Template talk:Authority/link

Formatting

@Billinghurst: The shared formatting template makes sense to me, but it should not diverge from existing practice too radically. I think we need something closer to "Cite" in Wikipedia. Like the publication date in parens looks strange in this context. Changing {{Americana link}} to use this template made it look quite a bit different, with rather strange punctuation, like the colon after "New York" which looks completely out of place. I think its previous punctuation would be preferred, and preferably the change should be made by redoing this template. Library Guy (talk) 20:40, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

@Library Guy: I modelled the formatting on what had been undertaken for DNB00 by Charles Matthews, and further utilised on number of other dictionary type works. The reason that we don't use citation standard is that we are predominantly looking to give access to the article, so that is the lead component, then the remainder is informational, if it is chosen to be added. To remember that this is not meant to be a citation, as used in referencing material, so its presentation does differ due to its purpose. Re the parameters, I am trying to compartmentalise to ultimately align with wikidata properties, so possible it can become full metadata (maybe).

Happy to open this up to the broader community for their discussion about what they see as the expected standard presentation, so it isn't my opinion, I am just trying to build a template that allows for use. Re Americana link use, have you an example to point me towards? It seemed okay on those that I checked, however, getting all combinations of parameters is always a challenge. Is it just needing another template parameter to be sourced for the publisher? — billinghurst sDrewth 06:18, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

To note that I have just added the publisher detail. I had forgotten that it wasn't in the information against the work, and I had meant to go and add it afterwards. Done now — billinghurst sDrewth 06:25, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@Billinghurst:, @Charles Matthews: Now that you've added the publisher, {{Americana link}} looks better. {{NIE link}} is a model, as Americana link used to be and {{EB1911 link}} still is when a terminating period is restored. What you are doing really is certainly beginning to look like a citation. You should only use the long format on request, if it is necessary at all. For all the uses I've seen the short form works fine. The basic information is the work, the article, the year, with optional author. Maybe you should go with a separate template for people who want something crammed with data about the work. The parens aren't necessary. A comma and a period work fine. All the extra data are mostly clutter in the situations I've seen. Maybe you should tell me more about DNB. What situations do people need all this data in? Library Guy (talk) 15:59, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

There are two arguments that need to be determined. 1) the data to be collected and displayed; 2) the formatting of the data. I think that they are and should be separated discussions.

For the templates that I migrated, I had tried to have them so that they replicated what existed prior to the migration without particular enhancement. As such the introduction of the template should be neutral and allow for the discussion of what is in, and what displays as required. This template is not prescribing what is in or what is out, just allowing for migration. A template is required as there needs to be something readily in place to enable quick and easy ability to generate templates for the works at Wikisource:WikiProject Biographical dictionaries.

DNB needs to show as a minimum the link, the work/series; additional information that could be added is contributor, volume, year of publication of volume. DNB cannot be migrated at this point as it is not a parent/subpage model. So it is not a good discussion point for fitting into this template. And as I said, the others have just been replicated to match before and after. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:33, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree about the two separate issues, but it's just one template. You can start two headings below if you want. My issue is mostly with presentation, your issue #2. The parentheses-around-the-date-at-the-end syntax seems to be based on no standard that I know of, just some editors' (myself included) quick-and-dirty method for establishing a link to a work. The advantage of Cite is I believe it is based on well-established standards. I think you should have a specially yes/no argument to decide on a minimal or detailed format, and the default should be the minimal format, that way if someone is presenting a list of items from the same work, which is often my situation, the publisher/location/supervising editors can just be presented once if desired, and succeeding citations can just present the minimum necessary to identify the work and article along with an optional author. I have less trouble with the "by" and "in" particles to make the citation more readable as perhaps Cite caters too much to specialists, but maybe even here there is some sort of external standard available, and it seems to me Cite uses particles at times. And perhaps some editors will want the terminating period optional. I think the default should be the terminating period is displayed. And I believe {{EB1911 link}} is based on a meta template already. That is being discarded? Library Guy (talk) 17:50, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps the parentheses-around-the-date-at-the-end notation comes from EB1911? In that case, more information gets put in the parens than current practice. See for example "Puchta, Georg Friedrich," in Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed., 1911) Library Guy (talk) 18:54, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Regarding your issue #1, while both EB1911 and NIE frequently include the city of publication, neither ever bothers to list the publisher, and I see less clutter proceeding this way. Library Guy (talk) 22:24, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Parameter naming

@Billinghurst: (CC Inductiveload) Using "pp" to mean "last page of range" is unfortunate: everywhere else "pp." is the plural of "p." (i.e. "page" and "pages"), both on-wiki and IRL, and indicates that what follows is a range of pages. Does this template really need a start+end, or could it be changed such that it takes either p=12 or pp=12–13? Or if a start+end range is needed, could we find different parameter names for that? --Xover (talk) 06:58, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

It was converting single page and double page usage outside the template internal to the template. Noting that it does convert from p. to pp. in the display with the second parameter, and just keeping it short. [sp/ep, fp/lp, etc. all were just bleh.] I have no particular issue in how we do it, though WP's solution of "page" and "pages" is a PITA. Of course it doesn't matter how we do it, though give me a plan and a solution rather than just tell me about something that is not actually a problem. Whether it is unfortunate or not, it is clearly documented, and you need to look at the documentation to know it exists. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:02, 12 May 2021 (UTC)