Help talk:Reference section

Ongoing discussion

There's a discussion for a new idea about the references section at: Wikispecies:Village Pump#Pages for taxon sources?. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kempm (talk • contribs) 09:35, 11 November 2006 (UTC).

How to mark a reference as doubtful?

As a newcomer I miss information or a link to how one marks a reference as doubtful, when the original reference is not there. -- Slaunger 00:40, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Refrences

If you have one author you wright Razowski, Józef Are there more than you wright Razowski, Józef & Janusz Wojtusiak This is international standard

Regards,

PeterR 06:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Removed

Removed the statement "volume numbers bold" from the references citation guidelines. This appears to have been inserted without consultation here, and is a format which is hardly ever used by other scientific publications (I'd say I see it used in less than 5% of biological journals). If people want to put the volume number in bold they can if they wish, but it is nonsensical to make it a requirement. - MPF 11:21, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

et al

Do you ever ever use "et al" in taxonomic references? Rocket000 02:45, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Primate taxonomy

I don't know if anyone is even monitoring this page, but I would like some opinions on how best to handle strepsirrhine taxonomy. Currently we use the taxonomy by Groves (2005) from MSW3 on Wikispecies, however, that taxonomy is generally not used any more and was based more on morphology. Unfortunately, no one has really dared to write anything formal about primate taxonomy that covers the infraorders and superfamilies. Indeed, primate taxonomy is notoriously disputed. I tried to discuss this on Wikipedia's Strepsirrhini article.

We probably shouldn't be using Groves' taxonomy, but I since no one else has published a source that discusses primate taxonomy at this level—one that meets this page's criteria for a trustworthy source—it seems like we're stuck. On Wikipedia, I made a strong argument for going with a popular taxonomy that is usable by both primatologists and paleoanthropologists published by Cartmill in a chapter called Primates Classification and Diversity in Primate Neuroethology (2010). Unfortunately, he does not give the taxonomic authorities for the different ranks or cite sources. However, this is the best, recent primate classification publication that I've found... and I do a lot of searching. Under any other taxonomy, you get into problems with incorrect generalizations about strepsirrhine primates, often due to an over-emphasis on living species and the lack of a clade name for lemurs and lorises (to the exclusion of adapiforms). Thoughts? Maky (talk) 20:06, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Maky, my thoughts are that Cartmill's treatment is very well thought out and explained. I imagine that you can find authorities for the various levels of his classification elsewhere. If he were actually making new names here, he would surely have to fix and define them. I only work in a small area of Lepidoptera, so major structurings like this do not come around very often. I think there is a good case for applying Cartmill if you can source the additional data needed. It seems more tractable that sticking with Groves. Accassidy (talk) 20:44, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I assume that by sourcing the additional data, you mean providing sources for the authorities? If so, I can work on that. (I need them for the Wikipedia articles I plan to write for them anyway.) Or are you talking about higher taxonomy, all the way up to Superregnum? Please let me know what I need. Also, if you can point me to a "perfect" taxon entry (with the latest templates and following the preferred layout), I'll do my best to model after that. Maky (talk) 21:01, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Good that you maintain your interest. We need more conscientious editors. Have a look at this page. You will see hat the higher levels of the classification, above Family, have been hidden for brevity. If you click on Expand at the top line you will see a lot of superior clades. If you go to these you will see various citations for authorities of the higher taxonomy. For most people who are interested in butterflies, the higher taxa/authorities are a bit of unnecessary detail - "everyone knows what a butterfly is"!!! Each level in the classification has a Template that means that changes made in the higher taxonomy can then appear on all subordinate taxa if the modification is done at the Template, not the page itself. So, if I wanted to move a species to a different genus, I'd change the species Template, not the species page. Have fun. Accassidy (talk) 18:50, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Translation: please assign section titles for translation

I wish someone would assign those lines to translate so that I can put them into ja using Translate extension.

===Primary references===

===Additional references===

===Links===

==References==

===Primary references===

===Additional references===

===Links===

--Omotecho (talk) 14:57, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Why not use templates cite book etc?

Can anyone please explain why templates like template:cite book etc. are not used on Wikispecies? The use of these templates makes the reference machine-readable, as far as I have understood. So why not use it here, like on Wikipedia etc.? --Dick Bos (talk) 11:56, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Hello @Dick Bos: and please excuse my rather late reply. As I guess you have noticed, we use reference templates as described in the Help:Reference section guideline (specifically the Help:Reference section#Reference Templates subsection on that same page) instead of for example {{Cite book}} and {{Cite journal}} templates. The reason why we have chosen this method is that some publications are referred to on many, many of our pages. For example, some scientific works may describe a new genus together with perhaps 30 or more new species within that genus. Now consider that after a few years perhaps the nomenclature gets revised – maybe the genus is split into several subgenera, or some of the species are moved to entirely different genera. Or something else. In that case we may have to update all of the 30 pages where that particular {{Cite book}} or {{Cite journal}} reference is used. That takes a lot of time – and more importantly it's easy to miss a few of them, which would then make those particular Wikispecies pages inaccurate, showing old data.

Instead we have opted for a system where we make one specific page for each particular reference. We do this in the form of templates. That way, if we need to update a citation we only have to make one change to that single template (instead of having to add the same update to, say 30 separate pages...) and the update will automatically be shown on every page where that one reference template is used. For an example of such a template, see for instance Template:Kottelat, 2000. If you a look at the stats for it you'll see that it's currently used on no less than 53 pages. That's a lot of pages to update, should we not have the template...

Another great benefit with the Wikispecies reference templates is that they can be made more versatile than the (almost always) static {{Cite…}} templates. In most cases there's no need for it hence most of our templates doesn't have those extra functions, but in some cases it can be very handy! For instance, if you only add the "clean" template {{Linnaeus, 1758}} without any extra parameters, it will only result in mentioning the book as such:

• Linnaeus, C. 1758. Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Editio Decima, Reformata. Tomus I. Holmiæ (Stockholm): impensis direct. Laurentii Salvii. 824 pp. DOI: 10.5962/bhl.title.542 BHL Reference page. 

However if you add a page number parameter to it for example {{Linnaeus, 1758|549}} then the template will automatically also show that particular page number, complete with an online-link to that specific page:

• Linnaeus, C. 1758. Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Editio Decima, Reformata. Tomus I. Holmiæ (Stockholm): impensis direct. Laurentii Salvii. 824 pp. DOI: 10.5962/bhl.title.542 BHL p. 549 BHL Reference page. 

It even works with page ranges, like so: {{Linnaeus, 1758|41|64}} i.e.:

• Linnaeus, C. 1758. Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Editio Decima, Reformata. Tomus I. Holmiæ (Stockholm): impensis direct. Laurentii Salvii. 824 pp. DOI: 10.5962/bhl.title.542 BHL pages 41–64 BHL Reference page. 

This functionality is not necessarily limited only to pagination, but can be extended to also involve volume numbers, different editions of print, separating out single authors from a joint group of authors who all contributed to the same publication, showing links for either DOI, BHL or ISBN depending on relevance, and so forth. And all from within the same reference template, if need be! Hence a single reference template can be used to show all sorts of different information on a lot of independent taxon pages, and in a tailor-made way depending on what particular data is relevant to each specific taxon.

So all in all using our type of reference templates equals less work, and minimizes the risk of the odd page being left behind with outdated data. We still keep the "traditional" Wikipedia type {{Cite book}} and {{Cite journal}} templates around, but that's only for compatibility reasons if and when stuff gets imported from Wikipedia without also being properly reformatted in the process.

I think that about covers it, but you're of course welcome with any further questions you might have. And now I have this page on my watchlist, so in the future it wont be several weeks before you get an answer... :-) Of course you're also welcome to contact me directly on my talk page, or join the whole community at the Village Pump. Kind regards, Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 08:24, 2 August 2019 (UTC).

Preparation works for the poll: mandating the author+date format via Help:Reference section

This topic started in here: Wikispecies:Village_Pump#Preparation_works_for_the_poll:_mandating_the_author+date_format_via_Help:Reference_section. Some parts were in here

Comments from MPF (talk)

1. Not adding spaces between initials doesn't look good, unless you also omit the space after the comma - "Ferreyra,H.D.V." is consistent, "Ferreyra, H. D. V." is consistent, but "Ferreyra, H.D.V." is inconsistent spacing and looks ghastly.
2. We should add a space before the fascicle bracket; again, a bracket without a space before it just looks plain wrong.
3. There at least used to be a guideline that all authors should only be listed if there are 3 or fewer. Some papers have over a hundred authors, and having to list every single one in full is ridiculous.
4. All the new templates that have sprung up in recent months (e.g. for BHL, etc.) need adding to the Standard reference templates (just above here)
5. Templates giving links to BHL (and similar) should not include the words 'bhl' or 'bhlpage', as these are not language-neutral (what is the word 'bhl' in Chinese, Arabic, or Cyrillic scripts???); they should only be numbers alone, no letters.

MPF (talk) 20:13, 9 September 2020 (UTC)}}

Answers to user:MPF's comments

1. Your logic seems rational, but eg all Wikipedias uses style "Ferreyra, H.D.V." or "Ferreyra, H. D. V." in DEFAULTSORT, and we are also using this style in our DEFAULTSORT, see eg N.R. Abbareddy
   1. in 2015 per Wikispecies:Village_Pump/Archive_33#Reference_Format it was decided that "Spaces between author's initials = NO".
2.  Done probably uncontroversial by now and added to Help:Reference section
   1. was reverted because of the poll in 2015: Wikispecies:Village_Pump/Archive_33#Reference_Format
3. needs more explaining. If there are eg 7 authors, we always (?) write them down. See eg {{Wang et al., 2019}}
   1. already decided in the poll in 2015: Wikispecies:Village_Pump/Archive_33#Reference_Format
      1. but do we have publication where is over eg 20 authors? We can make an exception if over 20-25 authors.
4. chapter Standard reference templates doesn't have to be a full list
5. Seems to be too specific for general Help:Reference section?--Estopedist1 (talk) 20:52, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

The trouble with arguing that "BHL" is not language-neutral is that we use other acronyms that are arguably not language neutral on Wikispecies, such as "PDF". What is "PDF" in Chinese, Arabic or Cyrillic scripts?

To be fair though, the answers to that question for both BHL and PDF could be answered by looking at the non-English language labels for the corresponding wikidata items, Biodiversity Heritage Library (Q172266) and Portable Document Format (Q42332). Provided of course that we consider the information in them reliable enough, we could maybe incorporate them into Wikispecies. Same goes for other acronyms such as "DOI", "PMID" and "PMC", or anything else I didn't think of.

For that matter though, some references also use the word "Online", which is also clearly not language neutral. Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:10, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Additional info to chapter "Reference Templates"

suggestion number 1

To clarify situation, I suggest to add following red-text info to chapter "Reference Templates"

In total, there are four {{Author, Year}} possibilities:

1. Myers, 1942
2. Myers & Young, 1942
3. Myers, Young & Hill, 1942
4. Myers et al., 1942

No other possibilites are allowed! For example, Myers, I. & Young, N., 1942 is not allowed. Or, for example, Myers; 1942 is not allowed.

Also not allowed is to name reference templates after journals or books! For example, Zt3690.1.1 (abbreviaton of Zootaxa) is not allowed!

--Estopedist1 (talk) 07:30, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done Over two weeks no objections. Embedded to the Help:Reference section--Estopedist1 (talk) 05:22, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

suggestion number 2

we have

The Reference Template is created on a page titled Template:Author, Year and can then be called up on a taxon page using the syntax: {{Author, Year}} Please only use the author's surname rather than full name when naming the reference template, and always use comma and a space before the year of publication: not semicolon, space/comma without the other, or something like that.

I suggest:

The Reference Template is created on a page titled Template:Author, Year and can then be called up on a taxon page using the syntax: {{Author, Year}} Please only use the author's surname rather than full name when naming the reference template, and always use comma and a space before the year of publication: not semicolon, space/comma without the other, or something like that.

Rational: misleading, we always use author's surname

--Estopedist1 (talk) 08:41, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done Over two weeks no objections. Embedded to the Help:Reference section--Estopedist1 (talk) 05:22, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

suggestion number 3

we have the chapter named Standard Reference Templates and its header: There are several templates available for references that are cited often. The complete list is in Category:External link templates.

I suggest:

the chapter to be named Reference templates for external databases and its header should be clarified:

There are several templates for external databases which are used/cited often. The complete list is in Category:External link templates.

--Estopedist1 (talk) 08:41, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done Over two weeks no objections. Embedded to the Help:Reference section--Estopedist1 (talk) 05:22, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Current status and postponing notice

1. Almost two weeks passed and virtually no interests by other WS users. So, I guess it is unethical to continue alone with WS official policy related to Help:Reference section. If WS users don't care that some users constantly create unorthodox references templates (a la {{Felder,C&R, 1859a}}), then let it be so.

2. But still, when two weeks will be passed (and no objections), then I probably have rights to add my three above-mentioned suggestions into Help:Reference section. However, no one has to be followed it, just a guideline.

3. And lastly, I am going to do the small-scale poll, only asking this:

Do you agree, that Pt- and Zt-templates (eg {{Zt3690.1.1}}) must be banned in Wikispecies? And once banned, to be renamed to {{Author, Year}}?

--Estopedist1 (talk) 07:00, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm agree with the proposal for (1) "author, year", (2) "author & author, year", (3) "author, author & Author, year" and (4 or more) "author et al., year", almost everyone follow this arrangement, so not a big problem; and i'm agree with the rename of Zt templates, a practice already used for some time by several users. Regards, Burmeister (talk) 23:17, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

How to deal with very common surnames?

See also: Wikispecies:Village_Pump/Archive_54#Reference_Wang_et_al.,_2014z_and_next?

Phrase "very common surname" means that we are exceeding the 10th letter, ie the letter "i" (eg. we have {{Wang et al., 2014q}})

As of 2020 "very common surnames" are: Li, Wang, Yang, Zhang.

• Step 1: allowing up to 5 surnames: eg. Wang, Young, Ivanov, Lücke & Zhang, 2012
• VARIANT 1 ? If Step 1 doesn't help, then Step 2: allowing to use forenames: eg. Wang, Z. et al., 2012; or Li, Q.-S. et al., 2012
• VARIANT 2 ? If Step 1 doesn't help, then Step 2: checking the special list which collects and renders full names of "very common surnames", see User:Estopedist1/Problematic_taxon_authorities#Very_common_surnames

By his request the above subpage of Estopedist1's user space has been deleted and moved to Category talk:Taxon authorities. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:27, 17 May 2021 (UTC).

---

@EncycloPetey, MPF, Monster Iestyn, and Burmeister:and others, ideas? Variant 1 or Variant 2? Or new ideas except banned Pt352.4- and Zt5325.43-style?--Estopedist1 (talk) 06:24, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

We had a way to deal with this, but voted against it. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:52, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: numbered references were not for humans, but maybe for robots/artifical intelligence.--Estopedist1 (talk) 06:30, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

We're using numbered references now. The year is a number. then we add a letter, so we have numbered and lettered references. The numbers we have before were based on the issue number and were journal specific, the number we have now is based on the year. So the problem was that we decided against using the journal name and issue number is favor of just a surname and year with letters. There was more variety and more specificity in using the journal and issue over the surname and year. Hence, the vote created this problem we're now dealing with. I don't see how robots come into it. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:37, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

One idea yet: we don't do reference template unless we have 3-5 potential usage of it. Currently, most of our templates are used 1-2 times--Estopedist1 (talk) 06:30, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Dutch translation proofreading request

Could some Dutch speaker(s) please proofread the new translation Help:Reference section/nl, particularly to make sure that the translation of all the jargon is correct? Thanks – McDutchie (talk) 15:24, 11 March 2023 (UTC)