a lot of time (any?) reading such academic material. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:28, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
This makes little sense frankly. A long (or short) footnote also "allows the editor to handle something that breaks the flow of an article", whether or not it is lumped in with mere citations. If it is true that "the majority of Wikipedia readers do not spend a lot of time (any?) reading such academic material", which probably depends a lot on the article subject, then we are probably all wasting our time adding referencing and notes at all. In general departures from the style of the best WP:RS should be regarded with suspicion. Johnbod (talk) 12:32, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
When I am reading a WP article just for pleasure, I don't bother checking the references, but I always click through to the extended footnotes. Similarly, when I am reading a book with end-of-chapter or end-of-book footnotes, I like to look at any footnotes that provide information beyond a cited work and page number, and find it a little annoying when I have to look at many footnotes to find the few that do provide information beyond just a citation. I think it is useful to distinguish between footnotes that are only providing a citation and footnotes that are providing additional/peripheral information. Donald Albury 19:06, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
The named reference thing is covered by replacing opaque named-reference names with conventional ones, such as "Einstein-1905" instead of ":27", and changing them to something more descriptive shouldn't be seen as controversial. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:30, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
My general impression of that article is that the citation style is in pretty good shape and certainly not in need of a major overhaul. Gawaon (talk) 20:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
I think it's easier than that - if you at the point of making mass changes because you don't like the citation style, go do something else. This applies if someone has rewritten an article and changed the style while doing so, or you find an article and don't like it's current style. If the there is no consistent style then making it consistent is fine and helpful, as per policy, but otherwise there is much more important work to be done. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:28, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
I perhaps should have explained that the consensus in the example I gave is, arguably, not that in the head of the resisting editor. On not mixing explanatory footnotes with references, they actively removed efn templates from three different editors in different parts of the article (surely a consensus – actions speak louder than words) and then claim they have a consensus against that template. Going into detail on that article (a WP:FA!!) would be out of place here, but the referencing is chaotic, with ref names for the same work having multiple unrelated versions. Oh, and I have just altered some of the opaque refnames to something identifiable. To be clear, I am leaving what I see as antiquated referencing alone where possible, but since the style is already mixed and the talk page did give an OK to using templates, I use them on new content. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
Just to say my comment was in reply to Blueboar and about the situation in general. It shouldn't be read as criticism of you or any other editor. I would agree the specific details are better discussed at the articles talk page rather than here. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:30, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Hocker in Cederlund (2006), pp. 36–39; see also Jan Glete's paper The Swedish fiscal-military state and its navy, 1521–1721 Archived 10 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine.

What to do if original website was replaced by predatory dangerous website

What is the easiest way to modify the "cite web"? See example of what I did [1]. Do not click on link I replaced! But obviously it is not a good way. And there are several dozens of links to this website - Altenmann >talk 06:20, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

@Altenmann, I believe that you are looking for |url-status=usurped. See the options in Template:Cite web#URL if you want to read more about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:50, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
|url-status=unfit.  — Archer1234 (t·c) 06:51, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
url-status=usurped worked great in George de Godzinsky, thanks! It made the original link invisible. - Altenmann >talk 06:57, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
FWIW, here is a link to the section of the {{cite web}} documentation where all of the supported values for |url-status= are explained: Template:Cite_web#csdoc_urlstatus  — Archer1234 (t·c) 07:05, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Separate section for explanatory notes

A few comments above show resistance to having explanatory notes separate from the references that support the article text. Two points here: (1) a (very brief) survey of featured articles and (2) thoughts on technical reasons whey separate notes are desirable (is the technical argument right?)

(1) Surveyed 10 featured articles and found 2 that did not use explanatory notes in any way. The remaining 8 all had the explanatory notes separate from references.

(2) I believe that the only way to put explanatory notes in the same section as the references is with ref../ref. However, for technical reasons, you could not put any links or other markup elements in the explanatory note. The only way to reference the note (and if it is an explanatory note, it almost certainly needs a reference) is to just type it in with the rest of the note content. This is, essentially, parenthetical referencing, which is deprecated. The only way that I know to show explanatory notes without using ref.../ref is with a template such as {{efn}}, which seems to compel a separate explanatory notes section. Therefore, if explanatory notes are to be referenced, surely anything other than a separate explanatory notes section is deprecated. Does this idea hold water? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 12:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think this does hold water. See Wulfhere of Mercia for a featured article with explanatory notes in amongst the footnotes, and with embedded links. (I'm not sure why you think markup is not possible in a reference.) You've posted many times over the last few weeks, arguing for or against certain citation formats. I don't think the results of those discussions have been productive, and it's worth repeating that the point of CITEVAR is almost entirely to avoid having such discussions in the first place, because people have such strong opinions about citation formats (as you've seen) that it's almost never productive to do so. What's your ultimate goal here? To get rid of CITEVAR? To deprecate one or more currently acceptable formats? If so I think you are most unlikely to be successful, and I doubt it's worth the time investment you're making in it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:32, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
In reverse order: My goals are (1) to try and understand exactly how the mechanics of referencing works so that we can all concentrate on article content – I regard myself as a "content" editor not a "technical" editor (2) have a referencing system that uses the technology in a way that is helpful to the reader.
Technical limitations come from (a) Template:Refn, which I now see is incorrect on not being able to link to another article within the ref../ref text.
(b) because: article text<ref>this is an explanatory note and here is its reference <ref> cited work</ref></ref>
gives: article textCite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).</ref>
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:04, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
I think Cefnllys Castle#Notes demonstrates a different sort of explanatory note (especially note 2) than we see in Wulfhere of Mercia. The former example gives information forks which the reader can choose or not choose to follow, whereas the latter is really just exploring the matter of sources in more detail. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:15, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
Agree with Mike Christie. None of these lengthy musings are likely to lead anywhere. Johnbod (talk) 16:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
Item (2) is plain wrong. It is bad ides to put notes in the same section as references, for several reasons. And I often use {{efn}} syntax, which allows references within, see eg. Town of fools or Wise Men of Chelm. - Altenmann >talk 17:20, 15 February 2024‎ (UTC)
I think the situation in which mixing the two types is most common is when there is only one or two explanatory notes and not very many sources, either. If editors don't want to bother with separate sections in that circumstance, I don't really blame them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:58, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
I agree, but I saw cases when the notes are, like, 50% of the text and nearly no references. But at the first glance the article looks thoroughly referenced because there are so many footnotes. In such cases I split notes and refs, just to see what is going on. - Altenmann >talk 21:22, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Note that ThoughtIdRetired is very aggressively campaigning to force a change of the note standard in talk:Vasa (ship). They've been at it at galley too. Peter Isotalo 20:15, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Editor changing citation style from short to long formatting.

Recently at Heidi Game, Khoa41860 changed most citations from short to long format, see these diffs. As one of those who improved the article to FA standard, my inclination is to consider this a violation of WP:CITEVAR and no real improvement to the article, but it's essentially a matter of formatting, so I'd appreciate opinions on whether it is something to keep or revert per the MOS. I don't think leaving a note on the talk page of the article would get me the informed opinions I seek on a matter of MOS, and I already have left a note on the editor's talk page to no real result. Thoughts?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:13, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Those edits are indeed harmful, full bibliographic details for every source should be given just once. Otherwise readers are confused and editors' lives are made much harder. Frankly, I'd certainly revert them. Gawaon (talk) 16:18, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Not everyone agrees that "readers are confused" by seeing the normal/full citation when they hover over a ref tag, and some of us actively disagree that "editors' lives are made much harder" by using a less familiar system (in about 1% of articles here, and almost unheard of at most other Wikipedias) that is not supported by any of the buttons in the toolbars (except maybe in WikEd, which I haven't used for years because it was so slow). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:19, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Should be. Khoa41860 (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
I agree. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:19, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Remove all redundant bibliographic details and only keep one please. Khoa41860 (talk) 16:51, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
update them and remove any redundants. Khoa41860 (talk) 16:51, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
I have reverted to the prior version, per CITEVAR. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:55, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Many thanks. Wehwalt (talk) 17:10, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Splitting notes is an arbitrary Wikipedia-made standard with unknown consequences for readers

I believe the project has created a pretty unique and kinda unrecognizable standard for notes without actually knowing how it actually affects anyone outside the project.

First off, the terms "footnotes", "notes" and "references" tend to have artificially exact definitions here on en.wp compared to elsewhere. Outside of the project, "footnotes/notes" have nothing to do with the content of the notes, but are simply typographical terms. "Notes" are just any kind of notation that is set aside from the main text while "footnotes" are notes that are placed at the bottom of a page[2][3][4] in documents that have a page structure. "Footnotes" are distinct from "endnotes" which are placed at the end of the text. "References" is not a term specific to anything related to notes as such at all. I don't think it's appropriate that Wikipedians are using their own definitions of these terms. It makes for a very obvious hurdle to newcomers, even if they are very familiar with how to use notes from other contexts. And it can create a lot of confusion and pointless disputes simply due to misunderstanding of terms.

Secondly, using two sets of notes with a very sharp distinction between those containing any kind of explanatory text and those that only contain citations is in my experience non-existent outside Wikipedia. There's also no evidence that splitting notes up is actually beneficial to readers in any way; as far as I know, all arguments are 100% based on the opinions and observations by individual Wikipedians. On the other hand, there's a very easy argument to make that using rare or unique formatting style might unnecessarily astonish readers and distract from the reading experience.

Thirdly, there seems to be a very clear bias among experienced Wikipedians to favor solutions for notes that are supported by specific technical solutions like template:sfn and template:efn, and also to favor templates over just using plain ref-tags. Strictly speaking, it seems to be a lot easier to apply the sfn/efn system in an article than not. In my experience, it's actually quite complicated to have a single set of notes and still apply templates. So there's a situation where we're supposed to allow different formats, but in practice, only one format is actually properly supported by well-functioning templates. Also, the choice of deliberately excluding citations from the explanatory notes is a complete mystery to me. The only logic I can see in it is technical convenience; it creates a neat and tidy separation of two kind of notes, but without any known benefits to anyone actually reading the note.

And lastly, we might also a have a problem with users who have taken upon themselves to force the standard of two sets of notes on articles in general. That's technically an issue with consensus-building and user behavior, but it is definitely tied to the uncritical introduction of splitting up explanatory notes from citations.

What is sorely missing is concrete evidence of external effects. Like with all other mainspace content, notes are intended for readers. I'm all for leaving established standards in articles alone to avoid subjective bickering; I for one am not going to start campaigning for a Wikipedia-wide switch to one set of notes. But I also believe that we need to start applying a more critical view that is focused on what we actually know about how readers interact and read notes. Peter Isotalo 12:38, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually, explanatory notes are used only in a fairly small number of articles. Gawaon (talk) 12:42, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
User:Gawaon, is that just your impression, or do you have any hard evidence to back that up? Looking solely at Featured Articles, explanatory footnotes are actually quite common. The survey mentioned above shows 60% of a sample of 101 featured articles had a separate section for explanatory notes, whilst a further 7% had explanatory notes mixed in with the references. This sort of ratio seems to be repeatable if you look at other blocks of featured articles. I have just taken a look at another dataset of 28 featured articles and found 61% with a separate explanatory notes section and 4% with explanatory notes mixed in with references. In every instance found so far, an article with many explanatory notes has a separate notes section. Taking a good statistical look at what you actually find in featured articles is actually quite informative. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 15:30, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
The {{efn}} template reports that it is used on approximately 196,000 pages. Remsense诉 15:33, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
That's about 1 in 35 articles, if we assume (incorrectly, but perhaps not materially) that they are all used in the mainspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Statistical surveys of template usage in articles is a measurement of how Wikipedians behave. It provides no insight into what's actually helpful for readers. Peter Isotalo 15:40, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Agreed, but I think we need to take into account that editors who take an article to FA status have well considered opinions about how best to present the article. The opinions of other editors is also important so that an article can meet verifiability standards. Extensive explanatory notes in the references could make understanding its sources a problem – which might explain why editors tend not to do this.
If you are considering the view of Wikipedia readers, the fact that Wikimedia has around 10 billion views per month suggests that they have got used to what they find here. Many of those readers will have not read any academic book with references – some will never have been inside a library since they left school. I suggest that Wikipedia needs to align itself with other computer-based systems, and to recognise that by its own size, Wikipedia has created some of the standards that readers expect. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 16:01, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
This is 100% your own personal analysis. It's not helpful. Peter Isotalo 22:00, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
OK, Imma stop you there. You don't get to say we can't make our own arguments as to what is the appropriate thing to do here. Yes, we can, and should. --Trovatore (talk) 21:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
No objection to personal analyses on principle. Just saying that unless we know how layout and formatting affects readers, we shouldn't try to convince each other that one variant or the other is superior.
And unless the reference section is a a complete mess, we definitely should not swoop in and switch styles without previous engagement in an article.[5] Peter Isotalo 19:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

... there's a very easy argument to make that using rare or unique formatting style might unnecessarily astonish readers and distract from the reading experience.

I would like to hear you make this argument! I think "astonishment" is something of a slippery mischaracterization, even if tongue-in cheek. Reading is a very intensive activity, I don't immediately see any a priori argument why it would be confusing other than "it isn't what everyone else always does". It's not as if no one else does it, plenty of books have citation lists at the end of chapters or in footnotes on pages, and then a bibliography with full citations at the end.

Also, the choice of deliberately excluding citations from the explanatory notes is a complete mystery to me.

Agree to disagree on this one, it's simply much nicer to not have to skip back and forth over what could be a paragraph-long footnote looking at what works have been cited, and it's nicer not to trip over short-cites when I'm reading explanatory footnotes. I will agree to disagree here.

So there's a situation where we're supposed to allow different formats, but in practice, only one format is actually properly supported by well-functioning templates.

It would be nice to have more well-functioning options for different needs, I agree.
I also agree in that I would like to see some data as to which layouts readers tend to find most readable and useful at-large. Remsense诉 12:48, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't really understand this. Are you saying that people don't write notes like Badian 2009, p. 14; Goldsworthy 2006, pp. 31–32. The consul of 157 BC was Sextus Caesar; the consuls of 91 and 90 were Sextus Caesar and Lucius Caesar, respectively. ? Ifly6 (talk) 18:15, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
The argument is over whether it is better to have something like Cefnllys Castle#Notes or your example Julius Caesar#References. The Cefnllys Castle model of a separate informational notes section is the substantially more common way of providing informational notes in Featured Articles by a factor of around 10 to 1. Most featured articles with informational notes mixed in with references have only 2 or 3 such notes.
Issues against the Julius Caesar model are: accessibility – easier to find the footnote if working on a small device or if have poor vision (a point whose importance had previously escaped me); logic – an informational footnote is an entirely different thing from a reference; general readability – in that rare situation when an encyclopaedia user reads an article from one end to another, all the footnotes are collected together at the end of the article text. So if the reader missed them, they are all there to see if the reader wishes. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:32, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
As a reader of Wikipedia articles (or scholarly articles) I much prefer the separation of notes, since I only occasionally need to know about the source, but I usually want to read the footnote, so I want to know which is which before I look. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:43, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
It feels to me that almost every footnote should explain its relevance. A nonsubstantive footnote, to borrow a phrase from below, seems largely meaningless. Perhaps that's a very Bluebook § 1.5(a) view. Ifly6 (talk) 23:02, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
using two sets of notes with a very sharp distinction between those containing any kind of explanatory text and those that only contain citations is in my experience non-existent outside Wikipedia. I see explanatory notes at bottom of page and sources at end of work/chapter all the time in nonfiction works. This isn't unique to Wikipedia at all. I don't see either configuration as a detriment to usage in general; it just depends on context. VQuakr (talk) 20:05, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Real-world examples, please. Peter Isotalo 21:40, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Peter, perhaps you'd like real-world style guides? There's a tendency for people to dismiss individual examples as just one author making a mistake, and we end up in Wikipedia:Bring me a rock territory.
I believe that The Chicago Manual of Style calls these "substantive notes" and recommends separating them from citations when there are a lot of citations. In the MLA they're called "content notes". @SMcCandlish is usually the best person to ask if you want to know what a variety of style guides recommend. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I could do a deep dive on that, but I don't think it would be worth the trouble, because there is no (and for the forseeable future will not be ) consensus on what to name such sections. MoS kinda-sorta recommends "Notes" and "References", but "Footnotes" for the former is quite common, and names for the latter (sometimes as a section, sometimes as two sections, sometimes as a section with a subsection) are all over the map, including "References", "Sources", "Bibiography", "Works cited", "Citations", and many other variations (including even "Notes" or "Footnotes" for that matter). While it might be possible to arrive at a kind of averaged-out best practice across a bunch of style guides' recommendations, it would probably not even amount to a majority usage but the barely-most-common minority usage that's consistent across multiple such works. That surely wouldn't translate into any impetus on the part of the WP community to adopt something specific. Especially not with a sort of "let chaos reign" sensibility having such a hold on WP:CITE for 20+ years, in favor of permitting any imaginable approach to citations. If MOS:LAYOUT actually tried to impose a fixed pair of such section names, that would end up being a WP:POLICYFORK battle between MOS and CITE regulars. Not something I would relish. At any rate, it is useful for readers to separate the citation footnotes from substantive/content footnotes, since the latter are often of interest to all readers while the former of most of often not, and only important to those trying to verify sourcing (mostly editors not readers), or interested in getting a list of sources (mostly students "mining" Wikipedia for convenient sources to use for their own papers since they can't cite a WP article itself in most cases), or sometimes for seeing the source(s) for a potentially controversial claim. That is, I would not support a move to merge these two very different kinds of footnote sections, either at a particular article or across articles generally.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:44, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
@VQuakr To get some idea of how common it actually is, can you provide some examples of what types of nonfiction works that use this? Peter Isotalo 19:37, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
@Peter Isotalo: WhatamIdoing said it better than I can here. I don't think isolated examples (which of course can be produced showing any number of citation styles) are going to advance the conversation meaningfully. VQuakr (talk) 19:49, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
No, I genuinely think this is important. I'm not interested in trying to do ad hoc statistical surveys. I've been aware of the split note issue since at least back in 2010.
If there's a disconnect here due to the kind of nonfiction different people read, that's very relevant for everyone to know about. If, for example, the humanities and natural sciences are using different standards for notes, that's a tangible, real-world fact, not just a personal opinion. Peter Isotalo 18:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure how one would search for publications that include explanatory notes of any sort. We might run across them occasionally, but I'm not sure how one would deliberately search for them, especially if you didn't want your search to be biased towards publications using a particular style guide (e.g., "Works Cited" being closely associated with MLA) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
I requested examples after VQUakr stated that he sees them "all the time in nonfiction works". I'm assuming that means they're not one in a million or anything.
Surely someone can point out at least a handful of real-world examples. Peter Isotalo 19:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Robert Kershaw (2022) Dünkirchen 1940: The German View of Dunkirk Oxford: Osprey Publishing (print ISBN 978-1472854377 version checked is a Kindle edition). See page 106, two separate explanatory notes explaining "Landser" as an equivalent nickname to "Tommy" for a British soldier and explanation of "Reichswehr". This is at the end of a chapter in the Kindle edition, but may well be at the bottom of the page in the print edition. Cited sources are in a separate section at the end of the book, titled "Notes" and "Bibliography" (and there are many cited sources – far too many to count). There are explanatory notes like the two listed here at the end of 5 out of 9 chapters. Osprey Publishing are an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, so I think that makes them perfectly mainstream. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Bellwood, Peter; Ness, Immanuel (2014). The global prehistory of human migration. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Inc., Balckwell. ISBN 9781118970591.. There are about 10 chapters that have a notes section for explanatory notes before "References". There are 52 chapters in this book, all by different authors as far as I can tell. The explanatory notes give, for example, linguistic information, updates after the paper was written, explanation of how radiocarbon dates are calibrated for dates in the chapter, etc. I am guessing they are there as the information will be obvious to some readers and not to others. (There is a lot of interdisciplinary involvement in this subject.) ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:26, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
ADELAAR, K 2006. "The Indonesian migrations to Madagascar: making sense of the multidisciplinary evidence." In Austronesian diaspora and the ethnogenesis of people in Indonesian archipelago, 1 ed., 205-232. LIPI Press. This is a book chapter that you might be able to download for free. There is a clear difference between the explanatory footnotes that are at the bottom of some pages and the parenthetical referencing that refers to sources in the bibliography. The explanatory footnotes sometimes refer to a ref in the bibliography and there is at least one instance of the footnote simply having a reference, just like the main body of the text. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
You mean author-year or more generally parenthetical referencing, where citations are generally put in parentheses and foot- or endnotes are only used for explanatory notes, right? That may well be the most common style of giving references in scientific research today, certainly in many fields, hence there is really no need to give any specific examples. Gawaon (talk) 23:16, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, where I have said "parenthetical" in these remarks about real-world instances, I should have said author-year, with that linking to a bibliography at the end. The point about mentioning the method for standard references is to make clear that there is a differentiation from the explanatory notes – perhaps a bit of over-kill. My focus is on showing that there are a good number of academic works out there that use separate informational notes. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Mahdi, Waruno (2017). "Pre-Austronesian origins of seafaring in Insular Southeast Asia.". In Acri, Andrea (ed.). Spirits and ships: cultural transfers in early monsoon Asia. Pasir Panjang, Singapore: ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute. ISBN 978-9814762755. I am only looking at a pre-publication copy of this book chapter, but I have the print edition somewhere. You may be able to find the pre-publication version on line. There are 52 explanatory notes that appear at the bottom of pages, with references in the main text being dealt with by author-year in brackets and a bibliography at the end. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Mitchell, Peter (1 October 2020). "Settling Madagascar: When Did People First Colonize the World's Largest Island?". The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. 15 (4): 576–595. doi:10.1080/15564894.2019.1582567. A clear example of separate explanatory notes being put in the "endnotes" with the list of references following.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Horridge in Canoes of the Grand Ocean [6]. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:49, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
I checked all the examples you've provided.
They all have a combination of parenthetical citations (directly in the text) and footnotes or endnotes (separate from the text). The section called "References" in the examples are just ordinary bibliographies, not a separate set of notes.
None of the examples have two separate sets of notes in the manner of the sfn/efn template combo. Peter Isotalo 09:14, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, and why should they? They put references into parentheses, while we move them into footnotes, since that's easier to do on the web than in print and indeed more user-friendly. But they, and we, keep citations/references and explanatory notes clearly separate and so are very similar to each other in this respect. Which is why your claim that Wikipedia's style is totally customary and unusual it simply not true. It is rather fairly close to the most widespread style in academics, through adapted to better fit the web and the needs of lay readers, which will care less about references than your typical academic reader likely does. Gawaon (talk) 11:45, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
On close examination, Kershaw (first of those examples listed above) is most similar to the Wikipedia situation of a separate explanatory notes section, full referencing and a "further reading" section. Each reference is accessed through a superscript number in the text, just as in Wikipedia. So it is not an "sfn/efn" situation, it is certainly an "efn" situation with full referencing.
Otherwise, as per User:Gawaon, above. All the remaining examples had open to them the option of a numerical superscript to take the reader to a mixed explanatory notes and reference listing – but they did not. Particularly in the Kindle environment, I understand that choosing not to do so is marginally more work for the publisher if there are explanatory notes, so suggesting an active stylistic decision to avoid mixing explanatory notes and references. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 14:56, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
This discussion is about quite specific formatting standard. If you bring up examples that use completely different formatting, it's not going to strengthen your argument. If anything, it's a good reason to allow parenthetical references, because that would be a far more recognizable way of providing citations. You guys have no idea if these publications would actually choose to have two sets of notes.
There's nothing inherently wrong about inventing new formatting and layout standards. I personally think that it's unwise because much of how people understand text and referencing is based on real-world standards. I'm prepared to reconsider if someone can prove the benefits with something other than their own personal convictions. Peter Isotalo 17:25, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
"allow parenthetical references" – seriously? That ship has long sailed. Gawaon (talk) 18:52, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
More seriously: Wikipedia is not an academic paper and will never be one. But this doesn't mean we can't learn from the academic community – and keeping citations and explanatory notes separate is certainly a good idea we did well in adopting. (You're right in that it's far from universal in the academic community – but it's widespread nevertheless, and no doubt useful). Gawaon (talk) 18:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
If it's "widespread", show some actual examples. Or accept that it might be extremely rare, and not just in academic sources. I think I've seen something akin to a double set of notes in the last 10 years, but I'm sure it was exactly once.
The academic world may be overly conservative and stuck in the past. The split-note standard might be far better for readers. But we have nothing to go on here other than fierce convictions. Peter Isotalo 17:05, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
The relevant style guides have already been provided for you. We're thoroughly in WP:FETCH territory here. VQuakr (talk) 17:11, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't get you, Peter Isotalo. Do you really doubt that parenthetical referencing is widespread? Or did you just misunderstood my comment? (If so, please read it again). Gawaon (talk) 18:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
We're discussing a fairly specific typographical format; one set of notes or several? The examples provided use one set of notes.
They could just as well be used to argue that two sets of notes aren't a thing. Peter Isotalo 13:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
It appears that there is a related RFC involving some of the same editors at Talk:Vasa (ship)#RfC: separate informational notes section. Anyone who's interested should feel free to join that discussion, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:06, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I have thought for a while using the heading Appendix and making subheadings.
Appendix
  • Works or publications (of the author, in biographies pages)
  • Footnotes (for notes included in the text which in books would have a letter and then a note in the foot of the page)
  • End notes (for notes applicable to the whole page)
  • References (Check "Reference Lists Versus Bibliographies" from the APA Manual of Style)
The reason why in some articles in Wikipedia there is a division of in-line citations, references is that generally in writing styles like APA, the guidance establishes that in running text an abridged in-line citation is included next to the relevant text. At the end of the publication there is an appendix with the complete list of references in long form, including more information about the cited material.
Then also there is a further division of general references when there are no in-line citations and the long form reference material used in the article is listed.
Sincerely, Thinker78 (talk) 05:51, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Having both "Footnotes" and "End notes" would be confusing, since in Wikipedia both go at the end of the page. Also, I'd leave an author's "Works" or "Bibliography" section out of it, since it is part of the main article content (it goes before the "See also" section), not its end matter. For the end matter, naming schemes in Wikipedia vary widely, but the think the following is fairly popular and works well:
  • Notes – for explanatory notes using the {{efn}} template, if used (most articles don't need them, but they can be useful)
  • References – for source footnotes using <ref> or {{sfn}} and similar templates
  • Bibliography – for books and other important works repeatedly cited in the References (many articles neither have nor need this section, but I think it can be handy to make the repeatedly cited works easier to find)
Gawaon (talk) 07:34, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
MOS:ORDER has some points of order these sections, but steers clear of what naming should be used for notes/references. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Is anybody very familiar with Citing Medicine? I found this recommendation, though it refers specifically to tables

Authors should place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading. Explain all nonstandard abbreviations in footnotes, and use symbols to explain information if needed. Symbols may vary from journal to journal (alphabet letter or such symbols as *, †, ‡, §), so check each journal's instructions for authors for required practice.

— Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, p18

Can we learn from their long experience? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Why prioritise this medical journal? Ifly6 (talk) 02:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
No, I'm not proposing that we prioritise it, only that we can learn from it. They've been doing this for rather longer that we have. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:56, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
The sentence before the quote is "Give each column a short or an abbreviated heading." The "heading" in this case refers to tables and the whole instruction is very specifically about how to deal with tables. It's not a comment on article content in general. Peter Isotalo 07:33, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Case against

May I be first to argue against the principle of this proposal? IMO it is critically important for Wikipedia that our articles distinguish [on the one hand] between statements that we assert to be valid (because they are supported by evident reference to reliable sources) versus [on the other] our own supplementary notes (which are just body text in another form). Wikipedia is not itself a reliable source, so readers must be able to identify the evidence basis for the text. Footnotes are a form of parenthesised text, perhaps clarification of a detail for readers unfamiliar with the topic, but are still part of the article and may (and often do, even should) themselves contain citations. To me, it is critically important to our readers (and to some editors) that we maintain a clear distinction between what is reliable and what is not. Peter identifies that a work by a credible researcher might not not usually make this kind of distinction [though in my experience, most do, by putting explanatory footnotes at the bottom of the page and putting citations at the end of the chapter or of the book]; fundamentally the status is different – if they do not do so then it is because they believe that they don't need to. The same need for distinctive treatment does not arise. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:33, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

This binary distinction between footnotes that are just extended body text and footnotes that are purely citations to references is not supported by reality. In practice, many footnotes mix a citation to a reference with a textual explanation of what the reference actually supports and where it can be found in the reference. It makes no sense to separate those things from the reference itself. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:51, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I have been examining a lot of Featured Articles on this point. You are right: some footnotes are a discussion of which source says what. I see the argument that they should be in with all the other references, where anyone who wants to verify the article content will find them. However, there are plenty of footnotes that are more than that, genuinely expanding the article content with additional, perhaps parenthetical, material. These are more common in the FAs that I have looked at. The debate is about much more than the "shades of grey" cases. The article I keep holding up as good practice (just because it was one of the first I checked) is Cefnllys Castle, but you could find something similar in a few minutes at WP:FA. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:27, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
That suggests that having "a rule of having no rule" would be appropriate. Alternatively, we could give advice: separate if you have technical limitations/need to cite the explanatory note; combine if the number of sources+notes is very small; separate if you think it's important to signal that the text itself is unsourced; etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
@JMF, I haven't actually proposed anything other than that we need to move past our own personal opinions regarding how we think about notes. Are you sure this is what you're arguing against here? Peter Isotalo 21:50, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
At the moment, we have two discussions on this page - this one and the one in Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Separate_section_for_explanatory_notes which attempt to demand a one holy way of presenting notes and references. This goes against the spirit of MOS:RETAIN and if continued will be disruptive. We should not be forcing one's own preferred method on everybody else, as this will only damage the encyclopedia and drive editors away.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:34, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Yea, I don't see any need to force people to do it one way or another. Both are fine and I've used both (see Julius Caesar contra Alexandrian war). I'm also confused as to why people think that the "normal" footnotes need to be non-substantive. I am of the view, from Bluebook §§ 1.2, 1.5 that a footnote should explain its own relevance. A bare footnote, except when conveying a self-evident fact (eg Broughton MRR 2.__ says Cicero was consul in 63), seems strange. Ifly6 (talk) 23:08, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I agree, footnotes should certainly earn their keep just as much as the main body text. That is why, for example, I suggest that they can and often should be supported by citation too. Yes, I have found remarks in articles that look very close to editorialising; in terms of intrusiveness the pecking order is (a) comma separate phrase (b) parenthesised phrase (c) footnote. In all cases it gets the same questioning as any other sentence in the text: what is this, why is it here?
Peter, I'm not questioning your perspective or indeed your good faith, but only contrasting with my own experience of the types of reference books I read. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
My "case" in my opinion is that we need real-world data to get anywhere with this. I think it looks weird with a "Case against" heading unless you're genuinely against trying to refocus the discussion to take real-world data into account.
My intention was not to actually argue the merits of my points, only to illustrate that personal opinions aren't getting us anywhere useful. Peter Isotalo 19:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
My view is that the important reason to distinguish explanatory footnotes from sourcing footnotes is not so much where the actual note is located, but in the fact that they are differentiated in the text itself (e.g. with "[note 1]" or "[A]" instead of "[1]"). This puts the reader on notice that the note is not just "where is this supported?" (which readers may not care so much about if they trust that it actually is supported), but "here is some more information you might be interested in". I am generally much more interested in reading explanatory footnotes than I am in reading sourcing footnotes, except in two cases: (1) if I doubt the article and want to see proof, or (2) if I am genuinely invested enough to go track down the RSSs, not necessarily to substantiate the WP article, but just because I want to read them and see what else they say. Those two cases are considerably rarer than the case where I just want to see what else the explanatory footnote has to say.
David Eppstein does indeed raise a middle case, but for the most part I would go ahead and lump that in with the "sourcing" case, the ones that as a casual reader I am unlikely to bother reading. --Trovatore (talk) 03:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
@Trovatore: A couple of studies show that non-editing readers express more confusion and are less likely to check the footnotes as the number of footnote sections increases. So a "References" section alone was their preferred experience, while the full "Notes", "Citations", "References", and "Further reading" was least-preferred. One was "Wikipedia and undergraduate research trajectories" by Lily Todorinova. I'm afraid I never bothered to save the other. I don't mind doing multiple sections, but I have always assumed we have them that way for other editors since we don't have the same hard line between reader and author that most publications do. Rjjiii (talk) 04:41, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I mean, OK, that's interesting, but it would be good to know whether the multiple sections made them less likely to read explanatory notes specifically.
I think (and this may be controversial) that we actually shouldn't care very much whether readers follow sourcing links. It's critical that Wikipedia content be easily and transparently verifiable, but it's not really in our remit to worry about whether most readers actually verify it.
On the other hand, if an explanatory note provides important nuance, then we probably should care a bit more about the visibility of that. --Trovatore (talk) 21:17, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I question the interpretation that I understand User:Rjjiii to be making on the "trajectories" research. It states "This study analyses undergraduate students’ use of Wikipedia bibliographies." So that is all about understanding the sources on which an article is based: a different objective than what we are discussing here, how to handle explanatory notes. We don't even know if the articles they looked at had explanatory notes. The criticism included sections like Further reading (my view: if the work is so good, why isn't it used as a source in the article?). Also, the study is based only on 30 students, all of whom are on English writing courses (so, no scientists). Also the participants said that they had been warned by academic staff not to do their research in online encyclopedias – so not setting a very good context for understanding what they find here. I gleaned this just from the abstract, but I can't see that the full paper is going to differ much on these fundamentals. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:44, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I was sitting trying to better understand the point made here, then I realized I'm essentially a Wikipedia native while others aren't—I read Wikipedia as a kid before I read other sources with footnotes and citations. That may be a dimension to be kept in mind. I know we try really hard not to invent our own house style or otherwise "move first", but it's unavoidable to some degree. If we're talking about unknown consequences for readers, perhaps these are also positive: "an arbitrary Wikipedia-made standard" is a standard a lot of younger people may be more comfortable with. Remsense诉 04:09, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
To bolster the OP in this subsection, I would add that not only are informative/substantive/content footnotes just body copy in another form, any such note needs one or more source citations of its own, since our content has to be sourced. Our reference citations, on the other hand, do not carry source citations because they are source citations. They're just a completely different animal that very incidentally take the form, of page-bottom footnotes. In theory, they could take a completely different form, e.g. ref. citations in a sidebar and content notes as popups, or whatever (and you could even make that happen on your own with custom user CSS and JS, or a new website "skin"). It's important not to confuse wholly different content typoes simply because of incidental presentation similarity (cf. separation of content and presentation).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:50, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Just by the way, this is what was nice about parenthetical referencing; that made a very clear distinction from notes. Oh well. (sigh) --Trovatore (talk) 16:35, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Notes with footnotes, and footnotes both are very useful in a wide variety of articles. Notes provide detailed asides, perhaps not strictly necessary, but useful nonetheless as contextualization or explanation (particularly on side concepts or event sequences the reader might have difficulty with or questions about). They also help with reading flow, as the info is not stopping the main text for the aside. And no, it was not invented by Wikipedia (an idea which seems like we are rather full of ourselves) readers of books usually nonfiction but sometimes fiction are familiar with bottom notes together with end notes (although perhaps we employ it more often, but that is because we have basically minimal editorial control, or disperse editorial control). Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't know if restating a bit of background helps. This debate originated at Vasa (ship). A major authoritative source has just been published (Vasa II, the companion to the previously published Vasa I). This covers, among other things, the sails, spars and rigging – which have survived to a massively greater extent than on other archaeologically investigated wrecks. The article therefore needs to cover what the ship tells us about 17th century sailing rig, which differs substantially from the Square rig of the late 19th and early 20th century (which is familiar to some people). Footnotes are needed so that the new text in the main article is not overwhelmed with general explanations. A separate notes section is so that the reader can easily refer back to those explanations if necessary. Otherwise, I suggest it would be very wearisome for a reader to have to find what is meant by a "bonnet" or a "martnet" if they skipped taking in the footnote the first time. (Yes, there is an entry for bonnet but that is not totally appropriate for 17th century square rig – and note poorer functionality of {{Nautical term}} versus the mouseover of {{efn}}). So this started as an article content specific issue to try and make a bit of yet-to-be-written text a lot more readable. But there are other articles where exactly the same applies. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 14:08, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Well, an example when notes can be good is when generally unfamiliar words are used, or when a word is used in a specific way - to go into it in detail (but those are not the only time). Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:56, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I think one of the most important use cases is avoiding lies to children, while keeping a reasonable flow in the inline text. Not infrequently, to make what the text says strictly true, you need to add some nuance, but doing it inline could make it harder to read. Explanatory notes are an excellent way of handling this situation.
See for example the second note (at the current writing) in The Pirates of Penzance (permalink). Unfortunately that article does not have a separate "Notes" section, meaning that a reader will probably think that the note is just to support the claim. If there were a separate section, a reader might be more likely to see what the note says. --Trovatore (talk) 19:59, 11 March 2024 (UTC) Huh — I just checked, and that article actually does have an explanatory notes section; that note just wasn't in it. I've fixed it now. --Trovatore (talk) 20:29, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
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