Wikipedia talk:ISBN

message: I probably am not understanding something but it seems I can't quite fathom a few use cases based on the way ISBNs are current held.  If I know the non-hyphenated version of an ISBN for the book I'm interested that may have been cited on wikipedia somewhere.  How would I go about finding any references given that the ISBNs are recorded here only in hyphenated form?
1. via wikipedia search?
2. via google? 
If I'm correct in saying this isn't covered, is there a case for either smartening up the search function a little, or actually changing the way the isbn is stored to include both hyphenated and unhyphenated versions in the markup?  I'd be interested in knowing some thoughts, I'm probably missing something really obvious and simple so sorry in advance. ---- nonsense ferret 00:53, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: In Wikipedia, ISBNs may be entered either hyphenated, spaced, or unpunctuated. Thus, ISBN 0-12-345678-9 ISBN 0 12 345678 9 and ISBN 0123456789 are exactly the same. If you click on any of these, you'll be taken to the same search page. --Redrose64 (talk) 01:12, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for asking a stupid question from stupidland, but is the point of that search page to search things outside of WP or search for all instances of that number within WP? ---- nonsense ferret 01:18, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  so yeah, I'm probably doing something wrong - I click a number like  ISBN 0-553-26315-3 and get to the search page, and then i click on section 11 find on wikipedia, and I'd sort of expect that to find the reference that I'd clicked on but it doesn't seem to when I tried. I guess unless I'm doing something stupid, the link is stored on the page hyphenated then it is converted to unhyphenated on the search page, thus depriving me of the ability to search for it in wikipedia ---- nonsense ferret 01:25, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The database used for that isn't updated in real time. If you added the ISBN to a page recently (say, within the last 24 hours), the search indexing spiders may not have updated the database, so it might not show. --Redrose64 (talk) 01:29, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I used an ISBN that was already there on the page for ages - it seems like you can't type in a non-hyphenated isbn and find it on wikipedia now that they all have been changed to the hyphenated versions. ---- nonsense ferret 01:31, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

text: Not all articles have hyphenated ISBNs - see Rock 'n' Roll (John Lennon album) for one example of unhyphenated ISBNs.  GoingBatty (talk) 19:20, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  ISBN Searching 

message: maybe not much of one, but at least it seems like there is something a bit inconsistent about the current behaviour:
All ISBNs on pages have been converted to hyp version.
I click on hyp version on an article
I get sent to search page prepopulated with unhyphenated version.
I click link to search wikipedia for all instances of the ISBN (using the prepopulated unhyp version)
Expected: find the link on the page I originally clicked
Actual: find no results - because there is a mismatch between hyp and unhyp.
Similarly, find a book on amazon which lists unhyp ISBNs, go to WP and search - 
Expected: find all references to that book where people have bothered to type in the ISBN
Actual: find no references, ever, since they have all been converted by a bot.
Assumptions:
* I managed to use the search function correctly (BIG assumption)
* A bot has been set to convert all ISBNs to hyp version (untested impression)
* External sources tend to use unhyp versions of ISBN
* It is difficult for a use to manually hyphenate an ISBN correctly and consistently for the purposes of searching
::Not all articles have hyphenated ISBNs - see Rock 'n' Roll (John Lennon album) for one example of unhyphenated ISBNs.  GoingBatty (talk) 19:20, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  is there a problem? 

message: So, when you type in an ISBN on Wikipedia's lookup system, there are two huge problems with it:
*No link to the article if there is one
*Author and title not listed
I get the first one - I can imagine that might be a technically challenging thing to implement, or lots and lots of labor. But the second? Really? When I type in a really long number, my first question is "did I type the right number". You're not answering this basic question here. Ego White Tray (talk) 13:00, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you referring to Special:BookSources? --  Gadget850 talk 13:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: For which, see Wikipedia talk:Book sources for the discussion location. –Quiddity (talk) 18:42, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Authors and titles? 

message: SusunW came about a rather bizarre case: According to Google Books this book misprints its own ISBN (correct is ISBN 978-0-8061-1758-4, as confirmed by WorldCat, not ISBN 978-0-8061-1458-4). Any chances of implementing a "redirect" so that entering the ISBN as printed in the book (assuming this isn't a digitalization error) will point to the correct ISBN? Huon (talk) 13:45, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: No, because the links to apparent pages like Special:BookSources/9780806114584, like many other "pages" in Special: namespace, don't really exist; so, even if we could create a redirect (which we can't), it would be ignored. There is a note somewhere that ISBNs are occasionally misprinted, and that the true ISBN should be used and not the one that the book shows. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:09, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks to you both. Guess it is a good thing that Wiki notifies one that there is an error. As clearly one would assume that in most instances the printed source correctly identified its own ISBN. SusunW (talk) 15:35, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misprinted ISBN 

message: Are people here aware that a decision has apparently been made to remove all magic links, which includes ISBN and PMID?
I can't find any discussions where consensus was established. There is Requests for comment/Future of magic links on Mediawiki. Five people have taken part, and it isn't what we call an RfC. There was a mailing list post by  in October; a thread on phabricator, ; and there is a request to approve a bot to remove them.  left a note about the bot request on WP:VPP.
Leaving this here in case anyone is interested, and pinging  because it affects PMID. SarahSV (talk) 16:01, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Was discussed here at WTMED a little while ago. Have not used these links myself. Others however do. Not sure what the solution is. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:04, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Editors who don't use citation templates use the ISBN and PMID magic links. If people object, the best thing is to leave a comment at WP:VPP#Removal_of_ISBN_magic_links and/or at the request for bot approval to remove them, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 27. SarahSV (talk) 17:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future of magic links 

message: Came across a reference using the cite book template which threw up an ISBN error because the terminal X was given as lower-case x. The book source had its ISBN written with lower case X and as it was in a printed book was obviously valid to the untrained human. 
Is this a case where the error message could be more explicit when saying that the ISBN contains an invalid character as to what the invalid character is? Or even treat lower-case x as upper-case X? Or the various documentation could indicate that ISBNs have to be given with capital X to avoid the problem. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:52, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: When you clicked the "help" link, did you get to this section, where it says (amidst a lot of text) ? You are welcome to improve the help text to make it easier to parse. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:57, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: If we have a bot that can insert hyphens (see next topic), can't it fix trivial errors like that too? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:07, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: AManWithNoPlan advises that CitationBot repairs this type of error if a CS1/2 template is used. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:32, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Invalid ISBN because x is not X 

message: A few days ago, prompted by this edit in which ISBN hyphens were removed, I and  had a conversation with  (who started this thread) about removing hyphens from ISBNs.  Per this, as Jonesey95 pointed out, Srich32977 has been asked before to stop removing hyphens.  I suggested that they should find a forum where they could get consensus before removing hyphens from ISBNS.  I just found this discussion and I think this constitutes a consensus in the opposite direction; hyphens should not be removed from ISBNs.  Srich32977, do you agree?  It seems clear to me that practically every commenter above expressed approval for including the hyphens, and we do still have "Use hyphens if they are included" on this how-to page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 11:07, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, the consensus is to not remove hyphens from ISBNs. I thought this had been resolved some time ago with the good work done on re-instating and updating . I'm disappointed that this is still an issue. Some of my efforts adding correct ISBN hyphenation were reverted by the same user more recently than the link above Special:Diff/1164404328 converting correct hyphenation to some kind of compromise(?) 978-nnnnnnnnnn, without separating the check-digit, which would also be trivial. Obviously there is no point regressing the correct hyphenation to an inferior version. Is it a tool doing this? It needs to stop. My main focus at the moment is correcting ISBN errors, and as a side task I hyphenate all ISBNs on the pages (script-assisted). Having someone systematically regressing the improvements I am making is frustrating. @User:Sojourner_in_the_earth's comment on @User_talk:Srich32977 covers everything. De-hyphenating ISBNs is akin to removing first= last= parameters in a citation in favor of author=. Both versions are potentially correct, but the marked up version is better. I hope no one will argue in favor of author= and less information. I've noticed some of @User:Srich32977's edits convert pre-ISBN-13 ISBNs to ISBN-13, which is another unnecessary ISBN edit, the printed ISBN-10 is likely to be more useful to people with the book in hand. ISBNs are not just for creating special book source links. Salpynx (talk) 22:02, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Calling  a tool might be construed as a personal attack, so I won't do it, but I long ago ran out of good faith with that editor.  Agreed. There is no good reason to remove valid hyphens from ISBNs. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Consensus for not removing hyphens?

message: is a discussion which watchers of this page may be interested in. Izno (talk) 02:16, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  ISBN formatting 

message: In this book, it says it has two ISBNs, one for the paper print, and one for "OA". Which one should I use? Is there a way to show 2 ISBNs in one ref? - Dents (talk2me 🖂) he/him btw!!! 11:20, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: List the one that matches the book that you looked at as a source, per WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:51, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two ISBNS?