D'Ranged 1

My local date and time 16:44, August 14, 2024 CDT [refresh]

UTC date and time 21:44, 14 August 2024 UTC [refresh]

Template:Archive box collapsible

Moves

Hi. I took care of your move request, but just want to let you know, in case you don't already, that you can move pages yourself over a redirect, as long as there have been no additional edits to the redirect and it points to the article you want to move. Station1 (talk) 22:23, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

@Station1: A Thousand Thanks! I didn't know that, or I would have done it. I'll try to remember if the occasion arises again. Your help is greatly appreciated! —D'Ranged 1 | VT^alk :  22:47, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Cite parameter spacing

You're gone again! Semi-retired? Re-retired?

I've become aware of a script that conveniently allows one to bollox the parameter spacing in an entire article with a few clicks.[1] I don't think people can be prevented from using it (it doesn't violate policy AFAIK). The case I linked was undoable, but many won't be. What's needed is a counter-script to restore our convention, but I don't do JS. Do you? Also, do you remember where the convention was discussed? I wasn't involved in that, but I remember you were.

Please ping me. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:17, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

@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:

{{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=}}

and examples are illustrated this way:

{{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}}

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:

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

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

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

{{cite web | first1=John | last1=Author | title=Title | date=April 1, 2017 | access-date=November 20, 2017 | url=www.website.com}}—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:

{{cite web
|first1      = John
|last1       = Author
|title       = Title
|date        = April 1, 2017
|access-date = November 20, 2017
|url         = www.website.com}}

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, User talk:Waldir and the editor who used it on the linked article, User talk:Checkingfax.

On a side note, I disagree with the removal of all the |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.—D'Ranged 1 | VT^alk :  10:49, 20 November 2017 (UTC)