Template talk:Cite book

Chapter and url

I note with mild frustration that, if chapter and url are specified but chapterurl is not, the hyperlink is on the chapter rather than the title. Has that always been the case? It seems wrong to me; if I want a link on the chapter, I will specify chapterurl; therefore, if I specify url, it means I want a link on the title. jnestorius^(talk) 23:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I've asked about this at Template talk:Citation/core#Titles, IncludedWorks, and URLs. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:36, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; I didn't find that because I searched for chapterurl. I wonder if this was changed when contribution was added as a synonym of chapter? If it's desirable behaviour for contribution but not for chapter, then they're not really synonyms. The handling of url could change to link title if chapter is specified but contribution if that is specified. Or else add a titleurl parameter (and then maybe deprecate url). jnestorius^(talk) 08:02, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Further discussion ongoing at Template talk:Citation/core#Titles, IncludedWorks, and URLs. My guess is that something will happen to address this, but some details need to be worked out first. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:35, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I've sandboxed changes to Citation/core to add a parameter named TitleURL and sandboxed changes to this template to add a parameter named titleurl and to usde the sandbox version of core. This is intended as an alternative to the url parameter, and would always associate a url supplied in that parameter with the title parameter. As yet, there has been no discussion for or against publishing these changes. Feel free to try the sandboxed templates out (e.g., {{Cite book/sandbox |titleurl=titleurl |title=title |chapter=chapter}} -- until the sandboxes get changed), and to comment either here or (probably better) at Template talk:Citation/core#Titles, IncludedWorks, and URLs. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Table number

I have a book mostly consisting of tables without page numbers. Another situation might be a book with several tables on the same page. We should be able to give a table number instead of (or as well as) a page number. Something like this:

Cordell, Bruce R.; Jeff Grubb, David Noonan (September 2001). Manual of the Planes. Table IX.

Can we add a field "table"? Zero^talk 09:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, you can work your way around this, first by suppressing the "p." or "pp." for page numbers - "nopp=[insert random character]" - and second, by writing "Table [X]" or Tables [X, Y] in the parameter for page numbers. I wouldn't mind an extra pair of parameters though ("table" and "tables"). Cavila (talk) 09:56, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

You can use the (hmm, undocumented) at parameter. It works the same way as page/pages, but i doesn't add p./pp. Svick (talk) 10:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I've documented |at= based on that for the similar parameter on {{citation}} and {{cite journal}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:16, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

last/first vs last1/first1

Please see new thread at cite journal and comment there. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:11, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

archiveurl and archivedate

Unless I'm mistaken this option are missing that you can find on {{Cite web}}. How can you archive a book you may say. Well simple it can be available in pdf form. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 01:41, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

This has been mentioned before, see earlier: Just one URL?, also archive 7: Archiveurl requested, archive 8: Archiveurl, archive 8: "archiveurl" and "archivedate" parameters should be addedT. I don't think that any experts were in too much hurry to carry out the required changes. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:35, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. It's good to see it was discussed and agreed before. Now is it possible an admin can make the change? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 01:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Sandbox the changes and I am sure I, or another will. Rich Farmbrough, 13:23, 20 June 2010 (UTC).

I've sandboxed lightly tested changes. This removed the previously sandboxed but unpublished addition of the titleurl parameter. If the changes are published Cite_book/doc needs to be updated accordingly. I'm traveling beginning tomorrow, and may not be able to pay much attention to this for the next week or two. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:02, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Cite option on My preferences

cite book is without cap. Admins are changing the "C" to cap. So, what is right? --Chris.urs-o (talk) 12:04, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what option in your preferences are you talking about

Wikipedia:RefToolbar Rich Farmbrough, 13:40, 20 June 2010 (UTC).

Thx, right: option> My Preferences> Gadgets> RefTools --Chris.urs-o (talk) 14:15, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

nor what admins are you talking about (maybe some bot is doing that), but the answer is that both variants ({{cite book}} and {{Cite book}}) are right. I don't think there is anything that makes one better than the other. Svick (talk) 13:18, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

There are advantages either way, lower case is easier to type, dyed in the wool lower-case programmers prefer it, it can look more natural with in-line templates. Upper case reads slightly better when the template call is considered on its own, outside sentences, especially if it is standing in a bulleted list or on a line by itself, if you perceive the {{}} as creating an out-of-text entity. Moreover upper case can help distinguish between named parameters and templates, {{{{{Template and {{{{{parameter. Finally the name of the page is in upper case, the reason both calls work is that en.wikipedia is set to case-insensitive on first letter, not all wikis are set up this way, including some of our sister projects, therefore capped template calls are slightly more portable. Rich Farmbrough, 13:40, 20 June 2010 (UTC).

There are also reasons for leaving the template name exactly as entered by the editor who first placed it: a change from {{cite book}} to {{Cite book}} has absolutely no effect on the page, but shows up in the diffs, so it's very tedious wading through a series of unnecessary changes just to find a very few that are significant. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:44, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Pseudonym argument?

How best to cite Recollections of Old Liverpool by A Nonagenarian. The author in question is James Stonehouse, but his name is nowhere mentioned in the book. What comes to mind is cite book |last = Stonehouse | first = James (aka "A Nonagenarian"). Would a new argument be handy? --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:53, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Remember that what goes into first/last or author ends up in the COinS metadata, which when processed might give the wrong impression about the author's first name. If the true author is not mentioned in the book, perhaps he did not wish to be; so I don't think we should mention him either. I would use |author=A Nonagenarian. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:15, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure we should feel ourselves bound by the presumed wishes of a 150 years dead author. It is of interest (to me, at least) to know who the author was. It's for the reason of not screwing up the metadata that I think a means of distinguishing the real and pseudonym would be useful. (I accept your preference to respect the author's decision, , R64, but it doesn't work for me. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:21, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

We should cite sources as the information appears in the book. This is also how the information is indexed in databases. Project Gutenberg credits this to "A nonagenarian" & so should we. In notable cases (e.g. Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, J. D. Robb), there should be an article or redirect that links pen names with legal names. In cases where this is not possible, we can use the authorlink parameter. --Karnesky (talk) 17:31, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

TWO ISBN NUMBERS

Can we have another space on the template for the second ISBN numbers?Дунгане (talk) 21:14, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Each publication can have two, of different lengths. I usually pick the longer one and use it, as that system is newer, as I understand it. - Denimadept (talk) 22:55, 1 July 2010 (UTC)