Wikipedia Citation Templates and their limitations

fusion809

Hi, I tried to convert this citation:

[
{
"id": 31,
"type": "article-journal",
"title": "Solution structure of human IL-13 and implication for receptor binding",
"container-title": "Journal of Molecular Biology",
"page": "219-230",
"volume": "310",
"issue": "1",
"source": "CrossRef",
"DOI": "10.1006/jmbi.2001.4764",
"ISSN": "00222836",
"note": "PMID: 11419948",
"language": "en",
"author": [
{
"family": "Moy",
"given": "FJ"
},
{
"family": "Diblasio",
"given": "E"
},
{
"family": "Wilhelm",
"given": "J"
},
{
"family": "Powers",
"given": "R"
}
],
"issued": {
"date-parts": [
[
"2001",
6
]
]
},
"accessed": {
"date-parts": [
[
"2014",
11,
5
]
]
}
}
]


Into a Wikipedia Citation Template and got this:

{{Cite journal
| doi = 10.1006/jmbi.2001.4764
| issn = 00222836
| volume = 310
| issue = 1
| pages = 219–230
| last = Moy
| first = FJ
| coauthors = E Diblasio, J Wilhelm, R Powers
| title = Solution structure of human IL-13 and implication for receptor binding
| journal = Journal of Molecular Biology
| accessdate = 2014-11-05
| date = 2001-06
| pmid = 11419948
}}

There are a few different problems with this citation:

1. In Wikipedia it is generally preferred that all citations are all over one line, not over several lines like this citation is.
2. Full-length dates are preferred (or at least they are with me)
3. Access dates should not be used for journals as journals are static.
4. ISSNs are not required.
5. Page numbers should be separated by the em dash — operator.
6. Last and first (i.e., names of the 1st author) should be numbered one.
7. Coauthors should be in the format: Diblasio, E; Wilhelm, J; Powers, R

In this case the correct citation template would be:

{{cite journal|last1=Moy|first1=FJ|last2=Diblasio|first2=E|last3=Wilhelm|first3=J|last4=Powers|first4=R|title=Solution structure of human IL-13 and implication for receptor binding.|journal=Journal of Molecular Biology|date=29 June 2001|volume=310|issue=1|pages=219-30|doi=10.1006/jmbi.2001.4764|pmid=11419948}}

or (using the coauthor field):

{{cite journal|last1=Moy|first1=FJ|coauthor=Diblasio, E; Wilhelm, J; Powers, R|title=Solution structure of human IL-13 and implication for receptor binding.|journal=Journal of Molecular Biology|date=29 June 2001|volume=310|issue=1|pages=219-30|doi=10.1006/jmbi.2001.4764|pmid=11419948}}

aurimas

Could you link to Wikipedia guidelines/discussion for this?

Page numbers should be separated by the em dash — operator.

Wikipedia seems to disagree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash

fusion809

I could have got the dash thing wrong, but some sort of dash instead of that – operator is generally preferred.

aurimas

That's the en-dash in UTF-8 format. You're just looking at it with the wrong character encoding (Western 1252? Pasting into Notepad?). If I copy-paste the citation from Zotero to a web browser, it comes out right.

Also, your recommendations above don't seem to match http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_templates

Edit: actually more specifically http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_journal

fusion809

Rofl, many of these preferences (as you may have noticed I only once said it's something Wikipedia prefers, and that's based on a conversation I had with an admin on Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fuse809/Archive_1#Refs_over_one_line]) are my preferences, not Wiki's. I've created my own Wiki and on it I have these preferences as far as referencing goes. I opened the template in SciTE, as when I export using Standalone it makes me save the template as a .txt file which I have to then open, in my case using SciTE editor, if I can just copy to clipboard please do tell me how as this is one thing about Zotero that's also getting on my nerves atm.

aurimas

So based on the link above, I can confirm (1) [if adamsmith has no objections], (2), (3) [if no URL is given, since that's listed as prerequisite], and (7).

I don't see any mention of (4). (5) we resolved above. (6) seems to not be a strict recommendation (or a recommendation at all, since it's not used in their examples).

We're obviously not going to tweak Zotero's official Wikipedia export style based on _your_ preferences. You're welcome to edit it yourself. We'll make the edits that are required to meet Wikipedia's practices.

As for copying citations to clipboard, set the default export style under Preferences -> Export and use Ctrl+Shift+C

adamsmith

no objections on 1,3,7 from me. 2 seems odd to me. Wouldn't ISO dates be more reliably parseable? No fundamental objections, though.

aurimas

You're right on the dates (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Unacceptable_date_formats ). Though we may need to tweak handling of approximate dates (maybe check field for c./circa) and no dates

For approximate year, precede with "c. ", like this: |date=c. 1900; for no date, add as |date=n.d.

fusion809

Well that's why I'm here, I don't know how to edit it myself. I'm no programmer. I went to the link you provided and it was no use, as I don't understand JavaScript and I think learning it from scratch is going to take me weeks, that if I even can.

aurimas

I'm sorry, but we don't have the resources to create custom output styles/translators. Using custom styles/formats is probably not the best choice anyway. I'm not really sure why you want to deviate from the standard that Wikipedia uses, which would make it so much easier to just reuse their templates.

noksagt

(1) is a matter of personal preference, though other extensions are starting to prefer horizontal formats. I'm not opposed to doing the same.

The sample data in the first post only has a month and year of publication date. So, point (2) seems a bit strange to me. When you include a publication day, the full date IS exported.

I also don't understand (3). How'd the accessdate populate that field? If it doesn't mean anything in the context of the Zotero entry, you don't need it there. If it does, it could have the same meaning in the wiki citation template.

I do agree with (7), though. This has changed since the citation template translator was written.

aurimas

I also don't understand (3). How'd the accessdate populate that field? If it doesn't mean anything in the context of the Zotero entry, you don't need it there. If it does, it could have the same meaning in the wiki citation template.

I agree that this would be strange behavior in Zotero, but probably possible if, say, importing RIS. I'm not sure how prerequisites work in Wikipedia citations. Would data missing prerequisites simply be ignored or would that cause bigger issues?

noksagt

Fair enough. It looks like Wikipedia's current citation style module does throw and error if a template has an access date and not a URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Module:Citation/CS1

So, addressing (3) is reasonable.