D'Ranged 1

: {{Reply to|Mandruss}} - To the best of my knowledge, there is no actual "convention" when it comes to spacing in citations; however, most, if not all, of the CS1 documentation lists full parameter sets this way:

:: <code><nowiki>{{cite web |url= |title= |last= |first= |author= |author-link= |last2= |first2= |author2= |author-link2= |date= |year= |editor-last= |editor-first= |editor= |editor-link= |editor2-last= |editor2-first= |editor2-link= |editors= |department= |website= |series= |publisher= |location= |page= |pages= |at= |language= |script-title= |trans-title= |type= |format= |arxiv= |asin= |bibcode= |doi= |doi-broken-date= |isbn= |issn= |jfm= |jstor= |lccn= |mr= |oclc= |ol= |osti= |pmc= |pmid= |rfc= |ssrn= |zbl= |id= |archive-url= |archive-date= |dead-url= |access-date= |quote= |ref= |postscript= |subscription= |registration=}}</nowiki></code>

: and examples are illustrated this way:

:: <code><nowiki>{{cite web |url=http://www.example.org/ |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |last=Doe |first=John |publisher=Open Publishing |date=April 30, 2005 |website=Encyclopedia of Things |access-date=November 16, 2017}}</nowiki></code>

: My preference has always been to put a space before the pipe as is done in the template examples; gadgets such as refToolbar don't add any spaces; others put a space after the pipe; and some do both. So, to the best of my knowledge, there are currently these variations in major usage:

:: <code><nowiki>{{cite web|first1=John|last1=Author|title=Title|date=April 1, 2017|access-date=November 20, 2017|url=www.website.com}}</nowiki></code>—no spaces—used by RefTools

:: <code><nowiki>{{cite web |first1=John |last1=Author |title=Title |date=April 1, 2017 |access-date=November 20, 2017 |url=www.website.com}}</nowiki></code>—space before pipe

:: <code><nowiki>{{cite web| first1=John| last1=Author| title=Title| date=April 1, 2017| access-date=November 20, 2017| url=www.website.com}}</nowiki></code>—space after pipe

:: <code><nowiki>{{cite web | first1=John | last1=Author | title=Title | date=April 1, 2017 | access-date=November 20, 2017 | url=www.website.com}}</nowiki></code>—space before and after pipe

: The only place I ever see spaces around the "=" signs are when the templates are rendered vertically, as in infoboxes, where enough spaces are added before the "=" to align all of them, with an additional space after the "=" before the value of the parameter:

: {{pre|<nowiki>{{cite web

: Rather than trying to create a counter-script, perhaps its author, Waldir, could be asked what prompted his creation of a totally unnecessary script that adds useless space and size to articles? It's beyond ridiculous, but I'm not up to tilting at windmills at Wikipedia at the moment. I'm actually copyediting a book due for publication sometime soon and it's taking more of my time than I thought, so WP has been put on a back burner for the foreseeable future. If you're up to the challenge, I suggest posting something at [[Help talk:Citation Style 1]] that includes the link to the article you provided here, along with queries for the script's author, {{nobreak|[[User talk:Waldir]]}} and the editor who used it on the linked article, {{nobreak|[[User talk:Checkingfax]]}}.

: On a side note, I disagree with the removal of all the {{para|archive-url}} parameters that were added to the citations with the argument that it made an already long article too long, but I don't have the time nor energy to tilt at ''that'' windmill, either.&mdash;'''[[User:D'Ranged 1|<span style='color:#660000;'>D'Ranged&nbsp;1</span>]]&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;[[User talk:D'Ranged 1|<span style='color:#FF6600;'>V''T^alk''</span>]]'''&nbsp;:&nbsp; 10:49, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

:: Ok, thanks. I mistakenly thought there had been discussion about the merits of the space-before-pipe format, having to do with line breaks at "natural" points or some such. I was looking for a better articulation of those merits than I'm able to produce myself. &#8213;[[User:Mandruss|<span style="color:#775C57;">'''''Mandruss'''''</span>]]&nbsp;[[User talk:Mandruss|<span style="color:#999;">&#9742;</span>]] 10:54, 20 November 2017 (UTC)