Importing from Wikipedia

hughp3
Greetings,

When I import something from Wikipedia, I would like to fill the Publisher, the author, the place of publication.

The current import process with the web importer does not fill these fields.

Publisher = Wikimedia Foundation Inc.
Author = Wikipedia contributors
place of publication = San Francisco, CA

What is the best way to fill these in automatically each time I add a Wikipedia page to Zotero?
  • adamsmith
    You'd have to modify the translator (i.e. Wikipedia.js) in the zotero data directory. It's not terribly complicated since you're just hard-coding the strings in there, but it will get overwritten whenever the main translator is updated.
  • hughp3
    Is this updated/overwritten with each up-grade to Zotero? Is there way that I can put my own translators in a plugin and then if there is a translator in my plugin, have that one be used instead of the default?
  • adamsmith
    Yeah, you can change the translator ID (and filename) and make the priority a little lower (e.g. 99) than the regular WP translator. It will then default to yours. Lmk if you need help/more detailed instructions
  • dstillman
    edited August 30, 2020
    But I'd say the more basic question is why you want those values. E.g., Wikipedia is a global website edited by people from around the world — it seems weird to describe the place of publication as San Francisco.

    Everyone knows what Wikipedia is, so this stuff seems mostly like noise.
  • adamsmith
    Obviously we don't import these for a reason, but the publisher and the "Wikipedia contributors" as author is included in recommendations from a number of manuals, so I can see those. San Francisco, though, I've never seen in a citation and it makes no sense to me to include.
  • DWL-SDCA
    FWIW I know of several undergraduate faculty at my university in California and at universities in other states who want these items in cites to Wikipedia including San Francisco. [The first time I heard of this requirement it hadn't occurred to me that anyone would consider this as published in San Francisco.] Also wanted is the article title and date.

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