Template talk:Web reference

message: I notice that  and similar templates have url in lowercase, whereas  et al. use URL in uppercase; this is a bit annoying when one is entering many different sources. There's probably some other points of departure, and it would be nice if all of these citations eventually conformed to some sort of namespace (like ,,,). -Kwh 00:38, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
: I also think most parameters should have lowercase names.  Perhaps you can find a suitable place to propose a standard.  (SEWilco 14:06, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I proposed a lowercase parameter standard at Wikipedia talk:Template namespace. (SEWilco 19:18, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Case of parameters 

message: A version with optional parameters has been created as part of consolidation of these templates.  Lowercase parameter names are preferred.  (SEWilco 15:52, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New version 

message: Variants of Template:Web_reference have been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Web_reference variations. Thank you.
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— (SEWilco 04:01, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of Template: Web_reference variations 

message: On 11:07, 23 November 2005 AzaToth contributed the following:

{{{Author|{{{author|}}}}}}{{if
  |1={{{PublishYear|{{{publishyear|}}}}}}
  |2= ({{{PublishYear|{{{publishyear|}}}}}})
}}{{if
  |1={{boolor
    |1={{{Author|{{{author|}}}}}}
    |2={{{PublishYear|{{{publishyear|}}}}}}
}}
  |2=. 
}}{{if
  |1={{boolnand
    |1={{{URL|{{{url|}}}}}}
    |2={{{Title|{{{title|}}}}}}
  }}
  |2=parameter url and title is required!
  |3=[{{{URL|{{{url}}}}}} {{{Title|{{{title}}}}}}]. 
}}{{if
  |1={{{format|{{{Format|}}}}}}
  |2= ({{{Format|{{{format}}}}}})
}}{{if
  |1={{{Work|{{{work|}}}}}}
  |2={{{Work|{{{work}}}}}}.
}} {{if
  |1={{{Publisher|{{{publisher|}}}}}}
  |2={{{Publisher|{{{publisher}}}}}}.
}} URL accessed on [[{{{Date|{{{date}}}}}}]] {{if
  |1={{{Year|{{{year|}}}}}}
  |2=[[{{{Year|{{{year}}}}}}]]
}}.<noinclude>
{{esoteric}}
</noinclude>
I'm just going to revert this right now as I would like to discuss this first. – Ligulem | Talk 14:03, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm reporting that I have reverted to the revision as of 08:53. – Ligulem | Talk 14:18, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: *Could you explain (to a dummy like me :-) "... I added numbered params to all calls to ensure if someone have = as argument". I suspect your intent was to catch a usage error with this, but I'm too blinded to see this. Maybe you could give an example? – Ligulem | Talk 14:25, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * If you want to pass argument foo=bar you have to type 1=foo=bar etc... Because this is a complicated template, it's better to be safe than not, therefore, add number as param-name catches those attributes, it will also show the user he/she typed wrong, when author's name is John=Doe. Also it's easier to see if a parameter belongs to one call or another. --AzaToth talk 14:32, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * I'm trying to understand. Please correct me: If someone erroneously tries to assign the value "John=Doe" to the template parameter "author" he would do what? He would write {{web reference|1=John=Doe ...? – Ligulem | Talk 14:44, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * Ok, this template have no First/Last parameter, so this particular example is bogus. But think if the user forgot a | in it's argument. will give foo publisher=bar as value to work.  --AzaToth talk 14:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * Confusion still increases with me. You write "This template has no First/Last parameter"'. Yes that's correct. The template does not have a paramater with the name "First" and neither a parameter with the name "Last". But what does that tell us? – Ligulem | Talk 15:11, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * First/Last was just a example, used by other reference templates, I was refering that a parameter in this template, even if you have not consider it, could take a = as value by some sense (like format could for example be a format called foo=bar). --AzaToth talk 15:18, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *If I just say that I do not understand what you want to say (and even say how I understood it) how can I not consider you? However, I'll stop here. My final qualification of your proposal (as I sorted out how I understand it) follows. – Ligulem | Talk 16:42, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text:  The "numbered params" added to "all calls" does not refer to calls to .  The numbered parameters are being used within special effects templates such as .  The first parameter of  is being specifically indicated with "1=" in case there is an equals sign in the value.  (SEWilco 15:22, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What means "specifically indicated"? – Ligulem | Talk 16:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It means that a parameter unless specified/indicated, will be the parameter 1..n, for example  is the same as , but  is as it is. --AzaToth talk 16:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I think we should not apply AzaToth's proposal. While it catches unimportant usage errors such as  it significantly complicates the template code. The presented solution intelligently solves a nearly inexistent or not so prominent problem. As I understand it, AzaToth's proposal assigns inside the template values to unnumbered unnamed parameters 1 and 2, in fact using them as variables. As I understand, this also would make the usage of "real" unnamed parameters 1 and 2 that would transfer information from the calling place of the template impossible, something that could be used for possible future extensions. – Ligulem | Talk 17:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you have missunderstand us, unnumbered parameters are numbered, but you can't see it, they get numbered on the fly, where you tinking about sending a parameter 1=2=1?. Also, do you think that indenting the code make's it more complicated? --AzaToth talk 17:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "unnumbered parameters 1 and 2" was a botch by me. Sorry. I wanted to write "AzaToth's proposal assigns inside the template values to unnamed parameters 1 and 2". Is that correct? – Ligulem | Talk 18:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, thats correct, there are two reasons to have the parameters specified, one is to catch values with embeded =, one is to have a better look what parameter belongs to what function/template (if |1= comes after |2= you probably understand that they not belong to the same template call). The numbering is not necissary, but I personally think it's better to specify them for a hint to others that we are using this specified parameter. --AzaToth talk 18:08, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Indenting does *not* make the code more complicated. If that was your main goal, then please go for it. – Ligulem | Talk 18:07, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: "thinking about sending a parameter 1=2=1". No. I thought about things like . Just as a not so useful example. – Ligulem | Talk 18:15, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  will be expanded to , i.e. if you specified a parameter, it won't be extra expanded. even if you type  it will be expanded to  (see m:Help:Template#Named vs. numbered parameters) --AzaToth talk 18:23, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I completely agree with this statement. But that abviously does not help to solve my misunderstanding. I propose that I'll stop now completely about your proposal. Please revert my revert. – Ligulem | Talk 18:28, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We are only humand :), have reverted your revert --AzaToth talk 18:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I found a minor bug:  will be expanded to  and  it will be expanded to . – Ligulem | Talk 19:36, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes it's correct --AzaToth talk 19:41, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Talking to myself: I wrote (at 17:38) "As I understand it, AzaToth's proposal assigns inside the template values to unnamed parameters 1 and 2, in fact using them as variables." No, this is wrong. The code as presented by AzaToth does *not* assign to unnamed parameters of web reference. All assignments to unnamed parameters ("1=", "2=", "3=") are unnamed parameters at the scope of the respective called templates, which are ,  and . What AzaToth did is explicitly specify the numbers of the unnamed parameters when calling for example :  (A) is equivalent to  (B) and seems to be the same, but it is not exactly. Because if "green" would be replaced with "==Best color==" then variant (B) does not work as one might expect (See m:Help:Template#Equals sign in parameter value). In fact, I'm asking myself now, if we just should always use form (A) inside templates for subtemplate calls. – Ligulem | Talk 21:30, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hehe, sorry if I twisted your mind :) I thought it was best to be on the safe side when typing complicated templates. Perhaps my english is not so good after all :( --AzaToth talk 21:36, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not just a thing for complicated templates. And your english is quite fine. And it's me who is the newbie. – Ligulem | Talk 21:46, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Dammed. I finally see what you template geeks are doing. Sorry for stealing your valued time. AzaToth, I think your original proposal is even better than the one that came out after my stupid intervention (I whish I had not, but you are so dammed fast). Sorry sorry. That's really strange stuff that if an actual parameter of a template contains a "=" char the original code behaves that strange. Thanks for the lesson! – Ligulem | Talk 19:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Idea of AzaToth, as contributed 11:07, 23 November 2005 

message: I've documented a very strange bug under my user space at User:Ligulem/web reference 2005-11-27-1 (please don't edit there). I invite all to help discuss on the associated talk page. Of course, you may also post here, as you see fit. Thanks! – Ligulem | Talk 10:06, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have reworked the handling of space chars (revision as of 12:26, 30 November 2005 UTC). The bug seems to have disappeared. – Ligulem | Talk 12:33, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strange bug with space chars 

message: I had this open for reference and edited it by mistake, apologies Hiding  talk 08:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apologies 

message: See the discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Avoid_using_meta-templates#Logic_templates. – Ligulem | Talk 15:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logic templates on WP:AUM 

message: I propose to do this also here. Admin help needed due to protection. – Ligulem | Talk 08:45, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done by Ral315 (diff). Thanks. Ligulem 20:20, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change proposal: break dependency on template tl 

message: Why is this template blocked?  Is there a Wiki policy that is now in place since the markup language became more complex?  Thanks, Steven McCrary 17:22, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Steven. Sadly, this template is blocked because it is a high-use template (several thousand articles depend on that) and the current implementation of templates in MediaWiki has the problem that if a widely used template is changed, all dependent pages are changed immediately. This can even lock the data-base server for seconds, which is said to be very bad. So this template here would make a fine vandal vector. Please note that I have not blocked this template and I'm not a admin but I agree with it beeing blocked. However this does not mean that this template should never be changed. If you have a change proposal write it on this talk page and wait a bit what others say about it. If there are no objections, simply ask an admin to make the change or unprotect the template for you. (See also Wikipedia:High-risk templates and Wikipedia:List of permanently protected pages). Disclaimer: WP:AUM. Ligulem 17:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ligulem, thanks.  I kinda' figured it out, since after I posted the question I went to the blocked pages and did a little exploration.  But, I did not see the Wikipedia:High-risk templates page, so thanks.  I posted a change (above) yesterday, but so far, no discussion on it.  Thanks, Steven McCrary 18:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just an Idea: What about starting a development branch under a subpage, for example under template:web reference/dev? We could then do the usual wiki-process of editing there and after consensus ask admins to copy a revision identified as "to release" (by consensus) over to the "hot" template. Ligulem 18:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Sounds good to me.  I have done so.  Steven McCrary 20:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Ok. Now we need test cases to demonstrate that all old and new features still work. Think I start that at template:web reference/dev-test. Ligulem 21:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  blocked? 

message: Since each of these is supposed to have an "Accessed on DATE" entry, why don't we include a parameter so we can link to the Internet Archive's abckup of that page at approximately that time? --maru  (talk) contribs 17:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: Additional parameter for Internet Archive links 

message: Hi all. I would like to introduce a move to the new . This includes deprecation of web reference and moving all calls to cite web.
Motivation: web reference currently provides both upper and lower case parameters, which is nedlessly complex and brittle. cite web is much simpler as it provides lower case only. cite web is also less likely to break and it is easier to throw in stop-gap measures like weeble code or Wikipedia:hiddenStructure hack if some god should shoot  (See also that never ending story on WP:AUM and user talk:Brion VIBBER#The future of qif. Hopefully we will get a Media-Wiki built-in qif soon).
I have done the same on  (replacement for ) and I'm still converting  to .
Please note that it is not safe to just throw out the upper case params on web reference, even though nearly all calls already use lower case. We need two templates while doing the move to make sure that no article is hurted. There is no way to tell for sure that each and every article uses only the lower case parameters of web reference.
Per the name: we already have a bunch of cite xxx templates. See :category:citation templates.
Thank you for your careful consideration. --Ligulem 10:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe cite uri would be better than cite web? --BACbKA 13:13, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hrm. I'm not so obsessed on names. I could live with that. Reasonable short and is compatible with the cite xxx pattern. OTH, cite web is closer to the old "web reference", so "cite web" might be easier to accept for editors as it also has "web" in the name. uri is technically correct, but I would guess that most editors do no know what an uri is. --Ligulem 13:53, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Simple parameter renames are no problem. Of course I agree dicussing first. I've added a warning text to  so that it's not used prematurely. We should also wait putting the deprecated tag here until there is consensus what to do exactly. This went wrong on book ref last time. --Ligulem 13:39, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with the renames date → accessdate, year → accessyear, publishyear → year. --Ligulem 13:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving to template cite web 

message: Also, it would be nice if before we move, we discuss some field name changes, such as date and year to accessdate and accessyear (easier to understand their use), and likewise publishyear to year. This won't be hard to do with AWB as part of the move, right? ··gracefool |☺ 13:28, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Simple parameter renames are no problem. Of course I agree dicussing first. I've added a warning text to  so that it's not used prematurely. We should also wait putting the deprecated tag here until there is consensus what to do exactly. This went wrong on book ref last time. --Ligulem 13:39, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with the renames date → accessdate, year → accessyear, publishyear → year. --Ligulem 13:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  field name changes