# Talk:Worcester city walls

From the history of the article:

Revert by user:Hchc2009 "As per CITEVAR - please don't change the citation style without discussion on the talk page first"
This is not a CITEVAR issue:
CITVAR states "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference" — This article does not have an established citation style. It has a mixture of long and short inline citations, so altering them from one to the other is not breaching CITVAR
WP:CITE also states in the section WP:DUPCITES that altering citations like the multiple Oxford Archaeology citations "...  is the best practice on Wikipedia."
In reverting the changes I made you reinserted nearly two score broken citation links.
Adding years to short citations has two advantages so it is not "change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference". The first is that it protects the short citations against problems of another citation being added to a book by the same author (often a different edition) making it impossible to tell by reading the article which long citation in the references section extends the short citation. The second is that it allows a mixture of templates short citations and non-templated short citations to have a consistent visual appearance.
@user:Hchc2009 you substantive as opposed to procedural reasons for reverting my changes? -- PBS (talk) 10:14, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

The article's citation system was consistent as of [1], after which you added some useful content, but also set about introducing citation templates throughout the article and changing the format of other citations. As WP:CITEVAR makes clear, "adding citation templates to an article that already uses a consistent system without templates" should be avoided. The original citation style was fine and consistent - if you'd like to change the style, simply start a new section below and propose it. Alternatively, we could ask for a third opinion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources. Hchc2009 (talk) 10:46, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
You say "adding citation templates to an article that already uses a consistent system without templates". It was not consistent it used a mixture of short and long inline citations.
"also set about introducing citation templates throughout the article and changing the format of other citations" -- I did not "introduc[e] citation templates throughout the article" most citations were not altered from non-template to templated ones. I only changed a few that were inconsistent (for example using a mixture of "last-name, first-name" and "first-name "last-name" in the same long citation").
Why did you remove the year from the short citations even when they were not in templates?
As as I said do you have a substantive as opposed to procedural reasons for reverting my changes? -- PBS (talk) 11:27, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
Using short cites for books and full cites inline for other source types is a reasonable approach if done consistently, as it appears to have been prior to the disputed edits. Please don't make such changes without discussion. Other potentially helpful edits can and should be made without altering the underlying citation style. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:46, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Nikki. PBS, we've had the conversation about short and long inline citations many times in different places, so I know that we disagree. However, the wider consensus on the wiki is that there is no problem with using short citations styles for books and long citation citation styles for web pages in a single article. If you think that I'm misinterpreting wider consensus on this, I'd recommend that we take the issue and get a third (or fourth, I guess now) opinion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources or a similar forum. Hchc2009 (talk) 06:53, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
User:Nikkimaria you seem to be confused. I did not move the "full cites inline" from inline, what I did was fix a broken link and WP:DUPCITES, so what do you think are the changes I made that need discussion? -- PBS (talk) 09:38, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
I didn't say you did, I was simply responding to your erroneous argument that the previous system was not consistent because it used short and long. What you did, and what you needed to discuss prior to doing, was to instate citation templates in an article with an established untemplated style. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:28, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
using short and long inline citations is inconsistent style. Templates are not a style issue. -- PBS (talk) 15:30, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
Per CITEVAR, templates are considered a style issue. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:19, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
PBS, if I were to go through and make the references to the new material consistent with the previous, established citation style, would you object? Hchc2009 (talk) 17:17, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I would object, because the new citations I added does not change a consistent style. It did not even add templates to a non-templated collection of citations because many of them include the {{ISBN}} template. -- PBS (talk)
All ISBN's have been converted across the wiki to use that template as a result of an RFC, PBS. Given that you don't accept the arguments by other editors on this page, I'd like to take this to some form of conflict resolution. Do you have a preferred forum? Hchc2009 (talk) 16:52, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
Given that local consensus (myself and Nikkimaria) on this page is that the previous citation style should stand, as per WP:CITEVAR, I've converted the new content additions to the existing style of the article. In doing so, I note that I've suggested options for wider conflict resolution several times over the last week (see above), but had no take-up/response. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:00, 10 September 2017 (UTC)